Columnist.
What happens when more of us work for the government -- or receive paychecks from the government without work -- than those of us who work in the private sector? We're soon going to find out. This week, CNBC reported that social welfare payments now comprise 35 percent of wages and salaries this year. In other words, more than a third of all people receiving "paychecks" are receiving government redistribution checks via welfare, Social Security, Medicare or unemployment. In 1960, just 10 percent of the population garnered a wage from government anti-work programs. Now more than one in three of us do.
During the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton suggested that if the emergency phone rang at 3 a.m. in the White House, you wouldn't want President Obama picking it up. She was wrong. Obama wouldn't pick it up in the first place. He'd let it go to answering machine. He'd be too busy chasing the nearest camera. Obama is the "Girls Gone Wild" president: Stick a lens in front of him and he'll take off his shirt, mince about like a coed, and babble nonsensical nothings to an audience oddly fascinated by his antics.
Wisconsin union protesters have taken center stage in our nation's debate about fiscal responsibility. These protesters are pushing for the right to milk the American taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars; they want to be able to "collectively bargain" with legislators, although they generate precisely zero profit. President Obama supports them wholeheartedly. On the other side of the globe, Muslim protesters lash out at tyrannical governments in Egypt, Libya, Jordan and Tunisia. These protesters are pushing for the right to vote -- but more importantly, they're pushing for more benefits, less American regional influence, and a resurgence of genocidal anti-Semitism. President Obama supports them wholeheartedly.
On Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011, Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, the impresario of the ACORN scandal and a growing investigative force in the conservative media, held a press conference at the Conservative Political Action Conference. At that press conference, he laid out evidence of a concerted effort by government officials, race-baiting lawyers and certain black non-farmers to defraud the federal government of millions of dollars by exploiting a legal settlement called Pigford. On Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011, Shirley Sherrod, the single largest recipient of cash from the Pigford settlement, filed a lawsuit against Breitbart for defamation. Sherrod, you may remember, was a ranking Department of Agriculture official in Georgia. Breitbart released a video of Sherrod speaking to the NAACP, where she told a story about discriminating against a white farmer before realizing that such discrimination was wrong. The purpose of releasing the video, as Breitbart clearly stated, was to demonstrate that the same NAACP that labeled the tea party racist tolerated racism within its own ranks. The video accomplished that purpose -- members of the NAACP cheer and laugh as Sherrod describes her past racism in the video.
On March 5, 1946, the once and future prime minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, spoke at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. He was introduced by President Harry Truman, who then sat and watched as Churchill, the man who had recognized and fought the threat of Nazism before anyone else, identified the threat that would menace the world for the next half century. "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent," Churchill warned. "Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe."
Revolution is the word of the day in the Middle East. The reaction in the American media and government is pure puzzlement. Who is revolting? Why? Should we support them or oppose them?
For decades, liberals have used "big business" as a bugaboo. Leftists say corporations are mean, heartless and cruel -- and what's more, they're inherently capitalist and conservative. When the economy tanks, liberals blame right-wing corporations; when the regulatory state fails, liberals claim that corporations have perverted the system. In reality, corporations aren't conservative. They aren't capitalist. They're after the nearest buck. And when the nearest buck can be obtained simply by playing footsie with the federal government, big business becomes an emissary of the government.
Foreign dignitaries visit the United States frequently. Most of them stay for a few days in Washington, D.C. Some of them visit the United Nations in New York. Few of them stray from the governmental and cultural centers of the United States. So, why is Chinese President Hu Jintao traveling to Chicago? This week, President Obama invited President Hu to visit the White House. There, Obama plans to roll out the red carpet with a black tie dinner with all the usual taxpayer-provided accoutrements. By contrast, the Dalai Lama of Tibet was forced to walk out of the White House's side door near an enormous pile of trash bags.
Last week, mentally disturbed youth Jared Lee Loughner shot 20 people at a rally in Tucson, Ariz., including congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). The left, led by Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, immediately capitalized on the bloody murders, stating without evidence that Loughner had been inspired by the "the anger, the hatred, the bigotry" of our current political climate. Over the course of the following days, Dupnik and his allies blamed talk radio, conservatives who spread "mistrust of government," Sarah Palin, Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle and Rush Limbaugh.
While Republicans celebrate their newfound majority in the House of Representatives, Americans await the true political turning point: the 2012 elections. Will President Obama perform enough political payoffs to purchase a pass to the presidency yet again? Or will he be stopped by a populace unwilling to tread down the same dark path as Greece, Spain and Ireland? If Obama is to be stopped, Republicans will need to run a powerhouse candidate in 2012. The Republican Party is still fragmented between libertarians and social conservatives, though that fracture has been papered over with the veneer of fiscal conservatism; meanwhile, Obama remains a formidable candidate.
If there is one element of American culture that seems to reflect our national psyche, it is box office receipts. National voting only takes place once every two years; polling data is often skewed by sample size and question wording. What happens at the movie theater, however, tends to chart America's mood to a T. And surprisingly, it's been a good year for movies. The biggest and best movies tended to celebrate what's right with Western civilization; the eggs tended to denigrate America and her allies. By and large, Americans rejected elite critics' take on film, turning aside liberal offerings glamorizing gay marriage, ripping American involvement in Iraq, and complaining about the ills of capitalism. Instead, Americans embraced action blockbusters and heroic deeds by men of honor.
During the 2008 election campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly informed the American people that he would call on the country's best minds to advise him. "You know," he told an audience back in May 2008, "my attitude is that whoever is the best person for the job is the person I want." Too bad he thinks the best person for the job of secretary of defense is a bisexual, drug-addled talentless Auto-Tune creation with a relentlessly annoying fan base -- full of faux-profound morons who think that fashioning one's hair into a telephone qualifies as high art.
This week, President Obama and the last-gasp Democratic Congress parlayed on whether to allow Americans to keep their own money (no), considered whether to pay unemployed people with the money of those who have jobs (yes), and proposed a new budget topping $1.1 trillion. Meanwhile, Congress' last major "achievement," the nationalization of health care, was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in Virginia on the grounds that it forces Americans to buy a particular product -- and Democrats went ballistic.
"I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," President Obama told Diane Sawyer of ABC News in January 2010. Liar. President Obama has a pattern when it comes to his political rhetoric. If he talks about foreign policy, he tells the truth; if he talks about domestic policy, he lies. That's because President Obama feels that while the rest of the world deserves honesty, the American people can be manipulated for their own good.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate rejected a ban on earmarks, the addenda to bills that allow congressmen and senators to steer federal cash toward pet projects in their states and districts. The vote wasn't even close. The ban was defeated 56-39. "We have put in place the most dramatic reform of this appropriations process since I've served in Congress," whined Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Majority Whip and Appropriations Committee member. "There is full disclosure in my office of every single request for an appropriation."
Many commentators have compared the current war on Islamism to World War II. "Like the Second World War," President Bush said in 2004, "our present conflict began with a ruthless, surprise attack on the United States. We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy."
Are Barack Obama's poll numbers up, or is Janet Napolitano just happy to see us? This week, the TSA began installing full-body scanners in airports across the country. TSA employees will be viewing us in our birthday suits each time we fly. Pregnant women and children will not be subjected to these scans due to low doses of radiation; frequent fliers, however, will soon be glowing in the dark.
Young Barry Obama spent the ages from 6 to 10 attending school in Indonesia after his mother married Lolo Soetoro. During that time, according to Obama's third-grade teacher, the "fat, curly-haired, curious" Barry studied Quran and went to Islamic classes over the protestations of his mother, Ann. Ann apparently showed up at the school demanding to know why the religious teacher had accepted young Barry into class. "But," said Barry's teacher, "he kept going to the classes because he was interested in Islam. He would also join the other pupils for Muslim prayers."
If the 2008 presidential elections marked the apex of America's political adolescence, the 2010 midterm election represented the first glimmers of political maturation.
This week's Sports Illustrated featured an article on French soccer star Thierry Henry. Henry, who is black, signed with the New York Red Bulls this season after spending over a decade playing in Europe. What shocks Henry most about America? Whereas European fans routinely insult and slur black players, Americans don't.
