The Crowbar

I’m working on something big that has incredible potential. This blog by itself is not enough to have an effect on American politics. I originally intended to strongly challenge and expose the left blogsphere’s crazy antics and ideas. They deserve to have their credibility diminished, most of them are awful people. But challenging them is not enough. I want to offer Americans something better, ideas to stabilize our country and enhance traditional, non-progressive American values.

So, I’m putting my web administrator skilz to use in creating something much bigger,  much better, & much more fun.

My Big Idea started with the premise that conservatives & tea partiers have vast amounts of compassion toward the poor and the needy – even knowing that the poor and needy are usally poor and needy because they’ve made bad decisions. I’d even go so far as to say that conservatives & Tea Partiers have far MORE compassion toward the poor and needy than liberal-progressives could ever muster. It is far more compassionate to give away your own wealth than to advocate transferring a rich stranger’s wealth to the poor and needy who then  conveniently become dependent on your advocacy. Well, Duh… but this is totally lost on progressive-liberals.

But, alas, I stand befuddled. Why don’t conservative politicians and Republicans talk about private charity as a competitor to coerced government charity? It seems to me it’s the obvious, perfect foil to inefficient, corrupt, & dependency-inducing government charity.

Charity is important because the people retain affections for democrat-liberal-progressives mostly because they appear to “care” about the poor and needy. They appear to be “helping” the little guy while republican-conservatives appear to be rich folk who care only about themselves (SO not true!).

So, then, WHAT IF conservatives & Tea Partiers became advocates for large-scale private charity that could compete directly with lame, socialist-driven government charities?

Why can’t free-market principles be applied to helping those in need?

That’s the question that started it all. We shall see where it leads.

Flexing my free expression muscles, I am participating in Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.

I’m not an artist, so my drawing is extremely amateurish: I used MS Paint. But, it’s my Allah-given right to draw what I wish regardless of whom I may offend. That said, my drawing is especially meant as a slap in the face to the Jihadists masquerading as moderate Muslims. Organizations like CAIR sell themselves as our friends when indeed they are anything but. Mohammed was a violent, insidious man which is why the  Koranic scriptures are bipolar – the ever benevolent, ever merciful Allah orders the death of infidels and their infants. Most Muslims may not ascribe to Jihadist thought, but the Jihadists have the upper hand because a) they are tolerated by sympathetic ”moderates” and b) they’ve built a theological foundation based on the violence-related scriptures in the Koran.

For those of you who think it’s disgraceful, disrespectful, pointless or foolhardy to depict Muhammad, think again. First consider that Muhammad has been depicted throughout the ages. Second, consider that “most Shi’a scholars accept respectful depictions and use illustrations of Muhammad in books and architectural decoration, as have Sunnis at various points in the past.” Shi’as represent the vast majority of Muslims. Additionally, “most contemporary Sunni Muslims believe that visual depictions of the prophets generally should be prohibited.” So, even some Sunnis have no problem with Muhammad deceptions? There’s a clue.

I am not participating in Everybody Draw Muhammad Day to offend Muslims. I am participating to demonstrate to the Jihadists and the American Left that they have failed to intimidate me into silence or compliance. I am participating to prove that freedom of speech and freedom of expression still exist in America.

Lest it gather dust or rust, I elect to exercise this right.

“Buddy Muhammad” is a play off  Buddy Jesus as seen in the movie Dogma.

Any member of the power-elite reading Jonathan Martin & Ben Smith’s hit piece (posted 4/22/10 5:05 AM EDT) on the exaggerated, inflated, & overestimated importance of the Tea Party Movement would absolutely conclude that they’re 100% correct.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe the Tea Party is just a bunch of whiny white self-serving rich people blowing off steam before the inevitable progressive juggernaut sets in and transforms America into a grotesque perversion of her former self. I guess the power-elite have nothing to worry about; the Tea Party was just an anomaly, a glitch. Now they can go back to making themselves rich & powerful through devious manipulation of the everyday American sucker.

Exaggerated - Definitely Exaggerated.

Meet upstate NY (read: geographically conservative area) Gubernatorial Candidate Carl Paladino. He’s a disgusting racist sexist political opportunist who is attaching himself like a leech to whichever party happens to be popular.

The folks at WNYmedia obtained extremely damning emails sent & forwarded by Paladino. Their report is not for the faint of heart.

So, when you have a smarmy narcissist who claims to be a Tea Party kinda guy and he gets caught doing what smarmy narcissists do, how does the depraved liberal blogsphere respond? A: It gets giddy with glee.

Think Progress:

One of the newest heroes of the Tea Party movement is “outspoken” Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino, a multimillionaire who has railed against “liberal elites.” Earlier this month, he officially declared his Republican candidacy for New York’s gubernatorial race. However, WNYMedia.net reveals that Paladino has “regularly forwarded pornography and racially degrading material to friends on the Internet.”

Charles the Cowardly King of Little Green Footballs:

The Tea Party-endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate for New York, Carl Paladino, has been sending out emails that you will not freaking believe.

WNYmedia.net has an exposé of Paladino’s work, and be aware — it’s not work-safe. It’s actually not even human-safe, and I mean that literally. NY Gubernatorial Candidate Carl Paladino’s Racist and Sexist Email History.

Daily Kos:

NY-Gov: Bestiality, porn and racism from the tea party candidate

Of course there’s something else that [Paladino] brings to the table … his habit of “sending hardcore pornographic and racist emails around town.” They include:

But, even the New York Times – the paper that never misses an opportunity to slander the Tea Party – does NOT mention the Tea Party connection to Paladino.

Gosh, could it be because Paladino is a FORMER DEMOCRAT? NYT:

He is running against Rick Lazio, a former congressman, and Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive and, like Mr. Paladino, a Democrat who switched to the Republican Party.

So Paladino was a racist sexist narcissistic Democrat before he switched parties out of political opportunism. No wonder the NYT didn’t bite!

Yes, this means that the sleazy lefty blogs really ARE shamelessly attempting to smear the Tea Party, which is really a slightly-right-of-centrist movement that threatens liberal-progressivism to the core.

The obnoxious freedom-hating lefty blogsphere must be exposed for what it is.

DailyKos’ Jed Lewison distorts a Washington Times story about Republican lawmakers who opposed the stimulus and are now trying to direct federal money back to their districts – you know – where the money came from in the first place.

In that magikal world that is DailyKos, this means that these Republicans secretly believe the stimulus was a good thing.

If there’s one thing that unites the Republican Party it’s that the stimulus bill was a job-killing piece of legislation that was the worst thing in the whole entire world for the economy, right? Or maybe that’s just what unites them in public, because in private the Washington Times reports they’ve been working overtime to get their hands on job-creating stimulus cash.

Is anyone surprised that a DailyKos author sees conspiracy in this? Someone please tell Lewison that taxpayers live in Republican districts, too. 

Basic Economics

Lewison is missing (or purposely avoiding) the idea of opportunity cost. So, 50 jobs are “created” by stimulus funds, but how many were lost as a result of the of increased taxation and government inefficiency? It’s more than 50 because government is always inefficient; it costs time & money to gather taxes & redistribute them. Here’s a simple formula for Lewison’s review:

Stimulus Jobs Created – Jobs Lost From Taxation – Government Inefficiency = Total Jobs Created

Let’s give the Government the benefit of the doubt and say the government was mildly inefficient (choke!) so we only lost 1 job due to inefficiency. Since the stimulus money is really taxpayer money designated for job “creation” we can set the Jobs Lost From Taxation equal to 50.

50 – 50 –1 = NEGATIVE 1

Government created jobs ALWAYS cost MORE jobs than they create, even in the BEST case scenario!

The Republican lawmakers aren’t being hypocrites, they’re cutting their losses. They can’t unmake the law so at least they’re getting SOME money back for their beleaguered constituents.

Omissions

Lewison leaves out this enlightening part of the Times article:

Another House member who has scored high ACU rankings, Rep. Robert B. Aderholt, Alabama Republican, also voted against and criticized the stimulus.

“Rather than create jobs or stimulate the economy, this massive spending bill was a laundry list of programs that focused on states with big-city urban communities,” he wrote in the Oct. 4 edition of the Daily Mountain Eagle newspaper.

Three days later, Mr. Aderholt sent a letter to Mr. Vilsack on behalf of a foundation seeking stimulus money to expand broadband services in his district.

“Congressman Aderholt supported some of the ideas in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but disagreed with much of it and that’s why he voted against it,” Aderholt spokesman D.J. Jordan said.

