This is what Andrew Breitbart warned us about and fought so courageously against. The lies of the left to advance their agenda. Do we roll over, or do we take up the torch and continue the fight?

The Losing Abortion Attack

Abortion used to be the tried and true social attack point of the left. Being pro-abortion gave them a 10% edge where abortion was important to the voters. Over time as medicine has advanced and people learn more about abortion, it is now a 10% loser. What’s a leftist to do? Simple, shift gears and try to make an issue out of contraception.

It’s a different argument though. The argument with abortion was whether there were two lives involved or one. If it was one life, the woman and a clump of cells, then an abortion is little different from a tonsillectomy. If, however, two lives were involved then an abortion is tantamount to homicide. There is , for the most part, no human life at risk through the use of contraceptives so this tack loses some of it’s potency. While there are those who oppose contraception on moral grounds, there are very few who would seek to outlaw it. It is a case of moral persuasion rather than saving a life.

Fabricating the Contraception Issue

If you watched the Republican presidential debate where George Stephanopoulos asked MItt Romney about states banning contraceptives you probably felt as puzzled as Romney at the question. Huh? Where did that come from? As Romney tried to grasp the question and answer it, he said, George, no state is trying to ban contraceptives that I’m aware of. Stephanopoulos would have no part of it, he came at Romney again, yes, but do you believe states have a right to ban contraceptives? Look at the news coverage on contraceptives from that debate, and you can see the left trying to put the pieces in place to create an issue out of thin air.

The Attack on the Church

To paraphrase Machiavelli, when you sup with the devil, bring a long spoon. The Catholic Bishops were strong supporters of ObamaCare and now they have come to the realization that the devil is in the details. Now there is a pitched battle to oppose the contraception provision of that law. It is a blatant violation of the First Amendment to force the Catholic church to act contrary to its beliefs. Obama and the left know they are on the losing end of that argument, so they had to pivot.

Access to Contraceptives

They way they pivoted was to claim that women were being denied access to contraceptives, which is a lie. Contraceptives are readily available and relatively cheap. Why should the rest of us be paying for someone’s recreational sex? If you can’t pay for your own contraception, try a little abstinence. This entitlement mindset of instant gratification whether they can afford it or not, is about as un-American as it gets.

Enter Sandra Fluke

So who is Sandra Fluke? Does she have an agenda or is she just expressing her own concerns? She says she is a third year law student at Georgetown. Do they not teach the Constitution and the First Amendment at Georgetown Law? She says she is a past president of Georgetown’s Law Students for Reproductive Justice and she’s attending Georgetown on a Public Interest Scholarship. Okay, law student, reproductive justice, public interest; sounds like a trifecta of the liberal left.

Fluke came to Georgetown University interested in contraceptive coverage: She researched the Jesuit college’s health plans for students before enrolling, and found that birth control was not included. “I decided I was absolutely not willing to compromise the quality of my education in exchange for my health care,” says Fluke, who has spent the past three years lobbying the administration to change its policy on the issue. The issue got the university president’s office last spring, where Georgetown declined to change its policy. – Washington Post

So Sandra Fluke is a law student, an advocate for reproductive justice, and is on a scholarship tied to a future career in fighting for liberal causes, and she “researches” the health care plan, not just looks it up and reads about it. Her intent was to take on the health care plan and change it, which she did, but lost.

Democrats wanted Fluke to testify before Congress but Congressman Darrell Issa said she wasn’t a qualified witness. The matter before the committee was on religious liberties, not about women and Fluke was neither a lawyer nor a member of the clergy. As fellow Georgetown student Angela Morabito puts it:

Her one claim to fame in the reproductive health care debate is…drumroll, please…being a student club leader! You go, Sandra! Hang those posters girl. Wear out those Sharpies.

Me?  I love me some extracurricular involvement. The difference between Sandra and me is that I don’t think it qualifies me to speak in front of Congress.  ”The Chair calls to the stand  the captains of the intramural ultimate frisbee team!” – Angela Morabito, Georgetown student

Of all the women in America who did meet Chairman Issa’s qualifications, the Democrats picked Sandra Fluke?

