Walker's Protection of WI Public Employee Rights Pays Huge Dividends

by John Nolte

 
 It's one of the greatest scams in the history left-wing scams, and it goes a little something like this: Taxpayers of all political stripes pay the salaries of public employees, public employees are forced to join public unions, public unions garnish dues from members and then use those dues to fund Democrat candidates to the tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars. What a racket.

In other words, against our will, you and I are helping to fund Democrat campaigns. But so are those public employees forced into unions.

But now, thanks to Governor Walker's reforms, the rights of Wisconsin public employees are protected. They are no longer forced into unions, forced to pay dues, forced to fund political causes they disagree with, and the benefits of this liberation are now paying off:

Public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership -- by more than half for the second-biggest union -- since a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions.

That could mean the sharp losses that some Wisconsin public-worker unions have experienced is a harbinger of similar unions' future nationwide, union leaders fear. Failure to oust Mr. Walker and overturn the Wisconsin law "spells doom," said Bryan Kennedy, the American Federation of Teachers' Wisconsin president.  

Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees-the state's second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers-fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a person who has viewed Afscme's figures. A spokesman for Afscme declined to comment.

Here's the rub:

Much of that decline came from Afscme Council 24, which represents Wisconsin state workers, whose membership plunged by two-thirds to 7,100 from 22,300 last year. 

In other words, that's how many people Walker's reforms liberated to make their own choices.

The left's year-long freak out in Wisconsin has NOTHING to do with workers' rights -- what about the right NOT to join a union? -- the freak-out was about the loss of an immoral law that forced public employees to join public unions and the subsequent loss of those dues that turn into a gajillion dollars for Democrat campaign contributions and anti-Republican ads.

The fewer union members, the less dues you collect and the less you can then spend on getting the Democrats in office who vote to force people into public unions in order to keep this corrupt vicious circle turning.

Got that?

It is immoral to force people into unions and it is even more immoral to use my tax dollars to fund candidates I oppose.

The same thing is happening with Planned Parenthood right now. That abortion mill receives federal funding -- our tax dollars -- and then spends money on ads opposing Mitt Romney.

It simply doesn't get any more corrupt than that.  

Gov. Walker's leadership on this issue has been groundbreaking. Hopefully, this coming Tuesday, Walker, his Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, and the State Senate seats up for recall will stay right where they are -- protecting the taxpayers and the rights of public employees.

Big Government

Armed EPA Agents Visit Ashville Man

By Alan Caruba

Sometimes a small incident says volumes about a large government agency. In this case the Environmental Protection Agency.

Around 1.45 PM on May 23, Ashville, North Carolina resident Larry Keller was in the midst of an international call which he had to cut short in order to answer his front door. He found two armed agents of the EPA who were accompanied by an Ashville Police officer.

According to a May 24 news story in the Ashville Tribune, a weekly newspaper to which I am a contributing columnist, the agents had blocked his and his neighbor’s driveways with their cars. They had driven all the way from Raleigh to confront him.

What had he done? The unannounced visit had been occasioned by news that Dr. Al Armendariz, a regional EPA administrator whose 2010 lecture had been videotaped and been released by the office of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) on April 25th. In the lecture, Dr. Amendariz had said that the agency’s “general philosophy” was to “crucify” oil and gas producers.

He compared the agency’s “philosophy of enforcement” to the way, as a Wall Street Journal editorial reported, “Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. “They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them, And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. The point is to ‘make examples’ of alleged lawbreakers.”

The case in point had been Range Resources, a driller who had been exonerated of charges of water pollution as the result of fracking. As the Wall Street Journal noted, the reference to executions “raise(d) questions not only about” not only Dr. Arnendariz’s comments “but the EPA’s larger impartiality and judgment.”

Keller, who describes himself as “a bit of a political activist” had emailed the EPA Director of External Affairs, Dr. David Gray, saying “Hello Mr. Gray. Do you have Mr. Armendariz’s contact information so we can say hello?”

That was enough to dispatch two armed agents to his front door. He was told by one agent that “…my choice of words in the email could be interpreted in many ways.” They did not identify themselves, but asked if he had ever been arrested. He responded swiftly that he had not. When he asked for a copy of his email, they refused to provide it because “the case was still under investigation.”

His wife arrived home and the agents did not want a witness so “They left in a big hurry.”

The Ashville Tribune by Catherine Hunter quoted Keller who described their attitude as “accusatory” reporting that he compared “their tactics to those of Nazi Germany SS methods.” 

Keller contacted the agent’s supervisor, Michael Hill, and was told that the incident with Dr. Armendariz “had prompted so many emails and calls that authorities in Washington, DC ordered an investigation.”
Keller’s email inquiry to contact Dr. Armendariz was treated as a threat when it clearly was not. Since when is trying to contact an EPA administrator a crime?

“I want the world to know,” said Keller, “the government is reaching into the privacy of our homes and computers. I’ve never been so offended by the power of government in my life.”

Do we really want an EPA that uses such tactics against a citizen who has merely indicated an interest in contacting one of their administrators to comment on what he had said during a lecture?

Do we really want an EPA whose working “philosophy” regarding the oil and gas industry is to “crucify” it in order to regulate it and, as we know, is trying to thwart drilling, as well as to end the coal industry that provides an energy resource that produces one half of all the electricity in the nation?

It is, as noted, just one small incident, but it reflects the way the EPA functions in a presumably free society.

Over the years I have read of many incidents in which the EPA has asserted powers to impede the most innocent actions of citizens and it is long past the time when this agency is reined in by Congress.

The only option at this point is to rid the nation of the Obama administration, crack down on the EPA, and rid us of the threat it poses in its efforts to deny entire industries from providing the energy the nation requires and attacks our agricultural and ranching communities for practices that reflect its normal operation.

As they used to advertise horror films, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” An EPA that operates on the basis of intimidating its chosen enemies and that seeks to intimidate citizens inquiring about it, is reason enough to be afraid.

Canada Free Press

Pandering To Islam without Profit

May 30, 2012
By G. Murphy Donovan

Two successive administrations now have sought to appease Muslims by minimizing the threat from Islamists.  Indeed, science has now been enlisted in that effort.  Early stimulus came from the White House.

Hours after 9/11, a Republican president allowed a host of Saudi elites to flee the U.S. by chartered aircraft before the blood was dry at the World Trade Center.  Never mind that most of the Manhattan suicide martyrs were Saudis.  The political cue then was meant for domestic and foreign consumption; to wit, America would not hold passive aggressors, sponsor-nations, or Islamic propaganda accountable for the atrocities of "extremists."

