Funny

The Illusion of Influence

Does it really matter to us as a society that the man having the most impact on our lives doesn't actually exist?

Before this week, I'd never heard of Don Draper. By next week, I expect to have mostly forgotten him.

I guess that proves I'm out of touch with contemporary culture — a term that has increasingly become an oxymoron.

Nonetheless, I can't say that I'm embarrassed to have never heard of this year's Most Influential Man. What mortifies me far more is to find myself living in a society that considers a fictional character to be its most significant public figure.

I had to strain my memory to place the first runner up, track star Usain Bolt. I'm still straining my powers of reason to understand how a sprinter from Jamaica might be considered the most influential real person in United States.

Number three on the list is President Barack Obama. I have heard of him, and it's hard to argue that the president is the most influential man in his own country, no matter what one may think of his policies.

The rankings lay in the hands of readers polled annually by AskMen.com, a website (of which I had also never heard) devoted to men and their lifestyles. Topping the list as well were, in order: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, American Idol judge Simon Cowell, late pop star Michael Jackson, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, tennis champion Roger Federer, quarterback Peyton Manning, and Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White.

But grabbing the most votes was Don Draper, lead character in the Emmy-winning drama Mad Men. And for the first time in the poll's history, the most influential man in American does not actually exist.

According to Reuters, AskMen.com editor-in-chief James Bassil explained the vote this way: "One of the big themes this year was that men really want to take on these traditional roles — as fathers, working men, provider at home, leader at the office. I think they are yearning for what is a solid past."

That would be a comforting thought … if it were actually true. Indeed, one wonders if Mr. Bassil has watched the show or read his own magazine.

AskMen.com's own website had this to say: "[Draper is] a postwar archetype, both a brilliant career man and a temptation-swayed philanderer who sincerely wants to be a family man… permanently conflicted over how to reconcile his morals and his desires." The website for Mad Men describes the show as a "sexy, stylized and provocative drama [that] follows the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men and women of Madison Avenue advertising, an ego-driven world where key players make an art of the sell."

Were that not enough to debunk Mr. Bassil's rose-colored analysis, the list of the top ten winners is more than enough. Celebrities, athletes, billionaire businessmen, and an ideologically left-leaning president hardly reflect a trend back toward traditional values.

In truth, the evidence suggests just the opposite, that Americans are increasingly obsessed with glitz and glamour, with power and wealth, with conquest and ego-gratification. The sad moral of the story is that the poll-winners are genuinely influential in steering our society toward superficial hopes and unrealistic dreams. How fitting that the most influential man is not only a fictional character, but a profoundly flawed and ambivalent one at that.

The bright side of the story, however, is that the poll reveals the attitudes and aspirations not of Americans as a whole but of AskMen.com readers. If the publication is anything like its forerunners, Playboy and GQ, it is hardly a fair representation of the country. Indeed, it would seem to say more about the inner conflict of testosterone-driven alpha males than those typical family men who may already be living — not merely yearning for — traditional values.

From Rabbi Yonason Goldson at Jewish World Review.

Fort Hood, understood

Dr. Sanity gives spot-on insight into the terrorism that occurred at Fort Hood:


HYPOTHETICAL ATROCITIES AND HYPOTHETICAL VICTIMS: Psychological Displacement and the Fierce Urge to Be Politically Correct.

I must agree with Mark Steyn on this insanity:

The Headline of the Day, from the BBC:

Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army

Really? Right now the body count stands at:
Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0
I was reading from some of this kind of coverage on the Rush Limbaugh show today. Even if you take the view that it would be grossly unfair if all Muslims were to be tarred by Major Hasan's brush, it is, to put it at its mildest, the grossest bad taste to default every single time within minutes to the position that what's of most interest about an actual actrocity with real victims is that it may provoke an entirely hypothetical atrocity with entirely hypothetical victims. I refer you yet again to this note-perfect parody:

British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow's Train Bombing

This kind of media coverage is really a form of mental illness far more advanced than whatever Major Hasan's lawyers eventually enter in mitigation, and apparently pandemic, at least among the western media.

On a related note, from David Horowitz: "Is everybody out of their mind?"
Bonus: "We're the ones who love death - our own."

However, I would disagree in that this is not formal mental illness; though it is insanity. It is more precisely called an severe neurosis, a term that has gone out of favor in contemporary psychiatry, but which very adequately describes the kind of thinking that runs rampant in these days of political correctness--a form of deranged thinking designed to protect the individual from the awareness of imminent danger (think of the paralysis of deer in headlights). Specifically, it is a type of neurotic defense mechanism that serves to deny reality; and I have talked about it many times on this blog.

It is called psychological displacement, and it is an attempt to avoid an unpleasant and frightening truth by substituting something (or someone) that is less threatening. Bush Derangement Syndrome a form of psychological displacement; the kind of thinking that maintains that Christianity and Judaism are just as violent as Islam is a form of displacement; the irrational fear that Christians intend to foist a theocracy on the U.S. is also a form of psychological displacement.

Displacement: The separation of emotion from its real object and redirection of the intense emotion toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what is frightening or threatening

Here's are two cartoons that describe the pathology exactly:

The Democrats' Health Care Bill

Does this bill sound like something that will work according to plan?

Or does it sound like one big bureaucratic, expensive, government fraud?

This is only part of it, from The Washington Post:

The House bill

The complex package would affect virtually every American and fundamentally alter vast swaths of the health insurance industry. Starting next year, private insurers could no longer deny anyone coverage based on preexisting conditions, place lifetime limits on coverage or abandon people when they become ill. Insurers would be required to disclose and justify proposed premium increases to regulators, and could not remove adult children younger than 27 from their parents' family policies.

For the elderly, the group that has been most skeptical of Obama's initiative, the House package would immediately offer discounts on prescription drugs and reduce a gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage, closing it entirely by 2019. Uninsured people who cannot get coverage could join temporary high-risk insurance pools, and unemployed workers would be permitted to keep their COBRA benefits until the public plan and insurance exchanges started in 2013.

In four years, the measure would establish a new insurance system. Businesses with payrolls exceeding $500,000 would be required to offer their workers insurance or pay a fine of as much as 8 percent of payroll. Individuals would be required to obtain insurance or pay a fine of as much as 2.5 percent of income. States would be required to extend Medicaid coverage to as many as 15 million additional people. Low- and middle-income individuals who still could not afford coverage could apply for federal subsidies through an insurance marketplace that would negotiate with private insurers to provide comprehensive policies alongside a government-run "public option."

Congressional budget analysts say the package would cover an additional 36 million Americans, leaving 18 million people without insurance by 2019, about a third of them illegal immigrants. To avoid increasing the deficit, Democrats would pay for the coverage expansion by slicing more than $400 billion from Medicare over the next decade, and by imposing a variety of new taxes, primarily a 5.4 percent surcharge on annual income over $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for families. Initially, the tax would hit only 0.3 percent of taxpayers, but that number would climb rapidly, because the income thresholds would not be indexed to inflation.

Hitler was a football coach

You know why people do not learn from history? Because people don't know history.


UK kids think Hitler 'was German football coach'

LONDON — One in 20 British children think Adolf Hitler was Germany's national football coach, while six percent believe the Holocaust was a celebration at the end of World War II, according to a new poll.

One in five also mixed up Hitler's propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels with Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who wrote a diary of her time hiding from the Nazis in an attic.

The results of the multiple choice poll, published by a war veterans' charity, reveal that while a majority of children have basic knowledge about the two world wars, a significant minority have no clue.

The survey of 2,000 children was published ahead of Remembrance Day on November 11, when many western nations celebrate the signing of the armistice that ended World War I.

Given a choice of answers, 77 percent of the children aged 9-15 recognised Hitler as leader of the Nazi party, but 13.5 percent thought he invented gravity in 1650 and seven percent thought he coached Germany's football team.

Likewise, 61 percent knew who Goebbels was but 21 percent thought he was a "well-known Jew who wrote a diary in the attic" -- and 14 percent thought he was Britain's defence secretary at the start of the World War II.

While 85 percent knew what the Holocaust was, six percent thought it was the celebration at the end of the war. Auschwitz was correctly identified by 70 percent -- but 15 percent thought it was a WWII based theme park.

How much of this can you stomach?

Never forget

Of all the fascist, anti-American things Obama has said in the last couple of years, this one freaks me out the most.

I keep posting it because I don't want people to forget about it.

What the hell is banging around in Obama's head when he says this? Whatever it is, it ain't good.

Barack Obama: Imaginary Friend of Democrats. Cause and Cure.

Atheists, like songwriters, are always seeking lines more glib than true. Glib is golden because it obscures the fact that deep down atheism is, like a pop song, shallow. One of the more tedious quips, oft repeated with a tone that oozes ‘What a good boy am I,’ is "God is just an imaginary friend for adults.”

The possibility that God may have given glib atheists everything – space, time, a planet, evolution, and free will – that allows this bromide to roll trippingly off their tongues is something they will not and can not conceive. Their wetware is not evolved enough to perceive God should He deign to reveal himself. God is not finished buffing out their fatal flaw, although He will be, by and by. Until then they cannot grasp that, in some cases, “imaginary friends” can be as real as their friendship is illusory.

Exhibit A today are yesterday's elections which established the new truth of contemporary American politics, “Barack Obama is the imaginary friend of Democrats.” This dovetails well with another of his many roles, stand-in lower-case god for the vast majority of American atheists.

Even as Obama’s methods grow more radical, his means more aggressive, and his motives darker, and his stubbornness without will most Democrats polled persist in their belief that he really is their friend. It’s entirely imaginary, of course, since we see with every passing day that the “friendship” of Obama only lasts as long as it is needed -- by Obama. When the need is no longer there, the friendship fades like the Highland mist at dawn. The now tattered and overused phrase “Under the bus” has become code for “Any speed bumps on my road will be steam-rolled to a flat black stain on the pavement like an armadillo on an Arizona highway in August.”

And yet, if we are to believe the polls, Obama love endures in many even as the pain grows. The tryst that was consummated in the soft and moonlit honeymoon suite in January now seems more and more like a long dark night in Michelle's Dungeon with no safeword. Incomprehensible as it may seem to any neutral observer many Democrats continue to believe, in the face of stark facts daily seen, that Obama is indeed their friend. It has to be tiring because this fantasy -- now entirely a product of the imagination -- requires that greater and greater energy is expended on the part of the believer in "Keeping it real."

How can they continue even as the whip comes down? They have no choice. Those that believe Obama is their friend find it necessary to believe. Why is Obama the imaginary friend necessary to them? Because, regardless of their age, all Obama acolytes and most Democrats are children. They need to believe in Obama like Virginia needs to believe in Santa Claus, and like a beaten woman needs to believe her man really loves her. These are immature attitudes but in the USA of the 21st century “immature” is what we do. It's the one sector of manufacturing in which we still lead the world.

