Rep. Adam Schiff and the entire apparatus of official Washington has been exposed by these transcripts, as well as by the documents just released in the Michael Flynn case.
Holy cow, Tucker just exposed the most blatant lying critter ever to be in Congress. If the Deep State (George Soros?) were backing Rep. Adam Schiff as their spokesman, they really blew it. I'm not sure I have the words for this story. Well, except for, it's great?
Here is Tucker Carlson, in a monologue segment that you must watch. He's not holding anything back. You can thank me someday for bringing it to you.
Okay, now that I finally learned how to get to Dan Bongino Show's Show Notes, I can do a much better job giving you a summary of the specifics that Dan discusses in the episode! Honestly, it was tonight, after all this time (5 weeks), when I found the vital area that helps to go along with the information as he gives it to you. And I am going to share the important links with you here, so that you can also get to the story links and know where to get other stories:
The Dan Bongino Show website. Once you are there, click on Podcasts. That will get you to the page where you can scroll down through his episodes. Click on the one you want to see the show notes for, with the links to the stories, and there you go! Once you get to the episode, you can also choose to watch the YouTube video or listen to the podcast. The stories he mentions in the podcast or video will appear there with the links. I apologize for not explaining this to you sooner, but I hope it helps you like it will help me.
Now that we have that covered, let's talk about the show. Yes, the title is, "The New Rules Are in Effect." What are those new rules, you ask? As simply as Dan puts it, "We win, you lose!" Or, maybe some of you may think about that old Alice Cooper song title, "No More Mr. Nice Guy." Want things to change? Would you like to see President Trump start draining the swamp? You CAN'T be a nice guy, like all the prior Republican residents of the White House for a generation or two, if you are serious about fighting back. What you do is clear out all of the holdovers from the Obama administration in the National Security Council. That's a good start. And, it is also a good thing to be talking about the lies from the Democrats and the media, and getting the true story out.
The next thing that Dan talks about is extremely important, too. Dan goes into showing more plausibility that the FBI is still trying to do a CYA regarding the "SpyGate" scandal. And of course, in this segment, Dan explains why he believes that FBI Director Christopher A. Wray needs to be replaced.
Stay tuned to the whole video, folks! It gets hilarious as we're told about the total Never-Trumper (RINO) faceplant in New Hampshire last year. Yes, I put the "RINO" in the parenthesis. Those "Republicans" that are anti-Trump are not really Republicans. Republicans in name only. They're globalists, so they are against America, and not for the values that the large majority of us that love and support President Trump will stand or die for, i.e. Freedom.
As an additional feature here on Blogging In Our Time 2 Escape, this blog will be including videos that have been posted on the johnny2k's America Facebook page! Videos can sometimes say more than what can be expressed in text. Be sure to visit the archive with hundreds of videos to peruse.
As an additional feature here on Blogging In Our Time 2 Escape, this blog will be including videos that have been posted on the johnny2k's America Facebook page! Videos can sometimes say more than what can be expressed in text. Be sure to visit the archive with hundreds of videos to peruse.
So far, Robert Lewis Dear, 57, of Hartsel, Colorado, is disappointing those who tried to stereotype pro-life Christians as terrorists.
No evidence of Dear’s involvement or even opinion on the issue of abortion or religion has surfaced. Pro-life groups denounced the shooting and indicated they had neither interacted with or heard of him.
And before they even knew anything about the alleged perpetrator of a shooting in Boulder, Colorado, the Anti-Christian Troll Kiddies were firing off tweets and social media posts saying that it was another example of a white right-wing Republican Christian going off the deep-end and attacking an abortion clinic. Call it domestic terrorism if you wish, but there has yet to be an iota of evidence that links the shootings to any kind of religious group, let alone any Christian organization.
However, we must be clear about the fact that there can be crazy people of any race, nationality, gender identification, religious belief or political ideology. The domestic terrorists label should not be pinned on any specific group because of the actions of an individual that may fall into the wide scope of profiles, usually somewhere out in the fringes of society. Just sayin'...
Robert Lewis Dear Throughout Friday's six-hour armed standoff at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility that left three dead and nine wounded, social media feasted on the fact the gunman was described as a white man, as WND reported. It didn't take long for that meager piece of information to morph into "Christian," "pro-lifer," and "Republican,"…
The "Great One" has some words for both Obama and Republicans. Hear what Mark Levin has to say about there not being any deterrence to Obama's abuse of the Constitution of the United States.
