Glenn Beck cranks up the culture wars.

Rich Benjamin, in an article on cnn.com (click here) made a series of arguments designed to support the position that Glenn Beck, the wildly popular conservative pseudo-religious radio and talk-show host, has "cranked up" the culture wars.

His first argument is based on the claim that despite Beck's assertions to the contrary, the August 28th rally in on the Washington Mall was a political rally. He points to the presence of a rally participant wearing a t-shirt with the message "If you can't love America, move back to Kenya."  Even though Beck specifically directed the attendees to not bring signs of any kind.  Even though not one speaker mentioned President Obama by name, or the Democratic party. It's reaching way down into the barrel to label this a patriotic rally based on a few t-shirt slogans. 

With regards to the "tea-party" opinion that President Obama is a marxist/socialist, well, it does seem to be that way. The massive expansion of nationalized health care at the same time that 47% of American workers (the majority who are in the poor, lower income and lower middle income brackets) do not pay any income taxes at all is seen by most fiscal conservatives as redistribution of wealth, a fundamental tenet of socialism.  He also rammed cash for clunkers down our throats, encouraging people to buy cars with taxpayer subsidies. Again, money moving from those who pay taxes to many who do not.  This was followed by cash for toasters, encouraging people to buy new appliances with... you guessed it... taxpayer subsidies. 

And for good measure let us not forget the first time homebuyer credit of $8,000 dollars (in 2009) and homebuyer assistance program of $6,500 dollars, again targeting those in the lower income brackets (most of whom pay no or little in income taxes) with money taken from the income tax payers.

There's lots more where that came from, but I think that the citations above are a clear indication of a political motivation on the part of the president and his party to move money from those who can afford to pay taxes to those who cannot. Is, or is that not socialism?

He further claims that the claims on the part of the conservative factions that President Obama is a communist or marxist or socialist is similar to admittedly similar claims against Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in the 1960's  The huge difference is that the attacks against Dr. King where clearly fueled by racist hatred, especially in the South.  But in the case of President Obama, we only have to look at the record of legislation passed during his administration to see what is plainly written.

As an aside, Reverend Al Shaprton claimed that the push by the "tea party" to restore "state's rights" is a direct assault on the civil rights movement and is a conscious effort to rollback those hard won gains.In this case the US federal government through civil-rights legislation signed in the late 60's forced states to accept a federally mandated standard for guaranteeing the protection of the civil liberties and rights of minorities.  There is no question that under the guise of state's rights, many states (again especially in the South) implemented legislation that unarguably were designed to deny or obstruct the rights of minorities, and particularly blacks, to vote, equal access to education and government services. 

But today, the resurgence of state's rights advocacy is couched firmly in the US federal government's failure to uphold its end of the contract that binds the states of our union together.  The federal government continues to spend more and more and yet services seem to decline or fail altogether. Immigration laws, especially with respect to the prosecution and deportation of aliens living here illegally, including border security is one aspect of the federal failure. Another is the inability of the government to respond quickly to natural disasters. The 2005 hurricane Katrina disaster clearly demonstrated the red-tape that obstructs swift response by the federal government as well as the complete and utter lack of coordination between federal, state and local emergency response agencies.  Our national infrastructure is coming apart. Roads, bridges and dams are falling into disrepair before our very eyes, and yet there is no money to fix them!  People who genuinely need government assistance can't get it while shysters and thieves who have studied the system collect "overpayments" from the government with impunity. The US Dept of Education consumes more tax revenue than ever and yet our nation continues its slide into mediocre scholastic performance among industrialized nations.

States are understandably outraged.  They are being forced by federal mandate to spend more money on federal programs and yet they do not have the access to print more money when their budgets are bled dry.  Not to mention that progressive legislation in states like Michigan, California, Arizona and Ohio have literally bankrupted them. States and local communities would very much like to have more say in the standards of education and welfare that they provide to their citizens, but are continually stymied by an outrageous and bloated bureaucracy that is reflected in the HUGE amount of regulatory law that those bureaucracies are expected to enforce. 

