The Right Lane update 8.01.13

The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, freedom and individual liberty

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

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Phony Community Organizer Pretends to Be Presidential By Mark Alexander

"Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country." --George Washington (1783)

A few days ago, I received the latest copy of "The Hook," a seasonal journal of carrier aviation published by the Tailhook Association. I was deeply moved by this summer's edition because it included a reprint of "Honor Bound," a Pentagon study of bravery, torture and endurance -- and the experience of American POWs in Vietnam. The Hook then listed the names of Navy and Marine POWs who made it home, including John McCain. Later that same day, I heard remarks at a White House press conference that should be of interest to the families of the 58,209 Americans killed in Vietnam.

Barack Hussein Obama, while sitting with Vietnamese Communist Dictator Truong Tan Sang under a portrait of George Washington, had this to say about what our nations have in common: "We discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson." 

Obama, of course, is a phony "community organizer" who was steeped in Communist indoctrination, and who launched his political career in the home of domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Thus, he may not be able to distinguish between the Essential Liberty codified by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence as "endowed by our Creator" and the murderous regime of "Uncle Ho," a brutal Stalinist pig who slaughtered a HALF MILLION peasants when consolidating his oppressive communist regime in Vietnam. Most of us, however, understand that Ho was no Thomas Jefferson.

After the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, which were intended to end the war in Vietnam, Ho went on to butcher anyone who had given aid to American military personnel.

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 Liar In Chief's Liar: White House calls Benghazi ‘phony’ scandal

The White House said bluntly Wednesday that it considers the controversy over the Benghazi attack to be among the so-called “phony scandals” that President Obama has been complaining about in recent speeches — even as new questions were being raised about the lack of progress in the investigation. Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked at the daily briefing about Obama’s repeated claim — which he asserted most recently during a speech in Tennessee on Tuesday — that Washington is getting distracted by phony scandals. Asked what the president was referring to, Carney listed the scandals over the IRS targeting of conservative groups and over Benghazi. “What we’ve seen, as time has passed and more facts have become known, whether it’s about the attacks in Benghazi and the talking points or revelations about conduct at the IRS, that attempts to turn this into a scandal have failed,” Carney said.

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Benghazi Attack Survivor Waited on a Roof Top for 20 Hours Before Help Came

Diplomatic Security agent David Ubben has been receiving treatment at Walter Reed Military Medical Center after being severely wounded on September 11, 2012 when the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked by terrorists. According to Fox News, Ubben waited for help on top of a roof for 20 hours. Hillary, what difference does waiting that long make? The lives of two Navy SEALs.

During the second wave of attacks on Benghazi, David Ubben was on the rooftops with the Navy SEALS. Eventually, several rounds of mortar attacks found their mark, killing Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty while shredding David Ubben’s right leg. Ubben was stuck on the rooftop for 20 hours before help arrived.  Yes, Carney we made all this  up!!

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1%: Average Annual Economic Growth Under Obama By Terence P. Jeffrey

So much for the political posturing of a slow but steady economic improvement.  In the 21^st century, during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the U.S. economy has not shown the ability to grow that it did in the last two decades of the 20^th century, according to data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In fact, real average annual economic growth has been nearly cut in half so far this century compared to the last two decades of the last century; and specifically during President Obama’s time in office it has dropped to an average of just over 1 percent.

In the decade from 1981 to 1990, according to the BEA, average annual growth in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 3.36 percent. In the decade from 1991 to 2000, average annual growth in real GDP was 3.45 percent. In the twenty years from 1981 to 2000, average annual growth in real GDP was 3.405 percent.  By contrast, in the decade from 2001 to 2010, average annual growth in real GDP was only 1.67 percent, and, so far, in the 21^st century (from 2001 through 2012), average annual growth in real GDP has been only 1.775 percent.  We must get government out of the way and bring spending under control.  The consequences are obvious.

