You know, back before the rise of the unicorn-riding demigod who must be worshiped by those who wish to be considered loyal Americans?
Well, we know that Dissent, we so often heard, was the highest form of patriotism. But apparently the CHANGE we got on January 20, 2009 included that antiquated notion, and so those of us who dare to disagree can only HOPE that the First Amendment will remain in force long enough for us to drive the Democrats from power.
But once again, the MSM is doing its best to stop us, by labeling opposition to Barack Obama as seditious.
"I did a little bit of research just before this show - it's on this little napkin here. I looked up the definition of sedition which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state. And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right up close to being seditious." -- Time magazine's Joe Klein.
Another member of the effete-elite media, New York magazine’s John Heilemann, went beyond Klein's slander and included Rush Limbaugh in the accusation as well.
Interesting, isn't it, that speech against the OBAMA REGIME (there, I said it -- now you can declare me guilty of sedition, too, you DemocRAT-BASTARDS) is now declared seditious despite the fact that it falls well within the parameters of what was declared acceptable by their peers during the presidency of George W. Bush. And interesting, too, is the fact that the racheting up of such charges comes as the 2010 electoral prospects of the Democrats are looking worse, meaning the likely victory of the very views opposed by Klein, Heilemann, and other Obama-fellating media personalities THROUGH LEGITIMATE CONSTITUTIONAL MEANS AT THE BALLOT BOX.
So let's see -- journalists are now declaring anti-Obama speech to be seditious. A former president of the United States who is married to a high-ranking member of the OBAMA REGIME has declared opposition to the OBAMA REGIME to be akin to an incitement of terrorism, only to be echoed by the latest faux-conservative icon anointed to be the "voice of reason on the Right" by the opponents of the Right.
Maybe the need to be more worried about the rhetoric coming from their own side instead.
I've often wondered why the group T'Pau didn't catch on -- but here is their big hit, "Heart and Soul," for your listening pleasure.
Not bad for a band named for a Vulcan.
About five years ago, I wrote the following in response to a Houston Chronicle editorial lamenting the failure of my school district to run a "free feed" program for children in the school district during part of the summer.
Maybe the editorial is right. Children need to be fed year-round, and parents are clearly not up to the task.But what about other school breaks and holidays? These children should not be left to fend for themselves for a week or two at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Spring Break! Clearly, the cafeterias must remain open during those times off as well.
And what about the irresponsible practice of sending children home on Friday afternoon and closing the cafeterias over the weekend? It seems absurd that we would expect children to survive through a Saturday and a Sunday without a hot breakfast and lunch. School districts need to keep the cafeterias open on the weekend as well, to avoid subjecting our nation's children to two whole days without nutrition.
I've also got a solution to what I see as the "dinner problem". By extending the school day by two or three hours, we can make sure that each student gets a hot dinner, ensuring three square meals a day. The interim time could be devoted to additional instructional time, though I certainly see the objections of those who see the extra classroom time as educators over-emphasizing academics.
But what I've not managed to solve is how to guarantee that every child gets a bowl of ice cream and a kiss on the forehead before bed. What do you think -- are parents up to such a task?
I was in my best sarcastic form, satirizing the position of the ever-bleeding heats at the local rag. After all, no one in their right mind would ever suggest making schools responsible for feeding kids over the weekend, would they?
My words immediately jumped back into my head today when I received an email from a friend linking to this editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It seems that Rep. Dina Titus wants to do precisely that.
[W]hat if Americans come to realize the giant jobs program they're financing under the rubric of the "public schools" is no longer mostly about "schooling," at all, but has instead morphed into a huge archipelago of food banks and full-service welfare agencies?More than 19 million American schoolchildren are already provided free or reduced-cost meals during the week when they're at school, according to Feeding America, a national network of charities. In Clark County, roughly 148,000 children qualify for the free or tax-subsidized meals -- not because they are all necessarily poor, but because they live in areas where a certain percentage of the populace is statistically "poor," and no one wants to embarrass a child by making him or her assert individual poverty in order to qualify.
But that's not enough, according to Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who introduced a bill Tuesday that would allow the schoolchildren to head back to their schools on the weekends to pick up tax-funded food handouts, as well -- or else carry home backpacks full of canned meats and fruits on Fridays.
The Weekends Without Hunger Act would allocate $10 million per year for a five-year federal "pilot program," giving away food for schools and local anti-hunger groups to distribute.
"With 45 percent of Clark County schoolchildren relying on the free and reduced-price lunch program, more than 140,000 students in Southern Nevada are facing hunger at home, and many depend on school meals as their main source of food throughout the week," Rep. Titus said.
I'm astounded. What was once beyond the realm of serious consideration now appears to be just a partisan floor vote away from becoming the law of the land. Will wonders never cease? There really are people who believe that, after feeding kids free meals for 10 out of the 21 meals ordinarily eaten in a normal week, schools ought to be the source of at least four more during the non-school days of the week. Can the "free/reduced dinner" program I sarcastically proposed above be far behind?
I guess that in the era of Hope'N'Change, parental responsibility for meeting even the most basic needs for children will be subsumed by yet another comprehensive government program. How long until someone proposes making all public schools year-round residential facilities for all children between the ages of 4 and 18?
I know he has tagged it as humor, but it certainly doesn't seem to be particularly humorous to me. After all, it suggests a way in which a citizen might legally bring a shotgun into the Texas State Capitol for purposes of shooting representatives of institutions and organizations that the blogger has railed against frequently on his blog and other websites -- and ends with a comment that "this might be a good time to buy a shotgun."
You can take a shot gun to a hearing in the Capitol. Maybe you can carry a shotgun when the lobbyists for the insurance industry testifies on how low homeowners insurance rates are. Or when the electricity resellers say how low our rates are. Or when the heads of Texas University tries to justify their bloated college rates. The list could go on and on.Whatever hearing you want to attend, just remember, you have the right to carry a shotgun into a hearing just as long as it is "carried openly, in a non-threatening way". And since we don't have enough money to police each hearing, gun toters could have a clear and easy target.
* * * Hum....I guess this might be a good time to buy a shotgun.
This would be troubling regardless of who wrote it, but given John's history of threatening/urging violence against political opponents, as well as his record of racist, sexist, and classist hate speech, I'm starting to wonder if being "troubled" is a sufficient response.
One of my fellow members of the Watcher's Council noted that this week had a particularly fine selection of posts in both the Council and Non-Council categories. I certainly have to agree with him in that regard. Just look at the outcome of this week's contest, and the quality of the posts found from top to bottom in both categories.
I strongly encourage you to take the time to read the winners and the various runners-up.
I didn't blog on the "Crash the Tea Party" website, even when I found out it was the project of a teacher in Oregon. After all, others had beat me to it, and it is just the sort of slimy action that we can expect from the Left. And besides, I reasoned, it was protected speech, and so even the educator angle did not enter into it.
![tptorp[1].jpg](https://swap.stanford.edu/was/20160311035101im_/http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/tptorp[1].jpg)
Not so fast -- there appears to be more to it. Jason Levin is suspended and under investigation for his actions.
An Oregon teacher who announced his intention to "dismantle and demolish the Tea Party" has been placed on administrative leave until his school district finishes its investigation into whether his political activity crossed the line.The state's Teacher Standards & Practices Commission is also conducting an investigation into Jason Levin, a media teacher at Conestoga Middle School in Beaverton.
"Jason is on paid administrative leave," Maureen Wheeler, the school district's spokeswoman, told FoxNews.com. She described the suspension as "standard practice during an internal investigation."
Levin has come under fire for saying he'd do anything short of throwing rocks to bring down the Tea Party. In the last two days, the Beaverton School District has received thousands of e-mails and phone calls from people across the country who said they were outraged at his behavior.
The school district is defending Levin's right to free speech, but it's investigating whether he used district computers to spread his political message or worked on his "Crash the Tea Party" Web site during school hours.
As far as this teacher is concerned, that ought to be as far as it goes. Did he use school time or equipment to foster his political activities? If so, punish him like I said should happen with this teacher. The content, of his speech as far as I'm concerned, is irrelevant.
Unfortunately, that may not be the end of it either. It appears that the content of his speech is also at issue.
Now, the source said, parents have become outraged by the severity of his political activism, and many have told the school board members that it has no place in a public school system.Parents supported teachers who wore Obama buttons during the 2008 presidential election, the source said. But they say Levin has crossed the line.
I call bullshit on that one. The content of Levin's speech -- and may I suggest even his political extremism -- ought not even be an issue in regards to his employment and certification. If public employees -- and we public school employees are public employees -- can be fired for our political beliefs, statements, activities, and associations, then the First Amendment will have been utterly eviscerated for each and every American citizen. As someone who has been targeted in the past for my political activity outside of school and my political speech on this website, I find it frightening that the mere fact that some element of the community disagrees with a teacher's politics might be the basis for professional sanctions.
Indeed, the ONLY part of Levin's political activism that strikes me as warranting a close look is his call to collect personal information on participants in the Tea Party movement in order to "cause mayhem with it." But even that, absent some further evidence of specific criminal intent, seems to be a reach.
So let's find out if this clown has engage in activities that are illegal, and take him down if he did. But if he hasn't, a conservative respect for the Constitution would require that we permit him to follow his chosen profession and respect his right to engage in political activities on his own time -- lest our own freedoms be diminished in our haste to punish him for the exercise of the liberties he sought to deny us.
In the wake of all the news about the Icelandic volcano, this may be my favorite story. I bet Apple execs love it, too, and that the advertising department is trying to figure out how to use this for international marketing.
![t1larg.norway[1].jpg](https://swap.stanford.edu/was/20160311035101im_/http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/t1larg.norway[1].jpg)
Running a country? There's an app for that.When Norway's prime minister found himself stuck in New York as a volcanic cloud grounded flights to Europe, he fired up his new Apple iPad and did the job remotely.
In what could be a first for the new gadget, Jens Stoltenberg told CNN he used the iPad to manage the situation at home as Norway closed its airspace under threat from the ash.
A photograph of Stoltenberg using the device was posted on the Internet by Norwegian officials under the title "The prime minister is working at the airport.
I’m sure that Apple’s lawyers will require the following disclaimer if there are any ads – “NATO member nation sold separately.”
Looks that way at this early date.
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid must pick up far more support from crossover Republicans and independents to win re-election, according to a new poll that shows him losing to the GOP front-runner in a full-ballot election with eight contenders and a "none of these candidates" option.The survey of Nevada voters commissioned by the Review-Journal shows Reid getting 37 percent of the vote compared with 47 percent for Republican Sue Lowden, who would win if the election were today, while the slate of third-party and nonpartisan candidates would get slim to no backing.
The latest Mason-Dixon poll for the first time measured Reid's and Lowden's support in a full general election test instead of in a head-to-head or three-way matchup to see how much of the vote the record number of Senate candidates on the Nov. 2 ballot would siphon off from the Democratic incumbent and the top GOP challenger, pollster Brad Coker said.
The truly amusing thing is that Harry Reid’s spokesdrone seems to believe that his boss actually has a chance of winning. Doesn’t he know that the common man is revolting against out-of-touch politicians like his boss?
Immigrant-rights groups sought to tap some of the "tea party" thunder Thursday by using the anti-tax-and-spending movement's nationwide protests to argue illegal immigrants must be legalized because they are eager to pay their full taxes.* * * "Here there are people who don't want to pay taxes, and we're saying there are all these people who want to carry the load and we don't allow them to," said Mary Moreno, a spokeswoman for the Center for Community Change. She led a delegation that delivered five boxes of blank tax forms to a Capitol Hill office as a symbol of all the tax money left uncollected because illegal immigrants have not been legalized.
Well, let’s offer a compromise. To prove that they really want to start paying taxes, let’s create a special tax just for them. Call it the “Illegal Alien Tax Stamp” – you know, sort of like the “Marijuana Tax Stamp” that exists in some states. Set the fee for the IA Tax Stamp at $5000 annually on the federal level – and allow the states to offer their own at $2500 annually. See how many of these border-jumping immigration criminals step up to the plate and actually pay the fees for these tax stamps. I’m guessing that the number will be quite small.
For that matter, such taxes will also settle the question of allowing state and local officials to deal with illegal immigration – failure to have the annual stamp will be tax evasion, an offense that can undeniably be dealt with by state and local authorities.
Somebody here is going to jail (maybe several somebodies) and there will be a bunch of kids who see their college funds significantly increased courtesy of the taxpayers of this school district.
The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats, says a new motion filed in a suit against the district.More than once, the motion asserts, the camera on Robbins' school-issued laptop took photos of Robbins as he slept in his bed. Each time, it fired the images off to network servers at the school district.
Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.
"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied.
And want to know where this gets really creepy?
According to the latest filing by the Robbinses, officials first activated the tracking software on a school-issued Apple MacBook that Robbins took home on Oct. 20.Hundreds of times in the next two weeks, the filing says, the program did its job each time it was turned on: A tiny camera atop the laptop snapped a photo, software inside copied the laptop screen image, and a locating device recorded the Internet address - something that could help district technicians pinpoint where the machine was.
The system was designed to take a new picture every 15 minutes until it was turned off.
The material disclosed by the district contains hundreds of photos of Robbins and his family members - "including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping," the motion states.
This stuff has gone beyond outrageous, well past creepy, and in
to the criminally invasive. Forget the Fourth Amendment – this violates every expectation of privacy that we can possibly have, and every bit of professional ethics as a teacher. I’m outraged.
And I’m also willing to bet that some of the surreptitiously snapped images of scantily-clad students will be found on home computers of Carol Cafiero and at least one other district employee. After all, the “soap opera” email makes it clear that she was sharing the images with someone else – and I’m sure that includes the juicy stuff.
I was struck by this anecdote in a CNN report about traveling with the Tea Party Express.
The bus was hard to miss, wrapped full-on in a Tea Party advertisement. Apparently, just the sight of it made the man angry. As he rushed us, shouting all the way, the bus driver cautiously slid open his window. "This country is at war," the man screamed into the slightly opened window. The driver quickly slammed it shut.No one on the bus, including me, could understand what point the man was trying to make. The activists dismissed him as a drunk. But one thing was very clear: The Tea Party had once again attracted attention from one of its many critics.
With all due respect to Shannon Travis (who has provided pretty good coverage of this grassroots political phenomenon), I don’t doubt that everyone on the bus, including Casey the dog, knew exactly what the point of the outburst was. Indeed, I suspect that, if pressed, Shannon would admit exactly what it meant – the left in this country, after eight years of hollering that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” as they sought to undermine President Bush and the War on Jihadi Terrorists, have now decreed any criticism of the unicorn-riding demigod in the White House to be not-merely unpatriotic, not even just un-American, but an act of treason. Because, of course, criticizing the spending policies of the Democrats and the unpopular ObamaCare legislation jammed down the throats of the American people by partisan Democrats does much more to give aid and comfort to the enemy than declaring the war lost and the president a war-criminal ever did.
You know, that 47% of Americans pay no income tax – or even get a refund larger than the amount that was withheld from their pay – and 45% of Americans think that the amount of income tax they pay is just about right.
Just a point to ponder.
