The Real Issues Behind Arizona’s New Illegal Immigration Law

George Will, on ABC’s “This Week,” hit the nail right on the head regarding Arizona’s new illegal immigration policy, just signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer:

“Reasonable suspicion” that the person is an alien. What does that mean, George?

WILL: Well, the Fourth Amendment says there should be no unreasonable searches and seizures, and we’ve generated volumes of case law trying to sort out what that means over the last century or so. So it’s not clear what that means. Let’s say this about Arizona. They have 460,000, an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants there. So before Washington lectures Arizonans on irresponsibility, perhaps Washington ought to attend to the central attribute of national sovereignty which is to control the borders. We are the only developed nation in the world with a 2,000 mile border with an undeveloped country and we have a magnet of a welfare state to the north.

So this is not Arizona’s fault. Beyond that, this should be said however. Reasonable suspicion is going to put upon the police of Arizona a terribly difficult job. This is what the governor said. “We must enforce the law evenly and without regard to skin color, accent or social status.” I don’t know how do you that. […]

WILL: Again, in defense of Arizona, large majority of Arizonans support this bill and a large majority of Arizonans are not, by definition, the fringe of the state. They are temperate, decent people with a huge problem.

What the Arizona law does is make a state crime out of something that already is a crime, a federal crime. Now, the Arizona police — and I’ve spent time with the Phoenix Police Department — these are not bad people. These are professionals who are used to making the kind of difficult judgments. Suspicion of intoxicated driving, all kinds of judgments are constantly made by policemen. And I wouldn’t despair altogether their ability to do this in a professional way. […]

GLICK: So put the 3,000 troops on the border as McCain suggests.

WILL: Build a fence, do what McCain suggests, and you’ll find that the American people are not xenophobic, they are not irrational on the subject, but they do want this essential attribute of national sovereignty asserted.

TUCKER: And where does the money come from for that, George?

WILL: It’s a rounding error on the GM bailout.

A number of major points come out of George Will’s remarks:

1) This is NOT Arizona’s fault; it’s the federal government’s fault.  The first order of business for any government of any nation-state is to protect their borders from invasion; and the U.S. government has utterly failed to perform that function.  Worse, up to this point, they have even perversely prevented the states from acting to save themselves.

2) Arizona’s illegal immigration policy is NOT some “racist” or “extreme” agenda; it is supported by an overwhelming majority of Arizonans:

The Arizona legislature has now passed the toughest measure against illegal immigration in the country, authorizing local police to stop and check the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 70% of likely voters in Arizona approve of the legislation, while just 23% oppose it.

These are reasonable people put into an unreasonable position by a bunch of extremists who are running our government and who are leading racist organizations such as La Raza (which literally means “the race” – and how racist can you get?).

The “racist extremists are on the other side from the decent Arizona people:

Whenever I’m asked about media treatment of the Tea Parties, I ask myself a simple question: What do you suppose the media would say if tea partiers were biting off people’s fingers?

A new question for today: What would they be saying if even a small group of Tea Partiers physically attacked the police at a rally?

Witnesses say a group protesting against SB1070 (Arizona’s harsh new immigration law) began to fight with a man who was for the controversial immigration bill.

Police tried escorting that man away from the scene, fearing for his safety, when they too came under attack by people throwing items, including water bottles.

And, yes, the police are under more than just rock and bottle attacks from protesters who want to prevent Arizona from keeping illegal immigrants outside their borders:

(CNSNews.com) – Law enforcement officials from the Arizona counties hardest hit by illegal immigration say they want U.S. troops to help secure the border, to prevent the deaths of more officers at the hands of criminals who enter the country illegally.

“We’ve had numerous officers that have been killed by illegal immigrants in Arizona,” Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said Monday at a Capitol Hill news conference. “And that shouldn’t happen one time.”

Babeu said the violence in Arizona has reached “epidemic proportions” and must be stopped. “In just one patrol area, we’ve had 64 pursuits — failure to yield for an officer — in one month,” Babeu said. “That’s out of control.”

I have seen a number of occasions in which a situation went way too far one way, which ultimately led to it swinging way too far the other way.  I believe that the Democrats under Obama have done that very thing on virtually every issue under the sun.  I would say the following: don’t act like a bunch of rabid leftwing extremists, and then cry when conservatives start acting like a bunch of rabid rightwing extremists.

3) Given the fact that the federal government – aided by a powerful special interest lobby, and aided even further by judicial activists who refuse to make a distinction between citizens and illegal immigrants – have refused to protect our borders, Arizona decided to do the job the federal government has refused to do.  That means that Arizona police officers are going to have to step up and do a tough job.

Being a police officer means making judgment calls, and balancing peoples’ rights with enforcing laws every single day.

Bottom line: if you think police can’t make a reasonable determination whether someone is here illegally, I hope you don’t think law enforcement can make any other reasonable judgments (such as whether I’m driving drunk), either.

4) Finally, if we just built the damn wall like Bush tried to do, we wouldn’t be in this stupid mess to begin with.  And the people who screamed about that wall have no right to complain with Arizona’s new policy now.  They BEGGED for the tough new Arizona law.

The shrill cry of the leftwing was that a border wall was identical to the Iron Curtain.  The only thing wrong with that is that it is beyond ignorant; the Iron Curtain was created to keep citizens from escaping to freedom; a border wall would protect out citizens by keeping illegal immigrants who have no right to be here out.

Liberals also cite the Posse Comitatus Act as preventing the powers of the federal government from using the military for law enforcement.  But that begs the question: just how is protecting our borders from foreign invasion “law enforcement”?  This is a clear situation in which our national security is at issue.  The soldiers on the border would not be arresting American citizens; they would be detaining foreign invaders.

The Chinese built the Great Wall of China to keep the Mongols out; and it worked.  And I’m just guessing that a people who put a man on the moon can build a damn wall that does the job.

Bottom line, I think the Arizona law probably ultimately goes too far.  But like I said, pro-illegal immigration forces DEMANDED a law that went too far by steadfastly refusing any form of reasonable policy.

There is no reason whatsoever that citizenship should not be checked along with identity and residence, under the same conditions and situations in which it is reasonable to ascertain identity and residence.  And if you are here illegally, your ass should be on the next bus out of the country – after serving jail time for violating our borders and breaking our laws.  And the wall that we build should make sure you don’t come back.

Checking citizenship (or immigration status) at every arrest, or at every reasonable situation in which police check for identity, would take away the “racist” profiling issues.

Because, yes, I’m just as ticked off at the illegal immigrant Canadian or Irishman as I am at the illegal immigrant Mexican.

At the same time, building a wall to protect what is yours should be familiar to any child who has ever walked down the sidewalks of his or her own neighborhood.  I’m not “racist” for building a wall; and it is frankly racist to suggest that I am.  It amounts to basic common sense.  And combined with a military patrol that would be able to identify and apprehend anyone climbing over that wall, it would make the issues surrounding “border enforcement” moot.

You can disrespect America’s borders as much as you want – so long as you remain on the other side of them.

Bush Katrina Economy Obama Haiti Economy

Yesterday on ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos substitute host Jake Tapper interviewed Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.  Bush could not have been more gracious in praising Obama’s relief efforts.

In other words, he didn’t try to do to Obama what Obama and the Democrats so viciously did to him.

And I couldn’t help but wonder: if Democrats believed their own crap about Bush and Katrina, why on earth would they be asking George Bush to lead an effort for Haitian relief now?

It has now been six days since the earthquake that destroyed Haiti.  Obama promised an unprecedented massive effort to provide emergency relief.

Has it been organized well?

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. relief effort after the Haiti earthquake started too slowly and cautiously, says a retired general who led the military relief effort on the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

“The next morning after the earthquake, as a military man of 37 years service, I assumed … there would be airplanes delivering aid, not troops, but aid,” said retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who coordinated military operations after disaster struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005. “What we saw instead was discussion about, ‘Well we’ve got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are.’ And anytime I hear that, my head turns red.”

The problem, Honore told USA TODAY, is that the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, instead of the military, take the lead in international disaster response.

“I was a little frustrated to hear that USAID was the lead agency,” he said. “I respect them, but they’re not a rapid deployment unit.”

USAID immediately dispatched an assessment team and search-and-rescue teams, but there has still not been widespread distribution of food or water, three days after the Haiti earthquake.

Let’s file that as a ‘no’.

Very little in the way of actual lifesaving supplies had gone out as of the time of that article.  Has that situation improved?

Yesterday, ABC’s Tapper pointed out:

“But it’s five days later, and still a lot of the relief effort, a lot of the aid has not gotten to the people who need it most.”

An exchange between Tapper and Raddatz:

So how about it, Martha? Is the relief effort getting to those who need it most?

RADDATZ: Well, we actually went with a convoy, one truckload of supplies yesterday. We arrived really early in the morning, expecting to track this truck, come back, and go out with another truck. It took us five-and-a-half hours to get these supplies where they were needed.

General Keen, the military commander, said that 70,000 bottles of water and 130,000 food rations had been handed out Saturday – four days after the disaster!  70,000 bottles of water for 3.5 MILLION people in need.  They needed 10 million bottles of water a day.

Let’s file that as another big ‘no.’

How many days did Bush get before Democrats hatefully and viciously attacked him?

Well, are they at least providing security for the relief supplies yet to come?

Another exchange during the ABC program between Jake Tapper and Martha Raddatz:

TAPPER: Speaking of chaos, Martha, we keep hearing about reports of sporadic violence. Where is the U.S. military in all this? Are they making attempts to secure the island?

RADDATZ: Absolutely not, Jake. They really aren’t. I keep hearing these numbers. There are about 4,200 American military supporting this mission, but mostly they’re out on the ships. They’re on the cutters. You’ve got the 82nd Airborne, not all of the 82nd Airborne, a brigade, about 3,500 soldiers are here. They’re expected to be here sometime next week. The Marines are not yet here, 2,200 Marines.

Jake Tapper pointed out to the US military commander for the region, General Keen, that:

General Keen, I’d like to go to you first. Martha Raddatz just reported that U.S. troops are not out there securing Haiti, even though there are sporadic outbursts of violence, some of them horrific. We heard a report of — in Petionville, a suburb of Port- au-Prince, a policeman handed over a suspected looter to an angry crowd. They stripped him, beat him, and set him on fire. We’ve also heard that some medical personnel are clearing the area because they don’t feel secure.

Sounds like another rather big ‘no’ vote.

I think I’ve amply proven the case that a week after the Haiti disaster a great deal separates what has been done from what could have been done.  I can’t help but remember how bitterly the left attacked Bush for the same failures following an unprecedented natural disaster.

This is what liberals would be saying about Barack Obama if they weren’t hypocrites: Barack Obama hates black people!!!  Barack Obama is creating a genocide of black people!!!

And Republican elected officials, if they were like Democrats, would be claiming accusing the Obama administration of “ethnic cleansing” in Haiti.

Because that’s how loathsome Democrats rolled just a few years back.  And yes, that’s right: the same Democrats who regard any criticism of Barack Obama as a form of blasphemy.

I was pointing that out last year during the Democrat National Convention when Democrats were STILL demonizing and demagoguing Bush for Hurricane Katrina.

The left ignored the fact that Hurricane Katrina was a supermassive disaster that simply overwhelmed the resources of the federal government regardless of who was in charge of it.  They ignored the fact that Bill Clinton hadn’t prepared New Orleans for such a disaster any better than George Bush did.  They ignored the fact that the heavily Democratic city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana had utterly failed to prepare, when such preparation should have been at the very core of their agenda.  They ignored details such as this:

The vultures of the venomous left are attacking on two fronts, first that the president didn’t do what the incompetent mayor of New Orleans and the pouty governor of Louisiana should have done, and didn’t, in the early hours after Katrina loosed the deluge on the city that care and good judgment forgot. Ray Nagin, the mayor, ordered a “mandatory” evacuation a day late, but kept the city’s 2,000 school buses parked and locked in neat rows when there was still time to take the refugees to higher ground. The bright-yellow buses sit ruined now in four feet of dirty water.

