Tag Archives: Politics

Politics, Race Relations

Black Activists Reject Racist Tea Party Picture

Congressman Should Know Better than to Compare Tea Party Attendees to Klansmen, Black Leader Says

Washington, DC: Deneen Borelli, full-time fellow with the Project 21 black leadership network and frequent speaker at tea party rallies, says Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)’s recent comparison of tea party rally participants to members of the Ku Klux Klan is baseless.

What’s more, Project 21’s Borelli notes, Cohen should know better, as he himself suffered similar charges during his last primary election campaign.

Borelli said: “Representative Cohen’s comments seem to be the norm these days in the effort to dispatch anyone opposing the progressives’ big-government agenda. The goal of partisans such as Cohen is obviously to demonize and discredit ordinary citizens – people who attend rallies, town hall meetings, make phone calls and visit their representatives with the simple, legitimate concern of wanting to preserve their liberty.”

“The tea party movement is making a positive difference for the direction of our country in a manner that would make our Founding Fathers proud, and the derogatory comments targeting these freedom-loving citizens really only shames those hurling them,” added Borelli. “And it is especially odd that Representative Cohen was the one hurling the mud this time. Two years ago, he suffered through an opponent publicly comparing him to a Klansman. He certainly must not have enjoyed that. Is Cohen that tone-deaf that he is willing to immediately turn around and use the same vitriol against others?”

Borelli continued: “Let’s not forget that none of the racial allegations made against tea partiers the weekend of the Obamacare vote have yet been corroborated by video or audio. Representative Cleaver, who initially charged he was spat upon, has even begun to distance himself from his allegation.”

While appearing on “The Young Turks” radio show on Sirius XM satellite radio April 1, Cohen said tea party rally participants “are, kind of, without robes and hoods” and “against any type of diversity.” He later suggested the motivation behind the tea parties are not necessarily issues but “to be against Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel and the different people.” He additionally called the sight of people protesting on the U.S. Capitol grounds on the day of the Sunday Obamacare vote in the House of Representatives “a very sad scene on America.” The interview can be viewed on YouTube at http://tw0.us/A7W.

Cohen represents a majority-black congressional district in Memphis. In 2008, Nikki Tinker, a primary opponent, ran television ads that placed a photo of Cohen next to one of a Klansman. Tinker based the implication against Cohen on the fact that, as a member of the Center City Commission, Cohen once voted against exhuming the body of the late Confederate General (and KKK founder) Nathan Bedford Forrest from Forrest Park in Memphis.

Project 21, established in 1992, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org), a non-profit foundation established in 1982 and funded primarily from the gifts of over 100,000 recent individual donors.

Politics, War On Terror

The New Nuclear Strategy, Quit

Seems like only yesterday that then candidate Obama said if you bring a knife to a fight, I’ll bring a gun. That was the campaign version of Obama. The real version is this one, virtually disassembling the nuclear deterrent strategy that won the cold war and has kept the peace among other nuclear equipped nations since the end of WWII.

President Obama has a unique talent apart from all previous U.S. presidents. He demonstrates a natural ability to diss our allies all over the globe, including our own country, while giving potential adversaries hope in America’s new found weakness. Weakness in our economy with overwhelming debt for future generations, exacerbated by his fundamentally transforming America into yet another welfare state. And now weakness in our military deterrence.

This is like the apology tour gone wild. As if his words are not bad enough, this Commander in Chief is dismantling our defenses around the world where missile defense is concerned, and now is telling potential aggressors that they are entitled to a free shot at the United States with no fear of being squashed like a bug with a nuclear warhead landing in their homeland. Well isn’t that special?

How’s that hope and change working for you?

2010 Election, Economy, Florida, Politics

Khavari, Bank Of The State Of Florida

From the Naples Daily News . . .

Farid Khavari makes a campaign promise that should shoot him straight to the top of the field running for governor of Florida.

“We have to get rid of taxes,” says Khavari, a Democratic challenger to the party’s favored nominee, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink.

Khavari, who claims a doctorate in economics from the University of Bremen in Germany, believes eliminating most state taxes is more than just an empty promise to get himself noticed.

He’s laid out an economic plan for Florida, something he says his opponents both Republican and Democrat have failed to do, that funnels billions of dollars to the state in mortgage interest payments.

If you look a little further, you’ll also see that Khavari is the only candidate that has a specific plan. And it’s in writing. The others, including Alex Sink, haven’t a clue. They have the campaign rhetoric, but no plan on boosting the economy and jobs.

Asked whether a state-owned bank is socialism, Khavari smiled. “Are public schools socialism? Public roads, police and fire protection, municipal water? Socialism is where everyone works for the state. In these cases, and with our Bank of the State of Florida, the state is working for everyone. I call that general capitalism.”

Links: Brent Batten: Khavari banks on interest in governor’s race » Naples Daily News.

Economy, Energy, Florida, Politics

Obama's Oily Rope-a-Dope

President Obama announced today that he is opening up some areas for oil and gas development. Some in the Gulf of Mexico, some in the Atlantic. Alaska, not so much. Alaska needs more study. ‘More study’ is political-speak for ‘it ain’t gonna happen.’

Nevertheless, the President seemed to echo what he said in his State of the Union Address in January.

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. (Applause.) It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. (Applause.) It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. (Applause.) And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America. (Applause.)

And today, President Obama said . . .

But the bottom line is this: given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth, produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we’re going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.

Don’t think for a minute that the President is serious about drilling. Just like he isn’t serious about nuclear energy. Seen any new refineries being built? Seen any new oil drilling going on? Seen any new nuclear plants being built? NO! What we have seen is ANWR and Bristol Bay being held hostage, and the closing of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. With no place to put nuclear waste, how many new nuclear plants will be built?

Today’s show at Andrews Air Force Base was a political rope-a-dope. His goal is far from using and getting more of our own energy resources. His goal is cap and trade legislation that will do exactly the opposite of what he said he wanted to do today. It will kill economic growth and jobs, depress business, and raise costs. We will pay more for electric and all other products because of tax pressure put on the industries that produce them. And in the end, the redistribution of wealth in the name of social justice.

NPR is trying to make sense out of Obama’s statement. Here’s what they came up with . . .

Much of the speculation for the administration’s reasoning has been on the need to get Republican votes for Obama’s climate legislation. Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) are trying to hammer out a bipartisan climate bill, but Graham is getting no GOP backing on this, and Graham himself has said that he couldn’t support a bill that “doesn’t have off-shore drilling in a meaningful way.”

The New York Times’ John Broder writes that today’s proposal by Obama could “help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation,” . . .

He is repeating his SOTU line in order to get support from Republicans for his cap and trade agenda. Combine this with Obamacare and the American Dream will be history. America will have its newest founding father.

Links:

Media, Pensacola, Politics

Obama, Tea Party Core Group On The Fringe?

Commenting about tea partiers and what has become a spontaneous tea party movement, President Obama is of the opinion that the tea party movement stems from a core group that is on the fringe. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

Actually, if he were speaking about the Progressives and that movement that helped get him elected, he would be more correct. The Moveon.org’ers, the KOS’acks. Those are the ones who lay claim to Obama’s election, and they are anything but mainstream democrats, let alone mainstream Americans.

Obama calls them an outgrowth of a core fringe. The AP calls them a  leaderless coalition, born in communities from coast to coast shortly after Obama’s inauguration last year. One that seems to have some staying power. And Progressive talk radio calls them a product of big business, the Republican party, and the Chamber of Commerce. What? There’s your fringe.

Granted that there are fringers at both ends of the political spectrum. But the tea party movement was not born from them. The phenomenon now known as ‘the tea party movement’ was born out of the love of this country by Americans of both parties and their desire to thwart Obama’s desire to fundamentally change it. That, and the desire to not burden future generations of Americans with insurmountable debt in the process.  Fundamental change like government control of one private sector industry after another is also high on the tea partiers’ disapproval list.

The tea partiers reject the notion that President Obama is America’s new founding father, and believe that he is taking the country in the wrong direction. If Democrats are looking for a way to effectively deal with the tea party movement, they might consider turning this ship around.

Links: Obama takes care in sizing up ‘tea party’ movement – Yahoo! News. | Papantonio Explodes on MSNBC

Economy, Politics, Supreme Court

Is Obamacare Constitutional?

That is the question that will hopefully soon be answered by the Supreme Court. But the conventional wisdom for those who think that Obamacare  is just dandy with the Constitution, like Pennsylvania Governor Ed (Fast Eddie) Rendell, seems to be calling the health care system put in place in Massachusetts as precedent.

Biggest problem with this, and this is the fallacy of Rendell’s argument, is that the states can make whatever law they want, within their state, and the federal government has no similar autonomy. The federal government is restrained by the 10th Amendment of the Constitution thusly . . .

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Gov. Rendell and the Obama administration are making the giant leap that the federal government is the same as a state. Dictators view those as being the same, but this is not the case in the United States.

If the people of Massachusetts don’t like the health care system there (which they’ve found out is way more expensive then they figured), they can change it, or they are free to move to another state to get out from under it. Our freedom and liberty allow us to do that. If you like to smoke pot, you may want to move to California. If you like to not have your income taxed by the state, you may want to move to Florida. If you like to pay taxes on anything and everything, you may want to move to New York.

The massive centralization of control and power that Obamacare projects is simply antithetical to the original intent of the founding fathers and the documents they created.

Under Obamacare, there is no provision in the constitution that gives the federal government the power to require citizens to purchase anything else they be fined. Under Obamacare, there is no where to go to get out from under it.

Media, MRIOTD, Politics, Uncategorized

Frank Rich At New York Times Wins M.R.I.O.T.D. Award

In order to excuse himself from responding to what it is that is so wrong with Obamacare, New York Times opinion editor continues the Left’s template. If you oppose Obamacare, you must be a racist, sexist, homophobe, and/or a bigot.

His ‘justification’ is simple. Obama is black, the Speaker of the House is a woman, the head of the Banking & Finance Committee is gay, and there’s a Latina woman on the Supreme Court.

Oh really? Does Frank Rich, like Jimmy Carter, really mean that . . .

  • We would be more than willing to welcome cap-and-trade with open arms, even if we paid a thousand dollars or more extra every year for our energy use, if Barack Obama were only white?
  • We would be dancing in the streets celebrating the dawning of government control of our health care if only Barack Obama were white?
  • It would be just dandy if government bureaucrats rationed health care for our parents, as long as the president is white?
  • We would jump at the chance of the government owning ALL of the auto manufacturing companies .. not just General Motors … if the president just didn’t have dark skin?
  • We would applaud those ACORN workers giving tax avoidance advice to a pimp and his prostitute if the workers hadn’t been black?
  • Most Americans – even ones that don’t pay income taxes now – would be more than willing to give 70% of everything they earn to the federal government when asked … so long as they are asked by a white president?
  • We would have been thrilled, I tell you … THRILLED to have all of those Islamic goons being held at Guantanamo be not only released, but sent to be school resource officers at our local government schools, if only a white president put that plan in motion?
  • It would be OK if a white president stood back and allowed Iran to build its coveted nukes … we’re only unhappy about that because a black president is doing it?
  • Deficits? We don’t care about deficits! Make our children and grand children and great grand children pay through the nose for our president’s spending habits … just so long as the president isn’t black.
  • Government pork? Like we actually care? Look … you folks in Washington can spend all the money you want – how about more studies of the mating habits of Polish Zlotnika pigs? – just make sure it’s not a black president who signs the spending bill into law.
  • We wouldn’t care if all illegal aliens were counted twice in the next Census … just so long as the president isn’t black?
  • Those Black Panther thugs who threatened voters in Philly? The ONLY reason we’re upset that they were given a pass is because Barack Obama is black.
  • Every single member of the president’s cabinet could be a tax cheat as far as we’re concerned … just so long as the president is white.
  • Forced unionization? Bring it on! We love card check! We love the idea of union goons threatening and intimidating workers to sign a card saying they want to belong to a union! What we don’t like is that a black president is pushing this idea.
  • Single-party talks with that Gargoyle that runs North Korea? It’s about time we legitimized that little pipsqueak. We’re only mildly upset here because the person who is doing that happens to be black.
  • More regulation of the finance sector? We could care less! For all we care you can nationalize the banks and decree that only the government can make home loans .. .and you can even apportion those home loans on the basis of race if you want to … just so long as the president is white!
  • Minimum wage? Like we care about that? Raise it to $15 an hour if you want! Just give us our white president back.

The Most Ridiculous Item Of The Day (M.R.I.O.T.D) award goes to Frank Rich for his colossal display of ignorance.

Links: Is Jimmy Carter Right? | Op-Ed Columnist – The Rage Is Not About Health Care – NYTimes.com.

Economy, Media, Organized Labor, Politics, Uncategorized, Venezuela

One Year Anniversary for BM, Barack Motors

A year after President Obama came out of the closet, not everyone is unhappy with him. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez feel he’s doing a fine job of taking control of the people and industry. Taking control of people and industry is not making things better, but worse.

What else could one expect to happen when freedom and liberty get stomped on by an over-reaching and expanding government? The auto industry cabal was more to buttress labor unions’ benefits than to make the company financially solvent. The actions of what he orchestrated for Chrysler Corporation and GM, and the health care legislation prove that out.

For GM, rather than capitulate to President Obama, what GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner should have said was, ‘with all due respect Mr. President I don’t work for you. And your advisers are not welcome to ‘help’ us change our company. We, with the help of a free market and a timely bankruptcy, will get out of this. You will have to bring the National Guard to occupy our company while we stand to protect our rights. Thank you very much.’

Next, expect the President to complete his payback with a plan to increase labor union membership through Card Check legislation. About which, I hope he fails. His ‘focusing like a laser beam on job creation’ is empty rhetoric for the dumb masses. Just pay attention to what he does rather than what he says.

The Obama we are seeing today is the real Barack Obama. If you want to see what this means, force yourself to read about what his campaign and his willing accomplices in the media did not want you to know. Because if you did, Hillary might have been the President instead of Barack. It is a ‘must read’ in order to make any sense to what we are seeing going on in Washington today.

The job of the President of the United States consists of only two tasks. To protect and defend its people, and to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. After you listen to this radio interview that Obama gave in 2001 to an NPR interviewer, you’ll have to ask yourself how this man could even put his and on the bible and take the oath. It is obvious that he feels the founding fathers erred in the creation of this country and its Constitution. And in this interview, he explores ways to fundamentally change it. Not protect it. And to become America’s new founding father.

Links: President Obama Comes Out Of The Closet | General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner out, replaced by COO Fritz Henderson.

2010 Election, Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics

Khavari labels Alex Sink’s business plan “empty rhetoric”

Press release from the Khavari for governor campaign follows.

Miami, FL Mar. 18 — Noted economist and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Farid Khavari dismissed Alex Sink’s new “Business Plan for Florida” as “nicely written but completely lacking substance.” Sink, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer and another Democratic candidate for governor, unveiled her plan Wednesday.

“Last week, Alex Sink finally recognized that we have a lot of unemployment and foreclosures in Florida. That’s a big step for her,” Khavari said. “We have over a million people out of work here, 800,000 homes in foreclosure, and more job losses and foreclosures to come unless we do something. Apparently it takes three years for a multimillionaire ex-banker to catch on.

“Alex Sink has held one of the most powerful jobs in Florida for three years now. She is in an ideal position to fix Florida’s economy and she is counting paper clips and canceling Blackberries while the State Board of Administration has lost tens of billions of dollars on her watch. If she had any idea how to create even one job or stop even one foreclosure, why didn’t she do anything about it?

“Let me offer Ms. Sink a little lesson in economics,” Khavari smiled. “You can’t create jobs with subsidies and tax cuts. Businesses will not hire people unless there are customers for their products and services. With rising unemployment and escalating foreclosures, high interest rates and reduced credit, insurance and health care costs out of control, how many people can afford to buy anything? No customers, no jobs, it’s really not so difficult to understand.

“Here’s another lesson in Econ 001: when you create one good job, the economy naturally creates two more jobs within a year, and those jobs create more. When you lose one good job, you lose two more within a year, and more after that.

“My economic plan for Florida was released nine months ago. It explains step-by-step, with specific examples, how to create 1,000,000 new private-sector jobs in Florida, without subsidies. All you need is leadership. You have to focus on the demand side. When there is demand, businesses will hire people regardless of subsidies and taxes.”

Khavari has also gained national acclaim for his plan to establish a state-owned bank, which would save state and local governments billions per year in interest expense, while offering 2% fixed-rate mortgages and other programs to save Floridians more billions per year. Since his announcement, gubernatorial candidates in California, Oregon and Illinois have declared state-owned banks as part of their platforms. “Our Bank of the State of Florida will balance state and local budgets without higher taxes, and make Florida recession-proof forever,” Khavari said.

Farid A. Khavari, Ph.D. is an economist and author of nine books, including Environomics. His latest book, Toward a Zero-Cost Economy, is available in stores or for free download at his website, www.khavariforgovernor.com.

Pensacola News Journal links to articles, press releases, and editorials on Dr. Farid Khavari, democratic candidate for governor of the state of Florida, HERE.

Pensacola News Journal links to articles, press releases, and editorials on Alex Sink, democratic candidate for governor of the state of Florida, HERE.

Politics

Obama’s Diplomatic Message


President Obama and not Benjamin Netanyahu

President Obama made the most of the opportunity to dis Israel at The White House today. Obama had a sit-down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, marking the first meeting with a head of state with no pictures.

Obama and Netanyahu conferred for about 90 minutes in the Oval Office, but in a break with custom reporters were not allowed to see the close allies shake hands and begin their discussions.

Still, it is highly unusual for a visiting ally not to be seen with the president, either for photographs or statements, and the treatment seemed linked to a crisis marring relations between the two countries.

That’s what it seemed. But it was a message of solidarity to the militant Arab / Muslim world of the Middle East and beyond. What it was, was the president dissing our ally in the Middle East. Congress, on the other hand, wasn’t so smug. They played the part of good cop.

On Capitol Hill, Netanyahu received a warm public reception from Congress on Tuesday, with a top Democrat and Republican joining to praise a leader who has refused to back down in a disagreement the White House says threatens new peace talks.

“We in Congress stand by Israel,” the leader of the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., assured Netanyahu at an all-smiles appearance before the cameras. “In Congress we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel.”

AP: Obama and Israeli PM meet amid dispute