Former Governor of Alaska and the most prominent conservative woman in America, Sarah Palin, once again succeeded in taking her left-wing enemies in the media by surprise. How, you ask? Well, not only did she have the courage to defend Arizona’s tough new immigration law on an appearance earlier today on Fox News, but she even went so far as to say that all other border states should adopt the exact same law.

That’s bad enough from a progressive perspective, of course, but there’s more: She and the Fox news host she spoke with even had the audacity to point out that Mexico’s president was hypocritical beyond belief when he criticized Arizona’s law recently while visiting the White House, because his own country’s immigration laws are, in the words of Palin’s sparring partner, “one of the toughest immigration laws in the world. If you’re a Central American trying to get a job in Mexico, good luck, you have a much better chance of getting a job as a Mexican in the United States than you would in Mexico. So the point is, it just reeks of hypocrisy here.”

“That’s exactly what I was going to say,” Palin responded. “The hypocrisy there is glaring. American laws are quite humane compared to Mexico’s immigration laws.”

Two things have to be noted here:

1. Whether you agree with her politics or not, you have to admit that Palin is one of the bravest women in America. She says what she believes, no matter how much she’s criticized for it. Not only does she seem ready to go to war with the mainstream media, I get the impression she’s even eager to do so.

2. The same goes for Fox News. This network too is more than willing to be politically incorrect and to speak the truth, no matter whether this means that it’s shunned by 90% of the nation’s journalists. That too takes courage – perhaps more than most non-media people understand, let alone appreciate. It’s never easy to be an outcast, which is exactly what Fox is. The rest of the media don’t want to have anything to do with Rupert Murdoch’s network.

Bravo, then, to both Palin and Fox News. They’re braver than most give them credit for.

Ruben, covered in blankets

Ruben, the Dutch boy who was the sole survivor of the terrible plane crash earlier this week in Tripoli, Libya, has gone back to the Netherlands. He wasn’t able to do so before today because he had to receive treatment in a Libyan hospital.

Although Ruben’s survival is absolutely miraculous, he did lose his mother, father and older brother. It seems that he will now be raised by his uncle and aunt.

Meanwhile, he is at the center of a major media scandal in the Netherlands. The country’s largest newspaper, the Telegraaf, proved that its longtime critics are right when they say that the newspaper’s editors have no sense of shame whatsoever. They had the audacity to sensationalize both the crash and Ruben’s suffering. The nine year old was hospitalized and his relatives had not yet told him that his parents and brother had died, because the shock would have been too great considering his physical weakness. The Dutch and Libyan governments tried to shelter this child from the media, most of whom showed that they actually have some morals and left him alone.

Except for the Telegraaf, that is. This newspaper secretly called with Ruben and interviewed him. The result of this conversation was, in the words of the newspaper itself, “a heartbreaking interview.” They promoted it to the best of their abilities, thinking it would help them sell a few extra copies.

Well, the fallout was tremendous. Readers have started a campaign to boycott the newspaper for its irresponsible behavior and its editors eventually felt forced to apologize for their actions.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s all too little and especially too late. You don’t exploit a young boy’s injuries and terrible loss of his parents and brother to make a quick buck. When you do, you prove that you’re beyond saving, that you’re not a journalist, but a vulture.

Let’s hope that Ruben’s aunt and uncle will be there for him and succeed in keeping the jackals from the mainstream media away. In the meantime, I’m happy that I canceled my own membership of the Telegraaf a few days before the terrible crash and the subsequent controversial interview.

American University administrators and student editors are instituting a new policy to “edit” (read: censor) ideas and viewpoints that run afoul of its politically correct, left-wing orthodoxy.

American University in Washington, D.C. is now embroiled in a huge controversy over an opinion piece written by a 20-year-old undergraduate and NewsReal Blog contributor, Alex Knepper.

Knepper’s sin? He wrote a piece questioning the left-wing feminist orthodoxy over so-called date rape. (I say so-called because rape is rape: a heinous and evil act. The “date” modifier suggests that we’re talking about something else altogether and, in fact, we often are.) This radical dogma says that women are always the victims and are always blameless. Mr. Knepper had the audacity to disagree.

Big deal. This is a legitimate argument to have and certainly a topic worthy of vigorous discussion and dispute – especially on a college campus. You would think, after all, that if there’s a place where popular orthodoxies and the conventional wisdom ought to be challenged and contested it is on a secular college campus in Washington, D.C.

But alas, you would be wrong: Because as everyone now knows — and has well know for at least the past quarter-century — the illiberal Left now dominates American colleges and universities, and it will brook no dissent. Mr. Knepper, consequently, has become a campus pariah and a politically incorrect social outcast. This because he refuses to worship at the shrine of the Left’s immaculate feminist conception.

If social ostracism and cultural pressure were all that were involved here, that would be fine, albeit regrettable. But also at issue are the First Amendment, academic freedom, and free and open intellectual inquiry, all of which are being sacrificed on the altar of left-wing feminist orthodoxy.