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Liberal Activist: ‘Thousands of People Will Die Every Year’ Under Obamacare By Elizabeth Harrington

No!  Wait a minute!  This is supposed to be because of Conservatives.  How can this be so???? “Thousands of people will die every year” and “costs will continue to go out of control” under Obamacare, says Public Citizen President Robert Weissman.  The only solution is to nationalize health care through a single-payer system, Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Public Citizen argued outside the U.S. Capitol Wednesday. “Is this realistic after the passage of the Affordable Care Act?” asked Public Citizen President Robert Weissman. “This is what we know is going to happen after the Affordable Care Act is implemented. “However well it goes, whatever hiccups it has, two things are sure to happen,” he said.

·       “One, millions of people are going to remain uncovered. And the best-case scenario, millions of people will remain uncovered, which means thousands of people will die every year from a lack of health insurance coverage.

·       “The second thing we know is that the private insurance companies are going to maintain control of our health care system,” Weissman said. “And we know that that means that costs will remain spiraling. Costs will continue to go out of control.” “So it is the realists who call for a single-payer system,” he said. “It is the realists who say the time is coming, sooner rather than later.”

Weissman was one of a group of about two-dozen activists outside the Capitol chanting for a single-payer system, or government-controlled health care. Conyers began the press conference by leading chants of “everybody in, nobody out.”

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More from the Left - Obama: ‘Economy Would Be Much Better Off’ With More Government Workers By Fred Lucas

President Barack Obama – citing the job losses since he took office -- said “the economy would be much better off,” unemployment would be 6.5 percent and the national deficit would be in decline if there were more federal, state and local government workers.  [all we need is more people dependent on the governement]

“If those layoffs had not happened, if public sector employees grew like they did in the past two recessions, the unemployment rate would be 6.5 instead of 7.5,” Obama said. “Our economy would be much better off, and the deficit would still be going down because we would be getting more tax revenue.”  Obama spoke Tuesday at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Chattanooga, Tenn., where he promoted plans he said would help the middle class such as corporate tax reform, increased federal spending on infrastructure, more education spending, public-private partnerships and rolling back the sequester. “Instead of using a scalpel to get rid of programs we don’t need and keep vital investments that we do, the same group has kept in place this meat cleaver called the sequester that is just slashing all kinds of investments in education and research and our military,” Obama said.  Notice, he failed to mention he has not produced a budget during his presidency and the sequester was a result, not a necessary action.

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Hollywood Goes Hoo-Hoo for Hillary By Ben Shapiro

Hillary Clinton is not that fascinating a person. According to those who have spent time with her, she's harsh and demanding. According to those who haven't — like her husband — she's a delight. But Hollywood is going psycho for the former secretary of state, pumping out a veritable cornucopia of Hillary propaganda in preparation for her anointment in 2016.

First, there's an NBC miniseries in the works, retelling the period of Clinton's life when she transformed from pseudo-wronged first lady to secretary of state. The miniseries will span the time period from 1998 and the Lewinsky scandal forward. In an eminently sycophantic bit of casting, the lovely Diane Lane will be playing the significantly less lovely Mrs. Clinton. The press statement on the miniseries sounds like a logline from Hillary's prospective gravestone: "Clinton's life as a wife, mother, politician and cabinet member." The mini-series is slated to premier in 2015. Undoubtedly, it will ignore Hillary's Machiavellian manipulations with regard to the "vast right-wing conspiracy," her alleged anti-Semitic slurs, her carpetbagging, her accomplishment-free tenure in the Senate and her dramatically unsuccessful term as secretary of state. Don't even bother asking about Benghazi.

But that's only Hollywood's first step. Next, Tinseltown will be releasing a biopic of Hillary from her early life, when she was going out with Bill Clinton and hanging around in the Nixon administration. The author of the script, one Young Il Kim, says the movie is "really a journey of a woman who was torn between her personal desires and her professional ambition."

The script itself is said to be on the ridiculous side, with a scene in which Hillary and Bill "devour" each other (that fictional meal may have been one of the only two Bill ever had with Hillary): a line in which Hillary tells Bill "I love you and I want to f—- you," and an explanation of why Hillary wears pantsuits. Starlets including Carrie Mulligan, Scarlett Johansson, Amanda Seyfried and Reese Witherspoon have reportedly been considered to play Hillary.

