This article was first published at American Thinker on 02/13/2011
In order to get intellectual clarity, it is sometimes required that we step outside of our homegrown comfort zone and examine the thoughts of pundits who are somewhat more disinterested. While the typical scrum of Fleet Streetists and liberal moaners from the politically correct U.K. tabloids are no more inspiring than Maureen Dowd in high dudgeon, the musings of clear thinkers like James Delingpole and particularly Gerald Warner can be especially illuminating. Warner's latest riff at Scotland on Sunday http://news.scotsman.com/geraldwarner/Gerald-Warner-US-subversion-of.6712133.jp?articlepage=2 on Obama's clodhopper handling of the uprising in Egypt provides some remarkably clear thinking.
Warner recognizes facts that American journalists seem unwilling to admit.
The fact that Egypt, for instance, simply isn't ready for democratic elections:
Does anybody in Washington recognize what the establishment of democratic governments in the Middle East would mean? War with Israel, because that is the settled will of the Arab street. Apparently western liberals want more democratic elections like the one that gifted Gaza to Hamas in 2006.
Wishing that this weren't so doesn't make it any less true. How can any proponent of the best possible world order not see Mubarak as the lesser of two evils when compared with the murderous Muslim Brotherhood? For the path surely seems to be clear for the MB or their ally to fill the power vacuum developing in Egypt.
Warner further points out the folly of enabling an “orderly transition” under Mohamed ElBaradei, who is clearly nothing more than an Iranian stooge. Proponents of Tehran Mo point to his status as a Nobel Laureate.
Well so is the buffoon in the Oval Office, having been awarded his prize by the celebrity-stalking Nobel committee at the start of his administration, on the reasoned assumption it would be more difficult to cobble together a plausible citation at the end of it.
One would be hard put to find a better unmasking of the Muslim Brotherhood than Warner's. The fact that the MB controls nearly every major Muslim organization in the United States and has a well-funded campaign in place to “cultivate respectability on American campuses and in U.S. government circles” doesn't make their jihadist fundamentalism any more palatable. The Brotherhood is well-entrenched in Egyptian society and appears ready to assume a war footing with Israel even as it plants its p.r. nuggets in the American mainstream media.
The silver lining? Warner recognizes that this latest demonstration of B.O.'s foreign policy ineptitude should be the last nail in his re-election coffin. Out Cartering Carter, Obama now seems likely to elicit a “Who Lost Egypt?” reaction that should dwarf the “Who Lost China?” outcry that ushered Eisenhower and the Republicans into office in 1952.
If by 2012 the Middle East were in Islamist hands, the U.S. electorate would annihilate Obama, however inadequate the Republican candidate: in that scenario, Bugs Bunny could carry 50 states: what you are seeing is the meltdown of the Obama presidency.
Read the whole article here. http://news.scotsman.com/geraldwarner/Gerald-Warner-US-subversion-of.6712133.jp?articlepage=2 Not a minced word anywhere.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Bannering: Obama's latest gift to the unions
This article first appeared at American Thinker on 02/05/2011
With public opinion increasingly critical of overpaid and under-performing labor unions, one might expect that union members and their representatives would be keeping a low profile while mounting a public relations campaign to repair their well-earned and sullied reputations. Not this bunch. In the face of an onslaught of public criticism of their excessive pay and absurdly generous health and retirement benefits coupled with a call for increased accountability and an end to tenure, public union members are actually becoming more strident and militant in their determination to demand what they seem to think is their entitlement.
Fresh on the heels of the National Labor Relations Board's http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Press%20Releases/2010/R-2780 ruling confirming the right of unions to engage in “bannering,”a Michigan carpenter's union is vigorously pursuing the practice. It's time for a court review of this practice and these belligerent unionists are providing the perfect case to pursue.
Ken Braun at the Michigan Capitol Confidential http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/14458
provides a detailed report on the brouhaha. It seems that the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters isn't happy negotiating solely for members of it's union. The union is now resorting to a form of extortion to influence the actions of companies who don't use their members.
The targeted company, Ritsema Associates, is a construction contractor located near Grand Rapids. Back in July, the MRCC sent a letter to Ritsema claiming that they had investigated the company and determined that they were paying sub-standard wage and benefits. Mind you, this is not a government agency performing its due diligence: the is a rival organization with interests competing with those of Ritsema. No evidence was provided in the letter suggesting how this investigation was conducted. Ritsema was informed that if they did not provide their private payroll information to the MRCC, they would be considered to be paying substandard wages.
