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Daily Dose – September 1, 2010

Summary Of History Of The World

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Ignoring Glenn Beck — And Us

The president says he didn't watch any of Glenn Beck's "Restore Honor" rally on the National Mall. That's not surprising. Democrats and the White House haven't been listening to the people for awhile.
Whistling past the political graveyard looming for his party in November, President Obama dismissed the crowd gathered to hear the Fox News pundit, telling Brian Williams of the NBC Nightly News, "It's not surprising that someone like a Mr. Beck is able to stir up a certain portion of (the American people) ... "

He dismissed this crowd just as he and his party dismissed the "angry mobs" that descended on health care town meetings wanting to know why their government no longer wanted to hear their voices or seek out the consent of the governed. Those people were also said to have been "stirred up" by political opponents and conservative talk radio.  This genuine grass-roots movement was dismissed as "astroturfing" by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others. But their anger did not have to be manufactured. It was a quite natural response to a government that is bankrupting their children and grandchildren as it spends money we don't have on things that don't work.

"Mr. Beck" didn't manufacture the people on the Mall. He merely has given them a voice and a focal point, and a reminder that we are endowed with inalienable rights from a higher authority than any gaggle of senators and representatives. "We the people" assembled on the Mall, not an angry mob stirred up by rabble-rousers...

The Democrats push health care that Americans don't want by overwhelming numbers. The feds sue the sovereign state of Arizona over the wishes of a majority of Americans that want secure borders. Then the secretary of state slams Arizona, citing SB1070 as a human rights violation to the United Nations.  The American people see the disconnect between "saved" jobs and near double-digit unemployment. They are weary of a government so out-of-touch that once again we seem to have taxation without representation. They see a government making war on job-creators, punishing success and rewarding failure, redistributing wealth while creating none. They see an energy policy that produces no energy in order to save a planet that is not in danger.

Ignore that crowd on the Mall at your peril, Mr. President. That "certain portion" of the people grows bigger every day and by November your party may lose big in all 57 states you campaigned in.

Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
August 30, 2010

GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead On Generic Ballot

PRINCETON, NJ -- Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in
Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP's largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress
... Republicans Have 25-Point Lead on EnthusiasmRepublicans are now twice as likely as Democrats to be "very" enthusiastic about voting, and now hold -- by one point -- the largest such advantage of the year... The wide enthusiasm gaps in the GOP's favor so far this year certainly suggest that this scenario may well play itself out again this November.

The last Gallup weekly generic ballot average before Labor Day underscores the fast-evolving conventional wisdom that the GOP is poised to make significant gains in this fall's midterm congressional elections. Gallup's generic ballot has historically proven an excellent predictor of the national vote for Congress, and the national vote in turn is an excellent predictor of House seats won and lost. Republicans' presumed turnout advantage, combined with their current 10-point registered-voter lead, suggests the potential for a major "wave" election in which the Republicans gain a large number of seats from the Democrats and in the process take back control of the House. One cautionary note: Democrats moved ahead in Gallup's generic ballot for several weeks earlier this summer, showing that change is possible between now and Election Day.

Frank Newport, Gallup
August 30, 2010

More Evidence Against The VAT

In the ongoing discussion on how best to address the nation’s out-of-control deficit spending, one proposal would increase taxes by adding a value-added tax (VAT) on top of the current tax system. Proponents argue that a new tax on consumption would raise the needed revenues to close the deficit gap without the negative economic effects of raising the income taxHowever, rather than putting Washington’s fiscal house back in order, a VAT is more likely to grow the size of government and encourage growth in spending—effects that would be counterproductive to its intended purpose.

Recent analysis by Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Cameron Smith finds that in addition to the existence of a “strong, indisputable, positive relationship between use of a VAT and government spending as a fraction of GDP,” evidence points to a causal relationship between the creation of a VAT and growth in government. Continue reading...

Kathryn Nix, The Heritage Foundation
August 31, 2010

Boston Globe Latest Liberal Paper To Become Disenchanted With Obama

The Boston Globe?

"President Obama returned to work yesterday to find deeper fears of a return to recession. So it was somewhat fitting that, when he stepped to the microphone to address those concerns, it didn't seem to work. "How're we doing on sound, guys?'' he asked the gathered press. Not that well, actually. It is now understood by everyone, apparently including the administration, that Obama did a poor job explaining last year's stimulus package. And with many of its programs starting to expire, it may not be worth the breath to try to explain it now. Rather, Obama needs to lay out a post-stimulus economic plan. The hints offered yesterday - extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, taking more steps toward a clean-energy future - were neither new nor inspiring. And Obama's slumping body language couldn't have looked less confident if he were dragging a coffin."

Obama looking like he's "dragging a coffin?" "Uninspiring?"  They're not even bothering to defend the stimulus. If this is a precursor of things to come, the idea of a primary challenge to Obama will start becoming less and less far fetched.

Rick Moran, American Thinker
August 31, 2010

A Boehner Moment

The American Legion's annual convention was on former President George W. Bush's radar back in the day; he attended the patriotic event multiple times during his terms in office. President Obama? Missing in action at the group's 92nd gathering, which begins Tuesday... Not so House Minority Leader John A. Boehner. The Ohio Republican will journey to Milwaukee with a perhaps unwelcome preamble and reality check for Mr. Obama's speech, to be delivered just hours before the president steps before network cameras for his big moment.

"He will address the situation in Iraq as well as the records of those folks who originally opposed the troop surge," a spokesman tells Inside the Beltway. "And he considers this an honor to address an audience with such a distinguished record of service to their country."  Mr. Boehner credits the surge strategy - opposed by Mr. Obama and also Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. - as the catalyst for advancement in Iraq, and the much ballyhooed shift from combat to advisory role for remaining U.S. troops. "With all due respect to them, our troops who have served so courageously in Iraq deserve the credit for the success of the surge and, along with the Iraqi people, the turnaround in Iraq," Mr. Boehner says.

Jennifer Harper, Inside the Beltway
August 30, 2010

Why Wall St. Is Deserting Obama

Daniel S. Loeb, the hedge fund manager, was one of Barack Obama’s biggest backers in the 2008 presidential campaign.  A registered Democrat, Mr. Loeb has given and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats. Less than a year ago, he was considered to be among the Wall Street elite still close enough to the White House to be invited to a speech in Lower Manhattan, where President Obama outlined the need for a financial regulatory overhaul.

So it came as quite a surprise on Friday, when Mr. Loeb sent a letter to his investors that sounded as if he were preparing to join Glenn Beck in Washington over the weekend.  "As every student of American history knows, this country’s core founding principles included nonpunitive taxation, constitutionally guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority and an inexorable right of self-determination,” he wrote. “Washington has taken actions over the past months, like the Goldman suit that seem designed to fracture the populace by pulling capital and power from the hands of some and putting it in the hands of others.”...

Less than two years ago, Democrats received 70 percent of the donations from Wall Street; since June, when the financial regulation bill was nearing passage, Republicans were receiving 68 percent of the donations, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. But what is surprising is that some of the president’s biggest supporters have so publicly derided his policies, even at the risk of hurting their ability to influence the party in the future. Issues like the carry-interest tax on private equity or the Volcker Rule have become personal.

Why so personal? The prevailing view is that bankers, hedge fund mangers and traders supported the Obama candidacy because he appealed to their egos... What they say they did not realize was that they were going to be painted as villains... Now Mr. Loeb, who manages about $3.4 billion at his firm, Third Point Partners, has articulated in a more thoughtful way what a lot of others in finance and business are saying...

Mr. Loeb’s views, irrespective of their validity, point to a bigger problem for the economy: If business leaders have a such a distrust of government, they won’t invest in the country. And perception is becoming reality... Just last week, Paul S. Otellini, chief executive of Intel, said at a dinner at the Aspen Forum of the Technology Policy Institute that “the next big thing will not be invented here. Jobs will not be created here.”...

Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times
August 30, 2010

Businessmen Don't Need A Lecture

Yesterday, President Obama insisted that a coalition of Senate Republican legislators is playing partisan politics yet again. He told Americans that he knows exactly what small businesses need in order to start productively hiring, and that’s the Small Jobs Act, which is currently before the Senate.  The business community does not need President Obama to lecture to them about partisan politics, and they certainly do not need him to do the same about legislation that replaces the private sector with agencies of the federal government to “promote” entrepreneurship, exporting, and so on.

Businesses have witnessed an onslaught of federal legislation with the economy only sputtering along and a net negative balance for overall employment. The President fails to note that the health care reform legislation passed earlier this year includes crippling mandates and fees on small- and medium-size businesses. (Those testy Republicans would like to see at least one of these provisions, the new requirement that all businesses file a 1099 for every business transaction exceeding $600, repealed in any “jobs bill.”) Continue reading...

John Ligon, The Heritage Foundation
August 31, 2010

Polling On The Spill

The oil spill in the Gulf may be mostly out of the headlines now but Louisiana voters aren't getting any less mad at Barack Obama about his handling of it. Only 32% give Obama good marks for his actions in the aftermath of the spill, while 61% disapproveLouisianans are feeling more and more that George W. Bush's leadership on Katrina was better than Obama's on the spill. 54% think Bush did the superior job of helping the state through a crisis to 33% who pick Obama. That 21 point margin represents a widening since PPP asked the same question in June and found Bush ahead by a 15 point margin. Bush beats Obama 87-2 on that score with Republicans and 42-30 with independents, while Obama has just a 65-24 advantage with Democrats...

If there is a political 'winner' in the aftermath of the oil spill it's Bobby Jindal. 70% of Louisiana voters are happy with how he handled the spill to only 20% giving him bad marks and his overall approval rating of 58% puts him at the top of the heap for Governors and Senators PPP's polled on this year. Specifically on the issue of the spill 89% of Republicans, 76% of independents, and even a 47% plurality of Democrats think he did a good job.

One thing very clear is that the spill hasn't done much to change Louisianans' opinions on offshore drilling. 82% of voters in the state support it with only 9% opposed and only 21% say the spill made them less supportive of drilling while 32% say it actually made them more so.

Public Policy Polling
August 27, 2010

Birthright Citizenship In The United States: A Global Comparison

Every year, 300,000 to 400,000 children are born to illegal immigrants in the United States. Despite the foreign citizenship and illegal status of the parent, the executive branch of the U.S. government automatically recognizes these children as U.S. citizens upon birth. The same is true of children born to tourists and other aliens who are present in the United States in a legal but temporary status. Since large-scale tourism and mass illegal immigration are relatively recent phenomena, it is unclear for how long the U.S. government has followed this practice of automatic “birthright citizenship” without regard to the duration or legality of the mother’s presence... The current Congress saw the introduction by Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) of the “Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009,” which so far has gathered nearly 100 sponsors.

This Backgrounder briefly explains some policy concerns that result from an expansive application of the Citizenship Clause... and includes a discussion of how other countries approach birthright citizenship.

The paper concludes that Congress should clarify the scope of the Citizenship Clause and promote a serious discussion on whether the United States should automatically confer the benefits and burdens of U.S. citizenship on the children of aliens whose presence is temporary or illegal.  Among the findings:

**Only 30 of the world’s 194 countries grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens.
**Of advanced economies, Canada and the United States are the only countries that grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens.
**No European country grants automatic citizenship to children of illegal aliens.
**The global trend is moving away from automatic birthright citizenship as many countries that once had such policies have ended them in recent decades.
**14th Amendment history seems to indicate that the Citizenship Clause was never intended to benefit illegal aliens nor legal foreign visitors temporarily present in the United States.
**The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the U.S.-born children of permanent resident aliens are covered by the Citizenship Clause, but the Court has never decided whether the same rule applies to the children of aliens whose presence in the United States is temporary or illegal.
**Some eminent scholars and jurists have concluded that it is within the power of Congress to define the scope of the Citizenship Clause through legislation and that birthright citizenship for the children of temporary visitors and illegal aliens could likely be abolished by statute without amending the Constitution...

Jon Feere, Center for Immigration Studies
August 2010

Mosque Mania: Muslims' Turn To Be Tolerant

The proposed mosque near where the World Trade Center was attacked and destroyed, along with thousands of American lives, would be a 15-story middle finger to America.  It takes a high IQ to evade the obvious, so it is not surprising that the intelligentsia are out in force, decrying those who criticize this calculated insult... The big talking point is that this is an issue about "religious freedom" and that Muslims have a "right" to build a mosque where they choose. But those who oppose this project are not claiming that there is no legal right to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center...

The intelligentsia and others who are wrapping themselves in the Constitution are fighting a phony war against a straw man. Why create a false issue, except to evade the real issue?  Our betters are telling us that we need to be more "tolerant" and more "sensitive" to the feelings of Muslims. But if we are supposed to be sensitive to Muslims, why are Muslims not supposed to be sensitive to the feelings of millions of Americans, for whom 9/11 was the biggest national trauma since Pearl Harbor?

It would not be illegal for Japanese-Americans to build a massive Shinto shrine next to Pearl Harbor. But, in all these years, they have never sought to do it.

When Catholic authorities in Poland were planning to build an institution for nuns, years ago, and someone pointed out that it would be near the site of a concentration camp that carried out genocide, the Pope intervened to stop it.  He didn't say that the Catholic Church had a legal right to build there, as it undoubtedly did. Instead, he respected the painful feelings of other people. And he certainly did not denounce those who called attention to the concentration camp.

