[Editor's note: Admired by Lenin, Daniel De Leon was a transformative figure in the American labor movement, whose Machiavellian, socialism-first legacy lives on in his modern torchbearers. The most notorious of De Leon's predecessors will be profiled in FrontPage's new series, "Union Gangsters." Union consigliere Craig Becker and thug-in-chief Richard Trumka have already been exposed, with many more to come.]

When the California Federation of Teachers resolved earlier this year that “the continued unjust incarceration of Mumia Abu-Jamal represents a threat to the civil rights of all people,” many again scratched their heads over another labor union non sequitur. What does a cop killer incarcerated in Pennsylvania have to do with the working conditions of teachers in California? This is in part the legacy of Daniel De Leon, a schismatic socialist who tirelessly pushed the labor movement to labor for his movement.

Organized labor’s fixation with issues ancillary to the interests of their members never ceases to surprise. Perhaps as unsurprising is that the historical figure most associated with redirecting unions away from wages, conditions, and benefits toiled as a lawyer, an activist, an editor, and a professor—but never as a laborer. Like the landlord Friedrich Engels and his subsidized sponge Karl Marx, Daniel De Leon saw workers as means to his ends rather than as actual people with independent interests of their own. People who don’t work often imagine that those who do work for them.

De Leon’s fleeting fanaticisms moved him to name one son after Grover Cleveland, leap into supporting Henry George’s single tax movement, and write for the Looking Backward-inspired Nationalist journal. Before marrying the cause, the crank was characteristically promiscuous in his obsessions. But in 1890, the serial joiner joined the Socialist Labor Party, a bridge between Marx and Lenin that traced circuitous roots to the First International and extended its shadow upon the Soviet Union. He quickly seized control of the party, relinquishing his grasp only in death nearly a quarter century later.

In the meantime, the diminutive, bearded extremist decimated the party he seized, cast influence over an infamous fellow socialist gangster in the Old World, and generated discord in the labor movement the likes of which continues to this day. Daniel De Leon became the marginalized figure in a marginalized movement. His frustration with workers, the redemptive figures in the Marxist narrative, evolving into contempt for workers does much to explain De Leon forever occupying a further fringe. Ultimately, he forbade members of his political party from holding office in the AFL and other traditional labor unions. Hell hath no fury like a socialist scorned.

“No organization of labor can accomplish anything for the workers that does not proceed from the principle that an irrepressible conflict rages between the capitalist and the working class, a conflict that can be settled only by the total overthrow of the former and the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth,” claimed the Curacao-born activist. To this end, he attempted to hijack the flailing Knights of Labor, and then, the fledgling American Federation of Labor (AFL). The tactic was “boring from within,” infiltrating an organization for the purpose of reorienting it. In 1893, De Leon captured a garment workers’ local for the purpose of capturing the Knights of Labor. By 1895, the garment workers decided that wearing garments didn’t establish one’s credibility as a garment worker, and they rid themselves of the interloper. His disciplined followers never succeeded in capturing the AFL, but they did, along with the Western Federation of Miners, manage to depose union honcho Samuel Gompers, if for just one year.

When the AFL persisted in agitating for higher pay or shorter hours, De Leon denounced them as “buffers of capitalism,” “labor lieutenants of the capitalist class,” and “pure and simplers”—a reference to AFL leaders considering their union a “pure and simple” trades union rather than a political organization. Citing “the impossibility of obtaining a decent living while capitalism existed,” De Leon ridiculed immediate demands whose fulfillment would only delay socialism’s arrival. The theorist wanted the conditions of workers to deteriorate to escalate their clamors for socialism. Gompers’ background as a cigarmaker injected a natural partiality toward immediate worker gains, which made him an object of constant attack from his intemperate adversary.

The paintbrush/pen/pencil/crayon is mightier than the sword. Or hey, even needlepoint if you're up for it. The possibilities are endless. "Seattle cartoonist launches 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day'," by Jamie Griswold for the Associated Press, April 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

After Comedy Central cut a portion of a South Park episode following a death threat from a radical Muslim group, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris wanted to counter the fear. She has declared May 20th "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."

Norris told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross that cartoonists are meant to challenge the lines of political correctness. "That's a cartoonist's job, to be non-PC."

Producers of South Park said Thursday that Comedy Central removed a speech about intimidation and fear from their show after a radical Muslim group warned that they could be killed for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

The group said it wasn't threatening South Park producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but it included a gruesome picture of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004, and said the producers could meet the same fate. The website posted the addresses of Comedy Central's New York office and the California production studio where South Park is made.

"As a cartoonist I just felt so much passion about what had happened I wanted to kind of counter Comedy Central's message they sent about feeling afraid," Norris said.

Norris has asked other artists to submit drawings of any religious figure to be posted as part of Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor (CACAH) on May 20th.

But drawings of one "religious figure" in particular will provoke death threats and accusations of hatred and racism.

On her website Norris explains this is not meant to disrespect any religion, but rather meant to protect people's right to express themselves.

IN THE FALL OF 2001, I spoke at a large public university in the eastern United States, which will remain nameless to protect the innocent. It was one of more than 30 colleges I had visited during the school year and, as usual, my invitation had come from a small group of campus conservatives who also put together a small dinner for me at a local restaurant. Our conclave reflected the current state of conservatism in the American university. Not only were our numbers small, but there were no deans or university administrators present, and only one professor. Open conservatives are an isolated and harassed minority on today’s college campuses, where they enjoy little respect and almost no support from institutional powers.

