by Bob Weir
This latest imbroglio about Rush Limbaugh being ineligible to buy an NFL franchise, because of a couple of alleged racial comments he made over the span of his many decades on the radio, stands out as one of the phoniest canards ever foisted upon the American public.
The irony behind the spurious charge is that they come from two of the most incendiary provocateurs in the race-baiting business. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who give themselves the ludicrous title of Reverend, have the unmitigated gall to proclaim that Limbaugh is a polarizing figure in the country. This from a couple of race hustlers who have been living large for several decades with no visible means of support except for the "donations" they received from corporations they've threatened with not so subtle methods of extortion. Using their race as a bludgeon, they begin by claiming that a company doesn't have enough blacks on the payroll, therefore they will stage protests and jeopardize the company's profits until it cries uncle and makes sizable "contributions" to the respective bank accounts of some very suspicious "nonprofit" groups. Add to that several instances in which these charlatans have thrown gasoline on black - white incidents from coast to coast, and you have a clear picture of actual racism... Read the whole article.
Showing posts with label American Thinker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Thinker. Show all posts
Monday, October 19, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
How to take down a great power
by J. R. Dunn
Unlike Augustus or Caligula, Lucius Aurelius Commodus was not an emperor who made a strong impression on modern consciousness. Until the release of the film Gladiator, a heavily fictionalized version of his reign, most Americans had never heard of him. In the film he comes across as quite a compelling figure thanks to a first-rate portrayal by Joaquin Phoenix.
But, as is true of much of the film, the character of Commodus was altered for dramatic purposes. Unlike Caligula and Nero, Commodus was not a psychopath. Though he killed plenty (12,000 by his own reckoning), he was no thrill-killer as such, but very likely what we today would call a malignant narcissist, somebody who believes himself to be the center of the universe and everyone else merely a walk-on. Combine this personality disorder with the power imbued in a national leader and you've set the fuse blazing for sure.
Commodus was not actually in conflict with his father, Marcus Aurelius, last of the four great emperors. Far from it -- Marcus Aurelius idolized his son, steadily raising him through the imperial ranks to the level of co-emperor. Blinded by paternal affection, Aurelius unleashed a monster on Rome, proving that not even a man trained to the highest levels of philosophy (Aurelius was also a leading Stoic philosopher) is immune to human error.
Commodus' failings became evident soon after he ascended to the imperial purple. Having no background in foreign policy, he effectively set it aside, allowing his father's achievements to unravel. Marcus Aurelius had spent much of his reign on the Danubean frontier, subduing menacing barbarian tribes threatening the peace of the ancient world. Commodus simply abandoned the province. If the Romans had possessed Special Forces and remote-controlled drones, things might have turned out differently... Read the whole article.
Unlike Augustus or Caligula, Lucius Aurelius Commodus was not an emperor who made a strong impression on modern consciousness. Until the release of the film Gladiator, a heavily fictionalized version of his reign, most Americans had never heard of him. In the film he comes across as quite a compelling figure thanks to a first-rate portrayal by Joaquin Phoenix.
But, as is true of much of the film, the character of Commodus was altered for dramatic purposes. Unlike Caligula and Nero, Commodus was not a psychopath. Though he killed plenty (12,000 by his own reckoning), he was no thrill-killer as such, but very likely what we today would call a malignant narcissist, somebody who believes himself to be the center of the universe and everyone else merely a walk-on. Combine this personality disorder with the power imbued in a national leader and you've set the fuse blazing for sure.
Commodus was not actually in conflict with his father, Marcus Aurelius, last of the four great emperors. Far from it -- Marcus Aurelius idolized his son, steadily raising him through the imperial ranks to the level of co-emperor. Blinded by paternal affection, Aurelius unleashed a monster on Rome, proving that not even a man trained to the highest levels of philosophy (Aurelius was also a leading Stoic philosopher) is immune to human error.
Commodus' failings became evident soon after he ascended to the imperial purple. Having no background in foreign policy, he effectively set it aside, allowing his father's achievements to unravel. Marcus Aurelius had spent much of his reign on the Danubean frontier, subduing menacing barbarian tribes threatening the peace of the ancient world. Commodus simply abandoned the province. If the Romans had possessed Special Forces and remote-controlled drones, things might have turned out differently... Read the whole article.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Half a president
by Steve McCann
President Obama apparently wants to do only half of his job -- the part that is the most fun. And he's got his eyes on a higher position.
