Newspeak and Global Tranquility

In a recent article, I made the case for the deliberate corruption of English to serve a political motive. On Monday July 14, 2014 White House press secretary Josh Earnest stepped further down this dubious road inventing a completely new phrase about Obama Administration's foreign policy ... I want some of what he is smoking.

Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles in the Times were written in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be carried out by a specialist. It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more in their everyday speech. The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are concerned here. 

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum. 

Newspeak was founded on the English language as we now know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when not containing newly-created words, would be barely intelligible to an English-speaker of our own day. Newspeak words were divided into three distinct classes, known as the A vocabulary, the B vocabulary (also called compound words), and the C vocabulary. It will be simpler to discuss each class separately, but the grammatical peculiarities of the language can be dealt with in the section devoted to the A vocabulary, since the same rules held good for all three categories. 

George Orwell, 1984
"The Principles of Newspeak,"

From CNSNews:

More than one reporter during Monday’s press briefing referred to a front-page Wall Street Journal article highlighting some of those crises, and citing security strategists as saying “the breadth of global instability now unfolding hasn’t been seen since the late 1970s.” 

“How does the White House react to the notion that the president is a bystander to all these crises?” asked Fox News’ Ed Henry, citing the widening gaps between the sides in the Iranian nuclear talks, the conflict in and around Gaza, and the Syrian civil war. 

“I think that there have been a number of situations in which you’ve seen this administration intervene in a meaningful way, that has substantially furthered American interests and substantially improved the, uh, you know, the – the tranquility of the global community,” Earnest replied. 

... ABC News’ Jon Karl quoted Attorney General Eric Holder’s assessment in an interview aired Sunday that the terrorist potential arising from Westerners returning home after fighting in Syria was “more frightening than anything I think I’ve seen as attorney general.”
Karl then pointed to “what’s looking like an all-out war” between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Sunni jihadist successes in “taking over vast territory in Iraq and in Syria,” Russian aggression in Ukraine, and concerns about Chinese handling of territorial disputes in the South China Sea. 

“It doesn’t seem like a time to be touting tranquility on the international scene,” he told Earnest. “Do you think the president’s foreign policy bears any responsibility for any of this, or is there anything he can do about any of this?” 

Earnest said President Obama’s thinking about foreign policy was guided by one core principle – “the national security interests of the United States of America.”

IN his recent piece writing for The Washington Post Dana Milbank also citing the Wall Street Journal piece wonders:

The Journal’s catalogue of woes — civil wars in Iraq and Syria, hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians, an electoral crisis in Afghanistan, tension with Russia over Ukraine, floundering nuclear negotiations with Iran and renewed Chinese expansionism — didn’t include the current crisis on the United States’ Southern border. 

Could things get any worse? Well, maybe if the president’s chief spokesman claimed that Obama was bringing “tranquility” to the globe — which is what White House press secretary Josh Earnest did at his daily briefing Monday afternoon. 

Fox News’s Ed Henry, citing the Journal report, asked for a reaction to “the notion that the president is a bystander in all these crises.” 

... Earnest, mentioning the disposal of Syria’s chemical weapons, Secretary of State John Kerry’s mediation of Afghanistan’s electoral dispute and progress in recent negotiations with China, argued that “there have been a number of situations in which you’ve seen this administration intervene in a meaningful way that has . . . substantially improved the — you know, the tranquility of the — of the global community.” 

Tranquility? Where, in Iceland?

Mike Miller writing for Independent Journal Review takes it a step further with the following list:

1. Obama Draws Red Line On Syrian Use Of Chemical Weapons; Does Nothing When Assad Gases His Own People
2. Russia Annexes Crimea; Obama Slaps Sanctions On Putin’s Pals
3. U.S. Border Out of Control As Thousands Pour Into Country; Obama Asks For Billions To House Them
4. North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon, Rockets; Responds To Obama’s Threats By Calling Him Names
5. Obama Unilaterally Lifts Sanctions On Iran; Mullahs Continue Pursuit Of Nuclear Weapons
6. Terrorists ‘On The Run’ In Libya Kill U.S. Ambassador, Three Other Americans In Benghazi
7. Obama Suspends U.S. Aid To Egypt After Ouster Of Muslim Brotherhood; Russia Now Supplying Military Hardware To Egypt
8. Obama Releases ‘Taliban-5′ Dream Team In Exchange For Army Deserter Bowe Bergdahl
9. Germany Expels Top U.S. Intel Official Over NSA Spying Scandal
10. Obama’s Abrupt Withdrawal From Iraq Leads To Rise Of Muslim Extremism, Creation Of Islamic State

Tranquility must have taken on a completely NEW meaning while I slept this past weekend.

Or have I been eating paint chips again?

Are we really a Cracker Nation ?

Or as Eric Holder opined a "nation of cowards"

It's a rhetorical question, and I don't think either is the case, though to listen to the progressive socialists you would think BOTH are true. Yes Mr. Holder, we should be having a frank discussion about race, racial issues, racism and the growing popularity of throwing the race card as a sign of defeat, or lack of other evidence in the National Narrative these days. When you run out of constructive argument, or are otherwise defeated in debate, logic or argument, throw the race card. It's sure to garner a 72 hour news cycle for you, and the pile on of other progressive socialists will be on every talk show, spewing the same filth for as long as they are given an audience.

Take for example your recent remarks on ABC:

Attorney General Eric Holder is challenging Republicans who are calling for his and President Obama's impeachment, and denouncing what he calls a "gridlocked Washington" stalled by what he says is a Republican Party bent on blocking any of the administration's efforts. 

“For whatever reason, [some] Republicans decided early on that this was a president they were just simply not going to cooperate with,” Holder said in a rare interview with ABC News' Pierre Thomas. "And over the past five-and-a-half years, we have seen demonstrations of that, where the president has reached out his hand, offered compromises that have simply not been met [in the way] they have been in the past by a Republican Party willing to do the appropriate things." 

Administration efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform, for example, have failed. Asked about calls by Sarah Palin to impeach Obama over the administration’s immigration policies, Holder said: “She wasn't a particularly good vice presidential candidate. She's an even worse judge of who ought to be impeached and why.” 

Holder similarly dismissed calls for himself to be impeached for declining to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS scandal. Holder insisted that a special prosecutor isn’t necessary, with “career people” and FBI agents “doing a good, professional job” investigating the matter. 

... Holder said that he and President Obama are treated differently than their predecessors.
“There's a certain level of vehemence, it seems to me, that's directed at me [and] directed at the president,” Holder said. “You know, people talking about taking their country back. … There's a certain racial component to this for some people. I don’t think this is the thing that is a main driver, but for some there's a racial animus.” 

... In addition, Holder took Republicans to task for efforts to, among other things, enact voter ID laws in some states. He called such moves “political efforts” aimed at making it “more difficult” for “groups that are not supportive of those in power” to “have access to the ballot.” 

“Who is disproportionately impacted by them? Young people, African Americans, Hispanics, older people, people who, for whatever reason, aren't necessarily supportive of the Republican Party,” Holder said, noting that “this notion that there is widespread in-person voter fraud is simply belied by the facts.”Holder said the Justice Department is expected to soon file challenges to restrictive voting laws in Ohio and Wisconsin, as the department already did in Texas and North Carolina.

There is a lot of material there, most of it is utterly false, but George Stephanopoulos did little (as usual) to call Holder to task. A study of his claims of "restrictive voting laws" by the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA actually proves just the opposite happened as reported in the findings of the North Carolina court and by The Blaze

If there was a hidden agenda behind North Carolina’s voter ID law to suppress minority turnout – as the law’s opponents claim – it hasn’t worked, based on a study showing not only more voters overall, but an increase in black voter turnout especially, after the law’s implementation. 

Study on North Carolina Voter ID Law Shows Increase in Minority Turnout
AP
The findings came before a scheduled hearing next week where the U.S. Justice Department will ask a U.S. District Court for an injunction against the law going into the November midterms. The Obama administration has argued that such a law will make it more difficult for minorities to vote. 

Comparing May 4, 2010 North Carolina primary election data with the May 14, 2014 primary data, the study found that voter turnout increased across the board, but particularly among black voters, where it increased by 29.5 percent, compared to an increase of white voter turnout of 13.7 percent. The findings were based on Census Bureau data and public names who signed the voter rolls. 

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, commissioned the study and included the findings in an amicus brief for the July 7 hearing. Judicial Watch was joined in its legal brief by the Allied Educational Foundation and by former Buncombe County commissioner candidate Christina Kelley Gallegos-Merrill. 

... North Carolina adopted a law in line with 37 other states that don’t allow same-day voter registration, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. 

“The recent election in North Carolina shows that the Obama administration is engaged in a race-baiting canard when it suggests that voting integrity measures suppress minority votes,” Fitton said. “It is high time that the Obama administration comes into line with the majority of the American people who want to strengthen rather than weaken ballot box integrity.”

It makes no difference to the progressive socialists, the race card and accusations are STILL flying:

Civil rights lawyers and activists are gathering in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for the start of the legal challenge that is expected to last all week. They will be seeking to persuade a federal district judge to impose a preliminary injunction against key aspects of HB 589, the voting law enacted by state Republicans last August. 

Lawyers for the North Carolina branch of the NAACP and the civil rights group the Advancement Project will argue that the main pillars of the law should be temporarily halted ahead of a full trial next year. Otherwise, they say, tens of thousands of largely poor black voters could find themselves turned away at the polls at the midterm elections in November. 

“This is the worst voter suppression law we have seen since the days of Jim Crow. It is a full-on assault on the voting rights of minorities,” said Reverend William Barber, president of the North Carolina state conference of the NAACP.

Not to be outdone in the slime game New York Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel "suggested in an interview that aired Monday that the level of Republican opposition to President Barack Obama is partly due to race."

