Vocal Minority

How Did Obama Fare in 2009? Don't Ask an Obamaniac!

A couple days ago I got in trouble with two Obama-loving (and Jewish) Facebook friends for calling their President Golden Calf “the worst president in American history.” They accused me of being petulant, partisan, vapid, and having gone off the deep end.

I disagreed, explaining that if anyone was those things, it was Obama himself. I also pointed out that I was far from the only one severely disappointed with the current president and his administration. Obama’s approval rating teetered around 50% since mid-July and has stayed below that since mid-November.

But if anybody wonders why so many Americans disapprove of President Hope&Change’s performance, Victor Davis Hanson counts the ways in a December 23 article …

• Constant apologies abroad for everything from slavery to Hiroshima
• Bows to Saudi royalty, the Japanese emperor, and Chinese autocrats
• The on-again/off-again Guantanamo shut-down mess
• The fight with the former CIA directors
• The public show trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed
• The reach out to Ahmadinejad Castro, Chavez, and assorted thugs
• The Honduras fiasco
• Czars everywhere
• The serial “Bush did it”/reset whine abroad
• The Queen of England/I-pod fiasco
• Gordon Brown gets snookered in his gift-giving
• Unceremoniously shipping back the Churchill bust
• The end of the special relationship with the UK
• The New York on-the-town presidential splurge
• Anita Dunn and her Mao worship
• Timothy Geithner/Tom Daschle/Hilda Solis and their taxes
• What ever happened to Gov. Richardson? 
• “No lobbyists” = gads of them
• The Podestas’ insider influence-peddling empire
• Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” chauvinism
• The Special Olympics silly quip
• Trashing Nancy Reagan
• The Skip Gates/police acting “stupidly” mess
• The get-Chicago-the-Olympics jaunt to Copenhagen
• Cap-and-trade boondoggle
• “Millions of green jobs” 
• Ignore gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power production
• Cash-for-clunkers
• The Joe Biden gaffe machine
• Jobs “saved” or “created” rather than references to the actual unemployment rates
• Van Jones, the racist and truther
• Desiree Rogers won’t testify
• The blowback from, and silence about, the Rangel/Dodd corruption
• The White House party crashers plan to take the 5th Amendment
• The ‘bipartisanship’ con
• The pork-barrel stimulus spoils
• The demonization of the Town-Hallers
• The Acorn Mess
• The Kevin Jennings/Safe School Czar embarrassment
• The SEIU direct access to the White House
• The Asian Tour comedown
• The politicization of the take-over of GM and Chrysler
• The Obama readjustment in the order of paying back car creditors
• Car dealerships closed on shaky criteria
• Obama as “Caesar” 
• The Emanuel “never let a serious crisis go to waste” boast
• The Black Caucus/Rangel/Waters bid to bail out the inner-city radio stations
• Yosi Sergant and the NEA
• $1.7 trillion deficit
• The planned $9 trillion added to the national debt
• New income tax rates; health care surcharge talk; and payroll tax caps to be lifted
• Rahm Emanuel’s promised payback to those states that trash the stimulus
• The supposed C-span aired health care debate
• The promised website posts of pending legislation
• Czechs and Poles sold out on missile defense
• Sermons to and finger pointing at the Israelis
• The failed ‘Putin helps to stop a nuclear Iran’ gambit
• Voting present on the Iranian reformers in the street
• Serial but empty deadlines to Ahmadinejad
• The good war/bad war twisting and turning on Iraq/Afghanistan
• The months-long dithering over Afghanistan
• Renditions, tribunals, Patriot Act, etc. once trashed, now OK
• Healthcare take-over
• The 2,000 page proposed new health code
• The embarrassing Nobel Peace Prize nomination
• The attacks on surgeons, Chamber of Commerce, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc. 
• The Islam mythologies in the Cairo Speech
• The al Arabiya “Bush did it” interview
• Obama’s TV “my Muslim faith” gaffe

Whew! That’s a lot of screw-ups for less than one year in the presidency. One might even say it’s the resume of the worst president in American history (or at least in the past 150 years; a history-buff friend reminds me that Andrew Jackson was a real bastard.)

What I find interesting about this list, which VDH points out isn’t even exhaustive, is how dutifully the mainstream media systematically whitewashed the scandals, missteps, gaffes, and lapses in judgment. Basically, unless you are a regular follower of Fox News or the conservative radio and/or internet circuit, you are likely to even be aware of most of the items on this list. (Yet there are those out there who know every tiny sordid tidbit involving Sarah Palin, whether it’s true or not.) Isn’t that pathetic?

Seriously, show this list to any liberal/Democrat and I would guess that they wouldn’t have heard of at least two-thirds of the items therein. (I’d test that theory myself, but I get the sinking suspicion that no liberal/Democrat friend of mine would read through a mere few items. At that point they’d accuse me of being petulant, partisan, mean-spirited, and making up lies to smear “the black man in the White House,” and then walk off in a huff. Like being confronted with the man-made global warming climate change hoax, they wouldn’t be able to handle the cold hard facts in front of them. As Ann Coulter has said, “The truth cannot be delivered with Novocaine.”)

VDH wasn’t done. Here is his analysis of Obama’s Nobel prize speech:

I listened to it this morning quite early and posted at NRO. Bottom line: an academic sermon on peace/war with the now accustomed Obama characteristics:

1) long again (4,000 words);
2) “I” or “me” 34 times: same old self referencing;
3) the inadvertent cosmic arrogance [“I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.” = you think?];
4) straw men trope: some say this; others say that; but I uniquely say …;
5) reference to my own personal inspirational story;
6) trash my predecessor or his policies;
7) end with hopey/changey cadences.

That was pretty much it — a pulpit exegesis that could have been cut to 500 words. I would have done the speech in 10 minutes and used the extra time to have lunch with poor neglected King Harald. (Second recommendation: Obama should try to hire some speech-writers over 40. There are a lot of old pro Democrat wordsmiths around that might come in and offer something new other than the now tired boilerplate.)

Yup. You wanted hope and change? You got it. Ready for (at least!) three more years of this?

Liberal Stupid-Ass Comment: Harry Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse Equate ObamaCare Opponents to Racists and Nazis

Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn’t quite right. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.

— Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), December 7, 2009

“Voting ‘no’ and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it. It was clear the three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”

— Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), December 21, 2009

Yup. This is how Democrats debate an issue: When your opponents disagree with you, call them racists and/or Nazis.

So in the mind of idiots like Harry Reid, those who filibuster (or threaten to do so) are akin to those who didn’t want slavery to end, women to vote, and minorities to have civil rights? Harry Reid, either himself ignorant of history or hoping the American people are, apparently doesn’t know that the persons who filibustered the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964 were Democrats. One of them—Robert Byrd (D-WV) sits in the Senate to this day! Who prevented slavery from being stopped? Democrats! By why let historical record get in the way of your selfish political agenda?

Reid also doesn’t know that the Senate is not supposed to move fast on legislation. James Madison conceived of it as an anchor, acting to slow government down. But Harry Reid probably never even heard of James Madison.

What about the filibuster of George W. Bush’s nomination of black female judge Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia? That was carried out by Democrats too. Guess those racist Democrat friends of Harry Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse just couldn’t stand having a black woman preside over a courtroom. And when Republican Bill Frist tried to stop Democrat filibustering on Bush’s judicial nominations, guess who was there to get on his smarmy little soapbox with his smarmy little voice? You guessed it:

Democrats are refusing to forgo filibusters and say they will fight any effort by Frist to act unilaterally to end them for judicial nominations. They warn that it could poison the well for bipartisan cooperation on other issues in the upcoming Congress.

“If they, for whatever reason, decide to do this, it's not only wrong, they will rue the day they did it, because we will do whatever we can do to strike back,” incoming Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said last week. “I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up.”

But the most disgusting thing about comparing slavery, civil rights, and women’s suffrage to this health (s)care bill is that they are in fact incomparable. As Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge explains on his blog:

[H]ealth care legislation is fundamentally different than slavery and civil rights. In the latter, we are dealing with negative rights. Health care—to the extent it is meaningful at all to talk about it in rights terms—is a positive right. Reid’s thus comparing apples and oranges. The crusades against slavery and for civil rights were about freedom. Obamacare is about mandates, expanded government, higher taxes, and larger deficits. “The men who wrote the Bill of Rights were not concerned that government might do too little for the people but that it might do too much to them.” Jackson v. City of Joliet, 715 F.2d 1200, 1203 (7th Cir. 1983) (Posner, C.J.). Me too. Sadly, it’s not a concern Senator Reid shares.

Finally, in 1919 nearly twice as many Senate Republicans (36) voted for women’s suffrage than did Democrats (20) and over twice as many Democrats (17) opposed it than Republicans (8). 

So Harry Reid is either a dimwit or a libeling mud-slinger.

Whitehouse’s libelous comment is just as bad. Does it ever occur to this power-hungry ideologue that Senate Republicans—and a vast majority of the American people—simply don’t want the federal government engaging in an unconstitutional, fascist, liberty-destroying, wealth-stealing, and life-threatening takeover of one sixth of the U.S. economy? I really don’t think it does.

Nope. In their sick liberal universe, all opponents of liberal Democrats are simply for drowning kittens and puppies, keeping women and minorities down, and having a temper tantrum that a black man is in the White House.

These are the mental midgets who will soon have your income and your very life in their unworthy hands.

A staunchly liberal friend denounced Michael Steele when he criticized President Hope&Change’s undeserved receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, calling Steele “shameful.” No. What Harry Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse said is shameful. Denounce this.

Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: NYT Book Review Compares Palin to Hitler; NYT Readers Consider Her Worse

Look who’s Hitler-fixated …

As I posted yesterday, Frank Rich called the tea party movement “Hitler-fixated.” Rich was presumably referring to one tea party where one person was photographed holding one sign of a swastika with a slash through it. Based on this one instance, the New York Times’ resident genius makes this sweeping generalization. 

Naturally, Rich was either willingly or unwittingly ignorant of the fact that for eight stright years virtually no anti-Bush rally occurred that was not festooned with dozens of Bush-Hitler references. Nancy Pelosi, who imagined swastikaaaas at summertime town halls, was apparently ignorant of this too.

But if Rich was really looking for a group that is truly Hitler-fixated, he needn’t have stepped outside his own building. Today’s Times has—believe it or not—a review of Sarah Palin’s memoir. Except, while the review of the book’s contents is more or less ideologically neutral, here is how reviewer Stanley Fish decides to begin the column. Lachlan Markay at NewsBusters explains:

Fish introduces his review with a humorous anecdote poking fun at some of the more deranged Palin-haters: Upon asking a customer service representative in a Manhattan bookstore where he could find “Going Rogue,” the employee “looked at me as if I had requested a copy of ‘Mein Kampf’ signed in blood by the author, and directed me to the nearest Barnes and Noble, where, presumably, readers of dubious taste and sensibility could find what they wanted.”

Gee, you know, when a book reviewer compares—in a shrewdly indirect fashion—a publication to “Mein Kampf” and potential readers of this publication of having “dubious taste and sensibility,” I just wanna run right out and buy a truck load of ‘em, don’t you?

But it wasn’t only Fish who found the “Going Rogue”=”Mein Kampf” comparison accurate. Markay provides some online comments from those oh-so-tolerant readers of the oh-so-tolerant NY Times:

• I agree....American fiction is fun to read. And I like your allusion to “Mein Kampf”. It works well here. But at least he wrote his own material.

• ...If you liked this autobiography, you must have really loved “Mein Kampf.” I think both authors were about equally honest and ambitious, though Hitler was much more knowledgeable and articulate.

• Sarah Palin is no one to be admired, no matter how resilient, she is to be feared. More precisely, America’s habit of being fooled by mountebanks like Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin, who preach phony religious piety and jingoistic patriotism, is what we should fear. Honestly, I’m amazed that you were able to hold down your lunch after reading pap such as you describe, let alone recommend that we all have a taste. Unbelievable.

• Biography, auto or not, be damned. I share the horror of your bright young bookstore employee.

Of course, we can safely assume that none of these commentors read a single sentence of Sarah Palin’s book, nor do they plan to. Isn’t it just easier validating the loathsome comparison of the author with Hitler—or, worse, considering her even worse than Hitler because he was more “knowledgeable,” “articulate,” and “at least he wrote his own material.”

Now, as someone who is actually currently reading Sarah Palin’s book, I find it utterly impossible to conclude that a book which celebrates liberty and American values; shows respect for human life, regardless of race, gender, or physical handicaps; and endorses hard work, the acquisition of personal property and income, and the opportunities afforded by the free-market capitalist system = Mein Kampf.

On the other hand, how is it that a book which denounces American liberty and values, and instead espousing centralized State control over people’s lives; foments cynicism and distrust toward one particular racial group; and rejects economic freedom, foments hate against “the rich” (read: Jews), and promotes State control over property and income does not = Mein Kampf?

Because the above paragraph accurately describes both memoirs of Barack Hussein Obama. And you can be assured that the writers of the above online comments own one, if not both, of them.

But remember: It’s the right that’s intolerant, hateful, and ignorant.

Liberal Stupid-Ass Comment: NYT's Frank Rich on Those Redneck Palin Fans [UPDATED]

On November 22, Frank Rich had this to say about the attendees of Sarah Palin book signings [via TimesWatch]:

“That demographic is white and non-urban: Just look at the stops and the faces on her carefully calibrated book tour. The affect is emotional — the angry air of grievance that emerged first at her campaign rallies in 2008, with their shrieked threats to Obama, and that has since resurfaced in the Hitler-fixated ‘tea party’ movement (which she endorses in her book)....Palin is at the red-hot center of age-old American resentments that have boiled up both from the ascent of our first black president and from the intractability of the Great Recession for those Americans who haven’t benefited from bailouts.”

— Columnist Frank Rich on Sarah Palin’s fans, November 22.

There are so many thoughts in my head right now about this pathetic hateful leftist hack with a word processor that I don't know where to begin. Seriously, I don't think there is an iota of truth, fact, or reality in this excerpt. OK, let's try to parse this line by despicable line:

1. White and non-urban. Translation: Racist rednecks. Just another instance of a liberal ideologue looking only at skin color and not content of character. As I wrote earlier in the fall, the attendance at my synagogue is all white and non-urban, a "sea of white people." Guess my congregation is just a bunch of racist rednecks.

2. The affect is emotional. Oh yeah, because Obama speeches with the freaking tears rolling down fans' cheeks is not emotional, right? Democrat politicians screaming to some audience of robots that unless you elect them, 500 million people a year are going to die due to lack of health insurance, the entire economy is going to collapse if we don't pass this Democrat slush fund called the "stimulus bill" tomorrow, the world is going to boil over in 3 months unless we turn our lives upside-down to stop global warming, our "moral standing" in the world is being damaged by Republican strategies in the war on terror, black churches are going to burn because America is a racist country, and millions of Americans are going to go poor and starving unless government does something to regulate those greedy corporate executives. These, according to Frank Rich — who according to his own writings agrees wholeheartedly with everyone of these ridiculous sentiments — are not emotional.

Oh, and it should be effect, Mr. Rich, not affect. Free Republic reader "afraidfortherepublic" noticed this too and says, "I’ll betcha Sarah knows the difference. Frank Rich needs to go back to school."

