Dismantling America – Piece by Piece
Thomas Sowell’s column of October 30, 2009, is a stark and somber review of the first nine months of the Obama administration.
Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many “czars” appointed by the president, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50% or 90%?
Did you think that another “czar” would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — to create a situation where some papers’ survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?
Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called “experts” deciding who could and could not get lifesaving medical treatments?
Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life-and-death decisions about your loved ones?
Does any of this sound like America?
How about a federal agency giving schoolchildren material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.
How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.
We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies.
What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brownshirts of dictators than like anything American. How far the president will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.
Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to “change the United States of America”; the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.
Jeremiah Wright said it with words: “God damn America!” Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.
Among those appointed as czars by Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.
Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn’t know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?
Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government — people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America’s influence in the world.
Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration’s enemies list.
Nothing so epitomizes Obama’s own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year — each bill more than a thousand pages long — too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed.
That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question — and the biggest question for this generation.
Internationally, Obama has made every mistake that was made by the Western democracies in the 1930s, mistakes that put Hitler in a position to start World War II — and come dangerously close to winning it.
At the heart of those mistakes was trying to mollify your enemies by throwing your friends to the wolves. The administration has already done that by reneging on this country’s commitment to put a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and its lackadaisical foot-dragging on doing anything serious to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That means, for all practical purposes, throwing Israel to the wolves as well.
Countries around the world that have to look out for their own national survival, above all, are not going to ignore how much Obama has downgraded the reliability of America’s commitments.
Iraq, for example, knows that Iran is going to be next door forever, while Americans may be gone in a few years. South Korea likewise knows that North Korea is permanently next door, but who knows when the Obama administration will get a bright idea to pull out?
Countries in South America know that Hugo Chavez is allying Venezuela with Iran. Dare they ally themselves with an unreliable U.S.A.? Or should they join our enemies to work against us? This issue is too serious for squeamish silence.
One of these is banned at a NH High School
“One of the photos above would be banned from the Merrimack High School yearbook. The other would be perfectly fine. Care to guess which one?”
Goodbye U.S. Sovereignty – Copenhagen set to establish New "World Government"
Spreading fears of Climate Change, Global Warming and Extreme Environmentalism “is the most ingenious cover story ever devised for Big Government,” as Mark Steyn makes clear in Maccleans.
“I’m always appreciative when a fellow says what he really means. Tim Flannery, the jet-setting doomsaying global warm-monger from down under, was in Ottawa the other day promoting his latest eco-tract, and offered a few thoughts on “Copenhagen”—which is transnational-speak for December’s UN Convention on Climate Change. “We all too often mistake the nature of those negotiations in Copenhagen,” remarked professor Flannery. “We think of them as being concerned with some sort of environmental treaty. That is far from the case. The negotiations now ongoing toward the Copenhagen agreement are in effect diplomacy at the most profound global level. They deal with every aspect of our life and they will influence every aspect of our life, our economy, our society.”
Hold that thought: “They deal with every aspect of our life.” Did you know every aspect of your life was being negotiated at Copenhagen? But in a good way! So no need to worry. After all, we all care about the environment, don’t we? So we ought to do something about it, right? And, since “the environment” isn’t just in your town or county but spreads across the entire planet, we can only really do something at the planetary level. But what to do? According to paragraph 38 on page 18 of the latest negotiating text, the convention will set up a “government” to manage the “new funds” and the “related facilitative processes.”
Read it all here.
How long and at what cost to cut 1 degree of Global Warming?
Assuming Al Gore is right – and he’s not – what would it take and how much would it cost to lower the earth’s temperature by One Degree?
Can Obama Blame Bush for Crumbling Poll Ratings?
The Rasmussen monthly presidential approval poll reports a steep drop in Obama’s approval rating. “In October, for the third straight month, 39% Strongly Disapproved of the president’s performance. The number who Strongly Approved fell two percentage points to 29%, the president’s lowest full-month total to date. That leads to a Presidential Approval Index rating of -10, also a new low for Obama.
Also in October, the president’s total approval slipped a point to 48%. His total disapproval remained stable at 51%.”
Last Friday in the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer wondered, “Is there anything he [Obama] hasn’t blamed George W. Bush for? The economy, global warming, the credit crisis, Middle East stalemate, the deficit, anti-Americanism abroad — everything but swine flu.”
For Barack Obama, his dwindling poll numbers cannot be blamed on George Bush. They are instead, the direct result of Obama’s big-government liberalism.
Speaking Truth to Power
“Valerie Jarrett announced the other day that “we’re going to speak truth to power”.
Who’s Valerie Jarrett? She’s “Senior Advisor” to the President of the United States – ie, the leader of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. You would think the most powerful man in the most powerful nation would find a hard job finding anyone on the planet to “speak truth to power” to. But I suppose if you’re as eager to do so as his Senior Advisor, there’s always somebody out there: The Supreme Leader of Iran. The Prime Minister of Belgium. The Deputy Tourism Minister of the Solomon Islands. But no. The Senior Advisor has selected targets closer to home:
“I think that what the administration has said very clearly is that we’re going to speak truth to power. When we saw all of the distortions in the course of the summer, when people were coming down to town hall meetings and putting up signs that were scaring seniors to death…”
Ah, right. People “putting up signs”. Can’t have that, can we? The most powerful woman in the inner circle of the most powerful man on earth has decided to speak truth to powerful people standing in the street with handwritten placards saying “THIS GRAN’MA ISN’T SHOVEL READY”. Was it only a week ago that I wrote about this Administration’s peculiar need for domestic enemies?
The Senior Advisor seems to have forgotten that she is the power. Admittedly, this is a recurring lapse on the part of the Administration. There was Barack Obama only the other day blaming everything on the President – no, no, silly, not him, the other fellow, the Designated Fall Guy who stepped down as head of state in January to accept the new constitutional position of Blame Czar. Musing on problems in Afghanistan, Obama blamed the “long years of drift” under his predecessor. The new President – okay, newish President – has been Drifter-in-Chief for almost a year but he’s too busy speaking truth to the former power to get on top of the situation. It could be a while yet. In his more self-regarding moments, such as his speech to the UN, he gives the strong impression that the “long years of drift” began in 1776.”
The Swine Flu “Emergency” is a Foretaste of Pelosi Health Care
From William Kristol, The Weekly Standard:
“Politicians aren’t altogether stupid. No president or congressional majority has tried to raise taxes since 1993. No president or congressional majority has tried to slash Medicare since 1995.
Until now. With Barack Obama as her front man, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi–the real power in the Democratic party–has gone Clinton and Gingrich one better. Clinton tried to hike taxes. Gingrich sought to cut Medicare. Pelosi wants to do both at once. This is quite a feat: She’s combined the most unpopular Democratic and Republican proposals of the last generation in one piece of legislation.
And her timing is impeccable. Pelosi has decided to raise taxes and discourage employment just as joblessness approaches 10 percent. She’s decided to cut Medicare reimbursements just as seniors’ retirement accounts have shrunk. She’s decided to advance a huge spending bill just as the deficit is at historic highs. She’s decided to insist on federal funding of abortion just as the issue seems to have reached some sustainable middle ground. And she’s decided to put forward a 2,000-page piece of legislation with a mind-boggling array of scary instances of bureaucratic coercion and farcical examples of nanny-state liberalism–all nuggets of political gold for Republicans–at a time when the public is sick of statist overreaching and big-government meddling.”
“…We’re seeing a big government health care program in operation right now–the Obama administration’s effort to deal with the swine flu problem. No, come to think of it, it’s now the swine flu emergency. Last week, President Obama so legally designated it. How’s that test case in government-run emergency care going?
Turn on your local news to find out. You’ll see false reassurances, broken promises, rationing which doesn’t provide the promised rations, queues lengthening while supplies run out, and lots of bureaucrats explaining just why things aren’t working quite as their centrally planned plans had planned.
The swine flu emergency is a foretaste of life under the Pelosi Plan [Government-run Health Care]. Surely this spectacle, happening in real time before us, will give even more Democrats pause. Do they really want to be known as the Swine Flu Democrats?”
Obama Administration Declares War on Fox News
The Obama administration has finally found a war they like. Not the war in Iraq – the “bad” war – and not the war in Afghanistan, the “good” war, but war against an American television network, the Fox News Channel.
The open assault on Fox News began when White House Communications Director Anita Dunn accused the network of being a “wing of the Republican Party.”
On yesterday’s Sunday talk shows, Obama administration officials piled on. Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said Fox News shouldn’t be treated as a news organization. “And the bigger thing is that other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way,” he said.
“What I think is fair to say about Fox — and certainly it’s the way we view it — is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party,” Anita Dunn said on CNN. “They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is.”
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel also took time on Sunday to criticize Fox News, saying they are “not a news organization, so much as it has a perspective, and that’s a different take. And more importantly, it’s important not to have the CNN’s and the others of the world being led and following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization,” Emanuel said.
Isn’t CNN the “responsible and legitimate news organization” that fact-checks comedy skits?
Rush Limbaugh and the Drive-By Media
Unable to expound a rational, cogent and coherent argument to Rush Limbaugh, “it is telling that Rush Limbaugh’s enemies — and they are enemies, not critics — always avail themselves of the same three weapons: fat jokes, addiction jokes, and lies.”
As Charles Krauthammer pointed out the other night, “ …the comment he [Limbaugh] made about McNabb: I don’t think it makes him any more racist than the comment Larry Summers made about women in the sciences made him a sexist. And is this all you can pin on Limbaugh who has been on the air three hours a day for 20 years? The total number of words there has to exceed the Bible and Shakespeare combined — and all you got on him is the Donovan McNabb?”
Sadly, “a rash of manufactured quotes attributed to Limbaugh was forwarded to the usual media suspects — CNN, MSNBC — which then incorporated these falsehoods into their reporting without substantiation. Confronted with evidence that the quotes are false, and challenged to produce audio or other documentation of them, media figures insisted that it was up to Rush to prove he had never said these things.”
Presumption of innocence is a legal right that we all are granted. It states that no person shall be considered guilty until finally convicted by a court. The burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which has to convince the jury that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In principle, the defense does not have to ‘prove’ anything.
Unless of course, you’re the liberal media in which case conservatives are guilty until proven innocent.
Millions in Stimulus Tax Dollars for Better Vending Machine Food
First Lady Michelle Obama visited the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington Tuesday. She devoted much of her talk to “the growing threat of obesity, particularly childhood obesity” in the United States, and she touted HHS’s recently-announced plan to spend $373 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on plans to, among other things, improve the healthfulness of foods in vending machines.
The first lady did not discuss how such work might stimulate the economy or speed economic recovery. But she had glowing praise for the stimulus’ role in fighting obesity.
Will someone please explain to me why the Obama administration feels the need to spend $373 million of our tax dollars on improving the healthfulness of vending machine food? Just who the hell buys food out of a vending machine for its nutritional quality?
Since this is an Obama administration plan which supposedly falls under the so-called Stimulus Bill – for which no Republican voted – one must assume there are a lot of obese Democrats waddling up to vending machines for lunch and dinner who require dietary direction.
Obviously the Feds aren’t going to spend $373 million on potato chip-size bags of carrots and celery for the nation’s vending machines, so who gets all the money? Well…let’s see. According to HHS Secretary Sebelius,
“…the $373 million in stimulus money will be the “cornerstone funding” of the Recovery Act Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative. The announcement was an invitation to groups around the country to apply for grants under the program, which will be called Communities Putting Prevention to Work. “Funded projects will emphasize high-impact, broad-reaching policy, environmental, and systems changes in schools (K-12) and communities,” the HHS announcement said.
Well, I sure hope the 2009 version of “Putting Prevention to Work” in the schools works better than the Democrat’s last plan of “Putting Prevention to Work.” That was the plan that involved teaching 9 and 10-year olds how to put condoms on cucumbers, the use of flavored condoms for oral sex, and of course, the immeasurable joys of anal sex.
