tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11367003424391115142024-03-13T03:03:41.837-07:00Hyphenated-AmericanIf you are suddenly in the mood to read the insane ramblings of a Jewish-Russian-Chinese Cossack about American politics (word of caution: English is his second language) - then you found the right blog. If you like what I am writing - please respond, leave a comment and share this blog with your friends. If you don't like what I am writing - please respond, leave a comment and share this blog with your friends.Hyphenated Americanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05180757495695345376noreply@blogger.comBlogger352125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1136700342439111514.post-12682058783294078012022-02-11T14:21:00.002-08:002022-02-11T14:21:33.295-08:00Russian invasion of Ukraine - a conspiracy theory<p> For the last few weeks I was utterly puzzled by Putin’s actions. They make little sense. Why has he built up the Russian troops around Ukraine, why the belligerent ultimatum to the USA (an ultimatum which was predictably hopeless)? Why the relentless propaganda campaign in Russian media about the coming war? Putin seems to be betting all his money on a war with Ukraine. But why? </p><p>Why would he want to invade Ukraine? The cost of doing it vastly exceeds all potential benefits to his regime. The invasion is likely to endanger his rule. The human and economic toll will be staggering. Even though Ukraine does not possess a strong military, its troops have enough weapons to make the invasion very costly to Russia. And once Russian people experience the constant flow of dead and wounded, the economic collapse, the population may turn sharply against the dictator. Moreover, people surrounding Putin are not will to sacrifice their quality of life, their expensive palaces and wineries in Europe, shopping trips to the best stores and vacations at ski resorts. </p><p><br /></p><p>On the other side, Putin’s propaganda made his backing away from his current posture very damaging to his reputation. </p><p>Is then Putin bluffing? Has he committed a costly mistake? Is he crazy and irrational?</p><p>I was thinking about this situation for quite a while, and here are my conclusions.</p><p><br /></p><p>Putin is a very calculating man. I remember reading a report by some American reporters who went to Putin’s dacha for lunch and an interview. Among other things, they reported that throughout the discussion, Putin was holding a glass of champagne in his hand, and yet, he has never took a sip. For a Russian, to have a glass of wine in his hand and never take a sip? Such a behavior betrays a man of a very strong will.</p><p>But let’s go to the more objective points. Russia has suffered tremendously from the Wuhan virus, reportedly more than a million people are dead. Economy is doing badly, people are disillusioned, the conquest of Crimea is a distant memory. And things are getting worse and worse. </p><p>A war in Ukraine may produce a quick jolt in Putin’s popularity, but the excitement will be short lived, who,eu the war won’t. So why is Putin doing it? What’s the back up plan? </p><p>I think I found a logical solution. I believe Putin made a deal with Xi, the Chinese dictator. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will be followed by the Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Note that invading Taiwan with its leadership in computer chips as well as computer manufacturing is a much more debilitating strike to the world economy than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. </p><p>Does Xi want or even need to invade Taiwan? For one, it has been widely reported that Chinese economy is doing badly. The Chinese debt crisis, malinvestment, housing bubble are a well known issue. The Wuhan virus has devastated the Chinese economy. Moreover, Chinese exceedingly harsh methods to contain the spread of the virus seem to be going on in perpetuity. I find it hard to believe that Chinese people are not grumbling about it. And let’s not forget that it’s becoming more and more clear that it was China which is at fault for the virus, the lab leak theory is now well accepted around the globe. The international retribution is to be expected.</p><p>Lastly, let’s not forget that the Chinese Olympic Games will most likely cause an explosion of the virus cases in China, and the country will have to close up again - and even then its ability to deal with omicron is very questionable, as well as the efficacy of the Chinese vaccine. </p><p>If nothing drastic is done, China will face multiple crises on different fronts, which the regime may not be able to resolve or even survive. A Taiwan invasion will unite the county though, and allow the government to implement even more drastic measures of population control. Moreover, the conquest of Taiwan has been a long dream of the Chinese politburo. But China needs some diversion - they would rather not do it cold turkey. The Russian invasion of Ukraine would be such a diversion. </p><p>For Putin, the Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be god sent - he would be able to position himself as a middle man between China and the west. The sanctions against Russia may be dropped or eased. His control of a large chunk of Ukraine may even be de-facto recognized by the West. </p><p>And let’s not forget that Biden is seen as exceedingly weak, and ineffective leader, America is at war with itself (and the mythical “white privilege”), nato is disintegrating, Europe in economic crisis. It’s unlikely that there will be a better time for Putin and Xi to start the conquest. </p><p>What do you think? I give about 20% chance to this conspiracy theory to be true. But it is a very logical theory, and it explains some unexplainable things. </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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For example, a liberal economist who argues that the cuts to corporate taxes are a handout to the rich, is never confronted with an obvious fact that corporate taxes are taxes on consumers.<br />
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I always imagined that this is due to the fact that most of NPR journalists are wholly ignorant of the economic science. Imagine my surprise when I recently turned on the the radio, and was informed by a number of economic experts on the very same NPR that president Trump’s tariffs on the steel imports are nothing more than taxes on American consumers. Similar arguments were made on yahoo against the proposed tariffs on the Chinese imports. It was as if a gang of libertarian economists took control of these liberal institutions.<br />
<br />
But in reality, these were the same people being interviewed by the same journalists, same left-wing experts writing articles bashing president Trump and conservatives.<br />
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In other words, the general liberal position on taxes can be be summarized as follows:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>American taxes on the US corporations are taxes on the wealthy. Any attempt to cut US corporate taxes is a handout to the richest 1 percent, a giveaway that neither the rich, nor the corporations need or even want to have. The positive effects to the economy of a cut to corporate taxation will be minimal, and the growth of the budget deficits will have a profound negative effect on the country.</li>
<li>American taxes on Chinese corporations which import goods into the United States are taxes on the American consumers. Any attempt to raise the taxes on the Chinese corporations will make the goods more expensive to the American people and will cause highly detrimental effects the American economy and may lead to recession and larger budget deficits.</li>
</ul>
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In summary: </div>
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High taxes on US corporations: Good.</div>
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High taxes on Chinese corporations: Bad.</div>
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And yet some people are upset when it is said that liberals are anti-American.</div>
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In many cases it’s fair to say that liberals do not understand economic science. But in other cases their claims can be more easily explained by their general dislike of America. it’s not that they don’t understand conservative arguments - the issue is that they want to promote policies which have negative effects on this country. </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think it's quite easy. First of all, few people remember that in 1995, Congress overwhelmingly voted to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It was not even close - the vote in the Senate was 93-5, and in the House 374-37. In 2003, Congress voted on the following resolution: <span style="color: #252525;">"The Congress maintains its commitment to relocating the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and urges the President [...] to immediately begin the process of relocating the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem".</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What president Trump (sounds nice, doesn't it?) should unofficially ask the GOP leaders in the House and the Senate to vote for a resolution calling for president Trump to recognize Jerusalem as a capital of Israel and to transfer the US embassy there. While the Democrat party is clearly moving away from its support of the Jewish state, it is still dependent on the votes and money of the millions of American Jews, and it is unlikely that many Democrats would vote against this proposal. Once it passes Congress, president Trump can loudly proclaim that in the interests of bipartisanship and his commitment to respect the will of the overwhelming Congressional majority, he will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. President Trump should note that by doing so, he will finally fulfill the promise of our former president Barack Obama.... He should say something like this: </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;">Finally, we will be able to fulfill the dream of my friend, former president Barack Obama, who years ago promised the American people, that </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #111111;">“Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” It is my pleasure to report to the American people, that Barack's hope to see Jerusalem as an undivided capital of Israel will be finally realized. As he said in his speech, "</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">while you can’t necessarily </span><span style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">bend history</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"> to your will, you can do your part to see that, in the words of Dr. King, it </span><span style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“bends toward justice.”</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> The day has come when the eternal dream of the Jewish people for justice will be fulfilled and the strong bipartisan majority in Congress agreed with president Obama's and mine proposal. </span></span></span></i><br />
