Truth will out

Even in the most closed and totalitarian society, like Stalin's USSR, the truth will eventually come out. As it did with the crackpot theories of Lysenko so it is now happening with the myth of human caused global warming.

From Express.co.uk (and don't we always have to go to the foreign press for the truth these days):

THE world’s leading climate change body has been accused of losing credibility after a damning report into its research practices.

A high-level inquiry into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found there was “little evidence” for its claims about global warming.

It also said the panel had emphasised the negative impacts of climate change and made “substantive findings” based on little proof.

The review by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was launched after the IPCC’s hugely embarrassing 2007 benchmark climate change report, which contained exaggerated and false claims that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035.

The panel was forced to admit its key claim in support of global warming was lifted from a 1999 magazine article. The report was based on an interview with a little-known Indian scientist who has since said his views were “speculation” and not backed by research.

Independent climate scientist Peter Taylor said last night: “The IPCC’s credibility has been deeply dented and something has to be done. It can’t just be a matter of adjusting the practices. They have got to look at what are the consequences of having got it wrong in terms of what the public think is going on. Admitting that it needs to reform means something has gone wrong and they really do need to look at the science.”

Climate change sceptic David Holland, who challenged leading climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia to disclose their research, said: “The panel is definitely not fit for purpose. What the IAC has said is substantial changes need to be made.”

The global warming house of cards is collapsing whether the ruling class is ready with a new hobgoblin to terrorize the population into surrendering their wealth and freedom or not.

What will they do?

One option they have is to go ahead and let the AGW myth join the other inhabitants of the unmarked graveyard of discarded lies while massaging the current severe recession into a global depression.

Another Great Depression would give the ruling party all the excuse it needed to restrict freedom, jack up taxes and nationalize industry after industry.

You can see the advantage of it from Obama's point of view. The American public has resisted every element of his agenda and are now set to cast his party out of power in the November elections. A Great Depression with widespread (25-30% unemployment) and mass starvation across the nation might just render the population docile enough to be collectivized without a fight.

This is why the November elections are so vitally important. We must not only defeat the Democrats (a virtual given the way things are now) but we must also defeat the entrenched establishment Republican "go along to get along" leadership.

We must replace the people who are currently calling the shots for House and Senate Republicans with a new breed of GOP lawmaker who does not even read the New York Times or the Washington Post, much less care what those dying old ruling party propaganda sheets say about them.

The GOP must be led by men and women who have the strength of character to remain eternally outsiders inside the beltway. Who care more about doing the right thing for the nation than they do about being invited to the right cocktail parties and accepted into the right golf foursomes.

DSL back up (for now)

My DSL was down almost the entire weekend (thank you ATT) so I couldn't post anything or do too much to keep up with the news.

I did pick up on the fact that Glenn Beck's rally in DC drew anywhere from 300-500 thousand people (these are the conservative estimates) while Al Sharpton's counter rally only pulled in about 3000.

I'll try to post something of substance tonight.

I want to be the Grand Cyclops

From ABC News:

A civil rights activist and former congressman equated the Tea Party with the Ku Klux Klan today as he blasted a conservative rally planned in Washington, D.C., this weekend.

The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, the non-voting delegate who represented the District of Columbia from 1971 to 1991, called on African-Americans to organize a "new coalition of conscience" to rebut the rally scheduled for Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial featuring Fox News pundit Glenn Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

"We are going to take on the barbarism of war, the decadence of racism, and the scourge of poverty, that the Ku Klux -- I meant to say the Tea Party," Fauntroy told a news conference today at the National Press Club. "You all forgive me, but I -- you have to use them interchangeably."

Fauntroy attempted to explain the comparison to white supremacists by saying that organizers behind the "Restoring Honor" rally are the same people who cut audio cables from a sound system the night before the historic March on Washington and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

"The same people who cut the cables on the night before the march, that we paid $66,000 for a sound system, they cut it," Fauntroy said. "Now from Fox News and elsewhere, they are seeking to turn the world back."

Fauntroy, who is credited as one of the chief organizers of the March on Washington, remembers Aug. 28, 1963, as the "most important date of the 20th century."

The "Restoring Honor" rally, organized by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, coincides with the anniversary of the historic March on Washington and the "I Have a Dream" speech. Organizers have said the conflicting date was a coincidence and not a deliberate display of disrespect.

Fauntroy said right-wing conservatives have "declared war on the civil rights movement of the 1960s" that brought together a Coalition of Conscience for a march on jobs and freedom in 1963. He called for a new Coalition of Conscience rally on the Mall in August 2012.

"I don't want you to think I'm angry," Fauntroy said. "[But] when this right-wing conservative exclusionary group comes to highjack our movement, we have got to respond. And I'm looking forward to that Coalition of Conscience, in defense of jobs and freedom for women."

I wonder if the black man who was selling Gadsden Flag buttons at a outside a town hall meeting and was badly beaten by Obama's SEIU freikorps would agree that the Tea Party are the "same people" who opposed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I wonder if all the black people attending Tea Parties would agree.

I wonder if all the dynamic women who have emerged as leaders in the conservative movement, like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Nikki Haley would agree that the Tea Party is somehow hostile to women's rights.

I notice that Mr. Fauntroy is still obsessed with the dollar value of the sound system that was vandalized. Of course the vandalism was criminal and morally wrong. To attempt to silence a voice of dissent by such means is cowardly and has no place in our republic.

However the cause that Dr. King and Mr. Fauntroy were there to promote that day WON. The civil rights legislation that King supported was enacted into law. And more importantly the society has changed to the point that the "N"-word is as socially unacceptable as the "F"-word. The default cultural expression of the United States is now (for better or worse) black.

That Mr. Fauntroy cannot, even after so many years, see beyond the dollar value of the equipment sabotaged on the eve of Dr. King's historic speech is very revealing. Just as Yasser Arafat was offered 90% of what he had asked for from the US and Israel, but chose to walk away from it because in his heart he had never been anything but a terrorist and never wanted to be anything but a terrorist Mr. Fauntroy cannot see the scope of the victory that his movement has won because he cannot move away from a petty tabulation of grievances. In his heart it will always be 1960, or 50 or 40 or whichever year in the past that his mental ledger book tells him that he was most put upon by whitey.

This is understandable. Many aging people have a strong desire to reconnect with their youth and Mr. Fauntroy's youth was consumed by the civil rights movement. To remain emotionally embedded in the "Struggle" must make Mr. Fauntroy feel as comfortable as listening to Moody Blues, Yes and Gerry Rafferty makes aging Boomers (like me) feel.

However just because something is understandable does not make it forgivable. The worst side effect of Boomers unwillingness to give up the music of their youth is the spectacle of Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger continuing to tour into their '70s.

The social effect of people like Mr. Fauntroy's unwillingness to grasp the fact that the Civil Rights Movement's great struggle to win recognition of black American's legal right to equal status before the law has been won has been devastatingly harmful. And the lion's share of that harm falls upon the black community.

The urge to continue to see themselves as leaders on the vanguard of an epic struggle has led black "leaders" like Mr. Fauntroy to continually raise the bar. They have transformed the goal of the movement from the righteous and morally defensible demand for equal opportunity to the unrighteous and indefensible demand for equality of outcome. While simultaneously shielding the black community from legitimate and necessary criticism.

When it is pointed out that the high rate of illegitimacy in the black community is a major contributor to poverty the response of the black leadership is increased welfare spending which only encourages the problem to grow larger.

