Topic: Progressivism

If Norm Coleman's prediction comes true, kiss the Republican Party goodbye.

Norm Coleman – the former senator from Minnesota and a prominent advisor for Mitt Romney – suggested over the weekend in an interview that no matter who the Republican nominee is, they are unlikely to fully repeal Obamacare.

The conservative base of the GOP did not bust its butt to return Republicans to control in the House because we like pragmatism, bipartisanship, and tinkering around with Obamacare in an effort to "fix" it. The majority of Americans want it repealed. Obamacare is a malignant tumor on the Republic. If the GOP proves unwilling or unable to cut out that tumor before 2014 -- when it goes into full effect -- then we conservatives will eviscerate the GOP as a political entity and start over. The party cannot survive without us Google the sad fate of the Whig Party; it can happen again.

If the GOP doesn't bleed to get Obamacare repealed, we'll bleed the party dry. Bank on it.

As you watch President Obama's class-warfare-soaked State of The Union address tonight, keep two things in mind.

1. He's a liar and a demagogue.
2. Taxation is only half of the story at best.

You have to watch spending too. The poorest Americans got back $8.21 for each $1.00 paid in taxes. The middle class got back $1.30 for every $1.00 paid in taxes. The rich got back $0.41 for every $1.00 paid in taxes. Yes, really.

We do do not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.

I was just checking the latest posts over at Ace of Spades HQ and saw the following. Click it to zoom in:

My own senior U.S. Senator, the radically left-wing utopian Sherrod Brown, apparently thinks it's a smart move to spend campaign funds on ads at conservative blogs. This genius has already shown that he's supremely confident in his ability to spend your money better than you can, since he's delighted to grow every conceivable government program or entitlement you can dream up (except for national defense, which he'd like to gut). Is it any surprise that he's equally profligate when it comes to spreading around that sweet, sweet union cash?

Let me know when his challenger Josh Mandel starts buying ads on Democratic Underground, won't you? I'll try my best not to hold my breath while I wait.

Veronique de Rugy points out a study just released by economists at the European Central Bank:

Basically, an increase in government spending (whether financed by taxes or by borrowing) reduces economic growth. This is consistent with a paper from a few years ago by Harvard Business School's Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval, and Christopher Malloy. To their surprise, those authors found that federal spending in states caused local businesses to cut back rather than grow.

But ... but ... what about the multiplier effect of government stimulus spending?

Bummer, dude.

What's different? At first glance, not much.

2008: The Guardian Ethos I am America's Maritime Guardian. I serve the citizens of the United States. I will protect them. I will defend them. I will save them. I am their Shield. For them I am Semper Paratus. I live the Coast Guard Core Values. I am a Guardian. We are the United States Coast Guard.

2011: The Coast Guard Ethos I am a Coast Guardsman. I serve the people of the United States. I will protect them. I will defend them. I will save them. I am their Shield. For them I am Semper Paratus. I live the Coast Guard Core Values. I am proud to be a Coast Guardsman. We are the United States Coast Guard.

Wait a minute. Whom do they serve?

You tell me, progressives.

Next foolish campaign slogan, please.

This is too simplistic:

Here's one that's much more accurate (click it to zoom in):

You tell me:

In every category necessary for the endurance of direct ground combat, women are behind men. They rank behind men in every category by large margins except in lower body strength, where they are the least behind.

...

Combat involves physical strength, proper mindset, physical skills, aerobic capability, sharp vision and a killer instinct. ... I personally just want the Feminists to agree that they value women as much as they say they do, because putting them in places that they are even more likely to be violently killed, subject to capture, torture, rape by our enemies, or mostly for not thinking that women are above the day to day drudgery of life not only in an infantry unit in extended ground combat, but the drudgery of the job while not deployed seems to me to be a bit in conflict with the idea of honoring them and their abilities. The idea that women belong in units in the military that participate in direct ground combat makes about as much sense as allowing me into the Feminist Studies Program at Bryn Mawr.

Think. Don't emote. The military exists to kill America's enemies and break their stuff. It does not exist to provide you a career, enhance women's rights, improve society, achieve social justice, counteract sexist stereotypes, pay for your college tuition, or any of a million other progressive pipe dreams. The military's reason for being is to violently kill people. It's an ugly fact, but it's no less true because it's ugly.

Men and women are inherently different physically, mentally, and emotionally. In every relevant respect men are better suited for combat, and especially so for ground combat. If that offends you, I don't care. Don't cry to me. Facts are often unpleasant and unyielding things, so cry to God (or if you're an atheist, cry to nature) to assuage your emotional pain. I am not out to offend you or anyone else. I am out to ensure America's military remains the most powerful and respected force on Earth, the force that gives you the protection and comfort you enjoy (and take for granted) today.

Without America's military, you'd have no leisure time to ponder the social justice implications of banning women from combat. You'd be a slave to a totalitarian government not of your choosing, a government utterly contemptuous of your needs and wants, much less your easily-bruised ego.

Save your social experimentation for arenas that don't revolve around violent death. Go fiddle with the diversity statistics at your local community college, and stop undermining the only shield between you and the barbarians. Construct whatever mental delusion or flimsy rationalization you must, but find a way to cocoon your delicate ego and find any other part of society to tinker with.

A nation that weakens its military by removing all barriers to women serving in combat is asking to be attacked an defeated.

P.S. -- If you want me to entertain your foolish ideas about women in ground combat without laughing in your face, do something first: change the law so that all young women are subject to the military draft just like all men. Once women bear equal responsibility and duty with men, then they can begin to talk about their alleged entitlement to equal goodies.

The parodies almost write themselves, but if you want weapons-grade irony, here it is. I swear I'm not making this up.

On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions. The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization's structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization. No, this was not the meeting of any traditional influence on Wall Street. These were six of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).

...

Ms. Holmes also stated at the teach-in that five people in the Finance WG have access to the $500,000 raised by Friends of Liberty Plaza. When Suresh Fernando, the man taking notes, asked who these people are, the leaders of the Structure WG nervously laughed and said that it was hard to keep track of the "constantly fluctuating" heads of the Finance WG. Mr. Fernando made at least four increasingly explicit requests for the names. Each request was turned down by the giggling, equivocating leaders.

But wait ... it gets better.

Those fun-loving scamps of the Occupy Wall Street movement were caught on film pushing a 78-year-old woman down some stairs the other day. Watch the video below (WARNING: there's profanity right from the start) and pay attention at ~3:20 in:

Remember when those Tea Party terrorists attacked old people? Remember how Tea Party people used cathedrals and police cars as latrines? Me, too. Those were fun times. The Tea Party's exactly the same as Occupy Wall street. No difference whatsoever.

... and let's see if your ankles survive the night unbroken.

I'm your huckleberry.

Here's a case of bitter personal experience vs. naïve theoretical dreaming. These geniuses with the Workers World Party sure are confident, aren't they?

North Korea is a glowing example of success at, uh, something. I suppose. Let's check the NASA nighttime satellite imagery of Eastern Asia, shall we?

Wait, I've got it. When the sun goes down in North Korea, every hour is Earth Hour. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Behold.

An excellent analogy by Loren Heal:

Except for superficial mimicry, despite politicians claiming otherwise the two groups are almost nothing alike, and the Occupy movement is doomed to failure.

...

Yet the tea parties rose not in response to the machinations of nebulous entities, but to counter the direct and specific threat to our nation posed by the bipartisan response to the 2008 fiscal crisis, and were triggered by the toxic flood of legislative sewage spewing out of the Marxist House, Senate, and President.

The tea parties arose spontaneously, and not as a planned event backed by groups with long histories of agitation.

...

The Occupy movement -- with its spiritual roots in the thumb-sucking support group industry -- has taken that a step further to try to be truly leaderless. But it's a cargo cult of leaderlessness, as if competing with the tea parties to be the most tea partiesque.

If the term "cargo cult" doesn't ring a bell, Smithsonian.com has you covered:

This is February 15, John Frum Day, on the remote island of Tanna in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu. On this holiest of days, devotees have descended on the village of Lamakara from all over the island to honor a ghostly American messiah, John Frum. "John promised he'll bring planeloads and shiploads of cargo to us from America if we pray to him," a village elder tells me as he salutes the Stars and Stripes. "Radios, TVs, trucks, boats, watches, iceboxes, medicine, Coca-Cola and many other wonderful things."

The island's John Frum movement is a classic example of what anthropologists have called a "cargo cult"--many of which sprang up in villages in the South Pacific during World War II, when hundreds of thousands of American troops poured into the islands from the skies and seas. As anthropologist Kirk Huffman, who spent 17 years in Vanuatu, explains: "You get cargo cults when the outside world, with all its material wealth, suddenly descends on remote, indigenous tribes." The locals don't know where the foreigners' endless supplies come from and so suspect they were summoned by magic, sent from the spirit world. To entice the Americans back after the war, islanders throughout the region constructed piers and carved airstrips from their fields. They prayed for ships and planes to once again come out of nowhere, bearing all kinds of treasures: jeeps and washing machines, radios and motorcycles, canned meat and candy.

I guess you could say that the drumming commies & other misfits occupying Zucotti Park see the American independent voter as their John Frum. Beat the drums louder, OWS geniuses. Maybe you aren't being heard.

Today he made it official, cutting and running exactly as promised and predicted. No big deal. Carry on.

What's on TV tonight? Pass me my Bud Light, bro.

--

10/22 Update: Smart power.

Listen to this, think about it, reflect, and be of good cheer. If you can't spare the time now, bookmark this link.

Gee, these are really nice folks occupying Portland, huh?

Yep. They're an independent, young, spontaneous, focused example of the good old-fashioned American mainstream. Why, I often gather with my family and friends in our sweaty, unwashed glory so we can pound on buckets and scream "F*** the U.S.A." at the top of our lungs. Doesn't everybody?

This is your Democrat Party, my progressive friends. I'm sure you're proud.

The Democrat base echoes this guy's call: "Long live socialism."

Oh, and long live bestiality, too.

This is the modern Democrat Party. These degenerates actively hate the middle class, though they claim to love them. The middle class is the evil "bourgeoisie" of 21st Century America, where the lion's share of income goes.

I finally understand the leftist mindset. It's objectively true that there's no such thing as objective truth!

I'm ready to be escorted to Room 101 now, O'Brien.

According to the Obama Administration, this is how federal government spending works miracles (emphasis mine):

Well, obviously, it's putting people to work. Which is why we're going to have some interesting things in the course of the forum this morning. Later this morning, we're going have a press conference with Secretary Mavis and Secretary Chu to announce something that's never happened in this country -- something that we think is exciting in terms of job growth. I should point out, when you talk about the SNAP program or the [food] stamp program, you have to recognize that it's also an economic stimulus. Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity. If people are able to buy a little more in the grocery store, someone has to stock it, package it, shelve it, process it, ship it. All of those are jobs. It's the most direct stimulus you can get in the economy during these tough times.

If this is true, shouldn't the federal government immediately hand out a trillion dollars' worth of food stamps, thus generating 1.84 trillion dollars of economic activity? In fact, shouldn't they hand out a billion trillion?

Here's an interesting essay explaining a nonbelieving scientist's perspective on religion in general.

Now that Bill Keller, America's Grand Inquisitor, has declared open season on the religious faith of Republicans (but never Democrats), it is high time for a non-believing scientist to express my love and admiration for the great religious traditions.

Religion is by far the greatest vehicle of civilization. It is how civilized morals and values have been taught from one generation to the next for the last 6,000 years of recorded history, and probably for 100,000 years before that. The reason is that humans are not homo sapiens, the wise hominid; we are homo fidelis, the believer.

Some of greatest gifts in life first appeared in religious garb. If you want proof, consider UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. UNESCO is not a religious bureaucracy. Among its nearly 1,000 World Heritage Sites there are natural wonders like the Grand Canyon and the Great Barrier Reef. But when it comes to human-made sites, the great majority are religious monuments, temples, cathedrals, cave paintings, and many holy places. If UNESCO says so, even the New York Times has to believe it.

Strangely enough, there is not a single World Heritage Site dedicated to Karl Marx. The fearsome tombs of Lenin, Mao, and Marx all seem to be missing from the list. I wonder why.

...

Today's crusading atheism is a fanatical cult that desperately needs to make converts, to silence its own inner qualms. Intolerance is progressive, see?

...

The idea of a permanent chasm between science and religion is a myth of the 20th century, peddled mainly by the left. It comes and goes in human history.

I've said for some time now that modern atheists are free riders on America's Judeo-Christian culture and worldview, without which their existence would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. It's nice to see one of the conservative ones acknowledge it.

Good luck with progressive atheists. They exhibit a very convenient amnesia.

You can see and hear Nancy Pelosi's envy of -- and hatred for -- individualism, success and hard work in this clip.

Is it much of a stretch to imagine a progressive agenda that includes the following?

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

I didn't draft this list, nor did FDR, LBJ, or BHO. Here's the original.

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

For more, go to Dennis Prager's site.

Take a gander at what I found in the sidebar over at The Communist Party of Ohio ProgressOhio (click to enlarge):

These mindless, emoting drones are living parodies. The gags write themselves.

Unless it serves the cause of Progressive Social Justice. Or something. Behold the New Tone:

We do not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.

That's right, boys and girls! Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) couldn't come up with any plausible reasons to support President Obama's demand to raise the debt limit and raise taxes, so she simply reached for Old Reliable to explain all opposition to Dear Leader.

Barack Obama sounds an awful lot like a previous president who delivered his infamous "Malaise Speech" 32 years ago today.

The more things change ...

David Duke plus eight other fruitcakes in a country of 309,000,000 sure sounds like a stampede to me. Boy oh boy, those GOP racists are everywhere.

I just want to be sure of the rules here, though. Does this mean I can now tar the entire Democratic party with a brush dipped in the slime from Fred Phelps and Lyndon LaRouche? Or is this a progressives-only club?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton questions the patriotism of Americans who object to our war "time-limited scope-limited kinetic military action" in Libya:

But the bottom line is, whose side are you on? Are you on Qadhafi's side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them? For the Obama Administration, the answer to that question is very easy.

Can somebody please reconcile Secretary Clinton's ever-so-subtle rhetorical question with Senator Clinton's heartfelt beliefs about challenging any president who orders troops to war whatever the heck it is we're doing in Libya? I'm trying to figure out what the guidelines are.

FN Heriberto Hernandez was a Coast Guardsman who died in combat in Vietnam, in service to his country. He posthumously received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star with "V" Device. He made the ultimate sacrifice for us, and deserves honor and respect for his actions. He was a hero.

So why must the Coast Guard belabor his ancestry?

... as long as it's speech they agree with.

Matt Yglesias, whose popularity on the left appears to be inversely proportional to his understanding of the real world, repeats the age old lefty solution to deficits:

[We] used to have a debate in which the left said redistributive taxation might be a good idea and then the right replied that it might sound good, but actually the consequences would be bad. Lower taxes on the rich would lead to more growth and faster increase in incomes.

Now that idea seems to be so unsupportable that the talking point is switched. It's not that higher taxes on our Galtian Overlords would backfire and make us worse off. It's just that it would be immoral of us to ask them to pay more taxes even if doing so would, in fact, improve overall human welfare.

Swing and a miss, genius. Try again.

--

4:15 PM Update: Big Fur Hat shoots and scores.

What exactly does it mean to say that homosexuals can "serve openly" in the U.S. military? Presumably behavior like this ...

I've never met Congresswoman Betty Sutton, my Representative here in Ohio's 13th District. Every time I hear her on the radio or see her on TV, she comes across as a mild-mannered, pleasant person. I am convinced that she truly believes she's doing what's best for America. If she and I found ourselves at the same dinner table I'm confident that we could chat easily and cheerily about the travails of the Cleveland Browns, the latest news of our respective families, and what works best for keeping rabbits and deer out of a flower bed. I have absolutely no reason to think ill of her personally, and I'll bet she's a loving wife, a sweet daughter, a good neighbor, and a responsible and caring pet owner.

Betty Sutton is also a radical leftist.

To put her views in context, first go take a look at her very close friend and trusted colleague Jan Schakowsky. No, really. Go look, and then come back here.

Representative Jan Schakowsky hails from Illinois' 9th Congressional District, where the answer to the above question has long been "yes." Her district has been represented by a Democrat since Sidney Yates took office on January 3, 1949.

She's a member of the U.S. House of Representatives' hard left Progressive Caucus, and she drinks Left Wing Kool-Aid by the gallon. For example, she voted not to accept Ohio's Electoral College votes in the 2004 Presidential election, and wants to tax your IRA and 401k retirement funds.

Does Jan Schakowsky support Obamacare? That's putting it mildly. She wants a complete government takeover of your health care (even though she's ignorant of the Obamacare bill's contents). Despite her denials that this footage exists, here she is preaching the universal health care gospel:

She's married to Robert Creamer, a convicted felon, disciple of Saul Alinsky, and author of the Democrat blueprint for enacting Obamacare. At her husband's sentencing, Schakowsy announced that she was proud of Creamer:

She said she was proud that her husband "has for his entire adult life devoted himself to fighting for a better future for others -- he has been a constant crusader for social and economic justice in this country and beyond."

Schakowsky is so reflexively supportive of anyone with a pulse and a (D) tacked onto their last name that she gave $28,000 to disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Jan Schakowsky thinks Republicans are, like, crazy extremist nutballs because they, like, quote the Constitution and stuff. Because they're rich people. Or something. Listen:

Ask for suggestions online and you'll get suggestions:

Here's a fun way to screw with the Democrats' internal polling and brand management -- and hopefully convince them to stay the course and keep doing crazy things voters hate instead of pulling towards the middle and trying to put their mask back on before 2012.

The Democrats rely heavily on polling...with an upper tier that is dead-set against moving the party back to the middle. This is suicide for the party, but the Leftists who now control the DNC don't want to believe that. Instead, they want to see polls that tell them the public LOVES what the Democrats have been doing and want them to commit more of this madness between November 3rd, 2010 and November 2012.

It should be our mission to screw with as many Democrat internal polls as possible...to give these nuts the data they want to keep Obama on the wrong track for the party. This will guarantee the Democrats will keep making people furious for the next two years, so the public can wipe even more of them out in the next election (including people like Claire McCaskill in the Senate, and Obama himself in the White House).

...

For each one, we tried to answer while keeping in mind what would do the most damage to the Democrat Party in the long term. So, for questions that asked if we thought the party was on the right track, we said it definitely was. For questions about what issues we wanted Democrats to push, we answered the ones that would alienate Democrats from the most voters. Ie, healthcare, immigration, etc. This is counterintuitive to what YOU personally want to see, so you need to think strategically. Democrats are hurt most when they are talking about things like healthcare, immigration, the environment, etc. So, that's what they need to be encouraged to keep talking about.

Americans really want to deal exclusively with jobs...so the LAST THING we want them to actually ever talk about is jobs. Let the survey indicate Democrats need to talk nonstop about healthcare, immigration, and the environment just to keep making people mad for the next two years. That will greatly benefit conservatives.

Brilliant. You can see the HillBuzz submission at their site.

I wonder if Senator Brown's successor in the U.S. House, Betty Sutton, will take his advice and run on Obamacare, the GM bailout, the Chrysler bailout, the government takeover of the student loan industry, and the rest of the Democrat Party record? Or will she continue to flail around and dishonestly sling mud?

Click any of these memory-jogging graphics for more information on that Democrat record that Sherrod Brown's so proud of:

You can learn a lot about people's character by how they treat public property. Take a look at what was left behind at the World War II Memorial on the National Mall after Saturday's "One Nation" radical rally for socialists/communists/unions/Democrats (aka Left-a-palooza):

Here's a look at another part of the National Mall after the filthy moonbats left:

These are the people who preach endlessly about tolerance and open-mindedness.

