A Season’s Greetings Note from Ben Stein

January 1, 2012…..I am practicing my year date to get accusomed to the New Year, and to remind Prager fans that we have one more Season’s Greetings  day tomorrow, January 2, 2012.

And so, I have one more Season’s Greetings note to pass on to my friends, known and unknown;   This one is from TV character, political conservative character, Ben Stein.   It was passed on to me by neighbor Bruce Taber:

 AS WE GET CLOSER TO CHRISTMAS THIS WILL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO PONDER.

Apparently the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees for the first time this year which prompted CBS presenter, Ben Stein, to present this piece which I would like to share with you. I think it applies just as much to many countries as it does to America .

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a crèche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God ? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said okay.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace. Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it…. no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Comment:  And a Happy New Year to All, (you too, Ben Stein!   Some of you might remember that Ben Stein is the ‘star’ of the popular CD, “Expelled:  No Intelligence Allowed”, an  investigation into  academia’s world of religious bigotry.  In it Ben corners famous and abundantly proud athiest, Richard Dawkins to confessing, “I don’t know”  referring to the genesis of life.    I found that a good moment for Dawkins, for his  honest confession    returned him to the admirable part of  human  life.

I applaud Ben Stein for ‘worming’ it out of  the professor.

Obama’s Holder Warring against South Carolina’s Efforts to Reduce Voter Fraud

Holder bets Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act

on opposition to photo-ID voting requirements

posted  by Ed Morrissey   at HotMail:

 

For a man who supposedly doesn’t have the faintest clue what his own ATF is doing while bodies pile up in the hundreds in Mexico, thanks to Operation Fast and Furious, Eric Holder is rather busy sticking his nose into the business of states — and perhaps spelling the end of disparate treatment by the Department of Justice of southern states entirely.  The DoJ, through its Civil Rights division, announced that it would block a new South Carolina law that required voters to show a photo ID when casting a vote, claiming that it had a disproportionate impact on minority voters.  The Wall Street Journal scoffs at the claim, and points out that Holder has put the DoJ on a fast track to losing Section 5 in the 1965 Civil Rights Act as a result:

In a letter to South Carolina’s government, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez called the state law—which would require voters to present one of five forms of photo ID at the polls—a violation of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Overall, he noted, 8.4% of the state’s registered white voters lack photo ID, compared to 10% of nonwhite voters.

This is the yawning chasm the Justice Department is now using to justify the unprecedented federal intrusion into state election law, and the first denial of a “pre-clearance” Voting Rights request since 1994.

One of the forms of acceptable photo ID is the South Carolina identification card issued by the state … for free.  Applicants have to show proof of residency in the state and a birth certificate or passport that shows US citizenship.  If they lack a birth certificate, the state will provide a certified copy for $12, either in person, by mail, or by phone for an additional fee of $12.95.  Note that the federal government requires states to check photo-IDs to get gun permits, another right explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution, for which all of these same fees would apply in South Carolina.

Interestingly, this is almost identical to Indiana, which has a provision for free state IDs but only for the purpose of voting.  They require the same documents to get the state ID, and charge between $5 to $12, depending on which county the birth record resides.  Why is Indiana important?  Because the Supreme Court approved an identical photo-ID voting requirement in Indiana in 2008, not to mention one in Georgia, also covered by Section 5, in 2005:

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was created to combat the systematic disenfranchisement of minorities, especially in Southern states with a history of discrimination. But the Justice position is a lead zeppelin, contradicting both the Supreme Court and the Department’s own precedent. In 2005, Justice approved a Georgia law with the same provisions and protections of the one Mr. Holder nixed for South Carolina. In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board that an Indiana law requiring photo ID did not present an undue burden on voters.

In a later case, this one involving Holder, the Court declined to make a decision about Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, although they did note the “substantial federalism costs” of interfering in the law-making ability of a subset of states decades after the voting-rights issues have been settled.  But that’s not all they said on the matter to Holder:

A second case offers a further glimpse into the High Court’s perspective on the modern use of Section 5. In 2009′sNorthwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder, the Court declined to decide the question of the constitutionality of Section 5, writing that while it imposes “substantial federalism costs,” the “importance of the question does not justify our rushing to decide it.” But the Justices didn’t stop there.

