American Tyrants

Monday, January 30, 2012
By Daniel Greenfield

When Elizabeth Warren went on MSNBC to deny that she was a member of the 1 percent despite her nearly 15 million dollar net worth, the denial had a cultural element to it. Despite being a millionaire, Warren did not see herself as "wealthy".

 

 

The current debate over the 1 percent and the 99 percent is notable mainly for the shifting boundaries that are not based on economics, but on identity. For all its 'Power to the People' antics American liberalism is not a movement of struggling people, there is a reason why the word limousine so often comes before liberal. Its roots lie in an upper class New England strata that relentlessly fought against Southern Baptists and working class Catholic immigrants. Those roots define modern day liberals much more so than the Jacksonian populism that they occasionally try to imitate. 

The American liberal is not a populist, he is still a New England preacher, but without a religion to preach. He has a great faith in the virtues of an ordered moral society, even if that ordered moral society would have been completely incomprehensible and unacceptable to his forebears. It is a society based on the virtues of tolerance and the rule of the enlightened.

The inflow of the European left has brought in a strain of power to the people populism, but that has not made the American liberal take seriously the notion that the people whose rights he defends are his intellectual or social equals, no more than the 19th century New York Republicans patting African-Americans on the head while stomping on the Irish viewed either group as equals.

American liberalism has traveled a slightly altered road to get to the same place. But its place is still at the top and everyone else's place is still at the bottom. Its persistent denial of this basic truth leads to the perennial absurdity of millionaires like Elizabeth Warren playing class warrior when the only class they represent is the class of people who work for the government.

The oligarchy which is busy bleeding the country dry does not represent any group of working people anywhere in the country. Not Protestant or Catholic, black or white, or of any other creed or identity. Like every ideology incarnated in a system, it represents its own interests. The Democratic Party is the government party. It exists to create jobs in government, to dispense government subsidies and to expand the power and scope of its organization. It is not fundamentally any different than Putin's United Russia or Israel's Kadima or similar political creatures around the world.

The strange intermarriage of New England moralists, New York merchants and European radicals eventually led to a system of pushing immigrants into government service, mandating tolerance and running every aspect of human life through Washington D.C. It took a while to get there, but the system is a decade or two away from being complete. When it is complete then all our lives will be run in every possible way by the Elizabeth Warrens who will smile condescendingly at us, nudge us in the direction we are supposed to go, and when we don't go there, then the fines and the tasers come out.

No matter how far back you go, the roots of American liberalism lie in a fear of the people, a distrust of the great unwashed. American liberals have championed voting rights, so long as they were confident that those voting were their inferiors and could be herded into voting the right way. They have always distrusted the instincts of the public, no matter how much pious ink they spilled fighting on their behalf.

That view of man's sinful nature still informs their deepest thinkers, and the sins are still the same, the failure of fellowship, the refusal to consider the welfare of others and march in lockstep to create that ideal society. The New Jerusalem of universal brotherhood. Those ideas have been dressed up in modern clothing, transmitted as denunciations of racism and bigotry, immigration advocacy and hate crime laws, but underneath is the same notion that a society of good will to all can be forced through rigorous regimentation by the truly enlightened.

 

 

The populism of the American liberal is a cynical dumbshow where representatives of the oppressed gather in conclaves to demand more oppression by their liberal oppressors. This spectacle is at the heart of a political oligarchy, which like every oligarchy is built on government subsidies and special access to power for the privileged. And like all oligarchies it must disguise its nature by playing the protector of the people. Unlike them it must also disguise its true nature from itself.

The convergence of the ideal society and the government society was inevitable from the start. It took a while to overcome the technological and cultural barriers to running an entire country from a central point. Those barriers have never been truly overcome, but the technocratic mirage makes it seem as if they have been. And the ongoing faith in a perfectible society run by the saints makes it seem as if it must be.

The American liberal would still like to play at being humble, a 99 percenter fighting against the chimera of a 1 percent oligarchy. But the entire 99 percent theme is that the 1 percent isn't paying enough taxes. And whom do those taxes go to but to the administration and employment of the professional class warrior millionaires.

It is the very Everest of hypocrisy for the members of the oligarchy to be bemoaning all the extra tax money that could be used to pay their six figure salaries, while passing off their naked greed as a crusade on behalf of the oppressed.

There is nothing of working class advocacy in a government party looking to shovel more tax revenues into the insatiable gaping maw of its bureaucratic machinery. The idea that those monies will be used to help the downtrodden is a delusion that a brief glimpse at how much money went to connected companies and to the expansion of the government bureaucracy should easily cure. This isn't any 99 percent at work here. It's the 9 percent against the 63 percent.

Warren thinks of herself as not wealthy because despite her millions, she is engaged in the pious practice of public service. However big her financial resources may be, they are part of the collective whole of the oligarchy and in a different category altogether from the wealth that is earned or inherited.

To the American liberal, riches are not a matter of economics, but of identity. Wealth is a moral entity, not an economic one. What distinguishes pious millionaires like Warren from the heathens who make their money the old fashioned way is that the former achieve it through the moral pursuit of the public good, which is all the more pious for taking them to a Harvard professorship or a job in government, while the latter achieve it through economic transactions in the private sector. The former is a form of public service, the latter is public exploitation.

But a closer look at the bones and carcass of this system turns those definitions on their head. It is the Warrens who are the exploiters, consuming the wealth of a nation and spawning more committees, regulations and regulatory committees to keep on feeding off the wealth. What they give to us in exchange for what they take is not a service, it is oppression masquerading as feudal protectionism.

The American liberal is eager to protect us from powerful interests, but who will protect us from his protection, and who will turn off that protection and the money it costs us to pay for it, and worse still the freedoms that are consumed in order that we may be properly protected from ourselves.

 

 

No tyrant looks in a mirror and sees an oppressor. Tyrants are always protectors of the people. And our own American Tyrants are equally certain that they are the protectors of a people who would otherwise run off cliffs, throw lawn darts at each other, tear the tags off mattresses, make racist jokes, open pill bottles too easily, have inappropriate opinions and reinforce the oppressive heteronormative patriarchy which they have thoughtfully replaced with a vast echoing bureaucratic state in which everyone is free to be different in the same way.

The American liberal does not like the people very much. Most disguise it a bit better than Elizabeth Warren but that discomfort is always there. And the discomfort comes with a distrust. They don't like us and they don't trust the sort of shenanigans we might get up to when they aren't looking. Instead they are always looking, always nudging, always telling us what to think and how to live and otherwise protecting us from ourselves.

The tyrannical impulses were always there in American liberalism and like water on lilies, power brought them forth. Now we live under a system which strangles us to protect us from ever getting rid of it. The men and women strangling us smile awkwardly and tell us that it is for our own good. This tyranny for our own good requires that they toss aside our laws and replace them with their own. It requires that they spend us into bankruptcy, with much of the proceeds going to them, but in the name of a higher cause. And it demands that we praise them and if we won't do that, then it demands that we shut up and stop broadcasting our dissatisfaction. There is no place in their ideal national community for people like us.

