District of Corruption

Our friends at Youth for Western Civilization were in DC for the pro-amnesty march this past weekend and have made a video that purports to show the "true colors" of the protesters. Check it out:

I wasn't sure if this video belonged in "Trash" or "District of Corruption" but  it is too strange to pass up. Mult-culti brainwasher Dora the Explorer tells the kids to pressure their parents into filling out the Census:



Can't wait to see what the little Mestizo has to say about amnesty! (HT: LRC)

We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it. 

~Nancy Pelosi

As my past writings on the subject can attest, I think Obamacare is a horrendous, likely ruinous, social program. I can thus summon one and half cheers for the Republican leadership, which despite having backed George W. Bush's unfunded Medicare extension but six years ago, has decided to come out strong against Obamacare, follow the Tea Partiers, and try to "kill the bill."

As a friend wrote to me in an email:

Things can always get worse no matter how much the current system sucks. We should applaud the Republicans here for not trying to reach out and do something "bipartisan." Give me spineless slimeballs over true-believing liberals.

There's truth to that ... but there is also a way in which a political opposition, even a forthright and unwavering one, can do serious intellectual damage to a cause by essentially agreeing with the premises of its adversary and not actually defining what is wrong with the other side.

If you're not into basketball, then be sure to check out NumbersUSA's streaming video of the pro-Amnesty rally going on in DC. A friend of mind who's been watching noted that a great deal of the speakers have been Christian leaders mouthing the typical "brotherhood of man" tripe. As Saul Alinsky would have counselled, wrapping up a culturally destructive agenda in the stars and stripes and apple pie is the best tactic. If only Latinos were, say, converting to Islam en masse, burning flags, or insulting Sarah Palin's Down Syndrome child, then perhaps the conservative establishment would take note and oppose mass immigration as the ruinous phenomenon that it is.

I just saw Anita Dunn on Meet the Press say we have to pass health care reform because we need to cut costs.  How is the bill that’s being voted on tonight supposed to do this?  According to CBS News’ report on the legislation, 

Major consumer safeguards take effect in 2014. Insurers prohibited from denying coverage to people with medical problems or charging them more. Higher premiums for women would be banned. Starting this year, insurers would be forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies and from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing medical problems. 

This means that insurers will have to charge everybody equally, regardless of health.  The healthiest individual will pay the same amount as the most gluttonous pig.  This is socialism, no matter how you look at it.

While I get that, how does anybody even pretend that this will reduce health care costs?  Obviously forcing a lot of people that the insurers don’t consider good risks into policies at the same price per head as everybody else will only make things more expensive for those who currently have coverage.  This is why Massachusetts has the highest health care premiums in the country.  

Democrats seem to disagree on whether they have the votes or not so there's still hope.  

There are two possible explanations of what the Democrats are doing here.  Perhaps they're trying to destroy the insurance industry so that government will have to step in and "solve" the latest problem its created with an actual public plan.  Or, they're so ignorant of economics they don't understand what causes prices to rise and fall. They simply believe that what we pay for things depends on how much state benevolence there is to counteract corporate greed.  I believe that the smarter ones are banking on the former, while the majority don't really know what they're doing.  

 

Up on AltRight Radio, I've posted a new podcast in which Paul Gottfried and I discuss the trajectories of the American Right --from the mythic Old Right, to the Buckleyites, the paleos, and the neoconservative conquest of the movement. This should be of particular interest to District of Corruption readers.

In other news, I got some constructive feedback regarding my first few podcasts -- apparently my Samson COIU microphone left a whole lot to be desired in terms of volume and timbre. And so, I just went out and purchased a new Blue "Snowball" (which despite its funny name, looks like a scary miniature Death Star) and the sound is great -- enjoy!  

A few years ago the Israel Lobby was worried. Barack Obama was winning an election against John McCain, and that worried them because Obama had spent the Democratic primary posturing himself as a peace candidate who was opposed to the Bush legacy in the Middle East. The Bush Doctrine, which entails unilateral preventative war, forcing regime change on countries that have harbored terrorists, and spreading democracy throughout the Middle East at the point of a bayonet, so to speak, could have easily been named the Israel Doctrine. Every American military action in the Middle East during the Bush years was for the direct benefit of Israel, significantly moreso than it was for the benefit of the United States.

A man much smarter and accomplished than I recently stirred up controversy with his scathing column on the divergent interests of the United States and Israel. Most Americans don't realize quite how humiliating the Israel Doctrine is to the United States and its reputation. Take, for example, Ehud Olmert's boasts after the US did an about-face on a Gaza cease-fire resolution at the UN in early 2009. The story:

I can't say that I find any of this surprising... Human Events professes to be the flagship of the conservative movement. And though many CPAC attendees are showing signs of life -- exemplified by Ron Paul's win at this year's straw poll and the popularity of groups like the Campaign for Liberty -- the leadership of the movement is still stuck in a 2003 morass in which Conservatism = Zionism + War.  

Bebe of Conservative Heritage Times sums it up: