As soon as the Marine victory tinkle story "broke," I went public immediately with my support here and here on news broadcasts: "So what?" The name-calling and attacks commenced, trying to squelch the beginnings of any support for our fighting men. The enemedia cannot get enough of the trashing of our men and women in uniform. Pure evil.
Who leaked the marine video? That is the real story. The timing of its release is deliberate and points to the ugliest of motives.
Our boys and girls are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan after ten years of battling an enemy so evil and bloodthirsty that most Americans would weep if they had any idea what these savages do, how they "live" and die. The people haven't a real clue, because an enemedia obfuscates and either under-reports or doesn't report at all the actual news -- and when they do, they speak affectionately of an enemy so brutal and bloodthirsty that it defies the Western mind. Jihadis did far worse to American corpses in Fallujah and Somalia, and it was excused, downplayed, denied, forgotten. But this? The coverage is nonstop.
Our troops are coming home, and this story breaks? Now? Why? So that our troops have a Vietnam welcome? So that the American people will rebuke our returning soldiers? The victory tinkle took place in Spring or Summer of 2011. Why now?
The media is all over the victory tinkle like maggots on dead flesh. The nonstop reportage focuses on the "outrage." Whose? Theirs, that of the enemedia and our enemies. Americans by and large think it's no BFD. And they're right.
The Washington rap on President Obama is that he's humorless, but that's unfair. He may not be Jay Leno funny, but his bit Friday on reforming and reducing government was great.Yeah, go to the tape, at 7:00 minutes above, where Obama gushes about "rooting out waste" in the check delivery process. There's got to be some deeper Freudian ironic significance in there somewhere. I mean, really: "rooting out waste" by sending checks to the right place? Maybe we could stop sending out so many checks in the first place, eh? Oh, well, perhaps not. That wouldn't be funny.
There he was in the East Room, explaining that "the government we have is not the government we need." That's for sure, and Mr. Obama even added the Gingrichian theme that "We live in a 21st-century economy, but we've still got a government organized for the 20th century. Our economy has fundamentally changed—as has the world—but our government, our agencies, has not."
Alas, the President wasn't talking about modernizing Medicare or the entitlement state. He merely wants Congress to give him more power to reorganize the government. He says he wants his team to scrub down the executive branch looking for waste, duplication and bureaucratic complexity, and then to fast-track their proposals to Congress for an up-or-down vote within 90 days.
Mr. Obama's first targets for such "consolidation authority" are the six agencies related to business and the world economy, from the Commerce Department to the Export-Import Bank to the U.S. Trade Representative. Maybe the White House chose to start there because, with an eye on the GOP campaign, Rick Perry wants to eliminate Commerce and a few other cabinet departments he can't remember.
Another way of putting it is that this new emphasis on streamlining the bureaucracy is Mr. Obama's version of the Texas Governor's "Oops." Having presided over the largest expansion of government since LBJ—health care, financial reregulation, spending 24% of GDP, the surge of industrial policy—Mr. Obama's pollsters must be saying that voters have the jimmy-legs about bigger government and that he thus can't run only as a Great Society man.
But let's go to the videotape...
The Depression had a powerful impact on family life. It forced couples to delay marriage and drove the birthrate below the replacement level for the first time in American history. The divorce rate fell, for the simple reason that many couples could not afford to maintain separate households or pay legal fees. But rates of desertion soared. By 1940, 1.5 million married women were living apart from their husbands. More than 200,000 vagrant children wandered the country as a result of the breakup of their families.I would die before I abandoned my own family. And dumping children is un-American if you ask me. And I believe it's people who've been coddled their entire lives, and who sponge off others and the state, who'd be the first to dump their kids on the side of the road. In other words, progressives. And if it comes it will be the result of the Obama administration's profligacy and recklessness. He's driving this country into the ditch. All the more reason to get rid of these people in November.
I was interviewed yesterday on WTSP (CBS Florida affiliate) on the US Marines breach of protocol and the ... ensuing brouhaha.Of course not. The Democrat-Industrial-Complex cheers our enemies.
Have you seen the firestorm in the enemedia and among Obama's craven apologists over the US Marines victory tinkle? The media is beside itself at the idea that we somehow disrespected devout murdering jihadists.