Sultan Knish

The Republican Establishment's Strategic Blunder

January 30, 2012
By Steve McCann

The Republican Party has a tenuous hold on the conservative movement in America.   At present the only home for the 40 per cent of the electorate that identify themselves as conservative is the Republican Party, but it appears that those who are nominally identified as the "Republican Establishment" are doing all they can to alienate the vast majority of the current base of the Party.

There is no office on Connecticut Avenue in Washington with a sign reading "The Republican Establishment" or the "The Democratic Establishment"; rather it is an amalgam of like-minded groups with one common interest: control of the government purse-strings.

The Republican Establishment is made up of the following:  1) many current and nearly all retired Republican national office holders whose livelihood and narcissistic demands depends upon fealty to Party and access to government largesse; 2) the majority of the conservative media, including pundits, editors, writers and television news personalities based in Washington and New York whose proximity to power and access is vital to their continued standard of living;  3) numerous think-tanks and members thereof who are waiting to latch on to the next Republican administration for employment and ego-gratification; and 4) the reliable deep pocket political contributors and political consultants whose future is irrevocably tied to the political machinery of the Party.

The overriding interest of this cabal has been and continues to be: the accumulation of power through the control of the income, borrowing and spending by the Federal Government.   Thus, with the exception of the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the Republican controlled House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999, the Republican members of the Ruling Class have been content since 1952 to merely slow down the big-government policies of the Democrats while publicly decrying their tax and spend policies.

This insider apparatus has been the primary determining factor in whom among those choosing to run for office will receive the financial, media and logistical support so vital for any political campaign, but particularly for national office be it the Presidency or either house of Congress.   It is this cabal that has given the nation Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush and John McCain in the presidential sweepstakes and innumerable go-along to get-along members of Congress.

This scenario was tolerated and generally ignored as long as the nation was experiencing overwhelming and seemingly endless prosperity.   The one major accomplishment of Barack Obama has been to bring a sudden and abrupt end the people's ability to tolerate this tacitly understood game between the two major Parties. 

The majority of the American people, but in particular those who identify themselves as conservative, are overwhelmingly aware of the true nature of the nation's problems and the crossroad the country is facing in 2012.   The grassroots rebellion that is the Tea Party movement was the first manifestation of this awareness.  Despite the success of the Tea Party working within the Republican Party in the 2010 mid-term elections, most of the Republican elites downplayed their success and fell-in with the mainstream media and the Democrats in their well-worn and gratuitous aspersions against those in fly-over country.

The rank and file members of the Party and conservatives throughout the country are now keenly aware of the opinion the Establishment has of them, as well as what has been going on behind the curtains in Washington.  The current Republican nominating process has further exposed the true nature of the Establishment and their self-centered concerns.

It has been apparent for over a year that Mitt Romney has been chosen to be the next Republican nominee for president.   He is next in line and has the track record and inclination to slow down but not reverse the downward spiral in which the nation finds itself; but above all to fall in line with what is expected of a Republican insider.  Perhaps coincidentally, he has spent many millions of dollars hiring consultants and beltway pros, and has the fundraising capacity and personal wealth to keep on employing them.  Thus he is the ideal candidate of the Establishment.  

However a major problem has arisen.   The machinations utilized in the past (with the exception of Ronald Reagan who was not the Establishment's choice) to maneuver the primary voters into choosing the previously anointed Mitt Romney has now come out in the open as the awakened silent majority is no longer willing to be fooled or taken for granted.  

There are six primary methods of eliminating potential challengers with the tacit cooperation of the mainstream media, and they have been in full display this primary season.   They are to portray unacceptable candidates as:  

• hypocrites in sexual matters (Herman Cain); or
• unstable (Michelle Bachmann); or
• ignorant and incoherent (Rick Perry); or
• a religious fanatic (Rick Santorum); or
• just plain weird and from another planet (Ron Paul); or
• dangerous and unelectable (Newt Gingrich).

Sarah Palin would have been placed in all of those boxes had she decided to run, as well as anyone else deemed not acceptable to the elites.

However, the collective and coordinated vitriol and false or misleading accusations against Newt Gingrich by virtually all in the Establishment, led by the so-called conservative media, is unprecedented.  Twice he has arisen, after being vilified and shunted aside, to challenge Mitt Romney and perhaps win the nomination; but the fact that he has been successful in fighting for conservative ideals but in an unorthodox and often contentious, and at times unreliable, fashion has the Establishment in near hysterics.   All the other challengers were easily eliminated or made irrelevant, as they did not have the money or experience of knowing how the game is played, but Newt refused to just slink away.  Never has the Republican Establishment trained its guns on any one candidate in such an unbridled and unrestrained way.

Perhaps Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or Ron Paul are not the right candidates to face Barack Obama, but that decision should be up to the voters.  While it maybe the role of the conservative pundit class to proffer their opinions of the various candidates, it is not the role of the overall Establishment to so marginalize candidates that there appears to be only one viable alternative. 

The Establishment could not have made a more strategic blunder.   They will, in all likelihood, succeed in securing the nomination for Mitt Romney, but the damage they have inflicted upon themselves is approaching irreversible.  The public now sees the length to which the Establishment will go to make certain their hand-picked candidate is chosen regardless of the dire circumstances facing the nation.

Average Republican or conservative voters are the same people that buy the books or magazines or subscribe to the websites, as well as buy tickets to hear speeches by the conservative pundit class.   These are the same people asked to open their wallets to support the Party every two years.   These are the same people asked to volunteer at the polls and get out the vote.   These are the same people who were told every election cycle to trust the Party and its attendant establishment to solve the nations' ills.

A number of them (how many is anyone's guess right now) will no longer be willing to support those factions within the Establishment and the Party or to believe what they are told.  These are the people suffering the consequences of the disastrous policies pursued over previous decades, while those in the Establishment live lives of relative ease and comfort, which seems to be their primary concern.

American Thinker

Media Blackout in Obama Georgia Ballot Eligibility Case

January 30, 2012
By Cindy Simpson

Last week, I noted that Obama turned his back not just on Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer, but also on the laws of the State of Georgia.  I closed my column, "Georgia Ballot Challenge: Obama Walks on By," with the observation: "And most of the media has followed along right behind him."

At the time, I had just witnessed an historic hearing that actually discussed the eligibility of the sitting president of the United States to run for a second term.  The president had been subpoenaed to appear, and instead of his attorney respectfully following protocol to have that subpoena recalled, both Obama and his attorney, Michael Jablonski, simply failed to show up at all or offer any defense whatsoever.

Isn't there a headline in there somewhere?

The hearing proceeded as planned, even though the table for the defense was empty.  Attorneys Van Irion and J. Mark Hatfield presented their cases first and offered compelling arguments -- not regarding Obama's birthplace, but rather that the non-U.S. citizenship of Obama's father precluded Obama's "natural born" eligibility under the Constitution and existing Supreme Court precedent.  Attorney Orly Taitz, however, did present interesting evidence that questioned the validity of Obama's birth certificate and questions surrounding his Social Security number.

