Cardinal George to Rahm Emanuel: "Could Jesus be accepted as a Chicagoan?" [updated]

Cardinal George has written an excellent response to Mayor Emanuel and his "Chicago values." A few excerpts:

I was born and raised here, and my understanding of being a Chicagoan never included submitting my value system to the government for approval. Must those whose personal values do not conform to those of the government of the day move from the city? Is the City Council going to set up a “Council Committee on Un-Chicagoan Activities” and call those of us who are suspect to appear before it? I would have argued a few days ago that I believe such a move is, if I can borrow a phrase, “un-Chicagoan.”

And this:

Was Jesus a bigot? Could Jesus be accepted as a Chicagoan? Would Jesus be more “enlightened” if he had the privilege of living in our society? 

Some historical perspective, as in, what everyone believed from the dawn of time until the day before yesterday:

The value in question is espousal of “gender-free marriage.” Approval of state-sponsored homosexual unions has very quickly become a litmus test for bigotry; and espousing the understanding of marriage that has prevailed among all peoples throughout human history is now, supposedly, outside the American consensus. Are Americans so exceptional that we are free to define “marriage” (or other institutions we did not invent) at will? What are we re-defining?

A little Marriage 101:

It might be good to put aside any religious teaching and any state laws and start from scratch, from nature itself, when talking about marriage. Marriage existed before Christ called together his first disciples two thousand years ago and well before the United States of America was formed two hundred and thirty six years ago. Neither Church nor state invented marriage, and neither can change its nature.

Marriage exists because human nature comes in two complementary sexes: male and female. The sexual union of a man and woman is called the marital act because the two become physically one in a way that is impossible between two men or two women. Whatever a homosexual union might be or represent, it is not physically marital. Gender is inextricably bound up with physical sexual identity; and “gender-free marriage” is a contradiction in terms, like a square circle.

Read the whole thing:

Reflections on “Chicago values”

Recent comments by those who administer our city seem to assume that the city government can decide for everyone what are the “values” that must be held by citizens of Chicago. I was born and raised here, and my understanding of being a Chicagoan never included submitting my value system to the government for approval. Must those whose personal values do not conform to those of the government of the day move from the city? Is the City Council going to set up a “Council Committee on Un-Chicagoan Activities” and call those of us who are suspect to appear before it? I would have argued a few days ago that I believe such a move is, if I can borrow a phrase, “un-Chicagoan.”

The value in question is espousal of “gender-free marriage.” Approval of state-sponsored homosexual unions has very quickly become a litmus test for bigotry; and espousing the understanding of marriage that has prevailed among all peoples throughout human history is now, supposedly, outside the American consensus. Are Americans so exceptional that we are free to define “marriage” (or other institutions we did not invent) at will? What are we re-defining?

It might be good to put aside any religious teaching and any state laws and start from scratch, from nature itself, when talking about marriage. Marriage existed before Christ called together his first disciples two thousand years ago and well before the United States of America was formed two hundred and thirty six years ago. Neither Church nor state invented marriage, and neither can change its nature.

Marriage exists because human nature comes in two complementary sexes: male and female. The sexual union of a man and woman is called the marital act because the two become physically one in a way that is impossible between two men or two women. Whatever a homosexual union might be or represent, it is not physically marital. Gender is inextricably bound up with physical sexual identity; and “gender-free marriage” is a contradiction in terms, like a square circle.

Both Church and state do, however, have an interest in regulating marriage. It is not that religious marriage is private and civil marriage public; rather, marriage is a public institution in both Church and state. The state regulates marriage to assure stability in society and for the proper protection and raising of the next generation of citizens. The state has a vested interest in knowing who is married and who is not and in fostering good marriages and strong families for the sake of society.

The Church, because Jesus raised the marital union to the level of symbolizing his own union with his Body the Church, has an interest in determining which marital unions are sacramental and which are not. The Church sees married life as a path to sanctity and as the means for raising children in the faith, as citizens of the universal kingdom of God. These are all legitimate interests of both Church and state, but they assume and do not create the nature of marriage.

People who are not Christian or religious at all take for granted that marriage is the union of a man and a woman for the sake of family and, of its nature, for life. The laws of civilizations much older than ours assume this understanding of marriage. This is also what religious leaders of almost all faiths have taught throughout the ages. Jesus affirmed this understanding of marriage when he spoke of “two becoming one flesh” (Mt. 19: 4-6). Was Jesus a bigot? Could Jesus be accepted as a Chicagoan? Would Jesus be more “enlightened” if he had the privilege of living in our society? One is welcome to believe that, of course; but it should not become the official state religion, at least not in a land that still fancies itself free. Surely there must be a way to properly respect people who are gay or lesbian without using civil law to undermine the nature of marriage.

Surely we can find a way not to play off newly invented individual rights to “marriage” against constitutionally protected freedom of religious belief and religious practice. The State’s attempting to redefine marriage has become a defining moment not for marriage, which is what it is, but for our increasingly fragile “civil union” as citizens.

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago

Chaser from Ed Morrissey: It's fascism.
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See also Mark Steyn: The Committee on Un-Chicagoan Activities 
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Linked by Michelle Malkin -- thanks!
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Update: Another Chicago religious leader heard from:

Do not disrespect us...We, too, are Chicago," the Rev. Charles Lyons of the Armitage Baptist Church thundered from the pulpit Sunday.

"If the thought police come to Armitage Baptist Church, we will meet them at the door respectfully, unflinchingly, willing to die on this hill, holding a copy of the Sacred Scriptures in one hand and a copy of the U.S. Constitution in the other," Lyons said in the sermon.

Amen to that.
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Linked at Pewsitter -- thanks!
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Linked at CMR -- thanks!
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Bloomberg's nag offensive

It's a fun story, I guess, because it involves government intrusion and women's breasts. But Nanny Bloomberg's Latch On NYC breastfeeding initiative isn't quite the equivalent of a large-sized soda or trans-fats ban. It's more a social engineering effort to nudge more new NYC mothers (and nurses, who aren't necessarily on board with breastfeeding) away from formula and toward breastfeeding.

Some of the provisions aren't bad at all -- like getting formula advertising out of hospitals, or enforcing an existing regulation not to give formula to breastfeeding babies without a medical reason (this can undermine breastfeeding) -- but then there's this part:

With each bottle a mother requests and receives, she’ll also get a talking-to. Staffers will explain why she should offer the breast instead.

Each bottle will trigger a "lecture" from the nurse. Or at least that's the plan. See below for how it will most likely work.

I'm a former LLL group leader and support breastfeeding because it's indisputably the best thing for the baby (and the mother, too). But like the course of true love, it doesn't always run smooth. Sometimes things go wrong and women don't get the timely, effective help they need. Other mothers don't want to breastfeed. Some even find it creepy. (Sad but true.) Thing is, it's up to them.

And people don't like to be nagged. Here are a few selections from a discussion at Urban Baby:

How annoying. I couldn't stand having the La Leche women in my room every 30 mons [sic] when I clearly stated I was formula feeding. My DH finally had to get aggressive.

Oh dear.

This is disgusting, who does he think he is?!

Enough of Bloomberg! It's past time for him to go.

The program is voluntary, but --

It's called baby friendly initiative and it's tied to funding.

Some people don't mind the means because they agree with the ends:

About time someone did it. Never cared for Bloomberg but he has done some good by the anti-smoking bans and now this

A little annoying, but then again he's right.

The our-bodies-ourselves objection:

This is harassment in my opinion. Why are least qualified people in the world - men - always telling women what to do with our bodies?

Because men rule the world and women let them. Of course, formula is CRAP by the way.

:)

No "free" formula from the NHS:

In England moms have to buy formula out of a vending machine if they want it and it's nit [sic] medically necessary.

I breastfed both of my DCs but that's my business not Bloombergs.

Exactly. But he thinks everything is his business.

I guzzle 20 oz coca-cola and breastfeed my 4mo.

Heh. 

What will really happen:

Don't worry, 50 years of brainwashing of hospital staff by formula companies will not be dismantled. They'll give the breast speech, and then give formula.

So true. They shoved formula and all the accessories at me when I was in the hospital. They are getting paid. I breastfed but they still offered this crap.

The nurses won't have time for that. It will likely be a quick mention regarding breatmilk being better, not a full on lecture. I got that anyway when I delivered last fall, so nothing really new.

Or they could hand you a piece of paper and you could initial it. They just need a document in the chart.

Miscellaneous:

I had issues with nurses and hospital policies around BF'ing after all 3 of my DC were born. Even if you have a healthy, full-term DB, if you have even the tiniest complication or there is any inconvenience to the nursing staff, it's amazing how quickly all the lip-service around being BF'ing friendly goes away.

Enough of this ban-happy mayor. Goodbye, Bloomie!

Good for him.

I presume there will be follow-up legislation mandating paid leave and prohibiting penalizing mothers for pumping at work....

I think this is great--one of the good things he has done though the nurses shouldn't get pushy with it

This is horrifying, and I'm a proponent of BF'ing. It's somewhat akin to legislating that fruit may not be given to toddlers until mom can document that spinach and zucchini have been served first. Yet another man who wants to control a woman's body.

I'm fine with not giving away free formula just because, if that's all that this is, but any attempt to browbeat a woman into breastfeeding doesn't sit well with me.

Next target: your epidural!

I'm waiting for the next logical step - some studies have shown that epidurals are linked to a newborn's reduced ability to latch on. So hell, since an epidural is ultimately for mom's comfort and millions of women give birth around the world every day without them, why don't we outlaw those, too, and just gas mom into unconsciousness if an emergency C is needed? Surely, mom can tough it out so breastfeeding is assured. One more man who wants to control women's bodies.

Sad but true, men love to legislate women into submission. Always been the case (I breastfed by the way). Religion is a prime example.

Um . . . huh?

Anyway, she is woman, hear her roar. More here.

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Nannies and circuses

George Weigel's take on Friday's Olympics spectacle:

For that’s what these multi-hour theatrical extravaganzas have become: a kind of ersatz liturgy of the in vitro World Community, in which film directors (such as Britain’s Danny Boyle) take the role once played by the monks and canons who designed public worship centuries ago. And as such things go, London’s secularized Olympic liturgy on the night of July 27 was perhaps slightly less offensive than others in the same genre. Boyle unabashedly anchored the show/liturgy in history, meaning British history, rather than in the Gnostic and pagan fantasies that have become the Olympic norm. But it does tell you something about what Evelyn Waugh would have called “decline and fall” when the British National Health Service is proposed for global worship as a kind of sacrament, when Paul McCartney (sorry, Sir Paul McCartney) replaces Ralph Vaughan Williams as liturgical hymnwriter, and when H.M. the Queen, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, is reduced to a bit player in a knock-off of the Bond movies. 

That explains the feeling we get while watching that we're supposed to find it all deeply significant, and the perfectly fitting finish to the production: an endless loop of nah-nah-nah-nahs, intoned as if they had meaning.

Speaking as a naive American anglophile who lives in the past, or at least tries to, I know I'm not a member of the target audience of one billion, but I was saddened by the "frankie and june" tribute to trashy British pop culture. Is that really all there is? And it being an Olympics opening ceremony, I expected overblown circus acts, weirdness for its own sake, and pretention, but I didn't see this coming:

A tribute to the nanny-state, complete with nannies. We were dumbfounded. A few Twitter reactions:

"It would take a heart of stone not to laugh out loud at the death of British culture." Oscar Wilde on the Olympic opening
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) July 28, 2012

You will find no better example of the NHS being Britain's new state religion than what is currently happening at the Olympic ceremony.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) July 27, 2012

I second this emotion:

Please, Mr. Steyn, don't make me wait very long for your English Olympic opening column. @MarkSteynOnline
— Abe Greenwald (@AbeGreenwald) July 28, 2012

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Update to link to John Fund's Britain’s NHS: No Fun and Games.

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Update, Friday, August 3: Steyn's column (worth waiting for): 'Government Health Care, The Musical,' an infectious hit

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Conscience, coercion, and chicken

Are conservatives under-reacting to the war on Chick-fil-A? Rush thinks so:

I read about it on conservative blogs, and I can't believe what I'm reading! I'm reading intellectual treatises on, "Well, you know, they have the right to say these things, and the solution here is let Chick-Fil-A open a store in Chicago and let's see if the people will visit it." That's not the reaction to have! The reaction to have is, "Who the hell do you think you are, Rahm Emanuel? Who the hell do you think you are? What country do you think you're in?"

Now, we want to have an intellectual debate here over the First Amendment? "Well, the solution to this is to let Chick-Fil-A open a store"? Yeah, let Chick-Fil-A open a store with the mayor of Chicago threatening anybody who walks into one? Meanwhile, this company hires gays. They serve gays. They don't discriminate! It's just that the owner happens to be a publicly professed, witnessing Christian. My God, you would think that he's the worst enemy Chicago ever had and the worst enemy Boston ever had!

Thirty years ago, if this woulda happened in this country, there would have been an uprising against Menino and Rahm Emanuel -- or Daley, or whoever would have done it. Today we get intellectual debates on who's got the right to do what and say what and say this and do that and do what where. The sense of proportion is all out of whack, and there's no outrage. So, yeah, I fully understand losing institutions. We're sitting by, and we are watching, every day, the institutions and traditions that have made this country great come under assault.

Day in and day out.

And I've been making that comment for 24 years. Too much of all of this has become nothing more than an opportunity for people to show how smart they are, how open-minded they are when they debate these things. Rather than having an actual, human, real-life reaction to this, which is, "This is outrageous!" The mayor of San Francisco. What is his name? I think his last name is Lee. The mayor of San Francisco got in on this, and he warned Chick-Fil-A, "You better not come here! You had better keep out!"

I am in stunned disbelief.