Although I am a nationally known public figure—author of books that have been best-sellers and nominated for a national book award, a Fox News contributor and one of America’s 100 leading “public intellectuals” according to a recent study of the subject, at these dinners, which normally precede my campus speeches, the absence of administration representatives is wholly predictable. (In nearly 200 campus appearances, I can think of only two exceptions.) When I spoke at the University of Michigan to 1,000 students, there were three university vice presidents in the balcony, but none thought to introduce himself to me. Occasionally a professor will attend these dinners, but rarely more than one. My experience as a conservative is not unique. By contrast, if I were an anti-American, radical like Angela Davis, deans of the college would wait on me and professors would confer academic credits on students for attending my appearances. On many occasions my speech would be an official campus event.

Angela Davis—a lifelong Communist zealot with no noticeable scholarly achievement—is a celebrated campus figure (there is even an “Angela Davis Lounge” at the University of Michigan) and thus can be expected to attract the attention of like-minded peers now entrenched in university administrations. But the same disparity would be discernible between a less well-known leftist and almost any comparable conservative. It reflects the fact that while conservatives often make up a large proportion of the student body on American campuses—and in some cases even a plurality—conservative professors and administrators are notably hard to find. Not only are the overwhelming majority of college professors fashionably “liberal,” most faculties have a strong contingent of hard leftists whose views are extreme, and whose concentrated numbers make it possible for them to dominate (and even define) entire academic fields. These faculty activists are also available to be sponsors of an impressive array of radical campus political groups, which—if the university is large enough—may receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from general student funds.

– Missing Diversity on America’s Campuses

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"Somalia, Again," by Alex Perry for the March 1 issue of Time:

On the night of Sept. 21 last year, U.S. diplomatic staff in South Africa were telephoned at home and told not to go to work the next day. A State Department official refused to explain the warning, but a Western intelligence officer in Africa told TIME the alarm was raised after a phone call from an al-Qaeda operative to a number in Cape Town was intercepted -- a call in which an attack on U.S. government buildings in South Africa was discussed. No attack took place, and after three days, the embassy in Pretoria and three consulates reopened. But with South Africa expecting half a million fans for the soccer World Cup this June and July, security officials are understandably jittery. Especially because of the origin of the phone call. It came, TIME was told, from Somalia. [...]

If Somalia's extremists are becoming an international threat, that's partly because of their cosmopolitan leadership. One sure result of war is refugees, and decades of fighting in Somalia have seen the rapid growth of a large Somali diaspora in places from Cape Town to Minneapolis. But not all who have been forced to make new lives far away from Africa have done so easily. The past few years have seen the arrival in Somalia of 200 to 300 young ethnic Somali men from the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway and Sweden, migrants' children returning to their ancestral homeland, according to diplomatic and intelligence sources in East Africa. A Western soldier working in Somalia says these foreign-born Somalis now dominate al-Shabab. "All their cells are commanded by a foreigner," he says. "All tactical and strategic decisions are taken by foreigners."

To extend their reach overseas, al-Shabab's leaders in Somalia are thought to circle back to the diaspora, looking for those who can be recruited to extremism. The FBI is tracking more than a dozen Somali Americans who disappeared from their homes and are suspected of joining al-Shabab, and in November, 14 Minnesota men with connections to Somalia were charged with offenses like aiding a terrorist organization; four have pleaded guilty. In August, Australian police arrested five men from the Somali community in Melbourne on suspicion of plotting to attack an army barracks outside Sydney. The September call to Cape Town was picked up because a group of ethnic Somalis in the city were already under surveillance on suspicion of raising funds for al-Shabab, according to the intelligence officer. "If you've been waiting for a moment to declare Somalia a priority threat, what else do you need?" asks the Western soldier in Somalia. "There's no longer a serious risk that southern Somalia could become a jihadi operational deployment facility. It already is."...

The replacement of “Maverick” Republican John McCain with an authentic conservative is a longtime fantasy held by many of us on the Right.  But could it actually happen?  Former Congressman and Arizona talk radio host JD Hayworth thinks so, and while the polls show he’s got an uphill battle, an upset isn’t impossible.  The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove recently had a few words with Hayworth about the race:

“We all respect John and thank him for his service,” Hayworth says. “His place in history is secure. He will remain a widely admired historical figure. But after 28 years in Washington, it’s time to come home. People are just ready for a change.”

[…]

“Sure, he’s a very slick communicator, but he has no demonstrated record of accomplishment,” says Brian Rogers, McCain’s campaign press secretary. “He went to college for broadcasting and he was a sportscaster before he was elected to Congress, and he’s obviously been successful at that. But compare that to the life experience of John McCain. I think people are looking for a little bit more than a radio shock jock.”

Bashing talk radio—now that’s gonna play well with conservative voters!  In all seriousness, Hayworth would be a vastly preferable Senator to McCain.  As Erick Erickson has pointed out, his admittedly-imperfect conservative record is still far better than McCain’s, Hayworth was a fierce opponent of the very amnesty plan McCain not only championed, but demagogically so, and while Hayworth lost his House seat in 2006 amidst the Jack Abramoff scandal, he was never shown to have committed any actual wrongdoing.  As Erick says:

I know – and anyone who has watched McCain knows – that if he is re-elected, he will at some point in the next 6 years work against conservatives and with liberals on energy taxes, free speech restrictions, or God-knows what other liberal cause suddenly consumes him.

I had the honor of meeting Representative Hayworth several years ago at the 2005 Teen Age Republicans national conference, where I got the distinct impression that, unlike many of the career politicians on Capitol Hill, he approached his job with a sense of purpose, that he was there to advance certain ideas rather than his perpetual reelection.  Hayworth is eloquent, personable, and passionate, and certainly has the potential to legitimately challenge McCain—that is, if he’s learned his lesson about taking the Birther bait from the media.  And the “identity theft” damage control?  Not a smart move, JD.

McCain’s got a fair lead in the polls now, but as Arlen Specter learned, polls are hardly written in stone, and as Grove put it, “the climate is unpredictable” and “the electorate is mad as hell at the powers that be.”  It’s still questionable whether or not the Republican Party will realize that their own liberalism has been the source of many of their woes, but the long-overdue replacement of the Party’s leading RINO with an actual conservative would be a big step in the right direction, and a fitting symbol of true change.

_____

Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College.  He also blogs at the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online.

From Lori Ziganto’s latest article at iowntheworld.

Oh, so hilarious,Robert Gibbs ! Stay classy, Press Secretary to the President of the United States!

Imagine: He thought this joke was so good, he actually prepared it before the presser. MKH is calling him the Dane Cook of politics for ripping off a goof that’s already been done three times by national figures, including Palin herself, but it’s worse than that. The Daily Show did a double hit on it last night, first with Stewart reading off his hand and then Wyatt Cenac reading off his belly, so that’s five times at least.

Too bad you are actually like the tenth media person/public figure to make that joke, Gibbs. The only time that it was funny was when Palin herself did it, writing the words “Hi, Mom” on her palm while making a campaign stop with Governor Rick Perry.

Getty Images

Gibbsy, you are way behind the curve, as always. Even the buffoonish, and creepily obsessed, Andrea Mitchell beat you to it!

Plus, a joke no longer works when the butt of the joke has already poked fun of herself. Although, I can see how you wouldn’t be used to that; the Obama administration does not seem to know about a little thing called self-deprecating humor.

See, not thinking that you are a perfect being, beyond reproach, is how most people behave. It’s one of those “little people” skills. You should look into it. I bet you expected Palin to act like your boss and start crying and bemoaning the big meany pantsers. I am going to be a “decider” now. My decision? Palin rocks. You stink. I also have a note on my hand and it says “Sorry, Gibbs. But she’s just not that into you.”

She’s getting to you, isn’t she, White House? She’s really getting under your super-thin skin. Now that is really hope-y, change-y.

Read full article and see the video here

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Follow Lori  on Twitter and read more of her work at Snark and Boobs, iOwntheWorld and Right Wing News.

President of the Islamic Council of Jamaica, Mustafa Muhammad, says he agrees with the Sharia law which prescribes death for people who openly flaunt homosexual behaviour.

Muhammad did not mince words as he lashed out against what he described as an unclean, unnatural lifestyle.

"It is illegal and in the Sharia law the punishment is death. If you follow Christianity it is a crime in the sight of God. He destroyed a whole city because of this thing. It is an ungodly practice and I apologise to no one for this," Muhammad said. [...]

Muhammad made sure to state that he was against the killing of gays in Jamaica.

"This can only be done in a country that is being run by Islam," he said.

And which system of laws would he like to see in Jamaica?

“Emergent Church” guru Brian McLaren is a key figure on the Evangelical Left who is trying shift Evangelicals, who are America’s most pro-Israel demographic, into a more neutralist stance. Currently, he is leading a delegation through Israel and “Palestine” to broadcast the sins of Israeli oppression against Palestinians by “listening, learning, thinking, observing, reflecting.”  His blog is providing daily updates of his discoveries, all of which confirm his previously often declared bias against Israel.

“I hope you will start questioning what you think you know about the situation here,” McLaren warned on his blog recently, with the assumption that most readers are deceived by pro-Israel partiality. “I’ve been an avid reader on the subject for quite a while, but being here now, I see how many of my most basic assumptions were skewed from a lifetime of half-truths, unfair and imbalanced news, well-planned propaganda, and misinformation.”

McLaren, of course, used to be a more traditional, conservative Evangelical.  So his emergence into the Evangelical Left in recent years, including the requisite negativity towards Israel, is part of an ongoing spiritual rebirth into which he invites his fellow Evangelicals.  Of course, McLaren insists that he is not anti-Israel, and certainly not anti-Jewish.  He simply wants to liberate both Palestinians and Jews from the enslaving mindset of the “occupation” that holds both peoples captive.

“The struggle here is about people being held in various forms bondage – both occupiers and the occupied each in their own ways, and everyone needs liberation,” McLaren explained.  He is himself apparently one agent of that “liberation.”  In his typical post-modern way, he further posits that none of the people in that region are really responsible for the strife and horrors.  Rather, it is the “harmful ideologies and world views and narratives that rule and exert power in and through people’s lives” and “cause them to do terrible things they would never do in their right minds.”  Indeed, he warned, that “when hateful and dehumanizing ideologies take control, both victimizers and victims are dehumanized.”

Of course, though McLaren wants to liberate everybody from their various spiritual/political blindness, he implies that most or all of the spiritual confusion comes from Jewish Israel and its Christian supporters.  He is very concerned about Israeli “razor wire and segregation walls,” as part of the “ugliness of occupation.” But he is not as interested in the Palestinian and Islamist terror that generate Israel’s defenses.  He helpfully included photos of graffiti art on the infamous security wall, and other blank slates, by left-wing British graffitist Bansky.  One shows the Statue of Liberty pulling out her empty pockets, perhaps illustrating the bankruptcy of American capitalism, or America’s hoped for inability to back Israel.  Another graffiti artwork shows a Palestinian girl searching an Israeli soldier, in a hoped for role reversal.

