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Marxist indoctrination and The Great Depression

Rush Limbaugh points out the Marxist agenda in Obama’s divisive rich versus poor far-left ideology:

Okay, "Obama Compares Housing Crisis to Great Depression," that is the headline for Reuters. "Obama Compares Housing Crisis to Great Depression." I'm wondering how many of you know what caused the Great Depression and what ended it, and after it started, what it was that exacerbated it. Now, I was trying to figure out last night -- you gotta remember here, I am steaming when I left here yesterday, you can ask Snerdley, I walked outta here, you know, we go out, get in the cars, usually tell each other, "Good show." I didn't say a word. I got in the car and sped off. Snerdley stayed here to play with the new computer. I got home, I was stewing. I take it very poorly when I do what I think is a subpar broadcast, and yesterday was, in terms of mood. Content may have been okay, but anybody can show up on the radio and be mad. That doesn't take much. My mood is better today. Can't you tell? Of course my mood is better today. So I got to thinking, what in the world could Barack Obama have been taught about the Great Depression if he compares today's economy and the housing crisis to it?

So I went and did some Google searching. I just entered "Great Depression," and I came up with some fascinating stuff. I shouldn't be surprised. Here in one of the first stories I found, the second page of six, "At least in part the Great Depression was caused by underlying weaknesses and imbalances within the US economy that had been obscured by the boom psychology and speculative euphoria of the 1920s. The depression exposed those weaknesses, as it did the inability of the nation's political and financial institutions to cope with the vicious downward economic cycle that had set in by 1930. Prior to the Great Depression, governments traditionally took little or no action in times of business downturn, relying instead on impersonal market forces to achieve the necessary economic correction. But market forces proved unable to achieve the desired recovery in the early years of the Great Depression." Does anybody know what is wrong with that claim? I don't know who wrote this. It's got a website, I don't know who it is, doesn't matter, it's not bylined. It's hard to pinpoint one thing. But when reading this sentence, "market forces alone proved unable to achieve the desired recovery, and this painful discovery eventually inspired some fundamental change in the US economic nature. Government action, after the Depression, whether in the form of taxation, industrial regulation, public works, social insurance, played a principal role in ensuring economic stability."

Now, what's wrong with this? You think about it. There's another one. Paul Alexander Gusmorino, May 13th, 1996, "'Main Causes of the Great Depression' -- A major reason for this large and growing gap between the rich and the working-class people was the increased manufacturing output throughout this period. From 1923-1929, the average output per worker increased 32% in manufacturing. During that same period of time average wages for manufacturing jobs increased only 8%." Basically he says, "the main cause for the Great Depression was the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade. The maldistribution of wealth in the 1920's existed on many levels. Money was distributed disparately between the rich and the middle-class, between industry and agriculture within the United States, and between the US and Europe. This imbalance of wealth created an unstable economy. The excessive speculation in the late 1920's kept the stock market artificially high, but eventually lead to large market crashes."

So in two instances, Google searches, we find out of the that the gap between the rich and the poor was the cause of the Great Depression and that only government intervention stopped it. None of that is true, but I'll lay you ten-to-one that's exactly what Barack Obama was taught at every level of his education.

RUSH: Now, I want to spend a little bit more time on this Great Depression business and Obama in Missouri yesterday comparing the housing crisis to the Great Depression. Ladies and gentlemen, that's shockingly ignorant. I don't know whether he actually believes it. I think he does because I think that's what he was taught. I don't know if he believes it or if he's just pandering. But at the same time I want to just check your knowledge of history. As you know, I am a famous college dropout, it was just a question on Jeopardy on this very day. And there are many days that I give thanks I didn't end up in college and have my mind polluted and brainwashed by a bunch of Marxist professors teaching me about how rotten my country is, which is what I think happened to Obama. This piece that I found searching on the Great Depression by Paul Alexander Gusmorino III, written May 13th, 1996, let me give you some more excerpts of this.

"The main cause for the Great Depression was the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade. ... This imbalance of wealth created an unstable economy. The excessive speculation in the late 1920's kept the stock market artificially high, but eventually lead to large market crashes. These market crashes, combined with the maldistribution of wealth, caused the American economy to capsize." He continues in the next two paragraphs to focus on the primary cause of the Great Depression, being the gap between the rich and the poor. He then writes, "The federal government also contributed to the growing gap between the rich and middle-class. Calvin Coolidge's administration (and the conservative-controlled government)--" Mr. Gusmorino, there was no conservatism during Calvin Coolidge's administration.

"The federal government also contributed to the growing gap between the rich and middle-class. Calvin Coolidge's administration (and the conservative-controlled government) favored business, and as a result the wealthy who invested in these businesses. An example of legislation to this purpose is the Revenue Act of 1926, signed by President Coolidge on February 26, 1926, which reduced federal income and inheritance taxes dramatically. Andrew Mellon, Coolidge's Secretary of the Treasury, was the main force behind these and other tax cuts throughout the 1920's. In effect, he was able to lower federal taxes such that a man with a million-dollar annual income had his federal taxes reduced from $600,000 to $200,000. Even the Supreme Court played a role in expanding the gap between the socioeconomic classes."

So what we're getting here, written in May of 1996, is a rehash of liberalism to Marxism today. This guy, Paul Alexander Gusmorino, has a little disclaimer here at the top: "NOTE: Don't plagiarize: it isn't fair to me, your colleagues, or yourself." Mr. Gusmorino, you better check Karl Marx and see if you plagiarized him in putting this piece together. It's almost word-for-word what communists taught their kids about American capitalism. No wonder these people like Obama can't get it, that America is a great nation. They have no clue what made us great or an economic superpower. All they've been taught is any American downturn is because of the rich and the poor and it's leading to a Great Depression. "The large and growing disparity of wealth between the well-to-do and the middle-income citizens made the US economy unstable. For an economy to function properly, total demand must equal total supply." (laughing) Did you read this? Did you hear this? "For an economy to function properly, total demand must equal total supply." Zero-sum game. It's exactly what liberals think. You get a dollar raise; somebody loses a dollar. You get a job; somebody gets fired. Zero-sum game. They've always thought this. No growth, it doesn't happen.

