Fire Hydrant of Freedom

It is always a pleasure to see Hillary squirm about her lying.

Yet, sadly half the country could care less about lying with the ubiquitous come back,
"they all do it".  Ever point out her lying to a lib.  When boxed in with logic this is ALWAYS the comeback.

In my view lying should automatically cancel one out for any public office.

"I have repeatedly commented here at the time and since then, our leaving was a huge, huge, error."

Yes, you and others on the board notably GM and I think Doug and objectivist.   I was not so sure what to do.

I hope the soldiers who fought there will know no matter what happens they did not fight in vain, that they bravely risked lives, limb and golden years for their country, that their efforts were as noble as they come, and the rest of us armchair Americans will always be proud of them.  The Military should never be treated like the Vietnam Vets were by the liberals of the 60s including Clintons, Kerry, and Fonda ( who for some unclear reason is lionized now for making postmenopausal exercise videos for post menopausal broads).

At the very least the Brockster should be screaming the praise of our military and our nation that valiantly tried to free Iraq from homicidal dirtballs.   Instead he makes us look like we are to blame and we are the disgrace.

"Sixty-eight percent of Americans favor allowing immigrants living in the country illegally who were brought to the United States as children to gain legal resident status if they join the military or go to college."

Allowing people who come here illegally serve in the military for citizenship?  Talk about immoral.

Go to college?  We will pay for all that. 

The Jihadists armored convoys consist of a bunch of Toyota pick up trucks with platoons of guys wearing black hoods and carrying Kalishnokov weapons.   A few jets scrambled could finish the whole thing off.  This is reminiscent of Herbert Bush encouraging Kurds to rise up against Saddam and then leaving them alone to be murdered.

Now we encouraged and supported moderate elements in Iraq only to abandon them when they need some help.

I didn't realize paper was invented by the Chinese between 100 and 200 AD.  Of course it really took off after the invention of type and printing press.  Martin Luther was the first bestseller ( a bit before the NYT):

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21603411-cheap-portable-printable-invention-happy-find

The only reason I post this if because of this line:

" That was David Brat’s (that’s the guy who won) whole campaign: Cantor was a liberal who supported a path to citizenship for the swarthy illegals. (He didn’t say that, of course, at least the swarthy part.) Immigration reform is D-E-A-D. There is no chance the House will touch it. That means it’s dead for this Congress, which means that next Congress, the Senate would have to take the lead in passing it again."

Again the GOP allows the left media to control the way immigration is presented.  This is not about just Latinos coming in from south of the border although they of course are the great bulk of illegals.  Sure they are easier to spot.  But their are plenty from Europe, Middle East, Africa, Caribbean, Asia who are not here legally as well.   No matter where you come from we expect you to respect our laws.   That includes residence laws too.  The GOP has to make this clear.  Of course like nitwits they don't and of course the Dems can more easily turn this into a racial issue.  Which it is not.  Whether for or against amnesty for 15 million people and later many of their relatives and the millions more who will come again it is an economic issue.  It is about the money as always.


******By Michael Tomasky 10 hours ago The Daily Beast

Eric Cantor Loss Is an Earthquake

Here’s the thing: Eric Cantor did not fall asleep in this race. He spent around $5 million. He ran lots of TV ads. He knew this was going to be a close one. He campaigned. And he still got creamed.

And here’s the other thing: Cantor was not an enemy of the Tea Party. He was in fact the Tea Party’s guy in the leadership for much of the Barack Obama era. He carried the tea into the speaker’s office. And still he got creamed.

Creamed! Has a party leader ever lost a primary like this? Stop and take this in. Like any political journalist, I’m a little bit of a historian of this sort of thing, although I readily admit my knowledge isn’t encyclopedic. But I sure can’t think of anything. Tom Foley, the Democratic House speaker in the early 1990s, lost reelection while he was speaker, but that was in the general, to a Republican, which is a whole different ballgame. And he was the first sitting speaker to lose an election since…get this…1862! But a primary? The No. 2 man in the House, losing a primary?

So what happened here? Obviously, first, it’s about immigration. That was David Brat’s (that’s the guy who won) whole campaign: Cantor was a liberal who supported a path to citizenship for the swarthy illegals. (He didn’t say that, of course, at least the swarthy part.) Immigration reform is D-E-A-D. There is no chance the House will touch it. That means it’s dead for this Congress, which means that next Congress, the Senate would have to take the lead in passing it again. (The Senate’s passage of the current bill expires when this Congress ends.) And the Senate isn’t going to touch it in the next Congress, even if the Democrats hold on to the majority. Those handful of Republicans who backed reform last year will be terrified to do so. And it’s difficult to say when immigration reform might have another shot. Maybe the first two years of President Clinton’s second term. Maybe.

Second, the reports of the Tea Party’s death are…well, you know. Cantor’s loss is a huge disruption of the narrative that the Republican establishment had taken control this year. And throw in the coming Chris McDaniel-Thad Cochran runoff in the Mississippi Senate race, which many now expect Tea Partier McDaniel to win, and you have a narrative in which the Tea Party can say, “We’re still calling the shots.” Cantor also has spent the past couple of years talking about education, which, any Tea Party person knows, is code for black, city, unions. Other Republicans in the House won’t miss that message, and they won’t try to carve out any “interesting” legislative profiles for themselves.

