"Go Back To The Porch"

via Johnny Dollar's Place

One of the things that has happened because of Obama's presidency is that we are finally talking about race more. One thing that seems to have been highlighted is how black conservatives are smeared by black liberals. In fact, you don't even have to be a conservative black, but if you disagree with the left, you are smeared as a "Uncle Tom." Here is Juan Williams, no conservative, being told to "go back to the porch" for defending Rush. Also, a close black friend of Rush's speaks out.

The left has been determined to paint Rush as a racist. They couldn't find any quote in all the hours Rush has on air, so they just made up some quotes. Vile. Just vile.

There are many things Rush could be criticized for, but being a racist isn't one of them.

Kevin at TheBlackSphere has more to say on the subject.

"Drill"

Sarah Palin has an excellent article at National Review about energy and our dependence on foreign oil.

Given that we’re spending billions of stimulus dollars to rebuild our highways, it makes sense to think about what we’ll be driving on them. For years to come, most of what we drive will be powered, at least in part, by diesel fuel or gasoline. To fuel that driving, we need access to oil. The less use we make of our own reserves, the more we will have to import, which leads to a number of harmful consequences. That means we need to drill here and drill now.

We rely on petroleum for much more than just powering our vehicles: It is essential in everything from jet fuel to petrochemicals, plastics to fertilizers, pesticides to pharmaceuticals. Ac­cord­ing to the Energy Information Ad­min­is­tra­tion, our total domestic petroleum consumption last year was 19.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Motor gasoline and diesel fuel accounted for less than 13 million bpd of that. Meanwhile, we produced only 4.95 million bpd of domestic crude. In other words, even if we ran all our vehicles on something else (which won’t happen anytime soon), we would still have to depend on imported oil. And we’ll continue that dependence until we develop our own oil resources to their fullest extent.

This is what I have never understood about environmentalist here. No matter how many energy alternatives we seek (and we should), we still have to depend on oil and gas now and in the forseeable future for our needs. Why is it somehow more environmental to buy oil and gas from other countries than from here? We are still using a resource that comes from the earth, just not our part of the earth. It really makes no sense. Especially considering that drilling here makes certain that we can over see the process. As Palin points out:

My home state of Alaska shows how it’s possible to be both pro-environment and pro-resource-development. Alaskans would never support anything that endangered our pristine air, clean water, and abundant wildlife (which, among other things, provides many of us with our livelihood). The state’s government has made safeguarding resources a priority; when I was governor, for instance, we created a petroleum-systems-integrity office to monitor our oil and gas infrastructure for any potential environmental risks.

It's also possible for different communities to have different answers:

Alaska also shows how oil drilling is thoroughly compatible with energy conservation and renewable-energy development. Over 20 percent of Alas­ka’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources, and as governor I put forward a long-term plan to increase that figure to 50 percent by 2025. Alaska’s comprehensive plan identifies renewable options across the state that can help rural villages transition away from expensive diesel-generated electricity — allowing each community to choose the solution that best fits its needs. That’s important in any energy plan: Tempting as they may be to central planners, top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions are recipes for failure.

For the same reason, the federal government shouldn’t push a single, uni­versal approach to alternative-powered vehicles. Electric cars might work in Los Angeles, but they don’t work in Alaska, where you can drive hundreds of miles without seeing many people, let alone many electrical sockets. And while electric and hybrid cars have their advantages, producing the electricity to power them still requires an energy source. For the sake of the environment, that energy should be generated from the cleanest source available.

Read the whole thing.

More Smears From The Left

I always have to laugh when people say that Glenn Beck, Rush, or Sean Hannity "spew vile." They can never give me any actual examples. Yet MSNBC's Keith Olbermann literally spews vile almost nightly. That never seems to bother the left that much.

His latest is calling Michelle Malkin a "big mashed up bag of meat with lipstick." Wow. That's the prettiest bag of meat I've ever seen.

I don't suppose it ever occurs to Olbermann that insulting a beautiful woman about her looks only makes him look ridiculous?

Beck may cry, Rush may joke, and Sean may annoy, but Olbermann has the spewing hate thing down to a science.

Speaking of Rush, I see that the left or the media can't find those racist quotes that Rush supposedly said. But the truth matters little to the left. Just as long as they get the narrative out there. Repeat a lie and all that. It's how they roll.

Someone recently showed me a page of "quotes" that Rush said that proved he was racist/sexist/a hater ect. The only problem is that if you listen to Rush you know where those quotes came from and what context. You know when it was a part of satire and part of another joke. This is how they do it. They take things out of context. It's absurd.

In all the years I have listened to Rush, if he had ever said anything that even hinted at him being racist in the least, I would have turned him off and written about it. But he never has.

