Lona Manning - American Thinker

Lona Manning at American Thinker takes a stab as a MSM coorespondent:

Dear Leader Inspects Model Factory on Earth Day

State News wire service, dateline April 23, 2009 - Yesterday the Dear Leader continued his tireless work on behalf of the people of the Democratic Republic. He traveled almost two thousand miles from Washington and back to visit the Model Factory at Newton, where he inspected the factory and then exhorted the workers to build more wind turbines.

How the Dear Leader cares for the people at the factory! Even the running-dog enemies of the people admit that no-one would have their jobs at the wind turbine factory if the Dear Leader did not give them federal tax credits!

In fact, even workers in other countries, such as Germany, are happy to make wind turbines because they are so inspired by the Dear Leader!

The workers at the Trinity Structural Powers Manufacturing Plant also rejoiced when the Dear Leader told them that they, the people, would have the honor of paying for new cars for all the hard-working government servants.

"We are so proud that we will help the economy by paying for these cars," exclaimed one worker. "The Dear Leader explained how we will borrow money to buy cars and then we will pay for them later! This will save the environment and the economy at the same time!"

The factory used to make bourgeois washing machines...

Read it all - here.

Friday Afternoon Cigar

Rocky Patel Sun Grown.

We're still making our way through Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. We got a kick out of this paragraph on page 233:

The reporters who came to the press conference in the office of the John Galt Line were young men who had been trained to think that their job consisted of concealing from the world the nature of its events. It was their daily duty to serve as audience for some public figure who made utterances about the public good, in phrases carefully chosen to convey no meaning. It was their daily job to sling words together in any combination they pleased, so long as the words did not fall into a sequence saying something specific.

Copyrighted in 1957, but could have easily been written yesterday.

Stupid Right Wing Nut!

We reached self-actualization as we read these two recent articles.

April 22, James Taranto, WSJ Best of the Web, commenting on AP's favorable comparison between Obama and Gorbachev. His analysis concludes:

Gorbachev was a communist who presided over the disintegration of the country he had been chosen to lead. There are those who say the same thing about Obama, but most of them are right-wing nuts.

April 23, Allahpundit, HotAir, RNC Members to Steele: When are you going to call Obama a socialist? His professional opinion:

Stupid.
...
If you’re going to drop the S-bomb, I think, you should be very, very sure that that’s the way we’re headed. How lucky (or unlucky) do you feel?

So two leading conservative (?) commentators use labels to convey the inappropriate nature of... using labels.

We offered our brilliant retort to the "Obama is not a Socialist" defense last month - here. And despite our request for clarification from the Princeton economics professor, Alan S. Binder, we have not heard back.

The difference between the lefty professor and the Taranto/Allahpundit pair is that the professor offered a definition of socialism, albeit a weak one. The two righties, who obviously don't want to be seen as righties, offered no definition. So we do not know how they came to their decision not only to not categorize Obama's policies as socialist, but to go the step further and attempt to intimidate anyone who does connect those dots.

Taranto has good analysis of the silliness of the Obama-Gorbachev comparison. It doesn't fit, and if AP had anything to be proud about, they'd be embarrassed. One future comparison Taranto didn't mention: Gorbachev's popularity at the end of his term was at 5%...

Nor did Taranto clarify the "presided over the disintegration of the country he had been chosen to lead" comment. The Soviet Union disintegrated from the bottom-up. If unchecked, this right wing nut foresees an Obama that will do as much top-down damage as his envy and communist-inspirations will allow.

Allahpundit's warning that the "stupid" ones within our ranks will be embarrassed if our "alarmism ... doesn't pan out" if the government intervention in the banks becomes temporary as Obama promises. This is intellectually lazy, as nearly every decision in Obama's first 100 days is the same decision Karl Marx would make under the same conditions. Obama agonizes, thinks deeply, and weighs all the options - then decides the most socialist option he can get away with.

The problem with calling Obama a Socialist or even Communist is that it does shut down discussion. It is the ultimate in name calling and should be reserved for cool places like Ushanka.us.

However, it is OUR RESPONSIBILITY to educate those around us to what socialism is and how it will impact our lives. Then let others draw the connection between socialism and firing a CEO, taking ownership in a public company's stock, giving money to banks that don't want it then dictating salary caps, taxing bonuses at 90%, refusing the payback of money from banks, identifying political opponents as terrorist threats, and offering government health care. To name a few.

Just because they are liberals doesn't mean they are not smart. If you wanted to convert the US into a socialist country, you wouldn't - you couldn't - require government healthcare, take full ownership of banks or auto companies. But, you could create an environment where private health care would collapse if faced with an artificially-supported government option. (See WSJ Editorial) Or you could keep banks in a near-death state if you tell them they cannot pay back their TARP money until they pass a stress test of your choosing. Or you could take over an auto company if you choose to decline their restructuring plan and instead suggest converting the bailout funds to common stock. See the trend?