“Since the bill was passed and became law, the congressman wanted to help a local foundation receive some of the broadband money that otherwise would go to another state.” [emphasis mine]

So Lewison, out of ignorance or cynicism, condemns the Republican lawmakers who are trying to make the best of a bad situation that was hoisted on them by most Democrats and many fellow Republicans. 

Lewison concludes:

Kudos to the Washington Times for having done the leg work of filing the FOIA requests to expose these examples of Republican lawmakers talking out of both sides of their mouths, publicly lambasting the stimulus as a job-killing measure, but privately conceding that it actually created jobs. It’s hard to imagine a more effective way of demonstrating Republican hypocrisy on the question of whether the stimulus bill creates jobs, and Dems should remind them of it every waking day.

The Dems probably won’t do as Lewison recommends (except the electorally safe ones) because they know the truth, but I hope they do because it would allow Republicans to demonstrate to the public how the stimulus harmed the economy. But my question for Lewison is: if the stimulus was creating jobs, why do we have anemic jobs recovery far beyond what the stimulus propaganda predicted?

Gurgling up from the Cesspool of the Grubby Left erupts a stinky bubble of false indignation. Witness Robert Schlesinger, regular believer reader of the fringe left site ThinkProgress, masquerade as the Righteous Defender of Retards Everywhere.

So, what’s the real story? You see, Schlesinger, a fanboy of Rahm’s, is angry, very angry, that Sarah Palin called for his hero’s resignation as Obama’s Chief of Staff. What’s scorned fanboy to do? Hold on to the wrath and unleash it a just the right moment, of course!

Enter Rush Limbaugh, determined to stir the puddin’:

LIMBAUGH: Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards. I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are looney tunes. And I’m not going to apologize for it, I’m just quoting Emanuel. It’s in the news. I think their big news is he’s out there calling Obama’s number one supporters f’ing retards. So now there’s going to be a meeting. There’s going to be a retard summit at the White House. Much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.

Yeah, OK, Rush is being an insensitive ass, as usual. He wrong to compare liberal activists to retards – it’s an indignity to retards. Seriously. “Retards” are usually loving, innocent people. Members of the hard left are usually bitter, nasty, hateful, crude, creepy, and generally extremely unpleasant to be around.

Sarah’s response to Rahm’s comments was vehement and personal, but why – what’s behind it all? 

How can anyone forget how Palin was treated by the “professional” press after she was announced as John McCain’s running mate? It was a mob mentality, Palin was outright abused by the press. Did Obama’s campaign do anything to dissuade the press from the hideous smears and maltreatment? Emanuel was Obama’s chief strategist and, considering his bully temperament, I suspect he actively encouraged the press to be horrible to Palin. We know that Emanuel, Time’s 2009 Person of the Year, has had an all-too-cozy relationship with the press. Remember Begala, Carville, and Stephanopoulos’ daily chats with Emanuel back in January 2009? Is there any question that he still “chats” with them on a regular basis?

We all know what’s going on. Emanuel is an ugly, blind partisan filled with Chicago-style ball-busting vulgarity. Is this really who the Democratic Party wants to be one office away from the President? Given Emanuel’s severe lack of grace on every front and on nearly every issue, selecting Emanuel for Chief of Staff not only shows poor judgment on Obama’s part; it shows political naiveté. Even lefty pundits have major reservations about Obama selecting him. It’s past time for Emanuel to go.

I totally agree that Palin should call out Limbaugh on his insensitivity – Limbaugh should apologize to the special needs community. But, Limbaugh isn’t a hyper-partisan public official with a history of inappropriate-for-a-public-officials vulgarity. Should he be fired? No. The now-defunct Air America radio hosts said much worse than Limbaugh, which probably lost them listeners and ultimately their jobs. The audience will ultimately judge whether Limbaugh is still worth listening to.

As for Schlesinger, the newly self-appointed Righteous Defender of Retards Everywhere, he’s a hypocrite. I see no blog entry of his condemning Emanuel’s private-made-public comments. Fanboy Schlesinger is just as bitterly partisan as his hero, Rahm Emanuel. He’s interested in helping his side maintain power, not doing what’s right for special needs people.

I joined Twitter almost exactly a year ago, but I don’t consider myself an expert on Twitter etiquette. Most third party analyzers accuse me of not engaging my users enough, which is probably true. Engaging every person who tags me for Follow Friday takes a lot of precious time that I often cannot afford.

