Comment of the Day

On the afternoon of April 1, 1983, Barack Obama, then a senior at Columbia University, made his way into the Great Hall of Manhattan’s Cooper Union to attend a “Socialist Scholars Conference.” There Obama discovered his vocation as a community organizer, as well as a political program to guide him throughout his life.
The conference itself was not a secret, but it held a secret, for it was there that a demoralized and frustrated socialist movement largely set aside strategies of nationalization and turned increasingly to local organizing as a way around the Reagan presidency — and its own spotty reputation. In the early 1980s, America’s socialists discovered what Saul Alinsky had always known: “Community organizing” is a euphemism behind which advocates of a radical vision of America could advance their cause without the bothersome label “socialist” drawing adverse attention to their efforts.
A loose accusation of his being a socialist has trailed Obama for years, but without real evidence that he saw himself as part of this radical tradition. But the evidence exists, if not in plain sight then in the archives — for example, the archived files of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which include Obama’s name on a conference registration list. That, along with some misleading admissions in the president’s memoir, Dreams from My Father, makes it clear that Obama attended the 1983 and 1984 Socialist Scholars conferences, and quite possibly the 1985 conclave as well. A detailed account of these conferences (along with many other events from Obama’s radical past) and the evidence for Obama’s attendance at them can be found in my new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism.
The 1983 Cooper Union Conference, billed as a tribute to Marx, was precisely when Obama discovered his vocation for community organizing. Obama’s account of his turn to community organizing doesn’t add up. He portrays it as a mere impulse based on little actual knowledge. But that impulse saw Obama through two years of failed job searches. Clearly he had a deeper motivation. The evidence suggests he found it at the Socialist Scholars conferences, where he encountered the entrancing double idea that America could be transformed by a kind of undercover socialism, and that African Americans would be the key figures in advancing community organizing.
aquaviva on December 15, 2010 at 11:26 PM

from Hot Air.com

KRAUTHAMMER ON OBAMA’S DIVISIVE RHETORIC: ‘THIS IS HOW THE GREAT, POST-RACIAL PROMISE OF OBAMA ENDS’

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h/t: Breitbart TV

ObamaCare and Abortion Funding

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h/t: Divine Ripples

Dingell vs. Steele: the Illusion of Tort Reform in ObamaCare

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Mika Brzezinski Is the White House Spokesperson on MSNBC

She has admitted that the White House sends her emails during the show to let her know what to say. Oh, and if you believe that the Obama campaign will actually reveal the sources of all of their donations from '08 you probably also believe that ObamaCare will be cost effective and allow you to keep your insurance plan if you want to.

h/t: NewsBusters

Victor Davis Hanson Questions Obama's Political Past

This is from almost a year ago. The MSM continues to feign ignorance and these basic questions have not been faced by most Americans.

FaceBook Strikes Again: Palin Places Senator Obama at the Crime Scene

Two quotes from the FB post:

"Barack Obama was part of the problem while in Congress. Senator Obama pushed the fiscally irresponsible measures that Democrats, who held the majority, advanced while holding the government’s purse strings. And now, as President, he’s not just one of the pack anymore as a mere contributor to the problem – he now leads the problem. We are sick and tired of President Obama pointing his finger and screeching through his blame game about what he “inherited.” Up until 18 months ago he was fully engaged in that Congressional herd mentality of the Left as he just went with the flow, adding to the debt and deficit, instead of bucking his party’s leadership to stop the recklessness. (Did you ever hear him as an independent voice standing up and speaking out against his Democrat party’s overspending and over reach? Come to think of it, did you ever hear of his congressional record at all? For the life of me I can’t think of any time he used his bully pulpit as a sitting U.S. Senator to lead free market, equality-respecting pro-private sector efforts, nor to change up actions he now conveniently condemns. He could have refudiated them all.)"
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"We’ll all be feeling the pinch, but the ones who will be hit hardest by this massive tax hike will be America’s small business owners – the businesses that create up to 70% of all jobs in this country. According to a recent report by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, small business owners will pay over half the taxes raised when the Democrats increase the top two tax brackets. In an already anemic jobless recovery, the last thing government should do is to impose even higher tax burdens on job creators. Instead of hurting “the rich,” such measures would end up hurting the unemployed."

