Culture

« Older Entries
Of Thee I Sing 1776

The Perversion of Honest Law Making: The Slippery Slope that Lies Ahead

by Of Thee I Sing 1776

As we write this short essay, we are being promised by Nancy Pelosi that the health care bill will be posted online so that we and those who will “deem” it already to have been enacted can actually read it. This online posting has been repeatedly postponed so that the Congressional Budget Office could score it for its 10-year cost. That exercise, which went on behind closed doors, has been tainted by secret deals, and new stealth taxes slipped in at the last minute without disclosure or debate and are based on assumptions provided by the House leadership which the CBO is required to follow. Only this weekend will the 535 members of Congress and the American people be given an opportunity to see what is in the surprise package consisting of over 2700 pages of text. They will have 72 hours to read it before they “deem” it to be the law of the land. Presumably, they have completed the Evelyn Woods speed-reading course. We believe that millions of Americans will “deem” those Members of Congress who actually participate in this farce to be unworthy of further service. Of course, they, unlike their Congresspersons, will actually have to vote.

lemmings

We make no secret about our negative view of this legislation as bad public policy. But something far more important is at work here. We would rather have the House pass the bill in normal fashion even if only by a tiny margin (as they did with their first version in November 2009) and have it properly enacted into law, than to use trickery and deceit to get their way.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 19th 2010 at 1:32 pm in Congress, Culture, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 131 Comments

Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter (R-MI)

The Educated Idiots Award (Vol. 1, No. 3): ‘Redemption Song’

by Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter (R-MI)

EIAgraphic copy

This week, the vast majority of the American people have nominated a motley crew of elitists for the “Educated Idiots Award:”

The arrogant Democrats who will defy the American people and abet Obama’s nearly trillion dollar government takeover of Americans’ health care.

Embodying the arrogant intellectuals unacquainted with real life who foist their insane ideas on the rest of us, these ideologically addled Democrats:

1. Feel they are smarter than you;

2. Believe they can run your life better than you; and,

3. Consider themselves your masters not your servants.

Because of these self-anointed, educated idiots our nation’s revolutionary experiment in freedom and self-government teeters on the precipice of implosion.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 19th 2010 at 11:13 am in Congress, Culture, News | 49 Comments

Pamela Geller

AmeriCorps: Obama’s Scandal-Plagued Indoctrination Machine

by Pamela Geller

It’s great to be a prisoner in Obama’s America: you get stimulus dollars, preferential job placement, and a place in AmeriCorps. But if you’re a child in public school, watch out.

americorps

Obama said he was going to build a civilian army — and he is using our children. He is recruiting in public school classrooms: I exclusively broke the story about how his group Organizing for America is recruiting in the classroom. But AmeriCorps (can Obama pronounce the second syllable?) is the primary machinery for his youth army. And there is huge dough behind it — yours and mine. And that money is now being used to mandate service programs that indoctrinate our children to work for “the common good.”

America is the most beneficent nation in the world. We give the most to charity (though Republicans far out-give Democrats), and whenever there is a disaster in the world, we are there. On a local level, we donate a ton of money to community programs.

So why is service being mandated? Mandated service is slavery. Voluntary service is empathy. Empathy is the positive result of a moral value system, as taught in a proper educational curriculum.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 19th 2010 at 6:27 am in Culture, Education, News, Obama, Politics, federal spending | 55 Comments

Publius

Health Care Reform Meets the Chicago Way

by Publius

The always impressive John Kass in today’s Chicago Tribune:

Daley

Not even three or four pipes full of Hopium could have convinced me that the Congress of the United States would ever start looking like the Chicago City Council.

But now, with the Chicago Way White House twisting arms for its federal health care legislation, Democrats in Congress and Chicago aldermen are beginning to share a remarkable resemblance.

They’re starting to look like fall guys.

