Taxes

There are some simple truths to the matter of taxes:

1. Fewer people are paying an ever greater share of the tax burden collected by the federal government. More and more are getting "services" or income from those fewer people without being directly taxed on income themselves.

2. The progressive tax scheme came straight out of the Communist Manifesto. That, and other teachings of Karl Marx, led to mass slaughter and squalor in the 20th Century.

3. You have more rights if you are suspected of serial murder and hiding the bodies under your flower beds in your backyard, than if you are suspected of tax evasion by the IRS.

4. Even if you are among the 47% who pay no federal income tax, you are still taxed through the gills through such means as taxes on the company you buy your food from, sales taxes, fuel and energy taxes, and anon. Rich or poor, we are all being robbed.

5. Yes, taxation and wealth redistribution are theft! If you're walking down the street and you had a beggar a $5 bill, you're virtuous. If, however, I hold a gun at your head, take your wallet, and hand it to that very same beggar you are NOT virtuous. You are a victim of armed robbery. This is exactly what the IRS is all about, since you will be faced with armed officers trying to arrest you (violence against you as an individual) should you disagree with any of the government's plans for your property -- that is, your money.

6. Capital gains taxes are punishments for success. The investments that result in capital gains create jobs and more wealth. Taxing such gains only discourages investment and job creation, impoverishing us all.

7. Your money, from whatever source, is the symbol of your labor. As such, it is your property. Neither I nor the government have any right to any of your money beyond what the Constitution allows the federal government to do. Were the Tenth Amendment to be enforced, fully 80% of the federal budget (probably much more nowadays) would be illegal and have to be returned to the people from whom it was confiscated.

8. A low, flat tax, with payments due from every taxpayer every month like a phone bill, would solve any number of ills facing America today: folks would see right away just how much the government was taking and start voting for lower tax rates, resources spent on accounting will go to more productive uses, the economy would flourish and jobs created, and the federal government would have far less power than it has today. All of these things would be better than what we have today.

9. The tax code, as it has become since FDR, is not to raise money, but to engineer society. This flies in the face of American ideals of Liberty. It is an attempt to control the very lives, thoughts and choices of every American who should otherwise be free.

10. Tax cheats aren't all bad! I mean, the Left loves Tim Geitner, Charley Rangel, David Dinkins, etc. Of course, for Republicans, it would be career ender. But for Democrats? Just like sex scandals, cheating on your taxes can be a resume enhancer.

Copyright April 19th, 2010

Obamacare Gives Me Agita!

Only government employees can come up with a product that will cost more, that practically no one likes, and requires two or three thousand pages to describe, which no one of them has read. Oh, and it all has to be done by Christmas or the nasty bits of the Book of Revelations might come about a little early.

I'm talking healthcare reform here, Folks! What was the undoing of the Clinton Administration with Hillarycare now stands a good chance of passing the Senate in the next couple of days -- "a Christmas present for the people", the all-but-embalmed Nancy Pelosi calls it.

Thanks, Nan! But I'll take coal, thank you very much!

Not one Republican senator will vote for this monstrosity. Hey, they even have to buy the votes of Democrats! No one really wants this, except, of course, for the Cloward-Piven elitists of academia, The Messiah Obama, and folks who just don't understand economics.

But we're going full speed ahead with this nightmare, all so Saint Barrak can cross healthcare off his list of promises. Folks! We are so screwed!

First, let's look at the stuff the Left doesn't like about the proposals as they currently stand:

1. It doesn't quite cover all the people that it promises. I know! The 55 million quote of people uninsured is a complete fabrication (subtract illegal aliens; folks who are just between jobs and soon to be covered again; people who choose not to buy insurance and the total is just a couple of million) but we were promised that all those millions of "uninsured" would get coverage. Saint Obama is falling a bit short here.
   
   
2. It looks like there will be restrictions on taxpayer funded abortions. Abortion, you see, is not just a right. It's an entitlement, you male chauvinist, sexist pig! What good is the right to abortion if you can't get the taxpayer to pay for it? This sentiment is best illustrated by Montag's Immutable Law of Nature Number Eight.
   
   
3. It seems that, among the horse trading needed to get all the Democrats on board, someone left out the public option. Ah, but you Progressives won't have to worry about that for long. Just wait for the conference. That's when all your favorite stuff will be put back in under the cover of night.
   
   
4. It doesn't punish the insurance companies enough. After all, how can we have Universal Healthcare if there are still private companies providing insurance?

Yes We Can! Er... kinda'... sort of... well, almost. Hey Lefties! Buyer's remorse setting in yet?

Oh, yes! The Left is quite bitter about this Marxist attempt to conquer one sixth of the nation's economy. You can tell when, even though it's their own senators holding up the "reforms", they still attack the Republicans, whom they had already decided not to include in their machinations. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), had this to say about the GOP:

"Voting 'no' and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it. It was clear the three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one."

Can anyone recall the Democrats being courteous and non-destructive during the previous administration? As I recall, they even blamed George Bush for the No Child Left Behind Act, and that was written by Ted Kennedy (who, by the way, has just reached about five months sober!)

Sure, there is disquiet on The Messiah's Left flank, but there is an awful lot to dislike from the perspective of a Conservative:

1. Taxes, taxes, and, oh yeah! More taxes! These all start in the very first year of enactment, while the actual programs don't begin until 2014. There are also cuts in Medicare funding, which will make coverage for the elderly more expensive. And the added expense for business, particularly small business, is just what we need with unemployment surpassing 10% in a recession. We might have healthcare, but we won't have jobs!
   
   
2. While the words "death panels" might not actually appear in either the House or the Senate versions of the bill, we're still looking at unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats deciding such things as what insurance we must buy, what treatments will or will not be available, and which patients will be able to actually access such treatments. Many times, these decisions will be based upon the age of the patient, his "lifestyle" (Want to bet that smokers will get the same treatment as, say, promiscuous gays?), previous health conditions, likely number of "meaningful" years of life (to be decided by said bureaucrats) and so on and so forth.
   
   
3. Despite the fact that, at least so far, the public option doesn't seem to be in play, let's not forget the fact every social program we have today was supposed to be far more limited than they actually became. The current healthcare reform plans are merely the point of the wedge that will drive all private healthcare providers and insurers out of business and supplant them with top/down, command-and-control, full tilt Marxist hegemony over yet another big part of America's withering private sector.

