http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345598/understanding-gosnell-kathryn-jean-lopez ‘They were filled with expectation . . . the expectation that there was Something More than the atrocious evil that had befallen them . . . Something More than the darkness . . . Something More than despair.” So said Father Peter John Cameron, a Dominican priest and editor of Magnificat, a daily devotional, to the families of Newtown, Conn., gathered at St. Rose of Lima […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345662/i1984i-29-victor-davis-hanson
Imagine if, during the campaign of 2008, someone had written the following: “If Barack Obama is elected president, then each year from now on the federal budget will be a trillion dollars in the red. He will pile up in two terms more debt than all previous presidents combined. Interest rates will stay at near zero; 7.6 percent unemployment will be proof of progress in creating jobs. Record use of food stamps, unemployment, and disability insurance will be hallmarks of recovery. The government will take over health care, and the costs will skyrocket. During Obama’s second term, ammunition will vanish from America’s store shelves in panic buying. Gay marriage will become uncontroversial. Women will be eligible for infantry combat. The only question about amnesty for illegal aliens will be when, not if, it is enacted. States will begin legalizing marijuana.” Obviously, such a conspiracist would have been dismissed as an unhinged nut.
You may object that Obama himself has hardly been responsible for all these radical transformations. True, but he helped to create, in brilliant fashion, a “hope and change,” quasi-revolutionary climate — the political cover, if you will, for the media, the universities, federal judges, state legislatures, and Congress to reinvent American popular culture and tradition in a manner rarely if ever seen in the past.
How, then, did the Obama team do that?
LANGUAGE
First were the necessary changes in language. In the Obama age, as in Orwell’s 1984, the natural meanings of words had to change. See the third book of Thucydides’ history for the details.
Running up serial trillion-dollar deficits was not profligacy, but rather making “investments” for “the children.” Irresponsible borrowing became “stimulus.” Indeed, “trillion” — not a frequently used part of most people’s vocabulary before 2009 — suddenly replaced “billion” as a familiar fiscal numerical adjective. A takeover of health care that would spike premiums and ration services, devices, and procedures was aptly named the “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
“Assault weapons” superseded “semi-automatic rifles,” even as “semi-automatic” and “automatic” were no longer distinct adjectives. The obvious purpose of rapid-fire weapons was to kill innocent children, not to protect your household from intruders, to shoot fast-moving game, or to practice a sport at a shooting range, much less to remind the government, in Second Amendment fashion, that the populace was autonomous and vigilant.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/did_jay-z_hear_about_the_cubans_who_risked_their_lives_rather_than_watch_his_little_walk_in_havana.html
Another side of Cuba that Jay-Z did not see is that of a dozen Cubans found in the ocean escaping the island.
Two different cruise ships picked up Cubans in make shift rafts trying to escape Cuba. These Cubans chose to risk their lives rather than greet Jay-Z and spouse in the streets of Havana.
My guess is that Jay-Z and spouse do not have a clue that some Cubans would rather risk death than watch their little walk in Havana. Yes, a few Cubans wanted nothing to do with that “educational” trip after all. I think that Cubans can smell a propaganda charade miles away. They’ve had their share of charlatans who smoke cigars for 50 years.
Mr & Mrs Carter also showed incredible hypocrisy when they said nothing about Roberto Zurbano, a black Cuban who lost his job for writing about racism in Cuba.
Zubrano wrote the truth, i.e. there is great dissatisfaction in the Cuban black population about the revolution’s priorities and choices. He touched on a topic that the “revolution” avoids. The Castro PR machine, with the assistance of too many clowns in the US, has pushed the idea that “white rich Cubans” left for Miami and that “blacks” finally got their due. Not really. Not really at all.
Zubrano confirmed what Brian Lloyd French, a Canadian writer, said to me a few weeks ago. Brian confirmed that blacks are excluded from positions of responsibility in the government as well as those joint ventures that international companies do with the Castro family.
Zubrano focused on black Cubans. However, the Cuban “revolution” has failed all Cubans, unless you are part of the party elite, the privileged class that gets to watch US baseball games on cable TV and go on the internet.
Overall, a bad week for Jay-Z and the Cubans that he left behind. Maybe the next guy who gets to go on an “educational” trip will actually educate himself about Cuba.
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/happy_birthday_israel.html If countries were people and Israel was an American, it would begin to collect Social Security in nine months. It would be eligible for a reverse mortgage and only a few years from mandatory withdrawals from its 401k. We’d be talking retirement and watching the grass and the grandchildren grow. In national terms, Israel […]
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/04/15/under-pressure-hagel-replaces-dronefare-medal-with-distinguishing-device/
WHO IS DUMB AND DUMBEST? HAGEL OR SENATOR JOE MANCHIN (D W.VA)?????
After pushback from Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has decided to roll back plans for the dronefare medal.
On Feb. 13, the Pentagon established of the Distinguished Warfare Medal to recognize the achievements of “a small number of service men and women who have an especially direct and immediate impact on combat operations through the use of remotely piloted aircraft and cyber operations.”
Lawmakers were concerned about the proposed precedence of the new medal over combat medals including the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Production on the DWM was stopped after Hagel agreed to review the medal.
“While the review confirmed the need to ensure such recognition, it found that misconceptions regarding the precedence of the award were distracting from its original purpose,” Hagel said in a statement today.
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the concurrence of the service secretaries, have recommended the creation of a new distinguishing device that can be affixed to existing medals to recognize the extraordinary actions of this small number of men and women,” he continued. “I agree with the Joint Chiefs’ findings, and have directed the creation of a distinguishing device instead of a separate medal.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Hagel’s statement confirmed why he voted for his confirmation: “Simply put, he does the right thing.”
“Secretary Hagel’s commonsense approach to reviewing this important issue proves to our combat veterans that their sacrifices are valued,” Manchin gushed. “I truly am grateful for his leadership and for his willingness to listen to all who care so deeply about this issue.
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/04/15/the-men-responsible-for-starving-egyptian-families/?singlepage=true Egypt’s pound has fallen by 40% since last December, from 6 to the dollar to 8.25 to the dollar on the black market. The prices of basic food items like beans and milk have risen by more than that, pricing all forms of protein out of the range of the half of Egyptians who […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/04/two_new_palestinian_myths.html Two new Arab myths have surfaced in the past week to complicate attempts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to procure the resumption of the long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the PLO. The first myth can be directly attributed to Mustafa Barghouti — a presidential candidate for the now defunct Palestinian National Authority […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324695104578418491184138804.html The Castro regime wasn’t going to allow an easy victory for the opposition candidate who has pledged to stop sending oil to Havana. Venezuela held a presidential election on Sunday to replace left-wing populist Hugo Chávez, whose death was announced on March 5. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) put up Nicolás Maduro, […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324030704578424520066643466.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_Opinion They say history repeats itself as farce, but it usually takes longer than this. A day after the U.S. government published its list of Russians banned from travel to the U.S. under the Magnitsky Act, Russia responded Saturday with two lists of its own. The first is what the Russian Foreign Ministry dubbed the […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/jamie-glazov/the-devil-in-history/
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Vladimir Tismaneanu, a Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and author of several books, including Stalinism for All Seasons: A History of Romanian Communism (UC Press), Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism and Myth in Post-Communist Europe, and Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel. His new book is The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century.
FP: Dr. Vladimir Tismaneanu, welcome to Frontpage Interview. It is an honor and a privilege to have you with us.
Congratulations on this fascinating, brilliant and captivating book. It is a stupendous achievement.
I simply couldn’t put it down till I finished it.
Tismaneanu: It is a pleasure for me to engage in this dialogue. I know some of the contributors to Frontpage; I have known David Horowitz and Peter Collier since the 1980s. Your kind words honor me, especially coming from someone with your family background.
The book tries to offer a comparative perspective about those regimes that have taken a horrible toll on families like yours and mine. I am sure you noticed how important it is in the logic of my demonstration to highlight the extraordinary insights of the great novelist and moral thinker Vassili Grossman. You and I know that the Devil is not simply a theological construct, a whimsical metaphor or a speculative fantasy. Living within totalitarianism, surviving within an infernal universe, has been a real experience for millions of human being.