When asked by MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt whether GOP opposition to the president is “based on race,” Rangel paused and said, “You know, that’s a subjective question. But, let me say this: Are most of the states that they represent, are they in the Confederate states that fought the Union? Were they slaveholder states? And when they come to Washington, do you see more Confederate flags than American flags?” 

When asked by MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt whether GOP opposition to the president is “based on race,” Rangel paused and said, “You know, that’s a subjective question. But, let me say this: Are most of the states that they represent, are they in the Confederate states that fought the Union? Were they slaveholder states? And when they come to Washington, do you see more Confederate flags than American flags?”

The Politico piece goes further quoting Sen. Jay Rockefeller "The retiring West Virginia Democrat said that some in the GOP don’t want the implementation of the health law to succeed because they don’t personally like the president and maybe he’s of the wrong color." Another Politico recent article highlighted the dual between Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Ron Johnson and direct (and denied) accusations of racism. You may read the whole piece here

Rockefeller’s remarks about Republican opposition to Obamacare amounted to implying that Johnson is “a racist.” 

As he chaired a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat accused the GOP of opposing President Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act because he’s the “wrong color,” eliciting an emotional reaction from Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, that the Democratic senator “would basically imply that I’m a racist.” 

... “That you would say that opposition to Obamacare necessarily must stream from some inherent racism? Very offensive. Listen, my opposition to health care has nothing to do with the race of President Obama,” Johnson said. “It is the greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime.

And of course who could forget Obama's own ridiculous comments following the Trayvon Martin shooting and the public calls for bounties on George Zimmerman's head!

But I did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling. You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African-American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that -- that doesn’t go away. 

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.
And there are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator. 

There are very few African-Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often. 

And, you know, I -- I don't want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida.
And it's inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.

So what has been the position of the "right" in response to all this false narrative? Very little actually, I guess few have the cajones to take it on. In 2010 Republican National Committee, Michael Steele appearing on ABC with Jake Tapper offered "our party has always had a strong view on this issue. We fought very hard in the '60s to get the civil rights bill passed as well as the voting rights bill. So I think that, you know, any -- any, you know, attempted look backwards, it's not in the best interests of our country, certainly, and certainly not in the best interests of the party." As it turns out he is correct:

The Civil Rights Act -- which is best known for barring discrimination in public accommodations -- passed the House on Feb. 10, 1964 by a margin of 290-130. When broken down by party, 61 percent of Democratic lawmakers voted for the bill (152 yeas and 96 nays), and a full 80 percent of the Republican caucus supported it (138 yeas and 34 nays).
When the Senate passed the measure on June 19, 1964, -- nine days after supporters mustered enough votes to end the longest filibuster in Senate history -- the margin was 73-27. Better than two-thirds of Senate Democrats supported the measure on final passage (46 yeas, 21 nays), but an even stronger 82 percent of Republicans supported it (27 yeas, 6 nays). 

The primary reason that Republican support was higher than Democratic support -- even though the legislation was pushed hard by a Democratic president, Lyndon B. Johnson -- is that the opposition to the bill primarily came from Southern lawmakers. In the mid 1960s, the South was overwhelmingly Democratic -- a legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction, when the Republican Party was the leading force against slavery and its legacy. Because of this history, the Democratic Party in the 1960s was divided between Southern Democrats, most of whom opposed civil rights legislation, and Democrats from outside the South who more often than not supported it. 

This pattern showed clearly in the House vote. Northern Democrats backed the Civil Rights Act by a margin even larger than that of Republicans -- 141 for, just four against -- while Southern Democrats were strongly opposed, by a margin of 11 yeas to 92 nays. 

When the Voting Rights Act hit the floor in 1965, the vote results mirrored those of the Civil Rights Act. In the House, the measure passed by a 333-85 margin, with 78 percent of Democrats backing it (221 yeas and 61 nays) and 82 percent of Republicans backing it (112 yeas to 24 nays). 

In the Senate, the measure passed by a 77-19 vote, with 73 percent of Democrats and 94 percent of Republicans supporting the bill. 

So it's clear that Republican support for both bills was deep. But to make sure we weren't missing something, we contacted a number of scholars who have studied that period, asking whether Republicans were dragged into supporting the bills reluctantly, or whether they took frontline roles in advancing them.

And if that quote from Politifact isn't enough, there is always the Congressional record itself. We should remember Senator Robert Byrd led the then longest filibuster in US Senate history AGAINST the Civil Rights Act of 1964

e longest continuous debate in Senate history took place in 1964 over the Civil Rights Act. Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who had proposed the legislation, it was strongly advocated by his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. Addressing a joint session of Congress just after Kennedy’s death, Johnson urged members of Congress to honor Kennedy’s memory by passing a civil rights bill to end racial discrimination and segregation in public accommodations, public education, and federally assisted programs. In his address, Johnson declared, “we have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law.” 

