Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Is She The Next Anthony Weiner?, without the weiner?



Debbie Wasserman Schultz



 Weekly Standard’s John McCormack

The bad news: she didn’t realize that she was calling members of her own party ‘anti-woman’ before she started screaming to The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack about how people who voted to defund Planned Parenthood are anti-woman!

McCormack: But there were nine [correction: ten] Democrats who voted against funding for Planned Parenthood, so are those, now eleven Democrats anti-woman?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, they’re not, because if you, when I declare someone, when I make a broad statement like that, I look at the balance of somebody’s–where their priorities are, the balance of their record. And so one individual isolated vote here and there does not make you anti-woman.

McCormack: So what are the broader votes that make those Democrats who voted on those same issues–on Planned Parenthood on H.R. 3–what makes them not anti-woman?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I don’t think there are any Democrats.

McCormack: Eleven.

Note that Debbie Wasserman Schultz happens to be the Deputy Minority Whip; I was unaware that the position was a sinecure.  Or that it causes traumatic memory loss among those who have been burdened by the job.  Or that the Democrats simply pick lying suckweasels for the position… actually, no: I was already aware of that one.

Anyway, the good news: at least Wasserman Schultz’s bright enough* not to try to answer John McCormack by either trying to have him arrested, or by shoving him to the ground.  That never ends well.

Seriously, Debbie?  If you’re going to fulminate about Republican Presidential candidates driving foreign cars, don’t own a Nissan, OK?  Particularly since the only places where they’re made in the USA are in right-to-work states.  Guess union solidarity only goes so far, huh?

The Re-Election Mob Psychology

 
 
 
 
Why do mobs behave in such extreme ways? Each year in the United States we hear about crowds at rock concerts that get so out of hand people are trampled to death, or about riots after a large sporting event that result in severe property damage and injury to numerous people. How can the existence of a surrounding group influence someone’s behavior? How can incorporation into a group cause people to act in manners that contradict their typical attitudes and behaviors?


Groups have incredible effects on individuals’ behaviors, and have been an area of interest in social psychology for years. Psychologists have found that group behavior tends to be more extreme than the typical behavior of its individual members (i.e. if the members of a group tend to be somewhat liberal/conservative, the behavior of the group will be more liberal/conservative than that of all its members). This phenomenon is most clearly seen in the behavior of mobs. A mob is one of the most influential (and overlooked) forces in changing people’s behavior. Social Psychologists attribute this effect to a process of deindividuation, defined as the loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people are in a crowd, leading to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts.

Groups encourage a sense of anonymity among its members, and it is this anonymity that results in “mob psychology” and other anti-social behaviors. When people think they are anonymous, they will behave in anti-social ways because they so not believe they can be singled out among the crowd and be evaluated (hence, the hoods that are worn by members of the Ku Klux Klan not only hide their identity, but also make it easier for them to behave in an anti-social manner). Groups also encourage a diffusion of responsibility for actions taken. Thus, if an individual acts in an anti-social manner while in a group, it is the group’s fault as well as his. This leads to an overall weakening of social influences and self-consciousness. Social norms no longer apply to members of the group, but rather, the group creates its own set of norms to which every member adheres. Inevitably, the result is antisocial behavior on the part of the individual and the group.

Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University studied the effects of this anonymity within a group setting in the 1960’s. Subjects were placed in a room and instructed to give another “subject” shocks (the subject was a confederate of Zimbardo’s and did not actually receive any shocks). One group of subjects were allowed to see and be seen by the victim, while the other group was given Ku Klux Klan-type hoods to wear over their heads. Zimbardo found that the group of subjects who wore the hoods (were anonymous/depersonalized) gave nearly twice as much electric shock as those who did not. An additional study conducted by Watson in 1973 found that, of tribal warriors in Africa, those who wore face paint or other masks while in battle (i.e. depersonalize themselves) are more likely to kill their enemies in battle than those who did not.

The presence of a group influence has a large impact on individual behaviors. A person may find himself in a totally different psychological state than he usually resides. This is mob psychology. Social norms no longer have any effect on individual behavior and there is no longer any fear of evaluation for one’s actions. Increased anonymity, diffusion of responsibility, and the increased energy that results from the existence of a group lead to a weakened self-consciousness, and encourage individuals to behave in ways that would not belong in normal social environments.

So the rule of thumb: Never underestimate the power of the situation. You might be surprised what you would do under certain circumstances.

'Obama got Osama' won't win in 2012

by: LZ Granderson CNN

Well, that didn't last long.
Osama bin Laden's body was barely cold when President Barack Obama's detractors began subtly deconstructing what the president called "a good day for America."

Rush Limbaugh started his show with a sarcastic intro thanking "God for President Obama." Emily Miller, an editor at The Washington Times, tweeted that she wanted to see a picture of bin Laden's dead body.

Facebook and Twitter are already full of conspiracy theorists, questioning the validity of the U.S. military's account and minimizing the role the president played in authorizing the mission.

I swear if Obama turned water into wine his critics would accuse him of being an alcoholic. That's why as satisfying as it may be to have brought an end to the bin Laden nightmare, the Democrats need to move on and get back to work because their opposition already has.

To interpret the country's "good day" as an easier path back to the White House would be a colossal mistake. A CNN poll taken in the aftermath of bin Laden's death found that while two-thirds of Americans approve of how Obama is handling terrorism, his overall approval rating of 52% is just 1 percentage point higher than from last week. Remember George H.W. Bush's approval rating went through the roof (91%)shortly after he forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait during Desert Storm in 1991.

The following year he was out of a job.

What can I say? The country has a short attention span.

By the time summer rolls around, bin Laden's death will be a distant memory, but the unemployment rate and gas prices will still be here, fresh in view throughour windshields as we go aboutseeking employment.

What will Democrats have to say?

Or better yet, what will Democrats be responding to?

That is what Democrats seem to do best, isn't it? React instead of initiate, ideologically handcuffed to a ridiculous game of cat and mouse seemingly oblivious to the fact their opponent is playing chess.

The most recent example of this can be found in Oklahoma.

Last week state Rep. Sally Kern came under fire for saying the reason why there is a disproportionately high number of blacks in Oklahoma's prisons was because blacks "didn't want to work hard in school." Kern also said women made less than men because women "tend to think more about their families." She made her remarks during a debate on Senate Joint Resolution 15, a proposal to eliminate affirmative action policies in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.

Despite Kern's offensive language, the House voted 76-16 to put the initiative on the ballot in, get this, 2012. Yep, the presidential election.

At first my anger was directed at Kern until I realized I've heard this song before.

The so-called birther bills -- which require candidates to prove citizenship before appearing on ballots -- were introduced in Arizona (before being vetoed by Gov. Jan Brewer) and Oklahoma as a wink and nod to the Republican fringe.

In the last decade the Federal Marriage Amendment and anti-gay state constitutional amendments were used by Karl Rove and George W. Bush to corral religious conservatives into the voting booths.

Senate Joint Resolution 15 is not really about abusive affirmative action practices in Oklahoma.

It's about Republicans taking back the White House.

While relying on divisive social issues such as race and abortion as a means to get votes may seem a bit outdated, until Democrats figure out a way to nullify the fear-mongering tactic effectively, Republicans are going to keep going to the well.