McLaren recited first hand from his West Bank visit “heart-shattering stories of Palestinians being arrested without cause, tortured, humiliated, re-arrested, re-tortured.”  Amazingly, he has discovered a “lack of hatred” and a thirst for “non-violent” action among Palestinians, despite all the abuse from their Israeli “victimizers,” and the mischaracterizations from the purportedly pro-Israel U.S. media.   Revealingly, McLaren learned that Palestinians do not want a “two-state solution” but instead desire to “live in peace with Israelis” and want “Jews, Muslims, and Christians to learn to live together as neighbors.”  In other words, the Palestinians want the eradication of Jewish Israel and the creation of a new Palestinian and Islamic dominated state where, purportedly, Jews and Christians also could live, at least for a time.  McLaren finds this discovery to be very “powerful” and encouraging.

“We in the US have been given a terribly false impression – from the media, from political leaders, and from many Christian and Jewish leaders as well,” McLaren incredulously recounted of the “quiet but gracious attitude” he found among Palestinians towards Israel.  “All of us who are here in Palestine are now witnesses to realities we can’t be silent about in the future.”

One of McLaren’s fellow pilgrims is former journalist Greg Barrett, author of The Gospel of Father Joe: Revolutions & Revelations in the Slums of Bangkok.  Maybe not quite as naïve as the rose-tinted McLaren, Barrett blogged that Palestinians graciously endure American tourists despite all the torments that America purportedly inflicts on them through Israel because “we help buoy a difficult economy.”  But deep down, Palestinians are justifiably “tired of us and our elected officials who look the other way while an oppressed people is bullied, robbed and mocked.”  Christian tourists have too long visited Bethlehem to see Christ’s birthplace while “we’ve failed to follow His teachings.”

Appropriately, Barrett cited a favorite social activist/philosopher for the Left:  “Seeing the infamous Wall built by Israel to imprison the Palestinians, I was reminded of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals. In it, Alinsky writes about ‘the rules pertaining to the ethics of means and ends.’ First among them is the belief that a person’s concern with the ethics of a social action correspond to one’s distance from the consequences of action or inaction.”

Perhaps Barrett should instead have cited Alinsky’s better known quote about left-wing polemics:  “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”  McLaren’s Holy Land tour, whether deliberately or cluelessly, seems like just another Alinsky-inspired cause from the Religious and Evangelical Left, which are determined to demonize Israel and its U.S. ally, in pursuit of “liberation” for Palestinians.  But this brand of “liberation” would result in the eventual eradication of Jewish Israel in favor of an Islamist dominated “Palestine,” where fellow-travelling Christians like Brian McLaren would be tolerated largely for their political utility.

That Islamic challenge consists of two components: on the one hand, an indigenous population’s withering Christian faith, inadequate birthrate, and cultural diffidence, and on the other an influx of devout, prolific, and culturally assertive Muslim immigrants. This fast-moving situation raises profound questions about Europe: Will it retain its historic civilization or become a majority-Muslim continent living under Islamic law (the Shari’a)?

Wilders, 46, founder and head of the Party for Freedom (PVV), is the unrivaled leader of those Europeans who wish to retain their historic identity. That’s because he and the PVV differ from most of Europe’s other nationalist, anti-immigrant parties.

via Why I Stand with Geert Wilders by Daniel Pipes on National Review Online.

An Islamist radical whose teaching role at a leading university was exposed yesterday by The Times led a secretive "Brothers' Circle" at which he espoused his hardline views.

Reza Pankhurst, a senior figure in the hardline group Hizb ut-Tahrir, gathered a group of male members of the London School of Economics (LSE) Islamic Society for private talks.

Mr Pankhurst, whose party advocates the creation of an Islamic state governed by Sharia, is a research student employed as a teacher in the LSE's government department.

He is due to teach undergraduate classes this term in three topics covering nationalism and revolution in the Arab world.

Mr Pankhurst retained his position in the Islamic Society and the college despite a number of students raising concerns last year about the overt political content of his sermons at Friday prayers.

The Students' Union confirmed that it had reported those concerns to the Islamic Society and raised them "informally" with academics.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in Germany for anti-Semitism and covered by the National Union of Students' policy of "no platform" for racist and fascist views....

More Facebook jihad against Rifqa Bary: this Facebook wonders whether Rifqa Bary, the girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and then fled from her family in fear for her life, is the great evil figure of the Islamic end times, the Dajjal -- because, after all, she has one eye, and so does the Dajjal.

The Dajjal will at the end of days lead people astray. Muhammad said: "The Dajjall is one-eyed and will bring with him what will resemble Hell and Paradise, and what he will call Paradise will be actually Hell; so I warn you (against him) as Noah warned his nation against him."

These brilliant fellows fail to note that while the Dajjal is indeed blind in his right eye according to several ahadith, he also has "kaffir" -- unbeliever -- written between his eyes.

It's clear from things like this that Rifqa Bary is in danger from Muslims in the United States. The Ohio court should act accordingly to protect her, and resist the deceptive PC siren song of CAIR. The girl's life is at stake.

(from http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/Che%20Guevara%20and%20Hugo%20Chavez_7358)

“Why is it that nobody seems to be paying any attention to the similarities
that were seeing now between what Hugo Chavez is doing in Venezuela and what is happening here in America?” asked Glenn Beck on his TV show last night.

It’s an excellent question. The answer probably has something to do with the left-wing biases of the mainstream media, the degraded state of American public education, and the fact that Americans generally have little interest in what goes on in faraway places like Venezuela.

Barack Obama has so much in common with Chavez, Beck argued.

He’s right, of course.

Like Chavez, Obama is a charismatic, narcissistic figure who encourages the cult of personality that has developed around him and has tried to use government  resources to promote it. He has appointed dozens of so-called czars with vast powers over industry and the economy (Chavez has simply seized the industries). He has legions of mindless fanatical followers who don’t even seem to realize how profoundly un-American their project is (Chavez has violent chavista thugs who rough up regime opponents).

