How the MSM fakes their polls

We are entering a time of perpetually faked polls on the part of the MSM.  Here is the latest one. It won’t be the last.

These people have no shame.

None at all.

Here Comes the Gay Marriage BS

Everybody supports gay marriage now. Everybody. It’s a trend. All over the world, people are marching arm in arm, because they love gay marriage so much.

Or, at least, that is what the MSM is about to tell everyone.

It’s all BS.

There will be polls that will show that everyone just loves gay marriage now. The polls will all be faked, just like they faked polls for the illegal immigrant debate, and just like they faked polls for the health care debate.

31 states have passed constitutional amendments against it, and another 15 states outlaw it. This is not because there is a groundswell of support for the idea. The idea is despised, in fact.

These newspaper people think you are awfully stupid, and that you can be swayed to do something you don’t like just by reading that a poll suddenly pronounces it popular.

In part, these articles are aimed at Justice Kennedy, the man who will decide the matter for the nation, when the california gay marriage case makes it to the Supreme Court. Kennedy is swayed by public opinion, so they think they can fool him into thinking that the country is turning gay.

 

 

David Brooks: Western Europe is Really Smart. We Aren’t.

What has happened to David Brooks’ mind? In all of liberal-dom, (and you have to count Brooks as part of that, at this point) there is the most fantastic avoidance of reality. The game seems to be “explain away reality, no matter what”.

Today, he talks about why Germany is recovering, the the U.S. is not.

He says:

The two countries followed different policy paths. According to Gary Becker of the University of Chicago, the Americans borrowed an amount equal to 6 percent of G.D.P. in an attempt to stimulate growth. The Germans spent about 1.5 percent of G.D.P. on their stimulus.

This divergence created a natural experiment. Who was right?

The early returns suggest the Germans were. The American stimulus package was supposed to create a “summer of recovery,” according to Obama administration officials. Job growth was supposed to be surging at up to 500,000 a month. Instead, the U.S. economy is scuffling along.

The German economy, on the other hand, is growing at a sizzling (and obviously unsustainable) 9 percent annual rate. Unemployment in Germany has come down to pre-crisis levels.

So obviously, Keynesian economics is a joke, and free markets work. But that is not the conclusion he draws. No, he thinks the American people are foolish for not taking over control of the economy.

The crucial issue is getting the fundamentals right. The Germans are doing better because during the past decade, they took care of their fundamentals and the Americans didn’t.

But that’s complete nonsense. He just told us why they are doing better. It’s because they did not try to stimulate the economy with an idiotic, wasteful stimulus bill.

Everything is reduced, in Brooks world, to a simplistic academic theory of one sort or another. The world is a big, bouncy, confusing, contradictory place. But Brooks, with his lame imitation of a half baked college professor, pretends to have the sullen key to every problem. It’s because the Germans have a “consensus based economy”. It’s because they follow a “model”. It’s all wrong. It’s because they were more free market than we were. But he tries to pretend it was because the government manages everything better:

The situation can be expressed this way: German policy makers inherited a certain consensus-based economic model. That model has advantages. It fosters gradual innovation (of the sort useful in metallurgy). It also has disadvantages. It sometimes leads to rigidity and high unemployment.

Over the past few years, the Germans have built on their advantages. They effectively support basic research and worker training. They have also taken brave measures to minimize their disadvantages. As an editorial from the superb online think tank e21 reminds us, the Germans have recently reduced labor market regulation, increased wage flexibility and taken strong measures to balance budgets.

Yeah. They became free marketers, that’s it. It has nothing to do with government regulating everything.

It seems that for an Obama acolyte, nothing gets through.

If you look around the world today, you see that a two-class system is coming into being. Some countries are undertaking fundamental reforms. In those places, weaknesses have been exposed. Orthodoxies have been shattered. New coalitions have formed.

This is happening in Britain, where a center-right government is reining in a government that had spun out of control. It’s also true in Sweden and other consensus-based countries, where there is so much emphasis on consistent, long-range thinking.

In other countries, political division frustrates long-range thinking. The emphasis is on fixing things for next month or next quarter. The U.S., unfortunately, is struggling to get out of Group 2.

The worst thing about modern academics is that they take the simple and pretend it is complex. Western Europe has sucked off the American teat for quite a while now. Because they do not have to pay for militaries, they could spend on social welfare programs. But then they decided to cut their birthrate, and so now they cannot afford those social welfare plans even if we pay for all the security of the world. Now, Muslims are taking over in many cities, because they reproduce and the snooty Europeans don’t. The only reason they are breaking out of their “model” is that they are going broke. Because of government control of their economies.

How could an intelligent guy like Brooks get everything exactly backwards?

He has been hanging around Obama too long.

He’s Just Differently Gruntled

Congressman Carnahan’s office was firebombed  a while back. Of course, the left wing bloggers went nuts trying to claim it was the Tea Party.