Allow me to direct your attention to Minnesota. This week it passed House File 1613, a state constitutional amendment proposal stating that only a union of one man and one woman is "valid or recognized" as a marriage. It too will be on the ballot in 2012.

On Monday night in Pennsylvania, House Bill 1434 was introduced by Rep. Daryl Metcalfe. It would "define" marriage as a union between one man and one woman and outlaw any other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent (i.e. civil unions or domestic partnerships). It too is being aimed for 2012.

Kern's statements are insensitive, but they did not reveal anything new about her any more than the next outlandish statement out of Howard Stern's mouth tells us what kind of radio personality he is. However, it does shed a lot of light on how she feels about her fellow Oklahomans.

By helping to place this measure on the ballot during the upcoming presidential election, it is clear Kern and her kind are betting a significant portion of the voters who believe affirmative action is a bad thing will also see Obama as a byproduct of its institutionalization. Kern was a teacher for 20 years and knows quotas have been illegal for decades and that affirmative action does not force employers to hire unqualified minorities or colleges to admit lazy black students.

But by framing the argument to suggest otherwise, Kern makes a thinly veiled appeal to anyone in her constituency who may be white and racist. And Kern clearly believes there are enough racist whites in Oklahoma worth the effort to try and scare to the polls. Just as Republicans in Minnesota are looking for a strong conservative and/or homophobic showing by placing gay marriage on its 2012 ballot.

I've never been white or straight, but if I were either, I would imagine I would find such sophomoric pandering disgusting.
But that's just me.

Anyway, since making the remarks Kern has apologized and was reprimanded by the Oklahoma House. But apparently that's not good enough because progressive organizations such as the NAACP and GLAAD say they want her to resign.

I say it's another example of chasing pawns at the expense of exposing the king.

What these and groups like them need to be doing is figuring out how to maintain control of a narrative that keeps slipping out of their hands. They have the public's attention with bin Laden's death; can they keep it? Because while ridiculing Kern and Donald Trump is sexy today, it doesn't guarantee voters will be ready to marry the Obama administration for four more years.

Grass-roots and state-level Democrats need a solvent voice and tangible plan in place -- separate from what Republicans are doing -- to make sure the voters in their communities who are connected now, stay connected.

Having an "unqualified blacks and Mexicans are stealing your job" proposal on the ballot may get you in trouble in a human resources office, but it effectively provides Kern and other conservative Oklahomans with another motivator to campaign around to get their base to the polls in 2012.

What are the comparable initiatives being funneled down the pipeline by Democrats to ensure their voters show up? Are they too busy preparing their next sternly worded letter demanding an apology?

Correcting a lie?

Being wagged by its tail?

In a perfect world, both parties would come together to celebrate what bin Laden's death means to the country's sense of closure. But the truth is some Republicans have already left the party and others didn't even bother showing up.

Like it or Not: Mexico is America’s Next Afghanistan

With the exception of, perhaps, Texas governor Rick Perry, no public official wants to publicly admit an obvious fact: The United States of America will likely be forced to invade Mexico. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when. The question then becomes: What to do with Mexico after we invade it and wipe out the drug cartels (as much as can be). Does the United States merely return Mexico to a nation state of corrupt politicians, failed economic policies, and lawlessness, or do we annex Mexico and turn it into the 51st state?

For many of us, there is a certain false security in believing that, since most of America’s streets are not filled with the murder and mayhem that is going on just south of our borders, we have nothing to worry about. The feeling that most Americans likely have is: Well, it’s their problem, not ours. However, that illusion of security is quickly being eroded with the stories of American police officers being threatened by Mexican drug cartels, of kidnappings and drug murders in Arizona and Texas, of control of certain parts of Arizona and forays into New Mexico and Colorado by drug cartels, of teenagers being turned into hitmen, and American tourists being kidnapped or killed while on vacation in Mexico.

Mexico, with its kidnappings and more than 28,000 murders in the last four years alone, is being terrorized. Now, instead of economic refugees coming across our borders in search of jobs and income, humanitarian refugees are fleeing Mexico in order to stay alive. However, despite all of that, if one thought that only certain parts of Mexico are under the control of the cartels, that illusion was shattered on Tuesday when this map (see upper right) was presented on a heart-breaking post on RedState that shows that almost all of Mexico has been taken over by drug cartels.

Mexican Authorities Are Impotent, Unable to Control the Chaos

One of the cables that the much-maligned Wikileaks exposed was the concern over whether or not the Mexican government is even capable of undertaking the cleaning up of its own nation.

Another embassy cable sent in October 2009 quotes a senior Mexican official as saying his government was worried it was losing control of some regions to the drug gangs.

“We have 18 months,” Geronimo Gutierrez, at the time Mexico’s under-secretary of the interior, is quoted as saying.

“And if we do not produce a tangible success that is recognisable to the Mexican people, it will be difficult to sustain this confrontation into the next administration.”

“It is damaging Mexico’s reputation, hurting foreign investment, and leading to a sense of government impotence.” [Emphasis added.]

That cable was 14 months ago and the violence is still raging. The Mexican government has, so far, been unable to curtail the violence and it is likely that, without intervention, the country will become far more deadly than Afghanistan prior to 9/11. Worse, Islamic terrorists have been long suspected of using Mexico as a gateway into the U.S.

While America’s national interests are certainly being threatened, not just by the flood of illegal immigrants, but by the violence that is beginning to spill across our borders, the Obama administration chooses to pander to special interests pushing amnesty, while ignoring repeated requests for troops along our Southern border. Moreoever, the administration claims about the level of deportations in 2010 have come under scrutiny, leaving many to wonder if the administration is even remotely serious about secure borders, or just playing games for the media.

Like it or not, Mexico’s problems are our problems. For decades, politicians in Washington have cowardly turned a bi-partisan blind eye to the economic refugees (i.e., illegal aliens) that have transgressed our borders until it has become an unbearable strain upon our economy. Then, rather than securing our border and addressing the problem, the immigrants are now being used as political pawns in order to create a huge pool of 8 million progressive voters.

The Politics at Play: A Humanitarian Request vs. ‘Just Do It’

Whether the Obama administration lacks the desire to keep the nation’s borders safe or is merely playing politics with people’s lives remains to be seen. In either case, though, it is highly unlikely there will be any stopping the violence on our borders between now and 2013 unless something catastrophic occurs on the U.S. side of the border, or violence ramps up significantly with many more Americans being kidnapped or killed. Further, even with something disastrous occurring, it is doubtful that the Obama administration would ever have the balls, or, political will to put troops into Mexico as unilateral action as it would alienate the Latino community his party has become reliant on for votes in the Southwestern states.

On the Mexico side, however, politics also come into play as Mexican authorities will be unlikely to ask for humanitarian assistance due to that country’s presidential election in 2012.

The PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years as a semi-dictatorship, has been in opposition for a decade after it lost power in an historic 2000 election to the PAN. It is gearing up for a comeback in 2012 with its young rising star, State of Mexico Governor Enrique Pena Nieto.

With a feeble economy and raging drug gang violence dogging Calderon’s ratings, many analysts are already putting their money on a PRI return, but Sunday’s results suggest many voters in Mexico are still skeptical of a party with a reputation of ruling with a mixture of corruption and authoritarianism.

