Dereliction of Duty

A recent statement by ABC News reporter and host George Stephanopoulos illustrates in a sentence the extent of liberal bias in the American media. Mr Stephanopoulos was interviewing James O’Keefe, the independent filmmaker who exposed the corruption of the ACORN organization in 2009. During the course of the June 1st interview, Mr Stephanopoulos, apparently with a straight face, said to Mr O’Keefe, “Some of your critics say that you’re more of a political activist than a journalist.”

(http://www.mrc.org/notablequotables/nq/2010/20100611043920.aspx)

The incident is reported in the “Notable Quotables” section of the Media Research Center’s website in a segment titled “Pot, Meet Kettle,” is laughable on its face. Mr Stephanopoulos, who now poses as a “journalist” as the ABC network’s Chief Political Correspondent, was the Senior Political Advisor to the Clinton campaign in 1992 and later became the chief spokesman for the Clinton Administration. Mr Stephanopoulos made a seamless move from the Clinton White House to become a political “journalist” at ABC. No one thought to inquire whether Mr Stephanopoulos’ obvious political biases would be a factor in his performance as a “journalist” at the time.

The reason, of course, is that a liberal political bias is the norm in the American media. It is what is expected. No one refers to Mr Stephanopoulos as “Liberal political correspondent George Stephanopoulos. It’s just George Stephanopoulos. In an article on him in Wikipedia, he is described as ”an American television journalist and a former political advisor.” The fact that he is a liberal is not mentioned. It’s just normal. Everyone with a brain is liberal, right?

Interestingly, a similar Wikipedia article on James O’Keefe describes him as “an American conservative activist videographer.” Conservatives always require the modifier so that we all know they are not quite right. The American media is hopelessly biased and totally unable to perform its constitutionally protected function of informing the American people, and keeping the government honest by exposing malfeasance. Their view, of course, is that no malfeasance could be happening in a democrat administration. Only those awful republican felons, who seek to starve old people and deny medical care for the poor require the scrutiny of the “watchdog” press to keep them honest.

Because they are so ideologically identical to the current political administration in Washington, they see no evil in a government that nationalizes the automobile industry, takes over equity positions in financial institutions, grabs control of the entire health care industry, shuts down deep water oil production in response to one accident, and threatens to add crushing tax burdens on job-producing industries in the middle of a deep recession. Not one of them is asking, “Where is the constitutional authority for the president to do this?” They all just assume that Mr Obama is a liberal democrat, he must mean well. How could he do anything wrong?

The problem is that once a government begins to disregard the restraints placed upon it by its constitution, it becomes a law unto itself. There are no restrictions on its actions and it can exert its power where ever it desires. It may now be a benign oppression, a soft tyranny, but it will not always be so if there is no respect for the rule of law. History overflows with examples of governments that have behaved badly when unrestrained by the rule of law. It’s time for the bankrupt, derelict, lapdog media to realize that if the Obama Administration can ignore the U.S. Constitution with regard to the powers entrusted to the Executive Branch by the document, it can also ignore the Amendments to that Constitution, especially the First Amendment.

Tea Party Violence

As the Obama Administration continues to ram its far-left agenda through a rubber-stamp congress, many thousands of patriotic Americans have banded together in a loosely organized group that has become known as the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement has continued to grow in an increasingly vocal way. Thousands of concerned Americans, many who have never been politically active are responding to left wing excesses in Washington by joining the Tea Party movement in their local areas.

The Obama Administration, and others on the radical left, have responded to the Tea Party movement in the same way they react to any true conservative movement. They have attacked and denigrated the Tea Party movement; they have attempted to marginalize the Tea Party members as right wing crazies, racists, and bigots; even President Obama himself has used the profane term “Tea Baggers” in public reference Tea Party members.

This kind of response from the radical left is not unusual. Those on the left never argue the merits of their ideas and philosophy; they know they can never win in the arena of ideas, and they never try. Instead they attempt to marginalize their opposition as bumbling (Eisenhower, Ford, George H.W. Bush) or evil (Nixon) or just plain stupid (Reagan, George W. Bush). They have suggested that the Tea Party movement is consumed with anti-government rage that is sure to manifest itself in violence and lawless destruction.

The American media, shamelessly carrying the water for the unqualified President they installed in the White House, have missed the point of the Tea Party movement entirely. The Tea Party is not an anti-government movement, it is an anti-illegitimate government movement. Any government that governs against the will of the people and contrary to the form and structure of the U.S. Constitution can only be regarded as illegitimate.

The American people have watched patiently for the last 80 years as the elected officials in Washington have taken tiny steps away from the U.S. Constitution, beginning with the Roosevelt Administration in the 1930’s. But, like a frog being cooked slowly in warm water, we have acquiesced to the slowly increasing heat. Suddenly, the Obama Administration has begun turning up the heat at a frightening pace and the water is beginning to boil.

But during those 80 years of straying from the Constitution, no previous administration or congress has completely disregarded the document. The Obama Administration and the Reid-Pelosi Congress have done just that. The important question then becomes, “If they do not recognize the restraints placed on government by the Constitution, what limits to their power do they recognize?” If there is no restraint on the powers of the government, we are no longer a government of laws.

Every politician in Washington, DC has taken an oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States. The righteous anger of Americans manifested by the Tea Party movement is a direct result of those politicians ignoring their oaths and operating outside the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution. To trivialize the Tea Party movement is to ignore the facts. The American people will not long tolerate the politicians who have broken faith with generations of Americans who have preserved and defended the Constitution. The Tea Party movement may result in violence of a sort. But the violence the American people will inflict will occur at the ballot box, not in the streets.

GOING OUT OF BUSINESS

The Obama Administration’s Federal Trade Commission is considering potential policy changes that would attempt to “re-invent Journalism,” according to a recently released staff discussion draft memorandum. The idea comes amid on-going headlines concerning the demise of the legacy news industry, with the New York Times forced to lay off reporters, and former industry giants like Newsweek losing millions of dollars each year.

Naturally, the FTC’s proposed solutions are government-based. The memo proposes to grant an anti-trust exemption to publishers, allowing them to collude on prices. So the government solution to a failing business is to sanction monopolies and to raise the price of the product that consumers are refusing to purchase at the current price. Brilliant!

Another idea presented in the FTC memo proposes a tax exemption for media organizations. That sounds like a great idea. Who, save democrats, could possibly be against tax exemptions? But who would get the tax exemptions? Would Fox News qualify? Would The Drudge Report qualify? Both of those news organizations are in great financial shape already, and do not need subsidies. But would they get them if they did need them. Given the level of hostility of the Obama Administration towards conservative media, one might question if some priority would be given to politically correct media outlets in a plan to provide tax exemptions.

Yet another idea proposed by the FTC memo includes actually providing government funding for news outfits, tax credits for hiring reporters, and subsidies of postal rates for publishers. Why don’t we just nationalize the news industry, they already act like paid government stenographers who happily regurgitate every syllable uttered by the Obama Administration without so much as a question.

Why is the government solution always to subsidize failing industries. If there was a market for unsubsidized solar energy, people would buy it because it makes sense. If there was a market for unsubsidized ethanol fuel, the people would readily buy it. If there was a market for left-wing, pro-Obama opinion disguised as news, people would buy it without a government subsidy.

The fact is there is nothing wrong with the news market. The consumers of news are smart enough to know when they are receiving an inferior product and they have voted with their feet. The New York Times and Newsweek and all the other legacy media outlets are failing because they have failed to recognize the salient fact of all business: the customer is always right. They have arrogantly refused to listen to their customers and continued to publish biased opinions disguised as news. They continue to withhold the reportage of events that do not further their agenda. That is certainly their right. They can continue to follow their business plans all the way to bankruptcy. But they have no claim to assistance from the public treasury.

Here’s a thought for failing media giants. Why not actually report the news? Why not send aggressive reporters to the White House (pretend there is a Bush working there), to ask the president why he has refused to act against the Iranian nuclear program, and why he has reneged on a U.S. agreement to install missile defense systems in the Czech Republic and Poland? Maybe they could ask a question about the attempted bribery of Congressman Sestak to drop out of the Pennsylvanian senate race while they were there. They could even pretend they were in favor of enforcing the law and inquire about the failure of the Obama Administration to control the southern border. What about the unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities? Is there any curiosity in the media about those issues?

The press has always acted as a check on the ever-expanding reach of the federal government, serving to shine the disinfecting light of day on the shady sides of the government. That is they did until the arrival of the Obama Administration. Now they are content to bask in the reflected glow from Mr Obama and simply cannot bring themselves to criticize him, let alone report the facts. You have to wonder if there will be any “journalists” left when the next republican administration is elected and they will be able to go back to work.

He'll never dance with another

Well, we have gone and done it now. We have incurred the wrath of the well-known political commentator and international affairs expert, Sir Paul McCartney who is slightly put out by growing opposition to President Obama in the United States.

McCartney, the former member of the Beatles and song-writer of some renown has come out in support of the American President while admonishing his opponents. “I’m a big fan. So lay off him, he’s doing great,” said McCartney. He did not elaborate on just what program of the president’s was doing so well.

It could not have been the colossal foreign policy failure to bring the Iranian nuclear program to a halt, or the Obama Administration’s program for ensuring restraint on the part of North Korea, surely. It was not his weak-kneed support of our strongest ally in the Middle East, Israel.

It probably was not the president’s response to the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, since there has not been one, yet. Perhaps Mr McCartney was referring to the nationalization of several car companies, or the trillion dollar slush fund appropriated to “save the economy.” Maybe it was the coming Cap and Trade legislation, that will surely hobble the private sector with staggering taxes and skyrocketing expenses.

It probably was not the Obama Administration’s anemic response to the growing invasion of the southern border by illegal aliens flocking into the United States. No, that’s not going all that well, with states like Arizona required to enforce federal law at the border because the Obama Administration will not.

Just what has the president undertaken that is going well? Mr McCartney, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? He has done nothing to improve the economy, the border crisis, or any of several international crises. He has demonstrably weakened the nation by withdrawing proposed missile defense systems from the Eastern Europeans, and by telling the world the circumstances in which he would use nuclear weapons, and in which he would not. He has bowed to our adversaries and scolded our allies. He is exactly the kind of politician that European know-nothings applauded prior to the Second World War, the grand appeasers.

Here’s a little advice for Sir Paul: Stay in your lane, try sticking with something you know about. You write silly little love songs, and leave the commentary on American politics to those of us enduring the Obama presidency.

Get to Work, Mr. President

The past 16 months have seen furious activity on the part of the Obama Administration, culminating in the passage of the Health Care Reform Act. The administration promises similar activity on proposed Cap and Trade legislation and Wall Street financial “reform.”

But while we have been almost totally absorbed in the continuing campaign to push the Obama social agenda, we need to ask a simple question. Are these the crucial issues facing the United States that will affect the freedom and prosperity of the American people in this century? Most certainly they are not!

The Health Care reform was passed in spite of the overwhelming opposition of the American people, who are happy with the health care they now receive. Cap and Trade purports to remedy a problem (man-made global warming) that is of questionable scientific merit with a solution that will cripple our struggling economy: raising taxes on all forms of energy consumption. And any financial reform that fails to address the government’s role in the financial failures of the past several years misses the root cause of the problem.

The Obama Administration has chosen to contend relatively insignificant issues while allowing the truly important, really difficult issues to boil on the back burner. We do not elect a president to handle the easy issues, the ones that will gain him votes and ensure his re-election. We elect a president to grapple with the truly weighty issues that require the power and prestige of the President of the United States. He should be handling the issues that could mean the difference between war and peace, and between economic depression or prosperity.

Article 2, section 2 of the Constitution defines the duties of the President of the United States. First among those duties is that of Commander in Chief of the armed forces, the president’s duty to ensure the safety of the American people. Nowhere in that section of the Constitution does it mention that the president has a duty to take over and run failing automobile companies for the benefit of his labor union supporters, reducing risk-taking on Wall Street, or managing the health of the American people.

And while the Obama Administration has been busy attending to the trifling issues it has addressed thus far, it has been essentially silent and inactive in the face of the Iranian nuclear challenge. The resounding silence and failure of leadership from the nation once regarded as the leader of the free world amounts to tacit approval of the Iranian regime’s ascension to nuclear status.

The Obama Administration continues to campaign instead of governing. It has identified its favorite issues and labeled them as “crises” that must be addressed, while the Middle East moves closer and closer to war and calamity. The “crisis” of Americans without health insurance pales in comparison to the question faced by Israeli citizens faced with a nuclear Iran. The failure of the American President to act on that threat will almost surely result in an Israeli response, a response likely to plunge the region into war.

Even if Israel does not strike, can we expect the Saudis to acquiesce to a nuclear Iran just across the Persian Gulf from their oil fields? What would be the result be of a nuclear armed Saudi Arabia? How difficult would it be for nuclear material to find its way from the Saudis into the hands of radical jihadiis if the Saudi Arabia had a bomb? Meanwhile, the Obama Administration concerns itself with the health insurance “crisis.”

Domestically, the Obama Administration has taken a similar stance with regard to the truly weighty issues of the day. With Social Security and Medicare facing unfunded liabilities in the coming decades in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars, the Obama Administration has done nothing to improve the situation. Instead, it has rammed a new entitlement (Health Care Reform) through Congress that is certain to increase the unfunded liabilities despite administration rhetoric to the contrary. They could have recommended difficult solutions and provided the leadership we desperately need, but instead the Obama Administration has taken the easy route and simply spent more of our money, allowing the nation’s budget deficit to explode into regions we may never be able to repay.

Along the southern border of the United States, millions of illegal immigrants flood across the largely untended border bringing with them crime, drugs and the violent influence of the Mexican drug cartels. Americans living in the border states do so in fear of this invasion-in-progress. Islamic terror groups are using the President’s acquiescence to infiltrate the country, according to a recent Department of Homeland Security memo. Meanwhile, the President and his Secretary of Homeland Security, have chastised the State of Arizona for passing a law that encourages the enforcement of federal immigration law, a law Mr. Obama is charged with enforcing by Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution. Again, he dithers while real crises boil around him.

We live in an increasingly hostile world and face many difficult problems in both international and domestic affairs. We need a president who is willing to take on the truly meaningful issues and provide the leadership required to deal with them. We need a statesman for the job of the most powerful man in the world, not a perennial Chicago politician who can’t stop campaigning for an office he has already won. Mr. President, there is a lot to do. Get to work.

Why not show us the proof?

Much has been said and written recently regarding the birthplace of President Barrack Obama. Some have contended that the president was not born in the United States, and as such was not eligible to hold the office of President of the United States. Supporters of the president contend that such an accusation is the work of desperate political opponents who simply cannot accept a black man in the White House.

The root of the question is derived from the qualifications to hold the office of the President of the United States. The Constitution of the United States presents only three qualifications to hold the office. Article II, section 1 states that, “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible for the office of President.” The same article also requires an eligible candidate have attained 35 years of age and have been a resident of the United States for 14 years. Mr Obama’s newly graying temples attest to an adequate number of years under his belt, and it’s pretty clear that he has met the residency requirement.

Many conservatives, who are opposed to the Obama Administration and its agenda, have expressed the notion that Mr Obama has not proven his citizenship by providing a clear birth certificate identifying the location of his birth. These opponents contend that Mr Obama’s election is fraudulent if he is not a natural born citizen of the country, and therefore is ineligible to hold the office. These conservatives have been mocked and derided by the once-objective American media as marginal actors; they are called “Birthers”, and referred to as kooks who have no claim to rational thought whose opinions should be regarded as such.

I must admit to holding an opinion similar to the mainstream media when the idea of Mr Obama’s Constitutional qualifications was first presented. Of course, I thought, he is a citizen. How could he have possibly gotten this far in politics and not be a citizen? At some point in his political career, someone would surely have made certain that this man was at least qualified for the position, wouldn’t they?

While not generally susceptible to the opinions of the media, I found it so improbable to contemplate Mr Obama’s potential constitutional ineligibility that I found myself in league with the media and regarding the “Birthers” as slightly off balance. I thought they were desperately grasping at a straw that could not possibly be true.

But a singular question keeps asserting itself to my consciousness over and over again. “If he is an American citizen, and he does have a valid birth certificate to prove it, why have we not seen it yet?

If it was me living in the White House and questions came up regarding my bona fides to hold that office, I would lose no time at all producing that document and instantly closing off that route of criticism. If the question is that easy to answer, and if a valid birth certificate does exists, unlike the very phoney birth certificate pictured above, what possible reason would Mr Obama have to withhold it from the press and public?

At this writing, it has been nearly 16 months since the inauguration of Mr Obama. And every day that goes by without the production of a valid birth certificate tends to validate the arguments of the loony Birthers. If production of the birth certificate would effectively end that criticism and validate his eligibility while thereby permanently discrediting his political opposition, why would Mr Obama refuse to release it?

The more important question is: where is the once-curious American media? If there was a question of George Bush’s constitutional eligibility, would there be an instant’s hesitation before the watchdog media would bite down upon that tasty morsel? Is that not the job of the “objective” media, to actively vet the candidates for high office in their quest to serve the people’s “right to know?”

Foreign Policy Strategy: Bow Deeply

President Obama, flushed with victory after ramming his Heath Care takeover through Congress in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, has traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic to sign a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The new treaty will replace the 1991 START I agreement.

But on the eve of the historic signing, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has announced that Russia reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if future development of a U.S. missile defense system threatens to minimize Russian nuclear capability to destroy the United States.

That’s an interesting development. The Russians have agreed to abide by the new treaty until such time as they decide not to abide by it anymore. I guess that is an improvement over the methods of the old Soviet Union, which made many treaties with the United States and simply disregarded them, either in whole or in part.

And what is the response of the Obama Administration to the novel Russian approach to treaties? No worries, everything is just fine. Mr Obama has told the New York Times that he “sees the U.S. leading by example in an effort to reduce nuclear proliferation and eventually make them obsolete.”

That’s probably just what the Russians will do, too. They will look at Mr Obama unilaterally reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal while refusing to improve and modernize it and decide to follow suit. Right. Or is Mr. Obama living in a fantasy land where idealistic notions of nuclear disarmament take the place of serious National Security Policy?

Actually, what they will do is what they, and all other nations have always done: they will act in their own self-interest. They will not follow suit and unilaterally reduce their own nuclear stockpiles. When they stop laughing at the ridiculous attempt to induce nuclear disarmament through U.S. good behavior, they will understand they are dealing with a weak and irrational idealist who is not grounded in reality. Wolves in the wild are quick to sense weakness in their prey. The Russians, to say nothing of the lesser belligerents of the world (North Korea, Iran, the Palestinians, Venezuela and radical muslim jihadiis worldwide) will take immediate advantage of this clear demonstration of weakness on the part of the U.S. president.

But what is much worse will be the result of the Russian statement threatening withdrawal from the treaty if U.S. missile defense reaches maturity. While most U.S. presidents in the past, even democrat presidents, would realize the Russian attempt to intimidate for what it is, Mr. Obama, with his delusional world-view is apt to cave to the Russian threat, and unilaterally halt further development of the American missile defense system. He will do this expecting the Russians to follow suit.

Once again, when the laughter in the Kremlin ceases, the Russians will once again press their advantage over the hopelessly ignorant and inept U.S. president to gain further concessions. The sad thing is that they will keep receiving concessions from this president, because that is the only thing he knows: concessions to the strong. One wonders if Mr Obama will bow in the presence of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev when the meet for the signing ceremony, as he has to other heads of state.

Mr Obama is in the process of demonstrating his unbelievable incompetence in international affairs to a more striking extent than he has done in domestic policy failures. The danger is that when his policies fail miserably at home, there is only bone-crushing national debt, deep recession and never-ending unemployment to contend with. Failure to protect the American people from the truly dangerous wolves that lurk out in the wide world could easily lead to the destruction of the United States and the end of the Republic.

We simply cannot afford to indulge this president’s fantasies about international power politics. The world is too dangerous a place for the practice of childish foreign policy.