Charisma Flopped! Lets Try Competence!? That's Change!

What: Coastal Georgians Stand With Israel Meeting

When: Wednesday, August 24, 6:30PM

Where: Coastal Georgia Center 305 Fahn St

Keynote Speaker: Victor Styrsky - Eastern Regional Director of Christians United For Israel (CUFI)

Rabbi Kenneth Leitner - Welcome From Savannah's Jewish Community

Cost: No Admission Charge, Public Invited!
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Krauthammer believes the political process is working and I agree. Messy, yes but that's democracy for you. It is no different than the brawl scene between Victor McLaglen and John Wayne in the movie: "The Quiet Man." with Maureen O'Hara! (See 1 below.)
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Well we tried charisma combined with inexperience and that has not worked. Maybe we should go for competence and accomplishment this time. That would be a refreshing change!

Texas Police...

I get irritated when people come down on our police officers, saying that they don’t care about others. Well, here is a story that clearly shows not all cops are in that category.

This story involves the police department in the small hill country town of Fredericksburg, TX who reported finding a man's body last Saturday in the early evening in the Pedernales River near the state highway-87 bridge. The dead man’s name would not be released until his family had been notified.

The victim apparently drowned due to excessive beer consumption while visiting “someone" in Kerrville . He was wearing black fishnet stockings, a red garter belt, a pink G-string, purple lipstick, and an Obama T-shirt.

The police removed the Obama T-shirt to spare his family any unnecessary embarrassment.

See there, Texas police do care.
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My friend Yisrael Ne'eman asked me: "Dick, Got two questions – asked by many Israelis and not just by me.

1. Who would be the best Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential elections – one who would handle America's problems best?

2. Which Republican would have the best chance of defeating Obama?

Thanks, Yisrael"


My response was: "A combination of Jeb Bush for president and Sen. Rubio for Vice president would make a dream ticket of competence and ethnic appeal. They are not going to run of course and both come from Florida. Rep. Ryan would also be an excellent choice for VP.

As to two I would say Romney in terms of business competence but I am not sure extreme conservatives trust him. Perry could be the Republican answer to charisma but he could turn the middle off with his views.

I personally believe Obama will beat himself because of his failed record but that presumes Americans are informed and intelligent and that is no longer the case because we have too many truly uninformed, angry and dependent blacks, group think Hispanics and emotionally liberal Jews with their concentrated votes in key states.

Trust all well. Shalom and hope this is responsive. Me"

"PS: I should also add, it is imperative, should Republicans win the presidency, they also gain control of the Senate. Then legislation could be passed which would address many of our problems and undo the damage of Obamanomics and Obamascare. Me"(See 2 below.)

Meanwhile, Norman Podhoretz, John's father, writes 'Obama has not changed' and Ari Shapiro writes how Obama plans to reignite. I am in agreement with Podhoretz and believe the Obama Geni is out of the bottle and Obama's charisma has evaporated.

Obama, our king, is naked! (2a and 2b below.)
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Victor Volsky reminds us of how McCarthy maintained and enhanced his career - the big lie. It is created out of nothing, is illusive and like a cloud cannot be grabbed. (See 3 below.)

And, far too many liberals lose it when you challenge their thought process so they resort to anger, vituperation and smears. It is part of their deficient DNA.

Say Tea Party or GW to one if you do not believe me and then ask about unions. The contrast reaction is stark.(See 3a below.)

Finally, Lloyd Marcus blacks out! (See 3b below.)
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Obama abdicated to NATO in Libya. Has he found another turkey to fight for us against Assad - Turkey?

If I allow my mind to wander I could conjure up a picture whereby riots in Britain could lead to outside intervention. In other words,what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, possibly Syria and in many nations in Africa could set a precedence, ie whenever a government seeks to put down an internal uprising other nations have the right, if not the moral responsibility, to intervene. That should keep the military industrial complex busy. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)The System Works
Democratic politics was never meant to be an exercise in aesthetics.
By Charles Krauthammer

Of all the endlessly repeated conventional wisdom in today’s Washington, the most lazy, stupid, and ubiquitous is that our politics is broken. On the contrary. Our political system is working well (I make no such claims for our economy), indeed, precisely as designed — profound changes in popular will translated into law that alters the nation’s political direction.

The process has been messy, loud, disputatious, and often rancorous. So what? In the end, the system works. Exhibit A is Wisconsin. Exhibit B is Washington itself.

