Politics

Pelosi and Progressive Neo-Leninism

May 4, 2011May 9, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Marvin Folkertsma
Nancy Pelosi’s ascension to the speakership in 2006 launched exuberant encomiums to the democratic process, inspiring her further to shout to her vote-challenged opponents in a tone somewhere between a chortle and a boast, “We won the election!” The Democrats’ victory was sufficient to inflict ObamaCare on the nation as well as to impose tighter controls over American financial life, but ran out of steam when it came to a few other progressive pet projects, such as cap-and-trade and card check.

No matter: the Environmental Protection Agency is picking up where Congress faltered in regulating carbon output, and the National Labor Relations Board is doing its best to relegate American free enterprise to that utopian level of economic stagnation and misery known as pre-Thatcherite Britain. In the meantime, now-Minority Leader Pelosi is lamenting about how elections really shouldn’t matter as much as they do. [Read more…]

Why Obama Doesn’t Think Much of Easter

April 26, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by L.D. Breen
The media and the blogosphere are abuzz with dumbfounded reactions to the White House’s snub of Christians during the weekend. No presidential proclamation celebrating Christianity’s highest holy day of Easter was issued, compounded by the White House chief spokesman’s scoffing response to reporters’ questions about the omission.

As Fox News noted on Monday, “By comparison, the White House has released statements recognizing the observance of major Muslim holidays and released statements in 2010 on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha.” On top of neglecting Easter, the president “also failed to release a statement marking Good Friday.” The White House did, however, “release an eight-paragraph statement heralding Earth Day,” which fell on Good Friday. [Read more…]

GOP: Still Clueless After All These Years

April 5, 2011April 7, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Tim Daughtry –
One of the most brilliant strokes of political genius ever was the idea of capturing a nation’s cultural institutions as a means of capturing political power. Unfortunately, it was the Marxist intellectuals of the early 1900s who hit upon the idea. The real path to revolution, they realized, was not control of the means of production, but control of the topic of discussion.

Marxist theorists saw schools, labor unions, news media, seminaries and even the family as fronts in the war against free societies. The power of these institutions lay in the fact that they determine the “narrative” of the political debate. They determine the buzz phrases, which topics get discussed and which ones ignored, who are the “good guys,” and who are the “bad guys.”

So when Marxists come to power, as they did in 2008, the narrative that rings from the institutions is “hope, change and reform.” When the mainstream comes to power, as we did in 2010, the narrative becomes “hate, extremism and shutting down the government.” [Read more…]

A Liberal by Any Other Name

April 3, 2011April 5, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Christian D. Malesic –
Those on the left side of the political spectrum have always wrestled with labels, wearing them proudly until they become dirty words and then throwing them quickly to the curb. Nonetheless, in order to communicate with one another, our language needs a term that describes the political views of those who oppose the conservatives of the Right.

Historically speaking, the left were ‘progressives’ then ‘liberals’; now they want to be ‘progressives’ again. Around the start of the 20th century (circa 1900), the term progressive came into popularity and common use. It was used proudly by many on the left to describe their political ideology until sometime in the 1940s when it began to fade away. Essentially, the progressives themselves showed the American public what it was that a progressive believed through President Woodrow Wilson’s anti-Capitalism and pro-Socialism stances, onto which President Franklin D. Roosevelt placed an exclamation point with his New Deal. [Read more…]

Leave Jesus Out of the Budget Battle

March 14, 2011March 15, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Gary Bauer –

We have an obligation to help the poor. But nowhere does the Bible state that the power of government should be used to take one man’s money by force of law and give it to another man. Jesus’ admonition was a personal command to share, not a command for Caesar to “spread the wealth around.” …

Jim Wallis, a self-identified “Christian leader for social change,” has embarked on a crusade against Republican budget cuts he believes are “unbiblical.” But Wallis and others on the evangelical Left are on dangerous ground when they claim to know exactly which budget items God would approve and which he would cut.

Wallis has launched the “What Would Jesus Cut?” campaign to fight against Republican cuts in the 2011 and 2012 budgets—cuts to welfare programs, college grants, and international aid—and against Republicans’ proposed 2% increase in defense spending.

