Israel: America’s Friendship And Obama’s Antipathy

President Obama began his relationship with Israel by having President Benjamin Netanyahu walk out the back door of the White House past the trash. It got worse from there. At the AIPAC speech, President Obama told the Jewish audience that he saw an Israel with redrawn, and suicidally indefensible, lines. He liked the Israel pre-1967.

Finally, some Jews have had it.

In NY-9, a mostly conservative Jewish enclave in Brooklyn that voted reliably Democrat all the way back to the 1920s, just fell to the Republicans in a special election. Jews were eager to vote against the Democrats. And Obama.

Does this spell the demise of the left’s historical relationship with American Jews? Maybe. Please listen to Evan Pokroy go through the history of the American – Israel relationship and the changing landscape of Judaism and the conservative movement in America. I found his perspective fascinating.

This topic takes on added significance as Republican presidential hopefuls like Rick Perry sponsor events to woo Jewish voters. American conservatives are staunchly pro-Israel.

Please listen to Evan share his thoughts with me!

Link to the podcast here. Please subscribe to my weekly podcast at iTunes here.

Posted in Antisemitism, Barack Obama, Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Not America | 1 Comment »

NY 9 Redrawing The Lines: Obama Rebuked

Friend to me: We won NY 9!

Me to friend: More importantly, Democrats lost.

P.S. We also won in Nevada’s special tonight.

Does this have far-reaching implications? Well. It’s not good news for Democrats but nothing to get too excited about. Lots of work ahead.

Still, winning is so much better than losing, isn’t it?

Rundown here.

Posted in Democrats, Liberals, Political Animals | No Comments »

Journolist: Remembering The Compromised Gatekeepers

I’m seeing so much biased bullcrap coming out of Politico these days, I thought it might be useful to revisit Journolist — the listserve of liberal journalists and leftist thinkers who work together to form a narrative and push it into the mainstream media. The ultimate goals: 1) Make conservatives look stupid and 2) help President Obama or the liberal du jour look fabulous. Read background here.

If you think their coordinated efforts are a thing of the past, think again. On Twitter, it’s very easy to follow the Genesis of a liberal meme and to see that coordination is necessary to elevate it. For example, when Markos Moulitas and Matthew Yglesias, and then, dull-witted useful idiot David Frum, pushed forth the outrageous and malignant idea that Sarah Palin was responsible for the Arizona shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, it caught like wildfire throughout the same old group of lefties. They were none too subtle.

Other talking points are coordinated. You’ll see the same phrases, probably focused grouped by the White House, in every piece about a topic. The current issue the White House is pushing: Green jobs. Expect all sorts of lavish praise for them.

The current negative issue: Get rid of Rick Perry. So, while Obama has made repeated promises about transparency and failed, you’ll be reading lots of pieces from different folks on Rick Perry’s transparency. The “transparency meme” takes the place of the old leftist meme about how Texas jobs aren’t real jobs, etc. And that story took the place of crazy religion wingerdoodles and creationism and, you get the idea.

The leftist press just doesn’t stop. You may be left scratching your head wondering why you even like these accomplished conservatives. That would be the point.

Meanwhile, what you won’t be hearing about: 9.1% unemployment, Obama’s horrible poll numbers, how Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, the double-dip recession, how consumer confidence has bottomed out, how President Obama would rather play golf or fundraise than lead, how manufacturing is leaving America, how the Obama administration is targeting political enemies, how it’s helping political friends. You won’t hear much of anything about these topics.

The goal is to Protect Obama At All Costs.

Some Republicans know how this mean leftist machine rolls, so they’ll feed their opposition research to the hack houses and let the liberals do their gleeful dirty work. And then, the same politicians will be shocked and appalled when those biased beasts turn on them. Exhibit “A”: John McCain.

Please know that when you read most of what passes for Journalism these days, it’s agenda-driven. These Gatekeepers at the Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, and elsewhere work together with the goal of making conservatives look stupid. They hate conservatives ideologically. They hate liberals only to the extent that liberals are ineffective.