OK! Enough about what the Left and I are against. What am I for? What do I propose to solve our healthcare woes?

Well, considering that almost every poll shows that 80% or more of Americans are actually quite satisfied with their healthcare coverage, perhaps we are trying to solve a "problem" that doesn't quite exist. I wouldn't be the first time. Just consider "Dopenhagen". Sometimes, our political class just needs the courage and the wisdom to simply do nothing.

But, if we really think we need to meddle, let's take a page from the Cato Institute:

1. Let individuals control their health care dollars, and free them to choose from a wide variety of health plans and providers.

2. Move away from a health care system dominated by employer-provided health insurance. Health insurance should be personal and portable, controlled by individuals themselves rather than government or an employer. Employment-based insurance hides much of the true cost of health care to consumers, thereby encouraging over-consumption. It also limits consumer choice, since employers get final say over what type of insurance a worker will receive. It means people who don’t receive insurance through work are put at a significant and costly disadvantage. And, of course, it means that if you lose your job, you are likely to end up uninsured as well.

3. Changing from employer to individual insurance requires changing the tax treatment of health insurance. The current system excludes the value of employer-provided insurance from a worker’s taxable income. However, a worker purchasing health insurance on their own must do so with after-tax dollars. This provides a significant tilt towards employer-provided insurance, which should be reversed.Workers should receive a standard deduction, a tax credit, or, better still, large Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) for the purchase of health insurance, regardless of whether they receive it through their job or purchase it on their own.

4. We need to increase competition among both insurers and health providers. People should be allowed to purchase health insurance across state lines. One study estimated that that adjustment alone could cover 17 million uninsured Americans without costing taxpayers a dime.

5. We also need to rethink medical licensing laws to encourage greater competition among providers. Nurse practitioners, physician assistants, midwives, and other non-physician practitioners should have far greater ability to treat patients. Doctors and other health professionals should be able to take their licenses from state to state. We should also be encouraging innovations in delivery such as medical clinics in retail outlets.

6. Congress should give Medicare enrollees a voucher, let them choose any health plan on the market, and let them keep the savings if they choose an economical plan. Medicare could even give larger vouchers to the poor and sick to ensure they could afford coverage.

7. The expansion of “health status insurance” would protect many of those with preexisting conditions. States may also wish to experiment with high risk pools to ensure coverage for those with high cost medical conditions.

We don't really need a government run healthcare system. They never worked well where they were tried. Of course, should you want government to fund healthcare, there is a way that is also quite free market. This was proposed 15 years ago, again by the Cato Institute:

1. Take all the money we spend on Medicare/Medicaid right now and give each adult American citizen (I know! How exclusionary of me! ) a voucher that can only be deposited in special accounts for this purpose. These accounts will accrue interest, but disbursements can only be made to insurance providers or medical providers. Smaller vouchers will be given to parents for each child, so family coverage becomes available.
   
   
2. Require every recipient of said vouchers to purchase catastrophic health insurance with high deductibles. Such policies will be for major illnesses and such and should have quite low premiums for the vast majority of people.
   
   
3. Each American then pays for routine healthcare expenses from the amount in his healthcare savings account. Again, the checks drawn from this account can only go to insurance or medical providers.
   
   
4. Each year, whatever is left over in the account rolls over to the next year, giving the recipient more each year, provided he spends it wisely.
   
   
5. At the end of ten years, the recipient can choose to keep the excess money in the account or pocket it for his own uses.

The beauty of this idea is that it gets the government out of the medical coverage business

( Medicare/Medicaid ) while putting the consumer in charge of the actual expenditures. At the same time, medical providers are forced to compete for customers as they never had to under our current system or under Obamacare. This will keep prices much lower and encourage innovation. Meanwhile, the consumer has incentive to avoid unnecessary medical procedures and to keep an eye on possible fraud -- fraud to which Medicare/Medicaid and, ultimately Obamacare, are all too susceptible.

Ah! The free market! It works every time it's tried!

It's just a shame that our governing class just can't seem to let go of all that power.

Copyright Dec. 22, 2009

Climategate and The Church of Gore

I've been too long, not writing... I know! But I've been busy with my music and acting careers. However, I have been keeping up with current events.

The most interesting, in my mind, has been the eruption of Climategate. It seems that either a hacker or an insider whistleblower released thousands of emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The various documents (you can read them here) show the most important proponents of Manmade Global Warming (also known as the Dogma of the Church of Gore) to be obsessed with showing manmade warming regardless of the data, denying skeptics of The Dogma peer review or inclusion in the IPCC reports, trying to prevent their data from being disseminated through the Freedom of Information Act, and other unseemly and unscientific behavior.

Now, I'm not a believer in conspiracy theories, as these newly liberated documents seem to demonstrate. It is precisely because there was a leak that leads me to discount most, if not all, conspiracy theories. After all, someone will eventually screw the whole thing up and blow the secrecy of the conspiracy apart.

That said, I'd like to offer a second hypothesis to explain why so many scientists, politicians and bureaucrats seem to be true devotes of The Church of Gore. I wrote the following in Scientific American, in response to an article entitled Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense. Among other points, the author whitewashed the Climategate scandal as much ado about nothing and relegated the skeptics to the fever swamps of conspiracy theories. It is with that weak attempt at shoring up the crumbling edifice of The Church of Gore in mind that I wrote the following explanation of how we can have what appears to be a conspiracy, and yet have no conspiracy at all:

Well, it took SciA long enough to get to the Climategate story!

Unfortunately, it only resulted in a child plugging his ears and yelling, "La, La, La! I can't hear you!"

I won't claim there has been a Warmist conspiracy. However, one can't deny that there has been, shall we say, a confluence of agendae. It works like this:

1. Scientists, by and large, depend on government financing.
   
   
2. Governments, by their very nature, strive to increase their power over the people that they govern.
   
   
3. Bureaucrats are the primary mechanism of government. Generally they are immune to the checks and balances that elected officals are face with. Even dictators are hemmed in by "the will of the people" at some point. Bureaucrats, too, have an insatiable appetite for power. And they are the ones holding he purse strings.
   
   
4. Government, by its very nature, will be more predisposed to funding research that will further its ambitions to power than research that does not.
   