He has singled out and scapegoated specific groups within society, e.g. the rich, businessmen, in order to distract from the problems he is creating as he undermines American civil society (Chavez does the same and uses America itself as a whipping boy in his propaganda). He is leading America on the road to certain ruin by nationalizing healthcare, the automobile industry, banks, and by raising taxes, debasing the currency, weakening America abroad, and kneecapping the War on Terror whose name is so offensive to him he cannot even bring himself to say it.

Obama is intolerant of dissent and wants to use the power of government to silence his opponents via the Fairness Doctrine or whatever the latest iteration of it may be (Chavez threatens, fines, intimidates and shuts down media outlets).

Meanwhile, Beck announced that on Fri., Jan. 22, he intends to air a new documentary on the socialist and communist “killers” Che Guevara, Mao Zedong, and Joseph Stalin.

Perhaps the documentary will help make it un-cool to wear Che t-shirts. (Hey, it’s a start.)

Related posts:

1. FCC "Diversity" Czar Loves Communist Hugo Chavez
2. Cozy Commie Comrades on a Movie Date – The Oliver Stone/Hugo Chavez Socialist Love-In
3. Larry King’s Dictator Trilogy – The Malignant Narcissism of Hugo Chavez

When I first read that Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital, I did a quick look at “tweets” with his name as keywords. What I found was a disgusting collection of death wishes. Of course, anytime a major figure might be staring death in the face there will always be a soulless group who wish the worst. No political pool has a monopoly on heartlessness, but I would hope that public personalities that disagree with him would leave him alone in his time of need.

It turns out that for the most part this is true, that is, unless you took at look at leftist film critic Roger Ebert’s twitter page. People of Ebert’s status should not be diving into the gutters of political discourse for a laugh.

Take a look at the following tweets from Ebert:

“Rush: Hawaii is the only country where the Hawaiian shirts come in S, M, L, XL, Rush, and Sumo.”

“Rush: Nurse at snack time: ‘You have nuts?’ ‘No!’ ‘You have dates?’ ‘Hey, if I had nuts, I’d have dates!’ Ah…Har! Har! Har!”

“Rush: Stuck in this hospital room watching TV, I really miss Lou Dobbs. All the Oriental nurses are U.S. citizens, though.”

“Rush: Our US health care system is the best in the world. The nurses here in Hawaii keep offering me lays.”

“Rush: ‘They told me aloha means hello. Only now do they tell me it also means goodbye. Everybody keeps using it around me.’”

“Rush says docs found nothing wrong. They’re obviously not listeners.”

“Surgeons: ‘Rush doesn’t require a heart transplant, but an installation.’”

“Rush from Honolulu: ‘The nicest thing about the foreigners working in this hospital is that they’re all good Americans.’”

“Tests find nothing wrong with Rush Limbaugh’s heart. Physically.”

There is nothing wrong with Ebert disagreeing with Limbaugh, but this is simply not acceptable. There is no reason to poke at someone when they are dealing with serious health issues. I would expect this type of garbage from ignorant and arrogant college-aged liberals, but not from people of Ebert’s status. For someone who questions the intellectual level of this country, Ebert has only proven that he is not any better than those he criticizes.

While I am not a huge Limbaugh fan, it’s doubtful he was laughing and joking when Ebert was fighting thyroid cancer. Why? Because it’s not funny!

Ebert has long been a very astute film critic and while I do not share his political opinions I have respected him for quite some time. Over the years, however, he has managed to put more of his anger into his writing. Over the summer NewsReal Editor David Swindle and I wrote a piece regarding Ebert’s unjust attack on Fox News host Bill O’Reilly by comparing him to fascist, pro-Hitler, anti-Semitic radio broadcaster Father Charles Coughlin:

“In making the comparison Ebert becomes what he seeks to condemn. He seeks to slap one of his ideological enemies with an intolerable image – that of a fascist radio broadcaster of the 1930s. This is something that O’Reilly and Olbermann do all the time – compare their ideological rivals to Nazis. Ebert’s principle subject in college was English. Surely he can recognize when a metaphor overpowers its subject and distracts more than it helps.”

There is an obvious pattern with Ebert these days. He likes to criticize people he disagrees with for using stupid argumentative tactics but then uses them himself. As we argued in our above article, if Ebert cannot raise himself to a respectable level of intellectual discipline for political commentary maybe he needs to stick with film criticism.

Related posts:

1. Rush Limbaugh Takes Defense of Healthcare System a Step too Far
2. Wikipedia Reports Limbaugh Dead
3. Gandhi vs Limbaugh: Spot the Real Racist

“Yukio Hatoyama, the new Japanese Prime Minister, has stunned a nation already mired in huge public debt by unveiling the country’s biggest ever postwar budget,” reported the UK Times the other day. Hatoyama’s budget of 92.3 trillion yen – roughly $1 trillion – represents a jump of some 10 percent over last year’s figure.

It goes without saying that the Japanese government does not have enough cash to pay for this extravaganza. In order to cover its bills, it will have to borrow a record 44.3 trillion yen ($440 billion), which will push the country’s public debt to nearly 195 percent GDP. This figure represents the largest debt-to-GDP ratio by far of any developed country. This increase in indebtedness comes at a time when tax revenues are projected to fall to the lowest level since 1984. According to projections, the amount of Japan’s debt issuance next year will exceed the government’s tax intake. This will mark a historic milestone of sorts, as Japan has not experienced this level of imbalance since the end of World War II.