Liberalism is magical thinking promulgated by cynical exploiters upon the eternally gullible and the chronically lazy. It’s a political Ponzi scheme, and today’s participants are the unlucky marks coming in at the end of the grift.
Liberalism will collapse of its own dead weight. And when it does, you true believers better be ready for the hard truth that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
I need to continue on from what Kurt Schlichter said was Hard Truth Number 7:
And that leads to Hard Truth Number 7: This can’t go on.
Lady [Margaret] Thatcher famously formulated that, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” And you will.
What I need to tell you is there are even more Hard Truths that you should know about:
Hard Truth Number 8: When the Ponzi system goes broke, the most likely result will be tyranny, and probably genocide. You probably will not be able to vote Conservatives into power; forget about trying to remove the likes of Harry Reid from control of the Senate; and we won't be taking back the White House anytime soon, either. In places like North Korea, the Dear Leader gets 100% of the vote.
Hard Truth Number 9: There are Liberals that knew very well about the first eight Hard Truths, and that was their plan all along! Well, their plan for at least 100 years, anyway, was to upend our culture, eliminate religion, divide the population by race and class warfare, and dumb down the kids with the indoctrination centers they call public schools...
But, perhaps, there is one more Hard Truth to discuss. What I consider to be Hard Truth Number 10: There are hardcore, gun-toting, Bible clinging "redneck" patriots out here that are going to make your plan much more difficult to achieve. This is Amazing America!!! This isn't the end of what some of us have to say. It is not over yet! I'm just sayin'...
H/T to Louis Van Marm, one of my Brother Tea Partiers, for the email that lead me to Kurt Schlichter's awesome column, and for a follow-up email that gave me encouragement to stay inspired to keep blogging and hoping that we can still turn this country around!
It’s difficult to understand liberals when you don’t live in their sheltered cocoon of participation trophies, faux caring and feel-good lies.
Those of us who labor in the real world – who built this country, who make it work and who defend it – deal with reality. Most liberals don’t. And that can be baffling, because when they speak they sound like visitors from the planet Nimrod.
Now, some liberals do understand the real world. They are the cynical liberal icons, the ones who know their entire ideology is a scam designed to wring power and wealth from the gullible.
They are the rich ones who cry about poverty and racism then gleefully consign poor and minority kids to public school failure factories by doing the bidding of their unionized teacher partners and torpedoing educational choice. Their own kids wouldn’t get within a mile of an inner city public school, except maybe to swing by in the Mercedes C-Class they got for their 16th birthday to buy some weed from the gangbangers infesting it.
Thanks to Patrice Lewis for the motivating words she wrote in her column on Friday, I was in the mood, or as I'm now saying, in the WIFLI mode, today. Yesterday... umm... not so much.
While in the WIFLI mode today, I found the columns of both Patrice Lewis and Henry Lamb. I felt the need to explain the relationship between the two. It took me awhile before I discovered the treasure right in front of me.
And the BIG story is right in front of us ALL!
I probably hit the nail right on the head in my previous rant two days ago when I talked about how the media discusses the art of destroying a wonderful individual because of his core beliefs. The poster boy of being able to deflect or absorb personal attacks, of course, would be Tim Tebow. And, in the mean time, we have this conflict going on in the Republican Party for a 2012 nominee, where it seems the only answer to political aggression is an aggressive counter-attack.
Don't you wish GOP candidates - or, at least... one of them - had the commitment and tenacity of a guy like Tim Tebow? (Or Herman Cain awhile back?)
I am very afraid of what this coming election in November 2012 will bring us. Can any of the remaining GOP candidates survive an onslaught of attacks from each other, along with from the media?
Yes, today was one of those WIFLI days. But I understand how Patrice Lewis feels when nothing is providing a spark to write SOMETHING. But while credit can be given to Tim Tebow and Patrice Lewis for getting me to write today, they were just the tools God used to get us motivated at this time. I'm just sayin'...
After seemingly captivating the nation with his magical performance in last week’s wild-card win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, Broncos QB Tim Tebow wasn’t a factor on this night... READ MORE
Was this any more of a stupid story than this related article?
Several of the Republican candidates have said that the 2012 elections are the most important elections in our lifetime. They are. The current powers in Washington, most of the media, as well as academia, want the nation to abandon, or at least, to reinterpret the U.S. Constitution to justify the Marxist idea that government should manage society. These folks are winning the battle.
