Back to Basics

Astute Bloggers has the scoop, and it is big. See New York Times, “New York Poll Finds Wariness About Muslim Center.” (And click the image for the full survey.)

The most amazing thing here to me is that a full 69 percent of those polled approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance, but an almost equal number disapprove of the Victory Mosque at Ground Zero. Seriously. Is there possibly a more powerful statement on how far outside the mainstream are the netroots terror-enablers and the al Qaeda apologists in the elite ranks of the Democratic Party? New Yorkers obviously know WTF is going on. They even give Mayor Bloomberg strong majority approval, but clearly, liberal New York thinks Imam Rauf’s Mosque Monstrosity is an abomination. Even more pathetic, but no surprise, is how the editors at New York Times diss their city’s own residents. See, “Mistrust and the Mosque.” According to the Solons of the editorial suite, “it is appalling to see New Yorkers who could lead us all away from mosque madness, who should know better, playing to people’s worst instincts.” Appalling? Who, really, has the superior instincts here? Shoot. It’s just common sense NOT to erect a Conquest Mosque at the site of the worst attack on the continental U.S. And it’s not like the reputations of the Wayward Imam and Lying Miss Daisy have improved throughout the increasing uproar. I mean c’mon, critics are beneath anti-Semitic eliminationism? Well no, obviously (and sick for the suggestion). Folks are simply asking mosque backers to think again, to be considerate. The Times poll even finds 72 percent agreeing that backers indeed have the right to build. So who really in all of this is outside the mainstream of American tolerance? This is why Americans hate the leftist elite, in the media, the party system, the universities, and in the diversity shakedown industry of the corporate world. Common sense is demonized in America today. But folks can see November from their kitchen windows, and things do look promising on the political horizon.

Given the massive news coverage of News Corp’s recent donation to the Republican Governor’s Association, you might think that this would get some attention:

Senior executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC contributed more than $1 million to Democratic candidates and campaign committees in 2008, according to an analysis by The Examiner of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.
By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.
Disclosure of the heavily Democratic contributions by influential employees of the three major broadcast networks follows on the heels of controversy last week when it was learned that media baron Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. contributed $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. . . .

As the nation’s children return to elementary and secondary schools, it is increasingly essential that their parents and communities coast to coast realize how poorly served they are and how their learning environment is increasingly tainted by a socialist agenda.

Our nation’s schools have long been factories of boredom, centers of academic incompetence. High school graduation rates have been in a fairly steady decline. At its peak in 1969, the rate was 77 percent. By 2007 it was 68.8 percent.

In mid-August, The Wall Street Journal reported that “New data show that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses, despite modest gains in college-readiness among U.S. high school students in the last few years.”

What caught my eye was a quote from Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, who said that “if our kids aren’t dropping out physically, they are dropping out mentally.”

The subject of education is important because they are the generation to which the future of the nation must be entrusted and “A recent study found the U.S. ranks only 12th in the percentage of adults aged 25 to 34 who hold college degrees.”

The failure of our nation’s schools, to my mind, coincides with the creation of the U.S. Department of Education in 1979, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, and which began operating on May 16, 1980.

The word “education” does not appear in the U.S. Constitution and, until the Department of Education came along, it was the responsibility of States and local communities. A government that has managed Conrail since 1976 without once making a profit should not have been trusted with the nation’s educational system.

The days of race sensitivity should end.  No longer should a person be afraid to speak his or her mind over a racially tinged matter.  This has been the rule that blacks follow; saying whatever they wish about whites, whenever they please.

It is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways.  If a black can threaten to kill white babies, and do it with impunity, then there is no reason why whites should not have the same privilege to threaten black babies without recourse.  Of course, most blacks and whites would never do such a thing as they pride themselves in being sane and rational human beings.  I can’t say the same about Black Panthers in particular.  They are interested only in black power.

They are like the mouse that taunts and screeches at the elephant.  Because the elephant is timid, it looks and acts afraid when just lifting one hoof and slamming it down on the mouse would end the confrontation.

Oh, of course, there are cases where the mighty Black Power is evident; particularly at the voting polls against very senior white citizens that could get blown down by a strong wind.  The Black Panthers have met their prey and they strut about shouting Black Panther epithets and scary orders. But even there they prefer to be numerically superior for added protection.

The new “hate speech” law that our racist liberal Democrats rammed through Congress and our racist liberal president signed very willingly again seems to work only in one direction: against the whites, while it protects the blacks.  But they had better learn that they are less than 20 percent of our population while whites are around 70 percent.

