An inscrutable phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria

Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world’s largest economy, direct the world’s most powerful military, execute the world’s most consequential job?

Imagine a future historian examining Obama’s pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a “community organizer”; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote “present”); and finally an unaccomplished single term in United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions.  He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as legislator.

And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama’s “spiritual mentor”; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama’s colleague and political sponsor.  It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?

To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass.

Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass — held to a lower standard — because of the color of his skin.  Podhoretz continues:

And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) “non-threatening,” all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?

Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon — affirmative action.  Not in the legal sense, of course.  But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.

Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back.  Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow.  Liberals don’t care if these minority students fail; liberals aren’t around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action.  Yes, racist.  Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin — that’s affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn’t racism, then nothing is.  And that is what America did to Obama.

True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be?  As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate.  All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.  What could this breed if not the sort of empty  narcissism on display every time Obama speaks?

In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama’s oratory skills, intellect, and cool character.  Those people — conservatives included — ought now to be deeply embarrassed.  The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of clichés, and that’s when he has his teleprompter in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all.  Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth — it’s all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years.

And what about his character?  Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles.  Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess.  It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence.  But really, what were we to expect?  The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?

In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job.  When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense.  It could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.

But hey, at least we got to feel good about ourselves for a little while.  And really, isn’t that all that matters these days?

See also: The Era of Confronting Obama at Public Events

Update:

Author’s Note.  A lot of readers have written in asking me how I came to the conclusion that Obama was an unremarkable student and that he benefited from affirmative action.  Three reasons:

1)  As reported by The New York Sun: ”A spokesman for the university, Brian Connolly, confirmed that Mr. Obama spent two years at Columbia College and graduated in 1983 with a major in political science. He did not receive honors…”  In spite of not receiving honors as an undergrad, Obama was nevertheless admitted to Harvard Law.  Why?

2)  Obama himself has written he was a poor student as a young man.  As the Baltimore Sun reported, in:

“‘Obama’s book ‘Dreams from My Father,’….the president recalled a time in his life…when he started to drift away from the path of success. ’I had learned not to care,’ Obama wrote. ‘… Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it.’ But his mother confronted him about his behavior. ’Don’t you think you’re being a little casual about your future?” she asked him, according to the book. ‘… One of your friends was just arrested for drug possession. Your grades are slipping. You haven’t even started on your college applications.’”

3)  Most damning to me is the president’s unwillingness to make his transcripts public.  If Obama had really been a stellar student with impeccable grades as an undergrad, is there any doubt they would have been made public by now and trumpeted on the front page of the New York Times as proof of his brilliance?  To me it all adds up to affirmative action.

Mattpattersonline.com
Source: American Thinker

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Members of Congress Are the Bandits; “We the People” Are the Fools

Did you miss the horrendous story 60 Minutes broke last Sunday. If you missed it, it will be well worth your time to see  it here and now. The story shows that some members of Congress, including House leadership on both sides of the isle, are apparently engaging in insider trading. Said another way, the members of Congress are making out like bandits and “we the people” are the suckers they are stealing from by their insider trading. Insider trading by you and me would land us in prison for a long time, but it is merely another perk for members of Congress.

Kudos to CBS for this story

I know CBS NEWS has not been known for doing much hard news in the past, except for stories that cast conservatism and conservatives in a bad light, but they claim that is changing, and I, for one, am inclined to take them at their word until they prove otherwise. This video is an example of hard news that take no prisoners on the progressive or the conservative sides of the political spectrum. Kudos to the CBS show 60 Minutes for this story.

This 60 Minutes story was probably sparked by a book that touches on this subject. The book is Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer. Click the book title Throw Them All Out and get your own copy. The cost at the time of this writing was $15.60. (Fair warning, I will make a  shekel of two if you buy using this link to Throw Them All Out.)

Book Description:

One of the biggest scandals in American politics is waiting to explode: the full story of the inside game in Washington shows how the permanent political class enriches itself at the expense of the rest of us. Insider trading is illegal on Wall Street, yet it is routine among members of Congress. Normal individuals cannot get in on IPOs at the initial asking price, but politicians can and do routinely. The Obama administration has been able to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to its supporters, ensuring yet more campaign donations. An entire class of investors now makes all of its profits based on influence and access in Washington. Peter Schweizer has doggedly researched through mountains of financial records, tracking complicated deals and stock trades back to the timing of briefings, votes on bills, and every other point of leverage for politicians in Washington. The result is a manifesto for revolution: the Permanent Political Class must go.

We must stamp this kind of behavior. This book will provoke you and all freedom-loving Americans.

If You Haven’t Seen This Video Yet, You Need to See It Now

If you haven’t seen it yet, see it here and now. You may want to download the transcription of the show on the CBS News website here instead to read later or to read along as you watch the video.

CBS NEWS VIDEO

Should “We the People” Throw Them All Out?

There is a reason that no one should be able to use non-public information to make money with stock transactions: Such a practice creates an unlevel playing field and strips markets of credibility and fairness. There is an even better reason members of Congress should not be allowed to do so: It interferes with their ability to do their job, which is presumably to represent “we the people,” rather than represent their own selfish interests.

You would expect this sort of self-dealing from people like a Muammar Gaddafi, not members of the U.S. Congress. What makes it even worse is that this is a problem that is simple to solve. Members of Congress should do what the President does – have their assets in blind trusts so they have no ability to influence the investments they own. I hasten to add such a blind trust should be monitored by regulators to see to it that it does not engage in financial shenanigans for the benefit of its Congressional owner. Commonsense and Christian morality dictates this course of action. But since commonsense Christian morality obviously don’t work for many in the U.S. Congress, I suppose yet another law would be in order.

What do you think? Should trading on inside information be just another Congressional perk? Or do you see it my way; as common criminal activity that should be severely punished. Share your view here.

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If you think Obama is destroying America, you have a lot of company

It is no longer a question of whether Obama is destroying the greatest nation the world has ever known. It has become abundantly clear that, since he has been our chief executive, he has been destroying everything America is and believes in; viz., her economy, her faith, her heritage, her culture, and her future.

Here is the question: is President Obama destroying America on purpose

I suspect he is, but I remain uncertain. Here is why. On the face of it, there are only two possibilities: either Obama is deliberately destroying America or he is a true believer in liberal progressivism. As many times as it has been discredited, to be a true believer in liberal progressivism, he would have to be a stupid fool to continue being a true believer. I think he is not stupid or a fool, so what is the answer?

I am convinced that, like Adlai Stevenson was many years ago, Mr. Obama is a very intelligent fellow.

I am not sure many of you remember Mr. Stevenson. Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (February 5, 1900 – July 14, 1965) was a politician, known for his intellectual manner, oratorical eloquence, and promotion of liberal causes of the Democrat Party. He served as the 31st Governor of Illinois. He was the Democrat Party’s presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956. He lost both those races to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

While he was an eloquent orator, he was not a good extemporaneous speaker. When he spoke extemporaneously he hemmed and hawed constantly. I believe this hemming and hawing was the result of his acute intelligence, which would shower him with so many possibilities of how to deliver a given thought, as he was trying to do just that, that he was forced constantly to sift through them to find just the right words to precisely express the thought he wished to deliver.

Do you see the resemblance between Adlai Stevenson and Barack Obama? I do, I see them as very much alike.

I have been amaze over the years how often highly intelligent people arrive at very stupid conclusions. I think that may be what has lead Obama to so many absurd conclusions. His intelligence certainly lead Mr. Stevenson to many absurd conclusion.

President Obama is destroying America

My ‘Top 10 List’ of how the Obama is destroying America by over spending and under performing:

1. Debt, debt, and more debt. Unprecedented budget deficits into the foreseeable future.
2. European socialist-style spending. Spending like crazy across the board.
3. Spend, spend, spend. Billion for high-speed rail. Why? What is the ROI for the taxpayer.
4. Freezing past spending in place. Having presided over  vastly increased discretionary spending, he now wants to freeze those increases in place. This on top of the staggering discretionary spending increases of George Dubya.
5. Expanding government. He is expanding our federal government at an unprecedented pace.
6. More and higher taxes. Obama proposes $1.6 trillion in new taxes on families and businesses during the coming decade.
7. No entitlements will be reformed. Really? This despite the fact Social Security and Medicare are forecast to permanently be in the red.
8. Fake defense budget cuts. Some tiny Pentagon budget cuts actually amount to a small defense spending increases.
9. Rosy assumptions. ‘Nuff said.   Obama anticipates overly high economic growth and jobless rate.
10. Obamacare will need more money. Includes money to implement an alphabet soup of healthcare related changes and increases.

I have attenuated this list and its explanations as much as possible. Still, I think there is enough to enable you to see that President Obama is bent on destroying America as an economic powerhouse to bring us to our knees and ready us for the next step in establishing a socialist and, indeed, finally a communist America made up of 50 soviets rather than 50 sovereign states.

The other aspects of the character of the United States of America: her faith, her heritage, her culture, and her future, have been addressed and will be addressed over and over again as the fight continues to make Obama a one-term president.

Agree or disagree?

Please favor the rest of us with your considered thoughts on this matter in comments.

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First, About the Picture

The picture you see here depicts the way liberals, and especially liberal politicians, see the future. You can see from where the guy’s head is why liberals are forever telling us the future looks foreboding and there is no way we can survive it unless we elect them to save us from ourselves. If you stuck your head where his is, your view of the future would be pretty foreboding, too.

Perhaps you remember President Jimmie Carter and how he was convinced that we were in imminent danger of running out of  petroleum in a few short years. He was so sure that he made the 55 mph highway speed limit mandatory for states receiving federal highway funds. He also strongly suggested that we turn off the lights in our dwellings and turn down our thermostats at night to 55 F. To set an example he did as much at the White House. The man did everything he could to make us realize the future we faced was indeed foreboding. Just like the Global Warming scare promoted by VP Al Gore–the same man who also claimed to have invented the internet–Jimmie Carter’s dire predictions about the fast disappearing supply of petroleum were made without the benefit of any scientific evidence whatsoever.

And so the liberal beat goes on. Elect liberals, they say, or suffer the consequences. Truth is, the pleasant consequences of not electing liberals beats the heck out of suffering the mind-numbing consequences of electing them.

Jimmie was bad but Obama goes him one better.

Yeah, the Pack is Back and God is in His Heaven, But All is Not Well

Yes, the Pack is back and that is good as far as I am concerned. I have been a fan of the Green Bay Packers since before the advent of Vince Lombardi and the tremendous changes he wrought in the losing ways of the Packers.

It Only Takes One Obama to Ruin a Perfect Vision

Obama gives every appearance of being  intent on doing exactly the opposite for America of what Coach Vince Lombardi did for the Green Bay Packers. Why? I fear we may not get to the bottom of that question for sometime to come.  I, for one, certainly do not pretend to know the answer.

How did such a mystery man ever become our president?

Why is Obama our president? Does anyone know what all the people who voted for him were thinking when they elected Barack Obama as our president? If anyone thinks about it, which apparently no body did back then, the man’s only experience in government was as a community organizer for a thoroughly discredited, gangster-style organization called ACORN, eight years in the Illinois legislature, plus a few months as a U.S. Senator. Other than those credentials—most of which are highly suspect—he was without credentials. In his time as an Illinois Senator, he frequently chose not to take responsibility for his office by voting present. And as far as business experience is concerned, he had none whatsoever. Like someone once said, he never so much as ran a Kool-Aid stand on the side of the road, yet now  he is running the greatest and strongest nation on earth. How did that come to be? There are many answers to that question; too many to be looked at in this short article.

Not having any experience as political or business leader, all Obama had to fall back on when he became president were his unbridled ego; his elongated academic studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Columbia University in New York City, and Harvard Law School in Boston; and what he learned from his mentors and the books he read. We know from his actions and his thoughts, as expressed in the two versions of his published autobiography, that he learned a lot from his mentors and the books he read by choice. As for his academic studies, not only do they not help qualify him to be our president, experience would seem to indicate that academics are dimwits when it comes to navigating life’s twists and turns.

Verdict: The man is not qualified and any reporter worth his salt should have dug into Obama’s past and made those discoveries prior to his being nominated, much less elected president of the strongest and most influential nation the world has ever known. Let’s hope America still holds those titles when we defeat Obama in the coming presidential election. Woe be unto us if we fail.

We must redouble our efforts and make sure we not only defeat him, but that we have a constitutional conservative majority in all parts of the U.S. government in 2012.

Agree or disagree?

Let us know in comments. Be a patriot. Step up and  make your considered thoughts on the subject known. That will be a favor to all of us.

