Category Archives: anchors

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendoes in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, New Year’s edition, January, 2014.

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agitprop: any Democractic policy statement or any op-ed piece criticizing Tea Party positions. Anything the Dems say is propaganda; anything the Tea Party says is public policy and common sense.

anticapitalists: environmentalists.

card: any Democratic moral position. Always a cynical ploy, as in “playing the race card”. which currently characterized as being in the same suit and hand as other Democratic “cards”: fairness, victimhood, equality, justice. Away to demean all of these moral claims, and demote them to self-serving propaganda status.

civic courtesy: the indecent lack of grace Democrats exhibit every time they criticize the GOP.

consequences: often used by the GOP as a pejorative term for outcomes. “Consequences” are almost always connoted as negative–as in the phrase, “truth or consequences”. Thus, for example, the ACA is said to have nothing but “negative consequences,” whereas tax cuts have nothing but stimulative effects and positive economic outcomes.

cooperation: the new euphemism for competition.

crowd: any Democratic or liberal advocacy group,  always a nefarious, corrupt, and self-serving. e.g.: “the global warming crowd”.

disincentivizing: the overall effect of any government aid programs the GOP opposes, from unemployment benefits to food stamps. Government “handouts” are the opposite of the only force known to truly incentivize: the “free” market. Only regulation and social welfare are holding back a truly Darwinian social, moral and economic golden age.

envy: the main motivating force behind any attempts to raise taxes, regulate markets, bring charges or fines against financial institutions, or offer any form of social welfare.

favoritism:  the main motivating force for any policies helping unions and teachers. Tax breaks for Big Oil, on the other hand, are seen as neutral or even rational ways to stimulate the “free” market.

gambit: any Democratic policy initiative. Dem public policy is always propagandistic, thus nothing but a ploy.

gliding:  the aloof, “lazy” trait of Obama (when he isn’t actively trying to overturn the capitalist system). In foreign policy, Obama is said to be “gliding” when he refrains from potentially counter-productive  interventions, as in “leading from behind”. In political policy terms. he is accused of this whenever he defers to Congress, takes a vacation, or uses any of the perks of office.

hand wringing: any criticism of aggressive, interventionist foreign policy, or of any “sentimental” attempts to help the poor or needy.

lesser mortals: always used sneeringly in reference to Obama’s  hauteur. Obama is always accused of aloofly “talking down” to us “lesser mortals” whenever he makes a moral assertion, especially when pointing out inequalities. Synonyms in this word family include aloof, grandiose, preening, and arrogant.

moral relativism: a perennial GOP rhetorical meme, still employed to attack government policies protecting free speech, religious diversity, and human rights. Thus, for example, the so-called “War on Christmas” is seen as a leveling attempt at relativism, whereas Christmas itself is an absolute–just as Santa is, of course, a white man. The current debate over mandating birth control insurance coverage by Catholic  employers is also contextualized as a form of moral relativism, as if a belief in a woman’s right to choose is not a “moral” position.

narcissism: one of academia’s main character traits, (along with “an obsession with victimhood” and the drive to reduce everything to race and class politics). Rhetorically linked to “moral relativism”. What society’s “takers”are indulging in when they try to redress “oppression”.

rogue: an adjective used to describe any deviation from Tea Party orthodoxy.

steadfast resistance, refusal: any principled moral stand on an issue opposed by Democrats. Called recalcitrance or a “gambit” or “hand wringing” or “agitprop” when the Dems do it.

unrestrained growth:   a very bad thing when it comes to things the GOp opposes (such as entitlements), but a very good thing when it comes to the “animal spirits” of corporate profits and unfettered market.

victimhood: said to be one of the main Dem rhetorical meme or “card” (as in, “the race card”).  Linked in a complex semantic web to “envy”, “redistribution, “oppression”, “grievance”, “obsession with race and class,” and “fairness”.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Dec. 19-20, 2013

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big government:  any government. “Big” serves a mandatory modifier of neutral-sounding “government”. “Big government” leads to a “federal takeover” (see below); also is he opposite of “self government” (see below)

college education as an investment: the reductionist view of education that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. This is the wedge strategy for doing away with tenure, academic freedom, and the social sciences.

