On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Hunter Baker to discuss the eventful and impactful books they read in 2011 including autobiographies of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condeleza Rice; the growth – and subsequent persecution – of the church in China; and more.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Hunter Baker
No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington
Known and Unknown: A Memoir
In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir
God Is Red: The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3)

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The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Paul Bonicelli to discuss Dick Cheney’s new book, In My Time, how it portrays other members of George W. Bush’s administration and what it means for Cheney’s legacy.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

In My Time on Amazon
Condoleezza Rice: Cheney attacked ‘my integrity’
Powell says Cheney taking ‘cheap shots’ in book
Dick Cheney book reveals George W. Bush administration’s internal battles
Lightning Rod
Dick Cheney’s book is different and it’s because he’s the author
Paul Bonicelli’s work at Foreign Policy Magazine
Paul Bonicelli at Regent University

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The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

It’s just so amazing how the Progressive Left is the champion of minorities and the elderly. Champions that is, so long as those demographics don’t dare dissent from the rigid party ideology. If any among the members of these otherwise protected groups are struck by an independent thought, they become targets for derision from the enlightened progressive movement.

Case in point: Condoleezza Rice being labeled an Uncle Tom (or worse).
Case in point: Sarah Palin being labeled stupid.

Both of these labels are inventions and slurs of the Left, reserved for anyone who strays from the Progressive reservation.

Another case in point is the Left’s rumblings over the older demographic on display at the Tea Party Convention last weekend.

While it is true that there were a lot of older people at the event, it would be a mistake to assume the movement is limited to the elderly. The age of the demographic is likely the result of a couple of factors, price and time-to-travel being just two examples which would skew the population of this particular event.

That point aside, it is foolish and revealing that the Progressive outrage machine has swung into full gear to smear the people of this event (or any other for that matter), based on their age (and skin color).

We would think that the all-compassionate and all-wise Left wouldn’t be so quick to characterize age as a negative factor when it comes to politics.

First, it’s just plain rude. And so once again, from the perspective of basic human decency, the puerile Left effectively demonstrates that it is bankrupt. That they so callously dismiss the validity of someone’s position because of age is the telltale sign of close-minded ignorance and the epitome of crass irreverence. Yet that is what the Left is doing – and with the incontestable assistance of their media lackeys.

Surely the Left might have something to learn from people who have been around long enough to have gained wisdom through life experience. It’s almost as though the Left is somehow threatened by the experience and wisdom of those who have lived long enough to actually remember the history from which we are supposed to be proverbially learning. Now why would that be?

Second, the last time we checked, there were a crap-load of old people in this country. They don’t call Social Security reform the 3rd rail of politics for nothing. It seems politically stupid for the Progressive movement to go out of their way to mock old people as a group simply because they hold a different set of beliefs than Progressive Democrats. Surely there is no political party that can afford to alienate a demographic as large and as electorally influential as the elderly of this nation, even if its acerbic insolence delivers short-term gratification to the most bitter among its political base.

But that’s how it is in America today. If you do not fall in lock-step with the Progressive Left, you are a racist-bigot-homophobic-idiot. Now you can add dinosaur to the list of epithets the Left reserves for anyone who does not subscribe to their group-think.

Below are some images of people, old and young, whom the Progressive Left treat as worthless and without merit, simply because they don’t agree with the Progressive platform:

Last Saturday, the President hosted several hundred military families for trick or treating. Also invited were children of White House staff and about 2000 children from eleven D.C. area elementary schools.

In a press release published at their website, key Obama ally Code Pink  – a group co-founded by one of Obama’s top funders Jodie Evans, announced they were targeting military families for what can only be called psychological abuse by conducting a macabre protest of the war in Afghanistan as the families waited in line to enter the White House grounds.

Video of the Halloween protest shows members of Code Pink, including co-founder Medea Benjamin and Condoleezza Rice stalker Desiree Fairooz emotionally waterboarding the children in front of their parents.

Benjamin, whose work prolonging the insurgency in Iraq with humanitarian aid and political support for the terrorists is believed by many military families to have led to the maiming and killing of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq, has now focused her energies on helping our terrorist enemies defeat America in Afghanistan by propagandizing against reinforcements for our troops.

Dressed in fatigues with a bloody bandage wrapped around her head, Benjamin loudly moaned as she emoted being a ‘zombie soldier’, while holding a black cut-out of a rifle and wearing a pink sign that read, “The White House is haunted by the ghosts of Bush’s war.”

That’s just what children of soldiers fighting for our freedom should see, yes? Well, if your intent is to wage psychological warfare on the families of our troops to aid our terrorist enemies then the answer would indeed be, “yes.”

Fairooz, convincingly portraying a witch (as the Buck Owens song says, all she had to do was ‘act naturally’), called out to the children, telling them she wanted “young blood” for the war. (1:25 mark in video.)

Reuters was so disgusted by the display, the newswire’s photo caption accused Code Pink of taunting the children:

Members of the protest group Code Pink taunt local school children with chants about the war in Afghanistan as the children and their families arrive for a Halloween reception by U.S. President Barack Obama and his family at the White House in Washington, October 31, 2009. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES CONFLICT POLITICS SOCIETY)

Two days later, Reuters posted a blog entry responding to criticism of the caption by a Code Pink supporter:

“Nobody is paying us to ‘run such captions.’ Our photographer says the protesters said things to challenge and confront the children and their parents. For example, one protester dressed as a Wicked Witch was saying things like, ‘More pretties to die in my war! More pretties!’

“He said they were not just protesting the war in general but were, in effect, telling these families that their children were going to die at war. That sounds pretty much like taunting to me: GBU Editor”

In the press release issued last Friday about their Halloween protest at the White House, Code Pink explicitly stated they were targeting military families:

“While the Obamas host a Halloween Party outside the White House for military families, peace activists will also don costumes and call on Obama to oppose the surge in Afghanistan and end the wars… The activists will be dressed as zombie soldiers, ghosts of war victims, a monstrous Obama’s Afghanistein and more.”

The video of the protest shows the shocked and bewildered looks on the faces of the children in reaction to the real-life ghouls from Code Pink.

One wonders what will it take for President Obama to renounce the support of Code Pink and Jodie Evans. A commander-in-chief who truly cared about the troops and their families wouldn’t have to be told to do the right thing.  It would come naturally.