Investor’s Business Daily Editorials

• Illinois Taxes: How Blue Can You Get? - “Fiscal Policy: Unimpressed by data showing that businesses, jobs and people flee high-tax states, the Land of Lincoln opts to squeeze the last penny out of taxpayers with a whopping 75% income-tax increase.”
• Spinning The Data  - ”Jobs: The White House will spin the lower unemployment rate as a great triumph, but it’s because people are giving up. The time to get the federal behemoth off the backs of job-creators is now.”
•  The End Begins? - “The Road To Repeal: The campaign to rid the country of ObamaCare got off to a running start Friday when a procedural hurdle was easily cleared in the House. So far, so good for the new majority.”
•  The White House Daley Show - “Ethics: Republicans who plan to investigate the administration need to look into its handling of the Daley affair. Was Bill Daley brought in so that ex-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel could become Chicago’s mayor?”

Laura Ingraham

• Sarah Palin says Obama is weakening America – January 07, 2011
• Newt Gingrich on the left’s attempt to limit speech – January 10, 2011

Mark Levin

• Podcast for show aired January 10, 2011

37 Years On

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court handed down the still controversial Roe v. Wade decision.  That ruling effectively took the massive moral question of abortion out of the hands of the American people, and in the 37 years since, an estimated 50 million unborn children have been aborted.  Since that time, we have learned that “Roe,” Norma McCorvey, was used by radicals and taught to lie about the circumstances of her pregancy in court.  Today, she is strongly pro-life.  There are Walks for Life today all over the country and Texas, including Dallas, Houston, at the capitol in Austin and in Washington, DC to mark the day.

Rather than recite Roe’s legacy of division and rancor that by now we all are familiar with, today’s anniversary is an appropriate time to note a few things that are happening right now.  The American people are, for the first time since the question has been polled, more pro-life than not.  In May 2009, Gallup found that 51% of Americans identify themselves as pro-life, while 42% identify as pro-choice.

Among the reasons for the shift in opinion, is the increased availability of sonogram technology.  Sonograms show unambiguously that the unborn are alive.  The power of the sonogram image led College Station Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson to turn against abortion last year.  The Republican Party of Texas has put the question of mandating sonograms on our primary ballot this year.

Meanwhile, in Houston former mayor and now Democratic contender for governor Bill White has presided over the construction of what may be the world’s largest abortion clinic.  White bills himself as a moderate Democrat, but his administration allowed this 6-floor, 78,000 square foot facility to be built.  Its location shows that it clearly markets its late-term abortion services to Houston’s minority communities.  And there’s more to this awful story: White’s director of Health Policy was one Elena Marks.  Ms. Marks is (or was) also the Texas head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.  Bill White’s connection to this gigantic abortion mill is undeniable; he holds no claim to being a moderate Democrat.

The Bay State Reverberates

It has been quite an interesting week in politics.  The one-year anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration saw a Republican, Scott Brown, elected senator from Massachusetts for the first time in a generation.  That he captured the seat that the late Ted Kennedy held for a generation puts the victory in bold print.  Following that win, the Democrats’ health care takeover bill appears to be on life support.  It is not dead yet – liberals like Nancy Pelosi are still trying to push it through even though the American people have loudly rejected it.  The Obama administration’s plan to try arch terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York may also now be in doubt.  It should be.  Even New York’s Democratic governor has been cool to the idea of trying KSM as a civilian in the city he attacked. All of this might help explain by the latest Gallup poll shows that 57% of adults are disappointed with President Obama.  The fact is, he’s governing from the far left, and that’s not where most Americans are.  The other fact is, he has broken major campaign promises by proposing massive tax increases and having his health care bill brokered in back room deals, and the American people are aware of it.  That’s why he has fallen farther faster in job approval in his first year than any other US president ever has.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court struck down parts of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance law this week.  That was a clear victory for free speech.

And then on Thursday, news broke that the liberal Air America talk radio network is bankrupt and will cease operations.  Air America’s sordid history of stealing from Boys and Girls Clubs never quite made the mainstream media splash that it should have.  The network was on so few stations and attracted so few listeners that it won’t be missed.

Exhausted after a full day of kayak fishing in the waters off Green Island in the Lower Laguna Madre, I plopped down on the floor and crossed my legs under the coffee table  in front of the TV.  I stared at the laptop for a moment, then opened it and pressed the “On” button.  Roused from hibernation, the laptop displayed what I had last seen – a reminder to watch “The People Speak” on The History Channel.

Ugh.

I had done a little research weeks ago on Howard Zinn and his pseudocumentary, so my expectations were rather low.  Still, tired though I was, I felt compelled to watch.

I was able to endure fifteen minutes.

Read more

by Matthew Vadum

There’s something about Mao: the Obama administration just can’t get enough of its favorite mass murderer! It’s Mao mania at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!

Glenn Beck revealed on his radio show today that President Obama’s car czar Ron Bloom is the second White House official in recent days to have been discovered to have a crush on Chairman Mao.

