AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

If you were walking past a house in your neighborhood and saw two guys, black, white, green, red headed, polka dot, or otherwise trying to break in the door, would you call the police? Is it a fact that she only called the police because they were black? Can you tell from the article?

ican711nm wrote:

We all got a tax cut by President Bush in 2003. As a consequence, the USA economy grew.

Yes, and we still got a horrible recession in 2008 with that tax cut.

Most tax cuts come with deficit spending. In the case of Bush's deficit spending, we went from a 230 billion surplus in 2000 to a 417 billion deficit in 2004.

That equates to a $650 billion dollar stimulus package. And yet the economy still barely grew during that time period averaging a 2-3% growth rate. A rate lower than during the Clinton years when the tax rate was higher.

The "horrible unemployment increase"--increase from 6% to 9.5%-- didn't start to occur until 2009.

Quote:

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat1.txt
HOUSEHOLD DATA ... ANNUAL
1. Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population, 1940 to date
...

The woman did right, but that's not the point.

The point is, and we don't know the facts yet, why the police officer decided on calling for backup and having the professor arrested. He wasn't breaking in at this point, he was inside, and he was able to identify himself as the owner.

New U.S. Census data indicates that of the 5 million new voters in the 2008 elections, virtually all of them were minorities. The GOP has responded to the increased diversity of the American electorate the only way it knows how " by retrenching behind its white, male, Southern base.

This strategy was on full display during the committee hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The Puerto Rican native sat before a panel of angry old white men who treated her with the contempt usually reserved for “the help,” as if personally insulted the maid would imagine herself worthy of sitting on the nation’s highest court.

Chief among their obsessions were her “wise Latina” comments: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [in race and sex discrimination cases] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Seems self-evident, no? I would also hope that a wise farmer, with the richness of his experience, would more often than not reach a better conclusion in agricultural issues than a city slicker who hasn’t lived that life. Yet Republican after Republican fixated on that statement, as if the mere mention of her ethnicity somehow suggested radical racialist thoughts. Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl spent 10 minutes lecturing Sotomayor on that statement.

Then there was Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, who couldn’t believe that Sotomayor hadn’t voted the same way in the New Haven firefighter case as Judge José Cabranes, who was also Puerto Rican! All brown people are apparently supposed to vote the same, unlike white judges, who are allowed to disagree on tough constitutional issues. And along the same lines, these Republican senators repeatedly told us they would’ve been happy to vote to confirm arch-conservative judge Miguel Estrada to the high court, so, you see, they aren’t racist! Some of their best friends are Latino judges!

On the sidelines, conservative commentators (most of them, not coincidentally, white males) pushed Senate Republicans to more aggressively push the racial angle.

“What they must do is expose Sotomayor, as they did not in the case of Ginsburg, as a political activist whose career bespeaks a lifelong resolve to discriminate against white males to the degree necessary to bring about an equality of rewards in society,” wrote Pat Buchanan in his column. “Sonia is, first and foremost, a Latina. She has not hesitated to demand, even in college and law school, ethnic and gender preferences for her own. Her concept of justice is race-based.” Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked, “Should white Americans be concerned about Judge Sotomayor?” Prominent columnist Charles Krauthammer claimed that Sotomayor was a “believer in the racial spoils system.”

I’ve written repeatedly about where this country is headed " White America is dropping from 69.4 percent in 2000 to 65.1 percent in 2010 to 57.5 percent in 2030. By 2050, the U.S. will be majority-minority, and while African-Americans and Asians will play a large role, the bulk of that minority growth will come from Latinos. Republicans don’t seem to care, and following their base’s advice, appear to be betting that their diminishing base can keep them afloat electorally " a bizarre strategy that isn’t just demographically unsound (the numbers simply aren’t there), but also disgustingly divisive for our proudly pluralistic nation. Republicans may pine for 1950, when whites were 90 percent of the country, but this nation has evolved, and the inability of conservatives to adjust accordingly only solidifies the Democrats’ hand.

And to think, we haven’t even gotten to the immigration debate yet.

Republicans may pine for 1950, when whites were 90 percent of the country, but this nation has evolved, and the inability of conservatives to adjust accordingly only solidifies the Democrats’ hand.

Will "conservatives" ever adjust?

I wonder if you asked the same question of liberals, who had blind hatred for GW Bush, regarding his military service for example.

Do you think that some people are so blindly partisan that they only see one side and will never accept the other side? You know what I mean...people like you!

What I find so fascinating about American politics is that even though there have been all those anti-white rhetoric from the conservative camp, many minorities belong to their party.

Why is it that they can't see the racial bigotry expressed so openly against our black president, and still claim he is an Kenyan and not American - even after his Hawaii birth certificate has been produced?

Just amazing!

Wall Street Journal
BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
JULY 22, 2009, 4:29 P.M.
ET Rules for Being Sarah Palin
It’s unethical to defend yourself against ethics charges.
By JAMES TARANTO

An Alaskan “ethics investigator” is taking a final shot at Gov. Sarah Palin, whose resignation as governor becomes effective at the end of this week. He claims that Palin “may have violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts.” According to the Associated Press, the investigator’s report “says Palin is securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, set up by supporters.”

The AP continues: “An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the ‘official’ legal defense fund.”