They ignored everything but their ideological agenda and the political axe-to-grind they had in their hands to swing at George Bush with.

And the propagandistic mainstream media helped them do it.

The same media that basically demanded that George Bush push a button and FIX New Orleans have gone out of their way to make excuses for the numerous failures in Haiti under Obama.

What is funny is that it was largely the attacks against Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina that led to the Democrat takeover of the House and the Senate in 2006.

Unemployment was 4.7% when the Democrats took over Congress.  It was 4.7% when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid assumed their respective majority leadership positions.  They have been in control of Congress ever since: and what is unemployment at now?

The Democrat Party/lamestream media narrative is that Bush was responsible for the economic meltdown because it happened during his watch.  There was never once a mention that it happened during Nancy Pelosi’s and Harry Reid’s watch.  Because that particular narrative doesn’t fit their agenda.

George Bush called for reform of the housing finance market 17 times in 2008 alone — and Democrats ignored him.  They had been blocking his every effort to prevent disaster ever since Bush first tried to do so beginning in 2003.  At that time, Democrat Barney Frank led the effort to block reform, saying:

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

George Bush and John McCain repeatedly warned that if we didn’t address the situation, we would suffer a financial collapse.

John McCain wrote an urgent letter in 2006 that read:

These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform. For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs—and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns.

In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay. I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

John McCain signed another letter that ended with these words:

With the fiscal challenges facing us today (deficits, entitlements, pensions and flood insurance), Congress must ask itself who would actually pay this debt if Fannie or Freddie could not?

Substantial testimony calling for improved regulation of the GSEs has been provided to the Senate by the Treasury, Federal Reserve, HUD, GAO, CBO, and others. Congress has the opportunity to recommit itself to the housing mission of the GSEs while at the same time making sure the GSEs operate in a manner that does not expose our financial system, or taxpayers, to unnecessary risk. It is vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that these institutions benefit from strong and independent regulatory supervision, operate in a safe and sound manner, and are primarily focused on their statutory mission. More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event either GSE should fail. We strongly support an effort to schedule floor time this year to debate GSE regulatory reform.

And they DID fail.  They massively, massively failed.

Only about a month before the whole system crashed, Barney Frank went on the record and said this:

REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: “I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.”

They sure were, you fat, miserable, loathsome, obscene, disgusting, slobbering, lying toad.

The top three headlines under the Google search “Fannie Mae collapse”:

Freddie, Fannie Scam Hidden in Broad Daylight

Financial Markets Reeling from Fannie & Freddie Collapse and Evitable Government Bailout

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Too big not to fail

But as our economy exploded along with the boondoggle housing finance market artificially sustained by Fannie and Freddie, the Democrats demagogued the Republicans.  And the lamestream media duly reported it as though it were all the liberal’s-god-socialist-big-government’s truth.

And thus you see how the liberal demagoguery surrounding Hurricane Katrina led to the liberal demagoguery surrounding the economic collapse.

And it just never stops.

The Obama White House has been rather shamelessly politicizing the Haitian earthquake disaster to bolster up its low support.

And even when Obama abandons Haiti to go to Massachusetts to prop up Democrat Martha Coakley’s failing candidacy, Democrats manage to demagogue over Haiti.

Bill Clinton, the Obama-appointed special envoy for Haiti, didn’t bother to go there, but focused on what was far more important: Martha Coakely’s election bid in Massachusetts.

Someone asked Bill Clinton about that, and he said that relief for Haiti and the election of Martha Coalkey in Massachusetts were “just two sides of the same coin.” The blatant and breathtaking politicization is mindboggling!!!

What would the mainstream media be saying about Republican George Bush literally turning his back on a disaster to fly north to Massachusetts to campaign for a Republican – bringing us special envoy to Haiti to do so with him – rather than turn south to deal with the Haiti disaster?  What would these demagogues who deceitfully call themselves “journalists” have said?

Even if you’re a liberal, you’re not stupid enough to realize that the media would have unleashed hell on earth to attack George Bush for such a partisan political act of abandonment.

And that’s what I’m really getting at.  The double standard between treatment of Democrats and Republicans is so massive it is positively unreal.  Obama can screw up every which way and the media will let it pass; Bush could hit a homerun and the media would declare it a foul ball and then attack him for his incredibly poor swing.

Meanwhile, of course, millions of Haitians are suffering, and not getting helped.

Just as millions of Americans are suffering, and not getting helped.

Meanwhile, the news media largely continues to spin the economy positively, even as more jobs were lost under Obama in 2009 than for any president in any year since 194o.

Update January 29:

HUMAN TRAFFICKING, FOOD RIOTS AND LACK OF MEDICINE PLAGUE HAITI
John G. Winder , The Cypress Times
Published 01/29/2010 – 10:28 a.m. CST

Mass graves. Tent cities.More than 90% of the nation’s structures damaged or destroyed. No food.Amputees and orphans left to fend for themselves.  Nearly all of the businesses gone.  No employment.  Yet it still gets worse for the people of Haiti.

Haiti’s Prime Ministery, Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN that he is receiving reports of children being stolen and trafficked as slaves, sex slaves and for the purpose of having their organs harvested to be sold.

“There is organ trafficking for children and other persons also, because they need all types of organs,” Bellerive said.

UNICEF is also reporting that children are being taken from hospitals by traffickers.

Had this happened under George Bush, with these results, the lamestream media would be attacking Bush as the most evil man since Hitler and the most incompetent buffoon since God created incompetent buffoons.

Just pointing out the obvious truth.

We Can’t Just Ignore It: Democrat Bill WILL Ration Your Health Care

Mammograms – or the lack of them – are all the buzz right now.

They are serving as warning shots of the massive health care rationing to come if the Democrat health plan becomes law.

The former head of the National Institute of Health says that women should very forcefully ignore the recommendations of the Obama administration’s U.S. Preventative Services Task Force:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (UPI) — The former head of the U.S. National Institutes of Health says American women should ignore the mammogram recommendations of a government breast cancer panel.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” former NIH chief Dr. Bernadine Healy, now health editor for the magazine U.S. News & World Report, said she disagreed with the assessment of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a 16-member panel assembled by Department of Health and Human Services. The group this month recommended women under 50 forgo routine breast cancer tests and instead get mammograms individually in consultation with their doctors.

Asked if women should ignore the panel, Healy said, “Oh, I’m saying very powerfully ignore them, because unequivocally — and they agreed with this — this will increase the number of women dying of breast cancer.”

But as it turns out, neither women nor anyone else can ignore these recommendations.

Rationing via “death panel” is coming home to roost, to paraphrase Jeremiah Wright.

Sunday morning, on ABC’s “This Week,” with George Stephanopoulos, we saw how a fairly harmless sounding paragraph in a bill can have massive consequences on real people.

George Stephanaopoulos and Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn – when they were actually get a word in edgewise over Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s constant grandstanding – underscored that the country will find itself facing rationed health care:

BLACKBURN: And, George, this is exactly how it happens. If you go to page 1,296 of the House bill, the engrossed copy, and you began to read in title three of that bill, on preventive and wellness services, and you get down to section 2301, this is what happens. In section 3131 of that bill, it changes the Preventive Services Task Force to the Clinical Preventive Services Task Force.

Then, you go back and you see that that task force on preventive clinical services is tasked with rating A, B, C, D, or I all preventive services. Then you go back into section 222 of the bill…

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKBURN: Yes, I have read this bill. And it indicates what would be paid or covered. And this is where the actual link comes, and I’ll read it for you. In section 2301, it says, “All recommendations of the Preventive Services Task Force” — that’s the group that did the mammograms — “and the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, as in existence on the day before the date of the enactment of this act, shall be considered to be recommendations of the Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: So the guidelines — the point is that the guidelines then…

BLACKBURN: They become the law.

STEPHANOPOULOS: … would — would become…

BLACKBURN: They become the law, the mandate.

STEPHANOPOULOS: … would become controlling.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, they would not be.

BLACKBURN: Yes, they do.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: And what’s unfortunate is that the Republicans, and Ms. Blackburn, have for the first time politicized breast cancer.

BLACKBURN: That is incorrect.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That is — no, it is not. And I’m a breast cancer…

BLACKBURN: No, it is incorrect.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: As you know, as a breast cancer survivor, Marsha…

BLACKBURN: That is incorrect. It’s in the bill, Debbie.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Excuse me.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let her finish her point.

BLACKBURN: I have a great respect — yes.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: As a breast cancer survivor, I came out against these — these recommendations. Every major cancer organization has come out against these recommendations. The task force language in that bill actually makes sure that prevention — preventive services like mammograms and colonoscopies and other cancer screenings would be free. The task force recommendations — the language in the bill…

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, Debbie, let me — let me clarify this…

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: … that even more women would get access to…

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Excuse me for a second. That — that is true. But let me clarify a little bit, because under the — the bill — and we have — we have the language, as well. It says that a group health plan and health insurance issuer offering the group (ph) shall provide coverage, but only under — if the Preventive Services Task Force rates it as an A or B.

BLACKBURN: That’s right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And, actually, under the — under the task force, they said that these mammograms for women 40 to 50 is rated C. So they actually wouldn’t be covered. So you have a great expansion for a broad part of the population, but actually, these guidelines would be controlling for ages 40 or 50.

With all due respects to Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s inability to face reality, ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent and former Clinton administration Communications Director George Stephanopoulos and Rep. Marsha Blackburn are right: under this bill, when a government panel recommends that care be rationed, that care gets rationed.

And you’d better face up to that reality.

And if government rationing isn’t bad enough, there is also the fact that this takeover of the private health care system will also result in higher premiums, according to the CBO.  You will pay more and get less.

You’d better face up to that reality, too.

You’d also better face up to the reality that once this bill gets online, it will cost at least $2.5 trillion every ten years – and very likely ten times that figure if history is any guide.

Democrats argue that we should pass this bill to “get something done,” and then come back and fix it later.  But this bill is beyond dreadful.  The Dean of the Harvard School of Medicine gave it a flunking grade, and The Wall Street Journal called it “The Worst Bill Ever.”  The Democrats’ plan is beyond bad; it is evil.  We can surely start with something better than this.

This bill WILL lead to a government takeover via a public option (whether it is present in the bill or presented as a ‘trigger’ to happen later), and it will CERTAINLY lead to rationed care along with a shortage of doctors to provide medical services.

It is human nature to avoid dealing with unpleasant realities.  And the Democrats’ attempt to take over health care is the epitome of an unpleasant reality.  If it passes, it will be too late; and voting Democrats out of office in retaliation will be way too little, way too late.  The American people must either rise up and scream this monstrosity down, or it will very likely become the law of the land.

More Self-Referentially Absurd Claims Of Fox News Bias

The accusations of Fox News’ bias continue to prove that the real bias is coming from all the other media outlets.

Barack Obama’s Communications Director Anita Dunn came out and demagogued Fox News for not rendering the proper Nazi salute for Obama and the Democrat agenda.  During the course of her spiel, she said:

“They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is.”

It should be pointed out that CNN had actually just FACT CHECKED a Saturday Night Live sketch critical of Barack Obama.  Somehow, the weekly SNL lampooning of Sarah Palin which went on for four months never bothered CNN.

If that demonstration of leftwing bias wasn’t pathetic enough, CNN – the very next day following Anita Dunn’s holding them up as the paradigm of journalistic virtue – attacked conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh with fraudulent quotes as part of a massive liberal slander campaign.  Which somehow they didn’t feel the need to bother to fact check.

In a different forum, Anita Dunn said the following about how the Obama campaign team handled the media [Youtube]:

“But we, um, increasingly by the general election, very rarely, did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control.”

You can frankly only imagine what a snit such people could get in trying to deal with a media outlet that refused to allow itself to be controlled.

A discussion between George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” and Obama senior adviser David Axelrod from yesterday, October 18, continues the trend of the Obama White House demonizing Fox News on other media outlets — no matter how hypocritical it looks:

RUPERT MURDOCH, NEWSCORP: There were some strong remarks coming out of the White House about one or two of the commentators on Fox News.  And all I can tell you is it has tremendously increased their ratings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: That does seem to be true. Are you worried that your strategy is fortifying your enemy?

AXELROD: Well, I don’t — you know, I’m not concerned. Mr. Murdoch has a — has a talent for making money, and I understand that their programming is geared toward making money. All — the only argument Anita was making is that they’re not really a news station, if you watch — even — it’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming, it’s really not news. It’s pushing a point of view.

And the bigger thing is that other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way. We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view.

Am I the only one who remembers that George Stephanopoulos was Bill Clinton’s press secretary and spin doctor before suddenly transforming into someone who was incapable of “pushing one point of view.”

By contrast, Chris Wallace, the host of “Fox News Sunday” – Fox News’ counterpart to ABC’s “This Week” – is a career journalist who came to Fox News after a long stint at ABC.

Moral of the story: the only way for a broadcast media station to NOT “push a point of view” is to hire career Democrat political operatives.

Let us please face a basic fact: the media is absolutely ridden with liberals.  Career MSNBC and CBS journalist Mika Brzezinski had some amazing declarations about the extent to which liberals dominated the networks she worked for.

As yet another illustration of the double-speak dishonesty of the Obama administration, the White House was saying that they were going to start playing nice with Fox News on the very same day that David Axelrod was out further demonizing them.

Even the left is now realizing that Barack Obama is a spoiled brat and a “whiner-in-chief” who has become downright Nixonian in his endless inability to handle any kind of media criticism.

Fox News is actually quite accurate, indeed, according to numerous major independent media studies.

Here’s a recent Newsmax article regarding a recent survey from Sacred Heart University that begins, “Fox News has supplanted CNN as the ‘most trusted’ news source for Americans, a new nationwide poll finds.” Which is another way of saying most Americans completely disagree with you.

That survey reveals how insane the Obama White House is; they are directly attacking and demonizing the news network that Americans trust more than any other.

A study done jointly by the University of Chicago and Stanford University found Fox News to be more accurate than most other news outlets, in addition to finding a dramatic leftist bias in the news media overall.

In addition to that finding, a UCLA study concludes, “almost all major media outlets tilt to the left,” noting that “Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center.”   But apparently many liberals believe that a university located in liberal California in ultra-liberal Los Angeles is somehow a conservative bastion loaded with rightwing bias.

The media was actually so blatantly biased throughout its 2008 election coverage that it is completely accurate to say that we are now in a propaganda state. There is no possible way that Republicans can win in this media climate: whether you look at the Media Research Center, or at the Project for Excellence in Journalism (or again at their more recent study), or at the University of Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Advertising Project, there is widespread agreement with one longtime ABC journalist that the media is dangerously biased.  Pew Research discovered that Americans believe by a 70% to 9% margin that the media is biased in favor of Obama and against McCain. The media now represents a fifth column of government – a propaganda wing – that routinely attacks conservatives and celebrates and defends Democrats and their leftwing ideology.  Democracy itself is going extinct in the country that founded democracy, because no free society can survive such a climate of propaganda.

Just how blatantly biased are journalists?

From Media Research:

89 percent of Washington-based reporters said they voted for Bill Clinton in 1992.  Only seven percent voted for George Bush, with two percent choosing Ross Perot. […]

Based on the 139 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents who returned the Freedom Forum questionnaire, the Washington-based reporters — by an incredible margin of nine-to-one — overwhelmingly cast their presidential ballots in 1992 for Democrat Bill Clinton over Republican incumbent George Bush.

There is overwhelming historic evidence of hardcore leftwing bias throughout our mainstream media, but we’re somehow supposed to ignore the giant logs of bias located in both the mainstream media’s eyes and instead concentrate on the speck of bias at Fox News.

Major studies and surveys of media accuracy have for several years routinely discovered that the media is overwhelmingly tilted to the left. Fox News looks so “Republican” to many only because so much of the media is so utterly and completely “Democrat.”

Barack Obama’s Ties With ACORN Go Back 20 Years

You can learn all about the community organization ACORN via BigGovernment.com:

• Baltimore: Exclusive Story | Full Audio (MP3) | Full Transcript
• DC: Exclusive Story | Full Audio (MP3) | Full Transcript
• New York: Exclusive Story | Full Transcript
• San Bernadino: Exclusive Story | Full Transcript
• San Diego: Exclusive Story

On ABC’s “This Week” George Stephanopoulos was the only one of the five interviewers who bothered to bring up the massive ACORN scandal in which a pair of kids posing as a pimp and a prostitute showed the full degree of massive corruption and total depravity of a liberal/socialist organization that has received tens of millions of federal dollars and stood to qualify for BILLIONS under Obama’s stimulus.  In at least five cities, ACORN employees were willing to help the pimp and prostitute fraudulently file income taxes so they could purchase a home which they planned to use as a brothel with more than a dozen 13-15 year old illegal immigrant girls.

If that isn’t loathsome enough, we are also learning that ACORN has received federal funding to give sweetheart “low-interest” or “no-down-payment” home mortgage deals to illegal immigrants.

Here’s the Commander-in-Chief becoming the Weasel-in-Chief:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if you’re – have some of your allies made it easier for — handed your opponents some ammunition, like ACORN, for example…

OBAMA: Well, look, the — you know, I think that — are there folks in the Democratic camp or on the left who haven’t — haven’t always operated ways that I’d appreciate?