From the beginning, the majority of Muslims were anointed "moderates," on the authority of an asserted conclusion.  Concurrently, fellaheen danced in the streets of Arabia.  No matter; blame for the terror threat was still confined to specific non-government agents like al-Qaeda or the Taliban.  By fiat, Islamic terrorism was fenced as isolated criminal phenomena with local motives; in short, militant jihad was represented as a perversion of, not a tenet of, Islamic theology or Muslim politics.

This politically correct illusion was reinforced by an Obama administration in a series of forays into the ummah, where the American president declared unequivocally that America, and NATO by extension, is not at war with Islam or Muslims.  Never mind that NATO or American troops might be killing Muslims in four -- or is it five? -- separate venues.  "We are not at war!" was the party line.  And never mind that Obama has yet to visit Israel as president.

Less well-known is the "independent" science which now backfills or rationalizes the political Esperanto of the last decade.  A RAND Corporation report, "How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qai'da," is an example.  Notice the assumption embedded in the title: "counter," not defeat.  The body of the report is devoted to asserting that terror (a military tactic) is best addressed by political, not military means.  

Separating war, an amalgam of tactics and strategy, from politics is not an assumption that Churchill or Eisenhower would have made.  A politically correct worldview turns logic on its head; tactics are confused with strategy.

The RAND report ignores the larger strategic phenomena of violent jihad bis saif and protected Islamist hate-mongering.  But the bottom line of this "systematic" analysis is the most revealing: "Terrorists should be perceived as criminals, not holy warriors."  Such assertions are a kind of strategic masochism, not science -- not even common sense.

How the West views Islam is more important then how Islamists act -- or see themselves?  By such logic, Arizona sheriffs might be deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan instead of the U.S. Marines.  And by such logic, where might the holy warriors, if caught, be tried -- lower Manhattan?  Treating terror as crime allows the lazy analyst with an agenda to dismiss the political implications of Islamism.
Another RAND paper on another recent South Asia massacre, entitled "Lessons of Mumbai," is an even better example of cooked books -- a case where analysis and credibility are undone by evidence ignored.

The Mumbai attack was unique in two respects: a small Jewish center was targeted, the occupants were slaughtered...and the hotel hostages were then screened for religious affiliation -- again, seeking Jews.  It's a safe bet that none of the Mumbai killers were ever stopped at an Israeli checkpoint or lost a building lot in east Jerusalem.  This attack was planned and executed with motives removed from the usual; the India/Pakistan rift or the Israel/Fatah impasse.  Mumbai was clearly motivated, in part, by a strain of virulent, contagious, and global anti-Semitism.  No mention of this appears in "Lessons of Mumbai's" "key judgments."

The recent terror attack against a religious school in Toulouse, France is a macabre echo of Mumbai.  A rabbi and four young Jewish children were shot at point-blank range by Mohamed Merah, a home-grown Arab terrorist of Moroccan origin.  Let's assume for sake of argument that Israeli intransigence is the source of Muslim anger.  How does blowing a little girl's brains out advance the "two state solution"?

The global bloom of anti-Semitism since the turn of the 21^st century is no accident.  Those who ignore it, especially scientists at places like RAND, make it possible.  Ironically, many of RAND's most eminent researchers are or have been Jewish.

(This Mumbai report also reinforces suspicions about non-profit excess.  "Lessons of Mumbai" is a mere 25 pages long, yet lists ten [sic] authors -- an average of two and a half pages per analyst.  Makes you wonder how many scientists are required to screw in light bulbs in Santa Monica.  Clearly, featherbedding is not restricted just to government operations.)

Some recent RAND national security analysis may actually qualify as apologetics.  The 2010 paper entitled "Would-be Warriors" analyzes the incidence of terrorism in the U.S. since 9/11.  The paper actually ends with the assumptions, concluding:

There is no evidence [sic] that America's Muslim community is becoming more radical. America's psychological vulnerability is on display...panic is the wrong message to send.

"No evidence" -- or none that RAND can detect from the sands of Santa Monica?  If sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies didn't connect the dots before 9/11, while suicide bombers were training in America, RAND's statistical assurances ring more than a little hollow.  Islamic terror didn't begin with the barbarisms in lower Manhattan, in any case.  And assertions about psychological vulnerability or "panic" are straw men or worse.  Who panicked in the wake of the Twin Towers atrocity?  Indifference or political apathy, maybe, but surely not panic.

And on U.S. Muslim radicalization, clearly RAND statisticians rarely audit student sentiment at any urban "occupy" rallies or any California campus when an Israeli speaker appears.  Nor does the RAND analysis account for the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) or the fact that this home-grown political movement was recently hijacked by radical Muslim American bigots.  Anti-Semitism is ever the canary in the geo-strategic coal mine.  The NBPP's most recent outrage was to threaten to burn the city of Detroit at a city council meeting.

In the interest of fairness, we should point out that other non-profits -- Pew Research Center, for example -- also fail to account for the sea change in the very visible American Black Panthers.  Pew claims to be non-partisan, but apparently that doesn't rule out political correctness.  Indeed, with modern pollsters and sociologists, American Muslim groups like the Panthers and the Nation of Islam seem to enjoy a double-immunity of race and religion.  Somehow such groups are, at the same time, Islamic...but not Muslim.

The growth of radical Islam in African-American communities is complemented by a surge in prisons nationwide.  Congress and public television seem to have access to prison data, but non-profits like RAND and Pew apparently do not work in those neighborhoods.

The creation of veiled apologetics is not as worrisome as the pervasive misuse of such "scientific" analysis.  Part of the problem may lie with endowments.  Like more than a few major universities, RAND courts Arab or Muslim goodwill for the same reason why Willie Sutton frequented banks.  That's where the money is.
Attempts to curry Arab favor are underwritten by a priori beliefs about Muslim "moderation."  Assumptions about what Muslims believe may make terror possible, providing a permanent rationalization -- a kind of laissez passer for militants.

Today, RAND has one of the richest research nest eggs outside Harvard yard.  And clearly, the designation "non-profit" is an oxymoron.  The more appropriate designation would be "untaxable" -- for reasons yet to be justified.  Successful think-tanks may be a lot of things, but like wealthy universities, they are not "charities" by any stretch of logic.

Recent government-sponsored national security research has reversed the poles in the "non-profit" equation.  Think-tanks are richer, and government sponsors are going broke.  If quality of analysis is the return on government-sponsored research, national security research is nearing some kind of strategic default.

Financial success has allowed think-tanks like RAND to diversify the study agenda and expand their physical plants.  Yet the ideas of geographic isolation, and keeping politics at a distance, have been jettisoned with a vengeance.  Beyond the original site at Santa Monica, RAND now has offices in Virginia (near the Pentagon), Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Mexico, England, Belgium, Qatar, the UAE, and Abu Dhabi.

