OXY MORONS
An oxymoron is an apparent contradiction in terms, such as “deafening silence,” or “jumbo shrimp.” Comedians like to cite “military intelligence,” “political courage,” and “business ethics” as other examples.
The oxymoron of 2010 is “mainstream media.” The major news organizations are headed and staffed mostly by people who couldn’t be more detached from the attitudes, concerns and opinions of ordinary Americans, who they hold in contempt.
THE AGE OF DISSIMULATION
Today, practically, the only individuals willing to speak honestly about who Islamic supremacists are and what they want are the Islamic supremacists themselves.
For instance, in an interview last week with Reuters, the Islamic supremacist Hamas movement's "foreign minister" Mahmoud al- Zahar told the Christian West, "You do not live like human beings. You do not [even] live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticize us?"
Al-Zahar also made the case for Islamic feminism. As he put it, "We are the ones who respect women and honor women ... not you. You use women as an animal. She has one husband and hundreds of thousands of boyfriends. You don't know who is the father of your sons, because of the way you respect women."
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/29/10
We are less than 100 hours from the most important midterm election in our history.
The outlook for the House ranges from rosy to Biblical. An Irish bookie already is paying off those who bet the Republicans will take the House.
What is perhaps a sign that he feels confident he’ll be the next Speaker, House Republican leader John Boehner will spend part of the final weekend before the election campaigning for Rich Iott.
While polling suggests the Republican wave is still building in the House, it seems to be receding in the Senate.
National Democrats must really be afraid of Marco Rubio to try this desperate ploy.
THE SCOTT BROWN PRECEDENT AND ISRAEL
Last year, in an attempt to block Obama's plan to nationalize healthcare, Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to the Senate. Brown was elected because he pledged to block Obamacare in the US Senate.
Rather than heed the voters' message and abandon his plans, Obama abandoned the voters. Instead of accepting his defeat, Obama changed the rules of the game and bypassed the Senate.
So it is safe to assume that for the next two years, Obama will do everything he can to bypass the Congress and govern by executive orders and regulations. Although much can be done in this fashion, Congress's control of the purse strings will check his domestic agenda.
In matters of foreign policy however, Obama will be less burdened by - but not immune - to Congressional oversight. We can therefore expect him to devote far more energy to foreign affairs in the next two years than he devoted in the last two years.
This bodes ill for Israel.
TARP AND WITCHCRAFT
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is all that remains of President Barack Obama’s original economic team. Budget director Peter Orszag and Christina Romer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, are long gone, and Lawrence Summers, chairman of the National Economic Council, plans to be back at Harvard in January.
Neil Barofsky wouldn’t be sad if Mr. Geithner were to depart too.
Who, you may ask, is Neil Barofsky? And why should you care what he thinks?
OBAMA’S IMAGINARY TAX CUT
How many times have you heard the president and the congressional Democrats say Americans who make less than $200,000 a year have not had, and will not have, any of their taxes increased? Unfortunately, it is not true, and it is likely to become a whole lot worse.
The 111th Congress has already enacted $352 billion in net tax increases and may, in the upcoming lame-duck session, enact the largest tax increases in history, which will hit every man, woman and child - as well as every business in America.
The president and most congressional Democrats have been claiming they will make sure no one making less than $200,000 per year will face a tax increase when all of the "Bush tax cuts" expire on midnight Dec. 31. Given they have not been truthful about the tax increases they already have enacted, why should anyone believe these new claims?
LINING UP EXCUSES IN ADVANCE
In May of 2009, Democratic strategist James Carville published a book in which he predicted the election of Barack Obama as president presaged the “emergence of a Democratic majority that will last not four but 40 years.”
Democrats fear Mr. Carville may be off by 38 years.
“Democrats are previewing what promises to be a main line of argument if Republicans make strong gains in Congress,” wrote Jonathan Martin in the Webzine Politico Monday. “Conservatives bought their way to power with a flood of spending by outside groups.”
“The denunciations of outside money by President Barack Obama began as a tool to rally the Democratic base before the Nov. 2 election,” Mr. Martin wrote. “But in recent days it has morphed into something else: a main talking point to explain -- and fend off the recriminations over -- what many Washington Democrats assume will be a brutal election night.”
If Republicans take the House and gain seven or eight seats in the Senate, it’ll be a good idea for Democrats to have an explanation ready. But the claim Democrats are being overwhelmed by spending from outside groups blends hypocrisy with hilarity, because most of the spending from outside groups is being done by unions on behalf of Democrats.
DEMOCRAT KOOL-AID
Georgetown, Guyana. You may think you've never heard of this place but you have. The former British Guiana (one of the three Guianas - the other two being former Dutch Guiana, now Surinam, and French Guiana, all on the northeast shoulder of South America) - is these days visited by folks into eco-tourism. This place has one of the most untouched rainforests on earth with an astonishing variety of bird and wildlife. But Guyana doesn't ring a bell with you because of harpy eagles and howler monkeys. How about Jim Jones and Jonestown? Yes, that Guyana, where, on November 18, 1978, over 900 Americans committed mass suicide on orders of their cult leader. It remains one of the most bizarre events of modern times - from which the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" originates, meaning blind unthinking acceptance of a suicidally idiotic set of beliefs. Yet almost no one knows just what, exactly, were the beliefs of the "Peoples Temple" cult created by Jim Jones. Some sort of weird religion, right? Nope. Jim Jones calling his Peoples Temple a "church" was a tax-avoidance scam as it was purely secular. He admitted in a taped interview, "I'm an atheist." He was not a religious leader. He was a Stalin-admiring far left San Francisco Democrat.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/22/10
The headline on this story on the front page of the New York Times Thursday read: “Coalition Forces Routing Taliban in Key Afghan Region.”
It’s evident New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof didn’t read the story in his own paper before writing this column. When you want your commentary fact free, always think of the New York Times first.
Schadenfreude (taking joy from the discomfort of someone you dislike) is a sinful pleasure, but one to which most of us succumb from time to time.
The most delicious form of schadenfreude is when our enemies suffer as a result of a colossal, unforced error of their own. This is why so many conservatives are taking so much pleasure in the hole National Public Radio has dug for itself.
I don’t believe this. But if it’s true, then Democrats will have to advance the date of Doomsday on the Mayan calendar from December 21, 2012 to Nov. 2, 2010.
EXCELLING ONLY AT COVERUPS
The CIA suffered one of its biggest setbacks on December 20, 2009, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the CIA’s Afghanistan headquarters in Khost, along with four CIA officers, three security contractors, and a Jordanian intelligence officer.
Among those killed were the CIA station chief and an analyst from headquarters in Langley who reportedly was the agency’s foremost expert on al Qaida. Six other CIA officers were injured in the blast.
The suicide bomber was Khalil Abu-Mulal al Balawi, a Jordanian doctor who the CIA thought was an informant for them, but who was really an agent of Tehrik i Taliban Pakistan, the main Pakistani Taliban group.
On Tuesday, CIA Director Leon Panetta told selected reporters an internal review found the CIA has been warned Mr. al Balawi’s loyalties were suspect, but the warnings were ignored. The body count was so high because security procedures at the base in Khost also were ignored.
The main takeaway for me from Mr. Panetta’s briefing was his declaration that no one would be held accountable for the failures. It was deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra might say.