On February 10, 1964, the House of Representatives voted in favor of the bill, HR 7152. When the House-passed bill arrived in the Senate on February 26, 1964, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield placed it directly on the Senate calendar rather than refer it to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by civil rights opponent James Eastland of Mississippi. On March 9, when Mansfield moved to take up the measure, southern senators launched a filibuster against the bill. The Senate debated the bill for sixty days, including seven Saturdays. 

At the time, a two-thirds vote, or sixty-seven senators, was required to invoke cloture and cut off debate in the Senate. Since southern Democrats opposed the legislation, votes from a substantial number of senators in the Republican minority would be needed to end the filibuster. Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic whip who managed the bill on the Senate floor, enlisted the aid of Republican Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois. Dirksen, although a longtime supporter of civil rights, had opposed the bill because he objected to certain provisions. Humphrey therefore worked with him to redraft the controversial language and make the bill more acceptable to Republicans. Once the changes were made, Dirksen gained key votes for cloture from his party colleagues with a powerful speech calling racial integration "an idea whose time has come."

So are we really a Cracker Nation ? Or as Eric Holder opined a "nation of cowards" ...

Or have I been eating paint chips again?

If Obama vomited on the floor ...

"Reid, Pelosi, and the CBC, would be fighting each other for the honor to LICK IT UP! LERNER would lick it up too but she will not go to prison for him. She will eventually talk and when she does, she's taking down the whole corrupt Democrat Party with her, FOREVER!"

So goes the partial quote of a comment by Steven Chavez in reaction to a piece about Senator Harry Reid's latest race baiting example while tackling a tough progressive issue, the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Hobby Lobby. The full quote:

HARRY is nothing but a crooked "VEGAS CRAP DEALER!" Every roll of his tongue stinks like Bull Crap just like his Boss, "The Chicago BullS-HITTER!" 

DID REID get Romney's tax info from Obama via Lerner/Shulman? 

IF OBAMA VOMITED on the floor, Reid, Pelosi, and the CBC, would be fighting each other for the honor to LICK IT UP! LERNER would lick it up too but she will not go to prison for him. She will eventually talk and when she does, she's taking down the whole corrupt Democrat Party with her, FOREVER!

The article is actually a The Daily Caller reaction to a Las Vegas Review-Journal Editorial

As The Daily Caller relates:

The trigger for the Review-Journal was a comment Reid made earlier this week after the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision. 

In a 5-4 decision, the Court sided with Hobby Lobby, allowing it and other “closely-held” corporations to skirt the Obamacare mandate that requires companies to provide health insurance plans to their employees that contain coverage for certain contraceptives. Companies like Hobby Lobby can now cite their religious principles in deciding to not provide coverage for those contraceptives. 

An angry Reid criticized the decision, saying, “The one thing we are going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later, is to ensure that women’s lives are not determined by the virtues of five white men.” 

The issue there is that only four of the justices that sided with Hobby Lobby are white. The fifth justice was Clarence Thomas, who is black.

In an even more humorous piece Daily Caller asserts Sen, Reid evidently forgot that Justice Thomas is black:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is so angry over the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the Hobby Lobby contraception case last week that he apparently forgot Justice Clarence Thomas is black. 

The Nevada Democrat lamented the court’s ruling which allows Hobby Lobby and other for-profit companies with religious objections to certain forms of contraception to avoid providing them to employees in health insurance plans mandated under Obamacare.
Hobby Lobby approves of 16 out of 20 forms of contraception that have been approved by the FDA. 

“People are going to have to walk down here and vote, and if they vote with the five men on the Supreme Court, I think it’s — they’re going to have — be treated unfavorably come November with the elections,” Reid told reporters on Tuesday, according to ABC.
The Senate will act soon to “ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men,” Reid added. 

But his reference to “five white men” was off by 20 percent. 

Only four of the male justices who sided with Hobby Lobby — John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy — are white. The other — Clarence Thomas — is black.

Sen. Reid may be going slowly senile:

As the Las Vegas Review-Journal put it:

Harry Reid is the da Vinci of distraction. The moment any scandal, policy failure or political defeat crashes down on him — and there have been plenty the past few years — the Senate majority leader unleashes outrageous rhetoric that’s better suited for a sandbox than what once passed for the world’s greatest deliberative body. Worse, the Nevada Democrat has become especially fond of slinging race cards just to crank up the outrage. 

Last week, Sen. Reid was in rare form following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn part of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. The 5-4 ruling declared that closely held for-profit businesses, such as craft retailer Hobby Lobby, do not have to provide some forms of birth control to female employees if doing so violates the owners’ religious beliefs. Sen. Reid eviscerated the decision. “The one thing we are going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later, is to ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men,” Sen. Reid said. 

That Sen. Reid would inject race into criticism of a ruling with gender-based ramifications was bad enough. What made the comment far worse, however, was that it was completely false. Justice Clarence Thomas, who happens to be black, sided with the court’s majority in the Hobby Lobby case. 

... We thought the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president was supposed to herald an age of post-racial politics. So much for hope and change. Quit the race-baiting already, Sen. Reid. You’re clearly colorblind — in all the wrong ways.

