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GOP Parallel Universes: Hyperbolic and Counter-Intuitive Myths, Claims and Canards, July 23-27, 2013

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1. Priebus was speaking with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who noted that some Evangelicals were upset that Republicans are saying“we have to be more tolerant,” adding that “Evangelicals start to grab the Excedrin bottles when they hear ’tolerance,’ because they think, ‘oh no, the GOP’s changing.

“Don’t Worry, The GOP is Not Embracing‘Tolerance’”, Salon

2. On his Monday show, Rush Limbaugh ranted against “white guilt” and “Caucasians” getting “blamed for slavery when they’ve done more to end it than any other race, and within the bounds of the Constitution to boot.

“White guilt is doing nothing for anybody, and white guilt is not solving anything,” Limbaugh said. “And besides that, a little history lesson for you. If any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it’s Caucasians. The white race has probably had fewer slaves and for a briefer period of time than any other in the history of the world.” He stipulated that he knows that “when the civil rights coalition gets ginned up,” they’re talking about slavery in America. “And that can’t be denied; it happened. But, compared to the kind of slavery that still exists in the rest of the world and has existed, by no means was it anywhere near the worst.”

‘White Race’ Should Not “Have Guilt About Slavery , Salon.

More American exceptionalism: our slavery is the best, ever. When they claim that Obama is “playing the race card,” they’re just giving themselves permission to continue to be racist.

 

3. Sen. Ted Cruz argued that advocates for legalizing same-sex marriage will eventually push to implement hate speech laws to stop pastors and other Christians who “preach biblical truths on marriage.” “If you look at other nations that have gone down the road towards gay marriage,” Cruz, R-Texas, told the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody, “that’s the next step of where it gets enforced. It gets enforced against Christian pastors who decline to perform gay marriages, who speak out and preach biblical truths on marriage, that has been defined elsewhere as hate speech, as inconsistent with the enlightened view of government.” “I think there is no doubt that the advocates who are driving this effort in the United States want to see us end up in that same place,” he added.

“Ted Cruz: Gay Marriage Advocates Will Try to Stop Free Speech ,” Salon.

4. Rep. Steve King, a longtime immigration critic, caused a furor Tuesday when a video emerged of him saying many young illegal immigrants are drug mules.

“They aren’t all valedictorians. They weren’t all brought in by their parents,” Mr. King, an Iowa Republican, said of young undocumented immigrants “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that, they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act.”

“Rep. King Creates Furor With Remarks on Immigrants,’ Washington Wire., WSJ Online.

5. Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr has outraged unions and investors by seeking to subordinate the city’s debts to the welfare of its residents via bankruptcy. But what probably disturbs the creditors even more is that his plan could set a precedent for other municipalities that are going broke. For years Detroit has been gutting services and sucking taxpayers dry to finance retirement and debt obligations. Nearly 70% of parks have been closed since 2008, and four in 10 street lights don’t work. The city has cut its police force by 40% in a decade. Response times are five times longer than the national average, and it has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country…. In Detroit, unions and creditors helped to perpetuate a borrow-tax-spend cycle at the expense of city residents. Bankruptcy shows the party is over, as it may also soon be for many other cities.

“After Detroit, Who’s Next?,” WSJ.

Another case of blaming the victims for the crime. The GOP solution to everything—lower taxes, slashed spending, and deregulation-will only exacerbate the pain. The Journal conveniently overlooks corporate tax subsidies, NAFTA, automaker malfeasance, corporate immunity, and state and municipal subsidies for the rich.

6. First, let me say that my father was a lifelong Democrat. He had helped to establish a local junior college aimed at providing vocational education for at-risk minorities, and as a hands-on administrator he found himself on some occasions in a physical altercation with a disaffected student. In middle age, he and my mother once were parking their car on a visit to San Francisco when they were suddenly surrounded by several African-American teens. When confronted with their demands, he offered to give the thieves all his cash if they would leave him and my mother alone. Thankfully they took his cash and left. I think that experience — and others — is why he once advised me, “When you go to San Francisco, be careful if a group of black youths approaches you.” Note what he did not say to me. He did not employ language like “typical black person.” He did not advise extra caution about black women, the elderly, or the very young — or about young Asian Punjabi, or Native American males. In other words, the advice was not about race per se, but instead about the tendency of males of one particular age and race to commit an inordinate amount of violent crime.

Victor David Hanson, “Facing Facts About Race,” National Review.

This makes it appear that black kids are to be suspected as armed and dangerous both when they’re walking alone (as in Trayvon’s case), AND when walking in groups. The myth-maintaining terms all rhyme: urban, black, poor, dangerous, “black youths”.

7. The core problem has been Mr. Obama’s focus on spreading the wealth rather than creating it. ObamaCare will soon hook more Americans on government subsidies, but its mandates and taxes have hurt job creation, especially at small businesses. Mr. Obama’s record tax increases have grabbed a bigger chunk of affluent incomes, but they created uncertainty for business throughout 2012 and have dampened growth so far this year. The food stamp and disability rolls have exploded, which reduces inequality but also reduces the incentive to work and rise on the economic ladder,

“The Inequality President,” WSJ.

The usual reverse-english: any attempts at ameliorating poverty only increase poverty. It’s like saying that any attempts at treating a chronic medical condition only worsen the condition. Note all the key buzzwords in the editorial: uncertainty, wealth “creators,” mandates, economic dependence, incentives. The best incentive is Social Darwinism.

8. This September, Congress will have to pass another short term spending bill to fund the federal government. We should pass one that keeps the government open, but doesn’t waste any more money on ObamaCare. The president and his allies – and even some Republicans – will accuse us of threatening to shut down the government. In fact, it is President Obama who insists on shutting down the government unless it funds his failed ObamaCare experiment.

“America, It’s Not Too Late To Stop Obamacare,” Marco Rubio, Fox News.

More inside-out rhetorical judo.

Parallel GOP Universes: Hyperbolic and Counter-Intuitive Myths, Claims and Canards July 9-22, 2013

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West said he had “heard it a thousand times that Trayvon Martin was unarmed.”

“What the evidence will show you is that’s not true,” he insisted. “Trayvon Martin armed himself with the concrete sidewalk and used it to smash George Zimmerman’s head, no different than if he picked up a brick or bashed the head against a wall. That is a deadly weapon.”

 

So every black man walking on a sidewalk should be considered armed and dangerous?

Rep. Stephen Fincher (R, Tenn.) explained his position on food stamps by stating, “The role of citizens, of Christians, of humanity is to take care of each other, but not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country.” The Congressman’s remarks come on the heels of his taking the biblical route when responding to Representative Juan Vargas’ (D-Calif.) somewhat different take on the teachings of Jesus. During a recent House Agriculture Committee debate over the Farm Bill (which contains the food stamp budget), Vargas, citing the Book of Matthew, noted, “[Jesus] says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that’s how you treat him.” Vargas also noted that  Jesus directly mentions the importance of feeding the hungry. Not to be outdone by a Godless Democrat, Congressman Fincher responded with his own Bible quote taken from the Book of Thessalonians — “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

 

But it’s apparently OK to use taxpayer money to pay Fincher $3.5 million in farm  subsidies.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Monday that protesters upset with the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial were “prepared basically to be a lynch mob” during an appearance on CNN.

“The fact is, six women sat on a jury for five solid weeks. I watched these protesters, none of whom read the transcript, none of whom sat through five weeks of the trial, all of whom were prepared basically to be a lynch mob,” Gingrich said. “They only wanted one verdict, and the verdict was guilty.”

 

The Hill

God, if Newt didn’t exist we’d have to invent him: an ahistorical historian.

Unassimilated minorities in America typically hate the place. They frequently have valid and legitimate gravamen for their hatred. Anyone who looks at the rates at which African-Americans are aborted, shot, fail out of school and wind up either jobless or incarcerated couldn’t be entirely blamed for believing that most of the rest of America is attempting to eject them from our culture the way a white blood cell attacks a hostile bacteria. Absent any back-story, I really can’t blame them for hating my guts as a nameless, faceless White Man on a visceral level. Now quit being shocked. I only differ from the herd by being proudly uncultured enough to state the obvious and unpalatable truth….

So we already fail miserably at assimilating the cultural and racial minorities we have in Post-modern America. We don’t intend to assimilate them or in any way make them feel like a valued and decent contributor to our society. We use social welfare programs as an insulting and demeaning bribe for them not to burn our cities or shoot people. People not blessed enough to be part of our cognitive elite understand very well that the pampered upper-echelons of American Society consider the American Lower Middle Class no better than cretinous Moorlocks from a sci-fi dystopia

“Zimmerman, Martin and the Failed American Melting Pot, “ Red State.

 

“‘If I had a son he’d look like Trayvon.’ And this President wouldn’t bat a eyelash over the fact that ‘his son’ is a dead gangsta wannabe who simply jumped the wrong guy and got what he deserved. After all, his death may well resurrect the President’s failed agenda.”

 

“It’s Not Over,” Wizbang.

This is about as vile as it can get.

The purpose of today’s civil-rights establishment is not to seek justice, but to seek power for blacks in American life based on the presumption that they are still, in a thousand subtle ways, victimized by white racism. This idea of victimization is an example of what I call a “poetic truth.” Like poetic license, it bends the actual truth in order to put forward a larger and more essential truth—one that, of course, serves one’s cause. Poetic truths succeed by casting themselves as perfectly obvious: “America is a racist nation”; “the immigration debate is driven by racism”; “Zimmerman racially stereotyped Trayvon.” And we say, “Yes, of course,” lest we seem to be racist. Poetic truths work by moral intimidation, not reason.

Shelby Steele, “The Decline of the Civil Rights Establishment, WSJ

Civil rights leaders have no moral core, they simply seek advantage and continually play the race card. Rather than being victims of American history, they are really now victimizing America’s moral generosity. This reversal is akin to making George Zimmerman into the victim.

his appointees for high office were demonstrably corrupt, incompetent or pursuing a toxic socialist or gay ideology” — as well as with RINOs like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio; he mourned the absence of “True conservatives – men like Ronald Reagan, John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, men who were willing to stand up to bullies and call a spade a spade,” and that “modern man has been feminized by overwhelmingly liberal feminist teachers who see playing dodge-ball in the schoolyard as the moral equivalent of playing with a loaded gun.”

July 4, 2013: Can America Recover From Obama and His Fellow Travelers?”  One Citizen Speaking.

Glossary, mid-July, 2013

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an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in Wall Street Journal editorials and other precincts of the GOP blogosphere, July 3, 2013-July 16, 2013

agenda-driven.  What the Koch Bothers, among other Tea Partiers, call any investigative journalism that supports climate change theory, environmental and other regulation, and corporate taxes or liability.

extraneous: the House GOP’s characterization of everyone on food stamps.

fiat: any Obama administration ruling or policy. (aka, “end run”)

the Fourth Branch: the federal bureaucracy. Almost certainly illegitimate, probably illegal and surely unconstitutional.

King FDR V-VI. The Obama administration.

race baiting: anytime the Dems bring up race (aka, “playing the race card”).  If it’s meant as bait to get the GOP to over-react, the GOP’s response is to ignore or airbrush the race question. Curiously, “justice is blind” could be attributed to either side because it has a double meaning.

rammed through: any successful Obama administration legislation.

relief: Boehner talk for  repealing Obamacare. Supposedly, Americans are choking for “relief” from such totalitarian concepts as universal coverage, no exclusions based on pre-existing conditions, and insurance not tied to a job.

sidewalk as weapon: according to George Zimmerman’s lawyer, Trayvon Martin “weaponized” the sidewalk. So any black man out for a walk should be considered armed and dangerous?

victim community: defenders of civil rights, voting rights, equal justice and racial equality. An other variant on “playing the race card” and “race-baiting”.

GOP Parallel Universes: Hyperbolic and Counter-Intuitive Myths, Claims, and Canards, July 2-8, 2013

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The whole modern project has been an attempt to control the freedom unleashed by Christianity’s dual loyalty, to re-create the conformity to “traditional” culture that predated the Christian moral liberation. What we see today in the success of gay marriage is not really freedom run amok, but the result of turning the power to define morality over to the state, or to the dominant group representing it. “Same Sex Marriage Isn’t About Freedom, The American Conservative 

Denying marriage equality is a form of liberation from state power. In GOP terms, the more the state grants individual freedoms, the more it enslaves individuals to the state. Freedom ias enslavement.
This is why Mr. Snowden remains in a Moscow airport terminal, making demands (via his father) of the terms the U.S. must meet before he returns home. This is also how Russia merrily arms Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria, and how Mr. Assad unleashes chemical weapons on his own people, and how Iran marches toward an atomic bomb—all with little concern for what the U.S. might do.  “The President and the Hacker, “ WSJ.Connect-the-dots exercises such as this  are analogous to magnets that attract everything into a single congealed ,hyper-paranoid field theory.  But, wait, they left out Benghazi!
Modern liberalism, among other things, is a psychological state, in which very-well-off Americans find ways through their income and privilege to be exempt from the ramifications of their own ideologies, while adopting causes and pets that exempt them from guilt over their own status and limitless opportunities. Judging by their concrete actions, they are indifferent to the poor whom they romanticize at a safe distance. In short, voting for larger government and subsidies is seen as a necessary cost of being a reactionary, liberal elite. “Liberal Apartheid,” Victor David Hanson, National Review
But there is another less-discussed reason. The Obama administration’s instinctive dishonesty and contempt for the rule of law are finally catching up with it. Few Republicans in the House — even those who devoutly want immigration reform — trust the Obama administration to enforce with consistency and integrity anything that passes Congress. “Why ObamaCare Threatens Immigration Reform,” John Fund, National Review.So if Obama has no respect for the rule of law, the is he an outlaw? If the GOP really believes  this, isn’t government dysfunction inevitable? This is part of the Machiavellian  Rove strategy to delegitimize Obama.
The basic premise of ObamaCare was the government’s superior ability to organize the health insurance industry.  That postponed employer mandate is the final proof that it can’t.  All of Obama’s projections were wrong, nothing in the ObamaCare system has worked as promised, everything is getting more expensive, and there hasn’t even been much of an improvement in coverage for the uninsured.  Central planning is once again exposed as an utter failure.ObamaCare’s continued existence now relies entirely on corrupting the basic principles of American government; the rule of law must be deformed beyond recognition to nourish it.  The whole deranged idea was never compatible with a Constitutional republic of free citizens.  It requires a bigger government, and smaller people, than we should be willing to tolerate.  Either ObamaCare ends… or America will have to shrink enough to fit inside it. “Trust In Government Dies With the Rule of Law,: Red State.
what sort of nation we are turning ourselves into… It’s hard to see how individual liberty can be preserved with the Feds setting loose swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance — and with half the nation cheering them on. That’s not democracy, or even a representative Republic. It’s mob rule. “Liberty, If You Can Keep It,” National Review.“Eat out their substance”???? ObamaZombies!
his appointees for high office were demonstrably corrupt, incompetent or pursuing a toxic socialist or gay ideology…we no longer see… true conservatives – men like Ronald Reagan, John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, men who were willing to stand up to bullies and call a spade a spade…” modern man has been feminized by overwhelmingly liberal feminist teachers who see playing dodge-ball in the schoolyard as the moral equivalent of playing with a loaded gun. July 4, 2013: Can America Recover From Obama and His Fellow Travelers?”  One Citizen Speaking.

 

Glossary, June 24-July 3, 2013

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an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in Wall Street Journal editorials and other precincts of the GOP blogosphere, June 24-July 3, 2013

Dreamers: undocumented aliens.

“faddish theories” : Clarence Thomas, in the Fisher vs. UT opinion, said that “”The Constitution does not pander to faddish theories about whether race mixing is in the public interest”. Since when did equal justice and access qualify as a “faddish theory”?

immigration deform: repealing or fighting any and all bills and executive orders  granting amnesty.

infanticide: new GOP synonym for abortion, via Peggy Noonan.

judicial activism: any judicial opinion supporting liberal views. The GOP days of denouncing activist judges obviously doesn’t extend to decisions such as Shelby County v. Holder. They consider this as an example of restraint on government, not one branch of the government (the Supreme Court) telling another branch (Congress) what to do.

lost innocence. The Bert & Ernie New Yorker cover, announcing the end of childhood and sexual innocence. Everyone in Obama’s America is now gay married by proxy.

marriage equality: the latest form of enslavement ot the state, masquerading as an act of liberation.

monstrosity: the Affordable Care Act. Aka, “train wreck”.

racial polarization: what Dems do any time they bring up race. Aka, ‘the race card”.

stabilization: In the context of the Middle East, restoring authoritarian or dictatorial regimes.

the Whig Party: Glenn Beck’s & the Tea Party’s new name for John Boehner and what’s left of the old GOP.

GOP Parallel Universes: Hyperbolic and Counter-Intuitive Myths, Claims and Canards, June 24-July 1, 2013

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The legacy of the President who dreams of nuclear disarmament is likely to be a world with far more weapons and more nuclear powers.

“The Obama Age of Proliferation, WSJ.  

So crusading for nuclear disarmament has the same net effect as crusading for a nuclear buildup?

“Spreading democracy” is code language for destabilization of the Middle East and empowerment of Muslim extremists. We should seek stabilization in the Middle East, whether democratic or dictatorial, but more often than not it comes in the form of dictatorship. There is no virtue in extremist governments because they are elected democratically, which if not sincere will be the product of voter intimidation creating the same result.

“Obama’s Syrian Deception,” Red State.

The rules are a little different when it comes to a scandal directed against a celebrity like Paula Deen, though, because the State Media has a vested interest in ramping up racial tension before the Trayvon Martin trial begins next week.  I hope you are savvy enough to realize that the institutional Left is hoping that Orlando explodes in a powder keg of racial hatred, riots, and destruction.  There’s a whole generation of people working in the State Media right now who were too young to be on the air or submitting copy when the LA Riots happened after the Rodney King verdict in the early 1990s and during the OJ Simpson or Michael Jackson trials after that.  THOSE were the stories that reporters now in their late-20s and 30s all studied in journalism school…and they’ve always wished they could be part of a giant circus like that.  They salivated when this Trayvon Martin shooting happened because it was a chance to stoke the same sort of racial tension that these people all studied in school and dreamed of one day participating in.  I think that attacking Paula Deen and calling her a “Ray Ciss” on the Friday before the trial of George Zimmerman (the man who killed Trayvon Martin…you know, the boy who Barack Obama said looked like he could be his son) is the State Media’s way of priming the pump for all of the racial fury and indignation they’ve got planned during the trial. 

 

“10 Things You Should Know About the “Ray Ciss” Attack On Paula Deen in June, 2013,” Hill Buzz.

 

the current immigration  bill “would allow stateless people in the U.S. to seek conditional lawful status if their nations have been made uninhabitable by climate change….presumably how this would work is that somebody would walk up to the U.S. border, say ‘it’s getting too hot over there’ (or cold, or wet, or dry, or windy) and be granted legal entry.”

“Dem Files Immigration Bill Amendment That Would Grant Amnesty to ‘climate change ‘refugees’”, Michelle Malkin

President Obama has managed to win election by assembling two major constituencies: 1) a lumpen proletariat that has no idea how the economy works, is dependent on the government, and votes for him because he promises more handouts; and 2) an upper-crust constituency that thinks “we already have enough,” isn’t interested in any further economic development, and believes, if anything, that we already have too much of material possessions and it’s time to start cutting back on things. This has been the theme of environmentalism for 40 years. The rationale changes — we’re undergoing a “population bomb,” we’re drowning in pollution, we’re running out of oil and other resources — but the message is always the same. We’ve got enough. Time to call off all this progress. Let’s go back to spinning our own yarn, growing our own vegetables, and putting up windmills.

“Obama’s War on Prosperity, “ The American Spectator

Lane goes on…to denounce American Christianity for failing to produce martyrs and for substituting a “heretical Americanism for Christian orthodoxy.” He insists that to put things right “Christians must risk martyrdom” to force people to either “acknowledge Jesus [as] an imperator and the church as God’s imperium or to begin drinking holy blood.”

Lane expresses frustration with what he regards as the superficial politics of press releases of “inside the Beltway” Christian Rightists. He calls for “champions of Christ to save the nation from the pagan onslaught imposing homosexual marriage, homosexual scouts, 60 million babies done to death by abortion and red ink as far as the eye can see.” The champions for Christ of his vision will “wage war for the Soul of America and trust the living God to deliver the pagan gods into our hands and restore America to her Judeo-Christian heritage and re-establish a Christian culture.”

“America’s survival is at stake,” he declares, “and this is not tall talk or exaggeration.”. 

 

“Rand Paul Operative Wants to Lead Dominionist Revolt Against the US,” Crooks and Liars

As I say,  just another day in the life of the republic: a corrupt bureaucracy dispensing federal gravy to favored clients; a pseudo-legislature passing bills unread by the people’s representatives and uncomprehended by the men who claim to have written them; and a co-regency of jurists torturing an 18th-century document in order to justify what other countries are at least honest enough to recognize as an unprecedented novelty. Whether or not, per Scalia, we should “condemn” the United States Constitution, it might be time to put the poor wee thing out of its misery.

 

“So Long, Self-Government, National Review

Glossary, June 1-23, 2013

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answers: what the populace is supposedly “demanding” from the Obama administration in regards to the Four Scandals. In the GOP infinite regree machine, the more “answers” the Obama administration provides on any of the four topics, the more questions are raised. (see also: “demanding”)

cap and trade: stalking horse for redistributionism and shackling energy producers and corporate “job creators”.

court packing: any Obama judicial nomination. Synonyms with “regulatory overreach”.

demanding: (verb): the American public’s quenchless thirst for “accountability” from Obama. The more they get, the more they seem to “demand,” like some deranged beast. The “demand” side always exceeds the supply side.

distracted: any talk of economic recovery, all intended to veer attention away from the sacred Three Scandals. At some very recent point in the GOP rhetorical bubble, improving economic data became the distraction, but “Benghazi” is never seen as a distraction and dry hole.

shakedown: what HUD does to banks to get them to lend more to minorities.

shamnesty: GOP shorthand for any “pathway to citizenship” for current immigrants.

the truly needy: the wedge term to justify the exclusion of hundres of thousands of food stamp recipients. Synonymous with “the truly desperate”.

upward mobility: the American Dream, always hamstrung by the “welfare state” and “government regulation,” never by corporate greed or economic stagnation.

GOP Parallel Universes: Hyperbolic and Counter-Intuitive Myths, Claims and Canards, June 14-23, 2013

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So why would 57% of the American Electorate believe that the NSA will be used to attack political opponents of Barack Obama rather than military and ideological opponents of the USA? First, he has already ordered his IRS Waffen-SS to do the same. Second, the Comprehensive Amnesty Reform bill that he has voiced his support for is an assault on the economic opportunity and viability of an already-suffering American Working Class. It is obvious through this choice of priorities that President Barack Obama cares a whole lot more about keeping you in your place rather than whether that place affords you any particular safety or hope.

“The IRS, The NSA and Comprehensive Amnesty Reform All Tie Together In a Very Nasty Way.,” Red State.

The unified field theory of right-wing paranoia.

According to Sarah Palin, the United States is “becoming a totalitarian surveillance state.” And Herman Cain said, “This train is running full speed down the tracks towards socialism and towards communism. Yes, I said it. Before we stop it and reverse it, we got to slow it down. That’s what we do in 2014.”

Remarks at Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom Coalition convention.

Sander and Taylor argue persuasively that the trouble with preferences is not only the injustice done to people like Abigail Fisher, who was denied admission to the University of Texas while less qualified black and Hispanic applicants were accepted — though that is unfair — but also the harm it does to those to whom such preferences are extended.

Preferences have created a widespread mismatch between minority students and the schools they attend. Minority students at all levels (least so at the very top colleges) tend to wind up at schools for which they are less well prepared than the majority of their classmates. The University of Texas is typical in awarding the equivalent of hundreds of SAT points to minority applicants. This results in minority students (who’ve been assured that they have what it takes to be successful) plunging to the bottom of the class. Students accepted under the preference regime often experience severe feelings of inferiority, social segregation, and much higher dropout rates. Both for affirmative-action “beneficiaries” and for their classmates, mismatch reinforces negative stereotypes. It also causes more African-American students to flee math, science, and engineering majors in favor of softer subjects such as education and sociology. “Black college freshmen are more likely to aspire to science or engineering careers than are white freshmen, but mismatch causes blacks to abandon these fields at twice the rate of whites.”

 

“The Unmentionable Injustice,’ National Review.

 

Let’s see here: minorities “tend to be” unprepared for the best schools and so are almost universally doomed to fail and consequently feel “inferior”. So affirmative action turns out to be the most effective way to make sure minorities fail. GOP politiscripting at its best.

More than 50,000 Americans lost their lives winning battles on the ground in Vietnam, only to have the war lost politically back home. We seem to be having a similar scenario unfolding today in Iraq, where soldiers won the war, only to have politicians lose the peace, as Iraq now increasingly aligns itself with Iran.

“The Loss of Trust,” Thomas Sowell, National Review.

 

Iraq is destined to be that most elusive political phantom, the “winnable” war that we lost. In GOP land, America can never, be definition, “lose” a war, but just have “politicians” snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Somehow, we have created an absurd situation in which a resident of Oaxaca, often fleeing racial and class oppression in Mexico, becomes defined as a victim of American pathologies the nanosecond he crosses the border. In turn, America, the generous host, is reinvented as a culpable oppressor that has treated the illegal alien so badly that his children deserve job and college-admission preference. Mexico likewise must be reinvented, from the exporter of superfluous human beings to the liberal champion of its stolen human assets.

“Illegal Immigration: Elite Illiberality,” Victor Davis Hanson, National Review.

 

You know, I’ve always said that I didn’t want to be given a job because I was a female, I wanted it because I was the most well-qualified person for the job. And making certain that companies are going to move forward in that vein, that is what women want. They don’t want the decisions made in Washington. They want to be able to have the power and the control and the ability to make those decisions for themselves.

Rep. Martha Blackburn (R-Ten.), on Meet The Press. She also argues that the House’s new anti-abortion bill is actually designed to help women.

.Rubio Aide 1: Yeah. I mean, one of the problems you have with this, “Oh there’s American workers who are unemployed.” There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. [etc.,

Shorter Rubio aide:  There’s a reason unemployed Americans are unemployed. They aren’t star performers. Screw ‘em. We’re bringing in workers from abroad!

 

“Rubio Doubles Down Into Disaster,” Daily Caller.

“I’d hire a gay guy if I thought he was a good worker. But if he comes into work in a tutu … he’s not producing what I want in my office,” said Cornel Rasor, the current chairman of the resolutions committee of the Idaho GOP, according to the Spokesman-Review. “If a guy has a particular predilection and keeps it to himself, that’s fine,” Rasor continued. “But if he wants to use my business as a platform for his lifestyle, why should I have to subsidize that? And that’s what these anti-discrimination laws do.

 Idaho Republic Cornel Rasor, Salon.
Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Thursday denied it was “evil” for Republicans to want to cut food stamps because poor people used the program to purchase extravagant foods. The Texas congressman complained that Democrats had portrayed Republicans as evil because they supported a measure to cut nearly 2 million low-income people off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which would mainly impact working families with children. On the other hand, Gohmert said, poor people were using food stamps to buy food that other Americans could not afford. He claimed his “broken-hearted” constituents had repeatedly told him they had seen people use food stamps to buy king crab legs.

“Because he does pay income tax, he doesn’t get more back than he pays in, he is actually helping pay for king crab legs when he can’t pay for them for himself,” Gohmert explained.

“How can you begrudge somebody who feels that way,” he added. “How can you begrudge anyone who steps up on behalf of constituents who feel that way. We don’t want anyone to go hungry, and from the amount of obesity in this country by people who we’re told do not have enough to eat, it does seem like we could have a debate about this issue without allegations about wanting to slap down or starve children.”

 

On the  House floor . Reagan’s “welfare queen” meme lives on in perpetuity.

GOP Parallel Universes: Hyperbolic and Counter-Intuitive Myths, Claims and Canards, May 30-June 11, 2013

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Based on almost everything we’ve heard so far from IRS officials and the Obama administration, perhaps the surest sign that a political purpose played a role in the targeting is their adamant insistence that it did not. “Politics and the IRS: Protesting Too Much,” National Review.  Alice-In Wonderland logic: guilty until proven innocent.
Where then was his conscience when he sent thousands of young Americans to fight and die for something he believed unwinnable? More than 1,500 Americans have died in Afghanistan since Obama became president (more than three times the number killed in Bush’s eight years). For what cause did they die? What did Obama achieve? And why does no one care about the outcome of Obama’s war? “The Forgotten War,” Mona Charen, National Review. So now it’s “Obama’s war”?
First of all, this is another example of an international organization attempting to dictate policy to sovereign nation-states, which is generally a bad idea and moves us closer towards a global government in which policy is set further away from home and increasingly by bureaucrats in Switzerland. Let me repeat: If moves like this gain traction, it will no longer be us, via our elected representatives, setting policy, but instead, it will be the WHO, which also wants to limit how much fat, salt, etc., you eat. “World Health Organization’s Continuing Attempts To Usurp American Sovereignty,” Red State.GOP response to WHO initiative to ban tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship. It won’t be long before the UN decides what and how much you’ll eat.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) on Tuesday suggested that the “hormone level created by nature” was to blame for rapes in the military and that all pregnant servicewomen should be investigated to make sure their condition was the result of consensual sex.At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on sexual assaults within the military, Chambliss opined that the Pentagon’s decision to allow women in combat roles was only going to make the problem worse.The Georgia Republican recalled that “several years ago when we had the first females go out on an aircraft carrier, when they returned to port, a significant percentage of those females were pregnant.””Was any investigation made by the Navy following that incident to determine whether or not all of those pregnancies occurred as a result of consensual acts?” he asked Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert.The admiral replied that he did not have details of the incident immediately available, but he pledged to follow up.Chambliss noted that Democratic proposals to modify the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and take sexual assault reporting outside of the victim’s chain of command might not work because young servicemen were being driven by their “nature.”

“The young folks coming in to each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 23,” he pointed out. “Gee-whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur. So, we’ve got to be very careful on our side.”

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don’t some remarks just seem to parody themselves?
The kind of coup that’s taking place here is nationalizing one-sixth of the economy, the health care system, under control of government. They’ve taken it over. They are attempting to totally bastardize the immigration system in this country, take that over and destroy it. If you look at the IRS scandal, this is what happens in tinhorn banana republics: enemies of the regime are targeted, punished, votes suppressed, not allowed to raise money, basically not allowed to be in opposition. We’re in the middle of a coup. And the question is not whether Obama survives it, folks, it’s whether the country does. “Will the US Even Survive Obama’s Full Term?” Rush Limbaugh show. Apparently offering universal health care constitutes a government coup.
When he tells you to “reject those voices,” he’s like the Wizard of Oz telling Dorothy not to pay attention to the man behind the curtain. He doesn’t want his constituency to see reality. He doesn’t want you to recognize that tyranny is indeed lurking around the corner – or even closer than that. He especially doesn’t want to people to recognize that he is the face of that tyranny. “Tyranny ‘Just Around the Corner’,” World News Daily. What would these tin foil-hatted folks be doing or saying in the face of real tyranny?  The fact that no one’s been charged with a crime because of the four scandals doesn’t seem to be a major clue to them that calling it all some uber-tyranny may be a tad bit of an overreaction.
The Alinsky teaching, community organizing, Marxist has brought Chicago thug politics to the national scene. Reward your friends with the people’s money, intimidate and denigrate your opposition, and use the power of government at every level to advance your own agenda, punish your enemies and protect your lies. Why should anyone be surprised?Obama and his leftist radicals will say anything to anyone to obfuscate the truth, cover up their failures and “fundamentally transform” America into a socialist welfare state that is wholly dependent on government for healthcare, food, housing, and education. This has been apparent from the beginning. Why should anyone be surprised?This has been the goal of the Progressives for a generation. Obama is the culmination of decades of school indoctrination, media social engineering and Communist manipulation. Why should anyone be surprised? “Why is Anyone Surprised? U.S. Has Been Chicagoized ,” US Action NewsThe Commie threat never went away–it just lay low until Obama became its avatar.
And can we really believe that Obama was unaware of the Mao ornament on the White House Christmas tree? “Obama Is A Marxist,” US Action News.no doubt part of the War on Christmas.
The Communist Manifesto dictates, among other things:

  • The abolition of private property (You didn’t build that)
  • A heavy progressive or graduated income tax (“fair share”).
  • Abolition of all rights of inheritance (death tax)
  • Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank (Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air)
  • Centralization of the means of communications (Obama appointed a socialist sympathizer to the FCC)
  • Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, (General Motors, Chrysler, banks, healthcare)
  • Free education for all children in public schools. (indoctrination centers that you are forced to pay for)

 

 “Has Obama Already Bankrupted America?” US Action News.

Parallel GOP Universes: Hyperbolic and Counter-Intuitive Myths, Claims and Canards, May 18-May 29, 2013

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Obamacare navigators will have access to highly personal data from potential “customers” to assess their “needs.” That means income levels, birth dates, addresses, eligibility for government assistance, Social Security numbers, and sensitive medical information. They’ll be targeting both individuals and small businesses. Anyone they can lay their grubby hands on. Who’s getting the navigator grants and training? “Community groups” in 33 states that naturally include socialized-medicine-supporting unions and Saul Alinsky–steeped activist outfits.On Capitol Hill last week, a top Obamacare official told GOP lawmakers that navigators will not be required to undergo background checks. Criminal records are not automatically disqualifying — and that includes identity theft. The federal rule-makers will require online training of a measly 20 hours. Health-care-regulations watchdog Betsy McCaughey adds that navigators “don’t have to know math or insurance, but rules announced April 5 specify you have to match the race, ethnicity, and language preferences of the neighborhood that will be targeted.”

The Obamacare navigator corps smacks of ACORN redux, stocked with demographically tailored Democratic-party recruitment operatives, not objective, informed insurance experts.

 “Obamacare ‘Navigators,’ Michael Malkin, The National Review.  In a breathtakingly paranoid piece, Malkin manages to link the ACA with Saul Alinsky, ACORN, the “brass knuckled” SEIU,  terrorists, and Kathleen Sibelius’s “abortion-racketeering friends”  at Planned Parenthood.
Is Britain to be run in the shadows by some diehard Western traditionalists pulling the levers of free-market capitalism, democracy, and freedom of the individual, so that in its plazas and squares others have the freedom and wherewithal to damn just those values? In Britain, as in the West in general, deportation is a fossilized concept. Unity is passé. Patriotism is long suspect. The hip metrosexual cultures of the urban West strain to find fault in their inheritance, and seem to appreciate those who do that in the most cool fashion — but always with the expectation that there will be some poor blokes who, in terms of clean water, medical care, free speech, and dependable electricity, ensure that London is not Lagos, that Stockholm is not Damascus, and that Los Angeles is not Nuevo Laredo. “Western Cultural Suicide,” Victor David Hanson, The National Review”.  The chief existential  threat to America now seem to be “the hip meteosexual cultures of the West”. “Metrosexual” . Really? I thought that hoary pejorative had been consigned to the linguistic dustbin in the mid-1990s.
the potential scandal of HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius raising private money to pitch Obamacare is “the Obama administration’s own Iran/Contra.”  Charles Krauthammer, on Fox News.  Yes, sure it’s a good analogy, except that disseminating information about health care is not exactly the same as, 1) selling arms to terrorists; and, 2) trading arms for hostages and lying about it to Congress. 
Kootenai County, Idaho Sheriff Ben Wolfinger threatened on Friday to drop his department’s sponsorship of a Boy Scout troop because “[i]t would be inappropriate for the sheriff’s office to sponsor an organization that is promoting a lifestyle that is in violation of state law.” Just in case there was any ambiguity regarding what “lifestyle” Wolfinger was referring to, he also sent a copy of an anti-sodomy statute that is still on the books in Idaho to an official for the Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts of America’s National Council voted last week to stop discriminating against gay scouts, although they will continue to exclude LGBT people from scout leadership. 

“Idaho Sheriff Threatens To Stop Sponsoring Boy Scout Troop Because ‘Sodomy’ Is Illegal”, Think Progress.

 
Pompeo, who visited Guantanamo Bay last week, said that was not the case as he becomes visibly agitated after being confronted with facts.“It is not a crisis mode,” he said Sunday. “We have prisoners down there that have chosen not to consume calories, have chosen not to take protein. We now have an obligation to try to take care of them. The last thing to say about these folks who are assertedly hunger strikers is that they look to me like a lot of them have put on weight.”

 

 GOP Rep: Gitmo Hunger Strikers Look Like They’ve Put On Weight, in  quoting Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas), on MSNBC. 
Should we fail to do so, there will be a reaction against the resulting violence long before the Mississippi, The Thames or any other river flows with blood. Should our nation be foolish enough to pass immigration legislation along the lines of the current “Gang of 8” monstrosity, diversity will be our fascism; not our strength. Either the state or an outraged mob of the people will react against the violence in the streets and our freedoms as Americans could well be taken away from us. “Comprehensive Amnesty Reform Could Lead to Fascism,” Red State
And there it is: Dopey stimulus, obtuse bailout, noodle-headed  Obamacare, half-wit Dodd-Frank, damfool IRS Tea Party crashers, AP and Fox News beset by oafish peeping Toms and the Benghazi tale told by an idiot. One could go on. Stupid is a great force in human affairs. And the great force has a commander in chief.  “Stupid,” P.J. O’Rourke, The Evening Standard.
The key question now is whether we are willing to accept a Khamenei Doctrine, whereby no state that is part of the Iran/Hezbollah security system is permitted to leave it. Of course, the Brezhnev Doctrine was that of a global superpower armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons; the Khamenei Doctrine is that of a third world state, Iran, of only 75 million people and so far without a nuclear arsenal. And this is what makes the American   position to date so incomprehensible, and so dangerous. Nasrallah and Khamenei are taking a gamble based on their assessment of us–that we will do nothing even in the face of their sending expeditionary forces to Syria. So far they have been proved right. Will we really accept this action on their part, with its consequences throughout the Middle East?Put another way, Nasrallah and Khamenei have decided to win. They understand the costs of losing, and the benefits of winning, and have made their decision. The United States has made no such decision and appears content to lose.

 

 “The Brezhnev Doctrine, Iran Style,” Elliot Abrams, The Weekly Standard.  The Domino Theory  revived From 1967.