"I n an economy with such disparate distribution of income it is not assured that demand will always equal supply. Essentially what happened in the 1920's was that there was an oversupply of goods. It was not that the surplus products of industrialized society were not wanted, but rather that those whose needs were not satiated could not afford more." Now, how many of you know what the cause of the Great Depression was? The stock market crash was not it. The Great Depression -- I mean it was bad, don't misunderstand -- I just don't think Obama knows what it was. I don't think he knows what caused it. The Great Depression caused a worldwide economic downturn because even at that point the United States, even in 1928, '29 -- remember the Roaring Twenties? Have you heard of the Roaring Twenties? Do you know what the Roaring Twenties were? I mean, it was exciting. The Great Depression -- and Milton Friedman has said this -- the Great Depression was not caused by the stock market crash in 1929. It was a normal downward cycle. We had a stock market, the bottom fell out

I asked you ten minutes ago if you know what the single most exacerbating cause of prolonging the Depression was. That would be the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act, which was protectionism. The initial government response to the crisis exacerbated the Great Depression. This Paul Alexander Gusmorino III is exactly wrong. What prolonged a stock market problem was the government getting involved. And their first response was Smoot-Hawley, which was protectionist policies, tariffs on anything that we imported. Rather than help the economy, it strangled global trade, and this led to the rest of the world suffering an economic downturn. Businesses that suffered the most during all this, because of this, were agricultural, mining, and logging. The New Deal was supposed to get us out of this. The New Deal was supposed to get an active government involved in solving the Depression. It exacerbated it! What got us out of the Great Depression was World War II. Seventeen percent of the American male population ended up being drafted. That took care of a lot of unemployment. Not all of it.

Rosie the Riveter, women went to work in the factories building airplanes and so forth. It was gearing up to beat the Japanese and the Germans. And, by the way, you might even be able to make a claim, although this is arguable, but you might be able to make a claim that the Great Depression and its exacerbation, Smoot-Hawley and tariffs, might have led in part to the Japanese saying, to hell with America. It's arguable. But the whole world was thrown into a downward cycle. Not just because of Smoot-Hawley, but the point is we're nowhere near anything like that today. We are nowhere near anything, and we've got the Democrat presidential presumptive nominee in southeast Missouri claiming the housing market reminds him of the Great Depression. The Japanese needed oil, they needed oil for growth, we had all these tariffs going on, they invaded China for the same reason. And yet what is being taught to these skulls full of mush in even the best universities?

Marxism. "The disparity between the middle class and the rich led to the Great Depression." Well, a little common sense. If that were the case, wouldn't we be in one right now? And wouldn't we have been in one since basically our founding? And wouldn't Great Britain be in a great depression? You think it's bad here. They've got royalty. They have an aristocracy that sits around on Saturdays sipping gin at four in the afternoon after getting up at noon. Talk about work output, zilch, zero, nada. Look at Russia. Look at anywhere. There ought to be great depressions all over the place. I am convinced -- I'm not convinced, but I wouldn't be surprised -- Obama goes to one of the greatest universities in the world and comes out not knowing diddly-squat about the country that the Democratic Party says he is the best they have to lead it.

GOP abandons and then blames conservatives

This analysis by Rush Limbaugh applies to what is going on in the South Dakota GOP:

No, my friends, the lesson in these Republican losses is that conservatives are fed up with the Republican Party and are fed up with the direction the Republican Party has taken. They have no real option in this election, so they are not voting, or in some cases they may be protesting voting against the Republican Party regardless of the candidate. And who do we have to thank for this?

The list is too long for me to go through here. But you can guess who the usual suspects are: all of the moderates, all of the mavericks, all of the independents, so-called, who have decided that their own political careers are more important than building a party and a movement that advances the principles that are critical to the well-being of this nation. Another word I'm tired of hearing is "maverick," "independent," when describing a Republican. So from now on when you hear the word maverick Republican or independent Republican, I want you to think of one word: selfish. Because that is who and that is what these people are. They are pandering to the elements in our society who wish the Republican Party and the conservative movement ill. They are pandering to people in the media and the Democrat Party who have not given up their task of politically decimating the Republican Party. They are joining them, whether by accident or by design. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we conservatives are in a very difficult state right now. We can't vote for socialists. We can't go out there and vote for socialists like Obama or Clinton.

But, hell's bells, the Republican Party's nominated a candidate who spent decades pandering to these very people and these very elements and is still doing it as our nominee! He spent decades undermining our party. McCain-Feingold, amnesty, McCain-Kennedy. And this is the movement he now claims to be part of and whose support he seeks? Let me add a final point. McCain and his advisors and his plants, his sycophants, in the New York, Boston, conservative so-called media axis in the New York Times, see the loss, and folks, this is profound. If you've heard nothing I've said, and I know that's not possible, you've heard everything I said and you're marveling at it, and you should be. I am myself. These moderate Republicans and McCain and his advisors, they're looking at these three losses, these so-called safe Republican seats that have been lost, and you know what they see? They don't see trouble, a problem. They see an opportunity. This, my friends, is so important you've got to understand this. It's not that I don't think you're capable of it, I just want to say it, I may repeat it a couple of times to get it through. From McCain on down to his sycophants at the New York Times, and wherever you find these moderates, these independents in the Republican Party, they don't look at what happened in Mississippi last night as a problem. They don't look at what happened in Denny Hastert's district as a problem.

They see the loss of these three seats as evidence that their Big Government conservatism is the only way to win elections, that if the Republicans had run somebody like McCain, if the Republicans' candidate down there had been pro-global warming as the Democrats wanted, and for a compassionate, active government that grows larger, then they would have won. That is the way they're going to take this. That's the way they're going to spin it at the RNC on down. They see the destruction and the mayhem they've unleashed in the Republican Party as justification for more of the same. They blame conservatism where conservatism has been abandoned. There isn't any conservatism in the Republican Party except in a couple of individual cases. They're still out blaming conservatism for these losses and they're going to look at these losses, they see conservatism is not the way to go, despite the fact that the winners outdid Republicans in espousing conservatism. So they're going to blame Reaganism, or Reaganism has been abandoned. We've lost a lot of ground after a decade. Nonconservative activism, trying things their way, they have learned nothing from it. They are too vain; they are too delusional to see that their way will destroy what's left of the Republican Party brand.

GOP lost its values, now elections

RealClearPolitics reports a problem with the GOP:

In a major blow to national Republicans, a Mississippi congressional seat that once voted for President Bush by a twenty-five point margin elected a Democrat on Tuesday. Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers beat out Republican candidate Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, by a 54%-46% margin, a spread that several Republican strategists on Capitol Hill characterized as a startling wake-up call for a party in dire straits.

Voters cast ballots for the fourth time in three months for the seat, vacated when Republican Roger Wicker was appointed to fill the remainder of Senator Trent Lott's term. After winning the primary and the runoff election, Childers came within 410 votes of winning the first round of the special election against Davis on April 22, beating the Republican by a 49%-46% margin.

Last night, Childers, a conservative Democrat, again outperformed Davis in many rural counties.

Note it was a "conservative" Democrat who won as you take a gander at this poll result:

American voters now trust the Democrats on all ten key electoral issues tracked regularly by Rasmussen Reports. Last month, the GOP’s had an advantage on two issues.

Not surprisingly, the economy is still seen as the most important issue in this year’s presidential campaign--76% of voters say it is a Very Important issue. The Democrats now have a 14-point advantage over the Republicans on this issue, up from eight-points a month ago. Data from the Rasmussen Consumer Index shows that consumer confidence is currently hovering near record lows. Not only is confidence low, three-out-of-four Americans believe that economic conditions are getting worse.

Government Ethics and Corruption is a Very Important issue for 71% of Likely Voters. The Democrats have a huge advantage on this issue—45% now trust them while just 26% prefer the GOP. That lead has also widened since last month, when the Democrats had only a six-point advantage.

The GOP needs to return to conservative principles and include Open and transparent government as one of their conservative principles. In a previous post I covered the revolution that Ron Paul is promoting. Unfortunately it will take far more GOP losses before the leadership will get the message. That is very true in South Dakota. We are called a red state just because the Republicans own it. But we are not a conservative state politically. Too many have adopted the principles of government dependency. When you couple that with a legislative attitude that their job is to argue about government money and reject moral values, the door is wide open for corruption.

UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh has more on the GOP problem:

Dear Rush: Since Operation Chaos, the GOP has lost three congressional seats. I'm a conservative. I have nothing. I have no candidate for president. I have no national party unit, and no Rush, who is consumed with Operation Chaos. Enough is enough. Sandy Bose." I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting for somebody to try to blame me for the Republican Party's inability to win in a district that George Bush carried by 20 points in 2004, talking about northern Mississippi.

Ladies and gentlemen, go ahead and attack me. Don't attack the moderates in the party; don't attack the Republican establishment; don't attack the country club types who are in the process of destroying the Republican Party. No, no, no, no, go right ahead and attack me. Operation Chaos has nothing to do with voting against conservative candidates, nothing. This thing down in Mississippi, the special election, regardless of party, conservatives could have voted for the Republican down there, doesn't matter. In two of the three of these cases, in two of the three of these House Republican congressional losses, they have been beaten by conservative Democrats, big-time conservative, social conservative Democrats. The Republican Party is ceding conservatism in the South to the Democrat Party. You know, yesterday was a very frustrating day, as you know. In fact, when I left here yesterday, I said the first thing I have to do when I get back to the Golden EIB Microphone tomorrow is apologize for what I thought was a subpar performance on my part on behalf of yesterday's program. Ladies and gentlemen, I can't tell you, after hearing this McCain speech, we played sound bites of it, I was a combination of angry, not quite depressed, I don't get depressed, but I was just fit to be tied. I was distracted, and I feel like I was not polite with a number of the callers.

I was having trouble hearing them yesterday, but nevertheless, felt like I had to come in here and apologize because normally we're very ebullient here and we are of good cheer, optimism. We try to enjoy life here at the EIB Network and spread that. And yesterday, I was not enjoying what's going on here. Well, today I'm going to expand on that, especially now, since some apparently think I, the leading conservative commentator voice in the country, am responsible for Republican Party losses in supposedly safe congressional districts? One was Denny Hastert's outside Chicago. Another was last night in Mississippi. Do you realize if the Democrat Party -- I just want to put a thought in your head here before we go to the break -- if the Democrat Party were not so controlled by a bunch of radical leftists, do you realize the wide-open shot they have at taking over the Republican Party? Nancy Pelosi, say what you want about her, but she knows what she wants. She wants a bigger majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives. She doesn't care who those Democrats are. She just wants party ID to enable herself to solidify her leadership and expand her majority.

So if she has run conservative Democrats in Tennessee, in North Carolina, in Mississippi, who are more conservative than Republican incumbents, if she has to do that and win, she will do it, and that's exactly what's happening. Because the Republican Party, which has sold out to the pseudoconservatives of the New York Times and the DC-New York media establishment who think that Rockefeller Republicanism and country club Republicanism is the future of the party, Ms. Pelosi, "Okay, they're going to give that up, they're going to give up Reagan, fine, we'll go take over." If she wanted to, she could take over the whole Republican Party this way. But she's too far left and her party is too far left. But if they really wanted a huge supermajority, it's waiting for them. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is doing everything in the world that it can to try be 25%, 30%, 40% liberal or independent for some God-knows-who-can-explain-it reason. A brief time-out. Before we come back, let me put this thought in your head. The Democrats are fighting to defeat us. We, at the highest levels of our party, appear to be fighting to join them.

Taxpayer funded religion

This details how the government is establishing the religion of secular humanism by promoting the "theory" of evolution which is the cornerstone for the humanist belief system:

A taxpayer-funded University of California-Berkeley website that cites religious denominations endorsing a faith in evolution in its effort to eliminate objections to evolution in the classroom is being challenged in a federal appeals court.

The Pacific Justice Institute, a legal defense group specializing in religious freedom and parental rights, is arguing tomorrow before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the website is a blatant government endorsement of some religions.

The lawsuit, which first was filed by Pacific Justice in 2005, focuses on a section of the website that arms teachers to counter student "misconceptions" about evolution. The site warns that questions aimed at exposing weaknesses in evolutionary theory "may be designed to disrupt the learning process" and are "a bit different from legitimate inquiry."

The site also derides religious faiths that "explicitly contradict science" by teaching six-day creation and links to a list of denominational doctrinal statements that align with evolution.

Roy Caldwell, a UC-Berkeley professor named in the suit, told the UC-Berkeley News that the website helps teachers answer questions:

"One of those questions is, 'Aren't religion and evolution incompatible?' and we say, 'no,' and point to a number of sites by clerics and others who make that point," he said.

But the lawsuit raises the question, "Can a government funded website tell school teachers what theology is and isn't to be preferred?" The website originally was designed with over $500,000 in federal backing.

"Whatever one's views on the theory of evolution, it is completely inappropriate for the government to declare that some religious denominations are better than others. The Supreme Court has long held that government must not decree what is orthodox in religion," said Kevin Snider, chief counsel for Pacific Justice.

Even if the list of preferred doctrinal statements was removed from the website, Pacific Justice President Brad Dacus told WND he still sees grounds for the suit.

"Telling teachers that these students' questions are inappropriate is most appalling, because it's an orchestrated effort to demote thoughts and opinions that don't agree with state dictate. Whenever a government overtly minimizes questions simply because they are supported by religious theology, we have a society no less culpable than that exercised by totalitarian states," he said.

The report ends with religious organizations who have rejected Bibilcal Christianity and have adopted the religion of humanism:

The site cites as authoritative the conclusions from organizations such as the Unitarian Universalist Association, which in 1982 said its organization would "uphold religious neutrality in public education, oppose all government mandated or sponsored prayers, devotional observances, and religious indoctrination in public schools; and oppose efforts to compromise the integrity of public school teaching by the introduction of sectarian religious doctrines, such as 'scientific creationism…'"

Other religious groups used as endorsers for teaching evolution theory were the American Jewish Congress, General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the Lutheran World Federation as well as others, including a number of letters from individuals or regional groups.

Research shows that most of the these same religions faiths promoted abortion in South Dakota during the 2006 election cycle where a ballot issue contained a ban on abortion. Biblical Christian worldview holds that abortion violates God’s Law. This details the real battle in America is not between Republicans and Democrats but between two worldviews:

A worldview is the lenses, glasses, framework or grid through which you look at the world and every issue and aspect of life. In America, the two predominant worldviews are either a secular humanist worldview or a Biblical Christian worldview. Your worldview is the foundation of your ideas and values and your ideas and values is the foundation of your conduct.

Read the whole thing in order to understand how the battle is being raged in America today.

This is not education

Check out this wow:

A 6th-grade teacher in Jackson, Miss., asked her class to take a survey to determine which of their classmates were most likely to get pregnant, die and contract AIDS before graduation from high school.

Now the father of the honor student selected as most likely to get pregnant wants the teacher fired, according to local station WAPT.

Curtis Lyons said he found out about the survey when his daughter came home from Chastain Middle School Monday.

"She was humiliated," Lyons said. "She's an honor student."

According to the father, students were given a survey in science class that asked them to select students they thought were most likely to die, get pregnant, or contract AIDS.

Ron Paul, standing on conservative principles

I think the GOP needs to take notice of a very impassioned grassroots movement:

Virtually all the nation's political attention in recent weeks has focused on the compelling state-by-state presidential nomination struggle between two Democrats and the potential for party-splitting strife over there.

But in the meantime, largely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in Minnesota at the beginning of September.

Paul's presidential candidacy has been correctly dismissed all along in terms of winning the nomination. He was even excluded as irrelevant by Fox News from a nationally-televised GOP debate in New Hampshire.

But what's been largely overlooked is Paul's candidacy as a reflection of a powerful lingering dissatisfaction with the Arizona senator among the party's most conservative conservatives. As anticipated in late March in The Ticket, that situation could be exacerbated by today's expected announcement from former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia for the Libertarian Party's presidential nod, a slot held by Paul in 1988.

And it looks like Ron Paul is putting forward a strong conservative revolution within the GOP:

In the last three months, Paul's forces, who donated $34.5 million to his White House effort and upward of a million total votes, have, as The Ticket has noted, been fighting a series of guerrilla battles with party establishment officials at county and state conventions from Washington and Missouri to Maine and Mississippi. Their goal: to take control of local committees, boost their delegate totals and influence platform debates.