Third, what does it mean for the country? Hard to say yet, but bad, surely. The House GOP wasn’t exactly ready to start cutting deals with Obama even with Cantor in the leadership. Now that he’s been beaten by a right-winger…no one, not a single Republican in the House will take a chance on anything. The legislative process, already shut down, will only be more so.

And Brat himself, fourth, is a star overnight. I’d hate to be his booker or scheduler. His Wednesday is going to be a roller-coaster ride from Rush Limbaugh to Fox to Laura Ingraham to who knows what. He is a hero to these people. Remember how Scott Brown attained wattage in 2009 by beating Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts? Brown was a major star then. Brat is going to make Brown look like a nameless session guitar player.

I’m sure there’s ramification five, six, seven, and eight that I’m not even thinking of right now. We’ll see. But this is an earthquake. One of the most shocking electoral nights in American history. Did I really say that? I did. It’s true. And it’s bad.

Related from The Daily Beast**********

Clintons Hit $200 Million for Endowment Before 2016 Race
 
By Jonathan Allen and Annie Linskey  Jun 6, 2014 12:00 AM ET 

Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton raised $200 million in 10 months for their foundation’s endowment, positioning the nonprofit to survive even if its cash-collecting namesakes engage in a 2016 presidential run.

With four-fifths of their $250-million target in the bank, they are also changing fundraising strategies to include small donors -- a tactic that would create a list that could be politically useful, as well.

The Clintons’ initial appeals for foundation money were to contributors who could give $1 million or more. Those answering that call included Irish cell phone billionaire Denis O’Brien, and Bill Austin, owner of Minnesota’s Starkey Laboratories. Others were charities founded by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu -- the world’s second richest man -- and one run by Chicago venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker and his wife.

“As with many of the nation’s leading non-profit organizations, an endowment will provide the Clinton Foundation with the permanent capacity to support established and new programs and responsibly plan for the future,” Craig Minassian, the group’s chief communications officer, said in an e-mail.

The race to build an endowment is a sign that the foundation is maturing, that 67-year-old former President Bill Clinton won’t always be able to serve as its chief rainmaker, and that the time for Hillary Clinton, 66, to settle the question of her presidential ambitions is running out, said three people involved in the endowment project who asked for anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the fundraising effort.

The foundation’s officials are compiling a list of investment management firms to maintain the fund, and will soon put out a request for proposals, a foundation official familiar with the strategy said.

Establishing and funding the endowment now is important because a return by the Clintons to the political stage will also require a shift from generating cash for the foundation to financing the campaign, said those involved in the current fundraising drive.

That shift in status, from private to public life, also would mean the couple could be subject to conflict-of-interest charges if foundation donations are sought from those with interests before the federal government.

Avoiding Conflicts

Also, raising an endowment prior to a presidential run will ensure the foundation doesn’t starve a potential Clinton super-political action committee, said Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a Washington-based watchdog group. Super-PACs that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money didn’t exist during Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“Historically, many of the people who could give to a Clinton Foundation would have maxed out to the Clinton campaign,” Holman said. “Now they can throw all that money at the candidate herself.”

U.S. law bans foreigners such as billionaires Slim and O’Brien from contributing to political campaigns, so a potential Clinton campaign wouldn’t be competing for their dollars.

During the 2008 presidential primary campaign, then-Senator Barack Obama tried unsuccessfully to pressure the Clinton Foundation to reveal its donors. As part of the deal struck for Hillary Clinton to join Obama’s administration as secretary of state, the foundation agreed to disclose its contributors.

Donor Disclosure

The backers of the endowment will be listed along with other supporters in annual public disclosures going forward, according to a foundation official.

At a minimum, the Clintons simply wouldn’t have the time to nurture the endowment or foundation in the midst of a presidential campaign. If she runs and wins, the foundation could be deprived of their fundraising prowess for a decade.

The fundraising drive will be a hot topic of hallway conversations today when top donors -- including some who wrote checks for the endowment -- gather at Goldman Sachs (GS) Group Inc. headquarters in Manhattan for the organization’s annual spring briefing on programs.

The Clintons’ urgency is evident in the speed at which they have been generating donations.

“Most small or medium foundations wouldn’t be able to raise that kind of money in a year,” said Reina Mukai, a research manager at the New York-based Foundation Center, which tracks philanthropy. “It’s fairly unique.”

Small-Donor Event

In September, the foundation will hold a $1,000-a-head reception at the Italian Embassy in Washington. For $25,000, a couple will be able to dine after the reception with Bill and Hillary Clinton at the Washington home they’ve kept. A check for $50,000 includes dinner and an invitation to the New York-based foundation’s next donor conference.

Bill Clinton, advised by longtime aide Doug Band, created the Clinton Foundation shortly after leaving the White House in 2001. In 2012, it took in $54.7 million in revenue and ended the year with $183.6 million in assets. Its endowment, though, was just $292,000.

In the past dozen years, the foundation sprouted 11 separate arms, from the Clinton Global Initiative to Hillary Clinton’s “Too Small To Fail” project, which was founded in 2013 to improve the health of children younger than 6 years old.

Whether or not Hillary Clinton runs for president, foundation officials said it makes sense to set up a mechanism for building the family’s legacy “in perpetuity.”

One Clinton confidant described a maturation process at the foundation that made an endowment a natural move.

Start-Up Tendencies

In its early years, this person said, the foundation was more like a start-up, trying to figure out how to make it each year. More recently, its officers have begun considering how to make sure it can endure for decades.

While the $250 million level may secure the operation of existing programs, it hardly puts the Clinton foundation in the same league as those with the names Ford, Gates or Rockefeller attached to them.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, reports having an endowment of $40.2 billion -- 160 times the size of the Clinton Foundation’s goal. At $32.7 billion, Harvard University ranks first on the list of major college endowments.

The Clinton goal compares more closely to the size of the endowment of former President Jimmy Carter’s Atlanta-based foundation, which reported having a $460 million endowment in 2011.

Foundation Turnaround

The success of the Clinton fundraising drive marks a turnaround for a foundation that, according to the New York Times, was rife with disorganization and incurred about $40 million in deficits in 2007 and 2008. Bill Clinton disputed the account.

Still, in 2011 the foundation contracted with the New York-based law firm Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP to audit finances and policies. Recommendations included: hold regular staff meetings, review expense reports, and adopt a gift acceptance policy “to ensure that all donors are properly vetted.”

In July, the Clintons reorganized its staff, removing Chief Executive Officer Bruce Lindsey from day-to-day management and installing Eric Braverman from McKinsey & Company in his place.

As the foundation announced those changes, Bill Clinton added a request. “We need an endowment,” Clinton said in Aug. 13 open letter posted on the foundation’s website “which our family and friends are working to raise.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan Allen in Washington at jallen149@bloomberg.net; Annie Linskey in Washington at alinskey@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at jcummings21@bloomberg.net Don Frederick

"the end of the canned food"

 

Even worse if it canned spam!

I admit I am in the awkward position of hoping I lose the bet. 

You make a good argument.  My position one can never underestimate the Clinton machine.   No matter how unbelievably dishonest Bill would be, let alone her, they would always manage to weasel out of trouble still on their feet.   

I would like to place some heavy duty wagers with you:

1)  If she doesn't run I buy dinner.  If she does I get a dinner.

2)  If she doesn't win the Democratic nomination I buy lunch.  If she does you buy  lunch.

3) If she wins the Presidency I get breakfast.   IF not you do.

 

Doug,

"My cover all bases prediction was that she will not run, won't win the Dem nomination if she runs and won't win the Presidency if she runs and is nominated"

Well you do make three predictions here.

How are you so sure?

'Inside info' you can share here?

Putin is frightened:

http://news.yahoo.com/video/fitness-expert-breaks-down-president-141039080.html

Well, we did fight a Civil War.  750,000 dead at a time when there were roughly 32 or 33 million people in the US (22 in the North and 9 in the South roughly 4 mill of them slaves .   That would be around 7.5 million deaths in today's numbers 300 mill + 30 mill illegals:

***Thursday, May 29, 2014 FULL SHOW | HEADLINES | PREVIOUS: "A Peace Warrior": Poet, Civil Rights Activist...

The Case for Reparations: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Reckoning With U.S. Slavery & Institutional Racism

African-American History, Race in America

"We Shall Overcome": Remembering Folk Icon, Activist Pete Seeger in His Own Words & Songs
Jan 28, 2014 | Story

Bill Moyers on Dark Money, the Attack on Voting Rights & How Racism Stills Drives Our Politics
Jan 27, 2014 | Story

SPECIAL: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in His Own Words
Jan 20, 2014 | Story

An explosive new cover story in the June issue of The Atlantic magazine by the famed essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates has rekindled a national discussion on reparations for American slavery and institutional racism. Coates explores how slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and federally backed housing policy systematically robbed African Americans of their possessions and prevented them from accruing inter-generational wealth. Much of the essay focuses on predatory lending schemes that bilked potential African-American homeowners, concluding: "Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole." Click here to watch Part 2 of this interview.":http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/30/part_2_ta_nehisi_coateson

AMY GOODMAN: "The case for reparations. 250 years of slavery. Nine years of Jim Crow. 60 years of separate but equal. 35 years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole." So begins an explosive new cover story in the June issue of the Atlantic magazine by the famed essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates. The article is being credited for rekindling a national discussion on reparations for American slavery and institutional racism.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In the essay, Ta-Nehisi Coates exposes how slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and federally backed housing policy systematically robbed African Americans of their possessions and prevented them from accruing intergenerational wealth. Much of the piece focuses on predatory lending schemes that built potential African-American homeowners. This is a video that The Atlantic released a preview its new cover story, "The Case for Reparations."


*BILLY LAMAR BROOKS SR.: This area here represents the poorest of the poor in the city of Chicago.


MATTIE LEWIS: I’ve always wanted to own my own house, because I work for white people when I was in the South, and they had beautiful homes and I always said, one day I was going to have me one.


JACK MACNAMARA: White folks created the ghetto. It drives me crazy today even that we don’t admit that. This is the best example I can think of the institutional racism.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: To talk about "The Case for Reparations," we’re joined now by Ta-Nehisi Coates here in New York City. Welcome to Democracy Now! You start your article with one particular figure, Clyde Ross. Tell us his story and why you decided to begin with him.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Mr. Ross is really just emblematic of much of what has happened to African-Americans across the 20th century, and I emphasize 20th century. Mr. Ross was born in the Delta region of Mississippi. His family was not particularly poor, they actually quite prominent farmers. They had their land and virtually all of their possessions taken from them through a scheme around allegedly back taxes and were reduced to sharecropping. In the sharecropping system, there was no sort of assurances over what they might get versus what they actually picked. When I first met Mr. Ross, the first thing he said to me was he left Mississippi for Chicago because he was seeking the protection of the law. I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that. But, as he explained it to me, he said, listen, there were no black judges, no black prosecutors, no black police — basically, we had no law. We were outlaws and people could take from us whatever they wanted. That was very much his early life. He went to Chicago thinking things would be a little different. On the surface, they were. He managed to get a job, got married, had a decent life. He was basically looking for that one more emblem of the American middle class in the Eisenhower years, and that was the possession of a home. Unfortunately, due to government policy, Mr. Ross at that time, like most African-Americans, was unable to secure a loan due to policies or red-lining and deciding who deserved the loans and who doesn’t. There was a broad, broad consensus that African-Americans, for no other reason besides blatant racism, could not be responsible homeowners. Mr. Ross, as happens when people are pushed out of the legitimate loan market ended up in the illegitimate loan market and got caught up in the system of contract buying, which is essentially just a particularly onerous rent to own scheme for people looking to buy houses. Ended up purchasing a house, I believe at $27,000 he paid for it. The person who sold it to him had bought the house only six months before for $12,000. Mr. Ross later became an activist, helped formed the Contract Buyers League, and just fought on behalf of African American home owner on the west side of Chicago. I should add that it is estimated during this period that 85% of African-Americans looking to buy homes in Chicago bought through contract lending.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Let’s hear Clyde Ross and his onward speaking a in 1969 on behalf of the Contract Buyers League a coalition of black homeowners on Chicago’s South and West Sides from all of whom had been locked into the the same system of predatory lending.


CLYDE ROSS: They have cheated us out of more than money. We have been cheated out of the right to be human beings in a society. We have been cheated out of buying homes at a decent price. Now it’s time now, we got a chance. The Contract Buyers League has presented a chance for these people in this area to move out of this crippled society, to move up. Stand on your own two feet. Be human beings, fight for what you know is right. Fight.

AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates, can you talk about this example and others in this remarkable piece and how you then talk about the bill for reparations that has been introduced by John Conyers year after year in the house, and what reparations would actually look like?

TA-NEHISI COATES: What I try to establish in this piece is that there is a conventional way of talking about the relationship in America between the African-American community and the white community, and it is one that we are very comfortable with. I call it basically the lunch table view of the problem with racism in America is that black people want to sit at one table and white people want to sit at another lunch table. If we could just get black and white people to like each other, love each other, everything would be solved. In fact, even these terms that we’re using are inventions, and they’re inventions of racism. If you trace back the history back to 1619, a better way of describing the relationship between black and white people is one of plunder, the constant stealing, the taking from black people that extends from slavery up through Jim Crow policy. Slavery is obviously the stealing of people’s labor. In some cases the outright theft of people’s children, and the vending of people’s children, the taking of the black body for whatever profit you can wring from it, up through the Jim Crow South where you have a system of debt peonage, sharecropping — which really isn’t much different minus the actual selling of children you steal, exploiting labor and taking as much as you can from it. Into a system when you think about something like separate but equal. In the Civil Rights Movement, we traditionally picture colored only water fountains, white only restrooms. The thing people have to remember, if you take a state like Mississippi or anywhere in the deep South where you have a public university system, black people are paying into that. Black people are pledging their fealty to the state and yet, they aren’t getting the same return. This is theft. This is systemized. When we try to talk about the practicality of it, I spent 16,000 words almost just trying to actually make the case. At the end, what I come to is that the actionable thing right now is to support Representative John Conyers’ Bill H.R.40 for a study of what slavery has actually done, what the legacy of slavery has actually done to black people and what are remedies we might come up with. I did that not so much to dodge the question, but because I think to actually even sketch out what this might be would take another 16,000 words. We have to calculate what slavery was. We have to calculate what Jim Crow was. We have to calculate what we lost in terms of redlining and come to some sort of ostensible number and figure out whether we can actually pay it back. And if we can’t, what we might do in lieu of that.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: When you mentioned that the systemic plunder that occurred, I mean, this is not ancient history.

TA-NEHISI COATES: No, no.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In the most recent economic crisis in the country, there was this enormous reduction in the wealth of African-Americans in the country as a result of the housing crisis, yet the narrative portrays it as the housing crisis was caused — the conservative narrative is — by affirmative action policies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make it easier for African-Americans with low credit to get loans. Talk about that and this enormous wealth loss that occurred recently.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, the great sociologist Douglas Massey has a very interesting paper out specifically about the foreclosure crisis as it should be rightly called that happened very, very recently. One of the things he demonstrates in the paper is the thing that made this possible, segregation was a driver of this. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The African-American community is the most segregated community in the country, and what you have in that community is a population of people who have been traditionally cut off from wealth building opportunities. So, anxious to get wealth-building opportunities. If you are a banker and you are looking sell a scheme to somebody and rip somebody off, well there your marks are, right there, right in the same place. That’s essentially what happened.

AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates, I wanted to go to this issue of reparations and the examples you have seen, for example, after the Holocaust, Germany and the Jews. Can you talk about how those reparations took place?

TA-NEHISI COATES: It is very, very interesting. One of the reasons why I included that history, because as we know, reparations for African-Americans has all sorts of practical problems that we would have to deal with and fight about. I wanted to just demonstrate that even in the case of reparations to Israel, the one that’s most cited, this was not a sure thing. One thing that people often say about African-American reparations is, well, oh you’re just talking about savory, that was so long ago, as though if we were talking about a more proximate or more present case it would be much easier. But, in fact, the fact it was so close made it really, really hard for people, made it hard for some Israelis who did not want to feel like they were taking a buck off of folks’ mothers or brothers or sisters or grandmas who had just been killed. In Germany in fact, if we look at the public opinion surveys at the time, they were no more — Germans in the popular sense — were no more apt to take responsibility today than Americans are for slavery. So, it was a very, very difficult piece. What’s interesting and I think one of the lessons that can be learned from it, however, is the way it was structured. In fact, Germany did not just cut a check to Israel. What they actually did was they gave them vouchers. Those vouchers that were worth a certain amount of money, those vouchers had to be used with German companies. So, essentially, what they structured was a stimulus for West Germany while giving reparations to Israel at the same time. It gives us some clue that some sort of creative solutions we might have in the African-American community.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: One of the issues you also raise is that this reparations demand is not new in American history. You talk about Belinda Royall who in 1783 had been a slave for 50 years, became a freed woman. She petitioned the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for reparations.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Right, right, right, and I think people think of this as something that just sort of came up, you know 150 years — Black people — reparations is basically as old as this country is, and it’s not just, as you mention, Belinda Royall, people like that, but, it is also white people who understood at the time some great injury had been done. Many of the quaker meetings for instance — basically, they would excommunicate people who didn’t just free their slaves, but actually gave them something, you know, paid them reparations in return. We have the great quote from Timothy Dwight who was the president of Yale who said, to liberate these folks, to free these folks and to give them nothing would be to entail a curse upon them. Effectively, that is actually what happened upon African American and really, I would argue, upon the country at large. Many, many people of the Revolutionary generation, the generation that fought in the Revolutionary War, understood that slavery was somehow in contradiction to what America was saying it was. Many of those folks also at the very least gave land to African-Americans when they were liberated. Some of them educated them. But they understood to just cut somebody out into the wild, which is basically what happened to black people, would not be a good thing.

AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates, we want to thank you very much for being with us. We’re going to do part two right after the show and we will post it online at democracynow.org. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent of The Atlantic where he writes about culture, politics and social issues. He has just written a cover story called "The Case for Reparations." Ta-Nehisi Coates is also the author of the memoir "The Beautiful Struggle."***

What does the board think of this discussion of liberalism.   After reading this I am more confused than ever about what is "LIBERALISM" .  According to this author it depends what age and what region and what country you are talking from.

For example, does this make any sense at all of what we think liberalism is in this country in this day and age:

"Unlike conservatives, who fear change, liberals welcome it because they believe that changing societies can be stable. Unlike socialists, who think the advent of Utopia needs to be administered, liberals aim to create the conditions in which each person can thrive in his or her own way unburdened by dictatorship."

If you ask me I think of liberals as just the opposite.  That is more akin to statism.   

Anyway, please read on and get confused:


*****Liberal thought

On the barricades

An eloquent study of a belief under siege
 May 24th 2014  | From the print edition

Liberalism: The Life of an Idea. By Edmund Fawcett.Princeton University Press; 468 pages; $35 and £24.95. Buy from Amazon.co.uk (ISBN=unknown)

SOMETIMES it seems as if liberalism is slowly caving in. Western democracies are battered by partisanship and populism. Inequality is undermining social cohesion. Governments are unconvincingly shoring up expensive welfare states that have failed to match their promise. Meanwhile, the running is being made by places such as Turkey, which has an intolerant majority, and China and Russia, where power cannot be contested. “Liberalism” by Edmund Fawcett is not only a gripping piece of intellectual history, it also equips the reader to understand today’s threats—and how they might be withstood.

“Liberal” in the vocabulary of Mr Fawcett, for many years on the staff of The Economist, does not mean Democratic in the American sense, fanatically free-market in the French, or bearded and sandals-wearing in the British. Instead liberalism is a protean set of beliefs—in progress, scepticism towards authority and respect for individuals—that have been central to the formation of modern Western democracy. Neither is Mr Fawcett setting out to write directly about today. Instead, he traces the evolution of liberalism from its roots in the Enlightenment. The result is a scrapbook, assembled out of thumbnail biographies and historical vignettes, interleaved with philosophical argument and snippets of economics. Mr Fawcett’s erudition and his voluminous list of sources attest to a lifetime’s engagement with liberalism, both in the academy and at the hustings.

