CONSERVATIVE RIGHT- "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.": May 2012

Thursday, May 31, 2012

EDITORIAL: A climate of hypocrisy - Washington Times

EDITORIAL: A climate of hypocrisy - Washington Times

There’s nothing so profitable as being among the concerned climate experts who preach austerity. These enlightened few hector ordinary Americans into sacrificing their functional light bulbs, toilets and sport utility vehicles so the planet can be preserved. According to them, failure to give up these luxuries will overheat the globe and provoke devastating floods and hurricanes.

The peddlers of such apocalyptic tales rarely practice austerity themselves. Earlier this month, Rep. Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, asked Michael J. Ahearn, chairman of the board for First Solar Inc., to come and testify before a congressional oversight panel about his solar-panel business. Sun power is hailed by the left as the solution to the world’s energy needs. That’s why the Obama administration showered First Solar with $1.5 billion in taxpayer-backed gifts, recognizing the firm’s unquestioned eco-correctness.

An impious Mr. Issa, however, couldn’t help but inquire about how Mr. Ahearn made the journey from Tempe, Ariz., to Washington. According to liberals, carbon dioxide - the odorless gas that makes respiration possible - is destroying the Earth itself. So instead of driving an SUV, we’re all supposed to take the bus, ride a bicycle or even walk. Mr. Ahearn did none of these. “I flew in yesterday on a Challenger,” he explained. “A 300,” referring to the model.

According to data from Bombardier, the manufacturer of the $20 million luxury jet, the round trip would have produced about 21.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s equal to five years’ worth of per-person emissions from the average household, by the Environmental Protection Agency’s reckoning. There’s no telling how many thousands of households would have to turn down the thermostat to offset the emissions from the annual travel of just one green-energy CEO.

Founding Father Quote

"From the nature of man, we maybe sure that those who have power in their hands… will always, when they can… increase it."

George Mason, Federal Convention, 1787 www.aHardRight.com

America Lost 129,000 Millionaires in 2011 - U.S. Business News - CNBC

America’s millionaire population declined last year for the first time since the financial crisis, according to a new report.

The population of U.S. millionaire households (households with investible assets of $1 million or more) fell to 5,134,000 from 5,263,000 in 2011, according to The Boston Consulting Group’s Global Wealth study.

Total private wealth in North America fell by 0.9 percent, to $38 trillion.

The ultra-rich were the largest losers in dollar terms. Households in North America with investible assets of more than $100 million saw their wealth decline 2.4 percent. Their population declined slightly to 2,928 from 2,989.

The main reason for all this wealth loss? Stocks.

Once Obama is done there won't be any millionaires left!

Odd politics, presidential tradition: Bush is back - Yahoo! News

President Barack Obama can't seem to stop bad-mouthing the record of former President George W. Bush. But on Thursday,Obama is going to welcome his predecessor and proudly preside as Bush's image and legacy are enshrined at the White House forever.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will join Bush and his wife, Laura, as their official portraits are unveiled. The incumbent is keeping up a presidential tradition typically defined by cheer and graciousness, but not without some uneasiness.

Hardly a day goes by without Obama or his aides talking about the mess they inherited — meaning, from Bush.

It was just one week ago that Obama, revving up campaign donors, turned Bush into a punch line. Obama depicted Republican rival Mitt Romney as a peddler of bad economic ideas, helping the rich at the expense of the middle class, and then added to laughs: "That was tried, remember? The last guy did all this."

Now the last guy is coming back.

Artur Davis, former prominent Obama backer, leaves Democratic Party - latimes.com

Artur Davis, former prominent Obama backer, leaves Democratic Party - latimes.com

Artur Davis, one of President Obama’s earliest supporters and a former co-chairman for his presidential campaign, announced Tuesday that he was leaving the Democratic Party for good.

In a post published Tuesday on his website, Davis was vague about his future political endeavors, but declared: “If I were to run, it would be as a Republican. And I am in the process of changing my voter registration from Alabama to Virginia, a development which likely does represent a closing of one chapter and perhaps the opening of another.”

Davis, who represented Alabama’s 7th Congressional District from 2003 to 2011, was notably the first member of Congress outside of Illinois to endorse then-Sen. Obama’s 2008 presidential bid. And it was Davis who seconded the official nomination of Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Voting Rights Act | Section 5 | The enlightened Southern voter | The Daily Caller

Pop Quiz. Which state has the most African-American elected officials? Mississippi. In fact the Magnolia State and its Southern brethren lead the country in many categories of black voting prowess and electoral power. For instance, when the Census Bureau compared racial disparities in voting registration and turnout, the top 10 — i.e., the states where differences were the smallest — included Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, with Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas not far behind. In fact, black voters in Mississippi and Alabama actually turn out in higher percentages than their white counterparts. The only outlier is Virginia, ranking 44th in registration and 45th in turnout. Which state ranked last in both categories? Massachusetts.

The reader will be forgiven, however, if she receives blank stares at the next Washington cocktail party when toasting the South for its political “inclusiveness” and “diversity.” Those who attend such events, along with the federal government, are woefully benighted to contemporary Southern racial dynamics.

