Arrogant elites

There's nothing new in America about the mutual suspicion or incomprehension of city slickers and country bumpkins, says Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University journalism professor and sociologist.

Gitlin points out that you do not have to venture outside urban America to find similar divisions within cities themselves. “There are millions of people in the New York metropolitan area to whom the New York Times speaks a foreign (and alien) language, who don't feel represented by its tone, who even feel outraged by it, seeing it as relaying an insider conversation and dissing outsiders,” he said.

A lethal combination of distrust and apprehension is escalating not only with the media but with the government it covers. Part of the problem is the perception beyond the beltway that the media actually made Barack Obama president. Evidence of that lies in the outrage voiced in town-hall meetings and tea-party demonstrations during this summer’s congressional recess. The body of coverage was tilted to highlight the small percentage of extreme attendees, and media elites and former president Jimmy Carter labeled as “racists” those who disagreed with the president.

Main Street Americans are baffled by these political elites’ perception of them.

The point must be made that this is not a Democrats-specific problem. Former President Bill Clinton and his original communications team (including George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, James Carville) understood Middle America, conservative strategist Jordan Sekulow says. “Instead of isolating middle-of-the-road Americans, who pay attention to the news but don’t live and die with the politics of the day, they made them insiders,” Sekulow explained.

The Obama administration almost appears to be forgetting blue-collar Americans who have been the Democrats’ political backbone. The administration still caters to labor leaders, but they don’t dictate policy or wield the same power they once did. If they did, the health-care bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee would be to their liking and the Employee Free-Choice Act – card check – would have been enacted months ago. “The culture has been cutting-loose (from) elites, or those it perceives as elites, for decades now,” said Columbia’s Gitlin, a 1960s political activist.

CNN’s King sees significant anxiety and fear among the people he visits in diners across the country. “Listening to them,” he explains, not to political talking-points, helps him to speak for Americans when he interviews anyone, from congressmen to the president.

Ironically, the nation’s elites probably are more aware of the resentment against them because the country is tighter-knit than before and there aren't too many hiding places, Gitlin says. Yet they tend to remain clueless as to why anyone would resent them.

The anti-elitists, who know the world isn't going their way, are holding onto their theories for dear life.

SOURCE

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Does Obama Believe in Human Rights?

Not if you go by deeds rather than words

Nobody should get too hung up over President Obama's decision, reported by Der Spiegel over the weekend, to cancel plans to attend next month's 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Germany's reunited capital has already served his purposes; why should he serve its?

To this day, the fall of the Berlin Wall on the night of Nov. 9, 1989, remains a high-water mark in the march of human freedom. It's a march to which candidate Obama paid rich (if solipsistic) tribute in last year's big Berlin speech. "At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning—his dream—required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West," waxed Mr. Obama to the assembled thousands. "This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom." Those were the words. What's been the record?

China: In February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Beijing with a conciliating message about the country's human-rights record. "Our pressing on those [human-rights] issues can't interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis," she said.

In fact, there has been no pressing whatsoever on human rights. President Obama refused to meet with the Dalai Lama last month, presumably so as not to ruffle feathers with the people who will now be financing his debts. In June, Liu Xiaobo, a leading signatory of the pro-democracy Charter 08 movement, was charged with "inciting subversion of state power." But as a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Beijing admitted to the Journal, "neither the White House nor Secretary Clinton have made any public comments on Liu Xiaobo."

Sudan: In 2008, candidate Obama issued a statement insisting that "there must be real pressure placed on the Sudanese government. We know from past experience that it will take a great deal to get them to do the right thing. . . . The U.N. Security Council should impose tough sanctions on the Khartoum government immediately."

Exactly right. So what should Mr. Obama do as president? Yesterday, the State Department rolled out its new policy toward Sudan, based on "a menu of incentives and disincentives" for the genocidal Sudanese government of Omar Bashir. It's the kind of menu Mr. Bashir will languidly pick his way through till he dies comfortably in his bed.

Iran: Mr. Obama's week-long silence on Iran's "internal affairs" following June's fraudulent re-election was widely noted. Not so widely noted are the administration's attempts to put maximum distance between itself and human-rights groups working the Iran beat.

Earlier this year, the State Department denied a grant request for New Haven, Conn.-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The Center maintains perhaps the most extensive record anywhere of Iran's 30-year history of brutality. The grant denial was part of a pattern: The administration also abruptly ended funding for Freedom House's Gozaar project, an online Farsi- and English-language forum for discussing political issues.

It's easy to see why Tehran would want these groups de-funded and shut down. But why should the administration, except as a form of pre-emptive appeasement?

Burma: In July, Mr. Obama renewed sanctions on Burma. In August, he called the conviction of opposition leader (and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner) Aung San Suu Kyi a violation of "the universal principle of human rights."

Yet as with Sudan, the administration's new policy is "engagement," on the theory that sanctions haven't worked. Maybe so. But what evidence is there that engagement will fare any better? In May 2008, the Burmese junta prevented delivery of humanitarian aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis. Some 150,000 people died in plain view of "world opinion," in what amounted to a policy of forced starvation.

Leave aside the nausea factor of dealing with the authors of that policy. The real question is what good purpose can possibly be served in negotiations that the junta will pursue only (and exactly) to the extent it believes will strengthen its grip on power. It takes a remarkable presumption of good faith, or perhaps stupidity, to imagine that the Burmas or Sudans of the world would reciprocate Mr. Obama's engagement except to seek their own advantage.

It also takes a remarkable degree of cynicism—or perhaps cowardice—to treat human rights as something that "interferes" with America's purposes in the world, rather than as the very thing that ought to define them. Yet that is exactly the record of Mr. Obama's time thus far in office.

In Massachusetts not long ago, I found myself driving behind a car with "Free Tibet," "Save Darfur," and "Obama 08" bumper stickers. I wonder if it will ever dawn on the owner of that car that at least one of those stickers doesn't belong.

SOURCE

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GOP Congresscritters losing touch with the grassroots

For decades, political observers have watched with fascination the battle raging inside the Republican Party. Whether the contest has been between Sen. Robert Taft and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, between Barry Goldwater and Nelson A. Rockefeller, or Ronald Reagan and Gerald R. Ford, the battle has always been viewed as a fight between "conservatives" and so-called "moderates."

However, as recent events reveal, such a formulation misses the point. In fact, the real battle being waged is between Washington insiders - as represented by the congressional wing of the Republican Party - and grass-roots Americans from all walks of life throughout the country.

The actual events that prompted this observation were hardly anything of consequence. The gadfly, wannabe "cool" chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, issued a policy statement titled a "Health Care Bill of Rights." Within days, Senate Republicans led by Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander lashed out at Mr. Steele, intoning, "We are elected to set the policy."

And that, in a nutshell, points up the real fight being waged in Washington today. The congressional wing has grown alienated from the very people who sent them to Washington.

You see expressions of this almost every day. Just last weekend, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham held a town-hall meeting where he ran headlong into opposition for his love of compromise. When pressed by the crowd, Mr. Graham had advice for the grass roots. He replied to a critic of his many liberal positions, "If you don't like it, you can leave." That may be exactly what is happening.

In a special election to fill a vacancy in New York's 23rd Congressional District, insiders and lackeys of the congressional wing selected a liberal assemblywoman who supports President Obama more than the Democratic candidate, is radical on most social issues and is tied by marriage to the AFL-CIO.

Local activists refused to accept such a candidate, so the Conservative Party mounted a challenger. As of this writing, the Conservative candidate, Doug Hoffman, is rising rapidly in the polls as the Republican sinks toward single-digit support. The real Republican Party finally is rising up against the self-appointed mandarins of the congressional wing.

New York 23 is not an isolated case. In Virginia's 5th Congressional District, a solid conservative, Bradley Rees, has publicly announced he will run as an Independent next year if the D.C. power brokers select a liberal challenger to freshman Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello. Again, grass-roots activists are rising up to tell the congressional wing to either get on board or get run over.

The response coming back from the congressional wing is invariably the same: They do what they want to do, not what the people who sent them to Washington want them to do. You and I are irrelevant.

Well, that is what has gotten us into this mess.

That attitude has allowed the culture of corruption to flourish regardless of which party is in power. It is this arrogant disrespect for citizens that has led us to the brink of financial ruin.

So, with all due respect to Mr. Alexander: Phooey! You and your cohorts were sent to Washington to represent the views of the people back home. You were given the task of implementing the ideas and policy positions embedded in the platform. And, you were sent to Congress to serve, not dictate.

The millions of Americans who have from time to time put their faith in one party or the other are starting to awaken. They will no longer sit by silently and take whatever scrap is thrown their way. They increasingly are taking Mr. Graham's advice - they are leaving.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Zogby Interactive: Obama Job Approval Falls Back to 49%: "President Barack Obama's job performance rating has fallen slightly to 49% in the most recent Zogby Interactive survey, slipping below the majority job approval mark of 52% he enjoyed late last month. The Zogby Interactive survey of 3,694 likely voters nationwide found 49% approving of Obama's job performance, 51% disapproving and 1% undecided. The survey was conducted Oct. 16-19, 2009, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.6 percentage points. A Sept. 28 Zogby Interactive survey was the first time since early June that President Barack Obama's job performance received majority approval in a Zogby Interactive poll of likely voters."

RINO calls cops on reporter who asked her about Card Check: "John McCormack is a reporter working for The Weekly Standard. Dede Scozzafava is the extremely liberal New York Assemblywoman running as a Republican to succeed Rep. John McHugh from the Empire State's 23rd congressional district in the upcoming special election. Scozzafava was speaking at a GOP dinner Monday evening. McCormack was reporting on Scozzafava's campaign, including her recent pledge to the AFL-CIO to support Big Labor's top legislative objective, the Card Check proposal - currently stalled in Congress - to abolish the secret ballot in workplace representation elections. Scozzafava apparently didn't appreciate being asked about her support of Card Check because after she left and McCormack went to his laptop to file a report on the evening's event, the police showed up.

Top NYC cop back in jail: "Bernard Kerik, New York City’s disgraced former police commissioner, went to jail Tuesday after a judge revoked his bail for disclosing sealed trial information that could poison his upcoming corruption trial. Robinson revoked Kerik’s $500,000 bail following a hearing that lasted more than three hours regarding confidential trial information that Kerik disclosed to the trustee of his legal defense fund, who in turn released it to The Washington Times. The newspaper did not publish the information. Kerik’s attorney, Barry Berke, argued that the trustee was part of Kerik’s legal team and therefore was allowed to see the information. But Robinson, who had warned Kerik last month that he would be jailed for similar behavior, said he did not believe Kerik and delivered a stern rebuke.”

SCOTUS reins in cops: "The US Supreme Court has let stand a ruling in Virginia that police officers must personally observe erratic driving before stopping a suspected drunken driver. On Tuesday, the high court declined to take up an appeal involving a Richmond motorist who was pulled over by a police officer based on an anonymous tip that he was driving under the influence of alcohol. The issue in the case, Virginia v. Harris, was whether the officer was justified in confronting the driver with a roadside sobriety test, or whether he should have waited until Harris’ driving gave rise to a reasonable suspicion of drunk driving independent of the anonymous tip.”

Alienated and radicalized: "Comes now, the ‘Oath Keepers.’ And who might they be? Writes Alan Maimon in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are ‘either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia.’ Formed in March, they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. If the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate Second Amendment rights by disarming the people, Oath Keepers will not obey. ‘The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here,’ says founding father Stewart Rhodes, an ex-Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer. ‘My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can’t do it without them. We say if the American people decide it’s time for a revolution, we’ll fight with you.’"

Some competition in Britain at last?: "Airport operator BAA has agreed to sell Gatwick, Britain's second busiest airport, for 1.5 billion pounds (2.5 billion US dollars, 1.6 billion euros), the Financial Times reported. Citing people familiar with the matter, the FT reported on its website that the deal with Global Infrastructure Partners, which already own London City Airport, will likely be announced before markets open on Wednesday. The Competition Commission approved details of the sale late Tuesday, it said. In August last year, British regulators called for BAA to sell three of its seven airports in Britain -- two in London and one in Scotland -- in order to end a dominance they said hurts both passengers and airlines."

Church of England to lose some of its real Christians to Rome: "The Roman Catholic Church today moved to poach thousands of traditional Anglicans who are dismayed by growing acceptance of gays and women priests and bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams admitted that he had been caught out after Pope Benedict XVI announced a new “Apostolic Constitution” to provide a legal framework for the many thousands of Anglicans and former Anglicans who wish “to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church”. The announcement paves the way for thousands of Anglicans worldwide to join the Roman Catholic church while maintaining elements of their own spiritual heritage. The constitution, a canonical structure, will provide “personal ordinariates” that will allow Anglicans to “set up church” within the Catholic church while retaining elements of their former ecclesiastical identity, such as Anglican liturgies and vestments. Traditionalists, including up to six Church of England bishops, had visited and pleaded with Rome to provide some sort of structure inside the Catholic Church for their wing of the Church of England because of liberal moves towards women bishops and gay ordinations."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Racist and anti-democratic mandate by Obama's Justice Dept.

KINSTON, N.C. -- Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.

The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want.

Several federal and local politicians would like the city to challenge the decision in court. They say voter apathy is the largest barrier to black voters' election of candidates they prefer and that the Justice Department has gone too far in trying to influence election results here. Stephen LaRoque, a former Republican state lawmaker who led the drive to end partisan local elections, called the Justice Department's decision "racial as well as partisan." "On top of that, you have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., overturning a valid election," he said. "That is un-American."

The decision, made by the same Justice official who ordered the dismissal of a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, has irritated other locals as well. They bristle at federal interference in this city of nearly 23,000 people, two-thirds of whom are black.

In interviews in sleepy downtown Kinston - a place best known as a road sign on the way to the Carolina beaches - residents said partisan voting is largely unimportant because people are personally acquainted with their elected officials and are familiar with their views.

More here

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The State of Joblessness

The tragedy of Jennifer Granholm's Michigan

State lawmakers will soon face large budget deficits again, perhaps as much as $100 billion across the U.S. Here's some free budget-balancing advice: Steer clear of the Michigan model. The Wolverine state is once again set to run out of money, and it is once again poised to raise taxes even as jobs and businesses disappear.

In 2007 Governor Jennifer Granholm signed the biggest tax increase in Michigan history, with most of the $1.4 billion coming from business. The personal income tax—which hits nonincorporated small businesses—was raised to 4.2% from 3.95%, and the Michigan business tax levied a surcharge of 22%. The tax money was dedicated to the likes of education, public works, job retraining and corporate subsidies. Ms. Granholm and her union allies called these "investments," and the exercise was widely applauded as a prototype of "progressive" budgeting.

Some prototype. Every state has seen a big jump in joblessness since 2007, but with a 15.2% unemployment rate Michigan's jobs picture is by far the worst. Some 750,000 private-sector payroll jobs have vanished since the start of the decade. For every family that has moved into Michigan since 2007, two have sold their homes and left.

Meanwhile, the new business taxes didn't balance the budget. Instead, thanks to business closures and relocations, tax receipts are running nearly $1 billion below projections and the deficit has climbed back to $2.8 billion. As the Detroit News put it, Michigan businesses are continually asked "to pay more in taxes to erase a budget deficit that, despite their contributions, never goes away." And this is despite the flood of federal stimulus and auto bailout cash over the last year.

More here

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Is Obama Turning the USA into the Next Evil Empire?



When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" in 1983, he was articulating in the boldest terms what had always been an American understanding. The Kremlin had long been fomenting communist revolution the world over, and we had long pursued our policy of "containment."

