Message to the GOP: Believe it or Not

November 30, 2012
By J.T. Hatter

Bill Whittle has been making the rounds with the observation that the Republican Party doesn't believe its own message, and this is one of the main reasons we lost the election. The idea is that Republicans make a show of being conservative, but don't demonstrate a true commitment to conservative values or our nation's founding principles. I think he's right. Bill Whittle is a very smart guy.

Lately, the Republicans have been doing everything they can to prove him right. The Republican leadership has long been shifting policies and positions to the left, and is now accelerating in that direction. We need a "bigger tent", don't you know, and the best way to get a "bigger tent" is to become more like the Democrats.

John McCain says we need to leave abortion alone and get to the business of immigration reform. McCain wants another amnesty. He's learned nothing of the disaster of the last one. Republican officials Saxby Chambliss, Peter King, Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker, Eric Cantor, John McCain and others are backing off, or outright reneging, on their Taxpayer Protection Pledge not to raise taxes.

Abortion, amnesty and tax-and-spend policies: Does this sound like a party that truly believes in conservative values and America's founding principles?

Listen, Republican leadership, you made a cock-up of this last election. We conservatives are stunned and still reeling that you could have lost it. We can't believe it. This election was impossible to lose. We should have been able to run Donald Duck and win. But you managed to lose the election to the worst president in American history -- an anti-American Marxist -- in a horrible economic recession he is largely responsible for, and you still lost the election. That is really an incredible accomplishment. We can't wait to see what you're going to do for us next.

Conservative Leaders Wanted

The rise of liberalism is the cause of America's decline. We need decisive action in the fight against Obama's socialist agenda. And so far, Republicans, you're not providing it. You're being called the Party of Complete Surrender for good reason. I've come to believe that the Republican Party is incapable of defending our nation against the socialist onslaught. Republicans might slow it down a bit, but we are slouching towards Gomorrah, inexorably headed the way of The Soviet Union, Red China, and Europe.

This inability to express a positive conservative vision has been going on with the GOP for a long time. Instead of exciting, visionary, conservative candidates you give us RINOs. In the last two generations, Ronald Reagan was the only truly conservative Republican leader, and he had to break the establishment GOP's back to finally win the party's nomination.

How do you get to be a Republican presidential candidate? Three ways: 1) It's your turn to be president, according to the GOP; 2) You have a fire in the belly for conservative principles and the public falls in love with you; or, 3) You want to be president and have the right family and political connections. Let's look at GOP presidential candidates and their reason for running for office.

Republican President or Candidate	Reason for Running for Office
Richard Nixon--------------------------------	It's my turn.
Gerald Ford----------------------------------	Oh, sh*t!
Ronald Reagan------------------------------	I have a conservative vision and I strongly believe in America's founding principles.
George H.W. Bush-------------------------	It's my turn.
Bob Dole------------------------------------	It's my turn.
George W. Bush-----------------------	I wanna be prez.
John McCain--------------------------	It's my turn.
Mitt Romney--------------------------	I wanna be prez.

Can you spot the true conservative? With one exception, these candidates don't thrill you with their enthusiasm for conservative values and our nation's founding principles. One truly conservative candidate out of eight is a disaster.

So what do we hear from the GOP lately? The trial balloons we are getting for presidential candidates are Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, both establishment Republicans, both balloon-heads. 

Jeb Bush? Are they serious? Yes, they are. Let's face it, both Rubio and Bush are RINOs, and neither of them has a chance of getting elected president. Why? The same reason Ford, Dole, McCain and Romney couldn't get elected -- they're RINOs, and the conservative base won't fully support them.

Hype and Chains

How do the Republican candidates compete with someone who says, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. "This person offers hope and change. That's what most Americans desperately want -- fundamental change. Sounds good. Washington is broken. Without fundamental change we're toast. This guy offers hope.

But the Democratic Party candidate lied about what he was really up to.Americans didn't know that Obama wanted to change American into a socialist nation -- and that he is willing to destroy the country to do it. Most Americans still don't believe it.

Say what you will about Obama, he is someone who believes in his (Marxist) principles and has the audacity to actively pursue them, fight for them -- lie, cheat and steal for them. A leader with that kind of fire and commitment can lead millions of enthusiastic followers straight into the bowels of hell, cheering him every step of the way. He's doing it right now.

And what is the Republican Party's answer to this socialist menace that is actively undermining our government and destroying our way of life? There is no answer. Nothing. Nada. The Republicans roll over and play dead. Can't criticize the Democrats or the mainstream media will call us racist, homophobic, sexist, bigots. Instead of fighting this slander, the GOP has decided to transform itself into the socialist-lite party, to get more people into the "bigger tent", don't you know. They want to give away Obamaphones too. Bread and circuses win elections, they think. But what the American people really want is someone they can believe in and follow, someone like Ronald Reagan, an honest-to-God conservative with a clear vision for national restoration.

The one characteristic that candidates Reagan and Obama had in common is that they deeply believed in their principles and political beliefs. I can't think of a single living Republican I can say that about.

GOP's Zero Interest in National Restoration

The GOP has expressed exactly zero interest in restoring the USA as the most prosperous, generous, fair, and religious nation in the history of the world; zero interest in returning to the days of balanced budgets, limited government and the free enterprise system. Have you heard anyone in the GOP talk about this? That's all we want the GOP to do. But the GOP doesn't see the situation the way we do. The GOP desperately wants to continue feeding and slopping at the money and power trough in Washington, and will do anything to protect this privilege, even transform itself into the Democratic-lite party.

