Beneath the Tree of Enlightenment

Danger Bird
Mr. Weiner, appearing solemn and a bit worn as he faced more than 100 journalists at a hastily arranged news conference, acknowledged that his habit of sending sexual images and text messages to female fans had continued for more than a year after he left Congress vowing to seek treatment and change his behavior. (NYT, 7/23/2013)

Never doubt RedStateVT. Ever. Many scoffed when we welcomed Weiner into the NYC mayoral race. Now you know why. We predicted that he would provide an unending series of yucks. A new prediction. Weiner will be the next mayor. Bad behavior and poor performance are no longer deterrents to a long political career. As we wrote after the re-election of Obama, accountability is dead. 


War Games
Working out of war rooms in the West Wing basement, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the Department of Health and Human Services, the team is first trying to find in the next year 2.7 million uninsured people between 18 and 35, most of whom are healthy. Just as Mr. Obama’s electoral success hinged on the turnout machine he created in Chicago, the fate of the health care law rests on whether his administration can turn out and enroll the uninsured. (NYT, 7/23/2013)

Government to healthy uninsured person: We're from the government and we are here to help you.

Healthy Uninsured Person (HUP): Help me with what?

Government: Your health insurance.

HUP: I don't have health insurance.

Government: You do now!

HUP: No I don't!

Government: You do, otherwise you will pay a fine.

HUP: How much is health insurance?

Government: For you, probably about a hundred dollars a month.

HUP: I thought you were here to help me.

Government: The truth is that we need your money to pay for the unhealthy....


Viva
In a speech to the National Assembly, Mr. Castro said that Cubans’ behavior — from urinating in the street and raising pigs in cities to taking bribes — had led him to conclude that, despite five decades of universal education, the island had “regressed in culture and civility.” (NYT, 7/23/2013)

What will Sean Penn say?

The Days Last Rays

Could Have Been
President Obama spoke publicly for the first time Friday on the acquittal of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, calling for an examination of 'Stand Your Ground" laws nationwide. 

"Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago," Obama said, adding that "it's important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away."  (Washington Post, 7/18/2013)

In the good old days, presidents had trusted advisers who would quietly counsel them. Often the advice was to shut up. President Dum-Dum has only sycophants like Valerie Jarrett and she is not about to tell him to stop putting his foot in his mouth. First Obama has an imaginary son who is Trayvon Martin. Next Obama himself is Trayvon Martin.  How bizarre is it that we have a black president pandering to black people?


Nobody
No one likes bailouts or the prospect of rewarding Detroit’s historic fiscal mismanagement. But apart from voting in elections, the 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs, and eventually Congress decided to help them. America is just as much about aiding those less fortunate as it is about personal responsibility. Government does this in so many ways; why shouldn’t it help Detroit rebuild itself? (Steven Rattner, NYT, 7/19/2013)

Pension fund crook Rattner gets it exactly wrong. The residents of Detroit share in the responsibility for Detroit's plight BECAUSE of their votes. They elected Democrats for the past 50 years. Those Democrats who ran the city into the dirt. 


Chain Reaction
An attempt by Washington’s City Council to force profitable chain stores to pay much higher wages than the city’s minimum has infuriated Walmart, which is threatening to pull out of up to six planned stores.

Mayor Vincent C. Gray, who worked hard to lure Walmart, finds himself caught in the middle, and many residents sound less than grateful to the lawmakers who claim to be looking out for them.

“Those big people in government, they don’t understand my situation,” said Fred Reaves, 45, who is unemployed and said he would gladly take a job at the current city minimum, $8.25. (NYT, 7/20/2013)

Proof once again that the true enemies of the poor are Liberals.


Imposition
...many European countries already have versions of Texas’s late-term abortion ban on the books. France, Germany and Italy all ban abortions after the first trimester, and impose waiting periods as well. (Ross Douthat, NYT, 7/20/2013)

Good point by Douthat for all those abortion rights hysterics who imagine the end of the world because Texas imposes a few conditions.

Outer Perimeter

All along, the state’s involvement — including Mr. Snyder’s decision to send in an emergency manager — has carried racial implications, setting off a wave of concerns for some in Detroit that the mostly white Republican-led state government was trying to seize control of Detroit, a Democratic city where more than 80 percent of residents are black. (NYT, 7/18/2013)

The New York Times provides the Liberal explanation for the Detroit bankruptcy: White Republicans want to take over control of Black Detroit. Could it be in order to enslave its residents? The Times does not say....but maybe.

