Jack Kemp (not the late politician)

While I was in an all day class this weekend near the World Trade Center site, I saw notice on a wall of this dedication/commissioning and wrote this blog submission. As is, the followup class will interfere with my going to this event  Nov 6-8, but I will be able to visit the ship Nov. 4 and Nov. 9-11.
 
Here is the piece.
 
 
Early in November, the USS New York, LPD-21, a Navy amphibious landing craft built with 7.5 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center will be commissioned in New York City. There wil l be both open public and private events. http://www.ussny.org/commissioning.php
 
 
The Navy has a tradition of passing down a silver service from the first ship with a given name to each following ship having the same name. One can see this in the Maryland State House where the original silver service of the USS Maryland is on display because the current namesake is a nuclear submarine without sufficient room for the silver service. Such silver services are used for ceremonies and for serving visiting dignitaries.
 
The USS New York has many pieces from previous USS New York namesakes going back to an 1800 frigate and small gondola that participated in the Battle of Lake Champlain. The Navy is now asking for voluntary civilian contributions to fund additional silverware pieces. Their website states:
http://www.ussny.org/silver-service.php
 
"Tiffany & Co. has created custom serving pieces for use on ceremonial and diplomatic occasions on U.S. Navy ships all over the world, and is pleased to continue this longstanding tradition with USS NEW YORK.
These pieces, old and new, will be dedicated with the commissioning of USS NEW YORK in New York City on November 7, 2009.

Orders will be accepted through & beyond the commissioning date."

END OF QUOTE

A silver engraved knife or fork will cost approximately $120. There are other items of greater value.

We understand that these are trying financial times. If you live near or are visiting New York City in early November, your presence at the commissioning ten day period can be your gift to the memory of those that died on September 11, 2001.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp (not the late politician)

The left used to tout the slogans "What would Jesus do?" and "What would Jesus drive?"
 
Right now, I'm sure there are leftists touting "What would Teddy do?" or "How would Teddy vote?"
 
I've got a better pair of questions: "What would Mary Jo (Kopechne) do?" and "How would Mary Jo vote?"

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Jack Kemp (not the late politician) forwards this Townhall piece:

I am often surprised by the social behavior of certain young women who call themselves conservative. Conservatism is not just an ideology; it is a lifestyle. On college campuses telling the difference between liberal and conservative women is nearly impossible when they behave in an equally undignified manner. Conservative women should display their values through their lifestyle. This means acting like ladies, because the difference between conservative and liberal women should not just be the way we vote.

The feminist movement’s war on conservatism in America has killed chivalry and trained too many women to think and act like men. As a result, many young conservative women do not know what it means to be a lady. Here is a good definition:

A lady does not tell dirty jokes along with men and she does not tolerate men telling dirty jokes in her presence. She does not swear, and she is not considered “one of the guys.” In spite of new fashion trends, a lady always dresses appropriately, leaving a lot to the imagination. When at a social gathering, a lady does not do things she will regret the next day. Above all, a lady is well-mannered, dignified, gracious, and kind.

Our society holds conservatives to a higher moral standard. When a woman acts like a lady she gains the respect both of men and other women. Besides, why would a conservative woman ever want to be mistaken for a liberal woman?

I have heard many of my male peers place women into three categories: “the ones to mess around with, the ones to date, and the ones to marry.” Though this is a rather crude way of categorizing women, it shows that men do recognize and value the qualities that make a woman a lady. Ladies are the kind of women that men can take home to Mom and Dad and that most men want to marry. Being considered “marriage material” is an indicator that a woman is to be respected; most men who deem a woman as such treat her with the utmost respect. For men, ladies are at the top of the female totem pole, and conservative women need to take pride in the fact that they are worthy of time, love, and commitment.

It is important for a conservative woman to be a lady both in the real world and on the internet. In our social-network-obsessed society, all it takes is a single compromising picture to ruin one’s social and professional reputations. It has become commonplace for young women’s Facebook profiles to be littered with pictures of themselves scantily clad in compromising situations, partying, inebriated, and even kissing other girls. Party girls are a dime a dozen and these profiles damage reputations far more than they help them. A conservative woman should be conservative at all times, especially when the cameras are rolling.

Lately, young women have taken to denigrating themselves and each other as “sluts” and “hos.” When women playfully call each other these things they make it okay for men to do it too. Much like the way Eve Ensler and her Vagina Monologues “reclaimed” the c-word, women on college campuses are reclaiming “slut.” I have seen many young women sporting “slut” backpack patches, and drinking from party cups with “slut” scribbled across the side. “Reclaiming” demeaning words does not empower women, and it certainly does not dilute their original meaning. With all of these self-proclaimed “sluts” on college campuses, conservative women should refrain from partaking in this trend and insist on calling themselves, and acting, like ladies.

As a teenager when I left my parents’ house to go out with friends, the last thing my dad always told me was, “Act like a lady!” At the time, I saw those parting words as a lack of trust, but I now recognize that his words were meant to be in the back of my head the whole night—and they always were. My dad no longer has to remind me to act like a lady whenever I am out; his words are engraved in my heart and mind and constantly keep me in check. It is about time that somebody told all conservative young women to “act like ladies.”

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

The RINO`s are rampaging again, this time with a new appointee from Florida who may well be the straw that breaks the camel`s back (and allows the rampaging dervishes to swarm in).  Charlie (Brown) Christ intends to appoint George Lemieux to the Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez.

Lemieux is an unknown campaign staffer who worked for the horned-nosed Christ, and is said to be made in his own image. 

According to the article:

"LeMieux is open about his intention to emulate the governor-turned-Senate candidate. "I'd describe myself as a Charlie Crist Republican," he told reporters after his formal interview for the Senate seat. He promised to "approach government as a problem solver. I believe in less government, less spending, less taxes, more freedom."'

[...]

"Unlike other Southern Republicans, LeMieux is unlikely to be an automatic vote for conservatives who have largely sought to block President Obama's agenda.

"People want someone who's going to fight for them on issues that are important,'' LeMieux said in a July 2008 appearance on MSNBC, citing education, employment and health care. He said people did not want "an ideologue, not a Washingtonian who fights back and forth with partisan rancor."'

[...]

"During his state House race, LeMieux told the Miami Herald that gay couples in Florida should be allowed to adopt children. He also said he favored domestic partnership laws to extend health care and other benefits enjoyed by married couples. Though he said at the time that he opposed gay marriage, he said he was willing to let voters have the final say in a referendum.

But it remains unclear how far LeMieux might go in embracing Democratic initiatives such as a controversial "cap and trade" system aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming. Crist was among the leading Republican governors endorsing the concept of cap and trade, but softened his stance after his potential GOP Senate primary opponent, Marco Rubio, blasted the system as an unfair "tax."'

End excerpts

So, we may have a new GOP senator who will vote in favor of Obamacare and other leftist agenda items.

The GOP just does not get it; they have to offer something beyond "me too", and they still keep looking at those old polls showing America as a centrist nation. The idea is that the key to success is to move to the center; this despite one electoral failure after another. Leaders must lead if they are to be successful, not follow along behind. Americans are increasingly describing themselves as conservative because the left has shown their hand with the bait-and-switch Obama administration, and now is the time to drive this home with a principled, solid stance against the New Left. Christ is a large part of the problem in the GOP, and now we are going to give McCain and Lindsay Graham-Cracker another "gang of 14" vote. 

The GOP is resembling the Whigs more and more.

Mike Steele and the party leaders should threaten to work against Christ for this.  When are the leaders going to take the RINO by the horn?

Rubbing the rino horn is supposed to be a marital aid. Given the fornicating behavior of the RINO`s, and the submissiveness of the GOP, that is an apt analogy...

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp (not the late politician) has posted the following at American Thinker

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/08/statist_healthcare_logic_and_m.html
 
 
When the US Army entered Dachau concentration camp in Germany, they found evidence of horrific medical experiments of placing prisoners in ice water tanks and documenting how long they could survive in freezing water(s). The Nazi doctors wanted research on how to design clothes for pilots who would be downed in Russia or the wintry North Sea. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/experiside.html#free As horrible as this was, the US kept the research reports and used the data to design suits that have since saved US pilots' lives, believing that the U.S. would not repeat such inhumane experiments again.
 
Today I am not so sure as to what the statists in the country are willing to do in having the less politically connected sacrificed for "the Good of the State." You think this statement is over the top? Let us look at what the advocacy of the cheapening of ordinary people's lives that was advocated in the Huffington Post this week concerning Mary Jo Kopechne.
 
Although Big Fur Hat http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/08/the_crap_the_left_tries_to_ped_1.html has compared Melissa Lafkey's despicable Huffington Post article to something in the Onion, I do not have such a benign view of such disgusting leftist sophistry and extension of moral relativism (the author's use of the words). Ms. Lafkey's article stating that Mary Jo Kopechne might have considered her own death a worthy sacrifice to "launch" the long Senate career of Ted Kennedy http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-lafsky/the-footnote-speaks-what_b_270298.html  was more like something from Julius Streicher's pro-Nazi organ "Der Sturmer" in tone and propagandistic intention. Streicher was tried by the Allies largely for inciting genocide with his paper's writings. As people become numbed and indifferent to the probable manslaughter or worse of one person in a car going off a bridge, the elimination of more people becomes easier to ignore.
 
It makes us feel better to think that the hard left wouldn't advocate the killing of what they might consider American Kulacks, the small town guns-and-religion "bitter clingers." But Bill Ayers has advocated as much -- openly. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/bill_ayers_on_why_terrorizing.html A. M. Mora y Leon has translated for us Ayer's current biographical self-description as an anti-capitalist revolutionary at American Thinker last year. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/william_ayers_and_hugo_chavez.html
 

Many liberals are in favor of "Sacrificing for the Greater Good" -- as long as the sacrificing can be passed along to someone else in the society. But as more jobs are lost, more real inflation occurs (I'm talking about what you pay for items in stores, not some wishful doctored figures coming out of Washington), and less money is available for medical research by both drug companies and hospitals, something becomes more apparent. The Obama administration definition of "Sacrificing for the Greater Good" has Mr. Obama and a small clique being defined as that "The Greater Good," not the American people. Or perhaps I should have said "Sacrificing for the Greater God" because Obama's believers/supporters see him as a just that, in a secular society where all men and women have become gods unto themselves. Yet some are more godlike than others.
 
Obama's Health Care Czar, like all the other czars, is not accountable to the US Congress or the Supreme Court. Liberals who feared wiretapping that was reviewed by a judge under the Bush Administration now miraculously assume that an absolute czar will rule in their favor in the cases of both wiretapping and most or all medical treatments. Or let us, for arguments sake, assume that the current group of "wonderful, caring people" Obama has appointed to office will take the best interests of those that voted for them to heart. What happens when you are thirty or forty years older and the government officials are of a different generation of "non-sentimentalist non-bourgeois" sentiment and consider you an old fart not worth spending money on to keep alive? In fact, the situation is a lot grimmer than that.
 
