Politics
31 January 2010 >>
As relayed by Stephen Bainbridge: One day shortly after the Second World War ended, Winston Churchill and Labour Party Prime Minister Clement Attlee encountered one another at the urinal trough in the House of Common’s men’s washroom. Attlee arrived first. When Churchill arrived, he stood as far away from him as possible. Attlee said, “Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?” Churchill said: “That’s right. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it.”
28 January 2010 @ 12:35PM >>
The Photo of the Day, via Don Surber: 
Photo credit: Robert Philabaum
25 January 2010 @ 8:40AM >>
The New York Times is on the receiving end of a very good point: To the Editor: In “The Court’s Blow to Democracy” (editorial, Jan. 22), you strenuously disagree with the proposition that “corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights.” Every day, The New York Times Company exercises its First Amendment right to engage in political speech. Today, it expresses its desire to deny that right to most other corporations. The Constitution does not permit the government to criminalize speech based on the identity of the speaker. If any corporation has First Amendment rights, all corporations must have First Amendment rights. Adam J. Kwiatkowski
Baltimore, Jan. 22, 2010 The writer is a lawyer in private practice.
20 January 2010 @ 8:35AM >>
Two weeks ago, I wrote, “Democrats losing Ted Kennedy’s seat would be a massive political earthquake.” Well, yesterday, the once-unthinkable happened, and the deep blue state of Massachusetts elected its first Republican senator since 1972. Today, politicians and pundits on both sides of the aisle will be spinning, assigning blame, and taking credit.
Here’s my not-at-all-scientific breakdown of the factors I think went into Scott Brown’s victory over Democrat Martha Coakley:
- 30% - Opposition to high taxes and out-of-control government spending
- 25% - Backlash at the political hijinks of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s “get it done at all costs” tactics
- 20% - Rejection of ObamaCare specifically
- 15% - Martha Coakley being a bad candidate
- 5% - Scott Brown being a charismatic candidate
- 5% - Disappointment in President Obama’s first year
- 0% - Repudiation of Ted Kennedy’s legacy
By this measure, it’s hard to say that President Obama had nothing to do with the defeat, but in my view, his party shares more of the blame than he does personally.
8 January 2010 @ 9:22AM >>
CBS News reports: Less than a month after major Nidal Hasan allegedly killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, the Pentagon’s top intelligence officer sent the White House a report detailing an earlier failure to connect the dots. It reads like a dress rehearsal for the Detroit bomber case, reports CBS News chief national security correspondent David Martin. According to that still-classified report, the terrorism task force responsible for determining whether Hasan posed a threat never saw all 18 e-mails he exchanged with that radical Yemeni cleric Awlaki whose communications were being monitored under a court ordered wiretap.
Guess which radical Yemeni cleric won’t be using the same communication channels anymore? This is why we shouldn’t be trying to fight wars in a courtroom.
5 December 2009 @ 3:15PM >>
My documentary film Indoctrinate U—which analyzes the attacks on free speech and free thought on politically correct college campuses—will be shown on the Documentary Channel two more times in the coming weeks. The first airing will be Thursday, December 10th at 2:50PM (Eastern). The second showing is on Friday, December 18th at 5:00PM (Eastern). The Documentary Channel is available on satellite and many cable systems nationwide. Check your provider for channel information. If your provider doesn’t carry the Documentary Channel, several PBS stations simulcast the Documentary Channel during certain time slots, so you may want to check those listings as well.
20 November 2009 @ 9:16AM >>
Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto noticed something interesting about the priorities of the Associated Press:
An Associated Press dispatch, written by Erica Werner and Richard Alonso-Zaldivar, compares the House and Senate ObamaCare bills. We’d like to compare this dispatch to the AP’s dispatch earlier this week “fact checking” Sarah Palin’s new book. Here goes: Number of AP reporters assigned to story:
- ObamaCare bills: 2
- Palin book: 11
Number of pages in document being covered:
- ObamaCare bills: 4,064
- Palin book: 432
Number of pages per AP reporter:
- ObamaCare bill: 2,032
- Palin book: 39.3
On a per-page basis, that is, the AP devoted 52 times as much manpower to the memoir of a former Republican officeholder as to a piece of legislation that will cost trillions of dollars and an untold number of lives. That’s what they call accountability journalism.
4 November 2009 >>
Yesterday, two states held elections for governor. Last year, both states voted to elect President Obama. Now, a year after The Ascension of The One, in both states, Republican gubernatorial candidates won handily. In Virginia, Republican candidate Bob McDonnell beat Democrat Creigh Deeds by more than 17%.* This in a recently-trending-Democrat state that Obama carried by more than 6%. That’s nearly a 24% swing in one year.
And in New Jersey, a heavily Democratic state that Obama won by over 14% last year, Republican Chris Christie beat incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine by almost 5%. That’s more than an 18% swing. Even before the election, White House spinners were claiming that Democratic defeats would not reflect poorly on Obama, even though the president visited both states several times to campaign for the candidates that ended up losing.
In fact, in both states, the losing Democrats aligned themselves so closely with Obama that a quick glance at their campaign materials might lead you to think that they were running to become Obama’s vice president. So if anyone was trying to make this election about Obama, it was the Democrats who lost. But now that the results are in, expect to hear the refrain repeated: these elections had absolutely nothing to do with Barack Obama! And if recent history is any indication, you can expect Obama to start pinning the blame on George W. Bush any time now. (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty.) * All figures as of this writing and subject to change as election returns are finalized.
2 November 2009 >>
From an e-mail that’s been circulating recently, the Joke of the Day: Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama go to heaven. God addresses Gore first. “Al, what do you believe in?” Gore replies: “Well, I believe that I won that election, but that it was your will that I did not serve. And I’ve come to understand that now.” God thinks for a second and says: “Very good. Come and sit at my left.” God then addresses Clinton. “Bill, what do you believe in?” Clinton replies: “I believe in forgiveness. I’ve sinned, but I’ve never held a grudge against my fellow man, and I hope no grudges are held against me.” God thinks for a second and says: “You are forgiven, my son. Come and sit at my right.” Then God addresses Obama. “Barack, what do you believe in?” Obama replies... “I believe you’re in my chair.”
16 October 2009 >>
According to the NAACP, white politicians should not be permitted to represent majority-black voting populations: Leaders of the Maryland NAACP, worried that a Baltimore mayor’s criminal conviction could result in the appointment of a white or Republican leader who may not fully represent the majority black and Democratic city, are asking state lawmakers to strip the governor of authority to permanently fill the office. [...] “There is that possibility of a conviction, and we want to know those protocols that are in place,” said Elbridge James, the political action chairman of the state National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “If it looks like it is going to rain, I am going to buy an umbrella.” [...] Marvin L. Cheatham, the president of the Baltimore Chapter of the NAACP, introduced the resolution because he heard an attorney on a radio program discussing a lack of clarity on succession if [Baltimore’s mayor] were to be convicted and sentenced. “Our concern is who would the governor appoint?” Cheatham said. “Here you have a predominantly African-American city. What if the governor appointed somebody white? ... Would he appoint someone Irish to be the mayor?” [...] The resolution passed “nearly unanimously” with little debate from the 150 or so delegates who attended the meeting, James said.
(Hat tip: James Taranto.)
13 October 2009 @ 6:22PM >>
Months before Barack Obama formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, the name “Obama” was already being stamped on or sewn into objects of every type, and these objects could be purchased just about anywhere you happened to be standing. Keychains, buttons, hats, t-shirts were all readily available. I saw Obama skateboards and heard rumors of Obama bongs. Eventually, companies usually seen selling things like pewter gnomes and porcelain kittens got into the game, hawking commemorative coins and Obama dinner plates on late-night cable shows.
Video >>
30 September 2009 >>
Daniel Okrent, the former public editor of the New York Times, recently made some interesting comments on his old employer and the media in general. Some highlights: [T]here is a shortage of conservatives working in the news media — or, I should say, an imbalance between liberals and conservatives. The last survey I saw was on the ‘04 election - I don’t know what it was in ‘08 - but in ‘04 something like 75 percent of working journalists at daily newspapers voted for the Democrat. I mean, you can’t deny this. It’s a reality. [...] When I was at the Times - my term there ended four years ago - everybody on the editorial board was a Democrat. I asked Gail Collins, who was then the editorial page editor, “Why don’t you have a greater ideological variety and philosophical variety so you can have richer debate on the page?” And she said, “If I had a couple of conservatives on this page, they’d be unhappy all the time. They’d either have to write something that wasn’t their view, because we decide our view consensually, or they’d never get to write. So, what’s the point?” Now, Gail knows a lot better than I the dynamics of coming to an editorial position, but it would seem to me that, if for no other reason than to challenge the conventional thinking that may - and I stress the may - dominate the conversation on the editorial board, it’d be nice to have somebody else there who might say, “Well, here’s another point of view.” [...] If it’s to survive and flourish, the Times has to be an honest broker, and the perception left by that op-ed page and the adjoining editorial page is that it’s not. [...] When I was at the paper I criticized it pretty strongly for not having ideological diversity or religious diversity on the staff. The same reason we would want racial diversity, to provide different perspectives on the world, would suggest that we want the same thing religiously and ideologically and philosophically. And I was very roundly criticized by some people on the left about that, people who thought it was an outrage that I was suggesting that the Times hire more conservatives. Why is that an outrage? Why is it an outrage to get a more varied view of the world? We want a varied view if we’re going to be good citizens, if we’re going to have a functioning democracy. We must have a varied view.
Daniel Okrent was an honest broker during his tenure as the Times’s public editor, and the paper would be better off if it paid closer attention to his advice.
28 September 2009 @ 8:50AM >>
Americans are aware that many reporters actively promote their own political agendas: Results from a national Sacred Heart University survey released today reveal that many news consumers believe the media played a significant role in electing President Barack Obama and that the media continue to promote his presidency. [...] “A large majority, 89.3 percent, suggested the national media played a very or somewhat strong role in helping to elect President Obama,” according to a summary of the findings. “Just 10.0 percent suggested the national media played little or no role. Further, 69.9 percent agreed the national news media are intent on promoting the Obama presidency while 26.5 percent disagreed. Some, 3.6 percent, were unsure.” And 86.6 percent said they believe the news media try to influence public opinion and that they have their own public policy and political positions. This compares to 87.6 percent in 2008 and 70.3 percent in 2003. [...] The study did not indicate which medium the respondents turn to for news, but it did indicate that about 38 percent say they read newspapers less frequently than they did five years ago. Nearly 68 percent said they agreed with the statement: “Old-style, traditionally objective and fair journalism is dead.”
19 September 2009 @ 2:14PM >>
Jon Stewart is pretty funny going after the media in this clip:
10 September 2009 @ 7:19PM >>
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has placed Bucknell University on their Red Alert list, which names the schools that are the “worst offenders against liberty”: Institutions on the Red Alert list are unrepentant offenders against basic rights that are guaranteed either by the U.S. Constitution or the schools themselves, and they have policies and/or practices that demonstrate a serious and ongoing threat to current and future students. They are the “worst of the worst” when it comes to protecting liberty on campus.
FIRE explains the latest in a years-long campaign by Bucknell’s administrators to shut down the speech of students whose opinions they don’t share: The controversy at Bucknell began in March, when [Bucknell University Conservatives Club] members attempted to distribute fake dollar bills in protest of the federal stimulus, featuring an image of President Obama. BUCC members were told by a campus administrator that they were “busted,” and that their activities were a violation of Bucknell’s Sales and Solicitation policy. Even after pointing out that the “stimulus dollars” distribution was an obvious act of political protest and that the students were not engaged in solicitation, Bucknell still considered the act to fall under this policy, seeing it as the equivalent of “handing out Bibles” (which also would not be solicitation under the policy). Such a misinterpretation of this policy effectively subjects any distribution of materials between students to the prior review and approval of the administration, significantly undermining Bucknell’s commitment to free expression. The next month, Bucknell shut down BUCC’s previously approved “affirmative action bake sale,” designed to protest affirmative action by charging different prices based on ethnicity. The sales are a well-known method of attracting attention to the issue, and are not intended to raise revenue. Associate Dean of Students Gerald Commerford cited a discrepancy between the prices being charged and the prices BUCC listed on its event application form (BUCC was charging lower-than-expected prices), telling BUCC “we have the opportunity to shut you down.” When BUCC applied to hold a second bake sale, Commerford rejected the application outright, this time saying that the bake sale violated Bucknell’s policies against discrimination. Despite the fact that BUCC was engaging in a well-known form of political protest—which FIRE has defended numerous times at public and private universities—Commerford flatly rejected the possibility of the bake sale even if BUCC made all pricing options optional, saying “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because it’s a discriminatory [pricing] policy.” Making matters worse, Commerford suggested that only under certain circumstances would any discussion of affirmative action be welcome, telling them, “It’s not a political issue, ok; it needs to be debated in its proper forum, ok, and not on the public property of the campus.” FIRE wrote to Bucknell President Brian C. Mitchell, pointing out the numerous violations Bucknell had committed of its own policies in suppressing BUCC’s activities, and of its legal and moral obligation to protect its students’ free speech rights. After receiving a response from Bucknell General Counsel Wayne Bromfield upholding the rationale for Bucknell’s deplorable treatment of BUCC and refusing to accept fault, FIRE wrote to President Mitchell once more. After receiving another response from Bromfield in which he refused to address FIRE’s concerns further, Bucknell was added to FIRE’s Red Alert list. President Mitchell has yet to offer any public comment on Bucknell’s free speech crisis, which has been chronicled in The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. Bucknell’s contemptuous treatment of BUCC should send a message to all current and prospective Bucknell students that their free speech rights are at the whim of an administration all too willing to bend its own policies and strong-arm its students to stifle speech it does not want heard on campus. By placing Bucknell on its Red Alert list, FIRE hopes to amplify that message, and to finally compel Bucknell to end its embarrassing fight against free speech. Along with Brandeis, Colorado College, Johns Hopkins, Michigan State, and Tufts, Bucknell now shares the “honor” of a spot on FIRE’s Red Alert list.
I’ve covered Bucknell’s various attempts at political censorship extensively over the years. It’s a shameful record.
4 September 2009 @ 8:56AM >>
You may have heard about the uproar over President Obama’s desire to address the nation’s schoolchildren. Although the White House has not yet released the text of the speech, many people wondered whether the speech would be pushing Obama’s policy goals. The idea that the speech would be political in nature is not something that people fantasized; it was related to the fact that the Department of Education’s lesson plan asked students to “help the president” and write about “what the president wants us to do.” The Obama administration has since removed such language from the lesson plan, and has issued a rather lame excuse. The Associated Press reports: Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson plans, available online, originally recommended having students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could “write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.” “That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it,” [White House deputy policy director Heather] Higginbottom said.
Of course, the only way the “inartfully worded” excuse works is if the new wording is a clearer way of saying what the original statement intended to convey. In what universe is “what they can do to help the president” even remotely related to “how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals”? One is not a more “artful wording” of the other. The administration’s new phrasing represents a completely different statement altogether. If the president had intended to deliver a speech asking for students’ help achieving his political goals, I suspect this controversy will dissuade him from doing that. We shall see.
31 August 2009 @ 8:24AM >>
In honor of the care and compassion shown by Senator Ted Kennedy throughout his life, liberals and their enablers in the media have been proposing changing the name of President Obama’s healthcare reform plan. So, instead of referring to it informally as “ObamaCare,” it may become known as “KennedyCare.” In order to help President Obama use the memory of Senator Kennedy to sell his healthcare bill, I present the official KennedyCare t-shirts:
Many more colors and varieties—not to mention hats, thongs and even dog clothing—available at the KennedyCare store.
27 August 2009 >>
The Documentary Channel will be showing Indoctrinate U several more times over the coming weeks. Here’s the schedule ( all times shown are Eastern U.S.):
- Tuesday, September 1st at 5:00 PM
- Tuesday, September 15th at 2:30 PM
- Monday, September 28th at 11:30 PM
- Wednesday, September 30th at 3:30 AM
- Friday, October 2nd at 8:00 PM and again at 11:00 PM
The Documentary Channel is available on satellite and many cable systems nationwide. Check your provider for channel information. If your provider doesn’t carry the Documentary Channel, several PBS stations simulcast the Documentary Channel during certain time slots, so you may want to check those listings as well. As always, you can also get the DVD or download Indoctrinate U.
23 August 2009 >>
Only a government could be this stupid while simultaneously being this reckless with other people’s money: A paedophile with a 30-year history of abusing children is being prescribed Viagra on the [National Health Service] — and there is nothing the authorities can do to stop him. Roger Martin, 71, merely has to visit his GP to obtain the libido-enhancing drug, even though experts warn it will enable him to continue preying on children despite his age. The probation officers who oversee Martin are powerless to interfere with the administration of prescription drugs. He does not have to tell his GP about his criminal past and even if he does, doctors cannot take convictions into account. [...] He has forced himself on a string of youngsters and his latest assault was on an 11-year-old girl last year.
Jolly old England.
20 August 2009 >>
Not too long ago, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets with signs comparing our president to Adolf Hitler, painting him as “the world’s biggest terrorist,” even calling outright for his killing. Here in New York City, posters of a cartoon George W. Bush replete with simulated bullet holes began springing up around town. It was a time when Democratic politicians complained loudly whenever they felt their patriotism was being impugned. In those days, bumper stickers reminded us that “Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism” and Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, declared that disruptive protests were “very American and very important.” Now that protests are directed against a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, Nancy Pelosi thinks such disruptions are “un-American.” During the Bush era, the media looked the other way at the extremist element in the protest movement; the large number of protest signs bearing swastikas and mathematical formulae like “Bush=Hitler” just didn’t interest them. But it did interest me, and because the media didn’t want to report it, I did some reporting of my own. The videos I posted online inadvertently launched me on a second career as a documentary filmmaker. I recently dug through my old footage and found many examples of the same kind of inflammatory speech that the media and the Democratic Party—forgive the redundancy—now decry. What follows are just a few examples.
More >>
17 August 2009 @ 10:33PM >>
Last week, I called the office of Jerrold Nadler, my congressman, to see if he would be holding any constituent meetings on health care. Today, I got a recorded call from Congressman Nadler inviting me to participate in a “live telephone town hall” at 8PM this evening. The call came in at 7:35PM. Of course, this timing left constituents with a mere 25 minutes warning. (I didn’t even get a chance to listen to the voicemail until the “town hall” was long over.) I’m sure the short notice caused many folks to miss the opportunity to question their congressman directly. Perhaps that was by design. A cynical political observer might conclude that Congressman Nadler wanted as few people calling as possible.
5 August 2009 @ 11:59PM >>
The Obama White House may be breaking the Privacy Act of 1974 by asking citizens to report “fishy” political speech. On Tuesday, Macon Phillips, President Obama’s Director of New Media, wrote on the White House blog asking citizens to rat out fellow citizens who are spreading “disinformation” about Obama’s plans for more government control over the health care system. Phillips wrote: There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
One wonders, what constitutes “fishy” speech or “disinformation”? Is it anything that runs counter to what the White House wants you to think? And what, precisely, is the White House planning to do about someone who’s speech has been “flagged”? It turns out, even asking for citizens to report on each other may be illegal. According to the Department of Justice, “the purpose of the Privacy Act is to balance the government’s need to maintain information about individuals with the rights of individuals to be protected against unwarranted invasions of their privacy stemming from federal agencies’ collection, maintenance, use, and disclosure of personal information about them.” Further, anything is considered a “personal record” if it identifies an individual (an e-mail address would qualify), and “federal agency” specifically includes “the Executive Office of the President.” I’m no lawyer, but it sure sounds like the White House is violating the law by asking people to snitch on their friends and neighbors for engaging in “fishy” political speech. Anyone want to try this one in court? In the meantime, I’m going to report myself. I’m obviously not thinking the way our Dear Leader wants...
Update: Renowned attorney David T. Hardy identifies another area where the Obama White House appears to be breaking the law: 5 US Code §552a(e)(7) commands that any Federal agency “(7) maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained or unless pertinent to and within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity;”
3 August 2009 @ 4:52PM >>
The tentacles of Big Brother are reaching further into homes in the U.K.: Thousands of the worst families in England are to be put in “sin bins” in a bid to change their bad behaviour, Ed Balls announced yesterday. The Children’s Secretary set out £400 million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour [closed-circuit television] supervision in their own homes. They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.
It’s just the first step, and one that likely won’t be criticized, since these are problem families and someone must think of the children! But the way incrementalism works, once this step is taken, it makes it easier for the next step to be taken. That’s why further government involvement in healthcare is worrisome; it will lead to more extreme versions of proposals like these:
If the Nanny Staters have their way, the government will be controlling your diet in the future, maybe even installing closed-circuit cameras in your fridge to make sure you’re not midnight snacking. Think it can’t happen? Open your eyes.
27 July 2009 @ 4:15PM >>
Peggy Noonan identifies one of the many reasons that I’m concerned about the government getting more control over our healthcare system: We are living in a time in which educated people who are at the top of American life feel they have the right to make very public criticisms of . . . let’s call it the private, pleasurable but health-related choices of others. They shame smokers and the overweight. Drinking will be next. Mr. Obama’s own choice for surgeon general has come under criticism as too heavy. Only a generation ago such criticisms would have been considered rude and unacceptable. But they are part of the ugly, chafing price of having the government in something: Suddenly it can make big and very personal demands on you. Those who live in a way that isn’t sufficiently healthy “cost us money” and “drive up premiums.” Mr. Obama himself said something like it in his press conference, when he spoke of a person who might not buy health insurance. If he gets hit by a bus, “the rest of us have to pay for it.” Under a national health-care plan we might be hearing that a lot. You don’t exercise, you smoke, you drink, you eat too much, and “the rest of us have to pay for it.” It is a new opportunity for new class professionals (an old phrase that should make a comeback) to shame others, which appears to be one of their hobbies. (It may even be one of their addictions. Let’s stage an intervention.) Every time I hear Kathleen Sebelius talk about “transitioning” from “treating disease” to “preventing disease,” I start thinking of how they’ll use this as an excuse to judge, shame and intrude. So this might be an unarticulated public fear: When everyone pays for the same health-care system, the overseers will feel more and more a right to tell you how to live, which simple joys are allowed and which are not.
19 July 2009 @ 7:22PM >>
An insightful observation from a reader of Instapundit.com: Notice how there was no “antiwar” movement during the ’90s, even though we were at war the entire time in Iraq, Haiti, Kosovo, a dab here and there in Afghanistan and Sudan. Then, after 9/11, it was the “Next Vietnam” with a passionate “antiwar” movement with the [New York Times]’s full treasonous participation, just like the good old days. And now, even though the daily death count has matched the highest daily rate we ever saw in Iraq, there is no “antiwar” movement or daily casualty count in all the newspapers. It’s like the “antiwar” movement can be turned off and on like a switch, depending on which party is in the White House.
14 July 2009 @ 9:11AM >>
This weekend, while walking around NYC, I noticed a couple more propaganda posters put up by members of the Cult of Obama.
The first, “Siddhartha Obama,” is a large mural on the side of a building in Chelsea. It shows Obama as The Enlightened One holding solar panels, and features Dick Cheney popping out of a stars-and-stripes-painted Hummer and gas pumps bearing the Republican Party logo sitting atop coffins draped in American flags. Whatever words you can use to describe these cult members, “subtle” is not one of them. The second propaganda display was spotted inside the Blades board and skate store on Broadway near Great Jones. Adorned with pictures of Barack, Michelle and the campaign logo, it says simply, “Obey.”
“Siddhartha Obama” appears on a wall outside an art gallery, which is at least an understandable venue for over-the-top Obama worship; it’s almost a job requirement for artists that they be driven purely by emotion. The political naivete of assuming one politician will be Our Savior is the sort of thinking artists are almost expected to adopt. But I find it strange that businesses keep attaching themselves to the Obama Cult, because in theory, they should want to minimize the number of customers they drive away with partisan propaganda. And as Obama’s poll numbers continue to ease towards mediocrity, I suspect the use of religious-themed Obama imagery in corporate marketing will increasingly backfire. Then again, in America today, as government takes over more and more companies and tightens regulatory control on the rest, customers matter less and less to companies. “The customer is never wrong” is last century’s business maxim. Now, it’s “the government is never wrong.” So maybe companies are just making business calculations and deciding that it’s smart to make a public spectacle of their allegiance to Obama.
9 July 2009 @ 6:14PM >>
USA Today reports: Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year’s presidential election. That aid—about $17 billion—is the first piece of the administration’s massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation. “There’s no politics at work when it comes to spending for the recovery,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says. Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college. The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.
7 July 2009 >>
Fredric U. Dicker—regarded as the pre-eminent political reporter in New York’s state capital—recently published a column decrying the complete breakdown of the state legislature, which has been unable to conduct business for the past month. Buried way down in Dicker’s piece, starting at the 19th paragraph, we learn: During the first five months of this year, with the Senate under the control of its first African-American majority leader, [State Senator Malcolm] Smith, top Democrats bemoaned the lack of minority Senate staffers. But instead of trying to recruit new hires, they fired nearly 200 almost exclusively white workers and replaced them with a large number of minority employees, many of whom were seen by their fellow workers to be unskilled at their new jobs. The move produced severe racial tensions, made worse by the fact that, as a high-level Democratic staffer confided, “We’ve been told to only hire minorities.'’
So, nearly 200 people lose their jobs in New York State because of their race? And not at the hands of some evil corporation, but our own elected officials? It’s quite telling that, in our political age, mass firings can still happen because of one’s race. It’s even more telling that—the only time I’ve seen this story get any coverage at all—it was in the 19th paragraph of an otherwise unrelated column.
26 June 2009 @ 8:42AM >>
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Associated Press picked up a story about my alma mater, Bucknell University, and its latest attacks on free speech. The following afternoon, the school announced the resignation of current president Brian C. Mitchell. Since its inception in 2001, the Bucknell University Conservatives Club (BUCC) has been repeatedly singled out for political censorship by school administrators. The latest media coverage focuses on two more instances of the university silencing the political speech of the BUCC’s student members. (Full disclosure: Several years ago, as an invited guest of the BUCC, a Bucknell administrator threatened to have me arrested during a screening of Brainwashing 101, a precursor to my documentary Indoctrinate U. The school objected to my videotaping the event, even though I was granted permission by the event’s organizers, who routinely taped their own events. The school was aware that my screening might be disrupted by protesters; apparently, Bucknell didn’t want me getting that on tape.) In one incident, the BUCC held an “affirmative action bake sale,” which was intended to both illustrate and criticize racial preferences. University administrator Gerald Commerford shut down the bake sale, saying it was discriminatory. But if an affirmative action bake sale is discriminatory, it’s only because affirmative action itself is discriminatory. And given that the university implements affirmative action, it’s really quite Orwellian to claim that an affirmative action bake sale is any more discriminatory than what the school itself is doing. The BUCC also protested President Obama’s stimulus plan by handing out “Obama bucks,” mock Monopoly money with the president’s face on it. Administrator Judith L. Mickanis struck a law-enforcement tone with the students, telling them, “you’re busted,” and grabbing one female student by the arm while demanding that the group stop their protest. The administrator claimed that the students were not allowed to hand out materials without prior approval, a standard that never seems to have been applied to any other student group. The university attempted to justify this, saying that by giving out Obama bucks, the students were committing a transgression akin to “handing out Bibles.” (Perhaps it is obvious to Bucknell administrators—but not to me—why handing out Bibles poses such a grave threat that it would need to be stopped by the university.) As the school’s excuses continued to evolve, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)—the free speech advocacy group that has been defending the students—concluded that Bucknell’s general counsel Wayne A. Bromfield is now resorting to flat-out lies to cover up the school’s speech suppression. Unfortunately for Bucknell, their tactics have been documented on video and audio, so FIRE’s claims are verifiable. President Mitchell will keep his position for one more year, so he isn’t exactly being shoved out the door. Still, it is interesting timing that Mitchell announced his resignation the day after the story began to get traction in the national media. Bucknell’s public relations office has to know that announcing the resignation the day after all this bad press would cause at least some people to conclude that the two events were related. So was the timing intentional, intended to mollify Bucknell’s critics by making them think that swift action had been taken? Considering the last few days have probably brought him plenty of Maalox moments, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitchell felt a wave of relief as the send button was clicked on his resignation letter. Now he’ll be free to continue ignoring the controversy and running out the clock on his time at Bucknell. With a lame duck president who broke his pledge to run a university that respects free speech, Bucknell’s administrators will likely feel free to continue their harassment of students who dare disobey the dogma of political correctness. But today’s students are armed with video cameras and the Internet, so alumni can keep a close watch on Bucknell’s actions from afar. The school may not care what students think, but if there’s one thing you can count on, Bucknell wants us alumni to keep opening up our wallets. After all, the school knows that a conservative’s money is just as green as anyone else’s. Maybe Bucknell just needs a reminder.
25 June 2009 @ 8:50AM >>
The mullahs in Iran have unleashed an even more brutal wave of violence against protesters opposing the recent questionable election. CNN reports: Security forces wielding clubs and firing weapons beat back hundreds of would-be demonstrators who had flocked to a square in the capital on Wednesday to continue protests against an election they have denounced as fraudulent, witnesses told CNN. [...] They were among the more than half a dozen witnesses who told CNN that security forces outnumbering protesters used overwhelming force to crush a planned demonstration in Baharestan Square, in front of the parliament building. The witnesses said police charged against the demonstrators, striking them with batons, beating women and old men and firing weapons into the air in order to disperse them. The melee extended beyond the square, according to one woman, who told CNN that she was traveling toward Baharestan with her friends as evening approached “to express our opposition to these killings these days and demanding freedom. [...] According to official figures, 17 people have been killed in clashes with government forces over the past 11 days. Anti-government demonstrators have taken to the streets in at least four cities outside Tehran. But CNN has received unconfirmed reports of as many as 150 deaths related to the popular uprising. The government’s response to it appears to have hardened in recent days. CNN has received numerous accounts of night-time roundups by government forces of opposition activists and international journalists from their homes. Some Tehran residents said they were too afraid to talk about the political crisis over the phone to anyone in the United States or Europe. Many protesters debated whether to venture into the streets. “I am not going outside my house at all,” a 21-year-old college student from Tehran said. “The streets are too dangerous, and just so very busy with police. Ahhhh, when will our lives get back to normal?” Worried the government was monitoring their phone conversations, some residents said the Internet was the best way to transmit information. However, the spotty connection made it difficult to rely on the Web. “It’s beyond fear,” said a woman who arrived at a U.S. airport from Iran, but still did not want her name used for fear for her safety. “The situation is more like terror.” [...] Asked why the government has made it impossible for nearly all international journalists to report from Iran, [Iranian ambassador to Mexico] Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri accused the media of not accurately reporting events. “In Tehran, there were much bigger demonstrations in favor of the government that you didn’t report about,” he said. Asked about the shooting of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, whose death, captured on video, has become emblematic of the crackdown on protesters, he said, “It is not clear who killed whom.”
However, the malice of the Iranian regime is self-evident in their treatment of Neda Agha-Soltan’s surviving family, as The Guardian reports: The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world.
Neda Soltan Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said. “We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat,” a neighbour said. The Guardian was unable to contact the family directly to confirm if they had been forced to leave. The government is also accusing protesters of killing Soltan, describing her as a martyr of the Basij militia. Javan, a pro-government newspaper, has gone so far as to blame the recently expelled BBC correspondent, Jon Leyne, of hiring “thugs” to shoot her so he could make a documentary film. Soltan was shot dead on Saturday evening near the scene of clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators, turning her into a symbol of the Iranian protest movement. Barack Obama spoke of the “searing image” of Soltan’s dying moments at his press conference yesterday. Amid scenes of grief in the Soltan household with her father and mother screaming, neighbours not only from their building but from others in the area streamed out to protest at her death. But the police moved in quickly to quell any public displays of grief. They arrived as soon as they found out that a friend of Soltan had come to the family flat. In accordance with Persian tradition, the family had put up a mourning announcement and attached a black banner to the building. But the police took them down, refusing to allow the family to show any signs of mourning. The next day they were ordered to move out. Since then, neighbours have received suspicious calls warning them not to discuss her death with anyone and not to make any protest. A tearful middle-aged woman who was an immediate neighbour said her family had not slept for days because of the oppressive presence of the Basij militia, out in force in the area harassing people since Soltan’s death. The area in front of Soltan’s house was empty today. There was no sign of black cloths, banners or mourning. Secret police patrolled the street. “We are trembling,” one neighbour said. “We are still afraid. We haven’t had a peaceful time in the last days, let alone her family. Nobody was allowed to console her family, they were alone, they were under arrest and their daughter was just killed. I can’t imagine how painful it was for them. Her friends came to console her family but the police didn’t let them in and forced them to disperse and arrested some of them. Neda’s family were not even given a quiet moment to grieve.” Another man said many would have turned up to show their sympathy had it not been for the police. “In Iran, when someone dies, neighbours visit the family and will not let them stay alone for weeks but Neda’s family was forced to be alone, otherwise the whole of Iran would gather here,” he said. “The government is terrible, they are even accusing pro-Mousavi people of killing Neda and have just written in their websites that Neda is a Basiji (government militia) martyr. That’s ridiculous - if that’s true why don’t they let her family hold any funeral or ceremonies? Since the election, you are not able to trust one word from the government.”
Given what’s going on in Iran, the Obama Administration is finally taking a harder line: The Obama administration is seriously considering not extending invitations to Iranian diplomats for July 4 celebrations overseas, senior administration officials tell CNN.
No, that’s not a line from a news spoof in The Onion. It’s true: the only tangible action taken by the Obama Administration in response to the violence in Iran is to disinvite Iranian diplomats to Fourth of July barbecues. After the Soviet Union expanded the Iron Curtain by invading Afghanistan in 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter showed his steely resolve... by not allowing American athletes to attend the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Thirty years later, in response to the appalling oppression in Iran, President Obama shows his steely resolve by yanking some BBQ invites.
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