Turns out it was one of Carnahan’s own former staff that did it. Now, he claims it was a disgruntled campaign worker. Or at least that’s the story now. Of course, there has been a long practice of playing dirty tricks like this on your own side and then blaming it on your opponents. It seems Democrats just love to do this sort of thing. Maybe he was really disgruntled, and maybe he did it as part of some plan to discredit the Tea Partiers.

David Brooks goes on and on about how we must be strong; we must do the hard things in life. We must really work to be fair to all sides in a debate. And then he says this:

The ensuing mental flabbiness is most evident in politics. Many conservatives declare that Barack Obama is a Muslim because it feels so good to say so.

Many conservatives think Obama is a Muslim? That’s the laziest thing ever written. About 18% think Obama is a Muslim, but 11% think Elvis is still alive (this is called the Elvis factor). So slightly more than those who believe something manifestly idiotic think Obama is a Muslim. And those are not all conservatives, by the way, either.

So from that, the lazy David Brooks gets “many conservatives declare that Obama is a Muslim because it feels good to say so”.

But isn’t it lazy and sloppy to generalize from something that is barely in excess of the Elvis factor? And if a few more people believe Obama is a Muslim than think Elvis is still alive, does it matter at all? Considering polling. What percentage of the people polled are having mental problems? What percentage are senile? What percentage don’t pay any attention to anything political at all, ever? It’s easy to get to 18%.

What is stupid is to make a big deal about it.

And then, some people might be inclined to think Obama is really a Muslim because he constantly says how great Islam is, and he constantly criticizes Christianity. So, a few single digit percentage points are added onto the Elvis factor because of Obama’s own public stances.

From this, Lazy David Brooks concludes that “many conservatives” think Obama is a Muslim. But since the President has now exhibited a long history of lying about virtually everything, a willingness to mislead and dissemble, no wonder some people don’t believe him when he says he is a Christian. His actions speak to the contrary.

The fault is not in the laziness of Brooks’ stupid, stupid, unfair, morally weak electorate.

The fault is in Obama, dear Brutus.

How amazing. Brooks writes a column telling us that we need to face hard facts and do the work to look at things as they are. And then he writes this stuff.

Amazing.

More Baloney from WaPo

A judge blocked the use of embryos in stem cell research. This is not a big deal. Everyone knows that the real advances are in the area of adult stem cells, where no embryos need to be destroyed. But the Washington Post pretends that it is a crippler:

The ruling stunned scientists and other advocates of the research, which has been hailed as one of the most important advances in medicine in decades because of its potential to cure many diseases but has been embroiled in controversy because the cells are obtained by destroying days-old embryos.

“This is devastating, absolutely devastating,” said Amy Comstock Rick, immediate past president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a group of patient organizations that has been lobbying for more federal funding.

“We were really looking forward to research finally moving forward with the full backing of the NIH. We were really looking forward to the next chapter when human embryonic stem cells could really be explored for their full potential. This really sets us back,” Rick said. “Every day we lose is another day lost for patients waiting for cures.”

That’s all baloney. Anything treatment from embryonic stem cells is decades away, and real scientists admit this. However, adult stem cells are already producing real cures and treatments. And, scientists are producing cells from adult stem cells that have the same characteristics as embryonic cells. Rarely does a stem cell story in the MSM tell the real truth.

These people are hell bent on destroying embryos. End of story.

James Cameron, the Poseur.

James Cameron chickened out of a debate:

The Avatar director was determined to expose journalists, such as myself, who thought it was important to ask questions about climate change orthodoxy and the radical “solutions” being proposed.
Cameron said was itching to debate the issue and show skeptical journalists and scientists that they were wrong.
“I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads,” he said in an interview.
Well, a few weeks ago Mr. Cameron seemed to honor his word.
His representatives contacted myself and two other well known skeptics, Marc Morano of the Climate Depot website and Andrew Breitbart, the new media entrepreneur.
Mr. Cameron was attending the AREDAY environmental conference in Aspen Colorado 19-22 August. He wanted the conference to end with a debate on climate change. Cameron would be flanked with two scientists. It would be 90 minutes long. It would be streamed live on the internet.
They hoped the debate would attract a lot of media coverage.
“We are delighted to have Fox News, Newsmax, The Washington Times and anyone else you’d like. The more the better,” one of James Cameron’s organizers said in an email.
It looked like James Cameron really was a man of his word who would get to take on the skeptics  he felt were so endangering humanity.
Everyone on our side agreed with their conditions. The debate was even listed on the AREDAY agenda.
But then as the debate approached James Cameron’s side started changing the rules.
They wanted to change their team. We agreed.
They wanted to change the format to less of a debate—to “a roundtable”. We agreed.
Then they wanted to ban our cameras from the debate. We could have access to their footage. We agreed.
Bizarrely, for a brief while, the worlds most successful film maker suggested that no cameras should be allowed-that sound only should be recorded. We agreed
Then finally James Cameron, who so publicly announced that he “wanted to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out,” decided to ban the media from the shoot out.
He even wanted to ban the public. The debate/roundtable would only be open to those who attended the conference.
No media would be allowed and there would be no streaming on the internet.  No one would be allowed to record it in any way.
We all agreed to that.
And then, yesterday, just one day before the debate, his representatives sent an email that Mr. “shoot it out ” Cameron no longer wanted to take part. The debate was cancelled.

Destructors of History

If you wonder how deeply the left’s devotion to destruction of basic tenets of decency and honesty go, listen to this:

The Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and the Constitution of the United States of America—those were the three texts in the blue pamphlet I found on the table in front of me as I took my seat at a conference at Princeton.

On the cover was the logo of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, an influential organization whose boardmembers include former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse, controversial Obama judicial nominee Goodwin Liu, former New York governor Mario Cuomo, former solicitors general Drew Days and Walter Dellinger, and former attorney general Janet Reno. The new Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was a speaker at the society’s annual conventions in 2005, 2007, and 2008. And inside the pamphlet was a page saying, “The printing of this copy of the U.S. Constitution and of the nation’s two other founding texts, the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address, was made possible through the generosity of Laurence and Carolyn Tribe.”

How nice, I thought. Here is a convenient, pocket-sized version of our fundamental documents, including Lincoln’s great oration at Gettysburg on republican government. Although some might question the idea that a speech given more than eighty years after the Declaration qualifies as a founding text, its inclusion seemed to me entirely appropriate. By preserving the Union, albeit at a nearly incalculable cost in lives and suffering, Lincoln completed, in a sense, the American founding. Victory at Gettysburg really did ensure that government “by the people” and “for the people”—republican government—would not “perish from the earth.”

I recalled that in sixth grade I was required to memorize the address, and as I held the American Constitution Society’s pamphlet in my hands, I wondered whether I could still recite it from memory. So I began, silently reciting: “Four score and seven years ago . . . ,” until I reached “the world will little note nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.” Then I drew a blank. So I opened the pamphlet and read the final paragraph:

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Deeply moving—but, I thought, something isn’t right. Did you notice what had been omitted? What’s missing is Lincoln’s description of the United States as a nation under God. What Lincoln actually said at Gettysburg was: “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” The American Constitution Society had omitted Lincoln’s reference to the United States as a nation under God from the address he gave at the dedication of the burial ground at Gettysburg.

At the time, staring at the text, I wondered whether it was an innocent, inadvertent error—a typo, perhaps. It seemed more likely, though, that here is the apex of the secularist ideology that has attained a status not unlike that of religious orthodoxy among liberal legal scholars and political activists. Nothing is sacred, as it were—not even the facts of American history, not even the words spoken by Abraham Lincoln at the most solemn ceremony of our nation’s history.

On organization that would slyly eliminate phrases it doesn’t like from the fundamental texts of America is a very dangerous organization indeed. Perhaps not in what it can really accomplish. But its thought patterns are rotten to the core.

What else have they altered?

What else have they lied about?

Uh-Oh. Global Warming Boys in More Hot Water.

Some real, professional statisticians have analyzed the Hockey Stick that the global warming boys touted for so many years.

It appears that when the data is properly analyzed, the graph looks quite different.

First of all, here is the Hockey Stick graph that the global warming boys tried to pass off on the world:

You can see the story they wanted to tell. Constant temperatures as far back as we can measure, and then, a sudden, sharp uptick due to the dastardly workings of that scoundrel, mankind.

But the real statisticians have published in a peer reviewed journal of statistics, and here is what they found is the correct way to present the raw data as found by the global warming boys. Mind you, this even accepts that their data is true and complete, which is far from settled.

As you can see, this shows that the world has slowly been cooling since the year 1000. Then, in recent years, there was a turn upward. And we are now back where the world started. Now, you might say that is still a problem, since it seems the modern temperature swing is very swift, compared with past centuries. But that depends on their data being right in the first place, which looks increasingly unlikely.

So, if even if you assume their data is correct, they used bad statistical methods to make the data scream whatever they wanted it to scream.

This is independent validation of what the skeptics had been saying all along. The authors conclude “In sum, these results suggest that the ninety-three sequences that comprise the 1,000 year old proxy record simply lack power to detect a sharp increase in temperature”. And, they say “Climate scientists have greatly underestimated the uncertainty of proxy based reconstructions and hence have been overconfident in their models.

This raises an interesting question: Is the university world intellectually bankrupt? After all, the criticism of the Global Warming boys came from the private sector-trained McIntyre. His background was mining. If the calculations are wrong for those guys, they lose millions of dollars and perhaps hundreds or thousands of jobs. So they are very, very careful and use methods that are as accurate as possible. However, in the University world, there is no such incentive to be correct. In fact, there is an incentive to be wrong, but persuasive. To tell a weird story convincingly is considered top notch work.

A connection to reality is not needed, and is sometimes viewed as harmful or even degrading.

In so many other disciplines, the universities have produced the exact opposite of truth. They have become weird factories of untruth. In history, for example, distorting the facts and hiding relevancies is considered laudable. In social science, cherry picking and shaping data is considered a wonderful thing. No one checks your work in the universities, at least not in any meaningful way, so long as the results are politically correct.

There is an over-reliance on statistical studies precisely because statistics is so useful when you want to prove a false asssumption. Data are easy to fudge. The universities have found they can prove virtually anything by means of a statistical study.

And so, they have corrupted science beyond all belief.

Great Minds Think Alike

I once happened upon a liberal blog that was hard to read because it was filled with so much unnecessary profanity. So, Iowahawk hits the nail on the head here.

I Wish We Were Not So Clearly Inferior To Maureen Dowd.

Oh, I get it. If you are a socialist, are uneasy with the country you govern and feel the need to transform it into something more to your liking, then you are “high minded”. If you are willing to hide the ball from the country, if you intend on tricking the public, if you out and out lie about the most important things, then you are high minded.

You are high minded, because America is a sick, dysfunctional place. Obama is too good for us:

Maureen Dowd:

The bookstore gave the president a copy of “Freedom,” a new novel by Jonathan Franzen about a dysfunctional family in America. This is apt, since Obama is the head of the dysfunctional family of America — a rational man running a most irrational nation, a high-minded man in a low-minded age.

You are not able to force your will on America; therefore America is the problem. America is crazy:

The country is having some weird mass nervous breakdown, with the right spreading fear and disinformation that is amplified by the poisonous echo chamber that is the modern media environment.

It’s not Maureen Dowd that  is crazy. Oh, no. It is everyone else.

The dispute over the Islamic center has tripped some deep national lunacy. The unbottled anger and suspicion concerning ground zero show that many Americans haven’t flushed the trauma of 9/11 out of their systems — making them easy prey for fearmongers.

Many people still have a confused view of Muslims, and the president seems unable to help navigate the country through its Islamophobia.

Of course, it is de rigeur for the liberal columnist to allege racism, or in this case Islamophobia. Why in the world would we not want a questionable Muslim Imam to plant a Victory Mosque in a building so close that debris fell on it during the attacks. Knowing that the Imam says one thing in America, and another when he speaks in Arabic, why on earth would anyone object?

The dispute over the Islamic center has tripped some deep national lunacy. The unbottled anger and suspicion concerning ground zero show that many Americans haven’t flushed the trauma of 9/11 out of their systems — making them easy prey for fearmongers.

Many people still have a confused view of Muslims, and the president seems unable to help navigate the country through its Islamophobia.

The fearmongers who were telling us that George Bush is shredding the Constitution and had secret torture prisons, and who constantly tell voters  that racists will be in power if they don’t elect Democrats are now lecturing the world on fearmongering.

How nice.

Using the Polls to Lie again

Here come the fake gay marriage polls.

You knew they were coming. When Obamacare as being considered, the MSM showed that vast majorities of Americans wanted the public option – when in fact everybody hated the whole idea.

When the immigration bill was being considered during the Bush years, the MSM polls showed that 65% wanted illegals to become full citizens. After numerous polls were done by several other polling organizations, the true figures turned out to be 65% against.

Now comes the fake gay marriage polls. Supposedly the world has gone wild with delight at the idea of gay marriage.

A CNN poll this month found that a narrow majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage — the first poll to find majority support. Other poll results did not go that far, but still, on average, showed that support for gay marriage had risen to 45 percent or more (with the rest either opposed or undecided).

That’s a big change from 1996, when Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act. At that time, only 25 percent of Americans said that gay and lesbian couples should have the right to marry, according to an average of national polls.

They are faking the polls. It’s that simple. They do it all the time. They use polls to drive public opinion, not measure it. They figure if they can lay on a PR campaign that says the whole world is in favor of gay marriage, the Supreme Court is more likely to impose it on the nation.

But consider this. 31 of the 50 states have gone so far as to pass constitutional amendments to their state constitutions BANNING gay marriage. And another 15 states have laws that ban gay marriage. So if the public was so wildly in favor of gay marriage, don’t you think a few more states would have passed it? When 45 out of the 50 states ban it, and of the 5 that allow it, several of those had it imposed on them by their state courts, don’t you think that more states would have passed it?

In fact, of the 5 that allow it, 3 of them had it imposed on them by state courts. So only two states have voted for it, Vermont and New Hampshire.

No, these polls are fake. Fake through and through.

Never trust the MSM.

Never.

Here, Ed Morrissey shows how they fake the polls. They simply reduce the number of Republicans polled, leaving a sampling that wildly favors Democrats.