The story begins in 2008. The country, having lost confidence in Republican governance, gives the Democrats full control of Washington. The new president, deciding not to waste a crisis, attempts a major change in the nation’s ideological trajectory. Hence his two signature pieces of legislation: a near–$1 trillion stimulus, the largest spending bill in galactic history; and a health-care reform that places one-sixth of the economy under federal control.

In a country where conservatives outnumber liberals 2–1, this causes a reaction. In the 2010 midterms, Democrats suffer a massive repudiation at every level. In Washington, Democrats suffer the greatest loss of House seats since 1948. In the states, they lose over 700 state legislative seats — the largest reversal ever — resulting in the loss of 20 state chambers.

The tea-party-propelled, debt-conscious Republicans then move to confront their states’ unsustainable pension and health-care obligations — most boldly in Wisconsin, where the new governor proposes a radical reorientation of the power balance between public-sector unions and elected government.

In Madison, the result is general mayhem — drum-banging protesters, frenzied unions, statehouse occupations, opposition legislators fleeing the state to prevent a quorum. A veritable feast of creative democratic resistance.

In the end, however, they fail. The legislation passes.

Then, further resistance. First, Democrats turn an otherwise sleepy state-supreme-court election into a referendum on the union legislation, the Democrats’ candidate being widely expected to overturn the law. The unions/Democrats lose again.

And then last Tuesday, recall elections for six Republican state senators, three being needed to return the senate to Democratic control and restore balance to the universe. Yet despite millions of union dollars, the Republicans hold the senate. The unions/Democrats lose again.

The people spoke; the process worked. Yes, it was raucous and divisive, but change this fundamental should not be enacted quietly. This is not midnight basketball or school uniforms. This is the future of government-worker power and the solvency of the states. It deserves big, serious, animated public debate.

Precisely of the kind Washington (exhibit B) just witnessed over its debt problem. You know: The debt-ceiling debate universally denounced as dysfunctional, if not disgraceful, hostage-taking, terrorism, gun-to-the-head blackmail.

Spare me the hysteria. What happened was that the 2010 electorate, as represented in Congress, forced Washington to finally confront the national debt. It was a triumph of democratic politics — a powerful shift in popular will finding concrete political expression.

But only partial expression. Debt hawks are upset that the final compromise doesn’t do much. But it shouldn’t do much. They won only one election. They were entrusted, as of yet, with only one-half of one branch of government.

But they did begin to turn the aircraft carrier around. The process did bequeath a congressional super-committee with extraordinary powers to reduce debt. And if that fails, the question — how much government, how much debt — will go to the nation in November 2012. Which is also how it should be.

The conventional complaint is that the process was ugly. Big deal. You want beauty? Go to a museum. Democratic politics was never meant to be an exercise in aesthetics.

Not just ugly, moan the critics, but oh so slow. True, again. It took months. And will take more. The super-committee doesn’t report until Thanksgiving. The next election is more than a year away. But the American system was designed to make a full turn of the carrier difficult and deliberate.

Moreover, without this long, ugly process, the debt issue wouldn’t even be on the table. We’d still be whistling our way to Greece. Instead, a nation staring at insolvency is finally stirring itself to action, and not without spirited opposition. Great issues are being decided as constitutionally designed. The process is working.

Notice how the loudest complaints about “broken politics” come from those who lost the debate. It’s understandable for sore losers to rage against the machine. But there’s no need for the rest of us to parrot their petulance.

Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2011 the Washington Post Writers Group.
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2)Quinnipiac Poll: New York Turns Negative on Obama
By Dan Weil

The evidence continues to mount that President Barack Obama’s re-election bid is in trouble. The latest news: a Quinnipiac University poll showing that 49 percent of New York State voters disapprove of his job performance, compared to 45 percent who approve.

That’s the first time Obama has registered a negative differential between his approval and disapproval ratings in the heavily Democratic state. And the result represents a sharp drop from late June, when the president had a 57 percent approval rating and a 38 percent disapproval rating in the state.

Among Republicans disapproval totals 86 percent, compared to 10 percent approval, and among independents disapproval totals 58 percent, compared to 36 percent approval. Among Democrats, approval outstrips disapproval by 75 to 19 percent, but even that represents a sharp decrease from the 82 to 12 percent margin in June.

Republican disapproval totaled 74 percent in June, compared to 23 percent approval. And independents have actually reversed: in June, 49 percent of voters expressed approval for Obama, compared to 45 percent who voiced disapproval.