For objective national security analysis, the last three locales are the most worrisome.  Hard to believe that systems analysis or scientific candor will put petro-dollars or Islamic theocrats at risk.  Call it the Ellsberg legacy.

While the overall cast of RAND Corporation national security research is cautious and in many cases politically correct, the occasional old hand still puts mustard on his fastball.  Jim Quinlivan wrote an essay in the RAND Review (summer 2003), based on statistical analysis, that suggested that under-manned American excursions against insurgents or terrorists in dar al Islam were bound to end badly -- using strict military measures of effectiveness.  Unfortunately, such voices are seldom endorsed or underlined with corporate authority.

The Quinlivan essay was written shortly after 9/11, when "kinetic" solutions were all the rage; his paper flew in the face of the prevailing political winds.  More recent RAND reports, as discussed above, tack with the prevailing political winds.

The early rhetoric from President Bush categorized the Manhattan attacks as "acts of war."  But since then, the Bush and Obama administrations, and government-sponsored research, take great pains to confuse the issue with criminality -- and policies where victory over Islamism is never a goal or an option.

First, there was the Iraq distraction, a theater that had little to do with worldwide terror or Islamism, and then came a period of dithering over Afghanistan, the so-called "war of necessity."  Throughout, neither political party could decide whether to treat the soldiers of Islam as prisoners of war or criminals.  While Americans remained confused, Islamists made steady gains.  For the West, the drift into the muck of appeasement and the humiliation of a Soviet-like retreat now seems inevitable.

America and NATO are headed for the exits in the Levant and South Asia.  Yet the greater problems of a nuclear Iran and growing Arab irredentism are still metastasizing.  And all the early political Pollyanna about democracy and freedom in Arabia hasn't altered the vector of religious politics.  Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and now Syria are on the cusp of clerical control.  Like in Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the political prospects for Muslims today are largely theocratic.

There is a thread that binds all of this.  The decline of a Euro-American vision that made creativity, art, science, and democracy possible has been underwritten by the worst possible political "science" that borrowed money can buy.  Insh'allah!

The author is a former Senior USAF intelligence research fellow at RAND Corporation, Santa Monica.  This essay is an excerpt from a longer treatment of the think-tank phenomenon, and political pandering, to appear in the New English Review later this year.

American Thinker

Romney Surrogate Sununu Destroys Trump-Obsessed Soledad O'Brien

by John Nolte

Soledad O'Brien and CNN beclowning themselves to shill for Obama is hardly news. What is news, though, is Romney surrogate John Sununu aggressively pushing back against CNN and O'Brien for carrying and enabling the Obama campaign's talking points regarding Donald Trump. It's a thing of beauty to watch and embedded below. If this is going to be Team Romney's approach to the hostile media, it will pay big dividends with voters. In the segment, Sununu hits a rhetorical grand slam by controlling the conversation and methodically taking it to where it needs to go: economic policy.  Sununu also manages to do this without ever appearing angry or defensive. He's aggressive, respectful, on offense (and therefore not complaining), and perfectly prepared for what's coming.

Bringing up Bill Maher to expose CNN (and all of the media's bias) bias is a masterstroke.

This is exactly what Romney's supporters and  surrogates need to do -- reject the premise of these distractions intentionally created by Obama's Media Palace Guards to take everyone's eyes off the ball of Obama's failed economic policies. In other words, the exact opposite of anything John McCain would do.

Hopefully, Romney has a large stable of spokespeople who will be just as effective throughout the long campaign -- people who can send the message to the corrupt media that we are the adults in the room and we will not play by your corrupt rules; this is an election based on the failed record of a sitting incumbent, not what every Romney supporter says.   

Over the weekend, this Trump nonsense-narrative was a campaign coordinated by the media and the fact that Romney is aware that this is a political tactic and has nothing to do with actual news is a very good sign. Romney knows what he's up against. You can't defeat a rival unless you first acknowledge they are your rival.  

BONUS: Watch the faces of Soledad and Ron Brownstein literally turn red as Sununu completely owns them with facts, truth, and legitimate criticisms of Obama that they obviously weren't prepared for and don’t want to hear.

Like I said, a thing of beauty.

And CNN wonders why its ratings are tanking.

Big Journalism 

ThreePeat: Tea Party Seizes Another Victory from Establishment--in Texas

by Mike Flynn 

David Dewhurst is an institution in Texas. The powerful Lieutenant Governor has been a political powerbroker in the state for decades. With the backing of the entire Republican establishment, including Gov. Rick Perry, Dewhurst raised a colossal $13 million for the primary campaign. He had the support of a SuperPac, The Texas Conservatives Fund. Last week, he was on the cusp of winning the 50% necessary to clinch the party's nomination. Yesterday, he came up far short. This is not a year for institutions. A fun parlor game for the media this year has been, "What Happened to the Tea Party"? The absence of high-profile rallies and events have convinced them that the movement which dominated the political landscape for the past two years has gone away. It didn't go away. It just got to work.

By just about any measure, Dewhurst should have taken the primary in a walk. He was a respected member of the party establishment. He had buckets of money to spend. The 'tea party candidate', Ted Cruz was little known in the state. He didn't have the millions in campaign funds it takes to cover the many expensive media markets in Texas. He did have the support of prominent national conservatives like Sen. Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin. And, he had an army of grass-roots volunteers. In the end, he forced Dewhurst into a run-off.
Dewhurst only received 44% in the primary. His next two opponents, Cruz, and former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert outpolled him, receiving a combined 47%. The next nine-week campaign should be a barn-burner. Expect Cruz to match Dewhurst spending as state and national tea party groups rally behind his campaign. DeMint's conservative caucus in the Senate is about to get a little bigger.

This year, tea party activists have already pulled off two stunning victories; Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Deb Fischer in Nebraska. Forcing Dewhurst into a run-off is a three-peat for the grass roots. Get ready for Sen. Ted Cruz.

Big Government

RONALD REAGAN tried to warn us about Barack Hussein Obama way back in 1964

In honor of Memorial Day, President Ronald Reagan’s famous 1964 speech, ‘ A Time for Choosing,’ never more relevant than today.

 

Bare Naked Islam

PAT CONDELL has another go at ‘Gay’ Saudi Arabia

The inimitable Pat is still leading the war on Islam. And yes, we ARE at war with Islam.

 Bare Naked Islam

The Distinctive Trait of America

May 28, 2012
By Steve McCann

The people of the United States, a nation struggling to regain a sense of optimism and confidence, have, over many years, been told by the elites in American society that their country is one of an ignoble nature and history.  That "American Exceptionalism" is a myth which has precipitated the plunder of the planet and the exploitation of mankind throughout the world.

A nation whose alleged sins have been so egregious that the current President, whose primary campaign promise was to "transform America" (into a collectivist state), feels duty bound to go around the world on bended knee apologizing for those perceived transgressions. 

