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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Benjamin Shapiro</title>
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		<title>Fame Means Never Having To Say You&#8217;re Sorry</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/benjamin-shapiro/fame-means-never-having-to-say-youre-sorry/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fame-means-never-having-to-say-youre-sorry</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/benjamin-shapiro/fame-means-never-having-to-say-youre-sorry/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:19:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[half-time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kim Kardashian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Leftists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Madonna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[super bowl]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=121908</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Madonna goes mainstream, M.I.A. goes fringe.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Madonna_half_time_show.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-121915" title="Madonna_half_time_show" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Madonna_half_time_show.jpg" alt="" width="447" height="447" /></a></p>
<p>At the Super Bowl, gargoyle Madonna performed alongside British “singer” M.I.A.  To most everyone’s surprise, the show was relatively tame, with the stiff-looking 53-year-old prancing around with her oddly-clad team of backup singers, including a weird guy doing tricks on a wire (not Guy Richie).  The most amusing part of the performance was Madonna disappearing into the stage, Wicked Witch of the West-style; as Jim Geraghty of National Review hilariously tweeted, “Wow, Bane got her in the end.” (For those of you who aren’t Batman aficionados, Bane is a Batman villain featured in the upcoming Christopher Nolan flick <em>The Dark Knight Returns</em>, who collapses a football field.)  Personally, I thought it was just the earth finally swallowing up the scarlet woman for her prior blasphemies.</p>
<p>There was a bit of controversy, though: at the end of her cameo, M.I.A. flipped off the crowd.  What was the point of that little gesture?  M.I.A. is nowhere to be found for comment, but the rationale is pretty clear: nobody would have cared about M.I.A.’s appearance had she not decided to tell Americans to screw off.  It was an attention getter.  And it got attention.  Mission accomplished.</p>
<p>This is how we do celebrity in America.  Bad behavior gets you noticed; as you age, you go mainstream.  M.I.A. is simply a less talented Madonna (if there is such a thing), 20 years younger.  Undoubtedly, M.I.A. will eventually mainstream herself, and we will pretend she was never a problem.</p>
<p>She can follow Madonna’s path in doing so.  When the Material Girl first popped on the scene with “Like a Virgin,” she shook up the world with her ability to shock.  When she released “Like a Prayer” in 1989, people understood that her lyric – “When you call my name, It’s like a little prayer, I’m down on my knees, I wanna take you there” – was a veiled reference to fellatio, and that the song was supposed to transgress boundaries between the holy and the sexual.  The Vatican actually condemned the music video.  On Sunday, Madonna sang the song before an entire country, complete with backup choir, as though it were a plain spiritual.</p>
<p>America’s forgiving nature is wonderful.  But that forgiving nature means that we’re often taken advantage of by celebrities, who act out in an obnoxious way and then demand our forgiveness over time.  In fact, America is so forgiving that we don’t even bother asking our celebrities to apologize for past transgressions – we just assume they’ve matured.  Madonna’s old now, but she’s just as nasty as she ever was – yet we treat her like a musical Judi Dench.</p>
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		<title>The Great Insider-Outsider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/the-great-insider-outsider/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-great-insider-outsider</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/the-great-insider-outsider/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Oct 2011 04:20:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dick Cheney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Donald Rumsfeld]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In My Time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[patrick leahy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[richard nixon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=108135</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Just who is Dick Cheney?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/cheney.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-108137" title="cheney" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/cheney.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="449" /></a></p>
<p>This week, I finally finished reading Dick Cheney’s fascinating but remote autobiography, <em>In My Time</em>.  It’s fascinating because it is a window on history – Cheney served in four administrations, helped guide the country during the first Gulf War and the War on Terror, watched one president fall (Nixon), and served in Congress, too.  Not a bad career.</p>
<p>But the book is remote because we never really get to see what shaped Cheney.  Where did his political philosophy come from?  Cheney cites only a few books he read growing up: <em>Guadalcanal Diary</em> and <em>Those Devils in Baggy Pants</em>, <em>The Big Sky</em> and <em>Across the Wide Missouri</em> – tales of adventure and daring and wholehearted Americanism.  His parents were Democrats, but we never find out what prompted his political transformation.  He was an academic, but never talks about the nature of his political science.  We don’t get much of the inner Cheney aside from his daily frustrations or celebrations of the nation’s biggest events.  We get a front-row view of the unfolding American drama, but we don’t get into Cheney’s head.</p>
<p>There is one portion of the book that is especially illuminating, however.  It describes Cheney’s first foray into Washington, D.C.  Cheney was accepted to a congressional fellowship, and he attempted to get a job with a young Congressman named Donald Rumsfeld.  Rumsfeld turned him down.  Instead, Cheney ended up working for Rep. Bill Steiger (R-WI).  When Nixon nominated Rumsfeld to become the director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Steiger was recruited to join the brain trust for Rumsfeld’s nomination.  “It was widely thought that Nixon wanted someone to oversee the dismantling of the agency,” writes Cheney, “but that was a mistaken assumption.”  In fact, Rumsfeld then turned around and recruited Cheney for the task force on OEO; eventually he became Rumsfeld’s assistant.  “I didn’t know I was saying goodbye to the academic world forever and signing up for a forty-year career in politics and government – but it was exactly the right call,” Cheney writes.</p>
<p>Then comes the telling episode.  In September 1969, Gov. Louie Nunn (R-KY) vetoed OEO funding for a program in eastern Kentucky, “charging corruption and claiming that federal funds were being used to entrench the local Democratic Party and the Turner family that controlled it. Nunn, a Republican governor, had been an early an strong supporter of Nixon, and the White House naturally wanted to be responsive.  But the program was in the home district of Democratic congressman Carl Perkins, one of the most powerful men in Washington and chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, which authorized OEO’s budget.”</p>
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		<title>What Leftists Will Never Understand</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/what-leftists-will-never-understand/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-leftists-will-never-understand</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/what-leftists-will-never-understand/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:30:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=104940</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Final thoughts about the tenth anniversary of 9/11.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/anni.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-104945" title="anni" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/anni.png" alt="" width="400" height="535" /></a></p>
<p>Americans across the country solemnly and fittingly commemorated the worst attack on our country in any of our lifetimes.  We held moments of silence; we once again stared in horror at the pictures of the Twin Towers coming down; we remembered the sacrifices of those we lost on that terrible day, and the sacrifices of those who have laid down their lives to prevent another day like that from occurring again.</p>
<p>And yet there is a strange disconnect between how we felt on 9-11 and how we feel today.  On 9-11, as we watched our fellow Americans leaping from hundreds of stories to their deaths, as we watched symbols of our might in flaming ruins, we felt conflicting emotions: frustration, unbearable grief.  We also felt connected with one another on a visceral level. The overwhelming feeling of unity we felt came from a deep and abiding conviction that our republic was worth defending.</p>
<p>I’m not sure some liberals ever understood that.  That is why Paul Krugman, fort instance, devoted his 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary column to demeaning the leadership of President George W. Bush and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the aftermath of the attacks:</p>
<blockquote><p>“What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te [sic] atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons. A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity? The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.”</p></blockquote>
<p>This is absurd.  But it is not an uncommon view from the left.   In the aftermath of an attack on America, the liberals’ ideal of unity emphasized self doubt over strength and vengeance. Paul Krugman, in Michael Moore fashion, thinks that the aftermath of 9-11 was “shameful” because Americans took out the bad guys but left the <em>real </em>bad guys – our president and vice president – in power.  What is truly shameful about his piece is that Krugman is serious.</p>
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		<title>The Desperation of Media Matters</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/the-desperation-of-media-matters-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-desperation-of-media-matters-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/the-desperation-of-media-matters-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:40:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=99115</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How a blatant political agenda is camouflaged as a concern about "media disinformation." ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/soros.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-99118" title="soros" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/soros.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="501" /></a></p>
<p>According to its website, Media Matters for America, the George Soros-funded left wing hit squad, is a “progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”  The very premise is somewhat laughable – there is far more liberal misinformation in the U.S. media than conservative misinformation.  But let’s take their “about us” at face value and assume that yes, indeed, their sole goal is to fight conservative propaganda.</p>
<p>There’s only one problem.</p>
<p>They violate their 501(c)3 charitable exemption on a daily basis.</p>
<p>According to the Internal Revenue Service, any 501(c)3 charitable organization “may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities.”  The IRS doesn’t leave the prohibition at that.  Such organizations are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”  This includes “public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.”  Just to ensure that this is perfectly clear, the IRS adds, “voter education … with evidence of bias that … have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.”</p>
<p>The IRS also gives examples of such prohibited activity.  One of those examples is that of an organizational leader who, at an organizational event, proclaims support for a particular political position during an election cycle.  “You have the power” to accomplish X, the leader says.  “Use that power when you go to the polls and cast your vote in the election for your state senator.”  This would violate the organization’s 501(c)3 exemption.</p>
<p>This is what Media Matters does on a regular basis.  They constantly endorse political positions and back candidates – particularly President Obama.  Media Matters constantly endorses political positions, which is fine.  Unfortunately, they also endorse candidates … and one candidate especially.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Final Argument: Republicans Are Poopheads</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/obamas-final-argument-republicans-are-poopheads/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-final-argument-republicans-are-poopheads</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/obamas-final-argument-republicans-are-poopheads/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jul 2011 04:39:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=97620</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The president personalizes, polarizes and destroys.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Obama.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-97646" title="Michelle Obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Obama.jpg" alt="" width="420" height="349" /></a></p>
<p>Now that President Obama is running behind that powerhouse candidate Generic Republican in polls by a margin of 42 to 46 percent, now that the President is issuing letters to his supporters pathetically claiming “We measure our success not in dollars but in people,” now that his supporters are openly talking about his shortcomings, he has brought out his most powerful weapon: he is calling conservatives poopheads.</p>
<p>Seriously.</p>
<p>“If we do not have revenues,” Obama said in arguing for raising taxes during a press conference on Wednesday, “that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships … It means we might not be funding critical medical research.  It means food inspection might be compromised.  I’ve said to Republican leaders, ‘You go talk to your constituents an ask them, “Are you willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?”’”</p>
<p>Obama mentioned jet ownership five more times during his press conference, as though those who own jets were some sort of sadists grinding up street urchins to serve as fuel.  “I think it would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that, ‘The tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we’re not willing to come to the table,’” he said.  Then he followed up by saying that Republicans wanted to pay interest to China but didn’t want to “pay folks their Social Security checks.”</p>
<p>To make this exercise in absurdism even more ridiculous, Obama then called Republicans lazy Welfare queens.  “They took the vacation,” he said.  “They bought the car.  And now they’re saying, ‘Maybe we don’t have to pay’ … We’re the greatest nation on Earth and we can’t act that way.”</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>Excuse me?</em> This is the same president who golfs every Sunday.  This is the same president who vacations on a regular basis at the world’s most expensive resorts.  This is the same man who says that American exceptionalism is the same as British or Greek exceptionalism.</p>
<p>And more than any of that, this is the man who has skyrocketed the debt and written checks America can’t pay.</p>
<p>But facts don’t matter anymore.  All that matters is the label.</p>
<p>This is why Republicans <em>must</em> run a candidate who is recognizable to the American people, someone with a defined record, someone who cannot be painted as mean and heartless and cruel.  Believe it or not, the tried and true Democratic “call ‘em poophead” strategy is surprisingly successful.  It worked in 2008, when Obama and Co. painted John McCain – heretofore the <em>New York Times</em>’ favorite Republican – as an old meanie who wanted to drop his fellow elderly into an alligator tank.  It worked in 1996, when Bill Clinton painted Bob Dole as a cruel man who sought to slice and dice those reliant on Welfare.</p>
<p>No Republican has won the presidency without significant name recognition entering primary season since Warren G. Harding in 1920.  That is because Republicans have to face down Democrats’ constant attacks on their personhood, attacks are made more effective because the Republican platform is supposed to be personal responsibility and aspirational performance standards, while the Democratic platform is handouts, pure and simple.  The only way for Republicans to win is to make it widely known to the American public <em>prior to their demonization</em> that they are good and decent human beings.</p>
<p>President Obama’s only hope, by contrast, is to personalize, polarize, and destroy.  It’s pure Alinsky, and it will work unless Republicans nominate someone so honest and eminently kind that Obama’s criticism seems as foolish as it clearly is.  The poophead strategy should fail, but only if Republicans get their heads out of their posteriors long enough to realize that they need to nominate someone known and loved rather than unknown and unloved.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Shapiro is an attorney and writer and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, and author of the upcoming book</strong><strong> </strong><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061934771/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399349&amp;creativeASIN=0061934771" target="_blank">“Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How The Left Took Over Your TV”</a></strong><strong> </strong><strong>from Broadside Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.</strong></p>
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		<title>Running Scared on Same-Sex Marriage</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/running-scared-on-same-sex-marriage/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=running-scared-on-same-sex-marriage</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/running-scared-on-same-sex-marriage/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Jun 2011 04:09:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=97366</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the argument for same-sex marriage is actually more dangerous than same-sex marriage itself.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Gay-Marriage.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-97369" title="Gay-Marriage" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Gay-Marriage.jpg" alt="" width="416" height="309" /></a></p>
<p>This week, David Frum – who had been holding on to his self-proclaimed conservative label by his fingernails – dropped into the abyss of moral relativism, embracing same-sex marriage.  “I find myself strangely untroubled by New York state’s vote to authorize same-sex marriage,” he wrote for CNN.com.  “I don’t think I’m alone in my reaction either.  Most conservatives have reacted with calm – if not outright approval – to New York’s dramatic decision.”</p>
<p>What was Frum’s justification for his shift from traditional marriage advocate to same-sex marriage friend?  “The short answer is that the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality.  The case has not passed its test.”  Where, you ask, has the case against same-sex marriage been tested?  Frum doesn’t give statistics, other than broad national statistics, pointing out that “the 2000s were the least bad decade for American family stability since the fabled 1950s.”</p>
<p>This, of course, is supremely idiotic.  Same-sex marriage has not been tested nationwide.  It is sanctioned by the government in precisely six states now: New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire.  California is on the fence.  Not much of a sample size.</p>
<p>Beyond that, the argument against same-sex marriage is not that it will undermine traditional marriages <em>already in existence</em>.  It is that same-sex marriage contributes to the general decline of traditional marriage by granting the same benefits to people who live together under virtually any circumstances.  More importantly, the argument runs, children need a stable mother-father household, and any measures that make such households less common are negative.</p>
<p>Frum finishes his column by totally missing that point.  “By coincidence, I am writing these words on the morning of my own 23rd wedding anniversary. Of all the blessings life has to offer, none equals a happy marriage. If proportionally fewer Americans enjoy that blessing today than did 40 years ago, we&#8217;re going to have to look for the explanation somewhere other than the Legislature in Albany.”</p>
<p>Again, nobody is accusing same-sex marriage of being the sole determinant of marital decline.  But it is a <em>symptom</em> of a broader devaluation of marriage.  The same people who push for same-sex marriage push for registered partnerships, for civil unions – for governmental benefits for non-traditional marriage.  As those legal situations become more available, more people will take advantage of them, and less people will buy into traditional marriage.  We’ve already seen it in the Netherlands, where the number of marriages has declined consistently since the legalization of gay marriage; it’s down 10 percent since 1999.  Meanwhile, registered partnerships have exploded 500 percent over the last ten years.  According to William C. Duncan of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, “Nine in ten couples plan to live together before marrying and two-thirds of cohabiting couples plan to marry ‘but keep postponing marriage.’”</p>
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		<title>Punishing the Wealthy in Obama&#8217;s World</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/liberals-want-to-eat-the-rich/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=liberals-want-to-eat-the-rich</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:43:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[capital gains tax rate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deficit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fairness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicaid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[medicare medicaid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social security tax]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tax receipts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[walter mondale]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91216</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ The true reason the Left wants to eat the rich.]]></description>
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<p>President Obama’s recent deficit speech defied logic, tortured statistics, and targeted political enemies.  It also did Americans a service by revealing the underlying animus the President has for those who achieve monetary success in America.</p>
<p>Whenever Obama pre-emptively and strenuously denies that he thinks something, he almost invariably thinks it.  So, for example, when he told Americans last week that he doesn’t want to tax the rich “because we begrudge those who&#8217;ve done well &#8212; we rightly celebrate their success,” but because we need to “afford” programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, you can bet he means precisely the opposite – he doesn’t care a whit about paying for these programs, he cares about punishing the wealthy.</p>
<p>President Obama’s own rhetoric betrays him on this issue – hence his harping on the “fairness” of tax <em>rates</em> rather than the benefits of higher tax <em>receipts</em>.  Tax receipts pay for programs; tax rates do not.  Tax receipts fund Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; tax rates do not.  And yet Obama focuses incessantly on tax rates, even to the <em>exclusion </em>of tax receipts.  In 2008, Obama was explicitly asked about raising the capital gains tax rate if it lowered tax receipts.  He did not challenge the premise that higher tax rates could lower tax receipts.  Instead, he said he would raise tax rates <em>even if it lowered tax receipts. </em>Obama’s answer demonstrated his hatred for those who earn using the hackneyed old “fairness” chestnut: “What I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”</p>
<p>Obama is hardly the only liberal who suggests that tax rates are more important than tax receipts as a matter of principle.  On Sunday, failed 1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale stated that tax rates are a moral issue.  “Taxes reveal who we are as a people and what we value,” Mondale wrote in <em>The Washington Post</em>.  “The public’s support is greatest for raising taxes on the affluent …”  Once again, Mondale cites “fairness” as a rationale for “eliminat[ing] Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.”  “Where is the decency in cutting taxes for those making tens of millions while middle America struggles?” Mondale asks.  “This is a fight over fairness that Americans can understand.”  Mondale’s mistaken belief that raising taxes will “increase revenue” is an ancillary point to him – it’s the basic virtue of eating the rich that mandates it.</p>
<p>Michael Moore thinks the same way.  In a typical fire-breathing speech from the rotund rabble-rouser, he told a crowd of Wisconsin union members that America is “awash in wealth and cash.  It’s just that it’s not in your hands.  It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and portfolios of the uber-rich.”  To Moore, one of America’s wealthiest people, the rich must be taxed because they are morally blameworthy, <em>not </em>because we need their money to pay for our programs.</p>
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		<title>About the Birth Certificate</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/about-the-birth-certificate/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=about-the-birth-certificate</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/about-the-birth-certificate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2011 04:50:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[American]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american principles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[answer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[belief]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bush george]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[constitution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jerome corsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pelosi nancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persistent belief]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91092</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Will digging in Kenya and Indonesia solve a problem that starts right here on our own soil? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/corsi.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91094" title="corsi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/corsi.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="559" /></a></p>
<p>Two days ago, Matt Drudge linked to a new book by Jerome Corsi, unflinchingly titled <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wheres-Birth-Certificate-Eligible-President/dp/1936488299/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1303449923&amp;sr=1-1">Where’s the Birth Certificate</a>?</em> The book immediately leapt to number one on Amazon.com, where it has remained ever since.  The media has shown its usual incredulity at the indisputable stupidity of the American people.  How could so many people question President Obama’s birthplace?  How could they wonder about his origins?  Are they all simply racist?</p>
<p>The answer, of course, is that Americans are desperately seeking an answer to a simple question: why does President Obama appear to be so un-American?  The term un-American here is not synonymous with anti-American (though Obama has been that on occasion); instead, it merely signifies that President Obama is unconcerned with typical American principles and traditions.  He sees capitalism as selfish and evil, religion as dangerous and oppressive; he sees the Constitution as antiquated and entrepreneurialism as exploitative.  He is the representative of the Fareed Zakaria ideology at work, celebrating the post-American world.</p>
