Amerikan Czars

Congressman Jack Kingston beat us to it. Very well done!



U/T: SondraK

Back in 5...

We're on the road for a few days.

For giggles, go to our election 08 video posts. These are fun to watch, knowing what we know now!

Primary Videos

Election Videos

Saturday Evening Cigar

We're still making our way through Robert Conquest's The Great Terror, a book about Stalin's purges. We smoked one of our last Rocky Patel Cuban Blends.

Stalin arranged the assassination of Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, and used the crisis environment afterward to justify and kickstart his Great Terror. Conveniently, he had his Charter of Terror written on the same day as the murder, and before his 400 mile trip from Moscow to Leningrad to mourn Kirov's death. Page 41, regarding his Charter of Terror:

...Stalin's new technique, by which the state of emergency was used to justify personal, and technically unconstitutional, action.

We sure are lucky this tactic of crisis-as-a-means isn't in use today to go after say... capitalists, doctors or bitter clingers. Eh?

Amazon Link

Karl's Weekend Reading

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann say "Orwell's heirs should sue [Obama] for copyright" in their Townhall article, Rhetoric V. Reality: Health Care by Orwell. In reference to Orwell's book, 1984, where logic such as "War is Peace" prevail. A few summary-type lines from a an article full of them:

The president assures us that he will cut health-care spending ... by adding $1 trillion to health-care spending.

He says that "health-care decisions will not be made by government" ... while he sets up a new Federal Health Board to tell doctors what treatments they can offer and to whom and under what circumstances.

Obama told the media, "I will free doctors to make good health care decisions" ... by telling the physicians what to do.
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The president will "get the politics out of health care" by putting it under government control.

The WSJ editorial board puts the historic moon landing in perspective. The Right and Wrong Stuff:

It took eight years from the time John Kennedy declared we would go to the moon to the day an American landed on it, 40 years ago this week. It was also eight years ago this September that terrorists struck the World Trade Center, the site of which continues to be a hole in the ground and a national disgrace.
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We’ve long resisted the notion of American decline, and our country has always managed to overcome its periods of despond. But it is hard not to see in the contrast between the moon program and the failure to rebuild Ground Zero a warning about America’s national will.

Socialized Medicine is Funny!

Some cartoons found at Townhall over the past weeks:

Hey! That guy's name is Karl too!

Some Thoughts - The Prof. Gates Issue - UPDATED

A word about racial profiling. To draw a conclusion about a person's guilt or reason for behavior by the color of that person's skin is bad. President Obama owes Sgt. Crowley, the white officer in the Gates' case, an apology for saying the Cambridge Police Dept. acted "stupidly" when they arrested the racist Gates. Obama knew he didn't have all the information yet he felt comfortable making this accusation.

Harvard Professors. We do not let the Gates incident cloud our judgement or form stereotypes. We believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that there are Harvard professors that are NOT racists.

Damage Control. Obama, Gibbs, etal failed to control the message on a small-time local matter that was resolved before the President made his first comments. Imagine how these amateurs will handle a real issue like the threat, made public, of an Iranian nuke in the hands of terrorists.

Experience is necessary for a challenging job. Sgt. Crowley has it. Obama does not.

Racial History. Yes, there is racial history that plays in this Gates' incident. Not slavery - that's 150 years ago. But Affirmative Action. Prof Gates, like his friend Obama, have lived every day of their lives under a cloud of doubt. That cloud leads to questions whispered (real or perceived?) like, "Did he reach his position on merit, or by artificial quotas?" This treatment is reprehensible and should be stopped. It hurts those capable of competing on a level playing field, and leads to others falsely achieving positions higher than they could otherwise like in academia and national politics.

Role Models. Gates and Obama are both in positions of respect within American society. Both are role models for younger Americans. Both have failed as role models this past week. And likely longer.

Obama's Associates - Judge Him By Them. We added Gates to our list of Obama Associates. Click Here!

UPDATED 7.26: Sweetness and Light have two posts with new information on the racist Gates:

1) Gates runs a charity out of his Harvard's house. He's raised over $200k, but only given a little away. Click here to see who gets Gates' money!
2) You'd think an African-American Studies professor at Harvard would know the origin of the ugly "N" word. Well, think again. Click here to learn more.

What the meaning of "is" is

Wednesday Night - Our President:

Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in own home...

Thursday Morning - President's Press Secretary:

Let me be clear, he was not calling the officer stupid...

Police report analysis from Larry Elder at Townhall today, HWB - Home While Black:

[Officer] Crowley says he responded to a call of a possible break-in by a woman on the sidewalk, who said she'd seen a black male "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry." Crowley reported he "could see an older black male standing in the foyer." He continued: "As I stood in plain view of this man, later identified as Gates, I asked if he would step out onto the porch and speak with me. He replied 'no, I will not.' He then demanded to know who I was. I told him that I was 'Sgt. Crowley from the Cambridge Police' and that I was 'investigating a report of a break in progress' at the residence. While I was making this statement, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed 'why, because I'm a black man in America?' I then asked Gates if there was anyone else in the residence. While yelling, he told me that it was none of my business and accused me of being a racist police officer."

Crowley's report, as well as that of another responding officer, describe Gates yelling repeated accusations of racism while asserting that the officer "had no idea who (he) was 'messing' with" and that the officer "had not heard the last of it."

After initially refusing to produce any identification confirming his residence, Gates finally supplied a Harvard ID. By that time, a crowd of officers and passers-by was outside. In front of the house and "in view of the public," Crowley states he twice warned Gates that he was becoming disorderly. But Gates' yelling and "tumultuous behavior" continued, causing "surprise and alarm" in the citizenry outside. Crowley then placed Gates under arrest.

Like Obama, we don't know all the facts. But unlike the President, we feel safe in saying that Professor Gates is a dirtbag who sees racists around every corner. If he were born female, he'd see rapists around every corner. He lives for, and by, his minority status.

Obama may have wanted to use his health care speech yesterday to send the signal to minorities that any conflict with law enforcement is clearly the fault of the 'stupid' cops. It fits with his history of community organizing agitation.

So Professor Gates is a friend of the president's? We'll have to add him to our list of Obama's Associates - click here to view.

Lib Judges Palin

Thomas M. Daniel, a partner at law firm Perkins Cole, has ruled against Sarah Palin in an ethics charge. His opinion:

...there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as her legal defense fund.

Had she asked for help as an anonymous citizen of Alaska, then it would have been ok to get help to pay for the silly lib ethics charges brought forth for the single reason to overwhelm her and her administration.

No doubt Daniel would ask a judge to recuse oneself if the judge had any interaction with the opposition that could sway a decision. Daniel did not do that in this case. It appears he has recently donated $3500 to Democrats, and his law firm currently serves "as counsel of record for the Democratic Party and its candidates".

Thomas M. Daniel is a partisan hack who 'used his official position for personal and partison gain'. No further questions, your honor.

Full story at Sweetness & Light.

Photo from bio at Perkins Cole.

UPDATE 7.25:

James Taranto comments in his Best of the Web article Wednesday:

One can certainly see how a legal defense fund might raise ethical concerns. If, let us say, the beneficiary were able to use the money for personal expenses or in a political campaign, then a contribution to the defense fund could turn out to be the practical equivalent of, respectively, a bribe or an extralegal campaign contribution.

But no such impropriety is alleged here. Rather, the investigator claims that defending herself against ethics charges itself constitutes “personal gain”...
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It may be that Daniel’s interpretation of the ethics act is consistent with a very literal reading of the act, but contrary to his claim, it is an affront to common sense. No “ordinary citizen” would face the kind of “legal charges” that have bedeviled Palin--to wit, politically motivated accusations that she has misused her office.

The Lighter Side...

From our friends at The Nose On Your Face:



Comedian, Larry Miller:



UPDATE: Found one more at HotAir - Reforma:

Interstate Concealed Weapons

In keeping with our moderate, objective nature, we'll comment on today's vote on the Senator John Thunes ammendment to a Defense bill. Our comment is this: we are shocked, amazed and excited that in today's all liberal all progressive all communist climate, this reciprocity law can make it this close to passing.

Were they so close to rationing health care for only those who really need it that they didn't see the proletarian with the sidearm cross a state line?

Here is the link to the AP report (which we didn't bother to read).

And here is a link to a WSJ opinion piece today from Robert M. Morgenthau, a district attorney in New York. We'll quote below and add our progressive interpretation.

In New York, the state imposes careful restrictions on who may carry concealed firearms. With the Thune amendment, New York and other states would be obliged to recognize licenses from jurisdictions which choose to issue them practically for the asking.

We suggest he rephrase this: "In New York, the state imposes careful restrictions on who may carry concealed firearms. Only donors to the Democrat Party and those with at least one felony can carry concealed weapons in our state. With the Thune amendment, New York and other states would be obliged to let the masses from other, less progressive states carry a concealed weapon."

It gets worse. States like Florida and Texas are willing to issue carry permits to nonresidents under policies just as lax as those of Ohio and Missouri. The Thune amendment would provide a legal backdoor to a New Yorker who does not qualify for a carry permit under New York’s state law. The undeserving local applicant could obtain a permit down South, and then be entitled by federal law to carry his concealed gun around New York.

New York: To where all the nation's undeserving applicants flee.

Speaking from a policy perspective, the last thing New York needs is a federal rule that lets more guns into the state. About 85% of the gun crimes in New York City are committed with weapons smuggled in from those other states that make gun ownership easy. Federal action is needed to shut down the pipeline that brings these guns to our streets.

Don't make us choose between Alaska and New York, Mr. Morgenthau! Alaska has a very cool oil pipeline, and now we find out New York has a gun pipeline!?!

Our only follow-up here is to ask what the percentage of gun crimes committed with 'smuggled' weapons will be if this law is passed. 170%? More? Can we look to other states to get a look at the dire consequences.

The Second Amendment may allow gun possession for home defense under some circumstances.

After the Sotomayor testimony one can imagine our shock to find out there is still a Democrat out there who is willing to suggest the 2nd Amendment is, in fact, established law. But, only "under some circumstances".

Moreover, the National Rifle Association’s paranoia, coupled with congressional cowardice, has resulted in absurd limits on the ability of law enforcement to examine the very inventory records that the law requires gun dealers to keep. That cripples the ability of the authorities to investigate violent gun crimes and illegal weapons dealing.

It was our paranoia that drove us into the arms of the NRA, the ONLY lobbying group in DC whose members do NOT consider themselves victims. Please forgive us, Mr. Morgenthau!

Did Mr. Morgenthau fail to get this piece into a post at DailyKos, and instead settled for the bourgeois readers of the WSJ? You have to accept his premise that 'guns are bad', or else you'll laugh yourself to the point that one of your concealed guns may fall out.

Is he worried this law will result in reduced violent crime in his county, thus leading to a downsizing of his legal staff and tax savings for the local masses?

We didn't bother to comment above on his 10th Amendment argument that the federal government shouldn't impose a law like this on states. We suspect there are proletarian drivers licensed in other states driving on New York's highways and streets at this moment that would suggest this argument is lacking.

We wonder if some wobbly senators are moved by any of his arguments. Or is his intent to sway opinion by the fact he's an opponent who was published in the WSJ? For us, it is a great opportunity to see how the other side thinks, without the filthiness of a DailyKos visit.

UPDATE 12:20EST: Adding CBS video and absurd Daily Kos post found through Google News:



Daily Kos' position: Invite Sen. Thune to the funeral of a police officer who was shot by his department's SWAT team's friendly fire. Senators: vote NO, or more SWAT teams will shoot their own!

UPDATE 12:55EST:Two votes shy of getting the 60 needed for reciprocity. From the AP:

Gun control proponents scored a rare victory as the Senate rejected the carrying of concealed weapons across state lines.
The 58-39 vote Wednesday defeated a measure giving people with concealed weapons permits the right to carry their firearms into other states that have similar gun laws. Sixty votes were needed to approve the provision, an amendment to a defense spending bill.

Last Update - 3:40pm: Vote Tally.

Tuesday Evening Cigar

We smoked our first Camacho Maduro SLR at the Republican Convention last summer in St. Paul. Another burned tonight.

Communist-Illuminati Tactics

WOW!

We found this freshly uploaded 8-part series on YouTube yesterday, and are into video 6 at the moment. The only criticism from us is that this is long overdue for an update. Otherwise, click it and sit back and listen. We've had it on in the background - it is the audio more than the visual that is important here. Here is part one. The link below will take you to parts two and beyond.



Part 2

Michael Steele: "Stupid"

The RNC Chairman should know better than to label an Obama policy as "socialism". Fellow Republicans Allahpundit at Hotair or James Taranto at WSJ might call him "Stupid" or "Right Wing Nut" as they have others [in their failed attempts to intimidate conservative commentary, our brilliant analogies, and our use of foreshadowing].

In today's Breitbart news:

The chairman of the Republican Party on Monday called President Barack Obama's plan to overhaul health care "socialism," accusing the president of conducting a risky experiment that will hurt the economy and force millions to drop their current coverage.
Michael Steele, in remarks at the National Press Club, also said the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee chairmen are part of a "cabal" that wants to implement government-run health care.

"Obama-Pelosi want to start building a colossal, closed health care system where Washington decides. Republicans want and support an open health care system where patients and doctors make the decisions," Steele said.

Asked if Obama's health care plan represented socialism, Steele responded: "Yes. Next question."

"Yes, next question." Hmmm. It appears the leader of the minority party has lowered himself to emotionally-charged name-calling. Not the right approach to bridging the divide and bringing people together for the greater good of America! This will take the political discourse down another notch in this great time of despair, uncertainty and 9.5% unemployment.

Click the label below to learn more about this phenomenon of calling Obama a Socialist. Or, go to CommieObama.com - click here! - to buy one of our cool hats!

(Welcome to the party, Mr. Steele!)

Sunday Afternoon Cigar

Where is the global warming?! It was actually chilly in Northern Kentucky this afternoon as we smoked another Santa Damiana.

Mary Jo Kopechne

Yesterday was the anniversary of Mary Jo Kpechne's untimely death at the hands of a liberal progressive communist. We found a couple graphics on our favorite blogs.

U/T: Instapundit & SondraK

Messages from the Fringe

Regular Ushanka.us readers understand that our philosophy here is that we see liberals as 'communist-inspired'. We don't see them, individually, as communists. But we see their collective desires addressed only by a communist system. Our assumption that this would never happen was disproved by our new president who has acted on behalf of all these liberal factions, having only ignored the demands of the blacks and gays to date.

By following this philosophy, we have avoided several right-wing themes. We don't need to address these to make our point. Having said that, we feel inclined to post the links below to some of those themes that have gained traction. For your review and assessment:

Worker's Revolution

ACTIVE, the American Constitution and Capitalism Defense Front, has called for a National Strike Against the Dictator for November 4. For you few that still have jobs, you are being called on for this one-day strike.

Obama's Birth Certificate

A favorite theme among the fringe, this went mainstream this week when Army Reserve Major Stefan Frederick Cook requested the President to produce his birth certificate to verify that he has the right to order Major Cook to war. Silly, right?

Well, Major Cook's orders were revoked. Hmmm. That's probably the end of that, right?

In today's news at the Ledger-Enquirer:

...retired Maj. Gen. Carol Dean Childers and active U.S. Air Force reservist Lt. Col. David Earl Graeff have joined the suit “because it is a matter of unparalleled public interest and importance and because it is clearly a matter arising from issues of a recurring nature that will escape review unless the Court exercises its discretionary jurisdiction.”
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the revised suit states Cook lost his job at Simtech Inc., a corporation that does Department of Defense contracting in the field of information technology/systems integration, because of the suit. It also states that Cook has been subjected to “gossip” from people who believed Cook was “manipulating his deployment orders to create a platform for political purposes.”

So, original lawsuit wins. Then Cook loses his job. Lawsuit is updated to address retaliation and potential of future illegal deployment orders, and two more officers join the fight. This is so easily fixed. Obama just has to show the birth certificate that he used to get a driver's license in Chicago. Why drag this out?

Guns

Want to send the message that you're a right-wing wacko? Just tell people that you're afraid that Obama will take your guns. It is that easy. You might even get on CNN or one of the other state-run outlets!

But, there are some that connect the 2nd Ammendment to the founder's experiences with Britain. There is a worn-out story about a little bridge North of Concord Massachusetts that we won't bore you with. There are more important things, like the 47 million uninsured Americans...

Well, those right-wingers at The Wall Street Journal hid a small opinion piece in Saturday's paper, Second Ammendment Confidential:

Now making their way to the Court are cases about whether the right to bear arms also applies to the 50 states via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If it doesn't, then Heller is a hollow shell.
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Judge Sotomayor has said that it would be appropriate to recuse herself from any rehearing of Maloney v. Cuomo by the Supreme Court, but this week she stopped short of promising to do so. Our guess, based on her history, is that she'll vote like the Court's four liberals who dissented in Heller and say gun rights don't apply to the states.

Those on the fringe sure are weird!

Commissars

Rush made a point this past week about C-SPAN. He observed previous congresses would debate legislation on the floor, for all to see. Stimulus, health care, and other destructive policies are now being drafted in private, and by one party.

This is clearly a liberal revolt of YouTube - where their discussions could be spliced from the boring C-SPAN into one-minute clips that would convey the true - communist - intentions of the liberal mind.

Equal damage is being done in the Executive Branch with the use of Czars - people influencing and executing policies, and who knows what else, accountable only to Obama. Below are links to three of the better write-ups on the subject. Don't read if you scare easily.

Stanislav Mishin, Russian blogger at Mat Rodina, writes:

There is a new silliness in the Western Anglo Media, comparing the US Emperor's Czar program to the number of Tsars that Holy Russia had. It is a good thing that the US/UK public is ignorant not only of ancient history but also of recent history, otherwise they might start to worry.
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The commissars were mostly young, had little achievement outside the power structure, self assured, true believers. They knew very well that outside their positions, created and granted by the dictator, they had little hope of career success.
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Fast forward to modern transitional America. The American Emperor has taken the six commissars of his leftist predecessor and created at least 28 more. Yes, commissars do multiply quickly at first and many more are in the works, until the American parliament (congress) and the oblasts (states) assemblies (state senates) are powerless show pieces and all power centers (commissars) flow only to the dictator.

Cliff Kincaid, at Accuracy in Media, exposes one of Obama's Czars, John P. Holdren, his Science Czar. Holdren has a history of promoting flawed ideas such a population explosions and promoting a "Planetary Regime" of world government. These ideas then lead to suggested policies such as mandatory abortion and involuntary sterilization. One wonders what causes revulsion in liberals when this doesn't... Kincaid rightfully asks, Is Obama's Science Czar a Crackpot? Regarding Holdren's world government hopes:

Zombietime highlights that the Holdren book declares on page 917 that "If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization."

This statement is followed by the important caveat: "But it seems probable that, as long as most people fail to comprehend the magnitude of the danger, that step will be impossible."

In this case, the caveat is not convincing, in part because Holdren seems to have dedicated his career to exaggerating "the danger" and can be counted on to continue to do so in his White House position.

Kincaid refers to a report by Zombietime (our source of the photo) - one of our highly respected blogroll bloggers. Here is a link to the very throrough Zombietime report.

Socialized Medicine Revolt

Here are two great videos from this past week. Both well done and on target.





UPDATE 7.20: Found another one:

Karl's Weekend Reading

The WSJ's Americas expert, Mary Anastasia O'Grady, further explains why the Honduran supreme court and military chose to expel commie President Manuel Zelaya rather than imprison him within the country.

It was this fondness for intimidation that prompted Mr. Zelaya's exile. Honduras was worried that if he stayed in the country after his arrest his supporters would foment violence to try to bring down the interim government and restore him to power.

It wouldn't be a first. Bolivia's President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was removed in 2003 using just such tactics. Antigovernment militants, trained by Peruvian terrorists and financed by Venezuela and by drug money from the Colombian rebel group FARC, had laid siege to La Paz. As the city ran short on supplies, Mr. Sánchez de Lozada issued a decree to have armed guards accompany food and fuel trucks. The rebels, who had dynamite and weapons, clashed with the guards. Sixty people died. The president was pressured to step down.

So, in short, the Hondurans are serious about their liberty. We envy them. But we'd add to O'Grady's reasons the fact that help for freedom-loving people will not come from the usual source. One must take more drastic and permanent actions to preserve freedom. They, like the protesters in Iran, are alone. We wish them well.

The New Great White Hope, Gov. Sarah Palin, penned a piece in the Washington Post: The 'Cap And Tax' Dead End:

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.
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The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

Hilmar von Campe, author of Defeating the Totalitarian Lie and former Nazi Youth warns us all in his Accuracy in Media article, The Threat of Totalitarianism:

It may sound like I am exaggerating or over-dramatizing the situation, but I think that we have a repetition of Hitler's policy to get total power developing in the United States. Obama's massive expansion of the federal government will destroy the United States as a world power, make us even more dependent on our enemies, and will ruin a great part of the present population and their descendants.

I believe his real purpose is not to get the United States out of the financial mess but to set the stage for a total takeover. The liberals controlling Congress are helping him in that task.
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When the Nazis took over power on January 30, 1933, they immediately set up a parallel party structure to the administration to watch over the action of the civil servants. They were responsible to Hitler. Obama has taken a similar approach and has already at the time of this writing appointed 16 czars, part of an unconstitutional governmental apparatus. It seems that their task is to watch over and interfere in the private sector. However, they report only to Obama, bypassing the Congress.

Even our sexy Commie Obama hat isn't as direct as von Campe's warnings. Is anybody listening?

James Taranto examined Sotomayor's testimony in his Best of the Web post, New Bork, New York. His analysis starts:

Under normal circumstances, a judge who says the things Sonia Sotomayor has said during her confirmation hearings would not be able to win confirmation in a Senate with a solid Democratic majority. Consider some of the positions she has taken:

On empathy: She repudiated the idea that it has any place in judging, as we noted yesterday.

On foreign law: She expressed her agreement with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and said flatly, "Foreign law cannot be used as a holding or a precedent or to bind or to influence the outcome of a legal decision interpreting the Constitution or American law that doesn't direct you to that law."

On the Second Amendment: She said, "I understand that how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans. In fact, one of my godchildren is a member of the NRA. And I have friends who hunt. I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller." As to whether the Second Amendment applies to the states under the incorporation doctrine, she agreed with Justice Scalia that this is an open question.

On abortion: She declined to endorse Roe v. Wade, offering only the usual dodge that it is "the precedent of the court and settled, in terms of the holding of the court."

On judicial activism: She said that judges' "imposing policy choices in--or their views of the world or their views of how things should be done" is "improper."

She's practically a new Robert Bork!

We vote NO, as in "NO liars on America's courts".

Site Changes

We made a few changes to the site today.

The Blogroll Purge

The Blogroll was getting stale. We purged quite a few links to blogs that either disappeared, no longer sync with the Ushanka.us theme, or belong to bloggers that can't find time to reply to a friendly blogger-to-blogger email. We added three that we've been going to on a daily basis for some time:

Mat Rodina. This is Stanislav Mishin's blog. He is a Russian who has a fantastic writing style and who has nailed the Obama agenda better than most US conservatives. His April post, American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper, was what hooked us. He's pro-Russia, but not necessarily anti-America.

John Lott. We read his books More Guns Less Crime, and The Bias Against Guns. He owns our Commie Obama hat, and we're sure he wears it with pride. We met John at the CPAC 08 convention in DC, and have been following his articles through his blog. He is a master of stats, truly objective, and a great source of information.

Museum of Communism. Not a blog, but a deep site full of facts maintained by Professor Brian Caplan. Be sure to take his Test of Communism, if you dare. (link)

New Comrade Survey

Thanks to all who contributed to our most recent survey. It appears we have a consensus on the likely course of action from a tyrannical Obama administration against enemies of the state conservative bloggers:

Our new survey asks if our most pessimistic predictions have fallen short of actual events. Scary.

