I have long regarded Barack Obama as someone who has little regard for the truth, having paid close attention to how he spins and wiggles his way around facts. When the late Lawrence Eaglesburger called him a charlatan on evening of the election in 2008, that phrase stuck in my mind. In a post last may, I referred to Barack Obama as the Charlatan-in-Chief.
But now Dr. Thomas Sowell, professor of economics at Stanford, has also clearly labeled Obama "Phony in Chief" in his most recent article. And the reasoning is devastating and not one that President Obama can easily wiggle out of. A video has recently surfaced of him demagogically telling a black audience that the federal government had not waived the Stafford Act for federal relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as it had in the wake of 9/11 in New York and Hurricane Andrew in Florida.
It turns out that this is a bold face lie. Not only that, but to add insult to injury Barack Obama was not only present when the Stafford Act was waived, he himself voted against waiving it.
Nobody should vote for this man this time around.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Redistribution and Future Wealth
The incomparable Dr. Thomas Sowell recently hit it out of the park with an article on redistribution of wealth, occasioned by the release of a 1998 video clearly demonstrating Barack Obama's stance favoring such redistribution. Among other things, Sowell correctly points out what so many people fail to comprehend about this topic, namely, that a government can only confiscate present wealth, not future wealth. Once the state grabs present wealth for redistribution, it is no longer available for re-investment to produce future wealth. It is gone for good.
This explains to a significant extent why centrally-planned, collectivist redistribution attempts in the 20th century failed miserably in places like the Soviet Union, Cuba, China and North Korea.
The Soviets demonstrated the disastrous consequences of redistribution as part of central planning in their experimentation with collective farming. The Ukraine learned first hand through the starvation of nearly 10 million people what can happen when political correctness takes over free markets.
Barack Obama's government takeover of GM is laughably small and relatively innocuous when compared with Joseph Stalin's takeover of Ukrainian agriculture in the 1930s. But the thinking and approach are similar, albeit on hugely different scales. In the case of GM, Obama desired to rescue the politically correct class of UAW stakeholders at the expense of ordinary bondholders. This was because the UAW is a big donor to Obama's party. In the case of the Ukraine, Stalin exploited the Ukrainian farmers and stole their agricultural products to feed his own party bosses in Moscow -- and build up his Red Army -- while telling the relatively free kulaks of the Ukraine to go pound sand. When the latter didn't follow his advice and instead started protesting and refusing to work, Stalin responded with sealing the borders of the Ukraine and shipping out all farm products, and declaring the kulak class enemies of the state. He confiscated all of their property and food, resulting in mass starvation in the Ukraine, otherwise the breadbasket of Europe at the time. It is estimated that at least 10,000,000 people in the Ukraine died as a result of Stalin's policies.
This explains to a significant extent why centrally-planned, collectivist redistribution attempts in the 20th century failed miserably in places like the Soviet Union, Cuba, China and North Korea.
The Soviets demonstrated the disastrous consequences of redistribution as part of central planning in their experimentation with collective farming. The Ukraine learned first hand through the starvation of nearly 10 million people what can happen when political correctness takes over free markets.
Barack Obama's government takeover of GM is laughably small and relatively innocuous when compared with Joseph Stalin's takeover of Ukrainian agriculture in the 1930s. But the thinking and approach are similar, albeit on hugely different scales. In the case of GM, Obama desired to rescue the politically correct class of UAW stakeholders at the expense of ordinary bondholders. This was because the UAW is a big donor to Obama's party. In the case of the Ukraine, Stalin exploited the Ukrainian farmers and stole their agricultural products to feed his own party bosses in Moscow -- and build up his Red Army -- while telling the relatively free kulaks of the Ukraine to go pound sand. When the latter didn't follow his advice and instead started protesting and refusing to work, Stalin responded with sealing the borders of the Ukraine and shipping out all farm products, and declaring the kulak class enemies of the state. He confiscated all of their property and food, resulting in mass starvation in the Ukraine, otherwise the breadbasket of Europe at the time. It is estimated that at least 10,000,000 people in the Ukraine died as a result of Stalin's policies.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
"Forty Years I Endured that Generation"
Taken from Psalm 95, the full passage says:
In America we are now approaching on January 22, 2013, the 40th anniversary of the famous Supreme Court abortion decision called Roe vs. Wade. This decision, which struck down certain state laws prohibiting abortion, was a seminal moment in the American journey and has become a key dividing issue in American politics. It is perhaps the one issue that seems to most define the difference between right and left in America. Religious authorities such as Pope John Paul II have cited abortion as one of the main platforms in the culture of death, and the supposed right to an abortion has been a defining plank in the platform of the Democratic Party for decades. Thus, in the culture war of life vs. death, the Democratic Party has placed itself squarely on the side of the culture of death. In fact, it is now almost redundant to say that if you vote for a Democrat, you are voting for abortion. The Pro-Life Democrat is certainly an endangered species, if not already practically extinct.
I fear that if Barack Obama is re-elected president, the words of the Psalm will indeed come true for America and the wrath of God will be upon us. The reason for this fear is that there are several aging liberal justices on the Supreme Court who will almost certainly retire or die during the next four years. Breyer and Ginsburg, both Clinton appointees, may retire. If Obama is re-elected, they will be replaced with liberals and any hope for overturning Roe vs. Wade will be gone for perhaps another generation.
We still have an opportunity on Nov. 6 of this year to turn back the tide of the culture of death of which abortion is the quintessential, representative issue.
President Obama is the most anti-life -- and anti-truth -- president in the history of our country. His opposition to Illinois Bill S.B 1082 amended by Amendment 1 shows just how anti-life he is. His and his campaign's attempts to spin, cover up and lie about his stance as a state senator have been exposed by FactCheck.org's article.
Some people dismiss this issue of abortion, saying it is not as important as other issues such as unemployment, the dismal state of the economy and foreign policy. But this view is sorely mistaken. The right to life is fundamental, the sound basis of our whole political system. It is the litmus test by which God will judge us as a society and determine whether we will continue as a God-fearing people who enjoy his favor and blessing, or whether disaster will overtake us instead. God doesn't have to send specific calamities in order to express his wrath. He can simply allow us to go our own way without his protection and the consequences will be wrath enough.
In America today, life is under attack, marriage is under attack and truth is under attack. The attacking forces are very clever in disguising their program with the glamor of Hollywood and make it seem "cool." But cool it is not.
This year's vote is the most important vote in the history of our nation, one that may well decide whether or not our nation survives. Think long and hard before you vote and, more importantly, pray long and hard before you vote. Remember the words of the Psalm:
Forty years I endured that generation.This last stanza from Psalm 95 is recited everyday by many Catholics throughout the world, especially religious priests, brothers and sisters, as the closing lines of the Invitatory to the Divine Office, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours.
I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways."
So I swore in my anger, "They shall not enter into my rest."
In America we are now approaching on January 22, 2013, the 40th anniversary of the famous Supreme Court abortion decision called Roe vs. Wade. This decision, which struck down certain state laws prohibiting abortion, was a seminal moment in the American journey and has become a key dividing issue in American politics. It is perhaps the one issue that seems to most define the difference between right and left in America. Religious authorities such as Pope John Paul II have cited abortion as one of the main platforms in the culture of death, and the supposed right to an abortion has been a defining plank in the platform of the Democratic Party for decades. Thus, in the culture war of life vs. death, the Democratic Party has placed itself squarely on the side of the culture of death. In fact, it is now almost redundant to say that if you vote for a Democrat, you are voting for abortion. The Pro-Life Democrat is certainly an endangered species, if not already practically extinct.