Read the rest. Of course it's outrageous, but in these times it's not always easy to rise to, or maintain, the proper level of outrage. Some of us have become accustomed to Obama's lawless power-grabbing and to all the little would-be dictators across the country who've been inspired by his example. Which brings us to Mark Steyn's weekend column, The Tolerance Enforcers:

Meanwhile, fellow mayor Tom Menino announced that Chick-fil-A would not be opening in his burg anytime soon. "If they need licenses in the city, it will be very difficult," said His Honor. If you've just wandered in in the middle of the column, this guy Menino isn't the mayor of Soviet Novosibirsk or Kampong Cham under the Khmer Rouge, but of Boston, Mass. Nevertheless, he shares the commissars' view that in order to operate even a modest and politically inconsequential business it is necessary to demonstrate that one is in full ideological compliance with party orthodoxy. "There is no place for discrimination on Boston's Freedom Trail," Mayor Menino thundered in his letter to Mr. Cathy, "and no place for your company alongside it." No, sir. On Boston's Freedom Trail, you're free to march in ideological lockstep with the city authorities – or else. Hard as it is to believe, there was a time when Massachusetts was a beacon of liberty: the shot heard round the world, and all that. Now it fires Bureau of Compliance permit-rejection letters round the world.

Mayor Menino subsequently backed down and claimed the severed rooster's head left in Mr. Cathy's bed was all just a misunderstanding. Yet, when it comes to fighting homophobia on Boston's Freedom Trail, His Honor is highly selective. As the Boston Herald's Michael Graham pointed out, Menino is happy to hand out municipal licenses to groups whose most prominent figures call for gays to be put to death. The mayor couldn't have been more accommodating (including giving them $1.8 million of municipal land) of the new mosque of the Islamic Society of Boston, whose IRS returns listed as one of their seven trustees Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Like President Obama, Imam Qaradawi's position on gays is in a state of "evolution": He can't decide whether to burn them or toss 'em off a cliff. "Some say we should throw them from a high place," he told Al-Jazeera. "Some say we should burn them, and so on. There is disagreement ... . The important thing is to treat this act as a crime." Unlike the deplorable Mr. Cathy, Imam Qaradawi is admirably open-minded: There are so many ways to kill homosexuals, why restrict yourself to just one? In Mayor Menino's Boston, if you take the same view of marriage as President Obama did from 2009 to 2012, he'll run your homophobic ass out of town. But, if you want to toss those godless sodomites off the John Hancock Tower, he'll officiate at your ribbon-cutting ceremony.

It's about power. Read the rest.

In case you missed it, one family business has won a narrow victory against tyranny in the form of an injunction against Obama's HHS contraceptives mandate. Kathryn Lopez on the Newland Family Win:

Breaking: The family business that went to court in Denver asking for an injunction so they do not have to choose between their conscience and obeying the HHS contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drug mandate has been granted one.

The judge, who was appointed by President Carter and was once a deputy Peace Corps director, makes clear in his ruling that the injunction only applies to the Newlands, who, as you may recall, have a health-insurance plan year that begins in November — so the August 1 implementation date would effect their business immediately (unlike some other businesses, whose plan years begin in January or another after-the-election date).

More from Matt Bowman, who argued the case, here:

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What does the injunction mean for the Newland family?

MATTHEW BOWMAN: It means that for their 2012–13 health plan, they can continue to omit abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization consistent with their faith, and that they won’t be forced by the federal government to choose between their faith and maintaining their family business.

LOPEZ: What was most significant and instructive from the judge’s ruling?

BOWMAN: The judge observed that the government’s alleged public interests pale in comparison to the ruin the government is threatening this family business with if they want to abide by their Catholic beliefs.

LOPEZ: Should other businesses be encouraged by this? Should other entities suing HHS over the mandate?

BOWMAN: Yes. The injunction only applies to the Newlands and their business, but the principle applies to all the lawsuits: Washington bureaucrats cannot use Obamacare to force people of faith to violate their faith in order to earn a living or engage in other activities in society.

LOPEZ: Do you expect more suits?

BOWMAN: Yes, and more wins.

LOPEZ: Who else has a problem come August 1?

BOWMAN: This injunction specifically only protects the Newland family. Every religious believer is in the crosshairs of Obamacare mandates, this one beginning to impose itself starting next week.

More at the links above. Nothing Obama has done is more outrageous than his gross violation of conscience protections and religious liberty. August 1st is just a few days away. Matthew Archbold speculates on what lies ahead:

Catholic institutions and colleges will have a decision to make. Do they comply or do they refuse. I'm certain that many will simply comply. They'll throw up their hands and say, "We tried." But some will resist. Let's say a Catholic institution resists. And they just will not comply. Then the fines begin to mount. Big fines. Huge ones. But the college refuses to pay.

Then what? We'll have essentially a standoff of the bureaucratic variety. Legal complaints will fly back and forth, followed by threats from the administration, and then what? They'll probably remove any federal funding. But at some point the government will have to collect on these fines. They'll seize bank accounts. But the government at some point will have to come to the campus of the Catholic college or institution to collect assets. And one would have to believe that some Catholics will not be happy about federal authorities storming onto a campus to collect assets and essentially shut the college down. So you might just get Catholics standing in doorways or chaining themselves to entrances. And then what? You have yourself a standoff of the potentially dangerous variety.

The bishops have talked tough -- "We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law” -- but how those words will translate into actions, and what the effects of those actions will be, are unknowns. Some institutions may be destroyed, and others will probably complete their conversions from Catholic to secular. As for the hospitals, Rep. Chris Smith commented back in January on the Obama administration's intentions:

Smith said that the order is in line with the Obama administration’s attack on conscience rights to pave way for a future where “abortion will be construed as preventive health care,” and “religious hospitals will be squeezed out.”

“We will have a situation where our faith-based hospitals will be on fire sale because they cannot participate,” said Smith. “They know that the Catholic Church and other churches are not going to capitulate. So they expect them to say, ‘Well, we’re out. We’re going to have to sell the hospitals.’ The threat is very, very real.”

“There’s a coerciveness about this administration unlike any I’ve seen before,” he added.

Stay tuned.

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Update: Don Perry, VP of public relations for Chick-fil-A, has died of a heart attack. Steyn:

The forces of tolerance respond accordingly.

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One more: See Rick Santorum on the absolute intolerance of the Left.

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Many thanks to Mark Steyn for linking here: Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?

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Birthday Boy in Chief

By Katrina Trinko's count, this is the eighth Obama campaign "birthday" email in a fortnight. Michelle, Joey B., and even Nancy Pelosi have been badgering the bots to get in line and send him a monetary gift. But get out your hankies for this one, folks; Dear Leader hints at the unthinkable:

My upcoming birthday next week could be the last one I celebrate as President of the United States, but that’s not up to me — it’s up to you.

This July deadline is our most urgent yet, coming after two consecutive months of being significantly outraised by Romney and the Republicans.

And if you pitch in $3 or whatever you can before midnight tonight, you and a guest will be automatically entered to join me at my birthday get-together next month:

https://donate.barackobama.com/My-Birthday

Thanks. Hope I’ll see you soon.

- Barack

Flashback to Obama's first birthday in the White House, which featured the most unappetizing cake ever:

In 2010, Barry's special day turned into a celebrity birthday weekend:

President Obama shot hoops Sunday with some NBA superstars, a combination late birthday present and a showcase for some wounded warriors and participants in the White House mentoring project . . . Obama, who marked his 49th birthday in Chicago on Wednesday at a dinner that included Oprah Winfrey, was set for yet another celebration today at the White House — a barbecue with family, friends and staff.

And last year, to commemorate his 50th, we were urged to scare up fifty "friends" and host our own Dear Leader birthday bashes:

While Obama-bots across the country were trying to whoop it up in their little pointy party hats, our Man of the People was hosting a deluxe, private celebrity bash at the White House. ObamaFoodorama had all the glitzy details:

Stevie Wonder gave a "surprise" performance during the celebration after dining with the President and First Lady Obama, and he also led the crowd in a soulful rendition of "Happy Birthday" (Wonder's hit "You and I" was the President and Mrs. Obama's wedding song). Guests included Jay-Z; Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson; Chris Rock; hoops legends Charles Barkley and Grant Hill; Whoopi Goldberg; Dallas Cowboys Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith; Steve Harvey; and actor Hill Harper. He's one of the President's closest chums from Harvard law school, and star of CSI: NY.

Jazz great Herbie Hancock and his ensemble played four songs, as first reported here; R&B singer Ledisi dazzled the crowd with two selections.

There was "not a tie in sight" for the birthday dinner, according to one guest; men wore light summer-weight button downs and trousers, and women were attired in summer dresses--many taking their fashion cue from Mrs. Obama, and going sleeveless.

When dinner was done, DJ Cassidy spun dance tunes in the East Room--"like at a Bar Mitzvah," said one guest. The priceless rug was rolled back and the chairs pushed aside so guests could dance, led by the President and Mrs. Obama.

"'I'm going to challenge you all to dance,' the President said, and everyone did," said the guest.

That's when everyone's shoes came off, and things kicked into high gear with the barefoot jammin'--the President himself reportedly danced for three full hours. Among other dances, guests did the Electric Slide, which impressed Chris Rock so much he tweeted about it:

"Just left the Presidents birthday party at the White House. Herbie Hancock played, Stevie Wonder sang and yes they did the electric slide. A great night." Rock wrote (sic).

The President also led a huge Conga line around the East Room, pulling in everyone in his path, according to one observer.

"He was chill, and like, 'how you doin, man? Come dance!,'" reported one attendee. "He put everyone at ease." [. . .]

The politically unfortunate optics of throwing a big 50th birthday party for President Obama when his poll numbers are dropping as fast as the stock market were not lost on the White House, so the President's shindig was not listed on his official Thursday schedule, and it was closed to press. But the big Five-Oh only comes around once, and the party was a long one--guests were still straggling out of the White House after midnight, with a number of the women guests spotted carrying their shoes, thanks to all the dancing.

Yes, the stock market's electric slide was awkwardly timed. But it didnt cramp anyone's style.

Can we get Mitt Romney to sign a No Conga Lines pledge?

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Ad: "You didn't build that," context included

This lethal ad was built by the Romney campaign but they couldn't have done it without a lot of help. Thanks, Mr. President!



Pass it on.

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Obama plays defense with dishonest campaign ad

As usual, the president doesn't display much respect for the intelligence or even the sanity of the voters. In a contest between him and our lying ears, he expects to win. Below he tells us he said something he didn't and denies he said something he did:



"Those ads taking my words about small business out of context, they're flat out wrong. . . . and what I said was that we need to stand behind them as America always has, by investing in" blah blah blah.

Missed the part about standing behind small business people? Me, too. Here's what he really said, complete with context:



Alana Goodman calls the ad Obama's "I'm Not a Witch" Moment
and asks:

If it was taken out of context, why doesn’t Obama’s ad just include it in context?

Because the context backs it up and makes it worse. Sorry, O-bots.

See also Jim Geraghty: Panic in Team Obama?

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Linked by Larwyn -- thanks!
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Michael Mann to sue NR over Steyn post [updated]

I wrote this last night, so it's not quite up to date:

Breaking from SteynOnline:

Michael Mann, the professor who created the climate-change "hockey stick", announced over the weekend his intention to sue National Review over Mark's Corner post "Football and Hockey".

You can see the letter from Professor Mann's lawyer here.

You can see various reactions here, here, here, here and here.

Go read the post and come back. One thing that seems to have slipped Mann's notice is that the worst of the Corner post (in my opinion) was material quoted from another source, Rand Simberg. Mark didn't care to go there. And neither did Simberg's editor, who has since removed the Sandusky molestation comparison. The part in question now reads:

I’m referring to another cover up and whitewash that occurred there two years ago, before we learned how rotten and corrupt the culture at the university was. But now that we know how bad it was, perhaps it’s time that we revisit the Michael Mann affair, particularly given how much we’ve also learned about his and others’ hockey-stick deceptions since.

The next sentence, about Mann being "the Sandusky of climate science," etc., is gone, with this note at the end:

*Two inappropriate sentences that originally appeared in this post have been removed by the editor.

Simberg doesn't seem worried about a lawsuit. In response to a reader comment:

I have no doubt you will be issuing a retraction and an apology very soon when you get a letter.

I seriously doubt I’ll get one, but I’ll be quite entertained if I do. As I told Politico, it’s just a bluff. The last thing that Mann wants to do is go under oath with a discovery process.

Jay Currie is also quite entertained:

“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.”

Joy, joy, happy happy! I’ve always thought Mann was a tone-deaf idiot but never in my wildest dreams did I think he’d be dumb enough to sue, or even threaten to sue, a guy as bright as Steyn.

And, on balance, I rather suspect that Mann has absolutely no clue just how clever Mark actually is. We Canadians have had a ring side seat to Mark destroying the whole edifice of “speech regulation” in Canada. He didn’t just win, he and a few other people are directly responsible for the repeal of Canada’s anti-free speech laws.

But the best part is that Mark is wickedly funny. As we have learned, the “climate concerned community” has no sense of humour at all. Long before this goes to Court (as if) Mark will have a jolly excuse to make fun of Mikey.

It will not be pretty. But, Dear Lord, it will be fun.

Sue Mikey, sue!

Fun, maybe, for us spectators, but it couldn't be all that diverting for the parties involved, as it drains away their time, energy, and financial resources. Mark Steyn has much better things to do. Here's hoping Mann smartens up and drops the idea.

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Update Tuesday morning: Rand Simberg replies to questions. Excerpt:

Interestingly, he seems much more upset about the accusations of scientific fraud than about the Sandusky comparison (the latter is almost an afterthought in the lawyer’s letter). But does he really want to litigate the hockey stick in a court of law? Does he in fact want to dig into any of his unscientific behavior in a venue in which he will be under oath, and he won’t have sympathetic colleagues covering for him? Does he really want those emails to be read aloud in court? And has he talked to the University of Virginia? Even if they continue to fight the FOIA, how will they fight a subpoena for the missing emails in a civil lawsuit?

I can't believe Mann will go through with it.

