Americans seem to be loving soccer and that really bothers Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg needs to get a life. He seems to have nothing to ponder besides why liberals hate America. In his latest angst-ridden, rambling diatribe, Goldberg remarks on a PEW survey that found fewer Americans today think America “stands above all other countries in the world.” Naturally, he blames liberals, saying that, “The polling data only proves what has been obvious for a while,” which (wait for the drum roll), is that liberals aren’t proud of America.

What’s obvious, is that Goldberg is ignoring the point that the survey found the decline to be “particularly acute among Republicans.” That doesn’t jibe with Goldberg’s long-held world view that liberals hate America, so Goldberg jumps from his selective reference to the Pew survey to taking Georgia Rep. John Lewis to task for saying that, “If the Civil Rights Act was before the Congress today, it would not pass, it would probably never make it to the floor for a vote.” Goldberg slyly implies that Lewis, who risked his life multiple times challenging Jim Crow laws in the South, is applying reverse racism against Republicans, although even Goldberg is hard pressed to do this without at least mentioning congressional gridlock. I have news for Mr. Goldberg, not only would the Civil Rights Act not pass, it isn’t even surviving Republican efforts to dismantle it at the federal and state levels.

Showing his remarkable dexterity with hyperbolic prose, Goldberg leaps to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case and rants about Hillary Clinton’s “shocking, inarticulate” criticism of the decision and lumps it together with the “glib anti-Americanism” of liberals generally, who have the temerity to call the decision partisan, sexist, and religiously motivated, and who not only hate America, but seemingly love soccer, which is doubly bad, because America is clearly not exceptional at it.

The idea that Americans should consider soccer seriously more than once every two years during the World Cup (the women play, too, and won the championship twice, but only liberals care about that) is the strange segue for Goldberg’s next foray into liberals’ denial of “American exceptionalism.”

Goldberg lambasts President Obama for his remarks during a foreign policy speech at West Point during which he said, “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.  But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.” According to Goldberg, American exceptionalism is, “a complex concept describing the uniqueness of the American founding and American character,” and Goldberg resents the President reducing the concept of American exceptionalism to the idea that actions speak louder than words. Of course he does, because Goldberg is all about words; words thrown out helter-skelter as in this piece in the hopes of hitting a responsive conservative chord.

 Least he fail to hit that chord in the first 17 paragraphs of his 19 paragraph polemic, he throws in this dally in his final two, to wit, the Tea Party is full of patriotic Americans, who are thwarting liberals attempts to impose European style socialism in America and “liberal resentment over that fact is palpable.”

Yeah, and soccer isn’t real football, either!

Who is Sheldon Adelson and Why Should You Care?

If the United States of America goes to war with Iran, or becomes embroiled in a war with Iran started by Israel, a man named Sheldon Adelson will have played a significant role in making it happen.

Sheldon Adelson built the world's most expensive hotel-casino, the Marina Bay Sands. With its indoor canal, opulent art, dazzling casino, outdoor plaza, convention centre, theatre, crystal pavilion, lotus flower-shaped museum, and 150-meter long infinity pool at the top of the complex 55 stories up, the Marina Bay Sands is the world’s most expensive paean to indulgence.

Adelson is the Chief Executive Officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which owns and operates the Venetian and Palazzo hotel-casinos in Las Vegas, the Sands Casino-Resort Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, several properties in Macao, including the Macao Sands, and the Mariana Bay Sands in Singapore. Adelson has been listed as anywhere from the 3rd richest to the 16th richest man in America and has been called the “world’s richest Jew” by the Jewish Virtual Library, and at times, by himself.

Adelson’s American success story makes the Horatio Alger fictional success story look meager by comparison. Whereas Alger’s “Ragged Dick” made the climb from poverty to middle-class success through hard work and grit, Adelson worked harder, smarter, and some have claimed fraudulently (he was sued by his adopted sons in 1997 over the COMDEX deal), to rise from abject poverty to astronomical wealth. As his wealth has increased, so has his involvement in and influence over American and world foreign policy. And with the 2010 US Supreme Court Citizen’s United decision, Adelson’s money has become a dominant factor in American and Israeli politics, as well as a factor in China’s exploding capitalism.

Shelley Berkley, who once worked for Adelson, and is now a Democratic congresswoman for Nevada, said, “I have unique personal knowledge of how Mr. Adelson seeks to dominate politics and public policy through the raw power of money.

Most Americans who are paying any attention at all to Republican campaigns for their party's presidential nominee know by now that Sheldon Adelson is to Newt Gingrich as Newt Gingrich is to Tiffany's.

Federal records show that since 1999, Adelson and his wife have made disclosed political contributions of $21.6 million, and 82 percent of it has been for the benefit of Gingrich. Gingrich told NBC News in January 2012 that Adelson, "Knows I'm very pro-Israel, and that's the central value of his life."

The bond between Adelson and Gingrich goes back to the 1990s, when Gingrich was speaker of the House. Adelson wanted Congress to require that the U.S. Embassy in Israel be moved to Jerusalem. Gingrich not only spearheaded the effort; he's campaigning on it now."As president, on my first day in office, I will issue an executive order directing the U.S. Embassy in Israel to be moved to Jerusalem as provided for in the legislation I introduced in Congress in 1995," Gingrich said in a December speech in Beverly Hills, California.

But the key thing to know about Sheldon Adelson is that he is an ultra-conservative, right-wing supporter of all things Israel. Talk to Action (TTA) reports that the Institute for Policy Studies' Right Web has said that Adelson "is an important financial backer of right-wing `pro-Israel' groups in the United States and elsewhere in the world, as well as a prominent supporter of key Likud Party officials," prominently, Netanyahu.

According to The Daily Beast's Aram Roston, Adelson is "a staunch supporter of groups such as the Zionist Organization of America and other such groups, which believe Palestinians have no valid claims. Adelson sponsored a seminar in 2008 provocatively titled the `Islamic Jihad in America: What You Need to Know about Radical Muslim Infiltration of American Culture, Finance, Education, and Life,'" and in November of last year, "Adelson appeared on the stage of the Zionist Organization of America to present ... Glenn Beck with a `Defender of Israel' Award.

Adelson supports a number of ultra-conservative Jewish lobbying groups; groups who are now pushing for "retaliation" against Iran for that nation's refusal to back down on their pursuit of nuclear capabilities that may include nuclear weapons development. These are the same groups that promoted war with Iraq, and managed to seed the Bush Administration with men like Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and David Wurmser. Their mission was described in a policy paper -- A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm -- authored primarily by Wurmser, that advocated pre-emptive strikes against Iran and Syria, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, and the abandonment of traditional "land for peace" negotiations with Palestinians.

It isn't much of stretch to say that Sheldon Adelson is responsible as much as anyone for Benjamin Netanyahu regaining the office of Prime Minister of Israel.

In his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington DC on March 6, 2012, Netanyahu made it clear that he is perfectly comfortable with and capable of attacking Iran, with or without Washington’s approval. He said, “We are determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons; we leave all options on the table; and containment is definitely not an option.

Netanyahu went on to say, “The Jewish state will not allow those who seek our destruction to possess the means to achieve that goal. A nuclear armed Iran must be stopped.”

In case anyone had any doubts that Netanyahu was ready to go it alone, he elaborated, saying that, “Israel has waited patiently for the international community to resolve this issue. We've waited for diplomacy to work. We've waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer.”

Sheldon Adelson