One can certainly see how a legal defense fund might raise ethical concerns. If, let us say, the beneficiary were able to use the money for personal expenses or in a political campaign, then a contribution to the defense fund could turn out to be the practical equivalent of, respectively, a bribe or an extralegal campaign contribution.

But no such impropriety is alleged here. Rather, the investigator claims that defending herself against ethics charges itself constitutes “personal gain”:

In his report, attorney Thomas Daniel said his interpretation of the ethics act is consistent with common sense:
An ordinary citizen facing legal charges is not likely to be able to generate donations to a legal defense fund, he wrote. “In contrast, Governor Palin is able to generate donations because of the fact that she is a public official and a public figure. Were it not for the fact that she is governor and a national political figure, it is unlikely that many citizens would donate money to her legal defense fund.”

It may be that Daniel’s interpretation of the ethics act is consistent with a very literal reading of the act, but contrary to his claim, it is an affront to common sense. No “ordinary citizen” would face the kind of “legal charges” that have bedeviled Palin--to wit, politically motivated accusations that she has misused her office.

CNN.com quotes Palin as saying in a statement that “neither I nor my lawyer has received a penny from this fund.” Even if that changes, it is ridiculous to say Palin enjoys “personal gain” if she gets help offsetting her legal bills. At best it would partially offset the costs imposed on her by her roles as governor, vice presidential nominee and political hate object--only the first two of which she took on voluntarily.

Infecting the Republicans
by Donald Devine
Issue 136 - July 22, 2009

Why do the top “progressive” columnists for two of the preeminent establishment media outlets spend almost as much time blaming Republicans as praising Democrats? The Democrats have 60 votes in the Senate, absolute control of the House and the presidency. The GOP is irrelevant politically. Yet, neither the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne nor the Wall Street Journal’s Thomas Frank is one to waste his powerful propaganda pulpit. What is up?

Anyone wise to the ways of Washington knows that President Barack Obama’s two top priorities of universal health reform and cap-and-trade climate control have zero probability of emerging from Congress in any form that will either please his progressive political base or have any possibility to institute real reform. The outlines of the likely legislative results have emerged for both policies and they are already highly compromised, a lobbyists dream of special interest protections and political payoffs. So the Democratic media flacks need someone to take the blame " and who better than the hapless Republicans?

The poor Republicans are confused. The Dionnes’ keep telling the GOP they must support the popular president " especially on health reform - to save the party politically. Why should Republicans assume these progressives have their best interests at heart? Still, it is extremely difficult to admit you are irrelevant. Even President Bill Clinton insisted he was relevant after the 1994 Republican victory when his advisors told him to hold back and let Newt Gingrich overreach himself, which he did after Clinton stopped complaining. Unless the GOP recognizes its weakness and shuts up now, it will walk into the only trap that can possibly save the Democrats from an absolute disaster in the 2010 election, one that could make them look back to 1994 with nostalgia. When your opponents are busy destroying themselves, it is foolhardy to step into the middle of the fight. . . . .

Politicians, of course, cannot stop talking so the odds are the GOP will walk into the trap just as they did in 1996. The good news for the minority is that the disaster may be so great the Democrats will suffer big losses anyway. The bad news is that if the Republicans win, President Obama like President Clinton before him will probably learn from the experience and move right to improve his chances in 2012.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Story last updated at 7/1/2009 - 6:14 pm
State spent nearly $300K investigating Palin ethics complaints
Most expensive investigation may have been driven by Palin herself

Alaska has spent nearly $300,000 investigating ethics complaints against Gov. Sarah Palin, who calls the complaints "harassment" against her and expensive for the state to defend.

Palin has accused bloggers and political opponents of bringing "frivolous" ethics charges against her.

"How much will this blogger's asinine political grandstanding cost all of us in time and money?" Palin asked after the state Personnel Board dismissed another complaint last spring.

Palin herself may be responsible for much of those costs, as indicated by a list of investigation costs for 13 separate cases the state Personnel Board released Tuesday in response to public records requests.

The minimalist list identifies cases only by the year and a three-digit case number. State Personnel Director Nicki Neal refused to identify them more specifically, so connections between known investigations and the costs released could not be verified.

However, the timing, scope and other factors of the single largest expense appear to fit the case Palin filed against herself that cost $187,797 to investigate. That's almost two-thirds of the total $296,042 of all Personnel Board investigations in the last two years.

The self-reported complaint was a means to have a legislative investigator's findings in the "Troopergate" case reexamined by a Personnel Board investigator. She said publicly that her self-reported complaint was without merit.

The Legislative Council, chaired by then-Sen. Kim Elton, D-Juneau, had budgeted $100,000 for its independent investigation of Troopergate. Legislative investigator Stephen Branchflower concluded Palin abused her authority when she waged a campaign against a state trooper with whom she had a family dispute, but found she had the legitimate power to fire former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan who failed to take action against the trooper.

Branchflower's report came out Oct. 10, 2008, in the heat of a bitter presidential campaign. Then, Palin filed her complaint against herself on Troopergate with the Personnel Board. Its report, done by the Personnel Board-hired counsel Tim Petumenos, cleared Palin and came out the evening before the election.

Palin waived confidentiality to make that report public.