Top Selling Books of 2009

If the sales of books are any indication, conservatism is making a comeback. (People marching on Washington might be an indication, too. But that's not the topic of this post.)

While Democrats are trying to drag Americans kicking and screaming into a communist regime, all the while claiming a "mandate," some of the biggest selling books in America are books written by conservative writers.

It's difficult to tell exactly what books are the top sellers, so far. The New York Times publishes a weekly list and breaks down their numbers into categories. Amazon, Borders and Barnes & Noble all have their lists, but only include sales from their operations.

However, looking at all the sources I could find in a twenty minute search revealed that among the biggest sellers of the year are....

A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity (Bill O'Reilly)

Arguing with Idiots (Glenn Beck)

Common Sense (Glenn Beck)

End the Fed (Ron Paul)

Culture of Corruption (Michelle Malkin)

A Slobbering Love Affair (Bernard Goldberg)

Guilty (Ann Coulter)

A Time for Freedom (Liz Cheney)

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto (Mark R. Levin)

How to Talk to A Liberal (Ann Coulter)

Face of Betrayal (Lis Weihl)

Whether or not all of these books end up on the top 100 for the year is yet to be seen.

Of course, O'Reilly does not consider himself a "conservative" because he is not an "ideologue". Beck and Ron Paul are more Libertarian, but very conservative politically. In fact, Beck is more of what I would call a "Constitutionalist." He is closer to where "man on the street" conservatives are, but not Republicans in Washington.

Conspicuously absent from the best seller lists are anything about Global Warming by Al Gore, Obama's books (which sold well last year), anything by Al Franken, and anything by ... well, just about any other Liberal you might mention.

Whether or not this could translate into votes in 2010 and 2012 remains to be seen. But if I were a Liberal, I'd start trying to write a new best-seller.

And if I were a publisher, I wouldn't buy it.

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Ted Kennedy's Final Hypocrisy

When I read the news article about Kennedy's flip flop on how Massachusetts should replace a Senator unable to fulfill his term, I began formulating how I might post a blog titled "Ted Kennedy's Final Hypocrisy." Doug Bandow of American Spectator published the following article this morning that says what I was going to say much more eloquently than I could have.

By Doug Bandow on 8.28.09 @ 7:50AM

It's a curious spectable. The Left turns someone who left a young lady to die in a car accident into an icon. Then after some of us remember the bad as well as the good about the man's life and character, his groupies shout outrage. They might want to ponder just a minute the life that Mary Jo Kopechne might have led had she not died as a result of Sen. Kennedy's recklessness and negligence 40 Julys ago. As Stacy McCain observed:

When news broke that Ted Kennedy had died, many people had a reaction quite similar to my own: "Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment." It's an old line I'd used often over the years whenever Teddy made news. While I thought I'd stolen it from Ann Coulter, someone else said it actually originated more than two decades ago as a Chevy Chase punchline on Saturday Night Live.

Far more current is the political, rather than moral, scandal of the Senator's last public utterance: his hypocritical call for the selection of his replacement by the governor through appointment rather than by the people through special election. Even a few Democrats are uncomfortable with this rush to let the politicians substitute their preferences for that of the public--the very people who Sen. Kennedy and others supposedly spent their lives defending. Reports the Wall Street Journal:

The question of how to fill Mr. Kennedy's seat is vexing Democrats. In 2004, Mr. Kennedy supported a special election rather than a gubernatorial appointment. Yet more recently, he wrote to Mr. Patrick and legislative leaders, urging that Massachusetts give the governor the power to appoint an interim successor.

Mr. Kennedy wrote that the governor should receive "an explicit personal commitment" from the appointee not to become a candidate in the special election. Mr. Patrick has supported the idea, and brushes aside concerns that Democrats were being inconsistent: "Massachusetts needs two voices in the United States Senate," he said this week.

In 2004, Democrats took the opposite tack. When some Republicans complained of the cost of a special election, Democratic Rep. William Straus said such reasoning might have been used in a "totalitarian country" and that "one person, whoever happens to be governor, will not make the decision for you."