New Documentary Charges Obama Stole Nomination From Hillary

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Gingrich: Obama doesn’t understand America

"Why isn't the president controlling the border? Why isn't the president doing his job?"

h/t: Hot Air.com

Doublethink and Doubletalk

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h/t: theblogprof A blog about politics, faith, science and technology, physical fitness, and life via Pundit and Pundette

In Obamaworld 'Freedom of the Press' Does Not Extend to Answering Questions from the Press

By this point you would think Obama would be ashamed to show his face in a freedom loving country.
But there is an upside to him turning transparency on its head. There are inevitable side effects to frequent, regular and open press conferences that we are spared. I think that all of the MSM outlets would have to go to hour long evening news programs to even begin to explain, justify or cover over all of stupid, inaccurate and embarrassing answers Obama would give. That would just speed the rate at which Americans with common sense would abandon the alphabets. And so we are saved from ten to twenty years of elite pundits blaming everything but the real cause of the problem. I am sure my readers can think of many more examples of unpleasantness that Barry saves us from with his unhealthy attachment to secrecy and the blockade of the free flow of information. It's just too bad that Barry's bad habits are so destructive to a free and open society.

More of that Obama Magic: A Unique Blend of Arrogance and Dishonesty

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H/T: Hot Air

Is the Border Secure? Napolitano Answers, "That Is An Unfair Question'

This woman needs to replaced with someone who will not play politics with national security. Meanwhile, the president is in another part of the country blatantly lying about the Arizona immigration law in a cheap stunt to get a few votes.

Obama Targets Wall Street

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When an accomplished and effective manipulator comes at you they will tell you how intelligent and good looking you are with honeyed flattery that they hope will turn off your critical thinking. Then they will tell you all the wonderful things they are going to do for you and paint you a lovely picture of the bountiful new world you will soon live in thanks to them. Well in a radio address Obama would look dumb telling me how attractive and intelligent I am but he really lays it on with the rosy picture of all the wonderful things he’s going to do for me. Do I even deserve a president who cares so much about my every little need?
The problem is that now I have some real history with which to judge whether or not he’s telling me the truth. He talked for ever about how I needed him to pass a health care reform bill so that the growing costs of health care do not crush our economy. As near as I can tell his health care ‘fix’ is going to end up being more expensive than the cost of doing nothing. They cobbled together a gigantic mess that few if any congressmen even read before voting on. I doubt that Obama himself read all of the final bill. But it creates many new federal bureaus and employees and requires 16,500 more IRS agents to collect the new revenue from many different tax sources. And millions more will be forced to buy health insurance. And, to escape large federally imposed penalties, they will not even be allowed much freedom of choice: the federal bureaus and panels and IRS agents will tell you what coverage you must have. Do I even deserve a president who cares so much about my every little need?
So he repeatedly promised to lower health care costs but then raised them as soon as he got a chance to put his stamp on the process. Now, why should I expect that any promise he makes is anything but manipulation? It is becoming obvious that he wants to pass a big new package of laws constraining Wall Street. But his past behavior tells me that the rosy promises he is making me of a bountiful future is probably just an attempt to manipulate me into dropping my critical thinking on the issue. It has been suggested that Wall Street has just been chosen as a convenient demon. It is easy to get people riled up against them and a big, loud push can take the national attention off what an utter failure the final form of the health care bill is. I have to also wonder if it is not also a Chicago style campaign finance push: letting Wall Street know that if they do not let go of many, many large chunks of money that he will choke them to death legislatively and with regulations. What did I do to deserve a president who puts his own interests so consistently ahead of mine?

