We are captives of the enviro nutters and we are the poorer for it

Energy Secretary Chu Admits Administration OK with High Gas Prices

COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama's Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu uttered the kind of Washington gaffe that consists of telling the truth when inconvenient. According to Politico, Chu admitted to a House committee that the administration is not interested in lowering gas prices.

Chu, along with the Obama administration, regards the spike in gas prices as a feature rather than a bug. High gas prices provide an incentive for alternate energy technology, a priority for the White House, and a decrease in reliance on oil for energy.

The Heritage Foundation points out that hammering the American consumer with high gas prices to make electric and hybrid cars more appealing is consistent with Obama administration policy and Chu's philosophy. That explains the refusal to allow the building of the Keystone XL pipeline and to allow drilling in wide areas of the U.S. and offshore areas.

The consequences of the policy are not likely to be of benefit to the Obama administration. The Republican National Committee has already issued a video highlighting the spike in gas prices and the failure of the administration to address the issue.

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has issued a half-hour video touting an energy plan he claims would result in $2.50 a gallon gasoline. The plan is based on unfettered drilling for oil and gas instead of a reliance on green energy. Gingrich has also savaged Obama's touting of algae based biofuel as "weird."

Chu has likely highlighted an issue Republicans are going to pick up and run with. Americans are not going to be appreciative of schemes to hit them in the wallet so the American economy can shift togreen energy. Besides American traditional adherence to the free market, the idea of being fleeced by a deliberate government policy is likely to be greeted with anger.

Add into the mix green energy fiascos like Solyndra, and Chu might well have kindled a full blown scandal.

How the Obama administration reacts to the expected firestorm is open to question. Green energy is as part of its fundamental religion as is universal health care, another unpopular Obama policy. If it tries to bull ahead, the electorate will likely punish Obama and the Democrats. If it tries to backtrack, Obama looks weak and facilitating, and likely will still not appease gas strapped Americans experiencing price shock at the gas pump.

Obama's Union Speech

David Harsanyi looks at Obama's 'successful' auto rescue.

False choices. Populist bromides. A lecture on values. President Barack Obama treated us to some of his greatest hits this week. 

Speaking before the United Auto Workers union in Washington, Obama, champion of the working man, challenged auto bailout "naysayers" to "come around" and admit that "standing by American workers was the right thing to do," as bailouts "saved" the auto industry. (You have to wonder whether downtrodden citizens appreciate just how close they came to having to roller-skate to work.) 

"They're out there talking about you like you're some special interest that needs to be beaten down," Obama told cheering union members. And those who claim that bailouts were just a labor payback are simply peddling a "load of you-know-what." 

I do know what, Mr. President. 

Because actually, the United Auto Workers union is a special interest. Like other unions, the UAW regularly lobbies Congress, funds Democratic candidates across the country with millions, and advocates public policy that undercuts competition and free trade. And, as The New York Timesrecently reported, the UAW and other unions will "put their vast political organizations into motion behind Mr. Obama." (Nothing like a few strategic taxpayer "investments" to get labor inspired.) 

And if by "be beaten down" the president means "compete in the marketplace like every other sucker in America," well, he's right. If by "be beaten down" he means "go to bankruptcy court -- even if you've 'played by the rules' -- and honor contracts you've signed rather than have a friendly administration rip them up and rewrite them in favorable terms for others, then heck yeah. 

Yet Obama claims, "I"—"I"—"placed my bet on American workers." 

Now, it's your bet, technically, of course, Mr. President. And let's be honest; all my favorite bets are made with other people's money. But you didn't bet on the American people. That would mean betting that the marketplace and those in it have the capacity and the smarts to find increasingly productive and innovative ways to produce the things that consumers demand. You bet on a politically convenient corporation that believes it's entitled to eternal state-sponsored protection. Too bad Woolworth's and Pan Am couldn't hold out until you came along.
Then again, it's not just an economic duty but also a moral obligation. "You want to talk about values?" Obama went on to explain. "Hard work—that's a value. Looking out for one another—that's a value. The idea that we're all in it together and I'm my brother's keeper and sister's keeper—that's a value." 

Thank the secular spirits we don't have one of those Bible thumpers in the White House. They tend to get preachy, you know.

Read the rest here.

Soros an arm of the Democrat Party

Soros drops groups not parroting Dem Party line

The Democracy Alliance, a progressive alliance of big donors founded by George Soros and Tim Gill, has stopped founding a slew of progressive groups deemed unhelpful to the Democratic Party. The Huffington Post's Ryan Grim reports:

Among those who support the creation of a progressive infrastructure, there is heavy debate over whether to fund organizations closely aligned with the Democratic Party or those that operating outside it and pressuring it to move in a more progressive direction.

The groups dropped by the Democracy Alliance tend to be those that work outside the party's structure. Groups with closer ties to the party, such as the Center for American Progress and Media Matters, retained their status with the Democracy Alliance as favored organizations.
...
Deborah Sagner, a former member of the donor network, said that the decision was in line with the group's unfortunate drift toward supporting only groups closely allied to the Democratic Party. "I was sorry to see that the DA has continued on the trajectory away from funding independent infrastructure that induced me to leave the organization two years ago. I will say that the DA was a great idea (the need was nicely expressed by Bill Bradley in this editorial written at the time the DA was incubating), did some excellent funding of good groups, and it's really a shame that it has not been able to fulfill its promise," she wrote in an email.

The Center for American Progress and Media Matters are supposed to be non-profit, non-political organizations. But as this reporting shows, these organizations are far less interested in furthering the progressive movement, and far more interested in getting Democrats elected.

In praise of mediocrity and communism

Obama to UAW: ‘Trying to Climb to the Very Top’ Is ‘Greed,’ Not What America’s ‘About’

Our Chicago President

Claim: $400K from Rezko to Sen. Barack Obama. Is That Legal Patrick Fitzgerald?

From Illinois Pay to Play

Daniel T. Frawley, a former business partner of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, claims he gave Rezko $400,000 that Rezko gave to then U.S. Senator Barack Obama.

This claim comes through Frawley’s emails to, and conversations with, Robert “Bob” Cooley, former Chicago mob lawyer turned government informer and author of the book on Chicago corruption entitled “When Corruption Was King”.

Cooley was the star witness in a series of trials in the early 1990’s as part of an F.B.I. investigation named Operation Gambat. Those trials led to the convictions of over a score of Chicago crooks, including First Ward Alderman Fred Roti, a made-man; the Chief Judge of Cook County’s Chancery Court; the Assistant Majority Leader of the Illinois State Senate; and the only Federal Judge in U.S. history convicted of fixing a murder trial.

OBAMA’S BEACH BUNDLER

DESPITE CRITICISM, MAJOR CAMPAIGN DONOR IS VIRGIN ISLANDS TAX HAVEN SPECIALIST

One of President Obama’s major bundlers is a lawyer who helps her wealthy clients exploit the very offshore tax benefits the president has criticized.

Marjorie Rawls Roberts, a Virgin Islands tax lawyer who specializes in offshore funds, has committed to bundling at least $100,000-$200,000 for the Obama Victory Fund 2012. Roberts runs her own law firm, Marjorie Rawls Roberts, P.C., based in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). According to the firm, Roberts “specializes in the areas of tax, investment, and offshore funds.”

Prior to starting her own firm, Roberts served from 1995 to 1999 as vice president and chief counsel for Globalvest Management Company, a “St. Thomas-based investment company managing approximately $1 billion in investments in Latin America and Russia through offshore funds.”

A 2004 Northwest Arkansas Business Journal interview about residency in the Virgin Islands described Roberts’ firm as “a private law practice…helping affluent clients access the tax benefits available in the USVI.”

Obama has criticized individuals and corporations who use overseas tax benefits to avoid paying taxes. In a May 2009 White House speech, Obama described a U.S. tax code “full of corporate loopholes that makes it perfectly legal for companies to avoid paying their fair share.”

“It’s a tax code that makes it all too easy for a number—a small number of individuals and companies to abuse overseas tax havens to avoid paying any taxes at all,” Obama said in the speech.

Obama also pledged to help stop wealthy Americans from abusing offshore tax havens.

“Now, for years, we’ve talked about stopping Americans from illegally hiding their money overseas, and getting tough with the financial institutions that let them get away with it,” Obama said. “The Treasury Department and the IRS, under Sec. Geithner’s leadership and Commissioner Shulman’s, are already taking far-reaching steps to catch overseas tax cheats—but they need more support.”

