Andrew Breitbart at CPAC
The shocking news arrived courtesy of Fox News this morning. Conservative lion Andrew Breitbart was dead. In his pursuit of conservative principles and his disdain for the other side, he was fearless.
Environmental skepticism
To say today’s “Restoring Honor” event in Washington will be historic is an understatement. Gauging by the biased reporting on the news pages of the New York Times and the seething, sputtering outrage from Bob Herbert and Charles Blow on the Op-Ed pages should give you a pretty good indication of the focus this event will garner.
Kate Zernike opens her report, titled “Where Dr. King Stood, Tea Party Claims His Mantle”, saying it is the ultimate “thumb in the eye” to stand on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” in the place he stood and talk about restoring honor. How dare he? Isn’t that what racists said of Dr. King when he stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial with these words?
“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”
Ms. Zernike reminds us of the case of Shirley Sherrod, who was fired by the Obama administration when a videotape of her redemptive speech about how she first discriminated against a white farmer but later helped him was shown across the Internet. She writes about video tape being heavily edited by failing to show how she mended her ways and helped that farmer. But Ms. Zernike doesn’t finish the story where later in her speech Ms. Sherrod says that those who opposed Obama’s health care plan had racist motives because President Obama is black. Ms. Sherrod’s redemption is far from complete.
She then says that the Tea Party’s talk of states’ rights raises the specter of Jim Crow and George Wallace. But it was the federal government that passed and enforced the Fugitive Slave laws and it was independent states of the north, exercising their states’ rights, who supported the Underground Railroad and refused to actively assist returning slaves to the South. So states’ rights cut both ways.
She concludes that, “Even if Tea Party members are right that any racist signs are those of mischief-makers, even if Glenn Beck had chosen any other Saturday to hold his rally, it would be hard to quiet the argument about the Tea Party and race.” It’s hard to quiet the argument because those on the left keep falsely making it. They cannot prove racism so they feel that by repeating often enough, they can make it stick.
I was at a street fair manning a booth for a Tea Party organization this spring. An African-American teacher approached us tentatively to ask what we were about. I asked her if she wanted the rumors or the truth and she opted for the truth. I told her that we were a policy based organization focusing on accountable government, fiscal responsibility, limited federal government and following the Constitution. She said she didn’t know any of that, she got e-mails from Moveon.org all the time and before leaving she signed our e-mail list. When the truth reaches the ears of people over the screeching of the New York Times and the main stream media, it is generally well received. The racial of mix of the Tea Party rallies will change over time when we can speak to the folks one on one without the lies of the left.
The Opionators
Bob Herbert begins his Op-Ed piece in a very open minded fashion, “America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure.” Thank you for sharing that, Bob, but there’s no need to pull punches here.
“There is a great deal of hatred and bigotry in this country, but it does not define the country. The daily experience of most Americans is not a bitter experience and for all of our problems we are in a much better place on these matters than we were a half century ago.”
So why to you and your fellow travelers throw down the race card every time someone disagrees with a policy, if they are not of the same race? Object to ObamaCare, that’s racism. Object to the stimulus, racism. Wanting Obama to fail to turn America into a socialist states, racism straight up. Yes there is hatred and bigotry in this country, but it is primarily coming from the left.
Not to be outdone in the outrage department, Charles Blow titled his Op-Ed piece, “I Had a Nightmare.” Mr. Blow said the following, “I find it curious that many of the same people who object so strenuously to the Islamic cultural center proposed for Lower Manhattan, many on the grounds that it is inappropriate and disrespectful, are virtually silent on the impropriety and disrespect inherent in Beck’s giving a speech on the anniversary of King’s address.” This would be an excellent point, if he could point to 3,000 blacks that Glenn Beck has murdered in the name of restoring honor. But Mr. Blow can make no such connection, so his analogy to the Ground Zero mosque falls flat. Curious indeed.
After venting his spleen, Mr. Blow suggests we re-read Dr. King’s speech “and to recommit ourselves to the nobility of righteous pursuits.” Let’s do that.
“But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” –“I Have a Dream Speech”
How do the actions of the left, throwing down the race card at every turn, accusing everyone who disagrees with Barack Obama to have racism at the core of that disagreement comport with not “drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred”? It arrogantly assumes that it is impossible not to see the glorious benefit of the government running every last aspect of our lives, therefore the only reason to disagree has to be racism. With regard to violence, where do we see the violent demonstrations on the left or the right? Breaking windows, looting, SEIU members beating down street vendors for selling anti-Obama buttons, etc. are all on the left. When the police show up at rallies organized by the left they show up in riot gear, at Tea Party rallies the mounted police have to decide whether to let people pet their horses or not.
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” –“I Have a Dream Speech”
Didn’t America elect an African American President of the United States with 53% of the vote? More than voted for Clinton either time, or Jimmy Carter? Barack Obama wasn’t elected by minority votes alone.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” –“I Have a Dream Speech”
Who more closely shares that dream, Glenn Beck, or those on the left who insist that forty years after Dr. Martin Luther King gave his speech that blacks can’t get into college or get a job without affirmative action; that black families have not been destroyed by government programs like welfare that drove fathers away; that government run schools that can’t graduate its students are far better for blacks than school vouchers that will let them escape those hellholes? Dr. King’s speech says nothing about racial preferences. Dr. King’s speech talks about color blindness. Dr. King’s speech says give us an equal chance. Glenn Beck believes that. Those on the left do not. It is those on the left who believe African Americans cannot compete without more government programs to help them. Glenn Beck believe they can succeed if government gets out of their way and if the left stops the lies of dependency that hold them back. It is the New York Times, Charles Blow, Bob Herbert who wrap themselves in racial division and then say, “Why can’t we come together?” If you want us to come together, stop standing in the way.
In an article titled, “An Article of Faith,” Charles M. Blow of the New York Times explains about Obama and Health Care. I am glad he took the time to set down the statist’s case. It much easier to expose them when they step into the sunlight.
“The Apostles of Anger {that’s us} in their echo chamber of fallacies have branded him the enemy. This has now become an article of faith. Obama isn’t just the enemy of small government and national solvency. He’s the enemy of liberty.”
Enemy, noun, persons that are hostile to one another.
Sounds like Mr. Blow is onto something there. Let’s see poll after poll has the American people opposed to ObamaCare by around 55% to 60%. President Obama shows his hostility to the American people by saying he doesn’t care what they think, he, President Obama, knows what’s best for them and will ram this thing through by gimmicks such as reconciliation rather than the normal approval process. Yes, I guess that makes him an enemy, but it was accomplished through his own actions, not by talk radio or Fox News.
Liberty, noun, freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
Again, it looks like Mr. Blow nails it. We have the government under ObamaCare telling us we have to buy insurance or pay a tax or go to jail for non-payment of taxes. Sounds pretty arbitrary and despotic to me. So President Obama has decided to act in a way that makes us his enemy. I guess Mr. Blow is trying to say we are to be faulted for recognizing it?
“This underscores the current fight for the soul of this country. It’s not just a tug of war between left and right. It’s a struggle between the mind and the heart, between evidence and emotions, between reason and anger, between what we know and what we believe.”
Uh-oh, here it comes folks the statist is about to point out how stupid we are for not going along like sheep to slaughter. Notice the word order first it’s left then right. If you follow that order Mr. Blow is trying to say that the left stands for the mind, the evidence, reason and what we know, while the right stands for heart, emotions, anger, and beliefs. I am sure Mr. Blow will now use his superior intellect to explain this all to us knuckle dragging troglodytes.
“This conflict was captured in a tit-for-tat between Obama and Rush Limbaugh. In an interview with CBS this week, Obama complained about the “vitriol” coming from the likes of Limbaugh: ‘I think the vast majority of Americans know that we’re trying hard, that I want what’s best for the country.’
“Limbaugh shot back on Friday, “I and most Americans do not believe President Obama is trying to do what’s best for the country.”
