Bill Ayers crawls out from under his rock to push his alternate reality…

With getting ready for the LSATs, I haven’t been able to turn out as many posts as I would like. I can’t simply sit down, turn on the television and find some to ignite my “writer’s passion”, but something has focused me for another blog entry…

Following the election, I knew that Barack Obama’s “closet” would open up and the “skeletons” would come marching out. I felt like saying “I told you so” the instant Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose began talking about how they “don’t know Obama or what he will do”, but I decided to let it go. When Louis Farrakhan and Reverend Michael Pfleger came out of the shadows and began praising Obama’s election, I noted it in a blog post, but I didn’t obsess over it. What I can’t ignore is this obsession with former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. While I can understand the media’s morbid fascination with those like Farrakhan and Pfleger, polarizing figures in America’s continuing struggle towards racial equality, why they would bother giving a man out of touch with reality his “15 minutes of fame” is beyond me…

Most of this media attention comes from the fact that Ayers’ publisher is rereleasing his book Fugitive Days. With Barack Obama’s election, Ayers and his publisher are hoping to make a modest profit off the media attention which was stirred up by Fox News, the same media attention he villainized the other day by comparing it to the “Two Minutes of Hate” from George Orwell’s 1984. While “biting the hand that feeds you” is a great way to prove your state of mind, he might as well have come out in front of the cameras with a tin-foil hat screaming about the voices in his head since the Good Morning America interview he gave, as well as his follow-up appearances, showed viewers just how deranged and out of touch with reality he really is…

Finished watching? Talk about a man who needs a lifeline to get back to reality…

The United States terrorists? I guess Ayers should have told that to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong that when they tortured and killed nearly 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war in the city of Hue. Let’s not forget the “reeducation” camps, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, as well as the countless other who were executed or simply “went missing” following the Fall of Saigon. It is okay though, this anti-war radical is in good company with other political figures suffering from Vietnam related dementia, like Senator John Kerry. Geez…

What about this claim that he isn’t a “villain” and that the Weather Underground wasn’t a “terrorist group”? Blogger Nancy Goldfarb was commenting about this on two of my posts during the election, discussing how these “freedom fighters” killed more people than the the Ku Klux Klan in the last fifty years. According to Goldfarb, Ayers wanted to become the world’s most notorious mass murderer, ahead of both Hitler and Stalin, something echoed by Larry Grathwohl during his interview for the 1982 documentary, ‘No Place to Hide’…

Clearly Ayers is a “villain”. Wanting to kill millions of Americans does strike me as “villainous”, if not psychotic, but this isn’t surprising coming from a man who said that children should “bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at” (at this point, wouldn’t wearing a tin-foil hat help his public image?). Let’s not forget that his group tried to bring about this revolution through a campaign of terror, multiple bombings, including one which killed three Underground members. Yes Bill, by definition (a person who terrorizes or frightens others), your former group was a terrorist organization. Even with this, the MSM was willing to give him a pass on Ayer’s assertion that he and his band of bombers weren’t terrorists, but misunderstood protesters “on the right side” of the Vietnam War issue.

We turn on the television this week and we get the story of the Mumbai attacks. We have people discussing how this is the fault of coalition efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan (keep leaning to the left CNN), forgotting that India has been the target of a variety of terrorist attacks for years. You can’t rationalize these things, there is no simple explanation for these incidents, and that the victims are not the villains in these stories. No matter what these terrorists say, it doesn’t justify their actions. While we haven’t heard from those responsible for these attacks as of yet, it doesn’t matter what their reasons are, nothing can be said that will make right the murder of civilians in an attempt to forward their cause.

Same goes with those trying to sell books. No matter what they look like, they are still monsters, people who are twisted in such a way that they should be removed from society, not celebrated on television. As these attacks in India continue, let’s remember that we still have those in our countries who not only condone terrorist actions, but participate in them as well. Every time you interview one of them, let their bullshit go unquestioned, you give support to those who continue to murder innocents for an unjustifiable cause.

It doesn’t matter when it happen, those like Bill Ayers are still terrorists, and even if they have evaded the law, it doesn’t make it right to allow them to profit from their evil deeds… Disturbing…

UPDATE: Hot Air has the latest on the Mumbai attacks, and the stand-off at Chabad House ended in bloodshed. While people all over the world are mourning, President-Elect Obama is discussing diplomacy. Didn’t I just say giving these people a platform, like diplomatic talks, just emboldens them? Urgh…

UPDATE: Hot Air has a new story about Bill Ayers up. In a recent op-ed article for the New York Times, Ayers tries once again to justify his terrorism by calling it  “extreme vandalism”.  Talk about delusional… What are those voices telling you now Bill? Maybe you should keep your tin-foil hat on and stay under that rock…

I have been busy the few weeks, but I will try to keep this blog updated on everything new and political, even those social and economic events which make headlines…

UPDATE: Now Chris Matthews is defending Ayers’ record as a radical. Forget that this man is responsible for numerous deaths, including members of his own terrorist group, the real villain in Sarah Palin? HUH? How can anyone take Matthews seriously anymore?

UPDATE: I know this is a long time coming, but Michelle Malkin as news on the Bill Ayers situation. It seems that they will be turning memoirs into a graphic novel… Wonder if they will include the fact that he was an eight year old soldier during the Korean War?

The bailout mess; Spot the difference

Even Michelle Malkin is reporting on it, so I guess I have to say something…

As an economics major, I shouldn’t have let this issue go unanswered as I have. Both the conservatives and the far-left have jumped on this issue, trying to convince us in the middle of what we should believe, and I for one am sick of it. I think it was downright stupid of Mitt Romney to say that America should “let Detroit go bankrupt”, but there is method to this madness. The auto industry has become a “money pit” in recent years, and with all the problems it now has, many think the only way to fix it is to let it collapse and then rebuild it. The problem with this is that it will cripple the economy, an economy which is very dependent on this industry for jobs. So does that mean we bailout them out to fix the problem they are in? Not at all…

The problem is that the Democrats believe that bailouts are the answer to everything. They created many of the problems the American economy now faces, so why not throw money at the problem to make it go away? The “John Edwards” approach won’t work here, so let’s not try it. In my opinion, the auto industry is suffering for three reasons, none of which can be solved by simply giving it money…

Gas Prices – In 2006 the Democrats were elected for two reasons, to end the War in Iraq and to help bring down gas prices, both of which they didn’t do. Matter of fact, many would argue that the Democrats have done everything in their power to not only prevent the second from happening, but to make it worse. We can discuss their perverse environmental agenda another time, but I would like to say that it is their reason for doing this. Higher gas prices mean automakers must invest more into the development of “greener” automobiles which rely on alternative fuel sources, but with lower ones, the push towards “cleaner cars” slows down. Why else would CBS be complaining about it?

Instead of “hugging a tree”, maybe these people should actually worry about the average American and the average American business. While we saw high gas prices slow the economy to a crawl, no one was more hurt then the auto industry. The high prices of the last two years has hurt sales, their ability to make money for those who forgot, and helped put them in the situation they are in now. We have seen a small turn around in car sales in the last few weeks because of the drop is costs at the pump. Mark Levin talked about this on his show last week that the sale of Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) has gone up with the fall in gas prices, something which many in the media have refused to make mention of. With lower prices, people are willing to forgo foreign hybrid shopping and look at domestic cars, allowing the auto industry to “make a living”. These are the conditions that they should have had for the last few years, but because we didn’t, automakers suffered. With this said, how would simply giving them money help this?

A handout for the “Big Three” wouldn’t help lower gas prices, nor would it cover the costs they have incurred for the development of “green” technology. One thing which could help them is by helping maintain these low prices, but how can we do this? Pardon the cliche but “DRILL BABY DRILL!” I don’t need the National Review Online telling me that drilling will help lower oil prices. While those on the left will argue that drilling now won’t solve the problem of shortages, stating that the supply remains constant while demand increases (driving up prices… simple economics), they refuse to take into account market perception. If supply isn’t seen as constant, that even if it does take ten years for additional oil reserves to be found and harvested, the fact is that the anticipation of this, even if it is a while down the road, will have an impact now on prices. Why worry and charge more if you know that oil supply will go up in the future?

As I have said before perception is very important in economics, something so many have refused to acknowledge, let alone understand…

Heavy unionization – It is no surprise that Barney Frank let it slip that a bailout of the “Big Three” is actually a bailout of the auto unions. More than anything, this bailout would be a “back scratch” in return for union support during the election. I could discuss how this is “more of the same” and that Democrats are going back on their promise of “change”, but I will save that for a later post. What I will say now is that Barack Obama’s “bottom up” economic plan has already failed, that, on that note, heavy unionization has become a problem in the US as American companies are being forced to compete openly with non-unionized foreign firms.

Yes, unions do provide protection for workers, but that role has been overshadowed by blatant corruption at higher levels. Instead of simply existing to guarantee that their members won’t be mistreated, the larger labour unions has become a problem to struggling businesses, a “wrench thrown into the gears” of industry as it were. CNSNews released a story this week that highlighted this. As Pete Winn reported, union workers for the “Big Three” charge $73 an hour, compared to domestic workers at Japanese plants in America which cost only $43. On top of that, as Larry Elder has discussed this week, domestically owned plants employ more workers for few jobs then foreign manufacturers do. This means that every jobs has a specific worker, and that no worker is allowed to do a job that he or she isn’t specified for. This means additional “experts” are hired. Taking into account that domestically manufactured cars need to be priced at the same level, if not lower, then foreign cars, it is downright disturbing. How can General Motors, Chrysler and Ford make any money when there costs are so high? The answer is they can’t…

A competitive market means prices must also be competitive. If you charge more for the “same” product, you won’t be able to sell it. Because of this, with their lower costs, companies like Toyota are expanding, while domestic automakers are sinking, cutting back to cut costs. I can and will argue that domestic cars are just as good, if not better than most foreign cars, and that American consumers should think about supporting domestic manufacturers when buying a new vehicle, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Why don’t we see the MSM reporting this? Instead of providing something intelligent to the discussion, CNN’s John Roberts said recently that the American auto industry’s dependence on the production of pick-ups was the reason for their recent troubles, proof of his utter ignorance on this issue. I guess he hasn’t heard that the Japanese are also competing in the pick-up market because they see the money that can be made there. Never heard of a Toyota Tundra, Roberts? I guess we wouldn’t see him reporting about the high costs of labour thanks to the auto worker unions, but that is to be expected…

In any event, instead of blaming automakers for their sales numbers, why not put the negative attention where it ought to be, on these “labour monopolies”? In order to fix this, these “villains” need to be exposed, dragged into the “sunlight” for all to see. Only then can wages be brought down, as well as costs, allowing the “Big Three” to be competitive once more. All a bailout will do is put money in the hands of those who are part of the problem… Something many have overlooked…

UPDATE: Even The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle is discussing this. I do agree with her assessment on this issue, contrary to what Felix Salmon and others are arguing. Just because GM workers don’t go home with $73 an hour, doesn’t mean they aren’t costing the company that. While they are supposed to be making that kind of money, what happens is that much of the money they make is deducted through a variety of administration and unions costs. Just because these workers don’t pocket $73 an hour, doesn’t mean General Motors isn’t paying that, something Salmon and others need to understand.