They also cast real doubt on the long-term viability of the law, noting in an 8-1 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts that it “imposes current burdens and must be justified by current needs.” That such strong criticism was signed by even the Court’s liberals should concern Mr. Holder, who may eventually have to defend his South Carolina smackdown in court.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley tells us she “will absolutely sue” Justice over its denial of her state’s law and that challenge will go directly to federal district court in Washington, D.C. From there it may be appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which would have to consider whether South Carolina can be blocked from implementing a law identical to the one the High Court approved for Indiana, simply because South Carolina is a “covered” jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act.

In the 2008 case, Section 5 wasn’t an issue, since Indiana wasn’t a covered state under its terms.  It will be a big part of the case when Haley pushes it to the Supreme Court, not just on the thin 1.6% difference that the DoJ cited, but because the Court will have to take into account the 2008 case when it decides on South Carolina’s law.  They can’t uphold the DoJ’s interpretation without relying on Section 5, but overruling the DoJ on this would all but eviscerate that section — and return the states under its aegis to the same voting-rights standards as every other state in the union, even if the Supreme Court doesn’t explicitly end Section 5, which the 2009 case showed they seriously considered doing at the time.

That wouldn’t be a bad outcome for anyone except Holder, Obama, and the radical activists on their staff at the DoJ’s Civil Rights division.

Walter Russell Mead: What the “Progressive” Hugo Chavez is Theorizing these Days

Chavez Falls Off The Edge of the World

Walter Russell Mead    at the American Interest:

Hugo Chavez has a new theory: that the US has developed a secret technology and is using it to give cancer to left wing Latin American rulers that we don’t like.  After all, Fidel Castro, the Hero of Venezuela himself, the president of Paraguay, the current and former presidents of Brazil and now Cristina Kirchner of Argentina have all come down with (quite different) cancers.  Bringing the logical acuity and sure grasp of the laws of probability and of cause and effect that he brings to all his policy making, Chavez, the Times of India reports, has shared his reasoning with the world:

“It would not be strange if they had developed the technology to induce cancer and nobody knew about it until now … I don’t know. I’m just reflecting,” he said in a televised speech to troops at a military base. “But this is very, very, very strange … it’s a bit difficult to explain this, to reason it, including using the law of probabilities.”

Unfortunately, the US Department of State has felt it necessary to respond, calling the Chavez statements “horrific and reprehensible.”  Machiavelli would have counseled an enigmatic smile and a statement emphasizing the importance of regular physical exams as there does seem to be a lot cancer around these days — and would have suggested that we go on to offer treatment in the US to President Chavez and his colleagues if they are worried.

Chavez’ statement like most of his speeches was intended more as political theater than as serious analysis of the way the world works; nevertheless it is interesting to see how the cancer charge reflects ideas he shares or thinks will jazz up his base.  As a psychological portrait of a certain element of the Latin left, the speech is quite revealing.

First, the US is portrayed as immensely powerful.  As a society we not only produce medical advances that others seek to imitate; we have mastered the secret technologies of cancer itself.  The secrets in our labs are years beyond the pitiful, pathetic efforts of Venezuelan and Cuban scientists and health workers.  Who knows what other incredible advances the capitalist world masters are holding in reserve: drones are clearly just the tip of the iceberg.

Yet this analysis of our alleged medical prowess, like much leftie analysis of our alleged political omnicompetence, is curiously disembodied from actual knowledge of how either science or power works.  There are many different kinds of cancer and so far as the (settled?) science tells us, they don’t have much to do with each other.  It is conceivable that US scientists might discover how to spread one particular type of cancer; it is cuckoo to think we have stumbled on a host of such techniques.

Second, this all powerful American capitalist monster is uniquely concerned with the mortal threat posed by the heroic populist revolutionary movements of Latin America. American policymakers do not actually think about Hugo Chavez very much; when they do they see him more as an irritating nuisance than mortal danger: a buzzing horsefly, not a tiger or even a cobra.  The response is logical: ignore his irritating buzzing as much as possible, though when and if he prepares to land and bite (for example, if his cooperation with Iran and/or narco-terrorists linked to Hezbollah gets out of hand), one doesn’t rule out the possibility of a slap or at least a wave of the hands to make him fly off.

This is not what Chavez wants his followers to believe.  There must be a cosmic drama: Don Quixote tilting at a giant.  “Aspiring anklebiter” is not how the glorious leader of the Great Bolivarian Cultural Revolution wants to be known.  The Colossus of the North must be dedicating the supreme gifts of its scientific imagination, the most intense and top secret efforts of its nefarious super spies and the full attention of its national security establishment and corporate state to combat the uniquely deadly threat posed by Citizen Chavez and the aroused masses behind him.

This line of thought has a long history in the Latin and Caribbean left.  Most US based policy people sympathetic to Latin America think that Latin America’s relative unimportance to the US is responsible for many of the historic failings of US policy in the hemisphere.  In the 1950s for example Western Europe was too important to be left to banana companies as a foreign policy playground.  Corporate interests and others were often able to dominate the formation of US policy toward Latin America because nobody else was in the room.

Latin lefties often try to recast this history: America’s resource based policy toward many Latin American countries (more interest in getting the copper/bananas/tin/whatever out on the cheapest possible terms than in doing anything constructive to help the people) reflects the unique and vital importance to the US economy of Latin America’s strategic natural resources.  Latin America is a central theater of American foreign policy in this view, rather than, as most Americans who think about it at all assume, a dismal and somewhat depressing backwater in America’s world efforts.

But if we are using the top cancer-causing secrets of our top scientists primarily on the Latin left, it is obvious to a child (at least to a Latin leftie child) that Latin America matters hugely to the US and indeed that the continent and its left hold the keys to the world’s future in their confident hands.

The sad truth is that even if we had invented some kind of untraceable multi-cancer agent and decided to use it, we wouldn’t be wasting it on Venezuela.  There might be a wave of cancers in Iran, where recent news events point to a certain activism on the part of US and other agents.  Some Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders, and perhaps a few others in the region, might suddenly show the effects of intensive chemotherapy.  But as is so often the case, poor Latin America would be the orphan stepchild of US foreign policy.  Maybe we would give Chavez the flu.

Finally, the cancer story bolsters another important Chavez myth: that the Latin left is united.  If Lula and Chavez are both victims of the same imperialist plot, it is obvious that both are part of the same cause.

Again, from the point of view of most US policy thinkers, this is wishful thinking rather than geopolitical analysis.  In the US, Lula is widely regarded as a benign figure the success of whose moderate and pro-market policies did more to check Chavez’ revolutionary career than any other force in the world.  Lula showed that a left that respects the institutions of the market and of private property can develop a successful capitalist economy whose wealth can then improve the lives of the poor.  The contrast with Chavez, whose misgovernment in Venezuela requires constant subsidies from his country’s irreplaceable oil wealth, could not be greater — or, from the US point of view, more positive.  If the US secret government actually were running around dispensing secret medicine to world leaders, its agents would be spritzing Lula with water from the Fountain of Youth.

There is nothing trivial or contemptible about the problems of Latin America’s poor.  And there is nothing wrong with the aspirations of many Latin Americans for their countries and their region to enjoy more global respect and to wield more global clout.  The record of US foreign and economic policy in the region is nothing that many informed US citizens feel particularly proud about.  The western hemisphere will need new approaches in the 21st century.

That is why people like President Chavez are bad news.  They perpetrate the cycle of Latin impotence, corruption and failure.  Had someone more like Lula come to power in Venezuela, both that country and the region would be significantly better off than they are now.  Chavez had the ability to become a hero and a champion of the poor and of Latin America.  He has decided instead to become a buffoon and a thug.

Even so, Via Meadia wishes him well with his health. (The US flagged prescription drug bottle in his hands in the photo was an addition by a Via Meadia tech wizard. The original Wikimedia photo shows him with a copy of the Venezuelan constitution.)

Obama Plan for 2012 to continue going AWOL from Duty as President

from the Los Angeles Times:

By Peter Nicholas, Washington BureauJanuary 1, 2012

 

Reporting from Honolulu—

 

Obama’s resolution? To limit dealings with Congress

 

Heading into the new year, President Obama will insist that Congress renew the payroll tax cut through the end of 2012, but will otherwise limit his dealings with an unpopular Congress, and instead travel the country to deliver his reelection message directly to voters, a White Houseaide said.”In terms of the president’s relationship with Congress in 2012 — the state of the debate, if you will — the president is no longer tied to Washington, D.C.,” spokesman Josh Earnest said in a news briefing in Honolulu.