They're winning because they've been working at it for a century. "They" are the progressives, like Barack Hussein Obama, who actually believe that government is a better manager of society and the economy than are free people in a free market. Obama apparently believes that his position endows him with the wisdom to make right decisions, regardless of the fact that he has had no real-life experience at anything other than organizing street protests. READ MORE
And here is another profound excerpt from Henry's great commentary that I am emphasizing:
His adoring press amplified Obama's criticism of the Republican-controlled House for not approving his jobs bill, which included a healthy tax increase. "We can't wait," was his cry to the public. He failed to mention that the Republican House had passed more than 20 jobs bills that the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to even consider. He failed to mention that more than 20,000 jobs were left awaiting only his approval on the Keystone Pipeline project — studied for more than three years by the EPA.
Sometimes it’s hard to write a column every single week. Sometimes an idea “sings” to me and I can pound out a column in an hour. Other times it’s like pulling teeth.
This week it was pulling teeth. I had a couple of concepts, but nothing that “sang” to me enough to put it on paper and make logical sense of it.
Then late Thursday night I read an article about Tim Tebow, the Denver Bronco’s quarterback, and I knew I had my subject.READ MORE
(Hey, Patrice, I know the feeling about writing on a regular basis, especially on a set schedule! The ideas don't always come to me, either. That was why I had to change the name of my posts from "Time 2 Escape Daily" to "Time 2 Escape WIFLI". I found it more honest to call my posts "When IFeel Like It!" ... Oh, and by the way, I wonder if the article about Tim Tebow that Patrice saw was this one? I included that one in my WIFLI on Friday. Or, perhaps it is the blog that I am including below?)
In the Babylon of Daniel the prophet, worshiping the wrong God openly got you a one-way ticket to the Lion's Den. The same offense today gets you thrown into America's leftist media Termite Mound. Bill Maher, Bill Press and their ilk are to our social fabric what the termite is to architecture. The two Bills spearheaded the recent vicious attacks on Tim Tebow. His crime, he openly loves Jesus. READ MORE
~ ~ ~
UPDATE: Wait, there is one last thing I need to add to this WIFLI!
Open your eyes, open your heart, and see the miracle that is today. Feel how good and powerful it feels to be alive.
You don’t have to wait for some distant, imagined time before you can relish the sweet, profound experience of being fully alive. Because right now, today, in this place, in this situation, the miracle of your life is here for you to live. READ MORE
There is trouble in Paradise. Obama and his haughty, arrogant minions are not as confident as they portray themselves to be. The exit of key advisers and Cabinet members indicates this, as does the dissolution of support within his base. Aside from the seemingly imprudent measures many agree Obama has taken, others appear blatantly self-destructive in the political sense. There have been murmurings of secret informants leaking information to press sources, of fear, shock and disgust among people who either work or have worked in this administration.
To add to this, the president doesn't look good. While many chief executives experience marked aging in the job, Obama looks increasingly drawn and stressed. One can only speculate as to whether he has sought chemical assistance in managing himself during his presidency, but I have heard it suggested. And while I'm no physician, I've enough experience with chemical dependency to say that I would not be surprised, given his demeanor and comportment in recent months. As I write this, Obama is creating a train wreck of decorum during his trip to the United Kingdom, babbling insensibly to Irish citizens who entertained him, botching a toast to the queen and forgetting what year it was.
Asking an individual what year it is, as you may be aware, is one of the often-employed indicators of mental capacity when a head injury or psychological impairment is suspected.
I realized something today. The column written by Erik Rush touched on about every emotion I hold at this time. I can not add to it. In fact, I've been finding that thought hitting me in the face quite often, lately:
The goal is to defeat President Obama.
So, after long, prayerful consideration, I believe that I've made the correct decision: I have decided not to run for President in 2012. We (Republicans) have many potential candidates to choose from. Enough, already! If we're divided by choosing between a Conservative and a Moderate, it will be another 2008. In fact, is there really any way for us to unite in the GOP? Do we really need more candidates in the mix? Isn't it about time to quit throwing hats into the ring?
Enough, already!
Just remember this, and I'll say it once again: The goal is to defeat President Obama.
United we win and survive, for our children and grandchildren. Divided we fall. I'm just sayin'...