The United States has become a ship without a rudder aimlessly wandering about the turbulent seas piloted by those whose only interest is themselves, their ideology and thirst for power.  Yet the majority of the American people know that they have in their possession the key to a prosperous and equitable society: individual freedom and liberty concurrent with a significant constraint on the power of government.

They also know that in the annals of mankind the true account of America's contribution to the world and its people is one of magnificent achievement, whether freeing millions from tyranny by force of arms or improving their standard of living by fostering global economic growth and new technology.  

Perhaps the one thing above all others that many in the United States, particularly among the ruling class, do not appreciate is the indispensible and unprecedented role this nation has played in giving hope and a real-life vision of the blessings of true freedom and liberty to countless millions throughout the world.  Nothing this country has done in its history can compare to being what Ronald Reagan referred to as: "The Shining City on the Hill."

When attacked by foreign powers America never viewed those incidents as a pretext to conquer and permanently subjugate other nations.  Rather this country in the pursuit of self-defense also aspired to the noble calling of freeing others from tyranny and allowing the people of those nations to establish their own governments based on freedom and liberty.

The basic tenets in the founding of the United States:  1) that all men are endowed by God with certain inalienable rights and, 2) that the individual and not the state is paramount, enabled a society to be created that fostered love and respect not only of country but of fellow man regardless of where he might live.

It is this distinctive trait among all global communities which has motivated countless American men and women over the years to willingly take up arms to defend a land they cherish and to expend blood and treasure so others can live in peace and freedom.

I have lived among the people of the United States for sixty years after having been welcomed to its shores as a survivor and displaced orphan from World War II.   I have been privileged to get to know the magnificent every day citizens of this country from all walks of life and ethnicity whether in the foothills of Appalachia, the farm fields of the Great Plains, the imposing vistas of the West or the streets of America's cities.  Their forbearers created and molded the country that became the foremost nation on earth.  That drive, determination and character still beats deep within the heart of all who are proud to call the United States their home.

On this Memorial Day, as the nation honors its fallen, I am confident that freed from the shackles of oppressive government as well as the misguided, egocentric and often hostile leadership extant throughout the corridors of power, the vast majority of the people of this nation will make certain that America's best days are still ahead of it.  The role of being the noblest and most successful experiment in the annals of mankind is this nation's destiny and an obligation it will fulfill.

American Thinker

Chris Hayes Uncomfortable with Calling Troops 'Heroes;' Quite Comfortable Exercising Rights They Protect

by Kurt Schlichter 

 Just in time for Memorial Day, some MSNBC drone named Chris Hayes has lit up the internet with his confession that dead American troops don’t quite measure up to his exacting standards for what qualifies as a “hero.” Memo to Chris: they are heroes, and you don’t get a vote. Though he may be shocked to hear it, America’s fighting men and women don’t care whether Chris Hayes considers their fallen comrades heroes or not. First, there’s the practical matter that almost no one – in uniform or out – watches MSNBC or the roster of progressive meat puppets that fill the short stretches between endless reruns of "Lock Up."
Care about Chris Hayes’s comfort level? They don’t even know this leftist twerp exists.

But on a deeper level, our troops don’t do what they do to impress the likes of Chris Hayes – though he is perfectly willing to make his living in the shadow of their sacrifice. In the scheme of things, Chris Hayes’s views are important only as an object lesson in what our progressive elites really think about our military.

And it’s not much.

So what did he say? Mediaite provides a transcript of his weaselly insights:

I feel… 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, you know, 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.

No maybe about it, Chris. I love the “rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war” part – he sounds like one of my commie grad students trying to impress credulous freshman girls after a choom session in the quad. But Chris Hayes seems to cultivate a more hipster vibe – no ponytail for him, but I’ll bet that lurking under his blazer is a really cool tat that signals to the world he’s edgy.

And what’s edgier than taking on our troops? After all, at least until the next election, they are “our” troops.

Even most progressives – quite willing to diss our troops before while Bush was president -- are on message these days. After all, it’s kinda hard to shout about warmongering, baby-killing imperialists when the guy commanding them is your own guy.

I greatly enjoy watching progressives seethe as they are forced, for the sake of appearances, to pretend to support our troops. You know it’s killing them.

But it’s the progressives’ own doing – their sickening performance following the Vietnam War, where they figuratively and literally spit on our troops – so disgusted decent Americans of all political stripes that to do anything but treat our troops with the utmost respect is to draw near-universal contempt and scorn from across the mainstream political spectrum.

So, the real problem for Chris Hayes is that he actually said what he thinks. He thinks our soldiers are suckers and fools at best, brutal sociopaths at worst. At a minimum, he feels that honoring those who died for this country might encourage people to see that actually defending our country is a good thing. He’s not quite ready to make that leap; after all, most progressives are ambivalent about this whole “America” concept, if not actively opposed to it.

Patriotism may be the last refuge of a scoundrel, but when progressives attempt it, it’s comedy gold.

So, like so many other useless progressive fops who glide from cocktail party to panel discussion, Chris Hayes continues to push his progressive vision of collectivist serfdom from behind the unbreachable wall of American warriors. He has not stood with them and, in fact, is unworthy of doing so. He is a parasite taking sustenance from the exertions of better men and women.

And even if those men and women know who Chris Hayes is, they wouldn’t give a half damn about what he thinks. They don’t do it for him.

Big Journalism

Bloggers Briefing Preview: The Businessman on Obama’s Enemies List Speaks Out

by Robert Bluey

 
 Frank VanderSloot grew up a poor kid in rural Idaho. His father made $300 a month. His clothes came from the Salvation Army. Yet through determination and hard work -- and with the help of America’s free-enterprise system -- today he’s the successful CEO of a global supplier of wellness products.

VanderSloot’s rags-to-riches story is not unlike other American tales of individuals who have benefited from the free market. In VanderSloot’s case, however, that success came with a price -- but only when he decided to write a check to a super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.

“The whole free-enterprise system has been so good to me and my family, I want to protect that,” he told me by phone from his Idaho Falls, ID, headquarters last week. “I now see that system under attack.”

VanderSloot’s life changed forever on April 20. That’s when President Obama’s campaign created the first presidential “enemies list” since the Nixon era. Eight private citizens were singled out for their donations to Romney. They committed no crimes, sought no attention, and yet they became the subject of Obama’s scorn.

This Tuesday at noon ET VanderSloot will visit The Heritage Foundation to share his story at The Bloggers Briefing, a weekly event streamed live by Breitbart News.

VanderSloot got his first taste of the left’s tactics in February when he was the subject of hit pieces by left-wing Mother Jones and Salon’s Glenn Greenwald. Both stories surprised VanderSloot for their harsh and negative portrayal of Melaleuca, the company he has overseen for 26 years.

“We have an excellent reputation everywhere we go,” VanderSloot said. “I don’t have a PR firm. My attitude has been, ‘If we’re worthy of a good reputation, we’ll have one.’ And that’s worked for 26 years until this comes out. And then people are saying all kinds of things about us.”

But that backlash paled in comparison to the negative attention created by Obama’s team. The campaign website KeepingGOPHonest.com castigated the eight Romney donors as having “less-than-reputable records. Quite a few have been on the wrong side of the law, others have made profits at the expense of so many Americans.”

The resulting attention led to a loss of business for Melaleuca. Only when VanderSloot began speaking out to publicly defend his reputation and the company’s record did he begin to receive an outpouring of support.

Conservatives, meanwhile, quickly pounced on Obama’s attack. The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper wrote, “President Obama has relied on a vast grassroots network to coerce, bully, boycott and vilify individuals lawfully taking part in the political process, just as his own donors and supporters are freely allowed to engage.”

Kimberly Strassel wrote two subsequent columns for the Wall Street Journal and VanderSloot told his story on Fox News.

During our interview last week, VanderSloot told me he was unprepared for the Obama campaign’s assault on his character. Some of the allegations -- that he was “litigious, combative, and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement” -- are completely false. It didn’t seem to matter.

VanderSloot, however, isn’t going to let anyone sully his reputation -- even if it means taking the fight directly to the most powerful man in America.

“There is no way I could afford to run for cover because it just sets a bad example,” VanderSloot said. “When you make a list of eight people, it’s like saying, ‘Just watch what we do to these guys.’ I don’t know the other seven guys. I just know for me, I can’t run for cover and I have no inclination to. This is America.”

Tune in on Tuesday at noon ET to hear from VanderSloot at Breitbart News.

Big Government

Please Watch what Gov. Scott Walker has to say on FOX NEWS

Who Cares About Wright the Second Time Around?

May 27, 2012
By Karin McQuillan

When the videos of Obama's angry pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, hit voters' TV screens in March of 2008, Obama's favorable ratings plummeted.  The number of Democrats saying he would be their nominee fell 20%.  In a Rasmussen poll, a strong 56% of likely voters thought Obama shared some of Wright's views.  Soon after, we were told the Wright story was over, that it was racist, and never to mention it again.

Democrats and mainstream media then and now insist that Obama's church is off-limits, while simultaneously attacking Mormonism.  "If Mormons are such responsible people, why are voters turned off?" asks the New York Times, while TIME magazine piously intones, "Associating Obama with Wright's radical views raises the specter of racial stereotyping ... knowingly discounting his stated positions and making assumptions that may be influenced by his race." 

It is less clear why Republicans continue to cave in to the Democrat pressure to shut up.  The polling data at the time showed that Obama's closeness to the odious Rev. Wright went over very badly indeed with more than half of independents, precisely those voters essential to Romney's re-election.

Obama won in 2008 with 52% of independent voters.  We will never know how many of those votes 
Obama would have lost if more voters had seen the Wright videos.  Independents are not news junkies.  

Indeed, they are notorious for not paying attention to the news until just before the election.  By the fall, there was a complete news blackout about Obama's black liberation theology church.  McCain refused to run campaign ads to inform voters who missed the original story. 

Outside conservative media, there was no in-depth reporting to provide details about Obama's openly Marxist church.  Obama wrote in Dreams that he chose the church because of its political gospel, not because he was seeking religion.  Yet most voters to this day do not know that Obama's church explains the world through a lens of white greed, teaches that America is fundamentally unfair, and promotes income redistribution.  In 2012, the story of Obama's church would have a greater impact on the election, since these are -- no big surprise -- Obama's central campaign themes.  It turns out that Wright was relevant.  It would have been nice to know that before electing a son of this church to the presidency.

How much were voters affected by the Wright story in 2008, even with the paltry coverage it received?  

When the story broke in March, according to Pew, only 31% of Americans heard about Wright's sermons -- fewer had seen the videos.  There was hardly any news coverage until three months later, when Obama's speech repudiating Wright was covered by the mainstream media.  Even then, less than half the citizens polled saw the videos of Wright damning America.  Immediately after the speech, Republicans ceded an unearned victory to Obama and dropped the story. 

The videos were powerful.  Among Americans polled, 52% of independents and 43% of Democrats reported themselves offended.  Thirty-five percent of Americans polled said their opinion of candidate Barack Obama grew less favorable.

In May of 2008, Obama recognized that his loyalty to Wright was a threat to his chances for election.  In a well-covered story, Obama at last repudiated his pastor.  Rasmussen's polling showed that only 40% of likely voters saw the repudiation as genuine.  That week, McCain broke his tie with Obama and took a lead in the polls.  

Yet then and now, Republican "experts" tell us that talking about Obama's black liberation church will damage Republicans more than Obama.  What is their evidence?  To say that voters care more about the economy is true.  To say that Romney himself should stay positive and focus on the economy makes sense.  

But none of us lives by bread alone.

When voters are questioned about issues, the economy dominates.  Yet voters also choose a president based on his perceived leadership qualities and character.  A recent Real Clear Politics article by David Kuhn is entitled "Presidential Campaigns Always Concern Character."  He writes:

In springtime 2007, the Gallup organization asked Americans to delineate the most important quality they sought in a presidential candidate. One-third of the public said honest and straightforward. Leadership ranked second. Tied for third: integrity and the ability to govern.

Gallup went on to ask what qualities were "essential" in a presidential candidate. The top three: strong and decisive leader (78 percent), good moral character (68 percent) and an effective manager (63 percent).

Obama won because voters liked what they saw.  They didn't see the videos of Reverend Wright damning America and being cheered by Obama's fellow congregants the Sunday after 9/11.  Progressives who share Obama's apology worldview don't care.  They agree with Rev. Wright that 9/11 was America's fault because we protect Israel and because we are an evil imperialist power.

But most of us remember our feelings the week of 9/11 vividly.  We will never forget the images of the World Trade Towers, the national sorrow and grief, our anger at the terrorists and our gratitude to Giuliani and Bush for their leadership at that moment. 

Liberal secularists who never set foot in a church don't get it.  Most Americans attend church regularly, and they do get it.  They've heard their minister, priest, or rabbi say things that they don't agree with -- that's normal.  But to stay in a church where the pastor led the congregation to cheer 9/11?  Few Americans would remain in such a congregation.  Obama did.  In 2008, the Democrat mainstream media argued that Obama was a centrist and surely did not share these offensive progressive views. 