We have everything we need to restore America to its former greatness. Everything. Except for the political will to make it happen, to take the reins of power away from the socialists, reform our government, and get down to the brass tacks of rebuilding our industrial base, commercial sector, and economic infrastructure, powered by a cheap, clean and abundant energy supply that we already have. We have all the physical resources to get this job done. We can once again become the world's most prosperous lender nation instead of its worst debtor nation. All of this is within our grasp. This is a message people are desperate to hear.

A New Horizon

Ronald Reagan famously said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me." That's the way I feel right now. The Republican Party has left me and I have nowhere else to go. Yet.

For God's sake, Republicans, if you couldn't win an election against Barack Hussein Obama, the worst president in United States' history, in a severe economic recession, a person whose very eligibility for the job is in question, then what good are you? Who needs you?

I'm ready to move on. I can hear the storm of protest and denial coming my way already, 'What do you mean, quit the Republicans? A third party has no chance against the Democratic Party machine. You're throwing away your vote.' This is the default argument, and it and the Republican status quo are no longer acceptable. As Thomas Parnell said, "I'll seek a readier path."

If I believed there was a chance in ten of reforming the Republican Party, I'd work hard on the reformation, rebranding and rebirth efforts. But we're talking about the party of Trent Lott, George Bush, John Boehner, Darrell Issa and John McCain. It is the party of faux conservatism and little else. It's time for a change.

The Constitution Party, Independence Party, Libertarian Party, the Tea Party, and others, need to join forces and form the conservative splinter faction within the Republican Party. It needs to gain power and influence, attract followers based on a solid platform of conservative values, and oppose compromise efforts by the GOP. And when the time is right, it needs to take over the Republican Party -- or split from it once and for all. The GOP is no longer an option. It is only a slower train to socialist hell.

The Republican Party doesn't believe its own message, and this is one of the main reasons we lost the election. Americans need a genuine conservative party, one that believes in our nation's founding principles and is willing to fight for them. This is what most Americans desperately want, Republicans. Believe it or not.

American Thinker

Rice’s Failure in Rwanda Precludes Her from Becoming Secretary of State

by Shmuley Boteach 30 Nov 2012

 That Susan Rice either willfully misled the American people on the Benghazi attacks, or lazily absorbed intelligence briefings without the least bit of personal involvement, is obvious. That she was covering for the Obama Administration in denying a terror attack just weeks before the election is speculative but likely. That she does not, therefore, deserve to become Secretary of State is arguable. But what is not arguable is that she deserves to be denied the post for a different reason altogether: Rwanda. What emerges when taken together--Rice’s weak response in Benghazi, blaming the murder of four Americans on a stupid video, and her shameful lack of action in the Rwandan genocide--is a career diplomat of singular weakness, lacking the spine or muscularity to assert American moral influence in the world.

Rice was part of Bill Clinton’s National Security Team, whic in 1994 refused any involvement whatsoever in the Rwanda genocide leaving more than 800,000 men, women, and children to be hacked to death by machete in the fastest genocide ever recorded. The Clinton Administration had just been spooked by the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia and wanted no further foreign entanglements. But the lengths to which they went to deny assistance to the Tutsis, with Rice being central to the decision-making process, will forever live in infamy.

But not content to insist on American non-involvement, the Clinton administration went a step further by obstructing the efforts of other nations to stop the slaughter. On April 21, 1994, the Canadian UN commandeer in Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire, declared that he required only 5000 troops to bring the genocide to a rapid halt. In addition, a single bombing run against the RTLM Hutu Power radio transmitting antenna would have made it impossible for the Hutus to coordinate their genocide. But on the very same day, as Phillip Gourevitch explains in his definitive account of the Rwandan genocide, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will Be Killed with Our Families, the Security Council, with the Clinton Administration’s blessing, ordered the UN force under Dallaire reduced by ninety percent to a skeleton staff of 270 troops who would powerlessly witness the slaughter to come. This, in turn, was influenced by Presidential Decision Directive 25, which "amounted to a checklist of reasons to avoid American involvement in UN peacekeeping missions," even though Dallaire did not seek American troops and the mission was not peacekeeping but genocide prevention. Indeed, Madeleine Albright, the American Ambassador to the UN, opposed leaving even this tiny UN force. She also pressured other countries "to duck, as the death toll leapt from thousands to tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands… the absolute low point in her career as a stateswoman."

In a 2001 article published in the Atlantic, Samantha Power, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning A Problem of Hell and arguably the world’s foremost voice against genocide, and who currently serves on the National Security Council as an aide to President Obama, referred to Ambassador Susan Rice and her colleagues in the Clinton Administration as "Bystanders to Genocide." She quotes Rice in the 2002 book as saying, “If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November congressional election?"

Rice’s subordination of a human tragedy of epic proportions to partisan politic interests mirrors the current allegations of why she denied a terror attack in Benghazi. Rice joined Madeline Albright, Anthony Lake, and Warren Christopher as part of a coordinated effort not only to impede UN action to stop the Rwanda genocide, but to minimize public opposition to American inaction by removing words like "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" from government communications on the subject.

In the end, eight African nations, fed up with American inaction, agreed to send in an intervention force to stop the slaughter provided that the U.S. would lend them fifty armored personal carriers. The Clinton Administration decided it would lease rather than lend the armor for a price of $15 million. The carriers sat on a runway in Germany while the UN pleaded for a $5 million reduction as the genocidal inferno raged. The story only gets worse from there, with the Clinton State Department refusing to label the Rwanda horrors a genocide because of the 1948 Genocide Convention that would have obligated the United States to intervene--an effort in which Susan Rice participated.

I recently met Gourevitch at a press conference I hosted for the Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, where she announced that Rwanda would be opening an Embassy in Israel in the next six months. It was an honor for me to encounter an American who had done so much to highlight the brutal slaughter of innocent Africans while the most powerful country on earth did nothing.

But why honor Susan Rice for the ignominy of doing nothing while six in Rwanda died every minute? Why elevate a woman so oblivious to American moral principles and the value of African life that she thought we ought to sit this one out?

It was painful enough to watch Kofi Annan elevated to Secretary General even though as head of UN peace-keeping forces worldwide he sent two now infamous cables to Dallaire forbidding him from any efforts to stop the genocide (the cables are on display in the Kigali Genocide Memorial where I visited in the summer). But to elevate Rice would make a mockery of those who believe that “Never Again” ought to mean just what is says.

Better that Rice remain where she is--a UN Ambassador whose spinelessness perfectly matches the organization she’s in.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek and The Washington Post calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” is the international best-selling author of 29 books, and will shortly publish “The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging G-d in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering.” His website is www.shmuley.com. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

Big Peace

Target: Old White Men

November 29, 2012
By Selwyn Duke

While modern society prides itself on being unbiased, it's no exception to the rule that every age has its fashionable prejudices -- and unfashionable people. Among the latter today are white men, and the closer they are to "dead white male" status, to use a favored leftist descriptive, the greater the disdain in which they're held.

Thus do we see sneering at "old white men." Earlier this year, Senator Harry Reid -- one well acquainted through experience with old-white-male machinations -- complained of "angry old white men" who bankroll conservative causes. More recently, the old-white-media paper the Guardian published a piece about America's changing demographics titled, in part, "No country for angry old white men...." Ah, yes, it's not just that they're old, white, and men, that Triad of Turpitude. They're "angry," too. So just dismiss them out of hand, with their agenda born of blinding, irrational hatred. It's another example of projection, from the group (leftists) that makes intellect-clouding emotionalism an art.

If we're to define matters based on group identification, however -- and the left makes clear we will -- there is an irony here.

You could roughly say that old white men built the whole modern world.

You can precisely say this if you include in the category the budding old white men known as younger white men. Who were all the great inventors, innovators, and philosophers from ancient Greece and Rome up through medieval and modern Europe and the United States? Who forged the West? Who birthed democracy? Who improved upon it, giving us our Constitution and modern republican government? There is a reason why most of the busts and pictures of legendary figures portray old white men.

We might also note that while old white men probably weren't the first to practice slavery, they were the first to eliminate it. The same can be said of human rights: old white men had lots of company trampling them.

They were alone in crafting the modern conception of them.

And is America really advancing as old white men's cultural and political weight wanes? During what group's hegemony were our national finances, morality, culture, and economic growth healthiest? Is there a group with a better track record of running successful civilizations? As to this, if only old white men had voted during the last 50 years, we likely wouldn't be facing the fiscal cliff that hangs over us like a sword of Damocles.

Of course, much demonization of old white men is mere artifice, an effort to sell an inferior product (liberalism) by discrediting its opposition. "Hey, why buy from these white-prune Willy Loman salesmen when you can patronize skilled salespeople? We're young, we're hip, and quick with the lip!" Yet this appeal only works by playing on very real prejudices. Exposition of the anti-white variety has been done to death in the Reality Media. It was epitomized when Susan Sontag said, "The white race is the cancer of human history" and thus proved that some white people certainly are. But far more interesting and less discussed is the other bias relevant here: that against the aged.

For most of history, old was gold. There is the stereotype of the wise old man, and, historically, societies would be governed by "elders." For example, ancient Sparta had a council of elders, and only men of at least 60 years of age qualified. And, of course, insisting that children respect their elders was once common.

This now has been turned on its head. One underappreciated reason why John McCain lost the 2008 election is that he appeared old -- an old-looking candidate hasn't won the presidency since the TV era's advent -- whereas Barack Obama seemed young and hip. And while fear that the person may die in office and our eye-candy culture certainly explain this in part, an increasingly significant factor is that many view seniors as they do our Constitution: old and yellowed and not relevant to our time. Just consider how the only consistent stereotype the hit show Seinfeld played upon was that of older people -- and it was wholly unflattering. They were portrayed as doddering, out of touch, dishonest, egotistical, argumentative, and petty, too engrossed in trivial matters to ponder what's truly important (such as, apparently, figuring out how to find someone more attractive to sleep with).

Of course, as George Soros, Warren Buffet, Noam Chomsky, and many others prove, "Wisdom doesn't always come with age; sometimes age just shows up all by itself." Yet even if the two are joined at the hip, it won't matter among a people who devalue wisdom. Note that the definition of the word -- until dictionary writers lost their wisdom -- was "knowledge of what is true or good." But there is no such thing in a relativistic universe, that realm with favored mantras such as "That's your 'truth'; someone else's may be different" and "Don't impose your values on me!" There can be no objective "good" if there is no God; nothing can be truly "true" if there is no Truth. And what is left when people no longer perceive Truth's existence and thus cannot use it as a yardstick for behavior? There then is just taste, preference, and what do we call the moment's consensus tastes?

Fashions.

And this is where the elderly cannot compete. People who believe in Truth understand it's timeless; that those who have lived longer will generally have apprehended more of it; and that it doesn't matter if older people aren't "with the times," only whether the times are with the Truth. But the young will always be more with the fashions. And owing to that dislocation from Truth, they will often embrace fashions even when they're fallacies. They won't know they're fallacies, either, as moderns' only perceived standard for judging such things is the fashions themselves. And they won't care what elders have to say about tried and true "wisdom." It would be much like telling them that they should dispense with pizza in favor of their grandparents' 1940s biscuits and gravy. It's all a matter of preference, so why should they subordinate their tastes to those of the past?