When it is pointed out that the inability to speak standard English will keep young blacks from the inner city from ever being able to get the kind of well paying jobs that will allow them to rise out of poverty the response from black leaders is to attempt to elevate "Ebonics" to the status of a legitimate language which should be taught in schools. The next step would be, of course, to make refusal to hire an Ebonics speaker a punishable act of discrimination under civil rights law.

When the high crime rate in the black community is noticed (if crimes committed by blacks and Latinos are omitted from the statistics the US has a lower crime rate than Canada) the black leadership blames the availability of firearms (as though an inanimate object has the power to alter the moral choice made by a rational human being) and seeks to curtail the constitutionally recognized liberties of the entire nation.

Black "leaders" like Mr. Fauntroy continue to support the political party which inflicts such suffering upon their own people in order to maintain their comfortable and well compensated positions within the "movement". So that they can hold on to their lost youth by pretending that every day is a new battle against fire hoses and police dogs.

I think that it is past time that the average black man and woman in the US wakes up and faces the fact that they are very badly served by their "leadership". I think that it is past time that they join their brothers and sisters who have already fled the Democrat plantation and sought freedom in the GOP and the Tea Party.

Otherwise the only thing they have to look forward to is less of the same as the money to fund the social welfare system vanishes among the profligate spending of our historic young president.

Another win for Palin and the Tea Party

From Anchorage Daily News:

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is battling for her political life this morning against Republican primary challenger Joe Miller, the tea party-backed candidate who has a slim lead as ballots continue to be counted.

Miller, a Fairbanks attorney, led from when the first returns came in Tuesday night and was on the verge of pulling off one of the biggest election upsets ever in Alaska.

With 429 of 438 precincts counted this morning,, Miller had 45,909 votes (51 percent) to 43,949 (49 percent) for Murkowski.

Miller credited the support of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his lead.

"I'm absolutely certain that was pivotal," he said.

Murkowski on Tuesday night took a shot at Palin, saying that when Palin resigned as governor last summer she said she would use her new national role to help out Alaska.

"I think she's out for her own self-interest. I don't think she's out for Alaska's interest," Murkowski said as she waited at her campaign headquarters for results to come in.

Miller made a triumphant entrance to election central at the Egan Center in downtown Anchorage on Tuesday night, surrounded by loudly cheering supporters with red-white-and-blue balloons.

"We did it!" one shouted.

[. . .]

Palin and the Tea Party Express made a big push to convince Alaskans to dump Murkowski for Miller. Polls had shown Murkowski with a big lead just three weeks ago. But Miller supporters had thought it was narrowing and were expressing confidence earlier in the day Tuesday that they would be pulling off an upset.

This was the first test of Palin's influence on Alaska politics since she resigned as governor last summer, and the first sign of how influential the Tea Party movement can be in shaping political races in this state. The race was being closely watched nationally as a sign of Palin and the Tea Party's strength, but also because Murkowski is one of the leading Republicans in the Senate.

This is good news indeed.

It is not enough to return control of the congress to the Republican party. They have shown that as presently constituted they are incapable of leadership. While the worst Republican remains better than the best Democrat that isn't nearly good enough.

The GOP must have new leadership in the House, the Senate and the RNC which will view the Republican party explicitly as a conservative party. The RNC and the state Republican parties must begin seeking the most conservative candidate who can win in any state or district and giving them all their backing - even if it means unseating a Republican incumbent.

There will be some states, Maine for example, where the most conservative Republican who can win will be a liberal like Olympia Snow or Susan Collins. Fine, but in much more conservative states like Arizona and South Carolina there is absolutely no excuse for the GOP to give any support to RINOs like John McCain and his wretched little butt-boy Lindsey Graham.

Republicans will not save this country from the pit that Obama and his congressional allies are flinging it into. They simply don't have it in them to do anything else but chase along behind Democrats and shout, "me too, me too - just not as fast".

It is Conservatives who know what must be done to halt the slide toward destruction and return this nation to its economic, moral and political foundations.

The sooner that the GOP realizes that it must be the Conservative Party the sooner we can begin the work.

Some facts about the Ground Zero Mosque debate

In listening to the Ground Zero Mosque being discussed on talk radio I noticed that a number of leftist callers were very misinformed about a great many things. Here is a corrective in case any of them wander by this blog.

There is no mosque in the Pentagon. There is a room set aside for Muslims (who are required to pray 5 times per day by prostrating themselves and repeating certain phrases the required number of times) to pray so that people will not trip over them in the offices and corridors.

There will be a mosque in the structure being planned for the site of the old Burlington Coat Factory near the World Trade Center location (now knows as "Ground Zero"). It will have other things besides the mosque, such as a swimming pool, but there absolutely will be a mosque.

The Burlington Coat Factory building was struck by one of the landing gear assemblies from one of the hijacked planes (I believe the one flown by Mohammed Atta). The building took severe damage as the result of the landing gear assembly crashing through the roof and several floors. The fact that the building was damaged by one to the hijacked planes makes it part of Ground Zero. Even if it were a mile from the WTC the fact that a piece of one of the planes struck it makes it just as much Ground Zero as the hole in the ground where the WTC once stood.

It is appropriate to call the planned structure the "Ground Zero Mosque" since that is what the imam who is planning the project has called it.

The official name of the planned project is not "the Park51 Project" as Time magazine refers to it. The correct name is "Cordoba Initiative". The planned mosque and Islamic cultural center will be called "Cordoba House". Calling the Cordoba Initiative the Park51 Project is an attempt to deflect attention away from the symbolism of naming the proposed mosque after the Cordoba mosque in Spain.

The name Cordoba House comes from the mosque in Cordoba, Spain. When the Muslims conquered the Visigoth kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain) they celebrated their victory by turning the Christian church of St. Vincent in Cordoba (built in 600 AD) into a mosque. It is a common practice in Islam to build a mosque on the site of a conquered people's holy place. This was done in Jerusalem when the Muslim shrine the Dome of the Rock and a mosque was built on the Jewish Temple Mount.

The name Cordoba House leads observers who are aware of Muslim history and not blinded by political correctness to conclude that the mosque is intended to celebrate Islam's great victory over the United States (commonly called the Great Satan by Muslims) and to honor the 19 martyrs who hijacked the planes on 9/11.

The fact that the imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, who is spearheading the Cordoba Initiative, has stated that he will accept money from Iran (rogue state and terrorist supporting Islamic theocracy) and Saudi Arabia (the home of Whabbi Islam - the religion of Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers, as well as their homeland) and the fact that he is on record (and tape) stating that the events of 9/11 and Islamic terrorism in general are an "understandable reaction" to the actions of the United States (along with the fact that he will not condemn Palestinian terrorism against Israel) lends a great deal of credence to the view that the Cordoba House will be a victory monument to the events of 9/11.

Little tin messiah or little tin 12th Imam?

Here's a good piece from American Thinker about the whole "Obama is a Muslim" business:

According to this poll released last week, nearly one in five Americans believe that President Obama is a Muslim, despite his consistent claims to be a Christian. The White House commented that "obviously" the president is a Christian; "he prays every day." Various liberal columnists quickly ran to the president's aid with mouths agape over the obvious stupidity of this sizable chunk of the American peasant class.

The only thing truly obvious about this poll, in my opinion, is that it was meant to be a distraction from the growing, across-all-strata anger at the president's policies, a still-gloomy economy and a widely held perception of the president as a lazy man who much prefers the perks of high office to the actual work required of the office holder. So, Pew decided to provide a neat little piñata of supposed stupidity at which the liberal-elitist media could poke with holier-than-thou glee.

