The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.

Millions of kids will be stopping their day to sit down and listen to this speech.

Now that, in itself, is not THAT creepy, well kinda…but this is:

Things get downright disconcerting when one eyeballs the federally approved lesson plans that the Department of Education has cooked up to support the president’s speech. The preK-6 lesson plans, which were developed with federal funds, devised on taxpayer time, and made available on the Department of Education’s website, exhort teachers to extend the impact of the president’s speech by having students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” This clumsy bit of cheerleading shows no awareness that ”help[ing] the president” might be construed as an invitation to engage in advocacy rather than instruction or that it might worry those who are not Obama partisans. What’s truly remarkable, however, given recent concerns about intrusive federal government this past month, is the lesson plan’s directive that “these [letters] would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.”

It all sounds a touch Orwellian, no? “Redistributed” to whom? “Accountable” to whom? Accountable for which “goals” exactly—the ones that involve “helping the president”? I’m sure the intentions behind all of this were decent enough, and that this whole effort was intended as a pep talk dressed up with innocuous materials. The lesson plans were likely drawn up by a couple of low-level staffers and slapped up on the department website without a careful look. But this all points to some of the perils posed by the growing presidential inclination to serve as superintendent-in-chief, and it highlights the kind of hubris that has fueled concerns about the implications of the federal government’s growing reach.

While the liberals will tell us that the President is just trying to motivate the kids to do good but the thing is the President should not, ever, address our kids and extol them to help him achieve is Socialist goals. Imagine if Bush had tried this….just imagine the outcry that would emanate from the left.

“You can’t avoid these questions,” Dr. Emanuel said in an Aug. 16 Washington Post interview. “We had a big controversy in the United States when there was a limited number of dialysis machines. In Seattle, they appointed what they called a ‘God committee’ to choose who should get it, and that committee was eventually abandoned. Society ended up paying the whole bill for dialysis instead of having people make those decisions.”

Dr. Emanuel argues that to make such decisions, the focus cannot be only on the worth of the individual. He proposes adding the communitarian perspective to ensure that medical resources will be allocated in a way that keeps society going: “Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity—those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations—are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Covering services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic, and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” (Hastings Center Report, November-December, 1996)

Dr Emanuel is Rahm Emanuel’s brother & when asked directly by the Washington Press Corps if Dr Emanuel had provided advice on healthcare plans to the Admin, Press Secretary Gibbs repeatedly said yes.

Baby Boomers beware. Social Security has already been cut (last week). In a few years it will give out more than it takes in, and then it will be gone. That means that today’s retiring members of the “Me Generation” will be short on cash, at the end of the line for healthcare, and-if this guy has his way-will be left to die when Alzheimers hits.

Ben Stein described the brouhaha over his selection as commencement speaker at the University of Vermont as “laughable” on Tuesday called the whole episode “pathetic.”…

“I am far more pro-science than the Darwinists,” Stein said later in an e-mail. “I want all scientific inquiry to happen — not just what the ruling clique calls science.”

Stein’s comments came a day after UVM President Dan Fogel announced that Stein, whom Fogel had invited to address UVM’s commencement in May, would not be coming after all. Fogel said that his selection of Stein generated an intense protest, that he received hundreds of angry e-mails over the weekend, and that after he shared these “profound concerns” with Stein, Stein “immediately and most graciously declined our commencement invitation.”…

Stein called the university’s response to the furor “chicken sh**, and you can quote me on that.”

“I like Dr. Fogel,” Stein wrote, “and feel sorry he is caught in the meat grinder of political correctness. My heart goes out to him. He’s a great guy trying to do his best in difficult circumstances.”

Don’t you love the free exchange of ideas in a country run by liberals? Oh, wait a second. They didn’t let it happen when conservatives ran it either. You don’t agree with them, it’s time to get pies thrown at you, shouted down, or have the stage where your speaking bullrushed by idiots…..

But that isn’t censorship eh?

HOUSTON (KTRK) — Houston police are looking for a vandal who defaced a monument in honor of former President George Bush. Shortly before 2pm, Houston police got a call of criminal mischief in progress at the George Bush monument on Bagby at Preston in downtown Houston. Witnesses say a man who appeared to be homeless was using paint to vandalize the monument. The man was described as having long blond hair, possibly in a ponytail, and wearing a plaid shirt. He may still have some yellow paint on him.

FOUR YEARS after declaring that there should be no red states or blue states because we are all red white and blue states… it appears that Obama’s message still hasn’t been answered.

Juan Cole is one of those academics poisoning the young minds of college students and gullible left-leaning minds.

He now sees fit to hold Israel accountable for bringing on the events of 9/11.

His post from Wednesday:

In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying traditional architecture of Aleppo saw footage like this on the news [graphic]. He was consumed with anguish and the desire for revenge. As soon as operation Grapes of Wrath had begun the week before, he had written out a martyrdom will, indicating his willingness to die avenging the victims, killed in that operation–with airplanes and bombs that were a free gift from the United States. His name was Muhammad Atta. Five years later he piloted American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center. (Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 307: “On April 11, 1996, when Atta was twenty-seven years old, he signed a standardized will he got from the al-Quds mosque.l It was the day Israel attacked Lebanon in Operation grapes of Wrath. According to one of his friends, Atta was enraged,and by filling out his last testamentd during the attack he was offering his life in response.” ).

And if Atta didn’t find offense and inspiration from Operation Grapes of Wrath, his radical beliefs would have found outrage by any number of other subsequent perceived “offenses” against fellow Arabs/Islam. And if Atta hadn’t participated in the events of 9/11, perhaps his soul wouldn’t know unrest from having participated in a terrorist act that has led to the deposition of an Islamic fundamentalist state in Afghanistan and the hanging of an Arab dictator, the violent deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, and the loss of prestige of al-Qaeda in the eyes of the Muslim world. These are all “blowback” for his actions.

And speaking of “blowback”, Juan Cole includes Michael Scheuer in his post:

Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA Bin Laden desk for some years and knows something about radical fundamentalism, concludes, “What is likely to become known across the Islamic world as the “Gaza slaughter” will ensure the continued growth of the Sunni insurgency al-Qaeda leads and inspires.”

And as though on cue, Ayman al-Zawahiri came out with a video Tuesday, saying, “”We will never stop until we avenge the death of all who are killed, injured, widowed and orphaned in Palestine and throughout the Islamic world . . .” He then attacked Barack Obama, saying “These air strikes are a gift from Obama before he takes office, and from Hosni Mubarak, the traitor who is the primary partner in your siege and murder.”

What I am saying is that Israeli leaders like Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and the Israeli high command and intelligence all knew this danger very well when they launched this bloodbath. They subjected you and me to it anyway, because it is immaterial to them what happens to the United States as a result of their bloody-mindedness. They want theirs. They are no different in that regard from American hawks. Bush knew he was endangering Madrid and Glasgow when he attacked Iraq. He didn’t care about his allies, either. In the Hawk Business, provoking terrorism is all to the good. Nor are they different in this regard from the leadership of Hamas, which also acted provocatively without regard to the wider consequences.

Juan Cole is a useful idiot to the likes of Zawahiri and Hamas; an ally in their propaganda dissemination. Zawahiri is being opportunistic here, trying to salvage al-Qaeda’s failed goal of uniting the Muslim world to answer THEIR call to “jihad”. Zawahiri doesn’t need Israel as an excuse to continue on with al-Qaeda’s murderous killing spree in the name of Allah; but Israel defending itself does give him propaganda fodder. And rather than countering it, Cole gives legitimacy to it in the eyes and ears of those Palestinian supporters and Hamas sympathizers who have a slanted perspective on Israel-Palestine history. He is an appeaser and an enabler for the world to receive more of the very violence he decries.

The burden of peace is on Hamas. It is the writings and lectures of liberal academics like Juan Cole who make the moral inversions of terrorist apologists and the anti-war movement possible. They are silent on Iranian dissidents being tortured in Iran everyday; they express love and admiration for dictators like Castro; they sympathize with the plight of Hamas and Islamic terrorists; all the while they call President Bush who has liberated 60 million Muslims the warmonger, and the plight of Israel “illegitimate”, “criminal”, and an “illegal occupation”.

It is the moral inversion of liberal peace/anti-war movements that causes war and the perpetuation of “the cycle of violence” by not protesting and pressuring the true dictators and violators of human rights.

I encourage all FA readers to go support Michael Totten in defeating Juan Cole in the 2008 Weblog Awards for Best Middle East or Africa Blog:

Juan Cole is decrying all the neocons he’s forced to compete with in the 2008 Weblog Awards for Best Middle East or Africa Blog. He thinks Helena Cobban — a deranged Hezbollah supporter — should have been nominated instead of someone like me. He’s worked his leftist readers into a tizzy, and they’re putting him over the top. I don’t really care if I win this award; I won it last year. But Juan Cole certainly doesn’t deserve it.

You know what kind of abject nonsense he’s peddling now? He’s arguing that Israel’s 1996 attack in Qana, Lebanon, inspired Mohammad Atta, who led the Al Qaeda cell on September 11, to write his “martyrdom will.” But Atta’s will, as Martin Kramer points out, was written before the attack in Qana. And it wasn’t a martyrdom will. It was a standard will. But Cole won’t let facts get in the way of blaming Israelis for just about anything, including violence committed by Al Qaeda.

Don’t let Cole win. Go over there and vote for me.

Go vote. Spread the word. Let Juan Cole experience firsthand what blowback is for his years of blogging 6 years of long-winded academic cyber-rubbish.

Also blogging:
American Power
Yaacov Lozowick’s Ruminations

President-elect Obama had this to say in response:

Klein returns from his useless adventure with little more than a pimp-punditry paper on excusing isolationist policies rather than engagement of genuinely bad guys; suicidal members of death cults bent on hunting down and killing Americans by any and all means. His article whines about how hard things are over there as if the very word “Afghanistan” isn’t a historical synonym for “ass end of the world,” “land of the nearly impossible,” or at least “graveyard of empires.” Of course it’s hard over there. It’s a war zone in the worst place on the planet. It’s a place that has known little more than war going back almost 10,000 years. The people are not the sharpest knives in the drawer by western standards because building schools has never been as useful to them as building bunkers, trenches, and dugouts. Their ideas about women, human rights, etc are not western, because the west has always asked the two connecting questions: “Why are we there”+”Why not just leave?” …and then left!

Klein actually managed to go all the way to Afghanistan to report on the insurgency there, and he never read a book on what an insurgency IS. He never read the 911 Commission report on WHY the United States and NATO are in Afghanistan, and (my favorite) the title to his article labels it an aimless war, questions why “We” [the United States] is in Afghanistan, and the man doesn’t even mention conversations with United States forces, officials, etc.

“Why Are We [Americans] there”….let’s ask the Canadians, Dutich, British, and then write about how aimless the American effort there is? Talk about arrogance on the part of a writer, his editors, a magazine, and the ignorance of its readers.

The war in Afghanistan was proposed by the Clinton Administration’s Richard Clarke in 1999 (according to his book, the 911 Commission, Bill Clinton’s memoirs, Madeline Albright’s book, and others). Why? Because Al Queda and their political wing, the Taliban, were using Afghanistan as a terrorist state bent on attacking the United States. Two years later, they succeed. Tomahawk missiles were not readily available. In fact, even ammo for tanks is scarce, but they had two things in abundance: hate and conviction. From that point, all they needed was a few guys and some box cutters. 3000 people died as a result, and where does that hate come from? It comes from the abandonment of Afghanistan to a land of infinite chaos and war instead of a land of hope and peace.

So Klein, in complete ignorance of the 911 Commission report, multiple Clinton Administration memoirs, and without talking and citing any Americans in Afghanistan, asks, “Why are we [Americans] there?”

If I turned in a story to my 8th grade English teacher, and the story was about eagles, but all I talked about were doves….she’s have torn it up. This goes beyond stupidity-even beyond propagandist arrogance. It’s irresponsible. It’s dangerous. It reinforces the idea that poor writing, incompetent editors, and vain efforts are killing print journalism.

The Aimless War? I think not. It’s time Mr. Klein and his editors looked at page ONE of the US Army Counterinsurgency Manual:

1-1. Insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN) are complex subsets of warfare. Globalization, technological advancement, urbanization, and extremists who conduct suicide attacks for their cause have certainly influenced contemporary conflict; however, warfare in the 21st century retains many of the characteristics it has exhibited since ancient times. Warfare remains a violent clash of interests between organized groups characterized by the use of force. Achieving victory still depends on a group’s ability to mobilize support for its political interests (often religiously or ethnically based) and to generate enough violence to achieve political consequences. Means to achieve these goals are not limited to conventional forces employed by nation-states.

1-2. Insurgency and its tactics are as old as warfare itself. Joint doctrine defines an insurgency as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict (JP 1-02). Stated another way, an insurgency is an organized, protracted politico-military struggle designed to weaken the control and legitimacy of an established government, occupying power, or other political authority while increasing insurgent control. Counterinsurgency is military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency (JP 1- 02). These definitions are a good starting point, but they do not properly highlight a key paradox: though insurgency and COIN are two sides of a phenomenon that has been called revolutionary war or internal war, they are distinctly different types of operations. In addition, insurgency and COIN are included within a broad category of conflict known as irregular warfare.

1-3. Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate. Insurgents use all available tools—political (including diplomatic), informational (including appeals to religious, ethnic, or ideological beliefs), military, and economic—to overthrow the existing authority. This authority may be an established government or an interim governing body. Counterinsurgents, in turn, use all instruments of national power to sustain the established or emerging government and reduce the likelihood of another crisis emerging.

1-4. Long-term success in COIN depends on the people taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to the government’s rule. Achieving this condition requires the government to eliminate as many causes of the insurgency as feasible. This can include eliminating those extremists whose beliefs prevent them from ever reconciling with the government. Over time, counterinsurgents aim to enable a country or regime to provide the security and rule of law that allow establishment of social services and growth of economic activity. COIN thus involves the application of national power in the political, military, economic, social, information, and infrastructure fields and disciplines. Political and military leaders and planners should never underestimate its scale and complexity; moreover, they should recognize that the Armed Forces cannot succeed in COIN alone.

emphasis added
link

Perhaps the best source for understanding why NATO and the United States are in Afghanistan can be found in the 911 Commission’s final report. There are several sections that detail WHY Afghanistan was and is important to the war with Al Queda (a war declared by Bin Laden in 1992; sixteen years ago). Perhaps the best can be found in sections 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5

He returned to Afghanistan.
2.5 AL QAEDA’S RENEWAL IN AFGHANISTAN
(1996–1998)
Bin Ladin flew on a leased aircraft from Khartoum to Jalalabad, with a refueling stopover in the United Arab Emirates.62 He was accompanied by family members and bodyguards, as well as by al Qaeda members who had been close associates since his organization’s 1988 founding in Afghanistan. Dozens of additional militants arrived on later flights.

No Mr. Klein, AMERICA and the rest of the world are in Afghanistan because if they weren’t, it would become another terrorist state. There is historical evidence to prove this as well as theoretical. Moreover, there is a plan for Afghanistan, but one cannot understand why Americans are in Afghanistan by asking Dutch, French, Canadian, or British soldiers who are there as peacekeepers. Why? Because American troops are there not only as peacekeepers, but also on the attack in a counterinsurgency. It’s not the same as in Iraq as no two battles or wars are ever the same (this ain’t a football game). The coming surge and shift of operations in Afghanistan is necessary, allegedly supported by the left (including President-elect Obama), and while having many of the same maxims and tactics will be as unique as every setting and scenario is.

How sad is it that TIME magazine and a veteran “writer” like Joe Klein could get away with such a puff-piece of poorly-written, sensationalist rhetoric; an article with a title that’s completely unsupported by the text within? Maybe, as Newsweek and other print pubs look at layoffs….Joe Klein should go back to Kabul and start his own publication? One wonders how fast he’d be demanding MORE peacekeepers were he to live and work there?

Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that “time has upset many fighting faiths.” Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.

Sounds fabulous right?

But liberals in action are something entirely different:

Should there be boycotts, blacklists, firings or de facto shunning of those who supported Proposition 8?

That’s the issue consuming many in liberal Hollywood who fought to defeat the initiative banning same-sex marriage and are now reeling with recrimination and dismay. Meanwhile, activists continue to comb donor lists and employ the Internet to expose those who donated money to support the ban.

Yes indeed….should there be firings and blackballing of individuals who supported Prop 8?

The answer is a resounding YES from the liberal left.

Most conservatives have seen the liberal left become unyielding to any viewpoint not their own. They call those who supported the liberation of Iraq “warmongers” and “criminals”. They love debate, so long as you have the same views as their own.

There is no “celebration of free and open debate.” Recall the rushing of the stage while a Minuteman stood up to talk at a college. They shut down his speech, and forced his viewpoint to be smothered. A liberal doesn’t agree with you, they will just shout, scream, and yell to drown it out. How dare a opposing viewpoint get out into the public realm.

And so it is with Prop 8. The people of California voted, for the second time, to define Marriage as between a man and a woman. Because they don’t agree with that, they take to the streets, they blackball filmmakers like Richard Raddon of Film Independent:

Raddon has been a particularly polarizing figure because Film Independent’s board includes many independent film stalwarts, including Don Cheadle, Forest Whitaker, Fox Searchlight President Peter Rice and Oscar-winning writer Bill Condon. One of the group’s explicit missions is to promote diversity.

Last week, Raddon offered to resign. According to one board member, a conference call was hastily arranged, and after much discussion the board voted unanimously to keep him.

Yet the anger continues to stew.

“There is still roiling debate within the organization,” says distributor Howard Cohen, an advisor to the film festival who is gay. “Is it OK to let this go? There are a lot of gay people who work at Film Independent. The issue has not been closed.”

No one is certain how the current protest will affect Film Independent’s Spirit Awards in the spring, a popular event recognizing work that “challenges the status quo.” And there are already indications the Los Angeles Film Festival could be affected.

Gregg Araki, director of the critically acclaimed gay cult hit “Mysterious Skin” and an influential figure in “new queer cinema,” has said he won’t allow his films to be shown there, while others, such as “Milk” producers and gay activists Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, say they’re going to “study in depth all the facets of our specific situation before making a decision.”

Araki says Raddon should step down. “I don’t think he should be forcibly removed. The bottom line is if he contributed money to a hateful campaign against black people, or against Jewish people, or any other minority group, there would be much less excusing of him. The terrible irony is that he runs a film festival that is intended to promote tolerance and equality.”

Hateful campaign against black people? Huh?

It was a Democratic campaign to have the citizenery of this State decide whether marriage should be between a man and a woman. There was no hateful campaign. Gays already have the same legal rights as those who marry by joining together in a civil union. They may have to do a bit more paperwork by putting their partner on their will and so forth, but all in all….legally, its the same.

Mataharley has done a great job describing the agenda of the gay community in this debate. It’s to re-educate the public on what is and what isn’t traditional rites:

A marriage between a man and a woman follows natural laws of conception and procreation. It is the way our world evolves and grows. Were any animal species of this inclination to any serious degree, it becomes extinct.

I can easily agree with the 50-60% of the population that feels civil unions gives same sex partners legal benefits that are enjoyed by married couples. But marriage and civil unions are not “equal” in the laws of nature… unless you think premature extinction from the lack of ability to conceive is “natural”. They should be equivalent in benefits, but in no way considered equal as a traditional family.

Marriage is, and will always remain, a union between a man and a woman. It is only by the two, combined, that a child is borne of natural (not petrie dish) conception… a natural order to procreation. Just as animals will not continue to exist without the natural order of procreation, neither will man. I do not want my granddaughter taught anything different.

If same sex unions needs to be “blessed” by govt in order to achieve their benefits, that is their choice. There is no reason to muddy the waters by the govt redefining what is not theirs to define. The meddling in the traditional rite of marriage is unconcionable. Civil unions… fine. Marriage? An insult to the rite…. and to it’s traditional history.

~~~

If I choose to be married… whether “in the eyes of God”, or perhaps just a vow spoken between myself and another on a remote beach somewhere… the vow and intent bind me in a way far more powerful than a govt contract. Marriage was not created to be a govt contract, but a very personal vow between a man and a woman before God… or the powers they believe exist.

So my question to you would be… why does the govt have to sanction it as “marriage” for your “right” to be recognized?

I cannot, and will not, put govt on a par with God – enabling them to define a religious (and intensely personal) rite on this issue. The govt does not grant us rights. They pre’exist and usurp govt power.

Again, you still miss the true agenda. This is not about govt benefits for the LGBT community. It is about reeducating the public as to what is “marriage” in order to tear down traditional rites. Otherwise, they’d go for the civil unions.

That reeducation of the public is all that matters. If they have to go back to the McCarthy era and start blackballing people, then so be it.

Professor Stone wrote that to be a liberal means you “consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others.”

In a alternative universe maybe, but not in this one.

In the weeks before the election, I noticed a growing number of my fellow citizens wearing Obama’s face on their t-shirts, usually in the spirit of socialist realism art. There’s not a politician alive who I admire enough to the point of worshipful adoration that I’d sport his likeness on my clothing or plaster it all over the wordsmobile (I do, however, wear my FA t-shirts with pride and enthusiastically tell people it’s a right-wing website when asked).

The only pro-McCain t-shirt I have seen in person was worn by a lone demonstrator in front of the house where an effigy of Sarah Palin was hung, supposedly in the spirit of Halloween. And even his didn’t sport McCain’s face on it.

I know that even in blue state California, here in the Los Angeles area, there were more than just a handful of McCain-Palin supporters. Yard signs and bumperstickers were more common; just not the t-shirts. And I’m sure a big part of that has to do with the intimidation factor.

There seem to be more loud activists on the left than on the right. Conservatives seem to not want to make a nuisance of themselves; but many liberals have no problem wearing their politics on their sleeves, on their t-shirts, on their cars. It’s apparently an automatic given that the whole world hates Bush; that’s why, in open public and broad daylight, they can say something derogatory about President Bush and feel safe in not getting called on it. Even amongst strangers.

The sad fact is, liberals, through the education system and through media and Hollywood pop culture, have been “allowed” to define and characterize conservatism. The Republican Party has been branded as the party of the rich; warmongers and war profiteers; racists and bigots. If you don’t believe in the alarmism of global warming, you are a “denier” and don’t care about the planet; if you believe in closing the borders, assimilation, and controlling immigration, then you’re against diversity and appreciation for the beauty of other cultures as well as anti-Mexican. And on and on, it goes…

I did not see one- NOT ONE!- “yes” on Prop 8 sign or button or bumpersticker. But I saw the “No” on Prop 8 placards around, perhaps even more than Obama signs. I thought it might pass, given that California voters had already “been there, done that” with Prop 22. What truly makes me livid about the issue, is how liberal activists once again are the ones who get to frame the debate. They’ve painted it as “the next good fight” in the struggle for civil rights and equality; and anyone who stands in the way is a bigot and a hatemonger, with backward religious beliefs and narrow-minded intolerance. Frankly, as someone rather agnostic on the issue, the bigotry and intolerance that I see is all coming from the self-righteous activists who won’t take “yes” for an answer and allow the majority rule to decide.

If you walk around with a “Yes” on Prop 8 sign the stigma is that you are a homophobic bigot and religious nut. You are the radical. Not the other way around. It’s also amusingly not funny to me that these activist bullies targeted the Mormon Church but not black churches when 70% of blacks voted “yes” on Prop 8. Ah, but I digress….

My post is actually about 14 year-old Catherine Vogt and her t-shirt experiment.

As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we’re all united now, let’s consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching “inclusion,” and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

“McCain Girl.”

“I was just really curious how they’d react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters,” Catherine told us. “I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be.”

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain’s name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

“People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn’t be wearing it,” Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

“One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,” Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren’t the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

“In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain,” Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

“Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said,” Catherine said.

How often do you suppose this happens in the classroom? Often, I believe. I work with a lot of kids and it sounds like liberal indoctrination is all too common. Outing oneself as belonging to a conservative Republican family, and the child is subjected to ridicule from the herd mentality of children who have been told Democrats are “the good guys” and Republicans are basically “evil and selfish”.

Scott’s own daughter experienced abuse by Obama bullies.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

“He said, ‘You should be crucifixed.’ It was kind of funny because, I was like, don’t you mean ‘crucified?’ ” Catherine said.

Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be “burned with her shirt on” for “being a filthy-rich Republican.”

Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election.

I’ve heard some deranged liberals accuse McCain of being a racist. Absolutely laughable, given one of the most under-reported items regarding Senator McCain is that he and Cindy have a Bangladesh daughter, Bridget, adopted from Mother Teresa’s orphanage. McCain did not politicize the touching story of how this daughter came into their lives, nor make an issue of his two sons currently serving.