Then of course there is this quote flying around attributed to Obama, and the pretense that he said it recently "No, you can't deny women their basic rights and pretend it's about your "religious freedom". If you don't like birth control, don't use it. Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs."

True to form, the progressive socialists are still pretending he said it, and pretending it applies to the Hobby Lobby decision, even though it's been documented as a false attribution as early as 2012.

The 2012 campaign isn’t the first to be marked by rumors and distortions. But it’s already setting new land-speed records for the time it takes a tossed-off comment or flat-out falsehood to develop into a “fact” accepted by half the political world. The “report” that Obama would be traveling to Paris to hold a European fundraiser on the Fourth of July was just the latest example of partisan lying. 

Every time it happens, supporters of the rumor’s target bemoan the gullibility of their partisan counterparts. How could anyone think Obama was born in Kenya?! Does anyone really believe Romney doesn’t know what a doughnut is?! 

The reason distorted or fabricated tales about political candidates spread so quickly, of course, is because people want to believe the very worst about their opponents. They also want to believe the very best about their own candidates. That appears to be why a lie about Obama became a viral sensation among his own supporters this year

It's sad really, the lengths the progressive socialists will go to, defending their immorality and vice, of course as The Daily Caller points out, they are even trying to harvest political points from this obvious racist gaff by Reid:

In his comments Tuesday, Reid challenged Republican senators to cast a vote in favor of a legislative fix that he and other Democrats will soon be pushing. A vote against the proposal, claims Reid, will hurt the GOP at the polls in November. 

The effort, which will be led by Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, will seek to fill the “contraceptive coverage gap” for women whose companies, citing religious principles, choose not to provide coverage for contraceptives. 

Reid has said that the Senate will act “in coming weeks.” 

Reid has made insensitive remarks about race in the past. He apologized for comments he made during the 2008 presidential campaign when he said that then-Senator Obama being “light-skinned” in appearance and “with no Negro dialect” would benefit him in the election.

So is my new "friend" Steven Chavez, If Obama vomited on the floor ... Reid, Pelosi, and the CBC, would be fighting each other for the honor to LICK IT UP! ?

Or have I been eating paint chips again?

Only the Irreligious are Worthy of Rights

“No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body.” — Margaret Sanger (Her motto: “No gods — No masters.”)

So begins the New York Times full page ad.

Are you dismayed and alarmed by the Supreme Court’s June 30 Hobby Lobby ruling? The Supreme Court’s ultra-conservative, Roman Catholic majority — Justices Roberts, Scalia,
Alito, Kennedy and Thomas — has sided with zealous fundamentalists who equate contraception with abortion. The court has granted employers with “sincere” religious objections the right to deny women employees insurance coverage for birth control. 

This ruling marks a turning point in the struggle to uphold civil liberties in the face of relentless attacks by the Religious Right. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people. Now, the Supreme Court asserts that corporations have “religious rights” that surpass those of women. In the words of Justice John Paul Stevens, “Corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires” — but real women do. 

Allowing employers to decide what kind of birth control an employee can use is not, as the Supreme Court ruled, an “exercise of religion.” It is an exercise of tyranny.

How appropriate that The New York Times should quote Margaret Sanger

At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in New York City, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the "black" and "yellow" peril. The man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger's American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood. 

Sanger's other colleagues included avowed and sophisticated racists. One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against White Supremacy. Stoddard was something of a Nazi enthusiast who described the eugenic practices of the Third Reich as "scientific" and "humanitarian." And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another Sanger associate and board member for her group, spoke of purifying America's human "breeding stock" and purging America's "bad strains." These "strains" included the "shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South." 

Not to be outdone by her followers, Margaret Sanger spoke of sterilizing those she designated as "unfit," a plan she said would be the "salvation of American civilization.: And she also spike of those who were "irresponsible and reckless," among whom she included those " whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers." She further contended that "there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped." That many Americans of African origin constituted a segment of Sanger considered "unfit" cannot be easily refuted. 

... Sanger's obsession with eugenics can be traced back to her own family. One of 11 children, she wrote in the autobiographical book, My Fight for Birth Control, that "I associated poverty, toil, unemployment, drunkenness, cruelty, quarreling, fighting, debts, jails with large families." Just as important was the impression in her childhood of an inferior family status, exacerbated by the iconoclastic, "free-thinking" views of her father, whose "anti-Catholic attitudes did not make for his popularity" in a predominantly Irish community. 

Read more here

That Margaret Sanger founder of Planned Parenthood was a eugenics proponent is not a matter of debate as detailed in The Washington Times

Recent articles have reported on an unearthed video from 1947 of Margaret Sanger demanding “no more babies” for 10 years in developing countries. A couple of years ago, Margaret Sanger was named one of Time magazine’s “20 Most Influential Americans of All Time.” Given her enduring influence, it’s worth considering what the woman who founded Planned Parenthood contributed to the eugenics movement. 

