Vocal Minority

End the Occupation! - Mass. School Bans Pledge of Allegiance

To quote Larry Elder: Pass the Tylenol. Fox News reports:

School Officials in Mass. Town Won't Let Students Recite Pledge of Allegiance
By Todd Starnes
Published June 29, 2010

When Sean Harrington entered his freshman year at Arlington High School, he noticed something peculiar: There were no American flags in the classrooms, and no one recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

So Harrington enlisted the aid of his fellow students, and now, three years later, they have succeeded in getting flags installed in the classrooms. But the pledge still will not be recited.

The Arlington, Mass., school committee has rejected the 17-year-old’s request to allow students to voluntarily recite the Pledge of Allegiance, because some educators are concerned that it would be hard to find teachers willing to recite it [WTF???], according to a report in the Arlington Patch.

Harrington had presented school officials with a petition signed by 700 people, along with letters of support from lawmakers including Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

But the request to have the pledge recited failed when the committee’s vote ended in a 3-3 tie.

“I was really heartbroken,” Harrington told FOX News Radio. “It’s hard to think that something so traditional in American society was turned down.” …

So let me get this straight: The only reason this public high school has American flags hanging in the classrooms is because students had to organize and campaign for it? 

And the reason Harrington’s pledge request was denied was because the committee was concerned “it would be hard to find teachers willing to recite it”?

What kind of  &*%^)$ work at this school and what the &*(^#$ do they teach there? Is it just America-bashing, Constitution-shredding, and global warming propaganda all day long?

Here’s the story as told by the local Arlington, Mass. paper.

... In the 1930s and 1940s, courts in Massachusetts and West Virginia ruled that children who were Jehovah’s Witnesses and had been expelled from school for refusing to recite the pledge and salute the flag had been deprived of their right to freedom of expression and religion.

“There was a lot of persecution against Jehovah’s Witnesses back then, and I don’t want to return to that at all,” said Pierce.

But how does that get rectified by violating the free speech of students who want to recite the Pledge?

For Heigham, even a voluntary Pledge of Allegiance poses a potential legal problem because an employee would have to say it every day.

Oh, well that explains it. NOT.

But Curran countered that officials could recruit volunteers or play a recording, so that only those who wanted to would say it.

After the vote, Harrington left the committee room with an entourage of nine adults who shouted taunts at the committee such as, “You people should go back to your own countries.”

Harrington’s next step will be some form of legal action, although he is not certain what it will be just yet. He said he has been persecuted himself, called a Nazi and a fascist, for his cause.

Sounds logical to me: Campaign for free speech, be called a Nazi and a fascist. Keep it classy, Arlington.

END THE OCCUPATION! LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!!!

Liberal Hypocrisy / Media Bias: NY Times on Byrd vs. Thurmond

Aaron Goldstein at American Spectator can’t help but notice the two blatantly distinct tones of two obituaries in the New York Times:

Of Senators and Segregation
By Aaron Goldstein on 6.30.10 @ 6:08AM

Shortly after I had learned of the passing of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia I came across his obituary in the New York Times. The headline read:

Robert Byrd, Respected Voice of the Senate, Dies at 92

It is worth noting that Byrd died almost seven years to the day when Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina passed away. Naturally, I was curious as to what the headline in the New York Times read when he left this mortal coil:

Strom Thurmond, Foe of Integration, Dies at 100

It is also worth noting that both obituaries were written by Adam Clymer. Now in fairness to Mr. Clymer, it was very likely not he who chose those headlines. But the fact that Byrd and Thurmond were described so very differently in death strongly reflects the liberal bias of the Times. Had Thurmond remained a Democrat, would the Times have summed him up as a foe of integration?

Now there is no dispute that Thurmond was a foe of integration. Indeed, Thurmond once spoke on the floor of the Senate for more than 24 hours in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 late in August of that year. Among many other things, Thurmond railed against Brown v. Board of Education; the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision which desegregated public schools. Thurmond described Brown as “the outstanding judicial blunder of all time.” Understandably, this would deservedly earn Thurmond the enmity of African Americans.

Yet Robert Byrd could equally be described as a foe of integration. During the early 1940s, Byrd was not only a member of the Ku Klux Klan he recruited others to join their cause. Say what you will about Thurmond, but he never joined the Klan. In 1938, when Thurmond served in the South Carolina State Senate, he spoke out against lynching and said that the Klan stood for “the most abominable type of lawlessness.”

Byrd would later oppose President Truman’s integration of the Armed Forces. He made it clear he would not fight for his country “with a Negro by my side.” But there was more:

Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

Although it was the integration of the Armed Forces that would in part prompt Thurmond to run against Truman in the 1948 Presidential election, he was never known to have uttered the vicious kind of language Byrd used to describe African Americans.

Seven years after Thurmond’s filibuster, Byrd stood up and spoke on the Senate floor for fourteen straight hours against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now Byrd might not have gone on the whole day like Thurmond did, but it was a filibuster against civil rights just the same. …

Read the rest at American Spectator.

Henry Percy at American Thinker comments on Arizona Republic’s fawning whitewashed Byrd obit.

Don’t misunderstand. I'm not apologizing for Strom Thurmond. I’m simply pointing out, as Goldstein is, that if Robert Byrd were held up to the same standard as Thurmond, his obit in the lefty MSM would be far from glowing.

My Post on the Death of Robert Byrd (D-WV)

(If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.)

Pigs Fly: SCOTUS Rules in Favor of 2nd Amendment [UPDATED]

In recent decades, it’s normally been the U.S. Supreme Court overstepping its authority by going against the executive and/or legislative branch and imposing its own policy preferences on the nation (e.g., Roe v. Wade; Hamdi v. Rumsfeld). But today, as a rogue Democrat Congress and White House overstep their own constitutional limitations, the SCOTUS delivered a liberty-saving ruling on the Second Amendment:

Justices Extend Gun Owner Rights Nationwide
Monday, June 28, 2010
By Mark Sherman, Associated Press

Washington (AP) - The Supreme Court held Monday that the Constitution’s Second Amendment restrains government’s ability to significantly limit “the right to keep and bear arms,” advancing a recent trend by the John Roberts-led bench to embrace gun rights.

By a narrow, 5-4 vote, the justices also signaled, however, that some limitations on the right could survive legal challenges.

Writing for the court in a case involving restrictive laws in Chicago and one of its suburbs, Justice Samuel Alito said that the Second Amendment right “applies equally to the federal government and the states.”

The court was split along familiar ideological lines, with five conservative-moderate justices in favor of gun rights and four liberals opposed. Chief Justice Roberts voted with the majority.

Two years ago, the court declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess guns, at least for purposes of self-defense in the home.

That ruling applied only to federal laws. It struck down a ban on handguns and a trigger lock requirement for other guns in the District of Columbia, a federal city with a unique legal standing. At the same time, the court was careful not to cast doubt on other regulations of firearms here.

Gun rights proponents almost immediately filed a federal lawsuit challenging gun control laws in Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park, Ill, where handguns have been banned for nearly 30 years. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence says those laws appear to be the last two remaining outright bans. ...

This is to be sure a tremendous win for liberty and a grueling loss for the Constitution-hating gun “control” movement, on whose hands is the blood of every victim of a violent crime that could have been prevented had that victim been able to property defend herself.

Tom Lifson at American Thinker writes:

This should not have been a difficult case to decide, as the Court has previously held that constitutional restraints on the federal government also apply to states and localities when other civil rights are in question. Nonetheless, the four liberal justices found reason to make exceptions for the civil right they personally disagree with.

Absolutely. And this is exactly why the likes of Elana Kagan must be prevented from serving on the SCOTUS. It’s bad enough Sotomayor got in. The Second Amendment dodged a bullet by a sliver of 5-4 today, but it could have easily ended up differently had the Court been made up of more Sotomayors and Kagans than Alitos, Robertses, and Thomases.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, among others, suspects this ruling will lead to the end of the Chicago gun ban, and states eloquently:

The 2nd Amendment was put into the Constitution for two reasons: self defense and defense against tyranny. In both cases, it addresses an inequality of power. The founders never intended to create a police state that would make self-defense unnecessary; indeed, such a state is impossible to achieve anyway, as totalitarian states repeatedly proved during the 20th century. Even if it were, though, that was hardly the kind of government constructed by the Constitution. The founders understood that limited government necessitated a citizenry able to defend themselves against criminals and psychopaths, and wrote the amendment to prevent the government from stripping them of their own legitimate defense.

Flashback: Read this post on the SCOTUS’s 2008 lifting of the D.C. gun ban and its consequences (The Heller case).

UPDATED 6:00PM: Apparently El Rushbo was reading my blog before going on today ;-). Here’s how he opened today’s show:

Everybody is jumping up and down for joy over the Supreme Court Second Amendment ruling today, and perhaps rightly so. But the fact that it’s a 5-4 vote, if this court were actually following the Constitution that gun vote should have been nine to nothing, it should have been unanimous. That’s a no-brainer. Even the Bill of Rights is up for grabs with this crowd and the Left. Folks, we are hanging by a thread, we are hanging by a very thin thread. ...

Classic Listen & Learn - El Rushbo, 3/16/04

Allow me to set the stage: It's the 16th of March, 2004. The U.S.-led battle in Iraq is about to reach the one-year point. The Bush-hatred is at full force, with John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and other '60s-radicals-turned-politicians leading the Democrat Party in rooting for defeat of their own country. 

Here's Rush expressing his frustration over this fact. Maybe it's me, but in this 6½-year-old clip his voice sounds younger and less raspy than today.