The RedStateVT explanation (you heard it here first yesterday) is that Detroit has been run by Democrats since 1962. That is why it is bankrupt. 

Physical Manifestation

Liberal Hate Speech
Do you think Wyoming wants a fresh face? Cheney is extremely fresh, having lived in the Virginia suburbs until recently. In her YouTube announcement, she basically argued that her genes were from Wyoming, where her grandmother was the first female deputy sheriff of Natrona County. She frequently points out that her great-grandmother was a settler who walked across the state in her bare feet. If we could get a re-enactment of that, it could make this a campaign for the ages.

Meanwhile, her supportive father has agreed to take part in Wyoming’s annual antelope hunt competition with Colorado. Exciting things happen when Dick Cheney goes off to shoot wild critters. (Gail Collins, NYT, 7/17/2013)

With snide female New York Times Liberal columnist Maureen Dowd claiming the hate Bush space, snide female New York Times columnist Gail Collins goes for the hate Cheney space (see the pattern?) Collins takes exception to Liz Cheney running for office in Wyoming after living in Virginia. Which brings to mind a former female senator and later Secretary of State who, having decided on a career in politics, shopped around for a state to run in, eventually settling upon New York. What was her name again? 

Of course, Collins wrote extensively about that at the time. Or maybe she didn't.

As to her reference to Dick Cheney's hunting accident. Well shame on Collins. That is despicable.


Liberal Policies in Action
Detroit has become the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy.

State-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr on Thursday asked a federal judge permission to place the city into Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. (Washington Post, 7/18/2013)

Here is what you need to know: the last seven (count em, seven) mayors of Detroit have been Democrats. Dating back to 1962. That's 1962. 


Touty
President Barack Obama on Thursday will tout the benefits of the Affordable Care Act to a skeptical public during a speech at the White House as part of an effort to build support for the health law in the face of continued Republican efforts to block it. (WSJ, 7/17/2013)

We wonder. Will the president's speech address the following?:

The letter was unusually harsh. Addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, it was really intended for President Barack Obama. The letter was not from Mr. Obama's GOP adversaries but from the presidents of three powerful unions.

On July 12, James Hoffa of the Teamsters (1.4 million members), Joseph Hansen of the Food and Commercial Workers (1.3 million members) and D. Taylor of UNITE-HERE (200,000 members, mostly culinary and hotel workers) wrote to complain about the president's Affordable Care Act. (Karl Rove, WSJ, 7/17/2013)


Pursuit
The military judge in the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning decided on Thursday not to drop a charge accusing Private Manning of “aiding the enemy.” 
......
The government has said it will not pursue the death penalty against Private Manning. (NYT, 7/18/2013)

So basically, good news/bad news.

Consciousness Bloomed

Inconvenient Facts About the Trayvon Martin - George Zimmerman Incident
Is there anyplace safe enough, or any cargo innocent enough, for a black man in this country? Martin was where he was supposed to be — in a gated community — carrying candy and a canned drink. (Charles M. Blow, NYT, 7/15/2013)

Liberals never let the facts get in the way with their narrative be it global warming (its actually getting cooler), aid to the poor (it's increased a zillion-fold), or  racist America (we have a black president). And so it is with George Zimmerman. 

And so Liberals ignore Zimmerman's unscripted response to the trap laid by cops testing his story by saying that the incident had been captured in its entirety on video. Zimmerman said: "oh, thank God." How do Liberals explain this spontaneous exculpation of possible guilt? Well, they pretend it didn't happen.

Eager to play the race angle, Liberals are embarrassed to learn that Zimmerman is Hispanic and so they invent the novel designation of "white Hispanic."

Eager to play the race angle, Liberals ignore that George Zimmerman took a black date to a school prom. 

Eager to double down on race, Liberals ignore that George Zimmerman mentored black children. 

Eager to paint Zimmerman as a vigilante, they ignore the fact that his neighborhood had been plagued by crime committed by black youths.

Eager to blame Zimmerman, they do not talk about the tragic fact that Martin - looking for his father's unit and unfamiliar with the neighborhood - was walking around randomly looking in windows. 

Unable to explain the fact that Zimmerman's wounds fit exactly with the story that he told police of Martin as the aggressor, punching him in the face and banging his head on the sidewalk, Liberals ignore them. Travyon Martin is dead and that is a tragedy. But because he is dead, no one wants to talk about the role that he played in his own tragic death. 

