Extremism and the Democratic Party

By James M. Thunder on 8.1.11

Democratic leaders and liberal commentators declaim against the Tea Party members of the Republican House and Grover Norquist for the no-new-taxes pledge to which many Republican Senators and House members have subscribed and have promised their constituents in return for their vote. They are lambasted for their "extremism" in the debt ceiling debate. How convenient for the Democrats to be able to point to specific targets of their wrath. Would that conservatives and Republicans could point to a particular group of Democrats or a particular pledge Democrats take as evidence of their extremism. The reason conservatives and Republicans cannot point to such a group or pledge is because extremism on the Left infects the entire Democratic Party.

• It's extremism, the Democrats say, to oppose new taxes. It's not extremism, they say, to support new taxes.

• It's extremism to oppose "fair" taxes on "the rich." It's not extremism to continue allowing 50% of the population to pay no income taxes while "the rich" pay over 70% of individual federal income taxes.

• It's extremism to cut back on entitlements. It's not extremism to retain, or enlarge, entitlements until they can no longer be paid for and threaten the economy of the United States and the freedom of all Americans.

• It's extremism to reduce the size (dollars, employees, footprint) of the Federal government. It's not extremism to constantly and consistently seek to expand its size, ever increasing the percentage of GDP obtained in taxes and and spent. It's simply never extremism to support more federal spending.

• It's extremism to plan to debate the budget frequently (with Continuing Resolutions and debt ceilings) so as to interfere with other business of Congress (so said Senate Majority Leader Reid on Friday, July 29). It's not extremism for the Democratic Senate not to pass a budget or appropriations bills. It's not extremism for the Democratic President to submit a budget that is rejected by the Senate in a 97-0 vote.

• It's extremism to work assiduously and seriously to reduce the deficit. It's not extremism to retain the deficit and borrow 40% of every dollar spent by the Federal government -- borrowing much of it from Communist China and the oil cartel.

But this issue of what is extremism does not exist only in the debate on budgets and spending. Consider immigration:

• It's extremism to install a fence (calling it the American version of the Berlin Wall!) at the southern border to prevent illegal immigration and illegal trafficking in drugs and weapons. And it's racist to boot. It's not extremism to let persons cross the southern border illegally on foot to obtain jobs in the United States while persons of other ethnicities and races in Asians, Africa, and the Middle East wait their lawful turn.

• It's extremism to disrupt families by deporting some members while allowing other members, often American-citizen children, to remain in the United States. It's not extremism to let family members to remain separated for decades from their immediate family members who are citizens and lawful permanent residents.

• It's extremism for a state (Arizona) to defend its borders (à laArizona), an extremism which must be attacked by the Federal Government. It's not extremism for a state (Utah) and cities to provide "sanctuary" to illegal immigrants and let the Federal Government give this violation of the rule of law a pass. It's not extremism to allow illegal immigrants to build up a kind of equity so that the longer they're here, the more "right" they have to stay -- including reduced tuition at taxpayer-funded universities.

And consider campaign finance:

• It's extremism to allow corporations to help finance political campaigns. It's not extremism to violate the clear language of the First Amendment by barring, regulating, and restricting money in political campaigns.

We could continue with issue after issue: same-sex marriage, home ownership and banking, the environment. Tea Party members, Republicans, a host of independents, support the principles of the American Constitution. Their extremism, if such it be called, is like that proclaimed by Senator Goldwater when he accepted the 1964 nomination for president: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!" It is simply not true that, under this Constitution, every manner of national problem should be considered for some form of a federalsolution. To think otherwise, as do the Democrats, is a violation of our American liberties which we are called to defend.

In announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, former Governor Jon Huntsman said about President Obama: "[T]he question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better President; not who's the better American." Maybe a presidential candidate needs to be gracious to his prospective opponent, particularly one who nominated him as ambassador to China. Standing in the same spot in 1980, Ronald Reagan was not as kind to President Carter.

No, Governor Huntsman, the American people do want as president the candidate who is "the better American," the one who will better support the U.S. Constitution as it is written, the one who will promote and defend American freedoms over the statism and European style of government of the Democratic Party. American values are found, in the first instance, in the U.S. Constitution; they are not the amorphous, flexible, platitudinous "American values" espoused by President Obama and the Democratic Party. It is not enough to be born in America, to be educated here even by the most elite institutions, or to serve in the Congress, to be an American. Americans adhere to the Constitution.

A Tale of Two Dealmakers

By Paul Kengor on 8.1.11 

Presidential scholars write on all sorts of aspects of the American presidency. Among the most interesting have been several important works on so-called presidential character and temperament. And when it comes to the temperament of our current president, we've learned quite a bit during the recent debate over the debt ceiling.

The most illuminating report I've read was a Politico piece entitled,"Obama abruptly walks out of talks." The article described President Obama's bitter negotiations with nemesis Eric Cantor, the Republican House Majority leader. Obama "abruptly walked out of a stormy debt-limit meeting," Politico reported, "a dramatic setback to the already shaky negotiations." Eric Cantor said of the president's behavior: "He shoved back and said 'I'll see you tomorrow' and walked out."

The Politico piece continued: "the White House talks blew up amid a new round of sniping between Obama and Cantor, who are fast becoming bitter enemies." When Cantor told the president that they were too far apart to get a deal done by the fateful August 2 deadline, Obama, according to Politico, "began to lecture him." Obama indignantly told Cantor that no other president -- including Ronald Reagan -- would condescend to sit through such negotiations.

Alas, it was Obama's Reagan reference that nags at me.

In truth, Ronald Reagan was a remarkable negotiator, both incredibly patient and principled. Negotiating was one of Reagan's greatest but most underappreciated attributes.

When we think of Reagan as a negotiator, we remember his crucial walk-out of the Reykjavik Summit in October 1986. Some Obama supporters want to invoke that example here, which is short-sighted at best. Reykjavik was just one of five separate, extended Reagan one-on-ones with Mikhail Gorbachev: Geneva (November 1985), Reykjavik (October 1986), Washington (December 1987), Moscow (May-June 1988), and New York (December 1988).

One example of Reagan's negotiating power seems especially applicable to Obama's current dealings with Congressional Republicans. In 1971, Governor Reagan squared off with the speaker of the California legislature, a tough Democratic foe named Robert "Macho Bob" Moretti. California was on the verge of a major policy success: a historic welfare-reform package. But first, Moretti and Reagan had to sit down together, side by side, and hammer out specifics. Moretti made his way to Reagan's office, walked in by himself, and announced: "Governor, I don't like you. And I know you don't like me, but we don't have to be in love to work together." Reagan replied simply, "Okay." He committed to a good-faith effort to work with Moretti.

The two endured grinding binary and plenary sessions for six weeks (almost exactly the time since Obama walked out of his talks with Cantor). Moretti himself calculated that he sparred with Reagan for "seventeen days and nights," "line by line, statistic by statistic," and obscenity by obscenity. At times, Reagan burned with frustration -- "that's it, I'm through with this" -- but never gave up.

Grudgingly, Moretti came to respect Reagan, who he saw as hard on his principles but flexible in the details -- an observation of Reagan shared by numerous aides over the decades. The governor surprised Moretti by yielding to fair and rational arguments, once even agreeing to renegotiate a point that the speaker had regretted conceding.

As Edmund Morris shows in his personality-based biography Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, Moretti was most impressed with Reagan's honesty as a deal maker. He admired the fact that the governor never lied and honored every commitment he made.

In the end, on August 13, 1971, the California Welfare Reform Act became law. Reagan rightly called it "probably the most comprehensive" such welfare initiative in U.S. history. It was way ahead of its time, predating all of the bipartisan welfare-reform accomplishments of the 1990s.

The negotiations between Reagan and Moretti were somewhat of a microcosm of the Reagan-Gorbachev talks. Then, too, the two men spent many intense hours exchanging heated words and a few obscenities. For Reagan, there were non-negotiables then as well, of which SDI (at Reykjavik) was the most dramatic. There were items that Reagan insisted upon, such as addressing the USSR's persecution of its own citizens (especially Russian Jews), and giving no quarter in his belief in the superiority of the American system. He and Gorbachev likewise were locked horn to horn. The results were historic changes in arms control. Like Moretti, Gorbachev learned to like and respect Reagan.

I'm not privy to the records on all of President Obama's negotiations with House Republicans like Eric Cantor and John Boehner. From what I'm reading, however, we're seeing a very different kind of chief executive. Barack Obama is not only no Ronald Reagan on economic policy. He's also no Reagan when it comes to negotiating skills. Obama doesn't understand Reagan at all, and that's a loss for this nation.

45 dead in Hama as Syrian tanks fire into crowds

Rick Moran

Hama is historically significant because it was there that Bashar Assad's father massacred up to 20,000 people in the last uprising to rock the regime.

Now, we can say with confidence: Like Father, like Son. Reuters:

Syrian tanks firing shells and machineguns stormed the city of Hama Sunday, killing at least 45 civilians in a move to crush demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad's rule, residents and activists said Assad's forces began their assault on the city, scene of a 1982 massacre, at dawn after besieging it for nearly a month. The official state news agency said scores of were on rooftops and "shooting intensively to terrorize citizens."

But residents said tanks and snipers were shooting at unarmed residential districts, where inhabitants had set up makeshift road blocks to try and stop their advance, and that an irregular Alawite militia loyal to Assad, known as 'shabbiha' accompanied the invading forces in buses.

The shabbiha play the dual role of murdering civilians at random and keeping Assad's soldiers in line by shooting any that fail to follow orders to fire into crowds.

Citing hospital officials, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll in Hama was likely to rise, with dozens badly wounded in the attack.

A doctor, who did not want to be further identified for fear of arrest, told Reuters that most bodies were taken to the city's Badr, al-Horani and Hikmeh hospitals.

Scores of people were wounded and blood for transfusions was in short supply, he said by telephone from the city, which has a population of around 700,000.

"Tanks are attacking from four directions. They are firing their heavy machineguns randomly and overrunning makeshift road blocks erected by the inhabitants," the doctor said, the sound of machinegun fire crackling in the background.

Eyewitnesses report bodies lying all over the place which means the death toll is certain to rise.

This is a massive escalation by Assad who is seeking to tamp down demonstrations in advance of Ramadan, where it is probable that every day after prayers will see a massive outpouring into the streets.

One activist was quoted as saying that all Assad accomplished in Hama was pouring "oil on a burning fire." That conflagration might very well consume the dictator and his regime in the next month.

Lessons from the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Bruce Walker


Seventy five years ago today, the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games began.  Although the Berlin Games are notable for myths -- Jesse Owens, the black American runner who won four gold metals said that FDR, not Hitler, had snubbed him, contrary to the invented history of leftism -- these games were just as notable for showing the world how evil masquerades as good.  

The timing of the games was critical.  In 1936, virtually all German territorial demands were for territories with Germans who wanted to be part of the Third Reich.  The Saar plebiscite of 1935 returned formally to Germany that slice of highly industrialized territory at the nexus of Belgium, France and Germany.  The Nazi occupation of the Rhineland was nothing more than the military occupation of land which was part of the Weimar Republic.  The voters of Danzig and of Memel voted in pro-Nazi governments.   Hitler, in 1936, had really not engaged in international aggression towards non-German peoples.

Nazi anti-Semitism, of course, was odious and reviled, but the Olympics took place two years before Kristallnacht and the one day boycott of Jewish shops in 1933 would today be considered unworthy of mention had it not been the first seedlings of the horrific crime of the Holocaust.   Hitler halted anti-Semitic campaigns during and before the Olympic Games, specifically to avoid offending journalists and nabobs visiting the Reich for the games.   Helene Mayer, a German Jew, actually won a Silver Metal for Germany in the games.   Twelve other Jews from seven other nations also won a Gold Metals during the summer games.  

What Hitler wanted to do is show the world how he had ended mass unemployment in Germany, restored national pride, and now providing more support to the Olympic Games than anyone had ever done before.   So, for the first time in history, the Nazis provided television broadcast of the events (long before almost anyone had a television set) and some events were broadcast live into theaters.  The tradition of carrying the Olympic torch from Greece to the site of the games began in Berlin.   Forty-nine nations, more than in any prior Olympic games, participated in the events. 

Hitler's henchmen and -women used imagery and symbols to disarm enemies, refining the art of propaganda to heights undreamed of before the invention of mass media.