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I am back! I was away for a while, but now it’s time to get started for the coming elections and on into the future.

~~~   ~~~   ~~~

They turned Obama into a star and an idol of the far left

Yessiree, the left and the far left, a.k.a., the Democrat Party, built Obama up and turned him into a star and an idol of the far left, and finally they got him elected to President of these United States.

Never mind that the man had never held a job or that he the most he ever made of himself was a simple community organizer in association with a criminal organization called ACORN. Never mind all of that. The folks in Chicago and the rest of Illinois wanted him. He looked tolerably well to both blacks and whites, and he spoke well enough to sound convincing to them when he promised the moon and the stars free of charge to the downtrodden masses.

Obama’s political family tree and training

The people who appear to have been most instrumental in Obama’s political training where his radical Moslem father, as outlined in Obama’s book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance , and the teachings of the radical communist Saul Alinsky, a noted community organizer, and author of Obama’s bible, Rules for Radicals.

Another person who had a long-term and very strong influence on Obama was that paragon of Christian tolerance and forgiveness—even of all the mean “white men” who made blacks fail at (you name it)—his beloved pastor and mentor in life, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side.

There were others who influenced Obama’s thinking. A standout among them was Van Jones, a communist revolutionary. Don’t know who he is? You should find out who he is. He is a very scary man. His book, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems , will give you a good dose of his thinking. Next comes another dose of Van Jones and STORM. Now take a look at this on Van Jones and STORM, and finally, Glenn Beck’s Van Jones Battle.  That should be enough to stoke the fire in your belly.

After taking look at the sources I have outlined here, you will certainly have a better idea of Obama’s political family tree and of who he is now. There is a lot to loath about the man’s background and training.

The man remains a committed communist

Over the next few weeks and months, you may see Obama make a swing toward the right. Don’t be fooled by this rightward drift. He is and will remain a committed communist soldier, dedicated to the overthrow of the America we love and all of her exceptional ideals and strengths.

We are a Christian nation founded by Christians

We are a Christian nation founded by Christians, who believed (Yes, a few of them were deists but they, too, believed) that Christian morality was the genesis of all the good they had to offer us.  Obama hates that idea. To him Moslems are just as good, if not better, than are Christians.

The basis of my belief system

Allow me to take just moment to tell you the basis of my belief system concerning the things most important to a well-lived life in Christ.

My outlook in the world is strongly influenced by my belief in traditional Orthodox Catholic Church and the traditional One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. My political belief system is rooted in the political beliefs of the founding fathers and the constitutional conservative, federal, representative republic they gave us.

The overall premise of this blog is based on securing our God-given “unalienable Rights” . . . “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” against tyranny. The tyranny foremost in the minds of the founding fathers was that we should protect ourselves against was the tyranny of the majority. The U.S. Senate is the house of the legislative branch of our government most charged with protecting us from the tyranny of the majority.

Our people are the freest of the free

Our people are still the freest people of any nation on the planet earth; citizens of the freest nation in the history of man. We can become a far freer nation, like the nation we once were, if we will but muster the strength of character needed to return to the first principles of our very own Constitution of the United States, as interpreted in light of our Declaration of Independence and the many other writings of our founders. Obama loathes everything thought I have just written and will fight with all he’s got to avoid such a return to national sanity.

Every good thing—and there is a world of good things—about our America is exceptional in this world of nation states. Obama hates the concept of American exceptionalism. He has profited by it but he hates it still and will not admit it is reality in this surreal world we Christians are sojourning in for a time.

We are and must remain world that shining city upon a hill for the sake of the world

We are far from perfect neighbors to the world’s downtrodden, but we remain that shining city upon a hill to the world that Ronald Reagan spoke so eloquently of in his famous, The Shining City Upon A Hill speech,

Pope Pius XII, 'Pastor Angelicus'

delivered on January 25, 1974, as the clouds were gathering on the presidency of Richard Millhouse Nixon. Here it is in his words, “Standing on the tiny deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said, ‘We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.’ Well, we have not dealt falsely with our God, even if He is temporarily suspended from the classroom.”

The last words of that speech are also apropos what I am writing about here. He ended that speech, saying: “We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago.… In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, ‘The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.’”

Obama hates to be reminded of the ideals expressed in that speech, just as he hates the idea that we are in anyway special in the eyes of the less free in the world. He hates it so bad that he cannot allow an opportunity go by to bow and scrape, and apologize as the president of America before our atheistic Moslem and other enemies¹ everywhere of freedom. And a big part of his plan for bringing us to see ourselves as he sees us, he is working day and night to break us economically, so he can bend us to his will. That is the kind of egomaniacal, perfidious bastard we have elected as our president. Shame on us.

Obama is a frightening character

Yip, Obama is a frightening character. I wonder that he fooled so many of us. It just goes to show how our turn from the ancient Christian way, plus the continuing slide of our educational system have affected i

We must repent of our hedonism and idolatry and work, as did our forefathers before us, to keep our light shining for all who seek freedom from tyranny.

We will find out, just as the Jews of the Old Testament found out, that if we continue down this road of throwing God out of our lives, we will be disinherited by Him until and unless we relent and repent of our hedonism and idolatry. I am confident that we will make the right choice, the choice to turn back to our Christian God and to the wisdom of the founders of our country in giving us a federalist system with a democratically elected representative government for our republic. I am a strong believer in the wisdom of the people of our nation, despite their many failings to this point in time. In a manner of speaking, this allowing of all those failures is a testament to the openness of our freedom-loving people; a people, who in the end always choose the best course, when they follow the dictates of our heavenly king, Jesus, the Christ—the anointed Son of God.

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By George F. Will

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Promoting his new book, Jimmy Carter , whose version of Christianity allows ample scope for what some Christians consider the sin of pride, has been doing something at which he has had long practice — praising himself. He is, he says, “probably superior” to all other ex-presidents, and would have enacted comprehensive health care if a selfish Ted Kennedy had not sabotaged his plan.

Actually, one reason Carter, who promised to deliver government “as good as the American people,” lost 44 states in his 1980 reelection bid was that voters believed he considered himself too good for them. And they thought he did not know them — that he was disconnected from the way most people thought and felt.

Eight years later, another Democratic presidential candidate had a comparable problem. Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis had vetoed a bill that would have required public schoolteachers to lead their classes in the Pledge of Allegiance. Perhaps the bill was constitutionally problematic. But a presidential campaign is not a law seminar. Dukakis’s incomprehension of American political culture outside of Massachusetts was apparent when, responding to Republican insinuations about his patriotism, he said dismissively that “every first-year law student” studies flag-salute cases that vindicate his position.

Today, Barack Obama, a chronic campaigner, is out and about trying to arouse the masses against the inequity of not raising taxes on “the rich.” He opposes extending the Bush tax rates—they are due to expire Dec. 31, when a higher rate is restored — for “millionaires and billionaires.”

And for quarter-millionaires. Expiration would mean an increase for households with incomes of at least $250,000. Obama’s $750,000 fudge sweeps many people into the plutocracy. In Obama’s Chicago, a high school principal can earn $148,000. A police officer with 25 years on the force can earn $114,000 — not counting overtime. If the principal and the officer are married, supposedly they are rich.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama said that the rich begin at $150,000. If so, both the principal and the police officer are perilously close to becoming targets of liberal redistributionists.

The damage that has been done to the Democratic brand in just 20 months has encouraged comparisons of Obama to Carter, who seemed miniaturized by the presidency, and to Dukakis, who seemed mystified that Massachusetts’s political culture was not the national norm. There also is, however, an Obama resemblance to Lyndon Johnson.

Obama became president knowing next to nothing about Washington. Johnson began his career as a congressional staffer and spent almost all of his pre-presidential adulthood in Washington. But there is this similarity between them: overreaching.

Obama’s overreaching is testimony to what 44 years can do to a party’s memory. It has forgotten the 1966 elections, which cost Democrats three Senate and 47 House seats, abruptly terminating two years of liberal happiness that had followed 28 fallow years.

In 1938, five years into the New Deal, the public was weary of Washington’s hyperkinesis. Voters recoiled against FDR’s attempt to “pack” the Supreme Court by enlarging it, and his related attempt to purge conservative Democrats from Congress. After 1938, Republicans and conservative Democrats prevented a durable liberal legislative majority. Until the 1964 anti-Goldwater landslide.

Johnson carried 44 states, Democrats gained two Senate and 38 House seats, and hyperkinesis returned in the form of the Great Society agenda. Since 1966, liberal overreaching has been difficult. After November, it will be impossible, for many years. For Obama, the worst result next month might be for Democrats to retain control of both houses of Congress. If they do, their majorities will be paralyzingly small. And their remaining moderates will be more resistant to the liberal leadership: The moderates will have survived not because of, but in spite of, those leaders.

Today, if you see Obama in a political ad, you are almost certainly watching a Republican ad. And a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that more than twice as many people view House Speaker Nancy Pelosi negatively (50 percent) than positively (22 percent).

If Democrats retain control of Congress, Obama will seek reelection while being perceived as responsible for everything in Washington, where everything is perceived to be dysfunctional. And anti-Washington fever may be worse than it is today, because the 2010 elections will not seem to have changed very much.

If Democrats lose both houses, Obama will seem repudiated. If they lose neither, he will seem impotent. So, if Democrats lose big, he loses big. If they lose smaller, he loses bigger.

Source: Washington Post

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By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

Why is President Obama suing to invalidate the Arizona law on illegal immigration? Why is he incurring the enmity of even his own Democratic Congressmen from the Phoenix and Tucson areas by trying to kill a law that two-thirds of Arizona and a similar proportion of America as a whole supports?

The answer: It is a desperate, last ditch attempt to rebuild his sagging popularity with America’s Hispanic voters.