The liberal press is not upset with Obama in substance — everything from Union malfeasance to project gunrunners serves a Machiavellian purpose — they’re just frustrated at the perception that Obama is weak and ineffectual. They want more liberalness from him. They want more autocracy! Thus, any displeasure at Obama they convey is for those reasons.

Some key Journolisters were (are, if it doesn’t exist in another form I’ll eat my shoe) [Full list here, some add-ons here]:

Paul Krugman — Moron Economist for the New York Times
Ezra Klein (Founder and keeper of Journolist) — Moron Economist blogger for the Washington Post
Mike Allen — POLITICO
Jonathan Chait — The New Republic
Eric Boehlert — Media Matters (SEIU hush money, Soros funded)
David Corn — Mother Jones
Brad De Long — Moron Economist at Berkley
Kevin Drum — Mother Jones, Washington Monthly
Dan Froomkin — HuffPo, Washington Post
James Fallows — The Atlantic
Chris Hayes — The Nation
Joe Klein — TIME
Robert Mackey — New York Times
Peter Orzag — Office of Management and Budget Director for President Obama
Michael Scherer — TIME
Nate Silver — 538, now, New York Times
Ben Smith — POLITICO
Jeffery Toobin — CNN, The New Yorker
Matthew Yglesias — Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly

I just pulled some more well known names. There are at least 160 + known Journolisters.

Liberal scholars who get quoted in the aforementioned articles as impartial experts are on the list, too. Learn their names.

Nearly everything read at every one of these publications must be interpretted through the lens of bias and agenda. These folks are not truth-seekers. They are ideology pushers. Some are more subtle than others. Some, like Krugman, get more Out-Of-The-Closet flagrant as they get more comfy/old/senile.

Know that they are working with the White House. Remember, Rahm Emanuel (former White House aid, current Mayor of Chicago), James Carville (political strategist, Bill Clinton assistant, foreign elections consultant, commentator), Paul Begala (Clinton assistant, political strategist, CNN, Law professor) and George Stephanopoulos (former Bill Clinton comms director, ABC News This Week)have their daily phone-call confabs and they then pass orders to the Journolisters.

It’s an efficient system that benefits the whole. Like the Borg.

Journolist and the Leftist narrative machine is as strong as ever. As the election year rolls around, they’ll be out in force propping up President Obama and denigrating every single Republican hopeful. If they can undermine every Republican by using the opposition research fed to them by all the different campaigns, they’ll do it. It ultimately serves their goal, anyway — weaken all the Republicans so that none of them can beat Obama.

Don’t be duped.

Posted in Democrats, Liberals, Political Animals, Sarah Palin | No Comments »

More Jobless Claims: Obama Administration & Press [But That's Redundant] Flummoxed By “Unexpected” Economic News

Okay, I might have made up that last part. It’s true, though, the jobless claims have gone up again. My prediction? They’ll continue to go up for a while, unfortunately. If gas prices inflate (and they will), costs to employers inflate across the board. Makes it tough to hire more people.

Here’s the deal:

In the week ending April 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 484,000, an increase of 24,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 460,000. The 4-week moving average was 457,750, an increase of 7,500 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 450,250.

Also, as Ed Morrissey points out, the government is still hiring thousands of temporary workers so that means that the private sector is losing significantly more jobs–thousands of them.

If the Democrats succeed in enacting more of their policies, permanent joblessness will be the American way.

Thanks, President Obama!

Posted in America, Barack Obama, Democrats, Economy, Show Me The Money | 2 Comments »

Another Way To Punish Doctors…And Patients

More unintended consequences. For doctors who offer payment plans for patients who can’t afford to pay up front, a new regulation by the government. It’s designed to “fix” problems, don’t you know:

Our new ad below. Learn more at StopTheCFPA.com.

“Of course I allow my patients to pay in installments. They couldn’t afford orthodontics otherwise. Does that make me a financial company?”