Indeed, American University’s student newspaper, the Eagle, actually has apologized to its readers for Mr. Knepper’s column. The Eagle also has instituted a new editorial policy designed to weed out “offensive” columns written in a style and tone that might run afoul of the left-wing thought police.

The Eagle’s editor, moreover, pressured Mr. Knepper to resign as a newspaper columnist because, she told Alex, her life had become a nightmare. The social pressure and emotional blackmail from AU’s rabid and dominant left-wing thought police had become too much for her to bear, she earnestly told him.

Mr. Knepper, to his eternal credit, refused to resign. However, he did agree not to reapply for his position as a newspaper columnist next semester. “I simply cannot morally sanction an institution that equivocates on the principles of free-reigning discussion,” he wrote at NewsBusters, the blog of the Media Research Center.

Good for Mr. Knepper, but shame on the Eagle, shame on its editor, and shame on American University. They have been profiles in intellectual cowardice and personal and institutional pusillanimity.

Indeed, they have abandoned and jettisoned essential principles of academic freedom, which are integral to the very meaning and purpose of a college or university. And they have done this not out of allegiance to any supposedly higher principle, but rather out of devotion to a intellectually shoddy dogma, left-wing feminism, which cannot survive serious-minded scrutiny.

Worse yet, American University has enforced defacto censorship by putting future Alex Knepper’s on notice: Their heresies will not be allowed, let alone sanctioned. Heretics, in fact, quite literally will be weeded out and censored so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of AU’s easily offended student body.

The legalities of this issue are largely beside the point. Sure, because AU is a private university, and because the Eagle is a private newspaper, Mr. Knepper may have no legal redress. But so what? Free speech, free and open intellectual inquiry, and the principles that under gird the First Amendment have all been trashed by AU’s social and cultural jihad against Mr. Knepper’s heretical views.

Yet, instead of manning the social and cultural barricades on behalf of free speech and the First Amendment, AU administrators instead have warned the Eagle’s editors that

they are responsible to the community for the decision they made. The community holds the editors accountable through the complaint procedures outlined in the Eagle’s constitution. We are ensuring that those procedures are being followed.

In other words, Eagle editors, you may technically have the right to publish Mr. Knepper’s noxious views, but don’t blame us when the campus thought police come after you and try to intimidate you into intellectual submission and silence. Because we, the AU administrators, we will not stand by you. We will stand by “those [complaint] procedures,” and whatever other star chamber rules and regulations we’ve set in place to deter and punish heretics.

Nor will we defend the principles that form the basis of a university. Instead, we will invite anyone offended by Mr. Knepper’s heretical views to institute a formal complaint against him (and you, his knowing editorial accomplices). This to punish you for your heresy.

This is scary and unconscionable stuff, which ought to invite howls of outrage by anyone — left, right or center — who cares about free speech, academic freedom and free and open intellectual inquiry.

But far from being outraged at the threat this all poses to First Amendment principles, the AU campus and the outside legacy media instead have focused on so-called date rape and the supposed hurt feelings of AU’s easily offended student body. Needless to say, this is not a sign of intelletual health and vitality. Quite the opposite: it is a sign of intelletual rot and decay at one of America’s top citadels of higher learning.

To stop this rot and reverse this decay, David Horowitz has mounted a spirited but lonely push for an academic bill of rights. This to protect academic freedom, which is now under whithering assault from the academic and campus Left. American University’s latest social and cultural jihad against free speech proves that Mr. Horowitz is right: An academic bill of rights is urgently needed, and perhaps now more than ever. Bring it on and stop the fascist Left.

—

John R. Guardiano is a writer and analyst in Arlington, Virginia. As a member of Phi Beta Kappa, he believes in academic freedom and in offensive speech. You can follow him on Twitter: @Guardiano

Before any liberal out there waxes indignant over my audacity to associate President Obama with communism, I have one thing to say to you: It’s not my fault that unapologetic socialists and marxists have worked tirelessly for decades to appropriate control of your political infrastructure. So, get over it. And get these wackjobs out of your political party while you’re at it.

On to the issue. A recent article in Political Affairs, which is affiliated with the Communist Party, goes on to extol what a fortuitous transitional situation we in America find ourselves in today. That is to say, the election of President Obama was a major advancement in the “struggle” (commie code word) toward the achievement of heaven on earth — i.e. the socialist utopia. Now, the Communist Party, to many, seems like a pathetic anachronism. What can dried-up hippies jonesing for their next medical marijuana ‘script really accomplish, anyway?

Forget communists. Communism is just one aspect of the larger socialist movement which, in fact, is stunningly powerful in America today. It has big money. Which means it has big organizational power, and it has ascended so high into the political stratosphere that marxist thug, SEIU bosses work closely with the President on issues completely unrelated to the union’s labor mission.