Of course, Ritsema refused to provide their private company information. Two weeks later a dozen of it's customers received a “Notice of Labor Dispute” http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/media/images/2011/Union/Letter.pdf stating that:
The Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters has a labor dispute with Ritsema & Associates, who does not meet area labor standards-they do not pay the standard wages to all their employees, including paying for health benefits and pension.
We want you to be aware that our new and aggressive pubic information campaign against this company will unfortunately impact all parties associated with projects where they are employed. The campaign will include highly visible lawful banner displays and distribution of handbills at the job site and premises of property owners, developers, general contractors and any other firms involved with projects involving a non area standard contractor.
Tony Soprano couldn't have said it any better.
The bannering went into effect almost immediately with the “banner lines” being manned by hired guns paid by the cash-flush union. The union hired guns were also handing out flyers from the MRCC featuring a rat chewing on an American flag. The flyer encourages phone calls to the company who had contracted Ritsema to complain about the work being done on their property.
This practiced of bannnering is nothing more than an attempt by the NLRB to achieve the same result as the discredited “card-check” legislation that the Democrats were unable to cram down our throats while they maintained an overwhelming majority in Congress. Make no mistake, Obama has pursued the aims of labor unions through the executive branch, just as he attempted to go around the Congress with the EPA 's backdoor cap-and-trade. When B.O. was unable to get his union man, Craig Becker, http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politicsinvesting/2376-obama-renominates-union-man-becker-to-nlrb approved through the Senate nominating process, he went ahead and stacked the NLRB with Becker via recess appointment along with another union shill, Mark Pearce. http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2010/03/27/obama-appoints-two-democratic-nominees-to-nlrb-leaves-gop-nominee-behind/ This was on the advice of Richard Trumka.
The NLRB's approval of bannering appears to have Becker & Pearce's fingerprints all over it. Doesn't Congress have oversight of the NLRB? It's time for an investigation of this reprehensible practice. While the Obama administration continues to pander to their bag men in the labor unions, Ritsema Associates is in danger of losing its contract with some clients who were clearly intimidated the flagrant aggression of the MRCC. And that, of course, will lead to fewer jobs for Ritsema employees. Shall we count these as jobs uncreated or jobs unsaved?
With public opinion increasingly critical of overpaid and under-performing labor unions, one might expect that union members and their representatives would be keeping a low profile while mounting a public relations campaign to repair their well-earned and sullied reputations. Not this bunch. In the face of an onslaught of public criticism of their excessive pay and absurdly generous health and retirement benefits coupled with a call for increased accountability and an end to tenure, public union members are actually becoming more strident and militant in their determination to demand what they seem to think is their entitlement.
Fresh on the heels of the National Labor Relations Board's http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Press%20Releases/2010/R-2780 ruling confirming the right of unions to engage in “bannering,”a Michigan carpenter's union is vigorously pursuing the practice. It's time for a court review of this practice and these belligerent unionists are providing the perfect case to pursue.
Ken Braun at the Michigan Capitol Confidential http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/14458
provides a detailed report on the brouhaha. It seems that the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters isn't happy negotiating solely for members of it's union. The union is now resorting to a form of extortion to influence the actions of companies who don't use their members.
The targeted company, Ritsema Associates, is a construction contractor located near Grand Rapids. Back in July, the MRCC sent a letter to Ritsema claiming that they had investigated the company and determined that they were paying sub-standard wage and benefits. Mind you, this is not a government agency performing its due diligence: the is a rival organization with interests competing with those of Ritsema. No evidence was provided in the letter suggesting how this investigation was conducted. Ritsema was informed that if they did not provide their private payroll information to the MRCC, they would be considered to be paying substandard wages.
Of course, Ritsema refused to provide their private company information. Two weeks later a dozen of it's customers received a “Notice of Labor Dispute” http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/media/images/2011/Union/Letter.pdf stating that:
The Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters has a labor dispute with Ritsema & Associates, who does not meet area labor standards-they do not pay the standard wages to all their employees, including paying for health benefits and pension.