Obviously, however, these petulant liberal columnists did not bother to do their homework. From their every rant so far over the persistence of the Obama-Is-Muslim perception, it's clear that none of them have looked at this with anything but the most shallow objective. Obama says he's a Christian; therefore he is.

Ah, but the perception that he is a Muslim persists. Now, why might that be?

Let me count the reasons...

We could put aside the little Freudian slips Barack Obama uttered at unscripted moments during the campaign, but just for the record, and since they might indeed have added to the public perception of Obama as a Muslim, let's just remember a few of them.

There was that little episode where candidate Obama did reference "my Muslim faith," to George Stephanopoulos and was corrected by the interviewer.

Then, there was the little slip-up where candidate Obama, referring to his campaign travels, mentioned that he had already visited 57 states, a gaffe that might have had no religious/political significance were it not for the fact that the only world entity known to have precisely 57 states is the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Now admittedly, these were short blurbs, uttered off-teleprompter by candidate Obama, but they indeed added weight to the perception that Obama might be attempting to cover a stealth Muslim faith behind his murky cloak of Christian proclamation.

And although this hardly qualifies as a Freudian slip, candidate Obama did pooh-pooh the dangers posed by that "tiny country," Iran, causing any sentient person to feel at least a little angst over where Obama's fidelity (and his senses) might be found. Then there was the lengthy rambling of candidate Obama on the hearty endorsement he received from Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam and the most well-known Jew hater in America. Obama refused to reject the endorsement, while cherry picking certain statements of Farrakhan's to denounce and spent the rest of his ramble highlighting the Jewish contribution to the Civil Rights Movement. These were hardly clarifying moments in which either the candidate's wisdom or his self-proclaimed Christian faith shone.

All of these murky moments might have been buried under Obama's inauguration hoopla if it were not for the president's immediate moves towards the Islamic world. Instead of putting the "Obama is a Muslim" perception to rest, president Obama revived this notion with apparent gusto.

First, there was the premier interview which Obama gave to the foreign press as president, to an Arab television network. Then there was the suck-up to Islam speech the president gave in Cairo, in which he purely made up Muslim history to make Islamists feel good. Throw in the obsequious bow to the Saudi king. Throw in Obama's claim on international television that America is "not a Christian nation," but is indeed "one of the largest Muslim nations" (a claim, which relied on more faulty Obama arithmetic), and it would take a nitwit not to question the president's credibility on every issue, including his religion.

Add the weight of Obama's outward and pronounced humiliations of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Obama's continual strong-arming the Israelis to stop building upon their own land so as not to irritate the Palestinians, and the perception of Obama's fealty to Muslims grows mightily. Throw in Obama's dictum to all American intelligence agencies that any mention of Islam in connection to modern terrorism is now a concerted no-no and the "Obama is a Muslim" perception becomes a big, fat elephant in the room.

With the elephant now growing great big tusks, the president one-ups himself and ceremoniously throws the weight of the presidency into the Ground Zero mosque debate. Choosing the symbolically significant White House Iftar dinner, in honor of Ramadan, with a roomful of prominent Muslims from around the world, the president clearly endorsed building the Cordoba House mosque. And no effort at political back-tracking can remove that perception. The "Obama is a Muslim" elephant is beginning to stink at this point.

Despite a later claim to Christian conversion, Barack Obama was born Muslim, to a Muslim father, who gave him a Muslim name, "Barack Hussein." As anyone who knows even a smidgen of Islamic theology well understands, Islam is a religion conferred by the father to his children at birth, in which the father claims his child for Allah, if you will. Since Barack Obama's mother openly professed -- throughout her life -- a rather pronounced disdain for all religion, it makes perfect sense that she would defer to her new husband on this religious ritual.

As all Westerners agree, however, there isn't much in a given name. Islamists, on the other hand, put a great deal of emphasis on this at-birth claim for Allah. And as the New York Times so eloquently pointed out during the campaign, whether he (or we) likes it or not, the Islamic world now views Barack Hussein Obama as an apostate to Islam, which under Islamic law is the most grievous offense a man born Muslim can commit.

Not only was Obama born a Muslim, but while living in Indonesia from age six to ten, he was registered in school as a Muslim, regularly studied the Koran and openly stated in public in 2007 that the Muslim call to prayer was the "prettiest sound he had ever heard." Fine. I sincerely doubt that many Americans really wish to parse Obama's religious claims now on the strength of childhood experiences alone.

Which brings us to the real heart of this matter: Jeremiah Wright, Jr. The undeniable reality concerning Obama's "conversion" to Christianity is that it occurred under the mentorship of a man known far and wide as a purveyor of black liberation theology, which is about as unorthodox Christian as a sect can get. James H. Cone, the father of black liberation theology, has stated openly that he was attempting to forge a third way between Martin Luther King's orthodox Christianity and the Islamic beliefs (Nation of Islam, then Sunni Islam) of Malcolm X.

When I visited Trinity United Church of Christ in January of 2008, I spent about an hour perusing the books for sale in Obama's then church home bookstore. The one unifying theme of books for sale at Trinity was not Christianity, but black nationalist politics, cunningly wrapped in religious language, both black Muslim and black liberation theology.

Obama's connection to Jeremiah Wright was, in fact, conspiratorially swept under the liberal-media rug as we now know from recent JournoList email revelations. Anyone with an ounce of common sense should have known that as Obama ascended to the presidency, his true colors would show themselves. And show they have.

Barack Obama unceasingly demonstrates that his disavowal of Wright's mentorship was every bit as hollow as his claim to unifying political grace.

In every apology for America that Obama has made, we hear Jeremiah Wright's voice "G*d-damning" America. In Obama's decision to send an American apology envoy to Hiroshima, we hear Wright's anti-American screeds loud and clear. In Obama's sending back the bust of Churchill to the Brits, Wright's still-sore rants over the white Europeans and the slave trade -- dead for more than a century -- are seen clear as day. In Obama's open-arms to Islam - no matter what - we see and hear Wright's love of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X.

So, here's to our formerly august media in their summer with American malcontents.

The truth always will out.

Obama lied; hope died.

And you people got caught with your pants down.

Deal with it.

Do I personally think that Obama is a Muslim?

No, I tend to agree with Selwyn Duke about Obama's religious feelings:

As for Obama's eyes, they cannot look heavenward when they're so busy looking down on little people who "cling to guns and religion." I sense that Obama is a certain kind of person, one much like Hitler -- who wanted to create a new German pagan religion with himself at its center -- in a particular sense. This type of person essentially says the following to God: "The universe just isn't big enough for the two of us." And his little world certainly isn't, filled to all corners as it is with his bloated, power-hungry ego. This, by the way, has been acknowledged by more honest secularists. For example, Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century poster boy for atheism who is rumored to have been a philosopher (in reality, he is someone who helped discredit the field), once said through his version of Zarathustra, "If there were gods, how could I endure it to be no God? Therefore there can be no gods." I have a feeling that Obama cannot endure it to be no god.

It is, again, unwise to give Obama too much credit. Good faith is defined as "an act of the will informed by the intellect," and any kind of faith requires submission to something higher than yourself. Obama is neither that intellectual nor that humble. But all humans have passions, and his aren't hard to discern. He is anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Christian (the traditional variety), anti-white, and anti-life. He is more comfortable dining with Bill Ayers than with the Queen of England, more internationalist than nationalist, and perhaps more at home in Dar al-Islam than Dar al-Harb. He has lived abroad and traveled much, but he is a lover of nations like a Casanova is a lover of women: He has known many but loves, and is faithful to, none -- not even the one to which he should be married. He is a cultural traitor, and as Cicero said two thousand years ago, "A murderer is less to be feared."