Absolutely.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congress has just cut off…

OBAMA: Is — is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: …all funding for ACORN.

OBAMA: It’s…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you for that?

OBAMA: Is that true on the other side, as well?

Of course that’s true.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA: You know, if — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not committing to — to cut off the federal funding?

OBAMA: George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.

As Fund points out in his story, “ACORN Who?” “Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn.”

That doesn’t seem to be ACORN’s story regarding Obama.  They worked hard for Obama.  They helped Obama.  They say:

“Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus, it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for State Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends.”

John Fund has the story out on how Obama’s ties with ACORN go back over twenty years.

We find that:

– In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.

– He became a top trainer at Acorn’s Chicago conferences.

– In 1995, he became Acorn’s attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law’s loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names.

– In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list).

– In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority.

– In 2007, in a speech to Acorn’s leaders prior to their political arm’s endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: “I’ve been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”

– The Obama campaign also gave Citizens Consulting, Inc., an Acorn subsidiary, $832,000 for get-out-the-vote activities in key primary states. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Obama campaign listed the payments as “staging, sound, lighting,” only correcting the filings after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed their true nature.

-[T]he Obama campaign didn’t appear eager to discuss the candidate’s ties to Acorn.  Its press operation vividly denied Mr. Obama had been an Acorn trainer until the New York Times uncovered records demonstrating that he had been.

Fund goes on to conclude:

“Given his longstanding ties with Acorn, President Obama’s protestations of ignorance or disinterest in the group’s latest scandal seem preposterous. Here’s hoping White House reporters will press the president to clarify just how much he really knows about Acorn and when he knew it.”

I hope John Fund doesn’t hold his breath.  The same reporters who dug through Sarah Palin’s garbage and rummaged through Joe “the Plumber”Wurzelbacher’s private records never once bothered to look into Obama’s past.

Obama And The HUGE Health Care Tax That He Simply Refuses To Call A Tax

At the Oct. 7 presidential debate, Barack Obama said, “If you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year, you will not see a single dime of your taxes go up. If you make $200,000 a year or less, your taxes will go down.”

I point this out so that you realize that Obama supports your (note: use any word but “taxes” here) going up by 85800 dimes if your family makes $66,000 a year.  More on that later.

And as part of my “I told you so” moment, allow me to cite my October 2008 article entitled “Obama-Biden Will Come After Middle Class With Taxes.”

Our Narcissist-in-Chief appeared on five Sunday morning political talk show programs to sell the current iteration of ObamaCare.  During his time with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” there was this exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You were against the individual mandate…

OBAMA: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: …during the campaign. Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don’t

How is that not a tax?

OBAMA: Well, hold on a second, George. Here — here’s what’s happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average — our families — in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I’ve said is that if you can’t afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn’t be punished for that. That’s just piling on.

If, on the other hand, we’re giving tax credits, we’ve set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we’ve driven down the costs, we’ve done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you’ve just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that’s…

STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it’s still a tax increase.

OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase.

People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy…

OBAMA: No, but — but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase. Any...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Here’s the…

OBAMA: What — what — if I — if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say well, that’s not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don’t want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I — I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax — “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”

OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but…

OBAMA: …what you’re saying is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.

OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that.

Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?

OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.

This little chunk of dialogue should show anyone what a truly disingenuous little weasel Barack Obama truly is.

Let’s start with the “critics say it is a tax increase” part that Obama deceitfully jumped all over.  Obama’s answer makes it seem that all the people characterizing the “individual mandate” as a “tax increase” are rightwing Republican loons.  But – to allude to Joe Wilson’s famous outburst – Obama lies.

It’s not just conservatives who are calling it a tax increase.  Senator Max Baucus, the author of the Senate bill – HIMSELF calls it a tax increase, as the Politico article entitled, “Baucus bill calls individual mandate a tax, Obama says it isn’t” kind of proves.

And it isn’t just Max Baucus who calls it a tax.  The bill itself calls it a tax:

Page 29, sentence one of the bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) says: “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.”

And just in case someone wants to argue that Obama wasn’t familiar with the details of the Baucus bill because it’s so recent (in which case an honest man would have simply kept his mouth shut), allow me to refer to the House bill that has been around for months:

From HR 3200, page 167, line 15:

What the bill says, pages 167-168, section 401, TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE:

‘‘(a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of—

(1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year, over

(2) the amount of gross income specified in section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer. . . .”

EVALUATION OF THE PASSAGE:

1. This section amends the Internal Revenue Code.

2. Anyone caught without acceptable coverage and not in the government plan will pay a special tax.

3. The IRS will be a major enforcement mechanism for the plan.

And if that isn’t enough to convince someone that Obama is flat-out lying to the American people, let’s go back to his days on the campaign trail to see that he very much knew that his health care agenda was going to cost huge money that would require heavy taxation:

So the “notion” that Obama “absolutely rejects” is absolutely true.  It’s Obama who is lying.

And fortunately, at least some part of the mainstream media realizes it.  In their article entitled, “FACT CHECK: Coverage requirement enforced with tax,” the Associated Press begins by saying:

WASHINGTON – Memo to President Barack Obama: It’s a tax.

So when Obama says, “My critics say everything is a tax increase.”  And, “My critics say I’m taking over every sector of the economy,” maybe people will finally start to trust us when we tell them that everything he’s proposing IS a tax increase, and he really IS taking over every sector of the economy.

You just can’t trust this guy.  He’s the kind of fellow who would candy-coat cow pies and sell them by the dozen.

Let’s look at just how disingenuous and deceitful Obama is as he tries to sell his lie.  He says to Stephanopoulos:

“No, but — but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase.”

And so Stephanopoulos – perfectly reasonably – referred to the dictionary to demonstrate that he was hardly “making up language” as Obama had just falsely claimed:

“I — I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax — ‘a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.'”