   
5. Scientists, therefore, have a financail stake in the sort of research they pursue. Dissent is quietly "defunded" and a "consensus" appears.
   
   

If there is any doubt of my observations, one needs merely to consider the proposed "solutions" to the "problem" of AGW/ACC:

1. Strict control over the people regarding their energy usage, the types of cars they drive, mass transit plans, etc.
   
   
2. Carbon taxes, which will ensure that economic activity will be sharply curtailed.
   
   
3. A "world government", which makes interaction between the government and the governed even more tenuous than it is today.
   
   
4. "Wealth redistribution", not only from the developed world to the Third World, but from industry to the new, burgeoning class of "Carbon Billionaires", like Al Gore. This will also have the undesirable effect of turning the Third World into backwards welfare clients, with no hope of joining modernity and freedom.

Sorry, Mr. Rennie. Your claims that there is no "cospiracy" do nothing to address the fact that there are agendae which dovetail together quite nicely. Further, the emails make clear that this problem is worldwide, not limited to the Hadley/CRU. Indeed, it goes right up to the UN and its hopes of becoming the government of the world.

Time to face facts, my Friend! Your appeals to authority are nothing short of totalitarian.

Copyright December 2nd, 2009

The Fascists of the Left

So, what does Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg think about Roe v. Wade? In her own words:

"Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of."

Yes, Folks! You read that right. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg once believed that abortion on demand was legalized to rid ourselves of undesirable people. In an interview to be published in the Sunday New York Times Magazine she, in fact, expands upon this theme:

"...Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the Court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.”

This is absolutely stunning! A veritable demi-goddess of the American Left has actually come out and stated unequivocally that the original intent for Roe v. Wade was to actually pay poor and other undesirable women to kill their babies, thereby reducing the populations of those "that we don’t want to have too many of."

Of course, anyone familiar with Montag's World would know that this was the original intention of Planned Parenthood, as evidenced by the writings of its founder, Margaret Sanger. For the full details, please see Real Racism and its Lethal Consequences. Reading the writings of Ms. Sanger and her compatriot, Lothrop Stoddard, one cannot escape the conclusion that Justice Ginsberg really wasn't all that far from the mark.

There really are no two ways about it: Planned Parenthood and Justice Ginsberg are all about ridding the world of the minderwertig -- German for "shoddy" or "inferior" or those "that we don't want to have too many of."

And what was the McRae decision that Justice Ginsberg lamented? This decision upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid funding for abortion. So, what she has a problem with is that folks who have fundamental moral and ethical difficulties with abortion don't have to pay for the abortions for poor women -- women among those "that we don't want to have too many of".

Yes, you see, those morally priggish Pro-Lifers who don't want to be a party to wholesale slaughter have made abortion available only to the wealthy! Basically, what Justice Ginsberg is saying is that, despite your moral or ethical qualms about abortion, you should still have to pay for it.

The modern Left is all about choice, you know. So long as that choice is the death of innocents. They don't believe in choice when it comes to smoking, guns, driving your car, managing your own land, what "charity" you want your taxes to go to, what radio show to listen to, how much carbon you consume, etc.

It is even getting to the point where if you merely disagree with a Liberal you are engaging in "hate speech"

• Global warming skeptics are called "deniers", as if disagreeing with a questionable prediction was tantamount to defending the Reiche.
  
  
• The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, an example of misleading advertising, would make the sermons of conservative preachers criminal, while offering protection to all types of sexual deviancies listed by the American Psychiatric Association. Democrats in Congress flatly refused to omit pedophiles from the protections of the bill. Indeed, Attorney General Eric Holder testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that ministers, priests, soldiers and most other Americans would get no such protections. What is being legislated is speech and thought.
  
  
• Although there is no formal effort to reinstate the much maligned Fairness Doctrine in its original form, there is a big push to empower local activist groups, almost exclusively on the Left, to implement "community standards" and encourage "diversity in ownership". In true Orwellian fashion, these innocuous sounding policies would force radio stations to give up their most profitable and popular programming: Conservative talk radio. In short, we have censorship without ever using the word.
  
  

What is truly ironic about all of this is that it is the Left that keeps accusing Conservatives of fascism. Truth be told, their policy ideas are far more in tune with fascism than anything from the Right. And can you imagine the breathless outrage and gnashing of the teeth were Justice Ginsberg a Conservative? I can just imagine Keith Olberman's head exploding!

Apparently, though, even Eugenics is part of their agenda! Could the American Left be indulging in projection?

copyright July 11, 2009 by Gregory Indelicato

UN HUMAN WRONGS COUCIL

It might come as no surprise that, here at Montag's World, we take a dim view of the United Nations. Despite the glowing and benign intentions expressed by the founders of this institution, the best that can be said about it is that it has become a debating forum for corrupt, third-rate, anti-Semitic, Third World bureaucrats.

Worse, it is totally incapable of seeing how corrupt, inept and ineffective it is. Despite, for instance, the absolute corruption of the UN Oil For Food program, Secretary General Koffi Annan was allowed to continue in his post. The UN is incapable of stopping any war or human rights violations, nor can it even recognize genocide, as exhibited by their fecklessness toward the Sudan and Darfur.

While siding with America's enemies at every turn, they insist upon destroying our own sovereignty. Yet they rely on our largess for their anti-American, anti- Liberty programs.

Perhaps the best solution to the problem I've heard involved moving the UN, approximately 500 feet to the East. Of course, that's mere humor and satire, since that would put the UN smack in the middle of the East River. But it does illustrate the frustration and anger that this world body engenders in many Americans.

Many Americans, that is, that are not members of the Left.

This may be something of a continuation of a theme from yesterday's column. For what we will examine today is the new UN Human Rights Council and its official in charged with investigating Israel, Prof. Richard Falk, of Princeton University.

It is perhaps laughable, if it weren't so despicable, that the United Nations has formed this council (see the story at NPR) to review all 192 member states of the UN regarding their human rights records. However, the first nation they plan on investigating is Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. If that weren't bad enough, they unanimously chose Prof. Falk to lead the investigation.

So, who is Prof. Richard Falk? Why is he such a wrong choice for a study of the Israeli-Palestinian situation?

Prof. Richard Falk is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus at Princeton University, Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a member of the World Federalist Institute, an organization dedicated to forming a world government and abolishing nation states.