I fear that if Barack Obama is re-elected president, the words of the Psalm will indeed come true for America and the wrath of God will be upon us. The reason for this fear is that there are several aging liberal justices on the Supreme Court who will almost certainly retire or die during the next four years. Breyer and Ginsburg, both Clinton appointees, may retire. If Obama is re-elected, they will be replaced with liberals and any hope for overturning Roe vs. Wade will be gone for perhaps another generation.
We still have an opportunity on Nov. 6 of this year to turn back the tide of the culture of death of which abortion is the quintessential, representative issue.
President Obama is the most anti-life -- and anti-truth -- president in the history of our country. His opposition to Illinois Bill S.B 1082 amended by Amendment 1 shows just how anti-life he is. His and his campaign's attempts to spin, cover up and lie about his stance as a state senator have been exposed by FactCheck.org's article.
Some people dismiss this issue of abortion, saying it is not as important as other issues such as unemployment, the dismal state of the economy and foreign policy. But this view is sorely mistaken. The right to life is fundamental, the sound basis of our whole political system. It is the litmus test by which God will judge us as a society and determine whether we will continue as a God-fearing people who enjoy his favor and blessing, or whether disaster will overtake us instead. God doesn't have to send specific calamities in order to express his wrath. He can simply allow us to go our own way without his protection and the consequences will be wrath enough.
In America today, life is under attack, marriage is under attack and truth is under attack. The attacking forces are very clever in disguising their program with the glamor of Hollywood and make it seem "cool." But cool it is not.
This year's vote is the most important vote in the history of our nation, one that may well decide whether or not our nation survives. Think long and hard before you vote and, more importantly, pray long and hard before you vote. Remember the words of the Psalm:
Forty years I endured that generation.
I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways."
So I swore in my anger, "They shall not enter into my rest."
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Amateur Hour
President Obama is too busy spending time with Pimp with a Limp to pay much attention to those pesky security briefings that his intel people provide. Just give him a few bullets and a good teleprompter feed. Why does all this presidential stuff have to be so damn stiff and boring. Let's get on with the real excitement, the Hollywood glitz and the celebrity fund raising events.
Marc Steyn's article on the amateur hour in the oval office -- I mean on the road, since he is hardly ever in the oval office.
Marc Steyn's article on the amateur hour in the oval office -- I mean on the road, since he is hardly ever in the oval office.
Whistling Past the Graveyard
The Obama Administration's attempt to say that this conflagration in the Middle East is just outrage over the film and not anti-Americanism per se, is utter nonsense. Very little of the graffiti scrawled on walls near our embassies even mentioned the film, except indirectly by saying that we Americans have insulted their prophet. Most of it was sheer unadulterated hatred towards America and the west.
What may I ask, does Germany have to do with this film by an American crank?
The details of the assassination of our ambassador by Al-Quaeda-like armed militants will most likely support the assessment that this attack was well planned and carried out under the cover of a supposedly spontaneous protest against the film. Details are already getting out that some members of the consulate staff were killed or injured at or near a safe house. Now how did these militants know about that safe house? And how was it that they were apparently prepared and waiting with grenade launchers and other arms near the safe house when the American convoy showed up? Wasn't very safe, I guess. Reports are also now circulating that there had been several previous attempts to attack the consulate in Benghazi.
And the timing of September 11? Is that a coincidence? Apparently, the supposedly outrageous film had been on YouTube since July. How come no "outrage" before then? This was all clearly orchestrated to ignite and incite the Muslim masses on 9/11/2012 and, in the case of Benghazi, to provide fog-of-war cover -- in this case fog of civil unrest -- to hide the murderous attack of the terrorists.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi called for a million-man demonstration on Friday but then called it off at the last minute. Perhaps he received a phone call from the US State Department threatening to cut off all aid to Egypt. I hope so. I hope the State Department did that.
While the left was giddy with glee about the prospects of "Arab Spring" and thought it proof that if you are nice to the Muslim world, they will suddenly embrace you and your values of liberty with open arms, more sober minds were more cautious. Over a year ago Dennis Prager wrote and article about this.