That’s pretty weak. So despite 55% to 60% of the American people, for months on end, saying or should I say screaming NO! this is not what we want, Mr. Obama is saying as if to a small child, “There, there now, take your medicine, I know what’s best for you.” Where Mr. Limbaugh is humble enough not to claim god-like omniscience that he knows what people think, just that based on his observations of the polls, what he believes they think. It sounds like Mr. Blow is making a case for Mr. Obama being the most arrogant president in our history. Please continue.
“And there it was. Obama’s language focused on what people “know,” or should know. He seems to find comfort in the empirical nature of knowledge. It’s logical. Limbaugh’s language focused on what he thinks people “believe.” Beliefs are a more complicated blend of facts, or lies, and faith. And, they can exist beyond the realm of the rational.”
Really? Is Mr. Blow serious? Does he believe this or does he know this? Of what knowledge are you speaking Mr. Blow, in which President Obama takes warm comfort? Is it the empirical knowledge that estimates of what Medicare would cost when it was passed turned out to be understated by 700%? Is it the empirical knowledge that the model for ObamaCare up in Massachusetts has not stopped costs from increasing and health care is being rationed? Of course, when Mr. Blow speaks of the right and their beliefs he has to work “lies” into the formula of the “complicated blend of facts, lies and faith.”
“According to another Quinnipiac poll released last week, Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to say that they follow public affairs most of the time. But how? They listen to people like Limbaugh, and they’re more likely than others to watch Fox News.”
Let me call your Quinnipiac poll and raise you one. In its daily poll on the president Rasmussen finds that while 53% of likely voters disapprove of the job President Obama is doing, 55% of the media write favorable articles about him and that is on a downward trend! So if people want the truth, who should they turn to for their news, the New York Times perhaps? I think your article just answered that question.
“But invectives are not information. For example, a poll released on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center found that most Republicans say that they still don’t understand how the new health care reform will affect them and their family.”
Republicans still don’t understand??? Nobody understands it, Mr. Blow, because nobody read it before it passed Congress. At over 2,500 pages, if you did nothing else but read the bill in the seventy two hours it was posted in the internet, it is not likely you could have read it. No sleeping, no eating, no lavatory breaks, just three straight days of reading it and you would be hard pressed to get all the way through. Since you are such a fan of empirical evidence, when major companies announced billions in write-offs because of the bill and the legal requirement to so report, Congressman Henry Waxman appeared shocked and called for hearings. When Congressman Anthony Weiner said the IRS would not be checking on whether or not you had health insurance, he couldn’t explain why the law funds 16,000 more IRS agents. This circus is only starting my friend.
And so, my fellow imbeciles, Mr. Blow has spoken with a scathingly inept defense of all things Obama, making the case for a strong turnout at the Tea Parties on April 15 at the very same time. If you want to know the news watch Fox, if you believe you want to house train your dog, get the New York Times.
Democrats Lining Up to Vote for Cap and Trade
The tide is turning against the case for man-made global warming. An article in today’s Wall Street Journal has the following:
“Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.” — The Climate Change Climate Change, WSJ, June 26, 2009
So if the case for controlling CO2 emissions is gaining skeptics, what would a reasonable person do? They would probably pause and listen to see if they should alter their position based on this new information. What do the statists do? Double their efforts to jam this gargantuan tax bill through Congress, again without reading it because it’s too big, before the American people find out just how monumentally stupid it is.
Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and Ed Markey are the lead lemmings jumping into the sea and expecting all of us to follow. You see, if they can slam this thing in they will have enormously increased their power and make it very difficult to unwind this monstrosity. Their disdain for what is right for this country and what is best for the American people is truly astounding. Their arrogance and sense of empowerment knows no limits.
Scientists Speak Out
Far from Al Gore’s pejorative and dismissive label of “deniers”, some real scientists weigh in:
“The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)” — The Climate Change Climate Change, WSJ, June 26, 2009
Can you feel your liberties slipping away as those in power do what they want rather than representing us. Sounds like it’s about time for a tea party.
