Miranda Blue's blog

While the rest of the conservative movement is already several conspiracy theories ahead of him, Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt is still hung up on Fast and Furious, the troubled Justice Department operation started under the Bush administration that Pratt and others believe was actually orchestrated by President Obama to promote gun control.

So Pratt is elated by the scandals – some legitimate and some not so much – plaguing the Obama administration this week because, he says, they might finally allow for the chance to impeach the president over Fast and Furious. “If this isn’t the time when you can get him both politically and legally,” he told host Stan Solomon of the Talk to Solomon Show, “I don’t know when.”

Pratt and Solomon then had a baffling exchange about how to remove the president from the White House after his impeachment, involving forcing him to dangle from the bottom of a helicopter and something about gangrene:

Pratt: This last week has been a spectacular spinning out of control of the future of the president. He is no longer the big guy in town. I don’t know who that might be to take his place yet, but it sure is not he. And he’s gonna be doing well not to end up just exactly like Richard Nixon. They still have helicopters that can fly you out of the White House on that last flight.

Solomon: Yeah, right, and of course, with a little luck he can be dangling from the bottom of one.

Pratt: Gangrene One!

Solomon: Yeah.

The anti-choice movement has for several years been experiencing a quiet rift over extreme state-level measures would ban all abortions – and in some cases, in vitro fertilization and some forms of birth control – in a head-on challenge to Roe v. Wade. As Personhood USA and Janet Porter gain more and more success in pushing “personhood” and “heartbeat” bills at the state level, national pro-life groups who oppose the laws for strategic reasons find themselves in a bind.

In March, when North Dakota passed a “heartbeat” bill which would ban nearly all abortions in the state and strike directly at Roe v. Wade, it also passed two narrower measures banning abortion based on genetic abnormalities or the sex of the fetus. The national anti-choice group Concerned Women for America praised heartbeat the bill,  while Americans United For Life issued press releases that ignored the bill and praised the narrower measures. National Right to Life went even further, actively speaking out against the North Dakota bill and similar “heartbeat” measures in other states.

In an article for the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly this week, Americans United For Life’s senior counsel, William Saunders, lays out his fears of what would happen if the Supreme Court were given the opportunity to reconsider Roe v. Wade. While he praises the “admirable and inspiring” efforts behind the trio of new abortion restrictions in North Dakota, Saunders warns that a direct challenge to Roe will give the Supreme Court a chance to rewrite their 1973 decision on more solid “equal protection” footing.

Instead, he argues, anti-choice activists should target incremental measures at wearing away the opposition of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who voted to uphold the so-called “partial birth” abortion ban in Gonzales v. Carhart. “Can the statute be fashioned so as to make it as easy as possible for him (and the others) to go the one step (or two or ten) further than Gonzales in restricting abortion?,” he asks.

Taken together, these three laws provide significant food for thought.

While the persistent efforts of pro-life Americans at the state level are admirable and inspiring and must be encouraged, how does one evaluate the wisdom of any particular proposed (or enacted) law? First, I suggest, one must recognize the legal realities—what kinds of statutes will the courts certainly overturn? Of course, this is not to say that the courts should govern this matter. In fact, the usurpation of the political process by courts is, in my view, unconstitutional itself and should be resisted. However, if we know a law will be overturned by a court, we should consider the risk of such a decision. At least one significant risk is that the Supreme Court, in overturning a law, will entrench “abortion rights” more firmly in constitutional jurisprudence, perhaps under an “equal-protection”-based right, as Justice Ginsburg and three colleagues wanted to do in the Gonzales dissent.

Sad as it is to consider, Gonzales was decided by only one vote, that of Justice Anthony Kennedy. The opinion he wrote for the majority, while speaking of the right of the legislature to choose among divided experts in fashioning law and while recognizing that abortion harms at least some women, did no more than uphold the outlawing of one abortion procedure when others were available. Is such a person likely to uphold a ban on all abortions at any point in pregnancy? If so, what rationale for doing so (what basis) is likely to appeal to him? Can the statute be fashioned so as to make it as easy as possible for him (and the others) to go the one step (or two or ten) further than Gonzales in restricting abortion? Might a statute with a ban (or limit) early in pregnancy lead him to “protect” the “abortion right” and vote with Ginsburg and her colleagues in favor of a firm affirmation of a “constitutional” right to abortion? Is it better to move the ball gently, seeking to build momentum for the ultimate reversal of Roe/Doe, or to force the issue with a broad and early ban? While reasonable people can differ on the answers to these questions, the consequences of a possible forty more years of unlimited abortion due to another Casey-like decision by the Supreme Court counsels for very careful consideration of what prudence requires.

Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, has spent his first few months in office making enemies on both sides of the aisle. Perhaps this is because the Tea Party hero employs a potent mix of of sanctimonious rhetoric and hatchet-job politics that led one of his fellow GOP senators to call him “Jim DeMint without the charm.” His particular brand of smarminess was on display, for instance, when he delivered a condescending, elementary school-level lecture about the Constitution to Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Or when he explained that he was for gun sales background checks but opposed a bill to expand them because the very real gun-show loophole “doesn’t exist.” Or when he mocked his Republicans colleagues who did support the background check bill, calling them weak “squishes.”

So it was a treat today to stumble across this interview that Cruz gave earlier this month to Red State, in which he explains that if anybody has a problem with him it’s their own fault because, “When others have chosen to insult me, to throw rocks at me, I have not and will not respond in kind.”

“Washington is a place where people often shy away from speaking the truth,” he explained. “And so my focus will remain on the substance...and I think there’s some that don’t like a consistent and explicit focus on the substance of the issue.”
 

We thought we’d help Sen. Cruz out by highlighting just a few examples of times when he has refrained from throwing rocks and displayed “a consistent and explicit focus on the substance of the issue”:

• When he accused John Kerry and Chuck Hagel – both combat veterans – of being “less than ardent fans of the U.S. military.”
• When he baselessly speculated that Hagel was laundering money from the North Korean government.
• When he warned that “Sharia law is an enormous problem” in the United States.
• When he claimed that when he attended Harvard Law School, there were twelve professors “who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”
• When he called President Obama “the most radical” president “ever to occupy the Oval Office.”
• When he claimed that the United Nations and George Soros are conspiring to eliminate golf.
• When he objected to a symbolic resolution commemorating International Women’s Day because it acknowledged the existence of climate change.
• When he attacked a fellow Republican Senate candidate for marching in a gay pride parade.
• When he called President Obama “the single biggest obstacle to passing immigration reform”…which Cruz opposes.
• When he falsely claimed that expanding Medicaid would actually “worsen health care options for the most vulnerable.”
• When he objected for no particular reason to a symbolic resolution commemorating Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week.
• When he called the families of children killed in Newtown “political props.”
• And, of course, this:

Rep. Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, has what you might call a loose grip on the truth. In just the last year, for instance, he has cited a sham study to attack Obamacare, warned about the health and economic impacts of gay rights, and declared that “there is not one woman” without access to birth control.

He has also shown a penchant for Tea Party “America is doomed” rhetoric, such as his warning last year that the Affordable Care Act  “removes the very freedom and liberty that our founders fought for at its very core” and will destroy “the America that you and I love.”

Price combined these two traits in an interview with conservative bloggers at Red State today, in which he completely made up facts about the stimulus bill and the deaths of dimplomats in Benghazi in order to argue that the Obama administration has “led to what many people have called a government that no longer has the consent of the governed.” This missing trust, he says, is what “allows a democracy to stand.”

Price started out by claiming that funds in the 2009 stimulus bill were spent on “things that didn’t improve the economy, that didn’t turn things around, that didn’t decrease unemployment.” In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and many leading economists found that the bill did, in fact, do all three of those things.

Well, it’s because they’ve been deceived. The American people have been deceived by this administration and by what their policies were. And it all started with the stimulus bill, that was a non-stimulus bill that took hundreds of billions of dollars, nearly a trillion dollars, and spent it on things that didn’t improve the economy, that didn’t turn things around, that didn’t decrease unemployment, in spite of the testimonials of the president and those in his administration. So that was the first part.

And then came all of the healthcare debate over a year and a half, culminating in Congress passing a bill that the American people didn’t want at that time and still don’t want. It has led to what many people have called a government that no longer has the consent of the governed, and it’s that trust that’s so absolutely vital between the people and their government that allows a democracy to stand. And so, it needs to be recovered, and that’s why I call on the president immediately to get out in front on these issues, come clean, admit where the errors were made and the mistakes were made.

He then moved on, of course, to Benghazi, repeating the completely debunked right-wing myth that the Obama administration told Special Forces to, as Price puts it, “stand down and don’t go protect Americans.”

It’s hard to say that the cover-up is always worse than the deed, when you have four Americans who were murdered without the administration doing anything to go to their aid and protect them. Not because the assets weren’t there or the opportunities weren’t there, but because somebody in the administration said, ‘It’s time to stand down and don’t go protect Americans.’ This is incredibly important, again, it gets to that huge trust issue. But it does keep snowballing because the administration refuses to come clean, the president refuses to take responsibility for what happened. This is absolutely unconscionable.

And I think now, with the IRS and with Benghazi as it is, and now with the AP story that we’ve just gotten out, that the Department of Justice tapped and got records, phone records, from 20-plus AP reporters, now the mainstream media is brought into the fray, and they realize that this administration is wayward and, as somebody has described, drunk with power. And that we will now see a much more critical view of the administration from the press.

Pat Buchanan is the latest right-wing figure to jump to the defense of Jason Richwine, the advocate of racist pseudo-science who was booted from the Heritage Foundation last week.

In his latest syndicated column, Buchanan argues that Hispanic Americans exhibit “underclass behavior” and warns of the dangers of “racially mixed communities.”

“With the immigration bill granting amnesty to 12 million illegals, an open door to their dependents and a million new immigrants each year, almost all from the Third World, America in 2040 is going to look like Los Angeles today,” he writes.

Buchanan also attempts to back up Richwine’s theories about racial differences in IQ, pointing to global rankings among “Hispanic nations” in math, reading and science. He is forced to undercut his own theory, however, but leaving the most prosperous Spanish-speaking nation, Spain, out of his bogus statistics.

The 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA, which measures the academic ability of 15-year-olds worldwide, found the USA falling to 17th in reading, 23rd in science, 31st in math.

Yet, Spain aside, not one Hispanic nation, from which a plurality of our immigrants come, was among the top 40 in reading, science or math.

But these folks are going to come here and make us No. 1 again?

Is there greater “underclass behavior” among Hispanics?

The crime rate among Hispanics is about three times that of white Americans, while the Asian crime rate is about a third that of whites.

Among white folks, the recent illegitimacy rate was 28 percent; among Hispanics, 53 percent. According to one study a few years back, Hispanics were 19 times as likely as whites to join gangs.

What about Richwine’s point regarding “social trust”?

Six years ago, in “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the 21st Century,” Robert Putnam, author of “Bowling Alone,” wrote that after 30,000 interviews he found that ethnic and racial diversity can be devastating to communities and destructive of community values.

In racially mixed communities, Putnam wrote, not only do people not trust strangers, they do not even trust their own kind.

“People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down,’ that is, to pull in like a turtle … (to) withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.”

With the immigration bill granting amnesty to 12 million illegals, an open door to their dependents and a million new immigrants each year, almost all from the Third World, America in 2040 is going to look like Los Angeles today. Yet, it was in L.A. that Putnam found social capital at its most depleted and exhausted.

If Richwine is right, America in 2040 will be a country with whites and Asians dominating the professions, and 100 million Hispanics concentrated in semiskilled work and manual labor.

The issues Richwine raises go to the question of whether we shall survive as one nation and one people.

In his daily email yesterday, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins attacked a bill that would prohibit adoption programs that receive federal funding from discriminating against same-sex couples. This bill, he says, “would intentionally deprive children of a mother” and expose children to “the serious risks [of] being raised in a homosexual home.”

Perkins’ evidence for these “serious risks” is, of course, the thoroughly debunked Regnerus Study.

Now, some in Congress want to get in on the act with a bill that would intentionally deprive children of a mother. Under this legislation, the government would punish any adoption agency that gives priority to married, heterosexual couples. The bill, co-sponsored by Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), would cut off the federal funding of any agency -- including faith-based charities -- that seek the safest and most nurturing home for kids. If it passes, the official policy of the U.S. government would be to penalize organizations who take the well-being of children into account in adoption placement.

This is how backwards we've become as a society! As we've seen in the Boy Scouts membership debate, America's focus is no longer the well-being of children but on the "well-being" of a small but politically powerful minority. There's an abundance of social science data supporting the common-sense belief that children do best when raised by a married mother and father. Because of that, there's every rational basis for agencies to prefer such households over those headed by same-sex couples in adoption.

In the largest peer-review study ever done on same-sex parenting, Dr. Mark Regnerus found that the emotional, financial, academic, and physical outcomes of kids raised in homosexual homes rated "suboptimal" or "negative" in almost every category. "There's nothing worse than being brought up by two gay dads," said homosexual actor Rupert Everett. And Dr. Regnerus proves it. In outcome after outcome, he shows the serious risks to being raised in a homosexual home -- not the least of which are poverty, depression, and abuse.
 

A jury today found Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell guilty in the deaths a woman and three infants in a squalid, nightmarish abortion clinic. Anti-choice groups have been closely following the trial, attempting to link Gosnell’s crimes to the very existence of legal abortion. They have exploited the Gosnell trial to push for state-level “TRAP” laws meant to close abortion clinics with unnecessary regulations. Now, anti-choice groups are targeting legal abortion in Washington, DC.

Reacting to the Gosnell verdict, the Family Research Council and the Susan B. Anthony List both singled out a bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, that would ban abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah also plugged the bill in an interview with Janet Mefferd about Gosnell. The bill, similar to several that have been considered in state legislatures, is based on the disputed claim that 20 weeks is the point at which a fetus can feel pain. Such procedures are rare, accounting for just 1.5 percent of abortions.

DC has long been a convenient target for Republican lawmakers looking to expand school vouchers, eliminate needle exchange programs, stop gun control measures…and, of course, infringe on abortion rights. Thanks to a 2011 budget deal, for instance, the District is currently barred from using its own local tax dollars to help low-income women access abortions – a policy that has been in effect off and on for 25 years.

Of course, Franks’ DC bill is completely unrelated to the Gosnell trial. In reality, abortion performed in proper conditions are one of the safest medical procedures provided in the United States. Gosnell’s clinic, which was the last refuge for many low-income women, illustrated the horrors of the unsafe, back-alley abortions that are all too common in parts of the world where abortion is illegal.

Last year, when Franks introduced a similar bill, he refused to let D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton testify against it in committee.

One of the most fascinating things about last week’s conservative infighting over the Heritage Foundation’s immigration reform study was how it revealed the careful balance that “mainstream” groups like Heritage must maintain with the more radical elements of the conservative base.

The Heritage study’s coauthor, Jason Richwine, resigned after his paper trail of racist pseudo-science came to light. Groups like Heritage and the Center for Immigration Studies are generally exceedingly careful to try to insulate themselves from charges of racism – instead of explicitly talking about race, they talk about “multiculturalism and diversity,” “patriotic assimilation,” “professional ethnics” and “high rates of welfare use.”

All of which drives radical anti-immigrant groups crazy. The White Nationalist group VDARE, for instance, is livid that Richwine was booted from Heritage.

In a VDARE blog post Saturday, VDARE editor Peter Brimelow writes that “Beltway immigration patriots” who are “terrified to death of any sign of Political Incorrectness” will ultimately be powerless to stop comprehensive immigration reform. Instead, he writes, they will ultimately be dependent on people like himself and on xenophobia – or, “the very Incorrect sentiments of national identity etc.” – among the grassroots. These sentiments, he writes, were responsible for defeating immigration reform in 2007.

Weigel writes:

"Anyone could have predicted it. Richwine didn’t mind taking on taboos or talking to taboo people. That’s how immigration reform foes talk amongst themselves. That’s not how they’re going to stop the bill."

Actually, my observation is that the small community of Beltway immigration patriots are terrified to death of any sign of Political Incorrectness and have substantially internalized this inhibition.

But it doesn’t matter anyway, because what will really stop “immigration reform” a.k.a. the Amnesty/ Immigration Surge is grass roots opposition—as in 2007. And that is motivated by the very Incorrect sentiments of national identity etc.

Nevertheless, the Richwine saga has to make you wonder where America is headed.

Brimelow is no stranger to the nexus of mainstream and radical on the Right. Last year, Brimelow was invited to speak on a Conservative Political Action Conference panel about “how the pursuit of diversity is weakening American identity” –at which he was joined by Rep. Steve King of Iowa.
 

Conservative columnist Sher Zieve posts an interview today with Christina Michas, head of the Palm Springs chapter of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum.

Michas, it turns out, is an expert in the sinister connection between Common Core education standards, Agenda 21 and Obamacare, the proponents of which, she has discovered, have the “ultimate goal” of setting up “internment or re-education camps for those that will not comply with their sick agenda.”

In particular, Michas tells Sher, “the comparison of Nazism and Common Core are uncanny.” In fact, she says, “If this isn’t Nazism, Communism, Marxism and all the ‘ism’s,’ I don’t know what is.”

“I know this sounds insane,” Michas adds,  “but sadly, it is a reality we are facing today.”

It’s difficult to summarize her arguments, but here are some excerpts:

Sher: Christina, thanks so much for being here with me, today. You are doing an extraordinary job of bringing the truth about what is happening in the government public school system in the USA…and it isn’t pretty.

During his brutal reign in Russia, in which he established the Soviet Union or USSR, created the Secret Police, established Siberian prison camps, killed thousands of peasants when they did not work as hard as the ruling Communist elites demanded or if they questioned anything these same Communists did, Vladimir Lenin also, said: “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” He was referring to the Luciferian Communist Party’s child education--aka indoctrination--system.

“Common Core” appears to have all of the earmarks of the old USSR’s programming system for children with several new innovative and chilling twists. It is also firmly tied to Agenda 21--the land-grabbing and human suppression and depopulation program.

…

Christina: The comparison of Nazism and Common Core (CC) are uncanny. One such comparison is that Nazism had Leaders and Master Teachers in the National Socialists Teachers League that visited schools and kept data files on Teachers. The Obama Administration funded 10,000 Master Teachers (MT’S) to train Teachers on CC and the MT’s will keep data files on students and Teachers. Students were taught to spy on parents and teachers. CC will have students as young as 5 participating in the evaluation of Teachers.

In Nazism, the curriculum was rewritten to provide a Nazi (government) approved curriculum. Common Core curriculum is being rewritten to provide a global approved curriculum. Nazism kept huge data files on students and teachers and Common Core will data mine the students with over 400 different data points on each child, their family and teachers from pre-kindergarten to workforce…

And one final comparison is Nazism had strong Teachers’ Unions (NSTL). We have but to look at how powerful the Teacher’s unions are in our country and only growing stronger in power and influence under this current Obama Administration’s unholy alliance with them at America’s expense and the expense of the education of our children.. The quality of the educational standards of our children has suffered at the hands of these Teachers’ Unions. Common Core is no different. Our children will suffer at the hand of a government controlled education system. They will no longer be able to have dreams and goals but only those that the government wishes them to have (UNESCO –A21). If this isn’t Nazism, Communism, Marxism and all the “ism’s”, I don’t know what is.

The worst part is they are lying to parents and teachers about what Common Core really is and the effects it will have. Teachers don’t even realize that their jobs are in jeopardy for, if they do not conform, they will be removed. But, then again, were not the people of Russia, Germany etc. all deceived until it was too late??

…

From reading these quotes and excerpts, we can see how Common Core ties into Agenda 21’s global goals for the New World Order. Control!! Control!!

The ultimate goal of UNESCO, via the nationalization of our education system is to create “ good global, sustainable citizens who will be “managed” by a Global Government. The ultimate goal is to have a “managed citizenry”, a managed economy, and a managed environment once again returning to Mother Earth worship.

This is where eugenics and William (Bill) Ayers, Obamacare, the Nationalization of our Economy, Energy, Health and Education systems comes into play. Ayers is a major driver behind Common Core and sadly is a very radical Professor today that has had much influence on students thinking … He and other key players including the Clinton’s, Bushes’, Gore, Gates, Soros, Rockefeller, Warren Buffet, Obama and his minions, etc. Understand that one cannot “manage” most of adult America today. The ultimate goal of these radicals from the UN, the US and other nations is to set up Internment or Re-education camps for those that will not comply with their sick agenda. You either are “retrained” or you will have to be eliminated.

The Healthcare Bill will take care of the “useless” senior population via “managed care”. The government will have free reign with the youth. You cannot change a nation unless you change how it thinks and operates…Hence, the lesson learned from Lenin, Stalin, Marx et al, “get the children and you change generations”…

I know this sounds insane, but sadly, it is a reality we are facing today. Don’t take my word for it, do your research.

 

Robert Rector, the lead author of a Heritage Foundation study on the economic impact of immigration reform that has been slammed by fellow conservatives, defended his work on the Sandy Rios show on AFA Radio today.

Rector claimed that his critics  “haven’t really pointed to any flaws” in his study and that if it had been “about anything other than immigration and open borders, they would all applaud this study.”

Of course, critics of the Heritage report from both the left and the right have pointed to a number of major flaws, most notably the authors’ failure to consider how legalized immigrants would help the economy to grow. This major departure from the conservative doctrine of “dynamic scoring” did not sit well with many on the Right, including the author of a previous Heritage immigration study, who wrote:

Unless they expect readers to believe all this household income (a) generates no productive work (e.g., makes product, mows lawns, nurses the sick, and starts businesses that hire other Americans) and (b) is 100% remitted abroad, consuming nothing in the U.S. macro economy, then the report is misleading.

Rector’s defense? He points out that his report is “80 pages” long and contains “literally hundreds of equations.”

Rios, of course, did not ask Rector to comment on his coauthor, who was recently revealed to be a believer in racist pseudo-science.

Rios: I think Heritage has such a fine name, I can’t see that they’ve done much of a dent in your reputation yet.

Rector: Not at all. And as I’ve said, with Grover Norquist, who’s for example attacking me, if this study was about anything other than immigration and open borders, they would all applaud this study. But as soon as you start talking about immigrants, then this study is flawed. And also, the people who are attacking this haven’t really pointed to any flaws. They’ve said, well, maybe the number of immigrants is low.