Bloomberg says that “President Barack Obama returns to Washington next week in search of one thing that can revive his health-care overhaul: a sense of crisis. Facing polls showing a drop in his approval, diminished support from independents, factions within his Democratic Party and a united Republican opposition, Obama must recapture the sense of urgency that led to passage of the economic rescue package in February, analysts said.
“At the moment, except for the people without insurance, we’re not in a health-care crisis,” said Stephen Wayne, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Washington. “You do need a crisis to generate movement in Congress and to help build a consensus.” … Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said the administration made unprecedented health-care progress in eight months. ‘Not There Yet’
The crisis isn’t here yet, but Rahm thinks, or perhaps hopes that we’re getting there. A crisis of some sort is definitely brewing. Charles Krauthammer just wrote that Obama is an powerdive to earth. “What happened to President Obama? His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford?” The same question is baffling Senator John McCain, who told an interviewer that he believed the public was angry. Speaking to KOLD News 13 the senior Senator from Arizona said “I have not seen anything like this in the years I have been a member of Congress. It’s a peaceful revolution but I think it is a revolution we’re seeing.”
When asked what was the one thing that surprised him most about the town halls he replied, “the anger.” McCain believes that anger is being displayed not by professional protestors but by people who are expressing their frustration for the first time. … That’s why he believes it’s the making of a revolution against business as usual in Washington, D.C.
So here’s the mystery. If there’s a crisis, why then, is Barack Obama looking for another one? Maybe the the crisis that has brought out the public both against the Republicans and the Democrats isn’t the kind of crisis the politicians are looking for. Traditionally politicians look for a crisis to solve — but something which the public will gratefully turned to them to solve: the kind of crisis that empowers Washington, but doesn’t wrack it. But what happens when the crisis that is roiling public opinion is about Washington itself? Then it becomes a problem. Rahm is really hoping that the crisis of confidence in Washington is “not there yet,” hoping that his crisis gets there before their crisis does.
In any case, Rahm Emmanuel is wrong about his awaited consensus. Whichever crisis happens first, either will damage the real old consensus beyond easy repair. The undeclared truce between the Left and the Right, their tacit albeit uneasy coexistence these last forty years has been upset by a power grab. The unspoken rationale for the past modus vivendi was the necessity to avoid a struggle that could damage both sides irremediably. As long as the two sides agreed to alternate at the trough, as a long as a showdown could be avoided, as long as neither side sought a decisive victory over the other, both could prosper within bounds. They just to wait their turn at the buffet line. The unintended consequence of one side making its move for decisive power, the decision of people to jump the line and step over the backs of others to gorge themselves at the steam tables — this has upset the steam table. The buffet itself is under attack. A new game may wait around the corner, with rules that are still evolving, but the old one is trouble. The problem with Obama’s strategy of doubling down is that instead of giving him a quick and easy victory, his failure to win at a gallop may turn the contest into a prolonged and nightmare battle of attrition. This is the most likely outcome. Nobody will be marching home in victory “before the leaves fall”. The crisis is here, just you wait, Rahm.
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Obama fell to earth very quickly because he proposed to take away from the vast majority of the White Middle Class their health care, and give them substandard care, to in turn give illegal aliens and poor Blacks middle class health care. That is exactly why he is falling. He is in fact threatening the basic health of most of the middle class, in a naked transfer the wealth.
The power grab stuff did not excite the anger of the public. Nobody cared if Reps were frozen out, or Obama appointed a bunch of hard left Kooks, or racialists to the Supreme Court (like bigoted nutbag Sotomayor). Taking away the health care of the middle class DID. All so Obama could offer patronage to people who already love him.
Americans expected Obama to be “not Bush” and govern like Clinton. He instead is governing like Chavez.
The problem with Rahm Emmanuel’s crisis is that few in the public trust him after having seen proposals to take away their health care, put them in (in Obama’s words) the Post Office run health care, and transfer the money to Blacks and particularly, illegal aliens. Everyone knows THAT is the reason for ObamaCare — federal health care for Illegal Aliens. At the expense of the middle class.
Provoking a crisis will simply make the American people mulishly more angry, angry enough to stage a total wipeout of Congress in 2010, even in “safe” Democractic districts and demand Obama’s impeachment and conviction.
As a practical matter, the “cutesy” decision to prosecute the CIA as a way to wind up with Bush and Cheney prosecuted will also backfire. The few remaining McCain-style RINOS will not defend Obama and company, and any attack that kills a lot of Americans (a slam dunk) will not result in Obama ruling by Decree, as he obviously hopes (he wants to be a dictator like Chavez) but rather not just impeachment and conviction, but trial for treason by an angry public out for blood.
This phenomena is not limited to the US. Japan has tossed out the LDP, the UK likely will toss out the Labor Party, those technocrats who ruled comfortably within the “bounds” have found out that failing to deliver the goods on the economy after a long run of expansion has the electorate angry and vengeful.
What we are likely to see is the people getting even angrier as Emmanuel and Obama create another crisis, and demand they step aside or be forced aside. The sheer arrogance of the Democratic Congress has made many new voters angry, an anger that will find focus on avid organizing and in fact, “fear and punishment” of incumbents with a distributed, “Army of Davids” looking to find every ugly fact, dirty deed, corrupt bargain, and illegal act previously concealed by a complaint press publicized. Not just of Incumbents (mostly Dems) but their families, spouses, campaign contributors, backers, staffers, and more.
In a war of political attrition, an army of Davids using the internet to coordinate can dig up more dirt than the opposition, particularly since no one care that Joe Blogger had some minor scandal, while everyone would care that say, a Congressman, Senator, or Cabinet Officer had engaged in potentially illegal or immoral acts. Which given human nature is a slam dunk. Same too for families — they are no longer off limits, and the wrongdoings of pols children and spouses are now fair game according to “Palin rules” which Obama himself came up with.
There’s a Whiskey post I can really agree with. Not a word about the women, or the polygamists.
I’m pissed too, I’ll tell ya, and since I’m semi-retired with time on my hands I’m going to work my ass off next year,and get my checkbook out, for a good Marine running for office in our district.
The crisis is here, just you wait, Rahm.
I feel like re-reading my Strauss and Howe. Only they don’t give any solutions for the crisis, they just predict it will come along.
But those books do give a certain sense of peace. There’s no guarantee we’ll make it through this crisis okay, but there’s no guarantee we won’t. I know there’s a good deal of pessimism, that that march of the Left is inevitable, but I am actually optimistic. This sort of crisis is something America goes through every so often. It’s going to be bad. Very ugly and maybe worse than ugly. But it’s the way we un-cluster fusterclucks.
So, to quote a petty man, never let a crisis go to waste!
“The buffet itself is under attack” Yep.
What I think our Savior has unleashed in his “not going to be denied cramming of Socialism down the throat of America” gig is that people are starting to wake up and ask um, heretofore impolite questions about what exactly have our politicians been doing up thar in Washington.
Just after there is an almost complete collapse of our financial system which is btw accompanied by our nation’s most bizarre episode of over the top Trillion dollar cronyism and kickbacks, we see our elected politicians try to destroy our health care with yet another trillion dollar scheme to help their favorite victims, friends and buddies.
The juxtaposition of the massive bailout of the Crony Capitalists followed by the cram down of a Socialist healthcare tyranny is just too much for even the normally wishy washy apolitical independent types to take, so that any sane person is gagging on the horrible stench.
The gig is up on the left, and their help mates the RINO’s. Time to drive a stake through the heart of the beast that has laid us low.
I agree with Whiskey’s assessment. Nothing really stirred the nation until their precious healthcare was threatened. Not that I’m not glad – very very glad – to see people finally making themselves heard on this issue because it certainly is a crucial one, but it would’ve been better if they could’ve shown the same widespread outrage over all the other stuff designed to destroy the country. The fact that Americans were so willing to rationalize and temporize until it came down to their own or their immediate family members’ well-being doesn’t speak too highly of the body politic as a whole, imo. Makes me wonder, after being so willing to give these totalitarian fascists the benefit of the doubt with second and third and fourth chances, if the American people themselves are going to get another chance.
The kind of things that David Horowitz is talking about in the clip – is that truth finally sinking in?
Whiskey describes something that will eventually trump Obama’s cult of personality. The authentically American psyche does NOT really desire outcome egalitarianism. Even his ‘urban women’ and their metrosexual male counterparts do not. As long as things like AA and welfare programs can be successfuly portrayed as opportunity egalitarianism (whether they actually are or not), many Americans will go along.
However, when the line is crossed to naked wealth transfer in order to achieve outcome egalitarianism, they rebel.
In this case, the middle and upper classes are asked to give up access to health care, and the freedom to use our wealth as we see fit to purchase health care, to make sure that someone else who has not worked and achieved as we have will have no discernible difference from us in terms of their health care service. IOW, outcome egalitarianism.
This does not fly.
The real number of Americans citizens who don’t have medical insurance and want it is nothing like the 47 million number you see. It’s somewhere between 5 and 8 million. If you even agree that the federal government should be involved on behalf of making sure everyone has health insurance (I don’t), you need a program for 8 million people, not a complete rebuild of the system that affects 300 million, 80% or more of whom are happy with how things are.
As Senator Daniel Moynihan once said, we don’t have a national health care crisis, individuals who want insurance and have trouble getting it have individual crises. I think most people sense the truth of this and are angry when an arrogant government tries to tell them otherwise.
On this issue everyone here seems to be on the same page. Perhaps we should all turn off our computers right now?
There is one note of caution I wish add. There is a tendency to expect some cataclysm, such as the next 9-11, to occur that will wake people up. whiskey just said it “any attack that kills a lot of Americans (a slam dunk).” At best this leads to passivity as people expect a deux ex machina to resolve the crisis. At worst this leaves us open to charges that we are cheerleading for the terrorists.
As long as BHO and the Soros aligned radicals are in power why would other radicals attack us? In fact it seems pretty damning evidence of some level of commonality of goals that they hold off. That does not mean that I believe that there is a link between al-Qaeda and the White House, merely a sense of professional courtesy. As Napoleon said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Under BHO the United States is tearing itself apart. As long as we continue to do so I expect the terrorists to give us plenty of space continue.
I don’t really understand all the head scratching. The ‘secret’ of Obama’s decline in popularity is that he LIED. To everyone, on every subject.
During the election cycle, he lied to the Left, most of which the Left swallowed joyfully, as they seem to like being lied to, if it’s by the right people. But on rendition, the ‘warrantless wiretapping’, closing Guantanimo etc., etc, his actions have belied everything he said or implied during the election.
He lied to the Middle, promising to be post-partisan, centrist, and post-racial.
And now that he absolutely no choice but to talk to them, he is lying to the Right (“You can keep your current health care plan”).
So, where is the mystery? For most Presidents, one big lie or reversal is enough to damage their reputation permanently (“Read my lips”), and Obama has told nothing but the Big Lie to every single constituency out there, as has become glaringly obvious.
Maybe I’m just not nuanced enough to be confused by all this.
I just hope that Van Jones does not resign. The longer he stays where he is the better. Looking at Jones is like seeing the real Obama as seen through those special x-ray glasses. Unlike Obama, his past involvement in radical movements and his outrageous and racist statements have not been purged or shielded. This is the closest the rest of America will get of a glimpse of the real Obama until the press starts doing their job.
Did Obama run on a platform of eliminating private sector health care in favor of a government run, single player plan? I don’t recall those speeches, and if he did not run on this platform plank, then he has no mandate for the action. Did Obama run on a platform including nationalization of Banks and Auto companies? When did Congress appropriate that money for that purpose (hint; Congress authorized a bank bail out, and Obama redirected that spending to the auto company purchase, and via that purchase, to the auto Unions). Did he run on a platform of unlimited government debt, of economically “stimulating” unions and special interests by $700 Billion in a single year? Did he run on raising taxes on all taxpayers, particularly the middle class (i.e. there’s no other feasible way of paying for the $Trillions in new debt)?
Obama ran on nothing except himself, and then claimed a Socialists mandate to action. American’s are now responding to Obama the way they always have responded to confidence men.
The question I have is, what is Obama’s “Sampson Option”? A functioning republic (or even empire) requires any number of “understood,” internalized, governors of its players’ ambitions–we’ve never had to consider the possibility of a leader who can say, apres moi le deluge. That to me has been the great danger of this administration all along: not that it would succeed with its “hey-diddle-diddle, straight-up-the-middle” imposition of socialism, but that it would succeed in blackmailing those legislators in the “muddle” who can’t really grasp the possibilities of the new regime. I can imagine a Blue Dog, who upon given the choice between a metaphoric (or real) ground-zero or a “boil-the-frog” imposition of a EU-topian system where nothing of substance ever comes up for a vote, choosing the later. It might even feel like patriotism.
Dick Morris was being interviewed on Fox the other day and he was asked what was happening with Obama.
Essentially he said, the Obama camp were a bunch of amateurs but they were very good at selling “the person.” This is a well-groomed charismatic fella who you could believe in. And of course the press gave this well-groomed charismatic fella a pass and really he hadn’t done anything so it was hard to pin him down on much. The trouble is, up to this point we were not getting into the realm of issues and bills and that, we were simply trusting the fella on his packaged persona. Past the stimulus package, we have a crisis and no time to address details, just trust the well-groomed charismatic fella. Only so many times you can go the-emergency-don’t-bother-to-read-the-bill route.
Obama learned all he knows at the knees of trendy leftist professors and corrupt Chicago politicians (who by their behavior confirmed what the lefty professors were saying, that democracy is a sham and all American politics are corrupt). I think he also took some hints from Kim Il Sung and Castro.
The cult of personality is what he’s trying to polish with his fireside chats with grammar school kids. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for Dear Leader.”Anyone who grew up during the Cold War recognizes with horror some of the techniques. The trouble is, less and less of the electorate grew up during the Cold War. Fortunately the economy is teaching the electorate about Cold War economics very quickly all over again. Slowly, perhaps too slowly, the electorate is learning what the word “socialism” really means.
This is sort of like dating where you suddenly realized that the only thing the mouth-watering killer blonde understands is nail polish and mascara and every job she’s ever held was based on her looks.
Rahm Emanuel is going to have to start generating a crisis a day so Dear Leader can continue to look Presidential and maintain the packaged persona. Only crises will allow this adminstration to bypass sanity checks. Expect a good number of crises in the next eighteen months. This adminstration needs them…desperately.
I believe David Horowitz nails it. In part two he suggests the radical communists Achilles heal. They have, the Democrats, have governed the cities for 100 years. The pathologies are their responsibility, they do not care about the “victims” beyond their usefulness as expendable weapons. This is the truth hammer them with it, drive it home.
Part two at:
http://tinyurl.com/nor49g
V
onesimus
The health care initiative may well involve a transfer of wealth, but more importantly any 1000+ page bill, replete with ambiguous directives, involves a transfer of power from the citizenry to bureaucrats and lawyers. You might call it tyranny. The anger has been brewing for a long time. Laws to protect the environment, disabled persons and consumers, for example, have been the source of bureaucratic abuse and foolishness for decades. The succession of bailout, stimulus and health care bills simply brought that resentment to attention of folks who have not been paying attention.
Van jones – the change you can believe in, redistributing 60 billion taxpayer dollars
They organize
You subsidize
Yep, those working/voting/tax-paying terrorists and thugs are amazingly good at disguising themselves. Not an Army of Davids, just the same ol’ chumps and mushrooms.
I realized that the left, in going after these people, see a reflection of themselves, ie they assume the right is doing and going about things the same way they do–top down, centrally organized, loud and disruptive and intimidating. They have no understanding of a true grass-roots process, a distributed process.
I believe these leaders of ours live in such a cloistered, privileged, socially incestuous world that most of them are sincerely puzzled. In their world everything important needs to be centralized, controlled by a relative few, with the power flowing outward.
A decentralized, spontaneous, uncontrolled process is absolutely contrary to the processes they understand–why, these citizens are not listening and they are NOT following orders or even showing respect.
This is the American equivalent to Al Queida, organizationally speaking–pops up everywhere there are believers.
Whiskey,
This was also the way the Clintons tried to govern during their first two years – prior to the midterm electoral revolt. Remember the militant and organized push to whip up artificial enthusiasm for Hillarycare? Granted that the demoncrats did not have their operation quite so well tuned, and they did not have the advantage of a charismatic black guy. And the Republicans had not yet been corrupted by electoral success. But I remember a similar version of the same anger, for the same reasons. Last time we failed because after the 1994 election Gingrich took the heat of the Clintons. He declared them “irrelevant”, and abandoned plans for impeaching them for abuses of the Constitution. Newt was more interested in redecorating his corner office and his slick “contract”. Let us not make the same mistake this time; root out the pests permanently – all of them.
Here’s an example from out here in farm country in north Idaho, Latah County, of democratic monkeying around which has ended up zoning poor people out of the area. Heavily backed by the university professors and such. We have all this farmland, more than we need, but to ‘protect the farmland’–not that the farmers were in favor of this proposal–a rule was passed by the democratic county commissioners of the time limiting to one dwelling on forty acres the building and living that can be done. The result of course, intended I believe, was that the price of any buildable acreage out in the county has skyrocketed. In effect, the democrats and university professors have zoned the ‘undesirables’ out. That’s the upshot of it. You may think this wise or not, as you wish. But you are not going to see many of the inner city folks from those democratically ruled cities talked about above living out on these prairies. In fact, you aren’t going to see any.
The Democratic Party represents the little guy? Don’t you believe it.
“It takes a village?”
40 acre rule.
Keep them away.
That’s the truth of it here.
And, by the way, back in the beginning there were small villages scattered all over these prairies, especially up around Lewis, Nez Perce, Latah, Clearwater and Idaho Counties. All gone now. With the coming of the automobile. But I don’t see any reason why some of these small villages shouldn’t be recreated in these areas. They are practically vacant now.
But nope, 40 acre rule.
The upshot is, what we’ve got is a lot of McMansions on forty acres around Moscow, Idaho, university town, built by wealthy escapees from the cities, then further out in the county, nothing. Then on further out on the real prairies, less than nothing, just a paradise for John Deere machinery. But no poor people, not out this way. Brought to you by your democratic university professors.
These professors, some of them are clever, I’ll give them that.
Editorial – Where the Jobs Aren’t – NYTimes.com
NY Times Blasts Obama for not addressing JOBS.
“It has become commonplace to explain each dismal job report by saying that a resurgence in employment always lags general economic recovery. But with the job market severely wounded, and with consumer spending expected to be weak for a very long time, it could easily take until 2014 for employment to recover. It’s safe to say that five years or more of subpar job growth is not what most people have in mind when they think of a “lag.”
The question, then, is how bad does it have to get before the Obama administration and Congress make job creation a priority.“
Bob,
That’s the rule, in fact, wherever the progressives are in charge.
Extreme example being Barry’s (former) the Dorhn’s, and the Black Muslim’s home:
Hyde Park.
Where the rhetoric is all about crusading for the poor, and the reality is
daily life without having to rub shoulders with the plebes.
—
otoh, Boise State did Dunk the Ducks!
Having heard the Vice President flat out lie about the effect of the stimulus, and with the president deigning to know better what fatherly advice my kids need re school, I determined to crack open the 40th anniversary edition of The Great Terror, just to see what might be next.
Amatures? I don’t know about that. Given the opportunity afforded by the collapse of the housing market and the credit crises it engendered, I would say they did a pretty masterful job of placing a whole lot of power into the hands of the central Government. They have done more damage in less time than it would have taken them to follow the cold calculating creep I have no doubt they were planning on. You have to give them credit for being able to recognize the opportunity and having the guts to take advantage of it.
Given the years of poor leadership on wall street and in DC, what he has accomplished will be even more difficult to undo than Welfare Reform.
Oh and about that slick contract, which items Gingrich and crew only promised to try to bring up for a vote on the floor, having little hope for passage given the numbers, was considered so overreaching that the success of it was a shock not just to the GOP but to the Dems as well. Something to ponder, I think.
“At the moment, except for the people without insurance, we’re not in a health-care crisis”
Actually that would be except for the people without insurance who are badly sick, we’re not in a health-care crisis
Not all crises are the same. A crisis of a nation being attacked is quite different from a distinct minority being unable to access health care is quite another.
If I decided to take the fight to Osama bin Laden personally, my effort would be ineffectual (unless it was ingenious beyond my ability) and it would not surprise me to be prosecuted by our government for the effort (regardless of the administration in office). For such purposes is what our government was explicitly built to act on.
However, I am enabled in a number of ways to come up with the means to access health care, the Federal government is not required to deal with this case.
Obama is trying to make what is a personal crisis (however many individual such cases there are) into a national crisis, and the public is rejecting that notion.
Bob, yeah we are seeing the rise of ridiculous minimum to build restrictions popping up around here too. One town nearby has a 35 acre min. and the neighboring town has a slot limit, no building on lots between small postage stamp sized and two acres. The farmer we bought our lot from is PO’ed about it since he has land in that town, but I lost sympathy for his case when he called me on a point on our covenant.
What is “Occupation” said…
The Obama administration says it will release names of most visitors to the White House, starting at the end of this year. Information on visitors in the first eight months of his administration will remain secret — though officials say they will consider narrow and specific requests.
The White House called the release of information “voluntary,” continuing to argue the Bush administration’s position that full disclosure is not required by the Freedom of Information Act.
After being sued twice by a nonprofit organization seeking the records, the Obama administration said Friday it will post the visitor logs online.
The release will be time delayed, with 90 to 120 days passing before the records are posted on the White House Web site. And only visits after Sept. 15, 2009, will be revealed. The first wave of records is expected to be posted around Dec. 31.
The White House also said that certain “sensitive” visits, such as those by potential Supreme Court nominees, members of the PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Black Panthers will not be revealed. Also hidden will be personal visits to the Obama and Biden families, and security information such as the arrival times of White House staff.
Great interview. I’m glad Beck is making a name for himself. I’d listen to him sometimes on WHOL Akron when they carried him. A lot of his radio show was focused on entertainment, not Politics, and very funny.
I liked the Mickey Kaus post on Van Jones:
When Kaus uses “The Liverpool Care Pathway” (we can call it the LCP treatment for short) my hope is the Left’s signature issue is about to get the LCP treatment.
Is not the river in Liverpool named The Mercy? I remember a song called “Ferry across the Mercy” from when I was a kid. If so, all we need do is substitute “Styx.” Maybe do a Styx remix of Ferry across the Styx — this land is the land I love, and here I’ll stay (dead).
I suppose I could check on the name of the river, but what if I got it wrong? It would ruin the story and that would be bad Journalism.
…that slick contract, which items Gingrich and crew only promised to try to bring up for a vote…the success of it was a shock not just to the GOP but to the Dems as well. Something to ponder, I think.
Heh. Is it possible there are presently wells of anger so deep they will permit more than one side to play this “crisis” game? Maybe it’s time to start yelling at the Republican Congressmen, too.
It’s interesting trying to come up with what sort of “crisis” the White House could jimmy up to make themselves look better. I think all the hints and threats about divulging CIA agents and torture techniques have been attempts to change the subject and get people off the topic of Obama’s massive stupid.
Katrina was a crisis but – really — only to a couple of states and not the country as a whole. The banking meltdown was (is) a national crisis, and I’m hearing that hundreds of more banks will go under in the next few years … but how will that bring soldiers out into the streets to swat us normal people upside the head?
The real estate / foreclosure market is also a crisis, sorta/kinda, but isn’t it really a crisis just for poor black and brown people who really shouldn’t have ever bought homes in the first place? The capitalists and entrepreneurs among us are busily trying to fix that situation and to work with it, so again I don’t see soldiers in the streets.
Here in California we’re having a drought, although they seemed to be able to come up with enough water to successfully fight the massive LA wildfires. ANd I seem to recall nationally that the electrical grid also hasn’t been updated in decades and may be fraying at the edges. I wonder if the White House physically and technically is capable of sneaking into a back room some where and shutting down our electricity nation-wide, and then instituting martial law while the lights are out.
Wretchard, I thought you would mention the mechanism by which they will create this crisis they need to get the bill passed.
First, though, the cap and tax got by because it doesn’t directly affect anyone the way the health care bill does. It doesn’t affect us YET, but my electric cooperative says that their costs will increase at least fourfold by 2012 if the Senate passes the disaster the House sent on to them.
Passage of that incredible mess, which will make us “the cleanest third world nation on earth”, was possible because there was no immediate, individual effect. So while people were mad about it, they couldn’t see or feel a postponed effect which will be diffuse and hard to pin down…as the Stimulus bill was and is.
But HR 3200 is such a hot button because people are generally satisfied with their health care as it is. For those on Medicaid, it is more problematic finding a provider…those are the people Obama is talking to. Those, and the upper class who don’t have or want insurance but feel sorry for the underprivileged. The latter have not looked at the tremendous power that HR 3200 gives the IRS. And those who wrote the bill made that part very dense and difficult to translate from bureaucratese into English. The crucial aspects of the IRS involvement are buried about 500 pages in (IIRC).
Essentially, the IRS will be given the power to investigate the veracity of your insurance information. You will be required to provide that info at tax time. If you’re not in compliance with what they decide is “sufficient” coverage, the fines are heavy. Imagine the jobs created for auditors if this mess makes it.
BTW, Obama has his crisis in hand, ready to go. He just needs to wait until the summer’s over and everyone is back to normal schedules. Then he’ll announce his Medical Commission findings that at least ninety thousand cases of swine flu are going to hit the US. Hammering that issue will raise the temperature on things. It will be his “crisis”, one signed on to by his medical experts.
That 90,000 estimate was in the headlines a few weeks ago but got little coverage that I could find. At the time, it seemed to me the perfect mechanism by which to scare everyone into buying his plan. I couldn’t understand why that “finding” sank like a stone.
Now I get it: that rock will be dragged up from the sludge and used in a giant sling-shot approach. One idea might be to tie vaccine coverage to this bill. Just because HR 3200′s 1,017 pages are sitting in a lump in the House doesn’t mean they’ve finished tweaking it.
A claim of 90,000 swine flu ‘victims’ is the perfect Rahm & Ezekiel crisis, a storm of fear they will first create and then make the waters calm with national health care.
Expect to see Obama walking on water afterwards.
“He’s got to get control of his presidency,” said John Zogby, president of Zogby International. “There’s a way out of this. Some of it is going to have to be his personality and his ability to frame messages, which is still good.”
This speech on Wednesday evening has already had its effect. It is going to be clicked off the way a Mozart concerto is quickly surfed through. It doesn’t matter what he says or who analyzes what he said. We have already heard the words in a language that we have chosen to listen in. He at this point may as well give the speech in French for all the good it will do him. He could speak in tongues but his message is already understood. There is a cold feeling in the bellies of American homes when some one threatens Grandma.
The message is after we bury the grandparents who told the children all those wild stories about indians and bank robbers; then we can take away the reason they have to keep guns in the house. After that we take away their ballot boxes.
Anger will will come by the morning but right now the feeling is that there is an intruder. Its intent is to steal American dreams. Don’t have the Air Force jets fly by the high school football game. Someone may be saying a prayer. I am headed to the backyard bomb shelter to watch NFL football and the DVD of Red Dawn. Forget that stupid speech.
“The Alinsky left.Its about power.You get power and then try to change everything.” -Horowitz.
I think the crisis is going to be economic chaos. Maybe hyperinflation? Will we be going to the grocery story with our zimbabwe dollars in a wheelbarrow?
That’s my fear.
90,000 in a country of 300 Million would have to be another drama concocted by the boys from Chi-Town.
Luckily, Australia provides a preview, having survived the peak flu season with little effect, although
there is some evidence that the “Swine” reduces total deaths, being more benign than SOP Seasonal Flu.
The interesting thing about the Contract was that it was a statement of principle that underlined a set if ideas that opposed the activities of the other party. It turned out a bunch of dems. I still think its one of the more brilliant political moves in decades. And they passed nearly all of it.
hd: its the Mersey. Sorry.
B’ham: I believe that the people are becoming aware of two facts: the 10,000 federal laws and regulations which are felonies and that ignorance of the law is no excuse. The myriad sets of rules and regulations are a plague reaching into every life. You are in peril of jail if you sell a recalled product at a yard sale. Dont think about cleaning or filling a ditch.
Want a trial by jury? Nope. Administrative Law Judge.
We get real worried about an appointment to SCOTUS. The real problem is the intrusion of the courts into areas that ought to be legislative. A court in Kansas imposed taxes. Courts direct government spending, School districting. Most people don’t pay enough attention or bother to learn enough about how it ought to be working.
I can only hope that this is a turning.
Okay, contrary to what Whiskey and so many other racist think Obama care doesn’t have zilch point zero to do with giving health care to blacks – or any other minority for that matter. It’s about giving POWER to leftists. You need to get past the color of Obama’s skin. Guess what, most black people are not hoodlums,on welfare, standing around some ghetto street corner. Life for the majority of blacks is not some rap video. Obama is not a danger because he’s going to take something from white folks. He’s a danger to all of us, because he’s going to take something away from all of us black, white or undecided – our freedoms.
JAMES CLYBURN:
“Well, I think that Congressman Cohen’s resolution that was unanimously passed by the House offered an apology, but it went into talking about how we ought to go about rectifying some of the current effects of that past discrimination. And that’s what we’re doing today as we roll out this working draft of our health care bill.”
CHARLIE RANGEL:
Already under fire for a wide range of ethical questions, Rangel played the race card in a health care forum the other night, saying racial bias against President Obama is behind opposition to health care reform. “Why do black people have to bargain for what is theirs? Why do we have to wait for the right to vote? Why can’t we get what God has given us? And that is the right to live as human beings and not negotiate with white southerners and not court the votes. Just do the right thing,” Rangel said.
Guess they didn’t get the memo Mike.
Mike GIles – have you taken a gander at the racial make-up of the Obama appointees currently in the White House? You know, the ones who signed a petition that 9/11 was an inside job, or the ones who want to prosecute (white) CIA agents, or the ones who released the new Black Panthers who had already pleaded guilty. Or the First Lady who publicly stated that she’s never been proud of America, not to mention the brown Supreme Court nominee whose sole claim to fame is the supposed wisdom imparted by the color of her skin?
And that doesn’t even take into account Obama’s beloved Pastor of 20 years who likes to spell it Amerikka, nor his equally esteemed Harvard colleague who had no qualms at all in trying to pull the race card on a white cop doing his job.
Seems to me the American electorate could be forgiven noticing the two common denominators of all of these Obama-ites is (1) the color of their skin, and (2) their incompetence [not to mention (3) their hatred of America and its Constitutionally guaranteed equality of opportunity]).
There is rumor on Hugh Hewitt’s website that Van Johnson, the radical white house ‘green czar’ is going to be canned this weekend. A lot of youtube videos showing him to be a real left wing nut.
I wonder what fingerprints he has on the “Cap & Trade” bill. In addition to the health care battle, light needs to be shed on how much damage this bill will place on the nation’s economy.
The GOP really needs to force exposure of the left’s radical plans and the ties to who obama has surrounded himself with while there is still momentum.
@doug:
90,000 in a country of 300 Million would have to be another drama concocted by the boys from Chi-Town.
Luckily, Australia provides a preview, having survived the peak flu season with little effect, although
there is some evidence that the “Swine” reduces total deaths, being more benign than SOP Seasonal Flu.
Doug, you’re being rational here. A generated crisis is not about the rational part of the brain. It’s about fear…e.g., Promethea said she’s afraid of hyperinflation (for that matter so am I).
The point is to tap into fear, whether it’s global warming, the Great Depression, or being left without medical care. Find a primal fear and push on it till you get movement. Thus, 90,000 will increase. It’s just a nice round number, it’s kindling for the fear firestorm. Without irrational fear, there will be no health care “reform”…which is really just reallocating what we already have and doing it thru the medium of bureaucracy, which will make it larger, stupider, and less accountable.
This will be medical care with the built-in efficiencies of the Post Office combined with the response time of Social Security.
When one considers what a Ponzi scheme we have already with Social Security it’s amazing anyone in their right mind would consider further government intrusion a benefit.
Waiting for a crisis> H1N1? Avian flu? Obama has other allies working for him, or maybe just orh=organizations with the same goal.
I’ll have to do some cartoons now. Thanks, JMH, for that wonderful Spoonerism. I will have a politician by name of Morton J. Fustercluck, to join the Honorable Jay Worthington Whitewash in back rooms with Financier George Morose, while they plan strategies to destroy all creation, and frustrate the similar plans of their arch-rivals.
I guess I’ll have to cut back on my Belmont reading for a while…
Obama is not a danger because he’s going to take something from white folks. He’s a danger to all of us, because he’s going to take something away from all of us black, white or undecided – our freedoms.
I agree, Mike. Two of the most powerful speakers I heard at my first Tea Party were black, and their theme was yours.
I admire the grit it takes to live the life of a Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, or Shelby Steele.
Herb, thank for the correction. It’s OK. I’ll get over it. But remember, it’s good Journalism to print a retraction and then continue to quote the original story. But…we want higher standards in the comment section of the BC.
Look up “rotavism”.
If wretchard be correct, then we owe Dunham a vote of thanks (although not the Presidency) for upsetting the apple cart that Reid, Specter, Jeffords, and Snowe were comfortably sharing.
The multi-trillions deficits crisis dwarfs the healthcare “crisis”. Wonder how his Oneness is going to do about that one. A deficit czar?
For those who excuse Obama’s deficits with Bush’s deficits, please know that there is more than one alphabet’s difference between billions and trillions.
@Akatsukami–
Per your suggestion, I looked up rotavism. Strange word; not many relevant links I could find. However, this excerpt from a 1952 work by the American theologian, John Courtney Murray, S.J.,(in “The Church and Totalitarian Democracy”) explains it somewhat. First he talks about Germany’s Kulturkampf in the last decades of the 19th century before moving on to this:
It was the heyday of the power struggles between Left and Right, with the interests of the Church perilously allied to the uncertain destinies of the Right. In Italy the tragic impasse of the “Roman Question,” big with all manner of unfortunate consequences, still persisted. In 1876 the fall of Minghetti had brought to an end the rule of the “enlightened conservatism” of the Right. There ensued the first ministry of the Left under the cynical Depretis, whose successor in 1887, Crispi, hardened the policies of his predecessor into a militant anticlericalism. Both Spain and Portugal were politically inconsequent, in the grip of the sterile policy of “rotavism,” the alternation in office of Left and Right governments. And the Revolution as a doctrine was on the march in South America.
Interestingly, Murray then circles back to the French Revolution for a look at another aspect. Funny, I had just been thinking of the FR as the start of the whole mess.
Still, I don’t understand your specific reference here. Could you expand on that idea — rotavism — and explain how it applies in the case of Obie Wan and his manufactured crises?
Do you have more pertinent references than I was able to find?
Thanks.
Well, we are going to see now what the country is made of. Hate to sound like a broken record, but it all depends on our character as a people.
The information is out there, that is certainly not the issue. Nor is it an issue to find the touchstone for outrage and action. Scarcely a day goes by woth out one coming out of the Democrats. The crus is what is within our hearts, minds and souls.
There are three issues: 1) As I say above, what are we now as a people? Are we still in the main the same freedom loving Americans we have always been? I contend that we do not yet know the answer to this question. But there is are deeper aspects. Can we be bought off with momentary change of tack, manipulations, rhetoric or payola, or do we have a deeper character? Are we ready to sacrifice for the Republic? Some patriots will risk all, some will lose all. Beyond that, are there enough of us that can think for ourselves and see the danger? Lastly, do we have the will and the guts, once irked, to see this through to the end.
2) Is there enough time to turn things around given the Left’s end and mid game strategies. There are many speculations given here at BC as to what they might be and they range from extrapolations of the incremental structural stratagems and tactics of the last 60 years, to the more radical possibilities. The latter scenario here I find rather tame, actually. Obama may well allow an enemy to nuke a core Red City or two, for example, or allow–or even assist– an enemy to conduct a biological attack on us. There are of course any number variations and combinations of these sorts of things.
Likewise. there is a range of opinion on their competence to bring it off, just how well planned is this, and just who are the Actors? Putin? Soros?, the Chicoms?, ME dictators? The known contributions, and the shadows which surround augurs for some hair raising conclusions. Yet the hammed fisted assault of recent days suggest less competence and more a sort amateurish improvisation.. Here to we so not know the answer, But I would suggest that the contradictions we are seeing are evidence of internal struggles, mismanagement of the agenda and poor communications. Soon we will know if they have managed to get their sea-legs.
But whatever the threat, whatever the level of ability to pull it off, the crucial point is the timing: Do we have enough time to counter their designs against us?
3) Do we have the will and determination for a Restoration? Should we manage to reject and stop what is upon us, do we have the will to turn back and regain our traditional intentionality role as the leading nation, including as a super power? Are we willing to finally uproot he creeping neo-communism that has so wrapped us and brought us low? If we do not then soon we will be right back at the threshold we now find ourselves.
We do not know know the answers to any of these questions. All we know is that Events will now lead–they are in the saddle now. They are beyond even Obama’s control.
The cruX is what is within our hearts, minds and souls.
Mike Giles: I don’t think Whiskey’s point necessarily makes him a racist; politics isn’t so much drama as a static tableau that is set before the public. To a certain sizable portion of the electorate the racial aspect is, regrettably important as a symbolic representation of binary switch, a transfer on which they are on the losing side. I think whiskey is wrong in that he mistakenly reads only one facet of this rebellion. The tableau Obama set up came to life when an unprecedentedly large number of people from a huge variety of constituencies and social groups sttod up and recognized themselves as the loser in this transfer. That is precisely what is so amazing here. Almost everybody involved in this sees this as a binary transfer of goods from ME to THEM, and yet they are all from such diverse constituencies. Minority small businessmen are most assuredly one of these groups that sees themselves as a primary target of this legislation, and I see them also standing up to say “I won’t be screwed so you can expropriate what I’ve worked so hard for.” It is unprecedented that so many different groups think THEY are the ones in the cross-hairs, and they’re all right. This thing has so many facets, class, age, ethnicity, religion, and yes race too among some. SO many have their own individual complaint. Nobody can put out all of these fires. The preemptive attempt to extinguish the blaze among what is likely the biggest group of aggrieved citizens, senior citizens, has I think only resulted in the permanent loss of credibility of the AARP. Oh well there goes another lever of Democratic manipulation. Let’s hope the teachers’ union goes next.
Thank you all for your contributions. I read your comments as zealously as those of our dear moderator.
Whiskey,
Obama and his inner circle seem to have a “John Sununu problem.” They have let themselves get cut off from the number one issue on the minds of the American people – the Economy.
Pres. George H.W. Bush got into similar trouble with the American public when he had James Baker become Sec of State and White House Chief of Staff John Sununu cut Pres. Bush off from the outside world.
This left Bush 41 without a “Reality check guy” who was both in touch with Bush and outside reality and had the credibility with Bush41 to be listened too. The lack of a “reality check guy” allowed Democratic candidate Gov. Bill (“It’s the Economy, Stupid”) Clinton to paint Bush 41 as not being engaged on the economy.
I mention this because it is blindingly obvious that the Obama Administration lives or dies with the economy, and unemployment is hitting 10% nationally. It is political death for a President to seem oblivious to the concerns of ordinary people, and a perception that he is not even trying to address their No. 1 concern does that.
IMO, the Obama Administration has created the perception among growing numbers of Americans, via placing so much emphasis on its non-economic policy objectives like Health Care, Cap & Trade, etc., that President Obama not only doesn’t care, but is actively oblivious to the economic pain suffered by ordinary Americans during this recession.
Ordinary Americans who have not, and will not, buy mealy-mouthed explanations that global warming and changes in national health care will somehow fix the economy. That claim is dead on arrival.
So, again IMO, the Obama Administration now has a rapidly closing time window to reverse this growing public perception that it does not care about them.
This can only be done by dropping the Obama Administration’s global warming and health care changes goals, and loudly focusing on issues that the public believes might address their economic woes. (Think in terms here of the way Pres Clinton listened to Dick Morris and abandoned Health care for Republican Welfare Reform.)
Which would put it on a collision course with the Democratic base, who truly do not care about the concerns of ordinary people, particularly that so many of the public are unemployed, but do vociferously believe in global warming, a national single payer health system and the CIA as the root of all evil.
Right now it seems like the White House has only the latter sort of people in it, without a Dick Morris type who saved Pres. Clinton’s reelection.
We’ll know for certain that is the case if Obama doesn’t refocus on the economy before Thanksgiving.
#9. Kingston53:
“Looking at Jones is like seeing the real Obama as seen through those special x-ray glasses.” Good one.
I hear the train a-comin’
She’s rumblin’ down the track
I hear the rails a-hummin’
Rahm, the crowd’s on the attack
We need a crisis sure enough
We need one right away
They say that when the going’s tough
Well, you know what they say
I have a plan, your majesty
Mr. President I mean
To squelch Tea Party travesty
And drive them from the scene
We organize a corps of yoots
Young people don’t you know
The kind of guys don’t give two hoots
So long’s you show the dough
We set upon them with our fists
And axe handles as well
We know their names, we have our lists
We give them merry hell
The crisis then becomes at once
A crisis we can cure
We’ll have our dog and one that hunts
We’re back on top for sure
There is one thing, el president
That stops us from clear sailin’
It’s that Alaska resident
That goddamned Sarah Palin
She’s got the folks all in a twist
They don’t like what we’re doing
I think they just like to resist
I think they just like booing
Ah no dear Rahm it’s more than that
I hear it in the distance
The train’s on time, in nothing flat
We’re out on the insistence
Of people who don’t know or care
That we’re the ones who guide them
They can’t believe that we are there
To praise them or to chide them
I hear the train a-comin’, Rahm
A-rumblin’d down the track
I hear the rails a-hummin’, Rahm
And we ain’t coming back
Interesting little post back a couple of years by our friend Tom Friedman and our man Van. At the bottom of the post is a clip with Van Jones. The audio clip was compiled by Mumia abu Jamal, in prison, for the murder of Philadelphia cop, Daniel Faulkner. Tom Friedman gushing over Van Jones
Here’s one for Walt: (The Titanic Song, for BCers who don’t know the old campfire ditty)
When Rahm built up Obama
To run a state so blue,
He thought he had a Messiah
Who could walk on water too.
But the Good Lord raised His hand,
Said, “That stuff will never stand!”
It was sad when the Great O went down.
Oh, it was sad,
It was sad,
It was sad when the Great O went down
To the bottom of the polls–
(Czars they lost their jobs, SEIU and ACORN lost their mobs)
It was sad when the Great O went down.
38. Shivermetimbers:
Last I read in an article at FR … as of about 12 hours ago there was no mention at all — using a lexis nexis search — of Van Johnson … in the MSM. Nothing in CNN, ABC,CBS NBC, NYTimes etc.
But 12 hours can be a long time in the news cycle so things may have changed. We’ll see.
Is it worth pointing out that those segments of the population that ALREADY rely on government health care (native Americans; inner-city blacks and hispanics) also suffer the highest mortality rates and shortest lifespans?
The undeclared truce between the Left and the Right, their tacit albeit uneasy coexistence these last forty years has been upset by a power grab.
Good description – of Hillary’s unnecessary shutout of Republicans in 1994.
And then, Bubba’s impeachment, and the reasons behind it – travelgate, filegate – caused the Republicans to try to marginalize Clinton after about 1998. And so the Democrats decided to marginalize any Republican who might get elected in 2000 – and when Dubya was elected only after the Florida follies, the Dems really had it made, from their extreme perspective.
Power grab by Obama??? How about, a power grab by Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke, because the banking sector and maybe western society was about to shred? Rahm Emanuel didn’t want to waste this crisis. The power was there, nobody was holding the reins, as Obama took office. And the Dems got their 60-seat majority in the Senate, by hook or crook.
In short, I can’t really see Obama has grabbed for anything that wasn’t there on the street to be picked up, or dumped on his lap.
He hasn’t done well with it all, but I doubt any human would have done a lot better. McCain/Palin? Can you imagine? Groan. But if I were named emperor, and got to name a President and VP, I dunno who I’d volunteer for the position. Do you?
Seems to me that most of the outrage and protest we have seen has little to do with left and right, and is more of a “pox on both houses” anti-DC thing.
Those who read political blogs may see the sense in Wrethcherds analysis, and many deplore the voting publics’ inability to understand or care about what is going on. But you love, or at least are interested in, politics. Most people hate it.
The people who decide who will govern us are largely apolitical, IMHO. They expect that whichever party is in charge will show restraint, and do nothing that would put this Country in mortal danger. I don’t think they’re so sure of that now, and Obama isn’t the only one they’re eyeballing.
I think Obama was elected because a lot of those apolitical people had faith that the Democratic Party would not attempt to do irreparable harm to them, and they wanted to punish the GOP real bad.
Kind of like if you’re dealing with a store – you know they’re trying to get all they can out of you, and their products may not live up to all of their claims. But even if they’re not so great, they’re suitable enough and the product claims are not outlandish, so you generally trust the store and come back to buy more. Buying from that store is safe, even if you don’t always get exactly what you want. They stand by their product (to a degree) because it would be economic suicide to do otherwise. This works as long as sane, rational people are in charge of the store.
The hubbub about BHO prior to his election was, I’m convinced, considered to be a lot of white noise by those voters. We’d been hearing that Bush is Hitler for the last 8 years, all sorts of bad things about Clinton before that, etc. etc.
I think many, even if they had doubts, disbelieved or discounted much that was said about Obama because they thought the Democratic Party, an old and venerable institution, would not nominate someone who was an idiot – the Party gave it’s stamp of approval, and they wouldn’t be irresponsible enough to put up someone who had no idea what he was doing (or worse, had malice for this Country and them). Since O had little experience, the theme that he was exceptional was reinforced by this. If he wasn’t the DEMs wouldn’t let him lead their party. So he must not be that bad. Plus, they didn’t know many of the bad things thanks to our “news media”.
Well, the lunatics have taken over the store, and the country is starting to get the picture. The product not only has serious flaws, but the potential to be toxic. And there’s no refund or recourse available at present.
richard mcenroe — yes, that’s an obvious obviousness. and so?
Clinton saved his bacon when he tacked back to the middle after his leftist agenda was repudiated. But Bill was a pol and used to wheeling and dealing. I don’t think a preening narcissist like Obama is capable of that. Take him as he is or he’ll walk away believing we were a people unworthy of his leadership.
Banjo: We have to consider the notion that Obama is a front man. Perhaps he is granted some leeway, perhaps he does not even know that he is merely a mask, a front. But he may not be calling be calling the shots when all is said and done.
There my be many factions behind him, but it is possible that the dominate ones are not even Americans at all. There is certainly a foreign fell to this administration as well as a aura of false stagecraft.
Who knows, maybe the “crisis” they have planned for us his having him assassinated and the resulting chaos.
He has gone too far to use Clinton’s stratagems, seems to me.
Well, if you look closely at Obama, Soros maybe the guy behind the mask.
LifeoftheMind — Radicals (probably not the right word) wish to attack the US because doing so creates an exile Army. Most Muslims have never read nor memorized the Koran, but all are familiar with the story of how Mohammed was kicked out of Mecca, and in Medina, conducted raids on caravans and other groups to construct an exile army that let him re-take Mecca. Bin Laden and forces around him have ambitions to rule Saudi Arabia. Zawahari the same with Egypt. Others Yemen, or the UAE, or Pakistan, and so on.
This GUARANTEES an attack (something Obama, who probably hung out with jihadis in his 1988 trip to Pakistan knows well). Because there is no feeling of “the Americans will destroy us — better not do it” and the benefits are money, men, and arms flowing to the attacker.
Americans were tired of Bush and trusted the media, voted for “not Bush” and took McCain’s implicit endorsement that Obama was not “radical” as the real deal. What is interesting is the collapse of the Republican Party, which has been AWOL and silent, along with the trust in the media, and particularly Congress.
Equally as radicalizing has been the contempt that Congress-critters have had for their voters, the idea that the voters work for them and answer to the Congresspeople. It is in fact IMHO part and parcel of the amount of money flowing into elites that makes the yuppie status games (seen on Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm) and what Kay Hymnowitz dubbed “the New Girl Order” (i.e. fashion and fashionable young women with lots of disposable wealth and independence) so powerful — the stakes are so high.
All this money has produced a corrupt and decadent elite that is profoundly alienated, contemptous, and hostile to the people — and that characterizes basically the global political struggle. A crisis only works if the elites are not trusted — but now nearly all elite institutions lack trust and legitimacy. Republicans as well as Democrats lack it.
Mike Giles — It is a sad fact that no group is as racist as Blacks. Most Blacks believe in racist conspiracy theories that the CIA created AIDS, the 9/11 was “an inside job” and as Will Smith said, “I feel nothing for 9/11, no Black people died there” [rough paraphrase, no exact quote sorry] (false, btw). No group save Blacks cheers “God Damn America,” packs Trinity United (filled with Oprah, Obama, and middle class Blacks) with a sermon of bigotry, hate for America, Jews, other Whites, etc. Save for a Klan robe, the attitude of the Average Black Person is practically the same as that of a KKK member circa 1932. A sad but ugly fact — no Black figure condemned Rev. Wright (the functional equivalent of Strom Thurmond) because the Black community as a whole endorsed his views just as most Whites circa 1948 endorsed Thurmond’s views. [It is now socially unacceptable for Whites to express racist views for Blacks and Hispanics, but socially acceptable for the latter to express all kinds of racist views -- a social arrangement that is not IMHO functionally stable.]
Moreover, ObamaCare is EXPLICITLY a transfer of resources from the elderly and middle aged Whites who paid into the system, to illegal aliens who are not even citizens, and Blacks. For the latter, the bill contains several billion dollars set aside to increase Black doctors, from the current 4% of all MDs to around 50%. Basically an AA patronage effort of massive proportions. Indeed this is the whole point of ObamaCare — racially based spoils systems transferring money from the White Majority (and putting them on death panels to save money) to illegal aliens and Blacks.
In fact, according to the WSJ, 40% of Blacks are Middle Class, and the rest are urban ghetto. According to the CDC, illegitimacy rates for Blacks nationwide exceed 70%, over 90% in the urban core, and (using algebra) around 40% for the Black Middle Class.
This makes Blacks very UNLIKE Whites behaviorally. While Whites ARE increasingly following Black patterns of illegitimacy, Working Class Whites having 40% illegitimacy and 20% for Middle Class, according to Charles Murray, Blacks are far more likely to have no father in the home, with the predicable pathologies that result. ALL populations are trending this way, Blacks the worst, followed by Hispanics, then Whites, and finally Asians. Obviously the issue is cultural, since all groups are affected, but the differences are large enough to create vast functional cultural differences NOW at any rate — IMHO the illegitimacy rates are probably connected to the virulent Black racism that characterizes most of Black America, beset by lunatic conspiracy theories and the latter day inheritors of Father Coughlin, 1930′s anti-Jewish and anti-Black racist.
In any event, Obama’s “Race Man” attitude that puts Blacks first in a majority (and still overwhelmingly so, at around 65-70%) WHITE nation can only stand when government is small, doesn’t impact daily life, and does not create a whole and permanent group of winners and losers in life. Now that Obama and Dems want to create a permanent socialist state where Government controls EVERY aspect of personal life, political patronage and power politics rules make that unsustainable — Blacks and other non-White groups must therefore be last in the patronage line, as Whites don’t trust non-Whites to jigger the system of political spoils to racial advantage.
Multiculturalism, socialism, social peace, pick any two. Obama could play Race Man all day and night, and Whites would not care as long as Government was distant and irrelevant, and it bought social peace in the form of no Black Riots (such as Rodney King riots). A majority White nation will not stand for going to the back of the Bus in patronage handouts and will not trust “Race Man” Obama on that score. This is not Chicago, Obama upped the ante too much.
Trent — I believe you are correct on the economy. At any rate, Obama lacks the expertise to handle it.
Trouble:
Mothers of River City!
Heed the warning before it’s too late!
Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house,
Does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?
A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Capt.
Billy’s Whiz Bang?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like ‘swell?”
And ‘so’s your old man?”
Well, if so my friends,
Ya got trouble,
Right here in River city!
With a capital “T”
And that rhymes with “P”
And that stands for Pool.
We’ve surely got trouble!
Right here in River City!
Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!
Oh, we’ve got trouble.
We’re in terrible, terrible trouble.
That game with the fifteen numbered balls is a devil’s tool!
Oh yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble!
With a “T”! Gotta rhyme it with “P”!
And that stands for Pool!!!
The Music Man
I keep thinking that we are headed toward an Argentine type crisis. From 1998 to 2002 the individual poverty level went from 27% to 54%.
“Economists” say that we are seeing the bottom because some large companies haver returned to profitability. However these companies are now smaller, they have a smaller customer base, and they and their employees pay in less tax revenue. Then there are the companies that have relocated as well. What will they do if their customer base gets even poorer?
Small businesses have failed, shrunk, and are not hiring even when viable. In many case it is because they can’t get credit for expansion in other because they have no reliable estimate on how much a new hire is going to cost them in 2010. Non federal government agencies are running out of money in a lot of areas.
The Obama administration may hit a point of no return fairly soon. Talk of default and the price of gold is rising.
“But if I were named emperor, and got to name a President and VP, I dunno who I’d volunteer for the position. Do you?”
Petraeaus for President. Cheney for Vice-President. Or Guiliani.
///
“…it bought social peace in the form of no Black Riots (such as Rodney King riots).”
I dunno. Those riots are sort of a self-cleaning oven in that inevitably the places rioted over and burned down are black neighborhoods. Which are thereafer just left to fester in peace, which may or may not be a good thing, from a taking responsibility for your own actions point of view.
Toad:
Pumping over a Trillion into the Pockets of Wall St and the Banks has been good for the S&P.
Surprise!
That’s about it, however, other than destroying our fiscal reputation, and diverting dollars from productive pursuits.
The ad @ the top is for the
“Sallie Mae Smart Option Student Loan®”
Pouring more dollars into the Reorientation Camps
and driving the cost of college out of reach
of the non-elite.
CGage: Awesome skill in cutting and pasting. Any other skills?
Sing It… Van Jones Cut Nasty Hate-Filled Music Album, Too! (Video)
Here are a few of the lines from hate-filled anti-white, anti-American, anti-Israeli recording by Van Jones and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights…
– Gateway Pundit
The CD starred Van Jones and cop killer Mumia abu-Jamal.
UPDATE: Kristinn found the album (CD) cover
another classic
feel the love
PA Cat/54
Too good. Don’t do it again. Makes me feel insecure.