It is ironic that Hayotama was swept to power in August on the promise that he would end the era of wasteful public spending that marred the rule of the previous government.  Today Hatoyama says that the sharp increase in public outlays is necessary, because it is aimed at “saving people’s lives.” At the same time, he seeks to convince the Japanese public that fiscally things are still under control. “I believe that we have delivered all we can without compromising fiscal discipline,” said Hatoyama at a news conference last week. But with a debt of nearly double the country’s annual economic output his words hardly sound reassuring.

Unfortunately, Japanese politicians are not the only ones suffering from a bad case of the unhinged spending syndrome. Their American counterparts are also badly afflicted by this pernicious malady. In its latest outbreak, California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has petitioned the federal government for help in closing the California’s $21 billion budget gap. In other words, Schwarzenegger is seeking a bailout for his insolvent state. The governor has been hard at work cultivating the political soil to make D.C. receptive to his plea. This is a somewhat delicate undertaking for a republican these days, given that Washington’s financial strings are largely controlled by democrats. But Governor Schwarzenegger has apparently figured out what it takes to win the favor of those in charge. For months he has enthusiastically praised President Obama and last week even gave him an A for his performance so far.

Schwarzenegger and his cohorts claim that California’s financial woes are caused by a weak economy. But this is not so. Strictly speaking, California’s problems are not a result of a deteriorating economy, but of the irresponsibility of the state’s political class. By offering unsustainably generous social programs, keeping a highly-paid bureaucracy and financing a whole array of extravagant projects they have simply broken the bank. With the damage done, it is time for those responsible to bear the consequences of their actions. They must face the people of California standing on the ashes of their state’s burned fiscal house. To bail them out would truly be unforgivable. If the federal government grants them the funds they seek, they will not only not be punished for their recklessness, but they will cast themselves as California’s saviors. They will use their bailout loot to further entrench themselves in power and continue their destructive works. These people must not be rewarded; they need to face the music instead.

Sad to say, both parties bear responsibility for California’s present woes. Long gone are the days when Arnold Schwarzenegger excoriated his legislators for their fiscal excesses. Calling them “girly men” for lacking the courage to bring the state’s finances in order, he held them up to public scorn before the whole nation. But it did not take long for the governator to adopt the spending mindset of the very people he ridiculed and turn into a girly man himself. And today he comes to Washington begging the federal government for other people’s money so that he can get out of his pickle.

It is truly paradoxical that Schwarzenegger is asking for help from someone who is even more bankrupt than his own state. With a national debt of over $12 trillion and an entitlement burden in excess of over $100 trillion, the US government is saddled with obligations it cannot possibly meet. If it were not for the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency and the ability of the Federal Reserve to print it at will, our federal government would now be out of business.  In any case, its days as a financially viable entity are numbered. Even as we speak, the world is feverishly looking for an alternative to the dollar. Once it is found, our currency will disintegrate as governments and investors will refuse to finance our ever growing debt. It is also possible that they will not wait for an alternative to emerge, but that at some point will simply begin dumping dollars in an effort to cut their loses.

We must never lose sight of what has led to this predicament – excessive spending by the political class. As in the case of California, both parties are culpable. Although Republicans like to cast themselves as the party of fiscal sobriety, the fact is that whenever they hold power they grow both spending and deficits. It seems to be the defining feature of the Western political dynamic that whenever a party assumes power – regardless of whether it is ideologically right or left – it invariably increases government expenditures. Today many charge the Japanese prime minister – who heads a center-left party – with the socialist type of disregard for the basic laws of finance and common sense. The charge is true enough, but they forget that the road was paved by the previous governments, most of which were on the other side of the ideological divide.

The same holds truth for the United States. People fault President Obama for his lack of fiscal restraint. And deservedly so. They, however, overlook the fact that the ground was prepared by the previous administration. That administration, among other things, broke previous spending records, implemented a costly entitlement program and set us on the road to endless bailouts. It is true that republicans are somewhat more restrained than their counterparts across the aisle, but that is not good enough when we are headed for financial disaster.

What we desperately need are adults who realize that we cannot indefinitely go on spending more than we have. Unfortunately, neither side of the Western political mainstream appears to harbor such politicians. Whether you look at Japan, California  or the United States, the unhinged spending syndrome does not discriminate. An equal opportunity affliction, it affects both sides regardless of their stated ideological orientation.

The year of Obamarific “change” quickly became the year of dissent as Americans grew disillusioned with the “trillion here and a trillion there” spending of President Barack Obama even as unemployment rose. The so-called “Stimulus Package,” which promised to cap unemployment at 8%, did nothing to generate private sector jobs. The only area that seemed to be stimulated was joblessness, which soared above 10%.

Despite an economic disaster, the Democrats in Congress and the White House focused on socializing American health care and an economy-busting “cap and trade” scheme to hike energy taxes.  To top it off, it seemed every day brought revelations about radicals with unconscionable views who either held high offices in the new administration or were funded with taxpayer money.

Suddenly, the loudmouths of the Left and the poobahs of the Lame-Stream Media — who had deemed dissent to be “the highest form of patriotism” when George W. Bush occupied the White House — whistled another tune. They began savaging of opponents of the Obama regime as Nazis, racists and ignorant rubes. Their targets weren’t just public figures who stood in the way of their agenda; rather, they viciously attacked ordinary Americans, the tea partiers, to whom they gave a sobriquet (tea-baggers) that no network censors would have allowed just a few years ago.

For our Man of the Year issue, we justifiably could have taken the cheap and easy route (such as Time circa 2006) and said it was the year of the “ordinary citizen.” After all, the anti-Obama Tea Party movement shook the foundations of the political establishment this summer.

