Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh
According to the Congressional Research Service, overall energy
consumption has tripled in the U.S. since 1950, per capita consumption
increased 50 percent, and electricity consumption increased even more
rapidly. The heaviest energy user, the industrial sector, grew the
slowest. From 1973 to 2010, “the consumption of electricity remained
close to 0.4 kwh per constant dollar of GDP.” Annual power generation
now is ten times larger than in 1950.
“Renewable
sources (except hydropower) continue to offer more potential than
actual energy production, although fuel ethanol has become a significant
factor in transportation fuel. Wind power has also grown rapidly,
although it still contributes only a small share of total electricity
generation.” (Carl E. Behrens and Carol Glover)
The reality is simple: renewable energy is not sufficient to power
the largest economy any time soon. I am yet to drive a wind or solar
powered car. Electric cars, if they do not “brick” themselves (the
engine dies and must be factory rebuilt for $40,000), do not go very far
between charges. Hybrids do not get the mileage per gallon claimed and
their batteries are toxic to the environment.
The pie-in-the-sky wind energy can be expensive. Windmills are noisy,
people nearby complain of headaches and insomnia from the constant hum,
propellers kill thousands of birds, particularly endangered species,
and nobody wants wind farms in their own back yards.
The maligned fossil fuels are the engine of our economy. Gasoline provides
transportation and electricity generation. Natural gas provides home
heating, industry and electricity generation. Cars, vans, trucks, and
buses can be retrofitted to run on natural gas. Coal generates
electricity exclusively and so do nuclear and hydroelectric power
plants.
Since 1950, crude oil provides 40 percent of U.S. energy. In spite of
political fear mongering, we are not running out of oil as we were told
since the 70s. We have discovered new reserves in deep-sea waters,
Mexico, oil sands in Canada, and heavy oil in Venezuela.
Different sectors of the economy consume different types of fossil
fuels. Many products that hypocritical liberals use abundantly are made
from petroleum, yet they support green energy.
Diesel fuel is used in many transportation sectors. Railroads utilize
diesel and diesel-electric power. Marine transportation, large
commercial trucks, and some cars use diesel. Most of the food brought to
the American table is ferried by eighteen-wheelers. Aviation uses 99
percent jet fuel. Some airlines are advertising the use of bio-fuels.
(U.S. Energy: Overview and Key Statistics)
The Keystone pipeline was nixed by this administration, bent on
increasing the price of oil, making energy skyrocket, and bankrupting
the coal industry. The Arab Winter turmoil interfered with Libya’s oil
production. We freed Iraq but it is selling oil to China. President
Obama is cutting back on domestic oil production with every opportunity
by imposing a moratorium on domestic drilling in the Gulf and using
EPA’s regulations to prevent new oil leases on federal lands and
sometimes on private lands.
According to Joe Miller, “Obama’s State Department is giving away
seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. The
seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Baring Sea include one
large island the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.” The
Russians are going to get Wrangel, Bennett, Jeannette, Henrietta, Copper
Island, Sea Lion Rock, and Sea Otter Rock and “tens of thousands of
square miles of oil-rich sea beds surrounding the islands.” Estimates by
The Department of Interior include billions of barrels of oil.” (World
Net Daily)
The Joint Ocean Commission Initiative recommended that the United
States give its oceans to the regulatory power of the United Nations Law
of the Sea Treaty (LOST) which would control oceans, connected
waterways, and any oceanic economic activity including passage, fishing,
mining, and exploration of fossil fuels.
“Obama’s plan is still in draft form. It calls for an executive order
to be issued for a National Ocean Policy that will determine how the
ecosystem is managed while giving the federal government more regulatory
authority over any businesses that utilize the ocean.” The executive
order will draw on Obama’s 2010 Interagency Ocean Policy Taskforce and
Executive Order 13547 of July 2010, “Stewardship of the Ocean, Our
Coasts, and the Great Lakes.” (Aaron Klein, World Net Daily)
Sierra Club is blocking the natural gas liquefaction facility of
Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc. at Cove Point, Maryland because
it would “change the footprint” of this “natural heritage area.”
Dominion wants to export by 2017 750 million cubic feet of gas per day
from the Marcellus Shale to Asia. (Ben Wolfgang, The Washington Times)
Sierra Club argues that Dominion’s hydraulic fracturing (fracking)
would pollute the Chesapeake Bay and cause irreversible environmental
damage to many adjacent areas. The air and drinking water would be
poisoned by the process of injecting water, sand, and harmful chemicals
to crack deep underground rocks that would release the natural gas.
“Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional
Domestic Natural Gas Resources,” President Obama’s Executive Order
passed on April 13, 2012, aims to control the natural gas market that
delivered 25 percent of our energy in 2011. Environmentalists cannot let
cheap natural gas interfere with their stated plans to de-develop the
United States as punishment for 235 years of ecological imperialism and
social injustice.
Many solar energy storage companies, alternative energy companies,
and solar panel manufacturing companies that were backed by the Obama
administration and heavily subsidized by the Department of Energy have
sought bankruptcy protection. Several government subsidized German
manufacturers of solar panels have also gone bankrupt.
According to Christopher Bedford, China stopped expansion of its wind
and solar energy production, concentrating on nuclear, hydroelectric,
and fracking. China has 14 nuclear power plants and 25 under
construction. U.S. has 104 nuclear power plants, built prior to 1974,
with two new ones scheduled to operate in Georgia in 2016-2017. Unlike
China, who is the largest producer of hydroelectric power in the world,
we do not build hydroelectric power sources, we blow up dams in order to
comply with the EPA Endangered Species Act.
Daniel Kish explained that China is making cheaper solar panels and
windmills in order to sell them to western countries that impose
renewable energy and clean energy standards on their citizens.
“It is getting tougher and tougher for the Obama administration to
argue that somehow we’re in this big race for green power worldwide when
the rest of the world seems to have decided that the race isn’t worth
winning.” (Daniel Kish, Institute for Energy Research, Daily Caller)
In the meantime, we are experiencing unnecessary high prices at the
pump when we could be energy independent, if our administration cared
more for the U.S. economy and its citizens and less for the United
Nations dictates, treaties, and laws.
It is true, there are other variables that affect the price of oil,
such as exchange rates (oil is priced in dollars, a very weak currency
right now), OPEC policies, a changing commodities market, inelastic
demand for oil products (consumers must buy gasoline whether they like
the price or not), and federal taxes on gasoline (18.4 cents per
gallon).
The main impediment to our energy independence is the federal
government’s policies of green energy, wind, solar, renewables, and
out-of-control regulatory agencies such as the EPA and federal
bureaucracies like the Department of Energy.
The EPA will use any tactics, including “crucifixion of Big Oil,” to
enforce draconian rules and to bring coal, oil and gas companies into
submission, in order to fulfill Obama’s “dream of a green planet” devoid
of polluting humans. Americans will pay dearly for his dreams.
Canada Free Press
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Obama and His Serfs Wish to Keep America Impotent Until Socialism Rules
Jerry McConnell
The Washington Times published an Editorial on April 20, 2012 titled, “Where’s the recovery?” It mirrored all the bad news on our supposed “getting healthy” economy along with the discouraging views of the economic fundamentals and new jobless claims creating long faces and nervous hair pulling, while smiles abound in our anti-American White House and among its inhabitants. Believe it or not, all this bad news about the country that less than four years ago was considered the greatest nation in the world, is pleasing to our White House staff and all of its minions, czars and secretaries. Obama’s mission is to totally destroy America as the world has known it for the past two hundred and thirty plus years and see poverty and hardships abound where once the fruits of our forebears’ diligence and INTELLIGENCE (a commodity that is sorely lacking today) created prosperity and leadership for the entire world to follow.
People SHOULD be asking, where the recovery is; it is certainly costing the taxpayers huge sums of money to keep this charlatan in the Oval Office in spending money for his communist, socialist and Islamist buddies in the depths and pestholes of the world. He is determined to put all of us along side those sand-flea-bitten cretins he calls peaceful and enlightened. The Times editorial announces that new jobless claims are the highest they’ve been since late January, the four-week average stubbornly hovering around the 375,000 mark. They also say that “Though we’re technically in a recovery, nobody believes it. A Rasmussen Reports survey earlier this week shows a majority is under the impression America is still in recession.” And why not? Recoveries see indicators of increased employment, more consumer goods being manufactured and purchased and costs of consumables dropping instead of rising as they are today.
One can imagine the smiles on Obama’s and his staff’s faces when they hear about another huge increase in the cost of a gallon of gas at the pumps. Just like the mythical Midas whose magic touch turned the item touched into gold, probably smiling until he died of hunger these greedy thieves will get their just dues one of these days.
As the editorial states, the country needs an explosion of industry but all Obama is producing is a fizzle. The Philadelphia Reserve Bank found manufacturing output growth slowed slightly in the mid-Atlantic region, with its index of general business activity for the factory sector falling from 12.5 in March to 8.5 in April.
Numbers such as those do nothing to restore the confidence in America’s economic indicators. They tend to keep people wondering when the great “messiah” they foolishly elected in November 2008 will begin delivering on his failed promises of “change for a better
America.”
When the people don’t feel good about their future they don’t invest in homes and as stated in the editorial, with a significant chunk of the market still in the process of foreclosure, housing won’t recover anytime soon.
The economy is having a difficult time as consumer prices continue to spiral upwards; all of which Obama and his people continue to do absolutely nothing to remedy. As I stated above, this all fits in nicely with Obama’s desires, particularly when oil and gas prices escalate with no efforts from the White House to suppress or turn around the rises.
Not too long ago Obama had an opportunity to make the price of oil take a nose dive when the Keystone XL pipeline was presented for his approval and he rejected it with some spurious reasoning. We all remember a few years back when the last petroleum price explosion was about to hit and all it took to get the OPEC producers to drop the price was the renewal of talk amongst Republican politicos to open new area for domestic drilling for oil. The prices tumbled to nearly half of what they reached.
This Administration, under the usurper Obama, makes no attempt to even talk about oil production increases for America; he instead denigrates the idea until his serfs in the Democrat Party back off in fear of losing favor with him. These wimps have all joined Obama’s socialist-communist planning for the U. S. and oppose any efforts that would be beneficial for the country.
Canada Free Press
The Washington Times published an Editorial on April 20, 2012 titled, “Where’s the recovery?” It mirrored all the bad news on our supposed “getting healthy” economy along with the discouraging views of the economic fundamentals and new jobless claims creating long faces and nervous hair pulling, while smiles abound in our anti-American White House and among its inhabitants. Believe it or not, all this bad news about the country that less than four years ago was considered the greatest nation in the world, is pleasing to our White House staff and all of its minions, czars and secretaries. Obama’s mission is to totally destroy America as the world has known it for the past two hundred and thirty plus years and see poverty and hardships abound where once the fruits of our forebears’ diligence and INTELLIGENCE (a commodity that is sorely lacking today) created prosperity and leadership for the entire world to follow.
People SHOULD be asking, where the recovery is; it is certainly costing the taxpayers huge sums of money to keep this charlatan in the Oval Office in spending money for his communist, socialist and Islamist buddies in the depths and pestholes of the world. He is determined to put all of us along side those sand-flea-bitten cretins he calls peaceful and enlightened. The Times editorial announces that new jobless claims are the highest they’ve been since late January, the four-week average stubbornly hovering around the 375,000 mark. They also say that “Though we’re technically in a recovery, nobody believes it. A Rasmussen Reports survey earlier this week shows a majority is under the impression America is still in recession.” And why not? Recoveries see indicators of increased employment, more consumer goods being manufactured and purchased and costs of consumables dropping instead of rising as they are today.
One can imagine the smiles on Obama’s and his staff’s faces when they hear about another huge increase in the cost of a gallon of gas at the pumps. Just like the mythical Midas whose magic touch turned the item touched into gold, probably smiling until he died of hunger these greedy thieves will get their just dues one of these days.
As the editorial states, the country needs an explosion of industry but all Obama is producing is a fizzle. The Philadelphia Reserve Bank found manufacturing output growth slowed slightly in the mid-Atlantic region, with its index of general business activity for the factory sector falling from 12.5 in March to 8.5 in April.
Numbers such as those do nothing to restore the confidence in America’s economic indicators. They tend to keep people wondering when the great “messiah” they foolishly elected in November 2008 will begin delivering on his failed promises of “change for a better
America.”
When the people don’t feel good about their future they don’t invest in homes and as stated in the editorial, with a significant chunk of the market still in the process of foreclosure, housing won’t recover anytime soon.
The economy is having a difficult time as consumer prices continue to spiral upwards; all of which Obama and his people continue to do absolutely nothing to remedy. As I stated above, this all fits in nicely with Obama’s desires, particularly when oil and gas prices escalate with no efforts from the White House to suppress or turn around the rises.
Not too long ago Obama had an opportunity to make the price of oil take a nose dive when the Keystone XL pipeline was presented for his approval and he rejected it with some spurious reasoning. We all remember a few years back when the last petroleum price explosion was about to hit and all it took to get the OPEC producers to drop the price was the renewal of talk amongst Republican politicos to open new area for domestic drilling for oil. The prices tumbled to nearly half of what they reached.
This Administration, under the usurper Obama, makes no attempt to even talk about oil production increases for America; he instead denigrates the idea until his serfs in the Democrat Party back off in fear of losing favor with him. These wimps have all joined Obama’s socialist-communist planning for the U. S. and oppose any efforts that would be beneficial for the country.
Canada Free Press
Lisa Jackson Must Go
May 2, 2012
By Jeffrey Folks
As a result of his outrageous comments over "crucifying" oil and gas companies, Al Armendariz has resigned his post as regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now it's time for his boss, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, to accept responsibility as well.
Armendariz's comments at a Dish, Texas meeting in 2010, where he spoke of "making an example" of oil and gas producers by treating them with the same rough justice the Romans applied in conquered territories, were released by the office of Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, one of the states regulated by Armendariz's regional office.
Armendariz's comments, however, are not just an indication of the immaturity and bad judgment of one high-ranking official at the EPA. They reflect a tyrannical and authoritarian mindset that permeates the agency. For a regional director of the EPA to speak as Armendariz did, stating that he intended to round up a number of respected American business leaders and crucify them, is a shocking violation of the trust that the American people put in government.
It would be interesting to know if Lisa Jackson was aware of Armendariz's comments before they became widely known. If Ms. Jackson had prior knowledge of the videotaped remarks and decided to suppress them, that in and of itself should be grounds of her dismissal. But regardless of how much she knew and when she knew it, her support for Armendariz as regional EPA director is grounds enough. Even now, after Armendariz has resigned in disgrace, Jackson is expressing appreciation for his work at the agency and "respect" for his decision to resign.
In fact, Armendariz should never have been hired in the first place. Clearly, he was not a suitable candidate if one sought a director to approach oil and gas production in a fair and even-handed manner. That, however, is not what Ms. Jackson or President Obama sought. According to his own web page, Armendariz worked for years as an environmental activist, publishing one op-ed after another in support of regulation, seemingly without concern for the interests of energy companies or for the public which relies on those companies to supply its needs.
In May 2007, Armendariz was hired by the Environmental Defense Fund to produce a study of air emissions by oil and gas producers in the Barnett Shale area of central Texas. That study was an attempt to undermine the thorough research that had already been conducted by state and federal regulators. The apparent intent was to reverse the air quality plan agreed to by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that had been approved in May 2007. Following publication of his report in January 2009, a sweeping critique that somehow required only 18 months of "research," Armendariz engaged in a series of rebuttals to industry criticism of his work. In one of his rebuttals, Armendariz referred to industry representatives as having an "unsophisticated level of understanding" resulting in "sophomoric statements." That sort of confrontational and jejune approach to regulatory debate should, in and of itself, have been enough to alert the administration to the inadvisability of hiring Armendariz.
It appears that Armendariz's contempt for those who actually work to produce energy in this country has a long history stretching back years before his hiring by President Obama and EPA Administrator Jackson.
The arrogance of his remarks and the confrontational posture he has long assumed are a matter of public record, and they must have been known to Jackson before Mr. Armendariz was hired. Yet she did nothing to prevent his being hired, and she seems to have fully supported the appointment of this doubtful candidate to a position of great authority at the agency. She should accept blame and step down. If she refuses to do so, Obama should demand her resignation.
Surely the president does not condone Mr. Armendariz's remarks suggesting that as regional EPA director, he intended to round up "the first five guys" he saw and "crucify them." That kind of brutal approach, Armendariz stated, would "make examples out of them." At that point, they would play along with the administration's radical environmental goals, no matter the cost.
These remarks reflect a level of contempt for the American people that pervades the entire Obama administration, from Cass Sunstein's talk of "nudging" companies and individuals until they accede to what's good for them to the attempt by unconstitutionally appointed NLRB chair Mark Pearce to force businesses to post union-friendly material against their wishes and in violation of their rights of free speech. Obama's appointees are all too willing to resort to high-handed, extralegal tactics in support of what they view as overriding priorities of social and environmental justice. In doing so, they have become tyrants who act in the manner of Roman generals marching into defenseless villages, seizing the "first five guys," and crucifying them just for sport.
The president's support of this tyrannical behavior is proof that Obama also views himself as a bit of a Roman -- not a Roman general, to be sure, but an emperor, a Nero or Caligula. His continuing support of Attorney General Eric Holder, despite evidence that Holder may have lied under oath in connection with Fast and Furious, suggests that the president's view of American citizens as small-town boobs "clinging to their guns and religion" has not changed. Obama's entire administration, from the top down, displays this contempt for the American heartland, its citizens, and its businesses. The truth is that Armendariz was just saying publicly what gets said in private every day of the week at the White House. That's why his comments never troubled anyone in the administration -- and certainly not Lisa Jackson or the president -- until they became a political embarrassment during an election year.
For three years, in fact, Ms. Jackson has actively supported Armendariz in his crusade for greater regulation, despite the fact that in at least one important case the evidence of fracking pollution produced by his "research" was disproved and repudiated by the agency itself. Now that Armendariz has resigned, he has been replaced by Sam Coleman, the EPA official in charge of the agency's response to Hurricane Katrina.
Given the fiscal and managerial ineptitude of the government's response to that event, the selection of Coleman is not exactly reassuring. A graduate of Prairie View A&M University, Coleman, like Armendariz before him, seems to have had no experience in the oil and gas business and, in fact, no real-world work experience at all. It is not known at this time whether Coleman fancies himself a Roman general.
It appears that Jackson remains adamant in her support of subordinates like Armendariz. One has to wonder how many other regional EPA directors share Armendariz's views on environmental enforcement. Like Mr. Armendariz, two other regional directors (those overseeing cases against fracking operations in Pennsylvania and Wyoming) have brought hasty accusations against oil and gas firms, only to have their "research" rejected as inadequate. Yet Administrator Jackson has taken no action to discipline or remove these two directors.
That may be because Ms. Jackson fancies herself a Roman general as well. EPA officials at the highest levels seem to think they know a lot about Roman history. The question is, how much do they know about the Constitution of the United Sates? One passage that might be of particular interest in regard to Mr. Armendariz, and to Ms. Jackson as well, appears in the Fifth Amendment. Namely, no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." In other words, no marching into villages and crucifying the first five guys one meets -- and no activist crusades with government officials targeting American citizens and businesses with the purpose of intimidation.
Any person who possesses so little knowledge of the Constitution as to disregard the due process clause has no place in the government of the United States. How familiar with the Constitution is Ms. Jackson?
By Jeffrey Folks
As a result of his outrageous comments over "crucifying" oil and gas companies, Al Armendariz has resigned his post as regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now it's time for his boss, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, to accept responsibility as well.
Armendariz's comments at a Dish, Texas meeting in 2010, where he spoke of "making an example" of oil and gas producers by treating them with the same rough justice the Romans applied in conquered territories, were released by the office of Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, one of the states regulated by Armendariz's regional office.
Armendariz's comments, however, are not just an indication of the immaturity and bad judgment of one high-ranking official at the EPA. They reflect a tyrannical and authoritarian mindset that permeates the agency. For a regional director of the EPA to speak as Armendariz did, stating that he intended to round up a number of respected American business leaders and crucify them, is a shocking violation of the trust that the American people put in government.
It would be interesting to know if Lisa Jackson was aware of Armendariz's comments before they became widely known. If Ms. Jackson had prior knowledge of the videotaped remarks and decided to suppress them, that in and of itself should be grounds of her dismissal. But regardless of how much she knew and when she knew it, her support for Armendariz as regional EPA director is grounds enough. Even now, after Armendariz has resigned in disgrace, Jackson is expressing appreciation for his work at the agency and "respect" for his decision to resign.
In fact, Armendariz should never have been hired in the first place. Clearly, he was not a suitable candidate if one sought a director to approach oil and gas production in a fair and even-handed manner. That, however, is not what Ms. Jackson or President Obama sought. According to his own web page, Armendariz worked for years as an environmental activist, publishing one op-ed after another in support of regulation, seemingly without concern for the interests of energy companies or for the public which relies on those companies to supply its needs.
In May 2007, Armendariz was hired by the Environmental Defense Fund to produce a study of air emissions by oil and gas producers in the Barnett Shale area of central Texas. That study was an attempt to undermine the thorough research that had already been conducted by state and federal regulators. The apparent intent was to reverse the air quality plan agreed to by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that had been approved in May 2007. Following publication of his report in January 2009, a sweeping critique that somehow required only 18 months of "research," Armendariz engaged in a series of rebuttals to industry criticism of his work. In one of his rebuttals, Armendariz referred to industry representatives as having an "unsophisticated level of understanding" resulting in "sophomoric statements." That sort of confrontational and jejune approach to regulatory debate should, in and of itself, have been enough to alert the administration to the inadvisability of hiring Armendariz.
It appears that Armendariz's contempt for those who actually work to produce energy in this country has a long history stretching back years before his hiring by President Obama and EPA Administrator Jackson.
The arrogance of his remarks and the confrontational posture he has long assumed are a matter of public record, and they must have been known to Jackson before Mr. Armendariz was hired. Yet she did nothing to prevent his being hired, and she seems to have fully supported the appointment of this doubtful candidate to a position of great authority at the agency. She should accept blame and step down. If she refuses to do so, Obama should demand her resignation.
Surely the president does not condone Mr. Armendariz's remarks suggesting that as regional EPA director, he intended to round up "the first five guys" he saw and "crucify them." That kind of brutal approach, Armendariz stated, would "make examples out of them." At that point, they would play along with the administration's radical environmental goals, no matter the cost.
These remarks reflect a level of contempt for the American people that pervades the entire Obama administration, from Cass Sunstein's talk of "nudging" companies and individuals until they accede to what's good for them to the attempt by unconstitutionally appointed NLRB chair Mark Pearce to force businesses to post union-friendly material against their wishes and in violation of their rights of free speech. Obama's appointees are all too willing to resort to high-handed, extralegal tactics in support of what they view as overriding priorities of social and environmental justice. In doing so, they have become tyrants who act in the manner of Roman generals marching into defenseless villages, seizing the "first five guys," and crucifying them just for sport.
The president's support of this tyrannical behavior is proof that Obama also views himself as a bit of a Roman -- not a Roman general, to be sure, but an emperor, a Nero or Caligula. His continuing support of Attorney General Eric Holder, despite evidence that Holder may have lied under oath in connection with Fast and Furious, suggests that the president's view of American citizens as small-town boobs "clinging to their guns and religion" has not changed. Obama's entire administration, from the top down, displays this contempt for the American heartland, its citizens, and its businesses. The truth is that Armendariz was just saying publicly what gets said in private every day of the week at the White House. That's why his comments never troubled anyone in the administration -- and certainly not Lisa Jackson or the president -- until they became a political embarrassment during an election year.
For three years, in fact, Ms. Jackson has actively supported Armendariz in his crusade for greater regulation, despite the fact that in at least one important case the evidence of fracking pollution produced by his "research" was disproved and repudiated by the agency itself. Now that Armendariz has resigned, he has been replaced by Sam Coleman, the EPA official in charge of the agency's response to Hurricane Katrina.
Given the fiscal and managerial ineptitude of the government's response to that event, the selection of Coleman is not exactly reassuring. A graduate of Prairie View A&M University, Coleman, like Armendariz before him, seems to have had no experience in the oil and gas business and, in fact, no real-world work experience at all. It is not known at this time whether Coleman fancies himself a Roman general.
It appears that Jackson remains adamant in her support of subordinates like Armendariz. One has to wonder how many other regional EPA directors share Armendariz's views on environmental enforcement. Like Mr. Armendariz, two other regional directors (those overseeing cases against fracking operations in Pennsylvania and Wyoming) have brought hasty accusations against oil and gas firms, only to have their "research" rejected as inadequate. Yet Administrator Jackson has taken no action to discipline or remove these two directors.
That may be because Ms. Jackson fancies herself a Roman general as well. EPA officials at the highest levels seem to think they know a lot about Roman history. The question is, how much do they know about the Constitution of the United Sates? One passage that might be of particular interest in regard to Mr. Armendariz, and to Ms. Jackson as well, appears in the Fifth Amendment. Namely, no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." In other words, no marching into villages and crucifying the first five guys one meets -- and no activist crusades with government officials targeting American citizens and businesses with the purpose of intimidation.
Any person who possesses so little knowledge of the Constitution as to disregard the due process clause has no place in the government of the United States. How familiar with the Constitution is Ms. Jackson?
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture, including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).
American Thinker
Obama 2012: Stealing Bush's Legacy
May 2, 2012
By Pamela Geller
Barack Obama is now campaigning on the capture and kill of Osama Bin Laden a year ago last Tuesday. Really?
For years before he became President and then on the campaign trail in 2008, Obama railed against and denounced the very policies and procedures that ultimately led to the Bin Laden kill. The capture and kill of Osama bin Laden was ten years in the making. And during those years, Barack Obama excoriated George W. Bush for "enhanced interrogation techniques" and waterboarding three (!) top jihad killers. Thousands of lives were saved, but Obama cared more about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's sore nose. Now he is taking credit for those very things? Whiplash. How about the SEALS who took out Bin Laden? Do they deserve any credit?
Much is made of the fact that Obama okayed the kill. Do you mean to tell me he could have said no?
Obama campaigning on the death of bin Laden shows us that he has nothing to campaign on. He catastrophic foreign policy failures are being whitewashed by a complicit propagandist media. Why isn't Obama campaigning on his "cosmic wager" in Egypt, and on his support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Gaza (Hamas) and the United States (CAIR, ISNA, etc.)? Why isn't Obama campaigning on the Sharia governments that are coming to power in Mali, Libya, Tunisia, etc., and on losing North Africa to Islamic supremacists?
The enemedia continues to package the abysmal failure of Obama's foreign policy as a triumph. The world is on the edge facing world war as Islamic supremacists take over whole countries, something made possible by Obama. Aided and abetted by Obama. Let him campaign on that.
The treacherous and weak Obama has proposed an unprecedented sharp reduction to the U.S. nuclear stockpile, including cutting up to 80 percent of America's deployed warheads. It would reduce the U.S. nuclear deployment to the lowest levels since the 1950s. He should campaign on that.
Barack Obama should be campaigning on the respect he paid to the body of Osama bin Laden. How he insisted that bin Laden be given a full Islamic burial by our soldiers (body washing, Islamic prayer, etc.), and that no photos of the body of bin Laden be released.
Obama should be campaigning on his deadly new policy proclaiming that "the war on terror is over," despite the fact that jihad war gaming and attacks against America have never been so frequent.
Consider how embarrassingly unabashed Obama has been in his deference toward and submission to the Muslim world -- bowing to the Saudi king, groveling to the Muslim world at Al Azhar University, turning over NASA to extol the contributions of the Muslim world, expressing vocal support for the reviled Ground Zero mosque at his Iftar gala, the endless apologies for Quran burnings, his $800 million in aid to the Muslim Brotherhood for their Islamic Spring, silence on the Egyptian hostage crisis, his billet doux to Ahmadinejad, his gift of our drone to Iran, his scrub of jihad from law enforcement counter-terrorism materials, his partnering with the OIC on the suppression of free speech (blasphemy laws) - Obama should be campaigning on all of that.
Obama should be campaigning on our deteriorating relationships with long-term allies in Europe and Asia.
Obama should be campaigning on his administration's war on Israel.
Obama should be campaigning on his open-mic remark to Russia's president, promising capitulation to Putin's demands after the November election. Has there ever been a more dangerous threat in the White House? Giving Russia our secret data on missile defense in order to enlist Russia in the missile defense effort. In August 2009, Obama made the decision to abandon our anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic in a craven capitulation to Putin.
Obama should be campaigning on the 15-trillion-dollar debt he incurred, which has irrevocably damaged our nation's strength and power and destroyed our children's future.
Does the humiliation ever end under this president? Will this man ever let us hold our heads up as Americans under his reign?
By Pamela Geller
Barack Obama is now campaigning on the capture and kill of Osama Bin Laden a year ago last Tuesday. Really?
For years before he became President and then on the campaign trail in 2008, Obama railed against and denounced the very policies and procedures that ultimately led to the Bin Laden kill. The capture and kill of Osama bin Laden was ten years in the making. And during those years, Barack Obama excoriated George W. Bush for "enhanced interrogation techniques" and waterboarding three (!) top jihad killers. Thousands of lives were saved, but Obama cared more about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's sore nose. Now he is taking credit for those very things? Whiplash. How about the SEALS who took out Bin Laden? Do they deserve any credit?
Much is made of the fact that Obama okayed the kill. Do you mean to tell me he could have said no?
Obama campaigning on the death of bin Laden shows us that he has nothing to campaign on. He catastrophic foreign policy failures are being whitewashed by a complicit propagandist media. Why isn't Obama campaigning on his "cosmic wager" in Egypt, and on his support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Gaza (Hamas) and the United States (CAIR, ISNA, etc.)? Why isn't Obama campaigning on the Sharia governments that are coming to power in Mali, Libya, Tunisia, etc., and on losing North Africa to Islamic supremacists?
The enemedia continues to package the abysmal failure of Obama's foreign policy as a triumph. The world is on the edge facing world war as Islamic supremacists take over whole countries, something made possible by Obama. Aided and abetted by Obama. Let him campaign on that.
The treacherous and weak Obama has proposed an unprecedented sharp reduction to the U.S. nuclear stockpile, including cutting up to 80 percent of America's deployed warheads. It would reduce the U.S. nuclear deployment to the lowest levels since the 1950s. He should campaign on that.
Barack Obama should be campaigning on the respect he paid to the body of Osama bin Laden. How he insisted that bin Laden be given a full Islamic burial by our soldiers (body washing, Islamic prayer, etc.), and that no photos of the body of bin Laden be released.
Obama should be campaigning on his deadly new policy proclaiming that "the war on terror is over," despite the fact that jihad war gaming and attacks against America have never been so frequent.
Consider how embarrassingly unabashed Obama has been in his deference toward and submission to the Muslim world -- bowing to the Saudi king, groveling to the Muslim world at Al Azhar University, turning over NASA to extol the contributions of the Muslim world, expressing vocal support for the reviled Ground Zero mosque at his Iftar gala, the endless apologies for Quran burnings, his $800 million in aid to the Muslim Brotherhood for their Islamic Spring, silence on the Egyptian hostage crisis, his billet doux to Ahmadinejad, his gift of our drone to Iran, his scrub of jihad from law enforcement counter-terrorism materials, his partnering with the OIC on the suppression of free speech (blasphemy laws) - Obama should be campaigning on all of that.
Obama should be campaigning on our deteriorating relationships with long-term allies in Europe and Asia.
Obama should be campaigning on his administration's war on Israel.
Obama should be campaigning on his open-mic remark to Russia's president, promising capitulation to Putin's demands after the November election. Has there ever been a more dangerous threat in the White House? Giving Russia our secret data on missile defense in order to enlist Russia in the missile defense effort. In August 2009, Obama made the decision to abandon our anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic in a craven capitulation to Putin.
Obama should be campaigning on the 15-trillion-dollar debt he incurred, which has irrevocably damaged our nation's strength and power and destroyed our children's future.
Does the humiliation ever end under this president? Will this man ever let us hold our heads up as Americans under his reign?
Pamela Geller is the publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and the author of the WND Books title "Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance."
American Thinker
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
America's Useful Idiots
May 1, 2012
By Steve McCann
Many years ago, a phrase was coined by the leaders of the Soviet Union to describe those in the West who naively promoted the cause of Russian Communism when in reality they were held in contempt and were being cynically used by the Soviet hierarchy. The term "useful idiot" more than ever applies to a vast swath of citizens in the United States who have been cynically used by the hardcore left for a cause they are unwilling to understand.
Among the mysteries confronting those of us who have immigrated to the United States from countries that have experienced the devastating outcome of socialist/Marxist ideology is why seemingly successful and educated people could be so easily swayed to support those whose end-game is to transform the country into a socialist "utopia" and to control the day-to-day lives of all Americans. Among these "useful idiots" are a seeming majority of the Jewish population as well as many in business, and nearly all in entertainment and the media.
The answer appears to be that despite the hardcore left accounting for less than 20% of the population, their influence extends far beyond thanks to the apparent inability of their peripheral supporters to use any modicum of reasoning -- as the left in the United States has been able to identify and manipulate those susceptible to emotional arguments.
Traditionally, the age-old Marxist strategy of fomenting class warfare and demonizing capitalism has been an effective tactic with those in the lower-income and education strata, who can be easily swayed to blame others for their perceived misfortune. However, in a nation, such as the United States, which has experienced great peace and prosperity for nearly seven decades and whose population is overwhelmingly middle-class, this argument alone cannot sway a sufficient number to support the ascension of those dedicated to socialist/Marxist ideology.
Therefore, while still using the class-warfare dialog to keep the lower classes stirred up, the left has, beginning in the 1930s but accelerating in the 1960s, combined class warfare with the promotion of guilt for one's success and falsely portraying their ideological enemies as being intolerant extremists whose single-minded determination is to limit and control everyone's lifestyle, and who are at their core virulent racists.
Yet leftists are just what they accuse their opponents of being.
The tactic of fomenting guilt for one's success is a codicil to overt class warfare. The argument begins with the benign assertion that in a nation this wealthy, surely everyone can be guaranteed a minimal level of support at the taxpayers' expense. Particularly wealthy taxpayers should be willing to part with a "fair share" of their income (as defined by the left) in order to assuage their guilt for living in a country that "facilitated" their becoming rich. Not desiring to be branded as insensitive or evil, many simply acquiesced to this not-so-subtle extortion. Further, in an attempt to buy peace, many contributed vast sums of money to the Democratic Party -- now dominated by the far left.
The management of many large corporations as well as numerous successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and inheritors of wealth refused to understand that as in all protection rackets, there is never an end to the demand for payment. Additionally, these dupes were funding a political party whose end-game was to destroy the system that made them successful in the first place. All the while the money being siphoned out of the economy by the government in order to establish a so-called "safety net" was being used to create an ever-expanding dependent class who would vote to keep the left in power.
The Obama administration represents the culmination of this process, as leftists have, through an avalanche of mandates, regulations, and laws, begun weaving a suffocating web around the American free market, as they assume complete control of the economy. Firmly in their clutches will be those who fall into the ever-changing definition of rich and successful.
