Category: Politics

Our leaders are not serious

Two days ago a Muslim husband and wife left their 6 month old daughter with a grandmother, went to his employer’s holiday office party in San Bernardino, and shot everyone they could. They killed 14 people and wounded 21 more. Thankfully, the couple died in a hail of bullets a few hours later when the police caught their SUV on the highway just a short distance from where the initial attack happened.

Today, the FBI announced it was investigating the massacre as a terrorist attack having found the woman declared allegiance to ISIS on social media around the time of the attack.

Meanwhile the Attorney General of the United States announced her “biggest fear.” It seems the American people’s biggest fear is more attacks by radical Islamists. Not Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Her biggest fear is the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric.” That’s because her and her boss know that America is populated almost entirely with religious and racist bigots.

See, 35 casualties of a MASSACRE are not indicative of the biggest danger we face. The biggest danger we face is actually Americans attacking Muslims. Never mind that after the Ft. Hood shooting, the Boston bombings, or even the recruiting center attack in Chattanooga there were no attacks on Muslims. Muslims are not being beheaded in the streets. They are not getting shot in their offices while celebrating Ramadan.

There simply is no pattern of attacks against Muslims in this country. But there are repeated attacks of Americans by Muslims. The three I listed above are some of the more noteworthy, but are not an exhaustive list.

Even so, Attorney General Lynch’s biggest fear is “anti-Muslim rhetoric.” Again, the Obama administration proves it is not fit to lead. A leader who makes such a preposterous statement in the aftermath of a massacre of American citizens should not be entrusted with emptying the trash, much less being entrusted with protecting Americans from people who, not only want to kill us, but have done it.

 

Why the terrorists are winning

This morning three terrorists killed 12 people at the Paris offices of a French satirical magazine.

Witnesses reported that the terrorists shouted (what else?) Allahu akbar” while firing. Video was recorded of the terrorists executing a policeman who had responded to the scene.

In spite of this, Whitehouse Press Secretary Josh Ernest first referred to the event as “an act of violence.” Roughly a half hour later, President Obama released a statement labeling the act as terrorism.

Since then, I have seen pundits try to insulate this attack from Islam claiming that killing defenseless civilians and police does not act in the name of true Islam.

The reluctance of the Obama administration to correctly identify Islamic terrorism for what it is and to claim that there is not a strain of Islam that absolutely does support these acts is foolish. There are “radical” muslims all over the Middle East and Africa. Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood all believe Islam supports terrorism. All of these groups are significant movements in their geographic regions that all claim they are they real Islam.

Denying terrorism for what it is, or the terrorists for who they are and what they believe is not going to protect us from more attacks.

“Right wing” violence

Crooks and Liars points to an appalling story out of Nashville yesterday. A (clearly disturbed) man repeatedly rammed another car because it displayed an Obama bumper sticker. A father and his 10-year old daughter were in the car that was rammed. Police arrested Harry Weisiger for felony reckless endangerment.

It should not even be necessary to state how conservatives (including me) condemn this violence. The guy in this story should be locked away for a long time. But here is how Crooks and Liars spins it.

As hate radio, corporate right wing media and GOP politicians ramp up the violent rhetoric against Democrats, the nutjobs who follow them like zombies are becoming more and more unhinged and posing a threat to society. Case in point – a man so enraged by seeing an Obama/Biden bumper sticker on a car that he repeatedly rammed his SUV into it, while a 10 year old girl was inside

C&L provides no support for its claim that “hate radio” (i.e. talk radio), “corporate right wing media (i.e. Fox News), and GOP politicians have used violent rhetoric. No mainstream conservative media outlets have called for violence. Not a single GOP politician has said that Democrats should be assaulted. They universally condemn it.

That is a stark contrast to what happened during the last administration when The Late Show on CBS placed a graphic claiming “Snipers Wanted” over a video of George W. Bush, or the myriad calls for Bush assassinations during left wing protests.

Radicals are on both sides of politics. That is why I believe the political spectrum is circular, not linear. Radicals on both sides converge.

