Vocal Minority

Video of the Day (2/24/12): Another Apology

Well, it's happened again. Obama has apologized to a not-really-ally for -- gasp! -- the inadvertent destruction of Qurans in Afghanistan. Did Afghan leader Hamid Kharzai apologize for the two young American soldiers murdered there this week? Of course not. Did Obama ask for an apology? Of course not.

In light of this, here's my new friend Kira offering an apology of her own:

For those of you who are vision impaired: yes, she is black, female, and -- gasp! -- Republican (or at least conservative).

Obama's Jews telling critics to shut up, again

From Abby Schachter at the NY Post.

Obama's Jews are at it again. The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee are once more advocating that the President's critics shut up. Last time it was about Israel, this time it is about religion.

According to a letter entitled "Religion in political campaigns -- An interfaith statement of principles" , signed by a variety of religious organizations, there should be less discussion of religion among those seeking political office. After allowing that those running for office are "free to worship as they choose" (well, thank you very much!) the letter warns as follows:

"There is a point, however, where an emphasis on religion in a political campaign becomes inappropriate and even unsettling in a religiously diverse society such as ours. Appealing to voters along religious lines is divisive. It is contrary to the American ideal of including all Americans in the political process, regardless of whether they are members of large and powerful religious groups, religious minorities, or subscribe to no faith tradition."

Signatories include the usual suspects in terms of Jewish Obama defenders -- the ADL, the AJC, and the Union of Reform Judaism. Funny. but these groups didn't see fit to warn against religiously-based Jewish endorsements of Candidiate Obama in 2008, for example the group Rabbis for Obama . Somehow advocating casting a vote for the Democratic presidential candidate for religious reasons wasn't "divisive" back then. ...

 

Liberal Media Bias: CNN's Soledad O'Brien NewsBusted Twice

Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters was on top of this. Remember when during a debate Mitt Romney made that completely innocuous comment that he wasn't "concerned about the very poor" because they have a safety net? And remember how predictably the Democrat-media complex took that phrase out of context and milk it for all they could. Apparently the milking included a high five during a news report on CNN. 

After anchor Soledad O'Brien skewered Romney for his comment, co-anchor Roland Martin goes "Good job, Soledad." And they do a high five! On the air.

To add ridiculous insult to injury, after Sheppard tweets that Roland and O'Brien gave each other a high five over their "objective" news story on Romney, O'Brien had the chutzpah to immediately tweet back: "Um not true. At all." To which Sheppard suggest she watch the actual video of herself high-fiving Roland!

That was just over two weeks ago. Yesterday, while covering the Whitney Houston funeral, O'Brien gets some words from singer Roberta Flack and slimy race-hustler Jesse Jackson. At the end of the small exchange, Flack offers O'Brien an "Obama bump". (As if Barack Obama originated the fist bump!) O'Brien happily returns the gesture.

Look, Roberta Flack could be a Kool-Aid drinkin' Obama lackey and hang out with the likes of Jesse Jackson all she wants. But if O'Brien wants viewers to think she's an objective reporter, she should practice hiding the Obama-love and Republican-hate just a liiiittle more.

P.S. In an ironic twist of fate, less than a week after Roland Martin offered a high-five on air to a co-anchor for skewering a Republican candidate -- an act the suits at CNN were obviously perfectly fine with -- Roland was suspended by those CNN suits for ... wait for it: tweeting supposedly "homophobic" comments during the Super Bowl.

Doesn't the sick twisted world of liberalism make Alice in Wonderland look perfectly normal?

Update on Those "Green" Spaces

Back in early October I posted about two parking spaces at a local synagogue designated for vehicles that are "environmentally friendly" or that "reduce America's dependence on foreign oil". The spaces were placed practically as close to the building as handicapped spaces, as incentive for congregants to purchase a hybrid or whatever.

Well, it's now the middle of February and I have to report that in the dozens of times I've been to this synagogue  I have not seen one car occupy these spots. The spaces sit there empty like pathetic neglected wallflowers whom nobody asks to dance. All around them sit regular sedans, minivans, and SUVs.

That is, until last week. For the first time since keeping track, I spotted a Toyota Prius in the parking lot ... but it was not parked in a green space! It was simply interspersed in the regular part of the lot among all the gas guzzlers.

Maybe it was a visitor who parked before realizing there were these "green" spaces, I reasoned. But then this week I saw the same Prius ... again parked in a regular parking space!

The custodian happened to be doing some maintenance outside when I arrived so when I got out of my car I asked him if he's ever seen a car parked in the green spaces. He said no. "So why do they have them"? I asked incredulously. "I don't know," he casually answered. Then I pointed at the Prius halfway down the parking lot, yards away from the green spots. He just shrugged. What was he supposed to do? Wasn't his idea. 

I wonder how many more months these empty berths will be taking up space in this parking lot. (Maybe the synagogue should offer free membership too.)

I also wonder how many other houses of worship that have installed these green spaces are faring.

Meanwhile, just this past month we've learned that the polar ice caps aren't melting anywhere nearly as quickly as the alarmists have warned, the Mt. Kilimanjaro's supposedly imperiled snowcap is growing, and Europe is undergoing such a deep freeze that Venice's waterways are icing up.

Just sayin'.

Despotism and Tyranny ... They're Heeere

Two great pieces at AT today address the continuing reckless and unconstitutional power grab of the Obama administration.

Citing other columnists and great patriots in American history, Lee DeCovnick writes:

Thomas Jefferson reaches out over the centuries to counsel us that,  "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes." The requirement for such forceful change will results from a cascade of bitter failures within our social and governmental institutions. We are not at that fork of history. However, thoughtful conservatives must look toward some uncomfortable duties, a start of redress, to stem our current slide into tyranny.

That initial redress starts today when each one of us begins to reach out, one on one, to our liberal neighbors, co-workers, friends and family. We must patiently discuss today's headlines within the context of the Declaration of Independence. By educating and reminding them of America's self-evident truths, unalienable rights, and that our government derives its powers from the consent of the governed, we open minds and give substance to the looming icebergs of tyranny, dead ahead.

Redress also means that Congress must start doing its job. Congress should follow the Constitution by actually writing the laws in public view, rather than fob them off on the Executive agencies. And Congress must de-fund and forever decertify the existence of the czars. Or else we must vote these damn Congressional monarchists out of power. These ideas are less radical then those written in the Declaration. To believe otherwise renders us all silent passengers on that "long train of abuses and usurpations."

Americans, Lincoln and Jefferson's people, may have but a single Constitutionally mandated opportunity to avoid a further "rupturing of the American conception of sovereignty, in which the president is our servant, not our ruler." November 6^th, 2012 will become a crucial day of national reckoning, not unlike that warm July day in Philadelphia, two hundred and thirty-six years ago.

Next, J. Robert Smith blows huge gaping holes in the left's defense of the "contraceptives for Catholics" mandate:

You've got to hand it to liberals.  They stick to a script.  On the contraception-Catholic Church flap, the script is that most Catholic women favor contraception (and, one guesses, abortion-inducers).  Ergo, the Catholic Church should buckle under and accept President Obama's mandate.  Conscience and religious liberty (and a little thing called the 1^st Amendment) just don't stack up against what a majority of Catholic women want -- or what liberals say they want.  You know, vox populi and all that.

So if vox populi is good enough for the Catholic Church, why not for liberals and the Democratic Party -- or more exactly, for policies favored by both?  Like ObamaCare.  ...  

Liberal talking heads, like little wind-up toy soldiers, have been all over the airwaves, yakking about the supremacy of "women's health" and what a majority of Catholic women are supposed to want.  (Isn't it nice how liberals always appoint themselves spokesmen for others?  Call it the Jesse Jackson syndrome.  The Reverend Jackson has an unerring talent for showing up and speaking on behalf of people who never asked him to.)

If liberals are all fired up about majority rule, why shouldn't they apply that principle to ObamaCare? ...

But that's not how majoritarianism works, evidently.  See, where liberals can use majority sentiment to justify and advance their statist polices, well, by all means.  Hence, efforts to bulldoze the Catholic Church and mangle the 1^st Amendment are cloaked in a concern for what a majority of Catholic women desire.

When a liberal policy aim fails to muster a majority, tough luck.  ObamaCare is what Americans need, whether they want it or not.  Liberals insist on it.  And what could average Americans possibly know about what's good for their welfare?  If liberals and government can't run other people's lives, what purpose is there for either?

Take another issue: federal spending.  According to Gallup, a lopsided majority believes that Washington spends too much.  No need for more or higher taxes, either. 

November 6, 2012 cannot come soon enough.

 

Liberal Fascism: HHS Now Inspecting, Regulating Pre-K Lunches (in N.C.)

This was the first story out of the gate when El Rushbo came on today:

Preschooler’s Homemade Lunch Replaced with Cafeteria “Nuggets”
State agent inspects sack lunches, forces preschoolers to purchase cafeteria food instead
By Sara Burrows Feb. 14th, 2012

RAEFORD [North Carolina]— A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.

The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day.

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.

The girl’s mother — who said she wishes to remain anonymous to protect her daughter from retaliation — said she received a note from the school stating that students who did not bring a “healthy lunch” would be offered the missing portions, which could result in a fee from the cafeteria, in her case $1.25.

Now, as close to perfect as El Rushbo is, there are two things he seemed to overlook in his commentary that followed. First, at least the way he presented it, this seemed to be a federal mandate, but the Division of Child Development yada yada yada is actually a division of the North Carolina state HHS Dep't. The article didn't specify one way or another whether this mandate was being imposed by a state or federal department, but I really think it's the former.

Not that this can't eventually go nationwide; in fact, as soon as the Obama administration finds out about this, they'll be giddy to get it started in your state too!

Which brings me to the next thing Rush missed, because he's not Jewish: Two of the required items in pre-K lunches are one meat item and one milk item. This can pose a problem for Jewish institutions with pre-K programs if they observe kashrut (the Jewish dietary laws prohibit the mixing of meat and dairy products.)

Now, all of last week I was in quite a heated debate with several Jewish and non-Jewish Facebook friends about the Obama mandate that forces Catholic institutions to provide free contraception for their employees. Some Obama-worshiping Jewish liberals did agree with me that the contraception mandate was a governmental overreach. Others, however, were not fazed by it at all. One friend who's very pro-choice abortion called this blatant violation of the First Amendment a "non-issue."

These were the same people, by the way, who just a week before were caterwauling about Susan J. Komen rescinding their donation to Planned Parenthood. That was a problem for them. The contraception mandate was not. See what liberals consider as priorities?

So, what would such people say if they woke up one day to find the Obama administration forcing Jewish pre-K programs to adhere to their USDA requirements, thereby violating their own religious beliefs?

I know what I'd tell them: First, I'd call them hypocrites. Then I'd tell them not to say I didn't warn them.

Article of Note: Thomas Sowell on the Progressive 'Legacy'

Sowell completes the third part of a series of articles on Progressivism, now and today:

From Part I:

Theodore Roosevelt interpreted the Constitution to mean that the President of the United States could exercise any powers not explicitly forbidden to him. This stood the 10th Amendment on its head, for that Amendment explicitly gave the federal government only the powers specifically spelled out, and reserved all other powers to the states or to the people.

Woodrow Wilson attacked the Constitution in his writings as an academic before he became president. Once in power, his administration so restricted freedom of speech that this led to landmark Supreme Court decisions restoring that fundamental right. ...

Whatever the vision or rhetoric of the Progressive era, its practice was a never-ending expansion of the arbitrary powers of the federal government. The problems they created so discredited Progressives that they started calling themselves "liberals" -- and after they discredited themselves again, they went back to calling themselves "Progressives," now that people no longer remembered how Progressives had discredited themselves before.

Barack Obama's rhetoric of "change" is in fact a restoration of discredited ideas that originated a hundred years ago.

From Part II:

The rhetorical transformation of government into "society" is a verbal sleight-of-hand trick that endures to this day. So is the notion that money earned in the form of profits requires politicians' benediction to be legitimate, while money earned under other names apparently does not.

Thus Woodrow Wilson declared: "If private profits are to be legitimized, private fortunes made honorable, these great forces which play upon the modern field must, both individually and collectively, be accommodated to a common purpose."

And just who will decide what this common purpose is and how it is to be achieved? "Politics," according to Wilson, "has to deal with and harmonize" these various forces.

In other words, the government -- politicians, bureaucrats and judges -- are to intervene, second-guess and pick winners and losers, in a complex economic process of which they are often uninformed, if not misinformed, and a process in which they pay no price for being wrong, regardless of how high a price will be paid by the economy.

If this headstrong, busybody approach seems familiar because it is similar to what is happening today, that is because it is based on fundamentally the same vision, the same presumptions of superior wisdom, and the same kind of lofty rhetoric we hear today about "fairness." Wilson even used the phrase "social justice."

Woodrow Wilson also won a Nobel Prize for peace, like the current president -- and it was just as undeserved. Wilson's "war to end wars" in fact set the stage for an even bigger, bloodier and more devastating Second World War.

From Part III:

Consistent with President Wilson's belief in racial superiority as a basis for intervening in other countries, he launched military interventions in various Latin American countries, before his intervention in the First World War.

Woodrow Wilson was also a precursor of later Progressives in assuming that the overthrow of an autocratic and despotic government means an advance toward democracy. In 1917, President Wilson spoke of "heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia."

What was "heartening" to Wilson was the overthrow of the czars. What it led to in fact was the rise of a totalitarian tyranny that killed more political prisoners in a year than the czars had killed in more than 90 years.

Although Wilson proclaimed that the First World War was being fought because "The world must be made safe for democracy," in reality the overthrow of autocratic rule in Germany and Italy also led to totalitarian regimes that were far worse. Those today who assume that the overthrow of authoritarian governments in Egypt and Libya is a movement toward democracy are following in Wilson's footsteps.

The ultimate hubris of Woodrow Wilson was in promoting the carving up of whole empires after the First World War, in the name of "the self-determination of peoples." But, in reality, it was not the peoples who did the carving but Wilson, French Premier Georges Clemenceau and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Walter Lippmann saw what a reckless undertaking this was. He said, "We are feeding on maps, talking of populations as if they were abstract lumps." He was struck by the ignorance of those who were reshaping whole nations and the lives of millions of people.

 

 

Libs are the true aggressors in culture wars

From Jonah Goldberg at JWR.

The real motive behind this backlash [against Susan J. Komen For the Cure] is to make it very clear: You must choose a side -- ours. And once you choose our side, you can never change your mind without severe consequences. And what is true of liberal politics is also true of liberal public policy. As the Obama administration has made clear to the Catholic Church, there is no neutrality, no safe harbor from liberalism's moral vision. You're either with us, or against us -- which means we shall be against you.

KOMENIZE: The Tolerant Left Invents New Word to Celebrate Its Perceived Victory for Abortion

From the Hillbuzz blog:

Today I spotted the first usage of the word “komenize” — which the Tolerant Left has coined to describe targeting a charitable organization that does something they disagree with in an orchestrated and sustained effort to annihilate its fundraising efforts.

It’s debatable whether this is what’s really happening at the Susan G. Komen Foundation right now, but it’s a great example of how effectively the Tolerant Left commandeers language and how quickly it manipulates zeitgeist and culture for its own aims.

Conservatives are incredibly foolish to cede ground to Leftists on anything — but that’s exactly what conservative writers and pundits do every time they use the word “liberal” to describe a “Leftist”. That’s like calling a cockroach a “hug-a-bug” or saying “undocumented worker” instead of the more accurate term “illegal alien” (or, even better, the portmanteau of “crimmigrant”).  There needs to a new word invented for how monstrously stupid it is to ever agree to the Tolerant Left’s favored verbiage and say “Pro-Choice” instead of what it really is — Pro-Abortion — when Leftists go out of their way to say “Anti-Choice” instead of “Pro-Life”. ...

And from a Hillbuzz reader:

Just when you think the Left couldn’t be more evil . . .

Let’s recap: A organization that kills innocent human beings for a living, along with its radical supporters, were so offended by the elimination of a voluntary contribution by a non-profit dedicated to curing breast cancer that was a whopping 0.07% (that’s zero-point-zero seven percent — less than one tenth of one percent) of their annual budget that they set out to destroy the non-profit, all the while claiming that they weren’t the ones politicizing the issue and that they were being bullied. And the Leftist media supported them all the way, including hiding the Planned Parenthood CEO’s lies about them doing mammograms. Now Komen is distrusted and disliked by both sides.

The only good news is that others will think more carefully before getting involved with Planned Parenthood. Oddly enough, people who kill babies for cash have some unpleasant traits.

 

 

The Wrath of the Abortion Movement Unleashed on Komen

Unfortunately, yes. From an actual OBGYN, at AT.

The vicious fury of pro-abortion lobby is the real story of the decision of the Komen foundation to detach itself from grants to Planned Parenthood.

Liberal Racism: Jim Moran (D-VA) Whips Allen West (R-FL)

Michelle Malkin tells the story:

Congressman Jim Moran is an old white Democrat from Virginia who thinks he can judge whether we minority conservatives are acting sufficiently non-white enough. Moran's an inveterate bully, a brawler, a crook and a bigot. And not one of his civility-preaching liberal colleagues has the courage to call him out.

Responding on cable news to GOP Rep. Allen West's blunt criticisms of President Obama this week, Moran derided the retired U.S. Army colonel, who is black, as "not representative of the African-American community." Moran then launched into the kind of tired race-traitor tirade I've heard from progressives of pallor for more than 20 years.

How dare we "people of color" stray from the left's ideological plantation? If we choose personal responsibility over entitlement, capitalism over statism or self-determination over identity politics, presumptuous white liberals appoint themselves spokespeople for our forefathers and deciders of our true destinies. ...

 

Listen & Learn: El Rushbo Schools Dems (and Romney?) on Minimum Wage (2/2/12)

If I had a nickel for every time I had to go toe to toe with a liberal over the minimum wage, or came across literature petitioning my representatives to raise it, I'd almost be able to balance the budget.

The late great economist Milton Friedman has said it, Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams have said it as well: The minimum wage destroys jobs and slows the economy. And now El Rushbo is saying it. Because it's true. 

Everything you need to know about the minimum wage is right here in these 13 minutes. School is open and the professor is in.

Some gems to listen for in this clip:

Have you seen the teenage unemployment rate in this country? Well, can you say 25%? It's 16%, 18%. It's way, way up there! The teenage unemployment rate, it's at record highs. Whatever it is, it is at a record high, and why do you think that is? In part, it's the minimum wage.

Businesses are having enough trouble as it is in this economy, and then to be told to go out and hire a bunch of people who have no experience and pay them an arbitrary amount of money that has no relationship to the business's operation or cost structure, is literally absurd! And so the only option the small businessman has is not hiring anybody. ... It's sort of like raising tax rates and these dummkopfs in Washington think, "Well, you raise the tax rate and these taxpayers just sit out there like a bunch of idiots and they'll pay it." And every time tax rates are increased, guess what? Revenue goes down!

* * * * *

If you want more of an activity, you cut taxes on it. If you want less of an activity, you raise taxes. If you want more homes sold, then you allow the interest on a mortgage to be deducted. If you don't want a lot of homes to be sold, take that deduction away. If you want to spur teenage hiring, lower the minimum wage or get rid of it. If you want to retard teenage hiring -- if you want to slow it down, if you want to limit the amount of teenagers to get jobs -- raise the cost of hiring them. And that's what an increase in the minimum wage is!

* * * * *

 The national teenage unemployment rate in November, 21.4%.  The teenage unemployment rate in Washington is over 50%.  Now, who does the unemployment rate hit besides teenagers?  It hits the unskilled worker.  The unskilled worker who needs the first rung of that ladder. ...

The whole safety net idea is a disaster. It's robbing people of opportunity. It's robbing people of dignity.  It's creating dependents. It's creating perpetual Democrat voters reproducing.  That's what it is.  That's what it was designed for. LBJ, FDR, that was the purpose in all it is, to create an ever-growing and perpetually renewing pool of Democrat voters who never learn to depend on themselves, who never learn the skills to support themselves. That's fine with the Democrat Party. That's fine with guys like Barack Obama. 

Two things happen: Those people become dependent and then you run around and talk about how heartless and cruel the Republicans are for opposing ever more money in the policy to give them ever more benefits. So it's a double whammy for 'em.  ... The real safety net is a job, and the minimum wage is one of the many obstacles in the way of people trying to find work in this economy. 

* * * * *

This is another part of the charade the Democrats play: They try to convince you that every minimum wage earner is a 40-year-old, bedraggled person who the Republicans don't care about, who the Republicans are trying to keep poor and homeless, trying desperately in this horrid country to support a family of four. And the vast majority of people on the minimum wage are teenagers, young people. 

If the minimum wage gets too high and then they start cracking down on interns, what's the next place business will go? Illegal aliens. You see how this works? The minimum wage can be said to be responsible for a whole bunch of problems in this country -- while a bunch of dummkopfs run around thinking with their hearts, "Oh, boy, is that compassion!"  

 

[Edited for long silences, commercial breaks, and extraneous talking]

(Download clip here)

Another Black History Month: The Left's Favorite Time of the Year

From the inimitable Lloyd Marcus at AT.

Alas, another Black History Month...or as the left likes to view it, their annual "Opportunity To Exploit Race Month."  It is the month in which liberals attempt to convince us that race relations in America have progressed very little since the days of police unleashing dogs on civil rights activists.

Rather than presenting a balanced, honest look at black history, leftist schoolteachers and the media say America is still racist and whites should feel eternally guilty.  Also included in the left's message is that blacks must continue to vote monolithically for Democrats in order to keep rich white Republican racists at bay.  Yes, for the most part, Black History Month is a propaganda tool of the Democratic party. ...