Category Archives: Republicans

Barry Soetoro Frankenstein (Reply From The Man Who Will Be President)

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Constitution, Economy, Intelligence, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Military, Political Economy, Propaganda, Regulation, Republicans, The State

The following is excerpted from “Barry Soetoro Frankenstein,“ my new weekly column:

In Obama’s simplistic scheme of things—as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, “for the third straight Address, the President’s speech was written at an eighth-grade level”—to recreate the glory of America, it is thus essential to continue to reinvent the state. …

In the spirit of brute-force statism, the POTUS promised a Trade Enforcement Unit to police “unfair trading practices,” and a “Financial Crimes Unit to “crack down on large-scale fraud.” …

Il Duce’s next derring-do? Send him the bill, and the Divine One will even instruct the provinces to incarcerate local kids in high school “until they graduate or turn 18.”

Having used the military to great political effect, Obama now intends to deploy the Department of Defense, no less, in the “clean energy business.” In Obama’s very elementary thinking, the DOD is bound to do a bang-up job.

… From financial aid (for foreign students, no less) to an affirmative-action placement in Harvard Law School, Barry Soetoro is a Frankenstein of the state’s creation. If not for government, Obama would have never managed to write himself into history. As a product of the state, Barry Soetoro sees it as the source of all possibilities. …”

Read the complete column, Barry Soetoro Frankenstein, now on WND.com,

My book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon. (Don’t forget those reviews; they help this cause.)

A Kindle copy is also on sale.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

UPDATE (Jan. 31): Sen. Paul Delivers State of the Union Response – Jan. 24, 2012

UPDATED: State of Disunion (The Barf Rule)

America, Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats, History, Politics, Propaganda, Republicans

Not that the Xbox nation would notice, but there are a lot more flashing images on Barack Obama’s website, at WhiteHouse.gov, than there are written words. As such, not much information is available on the president’s annual State of the Union message.

But like everything in the Constitution, a modest thing has morphed into a monstrosity. Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution required that the president “shall from time to time give to Congress information of the state of Union.”

A “Stalinesque extravaganza” that ought to offend “anyone of a republican (small ‘r’ …) sensibility,” is how National Review’s John Derbyshire has described the State of the Union speech. “American politics frequently throws up disgusting spectacles. It throws up one most years in January: the State of the Union speech,” writes Derb in “We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism,” a book I discussed in “Derb Is Right: ‘We Are Doomed'”

John goes on to furnish the quotidian details of how “the great man” is announced, how he makes an entrance; the way “the legislators jostle to catch his eye” and receive his favor. “On the podium at last, the president offers up preposterously grandiose assurances of protection, provision, and moral guidance from his government, these declarations of benevolent omnipotence punctuated by standing ovations and cheers from legislators” (p. 45).

Then there is the display of “Lenny Skutniks” in the audience, “model citizens chosen in order to represent some quality the president will call on us to admire and emulate” (last year it was the family of the little girl who was murdered by the Tucson shooter).

Derb analyzes this monarchical, contrived tradition against the backdrop of the steady inflation of the presidential office, and a trend “away from ‘prose’ to ‘poetry’; away from substantive argument to “hot air.”

The president of the USA is now “pontiff, in touch with Divinity, to be addressed like the Almighty.”

Prepare to puke.

UPDATE (Jan. 24): THE BARF RULE. The “Lenny Skutnik” for 2012 is …Warren Buffett’s secretary.

Debbie Bosanek “will be sitting with the first lady in her gallery box Tuesday night as President Obama announces his plans for tax reform at the State of the Union address. Bosanek, who has worked for Buffett for nearly two decades, has become as symbol of Obama’s tax reform plan. The ‘Buffett rule,’ named after her billionaire boss, aims to insure that wealthy taxpayers do not pay an effective tax rate lower than their secretaries.” (Via FoxNews)

Prepare to barf.

Rand Paul Manhandled

Homeland Security, Regulation, Relatives, Republicans, Rights, Ron Paul, Terrorism, The State

I far prefer Ron Paul’s strident response to the TSA’s assault on Rand Paul than the son’s watered-down words. To CNN’s Erin Burnett, Rand said, essentially, that the TSA folks were good people bogged down by inflexible rules. He followed up with special pleading.

It is not the first time special interests—House and Senate representatives, for example—suggest a system of sectional privileges and rights, based on professional need and proximity to power. Patrick Smith, the author of Salon’s “Ask the Pilot,” has implied that because of his professional position, he should be entitled to “preferential, alternative checkpoints for pilots.”

Such cloistered concerns typified a 2,000-strong, flight attendant’s union, which has been fielding tons of complaints from its members, who were, nevertheless, none too concerned for their customers, the manhandled passengers.

Noelle Nikpour, contributor to Mr. Sean Hannity’s Great American Panel, is another. Nikpour, a tedious Republican strategist who talks up a storm on that forum, extended her exquisite understanding of individual rights to … people like herself and her co-panelists. You know, important sorts who fly a lot; they ought to be able to acquire a permit that’ll exempt them from being screened afresh as they scurry to their important appointments.

Rand seems to have joined these special-case pleaders in asking for wavers for frequent fliers who’ve been willing to share more personal data with the goons of the TSA.

I prefer the Ron Paul presidential campaign’s “strongly worded statement Monday afternoon, blistering the TSA for its practices”:

“The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe,” it said.

“And Then There Were Four …”

Elections, Military, Republicans, Ron Paul

In choosing Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (40% of the vote), South Carolinian voters showed that they were unable to comprehend that Ron Paul’s message is pro-military. That confused me. If Ron Paul’s support among the military is as large as it is purported to be, why is it that a pro-military state did not warm to the congressman’s message (13%)? Is it because these voters perceive Paul as threatening to cut the Gordian knot or the umbilical cord that sustains them, even if their “jobs” involve fighting and dying for naught? What a shame.

Is it perhaps because soldiers are not nearly as moral as some would like you to believe? You can say that again.

Major Garrett credits Gingrich with uniting “economic, social and national security conservatives”:

Gingrich united all three in South Carolina and his double-digit victory there will go down in party lore as one of the historic snap-back moments for the conservative movement. It’s not as if conservatives didn’t have a voice in Iowa or New Hampshire. They did. But they came together in bigger numbers and with a greater sense of fulmination and rage at what they perceive is the establishment Republican tendency to dismiss or delegitimize conservatives in the nominating process. This grievance has burned with varying degrees of intensity in every nominating contest since 1964 and if it were ever to find its full expression, South Carolina would be the place.

I don’t see how on earth anyone can see Gingrich, the man who describes himself as “a Theodore Roosevelt Republican,” as a conservative.

When all is said and done, “there is no path to the nomination without Paul. All candidates are angling for Paul’s supporters,” seconds Doug Wead, senior adviser to the Paul campaign, who also ensures supporters that Paul is still angling for the nomination.

As National Journal sees it, “for Rep. Ron Paul, it’s all about the delegates. [I]f you win elections and win delegates, that’s the way you promote a cause,” confirmed Paul. “In his Saturday night speech, [Paul] said his campaign will push forward and concentrate on caucus states that award delegates proportionally, because that’s the name of the game.’”