Baloney edges out turkey
Ridicule is man's most potent weapon - Saul Alinsky
• Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
On this day: December 31Robert Mugabe assumes office as President of Zimbabwe (1987)
The Soviet Union is officially dissolved (1991)
Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting President (1999)
The U.S. hands Panama Canal over to Panama (1999)
d: Joseph Yablonski (1969), Michael Kennedy (1997)
Obamas hoisted by their own petard againRidicule is man's most potent weapon - Saul Alinsky• Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
On this day: December 30The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is formed (1922)
Edwin Hubble announces the existence of other galaxies (1924)
The United Auto Workers union stages its first sit-down strike (1936)
The U.S. halts heavy bombing of Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1972)
b: Al Smith (1873), A.C. Townley (1880), Hideki Tōjō (1884); d: Saddam Hussein (2006)
The Left's labels always mislead deliberatelyThe Democrats’ newest ideological label — “progressive” — has a 67 percent approval among Americans, far higher than the recognized and rejected “socialist” and “liberal” labels, says a new poll released by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.(full story at dailycaller.com)However, the conservative label wins a 62 percent approval from the 1,521 people polled by the Pew, despite Democrats’ prevalence in the education, culture and media sectors, and despite the sympathetic media coverage given during the fall to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
The progressive label gets a 67 percent approval rating largely because it is still rated positively by 55 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of independents, said the poll.
The progressive label dates back to the late 1800s, but was subsequently sidelined by Democrats who described themselves as socialists and liberals.
But socialism was discredited during the Cold War, and so there is only one admitted socialist in the U.S. Senate, Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. In the Pew poll, socialism gets a positive rating of only 31 percent, and a negative rating of 60 percent.
The liberal label was deeply damaged by the social-policy failures of the 1960s and 1970s. “Liberal” now gets a positive rating of only 39 percent, and a negative rating of 50 percent.