3. Angry air of grievance. Not like those feel-good liberal gatherings you love, right, Mr. Rich? Those "Free abortion on demand!" rallies, "End the occupation!" rallies, "No blood for-oil! rallies, "Raise the minimum wage!" rallies, "Habeas corpus rights for terrorists!" rallies, "Free Mumia!" rallies, "George W. Bush is the world's biggest terrorist!" rallies, "9/11 was an inside job!" rallies, and "Try Bush and Cheney for war crimes!" rallies? No angry air or grievance there, according to Frank Rich. But when Sarah Palin fans gather to demand our liberty, property, income, and Constitution back, it has an aaaangry aaaair of griieeeevance!

4. Shrieked threats to Obama ... Hitler-fixed 'tea party' movement. Rich is undoubtedly referring to one liberal reporter's claim of having heard "Kill Him" and "Terrorist" at a Sarah Palin rally last fall. A claim that was never corroborated by a single other attending reporter or rally participant.

5. Hitler-fixed 'tea party' movement. Rich is undoubtedly referring to one—uno—instance of a person holding a swastika with a slash through it at one Tea Party. If this is all it takes for Frank Rich to label an entire movement as Hitler-fixated, I wonder what rock he was sleeping under when this was taking place from 2001-2008.

How easy it must be to be a NY Times writer. Who needs intellectual honesty when you can just spout overblown and/or unsubstantiated liberal talking points?

6. Palin is at the red-hot center of age-old American resentments that have boiled up both from the ascent of our first black president. Palin isn't at the red-hot center of any resentments, you schmuck. By contrast, your butt buddy Barack Obama is at the red-hot center of age-old anti-American resentments. And the oft-repeated but not once substantiated claim that the tea party movement (which is aimed more at Congress than at Obama) resents having a black president is getting old and simply highlights Frank Rich's intellectual laziness and unprofessionalism.

UPDATED 3:20PM: Regarding the ol' liberal "black man in the White House" mantra, Freedom's Lighthouse links to this anti-ObamaCare ad:

7. the intractability of the Great Recession for those Americans who haven’t benefited from bailouts. This statement is wrong in three significant ways. First, it's only called the "Great Recession" because liberal hacks like Rich want it too appear to the American people worse than it really was at the time of its coining (i.e., right around the end of George W. Bush's presidency and the beginning of Obama's). The truth is the recession wouldn't have been so "great" if the Marxist-socialist in chief and his Marxist-socialist-dominated Congress didn't worsen and prolong the recession by enacting the most irresponsible economic policies since LBJ's Great Society scheme.

Second, it is safe to say that except for government hacks, virtually no one as benefited from bailouts. Banks are still not lending, GM is still reeling, and businesses are still not hiring. For Rich to even assume the premise that there are actually beneficiaries of bailouts makes him look even more ignorant.

Finally, Rich makes the assumption that those present at Sarah Palin book signings are among those who -- unlike people who are not at Palin fans ostensibly -- didn't get their expected piece of the bailout pie. Not only is this assumption completely unsupportable, but it shows how much Rich does not understand the values of real conservative America. He lives in this liberal bubble in a windowed office in Manhattan waxing eloquent about how white and racist and angry and Hitler-obsessed middle Americans are. If Palin fans or any conservatives are angry about the bailouts it's not because they didn't get their piece of the pie; they don't want a handout from government, and they didn't want the government — under Bush or Obama — to recklessly and irresponsibly pass these bailouts as they did.

In short, this one paragraph from one of the NY Times' treasured editorialists is an open window into the ignorant, hateful, and intolerant mind of the left.

And they wonder why they're losing so much business ...

Can somebody comment on this, please?

Diversity Lane (12/3/09)

The latest from Zack R. at the indefensible Diversity Lane:

     

 
 
 

Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: George Lopez Attacks Todd Palin

About one-third the way through Sarah Palin’s informative memoir, I’ve learned not only about her, but her husband Todd as well.

For you libs who prefer to bash Sarah’s book rather than actually read it, Todd is part Yupik Eskimo and worked on the icy shores of northern Alaska since childhood, where he learned to be self-sufficient and self-reliant. By the time he moved with his family to Wasilla, he had been one of the only teens in town to have earned enough to purchase his own car. After he and Sarah were married, he was so dedicated earning income for his family, he spent days away from Sarah and young Track and Bristol to work in the oil fields, and even missed Willow’s birth because of it.

In short, Todd Palin is in no way a “bum,” and was never destined to be.

Why do I bring this all up? Because last week (the 20th) the ignorant, hateful, and intolerant liberal “comedian” Joy Behar had on as guest the ignorant, hateful, and intolerant liberal “comedian” George Lopez. An agreeing Behar played clips from Lopez’s most recent HBO special, which included such gems as …

There are a lot of politicians that would be Latinos and a lot now who are Latino. Sarah Palin, Latina. Believe me. She’s got all the signs. She works and her husband don’t.

To add insult to injury, Lopez and Behar discussed Mr. Palin’s role as a stay-at-home dad.

LOPEZ: I mean, the concept of Todd Palin being a stay-at-home dad-listen Joy, when I was a kid, those guys were called bums.

BEHAR: Uh-huh. They’re still called bums.

I’m confused. For decades the left has worked incessantly to completely redefine the roles of men and women in the home and in the workplace. Isn’t that what libs wanted: for women to unabashedly take on traditional male roles and vice versa? That why was Sarah Palin slammed by the left during the ’08 campaign for “shafting her children” because she chose to work the tough long hours of political office?

Easy: Because only liberal women are to be praised for “doing it all.” Conservative women, on the other, are not “real women” according to many self-proclaimed feminists, so when they break the so-called glass ceiling, it doesn’t count.

And so it seems to be with Todd Palin. If a liberal/Democrat man played stay-at-home dad so the wife could have her career, he would most likely be make Time Magazine’s Man of the Year. But when a conservative/Republican does it, he’s a bum.

This is what passes for tolerant, civil, open-minded conversation for the left. But remember, it’s the Rush Limbaugh’s and Glenn Beck’s of the world who are poisoning the airwaves and TV.

Isn’t it easy to be a liberal? No equally applied set of rules, no principles, no decency. Just your own lies to spew inside the comfortable little bubble, dutifully echoed by other liberals until the lies are repeated often enough that they become truth.

“We put too much faith in conventional wisdom; Insist on the truth or you will never be free.”

Colleen Raezler at NewsBusters caught this excuse for a talk show and noted that Mr. Palin was described in the Washington Post—hardly a right-wing publication—very much like he is in his wife’s memoir:

Funny that even the liberal Washington Post admitted that Todd Palin was anything but a bum in a hit piece on him last year.

… But Todd Palin, 44, the ruggedly handsome four-time winner of the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race, was already an Alaska star before his wife’s election in 2006. Along with his family duties, he held two jobs, working occasional 85-hour weeks as an oil production operator for BP and, for a month each summer, as a commercial salmon fisherman in Bristol Bay.

Lopez didn’t simply insult the Palins’ division of labor, but opened fire on her looks and other situations regarding her family after Behar asked him, “What other signs are there that Palin is Latino?”

“She has a child and a grandchild the same age, and the tell-tale sign is she needs to get her roots done,” Lopez replied.

Speaking of employment, the other day Rasmussen released a report regarding our ever-increasing unemployment rate: Of those Americans jobless and looking, 15% are Democrats, yet only 9.9% are Republican. (Those with no major party affiliation make up 15.6%.)

Eowyn, who blogs at Giovanni’s World, asks:

Anyone interested in providing an explanation for why more Democrats and Independents than Republicans are unemployed? Is it because Republicans are more likely to be self-employed businessmen/women?

That could be, but I think these statistics make perfect sense. I’d bet that in general more Dems are unemployed than Republicans, given the behavior and expectations of each (not every single person of course, but generally): Republicans don’t look for handouts from big government. They don’t care who’s president. They just work. Period.

