New Hate Crimes Law Could Politically Target People Who Object To Homosexuality

One thing you can count on from the libs is that their sense of reasoning only makes sense to themselves and no one else. I guess the most prominent example would be taxes. They believe that taxes should always be raised so that the government always has money, but they forget that the people who pay those taxes need the money more than the government does. They also forget that when tax money goes to Washington DC, a good chunk of it stays there to make politicians and bureaucrats a little richer and less than 60 cents on the dollar actually makes back out to those who paid the tax to begin with.

Well, the libs still don't have any common sense, especially when it comes to writing legislation that promotes the agenda of one of their special interest groups. In this case, it is the gay and lesbian lobby. The new Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA), H.R. 1913, is one such case where the special interest group is considered more important than Joe and Jane Average American.

Jillian Bandes gives us some insight on this in her latest column from Town Hall:

One of the most pressing concerns is that the bill, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA), could target acts of violence that were carried out for reasons unrelated to sexual preference. Brian Walsh, senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said HCPA did not require any proof that a crime was committed because of a person’s sexual identity, so prosecution could be willy-nilly. The “amorphous standard would federalize almost all incidents of violent crime, even those that have nothing to do with bias, prejudice, or animus toward the victim because of his or her membership in a particular group,” he said.

In other words, a gay or lesbian could be the target of a completely random crime and this law would be used to inflict heavier prosecution and punishment than if the victim were a straight Christian. Now, that doesn't mean that I think such crimes should go unpunished, but it does mean that I think there should be a fair application of the law across the spectrum.

Even many Democrats are wary of what this bill could portend for the future. Read what Rep. Lamar Smith (D-TX) has to say:

“Justice will now depend on the race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or other protected status of the victim. It will allow different penalties to be imposed for the same crime,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (D-Tex.), ranking member on the Judiciary Committee. Smith also said HCPA could target those who opposed gay marriage and forms of unconventional sexual expression. “Some of my colleagues on the other side claim that the bill protects religious speech. But religious leaders could still be subjected to criminal investigations, and be reluctant to preach the teachings of their faith as a result of this bill,” said Smith.

And that brings us to the true crux of this bill. It is an attempt by the gay and lesbian lobby to stamp out speech that isn't favorable or complimentary to the gay and lesbian lifestyle. If one were to say they opposed homosexuality on moral grounds, this legislation could be used as an excuse to charge such a person with a "Hate Crime" simply for giving their own personal opinion. George Orwell couldn't have come up with a better scenario of real-world thought police.

How can I say something that many on the left would deem as far-fetched? Read on:

Republican staff pointed to an amendment that Democrats rejected during the discussion of the bill, which would have prohibited prosecution of those who simply spoke about sexual identity issues. Because of this exclusion, the prohibition against prosecuting speech had no teeth.

That amendment was killed specifically at the behest of the gay and lesbian lobby. There is no other logical reason for tossing that amendment out.

But this will be the first bill that reaches into a church to censor the content of the service.

“It’s going to cause at a critical moment in American history a chilling effect on the pulpit where we cannot preach about biblical morality and sexuality,” said Bishop Harry Jackson, senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md.

(Photo: Bishop Harry Jackson)

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Hate Crimes Law May Have Loopholes
Jillian Bandes
TownHall.com
April 30, 2009

The Big Media Lie: Mortgage Crisis Is Bush's Fault

Bush derangement syndrome goes far beyond January 20, 2009. Remember that day? When Democrats very disrespectfully and derisively sang "Nan-na-na-na! Hey! Hey! Good-bye!" when the outgoing President and Vice-President came out? Well, a part of that reason is because Old Media would cherry-pick information that was politically expedient for Democrats and use that limited information to write stories for print. In other words, Old Media would deliberately withhold facts that might have painted the Bush Administration in a positive light.

Fortunately, the Internet does not have a "memory hole" like the one used in George Orwell's novel 1984.

One of the lies that Old Media is perpetuating, and Barack Obama is trying to underscore in order to sell his $100 million mortgage bailout plan, is that the current housing mortgage crisis is the fault of George W. Bush. That is simply not true. The current mortgage crisis has its roots in the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act.

In fact, it is the uber-liberal New York Times that debunks this lie with its own archive of stories. In fact, it validates my earlier blog entry about how Barney Frank lied about the who was responsible for the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

From a New York Times article that was published September 11, 2003:

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. ... The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

Clearly, the Bush Administration knew that there was a big problem with Freddie and Fannie. The New York Times proves this with the above referenced article.