If you find the earlier graphic too confusing, try this:

This is what happens to employment when progressives/liberals/left-wingers take charge of federal taxing, spending, and regulation. Without fail. Every. Single. Time.

"A longtime Washington D.C. insider, and former advisor to the Obama election campaign and transition team, speaks out on an administration in crisis, and a president increasingly withdrawn from the job of President."

So begins a four-part series claiming to offer a look behind the scenes of an Obama Administration in the throes of amateurism and led by an immature and unqualified narcissist:

The President Is Losing It (9/7/10)
The President Needs To Grow Up (9/15/10)
What The Hell Have We Done? (9/18/10)
The Clintons Are Going For It (9/21/10)

I've read the four pieces, and they sound plausible to me. But then, I'm predisposed to detest everything related to progressives and Democrats (sorry for repeating myself). Until there's something more here than a single sooper sekrit source who's blabbing to an unknown writer, I'm gonna take this with a bucketful of salt. After all, when something seems too good to be true ...

In a stunning reversal of her long-cherished belief that the federal government knows best about everything, and certainly not due to any panic over the impending loss of her seat in the House of Representatives (you sexist racist hate-filled warmonger), Representative Betty Sutton (D-OH) finally ended her silence on the Cordoba House Park 51 Ground Zero Debris Field Mosque, according to The Plain Dealer:

"This is a sensitive issue, especially for those most directly affected by the attack at Ground Zero, and I trust that those in the area are in the best position to find a solution," Copley Township Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton said on Tuesday.

...

[Challenger Tom] Ganley said "Obama and liberal leaders" have "acted in a way that is insensitive to families and friends of those victims we lost almost nine years ago." He said he supports New York Gov. David Patterson's effort to move the proposed mosque and Islamic cultural center to another location.

Ganley followed up on his Facebook page:

I am opposed to the mosque being built near the WTC memorial, though when asked by the Plain Dealer, my opponent will not say yes or no.

I guess Tom Ganley just doesn't understand how busy Betty is. She's got too much on her plate to respond to an issue that highlights her party's incoherence and incompetence in matters of national security and common decency. Ganley has yet to learn that in the world of our Washington ruling class, all matters are best decided by bureaucrats and czars in DC unless it would embarrass a Democrat incumbent to take a position. In such rare cases, these matters become Local Issues™.

I wonder if Betty agrees with Speaker Nancy Pelosi that opponents of the Hamasque should be investigated? Perhaps people like these should be the first ones to be called to testify at the next Democrat Party show trial:

"Never Forget" is just a slogan when there's an election to be won, y'know.

... of today's Democrats?

Had enough yet?

Betty Sutton is one of the key supporters of Obamacare. She votes with Pete Stark 94% of the time. Stark offers the following response when challenged on his support for Obamacare:

Past evidence strongly suggests that Sutton agrees with Stark here, too. Prove me wrong, Betty. Let's hear your response to these objections in some format other than a conference call, and sooner rather than later.

Hi there, Congress. Hope you had a nice Independence Day. We Americans out here in Flyover Country sure did. We listened to readings of The Declaration of Independence, grilled burgers, drank frosty beverages, watched fireworks, played patriotic music, and generally reveled in the many blessings of liberty we've enjoyed since 1776.

Liberty. That's pretty important to us. We know you love the power and prestige that comes with being in Congress, and we don't really mind it too much when you start believing the flattery of the people following you around all day, osculating your posteriors. But something's been bugging us for a couple of years now, especially since January of '09.

Listen, about that bloated and ravenous federal government you've been injecting with steroids ...

... yeah, that's the one. Americans might once have thought that your plan to spend our way out of a crappy economy was worth a try. But now? Um, not so much:

The new survey found that just 29% believe last year's economic stimulus plan has helped the economy while 43% believe it hurt. Not surprisingly, there is little appetite for another round. By a 69% to 15% margin, voters believe tax cuts is a better way to create jobs rather than more government spending.

Ultimately, though, voters are looking to the private sector to create jobs. Sixty-five percent (65%) say that decisions made by business owners seeking to grow their business will do more to create jobs than decisions made by government officials. Just 23% expect the government officials to have a bigger impact.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on July 1, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Consider this a friendly reminder from your employers about your apparent lack of any sense of self-preservation. You might want to reconsider the wisdom of continuing down the same path you've been on. Just sayin'.

See you in November.

As long as I'm on a pop culture kick that started with the Underpants Gnomes, I figured I'd use another analogy to illustrate the governing philosophy of the progressives controlling Washington. Democrats see government spending and think: Brawndo!

If you haven't seen "Idiocracy" yet, you're missing out.

Great news! President Obama wants another $50 billion bailout, this one for public sector unions.

President Obama is pressing Congress to approve emergency aid money to support economic recovery and help avoid widespread layoffs of public workers, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

Congressional leaders received a letter from the president asking for almost $50 billion for distribution to state and local governments, saying that increased spending is "urgent and unavoidable," the Post reported. The money would protect the jobs of teachers, police and firefighters.

"Because the urgency is high -- many school districts, cities and states are already being forced to make these layoffs," Obama wrote, "these provisions must be passed as quickly as possible."

Obama's plea comes despite last year's $787 billion economic stimulus package, which worked to stabilize the failing economy [Riiiiiight. -- Ed.], but did little to help the country's high unemployment rate. At 9.7 percent, unemployment is nearly the same as it was a year ago.

What could possibly go wrong? America's in the best of hands. Our Democrat Congresswoman here in Ohio's 13th District, Representative Betty Sutton, has been in charge since 2006. It's been rainbows and unicorns ever since.

Still, let's take a look back. Naturally, you completely forgot that $787 billion stimulus that Obama and Congress rammed through last year, didn't you? It was a spending orgy that was supposed to "create or save" gazillions of jobs. Remember that? It's the brilliant job-creating scheme that didn't actually, um, work. Who could've seen that one coming? Total shocker.

Here in Ohio, unemployment is much worse than the national average ... but that's not all. There's still $381 billion of that money lying around unspent, collecting dust in Washington. Why do you suppose Congress isn't redirecting that money to this new "emergency" instead of extracting another $50 billion from your pocket?

This new plea for another "emergency" bailout demonstrates (again) that there's no reason to trust the Democrats when they talk about fiscal responsibility. They're as trustworthy as a drug addict squeezing his relatives for money: "This is the last time I'll ask. I promise. I'll check myself into rehab, first thing tomorrow, but just this once I've gotta have this fix. It's an emergency and I'll die without it. Pinky swear!" If you think this is a one time deal, then there's some lovely oceanfront property in Death Valley that's got your name on it.

Congress lives in a strange alternate universe where your money is their money. When the economy's booming, the Congressional Fantasyland response is to "invest in America" by taxing The Rich™ (people who create wealth and hire you) because they're easy targets for class warfare rhetoric and the politics of envy. When the economy's crashing, the Congressional Fantasyland response is to suck more money into Washington so they can spread it around.

Hey, wait a second. Where have we heard that idea before?

It should come as no surprise that Betty Sutton, a big fan of Barack Obama, has the same strategy for healing all that ails us.

Think of it as the Underpants Gnome Theory of Government:

Now here's the kicker. Not only does Betty Sutton genuinely believe that the Underpants Gnomes are worth imitating, she personally benefits from Obama's new "emergency" $50 billion bailout of public sector unions.

Black holes, not black "hos," you muttonheads.

The rank-and-file members of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP should cast their votes in a more niggardly fashion when these leaders come up for re-election.

gaffe (n.): 1) a social blunder; faux pas. 2) when a politician tells the truth.

Watch the left side of this video from May, 2008. That's Congresswoman Betty Sutton (D-OH) sitting there, giggling. Any guesses as to why?

This one branches out from my earlier question about the source of individual rights: is there any such thing as an objective moral standard for human behavior?

Don't talk about preferences, or what you'd not want done to you, or what most people agree on. I'm talking about standards that actually exist independent of human opinion; moral standards that humans are required to obey, even if 100% of us dislike those standards (or aren't completely certain what they are or which ones are most important). We're talking here not about what is, but about whether there's any true "oughtness" when it comes to our actions.

Can somebody please explain to me why Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) joined the Populist Caucus instead of the Progressive Caucus? Why didn't she join the progressives? Could it be that she needs a fig leaf to hide behind?

These were all ratified together, by the same people, at the same time, with the same understanding of English. You'll find my simple question below.

The concept of a right retained by a state is clearly expressed in the Tenth Amendment. If the founding generation meant to restrict the right to keep and bear arms to the states alone and not to individuals, they could have have used that language in the Second Amendment. Instead, they used the language of individual rights.

How could the term "the people" have meant "individuals" to the founding generation in all of these Amendments except the Second?

It's amazing that progressive blogger and Cuyahoga County Council candidate Tim Russo, who was convicted of soliciting sex from a 13 year old boy, breezily uses the term "teabagger" as a slur. Amazing, but not surprising at all.

Oh, the horror. These bitter clingers will never learn to emulate their progressive betters, who are paragons of tolerance and kindness and mainstream ideology.

It's so cute when progressive bloggers get their knickers in a twist in feigned outrage over a post by a conservative that uses hunting metaphors to describe the electoral tasks ahead.

Those awful, hateful, racist Tea Partiers scare me.

Thank Gaia we live in the Era of Hopenchange™ now, huh?

The Democrats and the radical left spit venom because they're afraid:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of U.S. voters believe the average member of the Tea Party movement has a better understanding of the issues facing America today than the average member of Congress. Only 30% believe that those in Congress have a better understanding of the key issues facing the nation.

When it comes to those issues, 47% think that their own political views are closer to those of the average Tea Party member than to the views of the average member of Congress. On this point, 26% feel closer to Congress.

Finally, 46% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is more ethical than the average member of Congress. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say that the average member of Congress is more ethical.

...

By a 62% to 12% margin, Mainstream Americans say the Tea Party is closer to their views. By a 90% to one percent (1%) margin, the Political Class feels closer to Congress.

It's only going to get worse for them, too. Using generic ballot poll responses to predict the number of U.S. House seats retained by Democrats after the 2010 election, Gallup sized things up back in November 2009 thusly:

Look at the left hand column. It only goes down to 45% approval for a generic Democrat candidate. Surely the polls wouldn't drop any lower than that or the Dems, would it?

Whoopsie! It just hit 44%.

Keep screaming, geniuses.

Gee, when do I get to tar all Democrats as violent egg-throwing nutjob loonies? The left relishes smearing all Tea Party activists and conservatives and Republicans as violent bigots based on scanty evidence, after all.

As for proof of a Tea Partier shouting the racist epithet "ni**er" at a black congressman ... well, we're all on pins and needles waiting for it. I'm sure that any day now, someone's gonna jump on that $100,000 challenge. Yup. Real soon.

Cue the crickets.

----

9:30 PM Update: Lest we forget ...

10:30 PM Update: A little perspective would seem to be in order, don't you think?

Mr. Wooden, how on God's green Earth can you continue as a member of the Democrat Party after its headlong dive last night into socialism, taxpayer-funded abortion, and blatant corruption?

You attend Tea Party rallies. You claim to be pro-life. You claim to be pro-free markets. You claim to be anti-corruption. You claim to be pro-military. You claim to be pro-gun rights. You claim to be anti-Obamacare, for Heaven's sake. Nevertheless, your party stands in opposition to all of your proclaimed stances. Talk about cognitive dissonance! This ain't your father's Democrat Party. Scoop Jackson's influence burned away decades ago.

If you first defeat Betty Sutton in the primary election for Ohio's 13th Congressional District, and if you then defeat your Republican opponent and become our Congressman, will you caucus with your party? Will you support its leaders, like Nancy Pelosi? What's to keep you from being the new Bart Stupak, Mary Jo Kilroy, Marcy Kaptur, or ... Betty Sutton?

If your party has decisively left you, if you are who you claim to be, then how can you reconcile that with your continued membership in the Democrat Party? Are you naïve? Are you hiding your true beliefs? Do you lack the courage to leave a socialist party bent on destroying our republic? Why are you a Democrat in 2010?

Explain it to me. Please.

----

5:00 PM Update: How about you, Dan Moadus?

Drew Carey and The Reason Foundation decided to look for ways to save Cleveland from its aggressively stupid political leaders and their refusal to heed the first rule of holes. The result is a video series called "Reason Saves Cleveland":

Keep checking back as new episodes premiere, because I'll add them to this playlist.

3/18 Update: Right on cue, Tim Russo (a standard-bearer for typical Cleveland progressives) posts a spittle-flecked screed that misses the points of the Reason video ... and indelibly beclowns its author. Statist hacks like Russo simply cannot admit (or even comprehend) that punitive taxation and suffocating bureaucracy are responsible for Cleveland's sorry decline.

If Barack Obama's agenda isn't socialist, then what is it? For reference, please consult the Socialist Party USA's platform and the official program of the Communist Party USA

Since ACORN is re-branding its less-than-stellar image these days, they'll likely downplay or eliminate the name "ACORN" soon here in Ohio. Slapping a new label on a crooked organization might be easy, but selling property and changing leadership personnel is not. To make it harder for ACORN to crawl back under a rock somewhere, I'm linking to the Ohio Secretary of State's online records for ACORN's business filing information. Look for street addresses, agent names, etc.

As long as the name "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now" is in use by an existing business or non-profit organization in Ohio, the Secretary of State's office will also have that information. To run that query, just push this button.

Ain't citizen journalism grand?

11:35 update: Wow. ACORN just agreed to surrender its business license in Ohio as settlement of that RICO lawsuit by the Buckeye Institute. That's good news, but let's be wary. Keep a close eye on what happens with these properties:

379 N. 20th
Lower Level
Columbus, OH 43203

2069 East 36th Street
Cleveland, OH 44115

1025 Central Ave Ste 3
Cincinnati, OH 45202

115 E. Market St.
RM 202
Akron, OH 44308

4945 Profit Way
Dayton, OH 45414

316 North Michigan
Toledo, OH 43624

12:20 Update: Apparently The Buckeye Institute recently split off the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law as an independent organization after the lawsuit was originally filed, so it's the new group that gets the scalp for defeating ACORN.

12:35 Update: Matt Naugle cheers the victory, but cautions everyone to keep an eye open for the same ACORN crooks returning with different front groups.

Many of the far-left Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives (along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, an admitted socialist) have long been members of The Congressional Progressive Caucus. It's a who's who of radicals and hair-on-fire statists. Lots of political junkies have heard of their group, and it's pretty much a known quantity.

Lately a new little group of lefty Dems has formed, calling itself The Populist Caucus. Not much is known about them yet, but when I compared their roster to that of the Progressive Caucus (as of February 20, 2010), look what I found.

Fourteen out of thirty members of the Populist Caucus are also members of the Progressive Caucus. Interesting, isn't it? Although the two groups are distinct, it's hard to believe they're all that different.

--

2:10 PM Update: Massa will announce today that he is retiring.

Obama is ACORN. ACORN is Obama.

The two are inseparable.

Good riddance to a waste of capital. Gosh, I wonder why progressivism doesn't work in the talk radio medium without government subsidies?

Could it be that talk radio success requires rational thought and something more entertaining than perpetual foul-mouthed outrage?

I just looked up the summary of Ohio data on Recovery.gov and here's some of what I found. Compare the numbers for jobs created/"saved" and money wasted spent for Ohio's 18 congressional districts, and the numbers for the ten nonexistent districts that turned up.

$5.3 million went to nonexistent congressional districts, creating (or maybe it's "saving") 11 jobs. That's $482,174 per job. How do I sign up for that sweet deal? Then there's the average waste stimulus per job in our actual 18 districts, which works out to $294,758 ... still not too shabby. If I can snag one of the 149.5 jobs here in the 13th District, I will have cost America's taxpayers a cool $1,026,735! Betty Sutton, call your office. I want a job.

That's "transparency" in the age of Hope and Change™ for ya. Is this incompetent accounting, dishonest accounting, or both?

Want more? Nineteen out of the top twenty Porkulus recipients in Ohio are state, county, or municipal government entities. The one that's not government owned is "a single-purpose environmental remediation Limited Liability Corporation dedicated to providing remediation services to the United States Department of Energy at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site." In other words, a government contractor.

Boy oh boy, that Porkulus sure did stimulate the free market, didn't it? Way to go, Governor Strickland ... you sure know how to allocate funds. I can't wait to experience the joys of Obamacare, Cap & Trade, and amnesty for illegals.

For more analysis, check out Ohio Watchdog.

Under Nancy Pelosi's version of ObamaCare,

Americans who do not maintain "acceptable health insurance coverage" and who choose not to pay the bill's new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

By what authority can Congress require people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States? Please refer to this previous question to aid your answer.

If jihadist ideology is supposedly a perversion of true Islam, how can it be "Islamophobic" to identify and remove jihadists from our military?

Click on the images below to see them at full size.

Before Obama's site was scrubbed:

After Obama's site was scrubbed:

See the difference? Look at the second bullet point.

It's a start. The first one's a matter of semantics, but the third one's still a lie.

ACORN shares office space and personnel with the Service Employees International Union. SEIU and other unions in the Big Labor alliance funnel millions of dollars to ACORN. ACORN and Big Labor lobby for the same legislation, endorse the same partisan political candidates, and work together in every other conceivable way. Members of ACORN and Big Labor pass in and out of the revolving door of the Democratic Party and the federal government. Sure, the fancy paperwork sitting on file in dusty government offices says that these organizations and people are officially separate entities, but that's like trying to hide a 500-lb nudist under a cocktail napkin.

Progressive politicians (*cough* *cough* Betty Sutton), Big Labor and ACORN are one and the same.

When you see the news reports about the disgusting things that ACORN does, remember that those same people work for gigantic labor unions, work on the staffs of liberal Congress members, and infest the Obama administration from top to bottom. Their reckless spending outstrips any in American history, and they intend to double down. Their tax hikes hurt small businesses, who employ the vast majority of Americans. Their ridiculous regulations and economically illiterate mandates caused the housing and credit crisis, which triggered last fall's economic crash. Their policies have driven unemployment to record highs, and will needlessly prolong the economic pain you're feeling.

When Barack Obama ran for President, he portrayed himself as a reasonable and moderate Democrat with help from the mainstream media. He is not what he claimed to be. He has always been joined at the hip to his former employer ACORN, Big Labor, and the most extreme elements of the radical left-wing fringe. He believes in their cause, wants what they want, and lies about it non-stop. He doesn't care about "the little guy", nor does he have your best interests at heart.

What he and his fellow smiling and soft-spoken radicals want is more power, and they'll take your property and your liberty to get it ... if you let them. The warnings were there before the election, and the warnings were right. There's still time to stop the slide toward utter ruin.

Don't just sit there hoping for change. Look at what that got us.

For your viewing disgust, courtesy of Big Government, here's part one:

Remember ... ACORN is using your tax dollars to conduct these activities. Are you tired of this scummy group yet?

--

9:15 PM Update: The ACORN employee in the pink shirt is Tresa Kaelke (née Tresa Berhow, née Tresa Parten), who claims to speak regularly with politicians like California State Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod and U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer. Babs denies it, of course.

Boy oh boy, I hope so. These crooks don't understand Americans who value individual liberty and limited government, but we understand them and their entire rotten playbook. Their houses are built on sand, and we're the onrushing tide. Stand by for a collapse.

Are the stated goals of ACORN substantially the same as yours ... and do you expect anyone to believe you if you deny it?

A teaser from last night:

Saul Alinsky's corpse must be spinning at high RPM right now. Set your DVR to record Glenn Beck's show on Fox News Channel this afternoon. It's gonna be a doozy.

Hat tip: Freedom's Lighthouse

--

9:58 AM Update: Glenn just said on the radio that it concerns an admission of murder. This is gonna be quite a video, it seems.

... according to the not-so-subtle excuse offered by NPR blogger Frank James in defense of ACORN:

Meanwhile, conservatives show no signs of letting up.

...

It's also important to keep in mind that ACORN's workers are coming from the same low-income neighborhoods the organization serves, with all that entails -- poor schools, high crime and the sorts of social problems that have been documented for decades.

So the flaws conservatives are pointing out about ACORN are not so much problems associated with that organization per se but more about the problems of being poor and minority in urban America.

Wow. The sheer chutzpah here is breathtaking. This isn't proof of a problem with ACORN per se? According to his logic, every organization serving poor urban minorities (and employing same) must also be riddled with criminals. I suspect quite a few non-profits based in heavily urbanized areas would vehemently protest Mr. James' blanket slur.

What alternate universe does he live in? In JamesWorld, we are expected to gaze in condescending pity upon community organizers advising would-be politicians how to get away with mortgage fraud, tax evasion, and child prostitution. After all, the community organizers are those people. You know what he means, right? Wink-wink, nudge-nudge ... the ones who have dark skin and no money and live in the 'hood. They don't know any better, the poor dears.

Good Lord, what racist bilge!

--

9/15 Update: Maura Flynn gets it.

9/16 Update: Gregory of Yardale gets it too.

The vote was 83-7, with 9 not voting. Incredibly, überliberal Sherrod Brown (D-OH) voted with the majority. He's worried about his re-election prospects. He should be.

Now let's see which way former labor lawyer and perpetual union suck-up Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) decides to go.

Next, the Congress needs to pass a stimulus clawback of any and all funds that end up in ACORN's coffers.

Here's a not-so-subtle warning to any uppity American in Baltimore thinking of exposing the scummy and crooked organization that spawned President Obama: if you embarrass ACORN by revealing its true nature, you'll become a target for the State's Attorney, a slavering Obamabot prosecutor.

Patricia Jessamy is the Maryland State's Attorney responsible for Baltimore. When she heard that two conservatives went undercover with a hidden camera and busted ACORN for facilitating child prostitution, mortgage fraud, and several other scuzzy activities, she wrote them a commendation.

Just kidding. She's threatening to send them to jail for up to 5 years.

Here's the kicker: Ms. Jessamy contributed $1000 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Funny how that works.

What would it take for President Barack Obama's administration to collapse?

• A dozen czars resigning in disgrace?
• A Cabinet member or two caught taking bribes?
• Another attack by islamic terrorists?
• Hyperinflation?
• A presidential sex scandal?

I'm just wondering, since the stench of radical leftism in Washington is getting so bad that I can smell it all the way out here in Cleveland.

Sure, Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst against President Obama would once have been thought rude. Thirty years ago, shouting such an accusation at a president addressing a joint session would have been nearly inconceivable ... but this ain't 1979.

American popular culture is much coarser and cruder these days, and our politics mirror our culture. The blame lies almost exclusively at the feet of Americans who occupy the farthest reaches of the statist left wing. They've brought us the Sexual Revolution, rampant drug use, violent and sexually explicit entertainment, abortion on demand, disregard for our Judeo-Christian roots, militant atheism, and moral relativism. The left's utter disregard for anything standing between them and complete political power leads to the rise of political opportunists like our current president. He and his ilk will say and do anything to advance their agenda. Lying is just another tool in the toolbox, to be used whenever it will accomplish the left's goals.

The left bemoans the supposedly inappropriate and rude outburst by Joe Wilson for one reason only: they hope to advance their agenda by doing so. Period. Never mind that they've done far worse. Never mind that moral disapproval is supposedly evidence of the cardinal sin of "intolerance." The left will scream and wail as long as faux victimhood helps them extract money and power from American citizens.

Given that fact, I refuse to join in the Tut-Tut Chorus. We're close to enacting an irreversible government takeover of close to one fifth of the American economy, by people who have more in common with Stalin and Mussolini than with Madison and Jefferson. I'd much rather have inappropriate and rude outbursts in defense of the truth than polite silence in the face of blatant and dangerous lies.

The truth hurts the statist, so shout it if you must.

Mike Adams has found another radical feminist raw nerve on which to tap dance.

He will not be missed.

Now ... on to Valerie Jarrett.

Those darn fake angry mobs full of teab... oh, wait ...

Uh, nevermind.

It's your patriotic duty, Comrade.

Workers of the world, unite!

President Obama's media flacks ask all patriotic Americans to inform on their friends and neighbors who dare to ask impolitic questions about Dear Leader's past speeches on socialized medicine. Since I'm as patriotic as the next guy, I did my part this morning:

From: Alo Konsen
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 19:02:31
To: flag@whitehouse.gov
Subject: I found something fishy

This blog post completely glosses over President Obama's clear & unequivocal statements and goals concerning the U.S. health care system:

http://is.gd/22vQK

Mr. Alo Konsen
Cleveland, OH

I hope they address this soon, because I am sick and tired of unpatriotic people debating and disagreeing with this administration.

Either he was lying then, speaking to safe pro-Obama crowds, or ...

... he's lying now. My money's on "lying now." We conservatives and libertarians have been screaming about this Trojan horse for years. Will you undecideds and moderates finally wake up, please?

... you need doubt no longer.

This arrogant little dimwit makes Ohio's Senators look regal by comparison. Heck, even Al Franken displays less dumbassery.

What is the origin of fundamental/inalienable individual rights: God, the government, public opinion, or some other source? Imagine the sum of all rights as being represented by this shape:

How do those rights get divvied out? If you use these two clickable venn diagrams to visualize the boundaries of each entity's rights ...

         

... which one is correct? If neither, e-mail me and I'll be happy to try to sketch out something that represents your worldview.

From the blog of the lefty group Upper Arlington Progressive Action:

We know how important the Supreme Court is to the success of progressive initiatives. We need to keep our eye on where the top nine are moving.

Of course it's important to you nutballs. It's the only way to advance your most cherished agenda items, since they'd never pass muster in Congress (much less any public initiative or referendum).

Can you name a government entitlement program that ended up spending less than its advocates predicted?

Can you name a single Obama policy decision so far that's had the intended result?

I'm just not smart enough to understand his brilliance. Mea culpa.

From where does President Obama pull the figures when he claims to have "saved" some given number of jobs?

Since you blamed George W. Bush when the price of a gallon of gas spiked past $4.00 last summer ...

... will you blame Barack Obama when it spikes this summer?

Can you name one industry that runs more efficiently after it's been taken over by the government?

If there were a better-than-even chance that the Democrats' government health care plan would result in Americans experiencing (on average) ...

• higher costs


• lower quality


• fewer choices

Image from Michelle Malkin reader Rachael in Kentucky

Here's another disturbing quote from Sonia Sotomayor's infamous speech in 2001:

I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We, I mean all of us in this room, must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making.

The emphasis is mine. What in the world does she mean by "relative morality" here? Moral relativism? If so, how can she be trusted to impartially uphold the law?

How can the following quote from Sonia Sotomayor not be a racist statement?

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

The emphasis is mine. So, how about it, lefties?

Update: Consider this, too.

Update 2: Could Judge Sotomayor even serve on a jury?

The conventional wisdom in your crowd appears to be that Barack Obama is a brilliant man possessing great intellectual horsepower. What evidence supports your belief?

No, really. I'm not kidding.

Under what circumstances is it morally justifiable to intentionally kill a human being? Please hold forth in the comments section below, or post your response on your own blog and leave a trackback.

Remember that I'm talking about morality here, not legality. I know the law.

That's right. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals killed 95% of the animals it took into custody last year: 2,124 killed, and only 7 placed in adoptive homes. Don't believe me? Read the report that PETA submitted to the State of Virginia.

PETA's rebuttal to the report? Lame and evasive, to put it mildly.

PETA's founder, Ingrid Newkirk, says "When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife." PETA also makes Holocaust comparisons when it condemns meat eaters. Given these facts, what are we to conclude about PETA's mass killing of 21,339 dogs and cats since 1998? By PETA's own standards, it is a genocidal organization.

Disgusting. This is one of many reasons why PETA gets no money from me. I donate to the ASPCA, in large part because they run no-kill shelters.

Read more on PETA's outrageous killings, courtesy of Gina Spadafori and Nathan Winograd.

Hat tip: The Center For Consumer Freedom

Corrine Brown, Demcrat Repuhsentative fo' de Thirr Congreshl Districk uh Flohda:

True dat.

Gradulations, Corrine. Whenevuh I embarrass' bout mah state dellgayshun mos' ridickuhluss membuh, someone like you come 'long and remind me dat it could be worse. Yo' fly constituents been sending you to Wash'ton since 1993, where yo' masstry uh de English language continue to amaze.

Hat tip: Iowahawk

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: That's not funny.

You betcha, my fellow hopenchangers. Barack Obama knows who to thank for his rise to power. That's Democrat payoffs kickbacks corruption stimulus for ya!

If you think paying fifteen dollars for one of these monstrosities is silly ...

... imagine forking over more than twenty bucks for a secondhand coin. There's a sucker born every minute.

Hat tip: Ben Keeler

An unknown wit once said: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury." When it comes to voting ourselves goodies from the treasury, we Americans stand near the point of no return.

I've addressed this lopsided situation before in a post on war funding, but this is a much more general discussion.

The federal government levies taxes on some of us, and it sends handouts to some of us. Some Americans pay more in taxes than they receive in handouts. I'll call them "givers." Others receive more in handouts than they pay in taxes. I'll call them "takers."

The Tax Foundation studied taxes and handouts from 1994-2004 (see the FAQ), and came to some startling conclusions. Below you'll see a diagram of their 2004 breakdown of dollars received in handouts per dollar taken in taxes. Pay special attention to the blue bars (the total handouts per dollar of taxes). Look at the bottom 3/5ths of our population. Those groups get more in handouts than they pay in taxes; they're the takers. The top 2/5ths are paying more in taxes than they get in handouts; they're the givers.

Since the American form of government (thankfully a representative republic, not a democracy) responds fairly quickly to the will of American voters, we have the ability to force our elected representatives to give us tax dollars as handouts. If our representatives refuse our demands for goodies, a majority of us can replace them with more pliable politicians.

So what happens when the takers outnumber the givers at the polls on Election Day? We hit the "tax tipping point." Since everyone gets one vote (unless ACORN is involved) regardless of their tax-to-handout ratio, the takers force the government to soak the givers. Eventually, the givers get tired of being punished for their success. The result is predictable:

Calculating how far society's top earners can be pushed before they stop (or cut back on) producing is difficult. But the incentives are easy to see. Voters who benefit from government programs will push for higher tax rates on higher earners -- at least until those who power the economy and create jobs and wealth stop working, stop investing, or move out of the country.

...

The sequence is always the same. High-tax, big-spending policies force the economy to lose momentum. Then growth in government spending outstrips revenues. Fiscal and trade deficits soar. Public debt, excessive taxation and unemployment follow. The central bank tries to solve the problem by printing money. International competitiveness is lost and the currency depreciates. The system stagnates. And then a frightened electorate returns conservatives to power.

Barack Obama claims he'll give a "tax cut" to 95% of Americans (for the sake of argument, let's ignore the impossibility of doing that while also paying for his massive expansion in government spending). His magic "tax cut" for those who pay no income taxes is really a tax credit. That's a handout to the takers, funded by higher taxes on the givers. The chart above will get more lopsided, with the blue bars on the right shrinking and the blue bars on the left growing.

America cannot keep confiscating more and more money from the givers and sending it to the takers. There's no such thing as a free lunch. If you're one of the givers creating jobs and capital, you'll only tolerate punishment for so long before you take rational steps to reduce your vulnerability. You'll start shifting your capital away from productive uses and into tax shelters dictated by loopholes in the law. You'll cut costs by hiring fewer employees or getting rid of current employees. You might even decide to escape the punishment of the takers by closing down your business or moving it overseas to a country with friendlier tax policies.

Now multiply this scenario to include all of America's private sector, and you'll start to understand the inevitable result of a tax-and-spend policy like Barack Obama's. He believes he can tax and spend his way to prosperity, but he can't (or won't) see that he'll push our economy over the tax tipping point and into either a severe recession or an actual depression. Our current economic downturn is already worsening as Obama's victory grows more probable, and one hundred top economists recently warned of the impending disaster of Obamanomics.

Barack Obama is more than Jimmy Carter on steroids. He's about to repeat Herbert Hoover's tragically foolish response to an economic downturn. If Obama wins this election, he will drive us into a Second Great Depression.

The following names appear on a petition supporting William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist with numerous close ties to Barack Obama.

Cleveland State University: Dinah Volk

Kent State University: Richard P. Ambrose, Janice Kroeger, Teresa J. Rishel, Tricia Niesz, Walter S. Gershon, Nancy Mellin McCracken (Prof. Emerita)

Miami University: Deborah Lyons, Dennis Carlson, Kathleen Knight Abowitz, Sheri L. Leafgren

Oberlin College: Marc Blecher, Martha Collins, Stephen Crowley, Steven Volk

Ohio Center for Native American Affairs: Regina Landeros-Thomas

Ohio State University: Amy Shuman, David Bloome, Rick Voithofer , Suzanne Damarin, Amy Wolfe, Cynthia Dillard, George E. Newell, Joshua J. Kurz (PhD Student)

Ohio University: Jaylynne N. Hutchinson

University of Akron: William H. Thelin, Rebecca A. McElfresh, Sandra Spickard Prettyman

Here's the text of the petition:

We write to support our colleague Professor William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who is currently under determined and sustained political attack. Ayers is a nationally known scholar, member of the Faculty Senate at UIC, Vice President-elect of the American Educational Research Association, and sought after as a speaker and visiting scholar by other universities because of his exemplary scholarship, teaching, and service. Throughout the 20 years that he has been a valued faculty member at UIC, he has taught, advised, mentored, and supported hundreds of undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D. students. He has pushed them to take seriously their responsibilities as educators in a democracy - to promote critical inquiry, dialogue, and debate; to encourage questioning and independent thinking; to value the full humanity of every person and to work for access and equity. Helping educators develop the capacity and ethical commitment to these responsibilities is at the core of what we do, and as a teacher he has always embraced debate and multiple perspectives.

All citizens, but particularly teachers and scholars, are called upon to challenge orthodoxy, dogma, and mindless complacency, to be skeptical of authoritative claims, to interrogate and trouble the given and the taken-for-granted. Without critical dialogue and dissent we would likely be burning witches and enslaving our fellow human beings to this day. The growth of knowledge, insight, and understanding--- the possibility of change--- depends on that kind of effort, and the inevitable clash of ideas that follows should be celebrated and nourished rather than crushed. Teachers have a heavy responsibility, a moral obligation, to organize classrooms as sites of open discussion, free of coercion or intimidation. By all accounts Professor Ayers meets this standard. His classes are fully enrolled, and students welcome the exchange of views that he encourages.

The current characterizations of Professor Ayers --- "unrepentant terrorist," "lunatic leftist" --- are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It's true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans. His participation in political activity 40 years ago is history; what is most relevant now is his continued engagement in progressive causes, and his exemplary contribution --- including publishing 16 books --- to the field of education. The current attacks appear as part of a pattern of "exposés" and assaults designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue. Like crusades against high school and elementary teachers, and faculty at UCLA, Columbia, DePaul, and the University of Colorado, the attacks on and the character assassination of Ayers threaten the university as a space of open inquiry and debate, and threaten schools as places of compassion, imagination, curiosity, and free thought. They serve as warnings that anyone who voices perspectives and advances questions that challenge orthodoxy and political power may become a target, and this, then, casts a chill over free speech and inquiry and the spirit of democracy.

We, the undersigned, stand on the side of education as an enterprise devoted to human inquiry, enlightenment, and liberation. We oppose the demonization of Professor William Ayers.

It's possible that some of the names were entered by someone else, since conservative pundits Jonah Goldberg, Kathryn Jean Lopez and Mark Levin appear on the list. But how likely is it that some prankster would go to the trouble of looking up the names of actual university employees? Padding a petition doesn't require that much effort. The most plausible explanation is that the names are legitimate.

Do students, their parents, and alumni want their tuition money and their donations paying the salaries of these people? Do Ohio taxpayers want their tax dollars supporting these terrorist sympathizers?

H/T: American Thinker

These idiots are going to help choose our next President. Here's reason #5,832 why I don't want to encourage every eligible citizen to register to vote.

I wish these geniuses would just stay home on Election Day.

H/T: Red State

Remember Jeremiah Wright? This is the man who Barack Obama chose to be his mentor, chose to be his friend, chose to conduct his marriage, chose to baptize his daughters, chose to guide him in his faith, chose to support financially, chose to listen to for 20+ years ...

... and only when it became politically expedient did Obama distance himself. Obama hopes you'll swallow the lie that he was surprised and shocked at Jeremiah Wright's hateful anti-American beliefs, and that you'll believe him when he says he doesn't share Jeremiah Wright's views.

Don't you believe it. Even Jeremiah Wright knows better.

BILL MOYERS: Here is a man who came to see you 20 years ago. Wanted to know about the neighborhood. Barack Obama was a skeptic when it came to religion. He sought you out because he knew you knew about the community. You led him to the faith.

You performed his wedding ceremony. You baptized his two children. You were, for 20 years, his spiritual counsel. He has said that. And, yet, he, in that speech at Philadelphia, had to say some hard things about you. How did those words...how did it go down with you when you heard Barack Obama say those things?

REVEREND WRIGHT:
It went down very simply. He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they're two different worlds.

I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bytes, he responded as a politician.

The emphasis is mine, but the plain message is Wright's: Obama only abandoned him to keep his political career alive.

And when Obama protests any mention of Jeremiah Wright, just remember that Obama himself declared it "fair game."

The playlist below contains the full video "Obama & Friends - History Of Radicalism", aired just this past weekend on Hannity's America. As each segment ends, the next one should start automatically. If there's a hitch between segments, just click the big arrow that will appear at the right side of the box and you'll manually fast forward to the next segment.

Barack Obama's defenders accuse arguments like this one of irrelevance or unfairness. Assigning guilt by association can certainly be unfair to someone with an unsavory friend or two, especially if the target of the accusation clearly doesn't share the lowlife's beliefs or actions. Every nationally-known politician has a lot of friends and associates, so it stands to reason that some of those people will be less than stellar examples of moral uprightness. The law of averages plays a part in the makeup of any large group of people.

But some politicians surround themselves with crowds of bad people. Consider Richard Nixon, the former Republican President who resigned in disgrace to avoid impeachment. He selected the advisors and political operatives who helped him climb the political ladder all the way to the top. These surrogates were masters of dirty politics, who committed the Watergate break-in that brought down Nixon's administration.

When Nixon uttered his famous "I am not a crook" line, nobody took him seriously. While he didn't personally break into the Democratic Party offices at the Watergate Hotel, he surrounded himself with the crooks and scumbags who did. He knew exactly how immoral and un-American his friends and associates were, so he delegated the dirty tricks to them. He hoped to keep his own hands clean by claiming he had nothing to do with a few overzealous bad apples, but Washington Post journalists Woodward and Bernstein exposed the truth: Nixon's friends and associates were a barrel full of bad apples.

There were far too many shady characters around him for Nixon to claim it was all happenstance. Either he was incredibly naive and stupid when it came to his executive responsibility to select and lead his subordinates, or he craved the power of the presidency so much that he would do anything to maintain it. Either way, Nixon was unfit to remain in office.

A president's character is reflected by the character of his friends and associates. Keep that in mind as you watch the video above. What does the character of Barack Obama's friends and associates say about his character?

Let's apply the same standards to everyone seeking the presidency.

9/17 Update: When you think "ACORN", think "Obamacare."

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9/11/2009 Update: Child prostitution!

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Barack Obama prides himself on his career as a community organizer. Back then, he worked for an organization called the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), to which he still has extensive ties. Before digging into Obama's links to ACORN, it's important to understand exactly how corrupt and anti-American this organization truly is.

I've dug around through tons of resources online to come up with this collection of information that reveals the vast corruption perpetrated by ACORN. Take a few moments to read through the reports and learn about the organization that created Barack Obama.

ACORN's Hypocritical House Of Cards: How One "Community" Group Helped the Housing Crisis Harm Taxpayers (Consumers Rights League):

This report focuses on the troubling record of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and its tax-exempt offshoot, the ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC). The ACORN/AHC version of consumer advocacy has consisted of a three-decade assault on free enterprise and a history of extracting resources from financial lenders seeking abatement of ACORN's public relations assaults. Specifically, this report examines ACORN's impact on the housing problem. Documents provided by internal whistleblowers, cross-checked with public records and recorded events, expose hypocritical lending recommendations tied to ACORN Housing Corporation's agreements with major banks--agreements that end up harming consumers.

Media reports, combined with information provided by former ACORN employees, show that:

• ACORN leveraged the Community Reinvestment Act in order to attack lenders' reputations and secure financial resources for itself; it has also endorsed loans offered by companies that fund ACORN operations
• ACORN's decades of lobbying and publicity seeking have contributed to the current housing crisis by lowering lending standards
• Despite raking in a troubling 40 percent of its revenue from taxpayers over the last three years, ACORN Housing Corporation's actions range from controversial to borderline illegal:
• AHC has worked to obtain mortgages for undocumented workers
• AHC relies on undocumented income, "under the table" money that may not be reported to the Internal Revenue Service
• ACORN's "financial justice" operations attack lenders for "exotic" loans, but AHC has recommended ten-year interest-only loans (which deny equity to the buyer) and reverse mortgages (which can be detrimental to senior citizens)
• AHC may have violated federal law by failing to maintain a proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and the aggressive political activities of ACORN

Voter Turnout or Voter Fraud?: Interest Groups Push for Election Reform (Johnathan Bechtle, Capital Research Center):

In 2004 liberal advocacy groups focused their activism on "getting-out-the-vote." The groups typically urged all Americans to vote, but their real goal was more explicit. They wanted to count as many anti-Bush votes as possible. At what point did voter turnout become voter fraud?

...

ACORN makes a point of asserting that lawsuits brought against it have been rejected or withdrawn. But in 2004 its employees were the subject of numerous reports of registration fraud in Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico and Wisconsin. Project Vote [a group created by ACORN and led by Barack Obama] denies that it deliberately orchestrated any registration fraud. But a stream of television and newspaper stories reported on the shady practices its workers used to register people to vote.

...

To make matters worse, taxpayers indirectly pay for these shady efforts. ACORN has a number of affiliates providing mortgage financing and counseling for low-income persons. The principal affiliate, the ACORN Housing Corporation, received over $2.6 million in government grants in 2003-2004. Some state-based ACORN housing affiliates receive smaller amounts of government funding. With this base of taxpayer support, ACORN is free to channel its member dues funds and donor gifts to political activities. Despite its claim to nonpartisanship, ACORN ran a minimum wage ballot initiative drive in the 2004 Florida election that, according to an internal memo revealed in a 2005 report by the American Center for Voting Rights, was run "to help defeat George W. Bush and other Republicans by increasing Democratic turnout ..."

Rotten ACORN: America's Bad Seed (July, 2006, Employment Policies Institute):

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is registered as a non-profit corporation in Arkansas, which does not require public financial disclosure. According to labor activist and scholar Peter Dreier, ACORN's annual operating budget is around $30 million. The New York Times subsequently reported that the figure is closer to $37.5 million, excluding the non-profit research and housing organizations the group runs. Even this estimate likely does not include the vast resources of the ACORN-run unions or reflect election-year resources given to its ostensibly non-partisan get-out-the-vote efforts.

Because it operates a virtual self-contained economy, ACORN entities exchange millions of dollars every year for goods and services. The scant financial documents available for public inspection paint a picture of a spider web of ACORN-run organizations that trade loans, leases, payments, and grants.

...

ACORN's no-holds-barred take on politics originates from its philosophy, which is centered on power. An internal ACORN manual instructed organizers to sign up as many residents as possible because "this is a mass organization directed at political power where might makes right."

...

The frequency with which ACORN employees are caught turning in fraudulent or erroneous documents indicates the group cares less about obeying laws than pushing its political agenda. When it is periodically forced to answer allegations of fraud, ACORN downplays the harm of its crimes or shifts blame to supposedly rogue employees, whom the organization then fires.

$1 Million Scandal Latest To Hit ACORN (release from the Consumers Rights League):

ACORN and its affiliates have a multi-decade history of fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds. Recently, the Consumers Rights League released a whistleblower report that uses internal ACORN documents to highlight alleged misuses of taxpayer money by ACORN Housing Corp, which took in 40% of its funds from the government and sent more than a million dollars to ACORN's affiliate, Citizens Consulting.

Now, The New York Times reports ("Funds Misappropriated at 2 Nonprofit Groups," June 9)that ACORN has hid since 2001 the embezzlement of nearly $1 million by the brother of ACORN's founder from that same organization--Citizens Consulting.

Additionally, ACORN is currently under investigation for potential voter fraud all across the nation. With millions of dollars transferred from AHC to these affiliates, it is entirely plausible that taxpayer funds are funding much of this fraud.

...

ACORN and ACORN fraternal organizations' multi-decade record of partisanship and misusing public funds is a prime example of a broken system. They continuously turn in faulty, if not false, voter registration forms that threaten to disenfranchise voters on Election Day. They have repeatedly used taxpayer funds to bolster their own political ends. Eventually, taxpayer money ended up in the pockets of the brother of ACORN's founder and ACORN attempted to hide the truth for years.

Written Testimony Of James Terry, Chief Public Advocate, Consumers Rights League (Wednesday, September 24, 2008):

My name is James Terry and I am the chief public advocate at the Consumers Rights League, a non-profit education and advocacy organization dedicated to preserving consumer choice in a broad array of issue areas.

...

The Consumers Rights League provides an alternative voice from those organizations that argue for reduced consumer choice or increased government intervention as a policy of first choice. CRL supports all aggressive efforts to educate, motivate, register, and assist all citizens in voting so long as those efforts are legal. Unfortunately, there are some groups that do not seem to share this concern.

As part of CRL's mandate, we monitor policy debates, news trends and the activities of organizations that style themselves as consumer advocates. Unfortunately, due to their long track record of questionable or corrupt practices with respect to housing and electoral activities, we are constantly forced to act as a watchdog for abuses by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. To be sure, there are some well-meaning individuals who are a part of ACORN.

Unfortunately, they do not appear to be the ones in control. Firsthand accounts from current and former ACORN employees, major news stories, and court cases across the country, expose corruption at every level of ACORN including embezzlement, cover-ups, misuse of taxpayer funds and voter fraud. While all of the reported allegations noted in my statement are found in the public domain, such reports often go unnoticed by the national media.

Whistleblower Documents Reveal ACORN's Apparent Misuse Of Taxpayer Dollars to Pursue Profitable Political Agenda (June 18, 2008 release from the Consumers Rights League):

Today, the Consumers Rights League (CRL) published a collection of whistleblower documents that suggest the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has reaped substantial financial gains by misusing taxpayer dollars for political ends and by attacking lending corporations for the same "predatory" lending practices it regularly engages in.

The ACORN Housing Association (AHC), an ACORN affiliate that receives over 40% of its funding from government sources, claims to be a consumer advocate. In a newly-released report from CRL, however, a series of documents obtained from a whistleblower source reveals hypocritical and potentially illegal use of taxpayer dollars by ACORN and its related organizations. These documents - which include staff emails and internal organization policies - suggest that ACORN has failed to maintain a proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and its aggressive political activities.

First, watch this.

Where did this scummy lie-filled ad come from? Rusty Shackleford dug around:

Extensive research was conducted by the Jawa Report to determine the source of smears directed toward Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Those smears included false allegations that she belonged to a secessionist political party and that she has radical anti-American views.

Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure.

It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign. Namely:

• Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.
• The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.
• Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.
• Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.
• The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.
• This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod's firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as "astroturfing."
• David Axelrod is Barack Obama's chief media strategist.
• The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

This suggests that false rumors and outright lies about Sarah Palin and John McCain being spread on the internet are being orchestrated by political partisans and are not an organic grassroots phenomenon led by the left wing fringe. Our findings follow.

Innnnnnteresting.

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11:50 AM Update: A very revealing response!

That's no exaggeration.

Liberal blogger Lee Stranahan delivers a breath of fresh air ... at The Huffington Post, of all places.

Hat tip: Josh Gillespie

How dare a lowly conservative columnist unearth public records about the Obamessiah's friendship and work history with an unrepentant terrorist? Stanley Kurtz had the gall to speak about the Anointed One's ties to Bill Ayers in a radio interview, and he will be punished.

From: Obama Action Wire

Date: Wed, Aug 27, 2008

Subject: Chicago: CALL TONIGHT to fight the latest smear

[Name] --

In the next few hours, we have a crucial opportunity to fight one of the most cynical and offensive smears ever launched against Barack.

Tonight, WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears. He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers.

Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse.

...

It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves. At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies.

Kurtz is scheduled to appear from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. in the Chicago market.

Calling will only take a minute, and it will make a huge difference if we nip this smear in the bud. Confront Kurtz tonight before this goes any further:

The candidate doth protest too much, methinks.

Hat tip: Byron York

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Update: Andy McCarthy reacts during and after the interview. The Obama cultists didn't exactly shine.

Here's the ad the Obama campaign doesn't want you to see:

This TV spot by The American Issues Project hit a very raw nerve, because here's how the Obama team reacted:

1. They released a "response" ad that refutes nothing.
2. They threatened TV stations not to air the AIP ad.
3. They asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute AIP, its officers, its board of directors, and its donors.

That's not how a politician responds to a lie. Rather, it's how a politician tries to bury the truth.

... I must be doing something right. Especially when it's Tim Russo.

He dropped out. What a shame.

On January 11th the former publisher of The Western Standard was hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission to answer for his decision to publish the "offensive" Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Ezra Levant's editorial decision got under the skin of hypersensitive islamist imam Syed Soharwardy. The whiny radical filed a complaint with the AHRC demanding a public apology from Mr. Levant.

Dude picked the wrong target.

There may be hope for Canada yet. More details at EzraLevant.com.

Have you ever used the word "blackmail" in a conversation at work? Or the phrase "white lie"? "Caught red handed"? "Savage"? "Guinea pig"? "Canuck"? "Black list"? All are forbidden in the workplace at the U.S. Army Intelligence Security Command.

Only in San Fransicko would a ban so loony have a serious chance of being enacted.

Bill Clinton confronts heckling 9/11 Truthers in the only way they deserve:

I finally agree with this guy on something.

Ooga booga! Are you scared yet?

I give you the Party of Tolerance and Love and Support of Troops™:

Those warm and fuzzy liberals sure make me ashamed to be such a cold-hearted conservative myrmidon. I really ought to emulate them more often.

It was Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick! Or something.

As I've noted before, the photographs and documentation of what went on in San Francisco at the 2007 Folsom Street Fair are not safe for work. The effects of the sex festival continue to ripple outward.

• Fellow Christians, before we complain about the horror of it all, we need to look in the mirror and rediscover our moral courage.
• 400,000 people showed up, yet the mainstream media failed to cover the activities. Kelly Boggs asks and answers the obvious question.
• Even the European gay press called it a "public orgy." Why won't we do the same?
• What do you think of when you hear the words "gay pride"? Frank Pastore has an answer.
• Apparently the people engaging in public sex at the Folsom Street Fair were actually capable of being offended ... but only by by a web site address.
• Hey, c'mon down to Folsom Street and bring your kids! No, really.
• Miller Beer's sponsorship of the Folsom Street Fair boomerangs on Milwaukee.

I give you this year's Folsom Street Fair, held in San Francisco and sponsored by the Miller Brewing Company. Be warned ... clicking the image below will take you to a citizen photojournalist's site that documents the blatant and unrestrained sex acts that took place in public and in full view of children and on-duty uniformed police. This is not safe for work, and frankly not safe for a full stomach:

While our troops go in harm's way to advance America's security and bring liberty to millions, these homegrown fringe nuts engage in public sexual bacchanals on the streets of San Francisco and hand our sworn enemies a precious P.R. gift. Is it any wonder that jihadist savages draw new recruits with propaganda that says only shari'a law can prevent flamboyant drag queens and aggressive leather fetishists from running rampant on their own streets? "This is what America stands for", say Ayman Zawahiri and Muqtada al-Sadr and Hassan Nasrallah. Their recruits need only see photographs like these for words like "liberty" and "freedom" to sound like synonyms for "license" and "debauchery."

I worry that we Americans have lost our collective moral spine. The Folsom Street Fair should make us hang our heads in shame. Can we no longer see the difference between right and wrong? If events like these continue they will end up causing more attacks on all of us. Don't the Folsom Street crazies understand that the jihadis would kill them all if given the chance?

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin. I'm done drinking Miller Genuine Draft. Pass me some Thirsty Dog.

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Update:

Palomino! Palomino!

I just swung through the YAF online store and found this description under their Ann Coulter poster:

Ann Coulter - best-selling author, talentless clown, witty columnist, and compelling speaker - proves it is possible to be beautiful, intelligent, and conservative (cough-- did you really believe that? no? here's some more kool-aid).

I called YAF to let them know they've been hacked, but they're already on the case. The supervisor I spoke to laughed ruefully as she apologized and said that their techies are trying to chase down the hacker and repair his/her/its vandalism. No doubt this is the work of a Boing Boing denizen.

This is what passes for wit on the left.

Hat tip: Hot Air

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Update: There's more.

Can't "Hang the leaders" of the Conservative Movement from a tree? Then try the wall in your office, home, or dorm room! Add a set of darts and its the next hit for your dorm party!

And more:

Ronald Wilson Reagan was famous for his naps. While homeless lingered on streets, while corruption drifted in and out of his offices, while Marines were cutting and running from the Middle East, and spare parts were doled out to our enemies du jour, the Iranians -- through it all, Reagan knew nothing!

The Morning Journal unloads on Sherrod Brown today for his refusal to condemn MoveOn.org's slimy "General Betray Us" ad:

It's a shame that Brown and the other 24 Democrats couldn't set partisanship aside to vote for the resolution and make a simple unanimous statement from the Senate that MoveOn was off base and wrong to place the damaging ad.

But then MoveOn is a mega-dollar supporter of Democratic election campaigns. Who else would know that better than Brown. His Senate campaign last year received more than $300,000 through MoveOn, and the group did other work to help get Brown elected.

Brown said, through an aide, that the $300,000 he got from MoveOn had nothing to do with his vote against the GOP resolution to condemn the group's Petraeus ad.

The average Ohioan should feel insulted that Brown thinks we would actually believe his denial.

Maybe he is counting on our ''suspension of disbelief'' as we watch this drama play out in the political theater of Congress. That would be cynical.

MoveOn and its ad assaulted the U.S. commander during war. That is wrong and damaging to our country. We are disappointed that Brown apparently lacked the strength and clarity to just drop politics and say MoveOn was wrong to attack our top soldier in Iraq.

Those who ''support our troops'' should do so vigorously, from the bottom ranks to the top, even if that means offending your political pals with the deep pockets.

Read the whole thing.

Today the U.S. Senate voted 72-25 (3 abstentions) to approve an amendment to the defense spending bill. The amendment read as follows:

To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.

Sherrod Brown voted "no." I'm shocked at Slippery Sherrod's silence.

Hat tip: NixGuy

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Update: Track the buzz on the Senate's MoveOn sycophants here:

Frustrated by the canned response I got last time, on Friday I again asked Ohio's junior U.S. Senator, Sherrod Brown, the following three questions:

1. Will you condemn MoveOn.org's full-page ad slandering General David Petraeus as "General Betray Us" and claiming that he is "cooking the books for the White House"? See http://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html
2. Are America and political Islam (a.k.a. "sharia") at war? If so, should America seek to achieve anything more than dismantling al Qaeda and capturing/killing Osama bin Laden?
3. Should America forcibly crush and discredit political Islam (a.k.a. "sharia") while preserving individual Muslims' right to worship peacefully? If so, how? If not, what will the consequences be for America?

This hit my inbox yesterday afternoon:

Thank you for letting me know your views on the advertisement placed in The New York Times by MoveOn.org.

I do not believe that General Petraeus should be the focus of blame for Americans' frustration with the situation in Iraq. The military has accomplished every goal set before it in Iraq with honor and courage. But no longer should we ask our troops to shed blood for a political and cultural battle they cannot resolve.

We do not dishonor the military by arguing for its return from Iraq. Two of the hallmarks of our country, unlike dictatorships past and present, are the vigorous debate among our citizens over the wisdom of our foreign policy and civilian control of our military forces. Every American has a responsibility to carefully evaluate the direction our country is taking and weigh in to help determine its future.

Thank you again for contacting me.

Sincerely,
Sherrod Brown

Sorry. No banana for you, Senator.

Does anyone with two brain cells to rub together think that this qualifies as a response to my questions? Slippery Sherrod refused to condemn MoveOn.org's slimy ad, and completely ignored my questions about America's response to the threat from political Islam.

I know he desperately wants to squirm out from under this microscope, but he can't. I'm perfectly happy to be a gadfly when it comes to national defense. I'm going to keep asking these questions until he answers them directly. I'll even make it easy for him; I'll ask each one separately instead of all together in one message. That should make it harder to ignore the political Islam topic.

Stay tuned.

Welcome to the party, Fox News. Major Garrett skimmed the records at OpenSecrets.org to find political contributions from MoveOn.org and its members to Democrats in the 2006 election cycle. Here's what Garrett reported (emphasis added):

MoveOn backs candidates and asks members to send contributions on their behalf. They pass the donations on directly and handle all the paperwork.

"They're speaking for the grassroots," Ritsch said. "This is a form of bundling."

A quick tally of MoveOn-directed contributions in the 2006 election cycle, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, offers a sample of the impressive size of its donations:

-- Sen. Robert Byrd, West Virginia = $834,211

-- Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri = $382,531

-- Sen. Jon Tester, Montana = $301,788

-- Sen. Sherrod Brown, Ohio = $287,622

-- Sen. Bob Casey, Pennsylvania = $160,780

Those contributions helped build a Senate Democratic majority as four of the five entered the Senate for the first time. McCaskill and Tester won razor-thin victories over well-funded GOP incumbents Jim Talent and Conrad Burns.

MoveOn-directed contributions also propelled several Democratic challengers to House victories, among them: Nick Lampson, Texas' 22nd District, $156,883; Tim Mahoney, Florida's 16th District, $145,334; Zack Space, Ohio's 18th District, $141,298; Michael Arcuri, New York's 24th District, $129,685; Joe Donnelly, Indiana's 2nd District, $123,035, and Tim Walz, Minnesota's 1st District, $102,657.

Major Garrett's story is an eye-opener, but he didn't dig deep enough. I did that eight days ago and found that Senator Sherrod Brown collected over $338,263 from MoveOn.org ... and that's not even counting all of those donations smaller than $1000. If you feel like adding them all up, feel free.

Have you ever wondered why Slippery Sherrod won't answer questions from constituents or radio hosts about his presumed support for MoveOn.org's slimy attacks? Now you know.

Hat tip: One Oar In The Water