C.R.E.A.T.*

Democracy, it was a good run but the plutocrats have won. Nice try but you never really had a chance. Anonymous dollars and shadowy figures run the show. And it’s all thanks to the all-mighty dollar. When you have Supreme Court Justices attending secret “small business brainstorming sessions” and bailed out businesses tossing dollars at candidates, you begin to realize that healthcare, education, war and the economy mean nothing – it’s all about maximizing profits.

But, if this November election should prove anything, it is that we need campaign finance laws. And, if the Republicans regain control of the Senate, it proves that retention of very recent history is lacking in this country and advertising does work (talking to you George Will and David Brooks). Lastly, it proves that cash rules everything. Period.

We have Conservative columnists who think this is a game, mocking the idea of Conservatives using anonymous corporate dollars to fund elections to regain the government from the Marxist Usurper (cough-Citizen’s United-cough). Funny, because this is a game with certain people switching the deck while those without a seat at the high-roller’s table will lose everything: their job, their home, their 401K, their lives. All so some rich guy can get lenient environmental regulations so he can get even richer. Oh, right, sorry, FREEDOM.

And what’s the best way to shift attention off the Right’s dirty tricks? Create a controversy and ignore the real problem.

Why? C.R.E.A.T. That’s why.

*Cash Rules Everything Around Them

Lesson Unlearned

Have you ever experienced the phenomenon when you think of your favorite song, you can replicate it perfectly in you head but when you try to vocalize the tune it doesn’t come out quite right – or at all? I am beginning to think that is the same phenomenon going on in S.E. Cupp’s writing. She thinks of a topic and it sounds good in her head, but when it gets on paper, it is just terrible.

Take her latest column, A Reading Lesson from Glenn Beck. Had S.E. looked waaaaay back to July 16, she would have realized equating Glenn Beck with teaching is exactly what alleged shooter Byron Williams did.

Here are a few sentences that made me laugh out loud:

“If we're to believe the Democrats and the liberal media, the reason is because you're too stupid to know any better.”

Is she talking about the liberal media that is publishing her?

“…more than half the American population cannot be trusted at the ballot box? People who've somehow managed to start their own businesses, graduate [“matriculate” was used in the print edition] from top colleges, raise successful families in trying times, balance their own household budgets and master the maddening mental mousetrap that is the NASCAR point system are simply too dumb to understand today's political talking points?”

Only conservatives start their own businesses, graduate/matriculate from top colleges, raise successful families, etc... Liberals, on the other hand, only protest war and blog from their parent’s basement.

“[Beck]'s a hit because he plays on our insatiable desire to know stuff. Some call it ‘intellectual curiosity,’ but I don't want to scare you with big words.

I’m beginning to think that S.E. Cupp is a parody.

Cupp proves her point by listing three legitimately-informative books out of 20 on Beck’s 9/12 Project website.

“The truth is that the left is skeptical of intellectual curiosity…”

This has got to be a parody.

Shorter S.E. Cupp:

Liberals think Conservatives are stupid and, if you read my columns, you could understand why.

Cons success: Count the talking points

The midterm elections are quickly approaching and everyday the Democrats chances of retaining a majority changes. One day they will keep their majority, the next they have already been ousted. In supreme Conservative fashion, the op-eds and editorials are ringing with talking-point bells.

On October 8th, Charles Krauthammer penned the column Dem’s failure: Count the ways. It is nothing more than talking points strung together with pointless polls and Conservative opinions masquerading as everybody’s.

Krauthammer’s column should have been called Cons success: Count the talking points. Here’s the well-paid author’s column as a list.

Krauthammer, “Dem’s failure: Count the ways”

1. Obama and “his lack of empathy”

2. Problem with policies = “ideology”

3. Nancy Pelosi

4. “Mandate to change American social contract” with a “European social-democratic stamp” [AKA Socialism]

5. Government extending into “health care, energy, education, finance, and industrial policy.”¹

6. Stimulus

7. Gold

8. “Massive overhanging debt”

9. “1,000-page micromanagement of every detail of American health care”

10. Taxes. All of them.

11. Stephen Colbert

¹ The current thinking on the Right is to present what Obama is doing as unprecedented.

That’s why statements like this are so ludicrous; it’s as if they are saying: “None of these things were a problem until OBAMA got here!”