So, why didn't anything get done about it? Because the Democrats, that is the same Democrats who are falsely blaming Bush, stopped it. In fact, the Democrats were saying that there was nothing wrong with Freddie and Fannie while they were failing.

Read this:

Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing. "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed. "I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing," Mr. Watt said.

Let me repeat what Barney Frank told the New York Times in 2003: "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis." He said this at a time when the Bush Administration was trying to fix the system and avoid the very problem we are facing today! And Barney Frank is one of those trying to Blame Bush!

But, Old Media will never admit the truth. Instead, despite what the archival evidence is, Old Media would rather repeat the lie.

You can access the original New York Times article on-line here:

New Agency Proposed To Oversee Freddie Mac And Fannie Mae
Stephen Labaton
New York Times
September 11, 2003

Stimulus Chicanery: Democrats Suppress The Truth About The Stimulus Package

The current economic stimulus plan being considered by Congressional Democrats was brought under fire last week by the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO. This week, the CBO (even though it is controlled by Democrats) has been brought under fire by the Democrats. Apparently, Congressional leaders were hard pressed to explain how monies that weren't to be spent until 2011 would help the economy "now."

From the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:

According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, a mere $26 billion of the House stimulus bill's $355 billion in new spending would actually be spent in the current fiscal year, and just $110 billion would be spent by the end of 2010. This is highly embarrassing given that Congress's justification for passing this bill so urgently is to help the economy right now, if not sooner. And the red Congressional faces must be very red indeed, because CBO's analysis has since vanished into thin air after having been posted early last week on the Appropriations Committee Web site.

Interesting that as soon as the truths uncovered by this report were published and re-broadcast by certain media, the Democrats shut it down. They didn't want the truth to come out. But what is that truth?

Read on:

The problem is that the money for this spending boom has to come from somewhere, which means it is removed from the private sector as higher taxes or borrowing. For every $1 the government "injects," it must take $1 away from someone else -- either in taxes or by issuing a bond. In either case this leaves $1 less available for private investment or consumption. Mr. Barro wrote about this way back in 1974 in his classic article, "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?", in the Journal of Political Economy. Larry Summers and Paul Krugman must have missed it.

And taking money away from the private sector means no economic growth. Taking too much money away from the private sector means a shrinking economy.

More:

A similar analysis applies to the tax cuts that are part of President Obama's proposal. In contrast to the spending, at least the tax cuts will take effect immediately. But the problem is that Mr. Obama wants them to be temporary, which means taxpayers realize they will see no permanent increase in their after-tax incomes. Not being fools, Americans may either save or spend the money but they aren't likely to change their behavior in ways that will spur growth. For Exhibit A, consider the failure of last February's tax rebate stimulus, which was a bipartisan production of George W. Bush and Mr. Summers, who is now advising Mr. Obama. To be genuinely stimulating, tax cuts need to be immediate, permanent and on the "margin," meaning that they apply to the next dollar of income that an individual or business earns. This was the principle behind the Kennedy tax cuts of 1964, as well as the Reagan tax cuts of 1981, which finally took full effect on January 1, 1983.

We can point to many examples throughout history where tax cuts allowed for an expansion of the economy. Tax increases lead at best to stagnation, or at worst, depression.

What would tax cuts do for an economic stimulus? This:

The revenue cost of eliminating the corporate tax wouldn't be any more than their proposed $355 billion in new spending, and we guarantee its "multiplier" effects on growth would be far greater. Research by Mr. Obama's own White House chief economist, Christina Romer, has shown that every $1 in tax cuts can increase output by as much as $3.

So why not go with tax cuts to stimulate the economy?

The spending portion of the stimulus, in short, isn't really about the economy. It's about promoting long-time Democratic policy goals, such as subsidizing health care for the middle class and promoting alternative energy. The "stimulus" is merely the mother of all political excuses to pack as much of this spending agenda as possible into a single bill when Mr. Obama is at his political zenith. Apart from the inevitable waste, the Democrats are taking a big political gamble here. Congress and Mr. Obama are promoting this stimulus as the key to economic revival. Americans who know nothing about multipliers or neo-Keynesians expect it to work. The Federal Reserve is pushing trillions of dollars of monetary stimulus into the economy, and perhaps that along with a better bank rescue strategy will make the difference. But if spring and then summer arrive, and the economy is still in recession, Americans are going to start asking what they bought for that $355 billion.

The Democrats have decreed that the CBO re-work the numbers and make them more palatable to the American people. But the original report was based on more honesty than the re-worked report would be.

It amounts to nothing more than political chicanery that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will end up paying for.

Welcome to George Orwell's 1984.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

The Stimulus Time Machine
Wall Street Journal
January 26, 2009

More Evidence Of Obama's Talks With Blagojevich, The Talks Obama Claims Never Took Place

Ever read the novel 1984 by George Orwell? If you haven't, you should. Why? Because something is happening right now that should scare anyone who has ever read that novel. Someone is trying to rewrite history.

According to Wikipedia, the following is the role of the Ministry Of Truth from Orwell's 1984:

The Ministry of Truth is involved with news media, entertainment, the fine arts and educational books. Its purpose is to rewrite history and change the facts to fit party doctrine, for propaganda effect. For example, if Big Brother makes a prediction that turns out to be wrong, the employees of the Ministry of Truth go back and rewrite history so that any prediction Big Brother previously made is accurate. This is the "how" of the Ministry of Truth's existence. Within the novel Orwell elaborates that the deeper reason for its existence is to maintain the illusion that the party is absolute. It cannot ever seem to change its mind (if, for instance, they perform one of their constant changes regarding enemies during war) or make a mistake (firing an official or making a grossly misjudged supply prediction), for that would imply weakness and to maintain power the party must seem eternally right and strong.

So, how does that apply to today's real world? Well, when the Blagojevich scandal broke in Illinois, there were immediate questions about whether or not Barack Obama or any of his staff were involved in any way. Evidence began to surface.

David Axelrod said unambiguously during an interview with ABC News that Barack Obama had spoken with Gov. Blagojevich about filling the vacated Senate seat. There were also two news stories from KHQA (connecttristates.com), (one by Carol Sowers on Novemebr 5th, the other by Alexis Hunt on November 8th) that mentioned the meeting although those two stories have since been scrubbed from the connecttristates.com website.

There was also mention of contact between Barack Obama and Rod Blagojevich in the Chicago Tribune. That story has not been scrubbed as of this writing and can be found here:

Governor Mum On Obama Seat
Monique Garcia and Rick Pearson
Chicago Tribune
October 30, 2008

And just in case this story gets scrubbed as well, here is the screen shot of the relevent text:



So, why am I taking the time and effort to expose all of this? Because of the reasons being given for these reports and statements being retracted.

KHQA issued the following statement:

"KHQA TV wishes to offer clarification regarding a story that appeared last month on our website ConnectTristates.com. The story, which discussed the appointment of a replacement for President Elect Obama in the U.S. Senate, became the subject of much discussion on talk radio and on blog sites Wednesday. The story housed in our website archive was on the morning of November 5, 2008. It suggested that a meeting was scheduled later that day between President Elect Obama and Illinois Governor Blagojevich. KHQA has no knowledge that any meeting ever took place. Governor Blagojevich did appear at a news conference in Chicago on that date."

Now, look carefully at what you just read. "KHQA has no knowledge that any meeting ever took place." And yet, they allowed two news stories to run for over a month leading their readers to believe that such a meeting did take place. It wasn't until after Barack Obama's name came up in connection with Blagojevich that KHQA decided that they weren't able to confirm anything. Prior to that, they had no problem at all running a story they had no confirmation on.

And the same thing with David Axelrod. It wasn't until after Barack Obama's name came up in connection with Blagojevich that Obama or Axelrod himself tried to "correct" the record. Prior to that, they were perfectly okay with allowing the story to stand as is.

Of course, that leaves us with the Chicago Tribune from which we read:

"I just don’t want to jinx him and I don’t like the karma of me thinking that far ahead," Blagojevich said of Obama’s prospects in Tuesday’s election. The governor added, "We have had some discussions about a process which we’ll share … if all goes well."

We'll see if this article gets scrubbed too. But clearly, if the Obama camp wanted to get the story straight from the get-go, they would not have waited this long to make all of these retractions.

That is why we should keep this in mind about the Ministry of Truth:

[The Party] cannot ever seem to change its mind (if, for instance, they perform one of their constant changes regarding enemies during war) or make a mistake (firing an official or making a grossly misjudged supply prediction), for that would imply weakness and to maintain power the party must seem eternally right and strong.

And Orwell's words:

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth."