The River Relocates!

Looking for The River? We are stirring things up at our new location! Click here to go there now. And jump right in, the water's fine.

Jimmy Carter Turns 85

Proving the adage that there's no fool like an old fool, old fool Jimmy Carter turned 85 today. Happy Birthday, Jimmy.

Oh, and by the way, that remark about the vast majority of Obama's critics being racists? He didn't mean it that way. Or we didn't hear it right. Or something.

From Fox News: Carter Walks Back Claim Obama Critics Racist

Former President Jimmy Carter on Thursday softened his claim that an "overwhelming portion" of criticism toward President Obama is race-based.

Carter said in an interview that he was only talking about a "fringe element" when he made the controversial remarks two weeks ago. He stood by his original remarks, but argued that they were misinterpreted.

"I said those that had a personal attack on President Obama as a person, that was tinged with racism," Carter told CNN. "But I recognize that people that disagree with him on health care or the environment, that the vast majority of those are not tinged with racism."

He added: "I meant exactly what I said. What I actually said, if you look at the transcript, is just what I just repeated to you."

Carter's original remarks came at the height of controversy over Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during Obama's address to Congress last month. Wilson shouted "You lie!" at the president, an act Carter said was "based on racism."

In an interview with NBC, he offered an even broader assessment.

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he is African-American," Carter said at the time.

Sorry, Jim man. Not buying.

Ecclesiastes 4:13 (NKJV)
Better a poor and wise youth
Than an old and foolish king who will be admonished no more.

Montana and Gun Control

From Newsmax.com - (read the whole article.)

HELENA, Mont. -- If Montana has its way in a lawsuit filed Thursday, there will be far less federal gun control in the state.

The state's libertarian streak--which has spawned efforts to buck the federal Real ID Act and sparked widespread contempt for the Patriot Act--is now triggering a fight over whether Montana should have sovereignty over made-in-Montana guns and equipment.

If gun advocates win, the state could decide which rules, if any, would control the manufacturer, sale and purchase of guns and paraphernalia. And Montana would be exempt from rules on federal gun registration, background checks and dealer-licensing.

"For guns, it means we can make our own in Montana and sell them in Montana as long as they are stamped 'Made in Montana' and don't leave the state," said Gary Marbut, who runs the Montana Shooting Sports Association and is leading the lawsuit. "We will be able to do that without federal regulation, or having the ATF breath down your neck."

The association, joined by the Second Amendment Foundation in the lawsuit, hopes to ultimately win a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the application and reach of federal rules over state business. The suit is challenging the right of the federal government to oversee gun sales under the guise of interstate commerce regulation.

This is wonderful news. Once upon a time, the federal government did not dare to overstep its bounds and usurp the authority of the individual states, as spelled out in the Constitution, specifically the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Then came FDR and the search for a way around the Constitution in order to expand federal power and control everything from Washington D.C. It was found in the interstate commerce clause. This clause was used as a pretext to, in effect, overturn the 10th amendment, make it pointless. Their willing accomplices in the Supreme Court at the time shamelessly aided and abetted them in this virtual coup. The interstate commerce clause has since been the pretext by which the federal government has usurped the sovereignty of the individual states in a whole host of areas.

Understand that much of what Washington has done over the last 80 years would have been considered unconstitutional by the framers of the Constitution, and while some of them warned that this sort of thing might eventually happen (the anti-federalists, for example), others of them believed that there were enough safeguards to ensure that it would not (the federalists). All of them would be appalled at what Washington has become.

But the last few months have brought us the rumblings of a coming storm. Some of the states have had enough and are starting to push back. We saw this when a few governors spoke out against the stimulus bill and threatened to turn down funds allocated to their states because of the controlling strings which were attached. Here in Texas we have heard this kind of anti-Washington-control rhetoric from our governor Rick Perry, who is moving swiftly to the right in an attempt to secure the Republican nomination for another term as governor in the face of stiff opposition from Kay Bailey Hutchison. Now we have Montana deliberately pushing back against the machine. It could not come at a better time. Let us hope for the best.

