The Washington Examiner’s editorial today, “The Elites vs. the Rest of Us,” takes John Edwards’ old standby about the “Two Americas” and applies it to the real divide in this nation:  the liberal ruling elite and those of us who are expected to obey.  The editors use the behavior of three progressive figures–Congressman Henry Waxman, EPA head Lisa Jackson, and British global warming scientist James Lovelock– to illustrate.

Waxman threw a fit when a half dozen major corporations announced the first of a coming flood of downward revisions to projected profits because of Obamacare, the exceedingly unpopular health care measure that the California congressman co-sponsored in the House of Representatives. So he angrily scheduled a public grilling of the guilty executives and demanded that they provide in advance copies of all internal documents, including e-mails, that explain and justify their decisions. It was exactly the kind of unrestricted “fishing expedition’ demand for documents — many containing privileged commercial information — that Waxman routinely condemned as an abuse of power when Republicans controlled Congress. Lesson: Elitists hate limits on their power.

Jackson is the agency head who told Congress last year that if it didn’t pass a cap-and-trade bill to regulate greenhouse gases, her agency would regulate them unilaterally. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Monday that when she submitted a list of detailed questions to Jackson last month about how that would be done, the EPA head “refused to answer even the most basic questions about how many stationary sources will be regulated, when those sources will be regulated, what technologies will be mandated for compliance, and how much the regulations will cost.” Lesson: Elitists disdain explaining their actions.

Then there is Lovelock, who told the Guardian newspaper in Britain that growing public skepticism here about anti-global warming measures like cap and trade makes him doubt that we humans are “clever enough to handle a situation as complex as climate change.” Lovelock’s solution? “Put democracy on hold for a while.” Lesson: Elitists believe important decisions should be left to bright people like Waxman, Jackson, and Lovelock.

Mr. Obama has his opinion; now let him render it.

You know, this is an amazing week. Massachusetts goes Republican, health care dies and the Supreme Court unshackles the First Amendment. It’s the best week I’ve had since spring break in medical school — and I don’t even remember it. And there was another item . . .  Air America, the liberal talk show network went out of business — which is a redundancy because nobody was listening anyway. ~ Charles Krauthammer on Fox

Do not be idle – join the fight for your children and grandchildren.

Apparently, this one doesn’t. Democrat Mass. Senatorial candidate Martha Coakley’s aide pushes Weekly Standard reporter down, then continues to assault him as he seeks to question Coakley. Story here.  Let’s see, assault and battery, civil rights violations . . . yes, yes, all kinds of fun things to consider here. Has Coakley fired this thug? No, she’s blaming the incident on “Republican stalkers.” Good grief.

The reporter thinks this might be the perp.  Hey, Chicago style politics is all the rage these days! And Coakley is the Mass. AG! Holy, Moley!

**UPDATE: BigGovernment.com is saying yes, Michael Meehan is the perp. And surprise, surprise, he’s an Obama appointee – for the Broadcasting Board of Governors which oversees federal news operations like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe no less!! He also worked with NARAL – hey, he’s used to violence. And, you gotta love this line by BIG G:

“His (Meehan’s) Senate confirmation hearing should be a hoot.”

I could not make up much better stuff than this. Thank you Mr. Meehan, you may have just handed the election to Scott Brown.

On September 26, 2009, Andrew Sullivan, writes: “No Suicide: That’s the one thing we know for certain now in the case of the Kentucky lynching…But the most worrying possibility – that this is Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts – remains real.”

What we learned today:

A U.S. Census worker found dead in a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a homicide, authorities have concluded.

Bill Sparkman, 51, of London, might have tried to cover the manner of his death to preserve payments under life-insurance polices that he had taken out. The policies wouldn’t pay off if Sparkman committed suicide, state police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski said.

“We believe it was an intentional act on his part to take his own life,” said Rudzinski, who helped lead the investigation.

Apparently, when not investigating Palin’s uterus, Sullivan is content with making up causal accounts for which he has no evidence. Andrew, if you have an ounce of Catholic moral theory remaining in your bones, discard the slanderous speculations and return to that in which you used to excel: offering careful arguments with respect and rigor.

When tolerance becomes a one way street it certainly leads to cultural suicide. We are on that street. Liberals cannot be trusted to defend our Republic, because their sympathies obviously lie with their perceived victim, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.

I make no apologies for these words, and anyone angered by them, please, go to Ft Hood and look into the eyes of the real victims. The tragedy at Ft Hood Texas did not have to happen. Consider now the feelings of those there and on every military installation in the world. Consider the feelings of the Warriors deployed into combat zones who now are concerned that their loved ones at home are in a combat zone.

