Thought for Today

"Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers."

~~~~~ Camille Paglia

Thought for Today

"The principal purpose of the Democratic Party is to use the force of government to take property away from the people who earn it and give it to people who do not."

~~~~~ Neal Boortz

Thought for Today

"As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh. With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable. ... As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health care costs -- which are now locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates. That's where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion). It's the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent. American liberals have long complained that ours is the only advanced industrial country without universal health care. Well, now we shall have it. And as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation."

~~~~~ Charles Krauthammer

Thought for Today

"If there is anything good to say about Democrat control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, it's that their extraordinarily brazen, heavy-handed acts have aroused a level of constitutional interest among the American people that has been dormant for far too long."

~~~~~ Walter E. Williams

Thought for Today

"The President could wait months before deciding to give a general the troops he asked for to fight the war in Afghanistan but there was never to be enough time for the health care bill to be exposed in the light of day to the usual Congressional hearings and debate. Moreover, despite all the haste, the health care program would not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election. In other words, the public was not supposed to find out whether the government's takeover of medical care actually made things better or worse until after it was too late."

~~~~~ Thomas Sowell

Thought for Today

"The Democrats have no natural majority because they have no fundamental principles – at least none that they are willing to state out loud. They are like a drunken vagrant who emerges from the alley to cause havoc every few years. They are the perpetual toothache of American politics. To be sure, the fact that 52 percent of Massachusetts voters are racist, sexist tea-baggers – i.e., voted for a Republican – means only that the Democrats just went from having the largest congressional majority in a generation to the second largest. But this was 'Teddy Kennedy's seat.' And it was in Massachusetts. Now, no Democrat is safe. But the country just got a lot safer."

~~~~~ Ann Coulter

Thought for Today

"The special deals and payoffs are incidental to the [health care] bill in one sense; if they were all removed it would still be a bad bill. But in another sense, they reveal something essential about a government takeover of health care: it is all about looting, about how one group of people can tax and regulate others in an attempt to get something for nothing. All statist programs are rife with this kind of scheming, and they have to be, because whenever wealth is seized by force, there is a battle among the looters over how to divide the spoils."

~~~~~ Robert Tracinski

Thought for Today

"One of the ways the country is going in the wrong direction is not simply with huge government spending but with huge government period. Ordinary Americans are uneasy about trusting their fate to huge government. They know that government services are inefficient, expensive, and occasionally repressive and subject to corruption. More than that, huge government is unreliable. The healthcare debate has got to be reminding ordinary Americans of their unease over government promises. Think about it. The same big government Democrats who are promising government-secured healthcare are promising 'healthcare savings' that are clearly the denial of Medicare services to the elderly. That is to say, Medicare services that were once promised to seniors by Medicare's advocates are being taken from them under the false claim that they are savings. Face the facts: the Democrats' healthcare savings are actually healthcare denials to those who have been counting on those services for years. Government does not keep its promises. Yet government is the Democrats' solution to practically all our current problems. ... Once again government cannot be trusted. What government gives to us, government can take away."

~~~~~ R. Emmett Tyrrell

Thought for Today

"A liberal mistrusts lessons bought with experience. For him, theory is all. He's the only man who would sit down on a red-hot stove twice. That makes well-meaning Democrats marks for shysters selling health-care 'reform,' global warming and appeasement of radical Islamists."

~~~~~ Wesley Pruden

Thought for Today

"Every doctor knows, as I did when I practiced years ago, how much unnecessary medical cost is incurred with an eye not on medicine but on the law. Tort reform would yield tens of billions in savings. Yet you cannot find it in the Democratic bills. And Obama breathed not a word about it in the full hour of his health-care news conference. Why? No mystery. The Democrats are parasitically dependent on huge donations from trial lawyers."

~~~~~ Charles Krauthammer

Thought for Today

"Now, where do some of these attacks originate? They're coming from the very people whose past policies, all done in the name of compassion, brought us the current recession. Their policies drove up inflation and interest rates, and their policies stifled incentive, creativity and halted the movement of the poor up the economic ladder. Some of their criticism is perfectly sincere. But let's also understand that some of their criticism comes from those who have a vested interest in a permanent welfare constituency and in government programs that reinforce the dependency of our people. Well, I would suggest that no one should have a vested interest in poverty or dependency, that these tragedies must never be looked at as a source of votes for politicians or paychecks for bureaucrats. They are blights on our society that we must work to eliminate, not institutionalize."

~~~~~ Ronald Reagan

Thought for Today

“The goal of the ‘liberals’ – as it emerges from the record of the past decades – was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot—by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli.”

~~~~~ Ayn Rand

Thought for Today

"The proponents of big government want to control every decision made by individuals, families, communities, and states."

~~~~~ U.S. Senator, Paul Coverdell (R- Georgia)
Chattanooga News-Free Press, June 18, 1994

Jeffrey Lord on Sotomayor – A Real Eye-Opener

Yesterday's American Spectator includes a major article by Jeffrey Lord, Two Presidents and the Court: When Bigotry Takes the Bench. In it, Lord masterfully illustrates the disturbing parallels between the race-obsessed Supreme Court Justice James McReynolds and the race-obsessed Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. His conclusion: both are equally incompatible with our supposedly impartial legal system.

Here's how the article begins:

In a surely unintended bit of symbolism, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, accused of racism, has been named to the Supreme Court seat once held by one of the Court's most fervid racists: Woodrow Wilson appointee James McReynolds.

McReynolds' vividly racist 27-year tenure from 1914 to 1941, obscured by time, has resurfaced in a fashion that can only be less than helpful to Team Obama as Sotomayor's nomination faces Senate confirmation. Why? It forces everyone to focus on two very real questions as this nomination moves forward this week.

First: What does the Sotomayor nomination say about Obama? And second: will Sotomayor deliver what the President expects of her if seated on the Court?

Here's the McReynolds story.

The place: The United States Supreme Court.

The occasion: oral arguments in what would turn out to be the first crack in a famous Supreme Court precedent.

Arrayed behind the raised bench, the nine Justices peer down from their lofty, high-backed leather chairs, their black robes distinct against crimson drapes trimmed with gold.

Rising to his feet to begin his presentation is attorney Charles Hamilton Houston. Houston is one of America's more brilliant members of the bar. Educated at Amherst College, where he was the class valedictorian, he had gone on to graduate cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served on the law review. Today, the historic courtroom is hushed, with all eyes on Houston as he begins to speak.

Suddenly, silently, without a word, there is movement from the bench.

Justice James Clark McReynolds swivels his chair, turning it around 180 degrees. And keeps it that way. There is a moment of stunned silence as the recognition dawns on McReynolds's fellow Justices, headed by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. So too is there a jaw-dropping understanding in the rest of the ornate, historic chambers as everyone else realizes the import of what has just occurred. The Justice is now staring steadily at the curtains, the back of his tall chair quite deliberately, ostentatiously, and literally turned to Houston.

There was a reason.

Are you curious to know why the honorable Justice McReynolds acted in such a thoroughly reprehensible manner? Then click here to find out. Hint: Sotomayor's words, publicly uttered on at least three occasions, "My experiences will affect the facts that I choose to see as a judge," could just as well have been spoken by McReynolds.

This one's a must-read.

Obama and the Peter Principle

Before our eyes, President Obama is demonstrating the validity of the Peter Principle as stated four decades ago by Dr. Laurence J. Peter:

"In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence."

While he managed to temporarily bedazzle a majority of the voters last November, more and more of his erstwhile supporters are coming to realize that they made a terrible mistake. As a result, we are now burdened with a President who continues to offer new proof every day that he is totally unqualified for the office he holds.


One indicator with a proven track record is Scott Rasmussen's Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. It shows that for the first time since his inauguration, Obama's Presidential Approval Index – the difference between the percentages of those strongly approving and strongly disapproving of his performance – has swung dramatically negative, to a value of -8%.

Perhaps of even greater importance is the fact that articles highly critical of Obama have begun to appear with some regularity in influential and respected publications which have heretofore been faithful Obama acolytes, such as the Washington Post. For example, consider this piece by former George W. Bush chief speechwriter Michael Gerson, Obama's Iceberg:

Around midnight on April 15, 1912, there were a few minutes when Capt. Edward Smith of the Titanic realized his ship was going down -- six watertight compartments breached, less than two hours to float -- yet his passengers slept in happy ignorance. A historical fate hardened while most of the participants dreamed on.

The jobs report last week opened a long gash beneath the waterline of President Obama's legislative agenda. Few realize it, but a scramble for lifeboats is about to begin.

Gerson goes on to state:

To pass his health proposal this year, Obama would first need to violate his word. As a presidential candidate, he pledged that "no one making less than $250,000 a year will see any type of tax increase" -- the most memorable number of the 2008 campaign. Taxing health benefits would certainly cross this very bright line and add to the public stock of cynicism.

By all means, read the whole thing.

The fact that the Washington Post ran this column, even if only as an op-ed, is quite significant. In the future, we may well look back upon this moment as the turning point when the majority of the public has finally realized that our clueless President has risen to his level of incompetence.

The First 100 Days

Hat tip: Michael Ramirez and Townhall.com

Night of the Living Government

Andrew Klavan has made a masterful video for Pajamas TV. Sissy Willis watched it, then wrote an equally masterful post about it with an – umm – interesting title, "Let me devour your flesh because I know how to use it better than you do". Go read it, then watch Andrew's video, Night of the Living Government. Once you've seen it, you'll never think of government in quite the same way again.

4/20/09 1:28 PM UPDATE: Sissy Willis points out that Andrew's video is now also available on YouTube: Klavan on the Culture: Night of the Living Government. Thanks, Sissy!

"Hope and Change" vs. Reality

In his inimitable style, Mark Steyn explains what's at stake on November 4th in Obama in 2-D. Here's an excerpt:

In his Wednesday-night infomercial, Obama declared that his “fundamental belief” was that “I am my brother’s keeper.” Back in Kenya, his brother lives in a shack on 12 bucks a year. If Barack is his brother’s keeper, why couldn’t he send him a ten-dollar bill and near double the guy’s income? The reality is that Barack Obama assumes the government should be his brother’s keeper, and his aunt’s keeper. Why be surprised by that? For 20 years in Illinois, Obama has marinated in the swamps of the Chicago political machine and the campus radicalism of William Ayers and Rashid Khalidi. In such a world, the redistributive urge is more or less a minimum entry qualification.

You'll definitely want to read the rest of it.

It's too bad that those who would benefit most from the wisdom in Mark Steyn's article are least likely to read it. Instead, if they haven't already Early Voted their way to Obamatopia, they'll eagerly go lemming-like to the polls in two days and give away their birthright.

In a just world, only those who are foolish enough to believe in the false comic-book persona sold to them by Obama the Master Con Man and his enablers would pay the price for their gullibility. In the real world, though, that's not the way it works. Should they succeed in elevating their pseudo-messiah to the White House, we're all going to be learning a painful lesson about reality.

For three plausible scenarios of what an Obama administration might look like four years hence, see Jonah Goldberg's OBAMA 2012: FOUR YEARS LATER, Nicole Gelinas' OBAMA 2012: A TERM OF FI$CAL PAIN, and Ralph Peters' OBAMA 2012: HIS TRIUMPHS ABROAD.

Also, if you haven't already done so, check out what Obama had to say in a January 17, 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that has just come to light. See Coal official calls Obama comments 'unbelievable' in the West Virginia Record and Obama Called Out for Comments about Bankrupting Coal Industry from WSAZ, then listen to the audio for yourself.



Note that in addition to his revealing comments about coal, the source of nearly half of our electricity, he also states that he wants the cost of electricity to skyrocket. Taken together with his stated intention to move us away from gas and diesel and toward electricity to power our vehicles, it would appear that Obama's ultimate aim is to reduce our lifestyle to third-world conditions in some sort of quixotic quest for "fairness."

I wonder what Obama's fans will think of him then. It will be scant comfort to be able to tell them "I told you so!"

Biden's Judgment

The Democrats have been reassuring those concerned about Obama's thin resumé by pointing out that running mate Joe Biden has decades of experience, and would be at a President Obama's side to guide him. But in fact, experience does not necessarily translate to judgment. It's quite possible for a man such as Biden, with his limited intelligence and outsized ego, to successfully avoid learning anything during his decades in the Senate.

In Biden and the Tale of Aldrich Ames, Jeffrey Lord points out that Biden has done exactly that.

Biden makes much of his "experience" these days in the area of foreign policy. His critics frequently point out that length of service is no compensation for good judgment, as Biden has been on the wrong side of every significant national security issue from Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative to the nuclear freeze to the first Gulf War to, most recently, his insistent opposition to the surge in Iraq, the latter now credited with turning the tide to victory.

Lord charges that as a direct result of Biden's arrogance and incompetence, the activities of traitorious CIA agent Aldrich Ames "went undiscovered for nine years."

Yes, indeed, if Obama should win next week, we should all relax in the assurance that the vastly experienced Joe Biden will be at his side to guide him.

Lord help us!

Obama's Marxist Ties

Bill Sammon does a masterful job of explaining Barack Obama's extensive ties to Marxism in Obama Affinity to Marxists Dates Back to College Days. Here's how he begins:

Barack Obama laughs off charges of socialism. Joe Biden scoffs at references to Marxism. Both men shrug off accusations of liberalism.

But Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.

Obama's affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Well, that's not entirely true, Bill. It seems that while he was growing up and attending school in Hawaii, Obama was mentored by the late African-American Communist Frank Marshall Davis. Last February, before Obama had yet won the Democrat nomination, Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media explained the relationship in Obama’s Communist Mentor.

In his biography of Barack Obama, David Mendell writes about Obama's life as a "secret smoker" and how he "went to great lengths to conceal the habit." But what about Obama's secret political life? It turns out that Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a communist.

In his books, Obama admits attending "socialist conferences" and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a "hard-core academic Marxist," which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.

However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his "poetry" and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just "Frank."

The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.

As Melanie Phillips asks, Is America really going to do this?