Furious at Obama for failing to keep his election year promise to promote comprehensive immigration reform when he had a super-majority at his disposal, they are deserting the president and his party in droves. Unemployment, a sagging economy, and their sharp disagreement with Obama over social issues don’t help the president’s cause any.

So Obama has seized on the Arizona immigration law as a symbolic target, hoping to accomplish in a lawsuit the political task of rebuilding his base.

Remember that in 2008, Obama won precisely the same share of the white vote that Kerry won in 2004. There was a shift among whites as the Obama won more young whites and lost more older ones, but the white vote ratios as a whole remained constant. His entire margin of victory was based on two factors:

a) The African-American vote rose from 11% of the total in 2004 to 14% in 2008 and virtually all voted for Obama; and

b) Latinos, who had backed Kerry by only 10 points, supported Obama by fifty points.

For Obama to have a shot at keeping Democrats in control of Congress, he must replicate the enthusiasm of 2008 among minorities. But his Hispanic flank is definitely weakened. Hence the lawsuit to shore it up.

The answer on immigration reform is to adopt a three part program to dry up the jobs that attract illegal migrants in the first place. When there are no jobs, they will not come and those who are here will go back home without deportations or roundups.

We need to:

1. Strengthen penalties and enforcement of laws barring people and companies from hiring illegal immigrants. Those who do so should face prison time.

2. We need a fool proof national bio-metric ID card so employers can tell who is legal and who is not.

3. We should implement a broad guest worker program to bring upscale and manual workers into the US to fill our labor force needs. They must get at least the minimum wage and have health benefits. But, when the job is over, they must go home.

Democrats won’t embrace this program because the unions won’t let them and because they want illegals to stay here and become Democratic voters. Republican agri-businesses won’t go for it because they want to exploit illegal workers with low pay and bad work conditions.

But this is the solution. Trying to seal the border is good rhetoric but is a hopeless task. Drying up the jobs that bring illegal immigrants here is something we can and must do.

Source: Dick Morris

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Published May 30, 2010 | FOXNews.com

Friday: Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa. speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill. (AP)

A California congressman who called it an “impeachable” offense for the administration to offer Rep. Joe Sestak a job in exchange for his quitting a Senate bid said Sunday the cover-up, as usual, appears worse than the crime.

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said the explanation for the Sestak affair — that former President Bill Clinton offered the Democratic congressman an unpaid position on an advisory board if he would drop his challenge against party-switching Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter — is not plausible because as a sitting congressman Sestak couldn’t have served on a presidential commission.

“It’s a crime because they’ve admitted that they offered this position … So that begs the real question. Do we believe this is a further cover-up because he’s — they’re now talking about a job that President Clinton himself should have known Sestak couldn’t take? ” he said.

“They’re now coming up with a nonplausible answer,” Issa said.

On Friday, the White House revealed that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had asked Clinton to talk to Sestak about a presidential appointment if Sestak would suspend his bid for the Democratic Senate nomination.

Sestak has said repeatedly since February that he was offered a job to drop out of the race, but he declined. He would not reveal the nature of the conversation until after the White House issued its report on Friday.

“If it’s not a crime — and I believe it is — it certainly is business as usual, politics of corruption. The fact is once you’re in power, if you can use our appointments, you can corrupt the process,” Issa said.

Appearing with Issa on Sunday, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said Obama has cleaned up Washington, but he didn’t say “he was going to change every aspect of everything we’ve done.”

“I think Barack Obama has brought a new level of ethical standards to Washington. Has he changed some basic hard-knuckle politics? No. You need hard-knuckle politics to succeed,” Rendell said. “But he’s not perfect. And there are certain things that have to go on to make things work, and this is one of them.”

Rendell said offers of jobs for political cooperation have happened “for time immemorial.”

“I did the same thing in 2006 to ask a former congressman, Joe Hoeffel, to drop out of the race against Bob Casey in the primary,” Rendell said. “I said come back and see me if you do it. He came back and saw me, and he was out of public service. I appointed him as a deputy secretary of commerce. He did a great job.”

Issa said the difference between Rendell’s scenario and the White House action is that Rendell didn’t have a specific offer in exchange in the deal, so therefore did not violate the U.S. law signed by then-President Clinton.

“Ed Rendell is saying this happens all the time. Sure, it happens all the time, things like this. But it’s usually carefully crafted so it doesn’t fall under this kind of quid pro quo,” Issa said.

Issa said Sunday candidate Obama pledged to conduct a transparent administration so he should submit to an FBI review.

“The question is, has this been transparent? No. Has there been stalling? Yes. Is there a possibility that what we’re being told now is not true because it’s not so plausible? Yes. Should there be independent investigation so we can move on? Yes,” Issa told “Fox News Sunday.”

“I don’t want to be investigating this. I don’t want the White House investigating itself. The FBI or the attorney general should see that it’s investigated so the American people can feel they can put this behind them,” he said.

Issa added he would accept the result if an FBI investigation exonerates the White House of an illegal bribe.

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3. John F. Kennedy’s Crime

First, the events leading up to Archbishop Chaput’s Repudiation of Professor Diotallevi’s Reply