When the Government Picks Through Your Trash, It Isn’t a Democracy Anymore

Cleveland is going to use high tech means to go through your trash and fine you if you have not recycled lately. 

 The move is part of a high-tech collection system the city will roll out next year with new trash and recycling carts embedded with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes.The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn’t been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.

 Trash carts containing more than 10 percent recyclable material could lead to a $100 fine, according to Waste Collection Commissioner Ronnie Owens. Recyclables include glass, metal cans, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard.

Enviromentalism seems to equal totalitarianism, doesn’t it?

 

It’s Your Fault, Consumer

Obama has drastically screwed up the economy. He has sucked billions out of it, by wasting federal money on giveaways to his political cronies. Whereas wise savings and investment creates more money, unwise splurging by the Federal government creates nothing, and wastes a valuable resource.

When individuals spend, they spend on things that keep the ball rolling, econonomically speaking. When government spends, they waste it. They might as well have burnt the money.

So now, the Washington Post wants to say the poor economy is not Obama’s fault. It’s because consumers are not spending their money, as the government wants them to do. These doldrums are going to last forever:

With consumers destined to disappoint for many years, economy is unlikely to recapture prosperity of quarter-century that preceded financial crisis.

But it’s not the consumers. It’s the government. Government keeps threatening business. It keeps raising taxes. It has provided the one thing that kills business – uncertainty. You dare not spend these days, because the crazy government might decide that you are an enemy of the people by doing so. So businesses wait, they accumulate cash.

If It Walks Like a Duck

People aren’t stupid. They know that if the President goes around boosting Muslims all the time, and denigrating Christians, there is a good chance that he is not much of a Christian, no matter what he says.

And so, more people have begun believing Obama is a Muslim. More importantly, less view him as a Christian:

Since October 2008, the percentage of Americans who say the president is a Muslim has risen from 12 percent to 18 percent. The percentage of people who think he is a Christian has fallen from 51 percent to 34 percent. The polling data indicated that those who identified themselves as conservative Republicans were most likely to say that he is a Muslim.

I don’t know what he is. We know he went to a wild black power church in Chicago. We know the founder of that version of black power Christianity said something like “If God doesn’t do what we want, we will kill him off”. It’s all very strange.  And now, after going on and on during the campaign about what a fantastic Christian he was, now the silence creeps in. Maybe he is a Christian, like he says. But maybe he is just lying, as he has lied on so many other things. And so, given his history of lying, you have to look to his actions, not his words.

Ah, remember the good old days, when he was a god:

The Slow Slide of a Dying Newspaper.

The Washington Post’s bizarre journey into complete irrelevancy is reflected in this article. It claims that New Yorkers really, really like the idea of a mosque, and all those Republicans like Sarah Palin (Hiss, hiss) and Newt Gingrich (Booooooo) are really really, like,  stupid because, like, how can they say anything at all about New York? They don’t even live there.

And of course, for typical man in the street interview, they just grab the first guy they can find in the New York streets. His name just happens to turn out to be Ali Mohammed.  I doubt if he even really exists.

Oh, by the way. The latest polls show that 64% of New Yorkers hate the idea of the mosque. This, in the most liberal place in the world.

By Far The Dumbest Ground Zero Mosque Column

The perfect distillation of liberal thought: We MUST build the Ground Zero Mosque because it will be offensive and insulting to us. And, as Americans, the most important thing in the world is to offend and insult ourselves, because as Americans, we bend over backwards to show how open and accepting we are of all the world’s peoples and religions. So,  even if they plan to use the mosque to celebrate the murder of 3,000 people, people who had to jump a thousand feet to their deaths, and even if they plan to use it as a future base from which to attack the financial district, who cares?

We are Americans, and the Constitution is a suicide pact. The more we shame ourselves, the more glorious we are. Hitting ourselves in the head with a hammer is the highest form of Americanism. Refusal to use common sense is what the founding fathers were all about!.

Kathleen Parker:

It is hard to imagine that anything has gone unsaid about the so-called Ground Zero mosque, but an important point seems to be missing.

The mosque should be built precisely because we don’t like the idea very much. We don’t need constitutional protections to be agreeable, after all.

This point surpasses even all the obvious reasons for allowing the mosque, principally that there’s no law against it. Precluding any such law, we let people worship when and where they please. That it hurts some people’s feelings is, well, irrelevant in a nation of laws. And, really, don’t we want to keep it that way?

Confession: I would prefer that the mosque not be built so close to the ground where nearly 3,000 innocent souls perished. That’s my personal feeling, especially as I imagine the suffering of so many families whose loved ones died in the conflagration.

But why do so many Americans feel this way? The answer is inherent in the question. Feeling is emotion, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it bears watching.

Reason tells us something else: The Muslims who want to build this mosque didn’t fly airplanes into skyscrapers. They don’t support terrorism. By what understanding do we assign guilt to all for the actions of a relative few?

