Let’s Talk!

“Sometimes I wonder what you boys would do if you weren’t gay. You’d have no identity. It was easy when you couldn’t talk about it. Now it’s all you talk about. You talk about it so much that you forget about all the other things that you are.”

This great line from Greg Berlanti’s 2000 film, “The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy”, does an excellent job of summing up my feelings concerning the recent happenings on the national stage.

Gay marriage is indeed a landmark occurrence for this country. And it offers great opportunity for many gay Americans. Close personal friends have finally realized a dream they’ve had for decades now come true. And I couldn’t be happier for them.

Unfortunately, they tend to view so many aspects of life through the prism of being gay. I’ve never been one to subscribe to that. Therein lies my difficulty with the entire politicized, polarizing issue.

It could be said that those that took the gay marriage issue to the forefront of societal consciousness are pioneers. No argument there….But..what happens now?…

A recent news report quoted Andrew Sullivan, the author and writer commonly credited with the case for gay marriage, as saying gay men don’t seem to have much in common, other than being oppressed! I thought, “What an ignorant, idiotic thing to say!” Excuse ME, Mr. Sullivan! Many of us were leading productive, happy lives LONG before you took this matter into YOUR own hands! And we continue to do so! To think the common bond among gay men is OPPRESSION! That’s a cheap, condescending cop out that short sells millions of gay Americans who manage to create, live, love, and learn!

Andrew Sullivan

Believe it or not, many gay Americans live their lives much the same as everyone else. Careers, home, family… Likely, much to the chagrin of the politically obsessed in the gay community. They have championed the issue…much in the framework of “like it…or ELSE!” to their fellow countrymen. That doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t care who you are or the nature of the contentious point that’s attempting to be made. But…that being said…it’s where we are these days. Government has assumed the role of dictating thought AND deed. And that should frighten ALL of us!

I’m not ashamed of being gay. But, it’s not EVERYTHING I am! Mr. Sullivan, and those like him, would do well to understand that I don’t NEED them to speak for me! I can manage that on my own. I respect his efforts and ideals. However, I don’t appreciate being branded a traitor to the cause for simply living my OWN life!

The War at Home…

As Barack Obama continues to coast through the scandal gauntlet, it could be sadly reported the President’s “fundamental change” notion has firmly taken root. Mr. Obama and the Democrats have successfully managed to change the rules from ideas and debating the issues to simply demonizing ANY opposition as evil, hateful, and downright demonic. That practice has convinced the ever shrinking minds of so many Americans on practically any concern. An alliance with the media has been the largest component in convincing the weak and the willing that THIS President can do no wrong. Despite the reality of just how WRONG his administration is on so many fronts.

Barack Obama’s disdain and disregard for what used to be worthy aspirations of the nation as a whole is propped up by his claim that those values are so yesterday..so old fashioned..so close minded…so discriminatory.

A. Barton Hinkle of the Richmond Times – Dispatch outlines how the President has declared war on the Constitution. You know..that document which WAS the basis for law in what USED to be a nation of laws…

OBAMA’S WAR ON THE CONSTITUTION

The President, who first campaigned on a claim to constitutional expertise, is now the document’s biggest threat.

“A physician’s expertise makes him capable of inflicting great harm, noted Plato a couple thousand years ago, and no one is better positioned to steal than a guard. So perhaps we should not be surprised that the most conspicuous foe of liberty and the Bill of Rights turns out to be a former professor of constitutional law.

As a general rule, politicians tend to whipsaw between two poles. Conservatives try to increase economic liberty but show less regard for civil liberties. Liberals care deeply about civil liberties while trying to restrict the economic kind.

But the Obama administration is remarkable for its degree of disdain for both.

The president’s principal first-term achievement was the passage of the Affordable Care Act. The law greatly increases government’s role in health care and includes an expansion of government power unprecedented in American history: a requirement that all citizens purchase a consumer good irrespective of their personal behavior.

The administration also has pressed relentlessly – and successfully – for tax hikes, which shift control over economic resources from private hands to government. It also has indulged a regulatory binge, which shifts control indirectly, by cranking out burdensome new rules at a rate far faster than the Bush administration ever did. (This holds true even if you count only “economically significant” rules – those costing $100 million or more – and rely only on administration-friendly accounts.)

The result: Government not only is taking more of your money, it increasingly is telling you how to spend what’s left. A recent study estimates the cost of regulation at nearly $15,000 per household. This means the three principal drains on the family checkbook, in order, are: (1) taxes, (2) housing, and (3) regulation. And Washington is working hard to move regulation into the second slot.

While trends like these drive conservatives nuts, they gladden liberal hearts. Yet liberals are not happy with the Obama administration these days – for exceptionally good reasons.

Most saliently, the Justice Department has been trolling through the phone records of reporters for the Associated Press and, even worse, has accused a reporter (Fox News’ James Rosen) of acting as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the unlawful leaking of classified materials. Rosen’s offense was to do what reporters are supposed to do: break a story. This, too, is unprecedented, and it goes too far even for Obama’s most knee-jerk defenders. The New York Times views the investigation as “threatening fundamental freedoms of the press.”

The Rosen matter alone would suffice to disqualify the administration from any Friends-of-the-First Amendment society. Yet it is only one of several such assaults. Others include the administration’s campaign, through its insistence on a contraception mandate underObamacare, against religious liberty, and the president’s suggestion after Citizens United that “we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process” to limit the free-speech rights of persons who incorporate their social organizations; and its thuggish targeting of its political opponents.

If the IRS’ treatment of tea-party groups were an isolated story, you could swallow the explanation that a few low-level bureaucrats went rogue. But that account does not explain why the EPA has been far more generous to freedom-of-information requests from liberal groups than from conservatives. Or why, shortly after the Obama campaign slimed Romney supporter Frank Vander Sloot as a disreputable fellow, he was audited three times – twice by the IRS and once by the Labor Department. Or why, after Texas resident CatherineEngelbrecht started a Tea Party group, she received scrutiny not just from the IRS but also from the FBI. And OSHA. And, just for good measure, the ATF. Or why the IRS took 17 months to respond to an initial tax-exempt status from the conservative Wyoming Policy Institute. Or why it shared confidential files from conservative groups with the liberal ProPublica. Or why. . .