In an interview Thursday, Mr. Straus stood by his words, saying he recently heard from many other Democrats who feel Mr. Patrick is making a mistake.

Mr. Straus said there always will be a pressing issue in Washington that seems more important than having an election. "We need to hold ourselves to the higher principles of democracy," he said.

Massachusetts state Sen. Brian A. Joyce, a Democrat who headed the election-laws committee in 2004, agreed. "If we were to allow an appointment, it would be wholly undemocratic," he said. "When you cut through the rhetoric on both sides, it's pure partisan politics."

There's nothing new about politicians switching sides for rank political purposes. But the Senator's conduct should be kept in mind as the encomiums about his "principles" flow. Yes, he was an ideological liberal. But he also was a hypocritical pol little different than so many of his colleagues in Washington and Massachusetts. And his final public action was to push to strip his constituents of their right to decide on his successor.

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White House Refuses to Answer Questions About Green Jobs Czar

More than five months after the Obama administration announced the hiring of its “green jobs czar,” Van Jones (right), the White House has refused to explain whether it knew of Jones admitted black nationalist and radical communist history and just who hired the advisor.

Also questions continue to fester about how Jones, who has an arrest history, passed security clearances for his White House position.

Cliff Kincaid, an editor at Accuracy in Media, attempted to answer some of these questions when he used the Freedom of Information Act in April to request immediate access to all documents relating to the appointment of Jones to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he serves as special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation.

The Council, which hired Jones, replied that it “searched its records system and found none responsive” for Kincaid’s request.

The Council recommended more information be sought at the White House Press Office, which did not respond to Kincaid’s requests about on how Jones was hired.

The White House also did not reply to numerous WND requests for comment.

Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck program similarly asked the White House whether it was aware of Jones radical history.

The White House provided the following response: “Mr. Jones is entirely focused on one policy goal: building clean energy incentives which create 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources.”

The lack of available information concerning Jones is unusual since the Obama transition team previously touted it developed a seven-page questionnaire that included 63 questions about an applicant’s background and qualifications for a federal job. Kincaid pointed out that CNN reported the document was to be for “every candidate for Cabinet and other high-ranking positions in the incoming administration.”

However, there is no information Jones ever filled out the document.

Also, there are open questions as to how Jones obtained a White House security clearance. He spent time in jail several times, including in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots.

Jones was the leader and founder of a radical communist and black nationalist group, the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM. The organization had its roots in a grouping of black people organizing to protest the first Gulf War. STORM was formally founded in 1994, becoming one of the most influential and active radical groups in the San Francisco Bay area.

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Sotoamayor Disguises Her Beliefs

As several commentators on the Sotomayor hearings have noticed, Judge Sotomayor is clearly mischaracterizing and disguising what she really meant in her many speeches. Matthew Franck has a good summary of the two main points where the Republicans gave her some trouble. First there is the attempt by her and her Democratic defenders to totally mischaracterize her "wise Latina" speech. And remember that she made almost that exact same comment in several different speeches over a course of years; it wasn't some inartful comment made off the cuff, but part of written speeches that were then published in a journal.

Sotomayor's tactics for putting this problem away--abetted by committee Democrats--have been threefold. First, she says that "in context" she didn't mean what is seen by nearly every reader of these speeches, and that "wise Latina" was a "rhetorical flourish" that "fell flat" and in retrospect "was bad." Second, she claims that, to the contrary, all judges should do is "apply the law to facts" and that's it, notwithstanding her speeches appearing to claim that such an approach is simplistic and probably impossible. And third, she seeks to divert attention to her judicial record of 17 years on the bench, where, she says, she has lived up consistently to that "apply law to facts" model of judging, without letting her personal views get in the way of the job. Several committee Democrats have particularly hammered this third point, urging that we ignore these speeches.

These tactics aren't working well. Senators Sessions and Kyl, especially, put her statements fully into their context in those speeches, and they sound worse, not better. Even Sotomayor's allies have trouble swallowing the "just apply law to facts" model as she enunciates it (more on that later). And the speeches are what they are, regardless of her record on the bench: they are Sotomayor speaking when liberated from the constraints of a lower-court judge. And boy, are Supreme Court justices liberated, on the job as well as after hours!

