FALLING PANDA

The Whopper That Should Have Been Politifact's "Lie of the Year"

2011-12-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

I don’t envy the journalists responsible for choosing Politifact’s “Lie of the Year.” Sifting through an entire year’s worth of remarks from the mouths of elected officials is undoubtedly a massive undertaking. I’m sure this year was no exception.

Then, once the “lie” in question is decided upon, Politifact’s editors must deal with the inevitable whining from the individual or group which propagated the winning “lie” in the first place and who now come forward to defend the original statement.

This year Politifact chose well.

As this year’s biggest whopper Politifact chose the patently false assertion, repeatedly made by Democratic politicians and liberal groups, that Republicans were going to “end Medicare” and that Republican policy proposals would reduce benefits to today’s senior citizens. By highlighting this falsehood Politifact brought attention to one of the great political lies, not just of the year, but of the last half century.

But as outrageous as it is, that particular lie--often accompanied by a video that shows an actor portraying Rep. Paul Ryan throwing a wheelchair bound grandmother off of a cliff--isn’t the one that should have received the “Lie of the Year” distinction.

The “award” should have been bestowed on the following statement by socialist Senator Bernie Sanders:

“This country does in fact have a serious deficit problem. But the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars — unpaid for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. It was caused by a recession as result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit, I will be damned if we’re going to balance the budget on backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”

Sanders wasn’t the first leftist to promote this baseless theory, but his face is attached to a widely circulated internet meme featuring his quote, so for the purposes of this article we’re going to use him as the lie’s symbolic godfather.

In actuality, the lie that our soaring debt was caused by the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq really began with this New York Times chart and was soon adopted by the White House. It then rapidly became a standard liberal talking point and the basis for excusing away the rapid accumulation of debt under president Obama.

And why not? Over the last three years the Democratic Party has sustained itself almost exclusively using the big lie that all of our current problems stem from the actions of the prior administration. Why stray from this demonstrably successful formula?

Of course, the claim is totally bogus.

The reality is while there was a slight uptick in the debt immediately after George W. Bush entered office, the debt as a percentage of GDP remained remarkably stable for the majority of Bush’s two terms. It flat-lined at around 60% of GDP and stayed that way until the economic crisis hit in 2008. That’s pretty much the area the debt had remained since the presidency of George H.W. Bush. In fact, the Bush II debt level remained lower than the debt-to-GDP ratio that existed for the majority of Bill Clinton’s two terms in office.

Only when the financial crisis hit did the debt soar to nearly 80% of GDP. Both the Bush tax cuts and the War on Terror have been in effect since 2001. If the Left’s claims about the debt were true then we would have seen a steady increase in the debt as a percentage of GDP prior to the financial crisis. That didn’t happen.

The truth is that America’s newfound debt comes almost exclusively from the rapid decline in growth that came with the financial crash of 2008 as well as the implementation of TARP, the Obama stimulus, automatic spending increases that occur when more Americans qualify for government benefits and across-the-board, long-term spending increases generated by President Obama and Congressional Democrats.

But this accurate narrative didn’t fit the Democrats’ simplistic class warfare strategy. So they cherry-picked the two Bush-era policies they liked the least and pinned the bulk of the debt increase on the impact of those two policies.

Of course, if we’re going to use the Bernie Sanders standard, it would also be logical to claim that ANY government expenditure over a certain amount that occurred prior to the large debt increase was in fact responsible for the debt increase itself.

Why not blame the spike in the debt on the expenditures which are our nation’s largest to begin with? Those would be Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the annual interest of the debt itself. Every single one of these eats up a far greater chunk of government cash on an annual basis than ten years of the War on Terror or the Bush tax cuts. But that wouldn’t fit into the Left’s ‘blame it on the Republicans at all costs’ narrative, now would it?

Therefore, given that the debt has been the focus of the national political conversation over the last three years, THIS was the lie that Politifact’s editors should have labeled with the “Lie of the Year” distinction.

Awarding this dubious honor to the debt claim would have been particularly appropriate since it appears that the lie has worked.

According to polls by the Pew Research Center, those who blame our debt problem on the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan far outnumber those who blame the recession or the Obama Administration’s feckless spending increases.

Politifact deserves credit for finally calling out the Democrats for their perennial lies concerning Republican plans for reforming entitlements. But they really should have considered the debt lie fire, which has spread from the pants of one liberal to another over the past year.

- Dan Joseph

The Cain Train Wreck

2011-11-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

When Herman Cain won the Florida Straw Poll, I updated my Facebook status to read: “Herman Cain has officially peaked.” Over the next few weeks, Cain rose to frontrunner status and it appeared that I had grossly miscalculated Cain’s appeal. Despite Cain’s recent surge, I stand by my initial statement. Ever since his Florida victory, Cain has performed dismally as a candidate. He has made a series of gaffes and missteps that should give serious pause to every conservative considering casting their vote for Mr. Cain.

One week after winning in Florida, Cain found himself rising quickly in almost every opinion poll. It appeared that his rising numbers were coming at the expense of Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose poor debate performances had disappointed many conservatives who had viewed him as the GOP’s best hope to unite Tea Party activists and establishment conservatives.

On October 1st, those intrepid reporters at the Washington Post decided that an old rock at the Perry family hunting ground that once had a racially insensitive name etched on it was front page news. It was a typical hit piece from a typical left-wing media outlet. But, when Cain was asked about the matter, he decided to play the race card--seemingly out of instinct.

"Since Gov. Perry has been going there for years to hunt, I think that it shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time of not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place,”

he told ABC's This Week.

"

Yes, it was painted over," he said. "But how long ago was it painted over? So I'm still saying that it is a sign of insensitivity."

Time after time over the last three years conservatives have been demonized with accusations of racism by defenders of President Obama. We don’t like it. For Cain to adopt this tactic with such ease, when there was no evidence of any racial insensitivity on Perry’s part, was a sign that Cain shared the reflexive, race based world view that has outraged conservatives for decades.

But little was said by conservatives concerning Cain’s attack. This was disheartening but understandable given that the Tea Party’s honeymoon phase with Cain had just begun.

A few days later in an interview with the Wall Street Journal Cain said this in response to a question about the Occupy Wall Street protesters who had recently converged in Zuccotti Park.

"Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone's fault if they succeeded, it is someone's fault if they failed.”

Still enjoying the honeymoon, conservatives did not bat an eye at this boneheaded and insensitive statement. Despite the fact that Cain had just handed an incredible piece of general election fodder to the Obama campaign. But, conservatives defended the statement, either as being mostly true or as an example of Cain’s refreshing propensity not to mince words as more polished politicians so often do.

In his first debate as a top tier candidate, Cain was put on the defensive concerning his 9-9-9 economic plan. The plan itself is undeniably an improvement over the status quo. But Cain seemed incapable of defending it against the barrage of attacks and downright misrepresentations launched by his fellow candidates. Cain drifted into a confused non-defense of the plan citing “apples and oranges” instead of numbers and failed to illustrate the simplicity that he had previously bragged about as 9-9-9’s most attractive feature.

Given the fact that 9-9-9 is the centerpiece--and really the sole talking point—of the Cain campaign, his inability to defend it should have once again caused conservatives to reassess their consideration of Cain as the best candidate to face Barack Obama. They did not. Cain’s meteoric rise in the polls continued.

He performed a similarly confusing dance around the abortion issue in an interview a little more than a week later week, waffling horribly on when he would support exceptions to his pro-life stance in a way that would make Mitt Romney blush.

Next came the bizarre commercial starring a cigarette puffing Cain campaign advisor and ending with a bizarre profile of a smiling Cain, set to patriotic music that sounded as though it was recorded in the early 1980’s. While the video went viral, the video made Cain’s campaign look amateurish and weird.

Fast forward to the last few days. The recent sex scandal plaguing Cain may be an irrelevant smear leaked by a political nemesis. But, despite having ten days notice that Politico was going to run with the story Cain appeared to have no idea how to handle it when it broke.

The man, who had built his campaign on not being a typical politician, repeatedly evaded the question exactly the way a typical politician would when asked about the matter. His inconsistent answers have given the appearance of a cover up which is almost always worse than the actual crime in the political world.

Then, when speaking at the National Press Club about this scandal, Cain inexplicably burst into song. A move that can only be described as clownish for someone running for the nation’s highest office and undeniably a bizarre spectacle, far outside of the realm of what most Americans consider to be “presidential” behavior.

Finally, on Tuesday’s edition of Special Report with Brit Hume, panelist Charles Krauthammer decided to test Cain. Krauthammer lobbed a softball at Cain asking him if he thought the sexual harassment charges were racially motivated.

Cain took the bait and once again played the race card. He played it unabashedly and with no regard for the facts.

“I believe the answer is yes, but we do not have any evidence to support it,”

Cain answered.

It’s understandable that after years of having the race card played against us, conservatives would want to give the left a taste of its own medicine. But, despite this urge, Cain’s answer makes us all look like hypocrites and needs to be roundly condemned. Conservatives should not resort to Democratic tactics and this is one of the most egregious and maddening. An African American running for president must not use race as a crutch when attacked. It is a divisive and usually dishonest way of slandering one’s opponents. Shockingly, Barack Obama was quite disciplined in his refusal to cite racism as a factor when asked about attacks leveled against him in 2008. Cain could learn a thing or two from Obama’s successful campaign in which he appeared “post-racial”—a trait that was very appealing to Independent voters.

Herman Cain is a fascinating and likeable guy. He is certainly not a politician and yes, his popularity among the most conservative members of the Republican base completely debunks the myth of a racially insensitive GOP that has been a left wing narrative for so long.

But these are lousy reasons to support a presidential candidate. At this point, Cain’s lack of political polish is becoming more of a liability than an asset. It will almost certainly be a problem if Cain is faced with the unrelenting attacks of a desperate Obama machine next year.

After a month of gaffes and mistakes, it’s time for conservatives to jump off the Cain Train.

-Dan Joseph

Debate Tips For Rick Perry

2011-09-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday night Rick Perry took a huge step toward becoming the Republican presidential nominee. While his performance in his first GOP debate will not become the stuff of conservative legend, it was good enough. He did not embarrass himself with gaffes. He was articulate and there were no signs of the below-average intellect that those on the left have been telling us about for the last few weeks. Simply put, he appeared presidential.

It is worth noting that Rick Perry does not have much debate experience. Some of his past gubernatorial campaigns in Texas have not even included debates. He can be forgiven if he is rusty in the debate limelight the first time around. However, he can not survive if he does not improve on Wednesday’s performance as it included gaping holes that could easily be exploited. Not necessarily by Mitt Romney, but almost certainly by President Obama.

The defining moment of the Perry debate performance was when he took on the issue of Social Security. Perry restated his position from his oft-cited book ‘Fed Up’ calling the program as it now stands a Ponzi scheme(it is) and insisting that the plan absolutely must be reformed if it is to survive (it must).

Generally, any time a Republican so much as mentions possible changes to America’s most beloved entitlement program, Democrats are quick to demagogue that statement and use it to beat the GOP over the head until the political career of the person who said it is over.

Perry bravely and openly talked about the flawed nature of the program and sure enough, within minutes of his statement the Romney campaign issued a press release claiming that Perry was “…committed to abolishing Social Security.”
First and foremost, Mitt Romney should be ashamed of himself for twisting Perry’s position and politicizing this important issue. That’s the kind of behavior that we expect from Democrats and from the “career politicians” that Romney has been railing against in his stump speeches as of late.

But Perry needs to be very careful on this subject. Even if he beats back Romney, the Obama campaign will undoubtedly engage in even more vicious and misleading assaults on Perry’s position in the general election campaign.

Over the next few months, Perry must drive home the idea that he does not want to abolish the program and that the baby boomers will not see any changes to their benefits. Furthermore he must be careful not to give any specifics about his plan to reform the program. At least not until Barack Obama does the same, which is unlikely to happen at all. Any specifics, no matter what they are, will be twisted and deformed by Obama until every senior in the nation has been so terrified that there is a nationwide shortage of adult diapers.

Slightly less consequential was Perry’s answer on global warming. Like a growing number of Americans, Perry is skeptical of the nature and severity of climate change. Due to the current economic situation and legislative realities, no significant action on global warming is likely to occur any time soon. It’s a largely moot issue. Nonetheless, Perry’s skepticism will be used by Democrats—and Jon Huntsman apparently—to brand Perry as anti-science.

The next time the issue comes up, instead of countering with the issue of jobs as he tried to do on Wednesday night, Perry should specifically address some of the reasons for his skepticism.

He could bring up the now infamous East Anglia emails in which scientists were discussing the possibility of rigging global warming data in order to cover for the inaccuracy of climate models.

He might also mention the new findings of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) whose scientists have demonstrated a relationship between cosmic rays, solar variations and changes in the Earth's surface temperature, which could be proven to far exceed the impact of carbon emissions.

Or he might simply point out the consistent failure of climate models to back up the predictions of climate alarmists throughout the years.

Bringing up these points will not only allow Perry to appear thoughtful and informed on the matter, but will also force the Obama campaign to either address these uncomfortable inconsistencies on AGW theory or simply ignore the issue altogether.

But one way or the other, it is not enough for Perry to simply tout his skepticism without explaining in some detail why he is skeptical Failure to do so will lend undeserved credibility to the Left’s claim that Perry lacks intellectual curiosity, when in reality this label better describes those who fail to question the inconsistencies of the claims of the climate change alarmists.

Finally, while no one will deny Perry’s ability to look and sound presidential, there were moments in the second half of Wednesday debate where Perry’s answers were broken up with long pauses. These pauses made it appear that Perry was either tired or simply didn’t know what to say Whatever the reason, the habit was reminiscent of some of George W. Bush’s more uncomfortable unscripted moments.

If he hopes to go toe-to-toe with President Obama, Perry needs to be as consistently eloquent in off-the-cuff situations as he has proven to be when giving prepared speeches.

GOP primary voters are looking for a reason to abandon Mitt Romney completely and move their support to the Texas governor. But they will hesitate if they don’t believe that Perry can match Romney when it comes to making a coherent and convincing case for the conservative cause.

- Dan Joseph

Quiet. Grown-ups are talking.

Rick Perry and the Secular Center

2011-08-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

When Governor Rick Perry threw his hat into the presidential ring, three things happened in quick succession.

First, Perry almost immediately shot to the top of the GOP polls in the race for the Party's nomination.

Next, sensing that Perry was a serious threat to Obama, the Left began trying to discredit Perry’s economic record in Texas. This failed miserably due to a lack of legitimate economic criticisms capable of sticking to the governor. It will continue to fail given the perceptions about the economic record of the current administrations.

Finally, the left and their allies in the media, quickly turned the focus to Perry’s views on social wedge issues.

Global warming, creationism, prayer rallies, gay marriage and abortion are going to be very popular topics of conversation over the next few months and the focus will come about as an effort by the Left to diminish Rick Perry’s appeal to the secular center.

The “secular center”--a term that you are probably unfamiliar with since I just coined it -- are an increasingly important group of independent minded voters who tend to be young and came out in big numbers for Barack Obama in 2008.

This group—along with 75% of their fellow Americans—have determined that Barack Obama has failed miserably in his economic stewardship. Understandably, they have begun to instinctively tune out Obama when he begins to talk economics in the same way that they tuned out George W. Bush when he was talking about Iraq after 2005.

But, on certain matters, the secular center is still capable of being swayed or, scared really, into putting a clothespin on their nose and voting for Obama a second time, despite all the evidence that Obama is about as competent as president as some of us expected a former community organizer would be.

Like I said before, the secular center is largely made up of young adults.

They attend church rarely, if at all.

They find the idea of creationism absurd.

They do not see any adverse affects to society if gays are allowed to marry each other.

They may sympathize with the pro-life point of view but don’t feel that abortion is tantamount to murder.

In recent years, the secular center has become very wary and at times annoyed by Americans who wear their religion on their sleeves. In a society increasingly driven by science and technology, they view the idea that a 2000 year old book written by men who claimed to speak to God via shrubbery is not necessarily a reliable source. At least not from a fact based, analytical perspective.

So when an individual running for our nation’s highest office starts talking about these matters in the same breath as economic and foreign policy, it’s a big turn-off to the secular centrists.

But in reality, the decision to vote against a candidate based on his or her belief in creationism is as backwards as the belief in creationism itself.

Whoever gets elected president in 2012, the likelihood of substantive changes to controversial social policies that come from the federal government is slim to none.

There will be no constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The national debate on this matter has effectively ended and any further changes to the definition of marriage will be determined on a state by state basis.

Even if Roe V. Wade is overturned, under the most extreme scenario, abortion will remain legal in most states, particularly in more secular states.

Whether Global Warming is a true threat to humanity or not, the issue is dead. There will be no significant action taken on climate change regardless of who holds the White House. There is no appetite in this country for any of the proposed changes. The Climate alarmists have lost.

Is it possible that some schools will teach creationism in conjunction with evolution? Sure. But, so what? The President of the US has no say in what our children learn on this matter to begin with.

One could argue that the religious views that evangelicals tend to hold on this matter will set a bad example for children across America if one of their own is President. However thus far into the Obama presidency, children have not adopted the view that AIDS was introduced into the black community by the US government, a theory for which Barack Obama’s pastor of 20 years was a strong advocate.

On the opposite side of the coin, the president has great power to alter economic policy which affects these secular centrists and every one of their fellow Americans in a very direct way.

As president, Perry can, and will dramatically alter the economic agenda set down by the current administration.

His record as governor is better than that of any other executive in the country in terms of job creation, which is our nation’s most pressing problem and one which has the current president completely and utterly flummoxed.

He will dismantle Obamacare, thus saving the nation trillions of dollars in the long term.

He will overturn the onerous regulations put in place by the various agencies under Obama’s control, which are already crippling American businesses.

And this is where secular conservatives and even social conservatives who understand the importance of the upcoming election need to begin making a pro-conservative case to those on the secular center, who will play a significant role in deciding this election.

The secular centrists need to understand that the decision to base their vote on cultural wedge issues rather than on substantive economic policy matters in this election could very well doom the United States to four more years of economic malaise. Malaise which will be increasing difficult to emerge from, even after the Obama era has passed.

It will postpone action on entitlement and tax reforms that are absolutely essential if we are to get the debt under control and ensure that Social Security and Medicare survive for the next generation.

Rick Perry and his fellow Republican presidential contenders understand that they must win over socially conservative voters in order to win the nomination. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that at times this means saying some things about the origins of the Earth and human sexuality that they know not to be true.

But these candidates must pay lip service to those who are true believers in these ideas, or sacrifice any chance at receiving the Republican nomination, thus also sacrificing their chance to right the current administration’s wrongs and save the nation.

Every secular voter should consider that before eliminating someone from consideration solely based on their religious dogma. Or what a candidate SAYS is their religious dogma.

- Dan Joseph

Obama's Debt Ceiling Dishonesty For Beginners

2011-07-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

It's getting really difficult for me to listen to President Obama give speeches--and it was tough to being with. As his poll numbers drop lower and lower it seems that his talking points become more and more dishonest. Last night he was true to form.

It was a short speech, but it wasn't short on whoppers and misleading statements. Here's a sampling:

"For the last decade, we have spent more money than we take in. In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card. As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office."

While it's true that the debt has grown since the year 2000--and before that-- neither the Bush tax cuts or the war in Iraq were the reason that the deficit was " on track to top $1 trillion the year [Obama] took office." The reason for that staggering number was a combination of lowered revenues due to the recession and the money spent on TARP. Prior to that, revenues had been spiking upward and the annual deficit had been dropping for several years.

When touting his own debt reduction "plan" and getting ready to make the comparison to the GOP plan that actually exists, Obama said:

"The first approach says, let’s live within our means by making serious, historic cuts in government spending. Let’s cut domestic spending to the lowest level it’s been since Dwight Eisenhower was President."

This is only true if one views those cuts in the context of the increases that this administration has already made. The administration has hiked annual spending levels. The cuts that are now being proposed simply adjust the spending to levels lower than they are at now. However, the levels will still be higher than they ever have been before. When the President mentions Ike, he is referring to the precipitous drop in spending following World War II. This comparison is misleading and completely irrelevant to our current situation.

"Republican House members have essentially said that the only way they’ll vote to prevent America’s first-ever default is if the rest of us agree to their deep, spending cuts-only approach."

At this point, anyone who fully understands the situation should know that even if the deadline passes, America will not default on it's debt obligations. There are more than enough revenues coming in to avoid this scenario and there is no doubt that paying our creditors will be the government's number one priority should the deadline hit.

But, it terms of solely blaming the GOP's "approach" for possible default, it takes two to tango. One could just as easily blame the Administration's seemingly intractable demand that taxes be raised if default were to occur. Which it won't.

"If that happens, and we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills – bills that include monthly Social Security checks."

Same scare tactic, only this time aimed at scaring a specific constituency. Social Security checks will most certainly be a funding priority should America pass the deadline. Whether the checks go out is the president's decision, but they most certainly will. Again, there will be plenty of revenues to cover this item.

"I realize that a lot of the new members of Congress and I don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. But we were each elected by some of the same Americans for some of the same reasons. Yes, many want government to start living within its means. And many are fed up with a system in which the deck seems stacked against middle-class Americans in favor of the wealthiest few."

While it's probably true that the president was elected by people who think this way, members of the new GOP congress were elected by people who reject this type of class warfare and realize that the economic problems of the American middle-class are not in any way related to what the tax-rate is for wealthy Americans.

Call me crazy, but I think honesty in times of crisis is an important trait for the leader of the free-world to have. What we have now is something far different. But he still has the bully pulpit. One has to hope that he is as ineffective in using it to sway public opinion in this case as he was when attempting to sell health care reform.

All politicians play loose with the truth. But not to the extent that this one has in such a relatively short period of time.

- Dan Joseph

The Bachmann Trap

2011-07-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama is imminently beatable. There’s no question about it. His supporters who claim differently are doing so in an attempt to convince themselves of the president’s invincibility. Not the public at large.

The 2012 election will, almost certainly, play out as presidential elections always do when a sitting president is running for a second term. It will be a referendum on the incumbent. If the economy is weak, voters will be much less likely to give the incumbent an automatic renewal. They will look at the republican alternative and if that alternative is acceptable, many voters and particularly Independents will swing towards the challenger and put him or her in the White House.

Actually, scratch that. Not “her.” No female will be moving into the White House in 2013. The failure of some party members to understand this simple truth is generating big problems for Republicans at the moment.

Tea-Party conservatives are flocking to Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. Bachmann is intelligent, attractive and a rock solid conservative.

She is also gaffe prone, a favorite target for media ridicule and running 14-points behind Barack Obama in her home state.

But Bachmann supporters don’t want to hear it. While they admit that the media is attempting (successfully) to make her seem mentally unstable and radically right wing, Bachmann fans counter that the GOP should not allow the left-wing media to dictate who we choose as our candidate. They also claim that the reason that the media is attempting to demonize Bachmann is because they fear that she would beat Obama. They also theorize that the primary reason that so many “establishment” Republicans dislike her is because she is too conservative.

While, it is unfortunate that the media should have the power to devastatingly vilify politicians who don’t deserve it, the awful truth is that they do have such power. We don’t have to like it, but denying that character assassination actually has an impact on how voters see candidates is akin to believing that a morbidly obese woman could win a bikini contest because she has a wonderful personality.

Because of who Bachmann is, even her slightest most insignificant mistake will be magnified and be given legs in the media. Fair or not, the steady drip of tiny gaffes--some of which would be ignored if uttered by other politicians--will bury Bachman quicker than you can say “John Quincy Adams.”

Sadly, Bachmann is damaged goods. Worse still she plays into the character that the media has painted of her due to a host of inopportune statements and a manner that some find grating. For Republicans to take a pass on Bachmann for these reasons is not allowing the MSM to pick our candidate. It’s understanding the reality that she’s already been rendered unelectable.

In the long run, the Left may live to regret how quickly they set their sights on Rep. Bachmann. Had they gone easier on her when she first appeared on the scene they would have minimized the risk of the conservative movement coming to its senses and realizing how weak of a general election candidate she would be--a message that Democrats got just in time to avoid a disastrous Howard Dean candidacy in 2004.

While no polls are available on the subject, talk to liberal Democrats around the country and their eyes light up when presented with the prospect of a Bachmann nomination. Whether they are right or wrong, Democratic insiders and grassroots liberals alike truly believe that Bachman—in the absence of Sarah Palin-- would be among the easiest GOP candidates to beat. I’m guessing that they’re right.

When presented with this particular argument Bachman supporters make a legitimate point, but for the wrong reasons.

The Tea Party would have us remember that the conventional wisdom was that Ronald Reagan had no chance against Jimmy Carter in 1980--wisdom that proved to be wildly inaccurate.

But, at the time, the reasoning behind the conventional wisdom was that America would not elect someone as conservative as Reagan--thinking that was based on the success of moderate conservatives like Eisenhower and Nixon and the massive defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964.

But, Reagan proved that a true conservative could indeed win and today Republicans almost unanimously believe that another trueconservative could duplicate Reagan’s feat. The objections to Bachmann among conservatives arise not because of her staunch conservatism, but because of all of her other qualities.