We’ve been producing the manchild, the femchild, and the girly-boy in this country for decades. What the Chinese emperors once did to women's feet we can now do to human souls and we're not outsourcing. The binding that cripples the soul begins in the early indoctrination of kindergarten, where they learn all they need to know and then stop learning much of anything else. To make sure it sticks, the indoctrination is repeated for as long as they remain soaking in the thick multicutural, transnationalist, progressive soup of the educational system: “The New York Times, Grievance Group, Government, Diversity = Good” vs “The Great Books, Individualism, Responsibility, America = Bad.” That’s pretty much it these days. Rinse and repeat that mantra like a Hari Krishna on crack and you too can actually succeed in school right up to a Ph.D. in “Diversity Studies.”

It’s BigEd’s formula for stunting spiritual growth and producing big Peter Pans and Pams that won’t and can’t grow up. As a result the liberal Democrat’s capacity for sustaining imaginary friends never really abates. Indeed, with some many Baby Hueys living well into their fifth and sixth decade the imaginary friend demand was exceeding the supply. This was all solved by BigMedia’s manufacture and distribution of Barack Obama as a kind of “Barabi Doll – The Only Imaginary Friend You’ll Ever Need.”

As some have gotten chary of pointing out, Obama was tailor made (by a tailor in an undisclosed location) for rich and/or liberal white people. It was a classic example of branding a substandard product in such a way that it gained major market share in the target demographic. Without them, he was nothing. Without him, they were less than zero.

What was the product? It was “Your New Best Friend in the White House.” It was “President Bartlet, But Better.” To underscore this point comedian and soothsayer Chris Rock has a routine in which he relates, “These days black folks have a LOT of white friends and white folks all have ONE black friend.” This has, he notes, been a trend for quite some time and, given the relative percentages of African Americans versus Americans of the Caucasian persuasion, it was only a matter of time before there was an African-American/Caucasian friend gap.

Obama seems to fill that gap providing “a friend in need.” He’s cool. He’s slender. You not only want him to come for dinner but to stay for the long weekend. His family is picture perfect in a Tiffany frame. You want that frame on your ego wall. He knows what you like to hear, and he knows how to say it when he’s doing just the opposite. He’s so smooth you hardly feel it.

He’s a better liar than most politicians because he’s far beyond shame. Shame is for sissies. Most of all he knows how hard it is to stop loving someone even when you see them whoring night-after-night in the champagne court at the back of the DC titty bar. Indeed, Obama knows that once he can get you to stick around after he’s been unfaithful and knocked you around, you’ll stay around for even more abuse and infidelity. Why? Because you’ve come to need the abuse more than the love; you’ve come to want more than anything else to just spend more time close to him in the hope that he’ll change and finally feel your pain and feed your needs.

The problem is your needs may be real, but Obama’s got a full schedule when it comes to his “Let’s wreck America as quickly and completely as possible” needs. He just doesn’t have time to hang out. So you’ll just have to imagine him.

Where did this need for an imaginary friend come from? A 2006 study of the phenomenon of imaginary friends by Dr. Louise Newman, child psychiatrist and the director of the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry , sheds a glimmer of light:

Most children grow out of imaginary friends, Newman says. But in some cases an imaginary friend can emerge in adulthood, usually in response to trauma, inability to cope with stress and sometimes psychotic illness.In rare cases some adults develop what's known as Doppelganger syndrome, which occurs when they believe a twin or invisible friend accompanies them.

Seen in that light, it’s easy to understand why so many folks retain the impression of Obama as their imaginary friend. It is, as it always is, the fault of George W. Bush. What was once the mental disease that crippled tens of millions of American minds, "Bush Derangement Syndrome" (BDS), has morphed into "Obama Arrangement Syndrome" (OAS)

which requires that people interpret or ignore events in a manner that reinforces their preconceived, and rigid, notions about Obama.

If BDS needed a 12-step program, OAS is going to need a 13-step program. It begins with, “We admited to ourselves and others that the idea Barack Obama was our friend was utterly imaginary, and no matter how many times he promised it we were never going to be sharing long, hot showers into the wee hours of the morning.”

From Vanderleun at American Digest.

Just wanted to clear up the Colorado balloon incident for you

H/T Theo Spark

Grab yo barf bag

Video Title: “Ending – Part II of the 5th Grade Performance”

Video Note: Special thanks to Mr. Lewis.

–

Transcript:

We believe in Barack Obama
He loves you and he loves your mama
We believe in Barack Obama, yeah
With all the change he’s building
Gonna bring hope to the children
We believe in Barack Obama, yeah

Change
That we can believe in
Change
That we can believe in
Change
That we can believe in

We believe in Barack Obama
He loves you and he loves your mama
We believe in Barack Obama, yeah
With all the change he’s building
Gonna bring hope to the children
We believe in Barack Obama, yeah

Change
That we can believe in
Change
That we can believe in
Change
That we can believe in

Yeah, haha, haha.
Alright, come on now, here we go;
You know we gotta get Barack and all of his crew
In the White House so they can prove that
In their hearts they know what to do
And that includes Michelle and the kiddies too

[kids chanting] “There is not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.”
We believe in Barack Obama
He loves you and he loves your mama
We believe in Barack Obama, yeah
With all the change he’s building
Gonna bring hope to the children
We believe in Barack Obama, yeah

[Chant at end of song – unintelligible]

From Big Hollywood.

Greatness

111 boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs.

The list from the Democrats' 2,000 page health care bill. This looks like it will save a lot of money and make things much easier:


1. Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61)
2. Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62)
3. Grant program for State health access programs (Section 114, p. 72)
4. Program of administrative simplification (Section 115, p. 76)
5. Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Section 223, p. 111)
6. Health Choices Administration (Section 241, p. 131)
7. Qualified Health Benefits Plan Ombudsman (Section 244, p. 138)
8. Health Insurance Exchange (Section 201, p. 155)
9. Program for technical assistance to employees of small businesses buying Exchange coverage (Section 305(h), p. 191)
10. Mechanism for insurance risk pooling to be established by Health Choices Commissioner (Section 306(b), p. 194)
11. Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund (Section 307, p. 195)
12. State-based Health Insurance Exchanges (Section 308, p. 197)
13. Grant program for health insurance cooperatives (Section 310, p. 206)
14. "Public Health Insurance Option" (Section 321, p. 211)
15. Ombudsman for "Public Health Insurance Option" (Section 321(d), p. 213)
16. Account for receipts and disbursements for "Public Health Insurance Option" (Section 322(b), p. 215)
17. Telehealth Advisory Committee (Section 1191 (b), p. 589)
18. Demonstration program providing reimbursement for "culturally and linguistically appropriate services" (Section 1222, p. 617)
19. Demonstration program for shared decision making using patient decision aids (Section 1236, p. 648)
20. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicare (Section 1301, p. 653)
21. Independent patient-centered medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302, p. 672)
22. Community-based medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302(d), p. 681)
23. Independence at home demonstration program (Section 1312, p. 718)
24. Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research (Section 1401(a), p. 734)
25. Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission (Section 1401(a), p. 738)
26. Patient ombudsman for comparative effectiveness research (Section 1401(a), p. 753)
27. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1412(b)(1), p. 784)
28. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for nursing facilities (Section 1412 (b)(2), p. 786)
29. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1413(a)(3), p. 796)
30. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 1413(b)(3), p. 804)
31. National independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 1422, p. 859)
32. Demonstration program for approved teaching health centers with respect to Medicare GME (Section 1502(d), p. 933)
33. Pilot program to develop anti-fraud compliance systems for Medicare providers (Section 1635, p. 978)
34. Special Inspector General for the Health Insurance Exchange (Section 1647, p. 1000)
35. Medical home pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1722, p. 1058)
36. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1730A, p. 1073)
37. Nursing facility supplemental payment program (Section 1745, p. 1106)
38. Demonstration program for Medicaid coverage to stabilize emergency medical conditions in institutions for mental diseases (Section 1787, p. 1149)
39. Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund (Section 1802, p. 1162)
40. "Identifiable office or program" within CMS to "provide for improved coordination between Medicare and Medicaid in the case of dual eligibles" (Section 1905, p. 1191)
41. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Section 1907, p. 1198)
42. Public Health Investment Fund (Section 2002, p. 1214)
43. Scholarships for service in health professional needs areas (Section 2211, p. 1224)
44. Program for training medical residents in community-based settings (Section 2214, p. 1236)
45. Grant program for training in dentistry programs (Section 2215, p. 1240)
46. Public Health Workforce Corps (Section 2231, p. 1253)
47. Public health workforce scholarship program (Section 2231, p. 1254)
48. Public health workforce loan forgiveness program (Section 2231, p. 1258)
49. Grant program for innovations in interdisciplinary care (Section 2252, p. 1272)
50. Advisory Committee on Health Workforce Evaluation and Assessment (Section 2261, p. 1275)
51. Prevention and Wellness Trust (Section 2301, p. 1286)
52. Clinical Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1295)
53. Community Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1301)
54. Grant program for community prevention and wellness research (Section 2301, p. 1305)
55. Grant program for research and demonstration projects related to wellness incentives (Section 2301, p. 1305)
56. Grant program for community prevention and wellness services (Section 2301, p. 1308)
57. Grant program for public health infrastructure (Section 2301, p. 1313)
58. Center for Quality Improvement (Section 2401, p. 1322)
59. Assistant Secretary for Health Information (Section 2402, p. 1330)
60. Grant program to support the operation of school-based health clinics (Section 2511, p. 1352)
61. Grant program for nurse-managed health centers (Section 2512, p. 1361)
62. Grants for labor-management programs for nursing training (Section 2521, p. 1372)
63. Grant program for interdisciplinary mental and behavioral health training (Section 2522, p. 1382)
64. "No Child Left Unimmunized Against Influenza" demonstration grant program (Section 2524, p. 1391)
65. Healthy Teen Initiative grant program regarding teen pregnancy (Section 2526, p. 1398)
66. Grant program for interdisciplinary training, education, and services for individuals with autism (Section 2527(a), p. 1402)
67. University centers for excellence in developmental disabilities education (Section 2527(b), p. 1410)
68. Grant program to implement medication therapy management services (Section 2528, p. 1412)
69. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors in underserved communities (Section 2530, p. 1422)
70. Grant program for State alternative medical liability laws (Section 2531, p. 1431)
71. Grant program to develop infant mortality programs (Section 2532, p. 1433)
72. Grant program to prepare secondary school students for careers in health professions (Section 2533, p. 1437)
73. Grant program for community-based collaborative care (Section 2534, p. 1440)
74. Grant program for community-based overweight and obesity prevention (Section 2535, p. 1457)
75. Grant program for reducing the student-to-school nurse ratio in primary and secondary schools (Section 2536, p. 1462)
76. Demonstration project of grants to medical-legal partnerships (Section 2537, p. 1464)
77. Center for Emergency Care under the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (Section 2552, p. 1478)
78. Council for Emergency Care (Section 2552, p 1479)
79. Grant program to support demonstration programs that design and implement regionalized emergency care systems (Section 2553, p. 1480)
80. Grant program to assist veterans who wish to become emergency medical technicians upon discharge (Section 2554, p. 1487)
81. Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (Section 2562, p. 1494)
82. National Medical Device Registry (Section 2571, p. 1501)
83. CLASS Independence Fund (Section 2581, p. 1597)
84. CLASS Independence Fund Board of Trustees (Section 2581, p. 1598)
85. CLASS Independence Advisory Council (Section 2581, p. 1602)
86. Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women's Health (Section 2588, p. 1610)
87. National Women's Health Information Center (Section 2588, p. 1611)
88. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women's Health (Section 2588, p. 1614)
89. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women's Health and Gender-Based Research (Section 2588, p. 1617)
90. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 2588, p. 1618)
91. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 2588, p. 1621)
92. Personal Care Attendant Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 2589(a)(2), p. 1624)
93. Grant program for national health workforce online training (Section 2591, p. 1629)
94. Grant program to disseminate best practices on implementing health workforce investment programs (Section 2591, p. 1632)
95. Demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (Section 3101, p. 1717)
96. Demonstration program for substance abuse counselor educational curricula (Section 3101, p. 1719)49. Grant program for innovations in interdisciplinary care (Section 2252, p. 1272)
97. Program of Indian community education on mental illness (Section 3101, p. 1722)
98. Intergovernmental Task Force on Indian environmental and nuclear hazards (Section 3101, p. 1754)
99. Office of Indian Men's Health (Section 3101, p. 1765)
100. Indian Health facilities appropriation advisory board (Section 3101, p. 1774)
101. Indian Health facilities needs assessment workgroup (Section 3101, p. 1775)
102. Indian Health Service tribal facilities joint venture demonstration projects (Section 3101, p. 1809)
103. Urban youth treatment center demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1873)
104. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for diabetes prevention (Section 3101, p. 1874)
105. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for health IT adoption (Section 3101, p. 1877)
106. Mental health technician training program (Section 3101, p. 1898)
107. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1909)
108. Program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims and perpetrators (Section 3101, p. 1925)
109. Program for treatment of domestic violence and sexual abuse (Section 3101, p. 1927)
110. Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1966)
111. Committee for the Establishment of the Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1968)