 

(Download here)

Classic Listen & Learn - Dennis Prager, 9/24/07

While looking through some old computer folders this weekend, I came across a collection of “classic” audio clips featuring three of my favorite radio hosts: El Rushbo, Mark Levin, and Dennis Prager. “Classic” is in quotes because the clips span the “good ol’ days” from 2003-2008. Essentially, the pre-Podcast days (for me, anyway), and covering at least four years before yours truly started blogging.

Listening through some of these clips, it’s interesting and eye-opening to realize just how much our country has changed since then. It is impossible to imagine a world when the name Barack Obama was completely unknown. What did they talk about in those bygone days!? Well, George W. Bush of course, and the Bush-hatred of the Democrat-media complex. The war on “terror.” Iraq. Some presidential candidate named John Kerry and the Swift-boaters who exposed him.

I literally have enough archives to cover every day until the end of this year. As I clean them up of commercial breaks and any other extraneous sections, I’ll gladly share them with you.

Here’s the first one, from September 24, 2007. Dennis Prager responds to a Colorado State University newspaper editorial comprised of only four words: “Taser this: F**k Bush.”

(Download 2007_09_25-f--k-bush.mp3 here)

Liberal Lie #14: The Right Is Violent, the Left Is Civil - G20 Protest in Toronto

Here’s a quiz for those in the Democrat-media complex: Store windows smashed, police cruiser torched, police in riot gear being pummeled by bottles and other projectiles, over three dozen people arrested.

Is this a description of 

(a) a Tea Party demonstration, or
(b) A G-20 summit protest?

You tell me:

Vandals mar summit protests in Toronto
AP – Activists and protesters argue and fight with police as they march along the streets of downtown Toronto …
By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jun 26, 4:07 pm ET

TORONTO – Black-clad demonstrators broke off from a peaceful protest and torched a police cruiser in the financial district and smashed windows in a shopping district after veering off from the planned protest route.

A group, dressed all in black, smashed the windows of a bank, a coffee shop and some stores before heading to an area where Canada’s largest banks are headquarted, smashing restaurant windows there.

Police with shields and clubs earlier pushed back a small group ofprotesters who tried to head south toward the security fence around the site of the G-20 summit. Some demonstrators hurled bottles at police.

Oh, I get it. The protesters in general were peaceful. It’s just that damn “splinter group” that messed up the whole thing! That’s just how the mainstream media described the violence at the Tea Parties.

Wait ... there was no violence at the Tea Parties. Never mind.

The march, sponsored by labor unions and dubbed family friendly, was the largest demonstration planned during the weekend summits. Police were on the alert for possible violence by splinter groups.

Police in riot gear and riding bikes formed a blockade, keeping protesters from the security fence a few blockssouth of the march route. Police closed a stretch of Toronto’s subway system along the protest route.

As of Saturday afternoon, 40 summit-related arrests had been since June 18, police said, with security being provided by an estimated 19,000 law enforcement officers drawn from all regions of Canada. The security costs are estimated at more than US$900 million.

Toronto Police Sgt. Tim Burrows said authorities are quite pleased that the protests have been tame so far compared to what they’ve seen at previous summits. …

Well that’s a relief.

“From what we’ve seen in previous summits we’re quite happy with what our protesters are bringing to the table with the exception of a few,” Burrows said before Saturday’s march.

“They’ve protested peacefully. There have been a few people that have decided that they wanted to step out of line and test our response and they found themselves where they should be.” …

Previous protests during global meetings have turned violent. In 1999, 50,000 protesters shut down World Trade Organization sessions in Seattle as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets. There were some 600 arrests and $3 million in property damage. At a G-20 meeting, held in London in April 2009, thousands protested, and one man died after a confrontation with police.

So let me get this straight: The G-20 protest, which were actually tamer than in previous years, were generally peaceful and were just tarnished by this violent splinter group of window smashers and car torchers. Otherwise, this a peaceful “family friendly” demonstration of people who have valid points to “bring to the table.”

On the other hand, the way the MSM reports it, the Tea Party movement as a whole are a “violent splinter group”—despite nary a single window smashed, police car burned, or mass arrests—who apparently have nothing valid to bring to the table. They’re just an angry mob of old white men with guns who are pissed off a black man is in the White House.

How do I know this? Because Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Rachel Maddow said so.

OK. Ready, people. Watch carefully:

Left-wing demonstrators:

Right-wing demonstrators:

Not largely peaceful:

Largely peaceful:

 
 Not family friendly:

Family friendly (Black conservative Lloyd Marcus and a lil' Tea Partier):

 Any questions?

Listen & Learn: Mark Levin on the Passage of the Unconstitutional DISCLOSE Act (6/24/10)

While the mainstream media were abuzz with the "courageous" and "brilliant" move for Obama to fire General McChrystal and replace him with General Patraeus -- whom he and all the Left shamelessly derided and criticized when he was Bush's general, the Democrat House took a little more of our liberty away by passing the DISCLOSE Act. 

In a way to thwart the Supreme Court's recent Citizens United ruling, Congress passed this Orwellian-titled piece of legislation to unconstitutionally limit the free political speech of whomever it wants. 

As with virtually everything the Democrat Congress pushes, the motivation for this unconstitutional act is "fairness": to make sure the "little guy" gets as much of fair shake in this country as "big business," "the rrrrrich," or well-moneyed politically-connected organizations. Therefore, in order to "level the playing field," corporations will be required to disclose their top donors. 

Unions and media outlets (who both favor Democrats; what a coinkidink) are not affected by this bill. Other entities who are exempt are the Sierra Club, AARP and, shamelessly, so is the NRA. Why? Because they made a deal with the devil, that's why. It's Soviet-style liberty cherry-picking. With the passing of this bill, Congress arbitrary gets to pick who can have freedom of political speech and who can't. 

 As Moe Lane at Red State says, elections have consequences.

There are other draconian rules in the bill, including those that set into motion the regulation of internet bloggers by the FEC.

Not surprisingly, the Obama White House praised the House passage of the bill. Sure why not. The Democrat Congress doesn't give a rat's ass about the Bill of Rights, why the hell should the Democrat White House?

And so, like a 30's European fascist regime, our federal government continues to chip, chip, chip away at our freedoms. And like frogs in slowly heated water, we citizens sit here at the whim of these totalitarians until one day soon enough people realize we are irreversibly boiling to death.

The passage of the DISCLOSE Act was the first issue discussed by Mark Levin on yesterday's show. Here he is:

[Edited for commercials, long pauses, and other extraneous content]

levin2010-06-24_pt1_80kbps.mp3

levin2010-06-24_pt2_80kbps.mp3

Pic of the Day (6/24/10): Circle of Insanity

Yup ... From Comically Incorrect:

 

Liberty Dodges a Bullet in N.J.

The menace of Marxism-socialism was thwarted in one corner of our fading republic today. In my state of New Jersey, Republican governor Chris Christie’s “millionaires tax” veto failed to be overriden by the Democrat Assembly:

N.J. Millionaires Tax Plan Fails
Monday, 21 Jun 2010, 2:38 PM EDT

TRENTON, N.J. - Democrats in the New Jersey Assembly have failed to override the Republican governor's veto of a tax surcharge on millionaires.

Monday's vote was strictly along party lines. All 47 Assembly Democrats voted for the override and all 33 Republicans voted against it. The measure needed seven GOP votes to advance.

The one-year surcharge would have raised about $600 million by increasing income taxes nearly two percent on the state's 16,000 highest wage earners.

It would have put the top earners into a 10.75 percent tax rate on income above $1 million.

Gov. Chris Christie vetoed the tax last month after the Legislature passed it along party lines. The governor vetoed the tax because it would deter hiring, Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said.

Democrats did not plan on using the money to close a huge budget shortfall. The plan was to use the money to restore property tax rebates to 600,000 senior citizens and the disabled. They also wanted to put Republicans on the record for voting against the proposal.

Let me make this perfectly clear: I am nowhere near a millionaire and will probably never be. Like many New Jerseyans and Americans, my wife and I live essentially paycheck to paycheck trying to pay our mortgage; feed, clothe, and educate our young children; and cover all our other monthly expenses. Neither my income nor my tax burden would have been affected had this bill passed.

The reason I am vehemently against the “millionaires tax” is because it is unfair, unethical, immoral, against American values, and against Judeo-Christian values. Anyone who believes that the wealthy (who already pay way more than their fair share of this nation’s tax burden) deserve to be taxed even more just because they are wealthy is a pawn of the class-warfare that has been waged by the Democrat Party for decades.

Unlike liberals/Democrats, I do not envy the rich, therefore I do not have this innate desire to get back at them for the “crime” of having more money than me. Unlike the Marxist-socialist in the Oval Office, I do not believe that “at some point you've made enough money” (unless you yourself made $5 million last year because of book sales).  

True, some Americans were born into wealth (like liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy), some married into it (like liberal Democrat John Kerry), some obtained it by selling propaganda, lies, and deceit (like liberal Democrats Al Gore and Michael Moore). 

But by and large most people got their through hard work. The class-warriors have no right to take it from them and those liberals/Democrats who vote for them in order that they fulfill their campaign promises of “giving the nation’s wealth back to its rightful owners” should be ashamed of themselves.

So cheers to Governor Christie for standing up to these Marxist-socialist thugs in the Democrat Assembly. Thanks for letting all citizens of New Jersey—rich, poor, and in between—that your success will not be punished by thieves in suits and ties claiming to stand for the little guy.

Oops, Antarctic Glacier Melting Not Due to Man-Made Global Warming Climate Change

(Happy Summer Solstice everyone!)

When arguing with man-made global warming climate change believers, there are (at least) two challenges to deal with.

The first challenge is debunking myths that have been driven into people’s minds. We “deniers” have the burden of convincing others, for example, that the precious computer models are flawed; that the hottest years on record have not been in the late 20th-early 21st century; that neither the frequency nor intensity of weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts, are not higher than “normal”; that skeptics or deniers are not sparse, in bed with Big Oil, or anti-science fringe wackos; and even that humankind’s fossil fuel emissions—accounting for a fraction of a fraction of total greenhouse gases—is making such a serious dent in the climate to begin with.

It is unfair for the denier to have to refute climate myths, because ample documentable evidence is readily available. In a sane world, it would be the climate alarmist that should bear the burden of proving its catastrophic man-made global warming climate change theory. Unfortunately, this movement is so moneyed and powerful and adept at plucking the heartstrings of a generally uneducated public, that they propogate these myths with impunity. The strategies used to suppress and delegitimize all opposition is also very effective and coordinated, be it by politicians, news media, or Hollywood.

But another, even more challenging task for the “denier” is explaining why a natural phenomen that suggests evidence of man-made global warming climate change is not due to climate change at all. A prime example is Mt. Kilimanjaro.

In Al Gore’s shamelessly lie- and error-ridden book, he breathlessly declared that “Mt. Kilimanjaro’s snow pack is melting due to greenhouse gasses.” He was clearly echoing the sentiment of the watermelons at Greenpeace who in 2001 claimed that the mountain “could lose its entire ice field by 2015” if climate change goes unchecked. (Note the qualifier “could”? How scientific.)

For one thing, both Nature in 2003 and Reuters—not your archtypical right-wing rag— in 2007 reported that the melting of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers can be attributed to deforestation, not climate change. Secondly, as Floy Lilley, a faculty member at the libertarian Mises Institute, explains:

By the time Ernest Hemingway wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936, half of the snow was already gone. This is before man began releasing CO2 into the atmosphere to any extent by burning fuels for energy. No temperature on the mountain is above freezing. There has been no temperature change in fifty-five years. Shrinking is likely to be a circulation issue and lower precipitation, not a rising temperature issue.

In sum: True, the glacier at the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro might be receding, but it’s not an indicator of global warming climate change, man-made or otherwise.

But don’t tell that to Oscar-winning, Nobel “Peace” Prize-winning, mega-mansion-owning Al Gore or any of his fellow travelers of climate hysterics.

Another example appears in the Science section of today’s U.K. Daily Mail: A part of Antarctic glacier is receding, but evidently not due to global warming climate change:

Antarctic glacier melting due to hidden ice ridge (rather than climate change)
By NIALL FIRTH
21st June 2010

An underwater ridge could explain why a major glacier in the Antarctic is melting more quickly than ever before, according to a new study.

Scientists used a robot submarine to make a 3D map of the ocean under the ice shelf at the end of the Pine Island Glacier in western Antarctica.

They discovered that the ice was no longer resting on a subsea ridge that had slowed the glacier’s slide until the early 1970s.

The discovery means that the glacier’s more rapid melting in recent years could be due to the flow of warmer sea water beneath it rather than climate change, as had previously been believed. …

Believe me, you will probably not see this story in mainstream U.S. papers. Antarctica is particularly a pet of the climate-hysterical Left. Just like with Mt. Kilimanjaro, all you need to know is that it’s due to American capitalistic greed in the form of human fossil fuel emissions. Facts and reporting need—nay, must—not enter the discussion.

The debate is over. The science is settled.

How do we know? Because Al Gore told us so.

Sensible Liberal: Elton John

Last week I was gratified by El Rushbo’s story about Elton John performing at his wedding, and about the events leading up to their unlikely friendship. (In a nutshell, they “met” while staying at the same hotel in Hawaii at the time Rush had his heart scare.). John apparently has gotten a lot of flak from his fellow ohh-so-tolerant liberal friends for befriending such a supposedly Neanderthal homophobe. So much for that “can we all get along” thing. John actually walked the walk, and gets criticism for it!

In any case, John has not been a fan of American Republicans/conservatives before. He was particularly vocal in his distate for George W. Bush.

Because of his politics, I don’t know what exactly motivated Elton John to reach out to Rush in Hawaii. But the fact that he did and the friendship that developed is very telling of John’s character. For that alone he deserved a “Sensible Liberal” post, but being on my blog vaca (which I’m still on, technically!) I didn’t get to write one.

Well, here’s one for him now, because for the second time this month he’s dared to go against the global Leftist grain:

Elton John rocks Israel after other artists cancel
Jun 18, 4:16 AM (ET)

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - A concert by Elton John has given Israelis a boost after a string of cancellations by other world-famous artists.

The British rocker performed late Thursday in front of a screaming crowd of nearly 50,000 fans at a Tel Aviv stadium.

John, who wore blue-tinted sunglasses, told the audience those cancellations “ain’t gonna stop me from playing here, baby.”

Recent cancellations by the Pixies and Elvis Costello, who cited Israeli government policies, have added to Israel’s growing sense of isolation.

John swiped at those artists, saying, “We do not cherry-pick our consciences,” before hitting the opening chords of his 1972 hit “Crocodile Rock.”

To say the least, this whole thing with Israel–“peace” flotilla thing is so infuriating. Israel is the most democratic and humane country in the Middle East, and are in the Leftist world’s crosshairs because they have the audacity to defend themselves when agitated by the thugs that surround them. And I personally take the Left’s aversion toward Israel as veiled anti-Semitism. Helen “Go back to Poland” Thomas might agree.

It might sound cliché, but I consider this is a very dangerous time for Israel. Not only is the world on its back for perceived indiscretions, but she no longer has its most stalwart and powerful ally—the U.S.—on its side.

I just came back from a conference of several hundred Jews where I was virtually the only right-of-center person there. While I didn’t push political conversation, it was a very safe bet that I was the only one who didn’t vote for Obama and the only one who regrets that he is the president. President Golden Calf’s ultra-liberalism trumps all other transgressions to my fellow Jewish friends. And his treatment toward Israel, especially in light of the beating she’s taking from the rest of the world, is proof of that.

Is Elton John still a flaming (bad word choice?) liberal? Of course he is. But that doesn’t make these actions any less honorable.

Meanwhile, I wonder if my friends will have second thoughts about any artists who might have cancelled concerts in Israel.

Or will they keep them on their iPod’s singing along with them about love and peace and unity and togetherness. All while riding along in their fuel-efficient cars which still don Obama-Biden bumper stickers.

Oy.

Liberal Lie #10: Libs/Dems Are for Women; Conservatives/GOP Are Misogynist

We’ve heard it for decades: The left is pro-woman and, therefore, the right is anti-woman. The left is for woman’s rights, progress, and equality; the right wants their women under strict control: illiterate, unemployed, barefoot and pregnant, and in the kitchen.

But, as is usually the case with the liberal conventional wisdom, the facts on the ground are different. For one thing, the feminists of the left aren’t pro-woman; they’re pro-liberalism. Conservative/Republican women need not apply. One can demonstrate this with two words: Sarah Palin. No other woman since perhaps Phyllis Schlafly has been vilified, denigrated, dehumanized, and demoralized as much as this accomplished female. And it’s all because her politics don’t jibe with the feminist liberal establishment.

Recovering liberal “Robin of Berkeley” reminds us in the American Thinker describes the way the left treats women who don’t toe the party line as “sexual terrorism”:

Sarah Palin has been on the receiving end of a steady barrage of sexual degradation. Here’s a title of an article from the June 2010 Harper’s Magazine: “Is Sarah Palin Porn?”

According to the new book Game Change, Palin was devastated when she was attacked fast and furiously. Her torment was by design. As Cleaver revealed, the Left has been using and abusing women for years.

The “wilding” of Palin was meant not just to demean her, but to frighten her. Leftists wanted to expose the raw nerve of vulnerability lying deep inside every woman’s soul. It is the knowledge that anytime, anywhere, we can be raped.

The word vulnerability comes from Latin word vulnerare which means “to wound.” And this is exactly what the Left has been doing to conservative women like Palin—terrorizing and wounding them.

The radicals are experts at controlling women. They’ve been dominating their own women for decades. To say that the Left is a safe harbor for women is to misunderstand their roots.

The women’s movement arose partly because women were locked out of positions of authority in the antiwar and civil rights movements. Even more disturbingly, women were brainwashed to believe that their main duty was sexual. As civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael infamously phrased it, “The role of women in the movement is prone.”

When SDS member Marilyn Webb dared to stand up at the National Mobilization Committee to advocate for women’s rights, she was laughed off the stage with catcalls and cackles of “Take it off” and “Take her off the stage and f**k her.” After her appearance, her life was threatened.

Women’s degradation led fiery radical feminist Andrea Dworkin to issue this injunction: “The Left cannot have its whores and its politics too.” …

My personal theory: Many women in the movement never recovered because they had their souls crushed. Radical women sold their bodies, and their souls, for the revolution.

Hippie chicks said yes to antiwar men who said no. Then there were the communist white girls who slept with black boys to entice them into Marxism. (Was Obama’s mother encouraged to be one of them?) …

Today’s Leftists no longer walk the streets of Oakland in military garb, and they don’t blow up ROTC buildings. Now they hold the highest positions in the land. But underneath their three-piece suits, they still resemble the radicals of old.

Like their forefathers, they not only fail to protect women, but they put women in harm’s way. Case in point: the Left’s support for radical Islam, a culture tantamount to slavery for women. And a new generation of leftist women participate in their own destruction.

Why wouldn’t the Left align themselves with an ideology which shrouds women in a burqa and requires their total subservience to men? Isn’t absolute obedience the Left’s endgame?

The Left has no qualms about using guerrilla tactics that would be anathema to any moral person. They “Alinsky” opponents through marginalizing, ridiculing, and dehumanizing. But for women, the Left’s arsenal sinks deeper and darker. …

Now enter this month’s 2010 primaries, in which a number of women won the Republican ticket in several districts across the country. You’d think the Democrat-media complex would be pleased with this example of progress achieved by these accomplished and ambitious American women. You’d think these women would be the hottest thing since the ascendency of accomplished and ambitious Hillary Rodham Clinton.

You’d think wrong. Brent Bozell at the Media Research Center covers the media double standard:

Media Hold GOP Women In Contempt
By L. BRENT BOZELL III
Posted 06/16/2010 06:50 PM ET

In 1992, the feminists in the media rejoiced at what they called “The Year of the Woman,” when 10 Democratic women (and one Republican) ran for the Senate in the aftermath of Anita Hill’s unproven sexual-harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas. Just two years before, seven Republican women (and two Democrats) ran, but the media just yawned.

In 1992, the evening newscasts aired 29 stories exclusively devoted to female Senate candidates. In 1990, there was one ... on election night. In 1992, the morning shows interviewed female Senate candidates on 26 occasions. In 1990, there were zero.

This was all about party affiliation. When the liberals Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein won primary elections for the U.S. Senate in California in 1992, Time reporter Margaret Carlson almost levitated in ecstasy. “There was a rush, an exultation, that surpassed any political moment I have ever known — better even than Geraldine Ferraro’s vice-presidential candidacy.”

The primaries on June 8 brought this memory rushing back. Republican women won gubernatorial primaries in South Carolina and New Mexico. The national media had plenty to say about Nikki Haley of South Carolina before the election, which is to say they had an endless regurgitation of unproven adultery charges to level against her.

A low point came from ex-Clinton bimbo-crusher George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” asking Haley after her victory about how she’s somehow embarrassing her state by being accused without proof: “Do you expect more incoming during the runoff?” And: “Can you assure South Carolina voters that they’re not going to be embarrassed if they elect you?”

Stephanopoulos, like many good Clintonistas, is incapable of embarrassment over his hypocrisy.

Susana Martinez, winner of her gubernatorial primary in New Mexico, has another complaint. One gathers New Mexico is too far away from the East Coast for the media to notice. She’s been utterly ignored.

Then there are the two female business leaders who won their GOP primaries in California, one for the Senate and the other for governor. Stephanopoulos demeaned their business credentials as a minus, not a plus, because of the oil spill. “Meg Whitman, head of eBay. Carly Fiorina ran Hewlett-Packard. There’s some controversy there.”

Stephanopoulos had invited on the perpetually annoying British import Tina Brown, who complained, “It almost feels as if all these women winning are kind of a blow to feminism. Because, each one of them, really, most of them, are, you know, very much, you know, against so many of things that women have fought for such a long time.”

Umm, no Tina, not what women have fought for; you mean what liberal women have fought for. And let’s cut thru the crap. Brown is referring to abortion. But the original feminists, including Susan B. Anthony, were anti-abortion. These GOP women will be good role models, and libs like Steph and Brown can’t stand that.

Bozell concludes:

Stephanopoulos invited no Republican guests on this occasion, so he tried a mild rebuttal to Brown: “Well, you could argue they’re different kinds of feminists. They’ve had a lot of success in different fields.” Brown snapped back: “Women, too, can be wing nuts, is the point.” It’s bizarre that Brown is so blind she doesn’t think you could call Barbara Boxer or her beloved Hillary Clinton a “wing nut,” only GOP women.

Several networks found “news” and some kind of national controversy in Fiorina mocking Boxer’s hairdo as “so yesterday” when she was wearing an open microphone off-camera. Stephanopoulos gave it a whole story when he moonlighted as evening anchorman on “World News.” NBC’s “Today” led off the show with this nothing-burger and mentioned it three times. Co-host Hoda Kotb touted it as a “big gaffe-a-rooney.”

Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift insisted that Fiorina was wrong about just who was “so yesterday” in politics. “And these two Republican women are also social conservatives in a state that’s very pro-choice. So maybe those issues will be cast as ‘so yesterday.’” Clift’s wishful thinking had to be corrected by Monica Crowley, who informed her that Whitman favors abortion.

That’s not as bad as Jerry Brown accusing Whitman in advance of tarring him in her ads: “It’s like Goebbels. Goebbels invented this kind of propaganda. He took control of the whole world. She wants to be president. That’s her ambition, the first woman president. That’s what this is all about.”

Network outrage? Zip. The only network mention came from ABC’s Jake Tapper on “This Week,” and even he said: “Regardless of the tastelessness, Jerry Brown has a point ... that she has a lot of money.” The media can disregard a lot of tastelessness when the women who are smeared are Republicans.

Don’t expect to see the Democrat-media complex’s detestable and hypocritcal treatment of conservative/Republican women to improve anytime soon, especially between now and the November mid-term elections. We can only hope that by that time more Americans, women and men alike, recognize and reject the abuse.

Two Pieces (of Work) for Flag Day

Number #1:

A Poem for Flag Day

SON: Father, look up, and see that flag!
How gracefully it flies!
Those pretty stripes, they seem to be
A rainbow in the skies.

FATHER: It is your country’s flag, my boy,
And proudly drinks the light,
O’er ocean’s wave, in foreign climes,
A symbol of our might.

SON: Father, what fearful noise is that,
Now thundering in the clouds?
Why do they, cheering, wave their hat,
And rush along in crowds?

FATHER: It is the voice of cannonry,
The glad shouts of the free;
This is a day of memory,
‘Tis FREEDOM’S JUBILEE!

SON: I wish that I was now a man,
I’d free my country too,
And cheer as loudly as the rest;
But, father, why don’t you?

FATHER: I’m getting old and weak;
but still My heart is big with joy;
I’ve witnessed many a day like this,
Shout you aloud, my boy!

SON: HURRAH, FOR FREEDOM’S JUBILEE,
God bless our native land!
And may I live to hold the boon
Of freedom in my hand.

FATHER: Well done, my boy, grow up, and love
The land that gave you birth,
A land where Freedom loves to dwell,
A paradise on earth.

— author unknown, 1844

 And number #2:

Our country is founded on a sham: our forefathers were slave-owning rich white guys who wanted it their way. So when I see the American flag, I go, ‘Oh my God, you’re insulting me.’ That you can have a gay parade on Christopher Street in New York, with naked men and women on a float cheering, ‘We’re here, we’re queer!’ — that’s what makes my heart swell. Not the flag, but a gay naked man or woman burning the flag. I get choked up with pride.

— Lefty “comedienne” Janeane Garofalo, 1993 or 1994

(But don't you dare question her patriotism.)

Happy Flag Day.

Listen & Learn: Mark Levin on Senate Dems Granting the EPA Unconstitutional Powers

Yup, I couldn't stay away from the blog for too long. Told you I'd post if something important came up. And it did.

Last week, I got into a political debate with a co-traveler. I had just spent nearly week at a conference with several hundred fellow Jews -- all of them (as far as I know) liberal Democrats. Despite promising myself I would not get into politics at this event, I was admittedly chomping at the bit to get into some "trouble." Well, a group of us were waiting at the airport for flights back East when one friend -- who was so offended by my right-of-center Facebook comments she actually admitted to resorting to blocking my posts altogether. (I know, liberals are oh-so tolerant and open-minded. Blah blah, f**king blah.)

Anyway, she followed up that admission with the question of how I can support the Tea Party, when some of them are just so crazy. (Yes, that was her word.) I wasn't going to go off on this person right there in front of other friends and colleagues, so I responded simply that all parties have "crazies." "Look at Barack Obama," I said plainly, "and all the czars and cabinet members he's appointed, and what about his Supreme Court nominees." 

"But those people don't really have any authority," some objected.

"Oh, really?" I pressed. "Obama's czars, etc., were not elected by the American people, yet they have virtually unlimited and unchecked policy-making power."

That was really the end of that debate. For my friends, there was really nothing else to say. The conversation ultimately turned to right-wing talk radio and how offensive and hateful Rush Limbaugh supposedly is. I asked my interlocutor if she ever actually listened to Rush Limbaugh. Of course, she did not but she assured me all she needed to know was the clips played for her on her favorite hosts (on MSNBC and NPR, naturally). With an involuntary rolling of the eyes, I insisted those liberal commentators are very adept at taking Rush out of context. They have to. There's no other way to marginalize and polarize him.

But anyway, back to my temporary return this evening to blog-hood. I was catching up on the past two weeks of talk radio when I got to Mark Levin's show Thursday. The first hour was devoted to a vote by the Senate to give the EPA -- an unelected unaccountable organization -- unconstitutional regulatory powers, namely, to create and enforce policies related to carbon dioxide emissions and other so-called pollutants. The vast majority of yay votes came from 53 Democrats (No surprise there). 

Aside from the fact that Mark's entire report made my blood boil, I couldn't help recalling the conversation with my liberal Jewish friends at that Midwestern airport. To them, certain Tea Party politicians were "crazy." What about the 53 Democrats who just crapped on the Constitution for the umpteenth time, by giving an unelected body legislative and executive powers. Because of these Democrats, Mark explains, energy costs and everything related to energy (which means just about everything you can possibly think of) is about to go through the roof.

So here's 15 minutes of the Great One Mark Levin telling it like it is. I dedicate this clip to my liberal Jewish friend who has blocked my posts on Facebook because she's too offended to read anything that doesn't jibe with her MSNBC-NPR-filtered reality. I'm sure if any one of those two stations actually report what the Senate did on Thursday afternoon, you would have no problem with it anyway. It's OK to cr@p on the Constitution, as long as you're doing it to further the Leftist agenda.

[Edited for commercials, long pauses, and other extraneous content]

levin2010-06-10_80kbps.mp3