Enough on the First Amendment. The president also has tried with considerable vigor to undermine the Second, and has succeeded in subverting the Fourth: Under Obama, who has gone to court to defend warrantless wiretaps he once condemned, warrantless “pen register” and “trap-and-trace” monitoring has soared to unprecedented heights.

In 2011 the president signed a reauthorization of the Patriot Act with just one regret: Congress approved an extension of only one year, while Obama wanted three. He signed into law a defense reauthorization bill allowing the indefinite detention, without charge, of American citizens, thereby gutting the principle of habeas corpus. Granted, he issued an executive order promising not to exercise that power. But the order does not constrain future presidents or, technically, even him.

From a civil-liberties perspective, Obama has carried forward nearly every one of the war-on-terror powers that led liberals to denounce George W. Bush as a goose-stepping fascist, and in fact has made many of them worse. When he retires from public life, perhaps he will return to teaching the Constitution. That should be much easier work – given how little of it there will be left.

This article originally appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

A. Barton Hinkle is senior editorial writer and a columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Benghazi: The Spin

Admittedly, the Benghazi hearings will result in little, if any damage for the Obama administration. Nevertheless, I thought it a good idea to present this analysis of how the spin is, yet again, attempting to minimize the importance of serious incompetence and deceit in the White House. There are a few points brought out which have been mentioned previously here. With the level of idiocy among the general populace, it’s always a good idea to reiterate your argument. Unfortunately, it’s a reflection of the nation we are today. Arrogance and disconnect rule the day and we will all eventually pay the price…

LIBERAL MEDIA SPIN BENGHAZI TO PROTECT TEAM OBAMA – Dan Gainor @ Fox News

The Obama administration has lied, stonewalled, bullied, and intimidated – the true marks of an open and transparent administration

“In the real world, when you cover up four murders after the fact, you likely go to jail. In government, you retire with dignity and run for president with full media support.

Up until yesterday, that was the Benghazi scenario following the death of four Americans including our ambassador to Libya.

The Obama administration has lied, stonewalled, bullied, and intimidated – the true marks of an open and transparent administration. And, with a few notable exceptions, the American media haven’t just let them get away it. Heck, they’ve helped.

Hill testimony of State Department whistleblowers might change that, but it’s doubtful given the one-sided reporting so far.

NBC said there was an “obvious political undercurrent” to the hearings and accused the GOP of going after the “most popular Democrat,” Hillary Clinton.

The New York Times public editor criticized her own paper’s Benghazi coverage and The Washington Post’s Twitter account inexplicably mocked those Tweeting about the case as “Chick-fil-A lovers.” AP even called it a “GOP” hearing, to make sure readers saw it as partisan.

A Politico story about CBS showed the truly insidious nature of media bias on this story and how the network held back Emmy award-winning reporter Sharyl Attkisson. “CBS News executives see Attkisson wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue, network sources have told Politico,” wrote Dylan Byers. So much so that Attkisson is “in talks to leave CBS ahead of contract.” As a result, she hadn’t even reported on the Libya attack for five months.

It hasn’t just been CBS that has been trying to corral this story. New York Times coverage might still damage the administration even though that paper has tried to prevent it. MSNBC’s sometime conservative, former Florida Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, even Tweeted about Thursday’s Times story, saying it “should cause great concerns in the White House.”

That piece, “Diplomat Says Questions Over Benghazi Led to Demotion,” detailed State Department retaliation against one witness, saying “the prospects for the 2016 presidential election” could be impacted.

Of course, the article minimized that impact. “Mr. Hicks offered an unbecoming view of political supervision and intimidation inside the Obama administration,” wrote three Times staffers.

Unbecoming? Quite the understatement. Hey, sorry we ruined your career. That’s so unbecoming.

Public Editor Margaret Sullivan took her own paper to task, but also blamed Fox News for having “fomented” criticism of the Times. “In fact, what’s been written in The Times has been solid. But my sense is that, starting last fall, The Times has had a tendency to both play down the subject, which has significant news value, and to pursue it most aggressively as a story about political divisiveness rather than one about national security mistakes and the lack of government transparency,” she concluded.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank treated the testimony as if witnesses were lying. His column called the sworn comments a “yarn” and referred to our No. 2 diplomat in Libya as a “virtuoso storyteller.” Milbank pushed the standard lefty response you can expect to see at least till November, 2016: “Hicks didn’t lay a glove on the former secretary of state Wednesday.”

It wasn’t just the traditional media spinning for Team Obama. Lefty outlets did their darnedest to downplay the death of four Americans, including the only U.S. ambassador killed since 1979.

On MSNBC, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd undercut the scandal on the May 8 “Morning Joe.” Todd called the decision to not send more special ops forces to Benghazi “very rational.” Host Rachel Maddow blasted the GOP on her May 8 show for an organized conspiracy to make Obama resign, calling it “the most ambitious thing they have done.”

Comedian Jon Stewart devoted 8 and a half minutes attacking the GOP for the hearings, even bringing up Nixon cover-ups and saying the party has “a history of hysteria.” Increasingly, his role isn’t to make jokes. It’s as Obama’s Youth Ambassador/Spinmeister.

The liberal propaganda site Huffington Post incredibly didn’t even mention the hearings on the front page, just an attack on Fox’s coverage. Buried on the Politics page was the approved Democratic spin: “Benghazi Hearing Reveals Incompetence, But No Cover-Up.” Instead, it found room for stories on food addiction, “the female word for blowjob,” and “The Incredible Name Kevin Spacey Picked For His Rescue Dog.”

Other liberal sites went even further, ignoring the hearing and the testimony entirely. The Nation, Alternet and Democracy Now had no visible coverage. That’s a far cry from how the left reacted to even something as mundane as theNRA convention, where no terrorists killed four Americans.

It doesn’t really matter how they spin it, the news continues to get out. But if all major news outlets do is cover for the administration, they may well succeed in protecting their 2016 candidate.”

Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

The days are over when you could depend on the media to do their job. Agenda oriented coverage is all that’s left. You have only yourself to depend upon for the truth….

The Obama Lame Blame Game

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“There’s no reason I should accept responsibility for anything..compromise is bullsh*t….this especially true when we have a bunch of dumbass voters and a bunch of spineless pussies in Washington!”

It may be lame, but it obviously works. President Obama has a bunch of saps that he easily plays for fools in the Republican party. Of course, an eagerly complicit media makes a great ally. There should be no doubt that reality has taken a back seat to perception in today’s America. And as we all know, perception is ALL that matters.

This President could literally get away with murder and the story would be craftily spun in his favor. Some excuse would allow a readily accepted alibi. No questions would be asked. A shadow of a doubt?…Perish the thought!

This is the norm in politics today. Responsibility is shunned by Barack Obama. And why shouldn’t it? When there’s a group of suckers in Washington that make themselves so readily available in the roll, there’s no need. And the American public…well, most of them.. just accept what he says as gospel. He can do no wrong! As has been purported quite a bit lately, Barack Obama isn’t even CONNECTED to what’s wrong! The voters may express displeasure with our country’s direction, but they absolve the man primarily responsible! It’s just all part of where nonsense is the new status quo. Will we come to realize this shell game? Not anytime soon…

National Review’s Jonah Goldberg takes a look at this raging phenomena in Washington….

BLAME GAME RAGES OVER LOOMING SEQUESTER

“The GOP will probably lose the public relations battle over the sequester, because that’s the Republicans’ job in the age of Obama.”

We are just days away from a cataclysm of biblical proportions. The cuts foretold in the Budget Control Act of 2011 are young as far as prophecies go, but apparently they are every bit as terrifying as rivers of blood and plagues of locusts. Any day now we can expect White House spokesman Jay Carney to take to the podium and read a prepared statement: “And when he opened the seventh seal, there was a small decrease in the rate of increase in federal spending.”

The great game in Washington is who will get the blame for something both House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama agree will be calamitous for the country. It is an argument so idiotic, it could pass for seriousness only in Washington. The Republicans correctly note that the president proposed the sequester. In fact, back when the president believed that Republicans were more terrified of these automatic budget cuts than Democrats were, he pretended that he would veto any attempts to get rid of them that didn’t give him even more of the tax hikes he holds so dear. Now that Republicans have already agreed to a tax hike, they’ll be damned if they’ll raise them even more.

Fair enough. But the GOP agreed to the idea. This wasn’t some elaborate con in which John Boehner wakes up thinking March 1 is a morning like any other, only to discover that $85 billion is missing.

The GOP will probably lose the public-relations battle over the sequester, because that’s the Republicans’ job in the age of Obama. A U.S. ambassador is murdered in a terrorist attack the administration ineptly responded to — and blamed on a video — but the only real story is that Republicans are so crazy, they want to know what happened. The president nominates a middle-brow pol to run the Defense Department, one who must recant all of his well-known views in order to get the job, and the story is how irrational the GOP is for caring. If the White House dispatched a drone to circle Boehner’s home, the front-page story in theNew York Times would be on the speaker’s troubling paranoia.

But that doesn’t mean Republicans should make the White House’s job easier. Which is why it’s good news that the House leadership is reportedly working on legislation that would force Obama to choose where the $85 billion in cuts should come from. Both the president and Boehner agree that the across-the-board cuts required by the sequester make no sense, given that most agencies can find less painful ways to trim a few pennies out of every dollar.

It’s unlikely that Obama will take such a deal, since he and the Democratic-controlled Senate twice rejected legislation that replaced sequester cuts with more reasonable ones. Obama wants more tax hikes and thinks he can convince the country to accept them if the choice is between what he calls reasonable revenue increases and catastrophic cuts that will let people die in the streets, leave children to go hungry and illiterate, and allow poisoned food to sit rancid on supermarket shelves.

And he’s not crazy for it. This strategy has worked time and time again. If an agency has a billion-dollar budget and someone proposes cutting a dollar from its scheduled increase in funding, that dollar will be the one earmarked for the screw needed to keep a bridge from collapsing on a grade school’s Thanksgiving parade.

And that is what galls me. If the sequester goes into effect, the federal budget for this year will still be larger than last year’s ($3.553 trillion in 2013 vs. $3.538 trillion in 2012). With the sequester in effect, federal non-defense spending will still be 10 percent higher than it was in 2008. But Washington, led by Obama but with GOP help, is telling the American people that unless government gets an even bigger raise (with money borrowed from China, by the way), civilization will unravel, 911 calls will go unanswered, and Bane shall irrevocably seize control of Gotham.

The federal government has grown inexorably for decades. Our president casts himself as a Solomonic manager, and yet he is saying that absent a few extra pennies on every dollar, there’s no way he can maintain government’s core functions? A manager in any other field of human endeavor would be fired on the spot for making such an argument. But in Washington, this passes for leadership.”

— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. You can write to him by e-mail at JonahsColumn@aol.com, or via Twitter @JonahNRO. © 2013 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

The

More….

Poll: WHEN IN DOUBT, BLAME REPUBLICANS – Townhall

HAS OBAMA OVERDONE ‘NIGHTMARE ON SEQUESTER STREET? – Hot Air

NEW GOP SEQUESTER PLAN: LET OBAMA DECIDE WHAT TO CUT – Hot Air

A House Divided

Say what you will, but there’s no denying the fact that Barack Obama has willfully chosen to conduct his Presidency upon discourse in this nation. He is not a leader. Not in any sense of the word. He is vindictive and resentful. Resentful over what he sees as a country founded upon abuse and subjugation. Consequently, he means to punish rather than bring us together. He has championed that cause. His re-election has vindicated and validated his beliefs. At least, in his view. Thus we have a society you see around you today. Crumbling, angry, and frustrated.

The Economic Collapse blog expands on our unfortunate situation….

CAN AMERICA SURVIVE IF AMERICANS NO LONGER NO LONGER AGREE ON A CORE SET OF SHARED VALUES?

