Mmmmm, Swedish pirates...
Posted on 06/08/2009 11:04:02 AM PDT by Michael Eden
Barack Obama's poll numbers have taken a significant downward turn lately, particularly as a result of the overwhelming unpopularity of his move to nationalize GM (basically, just one in four think it was a good idea - with "nearly as many" favoring a boycott of GM to punish both GM and Obama).
Right now, Obama's approval index, measuring those who strongly approve versus those who strongly disapprove, is at zero. "That’s the highest level of strong disapproval and the lowest overall rating yet recorded," according to Rasmussen.
The media has been - and continues to - present a warped view of Obama. Newseek's Robert Samuelson (hardly a conservative source) has an article entitled, "The Obama Infatuation: Is the press giving the president a free pass?" And the answer they basically give is, "Hell YES!"
There's a rather more accurate term to describe what the mainstream media are calling "news coverage": propaganda.
Eventually the bottom will drop out of the media charade.
Liberals LOVE to look to Europe - the font of Marxism, fascism, and socialism - as the inspiration of what they want to do to America. Well, let's look at Europe and see what's happening there right now.
Basically, Europeans are rewarding fiscal conservatives and punishing liberals.
Conservatives racing ahead in EU parliament votingThe Wall Street Journal has a shorter and sweeter version of the same story above.By CONSTANT BRAND and ROBERT WIELAARD, Associated Press Writers Constant Brand And Robert Wielaard
BRUSSELS – Conservatives raced toward victory in some of Europe's largest economies Sunday as initial results and exit polls showed voters punishing left-leaning parties in European parliament elections in France, Germany and elsewhere.
Some right-leaning parties said the results vindicated their reluctance to spend more on company bailouts and fiscal stimulus amid the global economic crisis.
First projections by the European Union showed center-right parties would have the most seats — between 263 and 273 — in the 736-member parliament. Center-left parties were expected to get between 155 to 165 seats.
Right-leaning governments were ahead of the opposition in Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, while conservative opposition parties were leading in Britain and Spain.
Greece was a notable exception, where the governing conservatives were headed for defeat in the wake of corruption scandals and economic woes.
Germany's Social Democrats headed to their worst showing in a nationwide election since World War II. Four months before Germany holds its own national election, the outcome boosted conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel's hopes of ending the tense left-right "grand coalition" that has led the European Union's most populous nation since 2005.
"We are the force that is acting level-headedly and correctly in this financial and economic crisis," said Volker Kauder, the leader of Merkel's party in the German parliament.
France's Interior Ministry said partial results showed the governing conservatives in the lead, with the Socialists in a distant second and the Europe Ecologie environmentalist party a close third.
French Socialists said their defeat signaled a need to rethink left-wing policies if they are to have any hope of unseating President Nicolas Sarkozy.
An EU estimate showed that only 43 percent of 375 million eligible voters cast ballots in European parliament elections, a record low amid widespread disenchantment with the continentwide legislature.
The EU parliament has evolved over five decades from a consultative legislature to one with the power to vote on or amend two-thirds of all EU laws. Lawmakers get five-year terms and residents vote for lawmakers from their own countries.
Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and five other EU nations cast ballots over the last three days, while the rest of the 27-nation bloc voted Sunday.
"Tonight is a very difficult evening for Socialists in many nations in Europe," Martin Schulz, the leader of the Socialists in the European Parliament, told party faithful in Brussels via video link from Berlin. "(We will) continue to fight for social democracy in Europe."
Many Socialists ran campaigns that slammed center-right leaders for failing to rein in financial markets and spend enough to stimulate faltering economies.
Graham Watson, leader of the EU's center-right Liberal Democrat grouping, said early results suggested a rejection of the Socialist approach.
"People don't want a return to socialism and that's why the majority here will be a center-right majority," he said.
In Spain, the conservative Popular Party won two more seats than the ruling Socialists — 23 to 21 seats — with over 88 percent of the vote counted.
Exit polls also showed gains for far-right groups and other fringe parties due to record low turnout.
Britain elected its first extreme-right politician to the European Parliament, with the British National Party winning a seat in northern England's Yorkshire and the Humber district.
The far-right party, which does not accept nonwhites as members, was expected to possibly win further seats as more results in Britain were announced.
Lawmakers with Britain's major political parties said the far right's advance was a reflection of anger over immigration issues and the recession that is causing unemployment to soar.
Near-final results showed Austria's main rightist party gaining strongly while the ruling Social Democrats lost substantial ground. The big winner in Austria was the rightist Freedom Party, which more than doubled its strength over the 2004 elections to 13.1 percent of the vote. It campaigned on an anti-Islam platform.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' anti-Islamic party took 17 percent of the country's votes, taking four of 25 seats.
The Hungarian far-right Jobbik party won three of 22 seats, with the main center-right opposition party, Fidesz, capturing 14 seats and the governing Socialists only four.
Jobbik describes itself as Euro-skeptic and anti-immigration and wants police to crack down on petty crimes committed by Gypsies. Critics say the party is racist and anti-Semitic.
Fringe groups could use the EU parliament as a platform for their extreme views but were not expected to affect the assembly's increasingly influential lawmaking on issues ranging from climate change to cell-phone roaming charges.
The parliament can also amend the EU budget — euro120 billion ($170 billion) this year — and approves candidates for the European Commission, the EU administration and the board of the European Central Bank.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Freedom People's Party held a two-digit lead over his main center-left rival in the most recent polling despite a deep recession and a scandal over allegations he had an inappropriate relationship with a young model. Italian results were being released Monday.
In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was facing a showdown with rebel lawmakers on Monday after the party's expected dismal results in the European parliament and local elections were announced.
Brown has been struggling with the economic crisis and a scandal over lawmakers' expenses. The opposition Conservatives are expected to win the next national election, which must be called by June 2010.
An exit poll in Sweden showed the Pirate Party, which advocates shortening the duration of copyright protection and allowing noncommercial file-sharing, capturing one seat with 7.4 percent of the vote.
As you read these results, ask where Barack Obama was while it was happening. He was in Europe giving speeches.
While the mainstream media keep telling us that the whole world is just so in love with Barack Obama, he's at his lowest approval ever in the USA, while Europeans are rejecting everything that Obama and the Democrats stand for in a shellacking of liberalism in virtually every single country in the European Union.
The Associated Press story presents an anti-immigration angle as well (I believe as part of an agenda to paint conservatism as being quintessentially racist) even as here in the U.S. we are being told that conservatives don't DARE try to do anything to undermine Sonia Sotomayor.
Allow me to provide an alternative view: maybe Hispanics should take a look at what is going on in Europe and ask whether hitching themselves to the Democrat Party is such a good idea. Because, if the massive borrowing and spending does to this country what more and more economists and investors think it's going to do, there is going to be a massive backlash against liberals - and against every group hanging on to their coattails.
The racist practices of "identity politics" is just one economic depression away from turning into a vicious reprisal against the minority groups who undermined America by voting for the socialism that caused the disaster.
Getting back to the main thrust of the article - the cornholing liberals took against conservatives - a reader starts to see that the socialists were pursuing the same ideas that our own Democrats have played. For example:
"Many Socialists ran campaigns that slammed center-right leaders for failing to rein in financial markets and spend enough to stimulate faltering economies."And how was that different with what the Democrats - who rammed home a $3.27 trillion stimulus package home with no Republican consent or support - did? Particularly when they have continued to ram home even more spending measures, with health care coming up?
Democrats and mainstream media liberals demagogued and ridiculed the Tea Parties that rose up across the country in April. But those protests underscored a real movement that is continuing to develop - and burning like a flame that is just waiting for the oxygen to explode into an inferno that will consume Democrats and their failed ideas like dried-up tinder.
“...An exit poll in Sweden showed the Pirate Party, which advocates shortening the duration of copyright protection and allowing noncommercial file-sharing, capturing one seat with 7.4 percent of the vote...”
Huh???
We have a Pirate Party here to - Barney Frank is the leader.
But...but....but....Conservatives can’t win! That’s why we have to blindly support RINO modeRat, lap ‘Rats for office....
Democrats in the states have nothing to worry about. Europe just needs to employ ACORN.
Where is Michael Steele and his “Big Tent” that means you open up to liberal ideas?
What, he didn’t hear the thunderous voting?
Basically, Europeans are rewarding fiscal conservatives and punishing liberals.
No country can afford liberalism!
And yet the Republican wing of the Republicrat party continues to eschew Conservative principles.
Mmmmm, Swedish pirates...
And I am dreaming of the day coming soon when Barney Frank and HIS Pirate party get 7.4% of the vote - with conservatives getting the rest.
The Swedish Pirates would have got a LOT more of the vote if they were the kind you’re thinking of there.
They would have got MY vote, anyway...
I think the Republicans are doing about as much as any national party is likely to be able to do.
I mean, go back to the stimulus bill that didn’t vote. Not one single Republican in the House voted for it. And only three “Republicans” in the Senate (one of whom finally ‘fessed’ up and became a Democrat).
I can’t disagree with you that rank and file Republicans have to demand that their leadership take a stand for conservatism and argue for the conservative platform at every turn.
Ultimately, it means having faith in conservative principles. Part of that faith means understanding that liberalism produces FAILURE. Conservatives need to stand behind their principles knowing that Obama will fail big - and be ready to collect when he does.
That’s why Libs are stacking all future elections in their favor: with court appointments, ACORN funding, etc....
I think the only real hope for the USA is if we fail huge and go into a depression so REAL CONSERVATIVES can sweep in with the power to reverse all the socialist/fascist crap that Obama and the Democrats are imposing.
I don’t want more “doom” than is necessary; but I want as much as is needed to turn the country against this agenda.
What I don’t want to see is a slow, orderly sinking and degeneration of the United States from a late great country into a socialist utopia that will be an insult to every American who ever fought and died for liberty and freedom.
I wish people would stop using the word “liberal” to describe socialist/redistributionist/Marxist/fascist/Keynesian policies, ESPECIALLY IN EUROPE, where “liberal” has retained its classical meaning. “Socialism” suffered in the latest European elections. Liberalism is a term in dire need of rescue from the socialists and greens.
Another pet peeve is linking parties like the BNP with the “far right” (in the American sense especially). The BNP is a “conservative party” only in a very archaic sense (conservative like the way the Taliban is conservative). The BNP is pro-welfare, pro-NHS, pro Keynesian/Marxist in all economic matters, protectionist (again anti-liberal, in the classical sense), and harbor vile racism (identity politics). They are neither “progressive” nor conservative in the American sense. They are regressive and anti-individual (antithetical to liberty in most ways) AND they hate America.
I agree with you on both senses, M203M4 (does the name have anything to do with the grenade launcher?).
Having read and re-read Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny,” I know exactly what you are talking about.
If people had your awareness about the fact that conservatives today are actually “classical liberals” while liberals are actually “socialists,” I would have used my language differently.
I tried following the article to state my view of the “rightwing” stuff - a ploy to paint conservatives as racists or nutjobs who would be avoided by any decent electorate. And I tried to turn that MSM rhetoric around on them.
What WE want is conservative principles - principles which have the virtue of being ethical and which have the virtue of actually WORKING - to return as the standard of this country.
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