I can’t help but be just as concerned with Crooks and Liars solution to the violence that has become typical of the left: a call for censorship of political views it disagrees with. From the story, “Apparently, that’s what it will take before we see some form of crackdown on the violent propaganda being thrown around by Republican politicians and their media outlets. ”

A crackdown on Republican politicians and “media outlets”? C&L makes this call for action just one day after Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez arrested the last independent TV channel owner in his country. When silencing of the opposition is considered necessary, we are no longer free.

Early prediction

I normally make annual predictions on December 31. This one is a real one though.

In less than a year in office, President Obama has went from an approval rating of about 65% approved/15% disapproved to about 47% approve/47% unapproved depending on the poll. Most polls indicated more people disapprove.

The health care issue has seen the same decline:

Democrats are sacrificing their future in a bid to push through government control of our lives. Election campaigns for November 2010 will be in full force starting at the beginning of January. The pundits I have seen expect Republicans to make significant gains but not enough to take over the house.

I’ll go even better than that. The Democrats are too eager for to pass healthcare mandates that favor lawyers and penalize taxpayers while reducing benefits and oppressive “cap and trade” energy controls that will increase energy costs while the economy is trying to recover. In addition, unemployment continues to climb while the Democrats focus on issues that Americans see as less urgent.

The Democrats are creating a perfect storm. My prediction: Republicans will regain the House of Representatives in 2010. Well, one can always hope.

What it means to be Catholic

Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy has taken his disagreement with Catholic moral teaching into the public arena. On October 21, Rep. Kennedy (son of the late Edward Kennedy) told CNSNews.com, “I can’t understand for the life of me how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social-justice issue of our time.” He said, “If the church is pro-life, then they ought to be for health-care reform because it’s going to provide health care that is going to keep people alive.”

Kennedy was criticizing the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for opposing a national health care bill that would fund abortions. The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a gravely evil act.

The Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island to Rep. Kennedy’s comments to clarify the church’s teaching. Bishop Tobin’s most recent statement came in an open letter. The bishop makes a clear case about Kennedy’s error:

“The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” Well, in fact, Congressman, in a way it does. Although I wouldn’t choose those particular words, when someone rejects the teachings of the Church, especially on a grave matter, a life-and-death issue like abortion, it certainly does diminish their ecclesial communion, their unity with the Church. This principle is based on the Sacred Scripture and Tradition of the Church and is made more explicit in recent documents.

I hope we see more bishops stand up to correct the politicians who call themselves Catholic but put so much effort into undermining its beliefs.

Anti-freedom Democrats – Part IV

Yesterday, California U.S. House representative Lynn Woolsey (D) wrote an article for Politico in which she suggested that the Catholic Church’s tax exempt status should be revoked because the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) took the moral stance of objecting to a health care bill that would force tax payers to fund abortions.

She also made the false claim that the bishop’s position was funded by taxpayers because of the church’s tax exempt status. Wrong. Not forcibly confiscating money of religious organizations is not the same thing as the government giving money to those organizations.

The church has the right to speak out on moral issues even though Democrats increasingly don’t like it. Woolsey’s suggestion to punish the Catholic Church for exercising its rights is yet another warning sign that the left does not respect religious freedom.

Decaying conservatives. Not really.

Got this tidbit in my email today arguing for national health care:

From “I Love MY Socialist Kidney” by Jennifer Nix on Salon.com
As I watch the cable news loops of all the vicious language and wild-eyed imagery aimed at killing healthcare reform, I can’t help but be amazed that Medicare ESRD was ever passed. I wonder how so many Americans today can be made to believe that healthcare is “anti-Constitutional” or that a fascist/socialist (and, let’s not forget, African) Obama wants to kill their grannies, but I am awestruck by the headstrong self-destruction of the Republican Party. There is no clearer proof of GOP decay than comparing the Republican leadership of the 1970s with those controlling the party today.

Republicans in the 1970s were on the side of healthcare for all Americans. In a message to Congress on Feb. 18, 1971, Nixon himself proposed the National Health Insurance Partnership Act. This was a moment in our history when most Americans believed some form of all-inclusive, national health insurance would soon be a reality. Republicans and Democrats alike were working hard to find the best way to make it happen. In 1972, a generation of pragmatic and compassionate Republicans voted in large numbers to help pass the Medicare ESRD Act. It was seen by legislators as a test case, to be followed by government insurance programs — be they catastrophic or comprehensive — for other diagnoses.