As for whether Obama deserves re-election, 48 percent said yes, while 46 percent said no, a gap that stands within the poll’s 2.4 percentage point margin of error. That’s a sharp drop from Obama’s favorable 56 to 39 percent margin in June.

To be sure, voters chose Obama over a generic Republican 49 percent to 34 percent. But that margin plunged too – from 53-30 percent in June.

"The debt ceiling hullaballoo devastated President Barack Obama's numbers even in true blue New York," Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in comments accompanying the poll. "He just misses that magic 50 percent mark against a no-name Republican challenger."


© Newsmax. All rights reserved.



2a)What Happened to Obama? Absolutely Nothing.
He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president.
By NORMAN PODHORETZ

It's open season on President Obama. Which is to say that the usual suspects on the right (among whom I include myself) are increasingly being joined in attacking him by erstwhile worshipers on the left. Even before the S&P downgrade, there were reports of Democrats lamenting that Hillary Clinton had lost to him in 2008. Some were comparing him not, as most of them originally had, to Lincoln and Roosevelt but to the hapless Jimmy Carter. There was even talk of finding a candidate to stage a primary run against him. But since the downgrade, more and more liberal pundits have been deserting what they clearly fear is a sinking ship.

Here, for example, from the Washington Post, is Richard Cohen: "He is the very personification of cognitive dissonance—the gap between what we (especially liberals) expected of the first serious African American presidential candidate and the man he in fact is." More amazingly yet Mr. Cohen goes on to say of Mr. Obama, who not long ago was almost universally hailed as the greatest orator since Pericles, that he lacks even "the rhetorical qualities of the old-time black politicians." And to compound the amazement, Mr. Cohen tells us that he cannot even "recall a soaring passage from a speech."

Overseas it is the same refrain. Everywhere in the world, we read in Germany's Der Spiegel, not only are the hopes ignited by Mr. Obama being dashed, but his "weakness is a problem for the entire global economy."

In short, the spell that Mr. Obama once cast—a spell so powerful that instead of ridiculing him when he boasted that he would cause "the oceans to stop rising and the planet to heal," all of liberaldom fell into a delirious swoon—has now been broken by its traumatic realization that he is neither the "god" Newsweek in all seriousness declared him to be nor even a messianic deliverer.

Hence the question on every lip is—as the title of a much quoted article in the New York Times by Drew Westen of Emory University puts it— "What Happened to Obama?" Attacking from the left, Mr. Westin charges that President Obama has been conciliatory when he should have been aggressively pounding away at all the evildoers on the right.

Of course, unlike Mr. Westen, we villainous conservatives do not see Mr. Obama as conciliatory or as "a president who either does not know what he believes or is willing to take whatever position he thinks will lead to his re-election." On the contrary, we see him as a president who knows all too well what he believes. Furthermore, what Mr. Westen regards as an opportunistic appeal to the center we interpret as a tactic calculated to obfuscate his unshakable strategic objective, which is to turn this country into a European-style social democracy while diminishing the leading role it has played in the world since the end of World War II. The Democrats have persistently denied that these are Mr. Obama's goals, but they have only been able to do so by ignoring or dismissing what Mr. Obama himself, in a rare moment of candor, promised at the tail end of his run for the presidency: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."

This statement, coming on top of his association with radicals like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi, definitively revealed to all who were not wilfully blinding themselves that Mr. Obama was a genuine product of the political culture that had its birth among a marginal group of leftists in the early 1960s and that by the end of the decade had spread metastatically to the universities, the mainstream media, the mainline churches, and the entertainment industry. Like their communist ancestors of the 1930s, the leftist radicals of the '60s were convinced that the United States was so rotten that only a revolution could save it.

But whereas the communists had in their delusional vision of the Soviet Union a model of the kind of society that would replace the one they were bent on destroying, the new leftists only knew what they were against: America, or Amerika as they spelled it to suggest its kinship to Nazi Germany. Thanks, however, to the unmasking of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian nightmare, they did not know what they were for. Yet once they had pulled off the incredible feat of taking over the Democratic Party behind the presidential candidacy of George McGovern in 1972, they dropped the vain hope of a revolution, and in the social-democratic system most fully developed in Sweden they found an alternative to American capitalism that had a realistic possibility of being achieved through gradual political reform.