Sanger shaped the eugenics movement in America and beyond in the 1930s and 1940s. Her views and those of her peers in the movement contributed to compulsory sterilization laws in 30 U.S. states that resulted in more than 60,000 sterilizations of vulnerable people, including people she considered “feeble-minded,” “idiots” and “morons.” 

She even presented at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1926 in Silver Lake, N.J. She recounted this event in her autobiography: “I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan … I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses … I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak … In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered” (Margaret Sanger, “An Autobiography,” Page 366). That she generated enthusiasm among some of America’s leading racists says something about the content and tone of her remarks. 

... “While I personally believe in the sterilization of the feeble-minded, the insane and syphilitic, I have not been able to discover that these measures are more than superficial deterrents when applied to the constantly growing stream of the unfit. They are excellent means of meeting a certain phase of the situation, but I believe in regard to these, as in regard to other eugenic means, that they do not go to the bottom of the matter.” (“Birth Control and Racial Betterment,” Feb. 1919, The Birth Control Review). 

“Eugenics without birth control seems to us a house builded upon the sands. It is at the mercy of the rising stream of the unfit” (“Birth Control and Racial Betterment,” Feb. 1919, The Birth Control Review). 

“Stop our national habit of human waste.” (“Woman and the New Race,” 1920, Chapter 6). 

Read more here

You can read one of Sanger's publications in her own words here

And the interview by Mike Wallace

More in Sanger's own words:

EACH of us has an ideal of what the American of the future should be. We have been told times without number that out of the mixture of stocks, the intermingling of ideas and aspirations, there is to come a race greater than any which has contributed to the population of the United States. What is the basis for this hope that is so generally indulged in? If the hope is founded upon realities, how may it be realized? To understand the difficulties and the obstacles to be overcome before the dream of a greater race in America can be attained, is to understand something of the task before the women who shall give birth to that race. 

... Can we expect to remedy this situation by dismissing the problem of the submerged native elements with legislative palliatives or treating it with careless scorn? Do we better it by driving out of the immigrant's heart the dream of liberty that brought him to our shores? Do we solve the problem by giving him, instead of an opportunity to develop his own culture, low wages, a home in the slums and those pseudo-patriotic preachments which constitute our machine-made "Americanization"? 

Every detail of this sordid situation means a problem that must be solved before we can even clear the way for a greater race in America. Nor is there any hope of solving any of these problems if we continue to attack them in the usual way. 

Men have sentimentalized about them and legislated upon them. They have denounced
{p. 44}
them and they have applied reforms. But it has all been ridiculously, cruelly futile. 

This is the condition of things for which those stand who demand more and more children. Each child born under such conditions but makes them worse--each child in its own person suffers the consequence of the intensified evils. 

If we are to develop in America a new race with a racial soul, we must keep the birth rate within the scope of our ability to understand as well as to educate. We must not encourage reproduction beyond our capacity to assimilate our numbers so as to make the coming generation into such physically fit, mentally capable, socially alert individuals as are the ideal of a democracy. 

The intelligence of a people is of slow evolutional development--it lags far behind the reproductive ability. It is far too slow to cope with conditions created by an increasing population, unless that increase is carefully regulated. 

We must, therefore, not permit an increase in population that we are not prepared to care for to the best advantage--that we are not
{p. 45}
prepared to do justice to, educationally and economically. We must popularize birth control thinking. We must not leave it haphazardly to be the privilege of the already privileged. We must put this means of freedom and growth into the bands of the masses. 

We must set motherhood free. We must give the foreign and submerged mother knowledge that will enable her to prevent bringing to birth children she does not want. We know that in each of these submerged and semisubmerged elements of the population there are rich factors of racial culture. Motherhood is the channel through which these cultures flow. 

Motherhood, when free to choose the father, free to choose the time and the number of children who shall result from the union, automatically works in wondrous ways. It refuses to bring forth weaklings; refuses to bring forth slaves; refuses to bear children who must live under the conditions described. It withholds the unfit, brings forth the fit; brings few children into homes where there is not sufficient to provide for them. Instinctively it avoids all those things which multiply racial handicaps. Under such circumstances we can hope
{p. 46}
that the "melting pot" will refine. We shall see that it will save the precious metals of racial culture, fused into an amalgam of physical perfection, mental strength and spiritual progress. Such an American race, containing the best of all racial elements, could give to the world a vision and a leadership beyond our present imagination.

In a recent piece for MSNBC Sara Kugler writes:

Women’s experiences with questions of reproductive justice in the United States have often been tied to race. 

In the introduction to Dorothy Robert’s 1997 book Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, she writes: 

“The systematic, institutionalized denial of reproductive freedom has uniquely marked Black women’s history in America. Considering this history – from slave masters’ economic stake in bonded women’s fertility to the racist strains of early birth control policy to sterilization abuse of Black women during the 1960s and 1970s to the current campaign to inject Norplant and Depo-Provera in the arms of Black teenagers and welfare mothers – paints a powerful picture of the link between race and reproductive freedom in America.” 