“The Congress? They’re acting like aldermen. Like fall guys. And we know all about fall guys in the city of Chicago,” said Jim Laski, a former Chicago alderman and former federal inmate who is now a WGN radio talk show host.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 17th 2010 at 12:43 pm in Congress, Culture, Healthcare, Local Government, News, Obama, Politics | 144 Comments

Charles C. Johnson

That Thin Envelope: Time to Resist Racist Education Policy

by Charles C. Johnson

Every March, college students from around the country receive either a thick or a thin envelope. For many of them, this will be the biggest event in their lifetimes. It will be a source of pride for some; envy and disappointment for others.

affirmative-action-protest

As Americans, we’d like to believe our meritocratic sensibilities do a great job allocating talent, but alas, the truth is that at many colleges throughout America race matters more than brains.

Proponents of affirmative action, though, present a false picture when they suggest that they’d be fine with wealthy, white kids being denied admissions in favor of lesser qualified (and often just as wealthy) blacks and Hispanics. In actuality, the people who most often lose their spots at elite colleges in higher education are Asians and Asian-Americans. [The adverse impact of affirmative action against poor whites remains a source of contention and research.]

But what would a world without affirmative action look like? Putting aside your view of whether or not should exist let’s examine how it actually works by examining such a world. In 2005, The Chronicle of Higher Education cited a paper that looked at just that question.

A [2005] study by two Princeton University researchers uses admissions data from elite colleges to portray what would happen in such a world without affirmative action. In short, black and Latino enrollment would tank, while white enrollments would hardly be affected. The big winners would be Asian applicants, who appear to face “disaffirmative action” right now. They would pick up about four out of five spots lost by black and Latino applicants.

. . .

The research looked at admissions decisions at elite colleges and found that without affirmative action, the acceptance rate for African American candidates would be likely to fall by nearly two-thirds, from 33.7 percent to 12.2 percent, while the acceptance rate for Hispanic applicants probably would be cut in half, from 26.8 percent to 12.9 percent.

While white admit rates would stay steady, Asian students would be big winners under such a system. Their admission rate in a race-neutral system would go to 23.4 percent, from 17.6 percent. And their share of a class of admitted students would rise to 31.5 percent, from 23.7 percent.

But what about blacks at selective colleges? Who are they? Again, The Chronicle of Higher Education,

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: ,
Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 9:47 am in Culture, Education, Justice/Legal, News | 61 Comments

Warner Todd Huston

Obama Orders Army NOT To Fly U.S. Flag in Haiti

by Warner Todd Huston

It’s bad enough that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is giving short shrift to American manufacturers and our economy by ordering extravagant new crystal stemware from Sweden to make the crystal cabinets in America’s embassies sparkle impressively, but now we learn that Barack Obama has told the U.S. relief forces in Haiti not to fly the U.S. flag over its own military compounds. He says that it will “send the wrong message.”

american-flag

Never mind that all the other nations have their flags proudly flying above their military relief installations in Haiti. Even Croatia has its coat of arms flying outside its base. Yet not the U.S. Army. No U.S. flag flies anywhere despite the fact that we are far and away the largest force and have supplied the most relief supplies and money to the earthquake recovery effort.

According to USAID, as of January 19, 2010 the U.S. had spent $130,864,571 on aid to the Haitian people to help them recover from the devastating earthquake. By Jan. 25 that number had already increased to $179,883,065. It is only going up from there.

So why did the Obama administration forbid flying our own flag in Haiti?

“We are not here as an occupation force, but as an international partner committed to supporting the government of Haiti on the road to recovery,” the U.S. government’s Haiti Joint Information Center said in response to a query about the flag.

If it is so important to be seen as just another member of that international force, then why are all the other nations still flying their flags? Oh, I remember now… unlike the U.S. they don’t have a president that is more comfortable apologizing for his country than being proud of it, even when it is engaged in saving lives through relief work.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 8:51 am in Culture, Defense, Obama | 309 Comments

Bob Parks

Five Offensive Attacks On Conservative Women

by Bob Parks

The MRC’s Culture and Media Institute looked back at what the liberal media had to say about conservative women in 2009 and it wasn’t pretty. Conservative women found themselves the victims of the worst sort of vitriol – including on a particularly disgusting Playboy “hate f—” list that featured 10 prominent conservative women. But even mainstream cable networks and broadcast networks joined in the attack, with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann comparing Michelle Malkin to a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it” and comedian Chuck Nice telling a “Today” show panel that Sarah Palin “is like herpes” to the GOP.