I will keep you posted.

The Future of Health Care?

Dr. Lemuel Calhoon, magister maximus of Hillbilly White Trash, posted this gem at the end of one of his weekly re-postings of Ann Coulter's op-ed genius. I wanted to bring it here because, well, he is exactly right.

Read it for yourself here, or go there and read it.

Lemuel Calhoon:

"The absolute worst thing about socialized medicine in the US is that it will slow the advancement of of medical science in the whole world to a glacial pace.

Right now the vast majority of new medical techniques, drugs and technology are discovered in the United States. This is because America still has a thriving free market health care system. For-profit companies which develop and manufacture drugs and medical equipment are free to pour their profits into research and development to bring new medications and medical equipment to market. All in pursuit of profit.

Because our doctors are not employees of any kind of National Health Service they are not required to see X number of patients per week and to choose only from a government approved list of treatment options (approved more for reasons of cost than effectiveness). Doctors in the US are free to innovate and experiment.

The fact that in America we attempt to keep our elderly people alive as long as possible and give them the best quality of life possible (in addition to proving our moral superiority to other nations) provides a test bed for methods of managing, treating and even curing chronic conditions which are associated with (but by no means exclusive to) aging. You can see that this is far more conducive to creating an upward spiral of medical knowledge than the "give granny morphine until she stops breathing" approach taken by nations with government run health care.

Let me tell you a true story about Mother Calhoon, who is 76. Earlier this year she broke her leg. In 1950 the doctor would have set the bone and put her leg in a cast. The bone would have taken the better part of a year to heal and would have never been the same. During this time her mobility would have been so severely restricted that she would have not been able to live at home alone. So mom would have gone to a nursing home where she would probably have spent the rest of her life. But the doctor's bill for setting the leg and applying the cast would have only been a few hundred dollars.

Today mom was taken to an excellent hospital where a doctor operated on her leg installing a metal rod to support the bone so that it would not break again. She was given a battery of tests which determined that she had mild osteoporosis and was put on medication to treat the condition. After a few days in the hospital she was sent home where a nurse looked in on her three times a week for the next three months. The cast on her leg was designed to allow her to walk and she was encouraged to do so (with the aid of a walker, then a cane). As time went by she was instructed to put more and more weight on the leg until now, less than a year later, she has no cast and no longer needs walker or cane (unless she is going to walk for more than two miles or so, then she brings along the cane). The cost of the entire episode came to around $40,000.00 - which comes to $4500.00 in 1950 dollars.

Assuming that we do not plunge down Barack Obama's rat hole of socialized medicine and freeze the advancement of medical science what can a 76-year-0ld woman with a broken leg expect in 2050?

With the proviso that no one can predict the future with absolute accuracy I would assume based on current trends in medical science that it would go something like this:

The ambulance brings the patient to the emergency room where a doctor scans her leg building a detailed three dimensional picture of the injury, including damage to tissue and blood vessels caused by the broken bone. The doctor then looks over the computer's recommended course of action and signs off on it. The patient is then sent to surgery where the surgeon adds a few refinements to the computer generated plan.

In the operating room the woman is sedated and her leg is immobilized. A robot surgeon will then set the bone and repair any other damage to the leg - while a human doctor and nurse observe ready to step in if required. The leg will then be placed in a rigid cast and the woman will spend the next few days in a hospital room while bone regenerators heal the fracture.

A few days later she leaves the hospital with her leg as strong or stronger than it was before. While it is impossible to estimate the dollar amount of the bill for this treatment I very much doubt that it will be more, in 1950 dollars, than the 2009 bill. But look at how much better the outcome for the patient!

But what if we adopt Obama's plan for government run health care? What will a 76-year-0ld woman with a broken leg face in 2050?

The doctor will set the bone and put her leg in a cast. The bone will take the better part of a year to heal and will never be the same. During this time her mobility will be so severely restricted that she will not be able to live at home alone. So she will have to go to a nursing home where she will probably spend the rest of her life. But the doctor's bill for setting the leg and applying the cast would have only been a few hundred dollars - in 1950 dollars.