<p>When America elects a president like this, many Americans begin wondering how it happened.  There are always two answers to such difficult questions: the first is optimistically externally-oriented, while the second is realistically reflexive.  It is far easier to believe that the problem of un-Americanism lies outside our borders, that within we are unified.  Hence the oddly persistent belief that politics stops at the water’s edge, that our politicians unify around foreign policy.  But that belief has been obsolete since the 1960s; hence the persistent outrage when certain politicians (see Pelosi, Nancy) travel abroad and then criticize their fellow American officeholders (see Bush, George W.).  We like to think that if we hang together, we will not hang separately.</p>
<p>Thus the stubborn belief that President Obama is born outside the United States.  If he was, the unspoken logic goes, we can understand where he picked up his un-American philosophy.  He is not one of us – he is rather a member of the same global community that despises America and tolerates Islamism, that slams American consumerism and praises Chinese communism, that rips evangelical Christianity while ignoring Muslim-imposed clitorectomy.  We need not worry about our domestic institutions, goes the line of thought – instead, we must focus on protecting ourselves from foreign infiltration.</p>
<p>More realistically, however, President Obama is the culmination of a century of foreign infiltration already in place.  The turning of America’s institutions of higher education took place decades ago; it is too little too late to focus on such infiltration now.  Beginning in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, America’s colleges and universities were infiltrated by German thought, then thought to be the most sophisticated in the world.  That school of thought, a merger of Hegelian utopianism and Marxist classism, quickly infected America’s halls of power.  Theodore Roosevelt, always trendy, bought into the new “progressivism” with alacrity, jettisoning the Constitution and capitalism in the process.  Bringing this perverse ideology to American shores, Teddy announced, “We of to-day who stand for the Progressive movement here in the United States are not wedded to any particular kind of machinery, save solely as means to the end desired.”  This was the philosophy of incipient dictatorship.  It was brought to its near-term apex under a college professor, Woodrow Wilson, who thought that the Constitution itself needed to be stripped away.</p>
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		<title>How Liberalism Will Kill Google and Facebook</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/benjamin-shapiro/how-liberalism-will-kill-google-and-facebook/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-liberalism-will-kill-google-and-facebook</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Apr 2011 04:04:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90041</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What happens to American businesses when they dance to the tune of the government flute.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/fb.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90049" title="fb" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/fb.jpg" alt="" width="256" height="197" /></a></p>
<p>On April 5, President Obama kicked off his newly-minted presidential campaign by announcing that he would be conducting a “Facebook town hall” event streaming live via the website and via the White House website on April 20.  Just to ensure that the Facebook audience recognizes that this isn’t merely another media appearance but an endorsement of Obama by the Facebook executives, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg quizzed Obama before an audience of over 1,000 Facebook employees and other internet mavens.</p>
<p>The recorded result will be chopped up and distributed via Facebook and the White House website over the coming months.  “We’re honored that President Obama will be visiting headquarters later this month and will be using the Facebook platform to communicate with an international audience,” Andrew Noyes, Facebook spokesman, gushed.</p>
<p>Obama isn’t the first politician to use Facebook as a fundraising platform.  But he <em>is </em>the first politician to be granted the privileged insider status of visiting HQ to do so.  Facebook has been one of Obama’s most important supporters over the past several years.  And Facebook is  hardly the only Silicon  Valley organization backing Obama.  Apple and Google have also become vocal supporters of the administration.  Steve Jobs dined with Zuckerberg and Obama in February to discuss job creation; Google CEO Eric Schmidt was one of Obama’s earliest backers for the presidency; Chris Hughes, one of Facebook’s founders, became Obama’s internet czar in 2007.  In fact, prior to the election of 2008, Schmidt toured the United   States with Obama’s soon-to-be FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski to stump for Obama’s net neutrality policies.</p>
<p>On the surface, this makes little sense.  Obama’s policies have targeted businesses with remorseless cruelty, setting them up as villains in the class conflict Obama wishes to precipitate.  Facebook, Apple, and Google are three of the most successful businesses of the 21<sup>st</sup> century.  Yet all three seem to be mobilizing in favor of the Obama Administration.</p>
<p>That’s because all three must dance for their political master.</p>
<p>Because the federal government is so large and so powerful, and because President Obama is obviously willing and able to use government weight to press forward his agenda, major businesses in the United States must look to appease him.  Obama has no problem wielding the heavy club of regulation to hurt his political enemies, or to help his political friends.  Major businesses like Facebook, Google, and Apple have all felt the sour stings and warm embraces of big government.  And all of them prefer the warm embraces.</p>
<p>President Obama has already promoted Facebook and Google openly: in his State of the Union address, for example, Obama stated, “We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook.”  Obama’s net neutrality policy, which <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9180192/Google_We_still_back_Net_neutrality">may</a> or <a href="http://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/08/11/google-backs-down-on-net-neutrality/">may not</a> be backed by Google, would lock Google into place as the leading search engine on the internet – other search engines would not be able to pay internet service providers (ISPs) to make their websites run faster.  Obama has promoted Apple publicly too, particularly Jobs.</p>
<p>By the same token, Obama has also targeted each and every one of these businesses, making it clear that they had better get in line.  Obama’s Justice Department has cracked down on Google Books, covertly threatening antitrust lawsuits.  The DOJ has also pledged to shut down Google’s acquisition of ITA, a flight data and software company.  Michelle Obama has said that Facebook is no place for children, and President Obama has stated that iPads and iPods threaten the republic, making “information … a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment … it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.”</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Happy Depression</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/benjamin-shapiro/obamas-happy-depression-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-happy-depression-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:06:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=68306</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Whistling past the graveyard of our economic prosperity. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/obama.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-68309" title="obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/obama.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="344" /></a></p>
<p>Last Tuesday morning, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner &#8220;welcomed&#8221; us to the recovery. Seriously. &#8220;[A] review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth,&#8221; he assured us. &#8220;The recession that began in late 2007 was extraordinarily severe, but the action we took at its height to stimulate the economy helped arrest the freefall, preventing an even deeper collapse and putting the economy on the road to recovery.&#8221;</p>
<p>This is what we call whistling through the graveyard. It&#8217;s Geithner channeling Groucho Marx circa &#8220;Duck Soup&#8221;: &#8220;Who&#8217;re you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?&#8221;</p>
<p>The Obama administration wants us to believe them. What evidence do they provide to the effect that they &#8220;saved&#8221; the economy? Vagaries heaped upon vagaries; meaningless phrases piled atop meaningless phrases. No hard numbers of any value.</p>
<p>In fact, the Second Great Depression is just beginning. And just as during the First Great Depression, economic liberals are declaring that it doesn&#8217;t exist. &#8220;The depression is over,&#8221; President Herbert Hoover told a group of clergymen in 1930. &#8220;I am convinced,&#8221; he said in 1931, &#8220;we have passed the worst and with continued effort we shall rapidly recover.&#8221; In 1930, the national unemployment rate — which was a true unemployment rate, not today&#8217;s watered down version, which doesn&#8217;t count people who have totally dropped out of the job market — was 8.7 percent. In 1931, it was 15.8 percent. Today, our real unemployment rate is somewhere near 20 percent.</p>
<p>Hoover was wrong and so are Obama and his lackeys. And just like Hoover, Obama will take measures that are economically feasible in a strong economy but absolutely disastrous in a weak one.</p>
<p>After declaring the economy on the rebound, Hoover pursued three economic measures: raising tariffs, raising spending and raising taxes. Despite his personal opposition to the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, Hoover signed it into law, stating, &#8220;With returning normal conditions, our foreign trade will continue to expand.&#8221;</p>
<p>He raised government spending as well; between 1929 and 1933, Hoover raised real per capita federal spending by 88 percent. He forced through the construction of the Reconstruction Finance Corp., an agency designed to lend money to banks and building and loan associations, among other businesses.</p>
<p>&#8220;I have been called a socialist, a Bolshevik, a communist and a lot of other terms of similar nature,&#8221; fumed Rep. Fiorello La Guardia (R-N.Y.), &#8220;but in the wildest flights of my imagination, I never thought of such a thing as putting the government into business as far as this bill would put it in.&#8221;</p>
<p>Even as he raised spending, Hoover hypocritically called for tamping down the deficit. His solution: raising taxes. &#8220;Nothing will contribute more to the return of prosperity than to maintain the sound fiscal position of the federal government,&#8221; he declared in 1931.</p>
<p>Sound familiar?</p>
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