“What does America stand for?  That question is a lot more complicated than you might think.  Our Founding Fathers established a Republic that was based on a set of shared values that were embodied in the text of the U.S. Constitution.  But today, many of our politicians openly disregard the Constitution whenever they want and it has become fashionable to mock the U.S. Constitution.  For example, the New York Times recently published a piece by Georgetown University Professor Louis Michael Seidman entitled “Let’s Give Up On The Constitution” in which he publicly called the Constitution “archaic” and “downright evil”.  This is a man that has been teaching constitutional law to the next generation of lawyers at one of the top universities in the nation for nearly 40 years.  Unfortunately, Seidman is not an aberration.  The truth is that law schools all over America are absolutely packed with professors that teach that we should consider the U.S. Constitution a “living, breathing document” that must “evolve” as society evolves.  They also teach that when we find something in the Constitution that does not work for us today that we should just ignore it.  In fact, in his New York Times articleSeidman insisted that “constitutional disobedience” is “as old as the Republic”.  But if we can just ignore the U.S. Constitution whenever we want, where does that leave us?  Should we be able to ignore all laws when they are not convenient for us?

Personally, I strongly believe that we should follow the U.S. Constitution, and there are millions of others out there that agree with me.  If we want to amend the Constitution, there is a procedure for doing that, but it is not easy.  Our founders did that to try to ensure that any changes to our Constitution would reflect an overwhelming consensus of the American people.

But today America is more divided than ever before.  We can’t seem to agree on much of anything.  We are at a period in our history when we desperately need to come together, but instead we are constantly at each other’s throats.

Is there anything that truly unites us anymore?

In the old days, if you would have asked people to give you a one word definition of America, many people would have responded by naming important values such as “freedom” and “liberty”.

Sadly, much of the country appears not to even value those things any longer.  One poll found that 51 percent of all Americans believe that “it is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism.”  Other surveys have found similar results.

Not only that, we continue to elect control freak politicians from both political parties that appear to be obsessed with constantly eroding our freedoms and liberties.  There are literally millions of ridiculous laws, rules and regulations that govern even the smallest details of our lives, and the government is constantly inventing new ways to watch, track, register, monitor and control all of us.  If you doubt this, please see this article and this article.  If we continue down this path, we are going to end up in a very dark place as a nation.

Well, what about economics?

Aren’t we united by a common economic philosophy?

Sadly, no we are not.

In the old days, Americans overwhelmingly believed in free market capitalism and overwhelmingly rejected socialism, but now that is rapidly changing.

According to a stunning Pew Research Center survey, 49 percent of Americans in the 18 to 29 age bracket have a positive view of socialism while only 46 percent of Americans in that same age bracket have a positive view of capitalism.

So what will the future look like if we continue to see this kind of shift among our young people?

And of course we have not had anything even close to a true free market system in the United States in a very, very long time.  Our economy is dominated by a partnership between the federal government and the monolithic predator corporations that dominate our society.  Individuals and small businesses that try to compete are being absolutely suffocated.  Our Founding Fathers were very suspicious of all large concentrations of power, and they sought to greatly limit the power of both the federal government and of the big corporations.  But today we have gone totally in the other direction.

Well, is there anything else that truly unites America?

What about religion?

Of course it is true that the overwhelming majority of the early colonists were Christian, and even 50 years ago it would have been accurate to say that America was a “Christian nation”, but that is definitely no longer the case today.

The number of Americans with no religious affiliation has absolutely exploded in recent years.  It has grown by a whopping 25 percent over the past five years, and meanwhile the percentage of people that identify themselves as “Christians” in America is dropping like a rock.  In fact, one poll found that the percentage of Protestants in the United States has dropped below 50 percent for the first time ever.  For many more shocking numbers that show the precipitous decline of Christianity in America, please see this article.

So what fundamental principles do most Americans actually agree on?

And I am not talking about things like “American Idol is going downhill” or “Justin Bieber gets too much attention”.

Is there still a core set of shared values that the entire nation can agree upon?

If not, where does that leave us?

Unfortunately, I think that it leaves us in a very difficult place.  The divisiveness that we have seen in Washington D.C. in recent years is just the tip of the iceberg.  We are living in a nation today that is more divided than I can ever remember.  A whole host of opinion polls have shown that anger and frustration in America are rising to very dangerous levels, and instead of focusing on the real reasons for our problems we all tend to point the fingers at one another.

In America today, we have been trained to group ourselves together by certain “categories” and to see those on the other side as “the enemy”.  This is a very dangerous thing.  It keeps the American people from coming together to fix the very serious problems that are facing our country.

The truth is that we are being divided in dozens of different ways today.  The following are just a few of the ways we are currently being divided…

Republican vs. Democrat

Conservative vs. Liberal

Rich vs. Poor

Black vs. White (or insert any other two races or ethnic groups)

North vs. South

Urban vs. Rural

Anti-Gun vs. Pro-Gun

Male vs. Female

Young vs. Old

Traditional vs. “Modern”

Religious vs. Secular

Of course we should never compromise what we believe just for the sake of “unity”.  That is foolishness.  But you can disagree with someone without hating them.

In America today, people will find a reason to hate someone else at the drop of a hat.  Surprisingly large numbers of Americans will hate others because of where they are from, what they look like, what their ethnic background is, what their political affiliation is or what their religious beliefs are.

If America is going to have any kind of a future, we have got to start loving one another.  That does not mean that we all have to agree with one another.  But we do need to start caring about one another and hoping for the best for one another.

For example, I fundamentally disagree with almost every single thing that Barack Obama does.  But I do not hate him.  On the contrary, I pray for him and his family.  I would love to see him experience a 180 degree turnaround and start fighting for the truth.  I believe that love is stronger than hate, and I believe that there is hope for every one of us.

I know that I have had my mind changed on a lot of things throughout my life, and if I could go back there are many things I would do differently.  I am thankful for those that loved me and had patience with me when I was younger.

And that is the kind of grace that we should extend toward others.  Yes, a stand needs to be made when others are promoting evil and trampling on our rights.  But instead of responding to hate with even greater amounts of hate, perhaps it would be better if we responded with even greater amounts of love.

And I am not saying that we always have to be “meek” in our approach.  For example, if I was pushing a shopping cart around the local supermarket and I came upon a young child that was about to guzzle an entire bottle of liquid bleach, I would yell and scream at that child to stop.  Sometimes yelling and screaming is the loving thing to do.  There is nothing wrong with “tough love”.

There are preachers and radio hosts that I know that express what they believe in a very vociferous manner, but it is coming from a good place.  They love their listeners and they love their country and they are just trying to wake people up.  There is nothing wrong with that.

On the flip side, there are others that truly do hate particular categories of people.  For example, I was on a radio show earlier today, and the first half of the interview went great as I explained the problems with our economy, how our cities are degenerating and how the Federal Reserve is at the very heart of our financial problems as a nation.

But then in the second half of the interview, the radio host started blaming one particular ethnic group for all of our problems.  I had not properly researched this particular host and I was horrified.  I told her in a very clear manner that I thought that she was wrong.  I don’t think that she appreciated that very much.

But the truth is that we are never going to fix the very serious problems that are facing this country if we choose to hate one another because of what we look like or who are ancestors were.  We are never going to fix the very serious problems that are facing this country if we choose to remain trapped in the “red vs. blue” paradigm and keep pointing fingers of hatred at one another.  We are never going to fix the very serious problems that are facing this country if we would rather indulge in hatred rather than love.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t fight for what is right.  There are most certainly politicians that need to be voted out of office.  There are most certainly big corporations that need to be exposed.  There are most definitely evil agendas that are being promoted at the highest levels.  Our society is clearly headed in the wrong direction and this country needs a massive wake up call.

But I think that we will get a lot farther if love is our primary motivation.  Without love, we are nothing.  Let us start to love one another as we would like to be loved ourselves.”

Idiocy on Parade: Best of 2012!!!

Good riddance, 2012!!….

I’m sure there are many that share that sentiment!

I happened across this piece at Media Research Center. It’s their special year end awards for some of the most moronic, idiotic, and just plain STUPID quotes from those in media and the like. Remember…THESE are those that set themselves ABOVE everyone else! They know MUCH more about how this country should function than you or I do! THESE are the experts! The media elite!…

You should discern that they’re nothing more than self congratulating blow hards full of sh*t!..to put it mildly!…Enjoy!

“If his [the House GOP] budget were ever come to pass, then Meals on Wheels would be killed, transportation services to the disabled would be destroyed, food stamps would be eviscerated. I think many Americans would end up in soup kitchens like that. So I don’t think we should be critical. I think we should be grateful that what Mr. Ryan has shown us is exactly what will happen to people if the kind of vicious and callous budget that he would wish to impose on American people ends up coming to pass.”
— MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on NewsNation, October 16.

“When you watch the President like that, I always feel he’s got so many pluses, doesn’t he? In a sense, he’s personable, he’s handsome, he can be funny. You know, abroad he has this great image for America. A lot of things are just perfect about Barack Obama.”
— Host Piers Morgan to Obama strategist David Axelrod on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight, December 5, 2011.

“There is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.”
— Brian Ross, ABC’s Good Morning America, during July 20 coverage of the movie theater shooting. A few hours later, Ross appeared on ABC to confess: “An earlier report that I had was incorrect, that he was connected to the Tea Party. In fact, that’s a different Jim Holmes….”

I am so proud of the country, to re-elect this President….A good day for America. I’m so glad we had that storm [Hurricane Sandy] last week, because I think the storm was one of those things — no, politically I should say, not in terms of hurting people — the storm brought in possibilities for good politics.”
— Chris Matthews wrapping up MSNBC’s live election night coverage shortly before 3am ET, November 7. (He apologized on the November 7 Hardball: “I said something not just stupid, but wrong.”)

People like [Missouri GOP Senate candidate Todd] Akin that think the vagina is some sort of Magical Mystery Tour and men like that are running this country…This is why I took this job. I have a job already at The View. But I feel this country is going downhill because of people like Akin and Ryan and Romney. They’re trying to kill us and destroy us.”
— Current TV host Joy Behar, as quoted by the Boston Herald’s Megan Johnson in an August 29 article.

“The question for some, especially women, is: Why do the Republicans want to get government out of our lives, but into our wombs?” — Politico’s Roger Simon on Inside Washington, March 2.

“TARP, the stimulus, health reform, Wall Street reform, student loan reform, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the new GI bill…. I don’t just mean to flatter you, but [this] is [the] kind of list of legislation we associate with people whom we name large buildings after in Washington….Your Speakership was Sam Rayburn-esque.” — MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a luncheon on Capitol Hill, June 6, as reported by the Washington Examiner the next morning.

“If ROMNEY gets elected I don’t know if i can breathe same air as Him & his Right Wing Racist Homophobic Women Hating Tea Bagger Masters” — Actress/singer Cher in a May 8 Twitter posting that was later deleted (grammar and punctuation as in the original).

I mean, when you think about it, it’s ‘bombs bursting in air,’ ‘rocket’s red glare,’ it’s all kinds of — you know a lot of national anthems are that way, too — all kinds of military jargon, and the land — there’s only one phrase ‘the land of the free,’ which is kind of nice, and ‘the home of the brave?’ I don’t know….Are we [Americans] the only ones who are brave on the planet? I mean, ‘all the brave people live here.’ I mean, it’s just stupid, I think. I’m embarrassed, I’m embarrassed every time I hear it.” — Former CNN and MSNBC host Bill Press on his Full Court Press nationally-syndicated radio show, June 5.

This is the kind of man that Mitt Romney is. This man does not have a soul. If you opened up, you know, his chest, there’s probably a gold ticking watch in there and not even a heart. This is not a person. This is just a robot who will do whatever it takes, whatever he’s told to do, to make it to the White House. And he will take whatever push in the back from whatever nasty person is pushing him and move him further in that direction.” — New York Times columnist Charles Blow on MSNBC’s The Last Word, July 17.