<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4" style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 11.199999809265137px; line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; white-space: nowrap;"></sup><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apparently, Hillary Clinton got "overheated" in NYC although the temperature was <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/new-york/historic">below 80 degrees</a>. Hillary had to be taken out of 911 memorial and as the police <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/11/reports-hillary-leaves-ground-zero-ceremony.html">reported</a>, "they threw her in like she was a side of beef". The <a href="https://youtu.be/11-EAzsGxgQ">video </a>confirms their testimony. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> few hours later, the media reported that her innocent cough was apparently due to </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign-pneumonia.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pneumonia</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and not allergy. And moreover, her schedule is probably changing in order to accommodate her health issues. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wait, health issues?! T</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he most amazing thing was that all liberal "reporters" proclaimed for weeks that anyone questioning her health was a crazy evil misogynistic right-wingers and any suspicion that Hillary's cough was not due to a simple allergy was an evil conspiracy. And now they repeat after Hillary's doctor - "it's just pneumonia, nothing else." Well, it's nothing else until the next week... </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;" /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">So how come that evil conservatives so easily diagnosed that her cough was NOT caused by allergy - and all the smartest liberal doctors in the world could not? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;" /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or maybe, "We 've always been at war with Eastasia", and it was always "pneumonia", and everyone knew about it? </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This whole situation with Hillary Clinton reminds of an old Monty Python <a href="https://youtu.be/4vuW6tQ0218">sketch</a>. I wonder if Hillary wins the elections this November, and a few weeks later the American people feel as an unfortunate character, who found out he bought a dead parrot. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, maybe it's not dead, maybe Hillary is only resting. What a beautiful plumage!</span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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1. It's rather obvious that EU is unsustainable. The structure of the union is undemocratic, the governing body is sclerotic, and the people who run it consistently make stupid decisions. And what's worse, they despise the working men and women. It's only a matter of time before this huge carbuncle explodes. And the longer people wait, the worse it will it. This is why I believe the British people made the right to decision to leave the EU.<br />
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2. Few people remember, but before Reagan was voted president in 1980, Margaret Thatcher was elected the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1979. In other words, Britain was the first major country to push back against statism in the civilized world post WW2. Today, Britain votes against liberal elites and the government bureaucracy. Tomorrow - Americans take back their country.<br />
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It's not yet late today to do what's right - but it may be too late tomorrow.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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Back in 2004, Democrats approved of the violence against protestors in their rallies. In fact, they even celebrated it. Here is the relevant story:<br />
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Al Franken Knocks Down Dean Heckler</div>
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January 27, 2004 -- EXETER, N.H. - Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean.</div>
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The tussle left Franken's trademark thick-rim glasses broken, but he said he was not injured.</div>
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Franken - who seemed in a state of shock and out of breath after the incident - was helped back to his feet by several people who watched the tussle. Police arrived soon after.</div>
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"I got down low and took his legs out," said Franken afterwards.</div>
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Franken said he's not backing Dean but merely wanted to protect the right of people to speak freely. "I would have done it if he was a Dean supporter at a Kerry rally," he said.</div>
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"I'm neutral in this race but I'm for freedom of speech, which means people should be able to assemble and speak without being shouted down."</div>
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The trouble started when several supporters of fringe presidential candidate Lyndon Larouche began shouting accusations at Dean.</div>
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Franken emerged from the crowd and charged one male protester, grabbing him with a bear hug from behind and slamming him onto the floor.</div>
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"I was a wrestler so I used a wrestling move," Franken said.</div>
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Note that Al Franken, a senator from Minnesota was never criticized by the media, nor did was he prosecuted. I don't remember hearing any liberals shaming him for what he did, nor calling him a Nazi. So, the next time a liberal tells you about people attacking liberal protestors at Trump's rallies - turn the table around. Ask them - why shouldn't the republicans behave as Al Franken? </div>
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P.S. Don't mistake my anti-left-wing post for support of Donald Trump. I believe he is not a good candidate, and I don't expect him to be a good president. But that does not mean I support liberal fascism. </div>
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It's quite often that you see a liberal asserting that Naziism (fascism) and Communism (socialism) are exact opposites, socially, economically, politically. In fact it's a matter of deep faith among liberals that Hitler was a hard-right, anti-socialist, anti-communist, anti-left fanatic. Well, the reality is somewhat more complicated as many people who survived the communism would ascertain. </div>
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Some months ago I was debating a liberal on this exact topic. I believe my reply to him could be educational to some of my audience. </div>
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<b>"The basis of the conflation of nazism and socialism is the term "National Socialism," a self description of the Nazis."</b></div>
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There are plenty of works from historians and economists which show the similarities between different types of socialism - national socialism, communism, "democratic socialism", "socialism with a human face", "Juche", etc.. The similarities are obvious to anyone who lived in the socialist countries.</div>
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<b>"Hitler and the Nazis outlawed socialism, and executed socialists and communists en masse, even before they started rounding up Jews. In 1933, the Dachau concentration camp held socialists and leftists exclusively."</b></div>
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This argument is wrong on many levels. Nazis, socialists and communists competed for the same electorate and tried to appeal to them with similar slogans. The fact that they hated each other is understandable (and even inevitable). You hate most the people who you consider to be betraying your cause, the people closest to you. Moreover, different socialist movements were in direct competition. <br />
For example, before WW2, Stalin called German social democrats "social fascists". German communists and Nazis were fighting each other on the streets of Germany - just like the Crips and the Bloods are fighting today on the streets of Los Angeles. In 1939, the communists and the Nazis became best friends - if only for a short duration. <br />
This is similar to Al Capone making deals with some gangsters, and murdering hundreds of other gangsters. Of course, no one would claim that on this basis that al Capone was not a gangster himself.</div>
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And let's not forget that all communist regimes killed plenty of communists - Stalin murdered almost all of Lenin's "Old Guard", as well as sent hundreds of German communists to the Gestapo. The original revolutionaries did not escape the terror from Mao either.<br />
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<b>"The Nazis arrested more than 11,000 Germans for "illegal socialist activity" in 1936."</b></div>
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Hundreds of thousands of people accused of "Trotskyist activities" in the USSR were sent to forced labor camps. Among them was my grandmother, Basya Arkuzskaya, who was punished with a 10 year sentence - even though she had no idea who Trotsky was. Indeed, totalitarian regimes silence, imprison and kill anyone who is suspected of disloyalty. It is no surprise that anyone, no matter how "socialist", was in danger of the communist/Nazi attack. Totalitarian regimes have long memories, and if it was found you were in the wrong crowd (competing socialist group), you had a good chance of being sent to the Gulag.<br />
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<b>"In the 1930s and even beyond, nazism, in sharp contrast to socialism, was strongly supported by leading capitalists and right wingers in the US."</b></div>
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That's a rather strong statement. So, what are the names of those multiple "leading capitalists" who supported Naziism? Amazingly, in your post you provide only one name - Henry Ford. Well, for one, Henry Ford is always given as an example of a "smart capitalist" by American liberals. His bizarre theories about worker wages are cited often in USA by the NYT and other publications with approval. What's is even more ironic is that Henry Ford was a big friend of Stalinist USSR, which means he was not really against socialism. He was a great friend of the communist dictator Stalin too: "In 1944, according to Brinkley, Stalin wrote to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, calling Henry Ford “one of the world’s greatest industrialists” and expressing the hope that “may God preserve him.”<br />
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<b>"Nazism is a right wing ideology. It is violently racist, anti-socialist, and it targets the political left for extermination."</b></div>
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While Stalin put his people in charge of individual companies, Hitler decided to keep the existing experts and owners, but only as long as they satisfied his needs. This was a purely tactical difference, Stalin nationalized industries, while Hitler nationalized people.</div>
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Amazingly, all socialists who came to power eventually became racist, killed a lot of socialists, and targeted millions of people for extermination based on their ethnic, religious and sexual background. The Stalinist regime, Maoists, Pol Pot, Ceausescu , the whole family of Kims in North Korea, Honeker, and all others easily fit in this description. Heck, even good old Lenin himself killed plenty of socialists who were not communists. And yes, anyone who lived in the USSR or any leftist regimes knows about the Soviet hatred of the Jews and other minority groups, and surely you know about Stalin exterminating or exiling millions of minorities - Germans from Volga, Chechens, and many, may others. Same fate was also met by minorities in Mao's China, communist Vietnam, Pol Pot's Cambodia and the like. The list is too long to show here.<br />
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<b>"Hitler banned labor unions (also a favorite target of American conservatives), which he saw as a potential threat to his regime."</b></div>
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None of the socialist regimes - from Lenin to Mao allowed independent unions. Hitler's position towards unions was indistinguishable from the position of the socialists before and after him - a vehicle to destroy the existing government, and later use as a socialist weapon to control the worker.</div>
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BTW, union membership in the USSR was compulsory, and unions were controlled by the communist apparatus.<br />
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<b>"Hitler conducted a holocaust against gay men too - killing many thousands of them in concentration camps. He also banned abortion..."</b></div>
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Homosexuality was illegal in the USSR, as well as the rest of the communist block. Until recently, it was punished in Cuba with years of imprisonment in the labor camps. Abortions were illegal in the USSR during Stalin, while in communist China they were (and are) compulsory. In other words, Hitler's position on abortions and homosexuals was very similar to the position of the socialists before and after him.</div>
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Let me stop here. The problem with many liberals is that they have no historic point of reference, they don't fully comprehend the socialist ideas, and don't comprehend how much Hitler borrowed from them. </div>
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In fact, one can claim there are two camps - one which wants liberty for all, and the second which believes we all exist for the sake of the collective - the nation, the common good, the race, ethnicity, class. This is why Hitler's top diplomats wrote that "they felt as if they were with their party comrades" when they visited Stalin's Kremlin. There is little conceptual difference between Stalin's socialism and Hitler's socialism - both were based on the idea that was expressed by the Nazis in their program: "common good above private profit", a slogan which underlines the philosophy of communists, Nazis, socialists and American so-called liberals.</div>
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And one more thing. Somehow, liberals always forget to mention Winston Churchill, a leading anti-communist and anti-Nazi. While the liberals were busy appeasing the Nazis, he was on the forefront on fighting them. Should I assume that this is due to ignorance or malice?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pW2_hiIn4qSEug8V2ZHGFW0H14oa2wyrvYkq5kXzSYmJSlB2Q3b4Lu5G4yfmisqbiw4GWsT836sfwSa-32d8K3hcOyleHhXI2ATMxWmAA3RvOOi8Pr-PxcK7Ek9uqNtlWAiqPIi2rtM/s1600/all+lives+matter+cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pW2_hiIn4qSEug8V2ZHGFW0H14oa2wyrvYkq5kXzSYmJSlB2Q3b4Lu5G4yfmisqbiw4GWsT836sfwSa-32d8K3hcOyleHhXI2ATMxWmAA3RvOOi8Pr-PxcK7Ek9uqNtlWAiqPIi2rtM/s400/all+lives+matter+cartoon.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now, it is rather amusing that the liberal intellectuals choose cartoons as their strongest arguments - although not terribly surprising. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, I personally prefer to use logical arguments, and appeal to logic and reason - instead of using silly pictures to prove my point, but given that the other side of the aisle is not intelligent enough, I decided to lower the complexity of my argument to their level. Shown below is a nice cartoon that encapsulates the stupidity of liberal ideology. The photo depicts the demonstration by the so-called "Occupy Wall Street", a hard-left movement - and its interaction (so to speak) with the police. The capture to the cartoon is quote amusing.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglAWU9ABMPzTrddMjbHW2hKTwxh5YTsNBjknUnqtCBGL1gnQkO3SSyFv3SMXKZ9satTAjufK2fX1pm2n7F-sdUfhXnuQuiXedjr4vkQ6w5pwWcKHci-fYiP91AtdsfTRNkDVS3HlVOz_s/s1600/want_more_government.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglAWU9ABMPzTrddMjbHW2hKTwxh5YTsNBjknUnqtCBGL1gnQkO3SSyFv3SMXKZ9satTAjufK2fX1pm2n7F-sdUfhXnuQuiXedjr4vkQ6w5pwWcKHci-fYiP91AtdsfTRNkDVS3HlVOz_s/s400/want_more_government.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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This Friday morning I accidently overheard my colleague, who I will call JC in order to preserve his anonymity, talking in his cubicle about the unconstitutionality of Obama's "edict" to amnesty 5 million illegal aliens. In all fairness, by that time I already knew what I wanted to write in this post, but I could not resist jumping right in the middle of this discussion to express me opinion on the subject. I fully sympathize with the argument that Obama's decision is unconstitutional, but that by itself is hardly an argument which can win a lot of supporters among American people. A careful recitation of the Articles of the Governing Law of the Republic will most likely put to sleep a majority of our semi-literate population, while upsetting probably another 20%. And in all honesty, these numbers may well hold true for our Supreme Court. More importantly, the real issue is that our Constitution has been dead since at least the 1930ies and FDR's New Deal, if not even earlier with Woodrow Wilson. No fair person, knowledgeable of the letter and spirit of the Constitution and the history of its adoption would agree that the major building blocks of today's federal government - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, most of labor laws and even environmental laws satisfy the limited role of the government envisioned and codified by the Founding Fathers. In other words, our Constitution is dead and buried, and most of the people do not care, so it's useless to appeal to it.<br />
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What's worse, is that the oppressive role of the federal government, the "welfare socialism", as well as extreme environmentalism are slowly but steadily suffocating the Republic. If the current trajectory is not drastically altered, America will eventually become a pseudo-socialist state, with lobotomized population brainwashed in government-controlled schools and universities. Conservative debate about the niceties of the Constitution in light of this debacle seem to be incredibly naïve - and reminds me of two apocryphal stories about the well-meaning British. Apparently, before WW1, the British intelligence refused to intercept German radio and written communications. The argument was that "Gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's letters". During the start of WW2, the British initially refused to bomb German factories, because that could cause the damage to private German property and was apparently unfair. Today's Republicans in many ways remind me of the same - and what's worse, they tend to treat the Democrat Party as a well-meaning but somewhat confused dear friend of theirs. <br />
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But still, you may ask, how does Obama's amnesty have to do with this? Well, once we acknowledge that the Constitution is essentially dead, and this country is going to hell, we must ask ourselves - what can be done about it? Even president Reagan, who was elected twice with the promise of cutting federal government and privatizing Social Security and eliminating Medicare was unable to achieve this. President Bush attempted a moderate reform of Social Security and he too was stopped. It is also widely acknowledged that American welfare state is soon to go bankrupt, and there is apparently no attempt to be made to rescue our country. Congress, even with Republican control is unable to break the Democrat obstruction, as the past has shown. <br />
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And yet, let's not forget that the foundation of the liberal regime in this country is federal power to prosecute the people who attempt to withdraw their monetary support of the welfare state. You have to support it with your taxes - or you will be sent to jail. Same applies to environmental laws, labor laws and the like. Until today, the executive branch was expected to prosecute all the dissenters from the welfare state, and the president was powerless to stop this. But what has happened this Friday? President Obama is now demonstrating that the motivated president can refuse to uphold the law, and prosecute the people who openly violate it. In other words, he is setting the precedence that the enormous federal power to prosecute (which is the foundation of American liberalism) can be simply set aside by the President. As it stands today, the President cannot arbitrarily prosecute his opponents, but he can, if he so decides, remove the entire oppressive power of the federal apparatus. This means that the sole pillar of liberalism, the threat of federal violence has been dramatically weakened, and Republicans can remove it if they elect a conservative president. It is no longer necessary to have a complete control of Congress to reform the welfare state - the president can simply declare that people who refuse to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes will not be prosecuted. Moreover, he may unilaterally cut federal taxes, union laws and environmental regulations without the need for a protracted and most likely unsuccessful struggle in Congress. <br />
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Does it mean that we won? No, but it means we now have an opening. In order to satisfy his narcissistic desires to "fundamentally change the country", as well as his angry response to the rejection by American voters, Obama removed a major defense wall around the welfare state. <br />
Will the Republicans use Obama's error? If we make sure that the man we elect to serve in the White House has the guts to defend this country, and people in Congress won't surrender, we may have a chance to stop this country from falling into the abyss. The only other alternative would be to appeal to the Armed Forces and remind them they took an oath to protect this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic - but that is the step few people are ready to call for.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<strong>Obamacare is here again</strong><br />
As Karl Marx liked to say, "It's no accident", that Obamacare enrollment was postponed until after the elections. Moreover, insurance companies were told not to disclose the prices for premiums. Well, starting yesterday, Saturday, November 15th, the <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obamacare-opens-2015-enrollment-period-without-fanfare-2014-11-15">Obamacare exchanges were up</a>. Expect the obvious - the premiums will be higher, the website will have bugs, and the deductibles will be higher than before. And employer insurances will be expensive too. In short, there is a reason why Obama postponed the sign-up time this year by 1.5 months - and it's not because he had so much confidence in it.<br />
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<strong>Deadline on negotiations with Iran</strong><br />
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The official deadline to reach a deal on Iranian nuclear program is <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/12/us-iran-nuclear-idUSKCN0IW2MO20141112">November 24th</a>, which is just a few weeks after the elections. Do not forget that Obama unilaterally, without consultation with Congress, shut down the sanctions against the "Islamic Republic" in naïve hopes that it would appease the Mullahs, and they would stop their efforts to build nuclear bombs. Of course, the Mullahs correctly understood this as American surrender. It's quite clear that Iran will not cease its nuclear efforts, and any treaty will be meaningless. Of course, after boasting about the success of his negotiations with Iran, Obama is in a tough spot now.<br />
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<strong>Ebola in America</strong><br />
It's been widely reported that the <a href="http://www.poynter.org/mediawire/275477/why-ap-isnt-moving-stories-for-every-suspected-ebola-case/">media complied</a> with the regime's demand to seize reporting on the spread of Ebola in the USA. The problem is - there are about 150 people coming to the USA from Ebola-infected areas in Africa each week. Moreover, thousands of American soldiers will at some point have to come back. If only 1 out of 100 Africans coming to the USA have Ebola, that means we have 3 Ebola cases each two weeks. And don't forget that the chances of surviving Ebola in Africa are less than 20%, and American borders are wide open. Is it too difficult to imagine that at some point every middle class African, who suspects he has a case of Ebola, would be stupid not to try to come to America. Moreover, the flu season is upon us, and there will be thousands of suspected cases of Ebola. Is our medical system ready for this? Clearly not. And don't underestimate the frustration of thousands of unionized medical workers, who will strike if they suspect they are in danger. The next two-three months may be quite interesting...<br />
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<strong>The war against ISIS</strong><br />
Only a few months ago, the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c50JUQohYwY">smartest president of all times</a>, announced that ISIS was a mere JV team. How quickly things change. Today, ISIS is simultaneously advancing in Syria and Iraq, destroying everything that stands in the way. Obama has finally responded to this onslaught with a few pinpricks, and delayed fighting back until after the elections. Well, the elections are over, and it seems the situation is calling for more than a few bombs dropped into the camel's behind. If America does not want to see the fall of Baghdad, American troops will have to take the fight into their own hands. In other words, Obama's withdrawal from Iraq was a strategic mistake and must be reversed. <br />
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<strong>Illegals bringing deadly diseases</strong><br />