In 2012, the excuses would be a harder case to make, given Obama's apology tours abroad, his repudiation of America's moral stature on the world stage, his bowing to the hate-exporting Saudi princes, his handing over the Middle East to the jihadi Muslim Brothers.  In 2012, we can see that indeed, Trinity was Obama's true church.

Blaming America as racist and imperialist is only half the agenda of Obama's church.  The other half is their vision for the future.  Voters still have not heard Obama asked uncomfortable questions by the press about why he chose to attend for two decades -- almost his whole adult life -- a black liberation theology church whose congregants are asked to sign on to a value statement that explicitly condemns "middleclassness."  

They have not heard descriptions of the church he sat in:

Among some of the Black Nationalist signs hanging in this church are a list of admonishments to black solidarity, called the "Black Value System," and a sort of moral code calling for the "Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness."

How comfortable would the average voter be that their president cherished a preacher who talked of white greed as a credo, was openly Marxist, and lionized the racist anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan?  Would they feel comfortable that Obama's church bookstore carries as many political books as religious ones, "books glorifying violence and black supremacy racism"?  Kyle-Anne Shiver reported on her visit to Obama's church in an article in American Thinker, but no mainstream reporters picked up on the story:

Having been a practicing Christian for more than 40 years now, and a practicing Catholic for 26 of those years, I have visited perhaps 100 various Christian bookstores, both Protestant and Catholic. In all of those places, one thing tied together the books for sale: Christianity.

Not so in Obama's church bookstore.

I spent more than an hour perusing available books, and found as many claiming to represent Muslim thought as those representing Christian thought. Black Muslim thought, to be specific.

And the books claiming to support Christianity were surprisingly of a more political than religious nature. The books by James H. Cone, Wright's own mentor, were prominent and numerous.

Now that I have read a number of the books that presumably Wright's congregants (including Barack Obama) have also read, I can only conclude that the thing tying these volumes together is not Christianity, nor any real religion, but the political philosophy of Karl Marx.

The public never heard Obama asked a single awkward question about why his chosen mentor and advisor, the Rev. Wright, went with Farrakhan to Libya to fawn over Moammar Gaddafi, the monster who had bombed Pan Am 103.  They never heard any interviewer ask Obama how he could feel close to such a pastor. 

According to the Pew Forum, 50% of the campaign stories that covered religion in the 2008 election were about Romney (as primary candidate) being a Mormon.  Only one half of one percent were about presidential candidate Obama's black liberation theology.

One half of one percent.  And then the journalists and the pundits and the campaign advisors tell us the public doesn't care about Obama's church.  The public never got a chance to show whether they care or not.  They never got a chance to learn in any detail about Obama's religion of resentment and envy, until it was too late. 

Voters liked Obama in 2008 because he promised us he'd be a leader on race, a black president who would put hate and resentment and the past scars behind, and recognize that white America is no longer racist.  He promised us that his character was bigger and better than that of those loser black politicians who stoke racial resentment and push payback agendas.  Obama's core appeal as a candidate -- then and now -- is based on his being the opposite of his chosen mentor and cherished advisor, the angry Rev. Wright.  No wonder that learning about Wright and how Obama cherished him was devastating to Obama's appeal.  The one week the videos were aired, his approval ratings dropped 20%.

Tell me again why the New York Times can run stories such as "There Is a Dark Side to Mormonism" on Romney's faith, but we mustn't talk at all about Obama's chosen creed of black liberation theology. 

It is now four years since the Wright videos surfaced.  It is no longer a hypothetical whether or not Obama meant it when he said the Marxist Rev. Wright was his mentor and guide.  Voters can easily see the connection between Obama's politics of envy and resentment and his church of 20 years.  Obama's record and his current campaign show that he is a loyal son of Wright's church. 

It is all too easy to see what a suave Ivy School version of black liberation theology looks like in the White House.  It looks like a ruined middle class; a massive entitlement government; and a lot of attacks on rich, successful white men.  In Rush's brilliant formulation, Obama is running against capitalism.  Let's make sure every voter in swing states sees those Wright videos connected to Obama's campaign talking points, so that can make up their own minds if Obama ever left Wright's church.  It is hard to trust Obama or feel he is that likable after you see the connection.  That is why Obama's church matters.

American Thinker

Breitbart News Proudly Hosts Gay Marriage Video Banned by YouTube

by Larry O'Connor 

 The following video produced by sixteen-year-old Madeleine McAulay has been banned by YouTube because it did not meet their "community guidelines." The video, which had garnered over 20,000 hits in only a week, was submitted to Breitbart News for consideration when it was first released.   As editor of Breitbart TV, the video curating division of Breitbart News, I receive dozens of daily submissions from talented and thoughtful citizen journalists. Many of them are similar to McAulay's video which consists of an individual sitting in front of their webcam and giving their opinion about an issue in the news. These "vlogging" submissions very rarely get published at Breitbart TV. It is not a reflection of the content or quality of the videos; they just don't generally fit with Breitbart TV's editorial objective, which is to provide newsworthy and compelling videos catering to the center-right audience.

I was thrilled to see Ms. McAulay's video do so well and equally thrilled when Fox and Friends featured her and her video on their wildly popular morning news show. Even with that kind of coverage, the video still did not fit with the content that we generally look for when putting together the Breitbart News video page... until this weekend.

YouTube, the Internet's video town square, decided on Friday that Ms. McAulay's video should not be seen. They removed it and rejected her appeal on the grounds that it did not meet their "community guidelines." YouTube decided that the opinion expressed by Ms. McAulay was so hateful, so inflammatory, so out-of-bounds that the opinion is not suitable for their audience to hear. Ms. McAulay, in the opinion of YouTube, must be silenced.

 

Now this video is news.



We are proud to host this video at Breitbart News and we invite everyone to Tweet it, Facebook it and embed it in their blogs. Not because we necessarily agree with Ms. McAulay, but because we believe, as our site's founder did, that our nation is stronger because of active and engaging debate of all ideas.

More voices, not less. 

Big Journalism

Obama Campaign Again Urging Supporters to Report on Non-Believers

By Warner Todd Huston

Turning back to that page out of Stalin’s handbook for good citizenship, the Obama campaign has revived its program of asking Americans to inform on fellow citizens when they see someone, some organization, some politician, or some news outlet “attacking” the Obammessiah.

Some of you may recall the black eye that team Obama got when it tried to do this before. Obama’s Attack Watch was heavily lampooned. (See Video Below)

One of the best tools that the East German and Soviet regimes had to keep the average citizen of their oppressive regimes in line was a program that urged citizens to tattle on their neighbors, that taught children to tell on their parents, and expected workers to rat out their co-workers. If someone came to the government informing on a fellow citizen, that citizen was praised and rewarded.

