How lucky we are, we who mourn the erosion of freedom and bemoan the implementation of Statism; for now, we at least have the consolation and comforting feelings that come with knowing there is a high degree of intellect directing our international diplomacy, designated as “Smart Diplomacy”. The phrase our former First Lady uses to describe her self-professed skills in diplomacy; skills that were apparently acquired in managing the “Bimbo Eruptions,” her husband precipitated during their marriage and sometimes bizarre journey to the White House. Skills that became patently obvious with the Obama Administration’s opening of our embassy in Damascus and Ms Clinton describing Assad, the butcher of Syria, as a reformer. Yes, if the diplomacy of the White House and the State Department were any smarter, the dictators of the world would be cowering in fear when Hillary flexes her brain and farts intellect by the bucket.

Unfortunately, reality has gripped the world; various blood stained “Reformers,” miscreants, tyrants, and benevolent dictators know the US is a war weary country and Hussein Obama is in an election year. The military may be beginning to resent being used as pawns, according to some returning vets, while political leaders make strategic military and political decisions based on popularity polls. Our citizens watch in disbelief as our president goes to the United Nations for a dubious permission slip to engage Libya in a “Lead From The Rear,” war to depose a dictator who by all outward appearances was beginning to reform, but threatened to deal harshly with those in revolt. If only he would have claimed to have a nuclear warhead with inter-continental capabilities, he would have been treated with respect by Obama and others and perhaps still be alive and in power, much like the monster of North Korea who lived out a natural, but surreal comic book existence with Obama’s tacit blessing.

Thus a limited military action, supposedly utilizing air power with surgical precision, our Fearless Slayer of Defenseless Monsters promised a speedy victory over tyranny; unfortunately, the war that wasn’t a war and the precision execution of a tyrant turned into a five month orgy of flexing our military technology and our economic might as we rained down an array of our most sophisticated weapons in an attempt to kill one man. Sadly our proposed orgy of singular execution was but an impotent display of presidential miscalculation and “Smart Diplomacy;” for in the end, a sadistic mob tore the dictator apart, but other dictators were taught to fear the consequences of falling out of favor with America’s own skinny little tyrant.

While Hussein Obama strutted on the world stage and posed in the dual role of Superman and International Bully, our enemies began to see the weaknesses and possibilities or perhaps the impotency of a high tech super power bully engaging a primitive enemy and culture while losing the support of his people. For the absolute absurdity of the situation was never more apparent, than the theater of sublime hypocrisy: a Community Organizer imposing a “No Fly Zone” and using it as an excuse for the bombing of tanks, trucks, and infantry with American air power. With logic that eluded all but the most dedicated sycophants, Hussein Obama continued to rain holy hell on Libya, until a mob tore Qadaffi to pieces. America’s greatness and her beacon of freedom fell several notches during that afternoon of mayhem, but the power of “Smartness” or perhaps dumbness was definitely out in the open, for the world to judge.

Now, the world watches as another dictator slaughters his people who dare to resist tyranny and thumbs his nose at Obama and Hillary with her bucket of smartness. The citizens of the world look up at the throne of Obama, not with a hopeful look, but with a smirk, for they know President Hussein Obama on his throne is really nothing more than a childish Community Organizer on a toilet.

The people that Obama leads, the entitled, self-serving self-designated intellectual snobs, and the ultra-rich Elites, are willing to ignore his military adventurism; except, for those faithful followers in the defense industry. No, it is a delicate balance of a coalition of factions, for the Socialist Pacifists can only stomach a certain amount of military adventurism; until, one day in the future, they look upon Hussein Obama with the familiar fish eyed stare of outage and indignation, formerly reserved for former war-time presidents; yes, even “Smart Diplomacy” can fail, and a benevolent leader may need to whack those who oppose him with a big stick, straight from the Qadaffi and Assad school of diplomacy or tyranny, but on a much grander scale: so a word of caution to you disillusioned pacifists, don’t be too obvious with your revulsion of this man and his barbarism, tyrants with power are tyrants indeed. To grow a perfect Socialist Garden, you must chop up the weeds with a hoe; don’t let Obama see you as a weed that is polluting his garden.

The trick is to be on the correct side of public opinion. Being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for being America’s first Marxist President is an example of being on the right side of public opinion or perhaps the Left side of public opinion. Being blatant and openly involved with Crony Capitalism is pushing the envelope of public opinion, even for the Socialist with tunnel vision, but they are a forgiving group and able to overlook the most glaring contradictions in their anointed one, their “Gift from God,” according to Nancy Pelosi.

We have learned not to take threats from the self-styled tyrant, Hussein Obama lightly, he boasted of being able to destroy the coal industry and imposing skyrocketing energy prices; by rejecting the Keystone Pipeline and any pretense of a self-sufficient energy policy, he has single-handedly insured America and the world, that we will be paying crippling energy prices for decades. There is a slight problem with manipulating energy prices ever higher: the cost of living and the cost of food quickly follows energy’s lead, for everything is produced by energy and is transported by energy. Thus America’s buying power is reduced and the downward spiral of an economy begins its descent toward an inevitable collapse.

Obama uses his highly overrated intellect, much like a child to cast blame for his personal failures on others:

“Everybody who is out there back in 2009, if you look back what their estimates were in terms of how many jobs had been lost, how bad the economy had contracted when I took office, everybody underestimated it. People thought that the economy contracted 3%. It turns it retracted close to 9%. We lost 8 million jobs just in a year’s span, about half a year before I took office and half a year after I took office,” Obama said.

“So, the die had been cast, but a lot of us didn’t understand at that point how bad it was going to get. That increases the deficit because less tax revenues come in, and it means that more people are getting unemployment insurance, we’re helping states more so they don’t teachers, etc. The key though is we’re setting ourselves on a path where we can get our debt under control.”

Yes, for those of us “out there”, back in 2009, who are wondering how such an intelligent man can communicate in such a disjointed and non-sensical manner or more importantly, how or why he occupies the most powerful position in the world. We can’t help but wonder, will America’s entitled classes awaken to the realization, that a deflated economy and runaway inflation spell economic doom to even those who are above the economic vagaries of the once Free Market, that even those under a supposedly benevolent statism and a benevolent tyrant like Hussein Obama will eventually run out of credit or other people’s money and be forced to turn off the welfare pipeline. But in classic Doublespeak, straight from Orwell’s 1984, Obama feeds his entitled people from the trough of Socialist nonsense, during a press conference, he attributes the growing price of oil, not to world tension, his energy policies, and a weakening dollar, but to a strengthening economy that increases the demand for oil:

“And when gas prices are on the rise again because as the economy strengthens, global demand for oil increases. And if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time…”

The world and America can only withstand so much “Smart Diplomacy.”

The United States Constitution is a unique document. It is the foundation for how the federal government is structured and sets the basis for the relationship between the federal government, states and citizens. In what might be a surprise to most Americans, the Constitution does not confer rights on them. Their rights are bestowed by the Creator as detailed in the Declaration of Independence, the document that established the United States of America in the first place:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

What the Constitution does is prohibits the government from infringing upon those rights. Nor does the Constitution articulate all of the rights that citizens have. The 9th Amendment of the Bill of Rights states as much very clearly:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

What made the Constitution of the United States unique was the fact that for the first time in human history there was a written constitution that clearly defined the powers the national government had, and most importantly, clearly articulated the limits to that power.

Implicit in that Constitution is the concept called the Rule of Law. The 10th Amendment makes clear that the powers of the federal government are limited to those delegated in the document:

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.

And therein lies the problem. The United States is supposed to be a nation ruled by laws, not by men. As Hayek explains in The Road to Serfdom:

“Nothing distinguishes more clearly conditions in a free country from those in a country under arbitrary government than the observance in the former of the great principle know as the Rule of Law. Stripped of all technicalities, this means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand — rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge”

In other words, for a free country to exist, men’s actions must be taken in the presence of previously established, well defined and clearly articulated laws. Otherwise his every move will be taken under the threat of potential illegality, arbitrarily imposed at the whim of those who have accumulated the most power.

I cover this basic Constitutional information simply to contrast it with actual actions of the current occupant of the White House. Our Constitutional Professor in Chief is either ignorant of the Constitution or simply feels like it does not apply to him. Regardless of the cause, today in the United States we are very much moving towards a Rule of Man and away from the Rule of Law.

Really? Some examples please…

There is the takeover of Chrysler. In a typical bankruptcy the secured debtholders get first dibs on the company’s assets. That is the way the law is written and that is the basis upon which secured lending takes place. President Obama threw out the rule of law and coerced Chrysler’s secured debtholders into accepting $.29 on the dollar while paying his friends at the UAW $.40 on the dollar for their unsecured obligations, eventually giving them 55% of the company.

No doubt lenders will henceforth think twice about committing their resources to borrowers given the fact that government can come in and arbitrarily adjust their contracts.

Then there is the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB made news last year by illegally seeking to decide for Boeing where it could invest its money. The lawlessness of the board didn’t fall far from the tree… This January, President Obama, seeking to circumvent the Senate’s advise and consent role appointed 4 people to the NLRB via recess appointments despite the Senate being in pro-forma session. Pro-forma session? Certainly that must mean that the Senate was not really in session so no actual business could be done, right? Actually… Not according to the President. Just the previous week he was so sure the pro-forma session was real that he signed into law the payroll tax extension bill that was passed during such as session. Either pro-forma sessions are in session, or not, but they can’t be both. It’s like being pregnant, one either is or isn’t, you can’t be both. This is a perfect example of Rule of Man vs. Rule of Law. Unfortunately for the United States the Rule of Obama supersedes the Constitution in that battle.