The PAN and the PRD are unlikely to join forces again for the presidential race and either party on its own may have a hard time beating the PRI, which controls large blocks of voters from unions to farmer organizations in rural Mexico.

“The alliance was a successful bet, the results prove that,” Jose Gonzalez, the PAN’s deputy leader, told Reuters. “But for the presidency, frankly, it would be impossible.”

State-level voting in Mexico tends to focus on local, rather than national issues, yet the PRI is keen to capitalize on Calderon’s sinking popularity as a slow economic rebound and out-of-control drug killings weigh on morale. [Emphasis added.]

With the presidency of Mexico at stake in 2012, Calderon’s party is unlikely to ask for help as it would give the PRI a campaign issue to capitalize on ahead of Mexico’s election. As a result of the political ramp up to elections in both countries and using the number of killings in Mexico over the last four years as a predictor, another 10,000 to 14,000 Mexicans and an unknown number of Americans will die before either country takes decisive action.

In 2013 and beyond, though, all bets are off. If the Mexican government cannot contain the violence in that country, or more bloodshed occurs on the U.S. side of the border, either the Mexican government may request humanitarian aide, or the U.S. would be justified in acting unilaterally to go into Mexico to end the drug cartels’ brutal terrorism (it’s not like it hasn’t happened before). In fact, if the violence on the U.S. side of the border does not cease, or escalates further, whoever is sitting in the oval office will be hard pressed not to go into Mexico.

Nation Build or Annex Mexico?

The question then become what to do afterward. Is the U.S. ready for another protracted foray into nation building? Or, in the alternative, does Mexico enter the United States as the 51st state?

Now, this should not be considered an ‘endorsement’ of either idea (see note below). Rather, it is more of a cost-benefit analysis that requires much more study:

Rather than nation building, which would be much more costly to the U.S. treasury (which can ill afford it), a case can be made for statehood (albeit, not without controversy), given the amount of Mexico’s citizenry that is already residing in the U.S., as well as Mexico’s historically mis-managed economy and resources (i.e., oil, farmland, beaches, ports, etc.). Moreoever, as so many illegal immigrants work already in the U.S., but send their earnings back to Mexico, by having Mexico become the 51st state; the money exported would not leave the U.S. but would stay in “our economy” and could offset the costs of an invasion/humanitarian mission. Most importantly, by assimilating Mexico into the U.S., with the Constitution it would solve the the issue of immigration reform in one fell swoop.

Note: Being well aware of the tin-hat/NWO conspiracy theories, this is not a CFR/TC conceived idea. Instead it is an examination of current events caused by a bunch of narco-terrorists and illegal immigration, as well as an attempt to figure out what do we do about it?

Irrespective of what happens farther down the road, the violence that is occurring today in Mexico and spilling over into the U.S. is something that cannot continue to be ignored by the administration, regardless how weak it may be. If things do not change in Mexico (or if the President refuses to secure our borders), sooner or later, the U.S. will likely have to send a large amount of troops into that country to wipe out the drug cartels. Mexico, today, poses as significant (or more significant) threat to the United States than Afghanistan and, as a sovereign nation, America has the right to defend itself and its time the White House (and other politicians) get honest with the American people about what they intend to do about it.

In the meantime, the Obama administration should stop playing politics with people’s lives along the border, ‘man up’ and get Rick Perry and the other Republican governors the troops they need to keep Americans safe along the border.

Where Have All The Capitalists Gone?

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the USSR two decades ago, almost everyone, including famed leftists like Robert Heilbroner, conceded that capitalism was the historic “victor” over socialism. Yet interventionist policies reflecting largely socialist premises have returned with a vengeance in recent years, while capitalism has been blamed for causing the 2007-2009 financial crisis and global economic recession.

Robert Heilbroner

In 2009 a Newsweek cover insisted that “We Are All Socialists Now,” soon after Alan Greenspan publicly decried the “infectious greed” of markets. Meanwhile long-failed Keynesian policies have been aggressively re-imposed on innocents almost daily.

Despite an economic recovery this past year, hostility remains trained on Wall Street, business, profits and the rich, whether by populists from the left and right, or by capitalism’s traditional haters among politicians and journalists. The Economist just ran a column titled “The Filthy Rich,” which declares that since the rich are “unloved and unwanted” they should “hide or support a charity.” The hatred of wealth-makers is ubiquitous–yet people wonder why is capital (loan institutions) on strike.



Alan Greenspan

 What explains this seemingly abrupt shift in the world’s estimate of capitalism from only a couple of decades ago? After all, a political-economic system, whether capitalist or socialist, is a broad and persistent phenomenon that cannot logically be construed as beneficial one decade yet destructive the next. These systems simply are what they are, for good or ill.

Yet while capitalism was being credited as “victory” over socialism a mere two decades ago, it now stands convicted without a trial, amid a revived eagerness for socialist schemes. Not even today’s Tea Party movement seems committed to capitalism in any deep sense.

In short, where have all the capitalists gone? The beginning of an answer might be found in the curious phenomenon that a “socialist” today means an advocate for the political-economic system of socialism as a moral ideal, yet a “capitalist” means a Wall Street financier, venture capitalist or entrepreneur–not an advocate of the political-economic system of capitalism as a moral ideal.

Indeed, most of the world’s wealthiest people–for example, George Soros, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates–are “liberals” who advocate for an ever bigger, more intrusive state. Most people distrust the wealthy for making so much money, yet tolerate or cheer them on for giving it away or lobbying for still-higher tax rates.

That the concept “capitalist” today is still largely non-ideological or amoral reflects a deeper bias (especially among intellectuals who claim the rich are guilty and the rich who view themselves as guilty because the intellectuals say so): that capitalism is not and cannot be moral, at least not on Judeo-Christian grounds. Thus in spite of its vast practical benefits–its promotion of peace, prosperity and culture–capitalism is deeply distrusted, by liberals and conservatives alike, precisely because it is secular, materialist and individualistic.

Capitalism embodies the life-enhancing, wealth-creating ethic of rational self-interest–of egoism, of “greed,” if you will–which is perhaps most blatantly manifested in the profit motive. So long as this humane ethic is distrusted or despised, capitalism will suffer unearned blame for any social-economic ill.

Both the enemies and friends of capitalism concede its productive prowess, yet also disdain its morals, as one can see in as varied a group as Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek and President Barack Obama.

Karl Marx

In his Communist Manifesto (1848) the arch anti-capitalist Marx conceded that capitalism “created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together,” gave “an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land,” and “by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication,” drew “even the most barbarous nations into civilization.” Why then wasn’t Marx pro-capitalist? He claimed capitalism was evil, because it “put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations,” “left no other nexus between people than naked self-interest,” and “drowned out the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor” in the “icy water of egotistical calculation.”

Capitalism immorally “set up that single, unconscionable freedom–free trade,” and this “evil” system was doomed to fail on practical grounds, Marx insisted, by creating “too much civilization, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.” Private property must be abolished, he said, despite its vast power to create a productive civilization, because “the right of man to property is the right to enjoy his possessions and dispose of the same,” and it is a right “without regard for other men,” hence “the right of selfishness.” Capitalism must “fail” because it is “evil.