Today we are going to discuss birth control, and the woman who spent her life advocating for its universal availability: Margaret Sanger. 

Sanger is credited with coining the term “birth control” and founded the American Birth Control League, a precursor to Planned Parenthood, at a time when contraceptives were still criminalized under the Comstock Act. She was instrumental in bringing about the first FDA approved oral contraceptive, Enovid. 

But Sanger was also a proponent of eugenics, and saw birth control as a method of promoting that agenda.

So for me at least, the ad and it's quote of a racist eugenics proponent is entirely appropriate.

Or have I been eating paint chips again?

The Politics of Advantageous Racism

Institutionalized racism is rampant in American politics and it's perpetuation is a permanent part of the Democratic platform.

Never mind the actual history of racism, let's save time and acknowledge that racism exists on both sides of the aisle, it serves no purpose to suggest or argue otherwise. It IS however a feature and platform of the leftist progressive movement to perpetuate it's existence, and to pretend that their insistence that it is the exclusive "fault" of the right, or anyone who disagrees with or challenges their stand on ANY MATTER essentially boils down to either racism, misogyny, homophobia or some combination thereof. What is most disturbing about this is that it goes completely unchallenged and that under the Obama administration is growing in effect and popularity, and it's influence grows wider encompassing more "issues" each day.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) is as dumb as a box of soap, and loves to cite pure fiction, make unchallenged and outrageous claims of racism and is now making a platform of of "equality" for the invasion across our Southern border. As a "freed slave" she is a self-proclaimed expert on racial suppression.

Lee "believes the border crisis is not a national security threat, despite gangsters having already been apprehended along the United States-Mexico border."

In fact, Jackson Lee waved a bag of lollipops during a Thursday House Homeland Security Field Hearing in McAllen, Texas, and said she took bags of such lollipops to the illegal immigrant children in detention centers during recent visits. 

"This is not a national security crisis," Jackson Lee emphasized, noting that she was not armed and did not fear for her life when visiting the children. Jackson Lee said Border Patrol agents claimed the children were some of the most "orderly" and "behaved" children they have encountered.

In 2011 before the House Committee on Homeland Security on radicalization in American Muslim communities it was the suppression of Muslims as reported by The Daily Caller.

“I brought with me the Constitution, the living, breathing document. The First Amendment allows us the freedom of religion. The freedom of association and expression,” she said. “But I will tell you today, that this breathing document is in pain.” 

Turning to Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, the head of the American-Islamic Forum for Democracy and a witness at the hearing, she asked, “Mr. Jasser, may I just ask, are you a Muslim?”
“I’m a devout Muslim who prays and fasts and tries to raise my kids to be conservative orthodox Muslims, yes I am,” he replied. 

“Thank you, sir. Are there any other Muslims on the witness table?” she asked. There were.
“The reason why I ask that question is because Muslims are here cooperating,” Jackson Lee said. “They are doing what this hearing has suggested that they do not do! It is an irony and an outrage that we are wasting time when Muslims are sitting before us, a Muslim is on this panel, a Muslim has testified, so I question, where are the uncooperative Muslims?” 

Jackson Lee concluded her time with a final word against the hearings: 

“Millions of Americans find community, comfort and support in their faith. That includes President Obama, who is a Christian but spoke in Cairo. So today reminds us that being religious is never un-American! Being religious is quintessentially American. God bless America!”

Curious that she would bring the US Constitution with her to Congress, the implication of course is that she has exclusive and better "knowledge" of it than others present at the hearing. It's pretty evident otherwise, “Maybe I should offer a good thanks to the distinguished members of the majority — the Republicans, my chairman and others — for giving us an opportunity to have a deliberative constitutional discussion that reinforces the sanctity of this nation and how well it is that we have lasted some 400 years, operating under a constitution that clearly defines what is constitutional and what is not.”

She sees racism behind any "issue" or subject you could name, including gun control “Don’t condemn the gangbangers, they’ve got guns that are trafficked -- that are not enforced, that are straw purchased and they come into places even that have strong gun laws." “Why? Because we don’t have sensible gun legislation.”

Lee has been a long time supporter of Obamacare, and the extension of Obamacare to illegal aliens, and that anyone who brings any kind of challenge to Obamacare is by definition both racist and a misogynist and are the same as those who opposed civil rights reformation.

Lee of course wants nothing to stand in the way of Obama's desired reforms and changes for America, no matter the issue as long as a way can be found for Obama policy to go forward, regardless of impact or legality:

“give President Obama a number of executive orders that he can sign.”
Jackson Lee added that writing up executive orders “should be our number one agenda.”
“We will be answering the call of all of America because people need work and we’re not doing right by them by creating work,” the Texas congresswoman said. “I believe this caucus will put us on the right path and we’ll give President Obama a number of executive orders that he can sign with pride and strength,” Jackson said Jan. 29 at a press conference where she and fellow Democrats launched the Full Employment Caucus.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is one of many I could name, including any number of the members of this questionable body of "believers"

Or have I been eating paint chips again?

