Category: Awards

Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona unambiguously puts the Birthers in their place:

Karl Rove is on board too. But Rove's point is, like Palin's, pure tactics. He doesn't do what Flake does above.

"The reaction of the left to this article is funny in its predictability. Sooo damn predictable. Of course I don’t support “sexual assault” or violence against Lara Logan, and I said that nowhere here. RIF–Reading Is Fundamental. Your premature articulation is a problem. I did say that it warms my heart when reporters who openly deny that Islam is violent and constantly promote it get the same kinds of threats of violence I get every day from Muslims. Because now they know how it feels. They aren’t so dismissive of the threats when those threats are directed at them, instead of at us little people. And yet they still won’t admit that THIS. IS. ISLAM," – Debbie Schlussel, updating a vile post entitled "How Muslims Celebrate Victory".

"Next to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck is the most important conservative," – Stephen Moore, an editorial board member at The Wall Street Journal.

by Chris Bodenner

"Parents should be warned and frankly the authorities at CPAC should be told that there are minor age students who need to be looked after and protected. Have the Radical Homosexuals really infiltrated that deeply into what used to be a pro-family movement? Has the leadership of CPAC gone so far as to actually not read anything or think it’s just “political opinion” propagated by old fashioned and outdated leaders that adult homosexual predators exist? Well, they DO exist and they are taking advantage of the alcohol parties at CPAC to poison the minds and pollute the bodies of young conservatives who are still too naïve to know what is being done to them," – Eugene Delgaudio, President of the Public Advocate of the U.S., warning about GOProud in a fundraising email.

by Patrick Appel

"Although the 'prop-up-Mubarak' position has recently solidified on talk radio and Fox News, during the early days of the Egyptian crisis, the only clear principle that emerged from the right was that Obama was wrong.  The terrible complexity of the situation, the conundrums and impossible trade-offs, were never acknowledged.  Has the Obama Administration been totally consistent from day to day?  No.  Is it driven more by developing facts on the ground than driving those facts?  Yes.  And good luck to anyone who thinks that he can do better in this diplomatic and moral morass," – Heather Mac Donald, Secular Right.

by Patrick Appel

"If you support the right of American Tea Partiers to gather together and protest their government, I don’t quite understand why you would deny the average Egyptian the same right. It’s not like angry Egyptians can write a letter to the editor or vote out their representatives to get better results. Even if the protesters are anti-Israeli, want a more Islamist government, and can repeat every bit of anti-American propaganda they’ve ever heard, who are we to say to them, 'You deserve no better than Mubarak'?"- Jim Geraghty, National Review.

A reader takes issue with the nomination:

Does Lew Rockwell really qualify as right-wing? The only thing he hates more than Democrats are Republicans.  Hell, even the quote you pull rails equally against warfare as it does bank bailouts.

His take on the raising the debt ceiling is indeed shrill, but isn't it, well, self-evidently true?

Raising the ceiling is, by definition, continuing business as usual because it is, without exception, what we have done EVERY TIME we have been confronted by the immediate problem of having more spending than we have revenue and having legal limits in place in an attempt to get Congress to take responsibility for its spending rather than trying to just borrow against our long-term solvency for the sake of avoiding difficult short-term choices.  The conventional wisdom in the Beltway is that voting against raising the debt ceiling is wildly irresponsible – which is ironic considering that voting to raise the debt ceiling is, again, by definition an explicit announcement of Congress' abdication of responsibility. 

And, remember, the debt ceiling isn't some arbitrary concept, nor is it there entirely to try to get Congress to spend responsibly; it is there to limit the eventual damage in case Congress absolutely refuses to pay down debt.  Much in the same way toxic assets brought down the banking system because they jumped over the meager fences designed to limit the damage should they explode, so too does constantly raising the debt limit essentially constantly raise the risk to all of us that our debt entails (and it DOES entail risk). 

People who vote against raising the debt limit aren't some kind of wild-eyed fiscal purists demanding a return to a pre-New Deal America.  They're just asking that Congress adhere to its own self-imposed limits – limits there to protect us from their institutional short-sightedness (and limits, by the way, that it managed to adhere to LAST YEAR at the level they're at now without society imploding and governance grinding to a halt and all of us having to eat our pets and grandparents for sustenance in some kind of crazy Mad Max world).

Lew is right – refusing to, yet again, raise the debt ceiling is just voting to forever expand every aspect of government (which I wouldn't call necessarily a criminal enterprise, but that's Lew Rockwell for ya) and a steadfast refusal to make choices.  It is a blank check to everything, from social services to defense (read: warfare state), and an abject refusal to try to keep spending at a zero sum gain. 

I find it hard to take seriously people who hold the two competing ideas in their head that Republicans are hypocrites for not being serious about cutting spending but insane for trying to force the issue.

Because, you know, forcing the issue could devastate America's fiscal standing and create economic global chaos and uncertainty. And if Lew Rockwell isn't on the far right, then is my reader saying he's on the far left? Please. My record is strong and consistent on debt – and I find this kind of grandstanding, well, as reckless as the spending that got us into this hole.