Some conservatives--most notably Rush Limbaugh--would have us believe that left-wing media types are so terrified of certain candidates--like Bachmann and Sarah Palin-- that they attempt to destroy them so that Obama can avoid having to face them in a general election. Additionally, Limbaugh thinks that the MSM talks up candidates that they think are the most beatable--guys like Romney, Huntsman and Mitch Daniels.

It’s quite a conspiracy theory. But in all likelihood, Rush is giving liberals in the media way too much credit. It’s far more likely that the folks over at MSNBC or the New York Times simply can’t help themselves when a hated target like Bachmann trips up--the same way that conservatives can’t resist going on the attack anytime Al Gore or Barney Frank open their mouths. It’s like catnip for their audience and these media organizations need to satisfy their base, because it’s pretty much all they’ve got at this point.

In the end, Tea Partiers will hopefully come to understand that while they can change the national conversation and the ideological direction of the GOP, they cannot control the effectiveness and reach of the mainstream media. Nor can they control much of the narrative that gets fed to independent voters who, unfortunately, are not listening to conservative talk radio or tuning into the Fox News Channel in the numbers conservatives would like.

In the end, the best candidate for the GOP is the most conservative candidate who can win the general election. It would be imprudent to nominate a candidate who would cause a huge internal fight between the various segments of the party base at a time when the White House is in reach--particularly if that fight is centered on a candidate’s ability to get elected. A party can withstand an internal ideological battle, but the resentment that would be aimed at the Tea Party if it insists on Bachmann and she proceeds to get trounced would be seismic. If, despite warnings about her electability from party leaders, the base stubbornly goes with Bachman and we lose big, the Tea Party will be blamed and its credibility will evaporate. This would be one of the worst things that could possibly happen if we truly want the conservative ascendancy to continue and prevail.

The message of the Tea Party is vitally important to the future of the conservative movement and to the nation as a whole. Unfortunately, many of the candidates that the Tea party has chosen as messengers have proven incapable of generating mainstream appeal--the kind of appeal that those individuals who have been elected to the White House over the last 50 years have enjoyed. A divisive, three-term congresswoman who has had a huge target on her back for the last two-years is a very unsafe bet.

- Dan Joseph

Young Voters Sticking with Obama

2011-03-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

Bad news. It appears that young voters are sticking with Barack Obama.

Despite the mass exodus of independent voters supporting the President in the two years since his inauguration he has not lost much support from voters between the ages of 18 and 34 over that period.

A recent Quinnipiac poll shows that 57% of voters between the ages of 18-34 currently approve of the president’s job performance. That number has not fluctuated much over the last two years. The same poll shows Obama’s approval among all voters at 46% and his approval among self-described Independents at a dismal 43%. Those numbers have declined significantly since the president took office.

While Obama’s approval rating among younger voters is a bit lower than the 66% of this demographic that voted for him in the 2008 election, the difference is almost insignificant. In a presidential election, voters don’t necessarily have to “approve” of an incumbent president’s job performance in order to support him over his rival.

Even so, at first glance, these latest statistics don’t make a lick of sense. When you examine our country’s current economic situation, young people should be more upset than anyone else about the consequences of the Obama agenda.

The youth unemployment rate remains much higher than the national average. The Democrats’ recent spending binge promises to saddle Generation Y with heaps of new debt and the outlook for the future solvency of Social Security and Medicare looks grim, with the president showing no interest whatsoever in tackling the entitlement behemoth.

So what the hell is going on here?

Are young people such huge supporters of cowboy poetry festivals and stimulus-funded turtle tunnels that they are simply willing to overlook the long-term negative impact of Barack Obama’s harmful economic policies and their disproportionately negative impact on their own demographic?

Not exactly.

The issues have a little bit to do with it. Young people tend to gravitate towards easy to understand issues that have a big emotional component. So Obama’s support for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and his appointment of two, pro-choice women on the Supreme Court have helped.

But in reality Obama’s popularity with young people remains largely intact, not because young people agree with the president on specific issues, but because they are not sufficiently engaged to know that they disagree with him.

The election of 2008 undoubtedly energized young people in an unprecedented way and Obama was the beneficiary of almost all of that energy. It was a season of “American” Idol where the future of the country was at stake and Obama was the star.

Presidential elections are exciting and dramatic. They are filled with larger-than-life characters and come with the prize of leading the greatest nation on Earth (or as liberals call it “America.”). They spark an emotional reaction in the voter that a midterm or local election simply cannot evoke. They are special, occurring only two or three times each decade. Yes, presidential elections are sexy. Policy is not.

The election’s crescendo came when California was called for Obama and thousands of young voters gathered to celebrate in Grant Park. They filled the streets, cheering for the hope and change that they had helped create by working for Obama and endlessly promoting him on Facebook and My Space.

But, once the election was over and sanitation workers were done picking up the heaps of garbage that Obama’s revelers left on the National Mall after the inauguration, most of the young voters who had been so pumped up for the better part of 2008 decided to take a nap.

It was like, ‘Hey! Great party, Barack! See you in four years!’

This disconnect was most evident during the national debate over health care reform. Here we had Obama putting on a full court press in an effort to sell his signature program--the centerpiece of his domestic agenda! But the hordes of young voters who once swooned at the sound of Obama’s majestic oratory and chanted “Yes, We Can” in unison were nowhere to be found. Despite the growing opposition to the bill being expressed at town hall meetings around the nation and the growing Tea-Party movement, Organizing for America was unable to reassemble the masses of young activists who had once constituted Obama’s most loyal apologists.

Instead, the Administration was forced to rely on the same big labor elements and lifelong members of the Democratic Party base that they had used to do the leg work for liberal causes for the past 40 years. As we have seen recently, union members are not necessarily the best spokespeople for complex laws as they tend to yell a lot and get arrested frequently.

When it came to the campaign to sell a massive and difficult-to-understand piece of transformative legislation, Obama's throngs of young supporters were nowhere to be found. Not anywhere near as engaged as when the focus was a simplistic message of “hope and change” emanating from the first African- American with a legitimate chance to win the presidency.

Generation Y’s failure to become actively involved in the health care debate may seem like a positive development on the surface as it could be a sign of Obama losing the support of a dedicated part of his base. But given his approval rating among this group, it is dangerous for conservatives to assume that young voters will not be back in force to support Obama’s coming re-election bid.

The health care debate showed us that Obama’s young foot soldiers are almost entirely disengaged. That’s very dangerous, because if they’re only paying attention during presidential election years, they are not aware of all of the damaging policies that Obama is pushing on the nation. As a result, they will see no reason not to defend their 2008 investment and vote for Obama once again in 2012. Lacking a frame of reference, they will hear the charismatic president tout the realized “change” that he promised four years earlier and not give a thought as to whether that “change” has been positive or not.

For all of his faults, Obama is still a cool character with a ton of charisma. A rockstar, if you will. That’s a very powerful influence on the voter who knows little to nothing about the issues being debated.

And what do Republicans have to offer in response? It’s unclear at this point, but looking at the current slate of prospective candidates there’s no one who can come even close to matching Obama in terms of a style that will intrigue young people.

Gingrich? No way.

Mitch Daniels? Boooooring!

Tim Pawlenty? He’s got all the personality of a piece of toast. And not an interesting kind of toast like rye or pumpernickel. Plain white dry toast.

Romney’s ok, but I don’t think he’s going to get through a GOP primary, carrying the albatross of his Massachusettes health care debacle.

Herman Cain? Who? The pizza guy? You’re dreaming!

The only individual I can think of who would be able to appeal to the young the way Obama has is Senator Marco Rubio and it’s more likely that he will be on the bottom of the GOP ticket than the top.

In 2008 Obama won young voters by a whopping 33% over the elderly John McCain and a running mate who turned off younger voters almost as much as Obama turned them on.
Had McCain and Obama simply split the youth vote 50%-50%, Obama would have only won the popular vote by one-half of one percent putting the Electoral College up for grabs.

It is incredibly unlikely that the GOP candidate will come close to splitting the youth vote with Obama this time around, but with the right candidate and the right message, we may be able to improve on the dismal performance of four years ago.

In the meantime, it’s up to you to get out there and update the young, currently disengaged, Obama voter on what has been going on in Washington for the past two years and why they should “change” once again in 2012.

At this point, it’s not electorally essential that we chip away at Obama’s support among these voters. We can win without them. But in the long run it would seriously behoove us to begin taking appeal to young voters into consideration when we are choosing our standard bearers. If we don’t, we risk permanently ceding a generation of voters to the Democratic Party.

Dan Joseph is a writer for CNS News and the author of Generation Right: The Young Conservative in the Age of Obama. He lives in McLean, Virginia with his cat, Rocky.

Politics or Patriotism? Obama’s Big Entitlement Choice

2011-03-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

Harry Reid is no patriot. I say that as one who almost always gives politicians on both sides of the ideological spectrum the benefit of the doubt. Even if I vehemently disagree with them, I assume that they ran for office and serve primarily out of love of country and a desire to make the nation a better place.

Not Reid.

Over the last few years Reid has shown himself to be a purely political animal. First came his 2007 comments proclaiming that the war in Iraq was “lost.” His seeming disregard for how this defeatist rhetoric coming from the leader of the U.S. Senate would affect the morale of troops who were in harm’s way in Iraq was shocking and morally repugnant.

Now Reid has emerged as the titular leader of the “do-nothing” caucus when it comes to Social Security reform. His strategy is two-fold. First, he and his associates hope to convince Americans that there is no threat to the future solvency of Social Security. Second, they seek to convince Americans that any action taken to change Social Security will result in complete destruction of the program immediately upon implementation and would put current retirees at risk.

Only someone blinded by partisanship could actually believe that there is no danger to the long-term solvency of Social Security and Medicare. All of the discussion of the debt and the risks it poses to America’s fiscal future is entirely meaningless unless both parties agree to tackle entitlement reform.

So the G.O.P. is going to try in their upcoming 2012 budget. But they will not be getting any help from Reid and the politically desperate congressional Democrats. It would appear that the only hope of achieving needed reforms is for the president to get on board and shame enough Congressional Democrats into supporting some kind of plan.

Because they are very familiar with the Democrat’s long history of successful demagoguery of the entitlement issue, Republicans are being understandably cautious. So, in an unprecedented show of pre-emptive bipartisanship, the Republican leadership has promised not to politicize entitlement reform for political gain if the President comes forward and is the first to propose a template for changes that would lead to long-term solvency.

There should be little fear of Republicans stabbing the President in the back if he does decide to put something on the table. The conservative base is demanding entitlement reform and has made it very clear that if Boehner and Company don’t take reduction of the debt seriously enough, the Tea-Party will simply stay home in 2012, regardless of the political repercussions. So the entitlement reform ball is now squarely in Barack Obama’s court.

With all eyes on his actions, President Obama, will soon be forced to make a decision that could come to define his presidency. He can either take the traditional Democratic route and shamelessly politicize any Republican efforts to make even minimal changes to Social Security and Medicare. Or, he can throw Reid under the bus and become the President who finally did something about the most serious threat to the nation’s fiscal future.

There is no doubt something very tempting about going with the less patriotic, purely political option. It has a history of paying off.

In 1995 President Clinton successfully vilified very modest cuts to the growth of entitlement spending proposed by Newt Gingrich. He turned the American people against the G.O.P. with dire warnings that Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress would "destroy Medicare" letting the program "wither on the vine." Playing on this fear, Clinton revived his ailing political fortunes and coasted to an easy re-election in 1996.

Coming off a close re-election victory in 2004, President George W. Bush proposed a similarly modest plan to allow younger workers the option of investing a fraction of their Social Security taxes into private accounts. Those classy guys over at the DNC responded to this proposal by creating a cartoon that had the president pushing an old lady off a cliff. Nice. They exhibited no signs of conscience and immediately began making false claims that the plan would rip Social Security benefits away from current retirees, when in fact, the impact of the Bush plan would not have affected any American under the age of 55. The Democrats’ efforts helped sink Bush’s approval ratings into the 30’s and boosted the Democrats chances of taking back the House, which they did in 2006.

Call me crazy, but I don’t believe that Obama is Harry Reid or Bill Clinton. Despite the myriad falsehoods that came out of the Administration during the health care reform debate, I think Obama genuinely cares about the well-being of the nation--even though his ideas for achieving it are usually counterproductive to the goal--and he must understand that no other issue will affect that long-term well-being like the out of control growth of entitlements in the wake of the mass retirement of the Baby Boom generation.

Despite the results of the 2012 election, the president is in danger of leaving behind a relatively empty legacy. The legal viability of Obamacare is in doubt. A big “green jobs” program and “card check” are DOA in Congress and it is highly unlikely that the GOP will lose control of the House within the next two election cycles. Repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” will soon be forgotten by all but a tiny wing of Obama’s base and on foreign policy matters, the president has largely continued the once controversial tenets of his predecessor.

But if Obama acts in good faith and works with the GOP on this most pressing of matters, not only will he receive most of the credit --one of the perks of being the Chief Executive (see Bill Clinton and welfare reform)--but he has a chance of turning his legacy into one that includes a huge bipartisan legislative achievement. Even his fiercest conservative critics would have to grudgingly admit that this would be a positive mark on the record of an ideological opponent.

So the choice for Obama is clear: shameless politicization and an easier path to re-election. Or, bipartisanship--a step towards a promised tone-change that has never materialized--and movement towards a solution to the entitlement problem. A problem that threatens to cripple our economy under a mountain of permanent, unmanageable debt and will destroy the dream of Social Security and Medicare for my generation and every generation that succeeds it.

The choice is his.

We are about to see what kind of president and what kind of man Barack Obama really is.

It is to be hoped that he won’t follow the cynical and dangerous path that Harry Reid has chosen to tread. If he does, then the last chance to win the entitlement war may very well be lost.

- Dan Joseph

Kristi Keck and CNN Keep the Liberal Spin Alive

2011-01-11T07:05:00.001-08:00

Even after being thoroughly embarrassed with their debunked insistence that the Tea-Party was somehow complicit in the death of a 9-year old girl and the shooting of a sitting Congresswoman, the MSM continues to imply--with no supporting evidence--that it was our nation's "overheated rhetoric" that was responsible for the massacre.

Make no mistake. References to "rhetoric" of any kind in regard to this incident is code to suggest that conservative voices pose some type of personal danger to the political class.

In reality the "rhetoric" to which they refer has zero recognizable connection to violence of any kind. It was a fallback.

Once the Leftists in the media realized that the shooter wasn't a Muslim, they had high hopes that the culprit would be a small-government crazy of some kind. When his politics turned out to be impossible to attribute to any commonly held American ideological bent they shifted to feigned concern over the nation's political tone--something that the Left almost magically found religion on after nearly a decade of vitriolic displays during the Bush years.

Willingly the media obliged the spin and now, for some reason, our “heightened” political rhetoric has come under the microscope.

It's a clever straw man worthy of a Barack Obama speech.

There is no evidence that our national political tone or partisan media talking points influenced Jared Loughner in any way whatsoever. But after their electoral rejection and the passing of the gavel, it seemed that in its desire to become relevant again, the Left jumped the gun and the shooter.

This is quite possibly the single worst instance of Left-wing media Bias in modern history. If the nation has been paying attention since the tragic shooting occurred, the exodus away from MSNBC, the New York times and CNN should accelerate.

The smart thing for all news organizations, leftist columnists and Democratic Sheriffs to do right now would be to change the subject and try and avoid damaging your credibility any further. Might I recommend the healthcare reform bill as a topic.

-Dan Joseph

Five Years

2010-12-13T08:20:00.000-08:00

Today Falling Panda celebrates 5 years since our first post. I have not always updated as consistently as I should. Sometimes my political predictions have been way off. But I'm proud of my work here and want to thank every visitor and commenter who has participated in these debates over the last half-decade.
-Dan

Chillax America!

2010-11-18T08:25:00.000-08:00

I have to be honest. I never imagined that the new screening procedures at U.S. airports would cause such enormous controversy. I really don’t see the problem with TSA screeners being able to see the silhouette of “my junk” when I’m walking through a security checkpoint. I’m not worried that my scan is going to end up on the internet and even if it did, with all of the non-airport related porn availiable online these days,why would anyone care? It would seem that our country’s qualms about nudity, stemming from its puritanical roots, are still deeply engrained. For all of the differences with the Islamic world that we tout as making us culturally advanced, we still get stuck on the humility thing.

Of course this controversy wouldn’t be necessary at all if not for the American Left’s infantile insistence that an 80 year old nun carrying a bottle of Gatorade is just as likely to blow up an airplane as a 25 year old Middle Eastern looking male speaking Arabic. We all know the Left doesn’t actually buy into the idea that profiling wouldn’t work, but adopting the policy would go against the Left’s longstanding goal of preserving equality, which, for them, consists of striving to make everyone in the country equally miserable.

The typical leftist response to calls for racial and ethnic profiling is to say that if we start singling out individuals who we know are most likely to have terrorist tendencies, then Al Qaeda will start recruiting elderly Jewish women, or other unlikely candidates, to carry out their underwear bombings. Of course, this Jihadist strategy hasn’t developed in Israel, where El Al airlines remains the safest in the world thanks largely to profiling. But no! According to liberals, it is a national security imperative that toddlers of Norwegian descent undergo an invasive series of “love pats” to make sure that they’re not carrying c-4 in their diaper.

In the wake of the videos of crying 3-year old girls, x-rated jokes, skyrocketing latex glove sales and C.A.I.R’s efforts to try and secure a waiver from the new screening procedures--which, if achieved would pretty much render the entire exercise pointless--the federal government’s incompetence in this whole matter has gone largely unnoticed.

Americans who pay attention have known for a while that these new scanners were on the way. The media--particularly Drudge--has been talking about them for two years. Yet, the administration and the TSA made no visible effort to raise awareness about what the American people could expect once the new procedures were implemented. As a result, this whole thing is blowing up two weeks before the busiest travel day of the year and will undoubtedly cause plenty of airport chaos before the holiday season is over. Great timing! We would have all been better off had Americans been given a few months over the summer to come to terms with the idea of being seen naked by a TSA screener and the possibility of being groped by a government employee. This entire debate would have had time to play itself out and then………ELECTION!!!!..............Oh. Right. Never mind.

Your government at work ladies and gentlemen. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Just make sure you bring something to read for the security line and eat something before you go. Unlike most dates, the TSA guy isn’t going to buy you dinner before he gets down to business.

- Dan Joseph

STEVEN WEBER MAD!!! STEVEN WEBER SMASH!!!!

2010-11-08T16:48:00.000-08:00

Huffington Post provides a service. It allows actors and comedians--regardless of intellectually capacity or political knowledge--to vent on the issues of the day. HuffPo provides these celebrities with a big platform on the most popular left-leaning “news” site on the internet.

One of the sites regular contributors is former "Wings" star Steven Weber.

A particularly angry leftist, Weber was clearly upset by the Republican's smashing victory at the polls last Tuesday. Fortunately, HuffPo was there to let him blow off some steam. And blow he did. With a 444-word screed that would have conveyed just as much in two sentences.

"Conservatives are evil. They are also stupid."

That's basically what he said but, in typical leftist fashion, it took him forever to say it. Like a speech by Jesse Jackson, Weber's posts are filled to the brim with impressive vocabulary. But his clever wordplay never masks the fact that his writing is completely void of meaningful or original content.

His discombobulated thoughts are messily dumped on the page amounting to nothing more than an exercise in name-calling. There is no thesis. No organization. And yet Ariana Huffington has decided to give Weber a weekly column from which to rant wildly. One has to assume that he qualified for this valuable piece of Internet real-estate solely because of his life as semi-famous actor, because he’s certainly not a writer.

In his "article" Weber makes the following keen observations about conservatives and Republicans:

We are "twisting the truth."

We "Tread over the confused, abused, unknowing masses."

Our candidates are "trolls and drones."

We're "moronic," "frothing," "dirty" and "mean."

Our "scorched-earth approach to all things is like a nightmare!"

All this while the "Moderate Middle and its liberal allies" waste time with its "adherence to the rules of play in the face of an opposition which has dispensed with boundaries and absolutely, fundamentally loathes rules."

Weber has penned dozens of these rants. They are each the same. Take a news item. Mention it at the beginning of your piece then spend the next 400 words telling readers that conservatives are awful, dangerous, knuckle-draggers with a tendency towards "teabagging."

All the while "truth and decency have a liberal bias."

I don't want to give Weber too much attention. He's representative of the political discourse problems we've been having in this country since the Bush years drove the Left to the brink of setting themselves on fire in front of the White House like a bunch of depressed monks.

Arianna Huffington is really to blame here. Clearly she'll give just about anyone on the Left their own Huffington blog, while providing little to no editorial oversight. While she has hundreds of pseudo-political commentators blogging under her banner, quantity certainly trumps quality in most instances.

Keep in mind that Huff Po is the first place that a significant portion of the Left goes for their news every morning. I think we can all agree that reading a Steven Weber column and assuming that your mind is expanding in any way is insane.

And yet, it's Huffington herself who co-opted John Stewart’s rally in an attempt to secure the mantle of “sanity” for those on the left. Like Huffington, Weber has deluded himself into believing that the far-left is more ideologically in synch with the “moderate middle” than are conservatives despite the fact that conservatives just spent the last two years successfully reminding Independent voters of why they’ve always hated the progressive agenda.

A lot of decent journalism ends up on HuffPo’s homepage. But wasting quality bandwidth on Weber makes it difficult to take the site seriously. Ditto for celebrities like Russell Simmons, Alec Baldwin, John Cusack and of course, Hugo Chavez pal Sean Penn. But it was these very celebrities and their crazed rants against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney that made the site the powerhouse that it is today. Just goes to show you how powerful, uninformed celebrity anger can be when building a leftist coalition. Just make sure you cut them loose once you get the power you’ve been trying to achieve. For a good example of how to do this, see Barack Obama.

But please Arianna, for the sake of your less sophisticated readers. Don’t present celebrities like Weber as having any sort of above average insight into the American political scene. It doesn’t benefit anyone. Well, except Steven Weber, of course.

James Carville's Epic FAIL!

2010-11-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

"Today, a Democratic majority is emerging, and it's my hypothesis, one I share with a great many others, that this majority will guarantee the Democrats remain in power for the next forty years."

10 Insane Signs I Saw At the Rally To Restore Sanity

2010-11-01T07:25:00.000-07:00

Let's get something straight right off the bat. This was a LIBERAL rally. Jon Stewart may have promoted it as and intended for it to be a "non-partisan" event aimed at mocking hyperbolic ideologues on both sides, but that's not how it turned out.

The event was totally co-opted by the Left, whose interest groups took advantage of the "moderate" label that both Stewart and many in the MSM bestowed upon the rally before it even took place.

The hard leftist slant of the rally was on full display in the signs that rally attendees were carrying. Many of the signs were bipartisan attempts at humor that succeeded more often than not. However, at least half of the signs specifically targeted conservatives. Some in an angry, classless fashion that Stewart himself would probably have condemned.

Here is a sample of some of the more offensive and ridiculous signage that I saw on Saturday.

1.Republicans as Hitler

Jon Stewart specifically said that the rally was intended to mock the people who use rallies as opportunities to portray those that they disagree with as the Fuhrer--and Rightfully so. Ideologues on both sides have been waving signs that show George W. Bush and Barack Obama with Hitler mustaches for years--and it's incredibly stupid. One of most popular catchphrases of the entire "restoring sanity" movement was "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler." But, sure enough there they were. People carrying large signs showing members of the Republican leadership with scary Hitler 'staches. Of course, the intention of these signs could have been to compare these G.O.P. favorites to Charlie Chaplin, but I seriously doubt it.

2. Glenn Beck is a Rapist

Say what you will about Glenn Beck. Seriously! Say anything you want! That was a big theme on Saturday. You couldn't walk five feet without seeing a sign viciously attacking the controversial Tea Party leader who had managed to bring hundreds of thousands of people to the mall a month earlier for what was an actual non-partisan rally to "restore honor." But little did I know that all of Beck’s talk about faith and charity is really a cover for the fact that he is a rapist who kills people. One rally attendee was anxious to bring attention to this fact. Another was apparently one of Beck's victims of who was graciously spared after being violated by the Fox News personality.

3. That Being Said.....
The fact that Glenn Beck's genitalia is apparently miniscule must make raping people more difficult. Maybe the reason he murdered that poor woman was because she laughed at his junk. Either way, this sign really classed up the joint. Katie Manos must be really proud that her friend is so politically sophisticated.

4.“Truthers”

Any time large groups of leftists converge on a location you can pretty much guarantee that the despicable 9/11 truth movement will be represented in some capacity. These morons are still pushing the idea that the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks, ordering the deaths of 3,000 of their fellow Americans in order to raise flag sales or something like that. Again, Stewart pointedly mocked “truthers” in the lead up to the rally, singling them out as examples of what's wrong with America's political discourse. Apparently the “truthers” didn't get the message--probably due to the fact that most of them probably can't figure out how to work the remote for their TV set.

5.Tea-Bagger References

Nothing raises the level of political discourse like implying that your political opponents like to put their scrotums in people's mouths. Pretty much everyone on the Left from bloggers to the president himself has been referring to Tea Partiers by using this sexually explicit moniker since the movement's inception. Thus proving that a significant portion of liberal America's brains never developed passed the level of a 13 year-old boy.