The awareness of Obama = Socialist is gradual. Some of us see it now. Some will figure it out soon. Others won't believe it until they are declined an MRI, a hip replacement, a life-saving treatment, or a tire rotation on their GM vehicle.

To see some people that get it now, watch our March 15 Cincinnati Tea Party video.

Karl's Weekend Reading

Our 600th blog post since our Fall 2006 launch! Leninade all around!

The left, including their comrades in the MSM, still has their panties in a bunch over the April 15 tea parties. Estimates range from 300,000 to 550,000 attendees. Kyle-Anne Shiver at The American Thinker makes a great point about our boiling point in MSM's Tea Party Cognitive Dissonance.

This mounting anger, aimed at the tyranny of a federal government -- completely off-the-rails of its Constitutionally-framed limited scope and power -- may be surfacing now due to a tipping in the fragile balance that was upheld during the G.W. Bush presidency. What was that fragile balance between our quietly continuing our personal business and our taking to the streets?

One thing and one thing only, in my opinion. As long as the federal government is doing the one job of protecting our national security and standing up for us in the face of the world's slights, we will take a great deal of folderol from our elected officials. We will suffer the profligate spending and invasions on our personal freedoms when we - at the very least - believe our leaders are stridently bent on protecting our interests and our children from harm.

When a president cuts both those legs off at the knees, as President Obama has shamelessly done for 100 days, then frustration boils over into national protest.

Obama's first 100 days has been the last straw.

Not only has this president pompously promised the wages of our children and grandchildren in a profligate spending spree that guarantees serfdom for the productive class, he has bowed, scraped, fawned and apologized his way across the entire continent of Europe.

For some fun tea party reading, click here to browse the comment section of our April 15 Cincinnati Tea Party video at YouTube. "Unhinged" is an understatement. A sampling:

Why are these people protesting taxes when they are getting a tax cut under Obama. Makes no sense.
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Just face the facts.
Republican economics = Fail
Teabaggers = Fail
You and this video = Fail
Fox = Win by getting all the Teabaggers actually think this was a grassroots effort.
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This is scary. A lot of people on the streets, not really knowing what they are campaigning about. All they think is that they should be there.

The worlds economy is up the spout and people are calling for capitalism.
Bush left the country on its knees financially, near bankrupt. Obama must be given a chance.

What a bunch of morons!

Dick Morris, that Right Wing Nut, calls Obama a Socialist (again) in his article at The Hill, Obama's Leap to Socialism. When will these people stop calling Obama a socialist, distracting from the real issues at hand, and start being part of the solution? This name calling has to be stopped!

President Obama showed his hand this week when The New York Times wrote that he is considering converting the stock the government owns in our country’s banks from preferred stock, which it now holds, to common stock.

This seemingly insignificant change is momentous. It means that the federal government will control all of the major banks and financial institutions in the nation. It means socialism.
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...whoever controls the banks controls the credit and, therefore, the economy. That’s called socialism.
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With bank profits up and financial institutions trying to give back their money, there is no need for the conversion of the government stock from preferred to common — except to advance the political socialist agenda of this administration.

Daniel Henninger at the WSJ comments on the recent photos of Obama's apologize-for-America-first tour at the Americas Summit last week. Happy photos of Obama with communists Chavez and Ortega. (You can re-arrange that last sentence if you wish). Obama and the Dictators:

Hugo Chávez is a tin-pot dictator who has debauched Venezuela's democracy. Normally in such circumstances, an American president would show reserve. The weirdly ebullient Mr. Obama did not, and that image was the photo seen 'round the world.

In New York this week, I asked a former Eastern European dissident who spent time in prison under the Communists: "If you were sitting in a cell in Cuba, Iran or Syria and saw this photo of a smiling American president shaking hands with a smiling Hugo Chávez, what would you think?"

He said: "I would think that I was losing ground."
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The Obama people seem to believe that talking top guy to top guy is the yellow brick road to progress. Why do they think that? They say Ronald Reagan negotiated over nuclear arsenals at Reykjavik. But virtually all desirable regime change in our time -- Soviet Communism, South Africa, the Philippines -- has come mainly from below, from the West protecting and supporting people in opposition to autocrats.

The maturity shown by WSJ's Holman W. Jenkins Jr. by refraining from calling Obama a Socialist and instead referring to the President as "King Barack the Mild" is refreshing. It gives us hope that we can work out our differences and work together in harmony. His opinion piece, GM Is Becoming a Royal Debacle, continues on the same topic of government ownership of GM shares. Morris calls it Socialism. Jenkins avoids the word with creative writing.