This obliviousness was on full display in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, which was recently decided by the District of Columbia Circuit Court. In Shelby County, the court rebuffed a constitutional challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, originally passed in 1965. Section 5 mandates covered jurisdictions (mostly Southern states and their political subdivisions) get preapproval from federal authorities before implementing any changes — no matter how trivial or obviously nondiscriminatory — to their election laws.

The fact that Section 5 directs the federal government to treat some states differently raises serious constitutional concerns. Even more problematic is that Congress has not updated the Section 5 coverage formula since 1972. This formula is so out-of-date that if applied today it would only cover Hawaii. The resulting time warp puts Section 5 supporters in a quandary. A prominent scholar explained the problem succinctly: “The most one can say in defense of the [coverage] formula is that it is the best of the politically feasible alternatives or that changing the formula would … disrupt settled expectations.” And just what are those “settled expectations”? The familiar yet dated stereotypes taken as gospel by Washington officialdom at their cocktail parties.

Film takes on horrors of UN corruption, Michael Moore-style | The Daily Caller

News reports of corruption, negligence and poor judgment at the United Nations have left many shaking their heads at the international body in recent decades.

A new film by Ami Horowitz and Matthew Groff, set to premiere in select theaters on June 1, aims to trace the U.N.’s decline from an institution created in 1945 — “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small … and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace” — to one that would honor Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe as a “Global Leader for Tourism.”

Horowitz, a self-described right-of-center foreign policy hawk, explained that the film, “U.N. Me,” is meant as a visual op-ed directed in a fashion suited to capture Americans’ elusive attention spans.

“I knew this stuff going in, I just didn’t realize how deep the rabbit hole went,” Horowitz told The Daily Caller in an interview, noting that while he is more conservative, the rest of the film’s production crew are left-of-center.

Mr. Biden, here’s the truth about private equity | Jack and Suzy Welch

Time was you worked in private equity and people just sort of shrugged when you mentioned it. You were in finance sort of; you invested in companies, you made deals. Whatever.

Now, you’re in private equity, and well, hello. You’re a heroic job creator – or no, wait, you take pleasure in firing people. You’re a savvy executive who knows how to grow the economy – or get outta here, you’re a vulture capitalist with leadership skills, as Vice-President Joe Biden recently put it, that are no better than a plumber’s.

Hello, indeed, and with all due respect to the vice-president, and certainly with no offense intended toward plumbers, we have a question.

Mr. Vice-President, where in the world are you getting your ideas about private equity?

Because we have an entirely different take, and we can tell you where ours comes from – experience, 20-plus years of working with PE firms and 11 years of working for one. And given that experience, and given how private equity is at the epicenter of the political debate now, we’d say it’s time for a reality check about what private equity really does and what kind of leaders it tends to produce.

What Artur Davis is telling us - Right Turn - The Washington Post

As I told a reporter last week, this is not Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party . . . [I have described] growth as a deeper problem than exaggerated inequality; who wants to radically reform the way we educate our children; who despises identity politics and the practice of speaking for groups and not one national interest; who knows that our current course on entitlements will eventually break our solvency and cause us to break promises to our most vulnerable — that is, if we don’t start the hard work of fixing it.

On the specifics, I have regularly criticized an agenda that would punish businesses and job creators with more taxes just as they are trying to thrive again. I have taken issue with an administration that has lapsed into a bloc by bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured: frankly, the symbolism of Barack Obama winning has not given us the substance of a united country. You have also seen me write that faith institutions should not be compelled to violate their teachings because faith is a freedom, too. You’ve read that in my view, the law can’t continue to favor one race over another in offering hard-earned slots in colleges: America has changed, and we are now diverse enough that we don’t need to accommodate a racial spoils system. And you know from these pages that I still think the way we have gone about mending the flaws in our health-care system is the wrong way—it goes further than we need and costs more than we can bear.

RealClearPolitics - When Pelosi Says "Free," Reach for Your Wallet

On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi explained to the Commonwealth Club the reason Washington passed Obamacare. Even if everyone in America "loved" his own health care plan, Pelosi argued, Congress had to pass President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act because American health care was "unsustainable financially."

Yes, Pelosi actually believes Washington had to get involved in health care to reduce its cost.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

PATTERSON: June can't come soon enough - Washington Times

PATTERSON: June can't come soon enough - Washington Times

June is shaping up to be a pivotal month for American liberty. On one front, the Supreme Court is expected in June to hand down its decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare, specifically, the individual mandate provision of President Obama’s signature health care law, which requires Americans to purchase health insurance or face government sanction.

The stakes could not be higher: Should the court uphold the individual mandate, it effectively will have abolished the limited, constitutional republic the Founding Fathers created more than two centuries ago. The government of the United States will have undergone a paradigm shift. With no legal constraints on its power over the lives of its citizens, Obamacare will serve as precedent for an ever-expanding, ever-ravenous federal bureaucracy with license to dictate anything that may impact your health - in other words, everything. As Justice Antonin Scalia asked administration lawyers in March, “If the government can do this, what else can it not do?”