The assertion is striking given that Obama, as president for nearly three years, is the symbol and personification of the federal government. It also offers a glimpse into an Obama reelection strategy that will target a “do-nothing” Congress much in the style of Harry S. Truman‘s reelection campaign in 1948.

With most legislative cliffhangers behind him, Obama does not consider the rest of his policy agenda to be a “must-do” for lawmakers, Earnest said.

Rather, the White House believes Obama would be well-served by continuing to distance himself from a Congress often blamed for Washington’s gridlock and infighting.

As the year unfolds, Obama will use executive authority to roll out more initiatives designed to boost the economy and assist struggling families, the White House aide said. Obama has already unveiled 20 such measures under the White House’s new slogan, “We can’t wait.”

Earnest said that the White House’s goal was to contrast the image of a “gridlocked, dysfunctional Congress” with “a president who’s leaving no stone unturned to try to find solutions to the difficult financial challenges and economic challenges facing this country.”

Obama will also make the case for passage of his $447-billion jobs package, most of which Congress has rejected over the last three months.

His jobs plan includes money to keep public workers on the job and rebuild the nation’s roads, ports and bridges. But it seems doubtful that he’ll push Congress on his jobs plan with the same focus that he brought to the payroll tax cut debate. In late December, Congress agreed to extend the payroll tax cut for two months, following a high-stakes showdown with Obama that delayed his Hawaiian vacation for six days.

Nothing else on Obama’s menu requires congressional action as urgently as the tax cut, the White House said. If Congress were to let the cut expire at the end of February, tens of millions of Americans would be hit with a tax increase, harming the fragile economic recovery, the White House contends.

Earnest said that now that Obama was “sort of free from having to put out these fires, the president will have a larger playing field, as it were. And if that playing field includes working with Congress, all the better. But I think my point is that that’s no longer a requirement.”

In pushing his jobs plan — which included the payroll tax cut — Obama often mocked lawmakers who opposed it for fear of giving him “a win” politically. He bristled over such characterizations, saying his aim was not short-term political advantage but a solution for the nation’s high jobless rate.

Now that the payroll tax cut has been extended, the White House is resorting to some of the same language that Obama had rejected. White House aides have made it clear that Obama fought — and won — a battle with congressional Republicans.

The president did so in part by trying to adopt a new political persona. Earnest described him as having “worked to claim the mantle as a warrior for the middle class.”

He’ll try to emphasize that identity in the new year, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, when he travels to Cleveland to give a speech on the economy. That trip comes one day after the Republican caucuses in Iowa, the first major contest in the race to establish a GOP nominee.

Obama won’t congratulate the winner, the White House said, but he will try to distinguish himself from Republican candidates who are bashing each other in a fierce campaign.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said: “It’s disappointing that job creation, energy security, tax reform and preventing everyone’s tax rates from going up aren’t on the president’s ‘must do’ list. But they are on the priority list of Republicans.”

Happy 2012……the Year Obama will be Made Famous for his Frauds, Deceitful Character, and 22 years of Racist Inspiration with ‘father’ Jeremiah Wright

Another Obama donor convicted of fraud

A $21 million fraud, at that.

 

File this one under culture of corruption. Obama supporters just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can they? This latest scandal involves a former Tarheels basketball player and a $21 million bank fraud scheme. New York Daily News reports:

Courtney Dupree was convicted of vastly overstating the billings of his Long Island City-based lighting company GDC Acquisitions in order to fraudulently obtain a loan from Amalgamated Bank.

 

Dupree, 42, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read in Brooklyn Federal Court. He faces up to 30 years in prison and has to pay back at least $18 million. …

 

Dupree, who attended the elite Wharton School of Business, was a rainmaker in Democratic circles.

 

In 2008, Dupree hosted a $1,000-a-ticket fund-raiser for Barack Obama at his Broad St. apartment that was attended by top aide Valerie Jarrett.

 

His company counted NBC Universal and Goldman Sachs among its clients.

Such corruption occurs on either side of the aisle, of course, but that makes it no less disappointing when it happens.

 

Keep your eye on the ball.  No sleeping during the Obama Bread and Circus’s campaign.   

 

Article sent by Lisa Rich.