liberal lies

That Second Hand Smoke Thing? Yeah, it Was BS

Mark Noonan19 Comments

From Reason:

Several years ago I was talking to an epidemiologist who is skeptical of the idea that smokers pose a mortal threat to people in their vicinity. Although he supported workplace smoking bans, he was frustrated by the willingness of so many anti-tobacco activists and public health officials to overlook or minimize the weakness of the scientific case that secondhand smoke causes fatal illnesses such as lung cancer and heart disease. He wondered when it would be possible to have a calm, rational discussion of the issue, one in which skeptics would not be automatically dismissed as tools of the tobacco industry. I suggested that such a conversation might take place once smoking bans became ubiquitous, at which point the political stakes would be lower. Judging from a recent article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, headlined “No Clear Link Between Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer,” that conversation may have begun.

The article describes a large prospective study that “confirmed a strong association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer but found no link between the disease and secondhand smoke.” The study tracked more than 76,000 women, 901 of whom eventually developed lung cancer. Although “the incidence of lung cancer was 13 times higher in current smokers and four times higher in former smokers than in never-smokers,” says the JNCI article, there was no statistically significant association between reported exposure to secondhand smoke and subsequent development of lung cancer…

This is what I knew from the get-go: it was always nonsense to think that second hand smoke was a huge killer – or even a risk, at all.  Certainly no more of a risk than going outside on a smoggy day in Los Angeles and just breathing.  The amount of tobacco smoke a person would inhale via second hand smoke – even if they lived with a smoker – would be so tiny as to be inconsequential as a health risk. Remember, even for very heavy smokers, not all of them get lung cancer – smoking increases the risk of cancer, but it isn’t a 1 for 1 thing.  If you smoke, it doesn’t mean that smoking will kill you.

Hopefully this will open up a debate – and get us away from the idiot idea that smoking is some sort of massively hideous thing which needs to be banned.  Smoking is just a thing you can do – like eating cheeseburgers or having a coke.  Not the healthiest choice.  Not something any doctor would recommend, but it is something to do – for pleasure.  You know, to enjoy life.  Probably be better if all of us smokers ditched the cigarettes and switched over to pipes as we’d probably end up smoking far less (and mostly smoking much higher quality tobacco), but its still just one of the pleasures of life that someone may engage in.  And like all things in life, there is a risk involved.  Of course, the rule is, “eat right, exercise, die anyway”.  Main thing to remember about life is that no one gets out of it alive.  At some point certain, in a more or less painful manner, we will all exit this world.  And if before I go I can have a smoke, that’ll make it more pleasant than going, as I must, without a smoke.

New Rule for Dealing With Liberal Stories

Mark Noonan82 Comments

Recently we had a story claiming that a gay server was denied a tip because the family was a pack of homophobic bigots as well as a story about an alleged poor woman who essentially had to live like an idiot because of the bad, mean, nasty way America treats poor people.  There were two commonalities in these stories:

1.  They supported the liberal narrative about the United States (we’re just bad, bad people) and so were embraced and spread widely by liberals.

2.  They were complete nonsense.

The people who did the actual perpetration of the stories were likely just con artists who knew their target audiences.  For the first story (the gay server denied a tip) it was probably an attempted replay of an earlier story claimed by a black woman of being denied a tip by racists, and she picked up a pack of money from sympathetic people. For the poor woman, it appears a more straight-forward scam: she was asking for people to help her out financially and appears to have succeeded (at least temporarily) in picking up a bucket of money.  The con artists aside, what this tells us about the left is that they will readily believe anything as long as it confirms them in their world view.  There is no bit of nonsense too absurd for them – think about it: they actually believed that someone would (a) find out what sexual orientation their server was and then (b) go out of their way to insult the server.  The left bought it because it confirmed their view that Christians are just hateful bigots who go out of their way to insult people of different views.

The left will never cease to be suckers about this sort of thing.  There seems to be some sort of malfunction in the liberal brain – while some can start to think (and thus wind up as Libertarians or Conservatives), most of them never seem to form a single, independent thought in their lives.  But there is a lesson for us on the right:  whenever you hear a story which tends to confirm the liberal narrative about life in the United States, our first and best course of action is to presume it is a lie.  Don’t go out on a limb and definitely call it a lie, but you’ll be safe if you immediately search for holes in the story and start pointing them out.  As for the gay server thing, I saw that on a liberal website some weeks ago and immediately pointed out that it is highly unlikely that a group of patrons would know the sexual orientation of their server – so even if they were a pack of hideous homophobes, they would not likely have opportunity to give vent to their all-consuming hatred.  The story seemed false from day one for me – but the comments from the liberals were all shocked and hurt about how this hateful thing had happened and applause for the “courage” of the gay server (with no explanation of how it is courageous to be untipped).

It could be, from time to time, that in a nation of 317 million people that a set of circumstances will occur which confirms some part of the liberal narrative.  The law of averages does work that way – but the plain facts are that the United States is not a racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-immigrant nation.  We are not cruel to the poor, nor indifferent to the plight of those who suffer.  We are tolerant and mostly very polite about things and don’t give vent to our feelings for the most part (and in some cases, it would be better if we did).  We’re pretty nice people, all in all.  And, so, the chances of there being a true story confirming liberalism are very, very small.  When confronted with such stories – demand proof; independent verification and always keep a few links of liberal BS stories handy to slam back liberals who claim that this story is sure to be true.

How Liberals Treat Conservatives

Mark Noonan51 Comments

From Pajamas Media:

Government targeting of conservatives is not confined to a couple of federal departments, as demonstrated by the events in a small District of Columbia employee relations board. A letter obtained by PJ Media documents open racism and hostility toward pregnant and conservative employees in the D.C. Public Employee Relations Board (PERB). The letter also demonstrates that lawless hostility toward conservatives is a characteristic of all levels of government.

According to a resignation letter from its executive director, this District of Columbia government board responsible for resolving employee disputes with management has engaged in racist hiring practices, discrimination against pregnant women, and hostility toward conservatives…

Detailed in the articles are complaints from liberals at PERB that the African-American head of the PERB hired a white male, while another person proposed for hiring by the board should not be approved because her work record allegedly showed a “right of center” political ideology.  The resigning head of the PERB – Ondray Harris – seems to have merely been a fair-minded man who followed the law in his hiring decisions.  This, apparently, is an outrage to liberals who view government as their private preserve. 

How are we supposed to work with such people?  Where can there be bi-partisan activity with people who clearly hate us with a white hot passion?  As we on the right work for victory – and we will be victorious, in the by and by – we must remember these things and take the necessary steps to ensure that all those in government who have abused their authority are removed from office – and if this takes firing half the people working in government, then so be it.

A Fun Way to Mess With Obama

Mark Noonan37 Comments

From Instapundit:

SPEAKING OF IDEAS THAT THE GOP COULD OFFER, I think a series of legislative proposals aimed at implementing promises Obama made in 2008 would be fun and politically profitable: Cutting the deficit in half, closing the revolving door between government and business (my USA Today column this week will be on that one), implementing greater transparency, etc. Just send one bill after another over to the Senate. . . .

Agreed – perfect idea.  Of course, Obama and his slavish media would try to pretend that all that is just rot…but if we did do it – and keep doing it – then it would start to impress itself on the public mind, and that would work to our benefit.

Liberal Love and Tolerance

Mark Noonan60 Comments

Twitchy has the latest string of liberal hated – calls for Anny Romney to die, or kill herself…and kill her husband, too. There is more to see at Instapundit where there is a thread about how people who are conservative but work in “liberal” professions are afraid to have their colleagues learn of their views…because everyone knows that if you’re surrounded by liberals and don’t toe the line, they’ll make you pay for it.

Remember that “new tone” bullsh**?  Yeah; me, neither.

What’s In A Name?

Leo Pusateri43 Comments
Make no mistake. They are no longer the “Bush tax cuts.” They were tax cuts when they were enacted in 2001 and 2003. They have been the going tax rate for the past 9 years. They are the Bush tax rates. Any move to increase the current tax rates amounts to a TAX INCREASE. The Bill passed in the Senate today was NOT A TAX CUT BILL. It would simply maintain CURRENT TAX RATES for those making 250K or less. 

And for some reason known but to God, Harry Reid thinks that if you make $250,000 (many small businesses fall into this category) that you’re magically a millionaire! (Liberals were never very good at math, were they?). 

Not only that, they think that taking resources from those who have the ability to create jobs during this economy will somehow help the economy. 

Moronic thinking such as this deserves no quarter. These clowns MUST GO.

articles.chicagotribune.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s fellow Democrats in the Senate on Wednesday won passage of a bill to renew tax cuts for tens of millions of Americans, while 

Obama, the Economy and Campaign 2012: It’s All Lies

Mark Noonan21 Comments

The thing about un-plugging for a little while – especially if you make an effort to really shut your ears to popular culture – is that in the silence, thought can grow.  We are relentlessly bombarded through our waking hours by sounds and images created by others in an attempt to get us to say or do something we might not do purely voluntarily.  This bombardment comes at us so fast that we do not have time to reflect upon what we have just seen – if you do desire to think about things for a moment, another sound or image is thrown at you, demanding your attention, and thus destroying the possibility of thinking through the immediately preceding sound or image.

Hitler only had it half right – it isn’t so much that people will believe a lie if it is repeated often enough (and on a big enough scale), but that people will tend to believe anything which is endlessly repeated to them; truth, or lie.  The trouble is that those who will bestir themselves to endlessly repeating something are precisely those most inclined to lie – because they are desperately trying to extract money or power from people who otherwise would not surrender them.  It is one thing, however, when some huckster is trying to bamboozle us in to spending money on Brand X rather than Brand Y of toothpaste, quite another when someone is trying to trick us in to surrendering great amounts of wealth and/or power.

In the great effort to get us to surrender our power and wealth to government, the Obama Administration has engaged in a series of lies, from day one, in order to deflect us away from the truth of what they are doing.  Obama (or, more accurately, I believe; Obama’s puppet-masters) wanted and wants a specific outcome:  America changed in to a social-democratic State run along European lines with no ability of dissenters to disturb the masters of the State.  You, naturally, cannot run on such a platform in the United States because to do so would be political suicide (it may, even, be political suicide to do so in Europe…its not like the German Chancellor actually ran on a platform of putting German taxpayers on the hook to pay for Greek profligacy…but that is what the German people are getting; and if they toss the Chancellor out at the next election then, guess what?; her opponents are just as committed to bailing out the Greeks as she is).  Unable to speak the truth about himself or his program, Obama has no other choice than to lie if he wishes to advance his agenda to victory.

Yesterday I linked to this chart over at Zero Hedge.  Do take a close look at it – as you can see, the two lines relating to employment track each other quite closely through both recessions and boom times…until 2009.  All of a sudden, after Obama takes office, the lines sharply diverge.  Either we were always getting it wrong in the past, or someone is lying, today.   We were actually given a preview of this before Obama took office – when he and his people starting talking about the number of jobs  which would be “saved or created” by Obama policies.  The “saved” was the key…Obama could claim any number pulled out of a hat:  how could anyone prove that any particular job wasn’t “saved” by Obama?  But the phrase passed mostly un-noticed, even on the right:  but it always was a means whereby no matter what happened, Obama could spin a positive story about his accomplishments, even if he had to lie to do so.  The lie in the Obama Administration isn’t a bug, its a feature:  a crucial feature.  Without lies, Obama has no chance to accomplish his goals.

The MSM is, of course, no help in this.  Outside of a very few outlets, the MSM is entirely in the tank for Obama.  And I mean to the level of absurdity – Rush related a Los Angeles Times report which asserted that the American people are not upset over higher gas prices.  That we’re just grinning and bearing it and are just happily becoming more efficient in our gasoline usage.  The truth of the matter is that we’re all upset about the higher prices – we are grinning and bearing it because there’s nothing we can do about it (at least until November 6th), but to try and cast the American people as ok with the higher prices is idiocy.  But it is peddled by the LA Times as fact…and parroted in the rest of the MSM, as well.  On an on it goes through the MSM – the reality of a corrupt, incompetent government leading us down a path the American people never voted for is ignored…instead, we’re endlessly hammered with a series of alternate reality stories designed to either trick us in to agreeing with Obama or, failing that, at least distracting us from the crucial issues.

It is no accident that over the past few months we have discussed birth control and the Trayvon Martin killing as opposed to discussing the actual issues (did you know that the Obama Administration continues to stonewall on the much-worse-than-Watergate “Fast and Furious” scandal?  Of course you don’t…or, if you do, you have to think about it for a moment…what should be front and center is shoved in to the background, while we talk about whether college kids should have birth control subsidies).  It will be no accident as we head towards November that we continue to talk about birth control, Martin and anything else which can be brought forward – or completely manufactured – by Obama, his cronies and the MSM (I know – same/same) in order to distract us from the issues and (it is hoped by Obama) allow him to slide in to re-election, almost as an afterthought.  Remember that Obama has a goal – he wants to achieve the goal. He couldn’t run on his goal in 2008 and he can’t run on it in 2012; as it turns out, he also can’t run on his record as President because it is lousy…but he still wants to achieve the goal (and the MSM wants him to achieve it, as well).

Over the next 7 months we will all be bombarded by sounds and images designed to distract us, discourage us and, in general, make all of us less effective in our goal:  getting Obama out of office.  All of you reading this have already been hammered by the lies – and you’ll be double and triple hammered by November 6th.  But here’s the thing:  Obama is all lies.  There is no truth to what he says; nor any truth in what his supporters say.  The reality is that the economy is in lousy shape and getting worse; the reality is that nearly a million people have dropped their Democrat party registration since Obama took office (while the GOP has grown in number of registered voters); the reality is that a bunch of senior House and Senate Democrats are retiring this year rather than seek re-election (if they thought the Democrat party had a chance of winning – and thus giving power and wealth to themselves – they’d stay in, simple as that); the reality is that Obama is digging in in Virginia because he knows that if he doesn’t carry that State, he can’t be re-elected (no Democrat won that State since 1964 until Obama won it in 2008…where it just padded his margin; but Carter and Clinton never needed it…why does Obama need it?  Probably because he’s already lost Florida, Ohio and Iowa); the reality is that Obama probably won’t raise the $1 billion he thought he would; the reality is that the DNC will not be providing much (if any) money to down-ballot candidates because they need to reserve all their cash for Obama’s effort; the reality is that the RNC has completely turned-around its fund-raising; the reality is that in the hotly contested GOP primaries, GOP turnout is much higher than in 2008…the reality, in short, is not what Obama and the MSM make it to be.

As we go through the rest of this year, dig deeper.  Do not accept at face value anything reported in the MSM.  Always check it.   And after checking it, turn off the TV/Radio/Computer and think about it for a bit…think it through.  The other day a Gallup poll said that Obama was up by 14 percentage points among “swing State independent women”.  But, wait, Romney allegedly led among that same demographic by 5 percentage points in December.  What gives?  What has happened between December and April to lead to a 19 point swing among a demographic?  A swing which makes this demographic more enthusiastic for Obama in 2012 than they were in 2008?  Do you really think GOP opposition to providing birth control to college kids did that?  Well, that is the narrative they want you to believe – and, presto!, there’s an MSM poll to back it up.   Trust nothing the MSM reports; trust nothing Obama and his team say – they will keep up the drumbeat of lies from now until November 6th, never admitting that doom stares them in the face (well, to cover themselves, the MSM will put out a few reports the last weekend indicating the debacle rapidly approaching…so they can say on November 7th, “hey, we saw it coming”.).  Keep your spirits up, do what you can for the cause…and then just carry on.  We’ve got these people on the ropes and we will  rescue our nation.

 

Michelle Obama’s Target Run Was Staged? You’re Kidding Me?

Matt Margolis12 Comments

I’m sure most of you by now saw the photos of Michelle Obama shopping at Target… I hope you won’t be too shocked to find out there’s now proof the photo op was staged.

Another staged moment in the lives of Barack and Michelle Obama.
Michelle Obama just had to get out to Target to do a little shopping last week. But, before the shopping run the White House tipped off AP photographer Charles Dharapak so that he would be at the store to memorialize the moment.

Michelle’s communication director has previously said that it is a common occurrence for her go out to run an errand. Sure, we really believed that one. It’s so common in fact that they have to alert AP photographers every time she finds it politically convenient to mingle with the real folks.

A Challenge for Morgan Freeman

Matt Margolis5 Comments

My friend Ali A. Akbar found Morgan Freeman’s recent comments about the Tea Party to be quite disturbing, and as a Tea Party activist, has challenged Morgan Freeman to experience a Tea Party rally.

I’ve attended dozens of tea party events. I’ve helped organize them, and I’ve even spoken at a few. The tea party is not what is often depicted in the news. It is people of all colors who are terribly concerned about the direction that America is heading. We don’t trust big government to make decisions for us. And we fear that the present administration’s spending is going to lead our country down a path to insolvency, much like what Greece is currently facing.

Your comments about the tea party have caused me physical pain. You’ve rekindled the old painful paradigm of Uncle Tom – that any black man who votes Republican is some kind of sellout. It’s not true. I work hard, pay my taxes, love Jesus, and I’m good to my family and community. In effect, your comments have stereotyped an entire group of people. And I know in my soul that you must regret that on some level.

There’s already plenty of groupthink among American blacks. Over 90% of us vote Democrat with religious regularity, and we have been doing so for over fifty years. For a short time, I was one of them. I realized a few years ago that the Democrats’ promises of equality bestowed by government wasn’t working and will never work. I came to believe that redistributionist policies with the goal of social justice was essentially creating a new plantation within the federal government. Scraps might be thrown our way, but dependence on the plantation would be the inevitable result.

I urge you to read Ali’s entire piece.

Ali and I have been good friends for quite a few years now, and our backgrounds are very different. Even our politics, while at the conservative end of the spectrum, are different. I dare say that if we reviewed all of our positions he’d probably be more conservative than I am. However we got to where we are politically, our beliefs are genuinely our own. We both believe enough in our politics to have walked the walk and not just talked the talk. And it is a shame that celebrities like Morgan Freeman or Janeane Garofalo use their celebrity to stereotype roughly half of Americans and insult minorities just because they don’t conform to their close minded belief that black Americans are traitors to their race if they lean to the right, or that Republicans are inherently racist. Those attitudes do more to hurt race relations in this country than they realize.

I’d like to see Morgan Freeman take up Ali’s offer to attend a Tea Party event in Tennessee. Perhaps a little open-mindedness can usher in a new era of civility.