Unable to explain the facts, Liberals resort to the Skittles Defense (see Blow above). Martin was a candy-bearing child and hence an innocent.


Despicable Him
Race-baiting carnival barker Rev. Al Sharpton is once again ginning up the race wars. (By the way, when WAS the last time that the holy Rev. presided over Sunday service?) The Obama adviser seems to revel in the death of black youths...except when it is black-on-black violence (see Chicago, City of). Then he is strangely silent. 

The destruction and violence wrought by protesters is blood on his hands.

Special Scrutiny

Degrees
George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, igniting a national debate on racial profiling and civil rights, was found not guilty late Saturday night of second-degree murder. He was also acquitted of manslaughter, a lesser charge. (NYT, 7/14/2013)

The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy and his family is deserving of America's deepest sympathies.

The coverage of the case by the Legitimate Media was, of course, corrupt and despicable. We got endless pictures of a young, baby-faced Trayvon taken years ago, to advance the storyline that George Zimmerman killed a child. We got endless discussion of the candy he had just bought at a convenience store. Who would kill a young boy eating candy? We got the description of Zimmerman as a "white Hispanic." Whatever that is. We got depictions of Zimmerman as a "wannabe cop." Is that a bad thing, to want to serve in law enforcement? Was Trayvon a "wannabe basketball player?" What almost no one reported on were the words that Zimmerman said to the cops who tried to test his version of the events by telling him that the entire incident had been captured on video. Zimmerman reportedly said: "oh, thank God."


Effects
When President Obama proclaimed that those who commit sexual assault in the military should be “prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged,” it had an effect he did not intend: muddying legal cases across the country.

In at least a dozen sexual assault cases since the president’s remarks at the White House in May, judges and defense lawyers have said that Mr. Obama’s words as commander in chief amounted to “unlawful command influence,” tainting trials as a result. Military law experts said that those cases were only the beginning and that the president’s remarks were certain to complicate almost all prosecutions for sexual assault. (NYT, 7/13/2013)

As with his comments about Trayvon Martin, Obama again steps in and sows confusion. More proof that he really does not understand the job.

Distinct Advantages

The End of Civilization
At 11 on a weeknight earlier this year, her work finished, a slim, pretty junior at the University of Pennsylvania did what she often does when she has a little free time. She texted her regular hookup — the guy she is sleeping with but not dating. What was he up to? He texted back: Come over. So she did. They watched a little TV, had sex and went to sleep.

“We don’t really like each other in person, sober,” she said, adding that “we literally can’t sit down and have coffee.”

Ask her why she hasn’t had a relationship at Penn, and she won’t complain about the death of courtship or men who won’t commit. Instead, she’ll talk about “cost-benefit” analyses and the “low risk and low investment costs” of hooking up.

“I positioned myself in college in such a way that I can’t have a meaningful romantic relationship, because I’m always busy and the people that I am interested in are always busy, too,” she said.

“And I know everyone says, ‘Make time, make time,’ ” said the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity but agreed to be identified by her middle initial, which is A. “But there are so many other things going on in my life that I find so important that I just, like, can’t make time, and I don’t want to make time.”

It is by now pretty well understood that traditional dating in college has mostly gone the way of the landline, replaced by “hooking up” — an ambiguous term that can signify anything from making out to oral sex to intercourse — without the emotional entanglement of a relationship.

Until recently, those who studied the rise of hookup culture had generally assumed that it was driven by men, and that women were reluctant participants, more interested in romance than in casual sexual encounters. But there is an increasing realization that young women are propelling it, too. (NYT, 7/12/2013)

We read one page of this seven page New York Times article and got sick.  Here we have the logical endpoint of Liberalism, Feminism and Hollywood. 

--Never mind waiting until marriage to have sex. 

--Never mind having sex with your steady boyfriend. 

--Women are now free to have sex with men they don't even like.

War on women? Yes, indeed.


Spot On
House Republicans find themselves in a difficult spot on immigration, caught between the needs of the national party to broaden its appeal to Hispanics, and the views of constituents in gerrymandered, largely safe conservative districts. (NYT, 7/10/2013)

Hmmm...have we ever heard of "gerrymandered, largely safe LIBERAL districts?" 

The Times does not say whether they exist.


Standardized
The bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and hold abortion clinics to the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers, among other requirements. Its supporters say that the strengthened requirements for the structures and doctors will protect women’s health; opponents argue that the restrictions are actually intended to put financial pressure on the clinics that perform abortions and will force most of them to shut their doors. (NYT, 7/13/2013)

A question for opponents of Texas's new abortion law: do you think that abortions should NOT be performed in clinics with highly qualified doctors and high standards of safety?


Stamped Out
Ms. Pelosi's anger must be especially amusing to House Speaker John Boehner, because the Democratic leader helped to defeat the original $1 trillion version of the farm bill last month. That version included some $740 billion for food stamps, but Democrats opted to kill it because they wanted even more money for a program whose cost more than doubled from 2008 to 2012. They objected to a modest GOP proposal to allow states to adopt pilot work requirements for able-bodied food-stamp recipients. (WSJ, 7/12/2013)

Always good to get the complete story, isn't it?

Read the Omens

Theater of the Absurd
This latest round of hunger strikes isn’t an international human rights tragedy. It’s another manipulative act of Jihad Theater. (MichelleMalkin.com, 7/10/2013)

Great comment from the great Malkin on Gitmo hunger strikes. Do American Liberal jihadist sympathizers think that we are NOT being manipulated?


Transformative
....now is the time to invest in job creation and rebuild the country’s crumbling infrastructure. We could listen to 72 percent of the country and put unemployed Americans to work on government-funded projects to shore up aging bridges, roadways, and schools. President Obama and others have proposed a passel of infrastructure legislation that could put people back to work and transform our nation’s landscape. (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post, 7/10/2013)

Liberal dingbat vanden Heuvel actually raises a good point: why no focus on high unemployment? Then she finds familiar ground: off the rails. Of course, the problem is Republicans.

vanden Heuvel wants to put all the laid off businessmen and unemployed college graduates to work....fixing bridges. 

We weep at the brilliance.

Dark Days

No Country For Traitors
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela said Friday that he would offer asylum to the fugitive intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, who has been stranded in a Moscow airport searching for a safe haven. (NYT, 7/5/2013)

Excellent choice for Snowden! What with all the transparency in government that he favors......


The Wages of Sin
Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as governor of New York five years ago amid a prostitution scandal, is re-entering political life, with a run for the citywide office of comptroller and a wager that voters are ready to look past his previous misconduct. (NYT, 7/7/2013)

If you see us about town walking with a spring in our step, now you know why. Client #9 is back!

We'll reiterate that Republicans are mortified about Mark Sanford. Democrats welcome the return of Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer and lionize Bill Clinton. 


No Worries
In an effort to put President Obama’s health care program back on track, the White House has recruited Chris Jennings, a respected veteran of the Clinton administration, to join the Obama team as a health policy coordinator and strategist, the White House said on Sunday night.
....
Mr. Jennings was a registered lobbyist, but has not been one for a couple of years, so he would not have to worry about Obama administration restrictions on lobbyists joining the government. (NYT, 7/7/2013)

We got a laugh out of the hypocrisy here. Obama has spent half of his (admittedly short) political life railing against lobbyists.

We never quite understood the problem with lobbyists. In a representative democracy, groups hire individuals to promote their interests.


Less is Less
The controversy that erupted in May has focused on an ideological question: Were conservative groups singled out for special treatment based on their politics, or did the I.R.S. equally target liberal groups? But a closer look at the I.R.S. operation suggests that the problem was less about ideology and more about how a process instructing reviewers to "be on the lookout" for selected terms was applied to any group that mentioned certain words in its application (NYT, 7/4/2013)

The New York Times breaks its silence on the IRS scandal to conclude, well, it's not really a scandal after all.

This despite IRS officials invoking the Fifth Amendment and overwhelming evidence that conservative groups were targeted. Nothing to see here folks......


Ballot Box
But ballot initiatives on gay rights have overwhelmingly failed, aided by national groups that have run campaigns against them. And Democrats here have said that they do not want to put a civil rights matter on the ballot. (NYT, 7/2/2013)

A stunning - if unwitting - revelation by the Times. Democrats do not want to put gay marriage on the ballot....why? Well the obvious answer is that in many states where it has been voted on, it has been defeated. If the country was united across the board in favor, you could bet your last nickel that Democrats would push for the the issue to be on the ballot. We also loved the comment: "... aided by national groups that have run campaigns against." It makes us wonder why those in favor of gay marriage have not collected money, endorsed candidates who support their cause and run similar campaigns. 