There is an old story about two young men who are walking in a park. One has a box with a brand new pair of running shoes under his arm. They spot a mountain lion that has escaped from the zoo. The man with the shoes starts to put his shoes on.
 
His companion says, "Why are you wasting your time with that? The mountain lion can outrun us."
 
To this, his companion replies, "I don't have to outrun the lion. I just have to outrun YOU."
 
Of course, the two men could have chosen to band together to fight the lion, but what if the one fortunate enough to have a new pair of running shoes had decided that he should grow old as a Lion of the Senate -- and considered the other person as expendable? For the good of the State, of course. You see, it isn't simple greed like those right wing types, but complex, sophisticated, nuanced greed. That makes it -- you should pardon the religoius expression -- kosher. Unless you're the one without the running shoes.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:13 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Wil Wirtanen forwards this:

Who am I?

I was born in one country, raised in another. My father was born in
another country.  I was not his only child.
He fathered several children with numerous women.
I became very close to my mother, as my father showed no interest in me.

My mother died at an early age from cancer.
Later in life, questions arose over my real name.

My birth records were sketchy and no one was able to produce a
legitimate reliable birth certificate.
  
I grew up practicing one faith but converted to Christianity, as it
was widely accepted in my country, but I practiced
non-traditional beliefs & didn't follow Christianity, except in the
public eye under scrutiny.
 
I worked and lived among lower-class people as a young adult,
disguising myself as someone who really cared about them..
 
That was before I decided it was time to get serious about my life and I embarked on a new career.

I wrote a book about my struggles growing up.  It was clear to those who read my memoirs that I had difficulties
accepting that my father abandoned me as a child.

I became active in local politics in my 30's then with help behind the scenes, I literally burst onto the scene as a candidate for national office in my 40's.  They said I had a golden tongue and could talk anyone into anything.  That reinforced my conceit.

I had a virtually non-existent resume, little work history, and no
experience in leading a single organization.
Yet I was a powerful speaker and citizens were drawn to me as though I were a magnet and they were small roofing tacks.

I drew incredibly large crowds during my public appearances.  This
bolstered my ego.

At first, my political campaign focused on my country's foreign
policy.  I was very critical of my country in the last war and
seized every opportunity to bash my country.

But what launched my rise to national prominence were my views on the country's economy.
I pretended to have a really good plan on how we could do better and every poor person would be fed & housed for free.

I knew which group was responsible for getting us into this mess. It was the free market, banks & corporations.
I decided to start making citizens hate them and if they were envious of others who did well, the plan was clinched tight.

I called mine "A People's Campaign" and that sounded good to all people.

I was the surprise candidate because I emerged from outside the traditional path of politics & was able to gain widespread popular support.

I knew that, if I merely offered the people 'hope', together we could change our country and the world.

So, I started to make my speeches sound like they were on behalf of the downtrodden, poor, ignorant to
include "persecuted minorities" like the Jews.. My true views were not widely known & I needed to keep them
unknown, until after I became my nation's leader.

I had to carefully guard reality, as anybody could have easily found
out what I really believed, if they had simply read my writings and examined those people I associated with.

I'm glad they didn't. Then I became the most powerful man in the
world. And the world learned the truth.

Who am I ??

I am  ADOLF HITLER

WHO WERE YOU THINKING OF ?

Scary isn't it?

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 05:57 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Brian forwards this piece from Newsmax:

A New Alliance: Venezuela, Russia, and China

A strengthening alliance between anti-American President Hugo Chavez's oil-rich Venezuela and powerhouses Russia and China threatens to create a new world order hostile to the West.

Chavez declared during a visit to China in April, "A new world is being born, a new balance, the multipolar world that we have all dreamed about for a long time.

"The unipolar world went down, the power of the empire of the United States, and Mao Zedong ended up being right when he talked of the 'paper tiger' of the empire."

TMIGroup.org pointed to these ominous signs of economic and military cooperation among the three nations:

*   Venezuela spent $3.4 billion on military equipment from Russia in 2007 and plans to spend another $4 billion this year.
*   Venezuela and Russia held joint naval exercises last year, and a Russian official said the Latin American nation has offered Russia a base for Russian strategic bombers in Venezuela.
*   Oil shipments from Venezuela to China are expected to reach       1 million barrels a day within four years, and China is building three refineries to handle the Venezuelan oil.
*   Trade between China and Venezuela now stands at $40 billion a year, up from $200 million a decade ago.
*   China and Venezuela are jointly developing oil fields in Venezuela's Orinoco region, and constructing a jointly owned fleet of oil tankers.
*   Two Russian companies are also set to develop oil fields in the Orinoco region.
*   Chavez confirmed in September 2008 that Venezuela had purchased 24 Chinese jets.
*   A Chinese rocket launched Venezuela's first telecommunications satellite into space from a site in southwest China last October.

"Chavez's dream of a new world order is no pipe dream," according to TMIGroup's publication called Memorandum to File.

"He is using the oil riches of his country to forge military and economic alliances with Russia and China, in an effort to counter U.S. influence in Latin America.

"He is also using these alliances to extend his own influence over the region, with the help of Cuba's Raul Castro."

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 05:49 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Really, now, folks; do you think we need something like this?  I didn’t find authority for this in my pocket copy of the Constitution (maybe it’s in the coffee-table sized version).  It puts me in mind of Mayor Ray Nagin confiscating legally-owned guns during Katrina.

FTA: “Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.”

END QUOTE

I don’t know about you, friends, but this sounds like something I want to fight.  Time to contact senators and representatives as soon as they get back from their little relaxing vacations back home!

(Posted by Dana Mathewson, in Tim’s absence)

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 02:27 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp (not the late politician)
 
Recently, Cliff Thier has written and documented at American Thinker the thoughts and writings of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's on the subject of denying medical coverage to the very young and the very old. I would paraphrase Mr. Thier's title as "Will You Need Me When I'm Sixty-four Months or Years Old?"
 
Mr. Thier has documented:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/will_you_still_need_me_when_im.html
 
'Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama's chief health-care architect (and brother of Obama's right arm, Rahm Emanuel), has been very honest and clear what ObamaCare will mean to retired Americans:

Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years."
 -Lancet, Vol 373 June 31, 2009
 
"Services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
 -Where Civic Republicanism and Deliberative Democracy Meet Author(s): Ezekiel J. Emanuel Source: The Hastings Center Report, Vol. 26, No. 6, .
 
"When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated."
 -Lancet, Vol 373, January 31, 2009, 428
 
"Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years."
 -Lancet, Vol 373 June 31, 2009
 
"Strict youngest-first allocation directs scarce resources predominantly to infants. This approach seems incorrect. The death of a 20-year-old woman is intuitively worse than that of a 2-month-old girl, even though the baby has had less life. The 20-year-old has a much more developed personality than the infant, and has drawn upon the investment of others to begin as-yet-unfulfilled projects....
 -Lancet, Vol 373, January 31, 2009   425,
 
Adolescents have received substantial substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments.... It is terrible when an infant dies, but worse, most people think, when a three-year-old child dies, and worse still when an adolescent does."
 -Lancet, Vol 373, January 31, 2009, 428
 
END OF QUOTE
 
Let us look at who Dr. Emanuel would not cover under ObamaCare in their youth or their upper years.
 
Overworking himself while finishing a rigorous four year college program in three years, he suffered a serious nervous breakdown which almost killed him. This lead to Princeton not allowing other students to attempt this workload after him. He recovered his health and went on to become a major author of the US Constitution, Sec. of State and President James Madison. (Documentation is "Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow. Hamilton was refused admission to Princeton on an accelerated three year program because of Madison's near death)
 
Suffering from smallpox at age 14, contracted in a British prison camp during the Revolutionary War, young Andrew was able to overcome the disease with no doctor, just his mother's care. That boy grew up to be the first Democrat elected to the Presidency, Andrew Jackson. (documentation is the History Channel DVD on the life of Jackson)
 
Suffering from alcoholism all his adult life and coming from a family that had multigenerational alcoholics, this soldier was saved by a war, as it were. Stilwl, he went on to be a victorious general and President Ulysses S. Grant. http://www.historynet.com/ulysses-s-grants-lifelong-struggle-with-alcohol.htm
 
Suffering from childhood asthma and intestinal ailments, but coming from a wealthy family, he worked out with weights and built up his "bully" constitution, rising to be Governor of New York and President Theodore Roosevelt. http://histclo.com/Pres/Ind20/tr/tr-child.html
 
Contracting polio at age 39, this man was severely ill for over a year and there is a question of whether he would live. Hydrotherapy treatments at Warm Springs, Georgia helped him to recover, become Governor of New York State and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/fdrstamp.htm
 
This man, in his childhood, "developed diphtheria in 1894 at age 10. He was paralyzed for several months and had to be wheeled around in a baby carriage. Diphtheria antitoxin was unavailable then, so he was treated with ipecac and whiskey." http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/t33.htm  Overcoming this challenge, he would grow to be an artillery officer in World War I, a US Senator and later President Harry S. Truman.
 
Contracting scarlet fever at age 3, he almost died. At age 30, he had Addison's Disease and his family was told by doctors that he would not survive another year.http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/JFK+and+Addisons+Disease.htm
Still, he managed to go to become a US Senator and President John F. Kennedy.
 
This list above is far from a complete research of Presidents. And it also does not include people from other walks of life, such as Wilma Rudolph who suffered childhood polio, wore a leg brace, suffered scarlet fever but would go on to recover and win three gold medals in track and field for the United States in the 1960 Rome Olympics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilma_Rudolph
 
Nor does it include Charles Steinmetz, a hunchback dwarf who suffered genetic hip displasia as a child. He would grow up to become an electrical engineer who would immigrate to the United States and become head of the calculating department (today that would be a branch of research and development) for Thomas Edison's General Electric Corporation. He held over 200 patents in his life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Proteus_Steinmetz#Patents
 
We all know that every person who is severely ill in childhood doesn't grow up to be President or win Olympic gold medals or became a historic electrical research engineer, but they can and often grow up to live a life worth living with dignity and contribution to themselves and society. That may not be good enough for Dr. Emanuel, but what has he contributed as an "ethicist" other than write out in detail the types of National Socialist decisions Dr. Josef Mengele made at the entrance gate to Auschwitz?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp (not the late politician)

 

I think Mary is a bit too pessimistic because a lot of young people see they have no utopia now as they lose their jobs, but she documents the left's attempts to take over society.