Obama is his own god and will not submit himself to any other.

Hi all

I spent the weekend in Knoxville visiting family. I will post something this evening when I get home from work.

See you then.

A big part of the reason

Why George W left office with a 33% approval rating.

From the Washington Post:

Many of the Republicans who have urged their party to tone down its sharp rhetoric against the construction of an Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero or who don't oppose the project share a common trait: service as top advisers to then-President George W. Bush.

Although prominent Republican figures such as former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin have loudly condemned the proposed mosque, several top Bush aides have criticized President Obama's handling of the issue but urged a more nuanced debate among Republicans.

They have not coordinated with one another, nor the former president, who has said nothing about the mosque or virtually any other issue since he left office in January 2009. But their comments illustrate what has emerged since Bush left office: a GOP that has not fully rejected or embraced the ex-president's legacy. Bush famously called Islam a "religion of peace" during his presidency, a phrase few in the party have invoked in discussing the current controversy.

We should remember that almost all of those Muslim clerics that former president Bush heaped up around himself in the aftermath of 9/11 turned out to have records of supporting terrorist groups and Holocaust denial.

We all remember how Mr. Bush constantly proclaimed Islam to be a "religion of peace" and yet was as unable to document any examples of Islam bringing peace to any place by any method other than killing or enslaving all non-Muslims as current president Obama is of listing any of the supposed "significant contributions" which Islam has made to America during its history.

George W Bush's failure to grasp the fact that Islam is to the war on terror what Nazism was to the war in Europe is a significant part of the reason that the American public turned against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As we enter a critically important election season listening to the advice of people who participated in a presidential administration which left office with numbers as low as Jimmy Carter's or Richard Nixon's is not the smart move.

The smartest president ever?

From American Thinker:

The meteoric rise to the presidency of Barack Obama was fueled in no small part by the widely-accepted contention that he was one of the smartest men ever to seek the Oval Office. He is not the first leader to be oversold.

"As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational art, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that he's a great military man -- I want you to know that." It is an article of faith among the mainstream media, even on the squishy right (Bill O'Reilly comes to mind), to start any discussion of the 44^th President with a ritual expression of utter amazement at his enormous brain power.

This immortal witticism of Gen. Normal Schwarzkopf after a lightning 1991 campaign that cut to pieces the Iraqi dictator's vaunted army resonates with me each time I read or hear any discussion of President Obama.

Does Obama deserve his reputation? Not really -- unless of course, a "perfectly creased pant" is a true metric of rapier-sharp wit and towering intellect, as David Brooks seems to think. One can certainly take such things on faith merely on the basis of credentials: the right university, the right profession, the right crowd. Columbia and Harvard Law alum -- what other proof is needed that the holder of such lofty achievements must be right up there with the Einsteins of the world? Assumptions of this sort could cause one acute embarrassment, such as the one experienced by the historian Michael Beschloss at the hands of Don Imus. Beschloss was extolling Obama's "sky-high IQ", but just as he was hitting his stride, the host interrupted his guest's rapture: "So what's his IQ?" The historian had to sheepishly admit that he didn't know.

But mindless sycophancy of Obama groupies aside, what gives his admirers the reason to believe in the incomparable intellectual faculties of their idol? An ability to more or less fluently read a prepared text? But each time he drops the life buoy of the teleprompter and ventures to go unscripted, he stumbles and mumbles in search of words, launching an avalanche of "uhs" and more likely than not putting his foot into his mouth. Watching him on such excursions into the terrifying world of improvisation, it is obvious that Obama would be wise to take a few speech lessons from purported low-brow, Sarah Palin. Are his glaringly poor off-the-cuff skills evidence of great intelligence?

How about his endless gaffes? Like "I've now been in 57 states - I think one left to." --
Obama 2008 campaign event, Beaverton, OR (unless it was a Freudian slip, considering that there is indeed an entity consisting of 57 states; it's called the Organization of the Islamic Conference)? Or the "Austrian" language which Obama believes is spoken in Austria? Or "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died - an entire town destroyed." -- 2007 campaign speech on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people. Or as he said in this year's Ramadan greeting, "Islam has always been part of America and...American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country." What country was he talking about? Or this pearl: "On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong." An occasional slip of the tongue is an accident. A habit of dumb misstatements is evidence of laziness and lack of mental discipline; of the tongue just wagging uncontrollably. Is it evidence of Obama's intellectual superiority?

What about his propensity to jump feet first before thinking and let the devil take the hindmost. Like accusing the Cambridge, Mass, police of stupidity in the Skip Gates incident, while freely admitting that he actually didn't know the circumstances of the case. Or getting into the Manhattan mosque controversy. How's that for political acumen? Does it take a genius to figure out that coming down on the unpopular side of the issue, contrary to the will of nearly 70 percent of the American people, would be a major political blunder, particularly with the midterm elections just around the corner? Liberal pundits heaped praise on the President for his courage and steadfast adherence to principle. Why then did he hastily backtrack the very next day? Hardly a profile in courage is it. So what was it? Apparently an infantile, ideologically driven whim: I want it! I need it! And a hasty retreat as soon as the utterly predictable explosion ensued. A political genius?

How hard was it to predict that endless golf-cum-basketball outings, musical soirees at the White House, and vacation upon vacation in posh spots culminating in Michelle's Spanish junket and a forthcoming stay in the elitist retreat of Martha's Vineyard, would be a major irritant to the people hard hit by the recession and undermine the President's popularity? A callous disregard for the proles? Obviously. But how astute is it? Not very, for in-your-face arrogance has never been a mark of intelligence.

Add to this Obama's obvious economic ignorance; his glaring naiveté in international affairs, his boundless faith in the power of his oratory, his intellectual laziness, his intrinsic indecisiveness smacking of childish belief in the power of wish (close your eyes, and the bad stuff will just go away); his political tin-ear -- are these the attributes of a genius? Sorry, Obama fans, what it all adds up to is an immature narcissist, an utterly inexperienced tyro, devoid of administrative ability, lacking political skills, a radical ideologue, who apparently believes that the job of president boils down to an incessant gabfest.

So with compliments to General Schwarzkopf: as far as Barack Obama being smart as a whip, he has no clue in economics, nor has he any understanding of foreign policy; he is supremely arrogant and doesn't care if it rubs people the wrong way; he has few political skills and no administrative ability, nor does he have any desire to engage in the day-to-day drudgery of ruling, preferring to reign instead; he revels in the luxury of presidential perks and delights in flaunting his excess. Other than that he is a true genius.

The Jackass party always wants to believe that its guys are the smartest people in the whole widey world and reality always rears up and bites them in the ass.

Remember how John Kerry was supposed to be an intellectual titan compared to the borderline retarded George W Bush? Remember also how the release of college transcripts and SAT scores revealed that Mr. Bush had both a higher IQ and GPA than Mr. Kerry?

Remember how Hillary Clinton was the smartest woman to ever tread the earth but her grand master plan to win the Democrat nomination was to simply expect everyone to get out of her way and concede the nomination to her and how she had absolutely no backup plan to face a serious challenger?

Remember how it never even occurred to Bill Clinton (the sharpest intellect that had ever sat in the Oval Office) that a star-struck teenybopper might just keep - undrycleaned - the little blue dress that he had splooged all over?

Remember how Jimmy Carter, a nuclear scientist no less (actually an engineer) sat with his thumb up his rectum until it was too late in the year to launch a hostage rescue attempt in Iran - then ordered a hostage rescue in Iran.