Thus did we fight wars in Korea and Vietnam, facilitate coups d'état against people such as Salvador Allende and support anti-communist rebels such as the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Of course, plans didn't always come together. There was the Bay of Pigs debacle, and the covert Iran-Contra operation getting front-page exposure. The "police action" in Korea ended in a stalemate and Vietnam just became stale, losing the public and political support necessary for victory.

Many also questioned the wisdom and even the legality of some of these foreign interventions, and other people, often for ignoble reasons, refused to wrap their minds around the fact that there is such a thing as the lesser of two evils and that it is virtually always the anti-communist option. As for any mistakes or moral lapses -- which ever plague endeavors of mortal design -- for now I'll just steal a concept from Otto von Bismarck and say that sometimes foreign policy is like sausage, in that it may look good when it's served, but you wouldn't want to be there when it's made. Other times, though, viewing it in its totality is like being presented with whole octopus. The only way it can be stomached is if you keep your eyes closed.

But although the dishes did vary, American presidents had always served the same cuisine. John Kennedy didn't flinch during the Cuban missile crisis, and, although he stumbled dreadfully, at least could contemplate a Bay of Pigs. Lyndon Johnson might have had a dark heart, but he certainly seemed to have it in opposing the Viet Cong guerrillas. Even Jimmy Carter, the poster-boy for peanut policy and appeasement, signed an order approving aid for the mujahedeen. But now, finally, we may have turned a corner.

Barack Obama's support for the Honduran ex-president who would be king, Manuel Zelaya, is without American precedent. Zelaya is Hugo Chavez' mini-me, as he, like the vitriolic Venezuelan, sought to subvert his nation's constitution and extend and expand his power. And of this there is no doubt. The Honduran constitution prohibits a president from serving more than one term, and Zelaya, aided and abetted by Chavez and a mob of thugs, was using illegal methods to circumvent the prohibition. This is why Honduras' supreme court ruled against him; it's why he was opposed by the nation's congress, the majority of its people and the Catholic Church. It's why Zelaya was removed from office.

In taking the wrong side, Obama has turned what could have been a temporary crisis into a protracted one, a situation that could devolve into bloody civil war. And what's so tragic is that supporting the interim government of Roberto Micheletti likely would have diffused the situation and yielded long-term stability. After all, there was no reason to think that Honduran authorities who enforced the law in removing Zelaya would depart from this and not hold the planned November elections. As for Micheletti, he is from Zelaya's own Liberal Party and shows no strongman tendencies. So what is the bottom line? It's plain that Honduras was bucking the banana-republic stereotype in upholding the rule of law. And now Obama is giving us banana-republic foreign policy in promoting the rule of the lawless.

More HERE

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Shut Up, They Explained

The administration's war against Fox News has reached something of a low point: "[White House Communications Director Anita] Dunn also criticized Fox's Chris Wallace for referring to the administration as filled with "crybabies." ("We kept ourselves from ... responding, 'I am rubber, you are glue,'" Dunn said)".

Of course, if she had actually "kept herself from responding" with that elementary-school riposte, she wouldn't have responded with it. Sort of like if I were to keep myself from pointing out that Dunn is an ignorant Communist sympathizer.

The assault continued on this morning's news shows, with David Axelrod claiming that Fox is "not really a news station (sic)."

Actually, Fox is nowhere near as consistently pro-Republican as CNN is pro-Democratic, which is one reason it has a more bipartisan audience. As to MSNBC, of course, there is no comparison. And broadcast television is monolithically Democratic--NBC, CBS, ABC, the View, the Today show, Good Morning America, 60 Minutes--the list goes on and on.

One might wonder why the Obama administration is so outraged that a single network fails to toe its line. The administration acts as though it deserves a monopoly on the news. Isn't that unreasonable?

Maybe, except the fact is that the Democrats do need a monopoly. Their problem is that controlling almost all news outlets isn't quite enough, because without a complete monopoly, inconvenient news still gets out--ACORN, Van Jones, Anita Dunn, and so on. If it weren't for Fox, criticism of the Democrats wouldn't be illegal, it would just be nonexistent. Or invisible, anyway. Hence the administration's frustration.

While that frustration is easy to understand, it is a little hard to see what Obama hopes to gain by constant railing against Fox News. Presumably the Democrats don't seriously believe they can intimidate Sean Hannity et al. into shutting up. Maybe they think their attacks will damage Fox's credibility with the public, but most independents are so skeptical of government that the attacks are likely to boost Fox in their eyes.

Free speech--it's an inconvenience the Democrats haven't yet figured out a way to deal with.

SOURCE

Rupert is smiling: "FOX News has again been attacked by the White House, with Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, declaring the President did not want "the CNNs and others in the world" to be led by Fox. He told CNN yesterday that Mr Obama regarded the channel as providing not so much news as "a perspective". Mr Obama's chief adviser, David Axelrod, told ABC that programming at Fox - owned by News Corporation -- was geared towards making money. "It's not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming, it's really not news," he said. "It's pushing a point of view." Fox News's senior vice-president of news Michael Clemente said the White House had failed to distinguish between news and commentary. At Friday's annual general meeting, News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch told shareholders: "There were some strong remarks coming out of the White House about one or two of the commentators on Fox News ... it has tremendously increased their ratings."

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ELSEWHERE



Maoist in the White House: "Anita Dunn, is described by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as ‘one of the major decision makers of the Obama campaign’ and as one of Obama’s ‘four top advisers (along with David Axelrod, David Plouffe, and Robert Gibbs).’ She currently holds the position of ‘White House Communications Director.’ She is married to the President’s personal lawyer, Robert Bauer. In 2008, Newsweek named Dunn and Bauer the new ‘power couple’ in Washington, D.C. This last June, at a high-school commencement exercise, Dunn had this to say: the third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers Mao Tse-tung and Mother Teresa …”

White House boasts: We 'control' news media: "President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference. "Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn. "One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager. "We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said."

While Rupert Murdoch is looking forward to GROWING revenues .... : "The New York Times newspaper plans to cut 100 newsroom jobs by the end of the year through buyouts and might resort to layoffs as it reels from the advertising revenue drop endangering US newspapers. The news, delivered in a memo to employees by Times executive editor Bill Keller, came after the newspaper's workers already took a five per cent pay cut for most of this year and a similar program last year. "When we took our five per cent pay cuts, it was in the hope that this would fend off the need for more staff cuts this year," Mr Keller wrote. "But I accept that if it's going to happen, it should be done quickly. The Times posted the news on its website. It said the paper's news department had 1250 employees, down from 1330 at its peak. It added that no other US newspaper had more than about 750 journalists. The Times, which plans to report its third-quarter results on Thursday, has been dealing with declines in advertising and mounting debt that have forced it to slash costs and sell assets."

Backers of £3million prize rewarding good governance in Africa say they can't find anyone to give it to this year: "The backers of a $5 million prize celebrating good governance in Africa said Monday they cannot find anyone to award this year. Sir Ketumile Masire, former president of Botswana, said the committee could not select a winner for the prize, which aims to recognise African leadership that will improve the prospects of people in the continent. Billed as the largest annually-awarded prize in the world, the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership consists of $5million (£3.1 million) over 10 years and $200,000 (£123,125) annually for life thereafter. Contenders include democratically-elected former African heads of state or government who have left office in the last three years. Sudanese mobile phone entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim set up the prize as part of his foundation designed to support good African leadership that will improve the prospects of people in Africa. But, announcing the decision in central London, he said: "This is an award for excellence. The jury meets and sets a bar somewhere. "There's no way for us to know the reasons behind the decision. It's tough." Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, was one of the members of the panel who made the decision."

Justice blocks names in gay rights ballot case: "Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has temporarily blocked Washington state officials from releasing the names of people who signed a ballot measure on gay rights. Kennedy’s ruling Monday temporarily blocks a federal appeals court ruling last week that ordered the release of the names. Kennedy said his order would remain in effect while he considers a request by a pro-marriage group that asked him to reverse the appeals court ruling.”

Cash for clubbers: "We thought cash for clunkers was the ultimate waste of taxpayer money, but as usual we were too optimistic. Thanks to the federal tax credit to buy high-mileage cars that was part of President Obama’s stimulus plan, Uncle Sam is now paying Americans to buy that great necessity of modern life, the golf cart. The federal credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states the tax credits can pay for nearly the entire cost of a golf cart.”

Judge KOs shelter kickback scheme: "Every time we turn around, it seems, we hear of an abuse shelter being accused of discrimination, fraud, or other head-shaking irregularities. And now a judge has ruled the entire abuse shelter industry in the state of West Virginia is wracked by conflict of interest, gender bias, and financial kickbacks. The menage a trois involves a government agency, a well-heeled trade organization, and 14 domestic violence shelters located around the state. Here’s how the scratch-your-back scheme works …”

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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A 21st century genocide under way

And the Leftist media avert their eyes. It appears to be the height of political incorrectness to mention the stuff below as you will not see it in any mainstream publication that I know of. Yet I have been to South Africa twice and could clearly see the way the tide was running on my last visit there under the new black regime. Just about all white South Africans that I know are desperate to escape the country or have escaped but getting accepted into another country is the problem. Talk to almost any white South African who has escaped and you will get confirmation of the account below. Even "liberals" who initially supported the new black-run government have now often voted with their feet. Famous South African novelist and opponent of apartheid, J.M. Coetzee, now lives in Australia, for instance -- JR

There is racial genocide of the South African Boers [whites of Dutch origin] taking place as I write and the Western media know all about it because they have agents and reporters there, but keep it from the outside world, presumably to allow it to go on.

It follows on from what was done to French Algerians, the Belgians of Congo, and the Portuguese of Angola and Mozambique, and what is happening in Zimbabwe. All these peoples were violently forced off lands which their ancestors had occupied for centuries. It was done with the encouragement of the US and British governments and made possible by finance taken from their own taxpayers for the purpose. What is behind this? It is what is now called Globalisation, which is a euphemism for the attempt to create a New World Order.

African-ruled countries are a variation on a theme of total corruption, and it is a matter of time before South Africa collapses. The 3.5 million Whites remaining might slow that process but the end result is inevitable and Western elites and journalists must take responsibility. The chaos on the railways is an indicator. Locos are not turning up at coal mines to collect fully-loaded trains, and the power stations are out for coal. The electricity generating plants are fast deteriorating and break down regularly, and the country has been plagued with power cuts for the last few years. The ANC is still dominated by members of the South African Communist Party, they are anti-white racists, and they have a vigorous land confiscation programme on the statute books. Farmers and their families are regularly murdered.

These things are little reported in the west because the liberal-left media fully support the ANC as they fully supported Mugabe in 1980 and thereafter and for the realities to be broadcast by our media would demonstrate the real facts of African rule and destroy the unrealistic ideology of racial equality that they desperately need to believe in else their whole falls and their lives have been wasted.

The dream was Mandela accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for all who have opposed racism. It was awarded to him, the ANC and all South Africa’s people. The reward was to be freedom and democracy in an open society which respected the rights of all individuals. This is the fantasy. What is the reality? Mass genocide of Boer farmers.

The genocide is happening on the farms where Boers are being murdered, but not just Boers, Indian farmers are also targeted; the targets are usually defenseless, especially old people.

The government does nothing to prevent attacks, so the farmers have begun to co-operate in mutual defence. That the Black government wants Boers harmed and driven from their land as indicated by their programmes to force Boers to sell their property to blacks. These programmes are to remove a huge percentage of white farmers and can give these farms to blacks.

At the beginning of the decade there were 40,000 White farmers in South Africa and there have been is 3,037 murdered in racial genocide and more than 20,000 armed attacks perpetrated by groups of militant, young Black racists on commercial farmers, since the ANC came to power in 1994. This is certainly higher as the South African government and police, with the world’s press keep it covered up. Boers are often tortured or raped first, by boiling water forced down their throats, tendons cut, burnings, personal humiliations - most perpetrators are protected by Blacks within government and the police and not tried. Now ask yourselves, gentle readers, when did you see this on television news or read about it in your quality newspaper?

The idealism that accompanied the birth of new South Africa has been destroyed by black rule yet the rainbow nation is still a fantasy to Western elites. They need to believe in it or face the reality that racial equality does not exist. The dream of truth and reconciliation and the deification of Nelson Mandela make it hard to accept that after whites gave way to Blacks the Boer minority would be subjected to racial genocide. Boers, you see, have not been sentimentalised, are not figures of sympathy but dehumanised as racists so their murder is not seen as important.

The SA government forbids the publishing of South African police crime statistics without their permission. Media crime reports are vetted by the police. The world’s media want to pretend the new government is responsible or face the fact that races are not equal on one hand; on the other, to keep the overseas aid for mineral rights deals quiet.

Interpol’s global murder figures for South Africa are about double the number of “recorded murders,” the farm murder rate is four times the official South African murder average. The world’s leading authority on genocide, Dr Gregory Stanton of “Genocide Watch”, stated how serious the Boer genocide is in his 2002 report.

SA Blacks, especially ANC youth, still sing the old ANC resistance song “Kill The Boer”. This shows their purpose. The Boer is just a farmer but the grudge goes on. Boers are honest, taciturn people work who hard with their hands. Their children consider leaving but have no country to return to. The “Kill The Boer” slogan has been ruled hate speech by the SA Human Rights Commission because it incites people to kill Afrikaners. But the ANC sing “shaya ma buru” at public meetings all over South Africa. The UN Genocide Convention declared that ruling regimes killing ethnic minorities is legally genocide and could be pursued in the International Criminal Court.

The new rulers have imposed racial quotas that deny work to most young Afrikaners, whether or not they have the right qualifications. Mbeki’s programme of Black Economic Empowerment is called “rectifying action” - Affirmative Action. Thousands of ANC civil servants give preferential treatment to blacks over whites and even browns. “Progress” plans are implemented, fines and other sanctions imposed. In most cases it’s an unqualified or illiterate black who gets the job. Whites are left with begging or emigration.

If the farmers are wiped-out the rest of South Africa and parts of southern Africa will be plunged into famine: as in Zimbabwe the Boer genocide may lead to the death of millions by starvation and outbreaks of Cholera.

Does anyone protest?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu criticised Black Economic Empowerment, but because it enriches such a small minority of already powerful blacks not because it impoverishes the white minority. His world-famous moral indignation does not stretch that far. People put themselves first when community spirit breaks down and Afrikaner intellectuals want to keep their own jobs so conform to the black apartheid system like the Judenräte under the Nazis. Those who criticise Black Economic Empowerment are de-humanised as racists. Yet, the government replacing 35,000 commercial South African farmers by blacks is more than imposing job quotas in industry and commerce. The farmers are landowners and have a special bond with their territory. The authorities are undermining that and the SAHRC has endorsed the withdrawal of commandos from rural areas to leave the Boers open to murder and banned the term “ farm attacks” from the SA Rural Protection Plan as it links the Boers to their land and makes clear what people are being targeted but these are now the more abstract “murders” which is vague and gives the impression that it could happen to anybody.

The Government is made an inventory of South Africa’s farmers by race to … "monitor the patterns of land ownership as it implements land reform, the deeds registration system would be improved to reflect nationality, race and gender of land owners".

There has been legislation to make it possible for the government to expropriate assets summarily without having to apply in advance to a court. The ANC is rewriting the South African Constitution but not stating what it's being replaced with.

In 1991 the White population of South Africa was 5.1 million however, as of 2007 the official White population of South Africa was its lowest of 4.2 million, even though millions of White refugees from other parts of Africa added to South Africa’s White population in recent years. Whites are persecuted and dispossessed for being White leaving them unable to afford council tax so they end up living in shanty huts in Black neighbourhoods which hate them because of their race. An example is the ‘Affirmative Action’ policy of the national school netball championships committee - teams which do not have enough Black children have points given to the opposing side before the game has started!

This could develop into full scale racial genocide and ethnic cleansing like in Zimbabwe and the Belgian Congo before it which was another of the richest Nations in Africa but is now war torn. The elites know the history but keep doing it to African countries.

The killings show savagery and brutality as most are tortured and die slowly and in agony yet in many of the murders, no property is stolen. This shows a savage, uncivilised hatred for fellow humans that we can not comprehend but the authorities and international media pass it off as “crime related” when it is racial genocide.

It will continue to deteriorate for Whites, especially poor ones as Jacob Zuma could be next President. He is openly racist, he has convictions for rape and embezzlement and he believes a shower can cure AIDS!

In 2006 there were 55,000 reported rapes in South Africa but official estimates are that another 450,000 rapes were not reported. Therefore, about 1,300 women can be expected to be raped every day. A study by Interpol, the international police agency, revealed that South Africa has the most rapes in the world - a women being raped every 17 seconds and this does not include the number of child rape victims.

Interpol estimated that one in every two women in South Africa would be raped. Raping children as a cure for AIDS is a vile practice. The Telegraph reported on 11 Nov 2001 that on an alleged rape of a nine-month-old baby girl by six men in a remote part of rural South Africa was part of an 80 per cent rise in child sexual abuse over a year, much of it connected with the Aids pandemic.

More than 67,000 cases of rape and sexual assaults against children were reported last year, compared with 37,500 in 1998. Some of the victims were only six- months-old. Many die from their injuries, others contract HIV. The largest increase in attacks has been against children under seven. There is a prevalent superstition that having sex with children cures Aids. Police said at least one of the men who raped the nine-month-old girl is HIV-positive. The baby has also been tested for the virus and given anti-retroviral drugs as a precaution.

What can we do? People can contact their democratic representatives and pressure them. They can write to the media. They can post on internet blogs and circulate the information round the net. They can point out that western elites are ignoring a genocide which they themselves brought about by forcing the change in governing class. They could demand motions be introduced in their respective parliaments urging the SA government not to abolish the SA rural Commando System and leave the Boers open to racial genocide for ideological reasons. They could demand that it be clear to the South African government that this genocide is now being publicised around the world, and call on them to condemn white ethnic cleansing and racial genocide of whites.

SOURCE (See the original for links)

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Hillary Clinton suffers from imaginitis again

Hillary Clinton has been caught out “mis-speaking” again in a manner that suggests that she hasn’t learnt from past experiences of her globe-trotting, “lily-gilding” speeches.

The US Secretary of State was exposed during her battle with Barack Obama to become the Democratic presidential nominee over her claims to have landed in Bosnia under sniper fire. She was even described as “a wee bit silly” for claiming greater credit than was her due for the Irish peace process, having made several visits to Northern Ireland as First Lady.

She was back in Belfast last week, giving a gentle push to politicians dragging their heels over a final piece in the peace process jigsaw. But according to the Sunday Life newspaper, during a speech she made to the Stormont parliament she said that Belfast’s landmark Europa Hotel was devastated by an explosion when she first stayed there in 1995.

The Europa, where most journalists covering the decades-long conflict stayed, was famed as Europe’s most bombed hotel, earning the moniker “the Hardboard Hotel”. However, the last Provisional IRA bomb to damage the Europa was detonated in 1993, two years before President Clinton and his wife checked in for the night. The last time the Europa underwent renovations because of bomb blast damage was in January 1994, 22 months before the presidential entourage booked 110 rooms at the hotel.

Mrs Clinton told assembled politicians at Stormont: “When Bill and I first came to Belfast we stayed at the Europa Hotel ... even though then there were sections boarded up because of damage from bombs.”

More here

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Easy-money mortgages still provided, by the feds: "So you thought easy-money mortgages with little or no down payment for people with bad credit was a thing of the past? Think again. You can get just such a loan today - and it's guaranteed by the federal government. Loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) have become "the new subprime," and these loans are exposing taxpayers to the same kinds of soaring default rates and losses that brought down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as destroyed many banks and the private market for mortgage loans. While private lenders learned a lesson from the mortgage crisis and are shying away from easy-money loans, the FHA has stepped into the breach. The agency has provided backing for 37 percent of all mortgages used to buy homes this year. After the collapse of much of the private mortgage market last year, Congress and the George W. Bush administration greatly expanded the FHA's original Depression-era program aimed at assisting sales of modestly priced homes by more than doubling the ceiling on loans that the agency can insure to $625,500 while maintaining its loose lending terms - ensuring that nearly any home sale could be covered by the agency. Whitney Tilson, manager of investment firm T2 Partners LLC called "cataclysmic" the surging default rates of more than 30 percent on loans insured since 2006 by the FHA. "The FHA's portfolio is exploding and the taxpayer is now on the hook for 100 percent of the losses," he said."

Greenspan’s latest epiphany: "Mr. Big Stuff himself, as he used to be called on CNBC during his heyday, has spoken once again. But this time, Alan Greenspan has uttered an inconvenient truth. So, will Washington and Wall Street listen? The former Federal Reserve chairman’s statement Thursday before the Council of Foreign Relations in New York about today’s megabanks (’if they’re too big to fail, they’re too big’) is so self-evident a fifth-grader would get it. But the adults who are formulating economic policy at the Treasury Department and on Capitol Hill have treated that simple statement as heresy. … Neither has there been much of a ripple in the financial press over Greenspan’s comments.”

Ignorance is bliss: "While all the talk at present is about economic corners turned and markets charging ahead, no one is paying much notice to an American economy deteriorating before our eyes. These myopic commentators seem to be simply moving past the now almost-universally held conclusion that before the crash of 2008, our economy was on an unsustainable course. If these imbalances had been corrected, then perhaps I too would be joining in the euphoria. But evidence abounds that we have not veered at all from that dangerous path.”

Borrowing trouble on our dime: "In their tireless quest to squander our money as foolishly as possible, Our Rulers run a series of ‘federal laboratories’ to ‘[advance] federal research and technology.’ Perhaps they aren’t aware that American ingenuity is — or used to be — world-famous; that inventors like Thomas Edison, while working for their own and their investors’ profit, serendipitously benefit us all; and that even in today’s corporate State, private companies often allocate part of their budgets to R&D. But governments verging on the totalitarian do as they please. And R&D pleases ours. Obviously, the nefarious Department of Defense and NASA require rafts of researchers, but only the naive imagine that other bureaucrats as well as civilians coveting cushy government jobs and pensions are content with that. Ergo, federal labs abound in such numbers — 317 to be exact — that we’re cursed with a ‘consortium’ of them.”

Cut the tax on jobs: "The payroll tax hits 60 percent of Americans, including anybody who runs a business. Cutting it would be fast, easy, and effective. Where a tax credit is complicated and invites rent-seeking, a tax cut is transparent. Last December, AEI’s John H. Makin calculated that if the payroll tax were suspended for 12 to 18 months, personal discretionary income would rise by 3.5 percent. Workers would have fatter paychecks to spend. The increase in consumption would spur demand. Meanwhile, since the payroll tax also hits employers, a reduction would lower the cost of hiring additional workers. Another way to go would be not to suspend the tax, but to reduce it — permanently.”

Repeal the minimum wage: "In July, the federal minimum wage rose from $6.55 per hour to $7.25 per hour. Before it went into effect, the Shelby County Commission in Tennessee passed an ordinance requiring firms that contract with the county to pay a ‘living wage.’ Similar ordinances are in place around the country. But these laws actually eliminate opportunities for low-skill workers and waste resources. They also couldn’t have come at a worse time: The last thing people on the margins of the labor market need are laws that will make them more difficult to employ. With unemployment hovering near 10%, perhaps now is a good time to consider repealing the minimum wage.”

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Purveyor of exaggerated claims about racism denies that there are exaggerated claims about racism

The accuser below is the good ol' SPLC again: A fundraising racket that gets lots of donations from gullible people by finding racists under every bed. They are a prime example of the way flimsily-based accusations of racism are used to attack conservatives and whites generally. It is critics of illegal immigration who give the SPLC their biggest orgasms. If you think that illegal immigration drives up crime and places big burdens on the taxpayers who have to pay for the government services which illegals use, you are a racist, according to the SPLC. I am sure I would be a Nazi if they ever got around to noticing me

An organization that tracks hate-group activity in the U.S. is accusing Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain, a black scholar known for her conservative stances on race and immigration, of being an apologist for white supremacists. The incident started last week when the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center posted a blog item critiquing the documentary A Conversation About Race, mentioning that positive comments by Swain lent the film an air of legitimacy.

Swain fired back, making her case against the advocacy group in a blog submitted to the news site The Huffington Post and in a string of messages she sent to followers on her Twitter account. "There aren't enough new hate groups 2 keep the SPLC busy, so they target individuals & conservative organizations 2 raise money," Swain wrote in a Twitter update Thursday. Swain, a professor of law and political science, said in an interview with The Tennessean that she feels as if she has "been attacked" by the group.

Mark Potock, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, responded, "If that is what she believes, she is suffering from some sort of low-grade megalomania." Potock said the goal of the Hatewatch blog posts about the film was to "spare (Swain) the embarrassment of continuing to endorse the work of a man who has referred to black people — including the president — as monkeys."

The film in question, A Conversation About Race, opens with a clip of then-Sen. Barack Obama's campaign speech on race followed by words from the filmmaker, Craig Bodeker. "I agree with Senator Obama. … I can't think of another issue facing our country that is more timely or more important today than the issue of racism," Bodeker says in the film. "I also can't think of another issue that is more artificial, manufactured and manipulated. … It's used too often as a tool of intimidation like a hammer against Caucasian whites. "

The Hatewatch blog post described the film as a "a hit among white supremacists looking for a smart-sounding defense of their beliefs. Contrary to its title, A Conversation about Race … (is) a slick 58-minute documentary devoted to proving the thesis that racism is a bogus concept invented to oppress whites." Swain is quoted as saying the film is, "Outstanding. … Meticulously done. … I highly recommend this film." Bodeker lists the blurb as the first one on the film's Web site.

"Why is her review valuable? Why is it important? Because she is an African-American woman," Bodeker said in an interview. "A member of the Vanderbilt University faculty and the National Council on Humanities and she has a Ph.D. — you better believe I put her quote on the DVD box, on the poster. That's how this is done. You try to attract attention."

For her part, Swain contends that the documentary is a valuable tool that could be used in classrooms to initiate a conversation on race that includes the perspective of what may be a growing number of white people. "I just think that if we do not discuss these things … you are creating the conditions for ethnic violence and unrest," Swain said.

But Potock said the film's premise, that racism is a myth, is ridiculous in a country that practiced chattel slavery for 200 years and allowed Jim Crow laws to stand for 100 years thereafter. The idea that white people are oppressed by conversations about racism or allegations of racism is insidious, Potock said. Swain's endorsement of such ideas, he said, is shocking. "What it made clear is that Carol Swain is an apologist for white supremacists," said Potock, adding that her endorsement represents a kind of cover that can funnel extremist ideas into reputable publications and ordinary people's conversations.

Swain sees things differently. If there are going to be conversations about race, she thinks they have to include what the Southern Poverty Law Center may consider extremist or hateful positions. "The new white nationalism that I fear that I see … is not about groups," Swain said. "It's about white people, individuals, thinking that they are under threat and that they have to ban together to protect themselves. My fear is that unless we create forums for people to safely and openly express themselves, then you are going to drive more young people into these extreme groups."

SOURCE

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What is Equality?

President Obama recently spoke to the Human Rights Campaign about "equality." Here is how he began his speech:

Thank you so much, all of you. It is a privilege to be here tonight to open for Lady GaGa. I've made it. (Laughter.) I want to thank the Human Rights Campaign for inviting me to speak and for the work you do every day in pursuit of equality on behalf of the millions of people in this country who work hard in their jobs and care deeply about their families -- and who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

I don't know much about the singer Lady GaGa. But I do know a little about equality: there is no such thing.

The myth of equality started in the late 18th century. The successful American Revolution (which had nothing to do with equality) guaranteed "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." The failed French Revolution promised "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," (liberty, equality, fraternity). It disintegrated into the Reign of Terror.

The French discovered (long before the Soviets and the Communist Chinese) that equality among human beings is impossible. Utopians on the left continue to ignore those lessons.

Our Founding Fathers were fully aware of the dangers of the state trying to impose "equality" on its citizens. The specific word "equality" does not appear, anywhere, in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Variations of the word "equal" ("equal" and "equally") appear twice in the Declaration of Independence and eight times in the Constitution. Let's take a look at the appropriate appearances of the word "equal" in our founding documents.

The two appearances of the word "equal" in the Declaration of Independence both refer to a "starting point" for human beings under the law. The first line of the Declaration of Independence reads in part:

"... to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them ..."

In other words, if people are not treated equally before the law by their government, they may "dissolve the political bands." Stated differently, if all citizens do not have equal protection under the law, they have a right to overthrow the regime. This has nothing to do with the state making people equal, or forcing them to be equal, or guaranteeing that all citizens are equal - this is a revolutionary statement about overthrowing an unjust regime.

The second use is the famous one:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Our Founding Fathers believed that we have the same rights "coming out of the box," so to speak. But after that ... all bets are off. The government protects only three things: life, liberty and property. It does not make us equal. God takes care of that.

Let's move to the Constitution. Of the eight appearances of the words "equal" or "equally" in the Constitution, seven of them are about technical voting procedures or holding office, or some other "rule of order" for the internal process of governing. (Keep in mind the word "equality" appears nowhere in the Constitution.) Only once does the word "equal" apply to all citizens. It appears in the first section of the 14th Amendment:

...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Here we vividly see that the duty of the state is not to make people "equal." The obligation of the state is to protect life, liberty, and property. It does this by trying to insure us, as citizens, equal protection under the law.

The Founding Fathers knew that it was impossible to make human beings equal. People have a variety of talents, skills, and aptitudes. The freedom to pursue those differences among us is what has made our country great. In fact, the Founding Fathers, in #10 of the Federalist Papers, said as much:

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

The promise of the Constitution is that when a stronger (or wealthier) party (or faction) illegally takes advantage of a weaker (or poorer) party, the weaker party will have protection equal to the stronger party under the law. That is how our system is supposed to work.

Every effort to impose equality has ended, to paraphrase George Orwell, making all people equal ... but some people more equal than others. In almost all socialist and communist countries this has been attempted through force by the state. Wealth is confiscated from the rich and redistributed to the poor to achieve "equality." Yet those running the state always end up with more wealth and power than the state's now "equal" citizens.

In his infamous radio address of 2001, Barack Obama flatly stated his disagreement with our constitutional system:

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution.... [T]he civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.

Attempts to enforce equality through "redistributive change" are not only unconstitutional; they are efforts to impose upon the masses a Utopian pipe dream. Such efforts have failed everywhere they have been attempted. Wealth may be redistributed, but it does not, and cannot, make people equal. The attempt will fail here, in America, under President Obama.

SOURCE (See the original for links and references)

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NFL discredited by the Limbaugh affair

The writer below believes that the NFL will lose a lot of followers among Rush's many fans

In retrospect, the vicious and slanderous attacks that poured out on Rush from the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were to be expected. These two guys never miss an opportunity to sling a little racial slander and grab some limelight. But several liberals in the news media decided to get on board the slander train and that's when things started getting out of hand. Then some current and former NFL players along with a select group of the sports media decided to jump into the Rush feeding frenzy and things really began to go overboard. This band of ignorant and slanderous liberals attributed unthinkable racial statements to Rush without any definitive proof. The angry mob's accusations ultimately led to Rush's removal from the group bidding for the St. Louis NFL franchise.