This never happened, of course, and right up until our summer of angry town halls, Medicare ESRD has remained what former Senate Finance Committee staffer James Mongan called “the last train out of the station for national health insurance.”

Today’s Republican leadership follows the lead of hate-speech blowhards and injects vitriol and proven lies into our national discourse, instead of engaging in honest negotiations over the best way to bring healthcare to all Americans. They are ginned up for an Obama defeat, by any means necessary — good policy and the American people be damned.

So let me get this straight. Republicans should now abandoned conservative economic policy because Richard Nixon did in the early 70s? It was a bad idea then, it is a bad idea now. So were the increased government spending seen over the course of the Nixon administration and the price controls that he briefly instituted in 1970 and 1973. Nixon was not a conservative.

Nix’s focus on the Medicare ESRD act of 1972 as evidence of the GOP decaying today reveals her ignorance of political history to the point of embarrassment. The Republican party lost significant ground in the early 70s. It did gain 12 seats in the House in the 1972 election but it lost 4 Senate seats. In 1974 and 1976, the Republicans lost seats in both houses of Congress. After the 76 election, Republicans had lost the presidency and held only 143 (of 435) House seats and 38 senate seats leaving the Democrats with a filibuster-proof senate majority. What the ESRD act does do is give us a glimpse of why the Republican party lost influence during that period. It was Reagan who re-established the Republican party as the conservative party and brought it back to prominence in 1980.

The parallel to draw from the early 70s is between Nixon and Bush. President Bush adopted comparable economic policies as Nixon. As with the aftermath of Nixon, Republicans have again lost the presidency and are the minority party in congress with a filibuster-proof Democrat senate. The plummeting popularity of Obama and the Democrat controlled congress shows that this may be another 1977 when the Republicans were able to begin regrouping to make significant gains in the following two elections. The opposition to nationalized health care is a return to conservative principles rather than a sign of decay.

Nix further reveals her intellectual bankruptcy in her statement, “or that a fascist/socialist (and, let’s not forget, African) Obama wants to kill their grannies”

Obama’s heritage has nothing to do with Republican opposition to his national health care scheme. Republicans objected to Clinton’s similar efforts.There are no conservatives who make any connection between Obama’s policies and his race. The only people who connect race with Obama’s policies is the left. The left still has not accepted that a man with African heritage can be judge solely on his policies – policies that conservatives have long been opposed to. So who is really the racist?

Criminal babysitting

Leanne Shepherd and Lucy Jarrett are detective constables (that translates to “police officers” in English) in the U.K. They job share so their hours are split. Shepherd has a 2-year old daughter, Jarrett a 3-year old daughter. The job sharing allows them trade babysitting with each other. Perfect arrangement, right?

Not so fast. These two police officers are breaking the law. According to a U.K. government agency, neither is registered with the government as a “child-minder” and therefore they are not lawfully allowed to babysit each others’ child. And really, one does have to question how responsible a constable could be. Clearly, no one can simply assume that someone able to exercise the authority of a detective constable would be qualified to care for another person’s child.

Thankfully we live in America where this kind of thing would never happen. Oh wait. Lisa Snyder in Middleville, Michigan has a school bus stop in front of her house. Some of her neighbors need to leave for work before the bus arrives so Lisa Snyder watches their children for 15 to 40 minutes until the bus arrives. She does this for free. Er…that is, she did it for free until Michigan’s Department of Human Service received a complaint that she was running an illegal child care center. Now the state is threatening her with jail time and a $1000 fine. All in the name of “protecting the children”. Because we all know that forcing children into a faceless day care center is much better than allowing parents to make decisions about who is able to watch their children.

Instead of “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” we are fast becoming the land of the regulated and the home of the government.

(Hat tip: Overlawyered)

What would Jesus vote for?

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz told his viewers (both of them) that Jesus would vote for public health care. During his comments, he referred to people who disagree with this view as “Bible Thumpers”.

Schultz is wrong; Jesus would not vote for universal health care. The Bible is clear that Jesus is not a Democrat. Then again, Jesus would not vote against it. The Bible is just as clear that Jesus is not a Republican. That’s because Jesus is a monarchist. Put simply, Jesus would not vote.