That the president of the United States has joined the chorus of those calling the Ground Zero mosque a religious-freedom issue tells us a lot about the moral dry rot that is undermining this country from within.  There are people for whom moral preening has become a way of life. They are out in force denouncing critics of the Ground Zero mosque.

There are others for whom a citizen-of-the-world affectation puts them one-up on those of us who are grateful to be Americans, and to enjoy a freedom that is all too rare in other countries around the world, even at this late date in human history.  They think the United States is somehow on trial, and needs to prove itself to others by bending over backwards. But bending over backwards does not win friends. It loses respect, including self-respect.

Thomas Sowell, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
August 30, 2010

61 Percent Say Finding New Energy Sources Is More Important Than Conservation

It's hard to think of a public policy issue area in which America's 70/30 public opinion split between the Political Class and Mainstream Voters is more evident than in energy, a point driven home yet again by the latest results from Rasmussen Reports.  Sixty-one percent of those surveyed believe "finding new sources of energy is more important now than reducing the amount of energy Americans now consume," according to Rasmussen. That compares to only 31 percent who put a higher priority on reducing overall energy consumption.

Rasmussen notes that the question asked of 1,000 likely voters Aug. 25-26 didn't specify what kind of new energy sources the respondents have in mind, but "with conflicting news reports continuing about the extent of damage caused by the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, support for offshore oil drilling has tied its highest level of support since the Gulf oil leak began."  He added that "support for deepwater drilling like that which caused the incident in the Gulf is up to 55%."

Slightly more than a third of those surveyed believe there is a conflict between seeking economic growth and protecting the environment, Rassmussen said...

Mark Tapscott, Editorial Page Editor, Washington Examiner
August 29, 2010

Elitism Or Arrogance

Lately it seems as if conservatives have been barraged by insults. Think that climate change may be natural, you are labeled a denier. Concerned about the record-breaking deficit, you are a tea bagger or a statist. Don’t want a mosque built near the site Islamic terrorists killed over 3000 Americans, you are a racist. Think that the current administration is taking the country too far to the left, there’s that racist charge again.

As opposed to focusing on what is being said, let’s look at who are saying these things. These comments come from a select group of climate scientists, or mainstream media commentators and politicians. What each of these groups have in common is that they seem to think of themselves as elite.

Elitism is the attitude or belief that some individuals, by virtue of wealth, intellect, or training are superior to others. Elitists can be found everywhere but are most commonly seen in upper management, Hollywood, academia, the media, and the halls of government. The principal difference between an elitist and an expert is that experts are recognized by others for their skill or training whereas elitists see themselves as superior.  Elitists are typically agenda driven; they see themselves as fighting for a noble cause. As such, elitists tend to view themselves as individuals who are benevolently working for the good of mankind (or for some elitist groups, womankind)...

We can see that elitists are not experts, they are simply individuals or groups of individuals who see themselves as superior. That superiority breeds disdain for those not a member of the elite group. That in turn results in intellectual inbreeding; a process that leads to defects in logic and rationale. When that superiority is challenged, they respond in a generally well defined pattern of progressively less professional steps. This behavior betrays them for what they actually are, weak and insecure. A fact they hide not with intelligence or intellectual prowess but by arrogance. “The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance” (Albert Einstein).

So here is the good news. This barrage of insults and ad hominem attacks has revealed these elitists to be nothing more than empty suits; legends in their own mind, and arrogant legends at that. Since their viewpoints cannot stand the test of logic, then their viewpoints need not be respected. Nor do we need to fear their ad hominem attacks. When a climate scientist calls me a denier, or a columnist from the New York Times or the Washington Post calls me a racist, I can wear the terms with pride. Not because I am a denier or a racist, but because I know that for those individuals, calling me a name is a sign of how desperate they are. It is a sign that they are one step closer to becoming irrelevant.

Bob Shoup, Canada Free Press
August 30, 2010

No One Has Right To Violate U.S. Immigration Law

President Obama has submitted his administration’s legal dispute with Arizona over immigration to the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer called that move “downright offensive.” Her characterization is correct, albeit somewhat mild.

It is highly offensive that the administration would submit a constitutional argument over federalism and federal preemption to an international body for review – especially when that body includes dictatorial tyrannies such as Cuba and China that violate human rights routinely and with prejudice. It is another sign that President Obama holds our constitutional system of government in low regard and has little interest in upholding American sovereignty. Continue reading...

Hans von Spakovsky, The Heritage Foundation
August 31, 2010

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Daily Dose – August 31, 2010

The Average Voter

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Party Trend Has Yet To Kick In

Don’t confuse the dramatic swell of the Republican tide that is becoming increasingly evident to the pundits of the country with party trend. Right before Election Day, the numbers will get even better and presage an even larger Republican victoryParty trend usually indicates itself in the ten days before an election when voters who do not typically follow politics closely tune in and decide for whom to vote. Until this window, they usually describe themselves to pollsters as “undecided.” There will be a huge Republican party trend this year, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The huge Republican poll numbers these days do not reflect the last minute switches typical of less involved voters but rather mirror the disappointment with Obama and with Congress among voters who do follow politics closely that has accumulated over the past year and a half. It is this reappraisal of their political opinions that is occasioning the big swing toward Republicans in the 2010 election.

The ranks of these disaffected voters who are now turning against Obama and the Democrats will soon be joined by the less involved voters who will come around in the week or ten days before the election.

From the perception of the pollster, party trend is a bit like a curveball thrown by a pitcher to a batter. The election statistics remain fairly static for weeks or even months with little change as the race unfolds through September and early through mid October. Like a fastball that comes in straight and true.  Then, suddenly, as the election nears, the vote swings wildly to one side or the other, akin to a curve ball that breaks as it approaches the batter – usually too late for him to make an adjustment. Suddenly, the tied races show up as decisive victories for the side that benefits from party trend. And the unwinnable races come into play.

2010 is a year like no other in the magnitude of the partisan shift going on. It dwarfs 1994 and even 1974 in its order of magnitude. But we haven’t yet seen the full impact of the last minute party shift that will take place. Plenty of voters who are now undecided are yet to be heard from and, when they are, they will impact the results decisively.  In which direction? Most likely they will transform a massive Republican win into an even more massive victory. The uninvolved voters who will decide late in the process are likely to break the same way the rest of the country is breaking – toward the Republicans. Surveys suggest that they share the disenchantment of the participating voters with the economy and Obama’s performance. They have just not focused on the coming election.

Democrats hope that the less involved voters are also less educated and more likely to be the young or minority voters on whom their party depends. But the lack of enthusiasm among Democrats for Obama indicates that these voters are likely to decide by staying home. In the most recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics study, 54% of Republicans said they were “very enthusiastic” about voting in the 2010 elections while only 28% of Democrats felt the same waySo the net result is that for those who anticipate a major Republican win in 2010, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Dick Morris & Eilleen McGann, Nationally Syndicated Columnists August 25, 2010

GOP vs. Dems: Who's Best For The Economy

The choice for voters in this year's fierce fight for congressional control will come down to a single question: Which political party -- Democrats or Republicans -- will do a better job coping with crippling unemployment and a devastating deficit?... (T)hose who insist that continued Democratic congressional control will improve prospects for job creation and deficit reduction cling to a naive misinterpretation of the past. They ought to examine the actual record of the past two decades and begin to reconsider their assumptions.

Michael Medved, TownHall August 25, 2010

Redistricting Could Prolong The Democrats' Pain

Every 10 years, it's time for reapportionment and redistricting. The framers of the Constitution created the first regularly scheduled national census and required, for the first time that I am aware, that representation in a legislature be apportioned according to population.  Reapportionment is automatic: A statutory formula takes the Census figures and apportions the 435 House districts among the 50 states. Wyoming and six other states will each get one, California will probably get 53, and the rest some number in between.

Seven states, according to projections by Polidata Inc., will gain a House seat, and Texas will gain four -- nine states will lose a House seat, and Ohio will lose two. Overall, states carried by John McCain in 2008 will gain a net seven seats (and electoral votes), and states carried by Barack Obama will lose seven...

Democrats are threatened with losing many governorships and legislative chambers, and their chances of taking over many from the Republicans look dismal... This would be an even better redistricting cycle for Republicans than the one following the 2000 Census, which was their best in 50 years. It could move one to two dozen House seats into the Republican column...

In the end, the voters get a say. But in an otherwise close election, redistricting can determine control of the House. And that can make an enormous difference in legislative outcomes, as it has during the past decadeThe unpopularity of the Obama Democrats' policies seems sure to hurt the party this year. Redistricting seems likely to extend the pain for several more election cycles.

Michael Barone, Nationally Syndicated Columnist August 26, 2010 American "Islamophobia" -- The MSM/Left-Liberal Contribution

Both Time Magazine and the Washington Post have made much of a poll in which 25 percent of those surveyed said that most Muslim-Americans are not patriotic. Time and Post assume that this view is incorrect and consider the poll result evidence of America's Islamophobia. But what might cause 25 percent of Americans to believe that most Muslim-Americans aren't patriots? It seems unlikely that they base this conclusion on the acts of obvious outliers, such as the Fort Hood assassin. Moreover, many Americans don't know enough Muslims sufficiently well to form a conclusion regarding their level of patriotism based on personal observation. Nor, to my knowledge, is there is any publicly available empirical study of Muslim-American patriotism.

Under these conditions, perhaps the most reasonable way to assess the patriotism of Muslim-Americans, if asked to think about the issue, is through the statements of those who lead and/or purport to speak for Muslims in this country. Here, we must rely mainly on the mainstream media to identify Muslim leaders and spokesmen, and to help us locate them on the continuum of Muslim-American thought. Right now, the most prominent such leader is probably Faisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the Ground Zero Mosque... The MSM has trotted out both Rauf and his wife to address hot button Muslim related issues over the years.

Rauf is no sane person's idea of an American patriot. Americans have known for some time now that he considers America an accomplice to 9/11. And recently, thanks to Pamela Geller, we learned that Rauf thinks America has more blood on its hands than al Qaeda. This is not ordinary, patriotic dissent; this is anti-Americanism at its worst. Rauf's prominence doesn't necessarily mean that most Muslim-Americans share his extreme views. Neither does the fact that our government sends him abroad. It's possible that the Bush and Obama administrations didn't vet him well. Alternatively, (though I hope this isn't the case) the State Department might have wanted to use a harsh critic of the U.S. to cultivate better relations with Muslim countries on the theory that he would be more credible than a Muslim-American patriot.

But if Rauf doesn't speak for most Muslim-Americans on questions of American goodness, or lack thereof, the MSM has provided no signal of this. Instead, from what I've seen, he is typically portrayed as a moderate Muslim. Now, it may be true that, by global Muslim standards, Rauf does occupy some sort of middle ground position - he holds America in contempt but does not want to kill Americans. But if Rauf is a moderate Muslim-American by American standards - i.e., someone in the mainstream of Muslim American thought - then it follows that most Muslim-Americans hold views similar to his. This would mean, in turn, that most Muslim-Americans are not patriotic.

Thus, if the mainstream media and other left-liberals want to strike a blow for interfaith faith understanding and against Islamophobia, they should take the position that Rauf is not a moderate Muslim. But that would undermine the case for building the Ground Zero Mosque. For many in the mainstream media and other left-liberals, this in-your-face objective trumps all other considerations. And for some, Rauf's view of America may be too close to their own for them to confess its immoderate nature.

Paul, PowerlineBlog August 25, 2010 The Emerging Wedge Between Democrats And Republicans Now even Democrats are admitting that they may lose the House entirely. Maybe this is why ... voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on all 10 of the important issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen. Those issues would be education, Iraq, the economy, healthcare, social security, government ethics, national security, Afghanistan, taxes and immigration... (W)hat is becoming the "wedge issue" between Democrats and Republicans? The growing gap between government and private sector workers.  In case you missed John Boehner's speech the other day, he points out the illogic behind the growing number of government jobs (and their growing salaries) compared to the dwindling numbers of the private sector. He said, "We've seen not just more government jobs, but better-paying ones too .. It's just nonsense to think that taxpayers are subsidizing the fattened salaries and pensions of federal bureaucrats who are out there right now making it harder to create private sector jobs." Republican attempts to freeze federal salaries have all been rejected by the Democrats. There's a big shocker - the Democrats depend on these government hacks to keep them in office. So long as they have their paychecks and smoking breaks and outrageous pension plans, the Democrats have no reason but to keep these people fat and happy.

Stories like this don't help paint a pretty picture for government employees - In Norfolk, Virginia a Community Services Board employee collected a salary with benefits for 12 years and never showed up for work. How does this happen? If you work in the private sector, if you own your own business, can you imagine paying a salary for someone who didn't show up for work? For twelve years! The private marketplace has no room for this level of lunacy. Government clearly does.

Neal Boortz, Nealz Nuze August 27, 2010

Dorsal Fins Surround White House

You've got to wonder when White House political guru David Axelrod will look at the churning pools of poll data and, like Chief Brody in "Jaws," say: "We're gonna need a bigger boat."  The analogy isn't quite right, because in the movie, the shark ultimately loses. It's hard to imagine a scenario where Barack Obama and Axelrod victoriously paddle away on the flotsam of their own political wreckage. But in one sense, the analogy works just fine: This White House is rudderlessly lost at sea and inadequate to the challenges it faces.

At the beginning of the year, retiring seven-term Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., recounted a conversation he had with the president. Obama's unrelenting push for health-care reform in the face of public opposition reminded Berry of the Clinton-era missteps that led to the Republican rout of the Democrats in 1994. "I began to preach last January that we had already seen this movie and we didn't want to see it again because we know how it comes out," Berry told a newspaper.