Government intervention – Going back to the Democrats’ “green” agenda, it is easy to see why the government itself has been a burden on the auto industry in America. While it is good that the government has pushed companies to be more eco-friendly, there is a difference between a “push” and a “shove”. During the last election in Canada, Liberal party candidate Stephan Dion had promised to create a “carbon tax” plan which would punish polluters like the struggling auto industry. While radical, this is the path many left-leaning politicians are on. Let’s not forget Obama’s coal industry comments, something that should have gotten the attention of the “Big Three” as well. If he is going to tax one “polluter” into bankruptcy, what makes them think he won’t target them as well?

What about all these taxes on industry? It isn’t simply their war against “polluters” that has hurt automakers, the Democrats’ assault on big business has also done a lot of damage. Canada’s Federal Industry minister Jim Prentice was discussing a proposed bailout plan months ago for the auto industry, but instead of subsidies, he declared that tax breaks were the best course of action. I agree, why doesn’t the American government cut their costs but cutting their taxes? As I have said before, the government shouldn’t be hostile towards business, they should provide incentives for automakers to keep jobs in North America. Why do you think General Motors was putting so much money in the development of plants in China? They are hoping that the fast growing Chinese auto market will help fund their struggling operations in North America. The E-Commerce Times also has an article I sited before discussing this very thing. The problem is that Obama promised to increase taxes on companies like General Motors, ignoring that the high tax rate has forced the automaker to look to foreign markets to stay afloat. When tax rates aren’t “competitive”, like Prentice said, there is no way that these businesses can keep jobs in America without incurring large costs. Only by fragmenting the production process, can these companies stay competitive, something that many in Washington either can’t or simply don’t want to understand.

As Mark Levin noted the other day, this isn’t a failure of the “free market”, it is a failure of government intervention. Through what can be only referred to as “government hostility”, the economy has become a dangerous place for big business. Corporate taxes have sent American jobs overseas, including those in the auto industry, and by increasing them, it only makes matters worse.I disagree with Ed Morrissey’s claim that management AND labour are to blame, especially since much of their troubles were brought on by higher taxes and a demented “green” agenda. While I discussed the fault of the labour unions above, I don’t honestly see how the CEOs of the “Big Three” could have steered their companies through the minefield that those in Congress have laid out for them. If the government is handing out bailouts like Halloween candy, why wouldn’t General Motors, Chrysler and Ford want to partake? The problem I see with this is that any money they are given will either be taken back through taxes or given to unions. If the government would lift restraints on them, allow them to do business without paying through the nose, then maybe they could survive without outside intervention.

Let’s capitalism breath, don’t strangle it with socialist economic policy brought about by left-leaning politicians. Let those in business do their job, and keep those in Washington out of their way…

*****

While I stood behind the previous bailout, I can’t stand behind this one. The difference, as described above, is that with the auto industry the way it is now, any bailout that involves simply giving the “Big Three” funds to stay afloat is a waste of money. The first bailout was designed to “grease the wheels”, to get Wall Street working again after it was halted by corruption on the part of Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac, as well as bad government policy, most notably Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act. The $700 billion in that instance WAS to get the financial sector moving again. Yes, they should reexamine the practices of some in the business community, as well as those in Washington, but in my opinion, there is nothing fatally flawed about the system itself. The auto industry, on the other hand, is crippled by numerous factors, some of which I mentioned above. Once again, many people think it has gotten so bad that only through bankruptcy can it be fixed. In this respect, without proper reform, it will cost tax payers far to much money to fix a “broken” system.

Gas prices needs to be watched, and to protect the economy as a whole, drilling must start now. It isn’t simply the auto industry, but all markets that needs this. Unions have become too powerful, and steps have to be taken to release their grip on America’s labour supply. Going back to the CNSNews article, when these “monopolies” start setting wages and not the automakers, trouble ensues. Yes unions are good for the workers, but in a highly competitive market, they have become a burden on business struggling to stay afloat. Finally, government needs to BACK OFF! Instead of providing a “guiding hand”, Washington has its hands around the throats of many businesses, not simply the “Big Three”. “Spreading the wealth” doesn’t work, capitalism does, they need to realize this before this recession turns into a depression.

Before more money is spent, everyone needs to sit down and actually examine the issue. What are the problems and what needs to be done to fix them. Instead of throwing money at it, why not actually try to work it out? That is why these people were elected if I remember correctly…

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin is reporting on a proposed bailout for Citigroup. This reminds me of what Mark Levin was saying about Barney Frank comments, that with financial institutions like American International Group (AIG) getting a bailout, why not the the “Big Three”? The reason is because Citigroup and AIG were force to swallow the collapse of the financial market thanks to the mishandling of Fannie-Mae, Freddie-Mac and the sub-prime lending fiasco. They are in the state they are in because of the incompetence of those like Frank and Dodd. These institutions will pay back these “loans” down the road, while the American tax payer loses money if there is a bailout of the auto industry. It doesn’t have to do with “class struggle”, it has to do with getting capital flowing again… It is common sense, but I guess Frank and his colleagues can’t understand that…

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has another report on the Citigroup bailout up right now. I do stand behind her on most issues, but this one I am going to have to say no to. I agree with her on the principle, that you can’t simple throw money at the problem and hope that solves it, but I don’t see this as negatively as she and many of her colleagues and readers do. I will say that this is a “necessary evil”, that financial institutions like Citigroup and AIG were forced into their current situations by predatory lending and the sheer incompetence of those who were supposed to prevent this economic hardship, like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd… Through the Community Reinvestment Act and political pressure from groups like ACORN, banks were forced to make bad loans, bad loans were were forced through the banks, forced through the financial sector, and now that the markets are crippled, the tax payer is being forced to help pick up the pieces… Once again, a “necessary evil”…

UPDATE: After the heat comes down, the UAW responds with a commerical. They have had a hand in bringing about this problem, and now they want us to pity them? According to the Heritage Foundation, not only are these people bringing in much more money then their counterparts in the auto industry, but their health care plans are simply unrealistic to say the least. I am not afraid to say that maybe filing for bankruptcy protection might actually be the best thing for the “Big Three” to do, especially if it means they have a chance to “dig out” this “cancer” on the industry, but it still doesn’t sit well with me. Losing investors and damaging their once respected names seems an awful price to pay to undo the damage unionization has done…

Militant homosexuality and anti-Prop 8 efforts

I think when a group threatens to burn down churches there is something wrong. We can discuss the way they have harassed religious groups in the past, we can discuss how they have forced their “lifestyle” down our throats for the last few years, but let’s deal with what is going on right now in California. After the passing of Proposition 8, a bill which would amend the Californian constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman, gay and lesbian groups were emboldened to continue their attacks on Christianity. As politically incorrect as it sounds, this appears to me to be a redefining of “gay rage”…

I am reminded of an old Onion article every time I hear people talk about this issue. Just a few weeks ago I was writing about the city of Chicago working to set up a high school for gay students, and I was disgusted at how people were forfeiting common sense for political correctness. On the heels of this, we now see Governor Schwarzenegger of California speaking out against the passing of Proposition 8, justifying their lunacy by discussing how the vote should be overturned by the courts. I honestly don’t know how he can say that, how he can simply dismiss the will of his people to appease a group which has become unhinged. The line has been drawn in the sand, the people of California aren’t comfortable with the idea of gays and lesbians marrying, and while many disagree, the majority of the state voted in favour of the proposition. Why can’t that be respected?

Political correctness these days demands acceptance of even the most off-putting behaviour in society. While the Onion was joking about the inappropriate nature of the 2001 Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade, it is no joke what we are seeing now with each passing event. The parades in Ottawa and Toronto have gotten to the point inappropriate and paraders and spectators are dressed in overly revealing and highly sexualized attire. A friend of mine, a very open minded and understanding individual, had worked security for the Ottawa parade a few years back and admitted to me it was “disgusting” to see what he saw. I myself have had run-ins of this sort, invited to gay pride parties in the past by friends, and I felt the same way afterwards. It isn’t that you don’t fit in, it is dealing with their hyper sexuality. While heterosexual couples would be facing charges for lewd conduct, society overlooks the law to allow homosexuals the right to do whatever they feel like…

This is what we are seeing in California with their Prop 8 protests. Instead of exercising their rights responsibly, we see a “lynching mob” running around the state threatening those who they believe are trying to suppress their “right” to gay marriage. Just because you don’t like what someone else believes, it doesn’t mean you have the right viciously attack them in any way you want…

This disgusting advertisement boarders on libel. There is nothing in that piece of filth other than a rabid display of their hatred towards something they obviously don’t understand. Am I a fan of Mormonism? Not really, I don’t agree with much of their “alternate Christian” teachings, but I have never seen a Mormon terrorize people the way these anti-Prop 8 advocates are terrorizing them. The fringe of this group have begun mailing letters with “suspicious white powder” inside, finally crossing a legal line which the media cannot ignore. While CBS reported that the powder was non-toxic, that doesn’t mean that the next letter won’t be. We have seen these trial runs with Islamic terrorists, testing out safety procedures and reactions from police, and just because they aren’t fueled by religious hatred, doesn’t mean they can’t be as determined and dangerous. Matter of fact, with the popularity of the anti-Christian movement, fueled by radicals like Bill Maher and Kathy Griffin who have been applauded for their anti-religious dementia, these offenders may be emboldened to take more drastic action for their cause, especially if they will be celebrated as heroes by the far-left afterwards. It is all about twisting the facts to portray the distorted image they like to believe.

It isn’t like we haven’t begun seeing this. Larry Elder had to defend himself Thursday from an aggressive caller, “Tim from Huntington Beach”, who went on a rant about how the proposition passed because the Press didn’t report stories the way he saw them, and that Church officials were spreading lies about the issue. Instead of acknowledging that many people voted for Prop 8 because of the bigotry they saw from pro-gay marriage groups, as Elder had discussed before taking his call, “Tim” lost his temper and started calling “The Sage From South Central” a liar. It is true that Elton John criticized the gay community for wanting marriage following the passing of Prop 8, and it is also true that “Yes of Prop 8″ signs were placed in the form of a swastika at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Riverside, so what was he saying that wasn’t? Instead of facing the facts, this caller lost his composure and proved to listeners that this militant hatred of Prop 8 supporters did indeed exist…

Contrary to what many would believe, this lunacy isn’t limited to “Tim” or other members of the anti-Prop 8 fringe, it is also found within the mainstream of the movement. Instead of admitting that they didn’t spend enough (or any) time addressing the concerns those against same-sex marriage in order to swing voters, they blame the failure of their “No on 8″ efforts on “voter intolerance”. Jarod Wunneburger, an executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Assembly, told Nicole Dailo of the Daily Trojan that “I think part of what caused it to pass is that the Yes on 8 campaign used some pretty dirty tricks… They used a lot of scare tactics”. What “scare tactics” are these? Well it appears that supporters of the proposition were telling voters that their church could be sued if it didn’t allow for gay marriage, something that DID happen in Canada following the passage of Bill C-38 by the Liberals. Matter of fact, Deborah Chymyshyn and Tracey Smith were awarded damages by The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal on the basis that the Knights of Columbus had “affronted the same-sex couple’s dignity, feelings and self-respect” by canceling the event after they found out these two women were renting the hall out for their lesbian wedding. Why weren’t the religious rights of the Knights of Columbus respected? While there was an op-out clause that was written into the gay marriage bill, the BC Tribunal (in my opinion) had a pro-gay marriage agenda, hoping that their ruling would allow for other gay and lesbian couples to usurp the rights of religious groups to get their way. The Knights of Columbus did refuse the wedding because it was “in a manner contrary to their core beliefs”, and still they lost the lawsuit. It happened in Canada, even with legal protection for religious organizations, so I doubt that it couldn’t happen in California…

I could go on discussing how this has gotten out of hand, but I think I have made my point. Instead of acting responsibly, pro-gay marriage activists have lost their minds. Roseanne Barr’s own bigotry last week should have been enough to prove this point, but it seems many still refuse to acknowledge what is going on. While we won’t see stories of this in the MSM, it is nice to see that blogger like Michelle Malkin are keeping us informed on this ongoing fiasco. As I have said previously, why aren’t people respecting the vote in California? The proposition passed the same margin which elected Barack Obama, and yet while they call that vote an “overwhelming majority”, they argue that this one should be ignored because it have a large enough percentage of voters. Matter of fact, the majority of those who voted for Prop 8 supported Barack Obama, so why is that being ignored? To me it all reeks of far-left hypocrisy… The bigots accusing others of bigotry…

Does it really matter? If the Californian Supreme Court won’t overturn it, we will most likely see the United States Supreme Court do something about it when a judge that passes Barack Obama’s “litmus test” get appointed. Until this issue is resolved, I expect that this fiasco will continue and that we will see these activists stoop to news lows. Instead of acting responsibly by accepting the “will of the people”, the once respect gay community has been reduced to a mass of spoiled children throwing a tantrum… Pathetic if you ask me…

UPDATE: Almost the instant I published this article, Michelle Malkin posted one of her own about an incident in San Francisco’s Castro district. Christians were escorted about of the area by police in riot gear after crowds of anti-Prop 8 radicals assault them. Even with the police presence there, it didn’t seem to be enough to quell this anger mob who threatened the church group with violence if they ever returned. While you won’t see this on CNN anytime soon, it is nice to know Michelle and others are covering it. Just when you thought this fiasco couldn’t get uglier, it does…

UPDATE: Now Hot Air’s Allahpundit is reporting on the Castro district incident. Much like Michelle’s post, this one does have the video of the angry mob chasing the Christians with police in riot gear trying to keep the situation from getting out of hand. I agree Allahpundit when he said that we should watch how the MSM reports this story. I expect we will see them telling “both sides” to calm down, you know, like how “both sides” are to blame for the Freddie-Mac/Fannie-Mae fiasco… Pathetic…

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a new article out about this gay-marriage fiasco. Whether they are extorting restaurants, beating up old ladies, or simply harassing church goers, I would have to say that they have gone beyond “too far” at this point. The people of California voted for Proposition 8, you lost, so deal with it…

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin was on Neil Cavuto today discussing the anti-Prop 8 mob. She makes a very good point when she said that while we are self-analyzing and trying to understand how Barack Obama could be elected, the far-left have lost control and lashed out in the wake of their defeat.

UPDATE: While I do enjoy coming back to older blog posts to update them, but I honestlythought this Prop 8 derangement was over. How wrong I was… Michelle Malkin was reporting on the New York Times reaction to the new demented strategy of “calling in Gay” in protest. Jane Q. Republican broke the story, so I tip my hat to her, but while I am not surprised at the NYT being biased to the poit of delusional, I will say that I am just dumbfound at the lunacy of this. Isn’t anyone going to question the validity of doing this in the tough economic times we live in? I was watching an MSNBC report on this and many shop owners in the Castro District can’t afford to close for even a day. I am sure that they will be harassed and greatly criticized for not jumping off the cliff with these rest of these gay lemmings… Urgh… What if I decided to call in “straight”? I have a bad case of “yellow fever”, do you think I would get the same pat on the back that these demented protestors got?

In defense of Sarah Palin

I made the mistake of turning on The Daily Show with John Stewart the other night. As usual, nothing he said made me laugh, just a collection of poorly written jokes slanted to the far-left. I haven’t had much use for Mr. Leibowitz since Stephan Colbert left his show, and I didn’t much appreciate his attack on John McCain a few years back, so it was simply morbid curiousity with what he would be saying now that Barack Obama is President-Elect that kept me from changing the channel. In an unsurprising move, this partisan hack decided to take a shot at Sarah Palin, trying to paint her as a whiner now that the election is over, and “correct” her claim that she wouldn’t make baseless accusations by showing clips of her discussing how Obama was “paling around with terrorists”, and that he doesn’t see America the same way we do. Of course Mr. Leibowitz wouldn’t bother researching those claims would he? Oh no, that would get in the way of his laughless jokes…

There seems to be a growing number of people who haven’t bothered to do any research on the Governor of Alaska, deciding to simply believe the worst they hear about her. Go to any far-left website like the Huffington Post, and you will find a group of rabid anti-Palin partisan hacks. Let’s forget that Keith Olbermann didn’t bother reading the transcript of the Charlie Gibson interview when he made his ignorant comments about how Palin “seeing Russia from her house” doesn’t count as foreign policy experience, especially when any idiot watching the “final product” could tell it was poorly doctored. Let’s also ignore that everyone discussing her “lack” of foreign policy experience has outright ignored the Alaskan Pipeline Project, something she put together by working with a variety of Canadian officials from the Yukon, Alberta and British Columbia, something I have been discussing for a while on my blog… Let’s simply address a few of these lingering issues…

Let’s start with Stewart’s ignorant remarks about Palin’s statements. For a man who claims to be an expert on politics, he sure missed the mark on this. Barack Obama DOES have a history of “paling around with terrorists”. I have heard CNN’s Rick Sanchez try to debate this by saying the only “terrorist” Obama knows is Bill Ayers, and that he is “actually” a “respected” member of the city of Chicago, ignoring that he has repented for his past crimes and that he often brags about them. For Sanchez and Leibowitz’s information, you can’t talk about one of these “terrorists” without bringing up the other, and in this case, it is Bernadine Dohrn. As Camille Paglia said the other day,

The mystery of Bernardine Dohrn: How could such a personable, attractive, well-educated young woman end up saying such things at a 1969 political rally as this (omitted in the film) about the Manson murders: “Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach. Wild!” And how could Dohrn have so ruthlessly pursued a decade-long crusade of hatred and terrorism against innocent American citizens and both private and public property?

This woman is just as twisted, hateful and dangerous as her husband, and why her name wasn’t raised during this “investigation” is beyond me. For those keeping count, that is two “terrorists” Barack Obama has “paled around with”. What about Progressives For Obama? If Ayers and Dohrn aren’t enough, why not bring in the rest of the Weathermen who aren’t dead or in jail? My count was at least five other members of the former terrorist group (ran their member list through a Google search), so that is now seven “terrorists” he is “paling around with” for those who still believe what Palin said wasn’t true. How about Rashid Khalidi for number eight? We don’t know who else was at the 2003 going away party Obama threw him, but I am sure there were a slew of antisemities in attendance, if not a few foreign and domestic “terrorists”. Even without taking into account Raila Odinga and other “skeletons”, there is enough of these relationships to back-up Palin’s statement, and seeing that these people helped “educate” the President-Elect, I also believe that Obama doesn’t see America the way others do.

John, you honestly have to do your research. I know you are busy writing laughless jokes with your useless staff of unfunny writers, but since you claim to be a political comedy show, it would be nice to at least have the “political” aspect nailed since you definitely lack anything resembling “comedy”.

If it isn’t Sarah’s comments about Obama’s associations, it is her supposed remarks about “Africa being a country” and “not knowing what NAFTA is”. The New York Times was reporting on the “Martin Eisenstadt” fiasco, something which should have caught the attention of all these rabid anti-Palin, especially when they quoted the non-existent source to back up their deranged beliefs. The truth is that this story started with Fox News’ Carl Cameron and a post-election appearance on The Factor with Bill O’Reilly. No one knows who Cameron’s source was, and while Allahpundit at Hot Air has said that it wasn’t the imaginary “Eisenstadt”, I do believe that whoever it is, they are just as credible as the nonexistent McCain adviser.

It doesn’t matter that, according to various sources inside the McCain campaign, that many of these people seemed out to “destroy” Palin since the start of the campaign, that much of this isn’t fact, but fiction created by their own misguided hatred. Greta Van Susteren actually “debunked” this on her show during a discussion with Elaine Lafferty. Lafferty, a Clinton supporter who joined the McCain-Palin campaign after Hillary’s loss in the primaries, told Greta that the Governor was far more intelligent than anyone had given her credit. As I have stated before, while thin, she does have foreign policy experience, but it isn’t simply her dealings with Canada. I could go on about the $4 billion in trade Alaska does worldwide, but all that needs to be said is that in 1994, after NAFTA was put in place, trade between Palin’s state and Canada and Mexico wnet up by about 629 percent. I highly doubt anyone who is Governor for even a week, let alone two years, wouldn’t know about the North American Free Trade Agreement. Many should have known this was garbage the instant that accusation was made…

The problem is no one cared. You had CNN, MSNBC, CBS and any other partisan network jump on this story the instant it broke. Nicolas Graham at the Huffington Post didn’t even bother verifying his source when he post the original story, something to which deranged reader couldn’t help but comment with glee over. No one has bothered to issue apologizes for this mess, especially not Cameron himself who seems to have been sidelined since the Eisenstadt story broke. No matter what Fox News says, no matter how firmly they are standing behind the original story, I honestly believe that they are the ones who should take the blame for this fiasco. It is obvious that they are trying to save their credibility when this whole thing began to unraveled, but it isn’t working. Many bloggers, including myself, have begun to wonder whether or not O’Reilly and Cameron were trying to “turn over a new leaf” with this story since Obama became President-Elect, especially with the way CNN and MSNBC are fawning over Barack since his election win roughly two weeks ago.

All in all, I think all this says more about the quality (or lack of it) in journalism in America, then Palin’s intelligence. It does seem the glory days of reporting are now long gone…

*****

I could go on about all the incidents of the media mistreatment of Sarah Palin again, but I would recommend new readers to look at Double Standards of the main stream media, as well as other articles I have written on the subject. It would be nice to see reporters trying to stay fair and balanced now that the election is over, but I am not holding my breath. Until this love affair with Barack Obama ends, we won’t see reporter like Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams or Rick Sanchez giving up their rapid partisanship. All we can do is continue to research the issues, rely on credible sources of information for the real stories instead of those who have shown to have political agendas… No matter what cosmetic counter girls and other uninformed partisan hacks like John Stewart tell us…

UPDATE: The instant I think they will leave Palin alone, the MSM goes after her for be around while turkey’s are “executed”. They act as if they have never had a turkey sandwich or celebrated Thanksgiving before… Urgh, if Michelle Malkin wasn’t reporting it, I would have a hard time believe that this lunacy was true… Sinking to new lows all the time…

An interesting view from the other side; Camille Paglia’s take on Palin Derangement Syndrome

I usually prefer using my own words when dealing with an issue, but many have dismissed my writings for a variety of reasons. Some readers believe me to be a far-right blogger, others believe that I am deluded for not believing in the “power of The One”, grouping me in with well-meaning yet ignorant McCain supporters, refusing to even notice the hours of research which went in to carving out my opinions on the various issues during this election cycle. If they won’t listen to me, maybe they will listen to one of their own.

Camille Paglia is a famous artist and outspoken feminist. While she was an avid support of Barack Obama, I do believe that much of her “affection” for him has died down. I believe this has to do with her researching his past connections, starting with Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. While she doesn’t come out and say it in the article she published today, read between the lines, see how she distances herself from other Obama supporters.

I don’t agree with Paglia that Obama will last eight years, I take a stance similar to that of James Pethokoukis, that he will be a one-term President, but I don’t think it will only be the economic crisis that will cause his downfall, leaning more to the fact that now people are starting to look into Barack’s background and aren’t liking what they see. With that said, there are many things in this article I could debate, but I won’t, I want to share it with my readers. The point I am trying to make is that, although we are very different in our upbringings, political or otherwise, and while we may hold very different views on a number of topics, I do believe it is important to sit down and listen to what others are saying, especially when you can see eye to eye on one topic… In this case it is Palin Derangement Syndrome…

Obama surfs through
The Obamas are a warm vision for the White House — but he should strive toward full transparency. Plus: Yes, I still like Sarah Palin!

By Camille Paglia

Nov. 12, 2008

Dazed and confused. A week after the election of Barack Obama, millions of American news junkies are in serious cold turkey, the big bump of withdrawal from two years of addiction to the dizzying ups and downs of a campaign that threatened never to end.

Eat dirt, you sour Clintons, who said Obama was “unelectable.” Obama’s 8 million vote margin over his Republican opponent — miraculously sparing us endless litigation and chad counting — was an exhilarating testimony to his personal gifts and power of persuasion. And the formidable Michelle Obama, with her electric combo of brains and style, is already rewriting first ladyhood. The warm partnership of the Obamas (wonderfully caught by the camera as they disappeared offstage after his victory) has set an inspiring standard for modern marriage.

Yes, it’s true we know relatively little about Barack Obama, and his triumph is a roll of the dice. But John McCain (like Bob Dole) was a major Republican misfire — a candidate of personal honor and heroic sacrifice who was woefully inadequate for the times. McCain’s lurching grandstanding during the Wall Street crisis made him look like a ham actor on a bender. In debate, McCain was always pugnacious but too often bland or rambling, and he often missed glaring opportunities to score off Obama’s vagueness or contradictions.

McCain’s brusque treatment of his long-suffering wife, Cindy, was also off-putting — nowhere more so than after his concession speech, when he barely remembered to give her a perfunctory hug. Probably no one is more relieved by McCain’s defeat than Cindy, who seemed too frail and tightly wound for the demanding role of first lady. Now she can slip away once more into blessed privacy.

No one knows whether Obama will move to the center or veer hard left. Perhaps even he doesn’t know. But I have great optimism about his political instincts and deftness. He wants to be president of all the people — if that is possible in so divided a nation. His natural impulse seems to be toward reconciliation and concord. The big question will be how patient the Democratic left wing is in demanding drastic changes in social policy, particularly dicey with a teetering economy.

As I’ve watched Obama gracefully step up to podiums or move through crowds, I’ve been reminded not of basketball, with its feints and pivots, but of surfing, that art form of his native Hawaii. A photograph of Obama body surfing on vacation was widely publicized in August. But I’m talking about big-time competitive surfing, as in this stunning video tribute to the death-defying Laird Hamilton (who, like Obama, was raised fatherless in Hawaii). Obama’s ability to stay on his feet and outrun the most menacing waves that threaten to engulf him seems to embody the breezy, sunny spirit of the American surfer.

In the closing weeks of the election, however, I became increasingly disturbed by the mainstream media’s avoidance of forthright dealing with several controversies that had been dogging Obama — even as every flimsy rumor about Sarah Palin was being trumpeted as if it were engraved in stone on Mount Sinai. For example, I had thought for many months that the flap over Obama’s birth certificate was a tempest in a teapot. But simple questions about the certificate were never resolved to my satisfaction. Thanks to their own blathering, fanatical overkill, of course, the right-wing challenges to the birth certificate never gained traction.

But Obama could have ended the entire matter months ago by publicly requesting Hawaii to issue a fresh, long-form, stamped certificate and inviting a few high-profile reporters in to examine the document and photograph it. (The campaign did make the “short-form” certificate available to Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.) And why has Obama not made his university records or thesis work widely available? The passivity of the press toward Bush administration propaganda about weapons of mass destruction led the nation into the costly blunder of the Iraq war. We don’t need another presidency that finds it all too easy to rely on evasion or stonewalling. I deeply admire Obama, but as a voter I don’t like feeling gamed or played.

Another issue that I initially dismissed was the flap over William Ayers, the Chicago-based former member of the violent Weather Underground. Conservative radio host Sean Hannity began the drumbeat about Ayers’ association with Obama a year ago — a theme that most of the mainstream media refused to investigate or even report until this summer. I had never heard of Ayers and couldn’t have cared less. I was irritated by Hillary Clinton’s aggressive flagging of Ayers in a debate, and I accepted Obama’s curt dismissal of the issue.

Hence my concern about Ayers has been very slow in developing. The mainstream media should have fully explored the subject early this year and not allowed it to simmer and boil until it flared up ferociously in the last month of the campaign. Obama may not in recent years have been “pallin’ around” with Ayers, in Sarah Palin’s memorable line, but his past connections with Ayers do seem to have been more frequent and substantive than he has claimed. Blame for the failure of this issue to take hold must also accrue to the conservative talk shows, which use the scare term “radical” with simplistic sensationalism, blanketing everyone under the sun from scraggly ex-hippies to lipstick-chic Nancy Pelosi.

Pursuing the truth about Ayers, I recently rented the 2002 documentary “The Weather Underground,” from Netflix. It was riveting. Although the film seems to waver between ominous exposé and blatant whitewash, the full extent of the group’s bombing campaign is dramatically demonstrated. It’s not for everyone: The film uses gratuitous cutaways of horrifying carnage, from the Vietnam War to the Manson murders (such as Sharon Tate’s smiling corpse, bathed in blood). But the news footage of the Greenwich Village townhouse destroyed in 1970 by bomb-making gone wrong in the basement still has enormous impact. Standing in the chaotic street, actor Dustin Hoffman, who lived next door, seems like Everyman at the apocalypse.

Ayers comes off in the film as a vapid, slightly dopey, chronic juvenile with stunted powers of ethical reasoning. The real revelation is his wife, Bernardine Dohrn (who evidently worked at the same large Chicago law firm as Michelle Obama in the mid-1990s). Of course I had heard of Dohrn — hers was one of the most notorious names of our baby-boom generation — and I knew her black-and-white police mug shot. But I had never seen footage of her speaking or interacting with others. Well, it’s pretty obvious who wears the pants in that family!

The mystery of Bernardine Dohrn: How could such a personable, attractive, well-educated young woman end up saying such things at a 1969 political rally as this (omitted in the film) about the Manson murders: “Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach. Wild!” And how could Dohrn have so ruthlessly pursued a decade-long crusade of hatred and terrorism against innocent American citizens and both private and public property?

“The Weather Underground” never searches for answers, but it does show Dohrn, then and now, as a poised, articulate woman of extremely high intelligence and surprising inwardness. The audio extra of her reading the collective’s first public communiqué (“Revolutionary violence is the only way”) is chilling. But the tumultuous footage of her 1980 surrender to federal authorities is a knockout. Mesmerized, I ran the clip six or seven times of her seated at a lawyer’s table while reading her still defiant statement. The sober scene — with Dohrn hyper-alert in a handsome turtleneck and tweedy jacket — was tailor-made for Jane Fonda in her “Klute” period, androgynous shag. Only illegalities by federal investigators prevented Dohrn from being put away on ice for a long, long time.

Given that Obama had served on a Chicago board with Ayers and approved funding of a leftist educational project sponsored by Ayers, one might think that the unrepentant Ayers-Dohrn couple might be of some interest to the national media. But no, reporters have been too busy playing mini-badminton with every random spitball about Sarah Palin, who has been subjected to an atrocious and at times delusional level of defamation merely because she has the temerity to hold pro-life views.

How dare Palin not embrace abortion as the ultimate civilized ideal of modern culture? How tacky that she speaks in a vivacious regional accent indistinguishable from that of Western Canada! How risible that she graduated from the State University of Idaho and not one of those plush, pampered commodes of received opinion whose graduates, in their rush to believe the worst about her, have demonstrated that, when it comes to sifting evidence, they don’t know their asses from their elbows.

Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during this sorry episode will not so easily go back into its bottle. A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology — contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. One would have to look back to the Eisenhower 1950s for parallels to this grotesque lock-step parade of bourgeois provincialism, shallow groupthink and blind prejudice.

I like Sarah Palin, and I’ve heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is — and quite frankly, I think the people who don’t see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn’t speak the King’s English — big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns — that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.

As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee — what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry’s nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama’s pick and who was on everyone’s short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin’s. Whatever knowledge deficit Palin has about the federal bureaucracy or international affairs (outside the normal purview of governors) will hopefully be remedied during the next eight years of the Obama presidencies.

The U.S. Senate as a career option? What a claustrophobic, nitpicking comedown for an energetic Alaskan — nothing but droning committees and incestuous back-scratching. No, Sarah Palin should stick to her governorship and just hit the rubber-chicken circuit, as Richard Nixon did in his long haul back from political limbo following his California gubernatorial defeat in 1962. Step by step, the mainstream media will come around, wipe its own mud out of its eyes, and see Palin for the populist phenomenon that she is.

On the culture front, I was startled to read of the death last week of Yma Sumac, the virtuoso five-octave Peruvian singer who seems like a legendary figure of the misty past. Sumac’s 1950 debut album, “Voice of the Xtabay,” made a tremendous impact on me as a child. My family attended her performance (with her company of 20 artists) at the Binghamton Theatre in what was probably 1951. I still have the yellowed clippings and program, which lists songs eerily mimicking the sound of the Andean winds and earthquakes. The cover image of “Voice of the Xtabay” with a glamorous Sumac in the pose of a prophesying priestess against a background of fierce sculptures and an erupting volcano, contains the entire pagan worldview and nature cult of what would become my first book, “Sexual Personae,” published 40 years later. Thank you, Yma!

News items: My article “Final Cut: The Selection Process for ‘Break, Blow, Burn’” has just been published in the Fall 2008 issue of Arion at Boston University. It is available online at Arion or via that invaluable international site, Arts & Letters Daily. No more Mr. Nice Guy: I’ve taken the gloves off against John Ashbery, Jorie Graham and the rest of that insufferably pretentious crowd. For real English used in a vital, vigorous contemporary way, see the new book of poems by my colleague Jack DeWitt, “Almost Grown,” which deals with cars, gals and brawls — American culture at its finest!

My keynote lecture for the Theodore Roethke Centenary Conference, held at the University of Michigan last month, has gone to press for the forthcoming issue of the Michigan Quarterly Review. The lecture is called “Dance of the Senses: Natural Vision and Psychotic Mysticism in Theodore Roethke.” One of my main points: I’m sick of the insipid bourgeois neuroticism in current, careerist American poetry. Bring back the psychotics!