Commie Obama To-Do List

Be sure to visit our Articles & Lists section to see updates of our new list - The Commie Obama To-Do List. Call us crazy, but we see some similar themes between Obama's policies and those of some previous leaders'.

Tuesday Afternoon Cigar

We continued reading Robert Conquest's The Great Terror through a cloud of Rocky Patel Cuban Blend smoke.

Amazon Link

Coming soon to a clinic near you

From Britain's Mail Online:

Parts of Britain are in the grip of a swine flu epidemic today after the first healthy child died of the virus that is sweeping the country.

Chloe Buckley, six, died within 48 hours of complaining of a sore throat and just a day before her seventh birthday.

She was not given the anti-viral drug Tamiflu after her doctor apparently misdiagnosed her illness as tonsillitis.

Some questions:
1) Would we have ever heard of Chloe's death if it had not been related to the swine flu?
2) How will Obama's plan allow patients and parents recover damages?
3) How much will Obama give for a dead child?
4) Can we expect the following statement from an Obama official?

Health Secretary Andy Burnham described Chloe's death as a 'tragedy' this morning but urged people not to worry too much.

'There have been lots of children already having the condition but making a very quick and full recovery. We do have to keep it in perspective,' he said.

Regime Change a Come'in

Imagine the relief we felt when we heard that our Dear Leader - no, not that one - Kim Jung Il - has been diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer.

Lucky for him, he resides in a progressive country that has expelled capitalists from the health care industry. We anticipate a quick recovery... much like Steve Jobs has had.

Seriously: We think this is the most dangerous time for the region. Evil men with terminal diseases calculate risks differently. This commie might want to go out with a bang.

Reuters report

Sunday Afternoon Cigar

Another Santa Damiana burns as we open the first pages to our latest book, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, by Robert Conquest. A little story about the million or so murdered in Stalin's 1937-1938 purges.

Amazon Link

Karl's Weekend Reading

Karl Rove frames the socialized health care issue extremely well in his WSJ Opinion piece, Obama Can't Be Trusted With Numbers. The first half is a review of false promises and other propaganda that has helped Obama push 'change' in the past few months that would normally be rejected by most Americans. The second half is devoted to that same MO as it is being applied to the so-called health care debate. No quote will do this article justice - you must read it in full - but we'll share his concluding paragraph:

Mr. Obama has already created a river of red ink. His health-care plans will only force that river over its banks. We are at the cusp of a crucial political debate, and Mr. Obama's words on fiscal matters are untrustworthy. His promised savings are a mirage. His proposals to reshape the economy are alarming. And his unwillingness to be forthright with his numbers reveals that he knows his plans would terrify many Americans.

As of this post, Honduras remains free. The communists are circling, and pressure is coming from both the North and the South for the commie president's reinstatement. Cliff Kincaid, of Accuracy in Media, shares information not seen in elsewhere on just what level of coordination exists between Chavez and his like-minded friend in DC. Leading "Progressive" Describes Obama-Chavez Axis:

According to eyewitness sources, under the apparently blind eye of the global media, the two leaders had lengthy conversations. The media covered the friendly photo of the initial handshake between the two leaders, then made much ado about an apparently-impertinent Chavez handing Obama a book in Spanish by Eduardo Galleano. What has not been reported is that Obama, leaving his advisers behind, held lengthy private conversations with Chavez where only an interpreter was present."
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But why would Obama be appeasing Chavez? Could the "appeasement" reflect the fact that Obama and Chavez are ideologically in sync and see events in Latin America through the same Marxist lens?
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The communist paper [The Militant] reported that, before there could be a revolution in the United States, Marxist forces would have to take control of Latin America. "Another idea frequently expressed by speakers from the floor and by a few panelists was that 'change has to come from the South,'" referring to Latin America, the paper said.

Almost two years later, that "change" has come to America and is threatening Honduras.

UPDATE 7.11 10am. The risk of posting a Weekend Reading post on a Thursday is that Friday brings a brilliant article.

Charles Krauthammer discusses Obama's anxious deal-making in Russia, the new START treaty (or memo of understanding).

Once again, a Democrat president pursues an arms treaty for the purpose of a photo-op. And once again a Democrat president weakens our national security - this time by offering missile defense as a negotiating chip. Treaties are meant to strengthen national security. Other than the IMF treaty (Reagan), can one think of a treaty that benefitted the US?

Plumage - But at a Price:

Obama says that his START will be a great boon, setting an example to enable us to better pressure North Korea and Iran to give up their nuclear programs. That a man of Obama's intelligence can believe such nonsense is beyond comprehension. There is not a shred of evidence that cuts by the great powers -- the INF treaty, START I, the Treaty of Moscow (2002) -- induced the curtailment of anyone's programs. Moammar Gaddafi gave up his nukes the week we pulled Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole. No treaty involved. The very notion that Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will suddenly abjure nukes because of yet another U.S.-Russian treaty is comical.
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Obama doesn't even seem to understand the ramifications of this concession. Poland and the Czech Republic thought they were regaining their independence when they joined NATO under the protection of the United States. They now see that the shield negotiated with us and subsequently ratified by all of NATO is in limbo. Russia and America will first have to "come to terms" on the issue, explained President Dmitry Medvedev. This is precisely the kind of compromised sovereignty that Russia wants to impose on its ex-Soviet colonies -- and that U.S. presidents of both parties for the last 20 years have resisted.