In the 1960s, America experienced a social revolution against historical and societal norms. An era of peace and prosperity unprecedented in the history of mankind was underway, allowing a new generation to focus on hedonistic pursuits, self-aggrandizement, and a search for so-called "meaning" in their lives. Traditions, based on the religious foundation of the country and the societal mores that sprang from them, came to be viewed as standing in the way of allowing the population to experience absolute freedom.
Coupled with the Johnson administration's mishandling of the Vietnam War, a broad movement began. The true believers of the left promptly injected themselves into this landscape, proclaiming to the gullible that not only was the United States waging an unjust war, but the U.S. was by its nature a repressive country. The siren song of a society wherein all are treated fairly and there are no absolutes found eager ears.
In short order, the left began to portray their political adversaries as intolerant religious zealots whose primary objective was to deny personal freedom and cast a beady eye toward whatever was happening in the bedroom. An unfettered lifestyle as well as being part of the in-crowd is of paramount importance to not only the vast majority of those in the entertainment and media arena, but also many in the general population. They were willing cast aside any disbelief and wholeheartedly swallow the premise that only the political left or the "progressives" could protect them from this narrow-minded right-wing horde.
This attitude was further entrenched when many conservatives and the religious community began to organize and rightly object to abortion on demand and the concomitant coarsening of the culture. The left now had a virtual stranglehold on the self-centered, whose personal pleasure and egocentrism were the primary driving forces in their lives. They were now completely in the thrall of the left, but what has this blind loyalty wrought?
A cursory examination of those nations that fell under the control of socialist/Marxist ideology reveals that among the first actions the new regimes institute is to put in place laws to greatly limit personal freedom as a prerequisite in subjugating the populace.
The passage of ObamaCare is not a health care plan; rather, it is a blueprint to allow the government to control the day-to-day lives of all Americans, and under the guise of budgetary expediency, the bureaucrats in Washington can and eventually will declare any behavior they choose unacceptable. Meanwhile, Barack Obama and his administration have been busily issuing edicts and regulations aimed at telling the American people what food they can eat, what medicines they can take, what cars they can drive, what houses they can live in, and in due course what they can do in their bedrooms.
One of the most consistent supporters of the Democratic Party is the Jewish population, as the Party has been portrayed over many decades as the defender of the downtrodden and in recent years a bulwark against the supposed racist fanatics on the right. However, this is a party now dominated and controlled by hardcore leftists, many of whom are virulently anti-Semitic and opposed to the state of Israel. A hallmark of all socialist/Marxist regimes is discrimination against and persecution of minorities, in particular the Jews.
That history coupled with the policies of the Obama administration in the Middle East, the Democrats' class-warfare tactics, the past and present associates of the president, and the anti-Semitic rhetoric of many on the left should alarm the American Jewish citizenry and cause them to cast a wary eye toward the party they have blindly supported over many decades. Unfortunately, the desire to believe that the worst could never happen seems to have permeated the psyche of a people whose history should serve as a cautionary tale as they continue to vote for and financially support a party that views them with disdain.
Barack Obama would not be occupying the Oval Office if it were not for the people over the past sixty years who have blindly supported those who have lied to them. The overriding stratagem of socialism/Marxism is "the ends justify the means" -- thus, no lie is too big to tell, no promise too outrageous to promote, and no tactic out of bounds. The overall strategy of the Obama re-election team confirms this mindset as it conducts a demagogic campaign based solely on emotional appeals to that part of the population its operatives consider "useful idiots."
Those who thoughtlessly supported the left in America over the years are beginning to reap what they have sown. Unfortunately so is the rest of the population.
By Steve McCann
Many years ago, a phrase was coined by the leaders of the Soviet Union to describe those in the West who naively promoted the cause of Russian Communism when in reality they were held in contempt and were being cynically used by the Soviet hierarchy. The term "useful idiot" more than ever applies to a vast swath of citizens in the United States who have been cynically used by the hardcore left for a cause they are unwilling to understand.
Among the mysteries confronting those of us who have immigrated to the United States from countries that have experienced the devastating outcome of socialist/Marxist ideology is why seemingly successful and educated people could be so easily swayed to support those whose end-game is to transform the country into a socialist "utopia" and to control the day-to-day lives of all Americans. Among these "useful idiots" are a seeming majority of the Jewish population as well as many in business, and nearly all in entertainment and the media.
The answer appears to be that despite the hardcore left accounting for less than 20% of the population, their influence extends far beyond thanks to the apparent inability of their peripheral supporters to use any modicum of reasoning -- as the left in the United States has been able to identify and manipulate those susceptible to emotional arguments.
Traditionally, the age-old Marxist strategy of fomenting class warfare and demonizing capitalism has been an effective tactic with those in the lower-income and education strata, who can be easily swayed to blame others for their perceived misfortune. However, in a nation, such as the United States, which has experienced great peace and prosperity for nearly seven decades and whose population is overwhelmingly middle-class, this argument alone cannot sway a sufficient number to support the ascension of those dedicated to socialist/Marxist ideology.
Therefore, while still using the class-warfare dialog to keep the lower classes stirred up, the left has, beginning in the 1930s but accelerating in the 1960s, combined class warfare with the promotion of guilt for one's success and falsely portraying their ideological enemies as being intolerant extremists whose single-minded determination is to limit and control everyone's lifestyle, and who are at their core virulent racists.
Yet leftists are just what they accuse their opponents of being.
The tactic of fomenting guilt for one's success is a codicil to overt class warfare. The argument begins with the benign assertion that in a nation this wealthy, surely everyone can be guaranteed a minimal level of support at the taxpayers' expense. Particularly wealthy taxpayers should be willing to part with a "fair share" of their income (as defined by the left) in order to assuage their guilt for living in a country that "facilitated" their becoming rich. Not desiring to be branded as insensitive or evil, many simply acquiesced to this not-so-subtle extortion. Further, in an attempt to buy peace, many contributed vast sums of money to the Democratic Party -- now dominated by the far left.
The management of many large corporations as well as numerous successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and inheritors of wealth refused to understand that as in all protection rackets, there is never an end to the demand for payment. Additionally, these dupes were funding a political party whose end-game was to destroy the system that made them successful in the first place. All the while the money being siphoned out of the economy by the government in order to establish a so-called "safety net" was being used to create an ever-expanding dependent class who would vote to keep the left in power.
The Obama administration represents the culmination of this process, as leftists have, through an avalanche of mandates, regulations, and laws, begun weaving a suffocating web around the American free market, as they assume complete control of the economy. Firmly in their clutches will be those who fall into the ever-changing definition of rich and successful.
In the 1960s, America experienced a social revolution against historical and societal norms. An era of peace and prosperity unprecedented in the history of mankind was underway, allowing a new generation to focus on hedonistic pursuits, self-aggrandizement, and a search for so-called "meaning" in their lives. Traditions, based on the religious foundation of the country and the societal mores that sprang from them, came to be viewed as standing in the way of allowing the population to experience absolute freedom.
Coupled with the Johnson administration's mishandling of the Vietnam War, a broad movement began. The true believers of the left promptly injected themselves into this landscape, proclaiming to the gullible that not only was the United States waging an unjust war, but the U.S. was by its nature a repressive country. The siren song of a society wherein all are treated fairly and there are no absolutes found eager ears.
In short order, the left began to portray their political adversaries as intolerant religious zealots whose primary objective was to deny personal freedom and cast a beady eye toward whatever was happening in the bedroom. An unfettered lifestyle as well as being part of the in-crowd is of paramount importance to not only the vast majority of those in the entertainment and media arena, but also many in the general population. They were willing cast aside any disbelief and wholeheartedly swallow the premise that only the political left or the "progressives" could protect them from this narrow-minded right-wing horde.
This attitude was further entrenched when many conservatives and the religious community began to organize and rightly object to abortion on demand and the concomitant coarsening of the culture. The left now had a virtual stranglehold on the self-centered, whose personal pleasure and egocentrism were the primary driving forces in their lives. They were now completely in the thrall of the left, but what has this blind loyalty wrought?
A cursory examination of those nations that fell under the control of socialist/Marxist ideology reveals that among the first actions the new regimes institute is to put in place laws to greatly limit personal freedom as a prerequisite in subjugating the populace.
The passage of ObamaCare is not a health care plan; rather, it is a blueprint to allow the government to control the day-to-day lives of all Americans, and under the guise of budgetary expediency, the bureaucrats in Washington can and eventually will declare any behavior they choose unacceptable. Meanwhile, Barack Obama and his administration have been busily issuing edicts and regulations aimed at telling the American people what food they can eat, what medicines they can take, what cars they can drive, what houses they can live in, and in due course what they can do in their bedrooms.
One of the most consistent supporters of the Democratic Party is the Jewish population, as the Party has been portrayed over many decades as the defender of the downtrodden and in recent years a bulwark against the supposed racist fanatics on the right. However, this is a party now dominated and controlled by hardcore leftists, many of whom are virulently anti-Semitic and opposed to the state of Israel. A hallmark of all socialist/Marxist regimes is discrimination against and persecution of minorities, in particular the Jews.
That history coupled with the policies of the Obama administration in the Middle East, the Democrats' class-warfare tactics, the past and present associates of the president, and the anti-Semitic rhetoric of many on the left should alarm the American Jewish citizenry and cause them to cast a wary eye toward the party they have blindly supported over many decades. Unfortunately, the desire to believe that the worst could never happen seems to have permeated the psyche of a people whose history should serve as a cautionary tale as they continue to vote for and financially support a party that views them with disdain.
Barack Obama would not be occupying the Oval Office if it were not for the people over the past sixty years who have blindly supported those who have lied to them. The overriding stratagem of socialism/Marxism is "the ends justify the means" -- thus, no lie is too big to tell, no promise too outrageous to promote, and no tactic out of bounds. The overall strategy of the Obama re-election team confirms this mindset as it conducts a demagogic campaign based solely on emotional appeals to that part of the population its operatives consider "useful idiots."
Those who thoughtlessly supported the left in America over the years are beginning to reap what they have sown. Unfortunately so is the rest of the population.
American Thinker
Obama's Chicago-Style Campaign
May 1, 2012
By Ed Lasky
Barack Obama has a take-no-prisoners approach when it comes to waging political campaigns. But perhaps he has taken a step too far this time around. Not content to attack his opponent, his campaign is going after his opponent's supporters. Kimberly Strassel, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, gives us one more reason not to vote for Barack Obama: he is a thug who has disgraced the office of the president of the United States by engaging in behavior more befitting of the dictator of a banana republic.
Strassel writes of the Obama's campaign's latest efforts to smear and attack donors to Mitt Romney. She projects what happens when one exercises one's right in a democracy to support a candidate:
Hence, we have the focus on the Koch brothers, who have funded various conservative and libertarian causes (as well as medical research, art and cultural projects, and many other worthy causes) and candidates over the years. Recall that almost two years ago, President Obama singled out one of the groups the Kochs help fund, Americans for Prosperity, for special opprobrium. This was a signal to what some may characterize as the vast left-wing conspiracy to attack the Kochs. The New Yorker, supplied with material by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, went to work on the brothers. What was even more scandalous was that White House officials apparently had access to tax returns of the Kochs and their companies and used it as opposition research when meeting with journalists. Has any other president used the IRS for political purposes -- and what type of media backlash ensued then?
An Obama effort to shine the light on political donations is rich with hypocrisy. Barack Obama's own campaign disabled security measures on its donation page in ways that allow people to mask donors' identities and evade limits on how much individuals can donate to candidates. They did the same in 2008 (and one of the revelations was that Palestinians from Gaza were donating to his campaign; those donations were returned when exposed). George Soros and other billionaire sugar-daddies of the left have been funneling money to 527 groups, think-tanks, media outlets, and the like to bend politics in their direction in ways that meet no one's definition of transparency.
These efforts to intimidate donors to Republicans have borne fruit in the past. When it was revealed that Target donated $150,000 to a group that ran ads backing a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota who opposed same-sex marriage but who otherwise had a pro-growth agenda, a boycott effort began that led to Target halting its donations. Similar boycott threats (including ones led by Obama acolyte Van Jones) have dissuaded other companies from donating to such pro-growth groups as the American Legislative Exchange Council. In the latter case, charges of racism have been ginned up to discourage support for the group. The same potent weapon -- the charge of racism -- has also been used to compel financial institutions to make loans to unqualified borrowers; those loans came back to help devastate the American economy.
There was a reason why Barack Obama was so riled up by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which supported the right under the First Amendment of corporations to support political candidates. He and his supporters leveled spurious (and false) claims that foreign money would be used to fund political campaigns in America. Similar charges have been made against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce once that group began running ads questioning Barack Obama's agenda.
Clearly, Barack Obama wants to gut the Citizens United decision by other means. He views politics as a blood sport and believes in clearing the field of candidates so as to leave voters with no other choice but to support him.
Why should we be surprised by this type of thuggish behavior on the part of the president? He all but announced his modus operandi back in 2008 when he warned that his style of campaigning could be summed up by the maxim "if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
He had previously shown an inclination to use all methods, foul and fair, to win elections. The man who touts the need to register all potential voters (a policy taken to its extreme by his attorney general) felt free to disqualify a political opponent when he ran for the state senate in 1996 from being on the ballot by challenging signatures on his opponents' nominating petition. Obama's team, at Obama's direction, flooded the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners with complaints about the validity of the signatures on such petitions for every single one of his four challengers. Every single one, including a former political ally, Alice Palmer, was forced off the ballot. As David Jackson and Ray Long of the Chicago Tribune wrote:
The history of Obama's later run to become a U.S. senator has been obscured, but those familiar with his career see signs that all was not on the up-and-up when it came to his 2004 primary and general campaigns.
In the primary, he faced a formidable and well-funded opponent, Blair Hull, who was leading quite strongly in the polls until stories started appearing in the Chicago Tribune that Hull had physically abused his ex-wife. Although the provenance of these allegations was never made public by the Tribune, Obama's campaign strategist at the time (and who has kept his role over the years) was David Axelrod, who not only had spent years working at the paper, but had already known that Hull was vulnerable to such accusations.
The exposure occurred right before the primary vote, leaving Hull no time to rebut the allegations and leaving no time for other candidates to emerge on the Democratic side to challenge Obama for the nomination.
In the general election, he faced Jack Ryan, a promising Republican candidate who had made a fortune in investment banking but gave up that career to teach in inner-city schools. Suddenly, the Chicago Tribune started a public campaign that he be forced to unseal and reveal his divorce records. They were sealed to protect his and his ex-wife's young children. Eventually, Jack Ryan was compelled to open them to public inspection. There were embarrassing tales of his sexual fantasies. Ryan was forced to leave the race. The hapless Republicans resorted to bringing in a carpetbagger, television personality Alan Keyes, to run against Obama. The next thing you know, Obama is a United States senator, having never faced a serious foe with a chance of winning.
Even when he was a freshly minted president, Obama could not resist taunting people he perceived to have slighted him. When the University of Arizona decided not to give him an honorary degree (considering it a premature honor), he warned that "[university] President Crow and the board of regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS." Inappropriate humor, perhaps, but it was revealing nonetheless of an unpleasant aspect of the president's character, especially given the fact that he was vastly expanding the audit staff at the agency. Was he ignorant of Richard Nixon's history of using the IRS as a weapon against his political adversaries or, for that matter, people who just offended him?
There have been other signs that Obama has brought Cook County politics into the already fetid swamp of D.C. politics.
He has routinely insulted and demeaned various groups and people during the last few years -- especially as the campaign seasons (in 2010 and now) have heated up.
He has practiced the politics of personal destruction in a way no other president has done in modern history. As political commentators have noted, he personalizes political differences. This leads him to unload heaps of scorn on those he perceives to be not just political adversaries, but blood enemies. He puts down those who rub him the wrong way (something very easy to do with thin-skinned people) in a very personal and public way (some examples listed in "President Put-Down" and "The Abuser In Chief"). Such behavior not only disgraces the office, but is certainly not conducive to compromise and to working across the aisle on issues important to Americans. Instead, as America has seen with ObamaCare and other actions, President Obama and his allies have resorted to all sorts of trickery to promote their agenda (czars, signing statements, executive orders, regulatory interpretations, and a raft of other items that have raised concerns over their constitutionality). These shady methods are also a betrayal of his promise to end "politics as usual" and to work in a bipartisan way -- promises made on the campaign trail that led many people to vote for him. But all of Obama's promises have an expiration date.
He has compiled and continues to compile an enemies list in a way that is reminiscent of Richard Nixon. Sometimes he likes to personally denounce and insult his "enemies" (Paul Ryan, John McCain). More often he outsources the wet work to others -- and not just his campaign staff.
Is it a coincidence that one of the few magazines Obama praises and says he reads is the New Yorker -- mentioned above? Under the leadership of David Remnick (who wrote a hagiographic biography of Barack Obama), the magazine has turned into an organ of Obama's re-election campaign. The periodical has published many unflattering articles on those considered to be Obama's "enemies." For example, Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee was subject to a hit-job article by then-New Yorker political columnist Ryan Lizza because, apparently, he "makes life difficult for Obama." How? Issa has been very busy investigating an administration he considers the most corrupt in history. Hence, he has certainly moved up in the rankings of Obama's enemies. Sheldon Adelson, billionaire political donor to Republicans and a man who has made it quite clear that he wants to see Barack Obama defeated, was also the subject of a scathing article in the New Yorker, and to top it off, that reliable adjunct to the Democratic National Committee joined the "fun" at Adelson's expense, revealing painful personal details of his life that had no possible bearing on his political activities and portrayed him in a very unflattering light.
George Soros-funded groups Media Matters and the Center for American Progress have been useful attack dogs fielded against those who oppose Barack Obama's agenda. Media Matters was recently enriched with additional money from Soros to take on Fox News. The Center for American Progress released a report that cherry-picked the people who were purportedly promoting "Islamophobia" in America. Not only did the "blacklist" include the names of these people, but it also made sure to identify many of them as also supporting Jewish or pro-Israel causes. In other words, this was a target list of "enemies of Islam." It is shameful that officials of this group routinely meet with Obama and other White House officials and that its former head once headed up Barack Obama's transitional team before he became president. The Center's current leader used to work in the Obama White House. This group -- that can fairly be accused of spreading anti-Semitism and inviting attacks on prominent Jews -- should be shunned and not embraced.
The coming months will see a campaign waged by Barack Obama that is a disgrace to the image of the presidency. There will be carpet-bombing attacks against not only Mitt Romney, but also his supporters.
They will be considered not "collateral damage," but instead legitimate targets by Obama and company -- because everyone who does not support him is an "enemy." Who defines them as such? Barack Obama, when he told Hispanics that politics is about "rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies" (italics mine).
The hoi polloi that Barack Obama might characterize as "bitter clingers" are not slighted. The Obama campaign has plans for them, too. The campaign has asked its supporters to send them contact information on people they may know who do not support the president. The campaign would then have a list of people who oppose Barack Obama. What is next? Cameras in the voting booth?
Americans will witness a contest marked by smears, lies, and distortions. There will be more threats issued to those who have the temerity to oppose Barack Obama and support Mitt Romney. The right of Americans to free speech and the other rights given them under our Constitution will be under pressure.
The next two hundred days (like the last thousand) will be a blot on our history.
And one man is to blame.
By Ed Lasky
Barack Obama has a take-no-prisoners approach when it comes to waging political campaigns. But perhaps he has taken a step too far this time around. Not content to attack his opponent, his campaign is going after his opponent's supporters. Kimberly Strassel, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, gives us one more reason not to vote for Barack Obama: he is a thug who has disgraced the office of the president of the United States by engaging in behavior more befitting of the dictator of a banana republic.
Strassel writes of the Obama's campaign's latest efforts to smear and attack donors to Mitt Romney. She projects what happens when one exercises one's right in a democracy to support a candidate:
[...] Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. His campaign brands you a Romney donor, shames you for "betting against America," and accuses you of having a "less-than-reputable" record. The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money. [...]
Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats. This is why presidents since Nixon have carefully avoided the practice.
Save Mr. Obama, who acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans." [...]
"We don't tolerate presidents or people of high power to do these things," says Theodore Olson, the former U.S. solicitor general. "When you have the power of the presidency -- the power of the IRS, the INS, the Justice Department, the DEA, the SEC -- what you have effectively done is put these guys' names up on 'Wanted' posters in government offices." [...]
He's targeted insurers, oil firms and Wall Street -- letting it be known that those who oppose his policies might face political or legislative retribution. He lectured the Supreme Court for giving companies more free speech and (falsely) accused the Chamber of Commerce of using foreign money to bankroll U.S. elections. The White House even ginned up an executive order (yet to be released) to require companies to list political donations as a condition of bidding for government contracts.This is the sinister reason why the Obama campaign has repeatedly called on the Romney campaign to release the names of the latter's big donors. The Obama team needs to win not just by creating and attacking straw men and scapegoats; it needs flesh-and-blood villains as well. The richer the villain, the more tempting the target. The Obama campaign needs to conjure up plutocrats to further stoke the politics of rage that Barack Obama hopes will power him to re-election.
Hence, we have the focus on the Koch brothers, who have funded various conservative and libertarian causes (as well as medical research, art and cultural projects, and many other worthy causes) and candidates over the years. Recall that almost two years ago, President Obama singled out one of the groups the Kochs help fund, Americans for Prosperity, for special opprobrium. This was a signal to what some may characterize as the vast left-wing conspiracy to attack the Kochs. The New Yorker, supplied with material by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, went to work on the brothers. What was even more scandalous was that White House officials apparently had access to tax returns of the Kochs and their companies and used it as opposition research when meeting with journalists. Has any other president used the IRS for political purposes -- and what type of media backlash ensued then?
An Obama effort to shine the light on political donations is rich with hypocrisy. Barack Obama's own campaign disabled security measures on its donation page in ways that allow people to mask donors' identities and evade limits on how much individuals can donate to candidates. They did the same in 2008 (and one of the revelations was that Palestinians from Gaza were donating to his campaign; those donations were returned when exposed). George Soros and other billionaire sugar-daddies of the left have been funneling money to 527 groups, think-tanks, media outlets, and the like to bend politics in their direction in ways that meet no one's definition of transparency.
These efforts to intimidate donors to Republicans have borne fruit in the past. When it was revealed that Target donated $150,000 to a group that ran ads backing a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota who opposed same-sex marriage but who otherwise had a pro-growth agenda, a boycott effort began that led to Target halting its donations. Similar boycott threats (including ones led by Obama acolyte Van Jones) have dissuaded other companies from donating to such pro-growth groups as the American Legislative Exchange Council. In the latter case, charges of racism have been ginned up to discourage support for the group. The same potent weapon -- the charge of racism -- has also been used to compel financial institutions to make loans to unqualified borrowers; those loans came back to help devastate the American economy.
There was a reason why Barack Obama was so riled up by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which supported the right under the First Amendment of corporations to support political candidates. He and his supporters leveled spurious (and false) claims that foreign money would be used to fund political campaigns in America. Similar charges have been made against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce once that group began running ads questioning Barack Obama's agenda.
Clearly, Barack Obama wants to gut the Citizens United decision by other means. He views politics as a blood sport and believes in clearing the field of candidates so as to leave voters with no other choice but to support him.
Why should we be surprised by this type of thuggish behavior on the part of the president? He all but announced his modus operandi back in 2008 when he warned that his style of campaigning could be summed up by the maxim "if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
He had previously shown an inclination to use all methods, foul and fair, to win elections. The man who touts the need to register all potential voters (a policy taken to its extreme by his attorney general) felt free to disqualify a political opponent when he ran for the state senate in 1996 from being on the ballot by challenging signatures on his opponents' nominating petition. Obama's team, at Obama's direction, flooded the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners with complaints about the validity of the signatures on such petitions for every single one of his four challengers. Every single one, including a former political ally, Alice Palmer, was forced off the ballot. As David Jackson and Ray Long of the Chicago Tribune wrote:
Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.But he was only warming up for more creative steps to win elections.
But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.
A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.
The history of Obama's later run to become a U.S. senator has been obscured, but those familiar with his career see signs that all was not on the up-and-up when it came to his 2004 primary and general campaigns.
In the primary, he faced a formidable and well-funded opponent, Blair Hull, who was leading quite strongly in the polls until stories started appearing in the Chicago Tribune that Hull had physically abused his ex-wife. Although the provenance of these allegations was never made public by the Tribune, Obama's campaign strategist at the time (and who has kept his role over the years) was David Axelrod, who not only had spent years working at the paper, but had already known that Hull was vulnerable to such accusations.
The exposure occurred right before the primary vote, leaving Hull no time to rebut the allegations and leaving no time for other candidates to emerge on the Democratic side to challenge Obama for the nomination.
In the general election, he faced Jack Ryan, a promising Republican candidate who had made a fortune in investment banking but gave up that career to teach in inner-city schools. Suddenly, the Chicago Tribune started a public campaign that he be forced to unseal and reveal his divorce records. They were sealed to protect his and his ex-wife's young children. Eventually, Jack Ryan was compelled to open them to public inspection. There were embarrassing tales of his sexual fantasies. Ryan was forced to leave the race. The hapless Republicans resorted to bringing in a carpetbagger, television personality Alan Keyes, to run against Obama. The next thing you know, Obama is a United States senator, having never faced a serious foe with a chance of winning.
Even when he was a freshly minted president, Obama could not resist taunting people he perceived to have slighted him. When the University of Arizona decided not to give him an honorary degree (considering it a premature honor), he warned that "[university] President Crow and the board of regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS." Inappropriate humor, perhaps, but it was revealing nonetheless of an unpleasant aspect of the president's character, especially given the fact that he was vastly expanding the audit staff at the agency. Was he ignorant of Richard Nixon's history of using the IRS as a weapon against his political adversaries or, for that matter, people who just offended him?
There have been other signs that Obama has brought Cook County politics into the already fetid swamp of D.C. politics.
He has routinely insulted and demeaned various groups and people during the last few years -- especially as the campaign seasons (in 2010 and now) have heated up.
He has practiced the politics of personal destruction in a way no other president has done in modern history. As political commentators have noted, he personalizes political differences. This leads him to unload heaps of scorn on those he perceives to be not just political adversaries, but blood enemies. He puts down those who rub him the wrong way (something very easy to do with thin-skinned people) in a very personal and public way (some examples listed in "President Put-Down" and "The Abuser In Chief"). Such behavior not only disgraces the office, but is certainly not conducive to compromise and to working across the aisle on issues important to Americans. Instead, as America has seen with ObamaCare and other actions, President Obama and his allies have resorted to all sorts of trickery to promote their agenda (czars, signing statements, executive orders, regulatory interpretations, and a raft of other items that have raised concerns over their constitutionality). These shady methods are also a betrayal of his promise to end "politics as usual" and to work in a bipartisan way -- promises made on the campaign trail that led many people to vote for him. But all of Obama's promises have an expiration date.
He has compiled and continues to compile an enemies list in a way that is reminiscent of Richard Nixon. Sometimes he likes to personally denounce and insult his "enemies" (Paul Ryan, John McCain). More often he outsources the wet work to others -- and not just his campaign staff.
Is it a coincidence that one of the few magazines Obama praises and says he reads is the New Yorker -- mentioned above? Under the leadership of David Remnick (who wrote a hagiographic biography of Barack Obama), the magazine has turned into an organ of Obama's re-election campaign. The periodical has published many unflattering articles on those considered to be Obama's "enemies." For example, Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee was subject to a hit-job article by then-New Yorker political columnist Ryan Lizza because, apparently, he "makes life difficult for Obama." How? Issa has been very busy investigating an administration he considers the most corrupt in history. Hence, he has certainly moved up in the rankings of Obama's enemies. Sheldon Adelson, billionaire political donor to Republicans and a man who has made it quite clear that he wants to see Barack Obama defeated, was also the subject of a scathing article in the New Yorker, and to top it off, that reliable adjunct to the Democratic National Committee joined the "fun" at Adelson's expense, revealing painful personal details of his life that had no possible bearing on his political activities and portrayed him in a very unflattering light.
George Soros-funded groups Media Matters and the Center for American Progress have been useful attack dogs fielded against those who oppose Barack Obama's agenda. Media Matters was recently enriched with additional money from Soros to take on Fox News. The Center for American Progress released a report that cherry-picked the people who were purportedly promoting "Islamophobia" in America. Not only did the "blacklist" include the names of these people, but it also made sure to identify many of them as also supporting Jewish or pro-Israel causes. In other words, this was a target list of "enemies of Islam." It is shameful that officials of this group routinely meet with Obama and other White House officials and that its former head once headed up Barack Obama's transitional team before he became president. The Center's current leader used to work in the Obama White House. This group -- that can fairly be accused of spreading anti-Semitism and inviting attacks on prominent Jews -- should be shunned and not embraced.
The coming months will see a campaign waged by Barack Obama that is a disgrace to the image of the presidency. There will be carpet-bombing attacks against not only Mitt Romney, but also his supporters.
They will be considered not "collateral damage," but instead legitimate targets by Obama and company -- because everyone who does not support him is an "enemy." Who defines them as such? Barack Obama, when he told Hispanics that politics is about "rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies" (italics mine).
The hoi polloi that Barack Obama might characterize as "bitter clingers" are not slighted. The Obama campaign has plans for them, too. The campaign has asked its supporters to send them contact information on people they may know who do not support the president. The campaign would then have a list of people who oppose Barack Obama. What is next? Cameras in the voting booth?
Americans will witness a contest marked by smears, lies, and distortions. There will be more threats issued to those who have the temerity to oppose Barack Obama and support Mitt Romney. The right of Americans to free speech and the other rights given them under our Constitution will be under pressure.
The next two hundred days (like the last thousand) will be a blot on our history.
And one man is to blame.
American Thinker
Bullies: Obama and Savage Two Peas In a Pod
by Ben Shapiro
President Obama’s administration has embraced Dan Savage over and over and over again. He’s their chosen anti-bullying expert, invited to the White House, feted with links on the White House page, directed traffic by the highest and the mightiest in American government.
And yet he’s also the biggest bully in American politics, as we’ve shown over and over and over and over again.
That’s to be expected. After all, this is an administration that bullies on a regular basis.
Barack Obama is a Chicago thug who threatened during 2008, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” Obama surrounded himself with the worst sort of hatchet men – guys like Rahm Emanuel, who sent dead fish to political opponents and reportedly accosted unfriendly Congressmen naked in the House showers; people like Van Jones, who suggested that Republicans were “a**holes,” and that the Bush Administration “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen”; people like Robert Gibbs, who said that Obama would have to put his foot on the neck of British Petroleum; people like Eric Holder, who have allowed groups like the New Black Panthers to intimidate voters. During the 2012 campaign, Obama ratcheted it up -- as one aide reported, Obama was “putting the bully in bully pulpit.”
And he opened the White House to other bullies. Andrew Sullivan, the former gay conservative journalist turned radical, suggested that Sarah Palin didn’t give birth to her own child, Trig – and for that, Sullivan earned a White House invitation to a State Dinner with Great Britain. Louis C.K. -- the monotone comedian most famous for tweeting, “I want to rub my father’s c*** all over Sarah Palin’s fat t***” – went to the White House, too, and visited with White House speechwriter Jonathan Favreau. Whoopi Goldberg, who once stated that Roman Polanski’s rape of an underage girl wasn’t “rape-rape,” went to the White House twice and ran a fundraiser for Obama. Joy Behar of The View also got to visit the White House – well after she had called Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle a “b****,” of course. Obama accepted $1 million from once-humorous jester dwarf Bill Maher, who called Sarah Palin a “c***.”
As for his politics, Obama has been similarly bullying. He has threatened corporations that he’d allow the “pitchforks” to take them apart should they refuse him his policy prescriptions. He has hooked up with the union thugs who now control our politics. Obama has tried to bully the state of Arizona for enforcing the border. He has inserted himself into racial conflicts by bullying the Cambridge police department and talking about his race with regard to the Trayvon Martin case. He has bullied Israel, forcing Prime Minister Netanyahu to take the back door to the White House and ripping him behind his back to French President Nicholas Sarkozy while simultaneously appeasing Iran; he has bullied the Supreme Court before a national television audience. He has bullied Congress by finding fake recesses and then making recess appointments, and regularly suggesting that he will simply implement policy as he sees fit. He has bullied the Catholic Church by forcing them to hand out contraceptives in their health plans. He has bullied his non-elected political enemies by working with thug groups like Media Matters to initiate secondary boycotts.
The list goes on and on. This is merely the tip of the iceberg. Obama is the greatest presidential bully in the history of the republic. And his association with Savage shows that even his anti-bullying effort is a front … for more bullying. Bullying is fine with Obama, so long as the right people are being bullied.
Big Government
President Obama’s administration has embraced Dan Savage over and over and over again. He’s their chosen anti-bullying expert, invited to the White House, feted with links on the White House page, directed traffic by the highest and the mightiest in American government.
And yet he’s also the biggest bully in American politics, as we’ve shown over and over and over and over again.
That’s to be expected. After all, this is an administration that bullies on a regular basis.
Barack Obama is a Chicago thug who threatened during 2008, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” Obama surrounded himself with the worst sort of hatchet men – guys like Rahm Emanuel, who sent dead fish to political opponents and reportedly accosted unfriendly Congressmen naked in the House showers; people like Van Jones, who suggested that Republicans were “a**holes,” and that the Bush Administration “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen”; people like Robert Gibbs, who said that Obama would have to put his foot on the neck of British Petroleum; people like Eric Holder, who have allowed groups like the New Black Panthers to intimidate voters. During the 2012 campaign, Obama ratcheted it up -- as one aide reported, Obama was “putting the bully in bully pulpit.”
And he opened the White House to other bullies. Andrew Sullivan, the former gay conservative journalist turned radical, suggested that Sarah Palin didn’t give birth to her own child, Trig – and for that, Sullivan earned a White House invitation to a State Dinner with Great Britain. Louis C.K. -- the monotone comedian most famous for tweeting, “I want to rub my father’s c*** all over Sarah Palin’s fat t***” – went to the White House, too, and visited with White House speechwriter Jonathan Favreau. Whoopi Goldberg, who once stated that Roman Polanski’s rape of an underage girl wasn’t “rape-rape,” went to the White House twice and ran a fundraiser for Obama. Joy Behar of The View also got to visit the White House – well after she had called Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle a “b****,” of course. Obama accepted $1 million from once-humorous jester dwarf Bill Maher, who called Sarah Palin a “c***.”
As for his politics, Obama has been similarly bullying. He has threatened corporations that he’d allow the “pitchforks” to take them apart should they refuse him his policy prescriptions. He has hooked up with the union thugs who now control our politics. Obama has tried to bully the state of Arizona for enforcing the border. He has inserted himself into racial conflicts by bullying the Cambridge police department and talking about his race with regard to the Trayvon Martin case. He has bullied Israel, forcing Prime Minister Netanyahu to take the back door to the White House and ripping him behind his back to French President Nicholas Sarkozy while simultaneously appeasing Iran; he has bullied the Supreme Court before a national television audience. He has bullied Congress by finding fake recesses and then making recess appointments, and regularly suggesting that he will simply implement policy as he sees fit. He has bullied the Catholic Church by forcing them to hand out contraceptives in their health plans. He has bullied his non-elected political enemies by working with thug groups like Media Matters to initiate secondary boycotts.
The list goes on and on. This is merely the tip of the iceberg. Obama is the greatest presidential bully in the history of the republic. And his association with Savage shows that even his anti-bullying effort is a front … for more bullying. Bullying is fine with Obama, so long as the right people are being bullied.
Big Government
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