...the rights and privileges of shareholders are not worth diddly when the king is throwing his prerogatives around. He dispensed with the services of GM chief Rick Wagoner, though the king owned not a single share of GM stock at the time. His minions communicated the king's pleasure that GM consider discontinuing its GMC brand, maker of pickups and SUVs that offendeth the royal eye -- though these vehicles earn GM's fattest profit margins.

His minions haven't asked GM to give up the Chevy Volt, even after determining it will be a profitless black hole, because of the king's fondness for green.
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King Barack could take a leaf from St. Jimmy the Simple, who faced a collapse of the railroad industry. He signed the Staggers deregulation law, returning power to the industry itself to decide what services to provide and which customers to chase. What had previously been an industrial basket case, halfway nationalized already, fixed itself almost overnight.

Last, Ann Coulter, someone on the right that isn't afraid to wear our Commie Obama hat in public or call Obama names, writes at Townhall about her mother who passed away last week. Click here to read. Very moving. Our condolences.

Obama a Socialist?

Like Hugo Chavez?



UT: HotAir

Internal Enemies

This is our second post on the Dept. Homeland Security report on Right Wing Extremism. Post #1 is here.http://blog.ushanka.us/2009/04/now-recruiting.html

Here are some early responses from American citizens right wing extremists to the report:

Judge Andrew Napolitano at FOX:

My guess is that the sentiments revealed in the report I read are the tip of an iceberg that the DHS would prefer to keep submerged until it needs to reveal it. This iceberg is the heavy-hand of government; a government with large and awful eyes, in whose heart there is no love for freedom, and on whose face there is no smile.

Jonah Goldberg at Townhall - (Right) Winging it At the Dems:

...it's very sloppy about what qualifies someone as "extremist" in the first place. Basically, it's fancy bureaucratese for: We're guessing bad people will do bad things because the economy is bad and the president is black. But we have no real evidence.
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... it wrankles a bit that this administration is so squeamish to describe Islamic terrorists as "terrorists" but is promiscuous with the T-word when it comes to right-wing Americans.

The evidence that al-Qaida & Co. are terrorists is widely available, but Napolitano boasts that she calls attacks such as those on 9/11 "man-caused disasters." She says she doesn't want to fuel "the politics of fear." But her own department dubs nebulous and ill-defined Americans as terrorists even though DHS has "no specific information" that they're plotting any attacks.

Oliver North at Townhall - I am an Extremist:

According to the U.S. government, I am an extremist. I am a Christian and meet regularly with other Christians to study God's word. My faith convinces me the prophecies in the Holy Bible are true. I believe in the sanctity of human life, oppose abortion, and want to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman. I am a veteran with skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. I own several firearms, and I frequently shoot them, buy ammunition, and consider efforts to infringe on my Second Amendment rights to be wrong and unconstitutional. I fervently support the sovereignty of the United States, and I am deeply concerned about our economy, increasingly higher taxes, illegal immigration, soaring unemployment, and actions by our government that will bury my children beneath a mountain of debt.

Apparently, all this makes me a "rightwing extremist."

Here are the results in our current survey:

Could our Commie Obama Rally Cap be part of the classified version of this report?

Spend & Tax

We can't call em "Tax and Spend Liberals" anymore. The MO has been flipped. Spend $1 Trillion first, then raise taxes to pay for the spending.

The TaxProf blog explains how Obama's spending will result in a doubling of our taxes over time.

Regardless of what politicians tell you, any additional accumulations of debt are, absent dramatic reductions in the size and role of government, basically deferred tax increases. Remember the old saw? "You can pay me now or you can pay me later, with interest."
To help put things in perspective, the Peterson Foundation calculated the federal government accumulated $56.4 trillion in total liabilities and unfunded promises for Medicare and Social Security as of September 30, 2008. ... If $56.4 trillion in financial commitments is too big a number to digest, think of it as $483,000 per American household, or $184,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. ...
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Unless we begin to get our fiscal house in order, there's simply no other way to handle our ever-mounting debt burdens except by doubling taxes over time. Otherwise, our growing commitments for Medicare and Social Security benefits will gradually squeeze out spending on other vital programs such as education, research and development, and infrastructure.

U/T: Instapundit

Maybe Oppression Isn't So Bad...

We are long overdue for an Ushanka Babe post. Click Nikita to see the video!

Friday Afternoon Cigar

Too many things to celebrate, so few cigars. Another Sun Grown died a fiery death as we celebrated the excitement for our Cincinnati Tea Party video.

Sweetness & Light, American Thinker and other fine blogs picked up the video and more and more people get to look into the eyes of Cincinnati patriots and discover there is nothing more 'grassroots' than the Tea Parties. Even a Dutch blog posted it - although we're not sure they were praising or trashing it...

Thursday Afternoon Cigar

We smoked a Rocky Patel Sun Grown to celebrate our latest video: Yesterday's Tea Party in Cincinnati (link).

We are on Chapter VI of Atlas Shrugged. All we can say is: WOW.