And you can just wrap up every lie, every fallacy, every disinformation tactic, every pile of crap, ever uttered by this Weasel-in-Chief in this one amazing rhetoric:

“George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition.”

So Obama begins by saying that the notion that the government mandate on individuals being “tax increase” is “made-up language”, and then tries to say that referring to a dictionary and documenting that it is clearly NOT made up language somehow demonstrates the opposite of what it in fact clearly demonstrates.

This is a president who truly believes that you are stupid.

Now that we’ve pointed out that 1) Obama is a liar who 2) thinks you’re stupid and that 3) it clearly IS a tax increase, let us see just how huge of a tax increase that Obama wants to foist on the sea of drooling idiots he calls America.

Under the section entitled, “Would there be an individual mandate?” Time Magazine answers:

Yes. Beginning in 2013, individuals would be required to have health insurance. Individuals and families who do not have insurance for more than three months in a given year would be subject to an annual excise tax of $750 and $1,500, respectively, if their income is below 300% of the federal poverty line (or $66,150 for a family of four). Tax penalties for individuals and families with incomes above that would be $950 and $3,800. The excise tax would be waived for Native Americans and individuals and families whose health-insurance costs would be more than 10% of their annual income.

George Will brings that paragraph into sharp focus in the discussion that followed Obama’s appearance, saying:

“And this week, George, something immense happened, and that is we got a big number. Actually, we got a little number. We deal with hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars in talking about this. The number that came out this week is 13 percent.

They said 13 percent of a family’s income, a family making $66,000 a year, about $15,000 over the median income, about 13 percent of their income under this plan would go for health care, not counting co-payments and not counting deductibles.”

That’s right.  The tax increase that Obama deceitfully refuses to call a tax increase (because that would expose his even more fundamental lie that he would LOWER TAXES for people making less than $200,000 a year) would cost a family making $66,000 a year a whopping $8,500 bucks – not counting co-op payments or deductibles.

That’s 85,850 dimes for those of you who bought Obama’s campaign promise.

So we’re not just talking about a giant lie; we’re talking about an incredibly expensive lie.  Quite possibly the most expensive lie in American political history.

Barack Obama is a man who literally began his presidential run with a lie:

MR. RUSSERT: But, but—so you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?

SEN. OBAMA: I will not.

As another gigantic lie, Obama promised that he would accept federal matching funds if John McCain did (which McCain kept his word and did).  In rejecting federal matching funds, Obama became the first candidate to reject such funds.  After hypocritically and self-righteously praising the federal matching funds system as “limiting the corrupting influence of money on the race.”

Obama is even worse than a liar. He is a deceiver; he carefully crafts a story with just enough of the truth in it to fool you so you will buy a whole package of lies.

An awful lot of people who voted for Obama or who are supporting his health care plan are going to find themselves very, very shocked if Obama gets anything close to his way.

Don’t believe this president who was against individual mandates before he was for them.  And don’t forget his amazing lie that a huge tax increase isn’t a tax increase.

On Barack Obama Needing To Be Reminded He’s Not A Muslim

Did Barack Obama wear a Freudian slip under his trousers Sunday morning?

In an interview Sunday with ABC’s “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos, Obama tried to suggest that FOX News and others “closely allied” to Republicans are promulgating the notion that the Illinois senator is Muslim.

Asked about whether McCain himself has done anything to suggest he’s Muslim, Obama said, “Let’s not play games. What I was suggesting — you’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. And you’re absolutely right that that has not come…”

“Christian faith,” Stephanopoulos interrupted, correcting Obama.

Democrats Stuck Between Crazy and Pandering on Domestic Oil

As George Stephanopoulos asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi virtually the same question over and over again – and as Pelosi provided one disingenuous non sequitur after another – Stephanopoulos increasingly began to look as if he had just stepped in something that really stank.

Here’s a partial transcript of the encounter from the August 3, 2008 This Week:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: You’ve been getting a lot of heat for not allowing a straight up or down vote expanding drilling off the coasts of the United States. Why won’t you permit a straight up or down vote?

NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: What we have presented are options that will really make a difference at the pump. Free our oil, Mr. President. We’re sitting on 700 million barrels of oil. That would have an immediate effect in ten days. What our colleagues are talking about is something that won’t have an effect for ten years and it will be 2 cents at the time. If they want to present something that’s part of an energy package, we’re talking about something. But to single shoot on something that won’t work and mislead the American people as to thinking it’s going to reduce the price at the pump, I’m just not going to be a part of it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Except it’s not just Republicans that are calling for this. Members of your own caucus say we must have a vote. Congressman Jason Altmire, let me show our viewers right now, says, “There is going to be a vote. September 30 will not come and go without a vote on the opening the Outer Continental Shelf. The message has been delivered. The issue can’t be ignored any longer.” He says he speaks for a lot of Democrats. He’s talked to the leadership and a vote must happen.

PELOSI: Maybe it will, as part of a larger energy package. Let’s step back, call a halt and put this in perspective. What we have now is a failed energy policy by the Bush/Cheney, two oilmen in the White House. $4 a gallon gasoline at the pump. And what they’re saying is let’s have more of the same. Let’s have more of big oil making, record profits, historic profits. You see the quarterly reports that just came out, who want to be subsidized who don’t really want to compete. Let them use the subsidies to drill oil in protected areas. Instead we’re saying, free the oil. Use it, don’t lose it. There’s 68 million acres in lower 48 and 20 million more acres in Alaska where they’re permitted where they could drill anytime. This is a diversionary tactic from failed energy policies.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if you feel you have the better arguments, why not give a straight up or down vote for drilling?

PELOSI: Because the misrepresentation is being made that this is going to reduce the price at the pump. This is again a decoy, it’s not a solution.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, if you’re right, why not let it be debated out and have the vote?