Let’s just call them “leftists” for now. What is important is regardless of their moniker, their mission is the same: “Propaganda and agitation,” as our comrades at Political Affairs explain. Organized leftists strive to foment social warfare; to pit identity groups against each other by reducing particular segments of society to mere victims, provoking their anger, legitimizing their envy and encouraging the demonization of the opposition. Thus, they continually infiltrate various interest groups — particularly minorities, but not always, such as in the case of the recent mass campus protests of very white, middle to upper class college students this spring. Leftists ride on the backs of these identity groups (and their anger) to generate support for incremental socialist policies. In this way, America’s left has acquired a “winning coalition” which helped secure Obama’s presidential victory. As the article in Public Affairs explains:

“We also know the electoral victory of the Obama Administration replacing the domination of the ultra right could only be achieved by a coalition of class and social forces…The winning coalition consisted of labor, the African American, Mexican American and other Latino peoples, Asians, Native Americans and other oppressed peoples, women, youth, LGBT community and others,”

I would add to this list the environmental movement. Poor Gaia is perhaps the original oppressed victim of capitalism. (Note: Please see DiscoverTheNetworks.org for an extensive account of the association between these groups and the far Left.)

The article goes on to say that Obama plays a leading role in this leftist coalition. The coalition, the author claims, was instrumental in defeating the “ultra right” in the 2008 election and will continue to be the force which will push the right into the recesses of America’s political landscape. The trick is to do this without inadvertently driving “moderates” and “independents” away from their own cause in the process.

“This coalition in which our first African American President plays the leading role was necessary to beat the ultra right in 2008 and remains necessary in order to defeat the sharp counterattack of the ultra right we are experiencing and to complete a decisive victory over it…”

The statement in bold is a reference to the Tea Party movement which the author later claims is composed of

“Tea baggers and other assorted racists and fanatical groups.”

Sound familiar? I think he might have been paraphrasing the anchors on CNN’s prime-time lineup. The article concludes thusly:

“[Through this coalition] we have been able to establish these strategic stages, strategy for this transition period, and tactics to accomplish it”

I’m going to venture to say that most of the unwitting members of this “coalition” don’t realize what kind of grand scheme the radical Left sees them as being so integrally a part of. Just as Barack Obama bristles every time conservatives accuse him of pursing policies that are apart of some “Bolshevik plot.” Maybe his indignation is genuine, maybe it isn’t. Who cares? The point is, from the highest offices, to the dupes paid to turn in fraudulent voter registration forms, America’s Left, and in particular the Democratic Party, has been so thoroughly infiltrated by socialist/marxist radicals that the two are virtually indistinguishable. Mutually they will continue to lead us toward an America of declining prosperity and diminishing liberty. What to do?

—

Nichole Hungerford is Social Media Director and Contributor to Smart Girl Nation. You can follow her work at Obama Porn or via Twitter @ObamaPorn.

The dream of most schools, to be able to issue laptops to every student, has become a disturbing nightmare for thousands of parents and students in one of the wealthiest public school districts in the nation.

When more than 2,000 Apple MacBook laptops were distributed to the students in a Pennsylvania High School, parents were not advised that school administrators had installed spy-ware technology. This technology enabled school officials to activate the laptop’s webcam and peer into the homes of their students, and evidence is mounting that they often did.

The outraged parents that filed a lawsuit last week claimed,

“[T]he laptops were routinely used by students and family members at home, it is believed that many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including in various stages of dress or undress”.

When you consider this issue in light of the increasing cases of teacher’s sexual misconduct, it becomes alarming, but when you add to it the audacity that any school administration would attempt secret surveillance of their student’s behavior within their home, it should cause sheer outrage.

In face of a lawsuit, the school is claiming that the only reason it had the spy-ware installed was to locate stolen or lost laptops.

That may have been the justification they used to convince a gullible board, but if that’s the case, someone is abusing the system on more than one level.

Students have complained that the green LED light indicating that the webcam was on has appeared indiscriminately throughout the past year. Their complaints were brushed off by the school as nothing more than a software glitch. Making it clear, that laptops that were not stolen or lost, had their webcams remotely activated, the school knew it—and lied about it.

They must have been pretty comfortable about the entire situation, because like all criminals who get away with their crimes too long, they got bold and stupid.

After using the webcam to spy on 15-year-old Blake Robbins in his bedroom, the vice principal called the boy into her office to confront him about his “improper behavior” in his home. She thought the “Mike and Ikes” he was popping like candy was drugs.

Turns out, it was candy…huh, who knew?

In a nice turn of events, it was the school that got busted for improper behavior. So the controversy begins.

While Fox News raises the question about “student security and school administrators’ rights in Philadelphia” and the FBI open investigations to see if any federal “wiretap” or computer- intrusion laws were violated, parents need to see this as a wake-up call.

Schools are in fact an arm of the government. We have allowed them to water down the curricula to accommodate political correctness, bring sexuality education into our kindergartens, distill history with multiculturalism, indoctrinate students with leftist ideals, and preach the religion of environmentalism.

Now, we see what happens when they get the power and the money they want; they secretly peek into your child’s bedroom. This has to be the last straw.

Click here to read the school’s pathetic letter to parents.

No need to drill in Alaska, folks. One of our great untapped natural resources remains the sheer red hot hatred that Gen Xers like me feel towards unrepentant hippies and radical boomers, the people who saddled us with drugs, divorce and fourteen minute guitar solos.

You catch a whiff of this contempt in the comments at a new Chronicles of Higher Education piece called “The Night They Burned Ranum’s Papers,” in which one of the mysteries of the Columbia student uprising is finally solved:

At about 2:30 a.m. on May 22, 1968, as New York City police entered Hamilton Hall, on Columbia University’s Morningside Heights campus, to clear it of demonstrators, files belonging to Orest A. Ranum, an associate professor of history, were ransacked, and papers documenting more than 10 years of research were burned. (…)

Now a key participant in the Columbia rebellion has made a startling confession. Mark Rudd, who was chairman of the [Students for a Democratic Society] SDS chapter during the disturbances [and later joined the Weathermen], acknowledges that a fellow radical, John “J.J.” Jacobs, set the fire in Hamilton Hall, and that he, Rudd, went along with the plan. The confession, a depressing postscript to the 1960s, solves a four-decade-long mystery.

It offers a grim testament to just how mean things got at Columbia, and a sobering reminder that not all student radicals were starry-eyed idealists. In more than a couple of cases, they were power-hungry extremists jostling for control of the student-protest movement. And Ranum had the audacity to get in their way. (…)

The papers were irreplaceable. They dated back to Ranum’s time as a student at the University of Minnesota, where he got his Ph.D. in history. The notes were going to lay the basis for a textbook on early modern European history that he had been commissioned to write…

Groovy, baby! Cuz burning a book in the making isn’t, like, fascist or anything! No way — it’s more like aborting a baby, and everybody knows abortion is cool, too!

These guys were real geniuses:

Neither argument had any effect on the protesters, who believed that the people of Harlem were going to rise up and join the demonstration, turning a campus rebellion into a biracial revolt. To Ranum, that was fanciful thinking. The radicals, most of them upper-middle-class white kids, spoke a language most Harlem residents would find incomprehensible: the language of Marxism.

(Say, doesn’t that sound a lot like what Charles Manson was trying to do? That’s just a coincidence, though…)

Naturally, the Columbia radicals were cheered on by the liberal media elite and its readership:

The fire should have turned public opinion against the protesters, but some liberals were so awed by the radicals, and guilt-ridden about their own inaction, that they went into denial.

The literary critic Dwight Macdonald, writing in The New York Review of Books, said that while he found the arson “base and disgusting,” he doubted that SDS was responsible. He went on raising money for the organization, from which, within a year and a half, the violent Weathermen faction would emerge. On March 6, 1970, three members of that group, making bombs in a town house in Greenwich Village, accidentally blew themselves up.

PS: that bomb was being built to murder hundreds of servicemen and their dates at a Fort Dix dance. Funny how that part, and the culpability of Obama’s friend Bill Ayers, gets ignored in this article.

And as a matter of fact, stuff like this did turn the general non-elite public against the hippie radicals — but to date, nobody’s made an all-star, big budget, Oscar winning movie about, say, the Hard Hat Riots. Oddly enough!

No, they make movies about the Weather Underground, and smug, smirking and still sadly undead Mark Rudd makes a living touting them around the country, helping to brainwash your college age kids.

Anyway, it’s not a movie, but a fellow Gen-Xer and I put together this “campaign ad” in 2008. Hey, did I mention how mad we are?

Lori Ziganto’s latest article at Right Wing News

I was born and raised in New Jersey; moved down to South Carolina 5 years ago. Prior to that, I lived in New Jersey my entire life. I left because it became impossible to make ends meet there, primarily due to an insanely high cost of living. That can be blamed, in part, on the excessive taxation levied on New Jersey residents, which is a direct result of rampant and grossly irresponsible Democrat policy and spending.

Enter Governor Christie, who said “No More.” And he isn’t wasting any time arguing with ideologues who will not listen. He did it by executive order. Good for him! As you may have expected, the response by Democrats was stompy foot whining:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie freezes spending in New Jersey and you’d think the world had ended. Democrats in the New Jersey Assembly criticized Governor Christie for taking such hard stance. However New Jersey is facing a $2.2 billion dollar budget shortfall and tough stances are needed. Perhaps other states or heaven forbid the federal government would follow Chris Christie’s lead.

Within the New Jersey spending freeze, Christie even had the audacity to cut money to school districts which enjoy surpluses. One whiney democrat said that the districts would be forced to raise property taxes to make up for the shortfall in state aid. I suppose the terms “budget crisis” and “financial emergency” don’t resonate if you have a D beside your name, no matter where you’re from.

That’s right; a $2.2 BILLION deficit. So, Christie cut money to school districts who have a surplus. What? Asking people to spend their own money? That’s unheard of! Sadly, it has been unheard of in New Jersey, hence the problem. I suppose that makes too much sense to the power crazed Democrats in New Jersey.

He also had the audacity to expect that the NJ Transit Authority should be efficient and fiscally responsible. Egads!

Another cut came at the expense of New Jersey transit; Governor Christie cut subsidies saying that the system needs to be fiscally efficient. Democrats played the environment card on that one saying that Christie’s decision would hurt the environment and the economy because people needed the transit system to get to work.

