America’s Obama Obsession - Anatomy of a Passing Hysteria

Victor Davis Hanson

For 30 months the nation has been in the grip of a certain Obama obsession, immune to countervailing facts, unwilling to face reality, and loath to break the spell. But like all trances, the fit is passing, and we the patient are beginning to appreciate how the stupor came upon us, why it lifted, and what its consequences have been.

HOW OBAMA WON

Barack Obama was elected rather easily because, in perfect-storm fashion, five separate trends coalesced last autumn.

1) Obama was eloquent, young, charismatic — and African-American. He thus offered voters a sense of personal and collective redemption, as well as appealing to the longing for another JFK New Frontier figure. An image, not necessarily reality, trumped all.

2) After the normal weariness with eight years of an incumbent party and the particular unhappiness with Bush, the public was amenable to an antithesis. Bush was to be scapegoat, and Obama the beginning of the catharsis.

3) Obama ran as both a Clintonite centrist and a no-red-state/no-blue-state healer who had transcended bitter partisanship. That assurance allowed voters to believe that his occasional talk of big change was more cosmetic than radical.

4) John McCain ran a weak campaign that neither energized his base nor appealed to crossover independents. McCain turned off conservatives; many failed to give money, and some even stayed home on election day. Meanwhile, the media and centrists who used to idolize McCain’s non-conservative, maverick status found Obama the more endearing non-conservative maverick.

5) The September 2008 financial panic turned voters off Wall Street and the wealthy, and allowed them to connect unemployment and their depleted home equity and 401(k) retirement plans with incumbent Republicans. In contrast, they assumed that Obama, as the anti-Bush, would not do more bailouts, more stimuli, and more big borrowing.

Take away any one of those factors, and Obama might well have lost. Imagine what might have happened had Obama been a dreary old white guy like John Kerry; or had Bush’s approvals been over 50 percent; or had Obama run on the platform he is now governing on; or had McCain crafted a dynamic campaign; or had the panic occurred in January 2009 rather than September 2008. Then the trance would have passed, and Obama, the Chicago community organizer and three-year veteran of the U.S. Senate, would have probably lost his chance at remaking America.

OBAMA'S ASSUMPTIONS

I note all this at length because Obama seems to act as if this right-center country — one that polls oppositely to his positions on most of the major issues (deficits, spending, nationalized health care, homeland security, Guantanamo, cap-and-trade, etc.) — has given him a mandate for a degree of change not seen in nearly 80 years.

Apparently, Team Obama figured that with sizable majorities in both the House and the Senate, Obama would snap his fingers, Congress daily would pass bills redefining America, and Obama would stay in perpetual campaign mode to hope and change the country to accept his agenda. Governing would be like campaigning, as audiences fainted hearing the details of a 1,500-page health-care bill or of ever more sins from America’s past.

But, after just a few months in office, that proved not to be the case. Just as a number of planets had to line up precisely to allow an inexperienced hard-left ideologue to be elected president, so there would have had to be a similar configuration to allow him to govern successfully.

BITTER TRUTHS

1) Obama had to match his unity rhetoric with brotherly action. In fact, he has done the opposite. At one time or another, Obama and his supporters have, rather scurrilously, insulted doctors, insurers, the police, tea-partiers and town-hallers, opponents of his health-care plan, non-compliant members of the media, and a host of other groups as either greedy, dishonest, treasonous, unpatriotic, moblike, racist, or in general worthy of disrespect.

Fewer and fewer Americans now believe that Obama — after just nine months of governance — is a uniter. In Obama’s world, doctors carve out children’s tonsils for profit, racist morons rant at legislators about losing their private health care, and trillions in borrowed money must be paid back by the greedy rich whose capital was unearned in the first place.

When his base supporters lambaste him for softness, they are lamenting his inability to become an effective partisan — not a lack of partisanship in general. In surreal fashion, liberals demand that the ideologue Obama become more ideological precisely at the time his ideologically driven agenda is souring millions of non-ideological Americans.

2) His opposition is no longer ossified, but decentralized and grass roots. One of the oddest proofs of that statement is the sudden leftist furor at tea parties, town halls, the media, dissent, and free speech. As long as Obama was opposed by calcified Republicans in Congress, there was no real danger to him. But once the opposition proved populist, panicked liberal elites started demonizing populism — and Obama now finds himself opposed to the popular grievance-mongering that was once the mother’s milk of our Chicago organizer’s existence.

3) Obama campaigned on the notion that even if voters might not like his policies, they most assuredly would like him. Even that spell is now lifting. The more the American public gets to know Barack Obama, the less they find him appealing.

On matters racial, their campaign-season unease with his connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his toss-offs like “typical white person,” and his stereotyping of rural Pennsylvanians has not been allayed; rather, it has been amplified by Eric Holder’s Justice Department, Obama’s own statement that the Cambridge police acted “stupidly” in arresting Professor Gates, and the use of the race card by prominent Democrats from the likes of Rep. Charles Rangel to Gov. David Paterson of New York.

Much of the newly stirred public suddenly assumes two things from the Obama administration: that the president himself will periodically say something racially insensitive or unwise; and that his supporters will call opponents of his policies racist. If we have wearied of all that in nine months, think what four years of it will do to the public mood.

More here

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How to deal with an angry Leftist

From a conservative bookstore proprietor

A woman came in last night looking for a book by some feminist author that I had never heard of before, no big surprise there. So, I look it up in our search engine and the computer says that we might have it in the store. MIGHT have it, not WILL. So I tell her that I can check our inventory and see if it’s there and show her the section it would be in.

“No, that’s fine, I’ll find it myself. I’m going to look around a bit first”

Ten minutes later, as I’m showing another customer to 1984 I run across her in Literature looking around and she barges in to the conversation I’m having with my customer and sneers “Where is the section on Women’s rights?” I tell her again “It’s upstairs and I’ll be happy to take you to it as soon as I am done here.”

“No, I can fine it myself.” Note the lack of a ‘thank you’.

Sooo, as you can probably guess, I end up helping another customer find the Christianity section, which is upstairs, and as we get to the top of the escalator that same woman is standing in the middle of Independent Readers YELLING “Is there SOMEONE ACTUALLY WORKING here who can HELP ME!!!!”

Once again (because we were slammed with customers) I offer to show her the section and she is bitching the whole way about how the women’s studies section should be near the front of the store because it’s so important and how this author’s book should be on display because she’s doing a signing tour in California right now and she’s a NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST!!

Well, we get there and we have no copies. She flips her sh*t over it and repeats how wonderful this writer is and how we should all be required to read her crap and then says “Why don’t you have 900 copies here?!?! You have plenty of room! Her book should be displayed all over the store to inspire women everywhere about what they can do!”

I had to. I know it was wrong but what can you do when the set up is that perfect? “Well, ma’am, we were going to but we’re saving that spot for Sarah Palin.”

SOURCE

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Where Are the Defenders of Capitalism?

When the “New Deal” is taught in public schools around the nation, students are told that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s big government programs were there to “save capitalism.” And when George W. Bush pushed for bailouts and stimuli at the end of his term, he stated, “I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.”

Now, Americans have elected a president who has taken the stance that private companies have failed at healthcare, pollution control, automobile manufacturing, banking, and fiscal solvency during this recession. And Barack Obama has threatened a government healthcare takeover, costly cap-and-tax restrictions, and draconian bank regulations along with more bailouts and trillion-dollar, deficit exploding stimuli.

So now the left and Michael Moore are helping Obama bury the free-market system by asking rhetorically, with a clear alternative in mind, “What is the price that America pays for its love of Capitalism?” But the real question should be: “Where are the defenders of capitalism and free-markets?”

Capitalism assumes that markets have “free competition.” That means for a business to succeed, it does so without the help or hindrance of government coercion.

Many of those who blame capitalism for this recession use businessmen and capitalists as their scapegoat. But the truth is, these powerful individuals are anything but champions for the system that has made them rich.

For example, in last week’s Slate column Eliot Spitzer wrote "The chamber [of commerce] remains an unabashed voice for the libertarian worldview that caused the most catastrophic economic meltdown since the Great Depression.” When the truth is, as Timothy P. Carney at the Washington Examiner reports, “The Chamber lobbied for the Great Wall Street Bailout, lobbied for the $787 billion stimulus bill, and supported a bigger Cash-for-Clunkers.”

The unprecedented massive new growth in government has changed “market-entrepreneurs” into “political-entrepreneurs.” In other words, money-hungry businessmen can do far better lobbying a few politicians with the power to allocate billions (now trillions), then trying to please millions of private individuals who each may spend thousands.

In the past, the champions of capitalism become winners by satisfying consumers with products that people want to buy. The apologists for the new big government system become winners by satisfying politicians by delivering bribes and campaign contributions (but, I repeat myself) that directly result in votes.

In short, the real culprit is not true capitalism; it is the political “pay-to-play” perversion of capitalism. The reason big government destroys productivity and wealth is that it causes efficient resources and capital to be shifted towards political favoritism and lobbying. Every single dollar that is spent taking a congressman out to dinner or a junket (excuse me, “fact-finding trip”), could have been used to expand production or create a new and exciting product.

During the Great Depression it was Objectivist Ayn Rand and economist Ludwig von Mises that stepped up to the plate to defend capitalism. So, where are our defenders of capitalism today? Well, you needn’t bother sending Diogenes to Wall Street.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

I have put up a fair bit up on my Paralipomena blog recently, for those who find what I post there interesting. I don't call myself a Greenie but I must say that my latest post there has got me fuming. I also wonder whether anyone looks at my Homepage (Backup here). Some of the links on it have been dead for over a year and nobody has mentioned it to me so I gather that it must be pretty boring. Anyway I have just updated all the links on it (I think and hope) so it is at least fully usable again.

Reality: It's a bitch: "The discussion began with our Left-leaning friend saying that we need stringent government regulation of, well just about everything, in order to protect the Little Guy from rapacious Big Boys with lots of power. To do this we had to give the State lots and lots of power to counter-balance the Big Guys out to hurt the Little Guy. It's a pretty standard argument from the Left. My reply was what I would call Libertarianism 101. Simply put, I argued that history has shown that when the State is given such powers it is rarely used to protect Little Guy. Instead Mr. Politician conspires with Big Guy to use the new fangled powers in order to make life for Mr. Politician and Big Guy better at the expense of Little Guy."

The trouble with unions: "The underlying trouble with unionization is its ability to capture government, particulary when that industry is so protectected by the government. Ironically many on the left - often quite rightly - disparage the relationship between big business and government, but they also need to accept that many unions behave no better. The problem in both instances is not the survival and expansionist interests of business and unions, but the power of the government to regulate and discriminate."

And the worst airport in the world is in Delhi? No: In London: "Heathrow airport has again been voted the worst airport in the world, according to a global poll of airline passengers. The survey of members of Priority Pass, the world's leading independent airport lounge programme, included responses from 160 countries. The respondents to the annual survey have taken, on average, 17 flights in the past year. It is a repeat of last year's result when Heathrow was still recovering from the ill-fated opening of Terminal 5, which saw passengers suffer lengthy flight delays and large numbers of lost bags. “We are working very hard to make every passenger's journey to or from better than the last one, and these figures demonstrate the we are making good progress,” said the airport's chief operating office Mike Brown. “However, the challenge is continuously to raise standards and through our long-term investment strategy, which sees £1 billion spent on facilities and services every year, we are rebuilding an airport of which the UK can be rightly proud." Charles de Gaulle airport, in Paris, was voted second worst, followed by Los Angeles, Frankfurt International and Miami International. Singapore Changi, a perennial favourite, finished top, followed closely by Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok. Amsterdam Schiphol was the pick of Europe's airports."

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc. He has a lot to say this time about the appearance of the British National Party on BBC TV.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Hate Crimes Bill passes, eroding civil liberties and constitutional double-jeopardy safeguards

Yesterday, Congress approved a measure to dramatically expand the existing federal hate crimes law, by adding it to an unrelated defense appropriations bill. The measure would expand current law to cover virtually all hate crimes already covered by state law (both by adding gender, sexual orientation, disability, and transgender characteristics to a law originally designed to protect racial minorities, and by getting rid of the requirement that a hate crime affect federally-protected activities to be prosecuted in federal rather than state court.)

The measure was opposed by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on double-jeopardy grounds. As I previously explained at length, the bill’s sponsors seek to use it to reprosecute people in federal court who have already been found innocent of hate crimes in state court, taking advantage of the “dual sovereignty” loophole in constitutional protections against double jeopardy. Civil libertarians like Nat Hentoff and Wendy Kaminer also object to the bill on double-jeopardy grounds. Backers of the bill, like the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Commissioner Michael Yaki, supported the bill partly as a way of trying all over again people who were either found not guilty, or who were convicted only of ordinary crimes, while being acquitted of hate-crimes (like the teenagers acquitted of hate crimes in the Shenandoah incident, and the California case of Joseph Silva and George Silva).

Such re-prosecutions can be an enormous waste of money, and grossly unfair to the people who are reprosecuted, driving them into bankruptcy to pay lawyers to represent them all over again when they have already been found innocent in state court after an expensive trial. When the government re-prosecutes someone, it gains an enormous tactical advantage over the defendant from using the prior prosecution as a test-run, even if the defendant is innocent — making a guilty verdict possible even if the defendant is in fact innocent.

The bill contains speech-related provisions designed to allow prosecution of people who are not violent and do not intend to cause hate crimes, but whose speech inadvertently incites a hate crime by some violent, bigoted nut. For now, courts are likely to block such prosecutions on First Amendment grounds, under the Supreme Court’s Brandenburg decision banning prosecutions of people whose speech unintentionally incites violence or other illegal acts (and the federal appeals court ruling in White v. Lee faithfully applying that principle to speech that incites violations of federal civil-rights and anti-discrimination statutes). But if the ideological composition of the Supreme Court changes substantially, it is conceivable (although far from certain) that that could change. Although the provisions will probably prove unsuccessful in censoring speech, it speaks volumes about the mindset of the hate-crimes bill’s backers that they would even try.

The bill also raises serious constitutional federalism issues under the Supreme Court’s Morrison decision, as I explained earlier.

Passage of the bill was aided by lousy reporting, in which journalists, like Reuters, depicted the bill as simply a harmless measure to add sexual orientation to the list of protected characteristics covered by the federal hate-crimes law, ignoring its many other, far more important (and dangerous) changes to federal hate-crimes law.

Many supporters of the hate crimes bill want to allow those found innocent to be reprosecuted in federal court. As one supporter put it, “the federal hate crimes bill serves as a vital safety valve in case a state hate-crimes prosecution fails.” The claim that the justice system has “failed” when a jury returns a not-guilty verdict is truly scary and contrary to the constitutional presumption of innocence and the right to trial by jury.

But it is a view widely shared among supporters of the hate-crimes bill. Syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum pointed out in 1998 that Janet Reno, Clinton’s Attorney General, backed the bill as a way of providing a federal “forum” for prosecution if prosecutors fail to obtain a conviction “in the state court.”

Supporters of the hate crimes bill also see it as a way to prosecute people even in cases where the evidence is so weak that state prosecutors have decided not to prosecute. Attorney General Eric Holder has pushed for the hate crimes bill as a way to prosecute people whom state prosecutors refuse to prosecute because of a lack of evidence. To justify broadening federal hate-crimes law, he cited three examples where state prosecutors refused to prosecute, citing a lack of evidence. In each, a federal jury acquitted the accused, finding them not guilty.

As law professor Gail Heriot notes, “Some have even called for federal prosecution of the Duke University lacrosse team members –despite strong evidence of their innocence.” Advocates of a broader federal hate-crimes law have pointed to the Duke lacrosse case as an example of where federal prosecutors should have stepped in and prosecuted the accused players — even though the state prosecution in that case was dropped because the defendants were actually innocent, as North Carolina’s attorney general conceded (and DNA evidence showed), and were falsely accused of rape by a woman with a history of violence (including trying to run over someone with her car) and making false accusations.