6. Sad Elephant Poop
This one confused me. Is this guy's sign implying that the Republicans--represented by the elephant--are going to eat the American people and then excrete their heads? I mean, of course that would put a frown on anyone's face assuming that you lived through the process of being eaten and digested by either a Republican or a pacaderm.

I think it's more likely that the guy was trying to say that the Republicans do things that are equivalent to an elephant pooping on the heads of the American people and sometimes they also steal thier bodies. But if that's what he was trying to get across, he should’ve made the poop bigger and more poop like.

7. Legalize it Dude!

One of the most popular pet causes of the rally attendees was the California ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. Signs like these were everywhere. But, based on the smell wafting from the crowd and the fact that there were hardly any cops nearby, it seems pretty obvious that the proposition itself is totally unnecessary.

8. Corporate America is bad but it also provided me with the opportunity to show everyone how much I hate it.
I've seen this sign before. It's quite popular with the segment of the Left that believes that big corporations control every aspect of our lives.

Of course, no one would have seen this guy's sign at all had Viacom--the corporation that owns Comedy Central--not thrown down the money to hold the rally in the first place.

Had it not been for a big, evil corporation this guy would be sitting out on the street corner waving his sign all by himself as passersby looked upon him with sympathy in the knowledge that the only people who go wave signs by themselves on street corners are mentally ill.

This guy should really write Viacom a thank you letter for making him look less crazy.

Liberals are Smart!

9. Signs With Too Many Words

Ok look. I have things to do. There are a lot of signs to see at this rally. I don't have time to stop dead in my tracks and risk being trampled by hordes of people so I can read your sign that is roughly the length of a master's thesis.

You're not that clever. Pick a few words that rhyme like the very popular "Sanity Not Hannity" sign that I saw roughly 1000 times and move along.

10. Obama is the Sane One

This was a "Rally to Restore Sanity." The Tea Party was clearly the target, so if the Tea Party is "insane" and the Tea Party is made up of conservatives then it only stands to reason that the opposite of the Tea Party is the epitome of "sanity." Who is the Tea Party movement against? President Obama, of course. His liberalism is "sanity." Like Stewart himself--many of the rally attendees were clearly to the left of Obama. So to these Castro style progressives Obama looks like a moderate. In essence, this was exactly what the Left hoped to accomplish by making Stewart's rally their own.

That's why Ariana Huffington bussed people in by the thousands. That's why Oprah and Obama both endorsed this thing. They were trying to make themselves look like the moderates when in fact they are to the left of most people in this country. It was clever. But no matter how much the MSM fawns over Stewart's rally and labels it as a gathering of “reasonable” Americans politely asking "Can't we all just get along?" with one loud voice, the truth is that most of the people who showed up at this thing despise conservatives and everything they stand for.

But not to worry. In the eyes of a majority of Americans the real "Rally to Restore Sanity" is happening tomorrow.

Honorable Mentions
I have no idea what this sign means. I’m sure it made perfect sense to the guy holding it though.

What is Vampire Palin holding in her left hand? Is that meat? Why is Palin holding meat?

Pictures From the Rally to Restore "Sanity" A.K.A. Rally to Mock Conservatives

2010-10-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here's the companion piece to this post. The 10 Insane Signs I saw at the Rally to Restore Sanity. Uh? Didn't Stewart specifically say not to do the Hitler thing? Liberals are NOT good listeners.

Who said they were?

What does she mean "our surplus?" Is she a member of Congress?

Thanks for the visual lady!

Wow! Blaming Bush and playing the racce card on one t-shirt! I'm impressed!

Of course, the first thing I associate with the word "sanity" are the ladies of Code Pink.

I have no idea what this sign means.

It wouldn't be a leftist rally without a Socialist table.

This opportunity to bash corporate America has been brought to you by Comedy Central.

Legalization of pot was a very popular pet casue at the rally. I guess O'reilly was right about the whole "stoned slackers" thing. In fact, I know he was right. I could smell it!

Video of me interviewing attendees coming next week!

Wyclef Lets Good Message Get Lost in Partisan Drivel

2010-10-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

Encouraging people to vote is a good thing. So is helping people in devastated third world nations like Haiti and Rwanda. Rapper as former Haitian presidential candidate Wyclef John wants to deliver this universal message to people and CNN.com happily obliges by allowing him to write a featured column on their site.

The message begins innocently enough, with Wyclef touting his activist bonafides.

“I was born in Haiti, but I am a citizen of the world. When I was with the Fugees, we played a concert to benefit Tibet to help Tibetans fight, and we stepped up to give voice to those being slaughtered in Rwanda. When the Twin Towers went down on 9/11, I played in the benefit show. It feels natural to me to take a stand on issues that are important to all citizens of this great world.”

Wow! What a guy! A rags to riches story of a man who became successful and uses his popularity to give something back to the world. I dig that. Ok. You have my attention. Keep going.

“Americans have much to be thankful for, and yes, even at times of divisiveness between Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, us and them, it is worth remembering this country's many blessings. Especially at such a time when it can feel like evil and "actin' stupid" is politics as usual.”

I think that’s a message that people on both sides of the political spectrum can relate to. Yes, we all get a bit upset with our politicians sometimes, but in reality, we have it pretty darn good in this country. Especially compared to a place like Haiti. So far this message is really resonating with me!

“We may disagree in our interpretations of the Constitution and in our choice of political affiliation, but we must acknowledge the deep, solid bedrock upon which this nation is founded. It was that sense of togetherness in spite of our differences that I had in mind.”

"The unusually high number of close congressional races means that countless citizens across the country will have the chance to be heard”

Right on Wyclef! Right or Left. Republican or Democrat. What’s important is that we all participate in order to keep our vibrant democracy working the way our founders intended! So true!

Now wrap it up with an inspiring call for voters to put aside their partisan differences and help Haiti recover from the devastation and disease that the earthquake has wrought on your native land!

“In his two years in office, with people forgetting that he succeeded a failed administration, President Obama has overseen the start of a healing process that includes health care reform and the economic stimulus package. That package prevented the United States from sinking into a full-fledged depression.”

“I never believed Obama could make a change in two years or four years; I've always thought he needed eight years to even make a dent in fixing this nation's problems.”

FAIL!

You had to go and get partisan didn’t you Wyclef? You’re call to unity was going so well. Then you had to ruin it by putting down George W. Bush, showing your support for a deeply unpopular health care plan and calling for the re-election of an incredibly divisive president!

Nice!

Wyclef clearly needs to learn a thing or two about messaging. When you’re trying to spread a unifying message and encouraging everyone to get behind it, you don’t interject partisan politics into that message. All that does is alienate people who would otherwise support your cause.

But perhaps he learned from the master himself.

Barack Obama also campaigned on a message that had widespread appeal. His message of an end to the politics of Red vs. Blue and his calls for national unity during difficult times really resonated with the American public. He could have done great things for the nation that would have had widespread support across party lines. Through his rhetoric he actually convinced thousands of Americans that he was a moderate.

Of course, once he got into office he started forcing a leftist agenda down the throats of the American people and quickly squandered any bi-partisan goodwill he may have accumulated during the campaign.

But partisanship is an unavoidable part of presidential politics.

Wyclef had an opportunity to promote a good cause that all Americans, regardless of party affiliation could support. Instead, he unnecessarily made his partisan leanings known and assuredly alienated a lot of folks who were reading his article--including this one.

But some people just can’t help it.

It kind of makes me wish that Wyclef’s campaign for the presidency of Haiti had been more successful. Even if he hadn’t won, at least his campaign would have assured that he would be Gone‘Till November and we wouldn’t have had to listen to his shallow electoral commentary.

Sorry about that last joke. I had to do it. I'm sure you understand.

-Dan Joseph

Shameless Fearmongering By Move On & Olivia Wilde

2010-10-26T06:45:00.001-07:00

Good news conservatives! The invasion of Norway is back on schedule! All we need to do is win the election this Tues day then we can start laying the foundation for the Palin Presidency and the corporate takeover of every aspect of our lives that we’ve been trying to achieve for generations!

At least that’s what MoveOn.org wants apathetic liberals to believe.

It what may be it’s most laughable and grossly exaggerated effort since the infamous “General Betrayus” ad, MoveOn.org has put together a video ad aimed at awaking young voters from their apathetic slumber and out to the polls to support Democrats next week.

The video stars the fetching Olivia Wilde as some kind of rebel leader who contacts us from the future in order to warn us all that American society will crumble unless liberals keep their hold on power in 2010.

It’s kind of like The Terminator, only instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger warning us about shape shifting robots, “13” from House is warning us of Speaker John Boehner and an America where every aspect of our lives is controlled by evil corporations.

This video struck me as a particularly cynical for a couple of obvious reasons.

But most striking was the fact that in order to lead young voters to the video, MoveOn posted links that featured the headline “Pamela Anderson and The Situation to Wed.” This is apparently the kind of thing that MoveOn believes that young people are following online instead of paying attention to politics. Maybe they’re right. But, you know what? If you’re spending your time surfing the web for information about the stars of Jersey Shore and needed Olivia Wilde to remind you that there is an enormous election coming up next Tuesday, you should do America a favor and just stay home.

Seriously. If your diet of news and information consists of this tripe and you don’t have the slightest idea of what the issues are and what’s at stake in this mid-term, Don’t Vote! These people should not be encouraged. MoveOn just wants warm bodies to fill up the voting booths, because they know that uninformed warm bodies, especially young ones, are likely to vote for Democrats.

But this is a perfect illustration of how the Left views members of Generation Y. They see us as mindless pawns who will believe anything. They think that we can be tricked into voting for Democrats by baiting us with misleading links that lead to apocalyptic warnings of wars and a desolate American landscape where corporations own everyone and everything.

And why shouldn’t they? In 2008 they managed to convince 66% of generation Y to vote for their guy based on clever celebrity ads focusing on undefined promises of “hope.” The only thing that’s changed is that “hope” has been replaced with “fear.” But, they still think you’re a total sucker.

- Dan Joseph

PBS: America's Conservative Network

2010-10-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

Recently the Corporation for Public Broadcasting requested $495 Million from Congress for fiscal year 2014.

If the American people are going to be forced to pay for a television network with their tax dollars, don’t you think that the network should make an effort to remain politically neutral and air news stories and feature shows that address the interests of the average American viewer?

NO, STUPID!!! WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID? As we all know, Americans are dumb. That's why PBS is so neccessary! Americans need to have some of their hard earned money go to support TV programming that will educate them on things that they don’t care about, but should.

This programming will present them with fringe leftist ideas that they don’t agree with, but would if they were smarter. It will also overrepresent minorities and women because Americans are racist and sexist, and seeing more minorities on the glowing TV magic-box will make them like minorities more.

On PBS you will see programming about people in third world countries who don’t wear clothes and live in squalor, but who are still better than you because you’re a gluttonous American who saps these peace loving Third-Worlders of their resources. If you criticize PBS, then you must hate Big Bird and want him to die of Avian flu. By default, you also hate children.

Once every six years or so, PBS will use your tax dollars to air an eight-part documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns. This documentary will include heavy doses of ‘Burns own uber-liberal, revisionist view of American history. Among other topics, these documentaries will inform Americans that America’s “best idea” was not the concept of a democratic republic, freedom of speech, the airplane or the Internet, but is actually our national park system. Yep. America’s “best idea” was to put large portions of American real estate off limits so that we couldn’t screw it up. Because Americans suck!

Yes, PBS is the go-to network for enlightened liberals.

But recently, liberal groups have been complaining that PBS has become too much of a corporate shill and that its programming is not featuring nearly enough “environmentalists,” “peace advocates” and “stories on medical marijuana.”

Additionally, according to liberals, there are waaaaaaaaay too many white people and Republicans featured on the network these days with Democratic guests only outnumbering Republican guests by a slim 2-1 ratio on the flagship news show, PBS News Hour. Yes, PBS has moved too far to the right!

The group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (F.A.I.R), a liberal media watchdog, has released a study that found that America’s public broadcasting is increasingly funded by “corporate” (read: evil) interests. Additionally, F.A.I.R found that PBS features a disproportionate number of white and male (read: evil) journalists and guests.

F.A.I.R apparently wants to see fewer government and military officials, corporate representatives and respected journalists and more “activists” and far-left guests like alternative historian Howard Zinn and race baiter Cornel West.

The great irony of all of the moaning by Leftists is that, had it not been for an increase in corporate money and a new emphasis on television that people might actually want to watch, PBS might not exist at all.

PBS is a perfect case study in the superiority of the private sector over the government sector. PBS is a shining example of how elitist mindsets are fostered through government control and how these mindsets are consistently rejected by the American people. PBS is the ultimate liberal boondoggle, but it’s a boondoggle that liberals ferociously defend as a necessary supplement to American’s steady diet of mainstream media.

PBS hit the airwaves in 1967. It was created to provide an alternative to the programming on the three major networks, which at the time, had a monopoly on news and entertainment programming in the United States. PBS news programming has always been liberal, and many conservatives view it as being even further to the Left than the network news.

In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, with cable television having expanded to most of the nation, there was a shrinking market for PBS and the network’s ratings tanked. Cable based news networks and children’s shows on Nickelodeon were eating up PBS viewers by offering better and more diverse programming. With the advent of cable, there was no longer anything unique about PBS. Americans could now find dozens of similar programs on the hundreds of other channels that came with their cable package.

The government had control over PBS and as we all know, when the government controls an entity, it has no incentive to innovate or upgrade its product in order to compete with superior private sector offerings.

PBS was still getting government money, but the drop in viewership led to a decrease in public funding and donations from contributors or “viewers like you,” who were no longer “viewing” PBS programs. PBS affiliates began to lay off employees.

To remedy this, PBS turned to the private sector and began courting advertisers like Exxon/Mobil and McDonald’s to sponsor programming. Additionally, the network slowly began to improve its shows by producing more programs that would appeal to the people in flyover country instead of the aging hippies and college professors who had previously made up the network’s viewer base.

Now think about it. Exxon? McDonald’s? The lefties were not going to like this one bit.

So today we see groups like F.A.I.R calling for a return to the days when PBS had no audience but was still controlled by principled progressives who shunned money and that provided its several dozen viewers with a viewpoint that is only shared by a tiny fringe of our society--paid for, in large part, by you.

To top it off, in order to guide PBS back towards its far-left roots, F.A.I.R insists not enough minorities are featured on the network--a sure sign that change is needed. The whole situation plays like the same "Greatest Hits of Modern Liberalism" album that we've been hearing on 8-track since the 1970's.

The truth is that PBS is completely unnecessary these days. The government could cut off all funding tomorrow and the nation would be no worse off. The shows that were good would be picked up by commercial networks. The rest of the network’s employees would find nice jobs at a local university or stocking edamame at an organic supermarket. PBS would not be missed. Ken Burns could still make his documentaries and with the private sector funding him he might even be able to make enough money to get himself a grown up haircut.

But in the eyes of PBS backers, there is something far greater at stake than a TV network. PBS’s defenders don't simply view the network as a vehicle for liberal viewpoints. By protecting PBS they seek to prove the leftist philosophy that the federal government can and should provide Americans with, high quality consumer product that is better than a similar product that derives from the private sector.

But, as always the liberals who ultimately come to control the product, manage to screw it up with their extreme ideology. And we’re just talking about TV programs here!

I can’t wait for the Ken Burns documentary on Obamacare!

-Dan Joseph

O'Donnell A Gift For Struggling Democrats and Depressed Liberals.

2010-10-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

Former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards, once boasted that the only way that he could lose an election in Louisiana was if he were caught in bed with “a live boy or a dead girl.”

Two weeks away from Election Day, the same probably holds true for Delaware’s Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Chris Coons--and he’d probably still have a good chance under the “live boy” scenario.

His opponent, Republican Christine O’Donnell has gained little traction in the polls since her surprise primary victory against Rep. Mike Castle, and the NRSC has all but written off the race, quietly shifting resources to more competitive contests.

Everyone but the most die-hard O’Donnell supporters understands that, barring one of the greatest political comebacks in history or unless every Democrat in the state suddenly forgets that there’s an election, this race is over.

So why is the mainstream media treating Delaware as though it’s the most competitive and important senate race in the nation?

Last Wednesday CNN featured the Delaware candidates' debate on the network and brought out big gun Wolf Blitzer to moderate. CNN has not broadcast any other candidate debate during this election season. The point of the exercise was clearly to get O’Donnell to say something crazy or stupid. It was also quite obvious that moderators, Blitzer, Nancy Karibjanian of Delaware First Media and Coons himself were anxious to turn the conversation towards divisive social issues like abortion and evolution--two issues that Democrats can still successfully use to scare independent voters into supporting their candidates.

Saturday Night Live has done multiple sketches skewering O’Donnell featuring Kristin Wiig as the candidate. Last week, SNL led off with a joke about O'Donnell on the show’s Weekend Update segment. (It was followed by a much funnier and timelier joke about the Presidential Seal falling off of Barack Obama’s podium while he was speaking.)

Late night comedians generally feature at least one O’Donnell joke per monologue.

Hosts on left-leaning cable networks can’t seem to get enough of O’Donnell.

President Obama and Joe Biden visited Delaware last week to stump for Coons, a candidate who is up by double digits in every poll. He didn’t need the help.

The attention that this race has garnered from all sections of the liberal establishment shouldn’t surprise anyone. Decades old non-issue oriented O’Donnell quotes concerning masturbation and witchcraft are great late-night fodder. But the Obama administration and its media allies see something far more beneficial in the candidate’s weakness. As a result, they have sought to nationalize the Delaware Senate election.

Given the Democratic Party’s inability run on its legislative record, this Hail Mary makes perfect sense. It allows Democrats to ignore Tea Party candidates who are going to win on November 2 and focus on the one who almost certainly will not. By making O’Donnell the most visible member of the Tea Party movement, she comes to define it.

The obsessive focus by Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show and America’s late-night jesters is probably not an intentional ploy to help the Democrats, but it does so nonetheless, particularly among young voters, many of whom get a significant portion of their political news from comedy programming.

The truth is that when liberals-–and many conservatives as well-–first laid eyes on Christine O’Donnell, they saw a younger, less heavily armed version of Sarah Palin. No Republican energizes the Left more effectively than Palin and energy is the thing that the Democrats desperately need right now.

So Obama and Biden made their way to Delaware and nationalized a race that they know they are going to win. This visit, followed by a Chris Coons landslide will allow the President to claim that he wasn’t a drag on Democratic candidates during this election cycle. Left-leaning analysts on MSNBC and CNN will undoubtedly point to Chris Coons' victory as proof that the President is still popular enough to lift candidates to victory even as Democrats are dropping like flies across the rest of the nation.

O’Donnell has served the Democrats very well in recent weeks and by nominating her, the Tea Party gave Obama and the Democrats a powerful weapon to wield between now and Election Day--a weapon which the Administration’s media allies like Joe Klien have already begun to use to label all Tea Partiers as political ignoramuses who are just too dumb to understand that America can only function properly if it is run by career politicians and wonkish Ivy Leaguers. O’Donnell herself has helped them make their case. Her first ad began with the words “I’m not a witch” and this denial helped keep the joke alive and kicking for another two weeks. She failed to name a Supreme Court case that she disagreed with. This made comparisons with Palin seem even more legitimate.

But these missteps do not excuse the media’s double standard that has led them to focus heavily on O’Donnell while completely ignoring Democratic Senate candidates who have engaged in behavior far more bizarre and have just as little chance of victory as O’Donnell.

For example, South Carolina Democrats nominated Alvin Greene to run against Tea Party favorite Jim DeMint. Not only is Greene facing obscenity charges, but I have become convinced that he is…how do I put this delicately……slow. One wonders whether Greene could name the three branches of government if put on the spot or if he would even be able to name one Supreme Court justice, let alone a court case that he disagreed with.

Greene got a good deal of attention when he shocked the establishment by winning the South Carolina Democratic Primary. However, media interest has faded since then, probably because liberals have realized how bad the indicted candidate who quite possibly has special needs, makes them look.

But just like O’Donnell, Greene touts his anti-elitist, Washington outsider status as his greatest attribute and many liberals have openly proclaimed that they think Greene is “still better than Jim DeMint.”

In Oklahoma, U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rogers pulls in as much as 30% of the vote in some polls.

The candidate beat out Oklahoma attorney Mark Myles--an army veteran with an impressive resume. Rogers has no website. Had I not managed to track down his home phone number, all we would know about the guy is that he has a beard and likes to wear a red hat.

The curmudgeonly Rogers was not happy about being contacted by a member of the media and accused me of meddling in “…the internal affairs of the state of Oklahoma.” When I managed to calm him down a bit and assured him that I was not a Republican Party operative trying to destroy his candidacy against Tom Coburn, he opened up a bit and went on a rant against the Chinese.

The guy is comedy gold. But neither he nor Greene have been wheeled out by the mainstream media or our comedic gatekeepers recently as being representative of the Democratic Party.

I would pay money to see an Alvin Greene--Jim DeMint debate on Fox News. That would be the kind of thing that I would invite friends over to watch. We would alomst certainly come up with some sort of drinking game that revolved around Greene's constant missteps. Hilarity would ensue.

Truthfully, Greene is probably just as representative of the average South Carolina Democrat as O’Donnell is of the average Delaware Tea Partier. Perhaps if Greene was an attractive woman or if 2010 were expected to be a better year for Democrats, he would be getting more attention. Additionally, if Greene became the subject of ridicule by Jon Stewart and David Letterman, the NAACP and Al Sharpton would undoubtedly show up with a bullhorn to cry “racism.” Better to just stick to making fun of the pretty, white Christian lady.

In the end, O’Donnell will lose badly and will probably find a niche as a conservative commentator on cable news. But conservatives need to be more careful in the future. It’s fine to nominate purists as long as they are not going to reflect poorly on the party as a whole. O’Donnell has dimmed the G.O.P’s prospects of taking back the Semate and her candidacy is being used as a weapon against us. While she is not nearly as “nutty,” “extreme” or “ignorant” as her detractors suggest, she is certainly not anywhere close to being an ideal candidate. We really need to take this kind of thing into account. 2012 is right around the corner and the results will be far more devastating to the Tea Party and the national Republican Party if we tread the same path and nominate a presidential candidate in the mold of O’Donnell, with similar negatives, to go up against President Obama. You know exactly who I’m talking about here, Tea Partiers!

For now the damage is limited. But O’Donnell’s near certain defeat on Election Night will be one thing that Democrats will actually be able to smile about on an otherwise dismal evening. They are sure to milk it for all that it's worth in order to denigrate the Tea Party in the coming months.

- Dan Joseph

Expert Celebrity Panel Concludes; Conservatives In Favor of Gay Suicide

2010-10-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hollywood has found a new cause. A string of recent suicides by gay teens has jolted the entertainment community into action and sparked a new movement meant to curb instances of bullying against gay teens. This is a positive development.

However, it didn’t take too long for Hollywood’s finest to pinpoint the cause of the recent high profile instances of gay teens driven to take their own lives due to bullying and teasing. Obviously, conservatives are to blame. Duh!

You would think that teen suicide would be one of those issues that the American public would pretty much be unanimously opposed to. Like breast cancer or child sex trafficking or Ben Affleck. But, apparently there is a large segment of the American population which is actually pro-gay teen suicide.

I was made aware of this fact the other night while watching video clips of a segement from Larry King Live. Larry had invited a panel of psychology experts to explain why bullies were suddenly picking on gay teens at such an alarming rate instead of going after fat kids and gingers like they usually do.

“I believe there's a connection between Prop 8, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and now the string of teen suicides. It's almost sanctioned to bully gay people and treat them as second-class citizens. There's a lot of very right-wing conservative people that absolutely sanction this behavior.”

That was the conclusion of comedian and behavioral scientist Kathy Griffin, reached after hours and hours of deep analysis, no doubt. A rare, anti-bulling sentiment coming from someone who once said that she would “...like to push Sarah Palin down the stairs.”

Former N-Synch member and aspiring astronaut Lance Bass’s extensive study into the minds of those who bully gay teenagers had similar findings.

“You know, once we finally get rid of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, when everyone is equal and being able to get married, that's what's teaching our younger generation, you know, what is right and what is wrong.”

You know?

Comedian Sarah Silverman, who is apparently still famous, conducted her own experiments and not surprisingly reached the exact same conclusion as Dr.’s Bass and Griffin. She announced the results of her study via a poorly made video.

"Dear America, when you tell gay Americans they can't serve their country openly or marry the person that they love, you're telling that to kids too, so don't be f**king shocked and wonder where all these bullies are coming from that are torturing young kids and driving them to kill themselves because they're different -- they learned it from watching you."

Classy.

Clearly a global warming-style, celebrity consensus was forming.

So when America’s pre-eminent authority on societal and cultural attitudes, Joy Behar put in her two sense on ABC's "The View," she left no doubt as to the casues of the mindset that drives bullies to pick on gays.

Behar blamed conservatives and specifically targeted South Carolina Senator and Tea-Party favorite, Jim DeMint for ratcheting up anti-gay sentiment with his rhetoric.

