CNN, MSNBC Attack Romney, Mormons

CNN has been having repeated discussions about Romney, his religion and the 2012 race. At MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell had the same conversation. Is the mainstream press starting a coordinated attack on Romney by attempting to drum up suspicion of Mormons, inciting voters and hoping it will be a self-fulfilling prophesy?

I’m not an expert on the Mormon religion, but have no real issue with Mormons. I find the concept of baptizing the dead off-putting (and baptizing Holocaust victims absurd.) But, as long as those beliefs stay in the church, and don’t make their way to federal law, I’m fine.

Im far more disgusted by those who want to push their beliefs on me via social justice (see, Obamacare) or through direct attack on the Second Amendment (see Operation Fast and Furious, or check with Katie Pavlich!)

I posted a question about this to Twitter and Facebook, and asked whether Romney’s religion would be a problem,  ”…as opposed to the economy, Obamacare, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, gas prices…right?”

I was stunned to find a response from a Leftist who had no qualms with announcing his anti-Mormon stance (emphasis mine):

Write this down…America will NOT elect a Mormon as President. Although he could easily be the WORST Mormon ever. I guess he’s got that going for him. Obamacare was Romney’s idea. And to try & stop the perpetuation of a myth, the President has NO power over the price of gasoline. You’re welcome. Enjoy the next 4 years.

Never mind that the President CAN affect gas prices. However, he has to be willing to engage the natural resources at our disposal, and effectively end US dependence on foreign oil. (It also helps if they don’t believe in necessarily skyrocketing energy prices!) But what to make of the clear pronouncement that America will not vote for Mormons? Is that true?

The answer is no. People voted for Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada. They voted for Rep. Jeff Flake in Arizona, and Rep. Raul Labrador in Idaho. They vote for Democrat Mormons and Republican Mormons. Yes, Americans from all across America will vote for Mormons. Even in American Samoa, Rep. Eni Faleomavaega serves in the House as a non-voting member. He is a Mormon.

It’s not that America is afraid of a Mormon. It’s that the MSM and Leftists WANT America to be afraid of electing a Mormon.

At Newsbusters, Scott Whitlock remarked on how MSNBC is trying to connect Romney and the Mormon church to issues of race (emphasis mine):

In his piece, (BuzzFeed writer and Mormon McKay) Coppins cited a number of MSNBC regulars, including Marc Lamont Hill and Joy Ann Reid:

MSNBC analyst and Miami Herald columnist Joy Ann Reid — a prominent voice on race issues in a crucial swing state — said Romney deserves to be challenged on his church’s past.

“I think if he were a child when anti-black policies were in place, that would be different,” said Reid. “But he was an adult, active in the ministry of his church, and it’s fair to ask, if the media cares to — and they should — what he thought of those policies at the time. The question is very much legitimate.“

Does that mean the question is also legitimate to ask of President Obama, and his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Of course not! Those questions have been deemed racist by the MSM. In 2010, Ed Driscoll documented how Leftist journalist involved with the Journolist worked to kill stories about Wright to protect Obama (emphasis mine):

At the Daily Caller, Jonathan Strong rummages through the JournoList and describes how documents from mid-2008 “show media plotting to kill stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright:”

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.

In 2008, CNN declared, while interviewing then candidate Obama, that the network was a “Wright Free Zone.”

Discussions about Romney and policy are fair game, and should be engaged. But the Left can not dictate the terms of the discussion ever, just like they are attempting to do. CNN must immediately come out with a statement that they will be a Mormon Free Zone. MSNBC must be eschewed for their obvious Mormon-baiting. And how dare O’ Donnell (an admitted socialist) even engage a conversation about religion! As Lenin wrote:

Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen’s religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated.

The MSM’s coordinated attempts to influence voters through peddling fear and religious bigotry will not be allowed to stand.

Google At Odds With President Obama

The President and Google co-Founder Sergey Brin are at odds. While Brin argues that unnecessary regulations inhibit entrepreneurship and innovation, Obama takes the position that government – and regulatory schemes – makes entrepreneurship and innovation possible.

Brin recently explained to The Guardian how government interference, and the dominance of Apple and Facebook make it extremely difficult to innovate in today’s Internet environment: (emphasis mine)

The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims,from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry’s attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of “restrictive” walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms.Brin said he and co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to create Google if the internet was dominated by Facebook. “You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive,” he said. “The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.”

A few days earlier, President Obama, lambasting the Ryan Plan, took credit for allowing companies like Facebook and Google to exist: (emphasis mine)

“I believe in investing in basic research and science because I understand that all these extraordinary companies that are these enormous wealth-generators — many of them would have never been there; Google, Facebook would not exist, had it not been for investments that we made as a country in basic science and research,” Obama said. “I understand that makes us all better off.”

Facebook and Apple have the right to exist, and no one is forcing Brin, or any citizen, to use their products or services. However, Obama is clearly saying that government involvement has created the opportunities for companies to exist. Obama would also lead one to believe that successful companies owe something to the government which “allows” them to exist, but in fact, government’s main role in Facebook and Google was to stay out of the way.

In 2008, then-CEO Eric Schmidt was a supporter of Obama. He claimed that his campaigning for Obama was personal, and that “Google was officially neutral” on the presidential race. Brin is not neutral. And chief among his complaints, along with his rivals’ internet dominance, is interference from governments. In discussing China, he was amazed at how much power they have:

He said five years ago he did not believe China or any country could effectively restrict the internet for long, but now says he has been proven wrong. “I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle,” he said.

But the genie is out of the bottle. 2012 is a much different year in 2008. The now-CEO of Google is advocating for less government intervention to get increased innovation. Obama is clearing saying (as he has said before) that government is responsible for allowing entrepreneurs to exist and innovate, and, in fact, are owed something by those companies.

Two very different visions for the future.

Obama Is Making The Case For His Own Impeachment

The President’s latest tactic, taking on the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review with a preemptive striking against justices who might contemplate an unfavorable ruling on ObamaCare, following on the heels of last week’s “open mic gaffe” in which he explained Russian President Dimitri Medvedev that he’d have more “flexibility” to sacrifice American security after his re-election, lead to one question: Is Barack Obama making his own case for impeachment?

Obama is no longer fit for the job. I don’t say this lightly. I don’t say it with glee or joy. And I don’t say it with malice. But rather with recognition that the Office of the President must be protected. And the citizens of the United States must protect themselves from a president who is either incapable or unwilling to fulfill his responsibilities to the American people and respect the Constitutionally proscribed limitations on his powers.

Obama’s pronouncement about the Supreme Court was so disingenuous and divisive as alone to warrant impeachment proceedings. Obama, a one-time senior lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, told a group of reporters at a Rose Garden news conference that since the Affordable Care Act was passed by a “strong majority,” a finding of unconstitutionality would constitute “judicial activism.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Judicial activism is when judges exceed their appropriate powers and legislate from the bench. Judicial review, in contrast, is one of the Supreme Court’s primary functions.

As Leon Wolf of RedState asks, has the professor never heard of Marbury vs. Madison (the 1803 case affirming the Court’s right of judicial review)? Further, if Obama believes the Court has no right to review – - and invalidate if necessary – - a law, so long as it was duly passed by Congress, what does he believe IS the Court’s role? What exactly did he teach his students at the University of Chicago?

On the international stage, Obama stunned US citizens and allies with his thinly veiled promise to Medvedev that he would put the missile shield – - a key component of our defense strategy – on the back burner after he’s re-elected, said with disdain for Americans. This stunning statement is worthy of a conversation about treason. A conversation that should take place in front of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Obama was undaunted by the fact the mic was open, and every disgusting word was caught on tape. Since then, he has twice joked about the conversation and the open mic. TWICE! Once, though completely improper, could have been dismissed as self-deprecating humor; trying to make the best out of a bad situation (it would not have worked, but it could have been dismissed.) Twice means not only does Obama not think it’s a big deal, but no one around him thinks it’s a big deal. How is that not dangerous?

Obama sees himself as above the law, and sees the Law as a detriment to his “moral” goals. As Ben Shapiro (also a Harvard educated lawyer) pointed out:

President Obama has made it his mission to wield the club against the other two branches of government in a manner unprecedented in American history. Yesterday, Obama, rejecting the heart of judicial review for purposes of his own power, stated, “I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” That, of course, is precisely what the Supreme Court does on a daily basis….But for Obama, the Supreme Court is an obstacle to his own power.

In August, 2011, I wrote:

President Obama is actively engaging in a pre-meditated attack on the United States Constitution, and the American way of life. His words are not missteps, like 57 states or the insulting inability to properly pronounce the word corpsman. Obama is attempting to plant the seed into the already vitriolic and boisterous Progressives that the problem with America is the thing that makes America great – the rule of law that does not allow government to rule us.

Nothing has changed. In fact, with this latest round of assaults on the Court, they have gotten worse. Add to this Obama’s unconstitutional recess appointments. How long until we say aloud – The Nation Is Under Attack From Within?

CITY OF LA JOINS ATTACKS ON FREE SPEECH, TALK RADIO

The City Of Los Angeles has passed a resolution on talk radio, putting themselves on supposed moral high ground after comments from syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh on Sandra Fluke and LA juggernauts John and Ken on Whitney Houston. In both cases, the hosts apologized. John and Ken were suspended for a week. But apologies mean nothing to the Progressive Left, who are only interested in finding opportunities to shut down conservative talk radio.

The resolution (non-binding) from the LA City Council is based on bringing civility to the airwaves, as LA wishes to be:

….first in the nation to declare derogatory, sexist, misogynistic, and racist language as having no place on public airwaves in one of the most diverse cities in the world.

It’s a hard position to argue. Radio, when done right, doesn’t need any of those things. The problem is not the idea; it’s who decides what is derogatory, sexist, misogynistic, and racist. Shouldn’t that be a decision left to the listener?

The other problem is the people arguing it. The LA City Council supported the Occupy movement. The same Occupy movement that destroyed property and cost the city millions of dollars in clean-up. The same Occupy movement, nationwide, that engages in rapes, sexual assaults, drug use, and defecating on police cars.

On what level footing does the LA City Council expect to wield this new found morality?

Further, why is the city of Los Angeles getting involved? Week after week, we hear of teachers being arrested for sexually assaulting their children. In LA, the story has been going on for over a month as more and more teachers are being removed from the classroom. The police chief, Charlie Beck, believes that illegal invaders should be allowed driver’s licenses. Why? It will cut down on “hit and run” accidents. The LA Fire Department is on the hot seat for unacceptable response times and staffing issues. The LA City Council should be plenty busy with doing the actual work of the people and should have no time for pompous grandstanding.

The resolution is a testament to Progressivism, and is, in a word, racist: (emphasis mine)

WHEREAS, Clear Channel Media Holding’s commitment to diversity is not
being realized at its flagship station KFI 640 AM, where out of 15 on-air personalities,
only one is a female and none of them are African American

WHEREAS there are not any African Americans currently working in KFI 640
AM’s newsroom as full-time producers or engineers, or as outside paid contributors, fillin hosts, or other on air personalities

WHEREAS, when you have an absence of African Americans and other
minorities in the workplace, it is easy to become desensitized to what other groups find intolerable which ultimately fosters an environment where negative comments can go unchecked and corporate guidelines and policies are no longer being enforced

Translation: White people who work together, if left alone, will eventually become racists and sexists.

My parents have been married for 42 years and have been working together now for over 20 years. They are both white, and have no other employees. Are they racists, too?