Sweet words were part of the fraud.  Did the 1936 Olympic Games unite countries "in understanding and respect"?  Did the games "connect the countries in the spirit of peace"?  That sounds like leftist palaver.  It is leftist palaver.  That great leftist leader, Adolf Hitler, said those things at the beginning of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  The left always mouths nice words.  Those who talk about peace and global understanding must really want those things, right?  No. 

Most of all the Berlin Olympics warn us of the dangers of image over substance and of pictures over words.  Nazi Germany wanted the Olympic Games and saw the games as a perfect opportunity to show to the world how well the New Germany worked and how benign their intentions were and how magnificent the Berlin Olympics were to see. 

William Shirer, a keen observer though scarcely a friend of Nazism, wrote in his Berlin Diaries: "I am afraid that the Nazis have succeeded with their propaganda."  The New York Times reported that the games put Germany "back in the fold of nations" and made them "human again. "   In 1938 Leni Riefenstahl produced Olympia, a masterpiece of art about the Berlin Olympics which won worldwide acclaim and which as late as 1960 had been voted one of the ten greatest films of all time.

The 1936 Olympics reflected the same sort of moral equivalency which has made the League of Nations, the United Nations and myriad other international organizations enablers of thuggish totalitarian member nations, becoming  accessories to crimes, rather than instruments of peace and harmony.   Anyone who watched Olympic Games during the last decades of Soviet power know that even the sporting nature of the games had been compromised "East German Judges" of subjective competitions like diving, East German women "athletes" who needed to be examined to determine their gender, and a host of other tricks and frauds took the good of the Olympics and made it often distasteful instead.  Thirty-six years after the Berlin Olympics, the peace and goodwill of the Olympics was forever shattered by the murder of Israeli athletes for the "crime" of being Jewish - this tragedy, with grim irony, at Olympics in Munich, once the headquarters of the Nazi Party.   

Athletic competition, like the art produced by people like Riefenstahl or the V-2, man's first space ship, is  never good per se.  Good men like Jesse Owens or J.S. Bach or Jonas Salk can make ability and skill into treasures, but the beginning of any such blessing to the world comes first from genuine nobility and goodness.  We see, all too often, great athletes who are monsters in human form.  We see filmmakers pervert their art into celebrations of venom and vice.  We see rock stars (some of whom have true talent) descend into hopeless, damning, depravity.

The lesson of the Berlin Olympics and all its sibling celebrations of human power to create is that every effort of man which is not first grounded in honor, decency, faith and humility is not a blessing to the world but a curse.

Just Say No to Raising the Roof

Tom Rowan

The "debt ceiling" is as phony as a 3 trillion dollar bill

Just what is this mythical being we have apparently mislabeled the "debt ceiling?"  The term implies a rigid structure to stop reckless out of control spending, thereby keeping the economic second floor from collapsing down upon us.  But the economic second floor is already afire.  Despite the Washington Fog Machine running on overdrive, the United States AAA Bond rating was all but given its last rites long ago.  Hill Democrats berating the credit agencies to keep the AAA Bond rating on life support will not bring back solvency.  Our government is swallowing up every ounce of cash and credit from this generation and generations yet born.  Raising the "debt ceiling" this time is like cutting a hole in a sinking boat to let the water out.

Apparently, the "debt ceiling's" only purpose is to remind law makers when it is time to borrow more money.  Raising the "debt ceiling" has occurred 74 times since 1962.  Since 1962, the "debt ceiling" has capped the amount government can legally borrow exactly zero times.  It just keeps being raised as government's appetite expands into all our individual lives.

The government is now so big it tells us how much water our toilets can have.  The government tells us how much water our showers can clean us with.  The government tells us we pollute the air every time we exhale.  The government tells us our kids are fat.  The government tells us how much energy we are allowed to harvest.  The government tells us which light bulbs to buy.  The government has grown and grown since 1962 and your money has not satiated its hunger yet.  Now government seeks to continue at the pig trough on America's children's and grandchildren's lives and livelihoods.  And the unconstitutional ObamaCare keeps growing like a cancer debt and entangling itself into our lives.  Remember, this newest unsustainable grand "entitlement" Ponzi scheme needs time to nurture and grow its bureaucracy.  It takes time to control the people.