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On second thought, Mark's free speech lawsuit gave birth, in a way, to Marshmallow World. So part of me is cheering this on in hopes of another musical breakthrough. I'm thinking video this time, something along these lines.

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Safe and legal: Young woman bleeds out at Chicago PP clinic

Thank goodness those rusty-hanger-wielding back-alley abortionists have been put out of business by the Supreme Court. Now, beautiful young women in the prime of life can bleed out in a legal, government-subsidized institution assisted by selfless servants of womankind:

A young woman has died after having a second-trimester abortion at a Chicago-area Planned Parenthood clinic. Tonya Reaves, 24, died late Friday night, according to a local CBS television station, of hemorrhage, with a cervical dilation and evacuation, according to the medical examiner’s office following an autopsy after the abortion that claimed her life.

CBS Chicago said Reaves died after the abortion she had at 18 S. Michigan Avenue Planned Parenthood facility. The woman was transported from the Loop Health Center Planned Parenthood abortion clinic to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where she was pronounced dead at 11:20 P.M.

An autopsy conducted Saturday determined that she died from hemorrhage following a Dilation and Evacuation abortion. The D&E abortion method is one employed in pregnancies that have advanced beyond the first trimester. In involves opening the cervix and removing the pre-born baby by dismembering him or her. The Loop Health Center Planned Parenthood advertises abortions up to 18 weeks.

End result: Child chopped into bits, young mother dead. This is empowerment? Read the rest.

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Many thanks to Pew Sitter and Doug Ross for linking.

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How he gets away with it

Accountability? Not gonna happen except by voting him out. Here's Andy McCarthy on President Obama's lawlessness and how he gets away with it. Following a few paragraphs enumerating the president's various offenses, McCarthy writes:

I could go on, but you get the point. Now, the Constitution provides Congress with powers to rein in a lawless president. Congress can cut off funding to the executive branch. It can impeach if the lawlessness is serious enough.

The current Congress, however, has partisan Democrats running the Senate. They just encourage Obama’s skirting of the law because they agree with his policies. The House, on the other hand, is run by Republicans, but they are afraid to use their “power of the purse” to pressure the White House into lawful behavior. The Constitution requires all revenue bills to originate in the House, a requirement the House has traditionally construed to extend to all spending bills. Republican leadership would have you believe that out-of-control government spending is on autopilot. GOP leaders want you to think that, when an executive agency like the Justice Department goes rogue, they are simply powerless to start slashing its budget. But the spending and the taxes necessary to support executive malfeasance can happen only with the House’s complicity. Lawmakers have the power to stop this stuff, they just lack the will.

In short, President Obama has sized up Capitol Hill and knows full well that he is not going to be reined in. The welfare-law “waivers” are only the latest result. Unless you are dealing with a person who feels a moral obligation to conduct himself lawfully, the rule of law obtains only when it is demonstrated that lawlessness will not be tolerated. That is not the case here.

Operative words: "Complicity" and "they lack the will." No wonder people, especially young people, become cynical and drop out of the political process altogether. But disengagement, ignorance, hopelessness, and apathy only serve to make government even less accountable. I don't know the cure for those ills, except to remind people of this truth, repeated recently by John Hinderaker:

You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. 

The election in November will tell us whether enough of us have the will to fight back or whether we've reached the point of no return.

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Music break: I Won't Dance

Ooh la la.

But what about Sinatra, you ask? Here's my favorite version, and here's a live performance in which, unfortunately, he takes the song too literally and does not dance. I think the audience would have loved it if he had.

About the song:

"I Won't Dance" is a song composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach, for the 1934 London musical Three Sisters. However, Three Sisters flopped and was quickly forgotten, so when the time came to film the Kern-Harbach musical Roberta, the song was interpolated into the film. It became such a hit that it is now included in all stage revivals and recordings of Roberta.

For the RKO film Roberta (1935), Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh changed the lyrics of the song, only keeping the title, which Hammerstein originated. It is the Fields and McHugh lyrics which are best known today.

Another song written by Fields and McHugh is "Don't Blame Me." Very nice.

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What Obama has built

Let's see. There are all the wonderful things he accomplished as a community organizer in the 80's, work he continued as an Illinois state senator a decade later:

As a US Senator, he accomplished, uh, . . . .

As president, he built this:

 And of course this, which really took some doing:

(Graphic courtesy of an anonymous reader.)

Summing it up, Mark Steyn: Obama builds roadblocks, not roads:

Instead of roads and bridges, Obama-sized government funds stasis and sclerosis: The Hoover Dam of regulatory obstruction, the Golden Gateway to dependency. Last month, 80,000 Americans signed on to new jobs, but 85,000 Americans signed on for Social Security disability checks. Most of these people are not “disabled” as that term is generally understood. Rather, it’s the U.S. economy that’s disabled, and thus Obama incentivizes dependency. What Big Government is doing to those 85,000 “disabled” is profoundly wicked. Let me quote a guy called Mark Steyn, from his last book:

The evil of such a system is not the waste of money but the waste of people. Tony Blair’s ministry discovered it was politically helpful to reclassify a chunk of the unemployed as “disabled”. A fit, able-bodied 40-year old who has been on disability allowance for a decade understands somewhere at the back of his mind that he is living a lie, and that not just the government but his family and his friends are colluding in that lie.

Millions of Americans have looked at the road ahead, and figured it goes nowhere. Best to pull off into the Social Security parking lot. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. As the president would say, you didn’t build the express check-in to the Disability Office. Government built it, and, because they built it, you came.

Read the rest. (Here's the NR version if you prefer that.)

A couple of related P-and-P posts:
Disabled Nation: Dependent and lovin' it
"Where the hell are our new Golden Gates?"

Chaser: Michael Walsh's Bam’s brave new world: Behind ‘you didn’t build that’

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Linked at BadBlue -- thank you!

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Mass shooting in Colorado movie theater [updated]

The alleged killer is in custody and time may tell what kind of pathology motivated the massacre (not that it matters). Early reports are that he tossed a smoke bomb tear gas cannisters into the theater before opening fire during a scene featuring shooting. The terror and confusion inside the theater were beyond what we can imagine.

We'll probably learn there were numerous warning signs, mostly ignored, that he was dangerously deranged. That's how it usually goes. Please pray for the victims and families.

For frequent updates see @passantino on Twitter. According to him, the youngest person to be wounded is a 3 month-old baby who is doing fine, and the death toll has been lowered to 12.

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More via John Hayward:

Update: It’s second hand information, but NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, reportedly close to the Aurora, Colorado chief of police, says the killer “had his hair painted red” and “said he was the Joker” at the time of the attack. Kelly also promised increased police coverage of theaters playing The Dark Knight Rises in New York City, to prevent copycat crimes.

Update: Sad news, as the Fox News affiliate in Denver confirms that a 7-year old child is counted among the dead. They also report some more details about the killer, James Holmes, who was a student of “some form of neuroscience” at the University of Colorado – Denver medical campus from the fall of 2011 through this past June, when he withdrew. He moved to Colorado from San Diego to work on his PhD.

More at the link.

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Mad Mitt

Who knew he had it in him? Romney gives a couple of powerful speeches in response to Obama's "you didn't build that" remark. A bit:

I don't think anyone could have said what he said who had actually started a business or been in a business. And my own view is that what the president said was both startling and revealing. I find it extraordinary that a philosophy of that nature would be spoken by a president of the United States. It goes to something I've spoken about from the beginning of the campaign, that this election is to a great degree about the soul of America. Do we believe in an America that is great because of government, or do we believe in an America that's great because of free people allowed to pursue their dreams and build their future?

Another excerpt via Power Line:

President Obama’s insult of business owners was shockingly revealing, insulting and dismissive America’s entrepreneurs. In a world where “somebody else” – government – builds businesses and creates prosperity, it makes sense to raise taxes on small business owners and create more and more layers of bureaucracy to manage the economy. I understand that we need to unleash the private sector and encourage small business owners, not punish them with higher taxes and burdensome regulations. This is the difference between a bottom-up economy driven by the innovative spirit of America and a top-down economy driven by the government.

What made President Obama’s comments so insightful is that they reflect the policies he’s pursued in office – policies that reward people for who they know, not what they know. While he gave taxpayer money and special carve-outs to friends, donors, supporters, and special interest groups, the middle class has been working harder for less. This has to end, and it will when I am president.

And this:

We have a jobs crisis in this country, a real emergency. Yet President Obama seems to have just given up on the economy. He hasn’t convened a meeting with his jobs council in six months, but has held more than a hundred fundraisers for his campaign. The only job he is interested in saving is his own.

Rush: Mitt Gets Mad and Makes a Great Speech

You know, folks, I think this actually made Romney mad! I actually think that what Obama said finally ticked Romney off. I think Romney now has realized Obama is not a nice guy who's just befuddled and wrong. That was Romney's prior description of Obama: "He's a nice guy, just doesn't know what he's doing." I think this really got to Romney. 

John Podhoretz, on Twitter:

Totally loose Romney working off the crowd's signs now. Never thought I'd see the day.

And on Commentary: Romney Should Send Obama a Fruit Basket

Romney has done something you hear people talk about theoretically but which doesn’t often happen—he has found his voice as a presidential candidate. And it’s all due to Barack Obama. I hope a fruit basket is on the way to the White House. It would only be polite.

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"Where the hell are our new Golden Gates?"

Speaking of where did all the stimulus money go, husband passed along this piece from Reason's Matt Welch on where it did not go: Obama's Shaggy Dog Story About the Golden Gate Bridge:

. . . the conservative commentator Thomas Purcell asserted last November (Obama having been playing the Golden Gate card for a while now), "it was the 'One Percenters', as is the term coined of the rich and powerful these days, that built the Golden Gate, not government. More importantly, it was government that posed more obstacles for the building of the bridge than any other entity and if the Department of Defense had their way it never would have been built at all." [. . .]

My biggest problem with the Golden Gate metaphor isn't necessarily the federal vs. state/private distinction, it's that government spending at any level is being confused for the construction of gorgeous, useful bridges. That $35 million during the Depression is worth around $530 million today, or far less than 1 percent of Obama's stimulus package. So, where the hell are our new Golden Gates? What, exactly, has been the return on all this added "investment"?

Government, from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol, has gotten exponentially more expensive while delivering a fraction of the results. Every dollar that governments spend on every level gets inflated by contracting rules, social engineering, environmental aspirations, and sops to public sector unions. That's the vision that Obama–like so many other politicians–is, through his deeds, carrying forward.

Click (especially if your name is Barack) to read Purcell's instructive tale of who built the Bridge and who put up roadblocks.

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President Winger

Just because Donald Trump wants the answer doesn't necessarily make it a stupid question. Greg Pollowitz has raised an interesting point about Obama's shrouded college records:

The number of transfer students that Columbia College accepts each year is small. The reason is Columbia’s Core Curriculum, required classes that usually take up much of freshman and sophomore years. If you’re a transfer student, you have to figure out how to fit these classes into your schedule while at the same time taking classes that count toward your major.

That Obama transferred to Columbia and then was able to graduate two years later makes his situation unusual. How he accomplished this and what classes from Occidental were accepted as credit toward his degree from Columbia are questions of a sort that it is quite acceptable to ask of a candidate in a presidential campaign.

Click to see spokestool Carney's mockery when questioned about Obama's transcripts. Also see Mr. Pollowitz's post on ye olde double standard: Eugene Robinson: ‘What Is Mitt Romney Hiding?’ And check out his Twitter feed (search page for "Columbia").

I'm beginning to wonder whether Obama legitimately graduated from Columbia at all. If not, at least he's in hip company. Jeff Winger went to Columbia Colombia, too:

Winger: I'm in a bit of a jam. The Bar Association just suspended my license. Turns out my law degree was not legitimate.
Duncan: I thought you had a Bachelor's from Columbia.
Winger: Now I have to get one from America. And it can't be an e-mail attachment.

I guess sending Obama back to Greendale isn't an option?

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Edited to add one more from Mr. Pollowitz: Why Obama's Transcripts Matter

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Ad: Where did all the stimulus money go?

Watch to the end:



Hat tip: Jim Geraghty

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Update: Where those $$$ didn't go.

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Obama doesn't get America, but Sununu gets Obama

John Sununu livens things up by stating the bare truth in a conference call:

"He comes out of that murky political world in Chicago where 'politician' and 'felon' have become synonymous," Sununu said at the top of the call.

In defending the campaign's decision to not release more than two years of tax returns, Sununu also provided the kind of aggressive counterpunch that conservatives have been calling on the Romney campaign to throw for weeks, comparing the Democratic and media calls for more returns to be released to the movie "The Neverending Story."

Asked to respond to a new Obama campaign's ad which suggests Romney might not have paid taxes late in his Bain career, Sununu responded bluntly.

"It just shows how stupid the Obama campaign is," Sununu said, opining that if Romney had not paid taxes the IRS would be "knocking at his door."

The pièce de résistance:

"The president clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea how the American economy functions. The men and women all over America who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world -- it is the American way," Sununu said in his opening remarks of the conference call.

He added: "I wish this president would learn how to be an American."

Cue liberal hysteria. He later "walked it back," Washington-style, but not much. :)

Sununu nails it here, too:

"The Obama campaign has once again demonstrated that they are clearly and unequivocally a bunch of liars."

And on FOX News:

He has no idea how the American system functions and we shouldn’t be surprised about that. Because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent another set of years in Indonesia, and frankly when he came to the US he worked as a community organizer which is a socialized structure and then got into politics in Chicago. There has been no experience in his life in which he’s earned a private sector paycheck that meant anything.

Those are just facts.

The Choom Gang

More on Obama's pothead years here. This detail is so Obama:

Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted "Intercepted!," and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.

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Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link.

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A few responses to Obama's attack on business owners [updated]

ICYMI: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Charles Krauthammer:


Examiner editorial:

Only someone who has never signed the front of a paycheck could make such an ignorant comment. Government research may have helped create the Internet, but entrepreneurs made it useful and profitable. And as with most, if not all of the basic infrastructure that modern governments provide, business entrepreneurs have paid for the Internet thousands of times over through the tax revenues they created through increased sales and employment over the years.

Obama repeatedly claims his tax hike proposal will only hit 3 percent of small-business owners. To put his statement in context, the U.S. Census Bureau reports more than three-quarters of small businesses have no employees. (Example: An employed journalist who freelances for pocket money.) The 3 percent of small businesses that Obama wants to squeeze produce more than half of all small-business income and account for a hugely disproportionate share of small-business jobs.

It isn't easy to understand what it takes to create jobs while making money, but Obama has proven himself extraordinarily obtuse on the subject.

It's the obtuseness of ideology. Read the rest.

Rep. Paul Ryan:

We believe in free communities and this is a statist attack on free communities.

He’s deluded himself into thinking that his so-called enemies are these crazy individualists who believe in some dog-eat-dog society when what he’s really doing is basically attacking people like entrepreneurs and stacking up a list of scapegoats to blame for his failures.

As all of his big government spending programs fail to restore jobs and growth, he seems to be retreating into a statist vision of government direction and control of a free society that looks backward to the failed ideologies of the 20th century.

How does building roads and bridge justify Obamacare? If you like the GI Bill therefore we must go along with socialized medicine. It’s a strange leap that he takes. … To me it’s the laziest form of a debate to affix views to your opponent that they do not have so you can demonize them and defeat them and win the debate by default.

It's lazy and dishonest. Sorry, but that's the man we elected. More at the link.

See also: I Am Offended by Obama’s ‘You Didn’t Build That Business’ Comment

I don’t want a handout from the government. I want the government to get the hell out of my way so I can prosper.

Sometimes I feel like I am trying to make a difficult three point shot to win and you are the point guard in my face doing everything you can to make me miss.

It is so painfully obvious you are not on my team and not on the team of businesses.

RTR. Hat tip: Doug Ross @directorblue.

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Paco is exactly right: 

Obama is making the mistake of reasoning from the particular to the general. He, himself, is a gaudy butterfly that was nurtured in a cocoon of anti-American radicalism, and who benefited his entire adult life from the assistance of ideological mentors, bent on living out their totalitarian fantasies vicariously, and Democratic Party apparatchiks, who greased the skids for his rapid political advancement. In other words, he is largely the loving creation of his handlers, who smoothed his path and did practically everything but carry him in a sedan chair to his current residence on Pennsylvania Avenue. So, devoid as he is of genuine learning, real-world experience and the habit of critical thinking, Obama assumes that this is the way it works for everybody. He - in spite of his inherent greatness! - might still be ineffectually haranguing small groups of neighborhood malcontents had it not been for the small army of helping hands that shoved him up the career ladder; therefore, you (poor schlep!) must obviously need similar assistance –and, truth to tell, far more, because, let’s face it, he’s special and you’re just, you know, you.

That captures him perfectly. Read the rest.

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Anti-business president on the stump

Campaigning in Roanoke, Virginia, on Friday, where the Obamabots were dropping like flies, Candidate Obama "argued" (a la Elizabeth Warren) that business owners aren't responsible for their own success, that they couldn't have done it without the  government. Nice Deb has the video of our collectivist president declaring, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

"Doing things together" is Obama-speak for ever-expanding, intrusive, micro-managing, life-sucking government. Of course, he's got the government and business thing exactly backwards. Any small business that succeeds today does so in spite of the government.

I liked this part:

I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. 

He just doesn't happen to be one of them. Today's presidential schedule via Keith Koffler: two fundraisers in Cincinnati followed by a basketball game in the evening. 

(And he's not that smart, either.)

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Obama, Term 2: Even more inspiring!

Barack Obama doesn't let reality get him down, and he doesn't think we should, either. In the face of his failed policies, President Obama still considers himself an inspirational figure, one who can magically convince the benighted masses, through better "stories" and his power to "inspire," that our perception of reality is faulty:

The mistake of my first term – couple of years – was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that’s important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times. It’s funny – when I ran, everybody said, well he can give a good speech but can he actually manage the job? And in my first two years, I think the notion was, ‘Well, you know, he’s been juggling and managing a lot of stuff, but where’s the story that tells us where he’s going?’ And I think that was a legitimate criticism. And so getting out of this town and spending more time with the American people, listening to them and also then being in a conversation with them about where do we go tog as a country I need to do a better job of that in my second term.

Rose: A better job of explaining?

Obama: Yeah, well, explaining, but also inspiring.

Blaming poor "messaging" of the policies instead of the policies themselves is nothing new. But after three and a half years, with the depressing results staring us in the face, he still insists the problem is in the marketing? Even more disturbing, the man who clearly adores the sound of his own voice plans to be even "more inspiring" in his second term. On the spectrum between con man and megalomaniac, he just shifted a bit more toward the latter. What he must think of us, so dense that even his magic can't penetrate our thick skulls. He'll have to zap us with his industrial-strength inspiro-rays next time around. If there is a next time. If there isn't, we know whom he'll blame -- everyone but himself.

Back to the interview. At the end of the clip, Michelle chimes in:

Because hope is still there.

Is it? Karl Rove doesn't think so. But there's some evidence that the first lady is right:

A myth that President Obama is giving people money to pay their bills has prompted thousands of people across the country to try to pay for utilities, phone service and loans using bogus bank routing numbers. [. . .]

An aunt, Lee said, insisted that she paid her insurance and cell phone bills with one of the routing numbers she received through the grapevine.

A nephew used the system to make a car payment.

"The president didn't announce that when he was in town," Lee told them, but family members would not be dissuaded that citizens could tap into government funds to pay up to $1,000 in household bills.

"I guess because everybody needs some type of help," Lee said. "It's really bad out there."

Really bad? This lady needs a dose of Obama inspiration. Jonathan S. Tobin comments:

But the willingness to believe that Barack Obama was spreading wealth like some fairy tale king speaks to something deeper in the psyche of our political culture, or at least the subset of it that bought into the “hope and change” mantra that elevated him to the White House in 2008. This is, after all, the president who promised to personally turn back the rising oceans when he accepted the nomination of his party four years ago. The messianic expectations he sought to inspire in his supporters were bound to lead to disappointment. That is what has happened as the country sinks deeper into economic distress for which he doesn’t even pretend to have an answer as he seeks another term. But deep in the hearts of some of those who bought into the magical politics he embodied is the wish that the president will save them from the consequences of his failed policies and make it all right.

The success of this predictable scam is disheartening proof of how far some Americans have gone down the road to infantalization and dependency. Read the rest.

