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00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - The Law - Warner Todd Huston

Reuters: Accuses US of Being Against the Rule of Law

July 6, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

It looks like Reuters is trying to say that the United States stands against the rule of law with their latest piece on a recent ruling from the so-called World Court — the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ wants the U.S. to vacate the death penalty sentences of several Mexican nationals that sit on death row in prisons in several states and Reuters is shaking its finger at the nasty Americans that deny the jurisdiction of the self-styled World Court.

Mexico has been agitating with the World Court to force the United States to vacate (or at least revisit) the convictions of 51 Mexican nationals now on death row because they claim that these murderers were not alerted to their right to seek consular assistance before they went into the American court systems.

Naturally, the ICJ happily complied with Mexico’s request and demanded that the U.S. comply with the World Court decision. Bush made an unfortunate decision in 2005 to ask the various states to comply with the ICJ, but the issue has since been settled by the Supreme Court of the United States. Fortunately, just this month the SCOTUS said that our courts are not bound by the ICJ rulings.

Of course, Reuters seems to imagine that the U.S. now stands against the rule of law because we have told the ICJ to take a hike. The Reuters report is filled with the stern scolding of a U.S. that “violated” international law and how the U.S. is “in breach of its international obligations.”

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Taxes - Thomas Brewton

The Socialist Political State in Action

July 6, 2008 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Speed and efficiency have never been the hallmarks of the socialist political state.

New York’s slow and extraordinarily costly shamble in rebuilding the World Trade Center after 9/11, now almost seven years ago, is a typical example of socialist state planning. This fiasco is a model for what so-called progressive liberals, led by Senator Barack Obama, intend for socialized strangulation of the entire economy.

In its June 30, 2008, edition, the Wall Street Journal reports:

The rebuilding of the World Trade Center will be pushed back into the next decade and will cost up to $3 billion more than planned. The Port Authority is set to release a report detailing significant delays and cost overruns on construction.

This may be disturbing to taxpayers who foot the bill, but it’s really good news for liberal-progressive-socialist politicians, of whom New York State and New York City have an ample supply.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

A ‘Silence of Feminists’ Over Michelle Obama?

July 5, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mary C. Curtis is in high dudgeon. She is all twisted up inside over the seeming lack of support that feminists have for Michelle Obama. She has decided to scold all those recalcitrant feminists, too. Yes, she’s all upset over this thing wondering, “Where are Obama’s feminist defenders?” Curtis is even moaning that black women are second-class citizens, even with feminists. She is all in righteous indignation about the “The Loud Silence Of Feminists.”

Curtis is agonizing over the fact that women aren’t defending Michelle Obama. She imagines that feminists have failed women, specifically black women. Well, I agree at some point. Feminists have failed women, but the least of which is Michelle Obama. Not that Curtis seemed to notice, but femisinsts have indeed been silent on the treatment of women in the Muslim world. They have sat silent over forced weddings, beatings, female circumcision of children, rape, stoning and so-called honor killings going on not just in the Middle East, but in every western country that has a sizable Muslim population.

Still, Curtis is only interested in Michelle Obama. She warms us up with some hagiography of Michelle.

Continue reading “A ‘Silence of Feminists’ Over Michelle Obama?”

00Publius Contributor - Congress - Dan Scott - Democrats/Leftists - Energy - GOP - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture

Another Liberal Myth – The US has no energy policy

July 5, 2008 by 7 Comments

-By Dan Scott

I have even heard my coworkers repeat the talking point that Democrats love to continually repeat. “The country has no energy policy.” The reason why we seemly don’t have an energy policy which would bring stable energy pricing is that we have had 30 years of political meddling in the nation’s energy supply starting with President Carter.

I find it interesting that President George W Bush is being blamed for the Democrat Party’s pandering to environmental extremists for over 30 years and yet the Democrats have the nerve to claim the US has no energy policy when in fact it does. The policy is the culmination of legislation enacted by Democrats over 30 years. Blaming someone else for the consequences of one’s own actions is a liberal tactic called Blame Shifting.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - History - News - Security/Safety

The Mike Bates Independence Day Quiz

July 3, 2008 by

-By Michael M. Bates

Happy Birthday, America. It’s been 232 years since the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed. Take a quick quiz to see how much you know about this statement that changed the world.