Despite Mr. McGovern's defeat by Richard Nixon in a landslide, the leftists remained a powerful force within the Democratic Party, but for the next three decades the electoral exigencies within which they had chosen to operate prevented them from getting their own man nominated. Thus, not one of the six Democratic presidential candidates who followed Mr. McGovern came out of the party's left wing, and when Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (the only two of the six who won) tried each in his own way to govern in its spirit, their policies were rejected by the American immune system. It was only with the advent of Barack Obama that the leftists at long last succeeded in nominating one of their own.

To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?

And so it came about that a faithful scion of the political culture of the '60s left is now sitting in the White House and doing everything in his power to effect the fundamental transformation of America to which that culture was dedicated and to which he has pledged his own personal allegiance.

I disagree with those of my fellow conservatives who maintain that Mr. Obama is indifferent to "the best interests of the United States" (Thomas Sowell) and is "purposely" out to harm America (Rush Limbaugh). In my opinion, he imagines that he is helping America to repent of its many sins and to become a different and better country.

But I emphatically agree with Messrs. Limbaugh and Sowell about this president's attitude toward America as it exists and as the Founding Fathers intended it. That is why my own answer to the question, "What Happened to Obama?" is that nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind.

Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of Commentary from 1960 to 1995. His most recent book is "Why Are Jews Liberals?" (Doubleday, 2009).


2b)Obama Seeks To Rekindle Campaign Passion In 2012
By Ari Shapiro

President Obama likes to say that the American economy is facing headwinds: turmoil in Europe, the Arab spring and the tsunami in Japan. His re-election campaign is facing headwinds too: 9 percent unemployment, a U.S. credit downgrade, and a presidential approval rating slipping toward 40 percent.

Despite those daunting numbers, the president plans to convince Americans that he deserves another four years.

During the 2010 midterm campaign, Obama often told audiences that Republicans drove the economy into a ditch, and now they want the keys to the car back.

"You got to say the same thing to them that you say to your teenager: 'You can't have the keys back because you don't know how to drive yet!' " Obama said.

Today it looks like the car could be on the brink of another ditch, and the president is not talking about the keys anymore.

Still, in Michigan on Thursday, his language was nearly as accusatory as it was then.

"There's some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win," he says.

During an economic event at a manufacturing plant, the president blamed America's current fiscal problems on the other party without ever saying the word "Republican."

Republican strategist Ed Rogers says going negative is the only way this president can win another term.

Before Ronald Reagan, you would've said, well, you can't get re-elected unless unemployment is no higher than 5.6 percent. Which is what it was when Nixon got re-elected in 1972. And then, Reagan had unemployment ... of 7.4 percent, on the day he carried 49 states.

- Bob Shrum, former Democratic strategist
"Since it's gonna be hard for Obama to make the case that more of the same is positive, more of the same is desirable, the best thing you can do politically — and it's cynical — is to destroy the alternative," Rogers says.

Polls show that Americans blame congressional Republicans more than they blame Obama for the debt-ceiling crisis. But the president is not running for re-election against Congress.

His potential opponents were on a stage in Iowa Thursday night, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was conspicuously silent during the debt-ceiling debate.

"We have, unfortunately, as a leader of this country, a man who is out of his depth and who doesn't understand what is needed to do to get this economy going again," Romney said.

In the center of this crossfire are voters like Lazaro Benitez, a 37-year-old New Yorker who works in public relations.

"I'm an independent — not really a party sort of guy — so I'm strictly a moderate, in the middle," he says. "I feel for [Obama]. Not the easiest job in the world, not perfect. I think there's a lot of things that he probably could've handled better, but it's the lesser of two evils."

"Lesser of two evils" hardly reflects the burning passion people felt for Obama in 2008.

Yoram Ezra, 44, says the president is hard to love, in light of everything that's happened over the past two years.

"I think he was naive. ... I never thought he would be able to make the change he promised. I hoped he would be able to make some change. It's difficult," Ezra says.

Reagan's Leadership, Too, Was Questioned After 1987 Market DropBoth men were passing by a barricade in Lower Manhattan Thursday night. Across the street, the president's motorcade idled outside a private fundraiser where people paid more than $35,000 apiece for dinner with him.

That's one key to any presidential re-election strategy: raise tons of money. With more than $85 million last quarter, the Obama campaign has raised more than all his challengers combined.

That New York event was not open to the media, but a fundraiser in Chicago last week was. The president recognized that he needs to re-energize a base that has become disillusioned with some of the compromises he has made.

"When I said change we can believe in, I didn't say change we can believe in tomorrow," Obama says.