The Obama administration supports the hate-crimes bill, which it used as a wedge issue in the 2008 election.

The Obama administration recently urged restrictions on hate speech and blasphemy at the United Nations, joining in calls by left-wing lawyers and conservative Islamic countries to treat such speech, protected by the First Amendment under Supreme Court rulings, as a human-rights violation. Religious minorities have often been persecuted for “blasphemy” in Islamic countries for disagreeing with Islam, criticizing the prophet Mohammed, or interpreting Islam’s holy book, the Koran, differently than the majority of Muslims do. In the U.S., college hate-speech codes have been used to discipline students for criticizing affirmative action, defending the death penalty against racism charges, and calling homosexuality immoral. In Canada and Britain, hate speech laws have been used to punish religious criticism of Scientology and homosexuality.

SOURCE

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The Chicago Way

The Chamber of Commerce is only the latest target of the Chicago Gang in the White House

When Barack Obama promised to deliver "a new kind of politics" to Washington, most folk didn't picture Rahm Emanuel with a baseball bat. These days, the capital would make David Mamet, who wrote Malone's memorable movie dialogue, proud.

A White House set on kneecapping its opponents isn't, of course, entirely new. (See: Nixon) What is a little novel is the public and bare-knuckle way in which the Obama team is waging these campaigns against the other side.

In recent weeks the Windy City gang added a new name to their list of societal offenders: the Chamber of Commerce. For the cheek of disagreeing with Democrats on climate and financial regulation, it was reported the Oval Office will neuter the business lobby. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett slammed the outfit as "old school," and warned CEOs they'd be wise to seek better protection.

That was after the president accused the business lobby of false advertising. And that recent black eye for the Chamber (when several companies, all with Democratic ties, quit in a huff)—think that happened on its own? ("Somebody messes with me, I'm gonna mess with him! Somebody steals from me, I'm gonna say you stole. Not talk to him for spitting on the sidewalk. Understand!?")

The Chamber can at least take comfort in crowds. Who isn't on the business end of the White House's sawed-off shotgun? First up were Chrysler bondholders who—upon balking at a White House deal that rewarded only unions—were privately threatened and then publicly excoriated by the president.

Next, every pharmaceutical, hospital and insurance executive in the nation was held out as a prime obstacle to health-care nirvana. And that was their reward for cooperating. When Humana warned customers about cuts to Medicare under "reform," the White House didn't bother to complain. They went straight for the gag order. When the insurance industry criticized the Baucus health bill, the response was this week's bill to strip them of their federal antitrust immunity. ("I want you to find this nancy-boy . . . I want him dead! I want his family dead! I want his house burned to the ground!")

This summer Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl criticized stimulus dollars. Obama cabinet secretaries sent letters to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. One read: "if you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to the state, as Senator Kyl suggests," let us know. The Arizona Republic wrote: "Let's not mince words here: The White House is intent on shutting Kyl up . . . using whatever means necessary." When Sens. Robert Bennett and Lamar Alexander took issue with the administration's czars, the White House singled them out, by name, on its blog. Sen. Alexander was annoyed enough to take to the floor this week to warn the White House off an "enemies list."

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor? Targeted for the sin of being a up-and-coming conservative voice. Though even Mr. Cantor was shoved aside in August so the Chicago gang could target at least seven Democratic senators, via the president's campaign arm, Organizing for America, for not doing more on health care. ("What I'm saying is: What are you prepared to do??!!")

And don't forget Fox News Channel ("nothing but a lot of talk and a badge!"). Fox, like MSNBC, has its share of commentators. But according to Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn, the entire network is "opinion journalism masquerading as news." Many previous White House press officers, when faced with criticism, try this thing called outreach. The Chicago crowd has boycotted Fox altogether.

What makes these efforts notable is that they are not the lashing out of a frustrated political operation. They are calculated campaigns, designed to create bogeymen, to divide the opposition, to frighten players into compliance. The White House sees a once-in-a-generation opportunity on health care and climate. It is obsessed with winning these near-term battles, and will take no prisoners. It knows that CEOs are easily intimidated and (Fox News ratings aside) it is getting some of its way. Besides, roughing up conservatives gives the liberal blogosphere something to write about besides Guantanamo.

The Oval Office might be more concerned with the long term. It is 10 months in; more than three long years to go. The strategy to play dirty now and triangulate later is risky. One day, say when immigration reform comes due, the Chamber might come in handy. That is if the Chamber isn't too far gone.

White House targets also aren't dopes. The corporate community is realizing that playing nice doesn't guarantee safety. The health executives signed up for reform, only to remain the president's political piñatas. It surely grates that the unions—now running their own ads against ObamaCare—haven't been targeted. If the choice is cooperate and get nailed, or oppose and possibly win, some might take that bet.

There's also the little fact that many Americans voted for this president in thrall to his vow to bring the country together. It's hard to do that amid gunfire, and voters might just notice.

SOURCE

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Moore Hypocrisy and Hype

By Meegan Cornforth

In his latest celluloid uppercut to the upper crust, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore examines the Home of the Brave to find it has been repossessed and its occupants turfed heartlessly out onto squalid Main Street USA.

Capitalism: A Love Story looks at America's affair with capitalism and suggests that the global financial crisis should be the catalyst to end this relationship once and for all. Moore even concludes the film with the defining statement: Capitalism is evil! (In case there was any doubt, Moore's family priest makes the same hellfire and brimstone pronouncement earlier in the film. How impartial!)

While Capitalism makes some good points about the inconsistency and incompatibility of free market philosophy with government bailouts of industry, and the need for greater transparency and accountability of the financial industry, it offers an unashamedly biased and inaccurate view of capitalism.

For example, it raises but fails to properly address the issue of greed. Moore chooses easy targets to focus on: fat cats in power with little concern or empathy for Joe Average. Exposed are mercenaries such as the Condo Vulture who profit from home foreclosures, and the judge who receives kickbacks from a privately run youth detention centre for reaching inmate quotas. These real-life snapshots of wicked, caricature capitalists are indeed obscene, but they are not examples of true capitalism. Corporatism and abuse of power are not consistent with the principles of free and fair trade. Moore was recently challenged and flummoxed on this very point by a libertarian college student.

What Moore does not acknowledge is the individual greed that is endemic in Western society - the greed that caused countless sub-primers to buy McMansions they couldn't afford - the greed that has driven a credit-backed spending spree on status consumer goods. Moore chooses to skirt the issue of personal responsibility and the film is the poorer for it.

While railing against capitalist `brainwashing,' Moore has the hypocrisy to cheer for socialism in an extremely blinkered fashion, effectively turning his film into an instrument of socialist propaganda.

However, the most alarming aspect of the film is a throwaway line - hidden in emotive words about the right to universal health care, education and housing - about the state's right to seize control of property and the means of production. This from a filmmaker supposedly championing democracy.

Perhaps Moore's next film should be set behind the Iron Curtain - Socialism: A Love Story Gone Wrong.

The above is part of a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated October 23. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590. Telephone ph: +61 2 9438 4377 or fax: +61 2 9439 7310

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ELSEWHERE

The myth of the multiplier: "As appealing as the Keynesian story sounds, many economists have long doubted it. In 1991, looking across 100 countries, Robert Barro of Harvard presented historical evidence that high government spending actually hurts economies in the long run by crowding out private spending and shifting resources to the uses preferred by politicians rather than consumers. For a dollar of government spending, we end up seeing less than a dollar of growth. Can long-term poison be short-term medicine? Even in the short run, if there's a big decline in the demand for workers, why should that alone cause mass unemployment? If all those workers really want to work, why won't wages just fall until all the workers have jobs? That's how markets end a glut, whether it's a glut of employees or a glut of blue jeans: with lower prices. If recessions really are caused by a fall in demand (and nothing else), why don't wages fall enough to keep people from losing their jobs?"

How to liberate an economy: "Brian Carney and Isaac Getz’s Freedom, Inc. is a timely book. It’s also countercyclical and somewhat counterintuitive. After all, most of today’s writing about economics and business is haunted by the current crisis: nearly every author and commentator expects that either more or less government intervention will bring the economy out of its difficulties. But Carney and Getz remind us that without well-managed enterprises, there would be no economy at all. Crisis or no crisis, the engine of economic growth has always been, and will always remain, entrepreneurs. Nations without entrepreneurs — whether they drive them out with excessive taxes and regulations, or in more extreme cases, suppress, exile, or kill them — never reach prosperity. One can often ascertain the condition of a nation’s economy by assessing the cultural, legal, fiscal, and social status of its entrepreneurial class.”

Stop blaming racism for black parents’ failure: "Growing youth violence in the United States will not be resolved until we find the moral courage to address the racial issues that underlie it. During a Chicago school visit earlier this month to the site where a black honor student was beaten to death by a mob of black students, Attorney General Eric Holder stated that growing youth violence in America is not just ‘a black problem,’ but a problem for all races. The trouble with this statement is that it is statistically untrue. Youth violence may not be solely a black problem, but it is primarily a black problem. … The question is not whether young blacks, particularly males, get involved in violent incidents more frequently than other races. The question is why.”

A Nobel Prize for showing that freedom works: "Pundits and politicians act as if government can solve almost any problem. At the slightest hint of trouble, the ruling class reflexively assumes that knowledgeable, wise and public-spirited government regulators are capable of riding to the rescue. This certainly is the guiding philosophy of the Obama administration. So how remarkable it is that this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in economics was shared by Elinor Ostrom, whose life’s work demonstrates that politicians and bureaucrats are not nearly as good at solving problems as regular people.”

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Descendant of the organ of the Soviet Communist party points to similarities between Obama and Hitler

The writer clearly views Obama with some contempt so the article is mocking but it does point to some real similarities

Here in the U.S. there has been some comparisons made between President Obama and Hitler. Usually in reference to the idea of Fascism. Some have labeled this comparison as wrong and Racist in Nature. But it appears that this "Label" is not Preventing the online Russian News Source, Pravda, from literally Comparing Obama to Hitler. Here is part of the Article:

"Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini were very popular at the time, but they were not presented with the Nobel Prize. Yet, they were nominated for same.

If we look down the history from 1900 to 2009, we will find only one person who was extremely popular and talked about like President Obama. That person is Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party and chancellor of Germany.

Despite both men’s popularity; there are more scary similarities between these two leaders: Both Obama and Hitler share similar ancestries: Obama German, Hitler Austrian. Both leaders had been surrounded by many controversies concerning birth certificate, citizenship and religion.

Both had the father figure issues. Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old and they divorced in 1964. His father returned to Kenya and saw him only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982. Hitler had a troubled relationship with his tradition-minded authoritarian father, who frequently beat him.

During their teenage years both leaders had problems with alcohol. Obama called the alcohol phase "greatest moral failure", Hitler called it “most humiliated experience in life”.

Both are unloved by the Jewish, for Hitler is well known why, for Obama, well, his victory in Presidential elections was not received with welcome in Israel.

Time magazine named Obama person of the year in 2008, Hitler in 1938.

Both had bestseller books: Obama had “Dreams of my Father” (memoir) and “the Audacity of Hope” (political convictions), Hitler had “Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in Volumes 1 and 2. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology.

Obama was influenced by Martin Luther King, Hitler by Martin Luther.

Both Obama and Hitler came to power during the recession-depression; Obama in 2009, Hitler in 1933.

Both are personality cult leaders, portrayed as saviors of political and economical depression; Obama as an American savior, Hitler as German. A cult of personality arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise.

Both are/were very gifted orators, having ability to attract great interest in their speeches. Both have/had hand gestures when giving a speech.

Both leaders had initiated health reforms, environmentalism and animal protection rights, among others.

Obama and his extravaganza occupied Europe and North Africa with their charm. Next in agenda is Asia Tour (Korea, China, Japan and Singapore). On the other side, Hitler’s military occupied Europe, North Africa, East and South East Asia, and Pacific Ocean. The question is: will Obama go by the Hitler’s path and visit Pacific Ocean in his next tour?

Talking about Hitler and Obama, one cannot avoid Hitler’s words without thinking of Obama;

"All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people”.

“The art of leadership . . . consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention. . . . The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category”.

“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach. By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise."

But this Comparison isn't Fair because Obama is nothing Like Hitler.... Hitler Was able to get the Olympics Brought to Berlin.... Whereas Obama Failed to Get the Olympics Brought to Chicago...

SOURCE

To read the full article in Pravda go here

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They’re ALL Communists

Back when people were tippy-toeing around the “s” word (“socialist”), and before he was elected, I called out Obama’s basic political inclinations for what they are - communist. Though plenty pooh-poohed this, and called it extreme or unsubstantiated, there was ample proof in Obama’s own writings, his interviews, and the political leanings of his mentors (Saul Alinsky, Frank Marshall Davis), his pastor (Jeremiah Wright) and his friends. It’s absurd to hear people say now that Obama is governing differently than he campaigned. If you think that, you weren’t listening.

But those who still harbor any doubts need only look at his team of “advisors.”

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn is the most recent Obamirror. In the address so many have been airing recently, she offered Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong as an inspiration to students who might need to “figure out how to do things that have never been done before.” Well, golly - a man who “figured out” how to murder 70 million Chinese certainly gets points for novelty.

Before Dunn, it was ousted “green jobs czar” Van Jones, a self-admitted communist.

“Science czar” John Holdren has written of the possible need (and constitutionality) of mandatory sterilization and forced abortions to forestall whatever crisis du jour he and his colleagues Paul and Anne Ehrlich were predicting back in the 1970s (The coming ice age! Catastrophic food shortages! Death to billions!)

“Regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein has argued in favor of government regulations banning hunting and eating meat, humans representing animals in court to protect their “rights,” government intervention to ensure that the “constitutional guarantee of free speech is adequately serving democratic goals,” (whatever those are) and “libertarian paternalism,” whereby government controls the choices you make. (Late comedian George Carlin would have had a field day with that oxymoronic suggestion.)

And none of this even mentions the laundry list of tax cheats.

These appointments are routinely characterized as amateurish leadership; examples of poor vetting. This would be laughable were it not so obviously false. How many of Obama’s advisors have to be exposed as communists and Marxists before some of the duller-witted among us admit not only that there is a pattern here, but that it is deliberate, and reflects the leanings of the White House?

Connect the dots, people. It’s not that Jones, Dunn, Sunstein et al were not properly vetted; it’s that they were. It’s not that Obama wasn’t familiar enough with their viewpoints; it’s that he was. These people were not chosen despite their views; they were chosen precisely because their views coincide with Obama’s own. If it walks like a communist, talks like a communist, and espouses state control in the name of “the people” like a communist, it’s a communist.

In February of this year, Newsweek giddily proclaimed, “We are all socialists now!” But Obama is no mere socialist. A socialist just wants your money; a communist wants complete control of your life. Some questioned the tone of my October 2008 column when I wrote it; how temperate it looks now in light of the first nine months of the Obama administration.

Obama has nationalized banks and car companies, fired the chief executive of a major corporation, appointed unaccountable ministers to set salaries for executives in private industry, castigated and threatened secured bondholders and run roughshod over their contract rights in favor of political patronage, spent nearly a trillion dollars in “stimulus” legislation that was loaded with payback and pork, proposed “cap-and-trade” legislation that will confiscate American wealth and transfer it to third world nations, many of whom are run by leftist dictators. And his pièce de résistance would be a government takeover of the entire health care industry in the United States, the crowbar by which government will be forced into every aspect of our lives from birth to death.

All of this has been accomplished by deceit, trumped up indignation, and demonization of private enterprise and business leaders – classic Marxist propaganda. But it is still not enough. Too many Americans still oppose Obama’s attempts to take over the American health care industry (54% according to the latest Rasmussen poll). Over 40% now “strongly disapprove” of Obama’s performance as President. Hundreds of thousands have turned out at “tea parties,” townhalls, and a march on Washington. Resistance is growing.

Obama knows that Americans who favor limited government, personal liberty, free market exchange, and individual responsibility opt to get their news and commentary outside the controlled Pravda press that has cast him as a “god,” and pitches his statist agenda adoringly. Thus, because every good communist knows you must have a stranglehold on the media, he has now launched a full-scale attack on Fox News, and other media that refuse to toe his party line.

This is right out of the Marxist-Leninist playbook, as is Obama’s methodology. In the style of history’s most talented dictators, Obama remains above the fray, having thugs, well-meaning but ignorant “social justice” Christians, leftist theorists, and political hacks to make his arguments and do his dirty work for him.

More HERE

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ELSEWHERE

Obama sees worst poll rating drop in 50 years: "The decline in Barack Obama's popularity since July has been the steepest of any president at the same stage of his first term for more than 50 years. Gallup recorded an average daily approval rating of 53 per cent for Mr Obama for the third quarter of the year, a sharp drop from the 62 per cent he recorded from April. His current approval rating - hovering just above the level that would make re-election an uphill struggle - is close to the bottom for newly-elected president. Mr Obama entered the White House with a soaring 78 per cent approval rating. The bad polling news came as Mr Obama returned to the campaign trail to prevent his Democratic party losing two governorships next month in states in which he defeated Senator John McCain in last November's election. Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey is in severe danger of defeat while Democrats are fast losing hope that Creigh Deeds can beat his Republican opponent in Virginia. Twin Democratic losses would be a major blow to Mr Obama's prestige." [People are realizing that his fine talk has nothing behind it]

W.H. tells Congress that policy 'Czars' won't testify: "The White House has told Congress it will reject calls for many of President Obama's policy czars to testify before Congress - a decision senators said goes against the president's promises of transparency and openness and treads on Congress' constitutional mandate to investigate the administration's actions. Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said White House counsel Greg Craig told her in a meeting Wednesday that they will not make available any of the czars who work in the White House and don't have to go through Senate confirmation. She said he was "murky" on whether other czars outside of the White House would be allowed to come before Congress. Miss Collins said that doesn't make sense when some of those czars are actually making policy or negotiating on behalf of Mr. Obama. The debate goes to the heart of weighty constitutional issues about separation of powers. The president argues that he should be allowed to have advisers who are free to give him confidential advice without having to fear being called to testify about it. Democrats and Republicans in Congress, though, argue that those in office who actually craft policy should be able to be summoned to testify because they do more than just give the president advice."

Murtha, Moran steer millions to defense firm: "When software firm MobilVox wanted to break into the lucrative world of defense contracting, it pursued an unmistakable strategy: It expanded operations from its Northern Virginia base in Rep. James P. Moran's congressional district to the southwestern Pennsylvania district of Rep. John P. Murtha. Working with two of the most powerful members of a House subcommittee that controls Pentagon spending, the company also hired lobbying firms that employed former top aides of both the Democratic lawmakers and Mr. Murtha's brother. Company executives and their lobbyists donated thousands of dollars to the two congressmen. Soon, money flowed the other way. Between 2003 and 2009, Mr. Murtha and Mr. Moran helped deliver $12 million to MobilVox in earmarks - money that is set aside by lawmakers for pet projects in the government's annual spending bills. The latest House defense spending bill introduced and pushed through by Mr. Murtha includes an additional $2 million earmark for MobilVox requested by Mr. Moran."

Uncovering the bull under the bailout: "Congress put American taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion last year when it approved the massive bailout to paper over the imprudent lending decisions of nine Wall Street giants: Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, State Street and the Bank of NY Mellon. The bailout was essential to save the nation from a complete economic meltdown. Or so insisted President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One year later, however, a little-noted report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office questions whether the bailout -- known officially as the Troubled Asset Relief Program -- saved anything other than the jobs of greedy Wall Street executives and the political hides of their protectors in government."

Can government fight epidemics?: "Now that the vast undersupply of H1N1 vaccines has finally impacted the market, the latest debacle of government-supplied health production has been exposed. Millions of shots were produced but not distributed on time, and in some areas the majority of promised shots have not been delivered. The vast magnitude of this undersupply reveals not simple dysfunction in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) but rather the necessary failure of central planning.”

“Net neutrality” is socialism, not freedom: "Advocates of imposing ‘network neutrality’ say it’s necessary to ensure a ‘free’ and ‘open’ Internet and rescue the public from nefarious corporations that ‘control’ technology. Few proposals in Washington have been sold employing such deceptive language — and that’s saying something. But few public policy ideas can boast the unashamedly socialist pedigree of net neutrality. The modern Internet is a creation of the free market, which has brought about a revolution in communication, free speech, education, and commerce.”

Secret space plane nears maiden voyage: "You would think that an unpiloted space plane built to rocket spaceward from Florida atop an Atlas booster, circle the planet for an extended time, then land on autopilot on a California runway would be big news. But for the U.S. Air Force X-37B project … seemingly, mum’s the word. There is an air of vagueness regarding next year’s Atlas Evolved Expendable launch of the unpiloted, reusable military space plane. The X-37B will be cocooned within the Atlas rocket’s launch shroud — a ride that’s far from cheap. While the launch range approval is still forthcoming, SPACE.com has learned that the U.S. Air Force has the X-37B manifested for an April 2010 liftoff.”

Britain today: "The prospect of an armed police service moved a step closer yesterday when Scotland Yard announced the formation of a new firearms unit that will routinely patrol gun crime hotspots in London. The armed patrols are being deployed after a dramatic rise in gun crime. They will target key areas in North London, where Turkish gangs are engaged in a bloody turf war, and south of the Thames, where gangland shooting incidents have soared. The C019 Proactive Unit will walk estates while some officers will use motorbikes to provide the capability for high-speed pursuit. Scotland Yard said that the armed patrols began in June, on a trial basis, with a team of 21 officers. That number is set to double next month. While national crime figures recorded a 5 per cent drop in firearms offences, and gun crime is down by as much as 27 per cent on Merseyside, London has experienced a 17 per cent rise from 1,484 to 1,737 offences in the 12 months to September. The increase is being driven by a Turkish gang war, which has resulted in three firearms murders since March as two groups, the Tottenham Boys and the Bombacilar, fight for supremacy. In South London there has been a rise in teenage gang shootings." [A Turkish gang war in Britain? If that's not a failure of policy, I would like to know what is]

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Psychopathic talk

Words that sound good but have no meaning or intention behind them

"Politicians of all stripes routinely spin facts and logic so fast they make the rest of us shake our heads in bemused wonder. Then there are those rare occasions when a prominent politician says something that clearly deserves a place in the Political Chutzpah Hall of Fame. President Obama earned a place in the pantheon with his Saturday radio address:

'It's smoke and mirrors,' he said. 'It's bogus, and it's all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies.... The fact is the insurance industry is making this last-ditch effort to stop reform even as costs continue to rise and our health care dollars continue to be poured into their profits and bonuses and administrative costs that do nothing to make us healthy, that often actually go toward trying to figure out how to avoid covering people....'

Before Obama goes much further bashing the health insurance industry, let's review what Obama said during the 2008 presidential campaign. He made two promises that attracted crucial support from independents. He promised 'a net federal spending cut' and to 'cut taxes for 95 percent of American workers.' But from his first day in the Oval Office, Obama has been on a spending binge of such unprecedented magnitude that the federal deficit this year is more than $1.4 trillion, or nearly three times what it was under George Bush in 2008.

If Obama's health care reform plan becomes law, the deficit will be even bigger. As for cutting taxes, that is a topic Obama assiduously avoids these days because he is too busy pushing massive new federal programs that will indirectly add thousands of dollars to the costs of living for virtually every American family, through more expensive health insurance premiums, skyrocketing gasoline and utility bills, and higher prices for food and other consumer goods. In view of these facts, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Obama's campaign promises were just so much ... smoke and mirrors. Not only were Obama's bullying remarks Saturday harsh and hypocritical, they also sounded desperate, shrill and divisive. Not what one expects from a president promising bipartisan reform."

More here

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Obama's Thin Skin

Barack Obama is once again taking cues from his amigo to the south, Hugo Chavez. The Obama administration has declared war on FOX News—the right-of-center news channel that features hosts such as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

What did FOX News do to instigate this presidential snub? It fact-checked Obama administration guests, which Anita Dunn, communications director for the White House, claims is "something I've never seen a Sunday show do."

As a result of this dastardly and cowardly practice of irresponsible journalism (in today's world, responsible journalism means having blind faith in all news bits passed to you), the Obama administration has stopped supplying guests to the "Fox News Sunday" news program. Additionally, Dunn stated that FOX was "opinion journalism masquerading as news." And, Obama advisor David Axelrod encouraged other news stations to 'isolate' FOX by cutting ties with the channel.

The Obama administration's coercive relationship with the mainstream media is no secret, and there are few things President Barack Obama hates more than a lack of control. Hordes of former journalists have joined the Obama team, and Dunn even admitted that the Obama team "very rarely" communicated to the press anything they "didn't absolutely control." Because FOX News, for all of its missteps, is one of the only major news outlets not in the tank for Obama, it can be expected that the control-monsters in the Obama administration would wish to avoid this type of informational anarchy.

For those thinking that this is eerily similar to the behavior of oppressive dictators, just refer back to earlier this year when reports from Venezuela told of Chavez's plan to generate a "map of the media war" that identified private news outlets hostile to his dictatorship. Months later, Chavez began revoking broadcast licenses from dozens of radio stations. Is Obama heading in this direction, as well?

More HERE

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Obama's War on Fox News Becomes a Quagmire

THE WHITE HOUSE - Despite the President's promise of a swift and decisive victory, Obama's War on Fox News has developed all signs of an unwinnable quagmire, making the White House even more isolated in its unilateral attempts to crush the growing media insurgency. As the war continues to grind on for a second month, public opinion is shifting towards a quick and complete withdrawal. While many observers still agree that the "War on Limbaugh" is a "just and necessary war," even the former supporters of the war effort are now labeling the War on Fox an "unnecessary war of choice" and claim that the cable channel had nothing to do with Obama's falling approval numbers.

Some say that the general in charge, Anita Dunn, greatly underestimated the power of fiery critic Glenn "Muqtada" Beck and his band of radical followers, who have inflicted heavy casualties on White House forces.

The war has recently passed an ugly milestone as Obama's hand-picked czar Van Jones exploded in the middle of the battlefield littered with pencils, notebooks, blackberries, and media tags, sending shockwaves of terror through the ranks of reporters in the service of the administration.

Accusations of war crimes continue to surface, the most recent war atrocity being Katie Couric's interview with Glenn Beck, after which the prominent Fox News commentator was found outside the CBS studios disoriented, with plucked eyebrows, and a coveted jar of M&Ms stolen from his pocket.

While the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison is being shut down, President Obama is rumored to be in talks with Fidel Castro to use the East German political prison on Cuba's Isle of Pines as a secret detention center for the "enemy commentators." However, the White House's unilateral decision to classify all Fox News journalists as "enemy commentators" has been roundly criticized by human rights organizations, who maintain they should be covered by the "Inside the Beltway Convention."....

The war is also personal for the aging media veteran Dan Rather, who had won many media battles but one single failure brought him a dishonorable discharge. As a result he is now suffering from Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder (PTSD), has become homeless, and lives somewhere under the Manhattan Bridge. "This war has put a lot of wear and tear on liberal commentators," Rather observes. "Their families are being broken up because they come back home with PTSD, STD, PMS, with drug and alcohol addictions, and afflicted by severe violent and suicidal tendencies."

It is hardly a consolation that Rather is soon expected to be joined under the bridge by Rachel Maddow, Maureen Dowd, and Katie Couric, whose activist group "Boobs not Bombs" failed to distract Americans from watching Fox News by publicly flashing their breasts. The trio has been reportedly suffering from a host of psychological disorders ever since the polls revealed most Americans still preferred the sight of Bill O'Rilley's receding hairline.

More of this splendid reportage here. Good satire is never far from the truth.

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'A Minority for Analytical Purposes'

That story we noted yesterday about the Justice Department's decision to forbid Kinston, N.C., to switch from partisan to nonpartisan elections for local officials is even more curious than we realized. A reader passes along a link to the Aug. 17 letter in which Loretta King acting assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, informed the Kinston's lawyers of the decision:

According to the 2000 Census, the City of Kinston has a total population of 23,688 people, of whom 14,837 (62.6%) are African-American. The total voting age population is 17,906, of whom 10,525 (58.8%) are African-American. The American Community Survey for 2005-2007 estimates the total population to be 22,649, of whom 14,967 (66.6%) are African-American. As of October 31, 2008, the city has 14,799 registered voters, of whom 9,556 (64.6%) are African-American.

Although black persons comprise a majority of the city's registered voters, in three of the past four general municipal elections, African Americans comprised a minority of the electorate on election day; in the fourth , they may have been a slight majority. For that reason, they are viewed as a minority for analytical purposes. Minority turnout is relevant to determining whether a change under Section 5 [of the Voting Rights Act] is retrogressive.

Black voters have had limited success in electing candidates of choice during recent municipal elections.

The letter does not allege any effort to suppress the black vote. Assuming the absence of such efforts, the reason that "black voters have had limited success in electing candidates of choice" is that so many of them have not bothered to vote!

The Justice Department's position, then, is that the Voting Rights Act requires the department to intervene on behalf of the political preferences that it imputes to people who cannot be troubled to go to the polls. This may well be a correct reading of the law--in which case, it's a screwy law.

SOURCE

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BrookesNews Update

Is manufacturing really signalling good news for the US economy? : "Reasonably informed commentators recognise that Obama's massive borrowing and huge deficits must eventually drive up interest rates. What most of them don't get is that this will kill off time-consuming projects, the sort that are instrumental in raising living standard. In short, the rise in interest rates could be sufficient to kill economic growth. This is because they would be reflecting the amount of savings that the government was consuming at the expense of capital accumulation
Is the US economy facing deflation? : Since inflation is about increases in money supply, obviously an increase in spare economic capacity cannot reduce the rate of inflation as most commentators are saying. Only the Fed's monetary policy can exercise control over the money supply. Hence, regardless of the economic slack, the more money the Fed creates, the more damage it inflicts
The Australian economy: things not as bright as they look : The historical fact is that government spending in itself has never overcome a recession unless funded by the central bank. To put it crudely, it only works when the spending is supplied by the printing press. Furthermore, what we should call inflation-driven recoveries plant the seed for the next recession"
The same media that tried to lynch Rush Limbaugh praised the Stalinist Paul Robeson : The Rush Limbaugh media lynching has at least awakened even more Americans to the political viciousness of the media and their outrageous mendacity. Unable to find the slightest evidence of racism by Limbaugh they resorted to knowingly using racist quotes invented by a leftist. This is the same media that whitewashes American Stalinists who wanted to see their country destroyed
Obama's Hokey COLA spending binge: Every day, in ways large and small, this government shows itself to be the most fiscally reckless and irresponsible in American history - frighteningly on par with those that wrecked once-wealthy Argentina in the 1940s and Germany in the 1920s
Nazism is Socialism: "In his brilliant 1933 essay Hayek explains why Naziism was a socialist movement with Marxist roots with a hatred of capitalism and individualism. The same thing is happening in the US today. The hatred, the anti-liberalism and the sheer intolerance of the American left is creating a vicious political atmosphere that is beginng to closely mirror the totalitarian mindset that destroyed German democracy
Here He Comes: Mr. Universe : Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is every bit as offensive as it is absurd. He is one of the most divisive president's in U.S. history. Take his radical promotion of abortion on demand - up to and including the grizzly and, according to the AMA, never necessary practice of partial birth abortion
The Seduction Of Lindsey Graham : Graham may be right about one thing: Glenn Beck clearly represents the thinking of conservatives, not the GOP. And Sen. Lindsey Graham is now willingly spouting the talking points of the left and abandoning the conservative principles that got him elected. He has been seduced by the left and his reward is ever more national face time and political influence
Isn't America under Obama great? : Obama has proposed a new auto insurance reform plan with a public option. There are millions without auto insurance that need to be protected and it is not fair that they are not covered. The unfortunate who do not have documentation to prove they are American citizens must be also able to share the American dream of a car in every garage or front yard

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ELSEWHERE

Video makers release tape of Philly ACORN visit: "Two conservative activists released a new undercover video targeting the community-organizing group ACORN on Wednesday, an attempt to reignite a simmering political controversy surrounding the Democratic-leaning organization. The new videotape shows filmmakers Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend, soliciting advice about a possible housing loan from workers in the Philadelphia office of ACORN Housing Corp. "At no point were we kicked out, at no time were we asked to leave," O'Keefe says on the tape of the Philadelphia visit. Neil Herrmann, ACORN's lead organizer in Philadelphia, was quoted in news accounts last month as saying that an employee at the office had asked O'Keefe and Giles to leave. On the edited tape released Wednesday, the couple were not asked to leave."

Domestic woes spur Iran's consent to nuke deal: "Iran's initial agreement to back down in the face of international pressure and ship its nuclear fuel outside the country shows that the regime feels vulnerable after waves of protests and other setbacks to its regional influence. Iran scholars and proliferation specialists say the government in Tehran is trying to shore up its legitimacy in the aftermath of its disputed June presidential election and stave off more economic sanctions. Iran is also feeling insecure because of bombings in its southeast, setbacks to allies in Lebanon and Gaza, and defections abroad, including that of a presidential adviser's daughter. "They're feeling under a lot of pressure," said Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association."

Senate defeats costly Medicare 'fix': "The Senate on Wednesday blocked an expensive change to the way doctors are paid under Medicare over concern about the mounting deficit, in what Republicans called the first defeat for President Obama's health care plan. Democratic leaders had sought the 10-year, nearly $250 billion bill as a fix to the long-term Medicare problem, but without proposing a way to pay for it, they lost support from moderate Democrats, signaling that cost could become a significant hurdle to a reform bill."

Ignorance is (a politician’s) bliss: "Various convenient fictions (’That to secure … rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,’ for example) notwithstanding, the real basis of government power is the ability of politicians to con us into believing that we need them — that without their plans and programs and policy, society would instantly degenerate into chaos and ‘a war of all against all.’ Even the most cursory examination of that claim exposes it as a fraud. In truth, government does very little to enhance your life. It’s at least as likely, and probably more so, to violate your rights as it is to protect those rights. If government does something you truly need done, it doesn’t do it as cheaply or as well as market entities would. If government does something you don’t need done, it’s just background noise at best and dead weight at worst. And the lion’s share of government activities are of a third sort — undertaken entirely for the purpose of forcing you to buckle under to, and pony up for, the first two kinds of activities.”

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Arrogant elites

There's nothing new in America about the mutual suspicion or incomprehension of city slickers and country bumpkins, says Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University journalism professor and sociologist.

Gitlin points out that you do not have to venture outside urban America to find similar divisions within cities themselves. “There are millions of people in the New York metropolitan area to whom the New York Times speaks a foreign (and alien) language, who don't feel represented by its tone, who even feel outraged by it, seeing it as relaying an insider conversation and dissing outsiders,” he said.

A lethal combination of distrust and apprehension is escalating not only with the media but with the government it covers. Part of the problem is the perception beyond the beltway that the media actually made Barack Obama president. Evidence of that lies in the outrage voiced in town-hall meetings and tea-party demonstrations during this summer’s congressional recess. The body of coverage was tilted to highlight the small percentage of extreme attendees, and media elites and former president Jimmy Carter labeled as “racists” those who disagreed with the president.

Main Street Americans are baffled by these political elites’ perception of them.

The point must be made that this is not a Democrats-specific problem. Former President Bill Clinton and his original communications team (including George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, James Carville) understood Middle America, conservative strategist Jordan Sekulow says. “Instead of isolating middle-of-the-road Americans, who pay attention to the news but don’t live and die with the politics of the day, they made them insiders,” Sekulow explained.

The Obama administration almost appears to be forgetting blue-collar Americans who have been the Democrats’ political backbone. The administration still caters to labor leaders, but they don’t dictate policy or wield the same power they once did. If they did, the health-care bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee would be to their liking and the Employee Free-Choice Act – card check – would have been enacted months ago. “The culture has been cutting-loose (from) elites, or those it perceives as elites, for decades now,” said Columbia’s Gitlin, a 1960s political activist.

CNN’s King sees significant anxiety and fear among the people he visits in diners across the country. “Listening to them,” he explains, not to political talking-points, helps him to speak for Americans when he interviews anyone, from congressmen to the president.

Ironically, the nation’s elites probably are more aware of the resentment against them because the country is tighter-knit than before and there aren't too many hiding places, Gitlin says. Yet they tend to remain clueless as to why anyone would resent them.

The anti-elitists, who know the world isn't going their way, are holding onto their theories for dear life.

SOURCE

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Does Obama Believe in Human Rights?

Not if you go by deeds rather than words

Nobody should get too hung up over President Obama's decision, reported by Der Spiegel over the weekend, to cancel plans to attend next month's 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Germany's reunited capital has already served his purposes; why should he serve its?

To this day, the fall of the Berlin Wall on the night of Nov. 9, 1989, remains a high-water mark in the march of human freedom. It's a march to which candidate Obama paid rich (if solipsistic) tribute in last year's big Berlin speech. "At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning—his dream—required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West," waxed Mr. Obama to the assembled thousands. "This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom." Those were the words. What's been the record?

China: In February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Beijing with a conciliating message about the country's human-rights record. "Our pressing on those [human-rights] issues can't interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis," she said.

In fact, there has been no pressing whatsoever on human rights. President Obama refused to meet with the Dalai Lama last month, presumably so as not to ruffle feathers with the people who will now be financing his debts. In June, Liu Xiaobo, a leading signatory of the pro-democracy Charter 08 movement, was charged with "inciting subversion of state power." But as a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Beijing admitted to the Journal, "neither the White House nor Secretary Clinton have made any public comments on Liu Xiaobo."

Sudan: In 2008, candidate Obama issued a statement insisting that "there must be real pressure placed on the Sudanese government. We know from past experience that it will take a great deal to get them to do the right thing. . . . The U.N. Security Council should impose tough sanctions on the Khartoum government immediately."

Exactly right. So what should Mr. Obama do as president? Yesterday, the State Department rolled out its new policy toward Sudan, based on "a menu of incentives and disincentives" for the genocidal Sudanese government of Omar Bashir. It's the kind of menu Mr. Bashir will languidly pick his way through till he dies comfortably in his bed.

Iran: Mr. Obama's week-long silence on Iran's "internal affairs" following June's fraudulent re-election was widely noted. Not so widely noted are the administration's attempts to put maximum distance between itself and human-rights groups working the Iran beat.

Earlier this year, the State Department denied a grant request for New Haven, Conn.-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The Center maintains perhaps the most extensive record anywhere of Iran's 30-year history of brutality. The grant denial was part of a pattern: The administration also abruptly ended funding for Freedom House's Gozaar project, an online Farsi- and English-language forum for discussing political issues.

It's easy to see why Tehran would want these groups de-funded and shut down. But why should the administration, except as a form of pre-emptive appeasement?

Burma: In July, Mr. Obama renewed sanctions on Burma. In August, he called the conviction of opposition leader (and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner) Aung San Suu Kyi a violation of "the universal principle of human rights."

Yet as with Sudan, the administration's new policy is "engagement," on the theory that sanctions haven't worked. Maybe so. But what evidence is there that engagement will fare any better? In May 2008, the Burmese junta prevented delivery of humanitarian aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis. Some 150,000 people died in plain view of "world opinion," in what amounted to a policy of forced starvation.

