And if you don’t believe how far left the Democrats have lurched when I say it, here’s authentication from Alan Colmes who, after ignoring all the evidence about who Van Jones actually is and what he believes, and pretending that it’s all a Glenn Beck-World Net Daily-Horowitz plot, concludes “Van Jones is a mainstream liberal.” That’s exactly right Alan. And that’s exactly the problem.
How did things get to this pass? Let me just single out one problem, because it’s the one conservatives can actually affect. And that is to start calling things by their right names. The timidity and cowardice of Republicans towards Democratic Party outrages of this nature is a principal culprit. When you call Communists “liberals,” it legitimizes them. The time has come to stop it. To stop the charade, stick your head out the window and say “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Quote of the day – David Horowitz
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009Some things never change – well, except maybe history
Friday, September 4th, 2009I came across two stories today that should serve to remind us how, as time passes, historical accounts of world events become increasingly fluid. The first story comes from Russia:
Half a century of lies have been poured over Stalin’s reputation and he cannot defend himself from the grave so this case is essential to put the record straight…We want to rehabilitate Stalin. He turned populations into peoples, he presided over a golden era in literature and the arts, he was a real leader…” And Zhura was particularly enraged by the claim that “the secret police committed grave crimes against their own people.”
The second story is a bit closer to home, and not as far back in time:
Liberal MP Bob Rae joined our very own Dave Rutherford this morning to talk about the possibility of a November election, which the Liberals strangely seem intent on forcing. You can listen to an excerpt via the audio player at right.
The conversation drifted to last year’s failed Liberal NDP-Bloc coalition during which Bob Rae had some very curious – and inaccurate – things to say about those heady days. One example:
Dave: “Coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition” – didn’t Michael Ignatieff say this?”
Bob: No.
I expect we’ll be hearing a bit more about that last one if the Liberals actually follow through on their recent threat to take us to the polls in the next few weeks.
America, I thought we were friends?
Saturday, August 29th, 2009While the domestic policies of the Obama administration have been dominating most of the headlines since his inauguration, raising very real concern and even dissent at home, foreign policy has quietly been taking shape behind the scenes. While Americans focus on the spectacle of a ballooning deficit as it’s government has taken unprecedented steps to control of the banking, automotive, and healthcare sectors, other countries have been asking the question “What does this administration mean to us?”
A month ago, the heroic leaders of Eastern Europe got down on their knees and begged Obama not to renege on George W. Bush’s promise to give them a missile defense system and not to give in to Russian threats and remonstrations, which were obviously designed to keep the former Soviet slave states within Russia’s imperial reach. Having seen Russian tanks rolling into Georgia, who can doubt that the Putin regime has long-term goals of reacquiring the “sphere of influence” that brought so much terror and loss of life to Eastern Europe just a few decades ago?
With the financial means to exert meaningful influence on the international stage now significantly compromised by out-of-control domestic spending programs, combined with this administration’s apparent desire to apologize for past “American imperialist sins”, historical Western allies do have reason for concern.
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Update: Eastern European concerns go unheard:
WARSAW, Poland – Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern Friday at President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense shield planned for their countries.
“Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back,” the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page.
Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama’s new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous “gray zone” between Western Europe and the old Soviet sphere.
The myth of “free” healthcare in Canada
Friday, August 28th, 2009One of the barriers faced by proponents of healthcare reform in Canada is the popular notion that healthcare in this country is “free”, or at least inexpensive. One of the reasons for this misconceptions is that Canadian clients of healthcare services are rarely ever presented with a bill for the services they receive under the government plan. Unlike virtually every other exchange of services in Canada, healthcare is shielded from the vulgar connection between providing a service and revealing it’s cost. Healthcare services are rendered to Canadians and the bill is never seen by those receiving the service. Not only are Canadians not able to check the bill for accuracy and confirm that services were indeed rendered, but they are denied insight and appreciation for the real cost of the care they have received.
In my view this lack of transparency can only contribute to a reduced regard for fiscal prudence on the part of patients, and an opportunity for error and abuse on the part of healthcare providers.
This lack of transparency is not only present at the point of service delivery, it is also very absent in our taxation system. Canadians are generally in the dark regarding how much of their own money is spent on healthcare services, and believe me: it isn’t free.
An recent article Nadeem Esmail does a nice job of breaking this down:
So how much do we really pay as individuals and families for our Medicare system?
In order to determine a more precise estimate of the cost of public health care insurance for the average Canadian family in 2008, we must determine how much an average family is expected to contribute in taxes to all three levels of government. The percentage of the family’s total tax bill that pays for public health insurance is then assumed to match the share of total government tax revenues (including natural resource revenues) dedicated to health care (22.6% in 2007/2008).
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Looking at common family types, this calculation finds that the estimated average payment for public health care insurance in 2008 was:
- $9,572 for the average 2 adult family
- $9,855 for the average 2 adult and 1 child family
- $10,191 for the average 2 adult and 2 child family
- $3,484 for the average unattached (single) individual
It is critical to recognize that these estimates count only the direct costs of Medicare. They do not count administrative costs subsumed by other government departments that support health care through activities such as tax collection, or other privately borne costs related to the financing and operation of Medicare such as tax compliance or the private burden of waiting for health care.
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Related: After writing this post I came across this recent account of a visit to a major Toronto hospital and I was left wondering if the patient was ever informed of the charges related to that visit. And the logical next question would be “Did the patient feel they had received good value for those costs?”
David Horowitz – “No prisoners”
Thursday, August 27th, 2009I’m just finishing the David Horowitz autobiography “Radical Son“, and as I make my way through page after page of historical references that have shaped the last 70 years of political and cultural activism in the west, I can’t help thinking how important this book is. Even though the book was written 12 years ago, many of those among his cast of characters are very much a part of the political landscape today. Perhaps more importantly, the forces that shaped these characters remain as strong as ever.
If you haven’t already done so, you really should read this book.
David Horowitz recently turned 70. Below is a video from his birthday celebration and “roast”. There are some excellent clips of some of his admirers that spoke at the dinner, but hearing him speak of his own journey is certainly the highlight:
Ouch! Dig deeper, Ontario
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009Today it became public that Hydro One has asked the Ontario Energy Board for permission to raise the cost of distribution to all Ontario customers an average of 9.5% in 2010 and 13.3% in 2011 to cover $266 million dollars in costs relating to their four year Green Energy Plan for 2010 to 2014. By 2011 the impact of this $266 million will be an average increase of 24.3% over two years on the delivery portion of every Ontarian’s hydro bill. Because each public utility is a customer of Hydro One, it doesn’t matter who sells you your electricity – this impacts you.
In February 2009, George Smitherman told Ontarians that the cost to implement the five billion dollars of investment Ontario is expected to make in renewable energy as part of the Green Energy Act would result in an annual increase of approximately 1% per year on the average hydro bill.
h/t to Kate.
The Hypocrisy File – It’s not bad if liberals do it.
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
I find it so strange, that after years of the most vitriolic hate expressed toward any US president in history, that the media would suddenly discover new and imminent threats of terrorism and danger directed at Barak Obama. During the Bush years, where open calls for the death of Bush-Hitler, celebrations of his death in the arts, and internet hate-mongering on a scale never before witnessed (for 8 whole years) … the press and it’s herd of shadowy “experts” seldom, if ever, expressed concern for the safety of Bush.
h/t to Kate.
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Update: Here’s short video that touches on some of the misinformation and hypocrisy coming out of the Obama camp.
Quote of the day: Pamela Geller
Saturday, August 15th, 2009The left should be warned: The libelous smear of racism has lost its sting. If everything is racism, then nothing is. The charge has lost its power. The more that leftists pull this evil trick, the more folks will shrug. The sad and terrible thing is that by using this tactic, the left has obscured the true evil of genuine racism. The fact is, when the left makes everything about race, and sees everything through a prism of “racism,” it shows us who the real racists are.
“Useful idiot”: Oliver Stone
Friday, August 14th, 2009In honour of the Soviet KGB defector, Yuri Bezmenov I bring you Oscar-winning film-maker Oliver Stone:
Oliver Stone will continue his infamous tradition of films about real-world political figures with a new documentary about Hugo Chavez, the flashpoint Venezuela president whose influence the United States has publicly tried to subdue in recent years.
The news comes after Stone blithely weathered the fallout from his breezy Bush biopic W. and a wave of publicity after the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, turned down his request to make a documentary about him. (Ahmadinejad acknowledged Stone’s rebel status in his profession but said he was still part of “the Great Satan,” to which Stone famously said he hoped that the Iranian “experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours.”)True to form, Stone will focus his Chavez documentary on the leftist president’s vast opposition, and he will have plenty of material: Chavez recently introduced legislation that would allow him to remain in office until 2019. Stone has already spent considerable time with Chavez over the last several months, and his film is slated to be finished this year.
Stone’s project is also discussed by Oleg Atbashian:
Thus, Oliver Stone is reportedly making a documentary about Hugo Chavez, whom he describes as an “energetic, principled champion of change in Latin America” and hopes, in Stone’s words, to “capture the spirit of his drive to roll back U.S. influence.” The ability to claim originality while working for decades from the same moth-eaten template makes Mr. Stone an Oscar-winning genius. Is there a chance that in the process of glorifying what he calls the region’s “liberation from the United States,” the legendary director might display authentic originality by interviewing, not a leftist, but a hero of anti-Marxist resistance? Can the devastation inflicted on Latin America by socialist policies persuade Mr. Stone to look beyond the worn-out clichés? We can only wish.
Socialism is alive and well in Venezuela
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009Thirty-four radio stations were closed very recently and legislation was proposed under which “any person who divulges false news through the media that upsets public peace … will be sentenced to prison from two to four years.” The legislation was offered by the attorney general, who said it was needed because of “new kinds of crime that result from the abusive exercise of freedom of information and opinion.”
So of course it is no surprise to see that Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are such good buddies:
In a telephone conversation with the Iranian president, Chavez said, “The victory of Dr. Ahmadinejad in the recent election is a win for all people in the world and free nations against global arrogance,” Iran’s Presidential Office reported. Chavez usually uses the term “global arrogance” to refer to Venezuela’s arch-foe the United States.
And I guess one of my posts wouldn’t be complete without a bit of a poke at Obama, so here you go:
Later, during a group photo, Obama reached behind several leaders at the summit to shake Chavez’ hand for the third time. Obama summoned a translator and the two smiled and spoke briefly.
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Update:
Finally, as we wrapped up our talk, the rabbi fell back on an age-old practice born of last resort for Jews across the span of history who have found themselves in eerily similar straits. He issued an alert, a plea to the outside world for intervention of a sort that he knows has never exactly time-tested well.
“The world should be aware that there is a possibility of something happening in Venezuela,” he said. “And if something did start to happen, the world should cry out.”
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Update 2: Another “useful idiot”:
Oliver Stone is reportedly making a documentary about Hugo Chavez, whom he describes as an “energetic, principled champion of change in Latin America” and hopes, in Stone’s words, to “capture the spirit of his drive to roll back U.S. influence.” The ability to claim originality while working for decades from the same moth-eaten template makes Mr. Stone an Oscar-winning genius. Is there a chance that in the process of glorifying what he calls the region’s “liberation from the United States,” the legendary director might display authentic originality by interviewing, not a leftist, but a hero of anti-Marxist resistance? Can the devastation inflicted on Latin America by socialist policies persuade Mr. Stone to look beyond the worn-out clichés? We can only wish.
If the convention requires this “unconventional” genius to lionize America’s enemies, it’s what he does — not more and not less. Until recently, Stone was rumored to be considering a similar anti-American documentary with the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the recent insurgency against this man in his own country may have convinced Stone to kill the plan as too obviously absurd.