It's been widely reported in the media that since the latest inrush of illegal immigrants from South of the border, there was an <a href="http://sharylattkisson.com/polio-like-outbreak-claims-fifth-life-in-u-s">explosion in new deadly diseases</a>. The federal government refuses to speculate whether these diseases were brought to US by the illegals, but the chances are that they were. The media refused to discuss this before the elections, but it is very likely that this story will get a life of its own in the near future.<br />
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<strong>Finally, the economy</strong><br />
The federal bank is slowly raising interests rates, which is most likely due to the fears of the run-away inflation. At the same time, Europe is still in recession, Russian tanks are fighting in Ukraine, and the Middle East is more combustible than ever. The oil prices are going down, which is helping the US economy, but the employment is still well below historic levels, and the federal government is run by unusually incompetent people. It's quite possible that America will enter another recession by the end of 2015. <br />
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<strong>IRS and other dirty games</strong><br />
Apparently, the IRS <a href="http://www.infowars.com/irs-admits-to-court-it-hasnt-searched-for-missing-lerner-emails/">did not even attempt</a> to find the "missing" emails of Louis Lerner, the government bureaucrat who organized the illegal targeting of conservative groups. This became known only a few days after the election. I hope the Republicans in the House and Senate will finally wake up and put some pressure on the IRS to reveal the details behind the secret operation to silence the opposition. It can be expected that in the next two years, we will find a lot of new facts about the IRS war with conservatives. <br />
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And one more thing. It's been reported that the polls were widely inaccurate leading to the 2014 midterm elections. While the media outlets offered a number of explanations for this puzzling case, there was one hypothesis that was not discussed. What if some conservative voters hesitated to share their political views with the pollsters? What if some of them decided that some of the liberal polling groups may be sharing the data with the IRS in order to punish the enemies of the president? It may seem far-fetched, or does it?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
Obama administration seemed to decided that it was a great idea to test how far they can push the absurd in our everyday life. Charles Bolden, the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/07/white-house-nasa-defend-comments-about-nasa-outreach-to-muslim-world-criticized-by-conservatives/">listed</a> Obama's priorities for NASA: "One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and engineering — science, math and engineering." A careful observer would notice that space exploration was not in the top 3 goals of NASA - but making Moslems feel better about themselves was. <br />
<br />
The mainstream media obviously is trying to follow the lead of their leader. As a political gesture, AP (a media monopoly) <a href="http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/no-more-illegal-immigrants/">outlawed</a> the term "illegal immigrant". Apparently, some people (i.e. liberals) did not like the term, and it only made sense that AP had to follow orders from the crowd. <br />
<br />
Recently, my attention was caught by the CNN's article (other news outlets are no better). In the wake of the Moslem Boston bombing, CNN published an <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/16/opinion/bergen-bombings/index.html?hpt=hp_t1">article</a> on terrorism. Here is the offending passage: <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Of the 380 individuals indicted for acts of political violence or for conspiring to carry out such attacks in the U.S. since 9/11, 77 were able to obtain explosives or the components necessary to build a bomb, according to <a href="http://homegrown.newamerica.net/" target="_blank">a count</a> by the New America Foundation.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Of those, 48 were right-wing extremists, 23 were militants inspired by al Qaeda's ideology, five have been described as anarchists and one was an environmentalist terrorist.</blockquote>
<br />
There are a few interesting notes here. Firstly, White racists, anti-semites and nut-cases are arbitrarily called "right-wing" - even though there is little ideological correlation between most of these people except their support for terrorism.<br />
<br />
On the other side, Moslem terrorists, united in their Moslem faith are claimed to be "inspired by al Qaeda's ideology". Left-wing, progressive terrorists are assigned a misnomer of "anarchists", as if those people were extreme followers of Bakunin. Any objective person would see a bias in CNN's reporting - and a more careful observer would note that this is clearly an attempt of influencing the nation's mind through changes in vocabulary. <br />
<br />
<br />
It's also interesting to note that Scott Roeder, a schizophrenic, and a member of the pseudo-anarchist group "<a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Citizen_Movement" title="Sovereign Citizen Movement">Sovereign Citizen Movement</a>" who killed an abortionist is also characterized as "right-wing". In general, any anti-abortion group is claimed to be right-wing - and this highlights a rather peculiar dichotomy. Doctor Kermit Gosnell, an infamous abortionist is <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/10/philadelphia-abortion-clinic-horror-column/2072577/">personally responsible</a> for murdering hundreds if not thousands of babies through so-called "abortions". Many of the children were murdered outside the womb (although it is left unexplained what is the major difference between killing a 24 week viable baby inside the woman or beheading it later). Dozens of people from Gosnell's medical personal, Planned Parenthood, government officials, and numerous of his patients covered up his crimes. And yet, all these people, clear supporters of abortion without limits, are never classified as "liberal", "left-wing" or "progressive". Common sense would dictate that if freedom of abortion is a dividing line between right-wing and left-wing, then Doctor Gosnell would clearly fall in the category of a hard-core progressive individual. A media outlet which seeks the truth would also note that Barack Obama, then an Illinois senator, objected to the proposed law that would have made Gosnell's behavior illegal. <br />
<br />
I have little doubt that my readers will find other numerous examples of the left-wing attempt to change our vocabulary. A few additional examples would include "kinetic military action" as a substitute for "war", as well as "diversity" and "affirmative action" as code words for "discrimination based on race". <br />
<br />
The article will not be complete if I did not share the euphemism that I invented - "reverse reverse discrimination" to denote the reaction of White Americans to "affirmative action". <br />
<br />
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<br />
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<br />
But being a smart president is not something Barack Obama is capable of doing. As someone previously noted, ""He wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening". And so Obama, in the best traditions, "acted stupidly" - he decided that the world simply cannot survive if he keeps him mouth shut - and he announced that if Assad used chemical weapons, that would be a game changer, and would provoke America to do something really-really drastic. <br />
<br />
And in 2013 it became undeniable that Assad used the chemical weapons against the rebels - and even Obama's Secretary of Defense <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/hagel-says-syria-used-chemical-weapons-155008837--politics.html">conceded</a> that fact - together with about half a dozen countries. It also became quite clear that our president has no idea what to do next and even <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/nbc-white-house-regrets-publicly-setting-syrian-red-line_719318.html">felt remorseful</a> for "acting stupidly". If Obama ignores the use of chemical weapons, the world will judge him and the country as non-serious. Israel will finally conclude that all Obama's pronouncements about nuclear Iran were worthless. If Obama decides to send the US troops to fight in Syria, he will screw up a perfectly fine conflict between Iran and Al Qaeda - and Syria will likely look even worse than Libya after Obama's war.<br />
<br />
Even the Democrats noticed that Obama put the credibility of this country on the line. Rep. David Cicilline, a Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that “There’s no question that when the United States takes a position that this crosses a line, that our failure to respond has implications. So that if we, in fact, determine that chemical weapons were used, I think the expectation is that we and the coalition and others take some action.”<br />
<br />
The most amazing thing about our president is that he is capable to take a perfectly good situation and turn it against the interests of this country. This man has a serious talent of turning anything he touches into shit. Too bad American people were stupid enough to elect him twice. We all will pay for this in the decades to come.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
<ul>
<li>ABC’s Brian Ross tries to blame the Tea Party for the Aurora attack.</li>
<li>Reuters Foundation Fellow Jonathan Curiel blames "racism" for the attack by professor Bishop.</li>
<li>Think Progress proclaimed that James Lee (a man who took hostages in the Discovery Communications headquarters in Silver Spring, Md).</li>
<li>Andrew Sullivan and <a href="http://www.gazette.com/opinion/opinion-63575-censorship-wing.html" target="_blank">Stephanie Miller</a> blamed GOP, Fox News and the Tea Party for the death of United States Census Bureau William Edwin “Bill” Sparkman. </li>
<li><div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/" target="_blank">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a>, Nation’s <a href="http://www.thenation.com/node/34636" target="_blank">Robert Dreyfuss</a> and the folks from <a href="http://forums.somd.com/archive/t-206248.html" target="_blank">Daily Kos</a> blamed conservatives for the attempted bombing of the Times Square.</div>
</li>
<li><div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
Jonathan Capehart from the <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/02/_joseph_stack_was_angry.html" target="_blank">Washington Post</a> and Chris Rovzar from <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/02/what_do_we_know_so_far_about_t.html" target="_blank">New York Magazine</a> blamed the Republicans and the Tea Party for Andrew Joseph Stack kamikaze-style attack on the IRS building. </div>
</li>
<li><div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
And last but not least - most of the mainstream media blamed Sarah Palin for Jared Loughner's attack on Giffords and other government officials.</div>
</li>
</ul>
<div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
</div>
<div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
Of course, all this pales in comparison with liberals blaming the deaths of JFK (killed by a communist) and RFK (killed by a socialist Palestinian) on, as you would guess it, the right-wing conservatives.</div>
<div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
</div>
<div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
The other side of the story, is, of course, Barack Obama, bizarrely asking the public not to jump to conclusions about the Fort Hood attack by a Moslem terrorist, who screamed "Allah Akbar before gunning down American soldiers. </div>
<div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
</div>
<div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
I will try to walk a thin line between these two extremes and instead will use logic and reason to guess who was the terrorist who bombed the Boston marathon. </div>
<div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
</div>
<div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
A logical analysis of the facts would point in the direction of Islamic terrorism. Firstly, I cannot remember any non-Islamist attacks in US in recent history which would be similar to the attacks in Boston. An attack by the KKK on black churches was 50 years ago, and was specifically targeting people of color. The Oklahoma City bombing was an attack on a federal building, and the perpetrator claimed that civilians were not targeted on purpose. <br />