So Nancy Pelosi got the cameras together and a room and set the stage to look like a Congressional hearing and gave the floor to Sandra. She said her fellow classmates have suffered financially, medically, and emotionally because, you know, contraceptives can cost $3,000 during law school. I don’t know what kind of contraceptives Sandra is interested in, or if it is going to take her a lot longer to finish law school than most, but according to Planned Parenthood, birth control pills cost $15-$50/month; the birth control injection Depo-Provera costs $35-$75 and lasts three months; and the birth control patch costs $15-$80/ month. It seems that with a little shopping, Sandra could cut her costs in half, but let’s hear from Angela again:

Let’s talk priorities here. It costs over $23,000 for a year at Georgetown Law. Sandra, are you telling us that you can afford that but cannot afford your own contraception? Really? Math was never my strong suit, but something about Sandra’s accounting just doesn’t seem right. – Angela Morabito, Georgetown student

Extreme Cases

Another of the left’s ploys when abortion was a winning strategy for them was pointing to rape and incest, not birth control, as the absolute need for abortions. True to form, Sandra’s mock testimony was not about wild and free recreational sex, it was about non-contraceptive uses for contraceptives. Huh? There are medical conditions for which birth control is sometimes prescribed, not to prevent pregnancy but to alleviate the particular condition. If you look at the totality of use for contraceptives these cases would be quite small. It’s like a magician. They want to keep your focus on this small exceptions, the left hand if you will, so you don’t see what the right hand is doing.

A Simple Solution

We buy our own auto insurance, we buy our own life insurance, we buy our own homeowner’s insurance. We should buy our own health insurance. Kill Obamacare. If individuals owned their own policies, there would be no mandate of what to cover or not, it would be up to the market to decide. You would not have to worry about pre-existing conditions if you maintained your coverage, you would not be afraid of changing jobs for losing your health insurance. The tax breaks that currently go to companies to provide health insurance should be abolished and those tax breaks given to the individual. The amount of money that companies are currently spending to pay for health care for their employees could be given to the employees in the form of a raise. Insurance companies should be allowed to create any kinds of plans they want, this one including contraceptives, that one not.

However, by doing so, the Democrats would lose the campaign issue they are busy trying to fabricate out of thin air. American was conned in 2008. Don’t get conned again.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Minimal to non-existent; Unlikely; No serious reforms were on the way; Needs to take a close look; Hardly the inspiring rhetoric of Knute Rockne or Winston Churchill. Tim Bishop’s back in his congressional seat starting his fifth term in office and already the group he was meeting with, the Long Island Farm Bureau, was expressing buyer’s remorse.

Some at the meeting questioned whether Mr. Bishop could still effectively represent local farmers in Congress now that he is a minority member of the House of Representatives after Republicans gained control during midterm elections.

In response, Mr. Bishop said that despite the shift in power, he could still provide a voice for farmers on pressing issues.

It’s not like they didn’t see it coming. The only people who did not forecast a Republican takeover of Congress seemed to be sitting around a table with Joe Biden. After voting in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi as she added $5 trillion to the national debt since 2006, people are very nervous about how big the debt has grown and what will happen, particularly if interest rates return to historical levels. At 6%-7% for Treasuries, we may be facing payments of $1 trillion per year in interest alone. Something has to be done and fast. So what kind of leadership is Tim Bishop showing?

“You want to shut down Social Security? Fine. Come with me to a senior citizen center and explain it,” the congressman said.

Really? It that what his constituents pay him $174,000 per year, plus all the trappings of office for? I ain’t gonna tell ‘me, YOU tell ‘em. I know of no instance of anyone saying that shutting down social security is a near term option. There are a number of proposals on the table, including one in my book, Liberty’s Lifeline, but telling seniors, sorry, no more Social Security checks isn’t one of them. It is the same old tired demagoguery of the left. Do you remember the commercials of Republicans pushing grandma down the stairs in a wheelchair? It is purely scare tactics, like the diversion a magician makes to watch over here, so you don’t see what they are really doing over there.

Tim Bishop agrees that something needs to be done, but far be it from him to come up with anything. The Republicans propose cutting $61 billion and Tim Bishop is fighting to put it back. While it is admirable to fight for the jobs at Brookhaven National Labs, we have to be honest. The government has recklessly spent too much money for too long and it has to stop and the reality is some people in government programs are going to lose their jobs. They will have to move to the private sector that should start growing again once this administration stops spending.