All of our nominees contributed mightily to the informed dissent that gave hope for the right kind of change in the next few election cycles. Here are the nominees:

Dick Cheney

Ex-Veep Cheney, the man most hated (and feared) by the Left, won every argument he picked with Obama, scoring huge in the public arena on Attorney General Eric Holder’s ridiculous persecution of the CIA staffers who interrogated suspected terrorists; and he has been effective in all other national security debates.  Almost as important as the vice president’s comeback is the emergence of daughter Liz Cheney as one of conservatism’s most articulate defenders.  If this award were for Family of the Year, the Cheneys would be the hands-down winners.

Andrew Breitbart

Orginally known as Matt Drudge’s lieutenant in compiling the still-essential Drudge Report, Breitbart became the most influential conservative figure on the Internet this year.  His smash hit site Big Hollywood immediately became a must-read on a daily basis, and he launched Big Government with the Story of the Year — the ACORN prostitution sting videos.  With more sites on the way, Breitbart will continue to be one of the brightest lights in the conservative movement.

Sarah Palin

Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, deserves a slot on this list just for the self-revealing rage she generates with the liberal establishment. The former Alaska governor also is the most beloved figure among the ordinary people who are newly minted activists in the wake of Obama’s big government excess.  Is there any other person who can change the debate and the political lexicon with a mere Facebook entry?  Death Panel is certainly the phrase of the year.

Rush Limbaugh

One could make the case that Limbaugh has been the conservative MVP — most valuable player or politico — every year since 1994.  It’s doubtful Obama ‘s approval rating would be under 50% and Obamacare would hover at about 60% disapproval without El  Rushbo. Instead of a routine annual update on Rush’s contribution to the debate, however, it’s time to just name the trophy after him and move on.

And the winner is…

Glenn Beck

Whether you love him or hate him, or consider him to be a must-see TV or DVR necessity, radio and TV talker Beck is a bright new star in the conservative firmament. You might get fired up by his calls to action or wince at his emotional outbursts – you even might tune in today only to see if this is when his head finally explodes—but you have to admit, this was the Year of the Beck.

In the past 12 months, Beck rose from hosting an obscure TV show on CNN Headline News to a terrible time slot on Fox News’ cable juggernaut.  Regardless, his show at 5 p.m. became a ratings smash hit and attracted direct angry response from the White House.

Beck’s show now attracts a far bigger audience than his competitors on CNN, MSNBC and Headline News combined. In fact, he doesn’t really have any competition – on any given day, Beck can attracts 20 times the audience of Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC.

This, indeed, was the Year of the Beck. In NBA terms, Limbaugh is the 30-points-per game superstar with several championship rings, who last year played for an otherwise pathetic team.  Beck is the team’s rookie draft pick who exceeded expectations and brought fresh energy that caught the other team flat-footed and changed the game.

Beck is such a major part of the political landscape today that it’s hard to remember he was still a minor factor just a year ago. Sure, his books sold very well, and his radio show was making a move to the top tier of the market; but during the 2008 election, the Left and the MSM were not sneering and using the term, “Limbaugh/Hannity /Beck,” and Obama was not calling him out by name.

In one short year, the epithet has become “Limbaugh/Beck/Palin,” and the White House is responding defensively.

Beck made the cover of Time magazine, was one of Barbara Walters’ “10 Most Fascinating People of 2009″ and makes an almost nightly appearance as one of Keith Olbermann’s “Worst People in the World.” (A great honor, no doubt.)

Probably no other broadcaster in any medium is as in tune with the feisty mood of the times.  While other talk show hosts certainly connect with the Tea Partiers, and I’m sure the vast majority of them listen to Limbaugh and watch a certain amount of Hannity, no media figure has the direct connection to the Tea Party dissidents that Glenn Beck enjoys.  No one.

Only Sarah Palin gets that kind of love from the crowds that have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shaking in fear, and making up wild accusations on the while the cameras roll.

In his rookie year on live television, Beck has the White House reeling. He already has two major scalps dangling from his lance—self-proclaimed communist Van Jones, the green jobs czar, and White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, a devout fan of Maso Tse-Tung.

Leftist Cass Sunstein, the proposed “Regulatory Czar” who puts animal rights on a par with human rights,  and  Keith Jennings, a pedophilic Activist ironically named as Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” are also in his sights. While Breitbart deserves the lion’s share of the credit if ACORN goes down, no one has supplied more context on the community activist/con job organization and its tentacles into the Obama a Administration than Beck.

So where does Beck go from here?  His meteoric rise in 2009 will be a tough act to follow.  He obviously cannot again increase his TV audience tenfold — that would put him in “Who Shot J.R.” territory.  He has gained an audience and, for now, seems to be holding it.

The cheap and easy analysis would be to suppose that Beck’s emotional approach will wear on the audience or he will burn out.  However, as I learned when reviewing Beck’s latest bestseller, Arguing with Idiots, (still sitting at No. 3 as of this writing), Beck’s antics may draw people in, but there is a deep well of substance behind his act.

Beck, to be sure, is a performer and a showman.  He takes risks, and enough of them pay off to make up for his small mistakes.  Beck is attuned to the times, perfectly situated to benefit from the Obama backlash.  However, he has the substance for the long haul.

Whether 2010 is another Year of the Beck, or not, it is poised to be a comeback year for conservatism.  If it is, then Glenn Beck will have been a major part of the reason — and my bet is that is what will matter most to him.

Al-Awlaki was thought to have been killed in an air strike by Yemeni forces last week, but that is now unconfirmed. The senior U.S. official told Fox News that the cleric, an American citizen now living in Yemen, had previously been devoted to “propaganda and spiritual guidance,” but went operational in the past year.

via FOXNews.com – Radical Imam Tied to Terror Plots Has Gone ‘Operational’ in Yemen.

via Recovery not as strong as previously thought – Yahoo! News.