Ft Hood suffered an Islamic jihadist attack, stop the denial, and realize a simple point.

The reality of your enemy must become your own.

More here. A must read.

One of the most well-worn cliches in modern politics is that the Republican party and the conservative movement have become too religious.  We’ve been portrayed as scary Christianists bent on creating a theocracy.  Both secular and Christian leftists have attempted to attack the right by claiming especially that conservative economic theory runs directly against Christ’s teachings.  In so doing the Christian leftists have revealed their own  “theocratic”   leanings.  Moreover, they have tried to recruit Jesus Christ to their cause on economic issues because they realize they have fallen short on social issues.

The latest portrayal of Jesus Christ, socialist superstar, is Michael Moore’s latest bomb. (Please go see this movie.  Michael Moore is very sad that you are not seeing his movie.  You could be in grave danger if you don’t go and support him.)  As Ann Althouse details, Moore littered his anti-capitalist screed with a healthy dose of that old time religion.  He trains his camera on Priests who have unkind words for the free market, and Moore of course relies on out of context scriptural readings that evidently support the hypothesis that Christ was the original Marxist.

Alan Colmes – noted non-Christian – also claims that Christ would be not-so-approving of the modern GOP.  It’s always helpful when non-Christians try to claim some insight into what the non-Messiah might have been thinking.

Again, this is all very silly.  But what’s most infuriating about these arguments is that it reveals the left’s own attempts to appropriate Jesus to advance their political interests in a fashion that their opponents rarely do.  Aside from the promoters of the Prosperity Gospel, few conservative Christians actually try to advance the idea that their particular economic theories have been especially endorsed by the Lord.  Of course we’ll argue that our ideas do not conflict with Christian values, and Catholic conservatives will cite passages from both Scripture and the Catechism to disprove the notion that our ideas are at odds with Church teachings.  But rarely will you these same people act as though their ideas and their ideas alone are the only God-approved ways of thinking about economic issues.

The fact of the matter is that we probably all fall short when it comes to economic matters.  There is a strand of conservative thinking that is uncaring when it comes to addressing the needs of the poor and is influenced by a Randian worldview that places far, far too much stock in individualism.  But leftists are guilty of violating subsidiarity, and I believe their reliance on government assistance de-emphasizes personal responsibility and charity.

The Christian left can rationalize all they want, but the fact of the matter is social issues are much more black and white, and Church teachings on matters such as abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage and other issues are absolute and unchanging.  Left-wing Catholics and other Christians either ignore clear teachings on these matters or give aid and comfort to those who do.  Therefore I think that when it comes to economic issues, they are driven by a need to prove their Christian bona fides by asserting that they are the good stewards on economic matters.  It’s always rather sad when guilty consciences try to over-compensate for their shortcomings in other areas.  But no one should be fooled by what’s really happening here.

From Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” website:

For Those of You on Your Way to Church This Morning …a note from Michael Moore

Friends,

I’d like to have a word with those of you who call yourselves Christians (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Bill Maherists, etc. can read along, too, as much of what I have to say, I’m sure, can be applied to your own spiritual/ethical values).

In my new film I speak for the first time in one of my movies about my own spiritual beliefs. I have always believed that one’s religious leanings are deeply personal and should be kept private. After all, we’ve heard enough yammerin’ in the past three decades about how one should “behave,” and I have to say I’m pretty burned out on pieties and platitudes considering we are a violent nation who invades other countries and punishes our own for having the audacity to fall on hard times.

I’m also against any proselytizing; I certainly don’t want you to join anything I belong to. Also, as a Catholic, I have much to say about the Church as an institution, but I’ll leave that for another day (or movie).

Amidst all the Wall Street bad guys and corrupt members of Congress exposed in “Capitalism: A Love Story,” I pose a simple question in the movie: “Is capitalism a sin?”
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An excellent piece in today’s issue of the American Thinker makes Glenn Beck’s point that, perhaps, Obama’s election will be better for America in the long run:

Would the country be as aware of the following if not for an extremist government in power in Washington?  Acorn and the “community organizer” groups have been revealed to be nothing more than corrupt partisan hacks exploiting the poor and the taxpayers.  The unions and their leaders exposed as power hungry ideologues with no interest in the long term well-being of their members.  The mainstream media’s willingness to lose all credibility with the vast majority of the public with its not so subtle cheerleading for their preferred politician has become obvious to all.  The Democratic Party, at one time the self-declared defender of the little guy, has openly declared war on small business and capitalism.  The Democratic members of Congress have been revealed to be indifferent to the voters, incapable of reading bills and fully in the pockets of liberal special interests groups.