Paul, for instance, favors a drastically reduced federal government, abolishing the Federal Reserve, ending the Iraq war immediately and withdrawing U.S. troops from abroad.

They hope to demonstrate their disagreements with McCain vocally at the convention through platform fights and an attempt to get Paul a prominent speaking slot. Paul, who's running unopposed in his home Texas district for an 11th House term, still has some $5 million in war funds and has instructed his followers that their struggle is not about a single election, but a long-term revolution for control of the Republican Party.

So eager are they to follow their leader's words, that Paul's supporters have driven his new book, "The Revolution: A Manifesto," to the top of several bestseller lists.

While Paul has consistently refused a third-party bid, he has vowed not to endorse McCain, a refusal mirrored by hundreds of his supporters who have left comments on The Ticket in recent weeks. And, no doubt, they'll flock back here today to spread the gospel below.

And Rush Limbaugh provides this:

RUSH: On CNN's This Week in Politics, the host Tom Foreman was talking to Republican strategist Rich Galen, and they have this exchange about Operation Chaos.

FOREMAN: Rush Limbaugh doesn't like Barack Obama and he always has something to say. Listen to what he was saying this week.

RUSH ARCHIVE: We have done our part to expose Obama through our support of Operation Chaos, effectively using the Clinton campaign as our foil, and Obama and the Democrat Party are the weaker for it.

FOREMAN: Well I don't know really in the end if the Democrats are the weaker for it, as much as Republicans may wish it, because the simple truth is what you're saying, McCain and Obama are going to be playing an awful lot on the same field, the field of the moderate, middle, the strength of the people who might go either way. That's going to be a tough battle isn't it, Rich?

GALEN: This is a 50-50 country, and what nobody can figure out -- and if they say they can, they are lying -- it's a 50-50 country, and it doesn't take much to move that fulcrum and tilt it one way or the other.

RUSH: (sighing) Pardon the sighing, ladies and gentlemen. It's just utter frustration. I love Rich Galen; I've known him for a long time. But I really, frankly, get frustrated at all this talk, it's not 50-50, it's 40-40 with 20 in the middle. And you know the old rule of thumb in politics was for each party during the primaries, you go gangbusters here as far extreme to the left or right as you need to to get your base and get the nomination, then the old Nixon theory, and once you go to the general, you moderate and move to the center. And that's a formula, and the formula has been shown to be beaten. You can beat this formula. Now, the reason that people say that the formula is almost etched in stone, and they'll cite Reagan Democrats, for example. "Well, Rush, I mean here you had a bunch of people, Reagan Democrats, who crossed over and voted for Reagan." That's the wrong way to look at it. Those Reagan Democrats were not undecided, they were not moderates, they were not independents, they were disaffected Democrats. They were Democrats upset at how far left the Democrat Party had gone, and they're still out there, and they're not voting for Obama in any of these primaries. They are voting for Hillary or they're voting for whoever, but they're not voting for Obama.

Now, they are not independents. The way to attract independents is not to be independent. The way to attract moderates is not to be moderate, by definition. Again, I'm sorry for the sighing. It's a sign of my frustration. But if you want to go get and win national elections, you simply articulate a clear-cut conservative agenda, and you'll pick up every one of these so-called, or enough of them, Reagan Democrats that are dissatisfied with pure, unadulterated liberalism. But you're not going to get 'em if you go get 'em by trying to be what they are, which is Democrat with a little conservative here, a little liberalism there. If those are the two choices, Democrats are going to stay with the Democrat Party. It's just that simple. So I don't know about you, but I get a little tired of hearing every year from the political pros in the Drive-Bys that all presidential elections are only about 20% of the population because that 20% of the population, the so-called independents, so-called moderates, they're the ones with all the virtue, right? They're the ones that are smarter than everybody else, they're the ones that are above everybody, and they're the ones that are not ideological, they're the ones that are not closed-minded. So you go out and you get those people. So 80% of the population is already accounted for, doesn't matter, we know 40% are going Democrat, we know 40% are going Republican, and so we all have to play around for this 20% in the middle.

The way you go get the 20% in the middle is be rock-ribbed, staunch conservative. You contrast yourself with the members of their own party that they're already dissatisfied with. If you try to be like members of the other party and try to give them 50% of what they're getting from their own party -- because I maintain that moderates and independents are Democrats. Because, by definition, if someone or some organization is not conservative, it's by definition going to be liberal, not moderate, not independent, it's going to be liberal, because liberalism is easy. Liberalism takes no intellectual application. Liberalism is all about how you feel. Liberalism is all about making yourself feel good about yourself while you don't solve diddly-squat. Liberalism is all about thinking you're better than everybody else. Liberalism is all about thinking you're smarter than everybody else. Liberalism is all about ignoring every failure of liberalism and asking instead for your good-hearted intentions to be examined and credited.

So, by definition, these people are not moderates and independents. They're quite something else. You can attract them and get them because they're not that committed. All they need is a little leadership. All they need is a little guidance, confident, bravado, positive optimism, American exceptionalism. They want to hear about how great their country is. Most people don't want to hear how rotten we are. Most people don't want to hear what a sad-sack nation we are. Most people do not want to hear that we are to blame for every ill and bit of evil in the world. There are some that do, and those are rock-ribbed liberals and you're never going to get them. But don't cater to them; try to pick off a few of them here there. They are to be defeated. Anyway, I don't know what that's got to do with Operation Chaos, this 50-50 business, or 40-40 business, whatever it is.