PELOSI: We have a debate every single day on this subject. What you saw in the Congress this week was the war dance of the hand maidens of the oil companies. That’s what you saw on the Republican side of the aisle. Democrats and Republicans are not right there on party lines on this issue. There are regional concerns, as well as some people concerned about what this means back home for them. But we have a planet to save. We have an economy to grow. And we can do that if we keep our balance in all of this and not just say but for drilling in unprotected and these protected areas offshore, we would have lower gas prices.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what exactly are you trying to say? You say you might allow a vote as part of a comprehensive package, but you won’t allow a vote on —

PELOSI: We have put on the floor. Free our oil. Strong bipartisan support for that. Use it, don’t lose it. Strong bipartisan support for that. End undue speculation, strong bipartisan support for that. We’ve talked about these things. Invest in renewable energy resources so that we can increase the supply of energy for our country. Strong bipartisan support for that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet you brought those measures to the floor in a way under the suspension of the rules so that it couldn’t be amended with a drilling proposal.

PELOSI: Well, we built consensus and have a strong bipartisan. This is what’s going to make a difference to reduce the dependence on foreign oil, to stop our dependence on fossil fuels in our own country. To increase the supply of energy immediately to reduce the price at the pump to protect the consumer. So this is a policy matter. This is very serious policy matter. It’s not to use a tactic of one — one tactic in order to undermine a comprehensive energy package to reduce our dependence on foreign oil which is a national security issue. To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in our own country. Now, will we be talking about natural gas that’s cheaper, better for the environment —

STEPHANOPOULOS: But why not allow votes on all that? When you came in as Speaker you promised in your commitment book “A New Direction for America,” let me show our viewers, you said that “Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, fair debate consisting of full amendment process that grants the Minority the right to offer its alternatives.” If they want to offer a drilling proposal, why can’t they have a vote?

PELOSI: They’ll have to use their imagination as to how they can get a vote and then they may get a vote. What I am trying to, we have serious policy issues in our country. The President of the United States has presented this but for this our economy would be booming. But for this, gas would be cheaper at the pump. It’s simply not true. Even the President himself in his statement yesterday and before then has said, there is no quick fix for this by drilling.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Senator Obama has agreed with you. He says, listen. This is not the answer. Drilling is not the answer. But he said over the weekend that he might be willing to sign onto drilling as part of a comprehensive proposal.

PELOSI: What Senator Obama said is what we want a President to say. Let’s look at all of the options. Let’s compare them. And let’s see what really does increase our supply. Protect our environment, save our economy, protect the consumer, instead of a single shot thing that does none of the above. Why we give subsidies to big oil to drill instead of letting them —

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to move on to other issues. Just to be clear, you are saying you will not allow a single up or down vote on drilling. But you will allow a vote on a package that includes drilling?

PELOSI: No, what I’m saying to you is, as far as I’m concerned, unless there is something that — you never say never to anything. You know, people have their parliamentary options available to them. But from my standpoint, my flagship issue as Speaker of the House and 110th Congress has been to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reverse global warming. I’m not giving the gavel — I’m not giving a gavel away to a tactic that will do neither of those things. That supports big oil at the cost and expense of the consumer.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not going to permit a vote, you may get beat, but you’re not going to permit a vote on your own?

PELOSI: Again, we take this one step at a time. But while we’re spending all of this time on a parliamentary tactic when nothing less is at stake than the planet, the air we breathe, our children breathe.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s what I don’t understand. If you could get votes on everything else that you care about which you say there is strong bipartisan support, why not allow a vote on the drilling as well?

PELOSI: Because the President will not allow any of these other things to go forth. Why are we not saying to the President, why don’t you release oil from the SPR in ten days to have the price at the pump go down? Why are you opposed to any undue speculation in the oil markets? Why do you not insist that people who have leases on our land with permits ready to go use those? The oil companies don’t want competition. And what we would do by saying, go ahead, give them the subsidies. Allow them to drill in areas that are protected now, instead of where they’re allowed to drill, is to diminish all of the opportunity that we have for an electricity standard for our country. Where we set out standards that makes the competition for renewable energy resources better. Which says to the private sector, invest here because there is a standard that they have to honor. If you just say it’s drill, drill, drill, drill and we’re going to subsidize it, what is the motivation for the private sector to come in and say we’re going to support these renewable energies, wind, solar, biofuels. Plug-in cars. Natural gas and other alternatives.

Speaker Pelosi has engaged in every form of partisan gamesmanship in order to block Republicans from even having a debate over drilling measures. Apparently, that qualifies as “open, full, fair debate consisting of full amendment process that grants the Minority the right to offer its alternatives” in the Nancy Pelosi dictatorship.

According to a CNNMoney.com poll, 73% of Americans favored offshore drilling as of June 2008.

In PelosiLand, that kind of demand from the American people calls for only one thing: a five week vacation.

But Republicans aren’t having any of it:

House Republicans will be back on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives again Monday to continue the unprecedented protest that began last Friday, when dozens of Republicans joined hundreds of American citizens on the House floor to protest Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) decision to send Congress home for the rest of the summer without a vote on legislation to lower gas prices and move America toward energy independence.

President Bush doesn’t mind letting Democrats twist in the wind for the next five weeks while Americans become angrier and angrier.

Barack Obama reversed his position (what else is new?) against opening up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to provide immediate price relief on gas prices. He had earlier said that the Strategic Reserves should only be tapped in the event of an emergency. Apparently a nine point drop in the polls over the course of a single week qualifies as an emergency where crippling $4 plus gasoline does not. Obama is hoping that taking 70 million barrels from the Reserve would reduce the price just long enough to keep the oil issue at bay until after the election.

Obama does not seem to want to take part in Nancy Pelosi’s (Captain KoolAid’s) suicide pact with the environmentalist groups. He is clearly beginning to hedge his position on offshore drilling. But we can’t depend upon this serial pandering flip flopper to follow through with whatever promises he makes any more than we can depend upon Nancy Pelosi’s mental health.

The Democrat Party finds itself stuck between a Crazy and a Panderer.