Legislation that has passed the House and is pending in the Senate would create a new regulatory agency with the power to regulate a small business that allows its customers to pay in more than four installments or applies late fees –Senate Bill § 1027(a)(2)(B)(iii)– This is the wrong way to fix financial regulation and the wrong way to protect consumers. Let’s get it right by working together on a commonsense solution without creating a new $410 million big government bureaucracy with powers to regulate businesses that had nothing to do with the financial crisis.

Posted in Capitalism, Democrats, Economy | No Comments »

A Shortage Of Doctors: Ya Don’t Say… And The Other Unintended Consequences Of Obamacare

The Wall Street Journal shares this inevitable news:

The new federal health-care law has raised the stakes for hospitals and schools already scrambling to train more doctors.

Experts warn there won’t be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under the law. At current graduation and training rates, the nation could face a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

That shortfall is predicted despite a push by teaching hospitals and medical schools to boost the number of U.S. doctors, which now totals about 954,000.

The greatest demand will be for primary-care physicians. These general practitioners, internists, family physicians and pediatricians will have a larger role under the new law, coordinating care for each patient.

The U.S. has 352,908 primary-care doctors now, and the college association estimates that 45,000 more will be needed by 2020. But the number of medical-school students entering family medicine fell more than a quarter between 2002 and 2007.

A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients.

The whole point of health care reform was too feel better–not you, or your health–but liberal politicians.

It wasn’t to improve health care treatment.

It wasn’t to reduce costs.

It wasn’t even to get more people under care.

Wait, what? That’s right. More people will be insured, but patients will receive less care at more cost. It’s just logical. The new health care system creates a gatekeeper system that will eliminate individual choice and drive up costs. So, a person thinks something is wrong with his prostate–he goes directly to a proctologist. That saves 1. wait time 2. cost (no double doctor fees) and 3. diagnosis time.

But not now.

Oh no! Now, a patient must wait to get into an overburdened primary care physician, get a referral and then get into another physician. A patient will be dead by the time he gets diagnosed.

The inevitable response?

Cash-only doctors. Some doctors won’t accept this new insurance and work outside the system. So, people will pay into the health service, hate the waits and then, go pay cash for good care.

The rich will have good care while subsidizing everyone else. The middle class will be caught in a jam because the taxes will be so egregious they can’t afford anything, never mind a quick diagnosis. So they will be caught in government-mandated substandard care.

And the poor, who don’t pay into the system, will still misuse the system because they still won’t take care of themselves. And Medicare and Medicaid could have been expanded to help them as is.

But noooo. An overhaul had to happen. The government had to control health care.

If this diseased legislation doesn’t get revoked, America is going to go down the road of all disastrous socialized countries: chronic unemployment, disheartened and downwardly mobile middle class and an elite aristocracy for whom policy doesn’t matter.

In the liberal world that’s called utopia.

And by the way, a small board will decide what does and does not get covered under Obamacare. So, yes, death sentences will be handed down by the government. That too, is inevitable.

Posted in Barack Obama, Democrats, Socialism | 5 Comments »

Congress’ Health Care Oversight May Hurt Their Own Coverage?

Has a group ever more richly deserved this irony? From NRO:

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may have significant unintended consequences for the “personal health insurance coverage” of senators, representatives and their staff members. For example, it says, the law may “remove members of Congress and Congressional staff” from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available. The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?

Does indeed beg the question.

This health care bill is going to be a noose around the necks of Democrats.

Posted in Barack Obama, Democrats, Political Animals | 3 Comments »

Ray McKinney: A Republican Hope For Georgia’s Twelfth

Another close district, another brave Republican doing the “impossible”: Ray McKinney of Georgia’s Twelfth District talks about the challenges and opportunities for Republicans.

Stacy McCain talks about McKiney and his thoughts on the SRLC:

In the few minutes of their impromptu meeting, however, McKinney conveyed to Pence the necessary information: He is a candidate in Georgia’s 12th District, seeking the Republican nomination to take on Rep. John Barrow, a “Blue Dog” Democrat whose peculiar vulnerability is one factor in the calculations for Nov. 2. If the GOP can make a net gain of 40 seats in this fall’s mid-terms, Nancy Pelosi will become the former Speaker of the House, and Republicans cannot afford to miss any opportunity for a pickup — especially when liberals seem determined to lend a helping hand. The story of Barrow and GA12 is the tale of a building electoral storm with enough political power to evoke memories of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact on New Orleans in September 2006 — two months before Pelosi and the Democrats broke Republicans’ 12-year control of the House.