In the 1930s intellectuals claimed that British economist John Maynard Keynes “saved” capitalism from the clutches of socialism. But at root Keynes, like Marx, despised capitalism’s morality. In a 1930 essay he yearned for “great changes in the code of morals” and for a future in which “the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance” and “we shall be able to rid ourselves” of such “distasteful human qualities” as “the money motive,” which he described as a “disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities.”

John Maynard Keynes



Friedrich Hayek

 In a 1933 essay he wrote that “the decadent international but individualistic capitalism, in the hands of which we found ourselves after the War, is not a success. It is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous. … In short, we dislike it and are beginning to despise it.” In his introduction to the German edition of his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, issued as Hitler ascended to power, Keynes said his theories and policies were “more easily applied to the conditions of a totalitarian state” than to those with “a considerable degree of laissez-faire.” Thus today’s top disciple of Keynes, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, loudly heralds the most reckless and punitive policies.

Yet beware also the conservatives, who today argue as the late Friedrich Hayek once did. In The Road to Serfdom (1944), where he warned, correctly, that the seemingly benign welfare state can lead to a totalitarian state, Hayek also complained of pro-capitalists who with “wooden insistence” defended “the principle of laissez-faire.” For Hayek, as for leftists, “the desire for a collectivist system springs from high moral motives,” where “high” motives means those “above,” beyond and opposed to the motive of self-interest and the individualist ethic, the capitalist morals which are presumed to be low, vulgar, and crude. Such an unwarranted apologetic for capitalism could never constitute even a speed-bump on the road to serfdom.

Barack Obama


Obama is only the latest to concede capitalism’s productive power, while adamantly opposing its morals. “The reason we’ve got an unparalleled standard of living in the history of the world,” he said recently, “is because we’ve got a free market that’s dynamic and entrepreneurial, and that free market has to be nurtured and cultivated.” All that’s true enough–to the extent we’ve had freedom in markets. But Obama’s policies, like those of his predecessor, only stifle markets instead of nurturing them. Obama has said capitalism’s profit motive is corrupting, its wealth distribution is “unjust” and its financiers are “fat cats.” As with Marx, Keynes and Hayek, such biases reflect a deep disdain for capitalism’s morals.

The collapse of socialist regimes two decades ago didn’t mean capitalism was finally being hailed for its many virtues; the historic event only merely reminded people of capitalism’s productive ability–an ability that already long-proven and long-acknowledged even by its worst enemies. Persistent animosity toward capitalism today rests on moral, not practical grounds. Unless rational self-interest is understood as the one moral code consistent with genuine humanity, and the moral estimate of capitalism thus improves, socialism will keep making comebacks, despite its deep and dark record of human misery.

Murdering While Muslim

Recently a nice Muslim fellow from Chicago by the name of Mohammad Alkaramla was convicted of sending bomb threats to a Jewish High School. Like most serial killers, his neighbors described him as peaceful and friendly. Just the sort of chap you want to invite to a barbecue or a bombing. His defense was that he wasn't threatening to kill Jewish students because he was the follower of a bigoted religion, but because he was upset over his ex-wife leaving to return home to Jordan.


Mohammad Alkaramla joins a long list of Muslim terrorists who did what they did only because of "personal problems". There was that great guy with the Facebook profile who only tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square because of a home foreclosure. And a devoted army psychiatrist in Fort Hood who tried to kill a bunch of soldiers because he had contracted PTSD from the drinking water in Texas. But the media was quick to assure us in every case, that these weren't Muslim terrorists. Just distraught homeowners and workplace shooters who happened to be "Murdering While Muslim".

But Mohammad didn't threaten violence against his ex-wife's lawyer or Royal Jordanian Airlines. Instead he threatened to blow up a Jewish High School which in all likelihood had nothing to do with his ex-wife leaving him. Instead his message read, "Will Give You until 01.15.2009 to back OFF from Gaza in Palestine or will set our explosive in your areas". This was not the message of an angry ex-husband, but of an angry Muslim.

In one of the more ridiculous defenses, his father claimed that Mo A. was worried about his wife and son living near Gaza. "He went crazy like with stress. ... He thinks Gaza is by Jordan. All he knows is what he sees on the TV." There's just one problem with this defense. Mohammad Alkaramla is actually from Jordan. So for this to be true, Mohammad would have to be clueless about the nearby geography of his own country. And since most Jordanians are actually Palestinian Arabs, and Jordan at one point annexed the West Bank, but not Gaza, this is one of the least plausible defenses ever.

But apparently we're expected to believe that Mohammad could take the time to research Jewish targets for his hate-- but not the area where his wife and son were going to be living.

Meanwhile Oregon saw another Mohammed, this one named Mohamed O. Mohamud, plot to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Naturally the media suggested that he suffered from bullying and anger over his parent's divorce. And no matter how many times Mohamed O. Mohamud was quoted as saying that he wanted to kill Americans in the name of Islam, the media refused to accept it. Forget Islam, the boy was clearly upset over some completely unrelated things. Just like Mohammad Alkaramla and all the other Mohammad's and Mohammed's and Mohamud's out there. And by the time his trial rolls out, his lawyers may convince him that should be his defense. Even if he doesn't agree, they may present it anyway.

The best ally of such defense strategies is that "Murdering While Muslim" is also the official position of the authorities, who still pretend that being a Muslim is a somehow incidental factor to engaging in Muslim terrorism. Accordingly we don't profile Muslims at airports, because absolutely anyone could be a Muslim terrorist. Except an actual Muslim. And so we strip search Christian 6 year olds just to be on the safe side. The safe side being the side that doesn't offend Muslims, who are not by any means the people trying to blow up the planes.

Muslim terrorists are just people who happen to commit acts of Muslim terrorism for various personal reasons, while incidentally also being Muslim. Much like Communist agents spied for the Soviet Union, while incidentally also being Communists. When the evidence is undeniable and the terrorists themselves insist on quoting the Koran and telling us that we're all going to perish in the wrath of Allah's suicide bombing fires, then the media is forced to concede that maybe they might be Muslims after all. But troubled and confused Muslims who misunderstand their religion in response to personal stress.

Conversely, people who attack Muslims are never assumed to be anything other than rabid bigots seething with hate. Muslim cabbie slasher Michael Enright was an arts student with a drinking problem, and he was so drunk that after the attack he sat down in the middle of traffic. According to a police report, he was highly intoxicated and had an empty bottle of scotch on him. His friends said that he was not anti-Muslim in any way. But the media has never stopped framing the narrative in one way.

Around the same time a drunken Latino man urinated on some prayer rugs that had been left by a mosque. The media of course screamed, Hate Crime. And when the mosque witnesses who claimed that the man shouted slurs disappeared and the NYPD quietly said that it had been nothing more than the work of a drunken idiot looking to answer nature's call, the media never admitted that they had been lying all along. Instead they went on promoting donations to buy the mosque new prayer rugs, orchestrated by an associate of the left wing anti-Israel group, J Street. Even though the mosque was found hosting anti-semitic material on its website.