Next there were questions about another one of her speeches in which she explicitly endorsed the use of international law in judicial decision making. Again, she tried to evade the clear meaning of her speech.

The next rough patch concerns another speech, quite recent--an April 2009 speech to the ACLU of Puerto Rico on the role of foreign law. Here too Judge Sotomayor has run away from what she transparently said. And this time the flight from her text took place under questioning by her home state senator, Charles Schumer of New York. Asked to deal with that recent speech, the judge perfectly mischaracterized it, saying it was really all about those instances in which our own law tells judges they must consult foreign law (as when treaties govern a case). But since in the speech she explicitly referenced with approval the use of foreign law in the death penalty case of Roper v. Simmons and the homosexual sodomy case of Lawrence v. Texas, this new spin on what she said is not credible.

So she denied once again that she meant what she had clearly meant. Of course, she had to also defend her actions in dismissing the Ricci case in a summary judgment and disregarding the serious constitutional issues that, at the very least as all nine justices made clear, deserved a hearing.

The question that arises is why would she and the Democrats on the committee try to disguise what she really meant by her strong, repeated affirmation of the value of having a "wise Latina" judge or referring to international law. This is something that they all clearly believe. President Obama definitely believes that a minority judge would have a different and welcome approach, an empathetic approach, to decision making. But instead of defending their beliefs and laying forth the liberal position on these two questions, she sought to obfuscate her beliefs. After all, she knows and they know that she will be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Wouldn't this have been the perfect opportunity for liberals to lay before the American people the logic of their arguments. Could it be that liberals realize that they are the ones who are out of the mainstream and that American public opinion don't agree with them on these two questions?

One liberal supporter, Professor Louis Michael Seidman of Georgetown has already left the team.

I was completely disgusted by Judge Sotomayor's testimony today. If she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified. How could someone who has been on the bench for seventeen years possibly believe that judging in hard cases involves no more than applying the law to the facts?

Of course, they know and we know that, once she gets on the bench, we'll see the real Sotomayor and that won't resemble the modest, impartial, almost conservative-leaning judge that we are seeing this week.

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Quote of the Day

"We are seeing in Washington that the multiculturalism impulse - one does not use Western paradigms to judge others - is far stronger than the supposedly classical liberal idea that human freedom is a universal concept that trumps culture. In other words, multicultural foreign policy is a sophisticated and politically correct version of the old, far more intellectually honest realist notion that we let the bastards do what they want to their own people, and then deal with the thug that emerges in the real world of mutual self-interest."

-- Pajamasmedia.com today's article "Voting Present On Iran"

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Too Much Anger

I started to post a reply to my last post in response to a comment left by one "Grey-Headed Brother."  Mr. Brother seems to think my blog contains too much anger and not enough love.

Perhaps he is right.

I've looked back over many of my recent posts and noted that some of them do contain a certain degree of anger.  Perhaps .... and this is just a thought ... but perhaps, it's because .... I'm angry.

I'm angry that the Tele-Prompter is taking us down a liberal-socialist path that will prevent the US from ever returning to the greatness we once enjoyed.

I'm angry that the MainStream Media no longer reports political news, but only reports the Democratic talking points and slants everything toward the left.

I'm angry that the national debt, by the time The Tele-Prompter leaves office (in four years, hopefully, if he's not drummed out sooner) could exceed $100,000 for every taxpaying American.

I'm angry that the Tele-Prompter has broken more campaign promises in the first 60 days in office than do most Presidents during their entire term, without so much as a whisper of anger from his supporters.

Perhaps, as a Christian I should show more love. 

If you met me in person, you'd find me a rather quiet, introspective, and pleasant person.  I'm nice to everyone.  But, I hold things in.  A friend of mine, who happens to have a degree in psychology, told me that it isn't good to hold frustrations and anger inside.

So I have an outlet.   It's called a Blog.  And here I can say what I really think and feel without  worrying about what anyone thinks. 

You don't like it?  Tough.  Big deal.  I don't CARE!!!  It's MY opinion.  You don't have to like it.