I understand the need for regulations, but when the process for getting FDA approval to get a drug to market can cost multiple billions of dollars. And yet, after getting such approval, a drug company is completely unprotected against expensive lawsuits when unknown side-effects not discovered during the FDA approval process inevitably arise. Question: If the FDA won't stand behind its approval process by helping to defend the pharmaceuticals, why in the hell do we force them to seek FDA approval? 

With regard to Mr. Benjamin's concern that a third of the nation thinks that President Obama is a muslim. Well, I don't get that either.  And we further agree that birthers are idiots. 

But I think that the charge of the current administration's movement of the nation to a more socialist government is completely founded and beyond debate.

MSNBC Ed Schult "I'd Cheat to Keep Brown From Winning".

MSNBC's political talkers continue to prove that they are an entirely owned subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee.

As reported on January 16th by the Washington Times and then highlighted on the much vaunted (or reviled) DrudgeReport, MSNBC's Ed Schultz made the following statement:

"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts I'd try to vote 10 times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right. I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."



Ed's comments were made in context of the surprisingly competitive Massachusetts Senatorial seat election between Democrat Martha Coakley and Rebuplican Scott Brown. And expectedly, he's supporting Coakley over Brown.

I'd not be surprised if you were to say "Ed who?". Ed Schultz is a MSNBC primetime opinion talker (6pm to 7pm Eastern). This puts him up against Brett Baier on Fox News, who is crushing him in the ratings.

Ed appears to be a little unclear on the whole "democracy" concept that is supposedly the basis for our government. You know, that part that says that each person gets a single vote, and when you tally up those votes, the candidate with the most of them win? (OK, the US Presidential Election doesn't quite work like that because of the Electoral College thingy that actually helps low-population states a little, which makes it possible to win the popular vote by a slim margin and still lose the electoral college vote by a fairly large margin.)

What Ed, a national (in theory) cable commentator is doing is encouraging voter fraud in the State of Massachusetts for the benefit of the Democratic Candidate.

Now say what you like about the right-wing talkers like Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, and O'Reilley but you have not heard them encourage illegal voter behavior or insinuate that they'd do it themselves.

And what do you think the "main-stream" media pundits, talkers and bloggers would be doing right now had Hannity or Beck said the same thing in support of Scott Brown? So I'm completed fascinated by the defeaning silence from them concerning Ed's angry outburst. I attribute it to one of two possibilities: One) Nobody watches "The Ed Show" on MSNBC except for other political hacks, so they're the only ones noticing, or Two) most of media in this country is friendly to left of center commentators and are willing to give him a pass on his indiscreet commentary and thereby doing a huge disservice to the voting public by failing to equally illuminate outrageous commentary from either the left or right.

As I have said to my friends many times, you must consider the source from which the comment came and then discount it accordingly.

Trent Lott and Harry Reid. There Is a Difference.

While attending the 100th birthday celebration for Dixie-crat Senator Strom Thurmond in 2002 then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott stated in essence that the United States would be "better off" had Strom Thurmond won the 1948 presidential election. Mr. Lott was pilloried not only by the Democrats but even by his own GOP, which ultimately resulted in Mr. Lott stepping down as Majority Leader.

Now, a new controversy has arisen concerning the current Senate Majority Leader, Mr. Harry Reid who is the senior Senator from Nevada and a Democrat. In a book titled "Game Change", Mr. Reid claimed that the reason that then-candidate Barack Obama had a good chance of becoming the first African-American U.S. President was because he was "light-skinned" and did not speak with a "Negro dialect" unless he chose to do so.

Republicans are now crying "racist!" while Democrats circle the wagons around the "inartfully articulating" Senator Reid. The Republicans are furious that when Sen. Lott made his "inartful" toast to Strom in 2002, they stood against his comments and were a major force in his resignation from the Senate Majority Leader position. By contrast, the Democrats, instead of declaring their abhorrence at Senator Reid's "racist" statements are in fact standing behind him.