“[Bully’s] hear someone like that preaching against it [homosexuality] and they think they’re entitled to do something about it.”

Well, I’m sold!

It seems pretty obvious that Jim DeMint endorses gay bullying and wants gay teens to kill themselves. Behar’s conclusion makes even more sense because it’s well known that teenage bullies who pick on gay kids are huge Jim DeMint supporters. They also have voracious appetites for political news involving policies like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Proposition 8. Those bullies are wonkish followers of what’s going on in the political world. If only Alvin Greene could make some inroads with this highly informed demographic he might not be 40-points behind DeMint right now.

But seriously, the willingness of Behar, Bass, Silverman and Griffin to exploit this terrible tragedy in order to further a political agenda is disgusting and exhibits the same level of immaturity as the bullying that led to the tragedies themselves.

As a former member of the show business community I can tell you first hand that actors and artists in general are overly passionate and tend to have a knee-jerk emotional response when it comes to any political issue involving homosexuality. There are two reasons for this.

First, because there are so many homosexuals in the entertainment industry, actors and actresses, comedians and rock stars are far more likely to know and be friends with people who are gay. This personalizes gay issues for them raising them to a level of importance in their minds that most Americans reserve for issues like 9.6% unemployment or the War on Terror.

Second, celebrities have always been anxious to interject themselves into political subjects, but unfortunately most artists lack the political sophistication to chime in without sounding exceptionally dim and being laughed at by those of us who actually know what’s going on in the political world.

Most political issues are far too complex for the average actor or actress to wrap their heads around without experiencing major cerebral hemorrhaging. You’re never going to see Kathy Griffin on Larry King Live talking about the causes of the financial crisis. Sarah Silverman is probably incapable of posting a video explaining the benefits and constitutionality of Obamacare’s health insurance mandate.

By contrast, on the surface, issues involving the LGBT community seem relatively simple when viewed by the naked celebrity eye. Especially given the narrative that the Left has created in which opposition to the Left's gay agenda stems from nothing more than mindless “bigotry” and “homophobia.” So Hollywood does not hesitate to jump into these conversations head first, even though their notions of what drives the majority of Americans to oppose redefining marriage and what has led a majority of military personal to balk at allowing gays to serve openly in the military, are overly simplistic and, for the most part, dead wrong.

It is this lack of understanding of how a majority of Americans outside of the entertainment industry view these controversial issues that leads celebrities to make irresponsible and insulting statements such as those uttered last week by Behar, Silverman, Bass and Griffin.

As a result, these self appointed representatives of the LGBT community have alienated the very people whose minds they need to change in order to win support for their pet causes.

Last week’s celebrity pettiness on the matter of gay teen suicides, which both conservatives and liberals agree is a heartbreaking trend which should be universally condemned and on which awareness needs to be raised, can only serve to divide us further on LGBT matters. In the future, proponents of the gay agenda should tighten the reigns on these unsophisticated B-listers, lest they find other ways to squander the goodwill and sympathy that terrible tragedies such as these foster.

What makes antagonistic, agenda driven comments such as these even more upsetting is that they are completely counterproductive to the goal of putting an end to this anti-gay bullying which all common sense Americans agree is a noble and worthwhile goal.

Alienating conservative Americans by insulting their values as these celebrities have done, makes it less likely that we will all come together as a nation, regardless of our political ideology and push schools to put a stop to the bullying epidemic. How does that help anyone?

-Dan Joseph

David Catanese: Politico's O'Donnell Hit Man

2010-09-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

You have to look closely sometimes. If you blink you might just miss obvious cases of media bias. Particularly when it's online, bunched in the middle of one of thousands of articles on the top news story of the day.

But I tripped over this one and wanted to let you know. It's small but it's a real gem.

In the sixth paragraph of the Politico article entitled "Coons Stays Cautious On O'Donnell" David Catanese wrote:

"But where other eager candidates might have been unable to hold back from knocking O’Donnell’s extreme views, Coons declined."

It's not an opinion piece.

Now, unless you received your journalism degree from Hamburger University you know that it's not appropriate to define anyone's political views as being “extreme" in a hard news piece simply because you are of the opinion that they are. That's not your call to make. Your job description doesn't involve telling us where you think the candidate falls on the ideological spectrum. Even if everyone else in the Poltico newsroom is in agreement with you. It's like the golden rule of journalism. Catanese broke it and tried to sneak his opinion by the reader as news hoping that no one would notice.

Catanese has written five stories on the Castle/O'Donnell/Coons saga in the last 24 hours. None of those other stories contain such blatant attempts to interject his own opinion into the narrative. But as Poltico's O'Donnell point man, he needs to be watched carefully in the coming weeks.

In the wake of the successful media effort to vilify Sarah Palin in 2008, the knee-jerk Liberal media response to a young, attractive, conservative woman is predictable. The Left is going to try to rekindle the anti-Palin magic and destroy O'Donnell in hopes that things play out the same way. Not simply in an effort to discredit her in the lead up to this election, but in order to discredit her forever. Catanese took the bait but mistakenly revealed his own bias in the process. His editors bear much of the blame as well, assuming that he has editors.

- Dan Joseph

49 Days: The Tea Party's Big Gamble

2010-09-14T10:40:00.001-07:00

I have a great deal of respect for the Tea-Party movement. But as Delaware conservatives who consider themselves to be part of this movement enter the voting booth for today’s GOP Senate primary, they should remember this; Your movement's strength and wisdom is being meassured in these elections by both the Democrats and the Republican establishment. If you appear reckless and consistently push the nomination of candidates who are unelectable, the GOP will begin to work against you and the Democrats will dramatically increase their numbers in future elections by default.

The Tea Party movements have defeated multiple establishment candidates so far in these primaries. Some deserved their drubbings and some did not. But if the balance of power in the Senate in 2011 is determined by Nevada and Delaware and Angle and O'Donnell get beat, groups like the Tea-Party Express will be solely to blame. And blame you we shall. That's a lot of responsibility for a fledgling political movement with little national infrastructure to bear. They might not survive such blame.

- Dan Joseph

A Message From The President

2010-08-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

“Good evening.

This week, while vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard I received a call from DNC chairman Tim Kaine. Chairman Kaine informed me that many congressional Democrats, in addition to many of the folks who supported me in 2008 have become deeply concerned over the fact that so many of the positions I have taken and so many of the policies I have proposed over the past two years are deeply unpopular with an overwhelming majority of Americans.

This was news to me.

Chairman Kaine went on to tell me that most Americans still don’t understand how terrific my health care plan is. Apparently, they are also in favor of Arizona’s new illegal-immigration law and they are not too thrilled about my support for the proposed Mosque at Ground Zero.

I was surprised to say the least. After all, most of the people that I talk to on a daily basis--my old professors from Harvard Law School, my buddies from Hollywood and everyone here in the White House--are in total agreement with me when it comes to these issues. So, I just assumed that the rest of the American public was as well.

I now understand that this is not the case.

But let me be clear. I did not run for this office in order to do things that were popular. I ran for this office to do what I believe is best for the country. That’s why, I have decided to enact a sweeping new legislative agenda over the next two months. This agenda will consist of a series of executive orders and legislative initiatives to be taken up right before the November elections. I understand that these ideas may not be very popular and may, in fact, lead to big losses for my party in the upcoming elections, but I am absolutely sure that the American people will thank me later. Once they stop being so stupid and come to understand what’s good for them.

First, as part of my administrations’ efforts to curb childhood obesity, tomorrow I will sign an executive order that makes it illegal to sell or consume pizza in the United States. All restaurants that serve pizza as well as calzones and Stromboli are to cease serving these items immediately and to replace them with a dish containing beets.

Next, I will work with congress to increase the number of black jellybeans contained in standard jellybean packaging. In recent years Jellybean companies like Jelly Belly and Brachs have lowered the number of black jellybeans in their packages while increasing the numbers of the more brightly colored beans. I understand that they are doing so because the black jellybeans taste bad and no one likes them. But, it is time that the Jellybean companies put jelly bean equality ahead of profits. The Jellybean Reparations Act of 2010 will ensure that at least 50% of every jellybean package sold is made up of black jellybeans.

In October I will personally stump across the country for a bill that was recently proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Once passed, this bill would order that all puppies and kittens in the United States be immediately euthanized. These family pets will then be replaced with porcupines and electric eels. These new animals will be paid for in full by the federal government. I understand that these actions will upset many Americans, particularly small children. However it is time that we as a nation stopped discriminating against certain animals simply because they are not as cute and cuddly as the ones we are used to or because they are potentially dangerous and could cause severe bodily harm to our loved ones.

For those of you concerned about the potential costs of providing millions of families with porcupines and eels, I assure you that this program will not add one dime to the federal deficit. All of the euthanized puppies and kittens will be sold to immigrants from China, Vietnam and Cambodia who will now finally be able to enjoy the cuisine of their homeland without living in constant fear of being arrested for animal cruelty.

As every parent knows, not all young people can fulfill their dream of becoming a professional sports star. At least not playing a sport that is enjoyed by spectators in this country. That is why, in order to encourage young people to adopt careers playing less popular sports, football will no longer be broadcast on Sundays and will be replaced by soccer. Because let’s face it. If the rest of the world likes it, it must better. Additionally, World Series broadcasts will be replaced by cricket matches and the NBA will be replaced by the WNBA.

Next week I will sign an executive order declaring gay marriage to be not only legal in every state, but also mandatory. All heterosexual couples are to divorce immediately and marry someone of the same sex. The federal government will fund all divorce proceedings and pay for all wedding receptions. Male couples will be automatically registered at Pier 1, female couples at Home Depot. All wedding ceremonies will be officiated by Rip Taylor.

Finally, the following locations will be converted into Mosques:

-Space Mountain
-Cowboys Stadium
-Independence Hall
-All Las Vegas Casinos
-Graceland
-The Oval Office

That last one will be done more as a convenience to myself than the public as a whole.

I understand that many of these changes may cause consternation among an American public that already believes that I’m completely out of touch with the concerns of the average American. Frankly, I just don’t care.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a tee time.

Please direct all questions to my new White House Spokesman, O.J. Simpson.”

What Makes A Moderate Muslim?

2010-08-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

There was no widespread backlash against American Muslims after the 9/11 attacks. This was an inconvenient truth for some on the American left as it flew directly in the face of the progressive movement’s most important narrative--the idea that a large swath of the America population suffers from xenophobia and racism caused by ignorance and an irrational fear of the unknown. To the contrary, the vast majority of Americans bent over backwards after the 9/11 attacks to assure the world that we understood the difference between everyday Muslims and the murderous Jihadists who had killed 3000 of our fellow Americans in the most horrific way imaginable. This proved that the picture of the “intolerant” America that liberals had worked so hard to paint over the last several decades was grossly inaccurate.

In the Cordoba House Ground Zero Mosque brouhaha, the Left has seen an opening. Having lost nearly all of its credibility on economic issues over the last two years, the progressives have jumped at the opportunity to divert attention from their incompetence by returning to their favored fall-back strategy--labeling as agents of intolerance anyone who takes a position contrary to their own on matters that involve ethnic minorities. This should come as no surprise to anyone.

Meanwhile, the rest of America--the majority of the nation consisting of moderates, independents and conservatives--is engaging in a far different type of conversation. The debate over the proposed Ground Zero mosque has encouraged many in this country to re-examine what they had previously believed was a well-defined line between savage Islamic radicals and those who the government and the media have consistently told us are “moderate” members of the Muslim faith.

The extremes on either side remain of the issue remain fixed. There are undoubtedly some Americans who have never been willing to give any Muslims the benefit of the doubt and who have remained insistent that Islam in all its forms poses a danger to the values of the United States and humanity as a whole. These are, for the most part, creatures of the Right.

On other side are individuals who feel the need to apologize for Islam in almost every circumstance and have always worked hard to find some way to excuse violent or otherwise provocative actions by blaming American policy itself for the behavior. These are individuals and groups who believe that the War on Terror is, in actuality, a war on Islam itself and point to our actions in Iraq and Afganistan as evidence. These are views held primarily by those residing on the far-left of the American political spectrum.

The vast majority of Americans fall somewhere in between these two misguided extremes. While this is evidence of the thoughtfulness and moderate nature of the American majority, the truth is that most Americans really don’t know much about Islam at all--either as a religion or as a political force. Most Americans simply haven’t had a desire to examine carefully the various beliefs of a religious group that is not really part of the mainstream of American society. In keeping with the American tradition of open-mindedness and tolerance, these well-meaning and compassionate Americans have adopted the standard assumption that most Muslims reject violence and extremism but that the religion has been hijacked by a handful of nuts who have horrendously misinterpreted the basic teachings of Islam.

But since the Ground Zero Mosque controversy erupted, a great deal of focus has fallen upon the mosque's founder, one Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Rauf has been sold to the American public by mosque advocates and some in the U.S. government as the definitive Islamic “moderate.” The kind of Muslim that is representative of the “good” Islam; an ally of the U.S. who stands beside us in our battle against the Islamic killers who seek to terrorize our society; a leader with the capacity to educate the American public about the true nature of Islam and thus foster understanding and tolerance towards the religion among Americans who remain skeptical of the religion’s beliefs and motives.

However, as the mosque controversy heated up, questionable statements made by Rauf began to trickle out. It was discovered that Rauf has repeatedly made comments laying a great deal of the blame for the 9/11 attacks on the United States itself. While condemning the 9/11 bombers, his condemnations are heavily sprinkled with moral equivalence between the U.S. government’s actions in the Middle East and the acts which caused the civilian deaths on 9/11.

"We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims."

According to Rauf, Osama Bin Laden’s terror was a product of U.S. actions. But in order to make this claim, one must truly believe that Bin Laden was justified in his opposition to the U.S. military’s efforts to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991--the event that provided the impetus for the founding of Al-Qaeda. In order to sympathize with this belief one must share at least a portion of the warped view of Islamic sovereignty that Osama Bin Laden used to justify his anti-American attitudes.

Rauf points to C.I.A actions in the Middle East in the 1980s as an early justification for Bin Laden’s hatred of America, conveniently forgetting that had it not been for U.S. assistance, much of Afghanistan--and in all likelihood many of its Muslim neighbors--would be speaking Russian right now.

Rauf has refused to condemn Hamas, a terrorist group directly responsible for countless civilian deaths.

Despite all of this, Rauf’s defenders continue to cite him as a perfect example of a “moderate” Islamic leader, simply because he has condemned the actions of the 9/11 terrorists and frequently throws around words like “peace,” “tolerance” and “understanding” when speaking to audiences around the world. To his credit, he does advocate the idea of equality for women and rejects some of the more barbaric practices carried out in the name of Islam in the Arab world. But believing that women should not be stoned to death for adultery does not make you a paragon of Islamic temperance.

This raises an essential question that Americans have failed to address since 9/11: what constitutes “moderation” when it comes to defining Islam and those who adhere to its tenets?

Very few people consider themselves to hold views that are “extreme.” “Extremist” is a label that is bestowed upon an individual when there is a consensus that his or her views fall far outside the political or social mainstream. Many of my liberal journalism professors sincerely thought that the New York Times was a politically “moderate” or even “right-leaning” publication. In other words, just because one is “moderate” compared to say, the Taliban, doesn’t mean that everyone else must take this self-proclaimed “moderation’ at face value.

That being said, how many Americans would consider Rauf’s statements to be within the mainstream of American thought? Probably not many.

There must be some kind of litmus test applied before we bestow the “moderate” label on Islamic clerics and activists who seek to play a leadership role in mainstream America. Condemning terrorist acts alone is not enough, particularly if that same individual is supportive of historical narratives and moral equivalency that has long served to foment the very terrorist actions they now seem to be condemning.

Since 9/11, Americans have wondered why no high profile Islamic “peace” movements have evolved. It’s a good question. We don’t need such a movement to prove that most Muslims deplore terror tactics, but such a movement could certainly be an effective way to bring Muslims out of the shadows and to examine exactly how they view the post-9/11 world.

Do they support Israel’s right to exist? Are they sympathetic to Hamas and Hezbollah? Do they support the tactics of these groups? What are their views on Sharia law? Americans deserve answers to these questions. It would be foolish and dangerous to assume that American-style tolerance and religious acceptance is the default position of most in the Islamic world if we have no idea where Muslims stand when it comes to these important geo-political issues on which America has based its foreign policy and national security principles.

In order to fight Islamic extremism, we must fully define it and be able to identify it when it rears its ugly head. We must also understand that just because an individual isn’t blowing up bridges it doesn’t necessarily mean they should be put in charge of building them.

-Dan Joseph

Thanks Dana Loesch

2010-07-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

A special thanks to the lovely and talented Dana Loesch for having me on her show today. The podcast is now availiable here.

For all of you interested in getting a copy of the book you can buy it here. And don't forget to follow me on Facebook.

Eugene Robinson Takes the Easy Way Out, Shills For Obama

2010-07-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

I’m a conservative who revels in the art of mixing it up with those on the other side of the political spectrum, But, recently, I’ve noticed that it has become much easier to tear down liberal arguments. That’s primarily because these days the Left has very few arguments that will live up to even minimal scrutiny.

The Obama administration has undeniably failed to restore significant growth and confidence in the U.S. economy. In addition, this administration seems to have a uncanny ability to put itself on the opposite side from the American majority on nearly every major issue. In order to cope with the lack of positive developments over the past year and a half, the Obama apologists have been falling back on the very same talking points and vapid arguments that Obama successfully relied on during the 2008 campaign.

The casual Obama supporter can be expected to do little more than parrot the slogans we’ve heard Obama himself spout over the last two years. These supporters are unlikely to be following the ongoing policy debates in Washington very closely and would probably be willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt even if he decided to legalize baby hunting.

However, one would think that liberal pundits who are paid to analyze the political environment and make predictions based on careful analysis, would make it a point to delve more deeply into the realities of the complex political situations that we currently are dealing with.

Washington Post opinion writer Eugene Robinson exhibited very clearly this week that this is not the case.

In his July 16 Post op-ed Robinson falls back on this left wing classic in his defense of Obama’s economic policies:

“The thing is, we already know that the Republicans' prescription for the economy doesn't work. We gave their approach an eight-year trial under George W. Bush.”

These days, some variation on this statement is the most typical liberal response to any attack on Barack Obama’s pseudo-Keynesian economic spending spree. But ask anyone who has just tried to get away with the “blame Bush” strategy to back up this shallow hypothesis and almost inevitably that individual will do their best to change the subject. Ask them what Bush policy it was that caused the financial crisis or how he was responsible for the meltdown of the housing market or the near collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. More often than not their ignorance will immediately make itself apparent.

Again, it’s totally understandable when some political neophyte who handed out pamphlets for Obama in 2008 and now considers himself to be a knowledgeable advocate of the president's policies says something like this. Tune into to any talk radio program and you will hear some political noob defending Obama and using the same rhetoric used by Mr. Robinson in his article.

The difference is that Eugene Robinson is actually getting paid by the Post for this drivel. Robinson is given a platform in the one of the United States’ most influential publications to repeat specious talking points that Democratic politicians have been using for months. Just so the Post knows: I have a cousin who could do this. He’s five and would work cheap. He writes in crayon.

Post readers and consumers of political commentary in general, look to opinion writers for carefully constructed arguments that provide a unique political perspective that readers may not have considered before. Such commentary is an important and educational political supplement in a culture where the politicians stick almost exclusively to shallow sound bites and talking points. So it is very troubling when members of the pundit class begin substituting those very same talking points for a carefully constructed defense of the president who they support.

Robinson does this again several sentences later when he bashes the G.O.P in a piece of “analysis” that exhibits a level of thoughtfulness comparable to that of a fish sandwich.

“Americans want to see unemployment benefits extended. They want tougher financial regulation, complete with consumer protections. Even health care reform, which the GOP succeeded in painting as the Apocalypse, becomes more popular as the months pass and somehow the world does not end.”

Again, this line is almost identical to one used by Obama to sell health care reform just days after the bill was passed. It's a talking point that relies on the assumption that readers lack a basic understanding of how government works and of the details of Obamacare, most of which doesn’t even go into effect until 2014. So even if conservatives were warning that the "Apocalypse" was going to occur because of health care legislation, it wouldn’t be for another four years. All Robinson has done is reconstruct an Obama straw man and used it to avoid having to come up with any original material for his weekly column. You would expect a Post journalist to at least be creative enough to construct his own straw man!

Eugene Robinson isn’t the only pundit to have stooped to this lazy and intellectually dishonest style of commentary. Syndicated columnist Froma Harrop deals in these same kind of talking-points disguised as opinion journalism on a regular basis. But whether you support the administration or not there can be no doubt that pieces like Robinson’s are absolutely terrible for journalism and worse for the country.

Robinson takes a medium that should be informative and uses it to promote ignorance, and a purely political agenda. Do you think that the Left actually wants the American people to understand the details of what truly lead to the financial crisis? Of course not! If they did then they could no longer blame George W. Bush for all of our current economic woes. Through his bi-weekly column Eugene Robinson is complicit in the dumbing down of the American political conversation. I don’t know if Robinson knows the game he’s playing or is oblivious but the Washington Post should almost certainly hold its columnists to a higher standard.

It’s difficult to blame guys like Robinson for sinking this low. After all, it’s almost impossible to defend Obama’s policies by pointing to either short-term economic indicators or any long-term cost-benefit analysis. But a writer who has been awarded such a high profile position at the Post should at least make an effort. Instead his writing relies on an overly simplistic understanding of history and government which he passes on to his readers, many of whom undoubtedly echo Robinson’s sentiments.

Robinson should either start coming up with original material that does not rely on Obama talking points or quit pretending that he’s a journalist and resign his column at the Post. If he chooses the latter, I’m sure that Robinson would have no problem getting a job as a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

- Dan Joseph

Interenet Radio Appearance!!!!

2010-07-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight at 8pm I'll be chatting it up on "The American Youth" Radio show with Stinky and the Brain on the Windows to Liberty Network. Log in and check it out.

Also, I'm planning to do a bit of Rougue Advertising by calling into the Sean Hannity Show sometime this week. Keep an ear peeled.

I'll Be Appearing LIVE on the Mike Rosen Show!

2010-06-07T09:15:00.000-07:00

Great News! Well, it's great news if you like me.

Today, at 12:00 noon EST, I'll be a guest on the Mike Rosen Show, where I will be discussing my new book Generation Right: The Young Conservative in the Age of Obama. You can listen online by clicking the link above.

If you still haven't got your copy yet you can get one here.

Also, be sure to check out the book's Facebook fan page.

Hope you can all tune in!

Baseball, Obama and the Search for Leadership

2010-06-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

Watch this:

What you have just witnessed will undoubtedly go down as the worst call in major league baseball history. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning umpire Jim Joyce blew it in epic fashion.

Umpires make bad calls all the time. This particular call did not cost the Detroit Tigers the game--they eventually won. What made this particular blown call so upsetting was the fact that if Joyce hadn’t botched it, Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga would have achieved one of the greatest feats in all of sports--a perfect game.

To his credit, Joyce later came out and took his lumps. He admitted that he had blown the call and made a tearful apology to Galarraga for robbing him of his spot in history. At this point, everyone in the sports world recognizes that Galrarraga did, in fact, throw a perfect game.

So, everyone, including the guy who made the call, knows that the call was wrong. It seemed like a no brainer that the only man with the power to overturn the call, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, would quickly do so and award Galarraga the perfect game that he deserved, reversing this obvious injustice.

Of course if Selig had done this,there would have been no reason for me to write this article.

That’s right. Selig refused to act. In an official statement Selig said the following:

"As Jim Joyce said in his postgame comments, there is no dispute that last night's game should have ended differently. While the human element has always been an integral part of baseball, it is vital that mistakes on the field be addressed. Given last night's call and other recent events, I will examine our umpiring system, the expanded use of instant replay and all other related features. Before I announce any decisions, I will consult with all appropriate parties, including our two unions and the Special Committee for On-Field Matters, which consists of field managers, general managers, club owners and presidents....I also applaud the courage of umpire Jim Joyce to address this unfortunate situation honestly and directly."

Upon reading this I thought to myself, “Now, who does that sound like?”

What? You didn’t think that I would switch the focus of my editorials from politics to professional sports that easily, did you?

Selig’s statement reads as though it could have been pieced together from speeches that have scrolled through Barack Obama’s teleprompter over the past year and a half. It fits the template perfectly.

1. Admit that something went wrong.

2. Quickly change the subject by pointing to the need for reform in some related area, in an attempt to distract people from the fact that you’re not going to do anything to fix the situation at hand.

3. Announce that you are going to assemble a blue-ribbon panel of experts (on which powerful unions will have a prominent role.)

4. Absolve yourself of responsibility by repeatedly mentioning the guy who screwed up in the first place. In this case, Jim Joyce.

After hearing about Selig’s refusal to overturn the bad call and reading his cowardly statement, my politcal mind immediately began to think of the parallels between this situation and the Obama Administration’s reactions to various current events.

First I thought of the oil spill. Just as it was BP and not Barack Obama who was responsible for the spill, Bud Selig was not responsible for bad call made by Joyce.

But that’s really where the similarities end. For one, unlike Selig, the Federal government has a limited ability to remedy the crisis in the gulf, and unlike Obama, Selig didn’t spend three weeks attending fund raisers and golfing before asserting his position as the one in control of the perfect game situation.

No, comparing this to the oil spill is a stretch.

However, the failure of leadership exhibited by Selig in Galarraga-gate has far more in common with the failure of leadership that Barack Obama and his predecessors have exhibited in dealing with the issue of illegal immigration.

Both Obama and Selig have the power to remedy what are obviously unfavorable circumstances with little more than a signature. Yet, in both cases, the leaders have decided to put politics ahead of doing what is right. Obama refuses to secure the southern border and uphold the laws of the United States in order to pander to Hispanic voters. Bud Selig has decided not to overturn a call that he has admitted was incorrect in order to avoid upsetting the numerous unions and special interests that keep him in his job as commissioner of Major League Baseball.

Obama’s solution to our illegal immigration problem is “comprehensive immigration reform.” But his proposal is likely to only consist of amnesty for the millions of illegal immigrants who are currently residing in the country and would probably do nothing to stop more illegals from crossing into Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. Selig promises an “investigation” into the expanded "use of instant replay” in MLB. This is an equally disingenuous way to avoid doing the right thing when it comes to the Joyce controversy. It was instant reply that proved to the entire world that Joyce’s call was wrong in the first place and Selig already has the power to overturn the call if he so desires. So what’s the problem? Stop making excuses and plug the damn hole, Commissioner!! What exactly is it that you do as commisioner of baseball anyway?

Selig’s decision to punt on this matter is a private sector example of the kind of unresponsive leadership that is driving the American peoples' increasing anger towards the federal government. It is absolutely maddening when the people want their leaders to do something about a problem and the leadership has the power to do it but refuses to without an even remotely adequate explanation for the lack of action.

There is no legitimate reason for Selig not to do the fair and morally just thing and recognize Galarraga’s perfect game. But consider how much worse it is when the leader in question is the President of the United States, the chief enforcer of our laws. As president, Obama is legally mandated to act. The majority of Americans want him to act. He simply refuses to do it.

Finally, there is, perhaps the most eerie similarity between the perfect game controversy and America’s recent illegal immigration stalemate. After Commissioner Selig announced that he would not overturn Joyce’s incorrect call, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm took matters into her own hands and released this statement.

"I, Jennifer M. Granholm, governor of the state of Michigan, do hereby declare Armando Galarraga to have pitched a perfect game, and I join Tigers fans all across the globe in saluting his unassailable accomplishment -- the first perfect game in Tigers history."

With this proclamation Gov. Granholm has turned herself into Bud Selig’s version of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who gained national attention by promising to enforce federal immigration law in Arizona when the Obama Administration would not.

Interestingly enough, other Democrats from Michigan’s congressional delegation have jumped on board in an effort to have Congress officially recognize Galarraga’s perfect game and have publically called for Selig to overturn his decision. It’s such a shame that this congressional desire to right a wrong doesn’t extend to seeking justice on the issues that really matter to the nation.

Then again, we wouldn’t want the next Tigers-Diamondbacks game to be interrupted when Arizona officials approach the mound and ask to see Armando Gallaragga’s papers.

One way or the other, Americans recognize a bad call when they see one and they are beginning to realize that giving the Democratic Party complete control over the federal government was far worse than Jim Joyce's now infamous lapse of judgement.

-Dan Joseph

Sestakgate: The Democrats' New Nightmare

2010-05-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

It’s very possible that by the end of the summer Democrats will be wishing that Arlen Specter was their Senate nominee in Pennsylvania. Joe Sestak told the truth and because of his honesty the biggest White House scandal since Monica Lewinsky is percolating between news stories about oil spills and immigration.

One almost has to feel sorry for the players involved in this one. During the Democratic senate primary campaign, Rep. Sestak stated several times that the White House had offered him a job in the administration if he agreed to drop out of the race. His exit would have resulted in a clear path to the nomination for Specter, the White House’s favored candidate.

My guess is that when Sestak admitted that he had been offered the job, he didn’t know that what the White House had done was illegal. In fact, I’m guessing that many Americans were surprised when they found out that offering high profile government jobs in exchange for political favors was against the law. We all know that this kind of thing happens all the time in Washington. Perhaps even those in the White House who approved the offer didn’t know of the practice’s illegality. Many of the administration’s higher-ups have spent their lives entrenched in the Chicago political where it’s common to turn a blind eye to far more egregious behavior. It’s totally believable that President Obama himself just assumed that the offer to Sestak was totally lawful.

But ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law. Now Sestak is the Democratic senate nominee and his disclosure of the political favor offered to him could very well serve to throw into complete chaos an administration that is already plummeting in the polls.

There are only a few ways that this story can play out.

The best scenario for the White House would be if Sestak were to recant and claim that the whole thing had been a big misunderstanding and that he was never offered any job to begin with. But no one’s going to buy this. If Sestak goes down this path in an effort to protect the administration he loses all credibility in a Senate race where credibility and an image of incorruptibility was his greatest asset. This race was going to be close anyway. If Pennsylvanians think that Sestak is just another slippery Washington pol, in what is shaping up to be a very anti-Washington year, then he’s probably going to lose, putting a big +1 in the GOP’s 2010 Senate column.

Of course, if Sestak cares more about winning his Senate seat than protecting the administration he could publicly disclose who offered him the job and what job it was that was offered. No one would blame Sestak for choosing this path, since he himself has done nothing wrong or illegal. Under this scenario Sestak would be free to run his Senate race without a cloud hanging over his head, although he almost certainly will get no help from the administration after throwing it under the bus. (Not that the absence of Obama’s support in a campaign is necessarily a bad thing for a Democratic candidate these days.)

Once names are named, the nation’s focus will turn to the Obama Administration. Heads should begin to roll. Those heads will likely belong to administration officials who are very close to the President himself. Obama’s principle political operatives Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett are likely to draw the most attention since one of them was probably responsible for delivering the message offering Sestak the position.

But even the embarrassing resignation by someone in Obama’s inner circle won’t be sufficient to put this matter to rest.

There was no chance that Sestak would have dropped out of the race unless the White House had offered him a job with a higher profile or more political power than that which he would have acquired as a U.S. Senator. The White House must have known that Sestak would never abandon his challenge to Specter in exchange for a position as the ambassador to Bangladesh or Undersecretary of Transportation. In all likelihood Sestak was offered a job as the Secretary of the Navy or some other high level position that would require the go- ahead from President Obama himself before it was offered.

If it is discovered that the president was complicit in this, things could get very bad for the Democrats. Of course, it represents yet another strike against an already struggling party in the lead up to the fall elections. But if the GOP somehow manages to regain control of the House of Representatives, then investigations and perhaps more severe charges leveled against administration officials are sure to follow. Indeed, embarrassment might be the least of Obama’s worries once the facts really begin to come out.

When asked for the umpteenth time about the Sestak situation, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs brushed concerns aside claiming that “....people who have looked into it assure me the conversations were not inappropriate in any way.”

But if Gibbs is so sure of this then it behooves the administration to release the details of its interactions with Sestak so that we can put all of this talk of impropriety behind us.

Many recent administrations have had to deal with some kind of scandal. Nixon was brought down by Watergate, Reagan had Iran-Contra, Clinton had Monica Lewinsky. But all of those major controversies exploded well into each president’s second term. If Sestakgate reaches a boiling-point prior to or even shortly following the first mid-term election of Obama’s presidency, it could cripple him politically. This would almost certainly result in cementing a rather grim legacy for Barack Obama’s presidency.

On the other hand, many would say that he was already well on his way to solidifying his place in history as one of America’s lower quality chief executives before anyone even knew who Joe Sestak was.

-Dan Joseph

UPDATE: Today at his press conference Obama finally commented on this matter saying:

"There will be an official response shortly on the Sestak matter. I mean shortly -- I don't mean weeks or months. ... I can assure the public that nothing improper took place."

Translation: I will address this matter as soon as my lawyers figure out a way to get around the improper behavior that clearly took place.

My Book Is Now Availiable!!!

2010-05-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

CLICK HERE TO BUY GENERATION RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Are you a conservative between the ages of 18-35? Do you know someone who is? Do you know a young liberal who needs to be set straight before they become a liberal for life? Are you a member of another generation who's pulling your hair out trying to figure out why your kids don't get it?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then this book contains many of the answers that you've been asking yourself for years.

Why are young people drawn to liberal causes?

Why did they overwhelmingly vote for Barack Obama in 2008?

How do young conservatives go about fighting back against the liberalism that dominates on American college campuses, in Hollywood and in the places where members of Generation Y live and work?

How can the conservative movement bring members of this generation back into the fold?

Conservatives have avoided asking themselves these tough questions for far too long and they have paid dearly for it.

The answers are within these pages.

Dan Joseph has spent his entire life surrounded by young liberals. As a student, a Hollywood actor, an aspiring journalist and a conservative blogger, Joseph has used his experiences to map out the psychological trajectory that has led the majority of Generation Y down the path towards modern liberalism.

What Does the Left Love About America?

2010-05-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

Remember when President Obama said this:

“I believe in American exceptionalism, just as the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism..."

Oops.

Of course, the president had no way of knowing that a year later the idea of Greece being exceptional in any way other than its residents’ ability to cook up a mean lamb dish would be laughable. But the message that Obama was trying to convey at the time was perfectly obvious. In his view, there was nothing special about America. It was just another landmass surrounded by water. Our flag was, just another piece of cloth, representing no more than any other piece of fabric that waves over a nation’s capitol building.

This should come as no surprise. Despite its protestations, the Left’s belief that patriotism is little more than an irrational love for the soil and gravel that one calls “home” is well documented. But since the Obama era began and the goal of “fundamentally transforming America” has begun to be realized, questions of how the Left really views America are being asked more frequently by those on the Right.

Under Obama’s “Greek exceptionalism” theory, America has no special purpose. It is not inherently good or evil in the grand scheme of recent history. Rather it is simply another player--a giant floating rock, whose inhabitants and government have gotten lucky both economically and militarily on a number of occasions.

But does Obama really revere America? If so, what does he love about it? He has never really explained this in terms that go beyond his own personal experiences in this country which have culminated in his ascension to the presidency. If he does love America, why is he so determined to fundamentally change so many of the things that have made us so influential and prosperous and instead lead us down a path that would make us more like Greece?

Those on the Left bristle at any implication that they lack patriotism, even though many on the Left believe that “patriotism” is a foolish concept to begin with. But it’s a fair question.

We know that many on the Left see America as a racist, homophobic place, a nation in which there is an unacceptable gap between the “haves” and the “have nots,” a nation whose elites have used their power to exploit the poor, both at home and abroad; an imperialist force that has used its military might to gain undue influence over others and gain access to their resources, indiscriminately killing innocent civilians in the process. To top it all off, these progressives see the United States as the primary culprit in the slow murder of Mother Earth.

Now, if I felt that any assertion in the previous paragraph was an accurate description of my country, I would not be a very proud citizen. If I believed any of these things, I’m pretty sure I would despise this country.

So obviously, the Left can’t have it both ways. They cannot profess to love this country, yet at the very same time hate almost everything about it. So which is it, progressives? What do you “love” about America? Do you love what we are and how we became what we are, or do you love our potential to be something that we are not?

This question helps explain the Tea Party movement and its recent battles with the Obama administration and pro-administration forces within the mainstream media. The Tea Partiers’ view the government as having made many good choices in the pre-Obama era. They believe that our avoidance of European style entitlements, high taxes and social democracy helped make the United States the most prosperous society in history with a standard of living that is second to none. They see our willingness to expend blood and treasure in our efforts to bring fundamental, natural rights to oppressed people as noble, if not always well executed, endeavors. Finally, they see Obama and his congressional allies as having a mindset and agenda that is antithetical to the successes that America has had over the last three decades. They rightfully recognize that if Obama succeeds, the American ideal fails.

To Obama’s credit is his understanding that he can only go so far in apologizing for what he views as America’s recent mistakes and excesses. He knows that political prudence dictates that he must walk a fine line in his criticism of the country he leads, lest the electorate begins to wonder if he wouldn’t be happier as the president of France or the Secretary General of the U.N.

And then there is Michelle Obama. There’s a reason why she has been relegated to White House gardening duty and is rarely permitted to speak at high profile events or comment on policy, as Hillary Clinton was permitted to do in the early 1990s. The Administration knows that Mrs. Obama is prone to speak her radical mind and could potentially make another comment along the lines of “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country.” Permitting her to speak out comes with the risk that she may actually say what she really believes and such an exposure of her true colors would once again raise red flags, causing Americans to wonder just how much of the mindset of Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers the First Family took with them to the White House.

During the Iraq War, the Left insisted that its vocal opposition to the conflict was the height of patriotic expression, even though their solution to the war was to abandon the battlefield--an act that would have led to a humiliating defeat and served no one’s interests except for al-Qaeda’s. Still, many of us on the Right gave liberals the benefit of the doubt. Yet, now that the Left is in control of the government, their intentions increasingly appear to include radical change in the way our nation runs its economy and deals with both our allies and enemies. One must ask whether there is anything that the modern progressive movement likes about what the United States has become since the end of the Vietnam era?

Being an American “patriot” does not mean that we unquestioningly support our government. It does not mean that we must agree with a war or with every decision made by an electoral majority. What it does mean is that in the grand scheme of things, we take pride in our nation’s achievements and believe that we are a force for good in the world. It’s not so much about where we’re going as a nation, but where we’ve been and what we’ve become.

If you’re the type of individual who thinks that we’ve been doing pretty much everything wrong in recent years and feel that America can only be redeemed by “fundamentally transforming” the entire country, then you may be a good and well intentioned individual. But your insistence that you love your country, should, perhaps undergo a bit more scrutiny than it has been subject to in the past.

-Dan Joseph

It's Time to Pick a High Court Fight

2010-04-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

It is unclear whether the Left realizes just how bad Justice Stevens’ timing was when he announced his retirement last week. Given the Democratic Party’s increasingly precarious prospects for the November elections, the very last thing it wants or needs is a summer long, partisan fight over a liberal Supreme Court nominee. Therefore, that is exactly what conservatives should give them.

The high court is losing its most liberal member at a time when modern liberalism is increasingly unpopular with the American electorate. President Obama will feel compelled to replace Stevens with an equally progressive, equally activist judge. Otherwise, he would risk moving the court to the right--something his base would never stand for.

Stevens will likely be replaced by someone who is very liberal and liberalism is very unpopular. Conditions are perfect for the G.O.P and the Tea-Parties’ opposition to whomever Obama nominates to resonate with the public.

Senate Republicans made acted wisely when they held their fire and went easy on Sonia Sotomayor during her confirmation process. At that point, the President was still relatively popular and the Democratic Party had yet to be mortally weakened by the health care debate. Not having the numbers to mount a filibuster, the Senate G.O.P. kept its powder dry. This gives Republicans added credibility when it goes after Obama’s next pick. And they should not hesitate to do so vigorously.

In ramming through health care, Democrats showed the country that they were willing to change all of the rules in order to get their unpopular bill passed. Terms such as “reconciliation” and “deem & pass” have become well-known and infamous additions to the political lexicon. Along with the shady deals which were made in full view of the American people, these acts of legislative arrogance proved that the Democrats have nothing but contempt for the public’s desire for bipartisanship and a government which at the very least attempts to hide its backroom shenanigans from the inconvenient stare of the public.

It is predictable that Democrats will cry “obstructionism” if the G.O.P. flouts tradition by filibustering a Supreme Court nominee. But these accusations are likely to be viewed as the height of hypocrisy by a country still smarting from being ignored by Democrats during the health care debate. The Democrats don’t have a leg to stand on.

Obama’s efforts to sell the still deeply unpopular health care overhaul have fallen on deaf ears, further complicating things for the Democrats. It now appears that the Democrats want to change the subject as soon as possible. A battle over a new Supreme Court justice actually prevents them from doing so.

Instead of a debate about over abortion--the focus of past high court confirmation battles--the upcoming Senate smackdown will inevitably turn on the nominee’s views on the constitutionality of Obama’s health care mandate, which forces Americans to buy health insurance from private entities.

Thus far Democrats have explained away concerns over the legality of the mandate with vague references to the Commerce Clause. Yet, to this point, no Democrat has adequately explained how the Commerce Clause permits the government to force Americans to buy a good or service from a private party. Senate Republicans must make sure that Obama’s nominee is not able to worm his or her way out of answering this question. Making this the focus of the hearing and a prominent topic of the national conversation ensures that voters are continuously reminded of the health care fiasco that took place over the last year. Stretching this conversation out until the fall will benefit us immensely.

Oh, that pesky Constitution. Always getting in the way of the Left’s never-ending crusade for government-administered social justice. This poses yet another problem for Obama’s pick. Like Stevens, Obama’s selection for the court is likely to fit the mold of every other Democratic high court nominee of the last 30 years--an activist judge who believes that the Constitution is not to be taken literally, but is instead a “living” document, the language of which can be manipulated in order to justify just about any policy which that judge deems to be a moral imperative.

It’s unclear whether Obama has noticed or not, but right now the Constitution is experiencing a renaissance among conservative and independent voters. They kind of want their elected leaders to, you know, follow it.

Liberals may think the founding document is outdated and flawed, but if conservatives are successful in making the upcoming hearings about the relevance of the founders’ wishes and can turn the public’s attention to how 220 year old intentions conflict with Obamacare, the Democrats are going to pay a huge price.

There was a time when a great deal of deference was given to the president in the naming of Supreme Court judges. In a less partisan era, it was widely believed that the founders intended the Senate to base its decision to confirm or oppose a nominee on a judge’s competence and knowledge of the law. Then, Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden changed everything by opposing the nomination of the eminently qualified Robert Bork, solely on ideological grounds. In recent years, the Left has continued this strategy, putting strict constructionist judges through a vicious ideological and, at times, personal wringer in hopes of destroying their credibility.

By changing the standards by which judges are judged, the Left believed they were ensuring the continuation of progressive judicial activism and thus, the modern liberal agenda for generations to come. However, they are about to get a comeuppance for their agenda driven behavior.

In the end, Obama will probably get his pick through as we know that Harry Reid will not hesitate to go nuclear if he’s not getting his way. But that’s not the point of this upcoming exercise.

While it should sadden conservatives to accept that the standard by which the Senate approves judges has unalterably diverged from the intention of the founders, the benefits of putting up a protracted fight in this instance, both politically and for the sake of the Constitution, should not be shied away from. Given the anti-progressive mood of the country and the fact that even the confirmation of a far-left jurist will not change the balance of power on the court, this appears to be a no-lose situation for the conservative movement.

- Dan Joseph

Preempting the V.A.T.

2010-04-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, Obama economic advisor Paul Volcker confirmed what many conservatives have assumed for months--Democrats are considering the implementation of a national sales tax in order to pay for the massive amounts of money that they have added to the debt since Obama took office. This national sales tax, known to economists as the “Value Added Tax” or V.A.T, would apply to every American and would be added to the amount we pay for almost every product we buy. The tax would be higher for some types of items than for others, but all in all it would hit middle and lower class Americans the hardest, diminishing their already limited buying power.

Now, let’s not dwell on the fact that putting such a tax in place would be a complete reversal of Barack Obama’s oft-repeated campaign promise that he would not raise taxes on anyone making over $200,000 a year. By now we should all know that this president’s promises are worth about as much as the promises that Tiger Woods makes to adult film stars.

Nor should we assume that those who continue to support this president are going to begin questioning why such a tax is warranted. In a sane world, you’d think this group would be among the first to question the V.A.T.’s necessity. After all, Obama's base seems to be the only group that believes that Obamacare is actually “deficit neutral” and that the $787 billion stimulus package is well on its way to bringing about a return to 5% unemployment and a sustained period of robust economic growth. Why would people who see such a bright and prosperous future think that a something as drastic as a V.A.T was needed? But analytical thinking was never the Obamabot's strong suit. Alas,convincing these dedicated Obama devotees to go against the president is hopeless. Obama’s core supporters are split into two groups. Those who truly believe that turning the U.S. into a European-style, social welfare state is a good thing and those who don’t pay any attention and are simply waiting for their share of Obama’s “stash” to show up in their mailbox. Both are a lost cause.

However, there remains a large group of independent voters who are still in the process of forming their initial opinion about President Obama. This group may not have been able to fully grasp the complexities of the health care reform debate, but they will sure as hell understand what a national sales tax will do to their pocketbooks. My guess is that they are not going to like it one bit.

This morning the possibility of a federal V.A.T was the primary focus of conservative radio talkers. Conservative hosts should keep the focus on this new tax for the next few months. Make sure the base knows everything about it--how it will be implemented, its negative effects on the economy and its regressive nature. Conservative talk radio and Fox News were instrumental in ensuring that the conservative base knew far more about the details and consequences of Obamacare than did our liberal opponents. This information trickled down the pipeline to moderates and independents and they quickly turned against the bill forcing Democrats to pass a wildly unpopular piece of legislation contrary to popular will. This act of hubris has threatened the Democrat’s congressional majorities and has hindered their ability to pass other items on their agenda. The same kind of education of the public should occur with the V.A.T and the conversation needs to begin right now.

Next, every Democrat who is running for office this year should be endlessly challenged by their opponents and the conservative media on the subject of the V.A.T and it should be demanded that they go on record either in support or opposition to the tax. Between now and November, an effort must be made to force every single one of them to take a position. If House Blue Dogs and senators in tough races admit that they will support the tax or refuse to say that they will oppose it, G.O.P. candidates will have a huge cudgel with which to bludgeon them throughout the summer. (Note: I am not advocating the literal bludgeoning of Democrats.) By making the V.A.T part of the national conversation before it is even proposed, we can also force President Obama to address the issue publicly. If he backs off, great. If he admits that he’s considering it, even better. Bigger gains for us in November.

Finally, it is important that conservatives cut off the Democratic talking points at the knees before they have an opportunity to infect the weak-minded, “Yes We Can” crowd. When it comes to selling the V.A.T, the Obama administration and its congressional allies will almost certainly embrace a talking point in which they allude to the fact that a national sales tax is an idea that has been embraced in the past by conservatives. Conservatives must make sure that people understand that our side’s support for such a tax is conditioned on the V.A.T replacing the progressive income tax. We are adamantly opposed to it being levied in addition to the income tax as the Left wants to do.

If Obama and the Democrats had wanted to be honest about their plans, they would have proposed the V.A.T prior to the budget busting triumvirate of stimulus, omnibus and Obamacare. Instead, they plan to propose it after the fact and disingenuously warn the American people that our debt is going to become unsustainable without the new revenue source. The conservative response should be “tough luck.” We were unanimous in our opposition to these big spending programs and would be more than happy to defund them and repeal them, but otherwise our plan is to starve the beast. If we kill the V.A.T and Democrats go ahead with their reckless spending, 100% of the blame for the repercussions should be aimed at the Democrats. Such are the risks of partisanship and broken promises. Time to pay the piper.

The truth is that the implementation of a European-style national sales tax would most likely lead to European-style economic stagnation and unemployment. But that increasingly seems to be the Democrat’s long-term plan. It’s time to call their bluff. We need to make this summer the summer of the V.A.T in order to ensure that, regardless of the results of November’s elections, a national sales tax does not become a permanent revenue source that will, in all likelihood, just be frittered away by Congress anyway, leaving the debt at the same staggering heights that it has reached during Obama’s first year in office.

Last week, at a town hall meeting, a woman named Joyce Ravis echoed the thoughts of millions of Americans and told the president straight up:“We are over-taxed as it is.”
Obama responded with a 17 minute, 2500 word, rambling filibuster in which he talked about health care, Wal-Mart, roof repair, George W. Bush (of course), foreign aid and something about a janitor who cleans office buildings. Only once did he even come close to addressing Joyce’s major concern and he essentially brushed that off by saying

“I don't think this will affect you, but I don't know -- you know, I don't know your family's circumstances.”

Wow.

If Obama was an honest politician, and most of us can now say with a great deal of certainty that he the antithesis of such a being, he could have trimmed his 2,500 word non-answer down to a 15 word straightforward response and said:

“If you think that your taxes are high now Joyce, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

-Dan Joseph

Conservatives Should Stick With McCain

2010-03-29T20:59:00.001-07:00

We’ve seen this narrative play out before. It doesn’t end well.

In 2006, the Democrats could taste their takeover of Congress months before the November elections. That summer, the far-left, virulently anti-war faction of the party went all out to defeat longtime Democratic Senator and former Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Senate primary. They succeeded in replacing Lieberman as the Democratic nominee with a MoveOn.org backed candidate named Ned Lamont. The thinking was that in a huge Democratic year in a solidly Democratic state, Lamont would easily win the general election against his G.O.P opponent.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, Lieberman ran as an independent and garnered enough support from independents, moderate Democrats and Republicans to beat Lamont and earn himself another six year term. Since then, Lieberman has been a consistent thorn in the side of the Democratic Party, speaking out against the party establishment’s weak-kneed approach to terrorism and the wars in the Middle East and, most recently, killing the Public Option, the path to single payer health care that the American Left wanted more than any other item in the health care bill.