Though the sketches are sometimes tantalisingly brief, the scrapbook method gives the book two distinctive traits. One is that France and Germany feature almost as much as Britain and America. John Stuart Mill and James Madison have to share a berth with François Guizot, the French statesman and historian who, long before Lord Acton, articulated the liberal conviction that power corrupts, and Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, the German who founded the first credit unions. Mr Fawcett tears the blinkers off the view that liberal thought was essentially Anglo-Saxon—and that, correspondingly, France and Germany even today are not truly liberal.

The other distinction, following from this, is the book’s sheer scope, which ranges from monetary theory to social Darwinism and from the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the contrasts between anarchy and dissent. Mostly, these juxtapositions shed light on the adaptability of liberalism—of how, as Mr Fawcett writes, it has “no Marx-Engels Standard Edition”. Occasionally, though, the bedfellows jar; it is odd to find the British Conservative Michael Oakeshott in the same tent as the French Marxist Jean-Paul Sartre.

Adaptability is one reason for thinking that liberalism can withstand today’s challenges. Mr Fawcett argues that it was born not just out of a desire for liberty, but also to cope with the violent revolutions unleashed at the end of the 18th century. Unlike conservatives, who fear change, liberals welcome it because they believe that changing societies can be stable. Unlike socialists, who think the advent of Utopia needs to be administered, liberals aim to create the conditions in which each person can thrive in his or her own way unburdened by dictatorship.

However, as liberalism has spread, these impulses have become silted over. What remains is often a diminished combination of elections and a narrow, market-based version of freedom. Mr Fawcett provides a timely reminder that liberalism is much richer—more concerned with those who lose elections than those who win them, wary of concentrated power wherever it may be found, and committed to the intrinsic worth of every individual.

Liberalism is indeed under siege. Those who would fortify the walls would do well to study the foundations. Mr Fawcett’s book offers an admirable archaeology.

Mayb e add;

1)  Tell us exactly when you learned the video had NOTHING to do with the attack and why you still refuse to admit that.

2)  Tell us why you were blaming a video as an acceptable excuse to attack our embassy and kill 4 Americans and it was necessary to almost apologize to and excuse the actions of terrorists on behalf of our country.

3)  Why are you qualified to be President when you cannot be hones and level with Americans?

There is something about this that is reminiscent of Nero throwing coins off the balcony to the 'little' people:

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/05/31/hidden-cash-man-buries-cash-in-angry-bird-eggs-at-la-beaches/

One never knows.   He seems to have a brilliant mind and is likely a fast learner and obviously has proven himself to be a great student and teacher.

Though I agree with your previous post about him having no executive experience would make me think he is not ready to be VP either.

He did say he doesn't have the fire in the belly to run.  I hope more minorities will warm up to him.  If only he could win them over.  Why can't he reach them?   Supporting democrats is only making their lot worse not better.  Now with immigrants flooding the country and  a Presidential pardon all but certain I would ask all minorities - how does THIS help YOU?  

On the face of it, it is SO stupid.  Blacks have gone on for four hundred years being the victims and now just as they are finally achieving the status they should have, what do they do?   Support to the death a scumbag who is giving THEIR country away to the world.  If this wasn't so crazy and terrible and tragic for them as well as the rest of America I would be LOL.

I recall my sixth grade teacher.   He pointed out a famous picture in our history book showing the two trains connecting from the East and West Coasts and people sitting on the trains waving bouquets of flowers.   Celebrating the first complete trans America railroad.   He told us something I didn't know or realize.  He said this picture is a drawing from a real photograph.    Well one can google the real photo.  The people are not waving flowers.  They are waving whiskey bottles.  I recall he was irritated about the dishonesty in our textbooks. 

I later found out he was gay.  So I suppose he had an emotional axe to grind so to speak.  That said he was without a doubt the very best grade school teacher I ever had.  He taught us things I still vividly remember today.  Architecture, Civil War history, Russian Revolution history, and more.   I think I saw him once back in the early eighties at a Fourth of July fireworks.  I wish I had gone up to him to verify it was him so I could tell him he was the best teacher of my life.   I am sure that would have meant something for him.  My sister is a teacher and I've seen previous students and parents of students of hers do that.   I know she feels great.


This sort of reminds me many years ago I was living away from home and I got intoxicated one night and started thinking how much I loved my father and I was going to tell him the next day.   When the next day came I sobered up and then decided not to tell him that.  It seemed so corny I guess.

A few weeks later my brother-in-law called me tell me my father was dead.

Naturally I regretted changing my mind.  This is one case wherein being drunk helped me think more "clearly".  I told this story to others in my family and some close friends.  I know it impacted them because they all remembered this and probably learned to tell their loved ones their feelings.

Maybe by posting on this board I can help assure people it is always better to be 'corny'. 

I lived in West Palm.  Across the water from Mar a Lago.   Indeed Trump's young wife at the time almost smashed into me making a turn in my direction while I was waiting at red light.   She was driving the largest heaviest Mercedes made.

I would have loved to go and purchase Ben's book and shake his hand.

As Objectivist points out Ben did say on Levin he would like to travel and be a spokesperson rather than a candidate for conservativism.

