Opinions

A Price Tag on Patriotism

May 19, 2012 By Mark Shields, The Creators Syndicate Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Ken Teegardin, www.seniorliving.org

Will Rogers was wrong. The legendary humorist, speaking of the responsibilities each of us has as a citizen of this nation, once observed, “America is a great country, but you can’t live in it for nothing.” Unless, it turns out, you’re Eduardo Saverin, the 30-year-old co-founder of Facebook, who just before that company launched its initial public offering, which would make him a multibillionaire, renounced his American citizenship and moved to Singapore.

To be fair, according to Tom Goodman, Saverin’s New York-based spokesperson, “Eduardo recently found it to be more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time.” That is, take your choice, bull, baloney or bunkum.

Today’s capital gains tax rate in the United States — which is one-half of what it was when conservative Icon Ronald Reagan was president — is just 15 percent. But compared to Singapore’s zero capital gains tax rate, it must look irresistible to those who put profits over patriotism.

Some conservatives who seem to hate taxes more than they love America even praise expatriate Saverin for renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Forbes’ John Tamny, who covers “the intersection of economics and politics,” writes that “wise minds could very credibly proclaim him (Saverin) an American hero for doing what he did.”

Let us review the story up to now. Fleeing kidnapping threats against his wealthy family, Eduardo Saverin, at the age of 13, came to the United States from Brazil, his country of birth. He became a U.S. citizen and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, where he met the two other co-founders of Facebook.

Among the rights the United States provided to her adopted son Eduardo Saverin was security from personal danger, the freedom to become whatever his talents and hard work would permit him to be, copyright and patent laws to protect his invention and a court system to guarantee those protections.

You can call Saverin a genius, an extraordinary entrepreneur and a capitalist success. What you cannot call Saverin is a patriot. Ungrateful to the country that gave him safe harbor and a new life, Saverin put a price tag on patriotism and, rather than pay the taxes dues on his unfathomable fortune, chose to get himself a change-of-address card for Singapore.

This is the thanks he gives to the people and their government that welcomed him and guaranteed that the air he would breathe and the water he would drink were clean, that the food he ate and medicine he took were healthful, and that he and his family were protected by the world’s best military.

It is beyond kind to call someone who greedily grabs all that his new U.S. citizenship gives him and then refuses to give back what he owes a freeloader. No, this loathsome behavior is instead parasitic.

Fifty years ago, a young American president told the world that “to assure the survival and the success of liberty,” he and his fellow countrymen “will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship.” Today, for Eduardo Saverin and his apologists in the tax-avoidance club, to be a citizen is all about your rights and nothing about your responsibilities. And if you don’t like any law, you can just do what to the rest of us is truly unimaginable — and renounce your American citizenship.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

Filed Under: Mark Shields Tagged With: Citizenship in the United States, Eduardo Saverin, Facebook, Mark Shields, patriotism, Ronald Reagan, Saverin, Singapore, taxes, United States

Bill O’Reilly: Hating the Rich

May 19, 2012 By Bill O'Reilly, Creators Syndicate Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Laurenco Parente

My late father was a man of strong opinion. He despised phonies, cowards and liars. He named names — sometimes in very close proximity to those being singled out. A veteran of World War II, he recognized a weasel when he saw one.

But my dad never denigrated rich people in general.

We lived in Levittown, N.Y., where everybody had pretty much the same — that is, not much. We ate tuna casserole, hot dogs and Hamburger Helper. My parents never owned a new car.

Ten miles away, my dentist, a college classmate of my father’s, lived in Garden City. Lovely place, filled with rich people. My father often drove us through there and never said a disparaging word about the fine lawns and shiny foreign cars. America was the land of opportunity, and Garden City proved it.

But that was then.

Today, many Democrats believe the wealthy are bad to the bone. A new Gallup poll asks: “Do you think the U.S. benefits from having a class of rich people or not?”

An amazing 46 percent of self-described Democrats answered “or not.”

When I asked two left-leaning pundits about this, they said it is all about “income inequality.” They asked me whether my father would approve of that. I said he most likely would reject the entire concept of “income inequality” by giving the pundits the same advice he gave me: “If you don’t like what they’re paying you, work someplace else.”

And I followed that advice, moving 10 times in 15 years on my way up the television news ladder. It wasn’t easy, but if I thought my employer was hosing me, I began looking around.

That’s how capitalism is supposed to work. America is mandated to provide “equal opportunity,” not equal outcomes. The boss man can pay what he wants. It’s our choice whether to take it or leave it.

President Obama doesn’t seem to get that. He often puts forth that wealthy Americans are not paying their “fair share,” that somehow the fix is in, and the rich folk are gaming the system at the expense of working people. But for two years, Obama had an adoring Democratic Congress that did absolutely nothing to further the concept of “income equality.” The reason? It’s unconstitutional. The feds cannot dictate salaries and benefits in the private marketplace. Obamacare is an attempt to breach that constitutional wall. We’ll soon see what the Supreme Court says.

Capitalism is no beach day. The strong and sometimes ruthless prosper. The poorly educated and unfocused often fail. For many Americans, failure is unfair and unacceptable in a “just” society. But my dad knew and accepted the truth of capitalism: Some will win big, some will lose big, but most will live comfortable lives in the middle. Just as he did.

Veteran TV news anchor Bill O’Reilly is host of the Fox News show “The O’Reilly Factor” and author of the book “Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama.” To find out more about Bill O’Reilly, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. This column originates on the website www.billoreilly.com.

Filed Under: Bill O'Reilly Tagged With: Bill O'Reilly, billoreilly, Creators Syndicate, Democratic, Hamburger Helper, hating the rich, O'Reilly Factor, Obama, United States, World War II

And Lukewarm Was His Name-O

May 18, 2012 By Will Durst Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore

You don’t need a psychoanalyst to detect the latent theme running through the endorsements currently showering Mitt Romney like broken rain gutters pouring down on a concrete toadstool. And that premise is ennui. “Mitt? Really? Yeah. Okay. Whatever.” Makes tepid sound like a crazed bellow. With wild enthusiasm as MIA as World Series trophies in the Wrigley Field display case. Within the last 104 years, that is.

Someone should warn NASA because we are approaching stratospheric heights of apathy here. The only thing these highly solicited testimonials have accomplished is given a face to listless. The guy needs industrial-strength hip waders to slog through the thigh-high lethargy.

George W. Bush carved a precious three seconds out of his busy schedule to make a momentous announcement from the inside of an elevator telling an ABC news crew, “I’m for Mitt Romney” as the doors closed on him. Not that the candidate-in-waiting was particularly lusting after 44′s imprimatur, which some might call the Kiss of Campaign Death. But it effectively does nail down the eminently sought-after spoiled rich kid vote.

Rick Santorum got around to his ringing endorsement 13 paragraphs into a 16-paragraph email sent out to supporters after midnight. The only subterfuge he neglected to employ was to disguise it in semaphoric code. And these are Romney’s big-time Republican buddies. You’d think they were having their teeth pulled with families held at gunpoint on a listing catwalk yawning over an erupting caldera.

It’s been like that ever since the nominee became presumptive. Politicians oozing from the woodwork with the same kind of energetic frenzy fifth-grade school girls normally reserve for haggis-flavored ice cream studded with garlic pickle chips.

You got to know this is just the beginning of a series of sluggishly recalcitrant pledges of approbation. Here are some other passion-challenged tributes we can expect over the coming weeks.

“Mitt Romney. Had to go with somebody, right?”

“Not the brainwashed Romney. That was his dad.”

“Only two of Mitt Romney’s five sons think he’s a soulless Cyborg.”

“May be out of touch with the mainstream but looks pretty good tanning on the embankment.”

“Mitt Romney. Hey, it could be worse.”

“Not the kind of guy who would hold you down and cut your hair, unless you really were asking for it.”

“Pretty down to earth for someone building a 57-room mansion with a car elevator.”

“Will do for America what he did for Bain Capital.”

“Survived the mean streets of Bloomfield Hills.”

“Hardly ever sneaks out at night to kick homeless guys. Anymore.”

“A man who stands by his previous statements, no matter what they are.”

“Mormons are just like Christians, aren’t they?”

“Mitt Romney. Not that bad, when you consider the alternatives.”

“He’s no John McCain.”

“Going to make the world safe for rich people.”

“Mitt Romney. When good things happen to bland people.”

“He’s Oxymormonic!”

“Hasn’t strapped a dog to the roof of his car in over 28 years.”

“Mitt Romney. He’s got gas money.”

“Never ridden a bus in his entire life.”

“Looks more like Gordon Gekko than Michael Douglas ever did.”

“Mitt Romney. A man who feels strongly about both sides of many issues.”

The New York Times says Emmy-nominated comedian and writer Will Durst “is quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today.” Check out the website: willdurst.com to buy his book or find out about upcoming stand-up performances.

Filed Under: Will Durst Tagged With: endorsements, George W. Bush, Gordon Gekko, John McCain, Mitt Romney, New York Times, Rick Santorum, Romney, Will Durst, Wrigley Field

Unexpected Hope: The Vocation of the Church

May 18, 2012 By Jim Wallis, Sojourners Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Ned Nas

Editor’s Note: Sojourners’ CEO, the Rev. Jim Wallis, delivered the following commencement address Thursday morning at Virginia Theological Seminary.

