THIS Is Some of What is Behind the Tea Party's Ire

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post writes: “The first African American president takes office, and almost immediately we see the birth of a big, passionate national movement - overwhelmingly white and lavishly funded - that tries its best to delegitimize that president, seeks to thwart his every initiative, and manages to bring the discredited and moribund opposition party roaring back to life.”

Think back to 2007. There was dramatic vilification of the President, calls for his assassination, calling him a liar and stupid and worse. Obama said Bush was spending too much money while voting in the Senate to spend more.

The American voter objected strenuously to the increase in the national debt and they believed Obama’s promise of hope for the future meant fiscal responsibility.

But “almost immediately” -- in two years -- Obama has spent recklessly and carelessly, according to the US Treasury Department, in 19 months, Obama increased the national debt by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the accumulative national debt from Washington through Reagan. In four months (May through August 2010) Obama ran cumulative deficits of $464 billion, which is more that the Bush administration ran through the entire fiscal year of 2008. As far as the GCP is concerned each of Obama’s two years rack up the biggest federal deficit percentages since World War II.

So. Wrecking the national economy is one reason for Tea Party ire.

“One thing that struck me from the beginning about the Tea Party rhetoric is the idea of reclaiming something that has been taken away.” Okay. Let’s look at what has been taken away: The freedom of the individual to choose the kind of health care s/he wants. The freedom NOT to have health care insurance if you don’t want it. (There are people who can afford to pay for their health care without depending on insurance.)

The freedom to choose doctors, keep a health plan you like and the freedom to choose high-deductible coverage.

The freedom to hire or not to hire minorities and/or illegal immigrants.

The freedom of business owners to make business decisions without government intervention.

Most of all, though, with the dramatic increase in the size of government (14.5% in two years), he is denying us freedom from “Big Brother” and massive government oversight of our lives. And that’s just a beginning.

“Again, who's in possession of the government, if not the American people? The non-American people? The un-American people?” It looks like the latter. People who promise transparency then refuse to listen to ideas from the opposition (specifically Obama’s refusal to listen to alternative ideas for the health care legislation and his cramming it down legislator’s throats without anyone even reading the bill).

“So who stole the government? What makes some people feel more disenfranchised now than they were, say, during the presidency of George W. Bush?” And just exactly what do you refer to here? What disenfranchisement? This is a vague accusation without substance.

“After all, it was Bush who inherited a budget surplus and left behind a suffocating deficit - I'm not being tendentious, just stating the facts.” True, and that’s part of why Obama was elected. But certainly no one expected Obama to more than triple that debt in two years. He was supposed to remedy it, not add to it.

“Bush was vilified by critics while he was in office but not with the suggestion that somehow the government had been seized or usurped - that it had fallen into hands that were not those of "the American people." Did you not hear the outcry over the Patriot Act? That’s exactly what was being said. Both Bush and Cheney were accused of treason, no less.

“But why would this concern about oppressive, intrusive government become so acute now? Why didn't, say, government surveillance of domestic phone calls and e-mails get the constitutional fundamentalists all worked up?” Because the surveillance of phone calls and e-mails were only of people who were contacting terrorists and terror cells. And because a growing Federal government has no need for existing except to intrude on the lives of the citizens. That’s what government agencies do.

“I wonder how he can be seen as "elitist," when he grew up in modest circumstances - his mother was on food stamps for a time - and paid for his fancy-pants education with student loans. I wonder how people who genuinely cherish the American dream can look at a man who lived that dream and feel no connection, no empathy.” I can explain this – Obama was raised by his grandparents (his grandmother was a banker) and attended two very expensive and exclusive Muslim schools in Hawaii. He attended Harvard after working for some high-powered political operatives in Chicago (it was Michelle who had student loans to pay off). And he attended Columbia and Harvard, hardly public education. He’s elitist all the way.

“I ask myself what's so different about Obama, and the answer is pretty obvious: He's black.” That is hardly it – more than 10% of the population of the US is black, and there is quite a large number who are extremely successful in all walks of life.

What is so different about Obama is that he is young and inexperienced. He did nothing to earn or even to qualify for his position. He’s just a pretty face and a good actor – a modern Harry Belafonte with powerful friends.

So you begin your article by saying it’s not racist to differ with Obama or to criticize him or to be a Conservative or a member of the Tea Party. And you end your piece by saying the only explanation for opposition to Obama is racism.

You can’t have it both ways.

Letter to Steven and Cokie Roberts

This morning I watched Cokie Roberts and her husband Steven on Book TV talking about his new book about immigration in America.

A very great deal of that discussion involved a diatribe by Steven about how the current discussion about immigration is typical of America. He spent a long time discussing how different ethnic people came here and suffered discrimination.

Steven and Cokie don't seem to understand the relevant discussion -- or they are intentionally obfuscating it. So to them I ask:

Just what about the word "illegal" do you not understand.

NO ONE -- nada -- no one is against LEGAL immigration. That's not even under discussion. It's the people who sneak into this country in intentional and direct defiance of our laws that we object to and that is what is under discussion here. It has absolutely nothing to do with people who follow the rules and come here honestly to enjoy our country and its benefits.

It's because of ILLEGAL immigrants who refuse to obey our laws and learn our language that we are encountering so many problems.

The fact that politicians feel they have to cater to this voting bloc (who should not be voting at all and who do so ILLEGALLY) show what a huge problem this has become.

Shame on you, Steven and Cokie Roberts, for not facing the real problem and for making the existing problem worse by shrouding a serious problem in a fog of lies.

Letter to John Kerry

“We have an electorate that doesn’t always pay that much attention to what’s going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what’s happening,” Sen. John Kerry told reporters after touring the Boston Medical Center yesterday.

Sen. Kerry, I'm a member of that electorate. I pay attention to what's happening because I've been interested in politics and American history since childhood. I watch CBS, NBC and ABC in the mornings, CNN in the afternoon and Fox News at night. I read my local newspaper (slightly left-leaning), the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and bloggers at The Kos and The Huffington Post. I read both conservative writers and writers like Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Friedman.

I check "facts" for myself and prefer to be told what actually happened and shown what actually was said instead of being told what someone else thinks. That's the value of Fox news, by the way -- people like Bill O'Reilly try to give two sides of facts for any issue. I don't care for hysterics, which leads me to ignore people like Coulter, Beck and Limbaugh.

I find that this kind of research still leaves me time to hold down a job that I love and care for a rather large family which includes teenagers.

I'm the descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and a student of history, the Constitution and contemporary politics.

And I find your comment insulting and evidence that you speak without doing research and you don't hesitate to speak authoritatively on something you know nothing about. This doesn't surprise me because I followed your campaign for the presidency with much interest. I probably know more about you, your morals and your mind than your wife does!

You are an embarrassment to the Senate, Sir. You should have been tried and convicted of treason after you met with the Viet Cong in Paris all those years ago. YOU don't know what is happening and YOU are the one who doesn't bother to check your facts.

Your statement is a perfect illustration of the old cliche about the pot calling the kettle black.

And I'm not even a Tea Partier.....yet.

Well, I Tried........

It's not that I haven't been keeping up.
I have.

It's that I haven't put my blogging as a top priority. I think I'll do that now -- at least a blog a week --and I think I'll cover subjects other than politics even though politics is still my favorite subject!

For now, though, I've been thinking:

There is no doubt to anyone who has seriously studied the history of our nation that although some of the founders were not Christians (the political founders, that is) the original founders -- the Puritans, etc. -- were most definitely Christians and came here to start a Christian nation.

Seems to me that Christians have inadvertently caused the problems we have now.

Look at it this way: Christians try to be accepting, forgiving and loving. They try to be an inclusive society. (Now don't get off the subject by pointing out that Christians throughout history and even today sometimes are far less than accepting, forgiving and loving. That's so but serious Christians try hard to be those things in their every day lives.) They welcome "sinners" because we are all sinners and need to help each other.

So what has happened to this nation (and to many of our Protestant denominations) is that the people have accepted those who do not espouse Christian morality and ethics into our midst, hoping that by example Christians will win them over. Now please don't consider this a slam against other religions. It's intended as a slam against all those who would sneer at Christian concepts and deny the basis of our heritage.

Christians are even willing to live and let live but that's been one-sided. The society has turned against the founding principles and Christians are learning that being accepting and tolerant is not a two-way street. Showing non-Christians "The Way" hasn't produced results and the "progressive liberal" element takes full advantage of their status as citizens to turn the nation away from Christianity with hatred and viciousness. Moveon.org and the dailyKos as well as the Huffington Post are examples of hateful people spouting their evil and lies.

I recently read "American Wife" by -- I don't remember. Look it up. And I was shocked at the extremes to which liberals will go to call President Bush stupid. That's really what that book was all about. The bottom line, as it were. I was disgusted that someone would write their hatred with such transparency and, too, that a publisher would publish it. It's not surprising that The New York Times (who are totally irresponsible in their hatred of all Conservatives) would tout it as a "best seller." It's a shabby book and anyone with any sense of decency would be ashamed to author it. But liberals obviously think Conservatives are stupid and they can get away with stuff like that.

Oops I tried to get away from politics and it didn't work. You know, I really love this country and its history. I am proud to be a descendant of the only minister who signed the Declaration of Independence and to be the grandchild (no greats there) of a rebel soldier in the Civil War...and of a lot of other ancestors who did some pretty great things for this nation.

And I hate to see it turned into a European-like socialistic state. I don't understand why progressive liberals think that descendants of people who left European countries looking for freedom and the ability to earn their way to prosperity would ever accept a government-controlled "nanny" state.

Goodbye, America

by WAYNE ALLYN ROOT


Barack Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.
Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands.

Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

--Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?

--Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around."

-- Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.

-- Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America. But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security.

-- Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America. The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means.

-- Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government.

Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition. With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.

Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan.

From a Gentle Heart

Just finished reading Laura Bush's Spoken From the Heart. Lovely book, lovely life. And surprising to me. I'm a fairly political creature -- keep up with the news via CNN, ABC, NBC and Fox so I know pretty much what's going on. I was amazed at what Laura Bush accomplished during her White House years.

Of course I knew she founded the annual book fair in D.C. because I've been an avid watcher of those on C-Span since the very first one. And I knew some of her work in literacy in the US but had no idea she was so involved in Afghanistan, Africa and Burma. She certainly did not waste her time or her influence as First Lady.

The book is calm and lovely, just like she is personally. I would have ranted at the unjust treatment she suffered not only for herself but for her husband -- quietly putting up with the lies and slander and all the viciousness rained upon them by the left. It hurt and her pain is evident in the book but she keeps it subdued and calm. That, it seems to me, makes the sensitive reader completely empathetic to her and her situation. I know I experienced a sense of real anger when she casually mentioned an archivist at a museum who pointed out a dress of Jackie Kennedy's and compared it to one Mrs. Bush had worn, saying the color Kennedy chose was more tasteful that Mrs. Bush's choice.

She does take Nancy Pelosi to task for calling her husband stupid and she does it in a lady-like way, describing her hurt and pointing out that Pelosi (and Reid, who was equally ugly in his own way) continued to be invited (and to accept those invitations) to the White House. That takes an immense amount of Christian courage and class -- and it shows those two up as the tacky and stupid idiots that they truly are.

It's a lovely book, quiet and dignified -- a gentle voice of crystal clarity in the midst of the cackling cacaphony of our present political cesspool.

Catch Up

I haven't been good about blogging lately. Maybe it's the absolutely stunning stupidity in the national political scene that has me frustrated. I don't know. I can't believe the nastiness -- Dems whining about threats of violence (most of which seem to be a product of the MainMedium's imagination) after six or seven years of threatening to assassinate President Bush and calling him traitor and worse. Moveon.org and that ilk sure love to dish it out and if they don't get it back, they manufacture it.

What a bunch of creeps.

I haven't joined the tea party folks but after seeing the national networks' and the President's staff's reactions, I think I will. If I can't attend I'll send money. If that makes me a racist and all that other stuff -- too bad.

Obama and his crew are working hard to make the term "racist" a badge of honor.

Sad

Okay. I've given Obama plenty of time to show what he really is. And it looks like he's someone who is going to have his way whether the American people want him to or not. It looks like he doesn't know a thing about American history, American values or the American constitution. Since he taught constitutional law at one point I'd rather think he's stupid rather than think he truly wants to turn us away from our heritage and our laws.

However, the way he's behaving, it looks to me like he wants to be ruler of the world and the best way he's come up with to do that is to destroy America economically, and he's well on his way down that path.

I wish the "birthers" would settle down. A child born to a person who is an American citizen is also an American citizen, no matter where he is born. We learned that in 7th grade civics. Obviously taking civics out of the classroom has left a certain number of our population ignorant of some basics.

What we should be asking is, for example, where's the proof that Obama is intelligent? Other than the media says so, that is. Why can't we see his grades? Where are the papers he wrote in the colleges he attended? Where is the evidence for the claim that he's above average in intelligence and in accomplishments?

We should be demanding that he back off on his use of Air Force One. Traveling to Williamsburg and to Baltimore in that airplane is stupid. Taking one trip after another to communities in the USA when he could conference with them on the computer is wasteful. His lifestyle in the White House (and the fact that he and Michelle need to "get away") shows a pitiful lack of sophistication.

We should insist that he learn to be a President instead of acting like a spoiled, narcissistic brat who has fancy toys to play with for the first time in his life.

As for Obama, he should quit whining about the challenge he was given (he asked for it) and quit making things worse.

Know what's even worse? The fact that we elected him to THE major office in the country without requiring him to earn it reflects on our intelligence as a people. That we allow him to lie to us again and again without fear of some sort of retaliation reflects more on us than it does on him.

So we have made our bed and now we have to lie here for another year before we can begin to get him (and his ilk) out of there.

Sad.