This issue was debated in an earlier post. Read the rest of the AE piece here.

TIME's Man of the Year?

On Sept. 14 the Senate overwhelmingly voted to cut off all federal funds to ACORN, and the U.S. Census Bureau severed its ties to the organization. This followed Beck’s masterly promotion of a series of videos made by two guerrilla filmmakers who posed as a pimp and prostitute while visiting ACORN offices around the country. ~ TIME Magazine

Now the House has pulled the plug on ACORN.  TIME credits Beck with much of the left’s current heartburn. More here.

(I’ve been hogging the posts here lately and will lay low for a while. My apologies for being so “active” lately.)

“There are more,” Mike Flynn, Editor-in-chief of new site BigGovernment.com, told HUMAN EVENTS in an exclusive interview this afternoon regarding the number of undercover films exposing ACORN. Flynn would not reveal the location of the ACORN office where the latest video was filmed, but he said, “It’s a slightly different discussion in this one than you’ve seen so far.” The video should break around 9 p.m. EST.

Flynn said this is not the last one, either. “There are more after that. It is amazing. Stay tuned.”

More here.

When Obama met with ACORN leaders in November, he reminded them of his history with ACORN and his beginnings in Illinois as a Project Vote organizer, a nonprofit focused on voter rights and education.  Senator Obama said, “I come out of a grassroots organizing background. That’s what I did for three and half years before I went to law school.   That’s the reason I moved to Chicago was to organize. So this is something that I know personally, the work you do, the importance of it. I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.  Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”

Hmmm . . . more here.

(Warning – F bomb not censored.)

Keep the pressure on.

James O’Keefe claims to have at least 2 more videos exposing ACORN. One source says there may be as many as 4 more videos. The 4th in this spine-tingling series will be released at 4 PM this afternoon. In the 4th video, (filmed on location in beautiful California!) the ACORN worker names politicians with whom they are in regular contact, Senator Boxer for example; and all Democrats, by the way. Of course, ACORN is non-partisan.  Once again, Glenn Beck broke the latest update on his radio program, along with Breitbart and O’Keefe. Here’s the latest news.

I understand President Obama recently had a private meeting with former President Clinton. Hmmm . . . I wonder why?

**Update: Senator Shelby just called for Congressional investigations into ACORN.

A growing number of Republican lawmakers are calling for congressional hearings and IRS audits of ACORN following the release of three videotapes that show the group’s employees offering advice to a “pimp” and a “prostitute” on how to skirt the law.

Story here.

For ACORN employees? ACORN investigation video #3 here.

I’ve recently posted some comments about Glenn Beck and his increasingly aggressive investigations of corruption tied to the Obama administration and the current Congress. The events over the last few days have been breathtaking, when considered as a whole.

Though a couple of Republicans had earlier attempted to cut off funding to ACORN and expressed concern about the corrupt practices related to voter registration, their efforts were fruitless. Their powerless status in the current Congress, along with their sickening timidity, were mostly laughed at by the likes of ACORN and the hyper-radical left.

They’re not laughing any more. In less than one week, Glenn Beck, in partnership with the much-respected Andrew Breitbart and two 20 something guerilla-warfare videographers by the names of James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, have done what the neutered Republicans in Congress have been unable (or unwilling) to do since Obama’s election. Let’s recap what’s happened since last Saturday night, September 6th:

1. Obama czar and self-avowed communist Van Jones, resigns after being hammered relentlessly on Beck’s radio and TV show.
2. Acorn fires 2 workers after Beck breaks and airs the investigative report from James O’Keefe exposing numerous crimes in the Baltimore ACORN office.
3. The Census Bureau severs ties w/ACORN after the video goes viral on the internet, talk radio, and cable news. (ACORN was one of the “volunteer organizations” who were going to be helping with the census in 2010. No word yet as to whether or not they had planned on counting 13 year old prostitutes from El-Salvador).
4.) A second ACORN video is brought to light by Beck with many of the same crimes being committed in the Washington DC ACORN office.
5.) ACORN fires 2 more workers.
6.) Respected WSJ writer Charles Krauthammer gives the story more legs and credibility by writing about it in the WSJ and discussing it on the Hugh Hewitt show. WSJ writer John Fund follows with demands funding be cut off immediately.
7.) Two Republican members of Congress (Bachmann and Boustany) are making new calls for a Congressional investigation and cutting off funds. I suspect that chorus will grow.