There he gives 8 reasons to be skeptical about the "Arab Spring" that was just beginning. Reason #4 is this: "Neither liberty nor tolerance has roots in the Arab world."
But the left-leaning main stream media has ignored this, of course, and now we are seeing that Prager and others were right.
Prager's Reason #8 was: "Egypt is saturated with Jew and Israel hatred." The hatred of Jews is about as old as Islam itself and the hatred of Zionists in general and Israel in particular stems from the early part of the 20th century. Obama's Mideast Policy could fairly be summed up with a slight parody on Woodrow Wilson's view of WWI: To make the Mideast safe for Jew haters.
From a BBC article posted today: "According to a June 2012 Pew survey, just 15% of those in Muslim countries held a favourable opinion of the United States, compared to 25% in 2009."
Another maxim that seems to characterize the naivete of President Obama is that "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Probably the biggest let down for the young Egyptians who were perhaps inspired by Mr. Obama's Cairo speech, was that this president is great at giving speeches but much less than great when it comes to following up with action. Now the Muslim Brotherhood has run roughshod over the secular idealists in Eqypt and Mr. Obama is nowhere to be seen. So much for democracy!
All of this is very reminiscent of Iran in 1979, when Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the UN Ambassador Andrew Young praised Khomeini's "revolution." An analysis of US naivete towards Iran during their "revolution" is giving in this article.
Marc Steyn says:
What may I ask, does Germany have to do with this film by an American crank?
The details of the assassination of our ambassador by Al-Quaeda-like armed militants will most likely support the assessment that this attack was well planned and carried out under the cover of a supposedly spontaneous protest against the film. Details are already getting out that some members of the consulate staff were killed or injured at or near a safe house. Now how did these militants know about that safe house? And how was it that they were apparently prepared and waiting with grenade launchers and other arms near the safe house when the American convoy showed up? Wasn't very safe, I guess. Reports are also now circulating that there had been several previous attempts to attack the consulate in Benghazi.
And the timing of September 11? Is that a coincidence? Apparently, the supposedly outrageous film had been on YouTube since July. How come no "outrage" before then? This was all clearly orchestrated to ignite and incite the Muslim masses on 9/11/2012 and, in the case of Benghazi, to provide fog-of-war cover -- in this case fog of civil unrest -- to hide the murderous attack of the terrorists.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi called for a million-man demonstration on Friday but then called it off at the last minute. Perhaps he received a phone call from the US State Department threatening to cut off all aid to Egypt. I hope so. I hope the State Department did that.
While the left was giddy with glee about the prospects of "Arab Spring" and thought it proof that if you are nice to the Muslim world, they will suddenly embrace you and your values of liberty with open arms, more sober minds were more cautious. Over a year ago Dennis Prager wrote and article about this.
There he gives 8 reasons to be skeptical about the "Arab Spring" that was just beginning. Reason #4 is this: "Neither liberty nor tolerance has roots in the Arab world."
But the left-leaning main stream media has ignored this, of course, and now we are seeing that Prager and others were right.
Prager's Reason #8 was: "Egypt is saturated with Jew and Israel hatred." The hatred of Jews is about as old as Islam itself and the hatred of Zionists in general and Israel in particular stems from the early part of the 20th century. Obama's Mideast Policy could fairly be summed up with a slight parody on Woodrow Wilson's view of WWI: To make the Mideast safe for Jew haters.
From a BBC article posted today: "According to a June 2012 Pew survey, just 15% of those in Muslim countries held a favourable opinion of the United States, compared to 25% in 2009."
Another maxim that seems to characterize the naivete of President Obama is that "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Probably the biggest let down for the young Egyptians who were perhaps inspired by Mr. Obama's Cairo speech, was that this president is great at giving speeches but much less than great when it comes to following up with action. Now the Muslim Brotherhood has run roughshod over the secular idealists in Eqypt and Mr. Obama is nowhere to be seen. So much for democracy!
All of this is very reminiscent of Iran in 1979, when Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the UN Ambassador Andrew Young praised Khomeini's "revolution." An analysis of US naivete towards Iran during their "revolution" is giving in this article.
The tendency toward wishful thinking continued even after the revolution in February 1979. Whereas Tehran increasingly viewed the U.S. through the darkly hued optic of its paranoid phantasms and loudly demonized America as its Enemy No. 1, Washington plugged its ears and looked back through rose-colored glasses. The American Representative to the UN, Andrew Young, described Khomeini as “some kind of saint,” while National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was favorably disposed toward him, since he seemed to Brzezinski to represented an effective barrier against Soviet influence. “We can get along with Khomeini!” was the motto in that summer of 1979.Will we never learn from history?
Marc Steyn says:
The 400-strong assault force in Benghazi showed up with RPGs and mortars: that's not a spontaneous movie protest; that's an act of war, and better planned and executed than the dying superpower's response to it. Clinton and Dempsey are, to put it mildly, misleading the American people when they suggest otherwise.
One can understand why they might do this, given the fiasco in Libya. The men who organized this attack knew the ambassador would be at the consulate in Benghazi rather than at the embassy in Tripoli. How did that happen? They knew when he had been moved from the consulate to a "safe house," and switched their attentions accordingly.
How did that happen? The U.S. government lost track of its ambassador for 10 hours. How did that happen? Perhaps, when they've investigated Mitt Romney's press release for another three or four weeks, the court eunuchs of the American media might like to look into some of these fascinating questions, instead of leaving the only interesting reporting on an American story to the foreign press.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Economic Analysis: 2011 -2012
This post from CNN Money and Fortune is very instructive. The economic news that came out Friday is very bad. You have to look closer at the numbers to see what they really mean. Compared to a year ago, they are very frightening.
Also frightening to me personally is the fact that Facebook is actually causing my post linking to this article to disappear after several attempted posts. What is going on? Sure feels like censorship.
Update: Finally solved the problem by killing the browser and restarting a new session. Now the posts are showing up. Sorry, FB, shouldn't have jumped the gun and accused you!
Also frightening to me personally is the fact that Facebook is actually causing my post linking to this article to disappear after several attempted posts. What is going on? Sure feels like censorship.
Update: Finally solved the problem by killing the browser and restarting a new session. Now the posts are showing up. Sorry, FB, shouldn't have jumped the gun and accused you!
Saturday, September 8, 2012
The Godless Party
To be sure, the patriotic, flag-waving nationalism of American conservatives may remind us of the jingoistic, nationalistic tendencies of the Nazis, and we may be tempted to think that conservatives desire to use the power of the state to suppress those opposed to their ideas. But this once again is a straw man attempt to paint conservatives as Nazis because they share something in common with Nazis, namely, flag-waving. But their is nothing wrong with patriotism and it is patently false to assert that conservatives want to use the power of the state to repress anybody. On the contrary, it is primarily folks on the right who are sounding the alarm about how the current regime is using the power of the state to suppress freedom of speech and freedom of religion, for instance.
Perhaps one could cite the Patriot Act as an example of how the right would propose to use power to suppress the rights of people. But the intent of Patriot Act was to protect the rights and the very lives of Americans from those like Islamic Jihadists who would take away both rights and lives. That is a very proper function of the state -- to protect the rights and lives of its people. Naturally, one has to be on guard that such legitimate functions are not abused and allowed to become a slippery slope downward toward a totalitarian state. That's why we have legitimate debate about such things in this country. But to assert that the Patriot Act is an example of how conservatives exhibit Nazi tendencies is a real stretch of the truth. On the contrary, conservatives are very concerned about the fascist tendencies of Jihadists, something that is really not to be denied.
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