The left in this country has made much of the big electoral victories that the Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 -- and for good reason. Not since 1977, when Jimmy Carter swept to victory along with huge Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, has there been such lopsided partisan rule in this country. With Al Franken seemingly a lock to win the Minnesota Senate seat, the Democrats are on the verge of a 60 vote "supra majority" that is virtually filibuster proof. The immediate future seems to all be swinging the left's way, and all the things that come with it are now a foregone conclusion: major health care reform, tax increases, deficit spending and a spate of intensive, restrictive environmental regulation.More at the link.
But will it last? As we know, Jimmy Carter's 1977 victory gave way in just four years to the Reagan Revolution -- and though Barack Obama is much more politically sophisticated than was Carter, a former Georgia peanut farmer who was poorly schooled in the ways of Washington, there are many similarities thus far between the two presidencies. Carter took over after a period of eight years of Republican rule and in the wake of an unpopular war and scandal; his campaign was based on a promise to "change" Washington -- to clean up government and restore the nation's image in the world. The economy he inherited was suffering from high unemployment and high inflation -- and Carter's typical "tax and spend" policies made both worse. He oversaw the expansion of government with the creation of the Departments of Energy and Education, instituted price controls and rationing on energy, oversaw the bailout of a Detroit automaker (Chrysler) and pursued Middle East Peace by promoting the cause of the Arab states over those of Israel.
Sound familiar?
But it is not a lost cause, for as Carter gave way to Reagan, Obama’s left-wing policies and programs may lead to a new conservative revolution. In fact, there are signs now from Europe that the purported "death of conservatism" has been greatly exaggerated. As the BBC reports tonight, in European Parliament elections this weekend it appears that Center-right parties have made major gains ...
Sunday, June 7, 2009
European Tea Leaves for Conservatives
From Ken Davenport, "From Europe, hope for conservatives":
Obi's Sister and Robert Stacy McCain
From Obi's Sister, "The Six Degrees of Stacy McCain," riffing on, well, "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" :
Saturday morning, I got to play this game with Notorious Blogger, Stacy McCain, during breakfast at a Cracker Barrel in Douglas County, Georgia. He was in Georgia to give a speech up in Rome to the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
As if Osama and Your Mama Were Reading...
I want to follow up my last post on the Ed Whelan/John Blevins controversy.
Two friends, Wordsmith and Serr8d, took exception in the comments (here and here) to my claim that using a blogging pseudonym is "kind of cowardly ..."
So let me clarify: It is my personal belief that someone, especially an academic, should stand up for what they have to say. It's a matter of integrity and reputation. Would you make more vociferous attacks on others when enjoying the cloak pseudonymity? Would you make demonic attacks? Even if your answer is no, can you deny that your comfort level would not tempt you? It's a difficult situation. James Joyner said something this morning that was just about right for me. He notes:
Having clarified that, I think Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette makes the most compelling case on the need to blog under the cloak of pseudonymity, "Who the f%^& are you?":
Wordsmith and Serr8d have their own reasons for blogging under a pseudonym, and I really don't begrudge them for it. These guys are right-on, straight-up, and solid. They're not messing around, attacking their enemies with the most vicious slanders and vulgarities - and if they were, they wouldn't be my friends.
If you're up for more, Ed Whelan has now responded to the whole uproar he instigated. He crossed a line, and he's diminished for it. And that's all I have to say about that ...
Two friends, Wordsmith and Serr8d, took exception in the comments (here and here) to my claim that using a blogging pseudonym is "kind of cowardly ..."
So let me clarify: It is my personal belief that someone, especially an academic, should stand up for what they have to say. It's a matter of integrity and reputation. Would you make more vociferous attacks on others when enjoying the cloak pseudonymity? Would you make demonic attacks? Even if your answer is no, can you deny that your comfort level would not tempt you? It's a difficult situation. James Joyner said something this morning that was just about right for me. He notes:
I’ve blogged here under my real name for over six years and prefer to read and link bloggers who do likewise. Signing my name to what I write makes me think twice and the active realization that others whose arguments I’m engaging are real people also tends to make me more reflective.And to remind folks:, I don't approve of what Ed Whelan has done. On the other hand, I question why "Publius" needs to remain protected by pseudonymity. Ann Althouse has been a long-time inspiration for me, and she's written quite a bit on using the "cloak." See quotes herself in a post today on Publius' predicament, offering a little cost/benefit analysis on academic blogging:
I would never insult or demean or deliberately hurt the feelings of students. I wouldn't casually knock my law school (though there are some considered criticisms I would be willing to make). I wouldn't hurt my family or acquaintances or even reveal much of anything about them (without permission). So there aren't really any significant ways using my own name limits me ... I care immensely about freedom as I do this blogging. But I also want to be aware of myself as an identifiable person, responsible for what I say (which is true whether you use a pseudonym or not). And I don't mind getting personal credit for anything good I might happen to say. Also, I kind of like being a public persona.I especially like that last part about the "public persona." That's precisely how I feel about my blogging identity. But I also like Ann's honesty and integrity. She wants to blog responsibly. But I don't think academics who blog using a pseudonym are going to worry about responsibility when they're able to write whatever they want, cost-free. That, to me, is what's "cowardly."
Having clarified that, I think Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette makes the most compelling case on the need to blog under the cloak of pseudonymity, "Who the f%^& are you?":
Read the rest here.I staggered back to the UndergroundWanna be linked by everyone in the blogosphere? Try exposing an pseudonymous blogger. It works, and as a double bonus your subject's identity will be known far beyond the readership of your site.
And the breeze blew back my hair
I remembered throwin' punches around
And preachin' from my chair
<...>
Well, who are you / Who are you... who who, who, who...
Oh, who are you / Who are you... who who, who, who...
Come on, tell me, who are you / Who are you...
Oh, who the f%^& are you / Who are you...
- The Who, "Who are You?" ...