Every time they think they've got a new "smartest person ever" they turn out to be something of a dim bulb and Obama is keeping up the tradition.

Why, you might ask.

It's actually very simple. You have to be an idiot to believe in socialism and that is what the modern Democrat party is, the party of socialism.

Given socialism's demonstrated failure to produce any outcome over the long term (and sometimes over the short term) than misery, poverty and tyranny no thinking person (other than young people with no real world experience and simply don't know any better) could possibly invest the slightest faith in it.

Yet Democrats do invest boundless faith, hope and optimism in the belief that just one more attempt with the "right people" in charge will "get it right" and produce the promised utopia.

For adults to think this way they must be either insane or very, very stupid.

A whole new order of screwed

From American Thinker:

Attempts by the Obama administration to "reset" relations with Russia have included the unilateral suspension of near-term plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe; the signing of the bilateral START arms control agreement; and U.S. support for Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization. Moscow rewarded these efforts by announcing last Friday (Aug. 13) that Russian and Iranian specialists will begin installing uranium fuel rods into the Bushehr nuclear reactor on August 21. Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the state-run Rosatom organization, will personally attend the opening ceremony.

Washington has opposed this action, but to no avail. Once operational, the reactor will produce plutonium than can be used for weapons. Given the rogue nature of the Tehran regime, its claims that the Bushehr plant is a "peaceful" facility separate from its military program is not credible.

It should be remembered that the missile defense system planned by the Bush administration for Poland and the Czech Republic was designed as a shield against the Iranian threat. When Russia objected, it was identifying its security interests with Iran's, both being based on the ability to attack Europe.

China has also identified its interests with those of Iran. It was likely not a coincidence that on the same day the Russians made their announced about Bushehr, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times ran an editorial in support of Tehran and against the U.S. for "building its case against Iran by overstating the threat Iran poses to regional peace and stability" and for "dragging the entire region into dangerous uncertainty." The voice of Beijing's ruling party argued,

As a country with a long history and profound religious background, Iran deserves the right to keep its dignity and choose its own path of development. China respects its rights and sticks to the principle of solving the Iranian nuclear issue by using diplomatic means, a longtime policy it holds in solving international conflicts.

This long-standing policy makes clashes with the US more likely and is harder to avoid.

The US is not only casting the shadow of war on to the world, but it is also harming China's interests.

The US and its coalition have been trying to press China to change its mind by isolating it, a tactic that is not working out. The US is learning the limitations of its policies and hearing more from China.

The editorial claimed that "China is against Iran acquiring nuclear weapons" but that "China has to secure its strategic interests in Iran." Beijing has the leverage to stop Tehran's nuclear program, just as it does with North Korea. It has not done so in either case because its strategic interests dictate otherwise. A small nuclear capability is thought to be a guarantee against "regime change." China is aligning with Iran as the dominant power in the oil-rich Middle East.

The Global Times sees sanctions against Iran failing as Russia, China and unspecified "European countries" pursue business deals with the Tehran regime. Thus the diplomatic track will continue to be a futile effort to stem Iran's ambitions, just as China and Russia have intended. This leaves only a military response or the acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran. The Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis is betting on the latter outcome.

Once those fuel rods go into that reactor destroying it becomes far more problematic. Now it is simply a matter of making sure that we drop enough bombs to destroy the reactor. Once the rods go in blowing it up will create a giant cloud of radiation with a long half life which will drift with the wind.
As you will note the winds will carry this toxic cloud in the direction not only of Russia and some of its Islamic republics but also toward Afghanistan, where we have many troops and allies and Pakistan (which we're still trying to keep as an ally).

To destroy the reactor after the fuel rods go in will require boots on the ground. We, or the Israelis, will have to take and hold the facility long enough for engineers to remove the rods. Then the structure can be blown (and if the site remains dangerously radioactive for a generation, so what).

To do this will require that an airport or other landing area be taken and held with enough troops to repel any Iranian counterattack while the engineers work. The size of this kind of operation and its logistical complexity argue against any attempt being made unless it is part of a larger invasion of the nation, as we did in Iraq, or at least a major operation aimed at not only neutralizing Iran's nuclear program but also at removing its theocratic regime.

My preference would be to take out the reactor before it becomes operational. However given the current occupant of the White House it is unlikely that the US will do anything other than wring its hands and send stiffly worded notes of protest.

Many will take this as another sign of our man-child president's incompetence. I do not. I see Obama's inaction in the face of Iran going nuclear as a calculated policy. If Iran is allowed to acquire atomic weapons it will become very difficult, if not impossible, for the US or Israel to bring down the mullah regime - which would almost certainly lead to the installation of the most pro-US government in the region.

By doing nothing to keep the bomb out of the mullah's hands Obama not only protects a fanatically anti-American regime while he sits in the Oval Office he continues to protect it even after an adult has replaced him there.

If you doubt that Obama has that kind of agenda consider how he as consistently appeased our enemies and insulted our allies since he took office. Consider his "like it or not America is a superpower" remark. Consider his absolute refusal to render any kind of aid or comfort, even rhetorical, to those pro-American Iranians who took to the streets protesting their stolen election.

Obama believes that a nuclear Iran will serve as a deterrent to the Unites States ability to protect its vital interests in the Middle East.

He is correct.

Perspective

From our friends at Red Planet.

Advice from the left

I love it when people who hate the Republican party give it advice. This comes from Mark Halperin at Time:

Dear Republican Party:

Your moment is now.

This weekend, President Obama defended the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque two short blocks from Ground Zero, despite cries of insensitivity from some New Yorkers and accusations of mischief from some pundits. This finally gives you an opportunity to add a powerful national-security cudgel to the message of economic woe you have been pushing as the midterm election approaches. (See pictures of America's Muslim community.)

The political potency of the issue is obvious. Polls overwhelmingly show the President has put himself on the wrong side of public opinion. Opposition to the new facility arouses acute emotion and creates near total unity among relatives of 9/11 victims, first responders, Republican officeholders, potential 2012 presidential candidates, Tea Party members, the Fox News–talk radio–Drudge Report echo machine and many of the highly coveted swing and occasional voters whom you will need at the polls to win in November.

Up until now, you have restricted yourself as much as possible to an economic message, eschewing social issues and foreign policy as you try to establish contrasts for the electorate between your brand and the Obama-Pelosi-Reid record. This is a smart, straightforward strategy, since worried voters chiefly are concerned about unemployment and the nation's future financial prospects.

But you also have been frustrated by the President's skill at limiting Democratic vulnerability on the party's traditional weak spot, national-security issues. Sure, Obama remains a young, inexperienced Commander in Chief with few discernible foreign policy achievements. But he has left almost no room for attack on his security record. He has shrewdly retained Bush's Defense Secretary (letting Robert Gates take the lead on Pentagon budget cutting); continued many of the previous Administration's antiterrorism policies at home and abroad, to the chagrin of some civil libertarians; engaged in a tough assassination campaign against suspected al-Qaeda operatives around the world; and emphasized the necessity of winning in Afghanistan, placing the revered David Petraeus in charge of the game plan. In 2008, Obama was the first Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992 to successfully play offense on national-security issues, and his bold choices and canny instincts have thus far served him well in warding off GOP assaults in office. All the while, he has adeptly dodged the Muslim issue, often a subject of slick gossip and bizarre innuendo, which you have wisely left to gather dust since the campaign.