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Hope and Change alert: Gallup: Youth-vote enthusiasm off by 20 points from 2008

Another: His Royal Highness issues dependency-increasing edict: Obama administration guts work requirements for Clinton-era welfare reform

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Romney's NAACP speech

That Mitt Romney got booed yesterday during his speech to the NAACP shouldn't come as news to anyone. The surprising part, for me, is that he didn't pander to his audience or soften his message, but instead uttered an inconvenient truth: that President Obama's policies have made things worse for black Americans "in almost every way." The speech strikes me as a sincere appeal for black votes, as well as an appeal to conservatives like me:

If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, then a chronically bad economy would be equally bad for everyone. Instead, it’s worse for African Americans in almost every way. The unemployment rate, the duration of unemployment, average income, and median family wealth are all worse for the black community. In June, while the overall unemployment rate remained stuck at 8.2 percent, the unemployment rate for African Americans actually went up, from 13.6 percent to 14.4 percent.

Americans of every background are asking when this economy will finally recover – and you, in particular, are entitled to an answer.

If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, black families could send their sons and daughters to public schools that truly offer the hope of a better life. Instead, for generations, the African-American community has been waiting and waiting for that promise to be kept. Today, black children are 17 percent of students nationwide – but they are 42 percent of the students in our worst-performing schools.

Our society sends them into mediocre schools and expects them to perform with excellence, and that is not fair. Frederick Douglass observed that, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Yet, instead of preparing these children for life, too many schools set them up for failure. Everyone in this room knows that we owe them better than that.

The path of inequality often leads to lost opportunity. College, graduate school, and first jobs should be milestones marking the passage from childhood to adulthood. But for too many disadvantaged young people, these goals seem unattainable – and their lives take a tragic turn.

Many live in neighborhoods filled with violence and fear, and empty of opportunity. Their impatience for real change is understandable. They are entitled to feel that life in America should be better than this. They are told even now to wait for improvements in our economy and in our schools, but it seems to me that these Americans have waited long enough.

The point is that when decades of the same promises keep producing the same failures, then it’s reasonable to rethink our approach – and consider a new plan.

The boos came here:

I will eliminate expensive non-essential programs like Obamacare, and I will work to reform and save Medicare and Social Security, in part by means-testing their benefits. 

Then he went off-script and doubled down:

“I say again, if our priority is jobs, and that’s my priority, that’s something I’d change,” Romney said, referring to a study indicating that the healthcare law makes employers less likely to hire.

Kudos to Mitt for choosing principles over pandering. And for showing up, unlike Obama:

President Obama chose not to attend this year's NAACP convention because of “scheduling” issues, aides said, explaining it was not because he did not want to appear before the nation’s most respected civil rights organization.

His Royal Schedule looks pretty open to me. But Joey B's is even open-er, I guess:

This week, Vice President Joe Biden will represent the White House as the association meets in Houston.

“His commitment to the organization and the broader community is easy to see,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said of the president Wednesday afternoon.

What's "easy to see" is Obama's commitment to more welfare and dependence, one of the most tragic aspects of his historic presidency. From a 2011 post:

Imagine if Michelle Obama, instead of taking on the trumped-up childhood obesity epidemic, had chosen the broken black family as her pet issue. Mrs. Obama is in a unique position to do some real good. She's fully qualified to speak about the virtues of the intact black family, having emerged from one and created one of her own, and she has the ear and the admiration of the black community. But she and her husband rarely mention it.

Of course, the Obamas' commitment to nanny-government is a huge stumbling block to an honest treatment of the issue. Another is the political incorrectness of touting the superiority of the traditional family, though the advantages it gives to children, and thus to society, are indisputable. But kids are always left out of the equation when empowerment and liberation are the goals.

Romney talked yesterday about the critical importance of the traditional, intact family:

I’m hopeful that together we can set a new direction, starting where many of our problems do — with the family. A study from the Brookings Institution has shown that for those who graduate from high school, get a full-time job and wait until 21 before they marry and then have their first child, the probability of being poor is 2 percent. And if those factors are absent, the probability of being poor is 76 percent.

Former NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Hooks had it exactly right. The family, he said, “remains the bulwark and the mainstay of the black community. That great truth must not be overlooked.”

Any policy that lifts up and honors the family is going to be good for the country, and that must be our goal. As president, I will promote strong families — and I will defend traditional marriage.

Shades of Rick Santorum, eh?

See also: Ed Driscoll, Jennifer Rubin, and Jim Geraghty.

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Many thanks to Pew Sitter and Michelle Malkin for the links.

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Equity for the disabled: Service pigs (and more) allowed on flights

Just click. Please. I'm unable to do justice to this Daily Mail story: Pot-bellied pigs WILL fly (along with miniature horses and monkeys): Passengers to be allowed to take exotic pets on flights for 'emotional support'

Just to clarify, we're not talking about Elbonia here, but rather the United States of America:

Pot-bellied pigs, as well as miniature horses and monkeys, could be permitted to travel on planes under new Department of Transportation rules.

The guidelines are part of a draft manual on equality for disabled people travelling on commercial passenger planes.

Monkeys?! In the name of "equity for the disabled in air travel," yes. (Monkey survival tips: "Never show your teeth. To a monkey, a big toothy grin means a challenge. He will definitely attack you." Also: "Learn that whatever the situation is, never heckle a monkey. They have feelings and get irritated, and they are very instinctive. So if you anger or annoy a monkey it will bite, scratch or inflict other bodily harm upon you.")

If the manual is approved, it will be up to TSA screeners to figure out which animals are actually "service animals," which are not dangerous (I'm sure they'll excel at that), and which will ultimately ride with you in the passenger compartment:

Airline employees should enquire about how the animal aids the passenger and what training it has had.

If the employee has doubts that the animal is a service animal, they can ask for further verification or call a Complaints Resolution Official.

'Finally, if you determine that the pot-bellied pig is a service animal, you must permit the service animal to accompany the passenger to her seat provided the animal does not obstruct the aisle or present any safety issues and the animal is behaving appropriately in a public setting,' the manual adds.

Pot-bellied pigs can grow as large as 300 pounds. They can be trained to open and close doors and use a litter box.

'They seem to have a sense if the owner is not feeling well to stay by them,' said Wendy Ponzo, from the North American Potbellied Pig Association.

Ponzo, who has multiple sclerosis, added: 'They help me a great deal when I feel at my worst.'

But, of course, no 300 pound piece of porcine livestock would ever be allowed on a plane, right? Wrong:

Last November, ABC News reported that a 300-pound pot-bellied pig flew on a US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Seattle because the animal was deemed a therapeutic companion pet.

Okay. But they do draw the line at "service spiders." And snakes.

Not all animals that could help humans are allowed in the cabin, including ferrets, rodents, spiders and snakes.

 
The CNS story concludes on a depressing note:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the Department of Homeland Security prohibits many items from being carried onto airplanes, including sporting goods, liquids over 3 ounces, and snow globes. [Ed: See Mark Steyn on the snow globe menace.] The TSA has faced criticism after several incidents involving its treatment of the mentally disabled.

In June 2011, for example, at Detroit’s McNamera Terminal, the TSA confiscated a 6-inch plastic toy hammer from Drew Mandy, a severely mentally handicapped man who carried the toy for security.  Mandy, who is 29-years old but has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old, was subject to a thorough pat down by TSA agents, who then threw away the toy after they considered it to be a weapon.

They have neither common sense nor common human compassion.

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