“Mitt Romney doesn’t see dead people. But that’s only because he doesn’t want to see them; if he did, he’d have to acknowledge the ugly reality of what will happen if he and Paul Ryan get their way on health care….A literal description of their plan is that they want to expose many Americans to financial insecurity, and let some of them die, so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income.” — New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, October 15.

“The land on which they [the Founders] formed this Union was stolen. The hands with which they built this nation were enslaved. The women who birthed the citizens of the nation are second class…. This is the imperfect fabric of our nation, at times we’ve torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But it’s ours, all of it. The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”
— MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry on her eponymous July 1 program, delivering what she called “my footnote for the Fourth of July.”

“Compared to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, Obama has been more fiscally conservative than any other president in recent history, with the exception of President Bill Clinton.” — Singer/actress/liberal activist Barbra Streisand writing on The Huffington Post under a heading that read “Here are truths they will try to bury,” September 18.

“You notice he [Romney] says ‘anger’ twice. He’s really trying to use racial coding and access some really deep stereotypes about the angry black man. This is part of the playbook against Obama. The other-ization, ‘he’s not like us.’ I know it’s a heavy thing to say; I don’t say it lightly. But this is niggerization: ‘You are not one of us,’ and that ‘you are like the scary black man who we’ve been trained to fear.’”
— Co-host Touré on MSNBC’s The Cycle, August 16.

Actor Jamie Foxx during the Soul Train Awards, November 25 on BET.

Just a sampling of what passes for valid opinion in our nation today…what’s placed upon a pedestal..to be admired..and strived for…This is the mindset presented as fact to millions of Americans. The sad part is…many Americans believe it……

More…

16 THINGS THAT ARE REALLY GOING TO STINK ABOUT 2013 – The Economic Collapse

25 FACTS THAT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA DOESN’T REALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT RIGH NOW – End of the American Dream

FLASHBACK:

THANKS OBAMA! – HERE ARE 24 STATS THAT SHOW HOW MUCH YOU HAVE ROYALLY MESSED UP OUR ECONOMY! – End of the American Dream

The ‘Headline Collection’

 

 

I did not watch the debates…apparently I should have. Of course, this is only the first of three. But it’s good to see Romney decided to go on offense…

Great collection of headlines this morning!….

Halfway through, they should have stopped the fight.

“Gov. Mitt Romney eviscerated a staggering and bewildered President Barack Obama tonight in one of the most lopsided presidential debates in American history. Throughout the debate, which focused on domestic policy, Obama looked shaken, rarely looking at the camera, reciting old talking points and filibustering as Romney gave a master class at the University of Denver.” – Breitbart.com

DENVER DOWNER: Obama surrogates can’t spin a win after Denver Presidential debate – The Daily Caller

MITT THE SUPERB – National Review Online

ROMNEY DOMINATES IN FIRST DEBATE – Townhall

WELL, THAT WAS TERRIFIC! – Powerline

A DEMOCRAT STRATEGIST: “WE GOT OUR CLOCK CLEANED!” – PoliPundit

SCHULTZ AND MADDOW: I’M DISAPPOINTED – The Gateway Pundit

BAM! SLAM! POW! CRASH! BOOM! – Red State

ROMNEY ATTACKS OBAMA’S ‘TRICKLE DOWN GOVERNMENT’ IN FIRST DEBATE – The Washington Times

A TERRIFIC DEBATE! – The Weekly Standard

ANALYSIS: ROMNEY PLAYS STRONG OFFENSE – USA Today

MITT’S BIGGEST TURNAROUND YET! – American Spectator

ROMNEY ATTACKS OBAMA ON HIS ECONOMIC RECORD – The Washington Post

ROMNEY’S AGRESSIVE DEBATE CHEERS GOP! – Chicago Tribune

MITT MAULS O! – The New York Post

OBAMA AND ROMNEY TANGLE ON ECONOMY – The New York Times

Well, it’s quite obvious who has the more subdued headline here. I’ve never had a doubt the failings of Barack Obama are out there…front and center. My doubt was whether enough voters could see it. My reservations about Mitt Romney’s efforts to shine the light on that are not something I’ve hid here. He’s definitely off to a good start. Will the momentum carry him through the next 2 debates? We’ll see…The REAL challenge will be convincing Americans that “obamaphone lady” and the lady who expected money from “Obama’s stash” in 2008 are NOT representative of the direction we want to take this country. We still have a battle ahead….

 

 

 

 

In an alternate universe…..

 

From a few days ago…David French at Patheos..

 

Top Six Newspaper Headlines if Barack Obama Were Republican

This morning — stunned that our president was raising money in Vegas and prepping for a party with Beyonce while our embassies burn — I asked myself: “What if Barack Obama were a Republican?  How would the media cover these last few days?”  After living through eight years of coverage of the Bush administration, it’s not hard to guess.  Let’s suppose, just for a moment, that theNew York Times, the Washington Post, and the L.A. Times covered Obama like they covered Bush.  I present the top six headlines (with opening sentences):

1.  New York Times: “President Attends Vegas Fundraiser as Middle East Protests Rage.”  Top Aides to President Barack Obama struggled to keep track of events in the Middle East and to contain the political fallout from Mr. Obama’s decision to proceed with Las Vegas Fundraiser even while American embassies were under attack across the Middle East . . .”

2. New York Times: “News Analysis: Is There Now a ‘Promise Gap’ in Foreign Policy?”  As Democratic challenger Mitt Romney runs ads in battleground states comparing Mr. Obama’s campaign promises to his economic performance, new ads are set to air contrasting the mass rallies in support of Mr. Obama in his 2008 campaign with the mass riots roiling the Middle East . . .”

3. Washington Post:  ”In Midst of Crisis, President Sends Mixed Messages to Egypt.”  Less than a day after accusing his Democratic rival, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, of “shooting first and aiming later,” the administration was forced to backtrack from the President’s declaration that Egypt was not an ally . . .

4. Washington Post:  ”News Analysis: Ghost of the Carter Campaign Haunts President.”  In 1980 humiliating images of blindfolded American hostages filled TV screens across America, dooming President Carter’s already-struggling presidential campaign.  In 2012, black flags fly over U.S. embassies as the administration appears unable to defend American diplomatic outposts abroad . . .

