Dana Matewson

This is from last Thursday -- that doesn't matter.  The facts contained herein are tremendously important.

AG Eric Holder is apparently, not to put too fine a point on it, guilty of malpractice.  He is ignoring "detailed memos that prosecutors drafted and placed in files to explain their decision to decline prosecution” of CIA interrogators.

FTA: "Whenever a memorandum on a proposed criminal prosecution or civil investigation was sent up to the front office for approval, the AAGs for whom I worked always read it. Referred to in DOJ nomenclature as “j-memos” (short for “justification memos”), these documents summarized all of the relevant facts, outlined the applicable statutes and case law, and detailed the recommendation of the career lawyers."
END QUOTE

Why is Holder ignoring these?  One can only speculate, but it's hard to shake the suspicion that he doesn't want to let the facts get in the way of politics.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmE3ZGU3ZmUzNTEzMjJiMGZkYjE0OWIyYWVkMWVmNTg=

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Jack Kemp (not the late politician)

The Outrageous Arrested Development of Anne Applebaum

Today's Washington Post has the following disgusting logic by Anne Applebaum, wife of Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radoslaw_Sikorski .

Ms Applebaum postures this about Roman Polanski:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/the_outrageous_arrest_of_roman.html

"He can be blamed, it is true, for his original, panicky decision to flee. But for this decision I see mitigating circumstances, not least an understandable fear of irrational punishment. Polanski's mother died in Auschwitz. His father survived Mauthausen. He himself survived the Krakow ghetto, and later emigrated from communist Poland. His pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered in 1969 by the followers of Charles Manson, though for a time Polanski himself was a suspect."

END OF QUOTE

 I am the grandson of a man who was killed in Auschwitz and his wife died shortly after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by the British Army. Using her logic, one would assume Ms. Appelbaum would not object to my coming to her house and raping her and tearing up your clothes. Perhaps I can depend on her to hold the police and your husband at bay while she drops the charges and writes an editorial in the Washington Post claiming there are mitigating circumstances in my case. I am, of course, being facetious and engaging in a "reductio ad absurdum" argument. But I felt compelled to expound on this to dramatically highlight the moral depravity of callousness of her argument.

 
Ms. Applebaum should then also have no objection to some Holocaust survivor from America or Israel, perhaps even George Soros himself, coming to her home and raping her and tearing apart her closet full of clothes. Perhaps such a theoretical rapist could also depend on her to hold the police and her husband at bay while she dropped charges and wrote an editorial in the Washington Post claiming there are mitigating circumstances for such an act.

 Come to think of it, since Roman Polanski’s wife was also murdered, should we be asking if Ms. Applebaum would be understanding if the husband of any murdered married woman in America came Washington to attempt to rape her? Yes, that sounds outrageous, but I’m not the one who is trying to legitimize this line of thinking. Ms. Applebaum is.

 
Many years ago, in a discussion with some strangers, a young woman, probably a liberal, said to the group, "I think that the children of Holocaust survivors should be allowed to get away with anything they want." I said nothing in reply, understanding that this was simplistic, childish talk.

 
The left appears to be at war with women and girls these days. In an incomplete listing of examples, there was first Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Then David Letterman belittled the 14 year old daughter of Sarah Palin on national television. Then the Huffington Post speculating that the death of Mary Jo Kopechne was "worth it," followed by author Joyce Carol Oates casually weighing the life of Mary Jo Kopechne vs. the later professional life of Ted Kennedy, "against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?" http://christopherfountain.com/2009/08/28/joyce-carol-oates-on-teddy-kennedy/  Now we are being "treated" to another liberal with impeccable leftist journalism credentials, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Appelbaum Ms. Appelbaum, voicing her approval/advocacy of a Divine Right of Liberal Icons to rape underage girls.

 
When I was in college, taking a humanities requirement course on Plays of the Restoration and the Seventeenth Century, my professor informed me that the aristocracy of that time was allowed their first four murders with no punishment. The aristocracy then also ate from fashionable lead plates and suffered much brain damage as a result.

 
It seems Ms. Appelbaum has a new twist on aristocratic privilege, i.e., the aristocrats of victimhood privilege. Too bad the left hasn't extended this privilege to the elderly Holocaust survivors in Israel and their decendants under rocket attack every day. In fact,  the Israeli government, in their domestic civil laws, allows for waivers of punishment for any crime, including rape, done by actual Holocaust victims. Although largely a socialist country for its first 30-50 years, Israel doesn't share Ms. Appelbaum's public view of liberal license in domestic law enforcement. Perhaps that’s so because the Israelis have a real country to run and not just a theoretical one on the pages of a Mainstream Media publication. I would wish that Ms. Appelbaum not be raped, but rather – as the late Irving Kristol put it – get mugged by reality.

 
I shudder to think what awaits me in next week’s newspapers. Liberals advocating sex with animals, but only if the animals “voice their consent?” I’m sure the descent into madness by the post modern, “value free” so-called intelligentsia can be at least controlled by public airing of their thoughts – and public outcry. But they are beyond shame.

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Dana Mathewson

Porn surfing rampant at U.S. Science foundation.  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/29/workers-porn-surfing-rampant-at-federal-agency/

Our tax dollars at work.  "For instance, one senior executive spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women without being detected ...

"'He explained that these young women are from poor countries and need to make money to help their parents and this site helps them do that,' investigators wrote in a memo."

A NOTE FROM TIM:

No wonder Global Warming theory is all the rage; it's intellectual pornography!

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Timothy Birdnow

NASA is reporting a spike in cosmic rays as a result of the very quiet sun. Cosmic rays are protons and other subatomic particles that result from (usually) cataclysmic interstellar activity (like supernova). Normally these particles find it difficult to penetrate the heliosphere, that region around the sun where magnetic activity is high and the solar wind (itself a stream of charged particles coming out of the sun) "blows". 

The sun's magnetic field is down to 4 NanoTeslas, or down about a third to a half (normal range is 6 to 8 nT`s). 

During active solar periods, the solar wind sweeps cosmic rays from the heliosphere in much the same fashion as rain helps get rid of air pollution; the particles "drip" steadily, striking the cosmic rays just as the raindrops strike the floating particulate and make it fall. During the recent Grand Solar Maximum the high rate of solar wind swept the cosmic rays out much like a broom sweeps out a dusty room.

Heinrich Svensmark theorized that cosmic rays drive the formation of clouds in the Earth's atmosphere, and laboratory experiments have borne this hypothesis out. Svensmark's theory is that heavy solar activity leads to fewer clouds, which leads to a warmer Earth, while a quiet sun means more clouds as a result of increased cosmic ray activity, which means a cooler Earth.

As Richard Mackey put it;

_{“The Earth’s geomagnetic field provides a buffer against solar radiation, the solar wind and radiation of all types generated elsewhere in the Universe. The field’s strength depends on solar output and the lunisolar tides. A stronger geomagnetic field will deflect more cosmic radiation than a weaker one.}

_{"A highly active Sun can make the geomagnetic field stronger; a relative inactive Sun will make it weaker. Other things being equal, a strong geomagnetic field contributes to a warmer climate; a weaker field to a cooler climate. But the effect may not be uniform across the planet. Currently, the geomagnetic field seems to be weakening, contributing to global cooling.}

_{"The heliosphere, and the termination shock sphere within it, deflects cosmic radiation. The Earth’s geomagnetic field also deflects cosmic radiation. The strength of the heliosphere depends on the Sun’s activity levels. High levels of solar activity reduce the volume of cosmic rays entering the Earth’s atmosphere, contributing to global warming. High levels of solar activity generate more turbulence in the heliosphere scattering galactic cosmic rays before they reach the inner planets. Conversely, a greater volume of cosmic rays enter our atmosphere during times of low solar activity because the Heliospheric magnetic fields are smoother with less scattering of galactic cosmic rays, resulting in global cooling.”}

End excerpt

Interestingly enough, we have had the coolest year in 50 years. Oh, and August was the first sunspotless month since June 1913.

Are we moving into another climate minimum, like the Little Ice Age?  Perhaps; time will tell. One thing is certain; carbon dioxide is not the primary driver of the Earth's climate. None of the computer models used to predict thermogeddon take this (or any other solar activity) into account; they are based entirely on the Earth's mix of atmospheric gases. None of these models predicted a cooling trend as a result of solar lethargy, and now the proponents of global warming are scrambling to salvage their reputations, claiming global warming is merely "in hiding". Yes, it has been hiding so well that there is no evidence of it's existence! 

When the Michaelson-Morley experiment failed to show evidence of the existence of the aether, that concept was dropped from physics as something unproven. That is how science progresses; if an hypothesis fails in exerimental research it is discarded, cherished though it may be. Anthropogenic global warming fails in all real world experimentation and research. Observations indicate that the models are wrong, because the fundamental predictions of the models have failed to come to pass. There is no hotspot in the tropical tropopause, for instance; something that all models agree should be there. The oceans have misbehaved from the get-go. All these models have is INTERNAL consistency, and that is because they all use the same set of assumptions and datasets. Remember, the geocentric model of the universe works fine, too.  Copernicus' heliocentric model did not eliminate epicycles (apparent retrograde motion of the planets on occasion) and so did not really offer a strong alternative to geocentrism. (It was only after it was realized that the planets move in ellipses and not circles were epicycles eliminated.) Geocentric theory worked, well, in theory; in terms of the behavior of the universe it did not and had to be discarded.

Global warming works in theory as well. In terms of real world observation...

Unfortunately, the science is immaterial; this is a theory that many want to be true, and don't confuse us with the facts. Obama says this is irrefutable and urgent, despite a complete lack of good science on the subject. Oh, there is a lot of science going on, mostly with computer models making predictions based on predictions made by computer models.  Essentially, there is a considerable amount of computer gaming going in, with a virtual alternative reality. 

But the universe disagrees with our gaming.

Still, our mentally-deranged government plans to move forward with that economic armageddon called Cap-and-Trade, solving a problem that does not need fixing. Nobody is documented to die from global warming, but by jumpin' Jehosophat people die from sharp economic downturns, especially in the Third World where life exists on the margins. There will be blood on the hands of our legislators if they pass this abomination and scientific fairy tale.

But then, leftism has never been about the world as it is, but the world as they wish it to be. Remember John Lennon's song "Imagine"; he and the other leftists think that if they click their heels together and make a wish it will happen - provided they can attain political power. That their ideas won't work is immaterial; they want them to work, so they will!  It's a matter of purity of heart!

Wishful thinking makes poor planning.

When I visit my cabin in the woods, I use kerosene lamps for lighting. Now, my lights draw moths who eventually find their way to the opening at the top of the lamp chimney, and they then fly into the flame and die a horrible death as their flesh is fried. Extraordinarily stupid, yet the survivors continue their struggle to reach the flame. Leftism is like that; Socialist ideas have been tried in some form since the Dawn of Man, and they are always astonishing failures, yet people continue to try them anyway. Why? Because the notion of everybody sharing holds great appeal for many - particularly those of mediocre talent or a lazier nature. There is an attraction in forcibly taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive. Nobody likes to work and produce, but everybody wants to live well. Socialism is a modern variation of the pirate, the tribal raider, the despoiler. Vikings can no longer raid defenseless villages by sea; instead they raid defenseless individuals by the IRS. It's the same ultimate goal. Global warming theory is a tool to advance that piratical goal; those who have are robbed (politely) by those who have not and don't want to do what is necessary to have. This is couched in Christian terms, as a matter of decency and charity. But there is nothing decent about stealing (in fact, there is a Commandment against it in the Bible) and nothing charitable about forcing one to give to another. Charity is voluntary, not forced.

And with global warming, the redistribution of wealth is assured, as those who have will be forced to squander their wealth battling this will-o-the-wisp. That is the real purpose of GW theory, and a little matter like science is not going to stand in the way.

Frankly, I prefer the old vikings; at least you could fight back in a straightforward fashion.

But the appeal of this sort of thing is much like the appeal of that flame to a moth; it ultimately brings death but that stupid insect will try it anyway, even after witnessing it's fellow fried to a crips. Maybe THIS TIME it will work...

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Dana Mathewson

Lloyd Marcus on American Thinker.  http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/stop_allowing_the_left_to_set.html

This was a "Must Read" on Lucianne.com today, and it certainly deserves to be!

--
It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. -- Yogi Berra

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Timothy Birdnow

Anyone who believes that illegal immigration is a dead issue, or a loser for Republicans have another thing coming. This from Mark Krikorian  http://www.cis.org/krikorian/warning

"There was an important vote on a minor procedural matter Wednesday on the floor of the House. Arizona's Rep. Raul Grijalva, a leftist open-borders guy (and I don't mean liberal — MEChA member, 100% rating from the ACLU, etc.) sponsored a bill to create new national-park area along the border. Republicans in committee smelled a rat and attempted to insert an amendment that stipulated that the Border Patrol would be permitted to operate in the new area, but were rebuffed; the amendment's needed because the Department of Interior has reportedly interfered with efforts to patrol border lands under its jurisdiction. Well, Republicans decided to try to pull a procedural motion in the full House to force the issue, assuming they'd lose but at least be able to make a political point.

Instead, once it became clear to the Democrats the trouble that Grijalva could be getting them into, they started running like lemmings."

End Excerpt

The pro-enforcement measure passed with flying colors. Now why would Democrats fear supporting a measure that would make it harder to enforce border security if it is a non-issue? The reality is, in this time of economic turmoil, Americans are feeling less indulgent then ever in regards to gate crashers invading our soil and violating our sovereignty. With fewer of those jobs that "Americans just won't do" being increasingly prized by those Americans, there is less sympathy for foreign workers who break the law and steal employment.  Also, with Obama plotting his socialized medicine scheme, there is a backlash against illegal aliens, since everyone knows Obama is lying through his teeth about illegals not receiving treatment under the House plan.

This is good news; it means that the Obamanistas are on the run. Now would be a good time to bring the whole issue of border security back into the public eye; it's a loser for Democrats and the Left.

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Jack Kemp (not the late politician) has this fine essay posted at American Thinker:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/obama_throwing_black_supporter.html
 
September 28, 2009
Obama throwing black supporters under the bus
Jack Kemp
I have a suggestion for Gov. David Paterson of New York, recently asked by an associate of Barack Obama to not run for election (not reelection, as he became Governor when Eliot Spitzer resigned) for the office of New York Governor. I have to admire Gov. Paterson's courage to stand up for himself, even though I don't agree with his politics, nor do I commend his record as Governor of New York.

William Katz at Urgent Agenda has said:

"What's a president to do?  Now, it's true, Obama has a history of throwing friends under the bus and embracing enemies, so maybe this doesn't upset him all that much.  But the other friends have gone under the bus willingly.  Paterson is pulling a Rosa Parks."

I would suggest that Gov. Paterson take this verbal comparison to the next step by making a trip to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, and having a press conference alongside one of the Museum's most famous exhibits, the Rosa Parks Bus.  Yes, he could stand beside the actual Montgomery, Alabama, bus on which the late Ms. Parks refused to give up her seat to a (more politically powerful) white person in December 1955, leading to her removal and arrest - and sparking of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Pres. Obama has no more moral authority to tell David Patterson not to run than the white bus driver had in telling Rosa Parks to give up her seat. In so doing, Obama shows that he is head not of the Democratic Party or its Black Caucus, but head of the Obama Party and its Obama Family Caucus. He is a politician and not a statesman and has set a precedent for other Democrats, some of them closet racists, to go to black elected officials and tell them to step down in tough election races "for the good of the Party." The other officials can now say, "Well, Pres. Obama said it to Gov. Patterson (who may well lose his bid for the governorship), so it is acceptable behavior." 

When the Jamaican bobsled team went to the Winter Olympics in 1988, they knew they had less of a chance of winning a medal than Gov. Patterson has of being elected Governor of New York. But they didn't quit and go home.  Wikipedia notes that:

"There, the Jamaican four sled stunned many of their critics by finishing in 14th place, ahead of the United States, Russia, France and Italy.[5]

In 2000 the Jamaicans won the Gold medal at the World Push Bobsled Championships."

What Barack Obama doesn't understand is how one advances in truly competitive situations in the real world. You have to be willing to fall flat on your face a few times -- in public -- before you learn from your experiences.

In life, it's not how many times you fall down, it's how many times you get up.

Barack Obama, pre-selected for office in Chicago's political system, reminds me of the 1919 Black Socks team. For most of his short career, he never experienced what it takes to struggle for something in the real world without the fix being in. Running against Hillary Clinton and the charismatically challenged John McCain were real competitions, granted, but they came rather late in his political career. They were not part of his formative experience, as can be seen in what has happened since his election as president. He has poorly managed domestic (an unformed health care plan that frightens seniors) and foreign (the UN speech) policies, and race relations (Prof. Gates in Cambridge) like a man "who was born on third base (at Wrigley or US Cellular Field) and thought he hit a triple."

Gov. Patterson has worked his way up through the political system to earn election as a State Senator and then the Lt. Governor, being in a position to benefit from former Gov. Spitzer's problems. I never heard of him voting present on a majority of bills from the time he entered the New York State Senate in 1985 until the time he became Senate Minority Leader in 2003. He did this while overcoming a childhood optic nerve condition that left him legally blind. I'm glad he has decided to not step down because some politician who derides Special Olympics athletes on national television thinks it is good for that politician for Patterson to quit.

Even if Gov. Patterson loses his bid for election, he will go out a winner. That is something that Pres. Obama can't abide in other people -- and an attitude that other people can't abide in Pres. Obama.

Hat Tip: Dana Mathewson

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My father-in-law forwards this message:

Tomorrow is an important day in health care reform for pro-life America.  The U.S. Senate Finance Committee will continue mark up of Sen. Baucus’s health care bill.  Currently, Sen. Baucus’s bill allows qualified health plans to provide coverage for all abortions and mandates that at least one plan in each state exchange provide coverage of all abortions.  Thankfully, we have another chance to protect and defend life in health care reform.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has filed several amendments that would prevent government funding for abortion and would protect current conscience laws for health workers.

Here are the pro-life amendments being considered for a vote tomorrow (for a more detailed explanation, please go to the AUL blog):

Hatch Amdt. #C14 (355): Prohibits authorized or appropriated federal funds under this bill from being used for elective abortions and plans that cover such abortions. 
Hatch Amdt. #C13 (354): Protection for the right of conscience.
Hatch Amdt. #C12 (353): Prohibits federal funds under this bill from being used to pay for assisted suicide and offers conscience protections to providers or plans refusing to offer assisted suicide services.
Please CALL the Finance Committee Senators today and urge them to support Sen. Hatch’s amendments to exclude abortion funding & protect conscience rights for health workers:

MAX BAUCUS, MT (202) 224-2651
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV (202) 224-6472
KENT CONRAD, ND (202) 224-2043
JEFF BINGAMAN, NM (202) 224-5521
JOHN F. KERRY, MA (202) 224-2742
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR (202) 224-4843
RON WYDEN, OR (202) 224-5244
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY (202) 224-6542
DEBBIE STABENOW, MI (202) 224-4822
MARIA CANTWELL, WA (202) 224-3441
BILL NELSON, FL (202) 224-5274
ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ (202) 224-4744
THOMAS CARPER, DE (202) 224-2441
CHUCK GRASSLEY, IA (202) 224-3744
ORRIN G. HATCH, UT (Sponsor of Amendments) (202) 224-5251
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, ME (202) 224-5344
JON KYL, AZ (202) 224-4521
JIM BUNNING, KY (202) 224-4343
MIKE CRAPO, ID (202) 224-6142
PAT ROBERTS, KS (202) 224-4774
JOHN ENSIGN, NV (202) 224-6244
MIKE ENZI, WY (202) 224-3424
JOHN CORNYN, TX  (202) 224-2934

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Dana Mathewson

I cannot believe this!  Well, in fact, I CAN, but I can't believe that anybody is allowing this to go forward -- much less, that a STATE is pushing it.

Michigan woman threatened with jail for watching neighbor's kids

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/09/michigan-woman-threatened-with-jail-for.html

Tell your friends who voted for Obama that votes have consequences, and that theirs did, and ask them if they expected this kind of thing to happen.  Yes, liberals would have talked about something like this if McCain had been elected, but I seriously doubt they'd have actually TRIED it!

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Dana Mathewson

Because Obama has proven to be so weak on Iran, the odds are increasing that Netanyahu will feel little constraint against doing anything he feels he must do regarding Iran to ensure Israel's security (not that there was much concern over that, anyhow, I suppose).  It must be abundantly clear to the Prime Minister that he can't count on any help from the U.S.  So if Bam-Bam tries to say "No, you can't do such-and-such," it's an increasingly good bet that Netanyahu will merely say "Oh yeah?  Just watch me."

We can hope!  http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/09/024590.php

Commenters on Lucianne.com want to make Netanyahu President of the U.S. and even have pointed out that he has a U.S. birth certificate (not that THAT matters anymore).  Works for me...

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Brian forwards this outstanding piece from Human Events.

Latimer the Liberator?
by Jed Babbin

If Matt Latimer’s new book had been released a few weeks ago, the Tea Party marchers would have hoisted him onto their shoulders and carried him -- laughing and cheering -- all the way up Capitol Hill.  

Laughing, because Latimer’s new book,Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor, renews conservatives’ license to chuckle at ourselves. Cheering, because it lifts the burden of George W. Bush from our shoulders.

There are only two kinds of people who won’t like this book.  First are the liberal media who tied the Gordian knot that binds conservatism to Bush.  

As Byron York reported in the Washington Examiner, Latimer relates a conversation with President Bush in which the president said that there was no such thing as the “conservative movement” and quotes Bush as saying, "Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say, but I redefined the Republican Party."

And so he did. The media narrative that was built upon that redefinition also established false boundaries around the idea, and ideals, of conservatism.  That narrative -- that Bushism is conservatism and conservatism is Bushism -- is now, thanks to Latimer, shattered.  

The media will fight Latimer to defend their narrative.  They created it to push John McCain as the Republicans’ only chance to win in 2008 and pave way for Barack Obama to campaign on it successfully.  They will do their best to bury this book. They know that once the narrative is debunked -- and now it has been -- the restoration of conservatism as the main political force in America will be accomplished quickly.

The other people who will fight Latimer’s book are the gaggle of Bush political staffers whose careers depend on maintaining the media narrative.  They are already out there -- former White House spokeswoman Dana Perino the most noticeable -- throwing eggs at Latimer.  They are reportedly working hard to control the positive media about Latimer’s book and even some conservative media such as National Review are playing along.

But Perino et al. are the same people who left a smoking hole in the ground where the Republican Party once stood.  They are not interested in assisting conservatism’s resurgence.

George W. Bush made Nancy Pelosi possible and someone such as Barack Obama inevitable by governing from the left of center. His superb reaction to 9-11 is overshadowed by his decision to go nation-building, putting us on the strategic defensive in a global war.  In his first term, according to the Cato Institute, government grew by 33%.  Mr. Bush arm-wrestled Congress into passing a new entitlement program, the prescription drug program, and oversaw increased enrollment in government social welfare programs of almost 25%.

History will probably grade George W. Bush much more generously than the daily media, but he will not be recorded as a conservative.    

Another part of Latimer’s book -- this one dealing with Captive Nations Week -- reveals how distant President Bush’s core beliefs were from conservatives’ own.

Captive Nations Week was first proclaimed by President Eisenhower in 1959, intending to keep the hope of freedom alive among the people enslaved by the Soviet Union.  In 2005, Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation wrote about Lev Dobriansky, the man who wrote the original proclamation. “In 1978, two years before he successfully ran for president, Reagan devoted one of his radio commentaries to Captive Nations Week, reminding his listeners that the Soviet Union still held ‘millions of people in bondage’ and asking, ‘Are we really serious about human rights?’"

President Reagan was the first to hold a public ceremony marking Captive Nations Week. But George W. Bush’s concept of “captive nations” apparently had nothing to do with freedom from slavery.

Assigned to write a “Captive Nations Week” speech for Bush, Latimer relates how White House staffers Ed Gillespie and Barry Jackson were on a different frequency than Reagan or Latimer: they were tuned precisely to the Bush channel. This from Speech-less:

Traditionally Captive Nations Week was marked to remember dissidents around the world still trapped in captivity.  It gained special prominence during the Cold War when Ronald Reagan used the occasion to give speeches condemning the tyranny of the Soviet Union.  Reagan publicly celebrated the anniversary over the strong objections of his State Department, which warned about offending the Soviets. I thought the speech would be right up President Bush’s alley -- another dusting off of his Freedom Agenda and a condemnation of dictatorships across the world.  

But Ed Gillespie and Barry Jackson -- the man who wanted to compare Bush to Thomas Jefferson -- had another revelation.  They’d looked at a series of polls and decided to “rebrand” the Freedom Agenda.  They even held meetings in the EEOB about it, complete with PowerPoint presentations and colorful slides.  To their apparent surprise, it turned out that all that stuff the President had been talking about -- standing up to dictators and encouraging democracy around the world -- was unpopular with the American people.  The war in Iraq was even more unpopular. (Again, these are the conclusions that were being drawn in 2008.)  

By contrast, fighting hunger and disease in places like Africa and Latin America was viewed by Americans as a good thing.   So it turned out that fighting river blindness and elephantitis and who knows what else was really what the President’s Freedom Agenda had been about all along. (Wink.)  As for the President’s inaugural address -- the one supporting democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq and calling for an end to global tyranny?  Uh, never mind. Now assistance to Africa, our one popular initiatives, was infiltrating our national security and foreign policies.  The speechwriters were told to argue that battling HIV and malaria on a continent thousands of miles away was central, indeed essential, to America’s national security. Rebranding the Freedom Agenda was our version of “New Coke.”

Now grossly dissatisfied with two drafts of the speech, the President finally told us what he wanted: a speech that recognized the freedom agenda as freedom from disease, freedom from poverty, freedom from despair. Oh, and freedom from tyranny too, if you could fit it in.  It was true: the President really did want the freedom agenda to be about fighting river blindness in Botswana. I couldn’t believe it.  All the big talk about standing up for democracy around the world, well, that was clearly over. 

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Timothy Birdnow

Jack Kemp, the undead unpolitician, forwards this our way.  Seems my old Alma Mater - St. Louis University - is heavy into the ACORN nuts  
http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/st-louis-university-also-funneling-volunteers-to-acorn/

When I was attending that venerable Catholic institution ACORN maintained a fairly large presence, and the "social justice" types, the liberal Catholics who believe not in a Gospel of salvation of souls but in a gospel of government intervention to correct societal ills (and by that I mean a gospel of Marx) were drawn to them like squirrels to the basis of the acronym.  St. Louis U. is still maintaining ties to the NUTS and is, in fact, funnelling volunteers from their own student population. 