Government has been involved in health care since 1965. Health care is, disgustingly, still a for-profit enterprise – and the money is still rolling in. With the exception of Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Veterans Health Administration, corporations are still in charge of keeping you alive. Furthermore, with all this talk on the Right about “personal responsibility”, one of the biggest reasons for personal bankruptcy is medical debt. It’s not out of control credit card debt or losing a job – although those are problems – throwing you onto the streets but rather getting sick and going broke because you can’t pay for it.

As for energy, it wasn’t too long ago that a private energy corporation almost single-handedly destroyed the lives of millions of Americans as well as an entire ecosystem. But sure, let’s get government out of that too. I know, that was months ago.

In regards to education, the government has been involved in the sculpting of a better citizenry since the 1800s. So, the idea that the government is just recently (read: 2008) getting involved in education is stupid.

Next up is finance. Similar to my energy argument, the financial industry is the main reason why we are in the current economic situation. In 2010, we have rampant unemployment, millions of foreclosures and yet Goldman Sachs still rakes in $4.42 billion – 40% lower than the year-earlier figure. Forty. Percent. Lower. Wow.

And lest we forget to mention the Flash Crash in May when the Dow plunged nearly 1,000 points before paring those losses—all apparently due to a computer. But, yeah, let’s leave the financial markets alone…

As for the “industrial policy”, I’m assuming that Krauthammer is in the same boat as the scholarly patriots over at American Thinker who counter their own argument of “Obama's industrial policy is designed to make America non-competitive in the world economy” with a chart in the middle of their own article. America’s manufacturing has been on the decline for a lot longer than the two-years Obama’s been in office. This is their argument:

First, U.S. industrial policies by the radical Democrats have imposed terrible burdens on the U.S. economy that are making it more and more inefficient through high non-competitive labor costs, carbon regulation, artificially high energy costs, and numerous government mandates.

Here is a summary of recent aspects of our industrial policy as proffered by the ruling Democratic Party:

●Huge and ineffective stimulus expenditures

●A 3.0-trillion-dollar increase in our national debt in two years

●Unemployment at 9.6%

●A job-killing moratorium on drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska

●Adoption of a tax on energy use called Cap and Trade

●The EPA aggressively regulating emissions resulting from the combustion of carbon fuels

●The EPA working to regulate fluids used in the production of abundant shale-sourced natural gas

●Elimination of the secret ballot (card check) in proposed unionization to increase union power and high-cost labor in our economy

●Imposition of costly health mandates on small businesses

●Increasing domestic taxes on business earnings made and taxed in foreign countries

This list is sufficiently comprehensive for anyone to get the picture, especially if he or she is in business.

Yes, the list is comprehensive if you are "in the business" or are a tea partier. Again, their "arguments" are nothing more than a list of talking points.

Charles Krauthammer Hearts War

In today’s Daily News, we have the charming warmonger, Charles Krauthammer, explaining to us why he loves war.

“From the beginning, the call to arms was highly uncertain. On Dec. 1, 2009, commander in chief Barack Obama orders 30,000 more Americans into battle in Afghanistan. But in the very next sentence, he announces that an American withdrawal will begin after 18 months.

Astonishing.”

Yes, it is astonishing that after 9 years of death, destruction and no possibility of victory you and the rest of those people who have never and will never fight are so angered by a war coming to an end.

“A surge of troops - overall, President Obama has tripled our Afghan force - with a declaration not of war but of ambivalence."

I’m not entirely sure that Krathammer, Evil Genius, knows what “ambivalence” means. According the dictionary, ambivalence means: uncertainty or fluctuation, esp. when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things.

The President made a choice: Raise troop levels then, after a year and a half, start the removal process. After 18 months the war will be well into it's 10th year. Chuck loves war so much he just wants it to keep going… forever!

“What kind of commander in chief sends tens of thousands of troops to war announcing in advance a fixed date for beginning their withdrawal?"

What kind of commander in chief sends thousands of troops to war without a clear plan? What kind of commander in chief sends thousands of troops to war based on fabricated evidence?

"One who doesn't have his heart in it.”

Oh, right, forget thinking, what does your heart say. (It says I miss you and I want to bomb you to kingdom come.) I’m going to go ahead and disagree with you on that. The kind of commander that sends troops to war in advance of a fixed date for beginning their withdrawal is the kind of commander who cares about his troops. He is giving relief to the troops already in country and is living up to his campaign promise of ending the war.

But, for someone who has made a living on being some kind of war-loving, neocon-intellectual, Krauthammer sure cares about where Obama’s heart is. That’s one thing you have to tip your hat to these neocons for: the use of intellect while simultaneously decrying it.

“Until now, the above was just inference from the President's public rhetoric. No longer. Now we have the private quotes. Bob Woodward's book, drawing on classified memos and interviews with scores of national security officials, has Obama telling his advisers: ‘I want an exit strategy.’”

Wow, can you believe it? Obama, just like most of this country as well as the world, wants to end a war. What a Nazi.

“Now, after acceding to power and being given charge of that very war, Obama confides that he must retreat lest that very same party abandon him.”

Hate to break it to you, Chuck, but Obama didn’t “accede into power”, he was elected. And Obama isn’t retreating to save face with the Democratic Party, he’s living up to the mandate that the he promised if he was elected. It’s called a democracy.

“What happened in the interim? Did it suddenly develop a faint heart? Or was the party disingenuous about the Afghan War all along, using it as a convenient club with which to attack George W. Bush over Iraq, while protecting Democrats from the charge of being reflexively anti-war?”

Nothing happened in the interim, Charles. Have you been paying attention? He said he would end the war so he is going to end the war. You know, what that means right? GASP! Obama is keeping a promise to the American people! Muslim!

I also have to give him props for the flippant use of George W. Bush and Iraq; as if lying us into war is, like, no big deal and now it just,like, soooo passé.

“Whatever the reason, is it not Obama's job as President and party leader to bring the party with him? This is the man who made Berlin coo, America swoon and the Nobel committee lose its mind. Yet he cannot get his own party to follow him on what he insists is a matter of vital national interest?”

See, this is why the Daily News sucks. They actually printed this which is more or less 700 words bashing Obama for keeping his promise of ending the war to the American people. No, instead it’s: Obama has no heart to indefinitely send troops to Afghanistan so I can feel like I America still means something!

“’He was looking for choices that would limit U.S. involvement and provide a way out,’ writes Woodward. One can only conclude that Obama now thinks Afghanistan is a mistake. Maybe he thought so from the very beginning.”

Nine years, countless Americans and Afghans dead and no possibility of victory; besides loving this war simply because it’s war, what is it if it wasn’t a mistake?

“More charitably and more likely, he is simply a foreign policy novice who didn't understand what this war was about until being given the authority and duty to conduct it - and then decided it was all a mistake.”

Ohhh! Conjecture! My favorite!

“Sen. Kerry, now chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, once asked many years ago: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Perhaps Kerry should ask that of Obama.”

Right, because it was Obama who put those troops there in the first place with no clear plan.

"’He is out of Afghanistan psychologically,’ says Woodward of Obama. Well, he may be out, but the soldiers he ordered to Afghanistan are in.

Some will not come home.”

So now we’ve come to the end and we’ve had a bit of Krauthammer’s conjecture so why don’t we put a dollop of Woodward’s conjecture on top. But, as Krauthammer once said: “Post-Watergate morality, by which anything left private is taken as presumptive evidence of wrongdoing”

Sadly, this entire piece is about how, if it were up to Krauthammer, none would come home .

Andrea Tantaros: Mind Reader

The two reasons the NY Daily News sucks so bad are: 1 the opinion page and 2 the Voices of the People.

Personally, I can't read the Daily News without a pen in my hand to write really obvious questions that the reporter, pundit or reader should have asked themselves prior to penning their terrible article.

But, I assume that deadlines are more important than facts over at the Daily News, and that's why it sucks.

This brings me to my first victim:

Andrea Tantaros and her column, This is war, not a law seminar.

No kidding, Andrea. For the past 9 years that the war in Afghanistan has been going on, I thought we were fighting the Taliban with seminars on Commercial Real Estate Leases with drone strikes for those who don't pay the admission fees. I bet Andrea thought that was a great title, too.

You know you're in trouble when someone can't get passed the title.

Now for the actual article.

"A great leader knows how to feel the pain of his people. He acknowledges their struggles, but offers hope."

How true. Now, mention the Nazis.

"As the Nazis set their sights on England, Winston Churchill famously told the House of Commons: We shall defend our island..."

Well done! As we all know, World War II and the war in Afghanistan are almost identical and it is perfectly reasonable to compare the two. By "identical" I mean opposites and by "reasonable" I mean stupid. Perhaps a bit of history is needed for Ms. Tantaros. Well, World War II took place from 1939 to 1945 and involved most of the world's nations -- unlike the war in Afghanistan which has been going on for 3 years longer and most of the world is against. Also, in WWII there was an easily identified enemy and front. Wars like those don't happen anymore, Andrea. Now, civilians and enemies wear the same clothes and the front is the entire world. So, we've made it through one and a half sentences and Ms. Tantaros looks terrible. Let's see what else she "thinks".

"President Obama has no such vision, as is made clear in Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars." Instead, he is a professor in chief, coolly regarding the nation's problems like a case study to be analyzed without urgency."

As you can see, nothing angers Andrea Tantaros more than a president who think things through -- especially 9-year wars that haven't been going well. I assume that Andrea would rather Obama just send in more troops without a clear battle plan and a license to kill. I mean, battle plans are pretty overrated, unless you listen to generals. Because Andrea brought it up, another reason why the war in Afghanistan and WWII comparison is a terrible one is because we are trying to create an entire new country in Afghanistan. In WWII, we were simply trying to save the world from Nazi rule. We were worried about fixing the world only after the Axis was defeated.

"'We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger,' Obama told Woodward".

Why this quote confuses so many on the right should be obvious: Obama said it. I should have stopped reading it after she quoted Rudy "911911911" Guiliani saying he wouldn't have used those words but, I didn't, and the oldest of talking points start to pop up.

Honestly, Obama is saying something here that of us should get a grip of: there is a distinct possibility that the terrorists will try to attack us again and, if it happens, we will be stronger because of it. But, I guess we should just start carpet bombing Afghanistan because Andrea's scared and despite the public of the world is against it.

"These words are also emblematic of his larger public relations approach to handling issues of terrorism. When it comes to issues of national security, Obama has chosen to ignore public opinion - and New York, unfortunately, seems to be his central front.

Take the Obama Justice Department's decision to hold the terror trials at Ground Zero. Everyone from 9/11 families to Mayor Bloomberg has expressed opposition to trying these suspects in the Big Apple, yet the President refuses to change course."

Wow, why you gotta bring up old points? We have to be tough on terrorists but, at the same time, be too afraid to try them in a court of law where they committed the crime. I get it though; Obama wants to do it so it can't be right. And for someone who is so concerned with public opinion, she doesn't seem to mention the rest of the world's view of our wars... The only opinions that matter are those who agree with hers.

At this point, there is a 100% chance of a "Ground Zero Mosque" mention within this article...

“His support for the Ground Zero mosque displays this apathy, as well. Obama has voiced his support for the mosque but refused to weigh in on the "wisdom" of building it, despite an overwhelming majority of Americans who feel the opposite.”

Dingdingding! What do we have for our lovely contestant? Andrea, you’re in the news business – technically – so you must have at least heard of the 60-Minutes episode on the non-mosque. It isn’t a mosque. And there is no controversy besides you and those on the right wanting to prevent certain people from having certain rights because you are scared.

And again with this nonsense about the majority of Americans don’t want the Community Center. Who cares what they want. You seem ready to put the rights of certain people to a vote. That’s not the way this country operates.

“Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are at war with Islamic jihadists. His responses to the Christmas Day bomber and the massacre at Fort Hood were executed in slow motion, and he sounded more professorial than presidential.”

Ugh… this is getting tiresome, Andrea. Obama has said we are at war with extremists – many times. And that professorial demeanor is a breath of fresh air from the previous president who didn’t think; just spoke; didn’t ask questions; just acted.

“Someone should tell Obama that not everything should be approached like a question on a Harvard Law exam.”

Someone should tell Tantaros that not everything should be acted upon with knee-jerk reactions and blind faith but rather slow, deliberate questioning… especially when it involves the lives of our service members.

“If Woodward's book is any indication, Obama's primary concern when it comes to fighting the bad guys in Afghanistan is not winning but "losing the entire Democratic Party." But lives lost and military goals achieved should be his primary concern - not politics. Instead he chose to send an insufficient number of troops to battle while also announcing a withdrawal date.”

“…lives lost and military goals achieved should be his primary concern - not politics.” Andrea! You got it! If only you could realize that in order to prevent further loss of life and achieving those military goals would be to think about why this war is failing and think of ideas of changing those failing policies. I assume Andrea’s idea of fixing the war in Afghanistan would be to send in more troops and more troops and more troops… as if there aren’t enough there for IED target practice already.

Andrea must be clairvoyant because this entire article revolves around what Obama seems to be doing or what he appears to be thinking. It’s complete and utter nonsense and is a perfect example of why the NY Daily News sucks.