Uncategorized

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

La Raza Hispanic Activists More Desirable Than Patriot Minutemen in Kansas City

September 4, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Which would you find more desirable in your community: a group that advocates to abide by U.S. law, or one that advocates to break U.S. law? Well, leave it to an American newspaper to present a story as if a member of a group that advocates for America is a less desirable person in the community than a member of a group that promotes ideas against America. In a story on the La Raza Council’s threat to move their annual convention out of Kansas City, Missouri, the Kansas City Star has labeled the patriot group The Minutemen a “militant group” but nowhere is there harsh labels in their story for La Raza, the Hispanic illegal immigrant advocates. In fact, La Raza is treated like a completely respectable organization throughout the story with the Minutemen treated as if they should be something to be ashamed of.

In June, Kansas City mayor Mark Funkhouser appointed Minuteman Civil Defense member Frances Semler to the Kansas City park board and this has caused the illegal immigrant advocates to threaten to take their convention business elsewhere.

The nation’s largest Hispanic rights group is warning it may cancel its 2009 convention here because of a controversial Kansas City park board member.

As it turns out, this park board member is “controversial” because she wants Federal immigration laws enforced.
Continue reading “La Raza Hispanic Activists More Desirable Than Patriot Minutemen in Kansas City”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Entertainment - Frank Salvato - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

The Acceptance of Thuggery for Fun, Power & Profit

September 4, 2007 by

-By Frank Salvato

While the controversy surrounding Michael Vick continues to attract those who want to place blame on anyone and/or anything other than Michael Vick, a few stark realities present themselves all of which have an element of moral relativism. The sad fact of the matter is this; “thuggery” has seeped into every avenue of the American culture and our society is accepting it.

That “thuggery” has been accepted in professional sports is a given. From the NBA to the NFL, the counter-culture, urban bad-boy image has been accepted as “cool.” One need only look at the offenses that professional athletes are being arrested for and charged with to understand the spectrum of the problem. From Michael Vick’s guilty plea in the despicable dog fighting scandal to former Chicago Bear Tank Johnson‚s repeated weapons offenses, from Charles Barkley‚s assault charge for throwing a heckler through a window at a local bar to the Baltimore Raven’s Ray Lewis skirting murder charges through a plea deal, the idea that professional sports figures should act as a role models for our nation’s youth has been discarded and their behavior deemed acceptable as long as it generates the almighty dollar.

The urban counter-culture bad-boy image, or “gangsta” image, prevalent in most of today‚s professional sports and modern music cultures, preys on those susceptible to its superficial allure, its façade of “machismo,” using the most base of human instincts, superiority through violence. Those who fall prey to the ghoulish magnetism of thuggery are not only proliferating this intellectually stunted societal ill but they are being used by the greed element in our society as well. Whether it‚s the selling of the next gang symbol infused product to wannabe-punk suburban adolescents or the acceptance of “collateral damage” in the form of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent lives lost to the on-going and expanding epidemic of inner-city gang turf wars, thuggery is encroaching into the American mainstream at an alarming rate.
Continue reading “The Acceptance of Thuggery for Fun, Power & Profit”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - History - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Modern Education a Total Failure

September 2, 2007 by 1 Comment

I don’t usually reproduce an article without detailed commentary on Publius’ Forum. But this one from the Calgary Sun is so good that I have nothing to add and certainly nothing to criticize. Suffice to say, Ted Byfeild is 100% correct that modern education is a total failure.

So, read on and enjoy this dead on commentary…
——

Education ‘revolution’ proved disastrous

By TED BYFIELD, the Calgary Sun

The Canadian news media, so it seems, are finally getting on to a story that broke about 50 years ago, which they missed at the time and have been missing ever since.

I know, because I was one of the reporters who missed it.

Judging by the stuff appearing of late in the national media, we are beginning to discover that our school system has been fairly well ruined by crackpot ideas, introduced in the 1950s by reformers of supposedly unchallengeable authority.

They were in fact challenged at the time by older, life-long teachers who protested that these new concepts were hair-brained, if not downright insane.
Continue reading “Modern Education a Total Failure”

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

WashPost: Our Wounded Troops all Drunks, Substance Abusers

September 2, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Washington Post columnist, Sarah Stillman, has penned the sort of pretentious column that is blind for its self-indulgence and foolishly extrapolates the author’s singular experience as one ubiquitous or as a universal representation of our soldier’s lives once back in the states. In this case, Stillman seems to imagine that the Iraq war has made all our returning soldiers drug addicts, drunks, and social outcasts. Worse, she naively seems to imagine that no returning soldiers in history have ever experienced such difficulties returning to “normal life” once back from war’s jarring experience, or at the very least today’s soldiers have it worse than any others. Her condescension is infuriating and her obvious bias against our soldiers and this action is painfully obvious.