Whites are known and praised for their tolerance and acceptance of imaginary or supposed grievances from blacks; but the blacks had better not push too hard with this new phony tool of “hate speech” law because tolerances can be dimmed by ill-conceived threats.

For so long now, blacks have taken for granted, total immunity for any and all transgressions; in particular, the black liberal Democrat politicians. Look at the current cases involving Representatives Charley Rangel and Maxine Waters; it’s disgraceful the way they feel that their sins and omissions of wrong-doing should just be swept under the rug and forgotten.

So this is the economic growth that by far the largest Keynesian stimulus in American history produces? President Obama’s $814 billion in stimulus, a more than $1.3 trillion annual deficit for the second year in a row, has produced what the administration has declared is the long awaited “Summer of Recovery.”

Last fall the economy grew at a reasonable 5 percent annual rate, though even that was not particularly fast for a “recovery.” Yet, it has dropped since then: during January through March, the growth rate dropped to 3.7 percent and April through June, 1.6 percent.

But Americans didn’t need the new incredibly slow GDP growth numbers that came out on Friday to tell them that the economy was growing slowly or see through the Obama administration’s constant cheerleading. An Angus Reid survey released on July 31 found that only 11 percent of Americans rated their economic conditions as Very Good / Good, down from 15 percent in April. In July, as incredible 86 percent of Americans felt that their economic condition is Poor/Very Poor, up from 83 percent. A just released CBS News/New York Times poll finds that 83 % now say that the economy is bad, with an incredible 37 percent saying that they believe the economy is in permanent decline.

Since April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Household Survey has shown that 1.7 million Americans have left the labor force and simply given up looking for work. The total number of people employed has dropped by nearly half a million.

Depressingly, next year’s huge scheduled tax increases mean that growth will be slow in 2011. If you know that your tax rate is going to rise in the coming year, you will work harder this year while you are able to keep a larger share of your income.

But President Obama does not understand incentives. To him it is just greed. As he famously told “Joe the Plumber” during the 2008 campaign, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” He keeps on talking about how the wealthy can afford to pay more. Yet he doesn’t talk about what needs to be done to make the economy, the economic pie, bigger for everyone. What tax cuts the administration has put forward have lowered average tax rates and raised marginal rates. Obama proposed and got Congress to sign off on a lump sum deduction in 2009, but it still discouraged people from working more because as they earned more, the size of their deduction shrank.

Talking about the “Recovery Act” in a new interview with Time magazine, Biden waxed on about how “Now the fun stuff starts! . . . This is a chance to do something big, man!” What excited him was all the social engineering the government was going to do with the stimulus, creating “green energy” and “green transportation.”  Now THAT’S telling. So, the stimulus wasn’t really about growth, it was about changing America. It was about subsidizing projects that no one would have invested in without the subsidies.

President Obama is headed to New Orleans this weekend to mark the 5th anniversary of Katrina. The papers and airwaves will be clogged with all sorts of retrospectives. My column today reminds you of the ugly racial demagoguery by leading Democrats and “civil rights” leaders from Jimmy Carter to Charlie Rangel to Malik Zulu Shabazz. It’s a divide that has also deepened in Obama’s imaginary age of post-racialism.

Related from Charles Krauthammer: The last refuge of a liberal. “What’s a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card.”

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Hurricane Katrina and the race card: 5 years later
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

This weekend, on the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, civil rights activists and hip-hop stars will hold what they call a “healing ceremony” to commemorate the disaster. President Obama will speak at a separate event in New Orleans on Sunday. But don’t expect any of these reconciliation-seeking leaders to confront the indelible stain of racial demagoguery left by the left in Katrina’s aftermath. Hating George W. Bush means never having to say you’re sorry.

The Olympic gold medal for racial grievance-mongering went to rapper Kanye West, who railed during a supposedly nonpolitical nationwide telethon that the government was shooting “us,” that “those are my people down there,” and that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people!” West’s vulgar exploitation of a charity drive — which was meant to unite America — left most viewers with the same aghast, frozen expression as the one on comedian Mike Myers’ face as he tried to rescue their fundraising segment from the sewage.

Not to be outdone, the Congressional Black Caucus convened a press conference to blast news reporters for describing Katrina victims as “refugees.” Yes, really. The Rev. Jesse Jackson echoed their complaint: “It is racist to call American citizens refugees.” Refugees are, by dictionary definition, “exiles who flee for safety.” How this could be construed as bigoted remains as much a mystery as the source of unhinged Huffington Post blogger and self-proclaimed “social justice advocate” Randall Robinson’s bogus claim “that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive.”

