Remember that heady time way back in the Fall of 2016, when the Left shouted as one from their Safe Spaces that "Love Trumps Hate"?
The Left was aghast at all the alleged forms of hate that they saw in the form of a Donald Trump candidacy. They even went as far to make up nice signs, and hold peaceful protests to show how serious they were.
Then Election Day happened.
You would think that the United States had suddenly transformed into an oppressive, fascist state overnight. The young lefties who had never been told no,and always been awarded their participation and "Great Try" ribbons, had no idea how to handle losing.
So what better way to show you are a mature and emotionally stable adult who should have a seat at the table of deciding the direction of a nation? Rioting of course! And lots of whining, blubbering, and vulgarity as well....
So, lets review.
"Love Trumps Hate" - OUT Hate Trumps Everything - IN!
For many years, at least since the heady days of the Clinton Machine, I have been sure of one thing when it comes to watching national politics...if the Democrats/liberals accuse their opponents of doing something outrageous, it is almost certainly an attempt at mis-direction, as the Democrats/liberals are usually the ones committing those outrageous acts themselves.
Over at the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto makes the same observation about what is being done on behalf of leftist ideology in modern-day Wisconsin (and soon a state government near you!):
"It's quite striking the way almost every lie the left ever told about the Tea Party has turned out to be true of the government unionists in Wisconsin and their supporters..."
Shocked! Shocked, I am...
Taranto also says: "To make sense of what's going on in Wisconsin, it helps to understand that the left in America lives in an ideological fantasy world...."
While at first I would tend to agree with his point, but the more I think about it, I think they know exactly what they are doing....taking pages directly out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. Primarily, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."
But Democrats/liberals should heed a warning from their radical guru, for he also said "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time...."
The public's tolerance for whining on the part of public sector unions that translates to "Gimme gimme gimme!" is already wearing thin in its first instance. If other state's public sector union decide to follow Wisconsin's lead, they may well be in for a heap public opinion trouble....
But I particularly like this pair of Democrats who apparently are disaffected with the form democracy they live under:
Lets follow the logic here...a Governor who won a legitimate, regularly scheduled election by 6 points and has been in office just over one month, is somehow comparable to a military strongman who ran his country virtually unopposed for the last 30 years by putting most political opposition in jail or worse? Sure...
To take it one step further, these geniuses are suggesting that a recent legitimate election be invalidated because they are unhappy with the result, and....what...have the Wisconsin National Guard take over the state government??
And I wonder how the protesters in Egypt feel about folks with pretty well paying jobs (or any jobs for that matter) appropriating the Egyptian cause for their own selfish ends?
Years ago, a wiser man than you or I devised a plan to dole out goods at zero cost to those of us whose jobs were lost.
It seemed benign, so nice and kind the plan grew to include the blind, the old the lame then you and me, and they called this plan The Department of Free.
It started as a helping hand to needy folks across the land, so those who could not make ends meet would not be forced out on the street.
Unemployment benefits were just a start, because now it’s free food, free homes, free surgery, rebates, bailouts, loans — all free.
Now half of us just stand in line all day long and gripe and whine about the stuff we feel we’re owed the list of which has growed and growed.
The line wends hither, the line wends yon, and by and by it comes upon a door above which we can see those magic words: Department of Free.
Once inside: a shopping spree of endless handouts: it’s all free! Drunken on entitlement we grab a meal, a house, a stent.
The other half? We’re all employed! Hearing this, you’re overjoyed to know that at least some of us have jobs and never cause a fuss.
But one last thing you ought to know, our economic Alamo: The place where we all work, you see, is in the accursed Department of Free!
I push papers, while he counts beans. She helps seniors and they help teens. It takes a village to raise a child; it takes a nation to run hog-wild.
Paul pays Peter, and Peter pays Paul, yet neither makes anything at all. Round and round the money goes but where it comes from no one knows.
It all runs out eventually, can’t simulate prosperity. The shopping spree was just a dream, a baseless potlatch Ponzi scheme.
With nothing left to give away, The Department of Free itself must say, “We’re all laid off, the end is near. There’s no point working, even here.”
The last employed man not offshore has just one more remaining chore: Switch off the lights and turn the key in the broke Department of Free.
From Medicare and Medicaid came Medicould and Medishould now Medimust and we’ve gone bust we’re trust-fund kids without a trust.
“Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed Saturday to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall to help restore traditional American values and honor Martin Luther King’s message.” — Associated Press
“Attendees at the rally Saturday largely honored organizer requests that they not bring banners or political signs. Instead, the predominantly white crowd, many seated on folding chairs and accompanied by their children, wore t-shirts with slogans including ‘Got principles?’ and ‘Restoring Honor.’” — AFP
“Meanwhile, many in the predominantly white crowd bent over backward to insist that they are not racists and to note that the crowd was courteous, despite heat and density.” — James Hohmann, Politico
“Beck says he and his overwhelmingly white followers ‘are the inheritors and protectors of the civil- rights movement.’” — Ben Adler, Newsweek
“Though the audience at the event was overwhelmingly white, many of the speakers were African-American, including a woman who sang a song about unity.” — Brian Montopoli, CBS
“Claiming the legacy of the nation’s Founding Fathers and repeatedly evoking civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., the speakers at the ‘Restoring Honor’ rally exhorted a vast and overwhelmingly white crowd to concentrate not on the history that has scarred the nation but instead on what makes it ‘good.’” — Philip Rucker & Carol Morello, Washington Post
“A relatively dense and overwhelmingly white crowd stretched from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial out past the Washington Monument.” — Mark Benjamin, Salon.com
“The speaker list was diverse, including African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans; Jews and Christians; clergymen, military veterans and sports stars, including Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals. The crowd, however, was overwhelmingly white.” — Michael A. Memoli and Kim Geiger, LA Times
“Out in the overwhelmingly white audience… politics was everywhere, with Tea Party supporters describing the damage they envision for President Barack Obama’s Democrats in upcoming midterm elections in November.” — Mitch Potter, Toronto Star
"They both seem like good people and I hope they’ll kiss and make up. I don’t even mean that in a dirty way. Much."
But heck, I'd take that in a minute over Tom Friedman's fantasies!
Powerline: "Thomas Friedman wishes that our democracy worked as well as China's dictatorship. He thus fantasizes about the U.S. being "China for a day.""
Jonah Goldberg: "China’s got us beat, suggests Friedman, because its leaders aren’t hung up on democracy, checks and balances, or any of the other dusty old impediments found in the American system. Friedman has proclaimed his envy for China’s authoritarian system countless times. It’s why he titled one of the chapters in his book “China for a Day.” The idea — he calls it his “fantasy” — is that if we could just be China for a day, the experts could impose by diktat what they cannot win through democratic debate."
So there is your choice. The School Boy's fantasy....or the School Headmaster's Fantasy.
The best part is when Cooper repeatedly says "We are not the enemy here!"
Poor Anderson. Surely you have to be intelligent enough to realize you *ARE* the enemy here. Your reporting will no doubt show the recovery efforts in a negative light. Even if you only show a couple of oil covered gulls, that is enough to convey that after a month and a half progress is not being made, and that is not the narrative that this "transparent" Executive Branch wants on the airwaves.
Perhaps you felt a kinship because the President yucked it up with you a the Correspondents Dinners, or you are invested in the idea that things would be different because the President could give some idealistic campaign speeches. However understand this...no matter how much of a sycophantic acolyte you are, if you break their rules and go off of their narrative, you *ARE* the enemy here, and you will end up under the bus.
So you have two choices here....one, do your job and accept your place on the journalistic enemies list, or two, toe the line and enjoy the laughs and Crème brûlée at next year's White House Correspondents Dinner.
Here is a post of mine from almost 3 years ago, discussing the relative ignorance of people [read: political grandstanders] when using quotes from the Constitution:
Instapundit subtly points out that the NYT editorial writers (and their overseers) need to go back to school and re-take U.S. History 101.
THE NEW YORK TIMES' EDITORS think that the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is in the Constitution. But then, they believe many things that are demonstrably untrue.
Imagined NYT response: "Constitution, Declaration of Independence...whatever. You are taking my words out of context, and missing the bigger point....blah, blah,blah."
Fast forward to present day, and we find example of a poor helpless Democratic lawmaker cornered by a dastardly Tea-partier attempting to impugn his honor by asking where in the Constitution exists the "right" to health care.
Interestingly, Congressman Phil Hare (D-Ill) tries to dance around blogger Adam Sharp's (Sharp Elbows) questions by stating:
"I believe it [The Constitution] says we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."
I am so glad that yet another one of our indignant elected officials wants to lecture us, when he doesn't even know the basic differences in our two most important founding documents. I suppose it is not a surprise, given his earlier statement "I don't care about the Constitution on this...." Sadly though, this is fairly indicative of American society, as most people wouldn't know enough to call him on it.
Republicans will lose many seats in Congress due to right-wing paranoia about the census and refusal to fill out census forms, gloats the liberal web site Daily Kos.
The number of Congressional districts a state gets is based on how many of its citizens return completed census forms. Because voters in conservative states are completing and returning census forms at lower rates than voters in liberal states, conservative states will lose many seats in the House of Representatives that they would otherwise gain due to increases in their population.
But wait! What about sampling????
After all, the Left has been telling us for a while now that "It's possible to use statistical modeling and sampling methods to supplement the census in order to arrive at estimated counts of various demographic groups."
The sampling debate ignited in the early 1990s after data showed the 1990 census missed more than five million people, including 4.9% of Hispanics and 4.6% of blacks, according to the bipartisan Census Monitoring Board. Using sampling would likely add to the population count in traditionally Democratic areas -- thus benefiting House Democrats in seat allocations.
So...if a Census can be adjusted upwards because it "missed" up to 5% of certain population blocks because those liberal blocks were "completing and returning census forms at lower rates", why can't we have upward adjustments when conservatives blocks complete and return census forms at lower rates? That would be only fair.
Once the federal government becomes so deeply involved in allocating health care, it will come to be a dominant focus of political discourse.
Over the years watching on C-Span the British Prime Minister's Question Time, I've observed that a large portion of this exercise is devoted to specific questions about the quality care provided by The National Health Service in members' districts. A question on the terrorists threats to the UK will invariably be followed by a passionate query from a Member asking the PM if he's aware of nurses being re-assigned at a hospital in Sheffield. The PM seems to spend as much time on parochial health care issues as on national security.
The politics of deciding who gets what in the way of medical treatment doubtlessly will push aside traditional affairs of state. Every member of Congress will need to hire several staff members just to manage constituents' complaints about their care. Elections will be won and lost on the basis of who can get the most in the way of health care for their districts.
We will become the Gulliver of nations, a great power whose leaders are tied up in strings as they spend much of their time addressing the medical complaints, valid and imagined, of their electorate.
We *will* become the Gulliver of nations. And it will not just be due to healthcare. The more our Federal government becomes so deeply involved in the regulation of anything and everything (education, the environment, banking, retirement, fishing, car manufacturing....etc), the more we tie ourselves down. The more the Liliputians UN bureaucrats will take advantage of us. The more we will make ourselves irrelevant.
City Journal is carrying a good read on the current addiction of the 'modern democratic state' to Keynesian-driven indebtedness, not from the normal American punditry, but in the context of the evolution of European states .
The thesis of German Peter Sloterdijk reminds us that we Americans are not alone when worried about our current 'financial unsustainability'.
The Grasping Hand The modern democratic state pillages its productive citizens
[...]
The modern democratic state gradually transformed into the debtor state, within the space of a century metastasizing into a colossal monster—one that breathes and spits out money.
[...]
What is new is the gargantuan scale of public debt. Mortgaging, insolvency, monetary reform, or inflation—no matter, the next great expropriations are under way. Today, the state’s grasping hand even reaches into the pockets of generations unborn. We have already written the title of the next chapter of our history: “The pillage of the future by the present.”
It looks like Crazy Aunt Nancy will try to ram 'health care reform' through 'one way or another'.
"Let's remove all doubt, we will have health care — one way or another," Pelosi said. "Back to the drawing board means a great big zero for the American people."
First, I would like to remind Ms. Pelosi that we already have health care....
Second, if by 'zero' you mean keeping the outstanding, though slightly pricey, instant-access health care that we already enjoy...then I will take that over government supervised, spirit-crushing bureaucracy that you prescribe any time.
And so will a majority of voters in this country....
"They Just Took My Money" [John J. Miller] That's what my 8-year-old son said about the sales tax on the ride home from Borders a few minutes ago. He had a $10 gift card from Christmas, bought a Clone Wars book for $7.99, looked at the receipt, and wondered why he still didn't have a full $2.01 on it
...so please return to your cells seats for the remainder of the flight. Or else!
Now lets imagine you are on the tail end of your 10 hour flight home to the U.S. from Germany, or even a 14 hour leg back from the Far East, and you cross the magical 1-hour-until-landing threshold....and you encounter some fun new rules.
- Your tummy isn't reacting well to that second round of airline food? Sorry, you can't get up...keep your seat. I hope your neighbor doesn't mind the smell. (TSA Security Directive SD-1544–09-06, Para 2.1.1)
- Want to get some medication out of your carry-on stored in the overhead (or under the seat in front of you)? Sorry, it is forbidden to access them...you'll just have to hope you can hold out until you reach the gate. (TSA Security Directive SD-1544–09-06, Para 2.1.2)
- Want to use that cool, fancy TV screen mounted in the seat in front of you, or the cool in-flight wi-fi to pass the many hours? Sorry, it prohibited for the *entire* flight. (TSA Security Directive SD-1544–09-06, Para 2.1.3)
- Want to know what that interesting looking city/natural formation is that you are flying over? Sorry, its classified. (TSA Security Directive SD-1544–09-06, Para 2.1.4)
- Tired and cold after your double-digit flight to the Land of the Free? Sorry, you'll just have to shiver and be uncomfortable as blankets and pillows are verboten. And don't even think about having that book in your lap either. (TSA Security Directive SD-1544–09-06, Para 2.1.5)
This has been Captain Janet, and we want to thank you for flying TSA, because we know that when it comes to flying rules, you have no choice whatsoever.
Oh, and pay no attention to that guy in seat 19A who didn't break any of these new rules, but is still about to ignite the bomb in his pants....
UPDATE: Stupidity in action....(No offense to JetBlue)
Instapundit points out the TSA's new 'HORSE, BARN DOOR' security program. "Air security has always been a joke. It’s just an increasingly inconvenient one."
In the wake of the terrorism attempt Friday on a Northwest Airlines flight, federal officials on Saturday imposed new restrictions on travelers that could lengthen lines at airports...
As I said on Friday, if what is reported above by the NYT is true, then the TSA is focusing on the wrong threat:
If this jihadi was able to get as far as he did because he boarded a flight in relatively security-free Nigeria (hint: outside the USA), and then didn't get another security screening in Amsterdam (again outside the USA), then why do American holiday travelers now have to get the third-degree from TSA (hint: inside the USA) on their way home from Grandma's??
A commenter to that post reminded me that even Grandma's are not exempt from this misapplication of security (all in the name of the appearance of non-profiling).
But the ultimate point in is that TSA and HLS should spend more time working to get other countries to improve their security procedures (like re-screening passengers from unsecure airports), than further inconveniencing American air travelers.
Security, and unpredictable security at that, *IS* needed. But it should common sense in the way that is more concerned with terrorists, than the agendas of the zealots in the ACLU and CAIR.