This gets at the insidiousness of modern liberalism. The French revolutionaries sought to erase the past by starting history anew with their revolution's first year, 1789; the Khmer Rouge sought to do so with their "Year Zero." But revolutionary change is too obvious; it doesn't gently boil the frog as does modern liberalism's evolutionary change. Progressives don't make any major pronouncements, dear citizen, about the first year of the rest of your life. They simply disconnect each generation from the last -- from the past -- with the message that, hey, ya' gotta be with it, which means being nothing like grandpa. And the "it" is change, not tradition; current tastes, not Truth; fashions and not fact. Just convince the young to ignore the old or dead -- especially if they're white and male -- the people who formulated Western civilization's recipe, and that Occidental delicacy is history. Then you will have started history anew not with an iron fist, but sleight of hand that keeps the frog simmering soundly.

Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, "To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?" Demonizing white men old or dead keeps the young and alive disconnected from them and hence from the past. This gives us a civilization of children, just the kind of people a pied piper can lead.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

American Thinker

Yes, Romney Was the Problem

By Steve Baldwin - November 27, 2012

The GOP establishment and some conservative pundits, such as Ann Coulter, are in full defense mode, claiming that Romney is not responsible for losing to an incumbent responsible for perhaps the most damaging fiscal crises in our nation’s history. Don’t believe it. Romney IS responsible for wasting a billion dollars to carry out an issue-free campaign full of simple-minded platitudes. Indeed, Coulter is leading the charge with her recent column titled, Don’t Blame Romney. It’s sweet to watch Coulter defend her darling Romney, but let’s get real.

The reality is that Romney was one of the worst GOP presidential candidates in modern times. He was not the first choice of most conservative voters but he managed to rise through the ranks in the primary due to conservatives being split 4-5 ways, but also due to a slew of endorsements from conservative leaders and groups that had no business endorsing him – such as Ann Coulter. Repeatedly, Coulter assured conservatives that Romney was one of us and that he would be the “best possible candidate” to face Obama. But as any conservative from Massachusetts knew, Romney was a liberal at heart who, as Governor, led the nation in passing three of the left’s most sacred issues: Same sex marriage, Cap and Trade, and government control of health care.

But the Romney forces were clever. Beginning in 2004, they created a half dozen PACs to give money to conservative and GOP entities all over the country. I’ve reviewed these disclosures and hundreds of GOP and conservative entities benefitted from Romney’s largess. In other words, he bought the support of many “conservative leaders” and used that support to give himself “cred” among conservative voters. It was a phony image though and it’s shameful that so many conservative leaders went along with this ruse.

As a result, Romney’s liberal record on taxes (yes, he taxed the corporate world in Massachusetts), Cap and Trade (first in the nation!), gay marriage, gay rights, quotas, gun control, immigration, etc, etc. was little known outside of Massachusetts because many of America’s leading conservatives decided to portray him as someone he wasn’t. Even a number of prominent right to life and national pro-family groups and leaders made a decision to remake Romney as a conservative even though they knew he was not. I should know; I briefed many of them about Romney’s record. Had the conservative leadership told the truth about Romney’s record as Governor, it’s likely he wouldn’t have won the GOP nomination.

And why is that relevant? Well, Romney’s liberal record so compromised him that he was unable to attack Obama on a whole range of issues due to fear of Obama using his own positions from just a few years earlier to make him look like a hypocrite. Whether its Cap and Trade, ObamaCare, gun control, gays in the military, religious freedom or even illegal aliens, Romney took these issues off the table because his own record on these issues was not dissimilar to the Obama record.

Coulter goes even so far as to claim Romney lost because “he was too conservative” on immigration issues.

What? Romney never even hit Obama on his unconstitutional action to grant amnesty to two million illegal aliens because, as governor, he endorsed McCain’s amnesty legislation. Indeed, despite his phony attacks on Gov. Rick Perry’s immigration record during the GOP primary, Romney’s actual record on immigration was quite liberal.

The fact is liberal Republicans do not win presidential races. The obvious reason for this is that RINOs do not offer much of a contrast to a Democrat, or at least a contrast so weak it does not motivate voters to support them. You would think we would have learned this lesson from the McCain and Dole debacles. To make things worse, Romney even agreed with Obama on numerous occasions during the debates, missing great opportunities to instead attack the president. With the economy collapsing all around us, voters were simply not looking for Obama-light.

Moreover, Romney’s strategy of looking presidential but saying nothing controversial was an asinine strategy. All one has to do is watch the old Reagan/Carter debates to see how Reagan strived to showed contrast with Carter at every opportunity. While Reagan was always civil in the way he stated things, he tore Carter’s head off every chance he got.

The list of explosive issues ignored by Romney goes far beyond those that Romney himself was weak on.

Take, for example, the Fast and Furious and Benghazi scandals, both of which involved the deaths of Americans and a subsequent cover-up by this administration. The latter scandal, especially, was ripe for Romney to exploit, given the new evidence that Obama refused to assist Americans under attack and then lied to the American public about the reason for the attack. This is an impeachable offense but Romney chose to ignore this issue altogether.

Romney also ignored, for the most part, a whole pattern of Obama cronyism that permeated TARP, the stimulus program, and many government contracts. Similarly, Romney ignored the details of exactly how Obama was destroying the oil, gas and coal industries. He stuck to generalities instead of hammering on issues such as how Obama gave millions of tax dollars to Brazil to drill for oil while harassing our own oil companies to the point they ceased operations in the Gulf.

The Romney team also chose to ignore the lessons of 2010. Here we have a number of stunning congressional upsets inspired by issues such as ObamaCare and the deficit, but Romney’s campaign team acted like 2010 never occurred. The movement that drove the 2010 victories was, of course, the tea party movement, but Romney decided he wanted nothing to do with this powerful movement.