"Hear our cry, Obama"

Isn't one of the Ten Commandments "Thou shalt not worship false idols?"

Yeah, I thought so.

Why the US is circling the drain.

Here it is, in a nutshell, from Peggy Noonan at The Wall Street Journal:


We're Governed by Callous Children

Americans feel increasingly disheartened, and our leaders don't even notice.

The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter. We should be dancing in the streets. No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers. Waves of money are sloshing through the system, creating a false rising tide that lifts all boats for the moment. The tide will recede. The boats aren't rising, they're bobbing, and will settle. No one believes the bad time is over. No one thinks we're entering a new age of abundance. No one thinks it will ever be the same as before 2008. Economists, statisticians, forecasters and market specialists will argue about what the new numbers mean, but no one believes them, either. Among the
things swept away in 2008 was public confidence in the experts. The experts missed the crash. They'll miss the meaning of this moment, too.

The biggest threat to America right now is not government spending, huge deficits, foreign ownership of our debt, world terrorism, two wars, potential epidemics or nuts with nukes. The biggest long-term threat is that people are becoming and have become disheartened, that this condition is reaching critical mass, and that it afflicts most broadly and deeply those members of the American leadership class who are not in Washington, most especially those in business.

It is a story in two parts. The first: "They do not think they can make it better."

I talked this week with a guy from Big Pharma, which we used to call "the drug companies" until we decided that didn't sound menacing enough. He is middle-aged, works in a significant position, and our conversation turned to the last great recession, in the late mid- to late 1970s and early '80s. We talked about how, in terms of numbers, that recession was in some ways worse than the one we're experiencing now. Interest rates were over 20%, and inflation and unemployment hit double digits. America was in what might be called a functional
depression, yet there was still a prevalent feeling of hope. Here's why. Everyone thought they could figure a way through. We knew we could find a path through the mess. In 1982 there were people saying, "If only we get rid of this guy Reagan, we can make it better!" Others said, "If we follow Reagan, he'll squeeze out inflation and lower taxes and we'll be America again, we'll be acting like Americans again." Everyone had a path through.

Now they don't. The most sophisticated Americans, experienced in how the country works on the ground, can't figure a way out. Have you heard, "If only we follow Obama and the Democrats, it will all get better"? Or, "If only we follow the Republicans, they'll make it all work again"? I bet you haven't, or not much.

This is historic. This is something new in modern political history, and I'm not sure we're fully noticing it. Americans are starting to think the problems we are facing cannot be solved.

Part of the reason is that the problems—debt, spending, war—seem too big. But a larger part is that our government, from the White House through Congress and so many state and local governments, seems to be demonstrating every day that they cannot make things better. They are not offering a new path, they are only offering old paths—spend more, regulate more, tax more in an attempt to make us more healthy locally and nationally. And in the long term everyone—well, not those in government, but most everyone else—seems to know that won't work. It's not a way out. It's not a path through.

And so the disheartenedness of the leadership class, of those in business, of those who have something. This week the New York Post carried a report that 1.5 million people had left high-tax New York state between 2000 and 2008, more than a million of them from even higher-tax New York City. They took their tax dollars with them—in 2006 alone more than $4 billion.

You know what New York, both state and city, will do to make up for the lost money. They'll raise taxes.

I talked with an executive this week with what we still call "the insurance companies" and will no doubt soon be calling Big Insura. (Take it away, Democratic National Committee.) He was thoughtful, reflective about the big picture. He talked about all the new proposed regulations on the industry. Rep. Barney Frank had just said on some cable show that the Democrats of the White House and Congress "are trying on every front to increase the role of government in the regulatory area." The executive said of Washington: "They don't understand that people can just stop, get out. I have friends and colleagues who've said to me 'I'm done.'" He spoke of his own
increasing tax burden and said, "They don't understand that if they start to tax me so that I'm paying 60%, 55%,I'll stop."

He felt government doesn't understand that business in America is run by people, by human beings. Mr. Frank must believe America is populated by high-achieving robots who will obey whatever command he and his friends issue. But of course they're human, and they can become disheartened. They can pack it in, go elsewhere, quit what used to be called the rat race and might as well be called that again since the government seems to think they're all rats. (That would be you, Chamber of Commerce.)

And here is the second part of the story. While Americans feel increasingly disheartened, their leaders evince a mindless . . . one almost calls it optimism, but it is not that.

It is a curious thing that those who feel most mistily affectionate toward America, and most protective toward it, are the most aware of its vulnerabilities, the most aware that it can be harmed. They don't see it as all-powerful, impregnable, unharmable. The loving have a sense of its limits.

When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren't they worried about the impact of what they're doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse?

I think I know part of the answer. It is that they've never seen things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don't have the habit of worry. They talk about their "concerns"—they're big on that word. But they're not really concerned. They think America is the goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps. She laid it in grandpa's lap. They don't feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—"strongest nation in the world," "indispensable nation," "unipolar power," "highest standard of living"—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.

We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative.

They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice.


Hat tip KR.

Quotes 8

"They took my clothes, my wife, my kids, my wedding ring. I stood naked before the SS and I realized they can take everything in my life but they cannot take my freedom to choose how I will respond to them." - Victor Frankl, prisoner at Auschwitz

"They're (White House officials) the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington." - Chris Wallace

"Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? " - Barack Obama

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

"Dyslexics of the world, untie!"

"I would never invade America. There would be a gun behind every blade of grass." - Isoroku Yamamoto

"Michael Savage is a very loud canary in freedom's mineshaft." - Dr. Peter Breggin

"I still love Madonna, but she's retarded." - Guy Ritchie

"Maybe there is a beast. Maybe it's only us." - from Lord of the Flies

"Kids are being aggressively recruited to become heterosexual in this country." - Kevin Jennings, President Obama's safe schools czar

"I support America's outstretched hand. But what has the international community gained from these offers of dialogue? Nothing but more enriched uranium and centrifuges." - French President Sarkozy

"When a white abortion doctor kills a black baby is it a hate crime?" - Mike Adams

"Disillusioned words like bullets bark as human gods aim for their mark. Made everything from toy guns that spark to flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark. It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred." - Bob Dylan

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson

"President Obama calls himself a student of history - as I call myself Marie of Romania." - Andrew Klavan

"President Obama yesterday did his best impression of a high-school sophomore participating in his first Model UN meeting, retailing pious clichés he learned from his pony-tailed social studies teacher." - Rich Lowery

"A minority in Congress plus the American people equals a majority.” - Mike Pence, R. - Indiana

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - Chief Justice Roberts

"Saying no to the president is a habit. The world adores him and ignores him." - George Will

“Therefore, we must control men in order to force them to be free.” - Professor Pritchett, from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

"The greatest political coup in history has been pulled on the American people. A serial liar, a marxist islamic leaning racist American hater is manipulated into the most powerful post on earth. The fact he is half white is irrelevant - its him that is the problem. He hates and it shows." - British blogger

"Well done is better than well said." —Benjamin Franklin

"All excess is rooted in loneliness."

"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way." - Pink Floyd

"You never actually need a gun, until you need a gun, and then nothing else will do."

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” - Thomas Jefferson

"Even moderates who voted for Obama won’t be stooping so low as to admit to an error. They’ll simply take the position that there was no better alternative, that McCain was “McSame”…it must be true, all those Saturday Night Live skits said so." - House of Eratosthenes

“We kind of agree with Mao that power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.” - Ron Bloom, former union official and current manufacturing czar in the Obama administration

“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” - Thomas Jefferson

"Because the President is a whiny little titty baby and a girly man and doesn't have enough guts to figure out what to do in Afghanistan, he's going to take on, what — Fox News and get his ass kicked there?" - Don Imus

"Focus on the eternal and squeeze in the temporal." – Todd Wagner

“In Louisiana last week the governor cried and the mayor blamed everyone but himself, and half the country bought every single stinking Pink lie about global warming and missing National Guard units and blamed the sheepdogs while the wolves raped and pillaged and looted everything in sight.” – Bill Whittle

“People do a lot of things in private they couldn’t possibly explain in public.” - nurse from Rear Window

“Very rarely did we communicate anything through the press that we didn’t absolutely control.” – Anita Dunn, Obama’s communications chief

“Life is the one choice that pro-choicers won’t support.” – Lacy Dodd

“Team Obama seems to be more comfortable with campaigning than governing.” – Clarence Page

"The problem with our current welfare programs is not that they are costly — which they are — but that they have such perverse consequences for the people they are supposed to benefit." – Irving Kristol

"What's remarkable is not that we've had a spirited debate about health insurance reform, but the unprecedented consensus that has come together behind it." – Barack Obama, Oct. 11, 2009

"A racist is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal."