The 12th District was one of two new congressional seats Georgia gained after the 2000 Census, when Democrats still controlled the Georgia General Assembly and sought to carve out a stronghold for their party. Yet GA12 has proven to be more conservative than its designers anticipated, rated only a “plus one” for Democrats by respected national analyst Charlie Cook, and has a see-saw history. Republican Max Burns was elected to Congress by a surprising 10-point margin in the 2002 mid-terms, but lost his 2004 re-election bid to Barrow by four points. In 2006, otherwise a disastrous wipeout for the GOP, Burns came back to challenge Barrow and lost by fewer than 900 votes out of some 140,000 ballots cast. And then came 2008, when Obama’s promise of Hope and Change proved the electoral tide that lifted all Democratic boats.

With a surge of black turnout in a district where more than 40 percent of the residents are black, GA12 re-elected Barrow — a white moderate — by a whopping 2-to-1 majority over a former GOP congressional aide, John Stone. Here, however, the story took a strange twist. In 2008, Barrow first had to overcome a Democratic primary challenge from state Sen. Regina Thomas, a black legislator with a far more liberal record and message. After winning that primary with 76 percent of the vote, Barrow then got a general-election boost from Barack Obama. However, Barrow has since voted against key items in the Obama agenda — including two votes against the recently-passed health-care law.

This race is winnable. Republicans need to stop conceding these districts and Ray McKinney is fighting for one right now.

Posted in Democrats, Political Animals, Republicans | 1 Comment »

Bad Numbers For Bad Democrats

Rasmussen’s recent poll should concern Democrats–if they hadn’t already enacted the single most transformational piece of legislation ever knowing full well that the American people hated it. But they made that decision knowing full well that their futures hung in the balance. Or maybe they didn’t care about the future because they had some other guarantees for other lobbying or ambassadorships or inside administration jobs to keep them in the manner to which they’re accustomed.

The numbers aren’t a joke though. From Rasmussen:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, up three points from last week, while 39% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent, up four points from the previous survey.

No, it’s not a joke.

But the joke may well be on the American people. I’m not sure the Democrats care about re-election.

Posted in Democrats | 2 Comments »

Daily Caller Hit Piece On RNC Chairman Michael Steele Gets It Wrong?

Today, Jonathan Strong of the Daily Caller headlines with an article titled “High flyer: RNC Chairman Steele suggested buying private jet with GOP funds”. He asserts the following:

Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

Someone with knowledge of the RNC meeting with Jonathan Strong responded:

“We are investigating the expenditure in question. The story willfully and erroneously suggests that the expenditure in question was one belonging to the Chairman. This was a reimbursement made to a non-committee staffer. The Chairman was never at the location in question, he had no knowledge of the expenditure, nor does he find the use of committee funds at such a location at all acceptable. Good reporting would make that distinction crystal clear. The committee has requested that the monies be returned to the committee and that the story be corrected so that it is accurate.”

In addition, the source vehemently denies many of the elements included in the story, including whether Chairman Steele declined interview requests, details around flights, etc.

The interesting thing about this piece? It’s written by a supposedly right-leaning web magazine [Full disclosure: I have written an editorial for Daily Caller.] Why would the Daily Caller writer want to portray the Chairman as having been to a strip club when it’s not the case? A damaging investigative piece of journalism should be tight and accurate.

It almost seems as if the right-leaning Webzine is trying to gain credibility with liberal news outlets and is willing to do so on the backs of their own ideological brethren. Or maybe they’re in the hip pocket of a conservative who doesn’t like Chairman Steele. Either way, this story may be another example of the right carelessly destroying their own.

No doubt, more details will be forthcoming.

Posted in Bias, Democrats, Political Animals | 6 Comments »