Now Obama has given you an in. At a White House dinner on Friday celebrating the start of Ramadan, the President took a position. "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country," he said. "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 remark opened the door so wide that walking through it will be effortless. Even your usually tone-deaf national chairman, Michael Steele, could not mess this one up. If you go full force on the offensive, every Democratic candidate in every competitive race in the country will have three choices, none of them good, when asked about the Islamic center: side with Obama and against public opinion; oppose Obama and deal with the consequences of intraparty disunity; or refuse to take a position, waffling impotently and unattractively at a crucial time. (Read about the imam behind the mosque.)

Say what you will about the wisdom of Obama's policies overall, but his belated commentary on religious freedoms clearly was not done for political gain. Quite the contrary. the President knew that he and his party would almost certainly pay a political price for taking a stand, especially this close to the election, and with few prominent leaders, other than New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on the White House's side. The reaction since the President spoke has been vitriolic and unvarying from leading voices on the right, painting Obama as weak, naive, out of touch and obtuse (not to mention flip-flopping, after his confusing follow-up comments Saturday suggested to some that he might be hedging his position).

Yes, Republicans, you can take advantage of this heated circumstance, backed by the families of the 9/11 victims, in their most emotional return to the public stage since 2001.

But please don't do it. There are a handful of good reasons to oppose allowing the Islamic center to be built so close to Ground Zero, particularly the family opposition and the availability of other, less raw locations. But what is happening now — the misinformation about the center and its supporters; the open declarations of war on Islam on talk radio, the Internet and other forums; the painful divisions propelled by all the overheated rhetoric — is not worth whatever political gain your party might achieve.

It isn't clear how the battle over the proposed center should or will end. But two things are profoundly clear: Republicans have a strong chance to win the midterm elections without picking a fight over President Obama's measured words. And a national political fight conducted on the terms we have seen in the past few days will lead to a chain reaction at home and abroad that will have one winner — the very extreme and violent jihadists we all can claim as our true enemy.

As I said, Republicans, this is your moment. As a famous New Yorker once urged in a very different context: Do the right thing.

This isn't so much an attempt to shield Obama from controversy (he has already dug his grave on this matter) as it is an effort to protect Democrat candidates from having to deal with the issue.

Good luck with that (not really).

This mosque puts America in a lose-lose situation to some extent no matter what we do. If we block the mosque then Muslims the world over will see it as the US "oppressing" Muslims and being anti-Islam. If the mosque is built Muslims the world over will see it as a monument to Islam's victory over the Great Satan on Sept. 11, 2001.

So we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. So which outcome has the most potential for causing harm?

If we allow the mosque to be built Muslims the world over will view it as a victory monument. They will believe that the US is weak and naive for allowing their enemies to build a victory mosque on the site of Islam's greatest victory over the West.

Remember Osama bin Laden's parable of the strong and weak horses. People are attracted to the strong horse and that mosque sitting on Ground Zero will send the message that Islam is the strong horse and the USA is the weak horse.

It will tell every Islamofascist that despite their loses on the battlefield that they are still winning. Comparisons with Vietnam where the US lost the war without ever losing a battle will be made and they will be apt.

Islamists will take heart in knowing that as long as they keep up the fight that America's left wing will continue to corrode America's will to resist until our resolve collapses and we hand them the victory they could never win in a stand up fight.

But if we don't build the mosque Muslims the world over will feel that the US is oppressing them.

So what?

The "holy" Koran teaches Muslims that it is the rightful destiny of Islam to hold absolute power over the entire earth. To people who are taught from birth that it is God's will and promise that they enjoy total power and control over every human being in existence anything less will always feel like oppression.

When Christian Europeans drove Islamic conquerors out of Spain Muslims felt, and to this day still feel, that they were being oppressed. Ditto for North Africa and the Holy Land.

Get that, the Muslims conquer a nation in a jihad and when the rightful owners take it back they whine about being the victims of an unjust war of aggression.

As long as any part of the world holds out against Islamic domination Muslims everywhere will feel "oppressed". As long as one square mile of the earth's surface contains human beings who reject Islam and will not accept diminitude Muslims will feel threatened and denied their just rights.

The question is does feeling "oppressed" automatically cause Muslims to turn to terrorism.

No it does not. Muslims have felt that the world was oppressing them ever since the original jihad started my Mohammad petered out short of total victory over the Christian West. However Muslims have only taken up arms against the West when they felt that they had a chance at success. Whenever Islam has been defeated and punished it has tended to go quiescent for generations at a time.

What has awakened Islam this time was the Islamic revolution in Iran followed so closely by the apparent victory of Islam over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Many Muslims see the fact that the USSR collapsed so soon after its defeat in Afghanistan as evidence that Islam didn't just win a war against the USSR but actually destroyed it.

Bin Laden is one of those Muslims and he clearly believed, and probably still believes, that Islam will destroy the USA next.

All that it will take to make Islam go dormant again is decisive defeat by non Muslims. We have achieved that in Iraq. We are attempting it in Afghanistan and if we destroy the Iranian nuclear program before they can produce nuclear weapons it is unlikely that the Iranian Islamic regime will survive.

Al Quada has been severely damaged with almost everyone who held a leadership position on 9/11 being either dead or captured today. Bin Laden may still be alive but his existence is that of a hunted rat scurrying from one hole to the next.

There are only two areas remaining which give the Islamists hope and comfort. One is the continuing possibility of a Palestinian victory over Israel and the other is the possibility that the American left will destroy America's will to continue the fight.

If American voters will turn out this November and render a solid defeat to Democrats and then turn out again two years later and send Obama back to Chicago (or Hawaii or Kenya or wherever) and give the White House and both chambers of the legislature to conservative Republicans who understand the nature of the global conflict we can begin the process of putting Islam back to sleep for a century or more.

The final step will have to be Israel, with firm US backing, announcing that it rejects the two state solution because of Palestinian refusal to bargain in good faith. When Israel reasserts full sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza the final source of fire under the Islamic boiler will be extinguished. Muslims will realize that their dreams of a global caliphate will not come true at the present time and will retreat back into sullen (but non violent) resentment as they navel gaze and ponder why Allah didn't give them victory this time either.

It won't last, but it will give the civilized nations of the world as much as a century of relief (during which time they can figure out how to deal with an aggressive and expansionist Chinese empire).

PS - Note that I did not address the possibility that Muslims will see us allowing the mosque to be built and conclude from our tolerance that we are really not so bad and stop supporting terrorist acts against us. The reason I didn't talk about that potential outcome is that it is not a realistic possibility.

If the mosque is built even moderate Muslims who don't hate us will see it as a sign of weakness not tolerance and the only likely outcome will be to cause them to reconsider their moderation. After all if it looks like we are going to lose the war their won't be much reason to be on our side.

You can say a lot with an eye roll

From American Spectator:

The reason they call it the Web is that it catches more flies-by-night than the aluminum siding business. Some image, poignant in its charisma or its grotesquerie, captivates the public imagination and suddenly millions of otherwise productive citizens must stop whatever they are doing and see the kitty trampoline unto the roof or the pea which sprouted in a man's lung. Some of these buzz arts are followed by buzzards, as 30-year careers are crushed by 30 seconds of crassness. This week's target was Sarah Palin, the former governess of Alaska, if that's the correct way to say female governor.

What Palin did to cash in the wroth ire of retiring liberals nationwide was to roll her eyes. It wasn't what she said, it wasn't even how she said it, it was that she turned and gave a knowing look that amounted to a rolling of the eyes. Well, in the 1990s Bill Clinton promised us a revolution in optics and I guess we finally got one.