The dilution of vocabulary as a tool of absolutism

English was a beautiful language, it's corruption for political purposes has a very deliberate and dark side.

Having spent many hours pouring over the writings of John Locke and a good number of the Founding Fathers, I've developed a longing for the return of the eloquent language of English. Raised on JRR Tolkien and other prominent English writers, the ground was already rich and fertile. Thomas Jefferson was very gifted with language as evidenced from this early draft of The Declaration of Independence:

When in the Course of human Events it becomes necessary for a People to advance from that Subordination, in which they have hitherto remained and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the equal and independent Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes, which impell them to the Change. 

We hold these Truths to be self evident; that all Men are created equal and independent; that from that equal Creation they derive Rights inherent and unalienable; among which are the Preservation of Life, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these Ends, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the governed; that whenever, any form of Government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter, or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its power in such Form, as to them shall Seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shown, that Mankind are more disposed to Suffer, while Evils are Sufferable, than to right themselves, by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, begun at a distinguish'd Period, and pursuing invariably, the same object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Power, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity, which constrains them to expunge their former Systems of Government. The History of his present Majesty, is a History of unremitting Injuries and Usurpations, among which no one Fact stands Single or Solitary to contradict the uniform Tenor of the rest, all of which have in direct object, the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be Submitted to a candid World, for the Truth of which We pledge a Faith, as yet unsullied by falsehood.

President George Washington in his farewell address spoke with remarkable elegance and foresight:

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. 

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

Contrast today's presidential folly and tyranny:

"So sue me," he taunted on a sweltering day, as he pushed lawmakers to pay for road and bridge repairs. "I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something. 

... "So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked or voted down every serious idea to strengthen the middle class — not ideas that are unique to me," he said. "But the Republicans have said no to raising the minimum wage, have said no to fair pay. They've said no to extending unemployment insurance for over 3 million Americans looking for a new job."

There has been a gradual usurpation of all kinds of language and meanings of language, deliberate distortions which go way beyond the gradual and natural drift of language over time. Phrases on the lips of politicians, pundits and the press these days:

• Illegal Immigrant
• Gay
• Liberal
• Racist/Racism
• Discrimination - which without a qualifier is actually a DESIRABLE trait in man
• Equality - as referenced in the Declaration of Independence - with specific meaning and referenced rights, NOT meaning equal in economic station or results of labor
• Equal Rights
• Diversity
• Occupation
• Insurgent

There are completely fabricated phrases as well "homophobic" (an absolutely moronic term) "global warming" also designed to divide or categorize rather than to liberate.  Whole new ways of public castigation of your fellows have been invented, pursuing a progressive agenda of absolutism and despotism.  In his delightful romp of intellectual rhetorical argument for Hoover Institute, The Language of Despotism by Bruce Thornton argues this while not anything particularly new, he also suggests something far more sinister is going on:

Long before 1984 gave us the adjective “Orwellian” to describe the political corruption of language and thought, Thucydides observed how factional struggles for power make words their first victims. Describing the horrors of civil war on the island of Corcyra during the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides wrote, “Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.” Orwell explains the reason for such degradation of language in his essay “Politics and the English Language”: “Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” 

Tyrannical power and its abuses comprise the “indefensible” that must be verbally disguised. The gulags, engineered famines, show trials, and mass murder of the Soviet Union required that it be a “regime of lies,” as the disillusioned admirer of Soviet communism Pierre Pascal put it in 1927. 

Our own political and social discourse must torture language in order to disguise the failures and abuses of policies designed to advance the power and interests of the “soft despotism,” as Tocqueville called it, of the modern Leviathan state and its political caretakers. Meanwhile, in foreign policy the transformation of meaning serves misguided policies that endanger our security and interests. 

... In foreign policy, however, the abuse of language is positively dangerous. Since 9/11, our failure to identity the true nature of the Islamist threat and its grounding in traditional Islamic theology has led to misguided aims and tactics. Under both the Bush and Obama administrations, for example, the traditional Islamic doctrine of jihad––which means to fight against the enemies of Islam, which predominantly means infidels––has been redefined to serve the dubious tactic of flattering Islam in order to prevent Muslim terrorism. 

... Thus in 2008 the National Terrorism Center instructed its employees, “Never use the term jihadist or mujahideen in conversation to describe terrorists,” since “In Arabic, jihad means ‘striving in the path of God’ and is used in many contexts beyond warfare.” Similarly, CIA chief John Brennan has asserted that jihad “is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community,” despite the fourteen centuries of evidence from the Koran, hadiths, and bloody history that jihad is in fact predominantly an obligatory armed struggle against the enemies of Islam. The reluctance to put Muslim violence in its religious context reflects not historical truth, but a public relations tactic serving the delusional strategy of appeasing Muslims into liking us. 

... This may sound like quibbling over careless language, but the dishonest use of “border” reinforces and encodes in peoples’ minds the big lie of the conflict––

Read the rest here and decide ...

Or have I been eating paint chips again?