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UPDATE
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Now, after the health care bill has been passed, the NYT has begun reporting honestly about how much more expensive this law will be than what the president promised 4,863 times. Yet another case of 'Only the News That Fits.'


h/t: Breitbart TV

Asking Questions, Expressing An Opinion on How My Congressman Votes and Disagreeing With the Washington Elite Has Become Hating the Government????

Drudge linked a piece from the Washington Examiner by Chris Stirewalt titled 'Hating the Government Finally Goes Mainstream.' Here is a long quote that has some insight into the past two years:
"It turns out that watching Goldman Sachs, the United Auto Workers, public employee unions and a raft of other vampires drain the treasury at America's weakest moment in a generation will make a person pretty hacked off.
"After Barack Obama's election, Democrats assumed that the American people were battered, bruised and ready for a morphine drip of European-style socialism. Republicans, shocked by their stunning reversals, figured the Democrats were right and started looking for technocrats of their own.
"And in a political system fueled by special-interest money, it was hard for the leaders of major parties to imagine anything other than an activist government. After all, if you pay for someone to get elected, you don't expect him to just sit there.
Just 18 months ago the leaders of both parties were quite sure that Obama would be the popular, transformative president he aspires to be. The Republicans who emerged from the wreckage of November were certain to look a lot more like Charlie Crist and Mitt Romney than Marco Rubio and Ron Paul.
"But Crist's embrace of Obamanomics seems to have utterly destroyed his chances at a Senate seat that was once his for the taking. Romney, considered a near lock for the 2012 Republican nomination, has seen his candidacy badly damaged by a populist revolt against the passage of a national health care plan that looks like the one he designed for Massachusetts.
"Obama, who said that passage of his health plan proved that Washington could still do big things, finds himself deeply at odds with an electorate that is not confident of government's ability to do anything at all.
"His election has turned out to be not the result of a national lurch toward government intervention but his own skill at disguising his policies, the failures of the Republican Party and the bursting of the lending bubble."

The piece makes a lot of sense but the headline seems a little out of place. It makes a gratuitous leap that equates having a different point of view from those presently in Congress the same as hating the government. This is just sloppy thinking and a sneaky below the belt punch. Just because I don't think that government operates best by bribery, secrecy and legislative trickery does not mean I hate government. I do not like the crimes and manipulations of the gang of clowns that are presently in office. I think government should never be trusted. It is just a collection of flawed men and women who need to be watched. And if you cannot see the wisdom of that I do not think that I am the problem.

Continuing Proof That When Obama Says 'Transparency' He Is Referring to the Long List of Things He Hides From the Public Record

It's the whole Orwellian black is white thing. This is not new. I just feel it needs to be published every month or two during the reign of this regime. This is just a list of documents and facts that, before Obama, candidates accepted that the voters have a right to see.
The continued absence of these documents from the public record has to make you wonder just how bad Obama's grades were and what embarrassing medical problems he might suffer from.

1. OccidentalCollege records — Not released
2. ColumbiaCollege records — Not released
3. Columbia Thesis paper — ‘not available’
4. Harvard College records — Not released
5. Selective Service Registration — Not released
6. Medical records — Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule — ‘not available’
8. Law practice client list — Not released
9. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate — Not released
10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth — Not released
11. Harvard Law Review articles published — None
12. University of Chicago scholarly articles — None
13. Record of baptism — Not released or ‘not available’
14. Illinois State Senate records — ‘not available’

How ObamaCare Incentivizes Employers to Hire Fewer Workers; Yes, Obama Is A Big, Fat Liar

Note: when Barack Obama said he is concerned about the lot of the unemployed and wants to improve the economy he was telling a bald faced, big fat lie. Many of his supporters keep saying it is natural for politicians to lie. I always think that the people who say this are just not worried about their own jobs. I wonder if they do not worry too much that the functionally incompetent Obama would be unemployable if they did not follow him around and provide rationalizations for his lies. I don't think they need to worry about Barry. He has always been able to worm his way into plenty of soft gigs. As Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich show he's a master at networking in maybe not the most honest directions but right to where the cash is.