Did the three jihadis attack in America this week get this much press?
Did the Alabama Muslim shooting at police in order "to draw attention to islam" get as much press?
Did the devout Florida Muslim who was arrested plotting to blow up nightclubs, a sheriff's office and use an explosive belt to "get in somewhere where there's a lot of people" and take hostages get as much press?
The idea that South Carolina could seal the deal for Mitt Romney seemed fanciful mere months ago. Its Republican electorate—conservative, Southern, evangelical—doesn't seem like fertile political ground for a moderate northeastern Mormon. Yet Romney is well positioned to win the state's Jan. 21 primary and all but lock up the Republican presidential nomination.Continue reading at the link.
Four years ago, Romney took 15 percent of the primary vote and came in fourth. This time around, he is facing an onslaught of attacks aimed at his Bain Capital credentials from challengers desperate to make their last stand in the state.
But South Carolina isn't the same state it was in 2008—and Romney is not the same candidate. He has distinct political advantages this time: a splintered conservative electorate that hasn't been able to coalesce around a single alternative; an economy in much-worse shape; and a two-for-two record heading into a state where momentum makes all the difference.
Indeed, when examining the changing landscape of South Carolina politics—and the current dynamics of the GOP race—the stars are aligned for Romney to win South Carolina. Here are the three main reasons why...
CNN hired Loesch, a co-founder of the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition, to join the "Best Political Team on Television" in February of last year. "I’m excited to be working with CNN and am appreciative of their efforts to showcase diverse political thought on their airwaves," Loesch said at the time. “I look forward to the discussions.”Dana's game for the fight. See her response, at Big Journalism, "Correcting the Progressive Spin on My Defense of the Marines":
CNN, which has looked to bring in voices from across the political spectrum, also prides itself on being positioned in the center of the more ideologically driven Fox and MSNBC networks.
I've reached out to CNN to ask for their response to Loesch's comments, and whether or not it will have any impact on her role at CNN. Updates here if and when I hear back.
UPDATE: CNN spokesperson Edie Emery emails:
CNN contributors are commentators who express a wide range of viewpoints—on and off of CNN—that often provoke strong agreement or disagreement. Their viewpoints are their own.
My entire point of the past two days was to highlight the absurd reaction from militant troop-bashers to these Marines. In my Twitter timeline yesterday progressives called our military “killers, kids, barbaric trash, murderers …” The only time soldiers are celebrated by the left is when they engage in protests like OWS. The rest of the time they’re demonized....PREVIOUSLY: "Outrage Over Video of Marines Urinating on Taliban Corpses."
The disproportionate anger on the part of progressives is fueled by their dislike of our military. That['s] what this proves. The left is attacking me so they can give the Obama administration a pass–unlike what they did with Bush and Abu Ghraib. Like it or not, I’ll stand up for our troops no matter which president is in charge.
Reporting from Greer, S.C. — Facing efforts by his Republican rivals to paint him as a heartless corporate raider who preyed on struggling companies while working in the world of private equity, Republican front-runner Mitt Romney stepped up his defense of his tenure at Bain Capital on Thursday -- gently pushing back against those attacks by arguing that his goal had been to make businesses successful over the long term.RTWT.
Supporters of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have promised a "strong and sustained" campaign in the Palmetto state attacking Romney's career at Bain. Channeling their resources into a super PAC known as inning Our Future, the committee is now running a "trailer" on South Carolina television directing voters to a film that focuses on four companies that Bain acquired more than two decades ago. The documentary-style film portrays Romney as a "corporate raider" who pursued profits at the cost of jobs.
On Thursday at Cherokee Trikes, which manufactures the "trikes" that turn two-wheel motorcycles into three-wheelers, Romney said he believed his record at Bain had been vetted by reporters over the years and sought to steer attention toward the more positive stories of Bain's investments in companies that ultimately created jobs.
"There are a number of businesses that we helped start, which collectively, you can just look on their websites, added well over 100,000 jobs: Staples, Bright Horizons Children's Centers, the Sports Authority, Steel Dynamics. Those four alone added well over 100,000 jobs," Romney told reporters in Greer.
