THE MASK SLIPS

Thomas Lifson gets it. Just an excerpt:

The past year has seen a spate of shocking statements revealing hatred and contempt for President Bush and his supporters on the part of important media figures who claim objectivity and sneer at conservatives unafraid to characterize themselves as such. Regrettably, we cannot credit a sudden outbreak of honesty for this phenomenon, and thereby anticipate improved news coverage from these folks. A pathology is at work.

A sudden loss of status and influence is a profound shock to most people who have spent their lives aimed at the acquisition and enjoyment of socio-political standing. Relieved of the ability to shape the consciousness and behavior of others, a certain number unburden themselves of the inner restraints which kept them from openly voicing the condescension and scorn they have for those whom they regard as their social, intellectual, and moral inferiors.

The rise of alternate media - talk radio, Fox News, and the internet - has not simply allowed competing voices to be heard in the public square, it has robbed many media grandees of the ultimate reward of their striving after careers as shapers of mass opinion. Some have become unbalanced mentally, and emotionally overwhelmed by the loss. They strike out with blind fury at their "enemies" (the subjects whom they have covered as "unbiased" journalists), and thereby let the mask of objectivity slip from their faces, revealing spiteful, arrogant and bigoted visages. By dismissing those who disagree with them as unworthy of consideration, they expose to light the long-hidden dark vision of the rest of humanity that enables them to regard themselves as worthy.

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ELSEWHERE



Another example of antisemitic stupidity from a black political leader: "A Dallas city councilman is accusing a councilwoman of making an insensitive religious comment during a heated argument Thursday. Councilwoman Maxine Thornton-Reese made a remark about Jews during a backroom debate regarding police response to burglar alarms, Councilman Mitchell Rsansky said. NBC 5 reported that both council members returned to the council chamber visibly shaken and that Rsansky told other members what Reese had allegedly said. Councilman Ron Natinsky described the comment as "you Jews controlling city hall," and said it was "fairly shocking." Anti-Defamation League representative Mark Briskman called on Reese to apologize. "This specific incident is very hurtful, very troubling, and I think it would be appropriate that there be an apology," Briskman said. Reese has promised a written response about her comment, NBC 5 reported".

House lawmakers call for new border fence : "The House called for construction of a fence along parts of the U.S. border from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf of Mexico as a bill aimed at shutting down illegal immigration moved forward Thursday. The two-layered fence, about 700 miles long, would be built in parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The provisions, passed 260-159, put priority on construction near Laredo, Texas. The city is across the border from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where warring drug cartels have been blamed for more than 140 murders this year."

Illegals bill drops felony provision : "The House Judiciary Committee chairman yesterday backed off his provision to make illegal aliens felons and instead proposed a misdemeanor charge for unlawful presence, angering some Republicans who wanted the higher penalty. The House is expected to vote today on a border enforcement and employee work verification bill, which calls for more U.S. Border Patrol agents, mandatory database checks of employees' eligibility to work, expanding expedited removal of illegal aliens and allowing sheriffs along the border to help enforce immigration law. Some Republicans already were threatening to try to block the bill if they didn't get a chance to vote on amendments such as ending birthright citizenship and allowing local authorities to aid federal immigration officials. Yesterday's change just fueled their determination."

Potomac Fever: "Congress is being criticized for funding pork projects and for a general lack of fiscal restraint. Many people agree that there is a spending problem in Washington, but not many understand the fundamental causes. Why have Republicans abandoned their pledge in the 1994 Contract with America to cut 'government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money?' Did the GOP simply decide that it was good politics to buy votes with lavish special-interest spending? That is one cause of the budget crisis, but not the core problem. With the extraordinarily high reelection rates in Congress, any political advantage gained from special-interest spending is not crucial. The real problem is the pro-spending mindset ingrained in long-time legislators. It's called 'Potomac Fever,' and it causes members of Congress to see themselves as philanthropists with unlimited means to solve every problem in society."

Federal telephone excise taxes and you: "Some readers undoubtedly know that they pay a three percent federal excise tax on telephone service. Fewer may recall that the tax was enacted in 1898 as a temporary tax to fund the Spanish-American War and remains in place to this day, which is as good a reason as those countless others to be cynical about any government promise. What even fewer may have heard is that there are finally some cracks in the federal tax machine, thanks to federal appeals courts which are marching one-by-one toward voiding at least the part of that tax that applies to 'toll telephone' or long distance service."

Skewed tax cut spin : "Here's what you get from the New York Times when you try to honor Americans' innate, you might think, right to enjoy the fruits of their labors. You get: '(T)he House passed (a) tax bill . . . that would drain the Treasury of $56 billion of additional revenue over the next five years' -- a measure 'both unaffordable and gratuitous,' not to mention 'morally reprehensible.' All I can say is, let's hope that next year, the House and the Senate get really reprehensible. So low-down, so sleazy and gratuitous, that the whole tax-raising, tax-loving editorial page staff of the Times keels over in empurpled anguish. That might mean Congress, for the first time in a while, had done something profoundly constructive about the tax code's ongoing impositions. ... Washington mythology insists on two improbabilities: 1) that tax cuts benefit mainly 'the rich,' and 2) that they cause huge deficits. Republicans are elected to sneer at these improbabilities -- which, sometimes, they actually do."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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