I'm not up on the NFL controversy (except for the lies about his "racist" quotes"), but if Rush was dropped from consideration of part owning a team just because of his political beliefs, then what has infected America and it's freedoms is worse than I thought.

Liberals Miss Hillary

And who could blame them?

Hillary is as much of a liberal as Obama, but at least we all can agree that Hillary would know what she was doing.

Clinton spent a lifetime studying the levers of power and 16 years getting ready for the top job. In fact, she was so busy preparing to be president that she let Paul Begala and the other faded glories from her husband’s political shop handle the whole getting-elected part.

.............

But had she won, there’s no doubt that she would have ground up the bones of her enemies and baked chocolate chip cookies with them. Obama, though, has proven to be the only person who could make the GOP look reasonable again after the misadventures of the Bush years.

Naturally, I disagree with that last part, but the guy has some good points. We on the right knew that Obama would be a disaster. We knew he was not ready for this job, but we never dreamed that he would prove that to the left as well in such a short time.

I find this tidbit on Hillary's view of healthcare coverage interesting:

The weight of her mandate would have crushed businesses and young workers with a vengeance, but it would have been real, honest socialism. And everyone would have been covered.

I notice that liberals are beginning to be more honest with their love of socialism. I remember when the right was excoriated for referring to Obama's policies as socialism. But the left now sees no problem in admitting that that is their vision. I like the honesty of it. At least the American people know exactly the choice they have between the parties now.

But back to Hillary. According to a new poll she is more popular than Obama for the first time ever.

I do believe that if Hillary had won the nomination, she would have won the Presidency. To me, as a conservative, Hillary is scarier because she knew how to hide her liberalism under the mask of a moderate. Obama has not honed that skill. He tries, and the media certaintly helped him do that during the campaign, but as President he just hasn't got that down. The media doesn't seem to helping him as much as they once did either.

Hillary says she will not run for President again. Back when Oprah came out for Obama, she said he was meant for a higher purpose. I wrote at the time that Obama may be the one to stop the Clintons, and that may be the higher purpose he was born for.

And for that, I will always be grateful.

The Inner City Poor, Politicians Do The Wrong Thing or Nothing

Michelle Malkin has a post up about the Chicago area where Obama was a community organizer. During the campaign no one seemed to want to focus on the fact that Obama did almost nothing to change things for the inner city poor and mostly black community that he tried to help.

But as I read the article, I realized that Chicago is really a reflection of liberal policies. I'm sure Obama thought that he couldn't effect the change he wanted to there because MORE was needed. When in fact, he couldn't effect the change he wanted, because the ideas are wrong.

Recently I interviewed Ted Cruz who is running for Attorney General here in Texas. He said that he believes that Obama wakes up every morning believing that he is fighting for a better nation and fighting to help the underprivileged. I believe that too. I believe that for many liberals it is a sincere fight. But the problem is that the policies they embrace are profoundly wrong and don't work. Cruz said that ultimately the policies of liberalism result in more human suffering and misery whenever they are implemented. Chicago is a perfect example of this.

As this Chicago Tribune article points out, there was this grand 10 yr plan plan to tear down old public housing and build new public housing that would sit besides wealthier homes, and we could all live in peace and harmony together. The public housing would be transformed and upscale homes would improve the neighborhoods and businesses would move in. It always sounds good in theory, doesn't it? Of course these new buildings cost tax payers quite a bit, hundreds of millions in fact. But this is part of the "spread the wealth around" philosophy. The only thing? It just never works.

First, some of public housing units totaling more than $300,000 to build, are more than the price of a home in many Chicago neighborhoods. I think most of the poor would rather have the money so they could buy a home in a safe neighborhood, don't you think? It would have made about as much sense. Instead most residents are still moving from one poor neighborhood to the next, waiting to go back to their old one. But the bitter truth is they will never have the home they were promised.

This "Plan for Transformation" began in February 2000, Mayor Daley's 10 yr plan would replace Chicago's public housing with 25,000 new units for the poor.

This was the largest redevelopment of public housing ever undertaken in the country and unfortunately it prompted The federal government to encourage dozens of cities across the country to try fixing their public housing in the same manner. So this bad idea spread and now other cities are suffering the same as Chicago.

What happened? Residents were given federal housing vouchers that subsidize rent payments to private landlords. All these years later they have yet to return. Many of the residents imagine that the city just wanted to get rid of them and this was the way to do it. No, it was just the usual misguided efforts of liberalism.

By now, Stateway Gardens was supposed to be a bustling neighborhood filled with new buildings, businesses and diverse families, fueling a renaissance in the South Side area.

Instead, most of the 33-acre site is vacant, with piles of dirt and pallets of bricks sitting beside unfinished sidewalks and homes.
...............

...almost nine years into what was billed as a 10-year program, the city has completed only 30 percent of the plan’s most ambitious element tearing down entire housing projects and replacing them with new neighborhoods where poor, working-class and wealthier families would live side by side
....................

The area where Obama was a community organizer isn't faring well at all:

The largest is the Altgeld-Murray Homes, a sprawling 190-acre development built on the Far South Side for black factory workers during World War II. At that development alone, the CHA plans to spend $451 million rehabbing 1,998 barracks-style apartments, with politically connected Walsh Construction doing much of the work.

Altgeld sits in one of the city’s most isolated areas. The nearest supermarket is miles away. Only one bus route serves the development. And it backs up to the Little Calumet River in an area once known as “The Toxic Doughnut” because of a long history of environmental problems.

Crime is another challenge. Open drug markets thrive at Altgeld, and shootings occur frequently enough to keep residents on edge.

What liberals seem to never learn is that throwing money at problems never works. Giving people things, when they themselves have no stake in it, never works.

The late Jack Kemp understood this. His idea of "empowerment zones' gave tax breaks to lure businesses to inner cities. Just trying to make a neighborhood prettier and hoping business will come obviously doesn't work. You have to give business a reason to want to be there. He was also was an advocate of selling public housing units to the tenants living in them. This gives them a stake in upkeep and personal pride. This is key in changing how a person feels about themselves and how they conduct their life.

No one has all the answers to our inner city problems. But it's clear that liberal answers don't work. In order to change a place, you must change the hearts the people that live there. The inner city poor are mired in drugs, violence, and a lack of hope. A new building won't change that. The saddest thing of all is that the liberal policies of welfare, no accountability, subsidizing single motherhood, and a dependency on governement is what has led to the personal despair that so many experience in the inner city.

Kemp never got his ideas implemented on the scale of Chicago's Mayor Daley boondoggle. Maybe because it didn't benefit donors, personal business associates, and political hacks. But that doesn't excuse Republicans for their lack of trying. Republicans should be ashamed of how they have turned their backs on the inner city poor. The Democrats are wrong in their ideas, but the GOP is just as wrong to ignore the problems.

It's time we had someone in the GOP step up to the plate and put free enterprise and personal responsibility ideas to work in the inner city. For too long the GOP has seen the inner city as the Democrat's problem. They figure that the population will vote Democrat no matter what, so why should we do anything?

We should do something, not because of votes, but because it's the right thing to do. And at the very least, it would stop this insane spending that helps no one, and is taken from the hardworking taxpayers to fix problems that are never fixed.

Liberal ideas may not have worked, but the Democrats will keep wasting our money if the GOP can't man up and do something ourselves.

No One Likes a Whiner

White House communications director Anita Dunn and President Obama have decided to act like kids in high school that feel they are being gossiped about, instead of what they should be, a professional and the President of the United States. It is truly pathetic. If you missed it, you can see the CNN transcript and vido here.

She basically whines about Fox News not being fair, when even a search in the LexisNexis proves her completely wrong (see link above). This administration just cannot take criticism. They are, as Chris Wallace said, a bunch of cry babies. I just find it astonishing that the White House communications director would say about Fox News, " “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent."

CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC all treated Bush about the way Fox News is treating Obama, and you never heard the Bush White House whine or stomp their feet and refuse to play with the big boys. Good grief. It's embarrassing.

But leave it to Fox New's Neil Cavuto to set Ms. Dun straight:



"So I'm hearing an awful lot about how the White House communications director hates Fox, really, really hates Fox. Anita Dunn saying, and I think I got this quote right, "Let's not pretend they're a news network." She just said that on CNN after saying the same to Time magazine. Lately, it's been her schtick, her game.

So, Ms. Dunn, let's continue playing it, shall we? Let's pretend you're serious. Let's pretend you're not a tad, oh I don't know, thin-skinned. Let's pretend you get your facts straight on whether we thoroughly reported Republican Nevada Senator John Ensign's affair which we did, or only trash Democrats and not Republicans, which we do not. Let's pretend you are open to criticism. Let's pretend you see alternative points of view on healthcare. Let's pretend when someone opposes your view, they might have a point and when you simply refuse to accept it, you're the one who may not have a clue. Let's pretend you have a memory and recall Fox programs like this one disparaging last year's financial rescues and whether they were pouring good money after bad. Let's pretend you know history and recall that a Republican was in the White House back then, and a Republican treasury secretary refused to come on this very show back then. Let's pretend you are aware that on Fox Business shows, in particular, this isn't about this president or the last president. This is about your money, our money, all of our money. Let's pretend you are interested in that and not dismissing that.

Let's pretend you work for the President of the United States and not some left-wing blog in the United States. Let's pretend you are as big as the historic place you work and not as petty as the less than historic words you spout. And let's pretend you care about all of our independent viewers and aren't being just careless about those viewers' cares. So let's pretend you're focused on the issues that matter and not the petty squabbles that do not, just as we should pretend you're not overwrought and snapping. Maybe you're just overworked and snippy."

Even lefty TV critic David Zurawik is disgusted:

I have been writing for several months about how thin skinned the White House has been about press criticism — especially when it comes to the Fox News Channel. I have compared the current administration to the White House of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, and believe me, I did not do that lightly. Nixon-Agnew was a very dark time for the First Amendment…

This campaign by the Obama administration is dangerous to press freedom, and it should concern everyone in the press, not just Fox. If you want to get a sense of little regard Team Obama has for the press in general, check out this “Time” magazine article. You have to wonder who else is on this administration’s enemies list.

Fox News ratings speak for themselves. It simply doesn't make sense to boycott the biggest audience in cable news. If you want to make your case for your point of view, you don't get scared away because some of the opinion based shows are critical of you. You go on the news based shows and explain why those shows are wrong.

This just smacks of cowardliness.

Update: Good grief! Even The Nation is calling Obama "Whiner In Chief." When the left starts agreeing with the right on something like this, you know it's bad.

"Keep America Safe"

From Politico.com:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s eldest daughter Liz will launch a new group aimed at rallying opposition to the “radical” foreign policy of the Obama administration which it says has succeeded only in undermining the nation’s security.

The new group, Keep America Safe, will make the case against President Barack Obama’s moves to wrench America away from Bush era foreign policy on issues from detaining alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay to building a missile shield in Eastern Europe.

“The policies being proposed by the Obama administration are so radical across the board,” Cheney said. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you want the nation to be strong and so many steps this president is taking are making the nation weaker.”

This doesn't surprise me. Liz Cheney is a force to be reckoned with. This is only the beginning for her. Have you noticed that many of the true conservatives willing to take on the tough issues lately have been Republican women? I love it.

Why is Liz doing this now?

“The policies of the Bush administration since Sept. 11 are those policies that kept us safe – there’s no turning away from that legacy at all,” she said. “I think it’s a very important one and one where we ought to be grateful for the men and women in the military and the intelligence community and the policy makers who kept us safe.”

Cheney also cited signs that Democrats, when pushed, back quickly away from Obama’s promises, like the overwhelming Senate vote in May to block moving detainees from Guantanamo to the continental United States and a recent Pew poll suggesting that a majority support military action in Iran if other paths fail to stop the country from getting nuclear arms.

“It’s clear that there’s a real grassroots fear and concern out there. Everywhere I go people are saying to me, ‘Where can I go to learn more,’” Cheney said. “People realize what a dangerous world we live in.”

How Pres. Obama should accept the Nobel Peace Prize

Peggy Noonan has an excellent article in the WSJ about the absurdity of Pres. Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize and how it used to mean something to win it, even if it is only liberals giving liberals prizes.

But she makes a good point. It isn't Obama's fault that he won this. It was the Nobel Committee's embarrassment. But what could Obama do now? She has a perfect suggestion. When Obama accepts the prize, give a speech on behalf of America. Give a speech touting what America has done to make this world great:

"..but America has gone to Europe twice in the past century to fight for peace. This is an old concept, and has to do with killing killers so they can't kill anymore. It cost America a lot to do this, and we kept no territory, as they say, beyond the graves where our soldiers lie. America then taxed itself and gave its wealth not only to its allies but to its former adversaries, to help them rebuild. We didn't actually have to do this. We did it to make the world better. We did it to foster peace. (They should give us a prize.)

America hasn't just helped the world, it literally lit the world with its inventions, which are the product of its freedoms. The lights under which the Peace Prize judges read, and rejected, the worthy nominations? Why, those lights were invented by an American. The emails the committee members sent to each other, sharing their banal insights on leadership? They came through the Internet. Who invented the Internet? It was a Norwegian bureaucrat with a long face and hair on his nose and little plastic geometric eyeglasses? Oh wait, it was Americans. The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are healthy because they have been inoculated against diseases such as polio. Who invented the polio vaccine, an enfeebled old leftist academic in Oslo? Nah, it was a man named Jonas Salk. He was an American."

Not long ago Obama praised what the Muslims have given the world. Isn't it about time he reminded the world what Americans have given to it?

This would be the most outstanding thing for Obama to do.

I won't hold my breath.

Best Obama Nobel Peace Prize Cartoons~!

See Cartoons by Cartoon by David Fitzsimmons - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by John Cole - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Jimmy Margulies - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Taylor Jones - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Dave Granlund - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon