Columnist.
As you may have noticed, liberals are ever on the alert when it comes to what they love to label "the religious right." But they never have a problem with those on the left mixing religion and politics. So far as they're concerned, when Jesse Jackson runs for president, he's merely exercising his rights as an American. However, when Pat Robertson ran, he was out to turn the U.S. into a theocracy. When Catholic bishops speak out against wholesale abortions, they're crossing the line. But when Obama sits in a pew for 20 years while Jeremiah Wright condemns white people or when Rev. Luis Leon of St. John's Episcopal devotes an Easter sermon to labeling conservatives racists, Obama and his supporters are as happy as pigs in slop.
If the U.S. isn't yet a third world nation, it's not because we're not trying. As if the Congressional Black Caucus isn't bad enough, there is an even larger group calling itself the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It has even more members, including the entire Black Caucus. Its co-chairmen are Keith Ellison, who chose to be sworn into office with his hand on the Koran, and Raul Grijalva, whose resume includes having been a leader of both the racist Raza Unida Party and the Chicano Liberation Committee. As if that's not bad enough, the Vice-Chair is Sheila Jackson Lee, the Whip is Barbara Lee, and Bernie Sanders, the only left-winger honest enough to identify himself as a Socialist, is the lone Senate member. This group is so far to the Left, that even Henry Waxman, one of a minority of House Democrats who actually voted to continue funding ACORN even after those scandalous videos were made public by the late Andrew Breitbart, *isn't* a member.
There is a trial balloon, or at least a rumor, floating around that suggests there just might be a Hillary Clinton/Michelle Obama run for the White House in 2016. Some are actually referring to it as a dream ticket. More like a nightmare. But I am willing to make book it doesn't happen. Anyone who actually believes Mrs. Obama would play second fiddle to the honky bitch probably thinks that if that idea doesn't pan out, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny might consider making a run for the White House. At least those two seem to like each other. Even at this late date, there are conservative pundits who insist that Barack Obama is brilliant. In trying to figure out where people get that wacky idea, I have concluded it's because they, too, attended an Ivy League college. There's nothing like snobbism to make people turn a blind eye to reality. So even though Obama announced that there are 57 states in the Union, informed us that Austrians speak Austrian, that "corps" is pronounced "corpse," that the federal government doesn't have a spending problem and that a $17 trillion debt is nothing to get excited about, they continue to insist he's a genius.
Anyone who watched Mitt and Ann Romney being interviewed on Chris Wallace's Sunday morning show and didn't regret that they aren't ensconced in the White House, instead of the Obamas, has a very weak grasp on reality. When even Bill O'Reilly, who was busy telling his viewers just a few short months ago that Barack Obama was a nice guy and didn't have a socialist bone in his body, has finally seen the light, I say that any Republican who sat home last November because he didn't think Romney was conservative enough or because he couldn't bring himself to vote for a Mormon, should take himself out behind the woodshed and give himself a good tanning.
There are only two daily shows I watch on Fox. The first is Bret Baier's "Special Report." The other is Bill O'Reilly's "The Factor." Because I record everything I watch, I am able to fast forward through the commercials on Baier's show. When it comes to O'Reilly, I will often fast forward not only through his commercials, but through segments in which Bob Beckel, Leslie Marshall, Alan Colmes, Geraldo Rivera, Juan Williams, Lis Wiehl, Kimberly Guilfoyle and/or Marc Lamont Hill, appear. Some nights, I can fly through the entire hour in about eight or nine minutes. In fact, if it weren't for Bernie Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer, Megyn Kelly, Lou Dobbs and, to a lesser degree, Dennis Miller, I wouldn't tune in at all. A while back, I got caught up in watching O'Reilly get fired up over same-sex marriages. One night, he claimed that too many people who opposed them did so for no other reason than their religious beliefs, and he didn't think that "Bible-thumpers" were in a position to persuade those who disagreed with them. I had to concede his point. After all, if people weren't religious, it stood to reason that they wouldn't be swayed by arguments based on gospel.
It really is a shame that the U.S. economy isn't growing at the same rate as insanity. Instead, we have Barack Obama threatening to shut down tours of the White House to school kids, blaming that old devil, Sequester. At the same time, as the Wall Street Journal points out, he green lights a junket for Department of Agriculture employees to attend the 26th California Small Farm Conference, in Fresno, where they'll have the opportunity to sip "exceptional wines" and sample "tasty dishes" whipped up by "special guest chefs." At the same time that Obama gave the finger to school kids and other Americans who planned to visit the place that used to be called "The People's House" before the Obamas moved in, he sent $300 million to Egypt's Mohamed Morsi, shortly after the creep referred to Christians and Jews as pigs and monkeys.