We want you to be aware that our new and aggressive pubic information campaign against this company will unfortunately impact all parties associated with projects where they are employed. The campaign will include highly visible lawful banner displays and distribution of handbills at the job site and premises of property owners, developers, general contractors and any other firms involved with projects involving a non area standard contractor.
Tony Soprano couldn't have said it any better.
The bannering went into effect almost immediately with the “banner lines” being manned by hired guns paid by the cash-flush union. The union hired guns were also handing out flyers from the MRCC featuring a rat chewing on an American flag. The flyer encourages phone calls to the company who had contracted Ritsema to complain about the work being done on their property.
This practiced of bannnering is nothing more than an attempt by the NLRB to achieve the same result as the discredited “card-check” legislation that the Democrats were unable to cram down our throats while they maintained an overwhelming majority in Congress. Make no mistake, Obama has pursued the aims of labor unions through the executive branch, just as he attempted to go around the Congress with the EPA 's backdoor cap-and-trade. When B.O. was unable to get his union man, Craig Becker, http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politicsinvesting/2376-obama-renominates-union-man-becker-to-nlrb approved through the Senate nominating process, he went ahead and stacked the NLRB with Becker via recess appointment along with another union shill, Mark Pearce. http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2010/03/27/obama-appoints-two-democratic-nominees-to-nlrb-leaves-gop-nominee-behind/ This was on the advice of Richard Trumka.
The NLRB's approval of bannering appears to have Becker & Pearce's fingerprints all over it. Doesn't Congress have oversight of the NLRB? It's time for an investigation of this reprehensible practice. While the Obama administration continues to pander to their bag men in the labor unions, Ritsema Associates is in danger of losing its contract with some clients who were clearly intimidated the flagrant aggression of the MRCC. And that, of course, will lead to fewer jobs for Ritsema employees. Shall we count these as jobs uncreated or jobs unsaved?
Fed Utility Bills: Your Government at Work
This article first appeared at American Thinker on 1/16/2011
One can understand the fact that federal bureaucrats earning an average of 33% more than their counterparts in the productive sectors of the economy might have America's fiscal panties in a wad. A report from WUSA Channel 9 in Washington, D.C.http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=132655&catid=158 helps us consider the expense of warehousing these parasitic mopes for the 30 years or so it takes them to start getting paid lavishly to stay at home.
Reporter Andrea McCarren kept track of the lights left on late at night at a number of our federal agency buildings including the Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor. She coupled her observations with a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of the utility bills for the agencies who seemed most noticeably to be practicing the Motel Six version of federal resource husbandry (“We'll leave the lights on for ya.”)
The results were shocking even to this jaded observer of bureaucratic incompetence:
..One month's electricity bill at the Department of Labor topped a MILLION dollars. That was a bill paid in July of last year. The month before, the Department paid a bill of nearly $700,000....The Department of Health and Human Services paid a bill last August of $799,000 for a month of service...The Department of Commerce paid a bill last June of $794,000.
Of course I understand that Kathleen Sebelius needs a support staff burning the midnight oil in order to discover and communicate to the hoi polloi the proper way to sneeze. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En0ltqPUwao But why do we need to spend a million dollars a month to illuminate the Department of Labor when we could eliminate the whole agency and replace it with the simple installation of a revolving door at the White House to facilitate the regular visits of Andy Stern and his cronies?
The first wave of Tea Party congressmen seems intent on slashing spending. Perhaps they will seriously consider the cuts suggested by freshman Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky: http://spectator.org/blog/2011/01/25/the-rand-paul-budget
..Paul would abolish the Departments of Education, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development. Completely zeroing out federal housing spending...
The Affordable Housing Program, the Commission on Fine Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the State Justice Institute, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are all eliminated. The Smithsonian is privatized.
Sounds like a good start.
One can understand the fact that federal bureaucrats earning an average of 33% more than their counterparts in the productive sectors of the economy might have America's fiscal panties in a wad. A report from WUSA Channel 9 in Washington, D.C.http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=132655&catid=158 helps us consider the expense of warehousing these parasitic mopes for the 30 years or so it takes them to start getting paid lavishly to stay at home.
Reporter Andrea McCarren kept track of the lights left on late at night at a number of our federal agency buildings including the Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor. She coupled her observations with a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of the utility bills for the agencies who seemed most noticeably to be practicing the Motel Six version of federal resource husbandry (“We'll leave the lights on for ya.”)
The results were shocking even to this jaded observer of bureaucratic incompetence:
..One month's electricity bill at the Department of Labor topped a MILLION dollars. That was a bill paid in July of last year. The month before, the Department paid a bill of nearly $700,000....The Department of Health and Human Services paid a bill last August of $799,000 for a month of service...The Department of Commerce paid a bill last June of $794,000.
Of course I understand that Kathleen Sebelius needs a support staff burning the midnight oil in order to discover and communicate to the hoi polloi the proper way to sneeze. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En0ltqPUwao But why do we need to spend a million dollars a month to illuminate the Department of Labor when we could eliminate the whole agency and replace it with the simple installation of a revolving door at the White House to facilitate the regular visits of Andy Stern and his cronies?
The first wave of Tea Party congressmen seems intent on slashing spending. Perhaps they will seriously consider the cuts suggested by freshman Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky: http://spectator.org/blog/2011/01/25/the-rand-paul-budget
..Paul would abolish the Departments of Education, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development. Completely zeroing out federal housing spending...
The Affordable Housing Program, the Commission on Fine Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the State Justice Institute, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are all eliminated. The Smithsonian is privatized.
Sounds like a good start.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
In Official English Please
It looks like the wave of Republican take-overs in the nation's statehouses is gearing up for action. Both Indiana and Minnesota legislators are pushing English-Only bills to require that all official state business be conducted in English. Elizabeth Llorente at Fox News Latino http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/02/01/states-considering-official-english-bills-sense-new-momentum/ reports that the Indiana House already passed their bill with overwhelming support, 63 to 26: it heads shortly to the state Senate. Minnesota's bill should reach a vote in their state senate once the powerful winter storm blanketing the area dies down.
A tremendous amount of momentum carrying issues important to the Tea Party has been bottled up since the powerful electoral message of conservatives was delivered at the 2010 mid-term elections. Republicans took over 19 state chambers formerly held by Democrats and control the battle for statehouse legislatures 55 to 38. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-historic-win-state-legislatures-vote-2010-election/story?id=12049040 Expect local reform to be enacted much more quickly than in the national legislative bodies. State representatives are much closer to the grass-roots and seem to be energized and fired up for the challenge of taking America back.
The English-Only bills represent the leading edge of the conservative reform movement. According to the director of U.S. English, a Washington, D.C. Lobbying group:
With the result of the last election, at state and federal levels, we have the best climate for passing (Official English) legislation that we've had in the last 15 years.
Mike Delph, our local state senator from Carmel, says that supporters of Official English:
...are tired of pressing “1” for English when calling businesses, or hearing Spanish announcements over the Wal-Mart intercom, or struggling to understand a worker in the McDonald's drive-thru.
Delph is considered one of the Tea-Party's favorite sons and is contemplating a primary challenge to Richard Lugar for the U.S. Senate. http://www.mikedelph.com/blog/2010/12/03/general/sen.-delph-speaks-out-on-us-senate-speculation-in-2012/ Delph is also championing an Arizona-style immigration law among many other conservative proposals to help correct the leftward drift of American society toward political correctness and multiculturalism and away from traditional American values.
Critics of the Official English bill have been ineffectual, making the usual charges of mean-spiritedness and discrimination. Republicans counter that the state's website shouldn't provide information in Spanish and that our public universities shouldn't even print applications for foreign students at taxpayer expense. With the conservatives prevailing and a bit of expeditious enforcement, at least going forward we can assure that our critics will have to conduct their excoriations in the king's English.
A tremendous amount of momentum carrying issues important to the Tea Party has been bottled up since the powerful electoral message of conservatives was delivered at the 2010 mid-term elections. Republicans took over 19 state chambers formerly held by Democrats and control the battle for statehouse legislatures 55 to 38. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-historic-win-state-legislatures-vote-2010-election/story?id=12049040 Expect local reform to be enacted much more quickly than in the national legislative bodies. State representatives are much closer to the grass-roots and seem to be energized and fired up for the challenge of taking America back.
The English-Only bills represent the leading edge of the conservative reform movement. According to the director of U.S. English, a Washington, D.C. Lobbying group:
With the result of the last election, at state and federal levels, we have the best climate for passing (Official English) legislation that we've had in the last 15 years.
Mike Delph, our local state senator from Carmel, says that supporters of Official English:
...are tired of pressing “1” for English when calling businesses, or hearing Spanish announcements over the Wal-Mart intercom, or struggling to understand a worker in the McDonald's drive-thru.
Delph is considered one of the Tea-Party's favorite sons and is contemplating a primary challenge to Richard Lugar for the U.S. Senate. http://www.mikedelph.com/blog/2010/12/03/general/sen.-delph-speaks-out-on-us-senate-speculation-in-2012/ Delph is also championing an Arizona-style immigration law among many other conservative proposals to help correct the leftward drift of American society toward political correctness and multiculturalism and away from traditional American values.
Critics of the Official English bill have been ineffectual, making the usual charges of mean-spiritedness and discrimination. Republicans counter that the state's website shouldn't provide information in Spanish and that our public universities shouldn't even print applications for foreign students at taxpayer expense. With the conservatives prevailing and a bit of expeditious enforcement, at least going forward we can assure that our critics will have to conduct their excoriations in the king's English.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Top 10 Reasons to Keep Charlie Rangel in Congress
1.) It's a tradition. Congress-crooks have been fleecing this Harlem district since Adam Clayton Powell Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell,_Jr. won the seat in 1945.
2.) To protect the gullible constituents of New York District 15 from electing the risible Adam Clayton Powell IV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_IV_(politician) , continuing the tradition cited above.
3.) To keep our young men on their toes worrying about Crazy Charlie's efforts to reinstate compulsory military service http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/15/AR2010071505686.html for Americans.
Charlie Rangel has single-handedly saved or created scores of investigative jobs for forensic attorneys, forensic accountants and forensic journalists, all http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/charles_rangel_and_the_forensi.html employed to ferret out where the Sly Fox of Harlem stashed his ill-gotten loot. Charlie is no William Jefferson (Convicted Democrat, Louisiana) satisfied leaving his greenbacks cooling in the freezer.
4.)If Rangel retires, Congress will lose one of the last protege's of arch-Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (Convicted Democrat, Chicago) who taught Charming Charles a thing or two about the House's Ways and Means while Rosty was Chairman and Charlie ranked 3rd on the committee roster. (See Rostenkowski chased down the street by angry seniors here.) http://volokh.com/author/davidh/
5.) Even though he is a bloviating, money-grubbing hack, Rangel remains the cream of the Congressional Black Caucus http://www.cbcfinc.org/cbc/cbc-members.html , which has come rushing to Poor Chairman Charlie's aid.http://blackpoliticalthought.blogspot.com/2010/07/congressional-black-caucus-coddles.html
6.) One would be hard pressed to find a sorrier collection of shills, demagogues and grandstanders than this group led by the insufferable Sheila Jackson-Lee, Bobby Rush, and Maxine Waters.
7.) Congressman Rangel remains a living, breathing reminder of Nancy Pelosi's role as Swamp Troll http://www.examiner.com/x-6996-Louisville-Economic-Policy-Examiner~y2010m2d27-Nancy-Pelosi--Swamp-Troll to the current Congress, determining who is allowed to stay in the slough she has enlarged rather than draining it as she had promised.
8.) We must stop the hemorrhaging of cartoonish ancient Democrats from the Congressional ranks. What began as a target-rich environment with the likes of Teddy “Floater” Kennedy, Jack “Abscam” Murtha, and Robert “Exalted Cyclops” Byrd is now in danger of flushing yet another morally challenged monument to the smoke-filled room style of Democrat politics.
9.) The loss of the Democrat's black elder statesman will further strip the race-card baiters of their last line of defense: “(Rangel's is a style, a method, a politics from an age when it was simply not done to ask uncomfortable questions of a black politician, lest that politician (and his supporters) retort that the questioning was racist. That protective smokescreen of “racism” was good to men like Rangel, allowing them to go about their merry ways blithely, and untroubled. It is harder to strike pouting, Manichean postures now, when a black man holds the highest office in the land. There can be no cheap and easy shaming of critics, no slick refuge in a narrative of racial oppression.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-23/charlie-rangel-will-resign-next-week-predicts-tunku-varadarajan/ If the Democrats lose Rangel, what is to become of Jesse Jackson's pere et fils? Of Al Sharpton and his ilk?