The message is clear. Anyone attacks Romney on Bain is going to get payback from Wall Street. When that message is conveyed by the leading candidate’s spokesman and confidant, it is a lot more than a casual observation. And if Sununu is so bold on television, you can only imagine what is going on behind the scenes from Romney supporters in the financial community.No doubt.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who recently spoke of the "edginess and lack of civility" evident "with the growth of the tea-party movement" at the same time she spoke of the Tucson-area shootings involving her friend, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.Progressives are hateful by f-king nature. And Wasserman Schultz is a horrible person.
The insinuation was unmistakable. The finger-pointing at her political foes undeniable.
It was an accusation of guilt, the same accusation that President Barack Obama so eloquently pleaded with everyone to resist.
"What we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other," the president said a year ago at a gathering at McKale Center at the University of Arizona.
The messy nature of American politics is always apparent.
The loud and often angry and confrontational "Occupy" demonstrations around the country in recent months are testament to that.
Wasserman Schultz does not know what drove a madman to murder. For her to imply that she does merely constitutes one more occasion to turn on each other.
Prior to her appointment yesterday as the next director of President Obama’s Domestic Policy Council, longtime immigration reform advocate Cecilia Muñoz served on the board of George Soros’ Open Society Institute.And at Knuckledraggin':
Muñoz also chaired the board of directors of the Center for Community Change, or CCC, a Soros-funded community organizing initiative whose board boasts activists from ACORN, MoveOn.org as well as other notorious radical groups.
Muñoz is currently serving as the head of the White House office of intergovernmental affairs. She most recently worked for the National Council of la Raza, an open-borders group that lobbies for mass immigration and amnesty for illegal aliens.
The official White House statement announcing her new appointment yesterday noted Muñoz’s previous work for both the CCC and Soros’ Institute.
“Ms. Muñoz is the former Chair of the Board of Center for Community Change, and served on the U.S. Programs Board of the Open Society Institute,” the statement read.
“Over the past three years, Cecilia has been a trusted advisor who has demonstrated sound judgment day in and day out,” Obama in the press release. “Cecilia has done an extraordinary job working on behalf of middle class families, and I’m confident she’ll bring the same unwavering dedication to her new position.”
Muñoz’s new duties will include coordinating the policy-making process and supervise the execution of domestic policy in the White House.
While the White House release documented Muñoz’s work for the CCC, the statement did not further define the CCC, which recruits and trains activists to spearhead “political issue campaigns” while advocating for more citizen involvement in community organizations.
And La Raza is involved in actively seeking reconquista. That and flat-out open borders, among other things.VIDEO HAT TIP: Verum Serum, "Obama Appoints Longtime Amnesty Proponent as Head of Domestic Policy."
I swear to God above, that fucking socialist son of a bitch isn't happy just letting them in, now he wants to give our Nation to the Mexicans and let them turn it into the shithole Mexico is.
Wars and battle are ugly things. The very insides of the dark side of humanity and the razor thin margins of how close we come to being animals when we fight our enemies rises to the very top for all to see. It is not pretty and it is not polite. When you fight an enemy that prefers death to surrender and straps bombs to little children and records it for posterity to blast out all over the world wide web, you need to start fighting a little fire with fire.RTWT.
The Pentagon quietly shifted combat troops and warships to the Middle East after the top American commander in the region warned that he needed additional forces to deal with Iran and other potential threats, U.S. officials said.Continue reading.
Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis, who heads U.S. Central Command, won White House approval for the deployments late last year after talks with the government in Baghdad broke down over keeping U.S. troops in Iraq, but the extent of the Pentagon moves is only now becoming clear.
Officials said Thursday that the deployments are not meant to suggest a buildup to war, but rather are intended as a quick-reaction and contingency force in case a military crisis erupts in the standoff with Tehran over its suspected nuclear weapons program.
The Pentagon has stationed nearly 15,000 troops in Kuwait, including a small contingent already there. The new deployments include two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit, a substantial increase in combat power after nearly a decade in which Kuwait chiefly served as a staging area for supplies and personnel heading to Iraq.
The Pentagon also has decided to keep two aircraft carriers and their strike groups in the region.
...state revenue will become increasingly unpredictable if government relies more on tax receipts from high earners, whose income can fluctuate dramatically. That reliance would grow under Brown's tax plan.