But the story doesn't end there. Not one NFL owner or representative came out to denounce the uncivil tone and unfounded slanderous attacks made against Rush, who, as if they were too ignorant to know, happened to be one of the NFL's biggest supporters as well as a prospective owner. It was the ultimate responsibility of the NFL's commissioner, Roger Goodell, to put a stop to this nonsense. But did Goodell step forward? No. In fact, he did just the opposite and climbed on the slander train himself by saying that "divisive comments" would not be welcome in the league. Goodell's statement was reprehensible and became the straw the broke the camel's back for countless thousands of Rush supporters. It was game over -- adios NFL!

Unlike the NFL, in the game of life there are not always clearly defined winners and losers. However, in this tragic situation there are a few of each. The biggest losers are the NFL and the St. Louis Rams, who lost an opportunity to have an awesome new competitor and minority owner. The merry host of media slander slingers also lost the last bit of respect anyone may have ever had for them. And America just lost a little of what makes her the greatest country in the world -- civility, respect and fairness. Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, became a big winner in the eyes of his loyal listeners for the responsible and dignified manner in which he handled the whole situation.

More HERE (See the original for links)

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The source of some of the the libels against Rush Limbaugh has now been tentatively identified. It is a super-"correct" NYC law firm -- Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP -- with far-Left connections and which has been a big donor to Obama. It has a specialty in sports-related matters. Lying is apparently part of that specialty. Being truthful is not part of "correctness", it would seem. Lets hope Rush takes them on in the courts.

I don’t see why Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is upset: "It’s not like he got actually mugged, or anything. Just robbed while taking mass transit. I mean, sure, the incident suggests that San Francisco is a crime-ridden disaster, but what Democratic-controlled urban area isn’t, these days? Shoot, the current unemployment rate of Mayor Johnson’s Sacramento itself was 12.3% in August. That’s almost double what it was a year ago; when did you get elected, again? It’s nice that you’re taking mass transit, by the way. Although I have to wonder: how many of your constituents would rather that you knocked down local unemployment a couple of notches, instead? Yes, this is the guy that got AG Gerald Walprin fired."

Osama bin Laden, family man: "Andrew Neatty of AFP previews a book to be published at the end of the month, written by his first wife and her son, revealing something of the personal side of the man. This is one angry, mean, cruel man. Not just to infidels. Some highlights: Soon after, bin Laden began to travel to Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet occupation, returning to tell his sons tales of battles in Afghan caves and mountains under Soviet fire. He eventually returned to Saudi Arabia a hero, but at home was increasingly disciplinarian, punishing his children -- who eventually numbered more than a dozen -- for transgressions such as "showing too many teeth" while laughing. Meanwhile, Najwa was kept in seclusion with Osama's new wives, one of whom she picked, in a spartan home without the mod-cons that make life in the stifling desert lands of Saudi Arabia and Sudan more comfortable. "My father would not allow my mother to turn on the air conditioning that the contractor had built into the apartment building," Omar relayed. "Neither would he allow her to use the refrigerator that was standing in the kitchen." Despite this aversion to modern appliances, bin Laden indulged in his penchant for fast cars, including at least one gold-colored Mercedes. He once even bought a speed boat."

Job losses deliver '09 baby bust: "The year 2009 is proving to be a baby-bust period in the nation's history as new data show that many couples are now either waiting or dialing down their hopes to start or enlarge their family. Demographers report that the ongoing recession may send the nation's birthrate into a nose dive. Although states report vital statistics differently and some data are unavailable for 2009, there is increasing evidence that money woes may have kept couples from expanding their families as concern over job security and finances has mounted over the past year. "It may well be that couples saw it coming," said Carl Haub, a senior demographer at the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau, who has tracked shifts in birthrates as influenced by the economy. With record unemployment and job losses, the bursting of the housing bubble and a mass of foreclosures, along with sagging consumer confidence, some measures are pointing to a significant drop in the birthrate, perhaps greater than historic declines marked by the Great Depression in the 1930s and the oil-fueled recession of the 1970s, he said."

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Progressivism: How Many Steps Forward This Time?

When English philosopher John Locke, who greatly influenced America’s Founding Fathers, claimed that mixing our labor with what was formerly common property gave us the right to now call that property our own, he both reaffirmed the Protestant work ethic and provided a philosophical defense of private property rights.

Writing of the rights affirmed by the English [“Glorious”] Revolution of 1688, Locke focused on three: “life, liberty, and the right to own private property.” Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence famously broadened the scope of the third to the more comprehensive “pursuit of happiness.”

For Locke, it was to secure and protect private property rights that governments were formed. Even the rights to life and liberty, for him, sprang from the property rights that we have to our own body and our own person.

That we have these rights not from government but from our Creator was obvious to Locke and the Founding Fathers. As such they were inalienable [“unalienable” was a printer’s typo]. While an alien is separated from his or her homeland, these rights could not be separated from us, not even by government.

When Barack Obama claimed that it was effectively his goal and that of his administration to fundamentally remake America, he did so from the standpoint of Progressivism, a loosely constructed conglomerate of political philosophies which share in common a rejection of the view of our nation’s founding documents as given above.

Influenced by the German philosopher Hegel’s view that the entirety of human history is in a constant state of flux and development, Progressivism views them not as incorporating timeless and invariable truths concerning fundamental human rights and government’s role in protecting them, but as anachronistic documents, culturally bound to their own time and circumstances, inadequate for contemporary challenges.

President Wilson, a Progressive pioneer, suggested applying a Darwinian metaphor to the Constitution: Like an evolving species it needs to adapt to its environment to meet contemporary needs. It is a living, not a static, document.

According to Ronald J. Restritto in an article entitled “The Birth of the Administrative State,” it was President Woodrow Wilson who first suggested a way to free American government from the checks and balances placed on it in the Constitution and pave the way for Progressive reforms: vest more and more real power in the hands of unelected administrators.

He seems to have genuinely held what strikes many as an incredibly naïve belief, namely that administrators who were experts in their own fields, would somehow be above politics and so interested in devoting themselves to serving the needs of the citizenry that checks and balances on their actions would be unnecessary.

Whether Barack Obama accepts Wilson’s view, he seems to have learned its lesson well. In appointing one unelected Czar after another to positions of overriding authority in his administration, he has engineered countless end runs around Constitutional safeguards.

While Locke believed that governments should be instituted for the protection of individual rights and liberties, Progressivism has from its inception loathed individualism and its political expression in our founding documents. In “The Meaning of ‘Progressive’ Politics” Barry Loberfeld quotes Herbert Croly, a Progressive writer, as saying that, "The Promise of American Life is to be fulfilled ... by a large measure of individual subordination and self-denial."

Reading this, one is reminded of Barack Obama’s response to a question from an NBC News reporter on why he thought his proposal for a government takeover of the health care system had aroused such widespread antipathy. As Obama put it: "It's an argument that's gone on for the history of this republic, and that is, What's the right role of government? How do we balance freedom with our need to look out for one another? ... This is not a new argument, and it always evokes passions."

No wonder the great concern of center right Constitutional Originalists is that the Obama Administration, with its unchecked Czars, unwavering Congressional support for a large and invasive government – and admitted quest to “balance freedom” -- seems to think that it can advance Progressive reforms in far more than merely incremental ways. And if it does, it may finally be able to tip the balance that remakes America into a Socialist state once and for all.

SOURCE

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No apology for the lies about Rush Limbaugh



There will be no voluntary mea culpas from Rush's race slanderers despite the irrefutable fact that they spread poisonous and damaging lies with actual malice. To the left, Rush is the most prominent face of conservatism and the most influential opponent of President Barack Obama's destructive agenda and so must be stopped -- irrespective of the despicable means employed.