Chief Justice John Marshall, perhaps the greatest leader of the US Supreme Court and certainly its most influential, wrote in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” I’ve therefore always struggled with the notion that government can make any claim to have a right to tax a church, or to limit the speech of churches and their leaders as a condition of their being exempt from taxation. After all, how could such a position stand up against the right to freely exercise one’s religion, and of the right of individuals and groups to speak freely, if the government could financially crush a congregation that dared to express views beyond what the government decides are proper for a church?
Of course, for most of our nation’s history, such restrictions were not in place. It was only in the 1950s, when Lyndon Johnson got the speech of all 501 (c) (3) organizations restricted in an effort to silence a political opponent, that such a restriction was inadvertently applied to churches. And while certain organizations hostile to religious expression claim that such limits serve to “protect” churches and worshippers from unscrupulous politicians who hijack churches for their own political purposes by maintaining some sort of religious purity. Setting aside the fact that it is not the place of government to decide whether or not the message of a religious organization is “pure”, it may be that there are valid reasons for a congregation, or a pastor, to engage in explicitly religious speech (even speech for or against a candidate for office) as a part of the duty to guide the flock.
Now such a notion may be shocking to some, but it should not be. After all, there are certainly those who seek public office who are evil, and of whom it is perfectly reasonable for a clergyperson to say – even from the pulpit – that it would be immoral to cast a vote in their favor. Consider, for example, the race for governor run some years ago by KKK leader David Duke. I would argue that no Christian with a well-formed conscience could have legitimately cast a vote for that vile individual, and the overwhelming majority of Christians would certainly agree. Unfortunately, under the tax laws that existed then and continue to exist today, a pastor who dared to speak such words from the pulpit, or a congregation that decided to use its marquee board to communicate such a message (or send a letter to congregants expressing that view) would lose the congregation its tax exemption. The result, of course, is the suppression of the Gospel message of love of neighbor – and far from protecting religious institutions and worshippers, the prohibition has harmed them by stopping the expression of a message that religious leaders view as a proper one for them to communicate with their congregants. Indeed, I recall one classmate with whom I was in the seminary at the time sharing with some of us a letter sent by his bishop to the parishes of the diocese, reminding the pastors and parish councils of the legal prohibition against such pastorally appropriate actions. Other than the arch-racist seeking the highest office in the state, who was “protected” by that government interference with the message of the church?
Situations like that one are why I support the Alliance Defense Fund’s Pulpit Initiative, in which a group of pastors are challenging the federal government’s restrictions in an act of civil disobedience. The goal is to get this ban on speech by pastors and religious organizations overturned on the constitutional grounds that it is inconsistent with the First Amendment. Barring that, it is hopes that the challenge will lead to the reconsideration of this ill-advised restriction on the ability of houses of worship and their religious leaders to fully and freely apply the truths of their religion to the real world and so instruct their followers about the real world application of those teachings. Does this mean that I want to see our nation’s houses of worship devote a significant portion of their ministry to political activity? Hardly – and I doubt that many would take such stances on a regular basis. That said, I would prefer risking that outcome to preserving the status quo under which government agents serve as the religious speech purity police.
Several weeks ago, the State Board of Education adopted a draft proposal of Social Studies standards for the state of Texas. When the final standards are adopted, they will be the basis for teaching in Social Studies classes statewide here in Texas, as well as the textbooks adopted here (and, indirectly, nationwide due to the size of the Texas book market). I refrained from commenting on the standards at the time because I wanted to read them before expressing an opinion – after all, I teach my students to use primary sources, so I chose to wait until this primary source (rather than newspaper articles and blogs) became available for my consideration.
The revised standards have been posted (scroll down to the bottom of the page to find them), and a public comment period of 30 days has opened for the public to submit comments and suggested changes to the standards adopted. I urge everyone (especially Texans and even more especially Social Studies teachers – most especially Texas Social Studies teachers) to examine the draft document and submit well-reasoned responses and proposed changes to the SBOE during this time. If you have a special interest or expertise related to these standards, please mention it prominently at the beginning of your comments – I’m told the responses of Texas Social Studies teachers will be given particular consideration, but Social Studies teachers from other states and the parents of Texas public school students are also likely to get serious consideration. Make sure that the comments are relevant, professional, and submitted in a timely fashion. So if you have concerns and suggestions, act NOW to make them known.
Also, the final public hearing on the Social Studies TEKS will be on May 19, a final committee vote will be held on May 20, and the final vote of the full SBOE is scheduled for May 21.
I’m going to start my examination of the proposed new TEKS for grades 8-12 in the next day or so, and will post my comments on them before sending them off to the SBOE. I encourage other bloggers with an interest in this matter to do likewise.
Uhhh…
Let’s forget those hearings on the health care charges by large companies.
After all, they weren’t the political statement we thought they were. They were legally required.
Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has cancelled a hearing intended to grill CEOs who took a charge against profits because of the health care reform bill.The cancellation came after they realized what everyone already knew - that the companies were required to do what they did because of accounting rules. Waxman and others had reacted with outrage and accused the companies of doing it - in essence, to make health care reform look bad.
* * * The Democratic memo cancelling the hearing notes, "These one-time charges were required by applicable accounting rules. Under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles as determined by the FASB, companies are required to take a noncash charge against current earnings to recognize a tax liability for the estimated future tax effects of a new law."
It goes on to read, “This noncash charge must reflect the entire present value of the loss of future tax deductions on the subsidy, and it must be taken in the period in which the law is enacted. Moreover, if the level of the impact is deemed "material" under SEC regulations, the company must file the report promptly following the triggering event, in this case the enactment of the law."
I wonder – when will Waxman’s follies be the subject of late-night comedy mocking his stupidity? Or is that reserved only for attractive female conservative politicians who dare to go against the liberal grain?
Now I’ve made it clear that I have little patience for the arguments of the birther crowd, and that I fully believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States and is a US citizen. At the same time, I’ve been critical of Obama for his failure to settle the matter definitively by requesting the release of the original “vault copy” of his birth certificate that was created at the time of his birth in Hawaii in 1961.
I wonder if this could force the issue in a way that no other method of approaching it could.
U.S. military officials tell NBC News that the U.S. Army will court martial a lieutenant colonel who refuses to deploy to Afghanistan because he considers orders from President Obama to be "illegal."Army doctor Lt. Col. Terry Lakin believes Obama does not meet the constitutional requirements to be president and commander-in-chief, because he believes (incorrectly) that Obama wasn't born in the United States.
Lakin refused this week to report to Fort Campbell, KY for deployment to Afghanistan, but instead showed up at the Pentagon, where he was confronted by his brigade Commander Col. Gordon Roberts, a Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient.
Lakin was informed by Roberts that he would face court martial, and his Pentagon building pass and government laptop computer were seized.
Of course, I consider Lakin and his ilk to be a bit loony. Still, he will now have the right to offer a robust defense against the charges – including the right to subpoena evidence. Might that evidence include the “vault copy” of the birth certificate? I certainly hope so.
And if and when it is produced, I fully expect it to show Obama to be a natural born US citizen, fully eligible to be President of the United States. But I do wonder what embarrassing information it will disclose about his parents, if any – because that is the only reason I can see for not having produced it earlier to make the entire controversy die.
Probably not. After all, the district was solidly Democratic, the national parties stayed out of the contest, and there was a serious fundraising disparity.
This is a very Democratic district which Obama and John Kerry both won with 66 percent of the vote. Wexler never won less than 66 percent. Democrat Ted Deutch won with 62 percent, a slight drop-off despite outraising Republican Ed Lynch $1.35 million to $103,000. This was never a winnable race for Republicans.
There are races in Pennsylvania and Hawaii which might be more of a precursor of what will happen this fall in the wake of ObamaCare, but this race really did not fall into that category.