"Already, California's budget is dependent on volatile income tax payments by the state's wealthiest individuals, and the governor proposes that these Californians pay more for the next few years," Taylor's report said. "As has become evident in recent years, differing fortunes for these upper-income taxpayers can create or eliminate billions of dollars of projected state revenues."
9:02 - Shattered by The Rolling Stones
9:06 - 30 Days In The Hole by Humble Pie
9:17 - Dreams by Fleetwood Mac
9:21 - Rebel Yell by Billy Idol
9:27 - Tiny Dancer by Elton John
9:33 - Point Of Know Return by Kansas
9:36 - So Lonely by Police
9:49 - Breathe by Pink Floyd
9:52 - Goodbye Stranger by Supertramp
9:58 - Run Through The Jungle
Americans are feeling better about the economy, but they aren't giving President Obama credit as he seeks re-election, according to the latest IBD/TIPP survey.Continue reading.
The Economic Optimism Index shot up 11% in January to 47.5, still below the neutral 50 level but the fifth straight monthly gain and the best reading since February 2011.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Leadership Index fell 3.3% to 46.7, little changed over the last several months despite less gloomy views on the economy.
Most ominously for Obama, the president's leadership rating fell 9.7% among independents to 41.7. They disapproved of his job performance by 52%-39% in January vs. 46%-44% in December.
Obama will find it very difficult to win in November without substantial support from this key voting bloc. He won them 52%-44% over GOP candidate John McCain in 2008. The IBD/TIPP poll shows that 40% of independents think Obama deserves a second term while 52% prefer a "different candidate." The re-elect numbers across all voters are 45%-49%.
January's economic bounce may reflect typical "New Year hopes," says Raghavan Mayur, president of TIPP, a unit of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, IBD's polling partner.
However, recent data suggest that the U.S. economy is gradually firming, including manufacturing and jobs. It's unclear though if that can continue with Europe falling into recession and global growth slowing significantly.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says the sheriff's deputy who was captured on video striking a woman on a Metro bus will be held accountable for his actions, but stopped short of saying he should be disciplined.
"If the individual deputy who swung an elbow at the lady is looking at that as a sensible solution, we need to retrain that individual," he told Ed Mertz of KNX-AM (1070) in an interview Wednesday.
In the video, a female deputy holds the woman from behind while her partner appears to deliver a sweeping blow to the left side of her face. It's unclear whether he strikes her with his fist or right forearm.
The man who recorded the video told NBC-TV Channel 4 that the woman was polite and friendly toward the other passengers as she boarded the bus. He said she started cursing at the deputies when they asked her to get off.
Authorities said the deputies boarded the bus in Bellflower on Monday night after somebody called 911 to report an out-of-control woman.
Deputies knew the woman and were aware that she had four prior convictions for assaulting a police officer, said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.
How dare her. How dare her.Word.
After a year of unhinged Tea Party-bashing and false accusations from New Tone Democrats, the DNC and DWS have done nothing to tone down their own poisonous, hypocritical vitriol.
“Tone things down?” Practice what you preach, trash mouth.
As Rick Santorum left Iowa, after battling Mitt Romney to a draw, he spoke hopefully of the time he had invested in New Hampshire, of the 30 campaign trips he had made to the state, and how he hoped to surprise folks in its storied primary.Video of Santorum's New Hampshire speech is here.
But Santorum’s wings wobbled in the less-favorable climate of New Hampshire. With voters tuning in, and ready to give him a listen, he failed to convey the stirring message of national revival that he offered in his Iowa victory speech.
In the end, the former Pennsylvania senator failed in New Hampshire to achieve his own stated standard of success: “To show that we are the strong conservative alternative.”
Santorum’s unbending promotion of traditional values, which appealed to evangelical voters in Iowa, was out of place in the famously independent, more libertarian, state with the motto "Live Free or Die."
The lingering image of his campaign in New Hampshire is that of him being jeered by an audience of young people during a testy exchange over gay rights and marriage. It seemed to confirm the media portrayal of Santorum as a polarizing figure in Congress, and something of a scold.
In the end, Jon Huntsman’s long-awaited surge came too late. After a double-digit gain in the polls, the former Utah governor finished a disappointing third and staggered to less-familiar turf in South Carolina in hopes of saving his campaign. “We’re in the hunt,” he told supporters.More at that link.
Huntsman gambled his candidacy on New Hampshire, spending almost all of his time and money in the Granite State. He now has few resources—and not much more hope—in South Carolina. Putting a positive spin on the New Hampshire results, the candidate told his supporters on primary night, “I say third place is a ticket to ride!”
Huntsman believed the state’s moderate, independent streak was a good match for his bipartisan resume. But despite moving his headquarters there from Florida in September, the White House hopeful struggled to gain traction until last week. In one of two strong debate performances, Huntsman belittled front-runner Mitt Romney for criticizing his service as U.S. ambassador to China in President Obama’s administration. Crowds at his events had also begun to swell, and he began airing his first official ads of the campaign.
Channeling that momentum to South Carolina, however, could be difficult. He’s visited the state only about 10 times, according to Richard Quinn, his Palmetto State consultant. By contrast, he held roughly 160 public events in New Hampshire, which he turned into his adopted home state in the months before the primary. His infrequent visits raise questions about the quality of the organization that awaits Huntsman when he arrives—he has only four staffers in the state.
It was a significant fall for the former House speaker, whose candidacy surged in November. Polls had him in second or third place in the state for much of November and December.
Meeting voters at a polling station in Manchester, the front-runner in the New Hampshire primary Mitt Romney said he expects "good support around the country," as he moves to to take a step closer to the Republican presidential nomination.Also, at Wall Street Journal, "Conservatives Target South Carolina":
The former governor of neighbouring Massachusetts, who carries a sizeable lead in polls, was campaigning at the same polling station visited earlier by Republican candidate New Gingrich.
As supporters chanted, "Go Mitt Go," Mr Romney is fighting to ride out last-minute attacks labelling him a corporate raider who enjoyed firing workers.
"You see the exciting people behind me talking about winning this one and hopefully that kind of spirit carries on to South Carolina next," he said.
Mr Romney, 63, would be the first Republican who is not an incumbent president to win the first two early voting states, after his slim eight-vote victory over former Pennsylvania Senator Santorum a week ago in the Iowa caucuses.
A more resounding win would provide momentum going into South Carolina on January 21 and Florida on January 31.
FLORENCE, S.C.—With the New Hampshire primary behind them, conservative challengers for the Republican presidential nomination are descending on South Carolina, which they see as their best chance to halt lead candidate Mitt Romney's momentum.My sense is that Romney's momentum is nearly insurmountable by now --- and it's difficult to see a new frontrunner emerging at this point. Who's it going to be? Ron Paul? He's been running in the top three so far, but folks keep saying there's no way he'll win the nomination. And New Gingrich? The former Speaker was hovering around 10 percent with about half the precincts counted in New Hampshire last night? Will the much-heralded huge flow of Super PAC money effectively resuscitate his campaign? We'll see, but I'm not holding my breath. Romney leads Gingrich in both South Carolina and Florida. Gingrich can hang on if he places second in both states, but anything less than that will mean a failure to take the lead or runner-up spot in any of the first four contests of the year. I can't imagine his big money backers bankrolling a shaky campaign much longer than that. Besides, as Gallup reported yesterday, "Mitt Romney is the now the only candidate that a majority of conservative and moderate/liberal Republicans nationwide see as an acceptable GOP nominee for president."
South Carolina, the third major vote of the primary season, has picked the eventual GOP nominee in every primary since 1980. It also has a reputation for gloves-off campaigning, as faltering candidates target the front-runner.
Mr. Romney holds the lead in polls here, but he faces a much tougher race than he did in New Hampshire. He will have to win over a majority of GOP voters who are sympathetic to the tea-party cause and who strongly oppose the health-care plan he championed in Massachusetts. He also will have to overcome mistrust among evangelicals who are skeptical of his positions on abortion and gay marriage, and view his Mormon faith with suspicion.
