The Presidency of Barack Obama Is History-Making For Many Reasons...

And encouraging opposition from your base is just the latest.

Modern presidents are never challenged from their base, always by the people who didn't love them going in. You're not supposed to get a serious primary challenge from the people who loved you. But that's the talk of what may happen with Mr. Obama.

I think this is still a lot of political thumb-sucking, personally, and the reason is found farther down in the article:

The Democrats' problem is that most of them know that the person who would emerge, who would challenge Mr. Obama from the left, would never, could never, win the 2012 general election. He'd lose badly and take the party with him. Democratic professionals know the mood of the country. Challenging Mr. Obama from the left would mean definitely losing the presidency, as opposed to probably losing the presidency.

Most of the things I read (from news sites and blogs, mainly) indicate that liberals are unhappy with Barack Obama, but the alternative from the GOP (Sarah Palin is always the boogey man) scares them enough to stay loyal to Obama. Republicans angry with the GOP, wanting to "teach them a lesson," stayed home in 2008. They didn't vote for the opposition. I can't imagine liberals wanting to destroy their party over DADT or tax cuts or the public option.

Liberal Think

When the Senate voted against cloture on the bill for money for the 9/11 responders health care, liberals were (as is their usual stance these days) outraged. From an acquaintance on Facebook:

Sure, let's all quit paying taxes. If you want to drive somewhere, your backyard is as good a place as any. Who needs an educated populace or wants to bring crime down and production up by making it available to everyone. Let's let senio...rs die of disease and hunger. Not to mention children eating free and reduced lunch. All while their parents make less and less to feed the coffers of those who are most wealthy, because they are "entitled" even with all the infrastructure provided by the government - Federally insured deposits, government loans, tax cuts for sending jobs abroad, roads, bridges - to keep their "own" money. Because by gawd, these are self-made people who made their own way. Bullshit.

You get that? If you think Congress should have to figure out how to pay for the goodies it hands out, you want children and old people to starve. This kind of disgusting behavior has worked well over the years for Democrats, but it's time to call bullshit on their "Bullshit!" screams.

Nobody's talking about recinding all taxes. This kind of extremist argument is self-serving only. Believing that raising taxes in a recession, and that the Senate's first responsibility is to deal with the tax cut issue, isn't the same as wanting infrastructure to lapse.

What we have here is the classic problem of willful two-year-olds. Anyone who's had children recognizes the symptoms.

1. Child misbehaves.
2. Parent redirects child to appropriate behavior.
3. Child continues misbehaviing.
4. Parent redirects child to appropriate behavior, reinforcing the solution to the problem.
5. Repeat Steps 1-4 again, then child throws temper tantrum.

What we're seeing is the temper tantrum ("You can't make us deal with tax issues first!").

I don't mind taxation for things the federal government should be doing, but the Facebook comment above shows why liberalism leads to economic and personal slavery. Not only is your government responsible for national security and keeping the streets paved, but ensuring that all children eat breakfast and lunch at school (which, these days, has nothing to do with starvation or poverty) and old people--with or without resources--are comfortable.

IOKTIC

That's my new acronym for It's OK to Insult Christians. Not that insulting Christians is anything new, mind you (remember the taxpayer-funded Robert Mapplethorpe art?). Apparently, we have yet another taxpayer-funded art exhibit with images designed to anger Christians, among others. The exhibit is at the Smithsonian Institute, and has given incoming House Speaker John Bohner and soon-to-be Majority Leader Eric Cantor reason to threaten spending for the institution.

The exhibit, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” includes video images of an ant-covered Jesus on a crucifix, male genitals, naked brothers kissing, men in chains, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, and a painting the Smithsonian itself describes in the show's catalog as "homoerotic."

It is being presented at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, where it opened on Oct. 30 and is set to run throughout the Christmas Season before closing on Feb. 13

David C. Ward, a National Portrait Gallery historian who is the co-curator of the exhibit, told CNSNews.com: “This is an exhibition that displays masterpieces of American portraiture and we wanted to illustrate how questions of biography and identity went into the making of images that are canonical.”

Ants crawling in Jesus' belly is "canonical"? Who okays this stuff? I'm not for suppressing the arts, but is this really the best use of taxpayer money right now? Moreover, why is it that the only art considered "important" these days seems to be art designed to offend Christians specifically and conservatives in general? Why can't artists find another religion to offend (like, I dunno, Islam or something?)?

But that's just in Washington, D.C. Closer to home, atheists are buying ads on the T, the Fort Worth bus system.

"We're not trying to convert anybody," coordinator Terry McDonald said in a phone interview. "There's so much religion in this area, and it's so visible, we're just trying to let people who are not believers know that there's a lot of people like them."

Really? Is this a big problem? Don't atheists already know there are a lot of people like them? All they have to do is watch a couple of episodes of Glee to discover that Christians are scummy hypocrites and religion sucks.

What it really comes down to is that Christianity is a great religion to bash because you won't get stabbed or stoned or blown up for bashing it. The worst you're going to get is Pat Robertson condemning you on a program that only 4 people watch (that's one more than the number watching MSNBC). Plus, if you do something nasty to Jesus and Christians object, you (a) get lots of media attention for your talentless "work" and (b) you can feel holier-than-thou (do atheists feel holier-than-thou?) and call anyone offended "intolerant." That's a double scoop of goodness for lefties.

Obama Freezes Federal Wages for 2 Years

It's a token--and I do mean token--effort at trimming the budget. It saves $5 billion over 2 years, but as Ed Morrissey notes, we're talking about a $2 trillion deficit.

Of course, liberals are no happier with a wage freeze than conservatives. Echidne seems to think it's unfair for federal workers--who get paid by folks in the private sector--should have to live with the same tough economy as the rest of us. I can't remember when the last time was I got a cost of living increase that matched the cost of living. It's very hard to work up much sympathy for the guys making 150 grand.

Laughably, Jacob Davies at Obsidian Wings complains that "Federal workers must "sacrifice" because of an economic catastrophe they didn't cause, in a way that will do nothing to help the federal government or the economy." So, wait. The only people who should be "sacrificing" right now are those who "caused" the economic problems? How, exactly, does that work? Do only workers for Fannie and Freddie have to take the wage freeze since they "caused" the problem? Or is this more of the same liberal whinging that only "the rich bankers" caused the economic collapse (without help from people buying houses they couldn't afford or running up personal debt)?

I'm sure all those people unemployed don't think they "caused" our economic woes, either, but they're dealing with it. Not to mention all the people working harder than ever to keep things together. There's no reason federal employees can't take a wage freeze like millions of other Americans. Suck it up.

Media Blah Blah Solutions

I always like reading Bob Herbert's nonsense in the New York Times, not because he says anything important, but that, next to Glenn Greenwald, he uses more words to say nothing than any other writer out there.

Take the column linked to above. Herbert bemoans the class divide, the bloated balance sheets of Wall Street fatcats and the meager choices available for the poor (which includes people who bought more house than they could afford and are now in foreclosure). His solution?

What’s really needed is for working Americans to form alliances and try, in a spirit of good will, to work out equitable solutions to the myriad problems facing so many ordinary individuals and families. Strong leaders are needed to develop such alliances and fight back against the forces that nearly destroyed the economy and have left working Americans in the lurch.

Yeah, that's a workable solution. Because there are so many "alliances" out there wanting to work "in a spirit of good will" to help lower the unemployment rate. I hate to tell Herbert, but the alliance to help "working Americans" was formed November 2 when Republicans won a historic ass-kicking. But I really doubt Herbert will appreciate the way the GOP will "fight back."

Millionaires Want Their Taxes Raised

According to this publicity stunt.

More than 40 of the nation's millionaires have joined Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength to ask President Obama to discontinue the tax breaks established for them during the Bush administration, as Salon reports.
"For the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you allow tax cuts on incomes over $1,000,000 to expire at the end of this year as scheduled," their website states. "We make this request as loyal citizens who now or in the past earned an income of $1,000,000 per year or more."

I got 2 questions:

1. When these people file their tax returns, do they take any deductions? If so, why? There's no law requiring that you take all the deductions available to you.

2. If these people really want to pay more in taxes, why don't they just give their money (however much of it they consider their "patriotic duty") to the IRS?

I'm all for voluntary taxes. These publicity stunts aren't about contributing to the general good. They're about forcing others to pay what someone else decided they should have to pay.

IOW, write your check to the IRS and STFU.

Mental Illness and Liberalism

According to the news, nearly 1 in 5 Americans had mental illness in 2009. And how many Americans self-identify as liberals?

About 20 percent.

Just sayin'.

Top 25 Ann Coulter Quotes

Here.

Conservatives Don't "Get" Racism...Except They Do

For those assuming conservatives are just closeted KKK members, Adam Serwer sets 'em straight:

What's clear, though, is that conservatives deploy racially tinged rhetoric against liberal policy priorities and Democratic politicians, and that Obama being president has a lot to do with these arguments being used. Rush Limbaugh wouldn't be comparing him to gang members if he weren't black. With Clinton, Limbaugh's sexism, rather than his racism, would be amplified. So while it might be unfair to suggest people are conservatives because they're racists, it's entirely fair to ask why conservatives are comfortable with their most prominent ideological figure's casual use of racism as a political bludgeon.

There's another option here that guys like Serwer miss, which is that conservatives like Limbaugh use the attack that is most likely to enrage liberals. That's why he mocks environmentalists with chainsaw sound effects or feminists with the shrewish voices of their leaders (not to mention calling them "babes" constantly). The "casual use of racism" is simply a way of taunting liberals to explain why their fealty to a black president regardless of his abandonment of their treasured beliefs isn't racism itself.

Republicans know they'll be called racists no matter how carefully they construct their criticisms of Teh One. That's why comparing the POTUS to spraycan-wielding graffiti artists is both subtle and effective. And, in the comments, Tom Maguire completely destroys the author's argument that the word "gang" is only used against darker-skinned politicians.

If liberals spent less time being offended and searching for "dog whistles" from commentators, they might discover that their slide to obscurity is directly related to their policy proposals, not racist/sexism/otherism by the voters.

Why Civilian Trials for Terrorists Doesn't Work

Terrorist kills hundreds of Americans and is only convicted on one count. Civilian trials for terrorists is nutty and dangerous.

From Hugh Hewitt:

224 innocents were killed by this terrorist, including 12 Americans. They will never receive justice because of the absurd legal theories of a small group of justices and the refusal of Barack Obama and Eric Holder to demand of their left-wing colleagues in the Congress a continued insistence on military tribunals.

How on earth do liberals justify this bizarre notion of "fairness" and "justice"?

When to Get One's Panties in a Bunch

Apparently, yesterday was the day for liberal outrage.

First, there was the bald racism of Rush Limbaugh, which, apparently, was also a "dog whistle." That's quite the feat, as Tom Maguire points out, since "bald" implies "open and obvious" and "dog whistle" implies "stealth." But who am I to judge? Only liberals seem to know what dog whistles look like anyway. I certainly didn't see one in Rush Limbaugh's insult of Barack Obama. It does prove my long-standing point that any criticism of Teh One must be racism.

Secondly, there's outrageous outrage of Sarah Palin's teenage daughter acting like a teenager, that is to say, inappropriately at times. I had a post, once upon a time, about adolescent speech and school discipline, and was told by someone that it wasn't a homosexual slur. My own opinion on the subject--that children should be taught not to say these things and why it may be offensive to some people--still stands. But having said that, Willow Palin using teenage vernacular (do the same outraged people feel insulted over the use of "bitch" and "slut," I wonder?) in no way reflects on Sarah Palin as a parent or role model (not that some people won't use this incident to attack Palin just as bad behavior by the Bush twins was, somehow, George W.'s fault).

What Is It With Liberals and Violence?

Look, I know our textbooks don't like to teach kids the link between liberal ideology and violence, but you don't have to go back to the 19th Century to see it. Take this post at Echidne's site for just another example.

Andrew McCarthy bloviates on how everybody "knows" the Right is looking to assassinate Barack Obama, then goes on to praise the disgusting lunatic Ted Rall for calling for armed revolution. Such talk always amuses me because liberals will talk with fear about the Second Amendment and "rightwing violence" followed a heartbeat later with calls for armed revolution against the unfair work practices of the KFC down the street. Do these people even think about the dissonance of their thoughts?

What I love most about liberals is when they call for boycotts (as this article does at the end). It just makes me giggly when they act as if 4 people not watching The Simpsons is going to cause the demise of Fox Corporation. Seriously. I'm all for people supporting companies they like and not supporting companies they don't like. But if I decide not to watch Glee because I'm tired of its agenda, I don't expect the show to go off the air.

How to Balance the Budget

Barack Obama's bipartisan commission has released an outline of its recommendations to reduce the national debt.

The plan calls for deep cuts in domestic and military spending, a gradual 15-cents-a-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax, limiting or eliminating popular tax breaks in return for lower rates, and benefit cuts and an increased retirement age for Social Security.

Among the popular tax breaks to disappear is the home mortgage deduction, the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit.

Liberals like Echidne are wringing their hands at the idea of the home mortgage deduction going away because--gosh--rich people don't care about home mortgage deductions.

Take the mortgage deductions for an example. They have always been a bit tricky to justify from an equality point of view, because they give a tax cut to those who can afford to buy rather than to rent and because the size of the price reduction they create is larger the more taxes you would otherwise pay.

But removing that deduction will also have odd equality effects: It's the middle classes who depend on that deduction to buy a house. The rich don't need it to be able to afford to buy.

Reducing or eliminating the mortgage deductions, combined with tax cuts of the types shown here, will do -- what? They must mean a move towards a larger relative tax burden for the middle classes, unless public spending is really really slashed.

Well that's not really what would happen. To start with, people shouldn't be buying houses for the mortgage deduction, and if you can't afford the house, that deduction isn't going to help. Secondly, anyone who thinks rich people don't care about tax deductions is either blind, stupid, or willfully ignorant. Rich people take all the deductions they can get, just like middle class people. Isn't that why liberals were so anxious to raise the tax rates?

Of course, the commission's proposals gore everyone's ox, whether you are a tax-and-spend liberal or a military-lovin' conservative. And there's no account here of how these severe changes in taxing and spending would affect the economy. It will be interesting to see the debate to come.

See more opinion here.

Ted Rall: Just Another Peace Lovin' Liberal

Sure to be in a bargain bin near you soon, Ted Rall's written a book and he wants to declare secular jihad on Christians.

Christian fundamentalists, the millennial end-of-theworlders obsessed with the Left Behind series about the End Times, neo-Nazi racists, rural black-helicopter Michigan Militia types cut from the same inbred cloth as Timothy McVeigh, allied with “mainstream” gun nuts and right-wing Republicans, have been planning, preparing, and praying for the destruction of the “Godless,” “secular” United States for decades. In the past, they formed groups like the John Birch Society and the Aryan Nations. Now the hard Right has a postmodern, decentralized non-organization organization called the Tea Party.

Right-wing organizational names change, but they amount to the same thing: the reactionary sociopolitical force—the sole force—poised to fill the vacuum when collapse occurs. The scenario outlined by Margaret Atwood’s prescient novel The Handmaid’s Tale—rednecks in the trenches, hard military men running things, minorities and liberals taken away and massacred, setting the stage for an even more extreme form of laissez-faire corporate capitalism than we’re suffering under today—is a fair guess of how a post-U.S. scenario will play out unless we prepare to turn it in another direction...

A war is coming. At stake: our lives, the planet, freedom, living. The government, the corporations, and the extreme right are prepared to coalesce into an Axis of Evil. Are you going to fight back? Will you do whatever it takes, including taking up arms?

I dunno how Rall plans to take up arms against right wingers, considering liberals hate arms. And I guess it would be inconvenient for Rall to remember that more people were killed by communism in the 20th century than any bunch of Crusaders. Those are mere details.

If you recall, Rall is the cartoonist who called NFL player-cum-soldier Pat Tillman an idiot for going to serve his country. There was quite a furor over that one, but it wasn't his first time insulting normal people for not being a whacked out liberal. Take a look at Rall's interview with the equally whacked out Dylan Ratigan:

Notice how both Rall and Ratigan calmly talk about people not paying their mortgages--not because they can't afford it but because it's "not fair" that the evil banks and mortgage companies get that money. The idea that living in a house you don't own and aren't paying for is squatting doesn't bother these guys because in their eyes, the ends (bringing down the evil corporations) justifies the means (theft). Moreover, they seem incapable of understanding that bringing down those evil corporations will throw a lot of people out of work who aren't mortgage bankers. While they howl at the idea of firing government employees, these jerks think nothing of tossing thousands of normal joes out on their ears for the crime of working in the private sector. Sheesh.

Only Fox News Is Biased

This video has gone viral today, and for good reason. Take a look. Regardless of whether you think it's acceptable for candidates to shill on TV, it's something they do, and the talking heads allow their favorite candidates on to do it. The problem here, of course, is the rampant hypocrisy of Rachel Maddow declaring that Fox News does it but MSNBC doesn't. That's just a bald-faced lie and she knows it. Thank goodness there are people to call her on it.

The Case That's Not What It Seems

A court forcing a cheerleader cheer for her rapist? Well, that's the way Think Progress presented this case decided by the Fifth Circuit.

If you only read Think Progress, you would think the Fifth Circuit had gone batshit crazy and forced an innocent person to cheer for her rapist. But the case was not quite what liberals dressed it up to be:

A former Silsbee, Texas, high school cheerleader did not have a First Amendment right to refuse to cheer for a basketball player she claimed had sexually assaulted her, a federal appeals court panel has ruled...

In January 2009, a racially divided grand jury from Hardin County refused to indict the players, who did not have criminal records...

(The cheerleader)said that school officials ordered her to cheer for Bolton, who also played on the basketball team, at a February 2009 game. (The cheerleader)cheered for the team, but refused to cheer for Bolton individually...

In May 2009, (her) parents...sued... argu(ing) that Sheffield violated the First Amendment by retaliating against H.S. for filing sexual-assault charges by revealing details about the case to the public.

With respect to the school and the school defendants, H.S. and her parents contended that she was punished because of her “symbolic expression” not to cheer for Bolton.

Symbolic expression? Nope. Not according to the Fifth Circuit, which ruled that there was no evidence of retaliation and also that not cheering didn't constitute free speech.

One can disagree with the court's decision, but in no way does the decision show Republicans as pro-rape the way Think Progress argues. As Robert Stacy McCain says:

What seems to be at issue is whether cheerleaders enjoy First Amendment protection for disobedience to school administrators. The 5th Circuit agreed with the trial court that they do not, and also upheld a fine against the plaintiff for bringing a “nuisance” suit. The 5th Circuit wasn’t asked to decide whether Rakheem Bolton raped “H.S.,” or whether unchaperoned parties for teenagers are a good idea, or anything like that.

It was strictly a First Amendment case (although, it being Texas, I’m frankly surprised the father of “H.S.” didn’t make it a Second Amendment case). Reacting as programmed, however, feminists Melissa McEwan and Echidne of the Snakes accuse the court of being pro-rape. The case also offers an extra “Blame Bush” bonus for progressives, considering that the 5th Circuit decision was rendered by a panel of three GOP-appointed judges.

It's not uncommon to run into fringies chomping at the bit to unleash some rage at their favorite targets, but this case in no way shows Republicans in general or GOP-appointed Fifth Circuit judges in particular as pro-rape.

Why Republicans Won Tuesday

Of course there's a lot of armchair quarterbacking about Tuesday's elections from both sides of the aisle. Not surprisingly, liberals think the problem was that blue dog Democrats didn't want to spend enough. Seriously.

It's impossible to emphasize enough that the reason Democrats got their asses kicked so badly in this election comes down to two things:

1. Unemployment
2. Obamacare

I've always said that it wouldn't matter if Barack Obama had found a cure for cancer, if the unemployment rate was over 8%, Democrats would lose in 2010. And 2012, for that matter.

But worse for Democrats is the anger their underhanded and sleazy tactics in passing Obamacare created. Americans, perhaps naively, believe that the legislative process is connected with public support for certain ideas. Once Americans make it known they don't support certain legislation (think Hillarycare), that legislation is supposed to die a quick death. But rather than admitting that the People didn't want Democrats' version of health care reform, those "representatives of the People" told the People F.U. and passed it anyway. Not hard to figure out why so many voters decided it was time to revoke the D's driver's licenses.

George Will says voters recoiled from liberalism. He has about the best definition of progressivism I've seen:

The progressive agenda is actually legitimated by the incomprehension and anger it elicits: If the people do not resent and resist what is being done on their behalf, what is being done is not properly ambitious. If it is comprehensible to its intended beneficiaries, it is the work of insufficiently advanced thinkers.

Karl at Patterico's Pontifications watches the struggle of liberals to understand what happened to them. Good stuff.

I'm a little rusty at this, so bear with me while I get back in the swing of things...

Why Every Atrocity Isn't the Holocaust...And Why It Matters

Back 2006, I wrote this post about my disgust at the urge to compare every act to the Holocaust. Having re-read it, it still holds true today after reading numerous comparisons between Nazis and Glenn Beck supporters.

I'm Sure Glad Glenn Beck's Rally Is Over

I just couldn't take any more of the civility and biparisanship on display from the Left.

Why Liberals Are Full of CrapDon't Understand Conservatives

If you read this, you'll understand the demogoguery of liberal ideology.

Can't argue facts and philosophy with a conservative? Argue they support feudalism! Yes, you got that right: liberals are now arguing that conservatives want to return to the days of kings, squires, and vassals. Why? Because, apparently, conservatives believe everyone should work for as little money as possible.

•Cheap-labor conservatives don't like social spending or our "safety net". Why. Because when you're unemployed and desperate, corporations can pay you whatever they feel like – which is inevitably next to nothing. You see, they want you "over a barrel" and in a position to "work cheap or starve".

Well, that's not really why conservatives are against government taking money from some people to give to others. Conservatives appreciate the independence and self-esteem working gives people. As opposed to taking a government check, earning your living gives you freedom and choices.

Contrary to the strawman this author erected, conservatives don't want people to work for as little money as possible. In fact, they want people to make as much money as they can. The difference is that conservatives recognize that the way to make the most money you can is through your own work and initiative, and that's something the government can't give you.

•Cheap-labor conservatives like "free trade", NAFTA, GATT, etc. Why. Because there is a huge supply of desperately poor people in the third world, who are "over a barrel", and will work cheap.

No, the reason conservatives support free trade is that free trade provides more people the opportunity to earn their own money, start their own companies, and do what they want. Rather than languishing in poverty, free trade helps people escape poverty.

•Cheap-labor conservatives oppose a woman's right to choose. Why. Unwanted children are an economic burden that put poor women "over a barrel", forcing them to work cheap.

I guess if you don't think babies are people, you might consider them only as a burden to their mothers, rather than people.

•Cheap-labor conservatives don't like unions. Why. Because when labor "sticks together", wages go up. That's why workers unionize. Seems workers don't like being "over a barrel".

Conservatives recognize that unions force individuals to follow the union's directives. This means not doing anything the union won't allow the individual to do. That means less initiative and less promotion on one's own merits. Worse, unions inevitably strike because they aren't getting gigantic raises in economic downturns (such as now) regardless of how the strike affects ordinary citizens. See strikes for transportation and even healthcare workers as examples of what unions bring every place they go. Unions are designed to prevent workers from working hard or efficiently. They are designed to provide the least work out of workers for the most money they can command. That's bad for consumers because it drives up costs and it's bad for business because it makes it more expensive to hire people. The result? Fewer workers and more expensive goods.

The arguments get more ridiculous from here. Believe it or not, the author argues that conservatives don't like prosperity. No, really. Why? Because conservatives disliked every government program designed to redistribute wealth.

These pathetic attempts to argue that conservatives are greedy bastards show how little liberals have to show for their philosophy. Pathetic.