UPDATE: It looks like some folks have been providing false information to the rest of us. The motive for the attack does not, on the surface, appear political.
Oh, yeah – the motive was left-wing outrage. After all, Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend had the audacity to wear Sarah Palin pins in public.
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s chief campaign fundraiser is recovering from injuries she suffered in a French Quarter altercation Friday night, the governor’s office confirmed Monday.Allee Bautsch suffered a broken leg and her boyfriend suffered a concussion and a fractured nose and jaw in the incident, according to the governor’s press secretary Kyle Plotkin.
The incident, which involved a group of people, happened after a Louisiana Republican Party fundraising event at Brennan’s Restaurant.
Jindal’s office has coyly refrained from blaming protesters outside the event for the vicious assault on the couple for expressing their political views, but evidence is already surfacing that it was, at least according to some sources.
Two people at the Brennan’s event have now confirmed that the protest had largely broken up by the time it ended, but we also understand from someone who visited Allee Bautsch in the hospital Saturday morning that she and Brown were followed and attacked expressly because they had Palin pins on (she heard one of the attackers say “Let’s get them, they have Palin pins on” – so the attack WAS politically motivated as its victims understood it. It was not a mugging, it was not an argument gone wrong and it was not a bar fight.
Michelle Malkin does question this report, however.
Given that there have been a number of assaults on conservatives by deranged liberals over the last year because of their political speech, this strikes me as quite possible. After all there was the attack on Kenneth Gladney, the biting of a tea party participant’s finger by a liberal counter-protester, the egging of Tea Party participants by Harry Reid’s SEIU thugs a couple of weekends ago, and now this. Why would this cowardly attack be any different?
And there is another question as well – why did New Orleans media not report this story for THREE DAYS? Why wasn’t an attack upon a senior staffer for the governor’s campaign, an attack with probable political motive, reported sooner? Why hasn’t the story gone national? Is this the same sort of coverage we could expect if the victim was the chief fundraiser for a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and the apparent attackers were affiliated with the Tea Party movement?
No, I don’t qualify as rich, but my chronically ill wife and I will again be paying taxes under the legislation created by the Democrats and signed into law by Obama.
Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes — in 2019 alone — due to healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's official scorekeeper. The new law raises $15.2 billion over 10 years by limiting the medical expense deduction, a provision widely used by taxpayers who either have a serious illness or are older.Taxpayers can currently deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Starting in 2013, most taxpayers will only be able to deduct expenses greater than 10 percent of AGI. Older taxpayers are hit by this threshold increase in 2017.
Once the law is fully implemented in 2019, the JCT estimates the deduction limitation will affect 14.8 million taxpayers — 14.7 million of them will earn less than $200,000 a year. These taxpayers are single and joint filers, as well as heads of households.
"Loss of this deduction will mean higher taxes for 14.7 million individuals and families making under $200,000 a year in 2019," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told The Hill. "The new subsidy for health insurance would not be available to offset this tax increase for most of these households."
Good grief – we blow past that 7.5% mark every year just by purchasing my wife’s medication. That does not include doctors, medical equipment (we’re looking to replace her wheelchair in the next few months), dental care or other medical expenses. Nor does that include MY medical expenses – my diabetes medication and supplies are not nearly such a burden financially, but do add up when included with visits to the doctors, lab work, or other medical care. Medical expenses of 10% are a minimum each year – and 15% is not unheard of in years when there is a hospitalization or surgery. Given some things that I expect to see come our way between now and the end of 2010, I would not be surprised to see the figure for the year reach 20%, or even a bit higher. And when one considers that we are already going to get hit with higher taxes because of limits on our medical flexible savings account, I count two increases in my taxes under the legislation – and depending on whether or not I am deemed to have a “Cadillac plan” (what a joke!), I could get a third one despite making significantly less than $200K a year. And that doesn’t include the higher insurance rates and higher medical costs that every analyst has already said are inevitable for most Americans under ObamaCare.
Aint’t it great to know how wonderful ObamaCare will be for those of us in the working middle class? Less health care, more taxes. Oh happy day!
Not content with prayers for the death of the governor, the New Jersey Education Association has also opposed sacrifices on the part of teachers to help balance the budgets of their respective school districts. So New Jersey’s governor and his surrogates now have made two very important points, one of which I agree with whole-heartedly and one of which I am a bit less sanguine about.
"I just don’t see how citizens should want to support a budget where their teachers have not wanted to be part of the shared sacrifice," said Christie, whose proposed $820 million cut in school aid has districts planning layoffs and program cuts.Local school budgets are up for a vote a week from Tuesday. Of the state’s almost 600 districts, 141 have implemented a wage freeze or pay cut of some sort — but only 20 of those involve teachers, according to the governor’s office.
If spending is being cut or frozen in the districts, I fail to see how teacher salaries cannot be a part of that. After all, those salaries are often the biggest line-item in a district’s budget, or close to it. And if the non-teaching employees of the district – the secretaries, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers who make significantly less than teachers – are seeing their pay frozen or cut, then it strikes me as only proper that the teachers bite the bullet as well. And I say that as a teacher.
But the second point is one that I’m more ambiguous about, for a couple of reasons – the call for the firing of those responsible for the “death prayer” directed against Chris Christie by officials of one union local.
The Republican governor accepted her apology for the memo sent by union officials in Bergen County last week, Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said. But Keshishian would not agree to force out Joe Coppola, president of the Bergen County Education Association who signed the memo, which effectively ended the meeting, Drewniak said."What would happen to a student in any of these schools ... if they had sent out an e-mail like that? In all likelihood, that student would be suspended, maybe expelled, subject to court action," Drewniak said. "If the NJEA can’t as an organization accept that this was egregious conduct and take disciplinary action, I don’t know how we could move forward without that happening."
Now I agree with Christie that Joe Coppola – at a minimum – should be fired for that memo. Indeed, I question whether NJEA head Barbara Keshishian is fit to remain in a position of leadership in the organization given her weak response to the controversy. Indeed, the only thing that I find objectionable is that the justification for the getting rid of Coppola is what would happen to a student who wrote such a thing about a teacher. Such a punishment for a kid would be an overreaction – but Coppola is not a kid, and he ought to be held to a higher standard of conduct than any student is, not the lower one imposed by the NJEA.
I first saw this little bit of science news yesterday in the NY Times.
Left to nature, the element temporarily called “ununseptium” for its place on the periodic table of the elements — Latin, roughly, for “117-ness” — would never have materialized. But then along came a team of scientists working at the Dubna cyclotron, north of Moscow. According to a paper recently accepted for publication by the journal Physical Review Letters, they have been able to create six atoms of ununseptium by colliding isotopes of calcium (20 on the periodic table) and berkelium (97), which exists only in minute quantities. Add the protons, which is what gives elements their atomic number, and you get 117, never mind how hard it is to do the addition in real life.
Of course, they also need to come up with a permanent name for the new element – something that can take a while, based upon past experience.
But why need it take so long? There is an obvious solution.
Hey, he got a Nobel Peace Prize without any contribution to the furthering of world peace – why not his own personal element with no actual contribution to science?
Apparently, supporters could not get the necessary signatures to qualify the proposal to repeal the state’s constitutionalized ban on same sex marriage.
A measure to repeal Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, has failed to qualify for the November ballot.John Henning, who heads a group that sponsored the repeal effort, declined to say how many signatures had been gathered since the all-volunteer campaign got underway in late November. He said 694,000 valid signatures were required by Monday.
"There comes a point where the intake of signatures isn't rapid enough to make up your deficit," Henning said. "We started to realize last week that we weren't going to make it."
Given the extensive efforts of same sex marriage proponents to overturn the ban, including legal action and harassment of those who supported Prop 8, one would have thought that they could easily find enough folks to sign the petition. That they could not do so may tell you a great deal more about the state of public opinion in California than all the words that have come from the mouths and pens of people on either side of the issue.
I’ve made it clear that I despise the Phelps Phamily Phreaks of Westboro Baptist “Church”. I think their message is one to be despised. That said, I still support and respect their rights under the First Amendment, something that has put me at odds with a number of my fellow conservatives (and even some liberals) when it comes to the actions of the appeals court in the Snyder case.
I came across an article today that I think makes the point all the more clear about how, from a legal and constitutional standpoint, Fred Phelps and his morally retarded family cult are legally and constitutionally in the right in this case.
Westboro contacted police before its protest, which was conducted in a designated area on public land — 1,000 feet from the church where the Mass was held in Westminster, Md. The protesters — Phelps and six family members — broke no laws. Snyder knew they were present, but he did not see their signs or hear their statements until he turned on the news at his son's wake.
This protest didn’t happen outside the church door or at the graveside. It did not involve trespassing. Moreover, it happened at t time and place designated by the authorities for the group to assemble and protest a couple of blocks away from the funeral. What’s more, the Snyder family was only exposed to the group’s message when they made the choice to watch the news, rather than being confronted by angry protesters blocking their path too and from the church. So while we may despise the Phucking Phelps Phreaks, it is impossible to conclude anything other than that they complied with every expectation that a free society could legitimately demand of them, no matter how despicable their message.
Now interestingly enough, the one place where Snyder might be able to succeed is in a suit for libel and slander against the group for statements made directly about him and his wife – though even that is questionable, given the religious nature of the assertion that they had taught their son to “defy their creator”.
UPDATE: A different take from a blogger I respect.
I'm a teacher.
I'm also political (in case you hadn't noticed before now).
But I know that there is a line that you don't cross when it comes to your job and your politics.
This Minnesota teacher blew through all of them.
An e-mail sent out by a Rochester public school teacher calling on others to protest the Rochester Tea Party Patriots' rally on Thursday is drawing sharp criticism from Tea Party members.The e-mail was sent out to all teachers in the school district and states that "if you are interested in combating the lies and ignorance of the Tea Party movement" to meet for a counter-rally at 5:30 p.m. at Soldiers Field. The teacher who sent out the e-mail says he will have an air horn and some signs. Rochester Tea Party Patriot Chairwoman Cindy Maves contacted School Board Chairman Jim Pittenger to protest the teacher's use of district e-mail for the political message.
"I am not surprised that there would be a counter-protest. I am just surprised they used the district e-mail," Maves said.
In an e-mail sent to Maves, Pittenger said that the e-mail might be a violation of district policy, and Superintendent Romain Dallemand plans to investigate the matter. Rochester Public Schools' spokeswoman Rachel Hicks could not be reached this morning for comment on the matter.
Whoa! Let's overlook the arrogance of assuming that everybody in the district agrees with your politics and wants to participate in your interference with the free speech rights of your fellow Americans.
I see a couple of other big no-nos here.
Frankly, I don't know what this teacher was thinking. Down here in Texas it might actually result in criminal charges, but even if Minnesota doesn't have such strict laws, it would certainly get you in deep crap with the district. And abusing the email to spam the entire district will ALWAYS get you in serious trouble, especially if it is not about district business.
My big disappointment here? No mention of the teacher's name. It should have been disclosed in the article.
That idea is percolating in a lot of places, and it is not a particularly bad one.
Sen. Orrin Hatch says he's heard Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's name mentioned in connection with the Supreme Court vacancy brought about by the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens. Hatch didn't elaborate in an interview Monday. Appearing with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy on NBC's "Today" show, the Utah Republican said only, "I heard Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's name today and that would be an interesting person in the mix."
What would the benefits be?
Of course, there are a few obstacles to confirmation.
Do I think that Hillary will be the nominee? I don’t know – it depends upon the political calculus of Barack Obama and the Democrats. Still, there have been worse nominations in US history – and love her or hate her, there is no denying that Hillary Clinton is a woman of incredible talent and ambition. Why not score a trifecta by becoming the first First Lady to serve at the highest level of all three branches of government?
UPDATE: Apparently not.
Here’s ANOTHER ONE that the NYT reporters and editors have let slip by as an isolated local case, while going hard after the Catholic Church over decades old abuse cases and their handling.
Former middle school teacher Stephanie Ragusa was teary-eyed Monday as she pleaded guilty to having sex with two underage students.Ragusa, 31, faces up to 10 years in prison when she is sentenced June 15.
The former middle school teacher pleaded guilty to three counts of lewd and lascivious battery in a March 2008 case involving a 14-year-old boy.
She also pleaded guilty to two counts of having unlawful sex with a minor in an April 2008 case involving a 16-year-old student.
What is it with the epidemic of abuse of kids by educators? And why won’t the media treat these stories with the seriousness they deserve. After all, speaking as a teacher, I know that teachers have infinitely more access to kids in terms of time and opportunity than virtually any priest does (I know – I’m a former Catholic seminarian who completed parish internships during my training).
When will there be appropriate coverage of the epidemic of school-based abuse of our nation’s students?
When will we the media press the heads of major school systems about how such abuse can occur on their watch?
And when will the celebtards who attack the Catholic as not being a safe place for children go on television and suggest that only unfit parents allow their kids to go to school?
If, of course, those who express such concern regarding the Catholic Church are really concerned about kids at all.
You've got to love this song and this video from Danny Gokey, whose personal story is one that could lead to a significantly less optimistic outlook on life than is found in the song.
The New York Times has yet another "gotcha" story about how particular cases regarding child abusing priests were handled in decades past. Unfortunately, they fail to consider three points.
1) At the time in question, then-Cardinal Ratzinger was not yet pope, and was merely implementing the policies of the current pontiff regarding the speed with which priestly vows were dispensed.
2) The Catholic Church has a centuries-old ecclesiastical legal system which grants rights and due process, just like the United States does. Not only must the forms be respected in such cases, but also the substance. Having taken a couple of courses in canon law, I'm aware of that -- and was even a part of one long discussion with my canon law prof on just that point when I suggested that bishops ought to simply be allowed to summarily dismiss men from the priesthood in abuse cases. Just as such individuals may avail themselves to every right under civil and criminal law, depriving them of their canonical rights would be equally unjust.
3) There is a legitimate argument for REFUSING to defrock abusers and dispense them from their vows. After all, a bishop has a certain measure of control over his priests, who are under obedience to him. Yes, it is an outrage that the faithful might find themselves paying to support an ordained abuser who has been placed in a monastery, retreat house, or treatment center and placed under restriction as to leaving that residence -- but a part of me finds that infinitely preferable to a defrocked abuser being set at liberty, especially if he is not a convicted sex offender who is subject to the limits placed upon such folks under the law.
It's really simple, you see, for someone to opine on decisions made years ago -- especially if they don't look at the intricacies of the case and possible reasons for making decisions that, at first glance, seem outrageous.
UPDATE: At least the NYT is willing to look at the other side of the argument. It fits well with my post above.
William A. Jacobson has this one pegged -- "Tragedy upon Tragedy".
This is an event of nearly incomprehensible horror for anyone who loves the people of Poland -- and who values good relations between the US and that vibrant nation of freedom-loving people.
Poland's president, his wife and some of the country's most prominent military and civilian leaders died this morning when their plane crashed while coming in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia.Russian and Polish officials gave differing death tolls but agreed there were no survivors.
President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria were heading to Russia's Smolensk region to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, where Soviet secret police killed thousands of Polish officers during World War II.
There were apparently multiple landing attempts made before the crash. And so that God-accursed corner of Russia again claims so many of the best that Poland saw rise to leadership out of a sense of love for their country.