  1. From what country did the American colonies declare their independence?
  2. In what city was the Declaration written?
  3. What colony did George Washington represent when he signed the Declaration?
  4. What two signers died on an anniversary of the Declaration?
  5. How many of the 13 colonies approved the Declaration?
  6. Who signed the Declaration on July 4, 1776?
  7. Whose authorship of the Declaration was treated as a state secret for 24 years?
  8. What U.S. bill depicts the Declaration?
  9. In what year was July 4 declared a federal holiday?
    10. Which signer included where he lived on the Declaration?
    That was fun, wasn’t it? Here are the answers.

  10. Great Britain. You might think everyone knows that, but they don’t. One Gallup poll found that only 76 percent of Americans answered the question correctly.
  11. Philadelphia.
  12. Sorry, that was a trick question. George Washington didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence. He was busy commanding the Continental army.
  13. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration. Political adversaries at times, and friends at others, these two remarkable men were vital to the creation of the United States. In his wonderful biography of Adams, David McCullough writes that, when told it was the Fourth, Mr. Adams answered “It is a great day. It is a good day.” Among his last words were, “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Mr. Jefferson had died several hours earlier.
  14. Only 12 colonies approved the document. New York abstained.
  15. On the great day itself, just two men signed the Declaration. They were John Hancock, the Continental Congress’s president, and Charles Thomson, its secretary. Most of the delegates signed the document on August 2.
  16. Thomas Jefferson. It wasn’t until he ran for president in 1800 that his authorship of the Declaration became widely known. In his later years, John Adams recounted the arguments he used to persuade Mr. Jefferson to write the Declaration: “Reason first: You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can.” That wasn’t Tom’s recollection, but it still makes a good anecdote.
  17. The $2 Federal Reserve Note. Thomas Jefferson’s portrait has been on the front of the note since 1869. Observing our bicentennial in 1976, the back of note was changed to feature an engraving of John Trumbull’s painting “The Signing of the Declaration of Independence.”
  18. If you knew the answer to this one, you need to get out more. It was in 1870 and, according to the Congressional Research Service, Independence Day, Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Thanksgiving were the first four days thus recognized.
  19. Maryland’s Charles Carroll added “of Carrollton” after his signature. It’s believed that was done so relatives with the same name weren’t confused for him. Signing the Declaration was treason pure and simple, and the courageous men who affixed their names to it were risking everything. Mr. Carroll was also the only Catholic to sign, a not inconsequential deed at a time when people of his faith weren’t even permitted to vote. He was the last signer to die, passing away in 1832.

If your score is 9 or 10: You sure know how to use Google.

If your score is 6-8: Someone was paying attention in high school.

If your score is 4 or 5: Someone wasn’t paying attention in high school.

If your score is 3 or less: Been a Democrat long?

I’ll spend Independence Day trying not to remember it’s my birthday and dwelling on what a blessing it is to have been born in these United States of America.

Have a terrific Fourth!

(This Michael Bates column appeared in the July 3, 2008 Reporter Newspapers.)
____________
Michael M. Bates has written a weekly column of opinion – or nonsense, depending on your viewpoint – since 1985 for the (southwest suburban Chicago) Reporter Newspapers. Additionally, his articles have appeared in the Congressional Record, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Mensa Journal. He has been a guest on Milt Rosenberg’s program on WGN Radio Chicago, the Bruce Elliott show on Baltimore’s WBAL, the Jim Sumpter show on the USA Radio Network and the New Media Journal’s Blog Radio. As a lad, Mike distributed Goldwater campaign literature and since then has steadily moved further to the Right. He is the author of “Right Angles and Other Obstinate Truths.” In 2007, he won an Illinois Press Association award for Original Column.

His presence on the web can be viewed at www.michaelmbates.com And he can be reached at mikembates-at-gmail.com

00Publius Contributor - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Media Bias - News - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Update on NY School Bus Union Mob Ties

July 3, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

We’ve reported on this story several times in the past and we have a conclusion for at least one of the mobbed-up participants in this case. The former president of the union representing 15,000 New York school bus drivers, Salvatore Battaglia, has been sentenced to four years and nine months in Federal prison after he leaded guilty to extortion and receiving bribes from mobsters under the control of Matthew Ianniello, the former acting boss of the Genovese crime family.

Mr. Battaglia was the president of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union from 2002 to 2006, when he lost the job because of his indictment in the case. In that indictment, he was accused of being a member of the Genovese family.

Two other union officials have pleaded guilty to charges in the case. Julius Bernstein, an employee and officer of Local 1181 for more than 30 years, pleaded guilty in August 2006 to working with the Genovese family since the 1950s and admitted crimes including labor racketeering, extortion, bribery, gambling and obstruction of justice. Ann Chiarovano, an employee of the union for more than 40 years, also pleaded guilty in August 2006 to charges of obstruction of justice.

Despite constant claims to the contrary by union supporters, the Mob has never been very far away from any union. At least these mob controlled union thugs were apprehended and kudos to the investigators for doing so.

Continue reading “Update on NY School Bus Union Mob Ties”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Religion - Society/Culture

The Unsinkable Father Pfleger

July 3, 2008 by

-By Michael M. Bates

Chicago’s Father Michael Pfleger made a triumphant appearance Sunday at St. Sabina’s Catholic Church. Returning from a two-week suspension, the priest delivered his “Ain’t nothing like a comeback” sermon to an adoring congregation.

He could as aptly have used “I will survive” as his theme. Like him or love him, Father Pfleger is the definitive survivor. Cardinals come and cardinals go, but the activist pastor does as he pleases and prevails.

It’s always been that way. Declining enrollments forced some Chicago Catholic schools to close in the 1970s. Pfleger, still a seminarian at the time, picketed then-Cardinal John Cody’s home in protest.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

CBS’ Steve Hartman Has an Ugly Baby

July 2, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

**Video Below the Fold**

Last week, with an “Assignment America” report on the CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman perpetrated a perfect example of why the media simply has no credibility on any subject, even humor. Hatrman’s report was not only dishonest, but missed the main point by a fair margin.

To set his report up, Hartman claims that before his son was born he had wondered why parents universally felt their own children were be so darn cute? He wondered how it could be that every parent thought theirs was the cutest child ever born? So, after Hartman himself recently had a son, George, he thought that he might go out and explore his curiosity on the subject.

The result was Is My Baby Cute? Really? where Hartman went out on the street to ask parents if they thought their own babies were cute. CBS had also previously asked parents to send in to them photos of babies, ugly and cute, in preparation for the story.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - GOP - Media Bias - News - President - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton

More Hypocrisy

July 2, 2008 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Senator Obama expresses pious sentiments about family integrity, but actively supports abortion, the practice that is most destructive to families.

Senator Obama has been lauded by the media for his Fathers’ Day speech about family and fatherhood, a pale shadow of Bill Cosby’s earlier and more courageous exhortations. Given the Senator’s consistent advocacy of liberal-progressive-socialist immorality and of even the most gruesome forms of abortion, his speech was the equivalent of an illegal arms dealer praising the virtues of international peace.

But such hypocrisy is not uncommon for Senator Obama, who, like Senator John Kerry, regularly backs away from supposedly firm positions he had earlier espoused. For example, his support for, then backing away from, Rev. Wright’s anti-American, white-hatred preaching, along with his early declaration of intent to hold unconditional talks with Iran’s Ahmadinijad, then beating a hasty retreat when foreign policy experts revealed the idiocy of that tactic.
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00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Founders - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - News - Patriotism - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Philly Inquirer Says No 4th For You, America is Evil, WOT is a ‘Scam’

July 1, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

You know, I was wondering when this was going to happen, when someone in the MSM would say Bush has ruined July Fourth? The Philadelphia Inquirer didn’t disappoint by wallowing in the worst example of blame-America-above-all as well as the most extreme case of BDS that I’ve seen outside the kind of nutroot sites like Daily Kos and the Democratic Underground. A mainstream paper has now gone that extra mile to let us all know that America does not deserve a July Fourth celebration this year because of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, CIA secret prisons, and, lest you imagine otherwise, the fact that we have made George W. Bush our president. “Cancel the parade” because America is evil. It’s all there in all it’s anti-American splendor in A not-so-glorious Fourth, U.S. atrocities are unworthy of our heritage.

Inquirer columnist Chris Satullo thinks that America is fraught with sin and that we don’t deserve a Fourth celebration. “This year, America doesn’t deserve to celebrate its birthday,” he whines. “This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement.”

We have failed to pay attention. We’ve settled for lame excuses. We’ve spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago.

We’ve “spit on the memory” of the Founders? Does he mean when the Democratic Party helped us lose Vietnam? How about when liberals somehow divined in the Founder’s name a “right to privacy” in the Constitution? Were either of those times when we spit in their faces? How about when the American left destroyed religion in America, or when they invented a “right” to abortion, or when they turned our various systems of education into places where fringe, wackos reign supreme and American history, civics and… well, anything actually educational… is banished into the mists of the past? Does Our pal Chris Satullo mean those times when the Founders saw the spittle fly?