10.) If we let Charlie Rangel off the hook with a simple resignation, we will never get the full story of exactly how large a fortune this humble servant of the people of Harlem has amassed through his skillful manipulation of Rostenkowski style Ways with whatever Means he saw necessary to promote his personal engrandizement.
2.) To protect the gullible constituents of New York District 15 from electing the risible Adam Clayton Powell IV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_IV_(politician) , continuing the tradition cited above.
3.) To keep our young men on their toes worrying about Crazy Charlie's efforts to reinstate compulsory military service http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/15/AR2010071505686.html for Americans.
Charlie Rangel has single-handedly saved or created scores of investigative jobs for forensic attorneys, forensic accountants and forensic journalists, all http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/charles_rangel_and_the_forensi.html employed to ferret out where the Sly Fox of Harlem stashed his ill-gotten loot. Charlie is no William Jefferson (Convicted Democrat, Louisiana) satisfied leaving his greenbacks cooling in the freezer.
4.)If Rangel retires, Congress will lose one of the last protege's of arch-Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (Convicted Democrat, Chicago) who taught Charming Charles a thing or two about the House's Ways and Means while Rosty was Chairman and Charlie ranked 3rd on the committee roster. (See Rostenkowski chased down the street by angry seniors here.) http://volokh.com/author/davidh/
5.) Even though he is a bloviating, money-grubbing hack, Rangel remains the cream of the Congressional Black Caucus http://www.cbcfinc.org/cbc/cbc-members.html , which has come rushing to Poor Chairman Charlie's aid.http://blackpoliticalthought.blogspot.com/2010/07/congressional-black-caucus-coddles.html
6.) One would be hard pressed to find a sorrier collection of shills, demagogues and grandstanders than this group led by the insufferable Sheila Jackson-Lee, Bobby Rush, and Maxine Waters.
7.) Congressman Rangel remains a living, breathing reminder of Nancy Pelosi's role as Swamp Troll http://www.examiner.com/x-6996-Louisville-Economic-Policy-Examiner~y2010m2d27-Nancy-Pelosi--Swamp-Troll to the current Congress, determining who is allowed to stay in the slough she has enlarged rather than draining it as she had promised.
8.) We must stop the hemorrhaging of cartoonish ancient Democrats from the Congressional ranks. What began as a target-rich environment with the likes of Teddy “Floater” Kennedy, Jack “Abscam” Murtha, and Robert “Exalted Cyclops” Byrd is now in danger of flushing yet another morally challenged monument to the smoke-filled room style of Democrat politics.
9.) The loss of the Democrat's black elder statesman will further strip the race-card baiters of their last line of defense: “(Rangel's is a style, a method, a politics from an age when it was simply not done to ask uncomfortable questions of a black politician, lest that politician (and his supporters) retort that the questioning was racist. That protective smokescreen of “racism” was good to men like Rangel, allowing them to go about their merry ways blithely, and untroubled. It is harder to strike pouting, Manichean postures now, when a black man holds the highest office in the land. There can be no cheap and easy shaming of critics, no slick refuge in a narrative of racial oppression.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-23/charlie-rangel-will-resign-next-week-predicts-tunku-varadarajan/ If the Democrats lose Rangel, what is to become of Jesse Jackson's pere et fils? Of Al Sharpton and his ilk?
10.) If we let Charlie Rangel off the hook with a simple resignation, we will never get the full story of exactly how large a fortune this humble servant of the people of Harlem has amassed through his skillful manipulation of Rostenkowski style Ways with whatever Means he saw necessary to promote his personal engrandizement.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The Revolution is not being Televised
(This article first appeared at The American Thinker on 07/05/2010.)
Back in the glory days of the boomer generation, after it discovered its mutual affinity with the leftist American media, political demonstrations and protests ran rampant and became the hip scene. Aligning with the Chicago Seven and other useful idiots being carefully nurtured by America’s abundant supply of anarcho-leftist-trade union types, young Americans hit the streets to demonstrate their rejection of traditional American values. In their naivete, the hippies and peaceniks naturally supported the angrier, more aggressive politics of the burgeoning Black Power movement. While San Francisco loonies like Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane espoused an alternately druggy and pulingly angry form of revolution, the Black Power advocates including Angela Davis, Stokely Carmicheal and H. Rap Brown raucously promoted a violent revolution. In fact, while Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party, Brown became famous for his proclamation that “Violence is as American as apple pie.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rap_Brown
Fortunately for America, so is a life sentence for homicide, under which Brown currently remains imprisoned.