Stillman starts by describing a bar fight in an establishment near Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and relating that such fights are far too common of late. Of this there is little doubt and that it isn’t a good thing is obvious.

But, she then goes on to imagine that our veterans today are mistreated and ignored.

Half a decade into the “war on terror,” America’s bars have become our barometers: instruments that measure the extent to which our veterans have been left to wrestle alone with substance abuse, anxiety disorders and other mental health problems after long tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What makes today’s vets any different than any other era? It is woefully common to see vets “left to wrestle alone” with war’s harsh experience. Unfortunately, it is just a sad example of human nature. It’s hard for young men (and now women) to deal with what they went through and even harder for the folks back at home to understand and lend a helping hand. But, today’s soldiers are NOT going through anything that has never been experienced by humanity, nor is it somehow worse than it ever has been.
Continue reading “WashPost: Our Wounded Troops all Drunks, Substance Abusers”

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

George Clooney: Serious Political Thinker at Large

September 1, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Sometimes, after you read a story from the MSM, you have to sit back and say to yourself, “just what in the heck that was all about?” Such is the case with the AP’s latest titled “Clooney: Obama’s like a rock star,” a story that seems to present George Clooney’s political opinion as if he is somehow a respected policy wonk, political pundit, or a well-known intellectual. There is no pretext for this story presenting Clooney’s political meanderings and no sensible reason why the AP is presenting his blather as news. The AP just presents it straight forwardly as if it is somehow news we all just need to know. All in all, it is an amazing report for its senselessness, cluelessness, and pointlessness. On the other hand, it fits to a tee with the APs editorial position on politics and the world and this fact alone surely accounts for its publication.

Now, usually a story reporting what an entertainer is saying in public is written on the pretext of the debut of the latest release of their newest piece of “art” — or some outrageous behavior that puts them in the news. But, usually the story is ostensibly about their new movie, new album, or what have you. It is with this pretext that the MSM slips in an entertainer’s political views, mixed in with the happy talk about their newest project. After all, why else would we care about this person if not for their art, the thing that has made them famous? But, not in this story. In this one there is no pretext at all. There is simply no reason whatsoever that we are being exposed to Clooney’s political claptrap. In this case, we have to assume that either the AP feels that Clooney’s politics is the thing we are all clamoring to hear about or they feel his point of view is important enough to air sans any linkage to a latest film or other project, free of any legitimate reason we might be interested in him.
Continue reading “George Clooney: Serious Political Thinker at Large”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Immigration/Immigrants - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

How the Nanny State Destroys Jobs

August 31, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

In Sidney, Montana the owner of the local McDonald’s fast food joint cannot get workers to staff his restaurant. This sounds like a bad thing, and for owner John Francis, it is, but, this loss of workers is because of the good economic news and low unemployment rates that is occurring throughout the Western United States.

According to a recent report by the AP, unemployment rates have been as low as 2 percent in specific areas and no higher than a general rate of 3.5 in the North Western states, a rate that has been dropping steadily over the last 15 years since the economic doldrums of the 1980s faded in the area.

Unemployment rates have been as low as 2 percent this year in places like Montana, and nearly as low in neighboring states. Economists cite such factors as an aging work force and booming tourism economies for the tight labor market.

“This is actually the biggest economic story of our time, and we don’t quite grasp it because it is 15 years in the making,” said economist Larry Swanson, director of the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana.

At this rate, there just isn’t anyone to take those McDonald’s jobs, or other lower skilled labor jobs in the Great American West. For that matter, entry-level jobs in police work and other mid level jobs are difficult to fill and this is causing wages to rise as the labor pool thins even more.

As Mark Knold, chief economist at the Utah Department of Workforce Services, said to the AP, “The hardest thing is to keep the economy growing at a strong rate when you have a low unemployment rate. Take a company that wants to expand. Where is the next worker going to come from?”

And therein lies the problem. Where are those workers coming from? In the past, many of them would come from areas in the US experiencing less prosperity. Many would point to illegal immigrants and claim that business “needs” this pool of labor to fill those “jobs Americans don’t want.” This illegal labor pool, however, is not as necessary as many would have you believe.
Continue reading “How the Nanny State Destroys Jobs”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Society/Culture - The Law - Uncategorized

Another law we don’t need

August 31, 2007 by

-By Michael M. Bates

Let’s say you own a retail establishment in Illinois. Some of your employees want you to close on Sundays so they can enjoy the day off. It’s not a bad idea, especially when you consider the overhead you’d save.

There is one problem. Unless your competition also is closed when you are, you’ll lose business. So you approach your competitors and encourage them to do what you’re thinking of doing: Stay closed on Sundays.

Some say it’s a fine idea. Others tell you to get lost; they’ll be more than happy to take whatever sales you lose by taking the day off.

So you can either close on Sundays, losing potential profits, or you can stay open, disappointing your employees and paying more overhead. You’re stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place, right?

Not necessarily. In the Land of Lincoln you have an alternative. If you can’t persuade people to embrace what you believe is a good idea, go to Springfield and have a law passed making them do what you think they should do.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Illinois is one of the few states in which auto dealers are closed on Sundays. Some dealers might actually wish to be open on a day when plenty of people have the time to shop. Some, perhaps many, customers would like to have the option of buying a car on Sundays. For folks working traditional Monday through Friday jobs, it would be a genuine convenience. All that makes no difference.
Continue reading “Another law we don’t need”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - President - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

‘Bush Motorcade Kills Cop’ — Well, not Really

August 30, 2007 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Time Magazine has a headline today that screams out “Bush Motorcade Kills Cop.” After reading that one, you’d think Bush’s limo ran over a policeman or something (I’ll say policeman instead of the more vulgar “cop” Time used) Talk about a misleading headline! It turns out that Bush’s motorcade didn’t “kill” anyone. The unfortunate death occurred when an officer lost control of his motorcycle and died in the wreck. But Time has to turn an unfortunate accident into an accusation that Bush killed a “Cop” with his motorcade! This is Bush Derangement Syndrome at its finest and most ridiculous.

(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — A police officer in President Bush’s motorcade crashed his motorcycle and died Monday, less than a year after a crash in Hawaii killed another motorcycle officer accompanying the president.

And, then there is the bringing up of the other incident as if it is a sure thing that Bush’s motorcade is somehow negligent, even as they make no such accusation directly. Quite a deft way to cause doubt in a reader by stealth.

But after the blaring and misleading headline and the first questionable paragraph, we finally get some truth:
Continue reading “‘Bush Motorcade Kills Cop’ — Well, not Really”

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

UPI Makes Hillary Clinton Into a Victim of ‘Hillary Haters’

August 29, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Today the UPI news service published a story aimed at making Hillary Clinton out to be a victim of “swift boating” and “haters” by focusing on those who are gearing up to oppose her candidacy for president on the Internet. UPI dismisses all opposition to Hillary as “old news,” and “rumors,” calls anti-Clinton forces “snide” and “haters,” but what do they say of the target? All they say is she is “ready to fight back” as if she is a stalwart hero waiting to defend her honor. And not once does this short and rather pointless report deal with a single substantive argument against her candidacy presenting opposition as if it is just crazy extremism gone wild. In the end, this report is little else but UPI shilling for their favored candidate; Hillary Clinton.

‘Hillary Haters’ have claws out

CHICAGO, Aug. 26 (UPI) — The Internet is helping so-called “Hillary Haters” prepare for battle should Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton become the Democratic presidential nominee.

Now that isn’t even logical writing. “So-called ‘Hillary Haters'”? Either they hate her or they don’t. But, what group of people organize themselves under such a rubric specifically named, anyway? Do gun control advocates call themselves “Gun haters”? Do environmentalists call themselves “capitalism haters”? No, they don’t — even though they are those things. But, have you ever seen a gun control group called a “so-called ‘gun haters'” group in the media?

The UPI goes on to dismiss all opposition as “old news” and “rumors” after that absurd opening.
Continue reading “UPI Makes Hillary Clinton Into a Victim of ‘Hillary Haters’”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Entertainment - History - Islam - Islamofascism - Marie Jon - Media Bias - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

‘God’s Warriors’: CNN’s Biggest Faux Pas

August 29, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Marie Jon’

Christiane Amanpour is a skillful manipulating propagandist. When presenting offerings like her series “God’s Warriors,” Amanpour and her ilk prove themselves to be absolutely noxious. Don’t be impressed with her many awards. “The world loves its own.” (John 15:19)

Those who willfully err to gain recognition and power ultimately find it fleeting. Only by faith in a loving God will one receive his just reward before His presence.
Continue reading “‘God’s Warriors’: CNN’s Biggest Faux Pas”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - GOP - Media Bias - President - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

‘Thompson’s Image Cultivated by Hollywood’ — Another He’s-Just-an-Actor Attack by Media

August 28, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

In “Thompson’s Image Cultivated by Hollywood” we get another MSM attempt to make Fred Thompson seem to be just a hollow, fake actor. The AP offers us an analysis that Thompson’s “image” is just a Hollywood invention and that he had no “conscious decision” in shaping the perception that he exhibits the sort of strong, take charge kind of leadership that Americans might want in a president. Of all the lines of attack they’ve tried thus far, this is the MSMs favorite way to belittle Fred Thompson. This meme has it that Thompson’s acting persona is an invention of Hollywood and that his political life is a reflection of this invented persona, that he capitalized on the illusion to launch a political career — they want to make Thompson out to be a fake. But, in reality, Thompson’s roles are a reflection of his real life persona, not an invention by Hollywood but an amplification of reality by Hollywood.

AP does their level best to make Thompson seem the illusionist…

If Fred Thompson is auditioning for the role of a lifetime, he could hardly be any better prepared.

As Thompson prepares for a likely run for the presidency … his image has been cultivated as much by Hollywood as by his time as a real-life Republican senator in Washington.

Notice how the AP continually links all the less than serious actor euphemisms to Thompson’s campaign and Senate career? His running for president is just “auditioning,” his image “cultivated,” by Hollywood. They insist in seeing Thompson through the lens of a manufactured, Hollywood facade.

The AP tries to cajole readers into viewing Thompson’s political career as a mere byproduct of his acting as opposed to a meritorious result of his real-life actions.
Continue reading “‘Thompson’s Image Cultivated by Hollywood’ — Another He’s-Just-an-Actor Attack by Media”

00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Another Example of Our Schools Failure

August 28, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

In another shining example of how our schools are becoming more and more against the principles and ideas that ARE America, we have two entire districts in Colorado refuse to accept free distributions of the U.S. Constitution for their students.

That’s right. I said FREE copies of the Constitution were turned down by two school districts.

(When) Douglas Bruce… tried last spring to give pocket- size copies of the U.S. Constitution to high-school seniors, two Colorado Springs-area districts said “no, thanks.”

Lewis-Palmer District 38 and Fountain-Fort Carson District 8 did not accept Bruce’s booklets because they said it would set a precedent for districts receiving products from the outside.

Turned him down! Imagine the stupidity of this act. These unAmerican schools turned down FREE copies of our Nation’s guiding law. The District would not have had to pay a penny for the edification of our children and they told this guy to shove it.
Continue reading “Another Example of Our Schools Failure”

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

Clinton Lied and people DID Die

August 27, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

How the Left Lies to themselves as well as the rest of us.

Anyone who is politically aware in this country, anyone who has taken the time to keep up on the news, can’t help but to have run across one of the left’s favorite bromides; “Bush lied, People Died.” Not quite as well known, but as an adjunct to this doggerel, the left has also indulged in a bit of backward Clinton praising with the phrase “No one died when Clinton lied.” This, however, is a lie in and of itself, and it’s a perfect example of how the left lies to themselves and everyone around them.

One word best describes how the claim that Clinton’s lies never hurt anyone is a blatant untruth. That one word is KOSOVO. As Thomas E. Woods, Jr. reveals, Kosovo is the best-kept secret of the worst most murderous failure of the Clinton Administration.
Continue reading “Clinton Lied and people DID Die”

00Publius Contributor - Congress - Constitution - Frederick Meekins - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Census Bureau Pimps Turn The American People Into Information Whores

August 27, 2007 by

-By Frederick Meekins

With all the fuss made over the 300 millionth American, the U.S. Census Bureau enjoyed an unaccustomed moment in the limelight as the work done by this government agency is seldom considered glamorous enough to warrant much coverage in the media.

Article One, Section Two of the U.S. Constitution authorizes an enumeration of the population to be taken every ten years. The only purpose for this tabulation authorized by the Constitution is to figure our how to divvy up the House of Representatives.

But while the Founding Fathers instituted the census as a tool to safeguard the liberties of the Republic by making sure each person is properly represented numerically in the national legislature, as with many of the other institutions devised by these innovative political thinkers, this one is also being used to undermine the very nature of freedom itself.
Continue reading “Census Bureau Pimps Turn The American People Into Information Whores”

00Publius Contributor - Abortion - Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - GOP - Media Bias - President - Society/Culture - Taxes - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Chgo. Sun-Times: Pregnancies to Rise in US Colleges — It’s All Bush’s Fault

August 26, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Chicago Sun-Times is blaming the Bush administration for what they claim is sure to be a rise in unplanned pregnancies at colleges and universities across the country. It hasn’t happened yet, mind you, but they are sure it’s gonna! Naturally, the paper cannot imagine we should place any blame on the stupid students who are getting themselves pregnant. I mean, it HAS to be Bush’s fault, you see, with personal responsibility being so last century and all. No, the Sun-Times is sure that a cut in the amount of Federal money doled out to our institutions of higher learning for cheap birth control is going to wreak havoc with the student body. Our kids are obviously too stupid to get by without that government spending.

The Sun-Times, worrying that the cost of birth control available to students in colleges is going to rise, imagines a law reducing Federal spending is somehow forcing students to have unprotected sex. “Birth-control costs soaring at colleges — Pregnancies could rise now that law limits drugmaker incentives”, they proclaim. This calamity is all being blamed on the “Deficit Reduction Act signed by President Bush last year” according to the Sun-Times.
Continue reading “Chgo. Sun-Times: Pregnancies to Rise in US Colleges — It’s All Bush’s Fault”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Frank Salvato - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - Military - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Allegations Trump Adjudication Where Media Is Concerned

August 26, 2007 by

-By Frank Salvato

The Hill, a publication that covers congressional events in

Washington DC, ran a front page story about a lawsuit filed by Leftist blogger Lane Hudson. Hudson, notable for exposing the non-sex scandal involving former Congressman Mark Foley, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against former Senator and all-but-announced presidential candidate Fred Thompson. His complaint accused Thompson of breaking the law by violating the FEC’s “Testing the Waters ” clause. It seems Mr. Hudson now fancies himself some sort of unofficial political “watch-poodle.”

The interesting thing about this is that Hudson’s partisan and rather obnoxious complaint over Thompson’s candidacy (or non-candidacy) was filed within the context of one of the murkier FEC regulations. It is apparent that the mere mention of Thompson’s name catapulted what should have been simple blog fodder to the front page of a respectable political publication.

Another interesting aspect – and perhaps a more troubling one – is that the complaint is based on an as of yet unsubstantiated accusation of campaign malfeasance. It infers malfeasance.
Continue reading “Allegations Trump Adjudication Where Media Is Concerned”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - GOP - Media Bias - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Paper Says Bush Supporters Are ‘White, male, middle-aged and slightly stupid’

August 25, 2007 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

So, what we have here is the only hate-speak that the MSM will allow. Attacks on white men who vote Republican. In this case we see our friendly Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist, Dorothy Parvaz, reveling in her hatred of Bush supporters. Not only is she attempting to malign white Republican men, but she is also doing so on the basis of physical appearance alone. And here I thought that the left was fond of scolding people who judge others by their looks?

So. I’m sorry to report that President Bush’s most loyal supporters look just like him: White, male, middle-aged and slightly stupid (sorry guys, I calls ’em like I sees ’em).

Now, I’d love to say that all Democrats look like Michael Moore; Fat, ugly and slightly stupid. But, it just wouldn’t be true. Some look like Cameron Diaz; skinny, pretty and slightly stupid. So, I would never claim to know a Democrat merely by their physical appearance, but, not so for Parvez and her self-proclaimed ability to discern a person’s entire life and philosophy at a mere glance.
Continue reading “Paper Says Bush Supporters Are ‘White, male, middle-aged and slightly stupid’”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Lee Culpepper - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Michael Vick and Southern Hicks

August 25, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Lee Culpepper

Blaming racism for Michael Vick’s soon-to-be felony-dog-fighting conviction actually sparks another opportunity to discuss a preposterous myth about African-American culture. The controversy also ignites the deliberate divisiveness and harm of the multicultural agenda. As I predicted, my efforts to uncover the African culture that introduced dog fighting to America failed. In fact, I concluded most clear-thinking Africans, like most assimilated Americans, wonder why any fool would want to fight dogs. Perhaps using dogs to perform dangerous jobs has always stoked controversy, but apparently only the degenerates of society have ever considered dog versus dog fighting acceptable practice. And once again, African culture is not to blame for the disgraceful introduction of dog fighting to America.

Actually, the ritual evolved among unsophisticated men considered the lowlifes of Great Britain in the 1800s. In short, a decent gentleman has never considered dog fighting a worthy sport. The repugnant practice was excreted from the bowels of the United Kingdom to the backwoods throughout the American South. Yes, the type of unrefined reprobates who have fought and still fight their dogs have basically always been described as rednecks, crackers, or hicks. That is until recently.
Continue reading “Michael Vick and Southern Hicks”

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

‘Alcohol-Related Driving Deaths Up’… Except When They’re Not

August 24, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The AP’s headline gravely informs us that Alcohol-related driving deaths up. Yet, here is a wonderful case where a headline screams an alarmist message that the story itself does not really substantiate. Now, it is true that columnists and journalists rarely, if ever, write their own headlines so maybe we shouldn’t tsk tsk writer Natasha T. Metzler. But, one would hope that the so-called professionals who write the headlines that appear at the top of a story would actually read the story before creating such a header. In this case, it seems that the headline writer went straight for sensationalism without bothering to read most of the story he was capping. And, naturally, the sensationalism is that alcohol related deaths have “increased” over the 2005 stats.

Granted the first paragraph of the story makes the bald faced statement that “fatalities increased” in 2006, but as you read the story closer, that claim proves chimerical if not practically false even by the stats cited in the story itself.
Continue reading “‘Alcohol-Related Driving Deaths Up’… Except When They’re Not”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Gays - Media Bias - Religion - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Homo-expect-us: Imposing Values on Christians

August 24, 2007 by

By Selwyn Duke

There is a maelstrom brewing around High Point Church in Arlington, Texas. Church officials had offered to host a funeral for a homosexual man, Cecil Sinclair, even going so far as to agree to feed 100 guests and create an elaborate photo presentation about the man’s life. However, the family neglected to inform the church that Mr. Sinclair’s homosexuality would be featured prominently, with pictures containing obvious homosexual content on display. Understandably, the church would not be party to the exhibition of sin, and its offer was rescinded.

The family is mad, some of the media is mad, and I’m mad too. What irks me, though, is an invidious double-standard: Homosexuals and their sympathizers often expect a special dispensation from rules that apply to everyone else, while Christians are expected to dispense with their rules.

I’ll first echo a point church officials have made, only my example will be different. It’s understandable that Christians may offer their services to known homosexuals, as we’re all sinners; however, most of us sinners don’t expect our characteristic sins to characterize a church service held on our behalf. Why, if a man had been a recalcitrant philanderer, would we expect that a church shouldn’t have a problem displaying sexually suggestive photographs of him with gaggles of gals? It’s absurd.
Continue reading “Homo-expect-us: Imposing Values on Christians”

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

Shilling for ‘Peace Mom’… STILL

August 23, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Michael A. Fletcher of the Washington Post has a little snippet of a story so full of hyperbole about how wonderful and “crystallizing” so-called “Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan has been for the country that unintentional comedy is the result — that or it raises a collective groan for its slobbering sycophancy. He so outlandishly exaggerates the impact of the “antiwar hero” and her protégé in “Camp Casey” that it just boggles the mind. Seems like Fletcher is far from a disinterested “journalist” but has succumbed to outright hero worship here.

I say “little snippet” of a story because it is one of those entries containing several short snippets of political news, the Sheehan story being one of them. But, befitting Fletcher’s obviously smitten condition with “grieving mother” Sheehan, it is the largest entry in the article.

Let us start with the overawed first paragraph.

It was just two years ago that Cindy Sheehan pierced the national consciousness with her roadside vigil near President Bush’s Texas ranch in protest of the Iraq war.

“Pierced the national consciousness?” How is that for over the top, eh? About all Sheehan has “pierced” is her own reputation as she went on to associate with every dictator, anti-American and subversive leftist organization out there.

Fletcher doesn’t get any less absurd as he continues.
Continue reading “Shilling for ‘Peace Mom’… STILL”

00Publius Contributor - David Heleniak - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

PC Feminism and the DV Courts

August 23, 2007 by

-By David Heleniak

Political correctness is not, as many believe, the act of being non-offensive. It is, rather, an ideology resulting from the transformation of the Marxist concept of class oppression. Orthodox Marxism teaches that the world is made up of two economic classes, the capitalist class and the working class, and that the capitalist class oppresses the working class. The rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

When the orthodox Marxist theory of class oppression was shown to be a dead end, some leftist intellectuals turned their attention from economic classes to social classes. It’s not capitalists oppressing workers, they determined, it’s dominant social groups oppressing non-dominant groups, as in whites oppressing blacks, heterosexuals oppressing homosexuals, Christians oppressing non-Christians, and men oppressing women. Of the various branches of political correctness, PC feminism has arguably been the most successful.

PC feminism is not your mother’s feminism. As Cathy Young states in her book Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, we owe a lot to the feminists of the past. “They deserve credit for helping break down the barriers of discrimination in the public arena; for making gender neutrality an accepted legal principle; for challenging stereotypes about women’s nature. Thanks to them, achievement and ambition are no longer considered unfeminine and women are expected to make something of themselves, not just marry. Thanks to them, most of us believe that both parents can nurture young children.” Thanks to PC feminists, in contrast, we have the theory of the patriarchy and the PC conception of domestic violence (DV), two ideas that are responsible for widespread violations of the civil rights of men and pervasive damage to father-child relationships.
Continue reading “PC Feminism and the DV Courts”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Islam - Islamofascism - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

THIS is the Islam we are Fighting

August 23, 2007 by

It hurts to look at this picture, doesn’t it? Well, look and look hard. THIS is what will be in store for us if we allow radical Islam to spread unchecked in the west. This is the kind of random, hateful, pointless violence that we will see more of. And I say more of because it is already happening in the west. How many young girls are scarred and killed by Muslims with the so-called honor killings each day now? How many more will occur if we turn our gaze away from this sort of Islam and imagine tit to be “just another religion” instead of realizing the evil that it truly is?

Do not be fooled into imagining that Islam is somehow harmless. Do not be fooled into thinking that our western tolerance for religious expression makes radical Islam untouchable. Tolerance for religious expression does NOT excuse this sort of evil in the least.

Don’t let these animals turn our own traditions into weapons used against us and used to cover their backwards, evil, uncivilized behavior.

Boy, 5, doused in gas, set on fire by masked men

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Five-year-old Youssif is scarred for life, his once beautiful smile turned into a grotesquely disfigured face — the face of a horrifying act by masked men. They grabbed him on a January day outside his central Baghdad home, doused him with gas and set him ablaze.

It’s an act incomprehensibly savage, even by Iraq’s standards today. No one has been arrested and the motive remains unknown.

Continue reading “THIS is the Islam we are Fighting”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - Military - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Were CNN Poll Questions Weighted Against Surge Report?

August 22, 2007 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

CNN released a poll on the 16th that claims that 53% of Americans don’t trust the U.S. Military assessment of what is going on in Iraq and that 72% won’t have their mind changed on their view of the war no matter what General Petraeus says about the surge next month. But if one reviews the questions of the poll and its methodology is reviewed (at least the only hint of methodology released), it makes one suspicious that it was anywhere near a fair and balanced method. In fact, there are so many questions about how this poll was carried out that the results must be viewed with skepticism.

To start with, of course, the poll is conducted by Hillary Clinton supporter Vin Gupta’s Opinion Research Corporation, the organization CNN has hired to run their political polling — a convenient situation for the Clinton campaign, to be sure. This single fact alone is enough to inform that the poll could likely be weighted to skew toward the ideas that Hillary Clinton is propagating in her campaign.
Continue reading “Were CNN Poll Questions Weighted Against Surge Report?”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Another Example of How Nutroots are Just Liars

August 22, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s sad that the Nutrooters can’t even demagogue a story right! I mean, about all the extreme left in this country has left is demagogy, and they can’t even get THAT right anymore. Here is one from the fringe, nutters on a site called BSAlert.com. It is hilarious in that their August 8th story so badly missed its target as well as instructive for its display of an utter inability to discern reality from their favored fiction. Couple that with a wild-eyed effort at assumption and the extrapolation of one person’s comment into an assumption of ubiquitous representation and you have a fine example of what the nutroots is famous for: BS. Yes, it’s amusing that the site called BSAlert gives us a perfect example of what it purports to reveal… unfortunately it uncovers its own BS instead of other’s.It’s sad that the Nutrooters can’t even demagogue a story right! I mean, about all the extreme left in this country has left is demagogy, and they can’t even get THAT right anymore. Here is one from the fringe, nutters on a site called BSAlert.com. It is hilarious in that their August 8th story so badly missed its target as well as instructive for its display of an utter inability to discern reality from their favored fiction. Couple that with a wild-eyed effort at assumption and the extrapolation of one person’s comment into an assumption of ubiquitous representation and you have a fine example of what the nutroots is famous for: BS. Yes, it’s amusing that the site called BSAlert gives us a perfect example of what it purports to reveal… unfortunately it uncovers its own BS instead of other’s.

(I’ll wait while the nutrooters who stumbled upon this post look up the words “demagogue” and “ubiquitous.” OK. Learned what the definitions are, guys? Great. Now we can continue…)

This nutrooter post breathlessly proclaims in its title that “Bill Nye Boo’d In Texas For Saying The Moon Reflects The Sun”

The BSalert post goes on:
Continue reading “Another Example of How Nutroots are Just Liars”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Entertainment - Media Bias - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Race-baiting Politician Attacks Michael Savage

August 22, 2007 by

-By Selwyn Duke

Patriotism might at one time have been the last refuge of a scoundrel, but methinks this is no longer true. With modern America being characterized more by political correctness than patriotism, screams of “racism” may now be that last refuge. And joining the ranks of scoundrels, populated by reverends sans congregations and other assorted guttersnipes, is one Gerardo Sandoval, San Francisco Supervisor.

What has earned Mr. Sandoval his yellow stripes is his introduction of a government resolution condemning radio talk show host Michael Savage for what Sandoval calls “defamatory language . . . against immigrants.”

Here is what happened. In response to a week-long fast embarked upon by 35 students and illegal aliens who were burning a few calories for amnesty, Savage quipped, “I would say, let them fast until they starve to death, then that solves the problem.” Now, I’m not sure why Sandoval latched onto this particular comment – maybe his immigration lobby masters called in a favor – but it certainly got his dander up. He responded by saying, “The intolerant and racist comments of Michael Savage demand a strong condemnation”; he then labeled them “symbolic of racism and hatred” in his resolution.
Continue reading “Race-baiting Politician Attacks Michael Savage”

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

Obama Adviser Wants Terrorists Treated like Regular Criminals

August 21, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Back on July 29th, the New York Times published an article that was ostensibly supposed to be a book review even as the first half of the long piece was an anti-Bush, ant-war-on-terror political rant. The byline was credited to Samantha Powers, who, as the Times somewhat benignly defined her, is a “professor of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.” But, Power is far from a mere lefty Harvard professor because in the past she was a duly paid member of Senator Obama’s staff and is still a key foreign policy adviser to this day for his campaign for president. In fact, when Obama’s shallow foreign policy experience was attacked in the press recently, she was the one who wrote a long apologia that was sent to media outlets to staunch the bleeding of the Obama campaign. Why the Times did not fully identify her as an interested party in a political campaign and instead painted her as just a “professor” is hard to understand. It’s doubtful they’d ever give such cover to a Republican operative.

Regardless of Power’s link to the Obama campaign, her essay and other foreign policy writings are perfect examples of the inefficacy of the kind of foreign policy ideas endemic to the weak-on-defense left.
Continue reading “Obama Adviser Wants Terrorists Treated like Regular Criminals”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - Military - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - The Law - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Padilla Convicted, but the Media Still Can’t Believe he’s Guilty!

August 21, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Since the news came out that Jose Padilla had been convicted of being a terrorist by a US Court, many in the Media seem to refuse to acknowledge that the verdict is in. With a typical example, the AP, for instance, wants to focus more on what it feels the government did wrong than what Padilla did. I guess the AP thinks the US government is more guilty than is a convicted terrorist.

Even after his conviction, the AP fills their report with “supposedly,” “possible,” and other mitigating verbiage to describe Padilla and the other terror suspects in the news. But even as they want to give Padilla a pass they cast the Bush Administration’s efforts as their “zeal to stop homegrown terror.” The story makes Padilla seem put upon and mistreated while the Bush Administration is cast as the overwrought party. This AP story gives a lot of space to Padilla’s defense and little to the government’s proven case. Apparently they just cannot make themselves believe that Padilla is really guilty of any thing.

Starting off with a slam on the Bush Administration, you can just feel the AP’s desire to say “allegedly” after every sentence.
Continue reading “Padilla Convicted, but the Media Still Can’t Believe he’s Guilty!”

00Publius Contributor - Budget - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - History - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Taxes - The Law - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Infantile America

August 21, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Collapse of the subprime mortgage market reflects the “don’t trust anybody over 30″ mentality of the Baby Boomers.

From 1605 until the late 1960s, Americans universally subscribed to Benjamin Franklin’s maxim,”A penny saved is a penny earned.” Since the Baby Boomer student anarchism of the late 1960s and 1970s, we have become a nation, on balance, worshiping infantile, instant, hedonistic gratification.

Liberals’ ideas about “values” have to do with the absence of personal restraints and with material goods and services, which is what the welfare state is all about. Values for the colonists were the elements of spiritual morality, the intangible qualities that differentiated humans from other animals.

The values of 1776 preached individual self-restraint, self-reliance, and hard work for the future of one’s family. Liberal values give us what has been called a juvenocracy, a society dominated by the heedless pursuit of instant gratification that is characteristic of inexperienced youth: devil take the hindmost; eat, drink, and be merry.
Continue reading “Infantile America”