5. Los Angeles Times:  ”Critics Recall McCarthyism as Department of Justice ID’s Controversial Filmmaker.”  The Department of Justice publicly identified the maker of a controversial film critical of Islam, raising concerns about the filmmakers safety and about the DOJ’s commitment to free speech . . .

6. Los Angeles Times:  ”Hollywood Rages as Department of Justice Targets Amateur Director.”  A coalition of actors, producer, and directors held a blistering press conference outside of Department of Justice offices in Los Angeles, accusing the administration of an ‘unconscionable attack on free speech’ after the DOJ disclosed the identity of the controversial director of “The Innocence of Muslims” . . .

Ahh well, I guess we’ll have to wait until the Romney presidency to watch mainstream journalists actually do their job.

 

A Funny Man’s Take on the NOT so Funny…

If you’re at all familiar with the John Hughes classic “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, you recognize Ben Stein as the monotone teacher attempting to explain economics to his suffering class. He’s still around in the form of humorist and columnist with a focus on the often BORING subject. Not an outspoken critic of the Obama administration, he’s no fan either. This is a great piece from his ‘Ben’s Diary’ at American Spectator! His observation on the mood out there, DESPITE what many see as a second term for the disastrous President Obama on the horizon.

END TIMES

There is that feeling in the air.

Thursday
Strange day.

I awakened to a text from a close friend who is a devout Christian and who was so angry at the elite media that she could not sleep. “I am so frikkin’ sick of the media telling us that Islam is a ‘religion of peace,'” she said. “Look, people make fun of Jesus all of the time and I mean ALL of the time and we don’t kill them or harm them. But do anything at all that offends any Muslim and they start killing Christians and Jews — and then Obama apologizes for it. How long can this go on? The times of Tribulation are at hand.”

I got up, walked out on the deck and looked out at the perfect fall day over Lake Pendoreille. An absolutely perfect Fall day, blue skies, light breeze, just a slight chill in the air.

At breakfast, my wife suddenly said, “And then I beheld a red horse ridden by a man with a great sword….”

“What is that?” I asked her.

“It’s Revelation,” she said.

“I know, but where does that come from?”

“I just feel as if something big is about to happen,” she said. “Something feels like we’re about to live in a totally changed world. It feels like end times. Why are we apologizing to the Muslims? They’re killing and expelling their Christians and we don’t say a word. End times.”

I nodded. There is that feeling in the air.

I got another text from my very devout Christian friend. “Don’t tell me Obama isn’t a Muslim,” she said. “I don’t care what he calls himself, he’s a Muslim. That’s why he’s always apologizing to the Muslims.”

I think she’s bit off the mark here. If Obama says he’s a Christian, he’s a Christian.

I slept for a long time while listening to Mozart and the trains. Then I went to the mail box and got the latest news from the Obama/Biden campaign — oops, meant to say, “The New York Times.” Naturally, it was filled with rage against Mitt Romney There was very little vitriol against the killers in Libya, but plenty against Gov. Romney.

I sure hope that the people at the Romney campaign don’t read The NY Times. It is just endless propaganda against Republicans. Nonstop. We Republicans should campaign on our own issues. Mr. Obama’s idiot foreign policy is such an issue.

I went off to do my errands in Sandpoint. A visit to a super pleasant post office. A helpful clerk was patient with my terrible handwriting. Then a visit to the Alpine Shop to see my pal, Tim Farmin, who looked happy but told me my boat needed a new battery. Then, a visit to Ivano’s to pick up some grub for tonight.

At Ivano’s, I talked to a man who seethed with rage against Mr. Obama. He simply could not believe that Mr. Obama would make time to be among his Hollywood big shots but not make time to see Benjamin Netanyahu. “These are getting to be Biblical days,” he said. “The final days.”

A trip to the art framer, then to the drug store, then to the Safeway to buy a cake. The woman in the bakery told me that the days of tribulation and the dictatorship were upon us. She is looking to move to the mountains “to find refuge…”

“Be careful,” I said. “That’s what Vicki Weaver was looking for and it didn’t work so well. Our refuge is in The Lord.”

(I am up on Vicki Weaver because I am reading an astonishingly good book about the federal killings at Ruby Ridge called Ruby Ridge by a writer of unique talent by the name of Jess Walter. It is terrifying.)

Back to Ivano’s to pick up my grub. Then back home to read the latest about the murder of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three of his staff.

Apparently word had been out for months that the most extreme of the anti-Qaddafi rebels were working with al Qaeda for 9/11. The State Department and the Defense Department had done nothing meaningful to protect the Ambassador. When the killers attacked the U.S. compound, they were heavily armed with anti-aircraft automatic cannon (a very deadly weapon) and RPG’s. They were a recognizably violent group connected with al Qaeda.

It’s amazing that Qaddafi kept saying that the people fighting against him were al Qaeda and we kept helping them — and sure enough, they turned out to be al Qaeda. And Qaddafi, who had become our friend — although a cruel and vile man — was killed by the rebels so now Libya is in large measure in the hands of al Qaeda.

Same with Egypt. Mubarak was no one’s idea of a great guy, but he was our pal. He kept the peace with Israel. He suppressed the terrorists. So, naturally, we stabbed him in the back. Now, we have worked to create an “Arab Spring” that has given us a fantastically more anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-al Qaeda Middle East.

But incredibly, Mr. Obama considers this an achievement. An achievement? To help al Qaeda and its pals, the Muslim Brotherhood, take power in the most populous Arab state? To help al Qaeda take over in oil rich Libya? What are they talking about?

I hope Mr. Romney will not let himself get pushed around by the Obama smear machine. I see that at a rally today in Virginia, his speech was derailed by a lone Obama heckler asking, “Why are you politicizing Libya?” That apparently rattled Gov. Romney badly.