Sigh. Hello, Democrats? Global warming is totally fake and a huge hoax. Kindly stop bankrupting us based on an Al Gore carbon offset Ponzi scheme scam. Plus, guess what? Some things can run, and be successful, without having Big Daddy Government in control of it. In fact, they are usually ONLY successful if the Government stays out of the darn way.

Kudos, Governor Christie. You are actually exceeding my expectations thus far. I hope, for the sake of all who are living and working in New Jersey, that you continue fighting the good fight. I think you may be the “one New Jersey was waiting for.”

Hope and change, baby.

Read full article here, along with video and text of Christie’s speech

Is this a new invitation to interfaith dialogue?

The French have recently indicated support for a ban on veils for women, but now one defender of the burqua has the audacity to suggest that the Blessed Mother would disapprove. In a disjointed and contradictory interview dished up on the BBC, a convert to Islam plays the “Christian card,” hoping to convince France that even Mary knew her place. 

Chrystelle Khedrouche, a 36-year-old French convert to Islam, explains:

“When God ordered that women be veiled we know that they were already veiled. Look at the mother of Jesus, Mary, she wore a veil and I have never seen an image of her where she is not veiled. So we know that women were veiled at that time and if God ordered that women be veiled it was to add something more to what there was already.”

Um, not quite, sister.  It’s true that there was standard of modesty for married women in that region at the time which required that women cover their hair (though stemming from custom, not Mosaic law) but it didn’t include covering the face, which is what is creeping out the French.  But since Muslims also believe Mary to be the sister of Aaron and entirely confused about the body-double who replaced her Son on the cross, perhaps now she’s being reinvented as an ardent supporter of Shari’a as well.

As to the looming ban, Khedrouche lashes out at the locals who are the problem:

“I’m really very sad about this, but I’m not so surprised because it is part of the French mentality, but it makes me sad and it’s hard that this is the stage we have got to. It’s been several years that we live like this and we have been perfectly fine, but then I’m not so surprised because the French like the idea of everyone being of the same mould and that mould must be ideal. Everything that is not part of their ideal model doesn’t suit them.”

Ah, the notoriously “cookie-cutter” French.  Somehow the Asians, the Africans, and the countless other ex-pats co-existing there haven’t noticed that dimension of their host country. Heck, if the French can swallow McDonalds, I’d say they’re actually pretty open-minded, but not according to this woman.

And yet, even after she’s lamented France’s lock-step obstreperousness, she expresses frustration that the Muslim community is not more so:

“It saddens me a lot because our community is not united enough. For me there is no difference between myself and other Muslim women who show their veil, their hair or show their full head; there is no difference between us. But to say that it is not part of our religion I find very difficult, because we know that the wives of the prophet were dressed like this, they were fully covered.

So there are many ways to be Muslim, but hers is the correct one, got it? Perhaps her own veil has gotten in the way of noticing that those who suggest that women cover up suddenly morph into people who demand that women cover up. And that it’s not about eye contact and sharing smiles but about a religion that doesn’t scruple when it comes to hiding explosives beneath burqas—worn by either women or men (in a convenient disguise).

It’s typical that she appeals to the European constitution (just as Muslims in the US often twist the legal system to shut down criticism and even any non-Muslim religious expression they find offensive) but pulling the Virgin Mary into the argument is offensive, especially in a country considered the Eldest Daughter of the Church.  The fact that her co-religionists even now are fire-bombing those who actually take Mary at her word provides the richest irony.

Will the BBC now seek out the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris to confirm the Blessed Mother’s endorsement of veiling for women? Or perhaps they could interview the friends of those who chose not to cover up—since some of them can no longer speak for themselves. (I wouldn’t hold my breath.)

“France: Most People Support Burqa Ban” (Jihad Watch)

“Niqabs and Burkas as Security Threats” (Daniel Pipes)

“Mother Hid Terrorist Manual in Burka” (Exposing Islam)

“Christians Held to Shari’a Standards” (Feminine Genius)

Related posts:

1. NewsReal Sunday: Mother Mary encounters Obamacare
2. Why Naomi Wolf Loves the Burqa
3. Dissent and Rebuttal of the Day – Not Seeing Nuance in Naomi Wolf's Arguments?

Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, left, and Le Cong Dinh were sentenced to long prison terms in Vietnam

Tonight, Glen Beck will air his must-see special on communism, which should artfully recount the historical development of that inherently evil, political ideology. While Beck’s narrative will focus on the past, we must not lose sight of the fact that communism has not gone away, and its continued existence in much of the world still brings misery, oppression and death to those unfortunate enough to be living under its yoke.

Take Vietnam, for example.

This week, the communists ruling that country took, according to a European Union spokesman, a “major and regrettable step backwards,” by sentencing four people to stiff periods of incarceration (remember, in communist societies that usually means hard labor in a “re-education camp). After a speedy, one-day trial in typical communist fashion (behind closed doors), Tran Huynh Duy Thuc received a 16-year sentence. Nguyen Tien Trung got 7 years. Le Cong Dinh and Le Thang Long each received 5 years.

What was their crime?

They had the audacity to post writings on the Internet advocating freedom of expression and a multi-party system for Vietnam. You see, by definition, communism cannot have a political rival—and even discussing such a thing in a communist state can land you in jail, or worse.

A communist judge convicted the men of “a well-organized campaign in collusion with overseas exile reactionary organizations, aimed at overturning the government with the help of the Internet.” The men were immediately taken away to begin serving their sentences.

Actually, Vietnam has been very busy putting people away lately for having similar views. In the last three months, 10 other democracy activists have been sentenced to long prison terms, and 6 students in the city of Haiphong received sentences of between two and six years for hanging up a pro-democracy banner. The irony here is that the Vietnamese government crackdown on dissent comes before elections to be held next year, where certain members of the Communist Party will try to gain coveted seats in the Party congress.

As harsh as these sentences are, these dissidents really are rather fortunate, as the authorities did show an uncharacteristic level of leniency. In Vietnam (and in nearly every other communist state, past and present), the normal punishment for the crime of dissent is death.

Related posts:

1. The Nation Celebrates the Fall of Communism by … Celebrating Communism!
2. Feel the Need to Express Your Political Views? In China, that Will Get You Serious Jail Time.
3. Like Obama, the Secret Service Speaks No Evil, Sees No Evil, Hears No Evil

President Obama says, “Everybody can buy a truck” (see video below from On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.)

I’ll bet that’s news to millions of Americans who not only can’t afford a truck, they don’t even have a job to start saving for one. This is no isolated incident with Obama. We all remember his comments about “clinging to religion and guns” during the 2008 campaign. President Obama has shown a stunning detachment from the real needs and wants of average Americans. Unlike the way many Americans related to President Clinton, no one seems to believe Obama can “feel their pain”.

Enter Scott Brown – in a pickup truck. His now famous ads show him as a man of the people. How much of that is true is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure. It plays a lot better with Americans who are suffering through a severe recession to be the guy driving the truck rather than the guy making fun of it.

Scott Brown’s stunning victory in the Massachusetts Senatorial special election should be a wakeup call to this President, and his friends in Congress who seem to think they know what’s best for everyone else, but are afraid to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi. It should also be a wakeup call to the far Left media, and their constant carping about Americans who have the audacity to object to the deficit spending, lack of transparency, and generally tone deaf nature of our representatives in Washington DC.

Scott Brown now becomes the 41^st vote to help stop a Senatorial super majority.  That is the least of President Obama’s problems. With recent GOP victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and now in the bluest of states, someone in DC should get the message that America is not happy with the kind of change they are getting. When a state this blue turns Brown, there is a much deeper angst at play in the American political psyche.

Unfortunately, it appears the President and the Democrats in Congress have chosen to explain away the recent losses and continue to cling to their agenda as though it was bequeathed to them from on high.

Blaming everything on what he inherited no longer works. Claiming that this is just an “anti-incumbent” phenomenon isn’t going to work. The constant, insane blather from far-left radio and Television personalities doesn’t seem to work.

So what will work?

Well, it might be a start if President Obama realized that not everyone can afford a truck. Not even the ones from the car company he took over. And the reason they can’t has a lot to do with his policies, and a lot to do with why Massachusetts has a brand new Republican Senator.

Related posts:

1. Obama: A Vote for Scott Brown was a Vote for Me and Against George Bush!
2. Scott Brown Wins!
3. Will Scott Brown Pull Off An Upset In Massachusetts?

In his weekly address President Obama presented a speech worthy of this year’s Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role. How else could he get on his bully-pulpit and make stone-faced attacks against those Wall Street scoundrels who repaid their loans from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) with interest? Especially the banks forced to accept the loans in an attempt to hide the identity of the banking and mortgage companies whose balance sheets triggered the crisis.

Under the disguise of “populism” the President announced plans to tax big banks up to $117 billion over the next ten years as punishment for their role in the financial crisis.  With the exception of Citigroup, the banks identified have repaid their TARP money with interest. The President stated,

“Those who oppose this fee have also had the audacity to suggest that it is somehow unfair, that because these firms have already returned what they borrowed directly, their obligation is fulfilled.

But this willfully ignores the fact that the entire industry benefited not only from the bailout, but from the assistance extended to AIG and homeowners, and from the many unprecedented emergency actions taken by the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and others to prevent a financial collapse. And it ignores a far greater unfairness: sticking the American taxpayer with the bill.” (emphasis mine)

Somehow one gets the impression their “loan” will never quite be repaid in full; that is, unless the Golden Orator decrees their servitude abolished. In all unfairness, and with the wink of cronyism, President Obama ordained his penalty tax does not apply to everyone who benefited from the bailout. He is exempting the auto industry, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Yes, you read that correctly. Obama’s union campaign supporters and the real losers in the mortgage crisis whose fiscal irresponsibility led to the debacle in the first place are not required to pay the punishment tax.

With his popularity polling below 50 percent and congressional elections in November, the White House is hoping to create a win-win situation by reaching into the wallets of the big, bad bankers. By leveraging their new mantra to assist vulnerable Democrats who’ve pushed the White House agenda, they aim to market the financial industry as the villain of our woes. If successful, Democrat campaigns will attempt to brand Republicans as the party of the rich. But why score a only a win when they can also use the opportunity to secure unrestricted capital to finance anything they desire? The Wall Street Journal describes their collateral agenda,

“The White House wants to tax more capital away from profit-making banks to offset the intentional losses that the politicians have ordered up at Fan and Fred. The bank tax revenue will flow directly into the Treasury to be spent on whatever immediate cause Congress favors.” (emphasis mine)

And there lies the heart of his award-winning academy performance this week: $117 billion dollars that can be spent without legislative approval on the Left’s agenda. Forget his pleas about fairness to the taxpayer, the President intends to truly “stick it to the taxpayer” himself.

Related posts:

1. Obama Demands Sweeping New Powers
2. Obama Tries Again – And Fails
3. Soros Hits Obama from the Left over Banks

David Broder and David Brooks are probably members of this club.

Although I should’ve expected it, I’m afraid I have to admit that the mainstream media’s passionate defense of Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano took me by surprise.

I especially expected better from New York Times columnist David Brooks – as much of a centrist as they come – and Washington Post columnist David S. Broder. The former wrote yesterday:

There have been outraged calls for Secretary Janet Napolitano of the Department of Homeland Security to resign, as if changing the leader of the bureaucracy would fix the flaws inherent in the bureaucracy. There have been demands for systemic reform — for more protocols, more layers and more review systems.

Much of the criticism has been contemptuous and hysterical. Various experts have gathered bits of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s biography. Since they can string the facts together to accurately predict the past, they thunder, the intelligence services should have been able to connect the dots to predict the future.

“Contemptuous and hysterical?” Pardon me? Whether Brooks likes it or not, Napolitano is in charge of homeland security. If the intelligence community makes a mistake which (almost) results in a terrorist attack, she and no one else is responsible. It’s a vital part of the West’s democratic system: democracies can’t expect to thrive if government officials aren’t held accountable for everything that happens under their watch.

Brooks’ column may be bad enough, but Broder proves it can always be worse. The man who is considered to be the “Dean” of the Washington press corps doesn’t merely defend Napolitano in his latest column, as Broder does, but even has the audacity to praise her:

It came as no surprise to anyone who knows her that Napolitano handled the incident and its aftermath with aplomb. In the years I have known her, she has managed every challenge that has come her way with the same calm command that she showed in this instance. If there is anyone in the administration who embodies President Obama’s preference for quiet competence with “no drama,” it is Janet Napolitano.

If that quote isn’t definite proof that politicians aren’t the only ones in Washington who are out of touch with the rest of the country (and reality), I don’t know what is.

Brooks and Broder: the MSM’s Pollyanna-twins.

Related posts:

1. Broder First Nominee “Worst Column of 2010″
2. Obama Takes Responsibility. Great, Now Who’ll be Fired?
3. Obama Politicizes Christmas Day Terror Attack, Blacklists Fox News

Today, leftist magazine TIME announced the “Person of the Year” 2009. Although I’m sure they took several conservatives into consideration, the title went to…

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

So what did Bernanke do to deserve this honor? Well, not much, really, except for, you know, prolonging the economic crisis and drastically increasing the size of the federal government.  Or, as TIME’s Michael Grunwald put it:

he conjured up trillions of new dollars and blasted them into the economy; engineered massive public rescues of failing private companies; ratcheted down interest rates to zero; lent to mutual funds, hedge funds, foreign banks, investment banks, manufacturers, insurers and other borrowers who had never dreamed of receiving Fed cash; jump-started stalled credit markets in everything from car loans to corporate paper; revolutionized housing finance with a breathtaking shopping spree for mortgage bonds; blew up the Fed’s balance sheet to three times its previous size; and generally transformed the staid arena of central banking into a stage for desperate improvisation.

Ain’t that something? Bernanke had the “audacity” to not just ignore the Constitution, but to take it into the toilet with him, and for that, our progressive friends of the MSM name him “man of the year.”

Imagine how they’d react if Obama would go all-out Stalin on us. They’d probably declare him “Godking of the Century,” don’t you think?

Related posts:

1. Ron Paul Blasts “Man of the Year” Bernanke
2. Government and Leftist Groups Created the Housing Bubble
3. CNN Puts White House Spin on Bernanke Announcement

Robert Creamer

Left-wing lowlife Robert Creamer, who seems to be the criminal brains behind the left’s push for Big Government healthcare, is in no position to be casting stones.

After TV Host Glenn Beck criticized the community organizer and swindler, the fraudster Creamer shot back, saying Beck was part of a “new McCarthyist movement of the far right.”

The convict who did five months in federal prison for bank fraud and a tax violation said Beck is “a man who lies about everything.”

“It is important,” Creamer said, “for the targets of the smear machine to push back and to use whatever kind of means we can to prevent him from continuing these kinds of reckless charges.”