But the central disappointment remains the economy, especially job creation. No president since World War II has been re-elected with unemployment above 8 percent. But New York University professor and former Democratic strategist Bob Shrum says that's based on an extremely small sample.

"Before Ronald Reagan, you would've said, well, you can't get re-elected unless unemployment is no higher than 5.6 percent. Which is what it was when Nixon got re-elected in 1972. And then, Reagan had unemployment, people thought, of 7.4 percent, on the day he carried 49 states," Shrum says.

The Obama campaign defied history in 2008, but he'll need to do it again in 2012.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)The Democrats' Big Lie
By Victor Volsky

Charles Krauthammer is doubtless one of the most astute and knowledgeable members of the conservative commentariat. But once in a while even he stumbles while trying to interpret what the far left is doing. Such was the case a few days ago when he was a guest on Bill O'Reilly's FNC show and the host was wondering, in his distinctive fashion, at the stupidity of the mainstream press, as evidenced by the latest epithet for the Tea Party -- "terrorists", and the "mindless" repetition of it on all channels.

That O'Reilly, who justifiably likes to refer to himself, in mock humility, as a "simple" man while also reminding the viewers that he is a "Harvard man", would fall into this trap is no surprise. But Dr. Krauthammer, who ascribed the parroting of the stupid moniker by the leftist MSM to their mental slothfulness and paucity of imagination, should know better. This is not to defend the mental acuity of leftist JournOlists, though quite a few of them are glaringly stupid. But the "mindless" repetition of DNC talking points has nothing to do with their intellectual prowess or lack thereof; they are merely doing their part for the progressive cause, using a technique as old as demagoguery and equally effective -- the Big Lie.

The theory of the Big Lie was succinctly expounded by Adolf Hitler, an acknowledged master of the genre. Here is what Der Führer wrote in vol. I, Chapter 10 of Mein Kampf (in James Murphy' translation):

"...in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."

Another equally renowned expert in the field, Dr. Josef Goebbels, put it even more starkly in an article "From Churchill's Lie Factory" dated 12 January 1941:

"The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous."

There are very few things the left is really good at, but one of them is propaganda, its bread and butter, the biggest arrow in its quiver. While extolling "the working class", the socialist movement has always been an almost exclusive preserve of radical intellectuals. These people, whose primary habitat is the ivory towers of academia, are far removed from reality. They spend their lives talking non-stop, engaging in verbal games and coming up with slogans and catch-words and phrases, sometimes quite ingenious. You have to admit that the NYT's headline "General Betray Us" mocking Gen. Petraeus, while sickeningly impudent, was very good as a cute piece of propaganda.

The liberals have fully absorbed the lessons taught by their ideological progenitors, the Nazi socialists and Soviet communists. They understand that the big lie, if endlessly repeated, is extremely effective. Its purpose is to establish in the minds of the target audience an automatic stimulus-response connection, a Pavlovian conditioned reflex: capitalist = fat cat; George Bush = moron; Sarah Palin = idiot; Barack Obama = genius, any Kennedy = gift to mankind, etc. Ask the liberal spouting any of the above for proof that, say, Sarah Palin is an idiot or Barack Obama an intellectual giant, and the answer would be a puzzled stare -- why, everyone knows that she is a moron and he a towering intellect, so it must be true. Just repeat your slogan often enough, and once embedded in the minds of the people the mantra becomes reality for them. So effective is this technique that the left has made the former Alaska governor unelectable in the view of independents and even many conservatives, in effect dictating the available choices for the conservatives.

Patrick Henry famously thundered, "Give me liberty, or give me death", in a speech to the Virginia Convention. Almost two and a half centuries later these magic words have lost none of their power. But how does this slogan grab you: "Give me an accelerated depreciation schedule or give me death"? Are you gripped by an irresistible impulse to grab a pitchfork and storm the ramparts? Probably not. To be effective, the slogan must be short and evocative, like the crack of a whip. Lenin exhorted his followers to "Rob the robbers!" not "Fight for a more fair distribution of the national wealth!" The French revolutionary slogan, "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality", still resonates with many people despite its patent absurdity. For in a continent where war was a permanent condition, "fraternity" was a travesty, while "liberty" and "equality" are mutually exclusive - since equality does not exist in nature, it can only be achieved through coercion, which is the opposite of freedom.

So it is not out of indolence or lack of imagination that the liberal talking heads repeat the "terrorist" trope, apparently contributed to the public discourse by David Axelrod. They know what they are doing. If you tell a man that he is a swine persistently enough, sooner or later he will start oinking. The Democrats understand the principle and that's why they are extremely disciplined in their propaganda efforts. Somebody comes up with a catchy word or phrase; if it tests well in focus groups and polls, the New York Times or the DNC sends it forth as a talking point, and the loyal media troops pick it up and run with it. It is in effect a dispersed flash mob employed to advance the cause.

If tomorrow they decide to call the Tea Party members, say, Ghoulish Ghibellines, the moniker will stick though the people who would use it will have not the remotest idea of what it means (they would probably decide it denotes a particularly vicious breed of goblins). Why do you think liberals have such a conniption fit whenever Obama is called a socialist -- a neat and catchy label? It comes straight out of the liberal playbook and potentially is very effective.

As a matter of fact, in one of the latest polls, 29 percent of the Democrats agreed with the proposition that the Tea Party members are "terrorists."


3a)Dems' Risky Tea Party Smear Strategy
By Paul Kengor

I was sitting in my office, checking my email, minding my own business, when I was suddenly assaulted by a most bizarre news item: Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) had blamed the Tea Party for S&P's downgrade of America's credit rating. No, Kerry didn't blame President Obama, or Congress, whether the current divided Congress or past Democrat or Republican Congresses, or even President Obama's favorite culprit: George W. Bush. He blamed "the Tea Party."

My initial thought was that Kerry's allegation was fortunately so absurd that even the most emotional, robotic liberals would not buy this whopper. But then it happened:

Mere seconds later, I started reading the responses to an article I had just posted on Vice President Joe Biden allegedly calling Tea Party members "terrorists." And there, at the top, was this reader response:

The Tea Party is responsible for our country's credit rating being downgraded because they are unwilling to offer a solution to our current budget problems. They can't offer a plan to cut enough money to balance our budget, and they won't compromise on any tax increases to add revenue. Now we are faced with poor credit that is going to cost taxpayers even more money, making the already terrible situation even worse. They in fact are terrorists. They are doing everything they can to destroy America.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The reader's comment shows the power of influence that resides with public officials. When they make extreme allegations -- no matter how unfounded - -they have a direct impact on the public, especially those blindly loyal to their political party.

Of course, what's worse is that Kerry, Biden, and other Democrats are intending precisely this impact. As Senator Charlie Schumer (D-NY) recently let slip in a radio interview, there's a concerted effort by Democrats to demonize the Tea Party.

But what of such a campaign? Will it work?

In part, yes. The Tea Party has been steadily declining in favorability rankings by polling groups, particularly since the Democrats' spring offensive. Liberal Democrats have raised themselves a demon, and with considerable success.

And why wouldn't their efforts be a success? After all, what, precisely, is "the Tea Party?" Who runs it? Where is it headquartered? Where are the membership cards? How do members pay dues? Who is their candidate for president in 2012? Who is their candidate for vice president? Who is their candidate for local dog-catcher?

If I were a producer at NPR or CNN or Fox, and I wanted the "Tea Party person" on my show to ask the location of the party's terror cells, who would I call as an official spokesperson?

Or consider the logical extension of the reader's comment above: How do "they" in the Tea Party "offer a solution" or "plan" to the "current budget?" How do "they" "compromise on any tax increases?" Are there official Tea Party members in Congress, working aside members of the Republican Party and Democratic Party, who could do this?

Granted, there are a couple of Tea Party websites, which I didn't know until I searched: teaparty.net and teapartypatriots.org. But who runs them?

My point is that the Tea Party isn't really a political party, certainly not when it comes to the kind of enormous powers liberals are magically ascribing to it. It is a movement more than a party. And rarely has a movement been so anonymous, so faceless.

Alas, that leads me to two conclusions:

First, this anonymity is a key reason why the Democrats' demonization campaign is bearing ugly, bitter fruit. After all, "the Tea Party" can't respond to the character assassination. There's no character who can respond.

In that sense, the Democrats' strategy seems smart.

Yet, there's also a major risk in the Democrats' gambit, which brings me to my second conclusion:

As initial survey data showed (click here), a sizable portion of the Tea Party movement is non-Republican. A Gallup poll from March 2010 found that 50% of "Tea Party identifiers" were Republicans while 43% identified as independents and 7% as Democrats. That's a perfect 50:50 split.

Of course, it was the huge swing group of oblivious independents/moderates who in November 2008 made Obama president, and elected the Pelosi-Reid Democratic Congress.

