Dodd and Obama: Corrupt Birds of a Feather
by Michelle Malkin
Everything you need to know about false Hope and Change can be found in one picture: the image of President Obama embracing embattled Sen. Chris Dodd.
The troubled Democrat is in deep over his sweetheart Countrywide home-loan deals, corporate bailout cash and crony associations. New revelations by Countrywide whistleblower Robert Feinberg confirm what more and more of Dodd's constituents in Connecticut are coming to realize: He's a lying weasel.
Dodd denied knowledge of the special treatment the subprime mortgage company had given him and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad on home loans. (Dodd's were worth more than $800,000.) Feinberg flatly contradicted him in secret testimony on the Hill this week.
Connecticut voters are not smiling about Dodd's hypocritical bashing of lobbyists on the airwaves while he parties with them behind closed doors. And as they scrimp through the recession, they haven't forgotten about Dodd's dozy Irish cottage deal with convicted insider trader Edward Downe Jr. (who received a Clinton pardon with Dodd's generous help). Sandra Harris, an unaffiliated voter from West Hartford, Conn., told the Hartford Courant: "I've lost respect for him. … It's time for a change." A Quinnipiac poll now shows that 60 percent of key independent voters disapprove of Dodd.
But Dodd's cratering numbers and mounting ethics scandal aren't just about Dodd. Damaged birds of a feather flock together. Even before these latest disclosures, Dodd's approval ratings had dropped to their lowest levels ever. Yet, Obama -- agent of the "new politics," erstwhile Breath of Fresh Air, guarantor of all that is good and clean in Washington -- declared his support for Dodd's 2010 re-election campaign bid.
"I can't say it any clearer: I will be helping Chris Dodd because he deserves the help," Obama announced in April. "He just has an extraordinary record of accomplishment, and I think the people of Connecticut will come to recognize that."
Obama progressives should cringe at their president's bear hug of one of the most ethically compromised politicians on Capitol Hill. The Beltway swamp is teeming with Democratic corruption scandals -- Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha's earmark factory and tax-subsidized airports and radars to nowhere; New York Rep. Charlie Rangel's rent-controlled apartment scams and tax scandals; California Rep. Maxine Waters' business ties to a minority-owned bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances, for starters. But Dodd's career epitomizes the most fetid aspects of Washington's culture of corruption. It's a textbook case of nepotism, self-dealing, back scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors and entrenched incumbency.
When he launched his presidential bid in February 2007, Obama inspired millions and rallied the world with his pledge to "build a more hopeful America." He told a cheering crowd in Springfield, Ill., land of Lincoln, that he recognized "that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know that I have not spent a long time learning the ways of Washington, but I have been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington have to change."
Two years later, Obama declared his support for an entrenched U.S. senator drowning in the decrepit old politics of pay-for-play.
Two years later, at a "historic" and "unprecedented" record pace, Obama presided over a heap of botched nominations, crony appointments, lobbyist paybacks, union and left-wing activist payoffs, and abandoned promises to make government more transparent and accountable to ordinary Americans.
"Washington is broken," Obama lamented on the campaign trail. Yet, under President Obama, the business of Washington is booming. The collapse of the Era of HopeNChangeyness demonstrates the first and last law of political physics: As government grows, corruption flows. Massive new federal spending plus tens of thousands of pages of new regulations plus unprecedented new powers over taxpayers and the economy ensure limitless new opportunities for sleaze, favor trading, deal cutting and influence peddling.
The president's dwindling blind faithful may still cling to the belief that he can work miracles. But no one, not even Barack Obama, can drain a swamp by flooding it.
Showing posts with label liberals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberals. Show all posts
Friday, July 31, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Our new science 'czar'
Czar 54, Who Are You?
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Leadership: Our new science czar, John Holdren, once backed compulsory sterilization and forced abortion as part of a government population-control program. The only thing missing was a Soylent Green recipe.
In April, President Obama declared that "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over." In everything from stem cell research to climate change and energy policy, reason and science would triumph. The problem is that what the Obama administration considers science, as exemplified by the choice of Holdren, is troubling.
In a recently rediscovered 1977 book, "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," co-authored with doomsters Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Holdren, who holds the post of presidential assistant for science technology, revealed his pessimistic and apocalyptic views on all three topics. They are disturbing.
He hates people and views them as the root of all planetary evils. Large families are a target of Holdren and the Ehrlichs, who write that they "contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children" and "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility."
On page 837, Holdren writes "it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
Overproducing children? On the next page, Holdren asserts that "neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce." He missed that part about life being an inalienable right.
Existing Constitution? On page 943, Holdren proposes "a comprehensive Planetary Regime (that) could control the development, administration and distribution of all natural resources . . . not only in the atmosphere and the oceans, but in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes." We believe that was tried in Kyoto and will be tried again in Copenhagen.
As for that nasty people problem, Holdren says the "Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. . . . The Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits." This is China on steroids.
Among the methods of population control he discusses in the book is "sterilizing women after their second or third child" and "adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods." He cautions that whatever is added must be safe for pets and livestock.
Similar nonsense was express in Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" (1968), which warned: "In the 1970s, the world will undergo famine — hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked on now." He was wrong.
Such nightmare scenarios regarding overpopulation have made the rounds since Thomas Malthus predicted in 1798 that overpopulation would outstrip England's food supply and the British Empire would literally starve to death.
In 1980, Holdren and the Ehrlichs made a famous wager with economist Julian Simon: They bet $1,000 that five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — would be more expensive 10 years later. They were wrong on all five predictions, and had to pay up in 1990.
Holdren also calculated that famines due to climate change could leave a billion people dead by 2020, championed "population control measures," and believed 280 million Americans would likely be "too many."
Like Ehrlich, he forgot that with bodies come minds, minds that can innovate, invent and find substitutes for scarce resources and new ways to feed people. Things like fiber optic cables, wireless computers, and bioengineering come to mind. Obesity is a threat, not famine.
This administration, through its policies, programs and personnel choices, is pushing science fiction, not science, and seeking to control and limit people as a plague upon the earth. Science czar John Holdren's views, which to our knowledge have not been disavowed, paint a bleak future for the human race at the hands of government.
We prefer another piece of advice we were once given — be fruitful and multiply.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Leadership: Our new science czar, John Holdren, once backed compulsory sterilization and forced abortion as part of a government population-control program. The only thing missing was a Soylent Green recipe.
In April, President Obama declared that "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over." In everything from stem cell research to climate change and energy policy, reason and science would triumph. The problem is that what the Obama administration considers science, as exemplified by the choice of Holdren, is troubling.
In a recently rediscovered 1977 book, "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," co-authored with doomsters Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Holdren, who holds the post of presidential assistant for science technology, revealed his pessimistic and apocalyptic views on all three topics. They are disturbing.
He hates people and views them as the root of all planetary evils. Large families are a target of Holdren and the Ehrlichs, who write that they "contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children" and "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility."
On page 837, Holdren writes "it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
Overproducing children? On the next page, Holdren asserts that "neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce." He missed that part about life being an inalienable right.
Existing Constitution? On page 943, Holdren proposes "a comprehensive Planetary Regime (that) could control the development, administration and distribution of all natural resources . . . not only in the atmosphere and the oceans, but in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes." We believe that was tried in Kyoto and will be tried again in Copenhagen.
As for that nasty people problem, Holdren says the "Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. . . . The Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits." This is China on steroids.
Among the methods of population control he discusses in the book is "sterilizing women after their second or third child" and "adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods." He cautions that whatever is added must be safe for pets and livestock.
Similar nonsense was express in Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" (1968), which warned: "In the 1970s, the world will undergo famine — hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked on now." He was wrong.
Such nightmare scenarios regarding overpopulation have made the rounds since Thomas Malthus predicted in 1798 that overpopulation would outstrip England's food supply and the British Empire would literally starve to death.
In 1980, Holdren and the Ehrlichs made a famous wager with economist Julian Simon: They bet $1,000 that five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — would be more expensive 10 years later. They were wrong on all five predictions, and had to pay up in 1990.
Holdren also calculated that famines due to climate change could leave a billion people dead by 2020, championed "population control measures," and believed 280 million Americans would likely be "too many."
Like Ehrlich, he forgot that with bodies come minds, minds that can innovate, invent and find substitutes for scarce resources and new ways to feed people. Things like fiber optic cables, wireless computers, and bioengineering come to mind. Obesity is a threat, not famine.
This administration, through its policies, programs and personnel choices, is pushing science fiction, not science, and seeking to control and limit people as a plague upon the earth. Science czar John Holdren's views, which to our knowledge have not been disavowed, paint a bleak future for the human race at the hands of government.
We prefer another piece of advice we were once given — be fruitful and multiply.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
on Walter Cronkite
Liberal guilt: still a media trait
by Brent Bozell
Even as the trumpets sounded and bells rang in mourning a year after thousands of American innocents were lost in a savage terrorist attack, some people still couldn't place the blame where it belonged, on the criminals. They firmly believe America somehow deserved the al-Qaeda attack. We are the fount of great wealth and thus the legitimate target of international envy. Legendary CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" with another performance that makes you cringe at the thought that he was once called "the most trusted man in America." Clearly, if this man had ever been elected to office and tried to implement his opinions, he would have made malaise-ridden, apology-loaded Jimmy Carter look like an arrogant "superpatriot." So why were we attacked? Cronkite said he believes "very definitely that foreign policy could have caused what has happened." He didn't elaborate, but apparently we have failed to love-bomb the repressive backwaters of the world with enough foreign aid. Cronkite's lecture went like this. "We represent the rich," while most of Africa, Asia, and the Americas are "very, very poor. The people in these countries don't have adequate housing, don't have adequate hospitalization, don't have adequate medical care, don't have adequate education. They are not going to live forever in the shadow of the riches that we display constantly in our movies, in our travels around the world, in our airlines, in our shipping. They're not going to put up with that forever." Terrorism represents "a revolution of the poor and have-nots against the rich and the haves, and that's us." Translation: We're at fault, and wretched murderers have feelings, too. Poor Walter. He may have been a de-facto national leader by the 1970s, but he felt so comfortable in that decade of despair, he never left. Larry King tried to suggest that even a supposedly bungling or arrogant foreign policy "doesn't excuse" massive terrorist attacks, but Cronkite wouldn't lift a finger or change an inflection to agree. Larry could have -- should have -- asked how this socialist fairy tale matched up with the reality that most of the 9-11 hijackers came from wealthy Saudi families. Or wondered why Cronkite would think radical Islamists wanting to share the wealth of the American infidels would try to gain it by hoping to destroy it. King might also have asked: If a massive redistribution of wealth is the solution, why isn't the terrorists' own home, Saudi Arabia, and its immense riches, the problem? Put aside the lunacy of ending terrorism by adding every Middle Eastern family to the American welfare rolls. This is not the terrorists' aim; they want America destroyed, and have said so emphatically. No, Cronkite's argument is but the tired socialist impulses of the American left rearing its head and using 9/11 to its advantage. It's morally obnoxious, too. If liberals hate greed, then how can they justify greed and envy as an acceptable philosophy on the part of our enemies? Is it a moral philosophy to want to kill the rich man because he is rich? Is it an honorable economic policy to feed and clothe the world's poor by blowing up New York? Apparently so, in the guilt-ridden fog that still envelopes the former anchor for CBS News. But Cronkite wasn't the only aging CBS veteran to beat his breast in shame last week. In the self-satisfied quietude of the show "Sunday Morning," longtime Middle East reporter Bob Simon uncorked a commentary on how we'd have less enemies if we all drove tiny, fuel-efficient cars. I'm not kidding. He said if we were "less greedy, taking better care of our poor and our needy, and stop making impossible demands on our planet's resources, I think we would plunge our enemies into shame." How would this strategy sound in the hearing rooms of Congress? Ladies and gentlemen, Option A: We could attack al Qaeda, destroy their training camps, dry up their finances and arrest their leaders one by one. Or Option B: Perhaps we could win the war on terror if we all gave up our SUV's, our mini-vans, even our intolerable mid-size cars, and bought a tiny gas-sipper or a snazzy gas-electric hybrid. Osama bin Laden would be so ashamed, he'd come out of his cave and apologize, right? I think "Sunday Morning" ought to shelve those bubbling-brook videos and invest in a laugh track. Remember voices like these when people try to say that conservatism is somehow "out of the mainstream." In a time of war, when everything America has accomplished and stood for is under attack, when the public has rallied around the president, and millions fly their flags with pride, in some corners of liberalism, particularly in the liberal media, an unpopular extreme of ideological self-loathing remains.
