The Patriot's Trumpet

The Question: Who Brought The T-shirts?

Yesterday, I raised the question (Here). We have the answer today and a whole lot more. Further, the evidence shows the White House and the Obama Political operation dominated the planning. Beyond that, Michelle Obama used the opportunity to mislead parents about American principles.

The First Lady misleading later but first the T-shirts

Judi McLeod, Editor at the Canada Free Press, wrote the following superb article yesterday, January 14, 2011.

Theme of “Together We Thrive” T-shirt came from Obama’s Organizing for America

The “Together We Thrive” T-shirts that starred at Wednesday’s Arizona `Memorial’ originated from Organizing for America (here), a sad fact unearthed by The Drumbeat of Liberty and the Preservation of Freedom editor and Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Robert Rohlfing.

In the controversy of the pep rally/rock concert style Memorial for those who lost their lives in Saturday’s Arizona tragedy, the mainstream media reported that the “Together We Thrive: Tucson & America” T-shirt given to mourners as they entered McKale Center was the idea of University of Arizona brass, not the Obama administration.

Yet the “Together We Thrive” slogan dates back to a post to Obama’s own Organizing for America in a Feb. 11, 2008 post by self-described “globalist” John Berry IV.

More than passing strange that the Obama campaign message of civility was the same on Feb. 11, 2008 as it was in his Wednesday Memorial speech, and the same one, too carried by the mainstream media in coverage of the Memorial.


“For too long Americans have been set one against the other.  It is a side affect of a free market society,” Berry IV posted.  “How can profits be maximized, how can I get the work down for the lowest possible costs.  This continually sets one group against the other, especially in the blue collar sectors of America.  It has become part of the American Business model, whether it was indentured servants, slaves picking cotton, sharecroppers, the industrious people that built the railroads or today’s migrant workers.  As long as we remain divided, fighting for the scraps that America has to offer it will be one group against the other.

“What I see in Obama is a chance for revolution. (Italics CFP’s).  A chance for every group to be heard; A chance to live the American dream that has been denied to so many…

“In a previous career, I was the global leader of Diversity for a global fortune 500 corporation.  I have studied the affects of diverse groups working together and the results can not be denied.  Together we Thrive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

University of Arizona brass did not originate the “Together We Thrive” T-shirt.  They merely recycled it for Obama—and recycled it in time for what should have been a dignified Memorial for the dead.

If you were a mourner who took home a “Together We Thrive” T-shirt have a look at the bottom of your shirt.  “Rocking America and Rocking the Vote” is a common theme of the DNC,  and it’s right there on your Memorial T-shirt memento.

Welcome to the era of Obama, where cheering and standing ovations, for the first time in history, became part of the Requiem for the Dead.

Judi made one small mistake —the last sentence. Obviously the Wellstone Memorial preceded this Obama Pep Rally by more than eight years.

Michelle Obama’s Attempt to Mislead America’s Parents

Michelle Obama posted this “Letter” to parents on the White House Blog Thursday:

·       An Open Letter to Parents Following the Tragedy in Tucson

Posted by First Lady Michelle Obama on January 13, 2011 at 6:07 PM EST

Dear parents,

Like so many Americans all across the country, Barack and I were shocked and heartbroken by the horrific act of violence committed in Arizona this past weekend.  Yesterday, we had the chance to attend a memorial service and meet with some of the families of those who lost their lives, and both of us were deeply moved by their strength and resilience in the face of such unspeakable tragedy.

As parents, an event like this hits home especially hard.  It makes our hearts ache for those who lost loved ones.  It makes us want to hug our own families a little tighter.  And it makes us think about what an event like this says about the world we live in – and the world in which our children will grow up.

In the days and weeks ahead, as we struggle with these issues ourselves, many of us will find that our children are struggling with them as well.  The questions my daughters have asked are the same ones that many of your children will have – and they don’t lend themselves to easy answers.  But they will provide an opportunity for us as parents to teach some valuable lessons – about the character of our country, about the values we hold dear, and about finding hope at a time when it seems far away.

We can teach our children that here in America, we embrace each other, and support each other, in times of crisis.  And we can help them do that in their own small way – whether it’s by sending a letter, or saying a prayer, or just keeping the victims and their families in their thoughts.

We can teach them the value of tolerance – the practice of assuming the best, rather than the worst, about those around us.  We can teach them to give others the benefit of the doubt, particularly those with whom they disagree. 

Read the rest (Here).

This idea, “the value of tolerance” is not just wrong but dangerous. She defined tolerance as, “[T]he practice of assuming the best, rather than the worst, about those around us.  We can teach them to give others the benefit of the doubt, particularly those with whom they disagree.” This is the very false mindset that allowed Jared Laughner to remain at large. It is not guns or conservative commentators that cause this type of massacre, it is the First Lady’s type of tolerance.

Let’s Take A Hard Look at Tolerance

Tolerance has been taught in American schools for at least 30 years. Perhaps we should know the meaning of “tolerance.” Merriam Webster says tolerance is:

1.      : capacity to endure pain or hardship : endurance, fortitude, stamina

2.      a : sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own

b : the act of allowing something : toleration

3.      : the allowable deviation from a standard; especially : the range of variation permitted in maintaining a specified dimension in machining a piece

4.      a (1) : the capacity of the body to endure or become less responsive to a substance (as a drug) or a physiological insult especially with repeated use or exposure <developed a tolerance to painkillers>; also : the immunological state marked by unresponsiveness to a specific antigen (2) : relative capacity of an organism to grow or thrive when subjected to an unfavorable environmental factor

b : the maximum amount of a pesticide residue that may lawfully remain on or in food

So, they are teaching, and Mrs. Obama is advocating, the second definition.  An American Principle is to indulge beliefs and practices conflicting with our own. New people move next door. You learn the man has a belief and practice of raping the female neighbors. How’s tolerance working out?

Well, I guess we Christians and Jews are supposed to tolerate Muslims. Let’s follow a little example in New York City:

Mayor Bloomberg invoked the “American principle of tolerance” in his insistence on promoting a triumphal mosque at Ground Zero in New York City. Not building a triumphal mosque at that sacred place would somehow “violate American principles of tolerance and openness.” Got it? Mayor Bloomberg is determined to operate on the principle of tolerance.

However, he has effectively banned tobacco and trans-fats in New York. Well, neither of those are great things but is the mayor following his “American Principle of tolerance?”

Now, in another fit of intolerance, the Mayor is forcing a reduction of dietary salt. Have you heard about the Mayor’s intolerance for Wal-Mart? Yes, he and his cohorts continue to block Wal-Mart. Pretty intolerant. What do we know he is tolerant of?

• Islam and forms of Shariah law.
• Homosexuality.
• Abortion

Perhaps someone can find something else Mayor Bloomberg tolerates. We do know for Mayor Bloomberg, tolerance is a device (not a principle) to force something onto We the People we do not want and to deny us things we want; prayer in public, for example.

Make no mistake, tolerance is a device the left uses to control you or get your property. The Congressional Black Caucus is a fine example.

As I have written before; as a child, my mother loved me unconditionally but she did not tolerate bad behavior.

There are clearly times when each of us should tolerate someone or something, but tolerance is not an American Principle!

It defies sanity that, just four days after a heinous vile assassination attempt and brutal massacre, the First Lady of the United States of America, would counsel America’s parents to teach their children to be tolerant of such people.

Making Bork a Verb

Here, without additional comment, is Scott Johnson’s August 26th, 2009 Power Line post:

EDWARD KENNEDY’S AMERICA

The death of Senator Edward Kennedy from a malignant brain tumor superimposes somber intimations of mortality onto a frequently frivolous political scene. It puts us in mind us of what Wordsworth called the “fallings from us, vanishings” that ultimately reconcile us to our own mortality. As a young man Senator Kennedy became, as he is today, the pillar of a large extended family. We extend our sympathies to his family upon his death.

Senator Kennedy became the lion of the Senate and of American liberalism. For better or worse, his legislative accomplishments have done much to shape the United States into the form he has desired. We will be living with, and taking the measure of, his legacy for a long time to come. Upon the announcement of his illness in May 2008, Washington Post columnist David Broder paid him a personal tribute that took account of his long career.

In one respect, Senator Kennedy’s contribution to our public life has been indisputably negative, although there may be argument over the extent of its influence. In the role he played opposing the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987, Senator Kennedy was responsible for a willfully false and remarkably coarse attack on Bork.

When Ronald Reagan nominated then-D.C. Circuit Judge Bork to the Court upon the retirement of Lewis Powell, Senator Kennedy had prepared to do battle. Anticipating the nomination of Bork or someone like him to fill Powell’s seat, Kennedy aide Jeffrey Blattner had written a statement denouncing the nomination. Immediately following the announcement of Bork’s nomination on July 1, 1987, Senator Kennedy took to the floor of the Senate to make the statement Blattner had written:

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….

Alluding to Bork’s execution as Solicitor General of Nixon’s order to fire Archibald Cox, Kennedy contintued:

President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of American. No justice would be better than this injustice.

New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner (then of the Boston Globe) told the story of Kennedy’s statement denouncing Bork in Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America. In the book Bronner comments harshly on Kennedy’s statement, though Bronner’s comments do not exhaust the statement’s falsity:

Kennedy’s was an altogether startling statement. He had shamelessly twisted Bork’s world view — “rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids” was an Orwellian reference to Bork’s criticism of the exclusionary rule, through which judges exclude illegally obtained evidence, and Bork had never suggested he opposed the teaching of evolution…

Bronner shows that Kennedy’s false charges against Bork did not derive from some mistake or misinterpretation, but were rather the deliberate acts of a powerful man for whom the ends justified the means:

Kennedy did distort Bork’s record, but his statement was not the act of a desperate man. This was a confident and seasoned poliltician, who knew how to combine passion and pragmatism in the Senate. Unlike the vast majority of those who were to oppose Bork, Kennedy believed from the beginning that the nomination would be defeated and that the loss would prove decisive in judicial politics.

As Bronner suggests, Senator Kennedy’s unconstrained opposition to Bork’s appointment has indeed had profound effects in the practice of “judicial politics,” preeminently in the confirmation proceedings following the nomination of Justice Thomas, but also more recently in the confirmation of Justice Alito. And it has become something of a template for liberal attacks on mainstream conservatives beyond the realm of judicial politics.

The tone set by Senator Kennedy in connection with the Bork nomination lives on in the Senate. It also lives on in the mainstream media — see, for example, John Hinderaker’s “A conspiracy so lunatic” — and on the left-wing side of the Internet. Indeed, we have seen it on display this month in the White House/Reid/Pelosi attack on the opponents of Obamacare.

We live in Edward Kennedy’s America not only in the consequential legislation that he sponsored and saw through the Senate, but also in the afterlife of the vulgar political sham on which Senator Kennedy relied to defeat the nomination of Judge Bork.