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Within the Christian concept of spiritual warfare, the notion is that the outward manifestations of evil and strife in our lives and in the world are but a representation of the exertions of evil forces in unseen planes of existence. Given such a scenario, it is easy to see how unbelievers (non-Christians) would remain wholly oblivious to the significance of developments on either side.
Likewise, there are a host of occurrences taking place in America and on the world stage of which most people are ignorant. I speak not of shady, sinister New World Order conspiracies, but of events and machinations that lie in plain sight (at least to some), but which have gleaned little attention, either by design or because we have been conditioned to complacency and intellectual indolence.
Conservative news junkies are well apprised of President Obama's craven betrayal of the nation of Israel (vis-à-vis his declaration that borders for Israel and a new Palestinian state should be based on those in existence in 1967), as well as his having subsequently backpedaled those statements in the face of a popular backlash. Now, they are witnessing the likely disintegration of American Jewish support for Obama; since most American Jews are not blind leftist ideologues, they are beginning to seriously question the president's Israel policy and perhaps his very worldview where the Jewish people are concerned.
My assessment is that this is a no-brainer; the worldview with which Obama was raised, coupled with such things as his affiliations with anti-Semitic factions and individuals (The Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to name but two) and his tenure at Trinity United Church in Chicago speak for themselves. They reek of anti-Semitism. Why would one be surprised that he's leaving Israel to the wolves?
Not just leaving that nation to the wolves; actually, Obama has executed the equivalent of starving the wolves and pouring meat sauce on our ally. As reported by WND in February, Obama emissaries fomented riots and the subsequent chaos in Egypt, in order to oust that nation's government and position the Muslim Brotherhood for the installation of an Islamist regime. The president has also taken an inordinately aggressive and presumptuously dynamic role in addressing unrest in the Middle East.
Yet Obama continues to prattle on about the "struggle for democracy" in which the oppressed in Muslim nations seek to overthrow their autocratic overlords. In truth, Obama is helping to set the stage for Islamist regimes to replace those of the autocrats, thus essentially sealing Israel's fate, as advocated by his own National Security Council special adviser Samantha Power.
Apparently, the left is attempting to redefine the concept of democracy itself, as it increasingly ascribes the term to that which more strongly resembles collectivist totalitarianism.
Limbaugh then launched into an in-depth lecture of his own role in the ongoing dispute:
[Joined in progress] . . .
RUSH LIMBAUGH
You've got me pegged wrong here. But I deal with what is. I don't deal with what-ifs. "If" is for children. And we've got certain things that are the reality of the day that have to be dealt with, pure and simple, and that's where I am on this. No more and no less. There's no magic wand that can get Obama unelected. You can hope and you can dream but you are locked in a fantasy if that's what you're waiting for. That isn't gonna happen. The focus needs to be on making sure he's not re-elected. But there is no way to unelect the guy. It isn't going to happen. Having said that, oh, yeah, I'm like all of you, I would love for this guy to be a total fraud when it comes to the birth certificates. He's a fraud on practically everything else. If he's born somewhere else, I would love for conclusive proof of that. That would be fun. Just to watch the Democrats and the media. That would be worth the price of admission and whatever they charge for it. But until such things happen, if, when, whatever, there's a reality that has to be dealt with day in and day out. ...
Just in case you didn't notice, I've recently posted quite a few stories to this blog that deal with the eligibility issue regarding President Obama. We can thank Donald Trump for ramping up the attention the story is receiving now. And now we can thank "Angela from Arnold, Mo." that called in to the Rush Limbaugh radio program, which lead to Rush saying what he really thinks about the issue.
Angela, the caller, really had it right when she mentioned, "...and if it does turn out that he is not a true citizen, then I think all of you should hang your heads in shame ... " The true shame is that some would not bother to investigate the story, because "there is no way to unelect the guy," Rush stated. "It isn't going to happen."
It ain't pretty. Actually, it is getting downright ugly, because "tea-partiers" are being blamed by both sides for the "birther" issue. The truth is, the eligibility issue began to be reported on (mostly by WND) in the summer of 2008, long before the tea parties got started. The "birthers" just want the answers, like Angela says. When a few of the media detractors come from the Right, like Rush, Bill O'Reilly, or Glenn Beck, it hurts. And the shame may be that they haven't even tried to investigate so that we can eventually learn the truth.