Alas I foolishly live in the crap state of Jersey now.  Getting fleeced every way imaginable by the Democrat thugs.  Christy hasn't helped much.   OTOH how much can he do against an entrenched corrupt system?

The Pope's correction of Netanyahu's point about Jesus speaking to other Jews in Hebrew and Pope Francis 'correction' of him claiming it was Aramaic didn't really offend me much but his all too easy and convenient populist criticism of capitalism and the wealthy rather did offend me.  What about the responsibility of the poor to better themselves?  What about their responsibility to not live off handouts?   This is not virtuous living.   It is not the job of the successful to spend their lives working to support others.  

It is reasonable to say a job of the powerful is to provide as level a playing field as possible so everyone can have a chance.  

[BTW, I also hope I didn't offend anyone in my short but succinct diatribe against the Pope the other day.   If I did I apologize.]
 
In any case one persons interpretation of the Pope:

****The Pope's Criticism Of Capitalism Has One Wealthy Donor Very Upset
 
CNBC    | By Michelle Caruso-Cabrera  
   Posted:  12/31/2013 8:45 am EST      
            
  Pope Francis' critical comments about the wealthy and capitalism have at least one wealthy capitalist benefactor hesitant about giving financial support to one of the church's major fundraising projects.

At issue is an effort to raise $180 million for the restoration of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York being spearheaded by billionaire Ken Langone, the investor known for founding Home Depot, among other things.

Langone told CNBC that one potential seven-figure donor is concerned about statements from the pope criticizing market economies as "exclusionary," urging the rich to give more to the poor and criticizing a "culture of prosperity" that leads some to become "incapable of feeling compassion for the poor."

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Langone said he's raised the issue more than once with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, most recently at a breakfast in early December at which he updated him on fundraising progress.

"I've told the cardinal, 'Your Eminence, this is one more hurdle I hope we don't have to deal with. You want to be careful about generalities. Rich people in one country don't act the same as rich people in another country,' " he said.



 
Some of the statements in question are from Francis' first teaching, or "exhortation," a 224-page document issued in late November. In it, the pontiff criticizes what he calls "an economy of exclusion and inequality," blaming ideologies that "defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation."

Dolan told CNBC that he had heard from Langone and said, " 'Well, Ken, that would be a misunderstanding of the Holy Father's message. The pope loves poor people. He also loves rich people.' ... So I said, 'Ken, thanks for bringing it to my attention. We've gotta correct to make sure this gentleman understands the Holy Father's message properly.' And then I think he's gonna say, 'Oh, OK. If that's the case, count me in for St. Patrick's Cathedral.' "

Neither Langone or Dolan revealed the name of the potential donor. The cardinal said he didn't know the person's identity, and Langone declined to name him, saying only that the individual was upset about the pope's comments about the rich being insensitive to the poor.

In a speech in Brazil in July, Francis appealed "to those in possession of greater resources," saying that they should "never tire of working for a more just world, marked by greater solidarity. No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world."

It was unclear when Dolan may speak with the individual donor.

Langone, who describes himself as a devout Catholic who prays every morning, said he has told the cardinal that "you get more with honey than with vinegar." He said he also wants to make clear that wealthy Americans are some of the biggest donors in the world.

"There is no nation on earth that is so forthcoming, so giving," he said, adding that he hopes the pope can "celebrate a positive point of view rather than focusing on the negative."

The United States ranks No. 1 in the Charities Aid Foundation's most recent World Giving Index, with proportionally more Americans giving than the population of any other country.

Dolan said that the pope has expressed gratitude for American philanthropy.

"In the one long sit-down that I had with him, the Holy Father told me that he has a lot of gratitude for the generosity of the Catholic Church in the United States. He's aware of our help to the missions, to the poor of the world, to international development, to peace and ... justice," he said. "So, I know that he's very grateful for the ... legendary generosity of the Catholic Church in the United States."

Langone said he is also on a campaign to explain "the vast difference between the pope's experience in Argentina and how we are in America."

Francis is from Argentina, a country that suffered tremendous economic upheaval in early 2001 in what was then the largest sovereign default in history. Poverty rates skyrocketed overnight when the country refused assistance from the International Monetary Fund.

Arthur Brooks, head of the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that promotes free markets, said he agrees that the pope's beliefs are likely informed by his Argentine heritage.

"In places like Argentina, what they call free enterprise is a combination of socialism and crony capitalism," he said.

Brooks, also a practicing Catholic who has read the pope's exhortation in its original Spanish, said that "taken as a whole, the exhortation is good and right and beautiful. But it's limited in its understanding of economics from the American context." He noted that Francis "is not an economist and not an American."

"For American Catholics and Americans in general, we have a moral responsibility to the poor to spread the word of true free enterprise around the world," Brooks said. "By doing that, we have the best shot of meeting the Holy Father's objectives, which are good objectives."

He also thinks some of the English translation of the exhortation is inaccurate. For example, in one of its most talked-about passages about trickle-down economics, the Spanish version is softer than the English-language one.

The quote in English reads, "In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably [italics CNBC's] succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world."

A better translation, Brooks said, would be "economic growth, encouraged by a free market alone, will succeed in bringing about greater justice." (This author speaks Spanish and agrees.)

