2016: The Year of the Snowflake
As the New Year begins, and 2016 takes its place in history books, there’s no better time to look forward with hope that 2017 might perhaps be a little bit better than its predecessor. It’s also a time to look back at a year that was often exasperating, wildly entertaining, nerve-wracking, inspiring and sad. But that’s how life should be—from the presidential election that ended with a surprise (for Hillary Clinton), to tragedies from terrorists (Orlando) and nature (floods and wildfires); to the success of the American Women’s Gymnastics Team bringing home the gold in the Olympics, 2016 has been a wild ride.
Though the election of 2016 was the biggest story of the year, it will be the gift that keeps on giving to the 24-hour news cycle if these weeks since Donald Trump’s victory are any indication. Calls for the dumping of the Electoral College were resurrected from media, political and academic elites who seem to be clueless as to what it is and why the Founders of our nation were so genius as to come up with it in the first place.
Meanwhile, a new term for the college students who have had their minds completely twisted by said elites has come into our American lexicon: snowflake. This doesn’t refer to all the white things that may now be collecting outside in your yard, but to privileged, white college students who are taught to feel guilty for being privileged white college students. These millennials and post-millennials have been the main people protesting the outcome of our presidential election. Their antics have ranged from the dangerous damage of property to the absurd need many have had to find their “safe space” where they can be free from perceived “micro-aggressions”.
Right after the election, college campuses across the country provided their students with outlets to cope with post-election stress disorder. At Yale—one of our most elite schools—professors allowed students to skip their mid-term exams if they were too upset by the election results to take them. Then there was the University of Michigan that gave its snowflakes Play-Doh and coloring books to help them process the election results. At Cornell University—another supposedly Ivy League campus—stressed collegians could attend a “cry-in” where they found sympathetic staff members who would give them tissues and hot chocolate.
We should all now stop for a collective shudder at the future of the country if these are the ones who will be in charge in 20 years or so.
In nature, it’s said that no two snowflakes are alike, but the same can’t be said for their human namesakes. As much as these people like to believe they are so unique, open-minded and “progressive” (don’t get me started on that one), the truth is, they think alike, argue alike and are as hard to reason with as their guilt-ridden college professors.
Snowflakes have really come into their own in 2016 and it should be interesting to see what else they will find in the coming year to be afraid of from day to day. They have been joined in their post-election malaise by the usual list of celebrities who promised us they would leave the country if Trump won—something that probably gave him at least a few thousand votes…but they also said they’d leave when George W. Bush got elected—and probably said the same when Reagan was president—but still they remain. America will continue to be stuck with Miley Cyrus, Cher, Rosie O’Donnell and other lame-brains into 2017 and beyond.
And the snowflakes will keep being who they are until—hopefully—time teaches them lessons their professors never would: life isn’t always fair and you won’t win every time. So…Get. Over. It.
As The Stomach Turns
Earlier this year, I posted here about how the presidential primaries were much like a reality show. That seems like a lifetime ago, and now that the race is down to the two main parties and a few others that may get more votes this time around than ever before, the 2016 presidential election is much more like a soap opera than a reality show.
Like all good soap operas—if there really is such a thing—certain characters and story lines always show up. Two adversaries who used to be friends (apparently) are battling it out for the highest office in the nation. On the one hand, is Hillary Clinton. From the media’s point of view and her own, she’s the eternal victim. A poor struggling female who, as a young woman, attached herself to a slick but charismatic hillbilly from Arkansas that ended up being the President of the United States.
As she is portrayed in the daily series given by the mainstream media, Hillary is much put-upon and deserves to be president. The Democrat party owes this to her for sticking by her lecherous husband while he was the Arkansas governor, and then after that when he was the philandering president caught having an improper relationship with a White House intern not much older than his own daughter. Hillary, always calculating her own political future, blamed her husband’s troubles on a “vast right-wing conspiracy”, and stuck around, enabling him in his philandering and even being the one to personally denigrate the women he used for his personal playgrounds. In all of this, Hillary championed herself as a defender of women.