Some of this was sheer hokum: when uttered by Gordon Brown, the word “global”, as in “global economic crisis”, meant: “It’s not my fault”. To the extent that the word had intelligible meaning, it also had political ramifications that were scarcely examined by those who bandied it about with such ponderous self-importance. The mere utterance of it was assumed to sweep away any consideration of what was once assumed to be the most basic principle of modern democracy: that elected national governments are responsible to their own people – that the right to govern derives from the consent of the electorate.

via There’ll be nowhere to run from the new world government – Telegraph.

Father Earth, algore

Father Earth, Algore, is in Copenhagen valiantly trying to convince the world that unless the United Nations immediately institutes a massive redistribution of wealth from rich countries to poor countries, the earth is in imminent danger of catastrophic ‘weather’ events. In his speech yesterday, Gore stated that the latest research has shown that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in, gasp, 5 years.

“These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

Not only that, Gore extrapolated that billions of people would be denied access to clean water due to these melting glaciers. Not to mention the poor polar bears who would be forced to eat their young.

The only problem is, Gore’s statements are demonstrable false, as Dr. Maslowski quickly made clear.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Oops. Al Gore’s office quietly conceded that the 75% figure was a “ballpark figure” Dr. Maslowski mentioned years ago in a casual conversation with Al Gore.

As usual, the mainstream media in the United States conveniently ignored Gore’s latest blooper,  as they have ignored endless ‘misstatements’ that are being reported as settled science.

The media, and much of the country, have adopted the leftist talking points without question. After all, who wants to be labeled a denier or worse. Al Gore has compared anyone who disagrees with his unfounded premise of global warming to people stupid enough to question gravity. Faith has replaced reason, giving the left carte blanch to ignore the growing evidence indicating years of climate data have been fudged and manipulated.

Gore’s statement that “these figures are fresh”  appears to go beyond the realm of ‘misstatement’ into an outright lie. But don’t expect our media to report this deliberate falsehood. They have adopted the “fake but accurate” template introduced by Dan Rather and adopted by the left.

And if you don’t agree, well, you’re just too stupid to be taken seriously. And besides, haven’t you heard? Experts agree that the debate is over.  The ‘consensus’  has decreed the science is settled. The case is closed. Lets all just move-on.

Related posts:

1. Al Gore, Climate-Killing Carnivore
2. Oz with a Gun: The Climate Thugs Get Medieval
3. Just How Big Is Climategate? The Tiger Woods Index Measures Media Incompetence

Sanchez will stand by anyone who agrees with him on immigration - even this guy.

I can’t figure out if CNN’s Rick Sanchez repeatedly gets his facts wrong because of a biased agenda or because he’s just an inept journalist.  I really think it is both.  His Leftism sometimes leads Sanchez to ignore seeking facts (think fake racist Rush quotes,) but sometimes he simply hides the facts to promote his own views.

This past week former professional wrestler and former Minnesota Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura made the media rounds to promote a new television show he is hosting.  The show is about conspiracy theories and Ventura, who is a 9-11 Truther, was an obvious choice for host. Ventura, in an attempt to gain viewers, has made  loony left conspiracy claims on Afghanistan, 9-11, and immigration to any show that would listen.

One of the programs Ventura went on was The Opie and Anthony Show, a shock jock XM radio show.  YouTube clips of the interview went viral, because Ventura walked off the show after sparring with host Jim Norton.  As Ventura walked off, Norton really viciously laid into Ventura. Here’s Sanchez’s take on the incident:

Sanchez (conveniently) only shows a clip of the interview after Ventura decides to leave the show.  He offers no context to why Norton responds so angrily to Ventura.  He portrays Ventura as an innocent victim who is attacked by jerks for no real reason except ratings.

“Ventura is all but assailed on the radio…Jesse Ventura was invited to that show.  It’s like a pit-bull being poked with a stick isn’t it…they were hoping (the show would go viral) and it did.”

If Sanchez would have shown video before Ventura walked out then his CNN global audience would have had some helpful information. For example, earlier in the show Ventura threatened to leave the show during debate about Afghanistan.  Ventura thinks the US should pull out and Norton disagreed, because we were attacked on 9-11.  Instead of debating the point, Ventura dismisses Norton’s view and repeatedly slams him for not being a real American, because Norton was never in military service.

That information gives the viewer some context to why Norton gets so mad when Ventura slaps Norton on the shoulder and sarcastically thanks him for his service.  Is that an excuse for Norton?  No, but it does show that Ventura wasn’t some blindsided victim.

The main thing Sanchez conveniently ignores is the topic of discussion leading up to the big walk out. The subject was on the tactics used by police and border patrol to arrest illegal immigrants. Norton and Ventura went head to head on that topic.  (Watch for yourself: Here).

Ventura, like Sanchez, is vehemently against arresting people for being in this country illegally. It is a hot button for Sanchez.  Why would Sanchez leave that bit of information out? Clearly he wanted to support Ventura’s views and back the guy, but hide why he was doing it.  That way, the world would simply stand by Ventura in the debate without knowing the issue.

Sanchez is using the airwaves of CNN to push his own agenda.  If the facts get in the way then they must be ignored or conveniently left out.  If CNN is really going to portray itself as the hard news network of the big three cable stations, then it’s time to get rid of Sanchez. I’m sure MsNBC would take him back where he’d fit in perfectly.

Related posts:

1. Smarmy Sanchez, Part 1: Smearing Lincoln to Support Obama
2. Smarmy Sanchez Part 5: Desperate for Reasons to Attack SC Republicans
3. Smarmy Sanchez: Trying to Deflate Focus on Radical Islam By Focusing on Fred Phelps