Dems on the other hand have an ingrained entitlement mentality. They and the party they support have been weaned on “the government owes me.” Look at all the footage from Obamaniacs during and after the ‘08 campaign—they were just waiting for Obama to become president in order to hold their hand out and for nanny gov’t to give them something they didn’t earn—pay for their house, their food, their health care, etc.. Not long ago in Detroit thousands of poor people (mostly minorities) stood on line waiting to get, as one local news interviewee called it, “Obama money.” Why work?

Think I’m generalizing? Think there are an equal number of Dems and Reps on the welfare rolls? Doubt it. You’d never see someone like Todd Palin going on welfare. But I’m sure the unfunny George Lopez and Joy Behar wouldn’t dare insult anyone taking welfare or waiting on line for “Obama money,” as long as they were good little Democrat-voters. (You know, real bums).

And now The Democrat leadership is punishing hard work and initiative through taxation and demonization of the evil “rich” who by means of the unfair capitalist system have stolen from the unemployed what’s rightfully theirs.

Sorry, call me mean-spirited but I’m calling it as I see it: Democrats being unemployed at a higher percentage than Republicans is no accident.

So let George Lopez deflect the actual problems plaguing Hispanics—high unemployment among males and sexual activity so rampant that teenage girls are making their mothers grandmothers at a relatively young age—by projecting it onto Sarah and Todd Palin. Let his left-leaning audience laugh, and let like-minded liberals like Joy Behar give him a forum to spew his hatred against two of the most decent and hard-working people currently in the public eye.

Because the truth is, George Lopez and Joy Behar, America is better off with folks like Sarah and Todd Palin than with either of you.

End the Occupation! Cynthia McKinney Preaches Hate and Silences Opposition at Binghamton

Last time former Georgia Democrat Congressman Cynthia McKinney made national news was in 2006, when she struck a Capitol police officer after the supposedly racist bastard had the audacity to stop her for failing to show I.D. But before that embarrassing display, McKinney had amassed a list of anti-white, anti-American, and anti-Semitic remarks. She is truly the embodiment of left-wing hate. 

The mainstream media is very good at reporting supposed right-wing anti-Semitism, like last month when two South Carolina Congressmen made the mistake of stereotyping Jews as being frugal with their money. But radical leftist anti-Semites—especially non-white ones—Louis Farrakhan comes to mind—the media tends to sweep under the rug.

It is also an unfortunate reality that leftist racists and anti-Semites are regular guests at universities, as painstakingly documented by David Horowitz et al. This was the case last week at my wife’s alma mater Binghamton University (formerly SUNY Binghamton). 

McKinney delivered anti-Semitic rant speech called “Black in America, Black in Palestine.” But if that wasn’t bad enough, all opposing views were suppressed via physical intimidation at the speech location and the theft of flyers alerting the Jewish community of McKinney’s visit.

Earlier this week, my wife received this email from the school’s Hillel organization informing alumni of what happened. Had my wife never received it, I would never have known these disgusting events took place:

Dear Friends,

By now, many of you have heard about a disturbing event that took place at Binghamton University on Tuesday, November 10th when former Congresswoman, and noted anti-Israel speaker, Cynthia McKinney came to campus. …

We are deeply saddened that our students were silenced by the event organizers and by physical intimidation. Throughout the evening, event coordinators threatened to remove anyone who offered a dissenting opinion, and during the question and answer period anyone who even hinted at a different point of view was either intimidated or embarrassed into silence. Student “bodyguards” were in place to prevent anyone who had an opposing viewpoint from speaking.

The Jewish campus community has been deeply affected by this incident.

We are concerned that the University’s statement in the above article does not go far enough. It does not condemn the physical intimidation used by event organizers. Furthermore, the University’s statement leaves students to work out conflicts amongst themselves, without University guidance and leadership about what constitutes civil discourse.

We will continue to work with the University to resolve these matters and make our opinions known. …

More details:

Pro-Israel fliers confiscated at campus speech
November 17, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Fliers distributed by Binghamton University Jewish students outside a campus speech by a critic of Israel were collected and confiscated by event organizers during the event.

Students from the Hillel Jewish Student Union at Binghamton passed out information outside auditorium doors before a Nov. 10 speech by former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney. The New York State university’s Hillel president, Rebecca Kohn, described the fliers as facts about Israel and Hamas and other points that they did not believe McKinney would address in her speech, which was titled “Black in America, Black in Palestine.”

But before McKinney spoke, leaders of the Binghamton Political Initiative, a graduate-student organized group, asked that anyone who had received a Hillel flier should pass them to the end of the row so they could be collected.

Kohn also said that during the question period, those who asked questions critical of McKinney’s views were quickly cut off or embarrassed. For example, when one pro-Israel questioner briefly stuttered from nerves, McKinney held up the flier that Hillel passed out and said, “Do you need this?”

An article by Hillel describing the events of the McKinney speech was printed as a letter to the editor in the campus newspaper last Friday. Kohn said Hillel was reaching out to the Binghamton Political Initiative to discuss the event. The event was co-sponsored by the Multicultural Resource Center and other campus organizations.

A university spokeswoman said Tuesday that school administrators had met with the Hillel director to discuss Jewish student concerns and said the school hoped that students could work out the issue among themselves.

“While the University defends the right of event organizers to determine the content of their programs, we hope and expect that all attendees at events held on campus will be treated respectfully regardless as to the extent of their agreement with the program’s message,” the university said in a statement. “When that does not occur, our response is to continue to work with students and student organizations to promote a more respectful community. Part of that work is helping students to develop the necessary tools to resolve disputes effectively amongst themselves.”

The statement also said that “student organizations are under no requirement to be neutral or balanced in their expressive activity and we have been made aware of concerns that the hosts of this event were not interested in presenting critiques of the guest speaker as part of the program. At Binghamton University, as at most campuses, those who stand in disagreement with a program’s message certainly have many alternative avenues available to them to express their own viewpoints including hosting their own events, letter writing campaigns and rallies.”

Kohn said that while the administration had met with the campus Hillel director, no one had met with any Jewish students. She said the university’s statement amounted to administrators saying that while they did not approve of the disrespect shown to attendees at the McKinney speech, they were not going to take any action.

McKinney, whose father famously blamed “J-E-W-S” when she was defeated in a race for re-election to her Atlanta-area congressional district in 2002, has most recently been involved in the Free Gaza movement. She was arrested last summer by Israel for attempting to break the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip and called Israel’s operation in Gaza “full-scale, outright genocide.”

During her Binghamton speech, she made comparisons between Palestinians and blacks in America, and called Israel an apartheid state.

Binghamton Hillel published this response:

Response to Cynthia McKinney
Published Monday, November 16, 2009

by Hillel Executive Board

We write to you because our voices have been silenced.

Tuesday night former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney spoke at Binghamton University at an event sponsored by the Binghamton Political Initiative, the Walter Rodney Committee and other campus groups. While we expected her speech to be biased against Israel, based on her well-documented record of past presentations of this nature, we were utterly unprepared for our opposing points of view to be so forcefully suppressed.

As executive board members of Hillel at Binghamton and members of an academic community, we felt that it was our responsibility to educate our peers on all angles of the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Therefore, we had spent the week leading up to the event preparing handouts with information representing various points of view that we believed would not be shared by Ms. McKinney.

To our shock, at the beginning of last night’s event, student coordinators were forcibly taking this information away from people. The moderator publicly announced that anyone who received handouts should pass them to the aisle for immediate confiscation. These actions are unacceptable. As students at an institution that promotes academic honesty, integrity, and truth, we are angered that our right to free speech was so clearly denied. Once we distributed the sheets, those who held them had the choice to read the information or disregard it, but it was in no way the coordinators’ or moderator’s right to aggressively take away that choice.

Throughout the evening, student coordinators threatened to remove anyone who offered a dissenting opinion, and during the question and answer period anyone who even hinted at a different point of view was either intimidated or embarrassed into silence. An extreme lack of respect was shown to anyone in attendance who did not wholeheartedly endorse Ms. McKinney’s presentation.

As representatives of the Jewish community on campus, we are outraged that our fellow students chose to bring a speaker to campus who has such a clear record of bigotry. MsMcKinney is strongly tied to the New Black Panther Party, which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a “black racist” group and is decidedly anti-white and anti-semitic. In 2006,McKinney lost her seat in congress. “Following McKinney’s concession speech, a reporter attempted to ask the Congresswoman why she thought she lost. The New Black Panther member (part of McKinney’s security detail) interrupted, shouting, “Why do you think she lost? You wanna know what led to the loss? Israel. The Zionists. You. Put on your yarmulke and celebrate.” (Anti Defamation League Press Release, August 9, 2006)

We are deeply saddened by the fact that our peers who planned this event clearly had no desire for any real discourse other than the hate speech that was delivered to the audience. While we do not have to agree with one another, we do have a responsibility to respect one another and allow for the open exchange of opinions. Ms. McKinney’s visit to Binghamton was an affront to any multicultural efforts on campus. Furthermore, it insults the significant struggles that African-Americans went through to gain civil rights in the United States and the Jewish community’s support for those civil rights. Jewish leaders marched in Montgomery and Selma. Fifty percent of white civil rights workers were Jewish and fifty percent of civil rights attorneys in the south were Jewish. Jews helped to found the NAACP. Historically Black Colleges welcomed professors who were Holocaust survivors to teach on their campuses. Ms. McKinney wants us to throw away this glorious shared history and begin a new relationship of bitterness and misunderstanding.

We sincerely disagree with this approach and hope that the leaders of all multicultural groups at Binghamton University share our desire to work together to combat hate and intolerance by creating opportunities for real dialogue. We look forward to a day when we can truly partner with our fellow students and learn to understand and respect one another’s backgrounds.

Hillel E-Board

What’s sad is that Hillel seems surprised that this type of hate speech happened on their campus and that voices of opposition were systematically surpressed. 

But this is the standard MO of the left: spread lies and hate and silence opposition. The mainstream media does it, the Obama administration is doing it, and on left-wing-dominated college campus they are most certainly doing it.

Here’s another sad thing about coverage of this incident: Not once is McKinney’s Democrat party affiliation mentioned.

END THE OCCUPATION! LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!

Profiles in Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: Louis Farrakhan on the Ft. Hood Massacre

Jim at Gateway Pundit reports on an interview with “Nation of Islam” Leader Louis Farrakhan, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on November 6. In it, Farrakhan blames the Ft. Hood massacre on the foreign policy of George W. Bush and on the climate of anti-Muslim sentiment fostered by Jews and Christians alike during his administration. Take it away, Calypso Louie:

As you know, since 9/11, in America and in other parts of the world, those anti-Islamic forces have stepped up their efforts to make Muslims… to cause the Muslims to be looked at as uncivilized, savage, or wicked people. This is an attempt by anti-Islamic forces, and some members of the Jewish community, and some members of the Christian community, who have united to condemn Islam …

It is because, my dear brothers and sisters, Islam was making so much progress in the United States that those anti-Islamic forces are trying to stem the tide of the progress of Islam. …

When there are Muslims who love America, and who join the armed forces to protect America, and to serve the interests of America, and then America, unfortunately, under the falsehoods of the George. W. Bush administration, launches attacks against Iraq and against Afghanistan, and now, those soldiers are killing Muslims… So when they go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the kind of hatred that is built up in the American forces, when they call the Muslims “ragheads” and “desert niggers,” and then, in the Abu Ghureib prison, Muslim women were raped, and Muslim men were sodomized …

All this affects Muslims serving in the army. So when you are being insulted by your superior officers or by your fellow soldiers, at some point, a person might break. Unfortunately, I believe this is what happened to Captain Nidhal Hassan.

Isn’t is amazing when it’s hard to tell when a hateful anti-American rant is being delivered by the leader of the Nation of Islam or by an MSNBC commentator?

Speaking of which, my initial reaction to these statements (other than disgust) was to ask: Hey, ABCNBCCBSCNNMSNBCNYTLATWaPo: Will any of you be reporting on this, actual, hate speech (as opposed from the fake hate speech by Rush Limbaugh et al., which is basically any speech that doesn’t echo the liberal template)? Or will you dutifully sweep it under the rug since the speaker is a close personal friend of President Hope&Change’s pastor of 20+ years?

And then I realized: This interview was from November 6. It’s now November 18, and this is the first time I’m hearing about it.

Should I be surprised?

Profiles in Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: Ted Danson

As often she does when she opens her mouth, Joy-less Behar shattered the myth that it’s liberal hosts and their liberal guests who corner the market on civility and intelligence. Yesterday she had help: actor/activist Ted Danson. They both traded jibes about how conservative Americans are easily brainwashed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the religious right because they’re not smart enough to form their own opinions.

This, of course, is in contrast to liberals like Joy Behar and Ted Danson who are sooo enlightened and sooo impervious to indoctrination that the fact they think exactly the same is just sheer coincidence! It’s also mere coincidence that virtually every liberal/Democrat—from the mainstream newsrooms to the pressrooms and even to the White House—is responding to Rush’s Fox News Sunday interview with Chris Wallace using the exact same talking points. These libs really know how to formulate their own opinion, let me tell you!

Danson admitted that people like El Rushbo and the religious right “really piss me off, to be honest,” followed immediately by the claim that the right is all about playing on people’s fear and anger. This is, by the way, the same Ted Danson who in 1988 declared “We only have ten years to save the oceans” (for those of you in Rio Linda, that would have made the point of no return 1998) and who co-founded and sits on the board of an ocean-focused envirowacko group.

Behar—remember: a liberal and therefore intelligent enough to formulate her own opinions—nodded approvingly to Danson’s statements and then punctuated them by calling conservatives like Rush “extremists.”

But remember, it’s conservative talk that’s coarsening the culture.

Both Danson and Behar then demonstrated their complete ignorance of the government-run health (s)care issue by blaming vocal opposition either on uneducated bumpkins who don’t know what’s good for them or on greedy parties seeking to thwart the “competition” that government-run program would allegedly foster.

Jeff Poor at NewsBusters has the story, with quotes and other painful details.

Profiles in Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: Larry David [UPDATED 10/30]

Yesterday, true to fascist form, President Golden Calf signed into law a shameful speech-suppressing “Hate Crime” Bill. With the stroke of a pen, government apparatchiks elected and unelected can now decide according to their leftist politically-correct will that my life (a white heterosexual male) and the lives of my wife and two small children (also white) are not equal in the eyes of the law to that lives of, say, an ethnic minority or homosexual. It is a divisive identity-politics-obsessed leftist’s dream come true. Which is why Obama, his Democrat flunkies, and media sycophants, are all excited about it.

(But remember, it was Bush and company that was shredding the Constitution.)

What’s more, this civil-liberty-violating piece of legislation will no doubt allow government apparatchiks elected and unelected to decide according to their leftist politically-correct well whether what you say is punishable as a crime. Remember the Thought Police in Orwell’s 1984? Congratulations. In 2009 they came officially into being.

Of course, not all offensive speech or violence is going to fall under this bill, because, as I said, the list of real or perceived victims is short and finite. If you’re white, male, heterosexual, and/or Christian, forget being protected. By virtue of your mere existence, you are automatically a suspect, and not a victim.

Consider: The very day before the signing, HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” created by and starring Jewish uber-liberal Larry David, had a shameful and offensive scene. An entertainment website A.V. Club reviews the episode in question:

… there was the Jesus pee tear miracle, aka Larry David’s own personal Piss Christ. Is it believable that Larry pees like an out-of-control firehose on full blast because of some medicine he’s taking? Sure. Is it then believable that his errant urine would splash onto a picture of Jesus’ face that’s near the toilet in Maureen’s house? Sure, why not? Is it at all believable that Larry would see the pee tear of his own design on Jesus’ face and not wipe it off? Uh, no. No one would leave their host’s bathroom literally dripping with their own urine, if they could at all help it. But if Larry didn’t run out of Maureen’s house like spooked, neurotic deer, then Maureen and her mom never would have thought they’d witnessed a miracle—which was an important card in the unstable, unwieldy house of cards that lead up to Maureen’s rooftop lovehandle rescue. Still, Larry should have wiped it off. Anyone would have wiped it off.

But in the process of analyzing the “believability” of the episode, the commentator makes no judgment statement about the utter offensiveness of this. 

Can you imagine what the Anti-Defamation League (with whom I am normally in agreement, just for clarification) would do if a Christian comedian jokingly got pee on the Torah?

What if a comedian pissed (even accidentally) on a picture of Mohammed? Ask that Danish newspaper what the outcry would be.

You might be wondering why I, a Jew, am getting so worked up about the desecration of a picture of Jesus. It’s a matter of principle and common decency, that’s why. It’s also because if we expect the Christian community to rally behind us if a Jewish sacred item is desecrated, we should be expected to do the same. If we Kol Yisrael arevim zeh ba-zeh: We are all responsible for one another.

Over at Big Hollywood:

Larry David’s ‘Piss Christ’

An email received today:

“First let me state that I’ve been a fan of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” for many years and, even though Larry David is a liberal, I generally enjoy the writing and Larry’s antics. However, this time what I saw made me feel a little sick, extremely disappointed and a bit angry as well. I will never watch the show again as I have lost all respect and feelings of good will for Mr. David.

“Did you happen to see the episode to which I refer? Assuming you did not catch the episode, briefly stated: Larry pisses on the face of a painting of Jesus Christ, followed by mocking of Christians who believe the piss drop on the face of Jesus is a tear, thus they’ve witnessed a miracle. I wonder how many other viewers, Christian and non Christian, are similarly shocked and disgusted? Of course, the hypocrisy is that Mr. David would never exhibit such gross contempt for any other religion, especially Islam.

“Can you imagine the sh*t storm that would follow if David pissed on a painting of the prophet Muhammad? Of course, HBO, the complicit scum that they are, would not have allowed that to air.”

You see how the hypocritical, PC game is played?

Rush Limbaugh was fired years ago from ESPN for making a non-racist comment that was nevertheless deemed racist. Yet Larry David will not apologize, nor will he be expected to.

Just the other day ESPN commentator David Griese was made to apologize and was then suspended for joking that a Mexican NASCAR driver was out somewhere eating a taco. Yet Larry David will not apologize nor will he be expected to.

Currently, the father of a Connecticut 9/11 is battling his town. On a public memorial of his son they are refusing to inscribe the words “Murdered by Muslim Terrorists” for fear it could be offensive to Muslims. But I’m sure the suits at HBO had no problem allowing Larry David to splatter urine on a picture of Jesus on their T.V. channel, even though it could be offensive to Christians. (Indeed it is to many.)

I am informed Jerry Seinfeld appeared in this episode. Even though he had nothing to do with the urination scene, shame on him for being part of such an episode. And shame on that hateful and hypocritical Larry David. You make the rest of us Jews look bad.

UPDATE 10/30: Allahpundit at Hot Air has posted the scene in question from YouTube.

And the Anchoress ponders:

Forget Jewish, forget Muslim. If, let’s say, Kelsey Grammer had done precisely the same thing on his show, but using an image of, oh, let’s just say ferinstance, Barack Obama, do you think he’d still have a career?

Finally, Jamie Glazov at Front Page Mag’s Newsreal blog page opines:

Are producers of this show, or Larry David, or anyone else connected to it fearing for their lives right now? Are there Christian groups calling for the death of anyone in connection to this episode?

In comparison, let us say, to the Muhammad cartoons riots and death threats, what does this say about Islam and Christianity? Which faith is a Religion of Peace and which one is not?

Would the producers of this show have just as easily allowed a scene in which Larry David urinates on a Koran? He couldn’t urinate on a picture of Muhammad because we all know that making a representation of Muhammad gets you an immediate death sentence. So we have to settle for the Holy Book. But how much does anyone want to bet that this would never be allowed?

Question: Why in our culture is urinating on Jesus easily permitted but urinating on the Koran is simply unthinkable? What does this signify?

And why is it that the people who right now are rolling their eyes and saying that Christians should get a life because this is freedom of expression, the same ones who would be up in arms if Larry David had done the same thing to the Koran? They are the ones who blamed the artists of the Muhammad cartoons for provoking and upsetting Muslims. They are the ones who argue that, when it comes to the sensibilities of Muslims, free speech has limits. If Curb Your Enthusiasm had an episode in which Larry David urinated on a Koran, they would be on the front lines saying that this is Islamophobia and that we must be sensitive to the feelings of Muslims, etc. It would be deemed as hate speech. There would be lawsuits and the show would be cancelled and David’s career would be over.

HBO has come to the defense of the episode, saying that it is all about parody. Everyone needs to lighten up. So, if Larry David urinated on the Koran, would HBO tell everyone they need to lighten up because it is parody? What does it say that we know for a fact that the latter would simply never happen?

What meaning and lesson do we draw from this?

As discussed above, the lesson is simple: Some religious, racial, ethnic, and political groups can be ridiculed and offended with impunity; others cannot. The arbitrary rules are drawn up by a politically correct, purely result-oriented ilk who have apparently succeeded in imposing their twisted worldview onto the rest of us.

Profiles in Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: Frank Rich

President Hope&Change must get on his knees every day and thank goodness for his submissive sycophants in the mainstream media. Consider — the current president is a veritable man of hoaxes:

Obama’s persona in the 2008 campaign of a moderate liberal who loves the Constitution, the country, and the capitalist system? Big fat freaking hoax.

Obama’s promise that he would be oversee a transparent government, end “business as usual” in Washington, and nuture bipartisanship? Big fat freaking hoax.

Obama’s promise to end animosity between the races, and unify a divided citizenry? Big fat freaking hoax.

Obama’s stimulus package, which he insisted needed to passed immediately in order to bring the U.S. economy “back from the brink,” create jobs, and keep unemployment from exceeding 8% or so? Big fat freaking hoax.

Obama’s health care plan, which he has promised wouldn’t squelch competition, be financially unsustainable, cover abortions, or phase out (i.e., kill) senior citizens? Big fat freaking hoax.

That’s five super-huge hoaxes just off the top of my head. And that’s just in nine months.

So when NY Times editorialist commented yesterday on the media-abetted “balloon boy” fiasco, what “hoax” does he dredge up? Here’s how:

Next to the other hoaxes and fantasies that have been abetted by the news media in recent years, both the “balloon boy” and Chamber of Commerce ruses are benign. The Colorado balloon may have led to the rerouting of flights and the wasteful deployment of law enforcement resources. But at least it didn’t lead the country into fiasco the way George W. Bush’s flyboy spectacle on an aircraft carrier helped beguile most of the Beltway press and too much of the public into believing that the mission had been accomplished in Iraq.

Let me get this straight. Above you have a litany of genuine hoaxes from the first nine months of this current president’s term staring Frank Rich right in the face, and he goes back six years to the media-overblown “Mission Accomplished” thing?

As Clay Waters at TimesWatch says: Nine months into Obama’s presidency, everything is still officially about Bush.

Professor William Jacobson, who blogs at Le•gal In•sur•rec•tion [h/t Patterico], quips:

I’ve been waiting patiently, armed with foresight that one of these days Bush Derangement Syndrome would work its way into the Balloon Boy hoax story.

And I’ve waited. And waited. It has been almost a week. My faith tested but not broken.

Thank you Frank. Mission accomplished. For both of us.

What a Class A schmuck this Rich guy is. And what does he mean by “beguile most of the Beltway press and too much of the public into believing that the mission had been accomplished in Iraq”? I don’t recall a single media outlet or any prominent figure who believed that President Bush’s appearance on that ship meant the mission had been accomplished in Iraq. On the contrary, the media, led by liberal hacks with a word processor like Rich, endlessly mocked Bush.

Not even Bush believed that when he stood on the U.S.S. Abrahama Lincoln on May 1, 2003 that the mission had been accomplished in Iraq. Here he is in his own words [bolds are mine]:

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We are pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We are helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. And then we will leave — and we will leave behind a free Iraq.

The Battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001, and still goes on. …

According to his own statements, Bush certainly wasn’t a hoax that our mission in Iraq has been accomplished, only that major combat was completed. This message was echoed by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. No one in the administration gave the least bit impression that our work was done and that all our troops can now leave.

So who invented the hoax that Bush’s U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln speech meant the mission was accomplished in Iraq? Liberal mainstream media types like Frank Rich! For instance, here he is perpetuating the hoax on November 9, 2003:

Ah, the dazzling pyrotechnics of "shock and awe." The finality of the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue. The thrill of that re-enactment of "Top Gun." The sense of closure provided by the banner reading "Mission Accomplished." Like all wars of the TV age, the war in Iraq is not just a clash of armies, but a succession of iconic images. Those who control the images, and the narratives they encapsulate, control history. At least until a new reality crashes in.

In fact, a search of the NY Times archives yields 58 pieces in which Frank Rich perpetuated the hoax that Bush’s speech meant “mission accomplished.”

Frank Rich must believe that axiom of propaganda that if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes truth.

What a pathetic excuse for a journalist and a human being.

End the Occupation! At St. Louis U., Radical Leftist Speakers OK, But Not Conservative Horowitz

Here we have yet another example of how our universities have become bastions of closed-mindedness that suppresses all speech that doesn’t espouse politically correct left-wing ideology. Although St. Louis University has had no problem bringing in speakers like radical anti-Israel self-hating Jew Norman Finkelstein in the past, SLU was forced to cancel an appearance by lefty-turned-conservative David Horowitz because he has the audacity to address uncomfortable questions about Islam. Robert Cravatts at Front Page Mag has this story:

As yet more evidence that American campuses have become, in Abigail Thernstrom’s apt description, “islands of repression in a sea of freedom,” St. Louis University has demonstrated that that free speech on campuses begins and ends according to how well that speech conforms to existing political orthodoxies. The University’s College Republicans and Young America’s Foundation had invited conservative author David Horowitz to deliver a speech entitled, “An Evening with David Horowitz: Islamo-Fascism Awareness and Civil Rights,” and university administrators, once again choosing to avoid a close examination of radical Islam, cancelled Horowitz’s planned appearance.

What St. Louis University’s administration has done here is essentially to exercise the “heckler’s veto,” shutting down speech with which it does not agree, or which is feels is too controversial for certain protected minorities on campus; but ominously, and in seeming contradiction to the school’s own stated policy “to promote the free and open exchange of ideas and viewpoints, even if that exchange proves to be offensive, distasteful, disturbing or denigrating to some,” this particular speech was suppressed in advance of the event, based on a belief that the speaker’s words would possibly insult Muslim students and inflame their sensibilities.

And we certainly wouldn’t want to do that, would we—inflame the sensibilities of adherents to the “religion of peace.” Only in the topsy-turvy world of PC-poisoned liberalism could this make sense.

But remember: It’s the right that’s intolerant and closed-minded. Whatever.

End the occupation! Liberals out of the schools NOW!

Liberal Lie #2 - Conservative Talk Radio is Hateful and Poisons the Airwaves: Malloy and Schultz Pin Calif. Fires on Right-Wing Terrorism

Boy, the lefty talkers really hate it when their boy President Golden Calf is challenged. It seems they’ll say anything to discredit or demonize them.

Earlier this week, we got a glimpse of Air America’s idea of brilliance and civility when Mike Malloy told Glenn Beck to kill himself and Montell Williams told Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) to slit her throat.

Now, courtesy of Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer, we learn that the the oh-so tolerant and enlightened lefty talkers Malloy and Ed Schultz blame the California wild fires on right-wing terrorism à la Timothy McVeigh.

MIKE MALLOY (1:40): The incident commander, at the so-called Station Fire, the one that's burned 150,000 acres, and is responsible for the deaths of two firefighters; the incident commander, Mike Dietrich, says this is an act of domestic terrorism.

Now, who is known for committing acts of terrorism in the United States? The last big one was Timothy McVeigh, who took the lives of 168 people, I think this is exactly what the report from Department of Homeland Security four to five months ago was warning against.

That these insane people, the neo-fascists on the right, the Republicans who have flipped out, the ones who are terrified that the President of the United States is going to address schoolchildren, the ones who are convinced that in an attempt to reign in health care costs to make it a little easier and more competitive is acting in the spirit of Adolf Hitler; the ones who carry guns; these crazy SOBs are the ones responsible, in my opinion, for the fire.

I would not be surprised to find out that someone had the copy of the protocols of the Elders of Zion in their back pocket; or a book of racist information about those damn Negroes in the other back pocket; or somebody who used to be a Klansman; or an NRA board member perhaps, yeah, that would make sense, wouldn't it; or somebody who works for (US Senator) Jim Inhofe out in Oklahoma, or one of the tea baggers, or one of the birthers, or one of the deathers, or a whole group of them decided hey, it's a perfect opportunity man, it is California, let's go get all the fruits and nuts out there - let's set a big ass fire.

I am pretty convinced that this act of domestic terrorism, that's what it's called by the station fire commander, Mike Dietrich, he said any act against the wild is domestic terrorism. Now who usually commits these acts of domestic terrorism? Bill Ayers? No! Some goddamn hippie? No!

Usually, it's a crazed right-winger that has been pushed beyond the limit of their little tiny lemur brains by people like Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity or crazy-eyes Michelle Malkin, they are the ones that push people that commit acts of terror!

ED SCHULTZ FILL-IN HOST (01:37): Are the Republicans so mentally ill that another Oklahoma City bombing is looming? 

HOST (02:31): I'm scared now for my country, I am. People have gone so far off the rails that something very, very scary, I feel it coming and I'm trying to deny my feelings but I gotta share it with you right here on the Ed Schultz show. 

HOST: He was so hateful of the federal government and I blame Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, the whole bunch of those guys who whipped up such hysteria about the government, the government (!!), that a couple of wackos took matters into their own hands, got violent and blew things up, and I feel the hysteria building now.

How detestable. What a couple of losers these guys are. No wonder Air America has so few listeners. Right-wing talk show don’t push this garbage. Schultz, Malloy, Williams, Rhodes. This is your hate radio right here.

But you can be sure the “Fairness” Doctrine won’t apply to these cretins.

BUSTED!: "Obama As Hitler" Poster Was A Democrat/Union Plant At John Dingell Townhall!

BlogProf has the scoop.

End the Occupation! Homeschoolers Beat Public School Students Scores and Then Some

When Sarah Palin was on the road in 2008 campaigning with John McCain, she was mocked for it. At the Huffington Post, [h/t Homeschooling: A Family’s Journey] always a reliable resource of liberal ignorance, hate, and intolerance, Dan Brown wrote:

She homeschools! A clutch of creationist and homeschooling blogs have joyfully lit up with the idea that Sarah Palin has enrolled her children in the Interior Distance Education of Alaska, a program “created by homeschoolers for homeschoolers.” Actual schools—serving about 98% of America’s students—need clear-eyed presidential attention. I don't care if some members of Palin's family were teachers or if she used to be a member of the PTA. When I think of how Palin would govern—just one heartbeat away from the Oval Office—her radical choice to homeschool her kids terrifies (and fascinates) me.