If you don't like reading what REAL AMERICANS think, go elsewhere.  CNN, the New York Times, MSNBC, and all the other major MainStream News sources have a place for you, where you can go live in a "happy place" and feel good about things.

I live in a world where there are consequences.  And I'm not just going to sit by in my "happy place" and not say anything about what's going on around me.

Follow my blog if you like.  And if you don't like it and want to take your name off, that's fine by me.  I don't care if I have any followers or not.

I'd rather have a blog, than prozac.

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Could Obama be Elected to more than two terms?

As much as I hate to ruin everyone's day, I feel compelled to report the following:

As Inauguration Day approaches and Barack Obama prepares to assume his first term as president, some in Congress are hoping to make it possible for the Democrat to not only seek a second term in office, but a third and fourth as well.

The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary is considering a bill that would repeal the Constitution's 22nd Amendment prohibiting a president from being elected to more than two terms in office, something that would have never happened before November of last year.

Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., earlier this month introduced the bill, H. J. Res. 5, which, according to the bill's language, proposes "an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President."

In the past, some presidents have been critical of the 22nd Amendment, including Eisenhower, Clinton and Reagan.

In 1807 Thomas Jefferson, however, warned that presidents not bound by term limits could use their popularity and power to become kings.

"If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution or supplied in practice," Jefferson wrote to the Legislature of Vermont, "his office, nominally for years, will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance."

Presidential term limits, however, were not "fixed by the Constitution" until ratification of the 22nd Amendment. Congress passed the Amendment on March 21, 1947, shortly after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first and only president to be elected to more than two terms – in Roosevelt's case, four. The Amendment was ratified by the required number of states on Feb. 26, 1951.

Funny thing is, the democrats were consistent in their criticism of the "Bush Dynasty," which they equated to a "Tyranny" because two Bushes were elected to a total of three terms.

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Media Hypocrisy on Kennedy and Palin Reveals Elitism at its Worst

The current media frenzy over Caroline Kennedy’s possible appointment to Hillary Clinton’s soon-to-be vacant senate seat demonstrates media hypocrisy and elitism at its worst.

While there are some concerns being vocalized about Caroline’s qualifications to be a senator, most of them are coming from political opponents in New York who covet that senate seat for themselves or someone close to them. In other words, their main motivation is not Caroline Kennedy’s inexperience, but rather their own need for political power.

The mainstream media, however, has decided that this is a non-issue. Many of the same “pundits” who decried the nomination of Sarah Palin based on qualifications are the same talking heads out there defending the possible appointment of Caroline Kennedy.

Looking at each situation, a case can be made on qualifications for each. It is true that Sarah Palin has only been governor for 2 years. It is reasonable that some could find this a thin resume for the Vice Presidency. It is not without precedent, however, as the political resume of Teddy Roosevelt reveals a mere 2 year stint as governor of New York before assuming the Vice Presidency, and after the assassination of President McKinley, the presidency.

It is unreasonable, however, that those same folks would unequivocally support Barack Hussein Obama for President of the United States and Caroline Kennedy(Schlossberg?) for senate. The One we’ve been waiting for was only a senator for 3 years (the last 2 years of which were spent largely campaigning for president and ignoring his senate responsibilities.) Before his U.S. Senate career he was a mere state senator in Illinois. Yet, somehow this was enough to qualify the BFF of Bill Ayers, the protege of Rev. Wright and Saul Alinsky, and the kept man of Tony Rezko for the highest office in the land despite having absolutely no executive experience. Similarly, Caroline Kennedy’s political experience is having a father who was president and giving speeches over the years.

Sarah Palin’s executive experience as a mayor of Wasilla, the head of the Alaska Oil & Gas Commission, and 2 years as Governor of Alaska just weren’t enough to offset the years spent as a community organizer and as a state senator securing funding for socialist educational agendas proposed by Bill Ayers and money for the corrupt slumlord Tony Rezko in Obama’s case; or in the case of Kennedy, being the daughter of a former president.

At the heart of the media hypocrisy is elitism. Why does Sarah Palin’s years of executive experience not count, while Obama’s nonsensical career of no accomplishments and countless “present” votes set him up to be the world’s messiah?