Indeed, a government that can force citizens to purchase a private product is a government that no longer distinguishes between public and private.

Obama's New Theory of Evolution

Catholic is the new black | The Daily Caller

Conservative critics should stop complaining about the lack of media coverage of the Catholic protest of the government’s HHS mandate, which commands Catholic institutions to pay for health coverage of procedures that the Church finds evil. Traditional Catholics need to just accept the fact that to the liberal media, we have become a secondary, second-class group. We’ve become like blacks in 1950s America.

While the left freaks out over the analogy, let me emphasize that the comparison I make is a limited one. Catholics in 2012 are not forced to use segregated facilities and we have not been jailed for our beliefs — yet. But we do live in a subculture that is increasingly cut off from the mainstream. Like blacks during the years of segregation, Catholics have their own book publishers, newspapers and magazines, television shows, even celebrities. And whereas there was once some crossover between the “Catholic ghetto” and the rest of America — Bishop Fulton Sheen once had one of the highest-rated television shows in America — these days traditional Catholics are almost completely shut out by the country’s elites.

The most obvious example, of course, is the HHS mandate and the resulting protests. Forty-three Church-affiliated institutions are suing the government over the mandate, a remarkable development that will deal with questions that go to the very heart of what the First Amendment means. Yet as the Media Research Center and others have shown, the story has been ignored by the liberal media. Conservatives are outraged by this, but to me it’s not even worth getting angry about anymore. Like blacks before the Civil Rights Act, we need to just focus on creating and sustaining our own culture. Rachel Maddow, CBS, ABC and The New York Times are not going to give our concerns about religious freedom and government coercion (to say nothing of abortion) any more consideration than Bull Connor gave black protesters in Birmingham in 1963. To them, we are every bit the freaks

Gladstone: A Forward Thinker

Bush’s tax cuts didn’t get us in this mess - Chicago Sun-Times

With the presidential campaign gathering steam, the voters are going to be fed a lot of baloney before Election Day. One of the biggest humdingers now coming your way: The Bush tax cuts are responsible for the mess the country is in.

A recurring theme in President Barack Obama’s attacks on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his tax policies is: “We can’t go back to the same policies that got us into this mess.”

President George W. Bush’s tax cuts did not cause the fiscal crisis of 2008. Our economic calamity came in a housing meltdown — the result of years of administrations of both parties encouraging variable-interest, no-interest, little or no down payment, and no-document or liar loans that flooded people into homes they couldn’t afford under traditional mortgage lending practices.

To its credit, the Bush administration twice advanced reforms to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, major players in pushing bad loans. Each time it was blocked by powerful Democrats, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut. Frank famously said he wanted the two quasi-governmental agencies “to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidizing housing.” Even after the home-ownership explosion was starting to be revealed to be a house of cards, Dodd declared, “These two institutions are fundamentally, fundamentally strong.”

Jenkins: The Bain Ads Are About Spending - WSJ.com

Who says Wall Streeters aren't filled with a desire to please? Two big-name Democratic financiers, Roger Altman and Steven Rattner, may not be ready to defend the president's deceitful Bain ads. But they promptly took to the airwaves to defend the president's defense of the ads, after President Obama himself issued a few syllables they could cling to, saying the ads merely questioned whether profit maximization is an appropriate governing principle.

Which of course has nothing to do with anything. It certainly has nothing to do with the Bain ads. The ads aren't meant to engage viewers in a discussion of the limits of the profit motive. The ads are about pure ressentiment.

The word is French and was once adopted by philosophers as diverse as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Weber. It describes a kind of moral scapegoating of others to explain our disappointments and dissatisfactions.

A No Confidence Vote For Obamanomics - Investors.com

Economy: Consumer confidence took a "surprise" tumble in May, as home prices hit 10-year lows. Tell us again why economists keep calling bad economic news about Obama's so-called recovery "unexpected"?

Analysts had predicted the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index would climb to 70 in May. Instead it dropped more than four points to 64.9, the biggest drop since last fall.

It's the latest in another round of disappointing numbers. Just a few weeks ago, new jobs came in "unexpectedly" low. And before that, GDP data disappointed.

Underperforming economic indicators have been so common under Obama that the only mystery is why the experts keep getting caught off guard.

Obama Nazi death camp gaffe 'hurt all Poles': PM - Yahoo! News

US President Barack Obama's description of a Nazi German Holocaust site as a "Polish death camp" shocked Poland, whose leaders insist the record be set straight 67 years after World War II.

Obama on Tuesday labeled the Nazi facility used to process Jews for extermination as a "Polish death camp." The White House later said the president "misspoke" and expressed "regret".

The linguistic faux pas overshadowed Obama's posthumous award of the highest US civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to Jan Karski, a former Polish underground officer who provided early eyewitness accounts of Nazi Germany's genocide ofEuropean Jews.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday Obama's words had hurt all Poles and he expected more from Washington than just "regret".

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Not worth the debt - NYPOST.com

Not worth the debt - NYPOST.com

I’ve been writing for years about a bubble in higher education: too much demand, causing sky-high prices — all because of cheap government money, much like the housing bubble. Now those warnings have become conventional wisdom — so conventional that they’ve reached The New York Times and even 60 Minutes.
Pretty much everyone agrees that the increases in tuition (which have vastly outpaced consumer prices and family incomes) and the growth in student-loan debt (which now exceeds credit-card or auto-loan debt) are unsustainable. As economist Herb Stein famously said, something that can’t go on forever, won’t. So, how should we respond?

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/not_worth_the_debt_tPmHeOgrp5qbKpoFxUt4hI#ixzz1wJ0433sk

Escape From New York? High-Taxing Empire State Loses 3.4 Million Residents in 10 Years | CNSNews.com

Escape From New York? High-Taxing Empire State Loses 3.4 Million Residents in 10 Years | CNSNews.com

(CNSNews.com) – New York State accounted for the biggest migration exodus of any state in the nation between 2000 and 2010, with 3.4 million residents leaving over that period, according to the Tax Foundation.

Over that decade the state gained 2.1 million, so net migration amounted to 1.3 million, representing a loss of $45.6 billion in income.

Video sting shows complicity in 'sex-selective' abortions | The Daily Caller

Live Action says Planned Parenthood and other U.S. abortion providers are willing to assist in the termination of baby girls for pregnant women who choose abortion because they want to have baby boys. And the pro-life abortion watchdog says its video series and a new website will expose it all.

“This was a multi-state, national investigation demonstrating that this is a widespread problem across our country,” Live Action president Lila Rose told The Daily Caller in an interview Monday.

“First of all, the statistics and studies indicate that we are adding to the growing problem across the world of sex-selective targeting of unborn girls for abortion. We are going to be demonstrating — starting with this video from Texas — that the abortion industry in the United States is aiding and abetting this horrific problem.”

The first in what Live Action says is a series of videotaped incidents exposing American abortion facilities’ willingness to assist in sex-selection abortions took place at a South Austin, Texas Planned Parenthood clinic. In the footage, a Planned Parenthood counselor appears to readily assist and advise a Live Action actor who said she was trying to obtain an abortion if her baby is female.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/29/pro-life-groups-hidden-camera-footage-shows-complicity-in-sex-selective-abortions/#ixzz1wHkmGovU

Abortion is horrible but even more deplorable when used to selectively abort a healthy fetus on the basis of sex! Our tax dollars are supporting Planned parenthood!

Bigot Farrakhan Says America Used ‘Trickery’ to Take Mexican Land | Video | TheBlaze.com

Farrakhan Says America Used ‘Trickery’ to Take Mexican Land | Video | TheBlaze.com

The day before Memorial Day, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan lamented that Mexico had lost territory to America due to the Mexican-American War and disparaged American military action around the globe.

The poorly-timed rant took place in San Diego in front of a partially Hispanic audience. Theoft controversial minister began by disparaging “White Mexicans” of Spanish decent before announcing that “Africans were in that part of the World [Mexico] maybe before [Mexicans] got there.” The minister lamented that illegal Mexicans are called “aliens” and declared that Americans “ought to be praising the Mexicans because we living on land that was once theirs.”

Farrakhan went on to declare that he was “sad that Mexico lost California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado” after the Mexican-American War “trickery.” This led to the minister generalizing about the American people as “a people that make war and blame the person they makin’ war on and then take your land.”

However, The minister sounded overjoyed that minority births outnumber white births in America, according to recent US Census reports. Given the news, Farrakhan noted that white people will soon “be the minority in their own country that they took from the native people.” He also projected that minorities will soon “become governor of every state.”

Heilemann: Obama's a 'Brass-Knuckled, Pipe-Hitting' 'Brawler' Who'll 'Do What Is Necessary to Stay in Power' | NewsBusters.org

In 2008, Barack Obama with obedient media members such as New York magazine's John Heilemann convinced America that if they put their hope behind a junior senator from Illinois, their lives would instantly change for the better.

Now that things didn't turn out as rosy as these folks claimed they would, the White House needs to scare the public into thinking things would be far worse if Mitt Romney is elected, and Heilemann obediently published a piece Sunday explaining how the team he favors plans to do it (serious vulgarity warning):

Though the Obamans certainly hit John McCain hard four years ago—running more negative ads than any campaign in history—what they intend to do to Romney is more savage. They will pummel him for being a vulture-vampire capitalist at Bain Capital. They will pound him for being a miserable failure as the governor of Massachusetts. They will mash him for being a water-carrier for Paul Ryan’s Social Darwinist fiscal program. They will maul him for being a combination of Jerry Falwell, Joe Arpaio, and John Galt on a range of issues that strike deep chords with the Obama coalition. “We’re gonna say, ‘Let’s be clear what he would do as president,’ ” Plouffe explains. “Potentially abortion will be criminalized. Women will be denied contraceptive services. He’s far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.”

Romney emerges as a potent adversary - FT.com

The large swag of delegates up for grabs in Tuesday’s Republican Texas primary could finally make Mitt Romney the party’s official candidate to challenge Barack Obama in the 2012 election.