The story, in case you have been occupying yourself with more momentous matters like Wall Street and Tiger Woods going down, is as follows. A lady, if that's the word I'm looking for, was protesting the filming of Sarah's documentary series. Her idea of a political banner was a horizontal horror about 100 feet wide (serving as a new sort of picket fence) bearing the legend: WORST GOVERNOR EVER. Sarah respectfully asked for a breakdown on the forensic method used to calibrate the degrees of worseness in the gubernatorial sweepstakes. The woman responded: "You walked out on your responsibility to serve your term when cash was waved in front of your face, and you left to become a celebrity."

Quoth Sarah in an excellent comeback, both witty riposte and logical rejoinder: "Oh, you wanted me to be your governor! I'm honored! Thank you!" That is as quick-on-your-political-feet as anyone this side of Dennis Miller, although Democrats dismiss it as a dumb broadside.

Then she asked Our Lady of the Presumption what she did for a livelihood when she wasn't stirring up a lively 'hood.

"A teacher."

At this point, Sarah makes a turn-to-the-right to glance toward someone off-camera. The left wing of the blogosphere has been ululating in outrage over the perception that her turn was not dexterous but sinister. She rolled her eyes at a teacher! At the whole teaching profession! What if she becomes a roll model?! Why, the optic nerve of that woman! It's bad enough that she turns heads, now she's rolling eyes!

Sarah herself lost no time twittering back to these twits with the standard line about how my grandparents were teachers, my father was a teacher, ladidah. (Well, my grandfather was an eye-roller, so there. He used to roll those eyes up a hill one by one in 100-degree weather back during the Depression.) I would have just answered that all this cash-waving made my eyes roll as I tried to keep them on the prize. And immediately started selling T-shirts: "Eye roll my own!" "Eye roll with the punches!"

TRUTH BE TOLD, if truth is a meaningful element in such discussions, I join Sarah in rolling my eyes at teachers. The profession of teaching is an honorable one, but the leftist teachers who dominate schools today are dishonoring it by much of what they profess. Look at this woman herself. First, her conclusion that Sarah left office just to cash in her celebrity sounds like one she reached via a long jump, hardly the stuff of judicious analysis. Second, her bestowal of the Worst Governor Ever lifetime achievement award based on that critique smacks of the hyperbolic rhetoric students are supposed to unlearn in school.

My own children, despite attending Jewish parochial schools, are constantly subjected to this brand of haranguing by the teachers in the secular department. One daughter had an entire test in science period devoted to global warming. A class play about forests (in 3rd grade!) included speaking birds who advocated for killing the woodchopper for his desecration of trees.

A different daughter, as a junior in high school, had to write a report on an angry novel about Southern racism in the early 20th Century, where blacks had to wait for whites to go first over the bridge and a host of similar indignities. In her essay, she wrote that such atrocities are a thing of the past. In the margin the teacher commented: "Who says?" In each case, I considered unleashing angry missives but remembered that these activists held my children's grades hostage.

So when these teachers stop being so contentious and tendentious we will begin again to eye them with respect. In the meantime, they should not be surprised to see some rotation of pupils.

First of all let me say that I know for a fact that there are many good and decent people in the teaching profession. I know several of them personally who are conservative Christians who labor every day as a kind of "fifth column" in the public school establishment not to proselytize or indoctrinate but to counteract the left-wing indoctrination which the education establishment wishes to force upon the nation's children.

Sometimes they have to risk their jobs to do this.

I also know that there are many teachers who hold a liberal and secular worldview themselves but still realize that their place is not to force those views upon the children in there care and therefore take special care to treat dissenting opinions with respect and tolerance.

AND I know that there are many teachers in the public schools who are very intelligent people. I sat under some of their instruction in my school days and I know some of them today.

Having said all that we must also note these facts.

In any college having a teachers school a look at the distribution of student IQ's will reveal that the bottom third will be clustered in the education major.

The only major in American colleges and universities that attracts students with a lower average IQ than teaching is journalism.

Most public school teachers in the US belong to the National Education Association. This organization sometimes claims that it is a professional association dedicated to the education of America's youth and the promotion of excellence among America's teachers. Other times it claims to be a labor union representing teachers.

In reality the NEA is a pillar of the left wing of the Democrat party. The NEA provides a large amount of funding to the DNC and members of the NEA comprise a large percentage of the delegates to the DNC's nominating convention. The NEA tirelessly advocates for every possible left wing cause - however much or little they might have to do with education.

The fact is that the NEA has only three items on its agenda. One is left wing activism two is securing greater pay and job security for teachers (even bad ones) and three is shielding incompetent teachers from any kind of accountability.

Notice that nowhere on the list is educating children. That can't make the cut because it directly contradicts all of the NEA's genuine priorities.

Sarah Palin knows all of this. The fact that her father is a teacher and her mother worked in school administration mean that she has had a lifelong pipeline to the truth about exactly what is going on in the public schools of this nation.

So of course Ms. Palin rolled her eyes when she heard that the moonbat in front of her was a teacher (lately some doubt has been cast on that - BTY). For a conservative Republican to be confronted by a public school teacher is usually the equivalent of FDR being confronted by a member of the German American Bund.

Right now public school teachers enjoy a reputation which most of them do not deserve. Those teachers who follow the "party line" which they learned in teachers college which is supported by the US Dept. of Education and the NEA represent a greater threat to our children than pedophiles do because the law does not require that our children be placed in the care of known pedophiles for six or seven hours a day.

Conservatives must educate the public on these facts so that it will not be political suicide for a political candidate to utter these truths out loud.

Coming soon

A sci-fi dark comedy. Filming is set to begin in October with release in 2011.

10 reasons why Obama's numbers are tanking

What a shame it is that Americans have to go to the press of a foreign nation to get the truth about their domestic political situation.

Sort of like the Russian people had to do back during the days of the Soviet Union.

At least the Obama regime hasn't actually outlawed reading foreign newspapers and isn't jamming foreign broadcasts.

From the online edition of the Telegraph:

1. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people

In a previous post I noted how the Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime, extravagant, decaying and out of touch with ordinary Americans. The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Spain at a time of widespread economic hardship was symbolic of a White House that barely gives a second thought to public opinion on many issues, and frequently projects a distinctly elitist image. The “let them eat cake” approach didn’t play well over two centuries ago, and it won’t succeed today.

2. Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership

This deficit of trust in Obama’s leadership is central to his decline. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, “nearly six in ten voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country”, and two thirds “say they are disillusioned with or angry about the way the federal government is working.” The poll showed that a staggering 58 per cent of Americans say they do not have confidence in the president’s decision-making, with just 42 per cent saying they do.

3. Obama fails to inspire

In contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his 2004 Convention speech in Boston which succeeded in impressing millions of television viewers at the time, America is no longer inspired by Barack Obama’s flat, monotonous and often dull presidential speeches and statements delivered via teleprompter. From his extraordinarily uninspiring Afghanistan speech at West Point to his flat State of the Union address, President Obama has failed to touch the heart of America. Even Jimmy Carter was more moving.

4. The United States is drowning in debt

The Congressional Budget Office Long-Term Budget Outlook offers a frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt. Under its alternative fiscal scenario, the CBO projects that US debt could rise to 87 percent of GDP by 2020, 109 percent by 2025, and 185 percent in 2035. While much of Europe, led by Britain and Germany, are aggressively cutting their deficits, the Obama administration is actively growing America’s debt, and has no plan in place to avert a looming Greek-style financial crisis.

5. Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat

The relentless emphasis on bailouts and stimulus spending has done little to spur economic growth or create jobs, but has greatly advanced the power of the federal government in America. This is not an approach that is proving popular with the American public, and even most European governments have long ditched this tax and spend approach to saving their own economies.