commitment: what Republicans value in sexual behavior. Democrats, on the other hand, prefer one-night stands, promiscuity and, and irresponsibility.

federal takeover: any government

guilt:  Obama’s core emotional appeal, said to be ” vast, vague, and unanswerable”, also insatiable. Always used derisively, as when belittling “crippling white guilt”. Without guilt, and its sense of moral obligation, no social mitigation of inequality is necessary.

honorable self-government:    Ideally the equivalent of no government in the perfect libertarian state in which individuals would be entirely self-determining.The modifier is a key part of this equation when it refers to states’ power (as opposed to federal power) because the states (or certain states) are inherently honorable and can be trusted with power.

identity politics: (see the “race, class and gender industry” entry, below). A card played whenever Dems address issues of social equity. When the GOP appeals, say, to Tea Partiers, it’s called “playing to the base.”

man’s work: timbering, mining, drilling

the political class: used derisively to refer to any democratic-leaning journalists or analysts.

the productive engines of the economy:  nurturing  (i.e., “coddling”) undermines these; only the “unfettered” free market releases these animal spirits. Overt attempts at equity or qwlfare re automatically defined as “unproductive”.

the race, class, and gender industry:  the social sciences in higher education. As if the only motive for addressing discrimination and inequality is an economic one.

reeducation:  In true Stalinist fashion, the technique the so-called liberal “thought police”  use to silent dissenters and force them into  ideological compliance.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Dec. 16-17, 2013

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bureaucratic bloat: a redundancy, because, from the GOP perspective, government is inherently excessive, toxic, and unnecessary.

class warriors: anyone arguing for economic equality, equal opportunity, or the end of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

credibility and deterrence: everything the Obama/Kerry foreign policy lacks, no matter the content or the result. credibility comes from the barrel–or at least the direct threat–of a gun.

fawning: any pro-Obama editorial.

full-bore democracy: akin to “perfect Marxism,” a political ideology and practice not yet tried in America, due to liberal intransigence and re-distribution schemes. In a “full-bore” democracy, corporations are people, my friend, and corporate rights have precedence over human rights or civil rights.

half-truths, misdirections, puffery: any Obama policy statement. Everything the administration says is to be suspected of mendacity and subject to interrogration.

runaway spending: any spending; see “bloat”, above. The point is that Democrats have no self-control when it comes to government spending.

winners and losers: most characteristically used in the phrase “there are always going to be winners and losers”. A naturalizing phrase,  always used by the winners, to justify not helping the losers.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Dec. 11-13, 2013

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corrosive: all-purpose intensifing adjective for all Dem policies, laws & initiatives; most often used to alliteratively modify “controls”.

famous: a term of derision and ironic deflation for a largely mythic Democratic claim, as in “the famous Keynesian multiplier”.

the Greater Good: in Ayn Randian terms, the pernicious and ludicrous shibboleth/fantasy that undermines individual initiative, self-interest, and success.

hammering: any Democratic attack on GOP laws, policies or politicians.

market pricing: whatever business can get away with–or, rather, could get away with if government restraints (“shackles”) were “unleashed”. This is of course a core mantra of the Right.

passivity: in foreign policy, anything short of boycotts, invasions, bombings or assassinations. Also used as a translation for “restraint,” which in foreign policy is always a euphemism for passivity.

stranglehold: any Democratic attempt to govern or legislate. Since total government, all the time, is seen as Obama’s ultimate aim, any domestic policy –be it health care, energy, financial regulation or education–is a smokescreen for a total power grab.

trample: what Obama’s policies do to human rights, the free market, personal liberty or religious freedom. Strangleholds are especially prone to trampling.

the war on men: The GOP answer to the Dem’s War on Women. Especially applicable to rape and sexual assault & harassment cases in which women’s testimony leads to conviction or censure.

Washington gimmicks and games: any Democratic political maneuvering or policy making. GOP law- and policy-making, on the contrary, is always transparent and based on bedrock principles of the free market and individual initiative. Note: “Washington” gimmicks are the most virulent kind; in general, “Washington” serves as a shorthand pejorative, much like “trial” in “trial lawyers”.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Dec 7-10, 2013

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apologist: anyone who defends the Obama administration or the Senate. Aka, “sycophant”.

dignity and purpose: The very qualities the spineless, profligate, illegitimate President lacks.This is a kind of master trope, trotted out to defend pro-life activists, the military, free marketeers, and non-freeloading, working Americans.

false narrative: any claim about Obama administration successes–always of course manufactured by the Democrats. Recent “fale narratives” included: the ACA as being afforable and offering Americans choices in health insurance; Obama as successfully countering terrorism, and the economy as in any way better than it was when Obama took office.

firm response: bellicose GOP foreign policy initiatives–the opposite of “rewarding terrorism”–see below.

nannies: any government official. Aka, “self-appointed experts”.

power grab: any law or administrative policy or procedure originating anywhere in the Executive Branch or the Senate. Republican laws or policies are, on the other hand, always “reasonable” or “legitimate” exercises of governing. Aka, “fiat”.

resentment: the predominant ruling humor of all of the “dependent” classes, the “freeloaders,” etc. The only reason people sign up for food stamps, unemployment benefits, disability claims and welfare. Somehow, though, those on other forms of federal aid–Medicare, for example–are deserving and not all resentful of the accomplishments of the wealthy.

rewarding terrorism: any sign of a diplomatic olive branch, rapprochement, softening or reconciliation toward Syria, Iran, China, Russia  or any “othered” country. Aka, “romancing” tyrants or jihadis; “retreat”, “capitulation”.

tax simplification: lowering taxes and making them more regressive. Much like “regulatory reform,” this is a pure euphemism for drowning government spending in a bathtub, as Grover Norquist once put it.

true school reform: vouchers and privatization.

turning attention away from Obamacare: basically, discussing any other subject, such as inequality, Iranian nuclear disarmament, immigration reform, or gun control. Did Mandela die to turn attention away from Obamacare?

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Nov. 19-26, 2013

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abject; mandatory intensifier for any Obama policy outcomes: abject failure, abject surrender, abject fraud.

feckless: trusty GOP catch-all descriptor for any Obama initiative; almost always used in the vicinity of its cousin-epithet, “weak”.

innovative: an inherent quality of any “pro-market” economic or political reform.

managerial liberalism: much worse than mere liberalism because of its Command and Control overtones. The rhetorical move here is to make a neutral term–like management–into an invidious one. Akin to using “trial lawyers” rather than just “lawyers”.

naked: much like “abject”, an intensifier used to magnify the painful effects of an Obama policy, as in a “naked power-grab”, or in the sentence, “Obamacare is a naked takeover of one-sixth of national economy”.

regulatory uncertainty: a kind of redundancy in the sense that all regulation–or, rather, the mere possibility of regulation–creates uncertainty. Oddly enough, in this tried-and-true rhetorical move, something “regular” is characterized as a source of radical instability.

serfdom: what Obama has put America on the road to, as explained by Friedrich von Hayek.

servility: what is leading America– suddenly a “servile nation”– to serfdom, under the spell of Obama the Charlatan, Obama the Liar.

sucker-punch: Obama’s devious and unscrupulous way of prevailing in foreign or domestic policy. Both the ACA and the Iran agreement are now routinely referred to as “sucker punches” to the trusting American public.

thinker: Paul Ryan. NOT Rick Perry.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Nov. 15-18

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budget-busting: any new government spending the GOP doesn’t like.

cradle-to-grave care: any social welfare/safety net laws or policies. AKA, redistributionism, dependency, freeloading, Big Government.

end of liberalism: Krauthammer’s grandiose, hyperventilating claim for the endgame  of the vicissitudes of Obamacare.

fiat: Any Obama administration policy. The House rules by consensus and the rule of law, the White House by fiat.

fix: The thing that can never be done to Obamacare. The GOP scorched earth policy has always been no reform, no accommodation. As happened last week, when Obama does accommodate, his overtures are instantly and cynically dismissed as either political gimmickry or outright illegality. Obamacare is the GOP Alamo: no surrender. And just ask a texan: Ted Cruz. it’s in the Bible, right? Don’t gut it, kill it.

jam: the only way any Democrat-sponsored bill can get through Congress. Alternatively, anything the GOP passes is based on “consensus”. Aka, “demagoguery”.

Katrina:  Obamacare. Of course ma national health care plan is the same as the government causing–and then ignoring– the victims of a devastating flood. Aka, Obama’s Iran-Contra, or, of course, a “catastrophe,” a “disaster” or a “Greek tragedy”.

panic: any Dem response to the vicissitudes pf the Obamacare rollout. Even common-sense fixes to the law are characterized as “panic”.

preening elites: Democrats.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Nov. 1-3, 2013

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the American people: In the rhetoric of Ted Cruz’s Manichean morality play, always under threat by any Democratic policy or initiative. Rhetorically, they serve as his ethical lodestar and source of fathomless pathos. The ACA is portrayed as an especially dire existential threat to them. Note: Democrats–or even Republicans opposed to any Cruz policy or vote–are excluded from this group.

arbritrary standards: the provisions of any Democratic policy the GOP rejects. (aka, “diktat”). In the case of the ACA, this becomes a blanket indictment of coverage for maternity care, preventive medicine, family planning, substance abuse, mammograms, etc. Other  “arbitrary” standards would include annual or lifetime reimbursement caps, rate equity for women,  and exclusions for preexisting conditions. The rhetorical irony here is that, strictly speaking all “standards” are “arbitrary”, as opposed, I suppose, to inherent, absolute, or natural. Values, morals, and ethics are all ultimately “arbitrary,” but that doesn’t make them any less defensible or legitimate. The GOP uses “arbitrary” as a pejorative term, while their policies are, on the other hand, “common sense” “model reforms” or “realistic”.

death spiral: what the ACA is purportedly headed into–all imaginary, premature, and unmitigated wishful GOP thinking.

overpriced: all aspects of the ACA, due to its “arbitrary standards”. Never mind that comparing it to the lesser coverage of current policies is comparing apples and oranges, the rhetorical purpose of this descriptor is to undercut all ACA provisions by invidious comparisons.

paternalistic: any imposition of “arbitrary standards” by the “nanny state” or the “urban, genteel elitists”. When Republicans ban abortion, they of course are being “paternalistic,” but “pro-life”. AKA, “liberal paternalism”.

Progressivism: a political, social and economic movement in the united states that lasted from the tun of the 20th Century until the Autumn of 2013, with the coming of Obamacare. progressives were especially known for their “hatred” of free markets, property, and private enterprise.

public outrage: when the GOP astroturfs a citizens’ uprising, it’s called Jacksonian democracy; when the Democrats talk about concepts such as “corporate welfare” or “the 1%,” it’s called divisive class warfare and phony or misplaced anger fomented by “special interests”. AKA, “witch hunt,” “cramdown,” “intimidation” or “inquisition”.

scheme: any Democratic bill or policy–ACA proponents pushing this “scheme” are now seen as liars, grifters, or con artists.

showered: how campaign contributions are bestowed on Democrats.

stacking: what Democrats do when they nominate anyone for an executive or judicial branch appointment.

statists: those who believe government has a role in public policy.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in Wall Street Journal editorials and other precincts of the GOP blogosphere, Oct 25-29, 2013

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horror stories: any accounts of what is purportedly happening to people opposed to the ACA; almost always based on partial information, distortions of facts, lack of context, or outright lies.

mugging: what the government is doing to J.P. Morgan and the Bank of America, even though both banks continue to cover up bad subprime loans (or not carry them on their books), stonewall home owners wanting to re-finance, and claim that there was no systematic investment fraud during the financial/housing meltdown. Mugging is actually what any government regulation does to the “true market”. Also variously called a “shakedown”, “confiscation” or “ex post facto punishment”. Part of ther mythologizing cover story that “bad government policy: and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial meltdown.

political masters:  the puppeteers behind the vast Democratic redistributionist conspiracy. Obamacare is only the latest redistributionist scheme to expand government until it rules every aspect of Americans’ lives.

skyrocketing: as ubiquitious as “train wreck,”; use to describe ANY ACA premiums.