There are many others but the most egregious is of course Obamacare. The Constitution clearly does not give the federal government the right to force consumers to purchase anything; not healthcare not Twinkies, not tooth paste, not even green cars. Despite that, Obama and his Reid / Pelosi led Congress decided to pass a law that does just that – purchase health insurance. If Uncle Sam has the right to force you to purchase health insurance under the threat of jail, then the Constitution becomes nothing but a relic of a once great nation that was once governed by the Rule of Law.

President Obama is a free man’s worst nightmare. Even for those foolish enough to support his statist, redistributionist, green policies. Why? Because he is the epitome of the Rule of Man. Rule of Man simply means that the person in control of the mechanism of government can do whatever he wants to do, and while it’s exercised by your guy that’s great, but what about when someone you disagree with gets into the position of power? Without the Rule of Law to guide and constrain government actions, a nation will quickly devolve into a tyranny of men. Not sure about that? At the Constitution’s bicentennial a quarter century ago could you have imagined that the government could dictate what you must feed your kids for lunch, could require you to buy anything at all simply because you’re alive or force churches to provide contraception or abortion benefits? I don’t think so.

Welcome to the Rule of Man. We’ve seen this play itself out before, where someone comes to power legitimately and then manipulates the rules to give themselves virtually unlimited power. That’s how Hitler did it. That’s how Chavez did it. That’s how Putin’s doing it again. Can you imagine a Barack Obama unfettered by the concerns of seeking a second term? One shudders to think…

Krugman 2008

Bush tax cut mythology

As the debate turns to economic stimulus, we’re starting to hear this: “Bush realized that the economy needed help, so he asked Congress to enact tax cuts to provide stimulus. And this turned the economy around.”

None of this is true.

Krugman 2010

When Paul Krugman refers to the administration’s proposed tax policy as the “Obama-McConnell Tax-Cut”, that phrase alone signals more than just a policy disagreement. It’s becoming a kind of short hand on the left for dissatisfaction with Barack Obama.

Krugman believes the current proposal will give the economy a “short-term boost”: Unfortunately, he also believes that a short-term boost is woefully inadequate to fix problems on the scale we are now experiencing.

David Cay Johnston

So why in the world is anyone giving any credence to the insistence by Republican leaders that tax cuts, more tax cuts, and deeper tax cuts are the remedy to our economic woes?

Alex Brill

Despite their political appeal, $500 per worker tax credits will do very little to actually boost the economy.

CBS News 2010

What impact did the Bush tax cuts have on economic growth?

The evidence is not favorable.

…Thus, there is little evidence to support that the Bush tax cuts had a significant effect on growth.

…An analogy with the government might be helpful in understanding why the tax cuts didn’t have a larger effect even though they were much better targeted than the 2001 tax cuts. When the government increases taxes, it can use the money for government investment (e.g. roads, electrical systems, bridges) or for government consumption (e.g. paper for a government office, gas to run a government vehicle, or a fireworks show to celebrate an important event). If the government uses the money for investment, and uses it wisely, the enhanced infrastructure allows us to increase our economic growth rate. But with consumption spending, e.g. an elaborate government fireworks show, there may be immediate benefits to those who watch and participate, but this type of spending doesn’t do anything to increase economic growth in the future.

Tax cuts, which send money in the other direction — from government to households — can be viewed similarly. A tax cut can be used to fund productive investment, e.g. to open a new business, or it can be used for consumption, e.g. for an elaborate private fireworks show or some other use that does nothing to enhance our long-run growth.

Hold that thought.

CBS News 2012

The Center for Budget and Policy Analysis estimates that allowing the payroll tax cut to revert to its previous rate would add nearly $400 to the 2012 taxes for a worker earning roughly $20,000 a year, $790 for those making $40,000, and more than $2,200 for employees with annual income of $123,000. “Failure to extend the payroll tax cut would harm workers in nearly every job and income category,” researchers at the Washington think-tank said in a recent report.

The benefit of the tax cut is fairly straightforward: Handed a little more money in their paycheck every two weeks, people tend to spend it. That boosts demand. Although the tentative deal in Washington only cuts the average employee’s tax bill by about $20 a week, that could help spur spending at a time the economy is picking up speed. The nation’s gross domestic product rose 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter, up from 1.8 percent in the previous period and the fastest pace since the second quarter of 2010. The unemployment rate also declined sharply in January to 8.3 percent, a three-year low. Other signs of life in recent months include resilient consumer spending, growth in factory output, and rising home construction.

So the Bush tax cuts that put more spending money in people’s pockets don’t help the economy but the Obama tax cuts that put more spending money in people’s pockets does help the economy.

I get it now.

This “payroll tax holiday” bled Social security of $110 billion last year and will bleed at least $143 billion from Social Security in 2012. Over ten years that would be $1.5 trillion not paid into Social Security.

And the left cheers this “coveted win” for Obama that accelerates the destruction of Social Security.

Remember this?

Now it’s a good thing when Obama kills Social Security.

Liberals:

President Barack Obama on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade: “As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters…And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”  But not their babies.

President Obama: “I’m a chauvinist; I want America to have the best stuff. I don’t want to go to China and see their airports better than ours, or go to Europe and see their railroads faster than ours.”  And if President Bush said this….?

President Obama: “And what I’ve said consistently is, we’re not going to just unilaterally disarm.”  Unfortunately, the President was not talking about unilaterally reducing our nuclear arsenal; he was indicating that he is all for SuperPAC’s to support his upcoming campaign.

President Obama on the payroll tax holiday: “I thank the many Americans who lent their voices to this debate in recent months. You made all the difference. This is real money that will make a real difference in people’s lives. It includes important reforms that I proposed in the American Jobs Act to help discourage businesses from laying off workers and to connect workers with jobs. It includes a critical element in the plan I outlined in the State of the Union to out-innovate the rest of the world by unleashing mobile broadband, investing in innovation, and building a nationwide public safety network. It will mean a stronger economy and hundreds of thousands of new jobs. And as soon as Congress sends this bipartisan agreement to my desk, I will sign it into law right away. But this must be only the start of what we do together this year. There’s much more the American people need and expect from us – to help our businesses keep creating jobs, to help restore security for middle class families, and to leave an economy that’s built to last.”

President Obama: “We’ve gone through the toughest economy…since the great depression…[for many people] their concept of the American dream feels like it’s slipping away from them.”

Obama: “We did not fully comprehend at that point how deep this crisis would be.  Don’t underestimate the changes we made.”

Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in a statement, when being faced with a potential bill that would expand oil drilling in Alaska and offshore reserves and greenlight the Keystone XL pipeline construction: “Because this bill jeopardizes safety, weakens environmental and labor protections, and fails to make the investments needed to strengthen the Nation’s roads, bridges, rail, and transit systems, the President’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto this legislation.”

President Obama: “And when gas prices are on the rise again – because as the economy strengthens, global demand for oil increases – and if we start seeing big increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time.”

President Obama: “Right now, we’re scheduled to spend more than $1 trillion more on what was intended to be a temporary tax cut for the wealthiest two percent of Americans.  We’ve already spent about that much. Now we’re expected to spend another $1 trillion. Keep in mind, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle class households. You’ve heard me say it: Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.”  This is $100 billion each year, which is not even a tenth of the deficit.  And, again, this is suggesting that all money belongs to the government, and whatever they choose not to spend, can be returned to the person who made that money.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: “Even if Congress were to enact this budget, we would still be left with-in the outer decades as millions of Americans retire-what are still unsustainable commitments in Medicare and Medicaid.”  Geithner admitted the same thing last year.

Gene Sperling, director of the White House’s national economic council: “[Obama] supports corporate tax reform that would reduce expenditures and loopholes, lower rates for people investing and creating jobs in the U.S., due so further for manufacturing, and that we need to, as we have the Buffett Rule and the individual tax reform, we need a global minimum tax so that people have the assurance that nobody is escaping doing their fair share as part of a race to the bottom or having our tax code actually subsidized and facilitate people moving their funds to tax havens.”

President Obama‘s chief of staff Jacob “Jack” J. Lew: “No institution that has – [no] non-profit institution – that has religious principles that we violated has to pay for or directly offer these services.”

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: “You’re talking about birth control, you’re talking about women’s health. I firmly believe – I want to remove all doubt in anyone’s mind where I am on this subject. This is an issue about women’s health, and I believe that women’s health should be covered in all of the insurance plans that are there.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly: “I believe that today’s hearing is a sham.  Here you are being asked to testify about your rights being trampled on — an overstatement if there ever was one — while you’re on a panel, and your participation on the panel makes you complicit in of course the trampling of freedom, because we were denied, on this side of the aisle, any witness who might have a differing point of view. And I think that’s shameful…This is a panel designed, with your conscious participation or not, to try one more time to embarrass the President of the United States and his Administration by overstating an issue which is sacred to all Americans — religious freedom.  But, of course, in order to do it, we have to — in an almost Stalinist-like fashion — have signs of Democratic icons to rub Democratic faces in it”

Rep. Jan Schakowsky: “…there’s been a lot of male punditry, um, saying, oh, you know, we act as if this is a matter of religious freedom… forgetting that it’s also a matter of women’s health and women’s lives….And you know what? The case is closed, too. There’s no controversy around, uh, around contraceptives for almost 100 percent of Americans.  You know, there’s few in the, uh, some in the Catholic Church and maybe some other Evangelical churches, I don’t know, that think that it’s wrong, but none of the American people follow that.”

Democratic chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “[Contraception costs] about $700 a year. That’s real money. And to say to hundreds of thousands of women who work for religious organizations, `No, because of your employers objections, whether or not you choose to use contraception, you aren’t going to be able to get the same access as other employers’ employees can get access to,’ that’s not right.”  No one, insofar as I know, is deprived of contraceptive products, many of which can be gotten free through Planned Parenthood.  What Wasserman Schultz is arguing for is free contraception, which has suddenly become a right of womanhood.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: “[Free contraception] is a no-cost benefit, that the National Business Council on Health, that our actuaries, a variety of people in group plans say having contraception as part of a group insurance plan actually lowers the overall cost, doesn’t increase it, because, on balance, preventive services around family planning, avoiding what may be unhealthy pregnancies, avoiding the health consequences of that actually is a cost reducer.”

Press Secretary Jay Carney about President Obama’s promise to cut the budget deficit in half by the end of his first term in office: “It was a promise based on what we knew about the economy at the time as has been well established in this briefing and many other places. The economy turns out to have been far worse and in far greater distress when the president was running for office and then took office than we knew at the time.”

Senator Frank Lautenberg: “The GOP agenda gives women one option: barefoot and pregnant.  It’s time to tell the Republicans to mind their own business.  Our side believes that women should be able to choose the paths in life that’s best for them and that’s why President Obama wants to make birth control more affordable. Contraception is basic health care, and it’s essential for individuals to choose when they want to have a career and when they want to start a family.”

Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson: “…the only thing I can figure out, Rachel, is that’s based on a wrong and frankly insane belief that a fertilized egg is a fully formed person and has personhood and that, you know, preventing the implantation of that egg is some-, is murder. I don’t, you know, it baffles me as to what other explanation there could be. They can be sincerely mad on this, on this subject, I think, and maybe they are.”

Planned Parenthood‘s tweets, meant for teens:
“Ever have one of those moments in school where you learned something REALLY worth knowing? #TellUs”
“Freaked out about asking yr parents about birth control? You can totally do this. We can help.”
“Are you super obvious when you’re #crushing on someone. or super stealth?”

Why not, “Let us kill ur baby–LOL!!!!” ?

Sen. Barbara Boxer: “In 2012, I stand here in complete amazement that in a country known for its medical breakthroughs and advancements, Republicans would have us go back to the medical dark ages.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the House’s transportation bill: “[This is a] love note to the tea party…The House bill reverses 30 years of good policy, of dedicating funding each year for mass transit. The policy was enacted in 1982 by that ultraliberal Ronald Reagan.”

Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver: “This budget is a nervous breakdown on paper.  We’re still in a recession, we’re still struggling. Unemployment is still too high…We do have a serious ailment as a nation and certainly as Congress; we suffer from `spendicitis.’”  Cleaver’s point was, Obama’s budget cut way, way too much.

Keith Ellison in fund raising email: “It took Eric Cantor less than an hour to start lying about President Obama‘s budget.  Cantor and Republicans in Congress are so desperate to protect special tax breaks for billionaires and Big Oil companies that they’re claiming that President Obama‘s budget, ‘calls for massive tax increases on hardworking families and small businesses.’  That’s a bold-faced lie and they know it.  President Obama‘s plan would simply ensure that the top 1% aren’t paying less in taxes than middle class families.  With the right-wing attack machine already running at full speed, we must set the record straight. We have a hard deadline of Wednesday night to raise the $150,000 we need to get our accountability campaign off the ground.” Most small businesses, which do much of the hiring, file tax returns that are taxed at this higher rate.

Obama appointee, U.S. Judge Sue Myerscough: “[Although the] plaintiffs argue that the Second Amendment protects a general right to carry guns that include a right to carry operable guns in public . [the] Supreme Court has not recognized a right to bear firearms outside the home.”  For some reason, the right to keep and bear arms in the Second Amendment is a little fuzzy?

Rep. Maxine Waters: “Let me let you in on a secret. I am the senior-most person serving on the Financial Services Committee.  Barney Frank is about to retire and guess who’s shaking in their boots? The too-big-to-fail banks, and financial institutions and all of Wall Street because Maxine Waters is going to be the next chair of the Financial Services Committee!”

Maxine Waters: “On Immigration policy and reform they are on the wrong side of the track. They would have you believe that if they get into office, they are going to make sure that they are going to get rid of everyone in our society who was not born in America”

American Federation of Government Employees National President John Gage, after being informed that employees may have to cough up an additional 0.8% in their contribution to their own pension fund:”Working class men and women who have dedicated their lives to serve their country should not be on the hook for solving a crisis they did not create.”  We are all in this together, unless, of course, you are in a federal union.

Former President Jimmy Carter on the occupy movement: “It’s been relatively successful even acknowledging there’s no leadership, there’s no coherence and there’s no single list of issues they want to succeed.”

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas: “They [Occupiers] can be as filthy and they can rape people – if you want to make stuff up – but the fact is nobody really cares about it because that message isn’t about the messenger, it’s not about who’s delivering a message, but it’s about the message itself which really resonates at a very core emotional level with people who are suffering in this economy.”

It’s all about race:

Rep. Keith Ellison: “The time has come for white people, when they see racist ads, against Black folks—food stamp president—that’s wrong!”

Toure: “[There is] an epidemic of death that’s tragic among prematurely dying massive black singers. Michael Jackson was just 50. Now, Whitney at 48. Heavy D was 44, Nate Dogg was 41. Why are so many of these people dying early? And he talked about that there’s an extraordinary pressure and stress on them to continue to succeed year after year because it is embarrassing to fall. But they also have a fear of going back to poverty.”

Ari Berman: “And what Republicans are doing with redistricting now, following the 2010 election, is they’re trying to draw as many Democrats as possible into as few heavily-minority districts as possible to maximize Republican turnout elsewhere and basically turn the Republican Party into the quote-unquote “white Party” and the Democratic Party into the quote-unquote “black Party,” and ensure that there are Republican majorities in all of the South, including in crucial swing states, like North Carolina, for the next decade.”

I believe that this is a real Democrat ad.

 
The Compliant Obama Press Corps:

Washington Post political writer Aaron Blake on Newt Gingrich‘s high unfavorable ratings: “Sarah Palin, even at her most divisive, never saw her unfavorable rating rise above 60 percent in the CNN poll. And even when Republicans were demonizing Nancy Pelosi in the runup to the 2010 election, her unfavorable rating never climbed beyond the high-50s.”

NBC’s David Gregory: “Are Republicans depending too much upon the social issues to ignite the base?”  It has been liberal news commentator/interviewer who have asked conservatives again and again and again about social issues.  George Stephanopoulos spent 5 minutes during a debate a month or so ago asking Mitt Romney about the states being able to ban contraception.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Rick Santorum: “I mean, you’re talking about a guy from the Cro-Magnon era, in terms of politics.”  My hearing of this, identifies the Cro-Magnon guy as being Santorum and not Foster Frieze.

CNN‘s Candy Crowley to chief of staff Jacob Lew about the healthcare edict from the White House: ”You are an observant Jew, I know, was there anything about this that made you think twice when it first went out?”  For those who need this explained, Jews are very frugal and they watch every penny.  Imagine if Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity said this.

Andrew Sullivan, of the Daily Beast: “So I think a lot of this was ginned up by the Bishops. They were the ones that set a trap for Obama. They’re like Wile E. Coyote trying to blow up the Roadrunner only it blew up on them.”

Josh Bazell [Author, Wild Thing], on NBC: “…there’s certain things that it’s hard to do realistically in a novel. For instance, if I were to create a character who, say, had been the senator from Pennsylvania, as Rick Santorum was – Rick Santorum does not appear in the novel – and I had this character get up at a debate and say that global warming was a hoax and that we had to change the Constitution to limit the rights of gay people. No one would believe that…And if I said then, you know, that the entire Republican establishment sat quietly through this, no one stood up and said, ‘You know, that’s a crazy man talking,’ it would just seem like I was being biased.”  Apparently, this had almost nothing to do with the book he was selling, but then again, he is on MSNBC.

Washington Post editor Melinda Henneberger on MSNBC: “Maybe the Founders were wrong to guarantee free exercise of religion in the First Amendment but that is what they did and I don’t think we have to choose here.”

ESPN‘s mobile website headline of basketball star Jeremy Lin: “Chink in the Armor”

Liberal Celebrities:

Joy Behar on an impending Virginia Abortion Law which requires an ultrasound (there is the possibility that this could be an invasive ultrasound): “It’s like, what are we?  What is this, the Taliban now?  What are we, in Afghanistan?  Where are we exactly in this country?”

Actress Julienne Moore, who plays Sarah Palin in an HBO movie: “She wasn’t qualified to be vice president. She wasn’t a qualified candidate.”

Bruce Springsteen, when asked if he thought the United States should be changed into something closer to a Swedish-style welfare state: “Exactly! That’s my dream! It’s written between the lines. But you have to listen very closely,”

Oprah Winfrey tweet: “Every 1 who can please turn to OWN especially if u have a Nielsen box.”

Actor Sean Penn while visiting socialist President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela: “It’s never predictable what can happen in an American election, but we certainly believe at this point that it’s becoming increasingly clear to the American people that the policies of the far right are the policies of the rich, and that they are to the exclusion of the middle class and the poor, and that no society has a future on that basis.”

Sean Stone, son of American Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone: “I’ve studied history and my study of the Islamic teachings helped me understand that Islam can lead the humanity to happiness.”

Fred Amrisen as Obama/Cosby on SNL: “I hereby veto the rice cakes that Michelle said were healthier than the hoagie.”

Liberals from the past:

Media Matters “senior fellow” Karl Frisch in a 2009 internal memo to his bosses, just unearthed: “Simply put, the progressive movement is in need of an enemy. George W. Bush is gone. We really don’t have John McCain to kick around any more. Filling the lack of leadership on the right, Fox News has emerged as the central enemy and antagonist of the Obama administration, our Congressional majorities and the progressive movement as a whole.  We must take Fox News head-on in a well funded, presidential-style campaign to discredit and embarrass the network, making it illegitimate in the eyes of news consumers.”  The Daily Caller is just beginning to unearth these memos and the relationship between Media Matters, the White House and the mainstream media.

Liberal civility:

Bill Maher: “Something unprecedented is happening with the way conservatives are disrespecting this president.  And I’m not talking about mere words uttered hundreds of thousands of miles away. Sean Hannity can say anything that he wants. No one looks to him as a model human being, or even a human being.  Of course I’m very guilty and actually proud of innumerable insults to former President Bush, calling him `a rube, a cypher, a shit kicker, a yokel on the world stage, a catastrophe that walks like a man, the cowboy from toy story, Drinky McDumbass, and President Larry The Cable Guy.’ But I wouldn’t call him that to his face, and that is the difference.”

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir: “If you listen carefully to Rick Santorum, he sounds more like Stalin than Pope Innocent III.”

The “token” is Craig Mitchell, an Associate Professor of Ethics for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Bill Maher: “That’s why, when the idea of states outlawing contraception came up, he said, well, maybe that’s a good idea. But he can’t be to the right to Rick Santorum because there’s nothing to the right except Kirk Cameron and the Neonazi party.”

Muslims:

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast: “Israel perpetrated the terror actions to launch psychological warfare against Iran.”  This refers to the recent attacks against Israeli embassies in New Dehli and Tbilisi which have been tied to Iran.

Sheikh Saleh bin Fowzan Al Fowzan, a member of the 7-man supreme committee of scholars in Saudi Arabia: “Repenting will not work; any man who insults God or our Prophet (PBUH) should be killed.”  This is about the guy who allegedly insulted Mohammed on twitter.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh: “[The] Gun is our only response to Zionist regime In time, we have come to understand that we can obtain our goals only through fighting and armed resistance and no compromise should be made with the enemy.”

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghuzlan: “Concerning the Islamic caliphate, this is our dream, and we hope to achieve it, even after centuries.”

Taliban official, Abdullah al Wazir: “They [al Qaeda] are among the first groups and banners that pledged allegiance to the Emir of the Believers [Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban], and they operate in Afghanistan under the flag of the Islamic Emirate,”

Liberals making sense:

Sen. Tom Harkin on the payroll tax holiday: “This Congress will be making a grave mistake — a grave mistake — and reinforcing a dangerous precedent.  And I’m dismayed that Democrats, including a Democratic president and a Democratic vice president, have proposed this, and are willing to sign off on a deal that could begin the unraveling of Social Security…Make no mistake about it. This is the beginning of the end of the sanctity of Social Security.”

Sen. Joe Manchin: “I didn’t come here to put the next generation into more debt; I came here to get them out of it…I know that going back home and saying we voted for tax cuts is popular, but this is not a tax cut – this is a Social Security cut. Plain and simple.  And knowing that we add 10,000 new beneficiaries a day, and knowing that last year Social Security took in less than it paid out – how does that make any sense?”

Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders: “My concern is diverting hundreds of billions of dollars from the Social Security trust fund into that immediate tax relief … I would love to see tax relief, but done in a different way.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta: “I think, in weighing how you address this issue, you’ve also got to take into consideration the national security threat that comes from the huge deficits and the huge debt that we’re running. We’re running a debt now that is comparable to our GDP.”

Leon Panetta: “You can’t take a half a trillion out of the defense budget with some risks.”  [quoted from memory]

Leon Panetta: “This budget bites.”

Rep. Barney Frank: “The tea party has been much more effective than occupy. The people in tea party do a much better job of organizing to get their policy views made apart of this process than occupy people.”

Moderates/Affiliation Unknown:

An Israeli Cabinet minister regarding Iran’s bombing attempt in Bangkok: “We know who carried out the terror attacks, we know who sent them, and Israel will settle the score with them,”

Heather from Texas on Obama’s #40dollars Twitter campaign: “$40 a paycheck means I have to choose which medication my daughter takes gets put off, and not like something simple we are talking choice or of life or death. My daughter is a liver transplant [patient] and is waiting for another transplant.”

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia [an edited statement]: “Many Catholics are confused and angry. They should be.  Quite a few Catholics supported President Obama in the last election, so the ironies here are bitter. Many feel betrayed. They’re baffled that the Obama administration would seek to coerce Catholic employers, private and corporate, to violate their religious convictions…Critics may characterize my words here as partisan or political. These are my personal views, and of course people are free to disagree. But it is this administration – not Catholic ministries, or institutions, or bishops – that chose the timing and nature of the fight. The onus is entirely on the White House, which also has the power to remove the issue from public conflict. Catholics should not be misled into accepting feeble compromises on issues of principle. The HHS mandate is bad law; and not merely bad, but dangerous and insulting. It needs to be withdrawn – now.”

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan: “I want to take him [Obama] at his word, [but] it’s getting harder and harder.  Does the federal government have the right to tell a religious individual or a religious entity how to define yourself?  This is what gives us greater chill.”

Fake Obama commercial: “The first four years were about change; now it’s about dollars.”

David Brooks: “We’ve become accustomed to the faith-driven athlete and coach, from Billy Sunday to Tim Tebow. But we shouldn’t forget how problematic this is…The modern sports hero is competitive and ambitious…But there’s no use denying – though many do deny it – that this ethos violates the religious ethos on many levels.”  David Brooks, who long ago proved that he has no idea what conservatism is, now proves that he has no idea what Christianity is.

Sharon posting to a recent Jake Tapper story: “What did we as a nation ever do before Obama? How did we function? Who knew I was responsible for birth control for the lady who I stood behind in Target today? Do she have to pay for my tampons & pads? They are a necessity, therefore somebody else should pay. What about diapers for my babies? Can’t raise a kid w/out diapers – shouldn’t they be free too?”  Probably a conservative.

Crosstalk:

Newsweek‘s Eleanor Clift on PBS‘s McLaughlin Group on President Obama‘s budget: “[you can't] drastically cut a deficit before you invigorate the economy or you’re going to look at a lost decade.”

National Review’s Rich Lowry: “This isn’t a Keynesian budget. It’s a flat out tax and spend big government liberal budget”  The entire exchange can be found here.

_______________________________________

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell: “Do you have any concerns with some of his [Santorum's] comments on social issues, on contraception on women in combat and whether or not it would hurt his viability in a general election campaign were he to be the nominee?”

Foster Friess, a Rick Santorum supporter: “Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed. We have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about, and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex. I think it says something about our culture. We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are… On this contraceptive thing, my Gosh it’s such [sic] inexpensive. You know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”

Mitchell, shocked that anyone could suggest abstinence as birth control: “Excuse me, I’m just trying to catch my breath from that, Mr. Friess, frankly… Let’s change the subject.”
________________________________________

Congresswoman Maxine Waters: “I saw pictures of Boehner and Cantor on our screens; don’t ever let me see again in life those Republicans in our hall, on our screens, talking about anything. These are demons.  These are legislators who are destroying this country.”

Eric Bolling on Fox&Friends: “Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston; step away from the crack pipe, step away from the Xanax, step away from the Lorazepam, because it’s going to get you in trouble.”

Eric C. Bauman, chairman of the L.A. County Democratic Party, called for the network to remove Bolling, and said: “At worst, Bolling‘s comment oozes racism, which serves to discredit a strong African American woman by perpetrating racial stereotypes. Regardless of whether this remark was deliberate or offhand – it was irresponsible, despicable and reprehensible.”

Big Journalism writer Dana Loesch: “That’s the difference between conservatives and progressives: conservatives want the diversity of voices, even if they disagree with the thought or if the thought is offensively over-the-top sensational. They’re eager to debate it out in the open and prove it wrong. They desire nothing more than to win converts by proving how illogical or immoral the opposite viewpoint is while using logic and reason. Progressives, on the other hand, desire none of those things, regardless whether or not the opposing viewpoint is sensational or simply one with which they disagree. Their idea of debate is quasi-censorship: blacklisting diversity from the airwaves. They’re either too lazy or too incompetent to debate the issues, so they resort to hiding them altogether. They don’t engage, they persecute and suppress.”  This was in a story about Pat Buchanan being forced off MSNBC.
_______________________________________

Interviewer: “You’re getting pelted in the media; they’re showing this video of you over and over again in February of 09 saying by the end of your first term, that you’re going to reduce the deficit by half—we’re not there.”

President Obama: “Well, we’re not there because this recession turned out to be a lot deeper than any of us realized.  Everybody who is out there back in 2009, if you look back what their estimates were in terms of how many jobs had been lost, how bad the economy had contracted when I took office everybody had underestimated it. People thought that the economy contracted 3%, it turns it was close to 9%. We lost 8 million jobs just in a year’s span, about half a year before I took office and about a half a year after I took office”

Follow up question: “9% contraction?  I have not seen that reported anywhere.  Can you provide us with some proof of this?”

Follow up question: “During the Reagan recovery, the private sector created 1 million jobs a month; will we ever see this as a part of the Obama recovery?”

Just kidding; there were no such follow up questions.
_______________________________________

Paul Ryan: “Here’s the point, if you’ll allow me. This is your time, so we’ll just take a long time. Here’s the point. Leaders are supposed to fix problems. We have a $99.4 trillion unfunded liability. Our government is making promises to Americans that it has no way of accounting for. And so you’re saying yeah, we’re stabilizing it but we’re not fixing it in the long run. That means we’re just going to keep lying to people. We’re going to keep all these empty promises going.”

Tim Geithner: “We have millions of Americans retiring every day, and that will drive substantially the rate of growth of healthcare costs. You are right to say we’re not coming before you today to say we have a definitive solution to that long-term problem. What we do know is, we don’t like yours.”

The entire exchange, unedited, with text.

_______________________________________

Democratic strategist Bob Frum: “Catholic leaders are self-righteously trying to infringe on the liberty of all Americans.”

Glenn Reynolds tries to come up with an equally stupid statement, to illustrate: “It’s as if we passed a law requiring mosques to sell bacon and then, when people objected, responded by saying `What’s wrong with bacon? You’re trying to ban bacon!!!!`”
_______________________________________

The National Journal: “What kind of chauvinism have you faced in Congress?”

Former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi: “At first the men thought having women in the House was nice. Then they started to get a little threatened-it wasn’t as cute. When I decided to run for leadership, they said, “Who said she could run?” And I thought, “Perfect. That is exactly right. Who said she could run? Not you.” That is how they thought not that long ago.”
________________________________________

Rick Santorum suggested on CNN that a child conceived in rape is an innocent child, so a woman could “make the best of a bad situation.”

Radio personality Randi Rhodes:  “It’s a gift! God gives you a gift of a rape baby, that’s what God gives you. Uh – God also gives people cancer – I wonder if Rick Santorum thinks that uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, cancer is given by God and AIDS is given by God – or, in your case, a shocking lack of empathy is given by God. Or in my case – you know, ridiculously acute bronchitis was given to me by God! It’s to show me how tough I am! It’s to show me just exactly how many steroids I can take before I want to bump your eyes out! Oh my God, look on the bright side rape victims! It was given to you by a man, therefore it must be a gift! It’s a gift!”
_______________________________________

CBS’s Charlie Rose: “There’s no question that those issues are very important, and they’re very important to the voters of Michigan. But also, you have been identified as a social conservative, and those issues have been part of what you have said to the country. So this is not gotcha. What this is, is trying to understand exactly what Rick Santorum stands for, and what he might say or do as president-“

Rick Santorum: “Well, Charlie, when you quote- hold on, Charlie. When you quote a supporter of mine who tells a bad off-color joke, and somehow, I’m responsible for that shall, that’s gotcha. I mean, the bottom line is, we’re- we’ve been- we’ve been-“

Rose: “But nobody said you were responsible, Senator. Nobody said you were responsible. They said, how would you characterize it and what have you said to him, not that you were responsible. It’s to understand how you differ from what this person said. So let me quote you-“

Santorum: “Okay. So I’m now going to have respond to every supporter who says something. Now, I’m going to have to respond to it. Look, this is what you guys do. I mean, I don’t- you don’t do this with President Obama. In fact, with President Obama, what you did was you went out and defended him against someone who- he sat in a church for- for 20 years, and defended him- that, oh, he can’t possibly believe what he listened to for 20 years. It’s a double standard, this is what you’re pulling off, and I’m going to call you on it.”

Conservatives:

News columnist James Tarantino: “The president is negotiating with the Taliban, [but] he will not negotiate with the Catholics.”

Radio personality Mark Levin: “[Obama’s] telling people who are having a tough time with their mortgages, ‘I’m going to take care of you.’  No, he’s not.  He’s telling kids with student loans, ‘I’m going to take care of you’ and no, he’s not.  He’s telling people who can’t read credit card information, ‘I’m gonna take care of you.’  Now this is the guy who runs the IRS—have you ever read the Internal Revenue codes?  He’s not going to take care of you.  He’s more about these promises, more about these abstractions, these fantasies, these arguments about equality.” [quoted from memory]

FoxBusiness person Gary B. Smith: “Income inequality is what made America great.”

Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich: “It is truly astounding that you have an administration, the Obama administration, that refuses to even use the words radical Islam, which behaves as though terrorism is a random behavior, and literally has censored national security documents to eliminate accurate facts so that when a psychiatrist at Ft. Hood kills 13 Americans and wounds 30 others while yelling Allah-Akbar and having in his wallet, ‘warrior of Allah’.  The administration manages to write a report with no mention of radical Islamists.”

Rep. Allen West: “Our party firmly believes in the safety net.  “We reject the idea of the safety net becoming a hammock.  For this reason, the Republican value of minimizing government dependence is particularly beneficial to the poorest among us.  Conversely, the Democratic appetite for ever-increasing redistributionary handouts is in fact the most insidious form of slavery remaining in the world today, and it does not promote economic freedom.”

Newt Gingrich on Romney’s negative ads: “[This] negative junk…It drove down participation.  We have a target, it’s called Barack Obama. The Romney people don’t seem to get that.”

CRNC video on Obama: “He wanted to be my doctor, my banker.”

Rep. Phil Gingery: “I cannot and I will not support legislation that extends the payroll tax holiday without paying for it,  This will add $100 billion to the deficit and it will create an even greater shortfall within the Social Security trust fund that already has over $100 billion shortfall just in the last two years.”

Lamar Alexander, one of the other Republicans to speak up on this: “Getting rid of the way we fund Social Security through the payroll tax is a dangerous idea.”

Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum: “[Obama's agenda is based on] some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology.”

Rick Santelli: “While the vandals are on the street corners, the Tea Party conservatives they’re working state houses, the governorships, the mayorships, the Senate, the House. See, they understand, they’ve read the Constitution. If you want to make a difference, don’t go break windows, okay? Break some phony arguments that things like austerity are going to put you in the hole. What put you in the hole is borrowing 38 cents of every dollar you spent. That’s what put you in the hole, pure and simple. Everything else is political spin.”  I think he is conservative?

Foster Friess to Andrea Mitchell: “Do you honestly think that if Senator Santorum becomes president that we are going to get rid of contraceptives?”

Foster Friess: “I walked in the Country Club and said, you gotta get behind this guy, Rick Santorum—he’s what America’s all about; he’s standing on the shoulders of the founding fathers…and he said, ‘He’s too extreme.’  I said, ‘What do you mean by that?’  And he said, ‘The same-sex marriage.’  So I said to this guy, `You know, through the beginning of time, not just the major religions but various African tribal people have said man is marrying a woman. At what point in your life did that suddenly become an extreme idea?’ Well, obviously, he couldn’t answer. So the whole idea of extremism, it’s kind of a bizarre terminology for someone that believes marriage is between a man and a woman. Why is that extreme?”

Republican National Committee Communications Director Sean Spicer about the possibility of a brokered GOP convention in Tampa: “The last time we had a brokered convention was in the 1940′s, and we’re four contests in that have awarded delegates.  We are four weeks and four states into a process. I get that it’s the buzz, but I literally spend as much time worrying if some space alien attack happens.”

Greg Gutfeld of Obama: “The first term, he had to be nice.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Most Americans I think by now realize the AP is no longer a news outlet. It’s just part of the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.”

Rush Limbaugh: “You know, it’s funny what offends liberals, and the liberal media. Bill Clinton abusing and ruining the life of an intern. JFK, ditto. It’s admirable. That’s behavior they want to emulate. But an aspirin joke, boy, look how that offends them. Just really funny these people are.”

Rush Limbaugh: “You boil it all down, what you end up with is something very simple. Liberals want life without consequences.”

Rush Limbaugh: “I don’t know what percentage, but a portion of the population will believe, at the end of the day today or whenever they watch the news, that the Republicans wanted to have a hearing on banning contraception. That’s what the news will be.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Because of the bailout and the special deals, General Motors does not pay any income tax. They pay no corporate tax for ten years on whatever profits they earn.”

Rush Limbaugh: “The whole point of bringing up contraception and trying to make it look like the Republicans want to ban birth control is simply something to excite the Democrat base, which has been depressed as it can be because their president has done a rotten job.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Why is contraception so important that it must be paid for by somebody else? It’s so important that you have contraceptives. It can’t be left up to you to even take the initiative to provide them for yourself. They have to be provided for you. Why not toothpaste? Why not hotel rooms? Why not a car? What is it, as far as liberals are concerned, that makes contraceptives a must-have?”

Rush Limbaugh: “Obamacare could ban contraception or abortion. Once Obamacare is implemented, the government can make any change unilaterally it wants. Because, if it is implemented and if this mandate is found to be constitutional — if the government can tell you that you’ve got to buy an insurance policy or you get fined or you go to jail — then they can tell you anything.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Conventional wisdom is a bunch of know-nothings agreeing. When everybody agrees on something, something’s wrong.”

Rush Limbaugh: “The Washington Post, New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, LA Times, it’s all oriented toward two things: advancing the Democrat Party and whoever runs it — in this case, Barack Obama — and at the same time defeating, embarrassing, and humiliating the Republicans and conservatives.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Obama is campaigning on the notion there are more takers than there are producers, that there are more people dependent on government than there are not, and that they will vote for whoever they think is going to keep that gravy train flowing.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Barack Obama and the Democrat Party are aiming at the lowest common denominator. They have spent decades dumbing down the American people in the education system that they run and that they have run. Campaign for the stupid. Get the votes, buy the votes of the stupid.”

Rush Limbaugh: “We have a president for whom the Constitution is an impediment. The Constitution is a roadblock. The Constitution is a problem. The Constitution, for Obama and his boys, is a worthless document.”

Rush Limbaugh: “The arms race was not about total numbers. It was about having more than all of your enemies because of the deterrent factor. None of these weapons were ever built with the hope that they would have to be used.”

Rush Limbaugh: “The United States had an AAA credit rating when Obama was immaculated. It was $1.61-a-gallon gas, 7.2% unemployment, a deficit four times smaller than it is today. And Obama, as a senator, voted for every spending increase put before him. Every one! Everything he ‘inherited,’ he voted for.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Barack Obama is attempting to occupy a position that essentially is, ‘I haven’t been president for three years. I’m running for office for the first time here. It’s worse than anybody ever told us!’ When does he get blamed? Name for me any other president, three years after a disaster like this, who would not be blamed at least for some of it? You can’t.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Every problem we are having in housing is directly traceable to Barack Obama. He owns it! As a Senator, as a community organizer, the only thing Obama didn’t like about Bush‘s big spending policies is that the spending was never enough.”

The Conservative Press:

Charles Krauthammer on PBS’s Inside Washington: “This tells you how bad our politics have become. Everybody here is so delighted that we finally have a bipartisan agreement and are celebrating it over what? We have just, we have, for 16 billion-trillion dollars in debt. We just added 100 billion, on a payroll tax cut that every economist will tell you is not going to have any influence on the creation of jobs or helping our economy. It’s temporary, will have no effect. And you know how we are paying for some of the goodies in there? We are auctioning off spectrum.  Now, you ought to auction off spectrum anyway. However, the idea that you’re going to do that – this is a priceless commodity that the government is selling it off – is selling crown jewels, it’s selling the jewels to buy crack. A payroll tax cut has no effect at all, it’s going to make people smile for, you know, eight or nine months. It’ll be $100 billion, and we are selling auction to do that. That’s the state of our politics today, and we’re all happy because it was done on a bipartisan basis.”  The video.

FoxNews’ Lou Dobbs: “These are choices that are going to be made individually by voters, and it’s awfully nice of the national media and the Democratic Party to help everyone understand the dangers of Rick Santorum. But the Republican primary process will make that evaluation irrespective of our assistance genuine or manufactured.”

Bill O’Reilly on an SNL skit: “I’m not sure what happened here.”

Republican Infighting:

Colonel Martha McSally (USAF-RET), who is a Republican candidate running for Gabrielle Giffords‘ old seat, was on Fox and Friends discussing Rick Santorum‘s recent comments about women in combat: “When I heard this, I really just wanted to kick him in the Jimmy.”

From Conservative Review #216  (HTML)  (PDF)

President Obama’s recent decision to force the Catholic Church to violate their religious beliefs and provide contraceptives and morning after pills in their health care packages surprised me. No, I was not surprised to see this as a logical progression of Obamacare – I was more surprised by the timing. I am among those who believe that Obama will get re-elected in 2012 no matter what happens in the next few months – that will be a separate post in it itself. Without going too much in depth into what I plan to write a big part of my theory comes down to two observations: What is Barack Obama’s greatest love and passion in his life? Barack Obama. And what is his greatest talent, the one thing that sets him above the rest? Convincing other people that they should love Barack Obama almost as much as he does. In other words, he has the perfect skill set for getting elected to public office, regardless of experience or his record. Given how Catholics came out in support of Obama in 2008, why would he spit in the church’s eye right now and risk alienating this voter base with just a few months to election?

It makes absolutely no sense, unless you look at the bigger picture. Obama’s re-election campaign unofficially kicked off with the Occupy Wall Street movement. It got the unionistas and professional leftists out to energize his "young and stupid" demographic that had lost a lot of its enthusiasm for Obama, and also to help set his 2012 campaign theme of envy and resentment toward your neighbor. Does that sound like an over the top statement? The president can’t run on his record – sustained high unemployment, soaring deficits, high fuel prices thanks to an anti-energy policy, not to mention a foreign policy where the good guys don’t trust us and the bad guys think we’re a joke. How many leaders have you seen who after three years in their position continue to whine about the job they inherited? Hence, the "Obama in 2012 – It’s someone else’s fault" campaign theme.

The president is very good at getting himself elected to office – whether getting opponents thrown off the ballot, sealed divorce records released, accepting illegal campaign contributions from foreign donors, or having a fawning press ignore his every flaw while shining a glaring light on every weakness of his opponents, no matter how small or petty. When Mitt Romney shaped up as the most obvious opponent for him to face in November, the OWS campaign makes perfect sense to start building resentment and envy toward Americans who are actually competent enough to lead successful careers. But then a funny thing happened.

As the Not-Romneys fell by the wayside one by one, somebody that nobody saw as a viable threat was still standing and going strong. No, I’m not talking about Gingrich. I’m talking about the recent rise of Rick Santorum. Aside from running against Ron Paul (which will never happen), no remaining candidate is as desirable an opponent for Obama as Rick Santorum. He is by far the most social conservative among the candidates, and he has made enough statements regarding women and gays that he would make the perfect target to whip up enthusiasm in a very unenthusiastic left wing base, not to mention the 24/7 news cycle will allow the Palace Guards in the press to ignore real issues and President Obama’s performance while painting Santorum as enough of an extremist to turn off any moderates.

As for abandoning the Catholic vote, Obama has already issued his faux-compromise. My guess is that he’s got enough tricks up his sleeve to throw out between now and November to convince Catholics that he doesn’t really believe that the right to free contraceptives trumps religious freedom. On one of the Sunday new shows George Will chided the Catholic bishops for getting behind Obamacare without thinking through where it would logically progress. I would argue the same about the American people making the decision to elect Obama in 2008. For that matter, I sincerely hope that you are not among the economically illiterate who were led to believe the claims of, "If you like your insurance you can keep it" or that "your premiums will not go up."

Back to the Catholic Church insurance decision – why now? Obama could have easily waited until after the November elections to show his views on religious liberty in this country. If you’re reading this you already know about Santorum’s surge in the polls and recent victories in the primaries. The timing of this announcement was perfect to push religious conservatives toward not the Mormon, but the outspoken Christian in the bunch who is suddenly riding a wave of momentum. We’ve seen how quickly political fortunes come and go, and with enough momentum Santorum could ride this wave to the nomination, helping Obama not only get re-elected, but fire up enough turnout from his base to take back the losses from the 2010 elections.

Any of my regular readers (thank you, both of you!) probably notice something missing from this post. I’m big on citing my sources and embedding links to support my assertions – there aren’t any here. Yes, I could put links backing my statements about the economy and foreign policy, etc, but that wasn’t the purpose of this post. The rest of what I’ve written here are nothing more than my own observations, personal analysis, and theories taking them to a logical conclusion. I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that this is anything more than a conspiracy theory. I just see something happening that makes no sense and am looking for an explanation. If anyone has a better theory, please comment!

Cross posted at Brother Bob’s Blog

This was the ESPN headline that has caused controversy, resulting in the removal of the headline and dismissal of the employee responsible:

ESPN:

At ESPN we are aware of three offensive and inappropriate comments made on ESPN outlets during our coverage of Jeremy Lin.

Saturday we apologized for two references here. We have since learned of a similar reference Friday on ESPN Radio New York. The incidents were separate and different. We have engaged in a thorough review of all three and have taken the following action:

The ESPN employee responsible for our Mobile headline has been dismissed.
The ESPNEWS anchor has been suspended for 30 days.
The radio commentator is not an ESPN employee.

We again apologize, especially to Mr. Lin. His accomplishments are a source of great pride to the Asian-American community, including the Asian-American employees at ESPN. Through self-examination, improved editorial practices and controls, and response to constructive criticism, we will be better in the future.

Personally? I think that’s a rather clever line and as far as I can gather, there was no racist intent to demean Jeremy Lin. Max Bretos, the anchor who has been suspended for 30 days, tweeted the following:

Wanted 2 apologize 2 all those I have upset. Not done with any racial reference. Despite intention, phrase was inappropriate in this context.

My wife is Asian, would never intentionally say anything to disrespect her and that community.

Wanted to thank all those for their support. Has meant a lot to me and my family.

Worthy of blogs and conversation amongst friends (and apparently acceptable if you are doing comedy) but probably not very wise to print/say in the ultra-pc environment that is the mainstream media, populated by the perpetually offended & outraged and hypersensitive among us.

Joe Polito:

Despite the controversial nature of using this phrase to describe this player, the most socially damaging things ESPN could have done were issue a public apology and reprimand its employees.

Imagine a young Knicks fan who loves Lin and sees ESPN apologize for using “chink in the armor.” He then asks: “Dad, what does chink in the armor mean?”

Dad answers saying that it’s a phrase used for when someone has only one weakness. Then the young fan asks why it’s bad to say, and dad is forced to explain to him the derogatory use of the word “chink.” Thus, a meaningless racial slur is preserved because of the hyper-sensitive political correctness of modern media.

By acknowledging this gaffe to such a degree, ESPN increased the social damage exponentially. The headline was only up for 30 minutes and the phrase was only uttered twice out loud: once on TV and once on an ESPN radio broadcast by a non-ESPN employee.

The ESPN.com statement issued stated, “we are aware of three offensive and inappropriate comments made.”

In a certain context, the word chink can be offensive, but the “armor” idiom is used so frequently in sports journalism that it should take precedence. Instead, ESPN wrongly deemed the statements “offensive and inappropriate” and further perpetuated the perceived racism.

From a public relations standpoint, the response from ESPN was a no-brainer. Yet, we ought to care more about the public’s continuing recognition of fake words created by hate-mongers. By ignoring pre-existing definitions and acknowledging ridiculous slurs in an effort to not be considered racist, the media does the exact opposite.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines racism as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities.” Media outlets deciding that, because Lin is Asian, he therefore does not have the capacity to be described using a commonly used phrase is the real racism.

The overreaction the comments spurred outweighs the severity of the comments themselves. Ridiculous concepts like racial slurs will never go away with this attitude. ESPN should have stood firm behind its employees who, most likely, had no bad intentions.

In a case like this, the racism exists nowhere but in our own minds.

Apparently the ESPN editor who was fired, Anthony Federico, wrote the phrase without even thinking of the connection between “chink” and Lin’s ethnicity. I’m willing to give Federico the benefit of the doubt (as does Lin); but even if there was a pun intended, I find it more clever than offensive.

Bruce Maiman offers a bit of history on usage of the word “chink”:

The phrase, ‘chink in the armor’ is some 600 years old. The word ‘chink’ meant ‘slit’ or ‘narrow opening’ –a weak spot– and dates back to circa 1350-1400. Six-hundred years ago, soldiers wore armor. If the armor had a narrow opening in it, it was a weak spot which enemies tried to take advantage of.

It’s first usage as a racial slur occurred somewhere around 1900-1905, or earlier. The narrow opening of Asian American eyes seems to be one derivative. Others suggest that it derived from the sound of working on the railroad, when metal of a hammer hitting the rail gave off a “chink” sound. The labor of Chinese immigrants was instrumental in the building of railway lines and the nation’s expansion westward. It was around this time that Chinese immigration was perceived as a threat to the American way of life, which triggered a wave of anti-Asian xenophobia.

People need to just relax.

Sometimes a story is just too good to let pass

Armed men guarded Media Matters boss as he took $400,000 gun control donation

The recent revelation that the head of Media Matters walked the streets of Washington with a Glock-toting personal assistant acting as a bodyguard may make it a little awkward for the group the next time it seeks a donation from a gun control advocacy group.

Media Matters reportedly took more than $400,000 from the Joyce Foundation specifically earmarked to promote a $600,000 initiative on “gun and public safety issues.” At the same time, Media Matters’ gun-guarded boss David Brock reportedly obsessed over his own security.

“It doesn’t look good,” said Fraser Seitel, president of Emerald Partners Communications and a public relations expert who authored the book “Rethinking Reputation.”

Ya think?

“But it is a gray area in terms of public relations. Since (Media Matters) is so anti-NRA, to have their members packing heat leaves them open to criticism,” he said.

Brock reportedly told confidantes that he feared for his safety and needed hired guns to keep him safe. The District’s gun laws are among the strictest in the nation, which raises the question of whether Brock’s assistant at times was in violation of its ban on carrying a concealed weapon.

“He had more security than a Third World dictator,” one Media Matters employee told The Daily Caller. Brock’s guards rarely left Brock’s side and even accompanied him to his home in a tony Washington neighborhood where they “stood post” nightly, the source told the DC.

Media Matters proudly claims to be engaged in an information war to bring down Fox News, and has been exposed as a distributor of liberal talking points that regularly find their way into the reporting of mainstream media outlets, according to The Daily Caller.

Officials at the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation did not return repeated calls for comment. The nonprofit doles out donations to a variety of groups to address such issues as urban public education, job training, the environment, and gun violence.

Brock even allegedly has an enemies list and may be acting in coordination with the White House.

Brock and Media Matters seem to be suffering a generalized nervous breakdown, but especially so Brock.

David Brock was smoking a cigarette on the roof of his Washington, D.C. office one day in the late fall of 2010 when his assistant and two bodyguards suddenly appeared and whisked him and his colleague Eric Burns down the stairs.

Brock, the head of the liberal nonprofit Media Matters for America, had told friends and co-workers that he feared he was in imminent danger from right-wing assassins and needed a security team to keep him safe.

The threat he faced while smoking on his roof? “Snipers,” a former co-worker recalled.

“He had more security than a Third World dictator,” one employee said, explaining that Brock’s bodyguards would rarely leave his side, even accompanying him to his home in an affluent Washington neighborhood each night where they “stood post” to protect him. “What movement leader has a detail?” asked someone who saw it.

Extensive interviews with a number of Brock’s current and former colleagues at Media Matters, as well as with leaders from across the spectrum of Democratic politics, reveal an organization roiled by its leader’s volatile and erratic behavior and struggles with mental illness, and an office where Brock’s executive assistant carried a handgun to public events in order to defend his boss from unseen threats.

Schadenfreude!

Paging Mr. Schadenfreude!

As of today, it has been 1,028 days since the U.S. Senate last passed a budget.

That’s about 20 dog years.

Imagine if you were employed in a business where one of your duties was to plan an annual budget for each upcoming year and you just decided you weren’t going to do it.  And 1,028 days later, you still had not done it.  Assuming your employer hadn’t already canned, assuredly you would lose your job after such a long failure.  If you are a Democratic Senator, however, you not only keep your job because a majority of the people still vote for you, you get greater influence and power.

To give you an idea of how long 1,028 days is, let’s look at some historical events. Since the Senate last passed a budget on April 29, 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV campaigned for 20 months, was reelected to the Senate and has served more than a year since his reelection. The entire Lewis and Clark expedition in the Pacific Northwest took 862 days. John F. Kennedy served 1,036 days as president before he was assassinated, only 10 more days than the Senate’s current budget failure. The Korean War lasted 1,128 days until the armistice ceased active hostilities.

If ever there was a time for Congress to address the fiscal federal government crisis, this is it. And yet the Senate continues its intransigence even going so far as to say the Budget Control Act passed last year to deal with the debt ceiling is enough. That’s like saying it is just as acceptable for you to increase unilaterally and without any analysis your annual household budget expenditures and borrow the extra money to pay for the increase, as it is for you to actually review your income and expenditures and craft a budget based on the numbers. That might work for a year or so, but 1,028 days is far too long especially given our national debt and deficit crises, the increasingly risk to our nation’s credit rating and currency valuation, and the stagnant economy.

One big reason why we see this is most senators know their constituents will never vote them out. Do you think of senators like Reid, Kerry, Feinstein, Boxer, Schumer, Durbin, Murray, and Mikulski fear losing their seats?  They and their liberal brethren might as well have life-time appointments given their constituencies.  Before you point out Senator Scott Brown, R-MA taking over for Ted Kennedy, he is a rare exception who had to wait until Kennedy died–after Kennedy served in the Senate for several decades. And Brown has turned out to be a Massachusetts moderate who will doubtless face a serious election challenge from the left.  So the Senate will continue not doing its job and liberals will continue to accuse Republicans of leading a “do nothing Congress.”

Now that’s chutzpah.

I have little confidence that Reid and his cronies will act with any degree of fiscal responsibility. Given President Obama’s sorry excuse for a budget proposal–not to mention his penchant for profligate spending–I have no confidence in him either. Frankly, I also don’t have much confidence in Republican House and Senate members either, outside of the few who are truly committed to cutting spending, lowering taxes and reducing the size and scope of the federal government.  Meanwhile, our state and local governments are stretched increasingly thinner as the federal government takes more money, mandates more restrictions and curtails people’s freedoms.  What is largely missing from the federal government’s current operating structure is a designated place at the table for the state governments to have their interests considered in the process of national governing and budgeting.

There is a crisis in the Senate that must be changed.  Now is time to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.

The Seventeenth Amendment states in essence that senators are to be elected by popular vote. Previously, Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution vested in each state legislature the power to appoint its two senators.  Now if you are conservative, and tend to favor a smaller, decentralized federal government with more power, liberty and freedom in the hands of individuals and state and local governments, you might question the wisdom or merits of repealing the Seventeenth Amendment since it gives additional power to voters. Yes, the power ended up with the people but it was taken from the state legislatures, leaving the states with no institutionalized legislative voice at the federal level.

When the Founding Fathers were considering language for our Constitution regarding the make up, function and election of legislators, they debated the issue of how to balance federal and state sovereignty while ensuring federal and state governments would function with an appropriate degree of interdependency.  In Federalist No. 59, Alexander Hamilton described this balancing act with recognition of concerns that states could shut down the Senate if given the authority to appoint senators.  Hamilton concluded that vesting power in state legislatures to appoint senators was “an evil; but it is an evil which could not have been avoided without excluding the States, in their political capacities, wholly from a place in the organization of the national government.”  In other words, states would have no political place in the federal government absent their power to appoint legislative representatives.

Hamilton’s concerns were well founded in the late 1780s.  Northern free states and southern slave states distrusted each others motives and wanted to ensure equal power sharing.  Sparsely populated states were concerned about the influence that more heavily populated states like New York would have if Congress had two houses with straight proportional representation.  States with no claims to western lands feared losing clout to those with potential to expand territory westward.  Reflecting the political climate, the Founding Fathers feared one or more states could effectively stall the Senate by refusing to appoint one or both of its senators.  However, Hamilton argued that giving states the power to appoint House members every two years, instead of senators every six years, would mean, “every period of making [the House appointments] would be a delicate crisis in the national situation,” potentially resulting in the dissolution of the Union. With state representation considered vital, the best place for it was the Senate.

James Madison also addressed the issue in Federalist No. 62.  Madison did not spend much time on the topic but simply recognized that state legislative power to appoint senators is, “probably the most congenial [option] with the public opinion.”  He continued noting, “It is recommended by the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the State governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government as must secure the authority of the former, and may form a convenient link between the two systems.”

This represents a small example of the astounding brilliance of the Founding Fathers.  Learned men of faith were attempting to invent a system of governance that divided power among federal, state and local governments, and the people, and strike the proper balance among them all.  And this issue shows their concern for all parties with a solution that struck just such a balance.  The senate would give each state government equal representation in the federal government to provide a balance against federal tyranny and, as Constitutional Convention delegate Edmund Randolph put it, “to restrain, if possible, the fury of democracy” that could arise from the House.

Vesting power in state legislatures to elect senators was not, however, without potential problem.  Possible corruption loomed largest as the founders wondered whether senate positions would be bought and sold.  The other primary issues were possible state collaboration to thwart Senate function and individual state legislatures deadlocking on choosing senators.  None of these potential problems manifested to any significant degree to disrupt the Senate in its first century.

Meanwhile, the push to reform senate elections sputtered for more than a century.  Many state legislatures had passed laws for the people to vote for Senate candidates in a non-binding advisory capacity.  There developed a perception that the Senate was becoming out of touch with the people and increasingly “aristocratic.”  As populism and progressive politics continued to rise in the early twentieth century, the states ultimately ceded their authority to the people by ratifying the Seventeenth Amendment and creating two “peoples” houses in Washington.

For the last century, the states have no legislative branch to represent their interests and check federal power.  As a result, the balance of power has tipped dramatically in favor of federal government power.  We see this in countless federal legislative acts throughout the last century including, for example, FDR’s New Deal programs and more recently Obamacare.

Repealing the Seventeenth Amendment will restore governmental balance.  It will not fix all of the Senate’s problems over night but it would be a huge step forward.

Could state legislatures of today “buy and sell” Senate seats if they are returned power? Yes, but the current system is not immune from this type of corruption.  One need only look at disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) to see a recent example.  Could states refuse to appoint senators or band together to bring Senate business to a halt?  Yes, but the differences between states today in our fully developed nation are miniscule compared to the real disputes over slavery, territorial expansion and influence that existed 230 years ago.  Could the Senate become an “aristocratic” body if the legislatures elect them?  Frankly, it already has.  It is hard to imagine a more aristrocratic legislative body than our current Senate.  Many of the members listed above are among the wealthiest people in America and scores of senators of both parties accumulated their wealth while serving in the Senate.

Our economic crisis is so severe, the federal government’s power so large and unwieldy, its taxing, spending and borrowing so extravagant, that the balance of power must be reestablished.  Term limits might help but even popularly elected, term-limited senators would not have motivation to represent their state government’s interests.  It’s still the people who vote.  Change can only come if senators are accountable to their respective state governments.  Only then can the states act again as an effective counterweight to federal power. 

The people have their voices represented in the House.  Representatives are elected every two years so the people do not have to wait long to “throw the bum out” if they choose.  A Senate that goes 1,028 days without a budget is irretrieveably broken and unresponsive to either the people that elect them every six years or the states that are supposed to share government power with the feds.  It’s time for the states to regain their place of influence the way the Founding Fathers so brilliantly intended.

Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.  And impose term limits while your at it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not to be confused with the Sarah Palin movie. This one isn’t about partisan politics. It’s not even about football. Football is merely the vessel carrying the spiritual nourishment. Sports is merely the microcosm for the battlefield which we call life, testing us; revealing what we are made of. It’s about having the character necessary to deal with failures and setbacks even when you’ve done everything right; it’s about looking at the bigger picture and not placing limitations upon yourself, feeling sorry for yourself, and becoming a victim of the negative circumstances that surrounds your life. Just because fate would have you born into poverty instead of privilege does not mean that you will be disadvantaged your whole life. Life is about making choices and there are good choices and bad choices to be made. There are things that are beyond our reach and control; and when we’ve made the right decisions and things still don’t go our way, how we respond to those setbacks is within our reach and control. We do have choices.

Being a father, a mentor, importance of being part of a family and team, living to help others outside of your own skin and subsequently and consequently by so doing, helping yourself…

That’s what I got out of the film. It’s an amazing piece of documentary, captured and edited in a way that you could not teach a more relevant story for dealing with life’s adversity; especially for those growing up in inner city culture, surrounded by poverty, crime, and broken homes.

What’s equally amazing is that all of this is real. Hollywood could not have scripted better lines or created more larger-than-life characters than the very real coaches and players in this film.

Undefeated:

Directed by Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin, Undefeated is the real-life version of NBC’s acclaimed drama Friday Night Lights—albeit twice as poignant. The film chronicles the 2009 high-school football season of the Manassas Tigers, a ragtag bunch of inner-city black kids from a destitute section of Memphis that used to be the crime capital of America. Since its founding in 1899, the Manassas football team had never won a playoff game, and in recent years, even resorted to participating in “pay games” where their squad was bused to richer schools several hours away to get their asses kicked in exchange for a few thousand dollars, which would then be funneled back into the underfinanced Manassas football program.

In stepped Bill Courtney, who joined the school as coach in 2004, and immediately changed the culture. He starting Manrise, a booster club to help fund the football team, ending the embarrassing “pay games”; convinced a group of talented eighth-grade players to stay in town and play ball at Manassas; and mentored his troubled kids on and off the field. Coach Bill’s efforts finally paid off in 2009. His gifted eighth-grade recruits—led by O.C. Brown and overachiever Montrall “Money” Brown at the offensive-tackle positions—are now seniors, and Manassas has finally fielded a team with the potential to win the school’s first playoff game ever.

I found it refreshing that race and prayer weren’t made into a focal-point issue; religious expression was open and natural, and simply was:

and while their initial conceit was that of a Blind Side-esque saga tackling race, religion, class, and one star’s struggle to overcome a litany of obstacles, they eventually found that, despite allegations that the film recklessly ignores matters of race and religion levied by The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, those hot-button issues didn’t play a big role at Manassas.

“We were like, ‘Why is O.C. living with Mike? What is his angle?’” said Martin. “We wanted to focus more time on that but it just wasn’t an issue. Same with Bill being a white coach at an African-American school.” Adds Lindsay, “We also asked Bill, ‘Isn’t it weird for people to be praying before games?’ And he said, ‘This is the South. If you tried to change it, you would be run out of town.’ It wasn’t an issue. If we had made it an issue it would have been irresponsible of us.”

During their first trip to Memphis, the filmmaker met Coach Bill as well as “Money,” and decided to broaden the scope of their film, picking individuals with the greatest potential for change, or those overcoming the biggest obstacles. They settled on O.C., “Money,” an undersized offensive tackle with a big heart boasting a 3.8 GPA who hopes to get a scholarship to attend college, and junior linebacker Chavis Daniels, who had just returned form serving 15 months in a youth penitentiary on account of his extreme anger issues. Still, Coach Bill had his reservations about turning the cameras on his team of resilient young men.

“When these Southern California guys first showed up wearing goofy socks and straight-legged jeans, you kind of took it with a grain of salt,” Coach Bill told The Daily Beast. “But when they moved here, it became pretty evident they were serious about telling our story.”

The ending on the field may not be the one we were cheering to have happen, but it is perfect and it is real: It makes the movie’s message resonate about character and about how we man-up to failure.

The ending off the field is the one that gave me emotional tears; and it was the one that left me spiritually fulfilled and satisfied.

Team Photo of The Manassas Tigers on the verge of victory in Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin's film "Undefeated"., Courtesy of The Weinstein Company