Well, in part, it's these individuals -- so-called "crossover voters" -- that Democrats are assailing when they trash the Tea Party. If Democrats lose these folks in November 2012, as they did in November 2010, they'll lose the presidency and Congress. I know people in the Tea Party, and they are hardly terrorists and racists; they are very offended at being so maligned.

If you're a conservative Republican, the Machiavellian in you might say, "Keep it up, Democrats!"

Well, they're keeping it up. In fact, they're ramping it up.

Gee, whatever happened to those calls for civility?

It looks like Democrats have decided the best thing for their party and their country right now is to tar and feather the Tea Party -- whatever they imagine it to be. Good luck, folks. Be careful what you wish for.

Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism and Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.

3b)They Who Live by the Race Card Die by the Race Card
By Lloyd Marcus
Due to Obama's declining poll numbers, Democrat tongues loosened by cocktails at parties are quietly suggesting, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could primary Obama out with Hillary? Darn it, we can't because Obama is black!"

I say, "Hallelujah -- a perfect example of divine justice." They who live by the race card die by the race card.

Almost three years ago, the Democrats offered their equivalent of a Trojan Horse to America in the form of a shiny, new, extremely well-crafted, beautiful black man. Its mega-internal speakers broadcast a hypnotic message, heavily reverbed to create a godlike effect and looped 24/7, promising "Hope and Change."

A "perfect storm" of circumstances led to America's enthusiastic embrace of the Democrats' ebony idol Trojan Horse: white guilt, black racism, and perhaps even the popularity of the American Idol TV show. Obama was the first "rock star" American Ebony Idol presidential candidate.

Democrats were elated by their good fortune.

Obama would be the key to implementing all of their liberal-academia, utopia-producing theories, his black skin insulating him from any and all opposition. Oppose Obama? You're racist!

The Democrats keep their R-for-racist branding iron red-hot and ready to apply swift retribution to any feisty, uppity conservative or Republican who dares challenge Obama.
Basking in their tactical genius, Democrats thought, "We did it! We pulled off the perfect exploitation of race to implement our socialistic agenda; a liberal black man in the White House." Someone at the DNC even broke out their old Commodores record as they partied: "Ce-le-brate good times, C'MON!"

As America slept, one night under the cover of darkness, a hidden door in the ebony idol opened; out rushed an army of vicious liberal minions, freedom-killing mandates, and socialistic policies. Their mission: destroy our capitalist system and massacre America as we know it.

Totally unexpected and to the horror of the Democrats, We The People rose up. Patriots, via divine inspiration, formed the Tea Party. Patriot freedom-fighters began winning skirmishes around the country -- governorships in New Jersey, Virginia, and Florida -- and defeating the tyrannous teachers' union in Wisconsin, to name a few. We took the House. We will take the Senate and are predicted to take the White House in 2012.

The Democrats' ebony idol, their so-called gift to America, has been exposed for the fraud it truly is -- a hollow, soulless shell of empty liberal ideology, its internal recorded message malfunctioning and distorted, stuck repeating the phrase, "I blame...I blame...I blame..."

Seeing the handwriting on the wall via polling, the Dems wish they could abandon their disastrous ebony race card for Hillary, their gender card.

But alas, they cannot. After spending the last three years, assisted by their media minions, convincing Americans that any and all criticism of or opposition to Obama is racist, Democrats find themselves victims of their own trap. Fearing the repercussions, Dems do not dare display the slightest abandonment of Obama. I love it! They who live by the race card die by the race card.

Despite the media's relentless attempts to brand us otherwise, the Tea Party has never been about race. Our focus and sole desire have been to uphold the Constitution and restore our freedom, liberty, and culture. The Tea Party's goals are much higher than the Democrats' bottom-feeding agenda of exploiting race for political gain. This is why it is so sweet that they are stuck with their loser black candidate.

You leftists, do not try to spin my comment as being racist. I, along with millions of my white Tea Party brothers and sisters, would gladly cast a presidential vote for blacks such as Herman Cain and Col. Allen West in a heartbeat. So don't even go there.

Ironically, the Democrats who claim ownership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shamefully dishonor his dream. The Tea Party, vilified by the Democrats, fully embraces MLK's dream by judging and selecting their candidates by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Thus, the Tea Party, much-hated by Democrats, is the realization of MLK's dream. And for the record, MLK was a Republican.

The Democrats played the ultimate race card -- an incompetent affirmative-action president, and now they are stuck with him. The faux finish on their once-shiny ebony idol is rapidly deteriorating, peeling off daily. Come 2012, Obama is a sure loser. "Ce-le-brate good times, C'MON!"