This assumes that the hospital's rationing panel (we won't call it the "death panel") doesn't decide that at her age she (who will never again pay income taxes) simply isn't worth the money to treat. Then she will be put in a bed and given morphine until she stops breathing. The bill for that will be under a hundred bucks.

The problem with a government solution to anything is that government is a piss-poor innovator. Let the government decide that something is so important that the private sector cannot be trusted to run it and whatever "it" is becomes frozen in time. It cannot be otherwise when a powerful entrenched bureaucracy has a massive vested interest in keeping things exactly as they are.

Someone suggested this thought experiment. Imagine that some visionary in government had looked at Henry Ford's Model T and realized how important the automobile would be to America's future. Suppose that this visionary had been able to convince the legislature and the president that the development and manufacture of cars was too important to be left to the profit-seeking private sector.

You don't have to imagine what the result would have been. All you need do is look back to East Germany before the Wall fell and remember how an East German could spend his fifteen years on the waiting list dreaming about what he would do when he took possession of his new Trabant.

Some things are too critically important to be taken out of the hands of the private sector. Our health care is one of them."

National Gun Registry

Dr. Paul Broun, U.S. Congressman, Republican (GA-10), has sent out an email which came to me via Townhall.com containing information on House bill H.R. 45--Obama's gun control package. Among other things, this bill would establish a national gun registry database of every gun and its owner for the whole country. According to the email, "Your private information and every gun you own would be in the system."

It also bans all private firearms sales.

Big Brother is coming after our guns.

The Most Oppressive Tyranny

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”–C.S. Lewis

Look for this one to go in the sidebar soon.

Change Is Coming

Wihin a week or two The River will undergo a few changes. Primarily this means it will become a team blog. And, though the main course will still be politics and ideology, the banquet will also include side dishes of pop culture commentary, Christian apologetics, and, hopefully, some regular features. Obviously, some of this is beyond my range of expertise which is why I am calling in some help.

As for the look and feel of the new place, it will be essentially the same. I like the color scheme and the menagerie of faces and the quotations in the sidebar. So, though the address will be slightly different, the page will look the same, sort of. I will also leave a permanent link here so that the new abode can be easily found.

Look for the regular posting to continue until then.

Krauthammer on Van Jones and Linguistic Salt

I like Charles Krauthammer for more than just his ability to turn a phrase and make a solid point. Krauthammer does not mind going against the grain of popular Republican or conservative thought on a given topic. When I go to one of his columns I know that I am not just going to get the standard Republican fare regurgitated into soundbytes like I might get were I to tune in to Sean Hannity, for example. Krauthammer gives me something original and causes me to think. For that, I recommend you read him regularly.

Here is an excerpt from his column from September 11 entitled "The Van Jones Matter":

So Van Jones, the defenestrated White House green-jobs czar, once called Republicans "assholes." Big deal. I've said worse about Democrats. I've said worse about Republicans. I've said worse about members of my family (you know who you are).

How prissy have we become? Are we allowed no salt in our linguistic diets?

Having once written a column praising Vice President Cheney's pithy deployment of the F-word -- on the floor of the Senate, no less -- I rise in defense of Jones. True, Jones's particular choice of epithet had none of the one-syllable concision, the onomatopoeic suggestiveness, the explosive charm of Cheney's. But you don't fire a guy for style.

I recommend the whole column, of course, which is here.

45% of Doctors Would Consider Quitting

And 65% of doctors oppose ObamaCare according to a poll published today in Investor's Business Daily.

Major findings included:

• Two-thirds, or 65%, of doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan. This contradicts the administration's claims that doctors are part of an "unprecedented coalition" supporting a medical overhaul.

It also differs with findings of a poll released Monday by National Public Radio that suggests a "majority of physicians want public and private insurance options," and clashes with media reports such as Tuesday's front-page story in the Los Angeles Times with the headline "Doctors Go For Obama's Reform."

Nowhere in the Times story does it say doctors as a whole back the overhaul. It says only that the AMA — the "association representing the nation's physicians" and what "many still regard as the country's premier lobbying force" — is "lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama's sweeping plan."

The AMA, in fact, represents approximately 18% of physicians and has been hit with a number of defections by members opposed to the AMA's support of Democrats' proposed health care overhaul.

• Four of nine doctors, or 45%, said they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind.

Can anyone say Atlas Shrugged?

Jimmy Carter Plays the Race Card

America's worst hack President on critics of America's first black President:



Nothing says "decorum" like a Georgia hack playing the race card to get air time on television, especially when it's an ex-President who will probably go down in history as America's worst (but Obama isn't done yet.)

Note to self: be sure to take time to make fun of the Georgia peanut farmer every once in a while just to fight off boredom.

ACORN, Murder, Prostitution, and Obama

Just when you thought you had heard it all, along comes the San Bernadino, California, office of ACORN. This video crosses into new areas of government-funded depravity and felonious behavior.

WARNING: CONTENTS ADVISORY: This woman drops the f-bomb at one point in the video. Don't say you weren't warned.



The most insidious thing about all this is how far the tentacles of ACORN reach into the Obama administration. In many ways, Obama is ACORN and ACORN is Obama. This is not to say that Obama is as corrupt as the people in these videos. But this is the organization with which he proudly associates himself (or has up until now).

For a thorough documentation of Obama's ties to ACORN, see Stanley Kurtz's article at National Review On-line here.

Obama: “I’ve been fighting alongside Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”

Charlie Gibson - Derelict or Dishonest?

The ACORN videos have been available on-line and reported on by Fox News television for nearly a week. It has been the hot topic on talk radio for several news cycles. There have been interviews, scripted statements, firings, threats of lawsuits, you name it. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate took action, adopting an amendment to a transportation and HUD appropriations bill that would de-fund ACORN.

But from ABC, NBC, and CBS? Silence. The New York Times? Nothing. The Washington Post? Not a peep.

If it does not fit the template, big media ignores it.

Big media bias has been well-documented for decades. They used to at least pretend objectivity, but even that is now out the window. They are no longer biased, they are active propagandists.

And their deportment exhudes hubris. If they do not report it, then it is not news-worthy. Obviously.

Enter Charlie Gibson on a radio interview this morning in Chicago. Here is the transcript:

Don: Ok here’s my question, Senate bill yesterday passes cutting off funds to this group called ACORN. Now we got the…we got that bill passing, we got the embarrassing video of ACORN staff giving tax advice on how to set up a brothel with 13 year old hookers. It has everything you could want corruption and sleazy action at tax funded organizations that’s got government ties. But nobody’s covering that story why?

Charlie Gibson: (laugh) I don’t even know about it. Uh, so you got me at a loss, I don’t know. Uh, uh, but, but My goodness if it’s got everything including sleaziness in it we should talk about it this morning.

Roma: This is the American way…

Charlie Gibson: Well maybe, maybe that’s one you just leave to the cables.

Roma: Well I think that this is a huge issue because there’s so much funding that goes into this organization and it’s a multi…

Charlie Gibson: Well, I know we’ve done some stories about ACORN before but uh, uh this one I don’t know about.

Roma: Jake Tapper did some blogging on it. I know he’s at least blogged once on this scandal.

Charlie Gibson: You guys, you guys are really up on the uh on the website.

For audio click here.

So here we have the news anchor for ABC news. If anyone is going to be the last one to know about something it is not going to be him, right? I mean, we're talking about Charlie Gibson, not Ron Burgundy. Aren't we?

Or maybe he is Ron Burgundy. Either that or we have a blatant ideologue masquerading as an objective news anchor. Those are our choices. But objective, intelligent news anchor? That is not a conclusion we can draw with any credibility. Charlie, himself, does not leave us that option.

Pelosi Apologize?

You gotta love Limbaugh. This from yesterday's program:


"If I were Joe Wilson, I would say, 'I'll apologize as soon as Pelosi apologizes to the CIA.'"

Obama Stage a Coup?

I have heard rumblings of this over the last few months. It is a reflection, I think, of the growing fear that regular Americans have of government, and the immense swing to the left that Obama has attempted to take us on in his first few months in office. Add to that Obama's radical associations and the Chicago-style one-party politics that are Obama's forte, plus the fact that he stubbornly marches forward with his agenda in spite of the overwhelming opposition of the population at large, and you have ample reason for many people to entertain these fears.

But, says Bruce Walker at American Thinker, these fears are not likely to materialize. Here is his column. (or go here)

Some conservatives have begun to openly wonder if Obama is going to seize power in America. Would he want to do this? Perhaps so (a scary thought, but he has promised change.) No one dreamed that Carter, the worst president of the last century, wanted or planned to seize power. Clinton wanted to win power, but the worst anyone expected of Clinton was Huey Long bossism.

Obama rose in politics through the thoroughly corrupt one-party government of Chicago. His spiritual advisor sounds like a rabble-rousing storm trooper. His intellectual mentor, Saul Alinksy, like the Bolsheviks and Nazis, believed in state terrorism. If Obama wanted to follow their leads, could he? I believe not.

Once it became clear that Obama was acting without any pretense of constitutionality, he would need muscle to back him up. Yet the greatest source of that muscle, the United States Military, loathes Obama as much as he loathes them. He would need intelligence, yet his maltreatment of the CIA ensures that those operatives would toss more bananas peels in front of him than real information should he make an extraconstitutional move.

Obama would also need the police, yet the President’s comments about a Cambridge policeman, a member of what has to be among the most politically correct force in America, shows the natural antipathy between Obama and law enforcement officers. The police, “pigs,” to the crowd that Obama belonged to as a community organizer, cannot be a solid support of any seizure of power.

What about the civilian national security force promised by Obama during the campaign? Conservatives are much more likely to be veterans and own guns than leftists. The creation and coordination of a real civilian army would also profoundly antagonize all state and local police forces.

Our federal system still exists, although states’ rights have declined greatly, but state governments still exercise real power (as several governors demonstrated in rejecting stimulus funds.) Nazis, Soviets, and Fascists all had to first crush federalism before gaining absolute power. States founded America, something almost unique among nations – state governments still have a special role in our United States. Crushing states completely would be very hard and very risky.

Beginning a coup or a revolution from above, as some fear Obama may do, also presumes that the revolution will end in a certain direction. If Obama and his elitist cohorts began a revolution, it would surely end: but how? Not only are the military, the CIA, and the police generally disgusted with Obama, but the ideological sentiment of the American people is profoundly out of step with Obama.

In every single state of the nation, according to a recent Gallup Poll, conservatives outnumber liberals. Consistently over the last decade, including the most recent, Battleground Poll, sixty percent of Americans call themselves conservatives. It is impossible to imagine conservatives support a leftist coup or revolution from above.

But the problem for Obama would extend beyond that. Attempting something like a seizure of power could be expected to alienate vast numbers of moderates and many self-defined liberals as well. Probably three-quarters or more of Americans would oppose any practical effort to end democracy, suspend civil rights, or end the Constitution which was open and clear.

Even his political party would have nightmares about any attempt by Obama to seize political power. The consequences of failure, which would be likely, could be a conservative counter-revolution. More likely, though, would be an electoral nightmare for Democrats which would last for decades. This is why a seizure of power is unheard of in the English-speaking democracies of Britain, Canada, America, Australia, and New Zealand.

The British Parliament, in which the Labour Party has huge majorities, has the theoretical power to pass a law which ended the requirement for new elections at least every five years. The Labour Party could simply make its power permanent. This would not even be an unconstitutional seizure of power. Yet no one believes Prime Minister Brown would ever propose that or that he could persuade his party to accept that. Even though he will be thoroughly trounced in the next general election, there will be an election in about nine months.

Politicians need elections just like lawyers need lawsuits. Without contested elections, Congress becomes as irrelevant as the Reichstag after Hitler got the Enabling Act passed. So even Obama's own party, or much of it, would oppose a seizure of power.

Finally, if Obama attempted an effective seizure of power and provoked a real national revolution, the repercussions for Democrats and the left in a successful counter-revolution could lead to a second American revolution in which vast amounts of political power could be explicitly returned to the states, the role of government in our lives precisely defined, the semi-divine status of judges overthrown, and power returned to the people.

Could the leftist choke hold on the media prevent a new revolution? Well, the left has tried to stop the Tea Party movement and the Town Hall protests with no success at all. Polling data shows the increasing ineffectiveness of the establishment media in controlling American’s thinking and actions.

Obama is not going to try to seize power, because he would fail utterly and damn his precious radicalism for decades in America. What he will do is what his predecessors on the left have done: acquire power through Fabian tactics; win one battle (like increasing union bosses’ power) and then move to the next lever of power in government and society. That is the dangerous path we have been on for many decades. We need to fight the very real enemies, not imaginary ones.

For an alternative viewpoint (sort of) click here.

More on the ACORN Statement and Lawsuit Threat

John Fund, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, had this to say on Fox News.



Now, here's Fund writing in the Wall Street Journal:

I thought I'd heard every possible charge about corruption at ACORN, a feisty, union-backed activist group that became infamous last year when it was investigated for voter registration fraud in 15 states. Just yesterday, 11 ACORN workers were accused by Florida prosecutors of falsifying information on some 900 voter registration forms.

But this morning brings a Fox News report that ACORN officials in Baltimore offered to help get a housing loan and falsify tax documents for a proposed house of prostitution that would employ underage girls from El Salvador. The episode was captured on tape by an undercover filmmaker, James O'Keefe, who wanted to see just how far ACORN would go. Watching the tape -- which can be seen at Biggovernment.com -- is a creepy experience. ACORN itself has told Fox News the episode represents "gotcha journalism" but wouldn't comment further until it sees the full tape.

In helping Mr. O'Keefe set up his supposed brothel, ACORN employees also invited him to attend an August conference the group was holding for prospective home-buyers. But it linked attendance to Mr. O'Keefe joining ACORN and paying $120 in annual dues: "We ask that you join ACORN." The problem is that such a request is illegal, since the ACORN housing conferences are underwritten by federal government grants. ACORN has a political arm, so insisting that attendees at its housing conferences join the group and pay dues is a no-no.

It was precisely that kind of activity that got ACORN in trouble during the Clinton administration. The Inspector General of AmeriCorps, the government's volunteer agency, accused the group of "using government resources to promote legislation." ACORN was stripped of its federal grant as a result.

This past March, Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, tried to block ACORN from receiving additional federal funds when he proposed restrictions on federal support of the group. Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Senator whose state hosts the office featured in the undercover video reported by Fox, dismissed the idea: "I think this is an amendment that has no purpose and has Draconian consequences if passed." The Senate voted against Mr. Vitter's amendment by 53 to 43, with only two Democrats -- Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Robert Byrd of West Virginia --voting to restrict ACORN funding.

In light of the Fox video, Mr. Vitter should revive his amendment -- pronto.

--John Fund

Now, another Republican senator has introduced an amendment to defund ACORN.

9/12 Washington D.C. Tea Party Rally

From the Columbia Independent Examiner:

Saturday's "Tea Party" rally in Washington, D.C. may have far exceeded almost all expectations. According to individual reports on the internet late Saturday The National Park Service had reportedly estimated around 1.2 million people attended the rally. There is no mention of the rally on the Park Service website and I have been unable to confirm that they have released any official estimate.

Some websites citing the 1.2 million number have claimed to be quoting Park Service employees, but I can find no direct quotes from anyone connected to the Park Service that can be confirmed at this time. Phone calls to the NPS went unanswered on Sunday.

There were also several reports Saturday saying that ABC and Fox News had reported that the crowd was estimated to be as high as 2 million. ABC News is now saying they never reported that number. According to ABC they were misquoted by a rally speaker. At this time there is no report on the Fox News website that includes an estimated attendance figure.

Some liberal websites and blogs are putting the number much lower, with estimates ranging anywhere from 20,000 to 70,000. Based on photographs and video footage of the event the numbers would appear to be much larger than those estimates. The ticketed area of the National Mall alone has a capacity of 240,000 and the crowd clearly filled that area and beyond. The public access area of the Mall holds nearly 950,000 and photographs of that area show it to be at or near capacity, although it has been reported that other groups were holding events in that area.

There was also this gem of a paragraph in the article:

On Friday the White House claimed they had no idea the rally was even planned. A ridiculous assertion that shows how dismissive the Obama administration and the Democrat-led Congress are of those who oppose their agenda. It is impossible to believe that President Obama knew nothing of the event. The denial is a perfect example of why the President is losing the trust of many Americans. He stretches his credibility to its limits, and beyond.

ACORN Scandal III (New York, New York)

Here is a brief synopsis of what has been going on over the weekend as chronicled by the blog at the center of the storm, Big Government.

Fox News has been the only major news organization in this country covering this scandal to any extent at all. No surprises there. The rest of these organizations have reduced themselves to propaganda arms for the DNC. This doesn't fit their template. Look for them to continue ignoring it until it becomes too big. For more click here.

ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis released a statement defending ACORN, attacking her detractors as frauds, and threatening legal action. I blogged on this already.

James O'Keefe demanded an apology from Bertha Lewis, stating in response to her threats of legal action against him, "Bring it on."

The UK Telegraph picked up the story that the American media has mostly ignored.

A Leftist pundit responded in typical leftist fashion--ignore the accusations, attack the messengers.

Then, this morning, over at Big Government, O'Keefe quoted Bertha Lewis . . .

This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we’ve all recently seen.
-Bertha Lewis, Chief Organizer, ACORN

. . . before dropping two more bombs.

ACORN Responds - Bertha Lewis

From Bertha Lewis, chief organizer of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN):

The relentless attacks on ACORN’s members, its staff and the policies and positions we promote are unprecedented. An international entertainment conglomerate, disguising itself as a “news” agency (Fox), has expended millions, if not tens of millions of dollars, in their attempt to destroy the largest community organization of Black, Latino, poor and working class people in the country. It is not coincidence that the most recent attacks have been launched just when health care reform is gaining traction. It is clear they’ve had these tapes for months.

We are their Willy Horton for 2009. We are the boogeyman for the right-wing and its echo chambers. If ACORN did not exist, the right-wing would have needed to create us in order to achieve their agenda, their missions, their ideal, retrograde America. This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we’ve all recently seen. I am appalled and angry; I cannot and I will not defend the actions of the workers depicted in the video, who have since been terminated. But it is clear that the videos are doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist “filmmaker” O’Keefe and his partner in crime. And, in fact, a crime it was – our lawyers believe a felony – and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators.

We will not be intimidated by this international conglomerate, which has made as its mission the destruction of our organization. ACORN members are committed to the empowerment of their communities – Black, Latino, poor, and working class – at the deepest level. We are an organization committed to halting the foreclosure crisis and keeping people in their homes. We are an organization committed to ensuring quality, affordable health care for every American. We are an organization that will not be stopped in our commitment to our members and our communities which has included:

Read it for yourself on their webpage. Click here.

Icarus, Daedalus, and Barack Obama

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent op-ed piece on the decline of President Obama's poll numbers. Here it is, and be sure to check his columns in the Washington Post regularly:

Obama, the Mortal

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 4, 2009

What happened to President Obama? His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford (post-Nixon pardon)?

The conventional wisdom is that Obama made a tactical mistake by farming out his agenda to Congress and allowing himself to be pulled left by the doctrinaire liberals of the Democratic congressional leadership. But the idea of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pulling Obama left is quite ridiculous. Where do you think he came from, this friend of Chávista ex-terrorist William Ayers, of PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, of racialist inciter Jeremiah Wright?

But forget the character witnesses. Just look at Obama's behavior as president, beginning with his first address to Congress. Unbidden, unforced and unpushed by the congressional leadership, Obama gave his most deeply felt vision of America, delivering the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president. In American politics, you can't get more left than that speech and still be on the playing field.

In a center-right country, that was problem enough. Obama then compounded it by vastly misreading his mandate. He assumed it was personal. This, after winning by a mere seven points in a year of true economic catastrophe, of an extraordinarily unpopular Republican incumbent, and of a politically weak and unsteady opponent. Nonetheless, Obama imagined that, as Fouad Ajami so brilliantly observed, he had won the kind of banana-republic plebiscite that grants caudillo-like authority to remake everything in one's own image.

Accordingly, Obama unveiled his plans for a grand makeover of the American system, animating that vision by enacting measure after measure that greatly enlarged state power, government spending and national debt. Not surprisingly, these measures engendered powerful popular skepticism that burst into tea-party town-hall resistance.

Obama's reaction to that resistance made things worse. Obama fancies himself tribune of the people, spokesman for the grass roots, harbinger of a new kind of politics from below that would upset the established lobbyist special-interest order of Washington. Yet faced with protests from a real grass-roots movement, his party and his supporters called it a mob -- misinformed, misled, irrational, angry, unhinged, bordering on racist. All this while the administration was cutting backroom deals with every manner of special interest -- from drug companies to auto unions to doctors -- in which favors worth billions were quietly and opaquely exchanged.

"Get out of the way" and "don't do a lot of talking," the great bipartisan scolded opponents whom he blamed for creating the "mess" from which he is merely trying to save us. If only they could see. So with boundless confidence in his own persuasiveness, Obama undertook a summer campaign to enlighten the masses by addressing substantive objections to his reforms.

Things got worse still. With answers so slippery and implausible and, well, fishy, he began jeopardizing the most fundamental asset of any new president -- trust. You can't say that the system is totally broken and in need of radical reconstruction, but nothing will change for you; that Medicare is bankrupting the country, but $500 billion in cuts will have no effect on care; that you will expand coverage while reducing deficits -- and not inspire incredulity and mistrust. When ordinary citizens understand they are being played for fools, they bristle.

After a disastrous summer -- mistaking his mandate, believing his press, centralizing power, governing left, disdaining citizens for (of all things) organizing -- Obama is in trouble.

Let's be clear: This is a fall, not a collapse. He's not been repudiated or even defeated. He will likely regroup and pass some version of health insurance reform that will restore some of his clout and popularity.

But what has occurred -- irreversibly -- is this: He's become ordinary. The spell is broken. The charismatic conjurer of 2008 has shed his magic. He's regressed to the mean, tellingly expressed in poll numbers hovering at 50 percent.

For a man who only recently bred a cult, ordinariness is a great burden, and for his acolytes, a crushing disappointment. Obama has become a politician like others. And like other flailing presidents, he will try to salvage a cherished reform -- and his own standing -- with yet another prime-time speech.

But for the first time since election night in Grant Park, he will appear in the most unfamiliar of guises -- mere mortal, a treacherous transformation to which a man of Obama's supreme self-regard may never adapt.

(pictures added by The River.)

ACORN Scandal II (Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun)

Just when ACORN (and CNN) was in the process of explaining how the alleged video tape may have been edited in a politically advantageous way by some right-wing hacks, was only a product of "gotcha" journalism, and how that one particular incident was surely an isolated incident, and how it could not possily be something endemic to the system they have in place, James O'Keefe produces another, this time in the Washington D.C. office of ACORN.



And . . .



Once again, your tax dollars at work. This is Washington D.C.

For more, see the entire post at Big Government.