Leave aside the nausea factor of dealing with the authors of that policy. The real question is what good purpose can possibly be served in negotiations that the junta will pursue only (and exactly) to the extent it believes will strengthen its grip on power. It takes a remarkable presumption of good faith, or perhaps stupidity, to imagine that the Burmas or Sudans of the world would reciprocate Mr. Obama's engagement except to seek their own advantage.

It also takes a remarkable degree of cynicism—or perhaps cowardice—to treat human rights as something that "interferes" with America's purposes in the world, rather than as the very thing that ought to define them. Yet that is exactly the record of Mr. Obama's time thus far in office.

In Massachusetts not long ago, I found myself driving behind a car with "Free Tibet," "Save Darfur," and "Obama 08" bumper stickers. I wonder if it will ever dawn on the owner of that car that at least one of those stickers doesn't belong.

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GOP Congresscritters losing touch with the grassroots

For decades, political observers have watched with fascination the battle raging inside the Republican Party. Whether the contest has been between Sen. Robert Taft and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, between Barry Goldwater and Nelson A. Rockefeller, or Ronald Reagan and Gerald R. Ford, the battle has always been viewed as a fight between "conservatives" and so-called "moderates."

However, as recent events reveal, such a formulation misses the point. In fact, the real battle being waged is between Washington insiders - as represented by the congressional wing of the Republican Party - and grass-roots Americans from all walks of life throughout the country.

The actual events that prompted this observation were hardly anything of consequence. The gadfly, wannabe "cool" chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, issued a policy statement titled a "Health Care Bill of Rights." Within days, Senate Republicans led by Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander lashed out at Mr. Steele, intoning, "We are elected to set the policy."

And that, in a nutshell, points up the real fight being waged in Washington today. The congressional wing has grown alienated from the very people who sent them to Washington.

You see expressions of this almost every day. Just last weekend, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham held a town-hall meeting where he ran headlong into opposition for his love of compromise. When pressed by the crowd, Mr. Graham had advice for the grass roots. He replied to a critic of his many liberal positions, "If you don't like it, you can leave." That may be exactly what is happening.

In a special election to fill a vacancy in New York's 23rd Congressional District, insiders and lackeys of the congressional wing selected a liberal assemblywoman who supports President Obama more than the Democratic candidate, is radical on most social issues and is tied by marriage to the AFL-CIO.

Local activists refused to accept such a candidate, so the Conservative Party mounted a challenger. As of this writing, the Conservative candidate, Doug Hoffman, is rising rapidly in the polls as the Republican sinks toward single-digit support. The real Republican Party finally is rising up against the self-appointed mandarins of the congressional wing.

New York 23 is not an isolated case. In Virginia's 5th Congressional District, a solid conservative, Bradley Rees, has publicly announced he will run as an Independent next year if the D.C. power brokers select a liberal challenger to freshman Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello. Again, grass-roots activists are rising up to tell the congressional wing to either get on board or get run over.

The response coming back from the congressional wing is invariably the same: They do what they want to do, not what the people who sent them to Washington want them to do. You and I are irrelevant.

Well, that is what has gotten us into this mess.

That attitude has allowed the culture of corruption to flourish regardless of which party is in power. It is this arrogant disrespect for citizens that has led us to the brink of financial ruin.

So, with all due respect to Mr. Alexander: Phooey! You and your cohorts were sent to Washington to represent the views of the people back home. You were given the task of implementing the ideas and policy positions embedded in the platform. And, you were sent to Congress to serve, not dictate.

The millions of Americans who have from time to time put their faith in one party or the other are starting to awaken. They will no longer sit by silently and take whatever scrap is thrown their way. They increasingly are taking Mr. Graham's advice - they are leaving.

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ELSEWHERE

Zogby Interactive: Obama Job Approval Falls Back to 49%: "President Barack Obama's job performance rating has fallen slightly to 49% in the most recent Zogby Interactive survey, slipping below the majority job approval mark of 52% he enjoyed late last month. The Zogby Interactive survey of 3,694 likely voters nationwide found 49% approving of Obama's job performance, 51% disapproving and 1% undecided. The survey was conducted Oct. 16-19, 2009, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.6 percentage points. A Sept. 28 Zogby Interactive survey was the first time since early June that President Barack Obama's job performance received majority approval in a Zogby Interactive poll of likely voters."

RINO calls cops on reporter who asked her about Card Check: "John McCormack is a reporter working for The Weekly Standard. Dede Scozzafava is the extremely liberal New York Assemblywoman running as a Republican to succeed Rep. John McHugh from the Empire State's 23rd congressional district in the upcoming special election. Scozzafava was speaking at a GOP dinner Monday evening. McCormack was reporting on Scozzafava's campaign, including her recent pledge to the AFL-CIO to support Big Labor's top legislative objective, the Card Check proposal - currently stalled in Congress - to abolish the secret ballot in workplace representation elections. Scozzafava apparently didn't appreciate being asked about her support of Card Check because after she left and McCormack went to his laptop to file a report on the evening's event, the police showed up.

Top NYC cop back in jail: "Bernard Kerik, New York City’s disgraced former police commissioner, went to jail Tuesday after a judge revoked his bail for disclosing sealed trial information that could poison his upcoming corruption trial. Robinson revoked Kerik’s $500,000 bail following a hearing that lasted more than three hours regarding confidential trial information that Kerik disclosed to the trustee of his legal defense fund, who in turn released it to The Washington Times. The newspaper did not publish the information. Kerik’s attorney, Barry Berke, argued that the trustee was part of Kerik’s legal team and therefore was allowed to see the information. But Robinson, who had warned Kerik last month that he would be jailed for similar behavior, said he did not believe Kerik and delivered a stern rebuke.”

SCOTUS reins in cops: "The US Supreme Court has let stand a ruling in Virginia that police officers must personally observe erratic driving before stopping a suspected drunken driver. On Tuesday, the high court declined to take up an appeal involving a Richmond motorist who was pulled over by a police officer based on an anonymous tip that he was driving under the influence of alcohol. The issue in the case, Virginia v. Harris, was whether the officer was justified in confronting the driver with a roadside sobriety test, or whether he should have waited until Harris’ driving gave rise to a reasonable suspicion of drunk driving independent of the anonymous tip.”

Alienated and radicalized: "Comes now, the ‘Oath Keepers.’ And who might they be? Writes Alan Maimon in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are ‘either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia.’ Formed in March, they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. If the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate Second Amendment rights by disarming the people, Oath Keepers will not obey. ‘The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here,’ says founding father Stewart Rhodes, an ex-Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer. ‘My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can’t do it without them. We say if the American people decide it’s time for a revolution, we’ll fight with you.’"

Some competition in Britain at last?: "Airport operator BAA has agreed to sell Gatwick, Britain's second busiest airport, for 1.5 billion pounds (2.5 billion US dollars, 1.6 billion euros), the Financial Times reported. Citing people familiar with the matter, the FT reported on its website that the deal with Global Infrastructure Partners, which already own London City Airport, will likely be announced before markets open on Wednesday. The Competition Commission approved details of the sale late Tuesday, it said. In August last year, British regulators called for BAA to sell three of its seven airports in Britain -- two in London and one in Scotland -- in order to end a dominance they said hurts both passengers and airlines."

Church of England to lose some of its real Christians to Rome: "The Roman Catholic Church today moved to poach thousands of traditional Anglicans who are dismayed by growing acceptance of gays and women priests and bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams admitted that he had been caught out after Pope Benedict XVI announced a new “Apostolic Constitution” to provide a legal framework for the many thousands of Anglicans and former Anglicans who wish “to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church”. The announcement paves the way for thousands of Anglicans worldwide to join the Roman Catholic church while maintaining elements of their own spiritual heritage. The constitution, a canonical structure, will provide “personal ordinariates” that will allow Anglicans to “set up church” within the Catholic church while retaining elements of their former ecclesiastical identity, such as Anglican liturgies and vestments. Traditionalists, including up to six Church of England bishops, had visited and pleaded with Rome to provide some sort of structure inside the Catholic Church for their wing of the Church of England because of liberal moves towards women bishops and gay ordinations."

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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