socializing: a near-cousin of “mugging”: what the government did when it bailed out the major banks at the height of the financial meltdown. In both instances, government action gets in the way of an unfettered “true market”.

sticker shock: whatever the premiums cost under the ACA–always more than people paid before, even for inferior coverage, “previous conditions” weeding out, lifetime caps, etc. Always comparing apples and oranges.

true market: an Eden-that-never-was, that Republicans continually nonetheless harken a return to. You know, the place where there is a price that satisfies everyone, where the market always clears in rational ways, where information is perfect and complete, and where there is no lobbying, price-rigging, weeding out expensive customers, monopolies,  or unnecessary procedures. In other words, in the current context of health care coverage in the US, pretty much the opposite of the status quo. Aka, “market forces”. The famous “invisible hand,” which is actually amazingly visible in terms of lobbying, political advertising, spin doctoring, and political advocacy.

Parallel GOP Universes: Hyperbolic and Counter-Intuitive Myths, Claims and Canards, September 27-30 2013

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1. There’s a new front-runner for the gold medal in hyperbole surrounding the Financial Meltdown. In a recent Wall Street Journal posting, former AIG CEO Robert Benmosche compared the national outrage about AIG’s bonuses to the lynching of blacks in the South

The uproar over bonuses was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that-sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong.

This is another triple dog-whistle, combining racism, class warfare, and martyrdom memes.

Matt Taiibi, Rolling Stone offers a particularly Twainian spin on this vile callousness.

Benmosche takes over the top spot in clueless hyperbole from Warren Buffet’s partner, Charlie Munger:

the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., defended the U.S. financial-company rescues of 2008 and told students that people in economic distress should “suck it in and cope.”

“You should thank God” for bank bailouts, Munger said in a discussion at the University of Michigan on Sept. 14, according to a video posted on the Internet. “Now, if you talk about bailouts for everybody else, there comes a place where if you just start bailing out all the individuals instead of telling them to adapt, the culture dies.”

Bloomberg, 9/20/2010

2. ObamaCare continues to generate alternative rhetorical universes, the latest of which is the stupendous GOP claim that:

This is a President who is eager to negotiate with dubiously elected Iranian mullahs but can’t abide compromise with duly elected leaders of Congress.

Wall Street Journal, 9/30/13

Another Journal editorial repeats the canard that, under the ACA, Americans will no longer be able too specialists, but will have to get wait-listed at dreaded “community hospitals”.

Obamacare Arrives, WSJ, 9/30/13

Yet a third counter-intuitive ACA claim comes from the National Review‘s Mark Steyn

In America, “insuring” against disaster now costs more than you’d pay in most countries for disaster….

followed by a launch into rhetorical hyperspace:

 Obamacare is something new in American life: the creation of a massive bureaucracy charged with downsizing you — to a world of fewer doctors, higher premiums, lousier care, more debt, fewer jobs, smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller, fewer, less; a world where worse is the new normal. Would Americans, hitherto the most buoyant and expansive of people, really consent to live such shrunken lives? If so, mid-20th-century America and its assumptions of generational progress will be as lost to us as the Great Ziggurat of Ur was to 19th-century Mesopotamian date farmers.

“Worse Is the New Normal

A further low point in GOP race-baiting came with the brilliantly -perverse rhetorical  double word score from a Republican state representative, conflating health care and racism:

In what may be the party’s lowest moment throughout this debacle, Republican state Rep. William O’Brien of New Hampshire said Obamacare is every bit as bad as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. President Obama naturally scoffed at the very idea, but O’Brien defended the analogy. “Just as the Fugitive Slave Act was an overreach by the federal government,” he told the Manchester Union Leader, “so too we understand that Obamacare is an assault on the rights of individuals.” That claim explains a lot about right-wing thinking, where callousness toward universal healthcare is exceeded only by ignorance of slavery.

Perhaps the phrase “just as” can be used as an incantation in Tea Party rhetoric, magically tying their own narrow political goals to universal values. But in the real world – the one informed by actual history and human experience – there is no meaningful similarity between slavery and health insurance (apart from the fact that both have been the subject of federal legislation). The very comparison is deeply insulting to human rights. Slavery was an evil system of unspeakable brutality, while national health insurance, at the very worst, involves a little bit of additional bureaucracy.

According to O’Brien, the Fugitive Slave Act violated states’ rights “to determine their policies as to slavery,” as though that was the greatest problem with the law. Completely missing from his tone-deaf analysis was any consideration of the impact on the fugitives themselves. Black people, not states, were the real victims of the Fugitive Slave Act

Salon, “GOP’s Most Shameful Shutdown Moment”

3. Over at Red State, the canard that Obama has “downsized” and diminished America continues in another key, again stigmatizing the poor by saying that they couldn’t even feed themselves without government help:

Current liberal theories say there’s no way America could possibly survive the hellish conditions of relatively modest government and broad economic liberty that existed just a few generations ago.  In fact, they tell us Obama’s America would die under the comparatively small government of Bill Clinton.  We are not the people we once were.  We’re weak and foolish.  We could not be trusted with the hammers and drills out Greatest Generation used to rebuild the world after the defeat of the Axis.  We can only be properly nourished and protected if the government spends far more money than it actually has, on a permanent basis.  A rapidly growing portion of the American population cannot even be trusted to feed itself without government assistance.  The number of important issues we’re even permitted to vote on is dwindling as quickly as the sphere of personal liberty.

If we didn’t buy all that hogwash, we could throw off the weight of Big Government, patch the leaky pipes of corruption, put a stop to absurd government waste, burn off the strangling vines of regulation, and restart the economy in fairly short order.  But we do buy it.  At least, a critical Dependency Class buys it enough to keep the Ruling Class in power.  This didn’t happen spontaneously.  Decline was pushed a few inches at a time, across the span of a century, until American confidence rotted away enough to let them push for feet instead of inches.  We were not willing to sacrifice our pride all at once.  It took a while to make us forget what we were once capable of.

We didn’t really get the government we deserved.  We got what we no longer had the strength to refuse.  We gave up what we no longer valued enough to defend.  And we didn’t pay enough attention to how the process was changing us.  The great remaining question is whether we can re-discover enough trust in one another to be great again. The Ruling Class is skeptical.

“We Get the Government We Submit To”, Red State.

http://www.redstate.com/2013/09/30/we-get-the-government-we-submit-to/

4. Hyperbole alert: In one of his classic end-of-the world jeremiads on the National Review website, Victor Davis Hanson claims that Obama calls his opponents “veritable” terrorists and Romney a “veritable ogre” (“veritable” used as a weasel word to soften the harshly hyperbolic nature of his claim):

In his political style, Obama seems to operate on the medieval concept of exemption. Through lofty spoken abstractions, he excuses low behavior. Praising “civility” allows you to call your opponents veritable terrorists; talk of unity means energizing supporters to get in their opponents’ face; advocacy of a campaign of principles reduces Romney to a veritable ogre. Plenty of presidents have proved vicious, but few so adept in attributing their own base behavior to others.

Not stopping there, Hanson goes on to counter-intuitively claim that that it’s Obama’s fault that America is more racially divided than ever, even though Obama has done everything he can to lower the racial temperature:

The result is that race relations have become more polarized than at any other time in the last 30 years. Under Obama’s leadership, celebrities, political analysts, and politicians traffic more in racial animus than at any other time in our recent history. Obama has had an uncanny ability to energize the Black Caucus to voice unusually inflammatory charges. How did it happen that suddenly Chris Rock and Jamie Foxx sound racially biased? When did the post-election commentary of pundits (e.g., “too old, too white, too male”) become so race-based?

As a cherry on top of this rhetorical sundae, he also uses the canard that buying guns is harder than ever:

There is no new restrictive legislation on firearms; and yet never has the ability to buy reasonably priced ammunition and firearms in quantity been more curtailed. In loudly threatening to enact more gun control after each publicized tragic shooting, the Obama administration has created a climate of fear, which has prompted hoarding, shortages, panic buying, and paranoia, which have accomplished what the federal government could not.

“Obama Transforming America,” Victor Davis Hanson, National Review