Why Most Journalists Are Democrats: A View from the Soviet Socialist Trenches

by Barbara Oakley | August 3, 2009 | Psychology Today

Several decades ago, I spent a couple seasons working for the Soviets as a Russian translator—hauling in fish by day and slugging back samogon by night. (Well, sometimes slugging back homemade vodka by day, too—that's the Russians for you.) I was curious about one of politics’ biggest questions: is extreme socialism beneficial?

What I found was so much propaganda about the wonders of Soviet Socialist Mankind and the horrors of Western Democracy that the people exposed to it might as well have had electrodes implanted to control their thoughts. There were no governmental checks and balances and nothing even close to a free press—so positions of power were filled by nasty sorts who kept good people in fear for their lives if they didn’t think the right thoughts. Soviet Socialism, as it turned out, was a perverse system that killed motivation even as it made fear as natural as breathing.

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Conservatives for Patients' Rights - Squeeze

Obama Joker Poster Popping Up In Los Angeles

By Noel Sheppard | August 1, 2009 - 20:06 ET

Have you seen this poster?

Apparently, it's beginning to appear in odd places in Los Angeles, but nobody seems to know who's responsible for it.

Radio host Tammy Bruce posted some pictures of this odd creation at her blog Saturday morning (h/t Pamela Geller) leading me to investigate further.

At this point, all I could find on the subject was an April 25 article from Bedlam Magazine:

A poster of Barack Obama in Heath Ledger-style Joker make-up with the legend 'Socialism' beneath it has been popping up recently on surfaces around L.A. It does not appear to be in the same category as the many benign take-offs on the Shepard Fairey 'Hope' poster, such as the one by Australian James Lillis (more of a straightforward spoof that merely substituted a Shepardized image of Heath Ledger as Joker on the Obama poster).



I like my version better. SOCIALISM ROCKS!
If only I could afford to make the T-shirt.
Chebama T-shirts still available -- buy now!

Obama Explains How His Health Care Plan Will ‘Eliminate’ Private Insurance

Obama, in his own words, admitting his Health Care Plan will eliminate private insurance.

(Obama S.E.I.U. forum on health care 3/24/07, Barney Frank, Jan Schakowsky all admitting a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business)

Barney Frank speaks the truth -- the goal is Single Payer

And if they can't cram it down our throats, they'll do it in dribs and drabs until it's there.

Let Them Eat Cake

Sebelius and Specter at Constitution Center, August 2, 2009.

How Does a Leftist Govern America?

August 2, 2009 - by Jennifer Rubin

Among the many poll figures to rock the Obama team in the last week or so, none may be as telling or as significant as this from Rasmussen:

Seventy-six percent (76%) of U.S. voters now think President Obama is at least somewhat liberal. Forty-eight percent (48%) say he is very liberal, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. This marks the highest finding to date on the question and is a five-point increase in the number who say the president is very liberal from a month ago. … Seventeen percent (17%) of voters say the president is moderate, while only six percent (6%) believe he is conservative.

This was not the image that enabled Obama to win the presidency. Last year he beat John McCain by somehow convincing the public that he was the moderate, the fiscally prudent one, and the voice of “pragmatism” — that catchphrase meant to assure voters the candidate is not an ideologically crazed extremist.

It was a good thing Obama ran that way. Exit polling showed that the electorate self-identified as 44% moderate, 34% conservative, and 22% liberal. Obama was right to recognize that the public simply wouldn’t have embraced an ultra-liberal planning a huge spending spree, a government takeover of health care and a massive energy tax and regulatory scheme. In other words, if voters knew what they know now they might not have put him in the White House.

And that is the fundamental problem which Obama now faces. Just as he possessed the most liberal voting record in the Senate (populated by some awfully liberal senators), he has chosen to govern farther to the left than any president since LBJ. So it is not surprising that the public is reeling and registering their disapproval in poll after poll.

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Venezuela begins shutdown of 34 radio stations

Sat Aug 1, 2009 7:45pm EDT | Reuters

CARACAS, Aug 1 (Reuters) - More than a dozen of 34 radio stations ordered shut by the Venezuelan government went off the air on Saturday, part of President Hugo Chavez's drive to extend his socialist revolution to the media.

The association of radio broadcasters said 13 stations had stopped transmitting, following an announcement Friday night by government broadcasting watchdog Conatel that 34 radio outlets would be closed because they failed to comply with regulations.

Critics said the crackdown infringed on freedom of speech and that owners were not given the right to a proper defense.

"They're closing the space for dissidents in Venezuela," William Echeverria, head of the National Council of Journalists, told RCTV, a private cable TV station, which did not have its broadcasting license renewed in 2007.

Chavez defended the closures, calling them part of the government's effort to democratize the airwaves.

Raul Castro: Cuba won't undo communist system

By WILL WEISSERT | Aug 1 08:58 PM US/Eastern

HAVANA (AP) - Raul Castro announced Saturday that Cuba will cut spending on education and health care, potentially weakening the building blocks of its communist system in a bid to revive a floundering economy.

The former defense minister who took over the presidency last year called state spending "simply unsustainable" and said the cash-strapped government would reorganize rural schools and scrutinize its free health care system in search of ways to save money.

But he vowed that the island will not see fundamental change even after he and his older brother and predecessor Fidel Castro are gone.

"I wasn't elected president to return capitalism to Cuba," Castro said, "or to surrender the revolution"—the armed uprising that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista a half-century ago.

"I was elected to defend, build and perfect socialism, not destroy it," he said to a standing ovation from lawmakers in Parliament.

read the rest

Obama's revealing body language

Thomas Lifson | American Thinker | July 31, 2009
This picture truly is worth at least a thousand words.

I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?

In my own dealings with the wealthy and powerful, I have always found that the way to quickly capture the moral essence of a person is to watch how they treat those who are less powerful. Do they understand that the others are also human beings with feelings? Especially when they think nobody is looking.

be sure to catch the update as well