Why does Sarah Palin’s record of accomplishment not count as much as Caroline Kennedy’s family name and law degree? It comes down to the old debate of which matters more: actions or words.

To liberals the answer to that question is a resounding “WORDS!” It is the media’s elitist attitude that is at the heart of this issue. Sarah Palin did not go to law school. She didn’t attend an Ivy League indoctrination center. As such, she is just one step above being in a vegetative state in the eyes of most liberals.

To liberals, actual experience and accomplishments don’t count if you haven’t kissed the ring of the liberal academic world. It is a worldview that celebrates study and not action. Debate but not leadership. Propaganda but not freedom of speech. One must agree with Marx and Alinsky and recite chapter and verse the liberal/socialist worldview. It is a matter of memorizing the propaganda and sticking to the script. Words are held in higher esteem by liberals than actions. It doesn’t matter if you make things worse so long as you said the right thing and that you “cared.”

Caroline Kennedy is certainly qualified to run for Senate based on her education. She is a lady of words. What she lacks is actual political experience. Living in the White House for 3 years as a small child is not really experience. She hasn’t really accomplished anything from a political perspective. She is an author and has accomplishments in other areas, but personally she lacks political accomplishments.

She represents a complete polar opposite of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a celebration of action over words. She is today’s political action figure. Sarah Palin does have a college degree, but not from an Ivy League school. She has worked her way up in a system that was not only closed to her, but downright hostile. She overcame the political establishment in her party and her state to achieve a very commendable record of accomplishments in her 2 year tenure as governor.

So to liberals, you can be fresh out of law school and be qualified for the presidency so long as you graduated from Harvard, Yale or Columbia and have memorized the socialist talking points. There is certainly nothing wrong with holding education in high esteem, but it should not be the sole authority in electing our leaders. There are also two assumptions built into the “education is king” philosophy that need to be refuted.

The first assumption is that anyone who does not go to Harvard or Yale is somehow unqualified for anything but dog-catcher. Under this assumption, Harry Truman would have been ineligible for the presidency as he didn’t even have a college degree. Ronald Reagan’s degree from Eureka College would also fail to pass the test. It is quite possible to be intelligent without attending an Ivy League school. That is not putting down the Ivy League schools, but it is giving other institutions of learning the credit they deserve. A law degree is certainly helpful in a political career, but it can only go so far. Words are important, but words without actions to back them up are nothing more than hot air and empty rhetoric.

The second assumption is that everyone who does attend those schools is ready to lead. Leadership requires a certain moral clarity, integrity and personal courage. It requires clear-sighted vision and decision-making. It demands one to be able to set aside political opportunism to do what is right. These are qualities that have virtually nothing to do with a college education. These qualities are forged in every day life as ordinary citizens seek to do the right thing and to make a positive difference in their community. Action is needed by a leader. Barack Hussein Obama is good at reading from a teleprompter, but take away the script and what do you get? Besides a lot of “uhs” we have yet to see. In fact, when Israel was attacked by Hamas the other day, the next leader of the free world was silent. He simply had no comment. Every other day of the week, he has had no problem weighing in on everything from his appointments, his stimulus package, his shirtless physique and SPAM. The day Israel is attacked by terrorists, he suddenly has nothing to say. Why? Because that might require him to act. He is a man of words, not actions.

So, the media has revealed its hypocrisy in the issue of Sarah Palin time and time again. Perhaps that is why so many of the Ivy League graduates who work in the mainstream media are finding their jobs eliminated as their newspapers and media outlets continue to lose revenue and relevance. Perhaps the American people aren’t totally convinced that mere talking is the way to go.

Barack Obama and Caroline Kennedy will have to prove to the voters with their actions that they are capable leaders worthy of their offices. If their record fails to mirror their rhetoric, the American people will have a decision to make.

So, let Caroline Kennedy become a senator. Let her stand on her own and stand for re-election in 2010, but please don’t tell me that she’s more qualified than a woman who can raise a family of five, and run a state government while hunting both the moose and the corrupt business-as-usual politicians of the Alaskan landscape with ease. In my world and that of mainstream America, actions still speak louder than words.

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