"The most extreme member of the Obama administration is Obama." – Mark Levin

“How is it that when Righties quote Lefties, they have video, audio, and notarized confirmation from the Pope, but when Lefties “quote” Righties, they have Wiki entries contributed by ‘Cobra’?” – Tim Blair

“It is never surprising when high-minded liberals use racism to combat supposed racism.” – Red State

”80 percent of U.S. households last year did not buy a book.” - Christopher Hedges

“The answer to the question of whether the barbarians will rule us in the future depends upon parents, religious leaders, educators, scientists, politicians, artists, and writers who are not embarrassed to give public expression to what they know about right and wrong, good and evil.” – Richard John Neuhaus

"Tell me, what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver

"Action is the antidote to despair." --Joan Baez

"Please understand. God's goal is not to make you happy. His goal is to make you His."

"Don't do what you are doing now." – Demosthenes, when asked what was to be done about the decline of Athens.

"That's what you get with one-party democracy: a country run by a bunch of screaming, arguing Appalachian retards, all of whom get the same vote as Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion leaders. Say what you want about China, but they have sensible pre-screening rules to keep these divisive morons away from voting booths in the first place." – liberal columnist Thomas Friedman

“I’ll take this pack of Pampers and whatever you got in the register.” – from Raising Arizona

“I don't mind a guy working at McDonald's canceling out my vote. But the guy sleeping behind McDonald's? Surely we can keep him out of the voting booth.”

“Does anything Obama says remain operative beyond the fading of the audience applause?” – Charles Krauthammer

"I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind." – economist David Ricardo

"Under my cap and trade plan, prices will necessarily skyrocket." – Barack Obama

"Six months ago, Obama's approval rating was 70 percent. Does Jimmy Carter think that number has sunk to 50 percent because tens of millions of Americans suddenly discovered Obama was black?" – Patrick Buchanan

“If you get an email entitled: ‘Nude photo of Nancy Pelosi,’ DON'T OPEN IT!! It contains a nude photo of Nancy Pelosi.” – A Tweet from thrillerchick

“A Carter re-run is now looking like a best-case scenario.” – Mitt Romney

“Elections have consequences, my friends.” – John McCain

"The transition from democracy to tyranny ,Plato says, is most easily brought about by a popular leader who knows how to exploit the class antagonism between the rich and the poor within the democratic state, and who succeeds in building up a bodyguard of a private army of his own. The people who have hailed him first as the champion of freedom are soon enslaved." – Karl Popper, from The Open Society and Its Enemies

“Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.” – Sarah Palin

“What worries me the most about Obama is this: the part of him that should want to shield us from harm seems chillingly absent. The economy is tanking -- Obama laughs. We are accumulating crippling debt -- he and the other Democrats go on a spending spree. Millions take to the street for a peaceful 9/12 march. He doesn't notice. We oppose the government controlling our lives, especially health care, but he rams legislation down our throats anyway.” – Robin from Berkely

“Why don’t you bore a hole in yourself and let the sap run out?” – from The Marx Brothers’ Horsefeathers

“To create a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.” – Thomas Sowell

“Never tell me the odds.” – Han Solo

"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men." - Samuel Adams, in a letter to James Warren, on November 4, 1775

"Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn't let him do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians." - from the novel Hope by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith

"It doesn't matter what this sign says you'll call it racism anyway." - sign at recent Tea Party

"When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it. When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on. When a man spends someone else's money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn't care at all how much he spends. And when a man spends someone else's money on someone else, he doesn't care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that's government for you." -Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint." - Mark Twain

"Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized: In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher, 1788-1860)

"Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision." - Dick Armey

"If you get hit, we’ll punch back twice as hard.” – Barack Obama

“If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov”

“It’s a sordid business, this divvying up by race.” – Chief Justice John Roberts

“Everybody says to invest in gold. Maybe it’s time to invest in lead instead.” – caller to radio talk show

“When you look at this administration’s performance to date, it’s like the Democratic Party went out and found themselves a caricature of everything that they complained about/hated/feared with regard to George W Bush… only this time? It’s all true.” - Moe Lane of Red State

"Funny how a true capitalist pig, Moore, is preying off the brainwashed sheep who buy into the Utopian Society model, making millions in the process. What a country!" - Roger Stockton

“Barack Obama has no use for you and I. He doesn't understand us, and he doesn't understand the free enterprise system that filled this country with prosperous, good, caring people like us. He doesn't understand the belief systems that molded us. Whatever the reason for his thinking, it seems unlikely that he will ever be one of us.” – Scott Martin

“I spent the years twelve through eighteen baked out of my ever-loving mind, smoking my way through every good day, riding a strident wave of adolescent wreckage. After I cleaned up, I spent the next ten moving the rare load of silent reefer tonnage to North Carolina and the last thirteen living pure legal. Tell me, have you ever rolled naked in a hundred and fifty thousand dollars pulled from your safe for that express purpose? The money involved in moving pot is phenomenal; small, smart dealers live large, the big boys own yachts and multiple architectural masterpieces. All on a tight bud profit riding the back of a buying demographic swinging well under twenty five.” – Daphne, from jadedhaven.wordpress.com

"We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest -- which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves." - Thomas Jefferson

“I'll bet you never dreamed you'd look back at Jimmy Carter as the good old days." - Mitt Romney

"Avoid popularity if you would have peace." – Abraham Lincoln

“Liston, Lupus, you didn’t come into this life just to sit around on a dugout bench, did ya? Now get your ass out there and do the best you can.” – from The Bad News Bears

"How strange that with large majorities in the House and Senate, with a president who just months ago enjoyed 70 percent approval ratings, and with a compliant and influential press, the Democratic party cannot pass its own legislation and instead is detouring to label most middle-class voters of all beliefs "racists." It is as if a group of political advisers got together and brainstormed how in theory to ruin the best liberal landscape in generations." – Victor Davis Hanson

“Have you heard about that new group, the Christians? They are so poor that they only have one god!” – from History Of The World, Part 1

“There is a difference between our strike and all those you've practiced for centuries: our strike consists, not of making demands, but of granting them. We are evil, according to your morality. We have chosen not to harm you any longer. We are useless, according to your economics. We have chosen not to exploit you any longer. We are dangerous and to be shackled, according to your politics. We have chosen not to endanger you, nor to wear the shackles any longer.” – John Galt, from Atlas Shrugged

"Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking."

"I didn’t even know ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money." – Barack Obama

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling." – Oscar Wilde

"How do you create millions of white racists? I have a theory. I say you can do it by accusing a few million white folks who are not racists and just continue to accuse them of being racists on a daily basis. Keep doing it day after day and week after week, and pretty soon you might just have what you want. The human spirit cannot absorb but so much of this before the inclination to hate the accusers gains traction. What do you expect from just a bunch of "typical white people." – C. Edmund Wright

“I would submit that the president's call for an end to "bickering" and the charges of racism by some of his supporters are the natural reflex of people who are not used to hearing people disagree with them and who are determined to shut them up.” – Michael Barone

A black woman with the biggest boobs I've ever seen

Hat tip Theo Spark.

I wish

Maher, Obama, and so-called American exceptionalism

Simple, brilliant analysis from EjectEjectEject:

The Huffington Post has gained a reputation as the premier philosophical center of the modern American Left, and it is there that we might look to find the kind of in-depth, rational argument that powers modern left-wing ideology.

An example of this kind of reasoned discourse was found in a recent article by leading American intellect Bill Maher. Mr. Maher is outraged that people like me are outraged at a statement made by the President of the United States.

Mr. Obama, while attending a European summit earlier this year, was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism. The President of the United States replied, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Liberal intellectual Bill Maher then went on write, “Yes, our so-called president actually said people in other countries might like their countries better. I was so shocked I nearly dropped the Bible I was using to help me masturbate into my gun.”

Now even those of us without the towering intellects of Barack Obama and Bill Maher can see that that both men are suffering from a simple lapse in comprehension. The question wasn’t whether or not he believed in American patriotism – that is, the love of one’s country. Of course the British and the Greeks love their country. I love my country. I understand this emotion completely, and I think it’s great to have pride in who you are. But that wasn’t the question. The question was, do you believe America to be “exceptional.”

Bill Maher and Barack Obama say no. I say, yes it is, and here’s why:

Let’s examine four international areas of competition to see if there’s any way in which America can be defined as exceptional: Militarily, economically, scientifically, and culturally. There’s the challenge. Ready? My God, this is going to be so easy and so much fun…

Okay, Militarily…

Throughout history, certain exceptional nations have dominated the world militarily. Egypt, Rome, The Mongols, Spain, France, Britain, and America’s military dominance since World War II certainly puts it in that category. But the American military exceptionalism is completely different both in terms of relative power, and more importantly, in terms of the use of that power.

At the end of 1945, only two military powers of any consequence remained after the ruin of the World War: the United States, and the Soviet Union, and while the Soviets had large numbers of troops and tanks, they had no navy and no strategic air force to speak of. On the other hand, the United States possessed, intact, the most awe-inspiring, battle-hardened navy the world had ever seen. It possessed sky-darkening clouds of B-29 strategic bombers. And it possessed, alone, the atomic bomb and the will to use it.

Had we been like any other power in the history of the world, the United States of America would have used that monopoly on absolute military supremacy to have planted its flag anywhere it wanted and no one would have been able to do a thing about it.

But what did America do with this once-in-all-of-history military advantage? We scrapped the ships, drove steel bars through the wings of the priceless bombers, and began the largest de-militarization in the history of the world. Oh, and we sent billions of 1940’s dollars – an almost unimaginable sum – to our defeated mortal adversaries to get them back on their feet.

And in all of the years since then, despite what Michael Moore may want you to believe from the comfort of his editing room, the United States has deployed in response to aggression – not to cause it. Berlin, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Korea, Vietnam – all of it Communist – that is to say, Leftist – aggression.

There is another military issue that need to be addressed. It is the idea of American “Imperialism.”

The fair working definition of “empire” is a group of countries ruled over by another country, and the entire point of an empire if for the ruling nation to pull resources and wealth from the subject nations. So, is America an Empire?

Well, over what other nation does the US exercise “supreme power in governing?” Whose national parliament can we overturn at our whim? What nations in this so-called “American Imperialism” does America have ruling governors in? There are none, and everyone knows it. We have a handful of very small territories that repeatedly vote for that status. And in those nations that voluntarily house American military bases, we find we not only do not steal the resources of the host nation, but rather pump vast amounts of money into those countries. When a country – like the Phillipines – decides it no longer wants those bases, the bases are removed. Furthermore, we pay for whatever resources we are sold. That benefits us and our trading partner. Free trade is the economic and moral antithesis of imperialism.

And just as a quick parting shot, let’s talk about a “war for oil.” Unlike the people that bandy this term around, I’ve enough about military doctrine to know what a War for Oil would like like. In a War for Oil, the US would secure the oil fields using Special Operations teams. We’d place an armored cordon around the oil fields, and then, using military convoys under overwhelming close air support, convoy the oil to Basra where it would be loaded on US tankers and escorted out of the region by American Carrier Battle Groups. And if you don’t believe that take on America’s fundamental military decency, I would refer you back to the First Gulf War, when Saddam was high-tailing it back to Iraq and the US Army sat unopposed on the precious, precious oil fields. They were ours; we won them in battle. What did this American Empire do? We put out the fires and then we went home. Again.

So what kind of empire has no sovereignty over its subject nations, deplys no governors to make it’s will felt and which puts resources into the outlying colonies, rather than pulling them in?

What kind of empire is that? An Anti-Empire, that’s what kind. America’s presence is Anti-Imperial. That has never happened before in history. That is one of a kind. That’s exceptional.

Economically, the United States – with less than five percent of the world’s population – produces 20% of it’s total economic output. You don’t find that exceptional? How about this? America, with three hundred and seven million people, produces about 14 trillion in GDP. China, with 1.3 billion, produces almost 8 trillion dollars of GDP. In other words, America produces twice the GDP of second place China, and we do it with less than 25% of their population. You don’t find that exceptional, Mr. President? I find that very exceptional.

And just to shoot down a recurring bit of idiocy I see bandied about out there, let’s just very quickly dispose of the idea that America is rich because it steals all the wealth from the third world.

U.S. GDP, as I mentioned, is a little over 14 trillion dollars. Let’s take the GDP of a poor country – Djibouti, lets say – the not the absolute bottom, but close enough… Djibouti ranks 162 out of 180 countries in the world.

Djibouti’s GDP is a little less than 1.9 Billion dollars annually. The GDP of the United States is 7,600 times that of Djibouti. If we were to send the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines into Djibouti, and steal everything they made that year – everything, we just took their whole GDP – well, that would account for the first 1.2 hours of the first day of January of America’s GDP year. In other words, the United States makes in the first hour and ten minutes of January first what Djibouti makes all year.

There has never been anything like the US economy. No one can look at the numbers I just gave and not see it as the most remarkable and exceptional wealth creation machine in history. But it does seem at times that the President who sees nothing exceptional in America is doing his level best to remove what were the exceptional elements of the US economy – low taxes, low regulation and private initiative – and lead us straight out of this once-in-history economic miracle. Into what? I don’t know. No one knows.

Moving on. One of the common charges leveled – seemingly every week – by deep thinkers like Bill Maher, Janeane Garofolo, Michael Moore and other left-wing idols – is that America is a stupid country. In fact, if you listen to these guys, American’s are not just stupid – we are, literally, according to them, the stupidest people in the world.

Is that true? How does America fare scientifically?

Each year, scientists all around the world write research papers. These papers produce scientific citations. It’s fair to call these citations “units” of science, that is, a measure of how much ground-breaking science is being performed.

Now the last time I checked, China came in sixth, preceeded by France, England, Germany and Japan. Japan, at number, had six and a half million citations in a ten year period.

During that time the United States produced 39,027,838 – more than six times as many as the runner up. Six times as many as number 2. Mr. Maher, I’m not even talking to you any more – you’re an idiot if you can’t see numbers like this. But Mr. Obama, as President of the United States, can’t you see that this is not just patriotism. Six times the number of scientific citations as the number two country, and with less than five percent of the world population… Don’t you find that even somewhat exceptional?

Let’s put this in visual terms…

All of those images of the deep structure of galaxies and nebulae from the Hubble Space Telescope are provided to the world at the expense of the American taxpayer and through American. Almost every image of the surface of Mars, the asteroids, and the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune was sent to the world by American grad students at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Cal Tech in Pasadena. The American university system is the envy of the world. Nowhere is there better science being done, and no where is there anything like the numbers of people receiving advanced scientific and engineering degrees.

One man – an American named Norman Borlaug, whose name should be sung to the rafters every day – launched what is known as the green revolution. This American agronomist first developed the high-yield, disease-resistant crops that defied the Malthusian projections of worldwide famine and single-handedly fed the entire world. Billions of people are alive today because of this American scientist.

But I can go on. Almost all of the life-saving drugs administered around the world are the product of American pharmaceutical research. Almost all.

To compare American inventive genius relative to the rest of the world, let’s go right to the heart of the modern socialist European state, Sweden. Google “Swedish inventions” and what comes up? Wikipedia has nothing – not one thing – in the 21^st century. Swedes did invent the spherical bearing in 1907 – and that’s not a trivial thing – and neither is the first practical dialysis machine, invented by Nils Alwall.

On my monitor, I had to hit “page down” key 3 times to run through the list of Swedish inventions. The list of American breakthroughs took me 69 taps of that button, and revealed – just taking one out of twenty, let’s say – Refrigeration, the electric telegraph, anesthesia, assembly line production, the airplane, the bulldozer, extragalactic astronomy, the liquid-fueled rocket, EEG brain topography, the digital computer, nylon, ,the creation of the first Transuranium element, nuclear weapons, the transistor, supersonic flight, the video game, cable television, radiocarbon dating, the atomic clock, the credit card, the nuclear submarine, the laser, carbon fiber, the integrated circuit, the weather satellite, the birth control pill, the communications satellite, Kevlar, the compact disc, the jumbo jet, the personal computer, email, the Heimlich maneuver, the space shuttle, the graphic user interface, the global positioning system, and in case you missed any of that: TiVo. Oh, and parenthetically, this nation of idiots landed on the moon two generations ago, and we also mapped the human genome about a decade ahead of schedule.

Mr. President, would you not consider that exceptional scientific output for less than five percent of the world’s population? And Bill Maher, sir… you smoke too much pot.

Culturally, I’ll just say this: look at the list of the 50 top-grossing movies of all time. There is a lot of international talent there, certainly, but every single one of them is the product of an American studio. You might object to Lord of the Rings being on that list, but the three Lord of the Rings movies cost about 450 million dollars and New Zealand doesn’t have that kind of money – nothing like it. The top 50 movies are American movies, spoken in English.

In terms of albums sold, American Michael Jackson is the only one to sell over 100 million worldwide. The following six best selling albums are all American, with Andrew Lloyd Weber, of all people, coming in at number 8.

Compare the star power at the BAFTA’s – the British film awards, or the Greek Awards – with the Oscars. That’s not a question of the Brits or the Greeks loving their own movie stars. It’s a question of which country produces the international culture. And by every measure, it’s us. Five percent.

Let’s not belabor this any further. As a reasonable person, based on the evidence I have presented, would you not say that the United States of America is not only exceptional in one or two of these areas, but has historically dominated all of these fields – military, economic, scientific and cultural – in a way never before matched in history. It’s simply never happened before.

It takes lethal doses of cynicism to ignore a mountain of facts this high. I expect this kind of cynicism from Bill Maher. Bill Maher – and Michael Moore, Janeane Garofolo, and all the rest – have made a very comfortable living – well, maybe not Garofalo – by telling a small group of under-educated sycophants that they’re actually really much smarter than the rest of the rubes because they buy their tickets. But no one can seriously believe, in the face of the evidence I just laid out – that this is a stupid country. In fact, you can’t come to any reasonable conclusion other than the United States being the most exceptional country in the history of the world.

So why do they say what they say? Nihilists, you see, believe in nothing. They are hollow, soulless people, and the one thing they cannot tolerate is belief in something good. Belief in America is to them like sunlight to vampires. It makes their skin catch fire. They cannot hear this music, and so they can’t allow you to hear it either. But don’t let them get to you. The facts are on our side, and not theirs.

You know, I can remember a time when a common citizen didn’t have to explain American greatness to the President, but rather the other way around.

I remember a President who thought of his country not as one out of 180 equally good countries, but rather as a shining city on a hill, an exceptional place. A President who once said “After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.”

Mr. Obama, like all previous Presidents of the United States, you are descended from immigrants. But I believe you may be the first whose father hurtled through the darkness, towards home, then discovered he didn’t care for it much and hurtled back to where he came from. That’s the true story of the man you revere, along with the Marxist professors you claim to have sought out in college, and the radical Anti-Americans you have associated with your entire life. I fear they may have colored your judgment somewhat, sir, and I would ask that you take a look at the evidence I have presented and perhaps, next time you are asked if the country you lead is exceptional, you might perhaps nod and say, “yeah, you know what? Maybe we are.”

Finally, someone flowcharted "Hey Jude"

From Love All This:

Grayson vs. Gingrich

Two politicians. Two impromptu interviews from somewhat hostile reporters.

Let's see how each person handles the impromptu interview. Guess which one is a sissy and tries to duck the interview and which one outsmarts the interviewer?

Grayson:



Gingrich:





The last minute of the Gingrich interview is priceless.

Just read this

It's long, but trust me: you need to read this piece from the German magazine Der Spiegel. The reasoning, the common sense, the delivery - it'll blow you away. It'll have you making your own "Krauthammer 2012" signs.


"Obama is Average"

In a SPIEGEL interview, Charles Krauthammer, the leading voice of America's conservative intellectuals, discusses Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, the president's failures and the state of the United Nations and the international community.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Krauthammer, did the Nobel Commitee in Oslo honor or doom the Obama presidency by awarding him the Peace Prize?

Charles Krauthammer: It is so comical. Absurd. Any prize that goes to Kellogg and Briand, Le Duc Tho and Arafat, and Rigoberta Menchú, and ends up with Obama, tells you all you need to know. For Obama it's not very good because it reaffirms the stereotypes about him as the empty celebrity.

SPIEGEL: Why does it?

Krauthammer: He is a man of perpetual promise. There used to be a cruel joke that said Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be; Obama is the Brazil of today's politicians. He has obviously achieved nothing. And in the American context, to be the hero of five Norwegian leftists, is not exactly politically positive.

SPIEGEL: It hardly makes sense to blame him for losing the Olympic bid in one week, and then for winning the Nobel Prize the next.

Krauthammer: He should have simply said: "This is very nice, I appreciate the gesture, but I haven't achieved what I want to achieve." But he is not the kind of man that does that.

SPIEGEL: Should he have turned down the prize?

Krauthammer: He would never turn that down. The presidency is all about him. Just think about the speech he gave in Berlin. There is something so preposterous about a presidential candidate speaking in Berlin. And it was replete with all these universalist clichés, which is basically what he's been giving us for nine months.

SPIEGEL: Why do Europeans react so positively to him?

Krauthammer: Because Europe, for very understandable reasons, has been chaffing for 60 years under the protection, but also the subtle or not so subtle domination of America. Europeans like to see the big guy cut down to size, it's a natural reaction. You know, Europe ran the world for 400 or 500 years until the civilizational suicide of the two World Wars. And then America emerged as the world hegemon, with no competition and unchallenged. The irony is America is the only hegemonic power that never sought hegemony, unlike, for example, Napoleonic France. Americans are not intrinsically imperial, but we ended up dominant by default: Europe disappeared after the Second World War, the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, so here we are. Of course Europeans like to see the hegemon diminished, and Obama is the perfect man to do that.

SPIEGEL: Maybe Europeans want to just see a different America, one they can admire again.

Krauthammer: Admire? Look at Obama's speech at the UN General Assembly: "No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation." Take the first half of that sentence: No nation can dominate another. There is no eight year old who would say that -- it's so absurd. And the second half? That is adolescent utopianism. Obama talks in platitudes, but offers a vision to the world of America diminished or constrained, and willing to share leadership in a way that no other presidency and no other great power would. Could you imagine if the Russians were hegemonic, or the Chinese, or the Germans -- that they would speak like this?

SPIEGEL: Is America's power not already diminished?

Krauthammer: Relative to what?

SPIEGEL: To emerging powers.

Krauthammer: The Chinese are rising, the Indians have a very long way to go. But I'm old enough to remember the late 1980s, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy and the prevailing view that America was in decline and Japan was the rising power. The fashion now is that the Chinese will overtake the United States. As with the great Japan panic, there are all kinds of reasons why that will not happen.

Look, eventually American hegemony will fade. In time, yes. But now? Economically we now have serious problems, creating huge amounts of debt that we cannot afford and that could bring down the dollar and even cause hyperinflation. But nothing is inevitable. If we make the right choices, if we keep our economic house in order, we can avert an economic collapse. We can choose to decline or to stay strong.

SPIEGEL: Do you really believe that Obama deliberately wants to weaken the US?

Krauthammer: The liberal vision of America is that it should be less arrogant, less unilateral, more internationalist. In Obama's view, America would subsume itself under a fuzzy internationalism in which the international community, which I think is a fiction, governs itself through the UN.

SPIEGEL: A nightmare?

Krauthammer: Worse than that: an absurdity. I can't even imagine serious people would believe it, but I think Obama does. There is a way America will decline -- if we choose first to wreck our economy and then to constrain our freedom of action through subordinating ourselves to international institutions which are 90 percent worthless and 10 percent harmful.

SPIEGEL: And there is not even 1 percent that is constructive?

Krauthammer: No. The UN is worse than disaster. The UN creates conflicts. Look at the disgraceful UN Human Rights Council: It transmits norms which are harmful, anti-liberty, and anti-Semitic among other things. The world would be better off in its absence.

SPIEGEL: And Obama is, in your eyes, …

Krauthammer: He's becoming ordinary. In the course of his presidency, Obama has gone from an almost magical charismatic figure to an ordinary politician. Ordinary. Average. His approval ratings are roughly equal to what the last five presidents' were at the same time in their first term. Other people have already said he's done and finished because his health care plans ran into trouble; but I say they're wrong. He's going to come back, he will pass something on health care, there's no question. He will have a blip, be somewhat rehabilitated politically, but he won't be able to pass anything on climate change. He will not be the great transformer he imagines himself to be. A president like others -- with successes and failures.

SPIEGEL: Every incoming president to the White House has to confront reality and disappoint voters.

Krauthammer: True. But what made Obama unique was that he was the ultimate charismatic politician -- the most unknown stranger ever to achieve the presidency in the United States. No one knew who he was, he came out of nowhere, he had this incredible persona that floated him above the fray, destroyed Hillary, took over the Democratic Party and became president. This is truly unprecedented: A young unknown with no history, no paper trail, no well-known associates, self-created.

There was tremendous goodwill, even I was thrilled on Election Day, even though I had voted against him and argued against him.

SPIEGEL: What moved you that day?

Krauthammer: It's redemptive for a country that began in the sin of slavery to see the day, I didn't think I would live to see the day, when a black president would be elected.

Now he was not my candidate. I would have preferred the first black president to have been somebody ideologically congenial to me, say, Colin Powell (whom I encouraged to run in 2000) or Condoleezza Rice. But I felt truly proud to be an American as I saw him sworn in. I remain proud of this historic achievement.

SPIEGEL: What major mistakes has Obama made?

Krauthammer: I don't know whether I should call it a mistake, but it turns out he is a left-liberal, not center-right the way Bill Clinton was. The analogy I give is that in America we play the game between the 40-yard lines, in Europe you go all the way from goal line to goal line. You have communist parties, you have fascist parties, we don't have that, we have very centrist parties.

So Obama wants to push us to the 30-yard line, which for America is pretty far. Right after he was elected, he gave an address to Congress and promised to basically remake the basic pillars of American society -- education , energy and health care. All this would move America toward a social democratic European-style state. It is outside of the norm of America.

SPIEGEL: Yet, he had promised these reforms during the campaign.

Krauthammer: Hardly. He's now pushing a cap-and-trade energy reform. During the campaign he said that would cause skyrocketing utility rates. On healthcare, the reason he's had such resistance is because he promised reform, not a radical remaking of the whole system.

SPIEGEL: So he didn't see the massive resistance coming?

Krauthammer: Obama misread his mandate. He was elected six weeks after a financial collapse unlike any seen in 60 years; after eight years of a presidency which had tired the country; in the middle of two wars that made the country opposed to the Republican government that involved us in the wars; and against a completely inept opponent, John McCain. Nevertheless, Obama still only won by 7 points. But he thought it was a great sweeping mandate and he could implement his social democratic agenda.

SPIEGEL: Part of the problem when it comes to health care is the lack of solidarity in the American way of thinking. Can a president change a country?

Krauthammer: Yes. Franklin D. Roosevelt did it. Back then, we didn't have a welfare state, we didn't have old age pensions, we didn't have unemployment insurance. This country was the Wild West until FDR. Yes, you can change the spirit of America.

SPIEGEL: If Obama is so radical, why is the left wing of the Democratic Party so unhappy with him?

Krauthammer: They are disillusioned because he has ignored some of their social agenda, such as gay rights; continued some of the Bush policies he had once denounced, such as the detention without trial for terrorists; and on his large agenda for education and energy, where he has had no success.

SPIEGEL: How could Obama still win Republican support for healthcare reform?

Krauthammer: He should finally realize that we need to reform our insane malpractice system. The US is spending between $60 and $200 billion a year on protection against lawsuits. I used to be a doctor, I know how much is wasted on defensive medicine. Everybody I practiced with spends hours and enormous amounts of money on wasted tests, diagnostic and procedures -- all to avoid lawsuits. The Democrats will not touch it. When Howard Dean was asked why, he said honestly and explicitly that Democrats don't want to antagonize the trial lawyers who donate huge amounts of money to the Democrats.

SPIEGEL: What would be your solution?

Krauthammer: I would make Americans pay half a percent tax on their health insurance and create a pool to socialize the cost of medical errors. That would save hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used to insure the uninsured. And second, I would abolish the absurd prohibition against buying health insurance in another state -- that reduces competition and keeps health insurance rates artificially high.

SPIEGEL: But you also need to cut back on healthcare expenses.

Krauthammer: It is absolutely crazy that in America employees receive health insurance from their employers -- and at the same time a tax break for this from the federal government. It's a $250 billion a year loophole in the government's budget. If you taxed healthcare benefits, you would have enough revenue for the government to give back to the individual to purchase their own insurance. If you did those two reforms alone, you would have the basis for affordable health insurance in America.

What the Democrats seem to be aiming for, however, is something somewhat different: the government gets control of the healthcare system by proxy; you heavily regulate the insurance companies, you subsidize the uninsured. That kind of reform would also work, but less efficiently -- and because of its unsustainable costs, we would, in the end, have to go to a system of rationing, the way the British do, the way the Canadians do, there is no other way. Obama can't say any of that, the word rationing is too unpopular.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Krauthammer, can a Nobel Peace Prize winner send more troops to Afghanistan?

Krauthammer: Sure, I don't see why not. The prize could have two contrary effects. It could give him an incentive to send more troops to show his own people that he is not an instrument of five Norwegian leftists. Or it can work the other way where in order not to lose the popularity he obviously feels from Europe, he would be less inclined. I think whatever impulses come out of those considerations neutralize each other. The prize will have zero effect on his decision.

Part 2: 'What the Obama Administration Pretends Is Realism Is Naïve Nonsense'

SPIEGEL: You have called him a "young Hamlet" over his hesitation about making a decision on Afghanistan. However, he's just carefully considering the options after Bush shot so often from the hip.

Krauthammer: No. The strategy he's revising is not the Bush strategy, it's the Obama strategy. On March 27, he stood there with a background of flags, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on one side and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the other, and said: "Today, I'm announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan." So don't tell me this is revising eight years of Bush, he's not. For all these weeks and months he's been revising his own strategy, and that's okay, you're allowed to do that. But if you're president and you're commander-in-chief, and your guys are getting shot and killed in the field, and you think "maybe the strategy I myself announced with great fanfare six months ago needs to be revised," do it in quiet. Don't show the world that you're utterly at sea and have no idea what to do! Your European allies already are skittish and reluctant, and wondering whether they ought to go ahead. It's your own strategy, if it's not working, then you revise it and fix it. You just don't demoralize your allies.

SPIEGEL: Is Afghanistan still a war of necessity, still a strategic interest?

Krauthammer: The phrase "war of necessity and war of choice" is a phrase that came out of a different context. Milan Kundera once wrote, "a small country is a country that can disappear and knows it." He was thinking of prewar Czechoslovakia. Israel is a country that can disappear and knows it. America, Germany, France, Britain, are not countries that can disappear. They can be defeated but they cannot disappear. For the great powers, and especially for the world superpower, very few wars are wars of necessity. In theory, America could adopt a foreign policy of isolationism and survive. We could fight nowhere, withdraw from everywhere -- South Korea, Germany, Japan, NATO, the United Nations -- if we so chose. From that perspective, every war since World War II has been a war of choice.

So using those categories -- wars of necessity, wars of choice -- is unhelpful in thinking through contemporary American intervention. In Afghanistan the question is: Do the dangers of leaving exceed the dangers of staying.

SPIEGEL: General Stanley McCrystal is asking for more troops. Is that really the right strategy?

Krauthammer: General Stanley McCrystal is the world expert on counterterrorism. For five years he ran the most successful counterterrorism operation probably in the history of the world: His guys went after the bad guys in Iraq, they ran special ops, they used the Predators and they killed thousands of jihadists that we don't even know about, it was all under the radar. And now this same general tells Obama that the counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan will fail, you have to do counterinsurgency, population protection. That would seem an extremely persuasive case that counterterrorism would not work.

SPIEGEL: You famously coined the term "Reagan Doctrine" to describe Ronald Reagan's foreign policy. What is the "Obama Doctrine?"

Krauthammer: I would say his vision of the world appears to me to be so naïve that I am not even sure he's able to develop a doctrine. He has a view of the world as regulated by self-enforcing international norms, where the peace is kept by some kind of vague international consensus, something called the international community, which to me is a fiction, acting through obviously inadequate and worthless international agencies. I wouldn't elevate that kind of thinking to a doctrine because I have too much respect for the word doctrine.

SPIEGEL: Are you saying that diplomacy always fails?

Krauthammer: No, foolishness does. Perhaps when he gets nowhere on Iran, nowhere with North Korea, when he gets nothing from the Russians in return for what he did to the Poles and the Czechs, gets nowhere in the Middle East peace talks -- maybe at that point he'll begin to rethink whether the world really runs by international norms, consensus, and sweetness and light, or whether it rests on the foundation of American and Western power that, in the final analysis, guarantees peace.

SPIEGEL: That is the cynical approach.

Krauthammer: The realist approach. Henry Kissinger once said that peace can be achieved only one of two ways: hegemony or balance of power. Now that is real realism. What the Obama administration pretends is realism is naïve nonsense.

SPIEGEL: How do you solve problems like climate change if international institutions are failing?

Krauthammer: It's not the institution that does it, it's the confluence of interests. Where there is a confluence of interests among nations, as, for example the swine flu or polio, you can get well functioning international institutions like the World Health Organization. And you can act. Climate change is different, because the science remains hypothetical and the potential costs staggering.

SPIEGEL: You think it's a speculative theory?

Krauthammer: My own view is that there is man-made warming. On several occasions I have written that I don't think you can pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere indefinitely and not have a reaction. But there are great scientists such as Freeman Dyson, one of the greatest physicists of the last hundred years, who has studied the question, who believes quite the opposite. The reason transnational action is so difficult is because the major problem with climate change is, A, that there is no consensus, and, B, that the economic cost is simply staggering. Reversing it completely might mean undoing the modern industrial economy.

I'm not against international institutions that would try to tackle it. But the way to go, at least in the short run, is to go to nuclear power. It's amazing to me that people who are so alarmed about global warming are so reluctant to adopt the obvious short-term solution -- the bridge until the day when we have affordable renewable energy -- of nuclear power. It seems to me intellectually dishonest. Nuclear is obviously not the final answer because it produces its own waste -- but you have a choice. There's no free lunch. If you want an industrial economy, you need energy. If you want energy, it will produce pollution. You can have it in two forms. You can have it dissipated in the atmosphere -- like carbon dioxide -- which then you cannot recover, or you can have the waste concentrated in one small space like nuclear. That is far easier to deal with. The idea that you can be able to create renewable energy at a price anywhere near the current price for oil or gas or coal is a fantasy.

SPIEGEL: Do you basically think Obama is going to be a one-term president?

Krauthammer: No, I think he has a very good chance of being reelected. For two reasons. First, there's no real candidate on the other side, and you can't beat something with nothing. Secondly, it'll depend on the economy -- and just from American history, in the normal economic cycles, presidents who have their recessions at the beginning of their first term get reelected (Reagan, Clinton, the second Bush), and presidents who have them at the end of their first term don't (Carter, the first Bush). Obama will lose a lot of seats in next year's Congressional election, but the economy should be on the upswing in 2012.

SPIEGEL: Is the conservative movement in the United States in decline?

Krauthammer: When George W. Bush won in 2004, there was lots of stuff written that about the end of liberalism and the death of the Democratic Party. Look where we are now.

SPIEGEL: A Democrat is back in the White House, the party also controls Congress.

Krauthammer: Exactly. We see the usual overreading of history whenever one side loses. Look, there are cycles in American politics. US cycles are even more pronounced because we Americans have a totally entrepreneurial presidential system. We don't have parliamentary opposition parties with a shadow prime minister and shadow cabinets. Every four years, the opposition reinvents itself. We have no idea who will be the Republican nominee in 2012. The party structures are very fluid. We have a history of political parties being thrown out of the White House after two terms -- as has happened every single time with only one exception (Ronald Reagan) since World War II. The idea that one party is done in the US is silly. The Republicans got killed in 2006 and 2008, but they will be back.

SPIEGEL: The party lacks a strong, intelligent leader.

Krauthammer: Yes. And if the Republicans don't have one by 2012, they'll lose and they'll have to wait till 2016. It could take eight years to develop. You know, people say -- the White House was pushing this idea -- that the radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the opposition because there's no other leader. Well, ask yourself, in 2001 and 2002 and 2003, who was the leader of the Democratic Party? There was none. We don't have a parliamentary system in which opposition leaders are designated.

SPIEGEL: Some people say you're that leader.

Krauthammer: I'm just getting to an age where a lot of my contemporaries are retiring or dying. So I'm on default a voice of authority. I don't attribute very much to that.

SPIEGEL: Who will be the next leader of the Republican Party?

Krauthammer: Some presidential candidates from last year will return in 2012. Sarah Palin is not a serious contender, but somebody like Mitt Romney will be. He is a serious guy, he understands the economy. There will also be some young people many haven't yet heard about, such as Rep. Paul Ryan or Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Or outsiders like the mastermind behind the surge in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who might retire from the military and run for President on the Republican ticket.

SPIEGEL: Many people, however, currently think the Republicans are the party of "no."

Krauthammer: That perception is a serious problem for them.

SPIEGEL: At the end of Bush's second term, he granted you a long interview. Afterwards, you wrote that history would judge Bush kindly. Why?

Krauthammer: Basically I think Bush will have the same historical rehabilitation that Harry Truman did.

SPIEGEL: And why is that?

Krauthammer: Truman left in the middle of an unpopular war, to use your phrase, a war of choice. Truman didn't have to go into South Korea. And he was reviled and ridiculed for the stalemate that resulted. Now, he's seen as one of the great presidents of the 20th century.

I think Bush actually handled the Iraq War better than Truman handled the Korean War. For one thing, the number of losses is about one-tenth. Secondly, he made the right decision with the surge. Thirdly, if Iraq turns out well, meaning becomes a country fairly self-sufficient and fairly friendly to the West, it will have a more important effect on the West than having a non-communist South Korea. The Middle East is strategically a far more important region.

Bush's worst mistake was the conduct of the Iraq war in the middle years -- 2004-2006 -- and the attempt to win on the cheap, with a light footprint.

On the other hand, I think he did exactly the right thing after 9/11. Look at the Patriot Act, which revolutionized how we deal with domestic terrorism, passed within six weeks of 9/11 in the fury of the moment. Testimony to how well Bush got it right is that Democrats, who now control Congress and had been highly critical of it, are now after eight years reauthorizing it with almost no significant changes.

Afghanistan is more problematic. Our success in overthrowing the Taliban in 100 days was remarkable. It's one of the great military achievements of all time. On the other hand, holding Afghanistan is a lot harder than taking it, and to this day we are not sure how to do it. But the initial success in 2001-2002 did decimate and scatter al-Qaida. It is no accident that we have not suffered a second attack -- something no one who lived in Washington on Sept. 11 thought possible.

I'm sure he will be rehabilitated in the long term.

Clare Booth Luce once said that every president is remembered for one thing, and that's what Bush will be remembered for. He kept us safe.

SPIEGEL: Is it too early to foresee what Obama will be remembered for?

Krauthammer: It is quite early. It could be his election.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Krauthammer, we thank you for this interview.

Public option smoke and mirrors

"Consumer Option."

"Competitive Option."

Those are the two new phrases Nancy Pelosi is now using instead of the toxic "Public Option". (Let's face it, though. Public Option was already a made-up, softer way of saying "Government Run Health Care.") But don't believe the Democrats smoke and mirrors. They have to try to fool people in order to get their destructive government policies through - even with a majority in both houses of Congress and the Presidency. Changing the name of their cause du jour is an old trick, one that is obvious and transparent (think "Global Warming" becoming "Climate Change"). Will it work? Let's hope not.

Me? I still don't know why anyone would want the government in charge of health care. What a nightmare.

Anyway, here is what the "Public Option" really means - in their own words:

Obama vs. The American Businessman

Again, the fact that very smart people are even writing articles like this is so disheartening.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. No?

Okay, it’s time to finally admit it: Barack Obama hates businessmen. Not just certain businessmen, mind you, but the entire profession.

Of course President Obama will deny this. He told Businessweek magazine in a recent interview that he is not anti-business and that he believes in the private sector. But the evidence is overwhelming, and it helps explain why he is pursuing kamakazi-like economic policies that will damage the private sector in America.

Obama has demonized just about every business sector in America. Through the 2008 campaign to the present, he has gone after credit card companies, the coal industry, mortgage companies, real estate companies, steelmakers, utilities, drug companies, doctors, oil companies, Wall Street, defense contractors, and health insurance companies, just to name a few. In each case he has dinged them for greed, taking excessive profits, and failing to put people first. His criticisms have not been over minor matters but over their basic core functions, and their values or lack of them.

Obama demonstrates almost complete ignorance about the private sector and it’s no wonder: he has so little experience in it. He has spent his adult life in college, teaching college, and organizing communities. The one private sector job he has held, for a consulting firm in New York, he recounts as a terrible experience. In his memoirs he describes the experience as working for a private business “like a spy behind enemy lines.” He also recounts in his memoirs that the multinational corporations in the Indonesia of his youth were propelling the average worker “into deeper despair.” He likened the presence of corporations in his native Africa to a form of “neocolonialism.” Michelle Obama has beseeched young people, “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we are asking young people to do. Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers, work for the community, be a social worker, be a nurse….move out of the money-making industry, into the helping industry.”

This is, of course, the Obama Cosmology. The private sector is largely populated by devils, who are self-oriented, concerned about personal gain, and unconcerned about others. The government, on the other hand, is made up of people bathed in altruism, whose only concern is you. Thus it is quite easy for Obama to recall the divide between the private and public sector as “enemy lines” even though he would never call the Iranian Mullahs, Hugo Chavez, or Vladimir Putin an “enemy.”

All of this begs the question: does Obama’s demonizing of business simply reflect his lack of experience in the private sector or is it based on a well-thought out analysis? In short, is it based on ignorance or ideology? While we can’t know what Obama’s deeper thoughts actually are, it does seem pretty clear that Obama has at least some sense that the free market is people voluntarily exchanging money for a good or service they want. After all, this is a man who has made millions selling books. Surely he has to understand basic economics? The darker interpretation of this is the Obama knows that the private sector creates wealth and prosperity and that it wages war on it anyway because his ideologically driven agenda is more important to him that the economic health of the country he is supposed to be protecting. Say it isn’t so….

From Peter Schwiezer.

Dismantling America

This article wasn't written by a right-wing nut, or a Glenn Beck type. It was written by one of the greatest thinkers in America. The fact that Thomas Sowell is even typing these words should tell you that what's happening in America right now is very scary - and very real.


Dismantling America

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many “czars” appointed by the president, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another “czar” would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — that is, to create a situation where some newspapers’ survival would depend on the government’s liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called “experts” deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life-and-death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brownshirts of dictators than like anything American.

How far the president will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to “change the United States of America,” the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles, and the people of this country.

Jeremiah Wright said it with words: “G** damn America!” Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community-activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.

Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn’t know what such people were like, when he had associated with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government — people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, and resent America’s influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed. Fox News is now high on the administration’s enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama’s own contempt for American values and traditions as trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year — each bill more than a thousand pages long — too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question — and the biggest question for this generation.

7 lies in under two minutes

Watch Dear Reader when he pauses during this lie-fest. As the sheep cheer him, he points his chin in the air and you can tell he's thinking, "They actually believe this crap. What a bunch of morons. This is too easy!"

Stephen Smith, future political superstar?

Listen to this guy! Love it.

The truth about Glenn Beck

"I keep hearing that Glenn Beck is just a blowhard opinionist, contributing nothing but hot air. If that is true, why do we keep learning news from him? About Van Jones, about ACORN, about Anita Dunn . . . I mean, isn’t that the New York Times’ job? No? What a strange era we’re living in." - Jay Nordinger


Oh, yeah. And don't forget who broke the John Edwards infidelity story: The National Enquirer.

Good job, mainstream media.

"Uh...is what you're doing Constitutional?"

Listen to Pelosi. The disgust. The disdain.

How DARE anyone ask such a question.

This is the problem with the country right now. This question needs to be asked every time any politician wants to do ANYTHING. Which reminds me of the time Thomas Sowell was asked, "What should we do about the state of blacks in America?" Mr. Sowell, with his trademark common sense, replied something to the affect of, "Do nothing. You've been doing things for too long. All your 'doing' is the problem. Do nothing."

But I digress.

Back to the Constitution, the document that our government used to abide by:

Killer lyrics

From the great Roberta Flack:





Killing Me Softly

by Roberta Flack

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softy with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I heard he sang a good song
I heard he had a style
And so i came to see him and listen for a while
And there he was this young boy
A stranger to my eyes

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softy with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I felt all flushed with fever
Embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he found my letter and read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish
But he just kept right on

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softy with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

He sang as if he knew me
In all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me as if i wasn't there
And he kept on singing
Singing clear and strong

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softy with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

Signs like this are being taken a lot more seriously now

White House attempts to exclude Fox News - other networks back up Fox

You probably have NOT heard about this unless you watch the only real news organization left. But I think it's the biggest, most ominous story in a long, long time (and there are plenty of those types of stories lately).

The Obamunists are trying to marginalize and silence Fox News. The other networks actually come to Fox's defense. But what's amazing is this: after this event happened, I could find no trace of it on the websites of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, or NBC. So they defend Fox, but don't report on the event itself. Very, very strange.

Check it out, from Freedom's Lighthouse:



Here is a video report on significant happenings in the White House War on Fox News today. The White House today attempted to exclude Fox News from a White House pool report interview that usually includes the five major networks - ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News. White House Pay Czar Ken Feinberg was made available to the pool for interviews, but the White House specifically sought to dis-invite Fox News.

But to their credit, the other networks consulted together and decided that if Fox News would not be included, they would also not participate! Good for them! Perhaps they rightly understood that if they went along with the White House on this, they too could be excluded if they ever run a story that raises the displeasure of the White House.

This could turn out to be a watershed moment. The White House relented and allowed Fox News to participate. It will be interesting to see if this blatant attempt at denial of freedom of the press will change the way some in the Mainstream Media begin to cover the Obama White House.

The White House believed the other networks would bow to their plan. In this case, they did not. They gambled and lost. They have lost more than they think - credibility and integrity. It's hard to get that back with people once it has been lost.

White House emails MSNBC during live broadcast to "correct" them

This is absolutely unbelievable.

Watch as the White House emails an MSNBC host to 'correct' a story during a live broadcast. And the host immediately falls in line with her directive.

If this doesn't make you shudder, if this doesn't make you put down the Kool-Aid, nothing will.

From the great Moonbattery:

Like a Well-Trained Spaniel

The White House wasn't kidding when they bragged about controlling the media. When communication apparatchiks at the White House email Mika Brezinksy during a live broadcast to correct some spin that had offended them as insufficiently obsequious to Dear Reader, Mika obediently pushes the White House talking point.

Well done, Mika. You've earned a pat on the head and a Jerky Treat.

BTW: Obama held a private meeting at the White House with Keith Uberdouche and Rachel Madcow, where both MSDNC hosts were run around a small arena outfitted with ramps and hoops. The White House chef even mixed in a little raw egg with their food to make sure they had nice, shiny coats. Chris Matthews was not invited, because the last time he went tothe White House, he got a tingle down his leg and made a mess all over the rug.

A rarity: common sense on health care

John Stossel makes A LOT of sense.

It's too bad only a small handful of politicians (conservatives, of course) see things this simply, this clearly.

Notice how Stossel's solutions actually address the problem of high costs of health care. Unlike most Democrats, Stossel doesn't automatically default into attack mode and try to demonize any group of people - except some politicians. What's the problem and how do we fix it? That's Stossels MO. I like that.

"Oh, but Stossel is an employee of Fox News and he's on Glenn Beck's show. He's clearly a racist, homophobe, bigoted, neocon, right-wing nut." If you think like that, as so many people have been trained to think, then guess what? You're an idiot. Yes, you. Idiot. Sorry to break the news to you.

Check out common sense:

Lie After Lie After Lie

If you want to take an honest look at the current health care legislation, read on. If not, just keep enjoying My Name Is Earl.

From Phyliss Schafly, at Investor's Business Daily.


'You Lie' Rap Doesn't Sound So Harsh Now

As liberals rush ObamaCare through Congress, let's review the disparity between promises and text. Joe Wilson's declaration "You lie!" is ringing truer with each passing day.

The president promised "transparency" and to give the public five days to read the bill, but Sen. Jim Bunning's amendment to require the bill, along with a final Congressional Budget Office score, to be posted online 72 hours before the vote was defeated.

Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Greg Walden, R-Ore., have been trying to get the House to agree to post the bill 72 hours before the vote. Most Republicans have signed on, but the Nancy Pelosi leadership is unwilling.

The Democrats still hope to rush the bill through unread. The 1,100-page stimulus bill was posted online only 13 hours before the vote, and the 1,200-page cap-and-trade bill was posted only 15 hours before the vote.

Obama promised that the health care bill would not cover illegal aliens, but Sen. Chuck Grassley's amendment to require immigrants to prove their identities with photo IDs was rejected.

Obama promised that if you like your current health insurance, you won't have to change it. But Sen. John Cornyn's amendment to assure present insurance owners they wouldn't have to change their coverage and could keep the coverage they have with their current employers without government driving up cost was defeated.

Obama's appointment of 34 czars includes a health care czar, but Sen. John Ensign's amendment to require any health care czar to be subject to the constitutional Senate confirmation process was defeated. Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, defends removing organs from terminally ill patients and the deceased, even when they didn't consent to be organ donors.

Obama promised that under his plan, "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions," and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, tried to divert attention from this bold lie by obfuscating the Hyde Amendment. But the Hyde Amendment is not a law; it's a year-at-a-time rider that applies only to current Medicaid programs, and it would not apply to the health care law.

The Democrats five times (twice in Senate committees, three times in House committees) defeated amendments to prohibit the health care plan from spending federal money or requiring health insurance plans to cover abortions. They also defeated Sen. Orrin Hatch's amendment to respect the conscience rights of health care workers who do not want to perform abortions because of moral or religious objections.

One amendment that did pass was Sen. Maria Cantwell's amendment, which would give the secretary of health and human services the power to define cost-effective care for each medical condition and to punish doctors who treat high-cost patients with complex conditions. That has been Obama's goal from the beginning and inevitably will lead to the "death panels" Sarah Palin warned about.

Former Sen. Tom Daschle, who was scheduled to be health and human services secretary or health care czar until he had to bow out, said the law should be written in generalities so that the bureaucrats can fill in the details.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and a key Obama health care adviser, may be behind the stimulus legislation that will send "embedded clinical-decision support" to doctors via computer to warn them about what is "appropriate" and "cost-effective," backed up by the threat to impose financial penalties on doctors who are not "meaningful users."

The Democrats' health care "reform" would carry a trillion-dollar price tag, vastly increase the national debt hanging over our children and grandchildren, impose socialist control over one-sixth of our economy, and force us to obey totalitarian dictates. The mandate on employers to provide health insurance would result in lower wages and fewer jobs.

The mandate on individuals to buy health insurance or pay a penalty, even threatening jail for those who fail to conform, amounts to a massive tax increase on individuals and families whose health insurance may lack all the new federally specified requirements.

Obama's "spread the wealth around" policy is evident in the big expansion of Medicaid combined with large cuts in Medicare. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt says the combination of mandates to buy insurance, guaranteed issue and community rating amounts to massive income distribution that is hidden from public view and not even debated.

Finally, we are subject to the deviousness of what House Minority Leader John Boehner calls the 70 phantom amendments, which were added in secret after the bill was voted out by the committee. The bill may be even worse than we think.

The Obama Way: eliminate competition of ideas

On September 8th President Obama told ABC news "...... Democrats and Republicans understand that I'm open to new ideas, that we're not being rigid and ideological about this thing, but we do intend to get something done this year." The idea that the Obama administration is open to new ideas and that they are not rigid or ideological is false on its face. The administration, in conjunction with Democrats in Congress, have worked to keep Republican sponsored ideas and legislation off from the floor of both the House and the Senate and out of the headlines. Obama and the Democrats have steadfastly refused to seriously address ideas like tort reform even though such measures lowered costs in Texas and increased the number of doctors practicing in that state.

The most recent example of the President's distaste for any idea that doesn't emanate from the bowels of the Democratic machine is the relentless haranguing of Fox News by the Obama administration. What is clear to anyone that is paying attention is that the President doesn't want competing ideas heard, and with a near lock on other media outlets there is only one mass media outlet (Fox) where a competing idea can even be seen. The fact that criticism of the current Democratic plans resonate with several different voting blocs further aggravates the Obama administration.

It doesn't matter if one looks at the current administration's action toward Fox News as an Alinsky tactic or a distraction, the aim is the same: squash dissenting opinion and ideas while working to pass legislation before it can read or debated. The tactics of the Obama administration are exactly the opposite of what one would expect from people that claim that they are fighters. Instead of reveling in the debate and winning in the court of public opinion with a better idea, Obama prefers to play as he has in the past: by eliminating the competition and pushing bills that are advertised one way but turn out to be another.

Expect the same sort of "transparency" we saw with the stimulus package, a bill that was released moments before a vote was taken, or protests registered. What really bothers the Obama administration is the legislation that the Democrats are attempting to pass is being communicated to the American people and the American people aren't buying it.

By targeting a media outlet it's clear that what Obama wants is control, not any of the ideals he promised, such as transparency, debate, and a workable solution. This isn't the first time Obama has played three card monte with the American people, what is different now is that the Administration is trying to eliminate the only watchdog keeping an eye on our card.

From Aaron Gee at American Thinker.