In short, Prof. Falk is an extreme Leftist.

That the UN Human Rights Council selected him to a six year term investigating Israeli behavior vis a vis the Palestinians is curious, to say the least. According to the BBC, he is on record "drawing the comparison between the treatment of Palestinians with the Nazi record of collective atrocity, because of what he described as the massive Israeli punishment directed at the entire population of Gaza."

Hello! Israel is under daily attack by Muslims, and they are guilty of atrocities? Is this at all a point of concern to the Left? Probably not.

Nor is Prof. Falk backing down from his comments. The BBC further elucidates with another quote:

"If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison."

Apparently, Prof. Falk wasn't paying attention to the UN and its failure to condemn China and the Sudan.

To say that Prof. Falk is anti-Israel would be to vastly understate the case. The man has no willingness to at all consider the simple fact that Israel was the first free nation in the Middle East, that Palestinians in Israel have more freedom and Liberty than in any other Arab nation.

But then, Prof. Falk seems to be incapable of understanding that Islamo-fascists are really out to kill Americans and bring the Global Caliphate to fruition. The New York Sun reports that he is also calling for a UN investigation into the role of American neo-cons in the 9/11 attacks.

That's right, folks! Richard Falk is also one of those 911Truth.org maniacs. These are those poor, deluded souls who think that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were really inside jobs, perpetrated by the Bush administration at the urging of the neo-cons, for the express purpose of invading Afghanistan and Iraq.

Please note that Liberals always use the word "neo-cons" as a euphemism for "Jews". Just as they engage in projection when claiming Conservatives are bigots (see Real Racism and its Lethal Consequences in yesterday's Montag's World) the tag, "neo-cons" is a code word. In this way, they can deflect any accusations of anti-Semitism.

Not only did Prof. Falk write the forward for David Ray Griffin's 2004 conspiracy theory book, The New Pearl Harbor, he actively sought to find a publisher for the book.

On March 24th, 2008, Prof. Falk, in an interview with radio host Kevin Barrett, said the following:

"It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people. Whether they are innocent about the contention that they made that something happen or not, I don't think we can answer definitively at this point. All we can say is there is a lot of grounds for suspicion, there should be an official inves-igation of the sort the 9/11 commission did not engage in and that the failure to do these things is cheating the American people and in some sense the people of the world of a greater confidence in what really happened than they presently possess."

He doesn't think he can answer the question of whether Americans made 9/11 happen? This, my Friends, is nothing short of wading in the fever swamps of paranoia. Why is this man allowed to walk about among us without adult supervision?

Kevin Barrett isn't much better, by the way. He is the co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth. Naturally, he speaks well of the demented professor saying, "I would put him on a list of scholars who are sympathetic to the 9/11 truth movement."

As can be seen from this YouTube clip, Mr. Barrett honestly believes that Islamo-fascists had nothing to do with 9/11, and that there is no reason to believe that other terrorist attacks around the world were by Muslims.

Of course, from my personal experience of graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I'm not really surprised. This is the most extreme of the most extreme Left in America. If Mr. Barrett was a professor there, and he was, that would go a long way to explain my radically Liberal friends who graduated from that school.

Getting back to the subject, though, here we have a man, who is obviously opposed to Israel and its right to defend itself from aggression, who has long been involved in anti-American causes, who actually contributes to the mental miasma known as 911Truth. And the United Nations appoints him to study Israeli violations of human rights?

Folks, the facts are clear. The United States has no business being in the United Nations. If they want to meet in New York, then let them pay the rent that the real estate actually deserves. While those Third World bureaucrats are at it, maybe they can also pay their parking tickets.

The UN has, without a doubt, long ago passed its use-by date. Time for America to get out and start leading the Free World!

Copyright April 10th, 2008

CAN'T TAKE THE LEFT SERIOUSLY ON NATIONAL SECURITY

Well, we once again have General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Although the Democrats have toned down their rhetoric somewhat -- telling MoveOn.org not to run any "General Betray-us" ads and not stating outright that they think the good General is a liar -- they left little doubt on this, the first day of hearings, that the Left simply cannot be taken seriously on matters of national security.

The New York Times piece on the matter provides the quotes from the various Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination. Clearly, neither of them is ready for prime time.

Hillary, the lovely and talented wife of the priapic Bill, cited what The Times calls "sluggish political progress and a questionable recent Iraqi military campaign in Basra" to make the dubious point that the surge, ably led by Gen. Petraeus, wasn't working. Said the would-be Madame President, “It might well be irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and time again."

Right! We aren't getting any results. Check your sources, Hillary. Violence all over Iraq has gone down. The Iraqi government has come up with oil revenue sharing plans. Sunnis, once given the cold shoulder in the Shiite majority government, are now taking their places in the government and the military with outstanding results. Oh, and that mission in Basra? Much has been made about the 1000 Iraqi deserters, but no mention of the 96% or more who stayed and fought bravely.

Just a little historical reminder: the Iraqis are trying to do what our Founding Fathers did when they formed our government. They are doing it under fire from outsiders (al Qaeda, Iran, and Syria) and they are doing it in a part of the world that hasn't seen anything like representative government in its entire history, until the founding of Israel in 1948. More importantly, they are doing it faster than our Founding Fathers. If this is failure, than we need far more of it in the world.

Speaking of Iran, none of the Democrats on the Armed Services Committee seemed at all interested in Gen. Petraeus' account of Iranian interference in Iraq, principally among the Shiite militias, but also through their puppet, Syria, which is arming and aiding al Qaeda and other Sunni fighters. It's not as if Iran doesn't have a dog in this fight. If the Democrats get their way, Iran will be left in control of Iraq, whether the Sunnis or the Shiites win out. Either way, they'll be dancing to Tehran's tune.

Which, of course, brings us to the Saintly One, Barak Obama, who spent his time in the limelight on the Committee to restate his view that the Iraq war was a “massive strategic blunder.” OK, so what do we do now, other than turn tail and run?

Elsewhere, Saint Obama has called for direct talks, a "diplomatic surge" he called it, with Iran, saying that "I do not believe we are going to be able to stabilize the situation without that." He also wants to put pressure on the Iraqis to step up to self governance by pulling American troops out. Said His Holiness: "I think that increased pressure in a measured way, in my mind, and this is where we disagree, includes a timetable for withdrawal. Nobody is asking for a precipitous withdrawal."