The GOP is making a huge mistake by abandoning its conservative platform and becoming Democrat-lite. The people want change, but we need to say that it should not be Obama’s divisive Marxism. The change needed is about taking a strong look at the history in regard to America’s founding are restore those same principles that used Truth to create true freedom.

More First Amendment attacks

Looks like we have another attack of freedom at the hands of those who grow government authority:

After hearing complaints that signs supporting and opposing the proposed refinery were popping up across the countryside and larger than allowed, the commission set a May 15 deadline to bring them down to regulation size.

Violators face a $100 daily fine.

The ordinance requires such signs to be 25 square feet or less, commission Chairman Doyle Karpen said Monday. That law has been on the books since the 1970s, he added.

Members of the Save Union County Ballot Question Committee, which opposes the refinery, put up about 100 bright red signs that said "Vote No Hyperion" across the county.

They are all 32 square feet, said Marcene Heeren, who put a sign on her place six miles west of Akron, Iowa.

"There are other signs around the county that are larger than 25 feet that nobody seems to care about," she said. "But the Union County commissioners don't like the fact that anyone would be standing up and opposing this project."

Karpen said larger signs are allowed within urban areas of the county, and billboards have to be licensed and permitted.

"This is just open field signs out in the country," Karpen said.

Not only do we have First Amendment concerns regarding this law, there is also property right angles that should have us all concerned.

King Rounds

The controversy regarding the state tax on fuel continues with this:

The Legislature's Executive Board on Monday sent a stern message to Gov. Mike Rounds to rescind what they say is a new tax on mid-range ethanol blends.

The board, made up of Republicans and Democrats from both chambers, voted 11-2 to "insist" that the governor rescind a Revenue and Regulation Department memo that gives fuel retailers a new blender-pump tax form and guidelines.

If lawmakers don't take a stand on the issue, Republican Sen. Gene Abdallah of Sioux Falls said, "We should just appoint a king and let him run the state."

And then there was this:

She and some others on the Executive Board argued that because the administration's bill died during the regular session, Rounds should have worked with legislators toward a solution for the 2009 Legislature.

"We sent him a directive not to do this, and he went ahead and did it," Democrat Rep. Quinten Burg of Wessington Springs said.

Republican Rep. Carol Pitts of Brookings said if lawmakers "want to chastise someone," they could ask the governor or the state agencies involved to appear before the board and explain themselves.

"Don't just send him a note," she said.

"This is not about chastising anyone," Democrat Sen. Gil Koetzle of Sioux Falls said. "This is about 'what part of "no" don't you understand?"'

Abdallah added, "He does not respect this branch of government."

There is a simple solution, set the tax rate for all fuels at one rate. I think it is good that some in the legislature understand the need to stand up to other branches of government. Now if we can just get the citizens to pay more attention, we can go about the job of restoring traditional principles of limited government and South Dakota’s state motto, "Under God the People Rule". The question is whether South Dakota has become a monarchy.

Christianity no, Islam yes

What to talk about separation of church and state. Looks like the state is separating Christians from church:

Opponents and those who challenge some or all of the tenets of Darwinism have been encouraged recently as the "Academic Freedom" legislation advanced for review in four states.

If passed, the bills would guarantee the freedom of both teachers and students throughout public schools to share views contradicting or challenging the tenets of Darwinism in the classroom without fears of reprisal.

Lawmakers in Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, and Michigan said that the efforts to pass the bills were a response to the concerns of teachers and students who reportedly felt marginalized, discriminated, or ostracized if they shared personal views that ran counter to Darwinism.

Darrell White, co-director of the Louisiana Family Forum summed up the intentions of the recent legislation drives as an opportunity that would "free up teachers and students [to] fully explore various scientific weaknesses of Darwinism as well as other areas of science."

"In educational institutions that receive taxpayer support, it is entirely appropriate for the government to ensure that teachers and students have the right to discuss freely the evidence and scientific arguments for and against evolutionary theory," explained biologist Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute, a pro-intelligent design think-tank, according to LifeSiteNews.com

The Academic Freedom legislation, however, has been faced with some opposition.

Efforts in Florida to pass a bill that would have given students the opportunity to "think critically" and "constantly raise questions" regarding evolution fell flat last week when opponents criticized the bill as an attempt to infuse religion in schools.

That is an obvious attack on Christianity. The same Educrats are also doing this:

History textbooks being used by hundreds of thousands of public schools students across the U.S. are blatantly promoting Islam, according to a new report by an independent organization that researches and reviews textbooks.

WND has reported several times on issues involving the promotion of Islam in public school texts, including a recent situation in which California parents complained their children were being taught that "jihad" to Muslims means "doing good works."

The new report is from the American Textbook Council, which was established in 1989 as an independent national research organization to review social studies textbooks and advance the quality of instructional materials in history.

…

The report noted that several of the textbooks have found harsh critics among parents and others, and "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond" published by the privately held Teachers Curriculum Institute has been criticized repeatedly.

In Lodi, Calif., parents "were not objecting to a word or two that they took out of context but to a textbook long on chapters filled with adulatory lessons on Islam."

This was the same book cited by parents who contacted WND with their concerns about such indoctrination.

A parent whose child has been handed the text in a Sacramento district at that time accused the publisher of a pro-Muslim bias to the point that Islamic theology has been incorporated into the public school teachings.

"It makes an attempt to seem like an egalitarian world history book, but on closer inspection you find that seven (not all are titled so) of the chapters deal with Islam or Muslim subjects," wrote the parent, whose name was being withheld, in a letter to WND.

"The upsetting part is not only do they go into the history (which would be acceptable) but also the teaching of Islam," she said. "This book does not really go into Christianity or the teachings of Christ, nor does it address religious doctrine elsewhere to the degree it does Islam."

School choice by using vouchers would fix this.

Kephart shows social conservative side

Denise Ross’s column on Sam Kephart in Saturday’s Mitchell Daily Republic includes this:

"I’m loyal to the Republican Party. I’m not blindly loyal. The best idea in the room is going to get my vote," he says, and then decries the sense of entitlement and "arrogance instead of God-given gratitude for being a congressman or senator" that he’s observed in some politicians.

With the help of a PowerPoint presentation, also viewable on his Web site, Kephart lays out what he sees as critical issues facing America — winning the war on terror, the growing amount of American debt and assets owned by China, reckless practices on Wall Street and efforts to erase references to God from official American events. He notes that the signers of the Declaration of Independence wrote that they would rely on "divine providence" to guide the young country and hew it to the principles they had laid down.

"We no longer honor our heritage. I’ll be darned if we’re going to sanitize God out of American culture on my watch," Kephart says.

Environmental predictions not so good

From Walter E. Williams:

Now that another Earth Day has come and gone, let's look at some environmentalist predictions that they would prefer we forget.

At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind." C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, "The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed." In 1968, professor Paul Ehrlich, Vice President Gore's hero and mentor, predicted there would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and "in the 1970s ... hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million. Ehrlich's predictions about England were gloomier: "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."

In 1972, a report was written for the Club of Rome warning the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987 and petroleum, copper, lead and natural gas by 1992. Gordon Taylor, in his 1970 book "The Doomsday Book," said Americans were using 50 percent of the world's resources and "by 2000 they [Americans] will, if permitted, be using all of them." In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, "The world as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000."

Harvard University biologist George Wald in 1970 warned, "... civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." That was the same year Sen. Gaylord Nelson warned, in Look magazine, that by 1995 "... somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."

It's not just latter-day doomsayers who have been wrong; doomsayers have always been wrong. In 1885, the U.S. Geological Survey announced there was "little or no chance" of oil being discovered in California, and a few years later they said the same about Kansas and Texas. In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior said American oil supplies would last only another 13 years. In 1949, the secretary of the interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight. Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous claims, in 1974 the U.S. Geological Survey advised us that the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. The fact of the matter, according to the American Gas Association, is there's a 1,000 to 2,500 year supply.

Here are my questions: In 1970, when environmentalists were making predictions of manmade global cooling and the threat of an ice age and millions of Americans starving to death, what kind of government policy should we have undertaken to prevent such a calamity? When Ehrlich predicted that England would not exist in the year 2000, what steps should the British Parliament have taken in 1970 to prevent such a dire outcome? In 1939, when the U.S. Department of the Interior warned that we only had oil supplies for another 13 years, what actions should President Roosevelt have taken? Finally, what makes us think that environmental alarmism is any more correct now that they have switched their tune to manmade global warming?

Here are a few facts: Over 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere Without the greenhouse effect, Earth's average temperature would be zero degrees Fahrenheit. Most climate change is a result of the orbital eccentricities of Earth and variations in the sun's output. On top of that, natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.

Time to pray for Bill Connor

I got this via email from the Alpha Center:

Inspiration and spiritual growth come from the valleys that life’s journey brings to every soul; this is no different for Bill Connor. Bill, a South Dakota native, came from humble beginnings, having been conceived in rape and growing up in less than perfect conditions. However, through God’s great plan and Bill’s willingness to listen, he has become a man with passion, a man with a story and the heart to openly share it. Bill was excelling through life despite his childhood as he began the American dream by getting married and having a family. Again, his life was shaped through times of despair when his son was diagnosed with cancer, and later lost the battle.

Despite these struggles, God has continued to reveal His plan for Bill’s life by uniting his love for buses and his compassion for children through the Angel Bus. The Angel Bus was inspired by difficult times, providing transportation to children fighting major medical issues, allowing them the ability to get medical treatment that may not have been available to them otherwise.

The Alpha Center has also been blessed through God’s plan and provision. Bill’s Angel Bus is now known as the Fleet for Little Feet, an extension of the Alpha Center. This bus now provides the same services as the Alpha Center but has the ability to meet clients where they are at, typically in remote locations in the tri-state area. Many lives have been saved because the Fleet is there to support, encourage, and educate men and women involved in an unexpected pregnancy.

There is a part to this wonderful, God-written story that you don’t know. Bill survived a bone marrow transplant that was needed after finding out he had leukemia, the same disease that took his son. Bill persisted, God provided and the cancer went into remission. However, his leukemia is back. He knows that God’s plan is always at work, yet it is hard to understand and accept. Bill is taking immediate action by seeing his doctor for further treatment.

Today, Alpha Center is asking you to lift up prayers for a man that has given so much to touch countless lives for God’s glory, and his wife, Nola, who continues to support and encourage him during this time. Thank you for your prayers. Click here to read more about Bill.

Abstinence is the Truth

Abstinence is one of God’s Laws. And true freedom means following that Law. Rebecca Hagelin has a column that includes a quote form Leslee Unruh as the godless left tries to attack God’s Truth in congressional hearings regarding sex education indoctrination:

Who could argue with the idea that, when it comes to sex education, our teenagers should be taught to say "no"? Considering what's at stake (their health, their future, their dignity as human beings, their morality) – and because we love them and want what's best for them, nothing short of a clear-cut abstinence message will do.

At least, that's how it appears out here in the Real World. In the rarified air of a congressional hearing room, it's another matter. According to several witnesses (including John Santelli of the Guttmacher Institute and Max Siegel of the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families) who spoke recently before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, abstinence education is not only impractical, it's dangerous.