A New York Supreme Court judge, Milton Tingling, as you may have heard, has overruled Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban of large drinks, calling it "arbitrary and capricious," which is legal-speak for dopey and asinine. For his part, Bloomberg announced he will appeal the ruling, which is Bloomberg-speak for "How dare he! Doesn't he know who I am?!"
Recently, Thomas Sowell wrote an excellent piece dealing with term limits. The point he made is that if the idea behind limits was to rid us of those people who spend their entire lives doing little more than voting, we've gone about it in a really stupid way. For one thing, as we've seen here in California, it merely means that once one of these palookas has termed out in, say, the state assembly, he merely runs for the state senate or for governor or lieutenant governor or attorney general. In short, he moves on, he doesn't move out. Another problem is that once elected to the House or Senate, where term limits are never even considered, it's next to impossible to dislodge the likes of Harry Reid, Charley Rangel and Henry Waxman.
I know that Obama said that his primary concerns for his second term were major immigration reform and gun control. It's probably just a coincidence, but despots often feel compelled to deal with those two issues. They usually deal with guns by confiscating them, while their immigration policy generally involves box cars headed off to Siberia or Auschwitz. But, now, thanks to sequestration, he has to put those plans on the backburner so he can terrify Americans into believing that a tiny reduction in rising expenditures will lengthen the lines at airports, reduce the ranks of air traffic controllers, and turn teachers, cops and firemen, into sidewalk apple vendors.
Mark Twain observed that everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. He was of course making a typically wry comment, but leave it to liberals to take it to heart. First to jump on the let's-try-to-monkey-with-the weather bandwagon was Al Gore, who has since made millions off the hoax known as "global warming," but which sometimes goes by the alias of "climate change." More recently, we had the Con Man-in-Chief mention it in his State of the Union address, promising to domesticate Mother Nature with the same ease with which he has cowed the media. The real problem isn't that corrupt politicians lie to their own advantage, which is a given, but that most liberal voters are so gullible that fooling them is the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.
I know that Obama said that his primary concerns for his second term were major immigration reform and gun control. It's probably just a coincidence, but despots often feel compelled to deal with those two issues. They usually deal with guns by confiscating them, while their immigration policy generally involves box cars headed off to Siberia or Auschwitz. But, now, thanks to sequestration, he has to put those plans on the backburner so he can terrify Americans into believing that a tiny reduction in rising expenditures will lengthen the lines at airports, reduce the ranks of air traffic controllers, and turn teachers, cops and firemen, into sidewalk apple vendors.
One of many things I don't understand about those on the Left is how naïve they are. Even if you get past their childlike belief that human nature doesn't exist and that if you simply pass enough big government legislation, you can do away with greed, sloth, envy and evil, you still run into their conviction that nothing must ever be allowed to change the climate or the rate of federal spending. I mean, even if we overlook the idiocy of believing that man controls the elements, and that if we just stop driving around or using air conditioning we can stop that hussy, Mother Nature, in her tracks, what's so great about our weather? I happen to live in Los Angeles, where the climate is usually the only thing we have to boast about, but even I can see ways to improve it. For one thing, it's far too hot in the summer and, judging by this year, winter has been much too cold. But what if you live in Louisiana, New Jersey or North Dakota? I bet a lot of those people would be grateful for a little change. I bet there are even a few in Minnesota who wish there was something to do in December besides ice skate, bowl and skid into snow banks. And, furthermore, I'm willing to wager that a large number of Brits long for the good old days when it was possible to grow grapes in England.
Last year, during the presidential campaign, Team Obama reached out to America's single women by showing how a fictional woman named Julia only managed to make it from the cradle to the grave by depending at every turn on the largesse of the federal government. And it worked so well that those women chose Obama over Romney by a huge margin. Why is it, though, that I haven't heard old-line feminists such as Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar and Rachel Maddow, taking young women to task? I thought young women were supposed to build on all that empowerment that the ladies of NOW have been spewing for the past 40 years. As I recall, Ms. Steinem insisted that women needed men the way a fish needs a bicycle. Apparently that's the case unless the man happens to reside in the White House. In which case, all bets are off. When they have a sugar daddy in the Oval Office, these powerful, glass ceiling-busting women can't even manage to come up with $25-a-month to pay for their own birth control pills.
Back in the 1980s, a fictional pitchman named Joe Isuzu made a series of TV commercials promoting Isuzu cars and trucks. A fast-talking, smarmy-looking guy, would make outrageous claims along the lines of "It has more seats than the Astrodome" and "It goes faster than a speeding bullet," and everyone knew it was a takeoff on every overly zealous, ethically-challenged, salesman who had ever tried to sell you a lemon. Today, it seems to me that we have his cousin living in the White House. I mean, is there anything our commander-in-chief says or does that doesn't remind you of the cheapest sort of huckster? Instead of being the leader of the greatest nation on earth, this guy was born to work a carnival midway. He would clearly be right at home trying to con you into trying to knock iron ten-pins off a pedestal or blow several dollars trying to win a ten cent Kewpie doll by shooting at mechanical ducks.
With all the questions swirling around in my brain, it's a wonder I can ever fall asleep. Some nights, the only solution is for me to count Senate Democrats jumping over a fence. For instance, liberals regard themselves as the salt of the earth and view conservatives as a bunch of cold-hearted rotters. And, yet, research has shown that not only do conservatives donate far more to the needy, but they do it out of the goodness of their hearts. On the other hand, it always seems as if the only way that liberals can be persuaded to cough up anything for charity is through the purchase of concert tickets. Remove Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Elton John, from the mix and liberals would forget that Africa even exists.
Because I am a conservative living in California, I often find myself thinking that, like those members of the French underground in World War II movies, I should be transmitting my dispatches by way of a shortwave radio. How crazy is California, you ask? Well, for openers, the voters back in November, voted to raise the state income taxes. And why did they do that, you ask? Because Governor Jerry Brown told them it was a good idea. That's how crazy California is. But there's more. Now it's been discovered that the world's largest deposit of shale oil lies beneath our feet. Not only could it provide jobs for tens of thousands of unemployed people, but it might even lower our gas prices 50 or 60 cents-a-gallon, finally putting us in range of the national average. But for all the good that oil is likely to do us, it might as well be lying beneath the feet of Martians. That's because nearly every wealthy Democrat in California is a devout environmentalist.
What is so astonishing about liberals is that they aren't just wrong occasionally or even wrong more often than not. What is truly amazing is that they are always wrong about everything. To grasp how remarkable that is, years ago, when quiz shows ruled the roost on TV, I had an uncle whose picture you would see if you looked up "ignorant" in the dictionary. One day, he announced that the shows were rigged. His conviction was based on his belief, as he put it, that "Nobody's that smart!" He refused to believe that anyone could know so much about boxing or science or Shakespeare.
The macro problems with most movies today are that they are way too long, the acting isn't very good, the scripts are worse, and the target audience seems to be teenage boys. The micro problems are, one, that directors seem to think they are being artful when they under-light scenes when all they're doing is turning movies into radio shows, and, two, that far too many movies don't believe in opening credits. It makes a certain amount of sense when TV shows open on action because they want to grab the viewer before he has a chance to start channel surfing. But with movies, the sucker has already paid for his ticket, and is not about to switch over to "The Bachelor" or some dumb talk show featuring Katie Couric or Joy Behar.
By this time, most people are aware that, according to those on the Left, the only racists in America are white conservatives. In much the same way, they dismiss the likes of Thomas Sowell, Ward Connerly, Condoleezza Rice, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Shelby Steele, Allen West and Dr. Ben Carson, as inauthentic blacks. In other words, the Left is so befuddled by reality that they ignore pigmentation in favor of politics.
In case you missed it, on his first mission as Secretary of State, John Kerry boasted to a group of Germans "In America, you have a right to be stupid." A right?! For years now, the Democrats have relied on it to win elections. As for horse-faced John Kerry, were it not for the terminally stupid, he would have spent the last 30 years not in the Senate, but in a stable. Speaking of stupid, I believe that Barack Obama has badly miscalculated the aftereffects of the Sequester. Perhaps it's because he, himself, is always campaigning that he has confused 2013 with an election year. If the results of his notion of across the board cuts in various federal agencies are half as terrible as he's been warning, it's he who will be blamed. And not just because Bob Woodward said that it was all his idea, but because his waging war on Congress is a truly dumb strategy.