<br />
Numerous progressive terrorists (from Obama's friends, Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers to Occupy Wall Street as well as so-called "Animal Rights" activists) don't fit the profile either - it's unlikely they would attack marathon runners on the streets of Boston. Numerous non-Islamic terror groups (from IRA to Basques and Kurds) are unlikely to have any interest in attacking American cities.<br />
<br />
Boston marathon attack was specifically designed as an attack on all Americans, without any distinction of color, race or connection to the federal government. The attack also showed a rather sophisticated use of multiple explosive devices, armed with ball bearings in order to result in maximum number of civilian damage, and timed in order to hurt the police and the medical personal which are expected to rush to scene and provide help to the wounded. The relevant terrorist attacks which resemble the Boston massacre are Islamist attacks in Israel, Europe, Bali - and the latest three attacks in the US - namely the attacks in <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/attempted-terrorist-attack-portland">Portland</a> and two attacks in New York (<a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/government/2012/10/17/man-attempts-to-blow-up-ny-fed-building-suspect-in-custody/">New York Federal Reserve building</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Times_Square_car_bombing_attempt">Times Square</a>). If I were a terror profiler, I would conclude that the Boston bombing was a terrorist attack by Islamists with a high degree of confidence.</div>
<div data-key="tpwkc" data-num="36" data-orig="The person who tried to bomb Times Square was probably “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/liberals-accuse-tea-partiers-of-role-in-failed-times-square-car-bomb-attack/">New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a> suggested during an interview with Katie Couric.">
</div>
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<br />
<br />
2. Prime-minister of Turkey recently compared Zionism (a movement which supports the self-determination of the Jewish people) with anti-Semitism and fascism. For those who are not following the Turkish politics - Erdogan a big friend of Hamas, an Islamic terrorist group. In case you are wondering, Obama <a href="http://www.todayszaman.com/news-269076-obama-names-turkeys-erdogan-among-top-five-international-friends.html">considers</a> Erdogan to be among his top 5 closest foreign world leaders. <br />
<br />
<br />
3. There are relatively few articles about the Kurdish war for independence in Turkey, and the media apparently don't want to give their struggle any publicity - as well as the Turkish military campaign against the Kurdish freedom fighters. The media and liberal academia clearly treat the Kurdish fighters much worse than, say, the PLO or Hezbollah. Is it because the Kurds do not target Jewish women and children? <br />
<br />
<br />
4. According to liberal <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-big-sequester-gamble-how-badly-will-the-cuts-hurt/2013/02/23/be0c44e2-7c4e-11e2-82e8-61a46c2cde3d_story.html?hpid=z1">lobbyist</a>, "The bad news is, the world doesn’t end March 2 [The first day of sequester]. The worst-case scenario for us is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens." Even before the sequester took effect, Obama's administration grounded a US aircraft career, and freed thousands of criminals from jail. Moreover, Obama and his people promise numerous hardships for the American people if the sequester is not stopped. The sequester "cuts" federal budget by 45 billion dollars in 2013, which amounts to about 1% of the federal budget. Even this datum is rather optimistic on the cuts - the actual federal budget in 2013 will be larger than in 2012 according to <a href="http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/earth-to-new-york-times-please-show-us-these-deep-spending-cuts-you-keep-writing-about/">experts</a>. One of the arguments against the sequester is that the cuts are "dumb" and the Obama administration will be forced to cut essential services - and yet, when the GOP proposed a legislation that would give Obama more flexibility in the budget cuts, he promised to veto it. It is projected by many that the Obama administration will most likely use the sequester cuts in the ways most painful to the American citizens. This brought to my mind a dictionary definition of "sabotage":<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="4" style="width: 100%px;">
<tbody>
<tr class="tr1" valign="top"><td class="td1" colspan="2"><b><span id="hotword"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: #333333; cursor: default;">sabotage</span> </span></b><span id="hotword"> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">(ˈsæbəˌtɑːʒ)</span> </span><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/help/luna/IPA_pron_key.html" id="dic_result" target="_blank"><img alt="[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]" border="0" class="luna-Img" src="http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr valign="top"><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr class="tr2" valign="top"><td class="td2" colspan="2"><span id="hotword">— </span><b><i><span id="hotword"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: #333333; cursor: default;">n</span> </span></i></b> </td></tr>
<tr class="tr3" valign="top"><td align="right" class="td3n1" width="1%"></td><td class="td3n2"><span id="hotword"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: #333333; cursor: default;">the</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: #333333; cursor: default;">deliberate</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">destruction,</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">disruption,</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">or</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">damage</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">of</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">equipment,</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">a</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: #333333; cursor: default;">public</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: #333333; cursor: default;">service,</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: #333333; cursor: default;">etc,</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">as</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">by</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">enemy</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">agents,</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">dissatisfied</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword">employees,</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: #333333; cursor: default;">etc</span> </span></td></tr>
<tr class="tr3" valign="top"><td align="right" class="td3n1" width="1%"><span id="hotword"></span><br /></td><td class="td3n2"><span id="hotword"></span><br /></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
I am curious if Obama can be impeached for deliberate destruction of public service for political gain. Would it qualify as "high crimes and misdemeanors"? <br />
<br />
<br />
5. The Democrat party is determined to introduce a bill that would require "universal background check for gun purchases". I presume that the buyers would need to show their photo IDs, and the FBI would check their records for criminal activity and mental illness. Yet same Democrat party decried as draconian and racist the Republican proposals for voter IDs. I am curious if some gun activist will file a lawsuit against the background checks on the basis on their disparate impact on poor and minorities. Moreover, I would want to know why we allow mentally ill people to vote in presidential elections if they cannot be trusted to own guns. After all, votes do matter in this country, and voting for a wrong person may be more dangerous than a gun crime.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If we're going to ever make progress, we're going to have to have the guts, we have to have the determination, to be honest with each other. It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified," Holder told reporters after the speech.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
I believe that Mr.Holder is right, and I will try to be brave and honest when discussing race in America. I promise to my reader that I will not be cowed by race mongers hurling insults at me for telling the truth to power. <br />
<br />
<strong>Exhibit 1. Race resentment from the NYT and the academia</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
I was reading this <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/how-much-does-race-still-matter/?ref=opinion">article</a> from the NYT, and its fallacies became immediately apparent to me. The article is called "How Much Does Race Still Matter?" and it purports to examine the effects of Obama's election on the racial resentment in America. The first obvious flaw of the article is that all the research quoted by the author examines exclusively the attitude of White Americans versus Black Americans. The article itself concedes that there are 32% more Hispanics than Blacks - and yet, the author fails to find any research articles that examine the racial resentment between Blacks and Hispanics, let alone Asians and Blacks (and vice verse). The author also does not even attempt to discuss the racial prejudice towards White people in America - and given the ubiquity of institutional racism in universities and employment (the so-called "affirmative action"), this blindness to the obvious is unexplainable. <br />
<br />
But what bothered me most is the article's discussion of a set of questions (put together by Tesler and Sears) which purportedly showed (if answered "incorrectly") a person's "explicit anti-black attitudes". The author conceded that not everyone agreed with these questions, but apparently, a lot of scientists did agree with Tesler.<br />
<br />
I believe it would be educational for my readers to answer these questions (and read my own replies) and then debate which answers could be judged as demonstrating "explicitly anti-black attitudes".<br />
<br />
<strong>1) Irish, Italian, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.</strong> <br />
<br />
For some undisclosed reason, the questioners decided to ignore the multiple non-White minorities that were able to over-come the prejudice and work their way up in the American society. These, of course, include the Chinese, Koreans, Indians, and Japanese, Arabs, Persians, Thai, Malaysians and Vietnamese. If anything, the people from these minorities can claim higher median income than the White people. It is also quite well-known, that all minorities suffered discrimination's (and many of them are still discriminated in university admissions and job applications) both by the government and the private business. Indeed, discrimination against Asians is legal today, and is even openly promoted by the federal, state and local governments. And yet, in spite of that, these groups are extremely successful in the US. Based on this undeniable evidence, I am forced to conclude that the Blacks can and should achieve success in this country without any "special favors". I would even contend that any "special favors" would prove to be disastrous to the Blacks and the race relations. <br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>2) Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class.</strong><br />
<br />
Tens of millions of poor, illiterate minority immigrants came to the US in the 20th century, and in spite of continuous discrimination were able to achieve the living standards far above the level of the White Americans. There is absolutely no reason to presume that American Blacks cannot achieve the same success. <br />
<br />
<br />
<strong> 3) Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve.</strong> <br />
<br />
Given the wide-spread usage of "affirmative action" which explicitly discriminates against White and Asian workers and applicants, and given the fact that the US economy is mostly free, there is no evidence to suggest that the Blacks "got less than they deserve." In fact, the opposite may actually be quite true.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>4) It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites.</strong><br />
<br />
Given the history of minority empowerment in America, it is beyond any doubt that the Blacks may achieve much more than the Whites if they demonstrate the same level of dedication to success as Asian-Americans and Jewish-Americans have in the 20th century.<br />
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<strong>Aristotle, "<a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.1.i.html">Metaphysics</a>"</strong><br />
<br />
My previous <a href="http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2013/01/liberty-and-justice-for-all.html">article</a> on liberty and justice (which I also re-posted on a popular political website <a href="http://www.aleksandreia.com/2013/01/31/liberty-and-justice-for-all/">Alexandria</a>) received a number of responses - including a <a href="http://www.aleksandreia.com/2013/02/01/liberty-justice-and-reading-comprehension-for-all/">post</a> specifically written as a direct criticism of my letter. I will try to write a response to this post as soon as the time permits - but as a quick summary I must confess to be astonished that a post so verbose, and which clearly required some effort from the author was amazingly brilliant at completely missing the point of my original post. <br />
<br />
But the most confused and therefore more delightful response to my article was produced by the Wired Sisters, a regular writer (or a group of writers) at Alexandria, and I decided to reproduce it here in its entirety (see below):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whose freedom? Must the Catholic church be “free” to keep its employees from getting contraceptives on their employer’s health insurance, or should those employees be “free” to spend their health care dollars any way they deem appropriate? Should the slave owners in the antebellum South have been “free” to own their slaves, or should the slaves have been free to choose their own work and homes? Should Lester Maddox have been “free” to decide who all got to eat in his fried chicken place, or should African-American citizens of the state of Georgia have been free to decide where to eat lunch? There is no such thing as absolute freedom. Everybody’s freedom can conceivably, at some point, intersect with and impede somebody else’s. Justice lies in the balancing act between them.<br />
</blockquote>
At first I thought that Wired Sisters was rather confused in her discussion of liberty, that she refused to discuss "liberty" as a term with an actual meaning and instead attempted to build an emotional argument against my article. But then I thought about it some more, and reached a different conclusion - while somewhat confused, Wired Sister's did follow a certain pattern, which will become obvious when her reply is put in the proper context. In order to trace the roots of Wired Sister's thinking, I will reach into the past and seek enlightenment from our great forefathers. For example, Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican Party, <a href="http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1067">addressed</a> the very question of liberty in 1864, and had this to say: <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same <i>word</i> we do not all mean the same <i>thing</i>. With some <span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><strong>the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor</strong></span>;</span> while with others <strong><span style="color: black;">the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.</span></strong> Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name———liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names———liberty and tyranny.</blockquote>
<br />
It is known which definition of liberty Lincoln and his Republican Party believed in 1864, while it's also apparent what the pro-slavery party, the DNC chose as their version of "liberty". The most remarkable thing is that in spite of all the amazing changes that we have seen in our nation during the last 150 years, the demarcation line between the main political parties remains largely unaltered. <br />
<br />
It's beyond any doubt today which party believes that liberty is "for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor", and which party thinks that liberty is "for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor." As if to demonstrate the first line of thinking, Friedrich Hayek, an intellectual leader of modern day conservatism who influenced such major historical figures as Churchill, Goldwater, Thatcher and Reagan, defines liberty as: "The state in which a man is not subject to coercion by the arbitrary will of another or others". He continues: "Freedom thus presupposes that the individual has some assured private sphere, that there is some set of circumstances in his environment with which others cannot interfere". <br />
<br />
Barack Obama famously counters this with "You did not build that" and "I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money". Rawls, a famous liberal philosopher <a href="http://althouse.blogspot.com/2013/02/i-dont-endorse-argument-of-philosopher.html">argued</a> (as summarized by Richard Posner) that "no one should be allowed to keep more of his earnings than
necessary to 'incentivize' him to exert himself in a way that will maximize the
social product."<br />
<br />
It is quite obvious that the definition that Hayek and Lincoln used - could not or would not resolve ALL the issues that society may need to confront in regards to individual liberty, but it is undeniable that we can use it as a guiding star in our discussion. For example, it's easy to see that freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association are obvious components of the general freedom that we are discussing, while "freedom to handouts" is clearly not. <br />
<br />
And this brings me back to the series of questions asked by the Wired Sisters - and it becomes apparent that it can be easily answered based on the values and views of the Republican Party of Lincoln and Hayek. <br />
<br />
Of course, freedom is a gift for everyone. And yes, Catholic Church may choose which medical insurance plans it offers to its employees for obvious reasons. No one is forced to become an employee of the Catholic Church, and no one has a right to force Catholic Church to buy any particular insurance for their employees. Anyone who does not like the insurance which is provided by the Catholic Church is free to seek other employment. This is the only policy that would protect the freedom of the Catholic Church and its employees. <br />
<br />
When the government is prescribing the type of medical insurance or payment that Catholic Church provides to its employees, it is clearly violating the freedom of association. It's quite obvious that employees have no inherent right to be provided with a specific (or any) type of insurance as a reward for their work - because that would clearly violate the rights of the Catholic Church. <br />
<br />
The alternative to freedom of association is to have someone to coerce Catholic Church at gun point to buy an insurance chosen by a third party - which is clearly morally wrong and unjust. And let's not forget, this is exactly what the Lincoln enemies in 1864 believed in - "<strong>for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor."</strong><br />
<br />
In order to underline the contrast between the Lincoln's Party and the Party of slavers, let me quote two significant economists from each camp. Frank Hyneman, a famous conservative economist and supporter of individual liberty said: "The primary function of government is to prevent coercion and so guarantee to every man the right to live his own life on terms of free association with his fellows".<br />
<br />
Paul Krugman, a liberal icon had this to say: "“I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.” <br />
<br />
While it's relatively clear how a legal system can built in accordance with ideas of Frank Hyneman, Krugman's "rule of law" clearly cannot coexist with the ill-defined institutions "that limit extremes of wealth and poverty", since neither can be defined, and the government will be operating based on the whims of the electorate.<br />
<br />
<br />
Wired Sisters' questions about the slavery are actually quite peculiar. It is true that some White people in the South (and the North) believed that Black people were inherently inferior, and thus could not be trusted to attend to his own affairs, and required the elite to be their "keepers". Moreover, freeing the slaves was supposed to be detrimental to the economy, and the "common good", and the blacks were better off as being a property of the kind-hearted white elites than being free people competing for employment with evil non-feeling capitalists. Apparently, it was preferable being an actual slave than being a "wage slave" (a term popular with Democrat slavers 150 years ago and Democrat liberals of today). It's quite uncanny how DNC arguments against freedom for slaves in the 19th century shown <a href="http://www1.assumption.edu/users/lknoles/douglassproslaveryargs.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/ten-reasons-not-to-abolish-slavery/#axzz2KY0Wnti6">here</a> were preserved to become the arguments against individual liberty in the 20th century. <br />
<br />
The most amazing thing is that Lincoln's arguments targeting the Democrat Party could be used today when debating individual liberty. For example this passage from Lincoln's speech would make any supporter of individual liberty smile, because it perfectly explains why left-wing belief in anointed elites running the lives of hoi polloi is silly: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.</blockquote>
<br />
Wired's Sisters issues with Lester Maddox can too be easily resolved if we follow Lincoln and Hayek. While Maddox bigotry against Black customers is shameful, he has a right to refuse service to anyone. While I surely sympathise with the people who are upset about his behavior, it's undeniable that no one, Black or White has an inherent right to demand someone to work for them - and this includes cooking food at the restaurant. You simply cannot force other people to associate with you - your freedom ends exactly where other man's freedom begins. No one can have a claim on other people's labor - and Lester Maddox may be an evil man, but he is no one's slave. <br />
<br />
Wired Sisters is, of course, correct that no one's freedom is absolute, and we may think of many different situations where the definition of liberty used in this article may prove to be insufficient. And yet, the words of Lincoln and Hayek must be our guarding light, and it is quite clear that all the situations that Wired Sisters was able to conjure are easily resolved without any conflict between the freedoms of different people. <br />
<br />
In conclusion, I want to emphasize that contrary to liberal view, there is also no inherent conflict between justice and liberty, and justice may only exist in a free society, where people are free to choose. One may also claim that liberty and justice are inseparable...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A meritocratic society can’t be an entirely egalitarian society, and the principle of limited government recognizes that some injustices can’t be corrected. The challenge of democratic politics is to balance and reconcile these equally indispensable, unavoidably contradictory ideas: on one side liberty, and on the other justice. </blockquote>
<br />
In the later part of the article, Clive Crook, the self-described progressive makes it obvious that the type of justice he claims is in conflict with freedom - is the so-called "social justice", and it is clear that he associates justice with equality of result. He never attempts to explain why he believes that justice demands that all people earn same amount of money or achieve equal success. Indeed, it's well understood that justice requires equal treatment under the law - and people of different abilities, treated equally are unlikely to achieve same results. For example, it's obviously absurd to proclaim that the world is unjust because Garry Kasparov was the world chess champion, and not, say, Al Sharpton or Joe Biden. The rules of chess are equally applied to all, and no one stops Al Sharpton from competing in the chess tournament - it is his innate abilities and circumstances of his life which made his participation absurd. <br />
<br />
It's also quite obvious that taking at gun point the fruits of labor from one group of people and giving to another is fundamentally unjust. One can support Medicaid, welfare, foodstamps and subsidized housing as acts of mercy - but it's impossible to make a claim that these programs represent an act of justice. Indeed, one could notice that the only type of society that practices justice in any reasonable form is a society where people are left to their devices and allowed to direct their own lives with minimal coercion from the government or fellow citizens. <br />
