Obama Jokes Still Off Limits To America's Comedians

Did you hear the one about Barack Obama?

You didn't?

Well, that's because jokes about him are still forbidden to America's comedians.


As the Los Angeles Times' Greg Braxton wrote Monday, this breaks a long-standing tradition of comics jabbing at the White House resident as often as possible:

As late-night talk show hosts and other television comics who trade in political humor know, cracking wise about the new president, who marked his 100th day in office last week, is apparently not very funny for most of the people, most of the time. Not surprisingly, to guard against a frosty or uncertain reception, TV's leading political humorists have largely backed away from their ritual comic hazing of the president, a colorful tradition in the medium, especially in its late-night time slots, since at least the Nixon administration.

I'm sure this tradition goes back further than Nixon, as George M. Cohan's fabulous musical comedy "I'd Rather Be Right" took numerous shots at then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But I digress:

"If you're a comedian and you die and go to heaven, Bill Clinton is your president," said Robert J. Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "If you're a comedian and you die and go to hell, Barack Obama is your president." [...]

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ACORN charged with voter registration fraud

Monday, Nevada's Attorney General's Office and Secretary of State's Office filed charges against ACORN for voter registration violations and forging voter registration forms. ACORN officials both locally and nationally say the charges are a complete surprise; national representatives say they were also unaware of any investigation...

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Europeans: U.S. Should Give Up Control of Internet

Strasbourg, France — The United States has too much control over the Internet and needs to give it up, a European Union bureaucrat declared Monday. EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, a Luxembourgian, called for ''full privatization'' of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), demanding that it be removed from the supervision of the U.S. Department of Commerce when its operating agreement expires on Sept. 30.

[Since when is any EUNuch in favor or 'privatization' of anything? What he really means if having it managed by Brussels or worse (yes it's possible - wait for it...), the U.N.]

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N.Y. Times to File Notice It Will Close Boston Globe

The New York Times Co. said last night that it is notifying federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe, raising the possibility that New England's most storied newspaper could cease to exist within weeks. :^D After down-to-the-wire negotiations did not produce millions of dollars in union concessions, the Times Co. said that it will file today a required 60-day notice...

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Sarah Palin honored by NRA with special Alaska-themed assault rifle

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was bashed for her pricey wardrobe, but now she's getting a lethal accessory.

The National Rifle Association Foundation will present Sen. John McCain's ill-fated running mate with a military-style assault weapon next week.

The all-white "Alaskan Hunter" - fashionable until Labor Day - is the civilian version of a modified M-4 rifle carried by U.S. troops overseas.


[As if the woman wasn't hot enough already.
What. I'm just saying...]



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Swedish men 'not as masculine as they used to be': study

Swedish men have become more metrosexual and less masculine in recent times, according to a new survey polling both sexes on their opinion of the Swedish male. 51 percent of respondents said Swedish men were more masculine in previous times, with men in particular (58 percent) agreeing with the statement.

Only 13 percent of men and women felt today's men were more masculine than their predecessors.

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image toon - 1st mny sclm - Media v kids re 100 days msm

Andrew McCarthy's Letter to Attorney General Holder

Dear Attorney General Holder:

This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.

The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants -- or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear -- most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany -- that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States ).

Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop...

[ McCarthy wrote Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad, and was the lead prosecutor in the investigation of Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and others involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing -- MUST READ > ]

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Necessary 'Shortcuts'

In his press conference Wednesday night, President Obama offered a nice little sermonette on ''shortcuts.''

During the war, the Brits ran an interrogation center, ''the Cage,''in one of London's fanciest neighborhoods, where they worked over 3,573 captured Germans, sometimes brutally. The Free French movement, headquartered in London, savagely beat detainees under the nose of British authorities...

[The point? Not that anything is A-OK - but that all things are relative, and when under murderous threat 'scaring' people who know their next target(s) is hardly 'torture'.]

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image toon - 1st gwot nsec - Pelosie re water boarding enough to impeach Bush

ABC's Shame

ABC runs a report showing the names and faces of two CIA contractors who may have had a role in the waterboarding of KSM and Abu Zubaydah. The network apparently outsourced this report to a freelancer named Matthew Cole, whose record in Nexis includes just three bylines -- two stories for Salon (one of which about "how Bush administration aid to Pakistan helps fund insurgents who kill U.S. troops"), and one for the San Jose Mercury News just two days after 9/11 reporting "anxiety about a backlash" among Muslims, who assure the reporter that the attack "has nothing to do with Islam."

In other words, Cole is a left-wing partisan with questionable reporting chops. This is obvious from the quality of the story tonight. Cole repeats the now throughly debunked claim that Zubaydah and KSM were waterboarded 83 and 183 times respectively. He posts video of the two refusing to answer questions in what is staged as a faux perp walk with no discernible news value other than to portray them as criminals. And, most amazingly, Cole indicts the two men for not having any experience prior to their work for the CIA -- as though being "previously involved in the U.S. military program to train pilots how to survive behind enemy lines and resist brutal tactics" isn't relevant.

ABC's conduct here, exposing two men who will now become obvious targets for terrorists and left-wing extremists, is deplorable. Will the Obama administration investigate who leaked their identities? Or is it now open-season on Americans who were only doing what their government asked of them in order to protect their country from attack?

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[Then > Contact ABC News

image toon - gwot nsec - Oby address CIA-FBI = right to remain silent
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Report: Intelligence Warns Israel is now an ‘Obstacle to Obama'

[HT:WM]
According to a classified intelligence assessment handed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama and his senior advisors wish to

“incrementally diminish U.S. strategic cooperation with Israel.”

A report in World Tribune quoted an Israeli source familiar with the intelligence assessment who said that

"Obama wants to make friends with our worst enemies and [those who were] until now the worst enemies of the United States. Under this policy,” ... “we are more than irrelevant. We have become an obstacle.”

According to the report, which has not been corroborated by news sources other than World Tribune, Israeli sources said the U.S. Administration would reject Israel’s intelligence opinions on Iran and Syria while advancing the Obama plan to reconcile with the two states, although both were listed as state sponsors of terrorism by the U.S. State Department.

The Israeli intelligence document reportedly predicted that Obama would maintain his policy of appeasing Iran and Syria through 2010. It determined that Obama is convinced that appeasing Iran and Syria would make a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan possible... [snip]

At the same time, the intelligence officials estimated that Obama would restrict U.S. arms exports to Israel in an effort to deny it systems that it could use in a raid on Iran or Syria. The intelligence sources said this policy was begun during the last year of the Bush administration and predicted that it would intensify under Obama....

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Law Professor's Intifada

George Bisharat is a law professor at the University of California's Hastings Law School. Bisharat has been at the forefront of the efforts to implement an economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel. Bisharat also is leading the charge to have Israelis charged with war crimes over the recent Gaza invasion.

In the New York Times, Bisharat got to repeat his charges in an article titled Israel on Trial. In the piece, Bisharat uses the disputed accounts of atrocities by Israeli soldiers, which have been revealed to be based on rumors, to argue that Israel committed war crimes.

Bisharat’s long history of anti-Israeli writings is exposed in a post at Legal Insurrection Blog by Professor William Jacobson of Cornell Law School. The post is worth a read because it sheds light on the mindset of those who use false narratives of victimization to attack Israel.

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Wise words from Harper

The recent words of Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed to a gathering of Jews, members of Chabad Lubavitch, on Parliament Hill need wide circulation.

"Anti-Semitism is a pernicious evil that must be exposed, that must be confronted, that must be repudiated, whenever and wherever it appears. Fuelled by lies and paranoia we have learned from history it is an evil so profound, indeed as we saw in Mumbai, that it is ultimately a threat to us all."

In speaking forcefully as he did, Harper reminded Canadians how in troubled times such as the present the exclusive race-hatred against Jews, as witnessed in the hunt for killing them by Pakistani terrorists in Mumbai, can precipitate disaster for many...

[Recommended > ]

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image toon - 1st islm gwot israel - world outrage re Israel v silence re Hamas

America will not protect us, warns Rudd

The Rudd Government has acknowledged that the supremacy of the US has begun to fade and Australia is preparing for an uncertain future in which it can no longer rely on the protection of its main ally. In a fundamental shift in defence plans, the Government has explicitly declared that US primacy in the Asia-Pacific - the bedrock of the nation's security since World War II - may be ending.

[The messages 'we' send matter.]

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Clinton says China and Iran gains in Latin America "disturbing"

Washington - Iran and China are making ''disturbing'' gains in Latin America and Washington can no longer afford to shun leaders from nations like Venezuela and Bolivia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday. '

The Obama administration is working to improve relations with Latin American nations, including Venezuela...

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Report: U.N. spent U.S. funds on shoddy projects

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Two United Nations agencies spent millions in U.S. money on substandard Afghanistan construction projects, including a central bank without electricity and a bridge at risk of "life threatening" collapse, according to an investigation by U.S. federal agents.

The U.N. ran a "quick impact" infrastructure program from 2003 to 2006 under a $25 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The U.N. delivered shoddy work, diverted money to other countries and then stonewalled U.S. efforts to figure out what happened, according to a report by USAID's inspector general obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

"Due to the refusal of the United Nations to cooperate with this investigation, questions remain unanswered,"

the report says.

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French Workers Shut Down Eiffel Tower: A Preview Of Socialism

A Rasmussen poll here in America has just found that only 53% Americans prefer capitalism to socialism.

Care to see what the alternative looks like?

''Strike closes Eiffel Tower; worker’s demands not known,''

No one even needs an excuse not to work in France anymore. Coming up with things like ''demands'' takes work and effort....

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Patients 'more likely to die' when EU directive on 48-hour week is established, doctors warn

Patients will be at risk if the Government implements plans to stop doctors working more than 48 hours a week, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons warned today.

'Patient safety will be reduced, so it follows that patients are more likely to die,' said John Black, a former general surgeon at Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

The vast majority of doctors think the European Working Time Directive, due to be introduced on August 1, is dangerous, he said. [snip]

'We are also concerned for our workforce and the hours they work and we want to provide doctors with a good work life balance."

[So government now determines what's to be an acceptable work-life balance {which it will 'provide'}. Thank goodness; none of us serfs could set that for ourselves.

Europe the model? ]

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The Real Culture War Is Over Capitalism

Tea parties, 'ethical populism,' and the moral case against

There is a major cultural schism developing in America. But it's not over abortion, same-sex marriage or home schooling, as important as these issues are. The new divide centers on free enterprise -- the principle at the core of American culture.

Despite President Barack Obama's early personal popularity, we can see the beginnings of this schism in the "tea parties" that have sprung up around the country. In these grass-roots protests, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans have joined together to make public their opposition to government deficits, unaccountable bureaucratic power, and a sense that the government is too willing to prop up those who engaged in corporate malfeasance and mortgage fraud.

The data support the protesters' concerns. In a publication with the ironic title, "A New Era of Responsibility," the president's budget office reveals average deficits of 4.7% in the five years after this recession is over. The Congressional Budget Office predicts $9.3 trillion in new debt over the coming decade.

And what investments justify our leaving this gargantuan bill for our children and grandchildren to pay? Absurdities, in the view of many -- from bailing out General Motors and the United Auto Workers to building an environmentally friendly Frisbee golf course in Austin, Texas. On behalf of corporate welfare, political largess and powerful special interests, government spending will grow continuously in the coming years as a percentage of the economy -- as will tax collections... [snip]

This is an exhilarating time for proponents of freedom and individual opportunity. The last several years have brought malaise, in which the "conservative" politicians in power paid little more than lip service to free enterprise. Today, as in the late 1970s, we have an administration, Congress and media-academic complex openly working to change American culture in ways that most mainstream Americans will not like. Like the Carter era, this adversity offers the first opportunity in years for true cultural renewal...

[Ok, I guess there could be an up-side to living in interesting times - for our children's' sake let's all rise to the occassion, shall we? Starting here > Highly recommended > ]

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Behind the Chrysler bankruptcy

Chrysler is going into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, despite the Obama administration’s efforts to keep it out. The problem was that a group of small bondholders rejected the deal that car czar Steven Rattner and his deputy (and it seems the real dealmaker) Ron Bloom.

The bondholders made a good point. They are secured creditors, and in our bankruptcy law secured creditors get paid off in full before unsecured creditors get anything. That’s a sound legal principle: why would secured creditors lend anyone anything unless they can get their security back if the loan isn’t paid off? In this case, the small bondholders were willing to settle for only 60% of what they were owed. But, they complain, the government wouldn’t negotiate directly with them, but only through JPMorganChase, which (unwillingly) took TARP money on October 13 and thus is under pressure to do what the government wants.

Translation into politispeak: The government squeezed the small bondholders too hard in order to protect the United Auto Workers, which of course has over the years been a bounteous source of money (and manpower) for the Democratic party. The government can muscle the big banks, but it can’t (at least not yet) muscle creditors whom it hasn’t forced to take its money.

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image toon - bbro bdd mny auto - UAW = meet half way or fire ladder

Agenda will ruin U.S. for years

Let's face it, most of you fell in love with Obama for one of two reasons. He either seemed like this new type of politician who was going to ride into Washington and bring about reform and change, or he simply wasn't George W. Bush. Either way, you bought into something quite different than what you got... [snip]

All this and more is not enough to dissuade Obama supporters or the media (two interchangeable terms). What might get their attention in the long run, however, is the economy; especially the precipitous drop in the stock market since his election. Now to hear Obama tell it, it was all an inherited problem from "you know who."

For all the hype about how smart Obama is, it's clear to many that when it comes to business, he has gone out of his way to make the engine of this country the whipping boy for all our problems. Many Americans, of course, like this tone from the White House, since it's easy to hate "Big Oil," "Big Drug," "Big Banks."

When socialist governments need someone to blame, they use this tactic to divert attention from the real culprits - greedy politicians...

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Get ready for Obama’s coming hyperinflation

Santayana’s maxim — those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it — has grown threadbare from heavy use. But it unavoidably comes to mind this week, as President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill blithely put the final touches on the chief executive’s proposed 2010 federal budget.

With an unprecedented deficit that’s approaching $2 trillion, this budget proposal is a surefire prescription for hyperinflation. ...

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A scientist forces Al Gore to back down

For years, Al Gore has predicted that man's sins of carbon dioxide will bring calamity and apocalypse. He cited an increase in natural disasters.

Gore quietly dropped the contention that the increase is connected to manmade global warming this week after being called on it by Roger A. Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado.

"Gore is pulling a dramatic slide from his ever-evolving global warming presentation," reported Andrew Revkin on a blog for the New York Times.

"The data came from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (also called CRED) at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels."

This was not happenstance. Pielke called Gore on his assertions. The link between manmade activity and natural disasters has not been established.

CRED, the source cited by Gore, even said so...

[But it was Gore who was a guest at Obama's Stare-at-the-Union address...]

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Green hysteria shackles our economic growth

[HT:NP]
I am surprised so many people in Europe, the US and elsewhere have come to support policies underpinned by hysteria over global warming, particularly cap-and-trade legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions and subsidies for "green" energy sources.

I am convinced this is a misguided strategy - not only because of the uncertainty about the dangers that global warming might pose, but also because of the certainty of the damage that policies aimed at mitigation will cause.

I am amazed to see people going along with the currently fashionable political argument that policies such as cap-and-trade, government mandates and subsidies for renewable energy can actually benefit an economy. It is claimed that government, working together with business, will create "a new energy economy", that the businesses involved will profit and that everyone will be better off.

This is a fantasy. Cap-and-trade can only 'work' by raising energy prices. Consumers who are forced to pay higher prices for energy will have less money to spend on other things. While the individual companies that provide the higher-priced "green" energy may do well, the net economic effect will be negative...

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Cap and Trade a ‘Declaration of War,’

The congressional Democrats’ cap-and-trade plan to tax carbon emissions could cost every American family as much as $3,100 a year and is equivalent to a “declaration of war on the Midwest,” Republican lawmakers told CNSNews.com this week.

But Democrats say the plan can be accomplished without imposing a net cost on the American people...

[They look right at us an say it - and the press will allow them to get away with it. Are you fooled?]

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Drug smugglers allegedly move into N.M. town

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COLUMBUS, N.M. - This dusty little border town with almost no visible means of support has been seeing something of a boom in the past year: Brand-new Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalades with flashy wheel rims are parked just off the bleak main drag. Homes are selling quickly, sometimes for cash.

The source of this sudden wealth? An influx of Mexican drug smugglers, investigators say...

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Plan Would Deploy Guard Near Mexico

The Pentagon and Homeland Security Department are developing contingency plans to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border under a $350 million initiative that would expand the U.S. military's role in the drug war, according to Obama administration officials.

The circumstances under which the troops could be deployed have not been determined, the officials said.