But who is really doing the smearing here?

Creamer is the convicted felon and senior Democratic operative who defrauded banks in order to keep his Marxist community organization afloat.

He founded the radical group Illinois Public Action and this makes him a hero to the left, whose members don’t care that he wrote a series of bad checks to pay his salary and meet other financial demands. To the left, the ends justify the means.

He’s behind an influential book called Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win which left-wingers say has inspired them in their fight to turn America into socialist Europe. Creamer is married to extreme left-wing Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), one of Capitol Hill’s most visible cheerleaders for DMV-style socialist healthcare. Despite his felony conviction, he also recently attended the official White House dinner honoring the Indian prime minister.

Beck had the audacity to point out that Democrats are currently following a playbook Creamer designed. For this observati0n, Creamer the criminal slimed him.

“It sure looks like [David] Axelrod and company are following the ”blueprint,’ but — once again — this saintly convicted felon views himself as the victim,” Beck said of Creamer. (video here)

Related posts:

1. Ex-Con Robert Creamer Designed Leftist Blueprint
2. Obama Thinks Community Organizing Isn't Much Fun When Conservatives Do It
3. Confronting the Five Smears in Time's Glenn Beck Cover Story

The title Ronald Reagan held as “The Great Communicator” was an honor he earned. Reagan was firm in his political beliefs and conveyed them with style, conviction and simplicity. He could speak above the daily political ramblings and address the heart of the country. Whether you loved him or hated him, you knew where he stood.

When Barack Obama stepped onto the scene, the Left saw in him their Ronald Reagan; a new great communicator. This hope is also quickly dissipating in the harsh light of reality.

Tina Brown, founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, wrote on Dec. 3rd in Obama’s Fog of War that “The Great Communicator’s” skills were “breaking down.”

“It’s a strange paradox for a great wordsmith, but whenever Obama makes an important policy speech these days he leaves everyone totally confused.”

The reason, Brown later concludes is that it’s not his fault that he has to lie. Even he doesn’t believe what he says.

Brown laments:

“His [Obama’s] first health-care press conference back in July triggered a season of raucous political Rorschach and left his hopeful followers utterly baffled about what they were being asked to support. Now White House envoys are being dispatched all over the globe to explain what the president really meant about the date when troops will or won’t be pulled out of Afghanistan.”

Brown continues her list of disappointments, then staying true to the progressive play book by ignoring the truth:

“I have come to the conclusion that the real reason this gifted communicator has become so bad at communicating is that he doesn’t really believe a word that he is saying. He couldn’t convey that health-care reform would be somehow cost-free because he knows it won’t be. And he can’t adequately convey either the imperatives or the military strategy of the war in Afghanistan because he doesn’t really believe in it either.”

Translation: He’s not communicating well, but gosh, it’s not his fault, he just doesn’t believe his own lies.

Brown justifies Obama’s hypocrisy:

“He feels colonized by mistakes of the past. He feels trapped by the hand that has been dealt him.”

Translation: He is the victim here. We can’t blame him or hold him accountable he’s trapped by his predecessor’s mistakes.

Actually, he can’t effectively communicate now, simply because he is using the same tactic of double-speak and ambiguities that he has used in his campaign. He gained the presidency by concealing his radical agenda and using his speeches to create a “blank screen” for his followers to project their “hopes” upon.

Brown alluded to the blank screen theory briefly at the onset of her article, but quickly moved on.

During the campaign The New York Times noted:

“On the death penalty, Mr. Obama wrote in his memoir, “The Audacity of Hope,” (Crown, 2007), that the penalty “does little to deter crime.”

“…During his 2004 Senate campaign, he publicly supported the death penalty, even as he called the justice system flawed and urged a moratorium on executions.”

“…‘I serve as a blank screen,” he wrote in “The Audacity of Hope,” “on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views’.”

A blank screen is not an effective or decisive mode of communication for a world leader.

The title of great communicator, like the Nobel Peace Prize, is just another honor this president hasn’t earned and doesn’t deserve.

He’s still just a blank screen.

Related posts:

1. Storylines With Politically Fatal Endings
2. Obama Using His Groupies To Turn America Socialist
3. Katrina vanden Heuvel Cites "The Great" Saul Alinsky

Iranian laws about the Web are purposely kept vague. Ahmed Batebi, the dissident who recently escaped Tehran after eight years in prison, told me that “The regime can arrest people and bloggers for any reason precisely because the laws are not clear.”

A journalist in the city of Yazd recently reported several cases of bloggers being shut down or involved in lawsuits due to readers’ comments. And on Nov. 14, local Iranian press reported that a new police unit was formed to fight “insults and the spreading of lies” on the Internet—another phrase which effectively bans any criticism of the regime.

It’s hard to believe in light of this Internet repression, but Iran’s president is himself a blogger. “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Personal Memos” is the place where he goes to vent and stay in touch with the common folk. He says he allots himself 15 minutes a week to write on his blog, but admits that at times he exceeds this limit.

via David Keyes: Ahmadinejad, the Blogger – WSJ.com.