h/t: the B Cast

"The White House Has No Interest In Being Transparent Because They Have So Much to Hide"

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h/t: Pundit and Pundette

Long Lost Video Clip Has Barack Obama Admiting to Much Closer Tie to ACORN Than He Would Admit During Election

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h/t: Breitbart TV

My Thoughts on My Thoughts on My Thughts

When I started this blog a couple of years ago my main goals were to fill some time while I was retired. I had planned to write about some subjects I find interesting and tell some stories readers might find interesting. I had planned to write about some of the things I have seen in almost three decades of working as a nurse. I also thought I might write about some of my other adventures such as the times I was involved in protests against the Viet Nam War. I wanted to write about books and movies. And I thought I might reproduce some good old poetry that I have enjoyed. And as time progressed I found I could also add music that I enjoy.
I had always wanted to write about mythopoeic thought and bring it to a wider audience. I did write about mythopoeic thought early on. But what I wrote was not very good. Maybe someday I’ll take it up again. The poetry on the blog is never anything but older, out of copyright greats. The poems I post are ones that I have enjoyed. And I often think that others might enjoy the insights in them or the unusual imagery that sometimes catches my attention. A few weeks ago I posted a poem by the ancient Greek lawgiver Solon. I felt that my readers might enjoy observing the difference between his way of looking at the world in contrast to some of the ways our contempories see it.
The basic theme was that I would create something on the net that would mirror my interests and what I find important. I was semi-successful at that until the recent election. Then I became near totally obsessed with politics. As I saw such a yawning gap between what I discovered about Barack Obama’s history and what was being presented by the MSM I think I might have had some delusion that I was not then aware of that some little blog off in a far corner of the net could help set things aright. I do know that I felt some sense of mission. And my blog became almost all political (with rare intrusions of poetry and music).
I have started a separate blog to write about books and provide background material for understanding the classics (it’s The Chinese Jar, named from an image in a favorite poem). And I have gotten pretty comfortable with this blog now being mostly about politics. There continues to be poetry and music from time to time. Sometimes I wonder if my readers are even interested in the music and poetry. I know that I was gratified to know that my father greatly enjoyed my posts of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Tuba Skinny. But music and poetry will stay since there are not marketing decisions that must be made here. I have never make a cent off this blog and do not expect to ever make any money from it. So I might as well make myself happy.
I do not always enjoy writing. But sometimes some idea or theme will grab hold of my imagination and I will not let go of it until I feel comfortable posting it or I have made such a mash of it that I put it aside. I do not find writing easy. It requires lots of attention and focus. And since I have diabetes and mild kidney disease I have limited energy. I can seldom write more than an hour a day. So anything requiring much time and effort goes slowly for me. Fortunately or unfortunately as it may be, I usually have some idea that has gained some hold on me that sits in a file waiting to be continued or finished.
Just as I do not methodically and rationally come to ideas to write about I have a similar approach to choosing video clips to be posted. I look at many every day just as part of my effort ot stay informed. And the ones that end up on my blog are the few that some loud, intuitive voice within says, “Yes, we need this one. This one helps paint the picture of the world we want to convey.” I seldom consciously override that voice. The main reason I would override it is usually a conviction that the clip in question is too widely disseminated already and I do not want to subject my readers to another appearance of it.
That is a quick overview of how I have experienced my change in mission over the couple of years that I’ve produced this blog. I intend to keep it mostly politics. There will be a little poetry (I hate to think of life without poetry). And there will be music of all kinds. My favorite finds recently are Hayley Westenra, the Chocolate Drops and Tuba Skinny. I’m sure they will continue to appear along with some of the pop hits of my youth, good swing and jazz and some opera. And sometimes I get on a Vivaldi, Corelli, Bach, Scarlatti, etc. kick that is sure to manifest itself on the blog.
I am open to suggestions and like input. But except for a few fairly regular individuals, I get little. Go ahead and tell me what you think.