6. Obama’s support for socialised health care is a huge political mistake

In an extraordinary act of political Harakiri, President Obama leant his full support to the hugely controversial, unpopular and divisive health care reform bill, with a monstrous price tag of $940 billion, whose repeal is now supported by 55 per cent of likely US voters. As I wrote at the time of its passing, the legislation is “a great leap forward by the United States towards a European-style vision of universal health care, which will only lead to soaring costs, higher taxes, and a surge in red tape for small businesses. This reckless legislation dramatically expands the power of the state over the lives of individuals, and could not be further from the vision of America’s founding fathers.”

7. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill has been weak-kneed and indecisive

While much of the spilled oil in the Gulf has now been thankfully cleared up, the political damage for the White House will be long-lasting. Instead of showing real leadership on the matter by acing decisively and drawing upon offers of international support, the Obama administration settled on a more convenient strategy of relentlessly bashing an Anglo-American company while largely sitting on its hands. Significantly, a poll of Louisiana voters gave George W. Bush higher marks for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with 62 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance on the Gulf oil spill.

8. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration

It is hard to think of a single foreign policy success for the Obama administration, but there have been plenty of missteps which have weakened American global power as well as the standing of the United States. The surrender to Moscow on Third Site missile defence, the failure to aggressively stand up to Iran’s nuclear programme, the decision to side with ousted Marxists in Honduras, the slap in the face for Great Britain over the Falklands, have all contributed to the image of a US administration completely out of its depth in international affairs. The Obama administration’s high risk strategy of appeasing America’s enemies while kicking traditional US allies has only succeeded in weakening the United States while strengthening her adversaries.

9. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security

From the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the War on Terror, President Obama’s leadership has often been muddled and confused. On Afghanistan he rightly sent tens of thousands of additional troops to the battlefield. At the same time however he bizarrely announced a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces beginning in July 2011, handing the initiative to the Taliban. On Iraq he has announced an end to combat operations and the withdrawal of all but 50,000 troops despite a recent upsurge in terrorist violence and political instability, and without the Iraqi military and police ready to take over. In addition he has ditched the concept of a War on Terror, replacing it with an Overseas Contingency Operation, hardly the right message to send in the midst of a long-war against Al-Qaeda.

10. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness

Barack Obama has made it clear that he doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, and has made apologising for his country into an art form. In a speech to the United Nations last September he stated that “no one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.” It is difficult to see how a US president who holds these views and does not even accept America’s greatness in history can actually lead the world’s only superpower with force and conviction.

There is a distinctly Titanic-like feel to the Obama presidency and it’s not hard to see why. The most left-wing president in modern American history has tried to force a highly interventionist, government-driven agenda that runs counter to the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and limited government that have made the United States the greatest power in the world, and the freest nation on earth.

This, combined with weak leadership both at home and abroad against the backdrop of tremendous economic uncertainty in an increasingly dangerous world, has contributed to a spectacular political collapse for a president once thought to be invincible. America at its core remains a deeply conservative nation, which cherishes its traditions and founding principles. President Obama is increasingly out of step with the American people, by advancing policies that undermine the United States as a global power, while undercutting America’s deep-seated love for freedom.

I really don't even need to comment here as these reasons speak for themselves.

Conservative cannidate wins Connecticut primary

- elites fall to the ground in paroxysms of foaming madness

From American Thinker:

The professional politicians mocked her. The mainstream media spent each week finding new ways to paint her as the greatest threat ever to Obama's government. Never mind that she had built an entertainment empire worth more than $1.1 billion, and created more private sector jobs in the state of Connecticut than the combined efforts of its Republican and Democratic elites over the past two decades. No, leave it to the wisdom and might of professional politicians and mainstream media: no amateurs need apply.

Linda McMahon refused to give in, forging ahead in her quest for the seat now held by Democratic Senator Chris Dodd. Nasty? Sure, but nothing she had not seen during 30 years creating and heading one of the nation's most successful entertainment companies, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). But she kept going, and this week received 49% of the votes in a three-way primary, with 28% going to the unanimous choice of the political and media elites, a former RINO congressman and Yale professor. Today the ruling class is in mourning.

They tried, and tried hard. The Hearst newspapers, which before the Internet age had dominated the southern portion of the state bordering metropolitan New York City, repeatedly attacked her, citing lack of government experience. Anyone can make money, they said; except, of course, the Hearst newspaper operations, which would no longer exist were it not for the magazine and broadcast divisions.

The New York Times, in particular, used the combined influence of its Manhattan flagship and its fast-disappearing Boson Globe on the northeast border of the state to oppose her. Wrestling, they said, is a nasty business that caters to lowlifes -- you know, the kind of people who live in Queens and are not allowed in the newspaper's taxpayer-subsidized Manhattan headquarters, thanks to lease covenants insisted upon by Times management. She just won't fit in Obama's Washington, they repeatedly told Connecticut primary voters. This week, the Times received a reply: "And your point is...?"

Next up: Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a friend of disgraced New York governor Eliot Spitzer who has made a career of suing corporations operating in the state. "I would hope they do a better job of digging into his background, his career of chasing jobs away from the state," she told American Thinker, her voice rising for emphasis. "He knows how to squeeze and stifle business -- is that what we want?"

She just laughs at the wrestling references. She's a "grilled chicken" and "hamburger" kind of lady, she tells us, who has "a better understanding" of where the money for the expense accounts of career politicians like Blumenthal comes from. Blumenthal is nothing if not a career politician with the kind of Ivy League and "anti-business" credentials that would guarantee him a warm welcome in Obama's Washington.

McMahon laughs again. This has been a good week for her. "It's a clear choice between someone who creates jobs, and someone who kills jobs." Someone must be listening. A new Quinnipiac poll shows Blumenthal leading McMahon 50%-40%, a ten point difference. Two weeks ago, the difference was 17 points, and at the beginning of June 23 points.

This is good news indeed.

One of the few times I have been truly disappointed with Ann Coulter was when she jumped on the ruling party bandwagon against Ms. McMahon. But no one is perfect and Ms. Coulter's great flaw is that she is an elitist (remember her great objection to George W Bush's Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers was that she didn't attend an Ivy League law school, but rather graduated from a "cow college").

We are told that Connecticut is the richest and most highly educated state in the Union and for that reason they will never elect a "professional wrestler" to the Senate.

I could point out that people who would ever will elect Chris Dodd to anything have to be immune to shame, but I won't. I have to remind myself that while Chris Dodd has always looked like a pathetic half-wit and clown to real Americans (you know, people who live in "flyover country", go to church, own guns and didn't attend Harvard) to the elites he has always looked like one of them.

That is until he and his good buddy Barny Frank orchestrated the financial meltdown which has all those rich and well educated Connecticut elites looking at their shrinking net worth and casting about for someone - anyone - who can fix the fraking economy.

And into that environment steps a woman who has already built a billion-dollar business from the ground up and who therefore can be expected to understand a thing or two about economics.

In this election year I (and Connecticut Republicans) believe that even East Coast snobs will hold their noses and vote for someone who is actually competent to do the job (rather than the ruling class drone they would normally prefer to vote for).

If I and the Connecticut GOP is wrong the Senate will get another member who votes with the Democrats all of the time instead of only when it really counts (like John McCain and Lindsey Graham).

But if I and the Connecticut GOP are correct think about what a message that will send to the elite inside-the-beltway ruling class member wannabe RINO establishment (talk about gnashing teeth and staining underwear).

I think it's a gamble worth taking.