Did someone say, "Neville Chamberlain"? Saint Obama seems to think that if we just sit down with the mullah-tocracy of Iran and send our troops home from Iraq, all will be suddenly right in the world! Doesn't anyone read history anymore? We are talking about Islamo-fascists. Iran has made countless deals with the West. They've gotten concession after concession. And every one of those deals they have violated. So Saint Obama wants to talk some more? Let me know how that one works out!

While Saint Obama is making his pitch for a "diplomatic surge", it seems that Iran has been honoring past agreements about their nuclear program by announcing the completion of 6,000 new centrifuges to make even more fuel for a power program and, more likely, weapons use. This thanks to the outstanding (well, maybe not) efforts of the UN and the European Community, which has been trying to get Iran to stop.

Clearly, Saint Obama is not at all mature enough, nor knowledgeable enough, to take the helm of this great nation. Negotiating with Islamo-fascists is every bit as futile as negotiating with Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich. It's worse than futile. It lets our leaders slap themselves on the back for a job well done, while the real enemy laughs at our naivete and goes about the business of fascists everywhere: total global domination.

Which, by the way, is also the ultimate goal of Islam itself. On this matter, I don't think that the Republicans are much better than the Democrats. It annoys me to no end when President Bush says that the Islamic terrorists have hijacked a "great religion of peace". Even a casual perusal of the Qu'ran will show you how uninformed that is.

That being said, at least the Bush administration has taken this fight back to the enemy in their lands, rather than here in the United States. Whatever their weaknesses, the Republicans, especially the Conservatives, are far and beyond superior to the Democrats and the Left when it comes to national security.

Let's not forget that, until 9/11/2001, we were getting hit by Islamo-fascists at least once every other year. The Clinton years are especially illustrative. The absolute most that the Clintonistas did against al Qaeda was to fire a few cruise missiles. Even then, they tipped them off by warning Pakistan. Worse, they picked the day the priapic Bill Clinton was waiting to see if he had truly suborned Monica Lewinski's perjury before the grand jury. Other than those less than useless pinpricks, he did nothing!

On the other hand, the case can be made, based upon the afore mentioned statistics, that the Bush policies have actually made Americans safer. After all, how many attacks have we experienced since we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq?

Let me count... Oh! We haven't had any! Yet the Democrats still insist that President Bush has made us less safe than we were in the 1990's.

This is why the Left and the Democrats cannot be taken seriously on national security.

They really don't get it!

Copyright April 8th, 2008

HOW CAN YOU TELL WHEN A CLINTON IS LYING?

Of course, everyone knows the punchline: "When her lips are moving."

Hillary has the very same aversion to honesty as her priapic husband, Bill. The only difference is she just can't pull it off with the aplomb, the elan, of the former Co-conspirator in Chief.

And now, with the Legacy Media all agog with Saint Obama, even the Clintonistas' propaganda organ can't keep a lid on the lies. Let's review, shall we?

Remember the cattle futures?

Back in 1994, the Washington Post reported that, in 1978, Hillary was allowed to make a $12,000 investment in cattle futures, although she had only $1000 in her account. Within ten months, she somehow leveraged that under capitalized "investment" into a $100,000 profit, a 10,000% rate of return. Of course, when questioned about these things, Hillary claimed that she learned how to do that by reading the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ, for its part, questioned this stunning windfall, asking if, perhaps, this was some sort of bribe filtered through the futures market.

The bottom line is, no one who is at all experienced in such financial dealings believes that Hillary benefited from nothing more than good advice and a little luck. There is something rotten there, and although the Legacy Media didn't want to look to deeply into it, the smell lingers on.

Anyone remember when Hillary claimed she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary?

It didn't take long for that whopper to be found out! It turns out that Hillary (the mendacious politician) was born five years before Sir Hillary and Tonzig Norgay climbed Mount Everest. This one still stinks, since snopes.com even references the matter and thoroughly debunks this myth as an utterly false urban legend. Still, the Legacy Media does little promote the truth of this fairy tale. Katie Couric, on CBS News, reported on Sir Edmund's death this past January with fluffy comments about our very own prevaricator, Hillary. No mention in the piece, by the way, of the false story that Hillary started.

Rose Law Firm billing records, anyone?

They were subject to subpoena for two years, in relation to congressional investigations Clintonista scandals, but the Clinton White House denied they had them. Suddenly, the New York Times reported, just twenty four hours after another "miraculous discovery", as Sen. Alphonse Damato (R, NY) quipped, they turned up in the First Lady's book room in the White House residence. Further, when subjected to forensic examination, they were found to have only Hillary's fingerprints all over them. No serious explanation was ever forthcoming, and the matter seemed to disappear. But is does make one wonder...

Oh, and the other "miraculous discovery"? That was an internal White House memo detailing Hillary's involvement in the firing of the White House Travel Office employees (otherwise known as "Travelgate") which Hillary was also denying any knowledge of.

If you are tempted to defend Hillary by saying this was merely the result of being closely identified with her known perjurer, the priapic Bill, let's also recall that she worked for the House Judiciary Committee back in 1974. World Net Daily has the story. Her boss, Jerry Zeifman, no member of the vast right-wing conspiracy, had to ultimately fire her without a letter of recommendation. What Hillary and her partner, Bernard Nussbaum of Clintonista scandal fame, tried to do was to deny President Richard Nixon the right to counsel in the Watergate investigation, on the grounds that there was no precedent, despite the then recent impeachment case of William O. Douglas. So how did Hillary support her arguments? World Net Daily reports: "Zeifman claims Clinton bolstered her fraudulent brief by removing all of the Douglas files from public access and storing them at her office, enabling her to argue as if the case never existed." The article further quotes Mr. Zeifman as saying that Hillary was a "liar" and "an unethical, dishonest lawyer." This from a lifelong Democrat.

We could go on and on with the many versions of Hillary's reality, but let's just skip ahead, shall we? Let's look at some of the more recent adventures in the Land of Hillary.