Or, to quote Brody in "Jaws 2": "But I'm telling you, and I'm telling everybody at this table that that's a shark! And I know what a shark looks like, because I've seen one up close. And you'd better do something about this one, because I don't intend to go through that hell again!"   Convinced that his popularity was eternal, Obama responded by saying, yes, but there's a "big difference" between 1994 and 2010, and that big difference is "you've got me."  The funny thing is, Obama might have been right. Because things might be much worse for Democrats in 2010 than they were in 1994 -- and the big difference might well be Barack Obama...

What's clear right now is that the president who claimed to be the personification of a world-historical moment has clearly misread his mandate, the mood and the moment. He's lost at sea, and not even a bigger boat will save him.

Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online

August 27, 2010 Why Does Obama Tell Muslims America Is Nation Of 'Non-Believers'?

Why has President Barack Obama on at least two occasions told specifically Muslim audiences that America is a nation of -- among other things -- "non-believers"?  The Pledge of Allegiance says America is one nation under God, our national motto says in God we trust, the Declaration of Independence says we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and since the time of George Washington our presidents have placed their left hands on the Bible as they raise their right hands and swear to defend our Constitution...

The Census Bureau's official Statistical Abstract of the United States says a miniscule 0.7 percent of American adults -- or 1,621,000 out of 228,182,000 -- are atheists.  If you accept the Pew Hispanic Center's March 2005 estimate that there were 11 million illegal aliens in the United States back then -- and assume for the sake of argument there are still roughly that many today after another half decade of unsecured borders -- then a person randomly passing you on an American street is about seven times more likely to be a foreign national illegally residing here than an atheist...

On Aug. 13, hosting an Iftar dinner for Muslim guests at the White House, Obama not only suggested that he approved the building of a mosque next door to Ground Zero in New York, but he also said this: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers."  Is Obama's repeated declaration -- including to Muslim audiences -- that America is, among other things, a nation of "non-believers" truly accurate? Does it comport with Obama's professed strategy of reaching out to the Islamic world and improving America's standing there by increasing understanding of our true nature as a nation?  The answers are: No and no.

In America, we have no established religion, and the First Amendment guarantees its free exercise, but we are and always have been an expressly God-fearing nation.  Thomas Jefferson, who wrote of our God-given rights in the Declaration, later said in his "Notes on the State of Virginia": "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?"...

Certainly, Obama is not purposefully seeking to diminish America's standing in the Muslim world. But his words -- on their face -- seek to diminish God's standing in America.

Terry Jeffrey, Nationally Syndicated Columnist August 25, 2010 Is This What Obama Intended?

"There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses…now is not that time. And that's a message that I intend to send directly to them…"   Those words were uttered by our President on January 29th of 2009. He was reacting to the news that some American corporations, even some that had received government “bailout” funds, had both posted profits, and had paid bonuses to their executives.  And those were extraordinary words. They implied that, so far as President Obama is concerned, there are times when it is appropriate for American companies to not earn a profit, and times when it is appropriate for workers to not be compensated for their labor.

And now, after twenty months of our government’s policies being driven by Barack Obama’s very counterintuitive economic thinking, and with the national unemployment average approaching ten percent, I’m left wondering: is this what our President intended?... Some twenty months in to his presidency, Barack Obama apparently feels it is necessary to reassure Americans that he still wants a robust U.S. economy, and that he actually wants America to be “first” (we still are “first,” by the way – but that’s beside the point). It’s not surprising that Americans have doubts about our President’s support of America, but again I’m left wondering: is this what President Obama intended?

For as long as Barack Obama has been a household name, he has devoted much of his time and energy to maligning American free enterprise. While campaigning for the presidency, Senator Obama traversed the country preaching, among other things, his economic doctrines. And the recurrent themes from these economic messages were quite clear: A) our nation’s greatest enemies were not terrorists or hostile nations, but American corporations; B) American oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and businesses that “shipped jobs overseas,” were among the worst fenders; and C) victory over these enemies would not be achieved until he, himself, could control these various sectors of our economy.   Recall that in 2008, global oil prices spiked upward, creating a sharp rise in gasoline prices, and candidate Obama’s “solution” to the problem of four dollar-a-gallon gasoline was to raise taxes on oil companies.

Anyone with the most limited appreciation of free market economics knows that raising taxes on product producers doesn’t lead to a lower price on the product (producers pass along the cost of the tax to their consumers by adding it into the pricing of their product). But lowering the cost of gasoline wasn’t necessarily Senator Obama’s goal, given that the other part of his “plan” was to use the revenue taken from the oil companies in the form of a “tax increase” to give “working Americans” a “voucher” that they could use for oil and gasoline purchases... (T)here is nothing “incoherent” about Barack Obama. He is consistent with his quest for control. Our President has demonstrated that, for him, it’s not about being “for” or “against” “the banks,” or “Wall Street,” or “Main Street” – it’s about seizing power over private affairs, and he will achieve that power by what ever means necessary.

Slumping economy or not, the truth is abundantly clear: our President is achieving precisely what he intended.

Austin Hill, TownHall August 22, 2010

Scaring White People

With polls showing that about 70 percent of Americans believe building an Islamic cultural center containing a mosque just two blocks away from Ground Zero is inappropriate, the far left is once again on the run. Failing with the bogus "freedom of religion" argument, the crew that is offended by the manger scene at Christmas is now saying the mosque controversy is another attempt to "scare white people." Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson has put forth that loopy argument from his second home: MSNBC.

You may remember that the radical left designated the Shirley Sherrod story, the ACORN scandal, the New Black Panther Party-voting booth-Justice Department situation and the resignation of White House "green jobs" czar Van Jones as attempts to scare white Americans. I don't know about you, but I'm white and those stories did not frighten me. I hope I'm not out of the white loopBut here's a key question: Why are Howard Dean and Sen. Harry Reid trying to scare white people? Those committed liberals both believe the mosque should be built somewhere else. Why are these guys trying to frighten Caucasians, and what can we do to stop them? It is simply unfair to have the Senate majority leader and the former governor of Vermont running around trying to instill fear into white guys and gals. This must stop.

What is somewhat scary is that the far-left media continue to peddle this stuff even in the face of economic disaster. CNN and MSNBC are in deep ratings trouble. Newsweek magazine recently sold for one dollar, and Time is having a tough go of it, as well. Air America is bankrupt. The New York Times and The Washington Post are not nearly as successful or influential as they used to be. Not all of those concerns are far left, but they do have an ideological kinship with the loons. It's just a matter of degreeMeanwhile, the anti-liberal Fox News Channel and The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page is conservative, are both doing very well. (Full disclosure: I work for Fox News, whose parent company, News Corporation, also owns The Wall Street Journal.)

It is because of situations like the Ground Zero mosque that the far left has lost credibility, as well as viability. Americans are not stupid. They understand that New York City has more than 100 mosques. One more located near the site where fanatical Muslims murdered thousands of innocent people is certainly not necessary -- especially considering the building would offend thousands of people who lost loved ones on 9/11. Why would anyone want to offend them? Paging President Obama.

Bill O'Reilly, Nationally Syndicated Columnist August 26, 2010 Where Are The New Jobs?

"Corporate profits are soaring. Companies are sitting on billions of dollars of cash. And still, they've yet to amp up hiring or make major investments."  So writes The Washington Post about the recession's stubborn refusal to go away. The statisticians at the National Bureau of Economic Research declared the Great Recession over -- but tell that to people who can't find jobs. Today, businesses replace equipment and inventory, but they are reluctant to hire new workers. Investment that does occur aims at replacing the use of labor by adopting advanced technology. In a growing economy, that's a sign of progress. Freed-up workers are then available for new projects. But lately, those new projects aren't being launched...

Why isn't the economy recovering? After previous recessions, unemployment didn't get stuck at close to 10 percent. If left alone, the economy can and does heal itself, as the mistakes of the previous inflationary boom are correctedThe problem today is that the economy is not being left alone. Instead, it is haunted by uncertainty on a hundred fronts. When rules are unintelligible and unpredictable, when new workers are potential threats because of Labor Department regulations, businesses have little confidence to hire. President Obama's vaunted legislative record not only left entrepreneurs with the burden of bigger government, it also makes it impossible for them to accurately estimate the new burden.

In at least three big areas -- health insurance, financial regulation and taxes -- no one can know what will happen.   New intrusive rules for health insurance are yet to be written, and those rules will affect hiring, since most health insurance is provided by employers... Nothing more effectively freezes business in place than what economist and historian Robert Higgs calls "regime uncertainty."...

Uncertainty created by Obama's legislative "successes" are comparable to the Depression and World War II? This does not bode well for job growth.  Higgs says: "Unless the government acts soon to resolve the looming uncertainties about the half-dozen greatest threats of policy harm to business, investors will remain for the most part on the sideline ... consuming wealth that might otherwise have been invested."

John Stossel, TownHall

August 25, 2010 To receive 'There is a Difference' send an email to elephantpride@aol.com with 'Subscribe' and your 'First & Last Name' as the Subject.

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Daily Dose – August 30, 2010

It's All About Trust: Voters Trust Republicans **52 percent of U.S. voters trust Republicans to handle tax issues, 36 percent trust Democrats. **49 percent trust Republicans to handle national security, 37 percent trust Democrats. **48 percent trust Republicans to handle health care, 40 percent trust Democrats. **47 percent trust Republicans to handle the economy, 39 percent trust Democrats.   **44 percent trust Republicans to handle immigration, 35 percent trust Democrats. Source: A Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted Aug. 19,20, 23 and 24.   Jennifer Harper, Inside the Beltway August 26, 2010

Why Is Obama Letting Non-Citizens Get Away With Voting?

As Matt Mayer vividly describes in a new Heritage Web Memo, the Obama administration is implementing a de facto amnesty that will allow the vast majority of illegal aliens to remain in the United States without being disturbed by the Department of Homeland Security or any attempts to deport them. We can now add one more general amnesty that the administration is apparently extending – no prosecution of illegal voting by noncitizens and a green light to becoming a citizen even if you have violated federal law.

FOX News is reporting that DHS was informed by the county elections administration in Putnam County, Tennessee, about an immigrant in the U.S. on a work visa who registered and voted in the 2004 election. This immigrant has now applied to become a citizen. The only interest that DHS seemed to have in this information from Putnam County was asking the immigrant to submit evidence that he has been removed from the voter rolls. The letter also asks the immigrant, in an amazing example of bureaucratic incompetence, to explain when he “discovered” that he was “not a United States Citizen.” This would be funny if it did not illustrate such a profound lack of common sense. Continue reading...

Hans von Spakovsky, The Heritage Foundation August 27, 2010

The Most Fiscally Irresponsible Government In US History

There is an instinctive conclusion among the American public that President Obama's stimulus package has failed to create a sustained recovery. Unemployment has increased, not declined; consumers have retrenched; housing starts have crashed along with mortgage applications; and there is a fear that a double-dip recession may very well be in the pipeline. The public perception, reflected in Pew Research/National Journal polls, is that the measures to combat the Great Recession have mostly helped large banks and financial institutions, and that's a view common to Republicans (75 percent) and Democrats (73 percent). Only one third of either political leaning thinks government policies have done a great deal or a fair amount for the poor...

People see the stimulus, fashioned and passed by Congress in such a hurry, as a metaphor for wasted money. They are highly critical about the lack of discipline among our political leaders. The question that naturally arises is how to forestall a long-term economic decline...

(W)hile many think that the only way to revive the economy and to inject more money into it is through governmental spending, the general feeling is that we can't afford that right now. The government will be writing more IOUs on top of those we already can't afford. Why plan a second stimulus if the first stimulus couldn't prevent high unemployment?... Obama must know that if he doesn't address this, he will be the president who drove us toward a debt crisis. And so too must Congress, for both have now participated in the most fiscally irresponsible government in American history.

Mortimer B. Zuckerman, US News & World Report August 26, 2010

Debt's Dangers

Warnings about America's impending financial car wreck are being sounded, loud and clear. The only question is whether those driving the car will slam on the brakes before it's too late.  No doubt alarmed at the headlong plunge into fiscal irresponsibility by both the White House and the Democrat-dominated Congress, Wall Street is starting to fret that the recklessness could touch off another financial crisis.

On Thursday, Standard & Poor's said action is needed soon if the U.S. is to keep the much-coveted AAA bond rating that lets the government borrow in global markets at the lowest rates possible.  S&P's warning came just days after Morgan Stanley asserted that the U.S., along with a number of other developed nations, is likely to default on some debt. Such defaults are "inevitable," it said, given the growing number of retirees in developed nations who will have to be taken care of by a shrinking pool of workers.  The sovereign debt crisis "is not over," said the investment bank's Arnaud Mares, and that includes in the U.S.

What worries Wall Street is a public debt-to-GDP ratio of around 53%. That's high enough as it is, but it's about to go a lot higher. By 2020, recent data suggest, the ratio will top 100% — a red line that virtually all economists agree is dangerous.

In raw numbers, we owed roughly $7.5 trillion at the start of this year. By 2020 that explodes to $23.5 trillion, according to an analysis of Congressional Budget Office data by economist Brian Riedl.  What do these numbers mean? To begin with, we spend $187 billion a year, or 1.3% of GDP, to pay our debts now. Just 10 years from now, that will surge to $1.1 trillion, or 4.8% of estimated GDP. Fiscally speaking, we'll be gasping for air.

Debt can be a good thing, but in big doses it's poison. If, as some fear, the U.S. should simply say it can't pay its debts and default — or do a de facto default by printing money to retire our debt — the consequences would be dire.  No nation would want our bonds in their portfolios. To entice them to buy, we'd have to offer a much higher risk premium — that is, higher interest ratesThat means our debt service could go even higher, squeezing out even more of our economy's spending.

The dollar would implode, and prices for foreign goods — which now make up 15% of our economy — would soar. Private investment would shrink and, along with it, private-sector GDP.  Americans' standard of living, once the envy of the world, would recede into the pack of mediocre, government-run nations.

It doesn't have to be this way. All this is due to unrestrained spending. The federal government now spends about $29,000 per household. That will rise to $38,000 by 2020. If you think "the rich" will, or can, pay for it all, think againUnless we begin to control spending, we can kiss our American lifestyles goodbye. It's that simple.

Sadly, the White House is unwilling to see reality. Which may explain why, as our debts mount to ruinous heights, Vice President Joe Biden — President Obama's point man on the recovery — can burble, "This is a chance to do something big, man!"  Yeah, man, something big — like wreck a country.

Editorial, Investor's Business Daily August 26, 2010 Contact Sports

Midterm elections ain't what they used to be. 2010 is no mere "off-year" event, nor is it quiet, inconsequential or dull. Canny candidates are on message and ready to rumble, particularly conservative Marco Rubio, who already has signed on for seven aggressive, debates in his quest for the U.S. Senate seat in Florida. Match one is scheduled for NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 5.  "I am the only candidate for Senate who has outlined specific ideas and proposals as a clear alternative to the wrong direction that Washington politicians are taking our country," Mr. Rubio says with a gladiator's relish. "I enthusiastically accept these opportunities to debate my opponents and present Floridians with the clear choice they have between a faithful loyalist of Washington's agenda, a say-and-do anything opportunist who only cares about winning, and the clear, idea-based alternative I am offering."  No word yet from his opponents Gov. Charlie Crist and Rep. Kendrick B. Meek, independent and Democrat, respectively.

Jennifer Harper, Inside the Beltway August 26, 2010 Government Alters Stimulus Sign Policy, Raising More Propaganda Questions In the 18 months following approval of President Obama’s stimulus package, the Department of Transportation required recipients of government funds to post placards touting the economic recovery. As a result, signs prominently featuring the recovery act logo appeared everywhere — by the side of the road, in public transportation stations, as bumper stickers on government vehicles.  Then, abruptly, on July 15, the Department of Transportation relaxed its requirements. No longer would government agencies require grant recipients to mount the by-then-familiar signs: They would simply encourage them to do so. The White House website was updated to reflect the change — and, seemingly, to give the impression that signs had never actually been required.

It might just have been a coincidence, but, shortly before the shift in policy, on June 24, Rep. Darrell Issa (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Government Oversight Committee, asked the DOT inspector general to look into the administration’s use of the signs. That request was part of a larger investigation into White House propaganda use. Continue reading...

Tina Korbe, The Heritage Foundation August 27, 2010

Harry Reid: Praying That History Won't Repeat

It's axiomatic that the most dangerous place in Washington (perhaps in all America) is between Senator Chuck Schumer and a camera.  A barely safer location is being a Democratic leader of the United States Congress.  This year, Harry Reid is proving that. Despite having served in public office nearly continuously since 1964, leading the United States Senate majority since 2007, and now having the luxury of facing the controversial former Nevada Assembly member Sharron Angle this November, his chances for reelection remain decidedly dicey. Reid's situation, however, is hardly unique. Since 1950, an unusual number of top Democratic congressional leaders have faced the wrath of irate voters -- and not lived (politically) to tell about it. At least, not from Washington, anyway... Harry Reid may yet return to Washington. But if Reid fails to make that journey, he will not be the first, nor -- though the Beltway may not wish to believe it -- the last. David Pietrusza, American Thinker
August 27, 2010
Mosque's Saudi Patron New dots are emerging from the probe into who's behind the Ground Zero mosque, and the radical Muslim Brotherhood is coming into view.  While a couple of U.S. nonprofits — the Cordoba Initiative and its sister, the American Society for Muslim Advancement — are coordinating the New York project, they hardly give the full picture. A Saudi charity has sunk more than $300,000 into ASMA. It's called the Kingdom Foundation — headed by Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi prince whose 9/11 relief check was rejected after he blamed the attacks on U.S. foreign policy.

Bin Talal is a major financier of Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the U.S. His foundation is run by Saudi hijabi Muna Abu Sulayman, who appears on ASMA's Web site as one of its "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."  "Her work," according to her official bio, "focuses on increasing understanding between Islam and the West through establishment of academic centers and programs, both in the Middle East and the United States."

Sulayman, who spends much of her time in the U.S., happens to be the daughter of Dr. AbdulHamid Abu Sulayman, "one of the most important figures in the history of the global Muslim Brotherhood," according to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.  So? The Egypt-based Brotherhood is the parent of Hamas and al-Qaida and the source of most of the jihadi ideology and related terror throughout the world today. Citing its secret U.S. archives, prosecutors say the Brotherhood has a plan to "destroy" America "from within," and is using its agents and front groups in the U.S. to carry out that strategy. Like the mafia, it's highly organized, and uses shells and cutouts to launder money.

Dr. Sulayman's U.S. offices were raided by the feds after 9/11 on suspicion of providing material support to terror groups. An unsealed federal search warrant lists him as chairman and president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, or IIIT, the Brotherhood's U.S. think tank.  In December 2008, IIIT hosted Ground Zero mosque imam Feisal Rauf to discuss his Shariah Index Project, which will be housed in the planned 15-story structure. The index will formally rate which governments best follow Islamic law, as practiced by Saudi.

Sulayman succeeded Rauf's late father, Muhammad, as rector of the International Islamic University in Malaysia. Rauf keeps an office in Malaysia, and he's held Shariah project meetings there.  Moreover, Rauf's 2004 book on Islam was published in Malaysia under the title, "A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11." Dawa is Arabic for proselytizing In the book, the New York imam calls for a "subsidiary entity within the judiciary" in America that adjudicates on Shariah compliance.

Rauf's father was born in Egypt. Both he and Sulayman studied Islam in Cairo, Brotherhood headquarters. Sulayman is also listed by the feds as secretary of an Islamic school in Virginia called GSISS — at least that's what it used to be called, before it was raided. Now it goes by "Cordoba University."  Rauf insists he's a "healer" trying to build "bridges" between Islam and the West. But these radical Brotherhood connections raise new suspicions.

Editorial, Investor's Business Daily August 26, 2010 Why Does UNDP Continue To Aid Repressive Regimes?

A recent story by Fox News provides yet another example of the United Nations Development Program’s refusal to accede to an unfortunate reality: that the organization’s efforts to work with, and through, the world’s most despotic regimes are regularly twisted to serve the goals of the regime rather than the people suffering under their rule. According to the story: "An independent assessment of a $100 million United Nations Development Program aid effort in Burma calls it ‘disappointing,’ and ‘unsatisfactory,’ and suggests that major portions of the program be discontinued next year. Nonetheless, the director of UNDP intends to keep it alive with as-yet unspecified fixes." Continue reading...

Brett Schaefer, The Heritage Foundation August 27, 2010 President Obama's Compulsive Appeasement Disorder With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the U.S. became the world's only superpower -- Uncle Sam would say, "Jump," and the response would be, "How high?" This has not continued; if anything, on today's world stage, Uncle Sam increasingly resembles Rodney "I don't get no respect" Dangerfield. We cannot even kill off a few ragtag third-world pirates, let alone impose our will on Iran or make Hugo Chávez nervous.
There's a simple explanation: we are no longer feared. Superpowers of yesteryear, going back to the Greeks and Romans, were feared for a reason -- they leveled a city to make an example. Today, by contrast, Uncle Sam relies on cajoling, bribery (think North Korea), entreating puny leaders of inchoate states (special envoys to the PLO's Mahmoud Abbas) and otherwise playing weak hands. We have gone from resolve to U.N. resolution. We've forgotten Machiavelli's sage advice: since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved... Saul Alinsky was a genius on intimidating American corporations or stealing elections, but these lessons are immaterial when confronting tyrants starving and beheading their enemies.
This wimp quality is most apparent when Obama travels abroad to "represent" the U.S. Make no mistake: foreign leaders scrutinize these events to size up the president. Perhaps his troubled childhood ingrained in him the habit of appeasing bullies. As one peruses his speeches, there is absolutely nothing in them suggesting woe to those who cross Uncle Sam. At bottom, he is asking the world to like America, please, pretty please, and if you do, I'll be your best friend. This solicitation might fly in Norway when Peace Prizes are awarded, but it will bomb in Iran...
(H)is June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo would remove all doubt regarding Obama's toughness. It was an exercise in self-humiliation, as if the assembled Muslims, not the U.S., were the superpower.  The president asserted, "For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress." He then claimed some remarkable accomplishments for Islam: the order of algebra, the magnetic compass, a mastery of pens and printing, wondrous architecture, plus timeless poetry and cherished music. Islam was also hailed for its religious tolerance and racial equality. As for Muslims in America, they have stood for civil rights and excelled in sports. And just to make sure that his audience grasped America's military might, Obama explained how we plan to spend billions on schools and hospitals in Pakistan and Afghanistan while pulling our troops out of Iraq by 2012. These are hardly worlds to inspire fear, let alone respect... There is nothing to contradict this personal wimpiness. To exaggerate only slightly, if Obama really gets angry, he may dispatch his failed political rival Secretary of State (or worse, the fearsome Joe Biden) to warn the bad guys that unless they stop hurting Uncle Sam, they're going to get stockings of coal next season (Christmas or holidays obviously constitute impermissible offensiveness).  What would Teddy Roosevelt say?

Robert Weissberg, American Thinker
August 27, 2010
The Busy Border

"Statistics show that human smuggling continues to be a crisis on the nation's southern border. And the problem is only going to get worse as a result of the Obama administration's hostility to the strong enforcement of our nation's immigration laws, especially in Arizona," says Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who has reason to fret.  His watchdog group has obtained documents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection detailing numbers from Arizona's "Tucson Sector" that covers 262 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico.

Last year, 70,328 persons were "smuggled and apprehended" in this area alone; 963 smugglers were identified, while 599 were deported. More than 17,000 immigration infractions were referred to the U.S. Attorney's Office for prosecution.  But the documents also revealed that the apprehended population known as "other than Mexicans" caught in the area is rising, with a fivefold increase in those from the People's Republic of China - from 15 in 2008 to 79 last year - plus "significant increases" in Romanians, as well.

Jennifer Harper, Inside the Beltway August 26, 2010 Crying Bigotry: Last Refuge Of The Liberal

Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the 40-year liberal ascendancy that James Carville predicted into a full retreatAh, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the "bitter" people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging "to guns or religion or" — this part is less remembered — "antipathy toward people who aren't like them."  That's a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.

Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.  Disgust and alarm with the federal government's unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? NativismOpposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.  Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero? Islamophobia.  Now we know why the country has become "ungovernable," last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities — often lopsided majorities — oppose President Obama's social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, ObamaCare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a Ground Zero mosque.

What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that pre-empts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argumentThe most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card. When the Tea Party arose, a spontaneous, leaderless and perfectly natural (and traditionally American) reaction to the vast expansion of government intrinsic to the president's proudly proclaimed transformational agenda, the liberal commentariat cast it as a mob of angry white yahoos disguising their antipathy to a black president by cleverly speaking in economic terms.

Then came Arizona and SB 1070. It seems impossible for the left to believe that people of good will could hold that: (a) illegal immigration should be illegal, (b) the federal government should not hold border enforcement hostage to comprehensive reform, i.e., amnesty, (c) every country has the right to determine the composition of its immigrant population.

As for Proposition 8, is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than an alleged hatred of gays — particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?

And now the Ground Zero mosque. The intelligentsia are near unanimous that the only possible grounds for opposition is bigotry toward Muslims. This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with the Obama administration's pretense that we are at war with nothing more than "violent extremists" of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief.  Those who reject this as both ridiculous and politically correct (an admitted redundancy) are declared Islamophobes, the ad hominem du jour.

It is a measure of the corruption of liberal thought and the collapse of its self-confidence that, finding itself so widely repudiated, it resorts reflexively to the cheapest race-baiting (in a colorful variety of forms).  Indeed, how can one reason with a nation of pitchfork-wielding mobs brimming with "antipathy toward people who aren't like them" — blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims — a nation that is, as Michelle Obama once put it, "just downright mean"?

The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama over-read his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.

Charles Krauthammer, Nationally Syndicated Columnist August 26, 2010 To receive 'There is a Difference' send an email to elephantpride@aol.com with 'Subscribe' and your 'First & Last Name' as the Subject.

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Daily Dose – August 26, 2010

Socialism=Failure, Ignorance, & Envy

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Bush More Popular Than Obama In Key Districts
Two years after Democrats rode Barack Obama's coattails into office, senior Democratic strategists are characterizing the president as a "walking radioactive disaster."  Ah, change.  According to The Hotline, Obama's approval ratings in key congressional districts are so disastrous for Dem incumbents, the party's strategy is for their own people to run away from Obama's presidency.  In fact, their own polling is telling them that Pres. Bush--the Left's favorite pi ?ata--is more popular than Obama: "The advice from Democratic consultants and strategists is almost unanimous: Run away from the president, and fast. A prominent Democratic pollster is circulating a survey that shows George W. Bush is 6 points more popular than President Obama in "Frontline" districts -- seats held by Democrats that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sees as most vulnerable to Republican takeover. That Bush is more popular than Obama in Democratic-held seats is cause for outright fear."
Meredith Jessup, TownHall.com Blog
August 20, 2010
Barney Frank Comes Home To Facts

Can you teach an old dog new tricks? In politics, the answer is usually no. Most elected officials cling to their ideological biases, despite the real-world facts that disprove their theories time and again. Most have no common sense, and most never acknowledge that they were wrong.  But one huge exception to this rule is Democrat Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

For years, Frank was a staunch supporter of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant government housing agencies that played such an enormous role in the financial meltdown that thrust the economy into the Great Recession. But in a recent CNBC interview, Frank told me that he was ready to say goodbye to Fannie and Freddie.

“I hope by next year we’ll have abolished Fannie and Freddie,” he said. Remarkable. And he went on to say that “it was a great mistake to push lower-income people into housing they couldn’t afford and couldn’t really handle once they had it.” He then added, “I had been too sanguine about Fannie and Freddie.”   When I asked Frank about a long-term phase-out plan that would shrink Fannie and Freddie portfolios and mortgage-purchase limits, and merge the agencies into the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) for a separate low-income program that would get government out of middle-income housing subsidies, he replied: “Larry, that, I think, is exactly what we should be doing.”...

Some would say Frank’s mea culpa is politically motivated in advance of an election where bailout nation and big government are public enemies number one and two. Of course, poll after poll shows that the $150 billion Fan-Fred bailout, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates could rise to $400 billion, is detested by voters and taxpayers everywhere.

In fact, these failed government agencies are in such bad shape that they can’t even pay Uncle Sam the dividends owed under the conservatorship deal reached two years ago. That’s right. In order to pay a $1.8 billion dividend on Treasury department stock, Fan and Fred had to borrow $1.5 billion from -- you guessed it -- the Treasury...  Voters are on to all this. So politics may indeed be motivating Barney Frank’s turnaround...

I think Chairman Frank watched these government behemoths descend into hell and then witnessed the financial catastrophe that ensued. And I think he has come to realize that the whole system of federal affordable-housing mandates that was central to the real-estate collapse -- including the mandates on Fannie and Freddie and the myriad bad decisions made by private banks and other lenders in response to the government’s overreach -- simply needs to be abolished... We will have to see if Congress really does say good-bye to Fan and Fred, as Republicans like Jeb Hensarling are advocating. Equally important, we will have to see if the federal affordable-housing mandates created by Congress and implemented by HUD and banking regulators are similarly repealed.

And then we will have to see if reformed federally guaranteed housing insurance includes larger down-payments, stricter underwriting standards, and greater reliance on private capital markets, lenders, and insurers. In other words, we need to see if housing will be restored to a market-based system and removed from the government-backed system that has proved so disastrous The broader lesson here is that government planning doesn’t work...

Larry Kudlow, Nationally Syndicated Columnist

August 21, 2010

'Anti-Muslim' Attacker Works For Pro Cordoba Mosque Group

You cannot make this stuff up. Politico reports today that the man who attacks a Muslim cab driver in NYC apparently as an anti-Muslim act, works for a group supporting the building of the mosque at ground zero. "The apparent anti-Muslim assault on a New York city cabbie by a manshouting "Assalamu Alaikum. Consider this a checkpoint" produced an immediate round of recriminations over its connection to opposition to a New York Islamic Center and an apparent rising tide of Islamophobia. But as often at the intersection of politics and violent crime, the story doesn't appear to fit any easy stereotype: The alleged assailant, Michael Enright, is - according to his Facebook profile and the website of the left-leaning media organization Intersections International - a student at the School of Visual Arts and a volunteer for Intersections, which recently produced a statement of support for the Park51 project, and is funded by the mainstream, liberal Collegiate Church of New York."

Make sure you cite this when the inevitable blame the opponents charges fall from the pens of the media.
Clarice Feldman, American Thinker
August 25, 2010

That Mosqued Man

The campaign to label anyone who opposes the Ground Zero mosque as racist and Islamophobic is in full flight. Of course, this allows the media to avert their gaze from what's really important.  Last week, MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell said opponents of a mosque going up just north of where Muslim terrorists massacred thousands are acting "like the people who attacked America and killed 3,000 people." Former TV talk-show host Dick Cavett weighed in, saying he was "genuinely ashamed of us" over the mosque issue.  "It doesn't take much, it seems, to lift the lid and let our home-grown racism and bigotry overflow," he wrote in a New York Times blog headlined, "Real Americans, Please Stand Up." The media effort hasn't let up. On Monday, Time's Mark Halperin condescendingly told families of 9/11 victims who don't want the mosque built that they need to be led "through a discussion." The magazine itself asks on its Aug. 30 cover "Is America Islamophobic?" The answer, of course, is "yes."  Katie Couric of CBS also weighed in, saying "we cannot let fear and rage tear down the towers of our core American values."

As media elitists condemn the 68% of Americans who oppose building a mosque at Ground Zero, they ignore the fact that the man behind the mosque, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, is no moderate "bridge-builder" searching for common ground with AmericaModerate? Rauf says the U.S. "has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims." He also claims U.S. "policies were an accessory to" 9/11 and that "in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA."

Rauf's reputed links to the Muslim Brotherhood are a problem. That group insists members "understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within" and sabotaging "its miserable house."  A real moderate should at least denounce Hamas, a terrorist group. Rauf won't. Yet, the mainstream media have been filled with mostly sympathetic profiles of Rauf's "moderation."

Why can't the media be bothered to do their job? Maybe it's because they're too busy slandering the public.

Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
August 24, 2010

Labor Unions Pitch A Fit

Labor union leaders in New York are upset with Democrats. Why is that? Because these Democrats dared to accept "blood money" from the evil, hideous WalMart. Remember that WalMart does not have unionized employees, therefore they are anti-worker, in the eyes of a union goon. The reason why WalMart is targeted is obvious .. it employees so many people, people that could be union members if it weren't for evil management!  By the way ... I shop at Wal-Mart. I love Wal-Mart. I bought my airplane with money I saved shopping at Wal-Mart...

Neal Boortz, Nealz Nuze
August 25, 2010
President Obama & Union Leaders Continue To Advocate For Job-Killing Legislation
In spite of the fact that our nation's economy is struggling and talk of a meaningful recovery has halted, both President Obama and Big Labor bosses continue to advocate for the Employee 'Forced' Choice Act (EFCA), legislation economists believe would result in massive job loss and seriously harm our nation's top job creators, small businesses.   Due to the burdens and restrictions it would place on employers, EFCA would result in 600,000 lost jobs in one year alone, while at the same time, saddling small businesses with debts and liabilities forcing many to close their doors or move overseas.  As a result, for well over a year, nearly every major business organization in the country has been calling on the Obama Administration and Congress to table the job-killing legislation and focus on measures that will grow the economy and stimulate hiring. Unfortunately, Big Labor's millions appear to have more influence with politicians in Washington, D.C. than do the voices of their constituents.  President Obama recently re-stated his support for EFCA telling the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) Executive Council that "we are going to keep on fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act."...

This leads one to ask, why would the President say in one breath job creation is his top priority and in the next espouse having bureaucrats enact job-killing policies? The answer is simple, "payback."  Obama owes these same union bosses for having helped elect him in 2008 when Big Labor spent nearly half a billion dollars to propel him into office. And these same bosses have said very clearly and on the record, they expect a return on that investment and have put politicians on notice that they had better hold up their end of the bargain...

Katie Gage, TownHall
August 21, 2010

Mr. Mayor, Have You No Shame?

Why Michael Bloomberg is imitating Joe McCarthy. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, has an op-ed in today's New York Post defending the Ground Zero mosque. Actually, the Post informs us, it's an adaptation of "Bloomberg's prepared remarks for his annual Ramadan celebration at Gracie Mansion yesterday." It is a low performance. Bloomberg panders to his audience by slandering the two-thirds or so of Americans who take offense at the idea of a fancy new mosque near the site of an Islamic supremacist atrocity: "Islam did not attack the World Trade Center--al Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American."  The substance of this statement is unremarkable: Obviously it is wrong to implicate all of Islam in the 9/11 attacks.

But the mayor employs scurrilous McCarthyite rhetoric in an attempt to inflame emotions and divert attention from a point that should be equally obvious: The Ground Zero mosque planners have implicated themselves by seeking to exploit the symbolism of the site, whatever their purpose is in doing so.

James Taranto, Best of the Web Today
August 25, 2010
Races To Root For
A hodgepodge of interesting polls came out this week, most notably the Harry Reid / Sharron Angle spread, showing the Reid's lead decrease from 2.5 percent to 1.5 percent amidst an onslaught of television advertising from Angle's side. That was a RealClearPolitics poll average, and it says a lot about the safety of one of the most powerful men in Washington.

RealClearPolitics also showed Rand Paul’s lead over Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway increase from 6.5 percent to 8.2 percent in the Senate race. As for the Pennsylvania Senate race, Congressman Pat Toomey saw a big jump in his lead over Rep. Joe Sestak, from 2 percent to a 5.6. Let's not forget Nathan Deal leading Roy Barnes in the Georgia Governor's race.

Meredith [Jessup], highlighted "The latest numbers coming out of Arkansas are brutal for Democrat incumbent/Obamacare supporter Sen. Blanche Lincoln: Republican John Boozman is leading the race, 65-27."  Altogether, its mostly good news for the GOP, with a few races still on the edge but many more that should keep you optimistic.

Jillian Bandes, TownHall.com Blog
August 20, 2010
Mike Malloy Et Al

Among other things, liberal pundits have called conservatives "terrorists" without having to answer for their vicious language - until now. The Media Research Center has tracked the trends and offered an array of on-the-record incidents where left-leaners have struck at conservative rivals early and often"We now have proof that the real hate is being spread by liberal talk-show hosts with no repercussion from the media. Wishing for the death of Michele Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh goes ignored by the so-called 'news' media. Accusing conservatives of wishing to kill President Obama goes ignored as well," says the center's founder Brent Bozell. "Look. We have the proof. We have their words on record. The media must tell the truth about these vile offenders, else they participate in outright hypocrisy."

Jennifer Harper, Inside the Beltway
August 24, 2010

A Matter Of APpearance

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, is on vacation, and the Associated Press's Glenn Johnson reports from Vineyard Haven, Mass., the president's latest vacation spot, on Gibbs deputy Bill Burton, who isn't on vacation: "For two weeks, Burton is standing in for the vacationing Gibbs, serving as the public face of the White House. That's allowed Burton to gain stature on one of the key indices in Washington: proximity to power. Just 33 years old, the Buffalo, N.Y., native has already worked in three presidential campaigns and on Capitol Hill. He's seen as a top contender to be White House press secretary if Gibbs moves on. Burton--like Obama, the son of a black father and white mother--appears to be the first African-American to take the podium and speak on behalf of the president.

Burton "appears to be the first African-American" in that role? A curious formulation, that. Is Johnson literally making an observation about Burton's skin color, or is this just the reporter's high-sounding way of saying he assumes Burton is the first and is too lazy to find out if it's true?

James Taranto, Best of the Web Today
August 25, 2010
Hamstringing Nonprofits That Disagree With The Obama Administration
Is the IRS discriminating against nonprofit organizations that disagree with Obama administration policies? A lawsuit against the IRS filed by the pro-Israel group Z-Street alleges that, "An IRS agent told Z STREET's lawyers that the application was delayed because of a Special Israel Policy that requires more intense scrutiny of organizations which have to do with Israel, in part to determine whether they espouse positions on Israel contrary to those of the current Administration. This is a chilling matter. I hope that there is a recording of the alleged comments."
Thomas Lifson, American Thinker
August 25, 2010

College Students May Lose Health Care Option Under Obamacare

Health care isn’t something most students worry about. Government stats show about 80 percent of college students are covered under a parents’ plan. For them, Obamacare may mean they can keep the insurance they already have for a few years beyond college, but it won’t affect the coverage they carry during school.  But what about kids without parental coverage? The new law’s requirement that insurance cover children up to age 26 won’t make any difference for them... Continue reading...

Kathryn Nix, The Heritage Foundation
August 25, 2010

Political Ad Of The Day

Congressional Democrats are staring into an abyss in November. Few deserve defeat more than Barney Frank, whose fingerprints are all over the subprime mortgage crisis. Yet Frank's district, comprising Boston's Back Bay and adjacent neighborhoods, is one of the most liberal in America. Voters there returned him to Congress even after the revelation that his live-in boyfriend was running a gay escort service out of his apartment. A subsequent boyfriend was a senior executive at Fannie Mae in the period during which Frank vigorously defended Fannie, while pushing banks to lend more to uncreditworthy home buyersCould Frank be defeated in a wave election? It looks very much as if he could, based on Frank's own behavior. Check out this ad from his opponent. Sean Bielat:

Video: 53 Seconds
Thomas Lifson, American Thinker
August 25, 2010
White House Disappointed With America...Again!

This morning, the U.S. State Department announced that the U.S. had submitted its “Report of the United States of America” to the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights. This report was submitted as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) conducted by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). In November, the U.S. Administration will formally present the findings of its report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Judging from the content of the U.S. report, that November presentation will consist of much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the inadequacy of America.

The U.S. report is revealing of how the current administration views the American people and America’s place in the world. The first section of the report (entitled “A more perfect union, a more perfect world”) begins by quoting the Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution, and Obama White House documents, including President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Though presented as coherent and harmonious thoughts, the intellectual inconsistency among these documents is striking. Continue reading...

Marion Smith, The Heritage Foundation
August 24, 2010
Scratch 2012

The nation is in such chaos that some already have suggested that President Obama is comfortable serving only a single term in office.  "Maybe Michelle and Barack just assume the president is not going to be re-elected, so why bother to keep up pretenses?" says Pajamas Media founder Roger Simon.

Jennifer Harper, Inside the Beltway
August 24, 2010
Ground Zero Mosque: The Real Issue

The proposed mosque near to ground zero is not really a religious institution. It would be -- as many mosques throughout the nation are -- a terrorist recruitment, indoctrination and training center. It is not the worship of Islam that is the problem. It is the efforts to advance Sharia law, with its requirement of jihad and violence, that is the nub of the issue.   There is a global effort to advance Sharia law and make it the legal system of the world. Most major banks and financial institutions offer Sharia compliant funds, which have their investments vetted by the most fundamentalist and reactionary of clerics to assure that they advance Sharia law.  Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed mosque, helps to prepare a Sharia index that rates countries on their degree of compliance with Sharia law. In the United Kingdom, many courts have recognized Sharia as the governing law on matters between two Muslims.  Not only is Sharia law a vicious anti-female code that orders death by stoning, promotes child marriage, decriminalizes abuse of women and gives wives no rights in divorce, but it also explicitly recognizes the duty of all Muslims to wage jihad against non-believers and promotes violence to achieve its goals. In this respect, violent jihad is as inherent in Sharia law as revolution is in communist doctrine.

But there are non-Sharia mosques where peaceful and spiritual Muslims worship God in their own way without promoting violence. A soon-to-be published study funded by Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy found that 20 percent of the mosques in the United States have no taint of Sharia and simply promote peaceful worship. But 80 percent are filled with violent literature, Sharia teachings, and promotion of jihad and its inevitable concomitant -- terrorism.

Which brings us to the ground zero mosque. There can be no doubt that any mosque organized and run by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf will be based on Sharia law and will serve as local branch office of the pan-Islamic terrorist offensive against the west. That such a facility should be located right next to the place where jihad achieved its most hideous triumph is unspeakably inappropriate.  President Obama is confusing the issue when he describes it as one of religious freedom. There is broad latitude to worship God as one chooses. But there is none to promote violence and terrorism. The record of involvement of Sharia mosques with the 9-11 attackers and the Ft. Hood massacre shooter is so deep and extensive that it vividly underscores the difference between a religious institution and an organization that promotes terrorism.

Politically, President Obama's... He has now embraced two positions that are anathema to two-thirds of all Americans -- the mosque and opposition to Arizona's immigration law. Neither was a controversy that sought him out. He waded into each one voluntarily with flags flying. He had no role in the Arizona law, but his lawsuit to invalidate it made it his fight. He does not sit on the New York City Planning Commission, but his endorsement of the mosque puts him squarely in the center of controversy. What is he using for brains these days?...

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, Nationally Syndicated Columnists

August 21, 2010
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Daily Dose – August 25, 2010

Socialism: Philosophy Of Failure

"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy."
Winston Churchill, (1874-1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1948

Looking Very Red

Tweet, baby tweet. A new George Washington University and New York University analysis finds Republican senators have sharper social-media skills than Democrats. Researchers evaluated and ranked the "online competence" of 100 senators based on their websites, Facebook presence and Twitter followings to find that Republicans rank an average 5.5 points higher on the Web applause meter than their colleagues across the aisle.

Seven out of 100 senators ranked "genius," the highest level of digital competence; out of those, seven are Republican. Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, has the greatest "digital velocity" - acquiring the approval and allegiance of many followers - of any senator.  "Social media gives voice to peoples preferences and intentions, demonstrating the affinity for candidates and ideas. As a forward-looking indicator, social-media following may be a crystal ball for what will happen in the voting booth this November, and its looking very red," says Scott Galloway, a marketing professor on the New York campus who led the study.

Jennifer Harper, Inside the Beltway
August 24, 2010
Obama Is Dukakis, Not Carter
The Weekly Standard's Noemie Emery argues persuasively that Obama should be compared to Dukakis, not Carter, concluding:
"The first America tends to make the finer sounding speeches, and the second America often strikes cruder, more xenophobic notes," says the New York Times's Ross Douthat. This is a nice point, and leads one to further comparisons: The first America is full of itself and the second one isn't; the first America is filled with Ambinder's "modernists, seculars, [and] suburban couples who believe in the virtues of tolerance," while the second is filled with "f-ing NASCAR retards" (as Eric Alterman of the Nation puts it).
"The first thinks Newsweek helps keep the culture from darkness and the second knows why it had to be sold for one dollar; the first thinks imams need their sensibilities coddled and those of Catholics, Jews, veterans, and evangelicals can be trashed with impunity; while the second believes this is mad. The second America thinks assault, rape, and murder are serious crimes that merit harsh punishment; the first America thinks these things disturb white Americans only if and when the assailants in question are black.
"The second America was ready in the summer of 1988 to elect Michael Dukakis (Greek name, Jewish wife, and the rest of it), and backed off when it came to know more about him. It did, however, elect Barack Obama (middle name of "Hussein" and the rest of it), and is right now repenting as it wakes up to reality: He is not FDR, JFK, or the liberal Reagan, but Michael Dukakis. Which is not what was wanted at all.
Clarice Feldman, American Thinker
August 24, 2010

L.A.'s 'Taj Mahal' School's Real Cost

For anyone who ever doubted bureaucrats' ability to spend, one need look only at Los Angeles' newest public school, the most expensive ever built. If only the education inside was as rich.  With a price tag of $578 million, the new Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools is an impressive building — perhaps indicative of what some call the Los Angeles Unified School District's edifice complex.

Critics have already dubbed it the Taj Mahal. Built on the site of the former Ambassador Hotel, where presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, the 4,200-student school is a monument to the fiscal irresponsibility and extravagance of the nation's second-largest school district.

Remember, this is a district that complains chronically about being short of funding. And with good reason. The sprawling L.A. school district's 885 schools educate more than 600,000 students — about one out of every 10 students in California, and currently has a deficit of more than $600 millionThe district is undergoing a building boom, with 131 new schools being built now to ease expected overcrowding. But this is the third L.A. mega-school in as many years, each one pricier than the last.  It reflects a peculiar inversion of priorities — where buildings are lavishly funded, while the teachers' union does its best to undermine badly needed reforms. Who's looking out for the students? This is public policy at its worst, squandering precious money that will further weaken Los Angeles' failing public school system...

For the record, Los Angeles has a 50% dropout rate, and its school test scores are among the nation's lowest. Why? A recent Los Angeles Times series looked in extraordinary detail at school test scores over seven years and found the biggest influence on students' test performance was individual teachers — not socioeconomic background, or the school they attended, or its location, or spendingSo why build big, hyperexpensive temples to learning if you're only going to fill them with rotten teachers? Rather than building more spectacular educational Taj Mahals, school officials and parents would be wiser to challenge the all-powerful United Teachers Los Angeles union, which has put a headlock on all meaningful school reforms.

If teachers are rewarded based on performance, not tenure or political clout, Los Angeles will finally get the schools it deserves and wants — and for which it has already paid handsomely.

Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
August 23, 2010
Obama Is Colluding With A New Fascist Imperialism
Nothing is more like the fascist Axis of the 1930s than Islamist expansionism today. Like the Hitler-Tojo-Mussolini Axis of the 1930s, Islamic fascists are fundamentally imperialistic, with an explicit order from on High to subjugate civilized people or turn them to ashes. Mohammed himself famously threatened the cultured Persian and Byzantine Emperors of his time, and in the following years, his followers knocked those empires over like devouring army ants.


The peace-loving Buddhist monasteries of India were consumed by invading Muslim armies, with the result that there are no Buddhist monasteries left in India today. Not a single one. Only Hinduism survived the Muslim invasions, because Hindus are not pacifists. You can ask any Sikh about that; they are a huge warrior religion that arose as a buffer between Hindu India and its many Muslim invaders, who now hold Pakistan and Afghanistan. In India, the Buddhist monks just died or fled to Tibet. So much for the glorious results of peaceful resistance against Muslim armies.


Wherever Islamic fascists go, they first like to frighten and intimidate less warlike peoples -- as in London today, where any BBC criticism of Islamic fascists is streng verboten. That's what the Ground Zero Mosque and the Mohammed cartoon uproar have in common: They are purposeful agitprop campaigns to scare and intimidate all the weak-willed liberals in the West, a standard Islamist tactic to conquer by intimidation, just as Muslim conquerors have always done. Why bother to wage war when you can win by terror? Putin understands that, the Chinese understand it, and it's clear enough around the Middle East. Only American liberals and European socialists are in denial. That's why they are the biggest round-heels in the world. They will happily collude in their own subjection and degradation.
Islamic practice has always required mosques to have the highest towers in any subjugated city. No Jews or Christians were ever allowed to build higher places of worship, to ride higher (on horses or mules), or even to raise their heads higher while walking the streets than any Muslim. If you were a Jew or a Christian, you would duck your head deep down as you passed a Muslim, who was allowed to spit on you at will... Islamic fascism is committing African genocides here and now, as in the Sudan, where a radical Muslim murder regime has been enabled by the "international community" to persecute and kill animist and Christian Africans since the 1990s... You think that evil is safely dead and in the past? You must be a liberal and self-deluded. But I repeat myself, as Mark Twain said in similar circumstances.

Islamofascists constantly threaten genocide against the Jews, as in the daily fulminations of that little Twelver freak Ahmadinejad -- but also in the words just reported by our good friend the Saudi King of the Arabian desert: "There are two nations that do not deserve to live: Israel and Iran." This is the 7th-century king of the camel-raiders that the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, publicly bowed down to -- in a universal gesture of submission that was instantly understood throughout the Muslim world.
Neville Chamberlain gave Adolf Hitler only a half-bow after the Munich appeasement summit of 1938. Liberals are forever thus. To complete the bleak parallels to the horrible 1930s, we see the Left-Fascist alliance together again. If you think Bill Ayers and Jodie Evans were just accidentally whipping up a PR stunt with the Turkish suiciders off the coast of Gaza a few months ago, then you, too, were taken in by classic agitprop collusion between the radical Left and Islamic fascists...
Some people define Fascism as a corporatist economic system, like Obama Motors today. It could just as well be defined as the public celebration and practice of massive sadism against enslaved peoples...  The historic fact is that the Left always enables fascist monsters. I don't claim to understand that fact, but it's easy enough to see it over and over again. It seems to be part of their deep moral cowardice and weakness of character...
We can see that delusional thinking right now in Barack Hussein Obama and in Hillary, just as we saw it in the Carter administration -- which gave Islamic fascism its first taste of real power in 1979. It's important to remember that reactionary Islamic fascism was mostly gone after the Ottoman Empire crumbled in 1917. A number of Muslim countries desperately tried to modernize for sixty years -- until Jimmy Carter gave the pre-medieval throwback Ayatollah Khomeini his first big chance in 1979. That started a race among all the suppressed Islamofascists in Sunni and Shiite countries. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Jimmy Carter's dysfunctional politics was not an accident, nor his love affair with Hamas and Khomeini; it is an obsessive-compulsive psychopathology, and it happens over and over again in human history.


That's why the Norwegian politicians keep handing out that the Nobel Appeasement Prize. It's why Obama got it just for getting elected. The Left and the Islamic fascists figured out who Obama was long before the people of America were told. After all, he's one of them.
James Lewis, American Thinker
August 15, 2010

Reagan's Words Still Speak Volumes Today

In October 1964, then spokesman Ronald Reagan stepped into the national political spotlight for the first time with his now-famous “A Time for Choosing Speech,” delivered in support of presidential candidate Barry GoldwaterVideo: 2:18 Minutes   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wusgcG4rfo

His words stand in stark contrast to those of many of America’s elected officials today, as this video by the Republican Study Committee shows. Continue reading...

Mike Brownfield, The Heritage Foundation
August 23, 2010
GOP To Smack Obama's Hanging Curve Ball
The curve ball in baseball, if thrown correctly, is a pitcher's "out pitch." Breaking anywhere from 6 to 12 inches down and 4-8 inches to the side, a Major League curve ball flummoxes even hitters destined for the Hall of FameIf it is thrown correctlyIf not, the ball spins up to the place at batting practice speed and hangs like ripe fruit over the middle of the plate with a sign on the ball screaming "Hit Me!"  In baseball parlance, it's called a "hanging curve." And in politics, Obama has thrown one right into the GOP's wheelhouse.   ABC News:

"Sadly, this so-called 'Recovery Summer' could end up with more Americans finding themselves out of work then when it began," said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ken Spain. "Expect Republican candidates across the country to ask one simple question of Democrat incumbents: 'Where are the jobs?'"

"Private companies only added 153,000 jobs in May, June and July combined, according to the Labor Department. If you count government jobs and the shedding of special Census hires, the net gains were only 80,000 over the period. The economy would need to add 8 million jobs to reach pre-recession levels.
"Most economists agree the $787 billion Recovery Act has helped prevent the recession from being significantly worse, boosting the gross domestic product and stemming job losses. But many say its effect has largely begun to wear off."

That sound you heard was the crack of the bat as GOP candidates make solid contact against their Democratic opponents. It's a can't miss, 100% godsend for Republicans to throw "Recovery Summer" back in the faces of Dems as they try and change the subject to anything but jobs.

Any Republican who uses this strategy is bound to hit a few out of the park.

Rick Moran, American Thinker
August 24, 2010

Jobs Killing Machine

Let's say you had an economy that has held steady for months at an unemployment rate of around 10%. Let's say jobless claims climb to about 500,000. Let's say that you spent $787 billion of taxpayer money to "save or create jobs." Let's say the private sector is only adding a scarce number of jobs. Let's say that you claim to be all about "jobs, jobs, jobs." Let's say you demonize the private sector and the evil corporations for not hiring.

Now considering all of these facts ... let's say that you are presented with a plan which says it would cost the economy 23,000 jobs. Wouldn't your first reaction be - Are you off your rocker?? The last thing that we need to do right now is implement policies which would deliberately cost our economy jobsBut that is exactly what the Obama administration did. In the wake of the BP oil spill, the Obama administration concluded that a federal moratorium on deepwater oil drilling would cost 23,000 people their jobs. Knowing this fact, the Obama administration went ahead and did it anyway. Not only did they know ahead of time that it would cost 23,000 jobs, but they were blocked .. twice! .. by a federal judge. On top of that, top scientists came out in opposition to the ban, stating that there was no need for such action. With all of these facts, the Obama administration STILL went ahead with its drilling moratorium.  The only reason I can fathom? Pandering to the environmentalists. All of you 23,000 people can go to hell, we've got an agenda and interest groups to appease...

Neal Boortz, Nealz Nuze
August 23, 2010
Success In Iraq Is Bush's Fault

- 81 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of Democrats say Iraqis are better off now than they were before the Iraq war.                                                                                                                                           - 67 percent of Republicans and 20 percent of Democrats say the war was not a mistake.                            - 65 percent of Republicans and 26 percent of Democrats say U.S. troops should remain in Iraq beyond 2011 if Iraqi forces fail to keep order.                                                                                                       Source: A Gallup Poll of 1,013 adults conducted Aug. 5-6 and released Friday.

Jennifer Harper, Inside the Beltway
August 24, 2010

Fishermen Aim Vineyard Protest At Obama

Leaders of the recreational and commercial fishing industry are planning a boat protest against federal policies Thursday outside the harbor of Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard, where President Obama and his family are summer vacationing.  The protest is being organized after a bipartisan, bicameral coalition of federal lawmakers -- including the core of the President’s Congressional base on banking and health care issues -- have given up hope of working productively with Obama’s top appointee for oceans and fisheries, Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Boats from Gloucester and New Bedford, the hub ports of New England, Point Judith, R.I., and New York and New Jersey are expected, according to Tina Jackson, president of the American Alliance of Fishermen... "There is a call for a protest of all fishermen, commercial, recreational, lobstermen," the statement said. "... Now is the time to show our backbone, our strength and our unity."

Richard Gaines, Gloucester Daily Times
August 24, 2010
"When Liberalism Doesn't Work It Discredits Liberalism"

This past Friday the Associated Press reported: "Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.  The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments. Friday’s report from the Treasury Department suggests the $75 billion government effort is failing to slow the tide of foreclosures in the United States, economists say."

Conn Carroll, The Heritage Foundation
August 23, 2010
Muslim Is The New Code For Racism

If you will recall, during the campaign there were some rather amazing charges of racism. Let's see if we can remember a few:

**Using the word "skinny" to refer to Obama is racist.                                                                 **Community organizer" is a racist term.                                                                                              **Any reference to a connection between Obama and Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae is racist ... that would be because Raines is black.                                                                                    **All references to Jeremiah Wright are racist; that being due to Wright being black.                         **Referring to Obama as "eloquent" is racist because it infers that other blacks are not eloquent.              **For goodness' sake, don't say that Obama is "clean."                                                                     **Calling Obama a "socialist" is also racist because "socialist" is just another code word for black.

Well who knew that we were still adding to this list? In the wake of this discussion over the Ground Zero Victory mosque, Obama faith has come into question again. One out of every five Americans believe Obama to be a Muslim. Well now, according to MSNBC, calling Barack Obama a Muslim is a backdoor way of calling him the "N-word." That's right .. even talking about Barack Obama and Islam in the same conversation is the latest way of implying that you really don't like Barack Obama because he is black.  Isn't that amazing?

Neal Boortz, Nealz Nuze
August 23, 2010
Voter ID And Illegal Aliens

The latest Rasmussen poll on voter ID is sure to frustrate liberal advocacy organizations like the NAACP and the League of Women Voters that oppose commonsense proposals to ensure the integrity of our election process. They have been waging a losing litigation battle against states to try to prevent them from implementing photo ID requirements.  Rasmussen reports that an overwhelming majority of likely voters (82 percent) believe all voters should show photo ID before they are allowed to vote (that includes a majority in every demographic group). Only 14 percent disagree. This is the highest level of support for photo ID since Rasmussen started polling the question in 2006. Continue reading...

Hans von Spakovsky, The Heritage Foundation
August 23, 2010

48% Say Obama’s Views Are Extreme; 51% Say Hillary Is Mainstream

Forty-eight percent (48%) of U.S. voters now regard President Obama’s political views as extreme. Forty-two percent (42%) place his views in the mainstream, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey... Predictably, most Republicans view Obama’s views as extreme, while a sizable majority of Democrats say they are mainstream. But most voters not affiliated with either party also describe the president’s views as extreme by a 54% to 30% margin.  Eighty-one percent (81%) of liberals say Obama’s in the mainstream. Seventy-five percent (75%) of conservatives regard him as extreme.  But then most voters in the country now believe the president and the average Democrat in Congress are more liberal, politically speaking, than they are...

Rasmussen Reports
August 23, 2010
Challenges To Obamacare Build Momentum
When Missouri voters attempted to stop ObamaCare at the ballot box via the initiative process, the national news media took notice. In the August 3 vote, 7 in 10 voters in the "Show Me State" supported Proposition C, which overturns government mandates requiring health insurance. Proposition C actually bars penalties against people who pay their own health bills without insurance... But our personal favorite of the many lawsuits challenging ObamaCare is from Arizona. Yes, the land of immigration enforcement could also be the site of a major constitutional battle about ObamaCare. The citizens of Arizona are restless with their Washington, D.C. overseers.

The Goldwater Institute, a public policy outfit named for Arizona's most famous son, is taking a different swing at the question.  Representing a local business owner, Nick Coons of Tempe, Ariz., the Goldwater Institute has built an intriguing legal strategy which will shake up the debate: "Mr. Coons pays for all of his medical care out of his own pocket and he wants to continue making his own health care decisions. Under the federal health care bill, Mr. Coons will face significant fines from the IRS if he doesn't buy a health insurance plan that has been approved by the government by 2014."

In announcing the lawsuit Coons complained, "The government is making me spend money on something that I don't want. Is a stranger who works for the government in some other part of the country really going to know what I need? I am the best qualified to make these decisions for myself."   The Goldwater Institute's lawyer is well-known constitutional litigator Clint Bolick. Bolick argues, "The new federal law also violates Mr. Coons' medical privacy by forcing him to disclose his medical records to an insurance company, and those records could be accessed by the federal government and others without his permission."

We have always been disturbed by the arrogance of government officials that seem to believe they have a right to know the most intimate details of your discussions with your doctor. ObamaCare will violate the sanctity and privacy of the relationship you have with your physicianThe framers of the U.S. Constitution would be shocked by the manipulation we have recently experienced at the hands of Congress, Obama and out-of-control federal judges. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli sums it all up when he said of ObamaCare's attempts to regulate the behavior of doing nothing: "Even the king and the parliament acknowledged they didn't have this power back before the Declaration of Independence."

Floyd and Mary Beth Brown, TownHall

August 14, 2010
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Daily Dose – August 24, 2010

Intoxicated With Power "Those who have been intoxicated with power... can never willingly abandon it."
Edmund Burke, (1729-1797) Irish-born British statesman, parliamentary orator, and political thinker Two Americas: The Working Class And The Serf Class

I have been reading Frederick A. Hayek's seminal work, "The Road to Serfdom".  Serfdom was the socioeconomic status of unfree peasants under feudalism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery. Serfdom was the enforced labor of serfs on the fields of landowners, in return for protection and the right to work on their leased fields.

I believe we have a new form of serfdom in America and government is the new feudalism.  Hayek's book helps explain how we got to this new feudalism and became a new breed of serfs. The main point of Hayek's book is that: "[t]he most important change which extensive government control produces is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people."

I fear that the "character" of the American people has changed. A majority of Americans have become the modern day serfs of our feudal government. Please let me explain. Remember when John Edwards, former Democrat Senator from North Carolina and Presidential candidate, talked about two Americas? Edwards and Democrats consistently talk about rich America and poor America.

I agree that there are two Americas but not in the way John Edwards and Democrats portray itMay I respectfully suggest we actually have two Americas - those who produce wealth (the working class) and those who consume wealth (the serf class). This new "serf class" includes: government, those who work for government or "bureaucrats", those receiving monetary payment directly from government and those subsidized by government.

Today in America we have a growing population living off of "government largesse" - the new feudalism. Government is defined as a "system of ruling or controlling". Largesse is defined as, "the liberal giving (as of money) to or as if to an inferior (e.g. serf)." Please read: Government Largesse - The Opiate of the People.

Government largesse includes all local, state and federal social programs. Many of these social programs began in the 1930s under the New Deal, and greatly expanded during the 1960s with the Great Society. Government social programs have grown exponentially. Social programs include: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the bureaucrats at every level hired to oversee and manage them. Additionally, there are other feudal government programs, which includes regulating or subsidizing individuals or groups of individuals to achieve "social justice" a redistributive model of governing.

At some point in time the cost of government largesse exceeds the capabilities of those paying for it. I believe we may have have reached that "tipping point". I believe we now have two Americas - those who are in large part dependent on government largesse and those who are not. What are some of the key indicators that I believe show we have reached that tipping point?

1.  When the costs of social programs approach half of our gross domestic product.  2.  When government control of the gross national product approaches fifty percent.  3.  When the cost of operating government at all levels becomes so large as to restrict growth.  4.  When the working class is more concerned about government intrusion than it is about personal liberty.  5.  When government begins to bail itself out.  6. When a nation's national debt payments at all levels of government approach thirty percent of all revenues.

It is time for Americans to look at who they are dependent on and why. There are many indicators today that America has reached a tipping point with a new expanding serf class dependent on government paid for by an ever decreasing working class.  As Hayek states: "The important point is that the political ideas of a people and its attitude toward authority are as much the effect as the cause of the political institutions under which it lives. This means, among other things, that even a strong tradition of political liberty is no safeguard if the danger is precisely that new institutions and policies will gradually undermine and destroy that spirit."

Have we become a nation of government serfs? Have we become so dependent on government largesse that we will actively work against our own liberty in order to get that next bailout, subsidy or government benefit check?  Hayek gives us some hope that the road to serfdom is neither inevitable nor reversible. Hayek states, "The consequences can of course be averted if that spirit reasserts itself in time and the people not only throw out the party which has been leading them further and further in the dangerous direction but also recognize the nature of the danger and resolutely change their course."

Are you ready to change your course?

Dr. Richard Swier, Red County August 21, 2010 Fast Track To Government Health Care

While there is broad agreement there are problems in our health sector that must be solved, the American people consistently have said they oppose government control. Yet many of the decisions now being made in the bowels of the bureaucracy could lead to a government system that people fear.  The consequences of government involvement in health care have become more and more apparent as people have become informed about what the health overhaul law would do. No longer does the government seem to be a fairy godmother but rather a tough enforcer of an avalanche of new mandates, taxes and regulatory requirements... Many of the decisions being made by regulators could make it almost impossible for private insurance companies to comply, leading inevitably to a government-run health system.

Connecticut state insurance commissioner Thomas Sullivan warned, "What we've learned since March, is that if you like your health insurance you may not be able to keep it," he told the Seattle meeting, "and state regulators will have a role in implementing health care as long as that role supports the goals of HHS (the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), which may not necessarily be what's in the best interest of consumers."  He later told reporters: "I'm concerned there's still a lot left to be done in interpretation ... I fear that some have an agenda to interpret ... with the express purpose of getting to a single-payer option."  Many other health actuaries and experts at the Seattle meeting said they believed the MLR was meant to be so disruptive to private insurance that it would eventually push us into a single-payer system...

So the politicization of health care begins, with even the president set to weigh in on a decision that would make most people's eyes glaze over in the minutia. The president will meet with the NAIC at the White House in September or so to discuss the issue.  It now is clear that decisions about what kind of health insurance we have, how much we must pay, what it covers or doesn't cover, will be made by politicians and bureaucrats...

The process has begun. Unless ObamaCare can be rolled back, the politicization of American medicine will reach into the smallest decisions affecting our medical care for decades to comeAnd, just five months after the health overhaul law was enacted, we see how the regulatory bureaucracy may well push us into the single-payer, government-run health care system that even the very liberal 111th Congress couldn't enact.

Grace-Marie Turner, Investor's Business Daily August 20, 2010 Obama's Four Disasters: Heckuva Job, Mr. President Recovery summer, opposition to Arizona’s immigration law, negative campaigning, and intervention in the Ground Zero mosque dispute—call them Obama’s Four Disasters. As policy, they’re questionable. As political exercises, they’re losers. As clues about Obama, they’re evidence he’s lost his political knack. What was Obama thinking? These weren’t initiatives taken suddenly. They were carefully thought out and plotted, no doubt in expectation the president would gain politically and so would Democratic candidates. Whatever calculations the White House made, they were faulty.

Recovery summer. This was proclaimed in June, with fanfare, in a briefing by Vice President Biden and the issuance of a report titled “Summer of Recovery: Project Activity Increases in Summer 2010.” The report said “millions of Americans [are] on the job today thanks to the Recovery Act”—better known as the “stimulus package”—but its work is not done. “Summer 2010 is actually poised to be the most active Recovery Act season yet.”

Not quite. Obama, Biden, and company should have known better. It’s true there were indicators the economy would grow and hiring by private firms would increase. But anyone who traveled outside Washington would quickly discover that slow growth and minimal hiring were at least as likely to occur. And they have. The economy has hit the brakes, the stock market is stagnant, the jobs picture has -worsened, unemployment claims are up, and the notion of a summer of recovery has become an embarrassment. If there were even a glimmer of doubt about a summertime boom, you wouldn’t want to put a chronic exaggerator like Biden out front. He tends to gush uncontrollably... Sounds nice. Too bad it hasn’t happened.

Opposition to the Arizona immigration law. This is what’s known as a 70-30 issue. Obama has taken the 30 percent position, which puts him athwart the vast majority of Americans. The White House said the decision to file suit against the Arizona law was made by Attorney General Eric Holder. But Holder works for Obama, who could have told him to back off...

Negative campaigning. Obama’s great gift as a politician is the ability to rise above the normal pushing, shoving, and name-calling of politics and appear statesmanlike... Now he’s abandoned it. In his current stump speech, he does two things. He talks about “a lot of things I’m very proud of that we’ve done over the last two years,” including health care reform. And he attacks Republicans for “constant, nonstop opposition on everything.” Guess which one the media devours. His criticism of Republicans is not limited to political appearances. He’s begun attacking them in his Saturday radio address from the White House. This is both unappealing and unpresidential...

The Ground Zero mosque. This is another 70-30 issue, and Obama is again in the minority. We know his decision to defend the plan of Muslims to build a mosque near Ground Zero wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. He put out a prepared text of his speech on this subject before it was delivered to a group of Muslims at a Ramadan event at the White House. He backtracked the next day...

The contrast between the political adroitness of Obama as a presidential candidate and Obama as president is striking. His campaign was nearly error-free. As president, he’s made a string of unforced errors. He’s lost his touch, and chances are it won’t come back.

Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard August 30-September 6, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 47 What Obamacare And The Death Star Have In Common

So far, 21 states have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare.  As they move forward, it’s worth pondering what would happen to the health care overhaul if they succeed. Could one lawsuit be the proton torpedo that blows up the Obamacare Death Star?  Typically, courts can deem a legislative provision unconstitutional without it spelling doom for the entire piece of legislation.  But Obamacare isn’t typical legislationBen Domenech explains: “Most laws of large size and scope have something called a “severability clause” attached to them. Essentially, this means that if one part of a piece of large legislation is ruled unconstitutional by a court, that unconstitutional portion is “severed” from the rest of the bill — the ruling doesn’t stop the rest of the law from being enforced.” Continue reading...

Kathryn Nix, The Heritage Foundation August 20, 2010 Iran Realities Democrats say bombing would only slow Tehran's nuclear program. The U.S. tells Israel that Iran is far from having a nuke. Are we lying to ourselves about the dangerous realities of Iran's nukes?Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., a member of the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees, says the mighty U.S. arsenal can't destroy Iran's nuclear program.  "We can't stop it. We can slow it down," Smith told FoxNews.com last week.

The thinking is that there are too many targets, many of which are fortified and even built deep within mountains. Bushehr, Natanz, Qom, plus other facilities, known and unknown, spread out far and wide — we'd never destroy it all, we're told.  Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that the Obama administration has been telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Israel not to worry; Iran's nuclear activities are prone to glitches, and it will be a year or more before it can build a weapon, according to U.S. intelligence and U.N. inspector reports.

In fact, the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency has said it might take Tehran only three months. As Gary Milhollin, executive director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, wrote on the Atlantic magazine's Web site, President Obama's mantra that Iran's "nuclear clock has slowed" is false.

"The clock is still ticking, vigorously," according to Milhollin. "By the beginning of this year, Iran had produced enough low-enriched uranium to fuel two nuclear weapons if the uranium were further enriched to weapon-grade. By now, Iran has added almost enough low-enriched uranium to fuel a third weapon, and by the middle of next year (at current production rates) it will probably produce enough to fuel a fourth."... Are we really willing to bet our lives on a nuclear-armed Iran being only a far-off possibilityWould we gamble that the ayatollahs do not secretly seek to arm terrorist operatives with some kind of portable weapon that could incinerate a U.S. or European city?

If we do fear such a scenario, are Americans content to accept that with sanctions not working a military solution is impossible?  As the Washington Times' Rowan Scarborough described it earlier this month, based on the analysis of military experts, the Pentagon has worked out an Iran attack plan, using B-2 Stealth bombers and cruise missiles launched from ships, subs and B-52 bombers"It will be primarily an air attack with covert work to start a velvet revolution so (the) Iranian people can take back their country," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a former fighter pilot, told Scarborough.

We should have been supporting Iranian freedom fighters — covertly and overtly — for the past five years at least.  It may now be too late for that, and with Iran's Islamofascist regime so close to nuclear weapons capability, those who insist "we can't stop it" or that it isn't an imminent threat may end up having to explain themselves to the dead.

Editorial, Investor's Business Daily August 20, 2010 Muslims, Not Americans, Are Religious Bigots Time magazine asked this week whether America has “a Muslim problem,” and suggested that “many” of those opposed to the Ground Zero mosque “are motivated by deep-seated Islamophobia.” The same article scowls disapprovingly that “46% of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence against nonbelievers.” (What could have possibly given them that idea?)
But, as the article concedes, there has been no increase in violence against Muslims. In reality, Americans remain fastidiously tolerant of all religions, even one that inspired 19 fanatics to hijack four commercial airliners on 9/11 and kill more than 3,000 Americans in the bloodiest attack in our nation’s historyTime requires a peculiar sort of blindness to see so much imagined intolerance in America — especially based solely on “anecdotal evidence” — while nearly ignoring the religious intolerance in most Islamic countries. A group of triumphalist Muslims seeks to erect an Islamic center near Ground Zero in a city that already has 100 mosques, and they face, at worst, disapproval, stern looks and calls to relocate their project.

Contrast this with a news report by journalist Mindy Belz in the current issue of World magazine, concerning Afghanistan’s small community of Christian converts. Belz describes how an Afghan television station recently broadcast a video of a baptismal service, sparking riots in the streets of Kabul and leading to the arrest of 25 Christians. Nobody knows at this time the fate of those arrested. Because it is illegal for Muslims to convert in Afghanistan — as it is in most Islamic countries — people who choose any other faith face the death penalty. Adherents of other religions, meanwhile, are subject to official discrimination and persecution, despite guarantees to the contrary in Afghanistan’s constitution. Thus, the plight of Christians is shared in many Islamic countries by Buddhists, Baha’is, Hindus and Zoroastrians. As Time puts it, it is wrong to “conflate Islam with terrorism and savagery.” But the world must be dealt with as it is and not as we wish it were. That requires us to accept the reality that Muslim nations are the most religiously intolerant places on Earth, and that a startling number of Islamic clerics worldwide still refuse to condemn violence against nonbelievers. In contrast, Americans who oppose the mosque are not even demanding that its developers be arrested or harmed in any way for their beliefs. They ask only that the mosque developers voluntarily show common sense, decency and sensitivity for America’s loss on 9/11. Editorial, Washington Examiner
August 20, 2010
Censorship And Confrontation Will Not Solve Chavez's Mounting Problems

On August 13 El Nacional, a Venezuelan daily, published a disturbing photograph of corpses piled up in a Caracas morgue. The photograph drove home an indisputable fact: Caracas has become one of the most dangerous places in the Americas.   Reports the latest Economist: "Venezuela’s national murder rate is 75 per 100,000 people, up from 49 just four years ago, twice the rate in neighboring Colombia where guerrillas continue to wage war and an astonishing 220 per 100,000 people in Caracas, higher even than in Mexico’s drug-ridden Ciudad Juárez."  Continue reading...

Ray Walser, The Heritage Foundation August 20, 2010 Hard Hats: No Mosque! No Mosque! A grass-roots movement among construction workers and unions asks Cordoba mosque supporters: Who do you expect to build it? The same people who built the World Trade Center perhaps?  In real estate, it's said the price of a property is based on three things — location, location, location. The price in blood and treasure America has paid for the gaping hole where the Twin Towers once stood is incalculable.

The wounds are still fresh and the anger is still real, and it's something that supporters of the Cordoba mosque, named after a great Islamic victory over the West, simply don't getTwo blocks from the proposed mosque, construction workers at the WTC site are trying get across their point, and oursThe towers of the World Trade Center instantly became symbols of America, its strength, its embrace of freedom and free markets. It was the pride of the workers who built it, destroyed in just hours by madmen who turned passenger jets into flaming cruise missiles...

Despite tought times, L.V. Spina, a Manhattan construction worker who created the stickers adorning an increasing number of hard hats, says he'd "rather pick cans and bottles out of trash cans" than build the mosque two blocks from Ground Zero... Americans are not bigots. From Bosnia to Iraq to Afghanistan, young American men and women have put their lives on the line, many paying the ultimate price, for Muslim freedom.  We freed a nation, particularly its women, from the intolerance of the Taliban. It was America in the forefront of aid to Indonesian earthquake and tsunami victims, and now flood victims in Pakistan.

The construction workers of Ground Zero seem to be saying, if you want outreach, grab a shovel and help us rebuild as we have helped you. Help us build a proper memorial to our dead, murdered in the opening salvo of the war on terror.  As for your mosque, we'll build it for you, just not in this sacred place and not now.

Editorial, Investor's Business Daily August 20, 2010 President Still Thinking Like Local Agitator

The president of the United States has it hard enough without needlessly wading into, and fanning, local controversies. The economy is battered by sluggish growth, high unemployment, record annual deficits and near unsustainable national debt. Over 50% of the people now disapprove of Barack Obama's handling of these problemsSo why weigh in on hot-button issues that can only polarize people without solving anything?...

Arizona recently passed a bill designed to enforce existing immigration law and stop the enormous influx of illegal aliens into the state. Various groups, including the federal government, quickly made plans to sue the state. Yet various polls indicated that 70% of Americans agreed with the Arizona law, and dozens of states were planning similar legislation.  Nonetheless, the president also jumped into that acrimony — well before the law went into effect. Obama and his attorney general alleged that Arizonans were promoting stereotyping, even though police were forbidden to question the immigration status of those who had not come into prior contact with law enforcement.

Most recently, Obama pontificated about the proposed mosque next to Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, in what his supporters might call a "teachable moment." The issue is not a legal one. Both sides recognize the legal right of Muslims to build mosques anywhere that local zoning ordinances permit them. Instead, the controversy pertains to common decency, and the nature of the funding and proponents of the project.  No matter: The president instead lectured his mostly Muslim audience that America respects the rights of all religions — again, not the issue in question. A day later, in embarrassment, he backtracked a bit.

Where to start with all these teachable moments?  All these controversies involve issues addressed at the state and local level, with presidential action unnecessary. In such contentious matters, why intervene when Obama cannot do much other than polarize millionsWe have learned that President Obama has a bad habit of impugning the motives of those with whom he disagrees...  Arizonans were not to be seen as desperate citizens trying to enforce federal law, but instead derided as bigots who harass minorities when they go out to get ice cream. And in the mosque case, the president disingenuously implied that opponents of a Ground Zero mosque wanted to deny the legal right of Muslims to build religious centers... Again, why does Obama go off message to sermonize about these seemingly minor things that so energize his opposition and make life difficult for his fellow Democrats?

First, off-the-cuff pontificating on extraneous issues is a lot easier than dealing with a bad economy, two wars and heightening tensions abroad. Sermonizing is a lot different than rounding up votes in Congress, fending off reporters at press conferences or dealing with aggressors overseas — and it can also turn our attention away from near-10% unemployment and a heavily indebted government.

Second, Obama has spent most of his life around academics, lawyers, journalists and organizers. That insular culture tends to pontificate and lecture others far more than do action-oriented businesspeople, soldiers, doctors and farmers — the doers who are few and far between in this administration.

Third, as an Ivy League-trained lawyer and former Chicago community organizer, Obama embraces an overarching race/class/gender critique of the U.S.; the story of America is not so much about an exceptionally independent and prosperous people, a unique Constitution or a vibrant national past in promoting global freedom, but about how the majority oppressed various groups.

Clearly, these local instances of purported grievances have excited the president — and almost automatically prompt his customary but unproven declarations that the majority or establishment in each case is biased or unfairObama should remember that successful presidents build bridges to solve national and international problems. They leave polarizing local controversies to divisive community organizers and partisan activists.

Victor Davis Hanson, Nationally Syndicated Columnist August 20, 2010 To receive 'There is a Difference' send an email to elephantpride@aol.com with 'Subscribe' and your 'First & Last Name' as the Subject.

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