Now, with the winds of change finally blowing in our direction, conservatives are faced with an almost identically delicate situation. A long-serving senator with a famous independent streak who was recently the standard bearer for the Republican Party is facing a close primary fight. Many conservative purists, led in part by the Tea Party movement, want to punish John McCain for his past sins, confident that his G.O.P. replacement, J.D. Hayworth will be capable of holding onto the McCain seat in November.

But conservatives really need to think this through. The consequences of a McCain loss in the Arizona primary are unpredictable and present a risk of serious damage to the conservative movement.

McCain’s conservative critics rightfully point to his vote against the Bush tax cuts, his push for amnesty and his flirtation with global warming alarmism as proof that he lacks ideological consistency. While there is some doubt about his dedication to the conservative cause, there can be no doubt about his resolve and the size of his ego. I seriously doubt that the guy who survived five years of torture (Not waterboarding. Actual torture.) in a Viet Cong interment camp is going to simply pack it in if he loses a G.O.P primary in a state where he is immensely popular and has enjoyed bipartisan support for 25 years.

If McCain loses to Hayworth in the primary, my guess is that he will take a page from the book of his good buddy Joe Lieberman and run as an independent. If this occurs, one of two scenarios will unfold.

In all likelihood, McCain will piece together enough support from moderate Republicans, conservative Democrats and his state’s independents to get on the November ballot and win the general election. He will then feel beholden to no ideology and spend the next six years exacting revenge on the conservatives who ousted him by making crummy deals with Barack Obama and the Democrats.

And that’s the best case scenario.

In the other scenario, McCain runs as an independent, splits the conservative vote with Hayworth in the general and hands the seat to a Democrat. If losing this one seat keeps us from taking back the Senate in November, who benefits the most? If you said “Barack Hussein Obama,” you guessed right.

The balance of power is not the only area where throwing John McCain under the bus may negatively impact the conservative cause.

Despite his high profile breaks with the G.O.P in the past, McCain has been rock solid in his opposition to the Obama agenda. Given his history as a bipartisan “maverick” you would have thought McCain would have been first in line to cut deals with the once popular Obama on the stimulus package and health care reform. But McCain stuck with the conservatives while true RINOs like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter and Charlie Crist jumped ship. Not only that, but McCain used his high national profile to lead the charge against these terrible ideas. He must be given his share of the credit for helping turn public opinion against Obama’s big government agenda and giving the G.O.P new life politically. McCain, more than any other member of the Republican caucus, seems to have received the small government, anti-income redistribution message being sent by the Tea Party and is behaving accordingly. It simply doesn’t make sense to fire someone who has been doing exactly what we’ve been demanding Republicans do for the last year.

On issues like earmark reform and national security, McCain has been with the conservatives all along. He never buckled during the Iraq debate, even when George W. Bush was wallowing in 30% approval ratings. Despite losing an election that would have been unwinnable for anyone with an “R” next to their name, McCain maintains credibility unmatched by anyone in the Republican Party on matters of foreign policy and national security. When he speaks on these subjects, he repeatedly exposes the amateurish, naiveté of the current administration.

Unlike the now powerless anti-war movement, the vast majority of Tea Partiers are not radical ideologues. Also unlike the anti-war Left, the Tea Partiers are promoting views that are shared by a majority of Americans. But, as they have made perfectly obvious throughout the course of the last week, the mainstream media has it out for the Tea Partiers and are searching tirelessly for a brush with which to paint its participants as extremists.

If conservative purists are successful in ousting McCain, who is still viewed by many as someone who believes in bipartisanship and who has reached across the aisle throughout his career (a quality that independent voters still crave) his defeat will be used as a bludgeon against all conservatives. Our opponents and the mainstream media will portray conservatives and Republicans as being the doorkeepers of a small tent who eat their own candidates if they exhibit anything other than a lifelong pattern of ideological purity. Such an act of political cannibalism will appear even more irrational if the guy being eaten is the same dude we were trying to make leader of the free world less than two years ago.

So while I completely understand the desire of conservatives to see Republicans with a history of liberal votes kicked out of office, this should not lead us to equate a John McCain with the likes of Dede Scozzafava.

What, exactly, would conservatives stand to gain by acting so vengefully? Seriously. What's the payoff on this one?

If we want to send the message that RINOism will no longer be tolerated, there are other ways to do so using the political process that don’t risk devastating the conservative power structure by giving the boot to popular, longstanding incumbents.

For example, it looks as though Florida conservatives intend to punish G.O.P establishment candidate Charlie Crist for supporting President Obama’s non-stimulating, stimulus by nominating Marco Rubio in a landslide.

Good.

Rand Paul is doing very well against another RNC backed candidate in Kentucky.

That’s fine with me as well.

But we conservatives shouldn’t put ourselves in a position where we abandon those who have spent their lives as dedicated advocates for many fundamental conservative principles, simply because they haven’t been true to our favored ideology 100% of the time.

After the Left took down Joe Lieberman in the 2006 Democratic primary, conservative talk radio hosts and cable commentators blasted the Left for throwing a principled politician overboard simply because he didn’t toe the liberal line on a few issues. They were right to do so and their liberal counterparts will be completely justified in blasting conservatives if they abandon McCain.

I have nothing against J.D. Hayworth. But the last thing our new conservative juggernaut needs right now is our own Ned Lamont.

Ronald Reagan believed that the person who voted with him 80% of the time was his friend. I assure you that he would have been adamantly opposed to the way in which many conservatives are abandoning Senator McCain in the name of ideological purity.

-Dan Joseph

Six Reasons For Conservatives to Smile

2010-03-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

Last night, conservatives lost a major battle in the fight for limited government. There’s really no way to sugar coat that fact. This health care monstrosity will be nearly impossible to repeal and even if the federal mandate forcing every American to purchase health insurance is found to be unconstitutional, we are still left with a new, massive entitlement that will result in higher taxes, higher insurance premiums and a lower quality of health care for the vast majority of Americans. Today, conservatives are despondent and with good cause.

But we put up an amazing fight. We did absolutely everything we could do to keep America from treading down the incredibly short-sighted path to more government control of our nation’s health care system. But, in the end, we had to bow to the realities of an overwhelming Democratic congressional majority and a Speaker of the House who is gifted at convincing her Democratic colleagues to fall in line and who has no qualms about handing out goodies to those who need some extra persuading.

However, while Democrats celebrate, there are reasons for conservatives to be thankful and hopeful on this dark day for the country that most Americans know and love. Since the health care issue became the focus of the national conversation more than a year ago Conservatives have made incredible gains in terms of the popularity of their ideas and have succeeded in dramatically changing the terms of the entire debate concerning the role of government. This bodes extremely well for us in future elections and very poorly for the future of the Democratic Party and of the progressive movement in the United States. Here is a list of some of the things that Conservatives can be happy about on a day when many of us are feeling hopelessly depressed.

1.The Health Care Bill Contains No “Public Option.”

At the beginning of this fight, the idea of a government-run insurance company that would “compete” with private insurers was the centerpiece of the Democratic health care plan. Of course, the goal was never to increase “competition.” It was to drive the private insurance companies out of business. Anyone with a third grade understanding of basic economics knows that there’s no way a private insurer could have survived when faced with a government competitor that didn’t have to worry about making a profit. The goal all along was to use the public option to achieve a single-payer health care system. Many Democrats admitted as much.

The expansion of the Medicaid entitlement, the new taxes and the onerous new regulations that will be placed on the private insurers will be painful and will damage the nation’s ability to grow economically. But, a public option leading to single-payer would have done far more damage, permanently stymieing the exceptional American economic engine which has made our economy the envy of the world for the past three decades. Additionally, single payer systems inevitable result in increased rationing and huge declines in the quality of care. America dodged a bullet when the public option died.

2.Conservatives won the policy debate.

The fact that the bill was opposed by a majority of Americans from the summer of 2009 until its passage was not a result of Republican misinformation as the Democrats would like you to believe. In fact, the American people turned against the plan despite the steady stream of misinformation about the bill’s effects that came from Barack Obama and his allies and which were intended to bamboozle the electorate into supporting it.

At every turn, the majority of the American people saw right through all of it. When the President claimed the bill would lower costs, the American people understood that this defied logic. When Democrats repeatedly claimed that it would lower the deficit, only the most dedicated Obamabot believed this to be possible. The Left’s claim that our health care system was equivalent to that of a Third World nation and that more government intervention was required to help us catch up with the “civilized” world was an easily disproved canard.

The overwhelming victory that conservatives achieved in the policy debate was a triumph of facts over talking points. The superiority of our side’s argument was exhibited repeatedly from threads on blogs and Facebook to the square table at Blair House where Paul Ryan made the President cringe in frustration as he was presented with his own misstatements. In the end, our arguments forced the Democrats to pass an unpopular bill and has put them at risk of losing the House of Representatives in the coming November elections—a possibility that was unthinkable a year ago. It also destroyed much of President Obama’s credibility and the moderate image of a post-partisan figure that he had worked so hard to cultivate among independent voters during the 2008 election cycle.

3.An informed, powerful conservative grassroots movement has been born.

One of the reasons that conservatives were so successful in winning the policy debate was because they became engaged at the grassroots level in an unprecedented way. For the first time in political history, regular everyday folks were actually reading thousands of pages of mundane legislation to try and understand exactly what was in it. On talk radio and in the blogosphere, it was clear that those who were once casual observers of the political process had acquired a fairly deep understanding of a very complicated issue.

While the Left’s argument never really went much further than to suggest that the expansion of government provided health care was the compassionate thing to do, those on the Right were explaining the economically damaging results of past government health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the failed experiments of systems in Canada, the U.K. and Massachusetts, the true ramifications of the public option and the questionable constitutionality of the nationwide insurance mandate.

When Obama tired to make doctors out to be soulless monsters controlled by greed who were taking out children’s tonsils unnecessarily in order to make a quick buck, conservatives countered by explaining that the reason doctors often perform unnecessary procedures is because they are protecting themselves against the possibility of expensive and often frivolous malpractice lawsuits.

The Democrats key assertion that insurance industry greed was the primary cause of high insurance premiums was easily disproved and conservatives across the country shot emails to their liberal friends and family members showing that the insurance industry is not really that profitable at all, bringing in only about 3 pennies on the dollar in annual profits and ranking 87th in terms of their profitability among all American industry’s.

When Democrats touted the CBO numbers claiming that their trillion dollar health care legislation actually “reduced” the deficit, conservatives pointed out how Democrats dishonestly manipulated the numbers by double counting the dollars being spent and through budget gimmickry like hiding the Medicare “doctor fix” in a separate bill.

On point after point, in debate after debate, conservatives got the better of their unprepared liberal opponents. This occurred because conservatives and many independents made an unprecedented effort to educate themselves on the health care issue. The conservative side of the electorate is now more engaged and paying closer attention to policy debates in Washington than ever before. Add that to their seemingly endless supply of energy and persistence and you have a new conservative activist base that is truly a force to be reckoned with.

4.The length of the debate was a huge setback for the Democrats.

Remember how the Democrats wanted to have health care reform done by June of 2009? That didn’t really work out so well. Because of the unanimous conservative opposition to the bill and the conservative movement’s ability to convince the majority of Americans that the Democrat’s proposals were not beneficial to the country as a whole, the debate dragged on and on. Had the Democrats successfully passed a bill last summer, they would have had nine extra months in which to move on to other issues like “Cap & Trade” and immigration reform. Democrats would have not suffered the damage that the extended debate caused them in the polls and they would have likely made quite a bit of headway in achieving parts two, three and four of their liberal agenda. There would have been no Scott Brown. No angry town halls and the Tea Party movement would have never become as powerful as it is today.

Now, seven months before the mid-term elections, the Democrats would have to be completely suicidal to bring up another of their controversial agenda items in this heated political environment. Can you imagine what would happen if we spent this summer debating amnesty for illegal immigrants? All hell would break loose and the Democrats would almost certainly lose Congress.

Additionally, even without another protracted policy fight, it is almost certain that the G.O.P will make significant gains in both the House and the Senate come November. Given the unity exhibited by the Republican caucus over the past year, it is almost impossible that the Democrats will be capable of getting any more of Obama’s leftist agenda enacted once their majorities have been trimmed. This could perhaps be the case for the remainder of Obama’s term in office.

5.Obama is not as charismatic or convincing as we once thought.

Perhaps conservatives underestimated Nancy Pelosi’s ability to push legislation through Congress. But it looks as though we dramatically overestimated Barack Obama’s ability to sell his policy ideas to the American people. At the beginning of the debate, Americans had overwhelmingly positive feelings about both the President and health care reform. By Christmas, a majority of Americans opposed the Democrats’ proposal and Obama’s personal approval rating was 15% points lower than it had been after his inauguration despite the fact that Obama had dedicated the better part of the year to speeches and interviews touting his health care reform package. In fact, the Rassmussen polling firm recently cited the fact that every time Obama made a major push for the legislation, his approval rating fell and the numbers in favor of Obamacare remained stagnant.

It would appear that what was once thought to be Obama’s greatest asset, his communication skills and his seeming ability to convince vast swaths of the electorate that excrement tastes good, are not the threats to the conservative cause that we once thought them to be. Obama and his enablers in the media will undoubtedly tout the passage of health care reform as a huge victory for Obama. However, the evidence suggests that the plan passed despite Obama, not because of him. It is truly remarkable just how ineffective the President’s arguments in favor off health care reform were in convincing the electorate to adopt his goals as their own. Conservatives no longer have any reason to be intimidated by Obama’s once legendary rhetorical abilities.

6.The Republican Party is Conservative Again.

Finally, conservatives nationwide should be extremely happy with the congressional Republicans’ ability to stand together unanimously against headwinds that seemed impossible to navigate only a year ago. They fought tooth and nail against the health care monstrosity from the beginning to the end. Devout conservatives like Tom Coburn and John Boehner stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of John McCain, Lindsey Graham and others whose dedication to the conservative cause has been repeatedly questioned by the base for years. They did so for two reasons.

First, every Republican was antithetically opposed to this government power grab. For the past year, conservatives have justifiably denounced the G.O.P for its free spending ways during the Bush administration. But when faced with the prospect of enacting a full-out undiluted government entitlement, their conservative instincts kicked in and they didn’t budge.

Second, and most importantly, it showed that G.O.P. leaders have heard the message that has been sent by the vast majority of conservative Americans over the past two years--that we expect them to be real conservatives, not RINOs; that we demand that they exhibit a true dedication to principles of limited government, deficit reduction and the ideals set down in our nation’s founding documents.

A little over a year ago, moderate Republicans like Colin Powell and David Brooks were telling us that if the G.O.P. did not moderate and start behaving more like Democrats, who had been victorious in 2006 and 2008, our party would almost certainly become irrelevant, enjoying only limited regional power. It is now obvious that these predictions completely misjudged the true ideological leanings of the American majority. So while the arrival of Obamacare gives us reason to mourn, what has ensued over the year-long battle that we waged against it give us a number of reasons to be incredibly optimistic about the future of our country and the future of the conservative movement.

-Dan Joseph

Obama's $500 Billion Lie

2010-03-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

Even in a life-long conservative, I told you so kind of way, I take absolutely no pleasure in the following statement: At no time in our history have the President and Congress jointly and willfully deceived the American people so egregiously as have Barack Obama and the Democrats on the issue of health care reform.

Of the multitude of lies foisted upon us since the debates inception, none is as bald faced as the Democrats unanimous assertion that the legislation currently being considered will reduce the deficit.

Today, giddy Democrats held a press conference to tout the Congressional Budget Office’s numbers which score the bill at $940 Billion and which, on paper, claims that Obama’s new entitlement will not only be deficit neutral but will actually reduce the deficit over the next twenty years.

Tommorow, here in Fairfax County, Mr. Obama will stand before an adoring audience and make an identical claim. Those in attendance will cheer. Any brave soul who dares to yell out “You lie!” will inevitably be drowned out by the swooning hundreds, still entranced by the president’s celebrity status and rhetorical prowess. But this brave soul would be right.

It’s a fact that there is no deficit reduction in this bill. This bill will add to the deficit.

Yes the CBO is non-partisan. Yes their calculations are technically correct. The manipulation of the numbers happened before the bill was even in the CBO’s hands. You see, the CBO does not simply look at legislation and estimate its cost. What happens is,the CBO is given a list of expenditures and, in this case was asked to determine what the effect on the deficit would be IF a sum of hypothetical money was spent a hypothetical way. But, when the Democrats handed the plan to the CBO they included a fictional $500 Billion. For 13 months we’ve been told that this bill would be paid for in large part by half-a-trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare. The CBO estimate not only assumes that those cuts will be found and implemented (something that most of us familiar with Washington politics see as very unlikely) but it also counts the same $500 Billion twice. Once to pay for the new entitlement in which 31 million people will get a health care handout from the government and then again to make Medicare solvent. Add this to the fact that an additional $250 Billion in cuts in reimbursement rates to doctors has been hidden in another bill and what you have is a bill that very clearly ADDS too the deficit. So either the Democratic Party is really bad at basic math or they’re full of it.

True progressives can almost be forgiven for ignoring this whopper. If you sincerely believe that the expansion of the nanny state and a vast reworking of the American economy is a moral imperative and that it needs to be done by any means available then the lie may seem like a necessary evil.

However, for our highest ranking public officials or those who conveniently choose to ignore Obama and Pelosi’s Climategate style, budgetary magic in hopes of securing a political victory for the President, (I’m looking at you mainstream media) this blatent dishonesty is unforgivable.

What makes this even stranger is that this lying seems almost pathological.

The public isn’t stupid. The majority of them are not so ignorant as to think that congress can enact a huge entitlement and at the same time reduce the deficit in either the short or the long term. This majority already opposes the bill and at this stage their minds are made up. There is no way that they are going to swing back and give the president their stamp of approval at this point in the game. Convincing them is a lost cause. And it’s not as though the Democrats care about public opinion in the first place. They have been intent on ramming this bill through since last summer, regardless of the fact that the proposal has been upside down in the opinion polls for months.

President Obama and congressional supporters of this bill smile big at the podiums knowing full well of the deception in which they are taking part. The Blue Dogs know that their jobs will still be at risk even if some of their more gullible independent constituents buy into the farce.

So what, exactly, is the incentive to propagating this huge lie?

It’s partially being done to try and make up for the Democrat’s historic blunder in proposing a costly new entitlement at a time of economic uncertainty and when deficit reduction is on the minds of a growing number of American citizens. Not to convince us perhaps, but rather for Democrats to convince themselves that they are actually cleverer than the evidence suggests.

But even if it is an exercise in self delusion, it does not excuse the behavior of the President and his enablers. This particular lie is simply the latest and the greatest in a string of untruths that have come from the president since the inception of the health care struggle. His repeated claim that if passed the public option wouldn’t eliminate anyone’s ability to maintain the services of their current physician and the more recently floated falsity that the bill will lower costs for individuals and families both come to mind.

Right now, many Americans fear for their country and with good reason. They are obviously deeply distressed over the permanent economic damage the bill will result in and the havoc that it will wreak on the U.S. health care system if passed. But they also fear for the political process itself. Never in modern times has the sausage making been so underhanded and corrupt. Obama and the Democrats have decided to change the rules deep into the game. Reconciliation can now be used to pass just about anything. The House is flirting with the idea of eliminating the need for an up or down vote, even on the most consequential pieces of legislation. Favorites are being played openly and regularly whether they be labor unions or Senators from states whose votes are required for passage. But most importantly, it is possible that the Democrats will achieve victory on a piece of legislation that has been sold to the public almost entirely using pretenses that the leadership knows to be false. The idea that this could become standard practice not only for the current Democratic Party establishment, but for our future leaders on both sides of the aisle is a terrifying prospect.

For eight years we have heard the liberals repeat the assertion that George W. Bush “lied” us into war with Iraq. Yet, after all of this time the Left has never put up a shred of real evidence to prove this charge. When it comes to Obamacare however, the evidence is everywhere. It is easily accessed and overwhelming. It pains me greatly to say this about any commander in chief. I have always prided myself on holding back on using this particular term for our highest officeholder until there is an obvious and flagrant disregard for the truth and it is exhibited on multiple occasions. That standard has been met. President Obama is a funadamentally dishonest individual.

-Dan Joseph

Call the Blue Dogs! The Stop Obamacare Phone Tree.

2010-03-10T13:57:00.000-08:00

The fate of the future of the nation's health care system and the American economy lies in the hands of these "Blue Dog" Democrats. Call them and tell them that either they're with the American people or they're with Nancy Pelosi. If it's the latter then they are likely to find themselves unemployed come next January.

Baron Hill (D-Ind.)
(202) 225-5315

Mark Schauer (D-Mich.)
(202) 225-6276

Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.)
(202) 225-3665

Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.),
(202) 225-3701

Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.)
(202) 225-5406

Chris Carney (D-Pa.)
(202) 225-3731

Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.)
(202) 225-6511

Tom Perriello (D-Va.)
(434) 293-9631

Steve Kagen (D-Wis.)
(202) 225-5665

Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.)
(202) 225-4172

Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.)
(202) 225-3452

Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.)
(701) 235-9760

Allen Boyd (D-Fla.)
(202) 225-5235

Bill Owens (D-N.Y.)
(202) 225-4611

Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.)
(202) 225-2315

Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.)
(202) 225-2190

Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).
(202) 225-2542

John Barrow (D-Ga.)
(202) 225-2823

Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.)
(202) 225-4231

Baron Hill (D-Ind.)
(202) 226-6866

Jim Matheson (D-Utah)
(801) 486-1236

Charlie Melancon (D-La.)
(202) 225-4031

Mike Ross (D-Ark)
(202) 225-3772

Zack Space (D-Ohio)
(202) 225-6265

Generation Right Fan Page

2010-03-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

The Facebook fan page for Generation Right is up and running. Not much there yet, but soon it will be full of useful info regarding the contents and the release of the book.

See the scaffolding here.

The Audacity of Dem Hypocrisy

2010-02-24T11:55:00.000-08:00

So this video exposes Obama and his fellow Dems as total hypocrites(but you probably already knew that). They also need to keep in mind that if they try to pull this off using reconciliation the GOP will have a free pass the next time we have a senate majority and we want to use reconciliation to pass something. And... it will be something the Dems really hate, like an end to the progressive income tax or private accounts for social security. Maybe even overturning this health care bill. Who knows? Sky's the limit!

Whatever the case, the GOP should totally play this video at tomorrow's health care summit.

Jason Mattera's CPAC Speech

2010-02-19T18:01:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday at CPAC, Young America's Foundation Spokesman Jason Mattera gave a very good, very funny speech on attracting young people to the conservative movement. You can view the speech here.

I have no real problem with Materra's controversial statements or the dialect with which he delivered the speech.

Materra, who like myself, is the author of an upcoming book on this topic, was unfairly attacked by the New York Times on its blog which insinuated that parts of the speech were racist. This accusation has no basis in reality. Mattera took a few cheap shots at Obama, but said nothing that could be construed as even remotely bigoted by any intellectually honest observer.

Where I take issue with Mattera's speech was what I saw as an overly optimistic portrayal of the changing attitudes of young people towards the president. Mattera said:

“Actually, on the cocaine front, I do believe many people in America viewed Barack as they do drugs: it was a substance to experiment with.”

“But like most narcotics, the hangover afterward has them thinking, What the hell did I just do?”

A good analogy, but I don't see it.

Quinnipiac recently released a poll showing that 58% of voters between the ages of 18-34 still approve of the job that the president is doing. This is down only 8% points from his election night total and does not account for the fact that the poll adds voters aged 30-34 into the tally while the election result of 66% tallied voters between the ages of 18-29.

Only 33% of voters aged 18-34 disapproved of Obama's job performance. Given that those aged 30-34 are more likely to have a less favorable view of Obama it means that less than the 33% of voters 18-29 who cast ballots for John McCain, disapprove of the job Obama is doing.

All of this while the general population's approval of Obama has dropped nearly 23% since his inauguration.

All of these numbers mean one of two things. Both bad.

Either young people are still very supportive of Obama's hyper-liberal agenda or they're simply not paying attention to the current policy debate that has been taking place since the election season ended.

If it's the former,it means that young people are actually ideologically liberal and they were not simply reacting to Obama's soaring rhetoric and undefined promises of "hope" and "changed" when they overwhelmingly supported him in 2008.

If it's the latter, and the weak outpouring of activism from young voters when it came to Obama's health care push tells me it is, it means that these young people are oblivious to all of the damaging policies that Obama is currently proposing and will see no reason not to vote for Obama in 2012.

Mattera may have simply been trying to rally the troops with his impressive CPAC speech. But the glasses he was wearing appear to be a bit too rosy. An overly optimistic view of the situation could put the conservative movement at risk of assuming that young voters will turn against Obama automatically once the rest of the electorate does.

If this does not happen conservative candidates will remain in the same difficult position with young voters as the found themselves in a year ago.

Cover Art

2010-02-18T18:09:00.001-08:00

Snowpocalypse Funnies

2010-02-10T17:30:00.001-08:00

Good News....

2010-02-09T18:35:00.001-08:00

Liberalism is dead. Again.

Time to Get Behind Mark Kirk.