When the hearing ended, the media in attendance almost literally pounced on Taitz.  Irion and Hatfield and their clients had left the premises earlier, while Taitz was still presenting her case; however, Irion asserted to me that not one member of the press stopped them on their way out.  Doubtless the media did not want to discuss the law -- they'd rather write their usual stories on the birth certificate and interview the one they've dubbed the "birther queen."

Attorney Taitz handled herself well, even though the press taunted her with rudeness and leading questions she has doubtless experienced many times.  After the reporters finished letting Taitz feel the full extent of their contempt for both her and the entire morning's event, they packed up to leave.

I walked up to one particular reporter from one of the prominent mainstream entities, noting that he seemed frustrated that he didn't get a clear answer from Taitz to one of his questions, and I informed him that I did know the exact answer, if he'd like to hear more about it.  He said no, he didn't.  I asked then, wasn't he a reporter, and why did he ask the question if he didn't want the answer?  And as I was speaking, he turned and walked away from me.

The same thing happened with another reporter from another major network.  He had asked Taitz why no one cared that there were past presidents who had fathers not born in the country.  I explained to him that it was not the place of birth of the presidents' fathers that was the issue, but rather the status of their citizenship at the time of their sons' births.  The reporter scoffed and told me that that was just my opinion, but when I attempted to inform him that it was also the opinion of the Supreme Court, he turned and walked away from me while I was in mid-sentence.

Does this behavior seem familiar?

Even though I saw reporters from every major network on the scene, the actual reporting of the event was scant -- primarily only in blogs or local news.  Google "Georgia Ballot Challenge" and note the non-mainstream coverage of the event.

Rachel Maddow must not have gotten the memo, though, because she dedicated a full 8 minutes of her January 26 show to telling her viewers why they should "feel almost duty-bound as a patriot to ignore" the hearing and not to "dignify this nonsense or elevate it by paying it any attention."  Not only were none of the legal points addressed in the hearings brought up by Maddow, but Maddow excused the extraordinary fact that Obama and his counsel, instead of respecting the law, had simply snubbed it, calling the case "ridiculous."

As Sunny of Sunny TV points out in this hilarious but uncomfortably true video, "Tyranny is as Tyranny Does"; "[l]et's just hope the next President is just as benevolent as Obama because they could really use that power for bad."  At the end of the clip, as Sunny pretends she is Obama, issuing orders right and left, she points to her crown and says: "This makes me in charge."  As Teri O'Brien noted in her interview discussing Obama's penchant for walking away from those with whom he disagrees, "[g]ods don't debate.  They issue decrees."
Attorney Irion, in this follow-up letter from his Liberty Legal Foundation, pointed out: "Yesterday President Obama completely ignored a court subpoena, and the world shrugged."

Yes, Obama shrugged, and the media has shrugged along.  Irion further noted:

Obama's behavior yesterday is even more disturbing than Nixon's. Nixon at least respected the judicial branch enough to have his attorneys show up in court and follow procedure[.] ... Nixon acknowledged the authority of the judicial branch even while he fought it. Obama, on the other hand, essentially said yesterday that the judicial branch has no power over him. He ordered his attorneys to stay away from the hearing. He didn't petition a higher court in a legitimate attempt to stay the hearing[.] ... Rather than respecting the legal process, Obama went around the courts and tried to put political pressure directly on the Georgia Secretary of State. When that failed, he simply ignored the judicial branch completely.

It is disconcerting to see that the president, whose primary duty is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, has turned his back on the rule of law of one of those states.  Especially, as 

Sunny uncomfortably reminded us, since this is the same president who routinely sidesteps the law or places himself above it. 

Even more troubling is the fact that the mainstream media not only seems to approve -- but they fail to report it at all.

American Thinker

Challenging U.S. Census Policy of Counting Illegal Aliens When Apportioning Seats in Congress

by Tom Fitton 

Are you aware that the U.S. Census Bureau counts illegal aliens when determining how many seats in Congress a state should receive? That means states with large illegal alien populations are now receiving a disproportionate amount of seats in Congress and therefore more power in establishing national policy.




Judicial Watch is now involved in a high-stakes legal campaign to put a stop to this unconstitutional policy.
Recently, we filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the State of Louisiana challenging the current federal policy in which “unlawfully present aliens” were counted in the 2010 Census (Louisiana v. Bryson).

The government used these census numbers to reapportion seats in the House of Representatives and, as a result, the State of Louisiana lost a House seat to which it was entitled. Louisiana is asking that the Supreme Court order the federal government to recalculate the 2010 apportionment of House seats based upon legal residents as the U.S. Constitution requires.

Judicial Watch, in partnership with the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF), filed the brief on January 13, 2012, in a lawsuit filed by the State of Louisiana against John Bryson, U.S. Secretary of Commerce; Robert Groves, Director of the U.S. Census Bureau; and Karen Lehman Hass, Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here’s a brief excerpt from our amicus:

Amici are concerned about the failure to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and the corrosive effect of this failure on our institutions and the rule of law. Among the problems caused by this failure is a redistribution of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives to States with large populations of unlawfully present aliens.

Amici respectfully submit that neither Article I Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment, or any other provision of the Constitution authorize or permit the inclusion of unlawfully present aliens in the apportionment process. As a result, this case raises issues critical not just to Louisiana, but to every State, every American citizen, and our federal system of government.

Judicial Watch argues that, due to this Census Bureau policy, at least five states will lose House seats to which they are entitled.

For example, based upon the Census Bureau’s calculation, Louisiana is being allocated only six House seats, as opposed to the seven that it would have been apportioned, were it not for the inclusion of illegal aliens and “non-immigrant foreign nationals,” which encompasses holders of student visas and guest workers. The brief also notes that the “apportionment, in turn, determines the apportionment of electors in the Electoral College for the next three presidential elections.”

It is the contention of the State of Louisiana, Judicial Watch, and AEF that “the policy of counting unlawfully present aliens in the nation’s decennial census is unconstitutional and undermines both our federal system of government and our democratic institutions,” and is the “direct result of the failure to enforce our nation’s immigration laws.”

In other words, the U.S. Census is distorting the democratic process.

And the problem is only going to get worse considering the Obama administration’s hostility to enforcing illegal immigration laws, which is causing greater numbers of illegal aliens to flood into the country. You can see how that this failure to enforce immigration law undermines a foundational aspect of our democracy. We are pleased to join with the Allied Educational Foundation to file this amicus curiae brief in support of the State of Louisiana and the rule of law. And we hope the Supreme Court takes up this historic case and vindicates the right of American citizens to have full representation in Washington.

Big Government

Friday Night Document Dump Show Eric Holder Was Informed of Border Agent’s Death Immediately

 

by MRC TV 

Operation ‘Fast and Furious’ has taken a new turn.

Late Friday night, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released documents that show Attorney General Eric Holder was alerted of border patrol agent Brian Terry’s death the day it occurred- contradicting Holder’s statements when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2011. At the time, Holder said he was informed of Terry’s murder only “a few weeks” before the hearing.