What? They have?


Restricted
The North Carolina Senate gave its final approval Wednesday to legislation adding new restrictions for abortions in North Carolina, even as hundreds of angry protesters descended on the legislature to express their displeasure.
...
The updated bill also would prohibit gender-selective abortions, restrict abortion insurance coverage and require a physician to be physically present during an entire surgical abortion and when a woman takes an abortion-inducing drug such as RU-486. (Foxnews.com, 7/3/2013)

The pro-abortion crowd always says that they want abortion to be safe and legal. Sometimes they say they want it to be rare. But in reality, they only care that it is legal. Try to make it safer and rarer and they start screaming about the war on women......

Feathers Fall

Tipsy
He has revealed to a German newsmagazine that the NSA has been using data from Internet hubs in south and west Germany to monitor Internet traffic to Syria and Mali — two hotbeds of al-Qaeda activity — tipping off our enemies to these vital U.S. intelligence operations.

Of course, this is all in addition to broader leaks about details of two NSA spying programs — revelations that, according to the Associated Press, have U.S. intelligence agencies “scrambling to salvage their surveillance of al-Qaida and other terrorists who are working frantically to change how they communicate.” (Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post, 7/1/2013)

So for all the free speech - open government - no secrets crowd, how do you score this one? 

Aiding al Qaeda. 

We call it treason (as does Thiessen). Perhaps when homeless person Snowden gets back on U.S. soil we can get him a room. Right next to Bradley Manning. 


Full Disclosure
The Obama administration announced on Tuesday it would delay for a year, until 2015, the Affordable Care Act mandate that employers provide coverage for their workers or pay penalties, responding to business complaints and postponing the effective date beyond next year’s midterm elections. “We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively,” Mark J. Mazur, an assistant Treasury secretary, wrote on the department’s Web site in disclosing the delay. (NYT, 7/2/2013)

So the Obama administration - which did not listen to at least 50% of the country and steamrolled Obamacare - is now apparently in listening mode.

Don't be fooled. The key words above are "beyond next year's midterm elections." There is a healthcare crisis coming all right and Dems are petrified of what it will mean for the elections. 

Relentless Advance

Whistle Stop
In a new statement, the fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden said President Obama was employing “old, bad tools of political aggression’’ in his campaign to prevent Snowden from gaining political asylum. 

"Although I am convicted of nothing,’’ Snowden said, the Obama administration “has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person.’’ (Washington Post, 7/1/2013)

So taking a page from the Democrat playbook, Snowden announces that he is a victim. We prefer to think of him as something else. A traitor.


Count Down
New York Times IRS Scandal Article Count for the Day: Zero

New York Times Unemployment Rate Article Count for the Day: Zero

New York Times Gay-Themed Article Count for the Day: Six


Defiance
Mayor Michael Bloomberg answered his critics on Sunday with a defiant defense of his comments that the New York Police Department doesn't stop minorities often enough based on murder suspect descriptions.

"The numbers are the numbers, and the numbers clearly show that the stops are generally proportionate with suspects' descriptions and for years now critics have been trying to argue that minorities are stopped disproportionately," he said before the city's gay-pride march Sunday. "If you look at the crime numbers, that is just not true. The numbers don't lie." (WSJ, 6/30/2013)

We are not big fans of New York's Mayor Nanny Bloomberg, but he gets a RedStateVT tip o' the hat for standing up on the issue of profiling criminals. Yes, the numbers is the numbers!


Imperativo
Conservatism will flounder unless it remembers the imperative of addressing the interests of the many, not the few. (E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post, 6/30/2013)

Dionne's ditty today is another one of those helpful columns that Liberals write in which they try to help Conservatives. Their advice typically runs to the need of Conservatives to embrace (pick one) abortion, gay marriage, higher taxes, socialized healthcare, drivers licenses for illegals...you get the picture. He ends by repeating the old canard above: Conservatives are so selfish, all they care about is themselves! It's a schoolyard taunt, devoid of any measure of reality. 

So we'll say it again. Conservatives want everyone to succeed. They want to create a society where anyone (even the mixed race child of an absentee father and a wanderlust mother) can achieve their dreams through hard work and perseverance. Liberals want to create their version of a just society by taking from the achievers and giving to the non-achievers.