<br />
Liberals often pronounce that no one truly achieves everything in his life due to his own personal efforts. As Barack Obama infamously proclaimed "You did not build that", while the faux-indian Elizabeth Warren muttered that "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own". But this line of reasoning seems to ignore the obvious - while everyone can use roads, and bridges and schools, only very few people actually succeed, while a great majority of people succumb to an average life. So, what did the successful people do differently? This is a question not asked, let alone answered by Obama and Warren. And if people are treated justly - i.e. equally by the state, who would expect equal results from millions of people, each of them an individual, each of them different, each with his own talents, character traits and personal choices? You can certainly complain that God or destiny or Gaia did not give you the talent to create new things or perseverance to work on the project, but it's irrational to blame society for your own deficiencies - and what's worse, it is actually rather counter-productive. <br />
<br />
If anything, history shows that any attempts to fight the conceived "injustice" of freedom ends in the loss of both freedom and justice. Even if I ignore the major experiments in "redistributive justice" in USSR, North Korea and China (which ended in the worst possible injustice in the last 1000 years), one can easily see that if anything, all latest experiments in Western Europe and USA for equality of result did not end up in more justice. For example, America showed a dramatic reversal in the growth of living standards and equality after the major liberal programs (Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, subsidized housing) were put into effect. Obama's proclaimed attempts to "invest in communities" resulted in expected massive handouts of taxpayer money to his donors, political allies and supporters, while the taxpayers were left with tremendous debt obligations and sluggish economy. <br />
<br />
The coming bankruptcy of the welfare state both in Europe and US also demonstrates that the attempt to give up freedom in order to gain justice is also unsustainable. It's clear that American society is getting closer and closer to a crisis - when young and relatively few workers will be faced with massive demands for their fruits of labor to pay for the massive federal, state and local debts - while at the same time supporting tens of millions of retired baby-boomers. Ignoring the obvious financial peril, our president is vastly expanding the welfare state, which in turn promises even steeper tax penalties for the future Americans. <br />
<br />
In the final analysis, the concept of justice cannot exist in a society without freedom. Any attempt to ignore this fundamental truth will result in the breakdown of society - and America's choice of Barack Obama in 2012 is another step on the path to destruction of this fine country. When tens of millions of people confidently believe that they have a right to take the fruits of labor of other people - be it "millionaires and billionaires" or the families which earn more than an arbitrary sum ($250k or 400k) , and these people are a majority, the fall of the country into the abyss may be inevitable. No freedom, no justice, no prosperity - Live free or die. This is the choice for our country. <div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
But before wasting a lot of numbers, here is the background for the 1907 recession. According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907">wikipedia</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The <b>Panic of 1907</b>, also known as the <b>1907 Bankers' Panic</b> or <b>Knickerbocker Crisis</b>, was a financial crisis that occurred in the United States when the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from its peak the previous year. Panic occurred, as this was during a time of economic recession, and there were numerous runs on banks and trust companies. The 1907 panic eventually spread throughout the nation when many state and local banks and businesses entered bankruptcy. Primary causes of the run include a retraction of market liquidity by a number of New York City banks and a loss of confidence among depositors, exacerbated by unregulated side bets at bucket shops. The panic was triggered by the failed attempt in October 1907 to corner the market on stock of the United Copper Company. When this bid failed, banks that had lent money to the cornering scheme suffered runs that later spread to affiliated banks and trusts, leading a week later to the downfall of the Knickerbocker Trust Company—New York City's third-largest trust. The collapse of the Knickerbocker spread fear throughout the city's trusts as regional banks withdrew reserves from New York City banks. Panic extended across the nation as vast numbers of people withdrew deposits from their regional banks.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Lets examine the aftermath of the 1907 crisis and how quickly economy recovered under the unobstructed free market economy - and then compare with the recovery under president Obama and welfare socialism.<br />
<br />
<br />
From 1907 to 1912, the real GDP grew from 801 billion dollars to 857 billion dollars (all are in 2008 dollars). The real growth of the economy was 7% , five years after the start of the financial crisis. The data was downloaded from the website "<a href="http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/datasets/us-gdp-1900-2008/versions/1">Many Eyes</a>". <br />
<br />
In 2007, the US GDP was 14,071 billion dollars (in 2007 dollars) according to the website <a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104575.html">Infoplease</a>. In 2012, the US GDP is expected to be 15,903 billion dollars (in 2012 dollars) according to website <a href="http://forecasts.org/gdp.htm">Forecasts</a>. When I add the 11% total inflation from 2007 to 2012 (inflation calculator is <a href="http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/">here</a>), the 2007 GDP in 2012 dollars becomes 15,619 billion dollars. This means that the real GDP growth from 2007 to 2012 was only 1.8%.<br />
<br />
In short, the US economy recovered much faster from the 1907 financial crisis than from the 2008 financial crisis. After 5 years, the US economy grew by 7% and 1.8% respectively (1907-1912 and 2007-2012).<br />
<br />
Please keep these numbers handy when someone tells you that Obama's recovery is not unusually slow. <div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But as I [Huffington Post reporter] sat among the Heritage's luncheon crowd -- part of a daylong anti-poverty forum -- a series of more immediate and pressing questions came to mind: How will the Republican Party and the broader conservative movement it's meant to embody fix their problems with the poor, the disadvantaged, women and minorities? How will the Republican Party evolve? Romney's loss forced the GOP to recognize that its support is built on a shrinking base of aging, ethnically monolithic, and geographically isolated voters -- while the Democrats have amassed a coalition of growing and engaged constituencies."</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Most of the rest of the article is spent on the author challenging the GOP activists on how they plan to rectify this situation and attempt to persuade the "poor and disadvantaged" to vote Republican. The unstated but apparent assumption is that the number of poor people will grow in Obama's America, and will give DNC a ruling majority unless Republicans find a way to appeal to this growing demographic. This logic is based on actual facts on the ground, the number of people on foodstamps went from <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/447-million-americans-now-food-stamps-more-any-time-under-bush">28.2 million in 2008</a> to <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/09/food-stamp-use-reaches-another-high-in-september-47-7-million-participants/">47.7 million people in 2012</a>. Not only that - the number of people receiving disability benefits <a href="http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/icp.html">jumped</a> from 9,273,839 in 2008 to 10,890,896 in 2012. <br />
<br />
And yet, it makes me wonder - who will notice this pearl of wisdom? Why is it that even the Democrats allies in the media assume that poverty will skyrocket under Obama? And an even more penetrating question - if "poor and disadvantaged" are the key allies of the DNC, and their number is expected to expand under the Obama administration - is it really unnatural to assume that growth of poverty in the last 4 years may not be accidental? After all, Obama holds the keys to the US economy....<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
Unless the police and the federal authorities crack down on union violence, I expect things to get considerably worse. It's only a matter of time before union thugs attack a wrong Tea Party patriot on the streets of Michigan. This is America, 2012. Four more years. Sigh.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>A few quick poll questions for the readers.</strong> <br />
If you were attacked by a union thug in the same manner as shown on this <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%3Ciframe%20width=%22480%22%20height=%22315%22%20src=%22http://www.youtube.com/embed/u_F3oev06i0%22%20frameborder=%220%22%20allowfullscreen%3E%3C/iframe%3E">video</a>, what would you have done? <br />
And how would you have responded to another union thug screaming "Get the f*ck out of my face?"<br />
Do you believe Barack Obama and the Democrat Party are partially responsible for the union violence?<br />
Last but not least, back in 2010, the media made countless reports about the alleged racist shouts from the Tea Party demonstrators - the allegations which proved to be groundless. Why are the union thuggery and violence not reported in the mainstream media, even when there is clear video evidence to prove it?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
The latest rhetoric from Barack Obama raises a series of interesting questions. Say, Republicans agree with Obama and do ASK the wealthiest Americans to pay a little bit more, and yet, the wealthiest refuse. What’s Plan B?<br />
<br />
And speaking of which, why isn’t Obama ASKING wealthiest Americans to pay more right now? It’s not like he cannot get time on TV to appeal to the “millionaires and billionaires” to pay more in taxes.<br />
Last but not least, why isn’t Obama himself paying just a little bit more – is he waiting for a separate invitation? Well, Barry, consider then I asked you to pay more, since you are one of those evil “millionaires and billionaires”. Moreover, I am also asking you to save some money for the taxpayers, and stop using Air Force One as a taxi. It’s not too much to ask, right?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
I am too lazy to search for transcripts from NPR, so instead I decided to concentrate on CNN - a supposedly mainstream, middle of the road news agency. In order to provide scientific proof of the mainstream media bias, I will compare two recent articles from CNN, which can be found on their site today and which are run concurrently. I will use statistical analysis to compare the reporting on both candidates - and I will let science to show if the conservative claims about liberal bias hold water. <br />
<br />
Both articles were written to answer essentially same question:<br />
<strong>If Romney takes the White House</strong> and <strong>If Obama wins a second term</strong><br />
<br />
<strong><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/02/politics/romney-white-house/index.html?hpt=hp_c2">Article #1, A Romney presidency: 'Bringing people together' faces reality check</a></strong><br />
Analysis: The subtitle itself questions if Romney is honest about his claims that he will bring people together. But it would be more beneficial to look at statistics of who is quoted in the article. It starts with a quote from Romney, 58 words. It then refers to unnamed Romney's critics who believe he is lying (35 words), who also quote Romney out of context to demonstrate his insincerity (17 words). After this, the article quotes a Romney supporter, who attempts to fight back the critics, (72 words). This is followed by a quote from someone from a self-described independent (28 words). Reid's former spokesman Jim Manley is given his chance to threaten Romney if he tries to push for conservative agenda (57 words). A self-described independent Widmer then proceeds to attack the Tea Party (20 words). After that, another quote Romney, 50 words in all. The article ends with a short quote from Romney strategist, 22 words.<br />