A White House press release the same day confirmed Obama’s commitment to fighting against tax havens:

Today, President Obama and Secretary Geithner are unveiling two components of the Administration’s plan to reform our international tax laws and improve their enforcement. First, they are calling for reforms to ensure that our tax code does not stack the deck against job creation here on our shores. Second, they seek to reduce the amount of taxes lost to tax havens—either through unintended loopholes that allow companies to legally avoid paying billions in taxes, or through the illegal use of hidden accounts by well-off individuals.

Roberts did not agree to speak on the record with the Free Beacon. The Obama campaign did not return a request for comment.

Tyranny: the government forcing you to buy things you don't want

The Supreme Court Must Protect the First Amendment from Unions

Theresa Riffey provides help around the home for her brother, a quadriplegic, and receives a small stipend from Illinois’s Medicaid program for her efforts, saving the state the cost of providing full-time care. Illinois law requires her to pay a portion of her check every month to an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to hear her case that asks on what basis, besides raw political power, a state may compel independent home-care workers and other similarly situated self-employed persons to support and associate with a labor union against their will. For the sake of workers’ First Amendment rights, it should take the case.

“Organized labor” brings to mind railroads, factories, and government offices, but the labor movement’s biggest recent gains have been in the home. Led by SEIU, unions and their political allies have pushed through executive orders and legislation in a dozen states to “organize” home-care workers, such as personal assistants and sitters, by deeming them state employees for collective-bargaining purposes alone.

California was the trailblazer in this campaign, with SEIU first trying to convince the state courts to designate Los Angeles County home-care workers as county employees. Having lost the battle in the courtroom, SEIU commenced lobbying the California legislature to pass a law requiring each county to establish special government entities that would serve as an employer of record for home-care workers. A statute was enacted in 1992, and, within a few years, SEIU began representing over 70,000 Los Angeles County home-care workers.

But it was Illinois, under Governor Rod Blagojevich, that provided the model that has been copied across the nation. By executive order, he instituted collective bargaining statewide for home aides for the disabled, even though these workers — often family members — are not hired, fired, or supervised by the State of Illinois, do not work in state facilities, and are not considered to be state employees for any other purpose, such as health benefits or liability. That order was later ratified in legislation.

The Illinois law has served as a roadmap for other states’ lawmakers to circumvent the First Amendment’s limitations on compelled association and speech and thereby bolster the ranks and finances of their union supporters. Indeed, there has always been a tension between the First Amendment, which protects all Americans’ rights to free association and to speak or remain silent, and labor laws that compel all workers subject to a collective-bargaining agreement to support financially a union’s advocacy on their behalf, even if they dissent from the union’s goals and message.

The consistent rationale for the union exception to First Amendment freedom is “labor peace,” a term that harkens back to the violent strikes and lock-outs of the 1930s. But laws such as California’s and Illinois’s turn this narrow exception into a license to compel speech and association in any instance. Is labor peace really at issue when there is no workplace, no employer property is at risk, and workers’ only relationship to their putative employer is payment for services rendered to a third party? If so, doctors and lawyers who are often paid by state governments for services rendered to indigent clients or, for that matter, any person who accepts a government benefit or payment — which is to say virtually everyone — could be forced to kick back a portion to organized labor to fund speech with which they disagree.

Moreover, union representation is a lousy deal for independent workers, who are forced to subsidize a union that is powerless to improve their conditions of employment. The benefits of these cynical laws flow solely to the unions and the politicians they support. So far, however, lower courts have given the states a pass on these points, reasoning that any asserted employment relationship — even an essentially fictional one — is sufficient to compel workers to associate with a union and pay for speech from which they dissent.

“First Amendment values are at serious risk,” Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has written, “if the government can compel a particular citizen, or a discrete group of citizens, to pay special subsidies for speech on the side that it favors.” Only an “overriding” and legitimate purpose, he continued, “allows any compelled subsidy for speech in the first place.” Here, Governor Blagojevich and the Illinois legislature’s sole purpose was the height of illegitimacy: appropriating spoils for their strongest political backers.

The Supreme Court should take Ms. Riffey’s case. Unless it makes clear that compulsory support of unions is limited to circumstances where it is necessary to preserve labor peace, more workers, in more fields, will see their basic First Amendment rights trampled, without securing any benefits in the process. No American should, or could, be treated in this fashion.