Bad form, says I - though so is hiding behind a pseudonym in order to be an obnoxious twit (note I'm not accusing anyone of that motive here). I maintained a pseudonymous blog here for many years and many reasons - at the outset primarily because as a milblogger I practiced more strict OPSEC than what's officially required; for example, someone who knew who I was could determine where I was, from that many other bad things could potentially follow. Bear in mind that was the calculation of a guy who was one of the first milbloggers, entering into an unknown world (and an unknown future at war) - and the handful that preceded me were all pseudonymous, a tradition that continues with the vast majority starting out today.
I'm fine with that - I'd encourage it, even. But beyond potential OPSEC considerations, I tried to write everything I posted as though I were using my real name (as if Osama and your mama were reading is advice I follow and give freely). Part of the reason for that was anticipating I wouldn't be pseudonymous forever - that either by my choice or otherwise (as in the example above) I would one day be known ...
Wordsmith and Serr8d have their own reasons for blogging under a pseudonym, and I really don't begrudge them for it. These guys are right-on, straight-up, and solid. They're not messing around, attacking their enemies with the most vicious slanders and vulgarities - and if they were, they wouldn't be my friends.
If you're up for more, Ed Whelan has now responded to the whole uproar he instigated. He crossed a line, and he's diminished for it. And that's all I have to say about that ...
Schwarzenegger Seeks Deep Cuts in Welfare Handouts
From the Los Angeles Times, "Pockets Empty, Calif Considers Deep Cuts in Spending for the State's Most Vulnerable Residents":
Also interesting about this story: No talk of the teachers unions facing similar draconianism. The poor need some safety net of c,ourse, but they won't have one as long as average teacher salary in California is higher than anywhere else in the nation.
Photo Credit: Associated Press.
Carolina Fuentes and her daughter Katherine, 5, wait for an appointment at the Sacramento county welfare office in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, June 1, 2009. Facing a $24.3 billion state budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzengger has proposed ending welfare for poor mothers and their children, wiping out health insurance for 1 million children and disbanding care for people with Alzheimer's disease or other disabilities. Fuentes, 22, a newly-single mother , doesn't qualify for benefits having crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a teenage, applied for cash assistance, food stamps and health coverage of her daughter.
With empty pockets and maxed-out credit, California is debating whether it can continue honoring all parts of its social contract with the state's most vulnerable residents.
The state faces an unprecedented drop in tax revenue and a widening budget deficit amid the deepest recession in decades, prompting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to propose cost-cutting steps that once seemed unthinkable.
At stake are programs for the poor, elderly and frail, placing millions of people in the nation's most populous state at risk of falling through a decades-old social safety net.
Ending the welfare-to-work program for mothers and their children would affect some 546,000 families, and health insurance could be eliminated for 1 million children from low-income families. Services for Alzheimer's patients, disabled and other frail recipients of in-home care also would be greatly reduced under the governor's latest budget proposal, leaving more than 400,000 people without such support.
Schwarzenegger acknowledges that his proposals will be painful.
"I know the consequences of those cuts are not just dollars. I see the faces behind those dollars. ... I see the Alzheimer's patients losing some of their in-home support services," he told lawmakers last week. "It's an awful feeling, but we have no choice."
The twists of political logic to this story are unreal: Here you have a Republican governor who came to power with a mandate for reform. Having blown that, he's presided over the worst fiscal collapse in California history: and he's now being forced by his own political opportunism to adopt the kind of cutbacks in government that he should have been seeking all along!
Also interesting about this story: No talk of the teachers unions facing similar draconianism. The poor need some safety net of c,ourse, but they won't have one as long as average teacher salary in California is higher than anywhere else in the nation.
Photo Credit: Associated Press.
Blogging Anonymity and Blogging Ethics
I should probably weigh in on the Ed Whelan/John Blevins imbroglio. Everyone else is, and I'm getting some links out of it as well!
Some quick background: Ed Whelan outed "Publius" at Obsidian Wings. The latter's real name is John F. Blevins, and he's an Assistant Professor of Law at the South Texas College of Law. Check the links above, and Memeorandum. At issue are the attacks on Whelan as the right's go-to "legal hitman." The term is from the "Anonymous Liberal," so the irony there is rich. Readers can assess who comes out on top in the substantive debate. No matter, though. Whelan comes off as putz, either way. Both James Joyner and Dan Riehl eloquently make the case against Whelan.
Now, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't out someone who writes anonymously (or "pseudonymously," as the case may be). Repsac3 got mad at me once for using his real name in a comment thread. But he had posted his real name at his Twitter link, at he linked to it at the sidebar. So, it's kind of hard to get mad at being "outed" if you "outed" yourself.
Frankly, if a blogger writes under complete anonymity (or pseudonymity), that's his prerogative. And it's not up to me or anyone else, in pure spite, to reveal their identity. It's kind of cowardly, in my opinion, to use a pseudonym, but I can understand it. After the Repsac3 exchange, PrivatePigg, a conservative blogger and friend of mine, said he blogs anonymously simply to protect his privacy from the radical leftists he knows will stalk him and his family.
It happens. As reader know, I routinely wade into the comment threads at leftist blogs to debate and ridicule. I don't claim to be nice about it. I've even used profanity in a comment thread at "Dr. Hussein Biobrain's" blog. But I don't threaten people; I skewer. And some folks can't handle being revealed as nihilist America-bashers. After commenting a few times at The Swash Zone, I received this e-mail from "(O)CT(O)PUS," the blog's publisher:
But if there was ever good reason to blog anonymously, real harrassment such as this is it. "(O)CT(O)PUS" made the rounds at leftist blogs to brag about how he'd "kicked my ass." And he PUBLISHED MY WORK CONTACT INFORMATION so that his co-bloggers could call my college president. I wrote about it here, "(O)CT(O)PUS = CYBER-BULLY."