 

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obamas-civilian-troops-were-trained-by-ayers/

Obama’s Civilian Troops Were Trained by Ayers

Obama's election and the health care reform push would have been impossible without the dumbing down of academia.

 August 27, 2009 - by Mary Grabar

But young people, educated in a system that allowed Bill Ayers to become a “distinguished professor” of education, heed the siren call of Obama’s Organizing for America and MoveOn.org. I saw them collecting information and signatures at one of the fake town halls given by my Democrat Congressman Hank Johnson here in Atlanta on August 10.

In fact, it seemed that out of the tiny percentage of people in their late teens or twenties at this gathering, which exceeded the overflow hall showing the proceedings on screen, most were Obama zombies. None would give their full names to me; some were from outside the district. All insisted that they had signed “nondisclosure agreements.” One hostile girl with pink hair admitted to being paid for her efforts. One young man who gave his first name only smirked when I told him I write for Pajamas Media: “Isn’t that the place that had Joe the Plumber on?”

Obama would like us to forget about Ayers, whom he dismissed as some “English professor.” We are to forget that they attended New York colleges at the same time, ended up in Ayers’ hometown of Chicago, sat on educational foundations together, had mutual friends, and held a kick-off political campaign in Ayers’ home.

Obama would also like us to ignore the language written by a euthanasia society that calls for five-year reviews of “end-of-life” plans in HR 3200. Those who rightfully see such provisions for what they are endure ridicule, much in the manner of those who condemned communists. Those writing op-eds about life “not worth living” today display a lack of awareness that their language mimics the language of Nazi doctors who got their practice runs for the Holocaust by quietly gassing the very young, the mentally challenged, and the handicapped in the privacy of their hospitals. They too had medical “review committees” of white-coated bureaucrats signing orders for death.

But history teachers will tell you that even Advanced Placement high school students are under the illusion that the concentration camps were places that the U.S. sent its own Japanese citizens.

When I write about Bill Ayers, I am often greeted with the retort that the focus on one kooky professor is a waste of time, that we have bigger problems.

But were it not for the “Destructive Generation” instantiating themselves in our schools, the election of Barack Obama would not have been possible. Had we had a generation who understood history, we would have had voters who understood the vacuity of his rhetoric and the implications of “spreading the wealth.” They would have understood how his writings on Saul Alinsky displayed his propensity for stirring up racial animus, demonizing the opposition, and threatening executives with “pitchfork” mobs (that he would rouse up). We would have seen how his teaching a course on “critical race theory” would naturally lead to a nomination of a Supreme Court justice who sees herself as a “wise Latina woman” who can “empathize.”

They would have seen that Obama’s alliance with Bill Ayers, who has been working on behalf of “education” in Venezuela, would lead to a cozy meeting with Hugo Chavez. While Venezuelans protest against a government takeover of the schools, we allow Bill Ayers to spread his poison to future teachers while paying him an annual salary of $126,000.

Like South American dictators who promise peasants a few hectares through redistribution, Obama promises such things as “free” medical care, education, and new cars to his followers. Like Chavez, he appeals to the peasants — literally the illegal ones streaming into the country, promising rights of citizenship.

The historian Richard Pipes notes that the Russian revolution succeeded in large part because of the uneducated peasants. And in this country, the early communists targeted immigrants who spoke no English and were unacquainted with American values.

Today’s communists, like Bill Ayers, work in our schools aiming to keep American students in the same level of ignorance and tribalism as the peasants of Russia and South America.

They began their nefarious deeds in the 1960s. With help from the Soviet Union, they fomented hatred of the United States and then successfully groomed a generation to colonize the schools. The SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), of which Ayers was a member, spelled out their strategies in their position paper, the Port Huron Statement. Employing the old Soviet strategy of “boring from within,” they focused on “an overlooked seat of influence”: the university. Divested of their history, literacy, and ability to reason, their students became the mob that elected Barack Obama.

I am not the only one to witness the increasing inability of college students to reason. Douglas G. Campbell, writing in Academic Questions, relates a common experience in the college classroom. The former career military officer, while discussing military culture, was accused of being “brainwashed by the military” by a student who had no experience in the military or knowledge of it. When asked what informed her opinion, she could not reply. In frustration she repeated the classroom mantra, that she was “entitled to my opinion.” When she broke into tears, accusing Campbell of being a Nazi, she gained the sympathy of her classmates. I’ve had a similar resistance to facts and logic in the classroom.

Campbell cites a couple of books on pedagogy that he had to read in a mandatory program at his college. One by Stephen D. Brookfield, Becoming a Critically Reflective Thinker, advocates a Marxist methodology called “critical pedagogy,” by which “students are helped to break out of oppressive ways of thinking and acting that seem habitual but that have been imposed by the dominant culture.”

The “dominant culture” that Brookfield refers to is the Western one. It relies on standards of truth, objectivity, and fairness. It uses the syllogism, where a premise based on truth leads logically to a conclusion. Our “dominant culture” also emphasizes fairness, such as notions that people of a certain race are not inherently wiser or that those who demonstrate merit should be rewarded.

But in our schools, from kindergarten through graduate school, a different culture reigns. From textbooks, to teaching strategies that encourage collective thinking, to dorm room indoctrination, students are pressured to give up independent, logical thought for nonsensical theories, group work, and consensus building. They are bullied emotionally and pressured with grades to adopt the thinking of the classroom. At the same time, they are denied exposure to the Western heritage.

Bill Ayers, much admired by fellow education professors, eschews content and discipline. He bristles at the idea of being restricted by a curriculum, policies, or assessments and openly uses his classroom to promote his radical communist views by assigning books that promote communism. His own books are used by professors in colleges of education. A tamer version of his pedagogy is popular among teachers, who while not openly advocating communism nonetheless focus on “social justice” issues through collective thinking.

Conservatives who have seen through these techniques but simply dismiss these kooky professors do so at their peril. They may be protecting their own children through homeschooling and private education, but they are reaping the products in the voting mobs that elected Barack Obama.

Now we are faced with, among other things, the prospect of “death panels” under socialized medicine.

The health care town halls and tea party rallies are the pulse signs of an American spirit that has not yet died. But these gatherings are populated largely by those who are in, or approaching, the age of mandatory “end-of-life” counseling proposed in HR 3200.

As a baby boomer, I viewed such a session at my “town hall meeting” as a group of fresh-faced Emory medical students debated an experienced orthopedic surgeon.

One young student, a Doogie Howser type, cocksure in his white coat, was convinced that he was on the right side of compassion and “social justice.”

The surgeon, who was not wearing the doctor’s coat, argued against the government encroachment into the relationship between doctor and patient. He admitted that there are problems with health care currently, but argued quite logically and ethically against the extreme measures of the bill. He cited his experience of working in a government (VA) hospital. He said that competition means good service for patients and gave examples and reasons.

The med student accused him of “trying to make a profit.” (The good doctor had said he treats at least a couple of children of illegal aliens a month for free.)

As the surgeon understandably became increasingly frustrated in the debate, the med student used techniques that are now common in the classroom: emotional sabotaging tactics under the cover of “conflict resolution.” Acting as if the surgeon were an unreasonable child (or more likely senile), the student said, “Let me crystallize this …” The tone was condescending. It would have been a comic scene were it not for the fact that this future doctor does not seem to understand how HR 3200 violates the Hippocratic Oath.

(The several doctors who spoke at the tea party rally in Atlanta on August 15 all invoked the Hippocratic Oath. But they were all middle-aged. No medical students showed up.)

The medical student at the town hall did say to the experienced orthopedist, “I respect your opinion,” but he dismissed the opinion.

Obama himself on television and through expansion of government programs, like Americorps, encourages our young people to “volunteer” in “community service” programs paid for with tax dollars.

While the economy tanks, the government job sector is growing. Young people are encouraged to educate themselves for jobs in nonprofits and government agencies. They build up their academic resumes with “community service” that does nothing for their intellectual growth.

The visions of modern-day brown-shirted civilian troops have predictably been dismissed as evidence of overworked imaginations of right-wing extremists.

Well, maybe they won’t be wearing brown shirts. Maybe they’ll be wearing white coats.

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Michael Morrison

This morning I was listening to NPR (the P stands for "propaganda") weeping and wailing and gnashing its teeth about Ted Kennedy's departure, and wondered, among other things, why NPR kept referring to him as "the lyin' of the Senate."

I also remembered a bit from Brother Dave Gardner (and for those who are too young to remember, I suggest Google) which I herewith adapt: My mother told me to say nothing about the dead unless it's good. Ted Kennedy is dead. Good.

And finally, this thought: According to NPR and the equally leftist Yahoo! news,  Massachusetts neighbors are also weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth, and lamenting his loss and speaking widely about how they will miss him ... but I can't help wondering if the Kopechne family will miss him very much.

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Dana Mathewson

The issue of Obama's birth is not going away.  This article is a long one, and will be wasted on those who insist on throwing around the term "birthers" with contempt -- they would not take the time to read it anyhow.  But there's real meat here, and a lot of disturbing facts.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/14089

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Dana Mathewson

Well, well, WELL!  It seems that Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), already in some ethical trouble, just got into more.  Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2009/08/oops-new-charlie-rangel-scandal.html  Seems the Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee somehow managed to under-report his income -- something that seems to be common among government employees who sport a "D" after their last names.

FTA: "House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel , already beset by a series of ethics investigations, has disclosed more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets.

Among the new items on Rangel’s amended 2007 financial disclosure report were an account at the Congressional Federal Credit Union worth at least $250,000, an investment account with at least $250,000, land in southern New Jersey and stock in PepsiCo and fast food conglomerate Yum! Brands. None of those investments appeared on the original report, which was filled out by hand and filed in May 2008. "
END QUOTE

One is left to wonder if, perhaps, ol' Charlie was using Tim Geithner's copy of Turbo Tax?

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Dana Mathewson

E-mail isn't private.  We all supposedly "know" that.  But this article brings that fact home with startling force.

http://righttruth.typepad.com/right_truth/2009/08/counterintelligence-shielding-yourself-from-prying-eyes.html

Makes me start thinking about encryption.

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Timothy Birdnow

I found this in my mailbox; worth passing along.

From the Citizen`s Committee on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA):

Gun Hater Frank Lautenberg Proposes "Extraordinary Powers" Be Given To the U.S. Attorney General To Limit Gun Sales.

Obama and the White House are looking the other way as Lautenberg seeks to ban guns from 1,000,000 US citizens on a secret FBI terrorist watch list. Obama has deliberately and repeatedly lied to America's 90 million gun owners across the country when he insisted that he would not try to take away anyone's firearms. Now Obama's silence endorses Lautenberg's latest attempt at banning guns.

Lautenberg has now introduced bill S. 1317 that would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales to people on terror watch lists. We must defeat this bill from giving extraordinary powers to limit gun sales to the Attorney General. 

Lautenberg To Reveal Names on Secret List

The names of the people on the watch list are secret, and Lautenberg said he was frustrated by the F.B.I.'s refusal to disclose to investigators details and specific cases of gun purchases beyond the aggregate data.

Gun hater Lautenberg requested the gun grab study from the Government Accountability Office. He is using statistics, compiled in the report that is scheduled for public release next week to invade US citizen's privacy and put more restrictions on the Second Amendment.

Lautenberg said he wanted a better understanding of who is being allowed to buy guns.

How you ask? Trial by innuendo and misinformation that has put 1,000,000 Americans and maybe even you on a terrorist watch list without your knowledge by saying: people placed on this government's terrorist watch list can be stopped from getting on a plane or getting a visa, and will also be stopped from buying a gun.

Lautenberg wants gun purchases stopped for just being on the list. Current law states federal officials must find some other disqualification of a would-be gun buyer, like being a felon, an illegal alien or a drug addict.

Is your name on the list and can you get it removed?

The government's consolidated watch list, used to identify people suspected of links to terrorists, has grown to more than one million names since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It also has drawn widespread criticism over the prevalence of mistaken identities and unclear links to terrorism.

A CNN story raises questions about mistaken identities on the list - James Robinson is a retired Air National Guard brigadier general and a commercial pilot for a major airline who flies passenger planes around the country.

James Robinson is a retired brigadier general and a commercial pilot. His name is on the terrorist "watch list."

He has even been certified by the Transportation Security Administration to carry a weapon into the cockpit as part of the government's defense program should a terrorist try to commandeer a plane.

But there's one problem: James Robinson, the pilot, has difficulty even getting to his plane because his name is on the government's terrorist "watch list."

That means he can't use an airport kiosk to check in; he can't do it online; he can't do it curbside. Instead, like thousands of Americans whose names match a name or alias used by a suspected terrorist on the list, he must go to the ticket counter and have an agent verify that he is James Robinson, the pilot, and not James Robinson, the terrorist.

"Shocking's a good word; frustrating," Robinson -- the pilot -- said. "I'm carrying a weapon, flying a multimillion-dollar jet with passengers, but I'm still screened as, you know, on the terrorist watch list." 

History Repeating Itself?

The 1938 German Weapons Act, the precursor of the current weapons law, superseded the 1928 law. As under the 1928 law, citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to "...persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit."

Lautenberg Must be Stopped

Recently Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jack Reed (D-RI) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) have joined Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and victims and family members of the Virginia Tech tragedy, to introduce legislation to eliminate the private transfers of firearms and close the nation's "gun show loophole."

This Senate bill is in the Judiciary Committee, chaired by anti-gun liberal Democrat Leahy. Lautenberg's gun hate is well documented and he says you are irrational if you support private gun sales.
"There is no rational reason to oppose closing the loophole. The reason it's still not closed is simple: the continuing power of the special interest gun lobby in Washington" Sen. Lautenberg said ignoring the Constitution.

Lautenberg and the Gun Grabbers in the Senate are now tying to use the GAO to justify putting Americans on a secret gun ban list.

LAUTENBERG'S MOTIVES

Motives for his latest gun ban to are twofold:
First, he is taking small steps to enact gun control legislation this is just one step.
Second, eradicate the gun culture altogether.
All that seems to be on the minds of the Anti-Gun Senators and at the offices of gun control extremists is figuring out how to invade your privacy to erode and eventually destroy the right, and the means, of self-defense.

Now the Anti-Gun Coalitions are trying to use a self supporting GAO study to destroy the right of all Americans to keep and bear arms to protect themselves under the law. They are attacking and hiding behind an Anti-Terrorist Agenda while getting political and financial support from:

George Soros a Hungarian-born billionaire bank rolling efforts with his check book and spending more that $100 million to destroy the Constitution.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (CA) admitted that "guns would be banned and confiscated" if she could have her way.

The United Nations actively pushes globalism seeking to disarm all Americans.

Together, we can preserve the Constitutional rights our Founding Fathers intended our people to have forever.

For more information about CCRKBA go http://www.ccrkba.org/

Alan Gottlieb
Chairman
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
12500 NE Tenth Place
Dept Code 2884
Bellevue, Washington 98005

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Dana Mathewson

I sent around Obama's plan, received from Jack Kemp, to desecrate Sept. 11.  Here's a good way for us unwashed yahoos to fight back.  Courtesy of Eddie.

We have a little less than one month and counting to get the word out all across this great land and into every community in the United States of America .

If you forward this email to least 11 people and each of those people do the same ... you get the idea.

THE PROGRAM:

On Friday, September 11th, 2009, an American flag should be displayed outside every home, apartment, office, and store in the United States . Every individual should make it their duty to display an American flag on this eighth anniversary of one of our country's worst tragedies. We do this to honor  those who lost their lives on 9/11, their families, friends and loved ones who continue to endure the pain, and those who today are fighting at home and abroad to preserve our cherished freedoms.

In the days, weeks and months following 9/11, our country was bathed in American flags as citizens mourned the incredible losses and stood shoulder-to-shoulder against terrorism. Sadly, those flags have all but disappeared. Our patriotism pulled us through some tough times and it shouldn't take another attack to galvanize us in solidarity. Our American flag is the fabric of our country and together we can prevail over terrorism of all kinds

Action Plan:

So, here's what we need you to do .