I hope that Rush is wrong, for once, when he says, "It isn't going to happen.". I would seriously hope that if we ever find out that a person in ANY elected office had committed some kind of fraud to be elected, that person would face the consequences. That should apply to anyone that occupies the Oval Room (between golf games). I'm just sayin'....
Radio giant Rush Limbaugh came under fire today from a caller to his top-rated program accusing the host of avoiding the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to be president.
"The fact of the matter is that his citizenship has been a suspicious issue from the very beginning," said Angela from Arnold, Mo., "and not one high Republican or you has ever really tried to nail him on this issue, and if it does turn out that he is not a true citizen, then I think all of you should hang your heads in shame because of all the destruction our country has had to suffer ever since he was elected, in spite of being the fraud that we know he probably really is."
Limbaugh asked incredulously, "So you're mad at me?"
"I am furious," Angela responded. "I wanted you and anybody else to go after him on this issue before he was elected. It would have been the easiest way to have stopped him. It would have been a no-brainer. But nobody would. And so he was elected and everything was just hidden under the rug. And now look what we have had ever since. ... If it does turn out that he's not a citizen, I think you should hang your head in shame, because our country has suffered so much."
Limbaugh said irrespective of Obama not having produced his long-form, hospital-specified birth certificate, "I gotta remind you there is no evidence whatsoever Obama was not born in Hawaii. There's something he doesn't want us to see about the birth certificate, but there's nothing to glom onto here other than his reticence in having the birth certificate seen. I am the only one who proclaimed the guy a fraud. I'm the one who did not go along with Obama. I'm the one who said I hope he failed. I'm the guy who took all the arrows for a whole Republican Party and everybody else for suggesting this guy was a fraud and filled with deceit, that he's not who he said he was on the basis of policy and the things that he had planned for this country."
The caller continued to press Limbaugh, saying, "The fact that there was no evidence was the very reason why you should have gone forward. I have evidence that I'm a citizen. Why didn't he have to produce the evidence? Nobody made him do it. Not even you, and you and everyone else should have made him provide the evidence."
Angela explained her anger stemmed from the fact that real-estate tycoon and potential Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was now doing the job she thought Limbaugh and other GOP types should be doing investigating Obama's background.
The dirty, little secret Boehner and the entire Washington establishment don't want Americans to know is that he can – with one vote – enact the most sweeping cuts in federal spending in a century, by simply blocking an increase in the debt limit in the next 30 days.
If Boehner came out tomorrow in support of this position, the entire bloc of 241 House Republicans would stand behind him. They want him to do it. Most of them support this position right now. They want to say no. And this is the one thing Republicans can do this year that will have a dramatic, historic impact on policy – helping to return us right now to limited constitutional government once again.
It's simply the most important vote that will be cast in Congress in the next two years and, perhaps, the most important in the last century.
Joseph Farah explains how Congress and the President can be stopped from more unconstitutional spending. All they have to do is vote no to raising the national debt limit. That seems to make sense. What doesn't make sense is that the mainstream media has blacked out any news about the fact that more and more Republicans in the House of Representative are planning to vote no, and Speaker Boehner still doesn't support that position. This is the biggest opportunity in years for Republicans to "just say no" to more deficits and more debt!
Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) should get on board, especially when knowing that is what most Americans would want him to do. And we need to keep up the pressure on Republicans in the House. It's time to remind them that the Tea Party Movement has not faded away, as Senator Harry Reid would like you to believe.
As a newsman, sometimes I just shake my head and wonder why everyone in the media are missing the biggest story of all.
No, I'm not talking about Barack Obama's apparent ineligibility. Donald Trump has actually managed to get that story on everyone's radar after three years of work by WND.
I'm talking about a political earthquake about to strike Washington.
No one besides WND has been counting heads among House Republicans on stopping what has been assumed to be an inevitable raise in the debt limit in the next few weeks.
Yet, every day, more House Republicans are of a mind to just say no.
If just 218 of the 241 Republicans ultimately vote no on raising the debt limit past $14.3 trillion, the whole house of cards falls down for Barack Obama and the Democrats. Not only do they have to stop spending, they will be forced to start cutting – and I mean cutting a lot.
Say goodbye to Obamacare. Say goodbye to the Department of Education. Say goodbye to NPR and PBS funding. Say goodbye to Planned Parenthood subsidies. Say goodbye to hundreds of billions of unconstitutional spending. It all has to go. That's how important this one impending vote really is.
I've been doing my best to make this a national issue for the last eight weeks with the "No More Red Ink" campaign. And I want to thank all the people who have participated so far. You are on the verge of making history!
We have sent nearly 1 million red letters to the House Republicans urging them to realize the power they have in their hands and to use it.
We are on the verge of victory. Votes are changing. The trend is toward stopping all further borrowing. Yet, the blackout continues.
Since a person's business is his property, his right to do with it as he pleases (including banning unions) is already guaranteed by the Constitution. But, much like the Second Amendment, the purpose of a new amendment would be to underscore a specific liberty that every individual naturally possesses – in this case, the freedom of an owner to make whatever rules he chooses with regard to his business.
Progressives are not capable of comprehending the concept of liberty, but perhaps a rash of clearly worded amendments to the Constitution is what is needed to force them to behave themselves.
Robert starts out by showing how the progressives are "ratcheting up their smear tactics, vile verbal assaults and lies" in order to counter the Republicans in Wisconsin, and any other state where the unions are being reigned in. As reprehensible as it is, progressives will always stoop to utilizing any tactic because this could be their last chance. As Robert says, though, "none of this would matter if Republicans would straighten their backbones and do the bidding of those who gave them a majority in the House last November."
Robert then segues into the next subject, summarized at the top of this page, with the following two paragraphs:
In a 2008 radio interview, Barack Obama said: " … the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society." In that same interview, he went on to say that the Constitution "[says] what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf."
That's right, Barack, the Constitution did not venture into the issues of redistribution of wealth or political and economic justice, and did not say that the government was supposed to do anything on any individual's behalf. Which means that the argument from the left is based on a false premise – that public-sector unions have a right to collectively bargain. They do not.
The issue that Robert brings up is important: Property rights. Phil Elmore, in his column this last week, had made this very astute observation regarding property rights:
This means that you necessarily have the right to possess property if you can indeed acquire it. Claims to the contrary made by Marxists, collectivists and Michael Moore are empty. If you have no right to possess property once you have obtained it, those making this assertion must be making it naked while floating in empty rooms from which even air has been evacuated.
If both Robert and Phil are correct, which I believe they are, business owners have the right to do what they want with their property, whether it is to ban union activity or to allow people to smoke cigarettes on their business property. That being said, Robert is definitely right: "...perhaps a rash of clearly worded amendments to the Constitution is what is needed..."
On March 4, Rasmussen Reports released a poll that showed 60 percent of Wisconsin voters disapproved of Gov. Scott Walker, and 48 percent "strongly" disapproved of him. The progressive campaign to destroy the Wisconsin governor is yet another sign that the radical left is growing ever more desperate.
They are rapidly ratcheting up their smear tactics, vile verbal assaults and lies. Knowing that they may not have another opportunity like this for decades to come if they should fail to achieve their objective to paint America red, they consider every tactical trick – no matter how reprehensible – to be on the table.
I doubt most everyday citizens ever thought about the possibility of angry government employees implementing a '60s-style takeover of a state capitol building. Or 14 Democratic senators leaving the state to avoid voting on legislation that was not to their liking. Now, the massive negative-ad blitz has gone beyond ugly, and it's clear that it's being orchestrated by Obama and his union pals. (Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president, has openly bragged that he talks to the White House every day and visits "two to three times a week.")
I find it quite interesting that the far left is a minority in the United States, as it has been in all other countries where collectivist revolutions have succeeded in taking control of the government. The reason for this noxious minority's success is that its members believe so strongly in their moral superiority that they are able to rationalize the most outrageous lies, raucous protests and, if necessary, out-and-out violence. Plain and simple, they believe their noble end justifies any and all means necessary to achieve it.
As they have demonstrated throughout history, the progressives have an endless array of tools at their disposal. First and foremost, they are masters at recruiting and utilizing "useful idiots" – e.g., the Hollywood crowd, college kids and the totally uninformed (i.e., those who are obsessed with college and pro sports, buying and learning how to use the newest digital gadgets, and tales of the latest adventures of Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen and Paris Hilton). To the government's delight, their lives are so filled with bread and circus that there is no time to notice that Western civilization is burning to the ground.
But none of this would matter if Republicans would straighten their backbones and do the bidding of those who gave them a majority in the House last November. Unfortunately, at least at this point, it doesn't appear that is going to happen.
Take Wisconsin, for example. Some Republicans are now responding to union and Democratic threats and verbal abuse – not to mention increasing violence by the protesters in the state capitol building – by going on the defensive. Sadly, they are falling prey to the progressives' age-old strategy of changing the nature of the debate.
The focus in Wisconsin should be on how to get the protesters out of the capitol building and what steps need to be taken to get them fired from their jobs. The focus should be on finding the fastest method for getting recall petitions under way to remove the 14 AWOL Democratic senators from office. The focus should be on prosecuting both teachers and doctors who were involved in the writing and receiving of fraudulent medical excuses.
"There is a lot of pressure on House Republicans to simply negotiate a deal with the Democrats on budget cuts or a balanced budget in exchange for a vote to raise the debt limit," said Farah. "To me it makes no sense. Republicans, by merely voting as a bloc in the House alone, can force bigger cuts in the budget than they will ever get in any deal with Democrats. Why would they trade that nuclear option. Republicans in the House hold all the cards. This is what they were elected to do last November – for a time such as this."
"The House Republicans alone can downsize Washington," he said.
If this sounds like an excellent plan, it is because it would work! It would not allow our government to spend more than it takes in with tax revenues. It would force Congress to find a way to balance the budget, in other words.
WASHINGTON – The House Republican majority has the power to impose the most dramatic cuts in the federal budget in decades, halting all new spending by Barack Obama and the Senate majority and significantly reducing the national debt by simply voting in a few weeks to oppose raising the debt limit, says the architect of a plan to persuade GOP representatives to unify around the idea.
"Few are recognizing what an opportunity the House Republicans have to force Washington to downsize," says Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND and the author of the petition. "If Republicans in the House unite around this idea, there is nothing the White House or the Senate can do to exceed the debt limit. This is a golden opportunity for real change in policy that must not be frittered away in favor of deals with the Democrats."
Farah says some in House leadership are already suggesting they will support raising the debt limit in March in exchange for the promise of budget cuts by Democrats.
"Why Republicans would bargain for budget cuts that Democrats themselves will be forced to implement if the debt limit is not raised makes no sense," he says. "By definition, a vote to raise the debt limit permits the Democrats to spend more money than Washington collects. Republicans will, in effect, give Democrats license to keep overspending and increasing debt by approving a debt limit increase."
On the other hand, Farah says, all Republicans in the House have to do to force Democrats to cut spending radically for the first time in decades is to stick together in opposing a hike in the debt limit.
This column by John Stossel really does make a person wonder if anything will really change.
This is a revolution? Republicans will have to learn that there is no budget line labeled "waste, fraud, abuse." If they are serious about cutting government, they will ax entire programs, departments and missions.
I'm not confident they have it in them. I hope I'm wrong, but they're politicians, after all. I'm reminded of Spencer Abraham. When he was a senator, he sponsored a bill to abolish the Department of Energy. But then George W. Bush appointed him to head the department. Suddenly, he saw the importance of the Energy Department. "I changed my mind after Congress passed legislation in 2000 reorganizing the department," Abraham explained to his former Senate colleagues. Yeah, yeah.
That's why I fear that the new Congress will soon remind me of that line by the Who: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Well, of course, since John Stossel referred to this song by the Who, I felt obligated to include it here, along a small portion of the lyrics:
From the lyrics of "WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN" By The Who
There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Meet the new boss Same as the old boss
That's the problem. Is Stossel right? Is The Who right? I hope not!
Last year, I reported that the United States fell from sixth to eighth place – behind Canada – in the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal's 2010 Index of Economic Freedom. Now, we've fallen further. In the just-released 2011 Index, the United States is in ninth place. That's behind Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland and Denmark.
The biggest reason for the continued slide? Spending as a percentage of gross domestic product. (State and local spending is not counted.)
The debt picture is dismal, too. We are heading into Greece's territory.
Are we doomed? Not necessarily. Economist David R. Henderson points out that our neighbors to the north faced a similar crisis. In 1994, the debt Canada owed to investors was 67 percent of GDP. Today, it's less than 30 percent.
What did Canada do? It cut spending from 17.5 percent of GDP to 11.3 percent.
This wasn't merely a cut in the growth of spending, a favorite trick of congressional committees. These were actual reductions in absolute spending.
"If a cabinet minister wanted a smaller cut in one program, he had to come up with a bigger cut in another program," writes Henderson in "Canada's Budget Triumph," published by the Mercatus Center. All but one of Canada's 22 federal departments experienced real cuts in spending. While Canada raised taxes slightly, spending was cut six to seven times more.
These supposedly painful cuts didn't cause terrible pain. In fact, there was much more gain than pain. Unemployment dropped, the economy boomed, and the Canadian dollar – then worth about 71 cents U.S. – today is about equal to the American dollar.
If Canada can do it, we can, too. But the signs aren't good. New Speaker John Boehner, leader of the Republicans who now control the House, says he wants to cut spending. When he was sworn in last week, he declared: "Our spending has caught up with us. ... No longer can we kick the can down the road."
But when NBC anchorman Brian Williams asked him to name a program "we could do without," he said, "I don't think I have one off the top of my head."
Patrick Buchanan is not trying to be a "grumpy old man" when he writes this, but with "the confident enthusiasm of the new Republican class for the assignment history has given it, the balance of power in this city weighs heavily against its success."
This is not to counsel despair. It is to suggest that the true conservatives and tea-party true believers who gave the GOP its victory in November have won a single major engagement in a long war whose outcome remains very much in doubt.
So, is there any hope that things can change? Was the Tea Party effort pointless? Pat offers this:
As Boehner put it, we can't kick the can up the road anymore, because we've come to the end of the road. Like Greece and Portugal, Ireland and Illinois, New York and New Jersey, we have arrived at Hotel California.
"The success of a party means little except when the nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose," said Woodrow Wilson in his first inaugural. "No one can mistake the purpose for which the nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party."
As with Wilson's Democrats in 1913, so it is with the Republican Party today. It has been called to power for the "large and definite purpose" of halting the growth of government and putting the nation's fiscal house in order. Whether it can succeed is another matter.
While a visitor to Capitol Hill the day the gavel was passed from Nancy Pelosi to John Boehner could not miss the confident enthusiasm of the new Republican class for the assignment history has given it, the balance of power in this city weighs heavily against its success.
Consider. To bring the budget even close to balance in half a decade means cutting projected spending for Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. But any changes here have to be agreed to by Harry Reid's Senate, and then by Barack Obama, who has a veto that the House Republicans have not a prayer of overriding.
And as Obama showed at year's end when he agreed to a two-year extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts in return for payroll tax cuts of his own and new unemployment benefits, the White House will exact a high price for Obama's signature.
If Republicans don't man up soon, the job of fundamentally transforming the United States into a left-wing dictatorship cannot be more than a few short years away.
Robert Ringer explains why the Republicans shouldn't have given Obama the tax compromise, and had they played the game of politics like it was a chess game, they could have done much better. Robert believes that "the most important reason Republicans should not have gone along with the tax compromise is that it was a continuation of their decades-old habit of acquiescing to Democratic blackmail."
Thomas Paine said that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." With Congress' approval rating at a stunning 13 percent, it doesn't appear that many people disagree with Paine's analysis.
Now, with a new Congress ready to take charge, many are excited about the possibility that the accelerating, anti-constitutional power of government over its citizen serfs will be reversed. But what's the likelihood it will really happen?
In an outgoing flurry of activity, Democrats and progressive Republicans flipped one last gigantic bird to America's Main Streeters. Some were shocked at the audacity, but those of us who have become cynical watching decades of political sewage pouring out of Washington were not surprised by the government's contempt for voters.
Now, the big question is, will Republicans be able to start turning things around before 2012? I believe the answer to that question lies in how successful they will be at cornering Obama into no-win situations. Politics, you say? Yes! Do you believe these fire-breathing, anything-goes political animals are going to respond positively to reason? BHO's entire adult life has been one big game of political one-upsmanship.
For example, regardless of which way the economy appears to be going, BHO will be prepared to take the high road. If the tax compromise produces a temporary, illusory effect on the economy, he will claim that he turned things around by endorsing a tax cut for all Americans.
On the other hand, if the illusion of a turnaround does not come about, his position will be, "To show bipartisanship, I decided to give Republicans a chance and go along with their insane idea to give billions of dollars away to the wealthiest Americans, and, predictably, it didn't work. Now we're going to get back to doing things my way so we can grow this economy." That will give him a perfect excuse for returning to policies that are based on a system that all straight-thinking people realize has never worked: socialism.
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