Stay tuned; there may be more to this.

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Timothy Birdnow

Over at Ecofascism.com, William Kay has a fascinating history lesson for modern America; he gives us a rundown on the decline and fall of the classic Greek city states, and relates them to our modern decline and to the rise of radical environmentalism.  This is a brilliant piece, and one that I heartily recommend. Settle in with a glass of Cosentino Cabernet, or perhaps a fine Missouri Cynthiana, or, if you prefer, a bottle of Schlafley`s Oatmeal Stout (oh, hell, a Coors will do) and enjoy this exhaustive historical treatise. Mr. Kay illustrates how the forces that destroyed Athens are at work in modernity - and crawling in the Green movement!

http://www.ecofascism.com/article20.html

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:02 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

This from the Federalist Patriot:

_{"Humana Inc., principal insurance provider for the Medicare Advantage program, drew the ire of Democrats this week for having the temerity to advise its customers that they could see significant cuts to their benefits and services if ObamaCare becomes law. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, under Sen. Max Baucus's urging, ordered Humana to cease and desist in its letter campaign. The company is now the target of a federal investigation for violating a conveniently vague rule against scaring seniors with its communications. We wonder if Baucus has ever heard of the AARP.}

_{Baucus denies that his program will have any adverse effect on Medicare coverage for seniors. The Congressional Budget Office disagrees, noting that Medicare Advantage will see $100 billion in cuts, ultimately leading to reduced benefits. This particular Medicare program is targeted because Advantage actually allows consumers to work with private insurers. Democrats, of course, hate this free-market idea.}

_{The government's action against Humana is just a taste of what Hope and Change will bring. Today, they control through intimidation the message of private companies; tomorrow they control the companies completely."}

End excerpt.

This from the Constitution of the United States:

_{Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.}

Now, according to this piece from Cornell.edu the First Amendment serves the following purpose:

_{"The most basic component of freedom of expression is the right of freedom of speech. The right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without interference or constraint by the government. The Supreme Court requires the government to provide substantial justification for the interference with the right of free speech where it attempts to regulate the content of the speech. A less stringent test is applied for content-neutral legislation. The Supreme Court has also recognized that the government may prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence. The right to free speech includes other mediums of expression that communicate a message.}

_{Despite popular misunderstanding the right to freedom of the press guaranteed by the first amendment is not very different from the right to freedom of speech. It allows an individual to express themselves through publication and dissemination. It is part of the constitutional protection of freedom of expression. It does not afford members of the media any special rights or privileges not afforded to citizens in general."}

End excerpt.

Granted, advertising falls under a slightly different set of circumstances, but what Humana is doing isn`t advertising; they are not actively asking people to give them money for a product or service by this mailing. No, this is the expression of political opinion, the very thing that the First Amendment was designed to protect. Neither Congress nor the President can issue a gag order on Humana without violating the Constitution.

It should be pointed out that the media engages in scare tactics all of the time, and in fact killed President Bush's plan to privatize a small portion of Social Security by scaring seniors, but we were told that freedom of the press overrules any demand for journalistic responsibility. Now a private company that is in the crosshairs of a government planning a coup against an entire industry, and they are supposed to meekly remain silent? 

Interesting how the left demands their rights, but denies those rights to those who oppose them.

Very interesting this hope and change, isn`t it? It is resembling the kind of hope and change last seen in 1930`s Europe.

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Jack Kemp (not the late politician)

So Pelosi is allegedly concerned about violent political speech leading to violent political actions? I found this little fact while researching another matter today:
 

Democrat New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hevesi#Controversies
 
At a commencement address he delivered at Queens College on June 1, 2006, Hevesi told his audience that Senator Charles Schumer was so tough he would "put a bullet between the President's eyes if he could get away with it." Several hours after his remarks, Hevesi apologized for his comments, calling them "beyond dumb," "remarkably stupid," and "incredibly moronic." [7]
END OF QUOTE
 
Sure it was moronic - and only a rudderless moron would have said it in the first place

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Jack Kemp (not the late politician)

The Aussies get it; Obama is no Fonzie!

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26116013-7583,00.html
Obama is no Fonzie
Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor | September 24, 2009
Article from:  The Australian
IT may seem rather unkind to express some serious doubts about US President Barack Obama just now. He is wowing the UN with talk of nuclear disarmament. He is mesmerising the Group of 20 with talk of global recovery. He is leading a policy review that talks of winning in Afghanistan and he will not send more troops in response to the request of the US military commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, without deeper talks.

He has stirred hearts in the Middle East with talk of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And from October 1 he will be talking directly with the Iranians in pursuit of his talk of stopping Tehran from getting nuclear weapons.

It's a lot of very impressive talk. And yet, and yet...

Machiavelli said for a prince it is better to be feared than to be loved.

For much of his presidency, most of the world feared George W. Bush. For a brief, shining moment after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, America's enemies feared Bush, while almost all the rest of the world loved him.

That is the perfect situation for any US president. It can't be sustained, of course, and Bush squandered the love part of the equation much more quickly and much more comprehensively than he should have. But he never lost the fear bit.

Here's my worry about Obama. Lots of people love him and he is indeed very lovable. But I wonder if anyone at all, anywhere in the world, really fears him.

Let's move forward a bit from Machiavelli for our strategic guidance. Let's refer instead to the great classic of American strategic pedagogy, Happy Days.

Happy Days pivoted around the friendship between two very different American teenagers, Richie Cunningham and Fonzie Fonzarelli.

Richie was clean-cut, wholesome, an absolute goody-goody, and everybody loved him. Fonzie, especially in the early series, was a tough nut. Greased-back hair, always astride his outlaw motorbike, decked out in Marlon Brando T-shirt, Fonzie inspired fear and envy in men, and swoons among the gals.

Everyone was frightened of Fonzie. He could banish bad guys with a look. In one episode, Fonzie tried to teach Richie his style. Richie practised the grimaces, the flexes, the stares, but alas the bad guys were not impressed and certainly not deterred.

In the midst of a desperate scrape, Richie turned to Fonzie imploringly and asked: Why are my deadly looks, threatening flexes and strategic grimaces having no effect?

Oh yeah, Fonzie replied, I forgot to tell you. For all that to work, once in your life you have to have hit someone. You cannot imagine a deeper strategic insight.

At some point, Obama is going to have to do something seriously unpleasant to someone.

Obama's one serious foreign policy initiative during the presidential campaign was to promise that he would talk productively to America's enemies. It would be easy to mock this; all US presidents, after all, have tried to talk to America's enemies, right up to the point at which they attack the US or its allies or just become unacceptable security risks. Nonetheless, Obama's approach, fortified by his huge global popularity, was certainly worth a try.