The answer, should it come up again, is, “Because this is a democracy. We debate big points of foreign and domestic policy, especially during election campaigns. The failure of the administration to stand up to Muslim thugs is a big issue. Apologizing to terrorists is a big issue. The failure to protect our diplomats is a big issue. The failure to stand up for free speech is a huge issue. We are supposed to debate those things. If you don’t like that, move back to Iran or wherever you came from.”

Meanwhile, time for Mr. Romney to go back to attack mode. Why did the State Department not protect our Ambassador in Benghazi? Why isn’t Mrs. Clinton resigning over this? Why isn’t Secretary of Defense Panetta apologizing and resigning? There was a colossal failure here. The President is accountable. Why isn’t he taking some responsibility here?

The Obama smear machine is making much of the supposed time line of this week. That supposedly the worst attacks came after Mr. Romney criticized The State Department for apologizing to the Muslims for an anti-Muslim film. But of course, they are missing the point totally and on purpose.

Why should we have been apologizing as a nation to Muslims for one person making a cartoon? We didn’t apologize to the Russians when people in the USA made anti-Communist remarks. We didn’t apologize to Hitler when people in America made anti-Nazi remarks. Why do the Muslims get this special apology treatment? What’s up with that? We respect all religions, but we are not going to apologize to anyone as a people for what one guy does in his garage.

What is with Mr. Obama’s special deference to the terrorists? I am well aware that he’s done a darned fine job using drones to kill them and God bless him for it. But then why apologize to groups of people we feel are so terrible that we kill some of them without a trial or a declaration of war?

Let’s get it straight, once again: We live by the first amendment and the Constitution. Our people have freedom of speech. Even the nutty ones. We do not apologize for our Constitution.

Well, enough of that. It is time for a quiet dinner listening to the lake and the trains. For now, it is paradise. The time of tribulation has not yet come for us all, and God bless that brave Ambassador, Christopher Stevens, who was murdered and had his body dragged through the streets by people we put in power. God help us when Judgment Day comes.

The King of Wishful Thinking….’Lost and Unfocused’…

 

 

So I heard there was a speech last night…I didn’t waste my time watching it…A&E’s ‘Coma’ proved more riveting than listening to the accolades heaped on Barack Obama. Not to mention the parade of speakers feeding America the same, worn out lines of bullshit.

I’m sure Michelle Obama’s presentation was admirable as she tried to sell the country on the foolish premise of giving her husband four more years in the White House. That being said, more articles are appearing in the media focused on what little we REALLY know about Barack Obama.

Rich Karlgaard at Forbes offers his take on a damaging piece from this past Sunday’s (Sept. 2, 2012) New York Times…yes, you read that correctly…THE NEW YORK TIMES!

On the other hand, if you think about it…NONE of it is really surprising!…

 

 

NEW YORK TIMES PROVES CLINT EASTWOOD CORRECT: OBAMA IS LOUSY CEO!

A Sunday New York Times front page story — New York Times! — might have killed President Obama’s re-election hopes.

The story is called “The Competitor in Chief — Obama Plays To Win, In Politics and Everything Else.” It is devastating.

With such a title, and from such a friendly organ, at first I thought Jodi Kantor’s piece would be a collection of Obama’s greatest political wins: His rapid rise in Illinois, his win over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, the passage of health care, and so on.

But the NYT piece is not about any of that. Rather, it is a deep look into the two outstanding flaws in Obama’s executive leadership:

1. How he vastly overrates his capabilities:

But even those loyal to Mr. Obama say that his quest for excellence can bleed into cockiness and that he tends to overestimate his capabilities. The cloistered nature of the White House amplifies those tendencies, said Matthew Dowd, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, adding that the same thing happened to his former boss. “There’s a reinforcing quality,” he said, a tendency for presidents to think, I’m the best at this.

2. How he spends extraordinary amounts of time and energy to compete in — trivialities.

For someone dealing with the world’s weightiest matters, Mr. Obama spends surprising energy perfecting even less consequential pursuits. He has played golf 104 times since becoming president, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who monitors his outings, and he asks superior players for tips that have helped lower his scores. He decompresses with card games on Air Force One, but players who do not concentrate risk a reprimand (“You’re not playing, you’re just gambling,” he once told Arun Chaudhary, his former videographer).

His idea of birthday relaxation is competing in an Olympic-style athletic tournament with friends, keeping close score. The 2009 version ended with a bowling event. Guess who won, despite his history of embarrassingly low scores? The president, it turned out, had been practicing in the White House alley.

Kantor’s piece is full of examples of Obama’s odd need to dominate his peers in everything from bowling, cards, golf, basketball, and golf (104 times in his presidency). Bear in mind, Obama doesn’t just robustly compete. The leader of the free world spends many hours practicing these trivial pursuits behind the scenes. Combine this weirdly wasted time with a consistent overestimation of his capabilities, and the result is, according to NYT’s Kantor:

He may not always be as good at everything as he thinks, including politics. While Mr. Obama has given himself high grades for his tenure in the White House — including a “solid B-plus” for his first year — many voters don’t agree, citing everything from his handling of the economy to his unfulfilled pledge that he would be able to unite Washington to his claim that he would achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Those were not the only times Mr. Obama may have overestimated himself: he has also had a habit of warning new hires that he would be able to do their jobs better than they could.

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Mr. Obama told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 campaign, according to The New Yorker. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Though he never ran a large organization before becoming president, he initially dismissed internal concerns about management and ended up with a factionalized White House and a fuzzier decision-making process than many top aides wanted.

Kantor’s portrait of Obama is stunning. It paints a picture of a CEO who is unfocused and lost.

Imagine, for a minute, that you are on the board of directors of a company. You have a CEO who is not meeting his numbers and who is suffering a declining popularity with his customers. You want to help this CEO recover, but then you learn he doesn’t want your help. He is smarter than you and eager to tell you this. Confidence or misplaced arrogance? You’re not sure at first. If the company was performing well, you’d ignore it. But the company is performing poorly, so you can’t.

With some digging, you learn, to your horror, that the troubled CEO spends a lot of time on — what the hell? — bowling? Golf? Three point shots? While the company is going south?

What do you do? You fire that CEO. Clint Eastwood was right. You let the guy go.

 

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