Newsweek's Curious Adoration of Al Gore

Barack Obama is an unqualified disaster so rather than accept fact, Newsweek (or is it News-Weak?) is taking a trip down memory lane so they can play “What if Gore won the 2000 election?” In what may be the most idiotic article to ever to stain the pages of that Liberal rag-sheet, News-weak has decided to imagine a fantasy timeline to give us a glimpse of what a Gore Presidency would look like.

We know Liberals are all about fantasy. After all, in a Liberal’s world, hard work and research just can’t yield the concrete results that wearing ribbons do. If they could only convince all Americans to wear the appropriate ribbon of awareness, think how much human suffering would vanish overnight. In fact, the ribbons possess so much power; Liberal’s would rather wear those than waste their money on funding established research or support centers. That is unless they are one of those filthy rich liberals. In that case, they use their money to create foundations; accepting donations to raise awareness among the massive population of insensitive people that do not wear ribbons.

The other thing Liberals love to do is dream about the utopian society they could create if last remnants of capitalism were finally swept away and the progressive (Marxist) agenda were realized in totality. Since Obama clearly can’t deliver on that, they did the next best thing and created a dream world where Bush was defeated and Gore took his rightful place as the 43rd President of the United States.

In David Rakoff's dream world, 9-11 never happened because Gore took the appropriate steps to prevent it and Gore’s attention to the environment, particularly the restoration of wetlands and erosion prevention on the gulf coast, mitigated the severity of Katrina and the swift response of the Federal government under Gore, prevented countless deaths and needless devastation. Obama maybe a weak and ineffectual Liberal but he is still a Liberal so they just couldn’t ignore him. In Rakoff's world, Gore would eventually name Obama as a Supreme Court Justice.

The piece begins by eluding all sense of Constitutional law as the United States, under Gore, finally becomes party to the Kyoto Protocol and passes a comprehensive energy bill. Somehow, the mystical powers of Al Gore can even circumvent the Constitutional requirement that the Senate ratify our treaties with a 2/3 majority, something that could not happen with Kyoto and would not happen even if Copenhagen managed to cobble an agreement together within the next few days. The comprehensive energy agreement is also a work of fiction since that was proclaimed dead on arrival with democrats in control of both houses of Congress and a President that is willing to sign it. But this is a work of fantasy so to hell with logic and law….let’s dream on

At the ceremony to mark the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, President Gore announces ground breaking for high speed maglev rail along the Eastern Seaboard. Old rail cars would be sunk offshore to create artificial reefs and by September 2009, the system is opened, offering high speed rail service from Portland, Maine to Jacksonville, Florida. Of course, since Al Gore is the patron saint of the religion of Climatology, he would have no problem at all persuading the eco-fascists that the rail line is an important step in the “greening” of America….or would he?

Environmental activists have fought every major project, green or otherwise, under the banner of protecting the diversity of species and to restore the natural beauty of a planet untouched by human activity. If the project was to replace an existing system rail by rail and tie by tie, I am sure they would find some foul species of hairless mouse that has called the existing rail line home. Even if none were found, they would still sue to force us to do another one of those endless environmental impact studies before the basic route survey could even begin. Damn! Those little details keep ruining the plot.

The story continues with Gore’s superior intellect being able to decipher a disjointed and seemingly meaningless string of information (which is all that was left of our intelligence gathering capabilities after Clinton-Gore gutted the system) whereby he discovers a plot crafted by Osama Bin Laden to attack the United States. Despite his historical disdain for the military and his repeated assertions that war is an option only needed by those that fail at diplomacy, Gore races to the nearest phone booth and dons his “Commander in Chief” Underoos before ordering preemptive strategic bombing strikes on Al Qaida training camps in Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, averting the disaster of 9-11 altogether.

Just to imply the petty hardships that a victorious Al Gore would have to contend with as President, Rakoff adds that President Gore signs the Patriot Act to provide an additional measure of security for the country but since he is not George Bush, the Supreme Court rules it unconstitutional. He also says that a Gore administration would be ridiculed and denigrated at every turn which I take as more of a slap at Obama than a commentary on Gore. In Mr. Rakoff’s world, Gore is unaffected by his critics; making the hard decisions that he apparently feels Mr. Obama is incapable of.

To further show his fierce determination and Gore’s iron will, when Vice President Joe Lieberman speaks out against healthcare reform, Gore demands, and gets, his resignation which only proves the adolescence of the author. When this article was written, Lieberman was still holding out on healthcare so he apparently felt compelled to throw a few literary rocks at him. After all, since Lieberman is obviously not part of the collective mind, he must be eliminated, even in a fantasy administration. Of course, Hillary Clinton is named as Lieberman’s replacement. Colin Powell steps down as Secretary of State and Bill Clinton assumes that position.

Just to prove that this is indeed, OZ and not a work of fact driven speculation; Gore supposedly signs a bill providing tax cuts equaling $1.35 trillion dollars over ten years to America’s wealthiest citizens, drawing harsh criticism from both the left and the right. He also faces the nation during his 2002 State of the Union address and singles out Iran, Iraq and North Korea as having goals similar to the Axis powers of World War II.

Fear not…all ends well with King Al Gore the first. He is eventually recognized for his bold actions and foresight in preventing not only an imminent attack on the US by fundamentalist terrorists but in preventing catastrophe through his environmental restoration of the Gulf of Mexico coast line, which saved thousands of lives and billions in property damage. The number of Gore’s successes are eventually criticized in the Senate because the sheer amount of time they have to spend commending this President’s actions are seen as distracting the Senate from their primary purpose.

Of course no story in News-Weak would be complete if it didn’t trash Bush too. Now that Gore has completed his two terms, it is finally Hillary Clinton’s turn. The Democratic ticket for 2008 is Hillary Clinton with her mate and running mate, Bill. Just as strange is the notion that George Bush throws his hat in the ring in a bid to finally capture his second term with brother Jeb as his running mate. Rakoff suggests that George Bush’s fortunes begin to turn after a televised and tearful interview about his alcoholism with Dr. Drew Pinsky; a condition that Bush supposedly falls pray to after his 2000 loss to Gore.

Really? Apparently Mr. Rakoff is under the delusion that Al Gore would have been able to have see what dozens of experts could not, where Islamic terror is concerned. Much like the followers of Nostradamus, the snippets of information about Bin Laden’s activities could only have been reasonably connected after the attack when the names and countries of origin of the perpetrators were known. Similarly, Rakoff assumes that Gore would have found a stomach for military action if the need arose and that he would even care about the environment if he were not in a position to personally accrue millions of dollars by exploiting the fears of the Eco-weirdoes on a national level.

No, Gore is a lack-luster and unpolished imitation of a politician frustrated by his failed bid for the Presidency. His lack of substance and personality is why he was not elected in spite of every felonious act of voter fraud committed by the left.

Now that climate-gate has proven the fraud of environmental extremism and may even be the largest hoax of the century, perhaps Gore will finally find some other kind of snake oil to peddle. Maybe he can retire to a local park and sell snow cones this summer to help in the fight against seasonal global warming?

Paul

Political Correctness - I'll just stick with correct, thank you.

The earliest mention of something that is not politically correct is found in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Chisholm v. Georgia (1793). In 1792 in South Carolina, Alexander Chisholm, the executor of the estate of Robert Farquhar, attempted to sue the state of Georgia in the Supreme Court over payments due him for goods that Farquhar had supplied Georgia during the American Revolutionary War. United States Attorney General Edmund Randolph argued the case for the plaintiff before the Court. The defendant, Georgia, refused to appear, claiming that as a "sovereign" a state did not have to appear in court to hear a suit against it to which it did not consent.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Chisholm but the particular phrase in the argument we are interested in today is:” The states, rather than the People, for whose sakes the States exist, are frequently the objects which attract and arrest our principal attention. . . . Sentiments and expressions of this inaccurate kind prevail in our common, even in our convivial, language. Is a toast asked? [To] ‘The United States’, instead of [to] the ‘People of the United States’, is the toast given. This is not politically correct.”

In this case, the reference to political correctness involved a point of law. The States often forget that they exist for the sake of the people and while a sovereign entity within the United States, that sovereignty does not insulate them from their responsibility to the people they serve. It is obvious that in the 18th century, political correctness meant exactly what it sounded like; a political stance that was legally correct under the generally accepted interpretation of law.

Marxism would pervert the meaning of “correctness”, much as it does everything else it touches. According to Marxist ideology, “correct” is anything that is in keeping with the will of the central party. The notion that the State would conform to a set standard of law for the good of the people had been lost as the central party became a new class of ruling elite. The set standard of law was replaced with a notion of dynamic law that would allow the laws to adapt as the party’s needs changed. In the end, the party, not the people could only prevail since the party was responsible for issuing the newest interpretation of law as often as was needed.

Political correctness didn’t begin to take the form we know today until the counter culture emerged in 1960’s America and began to describe a manner of thought consistent with liberal ideology as “politically correct”. Much as today, the radical left had so overused the notion of political correctness that even moderate liberals found it laughable and a cause for ridicule. It wasn’t until the 1990’s until the term political correctness became a pejorative used by the right to describe the extremes in liberal thought.

Most of what we know about political correctness today is the idiotic fear of offending anyone. The enlightened wordsmiths of our more liberal Universities constantly regurgitate a stream of new “non-offensive” descriptions for nearly everything that is human or has been affected by human behavior. Indians are now “Native Americans” even though anthropologists can trace their roots all across Asia and eventually into the African continent. Anyone that has a modest degree of education in modern man knows that “Native Americans” are as native to North America as the Europeans are.

Every known human malady or frailty is now considered a “challenge”. Despite accurate clinical descriptions that gauge mental ability based on medical criteria, anyone that falls below the norm is “mentally challenged” because the clinical names for each degree of disability is considered by the “enlightened”, to be demeaning.

Other human descriptors are expected to display compassion, tolerance and acceptance. Then there is the whole arena of “people first” language issues. No matter who or what you are, it is now considered important to recognize that you are a person first as if that somehow makes a difference. Short people are now “people of small stature”; minorities are “people of color” and the disabled are now “people with disabilities” of course. I suppose the only exception to that rule is being fat. Apparently every attempt to find a kinder, gentler way of saying fat didn’t meet with the approval of the afflicted so they are taking a completely different route.

1968, the NAAFA or The National Association to Aid Fat Americans was founded by William Fabrey to provide social activities for the large. As the group shifted to political activism, it changed names in the 1980’s and became The NAAFA (The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance). The NAAFA works to eliminate discrimination based on body size and provide fat people with the tools for self-empowerment through public education, advocacy, and member support. In short, their membership is fat and you had just better accept it.

Truthfully, I really don’t care what people want to call themselves. If dropping one name for another allows people to embrace help for a particular condition or it just plain makes them feel better about themselves, then more power to them. My argument with political correctness is a deeper and more dangerous manifestation.

As a nation, political correctness is in its fiftieth year of its mission to completely disable the American people from being to state with conviction that something is right or wrong. We are being forced to accept the unacceptable in the name of tolerance and now under the threat of “hate crimes”. Slowly the definition of a hate crime is being changed from protection against violent acts perpetrated in the name of bigotry to a whole host of new crimes based on…you guessed it…the spoken word. Regardless of your convictions, the right to be a freak has taken precedence over the rights of society to establish a standard of normality and those that speak out on moral grounds or on the grounds of conservative ideology are being methodically attacked as spewing hate speech.

To me, there is a big difference between saying “This is wrong” and expressing an idea that promotes violent action. However, the left now has the new monopoly on morality and the conventional ideals that this country was founded on have now been replaced with their “superior mantra” of acceptance and tolerance. Do not forget that Aristotle once said that “Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society.” Once a society has lost the ability to speak openly against dangerous and perverted acts, it is not long before demoralization dissolves the last threads that bind its peoples together.

Of course, even the champions of tolerance need an enemy to coalesce their power base. After all, how could you possibly bring attention to your cause if there wasn’t someone to rally against? The tolerant left has no tolerance for Judeo-Christian religions, pro-life beliefs, conservative ideals or American patriotism. Religion has openly been the target for the so-called tolerant in America since the 1950’s when the ACLU backed every half-witted law suit to drive religion from any and all, public venues. The same suspects fight every battle against pro-life groups and protect those that burn flags as a legitimate form of protest.

This is the most dangerous path that the left have taken us down. We are at a critical juncture in our history as our very existence is challenged by crippling debt and a failing economy. We provide fertility services to the poor but cannot guarantee the right to be born once conceived. We protect the rights of Muslims against “dangerous speech” but not the rights of Catholic churches to refuse gay marriages based on clear edicts within their holiest book. We protect the habitat of a Spotted Owl while private homes are being seized by the state under manifest destiny; not for public use, but to provide an incentive for corporations to build new facilities.

If you ask me, the mass shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech had little to do with gun control and were caused entirely by the elimination of traditional morals in our schools and society. What is there to stop disturbed or depressed individuals from committing these heinous crimes if there is no belief in a life beyond this one especially if we are no longer allowed the ability to guide people into a socially acceptable model of human behavior because we can no longer say…”This is wrong”.

Paul

The Liberal score of Congressional Progressives

In order to reinforce my case about the intentions and ideology of the progressives in Congress I am going to rely on those sources that endorse these people.

Groups that traditionally seek radical solutions in American politics give progressives very high marks and those marks establish a history of their support for extremely liberal legislation, each of which move this nation inexorably into the abyss of socialism. By conservative estimates, the national debt will reach a staggering 101% of the Gross Domestic Product, the entire earning capacity of our economy by 2011, a level that has not been seen since the years immediately following the massive spending required by World War II.

World War II was certainly an excellent reason to take the nation into debt. It took a full thirty years to lower that debt to a nearly acceptable 33% of GDP and that was before trade agreements and tax increases sent many of our manufacturing industries overseas. The current estimates show that the National Debt during the first four years of Mr. Obama’s Presidency will increase an additional $6.6 Trillion dollars; an amount that is equal to the increase in debt during both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations combined. So what is the reason for the outrageous spending now?

Even though we are looking at a financial meltdown, President Obama and his friends in Congress are still pushing forward to enact additional massive expansion of entitlement spending and the economy crippling taxes that are contained in the healthcare reform and cap and trade bills. This makes no sense unless the goal is to destroy the Federal Treasury and collapse the capitalistic economic system in the United States. There are those who believe this would force this nation into socialism and eventually, all nations into a single world government as the world financial system fails in a globalist’s expansion of the Cloward-Piven Strategy. Certainly, a willing socialist movement in Congress would be needed to perpetrate such a grand scheme. So how can we identify that willing faction?

From Wikipedia “The group [Americans for Democratic Action] was established by prominent Democratic Party leaders in 1947 with the stated goal of combating what those leaders perceived to be an acceptance of, or even an alliance with, American communists. ADA's leaders considered communism (especially as practiced in the Soviet Union) to be both morally wrong and a threat to the United States.”

The original founders of Americans for Democratic Action were Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and John Galbraith. The truth of the matter is that many “new dealers” were part of the foundation of this organization and their real goal was, and remains, to sneak a socialist agenda into the American political system under the radar. By claiming to fight against communism they had hoped to promote socialism in the United States under the banner of progressivism. Today members and associates of the Americans for Democratic Action say more about their mission than their mission statement does. Overt socialists such as Ed Asner, Bernie Sanders, Jeff Faux and Ann Lewis are installed as Honorary Vice Presidents as are many members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) issue “scores” for legislators based on the frequency with which they vote for progressive and liberal causes. With a score of 100 indicating the most liberal and left leaning, I am proud to say that I visited their website and after taking their on-line test to determine how liberal I really am, I scored a perfect zero! I wish I could say the same for members of Congress, particularly the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. So what scores have the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus earned from the ADA?

Let’s start with the founder of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders ADA Score – 100%

Bernie Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist, but because he does not belong to a formal political party, he appears as an independent on the ballot. He is the first person elected to the U.S. Senate to identify as a socialist. Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments. He was also the only independent member of the House during much of his service there. He is one of two independent Senators in the 111th Congress, along with Joe Lieberman. Sanders left the House in order to run in the 2006 election for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring fellow independent Jim Jeffords and won the election with 65% of the vote.

So how do the rest of them stack up? Let’s see the scores state by state….
Arizona: Ed Pastor – 100%, Raúl Grijalva – 100%,
California: Lynn Woolsey – 80%, George Miller – 95%, Barbara Lee – 100%, Pete Stark – 90%, Michael Honda – 95%, Sam Farr – 100%, Henry Waxman – 95%, Xavier Becerra – 100%, Judy Chu – not rated yet - assumed office July 2009), Diane Watson – 100%, Lucille Roybal-Allard – 95%, Maxine Waters – 95%, Laura Richardson – 100%, Linda Sanchez – 100%, Bob Filner – 100%
Colorado: Jared Polis – not rated yet (assumed office January 2009)
Connecticut: Rosa DeLauro – 100%
Florida: Corrine Brown – 95%, Alan Grayson – not rated yet - assumed office January 2009), Robert Wexler – 90%, Alcee Hastings – 95%
Georgia: Hank Johnson – 100%, John Lewis – 95%
Hawaii: Neil Abercrombie – 95%, Mazie Hirono – 100%
Illinois: Bobby Rush – 30% (don’t get excited – according to the Freedom Index Mr. Rush just doesn’t vote very often), Jessie Jackson Jr. – 100%, Luis Gutierrez – 90%, Danny Davis – 80%, Jan Schakowsky – 100%, Phil Hare – 100%,
Indiana: André Carson – 75%
Iowa: Dave Loebsack – 90%
Maine: Chellie Pingree – (not rated yet - assumed office January 2009)
Maryland: Donna Edwards - (not rated yet - assumed office June 2008), Elijah Cummings – 100%
Massachusetts: John Oliver – 100%, Jim McGovern – 100%, Barney Frank – 100%, John Tierney – 95%, Ed Markey – 100%, Mike Capuano – 95%
Michigan: Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick – 95%, John Conyers – 100%
Minnesota: Keith Ellison – 100%
Mississippi: Bennie Thompson – 90%
Missouri: William Lacy Clay Jr. – 100%, Emanuel Cleaver – 90%
New Jersey: Donald Payne – 95%, Frank Pallone – 100%
New Mexico: Ben R. Luján - (not rated yet - assumed office January 2009)
New York: Jerry Nadler – 95%, Yvette Clark – 100%, Nydia Velazquez – 100%, Carolyn Maloney – 95%, Charles Rangel – 85%, Jose Serrano – 100%, John Hall – 95%, Maurice Hinchey – 95%, Louise Slaughter – 95%, Eric Massa - (not rated yet - assumed office January 2009)
North Carolina: Mel Watt – 100%
Ohio: Marcy Kaptur – 100%, Dennis Kucinich – 95%, Marcia Fudge - (not rated yet - assumed office November 2008)
Oregon: Earl Blumenauer – 95%, Peter DeFazio – 90%,
Pennsylvania: Bob Brady – 100%, Chaka Fattah – 95%
Tennessee: Steve Cohen – 100%
Texas: Sheila Jackson-Lee – 100%, Eddie Bernice Johnson – 100%
Vermont: Peter Welch – 90%
Virginia: Jim Moran – 95%
Washington: Jim McDermott – 95%
Wisconsin: Tammy Baldwin – 100%, Gwen Moore – 95%

There are two more members of the Caucus that we cannot score because they are non-voting members from the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. They are Donna Christensen and Eleanor Holmes Norton.

So far adding them all up, the average score is still 99% in favor of extremely liberal legislation. There are even more members of Congress that score equally as high but do not belong to the Congressional Progressive Caucus for one reason or another. Combined, these are the people that think that Obama hasn’t gone far enough. These are the people that would empty the treasury to fund redistributive programs and raise taxes to stifle an already stricken economy. These are the same people that salivate at the idea of massive new programs that will expand the Federal Government to twice its present size and still want more. These are the people that must be voted from office while there is still a United States of America under a lawful Constitution.

Tomorrow….Cloward and Pivens; evil personified.

Paul