In 1970, poet/songwriter Gil Scott Heron created a spoken word poem celebrating the violent revolution anticipated by the Black Panthers, SNCC and associated Black Power groups. On an album titled “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox,” accompanied only by congas and bongo drums, Heron riffed on the post-revolutionary landscape he foresaw in a poem titled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised
Heron’s grim choleric is actually the “B” side of a 45 rpm single with the flip-side title purely expressing the dominant emotion driving the Black Power movement: “Home is Where the Hatred is.” The revolution as envisioned by Gil Scott Heron essentially erases the evidence of traditional “white” American culture:
Green Acres, the Beverly Hillbillies and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
Women will no longer care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
Will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
Bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke. http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html
Paradoxically, over the last two generations, the aging leftists have been quite successful in establishing their agenda without violence, by infiltrating and dominating the education, legal, and media establishments in our country. Teaming with the trade unions whose movement has been a tool of the International Communists for over a century, this coalition has succeeded in radically altering the American economic, political and moral landscapes. Their foothold has been so firmly established, especially in the media, that those promoting traditional American values can scarcely get their voices heard through what now amounts to the Pravda media. The formerly mainstream media is nothing more than the unofficial organ of the Democrat party, just as the original Pravda was the official house organ for the Russian Communist party.
Thank God for the rise of the alternative media and talk radio! Through the thoughtful nurturing of traditional American idealism and a determined effort to disseminate information that the mainstream media would rather keep suppressed, a genuine peaceful revolution continues to sprout from the efforts of the conservative, alternative media. Most evident in the courage and patriotism of the Tea Party movement, the corrective right-ward swing of the pendulum indicates a genuine revolution in American values is underway. Conservatives are taking back their country, albeit peacefully. There couldn’t be more important news to disseminate.
But lo and behold, just as Gil Scott Heron predicted, The Revolution is not being televised:
The Revolution is not being televised.
You will not find the smiling faces of your friends and
Neighbors marching in the streets, protesting
The arrogant contempt of the temporarily ruling regime..
Like slaves were counted in pre-Civil War
Voting rolls, government media will count
Each tea partier as one fifth of person,
Reducing its estimate of Tea Party crowds
To allay their own fears.
The Revolution will not be found on CBS,
CNN or MSNBC.
There will be no film at eleven
Showing joyous Tea Partiers in the streets
Celebrating the return to American sanity.
You will not find the video of Sarah Palin
And Marco Rubio linking arms and singing
“We have Overcome” after election night
In November signaling the triumph of excellence
In America after the pernicious cancers
Of multiculturalism and diversity
For diversity’s sake are sent whining
Into the dust-bin of history.
There will be no photos of Al Sharpton
Being run out of Harlem on a rail
With a brand new buzz-cut
Nor video of looters in Los Angeles
And New York City or the other
Havens of amnesty for the undocumented Democrats
loading up their green buses
To get out of Dodge before the new Sheriffs arrive.
You will find no High Definition
Profiles in Conservative American Courage
But you will continue to find the Housewives of Oakland,
Undocumented Apprentice, and
President-for-A-Day
On a continuous loop
Drowning out the hysterical whimpering
Of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow
And the women of The View
Blithering on about the diminished glory of
Affirmative action, Jane Fonda and Barney Frank.
No the revolution is not being televised.
It does not need Viagra, Cialis, or Flo-max.
The revolution can do without a Snuggie,
A Sham-Wow or any trinkets from the Home Shopping Network.
The revolution will go better with Coke,
And the revolution will put you
In the driver’s seat.
The revolution has no need for video replay
Satellite photos or any commentary
From Chris Mathews, Katie Couric
Or any petty bureaucrats from the Clinton
Or Carter administrations.
The revolution is real
And it’s coming to an election booth near you
On November 2, 2010.
Be there.