And I thought such politicized logic was confined to American newsrooms. Yet Catherine refused to argue with her peers. She didn’t want to jeopardize her experiment.

“I couldn’t show people really what it was for. I really kind of wanted to laugh because they had no idea what I was doing,” she said.

Only a few times did anyone say anything remotely positive about her McCain shirt. One girl pulled her aside in a corner, out of earshot of other students, and whispered, “I really like your shirt.”

Whispered “out of earshot”…..

It’s time for conservatives to be more “activist” and to start fighting back more vocally and vociferously against the misperceptions and decades of slander against the Republican Party and conservative ideology. More importantly, we need to stem the tide of liberal indoctrination in our schools, when we turn on the tv, when we open up the newspaper, when we go out to see movies. If we don’t we will lose the culture war and we will lose the half of America that we believe represents the best part of America.

Hat tip: American Power for the story of Catherine Vogt.

Here’s the follow-up story.

Naturally, how to measure patriotism is a matter of argument. One way is to look at differences in military involvement: Rural and small-town families are more likely to see their children go off into combat, and return in body bags. Or, we can turn to one of the few recent non-partisan surveys on the matter, the American National Election Study from the University of Michigan. It’s produced every election year, and the most recent data is from 2004.

This installment asked two pertinent questions:
1. How strong is your love for your country? . . . EXTREMELY strong, VERY strong, SOMEWHAT strong, or NOT VERY strong?
2. Is being an American EXTREMELY important, VERY important, SOMEWHAT important, NOT TOO important, or NOT AT ALL important to you personally?

If we scrutinize the responses from large cities, suburbs, and small towns, the small towns are far more patriotic. Nearly three in every four (73.4 percent) respondents from counties of fewer than 25,000 people expressed that their love for their country was extremely strong, compared to only half of those in counties with more than 300,000 inhabitants. In the nation’s largest population centers, those expressing “extremely strong” love for country stood at only 46 percent. And over two-thirds of respondents from small counties reported that it is ”extremely important” to be American, compared to about half of big-city folk.

It is certainly possible that factors other than simple geography are at work here. The populations in small towns are older, and older people are generally more expressive of pro-American values than younger people are, for example. Also, rural areas are more Republican, and the University of Michigan survey shows a significant partisan difference in patriotism. Democrats are considerably less likely to express strong love of country than Republicans are, and less likely to think being an American is important. Of those who claimed to be “Strong Democrats,” only around half expressed extremely strong love of country, compared to three-fourths of the “Strong Republicans.” A sizable share of (but by no means all) committed Democrats are apparently embarrassed about their country and about being American.

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Central Florida 7th grader called racist for wearing Palin t-shirt
She’s only 12 years old but Ashleigh Jones is feeling the heat of this election year.

That’s because the seventh grader at New Smyrna Beach Middle School was called a racist by classmates for wearing a pro-Sarah Palin t-shirt.

Jones is volunteering at the Republican Headquarters in New Smyrna Beach. The Palin t-shirt was a gift from her fellow volunteers.

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You can’t tax 5% of the American workforce with another $1,200,000,000,000 and expect those same people to INCREASE their spending on investments (especially when they stand to make less on investments as he’s raising the capital gains tax), to increase hiring, and to increase payscales. It doesn’t work.

ARLINGTON, VA — Today, McCain-Palin 2008 released the following statement signed by 100 distinguished and experienced economists at major American universities and research organizations, including five Nobel Prize winners Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott, and Vernon Smith. The economists explain why Barack Obama’s proposals, including “misguided tax hikes,” would “decrease the number of jobs in America.” The prospects of such tax rate increases under Barack Obama are already harming the economy. The economists conclude that “Barack Obama’s economic proposals are wrong for the American economy.” The proposals “defy both economic reason and economic experience.”

The full economists’ statement on Barack Obama’s economic proposals and a complete list of economists who support it follows:

Barack Obama argues that his proposals to raise tax rates and halt international trade agreements would benefit the American economy. They would do nothing of the sort. Economic analysis and historical experience show that they would do the opposite. They would reduce economic growth and decrease the number of jobs in America. Moreover, with the credit crunch, the housing slump, and high energy prices weakening the U.S. economy, his proposals run a high risk of throwing the economy into a deep recession. It was exactly such misguided tax hikes and protectionism, enacted when the U.S. economy was weak in the early 1930s, that greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression.

We are very concerned with Barack Obama’s opposition to trade agreements such as the pending one with Colombia, the new one with Central America, or the established one with Canada and Mexico. Exports from the United States to other countries create jobs for Americans. Imports make goods available to Americans at lower prices and are a particular benefit to families and individuals with low incomes. International trade is also a powerful source of strength in a weak economy. In the second quarter of this year, for example, increased international trade did far more to stimulate the U.S. economy than the federal government’s “stimulus” package.

Ironically, rather than supporting international trade, Barack Obama is now proposing yet another so-called stimulus package, which would do very little to grow the economy. And his proposal to finance the package with higher taxes on oil would raise oil prices directly and by reducing exploration and production.

We are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor income and investment. His dividend and capital gains tax increases would reduce investment and cut into the savings of millions of Americans. His proposals to increase income and payroll tax rates would discourage the formation and expansion of small businesses and reduce employment and take-home pay, as would his mandates on firms to provide expensive health insurance.