Barack Obama has been the number one topic of conversation among many of my friends and associates in London. His incompetence, narcissism and danger to the interests of the United States and its allies in Europe are startling people. I was asked "How does Obama view himself as President?" We happened to be sitting in a hotel which overlooked Buckingham Palace and suddenly the answer to the question came to me.
In the United Kingdom and many other countries with a parliamentary system there is a distinction between the head of state and the head of the government. In some countries such as Denmark, Spain and the United Kingdom the monarch either a King or Queen is considered the head of state and with that office goes all the trappings of royalty. The mundane responsibility of running the government falls to the elected Parliament and their chosen Prime Minister...
Read the whole article.
President Obama apparently wants to do only half of his job -- the part that is the most fun. And he's got his eyes on a higher position.
Barack Obama has been the number one topic of conversation among many of my friends and associates in London. His incompetence, narcissism and danger to the interests of the United States and its allies in Europe are startling people. I was asked "How does Obama view himself as President?" We happened to be sitting in a hotel which overlooked Buckingham Palace and suddenly the answer to the question came to me.
In the United Kingdom and many other countries with a parliamentary system there is a distinction between the head of state and the head of the government. In some countries such as Denmark, Spain and the United Kingdom the monarch either a King or Queen is considered the head of state and with that office goes all the trappings of royalty. The mundane responsibility of running the government falls to the elected Parliament and their chosen Prime Minister...
Read the whole article.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
The Obamas Violated First Three Rules of Selling
by C. Edmund Wright
Of course Barack and Michelle Obama failed in Copenhagen. Their strategy could not possibly succeed. In their academic arrogance, they thought they could sell a product they clearly do not believe in (the United States) and moreover, they could do so by stressing the benefits to the seller (Chicago) and not the buyer (the IOC). And to top it off, they committed the faux pas of talking too much about the sales force (themselves) and not about the product or the buyer.
Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
Anyone who has had to succeed in the real business world -- and that includes few if any on Team Obama -- instinctively knows that to get business done you have to believe in what you are doing and offer a product or service that is focused on the benefits to the customer. In the Obama World of Chicago pay-to-play power, business gets done by flexing muscle and clearing the field of your competitors. You don't have to sell anything. You don't have to believe in anything. It is fine to be self-focused. You simply have to apply the power of the applicable political machinery and you win.
Which could explain why the First Couple was so apparently lost in an attempt to actually have to make a sale to an audience not cowed by Chicago-style clout, inoculated by our own fawning Jurassic media, nor remotely interested in their life stories. Perhaps that is how and why they botched it so badly.
That is not to say that Chicago was a slam dunk in the first place. I have no way of knowing what their ultimate chances were. But the embarrassing first round knockout was a definitive rejection of both the Obamas and their approach. Their hearts were in selling the Obama brand, not U-S-A.
The Obamas' sales pitch was awful by any definition. Of course. How can our President, who has made his political fortune at the expense of the reputation of the country, sell our country to the IOC with a straight face?
The answer is he could not. And although it would have been an out of body experience, I still thought he would at least attempt to sell America and some notion of our logistical competence and love of sports and so on. I didn't think he would believe it, but certainly thought the teleprompter would sneak in something good about the country for him to read...
Read the whole article.
Of course Barack and Michelle Obama failed in Copenhagen. Their strategy could not possibly succeed. In their academic arrogance, they thought they could sell a product they clearly do not believe in (the United States) and moreover, they could do so by stressing the benefits to the seller (Chicago) and not the buyer (the IOC). And to top it off, they committed the faux pas of talking too much about the sales force (themselves) and not about the product or the buyer.
Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
Anyone who has had to succeed in the real business world -- and that includes few if any on Team Obama -- instinctively knows that to get business done you have to believe in what you are doing and offer a product or service that is focused on the benefits to the customer. In the Obama World of Chicago pay-to-play power, business gets done by flexing muscle and clearing the field of your competitors. You don't have to sell anything. You don't have to believe in anything. It is fine to be self-focused. You simply have to apply the power of the applicable political machinery and you win.
Which could explain why the First Couple was so apparently lost in an attempt to actually have to make a sale to an audience not cowed by Chicago-style clout, inoculated by our own fawning Jurassic media, nor remotely interested in their life stories. Perhaps that is how and why they botched it so badly.
That is not to say that Chicago was a slam dunk in the first place. I have no way of knowing what their ultimate chances were. But the embarrassing first round knockout was a definitive rejection of both the Obamas and their approach. Their hearts were in selling the Obama brand, not U-S-A.