What's funny about this, in the present debate, is that while Whelan's coming off like an adolescent jerk, the truth is that radical leftists have made a career out of "outing" those with whom they disagree. TBogg, whose real name is Tom Boggioni, has made a pastime of it, as Willliam Jacobson reveals:
P.S.: I have a lot of respect for conservatives who get along amicably with leftists. I don't do it well, online at least. Some of my best friends are Democrats (scroll down, here, for my colleague Dr. Greg Joseph, who's a Truman Democrat). But these friends would never put up with the kind of filth that is the stock and trade of today's netroots hordes.
Also, Ed Morrissey's got a poll up, "When is it okay to out liberal bloggers?" See also, Rick Moran, "The Outing of Publius and the Comfort of Anonymity."
Some quick background: Ed Whelan outed "Publius" at Obsidian Wings. The latter's real name is John F. Blevins, and he's an Assistant Professor of Law at the South Texas College of Law. Check the links above, and Memeorandum. At issue are the attacks on Whelan as the right's go-to "legal hitman." The term is from the "Anonymous Liberal," so the irony there is rich. Readers can assess who comes out on top in the substantive debate. No matter, though. Whelan comes off as putz, either way. Both James Joyner and Dan Riehl eloquently make the case against Whelan.
Now, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't out someone who writes anonymously (or "pseudonymously," as the case may be). Repsac3 got mad at me once for using his real name in a comment thread. But he had posted his real name at his Twitter link, at he linked to it at the sidebar. So, it's kind of hard to get mad at being "outed" if you "outed" yourself.
Frankly, if a blogger writes under complete anonymity (or pseudonymity), that's his prerogative. And it's not up to me or anyone else, in pure spite, to reveal their identity. It's kind of cowardly, in my opinion, to use a pseudonym, but I can understand it. After the Repsac3 exchange, PrivatePigg, a conservative blogger and friend of mine, said he blogs anonymously simply to protect his privacy from the radical leftists he knows will stalk him and his family.
It happens. As reader know, I routinely wade into the comment threads at leftist blogs to debate and ridicule. I don't claim to be nice about it. I've even used profanity in a comment thread at "Dr. Hussein Biobrain's" blog. But I don't threaten people; I skewer. And some folks can't handle being revealed as nihilist America-bashers. After commenting a few times at The Swash Zone, I received this e-mail from "(O)CT(O)PUS," the blog's publisher:
DO NOT HARASS ANY OF MY WRITERS AT "THE SWASH ZONE" AGAIN. IF YOU HARASS ME OR ANY OF MY WRITERS ONE MORE TIME, I WILL NOTIFY ELOY OAKLEY AND DONALD BERZ AT YOUR PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT AND TAKE IMMEDIATE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST BOTH YOU AND YOUR EMPLOYER. THIS GAME OF YOURS ENDS HERE.I don't harrass. If folks can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Or go to comment moderation at least!
But if there was ever good reason to blog anonymously, real harrassment such as this is it. "(O)CT(O)PUS" made the rounds at leftist blogs to brag about how he'd "kicked my ass." And he PUBLISHED MY WORK CONTACT INFORMATION so that his co-bloggers could call my college president. I wrote about it here, "(O)CT(O)PUS = CYBER-BULLY."
What's funny about this, in the present debate, is that while Whelan's coming off like an adolescent jerk, the truth is that radical leftists have made a career out of "outing" those with whom they disagree. TBogg, whose real name is Tom Boggioni, has made a pastime of it, as Willliam Jacobson reveals:
P.S.: I have a lot of respect for conservatives who get along amicably with leftists. I don't do it well, online at least. Some of my best friends are Democrats (scroll down, here, for my colleague Dr. Greg Joseph, who's a Truman Democrat). But these friends would never put up with the kind of filth that is the stock and trade of today's netroots hordes.
Also, Ed Morrissey's got a poll up, "When is it okay to out liberal bloggers?" See also, Rick Moran, "The Outing of Publius and the Comfort of Anonymity."
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Full Metal Saturday: Caroline Glick
I'm mixing it up a bit this weekend for Full Metal Saturday!
I want to thank, right off the bat, the network of bloggers who make up the American Power community. Some folks link often, and some less so - and it's all appreciated. Mostly, though, I just like having friends and allies who read my stuff and who encourage me to keep plugging away.
A special thanks goes out to Chris Smith at The Other McCain.
"Smitty," as he's known, keeps the Rule 5 aggregation-machine pumping at Stacy's place. A lot of bloggers are thankful for the roundups, and it's helped their networking as well. In any case, I'm sending out thanks to everyone. And here's wishing all my friends many happy years of blogging. Don't forget to have some fun while we take back power in Washington! Here we go, in no particular order:
Pat's Daily Rants, Bob's Bar & Grill, Power Line, Melanie Morgan, Dave in Boca, Neo-Neocon, Right in a Left World, Flag Gazer, Politics and Critical Thinking, Riehl World View, Midnight Blue, Caroline Glick, The Average American, The Griper, FouseSquawk, The Other McCain, Cheat Seeking Missiles, Roger Simon, Classical Values, Samantha Speaks, Grizzly Mama, The Capitol Tribune, The Patriot Room, The Real World, RADARSITE, Serr8d's Cutting Edge, Bloviating Zeppelin, Born Again Redneck The Educated Shoprat, Gateway Pundit, Political Pistachio, Liberty Pundit, Not One Red Cent, Phyllis Chesler, Right View from the Left Coast, Generation Patriot, Macsmind, Flopping Aces, Edge's Conservative Movies, Stop the ACLU, The Conservative Manifesto, Gates of Vienna, Joust The Facts, Panhandle Poet, Steven Givler, The Astute Blogger, Chris Wysocki, Moonbattery, Sweating Through the Fog, Three Beers Later, PA Pundits, Paco Enterprises, Ken Davenport, Sister Toldjah, Blazing Cat Fur, The Daley Gator, Just One Minute, Dave's World, Sparks From the Anvil, Right Truth, Dave's Notepad, The Red Hunter, Maggie's Farm, The Next Right, This Ain't Hell, Stop the ACLU, Right Wing Nuthouse, Melissa Clouthier, Paula in Israel, Pamela Geller, Vanessa's Blog, St. Blogustine, Yid With Lid, Pondering Penguin, Betsy's Page, The Anchoress, Ace of Spades HQ, Right Wing Sparkle, Thunder Run, The Classic Liberal, Conservative Grapevine, Cassy Fiano, Jim Treacher, NetRightNation, Q and O, Urban Grounds, Ed Driscoll, Cold Fury, Michelle Malkin, Neptunus Lex, Neo-Neocon, The Astute Bloggers, The Liberty Papers, The Monkey Cage, Law and Order Teacher, Mike's America, AubreyJ, Dan Collins, The Jungle Hut, Wake Up America, Dan Riehl, Nikki's Blog, Big Girl Pants, Maggie's Notebook, Hummers & Cigarettes, Mark Goluskin, Jawa Report, Darleen Click, The Skepticrats, Fausta's Blog, Clueless Emma, Obob's World, Seymour Nuts, Red State, Dr. Sanity, The Desert Glows Green, Not One Red Cent, Vinegar and Honey, Sarge Charlie, Thoughts With Attitude, Kim Priestap, Swedish Meatballs Confidential, Five Feet of Fury, Amy Proctor, Blonde Sagacity, Liberty Papers, TigerHawk, Point of a Gun, Right Wing News, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Nice Deb, Becky Brindle, GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD, Fishersville Mike, Ann Althouse, The Blog Prof, Monique Stuart, No Sheeples Here!, Dana at CSPT, Glenn Reynolds, Obi’s Sister, Right Truth, Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels, Chicago Ray, Ace of Spades HQ, Natalie's Blog, Jimmie Bise, Little Miss Attila, Moe Lane, Private Pigg, Pundit & Pundette, The Rhetorican, R.S. McCain, Saber Point, Stephen Kruiser, Suzanna Logan, TrogloPundit, Doug Ross Journal, Villainous Company, PoliGazette, Prying 1, The Western Experience, The Oklahoma Patriot, Right Wing Sparkle, Conservatism With Heart, Duck of Minerva, Wolf Howling, Right Wing Nation, Stephen Green, The Tygrrrr Express, The News Factor, Gayle's Place, Israel Matsav, The BoBo Files, Grant Jones, Tapline, New Testament News, Wizbang, and William Jacobson.
Now, since this post really is a Full Metal Roundup, let me share Caroline Glick's essay on Barack Obama and Middle East international politics: "Obama's Arabian Dreams."
I turn to Caroline Glick when I want the best analysis on Israeli security politics from a neoconservative perspective. She's the best! Check out her Wikipedia entry for some background. With all due respect, Bar Rafaeli may be the more in tune with my regular Saturday postings, but Caroline's got a hot Zionist thing going on herself!
In any case, check out Caroline's piece:
US President Barack Obama claims to be a big fan of telling the truth. In media interviews ahead of his trip to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and during his big speech in Cairo on Thursday, he claimed that the centerpiece of his Middle East policy is his willingness to tell people hard truths.
Indeed, Obama made three references to the need to tell the truth in his so-called address to the Muslim world.
Unfortunately, for a speech billed as an exercise in truth telling, Obama's address fell short. Far from reflecting hard truths, Obama's speech reflected political convenience.
Obama's so-called hard truths for the Islamic world included statements about the need to fight so-called extremists; give equal rights to women; provide freedom of religion; and foster democracy. Unfortunately, all of his statements on these issues were nothing more than abstract, theoretical declarations devoid of policy prescriptions.
He spoke of the need to fight Islamic terrorists without mentioning that their intellectual, political and monetary foundations and support come from the very mosques, politicians and regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt that Obama extols as moderate and responsible.
He spoke of the need to grant equality to women without making mention of common Islamic practices like so-called honor killings, and female genital mutilation. He ignored the fact that throughout the lands of Islam women are denied basic legal and human rights. And then he qualified his statement by mendaciously claiming that women in the US similarly suffer from an equality deficit. In so discussing this issue, Obama sent the message that he couldn't care less about the plight of women in the Islamic world.
So, too, Obama spoke about the need for religious freedom but ignored Saudi Arabian religious apartheid. He talked about the blessings of democracy but ignored the problems of tyranny.
In short, Obama's "straight talk" to the Arab world, which began with his disingenuous claim that like America, Islam is committed to "justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings," was consciously and fundamentally fraudulent. And this fraud was advanced to facilitate his goal of placing the Islamic world on equal moral footing with the free world.
See the full essay, here.
Send me an e-mail at my Blogger profile if you've been left off the network roundup above. I'll be reposting the links periodically!
P.S. Snooper's Report let off some steam yesterday after participating in a comment thread here. So, once again, hat's off to those who keep the flame of freedom burning across the blogosphere.
Bloviating Zeppelin on D-Day, June 6th, 1944
I thought of Saving Private Ryan today. I thought twice about posting a video, for as powerful as that movie is, I wasn't sure if the cinematic version of history would be solemn enough on today's 65th commemoration of the Normandy invasion.
I changed my mind after reading Bloviating Zeppelin's powerful essay, "D-Day, June 6th, 1944: WHY WE ARE FREE":
BZ quotes from President Roosevelt's prayer for our troops, June 6, 1944, and President Reagan's "the boys of Point du Hoc" speech, June 6, 1984.
I changed my mind after reading Bloviating Zeppelin's powerful essay, "D-Day, June 6th, 1944: WHY WE ARE FREE":
Our WWII veterans are almost entirely gone. My father, an 8th AF B-17 pilot, passed away on February 11th of this year at the age of 88. Where did we find such men? Ordinary, common men from every part of our nation, from the farmlands of Iowa to the cities of New York and Los Angeles? They all answered the call, willingly, courageously, unselfishly. They set their lives aside in order to do their part. Some made it back; some didn't. Some came back in pieces.Check the whole post.
Who will sacrifice for our nation's future? Where will we find our future warriors?
I fear: I do not see so many.
I still say: God bless America. The last, best hope for the entire planet.
BZ quotes from President Roosevelt's prayer for our troops, June 6, 1944, and President Reagan's "the boys of Point du Hoc" speech, June 6, 1984.
The 320th Antiaircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion on D-Day
Check out this great piece on the 320th Antiaircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion, a blacks-only unit at Omaha and Utah during the D-Day landings, "Forgotten Battalion’s Last Returns to Beachhead":
William G. Dabney could hardly have expected to be spending that ferocious June day in 1944 hunkered on Omaha Beach, struggling to keep aloft one of the tethered silver balloons intended to confound German pilots trying to bomb or strafe exposed Allied invaders in Normandy.The full article is here. Don't miss the photo slideshow as well.
As a member of the only all-black unit in the D-Day landings on Omaha and Utah, the two beachheads assigned to American forces, Corporal Dabney was a rarity in a European war that in its early days was fought almost entirely by whites.
The contributions of his unit, the 320th Antiaircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion, have been largely forgotten over the years. But on Saturday, Mr. Dabney, now 84, will join President Obama near Omaha Beach to mark the 65th anniversary of the invasion. On Friday, he received the Legion of Honor from the French government. Officials of the White House Commission on Remembrance, which organizes services at American war memorials, say he is the only survivor of the 320th they have been able to track down.
At 17, Mr. Dabney, of Roanoke, Va., had chafed to join older friends already at war, and had to persuade his grandmother to let him enlist. Most black soldiers were being given support roles in the United States, but like many young men, Mr. Dabney craved action at the front. He volunteered for “special service,” which he thought would have him loading artillery weapons.
“I didn’t know that it involved flying balloons,” he said in a telephone interview from Roanoke.
He was sent to Tennessee to train with the 320th, a unit intended mainly to deploy blimplike balloons for coastal defense. But he soon found himself bound for England and a role in the invasion of France.
In retrospect, Corporal Dabney and his contemporaries can be seen as pioneers. As late as the mid-1930s, the Army had been less than 2 percent black. The Coast Guard used blacks only as stewards, the Navy mainly for kitchen help. The Marines and the Army Air Forces barred blacks outright. The discriminatory treatment was defended by an Army War College report in 1925 concluding that blacks lacked intellect and courage.
“Blacks wanted to participate” in World War II, “but the position of the military was that wartime is not a time for social experimentation,” said William A. De Shields, a retired Army colonel and founder of the Black Military History Institute of America.
Obama Hammers Israel on Settlements
Surprisingly, here's a penetrating section on Obama and Israel from today's New York Times, "Obama Pins Mideast Hope on Limiting Settlements":
For more on the settlements issue, see Israel Matsav.
“I am not a Greater Israel guy and I have no objection to dismantling settlements as part of a peace deal, but getting so hung up on freezing settlement growth is not wise because it is not the most important issue out there,” argued Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University.I think I saw the Honig piece earlier. In any case, here's the link, "Another Tack: What Bibi Didn't Say."
The far bigger concern, he said, is that the Palestinians are unable to make similar concessions because of their political divisions and weakness.
Israelis have turned rightward and most analyses suggest that the reason is a growing fear of regional threats, notably Iranian-backed parties like Hezbollah and Hamas, on Israel’s borders.
Sarah Honig, a columnist for The Jerusalem Post, a conservative paper, put it this way a week ago in a column: “Settlements aren’t the problem and removing them isn’t the solution. Israel foolishly dismantled 21 Gaza Strip settlements in 2005. Did peace blossom all over as a result? Precisely the reverse occurred. The razing of Israeli communities was regarded as terror’s triumph, expediting the Hamas takeover.”
The settlements are a complex issue that resonates in surprising ways here. Zionism began 125 years ago through the Jewish purchase of land in Palestine and the building of settlements on what the Jews saw as their ancient homeland. When Israel won additional territory in the 1967 war, a conflict it felt was imposed on it, many here viewed it as the miraculous continuation of Jewish national rebirth in the biblical heartland. Religious Jews began settling there, but others were attracted by low prices, open space and a pioneering ethos.
For more on the settlements issue, see Israel Matsav.
Obama's Remarks on 65th Anniversary of D-Day
From the New York Times, "Obama Hails D-Day Heroes at Normandy."
Gateway Pundit notes, "In a surprise move, Obama didn't apologize for America."
But he did deal the moral relativism card:
America's "not perfect"? The American culture of liberty is just another "competing belief" about what is true in the world? I'm sure Thomas Jefferson might have a quibble with that!
EagleWingz08, a commenter at Gateway Pundit, is underwhelmed:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
The text is here.Gateway Pundit notes, "In a surprise move, Obama didn't apologize for America."
But he did deal the moral relativism card:
We live in a world of competing beliefs and claims about what is true. It's a world of varied religions and cultures and forms of government. In such a world, it's all too rare for a struggle to emerge that speaks to something universal about humanity.Damn!
The Second World War did that. No man who shed blood or lost a brother would say that war is good. But all know that this war was essential. For what we faced in Nazi totalitarianism was not just a battle of competing interests. It was a competing vision of humanity. Nazi ideology sought to subjugate and humiliate and exterminate. It perpetrated murder on a massive scale, fueled by a hatred of those who were deemed different and therefore inferior. It was evil.
The nations that joined together to defeat Hitler's Reich were not perfect. They had made their share of mistakes, had not always agreed with one another on every issue. But whatever God we prayed to, whatever our differences, we knew that the evil we faced had to be stopped. Citizens of all faiths and of no faith came to believe that we could not remain as bystanders to the savage perpetration of death and destruction. And so we joined and sent our sons to fight and often die so that men and women they never met might know what it is to be free.
America's "not perfect"? The American culture of liberty is just another "competing belief" about what is true in the world? I'm sure Thomas Jefferson might have a quibble with that!
EagleWingz08, a commenter at Gateway Pundit, is underwhelmed:
Given the tenor of the speech, and how Obama claims that it was a miracle it succeeded, one must posit the belief, as with Obama's take on the surge for the past four years, that if he were in the Oval Office when the plans for D-Day were being hashed out, he would have rejected them as too improbable and impossible to succeed. How we would have retaken Europe under a President Obama is a mystery that gets me sick even to consider.Well, it's one more notch for "Obama's message of weakness" (via Mark Steyn at Memeorandum).
Fox Nation's "Statement of Purpose"
Here's Fox Nation's "Statement of Purpose." I keep seeing it and it's just great:
Check the website, here.
The statement of purpose is here:
The Fox Nation is for those committed to the core principles of tolerance, open debate, civil discourse - and fair and balanced coverage of the news. It is for those opposed to intolerance, excessive government control of our lives, and attempts to monopolize opinion or suppress freedom of thought, expression, and worship.
Jill Stanek: Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World"
Via Jill Stanek, Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" For June 4, 2009:
Related: I wrote on abortion politics last night. See, "Late-Term Abortions Get New Scrutiny."
Sotomayor: Ideology, Not Law, Drove Decision in Ricci v. DeStefano
Today's report at the New York Times,"New Scrutiny of Judge’s Most Controversial Case," is a frankly devastating portrait of Sonia Sotomayor's deeply flawed jurisprudence (and in light of this story, it's almost inaccurate to utter "Sotomayor" and "jurisprudence" in the same sentence):
I'm simply struck by the sheer underqualification of Sonia Sotomayor. This woman is an ideological quota queen par excellence. That fact explains why she's so popular, and defended so vociferously, by the racial victimologists on the radical left. Indeed, radicals have now turned support for Sotomayor's nomination into a loyalty test of hardline leftist nihilism. See Dave Neiwert, "We Stand With Sonia Sotomayor," and "Stand with Judge Sotomayor Against the Right-Wing Attacks."
Uncomprehensible, really.
Near the end of a long and heated appeals court argument over whether New Haven was entitled to throw out a promotional exam because black firefighters had performed poorly on it, a lawyer for white firefighters challenging that decision made a point that bothered Judge Sonia Sotomayor.Read the full article here. Memeorandum links to addtional opinions, here. Robert Stacy McCain offers a long discursion on the hypocrisy of leftist identity politics, here.
“Firefighters die every week in this country,” the lawyer, Karen Lee Torre said. Using the test, she said, could save lives.
“Counsel,” Judge Sotomayor responded, “we’re not suggesting that unqualified people be hired. The city’s not suggesting that. All right?”
The exchange was unusually charged. Almost everything about the case of Ricci v. DeStefano — from the number and length of the briefs to the size of the appellate record to the exceptionally long oral argument — suggested that it would produce an important appeals court decision about how the government may use race in decisions concerning hiring and promotion.
But in the end the decision from Judge Sotomayor and two other judges was an unsigned summary order that contained a single paragraph of reasoning that simply affirmed a lower court’s decision dismissing the race discrimination claim brought by Frank Ricci and 17 other white firefighters, one of them Hispanic, who had done well on the test.
The Ricci case, bristling with important issues, has emerged as the most controversial and puzzling of the thousands of rulings in which Judge Sotomayor participated, and it is likely to attract more questions at her Supreme Court confirmations hearings than any other.
I'm simply struck by the sheer underqualification of Sonia Sotomayor. This woman is an ideological quota queen par excellence. That fact explains why she's so popular, and defended so vociferously, by the racial victimologists on the radical left. Indeed, radicals have now turned support for Sotomayor's nomination into a loyalty test of hardline leftist nihilism. See Dave Neiwert, "We Stand With Sonia Sotomayor," and "Stand with Judge Sotomayor Against the Right-Wing Attacks."
Uncomprehensible, really.
Gingrich, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly: Birth of a Nation?
I thought this Photoshop was a joke, but seriously, this thing's leading the editorial at the Boston Phoenix, "Right-Wing Terror: The Murder of George Tiller":
Before the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, before the attacks on 9/11, there existed operationally decentralized but ideologically coherent gangs of pro-life, pro-gun, anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant crazies who represented the clearest and most present danger to the nation. Their crowning achievement: the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 and wounded hundreds more.Shorter Boston Phoenix: "Conservatives are Nazis."
Drawn from the ranks of fundamentalist Christians, neo-Nazis, survivalists, Ku Klux Klansmen, and radical pro-lifers, these nativist cadres have proven to be far more resilient than any of the putrid spawn of the so-called New Left, such as the Weather Underground.
Tiller's alleged assassin, Scott Roeder — an opponent of all but local government, a sometime tax resister who was once found by police with bomb-making materials in his car — appears to be a member of similar factions, including the "sovereign citizen" movement.
Like the New Left, the New Right advocates "power to the people" —its "people" being largely white, male, and Christian.
The mainstream political figure who most eloquently articulated the philosophy of the contemporary right was Senator Barry Goldwater. In his 1964 speech accepting the Republican nomination for president, Goldwater preached, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." Roeder would no doubt agree.
Ever since Goldwater, Republicans have successfully played footsie with the most repulsive elements on the right. It was part of President Richard Nixon's malevolent genius that he was able to defang the 1968 candidacy of segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace, capturing enough angry, racist votes to win the White House.
Ronald Reagan proved just as slick, kicking off his 1980 campaign at an all-white Southern church and pledging himself to "state rights," which is rightspeak for keeping the black man in his place. It was during the Reagan era that the many and varied apostles of hate and other assorted political misfits found common cause.
Of course, this editorial could have been written by Daily Kos. I just checked the Daily Kos tag for "George Tiller." What do I see? An advertisement for C-Span's book series, with the link to "In Depth: Bill Ayers."
Just keep the left's hypocrisy in mind when you read bullshit editorials like this. All mainstream conservatives denounced the Tiller murder in unequival terms. We've yet to see an equal response to the death of American troops at home.
It just keeps getting worse on the left.
Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit.
Want to Make Health Care Work? Yeah. Right.
I think most people, even those with good health coverage, would like to see more access to health care in the United States. They don't, however, favor a single-payer mandate on healthcare for everyone. And you can see why when you read stuff like this, from Open Left:
Image Credit: Doug Ross.
Hat Tip: Dan Collins.
Read the whole post at Open Left.Subsidizing the continuating of the privatized welfare state is just about the worst thing we can do, on health care, or things like pensions, etc.
Your logical frame for discussion of health care benefits is misleading, and incorrect I think. We exempt health care benefits from taxation, a relic of the WWII era labor unrest of wage-price problems, where companies could deal with wage restraints by creating these fringe benefits, as they came to be called. They're still compensation, no matter what way you slice it. There is a cash value to it that is essentially deferred or foregone income. We are not looking at potential taxation of health care benefits as a new tax, but instead the ending of an exemption.
Want to make health care work? Tax whatever companies are paying in health care benefits and watch them clamor for a publicly-funded program real quick.
Cost of Health Care X Rising Cost of Health Care +Taxation of Health Care = Companies Loving Universal, Single Payer Health Care Program.
Image Credit: Doug Ross.
Hat Tip: Dan Collins.
Left-Leaning Parties Falter in Europe
Via Memeorandum and Protein Wisdom, "Labour Suffers Wipeout in its Worst Local Election Results."
It turns out the Gordon Brown's party lost 300 local council seats in Labour's worst electoral blowout in thirty years.
But its not just Labour Party corruption in Britain that explains the wipeout. Social Democrat parties in Europe are facing rejection by voters. And this is counterintuitive. Marxist scholars have argued that the current economic crisis makes socialist policies more vital than ever. But perhaps not, actually. Take a look at today's Wall Street Journal, "Across Europe, Left-Leaning Parties See Clout Faltering":
What does this mean for the U.S.?
See Charlie Cook's analysis, "A Split Decision In 2010 Races?"
It turns out the Gordon Brown's party lost 300 local council seats in Labour's worst electoral blowout in thirty years.
But its not just Labour Party corruption in Britain that explains the wipeout. Social Democrat parties in Europe are facing rejection by voters. And this is counterintuitive. Marxist scholars have argued that the current economic crisis makes socialist policies more vital than ever. But perhaps not, actually. Take a look at today's Wall Street Journal, "Across Europe, Left-Leaning Parties See Clout Faltering":
The economic recession should have meant easy votes for Europe's left-wing movements, longtime critics of unchecked capitalism.Read the whole thing, here. More commentary at Memeorandum.
Yet as Europe goes to the polls, left-leaning parties across the continent are looking likely to falter. That's true both for those in government, such as in the U.K. and Spain, and in the opposition -- such as France, Germany and Italy.
France's Socialist Party is trying hard to rally voters ahead of Sunday's European parliamentary elections. "Let's unite with all the French who contest free market, unfair policies that aim at deregulating everything," party leader Martine Aubry urged at a pre-election rally.
Yet less than 20% of voters say they plan to cast their ballot for the Socialist Party, according to recent surveys. That would be a weak performance considering France's main opposition party got 29% of the votes in the last European parliamentary elections.
In Germany, the Social Democrats are expected to get only around 26% on Sunday, consistent with their low opinion-poll ratings ahead of Germany's national elections in September. Italy's center-left Partito Democratico is expected to get a similar percentage.
One reason is that as Europe tipped into recession, the right moved left -- appropriating some of the left's long-standing economic policies, including nationalizations and bailouts.
French conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, helped recapitalize French banks, earmarked six billion euros for the auto sector and lashed out at "rascal bosses" with huge pay packages.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has planted her conservative camp firmly in the political center. Ms. Merkel has largely given up her former program of market-oriented reforms, and has gradually approved various kinds of state intervention to protect workers during the current recession, from bailing out carmaker Opel to subsidizing payrolls at companies whose export orders have collapsed.
Even before that, right-wing parties across the continent began offering more pragmatic approaches to policy than they had traditionally done. In the past decade, conservative parties introduced competition or privatized some public services in France, Germany and Italy -- but they refrained from dismantling the health-care and public transport services cherished by voters.
In the past, there was a clear fault line between Europe's left-wing and right-wing parties. The left called for more social welfare programs and public spending. The right wanted the state not to interfere in market forces.
What does this mean for the U.S.?
See Charlie Cook's analysis, "A Split Decision In 2010 Races?"
Friday, June 5, 2009
Late-Term Abortions Get New Scrutiny
The Washington Post reports that dilation-and-extraction fetal-termination procedures (late-term abortions) have come under increased scrutiny following the death of George Tiller. The Wikipedia entry, clinical as it may be, provides a grisly description of the operation: "Forceps are inserted into the uterus through the vagina and used to separate the fetus into pieces, which are removed one at a time." I truly shudder at the thought.
But what really caught my attention on this was a morally repugnant entry I found today at Edge of the American West: "Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days of Poor Arguments."
The author, Dana, is really irked by all the focus on late-term abortions. So, with reference to the chart above, she provides this analysis:
The basic point for Dana is that (1) dilation and extraction is "exceedingly" rare, and (2) the procedure, "We can safely assume," is necessitated by "fetal abnormalities," with Down Syndrome mentioned as the primary example.
Well, I doubt Dana's been to The Upside of Downs homepage. Aborting a Downs child is destroying a potential life. And for what? Choice? Convenience?
But more than that, let's "safely assume" that all of these abortions were purported "fetal abnormalities," or were deemed medically necessary to "save" the life of the mother.
Hello? The numbers are still staggering!
A 2008 report cited 1.2 million pregnancies that were aborted in 2005. According to the chart above, 1.1 percent of pregnancies were terminated after 24 weeks. As Dana acknowledges, that would leave a total of roughly 13,000 potential children destroyed in the maw of the pro-choice killing machine.
And the brutal truth is that untold numbers of late-term abortions, many performed by George Tiller himself, are simply "second-thought" terminations. Women have decided past the second trimester that they don't want the baby. What to do? Look up Tiller the Killer, of course.
If you check the state report, "Abortions in Kansas: Preliminary Reports," it turns out that "the majority of late-term abortions are purely elective."
So, back to Dana's query, "What can the pro-choice advocate say?"
They can't say anything. Choose abortion and you're going to kill a baby, plain and simple. Maybe there's some extreme case for a Solomonic judgment to save the life of the mother. And I don't think anyone, any decent, moral person, would sleep well even contemplating such a choice. The fact is that fetal brain development begins within 14 days of conception. That is, the miracle of life begins immediately. The relative moral importance of the stage of the pregnancy is really a matter of leftist propaganda. See, for example, "Miracle of Life: The Action-Packed Days of Unborn Babies."
The ugly fact is that the pro-choice movement is an extremist death cult. The "rights" of women trump moral considerations on the beauty of life. Leftists just want to have their "Happy Abortion Stories." (Or, "they want to kill that baby.")
What's most sickening, ultimately, is how the left has exploited the killing of George Tiller. Perhaps in this man's death, radical leftists can revive a movement that has continued to lose public support in recent years.
The Washington Post has an article on late-term abortions which basically allows Warren Hern, Leroy Carhart and the National Abortion Federation's Vicky Saporta to make a number of unsubstantiated claims about the women who come to them for post-viability abortions and the only response is a couple of short quotes from Operation Rescue.Well, they don't want to, naturally.
Why couldn't the Post find a pro-life doctor who specializes in helping women who want to carry their children with fetal anomalies to term?
But what really caught my attention on this was a morally repugnant entry I found today at Edge of the American West: "Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days of Poor Arguments."
The author, Dana, is really irked by all the focus on late-term abortions. So, with reference to the chart above, she provides this analysis:
I have little to say on the murder of Dr. Tiller than hasn’t been covered adequately elsewhere (e.g.). But two persistent points have been getting on my nerves regarding late-term abortion in which Dr. Tiller had specialized. So let’s have some data.Here's the link. If you're up to it, keep reading Dana's (morally bankrupt) justification for baby killing.
1) The focus on late-term abortion, especially the straw-fetus of frivolous late-term abortion. The typical discussion runs as follows: a very serious person argues that while he’s personally comfortable with first trimester abortion, the thought of a woman wandering in and deciding that she doesn’t want her baby in week 35 of a pregnancy is horrifying. (e.g., makes him want to puke.) And let’s accept for the sake of argument that it is horrifying.* What can the pro-choice advocate say?
First, that late-term abortions are really, really rare. Here’s a chart from the Guttmacher Institute ....
The full document is here. The chart shows percentage of abortions by week of gestation. Note that the vast majority are in the first trimester, and over half are before 9 weeks. (The answer to “Abortion stops a beating heart” should be “Well, about that…”; the heart isn’t beating before five weeks.)
But let’s look at the late-term abortions. Only 1.1% are after more than 21 weeks. 21 weeks is about two weeks shy of the lower-end of viability. 21 weeks is still in the second trimester. We can safely assume that the number of abortions in the third trimester is even smaller, especially because abortion after 24 weeks is generally not permitted by law except in cases of danger to the health of the mother and the fetus.
The basic point for Dana is that (1) dilation and extraction is "exceedingly" rare, and (2) the procedure, "We can safely assume," is necessitated by "fetal abnormalities," with Down Syndrome mentioned as the primary example.
Well, I doubt Dana's been to The Upside of Downs homepage. Aborting a Downs child is destroying a potential life. And for what? Choice? Convenience?
But more than that, let's "safely assume" that all of these abortions were purported "fetal abnormalities," or were deemed medically necessary to "save" the life of the mother.
Hello? The numbers are still staggering!
A 2008 report cited 1.2 million pregnancies that were aborted in 2005. According to the chart above, 1.1 percent of pregnancies were terminated after 24 weeks. As Dana acknowledges, that would leave a total of roughly 13,000 potential children destroyed in the maw of the pro-choice killing machine.
And the brutal truth is that untold numbers of late-term abortions, many performed by George Tiller himself, are simply "second-thought" terminations. Women have decided past the second trimester that they don't want the baby. What to do? Look up Tiller the Killer, of course.
If you check the state report, "Abortions in Kansas: Preliminary Reports," it turns out that "the majority of late-term abortions are purely elective."
So, back to Dana's query, "What can the pro-choice advocate say?"
They can't say anything. Choose abortion and you're going to kill a baby, plain and simple. Maybe there's some extreme case for a Solomonic judgment to save the life of the mother. And I don't think anyone, any decent, moral person, would sleep well even contemplating such a choice. The fact is that fetal brain development begins within 14 days of conception. That is, the miracle of life begins immediately. The relative moral importance of the stage of the pregnancy is really a matter of leftist propaganda. See, for example, "Miracle of Life: The Action-Packed Days of Unborn Babies."
The ugly fact is that the pro-choice movement is an extremist death cult. The "rights" of women trump moral considerations on the beauty of life. Leftists just want to have their "Happy Abortion Stories." (Or, "they want to kill that baby.")
What's most sickening, ultimately, is how the left has exploited the killing of George Tiller. Perhaps in this man's death, radical leftists can revive a movement that has continued to lose public support in recent years.
Megyn Kelly Takes on Playboy
Via The Rhetorican, check out Megyn Kelly hammering Playboy Magazine:
Related: Michelle Malkin, "Playboy “hatef**k” list fallout: AOL did what?"
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