But whether he crosses the line in Texas or not, Mr Romney has overcome months of criticism that he was a lightweight leader of a weak field and emerged from the Republican ruck as a potent adversary for the president.

Four More Years? - WSJ.com

Before being elected in 2008, Barack Obama said: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." That belief has turned out to be wholly accurate. America has been greatly transformed by all areas of this administration's policy goals and actions.

The most significant policy change during President Obama's first term was his health-care "reform," the movement of 17% of our economy from the marketplace of ideas and physician-patient decision-making to control and management by the federal government. The Supreme Court is now considering ObamaCare are constitutional, and is expected to decide by the end of June.

ObamaCare is a huge governmental mandate, the impact of which we are just beginning to feel. If the Supreme Court upholds the law, full government control of health care will start next year, with the new ObamaCare taxes on investment income. The individual mandates and other rules and regulations will begin in 2014. If the court upholds ObamaCare and Mr. Obama is re-elected in November, the scope and size of our government's control over health care will increase dramatically.

A second Obama term would guarantee no repeal or significant repair of ObamaCare for at least four more years, allowing it to push its tentacles into every aspect of our health care. It will give the health and human services secretary free rein in her decisions about new mandates and about which organizations or entities can be granted exemptions from them. This would give her and the president a new way to reward favored special interests.

Houla massacre: US military warns Syria as pressure builds on Obama | World news | guardian.co.uk

The US's top military officer has warned Syria it could face armed intervention as international outrage grows over the massacre of women and children by tanks and artillery in Houla.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said that following the UN security council's condemnation of the slaughter – in which more than 100 people were killed, many of them children – there needed to be increased diplomatic pressure on Damascus. But he added that the US would be prepared to act militarily if it was "asked to do so".

"There is always a military option," he told Fox News. "You'll always find military leaders to be somewhat cautious about the use of force, because we're never entirely sure what comes out on the other side. But that said, it may come to a point with Syria because of the atrocities."

The warning comes as Barack Obama is under increasing pressure from his Republican opponent in November's presidential election, Mitt Romney, and members of Congress to take tougher action over Syria.

Romney accused Obama of weakness and disparaged his support for efforts by the former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, to revive a failing peace plan. He said Washington should instead arm opposition groups.

"After nearly a year and a half of slaughter, it is far past time for theUnited States to begin to lead and put an end to the Assad regime. President Obama can no longer ignore calls from congressional leaders in both parties to take more assertive steps," he said.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Bob Schieffer Asks Obama Senior Adviser Gibbs 'Whatever Happened to Hope and Change?'

Bob Schieffer Asks Obama Senior Adviser Gibbs 'Whatever Happened to Hope and Change?'

Barack Obama's senior campaign adviser Robert Gibbs certainly didn't expect this question when he agreed to go on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday.

Right out of the gate host Bob Schieffer pressed his guest about all the negative ads the President's campaign is running until he finally asked, "Whatever happened to hope and change?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BOB SCHIEFFER: You know one of the refreshing changes when, when the President was elected, he talked about hope and change. Whatever happened to hope and change? Now, it seems he is just coming right out of the box with these old-fashioned negative ads that all campaigns seem to think are the basis of all campaigns now.

Granted this is an isolated incident, but isn't it refreshing to see a liberal media member like Schieffer actually ask one of the President's top advisers such a question?

Might we see more of this in the coming months, or was this the kind of honesty you only get on a long holiday weekend when very few people are anywhere near a television set?

On the other hand, if folks like Schieffer rather than buying into and disseminating candidate Obama's bogus hope and change mantra would have grilled the junior senator in 2008 about what his actual plan was as well as his qualifications for seeing it implemented, maybe the Face the Nation host wouldn't be asking this question today?

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/05/27/bob-schieffer-asks-obama-senior-adviser-gibbs-whatever-happened-hope#ixzz1wCidkbLd

Bivouac of the Dead

Bivouac of the Dead

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents to spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round
The bivouac of The dead

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;  
Nor troubled thought at midnight haunts  
Of loved ones left behind;  
No vision of the morrow's strife  
The warrior's dreams alarms;  
No braying horn or screaming fife  
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shriveled swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,  
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,  
Is now their martial shroud.  
And plenteous funeral tears have washed  
The red stains from each brow,  
And the proud forms, by battle gashed  
Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,  
The bugle's stirring blast,  
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;  
Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal  
Shall thrill with fierce delight  
Those breasts that nevermore may feel  
The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce Northern hurricane
That sweeps the great plateau,  
Flushed with triumph, yet to gain,
Come down the serried foe,  
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,
Knew the watchword of the day
Was "Victory or death!"

God Save The Queen

Next week begins the celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee

Sen. Rand Paul to Obama

Remembering our guardians at the gate - HUMAN EVENTS

Remembering our guardians at the gate - HUMAN EVENTS

Remembering our guardians at the gate
by Rep. Allen West05/28/2012

The solemn act of honoring those who have fallen in battle is a custom that seems to have faded in importance to our nation over time.

MSNBC's Chris Hayes: I'm 'Uncomfortable' Calling Fallen Military 'Heroes' | NewsBusters.org

Chris Hayes: I'm 'Uncomfortable' Calling Fallen Military 'Heroes' | NewsBusters.org

What a piece of walking crap this disgraceful bastard is!

Effete: affected, overrefined, and ineffectual; see "Chris Hayes." OK, I appended the name of the MSNBC host to the dictionary definition. But if ever you wanted to see the human embodiment of the adjective in action, have a look at the video from his MSNBC show this morning of the too-refined-by-half Hayes explaining why he is "uncomfortable" in calling America's fallen military members "heroes."

Hayes is worried that doing so is "rhetorically proximate" to justifications for more war. Oh, the rhetorical proximity! View the video after the jump.

In fairness, Hayes and the other panel members distinguished between their respect for the valor of the individual military members who had given their lives with the worthiness of the various causes in which they fought. Even so, what does it say about the liberal chattering class, which Hayes epitomizes, that it chokes on calling America's fallen what they rightly and surely are: heroes? Watch the hesitant Hayes in what almost seems a parody of the conflicted intellectual.

CHRIS HAYES: Thinking today and observing Memorial Day, that'll be happening tomorrow. Just talked with Lt. Col. Steve Burke [sic, actually Beck], who was a casualty officer with the Marines and had to tell people [inaudible]. Um, I, I, ah, back sorry, um, I think it's interesting because I think it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the words "heroes." Um, and, ah, ah, why do I feel so comfortable [sic] about the word "hero"? I feel comfortable, ah, uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don't want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that's fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism: hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I'm wrong about that.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2012/05/27/chris-hayes-im-uncomfortable-calling-fallen-military-heroes#ixzz1wBGCSByi

ROBBINS: Signing America's 'thank you' card - Washington Times

ROBBINS: Signing America's 'thank you' card - Washington Times

Have you ever personally thanked Vietnam veterans for their service and sacrifice? Now is your chance.

Vietnam-era vets still remember the shameful way they were treated when they came home from war. Their fathers who fought in World War II were given parades and lauded as the “Greatest Generation.” The Viet vets were met by brazen radicals who screamed “Baby-killers!” and spat on them. The vast majority of Americans - told by politicians and the press that the war in Southeast Asia was immoral and unwinnable - either did not understand how to honor the troops or were bullied into keeping private their pride in the achievements of our armed forces in that difficult conflict. Even today, the Vietnam veterans shake their heads in stoic sorrow over the treatment they received at the hands of their fellow citizens. All they ever wanted was to hear “Thank you.”

Fifty years after the war began, Americans have an opportunity to help right this wrong. On Memorial Day, Veterans in Defense of Liberty (VIDOL) is launching a yearlong Vietnam Veterans Thank You Card From America campaign. “The purpose of this nationwide effort is to repay that long-overdue debt of gratitude owed by our great nation to these deserving American heroes,” Executive Director W. Scott Magill, a former Marine noncommissioned officer and a Vietnam veteran, explains. “It is not political, accusatory or apologetic. It is solely for the purpose of finally doing the right thing while many Vietnam Veterans are still alive.”

Gallup: Veterans Overwhelmingly Support Romney

U.S. veterans, about 13% of the adult population and consisting mostly of older men, support Mitt Romney over Barack Obama for president by 58% to 34%, while nonveterans give Obama a four-percentage-point edge.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

NUGENT: God bless America's warriors - Washington Times

NUGENT: God bless America's warriors - Washington Times

Freedom isn’t free. Never has been, never will be. Very special warriors have provided freedom at supreme sacrifice since time immemorial. Good people will never forget, and we celebrate Memorial Day with a hard-charging spirit in appreciation for hard-charging warriors.

With his lifeblood pouring out of him from a mortal RPG wound to center mass, Pvt. 1st Class Todd Balding from Texas was, on the surface, but a bundle of red gauze and bandages, a jumble of tubes and numerous electronic apparatus beeping away. He was surrounded by a dedicated team of U.S. military medical experts at the Landstuhl hospital in Germany doing everything in their power to save the young American’s life.

Toby Keith and I literally stood in the young hero’s blood and said a very solemn prayer. Moments later, Pvt. 1st Class Todd Balding died. He was 21 years-old. He died fighting for freedom. That was one of many defining moments that struck me deep inside during my USO tour in 2004, and a defining moment in my life.

Toby and I were humbled beyond words to be allowed to join a presentation guard of warriors on the tarmac of the Iraq air base as we saluted a procession of flag-draped coffins being loaded onto a massive C-130 aircraft. Like our tears, the coffins just kept coming - and coming and coming and coming.

Pakistan no friend: U.S. must show some spine | New Hampshire OPINION01

Pakistan no friend: U.S. must show some spine | New Hampshire OPINION01

The minute a Pakistani court imposed a 33-year prison sentence on the doctor who assisted the CIA in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the U.S. was left with no option but to cut off all aid — immediately.

Pakistan, by its action, declares itself an enemy of this nation — and we cannot, under any circumstances, afford to reward our enemies.

The doctor, Shakil Afridi, 48, has been convicted of treason — for aiding the United States in finding the man responsible for 9/11. Treason. All because he used a vaccination drive to try to gather DNA samples from the compound where bin Laden was hiding. He did not succeed.

But can there be any doubt now that bin Laden was there, in hiding, with the full knowledge and backing of the Pakistani government? For, if that were not the case, why would there be a treason charge?

We have not been able to trust Pakistan for decades. It is time to end the charade.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Incredible But True

Federal debt on day Obama was innaugurated: $10.6 Trillion with T. Today: $15.7 Trillion. Debt up 47%. Gas prices up 104%

Grover Norquist

How To Kill The First Amendment

Fox News' Roger Ailes said this recently during an address at his alma mater, Ohio University: "I have one wish for OU, that it continues to be a place for open debate where people from different points of view with various opinions can meet and discuss these things openly. Because there will be no progress, and America will not survive, if we don't allow that open debate," Ailes said.

Ailes is right about the crucial importance of freedom of speech and thought in American life. The First Amendment is under intense attack from many points on the ideological compass, but mostly from the far Left.

The enemies of free speech and thought have lately turned to more subtle tools of suppression than merely shouting down speakers. Among these are extortionary threats to launch false charges of racism against companies that support politically incorrect groups, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council.

But far more sinister is the tactic adopted by Brett Kimberlin, an activist and the founder of the group Velvet Revolution who was convicted in 1981 of exploding eight bombs in 1978 in Speedway, Ind. One of his bombs blew off the leg of a man who subsequently committed suicide.

Nowadays, Kimberlin targets conservative bloggers like Aaron Worthing and Robert Stacy McCain in Maryland, and Patrick Frey of Patterico's Pontifications in California. Why? For publishing facts about Kimberlin's criminal record.

Kimberlin harasses his targets by, among many other ways, filing false charges in courts that require expensive, time-consuming litigation, disrupting his targets' workplaces, and dropping dark hints about spouses and kids.

Here's how Patterico describes Kimberlin's tactics against Worthing in seeking a "peace order": "It is beyond the scope of this post to detail every way in which Kimberlin's peace order is misleading and deceptive. Kimberlin complains that Aaron spoke of purchasing a gun, implying that Aaron's statement was aggressive -- when Aaron actually said he had bought a gun to defend himself.

"Kimberlin claims that Aaron is responsible for 'alerts' coming to his email inbox, suggesting Aaron is emailing him, when in fact the 'alerts' Kimberlin is talking about are Google alerts. If you write about this guy on the Internet, he may run to a judge and say you are causing abusive alerts to come to his email.

"You might say: What's the harm in getting a peace order? I have watched this play out in other venues and I know just what Kimberlin is up to. As soon as he gets a 'peace order,' he will run back to court the very next time Aaron mentions his name in public.

"That means that Kimberlin asserts the right to abuse the court process to harass Aaron -- and if Aaron tells the world how Kimberlin is abusing the court process, Kimberlin will claim that as a violation of the peace order and try to have Aaron held in contempt of court."

Unless these tactics are vigorously repudiated by the First Amendment's friends across the ideological spectrum, our Constitution will become little more than a parchment barrier to oppression.

The groups that Kimberlin has founded and associated with since his release from prison have received more than $1.5 million in grant support, much of it from liberal foundations -- the Tides Foundation, Streisand Foundation and Heinz Foundation -- according to Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center. Vadum wonders if they know (or care) how their donors' money is being spent.

So count me today with Michelle Malkin, Instapundit's Glenn Harlan Reynolds, blogger Lee Stranahan, PJMedia's Tatler and many others with one message for the Brett Kimberlins among us: Get your hands off our First Amendment.

This isn't about Left and Right, it's about liberty versus tyranny.

Mark Tapscott

Some Gave Nothing!

Memorial Day 2012

On, Wisconsin! Scott Waler's Reforms Are Working!

On, Wisconsin!

"This is what democracy looks like.” That was the boast of protesters occupying the Wisconsin state capitol 16 months ago as they blocked Republican lawmakers from entering the legislature and celebrated Democratic state senators who had fled the state to avoid a vote on Governor Scott Walker’s budget reforms. So in some respects it’s fitting that a process launched in the intellectual incoherence of those early days will end with an election to recall an official whose offense is doing as governor the things he promised as a candidate he’d do. This is not, of course, what democracy looks like—at least not what it ought to look like.

KNIGHT: Obama's politics of envy - Washington Times

We Band of Brothers

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his
blood with me, Shall be my brother; be ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle
his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed, Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhood's cheap whiles any speaks, That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."
- William Shakespeare ("King Henry V")

Friday, May 25, 2012

Conservative Quote

"Tax rates measure the nation’s most important and costly entitlement program; how much of a person’s income politicians are entitled to take."

James Bovard, Lost Rights, 1994

Remembering 2012: Charlie Daniels

This weekend is Memorial Day Weekend when we remember, reflect and pay homage to all the men and women who have paid the ultimate price for the freedom and prosperity we call the American way of life.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. It came into being after the Civil War as a day set aside to honor the Union war dead, but actually Southern ladies organizations and school children had decorated the graves of the Confederate dead even as the civil war was going on.

Each area had its own date to decorate and though they may have been different they were all usually in the month of May.

In the 20th Century the dates were solidified and held to honor all America's war dead and the name was changed to Memorial Day. It marks the beginning of summer, with Labor Day marking the end.

I can't think of any place on earth where the deep respect American Patriots have for our heroes is as well represented as the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.

This solemn, dignified ceremony is symbolic in honoring all who have given their lives in the service of this nation, whether their remains are buried at Arlington, Flanders Field or any number of Veterans Cemeteries around the United States and the world.

Patriotism has always come easy to me and has been an essential part of my life since the earliest days of my remembrance.

I remember the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, I remember D-Day, Iwo Jima, the taking of Berlin and the dropping of the first atomic bombs on Japan and I remember the day our long national nightmare was finally over.

I remember Korea, Viet Nam, and the Cold War and of course our wars against Iraq and Afghanistan and I have always had a special place in my heart for the warriors who stood between my family and the enemy.

I intend to take the time to stop and reflect this weekend on the price America has paid to remain the land of the free and the home of the brave and the men and women who have bore the brunt of that price and paid for our freedom.

I want to remember the families who have had to face up to the fact that the empty place at the dinner table will never be filled and the empty place in their hearts will be there all their lives, and I will marvel at the kind of strength and courage it takes to pull through such a tragedy.

I want to remember the young men who stormed the beaches and left their Iife’s blood on the sands of Normandy on D-Day.

I want to remember men who fought through the jungles of Asia to bring the Japanese Imperial army to its knees.

I want to remember those who manned the foxholes in Europe and chased the Nazis all the way to Berlin.

I want to remember the warriors in Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Afghanistan.

I want to remember and pay honor and homage to those who put their lives on the line for this nation from the Revolutionary War to the present day.

And to the men and women who have served and those who are still serving, I humbly thank you, I support you and I salute you.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, and for our country.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

See more "Right Views, Right Now" opinion and analysis.

EPA holds 12-hour hearings with environmentalists to slow coal production | The Daily Caller

The Environmental Protection Agency held 12 hours of stacked hearings in Washington, D.C. and Chicago on Thursday in favor of a regulation that analysts have concluded would kill the building of new conventional coal plants in the U.S.

Among the participants scheduled to testify in consecutive five minute blocks throughout the day were multiple representatives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and environmental activists from the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace.

The proposed rule, reported by The Washington Post in March, limits the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by power plants to no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour. While the EPA is keeping public comments on the regulation open until June 25, the dice have already been cast by the Obama administration against conventional coal plants, fulfilling a January 2008 campaign promise by the president.

RealClearPolitics - Perhaps Obama Is Not That Bright DUH!

RealClearPolitics - Obama Is Not That Bright

Barack Obama is the smartest man with the highest IQ ever to be elected to the presidency, historian Michael Beschloss told radio talk show host Don Imus in November of 2008.

"So what is his IQ?" Mr. Imus asked. Mr. Beschloss didn't know. He was just assuming.

Many shared that assumption. Adjectives frequently applied to Mr. Obama are "smart" (278 million hits on Google), "intelligent" (62 million) and "brilliant" (24 million).

There is little evidence to support it. Mr. Obama went to Harvard, but so did George W. Bush, who some liberals consider dumber than dirt. The president won't release his transcripts, so we can't judge by his grades. Mr. Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review, but when he was selected, popularity mattered more than scholarship.

Mr. Obama joined an undistinguished law firm, where he tried no cases. So no help there.

Many cite the president's oratorical skills, but he often rambles when he speaks without a teleprompter. That's because his brain "is moving so fast that the mouth can't keep up," wrote Meghan Daum of the Los Angeles Times.

Columnist Joe Klein said Mr. Obama's first autobiography "may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician." But Mr. Obama got help writing "Dreams from My Father" from "his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers," celebrity journalist Christopher Andersen claimed in his 2009 biography of Barack and Michelle.

Memorial Day 2012: God Bless Those Who Have Given The Last Full Measure of Devotion

"These heroes are dead. They died for liberty - they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless Place of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars - they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the living; tears for the dead."

~Robert G. Ingersoll

Mitt Romney's Moment - WSJ.com

It's been a good week for Mitt Romney. The polls are up, he's just off a two-day swing through Connecticut and New York, where he hauled in big donors and hard money, and he swept the GOP primaries in Kentucky and Arkansas. On Tuesday Texas will put him over the top and make him, formally and officially, the Republican nominee for president.

Not everything worked—his big education speech Wednesday was wan and pallid—but he's having a moment. In a telephone interview, he reflected on the campaign, tracing his candidacy's upward momentum to an increased sense among voters that the country is on the wrong path and, perhaps, a growing sense that he's proved himself: "I can tell you that we went through those 37 or 38 contests and won the must-win states, and in some cases we started off 10 points behind. And we hustled, worked hard, and convinced the voters." This produced "the kind of track record that people say, 'You know, I think if Mitt can keep that up, in November we're going to see a new president.'"