Such doubts about Mr. Romney—who finished fourth in the 2008 primary here—are giving hope to his opponents. "In South Carolina, Mitt Romney seems to be everybody's second choice," said Danielle Vinson, chair of the political-science department at Furman University in Greenville. It's "very feasible" that Mr. Romney could be upset by a conservative on Jan. 21, she said, but only if one can emerge from the pack in coming days.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, giving him significant momentum as he seeks to consolidate his claim to the Republican presidential nomination in coming weeks.6:08pm: The Other McCain is blogging: "NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY HQ UPDATE: Romney Wins; Ron Paul Second; Huntsman Third; Gingrich, Santorum Fight for Fourth Place."
Mr. Romney had been expected to win the contest, since he was governor of neighboring Massachusetts and invested substantial time and money in the campaign. But his capture of about 36% of the vote in early returns, along with a narrow victory last week in Iowa, will make it harder for his rivals to slow his momentum.
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was coming in a solid second with 25%, while former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who bet his campaign on a strong performance in New Hampshire, was running third with 17%.
The campaign moves next to South Carolina, whose Jan. 21 primary could provide the last chance for another GOP hopeful to emerge as the chief conservative challenger to Mr. Romney.
The story of the campaign so far has been the inability of any of Mr. Romney's rivals to cement that role, leaving Mr. Romney as the front-runner even without being widely embraced by Republican voters.
That may create pressure on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Gov. Rick Perry or former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum to drop out before the South Carolina primary, so conservative voters there can coalesce around a single individual.
Until a few years ago, just about any Californian could attend a community college, and many did. The colleges offered a wide variety of options: They conferred two-year associate's degrees; prepared students for junior-year transfer to a four-year college; provided vocational training and certification; offered remedial courses for high school grads who lacked college skills; taught English to immigrants and enrichment courses to the elderly; offered recreational classes; provided college-level education — and credits — for ambitious high school students; and were the leading source of lifelong learning and career retraining for the state's adults.Continue reading.
But at this point, open access to higher education in California is more theoretical than real. Budget cuts have drastically reduced course offerings, making it extremely difficult for students to reach their educational goals. In 2009-10, nearly 140,000 entering students couldn't get into any classes because they had low priority in the registration system. Large numbers of students who are already attending community college are routinely shut out of courses they need to graduate or transfer. At the same time, other students meander through courses year after year, racking up far more credits than they need and taking up seats in classrooms. Many eventually drop out or never move out of the system at all. People who take courses for personal enrichment similarly fill classes that are needed by those aiming for degrees or specific training.
Bravo to the many Californians who value and seek out some form of higher education. But with the state no longer able to provide for all of them, a state task force is calling for sweeping changes. Some of the recommendations would use public dollars more efficiently while providing students fairer access. Others go too far, threatening to turn the colleges into certificate-production machines rather than true institutions of higher learning.
The couple were visiting their twin daughters in the neonatal intensive care unit at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan on Friday night, as they have done daily since the babies’ premature birth on Dec. 28. But when they tried to leave the sixth-floor unit to go home to Brooklyn at about 11 p.m., the new mother, Rozz Nash-Coulon, recalled, a burly security guard suddenly blocked their way.More at that top link.
The familiar area outside the neonatal unit had been transformed: partitions had been put up, the maternity ward windows were completely covered, and even the hospitals’ security cameras had been taped over with paper. Guards with Secret Service-style earpieces roamed the floor.
“We were told we could walk no further,” Ms. Nash-Coulon said Monday. And when she and her husband, Neil, demanded an explanation, she added, the guard claimed, unconvincingly, “ ‘Well, they’re handling hazardous materials,’ ” even as a large group of people screened from view were passing through the main hallway he had declared off-limits.
It was just the first of a series of indignities that they and several other noncelebrity maternity patients say they experienced over the weekend, as Lenox Hill Hospital went all-out to protect the privacy of Beyoncé Knowles and Jay-Z, whose daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, was born there on Saturday.
At one point, another father, Edgar Ramirez, 25, said, security guards kept him out of the neonatal unit for three hours while his wife and newborn were waiting for him. At another point on Saturday, a guard declared that “the floor is on lockdown,” Ms. Nash-Coulon said, and told her that if she left the neonatal unit, she would not be allowed back in to see her babies.
“It was just really disgusting,” said Ms. Nash-Coulon, 38, who is still recovering from her C-section, while one of her twins remains in the hospital. “We really believe the hospital is culpable in this because they didn’t let us know what was happening. And the security of our children is at risk when you cover security cameras.”
WASHINGTON — Teresa R. Wagner is a conservative Republican who wants to teach law. Her politics may have hurt her career.Althouse posts on this, focusing on libertarian scholar Walter Olson's comments at the article. I don't have misgivings about the lawsuit. I can't imagine Ms. Wagner going to work at the law school, however. This kind of stuff generates an enormous amount of ideological hatred. Seriously. To call out the law school deans for that kind of bigotry and win the matter at the appellate level? It's a crushing repudiation of the left's hypocrisy on difference and diversity, to say the least. And here's hoping that Ms. Wagner prevails should there be further appeals. Universities need to hold their faculty accountable to the very principles of inclusion they mouth when allegations of bias are lodged against those bastions of discrimination and favoritism so historically hated by the left.
An official of the University of Iowa College of Law, where Ms. Wagner applied for a job in 2006, certainly seemed to think so.
“Frankly, one thing that worries me is that some people may be opposed to Teresa serving in any role, in part at least because they so despise her politics (and especially her activism about it),” Associate Dean Jonathan C. Carlson wrote in 2007 to the law school’s dean, Carolyn Jones.
Ms. Wagner, who graduated from the law school in 1993 and had taught at the George Mason University School of Law, was not hired. She sued, alleging discrimination because of her political beliefs. Late last month, a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, ruled that her case should go to trial, saying she had presented enough evidence to suggest that “Dean Jones’s repeated decisions not to hire Wagner were in part motivated by Wagner’s constitutionally protected First Amendment rights of political belief and association.”
Ms. Wagner’s lawyer, Stephen T. Fieweger, said the decision was a victory for an important sort of academic freedom.
“It’s gotten to the point where the law school’s diversity efforts are to eliminate everyone from the mainstream,” he said. “They espouse cultural diversity, but won’t consider the conservative viewpoint.”
According to Ms. Wagner’s lawsuit, the law faculty at Iowa in 2007 included a single registered Republican among its 50 or so members. The Republican professor was appointed in 1984. In 2009, The Des Moines Register found that there were two registered Republicans on the faculty.
Ms. Wagner would have added some balance, her lawyer said.
“My client is an ideologue,” Mr. Fieweger said. “She does believe in conservative values.” Ms. Wagner has worked for the National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion and euthanasia, and the Family Research Council, which takes conservative positions on social issues.
Sara says she refused to go down because of ethical disagreements and concerns about “the criminals, drug addicts, mentally ill people” that were there.Well, considering the dregs of society populating OWS, I can't say I blame her.
More at the link.
NASHUA, N.H. – The Democrats started it, and now Republican rivals are piling on. Mitt Romney is suddenly playing defense about his career as a venture capitalist--and in a Republican primary campaign, of all things.
The attacks on Romney’s Bain Capital career from fellow Republicans may be coming too late in the game to knock him off his path toward the nomination. They may also be ineffective in a party that lionizes capitalism and the business sector that propels it. Raising hackles about Romney's flip-flops on abortion and other key issues and comparing his Massachusetts health law to "Obamacare'' seems like safer ground.
But at the very least, the GOP field is providing a cache of video that Democrats are no doubt already hoarding for use in the likely event that Romney is President Obama’s opponent.
On Monday, a super PAC bankrolled by allies of Newt Gingrich said it is planning a $3.4 million media blitz in South Carolina that attacks Romney as a ruthless corporate titan who profited on the backs of hundreds of laid-off workers.
In Concord, meanwhile, Jon Huntsman turned a Romney remark about liking to be able to fire service providers who fall short into a Bain reference. "What's clear is, he likes firing people; I like creating jobs," Huntsman said.
Rick Perry also took up the anti-Bain attack at a campaign event in Anderson, S.C. "I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips - whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out,'' he quipped, poking at Romney’s attempt at a feel-your-pain moment on Sunday.
If the attacks on his career at Bain Capital sound familiar, it's because the Democratic Party has been waging them for weeks, trotting out bitterly unemployed people who blame Romney for their predicament.