After leaving the White House, she and her husband set up residence in New York City in order for her to run for a senate seat there. She chose New York for its ultra-liberal constituents (the city, not the state), and she knew she would need those electoral votes to win the presidency someday.
The soap opera took an unexpected turn as they so often do back in 2008, when Hillary, poised to be the first woman president, lost her opportunity when a young whippersnapper named Obama swooped in and legions of voters who were supposed to vote for her made him the first African-American president. In Obama’s early years as president, he made Hillary his Secretary of State, at least for a time. That was all she agreed to do, knowing that she would need time to run for president again once 2016 rolled around.
When it finally did, the soap opera continued as Hillary battled it out for her party’s nomination with a full-out admitted socialist played by Bernie Sanders (as opposed to a closet socialist like herself). In spite of many years of scandals that were more than just tabloid rumors—her mediocre record as a senator, her many severe lapses in judgement as Secretary of State, and her frivolous lack of care of classified emails—she became the Democrat nominee for president.
Her worst fear was to be running against a Republican from a different generation than herself. Fresh faces with new ideas and more Millennial appeal such as Rand Paul, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio had her campaign shaking in its shoes, as was proven by more October surprises from the now-ever-present WikiLeaks.
Right on cue, however, the Republicans relieved her fears by nominating the candidate she most wanted to go up against: the boisterous real estate mogul-turned-reality show star named Donald Trump. Once a strong supporter of Hillary’s previous political campaigns, Trump appealed to those Republican voters in the primaries who have felt ignored by everyone in Washington for years. Portraying himself as the Every Man Candidate who “tells it like it is”, and helped along by an over-zealous media anxious to see a Clinton-Trump race—millions flocked to his rallies.
The voters, in their understandable anger, turned out in droves for the primaries to vote for the orange guy with weird hair. Others, such as Cruz and Rubio, put up a good fight but were unable—even with some of the most conservative voters—to overcome the adolescent name-calling (“Lyin’ Ted”, “Little Marco”), the media that pushed hard for Trump, and the voters who saw them as Washington insiders and therefore part of the problem.
As was written in that post from months ago, I said that whoever won the Republican nomination would then be taken down by the media when it came to the race against Hillary. The mainstream media is a major character in this drama because they are like the “bad girl” who does whatever she has to in order to get a man, only to drop him for the man (or in this case, woman) she really wants at the first opportunity. The guy who got dumped never seems to realize that she never wanted him all along.
Added to the chaos of the story have been Hillary’s health problems (even some rumors of a Healthy Hillary twin–an interesting twist to the soap opera staple of the Evil Twin); and more October surprises for Trump in the form of his alleged bawdy shenanigans with several women who just happened to come forward at this time to talk about his mistreatment of them. (This is where a good soap opera writer would throw ominous background music into the script and leave the audience hanging).
Much of the audience—the American voters—are hanging. With less than two weeks until Election Day, millions of people have already cast their ballots, and others are just putting off the inevitability of “picking our poison” for as long as possible. They’re scratching their heads wondering where all those women and convenient videotapes of Trump were during the primary, wondering why Hillary isn’t in jail…wondering how we ended up here. Out of more than 300 million people, is this the best we could do?
The thing is, whether you pick the poisonous berry over the poisonous mushroom, you’re still going to get very, very sick.
New Wave
If you were growing up in the 70’s or 80’s, you might remember the ABC After-School Specials that were shown a couple of times each month. These mini-movies addressed issues relevant to kids and teens–some were rather corny, but others pretty hard-hitting for the day. An example of the latter was called “The Wave”, and it aired in 1981. It was based on a real-life experiment that was done at a California high school back in 1967.
High school teacher Ben Ross is teaching his students about the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. After watching some old films showing the victims of Hitler’s Holocaust, the students ask him how the German people could have fallen for such a leader. They wonder how they couldn’t see what was going on in their own country.