Many critics of the abstinence-only programs that have been federally funded over the past 11 years resort to the old kids-will-be-kids argument. They'll "do it anyway," we're told, so we're wasting time and money on an idealistic charade. Worse, we're depriving our rutting youth of the "protection" they need to make their unions non-fruitful and disease-free.

Lawmakers didn't hear from actual teenagers, though. "The greatest failure of this committee was not allowing those that were being talked about – the teens themselves – the opportunity to share how and why abstinence programs have worked for them," said Leslee Unruh, president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse. "I saw abstinent young adults in the audience appearing frustrated, saying they wish they could share their opinion on this matter."

A quick review of the resulting coverage finds that the witnesses' agenda has a receptive audience among the media. Typical headlines include "Abstinence-only sex ed discredited" (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Indiana), "A real-world solution to teenage pregnancy" (Houston Chronicle) and "Abstinence-only education not enough" (Rapid City Journal, South Dakota).

I hate to interrupt their collective dream with something as inconvenient as the facts. Actual research, however, shows that the abstinence message works.

In a major new paper, Christine Kim and Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation sifted carefully through numerous studies on the effectiveness of abstinence programs and found clear evidence that they work. "In addition to teaching the benefits of abstaining from sexual activity until marriage, abstinence programs focus on developing character traits that prepare youths for future-oriented goals," the researchers write.

Religious left’s god is government

This is from a Craige McMillan column:

There are people in the world, however, who do not seem obsessed with – or even particularly impressed with – power. They don't gravitate toward it. They aren't repelled by it. They are aware it exists. Yet they seem oblivious.

Os Guinness touches on this concept in his book, "The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life." He uses the expression "an audience of one" to describe the focus of those who don't seem to fit into the usual work structure.

Perhaps the same concept applies to power? If so, the single best-known example would have to be the confrontation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate, who had the power of Rome's legions at his beck and call. The brief interchange is recorded in the gospel of John (19:10-11):

"Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?

"Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. ..."

So perhaps those who seem ambivalent about power simply view it as flowing from a different source. Thus their focus on an "Audience of One." Jesus certainly held that view. And three days after that interchange, history vindicated Jesus' view.

All of which brings us to the "religious left" – or the absence thereof, during the Democrats' bloodletting to install a new king or queen. It's not that religion hasn't entered into the debate: as the index at the back of the book would say, "see Wright, Jeremiah Rev."

No, I think the religious left plays to a rather different "audience of one" than many other Americans. Their bloodletting and quest for the levers of power give us a taste of what lies in store, should they be successful.

The Founding Fathers knew the above Biblical truth when the began the Declaration of Independence:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And in an earlier post Kevin Swanson in his book titled, "The Second Mayflower" said this:

This book contains a life-changing challenge. It is intended to enliven the most "freedom-minded" people who are conscious of principled government and freedom constrained only by God’s Law. This is a signal from the "church tower" to prepare ourselves and others to take the reins of power in a new country (or portion of a dismembered federal state) and create freedom on God’s Law.

We should keep this in mind during this election cycle. The tenor is again like we are electing a god of government, and not electing a servant of God to look over the God-give rights of the citizens of this country. Swanson goes on to say:

This book attempts to take a realistic look at the world around us without irrational optimism or pessimism, and says, "You can do something about it." We must do something if there is anything that we can do. We cannot simply throw up our hands in the air and surrender our own freedom and our children’s future to the interests of tyrants. We do not suggest violent revolution, fear, ambivalence, or inaction as solutions to our current predicament. Instead we call for total reformation of our lives to the Bible in personal life, family, church, and state. We call for a revolution inside, a renewal of the mind, long-term vision, and a lifetime commitment to a new way of life. We must quit our passive acceptance of the socialist slave-state, the cultural gutter, the maze of man’s laws, and the materialist, debt-ridden world that has captured us, and create a new reality for ourselves and our children.

The presidential election should be put into the proper perspective. It is not near as important as each of us bringing ourselves closer to God’s Truth and then applying that to all areas of our lives, including the political arena. It is only then do we have the standards in which to pick our political leaders.

What recession?

Larry Elder points out the successful attempt by the media to mislead and portray the falsehood that America is in a recession:

But during an election year, the media's constant use or expectation of "recession" does matter. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's likely nominee, already considers the U.S. economy "in a recession."

So are we – at least as economists commonly define the term?

No – not even close.

A recent typical news wire story, however, goes like this: "(George W.) Bush's news conference … appeared to be a pre-emptive measure of sorts, as it came a day before the release of statistics on the nation's gross domestic product for January through March. The common definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of declining GDP, and many expect Wednesday's report to provide the first official confirmation of a slide."

Well, case closed.

…

The day before the released GDP report, a headline in USA Today read, "USA TODAY survey: We're in a recession, economists say." The first two sentences read as follows: "The U.S. economy is in recession, or soon to be in one. … Two-thirds of the 52 economists polled said the U.S. economy is in recession."

This USA Today we're-in-a-recession story showed a graph with the 52 economists' predictions. They (incorrectly) predicted 0.1 percent economic growth for the first quarter, 0.5 percent negative growth for the second, with positive growth for the next four quarters at 2.3, 2.0, 2.2 and 2.6 percent respectively. But they never bothered to show the growth in the last quarter of 2007, while anemic, was still a positive 0.6 percent. In other words, assuming the traditional definition of recession – back-to-back quarters of negative economic growth – even USA Today's economic experts were not truly predicting a recession.

The next day, the actual number for this year's first quarter came out.

Oops. USA Today's website headline for an Associated Press story read: "Weak 0.6 percent economic growth in Q1 is better than forecast." In English, this means that since the recovery began in Bush's first year in office, we have had zero quarters of negative economic growth, let alone consecutive ones.