A short while ago, March 6, to be exact,  I published an article entitled John F. Kennedy’s Crime, which concerned John F. Kennedy’s a campaign speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association some 50 years prior on September 12, 1960, and Archbishop Charles Chaput’s speech before the Houston Baptist University this past March 1, wherein he addressed Kennedy’s crime, its affect on the American political process, and in particular its affect on American Christians of every stripe.

In his speech Kennedy had tried, as politicians are so often want to do, to have it both ways without offending people on either side of an issue. After all, he was trying to get as many votes from those pastors and their flocks as he could, and truth be damned. To do that, he proclaimed that he would not betray his faith as president of the United States, and it if came to it that he would have to act against his faith to remain loyal to his office as president, he would resign the office rather than betray his faith. He was sure it would not come to that however because he believed in adhering strictly to the mandate of the Constitution of the United States of complete separation of Church and state. That was his doctrine and he was going to stick to it no matter what; never mind that the First Amendment contains no such doctrine.

The First Amendment to the Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Did you see anything in there about the separation of Church and state? The First Amendment only of “religion,” stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The remainder of that amendment speaks of freedom of speech, of the press, the right of people to peaceably assemble, petition the Government for redress of grievances. There is nothing there about separation of Church and statement no matter how you slice it; it just isn’t there.

In saying he was a believer in the separation of Church and state he was proclaiming that he was a Christian first, except…except when his faith contradicted the needs of the state; in which case he would act as a member in good standing of the godless society.

The primary reason for my publishing that article was to showcase the speech by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, The Vocation of Christians in American Public Life, on March 1, 2010 at the Houston Baptist University wherein he registered his complete disagreement with John F. Kennedy concept of the separation of Church and state.

Sadly, at the time I wrote that article, which included the text of Archbishop Charles Chaput’s speech, I did not know of the existence of a video of that speech on YouTube. I am including that video here. Rather you read the archbishop’s speech earlier or not, I highly recommend you watch this video. I think you will find the presentation of the speech captured in this video will add immensely to your understanding of the proper Orthodox Catholic Christian perspective of the place of God and the Church in the United States in light of the First Amendment of the Bill of Right of the U.S. Constitution. The question and answer session that follows the archbishop’s speech included at the end of this video will add to your general understanding of the man and his positions on the matter at hand.

A reply to the good archbishop’s speech was not long in coming. The reply was from one Professor Diotallevi, a sociologist of religion, student of American society, and adviser to the Italian bishops’ conference. The professor’s reply was delivered on April 12, on www.chielsa.

Separating Church and State Isn’t Just an Option, It’s a Must

by Luca Diotallevi

The remarks by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, who asserts a connection between the famous 1960 speech by John F. Kennedy in front of an audience of Protestant pastors in Houston and the subsequent wave of “secularism” that hit American culture in the late 1960′s and 1970′s, deserve comment.

For the sake of brevity, I will limit myself to presenting two critical observations and two avenues of research. (continue reading)

Here follows the complete text of the archbishop’s reply. Or, you may read it, if you choose on www.chiesa. Should you choose to go to that website to read archbishop’s refutation of Diotallevi’s criticisms, you will also be able to see a rather good further reply to Diotallevi by James Hitchcock.

A Reply to Professor Diotallevi

By Charles J. Chaput

I’m grateful to Professor Diotallevi for his comments on my March 1 talk at Houston Baptist University. He and I clearly differ in our interpretation of John Kennedy’s 1960 Houston speech on the role of religion in American public life. We also differ on the proper understanding of the “separation of Church and state” in light of my nation’s founding documents and history. I offer here a few thoughts in response to his remarks.

First, Professor Diotallevi suggests that Jesuit John Courtney Murray‘s influence on the Kennedy speech is “easy to trace.” Regrettably, Father Murray, by his own account, had little influence on the Kennedy speech. In fact, if Murray had played the role Diotallevi suggests, it would have been a different and far better speech. It’s true that Murray, along with John Cogley and others, was consulted in the development of the Kennedy text. But as Murray himself later noted, most of his counsel was ignored. In Murray’s words, Kennedy “was far more of a separationist than I am.” Anyone steeped in Murray’s writings who reads the Kennedy speech will see why Murray distanced himself from the 1960 text. Kennedy’s view of religion as an essentially private matter, with little bearing on a leader’s public duties, differs sharply from Murray’s beliefs about the relationship of Church and state, and faith and public life.

Second, Diotallevi suggests that Kennedy would never have preached a radical separation of faith and the public square to an audience of Protestant ministers accustomed to “the Christian experience manifesting itself in every aspect of public life.” But again regrettably, the professor has misread my March text. As Jesuit scholar Mark Massa notes in his own essay (which I quote at length in my talk) the 1960 Kennedy speech, in the context of the times, sounded quite congenial to Protestant ears because it neutralized worries about Kennedy’s Catholic roots. But it had a stealth content with far-reaching and drastic implications, alien to the American historical experience. The damage became clear only with the passage of time. Whether Kennedy intended the harshly secularist consequences of his speech or not, is irrelevant. The important thing is that he took the American “faith and public life” discussion in a very new direction, and he set the stage for two generations of Catholic political leaders to separate their religiously-informed moral beliefs from their political witness in a convenient but morally destructive way.