That’s one helluva week my friends. Beck, Breitbart, O’Keefe, and Miss Giles deserve our congratulations, support, and prayers. They are doing what real journalists and reporters in America used to do. They are patriots. Thank God for them. Anyone out there still think Beck is “harmless?” I can assure you ACORN, Congress, and the Obama administration don’t think so. I can’t wait to see what next week brings.

(You can follow all this here.)

He is now promising a news story that will send government officials to jail. I’m betting he’ll be right again. How about you? How many readers will go on record here? Place your bets suckers.

Congresswoman Diane Watson (D) California. Good Lord Almighty.

. . . it wasn’t until 1988 that a group of U.N. ambassadors was able to visit Cuba for 11 days and documented “137 cases of torture, 7 disappearances, political assassinations and thousands of violations” of human rights. This trip was summarized “in a 400-page report, which was the longest report ever to appear on the agenda of the U.N.”

This report provided irrefutable proof of what Valladares had recounted in “Against All Hope.” But academia and the media successfully passed over both the book and the report.

This 1988 report included “locking political prisoners in refrigerated rooms; blindfolded immersions in pools; intimidation by dogs; firing squad simulations; beatings, forced labor; confinement for years in dungeons called gavetas; the use of loudspeakers with deafening sounds during hunger strikes; degradation of prisoners by forced nudity in punishment cells; withholding water during hunger strikes; forcing prisoners to present themselves in the nude before their families (to force them to accept plans for political rehabilitation); denial of medical assistance for the sick; and forcing those condemned to die to carry their own coffins and dig their own graves prior to being shot.”

Against All Hope

It’s about Trig. Always has been.

(Posted last week on What’s Wrong With the World)

Professor Brian Leiter of the University of Chicago has, again, misrepresented my point of view on Christian academic institutions that forbid their faculty and students to engage in extra-marital acts of intimacy including homosexual ones. I do not attribute this to malicious intent on Professor Leiter’s part. But rather, I think it is a consequence of a general lack of serious and respectful study and reflection on the philosophical beliefs that undergird theological traditions with which he disagrees.
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The Boy Scouts are being sued again, and the Ninth Circuit has invited everybody to play:

The City of San Diego leases portions of Balboa Park and Fiesta Island to the San Diego Boy Scouts, which use the land to operate a camp and aquatic center. The Boy Scouts use the leased areas for their own events but otherwise keep them open to the general public — and have spent millions of dollars to improve and maintain facilities on the properties, eliminating the need for taxpayer funding. While the Boy Scouts’ membership policies exclude homosexuals and agnostics, the Scouts have not erected any religious symbols and do not discriminate in any way in administering the leased parklands. (more…)

I know that this wasn’t really a fair fight, but Ann Coulter lets everyone know that the rank and file Hollywood liberal is simply repeating things the NYT says and really doesn’t think about the issues at hand. She also makes it clear that Joy Behar doesn’t belong in the same galaxy, intellectually, as Ann.

Be sure to catch parts 2, 3, and 4 as well.

Captain Ed’s post on Nancy Pelosi’s hyper-partisanship serves as a useful springboard for something I’ve been meaning to address.

First, to Ed: (more…)

Once upon a time, in 2004, the Great State of Pennsylvania was represented in the United States Senate by two Republican: Pro-choice liberal Arlen Specter, who had led the fight for the confirmation of Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court but had also voted to acquit Bill Clinton at his impeachment trial, and pro-life lion Rick Santorum, who had gained recognition as the Senate’s foremost defender of unborn human life. (more…)

Over at the Altantic, Sandra Tsing Loh has a great piece on class in America.  It touches on a point that has increasingly annoyed me.  Namely, that whereas liberal, urban upper-middle class types (hereinafter, “yuppies”) frequently criticize the parochial and consumeristic tendencies of conservative, suburban middle-middle class Americans (hereinafter, “Joe the Plumbers”), yuppies are disturbingly small-minded and materialistic.
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A UN bureaucrat has let the cat out of the bag! Liberals really do want to destroy the family (H/T: Pro Ecclesia):

Speaking at a colloquium held last month at Colegio Mexico in Mexico City, UNFPA representative Arie Hoekman denounced the idea that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births represent a social crisis, claiming that they represent instead the triumph of “human rights” against “patriarchy.”
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