Ditto for the Ron Paul movement. It was outrageous how the Romney team refused to sit a number of pro-Ron Paul state delegations at the convention, all because they didn’t want Ron Paul to be nominated so that Romney could enjoy an unanimous nomination. The stupidity of this move was astounding. Romney already had the votes to win the nomination overwhelmingly but his team was so fixated on the appearance of a perfect nominating convention that they decided to disenfranchise the entire Ron Paul movement. Romney lost tens of thousands of Ron Paul supporters for that action alone.

As someone who has networked with conservative activists for 35 years, I know for a fact that large segments of the tea party and Ron Paul movements did NOT vote for Romney and I also know that many evangelicals refused to support Romney as well. They knew that Romney was, deep down, a big government, socially liberal Republican and believed that electing Romney would set conservatives back decades. They believed that he would – under the mantle of “conservatism” – carry out a big government agenda instead of taking bold action to tame the deficit or get our economy growing again.

We can debate until we’re blue in the face about such a stance, but I believe their fears are legitimate and that their motives are sincere. They had many solid reasons to feel this way – Romney’s actual record being Exhibit #1.

This election was a turning point in American history and undecided voters were looking for new leadership but Romney’s history of flip-flopping on over 30 different issues didn’t give them the confidence they were looking for. Romney was a liberal Republican pretending to be a conservative and that phoniness was detected by the voters. So yes, Ms. Coulter, Romney does share much of the blame. And so do you. 

Steve Baldwin is a 35-year veteran of the conservative movement. He is the author of From Crayons to Condoms, the former executive director of Young Americans for Freedom, the former executive director of the Council for National Policy and a former California state legislator.

Real Clear Politics

Is a Good, Old-Fashioned Purge in Order for the GOP?

Erik Rush

 On November 19, Pravda’s Xavier Lerma wrote an article asserting that President (I use the term loosely) Barack Obama had been re-elected “by an illiterate society.” Some conservatives have been wont to dismiss and ridicule some of the dead-on assessments of the former Soviet newspaper since it was once in fact a Soviet newspaper.

Some of this dismissal and ridicule did occur relative to Lerma’s piece; I think however, that such observations made by those who have been there and done that ought to be considered, if not heeded. 
Lerma writes: “He [Obama] is a Communist without question promoting the Communist Manifesto without calling it so… His cult of personality mesmerizes those who cannot go beyond their ignorance. They will continue to follow him like those fools who still praise Lenin and Stalin in Russia.  Obama’s fools and Stalin’s fools share the same drink of illusion.”

Sounds pretty dead-on if you ask me…

Now, obviously we know that the problem does not lie simply with Obama. I and a few others have widely stated that he was chosen to exponentially advance the Marxist (oligarchical collectivist) agenda in America because he is black, and this was a good call inasmuch as it has worked. Many of his political opponents were and remain too afraid to challenge him for fear of being accused of racism.

As we also know, reasoning that Americans were too fat and happy to incite a communist revolution among them, the intent of dedicated communists in the early 20th century was to co-opt the American educational system, the press, and as much of the government as would be sufficient to bring about their designs via more subtle means.

This they are quite close to achieving, although it does bear mentioning that history and the status quo of Americans having been too fat and happy to incite a communist revolution among them is indicative of two things:

1. Capitalism is superior to communism, and
2. Communists are manifestly evil, predatory power-mongers.

Carrying this out a little farther, we also come to realize that the problem does not lie simply with the political left in America. For years, the Republican leadership has been accused by conservatives and libertarians of being weak, stupid, or both relative to their handling of leftists. It has been known for some time that many so-called moderate Republicans are really no more than big-government, soft socialists, but given the developments of the last couple of months, it appears that the situation is far worse than that.

Among other things, it has become painfully evident that prominent Republican leaders have also elected to adopt the same attitude toward constitutionally-minded, patriotic Americans and evangelical Christians as have leaders on the left. This would include, but is not limited to those in the Tea Party Movement.

Considering the massive voting bloc that is represented here, it is also evident that their actions are of a political or ideological nature, rather than the pretext of not wishing to be associated with “fringe” factions. It is plain to all save for the hopelessly brainwashed and MSNBC anchors that the Tea Party is not of a “fringe” deportment; indeed, a good deal of this propaganda has been promoted and validated by Republican politicians themselves.

In addition to this, as cited by many ethnic minorities and Democrat pundits, Republican leaders have performed abysmally in their outreach to minorities. This now raises the question as to whether they have ever been interested in the support of blacks, Latinos, and other ethnic groups. My supposition at this juncture is that they are not.

Perhaps all this hasn’t been a matter of not knowing how to compete with Democrat entitlements (“gifts,” as former GOP candidate Mitt Romney intoned), but a calculated effort to aid the machinations of their supposed political opponents.

Over the past two weeks, congressional lawmakers have been posturing over the “fiscal cliff” upon which America is allegedly teetering, and the resulting debate on taxes: Obama wants to raise taxes; the Republicans in Congress ostensibly want to cut spending; the Democrats offer some spending cuts in trade for raising taxes, and so on… Considering the intellectual indolence of the American public thus far, I suppose there’s no reason for Congress and the Obama administration to believe we’d call them out for this blatant display of smoke and mirrors.

With the knowledge that increasing income taxes to 100% on all earners in the US, and confiscating every dollar we currently possess wouldn’t make a ding in the national debt or the deficit, let alone a dent, it becomes obvious that all of the maneuvering by Republican lawmakers is mere pretense. Why not simply detail the detrimental effects that raising taxes will have on the economy?
Perhaps because they don’t want to advertise these facts to the American public any more than Obama does…

While it might be a no-brainer to you and me, the average non-partisan American voter will not be aware that this is the worst possible time for Republicans to be conciliatory with regard to this administration on any issue. Thus, they will perceive Republicans as obstructionist if they do not compromise with evil. Any Republican lawmaker possessed of the knowledge of Obama’s intent ought to be fighting him at every possible turn as a matter of course, publicity be damned.