Third, in taking issue with my use of the word “Church” throughout my talk, Diotallevi unfortunately seems to have overlooked key sections of my actual remarks. Perhaps this is an issue of translation, and I have misunderstood his concern. To reprise what I actually said:

“Christianity is not mainly – or even significantly – about politics. It’s about living and sharing the love of God. And Christian political engagement, when it happens, is never mainly the task of the clergy. That work belongs to lay believers who live most intensely in the world.” Several lines later, I note that “Christians individually and the Church as a believing community engage the political order as an obligation of the Word of God.”

Contrary to what the professor seems to be saying, there is nothing “very complicated” in these ideas. They are plain and straightforward, flowing rather obviously from the Gospel. Nowhere do I suggest that the hierarchical structure of the Church is the preferred manner for Catholic interaction with the political order. In fact, I say just the opposite. Diotallevi seems to infer from my comments a kind of crypto-integralism. Given a European frame of reference, this may be understandable. But nothing in the actual text of my remarks supports that curious view, and for good reason: Like nearly every other citizen of the United States, including the late John Courtney Murray, I believe strongly in the separation of Church and state, properly understood and as the American Founders intended it.

And what do I mean by a “proper” understanding of Church-state separation? I mean exactly what the American bishops meant when speaking about our nation’s constitutional legacy in their excellent 1948 pastoral letter, “The Christian in Action.” For very shrewd pragmatic reasons, John Kennedy selectively referenced – and also selectively ignored – the content of that pastoral letter in his 1960 Houston speech. Professor Diotallevi seems unaware of it. But as a scholar, he might find it useful to complete his understanding of the American political tradition – and Kennedy’s departure from it.

Finally, the professor seems to worry that my remarks run the risk of encouraging “some of the ‘evangelical’ or neoconservative positions most widespread in the American Protestant world, but also in some fringes of the Catholic world.” Let me respond simply by noting that the pro-life and pro-family witness of American evangelicals is commendable. I only wish that it were emulated more fully by many of those American Catholics who describe themselves as “liberal” or “progressive.” Evangelicals and Catholics who (along with Eastern Orthodox Christians, Latter-day Saints, many observant Jews, and others) speak out in defense of the sanctity of life and the dignity of marriage, deserve praise, not derision. They labor in the tradition of activists for civil rights – a moral cause led by religious believers — who refused to “privatize” their faith. Their witness may be out of harmony with John Kennedy’s remarks in Houston; but they are fully in the spirit of Martin Luther King’s actions in Selma.

Of course, every political movement has its zealots and opportunists. Political engagement will sometimes be marked by excesses of enthusiasm and a lack of prudence. And some people will inevitably seek to use the Gospel and the Church for their own partisan advantage. But Christians are called to be the best of good citizens. We have a duty to work for justice and the common good. We may not excuse ourselves from that obligation by citing the foolishness, selfishness, or hypocrisy of others, or the human imperfections of the political causes that deserve our energetic support.

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Recently Rush Limbaugh took President Obama at his word, telling him, thank you, Mr. President, for many of the things President Obama has done since he took office. This was in response to the president’s deriding of the American Tea Party patriots at a Democrat fund raiser in the home of Gloria Estefan when he said they should be thanking him for the tax cuts he gave us rather than complaining about too many taxes.

Here is a video of Rush thanking the president for all he has done for us so far. You’ll notice that kindly ole Rush thanks him for a lot.

The last few days I have been reading Sean Hannity’s excellent new book Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda. In it, Sean details a list of some things President Obama could be thanked for or, perhaps better said, driven out of office for. Here’s a top 10 list of a few of some of the more easily recognizable gifts Obama has perpetrated on the American people whom he so despises:

1. David Axelrod—chief adviser, a radical leftist publisher
2. Anita Dunn—White House communications director, whose favorite philosopher is Mao
3. Van Jones—“green czar,” a self-identified communist.
4. Kathleen Sebelius—Health and Human Services secretary, this former governor of Kansas enjoyed a close personal and financial relationship with later-term abortionist, Dr. George Tiller.
5. Mortgage Bailout Plan—cost $75 billion.
6. The Stimulus Bust—cost $787 billion.
7. ObamaCare (RomneyCare 2.0?)—cost untold trillions of dollars and the American spirit of freedom. As Reagan said, “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people. . . .”
8. Obama’s World Apology Tour—self-explanatory name for Obama’s international tour confessing America’s flaws and the sins we have committed against the rest of the world.
9. The Death of the Three-legged Stool—strong defense, strong economy and strong social values.
10. And the list goes on and it growing minute by minute. Obama will just keep on giving unless we stop him.

The time to stop Obama’s gift-giving campaign for the American people is, first, the 2010 elections, then in 2012 we can get him off our backs completely, if we constitutional conservatives stick together and vote en masse.

Hint: Electing Mit Romney as president in 2012 is not the answer. There are probably several good answers but he is not one of them. The man is a RINO. Of the really good answers out there, to me the most electable right now is Newt Gingrich.

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