After determining the “problem,” they quickly have the answers, too: (emphasis mine)

…a truly diverse work environment must include the hiring of a work force that reflects the diversity of Los Angeles which including women, African-Americans, Latinos and Asians

Translation: Don’t hire based on need or qualification. Hire on skin color and ethnicity only.

Is there anything more racist than that?

The purpose of the resolution is to continue an assault on conservative radio talk show hosts. The apologies of Limbaugh, and of John and Ken, are not enough for Progressives, who see clear their opportunity to silence opposing voices. It’s important to note, as done by DigitalJournal.com, that the resolution only goes after talk radio, and not TV:

As pointed out by the Daily Beast, there have been many mysogynistic statements made by liberal television personalities. Kirsten Powers gives examples such as MSNBC’s Ed Schultz calling Laura Ingraham “a right wing slut,” and Bill Maher referring to Sarah Palin as a “dumb twat” and a “c**t.”

Apparently, the 13 members of the Los Angeles City Council who voted in favor of the resolution don’t want to apply the same standards of restricted speech to liberals on television as they want applied to conservatives on the radio.

The LA City Council can’t set morality because they are not moral. Objectionable content is protected by the First Amendment, which the Council clearly wants to crush. Those who disagree with what they hear will change the channel, or turn off their radio or TV.

You can’t turn off the Los Angeles City Council, but you can vote them out.

Gingrich Dangles Perry To Get Tea Party Vote

While Mitt Romney is isn’t making any special effort to attract Tea Party voters, Rick Santorum is trying to convince them that social conservatism is integral to Tea Party values. But Newt Gingrich is floating a new strategy – tempt Tea Party voters with Gov. Rick Perry and a Gingrich/Perry ticket. It may just change the course of the election.

FOX News is reporting that Gingrich and Perry might announce their ticket before the RNC convention in order to appeal to Tea Party and conservative voters, thereby capturing enough delegates to ensure that no nominee is chosen prior to the August GOP convention. A convention without a pre-determined nominee is far different from a brokered convention, in which other players (Palin, Daniels, Christie, fill-in-the-blank-with-someone-you-like) could get in on the action. This would involve the same four players (Santorum, Romney, Gingrich and Paul). Their delegates, however, would be free to vote for any of the candidates after the first round. A Gingrich/Perry ticket could give them a reason to change their minds.

According to the report:

Gingrich aides hope forming a predetermined ticket with Perry will unite the evangelical, Tea Party and very conservative voters that make up the core of the GOP.

Some Perry insiders seem wary:

As discussions got underway, two senior aides to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Gingrich, had not heard of the potential ticket and seemed dismissive. One noted that in the past, Perry has likened the Vice Presidency to a bucket of warm spit. Still, Gov. Perry volunteered his services when he endorsed Gingrich in South Carolina, so he may be on board if it’s little more than a joy ride in a trial balloon.

A Santorum aide has referred to the speculation as a Hail Mary pass, intended to get some buzz ahead of the Alabama and Mississippi primaries. According to American Research Group, Gingrich has aslight lead in Mississippi, and a Wall Street Journal survey has a virtual tie between Gingrich and Romney in Alabama.

Whatever its intended purpose, the strategy could turn out to be a stroke of genius. Although his debate performances sunk him, Perry was a Tea Party favorite from early on, and the clear favorite of new media, with endorsements from Mike Flynn of Breitbart.com’s Big Government, Dan McLaughlin ofRedState.com and AceofSpadesHQ.

The Tea Party has no candidate that can sufficiently rally them in voice and numbers and dollars. To date, they are not as vocal in this election as they were in 2010 because, like America, they are waiting for a nominee before they go full out (as well as focusing their attention on winning the Senate and keeping the House as a hedge against an Obama re-elect.)

Introducing Perry into the discussion may be a hail mary pass. It’s a high risk play with a small chance of success. But if it connects with voters, it’s a winner.

Vetting Obama: Leftists Take Steps To Prevent You From Learning Anything

In partial fulfillment of Andrew Breitbart’s promise to “vet” the President this time, the Breitbart.com team posted a video of President Barack Obama as a law student at Harvard. It also ran on Hannity tonight. The video shows the young Obama asking his fellow law students to “Open up your hearts and your minds to the words of Professor Derrick Bell.”

Professor Derrick Bell, the object of young Obama’s adoration, was an associate of Reverend Jeremiah Wright and a committed radical. Bell was a proponent of Critical Race Theory, which views virtually all relationships through a lens of perceived race-based oppression.

As Ben Shapiro wrote on Breitbart.com about Bell:

“This is a close associate of Jeremiah Wright, a man who was quoted by Jeremiah Wright regularly. This is a man who posited that the civil rights movement was too moderate because it accepted the status quo, and believed that the entire legal and constitutional system had to be transformed in radical fashion. This is a man so extreme that, as we’ve reported, he wrote a story in 1993 in which he posited that white Americans would sell black Americans into slavery to aliens to relieve the national debt, and that Jews would go along with it.”

(That story became a video, complete with former President Ronald Reagan as the slave trading alien.)

An edited version of the video – minus the section in which Obama heaps praise on Professor Bell – was posted earlier on the BuzzFeed.com. Leftists and Obama apologists dismissed the video as inconsequential and racist. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America tweeted:

Boehlert can’t argue with the video’s content; after all, it documents actual events. Instead, he resorts to the standard Alinsky tactic of ridiculing the messenger. He doesn’t begin to address whether Obama’s association with Bell should have been revealed before the 2008 election.

Shapiro reports what Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, a close associate to the Obama campaign, had to say about hiding the tape during the 2008 campaign: “We hid this throughout the 2008 campaign. I don’t care if they find it now.”

Isn’t watchdog Boehlert curious about why a tape would be hidden by the campaign? Exactly what does interest a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America?

The liberal website HyperVocal.com couldn’t wait to recycle the Racer script. Slade Shomer, whose column is predictably entitled ‘What’s the Right-Wing End Game of This ‘Racist Obama’ College Days Video?’ lacks even the slightest curiosity about Obama’s association with Bell and why the ’08 Obama campaign wanted it hidden. Instead, keeping with true intellectually dishonest tradition, Shomer plays the race card: (emphasis mine)

While everyone fights this out in partisan terms via Twitter and their websites, we’ll instead ask a more pragmatic question: What is the end game here? Let’s even say there’s more footage that shows Obama standing there in a shirt that reads “Kill Whitey.” Let’s say he professes his deep hatred of Caucasians and says Jeremiah Wright didn’t go far enough. What then? Hasn’t this man been President of the United States for more than three years and white people as we know them are still hangin’ around?

What was Breitbart, and now (editor-in-chief Joel) Pollak and Shapiro, trying to prove exactly? How does digging up 20-year-old video change anything? There’s only one goal here, and that’s to stoke white fear. It’s almost as if the people promoting a “damning” video and the people who want to believe it most are legitimately scared that a racist, classist Barack H. Obama will wipe white people off the map … in his second term.

Certainly we all acknowledge that class warfare is a major component of Obama’s re-election campaign strategy. It’s not scary, just dishonest and destructive. But how does the release of this video stoke white fear? The assertion is as ludicrous as it is ignorant (assuming Mr. Shomer actually believes his bizarre allegations).

Try as they might, the video is out and the conversation is being had. Just exactly what do we know about President Obama? Does this video change our minds about him leading up to Election Day? If there is one video, are there others? Who is Derrick Bell, and what do we know about him?

These are just some of the legitimate questions that Eric Boehlert and Shomer, and their fellow Leftists and Apologists, will never ask, and would prefer you didn’t either.

Let the Democrats Vote For Santorum

NOTE – This article was written before the Michigan and Arizona primary. Mitt Romney won both.

The biggest lie ever told is that there is something more important than winning in politics. For the rest of us, the concepts of valor, honesty and morals have clear cut lines and distinctions. Certainly, on a governing level, they do for the Presidential candidates as well. But first, you have to win. That’s what Rick Santorum is trying to do, and that feigned outrage of Mitt Romney and Co. is just laughable. They’re not offended…they’re scared.

In the state of Michigan, the primary system is open. Anyone who is a registered voter may vote in the GOP primary. Any registered Democrat may show up to a polling place, sign in (not sure if ID’s are required, but if they are, you know, racism!) and vote. Democrats are using this as an opportunity to vote for someone who they don’t believe in, but who they think will make it harder on the Republicans going forward.

As with all Leftist ideas, it has no originality or is straight out stolen from someone else. In this case, it was stolen from Rush Limbaugh, who called it Operation Chaos during the Obama-Clinton primary battle. In Michigan, they are calling it Operation Hilarity. Democrats are calling on Democrats to ask for a Republican ballot at their polling place, and vote for Rick Santorum. Their bet? According to Daily Kos:

“…to keep the Republican primary race in a deadlock in order to tarnish the viability of the frontrunners and ensure a second term for Obama.”

A Santorum win will make Romney a weaker candidate.  If Romney loses Michigan (his home state, where his father was a three-term governor) he can no longer claim the mantle of “obvious choice.” He is no longer the front-runner. Electability? Are you kidding?

Would it be so shocking to realize that Santorum can love God AND not be the Leftist caricature of someone who loves God? Santorum is not dumb, as the Left thinks of all of those “bible thumpers!” (He may be a believer in the value of big government, but that’s just wrong…far different than dumb.) Santorum has put out robo-calls to Democrat voters, asking them to vote for him. He’s pro-actively pursuing Democrat votes. Romney called it a “dirty trick,” saying:

“We don’t want Democrats deciding who our nominee is going to be, we want Republicans deciding who our nominee is going to be.”

It’s not a dirty trick. It’s called running for President!

Santorum has lost in Arizona with its large Mormon population and its early ballots that have had people voting weeks ago. He has Super Tuesday staring him in the face. He doesn’t have a full slate of delegates in Tennessee, and he’s not on the ballot in Virginia. His entire future presidential career is riding on a victory in Ohio. (And, to be clear, this is it for Santorum. If he loses the primary, he will never have an opportunity to run for President again. There will be no second chance for Santorum like Romney has received. None.)

Splitting the primaries is a must for Team Santorum. He must win Michigan to give himself the necessary boost to take Ohio, and force the race to Tampa, site of the 2012 Republican National Convention. Yes, Michigan is a proportionate state, with 30 delegates on the line. But, while the race for each delegate is necessary (1144 delegates are needed to get the nomination,) the win is greater than the delegate count right now. A win in Michigan proves that he can win the nomination. It proves that his victories in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota were not a fluke.

Further, it sets in the mind that Mitt can’t take competition. If he can’t beat Santorum, how the hell is he going to beat Obama? Fast-forward to Super Tuesday. What happens if Newt Gingrich takes Georgia and Tennessee? Gingrich will rise, and the “inevitability” of Romney will become the “what happened to” Romney. It will take a Herculean effort on his part, along with an incredible amount of money, to get back into the game. Romney has taken on challenges before, and has remained at the top of the pack. But a loss in Michigan and a three-way race out of Super Tuesday brings about another possibility – the brokered convention. If he loses Michigan and splits Super Tuesday, you can almost (almost!) bet on it.

For those people unhappy with their current choices, what better news than a possible (possible!) brokered convention. Yes, let the Democrats vote. It doesn’t hurt the field, as the Democrats want to think. The opposite is true (as it is with most Leftist ideas!) it strengthens the field either way – determining it, or forcing a new look at it. Besides, maybe some of the Democrats will get used to the idea of voting for Republicans, and vote for them again in November. (Maybe!)