Finally, there's a Hillary documentary produced by Oscar-winner Charles Ferguson and funded by CNN. CNN expects the documentary to show up in theaters before broadcasting on the most trusted name in news. Or, rather, in snooze.

There's only one problem with all of this: Hillary just isn't that interesting. The media virtually universally threw Huma Abedin under the bus over the past two weeks after she attempted to imitate Hillary to save her embattled penis-tweeting husband, Anthony Weiner. She didn't get away with it, not because she's not Hillary — she's as close to Hillary as it's possible to get — but because her husband isn't Bill.  And that's the sad truth about Hillary: She's been riding her husband's coattails for decades. If she were Hillary Rodham rather than Hillary Clinton, she'd be in the same boat as Nancy Pelosi or Barbara Boxer or any other myriad number of powerful women with no shot at the presidency — and no love in Hollywood.

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Obama remarks ‘beyond belief’ Except They Come From The Phony President

Senior Capitol Hill Republicans hope to transform President Obama’s comments that downplay the number of potential Keystone XL pipeline jobs into a political liability as the White House focuses heavily on the economy.  Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Obama’s comments about the project were “beyond belief.” “A president disparaging private-sector jobs while backstage at a jobs rally is beyond belief. The president’s own State Department reported that Keystone would support upwards of 40,000 jobs. In this economy, any source of private job creation should be welcomed with open arms,” Upton said in a statement.  “After nearly 5 years and 15,500 pages of review, there is no reason to delay these jobs another day. Republicans, Democrats, leading unions, and job creators all agree, it’s time to start building.”

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A Little Good News - Saudi Prince: Fracking Is Threat To Kingdom

As the fracking revolution eases demand for the kingdom's oil and gas, a billionaire prince warns his nation to find new income.

A Saudi prince has warned that his oil-reliant nation is under threat because of fracking technology being developed elsewhere around the world. Billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said the Gulf Arab kingdom needed to reduce its reliance on crude oil and diversify its revenues. His warning comes as rising shale energy supplies in the United States cut global demand for Saudi oil. In an open letter to his country's oil minister Ali al Naimi and other government heads, published on Sunday via his Twitter account, Prince Alwaleed said demand for oil from Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) member states was "in continuous decline". He said Saudi Arabia's heavy dependence on oil was "a truth that has really become a source of worry for many". He added that the world's biggest crude oil exporter should implement "swift measures" to diversify its economy. Prince Alwaleed, owner of international investment firm Kingdom Holding, is unusually outspoken for a top Saudi businessman. But his warning reflects growing concern in private among many Saudis about the long-term impact of shale technology. It is allowing the US and Canada to tap unconventional oil deposits which they could not reach just a few years ago. Chancellor George Osborne has also announced support for fracking in Britain and in offshore waters, to ease a reliance on foreign oil and gas. Some analysts think this may push demand for Saudi oil, as well as global oil prices, down sharply over the next decade. The prince said: "Our country is facing a threat with the continuation of its near-complete reliance on oil, especially as 92% of the budget for this year depends on oil. "It is necessary to diversify sources of revenue, establish a clear vision for that and start implementing it immediately." The prince said Saudi Arabia should move ahead with plans for nuclear and solar energy production to cut local consumption of oil. The shale oil threat means Saudi Arabia will not be able to raise its production capacity to 15 million barrels of oil per day (mbpd), Prince Alwaleed argued. Current capacity is about 12.5mbpd; a few years ago the country planned to increase capacity to 15mbpd, but then put the plan on hold after the global financial crisis. While most Saudi officials have in public insisted they are not worried by the shale threat, Opec has recognised that it needs to address the issue. In a report earlier this month, Opec forecast demand for its oil in 2014 would average 29.61mbpd, down 250,000bpd from 2013. It cited rising non-Opec supply, especially from the US.

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This is What’s Wrong With American Leftists

The philosophy of leftism requires a complete departure from anything resembling reason. It makes no economic sense, no philosophical sense, no religious sense, and no scientific sense. Leftism requires double standards, inconsistency, hypocrisy, and “doublethink”.  This isn’t popular, of course. We’ve been led to believe that libertarians are paranoid, conservatives are ignorant, and that leftists are the enlightened ones — a glorious gift dumped on our society by the superior minds of the Marxist college professors of the world. But a few minutes and a book on elementary logic should dispel that silly narrative.

Modern leftism can be understood as the philosophy of using government to give “privileges” to the “oppressed” people of the world. Affirmative action, redistribution of wealth for the poor, higher taxes on the rich, insults to the prosperous, etc. It’s the philosophy of the angry and self-loathing person who feels like an underdog… so they’ve decided they want to bully the guy with the nicer stuff to “fight back”. That’s the bitter philosophy of modern leftism. But rather than describe the abstract ideas, let’s look at what the leftist actually looks like in action.

·       A leftist is someone who believes that we need to see housing prices increase, but if a rich man buys another house, he’s bad.

·       A leftist is someone who believes that we need pension funds to be available to everyone in the economy, but that the people who manage investments are bad.

·       A leftist is someone who believes that we need to base our entire economy on consumption and not productivity — and then turns around and blasts America for being too greedy and materialistic.

·       A leftist is someone who believes that the rich should pay their “fair share”, but that that “fair” doesn’t mean the same amount, the same rate, or anything remotely close to equality.

·       A leftist is someone who believes that democracy is wonderful, but doesn’t want to make sure that it’s the people who are doing the voting, and not just political cronies without voter ID.

·       A leftist is someone who protests against police brutality as a general rule, but believes that only the police should have guns.

·       A leftist is someone who believes we’re all just animals, that we should leave nature alone, but at the same time believes that we should heavily regulate human activity. It’s anti-humanism.

Leftism is not a philosophy that is just a little slip up. It is fundamentally wrong and contradictory. It cannot be rational. It is a flawed approach to economics, society, relationships, wealth, and almost everything else. Leftism is a broken shell of a philosophy and the world must reject it or face the consequences.

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The Stuff of Totalitarianism: White House creates ‘nudge squad’ to shape behavior

The federal government is hiring what it calls a “Behavioral Insights Team” that will look for ways to subtly influence people’s behavior, according to a document describing the program obtained by FoxNews.com. Critics warn there could be unintended consequences to such policies, while supporters say the team could make government and society more efficient.  While the program is still in its early stages, the document shows the White House is already working on such projects with almost a dozen federal departments and agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. Efficient?  As in no resistance? Turning citizens into sheep?  Maoism from China?  We all get a little red book!!

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Florida school under fire for pro-Islam, anti-Christian history book

Advanced Placement history students at one Florida school have plenty of course materials on Islam, including 36 pages in the textbook devoted to the religion. But not so much on Christianity or Judaism — and that has one state lawmaker in an uproar. “The book has a 36-page chapter on Islam but no chapters on Christianity or Judaism,” said Rep. Ritch Workman, in Townhall, about the Prentice World History textbook. “It’s remarkably one-sided.  Mr. Workman said the textbook, which has been on the Brevard County schools’ approved course list for three years, also rewrites the history of Islam. He looked through it and found the authors “make a very obvious attempt not to insult Islam by reshaping history,” Townhall reported.  “If you don’t see it from the eyes of a parent, kids are going to take this book as gospel and believe that Christians and Jews were murderous barbarians and thank God the Muslims came along and the world is great,” he said, as Townhall reported.

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Democrats Seek Racial Profiling Ban

Democrats proposed legislation on Tuesday to ban racial profiling by police in response to the death of Trayvon Martin. Under the End Racial Profiling Act, H.R. 2851, introduced by House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ban would be enforceable through the courts. “Recent events demonstrate that racial profiling remains a divisive issue that strikes at the very foundation of our democracy,” Conyers said Tuesday. “Though the death of Trayvon Martin was not the result of a law enforcement encounter, the issues of race and reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct are so closely linked in the minds of the public that his death cannot be separated from the law enforcement profiling debate.”

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Could There Be Valid Reasons for Racial Profiling? by David L. Goetsch

Racial profiling has been a controversial issue in the United States for some time now, but recently it became even more controversial.  In the aftermath of the George Zimmerman verdict President Obama made surprise appearance at a press conference to offer his perspective on the issue of racial profiling.  His comments can be summarized as follows: black men are subjected to racial profiling on a regular basis, and white people need to do some soul searching to determine if their self-protective reactions to black men grow out of racism.

The President told how white women have been known to clutch their purses protectively to their chests when a black man steps into the elevator with them.  He also claimed that white people are prone to lock the doors of their cars when a black man walks by.  The president then revealed that prior to becoming a U.S. Senator he had been subjected to racial profiling himself.  The obvious implication in his comments was that white people go into self-protection mode around black men because they—the white people—are racists.

Let me acknowledge from the outset that racial profiling is a common enough practice in the United States.  Let me also acknowledge that some people who practice racial profiling are racists, and not all of them are white. In fact, people of all races practice their own forms of racial profiling, but this fact is grist for another column.  In this column I focus solely on the prevailing argument that white people who practice racial profiling should automatically be considered racists.  This assumption raises some obvious questions: Do people really profile all black men or just those who exhibit a certain demeanor? Could there be other reasons for racial profiling—reasons that are not driven by racism?  Are white people to blame when they feel threatened by black men?

To answer the first question, I talked with a number of white people—male and female—who were willing to acknowledge they sometimes felt threatened by black men.  However, what quickly became apparent in these discussions is that my subjects did not feel threatened by all black men or even black men in general, just by some black men.  The black men that caused them to feel threatened fit a certain profile: baggy pants, hoodies, tats, and an attitude. Further discussion revealed that it wasn’t the skin color so much as the demeanor that caused these white people to shrink away from black men.  In fact, those I interviewed said they would feel just as threatened by men of any race who exhibited the same demeanor.  In an interesting twist, I asked two black friends about this issue and they claimed to feel just as threatened by black men sporting baggy pants, hoodies, tats, and an attitude as my white subjects.

To answer the second question, one need only resort to elementary logic.  Many people—white, Hispanic, Asian, and black—go into self-protection mode around black men of a certain demeanor because experience has taught them that is the rational course of action.  That experience might have come first hand or it might have come from watching the nightly news or reading the morning newspaper.  In any case, the mainstream media that decries racial profiling as an outgrowth of racism is complicit in that it conditions people to assume that black men of a certain demeanor are automatically criminals.  Watch the nightly news, read your morning newspaper, or go to a movie and it will not be long before you are conditioned to think that all black men sporting baggy pants, hoodies, tats, and an attitude are up to no good.  Although it is unfortunate it is true that the media—intentionally or unintentionally—stereotypes black men in their reporting about them and in their portrayal of them. Consequently, people are conditioned to feel threatened by black men.

The third and final question has to do with whether white people are to blame for the practice of racial profiling.  To research this contention, I sat down with one of my oldest and dearest friends: a college professor and part-time minister who happens to be black.  Like president Obama he has been followed when shopping in a department store.  He has also been subjected to the unwarranted assumption that he got his position as a college professor only because of his race. In short, he knows first-hand how debilitating and frustrating it can be to be unfairly profiled. But he has a different take than most on who is to blame for the practice.  After acknowledging that racial profiling is sometimes the result of racism, he explained that more often than not it is a reaction of people to their experience.

My friend explained that he does not blame those whose experience causes them to feel threatened by black men.  Rather, he blames the sub-set of black men whose actions create the negative perception.  When people become accustomed to seeing black men behaving in destructive ways such as dealing drugs, committing home invasions, robbing convenience stores, fathering children out of wedlock and leaving them, hanging out at times when other people are working, listening to rap music that is violent in nature and demeaning to women, dropping out of school, and intimidating voters, they can be forgiven for feeling threatened by them.  They would be less than rational beings to react in any other way.  President Obama’s plea for Americans to do some serious soul searching concerning what drives the practice of racial profiling is a reasonable request.  But it would have more credibility if he would broaden his request to include black men who need to ask themselves why so many Americans—rightly or wrongly—feel threatened by them.

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