The liberal narrative is that Muslims kill because of personal problems, not bigotry, but anyone who gets in a drunken argument with his cabbie or urinates outside a mosque is a vicious hate criminal. This double standard gives every Muslim terrorist a built in defense. It's almost startling how few of them bother to use it. Much as the liberal establishment would like to claim that Islamic terrorism is the invention of Islamophobic bigots, Muslim terrorists insist on showing up in court and reciting verses from the Koran in justification of their actions.

When Faishal Shazhad, that nice guy with the Facebook profile who tried to kill hundreds of people in Times Square, appeared in court, he blew away the media narrative that he was a terrorist because he was angry at his home foreclosure. And so the judge in the case was reduced to debating the Koran with him, and telling a devout Muslim that she knows his religion, better than he does. That sad conclusion highlighted the extreme level of liberal denial of Islamic terror. A denial so pervasively repressive that rather than accept the truth of Islamic terror for what it is, they will actually argue with Muslims terrorists, trying to convince them that they don't know their own religion.

In Time Magazine, Joe Klein wrote to condemn, "odious attempts by Jewish extremists... to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs as opposed to a direct consequence of his insanity." Klein is not a practicing psychiatrist, yet he had remotely and conclusively diagnosed the Fort Hood shooter as being crazy, rather than Muslim. Joe Klein then went further. "We should identify the notion that Hasan's act was somehow a consequence of his religious orthodoxy for what it is: anti-Islamic bigotry."

Klein had drawn a line. Any suggestion that Hasan might have been motivated by Islam, even of the so-called extreme variety, was bigotry. And a priori illegitimate. There was no logic or evidence behind Klein's assertions. Only the self-righteous moral authority of liberals to define anything they don't like as bigoted. When it suits their own interests.

Ten days later, Klein was forced to walk back a little, admitting that Islam might have been a factor, but that Hasan was clearly nuts from PTSD he had picked up somewhere and was "more terrified than terrorist". Those on the scene might think that Hasan's victims were the ones terrified and that he was the terrorist-- but clearly Joe Klein knew better. Hasan wasn't Muslim. He was crazy. He just happened to be "Murdering While Muslim."

If we assume that the Koran is a peaceful book and that Islam is a peaceful religion. Then surely Muslims who kill can't possibly be doing it for any Islamic reason. With that premise having been firmly established, it becomes a politically correct tenet of faith, that Muslim acts of violence are incidental to Islam. That there is no such thing as Muslim terrorists, only terrorists who happen to be Muslim. And no amount of Muslim terror can shake that faith. A faith not in anything spiritual, but in a liberal moral order in which the "downtrodden" are always right, and the people they kill are always wrong.

With no faith of their own, the idea that the terrorists are motivated by religion never seems credible to the politically correct. Instead social conditions, political outrage and anti-war sentiments always seem more credible motivators. Credible, because they reflect their own motivations and sentiments, leading them to empathize with Muslim terrorists for the reasons they think are behind the violence, rather than the reasons that actually are behind it.

Being the racist idiots that they are, they pigeonhole Muslims as the successors of the civil rights movement. The "extremists" are the Black Panthers who are impatient with the slow pace of social reforms. While the moderate Muslims are prepared to work hard to get the Democratic party into power on board the Hope and Change express. And no amount of bombs or terror can convince them that they have made a stupid and terrible mistake. A worldview is a difficult beast to shake. It is the window through which we look out at the world. And the window that liberals use to look at Islam has been blocked from the other side, so that it only serves as a mirror. Their image of Islam is a distorted romanticized image of themselves.

The American Dream: Pro and Con

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"


--Emma Lazarus

"The New Colossus"

Inscription on the Statue of Liberty

      It's the rational, fair, humane and, perhaps most of all, patriotic solution to just one aspect of the vast challenge represented by the millions of illegal immigrants in this country. It's called the DREAM Act, and it would allow young people brought into this country illegally but reared as Americans to get on a path to citizenship -- if they enroll in college or join the armed services.

Makes sense. For these students represent human capital, the most precious kind. Educated, trained, allowed to flourish, they would contribute to America's strength rather become another problem. Who knows what one of them might accomplish someday? Together, they represent a mighty promise.

      But the whole question of illegal immigration is political dynamite, and savvy politicians have been avoiding it for years, afraid to offend those who would rather fight the problem than solve it. ("What part of ILLEGAL don't you understand?") Anger is no solution, but there will always be those ready to embrace it, and politicians willing to appease them -- the sort more interested in reflecting public opinion than leading it.

      The two senators from Arkansas exemplify the split over the DREAM Act. In their own way, each is also taking a stand on the American Dream itself, pro and con:

Blanche Lincoln, soon to be the former senior senator from Arkansas, was one of the act's cosponsors and continues to support it. Having been defeated for re-election, she has nothing to lose politically by holding fast to principle. She can afford to ignore the demagoguery that surrounds this issue and just do the right thing.

      But the junior senator from Arkansas, Mark Pryor, is bowing to the forces of fear. He's come out against the DREAM Act. It's hard to imagine that he could look one of these kids in the eye and say: "Yes, I understand you were raised here, went to school here, studied hard and now you want to go to college or serve your country in uniform, just like the American you are in fact if not law. But we're going to deny you a college education anyway."

That's the message Sen. Pryor is sending these young people, and it's a toss-up whether his stand is more unfair or un-American. So much for this being the Land of Opportunity.

Politics may be a low sport, but that doesn't mean it's not educational -- especially when it comes to judging the character of those who take it up. There are those who don't hesitate to jettison principle when it becomes inconvenient, and those who will not abandon it even though it might cost them an election. Which may be why concession speeches say so much more about the character of candidates than any victory statement.

When it comes to debating American immigration in all its facets, legal and illegal being only the most obvious these days, there are those who can look back and learn from the past, and those who can't see beyond the political calculus of the next election.

There are those who can see how each successive wave of immigrants has strengthened the country no matter the hysteria it originally unleashed, and those swept away by an irrational fear of the latest newcomers, these strangers in a strange land. They look at a young Hispanic just out of an American high school and eager to get on with life, whether in school or in the service, and they can see only a threat. Instead of a promise. The kind of promise on which this country was built and the American Dream launched.

How to Shrink the Deficit

President Obama's deficit commission lands with a predictable political thud

 

      Debates over taxes and spending are at root about political philosophy: How big should government be? How much income should it redistribute, and to whom? I mention this to explain why today's report from President Obama's deficit commission is landing with such a predictable political thud.

      This doesn't mean that Co-Chairmen Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles haven't offered some useful ideas, much better ideas overall than we feared. As conceived by former White House budget director Peter Orszag, the commission was supposed to be a Trojan Horse for a value-added tax (VAT) to raise federal revenues to a new and much higher level than their 18.5% or so modern average.

      The idea was that the proposal would sit on a shelf until deficits led to a Greek-like crisis, the bond markets demanded action, and the political class reached in desperation for the Simpson-Bowles deus ex machina. Mr. Orszag and other liberals know they need a VAT, or some other kind of new tax, to finance ObamaCare and their other spending ambitions. What they want is a political device to lure Republicans into voting for it.

       Simpson and Bowles rejected the VAT ruse, but their plan is still one of those Beltway specials that fudges the debate over what government should do. Instead, it tries to package things that everyone dislikes in the hope that everyone will swallow the castor oil at the same time. Such proposals never have a chance unless Presidents and Congressional leaders sign on, and in this case Democrats are already in open revolt, while Republicans are saying nicer things than Mr. Obama is about his own commission. 