Hillary was an opponent of the Iraq war before Saint Obama:

Jake Tapper, of ABC News, makes mincemeat of that bit of theater. Even, as Hillary has tried to say, if you only consider the question from the year 2005, when Saint Obama entered the Senate. And if you don't use the Hillary measuring stick (the January, 2005 starting date) she still doesn't explain her vote for the Iraq invasion in the first place. Nor her sometimes pro, sometimes con stances regarding our troops in Iraq.

Hillary knows what it's like to be under fire:

Everyone has heard about this one -- that Hillary and Chelsea landed in Bosnia under heavy sniper fire -- by now, so there is little point in going over the matter in detail. Suffice it to say that even CBS News, purveyor of the phony documents story, couldn't let that one slide. Although, I have to admit that I have questions after viewing Barely Political's revealing video on YouTube. Actually, no, I thought it was a brilliant bit of political satire.

Young woman dies after being denied medical care:

The NowPublic.com web site reports Hillary's anecdote thusly:

Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton shared a touching story while on the campaign trail the last few weeks. If we had health care for everyone, things like this wouldn't happen.

Clinton shared, “I remember listening to a story about a young woman in a small town along the Ohio River, in Meigs County, who worked in a pizza parlor,” “She got pregnant, she started having problems. There’s no hospital left in Meigs County, so she had to go to a neighboring county.”

“She showed up, and the hospital said, ‘You know, you’ve got to give
us one hundred dollars before we can see you.’ She didn’t have a hundred dollars.”

“So the young woman went back home. The next time she went back,
she was in an ambulance. It turned out she lost the baby. She was airlifted to Columbus. And after heroic efforts at the medical center, she died.”

Folks should be angry that this happened in America. Angry about the woman who died? No, The Story, it is inaccurate.

Even the New York Times, long standing Clinton defenders that they are, had to cover this contatempt. It seems that both the hospital and the family of the young lady deny the veracity of the story. The only thing Hillary got right was that the mother and baby both died. But they did have health insurance and they were not denied treatment. But that doesn't stop Hillary from repeating the apocryphal tale on the stump. Hey! Why let facts get in the way of a good speech? Says Hillary, " “It hurts me that in our country, as rich and good of a country as we are, this young woman and her baby died because she couldn’t come up with $100 to see the doctor.”

Again, I could go on and on with these tid bits. But the point of the matter is, how much more mendacity do Americans have to take from the Clintons? Weren't the 1990's bad enough?

And if -- God forbid! -- Hillary wins the election in November, why would anyone in the world believe anything coming from her administration?

Ah, yes! The Clintons! They are a gold mine for folks who write about the political scene. Still, America will be much better off when they finally leave that scene.

Copyright April 7th, 2008

BIG OIL VERSUS BIG GOVERNMENT

Much to do has been made over the profits of Big Oil -- a phrase that is spoken in a way to highlight the apparent Eeeevilll inherent in the engine of our prosperity and our Liberty.

You see, to Liberals, Big Oil (or Big Medical, Big Pharmaceutical, or Big Food) is, without a doubt, the truly besetting Evil of the Modern World. Ossama bin Ladin and Hugo Chavez may be pesky, but it is the world of Big Business (again spoken in ominous tones) that is truly the threat to Life, Liberty, Truth, and the American Way -- provided you define "American Way" as Liberalism run amok.

This week sees executives of the the largest oil producing corporations being interrogated by people in Congress. These Congressmen, given the current majority of the Democrats, have no real knowledge of business nor of the oil industry.

Ah! But they look at the current oil prices, the fact that, as Rep. Eward Markey (D. Ma) says "With gas prices at $3.29 per gallon, the poorest 20 percent of American households are spending nearly 10 percent of their income just on gasoline.'' He also belabors the record profits of Big Oil and the relative little they invest in "alternative energy sources": "Your companies and the Bush administration must support, not oppose, legislation that will unleash the renewable revolution we need to become energy independent and cut global-warming emissions.''

So what is the reality? Gas prices are very high. Oil profits are correspondingly high. Liberals are calling for a "windfall profits tax" to punish oil companies for being successful. It all sounds good, doesn't it?

Reality check: no business, whether a multinational oil company or a Mom-n-Pop corner grocery, pays taxes. I know, I know! They have to fill out all sorts of tax forms, they have to hire all sorts of tax accountants and attorneys to satisfy the bloodless, demented gods of the IRS bureaucracies, and they have to send in checks, amounting to billions of dollars to the government.

But the fact remains: these businesses aren't paying the taxes at all. You, the consumer of the goods and services provided by these businesses, are paying those taxes.

How can that be? Consider what the price of a product includes: the cost of producing it, the cost of materials, the cost of transportation, the cost of labor, and the cost of the taxes levied upon the business that produced that product.

You can't get around it, folks! If you call for a "windfall profits tax", all you're going to get is even higher prices at the pump.

So, then, why don't we forbid Big Oil from passing along the costs of those higher taxes? This way, we'll cut those profits and we won't have to pay the tax!

Sure, we can do that. But can we force any business to remain open if they don't get as much profit as they'd hope for? What if we confiscate all of Big Oil's profits? Where would we get the oil and fuel for our cars, our homes, our economy?

Fine, you might say. Well what about alternative, renewable resources? Why aren't we demanding that Big Oil do something about that?

Let's see... Big Oil is in the business of selling oil. Let's get Big Oil to fund the research that, if successful (which is highly questionable. See It's the Energy, Stupid!) would remove the very reason Big Oil is in business for in the first place.

I'm sorry, but does that really make sense to anyone who isn't an all-out Marxist?

Like it or not, the energy we need to continue as an economic powerhouse is oil. Of course, we could look to some alternatives, but the ones that make the most sense (wind and nuclear, for instance) are fought tooth and nail by the Left. Nuclear power has been libeled by the Left for decades, to the point that we'll build nuclear plants in North Korea (thanks, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Madeleine Albright!) but no new plants have been built in America since the 1970's.

And don't get me started on Ted "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy and his opposition to wind farms off the coast of Nantucket, where they would make the most sense.

Also, we have the Liberals' steadfast opposition to searching for and acquiring our own oil reserves here in the United States. Unless, of course, we're talking about Occidental Oil, founded by infamous Stalinist and Friend of Al Gore, Armand Hammar. As long as Al Gore still gets his cut of new oil sources and profits that only Occidental can extract on American soil, he'll be free to make sure we all live in a 19th Century lifestyle to prevent Global Warming.

The fact is, we are sitting on untold oil reserves here in the United States. The only reason we need to import foreign oil is the Democratic Party and its ideological masters in the radical environmental movement. As a result, only Occidental can drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. China, in partnership with Cuba and Venezuela, can drill off the coast of Florida, while we can't. And it's been more than three decades since a new refinery has been built in the United States.

And the Democrats, who created these problems in the first place, want to blame Big Oil?

There are two reasons why the price of gasoline and heating oil have risen so high. Neither of them have anything to do with the War in Iraq or Big Oil.

The first reason is simply supply and demand. In the last decade, we suddenly have two extremely populous nations -- India and China -- that are modernizing. They are coming out of their (relatively speaking) primitive stages and are becoming fully industrialized nations, with all the energy demands that inevitably ensue.

Meanwhile, here in the US, we are always demanding more energy, both for transportation and for our infrastructure. This is as it should be, for if we do not expand our energy sources and our consumption, we will descend into squalor.

Or, as Al Gore would prefer to phrase it, we will have achieved a sustainable economy.

In any economic system, increase demand must be met with increased prices. Couple that with the Left's refusal to back sensible alternatives -- wind and nuclear -- or to expand our own domestic supplies of oil, we naturally get hit at the pump.

But then, there's the other reason, the most pernicious reason, for our massively high gasoline prices. We hear daily harangues about Big Oil and their "obscene" profits. But almost no one mentions an organization that reaps far more profit, about twice as much as Big Oil. And this organization drills for no oil, buys and sells no oil, refines no oil. And it makes about twice as much on a gallon of gasoline as Big Oil.

This organization is none other than Big Government. According to The TaxProf Blog we find the following datum:

"[F]ederal and state taxes on gasoline production and imports have been climbing steadily since the late 1970s and now total roughly $58.4 billion. Due in part to substantial hikes in the federal gasoline excise tax in 1983, 1990, and 1993, annual tax revenues have continued to grow. Since 1977, governments
collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues—more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period."

Let’s try a little thought experiment. Let’s say you ran a lemon ice stand. But I, whether through legitimate taxation or strong arm tactics (but I repeat myself!) force you to give me twice as much of the money generated by sales than you get to keep in profit. Wouldn’t you be a bit upset? Wouldn’t you be forced to pass that added cost of my larceny onto your customers? Why is this any different than taxing Big Oil at confiscatory rates?

Only Liberal can find a way around these simple facts. And his “solutions” would only make matters far worse than they already are. The demand for oil and energy is at historic levels. Never before have so many people wanted so much energy, which translates into higher prices due to the demand.

But even worse, Big Government (please note the ominous tones as I write those words) – which produces absolutely no oil, which refines absolutely no oil products, which transports absolutely no oil, which sells absolutely no oil, which impedes and prevents the development of domestic oil supplies – extracts twice the “profit” from a gallon of gasoline as all of Big Oil combined!

Friends, regardless of what the Legacy Media and the Democratic Party tell you, Big Oil is not the enemy. They are truly our friends and they are being slandered by our leaders for the sake of political advantage and economic power.

The real enemy, the 500-pound gorilla in the living room, is Big Government!

Copyright April 1st, 2008

CHAOS IN LIBERAL LA LA LAND

You know, it's almost too good to be true! The more the Left looks silly, the sillier they get. I couldn't make this stuff up on my best days!

What I am talking about is the pure chaos that has befallen the Democratic Party. They are in complete disarray and they are beginning to eat their own.

First off, Hillary Clinton didn't get the coronation that the "smart" money said was hers. Her running in the primary was a mere formality back in the Fall. But along came Saint Obama and his message of hope and change. It didn't matter that there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two, policy-wise. Obama was the Rorschach candidate, a tabula rosa upon which the Liberal elites could pin their hopes and dreams.

That Saint Obama was a phenomenal public speaker and had little track record to be torn apart by his competitors only fed the mystique. Compared to the trailer trash aura of the Clintonistas, the scandal upon scandal, Obama was a breath of fresh air.

Of course, Hillary won't let some upstart get in her way on the road to the White House. Dirty tricks are bread and butter to the Clintonistas, which is yet another reason why her welcome in the Democratic Party has worn a bit thin. Look to Hillary trying to bully the DNC into seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan, despite the fact that she agreed to cutting the two states out of the primaries as punishment for voting too early. And who knows what she'll do to get the super delegates to vote for her?

Dirty tricks aside, look at the conundrum the Liberal voter must face: "Am I a sexist if I vote for the man, or am I a racist if I vote for the white woman?" What's a Liberal to do? Either way, he's open to charges of bigotry of one stripe or another.

Speaking of bigotry, there is still more fallout from the affair of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. First, Geraldine Ferraro (who's questionable comment was, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.") is now taking umbrage to being lumped in with the good Reverend as a racist. Never mind that what she said could very easily be construed as racist to begin with!

Saint Obama, not knowing when to leave well enough alone, went on the talk radio circuit to elaborate on his big race speech. Said the Saintly One:

"The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, you know, there's a reaction that's been bred in our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that's just the nature of race in our society."

Just asking, but how far would I get if I called Obama a "typical" black person? Wouldn't I be considered racist? To be fair, an Obama spokesman parsed the Senator's words, saying that he meant to say "a person of her generation.".

Yet, what he really said was that white folks are afraid of blacks, think they are criminals and that they're dangerous. Regardless of what Saint Obama meant to say, what he actually said was an invidious stereotype of white people.

In short, what he said was racist.

But, it seems, that Hillary has a bit of a Rev. Wright problem herself! The New York Times, in their Caucus blog, published a photo of Rev. Wright shaking hands with the priapic Bill Clinton in 1998. The photo was provided to the Times reporters by none other than the Obama campaign.

And what was Rev. Wright doing with old Priapic Bill? Why it was none other than the prayer breakfast he held on the cusp of Ken Starr's reporting on his investigations. Yup! The Horn Dog in Chief met with the Racist Reverend to atone for Monica Lewinski!

Meanwhile, Hillary's lackey, Bill Richardson, who performed so admirably as her screen during the early days of the primaries, has jumped ship and endorsed Saint Obama. Richardson, who polls extremely well among Hispanics, being an Hispanic himself, probably didn't get enough goodies promised from the Clintonistas. So he's taking his ball (and a good chunk of the Hispanic vote that Hillary really needs right about now) and ran to the Saintly One, saying, "Este es un hombre que nos entiende y que nos va a respetar!" (This is a man who understands us and who will respect us!)