(1) Forward this email to everyone you know (at least 11 people). Please don't be the one to break this chain. Take a moment to think back to how you felt on 9/11 and let those sentiments guide you.

(2) Fly an American flag of any size on 9/11. Honestly, Americans should fly the flag year-round, but if you don't, then at least make it a priority on this day.

Thank you for your participation. God Bless You and God Bless America !
 

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Dana Mathewson

From the Washington Times.  The administration attempts to bury the messenger when he refuses to carry the administration's water regarding anthropogenic global warming.  And this is by a president who promised to "restore science to its rightful place."  Guess he just never said what that place was.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/25/bury-the-messenger/

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Dana Mathewson

Here's how MN Sen. Amy Klobuchar thinks a townhall meeting is supposed to be handled.  Over the phone.  With just a handful of supporters on board.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/08/024359.php  Well, it DOES take less time that way, I guess.

For the record:  I was "invited," although since I was out of town at the time (and not checking messages) I didn't hear about it until a couple of days later.  It appears I didn't miss much of anything.

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Timothy Birdnow

The Already Been Chewed network (ABC) is illustrating the slobbering love affair (I do hope they take that abc gum out first) that the mainstream media is having with the chosen One; they have banned a pro-life group from airing a commercial opposing the pro-abortion government health takeover.

According to this piece in Lifenews:

"Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- ABC is coming under fire for prohibiting a commercial that urges opposition to the pro-abortion government-run health care plan in Congress. The League of American Voters had planned to air the commercial that is already airing on other networks in 12 states.

Bob Adams, the director of the group, told LifeNews.com he was "stunned" when he heard the news from his media buyer.

"ABC television has banned our TV ad from airing on its network," he said. "With our success, we were planning to go national, so we sent the ad to the major networks."'

End excerpt

What ever happened to the People`s right to know? The media used to claim that the public had a right to any and all information, and so the New York Times would lead classified information on movements and actions by the military in the war, and this was excused because the public had "a right to know" yet they will not accept a PAID advertisement that merely points out what is in the healthcare coup proposed by Congress.

We need a "fifth estate" in this country; something that monitors the "fourth estate". The American (and, indeeed, international) media has become a farce, a twisted and, frankly, evil entity bent on serving the radical left and their ideological bretheren. There is little attempt at balance these days. Even though the public is no longer so easily duped by the MSM, still many people get their "news" from this left-angle turning entity. You need climbing spikes and a pickax to scale the mountain of lies that the media puts forth these days. But the new media is still weak next to the mainstream media, and, while they may be dinosaurs, a living dinosaur is still a dangerous beastie.

Does anyone really believe that BHO could have had a snowman`s chance in netherland at becoming president had not the media been in the tank for him lock, stock, and barrel? This guy should still be trying to get decent committee assignments in the Senate, but here he is president. It could only happen, a guy with no experience, not much talent, no color, and a largely empty skull (but skill with a teleprompter) becoming president, because he was pushed in an almost unanimous fashion by the shapers of opinion. Obama beat a war hero and long time Senator for the highest spot in the land.

This should be a cautionary lesson to us; we have not won the fight against the old media. It`s worse than that, because the left has a near stranglehold on higher education, and on lower education for that matter. Schools have become liberal mills, cranking out empty skulls filled with liberal platitudes and easy ideas. The dull young people leave high (low) school with very little actual knowledge but having been puffed up with self-esteem, an esteem they have not earned but were told was their birthright. They have been taught that the emotional experience of liberalism entitles them to such puffery, and they embark on their college careers with feelings O-plenty but without any knowledge or logic. Journalism colleges take these empty noggins and fill them with crusading do-goodism, a liberal worldview designed to advance leftist causes, then unleashes them on an ignorant world, ignorant because the left has controlled the education of the masses and purposely designed it that way. So the blind lead the blind into more blindness, and the whole wretched cycle repeats.

Those of us who can see try our best to teach those who cannot, but we have to start with a worse than blank slate. There is a natural resistance to learning that what you have been taught and believe is a crock, and that must first be overcome. The newly occulant then must build a base of knowledge sufficient to understand the world and manipulate the logic of it. This, while the left continues to sing their siren song of easy platitudes and promises of success and glory.

It`s not an easy road for conservatives; we are discriminated against, insulted, ridiculed, and attacked at every turn. Remember Plato`s Republic? Those who break free from illusion are hated and scorned, and Plato understood this in his cave.

It is late in the day, and the battle has gone against us for a long time, but all is not yet lost.

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1 You're calling for a "fifth estate."  We already have Brent Bozell's Media Research Center.  Granted, it doesn't reach everyone (hey, it's a large country), but it's available to all, and they are doing a great job.  They're worth supporting!

There -- for what my $.02 are worth on the subject. 

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at August 26, 2009 11:29 AM (JuFAS)

2 That is what you get when the media have lost their independence.

Posted by: Ron de Haan at August 26, 2009 09:24 PM (venQH)

3

Your 2c is worth much more than the copper, Dana!

Thanks, Ron! And thanks for the other comments you have left, which I haven`t been able to respond to yet. I have been a bit rushed, and will be out of town after today, so it may be a bit. They were excellent comments - as always.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at August 28, 2009 06:05 AM (bHxmI)

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