Beck played a clip of Bloom in which he said the following:

Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they’re convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it’s an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend, you should get a dog.

Here’s the video footage of Bloom’s statement:

It is unclear from Bloom’s statement if he idolizes Mao as his White House colleague Anita Dunn does, but obviously Mao is someone he respects enough to quote in a speech.

Dunn, who is President Obama’s White House communications director, backed away from her previous praise of Mao by claiming she was only joking when she called him “one of the two people that I turn to most.”

What is it with these people? Can’t they quote someone other than the Chinese Hitler?

by Matthew Vadum

Standup comedian Anita Dunn, who doubles as President Obama’s White House communications director, now claims she was only joking when praised Mao Zedong by calling him “one of the two people that I turn to most,” Glenn Beck revealed on his TV show today.

Hilarious! There have to be 70 million murdered Chinese rolling in the aisles! What a knee-slapper.

Beck revealed last week that Dunn idolizes Mao, the brutal Communist dictator of China responsible for the slaughter of tens of millions of innocent victims.

To recap, in a video from June, Dunn told high schoolers:

A lot of you have a great deal of ability. A lot of you work hard. Put them together and that answers the “why not” question. There is usually not a good reason. And then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, not often coupled together, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you’re going to make choices. You’re going to challenge. You’re going to say why not. You’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here’s the deal — these are your choices. They are no one else’s. In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai Shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities that had the army. They had the airport. They had everything on their side, and people said, “How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all the odds against you?” And Mao Zedong said, “You know, you fight your war, and I’ll fight mine.” And think about that for a second. You don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things, and you don’t have to follow other people’s choices and paths, OK? It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war. You lay out your own path. You figure out what’s right for you. You don’t let external definitions define how good you are internally. You fight your war. You let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path. And Mother Teresa, who, upon receiving a letter from a fairly affluent young person who asked her whether she could come over and help with that orphanage in Calcutta, responded very simply, “Go find your own Calcutta.” OK? Go find your own Calcutta. Fight your own path. Go find the thing that is unique to you. The challenge that is actually yours, not somebody else’s challenge. One of the things that we see the Obamas, both of them, Michelle and Barack, came out of backgrounds as community organizers, working.

If Dunn’s message was about the importance of perseverance and refusing to give up, she could easily have quoted a non-controversial figure such as Winston Churchill, Dale Carnegie, Franklin D. Roosevelt, or Thomas Edison, but she chose Mao, a homicidal maniac.

Remember that: she chose Mao as an example of someone whose ideas she elevates and exults.

But now Dunn says, “The use of the phrase ‘favorite political philosophers’ was intended as irony, but clearly the effort fell flat.”

Having studied English, this doesn’t quite make sense to me.

The following explanation roughly captures what I learned about irony in college:

The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs. In the figure of speech, emphasis is placed on the opposition between the literal and intended meaning of a statement; one thing is said and its opposite implied, as in the comment, “Beautiful weather, isn’t it?” made when it is raining or nasty. Ironic literature exploits, in addition to the rhetorical figure, such devices as character development, situation, and plot to stress the paradoxical nature of reality or the contrast between an ideal and actual condition, set of circumstances, etc., frequently in such a way as to stress the absurdity present in the contradiction between substance and form.

I didn’t pick up any irony in her comments, did you? And if she was being ironic as to her “favorite political philosophers,” the irony would also extend to Mother Teresa. She didn’t say anything about distancing herself from Mother Teresa, so this retroactive pronouncement of irony by Dunn is quite selective, isn’t it?

A parent of a high school student present in the audience at the speech by Dunn (who has been asked by the White House to lead the Obama administration’s war against Fox News) also didn’t think the supposed joke was funny. “There was no irony, no sense of humor,” he said. “Mao would have preferred to silence the opposition by a bullet to the head.”

If Dunn is a practitioner of irony, she should have her license revoked.

(The Obama as Mao poster graphic above is by Matt Holzmann. Videos will be added later tonight when they become available.)

by kathyshaidle

Good to know Attorney General Eric Holder has his priorities straight.

Last night, Sean Hannity of FOX News reported that a lengthy ethics investigation of former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has been suddenly called off. Hannity cited an “anonymous source” who told reporters that the investigation “was killed in Washington.”

(Richardson, whom Hannity described as “a close ally of the Obama administration,” was up for the choice post of Commerce Secretary, until a federal grand jury began an investigation into a state contract awarded to one of Richardson’s major political donors.)

Instead, Holder has decided to focus his investigative powers elsewhere. As Joseph Klein wrote here August 25, Holder has appointed a “prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA interrogation abuses during the Bush administration. It is arguably one of the worst decisions to date of an already disastrous Obama administration. It chills effective intelligence-gathering as long as interrogators have to worry that everything they say and do may end up being used against them in a criminal trial.”

I feel safer already, don’t you?