After hearing such economic criticism of his proposals, Barack Obama has apparently suggested to some people that he might postpone his tax increases, perhaps to 2010. But it is a mistake to think that postponing such tax increases would prevent their harmful effect on the economy today. The prospect of such tax rate increases in 2010 is already a drag on the economy. Businesses considering whether to hire workers today and expand their operations have time horizons longer than a year or two, so the prospect of higher taxes starting in 2009 or 2010 reduces hiring and investment in 2008.

In sum, Barack Obama’s economic proposals are wrong for the American economy. They defy both economic reason and economic experience.

Robert Barro, Harvard University

Gary Becker, University of Chicago

Sanjai Bhagat, University of Colorado

Michael Block, University of Arizona

Brock Blomberg, Claremont-McKenna University

Michael Bordo, Rutgers University

Michael Boskin, Stanford University

Ike Brannon, McCain-Palin 2008

James Buchanan, George Mason University

Todd Buchholtz, Two Oceans Fund

Charles Calomiris, Columbia University

Jim Carter, Vienna VA

Barry Chiswick, University of Illinois at Chicago

John Cogan, Hoover Institution

Kathleen Cooper, Southern Methodist University

Ted Covey, McLean VA

Dan Crippen, former CBO Director

Mario Crucini, Vanderbilt

Steve Davis, University of Chicago

Christopher DeMuth, American Enterprise Institute

William Dewald, Ohio State University

Frank Diebold, University of Pennsylvania

Isaac Ehrlich, State University of New York at Buffalo

Paul Evans, Ohio State University

Dan Feenberg, NBER

Martin Feldstein, Harvard University

Eric Fisher, California Polytechnic State University

Kristin Forbes, MIT

Timothy Fuerst, Bowling Green State University

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Hudson Institute

Paul Gregory, University of Houston

Earl Grinols, Baylor University

Rik Hafer, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Gary Hansen, UCLA

Eric Hanushek, Hoover Institutions

Kevin Hassett, American Enterprise Institute

Arlene Holen, Technology Policy Institute

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain-Palin 2008

Glenn Hubbard, Columbia University

Owen Irvine, Michigan State University

Mike Jensen, Harvard University

Steven Kaplan, University of Chicago

Robert King, Boston University

Meir Kohn, Dartmouth

Marvin Kosters, American Enterprise Institute

Anne Krueger, Johns Hopkins University

Phil Levy, American Enterprise Institute

Larry Lindsey, The Lindsey Group

Paul W. MacAvoy. Yale University

John Makin, American Enterprise Institute

Burton Malkiel, Princeton University

Bennett McCallum, Carnegie-Mellon University

Paul McCracken, University of Michigan

Will Melick, Kenyon College

Allan Meltzer, Carnegie-Mellon University

Enrique Mendoza, University of Maryland

Jim Miller, George Mason University

Michael Moore, George Washington University

Robert Mundell, Columbia University

Tim Muris, George Mason University

Kevin Murphy, University of Chicago

Richard Muth, Emory University

Charles Nelson, University of Washington

Bill Niskanen, Cato Institute

June O’Neill, Baruch College, CUNY

Lydia Ortega, San Jose State University

Steve Parente, University of Minnesota

William Poole, University of Delaware

Michael Porter, Harvard University

Barry Poulson, University of Colorado, Boulder

Edward Prescott, Arizona State University

Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University

Richard Roll, UCLA

Harvey Rosen, Princeton University

Robert Rossana, Wayne State University

Mark Rush, University of Florida

Tom Saving, Texas A&M University

Anna Schwartz, NBER

George Shultz, Stanford University

Chester Spatt, Carnegie-Mellon University

David Spencer, Brigham Young University

Beryl Sprinkle, Former Chair Council of Economic Advisers

Houston Stokes, University of Illinois in Chicago

Robert Tamura, Clemson University

Jack Tatum, Indiana State University

John Taylor, Stanford University

Richard Vedder, Ohio University

William B. Walstad, University of Nebraska

Murray Weidenbaum, Washington University in St. Louis

Arnold Zellner, University of Chicago

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First he wrote an article complaining about Republicans and people who warn that planet Earth is not a civilized place, but rather it is a very dangerous one where evil exists in men-often powerful men with increasing access to dangerous technologies and equally decreasing reluctance to take action due to a lack of deterrence that stems from denialists like Zakaria.

The World Isn’t So Dark
There is some truth to both visions of the world, but in my view the reality is much closer to Obama’s—more so than most American politicians seem willing to admit. We live in remarkably peaceful times. A University of Maryland study shows that deaths from wars of all kinds have been dropping dramatically for 20 years and are lower now than at any point in the last half century. A study from Simon Fraser University finds that casualties from terrorism have been steadily declining since 9/11. It is increasingly clear—look at their voting from Indonesia to Iraq to Pakistan—that very few Muslims anywhere support Islamic fundamentalists. More countries than ever before now embrace capitalism and democracy.

It’s also worth noting that ever since World War II, the United States has tended to make its strategic missteps by exaggerating dangers. During the 1950s, conservatives argued that Dwight Eisenhower was guilty of appeasement because he was willing to contain rather than roll back communism. The paranoia about communism helped fuel McCarthyism at home and support for dubious regimes abroad. John Kennedy chose to outflank Nixon on the right by arguing that there was a dangerous missile gap between the Soviets and the United States (when in fact the United States had almost 20,000 missiles and the Soviets had fewer than 2,000). The 1970s witnessed a frenzied argument that the Soviet Union was surpassing the United States militarily and was about to “Finlandize” Europe. The reality, of course, was that when neoconservatives were arguing that the U.S.S.R. was about to conquer the world, it was on the verge of total collapse.

Since end of the cold war, similar alarms have been sounded several times. In the 1990s, the Cox Commission argued that China was building a military to rival ours, citing numbers that soon proved to be bogus. Then there’s Saddam Hussein, who was described as a powerful and imminent threat to the United States. In fact, the greatest problem that we have faced in Iraq is its weakness, its utter dysfunction as a state and a nation. Rhetoric about transcendent threats and mortal dangers grips the imagination of the American people. But it also twists U.S. foreign policy in ways that can prove to be extremely costly to the country and the world.

One would think that Fareed is telling people the world is not all that dangerous a place, but then the partisan hack for Newsweek turns right around, and he takes Governor Sarah Palin to task over foreign policy claiming (among other things) that Russia’s presence a few miles from her state does not give her foreign policy experience. Gosh, perhaps Russian Bear bombers are flying over Senator Biden’s state of Delaware too? No. Maybe they’re buzzing Obama’s Chi-town? I don’t think so. I think her state IS the nuclear front line for an armageddon standoff that has never really ended, only reduced in scale, and is rising back again.

Of course, one’s neighbors aren’t her only understanding of foreign affairs, and, again-referring back to Fareed’s earlier article which depicted the planet as covered with cotton candy cumulus, rivers of chocolate, and forests of gumdrop trees, we have to recall that the Newsweek foreign policy brainiac-hack doesn’t believe the world is that dangerous. Right? Well, that’s only when it comes to agreeing with Senator Obama. When it comes to the other side of the aisle, if a person has an R next to their title, then they’re obviously underqualified to talk about foreign policy. THOSE people just aren’t prepared enough to deal with the horrors of planet Earth…

Palin Is Ready? Please.
Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.

Domestically, the bailout and reform of the financial industry will take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. Health-care costs, unless curtailed, will bankrupt the federal government. Social Security, immigration, collapsing infrastructure and education are all going to get much worse if they are not handled soon.

And the American government is stretched to the limit. Between the Bush tax cuts, homeland-security needs, Iraq, Afghanistan and the bailout, the budget is looking bleak. Plus, within a few years, the retirement of the baby boomers begins with its massive and rising costs (in the trillions).

Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints.

So there it is Fareed…

When talking about a Senator from Illinois who was only a senator for 150 days before becoming a professional presidential candidate…well, in that case the world is just fine, and there’s really nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if we’re talking about a Governor who runs a state that has nuclear bombers flying over it…fuh ghet uh ’bout it. She’s a clueless moron unable to deal with the vast dangers and challenges of the next administration.

Now, what I found really hillarious about Zakaria’s duplicity was that he himself pointed out that the Obama/Biden campaign and the McCain/Palin campaign aren’t really that different in foreign policy.

Their differences over Iraq policy have shrunk as the place has stabilized somewhat and the Iraqi government looks for a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal. Both candidates oppose Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Russia’s incursion into Georgia. Both support a vigorous fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

So, what’s the problem then? Both sides basically have the same foreign policy-except one campaign has an R next to their name, and a woman, and the other has a D, and an African-American. The source of Fareed’s predjudicial description of the world’s condition depends on one of those factors and not with a foreign policy difference because-as he points out-there really is none.

Maybe it’s time Fareed and Newsweek thought a moment about their little double standard. It’s probably a good idea if for no other reason than to decide if the world is a dangerous place or not for a person with little foreign policy experience: Obama or Palin.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Boys and girls,
Cats and dogs,
Forget the Olympics…THE REAL GAMES ARE IN DENVER!!!!

I thought of all kinds of ways to make a quick movie snippet or something multimedia, but in my YouTube raw meat search…something caught my eye, flipped my trigger, and just seemed SO PERFECT for the occasion. So please, press play on this 1992 ode to confusion, chaos, and searching rather than accepting. It’s a throw back to a time when Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Jessica Simpson, and so many others were still playing with their Barbie girls. A time when Saddam had just had his ass kicked and people believed he was contained (yeah, ’cause dictators learn their lessons and never hold grudges). A time when the Clintons were taking DC, and a generation was realizing those student loans had to be paid some day….and that someday was approaching fast.

And in the wake of what conservative musicians like these saw as confusing and scary, we can now fast-forward to this weekend’s antics.

A time when American gold medalists dared to thank President Bush in a LIVE interview on NBC forcing the network to delete the video from their website, threaten every single copy posted on YouTube, and even got the remarks removed from transcripts.

A time when Pres Bush signed an agreement with the Iraqi govt to withdraw US combat forces from Iraqi cities over the next 9 months and continue the withdrawal of other US forces from Iraq.
A time when Dems eat Dems over stupidity, ignorance, and arrogance, and most importantly

A time when the faux-anti-war group, “Dykes Against Dubya” reforms to protest against President Bush (a Republican) at the Democratic National Convention.
Bumper Stickers Still Available!!!!

It’s a time when people protesting the war in Iraq (which is ending, “US, Iraq reach deal to pull US troops out by June“) march to get their message heard using loud voices, bullhorns, big speakers, and giant banners, and then when FOX News tries to give them an open mic to express themselves….the protesters continue to pull the plug and harass the reporters so as to HELP get their message out to more people.

So pop the popcorn, crack open the brew, stretch out the recliner, grab the remote, and enjoy the show as Democrats protest Democrats and promise to recreate the riots-err, I mean “peaceful protests” of 1968. (note, did the City of Denver really agree to stop enforcing marijuana offenses for the convention? If so…it might be the most brilliant act of crowd control in history)

…and so it begins

Protesters Disrupt Convention Access; At Least Two Arrests Before DNC Begins

TENT State University per MTV

Oh, and there’s some great pics here

Man, it’s happening so fast….I just keep askin’

Hey yeh yeh yeh
Hey yeh yeh
Anybody know w hat’s goin’ on?

Well, at least I found the answer to a question that’s been naggin’ me forever: Where do these Che Guevarra lovin’ people come from? Don’t they have jobs? Why yes…they do

TWO US professional Bigfoot hunters claim to have found a body of the legendary creature and will present evidence of the astounding discovery to the world’s press and scientists tomorrow.

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, who run Bigfoot expeditions, say they found a dead Bigfoot in the woods of north Georgia, in the southeast of the US, about two weeks ago and have put the carcass in a freezer.

QUESTION: who gets to protest: PETA, HUMAN RIGHTS Watch, or pro-immigration advocates?

(side note, we’ve got coyotes in our backyard now-driving my dogs nuts, and making me question the rationality of gun control laws every time they walk under my kids’ playset and past the neighbors’ playset).