I feel very honored to be invited by this class to give this commencement address, and I asked about the make-up of your class. Most of you, I am told, are going right into the church, or are already there— to ordained ministry and other missions of the church.

So I want to speak directly to you about the vocation of the church in the world. Let me start with a baseball story. I have been a little league baseball coach for both my sons’ teams over many years. And I’ve learned that baseball teaches us “lessons of life.”

Just a few weeks ago, our 9-year-old’s team was down 5-0, and we had already lost our opening couple of games. It didn’t look good. But all of a sudden, our bats and our team came alive; and all the practice and preparation we had done suddenly showed itself. Best of all, our rally started in the bottom half of the order with our weakest hitters. Two kids got on with walks and our least experienced player went up to the plate. With international parents, Stefan had never played baseball before and you can tell he doesn’t have a clue. But somehow he hit the ball; it went into the outfield. Our first two runs scored and he ended up on second base. Being from a British Commonwealth culture, he began to walk over to the short stop and second baseman and shake their hands! “Stefan,” I shouted, “You have to stay on the base!” “Oh,” he said, “I’ve never been here before.”

Inspired, other kids who had never got hits before either also got them now, then the best hitters started to hit, and we came back to win 11-6. In a long team meeting afterwards, the kids couldn’t stop telling each other what they had learned. “We didn’t give up and came back!” “Our rally started with the bottom of the order.” “Sometimes you get what you need from unexpected places.” “We all just kept cheering for each other.” “Everybody helped us win today.” Finally, our star player said, “This just goes to show you, you can’t ever give up on hope. We always have to keep on hoping no matter what.” Lessons of life. Most importantly on that day, we became a team; and have won our games since.

I think this is central to our vocation in the churches: to offer unexpected hope.

Because our mission is to the kingdom of God—“thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” That is what we pray. And while the kingdom of God was the central message of Jesus, and the New Testament, it has faded as ours. Finding salvation to heaven is part of the message, getting closer to God is part of the message, but the heart of the message of Jesus was a new order breaking into history—to change everything about the world, including us.

And that’s why we can offer such hope to the world. The church is supposed to be saying, and the church is supposed to be showing, that our life together can be better. In our shallow, superficial, and selfish age, Jesus is calling us to a completely different way of life. He called it the kingdom of God—as very different from all the political kingdoms of this world. But that better way of living wasn’t just meant to benefit the Christians, but everybody else too. And that is the point of it.

Christianity is not just a religion that gives some people a ticket to heaven and makes them judgmental of everybody else. Rather, it is a call to a relationship; and one that changes all our other relationships. Jesus calls us into a new relationship to God; and he says that also brings us into a new relationship with our neighbor, especially with the most vulnerable of this world, and even with our enemies. You don’t always hear that from the churches. But that transformation of all our relationships, when lived out, has always been the best thing for what we now call the common good.

Since we have lost the common good in our community and public life, and especially in our politics—on both sides of the aisle—it’s time to listen again to an old but always new vision which could, and is supposed to, change our selfish behavior—and make us happier too. “Happy are those,” Jesus said, who live by the beatitudes of his kingdom.

The summary of ethics and the religious law, said Jesus, was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.” And that most fundamental teaching of faith flies right in the face of all the personal and political ethics which put myself always before all others; my rights first, my freedoms first, my interests first, my tribe first, and even my country first—ahead of everybody else. In other words, selfishness is the personal and political ethic that dominates our world today; but the kingdom of God says that your neighbor’s concerns, rights, interests, freedoms, and well-being are as important as yours are.
That is not only radical, it is transformational; and it is essential if we are going to create a public life not completely dominated by conflict, but one that actually can articulate what might be in the interest of the common good and even some common ground between us all. Win/win and not just win/lose. It is also essential to religion finding any credibility again. Otherwise, the next generation is just going to move on from religion. The “none of the aboves” are now the fastest growing group on religious survey’s.

But when people see that kingdom of God being actually lived out, they are first surprised by it, and then attracted to it.

Like when a huge and successful church in a midwestern state’s suburbs decides to take on the renovation of dilapidated and failing public schools in their neighboring urban area. Or like when a church in the Southern Bible Belt puts up a sign welcoming the Muslim cultural center that had just moved into their neighborhood and befriends those who were afraid of being attacked; and when that story of Christian/Muslim friendship on CNN changes the hearts of angry men in Pakistan. Or when a graduating seminarian, like many of you today, decides to start a church made up of homeless people and, after ten years, most all of their congregation’s leaders literally came from off of the streets.

When a Christian family farm business builds day care centers and houses for their migrant workers, provides college scholarships for their employees’ children, gives millions of dollars to Africa and Haiti, and still has the most successful orchard in their region, it attracts attention. When conservative southern California Anglo churches get deeply connected to Hispanic churches in their own communities, come to know each other’s faith and families, and then seek to fix a broken immigration system, it gets the attention of policy makers in Washington. When a famous evangelical mega-church in Chicago sends its people to the Middle East and starts speaking up for beleaguered Palestinian Christians, it challenges foreign policy. When another one in Ohio doesn’t just righteously proclaim itself to be “pro-life” but quietly takes in hundreds of low-income pregnant women every year to help them carry their child to term and settle into a better life, people feel helped and not just judged. And when faith-based organizations and denominations who might vote differently in elections make it clear to both Republicans and Democrats that they must not balance their budgets and reduce their deficits by increasing poverty and must draw a circle of protection around the poorest and most vulnerable, it breaks through the self-interest politics of both parties.

All these are true stories. And they are all about the unexpected and about bringing hope to hopeless times.

So my advice to you, going into the church, is to never be content with what is predictable, to never become cynical about change. Don’t be satisfied with a church whose lifestyle and behavior you can predict by just looking at everybody living around them. Your job is to pastor and lead faith communities whose vocation is to be unpredictable and to be able to offer hope where nobody else does.

That’s because you leave today, not committed to the kingdom of any culture, class, or racial group, or the kingdom of America or any other nation state, or even to the kingdom of any church, even the kingdom of the Episcopal church; but rather to the kingdom of God, which is meant to turn all the other kingdoms on the head, to break open the unpredictable, and bring new hope to lives, neighborhoods, nations, and even the world. So God bless you in that wholly unpredictable and so needed ministry of hope. And as we should all say at the end of every commencement: “Play Ball!”

And may the Lord be with you.

Filed Under: Faith, Jim Wallis Tagged With: CNN, commencement speech, God, God's kingdom, Jesu, Jim Wallis, Middle East, New Testament, Sojourners, Virginia Theological Seminary

Could Coaches Survive a “Politically Incorrect” Week?

May 17, 2012 By Doug Sarant Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto

Note: This column is totally fictitious. Any resemblance between persons in this column and any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

Welcome to Politically Incorrect Week here in Fantasyland.

This is the week where all coaches must answer interviewers questions with absolute honesty or suffer the consequences.

What consequences?

All journalist’s will possess an electronic shock device that will be hooked up to the coaches at interview time. If the machine detects the coach being less than truthful, or just saying things that people want to hear, the coach will get a severe jolt of electricity.

This should be refreshing. Don’t you get tired of the same old, same old. Such as; “John pitched a good game today. Unfortunately, the other team played better and we came out on the short end of the score.”

Translating coachspeak, he really meant; “John has been choking all year. We can’t score enough runs to make up for a pitcher trying to throw with one hand around his throat.”

That would be mean. But, it sure would be entertaining and it might get a better effort out of the pitcher next time.

The one coach who would probably suffer the most from this kind of experiment would be South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier.

Spurrier is notorious for building up an opponent to take the pressure off his team.

Can you picture coach Spurrier walking around campus with his hair sticking straight up?

“Coach Spurrier, you’re playing Anchorage Community College this Saturday. Will you win by 50 or 100 points?”

“Well, Don’t count them out. I heard they just recruited an Eskimo from lower Fairbanks with 4.0 speed. They also have five huge Russians that swam the Bering Sea to play offensive line. They are a formidable opponent and we can’t take them lightly…”

ZAP!!!

“Wow! What was that?”

“That was you being punished for blowing smoke up our collective dresses. Man, I haven’t felt that good since my first honeymoon.”

Of course, some coaches aren’t politically correct at all. Take Landswood high school boys cross country coach, Atilla the Hun.

“Coach. Your team finished dead last at the State Meet. What happened?”

“Well, I’d like to say we ran like girls. But, if I did, the girls team would come over here and beat them up. When I tell these turtles to find another gear, it doesn’t mean to downshift.”

Thank you coach Atilla. By the way, you’re no fun at all.

Let’s try and find someone we can give a jolt to..

How about coach Comfort Zone of the Coastal High School baseball team?

Coach is so laid back it takes him an hour-and-a-half to watch 60 Minutes, and he never raises his voice.

How about this…. “Coach, I noticed you really got all over a kid for missing a steal signal. I’ve never seen you get so worked up. Is everything OK?”

The truth could make a breakthrough. “I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been in a bad mood ever since my wife yelled at me for burning the toast at breakfast. She said if that keeps up, I’ll be relegated to the couch.”

“Coach, can I tell the ladies you might be available soon?”

“No. But, you might mention that I need a new toaster.”

Then there’s newly hired football coach, Jake Bushnell of Oak South high school.

“Coach, congratulations on your new gig. During your long tenure coaching at Whitehouse high school, did you ever run into a situation where a player or their parents were not happy with playing time or positioning?”

“Absolutely not! I was fortunate enough to be coaching in a town where everybody is completely supportive. The players and their parents trusted my expert judgment and left it completely up to me to decide what is best for the football program. After all, I’ve been voted Coach of the Year more times than my players can count.”

ZAP!!!

“Owww, wait, I really was Coach of the Year.”

“I realize that. But, that was the only truthful thing you said. Would you like to try it again?”

“I guess so. Every year there are people who are very unhappy with me. I can’t please everybody because there are so many players in the program. Face it. We have to make decisions based on how the players perform in practice, and that’s something the parents seldom see.

“If we have two kids of roughly equal ability and one has a lot better attitude, we usually play the better attitude. Even if the other one outperforms him in practice sometimes.”

“So, what you’re telling me is that politics never comes into play.”

“No. It does not! Wait! Let me take that back. I guess politics is involved in everything we do in life. However, I would never take a lesser player over another player because I like his parents better.”

“Coach, you look nervous. Were you expecting a jolt? Looks like you are in the clear. Would you like to answer some more pointed questions?

“I’d rather not. I’m not feeling well.”

That would make for a fun week. Most coaches are masters of downplaying the obvious, taking the pressure off their teams and making sure they are saying the things people want to hear.

I’m not that old. However, it seems that coaches used to speak their minds a lot more a few years ago.

I guess you have to watch your P’s and Q’s more nowadays. People are a lot more sensitive and skin is becoming thinner and thinner.

It’s tough enough to run a successful program without having to worry about if you are saying something that might be taken the wrong way. Even if you meant it that way.

Once again: This column is a completely fictitious missive from my twisted mind. All coaches and their quotes have been dreamed up and in no way reflect the philosophy of this organization, publication, or even the people fictitiously quoted.

Comments to Doug Sarant at doug@oakridgenow.com.

Filed Under: Doug's World Tagged With: coaches, coaching, coachspeak, Doug's World, Fantasyland, high school, politically incorrect, Steve Spurrier

Hillary Speculation Won’t Die

May 17, 2012 By Peter Funt Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Marc Nozell

If Julia Louis-Dreyfus can be “Veep,” then why not Hillary Clinton?

The notion has been kicked around in the media for more than a year, and pooh-poohed by both the secretary of state herself and the Obama campaign, but as the 2012 race heats up the possibility of an Obama-Clinton ticket is likely to be given renewed consideration.

Mrs. Clinton looks refreshed these days, with a new hairstyle and bounce in her step ï¿½ so perhaps she’s studying the polls that show the president in a neck-and-neck race with Mitt Romney. She’s also aware of her standing as the most admired woman in America. According to Gallup, no other woman has been so named for as many years (16), and her approval rating of 66 percent makes her among the nation’s most popular politicians.

For the record, Clinton has said she intends to leave government after this year. She has also stated repeatedly that she has no further plans to seek elective office, telling CNN, “I think Joe Biden, who’s a dear friend of ours, has served our country and served the president very well. And so I’m out of politics, but I’m very supportive of the team that we have in the White House going forward.”

Spoken like a good soldier. But doth she protest too much?

The last wave of Obama-Clinton speculation came in January, spurred by Bill Keller’s column in The New York Times arguing that placing Sec. Clinton on the ticket “does more to guarantee Obama’s re-election than anything else the Democrats can do.” That was back when the GOP field was crowded with pretenders, and Romney seemed incapable of sounding presidential.

It was also before Biden ruffled feathers by upstaging the boss on the matter of gay marriage.

The Obama campaign has a tough row to hoe and all that really matters is which running mate offers the best chance for victory, Biden or Clinton? Other considerations ï¿½ dropping Biden would look panicky; the Clintons don’t really like Obama, etc. ï¿½ are irrelevant.

An online poll by U.S. News and World Report shows respondents favoring Clinton over Biden by about 4 to 1.

Replacing Biden, who has served the administration well, would have to be carefully choreographed. But six previous presidents replaced their running mates while seeking a second term, the last being Gerald Ford in 1976 when he dumped Nelson Rockefeller in favor of Bob Dole.

Although Biden’s name is on the ticket, a recent day’s home page of the Obama campaign’s Website showed dozens of photos and stories, but not a word about Joe Biden. If President Obama asked Biden to step aside and asked Clinton to step in ï¿½ each for the good of the nation and the party ï¿½ would either say no? Not likely.

The reason Obama-Clinton has not percolated beyond the punditry stage is that it didn’t seem necessary. The Republicans were in disarray and the anyone-but-Romney bandwagon appeared to be rolling. Amazing how quickly things change. Romney looks stronger, and if he makes an aggressive choice for vice president, such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, then the importance of the second slot will grow dramatically.

In 2008 hope, change and electing the nation’s first black president were magic. In 2012, the prospect of a female vice president might rekindle Democrats’ excitement.

It’s a long shot. But if we’ve learned anything about politics in recent years, it’s that life is often much stranger than HBO.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker and can be reached at www.CandidCamera.com.

Filed Under: Peter Funt Tagged With: Barack Obama, Barack Obama presidential campaign 2008, Biden, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, Obama, Peter Funt, President Obama, Romney, U.S. News & World Report

Evoluting Fabulously

May 16, 2012 By Tristan Hallman, The Texas Tribune Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Joshua Wanyama

A thousand rainbows of congratulations to Barack Obama for bursting out of his own personal policy closet and fabulously proclaiming he believes “same sex couples should be able to get married.” Sir! Welcome to the third year of the second decade of the 21st century, sir! You also might want to check out some of the strides we’ve been making in communications.

The president went on to explain he was slow in using his powers for good because it had taken a while for those thoughts to go Darwinian. Sadly, he stopped short of endorsing transmutation and neglected to hail Hugh Jackman as the best entertainer on the face of the PLANET!

What we witnessed was no eon eating, natural selection-type evolution; this native political animal spontaneously grew flippers and walked on dry land, prodded only by a nudge from the Biden fossil. Come to think of it, maybe flippers aren’t the only body parts BHO grew.

You might even call it a chrysalis, with a caterpillar emerging from its cautious cocoon to sprout wings and fly to a lonely position atop the moral high ground previously inhabited by such disparate denizens as Tammy Baldwin, Barney Frank and, unaccountably, Dick Cheney. Facing extinction.

As predictable as a brush-back pitch following a grand slam, Republicans began to howl from eight different vantages. One right-wing rag claimed he “Buckled” on the issue. Others called him the First Waffler. Might be difficult to hide Mitt Romney‘s 8000 waffles behind this big one of Obama’s, but they’ll give it the old prep-school try.

Besides, isn’t a waffle when you expediently move to a more popular position to curry votes? Meaning this swing- state polarizer is the exact opposite of a waffle. More of an elffaw. Which is waffle backwards. A polf- pilf. Or a yrrek.

Rush Limbaugh jumped into the fray accusing Obama of waging a “War on Marriage.” Everything’s a “War” with this guy. Bet he calls breakfast a War on Pancakes. Not to mention being a tad disingenuous coming from a multi- millionaire who hired Elton John to sing at his fourth wedding.

The president’s supporters worry he offended the black church-going community, one of his inviolate bases. But come on, really? Don’t you suspect he could be caught naked in a dumpster with a goat and a Portuguese seamstress and still carry the black church-going community? Just the goat? Male seamstress?

Opening a conspiratorial can of mutating worms, it has been suggested someone at The Washington Post leaked the Mitt Romney high school gay-pranking story and Obama knew he had to poop or get off the pot before it hit. Adding to Romney’s image problems: do we really want him tackling Belgium and cutting off its hair because he didn’t like the way it looked?

Michelle Obama’s husband disavowed any desire to legalize gay marriage on a federal level, maintaining it should be a states-rights issue. Of course, interracial marriage was illegal in 16 states until a Supreme Court decision in 1967 and some people still consider that an abomination. Guess who’s whining about this? Same marine invertebrates.

Fine. Let all gay people move to California. We’ll take ‘em. Then just try to get your hair cut in Mississippi. Or take ballet lessons in Montana. Or raise money in D.C. And that right there might be the origin of the species.

Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Filed Under: Will Durst Tagged With: evolution, gay marriage, President Obama, Will Durst

Time to Declare a War on Stupid

May 16, 2012 By Susan Brown Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of John Haslam

America is not the “social issue fixer-upper in disrepair” Progressives make her out to be. Instead, America is the “world’s last great hope,” and will continue to be, just as soon as we are able to get our head above the water economically.

The wave upon wave of “wars” on race, women, class and now gay marriage — were devised to sink this magnificent “city on a shining hill” into the depths of the sea and replace her with a European-style socialistic utopian theme park I affectionately call “Progressive World.”

Progressives, there is a much simpler way to get to that happy place filled with e-ticket rides and no work: Hop on a plane to Greece and send us a postcard to let us know how it’s working out for you.

God bless them, it seems Progressives honestly thought the sun, moon, and planets had lined up just for them that magical Greek column-themed Inauguration night in 2009 when Democrats owned Washington.

President Obama and Democrats had two years to do something about gay marriage, if they wanted to. Instead, the president waited to make his “public service announcement” until now. Obama made no promises; he simply stated his opinion. The shrewd politician he is, Obama understood the power of words and threw out a few to rally his base and raise Hollywood big-dollar campaign donations — which goes to show you intelligence is not a prerequisite for fame.

Rally, he did; within days, Newsweek canonized Obama as America’s “First Gay President,” and plastered his face on their front page, rainbow flag colored halo and all. I shall bite my tongue here for further comment, and leave the editorializing to readers.

Especially during these days of pending economic ruin, the “war” on gay marriage is a waste of time. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that as long as gays stay within the same legal boundaries we are all bound to; they can do whatever they want behind closed doors. It’s their business. I’m sure the GOP would be happy to accommodate them with reasonable things like hospital visitation rights. Sexual activity is between an individual, God, and the fly on the wall and has nothing to do with civil rights.

Conservatives must sit this one out and let nature take its course. If liberal men marry men and liberal women marry women and those who want to abort their babies do so, it won’t be long before liberals will “social right” themselves out of existence. In this case, patience is a virtue conservatives should wholeheartedly embrace.

Meanwhile, our ship is sinking, and Democrats are dressing themselves for dinner.

Focusing on non-issues intended to pit Americans against each other rather than acknowledging the iceberg we’re about to crash into was an exercise in futility. How far this one, who once promised to bind us together, has fallen.

It truly is “still about the economy, stupid.” Maybe someone needs to declare a war on “stupid.”

Filed Under: Susan Brown Tagged With: Barack Obama, gay marriage, God, Greece, Hollywood, Newsweek, Obama, President Obama, progressives, Same-sex marriage, Susan Brown, United States

Making Life Fair

May 16, 2012 By John Stossel, Creators Syndicate Leave a Comment

When my wife was a liberal, she complained that libertarian reasoning is coldhearted. Since markets produce winners and losers — and many losers did nothing wrong — market competition is cruel. It must seem so. President Obama used the word “fair” in his last State of the Union address nine times.

We are imprinted to prefer a world that is “fair.” Our close relatives the chimpanzees freak out when one chimp gets more than his fair share, so zookeepers are careful about food portions. Chimps are hardwired to get angry when they think they’ve been cheated — and so are we.

Filmmaker Michael Moore took this notion about fairness to its intuitive conclusion during an interview with Laura Flanders of GRITtv, saying of rich people’s fortunes: “That’s not theirs! That’s a national resource! That’s ours!” As is typical, Moore was confused or disingenuous. In our corporatist economy, some fortunes are indeed made illegitimately though political means. The privileges that produce those fortunes should be abolished. But contrary to Moore, incomes are not “national resources.” If he’s concerned with illegitimate fortunes, he should favor freeing markets.

Fairness is related to justice, the recognition of people’s rights to their own lives.

A free market will create big differences in wealth. That wealth disparity is simply a byproduct of freedom — vastly diverse individuals competing to serve consumers will arrive at vastly diverse outcomes.

That disparity is not unfair — if it results from free exchange.

The free market (which, sadly, America doesn’t have) is fair. It also produces better outcomes. Even “losers” do pretty well.

A more astute observer than Moore might show how unfair government intervention is. Licenses, taxes, regulations and corporate subsidies make it harder for the average worker to start his own business, to go from being a “little guy” to being an independent owner of means of production. Most new businesses fail, but running your own business is the best route to prosperity and — surveys suggest — happiness, too.

I once opened a dinky business called “The Stossel Store” in Delaware, hawking hats, books and other goodies on the street. It was hard to open this store. I chose Delaware because it’s supposedly the state that makes that easiest — but “easiest” didn’t mean “easy.” I still required help from Fox’s lawyers to get the permits, and the process took more than a week. In my hometown, New York City, it would have taken much longer.

By contrast, in Hong Kong, I started a business in one day. Hong Kong’s limited government makes it easy for people to try things, and that has allowed poor people to prosper. Regular people benefit most from economic freedom.

What makes it hard for people to embrace markets is that anti-market zealots, with their talk of Americans pulling together to take care of one another, remind us of the coziness of village life. Instinct tells us that’s where we’ll find trust — and fairness.

But our intuition fools us when it leads us to think that government models that institutionalize what resembles village life must be good. Assuming that government can foster togetherness better than our own voluntary associations, businesses and private charities leads to coziness of the bad kind: back-room dealings between the well-connected and government.

If we’re going to have a large-scale, modern society, we need relatively simple rules that respect individual rights and that can be applied to all sorts of new situations without having to put global commerce on hold until the hypothetical village elders come up with a plan.

Since most human beings still lived as farmers two centuries ago, the idea of stranger-filled cosmopolitan life outside the small, close-knit village is still novel. It was only around the 18th and 19th centuries that the ideas we now think of as classical liberalism, libertarianism, anarchism and laissez faire began to be articulated. As Westerners became accustomed to living without the rule of kings, aristocrats and village elders, they began, for the first time since the dawn of writing, to imagine living ungoverned lives.

Sure, it’s scary, but surrendering your fate to politicians and bureaucrats is a lot scarier.

John Stossel is host of “Stossel” on the Fox Business Network. He’s the author of “Give Me a Break” and of “Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity.” To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at www.johnstossel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Filed Under: John Stossel Tagged With: fairness, Fox Business Network, GRITtv, Hong Kong, John Stossel, Laura Flanders, Moore, New York City, United States

The Feds’ Intrusions Into American Farms and Families

May 15, 2012 By Chuck Norris, Creators Syndicate Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Jay Grandin

With Mother’s Day right at our back, I want to address one of the most extreme overreaches by the federal government into American homes that I’ve seen in a long time. Then I want to call on my own 91-year-old mother, who was raised in rural Oklahoma and worked in cotton fields with her family during the Great Depression, to help set straight the rural farm and child labor record.

After a national decry by American farmers (and all of us who support them), the Obama administration has just shelved its plan to severely restrict kids younger than 16 from working on family farms. But mark my words. As the feds often do, they merely are regrouping to march again on those great American homesteads.

Part of the very words of the U.S. Department of Labor‘s “withdrawal” statement: “The Department of Labor is announcing today the withdrawal of the proposed rule dealing with children under the age of 16 who work in agricultural vocations. … To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration.”

“Will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration”?

So, until Jan. 20, 2013, right?

Kudos to the bipartisan group of 98 members of Congress who sent a letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis protesting this rule, which would have severely limited teenagers and younger children from learning the family trade, not to mention undermined the very business fabric of rural America. It might sound legislatively crazy if it weren’t coming from one of the most overextended federal governments in the history of the U.S.

According to The Raleigh Telegram, “the rule would have prevented children younger than 16 from doing ‘agricultural work with animals and in pesticide handling, timber operations, manure pits and storage bins’ while also forbidding them from using ‘power-driven equipment’ and working in the ‘cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco.’”

Can you imagine? What’s next? The feds’ crackdown making it illegal for kids to wash dishes, because a knife might cut them? No grinding up food, because the garbage disposer might malfunction and start suddenly while their hand is in it? No more cooking or ironing, because their hands might get burned? No more housecleaning, because the Environmental Protection Agency has designated the mixture of certain cleaning chemicals as hazardous to touch or breathe in?

Let’s get real, folks! How far do the feds have to mingle in our manure before we say enough is enough? How far do we have to slide down the slippery slope of socialism before the descent becomes irreversible, before we say, “Welcome to Greece”?

As my mom, Wilma Norris Knight, told me on Mother’s Day, “the federal government should keep their noses out of our business! Raising kids is the responsibility of parents, not the government. My papa and mama would have marched from Oklahoma all the way to Washington, D.C., if they tried to tell us what to do on our farm.”

This past Mother’s Day weekend, many of you probably saw my mom being interviewed by Mike Huckabee, our friend the former governor of Arkansas, on his Fox News Channel show, “Huckabee.” During the interview about her new autobiography, “Acts of Kindness: My Story” (available only at http://www.ChuckNorris.com), she said it best: Kids need lots of love from their own parents and the influence of their church teachers. Our children are on loan to us from God, and he nowhere alludes to the nurturing influence of a central government!

What’s really at the heart of the Labor Department’s farm action is the continued implementation of Agenda 21, a United Nations program launched in 1992 for the nebulous purpose of reaching global “sustainable development” but which actually promotes a European socialist system that will undermine and chip away our freedoms, liberties and rights.

At the heart of that global and social change agenda is the use of nongovernmental organizations, civil resistance movements and class warfare protests, just like the ones we’ve seen with Occupy’s vow to shut down businesses and even Wall Street. One major Occupy website even embraces Agenda 21 as the agenda for its movement!

Of course, don’t look for the term Agenda 21 to show up in President Barack Obama’s re-election speeches. To the public, he will continue to pitch — as he did last week — that he is the real small-government president, even more so than former President Ronald Reagan! (I had no idea BO was running for comedian in chief.)

But what about actions like the Labor Department’s farm act? Of course, that’s not creating bigger government; it’s just the passionate concern of the federal government to swoop down like a superhero and “protect” your children.

Just what we need during this post-Mother’s Day week, the federal government’s playing some further maternal or paternal role to our children, right?

The feds’ actions prompt me to recall the wisdom of Reagan, who said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebook’s “Official Chuck Norris Page.” He blogs at http://chucknorrisnews.blogspot.com. To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.