With no real answer to give them, Ross decides to try similar leadership tactics in his classroom as Hitler used on Germany. He begins to use a similar cadence in his speech. He says they will call their new movement “The Wave”. He speaks to them of “Strength through discipline. Strength through community. Strength through action.” He insists they stand and sit at their desks in a stiff posture…and he is amazed to find the students doing it on their own, day after day. He even marvels at the whole experiment in a conversation with his wife. When she asks him how far he thinks he can go with it, he tells her, “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”
Within two short weeks, the whole school is caught up in The Wave, with very few exceptions. One boy in particular— Bobby, the class loner, bullied by all—is finally a part of the group. He’s now finally a leader.
On the other hand, Lori, the girl who once was the leader of her peers, finds herself an outcast when this new movement sweeping the school starts to bother her. She takes to the school paper and begins writing articles against it, promoting the idea of individuality and thinking for oneself. She finds herself the target of harassment, threats, and is nearly physically assaulted by her own boyfriend. After nearly hitting her, he comes to his senses and they decide they have to try to do something about The Wave.
This little after-school special from 35 years ago tells us all we need to know about the potential dangers of populism in less than an hour. Of falling for slogans and cheap one-liners from those who wish to lead us without digging deeper to find out what it is this person is really about. Of following anyone who says what they’ve been wanting someone to say for years…of allowing anger and frustration to cloud judgment, even to the point of abandoning your own core principles and individuality.
That boy Bobby is like lots of Americans who are sick and tired of no one in Washington listening to them. They feel bullied and kicked around by the people who are supposed to serve them. They are easy prey for anyone who comes along and makes them believe, “I’ve got your back.”—when really, they couldn’t care less. It was Bobby who was the most devastated to find out that The Wave was really just an experiment…there was nothing real about it. And he was just a lonely outsider once again.
Such is the way of many populist movements. The Little Guy will still be the one left out in the end. If you disagree, think back to the woman who, back in Election 2008 became known as “Peggy the Mooch”. Peggy Joseph was the one who gushed at an Obama campaign rally. “I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car; I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage…if I help him, he’s gonna help me.” When documentary filmmaker Joel Gilbert interviewed Joseph for his film,“There’s No Place Like Utopia” in 2014, she had realized she’d been duped. No longer an Obama supporter, Joseph told him, “He lied about everything.”
I feel compassion for that woman, just as I felt compassion for her fictional counterpart Bobby…for all of the Bobbys and Peggys out there who, time and again, keep looking for leadership in all the wrong places. Even Jesus came upon these types of people—He called them “harassed and helpless”.
In this election, both the Democrats and Republicans have a candidate that many in the media are calling “populists”. Or possibly “faux populists” as National Review refers to them. One promises the debt-laden millennials a free ride for life; the other says all the things his supporters want to hear, but has no detailed plans on how to make them happen…or how we’ll pay for all of it. No one cares. They just want change.
That sounds eerily familiar. “The Wave” is worth watching because it’s very timely. Even compared to other after-school specials of the day, it was exceptional and won many awards, including an Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program. Without giving too much away (in case you decide to watch it in full on You Tube), teacher Ben Ross shocks and grieves his students when he reveals truth to them, asking, “What causes people to deny their own history?”
What’s more, he warns them against blindly following a leader: “You accepted the group’s will over your own convictions, no matter who you hurt. Oh, you thought you were just going along for the ride- that you could walk away at any moment, but where were you heading? How far would you have gone?”
America…how far will you go?
Scene from “The Wave”, 1981
Election 2016: The Series
Today is Super Tuesday Eve. Twelve states and American Samoa will have their primaries to select candidates for the presidency tomorrow. This has been a weird ride as far as elections go, and has all the elements of a hit reality TV show.
There’s a conniving bad girl (Hillary Clinton) who always seems to get her way (and stays out of jail), even as she’s being challenged by a guy with a funny accent (Bernie Sanders) who tells all the kids that if they just pick him—everything will be free (except them). But on the Democrat side, a contest between two aging hippies—one a self-proclaimed socialist, and the other a secret socialist— is not that compelling of a plot for this reality producer. The real dramatics are on the Republican side.
As all reality shows do, it started with a large cast of characters that unlike the Democrats, was really pretty diverse. As time goes on and the stories develop around each person, they rise and fall in popularity…then one by one, they drop out. Amid all the twists and turns of the story, an occasional cameo appearance is made by former reality stars (Sarah Palin), who show up to support veterans of the genre (Trump).
So the primaries are sort of like elimination episodes. After each primary, one or two candidates realize they have no chance to win the nomination, and they bow out. Now, we’re left with these five:
*Dr. Ben Carson– The kind-hearted Brainiac; Will he keep pressing on after tomorrow, even if he doesn’t win anywhere? Or will he leave the race and support one of the winners of previous primaries?
* Ted Cruz– The Underdog Constitutionalist/ Resident Geek; the only candidate with a Super Power (audio-graphic memory). Is he really the biggest liar that Donald Trump has ever met? Trump claims he is (until he later decided Marco Rubio is also the biggest liar), but given that source, it’s highly unlikely. Can he continue to take the fiery darts thrown at him by the other top candidates, and will voters respond in kind?
*John Kasich– The Guy from Ohio; He’s the fly-under-the-radar sort of reality show character who most people forgot about early on but he somehow ends up in the finale of the show. He may win his home state, but does anyone know why he’s still in the race? Does he know?
*Marco Rubio– The “Nice Guy, But…”; Will his tainted past on immigration (Gang of Eight) and status as the Establishment Guy doom him to hoping for a cabinet spot in the Trump administration, or—worse yet—vice president? Is he, as Trump claims, too sweaty to be president? Will he keep reading Trump’s Twitter rantings out loud on the campaign trail? Will he team up with Ted Cruz to form the ultimate Non-Trump ticket?
*Donald Trump– The Flamboyant, Colorful Cast Member; The man currently at the top of the heap, he claims to be an outsider, a non-politician—but is he really? He’s admitted to supporting left-wingers–like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi–that should make any Tea Partier cringe, and says he wants to “make deals”. I thought people were sick of all these kinds of back room deals that gave us disasters like Obamacare. Will this name-calling, misogynistic, billionaire philandering philanthropist continue to court Evangelical Christians and make them believe he’s one of them, in spite of his admission that he’s never needed to ask God for forgiveness? Does it bother him that an infamous KKK member (David Duke) is supporting him? Could he really commit murder and not lose a vote?
* Evangelical Christians/ Religious Folks– Will they show up at the polls, or will they be so disgusted that they sit out like they did in 2008 and 2012, giving us Barack Obama? Will they vote their principles, or —like the “Obamatons” of previous elections that they once criticized—will they just want change without caring about character?
I’ve heard there once was a time when no one knew who the nominees were from each party until they actually held their conventions in the summer. It seems ridiculous that on Wednesday, we should already know who the nominees are when most voters haven’t even gotten an opportunity to vote…eight months before Election Day.
Whatever happens tomorrow, other primaries still remain and the saga will continue to unfold as two eventual nominees face off. Then comes the reality show sequel: “Election 2016: The Media Takedown of [insert Republican nominee here].”
Stay tuned…
Who Are We?
Today is the last day of Hanukkah, and since this is a place where both “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Hanukkah” can still be spoken side by side, I thought it was a good time to share an interesting bit of trivia that I found in a book I read a while ago. On each of the 8 nights of Hanukkah, a candle is lit and prayers are recited. One prayer is a blessing, which begins with the phrase, “Barukh atah Adonai”, which means, “Blessed are you, Lord our God”. Then it went on to explain the word “barukh” means “blessed”, and the Hebrew word it comes from is “barakh” (“to kneel to bless or to kneel to make rich”).
If these ancient words look vaguely familiar, it’s where the African language got its word for “blessed”…”Barack”. This may make you want to scoff and I wouldn’t blame you a bit. Oh, the irony that we should have a president who has a name that means, not only “blessed” but one who kneels down to bless or to make rich. This implies an intentional action to bless.
I would say our president doesn’t live up to his name. The average household has less expendable income than before he was elected. More people are on food stamps. Race relations are worse than they’ve been in many decades, and his idea of “leading from behind” has led to a leadership vacuum here and especially in the Middle East.
Since nature hates a void, it left the door open for the true believers of political Islam such as ISIS to take hold of large swaths of that part of the world, and it remains to be seen how our own lack of real leadership will unfold here in the U.S. Whenever a tragedy strikes, such as the terrorist attack in California, Obama takes that opportunity to lecture us on “who we are”, usually by using the phrase, “That’s not who we are”. Pay attention, and you’ll notice: he says that A LOT.
The truth is, he really has no idea who we are. A married couple, who are now believed to have been part of a terrorist cell, shoot up an office Christmas party and somehow it’s the fault of the guns, or the lack of gun laws…or it’s the internet’s fault. The media and political gymnastics that have occurred in the days since the shooting have been amazing and disgusting to watch. Blaming anything other than the two people and those supporting their attack makes them into victims themselves rather than vicious jihadi Islamists fighting infidels for allah.
So we are told we have to have more gun laws or government restrictions on the internet because “it’s not who we are” to allow mass shootings to keep happening. We’re told we have to open our borders wide to let in more people, even though terrorists have admitted that they have planned to infiltrate the refugee program in order to get here to do us harm. But we can’t ask them too many questions, especially about their religion because that too, is “not who we are”.
Who we are, if the president or any other ideologue cared to ask, is a people who are the first ones to help whenever there is a man-made or natural disaster anywhere in the world. Americans give more than any nation, and have done more than any nation in the history of the world to reach out to poor and oppressed people all over the world. We’re not racist, bigoted people who need lecturing from a person who doesn’t live up to his own name to serve and bless other people. It might be wise for all of us, as we prepare to go into an election year, to remember who we are, where we’ve been, and where we want to go. American exceptionalism isn’t just a platitude used by conservative talk show hosts or an idea denied by liberals—it’s a fact supported by history.
Later this week, I’ll share an example of what every day Americans are doing to go beyond words to action when it comes to saving lives in the Middle East—-and they’re doing it without a lot of fanfare. (check back Thursday afternoon…)
Hats Off!
There’s a comical TV and radio commercial that recently started playing for a bank that’s meant to appeal to the current crop of new college graduates now entering the “real world’. It has a commencement speaker giving the new grads his words of encouragement for their futures. But even as he tells them what bright futures they have, he slams them with the cold hard truth. He tells them they face a future “where student debt crushes your dreams and you’re forced to clean your neighbors’ gutters for gas money…where you move back home and share a bathroom with your younger sister…and the only lasting impression you make is on the cushions of your couch.” Unfortunately, that’s too often true, but that speaker sounds like a graduate of the Barack and Michelle Obama School of Commencement Speaking.
Traditionally, graduation speeches are meant to uplift, encourage and challenge the young people as they begin a new chapter of their lives. It’s supposed to be about them, and the parents and families that helped them make it to their big day. But never underestimate the ability of an Obama to turn a commencement speech into a political rally, saying more about themselves and their pet projects than about the graduates.
Last week, Michelle ranted about race and how unfair her life has been in America when she spoke to graduates at Tuskegee University: “The road ahead is not going to be easy,” said Michelle, “It never is, especially for folks like you and me.” Apparently forgetting she’s married to the most powerful man in the world, she went on to “inspire” the Class of 2015 by listing off all the “slights” she’s had to deal with in her life: “…the clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores. The people at formal events who assumed we were the help.” Michelle wants to party like it’s 1964.
Not to be out-done by the missus, BHO spoke to the graduates of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy about an “immediate national security threat.” Did he enlighten them about the horror stories of ISIS beheadings and how that group now has a training camp just 8 miles south of the Texas border? Did he talk about China or Iran and the Middle East? No…in the world according to Obama, the biggest threat that will come to us is from climate change. He goes through the all the old, tired reasons climate alarmists give such as the breaking up of Antarctic sea ice and last year being the warmest ever…blah, blah, blah. Another wasted opportunity.
In contrast, two other famous African Americans were much more uplifting and less self-centered when called upon to address the Class of 2015:
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice spoke to the graduates at the College of William and Mary in Virginia last weekend. She said as educated people, they have a responsibility to pursue their passions and to be optimistic, telling them, “I know that cynicism sometimes comes with education, but we have reached a level of prosperity and freedom never seen before and although there are still problems, educated people should be hopeful of solving them.”
…And at Dillard University in New Orleans, actor Denzel Washington took an unabashed spiritual approach by telling the graduates to “put God first in everything you do.” He said, “True desire in the heart for anything good is God’s proof to you sent beforehand that it’s already yours. … When you get it, reach back, pull someone else up…Don’t just aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference.”
Now those are words you can build a life upon.
Unfortunately, the Obamas have squandered every opportunity they’ve ever been given to really inspire and bring people of all backgrounds together. They could have told their stories from the point of view that less than 50 years ago, it wouldn’t have been possible for a half white/ half black man to be president, but look how far we’ve come. They could have encouraged the students by letting them know that when they put their minds to it, they can achieve great things in America.
The only consolation is that few, if anyone, ever remembers what a commencement speaker says on Graduation Day…when the Obamas speak, that’s probably for the best.
One-Man Nation
There’s an old Chinese proverb that goes, “May you live in interesting times.” Well really, it’s more of a curse that one might speak to an enemy.
Yesterday, progressive Republicans joined their fellow progressives on the other side of the aisle and voted to confirm a far-left radical as Attorney General. Loretta Lynch has promised to continue the same utter contempt for the Rule of Law (The Constitution) that her predecessor practiced. She didn’t say that in those words, but that’s what she has to offer…more of the same lawlessness. In voting for her, those senators are condoning the current business-as-usual, where laws the president doesn’t like are ignored. They agreed to not reign in a president gone wild, so the next year and a half should be interesting to say the least.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz didn’t stick around for the actual vote (mostly because he rejected the idea of this person being considered at all given her radical views on issues like amnesty and border control). He did vote against her when they were deciding whether to bring the issue to the floor, which he considered to be the more important vote. He had a few words to say before votes were cast however: “We have a nominee who has told the United States Senate she is unwilling to impose any limits whatsoever on the authority of the president of the United States,” Cruz said. “In the next 20 months, we are sadly going to see more and more lawlessness, more recklessness, more abuse of power, more executive lawlessness.”
As usual, the vote to proceed to the vote that confirmed Lynch came about after weeks of back-and-forth: then Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell made a deal. The Republicans in charge would vote to continue with her confirmation if the Democrats would stop stalling on another bill involving human trafficking. Apparently, Democrats were holding out on some wording in that bill involving abortion funding with taxpayer money. Also as always works for Democrats, they claimed Republicans were being racist and sexist in holding up the Lynch confirmation (she’s the first Black woman in the AG role).
So even now that Republicans hold both the House and Senate, they still can’t seem to agree to do anything but agree with Democrats, who they want us to believe are the Spawns of Satan during election seasons…but really they are not any different. The result is still the same: President Obama will continue to shun The Constitution and insinuate himself into more and more areas that our Founders never meant to be controlled by one person who’s totally out of control. Congress, for whatever reason, doesn’t want the responsibility demanded of them under the Constitution. They just want to get ready for their next elections.
Fundamental Change: Taming the Internet
In yet another example of fixing something until it’s broke, the Obama administration’s Federal Communications Commission is set to vote today on new rules for the internet. The last truly free place to express yourself without having to go through some agency of the government is set to become the next messy bureaucracy.
The plan, in short, is to classify the internet as a utility under the Communications Act of 1934. Progressives are so forward-thinking, aren’t they? Who else could conceive of regulating 21st century technology under the same provisions that began regulating telephone usage more than 80 years ago? The process could give federal regulators the power to impose “net neutrality” rules, which would prevent internet access providers from favoring some content and applications over others.
The details of the plan have not been made public, and are said to outline more than 330 pages of details on how best to regulate the internet to keep it “fair and open”. It seems to be that already, and the president and FCC appear to be trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist yet—and may never exist.
Right now, when someone gets an idea for an online business or a blog, they can just do it. There is no going to any government representative for licensing, paying taxes, etc. Imagine the possibility of there being an Internet Commission or Department of the Internet which would charge licensing fees for various internet activities. Citizen journalists sharing information and giving opinions on current events could have to go through licensing to be able to report on important topics that mainstream media refuse to cover. These are just a couple nightmare-ish possibilities that could be in our future if we don’t make our voices heard today.
Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban (who’s not known for being particularly conservative) explained in an interview with Glenn Beck this week why net neutrality needs to be defeated. (WATCH HERE).
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and chairman of the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler asking him to temporarily postpone the vote and release the plans to the public for 30 days to give people time to look at it. However, as of this writing, his request has fallen on deaf ears.
Because of the hasty and clandestine nature of the vote that’s taking place (by 5 un-elected FCC officials), many are comparing “net neutrality” to the passage of Obamacare in 2010. Do we really want to give the government more power over something that is this big, this important for making all voices heard? Do we really want to give control over the internet to the same people who couldn’t successfully launch a website themselves? (i.e. healthcare.gov). We need more talk—not less. This should be something liberals, conservatives and everyone in between should able to agree upon.
Remember…if you like your health insurance you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor…if you like your blog, you can keep your blog.
***UPDATE 2/26/15 4:55 pm CENTRAL TIME: THE FCC VOTED ALONG PARTY LINES TO APPROVE NET NEUTRALITY. LAWSUITS ARE EXPECTED***
IF YOU WANT TO SIGN THE PETITION AGAINST THE FCC’S NET NEUTRALITY GO HERE.
The Hand That Holds the Pen
Once upon a time, in the 1980’s through the ‘90’s NBC had a Thursday night primetime line-up of shows that were such power houses at the time, they used to refer to that night as “Must-See TV”. Tonight, that should be the case when the president takes to the microphone—and to his teleprompter—to let us know that he’s finishing his fundamental transformation of this country with an executive order that he’s planning to sign tomorrow making legal citizens out of millions of illegal aliens. Normally, I wouldn’t think any speech by this president is worth watching since he’s already proven time and again to be an adversary to the truth.
But this is different. Tonight, by his own definition, he stops being our president and becomes the emperor. This should be a speech every network would want to air, but they most likely won’t because normally, when the president speaks, his people would request that time so the speech can be shown in primetime. The administration never requested the time for this speech, but what’s more interesting is which network he did want to be seen on tonight. Obama’s speech will be shown on Univision, the network for Latin America, on a night when it will have a large audience watching the Latin Grammy Awards. In fact, the awards show will be pausing to air Obama’s speech so he can be sure that those he most wants to hear his words will hear them.
On this night, our president will thumb his nose at the Rule of Law; at the voters who recently rejected his policies, the immigrants who are here legally, working and saving their money to go through the proper channels toward citizenship…and to the black community and lower-income workers that even he once admitted would be hurt the most from mass amnesty.
What he’s about to do is not welcomed by most Americans, whether they were born here or not. Criticism for his pending actions is being made all over conservative media, but no one makes a better case against Obama than the man himself. In 2006, in his autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, he said that large numbers of illegal immigrants coming across the border are detrimental to those already struggling here since it will harm “the wages of blue-collar Americans” and “put strains on an already overburdened safety net.”
That wasn’t just something he said in the book. He stated similar concerns while he was running for re-election and told his pro-amnesty followers that he didn’t have the authority to do what he is about to do tonight. He said it so many times, it makes it seem like he’s a man that protests too much. After almost six years in office, he’s shown that he’s calculating enough to have been planning to do this all along…especially if his party ever lost control of both houses of Congress. With nothing to lose himself, and apparently no will among enough of the leaders in Washington to hold him accountable, Obama is a government unto himself.
Before you think that this is just the rant of some blogger living in Red State America, check out a compilation video from Washington Free Beacon that highlights Obama Past criticizing the actions of Obama Present. Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States once said, “It’s not the hand that signs the laws that holds the destiny of America. It’s the hand that casts the ballot.”
However, President Truman could never have imagined Obama’s America, where up is down; solid is liquid, and the Constitution is…well, it’s treated much like a baby treats a diaper.
Liberty Belle Blog 