The Follow Friday phenomenon is a great thing, Twitter users staking their reputation on you and vice versa. It’s an honor to be tagged. When I first started on Twitter I returned every #FollowFriday, but then it started taking away from my Twitter experience. It became too tedious and disingenuous, so I stopped – probably to my detriment, but I just couldn’t do it.

Then, along came Twitter Lists. It slowly dawned on me that I could use it to permanently and continuously thank all those who honored me with a Follow Friday tag.

Now, every person who tags me for Follow Friday gets added to my Follow Friday list. Then, every Friday I tweet the link to the members of my list, making it much easier for potential followers to add them. 

I also watch my Follow Friday list as a stream of tweets, as Twitter intended. It’s great to be able to do that for a specific set of Twitter users. 

It’s not perfect. Because of my method, a Twitter user I recommend for Follow Friday will not see a reply from me. But, that’s why I’m writing this post – so I have a way to tell them that I’m not brushing them off and that I’m grateful for the Follow Friday nod.  

In a Politico post about Democrat’s mounting anger (which is really fear), Obama demonstrates how tenuous their grasp on reality is:

“Believe me, I know how big a lift this has been,” Obama said. “I see the polls. … I catch the occasional blog poster, cable clip that breathlessly declares what something means for a political party, without really talking about what it means for a country. 

“But I also know what happens once we get this done, once we sign this … bill into law: The American people will suddenly learn that this bill does things they like and doesn’t do things people have been trying to say it does. The worst fears will prove groundless.”

That man is such an snake-tongued politician. He’s telling them exactly what they want to hear. Obama knows the public will flip out and the Democrats will be slaughtered in the next election if this travesty passes. He’s hoping the heinous legislation will ‘stick’ and the constitution will ultimately be subverted. Even an unqualified political blogger like me knows that.

Mr. Messiah-Complex sees himself has Our Savior and he’s therefore willing to sacrifice himself in the next election, if necessary. Since he’s their Dear Leader, he’s also willing to sacrifice individual Democrats for the “greater good.”  They sense their impending doom, but, like good little groupthinkers, they’re still committed to their suicide mission. This situation produced Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s statement that “he might as well retire if [the health care debate] drags on much longer.” Pomeroy isn’t even entertaining the option of NOT voting for the corrupt bill. For Democrats like Pomeroy, Obama is purposely perpetuating the strange myth that the public fury will ease off once the bill is passed.

The public does N-O-T take kindly to having it’s will thwarted on Health care. Recall the Clinton decision to govern from the left, with gays in the military, HillaryCare, and a tie vote tax increase in the face of a Bush-Perot vote of 57% to 43% for Clinton followed by Republican revolution of 1994? The public will only become further enraged when they find out what’s really in this DeathCare bill. It will make health care much worse, no socio-economic group will truly benefit from it, save one.

Make no mistake – this “health care” legislation is a major power grab for the Power Elite Class. They’re pushing the constitution to the limits, hoping it will break in their favor. It’s important to note this class crosses party lines. From Gallup:

20% of Republicans support this legislation? This legislation is so nakedly anti-liberty, so hostile to individual freedom that nobody who cares even a little about our constitutional democracy’s survival would ever support it. But, one out of every five Republicans do support it? 

I’d wager most of these are Colin Powell Republicans, members of the Power Elite Class. These are the weak-minded Machiavellian Princes interested in giving themselves more power over those unruly common citizens by suppressing bothersome inalienable rights under the auspices of “‘helping’ those less fortunate.” These are the people that want to take away your right not to buy something you don’t want.

if he wins, but he’d still be better than the heinous arch-liberal who formerly occupied the seat. Brown would be a RINO because he’s from Massachusetts, meaning he’ll face significant pressure from his leftward leaning constituency to vote with the conservative Democrats & liberal Republicans. 

In reviewing his campaign issues statement, he seems so center-right. But, as Obama has so skillfully taught America, politicians just tell you what you want to hear.

Brown is anything but a defender of liberty when it comes to health care. Brown has no problem with the unconstitutional government mandated purchase of health insurance present in RomneyCare & ObamaCare. From a Boston Globe profile:

Brown supported Massachusetts health care overhaul in 2006 and favors elements advanced in the congressional debate about a national overhaul. But he said he would oppose the bills now moving through Congress because they would help other states at the expense of Massachusetts.

His primary reason for opposing ObamaCare is that it’s it isn’t fair to Massachusetts?

Moreover, watch Neil Cavuto Challenge Brown for Supporting RomneyCare:

Brown totally avoided the question because he knows the truth would be damaging. Make no mistake, Brown is just another politician from Massachusetts. 

But, he is the best we can expect from blue-dominant Massachusetts.

NRO’s Mark Steyn covers a WaPo editorial by Dino-Defender Michael Gerson:

Michael Gerson has lousy timing. In The Washington Post, in one of those now familiar elegies for old media, he writes:

And the whole system is based on a kind of intellectual theft. Internet aggregators (who link to news they don’t produce) and bloggers would have little to collect or comment upon without the costly enterprise of newsgathering and investigative reporting. The old-media dinosaurs remain the basis for the entire media food chain.

That’s laughably untrue in the Warmergate story. If you rely on the lavishly remunerated “climate correspondents” of the big newspapers and networks, you’ll know nothing about the Climate Research Unit scandals – just the business-as-usual drivel about Boston being underwater by 2011

Steyn’s point is that Climategate and stories like it prove the legacy media is not the basis for the entire media food chain.

I would add that Gerson is being an arrogant elitist snob. The truth the legacy media doesn’t want to face is that ANYBODY can be a journalist. The reign of the legacy media is coming to an end because they’ve compromised their journalistic principles. The moment the legacy media decided to stifle debate and convey only the liberal point of view is the moment they lost their legitimacy.

Then there’s another story on Patterico about the LA Times’ James Rainey’s weird assertion that the ACORN stings by O’Keefe and Giles were not journalism: 

The duo certainly has caused a stir — and raised questions about an organization that in the past had received substantial government funding — but, sorry folks, please don’t call this journalism.

AND

So what sort of creature does this make O’Keefe? I don’t disagree with his observation in a previous interview with The Times that he follows the mold of filmmaker Michael Moore, using confrontation to get at his version of the truth.

Can you believe this guy? If a non-media liberal had gone undercover with camera to expose illegal advice-giving at Catholic Charities, who received at least $17.8 Million in taxpayer money in 2003, would Rainey likewise condemn the individual as un-journalistic? Please.

The legacy media has clearly betrayed any pretense of objectivity in favor pro-liberal activist journalism. Embracing your bias and using your position to further your agenda is the signature maneuver of Postmodernism, which metastasized in journalistic circles in the 1990′s: From Philip Gold’s 1996 article Postmodern journalism offers the wrong end of the shtick:

Postmodernism” is a wondrous word. Everybody uses it; nobody’s sure what it means. Still, we know it when we see it. Academia’s gone postmodern. So have politics and culture. And now, journalism’s heading down the same dreary road.

Gold goes on:

The postmodernist shtick has four elements.

First, it denies the existence of objective reality, as opposed to saying that reality’s out there but we never can get fully at it. To the postmodernist, everything in the universe, from comic books to galaxies, is “text” to be “interpreted” by the “self-referent,” that is, people whose only frame of reference — dare we say, only reality — is themselves.

Second, postmodernism denies the existence of firm boundaries. Everything flows into, affects and becomes everything else. (“The personal is political”; “The planetary is personal”; “Insanity is just another lifestyle”; etc.)

Third, postmodernism denies the validity of standards — of truth, morality, excellence, competence. All are arbitrary at best and tyrannical at worst.

Finary, postmodernism views all human relationships as power struggles. Words are weapons, not carriers of truth or meaning.

Sounds a lot like our friends in the legacy media, no? Gold predicted the outcome we’re seeing today:

So what’s the answer? Thy tighter editorial control and the prompt stockading of any senior executive who claims that serious journalism inevitably must go the way of Hard Copy and pompous-pundit screamathons. Still, the ultimate fix must rest with the larger society. In the end, our civilization will junk postmodernism. Neither truth, boundaries nor standards can be denied forever, and life is more than power games. There already are signs that it’s happening, especially in the schools and universities where it began. So, in the short term, perhaps the interesting question is not “How will journalism escape from postmodernism?” but, “How will it cover the demise?”

Thirteen years later we know that the legacy media still desperately holds on to it’s postmodernist worldview and derides all others as non-journalists. The new media has provided the outlet for the anti-postmodernism backlash and the legacy media thusly treats the new media with extreme contempt. 

Journalism will survive the postmodernist legacy media because journalism is not dependent on any institution. Journalism belongs to those who are willing to seek the truth, find it, and tell it to those who want to hear it. And, nearly everyone wants to hear it.