David Rosenberg, market guru, has officially declared that the US economy is in a state of depression, and he sees the economic superpowers woes worsening.

On the heels of that bleak forecast, the statistics for existing home sales for July were released and the numbers were ugly. The weak housing market collapsed. Reflecting the worst slump in American history, existing housing sales had plummeted a stunning 27 percent and there’s no sign on the horizon that sales will stabilize any time soon.

The bottom line, argues Rosenberg and others: the US economy has collapsed into another Great Depression.

Citing the period from 1929 to 1932 and the eerie similarities, Rosenberg said, “We may well be reliving history here. If you’re keeping score, we have recorded four quarterly advances in real GDP, and the average is only 3 percent.” The same happened during the early 1930s stock market rebound of 50 percent after the 1929 crash.

The Great Depression followed the brief economic upswing.

As long as two years ago, one of Britain’s top economists predicted a decade-long depression, $45 trillion in debt defaults and unemployment in the US and UK approaching 25% or higher.

During October 2008, economist Fred Harrison told the Foreign Press Association in London,”"The massive contraction in demand caused by this ‘wealth effect’ will condemn the western economy to a decade-long depression.”

Building on my continuing War on the West/War on Jobs series, today’s column initiates an Obama jobs death toll. The social justice Left has always used Alinskyite story-telling to get its way. Time for the Right to better tell the stories of the forgotten victims of the Obama job-killing machine.

Regarding the new CBO report on the stimulus (coincidentally — or maybe not coincidentally — released on the same days as GOP leader John Boehner’s jobs speech), McQ says pointedly: “Of course it boosted the GDP by a sizeable amount. When you pour almost a trillion dollars out of the government bucket and that is part of the calculation of GDP, then naturally the GDP is going to be ‘boosted’. The question is, what good did it do. Claims of ‘increasing the number of people employed’ is, as is obvious, a guess cranked out by an economic model. But look around you. When what the bucket has dumped out drains away, what do we have? 9.5% unemployment – at least at an official level – 1.5% higher than what was promised if the “stimulus” wasn’t passed. A stagnant economy. Businesses neither expanding nor hiring. Car sales – down. Housing sales – way down. Consumer confidence – in the tank. Expanded regulation, increased taxation and a war on business…So let the left and the media try their best to make this more than it is – the effect on GDP calculation that absurd levels of governmental deficit spending will have. Take that out and there isn’t much to shout about, is there?”

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The White House War on Jobs
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

The “Summer of Recovery” is looking more and more like the Beltway Chainsaw Massacre for America’s workers. As President Obama lolls on Martha’s Vineyard with his well-heeled Chicago pals, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that 72 percent of people are very worried about joblessness and 67 percent are very concerned about massive government spending. After a nearly $1 trillion fiscal stimulus and several multi-billion-dollar corporate and union bailouts, unemployment remains stuck near 10 percent nationwide; jobless claims rose again last week. One shudders to think how many more jobs will be on the chopping block after the vacationing president finishes “recharging his batteries.”

The blame avoidance industry, of course, never takes a break. Capitol Hill Democrats blame George W. Bush. President Obama blames inaction by the, er, Democrat-controlled Congress. On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden derided GOP Leader John Boehner’s speech on the Obama job-killing machine as a return to the past. Biden sneered about the
“good old days” when Republicans held the majority in Washington. But laid-off, unemployed, and endangered Americans in the health care sector, auto industry, oil, mining, gas, and fishing industries are no doubt wondering: What’s wrong with returning to the days when they had jobs and steady paychecks?

ONE OF THE BEST EXPLANATIONS
OF WHY OBAMA WON THE ELECTION

From a teacher in the Nashville area

“We are worried about ‘the cow’ when it is all about the ‘Ice Cream.’

The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year…

The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest.

I decided we would have an election for a class president.

We would choose our nominees..

They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.

To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members.

We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have.

We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids.

I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support.

I had never seen Olivia’s mother.

The day arrived when they were to make their speeches.

Jamie went first.

He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place.

He ended by promising to do his very best.

Everyone applauded and he sat down.

Now it was Olivia’s turn to speak.

Her speech was concise.

She said, “If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream.” She sat down.

The class went wild. “Yes! Yes!

We want ice cream.”

She surely would say more. She did not have to.

A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream?

She wasn’t sure.

Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it…

She didn’t know.

The class really didn’t care.

All they were thinking about was ice cream…

Jamie was forgotten.. Olivia won by a landslide.

Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream

and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds.

They want ice cream.

The other 48 percent know they’re going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess.”

This is the ice cream Obama promised us!