I would also submit that there aren’t any GOP lawmakers who are sufficiently stupid or uninformed not to know that Obama is taking us down the road to communism. If they presume to this, they are engaging in deception.

Canada Free Press

Obama's Next Move: the Global Warming Tax

November 28, 2012
By Brian Sussman

This week the United Nations begins two weeks of climate talks in Doha, Qatar. The primary goal of these meetings is to draw President Obama into accepting a redistribution plan designed extract money from the U.S. economy in the form of a global warming tax and doling out the cash to Third World nations.

"There will be expectations from countries to hear a new voice from the United States," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute in Washington.

The meeting in Qatar's capital will focus on ramping up what is described as "climate financing for poor nations." American leadership is considered crucial to these plans.

 "We need the U.S. to engage even more," said European Union Climate Commissioner
Connie Hedegaard. 

"Because that can change the dynamic of the talks."

And carrying the water in support of this global scheme are the media, selecting their talking points from a recent World Bank report claiming global temperatures are likely to increase by more than 6 degrees, leading to "extreme heat waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life-threatening sea level rise."

Given that since 1850 the earth's temperature has only warmed 1.2 degrees (with 88 percent of that warming occurring before 1940), and that the global average temperature has not risen since 1998, a six-degree hike flies in the face scientific sanity.

The lame duck Obama administration will likely be all over this UN plan. As a U.S. senator in 2008, Obama sponsored a bill known as the "Global Poverty Act." The bill would have made levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.

Joe Biden, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was a vocal supporter of the legislation which would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends.

A release from the Obama Senate office about the bill declared, "In 2000, the U.S. joined more than 180 countries at the United Nations Millennium Summit and vowed to reduce global poverty by 2015... it is time the United States makes it a priority of our foreign policy to meet this goal and help those who are struggling day to day."

Obama's bill would have required the president "to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, [and] the elimination of extreme global poverty..."

The primary vehicle for such a redistribution plan would be a tax or fee on businesses that produce carbon dioxide as a byproduct of their activities. This could include power plants, refineries, cement manufacturers, and dairy farmers. Those increased costs of production would be passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

A tax on carbon dioxide would also be seen by politicians as a way to offset our severe budget deficit and staggering national debt. It would be sold to the American public in the name of saving the planet.
Obama may be another step closer to realizing his 2008 dream of massive global wealth redistribution.

American Thinker

Congressman: Obama's Tax Increases Would Only Fund The Government for Eight Days

by Wynton Hall 28 Nov 2012
 

  President Barack Obama has proposed raising taxes on the rich to put America's fiscal house in order, but critics say federal spending is so massive that the wealthy don't have enough money to cover the nation's unprecedented debt. In an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) said President Barack Obama's plan to raise taxes on the wealthy would only generate enough revenue to fund the federal government for eight days.

"The president’s plan to increase taxes on the upper two percent covers the spending by this federal government not for eight years, not for eight months, not for eight weeks but for eight days. Eight days only," said Mr. Price. "It’s not a real solution. So, again, I’m puzzled by an administration that seems to be more interested in raising tax rates than in gaining economic vitality."

The problem is that the rich don't have enough money to put so much as a dent in America's $16 trillion national debt. "If the IRS grabbed 100 percent of income over $1 million, the take would be just $616 billion," writes John Stossel. "That’s only a third of this year’s deficit. Our national debt would continue to explode."

Still, Mr. Obama's supporters persist in proposing tax hikes on the wealthy. On Sunday, billionaire Warren Buffett proposed a minimum tax for America's top earners. "We need Congress, right now, to enact a minimum tax on high incomes. I would suggest 30 percent of taxable income between $1 million and $10 million, and 35 percent on amounts above that."

There's just one problem with such an approach, says author Mark Steyn:

If you took every single penny that Warren Buffett has, it'd pay for 4-1/2 days of the US government. This tax-the-rich won't work. The problem here is the government is way bigger than even the capacity of the rich to sustain it. The Buffett Rule would raise $3.2 billion a year, and take 514 years just to pay off Obama's 2011 budget deficit.

Indeed, even Mr. Buffett seems to concede that he and the president's "soak the rich" proposals are more an act of political theater designed to generate an emotional response than serious solutions: Mr. Buffett told Matt Lauer he believes his proposal would boost the "morale of the middle class."

Big Government

Obama White House Rips GOP 'Obsession' with Benghazi

by AWR Hawkins 28 Nov 2012
 

 After Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) emerged from yesterday's meeting with Ambassador Rice with greater concern about the cover-up of Benghazi, White House spokesman Jay Carney slammed Republicans' "obsession" with Rice's Benghazi explanation. Carney said that as of Nov. 27, the Obama administration "still does not know who carried out the assault, which claimed the lives Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans." He said what is known is that continued criticism of Rice is "politically motivated."

In all fairness to Carney and the rest of the Obama White House, the watching world knew this attack was terror-related within 24 hours. The FBI and National Counterterrorism Center described it as premeditated terrorism on Sept. 13, and on Nov. 16 former-CIA Director David Petraeus said Al Qaeda's involvement in the attack was known "almost immediately."

For those who somehow missed all these proceedings and announcements, Senator Graham emerged yesterday from his time with Rice saying, "just a little bit of inquiry and curiosity" would have told her and President Obama that Al Qaeda was behind the attack from the start.

Nevertheless, Carney says "Rice has no responsibility for collecting, analyzing, and providing intelligence, nor does she have responsibility as United States Ambassador to the United Nations for diplomatic security around the globe."

In saying these things, Carney is distracting from the very point Senator Ayotte made when she emerged from her time with Rice yesterday. That point wasn't about diplomatic security, collecting intelligence, or analyzing it. Rather, Ayotte's point was about Rice's seeming inability to call things the way they are.
Said Ayotte: "It's clear from the beginning we knew those with ties to Al Qaeda were involved in the attack on the embassy," but the information Rice gave to the American people "was wrong."

Big Government

GOP Senators: Obama Hasn't Answered 'Most Basic' Questions on Benghazi

by Ben Shapiro 27 Nov 2012

  Following on their meeting with UN Ambassador Susan Rice, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ), and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) released a statement bashing her performance and stating that President Obama had serious questions to answer about Rice’s statements in the aftermath of the Benghazi terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of four Americans.

The text of the statement:

We respectfully disagree with the White House’s statement today that ‘there are no unanswered questions’ about Ambassador Rice’s September 16 Sunday show appearances and the talking points she used. 

Around 10:00 this morning in a meeting requested by Ambassador Rice, accompanied by acting CIA Director Mike Morell, we asked Mr. Morell who changed the unclassified talking points to remove references to al-Qaeda.  In response, Mr. Morell said the FBI removed the references and did so to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation.  We were surprised by this revelation and the reasoning behind it.

However, at approximately 4:00 this afternoon, CIA officials contacted us and indicated that Acting Director Morell misspoke in our earlier meeting. The CIA now says that it deleted the al-Qaeda references, not the FBI.  They were unable to give a reason as to why.

We are disturbed by the Administration’s continued inability to answer even the most basic questions about the Benghazi attack and the Administration’s response. 

Beyond Ambassador Rice’s misstatements, we continue to have questions about what happened in Benghazi before, during, and after the attack on our consulate – as well as the President’s statements regarding the attack.

Perhaps most important, we also need to understand why the U.S. military was unable to respond within seven hours to save American lives in Benghazi and why our consulate was left so unsecure despite a series of previous attacks. 

In more than a dozen letters, we and other Senators have repeatedly requested that the Administration provide answers to our questions.  Yet, today most of them remain unanswered.  We eagerly await their response.

The controversy surrounding Rice is far from over. And these three Senators – yes, three, media, including a female Senator – will not stop until their questions are answered.

Big Peace

Senators 'Disturbed,' 'Troubled' After Susan Rice Meeting

by AWR Hawkins 27 Nov 2012

 After today's meeting with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice regarding Benghazi, Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), emerged more troubled than ever.

Said McCain: "We are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn't get, concerning evidence that was overwhelming leading up to the attack on our consulate, [and] the tragic deaths of four brave Americans."

McCain said the degree to which Rice was prepped for her Sept. 16 comments was not clear, but what was clear was the fact that "the information she gave the American people was incorrect," when she described the Benghazi attack "as a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a hateful video." Added McCain: "There was strong evidence at the time that this was not correct."

Said Ayotte: "I can say I am more troubled today...having met with Ambassador Rice. Because it's certainly clear from the beginning we knew those with ties to Al Qaeda were involved in the attack on the embassy...and that the information that was given to the American people was wrong."

Ayotte said Ambassador Rice was wrong, the CIA was wrong, and the President was wrong. And she added that neither the CIA nor the President have come out to admit they were wrong or set the record the straight.

Said Graham: "I'm more disturbed now than I was before. [Ambassador Rice's Sept. 16 statement] was a statement disconnected from reality."

He said he was perplexed because just "a little bit of inquiry and curiosity" would have shown that Al Qaeda was behind the attack from the start: "The American people got bad information on Sept 16 [from Ambassador Rice] and they got bad information from President Obama."
Graham says the scenario given by Rice and Obama was "unjustified" three weeks before an election. He says it would have been better had they said nothing at all.

Big Peace

Dangerous Trends

November 26, 2012

 The forefathers and many others warned of the dangers of too much democracy. It was such a source of consternation to them that they devoted much of their time either warning against it or describing its many failings. Given the amount of effort expended on the subject it is amazing the general public have little clue they even opposed it let alone why. Even a group of college professors taking questions on PBS could not answer the simple question, “Why did the founding fathers mistrust democracy?” Of course whether they actually were befuddled to find an answer or unwilling to wade in that pond is any ones guess. The truth is the founders recoil at democratic governance is as easy to understand as liberal professors embrace of it.

The fact is democratic governments have several flaws not the least of which is the inherent tendency to suppress the minority. One only needs to look to the suffering of Christians in predominant Muslim countries to see this is true. Of course minorities can be manufactured by the art of division. Even the most superficial skimming of world history can find unending examples groups used as scapegoats for the greater society.

What would Hitler of been without the Jews to blame or communists without the wealthy to inspire envy driven rage? The fact is anybody at anytime can find themselves the target of a political demagogue seeking power at the expense of others.

There is little protection against this most insidious of democratic failings. Despite the words of Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, the fact that legislators can make no rule that does not also apply to them is no hedge against this type of tyranny. Neither is a constitution if it is ignored or rendered useless by those who see it as their right to remold it to fit the times.

It is no wonder that the politics of division is the bread and butter of those for whom democracy is a religion. Divide and demonize, also known as the art of demagoguery, can be a destructive force within a society without equal. The part of society most susceptible to being on the losing end of this type of communal debauchery is the wealthy. For this reason democratic societies almost always end up sacrificing themselves on the altar of envy by confiscating and redistributing the property of the upper classes. (what the founders would of called leveling) Of course the wealthy are not the only ones for whom democracy is a threat. Christians, who often stand in the way the democratic demagogue’s plans, rural folks that want to be left alone, entrepreneurs who wish to make their own way, hunters, gun owners and scores of others can find themselves the odd men out.

Such is the tendency of democracies to self-destruct into a factious mass of humanity. Unfortunately such seems to be the direction of Western Civilization. Only two items stand in the way of anarchy and the inevitable dictatorship that follows; the Rule of Law and a formidable constitution. It should come as no surprise that both of these bulwarks of freedom are now under attack. The Rule of Law is under assault by those that seek social justice above blind impartiality. The Constitution, that most principled of documents, is being undermined by courts and legislatures that justify molding it more to their liking by calling it a living document.  All of this makes the present direction of American politics all the more alarming.

In the last American election the politics of division and demonization were in full swing. Young were pitted against old, rich against poor, black against white, and women against men in a philosophical cage fight. It seems in a country that polls say is tired of divisive politics; it is the demagogue that can find the most ways to divide America that wins. It is all a fine example of D/democratic politics of the kind the country was warned about more than two hundred years ago.

If the West and most importantly Americans wish to see where the current path ends they need not to look far. Much of the world is caught up in democratically driven death spirals. In the Islamic countries, where no history of liberty exists, people have been thrust by events and the west to demand their democratic rights.

The end result is Egypt looks to be getting ready to join Iran in a brotherhood of despotic Islamic rule; Tunisia is likely soon to follow with Iraq and others not far behind. The terrorist’s dream of a great pan-Islamic dictatorship seems to be unfolding before the world, all with democratic credentials.

Closer to the U.S. doorstep, Venezuela too is showing how tyranny and democracy can be soul mates. The fact is liberty without order is anarchy, freedom without restraint is tyranny and democracy unrestrained is the playground of demagogues and despots. Only a country whose liberty is based in principles of mutual respect and individual rights can survive.  Let that be sacrificed to public opinion or the so called public good and freedom is lost. Even now the bells are tolling for liberty in the Land of the Free.

It is a dangerous trend that shows no sign of slowing and why should it? As the right to religious freedom is sacrificed for the bauble of free birth control the majority of Americans see no reason to cry foul. When the Justice Department says Habeas Corpus is no longer a right but an option to be exercised at its discretion the populous doesn’t even bat an eye. Even ones medical records, once seen as sacrosanct, are now property of the government. The list goes on but the pattern is clear, for most Americans the slide towards democratic tyranny is of less concern than tomorrow’s weather.

The Conservative Mind

Peaceful Coexistence with Radical Islamists is Impossible

November 26, 2012
Neil Snyder

The landscape in the Middle East and North Africa has been in a state of radical flux since the beginning of the Arab Spring in December 2010.  The term "Arab Spring" is a misnomer, though.  In reality, it is a progressive revolution throughout the Arab world that so far has brought down governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen and resulted in the rise to prominence of Islamists in every country where it has taken hold.   

The Arab Spring is far from over.  Syria's civil war and the growing protest movement in Jordan are offshoots of the Arab Spring that in due course will almost certainly bring down Syrian President Bashar al Assad and could lead to the toppling of Jordan's King Abdullah.  Other countries in the region including Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, are experiencing their versions of the Arab Spring as well.  Time will tell where they end up, but if they follow suit, they may morph into Islamist states.

Two countries bordering the Middle East, Iran and Turkey, experienced Islamist awakenings long ago: Iran in 1979 and Turkey in 2002.  Iran's leaders continue to promote Islamic revolution (i.e., terrorism) throughout the world by funneling money and military hardware to disaffected groups that are willing to lend them a sympathetic ear, and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the Middle East in his quest to reinstate the Ottoman Empire under Islamist authority.  Erdoğan's success can't be denied as evidenced by a report over the weekend that he is the second most influential Muslim in the world today following Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz.

In this light, the Arab Spring in its varied forms can be seen as just another milestone on the long road to Islamist world domination.  Evidence of this is abundant in Europe, the United States, Russia, and China, for example, where calls for the institution of Sharia law are growing louder by the day.  And viewed from this perspective, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi can be seen as just the latest world leader to press ahead with the Islamist movement's agenda by declaring himself dictator and moving to institutionalize Sharia law in yet another country.

Of course, there is resistance to this movement even in Egypt, an Islamic country that is becoming increasingly Islamist.  Egyptian notables including Mohamed ElBaradei denounced Morsi's decree and Cairo's stock exchange dropped precipitously in response to the news.  That prompted Morsi to announce a meeting with Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council, the country's highest judicial authority.  It will be held today to discuss Morsi's decree since it effectively shields his decisions from judicial review.  Even so, the trajectory of the trend in Egypt and elsewhere is pro-Islamist and robust.

None of this bodes well for the West and the rest of the world -- particularly Israel.  In fact, it looks as though the global Islamist movement has adopted Yasser Arafat's strategy for destroying Israel.  He said, "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war we do this in stages.  We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more.  When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel." (Yasser Arafat speaking on Jordanian television, September 13, 1993-the same day the Oslo Peace Accord ceremony was held in Washington D.C.) 

That's exactly what Islamists are doing.  Substitute "the world" for Israel, "the global caliphate" for Palestine, and "Islamist powers" for Arab nations and you will see what I mean. 

Arafat also said, "Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.  We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations.  Since January 1965, when Fatah was born, we have become the most dangerous enemy that Israel has....We shall not rest until the day when we return to our home, and until we destroy Israel." (El Mundo, Caracas, Venezuela, February 11, 1980)

Applying the same substitutions to this quote lends additional credence to the hypothesis that Arafat is the originator of the global Islamist movement's strategy.  Whatever the case may be, though, this much is certain: peaceful coexistence with radical Islamists is impossible.  Based on all of the available evidence, any other conclusion is a manic delusion.

Neil Snyder is the Ralph A. Beeton Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia.  His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.

American Thinker