The left systematically destroyed President George W. Bush with the most egregious lies, repeated to the point that people who knew better even began to believe them. The formerly respected CBS News anchor Dan Rather was so convinced by his liberal bias that Bush was evil that he refused to apologize for slandering him with a story later proved to be manufactured -- and that's giving Rather the benefit of the doubt that he was unaware the story was fabricated from the get-go. To Rather, it didn't matter because he was convinced Bush possessed the character of someone who would have engaged in the acts of which he was falsely accused.

And what was it about Bush that led Rather to the conclusion that he possessed such low character? In Rather's eyes -- though many conservatives would strongly dispute this -- he was a conservative and conservatives are evil.

The parallel with Rush's leftist slanderers is striking. It's one of the first things that occurred to me as I heard their sniveling responses, one by one refusing to utter a syllable of apology and instead using the occasion of being caught red-handed in malicious lies as a further opportunity to reiterate their libel.

"How dare you suggest that we have done anything wrong in attributing statements to Rush he never uttered? Even if he didn't say those words, you know he was thinking them or something much worse."

On what basis do they make such preposterous statements? Purely and simply for the reason that Rush is an unabashed conservative and unabashed conservatives are presumptively racist.

There isn't an ounce of fairness in these deliberate bearers of false witness or their supporters. If the supporters were just slightly honorable, at the very least they would condemn the slanderers for their indefensible tortuous utterances. They wouldn't even have to say one word in defense of the super patriot they loathe; just call to the carpet the brutish verbal thuggery of their ideological soul mates.

Many outraged Rush fans are directing their ire at Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, but I would argue that this is an inefficient allocation of their righteous indignation.

These two household name-level, race-hustling opportunists have no credibility, including with the mainstream media and other liberal prostitutes who continue to aid and abet their shenanigans, such as this one. It's a pact of mutual convenience. The liberals know full well that few on the right have the moral courage to oppose their mischief for fear of being labeled racists themselves. So they shamelessly prop them up to enable them to agitate racial disharmony and deliver race-oriented votes to the Democratic Party.

So please direct your angst not at these direct agents of racial toxicity, but at their leftist enablers in the media, the Democratic Party and the government -- those who not only empower these hate-spewing mouthpieces but also participate in the poison by issuing such destructive lies as "a vote for a Republican is a vote for another church to burn" and "President Bush left poor blacks on the rooftops in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina because Republicans don't care about blacks."

While you're at it, please reserve just a smidgeon of your outrage or disgust for those lukewarm conservatives who contribute to the destruction of race relations and to the advancement of liberal causes by pandering to false characterizations of authentic conservatives, such as Rush, who aren't afraid to stand up for the truth, even when it will subject them to virulently fraudulent charges of racism or other slanders.

If any of you are sufficiently naive to believe this NFL incident is merely about Rush, you have a rude awakening in store. The left is on the march -- the march to isolate, stigmatize, demonize, discredit and ultimately silence those who stand in their way. If you haven't read up on the plans of Obama's Federal Communications Commission czar to shut down talk radio or if you aren't following the tyrannical workings of the administration in trying to cram down unpopular legislation without a shred of transparency, then you'll eventually witness the lengths to which these people will go -- as illustrated here.

At the risk of sounding trite, we are at a crossroads in this country, and the left is proving each day how ruthlessly unprincipled it will be in advancing its goal of fundamentally changing this nation.

I pray and honestly trust that conservatives will be emboldened, not cowered, by this nasty, sordid turn of events.

SOURCE

Breitbart points out that there are various NFL owners who have ACTUALLY said worse things than Rush was ALLEGED to have said -- with no repercussions on them.

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BrookesNews Update

The US economy: inflation, deflation, stagflation - which one will it be? :Assuming that Obama adheres to his present course then there is every possibility that the monetary dam that Bernanke constructed will eventually flood the banking system and generate surging inflation, sending the dollar into free fall and leaving Americans struggling with stagflation
Getting it right on the asset boom and the recession:The asset boom is being blamed on excess liquidity. If only, so it is argued, we can maintain monetary equilibrium then all will be well. This is the kind of dangerous thinking that got the world into this awful financial mess in the first place
Consumer spending, taxes and the US recession : Obama and his leftwing cronies are intent on loading the US economy down with a tidal wave of tax increases - including grossly irresponsible taxes on energy, huge deficits, colossal increases in spending plus a massive expansion of government. That these policies amount to an anti-growth program that will have dire consequences for future living standards has yet to sink into the collective mind of the American public
How the vast right wing conspiracy really works : Obama and his leftwing cronies are intent on loading the US economy down with a tidal wave of tax increases - including grossly irresponsible taxes on energy, huge deficits, colossal increases in spending plus a massive expansion of government. That these policies amount to an anti-growth program that will have dire consequences for future living standards has yet to sink into the collective mind of the American public
The government does not create wealth; it merely redistributes tax money received :We live under a system where virtually nothing is beyond the reach of the national government so more and more of the income of working Americans and businesses must be confiscated to support the expanded range of government activities
Commies, Fascists and Perverts, Oh My!:Obama's is drawing many of his appointees from a political and moral cesspit. One such appointee is Kevin Jennings, an ardent supporter of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. This organization demands to be allowed to sexually prey on young boys. So why is Obama appointing these creeps?
Jewish self-haters or victims? : Obama and his leftwing cronies are intent on loading the US economy down with a tidal wave of tax increases - including grossly irresponsible taxes on energy, huge deficits, colossal increases in spending plus a massive expansion of government. That these policies amount to an anti-growth program that will have dire consequences for future living standards has yet to sink into the collective mind of the American public

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ELSEWHERE

Obama from Kenya, archived report says: "An archived article from 2004 on Barack Obama's run for the U.S. Senate in Illinois describes the relative political newcomer as "Kenyan-born," providing further fuel for speculation over the president's eligibilty for office. WND has noted various news reports that have either stated or implied Obama's birthplace is not Hawaii, as he has claimed, but Africa. The issue is significant, since there are a number of lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility that argue if he was not born in the U.S., he does not meet the requirement in the Constitution that the president be a "natural born" citizen. WND further has reported on the disagreement among those documenting Obama's presidency over which Hawaii hospital was his birth place. Now have come a flood of blog questions and e-mails regarding the apparently archived article from the Sunday Standard in Kenya. The report starts out, "Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack (sic) Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations."

Official: Obama 'disgusted' with Israel: "U.S. officials in recent days expressed to the Palestinian Authority that President Obama's administration is "disgusted" with Israel, a top aide to PA President Mahmoud Abbas told WND in an interview. Nimr Hamad said the White House was disgusted that Israel is refusing to halt all settlement activity as a precondition for re-starting talks with the PA over the creation of a Palestinian state. "Settlement activity" refers to Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. Hamad repeated that the term "disgusted" was used more than once in recent meetings with U.S. envoys to describe the administration's attitude toward Israel. Hamad did not name the U.S. envoys using the terminology."

Obama has love-in with George Bush senior: "A day after telling supporters in San Francisco that he was cleaning up a mess left for him by former President George W. Bush, President Obama came to his predecessor's adopted home state Friday to honor his father, former President George H.W. Bush, for his public service. Mr. Obama arrived deep in enemy political territory to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Mr. Bush's inaugural address and call to action that led to the creation of the Points of Light Institute, the nation's largest volunteer-management and civic organization. The president lauded the 41st commander-in-chief, who is now 85 years old, for being a leader "who promoted the ethic of service long before it was fashionable," and for choosing a life of service over "a life of comfort and privilege." The president, who was born more than a decade after Mr. Bush fought as a Navy pilot in World War II, cited Mr. Bush's wartime sacrifices to hammer home the point. "If President Bush could fly 58 combat missions when he was younger than many of you here today, and keep on fighting even after he was shot down and nearly captured by the enemy, then surely you can keep going when your service project gets a little tough," Mr. Obama said at the campus that's home to Mr. Bush's presidential library."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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