      The U.S. federal deficit problem isn't hard to understand. In the short term, revenues have collapsed to 14.9% of GDP thanks to the recession and feeble recovery. Meanwhile, Democrats have raised spending to as high as 25% of GDP, a level not seen since World War II. Faster growth should return revenues over time to 18% or 19% (they have never reached 21%), while spending restraint and program eliminations can gradually reduce outlays toward 20%. The key variable here is economic growth, which is why a tax increase would be especially counterproductive.


             Longer-term, the problems are the liberal entitlements of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and, starting in 2014, ObamaCare, which will add about 20 million new patients to the Medicaid rolls and not one doctor. Democrats want to keep these programs as they are and pay for them with much higher taxes—first by balancing the budget at 25% of GDP, and later by necessity at 30%, 40% or more. The alternative—which we support—is to reform the programs and reduce their scope.


       Yet, incredibly, the Simpson-Bowles report has almost nothing to say about the runaway health-care entitlements. This is a blow to the left and the White House, which cut Medicare by $500 billion to finance a corner of ObamaCare and wants its signature achievement untouched. But this is like doing a Pentagon budget review and excluding Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans ought to reject the report on those grounds alone.

       The deficit commission is more honest on Social Security, on which a bipartisan deal would be possible if Mr. Obama got behind it. Republicans are willing to cut the benefits of future retirees by changing the annual inflation increase formula, but Democrats will have to be willing to raise the retirement age and forgo a payroll tax increase.

 

       The other place for potential common ground is tax reform. The deficit commission suggests cutting tax rates in return for closing tax loopholes, which would help the economy and raise revenue by increasing the efficiency of the tax code. It would also improve tax equity. Many tax loopholes go to the affluent and powerful who have clout in Congress, such as the mortgage interest deduction for $1 million homes. Alas, Mr. Obama has shown no signs that his philosophy of "spreading the wealth" can bring about lower tax rates.

 

       Given this reality, we think commission members Paul Ryan and Jeb Hensarling are right to oppose the final report. The House GOP campaign proposal to reduce spending to 2008 levels is already more stringent than what the commission recommends. Mr. Ryan points out that because the commission starts from Mr. Obama's spending baseline, its proposed cuts are also fewer than advertised—only $1 in cuts for every $2 in tax increases ($1.13 trillion in total tax hikes).

 

      The best strategy for Republicans is to take the commission's better ideas and make them part of their own budget proposals next year. GOP Senators and commission members Judd Gregg, Mike Crapo and Tom Coburn have endorsed the report on grounds that something has to be done, but this is the triumph of desperation over experience.

 

The Truth Behind the Tax Cut Lies.

The biggest battle in the lame duck session of Congress may well be over whether or not to extend the Bush administration’s tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire in January. The fact that this decision has been left until late in the eleventh hour, even though the expiration date has been known for years, tells us a lot about the utter irresponsibility of Congress.


Lame Duck Congress

 Neither businesses nor individuals nor the Internal Revenue Service will know what to do until this issue is resolved. In a stalled economy, we do not need this prolonged uncertainty that can paralyze both consumer spending and investment spending.

Republicans want the current tax rates to continue and Democrats want only the current tax rates for people earning less than “the rich”— variously defined— to continue, with everyone making more than some specified income to have their tax rates rise next year.

What makes predicting the outcome of this battle very iffy is that Republicans won a big majority in the House of Representatives in the recent election, but the tax cuts are scheduled to expire before the new members of Congress are sworn in— and the Democrats have a big majority in both Houses of Congress in the lame duck session, where this issue will be decided.

Theoretically, the Democrats could win, hands down, since they have the votes. But Congressional Democrats are well aware of how they lost big in the recent election, and some Democrats don’t want to gamble their own jobs in the next election by going the class warfare route.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can afford to have all the tax rates go up in January because they couldn’t get together and pass a bill to prevent that from happening. But the nature of that bill matters, not just for politicians but— far more important— for the economy.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, now a professor at Berkeley, has made the case for the liberal Democrats’ position in an article in the November 28th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle titled “Extend benefits for jobless, not tax cuts for the rich.”

Professor Reich points out that both Republicans and some conservative Democrats say that we cannot afford another extension of unemployment benefits because the deficit is already too large.

Then he adds: “But wait. These are the same members of Congress who say we should extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.”

Reich advocates “extending unemployment benefits for struggling families without a breadwinner” because “These families need the money. The rich don’t.”

This is the Democrats’ argument in a nutshell. It seems very persuasive on the surface, however shaky it is underneath. But cuts in tax rates do not mean cuts in tax revenues, as Reich assumes. How the tax-rate battle in Congress turns out may depend on how well the Republicans answer such arguments.

These are not new arguments on either side. They go back more than 80 years. Over that long span of time, there have been many sharp cuts in tax rates under Presidents Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. So we don’t need to argue in a vacuum. There is a track record.

What does that record say? It says, loud and clear, that cuts in tax rates do not mean cuts in tax revenues. In all four of these administrations, of both parties, so-called “tax cuts for the rich” led to increased tax revenues— with people earning high incomes paying not only a larger sum total of tax revenues, but even a higher proportion of all tax revenues.

Most important of all, these tax rate reductions spurred economic activity, which we definitely need today.

These are the facts. But facts do not “speak for themselves.” In terms of facts, the Republicans have the stronger case. But that doesn’t matter, unless they make the case, which they show little sign of doing.

Democrats already understand the need for articulation. Robert Reich is only one of many articulate Democratic spokesmen. But where are the articulate Republicans? Do they even understand how crucial articulation is? The outcome of this lame duck session of Congress may answer that question.

Chinese Economics and Deflation

Consider how China’s spending of its stimulus propagates wealth to all Chinese.

Many times the US goes to China and Russia complaining about human rights issues, blaming China for not having social programs for the poor, unemployed, etc... In effect, to a large extent, China uses the private charities and Religious charities to take care of the populous needs, because they realize that to use money for non-productive and counter-productive purposes drains the wealth they are trying to foster for the country and its citizens. This sounds like an Adams, Jefferson and Franklin concept for how the poor should be covered, versus being supported by the State! Prime Minister Wen of China and Prime Minister Putin of Russia both lambasted Obama, when the US Stimulus was proposed, as draining the wealth of the nation – the path of Socialism.

What China does is that they both borrow and print cash for their stimulus. The cash is printed as an offset to deflation, because deflation drives down the monetary or paper value on the books of banks creating a paper loss, where there is actually a real value gain. This means that for the US, as Russia and China, there needs to be some printing and spending of electronic cash to offset the deflationary effect on the assets of banks. This was postulated as a necessity for the same reason by Keynes, but where he got it wrong, and China, Singapore and Russia right, is that Keynes proposed that the funds be used to put people on the dole, the New Deal, Great Society, Obama’s Hope and Change to Fundamental Transformation – the New Normal, etc., use for anything at all, not realizing that such spending without a productive means to repay, versus draining the populous through taxes and borrowing, will deplete the wealth created by the people.