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 12:01 pm in Culture, Media Criticism, Politics | 152 Comments

Nick Gillespie

Reason.tv: Advice Goddess Amy Alkon on Beating Manners Into Rude People

by Nick Gillespie

“I don’t like regulations,” says Amy Alkon, a syndicated advice columnist who blogs daily at AdviceGoddess.com. “I like to shame people into behaving better.”

Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker sat down with Alkon to discuss her new book, I See Rude People: One woman’s battle to beat some manners into impolite society. Alkon explains how she and others mix chutzpah with technology to fight back against the insane drivers, coffee-house yackers, and subway perverts who make our lives miserable.

Interview by Ted Balaker. Shot by Alex Manning and Paul Detrick. Edited by Alex Manning. Music: “I Think I Started a Trend,” by Brad Sucks (Magnatune Records).

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 10:01 am in Culture | 81 Comments

Doug Giles

Hey Obama, Keep Your Hands Off My Fishing Pole!

by Doug Giles

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

—Henry David Thoreau

God, I love fishing. I dig fishing almost as much as hunting (almost). I love it so much that I moved to a place that is one of the top angling spots in the world: Miami, Florida. And you know what? I milk these waters as much as a working man can.

fishing-kids

My fishing roots extend back to Texas and my rowdy childhood when my dad used to take me and my brother fishing on the many lakes, ponds and rivers the Lone Star state has to offer.

Our stringer was typical of a freshwater 60s and 70s Texas catch: perch, crappie, black bass, white bass, channel cats, carp and gar. It was way cool for this little redneck. Yes indeed, Bob-Dawg, I dug it all.

For example, as a young punk I took insane pleasure in:

  • Buying fishing gear. Very cool.
  • Practicing my casting accuracy in my backyard (which still serves me well to this day)
  • Reading Outdoor Life and getting pumped on its fishing lies … I mean … stories
  • Experiencing the inability to sleep the night before getting up and declaring war on the fish
  • Buying bait at freaky bait shops run by guys I swear worked as extras on the movie Deliverance
  • Arriving at our strategic and wild location and having the privilege of watching and listening to that which is untamed waking up and beginning its tooth, fang and claw survival of the fittest exchange with Mother Nature. Life and death in its purest form, Nancy boys.
  • Taking a crash course from my dad and other gents regarding different lures and the various ways to present them
  • And then, of course, the entre, actually catching a fish and grappling with my gigantic aquatic monster which was, in all reality, a pound-and-a-half bass. (I didn’t care, though, because as far as I was concerned, I was Ernest-Frickin’-Hemingway’s character Santiago, and that little bass was my Marlin.)
  • And lastly, basking in the great satisfaction later that evening of watching adults eat what this rugrat provided. I am iron man. Dun, dun. Dun na dun dunna dunna dunna dun dunna dun.

As a young squab, the whole fishing enchilada, from soup to nuts, represented what Bryan Adams called, “The best days of my life.”

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 8:31 am in Culture, Environment, News, Obama | 307 Comments

Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter (R-MI)

The Educated Idiots Award (Vol. 1, No. 2): ‘Hurt so Good’

by Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter (R-MI)

The people have written!

After sorting through scores of nominations from readers, I am dyspeptic to present another recipient of the “Educated Idiots Award” (EIA), which is given to the arrogant intellectuals unacquainted with real life who foist their insane ideas upon the “unenlightened” rest of us.

EIAgraphic copy

Nominated by former State Department Official, John Tkacik, this week’s EIA goes to the Obama Administration’s “smart power” savants. (Okay, that’s not quite what John called them, but the sentiment is simpatico.)

To witless:

Per a March 5th Washington Post article, the Obama Administration’s “smart power” savants want the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to get a sweetheart sanctions deal: If the Beijing regime relents and supports tightened UN sanctions against Iran, the PRC will be exempted from tightened US sanctions against Iran.

This dysfunctional case of “the enemy of my enemy is my enemy” bemuses our allies who have steadfastly supported sanctioning Iran due to its nuclear program; and have already been divesting from the mullah’s murderous regime.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 12th 2010 at 6:15 am in Culture, Education, News | 91 Comments

Lawrence Meyers

Raising Tobacco Taxes is Dumb

by Lawrence Meyers

Isn’t it interesting how every time a state government is in fiscal trouble that the first thing they decide to do is to raise taxes on the sale of tobacco?  Somehow, legislators have it in their heads that the only people who might be upset by raising the cost of tobacco are smokers.  And, since smoking is bad for smokers, and smokers shouldn’t be smoking anyway, maybe making smokes more expensive will dissuade smokers from smoking.

istock_000000206551xsmall

Of course, this is government we’re talking about.  So it never works out they way they think it will, no matter who tries to tell them.  In fact, this plan to raise revenue from tobacco taxes doesn’t actually work at all.

See, governments don’t understand free markets.  If you raise the price of a certain good or service beyond a certain point, people who want the product badly enough will find a way to procure it more cheaply.  Remember Prohibition? Same thing.  To avoid paying the higher taxes, they will cross state lines, buy from an Indian reservation, buy over the internet, or even resort to black market purchasing.

And, if raising taxes does actually cut down the number of smokers, then the expected revenue from this tax increase will be less than expected…because there will be fewer smokers!

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 11th 2010 at 10:51 am in Culture, Politics, State Politics, Tax Reform | 111 Comments

Josie Wales

The Constitutional Case Against Progressives

by Josie Wales

[Do not read this article without a copy of the Constitution, and if you do not have one handy, shame on you (link here).]

A line is being drawn in the sand between the statists and Americans, and I use the term American in the grandest sense.  The United States of America represents one of the last bastions of traditional liberalism, which is why the Left should no longer be identified as liberal, but rather we should continue to identify its members as progressive statists.  The Left believes the precepts of our Constitution have failed society, and thus, we must look towards the “enlightened democracies” of socialized Europe for guidance in the progression of American society.

Picture 3

We hear the mantra of rights professed daily by the progressives: education, work, social security, health care, etc.  And since we do not live in a state of nature, the guarantor of those rights must be the government.  This is the definition of a statist, and adherence to these beliefs is inherently in opposition to the Constitution.  The Founders recognized that government could NEVER be the guarantor of rights which is why so much of the Constitution is written in terms of limiting powers conferred upon the government.

Take for example Article I § 1:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives (emphasis added).

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 11th 2010 at 8:37 am in Culture, History, Justice/Legal, Politics | 229 Comments

Central Illinois 9/12 Project

ShoreBank: A Key To Green Jobs

by Central Illinois 9/12 Project

If you ask people on the street (outside of Chicago) if they have ever heard of ShoreBank, the answer would likely be “no.” While ShoreBank isn’t a Goldman Sachs, a Bank of America, or a JP Morgan, to the Progressives, this “little” bank is in many ways every bit as big and important as the aforementioned “large banks.”

9d6879f14be8dd401089a250b735d2b8faa069dd

Why?

One of the core components of President Obama’s fundamental change for America is to create clean energy jobs, also known as “green jobs”.  During his campaign and as recently as his State of the Union Address, President Obama continues to talk about the need “green” jobs. In fact, during his State of the Union 2010 speech, the President stated, “We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities –  and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy-efficient, which supports clean energy jobs. “

In a speech given by the President in Virginia on Dec. 15, 2009, he said, “The simple act of retrofitting these buildings to make them more energy-efficient — installing new windows and doors, insulation, roofing, sealing leaks, modernizing heating and cooling equipment — is one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest things we can do to put Americans back to work while saving families money and reducing harmful emissions.”

In the  stimulus package last year, President Obama devoted nearly $60 billion of his plan for building a new green-based economy.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 10th 2010 at 1:01 pm in Congress, Culture, Economics, Environment, News, Obama, Politics | 48 Comments

Charles C. Johnson

Please Sir, May I Have Some More? John Olver (MA-1), Earmark King

by Charles C. Johnson

As I predicted, Scott Brown’s triumphant victory as the first Republican U.S. Senator in 38 years was only the beginning. Next came the retirement of disgraced U.S. congressman, Bill Delahunt (MA-10), which this columnist helped expose at this website.

Rep. John Olver

Rep. John Olver

Now here comes crowded Republican primaries for Massachusetts’s other congressional races. Many of these candidates will lose, but by running they will give their opponents the first real race many of them have seen in decades and they will give new life to an endangered species, the Massachusetts Republican.

This is all part of a transition, moving the people of Massachusetts and their politics back to the middle, back to better representation.

For the Massachusetts congressional delegation, times are tough. Demographic change has meant that their numbers have shrunk to ten members, the lowest for the Bay State since the 1860s. If Republicans retake the House, the people of the Commonwealth will be all but shut out of congressional policy. With Ted Kennedy dead and no one left to direct the delegation, the congressmen will make for easy pickings, despite their considerable warchests amassed over the years. Here’s an assessment of the perceived vulnerabilities of John Olver (MA-1) that Republicans might exploit, moving his congressional district closer to the accountable government we’ve been looking for, and saving the people of Massachusetts much embarrassment once Republicans retake the Congress.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 10th 2010 at 5:29 am in Big Labor, Congress, Culture, Earmarks, Politics, State Politics | 51 Comments

Phil Kerpen

The Stimulus Bill’s Hidden Attack on What We Eat, Drink, and Smoke

by Phil Kerpen

One of the more extreme proposals floated early in the national health care debate was the idea of taxing soda and other sugary beverages. That trial balloon was almost immediately shot down by the American public, but the Obama administration is attempting to achieve, by subterfuge, soda taxes and a lot of other ways to micromanage our lives in the name of public health—whether or not ObamaCare passes. The mechanism is buried in last year’s $862-billion-and-counting stimulus bill, and works by diverting hundreds of millions of dollars that should be promoting economic growth to instead pay lobbyists to push for higher taxes and nanny-state controls over our lives.

no-smoking

It’s on pages 66 and 67 on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which created a $1 billion “Prevention and Wellness Fund.” Of that, $650 million went to Kathleen Sebelius’s Department of Health and Human Services and has been used to start a new program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called “Communities Putting Prevention to Work” (CPPW).

Where does that giant pot of grant funding under the CPPW go? What it calls “MAPPS Interventions for Communities Putting Prevention to Work.” MAPPS stands for “Media, Access, Point of decision information, Price, and Social support/services.” In other words, strategies for changing our behavior, for social engineering on a large-scale, and, it seems, circumventing the normal democratic process. In a 14-page guidance for grant applicants, the CDC details tactics that grant applicants should include in their plans. It includes “counter-advertising” against targeted products, complete tobacco usage bans, limiting “unhealthy food availability” (the really bad stuff like “whole milk, sugar sweetened beverages, high-fat snacks”), and of course taxes (or in CDC lingo: “changing relative prices of healthy vs. unhealthy items”).

A supplemental document explains in more detail what the targets are, including restricting availability of soft drinks “in homes, schools, work sites, and communities.”

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 9th 2010 at 2:51 pm in Congress, Culture, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics, federal spending | 143 Comments

Kerry J. Byrne

Pilgrims and Minutemen: Lessons for the Left from 1623 and 1776

by Kerry J. Byrne

Misguided leftists can learn a lot from American history. They can learn a lot, specifically, from the lessons provided us by the Pilgrims clinging to life on the Massachusetts coast in 1623 and by the wide-eyed British invaders who set foot on the New World in 1776.

6a00e54f9e3464883401053622de49970c-800wi

Just ask Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough, two of the nation’s most popular contemporary historians.

I couldn’t help but notice very illuminating (and perhaps unintended) odes to traditional conservative values in recent works by each author about pivotal moments in American history.

The first illuminating passage came in Philbrick’s spectacular book, “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War.”

He does an incredible job of taking the pop-culture caricature of the Pilgrims and bringing their real story to life – real humans with real struggles and hopes and dreams.

You know the basic story of the early days of the Plymouth Colony. The settlers had trouble feeding themselves in the first few years, to the point that starvation was a very real problem. But they quickly found a solution.

Here are Philbrick’s words:

“The fall of 1623 marked the end of Plymouth’s debilitating food shortages. For the last two planting seasons, the Pilgrims had grown crops communally … but as the disastrous harvest of the previous fall had shown, something drastic needed to be done to increase the annual yield.”

So here’s what happened:

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 9th 2010 at 1:07 pm in Culture, Economics, History | 153 Comments

Central Illinois 9/12 Project

Shorebank: The First ‘Green’ Bank

by Central Illinois 9/12 Project

Since its founding, ShoreBank has been a progressive-minded bank focused on community development. However, it soon adopted the progressive commitment to environmentalism after founders Ron Grzywinski and Mary Houghton were approached in 1993 by Ecotrust, an environmentally-conscious firm focusing on debt for nature swaps in rainforest countries as well as environmental banking in the Pacific Northwest. The partnership of the two firms led to the establishment of ShoreTrust (now ShoreBank Enterprise Pacific) which provided financing, marketing and management assistance to small businesses in the Pacific coastal rain forest area. From there, the rest of the ShoreBank family eventually followed in adopting the green agenda.

9d6879f14be8dd401089a250b735d2b8faa069dd

For the entire story chronicling the founding of the bank and its move towards its environmental commitment, you may read Alka Srivastva’s dissertation for Case Western Reserve University here>>>.

From there, it did not take long for ShoreBank to incorporate environmentalism into its mission and formalize its commitment to the green agenda. In 1999, ShoreBank’s board of directors adopted a new conservation and development policy requiring the bank itself to reduce its waste and also encourage its customers to adopt more sustainable practices. The concept of environmental health then assumed its place alongside the goals of community development and profitability to form the “Triple Bottom Line” slogan that the company champions today. As evidence of its own commitment, ShoreBank has even addressed its own carbon emissions by purchasing offsets for 450 metric tons of C02 to offset emissions through 2010.

ShoreBank’s environmental advocacy is now prevalent throughout its dealings, both  in how it relates to its domestic banking customers, and in its international development objectives.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 8th 2010 at 11:59 am in Culture, Environment, History, News, Politics | 58 Comments

Warner Todd Huston

Terrorists at Fla. Atlantic U Are O.K., Young Americans for Freedom VERBOTEN

by Warner Todd Huston

We send our young adults to university to be educated in the ways of the world, we all know. Following that well-worn path, young James Schackleford decided on the publicly funded Florida Atlantic University for his edification and boy did he learn a lesson about modern education last week. Mr. Schackleford learned that the FAU administration prefers its campus Islamic terrorist supporters over representatives of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom organization. He also learned that it’s open season on all conservatives at our American universities.

Florida_Atlantic_University_op_800x578[1].JPGAt the Boca Raton campus Mr. Schackleford determined that his school needed a chapter of YAF, a 40-year-old conservative student organization, and so gathered a few like-minded students to meet with YAF State Director Daniel P. Diaz to discuss how they should proceed on organizing a chapter in the school.

As the few gathered were meeting, university administrator David Blank* burst into the room and demanded that they cease their meeting and vacate the room. According to the YAF press release, Mr. Schackleford asked for an additional 15 minutes to finish and Blank acquiesced to the request. But the 15-minute grant was short lived.

Upon hearing Diaz address the liberal bias on the FAU campus, Blank stopped the meeting again and boorishly ordered the students to vacate the meeting room. Blank the shut off the room lights, tore down the group’s promotional posters, and called the campus police.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 8th 2010 at 8:38 am in Culture, Education, News, Politics | 101 Comments

Internet Lays Foundation for GOP Rebirth

by Mytheos Holt

As anyone who has any recollection of the aftermath of the 2008 election cycle knows, the GOP is hopelessly behind on the internet, cannot possibly marshal any web resources on its behalf because it’s stuck in the 19th century politically and will be eclipsed by the forces of Web 2.0 as surely as Democrats were eclipsed by talk radio.

b2

Or at least, that’s what the Mainstream Media force-fed to people after the 2008 election cycle. Naturally, like most Mainstream Media memes, it was an abject lie, but still, somehow the fear worked its way around establishment GOP circles to the point that a veritable avalanche of hysteria crashed down on party activists. “Why, if the internet swings to the Left,” many supposedly “concerned conservative” commentators opined, “then surely our restrictive, overly ideological makeup will make it impossible for us to attract anyone!”

One can’t blame them for buying an argument which was made with such nauseating frequency. Yet, as recent events since the Obama election have shown, the idea that conservatism cannot capture the internet is not at all accurate. What few people may realize, however, is why this argument was so inaccurate, and more importantly, why it took a Messianic bumbler like Obama to expose its falsehood. With respect, therefore, I must disagree with my fellow contributor’s rejection of youth culture as something irrevocably tainted by liberalism, though I understand his frustration entirely.

However, as I mean to prove, the current youth ethos embodied by internet subculture is fundamentally conservative in character, even if its denizens have not yet caught on to that fact. In order to prove this, I will draw on knowledge that I have gained both as an avid internet user and as a member of a generation for whom digital communication is a second language – knowledge which would require investigating not only the harmless environs of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, but also the darkest, least talked about nether-regions of the internet – websites which produce 90% of the internet’s cultural references, and yet are so riddled with perversity that their own patrons take it as an unspoken rule never to talk about them.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 7th 2010 at 1:21 pm in Culture, News, Politics, Uncategorized | 166 Comments

Doug Giles

Should Christians Use Saul Alinsky’s Tactics in Exposing Corruption?

by Doug Giles

A Christian pundit, Dawn Eden, thinks my daughter Hannah Giles and her partner James O’Keefe should not have used Saul Alinsky’s deceptive tactics against ACORN because Saul was “evil,” his methods sneaky, and he dedicated his book, Rules for Radicals, to Lucifer.

JamesOKeefeHannahGiles

In addition, Eden took a swipe at Lila Rose, Planned Parenthood’s main pain in the butt, for being deceptive in her undercover vids which exposed Planned Parenthood’s illegal activity. Oh, and I almost forgot: Dawn also busted on Hannah for being un-Christlike for wearing a miniskirt and dressing like a hooker.  Sounds a little catty to me—and a wee bit like Dana Carvey’s Church Lady—but I digress.

First off, Ms. Eden, if you ever drum up the nerve to expose a scandalous multimillion dollar Obama-backed, taxpayer-funded organization for doing illegal crap and then undergo death threats (versus sitting on the sidelines and simply critiquing those who have the cojones to do so) you will find that the lawbreakers are rather reticent in telling journalists, who are intent on exposing and destroying their world, exactly how they’re breaking the law.  Yeah, I know.  It’s weird, eh?

You’d think that nefarious organizations would just spill their guts, throw up their hands, give up their hard drives, refrain from dumping tens of thousands of documents in a dumpster, and just cooperate to the fullest extent with the FBI and the DOJ, but alas, they don’t because they’re criminals, and criminals, generally speaking, aren’t known for truthfulness, contrition and full disclosure with cops.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 7th 2010 at 6:07 am in ACORN, Culture, Featured Story | 263 Comments

« Older Entries