2010-02-03T01:00:00.000-08:00

I know that we're not all happy about Mark Kirk being the GOP nominee for Barack Obama's old senate seat. Yes he voted for Cap & Trade (although I'm not so sure he'll back it if it ever comes up for another vote.) However, we Republican Beggars can't be conservative choosers here. Kirk is the best chance the GOP has at taking back a Democratic seat in a very blue state. If he turns out to be a RINO we can bitch about it for 6 years. but unless you want another Chicago style politician who's entrenched in that city's corrupt political machine in the Senate, then we have no real choice. And think about this. Let's say Harry Reid loses his seat, but the Democrats maintain their majority because Kirk loses in Illinois. You know who gets to be in charge of the Senate for the next two years? Either Dick Durbin, who is also neck deep in the corrupt Illinois system or Chuck Schumer. We need to think about those possibilities before we start applying a purity test to Kirk and looking for a Tea-Party alternative.

Obama's Epic Jobs Fail

2010-02-02T19:07:00.001-08:00

My First Webcast

2010-01-28T19:28:00.000-08:00

For my first foray into the world of Webcasting (Is that a word?) I decided to go with topic that wasn't controversial. Hope you like it.

Curtis Gans thinks "Birthers" a Major Force Within GOP

2010-01-25T19:58:00.000-08:00

Curtis Gans is the director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

He was kind enough to offer up his opinion to CNN.com in an article concerning the GOP's prospects of picking up seats in the November mid-term elections.

In warning against the GOP moving too far to "the Right" he cites "birthers" and "Tea-Party" activists as posing the greatest danger to the GOP's prospects for a big mid-term win.

"If the 'birthers' and the Tea Party people win most of the primaries in the Republican Party, that may not yield as much of a Republican victory in the general election as if their more moderate elements win."

Gans goes on to slam Marco Rubio, the Florida senate hopeful currently giving Gov. Charlie Crist a run for his money in that state's GOP primary.

"Rubio has the enthusiasm of the birthers and the Tea Party people and others like that, and that may propel him to the nomination, but it will be harder for the Republican Party to win in Florida under Rubio than it would be under a more moderate person."

Gans manages to mention the "birthers" twice in the relatively short CNN article.

Now, Mr. Gans is a big time Democratic Party insider so his personal political preferences are obvious, however his attempts to attach the "birther" label to the entire Tea Party movement and Marco Rubio show that Gans is either being intentionally misleading or that he is hopelessly out of touch with the reality of the current divisions within the GOP.

In all honesty, I haven't heard anyone besides those on the Left even mention the "birthers" in at least six months.

Even if the dispute over Obama's birthplace were still being debated and the "birthers" demands to see President Obama's birth certificate were still being taken seriously by anyone in the media, what evidence does Gans have that "birthers" are making up a significant portion of Rubio's base?

I don't think he has any.

The reason Gans keeps bringing up the "birthers" in the CNN article--in which he was interviewed to represent the "non-partisan" group that he heads--is because Gans knows that the "birthers" show the GOP and the Tea Party movement in a negative light. They make the movement appear irrational and unbalanced.

Pointing to the "birthers" is quite common when leftist pundits and commentators are trying to prove that the Right's hatred for President Obama is just as visceral as the Left's was for George W. Bush.

Through his commentary, Gans is trying to hurt the GOP by falsely implying that the "birthers" are a powerful and organized force within the party. An individual in his position obviously knows that this is not the case.

Trust me Mr. Gans when I tell you that most conservative activists and talk-radio callers have long forgotten the non-controversy surrounding Mr. Obama's place of birth. Conservatives now have legitimate reasons to distrust President Obama. First and foremost among these, his repeated fallacious claims regarding his proposals for health care reform.

One also has to wonder if they read polls over there at the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. If they did they would probably have noticed that the Tea-Party movement is currently polling better than both of the major political parties.
A shout-out for shoddy journalism should also go to CNN reporter Kristi Keck for putting up a tub-thumper for the Democratic Party and selling him as an unbiased political analyst. Then again, if ABC can get away with it, putting George Stephanopoulos on the air every week, then I'm sure Keck will be just fine.

- Dan

Dean Gets Crazy...er.

2010-01-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

When Chris Matthews starts making sense, you know the Left has officially jumped the shark.

O.F.A. Propaganda for the Obama Supporter Who'll Believe Anything.

2010-01-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

Here's the first sentence of the e-mail that the White House's organizing arm "Organizing For America" sent to it's supporters today.

Albert --

Yesterday's disappointing election results show deep discontent with the pace of change. I know the OFA community and the President share that frustration.

This of course implying that people aren't upset with Obama and his "progressive" agenda.

Noooooooo! The voters of Massachusetts were clearly upset that the Obama Administration hasn't federalized the Health Care system fast enough!

They don't just want some terrorists to get civilian show trials in New York City! Uh-uh! Bay State voters were sending the message that they won't rest until every single accused terrorist has had his day in a New York City courtroom!

"Damn you Barack Obama! What haven't you spent more taxpayer money?!!!"

Wow! That's some audacious propaganda right there OFA! And many members of OFA are just delusional enough to believe it.

It's one thing if Obama's trying to pull the wool over the eyes of independent voters in order to garner support for an otherwise unpopular agenda. It's a very bad sign however when you have to try and convince your most dedicated supporters not to jump ship and you do so by telling them that the message that Massachusett's voters sent, was the complete opposite of what they were actually trying to say.

The Massachusetts Tsunami

2010-01-13T15:42:00.000-08:00

Given the current situation in Hispaniola, it may be a bit insensitive to use the term “political earthquake” to describe what will happen to the Democratic Party if Scott Brown ends up pulling off the political upset of the decade in the bluest of deep-blue states next week.

Whatever you want to call it, a victory will be all of the proof one requires to see that the recent liberal ascension was a farce and it will put a stopper in the progressive agenda for at least the next 7 years.

So do your part. Go here and donate $5 to Scott Brown’s campaign.

Next Tuesday night could mark the beginning of the end for Barack Obama and his liberal agenda. Even if Brown loses a close race, it’s a very good sign for our prospects in November.

Man Of The Decade: George W. Bush

2010-01-03T16:39:00.000-08:00

Damn Straight!

by Dan Calabrese

suppose some will agree with a mouthful of ashes: “Damn right Bush is the man of the decade – a decade that sucked!”

As you prefer. But the argument here is that George W. Bush ought to be the man of the aughts mostly for the right reasons. I would also argue that he is smack dab at the center of what was best and worst about this decade.

The best, because Bush was a rare president who saw governing as a higher calling than his own political self-preservation. This frustrated his opponents – who couldn’t intimidate him with polls and attacks – as well as many of his supporters, who couldn’t get him to fight back with the sort of ferocity it seemed might be necessary to fend off attacks from Democrats and the media.

The worst, because Bush’s presidency is a good example of how willing people were in the decade now past to believe the hints, innuendos and impressions they received from the popular discourse, without really thinking for themselves.

After twice cutting taxes in his first term, Bush ran for re-election with a strong, growing, job-creating economy. And yet his opponents and the media continued to insist that the economy was terrible. (For a real bad economy, see: Now.) For the most part, the public believed this nonsense, and seemed to re-elect Bush in spite of an economy that was actually quite good.

The public was willing to believe the conventional wisdom that Bush had alienated our allies, in spite of the fact that he had allies working with us on all kinds of innovative and effective counter-terrorism measures, and had good personal relationships with most world leaders. The public had no idea what kind of progress Bush made with world trade markets and opening up emerging parts of the world like Indonesia.

They just kept hearing on the news every night that the whole world hated us because of Bush, and they believed it.

They believed lots of other things. They believed Guantanamo Bay was a torture hell that needed to be shut down at the earliest opportunity, and didn’t start to believe the opposite until they elected a president who actually tried to do what they thought they wanted, and they started to realize Bush had been right.

And yet, in spite of the 29 percent approval rating with which he left office, Bush accomplished a lot. Throughout most of his presidency, unemployment hovered around a ridiculously low 5 percent, even as Democrats howled that it was somehow too high. If unemployment came in at 5 percent tomorrow, Democrats would throw the party of the millennium.

He ended the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein, ended Mohmmar Khadafy’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, marginalized Yasser Arafat in the Middle East and, best of all, accomplished all this over the objections of the United Nations, which he righteously told where it could stick its objections.

Bush was not perfect, and he was not effective at pushing through every good idea he had. But it counts for a lot in my book that he tried to do desperately necessary things most politicians are afraid to do.

He was the first president who took a serious crack at trying to reform Social Security, the third rail of American politics. He tried to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration. He tried as far back as 2003 to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Now, he would deserve a hell of a lot more credit if he had actually gotten these initiatives through Congress. But it’s never made sense to me that the one politician who had the courage to propose these things is blamed because the pantywaist cowards on Capitol Hill – mainly worthless pieces of crap from his own party – couldn’t muster the courage to get behind him on them.

If the departed and unlamented GOP Congress had possessed half the courage of George W. Bush, we’d be drilling in Alaska, setting up privatized Social Security accounts and maybe, just maybe, not picking up the pieces of an obliterated mortgage market.

Conservatives hold a grudge against Bush for the explosion of federal spending during his administration. This is an area where I believe he should have fought harder.

But there are some worthwhile arguments to make in Bush’s defense here. The vast majority of the increase in federal spending came from legally mandated, formulaic increases in entitlement spending, which Bush could not have stopped absent an overall reform in the entitlement programs, and from war spending. As Bush found out in 2005, Congress wouldn’t touch entitlements, and whether you liked it or not, Bush believed the right approach to fighting wars was to simply spend whatever it took.

Granted, Bush contributed to the problem with the Medicaid Part D expansion, although it can be said in his defense that at least it’s one of the few federal entitlement programs that actually seems to be working well for its recipients.

To the extent that the big-spending GOP Congress contributed to the spending spree in the areas of discretionary domestic spending, many criticize Bush for refusing to veto these budgets. I think he should have too. But if Bush felt he could only spend his political capital in certain areas, and he chose the war as his hill to die on, it’s hard to argue with that.

Supposedly Bush feared that taking on the Republican Congress publicly over their free-spending ways would create a media cause celebre that would help hand Congress back to the Democrats. If that was his thinking, it was obviously a political miscalculation. But I can’t repeat often enough that a Republican Congress never should have presented a Republican president with such a dilemma. They had the power of the purse. They could have exercised their power responsibly. They did not wish to do so.

Bush made other mistakes. He appointed Ben Bernanke to lead the Federal Reserve. He imposed steel tariffs for a brief time in 2001. He pushed through his own ineffective “stimulus,” although it was a pittance compared to Barack Obama’s, and at least Bush’s went directly to the American people instead of being plowed into pork boondoggles. He tried to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court, although he redeemed himself with his other choices.

And of course, it’s easy to forget now the courage, strength and resolve he exuded in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. When Bush quoted Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer in imploring the country, “Let’s roll,” you knew that he would follow his words with real action. And he did.

But a debate on the wisdom of Bush’s choices, or on the effectiveness of his style of governance, could last forever, and surely will.

In my mind, one thing sets Bush apart, and earns him the honor of representing the best of this decade: He did what he believed was right, without regard to polls or political consequences. Whether that applied to policy on embryonic stem cells or the war in Iraq, Bush was no finger-in-the-wind politician.

He was a leader. He led with class, grace and compassion. He may or may not have been a “true conservative,” whatever the hell that is supposed to mean, but he understood the presidency, and he understood this country. And he understood that he held the office to serve the interests of the people, not to serve his own.

A lot of things were wrong with the decade now passing. But the fact that Bush was president for most of it was one of the really good things. I realize not much of the public has thought so in recent years, although I suspect many are now starting to appreciate what they used to have, and are starting to ask, “Why exactly was it that we didn’t like him?”

And thinking it wouldn’t be so bad if we had him back now.

Oh, and Dick Cheney too.

Democrats: Lying Their Way to Reform

2009-12-21T12:44:00.000-08:00

Here you have Rhode Island Jr. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse making some insane statements on the Senate floor.

Of course, as is standard practice for any Liberal attempting make a point, Whitehouse went on to compare the GOP to Jim Crow-era lynchers, and Nazis:

“History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrils have rolled through taunting crowds, broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner waving secret lists."

Gross, but not at all surprising.

My question is, is this simply political rhetoric that the Senator knows to be an offensive exaggeration or is it really how the far-Left views the opposition to this Health Care bill?

Another piece of evidence that the Left may actually believe that our motives in opposing this health care monstrosity were something other than considered opposition to a bad piece of legislation, can be found in Clive Crook's pro-Obamacare piece in today's Financial Times, in which he opines:

"It does not matter that conservatives oppose this reform. Of course they do. Conservatives are unmoved by the plight of the uninsured, want to block this administration’s domestic initiatives regardless, and are incapable of uniting behind an alternative proposal. They have nothing to offer on the issue."

To Mr. Crook's credit, I don't think he actually believes what he wrote about conservatives. Any intellectually honest individual who has paid attention to this bloody, 8-month debate, knows full well that conservatives have proposed a number of ideas to make health care more affordable. His implication that conservatives are "..unmoved by the plight of the uninsured." Is tantamount to a conservative columnist writing that those who want premature withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq are unmoved by the plight of families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks.

The statement's silliness is clearly illustrated by the fact that the Democratic leadership had to bribe several senators of their own party in order to get the bill to the floor.

Crook knows better. What he's guilty of is laziness as it would require far more thought and time spent at the word processor to delve into the true reasons behind the unified conservative opposition to Obamacare than he is willing to give.

Senator Whitehouse's words are far more egregious. It's one thing when you find statements like these in a comment thread on Daily Kos or coming from the mouths of Bill Maher's guests or the wildly uninformed host himself. However when it comes from a member of the world's greatest deliberative body, it should give all of us pause.

Whitehouse's statement is just one more example of the tactics that the Democratic Party has used all along in its attempts to gain public support for it's health care legislation.

They lied.

Plain and simple. From the very beginning, when President Obama was telling American's that if they liked their current health care they could keep it, even with the existence of a Public Option. Or that that Public Option would "compete" with private insurers rather than put them completely out of business. Now we have the current Dem claim that this legislation will lower costs for the privately insured when almost every analysis shows that costs for the privately insured will rise substantially once this bill goes into effect. The Democratic Party has undeniably sold Obamacare almost exclusively by way of sophistry, half-truths and bald-faced lies.

Yet another stunning example of this was last week when President Obama himself claimed that passing his trillion dollar health care bill was the only way to save the country from bankruptcy. Not only does this statement defy common sense, but most American's (and the Chinese Government)understand that the exact opposite is true. If anything, the Democratic plan will put the United States closer to fiscal insolvency than ever before.

Obama says that care will improve across the board. Not true.

He says this bill is deficit neutral. It's not and incredibly dishonest budget gimmickry is the only way Dems could even achieve this result on paper.

One positive thing to come out of all this is that the majority of the American people are smart enough not to buy into the trickery of the lying Democrats. That's a good sign of things to come. The Democrat's failure to gain majority support for this bill and the anger that their actions have resulted in among independents, almost guarantees that they will be unable to achieve other damaging policy goals like Cap & Trade and amnesty for illegal immigrants. The failure of the Public Option is a huge victory for the conservative movement and leaves the current bill without a clear path to single-payer care, which was the Left's primary objective all along.

Most importantly however, we've seen first hand that the American Left must lie about the effects of its policy proposals, because if they are honest about the repercussions of their ideas, the American people will reject the progressive agenda outright. Fortunately, this time the American people saw through it and the Democrats will almost certainly pay a price for it come November.

So don't be too mad at Senator Whitehouse and Clive Crook. After all, hyperbole and misinformation is the only effective weapon they wield in the battle to implement the liberal agenda in center-right America.

-Dan Joseph

This Is It!

2009-12-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

The fate of American health care rests in the hands of one man. Call Sen. Ben Nelson. 202-224-6551 Tell him to kill the bill.

Whoa!

2009-12-09T19:35:00.000-08:00

A very good sign.

The Death of Climate Alarmism: Poor Leadership 101

2009-12-08T01:15:00.000-08:00

Here's Al Gore's Huffington Post, profile picture:

Yeah. I know.

It's shocking that an individual so socially awkward and phony could be taken seriously by such a huge portion of the population. And yet, he's still around. The reason is obvious. On the Left, Bush derangement syndrome still lingers in the souls of many. It is still yet to be cured by the soothing yet thus far, completely ineffective, aroma of Campbell's "Hope, Change and Chicken Soup" which liberals have been feasting on since last November.

To the modern liberal, Gore represents an alternative universe, in which folks in Palm Beach County were actually able to figure out their simple ballots, designed by equally simple Democratic Party officials, on Election Day 2000. In the minds of these true believers, had Gore been elected, not only would 9/11 never had happened. Not only would the economic collapse had been avoided with risky mortgages being put into a "Lock-Box" instead of being sold in bundles to Fannie May and Freddie Mac. But the true challenge of our time, that of facing down the dangers of anthropogenic climate change or "global warming," would have been solved long ago. Because as a wise liberal professor once told me in college: "WAR BAD! ENVIRONMENT GOOD! ME LIKE NPR AND MOTHER JONES! LET'S GO PROTEST! BLAH-BLAH-BLAH! UHHHHHHHH..... Professor sleepy. Must....go home....read Chomsky...then...not...get...laid.

But here, in reality, Gore lost the 2000 election and I still thank God that the duty of waging a war against Islamic extremism and Saddam Hussein was not left in the hands of a Gore Administration. For those who think things would actually be better now had Gore had 8 years in the White House instead of Bush, one need only look at the recent climate change debacle to put any delusions regarding the superior competence or intellectual honesty of Mr. Gore's leadership to rest.

For a decade now, Al Gore has served as the voice of the Global Warming alarmists. That they chose him to represent their cause was their first big mistake.

If you want people to take your movement seriously and believe it when you claim that you are fighting for a cause backed up by a "scientific consensus," then the last thing you want is for your movement's leader to be the incredibly divisive, hyper partisan loser of the most controversial presidential election in American history. Of course it doesn't help that Gore is so uncharismatic that he makes Mitch McConnell look like a politically knowledgeable George Clooney.

But the movement had to be led by a liberal. Even with some believable evidence pointing to Global Warming being caused by man, the whole concept of the apocalyptic nature of climate change fits perfectly into the traditional dogma of the modern liberal.

It is based on the idea that human kind is so flawed that it is destroying the planet. As with most of the worlds problems, America is to blame for most of it. And of course, the solution is to punish corporations and others within the private sector. It's the perfect progressive blame trifecta. It fits in absolutely perfectly with the world view of the devout leftist. If the Left could have found some way to hold the military accountable for the rise in global temperatures over the last 50 years I'm positive that they would have not hesitated to do so.

Then Gore and his followers made another mistake typical of politicians. They took a limited amount of inconclusive data and used it to convince the public that the evidence was so strong that no debate was necessary on the subject. And it worked. For a while. Until that is, the situation changed and the warnings of continued warming that the alarmists had been giving us for twenty years failed to materialize.

Oops.

Plan B: Fudge the data. Hope the people don't find out.

Oops.

They found out.

Plan C: Repeat original claim. Hope no one notices.

Oops.

They noticed.

Ironically, it appears as though the debate on climate change actually is over. Gore and the alarmists have lost. There is no way that the American people are confident enough in the scientific community's theories, that they will sacrifice trillions in tax dollars and long-term economic growth for a cause whose leaders have engaged in trickery, irresponsible exaggerations and whose theories haven't panned out in the first place. Right now environmental and energy concerns rank dead last in terms of the issues that Americans view as important, tied with "something else" and "other" in almost every major poll. This weeks events in Copenhagen are a joke when viewed in light of climategate earthquake that occurred when those East Anglia e-mails popped up, forcing any common sense observer to reassess what they thought they knew about the end of the world.

It's difficult to feel very sorry for a character as unsympathetic as Al Gore and yet I do. Just when he thinks that his dreams of becoming a relevant figure in the annals of world history have been realized, those dreams are dashed by the reality of trying to lead a center-right and intellectually curious nation where non-partisan leadership and honesty are important qualities. The kind that is an unfortunate rarity in the rest of the world today.

But don't feel too bad for Mr. Gore. He may never be President. The prospects of the cause he has championed for decades may appear to have been devoured by the very polar bears that he sought to save and experiencing its last hurrah this week in Denmark. However, Gore has made a ton of money by spreading his climate change gospel to the true believers. So much money. Millions and millions of dollars. More money than you and I could possibly fathom. He did all of this without ever having to answer his critics or engage in a serious debate on the topic. That's talent.

-Dan Joseph

Here's a particularly disgusting piece of propaganda from the alarmists.

The Feigned Indignation of Barbara Mikulski

2009-12-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

Maryland's Senior Senator Barbara Mikulski got all upset the other day over the recent government panel recommendation that discouraged women under the age of 50 from getting annual mammograms. That's fine with me. But the reality is that Mikulski's objection was far from sincere. Had her outrage been based solely in a concern for women's lives her statements regarding the matter would have been far less politically charged and her support for the current Senate health care bill would not be as certain as it remains today.

Addressing the mammogram controversy, Mikulski said:

“....insurance companies may use this new recommendation as yet another reason to deny women coverage for mammograms.”

Sure. They may. But that's really a very backwards way of looking at the matter considering that if they did, it would be because a government panel told them that it was ok to do so.

The recommendations were not made by a group of independent doctors funded by the insurance industry. They came from doctors on a government panel, none of whom had expertise in the area of mammography. The same kind of government panel that will be making recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services about what kind of care patients are eligible to receive under government run health care and what corners can be cut in order to save money. These types of recommendations are assured once the Health care bill making it's way through congress is hooked up with the mandates for comparative effectiveness research found in the stimulus package.

And Senator Mikulski is going to vote for all of it. Her cover? She turns the tables and attempts to make the insurance industry the bad guy. Sorry Barb. This is a preview of government oversight into women's health issues, not another instance of the dangers of the status quo. A status quo that is second to none in terms of breast cancer survival rates. But the fact that you're still going to vote for the monstrosity currently making its way through the Senate, proves that you really don't care.

I know that putting an end to breast cancer is an issue that many young people--especially young women who have family members or friends who have been afflicted with this terrible disease--care deeply about. But young people continue to be the demographic group supporting Obamacare with the most enthusiasm. You need to wake up. You're being duped into believing that poorly thought out recommendations made by the government can be remedied by giving more power to the people responsible for making those poorly thought out recommendations in the first place. It's ironic that Sen. Mikulski is about to vote to give additional power to the type of group who she sharply criticized just days earlier for putting women's lives at risk.

So come on people. It's time to start watching what the other hand is doing.

-Dan

Ross Douthat Writes My Preface. Kind Of.

2009-11-30T07:17:00.000-08:00

This is Ross Douthat's latest New York Times Op-Ed. Douthat is the youngest columnist in Times history. Shockingly he is also a conservative.

The focus of Douthat's piece concerns the voting trends of young people based on economic factors. However Douthat also echoes some of the warnings that I give to the conservative establishment in my upcoming book.

The Comeback Starts Today

2009-11-03T14:27:00.001-08:00

America Still Doesn't Get The Public Option

2009-10-19T23:04:00.000-07:00

You still don't get it do you?

Alright. I'm gonna give this one last shot.

So the government will set up an insurance company, right? Then, if you can’t afford private insurance you can come to the government and get it at a much lower rate. The lower rate that the government offers will provide competition and that will force private insurers to lower their rates.

It sounds great! But I’m still waiting for someone to convince me that it wouldn’t lead us to a single-payer system.

Now, I understand that many of you think a single-payer system would be great. No insurance companies whatsoever. The government simply covers everybody and the taxpayers foot the bill. Of course this type of system would be impossible without raising taxes on everyone. The rich, the middle class, small business owners, investors. Everyone.

A lot of young people I’ve spoken to tell me that they wouldn’t mind all that much if they had to pay higher taxes so that everyone could have access to a government plan. But would they be willing to lose their job? Would they be willing to live in less comfortable conditions? Pay higher prices for goods and services? Subject their elderly relatives to a lower quality of medical care then they could have enjoyed otherwise?

I only ask because these are the long-term economic repercussions of single-payer and the public option will inevitably lead to such a system.

Here’s how it works:

The medical industry, made up of doctors, nurses, MRI machines, bedpans, etc. gets its money from a few places. The insurance companies and the government both pay the medical industry for the people insured under private plans as well as the millions covered by Medicare and Medicaid. The problem is that the government reimburses the hospitals far less for the care it provides than what the care actually is worth. So, the medical industry forces the insurance companies to pay more for the same care and the insurance companies pass those costs onto their policy holders.

A public option would pay the medical industry a rate comparable to those paid by Medicare and Medicaid. The difference would be that instead of the government plan covering just the elderly and the poor, it would now cover anyone who wanted it.

The private insurance industry is not very profitable- despite what the sophists in the Democratic Party would have you believe. It only makes about 3.5 cents on the dollar in annual profits.

The public option would lead to an increase in the number of people in the system without an increase in the resources it would take to adequately care for all of those people. Additionally the private insurance companies would bear the burden of the costs, since they need to make a profit to survive and the government can, and does, go as far into debt as they want. Because initially the quality of care wouldn’t differ between those under private and public plans, people would inevitably switch to the cheaper plan. Additionally, business owners would have no incentive to keep their employees on the plans they provide for their workers and could save money (at least in the short term) by dropping that coverage. The private insurers would eventually go out of business.