So, here’s what they do in China: (see Sun Yat-sen to understand China’s socio-economic-political process)

They select an area, for example, Shanghai, where in 1998 they commandeered by eminent domain 3 sq. km of land upon which there were 2 story old brown and black wooden hovels for poor workers in Shanghai that had been there for 200 years or more. They built a suburban town just on the outskirts of Shanghai with condos, shops, etc, including mass transit above and below ground back into the city. Then moved the entire population of that area to the township. Then they master planned the entire area to be converted into commercial lots for long term lease, upon which would be built ultra modern skyscrapers of 40 to 60 stories, and contracted their Private Sector construction companies, some government owned, to build a modern infrastructure of water supply systems, sewage treatment, electrical supply, roadways, etc..

Within 3 years the area had been demolished and converted into commercial lots having a value several times the cost of construction. This value was then leased to the Private Sector for 50 years, who proceeded to build horizontally and vertically the entire 3 sq.km. within that 3 years of condos, apartment buildings, office space, retail, commercial, medical, etc., which, moreover, had been completely leased up and sold out within that period to the Private Sector, generating an enormous multiplier of jobs beyond those that lived in the hovels, who now lived in quality modern space with modern transport back into the city to work. I know this story first hand, as I went to Shanghai in 1998 looking for investment opportunity and was told that of this plan and returned again in 2001 to see what space might be available for purchase or rent, only to discover that I had been too slow both times in taking advantage of the opportunity. Meanwhile, since then, the government continues to collect a high rate for leasing the infrastructure it created on the 3 sq.km., while the Private Sector continues to convert the debt from the build out into equity, demand continues to drive up rents, property and wages in real terms.

When the US complains that China has to create a welfare fund and food stamp program and unemployment benefits as part of “human rights” for the non-productive, what China does instead is create another ultra modern master planned city and instead of putting people on the “human rights” dole, as demanded by US Progressives trying to get China back to Socialism, the Chinese government tell all the unemployed people that want to work to show up at that next city.

China started with mostly the border cities on their water front and have been moving systematically to the cities throughout China, each time taking underutilized land and converting it into valuable land at a fraction of the cost of the conversion, based on real construction contracts with mostly Private Sector contractors, then letting the Private Sector build ultra modern sky scrapers, as happened in Shanghai. China leads Asia in the construction of Platinum LEEDs skyscrapers. Super highways, toll ways, high speed passenger and cargo railways, water and sewage systems, all to a large extent designed by Western architects and design engineers, leave in their wake an enormous expansion of jobs, for which there are a multitude of job training programs, everything pay as you go, leading to greater salaries based on real productivity.

More than 50% of the entire development in China is for construction. Western economists say that they have no way to repay it and a bubble is forming, but in reality the present value of these converted land leases, enable China, without taxation, to generate astronomical long term income, which, because they rejected the US call for worldwide hold to maturity accounting in the Private Sector, represents an overall value increase to both the people as a whole and to developers. And with low level “Laffer Curve (1)” taxation of workers generating exponential taxes. They practice the same with government investments into Private Sector R&D, where whatever is created is then eased, licensed or sold to the Private Sector, providing, yet again an underlying value to the Chinese people, and those international interests able to invest.

Their idea is not to stifle wealth, but rather maximize revenues to both the government ADD the Private Sector, recognizing that the Private Sector is the Goose that lays the Golden Egg, not government. These are the same concepts as Hong Kong and Singapore have developed to make these island States so enormously wealthy and unrelentingly productive, but now applied to a vast land mass having a population of 1.3 billion. (As government owns all land, it is leased out.)

Why Democrats Are Obsessed With Race

      Republicans stand for smaller government, a strong national defense, and traditional values. Democrats stand for bigger government, wealth redistribution, and race baiting.

      That’s the conclusion one has to draw from the constant stream of racially tinged comments we hear from some Democrats. If nobody referred to skin color or thought about it, we would have a truly discrimination-free society.

      Instead, we have Sen. Harry Reid saying, “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay? Do I need to say more?”

      Responding to Reid’s comment, Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American Republican candidate for U.S. senator from Florida, said, “The reason why Americans of Hispanic descent should be Republicans is because the Democratic leadership is trying to dismantle the American free-enterprise system — the only system in the world where parents like mine [who] work hard and play by the rules can give their children opportunities that they themselves did not have.”

      When it comes to blacks, some Democrats make even more offensive comments, calling anyone who disagrees with President Obama a racist. From Justice Clarence Thomas to Juan Williams and Bill Cosby, blacks who express conservative views are referred to by black Democrats as Uncle Toms and sellouts. 

      Ron Miller, who just came out with “Sellout: Musings from Uncle Tom’s Porch,” has experienced all this and more. Miller is a black conservative who runs a website called Regular Folks United. At age 19, he realized that his values emphasizing personal responsibility rather than government handouts did not comport with Democrats’ world view. As a result, he became a Republican.

      As he writes in his book, the “only thing the Democrats do for us [blacks] is keep race at the forefront of our minds and promote race-based policies, which stoke our egos but really don’t make our lives better.” While blacks perceive Democrats’ policies as “caring,” they are “really just keeping us angry and frozen in time so we’ll continue to keep them in power,” Miller writes.

      In a interview following his book party at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, Miller, a U.S. Air Force Veteran, tells the interviewer, “Blacks as a group of people are very conservative in terms of their values. But they have been convinced through the years that somehow they can’t survive in an America that is inherently racist and that they need protection presumably from the Democrats in order to make it through.”

      What the Democrats are selling is not true, Miller says.

      “There are many black and Hispanic Americans who have overcome great odds to be successful,” Miller says. “In my experience, most Americans really strive to do the right thing, and if they see that you’re working hard, that you’re playing by the rules, and that you’re trying to be part of the American story, not only will they cheer you on but a lot of them are there to help you, and that’s been my life experience.”

      The way to promote equality is to ignore race, Miller says. Instead, Democrats highlight skin color. In part, that’s to distract voters from problems the Democrats are not solving.

      “The Democrats have an obsession with race because it’s one of their trump cards when they can’t come up with substantive ideas to thwart the opposition,” Miller says. “They honestly believe that by making an emotional appeal based on race, they are going to somehow stir the base of Hispanic and black supporters and get them to the polls in November. But I think increasingly they’re starting to find out that people are pushing back hard against these kinds of tactics.”

      Reid’s comment was an example of that approach, Miller says.

      Calling the Senate majority leader’s remark “condescending,” Miller says, “The idea is, if you are Hispanic or if you are black, there’s only one way that you are supposed to think. That presumes we are all sheep that are being lead around by some kind of a shepherd who is going to lead us to the promised land.”

      Behind Reid’s attitude is a “tinge of racism,” he says. That’s because “the Democrats have a belief that Hispanics and blacks are incapable of making it in what Thomas Jefferson called ‘the boisterous sea of liberty’ without their help.

Obama’s Jeffersonian Muslim Revisionist Lie

Barack Hussein Obama is a practitioner of many nasty and nefarious things as our President, but none are more destructive to our nation and its endlessly fascinating and largely glorious past than his frequent practice of revisionist history.

The term revisionist means actually, well, lying.