<br />
<strong>Altogether</strong><br />
Romney: 108 words (not counting out-of-context quote by Democrats - 17 words)<br />
Romney supporters: 94 words<br />
Independents: 48 words<br />
Democrat critics: 92 words<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/03/politics/obama-second-term/index.html?hpt=hp_c2">Article #2, Second Obama term would confront fiscal crisis before inauguration</a><br />
Analysis: While the subtitle for Romney called into question his sincerity, the Obama article accentuates the difficulties that president Obama would have to overcome. <br />
The article starts with quote from a Democrat who claims that Romney and Ryan "fake compassion". This claim is immediately put in context of evil republicans (13 words). It then proceeds with a account of fiscal difficulties that lie ahead. David Axelrod gives his criticism of the Republican party (54 words). It then quotes Obama (45 words), immediately followed up with a quote from Obama's policy director (30 words). Senator Durbin, a democrat that gives his opinion, (43 words), and some unnamed democrats (19 words). After some indirect quotes from democrats, Durbin manages to put in another 18 words. Barack Obama comes back on the stage with 28 words, and Durbin again (15 words). Obama's strategist kicks in 84 words explaining Obama's agenda for illegal immigration reform. Some unnamed democrats add 16 words of wisdom. President Obama, not to be outdone, offers his opinion about Republicans (57 words), with David Axelrod finishing it (56 words). Unnamed Democrats add their support for the president and their disdain for evil Republicans (122 words). Mitch McConnell (Republican) is quoted (23 words) to show his past disagreement with Obama. The last quote in the article is from Obama's adviser, 33 words.<br />
<br />
<strong>Altogether</strong><br />
Obama: 130 words,<br />
Obama supporters: 503 words<br />
Independents: 0 words<br />
Republican critics: 23 words<br />
<br />
<strong>Comparison between articles</strong><br />
In the article about Romney, GOP/DNC quote ratio was 2.2<br />
In the article about Obama, DNC/GOP quote ratio was 27.5.<br />
<br />
<strong>Statistical Conclusion</strong>: CNN bias in quoting is about 10:1 in favor of Democrats.<br />
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<br />
"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he [Barack Obama] charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to<strong> help re-inspire children</strong> to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to <strong>expand our international relationships</strong>, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way <strong>to reach out to the Muslim world</strong> and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," <br />
<br />
While the Obama's NASA debacle is not talked about much, Romney's comments about Chrysler and GM outsourcing were challenged directly by Obama, his friends in the media as well as GM's and Chrysler's management. The main argument made by Obama, et al was that massive investments overseas by the bailed out car companies did not effect the Americans workers and thus cannot be called "outsourcing". <br />
<br />
Yahoo diligently <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-accuses-romney-massaging-facts-jeep-ad-163135243--election.html">quotes</a> Barack Obama attacking governor Romney:<br />
<br />
<div id="yui_3_5_1_24_1351992357798_290">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When you try to change the facts just because it's convenient to your campaign, that's not change.Trying to massage facts, that's not change," Obama told a lively crowd of about 2,800 supporters here at the Franklin County Fairgrounds.</blockquote>
<div id="yui_3_5_1_24_1351992357798_291">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"We've been seeing this out of Gov. Romney and his friends over the last few weeks right here in Ohio," the president continued. "You've got folks that work at the Jeep plant who've been calling their employers worried, asking, Is it true? Are our jobs being shipped to China? And the reason they're making these calls is because Gov. Romney's been running an ad that says so. They said, That's not true. Everybody knows that's not true. The car companies have told Gov. Romney to knock it off."</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
One peculiar thing about Obama's defense of GM/Chrysler's outsourcing is its inconsistency with the previous decisions by his administration. Apparently, Obama believes that if a company opens a new factory outside US, and does not cut any facilities in US, then there is no outsourcing. Yet, in 2011, when Boeing <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/20/112535/federal-labor-agency-tries-to.html">decided</a> to extend its manufacturing capabilities to "right of work" South Carolina, and invested there 750 million dollars, the Obama administration immediately <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/17/sc-gov-wants-labor-board-boeing-complaint-dropped/">filed a lawsuit</a> against Boeing. The reason for this swift action was apparent - Obama-friendly union of Boeing workers was in the middle of negotiations with the Boeing management, and they needed some help from their friend in the White House. And what could be better than a threat by the Labor Department to shut down Boeing's expansion to South Carolina? In the end, under the threat of losing billions of dollars, Boeing offered the unions <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/nlrb-drops-union-related-lawsuit-against-boeing/">much better contract</a> than they could expect otherwise:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On Wednesday night, the union announced that 74 percent of its 31,000 Boeing workers in Washington State had voted to ratify a four-year contract extension that includes substantial raises, unusual job security provisions and a commitment by Boeing to expand aircraft production in the Puget Sound area,”</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
It's quite clear that Obama and the media would treat an expansion of a private business to other parts of US as "outsourcing" - if such understanding may benefit unions contributing to Obama. And this is a legal decision by the Labor Department, even if the expansion includes the United States territory. But when it concerns the businesses friendly to Barack Obama, then the same theory does not hold water, particularly if it can hurt Obama's chances for reelection. <br />
<br />
So, my dear leader, when an Obama supporter asks you about Romney's talk about GM and Chrysler outsourcing, don't forget to mention the curious case of the Boeing corporation.</div>
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Among liberal intellectuals, Paul Krugman is a man in his own category. On one side, he is a Nobel Prize laureate for his work on international trade, professor of economics at Princeton, and a NYT columnist. He is also famous for being a paid consultant for Enron, a energy giant that declared bankruptcy in 2001. For the last few decades, Paul Krugman became known for his unabashed advocacy of the left-wing causes (welfare socialism, anti-Israel jihad and affirmative action). His articles in the NYT became a source of pride for partisan liberals - and embarrassment for the left-wingers who haven't yet subscribed to the maxim "ends justify the means". The NYT own public editor publicly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/weekinreview/22okrent.html?pagewanted=all">acknowledged</a> that: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults. <br />
</blockquote>
<br />
Serious non-partisan economists like <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/02/an-interview-with-robert-barro/370/">Robert Barro</a> and <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2009-03-08/economists-rush-to-disagree-about-crisis-solutionsbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice">Edward Prescott</a> express quite evident contempt for Paul Krugman and don't even consider him to be a professional macro-economist. There are, of course, plenty of right-wing bloggers who entertain themselves by attacking Krugman's multiple straw men and distortions. Here is one nice article mocking the Enron consultant, entitled "<a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/03/why-paul-krugman-doesnt-like-us-and-vice-versa.php">Why Paul Krugman Doesn’t Like Us. And Vice Versa</a>". <br />
<br />
But while the economics professor with perpetually frightened eyes (look at any of his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Krugman-press_conference_Dec_07th,_2008-8.jpg">photos</a>) is wrong about practically everything, still, from time to time he writes things that are undeniably correct - and I suspect that he later regrets telling the truth. I was particularly impressed with one of his latest <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/opinion/krugman-the-real-referendum.html?_r=0">articles</a> about the meaning of the 2012 presidential election. According to Krugman: <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Voters are, in effect, being asked to deliver a verdict on the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy. </blockquote>
<br />
<br />
He goes even further with a rather interesting assertion:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Will they [American people] vote for politicians who want to replace Medicare with Vouchercare, who denounce Social Security as “collectivist” (as Paul Ryan once did), who dismiss those who turn to social insurance programs as people unwilling to take responsibility for their lives? </blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Of course, since the article was published on September 30, 2012, Paul Krugman was under the arrogant impression that Barack Obama would be re-elected, and he was worried if people's would be followed.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If the polls are any indication, the result of that referendum will be a clear reassertion of support for the safety net, and a clear rejection of politicians who want to return us to the Gilded Age. But here’s the question: Will that election result be honored? </blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Paul Krugman then proceeds to advice Obama not only to continue, but accelerate the failed policies: spend more, borrow more and ignore the coming bankruptcy of the entitlement programs. The professor rejects the need for any type of compromise with Republican party and violently objects to an idea of reforming Social Security. He ends the article with a stern warning to Barack Obama:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This election is, as I said, shaping up as a referendum on our social insurance system, and it looks as if Mr. Obama will emerge with a clear mandate for preserving and extending that system. It would be a terrible mistake, both politically and for the nation’s future, for him to let himself be talked into snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. </blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Of course, Paul Krugman does not spend any time on discussing the other possibility - that Obama would lose. It's a <a href="http://quotationsbook.com/quote/11809/">common joke</a> that economists prefer to weight different options and possibilities. It's quite obvious that Paul Krugman is blind to any alternatives to his worldview. But I hope that the readers of my blog have a somewhat more complex view of the universe, so we need to look at the possibility that Mitt Romney will be elected president. And in this case, Krugman's claims will definitely hold water - it will be a referendum on the "New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare", and if he wins, Romney will be given the authority to dismantle the entire liberal structure which is choking American economy. So, Dear Reader, please, save this article for November 6th, and don't forget to send it to your liberal friends. Directly from the horse's mouth - American people voted against liberalism. The question is - will liberals honor the will of the people if they lose? And a more important question is - if Romney wins, when will Krugman write an article proclaiming that Romney has no mandate? <br />
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