Islamist terrorist

Guantanamo detainee Majid Khan admits terror charges

The first "high value" prisoner held at the US's Guantanamo Bay detention centre has pleaded guilty to terror charges at a war crimes tribunal.

Pakistani Majid Khan, who had lived in the US, agreed to enter the plea in exchange for leniency.

He faces charges which include conspiring with al-Qaeda, murder and attempted murder.

The 32 year old has been in secret US custody since 2003 and alleges that he has been psychologically tortured.

Khan made a public appearance at court for the first time after almost nine years in US custody.

'Psychologically tortured'

He wore a dark suit and tie, and allowed his lawyer to speak on his behalf during the hearing.

"Mr Khan pleads as follows to all charges and specifications, guilty," Army Lt Col Jon Jackson, Khan's military lawyer, said.

When the judge asked him if he agreed with the statement, Khan said: "Yes, sir".

His sentencing has been postponed until 2016.

According to a plea bargain document released by the US government, Khan's sentence would be capped at 25 years in exchange for pleading guilty.

It was expected that he would testify against his fellow detainees in return, although those details have not been released by the court.

One of those detainees is Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Mr Khan is accused of meeting him in Pakistan and plotting to blow up fuel tanks in the US.

Prosecutors also allege Khan volunteered to assassinate former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and passed money to the Islamist militant group Jemaah Islamiah.

He is accused of travelling to Bangkok to deliver $50,000 (£31,400) to the group. The money allegedly funded the August 2003 suicide bombing of the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, which killed 11 people and wounded at least 81 others.

Khan had moved to the US in the late 1990s, where he went to high school in Baltimore and worked at his family's petrol station.

The US government says it was on his return to Pakistan that family members introduced him to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Khan was first arrested in March 2003, when Pakistani forces raided his family's home in Karachi. They turned him over to the CIA and he was held in secret confinement overseas, until he was transferred to Guantanamo with other high-value detainees in 2006.

The father of one has not been seen in public since he was captured. He told a military tribunal in 2007 that he had been "psychologically tortured" and had tried to commit suicide twice.

He also denied he was an extremist and said he had no links with al-Qaeda.

Khan's plea deal would make him the seventh prisoner convicted by a military tribunal since the Guantanamo facility opened in January 2002, and the first high-profile detainee to be convicted.

The US military currently holds 171 prisoners at the prison, and officials have said about 35 could face war crimes charges.

Does anyone want to legalize this drug?

Woman arrested in 'The Senator' tree fire

GM: Where losing money is long time honored tradition. Remember SAAB?

Odd Couplings: GM To Buy 7 Percent Of PSA? What For?

Why worry when the taxpayer is always there for you? Like they didn't lose enough money at Opel last year; about $700 million.

Government madness on your dime

CALIF. OFFERS ANOTHER SUBSIDY FOR VOLT… WITH OWNERS GIVEN FREE PASS FOR

CARPOOL LANE

Do you remember when the Obama administration used more than 5 billion in taxpayer dollars to “jumpstart” the electric vehicle (EV) industry? Do you know what happened? Chevy Volt sales fell flat.

Do you remember when the Obama administration tried to boost Chevy Volt sales by offering a $7,500 taxpayer-funded rebate? Do you remember what happened? The Volt didn’t sell.

So, in an effort to correct this mistake, the Obama administration, under its latest budget plan, proposed increasing the subsidy from $7,500 to $10,000. Keep in mind this proposed increase, should it be given the “okay,” and the administration’s vow to put 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015 could cost taxpayers up to $10 billion in subsidies, according to Scott Rasmussen. Unsurprisingly, according to a Rasmussen poll, most Americans are against the proposal.

But perhaps we should stress this one more time: even with generous taxpayer-funded government subsidies and a proposed rebate increase, Chevy Volt sales have been flat.

So, now would be a good time to offer another taxpayer-backed purchasing incentive, right? Well, it is if you’re a Californian. Yep, California (of course) is offering more incentives to get people to buy the Chevy Volt.

“[L]ow emission model[s] of the 2012 Chevrolet Volt electric car are on their way to California, where customers will qualify for a $1,500 state rebate [emphasis added],” writes 3d Car Shows’ Gerald Ferreira.

If you’re in California, this would bring the Volt’s purchasing incentive to $11,500 (that is, of course, if the proposed $10,000 purchasing incentive goes through). And just in case that‘s not enough to convince you to buy the EV, the state of California has also agreed that Volt drivers will be given total access to California’s carpool lanes.

“The Volts with the Low Emissions Package are certain to be a strong draw for California commuters looking to travel the state’s notoriously congested freeways in the carpool lane,” said Chris Perry, vice president of Chevrolet Marketing.

According to Chevy, Southern California‘s HOV lanes shave about 36 minutes off the average driver’s commute.

“California has more than 1,400 miles of High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. Originally restricted to vehicles with two or more occupants to help minimize congestion, the lanes are now open to single occupancy use by owners of advanced, low-emission vehicles,” writes Ferreira.

Other states (including Florida, Georgia, and New York) are also considering giving Volt drivers a free pass on the carpool lanes. The new low-emission Volts started shipping from the GM plant in Detroit this week and will be on display in about 140 dealerships before the end of the month.

However, it should be noted that the idea of a state giving preferential treatment to hybrid or “clean energy” vehicles is neither new nor extraordinary. Many states, California included, have given HOV-passes to “green energy” vehicles. But that’s not the interesting part of the story: it’s the $1,500 state rebate, on top of the already generous $7,500 federal rebate, that should surprise some people.

So, let’s do a recap of the numbers. Let’s assume that the proposed $10,000 purchasing incentive doesn’t go through. Where, exactly, do potential Chevy Volt customers stand?

“California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project also will provide a $1500 state tax rebate for the 2012 Chevrolet Volt,” writes Jake Holmes of Automobile Magazine. “That’s in addition to the $7500 tax rebate offered by the federal government. Combined, those potentially reduce the cost of a new Volt to just $30,995 (the 2012 Volt starts at $39,9995 after an $850 destination charge).”

More wealth redistribution from the taxpayer to the wealthy enviro types.

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The acceptance of Jew hatred grows among "intellectuals"

Friends Seminary Plays Bait and Switch on Anti-Semitism

Posted By Alan M. Dershowitz On February 28, 2012 @ 12:09 am In

Friends Seminary invitee Gilad Atzmon

The Friends Seminary of New York, which invited the notorious anti-Semite, Gilad Atzmon, to one of its classes, and assigned its students to read his hate-filled writings, has now backed out of an agreement to invite me to the school to talk to the students about the evils of anti-Semitism. The Headmaster of the Friends Seminary, a school which is supposed to be committed to honesty and integrity, has broken his solemn promise to me, and to members of its own community, to allow its students to hear both sides of an issue which really has only one side: namely, the illegitimacy of bringing hate mongers into high school classrooms.

After I exposed the original invitations to Gilad Atzmon—who justifies the burning down of synagogues as a “reasonable” response to Jewish efforts to “control the world”—the Headmaster of the school agreed to several things. First, he would speak at an assembly to the students about the evils of anti-Semitism; second, he would assign my essay to the students who were assigned Atzmon’s essay; and third, he would invite me to address the students. He has now broken each of these promises.

Students who were at the assembly have confirmed that the speakers only made things worse. The teacher who invited Atzmon talked about what a great musician he was. The Headmaster was defensive about how his words were manipulate and justified bringing Atzmon based on Quaker principles. Apparently the word anti-Semitism was never once mentioned during this meeting. My article was not assigned to the students; a citation was sent to them saying that I wanted students to read its content.

When I wrote to the Headmaster complaining about these breaches, they used my letter as an excuse for canceling my appearance. The real reason was almost certainly pressure from hard-left members of his faculty and others.

Let’s be clear what this means. The school was unwilling to cancel Atzmon’s appearance, even after learning that he was a virulent anti-Semite who questions the Holocaust but believes that it may be true that Jews kill Christians to use their blood for religious purposes. But they have canceled my appearance because they didn’t like the tone of a private letter that I wrote to them that was critical of the Headmaster’s failure to comply with his promises. I ended my letter with the following words: “Please assure me that I am wrong about my judgment about you. I really would like to see this move forward in a positive direction, but you are not helping. The ultimate sufferers are your students, who are being taught the wrong values that will serve them poorly in college and in life.”

The values that Headmaster Bo Lauder is imbuing to his students are deception, breach of promise, toleration of anti-Semitism and an unwillingness to present all sides of an issue. In the end, the Headmaster is showing tremendous distrust of his students by refusing to allow them to hear another side of the issue, by canceling my promised appearance, by not assigning my essay and by continuing to be defensive regarding the dreadful mistake of judgment he made in allowing Atzmon to teach his students.

The Headmaster may believe that by breaking his promises, he has ended this issue. Let him be absolutely certain that, as I wrote in my letter to him: “This issue will not go away, and nor will I. Misled once, shame on you. Misled twice, shame on me.” Unless I am invited to address the students inside of the school, I will appear outside of the school, where I will hand out my essays to those students who are willing to read them and will address those students who have an interest in hearing a response to anti-Semitism. I am also considering inviting parents, students and other members of the Friends Seminary community to an event, in a venue outside of the school, where these issues can be discussed openly and candidly. Headmaster Lauder may be able to keep me physically outside of his school, but he will not be able to stop my ideas from reaching his community. The truth does not respect artificial boundaries.

The Friends Seminary, like other elite schools around the country, teaches our future leaders. Many Friends Schools around the country have espoused strongly anti-Israel policies for years. The Friends Seminary in New York itself has a rabidly anti-Israel history teacher on its faculty, who propagandizes his students against Israel in the classroom, and who has a picture of Anne Frank wearing a Palestinian headdress on his website. The school has and is again planning to take its students on trips to the Middle East that present a one-sided perspective. Now they have crossed the line from preaching anti-Zionism to tolerating anti-Semitism. I will not remain silent in the face of the Friends Seminary’s double standard and neither should you.

Dissecting leftism at its core belief system

Five Things Children Know That Liberals Have Forgotten

By John Hawkins

"Liberals love to think of themselves as intellectual and nuanced, but liberalism is incredibly simplistic. It's nothing more than ‘childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues.’ Very seldom does any issue that doesn't involve pandering to their supporters boil down at its core level to more than feeling ‘nice’ or ‘mean’ to liberals. This makes liberals ill equipped to deal with complex issues." -- John Hawkins, September 21, 2007

Liberals are actually worse than children, not just because it's so appalling to see adults who view themselves as highly intelligent and sophisticated thinking like little kids, but because in some respects, left-wing thinking is inferior to that of children. There are things that five year olds all across this country know that liberal child-men are intellectually unable to comprehend.

1) Life's not fair. There's probably not a kid in this country who hasn't said, "That's not fair," and has heard a "Life's not fair" in return. You could actually go farther than that. Not only is life not fair, the word "fair" is completely arbitrary and primarily dependent on whose goose is getting gored.

If you're paying 35% of your income in taxes and are being told that it's not "fair" you're only paying that much when almost half the country isn't paying any income tax at all, you probably disagree in the strongest of terms. On the other hand, someone making $10,000 a year might not think it's "fair" for someone else to make so much more money than he does after taxes. If you're a black, Harvard educated business owner with 10 million dollars in the bank, you may think it's perfectly fair that your son gets into a college over a more qualified son of a white garbage collector because of Affirmative Action, but it's pretty easy to see how the person being discriminated against because of his race wouldn't feel the same way.

In other words, one person's "fair" is another's person's "unfair" which can become a huge problem when the government starts defining what's "fair" and putting the force of law behind it. Yes, some of that has to happen in order to have an orderly and law abiding society, but increasingly, what's "fair" is becoming little more than an overbearing government and tyrannical judges abusing the law to do favors for the politically well-connected and voting blocks they think will help "their side." No matter what they do, life will never be “fair" and trying to make it so is an inherently "unfair" exercise in utopianism that has proven to lead to considerably more misery than simply accepting that "Life isn't fair" in the first place.

2) You can't have everything you want. This is something most kids learn when they don't get a pony at Christmas or when their parents take them into a dollar store and tell them they can have "two things."

This is not a lesson liberals seem to have ever learned because their thinking is, "If it's a 'good idea,' then it should be funded, regardless of what it costs, regardless of whether it's worth the money." It's like liberals start with the assumption that we have infinite money and if anyone opposes spending for any reason, it must be because he’s "mean." Did you know we actually have a higher debt load per person than Greece ($44,215 vs. $39,000), a nation that's only being saved from default because richer countries are paying its bills? So what happens when we run out of money, go into a depression, taxes explode, and the checks from the government slow down and stop? Judging by what's happening in Greece, liberals will start throwing Molotov cocktails in the street and blame everyone but themselves for spending the country into oblivion.

3) Good people make the world work. Most fairy tales, boiled down to their essence, consist of someone being put in danger and either learning to overcome the danger through working hard and showing virtue or having a "good" prince, teacher, or fairy godmother help the hero triumph. Who is Superman? Captain America? Spider-Man? They're personifications of goodness and righteousness come to life to protect people and to right wrongs. Children not only believe in goodness; they want to BE that hero when they grow up.

Liberalism, on the other hand, undercuts Christianity at every opportunity and sneers at goodness and virtue. Liberals believe enforcing moral standards is one of the worst things you can do. They consider judging people for bad behavior to be "mean" and impermissible. The liberal replacement for decency, character, and virtue is the pseudo-morality of being "nice, tolerant, and non-judgmental." Of course, you can be "nice, tolerant, and non-judgmental" and still be a bad person, a coward, and generally worthless as a human being. Being genuinely good requires a moral code, it requires drawing a clear line between right and wrong, and it requires having the fortitude to stand up for what's right. The real heroes, the people who make the country work as opposed to parasites who leech off the efforts of better men, generally turn out to be exactly the sort of good people that liberals hold in complete and utter contempt.

4) Liberals think EVERYONE should get a trophy. Oh, you're the right race? It should be easier for you to get into college. You're the right gender? Well, you should get paid more even though you work less because you take three months off to take care of your children. You want to work for a non-profit? Well, you should make as much as that guy running a small business because some people think that's just as valuable.

Wrong.

Life is a competition on an almost infinite number of levels with an almost infinite number of ways to "win." As P.J. O'Rourke has said, "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." If you think "banksters" and CEOs have it so much better than everyone else, you don't demand that the government put you on the same level they are; you become a banker or CEO. If you're a secretary and you don't think it's right that a fireman makes more than you do, become a fireman. If you like having lots of leisure time, but you want to make the same money as someone who works two jobs, then you make your choice as to what you value more and you live it.

Everyone can't be on the same level. Some people will be born with richer parents, better looks, more athletic ability, more brains, a better environment, etc., etc. All of them won't be good at the same things and the only way to make sure they all "get a trophy" in the same areas is to make sure that everyone is equally mediocre. Smart people push for equality of opportunity and let everyone rise to his own level while liberals try to tear people down and turn them all into losers to insure equality of results.

5) Nobody owes you a living. There are a lot of people who have come to believe that they're owed a certain standard of living just for being born in this country. Oh, you're an American citizen? That means you're owed a free education, a house, medical care, a job you enjoy with lots of vacation days, and then early retirement with someone picking up the bills.

Wrong.

You're actually owed "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" all of which you're primarily responsible for getting and maintaining yourself. Even most people's parents expect them to move out at 18 and take care of themselves and newsflash, the government isn't your parents. Because Americans are a benevolent people, we've chosen to put a basic safety net in place to take care of people who fall on hard times. Unfortunately, it has been so abused that we have a whole movement full of bums, thugs, and losers with their hands out, demanding that everyone take care of them because they think they should be children for life and the government should take the place of their mommy and daddy.

Again, wrong.

At the end of the day, you are responsible for taking care of yourself. You want a bike, get a paper route. Want to go to college at a private school for 6 years to get a degree in lesbian studies, then get a job, pay your bills, and pay off your own loans. Live below your means, save some money, get married before you have a kid, and if, God forbid, you do fall on hard times and take government assistance, have the common decency to feel a deep sense of shame for leeching off your betters instead of paying your own way.

Remember this? Appeasing Islamists has gone far enough

U.S. Military Burned Bibles at Bagram in 2009

While Muslims riot in Afghanistan, murdering soldiers over the accidental burning of Korans – Korans which had been used by terrorists to transmit Islamist messages – it turns out that the U.S. military has routinely burned Bibles in Afghanistan to be more sensitive to Muslims.

As CNN reported back in 2009:

Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday. The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops of any religion from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt. Col. Mark Wright said.

So why is it that the United States burns Bibles to cater to Muslims in Afghanistan, but when it burns Korans, we’re supposed to think that we’re insensitive numbskulls? Weren’t we fighting for freedom of religion and speech in Afghanistan? Apparently not. We were just fighting to establish shariah law in our own, special way, according to the Obama Administration.