Walt
Doug -
Speaking of web page ads, I have been seeing these *everywhere*, including PJM and Fox News sites:
“Obama urges moms to return to school” (accompanied by video of a woman doing crunches at the gym … or cheesy animations of women rollerblading … related to the text *how*?)
and
“Don’t Pay for White Teeth! Learn trick discovered by mom, etc.”
So I am awaiting the confluence of the two:
“Obama urges moms to get white teeth!”
Frankly, if I could trade all of the current Fed overreach in exchange for TOTUS becoming a stumper for brighter smiles and nuttin’ else, that’s a deal I would make.
PA Cat -
So that makes two of us who know “The Titanic Song.” Ah, what you learn in Scouts ….
And I liked your dad’s joke about the “interfaith marriage” of Phillys & Pirates fans.
71 Walt
Please don’t feel insecure– consider it a testimony to your skill as a rhymester that other BCers try their hand at it.
72 bogie wheel
I just wish my dad had lived to see the 1980 World Series. As it was, he died a few months before the Phamous Phillies Phold of September 1964 (my mom used to say, “If your dad had lived to see that, he’d have died all over again.”)
BTW, we were all happy when Bill Mazeroski hit the home run that gave the 1960 Series to the Pirates rather than the detested Yankees. Call it Pennsylvania NL loyalty, I guess.
65. toad:
The Obama administration may hit a point of no return fairly soon. Talk of default and the price of gold is rising.
////////
Here’s some more background/forground on the gold silver story.
background
forground
Charles @74…
China announced that she is moving her gold from London to Hong Kong ASAP.
Immediately thereafter t
he silver and gold markets vaulted higher.
Russia and China have effectively stopped selling their gold into the market.
JPM may be bankrupted if they have to unwind their shorts in this environment.
BTW, China is telling the world that she’ll only tolerate winning positions — the losers must be re-negotiated.
With that attitude the CCP will never have hard money.
In his radio address, Obama said he hoped he has a sunnier message to deliver this time next year.
He said his
“larger hope and expectation is that next Labor Day, the economic storms we’re weathering now will have given way to brighter and more prosperous times.“
I second Whiskey’s proposal to establish a database of shame: sort of a variation on Facebook whereby the links, foibles and political history of the miscreant class can be built-up.
Wiki-politica?
Here’s a news search on Van Jones
PA Cat and Boogie wheel,
It was sad when that great ship went down,, and today it is sad that only you two think you have a monopoly of campfire memories.
This link will allow everyone to know the song too, as woody guthrie would have sung it I think.
A leadbelly version too
*
79. Wadeusaf:
thxs! enjoyed(ing) them.
79 Wadeusaf:
There must be a lot of different versions of the Titanic Song; I learned two, one in Scouts and the other at church camp. I know a number of BC folks are vets; be interesting to find out how many of Wretchard’s merry band are former Scouts (or campers, happy or otherwise).
If this fight is between the Obama administration and its allied goon squads on one side and ordinary Americans on the other, Obama will lose. If this fight is between “white people” and “black people”, Obama will win – game, set, and match.
Setting Americans off against one another in a racial death match is no way to achieve victory against the Obama administration; instead, it is a highly effective way to ensure the Obama administration’s triumph over dissenting opinion in America. Besides, acting like a French “integral nationalist” is no way to build any America worth living in.
Black racism is quite nasty; it must be opposed. I am well aware of how black racists seek to pit “white people” against a coalition of “minorities”, which essentially means “black people” and “honorary black people” in the minds of black racists. Although I’m sure there are many so-called “minorities” who would feel offended if there were called “honorary black people”, that is what the word “minority” essentially means in America – “black” or “honorary black”. That said, those who talk of “white power” are essentially the same as those who talk of “black power”. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
Those who oppose Obama must not cavalierly reject the likes of Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, and Shelby Steele merely because they happen to be black. Calling them “honorary white people” just because one happens to like them doesn’t help matters. Black racists would love to call such men “honorary white people”! Should Jews who vote for Obama regard themselves as “honorary black people”? Should Irish-Americans who vote for Obama regard themselves as “honorary black people” when they vote for Obama? If a man of Vietnamese ancestry votes against Obama, does that make him an “honorary white person” much as Japanese businessmen were dubbed “honorary white people” in apartheid South Africa? Somehow, I doubt Congressman Cao of Louisiana’s Second District will be swayed by appeals to “White America”.
Let’s try to see America as it actually is. It has many colors. It has many shades of gray. “White” and “black” are artificial distinctions created by racists to divide America and conquer it; let’s recognize the reality of America and not play into the idiotic race games that the Obama administration is attempting to foist onto the American people.
Scouting songs are probably going to be reviewed for political correctness. Sing while you can.
Britain’s blade culture claims another victim …Scouts’ penknives | Mail Online
Schoolchildren carried pen knives with them all the time within living memory, usually to sharpen pencils. But on a camping trip they were great for prying open lids, cutting lengths of paracord — unless you had a cigarette and lighter, but I guess not; they were wonderful as makeshift flathead screwdrivers, if you held the blade at an angle. Nothing was better for stripping wire you were splicing, assuming you could allow the insulation slivers to despoil the environment. You needed knives for ropework of any sort. They were even handy for ripping open MRE containers because MRE plastic bags were almost like armor. But then I guess that would be even less politically correct.
But the pen-knives are lousy for intimidating people. You need a good six inch blade for that purpose like this one. But not a pen knife.
Attended the “Voice of America” Cincinnati Tea Party today held at the Voice of America park which is the former site of a VOA transmitter and antenna field. Reported 18,000 attended the six hour event. During the town hall session 3 Congressmen answered questions and got grilled pretty good. All three were Republicans, including minority leader John Boehner. The anger was palpable. Healthcare was a big issue but so was the stimulus, TARP, Cap and Trade and the general perception that government is out of control and Washington is not listening. I don’t think these issues are going to fade away.
82/PA Cat. Like what you did with the lyrics. In answer to your query — nine years in Girl Scouts, back when the focus was on etiquette and practical skills. I can light just about anything on fire, set a table for any situation, and perform first aid calmly and efficiently. I learned CPR in scouts and used it thirty years later to save my daughter’s life. The modern Girl Scouts aren’t the same — it’s a bit like Women’s Studies… If you have a good leader, Girl Scouts can still be part of building an excellent ethical and functional foundation for our girls, but it really does hinge on the leader’s own abilities and personality, which wasn’t quite as critical forty years ago.
Boy Scouts is currently having to deal with fewer and fewer boys having the dedication and character to go all the way to Eagle. The desire is for quick, easy badges. There are some good people working hard to prevent that dumbing down. The BSA is very popular with Vietnamese-Americans and they are upholding the standard.
“…husbands and wives, little children lost their lives, it was sad…”
Another former Boy Scout answers muster.
Eagle Scout, Quartermaster Sea Scout, Brotherhood OA, Silver Beaver. USN Vet RVN, AFG (there’s a spread).
A knife is a tool. “Carry a knife, save a life” was a saying a Royal Marine used to say to me.
When Boy Scouts stop carrying pocket knives their adult leaders have failed them. B-P must be rolling in his grave.
The Van Jones (non) feeding frenzy
By: Byron York
From a Nexis search a few moments ago:
Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 0.
If you were to receive all your news from any one of these outlets, or even all of them together, and you heard about some sort of controversy involving President Obama’s Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, your response would be, “Huh?” If you heard that that adviser, Van Jones, had apologized for a number of remarks and positions in the recent past, your response would be, “What?” And if you were in the Obama White House monitoring the Jones situation, you would be hoping that the news organizations listed above continue to hold the line — otherwise, Jones, who is quite well thought of in Obama circles, would be history.
—
9/5/09 UPDATE: The New York Times, ABC and NBC hold the line
After the Jones controversy reached a boiling point on Friday, the Washington Post published a story, “White House Says Little on Embattled Jones,” on page A-3 of its Saturday edition. But the New York Times remained silent on the story.
Likewise, on Friday night the “CBS Evening News” reported the Jones matter, but ABC’s “World News” and “NBC Nightly News” again failed to report the story.
About the media’s failure to MENTION the growing grotesqueries of Obama’s appointee Van Jones.
Sure enough, the internet and talk radio shows are the only sources I know of providing any information on the eloquent Mr. Jones.
Just another sickening example of how the mainstream alleged news agencies continue to betray the trust they claim to be serving.
We would be better served by a kindergarten class writing with crayons on kraft paper.
All my life I’ve been hearing stories and seeing dramas about how courageous journalists have put their selves on the line, braved beatings, shootings, bombs, fire, imprisonment, and scorn, to bring out the truth so people can make informed choices, choose good over evil, and prepare for disasters.
This is the same as if a hurricane were bearing down on a coastal city, and the press knew it was coming, that the winds were 130 mph, pushing a 12-foot storm surge, but they deliberately withhold the information from the public.
WHO ARE THEY SERVING??????
WHAT IS THEIR REWARD FOR LYING AND WITHHOLDING THE TRUTH??????
DO THEY REALLY EXPECT TO KEEP LYING WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE?????
(www.washingtonexaminer.com, link from drudge)
When I lived on a small ranch for a few years, I carried a Gerber Multi-tool – two knife blades, four screw drivers (2 sizes each Phillips and flat) Needlenose pliers, wire cutters, strippers, two saws, etc.
With all the fencing and temporary structures that I had to build and disassemble relocate and re-build, there were many days I used those tools a hundred times.
W: The crisis is here, just you wait, Rahm.
To build on Walt, PA Cat, and CGage (with apologies to Alan Jay Lerner):
—
Just You Wait
Just you wait, Rahm ‘Manuel, just you wait!
You’ll be sorry, but your tears’ll be too late!
We’ll go bust, and have no money;
Will we help you? Don’t be funny!
Just you wait, Rahm ‘Manuel, just you wait!
Just you wait, Rahm ‘Manuel, till you’re sick,
And you scream to fetch a doctor double-quick.
There’ll be no one left to see you, No more nurses in the ICU!
Oh ho ho, Rahm ‘Manuel, just you wait!
Ooooooh Rahm ‘Manuel!
Just you wait until we’re swimmin’ in the debt!
Ooooooh Rahm ‘Manuel!
And you face an angry mob – oh, you can bet!
When you yell, we’ll shout you down,
With no more pow’r you’re just a clown!
Oh ho ho, Rahm ‘Manuel!
Oh ho ho, Rahm ‘Manuel!
Just you wait!
Soon you’ll be in-famous! We’ll be jobless and broke;
We’ll eat soup ev’ry day, and your neck we’ll wanna choke!
One evening the people’ll say:
“Oh, Rahm, you old thing,
We want all Americans to flush the left wing.
Next year on the first day of May
We’ll proclaim No More Communists Day!
All the people will celebrate the exit of you
And now that you’re leaving, we’re so glad that you’re through.”
“Thanks a lot, folks” you will say, in your manner ill-bred;
“But all I wanted was our country to go red!”
“Leave,” says the people with a stroke.
“Guard, run and bring in the bloke!”
Then they’ll march you, Rahm ‘Manuel to the wall;
And Americans will say: “Now, sound the call!”
As they lift their rifles higher, we’ll shout:
“Ready! Aim! Fire!”
Oh ho ho, Rahm ‘Manuel,
Down you’ll go, Rahm ‘Manuel!
Just you wait!
—
Disclaimer: nothing in the above parody should be construed as a call to violence, deceit, revolution, or any other naughty behavior.
L3
@Whiskey (63): “and as Will Smith said, “I feel nothing for 9/11, no Black people died there” [rough paraphrase, no exact quote sorry] (false, btw). No group save Blacks cheers “God Damn America,” packs Trinity United (filled with Oprah, Obama, and middle class Blacks) with a sermon of bigotry, hate for America, Jews, other Whites, etc.”
I found the exact quote at “David’s Medienkritik: Politically Observations on Reporting in the German Media”
http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2004/08/will_smith_in_f.html
When asked if 9/11 had changed anything for him personally, Smith answered: “No. Absolutely not. When you grow up black in America you have a completely different view of the world than white Americans. We blacks live with a constant feeling of unease. And whether you are wounded in an attack by a racist cop or in a terrorist attack, I’m sorry, it makes no difference.”
This is not the same as saying no blacks died in 9/11, but it is every bit as racist/racialist and even worse, unpatriotic. I never heard about these remarks when they were made. Now that I have, what little measure of respect I did have for Will Smith has evaporated.
And this makes me wonder: did Smith not see the picture of the black man who was photographed falling headlong from the Tower?
http://seanet.com/~jimxc/Politics/Pictures/jumper_09-11_08.jpg
A 71-minute documentary was made about this picture and released in 2006. It’s called “The Falling Man.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXnA9FjvLSU
It’s based on a September 2003 Esquire Magazine article by the same name and written by Tom Junod. http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN
Here’s an interesting excerpt from the article that indirectly addresses some of the other issues you raised:
“Jonathan Briley worked at Windows on the World. Some of his co – workers, when they saw Richard Drew’s photographs, thought he might be the Falling Man. He was a light-skinned black man. He was over six five. He was forty-three. He had a mustache and a goatee and close-cropped hair. He had a wife named Hillary. Jonathan Briley’s father is a preacher, a man who has devoted his whole life to serving the Lord. After September 11, he gathered his family together to ask God to tell him where his son was. No: He demanded it. He used these words: “Lord, I demand to know where my son is.” For three hours straight, he prayed in his deep voice, until he spent the grace he had accumulated over a lifetime in the insistence of his appeal. The next day, the FBI called. They’d found his son’s body. It was, miraculously, intact.
The preacher’s youngest son, Timothy, went to identify his brother. He recognized him by his shoes: He was wearing black high-tops. Timothy removed one of them and took it home and put it in his garage, as a kind of memorial.
Timothy knew all about the Falling Man. He is a cop in Mount Vernon, New York, and in the week after his brother died, someone had left a September 12 newspaper open in the locker room. He saw the photograph of the Falling Man and, in anger, he refused to look at it again. But he couldn’t throw it away. Instead, he stuffed it in the bottom of his locker, where ~ like the black shoe in his garage ~ it became permanent.”
Jonathan Briley was a sound technician at Windows on the World restaurant. His father’s a preacher, brother’s a cop. I’m betting that even in the midst of this tragedy there were no “God D**n Amerikkka” imprecations coming from his pulpit that day or any other since. Actually here’s what we heard from him–a father’s devastating grief: “Junod called Briley’s father, a Baptist preacher from New York State. “Of all the interviews it was the most heartbreaking. He said to me, ‘I’d like to talk to you but I can’t. My life’s work is telling people that they have to go on after tragedy, but I can’t do it for myself’.” Average folk who happen to be black, not seething, self-loathing, Trinity affinity America-haters; just average folks who happen to be black and about whom you know as much as you do about women.
“Eagle Scout, Quartermaster Sea Scout, Brotherhood OA, Silver Beaver. USN Vet RVN, AFG (there’s a spread).
A knife is a tool. “Carry a knife, save a life” was a saying a Royal Marine used to say to me.
When Boy Scouts stop carrying pocket knives their adult leaders have failed them. B-P must be rolling in his grave.”
we still teach our kids in scouts to carry knives…
Van Jones resign. More czars to boot.
“Those who oppose Obama must not cavalierly reject the likes of Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, and Shelby Steele merely because they happen to be black. Calling them “honorary white people” just because one happens to like them doesn’t help matters.”
What’s wrong with calling them “human beings”?
Or, even better, “Americans”? I sort of think that the vicious black racists you describe would shrivel up and sizzle if they were referred to as an “American”.
(Interesting that you didn’t include Condi Rice or Colin Powell … Or even poor old Oprah.)
But why on earth would you state with no hesitation that in a race war between black and white, that white would lose? That simply does not compute, either historically or psychologically.
Great point Nahncee about “human beings.” This is the identity I’ve taken and how I try to live, i.e. as a human being first, as a human being born & raised in, and in love with America as it is. It’s not only my fellow black Americans that find this point of view puzzling; so too do a great number of others.
McCain, the old goober, “…believes it’s the making of a revolution against business as usual in Washington, D.C.” In reference to the problems that The Won is having getting his health scare bills passed.
Fer cryin’ out loud, that was one of the main themes of the election last year. Both 0bama and McCain were insisting that they were the change needed in Washington. Change to the same-old-business-as-usual-in-DC. This old coot thinks we really are stupid and have memories the length of his shriveled, ancient member or something.
Dymphna @ 29:
D- True, that is the perfect storm for health care. I fully expect them to get away with it or try to. Then you shall see the anger of the electorate at levels that will make your hair stand on end when they realize they have been gamed.
The one real crisis that makes me shudder is Honduras. The 0bamamantion has sided with Chavez, Ortega, Castro, et al to throw Michelitti under the bus. That one is just beyond belief but does show, as we have said here on other threads, that the 2010 national elections may very well be on shaky ground.
whiskey @ 63: I think you have overshot the mark badly here. While there are distinct differences in the experiences of the white vs black populations in the US, you lump too many of both into too convenient bins. A lot of the reasons for the stats you quote are fodder for a series of other posts, perhaps on other blogs. Making too wide generalizations just alienates those who would otherwise listen to cogent arguments.
wretchard on knives. I was seeing the acupuncturist yesterday. He snatched my lock-back with a clip that sits clipped to my pants pocket, held it up and said, “Weapon.” I said, “No. Tool. It can be used as one if the need is there.” Of course he is a Liberal new-agey mouth-breather but knows his biz. And the Japanese form of the art does give me some relief with my degenerative disc disease.
O/T – I looked it up and Van Jones has resigned. From Fox News:
Obama ‘Green Jobs’ Adviser Van Jones Resigns Amid Controversy
Money Quote:
So, let me get this straight, using your own words and history to delineate what a fruitcake you are is now a smear campaign?
Obama will urge kids to go to private school.
A draft copy of President Barack Obama’s planned September 8 address to America’s public school children, tells students that “If you want to grow up to be like me, you should beg your parents to put you in private school, right now.”
Although Obama attended public school in Indonesia early in life, he soon switched to a private Catholic school, and from fifth grade through graduation went to a private college-prep school in Hawaii. His own daughters now attend a private school in Washington D.C..
“Do you think you’re going to get into Harvard University with your one-size-fits-all public school diploma?” the president will reportedly say. “Come on! Don’t make me laugh. You’ll be lucky to survive through graduation. Seriously, you gotta get out of this mediocrity machine. Go ahead! Get up right now. Run for the door. What are you waiting for?”
While the White House would not confirm the content of the leaked speech draft, a spokesman acknowledged that “You don’t get to be as smart and cool as Barack Obama by sitting in P.S. 152, listening to some union lackey droning on, and then eating government surplus in the cafeteria.”
Scott Ott – Scrappleface
Limpet6 #87
Have you seen the arrow?
Have you seen the arrow?
Mum’s the rusty word since authentic Indian attire went by the boards.
My calling has been protecting the Constitution against all foes foreign and domestic. My occupations have been nearly simultaneously mouthpiece and snake-eater. I retired as the latter a few years back after 35 years service, active and reserve.
Mike@34
I confess to not having read all the potential rebuttals regarding your assertion that whiskey’s comments are “racially-motivated.”
If what you contend is true, why have we only Bill Cosby, Michael Steele and Walter Williams speaking out vis a vis the black image you cleary encapsulated? Arent’ Jackson (Jesse and Shiela) and Sharpton and Dingle et al their voices? I’d love to hear different. And some outrage from more influential blacks would be encouraging. Instead we hear sucking sounds and discover $90K in their freezers.
Citing the fact that a 70%+ illigitimacy rate exists in OUR African-American community is not racist. Ignoring the situation IS. Subsidizing this life-style simply establishes a new form of slavery.
The tossing of Van Jones might be the pulling of the loose thread that will cause the whole cheap suit of the Obama administration to unravel. What is needed is a full court press by Blacks to draw a public distinction between the Communists (no obfuscation, that is what they really are) who hijacked the civil rights struggle and the interests and aspirations of all Americans including people of color. We must break through the MSM wall that consigns groups of people to dependency ghettos.
Maybe, just maybe this is The End of the Beginning.
He vanished in The Midnight Hour, when they Lost that Loving Feeling.
Nahncee:
Exactly. We’re human beings. Some of us are Americans.
But why on earth would you state with no hesitation that in a race war between black and white, that white would lose?
Most people would lose. Everybody would lose except for a tiny minority of racists who would keep the rest of humanity under their power. Please note how former Communists used “race war” in the former Yugoslavia to keep their power; “race war” is often class war in disguise where tyrants and wannabe tyrants use race as a means to acquire power and solidify their control. I think university administrations use race (phrased as “multiculturalism”) as a means to splinter any opposition against the leftist status quo.
It is a mistake to assume that whenever there is tribal conflict, the stronger side is the one with numbers and affluence. As a rule, groups that feel weak tend to unify and groups that feel strong tend to fragment. This effectively means that a coalition of smaller tribes can often defeat a bigger tribe, especially when the bigger tribe is splintered with factional dissension. Moreover, small groups sometimes win, even in a democracy.
Remember how only a year ago, it was called “racist” to talk about Barack Hussein Obama’s middle name? Forbidding talk of his middle name ironically drew more attention to it than if BHO had openly acknowledged his Muslim background. Communists have historically used race as a means to play their opponents off against one another through the use of the enforced silence of political correctness.
Back in early 2008, a certain commenter at the Belmont Club claimed that Obama would never win because “white working class voters” would never let it happen. Obama won. Few Arabs expected a bunch of Jews to win independence for Israel in 1948 either. Racial arrogance often breeds complacency and eventually defeat. Racism is a force that works to Obama’s favor, for it allows him to splinter his potential opposition.
(Interesting that you didn’t include Condi Rice or Colin Powell … Or even poor old Oprah.)
I specifically referred to men that a previous poster in this thread was talking about. I could have talked about Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Oprah, Bill Cosby, and quite a few other people too. I probably should have. Please note that the latest polls show that 75% of self-described black Americans show that they approve of the job Obama is doing. That means one-quarter of black Americans (who talk to pollsters) don’t. Americans are increasingly disapproving of Obama’s job performance, and that includes people who don’t call themselves “white”.
As Americans, we can defeat the Obama administration’s policies. As Americans, we can make our voices heard. As Americans, we ought to realize how racists function as useful idiots and convenient foils to the Obama administration’s leftist agenda.
The Arctic Sea story has legs. Today’s Telegraph has an article suggesting the Mossad was involved.
HT/Theo Spark
UPDATE III. Jim Treacher:
“So long to the lying, racebaiting, communist Truther in the White House.
Correction:
So long to a lying, racebaiting, communist Truther in the White House.
And now maybe people will start asking how this wackjob got into the White House in the first place.
Van, I mean.”
Tim Blair
—
There is simply no way he could have been working in this administration on September 11th.
The good news for the White House: Since you made up his job, you don’t have to replace him.Cut government waste, one czar at a time?
KJL
While coverage of this sort of scandal is missing from the MSM, there are sites covering these every day, updated hourly … and other sites working to do MORE than simply bringing you the news:
http://patdollard.com/
http://accdf.com
Conservatives and Freedom-loving Americans everywhere – get ACTIVE – Help save America from the communist takeover.
Alexis, of course, in a civilized world you are absolutely right about there being no winners in such a war (except in a Real War, there *are* winners, no?).
On the other hand, though, in the back of my evil little brain, I keep remembering Darwin’s solution of survival of the fittest, and how much cleaner everything would be if we just allowed the unfit to die out like the dodo birds they are.
The MSM never really did a background check on Obama, so it seeme they would not do much of a check on those who he brought in with him, suely not another product of the Ivy League, who was good looking, well-spoken, and wanted change. No one seemed care about all those cabinet members who didn’t pay their taxes and had been involved with the financial mess as players.
Who knew finally when the winds were starting to change, finally, finally, someone would give someone like Jones a careful look.
So close to 9/11 and, well, we gotta sell newspapers.
PA Cat @ 82: Eagle Scout, long ago, in a suburb near Cleveland, OH. Not a vet, but I work with lots of them, and appreciate the mindset. I do stuff which in some microscopic, infinitesimal, mysterious, incremental way contribute (so I’m told) to the building of military aircraft for Lockheed.
That was a terrific video interview with Horowitz, BTW. I’d send it to my brainwashed brother if I thought it would do any good, but I don’t think it would help. He’d just shake his head sadly, tell me I’m a right-wing nutjob, and remind me that we should all be riding bicycles. And he was an Eagle Scout, too, AND a vet.
there is already a race war going on in America. mexicans are pushing blacks out of the areas they used to share. from what i can gather, the blacks are moving back to the south.
What I cannot understand about liberals and socialism is how they square their Darwinism with propping up those who would otherwise become extinct. I thought survival of the fittest was a good thing. How is diluting the gene pool with losers a plus? (A little harsh language maybe but I do not do PC) Their inability to effectively use logic and reason is their real weakness and the target best exploited.
# 112:
“He’s like a man pathologically afraid of snakes trying to kill a snake that fell in his boat with a shotgun. Everything he does makes the situation worse for the other people in the boat who would really like him to stop shooting holes in the hull.“
OT:
Blowing up Russia
Anderson wrote his article relying mostly on the account of Mikhail Trepashkin, a former senior Russian intelligence officer who investigated the bombings. Trepashkin points out a number of inconsistencies in the case and suggests a possible link between the bombings and those structures in Russia that brought Putin to power, first as prime minister, then as president.
The article in question can be seen on Gawker. The whole story surrounding the connections between Putin’s rise and a series of apartment bombings remains fascinating – and highly disturbing.
For those interested in this topic, the ‘case for the prosecution’ is set out in two books by historian Yuri Felshtinsky (an interview I had with him was published in NR in December 2007), Blowing up Russia (co-written with the murdered Alexander Litvinenko) and, in passing, in the more recent The Corporation (co-written with Vladimir Pribylovsky).
Comedy Gold!… Leftist MSM Reporters Beat Up On Internet After Van Jones Resigns (Video)
Comedy Gold…Gee, who would have predicted this?The Far Left reporters on Meet the Press discussed “the open sewer of internet disinformation” this morning after Van Jones resigned.
Now, that is good comedy!
What makes it even more hysterical is that they all take themselves so seriously.
Too much.
The MSM are in the position of someone sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming “I am more subtle and nuanced and perceptive and polite then you are and I say there is nothing to see. So there you big fat stupid nazi turd.” Once on some sitcom IIRC, possibly on Friends, one of the characters said “I am so not a Princess and I absolutely forbid anyone to say that I am.” That character is now appearing on Meet the Press.
MSM takes themselves seriously. They have nothing meaningful to offer for the masses.
They are just DNC’s lapdogs.
Doug nailed it:
“Extreme example being Barry’s (former) the Dorhn’s, and the Black Muslim’s home:
Hyde Park.”
Yep. Hyde Park gives out zero liquor licences and has its own police force.
On every side of Hyde Park? The most extreme examples of cultural deprivation (incorrectly termed poverty, by the Left) you can imagine.
You can stand
I think the administration is going to find it harder and harder to play the race card. Total percentage of Black Americans (including other races) was 13.5% last census. While it has and is a block vote for the Democrats the amount of unemployment for that group is increasing faster than the rest. That last minimum wage increase is keeping black teenagers unemployed esp. The Black vote used to be a Republican block vote until the 1930′s. It could swing again for much the same reasons.
With the price of gold hovering close to a $1000.00 when in good times it should around $400 IMHO, and when I can’t get center fire pistol ammo at Walmart, I think it is time to worry a bit. The number of LEOs stocking up on personal military guns and ammo worries me even more.
Hyde Park, if I recall from my time in Chicago, is the locus of University of Chicago, Museum of Science and Industry, Oriental Institute, a lot of trendy restaurants and some of the most beautiful upscale lakeside neighborhoods in the city.
That is, Stately homes in picturesque yards with arching trees shading the walks and roadway.
Bounding the southmost verge of the neighborhood is a broad avenue that fronts on the main campus of U of C termed the “Midway Pleasance.” It offers residents and visitors with a vast grassy central park for strolling, with trees and fountains and benches and walks.
Lake Shore Drive passes through broad shaded grassy regions at the lake’s edge, with plenty of shapely trees and well tended park areas. On the west, Hyde Park is bounded by a park that is truly vast, seemingly one of those municipal parks designed in the mid-19th century by Frederick Law Olmstead or one of his disciples.
I saw a lot of beautiful neighborhoods in Chicago, but few that rivaled the sheer patrician elegance. Definitely the nearest thing to the protected refuge of a walled community I’ve seen outside of a walled community.
Don’t know how they manage to exclude the elements they regard as “undesirable…” Must take pots of money to maintain their exclusionist refuge from the hoi polloi. I would imagine D.C. is a distinct nose-wrinkling disappointment to Michelle.
Biff Larkin,
You overstate things a bit. Hyde Park is a community district, that is to say most of one and part of another zip code, in which are located the University of Chicago and most of the associated students and faculty. It is about 1½ square miles, 2 with South Kenwood added, and has about 30 to 40,000 residents. I have reviewed the wiki article and found it generally accurate, although my knowledge is now out of date. Since it is not an independent municipality it does not grant liquor licenses.
The University of Chicago does have its own police force (UCPD) that patrols in addition to the Chicago Police Department (CPD). This puts and additional 12 or more uniformed police on duty in the neighborhood at any time. About half are full time employees of the UCPD and the rest are mostly CPD moonlighting on overtime. Over a third of the local residents are Black and it is significantly wealthier and safer then the surrounding areas but it is not walled off like West Berlin was. However some streets are closed off so that entry and exit is not completely open.
In recent years there have been some moves towards gentrification around the Hyde Park-South Kenwood core but as the economy deteriorates I would not be surprised to see things decay again. The area north of the district, North Kenwood and Oakwood were almost completely destroyed in the 1960s and ’70s. Recently the land between the University district and the downtown has seen money move in. As in other places in Chicago the dismantling of public housing projects allowed the market to draw people and financing to locations convenient to The Loop. Much money was poured into working class stabilization efforts in Woodlawn to the South of campus but that and the Washington Park neighborhood to the West are very fragile in the face of what could be a long term economic depression.
The local politicians and the highly influential University certainly can make it difficult for anyone hoping to open a bar or any other business they do not sponsor. For many years the all powerful South East Chicago Commission was run by Julian Levi, the brother of the future University President and US Attorney General, Edward Levi. Liquor licenses are not easy to get in Chicago. Late night licenses are very hard to obtain. There are of course bars and taverns both on and off campus. If the Woodlawn Tap (Jimmy’s) were to close then that would be a sign of the apocalypse.
Mad Fiddler,
You catch the flavor. The Kenwood district has the mansions, along with the Nation of Islam houses where Farrakhan lives and Muhammed Ali used to. The Midway Plaisance along with the Museum of Science and Industry and Jackson Park are remnants of the 1892 World’s Columbian Exposition. The world’s first ferris wheel was right outside of the new University. The Old University of Chicago failed after the Great Chicago Fire, it was located to the North in what is now the depressed but hopefully rebuilding Oakwood neighborhood.
120/Mad Fiddler. They exclude the “undesirables” in the usual ways. When we lived there in the late 90′s, the el had no owl service to stop near Cabrini Green, for instance. Realtors have a fair bit of control in how offers are written and whether or not they will be successful. And the CPD are amazing. I had a few friends in the CPD through my volunteer work at DD’s public school, plus I saw a burglary occur and got to know a few detectives. Yes, it was definitely Chicago-style law, but they enforced it.
DH’s company got us a flat on the same block as our neighborhood’s alderman, specifically so we would have mail delivery during blizzards, garbage picked up during strikes, and police patrolling every few hours around the clock. Three blocks over there were corpse outlines on the pavement, but our block was pristine. The CPD were polite, efficient, and watching them take down a suspect was art.
I rarely went to bad neighborhoods, and only because sometimes the only way to get from point A to point B was through zone C. Chicagoans are very insular, not in a bad way at all, but it is customary to stay in your home neighborhood, your work neighborhood, and maybe a few play neighborhoods, like down by the Field Museum or Wrigley Field or the Sulzer Library. This especially made sense for our Serbian friends who were just learning English — they went to the Serbian market… I had two friends in the burbs that I would visit, DD and I went to softball games and the pub by DH’s office, and we didn’t go to the closest branch library because it was in an iffy neighborhood a few too many blocks north of ours — went to the Sulzer instead. We loved living in Chicago, though A/C would have been nice in the walk-up!
I got the distinct impression from something Mr. Dorhn wrote (or Barry Ghosted by Dohrn) that Farakahn’s Boys were seriously regarded as part of the local defense.
Bill/Barry would describe walking past some impressive looking cats each day with nothing better to do than maintain order, and whatever else was deemed necessary.