[Meanwhile, the fence?]

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image toon - 1st immig fnn - 2000 mile long sneeze guard at border

Amnesty? Senator Schumer Chairs Comprehensive Immigration Reform Hearing Today

Senator “Chuck” Schumer (D. N.Y.) will chair a hearing on Comprehensive Immigration Reform later today, called “Can We Do It and How?”

If past is prologue, with Mr. Schumer crafting immigration reform expect amnesty and a policy that may ultimately hurt America...

[Get ready, they're about to try it again.]

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Academe Has Deformed Students' Character

The perspicacious Peter Wood asks how our system of higher education has formed students' character, and his response is not for the faint of heart:

So is the character of students shaped by our system of higher education best summarized as conformist? To a large extent, yes. The progressive left is counting on a vast, quiescent consensus among the college-educated, a consensus sufficient to end the culture wars and usher in a reign of one-sided agreement on all important issues. The left’s near total domination of education at all levels, including colleges and universities, has given it ample opportunity to instill its basic values. These include a settled hatred of Western civilization, an elevation of identity groups and corresponding devaluation of common humanity, and a preference for the homogeneous group over the free-spirited individual.

Along with the conformity comes a warmth-seeking, affirmation-thirsty need for the therapeutic. College graduates today have been used to a life of self-esteem-enhancing bromides. They seldom see difficulty as valuable in its own right. Grandstanding comes more easily to these folks than doing; and accomplishment without an audience is almost unthinkable.

The character that contemporary American education seems most to foster is also a person unmoored to any abiding sense of reality. He or she is ambitious, dissatisfied, and vaguely angry. College has made it a settled fact that America is a profoundly unfair society, but that the “structural inequalities” run so deep that there is little that can be done about them. This allows the alternatives of resentful passivity or frenetic pursuit of symbolic protests and acts of atonement. Often you see both in the same person. Lethargically pessimistic one day, stridently assertive the next.

If character is destiny — and Wood's analysis on the mark — can the end of America as we've known and cherished it be far behind?

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Time’s Liberal Bias Taught in Schools

As if school kids didn't get enough liberal propaganda. Whether parents know it or not, millions of students across the country have been receiving biased news magazines in the classroom. Without adult guidance, children are at risk to take as fact the consistently liberal views of Time magazine.

Through Great American Opportunities, people can order magazine subscriptions and earn Time for Kids subscriptions for the school of their choice. Kindergarten through sixth-graders will then receive this publication free of charge.

According to its website, "The Time For Kids Program helps schools receive the best in current weekly classroom news magazines for students in grades K-6 at no cost. TFK delivers three weekly news magazines to over 3.9 million students."

This program comes from a magazine that has published articles on how kids are bad for the environment. As CMI noted previously, Time's article on May 8 described this environmental problem...

[Parents, do you know what your kids a being 'taught' in school?]

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Right-Wing College Group Riles Students on Campuses Nationwide*

The conservative political group Youth for Western Civilization is currently organized on at least seven university campuses. According to its Web site, the group hopes to inspire Western youth on the "basis of pride in their American and Western heritage," counter and ultimately defeat "leftism on campus" and create a social movement in which a right-wing subculture is an alternative to what it calls a "poisonous and bigoted" campus climate.

"A great part of college is definitely meeting people of different backgrounds, but a multicultural ideology teaches that we should appreciate things just because they're different from our culture with no regards to the quality of the culture and that all cultures are inherently equal," said Trevor Williams, president of YWC's Vanderbilt chapter. "I absolutely disagree."

But students who lean left are not welcoming their new neighbor. Those opposed to YWC say its message teeters on hate speech and has no place at institutions of higher learning... [snip]

Officials at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which identifies and tracks hate groups in the U.S., told FOXNews.com that the YWC is not currently on its list, but some of the group's views are "suspect," including the notion that Western civilization is somehow superior. [?!?]

"We're definitely monitoring them," said SPLC spokewoman Heidi Beirich. "We will look at them for hate group status."

[America are we paying attention? This institutional lack of tolerance for any political view not of the left, with potential criminal ramifications, is something that should outrage us all.

*Re: 'Nationwide': 7 campuses out of >1600 Universities listed at http://www.allaboutuni.com/index.php - yup, that's an epidemic all right.]

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image toon - bdd edu - William Ayers - EDUCATOR

FCC Announces May 7 'Diversity Committee' Meeting - Behold a New 'Fairness' Doctrine

Behold one of the new "Fairness" Doctrines - "media diversity" - coming soon to a radio station near you.

President Barack Obama's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released the names of the thirty-one members of their Advisory Committee On Diversity For Communications In The Digital Age. This May 7 gathering is made up of a laundry list of left-wing grievance groups, with a smattering of radio and television companies included to break up the monotony.

Not a single conservative organization is taking part in this Commission - more than a dozen Leftist groups are. A little ironic for a "diversity" panel, is it not?

Chairing the meeting is Henry Rivera, a former FCC Commissioner who was (and presumably still is) a strong proponent of the Censorship Doctrine, also mis-known as the "Fairness" Doctrine.

On February 26, Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin - one of the myriad past "Fairness" Doctrine champions - sponsored an amendment, passed via a 57-41 Party-line vote, which forces the FCC to "take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to 'ensure' that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest."

The proponents of station owner affirmative action are the same Leftists who were so ardently in favor of reinstating the Doctrine. One can thusly be forgiven for seeing this as an alternative route for the Left to reach their long-sought original destination - the silencing of conservative and Christian talk radio via governmental regulatory fiat.

And it's not just our imagination - it's also our lying eyes. The Center for American Progress is a left-wing hack outfit headed by former Clinton Administration and Obama Transition Team adviser John Podesta. And they released on January 22, 2007 a report entitled "Local Media Diversity Matters - Measure Media Diversity According to Democratic Values, Not Market Values."

If they can succeed in making it impossible for talk radio to operate as a business, talk radio will cease to operate. Leftist problem solved.

"Media diversity" is just the latest Leftist attempt to get this done.

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[Then >

please join me in working against it by joining MRC's Free Speech Alliance - and as always, pass it on...]


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What Would Happen If Government Tried to Build an iPhone?

A: It would cost roughly six times as much and not work.

The census decided that one of these crazy new smartphone/PDAs that all the hepcats are using would help in their counting. But simply writing a new piece of software for an existing Blackberry or iPhone was way too elegant a solution. So the governent threw millions at a military contractor and produced 525,000 of what looks like the Trabant of smartphones. The bottom line:

In other words, the relatively lame device my friendly enumerator was carrying, which cost $600 million, doesn’t actually work well enough to use for its intended purpose, is still being used in the field, perhaps so that it can be readied for 2020? Anyone believe that we’ll be able to do better than a half-pound, paperback-book sized plastic brick within ten years?

[Cryalot {Chrysler-Fiat} anyone?]

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Meet the happy-faced spider sure to make you smile

This amazing happy-faced spider found in Hawaii is bound to leave you beaming from ear to ear. The tiny insect, which measures just a few millimetres across, has developed bizarre markings which look just like a smiling face.

Spider expert and geneticist Dr Geoff Oxford, 62, from the University of York, said studying happy-face spiders was a real joy.

"I must admit when I turned over the first leaf and saw one it certainly brought a smile to my face."

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Sex on Queen's lawn at Windsor Castle

A couple were arrested after being caught having sexual intercourse on the Queen's lawn outside Windsor Castle. The pair, in their early thirties, stripped on a private grass bank at the castle, where Her Majesty was in residence.

They were watched by crowds of tourists. Several Japanese tourists filmed the couple for up to twenty minutes before they were arrested by armed Royal Protection Squad officers...

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image toon - 1st fnn - New Yorkers re 747 v President panic

$1.5 Billion Request for Flu-Fighting Money Aimed at Long-Term Needs

The Obama administration's request for $1.5 billion to fight swine flu is more of a backup plan than a fast-track infusion to shield the United States from a global pandemic, say Democratic congressional aides who are familiar with the request.

The administration is steering clear of defining exactly what the money will be used for if approved, with Obama calling for "maximum flexibility" in dispensing the money...

[Since when {2009, evidently} can a president ask for 1.5 Billion dollars of our money for reasons he may get around to telling us later??

Can you imagine the media uproar had Bush even tried such a stunt? Now watch how our current MSM handle this latest insult to the American taxpayer...]

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AP's Calvin Woodward Does Astonishing Fact Check on Obama

It will be interesting to see how much distribution it gets. I would suggest not counting on too much, but being open to a pleasant surprise. Regardless of its distribution, you'd better believe they've read it in the White House, and they're wondering what in the world happened.

FACT CHECK: Obama disowns deficit he helped shape

“That wasn't me,” President Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One.

It actually was him — and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years — who shaped a budget so out of balance.

And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still... [snip]

Enjoy it. Just don't delude yourself into thinking a lot of people will see it, or that it marks any kind of general change in direction at AP.

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image toon 1st reps libs mny - Oby's rock braced by debt rubble

HEROES

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U.S., Iraqi Soldiers Unleash ‘Lion’s Roar’

Iraq, – The 10th Iraqi Army Division sent out its ground troops and air support assets April 19 to conduct the first large-scale combined-arms live-fire exercise, nicknamed Operation “Lion’s Roar,” in southern Iraq April 19.

“They did outstanding,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, commander of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division. “The Iraqi army is here to defend its citizens and protect their borders.”

The Long Knife soldiers have mentored the Iraqis since just after they arrived in the tri-province area of Dhi Qar, Muthanna and Maysan in June.

“It’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime or -generation chance to help another army develop their standards,”

said Army Staff Sgt. Randy Rice, mortar platoon sergeant for 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment.

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How to Shrink American Power

As President of the United States, it is not overly difficult to be liked, if that is what you want. The way you do that is to tell people what they want to hear. Tell the world that the United States has been arrogant and uncaring and has made lots of mistakes and is responsible for lots of the world's most serious problems, but that you are going to change all that.

Tell the Iranians that you are repudiating the prior administration's posture toward them, and that they are not part of the Axis of Evil, and that you are going to reach out and build a "bridge" to them, even if their leader says that America is the enemy, Israel should be destroyed, and is working on a nuclear bomb to make good on that threat;

Tell the Russians that you are repudiating the prior administration's policy toward them, that you want to "reset" your relationship with them, and that you will be willing to dismantle your missile defenses even though those defenses relate to possible attacks from other sources (like Iran), and even though Russia herself has shown a historic and recent willingness to invade neighbors;

Tell the Muslims that the prior administration was wrong to wage a war against Islam and that you want to build a bridge instead, even though the prior administration's war was not against Islam or Muslims but against terrorists, and that "war" has succeeded in protecting the United States from any terrorist attack since 9/11, has helped other countries foil potentially devastating attacks and has freed two countries -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- from brutal and bloody subjugation to dictators and murderous religious fanatics.

In fact, in your effort to distance yourself from your predecessor and to curry favor with the world, you even go so far as to tell everyone that there is no "war on terror" and that there are no acts of terror, only "man made disasters," as if 9/11 was the result of some sort of weather disorder or earthquake...

[Recommended > ]

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Sentenced to Die for Selling Real Estate to a Jew

Palestinian moderation was once again on display yesterday when a Palestinian Authority court in Hebron sentenced to death Anwar Brigith, 59, from the village of Bet Umar, north of Hebron, for the crime of selling land to Jews.

Mind you, this is not the act of the extremist Islamists of Hamas.

This comes from a court whose officers and judges are all affiliated with the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority — the supposedly moderate peace-partner to whom most of the world is pressuring Israel to make concessions... [snip]

It will be interesting to see whether the State Department or the White House, both eager to portray the P.A. as a worthy peace-partner and deserving of statehood, will call upon Abbas to pardon or commute the sentence of Brigith.

We’ll also be waiting to see whether this outrage is taken up by the United Nations and its various agencies that are usually busy condemning Israel for having the temerity to defend its citizens against terrorism.

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Airline glitch takes Mideast conflict to new heights

ERUSALEM – Irate Israeli passengers have complained to British BMI airline that the Jewish state was wiped off the inflight map which showed flights bound for Israel were instead heading to Mecca.

But the airline denied any anti-Israel agenda and insisted there was a simple explanation: the planes were recently bought from a bankrupt charter company that flew mainly to Muslim countries...

[Oh, well that's ok then...]

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Muslim-owned shop bans customers wearing veils

A Muslim-owned jewellery shop has decided to ban customers wearing veils after being targeted by robbers disguised as Islamic women. Everyone entering ATAA Jewellers in Glasgow must reveal their faces under planned new rules to protect staff from further attacks.

The store owners decided to act after two Asian men wearing traditional Muslim women's clothes – including niqab veils – made away with thousands of pounds worth of jewelery earlier this month...

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Europe's age crisis begins to bite

The EU's working age population will peak next year before tipping into decline for half a century This will cause a relentless rise in pension and health costs that risk asphyxiating the region's economy.

A new report by the European Commission said this financial crisis could turn into a "permanent shock to growth" from which Europe never fully recovers unless it moves fast to bring its public debts under control...

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The Flight Of Rosales

Americas: Even after consolidating his rule, Hugo Chavez's appetite for power is growing. He's now driven a top opponent into exile and Venezuela's democracy to a new low.

So who would like to challenge him now?

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When Our Trade Isn't Free, Neither Is Our Work

When trade is considered by economists and commentators, too often the discussion centers on countries. This evolves from the misbegotten notion that countries, rather than individuals, trade.

Thanks to a facile approach to what is a very basic concept, we’re as a result bombarded with strange notions of trade “surpluses” and “deficits” as though free exchange could be anything but a positive. Happily, as former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has reminded us, for

“the world as a whole, of course, exports must equal imports, and the world consolidated current account balance is always zero.”

Greenspan’s underlying point is that the trade that so many discuss in terms of countrywide imports and exports is really about individuals freely exchanging their surplus for that produced by others. In that case, all trade by definition balances.

And with the individual in mind, we can see clearly the faulty premise of protectionism. For an individual to act in ways protectionist would be for that person to live needlessly a life of deprivation...

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"Traditionally most of Australia's imports come from overseas."

Former Australian Cabinet Minister Keppel Enderbery.

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70% See Big Government As Threat

Earlier this week, Gallup released new data showing that most Americans still view big government as a more serious threat to the nation than big business.

The results weren’t terribly surprising since Gallup has asked the question periodically since 1965 and government has always been seen as the biggest threat.

The Gallup Poll found that most Democrats view big business as a bigger threat than big government. Republicans and independents held the opposite view.

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This Way Lies MADDness

It’s becoming clearer, with each appointment President Obama makes, that his agenda is a simple one: control. The latest example is the naming of Chuck Hurley as the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Hurley is currently the CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

While it’s encouraging that a group with “Mothers” in its name would allow a man to be its CEO, that brief amusement is dwarfed by the realization of just what MADD has become: a profound exemplar of the “nanny state” mentality.

MADD has shown up to sobriety checkpoints (presumably, to make sure the offenders are properly scolded), they’ve called for the legal limit for blood alcohol to be cut in half, and they’ve argued for ALL cars to have mandatory alcohol-testing interlock devices installed on them.

And Hurley himself has been a strong advocate of “red light cameras” which have been shown to actually increase accidents under some circumstances.

With Hurley heading up NHTSA, we can rest assured that the government will do everything it can to keep us from taking silly, foolish chances or thinking for ourselves. All we have to do is just sit back, relax, and let them do our thinking for us...

["Appointments are policy."]

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Senators want to expel junk food from US schools

U.S. schools with vending machines that sell candy and soda to students could soon find the government requiring healthier options to combat childhood obesity under a bill introduced on Thursday by two Senators.

While school meals must comply with U.S. dietary guidelines, there are no such rules on snacks sold outside of school lunchrooms that can be high in fat, sugar and calories...

[Sounds like the right mix to me as it is - but the Nanny state never stops of its own; it only increases until stopped.]

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At What Price?

On Tax Day, Apr. 15, President Obama declared his belief in simplifying the tax code. His Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by Paul Volcker, has been tasked with presenting recommendations by Dec. 4. Is the flat tax coming? No. Simpler code? Yes. Lower tax rates (plural)? Yes.

The catch: The improved income tax code will come with a European-style value-added tax.

Politicians love the VAT. First, because the levy applies to every transaction phase and includes services as well as products, it is difficult to avoid. It's no surprise, therefore, that the VAT was invented by the French. Second, consumers don't see it. By the time a product hits the shelf, the VAT is embedded in the retail price, unlike a sales tax, which is added at the checkout counter.

Thus, in Europe, a $50 item actually includes upward of $10 in value-added taxes. The White House figures this will be a revenue bonanza that will finance not only the socialized health care system it wants to impose on us but also President Obama's second-term (if he's reelected, of course) big initiative: providing free college to everyone.

Remember, this Administration still holds to its obese ambition to remake our capitalist economy into a western-Europe-like socialized economic system, in which government dependency is high, job creation is anemic and cutting-edge innovation in health-related areas and technology is almost nonexistent.

A VAT is not just a serpent in a simple low-tax Garden of Eden--it's a nest of pythons...

[I.e., another >20% tax on everything, on top of current taxes. ]

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A CLEANER, GREENER EARTH

Of the estimated 1 billion people who will observe Earth Day worldwide this year, few will know about the progress already being made. The world, especially in developed nations, is a cleaner -- and greener -- place, contradicting the alarmists' warnings that the world is on the edge of environmental cataclysm.

From evidence "that tropical rain forests may now be expanding faster than they are being cut down" to the improving health of U.S. ocean fisheries to better outdoor air quality in American cities with the worst air pollution, there's more to be optimistic about than there is to be troubled about.

• Americans are actually generating no more trash per-capita than they were in 1990.
• Our production of hazardous waste has fallen from 36 million tons in 1999 to 28 million tons in 2005.
• Lead levels in our blood have shown "a steady decline since the 1980s."

And then there's carbon dioxide. We are pumping out more than ever, but there's no evidence, only speculation, that this weak greenhouse gas is having any effect on the environment...

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An inconvenient film

Al Gore is about to feature in a new movie, but he's not going to like it very much. Titled Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria, the film presents a devastating account of the shaky foundations and hefty price of Mr. Gore's brand of self-interested and hypocritical alarmism.

The world's crisis-beset nations are due to meet in Copenhagen in November to concoct a new policy straitjacket to succeed the meddlesome but utterly failed Kyoto Accord. If global warming's U. N.-based ringmasters have their way, this will lead to a slashing of industrial production in developed countries and to a huge extension of boondoggle redistributionist schemes to fund "green" technologies in developing countries.[snip]

The truly astonishing feature of this policy fandango is that it will have little or no effect on the climate, the science of which is still only dimly understood. However, alarmists such as Mr. Gore have successfully sold the notion that the science is "settled." This is just one of the claims to which Not Evil Just Wrong puts the lie... [snip]

Not Evil Just Wrong which will be released later this year -- is an important film that deserves the widest possible distribution, both in theatres and schools. The only quibble that I have with it is that its title might be too generous to those it exposes.

(To find out more about the movie and the fundraising campaign to help its distribution visit its website: noteviljustwrong.com).

[Recommended > ]

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snowman re awg

Offshore Oil Drilling: An Environmental Bonanza

On Earth Day, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis wanted to make Obama's energy policy perfectly clear:

"If we are going to create clean energy industry jobs in this country," they write in a widely syndicated op-ed, "break the stranglehold that foreign oil has on our economy and punish the polluters who are devastating our natural resources, then we've got to be honest about the difficult tasks and tough choices ahead. It's going to mean telling the special interests that their days of dictating energy policy in this country are over."

Indeed, and we can start with groups like the Sierra Club.

"Environmentalists" wake up in the middle of the night sweating and whimpering about offshore oil platforms only because they've never seen what's under them. Louisiana produces almost 30 per cent of America's commercial fisheries. Only Alaska (ten times the size of the Bayou state) produces slightly more. So obviously, Louisiana's coastal waters are immensely rich and prolific in seafood.

The original plan, mandated by federal environmental "experts" back in the late '40s, was to remove the big, ugly, polluting, environmentally hazardous contraptions as soon as they stopped producing. About 15 years ago some wells played out off Louisiana and the oil companies tried to comply.

Their ears are still ringing from the clamor fishermen put up. Turns out those platforms are going nowhere, and by popular demand of those with a bigger stake in the marine environment than any "environmentalist." Every "environmental" superstition against these structures was turned on its head.

Marine life had exploded around these huge artificial reefs... [snip]

These same coastal waters contain 3,200 of the roughly 3,700 offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. These oil production platforms off the Bayou state's coasts also extract 80 percent of the oil and 72 percent of the natural gas produced in the Continental U.S., without causing a single major oil spill in half a century of this process.

This record stands despite dozens of hurricanes -- including the two most destructive in North American history, Camille and Katrina -- repeatedly battering the drilling and production structures.

So for those interested in evidence over hysterics, by simply looking bayou-ward, a lesson in the "environmental perils" of offshore oil drilling presents itself very clearly.

If a picture's worth a thousand words of proof, then this video should be worth ten million.

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Bam's Health-care Dodge

If President Obama believes so much in open government, why is he trying to block an honest, open debate in Congress over his health-care scheme?

Blocking debate is precisely what's behind the effort by the White House and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill to fast-track health-care reform via a parliamentary trick called ''reconciliation'' ...

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NATIONAL HEALTH CARE IN 20 HRS.

Late last week President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to use "budget reconciliation" if necessary to jam a massive health-care bill through Congress.

This decision is a deeply troublesome attempt to circumvent the normal and customary workings of American democracy, and it promises bitter divisiveness under an administration that has made repeated promises to reach across the partisan divide.

Reconciliation was established in 1974 as a procedure to make modest adjustments to mandatory spending such as farm programs, student loans and Medicare that were already well established in law. Over the past 35 years, it has been used only 22 times.

The power of a reconciliation bill is this:

• Senate rules allow only 20 hours of debate and then passage with a simple majority of 51 votes.
• This represents a lightning strike in the normal deliberative time-frame of the Senate.
• The historic precedent of open debate, and the requirement of 60 votes to close debate, are completely short-circuited.

Budget reconciliation was never intended to push through dramatic and expansive new programs. It was created as a way to help a reluctant Congress curb spending, reduce deficits, and cut the debt.

Moreover, changes made under reconciliation expire after five or 10 years, depending on the budget. This is clearly not the appropriate process for implementing significant new entitlement...

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Protecting Medical Professionals Who Morally Oppose Abortion Is ‘Short-sighted,’ Democratic Senator Says

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told a gathering of pro-abortion activists that the Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations put in place by the Bush administration to protect medical professionals who work in institutions that receive federal funding and morally oppose certain practices, such as abortion, is ''short-sighted'' and should be rescinded by President Obama.

[I.e., tolerance and understanding aren't for the right of center - just the left.
Guess that's 'liberal compassion'.]

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ABC Frets ‘No Real Urgency' on ‘Meaningful Gun Control' to Stop ‘Signature American Shooting Rampages'

Of the three network evening newscasts, ABC's World News, substitute hosted by Diane Sawyer, uniquely seemed to lament the lack of political interest in enacting new gun laws to combat what correspondent Dan Harris earlier called "a signature American disaster"

[Once again, the real tragedy here is that a lone gunman could reek such havoc because no one else was armed. Our defense is primarily our responsibility, anything else is sending sheep to the slaughter.]

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Ted Nugent Blasts Gun Free Zones As 'Forced Victimization'

Gun control policies wrought by the likes of liberal Sens. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Schumer (D-N.Y.) amount to "cruel indecency and forced victimization" argues rocker Ted Nugent in an April 20, 2009 column in U.S. News & World Report.

We have examined all the evidence we need to know that calling 911 is a joke, unless of course they bring a dustpan and a mop to clean up the dead monster we just shot while protecting our family.

So why in God's good name would any human being wish to force unarmed helplessness on another? That level of cruel indecency and forced victimization is incomprehensible to me and about 100,000,000 Americans who own guns. Self-defense is the most powerful, driving instinct of good people everywhere. To deny this is evil personified. Write this down—GunFreeZones are a felon's playgrounds. Ban GunFreeZones now.

Nuge is on to something. As we at NewsBusters can attest, the media's call for more gun control is often coupled with a patronizing liberal view of the average American that he/she is not capable of confidently, safely, and competently handling a gun for self-defense. Invariably pro-gun control bias in the media denigrates the rights and responsibilities of private citizens while holding forth liberal politicians as guardians of public safety, standing up boldly to a shadowy "gun lobby."

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To Arms

A week ago, a horrendous crime took place in a nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina. Seven innocent lives were taken by an unhinged dirtbag apparently upset at his ex-wife. Fortunately, a brave police officer answered the call, engaged the perpetrator in a gun fight, and though he took three rounds to the legs, managed to deliver a center-mass hit onto said dirtbag, dropping him in his tracks. This courageous officer kept his head, and, with bullets pounding around and into him, kept his muzzle on target long enough to bring to an end a tragedy that may have been a whole lot worse.


A few days ago, an even more egregious travesty upon the innocent occurred in upstate New York. A disgruntled man blocked off the exit to a community service building with his car, then went around front and entered the building firing a high-powered rifle. Before the rampage was done, fourteen souls were gone, including the shooter’s.

Predictably, there surfaced immediately the usual suspects who painted this tragedy as further evidence that more comprehensive and restrictive gun laws are needed, now more than ever.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth...

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‘Angels of Democracy’? Time Editor Hails Leftist Women of ‘The View’

They're rude, annoying, smug and biased. And to Time magazine's managing editor, they're "angels?" Richard Stengel called the four-fifths liberal hosts of ABC's "The View" on April 30 "Angels of Democracy" in an appearance on the show. As he discussed the release of "The Time 100: The World's Most Influential People, " which includes all five women, and lavished praise on them... [snip]

Things like sex, porn and sex toys, sex ed for five-year-olds, and more sex? Or maybe its bashing the Catholic Church, hypocritically defending Barack Obama or sniffing at religious Christmas cards?

[Don't know which is the bigger embarassment to the country: the show or the magazine.]

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Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin was arguably the most influential person in 2008, but no one notices because she wasn't influential enough to overcome the deficits of her running mate and win the election.

Until Palin, 45, burst onto the scene, Obama was headed for a Nixon/McGovern landslide. Palin may not have changed the election result, but she killed what otherwise would have been a rout

John McCain was so preposterous a candidate (at least on a Republican ticket) that Palin was responsible for far more votes than the usual vice-presidential candidate.

The biggest red flag proving her popularity with normal Americans is that liberals won't shut up about her. Palin is a threat to liberals because she believes in God and country and family — all values liberals pretend to believe in but secretly detest.

There's a reason there's no "Stop Olympia Snowe before it's too late!" movement...

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Fox beats networks without Obama

While Obama's prime-time news conference aired on the Big Three broadcast networks — ABC, NBC, and CBS — Fox opted out and instead aired an episode of the drama "Lie to Me."

That move seems to have paid off: Fox drew 7.9 million viewers and won the 8 p.m. time slot, according to TVNewser. However, approximately 19 million viewers tuned into Obama on the Big Three combined.

Obama's presser aired on Fox News, although Major Garrett was the only one of the major networks' White House correspondents not to get a question.

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Obama’s List: Who Gets To Ask A Question?

As one among a throng of reporters last evening in the East Room, I was struck by the degree to which the White House Press Corps has been tamed, if not mollified, on one aspect of our conduct.

Nowadays, it’s standard practice at these sessions to wait quietly for the President to call the name of the next reporter from whom he’ll take a question...

[Right. The press is known far and wide for its civility and patients in having their questions answered. Nothing special here - move along...]

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[am urban-hunter in the wild]

image photo - fnn guns lbrty - hot tub hunter