by Brent Bozell
Even as the trumpets sounded and bells rang in mourning a year after thousands of American innocents were lost in a savage terrorist attack, some people still couldn't place the blame where it belonged, on the criminals. They firmly believe America somehow deserved the al-Qaeda attack. We are the fount of great wealth and thus the legitimate target of international envy. Legendary CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" with another performance that makes you cringe at the thought that he was once called "the most trusted man in America." Clearly, if this man had ever been elected to office and tried to implement his opinions, he would have made malaise-ridden, apology-loaded Jimmy Carter look like an arrogant "superpatriot." So why were we attacked? Cronkite said he believes "very definitely that foreign policy could have caused what has happened." He didn't elaborate, but apparently we have failed to love-bomb the repressive backwaters of the world with enough foreign aid. Cronkite's lecture went like this. "We represent the rich," while most of Africa, Asia, and the Americas are "very, very poor. The people in these countries don't have adequate housing, don't have adequate hospitalization, don't have adequate medical care, don't have adequate education. They are not going to live forever in the shadow of the riches that we display constantly in our movies, in our travels around the world, in our airlines, in our shipping. They're not going to put up with that forever." Terrorism represents "a revolution of the poor and have-nots against the rich and the haves, and that's us." Translation: We're at fault, and wretched murderers have feelings, too. Poor Walter. He may have been a de-facto national leader by the 1970s, but he felt so comfortable in that decade of despair, he never left. Larry King tried to suggest that even a supposedly bungling or arrogant foreign policy "doesn't excuse" massive terrorist attacks, but Cronkite wouldn't lift a finger or change an inflection to agree. Larry could have -- should have -- asked how this socialist fairy tale matched up with the reality that most of the 9-11 hijackers came from wealthy Saudi families. Or wondered why Cronkite would think radical Islamists wanting to share the wealth of the American infidels would try to gain it by hoping to destroy it. King might also have asked: If a massive redistribution of wealth is the solution, why isn't the terrorists' own home, Saudi Arabia, and its immense riches, the problem? Put aside the lunacy of ending terrorism by adding every Middle Eastern family to the American welfare rolls. This is not the terrorists' aim; they want America destroyed, and have said so emphatically. No, Cronkite's argument is but the tired socialist impulses of the American left rearing its head and using 9/11 to its advantage. It's morally obnoxious, too. If liberals hate greed, then how can they justify greed and envy as an acceptable philosophy on the part of our enemies? Is it a moral philosophy to want to kill the rich man because he is rich? Is it an honorable economic policy to feed and clothe the world's poor by blowing up New York? Apparently so, in the guilt-ridden fog that still envelopes the former anchor for CBS News. But Cronkite wasn't the only aging CBS veteran to beat his breast in shame last week. In the self-satisfied quietude of the show "Sunday Morning," longtime Middle East reporter Bob Simon uncorked a commentary on how we'd have less enemies if we all drove tiny, fuel-efficient cars. I'm not kidding. He said if we were "less greedy, taking better care of our poor and our needy, and stop making impossible demands on our planet's resources, I think we would plunge our enemies into shame." How would this strategy sound in the hearing rooms of Congress? Ladies and gentlemen, Option A: We could attack al Qaeda, destroy their training camps, dry up their finances and arrest their leaders one by one. Or Option B: Perhaps we could win the war on terror if we all gave up our SUV's, our mini-vans, even our intolerable mid-size cars, and bought a tiny gas-sipper or a snazzy gas-electric hybrid. Osama bin Laden would be so ashamed, he'd come out of his cave and apologize, right? I think "Sunday Morning" ought to shelve those bubbling-brook videos and invest in a laugh track. Remember voices like these when people try to say that conservatism is somehow "out of the mainstream." In a time of war, when everything America has accomplished and stood for is under attack, when the public has rallied around the president, and millions fly their flags with pride, in some corners of liberalism, particularly in the liberal media, an unpopular extreme of ideological self-loathing remains.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