Back in the glory days of the boomer generation, after it discovered its mutual affinity with the leftist American media, political demonstrations and protests ran rampant and became the hip scene. Aligning with the Chicago Seven and other useful idiots being carefully nurtured by America’s abundant supply of anarcho-leftist-trade union types, young Americans hit the streets to demonstrate their rejection of traditional American values. In their naivete, the hippies and peaceniks naturally supported the angrier, more aggressive politics of the burgeoning Black Power movement. While San Francisco loonies like Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane espoused an alternately druggy and pulingly angry form of revolution, the Black Power advocates including Angela Davis, Stokely Carmicheal and H. Rap Brown raucously promoted a violent revolution. In fact, while Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party, Brown became famous for his proclamation that “Violence is as American as apple pie.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rap_Brown
Fortunately for America, so is a life sentence for homicide, under which Brown currently remains imprisoned.
In 1970, poet/songwriter Gil Scott Heron created a spoken word poem celebrating the violent revolution anticipated by the Black Panthers, SNCC and associated Black Power groups. On an album titled “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox,” accompanied only by congas and bongo drums, Heron riffed on the post-revolutionary landscape he foresaw in a poem titled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised
Heron’s grim choleric is actually the “B” side of a 45 rpm single with the flip-side title purely expressing the dominant emotion driving the Black Power movement: “Home is Where the Hatred is.” The revolution as envisioned by Gil Scott Heron essentially erases the evidence of traditional “white” American culture:
Green Acres, the Beverly Hillbillies and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
Women will no longer care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
Will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
Bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke. http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html
Paradoxically, over the last two generations, the aging leftists have been quite successful in establishing their agenda without violence, by infiltrating and dominating the education, legal, and media establishments in our country. Teaming with the trade unions whose movement has been a tool of the International Communists for over a century, this coalition has succeeded in radically altering the American economic, political and moral landscapes. Their foothold has been so firmly established, especially in the media, that those promoting traditional American values can scarcely get their voices heard through what now amounts to the Pravda media. The formerly mainstream media is nothing more than the unofficial organ of the Democrat party, just as the original Pravda was the official house organ for the Russian Communist party.
Thank God for the rise of the alternative media and talk radio! Through the thoughtful nurturing of traditional American idealism and a determined effort to disseminate information that the mainstream media would rather keep suppressed, a genuine peaceful revolution continues to sprout from the efforts of the conservative, alternative media. Most evident in the courage and patriotism of the Tea Party movement, the corrective right-ward swing of the pendulum indicates a genuine revolution in American values is underway. Conservatives are taking back their country, albeit peacefully. There couldn’t be more important news to disseminate.
But lo and behold, just as Gil Scott Heron predicted, The Revolution is not being televised:
The Revolution is not being televised.
You will not find the smiling faces of your friends and
Neighbors marching in the streets, protesting
The arrogant contempt of the temporarily ruling regime..
Like slaves were counted in pre-Civil War
Voting rolls, government media will count
Each tea partier as one fifth of person,
Reducing its estimate of Tea Party crowds
To allay their own fears.
The Revolution will not be found on CBS,
CNN or MSNBC.
There will be no film at eleven
Showing joyous Tea Partiers in the streets
Celebrating the return to American sanity.
You will not find the video of Sarah Palin
And Marco Rubio linking arms and singing
“We have Overcome” after election night
In November signaling the triumph of excellence
In America after the pernicious cancers
Of multiculturalism and diversity
For diversity’s sake are sent whining
Into the dust-bin of history.
There will be no photos of Al Sharpton
Being run out of Harlem on a rail
With a brand new buzz-cut
Nor video of looters in Los Angeles
And New York City or the other
Havens of amnesty for the undocumented Democrats
loading up their green buses
To get out of Dodge before the new Sheriffs arrive.
You will find no High Definition
Profiles in Conservative American Courage
But you will continue to find the Housewives of Oakland,
Undocumented Apprentice, and
President-for-A-Day
On a continuous loop
Drowning out the hysterical whimpering
Of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow
And the women of The View
Blithering on about the diminished glory of
Affirmative action, Jane Fonda and Barney Frank.
No the revolution is not being televised.
It does not need Viagra, Cialis, or Flo-max.
The revolution can do without a Snuggie,
A Sham-Wow or any trinkets from the Home Shopping Network.
The revolution will go better with Coke,
And the revolution will put you
In the driver’s seat.
The revolution has no need for video replay
Satellite photos or any commentary
From Chris Mathews, Katie Couric
Or any petty bureaucrats from the Clinton
Or Carter administrations.
The revolution is real
And it’s coming to an election booth near you
On November 2, 2010.
Be there.
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