I'm a member of the Heritage foundation and a reluctant supporter of the Republican party. But I think that in this case that the Republicans are trying to create a controversy that doesn't exist.

When Trent Lott made his famous statement, he essentially said that he supported Strom Thurmond's 1948 "pro-segregation" Dixiecrat platform. Equal but separate. How could any modern politician think that he could publicly articulate such an opinion and then not be held to account for it? Not to mention that segregation has been proven to be bad policy.

Senator Reid, by contrast, was stating a painful fact about American politics. White Americans in general are more comfortable with black politicians that speak Harvard English and whose appearance more closely correlates with their own. Senator Reid has been a strong supporter of civil rights legislation, especially as seen by the NAACP and the Black Congressional Caucus.

A far more appropriate subject for comparison would be Rush Limbaugh, who lost his NFL commentator position when he stated his opinion that the mainstream press was motivated to overstate Donovan McNabb's accomplishments in order to support the position that black quarterbacks can perform as well as whites, who at that time dominated the quarterback position. He later clarified that he felt that Donovan McNabb had the potential to be a great NFL quarterback but that at that time he did not deserve the praise that was being given him by the press.

In any case, I believe that the Republicans are making a case that is not supported by the facts or public opinion. Trying to equate Lott's comments that essentially said that a pro-segregationist president would have produced a better America with Harry Reid's analysis that Barack Obama, as a light skinned African-American who spoke very precise English are not even remotely the same class of comments.

In this situation, I think that the GOP needs to figure out that "this dog won't hunt".

Is Archie Bunker talking about 1974 or 2010?

President Obama Promises Openness, but Won't or Can't Deliver

Whoo boy. The honeymoon is over. President Obama hasn't been in the White House quite one year and yet he's got some pretty influential reporters pretty steamed at him.

Of course everybody who keeps even a token watch of politics remembers how distinguished senior White House reporter Helen Thomas dressed Robert Gibbs down for President Obama's inaccessibility. That was quite a sight. In my opinion, Ms. Thomas is as much a shill for the DNC as any reporter I've seen in some time. That's quite all right, as long as we're up front about it. If anybody doesn't think that Fox's Major Garrett doesn't lean right, then I'd like to smoke whatever it is they've got.

Then there was the Saturday Night Live sketch on President Obama's accomplishments prior to receiving the Nobel peace prize: "I've done absolutely nothing". OK, it is SNL after all, so we can just laugh that one off.

But Jack Cafferty? CNN's Jack Cafferty? That Jack Cafferty? This reporter had no problem giving a negative opinion about pretty much every aspect of President Bush's administration. Jack has a nightly opinion segment on CNN. Here's what the acrimonious Mr. Cafferty had to say about the "transparency" that President Obama promised:



Ouch.

And then you have CNN's Gloria Berger with this article.

Ouch more.

When CNN starts really ripping on the Democrats and their leadership, you know that there are stormy waters ahead. While this is coming about due to the health care "reform" debate, the fact is that this administration and this Congress seem to be just as reclusive and hidden as any other, especially considering both Candidate Obama and Speaker Pelosi's insistence that we would find ourselves witnessing the "most open and transparent" government ever.

I think that President Obama's campaign promises were laudable. Unfortunately, I never believed them.

Christmas Carols in Native American

http://www.janamashonee.com/

Man do I LOVE blogs! You get some of the neatest information! So I'm reading "Collecting My Thoughts" by Norma and she has a link to Jana Mashonee, a Lumbee Indian. She's recorded an album "An American Indian Christmas" with 10 traditional Christmas Carols, all sung in a different Native American tongue.

So... here's an example: Little Drummer Boy.


You can bet that I bought this album. It's absolutely beautiful! And as fantastic as her voice is, the Native American flutes playing some of the music is also wonderful. Very peaceful.

Merry Christmas!