Which enemies, by the way, did he have in mind? The following list may not be exclusive but certainly Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, the Taliban in Afghanistan and, presumably, Syria all figured on it.

Yet the striking thing, almost a year into the Obama presidency, is how little substantial talk with these enemies has gone on and how what talk has gone on has produced absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. Diddly-squat.

You see, I don't think any of America's enemies, or indeed any of its friends, fear Obama. I hope they are making a grave miscalculation, but I have my doubts.

The Iranians have made a kind of pantomime dance out of mocking dialogue with Obama. He wants to talk about their weapons-based uranium enrichment and their flouting of International Atomic Energy Agency rules. The mullahs of Tehran fall about laughing at this. They steal an election, bash, murder and rape their opponents into submission and deliberately miss Obama's solemn deadline of September for starting talks.

Obama set the September deadline partly so the Iranians could tremble before the assembled might of this week's UN General Assembly.

The Iranians said the talks would begin on October 1 and that is when they will begin. And the Iranians don't plan to talk about their uranium enrichment program. Instead they will talk about the injustice of supposed US domination of the UN.

Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, the Iranians took a couple of extra measures. They appointed a man wanted by Interpol for his part in blowing up a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s as their Defence Minister. Then Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his sick denial of the Holocaust. If the Iranians behave at the October dialogue as they say they will, then the Americans should persist with it for about 10 minutes before moving to comprehensive sanctions against Iran as the only possible alternative to an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, possibly before Christmas.

A genuinely tough sanctions regime on Iran would be the Fonzie moment in Obama's Richie Cunningham presidency.

So far Obama has courted popularity with America's critics by himself criticising America's past and by giving things away.

He gave the Arabs all kinds of rhetorical concessions, many of them factually wrong, in his Cairo speech in June. He gave the Russians a huge concession this month by abruptly cancelling a missile defence system that would have been based in Poland and the Czech Republic. This abrupt cancellation embarrassed and insulted the Czechs and the Poles, who incidentally may never again be as accommodating to the Americans. But they, you see, are America's friends and Obama's target audience is America's critics and enemies.

The action on the missile defence system will have any merit only if the Russians eventually join the most comprehensive sanctions regime against the Iranians.

Obama tried to give the Palestinians, and the Arabs more generally, an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank. But the most instructive element of this episode is that even the Israelis, with all their intimate dependence on the Americans, don't feel compelled to give Obama any serious face on this issue. They don't fear him either.

Of course, should Obama finally decide to take real action on Iran, all this soft shuffle and endless sweet talk in advance may have helped establish his bona fides.

I have been in London this week. The Daily Telegraph, a conservative but generally pro-American newspaper, carried a comment piece headlined: "President is beginning to look out of his depth".

It's too early to make that call, but I'm starting to get worried.

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Timothy Birdnow

When I was in high school I used to attend professional wrestling matches fairly frequently. A friend`s father worked for the athletic commission in St. Louis, and he got free tickets to the matches at Kiel Auditorium on Saturday nights, and, since I attended an all boys school, I was never burdened with the chores of dating, meaning I had Saturdays free unless there was a football game or other school event.  And these were not just any tickets; no mezzanine, no nosebleed, no sir! These were front row, and by front row I mean nothing but air between us and the canvas. Now I was not a huge fan of wrestling, but how could you not be when you could heckle the wrestlers and they would yell at you to shut up (I did that to Dick the Bruiser once, and he turned a stare my way that froze me in my seat and ordered me to shut up, to which I meekly replied "yes sir" and remained silent the rest of the match). 

In those days St. Louis was the waning capital of professional wrestling. Sam Muchnick, legendary promoter of the National Wrestling Association, was semi-retired and the announcer for Wrestling at the Chase (filmed at the glitzy Chase Park Plaza hotel) was taking over the business. Wrestling was and is as fake as Lee Nails, or half of the breasts in Hollywood, but the Muchnick style tried to maintain some sense of realism. Larry Matysick, the man who took over for Muchnick, tried to keep this sense, but the WWWF was emerging with it`s extreme showmanship, morality plays, and colorful characters, and there was no attempt at realism - and Americans loved it!  The St. Louis style of wrestling appeared increasingly bland, and Ted Turner in Georgia helped shift the center of wrestling to the southern states, where people ate up the ridiculousness of the new showmanship.

Why not? Everyone knew it was fake anyway. The WWWF (then wwf, dropping wide from the world wide wrestling Federation, now WWE) stopped any pretense of legitimacy.

But the old style pro wrestling was fake, and anyone who saw it in person and up close as I did could see the cues the wrestlers used to communicate, and could see the wrestlers break the little capsules that made it look like they were bleeding. The pulled punches were covered by looks of pain on the recipient`s part, and you could see them stomp their feet as they punched to make a sound. And the rules were never enforced, the referee wagging his finger and counting to ten while the assailant pummeled the victim into insensibility, then stopped at 9 only to resume immediately again with the impotent ref starting his count back at one. No legal sport can allow such lawlessness.  

But once in a while it turned serious; the way to tell was when the uniformed police bolted for the ring. Pro wrestling was dangerous, and pro wrestlers were very, very strong and very, very large, and occasionally tempers flared.

Pro wrestling was always based on a morality play, and the bad guy wrestlers were frequently charicatures of stereotypes everyone hates; you had Baron Von Rasche whose home was simply listed as Germany and who played the role of Wehrmacht warrior under the Nazis perfectly, although he hailed from Omaha Nebraska. You had Lord Alfred Hayes, tapping into America`s deep-seated distaste for British nobility. You had a string of outlandish characters, each vying with the others for something to let them stand out, each hoping that the powers within the NWA would decide they were first rankers and maybe even give them the championship.

It hit me this morning that professional wrestling is quite reminiscent of our government these days.

Last night I had a dream that I challenged Barack Obama to a debate, and he accepted. He began his drivel about fostering competition with a public option, and I countered with this analogy:

"There have been many contests between professional wrestlers and boxers over the years, and they usually last a fair number of rounds because the promotors want to give the public their money`s worth. Certainly Muhammed Ali "fought" 15 <a href=http://www.mmbolding.com/Heavyweights/Boxer_vs._Wrestler_Ali.htm>dreadfully dull rounds</a> against a Japanese opponent - Antonio Inoki - , and could not knock this pseudo-athlete out despite the rules being set to favor boxers. (Holding, karate chops, hitting while down, were all banned.) If professional wrestling rules were used the match would be very short; the boxer, encumbered by his gloves and mouthpiece, would have to score a one-punch knockout to win, lest the heavy wall of muscle that is the wrestler grab him, throw him to the mat, and pummel him into insensibility.

Now, imagine if you took a top wrestler in prime form, a man who is 6'9, 295 lbs, in peak physical condition, and matched him against a female in the mini flyweight class (105 lbs or less). The female boxer is required to wear gloves, a mouthpiece, and headgear and has AAU rules imposed upon her but NOT on the wrestler, who is free to follow the rules imposed by the WWF. Each has a different referee who is enforcing those rules, brought in from their respective associations. They are told in pre-fight instructions that competition is important, and that they should fight as hard as possible. Oh, and the wrestler is provided with brass knuckles and a billy club.

Who is going to win? It will be a bloodbath, not a fight.

The "competition" between a public and private health system would be even more lopsided.

When I awoke I pondered this, and realized that the pro-wrestling analogy goes much further; in fact, it goes to the root of our political system. 

American politics is theatre, as surely as the spectacles of the WWF.  It`s also largely rigged, by the media, by the insider politics that seeks to establish itself in perpetuity, by lobbyists and big money interests. There is generally a morality play, one that is ever changing but always the same, with the same arguments being recycled over different issues. Oh, the parties make a great show of it, pretending to go for the jugular. They body slam, pile drive, drop kick, but in the end too many in both parties are content to follow the script as it has been handed down. The punches and kicks look real, but are pulled short at the last.

There was a great line in the movie "Rockie"; the slow-witted but tough kid from Philadelphia was fighting to win, and champion Apollo Creed`s manager yelled at his pugilist "he doesn`t know this is a damn show, he thinks this is a damn fight". That line makes me think of Sarah Palin; both parties hate her because she didn`t know her job was to look pretty and pretend to be relevant. She thought it was a fight.She either didn`t get the script, or decided to ignore it, and so she has  been attacked unmercifully. It`s as though a professional wrestler decided to actually wrestle and not pretend. 

Obama is The Natureboy Rick Flair of modern American politics; a glittering jewel of arrogance who reads the script better than anyone else. He dances, he prances, he plays his assigned role perfectly, and was rewarded by the commission with the big prize, the world title. The only difference is Obama was given the role of good guy wrestler, while Flair tends to play bad guy. Little matter; they are both frauds. Both reached the top of their professions by reading a script, and sticking to it. Obama happened to have a teleprompter...
 

Now, I`m not saying that all people in politics are part of the show, or that it is centrally orchestrated, but there is an inside clique of both Democrats and Republicans who make politics a show for public consumption, who pretend acrimony and dissent but who are happy with whatever outcome may befall them as long as they stay in office. Just look at Arlen Specter; he would sell his soul for another month as Senator. McCain has a lot of that, too.  The fundamental driving force is liberal inside the beltway, with leftists having gotten control of the more intangibles in Washington; the social scene, the beaurocracy, the seemingly mundane aspects of the machine of state. Oppose this at your peril! Far easier to join the party, suck up the benefits of being one of the elite and don`t make waves. Check your principles at the door and make a good show of things. Remember, this is a morality play, something designed to make the public think their viewpoints are important.

And Americans eat this up. Although many claim to despise the hyper-partisanship of today, they nonetheless continue to elect - and re-elect - the most hyper partisan of politicians. This is akin to Roman Circuses or gladiator contests, only in the arena of government. People say they don`t like all the bickering, but they also say they don`t like gossip but somebody sure as H E double hockey sticks is supporting both. Political acrimony is America`s national sport; it`s pro-wrestling in suit and tie.

But pro wrestlers entertain us for an hour and then leave our lives; the spoils of political battle invade every nook and cranny of our existence.

I think it is important that we understand this if we are ever to affect change. Many Republicans believe this canard that the public does not like all the bickering, which plays into the hands of those most likely to attack. We need to take a cue from the WWF, or at least the NWA, and understand that this is as much showmanship, as much morality play, as it is anything, and act accordingly. We need people who will articulate, will fight. Rush Limbaugh, for all of his serious intellect, understands this intuitively, and has created the largest radio show in the world by being aggressive, humorous, interesting, and combative.
That he presents a logical worldview and serious mind is unarguable, but it is the way he goes about it that makes him such a success. The RINOs either do not understand this, or, more likely, are happy to follow the script given to them to maintain their personal priviledge; they are the deadheads in the ring to make the top names shine, and they will have their minutes in the spotlight if they follow the script and fall down when told.

So, whenever we see debate on a topic that seems one-sided, remember that the script calls for this. The only way it will change is if we bring in new blood, people unwilling to follow the script. Sarah Palin is one such. With the tea parties and spontaneous popular uprisings, we will see more.

Ted Turner started his own wrestling league when he wanted one; perhaps it`s time for us to do likewise?

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Jack Kemp (not the late politician)

this is a great article.
 
Jack
 
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/acorn_and_the_ags.html
 
September 23, 2009
ACORN and the AGs
By Mark J. Fitzgibbons

 
ACORN being called a criminal enterprise.  Despite years of warning signs that ACORN was violating the law, many state attorneys general have not investigated the organization or brought enforcement actions. State attorneys general, besides being the chief enforcement officers for violations of state laws, claim unique law enforcement authority over nonprofits.

The reasons for inaction by state attorneys general may explain why ACORN is such a problem. ACORN has developed close ties, to put it mildly, with many state attorneys general as well as others deep in the Democrat establishment. The relationship between ACORN and Democrats may be described as symbiotic.

Democrats have not only provided taxpayer money to ACORN, but have benefited from ACORN's endorsements, its other election-related activities such as get-out-the-vote, and even its litigation on behalf of leftwing policies. ACORN actually considers itself a "partner" with liberal big government on many matters ranging from the United States Census to programs run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

State and local politics, of course, act as feeders for national politicians. Steve Malanga's excellent book, The New New Left explains how ACORN, various unions and other leftwing causes have come to dominate politics in some cities and states, and have relied largely on taxpayer money and ties to Democrat politicians to do so.

The position of state attorney general has become a particularly big feeder, and we see many national politicians who are former state AGs. This begs the question: where ACORN has been violating laws, was it doing so with the imprimatur if not outright assistance of Democrat attorneys general, who seek to curry favor with the Democratic establishment?

That brings us to the importance of ACORN's first scorecard of attorneys general, issued in 2008, "Attorneys General Take Action: Real Leadership in Fighting Foreclosures." The 18-page report and scorecard describes attorneys' general active involvement with ACORN's policy goals on housing.

ACORN graded attorneys general on their efforts to help ACORN's agenda. The issues ranged from supporting federal legislation introduced by such luminaries in the nation's mortgage debacle as Connecticut's Senator Chris Dodd, to using taxpayer money in support of ACORN's litigation and other efforts. The report has pictures and special mention of six attorneys general who received A+ from ACORN.

ACORN's legal efforts have been described as "essentially extort[ing] money from banks."  Some of those efforts appear to have more than just a casual link to the subprime mortgage crisis. That of course raises the question of whether Democrat attorneys general have been complicit in ACORN's questionable, unlawful and harmful activities.

Did ACORN's Democrat Ties Retard Law Enforcement?

ACORN has received tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding from the federal and state governments. That, itself, raises a host of issues, including opportunities for political corruption on the taxpayers' dime. The ACORN scorecard of attorneys general is an example of taxpayer money being used for what are essentially endorsements of Democrat attorneys general.

An important question that must be asked is, did the ties between ACORN and Democrat attorneys general retard law enforcement? Since attorneys general should have been the frontline of law enforcement against ACORN, but most have already demonstrated an unwillingness to do that job, why should anyone believe at this juncture those AGs will conduct themselves more effectively going forward?

A thorough, professional investigation of ACORN could expose more serious problems linking ACORN and the Democrat establishment.

Weaker investigations, obviously, would benefit and even protect Democrats. Most Democrat attorneys general have ambitions for higher standing within their Party, and will likely not pursue thorough investigations that could hurt their own careers.

Before Democrat attorneys general take up, or are asked to take up, any involvement with investigating ACORN, the attorneys general themselves must answer some tough questions. It is conceivable some AGs could eventually be witnesses in, or subject to, investigations themselves.

Already, though, Republicans at the state level, without demanding answers from attorneys general first, have asked some of ACORN's highest-graded attorneys general to investigate the organization.

ACORN's favorite Democratic attorneys general who have been asked by Republicans to investigate ACORN include: California's Gerry Brown (A), Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal (A+), Georgia's Thurbert Baker (A), Illinois' Lisa Madigan (A+) and Maryland's Doug Gansler (A). Why are Republicans willing to put foxes in the hen house?

Did ‘Spitzerism' Make ACORN Bigger?
Liberal writer Noam Scheiber coined the term "Spitzerism" to describe how now-disgraced Eliot Spitzer used attorney general investigative and litigation powers to bully banks and other corporate institutions. Mr. Spitzer also wielded his power to aid and promote favored liberal causes and entities.

Spitzer's methods encouraged copycat attorneys general, who saw how using (or abusing) the office of attorney general gave them power and special influence within the Democratic Party.  Instead of fighting Spitzerism, businesses too often lobbied or cowered, often increasing political contributions in state races.  Mr. Scheiber wrote, "[Spitzerism] tapped into a ‘political goldmine' and could ‘help lead the Democrats out of the political wilderness.'"

Mr. Spitzer and ACORN shared a favorite target: banks. (As the old quip about bank robbers goes, "That's where the money is.") Spitzerism was employed to force commercial entities to partner with the Democrat support system. ACORN eventually was "partnered" with CitiMortgage, Bank of America, First American Title Insurance Company, and Fannie Mae.

The list of contributors  to the Democratic Attorneys General Association ("DAGA") indicates how seriously the mortgage industry takes the threat of Spitzerism even in the absence of Eliot Spitzer himself.

Mr. Spitzer's successor, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, is one of ACORN's A+ attorneys general.

(Parenthetically: As former secretary of HUD, Mr. Cuomo was successor to another disgraced Democrat, Henry Cisneros. Mr. Cisneros has shown that one ACORN specialty, low-income housing, can be lucrative and influential. Named in 2006 as one of the 50 most influential people in home building, Mr. Cisneros had ties to ACORN when he ran HUD. ACORN's materials describe how:

Democratic control of the federal government meant that ACORN had increased access to top officials with more sympathetic ears. ACORN members began regular meetings with Henry Cisneros, HUD Secretary under President Clinton, on a variety of issues. ACORN organizing began to include more tenant groups under the ACORN Tenant Union (ATU), and Cisneros was increasingly helpful.

Mr. Cisneros maintained ties to ACORN after leaving HUD under a cloud. As the mainstream media put it, he most recently "accepted a request" to serve on a six-member advisor board for ACORN. That board has already been subject to ridicule for conflicts of interest and such.)

Mr. Cuomo has a conflict with any ACORN investigation. And Mr. Cuomo's predecessor as AG, Eliot Spitzer, is a prime example of how Democratic attorney generals have used their powers selectively to advance the Democratic agenda, which includes aiding ACORN.

Whether the situation with ACORN will and can expose a vast network of corruption, use of taxpayer money to promote the Democratic Party, and retarded law enforcement, depends on who's looking into it. The ACORN scorecard of state attorneys general should be used, at a minimum, to show which AGs have a conflict in any ACORN investigation.

ACORN's scorecard may even disqualify some AGs. As a starting point of which AGs themselves should be held accountable, attorneys general should be required to disclose, under penalties of perjury, their ties to ACORN, why they did not act sooner, and who may have urged them to lay off ACORN.

Whether partners or puppets, enablers or abettors, some if not many Democratic state attorneys general appear to be involved even tangentially with, or know of, ACORN's questionable activities, if not systemic corruption. Whatever role other Democratic politicians played in ACORN, the attorney general issue presents unique challenges that must be resolved before investigations of ACORN may be considered credible and complete.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Dana Mathewson

VDH explains, clearly, why things are being done the way they are in the Obama administration -- and why, I believe, they are destined to fail (though he doesn't say that).

 http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTA4OWRmZTM3MmQwNzJlZWMyMDc4MTY1ZGE5NWMzODM=

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Our east coast editor Jack Kemp has a response to Barack Obama's accusation that the Israeli settlements are "illligitimate" at American Thinker:

 
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/putting_brothers_keeper_issues.html
 
September 23, 2009
Putting 'brother’s keeper' issues in a new light
Jack Kemp
After hearing Obama state at the U. N. that Israel's settlements are not legitimate, I believe the time has come for Israel to call out Obama's worldview versus theirs.

We know that Obama's step brother lives in a hut in Kenya on ten dollars a year.

In reply to the Biblical question "Am I my Brother's Keeper?",

I propose that the Israeli government offer to move George Obama from his Kenyan hut to a newly constructed settlement building in Judea or Samaria and give him a job. Whether George will accept this offer is debatable, but the offer should be made, nonetheless.

It is time to let the world see the contrast between Barack Obama's values and those of the Bible and the State of Israel.

In its sixty year history, Israel has taken in impoverished refugees from Europe, the Arab countries, Ethiopia (Falashas, the Black Jews) and the rest of the world. Let's highlight how their actions compare to those of Barack Obama's.

In an analogy that becomes more appropo day by day, one of Hitler's first moves against the Jews, he banned mikvas, Jewish ritual baths, creating a situation where observant Jewish women could not procreate, in good conscience. Now Obama wants to delegitimize creating places where Jews can house their new children in Judea and Samaria. Perhaps Obama thinks these new children and their families can move into tin huts like Obama's step brother lives in.

It is time to emphatically and dramaticly make the Biblical and decent case against Obama's worldview on the world stage.

Does any other country believe, after hearing Obama trash commitments to -- in succession -- Honduras, Poland, The Czech Republic, Israel that commitments to their security and national sovereignty will be next on the list to disavow?

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