Now, Team Obama has gone all Stalin on us again with yet another such effort, this one called the Obama Truth Team. The new effort sports a page on the Obama-Biden website where you can “Fight Back: Report an Attack.” (See screen shot of page HERE)

There, Team Obama gravely informs its acolytes that they can “report” on anyone not spouting Team Obama’s mantra.

  Received a robo-call or an email forward full of falsehoods? Found a misleading leaflet in your mail?

Tell us about it, and help fight back against the attacks on President Obama and his record.

There is also a hand-dandy form you can fill in to inform on whomever you think is not sufficiently sold on America’s Svengali in Chief.

But, Obama has done this now at least four times. Along with today’s new effort, there was Attack Watch, Fight the Smears, and Flag.gov. Obama has indulged the tattletale system many times in his short tenure at the White House.

The sad fact is that this whole mien is thoroughly anti-American.

The chief form of free speech that our founding fathers were keen to protect was political speech. They wanted no limits on that speech. Not only that but they wanted a political discourse free of intimidation, too.

So, for Team Obama to urge people to inform on each other over matters political is a disgusting, un-American thing to do. Unfortunately, it seems that such unseemly, un-American attitudes form the basis of the Obama worship we’ve become so inundated with these last eight years.

It really is disgusting.

Canada Free Press

Only God and Americans can save the U.S. from Obama

By John Porter 

To Americans everywhere:

As Wes Riddle of Texas has written, “The term Republic had a significant meaning for all early Americans.

The form of government secured by the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the Constitution was unique, requiring strict limitation of government power. Powers that were permitted would be precisely defined and delegated by the people, with all public officials being bound by their oath of office to uphold the Constitution.

The Constitution made it clear that the government was not to interfere with productive nonviolent human energy. This is the key element that has permitted America’s great achievements and made America the political and economic envy of the world. We have truly been blessed.”

To all who cherish our individual liberty, do not despair. Let us not give up in our effort to save our Representative Republic from the now constant attacks from president Barack Obama and his czars upon our system of Constitutional Law. We, the American people, must unite and come together now as never before in the history of this great nation. If we will stand with each other, as the American people, forgetting political party ties, we can and must save ourselves and keep this Republic from being destroyed and replaced by Barack Obama Socialism. It is our responsibility to do it. The founders of the American Republic structured the system so we could always do just that.

We, the governed, have sole consent as to whom we allow to sit in power in our Capital. Like all human beings do, per our nature, we make mistakes. A mistake was made by electing Barack Obama as president in 2008. We now must admit it to ourselves, suck it up and make a correction. Stopping Socialism is the most important issue before the American people today. The president, upon taking office, swears to defend and protect the Constitution. Barack Obama has done neither. It is a matter of public record that he has, in fact, intentionally done the exact opposite. We must be united in purpose to save our Republic from Obama and Socialism.

What is INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY? Because I was born (73 years ago) and raised in the small American town of Henryetta, Oklahoma, I have never personally experienced government oppression, as have so many billions of people throughout history all over this world. So I, like most Americans, have taken it for granted and assumed it would always be thus in this country. I began a search to answer for myself the real meaning of Individual Liberty, and also Is America an exceptional country because of it? As you recall, Barack Obama said publicly he does not believe it is. In all my wildest dreams I could have never imagined an American President thinking that, much less hearing a president of the United States make that statement.

As I began, I was reminded very quickly that freedom is not something granted to us by the government. It is not something the government allows us to have, but one of our God given unalienable rights. It is one of the sacred rights of all mankind endowed upon us by God Almighty, our Creator. If we are herded and driven like cattle, dictated to by government as though they own us and we are subjects of that government, it is because we have lost our God-given right to be free, which He bestowed upon us at birth.

I learned in my search, of all the wonderful things America is about, that Individual Freedom is our most precious and greatest treasure. Individual Liberty is the absence of government restraint on our ability to think and act for ourselves. Individual Liberty is being free from government oppression and regulation, and it automatically carries with it individual responsibility for our own decisions and actions. Freedom is the capacity for self-determination. It is not cast in stone to forever be, but it is a condition, and conditions can change. Individual Freedom can grow and expand, but it can also shrink and disappear. The spirit of Liberty has to be in the population. Individual Freedom will only be preserved as long as there is devotion to freedom expressed in the hearts and actions of the people. Our desire for Individual Liberty must be stronger than Obama’s desire to turn us into his subjects under a Socialist government of America or we will become slaves to him and that government. He will have accomplished his goal.

  In 1775 Alexander Hamilton said, “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself, and can never be erased.” President Bush said a few years ago, “History moves toward freedom because the desire for freedom is written in every human heart.”

 In his address at the Gettysburg National Cemetery, president Lincoln declared, “It is for us the living to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus so nobly advanced.” That unfinished work for which so many American soldiers willingly go to the battles of war, and which so many have given the full measure of devotion, is the cause of The United States of America as an exceptional country of INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. I here declare to you, that work will never be finished. It is up to each generation to continue the work and keep the American spirit of Individual Freedom alive in every heart.

Barack Obama campaigned on “fundamental change in America.” Had he given us the details of what he meant by that, I seriously doubt he would have been elected. Americans were not looking to change Individual Liberty for subjugation to an expanding Federal Socialist government with more and more regulation of almost every aspect of our lives. We have become a strong and exceptional nation through the self reliance of Individual Freedom, and the preservation of that liberty through the spilling of the blood of our fellow patriots. The more power we allow Barack Obama and the Federal Government to amass the less Individual Freedom we will have. Freedom is a birthright from God. If we become government slaves it is because we allowed it to be taken from us.

 Our great nation was given birth, out of the womb of a bloody revolution for liberty, as a Representative Republic of Free Individuals, not one of Socialism and collective slaves of government. Americans everywhere, we had better get involved and take a stand against government control of our lives. Now is not the time to be silent as Barrack Obama attempts to dismantle this great country and bring it down to a lower level of the Socialist countries of Europe. Now is the time for us to be resolved to protect and defend our Individual Freedom. We hear it said Obama is not a leader, that he is incompetent. It is very true that he is not a leader for a Representative Republic of Free Individuals, for he does not believe in the system of government which our Founders established. But he is an exceptional leader in the effort to turn America into a Socialist nation. 

 To everyone who will listen and hear, never believe for a moment that Barack Obama is incompetent. I submit to you, he knows exactly what he is doing and why he is doing it. He spent most of his early years studying and learning how to do it under the teachings of the Socialist Revolutionary Saul Alinsky; his Chicago neighbor Bill Ayers, and others. These men now have one of their own positioned in the White House. As Barack Obama summarized at the height of his campaign: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” He does not believe we are an exceptional nation. Be not deceived, Barack Obama sees America very differently than our Founding Fathers and how you and I see America.