"Of course a free market alone won't do the trick," he said.

A number of people, from Republican Sen. John McCain to conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, have weighed in on Francis' statements, with the latter calling it "pure Marxism."

Dolan calls the Marxist label "hyperbole," telling CNBC that the pope thinks "money in itself is morally neutral. Money, our wealth, is a gift from God. And the morality comes in the way we use it.

"If it becomes a god, if it becomes an idol, Pope Francis is saying, then it's wrong. Because there is only one God. If we use it for our own selves and our families, for a secure and a safe present and future, if we use it to reinvest in the community, to help others, and if we share with the poor, then it's morally good," Dolan said.*****

"Just to be perfectly clear, are we talking the nomination or the presidency here?"

I meant the Democratic nomination.

As for the Presidency, at this point there is no one on the right who appears to have what it will take to beat her. 

And the Republicans party as a whole is wandering in the wilderness.   I fear we will have another Dole, McCain, or Romneyesque like underwhelming candidate.

Compare the Republican party hodgepodge patchwork to the Democrat/Clinton machine.

She will win big the women vote.  Don't believe that then think Black vote and Obama.  No matter how bad Obama is the Blacks are married to him.  Same for the gals and Hillary.  Especially most younger women and definitely ***all*** single mothers.

" Obama is campaigning for himself to be UN Secretary General"

Yup. Fits his megalomania.   Fits his one world government goal.   With him at top.   THIS is his true colors. 

"  which I think could put him directly at odds with US President Marco Rubio on world issues"

Not only that but it puts him at odds with US interests.   He is giving our country away.

Was anyone else really offended by seeing this guy, standing in front of a sea of troops along with a giant American flag wearing a replica WW2 bomber jacket to deflect from the VA scandal?

To think that this guy, the son of an American hating Communist, a pre hippy hippy who disliked America, spent his whole life hanging wth American hating radicals would have the nerve to stand there in a bomber jacket.   When Bush did it we knew he loved America.  When Reagan did it with the flag we knew he loved America.   When Bush senior would do that we knew he WAS a WW2 hero pilot.

When this guy does it we know he is a lying fraud.  WW2 vets would and should be rolling in their graves or in their nursing homes taking massive heartburn meds.

This fraud standing their like this while he does everything he can get away with giving the country away.  He mocks this country.

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=60467

Thursday, May 19, 2011



   
USS Cesar Chavez? Why not the USS Saul Alinsky?





 Incredibly, the U.S. Navy has decided to name a cargo ship after the guy who came up with the Obama campaign slogan, "Yes, we can!" That man is the late labor agitator and community organizer Cesar Chavez. Chavez's union, the United Farm Workers, used the saying he coined as its official motto. (In Spanish, "¡Sí se puede!")

 The decision to name a Navy ship after this radical is remarkable not only because President Obama's teleprompter has the phrase "Yes, we can!" burnt into it from the phrase's overuse, but because the far-left leader was a disciple of communist sympathizer Saul Alinsky. Chavez, who died in 1993, worked for the Community Service Organization from 1952 to 1962. CSO was a pressure group created by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. Chavez has been lionized by the left because he hated capitalism and shared Alinsky's contempt for the American system. The man even sounded like Alinsky, insisting he loved America while working to undermine its institutions. Chavez said

Until the chance for political participation is there, we who are poor will continue to attack the soft part of the American system - its economic structure. We will build power through boycotts, strikes, new union - whatever techniques we can develop. These attacks on the status quo will come, not because we hate, but because we know America can construct a humane society for all its citizens - and that if it does not, there will be chaos.
"There will be chaos?" Prediction or threat? You decide.

 Chavez is also connected to ACORN founder Wade Rathke, a fact I reported in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

 When Rathke was employed as an organizer at ACORN's parent organization, the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), he was trained by a man named Bill Pastreich who had studied Alinsky’s in-your-face organizing techniques. Pastreich had also been employed by Chavez's United Farm Workers.

 Is it just a matter of time before the Obama administration commissions the USS Saul Alinsky? No doubt it will be a destroyer.

Follow me on Twitter and check out my new book Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

Well this Pope has already lost me with his Communism remarks.   

If everyone was forced (that's right - forced) to have what they earn confiscated and doled out we would still be in the stone age.

I mean absolutely no disrespect to Catholics.  But this guy is a quack.

His sense of morality is in outer space.

There is something megalomanic about him.

Doug writes,

" The area where far left and right should find agreement is to stop giving special favors to the powerful"

Agreed.  But I never hear this from the Right.   Nothing wrong with getting rich honestly.   But to enhance the advantages they already have just makes it worse.

You even begin to level the playing field with petty minimum wage regulations.  I don't understand why the NAACP is marching into McDonald's headquarters screaming for an increase in chump change.  Who in their right mind goes to work for McDs serving burgers as a career?  You either try to move up to better management positions or go to school or some other endeavor with a real future. 

The NAACP should be marching into the "f" White House demanding the ONE to stop allowing people to flood into our country driving down wages for those already here.

Of course wages are a few bucks an hour.  Every single fast food place around here has people with accents.  So yea, big companies love this.

But the NAACP?