Yeah, like Muslims who say they are moderates are moderates aren’t they. Like Alawki. He said he was a moderate.

Hmmm.

USIP presentation on how terrorists use the internet to communicate.

Those Keynesians.

Doctor Keynes has killed the patient. Again. When are they going to jerk that guy’s license? And who brought him back and gave him another chance?

Where do Keynesians go now that even public radio is talking about the failure of one of history’s costliest Keynesian stimulus efforts?

At City Journal, Guy Sorman notes how quickly the managed-market winds have shifted. When the credit unwind started, the papers, the TV and the newsweaklies declared capitalism dead in just a little less time than it took for Kent Brockman to declare his loyalty to the Space Ants. Less than two years later, you can’t buy good press for the stimulus; the economy is frozen solid in August; the nation is rediscovering — despite the herniated efforts of local, state and federal government — the virtues of thrift; and if you search for Keynes on the interwebs, all you turn up are headlines like “How Dr. Keynes killed the patient.”

Pelosi: How Could Anyone Possibly Be Against the Ground Zero Mosque?

Do you detect a trend?

Whenever someone speaks out in opposition to global warming, they claim that Big Oil companies are behind the speaker.  

When people rallied instantaneously to yell at their congressmen at the (no longer being held) Town Hall meetings about Obamacare, they said that Dick Armey was behind it all. And that the people were ‘Nazis”.

When people spoke out against Obama’s policies, they claimed they were racists.

When people speak out against the Ground Zero Mosque, well they are racists, of course. But they are also being manipulated by some dark, mysterious force that is “ginning things up”. The people are too stupid to do anything on their own. Why on earth would people be mad about the Ground zero mosque unless someone was paying them to be?

Behold your very strange Speaker of the House:

Obama: The Bizarro World President.

From Powerline, who gives ten reasons why Obama was clearly supporting someone – anyone – other than Americans in his Ground Zero Mosque speech:

10. With great reliability Obama stands athwart the feelings of ordinary Americans. Indeed, he is a much more ardent defender of the faith of Musims than he is of the United States, of its history or of its people. Although Obama framed his GZM remarks as a citizen and President of the United States, he seems to think of himself less as a citizen of the United States than as a citizen of the world and less as president than as philosopher king.

A Wonderfully Moronic Piece

Dana Milbank seems to think that the Jews of Newport were attacking the United States in the 1790’s (or 1810, it’s hard to tell)  and were murdering U.S. Citizens, becoming suicide bombers, and killing 3,000 people at a clip. How else do you explain this weak stuff? 

Also, he simply cannot add – 200 years ago today was 1810. But George Washington died in 1799.

This, from the newspaper whose “On Faith” section was specifically created to bash and ridicule traditional Christians.

What a joke, coming from a joke of a newspaper.

President Moron strikes again

Victor Davis Hanson:

The president’s Cairo speech cited Cordoba as a beacon of tolerance during the Spanish Inquisition (“Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance: We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition”), but that was mostly therapeutic myth-making: Cordoba had been captured in the first wave of the Reconquisita in 1236, and most of its Muslim population had fled, been converted, or forced out more than two-and-a-half centuries before the Inquisition even began.

Notice how he likes to bash christianity. even when he has to make stuff up in order to do it.

Reagan vs. Obama and Friends

The video says it all:

Sarah Palin Has Tons More Sense Than Obama.

 Our uber genius, Nobel Prize winning President made no sense at all when he spoke about the Ground Zero mosque.

But oddly, Sarah Palin makes a lot of sense:

Mr. President, should they or should they not build a mosque steps away from where radical Islamists killed 3000 people? Please tell us your position. We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they? And, no, this is not above your pay grade. If those who wish to build this Ground Zero mosque are sincerely interested in encouraging positive “cross-cultural engagement” and dialogue to show a moderate and tolerant face of Islam, then why haven’t they recognized that the decision to build a mosque at this particular location is doing just the opposite? Mr. President, why aren’t you encouraging the mosque developers to accept Governor Paterson’s generous offer of assistance in finding a new location for the mosque on state land if they move it away from Ground Zero? Why haven’t they jumped at this offer? Why are they apparently so set on building a mosque steps from what you have described, in agreement with me, as “hallowed ground”? I believe these are legitimate questions to ask.

There can be only two possible answers: They intend this mosque to celebrate September 11th as a victory for Islam. Or, they need a place of sanctuary located deep in the financial district from which future attacks may be launched.

Say what you will about Palin, but she grasps the situation far better than Obama.

Gonna Ride a White Horse Over Durango Mountian…

For this weekend’s featured music: Southern Rock.

First, a little known Charlie Daniels song.

Then, the best rock and roll solo ever recorded:

And finally, Kenny Chesney covers one of the old ones from the 70’s.

Now Obama Tries to Lie his Way Out of It.

Yesterday, Obama came down strongly in favor of the mosque at Ground Zero.

Today, he is backtracking, pretending that he said something else.

One day after President Obama defended the freedom of Muslims to build an Islamic complex near New York’s Ground Zero, he offered a less forceful version of that position on Saturday: Yes, Muslims have that right, Obama said — but that doesn’t mean he believes it is the right thing for them to do.

Speaking to reporters during a family vacation visit to Panama City, Fla., Obama reiterated the stand he took Friday night at a White House dinner observing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “In this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion,” Obama said.

But he went on to explain that he was not endorsing the construction of the Islamic center. “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” he said. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding.”

Obama’s speech Friday brought down an avalanche of criticism from the right — as the White House surely expected it would.

“The decision to build this mosque so close to Ground Zero is deeply troubling, as is the president’s decision to endorse it,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). “This is not an issue of law, whether religious freedom or local zoning. This is a basic issue of respect for a tragic moment in our history.”

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin mocked Obama from  her Twitter feed Saturday, saying: “We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they? This is not above your pay grade.” She also compared building the facility to building a Serbian church on the Srebrenica killing fields.

But here are his words. He is plainly endorsing the idea of building the mosque; he is saying that although some might object to it, they should go ahead and build the mosque anyway, because they have the right to do so. He implies that anyone who disagrees with that result wants to take away their rights. The critical word is the BUT in the second paragraph:

Now, that’s not to say that religion is without controversy. Recently, attention has been focused on the construction of mosques in certain communities -– particularly New York.  Now, we must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of Lower Manhattan.  The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country.  And the pain and the experience of suffering by those who lost loved ones is just unimaginable.  So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders.  And Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.

But let me be clear.  As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country.  (Applause.)  And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.  This is America.  And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.  The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are.  The writ of the Founders must endure.

He can’t lie his way out of this one.

Oh, Those Muslim Pioneers; The Great Founders of Our Country.

You remember those Muslim Pioneers, the ones who built this country?

You remember them landing at Plymouth rock, and fighting the Indians, and slowly moving with their Conestoga wagons across the Great Plains?

This is our President talking:

Like so many other immigrants, generations of Muslims came to forge their future here.  They became farmers and merchants, worked in mills and factories.  They helped lay the railroads.  They helped to build America.  They founded the first Islamic center in New York City in the 1890s.  They built America’s first mosque on the prairie of North Dakota.  And perhaps the oldest surviving mosque in America —- still in use today —- is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Today, our nation is strengthened by millions of Muslim Americans.  They excel in every walk of life.  Muslim American communities —- including mosques in all 50 states —- also serve their neighbors.  Muslim Americans protect our communities as police officers and firefighters and first responders.  Muslim American clerics have spoken out against terror and extremism, reaffirming that Islam teaches that one must save human life, not take it. 

Yeah, you remember the Six Imams and their shenanigans aboard that airliner, right? Here is what they preach about.

And Muslim Americans serve with honor in our military. At next week’s iftar at the Pentagon, tribute will be paid to three soldiers who gave their lives in Iraq and now rest among the heroes of Arlington National Cemetery. 

These Muslim Americans died for the security that we depend on, and the freedoms that we cherish.  They are part of an unbroken line of Americans that stretches back to our founding; Americans of all faiths who have served and sacrificed to extend the promise of America to new generations, and to ensure that what is exceptional about America is protected -– our commitment to stay true to our core values, and our ability slowly but surely to perfect our union.

Has he ever said anything about the 4,000 Christian soldiers who died in Iraq to protect Muslim lives? I don’t think so. And how about that Muslim that rolled a grenade into the tent of his fellow soldiers? That guy killed 1, and injured 15. And how about the Muslim that killed 14 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood? I’d say the record shows that Muslims soldiers tend to be killing more American soldiers than end up dying for this country. They are at about -12 right now.

Not that there aren’t lots of great American Muslims. There are. The vast majority are. But please don’t whitewash every thing you come in contact with, Mr. President. Don’t pretend that everything is just fine.

Does anyone remember the  unbroken line of Muslim Americans that stretches back to our founding?

From wikipedia:

Islam however was almost completely absent in the United States until the 20th Century. The oldest Muslim community to establish in the country was the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, in 1921, which pre-dates Nation of Islam

What is wrong with Obama? Why does he constantly lie and imagine a history that just isn’t there? What is it about him that refuses to recognize the real founders, but then makes up imaginary Muslim founders of this country?

His whole presidency is built on fantasy.

Our President Defines Himself As Anti-American

Has Obama ever stood up for the United States? In anything? Quick. Think of something. I can’t.

He runs around the world, telling people that America has to be sorry for living. He sucks up to dictators. He doesn’t like free enterprise. He wants to socialize the country.

Now, he supports the construction of a mosque at ground zero. Most likely, he is simply an idiot; one of those people who refuses to believe there ard bad, evil people with bad, evil intentions. His idea of Americanism is being against America at every turn. This is how he interprets American values. “See how great I am? I stand against America at every turn. See how noble that makes me?” For him, the Constitution is a suicide pact. Only by denigating ourselves at all times do we show how great we are.

The man is an idiot, and a dangerous idiot at that.

It’s clear they want a mosque in that location because Muslims always put up a victory mosque in the places of their “victories”. Who knows? Maybe they want it in the heart of  Wall wtreet so they can sneak a nuclear bomb into the basement, and destroy the great Satan with one blow. That swimming pool is an odd touch for a mosque. Maybe if they put the bomb under the pool it helps shield the radition from detection. The building used to be a Con Edison building, and those tend to connect to old tunnels that reach throughout the area. Perfect for terrorists.  

The mosque would create a great place for terrorists to gather with their weapons prior to launching a massive attack against the financial community. Can you imagine what 100 or 200 men with AK-47’s could do to Wall Street in an hour or two? Or a day or two? The financial center of the world would be a smoking ruin in a few short hours, and it would take the government days  to reclaim the area.

Remember, as were told ad infinitum: Islam is NOT just a religion. It is a governmental scheme, a judicial scheme, a moral code and a religion. So freedom of religion does not quite fit it. This is an outpost of a foreign government, a hostile force. One that eventually plans on eliminating the Constitution, and installing shariah instead. This is no simple religion.

They are not serious at all in their claim that this is to be a peace and understanding sort of thing. The Imam behind this has said numerous radical things. And we have no idea where the money is coming from to buy the building and renovate it. In recent days ,there have been stories that money is coming from Iran.

They think we are stupid, and President Obama has done nothing to disabuse them of that notion.

The man is  a hypocrite as well:

Our Founders understood that the best way to honor the place of faith in the lives of our people was to protect their freedom to practice religion.  In the Virginia Act of Establishing Religion Freedom, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.”  The First Amendment of our Constitution established the freedom of religion as the law of the land.  And that right has been upheld ever since.

And yet, his Park Police tried to stop a small student group from quietly praying on public property in front of the Supreme Court.

Obviously, the mosque is a provocation and an insult. No peace-loving person would do such a thing, even it they had the legal right to do so. A bare 9 years after killing 3 thousand people in the most gruesome way, by burning them to death and by making them jump a thousand feet to their deaths, they are back. They are laughing in our faces, saying “Try to stop us. Your own rules say we get to gloat and celebrate these murders.”

Obama does not reveal the radical nature of the people behind this. He doesn’t care. As President, he should have used the occasion to say they have the right under US law to do what they want to do, but it is highly insulting and immoral to do so. Not to endorse the whole scheme.

The man is an idiot of the first order.

Will the country survive his idiocy? It will be a close thing.

Travesty

Gay marriage editorial in the New York Times:

On Wednesday, unless there is an order from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, gay and lesbian couples in California once again will be able to marry. Like other couples around the world, they will be able to pledge to support each other, buy some dishes, raise families, argue about the bills, maybe sit on a park bench years from now and chuckle at the hysterical old claims that their lives together would destroy the institution of marriage.

Hmmm. That’s interesting. They can buy dishes, argue about bills, sit on park benches, all without marriage. So why does the Times pretend that they need gay marriage to do that?

But here come the lies:

Because of Judge Walker’s firmly reasoned and occasionally soaring decision earlier this month, there was no reason to continue the prohibition. After a full-blown trial that gave opponents every opportunity to prove the harm caused by same-sex marriage, the court found that it caused no harm whatsoever to the state or society. But substantial harm was caused to gay and lesbian couples by depriving them of their constitutional rights.

Most constitutional experts think the decision is a joke. It is downright bizarre. First, the judge was gay and stood to gain from the decision, so he should have recused himself. According to reports, he and his partner will now be able to marry. Second, the trial was strictly a legal matter that could have been disposed of in summary judgment, yet the judge decided to hold a full blown trial, with testimony, from experts on gayness. He even bent the rules to try to televise the whole trial, until the Supreme Court squashed him on that point.

Many or most of the expert witnesses were gay as well, and the testimony the judge heard was a lot of the standard gay marriage activist garbage. But the judge swallowed it whole. Then, the judge completely discounted anything the other side said, bringing up rather idiotic reasons for doing so. For example, the other side put on a political science professor who testified that gays had considerable political power. Which was an all-too obvious fact, since neither the Governor of California nor the Attorney General showed up to defend the lawsuit. But, the judge discounted the professor’s  testimony because he hadn’t studied such things as gays in the workplace (which is irrelevant to whether they have political power) or because he hadn’t read books by people such as Andrew Sullivan. I kid you not.

The judge’s opinion even went on an on about how religion is the most terrible thing in the world, an oppressor of gays, and their biggest obstacle.

It was a show trial, a sham of the wost type. The Soviet Union would have been proud.