Homeschooling radical? Actually, yes. It breaks away from the tired old mode of thinking that the only solution to educating our children is via government-run public school system. Brown is shocked that the program Palin enrolled her kids in while campaigning was “created by homeschoolers for homeschoolers.” Because if a school is not run by a far-off taxpayer-funded union-beholden bureaucratic morass, it’s not an “actual school,” as Brown snidely calls them.

In fact, Brown’s frightened reaction to the “radical” idea of homeschooling illustrates quite well that it’s the left that’s terrified of progress, not the right.

Brown is hardly the only one to publicly ridicule homeschooling. Last November former liberal ignoramus public school teacher [h/t Malkin] turned liberal ignoramus comedienne Joy Behar announced on “The View” that:

A lot of [children] are demented when they’re homeschooled. Come on. … They’re afraid of children. They learn to be scared of other children. It’s all about mommy and daddy …”

Joy Behar, the epitome of elitist liberal know-nothing-ism. Where does Behar get her data to back up such allegations. Same place most liberals get their “facts”: from out of her ass.

Probably the most egregious example of the liberal left’s hate for homeschooling is when in the spring of 2008 the State of California took steps to ban it, effectively consigning all of the state’s children in the hands of the government-run system (Chances are the parents of California’s 166,000 homeschooled kids couldn’t afford private school). Naturally, California’s teacher unions cheered the decision. The rational for this ruling, Kami Dalton at Human Events explained, is this:

The court interpreted California’s compulsory education law (saying instructors must hold a “valid state teaching credential”) as meaning that parents have to have state teaching credentials to teach their children at home, even if they’re using independent study programs.

A valid state teaching credential? OK, those of you who attended public school: Raise your hand if quite more than one of the teachers you had suck big hairy moose balls and didn’t manage to teach squat. Those people had “state teaching credentials,” a’ight? Lot of good it did them (or you), huh?

Now comes the ironic punchline. Bob Unruh at World Net Daily has news on a recent study that shows that America’s homeschooled students kick the ever-living crap out of public school students in every subject area!

Study: Homeschoolers score 37 points higher 
Costs also average $500, compared to $10,000 at public school
August 11, 2009

A newly released study from the Home School Legal Defense Association shows that not only do homeschoolers incur expenses only 5 percent of what public schools spend on each student, they score nearly 40 points higher on standardized achievement tests.

“These results validate the dedication of thousands of homeschool parents who are giving their children the best education possible,” said Michael Smith, president of the advocacy organization.

The HSLDA said homeschooling in the United States already includes about 4 percent of the school-aged population and is growing at about 7 percent a year, now involving some two million children.

The report, “Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics,” was conducted by Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute.

The survey included 11,739 homeschool students in all 50 states for the 2007-2009 academic year, and the HSLDA said the results were consistent with previous studies on homeschoolers’ achievements.

Drawing on the results from 15 independent testing services, the Progress Report 2009, the most comprehensive homeschool academic study ever completed, showed homeschoolers who participated in the California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and Stanford Achievement Test scored 37 percentile points above public school students on standardized tests.

The study also showed that achievement gaps common in public schools and linked to income levels and other factors mostly were absent or minimal in the homeschoolcommunity.

The study showed homeschooled boys scored at the 87th percentile and girls were at the 88th percentile. Students where the household income was under $35,000 scored at the 85th percentile and students in homes with a household income over $70,000 were at the 89th percentile.

There was only slightly more variance linked to parental education, too. Children whose parents did not have college degrees were at the 83rd percentile and children in homes where both parents held college degrees were at the 90th percentile.

“Because of the one-on-one instruction homeschoolers receive, we are prepared academically to be productive and contributing members of today’s society,” Smith said.

“Homeschooling is a rapidly growing, thriving education movement that is challenging the conventional wisdom about the best way to raise and educate the next generation,” said Smith.

Regarding costs, the average public school spends nearly $10,000 per child per year, but the Progress Report said the average homeschool parent spends about $500 per child per year.

Ian Slatter, director of media relations for the HSLDA, cited the 100,000 students graduated each year from homeschools as a reason the activity is getting more and more attention.

“Despite much resistance from outside the homeschool movement, whether from teachers unions, politicians, school administrators, judges, social service workers, or even family members, over the past few decades homeschoolers have slowly but surely won acceptance as a mainstream education alternative. This has been due in part to the commissioning of research which demonstrates the academic success of the average homeschooler,” the HSLDA report said.

Homeschoolers achieved the 89th percentile in reading, 84th in language, 84th in math, 86th in science and 84th in social studies.

The 37-point margin was significantly higher than the 30-point margin reported in a 1998 study on the issue, the HSLDA said.

“This particular study is the most comprehensive ever undertaken. It attempts to build upon and improve on the previous research. One criticism of the Rudner [1998] study was that it only drew students from one large testing service. Although there was no reason to believe that homeschoolers participating with that service were automatically non-representative of the broader homeschool community, HSLDA decided to answer this criticism by using 15 independent testing services for this new study. There can be no doubt that homeschoolers from all walks of life and backgrounds participated in the “Progress Report.”

He reported, “Educational research does not indicate any positive correlation between teacher qualifications and student performance. Many courts have found teacher qualification requirements on homeschoolers to be too excessive or not appropriate. The trend in state legislatures across the country indicates an abandonment of teacher qualification requirements for homeschool teachers. In fact, Americans, in general, are realizing that the necessity of teacher qualifications is a myth. The teachers’ unions and other members of the educational establishment make up the small minority still lobbying for teacher certification in order to protect their disintegrating monopoly on education.” […]

Oooo, how frightening, right Dan Brown? How demented, right Joy Behar? How unqualified, right California state courts?

What a freaking joke.

The funny thing is that homeschooling isn’t even practiced exclusively by right-wing “radical” fundamentalist Christians. Many comments at a number of homeschooling blogs I visited are from self-professed liberal Democrats who simply don’t like their district’s public school system and can’t afford private institutions.

It should be clarified I’m not necessarily advocating for homeschooling over public schools. (My own children will most likely attend our town’s public schools, private institutions costing what they do. We are fortunate to live in a municipality whose school system is quite good.) I’m simply exposing the fact that the liberal left elite continues to bash homeschooling as something only backwoods religious fundamentalists freaks do, even though these “freaks” kick the pants off public school students in standardized testing. It shows that either homeschoolers are doing something right, or public schools are doing something wrong.

If you really want to know what I think (and you wouldn’t be reading my blog if you didn’t!), I believe you can boil down liberals’ aversion to homeschooling to these three reasons:

(1) It’s successful—more so than the Democrat Party’s constantly touted government-run public system, the same system President Hope&Change made damn sure to keep his daughters away from when the Obama’s moved to D.C.

(2) It works without the help of big bloated, bureaucratic government. One can argue that homeschooling is the quintessential example of American individualism and self-reliance. The idea of an American citizen educating—or feeding, clothing, or medically treating— their children without the help of some government program or agency is a liberal Democrat’s worst nightmare. Therefore such acts of individualism must be discouraged and the perpetrators of such acts be scorned.

(3) It doesn’t do a damn to increase the power base, electorate, or piggy bank of the Democrat Party.

Liberals bash homeschooling because it’s a threat to the success of the Democrat Party and liberal agenda.

I’m not saying that every single homschool teacher is awesome and every single public school teacher is horrible. But the data clearly illustrates that homeschooling is an American success story: Better education for way, way less money. Public schools, on the other hand, are a yet another example of how big government, with its federally- and state-mandated regulations and inviolable obligation to politically-connected teacher unions, are a big freaking failure. Those are the cold hard facts, and as someone told us recently: Facts Are Stubborn Things.

Ready for them to control your health care?

End the Occupation! Liberals out of the Schools NOW!