And here’s where the problems really begin.

Once everyone is reliant on the government to pay for the bulk of their medical costs, there are only two ways the government can afford it while paying the medical industry a rate that allows them to maintain a reasonable level of care and not falling too far into debt.

They cut back on care and take a larger role in the decisions made between you and your doctor, even fining physicians for performing procedures that government panels deem unnecessary. Or, they can raise taxes.

In Europe they do both of these things. But, the people of Europe don’t enjoy the high standard of living that we do in this country. Their employment rate is usually much higher than ours. New innovations or technologies rarely come out of these countries because their economic system discourages their citizens from being entrepreneurs. Why? Higher tax rates.

If America had adopted a single-payer system decades ago, the economic booms that the US experienced in the 80’s and 90’s would have never happened. Much of the technology that the world enjoys today would not exist. Let’s face it. What incentive would a Frenchman have to invent Google? Would a Swede have had the incentive to create Amazon? Mp3 players, cell phones. None of those things would be essential elements of human existence without American innovation and creativity and none of that creativity would have existed if we prevented the private sector from rewarding these innovations with untold wealth. High taxes destroy this incentive and a single-payer system would lead to high taxes. The public option would lead to single payer. Thus, the public option could very well be the first step in destroying everything that has enabled the American economy to become the most vibrant that the world has ever known. If you’re willing to make that sacrifice – among others- then that’s your business.

Many young Americans have become spoiled. They don’t understand how well America’s economy has actually worked over the last 30 years and that our unprecedented growth and high standard of living across the entire economic spectrum is no accident. The debate over the public health insurance option has been nasty. It’s because there is a fundamental disagreement between conservatives and liberals over what’s more important to a society in the long term. Freedom or equality. But make no mistake, the decision over the public option will have far reaching ramifications, not just in the realm of health care, but in every other aspect of all of our lives for the rest of our nation’s existence. So think about it. Really think about it.

How The People of New Jersey Could Save America

2009-10-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

Right now Americans are being offered two competing health care visions by Democrats. Both are awful. On the one hand we have the Baucus bill that would lead to a steep rise in insurance costs for Americans who currently have coverage. To the left of Baucus, we have the public option plan that would lead to the destruction of the health insurance industry altogether and which would, in time, result in huge tax increases and stifle economic growth. At this point, it would appear that the Democrats are poised to take advantage of the large majorities they enjoy in Congress and ram one of these two misguided ideas through, regardless of American public's unfavorable view of both of the current proposals. But there still may be hope for citizens who understand the incredible dangers posed by these myopic efforts to reform the system. These hopes are dependent on the voting decisions made by residents of Virginia and New Jersey on November 3rd.

Both Virginia and New Jersey will hold gubernatorial elections in two weeks. In Virginia, it appears that Republican Bob McDonnell is headed for a comfortable victory. Faced with a weak opponent and bolstered by growing backlash against the Obama agenda in the Commonwealth, it is likely that he will achieve a victory that could range anywhere from 5% to 15%. The final margin of victory is hard to predict since it’s unclear how many young and African-American voters who came out specifically to support Barack Obama last fall will return to the polls for a mid-term election with far less historical significance. Whatever happens, Republicans are growing increasingly confident about this race.

The situation in New Jersey is far less predictable. Right now, incumbent Democratic governor John Corzine is fighting for his life in one of America’s bluest states. Polls show the race tied, but the truth is that Corzine would probably be behind by several points if not for Independent candidate Chris Daggett, who is siphoning off support from Corzine’s Republican challenger Chris Christie. If Christie can pull out a victory in the Garden State, national Democrats will have no choice but to take notice.

If Christie can win in a state that Barack Obama carried by 15 points last November, congressional Democrats who are up for re-election in 2010 will think twice before throwing their support towards divisive health care proposals that seem to hemorrhage support every time the electorate is reminded exactly what they contain.

If Christie loses, congressional Democrats will be less likely to fully comprehend the wake-up call that would be loud and clear if he were to win. While the message could very well be sent again in 2010, if it is diluted by a Corzine victory then there is far less chance of stopping health care reform by instilling the fear of God in these fence-sitting Blue Dogs. There would be no shame for Republicans in a New Jersey loss, but the people of New Jersey who understand the dangers of the current health care proposals being discussed on Capitol Hill, need to be made aware of the national significance of their choice before pulling the lever for Mr. Daggett on Election Day

Nobel Prize Will Cement Early Obama Narrative

2009-10-09T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Nobel Peace Prize ceased to represent anything remotely associated with “peace” long ago. In recent years, the once prestigious award has been bestowed upon a terrorist in Yasser Arafat and an enabler of dictators in Jimmy Carter. In giving the award to President Obama the Nobel selection committee has proven once and for all that the award itself is more of an honor that recognizes those who talk about “peace” rather than those who take meaningful steps towards actually achieving it.

But today’s shocking development will do more than serve as a reminder of the meaningless nature of the award itself. When viewed in the context of recent events, today’s announcement will undoubtedly serve to highlight just how little Barack Obama has actually accomplished during his time in office and that much of the praise heaped upon him by his promoters is largely undeserved.

The talking heads and Internet pundits are still abuzz over Saturday Night Live's recent decision to finally take the gloves off and chide Obama for his lack of effectiveness since taking office. This portrayal was met with a sense of relief from the Right, which was unsure if late-night comedians would ever begin subjecting Obama to the same level of good-natured comedic scrutiny that all of his predecessors enjoyed. It was met with relative silence from the Left, which may not have thought SNL’s jabs were very funny but knew in their hearts that such mockery was warranted.

I fully expect that at 11:30 tomorrow evening SNL will use today’s development, which is laughable in its own right, to once again shine light on the fact that Obama has done very little to deserve such adulation and praise.

By presenting Obama with Nobel’s highest honor, the committee may have just completed the caricature that SNL began drawing last weekend. Comedy has always been an important factor in defining our political leadership. It was SNL and the late-night talk show hosts that successfully branded Bill Clinton as a fast food-loving, womanizing scoundrel. They portrayed George W. Bush as an imbecilic man child and that portrayal helped to solidify the conventional wisdom of many of his detractors. They mercilessly mocked Sarah Palin to the point that many could not differentiate between statements actually made by the former governor and those made by Tina Fey. These over-the-top portrayals of our elected officials can have a very real impact on the evolution of the American people’s perception of them. The fact that Obama’s lack of accomplishment is being met with awards from the world community rather than its skepticism should make him a huge target, even for the liberal, late-night jesters.

Again, Obama talks a good game, but thus far that talk has led to no meaningful action. While Obama is lauded for promoting “peace,” he dithers as Afghanistan plummets further into chaos. As he calls for a world without nuclear weapons, he seems hesitant to take a hard stance as Iran’s Mullahs come ever closer to acquiring them. The discrepancy between the way Obama is treated by his adoring fans and his effectiveness should become the comedic narrative used to define Obama’s young presidency. As we know, these satirical send-ups have a way of taking on a life of their own.

-Dan Joseph

The Obama Collection. Songs For Children.

2009-10-07T17:48:00.000-07:00

The Neocons Make A Comeback

2009-09-29T06:04:00.000-07:00

By Bret Stephens
Wall Street Journal

The other day I was asked by a writer for a mainstream French newspaper to say something about the "return" of the neoconservatives. His thesis seemed to be that the shambles of Barack Obama's foreign policy had, after only nine months, made what was thought to be the most discredited wing of an ostensibly brain-dead conservative movement relevant again. And France—no longer straining at the sight of Michelle Obama shopping in Paris's 6th arrondissement—is taking notice.

My answer was that the neocons are back because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin never went away. A star may have shone in the east the day Barack Obama became president. But these three kings, at least, have yet to proffer the usual gifts of gold and incense and myrrh.

Instead, the presents have been of a different kind. North Korea claims to be in the final stages of building a uranium enrichment facility—its second route to an atomic bomb. Iran, again caught cheating on its Nonproliferation Treaty obligations, has responded by wagging a finger at the U.S. and firing a round of missiles. Syria continues to aid and abet jihadists operating in Iraq. NATO countries have generally refused to send more troops to Afghanistan, and are all the more reluctant to do so now that the administration is itself wavering on the war.

As for Russia, its ambassador to the U.N. last week bellyached that the U.S. "continues to be a rather difficult negotiating partner"—and that was after Mr. Obama cancelled the missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Thus does the politics of concession meet with the logic of contempt.

All this must, at some level, come as a surprise to an administration so deeply in love with itself. "I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world," Mr. Obama told the U.N.'s General Assembly last week with his usual modesty. He added that those expectations were "rooted in hope—the hope that real change is possible, and the hope that America will be a leader in bringing about such change."

Yet what sounds like "hope" in, say, Toronto or Barcelona tends to come across as fecklessness in Warsaw and Jerusalem. In Moscow and Tehran, it reads like credulity—and an opportunity to exploit the U.S. at a moment of economic weakness and political self-infatuation.

For those much-scorned neocons, none of this comes as a surprise. Neoconservatives generally take the view that the internal character of a regime usually predicts the nature of its foreign policy. Governments that are answerable to their own people and accountable to a rule of law tend to respect the rights of their neighbors, honor their treaty commitments, and abide by the international rules of the road. By contrast, regimes that prey on their own citizens are likely to prey on their neighbors as well. Their word is the opposite of their bond.

That's why neocons have no faith in any deals or "grand bargains" the U.S. might sign with North Korea or Iran over their nuclear programs: Cheating is in the DNA of both regimes, and the record is there to prove it. Nor do neocons put much stock in the notion that there's a "reset" button with the Kremlin. Russia is the quintessential spoiler state, seeking its advantage in America's troubles at home and abroad. Ditto for Syria, which has perfected the art of taking credit for solving problems of its own creation.

Where neocons do put their faith is in American power, not just military or economic power but also as an instrument of moral and political suasion. Disarmament? The last dictator to relinquish his nuclear program voluntarily was Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, who did so immediately following Saddam Hussein's capture. Democratization? Contrary to current conventional wisdom, democracy is often imposed, or at least facilitated, by U.S. pressure—in the Philippines, in the Balkans and, yes, in Iraq. Human rights? Anwar Ibrahim, the beleaguered Malaysian opposition leader, told me last week that "the only country that can stand up" to abusive regimes is the United States. "If they know the administration is taking a soft stance [on human rights], they will go on a rampage."

None of this is to say that neoconservatism represents some kind of infallible doctrine—or that it's even a doctrine. Neocons have erred in overestimating the U.S. public's willingness to engage in long struggles on behalf of other people. They have erred also in overestimating the willingness of other people to fight for themselves, or for their freedom.

But as the pendulum has swung to a U.S. foreign policy based on little more than the personal attractions of the president, it's little wonder that the world is casting about for an alternative. And a view of the world that understands that American power still furnishes the margin between freedom and tyranny, and between prosperity and chaos, is starting to look better all the time. Even in France.

A Terrific Case For Home Schooling

2009-09-23T23:27:00.000-07:00

Does Obama Believe What He's Been Saying?

2009-09-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

Less than a year ago, Barack Obama was being hailed as "post-partisan." Now, he seems to exemplify the slippery partisan. George Will describes Obama's recent actions here, but had he not mentioned Obama by name the following piece could easily be used as a case study in examining why Americans don't trust politicians.

George F. Will
Mitch McConnell Smiled?

The President is CPR for the GOP.
Published Sep 12, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Sep 21, 2009

Mitch McConnell, the taciturn Kentuckian who leads Senate Republicans, usually resembles Samuel Beckett's character Watt, who "had never smiled, but thought he knew how it was done." Last week, however, careful observers detected a trace of a hint of a shadow of a smile. Congressional Democrats were still at daggers drawn with one another, and the president's rhetoric was becoming CPR for the Republican Party.

On the 233rd day of his presidency, Barack Obama grabbed the country's lapels for the 263rd time—that was, as of last Wednesday, the count of his speeches, press conferences, town halls, interviews, and other public remarks. His speech to Congress was the 122nd time he had publicly discussed health care. Just 14 hours would pass before the 123rd, on Thursday morning. His incessant talking cannot combat what it has caused: An increasing number of Americans do not believe that he believes what he says.

He says America's health-care system is going to wrack and ruin and requires root-and-branch reform—but that if you like your health care (as a large majority of Americans do), nothing will change for you. His slippery new formulation is that nothing in his plan will "require" anyone to change coverage. He used to say, "If you like your health-care plan, you'll be able to keep your health-care plan, period." He had to stop saying that because various disinterested analysts agree that his plan will give many employers incentives to stop providing coverage for employees.

He deplores "scare tactics" but says that unless he gets his way, people will die. He praises temperate discourse but says many of his opponents are liars. He says Medicare is an exemplary program that validates government's prowess at running health systems. But he also says Medicare is unsustainable and going broke, and that he will pay for much of his reforms by eliminating the hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud in this paragon of a program, and in Medicaid. He says Congress will cut Medicare (it will not) by $500 billion—without affecting benefits.

He says the nation's economic health depends on controlling health-care costs. Yet so important is the trial bar in financing the Democratic Party, he says not a syllable in significant and specific support of tort reforms that could save hundreds of billions of dollars by reducing "defensive medicine" intended to protect not patients from illnesses but doctors from lawyers. He has said he will not add a dime to the deficit when bringing 47 million people into government-guaranteed health care. But Wednesday night, 17 million went missing: "There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage." Almost 10 million of the uninsured are not citizens, and most of them are illegal immigrants. Presumably the other 7 million could get insurance but chose not to. Democrats propose fines to eliminate that choice. He suggests health-insurance companies are making excessive profits. But since 1996, profits of the six such companies in the S&P 500 have been below the 500's average. He says a "public option"—a government insurance program—would not be subsidized to enable it to compete unfairly with private insurers. (The post office and the government's transportation -"public option," Amtrak, devour subsidies.) He says the public option is vital for keeping health insurers "honest"—but that it is only a wee "sliver" of reform. About that, Nancy Pelosi -disagrees.

She is liberalism's Dolores Ibárruri, a.k.a. La Pasionaria—the Passion Flower. An anti-Franco orator during the Spanish Civil War, Ibárruri gave the Loyalists their battle cry, "¡Nopasarán!"—"They shall not pass!" Franco's forces did pass, but Pelosi has vowed that a reform plan lacking a public option shall not pass the House. But Montana Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, says a public option cannot pass the Senate.

McConnell of the Mona Lisa smile says Congress will pass something because Obama will sign anything. McConnell notes, however, that never in his 25 Senate years have Republicans polled close to Democrats when the question is: Which party do you trust most to deal with health care? Until now. Last week's polling: Democratic Party, 41; Republican Party, 39—a statistical dead heat. On a generic ballot question—which party do you intend to vote for?—the GOP has gone from down 12 points to dead even since November. Independents defected in droves from the GOP in 2006 and 2008, but today only one third of them view Obama's handling of health care favorably.

He says "the time for bickering is over." Presidents of both parties disparage as mere bickering all inconvenient arguments about what government can and should do. Americans "didn't send us here to bicker," said George Herbert Walker Bush, in the first 15 minutes of America's most recent one-term presidency.

Joe Wilson, Illegals and Presidential Honesty

2009-09-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

First, let me start by saying that Rep. Joe Wilson’s interruption of President Obama last night was completely inappropriate. Regardless of how vehemently one disagrees or even despises a president, we must return to the traditions of political discourse in which a certain reverence for the office of the presidency is exhibited by our elected officials. I condemned poor behavior exhibited by Democrats when they treated President Bush in a similarly rude manner and every conservative should do the same with Wilson.

That being said, President Obama’s speech was viciously partisan and angered a great many of us on the right. We do in fact believe that President Obama is guilty of misrepresenting various elements of his plan to the American people. If Mr. Obama is going to continue to call those opposed to this plan “liars” then we as conservatives have every right to set the record straight if the president himself is pushing talking points that don’t hold up to scrutiny.

Obviously illegal immigration is a sensitive topic in this country and the idea that a government run health care plan such as the public option, would allow illegal aliens to receive coverage, is simply unacceptable.

Real questions remain as to how the current House bill treats illegals.

There is indeed a provision in the House bill, which states that illegal immigrants would not be eligible for the public plan. However, unlike Medicare and Medicaid, the pending legislation currently contains no provision that would require proof of citizenship when an individual attempts to sign up for the program. In fact, Democrats killed a GOP sponsored amendment that would have mandated that individuals show proof of citizenship in order to be eligible for the plan. This means that while illegals would be breaking the law by signing onto the plan, no effort would be made to prevent them from doing so. If an individual had no qualms about entering the country illegally in the first place, what reason is there to believe that they would not do so again in helping themselves to taxpayer funded health care?

Now, perhaps I’m not as familiar with the legislative process as I should be. If someone could assure me that there are provisions which would ensure that the legal status of those who signed up for the plan would be checked, and that this is something that will be added by government bureaucrats upon the bills passage, then I will happily cede the point to the president. But when compounded with the misleading statements that have already come from the president, such as his claim that the plan would not add to the deficit. Or his insistence (up until last night when he carefully changed his phrasing) that if you like your current plan, you can keep it, puts me in the company of a great number of Americans – including Rep. Wilson – who are increasingly skeptical as to whether this president is being honest with us when it comes to the very important subject of health care reform.

Again, the president can’t have it both ways. If he is going to chastise opponents of his plan for peddling “misinformation,” then he must be completely upfront in his own selling of the plan to the American public.

I never believed George W. Bush lied to the American people. At this point I would not go as far as to say that Barack Obama has done so either, but it appears that he is coming dangerously close. Dishonesty from our president is just as inappropriate as any disrespectful outburst made towards the Commander In Chief by a member of Congress.

-Dan

Glenn Beck:1 - Color Of Change:0

2009-09-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

Communist, Truther, Race-Baiter. I miss Van Jones already.

But apparently the MSM hadn't even heard about him until today. Here's a list of the coverage they gave the guy prior to his resignation:

Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 0.

The "Jena 6". Where Are They Now?

2009-08-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

Remember the outpouring of affection for the six guys who beat up a white kid in Jena, Louisiana in 2006? The offenders weren't bad, they were just misunderstood right? And the charges against them were obviously racially motivated. At least that's what Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would have us believe. The Six young criminals became celebrities appearing as presenters at awards shows, walking the red carpet and chatting it up with their favorite rappers. You know, as a reward for kicking someone's ass. They were the subjects of a song by John Mellencamp. Their cause was hyped as being of enormous relevance to the never-ending conversation on race in America. "Free the Jena 6" replaced "Bush Lied Many Died" as the favored rallying cry of liberal activists and unwashed hippies. And they got their wish. The Jena 6 served no jail time. It was actually only a brief reprieve for most of them though. What? You thought that these upstanding youths would take the fawning media coverage and use it as an opportunity to do something positive with their lives? Where's the fun in that? No. Here's what these civil rights icons did:

-In February 2007, Jesse Ray Beard was accused, and subsequently convicted and sentenced for simple battery, simple criminal damage to property less than $500 and simple assault. He received a suspended sentence of incarceration, and was placed on house arrest.

-Bryant Purvis, aged 19, was arrested on February 7, 2008 for an assault causing bodily injury on a fellow high school student in Texas, where he now resides. Purvis was placed on probation for a year and required to do community service for the offense.

-Corwin Jones, by then aged 19, was arrested on May 10, 2008 in LaSalle Parish on a charge of misdemeanor simple battery, stemming from an incident three days earlier in which the Sheriff's Department alleges that Jones struck a man from behind as several people, including Jones, came towards the man and his friends, with Jones' companions carrying baseball bats. Jones had previously been arrested on January 24, 2008 on a trespass-related charge.

-On May 10, Mychal Bell was stopped in Olla, Louisiana for speeding and not having proper vehicle insurance while on a weekend pass from his sentence. Bell was not supposed to leave Monroe, Louisiana during the pass. On December 24, 2008, Bell was arrested and charged with shoplifting, resisting arrest, and simple assault. According to police, Bell was caught as he and another male attempted to steal $370 worth of clothing from Dillard's department store. While being arrested, he reportedly fought back against a security guard and off-duty police officer. He was released on $1,300 bond. On December 29, 2008.

So in reality, the freedom granted to the Jena 6 was little more than a pause to what is sure to be their lifelong journey through the criminal justice system. These were not good kids. Locking them up for their brutal beating of Justin Barker could have prevented their future crimes. The mistake that the Left has continuously made throughout the years is that they see racial injustice everywhere and show sympathy for criminal behavior in order to fight the perceived injustice. This mindset is completely counterproductive to not only the goal of true racial equality, but also to the goal of maintaining a criminal justice system that effectively deters people from engaging in criminal activity.

But, I understand how a young person could think: 'Hey, the first time I assaulted an innocent person I got to hang out with "Ice Cube". People marched in the streets in support of me. If I do it again maybe I'll get to meet Kanye West.'

Too be fair two members of the “Jena 6” have somehow managed to avoid being thrown in the backseat of a red and blue since 2006. That means that 33% of the “Jena 6” have not made the people who stood up for them look like fools. That’s about the same level of support that Obamacare will have by the end of the month.

Next time the Left and the race-baiters in the NAACP and other outdated civil rights organization feel like throwing a race based temper tantrum, they should try to make sure that the anger and protests are not being held in support of degenerates. America hates racism, but most Americans also hate crime. Please stop making us choose between the two.

"Jena 6" member Robert Bailey Jr. putting the money donated to the "6", by sympathetic supporters, to good use.

The Health Care Debate: Where It Stands And How We Got Here

2009-08-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

We’ve really never seen anything like this before. The anger being exhibited at the various town hall meetings around the country is absolutely fascinating and has no parallel in my lifetime. A lot of people are exceptionally angry and scared and their anger is genuine, their fears warranted. Some conservative leaders and protesters have used language to define the Obama health care plan, that is less than diplomatic and even exaggerated. I wouldn’t have chosen the term “death panels” for example. But that term has its basis in an actual part of the Obama plan. It is not “misinformation” as some on the pro-Obamacare side have deemed it.

When we look back at this, many will say that all of the screaming and anger aimed at our congressional representatives could have been avoided had Barack Obama himself simply done a better job of explaining his plan to the American people. I don’t believe so. Obama attempted to explain the plan in a way that made it sound as harmless as possible. He dressed up the plan with promises that were false, like “If you like your current plan, you can keep it” and made unbelievable promises of shrinking deficits and expanded choices. What Obama thought was, that the type of talking points which he had used so successfully during the campaign would work when it came to a piece of legislation as complex and consequential as reforming the US health care system by implementing an massive new government entitlement. He thought wrong. Obama underestimated the American publics ability to understand the ramifications of a public plan. He thought that by using words, like “competition” and “choice” as much as possible that eventually people would come to think that the Obama plan would deliver these things.

What those supporters of the plan who have decried the recent spread of “misinformation” are failing to acknowledge is that many conservatives were raising the same concerns and issuing the same warnings about the Democrat’s intentions, long before these town hall meetings began. Our concerns were not met with Democratic explanations as to why our fears were unfounded. They were met with talking-points and carefully worded rhetoric that did not match the reality of what common sense would dictate the actual long-term results of the plans implementation would be.

As a result, the Democrats are now relying almost solely on vilifying the behavior of the opposition to ensure the plan’s passage. They are no longer trying to explain away the people’s concerns, because they can’t. They know that these concerns are valid and based in the actual proposals that have been put forward by the Democrats. Polls are showing that this tactic is not working.

A lot of folks on the Left have been mocking the common protester cry of “I want my country back.” If any statement made by the protesters lacks merit, it is this one. The United States has not been radically altered. Yet. But if Obamacare passes in its current form, and results in the massive changes to our economy and overall standard of care that conservatives genuinely believe it will result in, then Americans will have a legitimate reason to “want their country” back. Unfortunately, with the Democratic plan firmly in place, it may be too late.

-Dan Joseph

Where I've Been

2009-07-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

I understand that it has been nearly a month since my last posting. This is especially noticeable given all that is going on in Washington right now. I deeply regret my absence on these pages as of late, as I believe that even tiny boutique blogs like "Falling Panda" have an important role to play in stopping the Obama agenda. Especially his disastrous health care package which if passed could have a permanent growth killing effect on our nation's economy.

Despite this, I assure you that my absence is not without reason.

For the last month I have been furiously working on my first book.

The as of yet untitled work is a field manual of sorts for the young conservative (those 35 and under), but I hope it will appeal to older conservative’s as well.

The first half of the book examines the massive youth following that supported Barack Obama in 2008. As a 30-year old who has been surrounded by liberals both young and old for my entire life, I feel that I have a unique perspective as to why these voters were so enthusiastic for Obama and why they have been gravitating towards liberalism for the past twenty years.

The second half of the book is an issue-by-issue guide that explains the tenants behind conservative principles and why the typical liberal positions on these same issues are almost always inferior to ours.

Thus far, I have completed nearly 250 pages and I am almost finished with the first draft.

I will be sure to post any news concerning the completion and/or release of the book here on the blog.

Again, thanks for all of your support. I'll be back full-time very shortly.

- Dan