Raising the "debt ceiling" this time will fund ObamaCare as it gets out of its unconstitutional cradle.  Raising the "debt ceiling" will keep Obama's ludicrous "stimulus" spending levels gushing into its 3^rd straight year.  And along with this outrageous and unconstitutional spending, these inflated budgets will be cemented into the base line budget con game.  Raising the "debt ceiling" pays for all the spending as promised by Pelosi, Reid, and Obama since 2007.

The "debt ceiling" is apparently some sort of rational law, is it not?  Reasonable people from both parties have developed the "debt ceiling" and its caps.  If the "debt ceiling" is a rational and reasonable law then how come we do not hear any voices advocating that we just follow the law and stop spending more than we take in?  Perhaps following and enforcing the law is just some zany extreme position people should no longer expect from their elective government. 

The sane position, we are told by our government servants, is to re-jigger the law when it suits the suits in Washington, making the very concept of a debt ceiling inapplicable.  The only people benefitting from these backroom deals are the establishment politicians.  They become millionaires and the people they "serve" get stuck with the construction costs of raising the roof.

NOAA's Climate Office: Precursor to Cap and Trade?

By Mike Johnson


Cap and trade remains a key element in President Obama's vow of a "fundamental transformation of America," despite legislative branch setbacks.  Now he may have found a way around the Constitution's checks and balances.

Obama knows the consequences of cap and trade; he promised skyrocketing electricity costs when he was elected in 2008.  To date, however, we have lucked out: Obama tried and tried and tried again to get his cap-and-trade bill through Congress, but so far, he has failed. 

Obama has failed in large measure because the credibility and thus the hysteria of his science have eroded.  Obama has been stymied by a public made skeptical because of the shenanigans of the U.N.'s IPCC and the self-promoting climate experts in East Anglia and the United States.  Can Obama recover?  Not before the next election, but if he is reelected (bite your tongue), and if he can resuscitate the hysteria by co-opting NOAA, the cream of American governmental science, he has a good shot at it.  Bear in mind that Obama has a predilection for using regulatory agencies (e.g., the EPA) as weapons.

Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the environmentalist rock star and former vice chairperson of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), was appointed as the administrator of NOAA by President Obama.  She has installed a team of eco-zealots, and they have a Climate Service Office ready and waiting to proceed -- with only congressional approval standing in their way.

Dr. Lubchenco first proposed the Climate Service Office on 8 February 2010.  She presented it as a budget-neutral consolidation of existing capabilities.  Any such reorganization requires approval of Congress.  The recent FY2011 Continuing Resolution prohibits NOAA from expending any funds on a Climate Service Office in FY2011.  President Obama included the NOAA reorganization in his FY2012 budget issued in February 2011 and so ingloriously voted down (97-0) this spring.

Now, there is nothing wrong with a Climate Service per se.  Small-government advocates recognize government involvement as acceptable in certain activities; the NOAA National Weather Service is one of these and has a fine reputation.  A Climate Service seems appropriate in this day and age with the concerns about climate, climate change, and climate control.  NOAA would appear to be the logical organization to oversee such an effort.  In the author's opinion, before embarking on a Climate Service, NOAA must show that they satisfy three criteria:

• The Climate Service must be transparent and fully open to congressional oversight.
• The Climate Service must have proven competent, apolitical management.
• The Climate Service must be scientifically objective with no preconceived agenda.

On 21 June, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a particularlycontentious hearing on the proposed NOAA Climate Service Proposal.  The tone was set with the chairman's opening remarks, which relate to the first of my three criteria.  The gavel reverberations had hardly died down before Mr. Hall (R-TX) chastised NOAA on their non-responsiveness and delinquencies.  This was the first but not the only volley on NOAA's willingness to obey Congress.

A little history: at an 8 February 2010 press conference, Dr. Lubchenco said:

In summary, we are announcing the intent to create a new (mila) [sic] climate service to be led initially by Dr. Tom Karl, the creation of six regional climate services directors and a new Web portal at climate.gov.

Dr. Thomas R. Karl, the interim director of the NOAA Climate Service, briefed the new service in March 2010.

The six regional directors were appointed on 10 September 2010.  They are Ellen Mecray (Eastern Region), Doug Kluck (Central Region), David Brown (Southern Region), DeWayne Cecil (Western Region), John Marra (Pacific Region), and James Partain (Alaska Region).  The web portal, active since the 8 February 2010 announcement, can be found here.  All the elements promised by Dr. Lubchenco are in place.

Mr. Rohrabacher (R-CA) questioned Dr. Lubchenco extensively on the above (video here), suggesting that having these people in place is strongly indicative of a de facto up-and-running service, in contravention of the expressed desires of the Congress.  Dr. Lubchenco demurred, replying that planning ahead is simply good management.  Mr. Rohrabacher then quoted a December 2010 interview of Dr. Karl in ClimateWire where Dr. Karl said, "[W]e've moved in[.] ... [W]e're waiting for the marriage certificate, but we're acting like we have a climate service."  Mr. Rohrabacher suggested a "living in climate sin" metaphor.

It is not surprising that Congress does not trust NOAA.  The FY2011 Continuing Resolution also prohibits expending funds on specific fisheries management techniques.  NOAA's response: issuing a legalistic lollapalooza of an interpretation based on parsing and hairsplitting.

Opaqueness, stonewalling, Machiavellian legal constructs -- all of the onerous techniques a bureaucracy can use -- are routine management with NOAA as currently constituted.  The following is from a previous American Thinker essay of mine:

Dr. Lubchenco did not introduce appalling mismanagement to NOAA, but she has made America acutely aware of it.  NOAA was ineffective on the Gulf oil spill, and NOAA fisheries has been an outright disgrace, given incompetent management (that word again), corrupt disposition of funds generated by fines and property seizures from fishermen, and vindictive enforcement of regulations. 

NOAA as currently constituted flunks my first two criteria.  Let us move on to the "no preconceived agenda" criterion.

At the hearing, Dr. Harris (R-MD) chided Dr. Lubchenco in some depth on an article about sea level rise along the Maryland shore.  The article appeared in the Climate Watch Magazine, which is a feature of the NOAA Climate Service web portal (linked above).  Dr. Harris said the article was in a popular format, rather than a scientific format, in that it lacked the depth of citations normally found in peer-reviewed scientific papers.  The article's conclusions were significantly alarming.  Dr. Harris asked if it was in NOAA's interest to publish what could be called sensational articles without in-depth scientific foundation.  Dr. Lubchenco ducked the question.

Dr. Harris's description of the article is accurate.  I examined other articles from the Climate Watch Magazine and they were similar: extreme, perhaps worst-case consequences, with limited citations to allow a reader to follow up on his own.  I found no articles by Richard Linzden, Lord Christopher Monckton, or Roy W. Spencer.  I didn't really expect to, nor do I expect NOAA to use authors of their ilk in the future.

What I do expect is that Dr. Lubchenco will be true to her EDF roots.  She followed the EDF party line with the fisheries and can be anticipated to follow it on cap and trade.  In both cases, the EDF stances are the extreme environmentalist positions.

EDF's fisheries position: "Fisheries are depleted and fishermen are losing their jobs.  Catch shares are the way forward."  Once given the power of NOAA, Dr. Lubchenco wasted little time in implementing the EDF tool of choice for fisheries, Catch Shares Management, sometimes derisively termed cap and trade of the fisheries.  It has been suggested that her implementation was reckless, too fast with too little study and training.  It has also been suggested that her implementation violated the intent and perhaps the letter of the governing Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA).  In any case, her actions were in lockstep with the goals of her EDF alma mater.

EDF's global warming position: the science is settled, global warming is "accelerating at an alarming rate," and the answer is cap and trade.  I have little doubt that Dr. Lubchenco and her henchmen will adopt and endorse the EDF posture, with all the sociological and economic disruptions it entails.

The current upper echelons of NOAA are remorseless eco-zealots.  They are not public servants in that they feel no need to answer to the American people.  They have their truth, and it shall be the truth for all, or else.  Congress must stick to their guns and not allow this callous cabal to reorganize before the 2012 election.

We, the American voters, must defeat Barack Obama in 2012.  We must take over the Senate and increase the margin in the House.  The new president and the new administration can then appoint a business-oriented secretary of commerce and a person with an open mind as administrator of NOAA.  The current arrangement clearly will not serve.