ERROR 404

It is doubtful Ushanka.us readers noticed the cyber attack against the White House and Treasury Department websites this past week. Those sites don't offer the objective information that we, and our blogrolled blogs, do.

Further, Ushanka.us was spared attack.

Do you rearry think the single North Korean hacker would attack a site with a hammer and sickle in the header? HA! The commies will hack every other site, then hang themselves with the one site they can't bring themselves to hack. The collapse of the North Korean communist regime will be for the greater good!

From today's WSJ Front Page:

U.S. and South Korean computer networks were besieged for days by a series of relatively unsophisticated attacks, possibly from North Korea, that were among the broadest and longest-lasting assaults perpetrated on government and commercial Web sites in both countries.

In the U.S., the main effect was to disrupt the public's ability to access Web sites temporarily.

From our friends at The Nose on Your Face:

Brothers at War

Our movie recommendation: Brothers at War, by Jake Rademacher.

Karl and Zhukov traveled to Dayton yesterday to see this movie. Filmed by non-military brother Jake who travels twice to Iraq to understand why his brothers, both Army Rangers - Issac and Joe, do what they do.

The amateur nature of this film seems to add to its authenticity. It starts with family history - a large, typically-American family of five brothers and two sisters. A who's who, and why they are who they are today.

The war footage is real in the sense that it is mostly boring, but deadly otherwise. The movie is politically neutral (thank you Jake), with candid talk among soldiers ranging from shooting the enemy to cheating girlfriends.

You will come away from this movie with a renewed respect for our nation's fighters, and with the rare, personal connection to their families.

We've been told this movie will go straight to DVD. No sign of it yet at Amazon.

Link to YouTube trailer.

Link to Brother At War Website.

Link to IMDb Movie Database.

U/T: Dale

Sunday Evening Cigar

A CAO Brazilia burned as we started our latest book, Alexander Solzhenistyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Our last quote from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, page 272:

Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

1984 Amazon Link

Day in Life Amazon Link

Liberal Bias in the Media, Part CXXVII

Three good pieces came across our desk this week. We wouldn't normally comment, but these three, taken together, justify a post.

Doug Ross continues to raise the bar for the rest of us bloggers (Damn him!) with his recent post: Jennifer Loven of the AP: Barack Obama's Personal Publicist. A LONG list of headlines with the unmistakable liberal bias.

I'd call Jennifer Loven of the AP a useless sycophant and a slavish mistress of the Obama administration, but that would understate her remarkable lack of journalistic ethics. She is, to be sure, a publicist disguised as an objective reporter.

Poetic.

James Taranto, of WSJ Best of the Web fame, also detects a shift in AP reporting:

Have you noticed a change in the economic news over the past year or so? It's a deliberately ambiguous question: The actual news has gotten worse, but the coverage of it has changed in tone. Today, reporters are eagerly looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. A year ago, and for a long time before that, they couldn't wait to get into the tunnel.

What changed? Yeah, like you need to ask. It has been fascinating, though, to observe the way reporters have tried to make bad news look like good. We noted a prime example last month: a dispatch by Jeannine Aversa of the Associated Press titled "US Loses Just 345,000 Jobs in May, Raising Hopes".

And forwarded to us by Ushanka.us's field operative "Dale", Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media writes earlier this month about the effort to fund media with tax dollars rather than have them compete in a commercial environment where they must deliver value or die... The Plan for Government-Funded Socialist Media.

Meanwhile, the Ford Foundation is a major underwriter of the Center for Social Media of American University, a project headed by left-wing activist Patricia Aufderheide, who says that "Taxpayer funds are crucial..." to creating new "public media." This group got money under a $50 million Ford Foundation program to create and strengthen "public media."

This is the direction many of the "progressive" groups are going. In fact, a socialist-oriented "media reform" group with ties to the Obama Administration has called for new federal programs and the spending of tens of billions of dollars to keep journalists employed at liberal media outlets and to put them to work in new "public media."

The group, which calls itself Free Press, is urging "an alternative media infrastructure, one that is insulated from the commercial pressures that brought us to our current crisis."

Karl's Weekend Reading

Happy 4th! Hurry and read these top picks before you start blowing stuff up!

L.E. Ikenga, a "first generation born West African-American woman whose parents emigrated to the U.S. in the 1970's from the country now called Nigeria" finds a disturbing comparison between our new president and a common trait among African leaders. American Thinker, Obama, the African Colonial.

Obama has been living on American soil for most of his adult life. Therefore, he has been able to masquerade as one who understands and believes in American democratic ideals. But he does not. Barack Obama is intrinsically undemocratic and as his presidency plays out, this will become more obvious.

Kyle-Anne Shiver, also at American Thinker, comments on our 'Wimp in Chief's' position on the crisis in Honduras in, Obama's True Colors Shine in Honduras.

Obama's response to the Honduran military removing a dictator-wannabe from office (at the behest, it must be noted, of the Supreme Court and the Honduran Congress), and escorting him to the border, was sure and fast. He declared the military action an "illegal coup" faster than you can say Fidel Castro. And just as quickly the rest of the region's socialist gang chimed in too. The real Castro brothers. Hugo Chavez. Daniel Ortega.

Birds of a feather do tend to flock together.

Careful Ms. Shiver. We don't want to be rash and label Obama a Communist!

Another from American Thinker, America's Socialist Past by Ryan Siefert, is a short but necessary historical review of the damage from socialist inspirations.

There seems to be a need in American society to have to relearn the same hard lessons over and over again, regardless of whether the results were seen on the other side of the planet or suffered through by our own people.

We're living in a country that elected a President that believes in redistributing wealth. He's mentioned this himself, from the "Joe the Plumber" incident[i] to his critique[ii] of the failures of the civil rights movement. Whether you call it Socialism, Communism, Marxism, or by its simpler name, theft, they are all part of the same economic system that destroys private property and puts everything in central control of the state.

"Russian media are now abuzz with speculation about a new war in Georgia, and some Western analysts are voicing similar concerns" - so reports Cathy Young in the WSJ Opinion section on Thursday. She asks, "What would the Kremlin gain" from a war with Georgia:

A crushing victory in Georgia would depose the hated Mr. Saakashvili, give Russia control of vital transit routes for additional energy resources that could weaken its hold on the European oil and gas markets, humiliate the U.S., and distract Russians from their economic woes. Mr. Piontkovsky also believes the war drive comes from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is anxious to reassert himself as supreme leader.

YES! That was our response when reading Gordon G. Chang's WSJ Opinion, How to Stop North Korea's Weapons Proliferation. He writes about that N.K. ship, Kang Nam, that has been trailed by US warships (as if trailing is a foreign policy). Chang explains a legal way to board or sink the Kang Nam, refering to the North's May 27 rejection of the armistice that ended the fighting (not the war) in 1953. When you read this, remember how Clinton turned down a chance at Bin Laden for a lack of legal justification...

...an armistice as a legal matter cannot remain in existence after one of its parties, a sovereign state, announces its end. Today, whether we like it or not, there is no armistice.

Furthermore, there has never been a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War. This means the U.S., a combatant in the conflict, as leader of the U.N. Command, is free to use force against Pyongyang. On legal grounds, the U.S. Navy therefore has every right to seize the Kang Nam, treat the crew as prisoners of war, and confiscate its cargo, even if the ship is carrying nothing more dangerous than melons. Because the Navy has the right to torpedo the vessel, which proudly flies the flag of another combatant in the war, it of course has the right to board her.

Did the North wait for Obama to replace Bush before setting sail with illicit cargo? If so, pretty smart. The only way Obama will get tough is if the criticisms of his pathetic foreign policy migrate from here to the nightly news...

Friday Evening Cigar

We started with a Rocky Patel Cuban Blend maduro...

It wasn't enough, so we continued with a Rocky Patel Edge.

From page 208 of Nineteen Eighty-Four:

Socialism, a theory which appeared in the early nineteenth century and was the last link in a chain of thought stretching back to the slave rebellions of antiquity, was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages. But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned. The new movements which appeared in the middle of the century ... had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality. These movements, of course, grew out of the old ones and tended to keep their names and pay lip-service to their ideology. But the purpose of all of them was to arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment.

Fiction? Or Non-Fiction?

Amazon Link

4th of July Obama Cuss Jar Contest - WINNER ANNOUNCED!

Contest Details:

Guesses MUST consist of a dollar value (no cents) AND the name of the referrer (blog, radio show host, etc.) that sent you here.

Contest ends at 6PM EST July 5th. The closest guess wins the Hat & Leninade.

If two guesses are equal - one higher and one lower by the same amount - the tie goes to the lower.

If two guesses are the same, the first posted is considered.

The jar is 10 inches tall, and 7 inches in diameter.

The jar only contains $1 bills.

All other issues will be decided by the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Link to the Commie Obama Hat Store.

Our thanks to the following referrers: SondraK, Doug Ross,

UPDATE 6:35PM - WE HAVE A WINNER! B.... from SondraK was the closest with his guess of $123. There is $124 in the Obama Cuss Jar. B...., let us know where you are!

Our thanks to all who participated. We're happy to give $10 off to those who left a guess in the comments section. Just use the Contact Us above to let us know what you want and we'll make it happen! Until the next 4th of July...

The NEW Annual Performance Review

Found at Instapundit:


Obama To Hold Job Performance Review With Every American Worker

It isn't humor unless there is a bit of truth to the joke. Right?