The campaign’s premise, as the group declared in a recent Politico ad, is that “cutting programs that help those who need them most is morally wrong.” [Read more…]

Time for War Against Democrats’ Fiscal Sabotage

March 13, 2011March 15, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by David Limbaugh –

It is amazing that the American people would continue to elect Democratic politicians to national office, considering Democrats’ cynical disregard for the federal budget crisis. They aren’t even slightly serious about becoming part of the solution.

Consider the Senate Democrats’ most recent proposal for budget cuts to avert a government shutdown. Senate Republicans, following the House plan, proposed $61 billion in cuts for the current year, while Senate Democrats proposed a paltry $6.5 billion. (The Congressional Budget Office says it’s actually only $4.7 billion.) Though Obama seems to be hiding in the bushes on this one, he is said to support the Democratic plan.

Did you hear that: $6.5/$4.7 billion? This is nothing. It’s an outrage. This from the clowns who say the Republican cuts, which themselves wouldn’t be enough, are “Draconian.” No, it’s their attitude that is Draconian — to the republic. [Read more…]

The Put-Off, Postpone and Procrastinate Generation

March 10, 2011March 10, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Victor Davis Hanson –

The Obama administration figures that it has read the national mood well. This therapeutic generation of Americans loves to talk and worry about problems and then assumes that either someone else will solve them or they will go away on their own. And why not, since we have had periodic “energy crises” since 1974, have run budget deficits in most years since World War II, and have been warned about a looming Social Security meltdown for the last decade — and yet remain wealthy and affluent.

But now gasoline costs more than $4 a gallon in many places in California, and averages more than $3.50 nationwide. In response, the Obama administration is reportedly considering tapping into the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase supplies and drive down high prices brought on by a recovering world economy and unrest in the oil-rich Middle East.

Yet the reserve depot was not designed to alleviate periodic gas-price spikes, but to ensure our very survival during a global catastrophe that might result in a cutoff of most petroleum imports from overseas. [Read more…]

We, the Unhyphenated Americans: Meet My People

March 5, 2011March 6, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Michelle Malkin –
My fellow Americans, who are “your people”? I ask because U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who is black, used the phrase “my people” in congressional testimony this week. It was an unmistakably color-coded and exclusionary reference intended to deflect criticism of the Obama Justice Department’s selective enforcement policies. It backfired.

In pandering to skin-deep identity politics and exacerbating race-consciousness, Holder has given the rest of us a golden opportunity to stand up, identify “our people” and show the liberal poseurs what post-racialism really looks like. [Read more…]

The Party of Big Government

February 23, 2011February 23, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Vasko Kohlmayer –
Having apparently realized that this country is bankrupt, President Obama recently proposed cutting deficit spending by $1.1 trillion over the next ten years.

Some people were impressed. Some people complained it was too much. After all, $1.1 trillion looks like a big pile of money.

The president’s proposal, however, is only symbolic. It is only meant for show. During that ten year period the federal government will spend well over $40 trillion. What Obama is proposing is a drop in the bucket.

But this does not stop him from going in front of the camera and posing as a deficit hawk. The president should be ashamed of himself. He is a quack who is taking this country down the road to fiscal doom.

There is only one group of people we should fear even more than Obama. They are Republicans. Republicans are quacks too, but this is a bit more difficult to perceive. [Read more…]

Can Truth Prevail in a Culture of Spin?

February 20, 2011February 21, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Judith Anderson –
The answer is yes. Absolutely! Truth is what is unequivocally true. It is not constrained by ideology, creed, or spin. Crushing debt destroys families and governments. Endless, deceitful war-making destroys republics. U.S. citizens are getting a huge dose of reality as our policies in Egypt are exposed to the light. For years we have borrowed money to prop up despots in the Middle-East who are out of touch with their own people. An insistent, vocal majority of Americans don’t want ObamaCare. They are ignored by politicians who intend to impose it on them against their will. Blatant, naked truth trumps spin.

Specious, false, fraudulent argument by czars, presidents, individuals and speakers for all manner of causes are being swept away in the bright glare of reality. Spin and in some cases outright lies in matters of national security, environmental protection and government spending are failing the smell test for all but the most ardent partisan ideologue. [Read more…]