I told you I couldn't make this stuff up!

If this sort of thing keeps up, I might have to reassess my predictions for the November elections. While Hillary and Saint Obama keep hammering at each other, spending money better spent on the actual elections rather than the primaries, John McCain looks more and more like the grown up!

Here's another cloud on the horizon of the Leftist La La Land: the Franklin and Marsh College Poll reports that one in five Democrat voters will vote for John McCain if their candidate doesn't get the nomination. That is a significant, if not fatal, weakness in the base, don't you think?

Personally, I'm having more fun this election cycle than anyone should be allowed! Despite their arrogant confidence that the nation has turned Left, the Democrats just can't seem to get their act together.

But will John McCain take advantage of this chaos? So far, it seems not. As written here at Montag's World, in McCain on the Warpath, he disavowed the help and endorsement of Conservative talk host, Billy Cunningham, for his use of Saint Obama's middle name. Then, he fired a campaign aid who e-mailed a link to a video that made Obama seem un-American, when juxtaposed with the sermons of Rev. Wright.

Hey! John! Wake up! This is a presidential campaign, not a student body election! If you can't play rough, then get out of the sandbox!

With the Chaos In Liberal La La Land, this could be John McCain's election to lose. Let's just see if he gets on the ball.

Copyright March 21st, 2008

THE AUDACITY OF ROPE-A-DOPE

Saint Obama made his "big speech" about race in America, yesterday, entitled A More Perfect Union. As he usually does, he made a wonderful speech. There are few better public speakers than Barak Obama. And, on the surface at least, he seemed to "transcend" the racial divide in America, while trying to put paid to the hateful rhetoric of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.




That was the style, anyway. But what about the substance? Yes, let's look at the substance of his wonderful speech.


He starts out, pretty accurately, looking at our Founding, and how slavery was one issue that was deferred for "at least twenty years". That much was true.


Unfortunately, he left out the genius of the Founding Fathers and how they minimalized the power of the slave states with the infamous "three-fifths rule", wherein blacks in the slave states, who were already forbidden to vote, would count as three-fifths of a vote when apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. No, the Founding Fathers didn't actually believe that blacks were less than whites. But the Southern states, the slave states, were left with fewer votes in the House, thereby hastening the eventual abolition of slavery in the newly minted United States.



Still, Obama was quite accurate when he described America as a nation that seeks "a more perfect union", that seeks always to improve itself. It's just his ideas of improvement and perfection that I find problematic.



After this brief, if not misleading, history, we are regaled with Obama's personal history. This is the sort of story that proves the lie of the Modern Civil Rights Industry, Inc. With all the strikes against him (bi-racial parents, single mother, raised by his grandparents, etc.) there should be no possibility of him reaching for the White House. That is, if we were to believe the various Professional Victims of the MCRI, Inc.



Yet, here is Obama. He's at, or very nearly so, the pinnacle of American politics. He's highly educated, he's rather wealthy, despite his sweetheart deals with Tony Rezco. His wife sits on some very powerful corporate boards, which she advises her listeners not to aspire to.



I still believe that Obama will win the election in November against John McCain, provided Hillary doesn't steal the nomination. But should he lose, it will not be racism. It will be the rejection of his Liberal agenda.



At this point in the speech, Saint Obama seems to make a few oblique references to the vile and hateful teachings of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright:

...we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary
language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial
divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our
nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views?
Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors,
priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

Fine enough. But I don't recall any sermons from my church experience that accused America of inventing AIDS, or wantonly incinerating thousands, or purposely selling drugs to imprison minorities.


Obama goes on to cite the good that Rev. Wright has done:

The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me
to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one
another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his
country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest
universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a
church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing
the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and
scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from
HIV/AIDS.

Forgive me, but isn't this a little like saying Hitler wasn't all that bad? After all, look at the Volkswagen or the fact that the trains ran on time. Louis Farrakhan told his followers to get educated, take care of the children you father, and follow Islam. That didn't change the fact that he was a bigot, and anti-Semite, and un-American. What we have here is the minimization of Rev. Wright's horrible beliefs, with the over exaggeration of his virtues.



Obama, though, stays loyal to his pastor, but less so to his grandmother:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

There goes grandma, right under the bus. Grandma, you see, was also a racist. Basically, she is racist because she said the same things about passing black men that Jesse Jackson so famously once said. What's worse, he took the private comments by an old woman (who, God help her, is alive to see her grandson publicly humiliate her) and equated them with, as James Taranto observed, was a "systematized black liberation theology." Simply put, the man is shameless.



Charliein wrote to Montag's World, that "...he can't disown his blood relative, but he never had to embrace his pastor by naming him to his campaign." Truer words have never been uttered.

Suddenly, Obama goes off the rails entirely, trying to "me-too" the debate:

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most
working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been
particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

Uhh... where to begin on this one? First, the Reagan Coalition was forged from more than affirmative action and Political Correctness, although they were a part. Let's not forget the near despair Americans viewed their nation after Nixon and Carter, after the idiocy of the welfare state, the crushing taxation and over-regulation that it entailed. Of course, were Saint Obama to actually mention any of those things, he would have to find some other way to sell his social utopian visions for America's future.



Which, he is quick to add, are just what we Americans need to overcome the "divisiveness" (he used this word a lot in this speech) of racial issues today.

So, in a nut shell:

• Rev. Wright's speech is a result of past racism in America, an expression of black bitterness.
• White antipathy to Liberal solutions (affirmative action, welfare, bussing, etc.) are the result of their misunderstanding of the real issues.
• Both blacks and whites need to cool their rhetoric while voting for Saint Obama who is going to bring "change" by supporting the same old policies that caused all that white angst.
• Grandma just has to understand the "bigger picture" and not be upset that her grandson just humiliated her on national television.

Yup! This is what Saint Obama is all about. This is the Audacity of Rope-a-Dope. Disavow vaguely "controversial" comments, tear grandma a new one, blame white America, change the subject.

And, of course, offer himself, messiah-like, as the solution.

Are you buying any of this?

Copyright March 19th, 2008