Matthew Boyle at the Daily Caller has the story:

“An email from one official, whose name has been redacted from the document, to now-former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke reads: “On December 14, 2010, a BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol operations 18 miles north of the international boundary when he encountered [redacted word] unidentified subjects. Shots were exchanged resulting in the agent being shot. At this time, the agent is being transported to an area where he can be air lifted to an emergency medical center.”

That email was sent at 2:31 a.m. on the day Terry was shot. One hour later, a follow-up email read: “Our agent has passed away.”

Burke forwarded those two emails to Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff Monty Wilkinson later that morning, adding that the incident was “not good” because it happened “18 miles w/in” the border.
Wilkinson responded to Burke shortly thereafter and said the incident was “tragic.” “I’ve alerted the AG [Holder], the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.”


Then, later that day, Burke followed up with Wilkinson after Burke discovered from officials whose names are redacted that the guns used to kill Terry were from Fast and Furious. “The guns found in the desert near the murder BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about – they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store,” Burke wrote to Wilkinson.

“I’ll call tomorrow,” Wilkinson responded.”

Read the full story here. For more on ‘Fast and Furious’, click here.

(Place video here) http://www.mrctv.org/videos/obama-holder-not-aware-what-was-happening-fast-furious

Follow MRCTV on Facebook and Twitter.

Big Government

Cannibals in GOP Establishment Employ Tactics of the Left

by Sarah Palin on Friday, January 27, 2012 

 We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.

We will look back on this week and realize that something changed. I have given numerous interviews wherein I espoused the benefits of thorough vetting during aggressive contested primary elections, but this week’s tactics aren’t what I meant. Those who claim allegiance to Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment should stop and think about where we are today. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, the fathers of the modern conservative movement, would be ashamed of us in this primary. Let me make clear that I have no problem with the routine rough and tumble of a heated campaign. As I said at the first Tea Party convention two years ago, I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. I’ve seen it before – heck, I lived it before – but not in a GOP primary race.

I am sadly too familiar with these tactics because they were used against the GOP ticket in 2008. The left seeks to single someone out and destroy his or her record and reputation and family using the media as a channel to dump handpicked and half-baked campaign opposition research on the public. The difference in 2008 was that I was largely unknown to the American public, so they had no way of differentiating between the lies and the truth. All of it came at them at once as “facts” about me. But Newt Gingrich is known to us – both the good and the bad.

We know that Newt fought in the trenches during the Reagan Revolution. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, Newt was among a handful of Republican Congressman who would regularly take to the House floor to defend Reagan at a time when conservatives didn’t have Fox News or talk radio or conservative blogs to give any balance to the liberal mainstream media. Newt actually came at Reagan’s administration “from the right” to remind Americans that freer markets and tougher national defense would win our future. But this week a few handpicked and selectively edited comments which Newt made during his 40-year career were used to claim that Newt was somehow anti-Reagan and isn’t conservative enough to go against the accepted moderate in the primary race. (I know, it makes no sense, and the GOP establishment hopes you won’t stop and think about this nonsense. Mark Levin and others have shown the ridiculousness of this.) To add insult to injury, this “anti-Reagan” claim was made by a candidate who admitted to not even supporting or voting for Reagan. He actually was against the Reagan movement, donated to liberal candidates, and said he didn’t want to go back to the Reagan days. You can’t change history. We know that Newt Gingrich brought the Reagan Revolution into the 1990s. We know it because none other than Nancy Reagan herself announced this when she presented Newt with an award, telling us, “The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century.  Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.” As Rush and others pointed out, if Nancy Reagan had ever thought that Newt was in any way an opponent of her beloved husband, she would never have even appeared on a stage with him, let alone presented him with an award and said such kind things about him. Nor would Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, have chosen to endorse Newt in this primary race. There are no two greater keepers of the Reagan legacy than Nancy and Michael Reagan. What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst.

But this whole thing isn’t really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on. In fact, the establishment has been just as dismissive of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Newt is an imperfect vessel for Tea Party support, but in South Carolina the Tea Party chose to get behind him instead of the old guard’s choice. In response, the GOP establishment voices denounced South Carolinian voters with the same vitriol we usually see from the left when they spew hatred at everyday Americans “bitterly clinging” to their faith and their Second Amendment rights. The Tea Party was once again told to sit down and shut up and listen to the “wisdom” of their betters. We were reminded of the litany of Tea Party endorsed candidates in 2010 who didn’t win. Well, here’s a little newsflash to the establishment: without the Tea Party there would have been no historic 2010 victory at all.

I spoke up before the South Carolina primary to urge voters there to keep this primary going because I have great concern about the GOP establishment trying to anoint a candidate without the blessing of the grassroots and all the needed energy and resources we as commonsense constitutional conservatives could bring to the general election in order to defeat President Obama. Now, I respect Governor Romney and his success. But there are serious concerns about his record and whether as a politician he consistently applied conservative principles and how this impacts the agenda moving forward. The questions need answers now. That is why this primary should not be rushed to an end. We need to vet this. Pundits in the Beltway are gleefully proclaiming that this primary race is over after Florida, despite 46 states still not having chimed in. Well, perhaps it’s possible that it will come to a speedy end in just four days; but with these questions left unanswered, it will not have come to a satisfactory conclusion. Without this necessary vetting process, the unanswered question of Governor Romney’s conservative bona fides and the unanswered and false attacks on Newt Gingrich will hang in the air to demoralize many in the electorate. The Tea Party grassroots will certainly feel disenfranchised and disenchanted with the perceived orchestrated outcome from self-proclaimed movers and shakers trying to sew this all up. And, trust me, during the general election, Governor Romney’s statements and record in the private sector will be relentlessly parsed over by the opposition in excruciating detail to frighten off swing voters. This is why we need a fair primary that is not prematurely cut short by the GOP establishment using Alinsky tactics to kneecap Governor Romney’s chief rival.

As I said in my speech in Iowa last September, the challenge of this election is not simply to replace President Obama. The real challenge is who and what we will replace him with. It’s not enough to just change up the uniform. If we don’t change the team and the game plan, we won’t save our country. We truly need sudden and relentless reform in Washington to defend our republic, though it’s becoming clearer that the old guard wants anything but that. That is why we should all be concerned by the tactics employed by the establishment this week. We will not save our country by becoming like the left. And I question whether the GOP establishment would ever employ the same harsh tactics they used on Newt against Obama. I didn’t see it in 2008. Many of these same characters sat on their thumbs in ‘08 and let Obama escape unvetted. Oddly, they’re now using every available microscope and endoscope – along with rewriting history – in attempts to character assassinate anyone challenging their chosen one in their own party’s primary. So, one must ask, who are they really running against?

- Sarah Palin

New York Times Fails to Mention Gingrich Was Cleared Of Ethics Charges

Posted by John Sexton Jan 29th 2012 at 4:58 am in Featured Story, GOP, Mainstream Media, New York Times, elections 2012, media bias

This is what real journalism looks like, folks. Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes a 2,300 word piece about Newt Gingrich’s relationship to ethics charges (those brought by and against him) that ends with this rehash of his fall from grace:

In the end, nearly all of the charges were dismissed. But the ethics committee did find that Mr. Gingrich had used tax-exempt money to promote Republican goals, and given the panel inaccurate information for its inquiry.

Mr. Gingrich formally apologized, conceding he had brought discredit on the House. He had always   regarded himself as a “transformative figure” who would change the course of history, but on Jan. 21, 1997, he made history in another way.

The House voted 395-28 to reprimand him and fine him $300,000, making him the first speaker ever disciplined for unethical conduct.

That’s it. That’s how the tale ends. It’s as if they’ve quoted Newt’s history but added an invisible ellipsis over the final portion of the story. This is a doctored quote of the record. This is “agenda journalism.”

Do you think it’s relevant that after the events described above Democrats campaigned for a further investigation? Is it relevant that the IRS took them up on it, and that after more than three years determined that Newt did nothing wrong? Simply put, all the charges, even the ones Newt was reprimanded for, were bogus. Is any of that worth mentioning in a front page story on the topic at the New York Times?

The real journalists at the NY Times have simply decided their readers don’t need to know the rest of the story.

Big Journalism

Keystone XL and Obama's Subjugation Economics

January 23, 2012
By J. Robert Smith

Are there some days you want to say to liberals: "I want a divorce.  You take both coasts, the college towns, and we'll divvy up the Blue States (or carve out regions within those states, lest conservatives are forsaken)." 

President Barack Obama's decision to nix the Keystone XL pipeline was one of those days when divorce seemed more sensible than attempting reconciliation.  The president's Keystone decision is yet another in a long train of affronts, insults, and harm that the left has inflicted on the American economy and the American worker.  We're talking decades-worth of assaults on free enterprise and the enterprising -- you know, the enterprising: the men and women who create jobs.

What needs to be appreciated is that, concerning Keystone, Mr. Obama and the left aren't just blinkered ideologues with good intentions.  Seriously, how can the president not know that stopping the Keystone XL pipeline will cost thousands of jobs along with many collateral economic benefits to the nation?  Doesn't Keystone equal improved energy independence and doesn't that consideration cross Mr. Obama's radar?  

On both counts, yes.  Mr. Obama isn't a useful idiot; he's a user of idiots.  

What Mr. Obama and the left are engaged in is an ongoing war of aggression against the nation's Heartland and traditional America everywhere.  The left's aim in stopping Keystone isn't primarily due to environmental concerns (easily refuted).  Underlying the Keystone decision is politics and power. 

Mr. Obama is pursuing subjugation economics to better serve the left's end, which is thorough political domination from sea to shining sea.  Yes, Mr. Obama seeks to placate his party's environmentalist bloc for short term political need, but with Keystone, he's very deliberately picking winners and losers.  Not incidentally, most of the losers are in red states or are part of the "old" economy (manufacturing, agriculture, heavy industries -- coal, oil, and natural gas included).  There's some talk that Mr. Obama will approve a modified pipeline plan after the elections, but the claim is dubious.       

Not surprisingly, Mr. Obama and the left favor the "new" economy -- the high tech and knowledge and information industries that populate the coasts, the college towns, and the nation's larger metropolises.  Those regions and communities are where you'll find most of the Democratic Party's voter base.      

But the left isn't laissez-faire when it comes to the new economy.  The centerpiece of a radicalized America is government.  Mr. Obama and the left want government to have the primary role in directing the new economy; it's a nonnegotiable condition of the left's support.  In return, the new economy's enterprises receive favors in the way of subsidies, laws, and regulations beneficial to them.  Let's not forget Mr. Obama's Solyndra scandal, which is an egregious example of favoritism.

New economy favoritism isn't entirely the case, you say?  What about Mr. Obama's bailout of General Motors, which isn't exactly a Silicon Valley biotech concern?  Three points.  First, the bailout came on the condition that Uncle Sam exercise substantial control -- at least, initially -- of GM.  That's a tradeoff the left is willing to make with any enterprise.  Second, GM is one of Mr. Obama's useful idiots, having stepped up its emphasis on the star-crossed Chevy Volt.  Hence, GM is helpful in advancing the left's environmental agenda.  Third, Michigan has trended blue over the years; Detroit, a Democrat stronghold, is in GM's backyard.         

Clearly, there's more on the president's and the left's agenda than economics.  The left has long desired to radically alter the nation socially and culturally.  Economics -- controlling the means of production -- is a leftist tenet and tool.  When you control the means by which people create their livelihoods, you control them.  No imperative for outright ownership of the means.  Mid 20^th century fascism certainly demonstrated what government control without ownership is all about.  On a lesser scale, the EU is about the ceaseless governmental bureaucratization of European economies.  Control is often preferable to ownership; the left gets to give the orders without the heavy lifting. 

Make no mistake, there's malice toward flyover country Americans by the left.  Flyover country is everything Mr. Obama doesn't want America to be anymore; the mores, beliefs, and values of traditional America are his real targets.  Like most leftists, Mr. Obama seeks to strangle the greater portion of America that fails to conform. 

Joel Kotkin, a superb analyst of demographic, social, and economic trends for Forbes, writes under the headline "In Keystone XL Rejection, We See Two Americas at War With Each Other."  Kotkin's analysis of the Keystone issue is solid, but it generally assumes that class bias and short term political pressures are the chief culprits in the war that Kotkin describes.

Kotkin opines:

The Obama administration has altered this tolerant regime [coexistence between the two large factions in America], generating intensifying conflict between the NIMBY America and its more blue-collar counterpart. The administration's move to block the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico represents a classic expression of this conflict. To appease largely urban environmentalists, the Obama team has squandered the potential for thousands of blue-collar jobs in the Heartland and the Gulf of Mexico.    

First, the Forbes' headline is misleading.  It's not that traditional America has gone to war.  It's the statist elements in the nation that have made war on traditional America, and with no little success.  Traditional Americans, in the main, welcome coexistence (with respect for rights and liberties as the basis).  How many traditional Americans want to kill the high tech industry, versus Mr. Obama and the left, who want to deep-six the coal industry?  How many traditional Americans are hostile to Apple? 

The nation's new economy wealthy can nicely afford to embrace statism (since they factor into the nation's ruling class).  Yet the conflict isn't quite as one-dimensional as don't-get-my-hands-dirty nouveau riche against Main Street America.  The nouveau riche are a part of Mr. Obama's Useful Idiots corps, but they're not the generals.  Those roles are reserved for Mr. Obama and his left-wing cohorts. 

The Keystone XL pipeline cancellation by Mr. Obama is indicative of the left's long term effort to fundamentally change America... to make government the chief player in all facets of the nation's life and to give the power of government to the left indefinitely.  If beating down traditional America -- destroying its businesses, industries, and ways of life - is necessary for supremacy, then by all means, Mr. Obama and the left are up to the task. 

In the case of Keystone, that's unfortunate for hard-working Americans, who are tired of higher gas pump prices and oil dependence on the volatile Middle East -- and who'd more than welcome the jobs.  But the left wants total victory; red-state America will shoulder the penalties and costs.  Losers pay -- right?        

When it comes to power and control, there's no compassion in Mr. Obama and the left for traditional America; there's just two words on Mr. Obama's lips: "No quarter." 

American Thinker

Gingrich v. Leftism

January 23, 2012
By Bruce Walker

The endorsement of Newt Gingrich by Rick Perry, as well as the virtual endorsement of Gingrich by Sarah Palin, forms the battle lines for the Republican nomination.  Look quickly for Santorum and Bachmann to line up behind Gingrich as well, just like Huntsman has endorsed Romney.  In a three-man race with Gingrich representing historic conservatism, Paul embracing constitutional libertarianism, and Romney representing the pragmatic political wing of the party, Gingrich should wrap up the nomination relatively quickly.

The left, of course, will try to destroy Gingrich, just as it has been trying to destroy him since he forced Speaker Jim Wright into disgraceful retirement in 1989.  Today, the attack will be on his personal life -- this by the same leftists who loved Bill Clinton, who ignored the ghastly behavior of John Edwards, and who since JFK have said that the private life of a political leader is not important -- but the left's real fear of Gingrich comes from Gingrich's understanding of the weaknesses of leftism and the ways to defeat it. 

Begin with a much-maligned, much-misunderstood document: Gingrich's 1994 Contract With America.  As a tool of ideological war, it is unparalleled in modern American history.  The purpose of the Contract, as Gingrich said clearly at the time, was to end the game which House Democrats had been playing for many decades:  notionally support conservative ideas, but use control of the House to prevent any votes on measures which might implement those conservative principles. 

The second part of the Contract was a solemn promise to bring each of the ten substantive bills for a vote in the House within the first 100 days of the new Congress and also to implement eight procedural changes in how the House conducted business on the very first day of the new Republican House.  Gingrich kept every promise made in the Contract and, in fact, honored his pledges sooner than he was obligated to.

The Contract also generated an enormous backwind of support for all Republicans running for state or federal office in 1994.  As a consequence, in the midterm election of a very savvy Democrat, when the economy was in reasonably good shape, Republicans won not only the House and the Senate, but also most gubernatorial and state legislative elections, breaking an iron partisan grip that Democrats had held on America since FDR.

There was a reason why union goons entered Gingrich's offices and why House Democrats filed 84 ethics charges (one of which stuck, and most of which were absurd) against Gingrich when he was speaker and why Nancy Pelosi threatened to raise these ancient charges yet again.  Not only was Gingrich liberals' enemy, but he defeated them.

There was another vital component of the Contract: it depersonalized national politics and focused instead on explicit legislative initiatives, whose whole and simple terms were made public beforehand.  Take personal destruction; vague rhetoric; and huge, indigestible bills and regulations out of politics, and the left has nothing at all.

Gingrich also understands and undertakes the next line of attack against leftism: he attacks directly the leftist media itself, discarding the premise that the leftist media is impartial and treating it, instead, as the enemy.  Other Republicans, who try to act civilly to the journalistic hacks of leftism, appease an unappeasable enemy.  Without near-monolithic ideological unity among the rich corporate media, the left would have no chance of winning national elections.

How to handle despicable personal attacks?  Do what Gingrich did in the debate on January 19, when he confronted ABC News directly regarding the "news" of  the decades-old griping of his ex-wife.  Call ABC News's actions despicable, and make their vile bias the issue.

The best way to handle the leftist media is to directly attack it.  Those who recall Spiro Agnew's Des Moines speech in 1969 or the constant and effective needling which Rush Limbaugh used to expose the leftist media in spite of odious actions like the Florida orange juice boycott  know that these vast media empires are full of cowards who cannot face the man who faces their bullying.  We will never win until someone tackles these malefactors of great wealth on our behalf and with righteous indignation. 

Gingrich also sees that as long as an unelected, remote, and imperial judiciary retains the power, without check, to read whatever absurdities it wishes into the Constitution, we cannot restore the greatness of America.  Some conservatives fear that if Congress exercises its duty and right to rein in a rogue leftist judiciary, then Congress will later harass conservative jurists.  In fact, the left began that combat twenty years ago with Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

Unless conservatives resist the imperial judiciary and challenge directly its supra-constitutional and invented powers, we will face constant attacks by those who piously pretend not to be implementing a leftist agenda even as they do just that.

Gingrich can beat Obama and add more Republicans to elective office.  His debating skills will eviscerate Obama, and a Republican platform like the Contract With America would put the left on the defensive through November.  More importantly, however, Gingrich can actually defeat leftism in America.

American Thinker

Gingrich v. Romney (The People v. The Machine)

by AWR Hawkins 

On January 21, Mitt Romney went from being the presumptive GOP presidential candidate to being the guy who’s now spending dollars at a 20-to-1 ratio in Florida in an attempt to stop his meteoric plunge into the political abyss. Truth be known, the hard times began even a few days prior to January 21, when the official count in Iowa revealed that Rick Santorum had won the caucuses rather than Romney.

In a nutshell, as the nation watched the South Carolina primary approaching, Romney had two things going for him—the Republican establishment and the equally pro-Romney mainstream media. This gave him the illusion of strength: an illusion the Tea Party was able to see past (and through) as they ran to the one candidate whom Sarah Palin said she’d vote for in South Carolina—Newt Gingrich.

To put it as the UK’s Telegraph did:

The Tea Party was dead – long live the Beltway Cocktail Hour! Then came South Carolina, where religious and fiscal conservatives finally got it together and backed a candidate against Mitt Romney.

Honestly folks, even with the backing of prominent people like Karl Rove, Ann Coulter, and others, Romney only managed to win one of the first three contests (New Hampshire), and he didn’t just lose in South Carolina, he got throttled. Now, the historic fact that whoever wins South Carolina wins the GOP nomination has staggered Romney. And now he looks to Florida where Newt promises to deliver “the knockout punch.”

So Romney’s handlers are circling the wagons, and talking about Gingrich the way they talked about Tea Party House and Senate candidates during the Nov. 2010 mid-term elections.


For example, David Brooks said: “The guy (Newt Gingrich) has, I think, a 27 percent national approval rating. He’s just unelectable. Maybe I’m just an elite pundit out of touch, but I can read numbers.” (Mind you, this is the same Brooks who, in 2008, said that Sarah Palin represented “a fatal cancer to the Republican party” and that John McCain was one of “the best candidates we’ve had in a long time.”) Romney supporter Ann Coulter quickly piled on to Newt as well, calling him the “least conservative” option as well as the “least electable.” And pundits at the POLITICO were quick to point out their theory that Gingrich didn’t win South Carolina because he did well in debates, but because he did well in disguising his weaknesses. (In an effort to continue holding out hope for an inside the beltway triumph, the POLITICO not only informed its readers that Romney will “rip that disguise from Gingrich” in Florida, but also told Romney how to do it, should he need  few pointers.)

As I’ve already noted: historically speaking, whoever wins South Carolina wins the GOP nomination. There wasn’t a lot of focus on this point prior to the primary there because the establishment thought Romney had it, and there’s not a lot of focus on it now because they don’t want hayseed, backwoods conservatives believing that Gingrich can actually pull this off.

Only one thing is for sure at this point: The Republican establishment is feeling desperation. (Romney isn’t spending money 20-to-1 in Florida because his victory is inevitable.)

Big Government

An ‘Axelrod-esque’ Moment for Gingrich

by Frank Salvato 

On the eve of the South Carolina GOP Primary, ABC News televised an interview with Newt Gingrich’s second wife, Marianne, where she claims the presidential contender asked her for an “open marriage” so that he could see the woman that would become his third wife, Callista. Truth be told, this is a re-hashed interview, the original having run in Esquire Magazine in 2010. Which leaves us this to consider: the execution and airing of this interview is either an attempt by a woman scorned to even the score, a politically motivated hit-piece, or both. Whichever it turns out to be, the one thing it won’t be is a game changer.



That Newt Gingrich has had marital issues in his past is common knowledge. Anyone shocked by this news should not consider themselves well-informed. Anyone offended by the marital transgressions of his past should heed the words from a follow-up Esquire Magazine article:

“…Love makes fools of us all, etc., and liberals who believe in parole and rehabilitation really should think at least once before they snicker at the religious folks who have decided to believe in Newt’s remorse for his past behavior.”

In a recent article titled, Political Baggage: Establishment & Media Manipulation, in which I wrote about Mr. Gingrich’s infidelity issues, juxtaposing them to the sexual peccadilloes of myriad Democrat and

Progressive politicians, I argued:

“In an age when the world is being enveloped in darkness – both ideologically and violently; when our country stands on the brink of deteriorating from a Constitutional Republic to a Socialist Democracy; when government has grown into such a behemoth that it is on the precipice of being the master to the very people who created it, We the People had better look beyond the imperfections of the personal man where “political viability” and “electability” are concerned.

“Today, as we advance in the 2012 election cycle, We the People need the smartest man in the room at the helm of the Ship of State. We need someone who has humility enough to learn from past errors, correcting course when it is the best choice to make, leading our nation in this tumultuous time. We need someone who understands and respects the knowledge that only history can afford as we – as a nation; as the guardians of liberty – navigate the future.

“What we cannot afford is to allow the narcissistic mainstream media talking heads, self-absorbed political pundits and the self-aggrandizing political strategists to talk us out of the smartest guy in the room simply because they believe his ‘baggage’ is too heavy to carry.”

These words are worth repeating in light of the Marianne Gingrich interview.


What is interesting about this moment in time is the timing. This interview – and remember, it is a recycled item from a 2010 Esquire Magazine interview – was manufactured, produced and “in the can” for use by ABC News for whenever they chose. In fact, the Drudge Report had initially reported that there was a “civil war” among the ABC News hierarchy over whether to run the segments before or after the South Carolina GOP Primary. In the end, they decided to schedule the segments to air on the eve of the primary, a contest in which Mr. Gingrich’s campaign is seeing some mounting momentum. As of this writing, Rasmussen Reports has Mr. Gingrich taking the lead over national frontrunner Mitt Romney. It would seem that just as Mr. Gingrich was experiencing some reward from his efforts in South Carolina, just by coincidence ABC News thought it so very important to “break” an old story.

Interesting…interesting, indeed…

In a November 11, 2009, article in Human Events, Ann Coulter wrote about a disturbing penchant possessed by one David Axelrod, now a senior advisor to the Obama 2012 re-election effort. It seems Mr. Axelrod, an old Chicago Democrat newspaper man, has a fondness for advancing stories about sexual indiscretions – both real and not – about opposition candidates.

Ms. Coulter writes:

“…the only reason Obama became a US senator – allowing him to run for president – is that David Axelrod pulled sealed divorce records out of a hat, first, against Obama’s Democratic primary opponent, and then against Obama’s Republican opponent.

“One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the US Senate, Obama was way down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader.

“But then The Chicago Tribune – where Axelrod used to work – began publishing claims that Hull’s second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.

“From then until Election Day, Hull was embroiled in fighting the allegation that he was a ‘wife beater.’ He and his ex-wife eventually agreed to release their sealed divorce records. His first ex-wife, daughters and nanny defended him at a press conference, swearing he was never violent. During a Democratic debate, Hull was forced to explain that his wife kicked him and he had merely kicked her back.

“Hull’s substantial lead just a month before the primary collapsed with the nonstop media attention to his divorce records. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote.

“Luckily for Axelrod, Obama’s opponent in the general election had also been divorced.

“The Republican nominee was Jack Ryan…”

Now, I’m not claiming that David Axelrod is behind the coincidental airing of a potentially damaging interview by a GOP candidate’s ex-wife, but when all signs point to “he did it” who am I to argue?

But why would Axelrod, the quintessential poster boy for disingenuous sleaze politics, want to attack Gingrich? Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and the rest of Obama’s Progressive operatives are certain that Mitt Romney is going to be the GOP candidate in the fall. Why would they want to destroy Gingrich? Simple: They are pushing for Romney because they believe he will be easier to beat.

Defendable or not, in Romney, as the candidate, Obamacare would have to be off the table due to the similarities between the insurance mandate currently in place in Massachusetts and Mr. Obama’s signature socialized health insurance legislation; the Massachusetts mandate instituted under Mr. Romney’s watch. Mr. Romney is vulnerable on his financial history and on many of the positions he took in the past while an elected official. Axelrod also feels that Mr. Romney’s debating style is one that would pale in comparison to Mr. Obama’s. So, in an effort to misdirect – a favorite tactic of the Progressive Left – Mr. Axelrod, Ms. Jarrett and the rest of the non-transparent Obama team float the falsehood that they believe they will run against Mr. Romney in the fall. The media is falling for it – or at least complicit in the canard, and, therefore, the mass of the “I’m too busy and too important to do my own homework on the issues and the candidates” populace drinks the Kool-Aid.

In Mr. Gingrich, Axelrod fears a slaughter in the debates. Even a half-awake second-grader would be able to tell you, with confidence, that Newt Gingrich would have Barack Obama weeping and in the fetal position behind the podium after the first ten minutes of the first debate. In fact, I believe that if Mr. Gingrich does win the GOP nomination, Mr. Obama will be counseled to opt out of any and all debates with Mr. Gingrich. Honestly, if he chooses to debate, we will all understand that Mr. Obama has become a victim of his own media manufactured persona.

Mr. Axelrod also fears a Gingrich nomination for the fact that Mr. Gingrich – even though some of his brethren Conservatives and Republicans try to make the case against his Conservative credentials – has a record of accomplishment in the face of partisan adversity.

As Speaker of the House alone, he presided over:

▪ The successful negotiation of four consecutive balanced budgets with federal spending held to an average of 2.9 percent per year, the slowest growth rate since the early 1950s.

▪ A negotiated Capital Gains Tax cut that saw the investments by the “dreaded venture capitalists” explode by 500 percent, allowing for the creation of over 11 million new jobs through the execution of non-governmentally interfered with Capitalism.

▪ A negotiated bi-partisan Welfare Reform Act that saw child poverty drop by nearly a quarter, child poverty in single-parent households reaching an all-time low and nearly two-thirds all those who left the welfare rolls gainfully employed.

And the most important…

▪ Over $400 billion of US national debt paid down during the years he presided over a Congress that produced balanced budgets.

By contrast, Mr. Obama has given the country a trillion dollar stimulus that turned out to be a golden goose for green energy giveaways and election grease for his union benefactors and “thugtarians,” Obamacare, Congressional gridlock, a diminished stature in the world, $4.6 trillion in new debt and a country so bitterly divided that one is moved to vomit when viewing his speeches about being a “uniter and not a divider.”

So, I will watch the interview with Marianne Gingrich with a skeptical eye, not that I disbelieve her story. As I said before, if you are shocked by the news of Newt Gingrich’s marital issues who are grossly unaware. No, I will be skeptical as to the catalyst for the timing of the interview; for the motives of the interview. And all the while I will try – very hard – not to see David Axelrod’s fingerprints all over it.

As for Mr. Gingrich and the election, my belief remains:

“What we cannot afford is to allow the narcissistic mainstream media talking heads, self-absorbed political pundits and the self-aggrandizing political strategists to talk us out of the smartest guy in the room simply because they believe his ‘baggage’ is too heavy to carry.”

For that matter, I’m not going to let a mealy-mouth Progressive smear-merchant like David Axelrod talk me out of voting for anyone who stands opposed to Barack Obama.

Big Government

Understanding Islamofascism

January 22, 2012
By Yonatan Silverman

The exact identity of the person who coined the expression "Islamofascism" isn't crystal-clear.  But the late Christopher Hitchens should be given credit for defining the term.

The most obvious points of comparison would be these: Both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind. ("Death to the intellect! Long live death!" as Gen. Francisco Franco's sidekick Gonzalo Queipo de Llano so pithily phrased it.) Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories. Both are obsessed with real and imagined "humiliations" and thirsty for revenge. Both are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia (interestingly, also, with its milder cousin, anti-Freemason paranoia). Both are inclined to leader worship and to the exclusive stress on the power of one great book. Both have a strong commitment to sexual repression-especially to the repression of any sexual "deviance"-and to its counterparts the subordination of the female and contempt for the feminine. Both despise art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence; both burn books and destroy museums and treasures.

Hitchens hit the nail on the head with respect to the cultural and political parallels in the concept Islamofascism.  But the thing is that even though Hitchens perspicaciously pinpointed lines of convergence between Islam and fascism, the fact remains that fascism, in the strictest sense, is a narrow and even myopic political idea which emerged in the 20^th century and has since expired.

Even though it is convenient to call brutal Islamic regimes like Iran Islamofascist, the brutality of these regimes emanates not from fascism -- but from Islam.  Among other things, fascism shuns religion and belief in God, while in Islam, everyone and everything submits to Allah and the Koran, along the traditional lines of religious devotion.

Islam is one of the world's three great religions, but from its inception, it has always also been an imperialistic political organization and has embodied a powerful desire to rule the world and rule over other peoples.  No other great religion exhibits this desire.

The Islamic state expanded very rapidly after the death of Muhammad through remarkable successes both at converting unbelievers to Islam and by military conquests of the Islamic community's opponents. Expansion of the Islamic state was an understandable development, since Muhammad himself had successfully established the new faith through conversion and conquest of those who stood against him. Immediately after the Prophet's death in 632, Abu Bakr, as the first Caliph, continued the effort to abolish paganism among the Arab tribes, and also to incorporate Arabia into a region controlled by the political power of Medina. United by their faith in God and a commitment to political consolidation, the Muslim merchant elite of Arabia succeeded in consolidating their power throughout the Arabian peninsula and began to launch some exploratory offensives north toward Syria.

Between 600 and 1800 the Islamic Empire spread to the four corners of the world including Persia, India, Spain and as far as the Far East. Forced conversions were not necessarily part of the program. Non-believing subjects of the ruling regime paid a non-Muslim tax. But in any case, non-Muslims in the Muslim Empire were considered dhimmi, or second class citizens.

Fascism is symbolized by a bundle of wooden sticks with an axe blade emerging from the center.  The image traditionally symbolizes summary power and jurisdiction and/or "strength through unity."

This is the raison d'être of the Muslim Brotherhood, too.  But in their hands, the execution of Koranic precepts is the path to follow, not fascism per se.  The Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 and very quickly became a large, well-organized social and political organization flying the flag of Islam.  The Muslim Brotherhood is on the surface a Muslim social welfare organization, and its political underpinning is strictly Islamic also.  It emanates from Islam and the Koran, not from Hitlerite fascism as this ideology is understood.  The Muslim Brotherhood did indeed find common ground with the Nazis, however.

When Hitler came to power in the 1930's, he and Nazi intelligence made contact with Muslim Brotherhood founder and leader al Banna to see if they could work together. Banna was also a devout admirer of Hitler. Banna's letters to Hitler were so supportive that he and other members of the Brotherhood, were recruited by Nazi Military Intelligence to provide information on the British and work covertly to undermine British control in Egypt. Banna himself said that he had "considerable admiration for the Nazi Brownshirts" and organized his own forces along fascist lines. Banna's Brotherhood also collaborated with the overtly fascist "Young Egypt" movement, founded in October 1933.

The Grand Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini did not just think like an Islamofascist; he actively collaborated with the Nazis in Berlin during the war.  Among other things, he helped recruit Muslims for the Waffen-SS.

But these are cases of Islam in the service of Nazi fascist terror.  Islamofascism as the phenomenon manifests itself in our world emanates directly from Islam.  The lust for world conquest and the revival of the caliphate, the terrorist violence out of a desire for jihad as commanded in the Koran, the hatred for Jews and Israel, the rejection of democracy and social equality (Taliban ideology prohibits women from working or educating themselves), the Islamic customary demand that women wear the death-shroud burqa, xenophobia (the shunning of foreigners and strangers) -- all of these are deeply imbedded in the Muslim world.  These things and others are outgrowths of Islam, not fascism.  But on account of their barbarity and inhumanity generally, the term Islamofascism is often used so as not to offend the mainstream.

Is the so-called Arab Spring Islamofascist?  When it started last year, the West applauded these rebellions as harbingers of democracy and freedom in the Arab world.

Far from democracy, the despotic regimes and military dictatorships that the various rebellions in Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and Libya have overturned are being replaced by fanatical Islamic regimes.  In Syria, the problem is different.  Assad isn't stepping down to install a popular government -- he is killing the popular movement with gusto.  And this leaves out the Islamofascist nature of Iran, which is the epitome of Islamofascism (again, that grows directly out of Islam, not fascism).

It's regrettable for humanity, but the Islamofascist ideologies and their barbaric political and social manifestations emanate in the final analysis from Islam per se -- not fascism.  But the word "Islamofascism" still carries meaning.

American Thinker