Lloyd Marcus, Proud Unhyphenated American

Co-Chairman of The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama.
Please help me spread my message by joining my Liberty Network.
Lloyd is singer/songwriter of the American Tea Party Anthem and author of Confessions of a Black Conservative, foreword by Michele Malkin.
LloydMarcus.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)Obama and Erdogan grant Assad 15 days to finish uprising. Call-up in Turkey


US President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan agreed to set Syrian President Bashar Assad the deadline of Aug. 27, for extinguishing the popular uprising against his rule and starting to implement genuine democratic reforms. This decision followed Erdogan's report to Obama on the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's six-hour conversationwith Assad Tuesday, Aug. 9.

Assad apparently convinced his Turkish guest that, with a free hand, he would finish off the revolt in 10 to 15 days and then get down to introducing political reforms including free elections with full opposition participation. If he went back on his word, then Obama and Erdogan would talk again about a possible US-Turkish military operation in Syria. They decided to trust Assad "one last time" regardless of his broken promises in the past.

Washington sources report exclusively that Davutoglu covered six main points in his talk with Assad:

1. The Syrian ruler asserted with complete confidence that the protest would be over in 10-15 days;

2. He has no illusions about the uprising disappearing for good and expects further outbreakst at least until the end of next year.

3. He promised to forestall fresh flare-up by instituting genuine reforms.

4. After their advisers left the room, Assad showed the Turkish foreign minister intelligence materials with documents and photos as evidence that the rebels fighting his regime were Islamic extremists, members of the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda. He said that if they carried the day in Syria they would move on to Turkey. He therefore asked Ankara for more patience to allow him to subdue these forces.
This was a reference to Erdogan's statement last Saturday, Aug. 6, that Turkey's patience with Syrian brutality was "running thin."

5. The Syrian ruler asked for an assurance that Ankara "would not to use Syria for a Turkish (and therefore NATO) campaign against Iran."
In the background of this demand was a comment Russia's NATO ambassador Dmitry Rogozin made on Aug. 5 that NATO was planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the Assad regime "with the long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran."

6. Turning to soft soap, Assad said earnestly that he would rather see Turkish than Iranian influence in Iraq and offered to work with Ankara (and through Turkey the US) to achieve this end.

This was a transparent attempt to con Washington into believing he was willing to drive the Iranians out of Iraq by pandering to its long-held illusion that if the Americans tried hard enough, they could separate him from his foremost ally and prop.

After Obama and Erdogan agreed on their next Syrian steps, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a CBS interviewer Thursday that US policy now hinges on "building the chorus of international condemnation" to make things clear to Assad. Even then, she did tell him to go – only, "Well, I think we've been very clear in what we have said about his loss of legitimacy."

The Secretary of State mentioned China, Brazil and India in the context of her "international chorus." Our Washington sources report she was basing her remark on Erdogan's undertaking to bring the three powers on board for UN Security Council authorization of NATO intervention in Syria if the US goes along with his plan for a two-week respite for Assad to finish the job and he breaks his word on reforms.
Surely the president had not forgotten that Erdogan tried this stunt less than a year ago when he failed to harness the same trio for useful intercession in the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The Syrian ruler has finagled a free hand for intensifying his crackdown on dissent with an unabashed ferocity few tyrants can match. He is trusted to keep his side of a bargain despite an exceptionally bad record in keeping his word and truth-telling. No one is yet prepared to cut down this world sponsor of terrorists, some of whom were let loose to kill Americans in Iraq year after year. Today, he is trampling his opposition into the dust along with every universal value.

Washington would still rather believe he is a reformer than force him out of power.

A minor incident this week showed how easily he pulls the wool over the eyes of his willing dupes.

Tuesday, Assad invited the Turkish minister and reporters (no foreign correspondents wanted in Syria) to see for themselves that he was pulling his tanks out of Hama (after their guns had brutalized protesters for weeks). None were allowed to leave the official vehicles (lest they see whole sections of a major city reduced to rubble).

As soon as Davutoglu flew out,the tanks rolled back into the city.

On the ground meanwhile, Turkish papers reported Friday Aug. 12 that Ankara had called up reserves and transferred them to the Syrian border to deal with a new and heavy influx of Syrian refugees. "An animal quarantine center has also been set up," said one report, "as Turkey expects not only people but also animals to cross the border in case of a NATO strike on Syria."
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