The Obamas' sales pitch was awful by any definition. Of course. How can our President, who has made his political fortune at the expense of the reputation of the country, sell our country to the IOC with a straight face?
The answer is he could not. And although it would have been an out of body experience, I still thought he would at least attempt to sell America and some notion of our logistical competence and love of sports and so on. I didn't think he would believe it, but certainly thought the teleprompter would sneak in something good about the country for him to read...
Read the whole article.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Food Fight: An Unappetizing Development
by Andrew Thomas
Our regulation-hungry leaders in Washington are acquiring a new taste in governmental control. A sumptuous feast of tempting regulatory delicacies awaits them under the guise of improving the safety of our food supply. Is this a well-meaning but horrendously misguided attempt by the administration to "protect" the public through draconian regulations heaped onto farmers and small food processing businesses? After all, leftist policy-makers are the masters of unintended consequences.
Radical environmentalist organizations such as the Sierra Club have long fought battles alongside the EPA against individual farmers for producing "animal emissions" and farm dust. Now the EPA is using the Endangered Species Act of 1973 as a weapon against agriculture. The latest and most egregious example of this is the EPA enforcement of the act to turn off the water supply to the farmers of the San Joaquin valley. Arguably the most essential of America's "bread baskets", it was producing as much as 12% of the nation's agriculture, at least until the EPA decided that the protection of the three-inch Delta Smelt was more important and deserved the water more than the farmers. Now up to 40,000residents are out of work and short of food. They are waiting in lines up to five hours long for food packages marked "Product of China". Farms are going bankrupt and being abandoned in droves. Obama has so far denied requests to reverse the EPA's decision.
There are 1,320 officially-designated endangered species in the US. Each one can be used to regulate and restrict agriculture as the EPA so deigns. I agree with George Carlin, who used to say, "Species disappear at a rate of 25 a day, regardless of our behavior. Let them go gracefully."
That brings us to the two-edged sword of the FDA. I have worked with the FDA (known to insiders as "the Agency") for over thirty years, so I know from personal experience that it can be a force for good in protecting public health. It has restrained many a pharmaceutical and medical device business from illegal or unethical practices. On the other hand, it has destroyed good companies and prevented beneficial products from reaching the market, many times based on the political agenda of the Agency at the time. In this case, the sword is being directed by Obama political appointees and the legislation currently before Congress. It is pointed directly at the heart of the food industry.
Read the whole article.
Our regulation-hungry leaders in Washington are acquiring a new taste in governmental control. A sumptuous feast of tempting regulatory delicacies awaits them under the guise of improving the safety of our food supply. Is this a well-meaning but horrendously misguided attempt by the administration to "protect" the public through draconian regulations heaped onto farmers and small food processing businesses? After all, leftist policy-makers are the masters of unintended consequences.
Radical environmentalist organizations such as the Sierra Club have long fought battles alongside the EPA against individual farmers for producing "animal emissions" and farm dust. Now the EPA is using the Endangered Species Act of 1973 as a weapon against agriculture. The latest and most egregious example of this is the EPA enforcement of the act to turn off the water supply to the farmers of the San Joaquin valley. Arguably the most essential of America's "bread baskets", it was producing as much as 12% of the nation's agriculture, at least until the EPA decided that the protection of the three-inch Delta Smelt was more important and deserved the water more than the farmers. Now up to 40,000residents are out of work and short of food. They are waiting in lines up to five hours long for food packages marked "Product of China". Farms are going bankrupt and being abandoned in droves. Obama has so far denied requests to reverse the EPA's decision.
There are 1,320 officially-designated endangered species in the US. Each one can be used to regulate and restrict agriculture as the EPA so deigns. I agree with George Carlin, who used to say, "Species disappear at a rate of 25 a day, regardless of our behavior. Let them go gracefully."
That brings us to the two-edged sword of the FDA. I have worked with the FDA (known to insiders as "the Agency") for over thirty years, so I know from personal experience that it can be a force for good in protecting public health. It has restrained many a pharmaceutical and medical device business from illegal or unethical practices. On the other hand, it has destroyed good companies and prevented beneficial products from reaching the market, many times based on the political agenda of the Agency at the time. In this case, the sword is being directed by Obama political appointees and the legislation currently before Congress. It is pointed directly at the heart of the food industry.
