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As a letters to the editor junkie, I can’t help looking to see what kind of insanity is whirling around in the minds of the readers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. For the past several days, numerous letters have been written in lamenting the death knell of democracy and freedom thanks to the US Supreme Court’s 5 to 4 ruling that the First Amendment actually means what it says instead of something else entirely.

The letters are full of harsh language decrying a ruling which they claim results in America being made subordinate to those evil corporations. Apparently it’s OK for George Soros and his minions at MoronsDotOrg, VoteForLiberalVets, Catholics Against Catholicism and the rest of them to spend millions of dollars on attack ads, but it’s the end of civilization if corporations tell us who they like for president.

So the letters have been pretty crazy, but this one wins grand prize in the off the deep end competition:

The people of this country have had their right of representation usurped by monied interests for far too long. Now the Supreme Court has not only overstepped its bounds, it has made a mockery of the balance of power and of government of the people, by the people and for the people (”Court Lets More Corporate Cash in Politics,” Jan. 22).

This must be overturned by the other branches of government, and those justices must be dealt with as traitors to the Constitution and the principles upon which our nation was founded.

PHOEBE WOODING
Edgewood

“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” The First Amendment was written in order to protect exactly the kind of speech that these unconstitutional laws were restricting – political speech. The First Amendment doesn’t state that Congress shall make no law abridging the speech of “a person” or “people”. It states that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, period. And, no, endorsing a candidate for president isn’t like yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.

That someone like Phoebe Wooding can actually write a letter like this, send it to the Post-Gazette, wait for them to contact her about it, and tell them that it’s OK for them to put it in the paper is unbelievable to me. Granted it only appeared in the online version of the letters to the editor, but still. The US Supreme Court struck down precedent in favor of the actual text of the US Constitution and this woman calls them traitors to the Constitution?

But honestly, what can we expect from the left? After all, through their evolutionary progressive tactics they have built up decades of “precedent” which has morphed the First Amendment from this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Into this:

Nobody in a government building or at an event which has any connection with government whatsoever, no matter how tangential, shall ever pray out loud, state the name of Jesus Christ, or otherwise acknowledge religion in any way. Speech is only free if it’s not “hateful”. “Hateful” speech means anything that liberals don’t like. Liberal people have a right to peaceably assemble, but far-right teabaggers are inciting violence and riots and should be stopped. You may petition government for a redress of grievances, unless the president is black, in which case doing so means you are a racist.

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Finger in the wind, Montgomery County’s Joe Hoeffel decided this was the year he could run for Governor as an unrepentant liberal progressive. See here & here.

Yeah.

Fair or not, voters have distaste and distrust this year for any candidate running under the “progressive” banner that was so wildly popular just last year.

“I essentially believe that ‘progressive’ is the wrong “P” to be describing yourself as this cycle,” said a Democratic strategist working on congressional campaigns across the country. “ ‘Populist’ is the way to go.”

Candidates, he said, should appear as an outsider who will fight for Main Street, not Wall Street.

Because the concerns of independents will continue to dominate the electoral landscape, the best that progressive candidates can do is to emphasize the overlap between progressive thought and populist ideals, such as reining-in corporate greed and influence.

In 2008 Barack Obama and Democrats won a sweeping victory through a somewhat uneasy coalition of progressive Democrats and a large wave of independent voters seeking populist change.

But President Obama and Democrats in Congress have not delivered to either group, which has tarnished their brand, especially the progressive label.

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Sen. Anthony Williams’ Racist Remarks Are Disgraceful

By CHRIS FREIND

If you’re wondering why race relations in America haven’t improved at all, look no farther than the recent comments of state Senator Anthony Williams’ concerning the current field of Democratic gubernatorial candidates.

Fueling speculation that Williams, who is black, might throw his hat into the race, the senator ranted that none of the four Democrats was giving any attention to the black community and the issues faced by that constituency.

In other words, since they are all white, they were just catering to Whitey and ignoring everyone else.

Gee, and I thought campaigns were supposed to be color-blind.
Williams is correct that none of the Democrats has workable solutions to the monumental problems we face —black or otherwise. Ironically, it is the Republican platform that holds the key to success for Williams’ people.

But here’s the bigger irony: so-called black leaders like Sen. Williams’ do more to harm their “own people” than any white politician ever could. Despite the majority of black Americans holding Republican, and in many cases conservative, values, their black “leadership” sells them out time and time again by perpetuating policies destined to fail.

A look at Williams’ hometown of Philadelphia gives a startling example.

The city has been under Democratic leadership for sixty years — one-Party rule with no competition. And how has that bastion of leadership fared?

Philadelphia has the nation’s highest rates of murder, violence and poverty. Its educational system is abysmal, with many of the public schools being deathtraps, totally devoid of all learning and where survival is the first—and only— order of the day.

But that’s just the beginning.

The city’s pensions are insolvent. The business climate continues to decline due to the brain drain of our best and brightest. The tax system is so onerous that it ranks as worst in the nation. Its court system has completely imploded. People and businesses continue to flee to more fertile areas.

And the city’s reputation for corruption and pay-to-play is legendary.
So what do people like Sen. Williams do to address these problems? And, by the way, since the city’s population is majority black, these would be the problems facing “his” people.

Here’s the cruel joke. Williams’ actions, not those of The White Man, keep his constituents down and out, ripping hope away from the very people who most need help.

Williams’ solution to the terrible business climate? Raise the city portion of the sales tax by 100 percent and make no payments to the pension plan for two years. Brilliant Anthony! Penalize those who can least afford it (it is undisputed that a sales tax is the most regressive tax) and renege on the promises made to retired workers.

And what about education? Throw huge money at the schools, appease the powerful teachers’ unions, look the other way, and pretend that the results will somehow change. It hasn’t worked in decades, and it never will.

Until we get serious about providing a quality education in a safe learning environment, our students —our future— will continue to be thrown into the world as functional illiterates. And after the last flame of hope is extinguished for these children, they resort to violent crime because they have nothing left to lose.

The cycle simply perpetuates itself. Over and over again.

It is clear that the Democratic Party doesn’t have the answers, because nothing it has tried has worked. The GOP, on the other hand, has the solutions. It just needs a powerful and courageous leader to articulate the message. But leaders in the Republican Party are in short supply.

Up until the 1930’s, the vast majority of blacks were Republican, members of the Party of Lincoln. Why the Party and one of its natural constituencies parted ways is for another column, but there’s no reason that separation has to continue.

Consider:

Who wants and needs school choice more than the black community — people who, more than anyone else, have no choice in their children’s education?

Who advocates tough-on-crime legislation and gun ownership so that neighborhoods can start to thrive again, where children don’t have to sleep on the floor to avoid bullets?

Who is hurt the most by ever-increasing taxes, fees and regulations, and who needs a healthy business climate to attract and keep the good jobs necessary to provide opportunities and sustain families?

What ethnic group more than any other opposes gay marriage?

The answer to these questions is that all Pennsylvanians benefit from these common-sense, free-market answers to our toughest problems. But for those among us who are suffering the most, these Republican-oriented ideas are more than just workable and proven solutions. They are the difference between hope and despair— life and death.

So let me shout it to those in the cheap seats one more time (that’s you, Sen. Williams): quit the race-baiting game and stop being part of the problem. If you truly want to do something for your “people,” then embrace the solutions that will get the job done.

Anything less is just….racism.

Chris Freind is an independent columnist and investigative reporter whose news site, The Artorius News Bureau, is slated to launch in mid-February. Readers of “Freindly Fire” hail from six continents, thirty countries and all fifty states. Freind also serves as a weekly guest commentator on a Philadelphia-area talk radio show, and makes numerous other television and radio appearances. He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com

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Reg Henry, one of the many sardonic, conceited liberals at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is not happy about Scott Brown’s victory:

And as we were recalling old times, the people of Massachusetts who recently thronged the streets for Ted Kennedy’s funeral were busy repudiating his life’s work by electing a Republican senator and making health-care reform well nigh impossible.

Henry goes on:

I returned to find a story in the Post-Gazette that said that Republicans think this is just the beginning of health-care reform and that their proposals will soon take flight.

Pull my other leg, it’s got a bell on it. If the Republican Party cared one whit for health-care reform, it would have done something about the growing crisis in the years when Bush had complete control of Congress. This “health care reform is just beginning” talk is merely a fig leaf of political cover. Clever as always, the Party of Family Values is vaguely aware that its vindication has come about by screwing countless families.

Do you see the gaping flaw in logic here? I have to wonder if Reggie does, and he’s just pretending that he doesn’t, being a dishonest liberal. But, I’ll just assume that he doesn’t see it, and perhaps he’ll read this and be informed.

First he tells us that Scott Brown’s victory has made “health-care reform well nigh impossible”. Why is that? Because the Democrats are left with 59 votes in the Senate, which is not enough to end a filibuster. In other words, in order to accomplish something that the other party opposes, Henry is telling us that you need a 60 vote majority in the United States Senate.

Now, class, who can tell me how many Republican Senators President George W. Bush had in office while he was president? If you answered “Fewer than 60″, you remember more about the last 8 years than Reg Henry does.

President Bush was in office from January 2001 until January 2009. Here is the breakdown of the US Senate during those years:

2001-2003: 50 Republican Senators
2003-2005: 51 Republican Senators
2005-2007: 55 Republican Senators
2007-2009: 49 Republican Senators

During the Bush years, the Republican-controlled Congress did indeed attempt some rational health care reforms, such as tort reform and making it possible to purchase interstate insurance coverage. Oddly enough, Reggie seems to have forgotten that all of those attempted reforms were blocked by the Democrats… just as the Democrats blocked Republican attempts to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Democrats blocked Republican attempts to pass pro-life legislation. Now Republicans are blamed for preventing health care reform, for destroying the economy, and for not doing enough for the pro-life cause. Isn’t that interesting?

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Yesterday was the Second Boston Tea Party. I declare today to be National Tea Party Schadenfreude Day.

Chris Matthews’ last ditch effort:

Cry, Olby, Cry.

I can’t wait to hear from Ed Schultz, who has apologized for saying that he would commit election fraud if he lived in MA:

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The “left-wing Rush Limbaugh” has said that he would commit election fraud to get Coakley elected in Massachusetts. Shocking? No! Typical liberalism!

Via Hot Air, Ed Schultz on Brown: “I’d cheat to keep these bastards out”

Meanwhile, Coakley continues to commit gaffe after gaffe as she seems to be trying to lose an election which should have been a sure thing. After dissing the fans of the Boston Bruins who attended the Winter Classic, now Coakley says that Curt Schilling, the famous Red Sox pitcher, is a Yankees fan.

And now UPS has taken issue with a mailer sent out by Coakley which attempts to mock Brown at the expense of UPS employees. You know, those kind of blue collar, working class people that Democrats claim to represent.

Scott Brown for US Senate

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That claim is absurd on its face; a naked attempt to marginalize the Tea Party movement, which is based in libertarianism (small “l”), not necessarily conservatism.

“Hard right”, “far right”, “right-wing extremist” and similar terms are code words used by liberals to describe people they find to be utterly contemptible regardless of their actual political leanings. For marching in the streets against the Obama agenda, Tea Party folks have earned the “hard right” designation. It doesn’t matter what their political parties or agendas are. The same goes for pro-lifers, of whom liberals speak less favorably than they do of al Qaeda.

“Hard right extremist” is essentially a euphemism for “knuckle-dragging Neantherthal”, “misogynistic racist”, and all of the other wonderful examples of high-minded liberal discourse which we hear from our Democrat masters.

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Fred, this is not the first time a liberal has made such an argument. Newsbusters pointed out when Thomas Friedman of The New York Times made the same case. I would not be surprised if the person who wrote that letter in to the Post Gazette is an avid reader of the NYT and watcher of MSNBC, two big proponents of leftist tyranny.

We see media bias here as well. Imagine if, during the Bush years, a prominent conservative columnist were to say, You know what? We need one-party rule, because these damn Democrats keep preventing us from cutting taxes, winning the war on terror, and restricting abortion. These Democrats shouldn’t even be allowed to object to what we’re doing. Can you imagine the outrage? But when the NYT says the same thing against Republicans, nobody cares.

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President Andrew Jackson prided himself on being the first “outsider” to ascend to the White House. From George Washington to John Quincy Adams, America’s first six chief executives were creatures of the Eastern aristocracy. Jackson, however, was not a member of this established order. While the Founding Fathers sought to apply the ideals of the revolution throughout their terms in office, they were ever cautious of the threat of mobocracy. Political giants of the Jacksonian era, men like Senators John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, worried that the president’s popularity with the “common man” would diminish their congressional powers and foment a monarchy or military dictatorship.

Old Hickory, of course, viewed the situation in a much different light. Furious that an apparent “corrupt bargain” between Clay and Adams had solidified his electoral defeat in 1824 (despite having won the popular vote comfortably), Jackson captured the presidency in 1828 and again in 1832, determined to serve as a steadfast representative of the people. The political battles his White House waged with Congress, most notably on the issue of the recharter of the powerful Second Bank of the United States, focused on Jackson’s desire to play the role of Robin Hood to the nation’s elite—in essence, to weaken the monopoly of power in the hands of the few. At a time when settlers grappled with the thorny issue of Indian removal in places like Florida and Georgia, and South Carolina leaders frustrated by high tariffs threatened secession, Jackson always trusted the will and wisdom of the majority.

American Lion, author Jon Meacham’s seminal examination of Jackson’s life, notes that the president favored the work of the French philosopher François Fénelon in Telemachus. After years of political education under his mentor, Telemachus asserts that the “multitude, though fickle and capricious, does not fail sooner or later to do justice, in some measure, to true virtue.” Such words, no doubt, were akin to Jackson’s own convictions. He was aware that leadership was tragic, roiled by “disappointments and injustices and failures of imagination…” Jackson, Meacham posits, “understood that governing was provincial—no single bill or single election would ever bring about the perfections of all things–but his experience suggested that the American people, if given world enough and time, would come to a right conclusion.”

Speaking in the days after Jackson’s death, historian George Bancroft said “that the whole human mind, and therefore with it the mind of the nation, has a continuous, ever improving existence; that the appeal from the unjust legislation of to-day must be made quietly, earnestly, perseveringly, to the more enlightened collective reason of to-morrow…” As Jackson was known to say, “the people, sir—the people will set things to rights.”

Political scientist John Mueller reminds his audience that democracy is naturally based on apathy, discord, hasty compromise, inequality, and “manipulative scrambling by special interests.” Even if large and controversial solutions to national problems garner enough support, they are likely to be severely compromised compared to their original composition. This dynamic was on display in recent months during the health care debate, as Democrats did battle over the public option plan and other progressive priorities. What happened to the tense days late last year when the electorate appeared ready to back extreme measures in the face of widespread economic distress? What of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s infamous, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” pronouncement? The reality, though, paints President Obama as a lonely voice of power amid outcries from both his liberal base and the center he struggles to hold.

Like Jackson, Obama came to Washington as a self-proclaimed outsider; he applied lofty rhetoric in his promises to foster bipartisan support for an agenda that would tackle growing concerns in the health care, energy, and financial sectors. Obama spoke often of the necessity of restoring the trust the American people once held for their national government. The current administration was hailed as the next champion for the rights of the struggling masses, those whom were mistreated by greedy Wall Street bankers and nearsighted bureaucrats. In Jackson’s terms, the aristocracy or privileged class. Yet, after a year of rancor and infighting, Obama was left to dump the public option, cater to Democratic legislators opposed to abortion, and shower benefits on key states to produce those 60 critical votes in the Senate chamber. As Mueller made clear, freedom is unfair because it grants access and equal opportunities to all so that they may make themselves politically unequal in influence and power.

No matter what comes of the combined health care bill expected in the months ahead, Obama’s Washington would be wise to remember the words of a forgotten figure from the age of Jackson. Edward Livingston, serving as a senator from Louisiana from 1829 to 1831 and later as Jackson’s secretary of state, warned against zealotry and the “excess of party rage.” He called for calm and common sense at the height of such heated discourse:

It arrogates to itself every virtue, denies every merit to its opponents, secretly entertains the worst designs…mounts the pulpit, and, in the name of a God of mercy and peace, preaches discord and vengeance; invokes the worst scourges of Heaven, war, pestilence, and famine, as preferable alternatives to party defeat…”

Democracy has its limitations. The difficulties of governance produce special interests, political deals, and questionable compromises that, more often than not, lead nowhere. Through it all, the people “will set things to rights.” Progress is slow and incremental; if the health care bill is flawed and ineffective, new legislation will account for previous failures and the social contract will move forward. As it was in Jackson’s America, so it remains in Obama’s.

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At least the half that opposes ObamaCare:

Well this makes perfect sense, coming as it does from the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world. If you oppose the complete socialization of one-sixth of our economy and a trashing of our Constitution and our founding principals, you must be a crazy birther, militia man or….a racist.

I devoutly hope that the news that fully one out of every two Americans is dangerously insane doesn’t make those poor, well meaning socialists liberals afraid to leave their homes.

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Chris Matthews… unbelievable!

Yes, that was Chris Matthews referring to West Point as “The Enemy Camp”. So now it’s not just conservatives who are America’s enemies according to Chris, but our military cadets as well. How low are liberals allowed to sink before they are fired?

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November hasn’t really been a good month to be a liberal. Consider:

1. Republican victories in Virginia and deep blue New Jersey,

2. Gaping holes exposed by Major Nidal Hassan in our national security that were created by nothing more than political correctness,

3. Dithering on Afghanistan continues; soldiers die.

4. Gitmo not closing in January 2010. Maybe ever.

5. 9/11 mastermind KSM gets constitutional rights and a civil trial in the city where he killed over 2,000 civilians so Obama Administration can put the Bush Administration on trial at the expense of national security.

6. Obama, the famous Constitutional scholar, publicly declares the outcome of KSM’s trial already pre-determined. Oops— must’ve forgotten about that pesky “due process” thingy.

7. Bow to Chinese leader: Bad form. Again.

8. New government created mammogram and cervical cancer screening guidelines that smack of health care rationing just in time for the health care reform vote,

9. Health care reform now more “strongly opposed” by 2 to 1 of those who “strongly favor”

10. Stimulus money goes to fictional congressional districts, creates or saves thousands of fictional jobs.

11. The leaked emails from Global Warming World Headquarters suggesting data manipulation: “I don’t see the trend….”

12. Sarah Palin’s approval numbers virtually identical to Obama’s.

13. The final insult and most deeply felt blow: Saturday Night Live skewers Obama with an incisive skit over his Administration’s spending proclivities.

One can only conclude that November 2009 has been a very bad month to be a liberal. And it has been a very good month to be a conservative.

And yet. There is still much much more to be done. We are still fighting a majority in the House and Senate, a mainstream media that has simply become the propaganda arm of the Administration and a vocal, hysterical and dedicated far left that put these radical leftists in power. We must not lose focus: the biggest battle facing conservatives, indeed the biggest problem facing ALL Americans who honor our Constitution, is the defeat of the abomination called “Health Care Reform.”

Keep the pressure on. It’s working; they are crumbling.

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There is much to say about Sarah Palin, but I think that the most apt observation to come out in recent weeks is that she is a litmus test. In some she inspires an almost Obama-like devotion; in others an irrational seething hate that makes the ire directed at George W. Bush look almost like affection in comparison.

I am one of those who falls somewhere in the middle, though far closer to admiration than ire. I was excited about her entrance into the Presidential race, but I was disappointed that she was plucked from relative obscurity before she had a real record of accomplishment to fall back on (and I do admit, she had a more complete record and more executive experience than our current Dear Leader). I also felt that wasting one of our rising stars on a McCain candidacy was lunacy. And now it’s too late.

I have not read Sarah Palin’s book yet, though I probably will eventually. From all of the accounts I have read about it, though, from those of the snarky left to those of the worshipful right, my impression is that this book seeks to be a “reintroduction” of Palin to the American public. The problem is that in reality, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

I could say more about Palin, and probably will in the future, but for now, I’d like to comment on a column by Donna “Alpha Male and Earth Tones” Brazile that appeared today in the form of an advice letter to Sarah Palin:

Governor, despite our many political differences, I would like to encourage you to use your book tour not just to sell books but to also motivate women to run for office and help set a new tone in American politics. You can make a difference.

Although women are the majority of voters, we continue to lag behind and are underrepresented in American politics. In fact, American women rank an embarrassing 71st in the world when it comes to holding elected positions. It’s time we hurry history to encourage more women to enter politics.

Perhaps Ms. Brazile, whose most famous advice was successful only in making Al Gore look like more of a tool than he already was, is unfamiliar with the media campaign against Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin’s story is not going to “inspire” women to go into politics; it’s going to send them in the other direction, running for their lives. The complete vilification of Palin on the national stage was horrifying to watch. And the fact that it was mostly orchestrated by liberal women is an hypocrisy that feminists choose to ignore by talking about how “stupid” Sarah Palin is. They based their argument, I believe unfairly, on painting Palin as an incompetent Barbie Doll. The editors who chose the cheesecake cover photo for Newsweek were women. They are absolutely foaming at the mouth over Palin’s overwhelming popularity because she a symbol of repudiation of absolutely everything they stand for.

These feminists are using the very methods to destroy Palin that they have whined for years about men using against them. And they don’t see the hypocrisy. And even if they do, they don’t care. It’s more important to marginalize Palin. She’s too dangerous to the feminine mystique.

Palin’s experience serves as a cautionary tale to conservative women that there is no low to which the feminists in the media will not stoop to destroy you for the audacity of putting yourself forward as a viable candidate. Don’t think Brazile doesn’t know this and wasn’t part of the public pillory against Palin.

Though mistakes were made in Palin’s introduction to the nation, both by the McCain campaign and by Palin herself, it’s important to remember that it was the feminists who really destroyed her.

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I felt that today was a good day to start writing again. This is because today is the day I say I’m done helping the Republican Party. This isn’t because I’m not a Republican, but because more to the point that I have No Idea what the Republican Party stands for anymore. I’m a conservative on a ship of moderates, which if you translate that to English means that they don’t stand really for anything except the next sound bite that will move that “Party” forward toward power again. The new song today is the same song from yesterday. This is truly one of the clearest moments in all of American History to clearly delineate the differences between Socialist principles and the Conservative values the Republican Party once stood for, what Ronald Reagan once spoke about and lived and breathed everyday proving to the world, Freedom of the Individual versus the Social Justice of the Collective. The chance to succeed or fail based on our own merits and hard work Vs. being just “too big” to fail and it’s our duty to “spread the wealth around”.

Never has there been a time to make such a clear distinction between two differing mindsets….and they fail to do so. And now I know why they have failed to do so: because the “Party mentality” of the Republicans OR the Democrats is not different at all. All they care about is power, and collecting more of it in their hands and not in ours…where it belongs.

Therefore, I now believe that I have no choice but to come to the conclusion of this: There really is no difference between the “Party” mentalities any longer. The Leadership of the Republican Party is not here to espouse my principles, which they “SAY” they believe. They don’t, and now I know it, and now I’m done helping the Party. The party is dead in my heart now.

I now have decided that I will only help individuals in the future. As soon as a Leader steps up to the plate and says “Here I am, with the bumps and hard edges and flaws and foibles of a real human being, and I believe in the Conservative principles of our Founding Fathers” I will be in there corner. This is why I believe that it was a stroke of Pure Genius that Sarah Palin left the Governor’s position in Alaska and tout the Conservative values to everyone that will listen to her. This allows her to get away from what is toxic in the Republican Party, which is the Republican Party, and maybe come back as a leader to show the way back to the principles and values that this great nation, the greatest nation ever, was founded on.

I didn’t join the military, serve my country and potentially risk my life if asked, to serve a “party” or an individual…but the Constitution of the United States of America. That is the oath all service members make. We made an oath to the Constitution. And it’s about time that I uphold that oath once again.

So, I hereby resign my position as a member of the Republican Committee here in Cumberland County, PA, effective immediately. I also re-pledge my oath to the US Constitution, like I did as a member of the US military. The next real candidate that upholds and believes those conservative values and principles espoused in the Constitution steps forward, I will be standing right behind them and helping them move our country back to sanity again, but the moment they forget the principles and values is the moment I leave them in the dust. You are either for our Constitution as the Founders created and intended it, or you’re not and that will determine whether my allegiance is with you OR I’m done with you. You choose.

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Marguerite Sexton, a Democrat committeewoman in Abington Township, Montgomery County is annoyed at “Republican dirty tricks” and political deal making.

Basically, she was offered a deal of “if you don’t campaign, then we won’t,” and then was surprised when there was a GOP mailing that named the Republican Constable, the GOP Constable’s deputy and (I guess) excluded her.

You can read all about it on her blog here.

What really surprised me was this pronouncement:

Last spring prior to nominating season Jon Fox visited me to see if we could make a deal regarding the constable election. His proposal was that I would run for re-election and one of the Smiths would run and we could keep the status quo and nobody would need to spend any money. The only problem was that the Democrats have two outstanding constable candidates: Dave Conway and Ray Keummerle. No deal. Not that I would have been in the position to make one anyway. Democrats don’t operate like Republicans. We don’t do deals.

It got up my “Democrat/Liberal introspection radar”

So instead of blogging about it here, I decided to post a comment on her blog friday night.

Democrats don’t make deals?

What about Joe Hoeffel’s deal with Jim Matthews?

Joe & Ruth Damsker ran against Matthews, and if they had their way, it would have been Hoeffel & Damsker vs Castor.

The guy you would have chased from office is now the lynchpin to Democrat gains in the ‘burbs.

But you’re right, Democrats don’t make deals.

I refrained from adding additional “deals”.

In the interest of completeness, let me list a few.

In addition to Abington’s own Joe Hoeffel deal with Jim Matthews….. MontcoDems chairman Marcel Groen was looing to make a deal to put MCCC board member Andy Cantor to fill a vacancy on the Montco bench. The 69 year old white man could have only served a year before retiring. Presumably for the pension, which would have been reinvested right into the Montco Dems. This from the party of diversity.

Oh… let’s not forget the quid-pro-quo deal with Joe Hoeffel (of Abington in case you forgot), who ran for Lt Gov for 3 days before getting a sweetheart bullshit job in the Rendell administration.

Speaking of Rendell… what about the deal that Governor Rendell and President Obama cut with Senator Specter to bring to the Democrat side?

Perhaps Senator Harry Reid’s deals with Independent Joe Lieberman? We’re still not sure of the deals there.

Bringing it back home, Abington’s State Rep, Josh Shapiro (a Democrat) put together a deal to make Denny O’Brien (a Republican) Speaker of the Pa House for a term. Rep Shapiro managed to get himself named Deputy Speaker, not doubt because of his disarming altruism.

Oh, and now we have word of deals in NY-24. Rahm & Schumer calling Dede Scozzafava and getting her to endorse the Democrat. She was a Republican, I remember.

Now that I got that off my chest, when I posted it, I used the blogger / gmail login ID, which definitely shows my name (or at least Alex C) and definitely my email address, which does contain my name. I’m not sure it shows my website. I also checked the “email me when follow up comments are made.”

When I posted the comment I noted to myself that the comments are moderated.

Marguerite decided to not post my comment. Which is certainly her right.

But strangely, and cowardly I might add, she has the nerve to update her post and say,

As sort of a post script to the above blog entry, which I posted quite late last night, Sat. Oct 30 [midnight is not late!! -ed], some R named Alex C [that's me! -ed] wrote a comment challenging my contention that Democrats don’t make deals. I realized as I was writing that I was using a bit of hyperbole. (Republicans will need to look that up in http://www.dictionary.com/ Democrats will know what it means.) What is not hyperbole and is completely and outrageously wrong, illegal and egregiously without integrity is ATRO and the Smiths did to try to gain an advantage. [Politicians taking advantage? Never. -ed]

Some folks stay up even later than I do paying attention to this kind of stuff. [Again, midnight isn't late, but I'm sure if I posted it at 8am, the outcome would have been the same. -ed] One of the things I enjoy about having my own blog is that it is completely fair and balanced. I get to say all my own fair and balanced opinions and then get to pick and choose which comments (or part of people’s comments) I do and do not publish, such as with Alex C above.

Hahahahahahah!!!!

You were serious and self-righteous in your declarations, Marge. Hyperbole, hardly. Why else would you claim you weren’t in position to not make a deal? Only because you had no move to make.

Instead in your feigned indignance, you got caught blindsided by such a massive deal right under your nose, you didn’t know what to do! Instead of ignoring it and carrying on, you had to react!… and now this post!

Weirder still, she then left this comment (not an update) on her post.

To all my Republican friends who are sending me responses that I haven’t published, please consider signing your names and e-mail addresses. I am not GUARANTEEING I would publish them. But I will ABSOLUTELY NOT publish anything unsigned or anonymouse. C’mon. You know who I am, put yourself out there and then we can know who is talking to whom.

How did I know about this comment? It was automatically emailed to me… because I unanonymously (to coin a word) left a comment on a post she didn’t publish!

Marge, I really appreciate your paean to “we can know who is talking to whom”…. what I don’t appreciate is how you can claim on one hand to be completely “fair and balanced” (haha! Faux News joke!) and on the other hand incompletely represent their message.

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So according to Chris Matthews, old women who pray the Rosary and protest against abortion are very similar to savages left over from the Dark Ages who slaughter women and children and enslave their people with their violent ideology, refusing to let them escape under penalty of death. Nice, Chris.

And Ron Reagan Jr is what you get when the apple falls off the tree, rolls down a hill, gets into a river, flows out into the ocean, washes ashore near a rocket launch site, and is picked up by an astronaut enroute to an M-Class planet on the other side of the Milky Way who tosses the apple away on the alien world because it tastes like crap.

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One of the effects of Administration’s implicit endorsement of the marginalization of half the country is that it not only legitimizes the far left fringe, but it emoboldens the weak-minded, intellectually lazy bullies who can’t come up with legitimate, logical arguments for their positions and conveniently resort to character attacks on their opponents as a means to “win” an argument. See this enlightening thread for a vivid illustration of this dynamic on a local level and how it turns neighbor against neighbor.

On a broader local level, the race card has, perhaps inevitably, been played in the Philly DA race. The article is worth quoting at length so you can judge for yourself whether charges of racism are warranted or are just another attempt to smear a white Republican for the very great crime of being a white politician running against a black politician in a heavily Democratic city:

Three prominent African American supporters of Seth Williams, the Democratic candidate for Philadelphia District Attorney, today accused his Republican opponent, Michael Untermeyer, of “lacking the racial sensitivity” required of a top prosecutor “in an ethnically diverse city.”

Untermeyer, who is white, immediately branded the charge “ludicrous” and “a smokescreen” meant to obscure examination of the campaign’s substantive issues.
“This election isn’t about race … What’s important is that we have the third highest homicide rate of any big city” in the nation, and a bail system that is broken, he said.

Untermeyer showed up uninvited, unannounced and unwelcome at a news conference called by State Sen. Anthony Williams, NAACP President J. Whyatt Mondesire and Rev. Audrey Brunson, president of Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity.

The GOP candidate said he was there only to defend himself, but his presence in the meeting room at the National Constitution Center led to a brief flaring of tempers over whether he had a right to speak at an event planned and paid for by his opponent’s supporters.

The allegations leveled today by Anthony Williams, Mondesire and Brunson stemmed from a comment Untermeyer made two weeks ago in a televised debate. The moderator cited what appeared to be a statistically disproportionate number of blacks from Philadelphia on Pennsylvania’s death row, and asked if “racial profiling” figures into the D.A.’s decisions to seek the death penalty.

“The question is, is there racial profiling, and the answer is no, there is no racial profiling,” Untermeyer had answered.

Williams, the senator, quoted today from a 2003 Pennsylvania Supreme Court study of racial and gender disparities in the criminal justice system. The high court, he said, had found “strong indications that Pennsylvania’s capital justice system does not operate in an evenhanded manner.”

Labeling someone a racist is a terrible smear, and the cavalier way it has been done in the last ten months is criminal. Obama’s insertion of himself into the heart of the Skip Gates vs. the Cambridge police matter, despite his “not having all of the facts” and his subsequent and continued silence on all matters racial, speaks volumes; for Obama, and quite possibly Obama alone at this point, has it within his power to put an end to this this harmful, divisive and inappropriate tactic. And yet he chooses not to. And by choosing not to address inappropriate charges of racism, the first “post-racial” President implicitly endorses them. I have no doubts that this is an intentional strategy on behalf of the administration, especially in the wake of Cambridge.

Commenting on the Barack Obama who addresses the nation as a whole versus the Barack Obama who addresses his wealthy, liberal elite fundraisers (video posted By John Lewandowski below, here) Jay Nordlinger explores this divisiveness a little further in this post, wherin he dismisses the idea that Democrats all think for themselves:

O’s New York commentary reminded me of the notorious Washington Post line, that conservative Christians are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.” When you think about it, Obama has a pretty easy time commanding people — millions of them, including important people in media and academia. Including, almost, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee! But some of us, he cannot command — and he seems not to like or respect us all that much.

Long ago, I grew tired of the conceit that Democrats think for themselves, while the rest of us just take orders from some politburo: composed of Rush, Fox, and whoever. All my life, I’ve heard Democrats quote an old Will Rogers line: “I belong to no organized party, I’m a Democrat.” Ha, ha, ha! Oh, aren’t we grand, we Democrats? We beautiful, smart, unorganizable Democrats! Well, Rogers may have had it right at one time; but in my own time, the Democrats have been a pretty disciplined bunch — and pretty ruthless, when it comes to dissent. When it comes to odd-men-out.

I have 30 more things to say, of course, but here’s one more: Do you recall President Bush insulting Democrats, as Obama has insulted us, explicitly? Sometimes our post-partisan president can be a rather nasty piece of work.

Nordlinger continues with a follow up post, further making the case for a bigger sheeple population on the left:

I think about what I call the “shaping institutions.” For the last several decades, virtually all of them have been controlled or dominated by the Left — meaning, education, K through grad school; the movies; entertainment television; popular music; the big newspapers; the small newspapers (!); television news; etc.

Conservatives have to swim against a pretty strong stream. And we’re the ones who are supposed to drift along? I don’t think so.

And then there’s this delicious anecdote:

Sometime in the late ’70s, Norman Mailer came to Zellerbach Hall at UC-Berkeley to give a talk. The place was sold out. This was during the period when he was writing pieces refuting Germaine Greer. He walked onstage wearing cowboy boots, Levis, and a shirt and jacket . . . and he had a rolling sort of John Wayne gait.

As he stepped up to the microphone, he said approximately the following: “I know that about half of you here tonight hate my guts because of my stand on feminism. So let’s get that out of the way. I want you to hiss me. I want you to let all of your feelings toward me out. Come on, hiss me!”

And the most spine-chilling hiss arose from the audience. It lasted ten seconds. I’d never heard anything like it before, and I haven’t since. It was authentic and deeply felt. And when it subsided, Mailer leaned into the microphone and said, softly, “Obedient bitches.”

The grim reality is that we are a deeply divided nation, and that we are divided on the very question of what our nation should be. We have drifted far from the pure representative republic our founding fathers originally envisioned. As congress has repeatedly overstepped it’s constitutional limits over the years, conservatives should find themselves just as guilty of this big government creep as liberals, since conservatives have only been successful (when they HAVE been successful) at slowing the encroachment of big government rather than stopping it or reversing it.

What exists in this country today is a fundamental difference of opinion on the role of government in American life. About half of the country seems to be in favor of government solutions to just about every problem; the other half seems to be adamantly opposed to more government intrusion in their lives.

Conservatives have what’s left of the Constitution on our side while Liberals are engaging in a fundamentally dishonest campaign. If they want to change the foundations of our country, if they want to toss out, en mass, the limits that the Constitution places on government power, they should be forthright in their campaign. But this is not what they are doing. They claim that the changes they are seeking will leave America intact but this is an outright falsehood. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that what the liberals in power are proposing is a paradigm shift tantamount to a bloodless revolution. And they are counting on the majority of people to be the weak-minded, unthinking sheep that has allowed this big government creep to advance this far. Instead of engaging debate on their agenda, the Administration and liberals in congress are resorting to an organized campaign of bully tactics: silencing their opposition with charges of racism or marginalizing the opposition. In case you didn’t recognize it, this is Chicagoland politics on a national scale.

Here’s Andy McCarthy on the Corner discussing the outrageous existence of a “Pay Czar” (A “Pay Czar”! In America! Who would have ever thought it???):

What they’re trying to establish is the power to control compensation levels, period. In fact, more and more Democrats are making the insane argument that doing this, and much, much more, is within Congress’s purportedly limitless constitutional power to “promote the general welfare.” This is really scary stuff, and I’m afraid I don’t see a silver lining.

I’m gonna plagiarize Mark Levin here. Mark has been recounting how, when FDR foisted social security on the country, his administration told the public it was an insurance program. This was legally dubious — the government has no constitutional authority to force people to buy insurance — so his Solicitor General told the Supreme Court it was a tax, an argument the justices bought.

The moral of the story is that the public pretty quickly loses track of the legal niceties involved when government power expands. They just get used to the idea that this is something government does, and they accept it. That, I think, is what’s going on with the pay czar . . . and health-care “reform” . . . and auto-company takeovers . . . and government taking equity positions in banks . . . and . . . and . . . and . . .

Thinking people of all ideologies should be asking themselves why this Administration needs to silence the opinions of the right instead of engaging them.

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Remember this?

In the days immediately following the election of Barack Obama, some fluffy lefty launched the website 52to48withlove. It was a noble idea–that just because the liberals won the election that we were all in this together. That we were all Americans who had the best interests of this country in mind.

What a difference a few months make.

It was barely a month after Obama took office when the stimulus package was rammed through with nominal “bipartisan” support from the senate’s most notorious RINOs. Conservatives who were opposed to this extravagant spending pacakage and skeptical of the “stimulating” benefits were told in no uncertain terms by HRH Nancy Pelosi to sit down and shut up. “We won“.

Since then, things have decidedly gotten worse. I’ve never been a person who has bought into the notion of the cult of the Presidency–I’ve always had contempt for the mindset of people who blamed George Bush for everything and blindly re-elected the same idiots to congress year after year. I also never saw Bush as a cult of personality, except as a target of unreasonable hatred on the left. Conservatives surely had plenty of reason to be displeased with Bush, especially on the “compassionate conservative” domestic problems. On the right side of the aisle, we are not afraid or averse to question our leaders.

Not so on the left side of the aisle. A true cult of personality surrounds Barack Obama and his followers believe he can do no wrong. As his weak leadership of this country progresses, the uber-liberals in congress are running the show; Obama is merely a front man for the ideas of the radical left.

As Obama’s Presidency progressed, it became more and more obvious that the moderate he ran as was very differrent from the radical that he was. True polical junkies were always aware of this; indeed, many of us are heartsick that our worst expectations of this administration are coming to pass. As this radicalism became more and more apparent, as the power grab became more and more obvious, small government conservatives became more vocal in their opposition to the change our liberal leaders were selling.

And as that voice of opposition grew louder, the tactics to marginalize the opposition grew more radical and obscene. Here, Penn Jillette talks about being screamed at by his idol Tommy Smothers for merely appearing on Glen Beck’s television show. It’s ironic that Smother’s TV show was taken off the air due to organized protests to stifle his free speech when he and his brother spoke out against the Vietnam War. The irony, apparently, was lost on Smothers (h/t Ht Air)

We are silencing free speech by labelling it “hate speech.” Here’s a local example, where at Temple University, Dutch Parliamentarian, and maker of the anti-Islam film “Fitna” Geert Wilders, is protested protested as delivering hate speech. Wilders speech is not only “hateful” in the minds of these PC drones; it’s downright dangerous—not to Wilders himself, who requires 24/7 police protection because of his courage to express his views, but to the Muslims on campus who allegedly have been having “hate and fear thrown at them” for an entire week, simply because this man was coming to speak on campus. (for more on Geert Wilders’ appearance at Temple, go to PAWatercooler here, here and here.)

Fully half of the country, the conservative half, to be sure, has been smeared as racist. This would be less alarming if we were talking about the far left fringe; the punditry and the netroots of Kos, Salon and Huffington Post.

We talk about our opposition to the administration’s policies, and we are labelled racist; we talk about how conservatives are being systematically marginalized and we are paranoid. Ho hum, nothing new.

But now this is coming directly from the White House.

Rahm Emmanuel, Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod have begun a campaign to deliegitimize Fox News as a news organization The President, being interviewed on NBC, tried to maintain some kind of plausible deniability and tap danced around the direct question; but later capitulated and said,

“I think that what our advisers simply said is, is that we are going to take media as it comes,” Obama said. “And if media is operating, basically, as a talk radio format, then that’s one thing. And if it’s operating as a news outlet than that’s another. But it’s not something I’m losing a lot of sleep over.”

This is decidedly unPresidential and incredibly divisive of an already divided nation. It is damaging the very fabric of our country, perhaps irreparably. It is one thing for a liberal pundit to call Fox News “Faux News”, it is another for the White House to do it. It is one thing for one of the Kos Kidz to label conservatives racist, it is quite another for this idea to be repeatedly and implicitly endorsed by the White House.

Yes, Mr. President. There is no need for your to lose sleep over marginalizing fully half of the country. No need to lose sleep over your dismissal of the voices of half of the population.

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How is it that we know who were the nominees for the Nobel Prize? Didn’t we learn back in 2005 that there is no such thing as a Nobel Prize “nominee”?

If you recall, Dr William Hammesfahr testified that Terri Schiavo seemed to have some limited brain function and that it was possible for her to improve with treatment. Dr. Hammesfahr was said to be a “Nobel Prize nominee”, which the killers of Terri claimed to be impossible. According to them, Nobel Prize nominees are kept top secret for 50 years, which means it is impossible to know who was nominated for the prize until after the nominee is extremely old, or dead.

But once again, somehow, we have the list of nominees who were beat out for the Peace Prize by Barack “Mmm mmm mmm!” Obama. How can this be? It couldn’t be that the left is a bunch of evil liars, could it?

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According to Democrat Congressman Alan Grayson, the Republicans just want you to “die quickly” if you get sick. This is similar to the Dems’ old “Bush just likes to torture and kill people” talking point which served them well for several years.

Nevermind that every attempt Republicans have made to expand competition in the health insurance business and thus improve quality and reduce prices has been blocked by the Democrats, who will accept no solution which does not involve a massive expansion of the federal government.

Also of note here is that the writer of this article, Ben Evans of the Associated Press, apparently does not know who Michael Steele is:

Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, who heads the party’s conservative Republican Study Committee, was planning to introduce a “resolution of disapproval” over Grayson’s behavior that mirrors one Democrats approved against Wilson. Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Republican leader John Boehner, said Boehner supports the resolution.

You would think that a reporter with the AP would know that Michael SteelE is the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, not a spokesmouth for Boehner.

That article was published at about noon today. Ben Evans came out with another article on the same topic at about 5PM today, and it seems as though someone bothered to tell him who Michael Steele was before this one was published.

Update

I stand corrected! Looks like Boehner does have a spokesman named “Michael Steel” with no “e” after all, who is a different person from RNC Chairman Michael Steele. Good for you, Associated Press. Bad for me!

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