The most recent of these was made during a Presidential speech at a White House dinner, hosted by Barack and Michelle Obama, to celebrate the end of the month-long fast on the part of the Muslim world, a practice which is known as Ramadan. The end of the fast, which seems to require some sort of celebratory event, at least in the alternate universe of the Obama Administration, is known as Iftar. In his remarks at this dinner, the second in his two year Presidency, Obama made various claims in his increasingly pathetic attempts to legitimize the world of Islam, the most outrageous of which was that one of our greatest Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, (who Obama fashioned as a fellow admirer of the Muslim world), hosted the first Iftar dinner at the White House.

Both of these claims are patently false.

The truth about Thomas Jefferson and his involvement in the world of Islam in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries is a fascinating tale, and can be described as both romantic and dashing. It involves pirates, known swashbucklingly at the time as ‘corsairs,’ international intrigue and ultimately acts of astounding military courage on the part of the newly-created United States Marines.

The truth had nothing to do with Jefferson being sympathetic to the Muslim world. The opposite is, in fact, the case. As the historian Michael Oren points out:

“Jefferson was typical of the Americans who…viewed the region [the Muslim states of North Africa] as the repository of despotism, depravity, and backwardness, a kind of inverse mirror of their own democracy, probity, and enlightenment. Certainly, to his mind, a band of Muslim holy warriors bent on enslaving innocent American sailors was far more deserving of whiffs of grapeshot than bags of hard-earned gold….But with much of American opinion still opposed to using force, Jefferson had no alternative other than to continue negotiating with North Africa for the hostages’ eventual release.”

To Jefferson, the Muslim corsairs were nothing but “sea dogs,” and a “pettifogging nest of robbers.” He eventually arrived at the conclusion that only an appropriate military response would be effective, in part in reaction to the many ‘heartbreaking’ letters he received from sailors who were cruelly imprisoned by Muslim pirates, many of whom were ‘mortally afflicted by the plague.’ As Jefferson made known, he “suffered perpetual anxiety” for the innocent American captives.

In December 1790, Jefferson recommended that America go to war against the Muslims: “The liberation of our citizens has an intimate connection with the liberation of our commerce in the Mediterranean,” he explained to Congress. “The distresses of both proceed from the same cause, and the measures which shall be adopted for the relief of one…may…involve the relief of the other.” This was indeed an uncharacteristically hawkish position on the part of Thomas Jefferson, in that he would ordinarily have preferred the payment of tribute to taking military action. This reflects the seriousness of the situation at the time.

Numerous diplomatic efforts were made on the part of Jefferson, as well as his fellow American diplomat, John Adams, to try to quell what had become a crisis on the high seas for the U.S. since losing its British maritime protection following the Revolutionary War. After certain of these efforts, the stunned Ambassadors made the following report to Congress providing the Muslim response to the American request that they stop their aggressive and violent activities:

The Tripolitan Ambassador to Great Britain, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adia, had informed Jefferson and Adams of the following: “…that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

During these and other drawn out negotiations, Jefferson reached the conclusion that the ‘purchase of peace,’ i.e., appeasement, worked only temporarily with the Muslims, and that history proved that they would always break whatever agreement they reached with the young nation of America, later blame the Europeans for whatever acts of piracy that had occurred, and then demand a higher ‘tribute.’ In Jefferson’s classic fashion, he reached this conclusion through considerable study, much of this an examination of the history of militant Islam. And contrary to yet another false claim made by Obama, though Jefferson did indeed possess a copy of the Koran in his library of over 3,000 volumes, it was an English translation and thus not eligible to be called the ‘holy book’ to which the historical illiterate Obama refers. Jefferson was not a particular devotee of Islam, as Obama infers; Jefferson was interested in all religions, in fact he was interested in just about everything. He was both a ‘curious and cultivated’ man.

Not included in Obama’s reference to the contents of Thomas Jefferson’s library was that Jefferson also owned a much read copy of the work about Muslims entitled “The True Nature of the Impostor Displayed,” by Humphrey Prideaux, an inveterate critic of Islam at the time.

It was not until 1801, when Jefferson was President, that the U.S. went to war against Islam, a conflict that lasted just over 4 years, after which the Barbary pirates backed down, then of course rapidly resumed their nefarious activities. Not until 1830 was terrorism on the high seas, (which was not so much acts of piracy, as Muslims ‘encouraged to prey on Christian shipping’), by the practitioners of Islam finally stopped.

While embroiled in the war with Islamic terrorists in his day, Jefferson commented, “Too long, for the honor of nations, have those Barbarians been suffered [permitted] to trample on the sacred faith of treaties, on the rights and laws of human nature!” Mr. Jefferson, in numerous of his later writings, seemed to have reached the conclusion that the ‘religion’ of Islam was based on ‘nothing the likes of which Jefferson had ever seen.’ To him, it was based on “supremacism” “…whose holy book condoned and mandated violence against unbelievers.” Jefferson understood that what the Koran commanded its followers, among other things, was that peace with Islam could be achieved only through submission by non-believers, as “submission to Islam is peace.”

Jefferson’s opinion of Islam notwithstanding, during his Presidency he did as Presidents do, and maintained contact with diplomats and others of the other nations of the world who were in the U.S. Capital representing their country. One of these representatives, Sidi Soliman Mellimelli, had been sent from the Bey of Tunis to negotiate with the American government, which the Muslims had finally agreed to do only after Muslim ships had been captured by American frigates. Contrary to Obama’s claim that Mellimelli was the first Muslim Ambassador to the U.S., the ‘exotic gentleman’ (as he was regarded in Washington at the time) was a temporary envoy sent for a short time to deal with this specific issue. The envoy, along with his 11 attendants, stayed in a Washington hotel for the six months of their stay, which was paid for by the American government, and it was said that they lived lavishly. It was not until the delegation’s request for ‘concubines’ that Jefferson balked. Never one to miss an opportunity to absolve himself when any sort of thorniness arose, Jefferson turned the issue over to Secretary of State Madison to ‘attend to the matter.’

During his brief tenure, Mellimelli had been invited to several dinners by President Jefferson, and was considered to be quite a man about town. It was in 1805 that the Tunisian envoy responded to one such invitation, which happened to coincide with the Muslim event of Iftar, by saying that he could not attend due to having to abide by the fasting rule during the month of Ramadan as commanded by his faith. During this religious observance, no Muslim is permitted to eat anything until sundown, and as dinner was served normally around 3:30 p.m. in that time, Mellimelli was forced to decline the President’s invitation. No one in the world of early 19th Century America was aware of what Ramadan was, nor did anyone care. Jefferson, as he was a courtly and courteous man, simply moved the hour for dinner a few hours ahead. The President did not change the menu, nor did he change anything else.

What, if anything, has changed since Thomas Jefferson’s involvement with the world of Islam? In late 18th and early 19th Century America, we saw ‘Jihad against the West, obfuscation regarding Muslim history, spouting violent orders from the Koran as justification for Muslim murder and mayhem, and abrogating signed international treaties.’ That about covers it for 21st Century America, doesn’t it?

There is one major difference, however. While Jefferson dealt with our Muslim enemies in a realistic and determined fashion, with the point of the exercise being the protection of American citizens, our current clueless President glosses over these and every other Muslim atrocity in his continued attempts to appease our most violent, and centuries-old, enemy.