He also said Congress needs to take a close look at agricultural subsidies, none of which are enjoyed by Long Island farmers.

Who has been in Congress for the last eight years while farm subsidies have continued and we pay for them? Who is Mr. Bishop representing, his district or Nancy Pelosi? The farmers asked him about the tough EPA regulations affecting the fertilizers and pesticides they use and the congressman had this to say:

Mr. Bishop said the new leadership of congress appeared determined to reign in the EPA in order to bring more balanced regulations on pesticides.

The new leadership would be the Republicans, no? What has been going on the last eight years with Congressman Bishop in Congress?

Perhaps the icing on the cake is Mr. Bishop’s appeal for calm and civility. In talking about immigration and migrant farm workers he had this to say:

“We have allowed anger and emotion and demagoguery to rule the debate on immigration as opposed to fact and reason and trying to be in the real world,” he added of the issue.

This raises two interesting points. First, is that Mr. Bishop just finished running a campaign that was predominantly personal attacks and very little substance, and he cries out for civility. Hypocrisy?  Second, why didn’t Mr. Bishop tell the farmers that they should get American workers instead of immigrants, illegal or otherwise? Isn’t that outsourcing? Isn’t that what he fought so hard for in his campaign? Giving jobs to foreigners when the unemployment rate is so high? Tell the immigrants to go home and tell the people on unemployment to come on down.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? It just points to one more area where Tim Bishop is out of his depth. Spending all one’s time in the ivory towers of academia and then going into government and trying to tell people how the economy works, when he doesn’t understand it himself. Hopefully, with him in the minority we can limit the damage he can do. We don’t have term limits so it is up to the members of the district to retire him.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

With just over three weeks to the election, we know one thing about Tim Bishop.  He has a problem with outsourcing.  He doesn’t want to talk about his record, about TARP, the GM and Crysler bailout, the stimulus, Cap and Trade, or ObamaCare.  His entire campaign is about a company his opponent Randy Altschuler founded in 1999 and sold in 2005 that provided business services.  Mr. Bishop, like a magician, feels that if he can keep the voters distracted long enough on outsourcing, he can pull a reelection out of his, er, hat.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdDOiUzxIXU&hd=1

Transcript:

For those of us who live in New York’s First Congressional district we have seen the ads by Tim Bishop over and over again.  Congressman Tim Bishop, who is running for reelection, is a one trick pony. It’s all about his opponent, Randy Altschuler, starting a company that provided business services.  But the employees were located overseas.  Mr. Bishop doesn’t want to defend his record of eight years in Congress he only wants to talk about outsourcing.

1. The company Altschuler started with a classmate, Office Tiger, was conceived out of the frustration of two men being unable to get their work completed.  They worked at two different companies in the financial services industry. 

 “Both of them were working on their presentations for the next morning at the in-house typing pool. At night, the typing pool would be filled with actors and poets who were moonlighting to make ends meet.  The classmate, Joe Sigelman describes the situation.

“It was three in the morning, and there was this guy who had an audition the next day and was tired and ready to go home because he had a play earlier in the morning. He gave me back my work, but he had accidentally put his script inside my presentation. I was banging my head in exasperation. I called my buddy Randy to share my misery with him. And, he also had exactly the same experience in New York! It was a strange coincidence,” Joe recounted.

The quality of the work was not there because the people in the typing pool were looking for their big break on Broadway, not on producing high quality documents.

Office Tiger was started in September of 1999 when the unemployment rate in the U.S. was 4.2%.  They sold the company to RR Donnelly in 2005 when  the unemployment rate was 5.08%.  Traditionally economists have considered “full employment” to be at 5% unemployment. So what exactly  is Mr. Bishop’s point?  It appears from the graph that it wasn’t a case of outsourcing jobs, it was a case of not enough people available to hire, which was demonstrated by having actors and poets filling the jobs that would normally be done by professional clerical staff. So Mr. Altschuler and his partner sought to fill a need, put their own money at risk, and started the company. Perhaps it is entrepreneurs and capitalists that Mr. Bishop really hates.

Mr. Altschuler also founded another company, Cloud Blue, in 2001 that has created 700 jobs in the U.S. and 250 jobs in New York State.  Mr. Bishop spent his entire working career in academia and government.  The government has made our K-12 education the most expensive and increasingly ineffective education in the developed world.

This clip is from a town hall meeting Mr. Bishop held on June 22, 2009 that was captured on video by Save America.  Here is a man who took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and doesn’t know what the Constitution stands for.  He thinks the central purpose of the Constitution is to provide for the common good, when it real purpose is to limit government to those few essential things necessary for a free society and leave everything else to the states and the people so they can live their lives in liberty, free to pursue their own happiness.  Perhaps what is remarkable here is that this statist member of the political class seems shocked that his constituents would question his view of the Constitution.  Almost in unison they call him on his error.  We the people are not ignorant.  We know far more that you give credit for.  We know what this country stands for and you will learn that lesson on November 2, 2010.

Over the past eleven months, have you ever gotten a feeling that you are watching a magician, rather than a president run our country?  As any practitioner of the art of the illusionist will tell you, one of the key things is to keep the audience distracted.  Have them watch the left hand, while the right is slipping the coin into the pocket.  The Obama Administration is about to unleash their greatest trick yet, trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civil court in New York for the 9/11 attack on America.  Why?

The Greatest Show On Earth

The trial will become an absolute three ring circus, with all the world watching closely.  The liberal pundits say, “this is our chance to show the world our justice system.  We can demonstrate how civilized we are, and show the Muslim world how fair we are.”  Really?

Remember to the footage in the Muslim world immediately following the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.  They were dancing in the street, laughing and singing, shouting praise to Allah.  What do you think the reaction will be if Khalid Sheik Mohammed, jumps up in court and screams out, “Kill the infidels! This is a fraud meant to disguise these devil’s tricks!”  Do we let him ramble with a global audience?  Do we have the bailiffs wrestle him to the ground?  Do we put him in restraints for the rest of the trial?  Who exactly is going to show the world what?

We Have No Secrets

In a civilian trial there is a process called discovery, where the defense is told everything the prosecution plans on bringing to court, including witnesses, so that the defense has a chance to prepare their rebuttal case.  How much of the CIA’s methods and contacts are we prepared to reveal to the world and to Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s allies?  Or, how much are we not going to use in order to protect that information and at the same time increase the chances that he will be acquitted?

Can Anybody Say O.J.?

Do you remember the O.J. Simpson trial?  A slam-dunk if ever there was one.  There was blood evidence, DNA evidence, means, motive, opportunity, it couldn’t get any easier.  But what happened?  Judge Lance Ito, lost control of his court room in the klieg lights of national television.  One of O.J.’s attorneys or advisors told O.J. to stop taking his arthritis medication  so his hands would swell and then the famous glove trick, abra cadabra, “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”  What happened after that trial?  Dancing in the streets of the black community.

The Jury Pool

Are Muslims going to be excluded from the jury pool?  If so, on what grounds and would a judge allow it?  In the O.J. case we had what was called jury nullification, where a jury handed up a verdict not based on the evidence presented, but based on a social determination.  O.J. was a symbol for all black men put on trial and all past injustices.  He was a sports hero to millions and he wasn’t going down, no matter what.  What if a someone with strong beliefs sees disrupting the outcome of the trial as the new jihad?  Don’t use suicide bombers in New York, that’s so Middle East, let’s kill them softly by getting Khalid Sheik Mohammed acquitted or a give them a hung jury.  What better way to humiliate the Great Satan.  It will be like David and Goliath all over again.

The Real Trial

Or is it really the Bush Administration that Obama wants to put on trial?  The Obama administration’s popularity is sinking link a stone.  The stimulus package was a bust.  Cap and Trade is a disaster.  Health care a debacle.  Tea Party’s are breaking out all over.  The Democrats got trounced in Virginia and New Jersey, and even New York’s 23rd is still alive as recounts have dramatically closed the gap. A show trial of the Bush Administration is just what the Obama Administration needs to keep the focus off what they are really doing.

This is a tragedy and a travesty and there should be no end to the shame heaped upon this administration if they follow through on this.

As Barack Obama famously said to Harry Reid, “I have a gift, Harry.”  Yes he does.  Barack Obama is quite a talented speaker.  One of his many talents is his use of props.  Huh?  One such prop is a rhetorical device that I will call the “Straw Man.”

The Straw Man

Obama uses the straw man to create a fictitious opponent.  This opponent is obviously a bad guy.  He’s insensitive, greedy, self serving, and even racist where he needs to be.  The problem is that he doesn’t exist.  But once created, Obama deftly maneuvers the straw man into whatever camp his opponents occupy and by doing so, vilify his real opponents by polluting them with the presence of the evil straw man.  Here’s an example.

When Obama was pushing for his stimulus package he said something like this, “I don’t agree with those who say we should do nothing,” and “I don’t agree with those who say only tax cuts will fix the economy,” and “Eight years of tax cuts and deregulation got us into this mess.”  Like unmasking a magician, let me share the trick, so you can see it next time.  Obama never says who the straw really is, because he doesn’t exist.  Who said we should do nothing with regard to the economy?  The Republicans who opposed him definitely had different views on what should be done, but I don’t know of anyone who said we should do nothing.  So Obama creates this fictitious straw man and you can almost hear the American people booing the straw man as he says it.  Okay, let’s check off the people don’t like the straw man.  By pointing out his opposition to the straw man and then by pointing out the Republicans are opposed to Obama’s plan, Obama hints that the straw man is really in the Republican camp.  Cue the crowd to start booing the Republicans. Pretty neat, eh?  He can’t make a frontal attack on the Republicans because he will have to fight them on the battlefield of ideas.  He creates an unpopular position that no one has and hangs it on his opponents.

Which regulation was lifted that resulted in the economic problems that we currently have?  Which tax cut resulted in the collapse in the housing market?  President Obama won’t name them because they don’t exist.  Were there government programs that caused this problem?  Sure, and I can name them.  Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Community Reinvestment Act, HUD, etc.  Were there people who fought against more regulation?  Yes, and they have names. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Senator Barack Obama.  But these operators and programs are all part of the government and if there is one thing we have learned about President Obama it is that government is not big enough and Americans still have too much liberty left in their own hands.  His master plan is to reverse both of these.

Get the Torches Out

So now that you know what to look for, when you see President Obama float another straw man, put the torches to it.  If we had a responsible press, they would ask him to reveal who, specifically, he is talking about when he creates these straw men.  If he doesn’t have an answer queued up on the Teleprompter, it could be fun to watch.

I’ve said it before.  Barack Obama is a masterful politician.  It is almost like a magician.  His slights of hand are so subtle, you have to be watching very closely the hand that is not the center of attention to catch what he is really doing.

Creating Jobs

As he tried to build up support for his stimulus package the number of jobs his package would create steadily grew.  It went from 3 million jobs to 4 million jobs.  Further it went from 80% private sector jobs to 90% private sector jobs.  Pretty impressive stuff. But what is the other hand doing?

Saving Jobs

When public opinion got behind needing to do something, the rhetoric started to shift.  From creating jobs it became creating or saving jobs.  Saving jobs?  Just how do you measure that?  How do you link that a particular employer didn’t lay off an employee because of a stimulus package to save the salt marsh harvest mouse?  Once, you slipped in that innocent change and got the media to buy off on it, which is not a stretch with this president, you can really go full bore.  “Why, we saved 15 million jobs!”  Go ahead, prove we didn’t.

“Well the package was intended to create jobs, but then the economy went into a free fall.  No, we weren’t able to create the 3 (not 4) million jobs we promised but, by golly, we saved 25 million jobs from being lost if we didn’t implement the stimulus package.”  If repeated often enough and lapped up by the slobbering main stream media, a complete failure will be hailed as a masterstroke.

What Happened in the Great Depression?

FDR is still revered as the president who got us out of the Great Depression.  His own Treasury Secretary, Henry Morganthau, said that eight years of spending failed to reduce the unemployment rate.  But Roosevelt is still considered a hero, not a failure who couldn’t end the Great Depression after ten years.  He couldn’t end it at all, really, because World War II was what eventually ended it.

Conservative Battle Plan

Conservatives lost the battle to keep this stimulus plan from going forward, and putting one in place that would work, led by tax cuts.  We must expose this slight of hand.  Just like sitting in the theatre watching a magic show we have to stand up and shout, “Did you just see what he did with his left hand?!!”  We need to preempt this by asking liberals, “You’re not going to start saying now that the package is designed to save jobs rather than create them, are you?”  If we don’t expose them, they’ll pull it off.