The crash came as a stunning blow to Poland, killing many of the country’s top leaders and reviving, for some, the horror of the Katyn massacre.“It is a damned place,” former president Aleksander Kwas’niewski told TVN24. “It sends shivers down my spine. First the flower of the Second Polish Republic is murdered in the forests around Smolensk, now the intellectual elite of the Third Polish Republic die in this tragic plane crash when approaching Smolensk airport.”
Somehow, the words of Barack Obama ring quite hollow right now.
Today’s loss is devastating to Poland, to the United States, and to the world. President Kaczynski was a distinguished statesman who played a key role in the Solidarity movement, and he was widely admired in the United States as a leader dedicated to advancing freedom and human dignity. With him were many of Poland’s most distinguished civilian and military leaders who have helped to shape Poland’s inspiring democratic transformation. We join all the people of Poland in mourning their passing.
I'm with Bruce Kessler on this one -- given his deeds undercutting the defense of Poland, I think that any reasonable person can agree that he really doesn't give a damn about Poland and its people at all.
Kaczynski was strongly anti-Communist and had a view of history that led him to a healthy distrust of Russia and its intentions towards the free peoples of Eastern Europe -- things that the American president has no comprehension of, given his policies of appeasing America's enemies and turning his back on America's friends. May the Polish people choose wisely as they select a new leader, and pick one whose wisdom and love of freedom are the equal of Lech Kaczynski.
As usual, some pretty great bits of thought and analysis ended up in this week's contest -- and one of the most superb responses to liberal libels of conservative opponents of the Obamunist agenda was the overwhelming choice of my fellow Council members and I in the Council Submissions category -- it is a must-read for everyone. Some interesting pieces received votes in the Non-Council category as well.
Do you remember last fall, when the Left in this country got all in an uproar over the decision of some Christians to make use of a single verse of Scripture to pray that Obama would be a one-term president? You know, back when the Left declared Christians who would make such use of a biblical text were guilty of treason, and that we were inciting the assassination of the unicorn-riding demigod in the White House?
Apparently, the latest thing in "Debasing The Institutions You Pretend To Hold Dear In Order To Suggest That President Barack Obama Should Be Murdered Without Actually Coming Right Out And Saying So" goes by a shorter name: Psalm 109:8.And Psalm 109:8 is just straight up memetastic, appearing on bumper stickers and T-shirts, all of which carry the benign sounding message, "Pray For Obama." But, as Gawker's John Cook points out, this is just one more in a "long line of cheekily coded Obama death threats." The verse in question reads: "May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership." That leads fairly naturally into the Psalm 109:9, "May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow." You know, in case you miss the point.
Of course, nothing in these words -- carefully removed from a context in which they might reasonably be seen as a prayer for Obama's death -- actually constituted a call for Comandante Zero's murder. But that didn't matter to the unhinged Left, which ultimately was able to coerce CafePress and other online merchandising companies to remove merchandise with the verse from their sites and ban any future use of the verse.
Well, apparently prayers for the death of elected officials don't bother such folks nearly so much (read that "at all") when issued by a public employee union against a conservative Republican governor.
Bergen County representatives of the state teachers union have ratcheted up the campaign against Governor Christie's agenda in a fiery memo that encourages members to "get some dirt" and "go public," and adds the education commissioner to the "attack list."But it's the memo's closing "prayer" that is sure to ignite controversy:
"Dear Lord … this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. … I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor."
Now let's look at this. Where the single verse, Psalm 109:8, was excised from its original context to strip it of any hint of a desire that Barack Obama come to any harm, this "prayer" makes it very clear what is desired -- the death of Gov. Christie. And yet the union and its apologists are trying to pass this one off as a joke, avoiding the sort of outrage expressed when Christians dared to make use of the Bible to find words to pray in opposition to a man they find to be unfit for the office to which he has been elected.
Of course, we know how violent those Bible-toting church folks are -- and it isn't like there would ever be violence connected to an unhappy labor union -- and certainly not in New Jersey!
The response of the left-wing bloggers who only a few months ago roundly condemned the "eliminationist" prayers against Obama? Here are the comments of those I could reach about this current situation.
So, in light of the level of outrage shown in the Left-o-sphere, I post this graphic in their honor.
Maybe I'll reconsider when the folks who were so outraged by the prayers of Christians show the same sort of outrage over the prayers of union thugs.
The single most important news story of the day is contained in the following letter.
My dear Mr. President:Having concluded that it would be in the best interests of the Court to have my successor appointed and confirmed well in advance of the commencement of the Court's next term, I shall retire from regular active service as an Associate Justice, under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. 371 (b), effective the next day after the Court rises for the summer recess this year.
Most respectfully yours,
John Paul Stevens
My take on the this?
Speaking from a personal point of view, I will be sorry to see John Paul Stevens ride off into the sunset. He was and is a man of principle, integrity, and intellect. One does not have to agree with him to make that assessment. He has become an anchor on a court that has faced serious ideological divisions over the years, and that role – if it is to be filled at all – now falls to Justice Kennedy, if he has the temperament to take it.
We’ll look at possible candidates for the Supreme Court in a future post.
That would exclude the New York Times, most of the rest of the MSM, and your average celebtard pretending to be an erudite commentator on matters of public importance.
The Catholic sex-abuse stories emerging every day suggest that Catholics have a much bigger problem with child molestation than other denominations and the general population. Many point to peculiarities of the Catholic Church (its celibacy rules for priests, its insular hierarchy, its exclusion of women) to infer that there’s something particularly pernicious about Catholic clerics that predisposes them to these horrific acts. It’s no wonder that, back in 2002—when the last Catholic sex-abuse scandal was making headlines—a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests “frequently” abused children.Yet experts say there’s simply no data to support the claim at all. No formal comparative study has ever broken down child sexual abuse by denomination, and only the Catholic Church has released detailed data about its own. But based on the surveys and studies conducted by different denominations over the past 30 years, experts who study child abuse say they see little reason to conclude that sexual abuse is mostly a Catholic issue. “We don’t see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else,” said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “I can tell you without hesitation that we have seen cases in many religious settings, from traveling evangelists to mainstream ministers to rabbis and others.”
Since the mid-1980s, insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance, and their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not higher risk than other congregations. Insurance companies that cover all denominations, such as Guide One Center for Risk Management, which has more than 40,000 church clients, does not charge Catholic churches higher premiums. “We don’t see vast difference in the incidence rate between one denomination and another,” says Sarah Buckley, assistant vice president of corporate communications. “It’s pretty even across the denominations.” It’s been that way for decades.
Got that, people? NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE! So why stay focused on the Catholic Church and what happened at the past? Why present every priest as a potential molester when there are, proportionally, just as many ministers, rabbis, and other religious leaders doing the same thing? For that reason, why not focus on the failings of our schools in this regards – after all, most of the reported instances of clerical abuse happened long ago, while the abuse cases by teachers tend to be current incidents.
Lamentably, the voters of this nation made Barack Obama President of the United States. As such, he has certain constitutionally defined functions and powers. But the last time I checked, these do not include deciding what is and is not acceptable in public proclamations issued by state governments.
President Barack Obama says Virginia's governor made "an unacceptable omission" when he proclaimed it Confederate History Month without mentioning slavery.
Given Obama’s dropping approval ratings, I think I can fairly say that I speak for a majority of Americans when I say the following – “We don’t care what you think, Barry! Confine yourself to your proper – and limited – role under the US Constitution.”
And by the way – we don’t want to see your ugly mug or hear your annoying voice during sporting or entertainment events, either.
My esteemed fellow Watcher's Council member at Wolf Howling makes an interesting observation.
Just How Bad Do You Have To Be For The KKK to repudiate you?
This from the Ku Klux Klan, LLC website:News Release. . . . you really have to be off the chart nuts for the KKK to issue a press release disclaiming any relation . . . and, I might add, Westboro Baptist Church is led by Fred Phelps, a lifelong Democrat. Funny that they don't disclaim him.
NOTE: The Ku Klux Klan, LLC. has not or EVER will have ANY connection with The "Westboro Baptist Church". We absolutely repudiate their activities.
The Ku Klux Klan, LLC.
www.kukluxklan.bz
870-427-2819
(H/T Rocket Surgery)
You know, for all that the Kluxers are a bunch of disgusting racist creeps whose philosophical underpinnings and hate-mongering rhetoric is out of step with both the proper understanding of American values and fundamental moral decency, it is good to know that even there are some anti-American evils that even they are prepared to denounce as unacceptable.
Here’s a neat idea that may just catch on.
At the bottom of a luxury condominium high-rise, across from the Just a Dollar Budget Food Store, a few steps off the rail line, there is a sign hanging from a new downtown restaurant on Main near Walker that sums up the kind of city Houston has become.“Bombay Pizza Co.,” it says, announcing the name of owner Viral Patel's strange, brave fusion concept that's right at home in our megalopolis melting pot.
(Yes, he's putting cumin and coriander in the marinara, and cilantro and tandoori chicken on the pie. And it's delicious.)
Just below the name, it reads: “The Original.”
Right now, it's the only. But Patel, like thousands of other moms and pops across this entrepreneurial haven, has big dreams: “This is the first of 3,000 to come,” he likes to say. Judging by the rave reviews and returning customers, Patel just might be right.
“The minute we walked in here, I thought, ‘This is what you'd expect in New York City,' ” said Suman Annambhotla, a 31-year-old medical resident who was waiting on a takeout order over lunch.
He and his wife, Pallavi, 30, both Indian-Americans, said they appreciate the fresh take on the cuisine, and the fact that they don't have to drive to Hillcroft or the suburbs to get it. But it represents more than a good place to eat: “It opens the doors now, lets people see Indian food and culture in a different way,” Pallavi says.
Pizzas, just one option on the extensive menu, range from “The Slumbog,” a rowdy mix of meats, onions and jalapeños, and the all-vegetarian saag paneer with greens and goat cheese. Patel has named dishes for family and friends, including one who bought him the business plan software in 2004 that got him thinking about starting his own business.
An Indian/Italian fusion restaurant? Only in America, my friends!
I think I may have to make my way to 914 Main Street in Houston some afternoon and give it a try.
I have, time and again, been confronted with precisely that question in recent days. Looking back at the events of the past, there are those who wish to judge individuals and their actions based upon the morality of 2010, as if those standards are universal and eternal. Little consideration is given to the fact that moral standards have changed – that which was deemed morally licit or legally just might not be viewed as such today.
Consider the recent dust-up over the Virginia declaration of Confederate History Month. Now I have no problem commemoration of the Civil War – indeed, as a social studies teacher I would like to see a greater focus on historical study and commemoration of historical events because of the historical illiteracy that afflicts our society. Personally, I’d prefer that April be declared Civil War History Month rather than Confederate History month, to honor and commemorate those on both sides who fought (and often died) in defense of their principles and their conception of our nation’s founding principles as contained in the Declaration of Independence. But for Virginia – home of the Confederate capital and site of most of the major battles of the conflict – to focus on the Confederate side does not offend me. But some have taken grave offense at the commemoration, based both upon the defense of slavery that was a part of the Confederate cause and the assertion that the Confederate cause was one of “sedition and treason”. And yet most Americans in the immediate aftermath of the war recognized that those who fought for the Confederacy did so for reasons that transcended slavery and that both the Union and the Confederacy were espousing legitimate views on the nature of the American experiment. After all, the Declaration of Independence itself is premised on the right of “one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.” Yet to the modern sensibilities of a certain segment of the American populace, one which usually argues against an ethnocentric imposition of contemporary American values on other cultures, there is a peculiar desire to re-judge that earlier era by today’s standards and declare any different interpretation to be evil rather than simply incorrect. After all, those who fought on the Confederate side were, by the lights of the time in which they lived, patriots.
A similar revision takes place today regarding sexual abuse that took place within the Catholic Church in decades past. Such abuse was often not reported to authorities for a variety of reasons. Indeed, many families were reluctant to call the police in such instances because of the stigma that attached to the victims of sex crimes in that earlier age – especially teenage boys who had been sexually involved with adult men. In addition, the consensus position of the psychological professions was that those who had committed such deeds could be successfully treated with therapeutic counseling. Bishops, acting on the best advice available to them at the time, removed perpetrators from the scene of the crime, put them through counseling, and then placed them again in ministerial settings where boundaries were violated and more children were victimized. It is easy to say today that the decisions were objectively wrong – but were the motives venal or good? But to ask that question makes one an apologist for child abuse in the eyes of some, living as we do in a society where zero tolerance for child sexual abuse has become the norm. Today’s standard is the only one that can be used, even if it was not so in an earlier age.
All this puts me in mind of a controversy in the closing days of the 2000 election. On an evening shortly before the election, a document drop by the Democrats disclosed that George W. Bush had been cited for a DUI a quarter century before, had entered a guilty plea and paid a small fine. Serious judgments were made by some, ignoring that the event happened at a time when the prodigious consumption of alcohol was more accepted and a DUI was seen as a lesser offense than it had become in the intervening years. Lost in the hail of words and judgments was the reality that a great societal shift had taken place, and the need to contextualize the incident in terms of when it happened.
All of which leads me to a conclusion that I, in my Social Studies teacher hat, often find myself repeating again and again to students in my classrooms. It is a good thing to have standards and values, and one should not lightly abandon them. But one must recognize that those values, even those which we might hold to be universal in application, are not universally held. It is therefore important to make judgments of people and events not merely based upon our own standards and values, but to also judge them by the standards and values in that held in their proper time and space. To do otherwise is to a grave injustice to the people and things we judge outside of their proper context.
I know that is my thought as I prepare my tax return and read articles like this.
Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.
Not only that, but some folks actually make a profit on their tax returns, getting refunds for tax credits! I wonder – how many of these people who are paying no taxes (or less than that!) would be so hot for ObamaCare and other federal giveaway programs if it meant that they had to start contributing to cover the cost of those programs?
This from today’s Houston Chronicle.
Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz will be a consultant on a third effort to get incarcerated businessman R. Allen Stanford freed before his January 2010 trial.
This would appear to be an effort doomed to failure, given that it is currently April of 2010. So either the defense team is utterly incompetent, or they need to do more careful editing at the Houston Chronicle.
How can we figure out which it is?
Perhaps by doing a little checking and discovering that the trial is scheduled to begin in January 2011.
It isn’t the Tea Party folks who attack black liberals – it is the liberals who attack African-Americans for supporting the Tea Party.
"I've been told I hate myself. I've been called an Uncle Tom. I've been told I'm a spook at the door," said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government."Black Republicans find themselves always having to prove who they are. Because the assumption is the Republican Party is for whites and the Democratic Party is for blacks," he said.
“Uncle Tom”? “Spook at the door”? Could you imagine if a conservative used those terms for a black liberal? Therre would be hell to pay.
But hey, liberals get a pass on their racism because, after all, they’re good people with good ideas and so they know who has evil lurking in their hearts. At least that is what the liberals tell us.
Here's a bit more proof for you -- straight from a black conservative.
With Barack Obama having run up more debt than any president in US history in significantly less time than any president, it is no surprise that one of Obama’s advisers is publicly calling for the abandonment of the “no tax increase for anyone making less than $250,000” pledge made by candidate Obama in 2008.
The United States should consider raising taxes to help bring deficits under control and may need to consider a European-style value-added tax, White House adviser Paul Volcker said on Tuesday.Volcker, answering a question from the audience at a New York Historical Society event, said the value-added tax "was not as toxic an idea" as it has been in the past and also said a carbon or other energy-related tax may become necessary.
Though he acknowledged that both were still unpopular ideas, he said getting entitlement costs and the U.S. budget deficit under control may require such moves. "If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes," he said.
Got that – because cutting spending just isn’t an option for doctrinaire liberals who believe the government should control every aspect of your life.
In light of the order to kill al-Qaeda terrorist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in America and is therefore presumably an American citizen, we currently have a truly odd policy towards the jihadi Muslims who are waging war against us in the name of Islamic extremism (oops – Obama says I can’t describe our nations enemies with those terms, even though they are all accurate, for fear of offending them). Consider this strange new reality.
So here is the Obama Left's position. If an alien enemy combatant, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mass-murders 3000 Americans and is then captured outside the U.S. in wartime, we need to bring him to the United States and give him a civilian trial with all attendant due process rights. If an alien enemy combatant is sending emails from outside the U.S. to an al Qaeda cell inside the U.S., the commander-in-chief needs a judge's permission (on a showing of probable cause) to intercept those communications. If an American citizen terrorist outside the United States — say, Awlaki in Yemen — is calling or emailing the United States (or anyplace else), the commander-in-chief needs a judge's permission to intercept those communications. If we capture an alien enemy combatant conducting war operations against the U.S. overseas, we should give him Miranda warnings, a judicial right to challenge his detention as a war prisoner, and (quite likely) a civilian trial. But, if the commander-in-chief decides to short-circuit the whole menu of civil rights by killing an American citizen, that's fine — no due process, no interference by a judge, no Miranda, no nothing. He is a proven threat because ... the president says so.
On the one hand, non-Americans caught abroad engaging in acts of war are subject to arrest and civilian trial, as are infiltrators caught in the planning stages of their jihad. On the other hand, Americans believed to be collaborating are subject to assassination by any means necessary, just because the president says so. Why do we treat our own citizens, even those objectively guilty of Islam-based treason, worse than identically situated foreigners? Shouldn't the goal for al-Awlaki be indictment, arrest, and trial in the US before being sent to a comfy Club Fed prison, rather than an extra-judicial execution at the order of the president, without so much as an ounce of due process for our fellow American? And if it isn't, does than not point out the hypocrisy of the Obama Regime in the issue of terrorism?
UPDATE: Doug Powers links to Glenn Greenwald's observation on the matter.
No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are necessary. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family). None of that.Instead, in Barack Obama’s America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens — and a death penalty imposed — is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone’s guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America’s newspapers — cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they’re granted — to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist.
Powers also notes that, in the Hopey-Changey world of Comandante Zero, it may be necessary to renounce one's American citizenship in order to avail oneself of the rights that the Obama Regime insists are guaranteed to terrorists under the US Constitution. And I do join with Powers in being concerned that the Obamunist horde has labeled their fellow citizens who participate in Tea Party rallies as "terrorists".
I wonder if could be that we on the right need to prepare to defend ourselves from a coming Reign of Terror at the hands of our own government for daring to exercise the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment as long as Obama and his supporters are in control. Will we Americans need to follow the example of the brave people of Kyrzygstan?
I want to read more of "How Bizarre!" »The country's chief tax collector pushed back Monday against assertions that working for the Internal Revenue Service has become more dangerous as a result of growing anti-government sentiment and the recent passage of President Obama's health care plan."No, the risk has not increased," IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said. "There has been a lot of stuff in the press about increased threats, which is actually inaccurate."
Fears that IRS employees could be targets soared after a Feb. 18 incident in which a disgruntled Texas software engineer flew a small plane into the side of an IRS facility in Austin. One longtime agency employee was killed in the attack.
Yeah, the liberals in the media and the screamers in the left-o-sphere tried to delegitimize political speech objecting to big government and high taxes as an incitement to violence. But now we find that the deeds of a lone crazy were indicative of absolutely nothing according to the head of the agency that was supposedly the focus of all that “anti-government” speech.
*Tie broken by the Watcher.
You blame it on the EQUIPMENT.
At least that is the approach taken by the Congressional Black Caucus’s official blogger in an interview with Doug Ross.
Doug Ross: There are more than a dozen videos of various portions of the walk both to and from the Capitol, and no one has been able to pinpoint any racial epithets. Even Rep. Jackson seemed to be videotaping. Do you think it’s concerning there is no evidence of the allegations in an age where virtually every second in public is taped?Lauren Victoria Burke: What I think about recording in this situation… I really don’t know if the sound any particular sound would be picked up. Remember, a lot of these are flip-phones or small digital cameras, not exactly heavy-duty professional microphones. One thing that doesn’t come across is how loud it was out there.
A unidirectional mike wouldn’t necessarily capture it. It was a wall of sound and, while some of the tapes I’ve heard are better than others, I’m not that impressed by the theory advanced by Mr. Hannity and Mr. Breitbart that it had to be recorded to have happened…
In other words, we don’t have to have proof of our charges for us to declare our political enemies guilty of offenses that no one can document – we can blame our shoddy equipment for not catching the slurs that no one except us heard hurled, and thereby convict our enemies of the offense charged despite all their evidence to the contrary.
I hereby christen Ms. Burke the Queen of Heart – after all, she seems to have adopted that storybook character’s “Off with their heads!” philosophy.
It appears they are neither, according to Gallup.
More than a quarter of Americans describe themselves as supporters of the Tea Party movement, and the demographics of this group generally mirror the demographics of the national population, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll.From March 26-28, Gallup asked 1,033 adults this question: “Do you consider yourself to be--[a supporter of the Tea Party movement, an opponent of the Tea Party movement] or neither?
Twenty-eight percent said they considered themselves to be a supporter of the Tea Party movement. A smaller percentage, 26%, said they were opponents of the Tea Party movement. Thirty-eight percent said they were neither, and 8 percent had no opinion.
“In several other respects, however--their age, educational background, employment status, and race--Tea Partiers are quite representative of the public at large,” Gallup’s Lydia Saad wrote in an analysis of the poll.
According to Gallup, 75 percent of the U.S. population is non-Hispanic White, while 11 percent are non-Hispanic black, and 15 percent belong to other races. Meanwhile, 79% of Tea Party movement supporters are non-Hispanic white, while 6 percent are non-Hispanic black, and 15 percent belong to other races.
A little more white, a little less black, but otherwise quite reflective of America at large. But this should not be surprising, given that the African-American population tends to be a bit more liberal (or at least a bit more Democrat) than the rest of the American public And that the disparity appears to be about 4.5% is not at all surprising to those who actually know about the Tea Party movement.
But what is particularly striking to me is what is found on this chart.
![k0hmaqrgweu4ndssko4ywq[1].gif](https://swap.stanford.edu/was/20160311035101im_/http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/k0hmaqrgweu4ndssko4ywq[1].gif)
Yeah, that’s right – independents are part of the Tea Party movement at about the same rate as they are found in the public as a whole. So while the movement does skew Republican (not surprising – it is a conservative movement), its membership again reflects America as a whole.
And then, of course, there are the similarities.
![uesnctifn0gwizq_z7zmzq[1].gif](https://swap.stanford.edu/was/20160311035101im_/http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/uesnctifn0gwizq_z7zmzq[1].gif)
In most regards, the Tea Party movement looks EXACTLY like America.
I’m curious, though – will the press report these statistics in a way that fairly represents this new conservative movement? Or will it continue to pretend that it is an astroturfed movement of ignorant Kluxers?
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