Read the whole article.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Community service is not what made America great
by C. Edmund Wright
Dare we say that the planners of the 9-11 attacks understand more about the greatness of America than our current President and some in Congress? I say yes. No one inside the beltway wants to argue the point. It sounds so nice. Fine. It is patently wrong however.
Besides, the 9-11 attacks had nothing to do with Medicare, the Junior League or Earth Day or working in a soup kitchen, let alone registering voters or pushing for sub prime lending on behalf of ACORN.
The 9-11 masterminds understood what it is that makes America great, and it was precisely some obvious icons of that greatness they attacked. It is our government-limiting Constitution -- creating an environment conducive to free enterprise, innovation, opportunity and military might, used for the good of all freedom loving peoples -- that has made America great.
Read the whole article.
Dare we say that the planners of the 9-11 attacks understand more about the greatness of America than our current President and some in Congress? I say yes. No one inside the beltway wants to argue the point. It sounds so nice. Fine. It is patently wrong however.
Besides, the 9-11 attacks had nothing to do with Medicare, the Junior League or Earth Day or working in a soup kitchen, let alone registering voters or pushing for sub prime lending on behalf of ACORN.
The 9-11 masterminds understood what it is that makes America great, and it was precisely some obvious icons of that greatness they attacked. It is our government-limiting Constitution -- creating an environment conducive to free enterprise, innovation, opportunity and military might, used for the good of all freedom loving peoples -- that has made America great.
Read the whole article.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Senator Kennedy's Final Attempt at Salvation
by Frank S. Rosenbloom, M.D.
The passing of Senator Edward Kennedy was truly the end of an era. He had been extolled as the "lion of the Senate." Understandably, given the impact of his life, the news media were filled with stories about Kennedy, his family, his trials and tribulations and his contributions. I was most surprised to read that a month before his death Senator Kennedy had written a letter to Pope Benedict XVI, which was delivered to him by President Obama. As a practicing Catholic, I took great interest in Kennedy's thoughts about his Catholicism at the end of his life.
Read the whole article.
The passing of Senator Edward Kennedy was truly the end of an era. He had been extolled as the "lion of the Senate." Understandably, given the impact of his life, the news media were filled with stories about Kennedy, his family, his trials and tribulations and his contributions. I was most surprised to read that a month before his death Senator Kennedy had written a letter to Pope Benedict XVI, which was delivered to him by President Obama. As a practicing Catholic, I took great interest in Kennedy's thoughts about his Catholicism at the end of his life.
Read the whole article.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Obama's 'Gift' Has Stopped Giving
by Lee Cary
"The nature of oratory is such that there has always been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to oversimplify complex matters. From a pulpit or a platform even the most conscientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the whole truth." -Aldous Huxley
President Obama's healthcare address to Congress displayed the oratorical gift he once revealed to Harry Reid. But the gift has stopped giving.
In an updated version of his biography, Senator Reid tells of a conversation he once had with then Senator Obama about a speech Obama delivered on President Bush's war policy. Reid said to Obama, "That speech was phenomenal, Barack." Obama replied, "I have a gift, Harry."
Read the whole article.
"The nature of oratory is such that there has always been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to oversimplify complex matters. From a pulpit or a platform even the most conscientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the whole truth." -Aldous Huxley
President Obama's healthcare address to Congress displayed the oratorical gift he once revealed to Harry Reid. But the gift has stopped giving.
In an updated version of his biography, Senator Reid tells of a conversation he once had with then Senator Obama about a speech Obama delivered on President Bush's war policy. Reid said to Obama, "That speech was phenomenal, Barack." Obama replied, "I have a gift, Harry."
Read the whole article.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Dog Days
by Randy Fardal
Democrat lawmakers publicly deride Republicans for blocking progress on their nationalized healthcare bill. Privately, of course, they know that's hogwash, since they need no Republican votes to pass the legislation. The Democrats have large majorities in both houses of Congress and a president that is willing to demean the office with such circus acts as hosting a healthcare infomercial and staging a fake town hall meeting to promote the legislation.
Read the whole article.
Democrat lawmakers publicly deride Republicans for blocking progress on their nationalized healthcare bill. Privately, of course, they know that's hogwash, since they need no Republican votes to pass the legislation. The Democrats have large majorities in both houses of Congress and a president that is willing to demean the office with such circus acts as hosting a healthcare infomercial and staging a fake town hall meeting to promote the legislation.
Read the whole article.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