You can guess that no is the answer to my questions.

No, to Chris Satullo, the only time we’ve “spit on the memory” of the founders is when we reacted to the time when 3,000 of our own were killed in New York City by Islamic terrorists. He is all upset that we’ve tortured prisoners, illegally imprisoned people “for years,” and practiced “rendition.”

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - Military - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

CNN Finds NEW Way to Count Body Bags, Now in Afghanistan

July 1, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

We’ve taken notice that Iraq is suddenly out of the news now that things are consistently going so well for U.S. forces there. Well, since CNN can’t find much bad to talk about in Iraq they’ve finally found some “bad” news they can use as a needle to stick in the Bush Administration’s collective eye. In Coalition troop deaths in Afghanistan surpass Iraq, CNN has discovered that they can make a body bag contest out of casualties between Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh, joy!

For the second month in a row, U.S. and allied troop deaths in the Afghan war have surpassed those in Iraq, according to official figures tallied by CNN… In June, 46 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 31 troops died in Iraq. In May, 23 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 21 died in Iraq.

Stop the presses! And, did you notice that now they are adding foreign troops up because they can’t get enough American deaths to report? Can you remember the last time the American press was worried about the casualties among our foreign coalition?

It also doesn’t escape notice that the headline is a bit misleading. Read standing alone, one would think that the headline is saying more troops have now died in Afghanistan than have died in Iraq for the entire war. After all, the headline doesn’t restrict itself to just the two months in question! A lazy reader might tend to take away the wrong impression by this badly composed headline.

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00Publius Contributor - Business - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Elections - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Unions Says Public Has No Right to Know About State Payments to Unions

July 1, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

What happened when the Evergreen Freedom Foundation decided to request the public government records of the negotiations between unions and government in Washington State? All hell broke loose, that’s what.

The bloated public employee unions banded together to stop the public from finding out what went on between the government and the unions during the negotiations of state contracts — that is contracts FUNDED by tax money, by the way — for employee benefits and rules. They filed suit saying that the public had no right to know how their own tax money was to be spent.

One union official even said that if he thought his words would become public record he would “not be comfortable speaking” until he had “fully thought through” what he had to say. Of course, this forces one to wonder why he would open his yap without thinking about what he is saying whether his yammering would be public knowledge or not?

Yes, the Unions fought the EFF tooth and nail to keep their negotiations secret from the very public that is paying their bills.

Check out the whole outrageous story at Capital Research Center’s “When unions negotiate with governments” and download the PDF report. Its a great read and a cautionary tale that supports our contention here on the Union Label Blog that unions are antithetical to good government.

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00Publius Contributor - David Huntwork - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture

The Coming Fascist State

July 1, 2008 by

-By David Huntwork

If the government gets into the business of regulating and controlling carbon emissions it will be an unparalleled concentration of power far exceeding the New Deal under Roosevelt. The government will be in complete control over what businesses and average citizens consume and produce. It is the gateway excuse to rule, regulate and control your daily life in a fashion that we have never tolerated before but are now expected to meekly accept as we attempt to bailout the bathtub with a teaspoon. Never have Americans been so willing to hand over the most fundamental financial, transportation and quality of life decisions to a central authority on such questionable grounds.

We have been brainwashed that climate change is mainly caused by human activity and that somehow carbon taxes, economic socialism, monitoring lawn mower emissions, criticizing cow flatulence and flailing away at the faceless evil that is “oil” will somehow make a difference on climate changes we are only barely beginning to understand, let alone significantly influence one way or another.

Rather disturbingly, presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama made the following statement while campaigning in Oregon.
Continue reading “The Coming Fascist State”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - The Law - Warner Todd Huston

Gov’t To tell You What Kids to Invite to Birthday Parties

June 30, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

OK, now go read that headline again. There is no trick to it. I am saying that government is aggregating unto itself the power to tell you, a parent of an 8-year-old child, which of his school classmates he is allowed to invite to his birthday party. And government has decided that if your child doesn’t invite every kid in his class, then he isn’t allowed to invite any of them.

It’s about discrimination, don’t you know?

You see, our wilting flowers, our fragile, unable, emotionally unstable children will grow up to become serial killers if they don’t get invited to YOUR child’s birthday party. The government cares, see, and has so decreed. YOU will just have to invite everyone or you will be barred from having that party.

Fortunately this stupidity hasn’t yet happened in the United States but it did just occur in Europe. Sweden to be exact. The AP is reporting the Nanny State in Sweden has forcibly taken away the birthday invitations to an 8-year-old boy’s birthday party and told his father that he isn’t allowed to pass them out to only some of the other kids. If it isn’t all of them, then NONE should be invited.

The boy handed out invitations to classmates at his school in Lund, southern Sweden, but did not invite two boys because they were not his friends… The school, 360 miles south of Stockholm, confiscated all the invitations, saying it objected because it had a duty to ensure against discrimination.

The Father of the boy told authorities that one of the two boys had bullied his child and the other had not invited his boy to a past party.

Now, the anti-American left in this country would have you believe that Europe is the closest thing to nirvana, they say we should be emulating what they do there. We’ve even had self-hating Supreme Court Justices imagining that we should jettison the Constitution and take up foreign precedent as our own.

Big Brother and his nanny state rules all, even your 8-year-old’s birthday party.

Don’t laugh this off as something that could not happen here. Total domination of government over our lives is the ultimate end of modern liberalism. From the most important decisions to the least, most personal decisions, government must take all power unto itself to fulfill the liberal mantras of “fairness,” and “non-discrimination.”

It is already happening in Europe. It will come here if the Democratic Party and their malcontent, meddlesome constituency have anything to say about it. It’s just the kind of “change” just the kind of “new tone” they want. In fact, even if that isn’t their ultimate plan, it IS the ultimate destination, regardless.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - News - President - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Boston Globe: Obama Afraid of Muslims Because of New ‘Red Scare’

June 30, 2008 by 1 Comment

Boston Globe: Obama Afraid of Muslims Because of New ‘Red Scare’
-By Warner Todd Huston

Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe has done it again. Now, usually Z is one of those columnists that is sure every white American is a racist and many of his columns are based on that assumption, but it looks like he is branching out from his normal black/white identity politics angle and adding a new twist to his column. You see, Z has just discovered that whites don’t hate only blacks, they hate Muslims too. How inclusive, eh?

Even more ridiculously, Z imagines that white Muslim haters in “red states” are forcing Barack Obama to distance himself from his Muslim background. In fact, according to Z, Islam is the victim of white America’s newest “red scare” and Obama is feeling the heat because of that undue hatred. It all means we are “Holding Muslims at arm’s length” to Derrick Z. Jackson.

I wonder where Z was on 9/11?

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture

The War on Boys: Where Feminists and Men’s Rights Activists Go Wrong

June 30, 2008 by

By Selwyn Duke

One problem with one-issue activists, it seems, is that they often view matters from only one dimension. This has always been one of the characteristics of feminists. Men get blame for being history’s conquerors and killers, for instance, but no credit for being its innovators and healers. We will hear about how women “create life” while men only destroy it, but forgotten are the fruits of men’s labors. Were it not for male medical advances that virtually eliminated female death during childbirth, many feminists wouldn’t be around to crow about their fecundity.

Given this misandrist atmosphere, it’s not surprising that an opposing group called “men’s rights activists” would arise. They rebut feminist ideology, bring many important issues to light and usually make excellent points. And I tend to like them.

One issue they’re front and center on is the “war against boys.” This refers to the characteristic problems exhibited by modern lads – such as higher dropout rates, worse grades, and lower college attendance than girls and a far greater likelihood that they’ll be targeted by the ADHD police for a pickling with Ritalin – and the causes of these things. As for the latter, men’s rights activists implicate a prevailing anti-male attitude in a highly-feminized society. And I essentially agree with that analysis. Yet, despite this, like the feminists, they go badly astray. In fact, the two groups have more in common than they would care to admit.
Really, this is no surprise, as the problem I speak of isn’t unique to an activist of a given stripe but is one of modernity. To introduce it, I will cite a recent article by one David Kupelian titled “The war on fathers.” It’s an excellent piece by a man who has much of value to say, and I encourage you to read it. Yet it also contains the following line, “. . . young boys . . . don’t naturally thrive when forced to sit still at a desk listening to a teacher lecture for six hours a day . . . .”
Continue reading “The War on Boys: Where Feminists and Men’s Rights Activists Go Wrong”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform

June 29, 2008 by 11 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

**UPDATE** BELOW FOLD

It looks like Google has officially joined the Barack Obama campaign and decided that its contribution would be to shut down any blog on the Google owned Blogspot.com blogging system that has an anti-Obama message. Yes, it sure seems that Google has begun to go through its many thousands of blogs to lock out the owners of anti-Obama blogs so that the noObama message is effectively squelched. Thus far, Google has terminated the access by blog owners to 7 such sites and the list may be growing. Boy, it must be nice for Barack Obama to have an ally powerful enough to silence his opponents like that!

It isn’t just conservative sites that Google’s Blogger platform is eliminating. For instance, www.comealongway.blogspot.com has been frozen and this one is a Hillary supporting site. The operator of Come a Long Way has a mirror site off the Blogspot platform and has today posted this notice:

I used to have a happy internet home on Blogger: www.comealongway.blogspot.com. Then on Wednesday night, June 25, I received the following e-mail:

Dear Blogger user,

This is a message from the Blogger team.

Your blog, at http://comealongway.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog. You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

It turns out that there is an interesting pattern where it concerns the blogs that Google’s Blogspot team have summarily locked down on their service. They all belong to the Just Say No Deal coalition, a group of blogs that are standing against the Obama campaign. It seems the largest portion of these blogs are Hillary supporting blogs, too.

All I can say is, WOW! If Google is willing to abuse its power like this even against fellow leftists, what does it plan against conservatives, the folks Google hates even more!?

Continue reading “Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform”

00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Constitution - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Judges - Media Bias - News - The Law - Warner Todd Huston

Chgo Sun-Times Takes Stand Against The Constitution

June 29, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

With more fallout from the Supreme Court’s latest 2nd Amendment ruling, the Chicago Sun-Times has published an op ed wagging a finger at the Supremes saying that the Heller decision will be a “tax on Chicago citizens,” and that it is a tax to be “paid in blood and money.” The Times scolds the Court with all sorts of dire warnings and worries that blood will flow in the city but, as with D.C., the violence in Chicago with its extreme gun ban often causes the city to top the lists of the most violent cities in America. So, why the Sun-Times imagines the current 25-year-old gun ban is worth keeping is anyone’s guess.

The Sun-Times, though, is filled with woe at the Heller decision and offers the downright stupid solution of more gun banning despite the singular fact that their “solution” has miserably failed in every city it has been tried — including the very one they claim to care about. Not to mention that the Times seems to have no clue about the Constitution nor any respect for the citizenry of that same city.

Thursday’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision gutting a Washington, D.C., handgun ban can best be viewed, from Chicago’s perspective, as a tax on Chicago citizens… A tax to be paid in blood and money.

Oh, the gnashing of teeth.

Because of the court’s ruling, Chicago residents, in the not too distant future, likely will be able to buy handguns and keep them in their homes for the first time in more than 25 years… That new freedom will come at a high cost for our citizens.

First of all Sun-Times, the Second Amendment is not a “new freedom.” It is well over a 200 year-old “freedom.” No, not even a freedom but a right bestowed upon us by God and not in your power to remove.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton

No Time For God

June 29, 2008 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Everything is better when we obey the Fourth Commandment’s instruction to keep the Lord’s Day holy.

Pastor Steve Treash preached Sunday’s sermon at Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut). We need, he said, to ask ourselves frequently what would we have done differently in the past and what we would do in the near future, were we to know that our death was near at hand.

Our answer ought to be to follow the Fourth Commandment, to make more time for God in our lives.

Poets in earlier generations were on the right track. We should take time to smell the roses, we should leave a place in hectic schedules for our family and friends, and we should enjoy the beauties of nature and thank God for them.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Inernet - Islam - Media Bias - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

WaPo After Free Republic Again, Now Over Barack-is-a-Muslim Email

June 28, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Washington Post published a June 28th piece geared to protect Barack Obama from the nagging rumors that he is a secret Muslim, rumors that have been circulating since 2004. The Post’s Matthew Mosk penned an attack on Free Republic, based on an Obama flak who claims she has somehow discovered that Freepers are to blame, if not initially responsible, for floating the Barack-is-a-Muslim chain email that so many millions of Americans have found in their email boxes over the last four years. But, the Washington Post’s article is so filled with assumptions and a singular desire not to really investigate the matter that it boggles the mind. Naturally, all the journalistic missteps serve to shield Barack Obama from any controversy and make all opposition seem nefarious or unhinged.

The Obama flak in question is one Danielle Allen of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton. Mosk wishes to assure us that she is one smart cookie, apparently. To settle any question to the contrary, we are treated to some earnest, if over-the-top, adulation for good Doctor Allen. Allen is called a “razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist,” that she’s “gained valuable insight into the way political information circulates,” and that she works at the institute “most famous for having been the research home of Albert Einstein.” Mosk tells us that Allen “boasts two doctorates, one in classics from Cambridge University and the other in government from Harvard University.” The Post tells us that one winter morning Allen was “studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation’s most brilliant minds.” Mosk also tells us that Allen “works alongside groundbreaking physicists, mathematicians and social scientists. They don’t have to teach, and they face no quotas on what they publish. Their only mandate is to work in the tradition of Einstein, wrestling with the most vexing problems in the universe.”

Jeeze, next Mosk will be telling us that Danielle Allen is the virtual reincarnation of Einstein himself!
Continue reading “WaPo After Free Republic Again, Now Over Barack-is-a-Muslim Email”

00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Tallahassee Dem. Newspaper: Big Brother Should Track Guns With GPS

June 28, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

She thinks she has lit upon a “responsible idea” to regulate guns. The idea Megan Kristen Lewis of the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat thinks is “responsible” is to put global positioning tracking devices (GPS) in every gun. That way the government could track down your firearm if it is “stolen” or used in a crime.

Miss Lewis attempts to assure the reader that she really is a fan of guns before she unleashes this great idea, of course. She knows people with guns, she claims, and she doesn’t “fear” them. Why, she grew up around them, she says. Of course, they were always locked up in a safe so no one could get to them. Still, she says her Father taught her about “weapon safety from a very young age.”

Sadly, her Father neglected to teach her about the Constitution or about world and American history because if he did her Big Brother gun tracking program idea would have never occurred to her in the first place.

To buttress her case, Lewis recounts a story where a local Florida man accidentally shot himself with a .22 and seems to imagine that this is something extraordinary. But, this sort of silly singling out of an accident obscures the fact that humans are sometimes careless. Further, it’s a fact that gun accidents are not nearly as wide spread as other types of accidents. Car accidents, for instance, far out weigh gun accidents by many magnitudes of percentage. Does Miss Lewis want to restrict cars because of these accidents? I doubt it ever even occurred to her.

But, let’s get to her brilliant idea.

Continue reading “Tallahassee Dem. Newspaper: Big Brother Should Track Guns With GPS”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Washington State’s Union Bought Governor

June 28, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Democrat Governor Christine Gregoire won the governorship of Washington State in 2004 under a cloud of suspicion and possible voter fraud. The election was very close and after a recount Gregoire’s Republican rival still had the win. But, the Democrats weren’t happy with the recount. They wanted a second and calls went out for giant donations to get it done.

To steal the governorship Gregoire’s biggest donors were unions. Teachers unions and labor unions donated big money. Once the miraculous second recount suddenly showed that the Democrats had won (by 129 votes), Gregoire settled into office.

And then the payback began with unions making out like fat cats.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Elections - Media Bias - News - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture

A Socialist by Any Other Name . . .

June 28, 2008 by

By Selwyn Duke

One of the consequences of being right in an age of lies is that it brands you as a radical. Remember that being an extremist doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but simply that your views deviate greatly from those of the mainstream. If you say that 2+2=4 in a land where everyone else insists it’s 5, you’ll be labeled a radical. The same is true if you assert that a certain society of men is full of wolves when everyone else believes they’re sheep.

Now, for years I’ve been telling people that most of our Democrats are essentially socialists; sure, either they won’t admit it publicly or aren’t fully aware of it themselves (quite common; self knowledge is often sorely lacking, especially among leftists). It was a message as hard to relate as it is for many to accept, as it renders you something less than the kind of “credible” commentator who gets invitations to appear on Fox News (bigot Opio Sokoni was on O’Reilly last week). But that message now goes down a little easier with the recent Democrat proposal to nationalize oil refineries.

There is a great article on this very subject by a writer named Lance Fairchok; it is titled “Why Do We Call Them ‘Democrats’?” After quoting a couple of Democrats who waxed enthusiastic about nationalizing the oil refineries, he presents this Freudian slip by Congressman Maxine Waters:
Continue reading “A Socialist by Any Other Name . . .”

00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Obama Dances on Guns

June 27, 2008 by

Here is a perfect example of how Barack Obama says NOTHING while seeming like he is saying something. Watch him dance on his various stances on the Second Amendment. He was for it before he was against it before he was for it again.

The fact that the media allows him to get away with this garbage proves they are n the tank for him.

00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Constitution - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

WaPo: Scalia Says ‘Hear, Hear’ to Machine Guns in D.C.?

June 27, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

It didn’t take long for the Washington Post to weigh in on the wrong side of the Second Amendment issue, did it? The Post’s Colbert I. King could not contain the disgust he feels for at least one part of the Constitution more in his response to the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment ruling today. He flipped his top and went so far off the deep end that he seemed to imagine that Justice Scalia just gave the nod for citizens to get “machine guns” to indulge their newly affirmed ability to indiscriminately fire their loaded guns “at will” in D.C. In fact in this op ed, King was so unhinged that he seemed to utterly dispense with logic as he penned his newest ode to the wild-eyed phobia that is his inordinate fear of guns (yet, curiously, not of criminals).

King’s very first few paragraphs seem to be written without the slightest bit of reflection of how illogical his position on the concept of gun laws is because it looks as though he imagines that criminals might obey a draconian anti-gun law, or any gun law for that matter if only it is enforced. One wonders why Mr. King thinks criminals are called criminals if laws would prevent them from doing anything? Worse, King can’t seem to tell the difference between a law-abiding citizen using a gun in self-defense and a criminal using it for evil. It seems as if to King criminals and citizens are indistinguishable.

King begins his spittle-speckled rant with some informal colloquialisms.

There’s one group of District residents absolutely unfazed by today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling shooting down the District’s strict handgun ban: the dudes who have been blowing away their fellow citizens with abandon since the law was put on the books 32 years ago.

Excuse me, Mr. King, but these “dudes” have been thumbing their noses at your 32-year-old gun ban, too and for the entire 32 years. The new SCOTUS ruling is certainly initially meaningless to them, but so is your three decades old gun ban that was supposed to fix it all, sir. How hard is that to understand?

I reiterate, criminals do not obey laws, sir. This is why we call them criminals.

Continue reading “WaPo: Scalia Says ‘Hear, Hear’ to Machine Guns in D.C.?”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union Basically Proposes Gov’t Run Grocery/Drug Stores?

June 27, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

It sure seems as if a union head has basically proposed that the government take over grocery and drug stores in New York. John R. Durso, president of Local 338 of the Retail Worker Department Store/United Food and Commercial Workers union, wrote in a recent public statement that the people cannot expect stores to serve the public and that government should step in with more legislation.

A recent report by the New York state’s attorney threatened a lawsuit against the drug store chains Rite Aid and CVS after an investigation found that expired goods were being sold at stores in New York. This prompted the union chief to say that the investigation “proves that we shouldn’t rely on drug stores to provide necessary food items to the community.”

Durso’s union supports a program of incentives and tax breaks to encourage development of supermarkets, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. But, what his statement said could easily be taken to further ends than mere tax breaks. If we cannot expect businesses to serve the public, what is left if not a take over of supermarkets and drug stores by government?

Imagine the big government aspect of this sort of idea? Big brother responsible for feeding us? What would follow, of course, would be price fixing and rationing once price fixing began to negatively affect the market. Ah, but the union thugs would have life easy if this all happened. After all, one apparently cannot be fired from a government job!

Once again the lesson is that unions are antithetical to the public weal, wholly detrimental to good government.
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00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton

Which Way the Wind Blows With Obama

June 27, 2008 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The words of Bob Dylan’s song, “You don’t need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind is blowing,” gave the Weatherman Underground its name.

Weatherman Underground members were activists in the Soviet revolutionary sense, aiming to destroy the political and social framework of the United States. Senator Obama, closely allied with the leaders of Weatherman Underground, has worked throughout his career to further Weatherman’s anti-capitalist and anti-American agenda.

He proposes to raise our taxes back to the confiscatory levels of earlier Democrat/Socialist administrations. He proposes to expand the welfare-state, aiming to make us all equally poor, in conformity with the social justice paradigm of equally distributed income without regard to productive work or merit.

Key members of his campaign staff are Weatherman alumni or supporters. Senator Obama was a member for 20 plus years of Rev. Wright’s church, where the reverend repeatedly damned the United States and its white citizens.
Continue reading “Which Way the Wind Blows With Obama”