  I earnestly pray that Barack Obama is defeated in his bid for a second term as president. Given the manner in which he is now shredding the Constitution, if given four more years to act, knowing he doesn’t have to answer to us for his actions, the damage he can and will do in tearing down and destroying this country as a Representative Republic, is at present unimaginable.

Please feel free to pass this to whom ever you wish. I am not afraid.

God Bless America, Please.

Canada Free Press

Gay Marriage: The Hidden Agenda

May 27, 2012
By Victor Volsky

It is the iron law of "progressive" movements that having achieved their goals, they refuse to fade away.  Rather than disbanding upon completion of their mission, these movements, now fully institutionalized, keep chugging along, and the farther they go, the more they resemble their sworn enemies, the rationale for their existence.

The labor movement that arose as a desperate defense against unbridled exploitation has degenerated into a stultifying, mafia-style monopoly whose grip on any business dooms that business to slow strangulation.  The civil rights movement emerged to fight discrimination.  But as its baton passed from Martin Luther King, Jr. to the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the movement's main motto transmogrified from equality -- i.e., abolition of white privilege -- into affirmative action -- i.e., establishment of black privilege.  And equality has come to be denigrated by the new self-appointed civil rights elite as a particularly insidious form of racial discrimination.  Feminism born of a legitimate earning for equal rights and dignity has turned into a female supremacy movement implacably hostile to the "patriarchy" -- i.e., the traditional social structure.

The gay rights movement, too, has been transforming itself before our very eyes.  Once a movement fighting against persecution and discrimination, which is the reason why its initial demands enjoyed wide public support, it has gone from one triumph to another and won the war.  Today, the issue is moot.  But the gay movement has not declared victory and gone home.  Central to achieving their goal is bending society to their will and forcing it to acquiesce to their agenda.

That's where same-sex marriage comes in.  It's no mystery why it commands considerable support.  After all, what can be more "American" than the idea of granting equality to a formerly persecuted group that has done nothing untoward other than being different in its sexual proclivities?  Sort of like being discriminated because of the color of one's skin (even though many black leaders, jealously guarding their highly lucrative victimhood, take strong exception to equating gay liberation with the civil rights struggle).  So recognition of gay unions as legitimate marriages seems to be an eminently innocuous idea.  But appearances can be deceptive.  Few things are more destructive than gay marriage, a poison pill devised to corrode the very core of a healthy society -- the institution of marriage.

Not a single society in the long history of mankind has ever attempted to substitute homosexual relationships for traditional marriage.  Even in places where homosexuality was viewed as normal, openly practiced, and even encouraged (as in Sparta, where carnal relationship was regarded as forging an extra bond between warriors), marriage was sacrosanct and never called into question.  Marriage has always been universally understood as a biological, social, and economic arrangement to bring into the world and rear the young, thus perpetuating the species.  Indeed, humans took their cue from wild nature, where heterosexual family is virtually the sole organizing principle of life.

The rare exceptions only prove the rule, as do stable childless marriages held together by considerations of economic necessity or social convenience.  Indeed, so central is marriage to human existence that it forms the basic building block and prototype of any society.  The many forms of social organization are but permutations of the basic familial pattern; the clan, the tribe and the state are merely an extended family writ large.

Don't believe revolutionaries when they hold forth about their intention of building paradise on earth.  Actually, they would be unable to build anything even if they wanted to.  Their talk about the bright future is mere lip service, because in reality, any revolution is exclusively about destruction, with very little thought given to what will happen afterward ("we'll cross that bridge when we come to it").  But how do you go about destroying society?  Where do you direct the blow so it will do the most damage?  In his Theses on Feuerbach, Karl Marx provided the answer: destroy the traditional family.

True to the teachings of their prophet, socialist revolutionaries have placed the destruction of matrimony high on their list of priorities.  Social upheavals have always opened the floodgates of debauchery and pornography.  The socialist revolution brings about a breakdown of social conventions, with "sexual liberation" regarded as part of the overall drive for freedom.  But while the rabble yearns to throw off the yoke of moral strictures to give vent to its animal passions, the revolutionary leaders see moral decay as a means of undermining the bulwark of the social structure -- the family.

Radical movements are merely battalions of the revolutionary army, each charged with a particular subversive task.  Undoubtedly, the overwhelming majority of rank-and-file gays are well-meaning people who have sincerely bought into the myth peddled by their leaders that the marriage license is the ultimate token of recognition of their normalcy.  They know not what they are doing.  But the wizards behind the curtain know better, and there shouldn't be any illusions about their intentions: they want nothing less than to bring down the capitalist system, and they view their movement as a battering ram to shatter its principal bastion, America.  Bringing down the traditional family is a crucial step in that direction.

But why is gay marriage inimical to the traditional matrimony?  How does society suffer if it gives legal sanction to the cohabitation of gay couples and bestows upon them the rights traditionally granted to spouses?  In short, an approach based on individual rights is a bum steer.  Legalization of same-sex marriage compromises the institution of marriage and thus undermines the family built on the foundation of marriage.  

It has been known since the dawn of history that a family unit consisting of a man and a woman is the best nurturing environment for the children.  According to the research center Child Trends, "[r]esearch confirms that children develop best in families formed by both biological parents in a low-conflict marriage."  Even the best-intentioned gay couples raising children shortchange their wards.  But the most militant gay leaders are not well-meaning.  Just as the radical leftists started out on their Great March through the Institutions with schools and colleges as their primary targets ("We'll get you through your children," the radical leftist and gay poet Allen Ginsberg warned his erstwhile friend Norman Podhoretz), gay militants have children in their cross-hairs.  A nationwide organization, The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, openly acknowledges that its objective is to promote a positive view of homosexuality among pre-teen and teenage students.

Aside from the tremendous damage same-sex marriage does to the well-being and normal development of children, by offering an alternative to a bedrock institution, gay marriage calls into question all traditional values.  There is a strong correlation between the rise of homosexual marriage and the weakening of traditional matrimony.  David Blankenhorn observes, "The deep logic of same-sex marriage is clearly consistent with what scholars call deinstitutionalization -- the overturning or weakening of all of the customary forms of marriage, and the dramatic shrinking of marriage's public meaning and institutional authority. Does deinstitutionalization necessarily require gay marriage? Apparently not. For decades heterosexuals have been doing a fine job on that front all by themselves. But gay marriage clearly presupposes and reinforces deinstitutionalization."  

Marx's loyal cohort Friedrich Engels, in his influential work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the States, disclosed the game plan in a single, succinct proposition: change the concept of matrimony, and the traditional family will cease to exist.  And once the family is gone, society will fall apart.  Knock out the cornerstone, and the whole edifice will crumble, which is precisely the ultimate goal of the revolutionary movement.

American Thinker