In the first in the series of articles analyzing US foreign aid to Israel, the present writer posed five questions:

1.) Why is there an Israel-USA “special relationship,” an alliance which includes generous American aid and political support at the UN and other international venues?

2.) What is the real number of US dollars in US aid to Israel?

3.) How do we know that the critics offer galactic exaggerations of the dollar amount and spurious claims regarding its political valence and liabilities?

4.) What is the value to the USA of its generous financial support to Israel, compared to the value of similar aid to those countries which are Israel’s avowed enemies?

5.) What is the real impact of the USA’s “special relationship” with Israel upon America’s position in the Middle East and in the broader Muslim world?

The first article addressed question #1 and the first half of question #4 (Israel’s value to the USA).  The second article addressed the second half of question #4 (USA aid to Israel’s enemies hurts the USA). The third article addressed questions #2 and #3.

This article, last in the series, will address question #5.

In order to assess accurately and objectively the real impact of the US-Israel “special relationship” upon America’s position in the Middle East and in the broader Muslim world, one must consider three principles which may be alien to the thinking of some western analysts and commentators regarding Israel and the Middle East.

The first involves adherence to the belief system that requires utmost fidelity to the data.

In his ground-breaking book Thinking Fast and Slow, reviewed recently in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Kahneman examines why otherwise clear minded and intelligent people sometimes make drastically wrong decisions.  He shows that even when analysts have all the information needed to arrive at correct decisions, and even when the logic is simple, they still all too often arrive at incorrect or even disastrously erroneous conclusions. The problem, according to Kahneman, seems to be related to “belief systems.”  It seems that humans tend to be of two minds—one deliberative and rational, the other quick and intuitive. The quick and intuitive one, influenced by emotion and ideology, is all too often too willing to abandon, disregard, or even manipulate data in order to achieve conclusions that are consistent with the emotion or the ideology.  Such conclusions, inconsistent with, or contradictory to, the data, may be erroneous at best and mendaciously misleading at worst. Kahneman warns that

“All scientists, not least social scientists, should be wary of adhering to any belief system in their professional lives other than the one that requires fidelity to their data.”

If the analyst or commentator has a cause, then there could be a conflict of interest between the cause and the data. Analysts who, due to an ideological pre-disposition, belief system, or emotional commitment to a cause, fall prey to such a conflict of interest, may offer conclusions about whatever issue is under discussion that are grossly divergent from the data, and hence from reality.

In light of Kahneman’s insights, and given the enormous divergence between the reality of the amounts of US foreign aid to Israel and the astronomically exaggerated numbers proffered by those using the “kitchen sink” methodology, it seems logical to conclude that the latter are possessed of a predisposition motivated by some belief system, some emotional commitment to a cause, which drives them to inflate, distort, decontextualize, cherry pick, misrepresent and even falsify data in order to arrive at conclusions that are congruent with the predisposition.  This being the case, with fidelity to the data utterly abandoned, their conclusions are worthless at best.

The second is the principle of the “strong horse.”

Osama bin Laden stated this principle several times in his public speeches:  “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”  The role of this “strong horse” principle in Arab society and politics has been explored and analyzed by author Lee Smith in his book The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations (Anchor Books, January 2011).  Smith concludes that in Arab politics from at least the onset of the era of the Caliphs following Mohammed’s death, political transfer of power has always been either through violence or dynasty.  Thus violence and the struggle between “strong horses” (the dynastic inheritor vs. his competitors for the throne) has predominated.  Mohammed himself and the Caliphs after him all ruled by violence and coercion, and most were assassinated.  In short, “…the strong horse is the person, tribe, country, or nation that is best able to impose its will upon others, the weaker horses, through the use of force.” This rather dark view of Arab political history was promulgated first by none other than the famous Arab historian and philosopher, ibn-Khaldun in the 14^th century.

This “strong horse” principle, active for more than a millennium in Arab politics, plays out today in the international arena as well.  The strong horse on the international scene is a deterrent to aggression; and, conversely, a weak horse invites attack: hence the stronger the horse, the greater the deterrence.

The significance of this principle for the US-Israel “special relationship” is immediately obvious.  As long as America is perceived as a global “strong horse” by the leaders in the Arab world, and the American strong horse is closely aligned with its proxy strong horse in the Middle East, Israel, then there is a strong deterrent to Arab leadership initiating war.  If a strong America abdicates its role as the strong horse, then its proxy, Israel, is weakened; and this weakness is likely to invite aggression.  Conversely, a strong Israel is a stabilizing force in the Middle East, and a strong relationship with the global strong horse, America, strengthens Israel.  Moreover, American leadership that abandons Israel is likely to be seen as an untrustworthy ally, or a weak horse unable to uphold its side of the alliance.

In Islam, polygamy is practiced according to the Koran for the purpose of breeding as many warrior killers as possible.  And breeding warrior killers is just what Osama bin Laden did with the wives who were gifted to him. The women were on call at all times to gratify his sexual desires and produce male heirs, taught from early childhood to commit murder in the service of jihad.

Najwa Ghanem, first cousin and wife of bin Laden, married him when she was only 15 and he 17.  Najwa gave birth to 11 of bin Laden’s children, one of whom is the fourth son, Omar bin Laden.  Najwa says her “tyrant” husband forced her to have as many children as possible to create “Islamic warriors.”  The children were raised and trained–against Najwa’s will–to be suicide bombers. The training included teaching his children to murder their pets as preparation for what they would do to human beings.

Despite the child abuse and tyrannical marriage, Najwa says she never complained:

I reminded myself that my husband knew much more about the big world than any of us.  We were all pearls to my husband, and he wanted to protect us.

The anti-woman beliefs and values of Islamic religion and culture have made these so-called “pearls” into fool’s gold. Muslim women may consider themselves “pearls,” but Najwa says, “few women dance with joy when they contemplate sharing their husband with other women.”

Despite Najwa’s complaints about her “tyrant” husband and polygamist marriage, both of whom she fled after 9/11,  she says she remained married to bin Laden, living in an undisclosed location but not in contact with her husband.

Not all Muslim wives come to reject the polygamist life and jihadist child rearing as Najwa bin Laden did.  Many girls embrace jihad because, like boys, they are also bred for terror. One such woman is bin Laden’s fifth wife.

The youngest wife of bin Laden, 29 year-old Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, who was with him when he was killed, was gifted to bin Laden by her Yemeni family when she was only 18.  Bin Laden demanded the girl “be of high moral value,” (these wives must be virgins or they’re useless), and she, like all bin Laden wives, “would be called to do almost anything bin Laden wanted.”

That included murder.

What’s the newest trend in feminism today?  SlutWalks are all the rage, where women dress like sluts and proudly embrace their sluthood. This will apparently have the double effect of fighting back against blaming the victim for being raped, as well as being empowering for women — because being a slut in modern feminism is supposedly empowering. Of course, all that these SlutWalks are really doing is proving that the death knell for femisogynists is continuing to ring.

Pseudo-feminists advocating for sluthood is nothing new. Instead of being looked down upon, sleeping around is considered to be embracing sexuality. It’s healthy, empowering, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a misogynistic anti-feminist prude (and probably a right-winger to boot!) So the comment made by a Toronto policeman that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” naturally meant that femisogynists should revel in sluthood! And while the Toronto cop’s comment may have been what kicked the event off, fighting back against victim-blaming is nowhere near the only goal of these SlutWalks. Unsurprisingly, organizers want women to be proud of their sexuality and to reclaim the word slut.

Historically, the term ‘slut’ has carried a predominantly negative connotation. Aimed at those who are sexually promiscuous, be it for work or pleasure, it has primarily been women who have suffered under the burden of this label. And whether dished out as a serious indictment of one’s character or merely as a flippant insult, the intent behind the word is always to wound, so we’re taking it back. “Slut” is being re-appropriated.

We are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result.

Ah, yes, the ever-present threat of slut-shaming. Why can’t more people be supportive of sleeping around with a different random guy every night? Clearly, if more people were supportive of being a slut, there would be less rape. Or something.

So far, there have been SlutWalks in Toronto, Dallas, London, Ottawa, and Boston. There are many, many more planned, all around the world, in cities like Montreal, Orlando, Tucson, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Philadelphia. This is all to the liking of many noted femisogynist leaders. Jaclyn Friedman appeared at the Boston SlutWalk as a featured speaker. Feministing has multiple posts glowing with approval of the SlutWalk. Jill Filipovic said she was with the walkers in spirit. And Amanda Marcotte offers up the most common defense of the SlutWalks: it’s, like, supposed to be funny, you humorless prudes:

I’ve been broadly supportive of this, because it brings together two of my favorite things in the world, feminism and humor.

… Of course, since Slutwalk is built around humor, it baffles the humorless. And so defenders of Slutwalk have entered into this maddening space that is the equivalent of trying to explain a joke to the humorless, and if you’ve ever tried to do that, believe me, it may be the biggest waste of time on the planet.

Oh, I get it! Debasement of women as humor! Hilarious! And it’s progress, too. It’s just what the original feminist leaders envisioned when they were fighting for equality: the right for women to be called sluts and be proud.

Leftists still don’t get the Tea Party, and neither does the Republican party establishment. Reuters recently reported on a private meeting which took place between several Tea Party activists and House Speaker John Boehner. The mood was less than cordial.

One of the 25 or so [Tea Party] leaders, all from Boehner’s district, asked him if Republicans would raise America’s $14.3 trillion debt limit.

According to half a dozen attendees interviewed by Reuters, the most powerful Republican in Washington said “yes(…)”

That answer incensed many of the Tea Party activists, for whom raising the debt limit is anathema.

From the sidelines, the Left snickers and wags a finger.

Boehner, along with much of the GOP, is “stuck between the Tea Party and a hard place.” But, he only has himself to blame for bringing the activists into the fold and over-promising what he could deliver with control of a single chamber of Congress.

Surely, there are Tea Party activists with unreasonable expectations of what Republicans can accomplish with control of the House. However, the major beef Tea Partiers have with Republicans is not their lack of accomplishment. It’s their unwillingness to stand and fight, their apparent lack of principle, and the resulting impotence toward shifting the narrative in Washington.

The crux of the conflict between the Tea Party and Republicans is a choice between short-term pragmatism and entrenched political warfare. Too often, the questions Republicans ask themselves are. Will this work? Can this pass? Will we win?

The Left never asks these questions. They never concern themselves with whether a course is practical. They focus on controlling the narrative, framing the debate, then dominating the conversation. Doing so enables them to affect whether a future gambit, which may not work today, works tomorrow. They’re willing to double-down when the long-term benefit is worth the risk.

Just look at the lengths Democrats were willing to go to in order to shove Obamacare down our throats. They didn’t care how much it cost them in 2010. They only cared about affecting a fundamental transformation which would benefit their cause in the long-run.

That’s what the Tea Party demands of Republicans. Will the debt ceiling be raised? Almost certainly. The point is how. What will Republicans get in return? What will Democrats have to concede? How will the debate be framed? How will conservatives control the narrative? How will Boehner put the Left on the defensive, and strike a counter-blow that will sour their comparatively small victory?

Ron Musilli, 62, a native of Troy, recalls asking Boehner what leverage points the Republicans planned to focus on in debt limit talks with the White House and Senate Democrats.

“We haven’t figured that out yet,” he recalls Boehner replied.

That’s unacceptable. The fear is that Republicans haven’t concocted a strategy against the White House because they are more focused on “managing expectations” among conservatives. That leads the Tea Party to the conclusion that serious changes are due in 2012.

“The Tea Party will almost certainly primary those they want to get rid of,” said Larry Sabato, a politics professor at the University of Virginia. “They are not out to rebuild the Republican Party. They are out to take over the Republican Party and make it more like the Tea Party.”

“If it takes some Republican defeats along the way to make that happen, then that is what they’ll do,” he added.

Believe it. There is a place for pragmatism in political calculations. But like a shield absent a sword, it can’t do much against a fully armed opponent. If Republicans are unwilling to fight, if they lack the courage of their espoused convictions, if they can’t stomach hardcore political warfare, they’ll be replaced by those who can.

It seems another demographic group Democrats once took for granted is snapping out of Obama fever. At the Daily Beast, David Graham reports that American Muslims don’t think the president’s actions match his pro-Islam rhetoric. Aside from insisting that Islam is a religion of peace and appointing a few Muslims to important positions, Obama hasn’t met enough with American Muslim groups or “remade the political landscape for Muslims”:

“Just like the last time, we’re quite happy if any president offers positive rhetoric toward the Muslim world or Islam, but it really needs to be backed up with concrete policy initiatives,” says Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading American Muslim group. “We’re still in Afghanistan, we’re still in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian situation has gone south. We’re not there—we’re just continuing with the previous policies.”

It’s not just foreign policy. Across the board, Muslims are expressing disappointment with Obama’s progress on issues relevant to them in the domestic policy realm. What they express is not so much anger as disillusionment, a recognition that the president hasn’t remade the political landscape for Muslims. (American Muslim opinions mirror international opinions. A Pew survey released Tuesday finds that citizens in majority Muslim countries remain skeptical of Obama.)

[…]

Exhibit A is the Park51 project, the proposed mosque and Islamic center in Lower Manhattan that opponents dubbed the “ground zero mosque”. After delivering what appeared to be a full-throated defense of the project, he walked back his comments the next day, saying, “I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there.” It was a crucial litmus test for many American Muslims—and one that Obama failed. “He’s still missing the political courage to stand up for communities, and not just Muslim communities,” says Shireen Zaman, the executive director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a think tank on Muslim issues.

As the Left always does when discussing different ethnic groups, it’s simply assumed at the outset that the positions cited are intrinsically anti-Muslim.

Whatever you think of the wisdom of starting or continuing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, both conflicts were waged against specific governments the United States determined to be enemies, not against Muslims generally; indeed, both wars liberated their Muslim populations from nightmarish despots and gave them a genuine shot at liberty, so one could just as easily call a premature withdrawal from either theater anti-Muslim for enabling a descent back into totalitarianism.

Similarly, supporting the Ground Zero Mosque is only “pro-Muslim” to the extent that we associate that particular mosque with the radicalism of its organizers. Do Graham and Zaman mean to suggest that most American Muslims want sharia to be preached from a bloody site of Islamic conquest? The implication is far more Islamophobic than anything the average conservative has to say on the subject. And yes, that is the implication—considering that over 100 mosques have gone up in New York City without a peep from right-wing hatemongers, why make this particular mosque the litmus test for American tolerance?

Aside from CAIR-approved action on the preceding issues, just what are these groups looking for? What would a “remade political landscape for Muslims” look like? I submit that the United States doesn’t need to become more pro-Muslim. Polls indicate that the American people overwhelmingly distinguish between peaceful Muslims and jihad sympathizers, and a comprehensive study from the Center for Security Policy reveals that Muslims are targeted by hate crimes at comparable levels to Christians, and to a much lower degree than Jews. If anything, we go overboard in our fear of offending Muslims, as in the case of Ft. Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan. We bend over backwards to avoid discussing the theological roots of our terrorist enemies.

For Obama, this is another demonstration that it takes a lot more than the sparkling personality of The One to satisfy people—responsible policymaking can’t help but offend somebody, and not every special-interest demand is susceptible to reason.

For the rest of the country, this should highlight the folly of leftist identity politics. Human beings are first and foremost individuals, and should evaluate political issues based on the facts and principles involved, not on superficial affinities for particular stances and groups that have been imposed by the Left.  The Founders warned us about such exploitation of factional impulses—it not only confuses and oversimplifies issues, all but guaranteeing worse policy, but it also conditions us to divide into insular cultural camps and practice the very us-vs-them thinking the Left claims to oppose.

I am always skeptical whenever anyone uses phrases like “big oil” or “big business” which are just code words for “evil capitalists.” Notice, those phrases never get used when talking about teachers unions (which actually give more money to lobbyists and political campaigns than “big oil”). The newest talking point to run around Washington D.C. and the cable networks has to do with “oil subsidies.” Rachel Maddow sternly rebuked the evil oil executives claiming they need to give up these lucrative subsidies and a cacophony of similar demands is rising from the Left and the Right.

At first this seemed comical because leftists seem to have finally found a subsidy they don’t like, something no one thought was possible. After all, these are the same people who think it’s A-OK to give fifty thousand dollars to every black person claiming to be a farmer because they grew Chia Pets on their windowsills. After further investigation, it turns out that the “subsidies” in question are really just tax incentives. So it makes perfect sense why Maddow and the Left are intent on demonizing the oil executives and confiscating their “subsidies.”

Maddow is maddeningly obsessed with incorrectly labeling tax cuts or incentives as “spending.” What any third grader could understand that Maddow cannot is that letting people keep more of the money they made cannot possibly be compared to spending other people’s money in the way the government spends tax dollars. It’s like comparing apples to socket wrenches.

Instead of running around claiming to want to end “oil subsidies,” why don’t they just say what they really mean? The Left (and some on the Right) want to impose unfair and oppressive taxes on the oil companies…and only the oil companies. The tax incentives in question are no different than tax incentives other corporations receive. Eliminating them for oil companies alone is the very definition of an unfair tax and while I’m no lawyer, I think there are rules about that in the Constitution (a document the Left clearly hates).

Tricking the American public into believing the oil companies are taking food off their tables by dipping into the U.S.Treasury is unconscionable and while we expect as much from Maddow and her ilk, Paul Ryan ought to be ashamed of himself for repeating this damaging lie.

If you want to talk about yanking actual outrageous subsidies away from companies, what about nixing the hand-outs to car companies to produce electric cars no one wants to buy? What about stopping the bribery of people who don’t want to buy them with thousands of dollars in order to change their minds? What about pulling the tax dollars being sent to Brazil so they can drill for their oil, which won’t benefit Americans at all? If the politicians in Washington are going to get their panties in a twist over subsidies, they should go after the multitudinous subsidies that actually affect taxpayers and are going to prop up technology or products people don’t want.

At least we know our oil and gas companies produce a much needed and much appreciated product. Despite their best attempts to demonize the oil companies, the Left has failed to make people unwilling to buy gas. What we need now is some commonsense drilling to bring prices down.

I would like Maddow to explain exactly how taxing oil companies and increasing their cost of doing business is going to bring down the price of gas. Short answer: it isn’t.

Incredibly, the U.S. Navy has decided to name a cargo ship after the guy who came up with the Obama campaign slogan, “Yes, we can!” That man is the late labor agitator and community organizer Cesar Chavez. Chavez’s union, the United Farm Workers, used the saying he coined as its official motto. (In Spanish, “¡Sí se puede!”)

The decision to name a Navy ship after this radical is remarkable not only because President Obama’s teleprompter has the phrase “Yes, we can!” burnt into it from the phrase’s overuse, but because the far-left leader was a disciple of communist sympathizer Saul Alinsky. Chavez, who died in 1993, worked for the Community Service Organization from 1952 to 1962. CSO was a pressure group created by Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation.

Chavez has been lionized by the left because he hated capitalism and shared Alinsky’s contempt for the American system. The man even sounded like Alinsky, insisting he loved America while working to undermine its institutions. Chavez said

Until the chance for political participation is there, we who are poor will continue to attack the soft part of the American system – its economic structure. We will build power through boycotts, strikes, new union – whatever techniques we can develop. These attacks on the status quo will come, not because we hate, but because we know America can construct a humane society for all its citizens – and that if it does not, there will be chaos.

“There will be chaos?” Prediction or threat? You decide.

Chavez is also connected to ACORN founder Wade Rathke, a fact I reported in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers. When Rathke was employed as an organizer at ACORN’s parent organization, the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), he was trained by a man named Bill Pastreich who had studied Alinsky’s in-your-face organizing techniques. Pastreich had also been employed by Chavez’s United Farm Workers.

Is it just a matter of time before the Obama administration commissions the USS Saul Alinsky? No doubt it will be a destroyer.

Follow me on Twitter and check out my new book Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

Let’s pretend, for a moment, that academic freedom really did reign on America’s college campuses. I know, it’s difficult to envision, but just for the sake of argument let’s pretend it exists.

So into our little fantasy, let’s introduce a character. Let’s make him one of the most influential young conservative Christians in America, who is also a teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate at Yale. (Ha ha ha! A well-known conservative Christian teaching at Yale! This is one crazy fantasy!)

And let’s say that in a lecture one day, he says the following things:

1. The Bible teaches that Islam is evil. Evil, repugnant, futile and useless.

2. Muslims, therefore, are evil.

3. God says that Muslims are spiritually filthy.

4. The life and property of Muslims hold no value when we are battling them. Here in America, this is not the place and time where we can take their lives and property, but in other places, we can, and at another time, we may do it here, as well. But not here now. Not yet.

Let’s further pretend that we have audio of this teaching, widely available on the internet.

Care to speculate on the reaction from the Left? The mainstream media? Obama?

Well, their heads would probably implode.

However, last I looked, their heads are all still intact. Which means that we have one serious double standard working here. Because leaving behind our pretend scenario and turning to cold hard reality, our young influential conservative cleric at Yale is not a Christian (of course) but a Muslim. And here’s what he has to say:

1. The Koran teaches that Christianity is evil. Evil, repugnant, futile and useless. (He calls it “shirk” or polytheism, misunderstanding the nature of the Trinity)

2. Christians are evil. It’s important to study their teachings to understand evil.

3. Allah calls Christians filthy. People who practice “shirk” (known as “mushrikoun”) are “nejjis” – filthy.

4. The life and property of Christians (mushrikoun) hold no value in the state of jihad. Not here right now, in this country. This is not the time or place. This will be the case when we are in a state of jihad, in an Islamic state, when there is a caliphate.

The teacher in question, one Yasir Qadhi, emphasizes that he doesn’t mean in America – at least not now. Qadhi is described by the New York Times as:

“…a fixture on the New Haven campus. He wore a trim beard and preppy polo shirts, blending in with other graduate students as he lugged an overstuffed backpack into Blue State Coffee for his daily cappuccino. A popular teaching assistant, he exuded a sprightly intensity in class, addressing the undergraduates as ‘dudes.’”

Dude! You’re filthy, repugnant and evil, and a day is soon coming when your iPod and skateboard – and head – are mine. But for now… let’s grab a cappuccino.

Of course, my analogy breaks down with #4, because Jesus Christ certainly does not teach that we are to take the lives or property of non-Christians. Even if we lived in a “Christian” state. Even if our leader was a pope or pastor or Billy Graham. It wouldn’t happen – that’s not what following Jesus is all about. That’s why we can live side by side with lots of other people who reject and even demonize the Bible and our teachings. Our Muslim friends, not so much. Islamists cannot live side by side with lots of other people who reject and even demonize their Koran and teachings. In fact, they’re not happy even if someone on the other side of the world burns one copy of their book. They’re so unhappy, in fact, that innocent people have to die because of it.

Now, which faith tradition are we calling evil, again?

Democrats were understandably thrilled that it was their guy, Barack Obama, who finally nailed Osama bin Laden, who has for the past decade been as elusive as he was hated. But just how much of a political boon is the victory for the president? That’s the question asked today by the Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky, who sees it as a major shift away from the Democrats’ dovish image:

But now, the killing of Osama bin Laden is changing this equation dramatically. Alleged Muslim Barack Obama did in two and a half years what Bush couldn’t do in seven and a half. It wasn’t just the result. The nature of the operation is still breathtaking, weeks later, and the risk Obama took, which he conveyed with masterful cool in his 60 Minutes interview, is mind-blowing (imagine if bin Laden hadn’t been there!). You can call the president who oversaw the operation many things, but weak isn’t one of them.

To talk as if there were two separate hunts for bin Laden is an astoundingly dishonest oversimplification. The truth is that American intelligence officials spent years following the key intelligence trail:

Some time after Sept. 11, detainees held by the U.S. told interrogators about a man believed to work as a courier for bin Laden, senior administration officials said. The man was described by detainees as a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and “one of the few Al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin laden.”

Initially, intelligence officials only had the man’s nickname, but they discovered his real name four years ago.

Two years ago, intelligence officials began to identify areas of Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated, and the great security precautions the two men took aroused U.S. suspicions.

Last August, intelligence officials tracked the men to their residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a relatively wealthy town 35 miles north of Islamabad where many retired military officers live […]

President Obama was made aware of the compound when it was discovered last year. By mid-February, the intelligence was solid and since mid-March, Obama led five meetings with the National Security Council regarding the issue.

Intelligence officials worked with the U.S. military to plan the operation and a small team accepted the risk and began to train for it.

On April 29, this past Friday, Obama gave the final go ahead.

The extent of Obama’s role in the operation was essentially allowing the work that began under Bush to continue, and giving the final OK once we were ready to move in. Granted, that final decision was an important one for which Obama deserves credit, but let’s not pretend he masterminded the whole thing, or that the choice was anything other than a political no-brainer—considering how much heat Bill Clinton took for letting bin Laden get away before September 11, it’s hard to imagine that most presidents would dare risk going down in history as the one who let him get away after 9/11.

Watching some Republicans’ first stabs at responding to the event was both sad and hilarious. Some were gracious (even Dick Cheney), but the propaganda machine and its envoys cranked out the usual bluster. They tried the this-proves-that-torture-works argument, pinned to a slender reed involving a man named Abu Faraj al-Libi, but the known facts don’t support the contention that torture played a major role. Then Bush administration torture-policy architect John Yoo played against type by asserting that it was cowardly to kill bin Laden rather than taking him alive. Things finally reached self-parody when Andrew Card of the Bush White House (the one that declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq roughly 4,200 fatalities ago) snarked that Obama was pounding his chest too much.

No doubt there are some Republican partisans who’ve been nitpicking for political expediency, but Tomasky also belittles serious points, particularly regarding the effectiveness of harsh interrogation tactics. As former attorney general Michael Mukasey writes, waterboarding helped break Khalid Sheik Mohammed:

KSM disclosed the nickname — al Kuwaiti — along with a wealth of other information, some of which was used to stop terror plots then in progress.  He did so after refusing to answer questions and, when asked if further plots were afoot, said that his interrogators would eventually find out. Another detainee, captured in Iraq, disclosed that al Kuwaiti was a trusted operative of KSM’s successor, abu Faraj al-Libbi. When al-Libbi went so far as to deny even knowing the man, his importance became obvious.

The substance of Obama’s role in the Abbottabad raid aside, the politics aren’t such a slam-dunk either. A fair amount of voters were swayed at first, and Obama will be able to carry this superficially appealing talking point with him into the election, but whatever bounce he got in the polls seems to have disappeared. And as Tomasky notes, Obama is still vulnerable on other aspects of foreign policy, including his handling of our relationship with Israel, our continued presence in Libya, and the prospect of cutting defense spending.

Unlike the relatively easy call of ordering Osama bin Laden’s death, there is no bipartisan consensus on any of these issues, and they all require the president to make far more complex—and more consequential—value judgments. If the American people recognize the difference, Obama will still have a fight on his hands next year.

And the rumors of ACORN’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The radical group declared bankruptcy at the end of 2010, but its leaders acknowledge that they are building a new network of activist groups to continue ACORN’s work undermining America’s free institutions.

As predicted in my new book Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers, ACORN is restructuring in time to help re-elect President Obama in 2012. Obama used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer.

ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis has created a group called the Black Institute whose agenda is essentially identical to ACORN’s. ACORN founder Wade Rathke is spreading the gospel of Marxist social justice around the world through his offshoot group ACORN International (also known as Community Organizations International).

State chapters have incorporated themselves under new names. New York became New York Communities for Change. California became Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. Texas became Texas Organizing Project. ACORN’s vote manufacturing division, Project Vote, still operates under the same name and small-c communist Frances Fox Piven still sits on its board. ACORN’s housing bubble generator, ACORN Housing, changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America. It’s the same people in the same offices and it just goes on and on.

ACORN insiders have admitted that the “new” groups will re-federate under a new name soon.

ACORN is a “boiler room” operation. Once the authorities get wind of it, it moves and assumes a new name while it seeks out fresh victims. Long before two conservative activists captured ACORN employees on video offering to assist in the creation of a brothel for pedophiles, ACORN insiders knew the game plan. They knew the day would come when the ACORN brand was so tarnished it was time to go underground. After the videos revealed what ACORN was really about, its leaders set about laying the groundwork for ACORN’s rebirth.

Now the day of ACORN’s resurrection is at hand.

Recently I discussed with nationally syndicated talk show host G. Gordon Liddy what I found out about ACORN and its radical, terrorist roots in my three years of research and hundreds of interviews.

Follow me on Twitter and check out my new book Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers. View the Subversion Inc. page at Facebook.

Originally published on August 14, 2010

Last week The American Prospect revealed an unsettling workplace trend. This discovery is completely unanticipated, so prepare to be shocked.

When female coworkers are out of earshot, men sometimes talk about them.  Just awful, right?  And guys aren’t just discussing the work habits of their female colleagues — occasionally they mention their looks!

This is the new “sexual harassment”: not the groping, fondling, and obscene comments of yesteryear, but “what’s said about [women] when their backs are turned.” According to the Prospect‘s Ann Friedman, “behind-their-back comments are also intimidation and bullying of a sexual nature.” And this indirect harassment is even worse than dealing with run-of-the-mill lewdness from male coworkers.

[G]iven that networking and reputation are keys to success in many professions, what people say about you is arguably more important than what they say to your face. If your professional contacts are talking about your legs rather than your résumé, you’re at a disadvantage. I know how to handle direct sexist comments. It’s much harder to think about how to shut down a conversation about me that I may not even be aware of.

Watch out, guys: if you’re hanging out at the bar after work, be sure to limit the leg talk to women who aren’t coworkers. Unless, of course, the owners of said legs are around to “handle” the comments.  Got it?

Friedman describes some of the other conversations that would be off limits in her Utopian vision of a world in which men no longer talk about attractive women: continue reading …

Originally published on May 11, 2011

If there are any certainties in life, among them is determining people’s character by examining the company they keep. Rachel Maddow considers it her mission to have as many nationally known “Republicans” on her show as possible. Of course, the only “Republican” she regularly chats with is Michael Steele. Steele is well-liked but clearly not very conservative and was unable to hang onto his position as the head of the RNC. Under his watch, they almost went bankrupt.

But guess who showed up last week to join the Twit for her Republican/Crazed Leftist love fest? None other than the legendary Meghan McCain. (And by “legendary,” I mean her legendary lack of conservative chops.) While Maddow patted herself on the back for deigning to rub elbows with a nasty Republican, I found myself remembering Meggie Mac’s infamous Sarah Palin bashing. Let’s see, McCain is pro-gay marriage, pro-feminist, pro-global warming alarmism, and pro-flash-your-boobies-on-the-internet (sorry Meg, you posted the photo). The most conservative thing about this girl is her father and he’s not exactly a shining star of conservatism, so you can understand my snickering when Maddow referred to her as a “nationally recognized Republican.”

However, I got to thinking I might have to take back all the ungenerous things I’ve ever thought or said about McCain when she took Maddow to the NRA convention. It turns out she’s a Second Amendment fan. Of course, that doesn’t make a person conservative either. Ted Kennedy owned guns.

While wandering around the convention floor with MSNBCs cameras lingering on little kids handling handguns (gasp) Maddow grilled McCain on her thoughts about reviving the assault weapons ban. My hopes for McCain were finally dashed against the rocks with her reply.

McCain can think of absolutely no reason why any American should be able to have a semi-automatic military style assault rifle. Considering McCain claims to understand the Second Amendment, it is disappointing that she didn’t have an answer for this question that didn’t involve capitulating to leftist pressure. Sure, it sounds ridiculous that someone would want an extended magazine that holds 33 bullets instead of 12. It sounds dangerous. What would a hunter need with all that firepower? If the Second Amendment were written for hunters then I would agree.

But anyone who has read anything remotely close to an accurate history of America’s founding would know that the Second Amendment only has one purpose: to arm the people against a tyrannical government. What would happen if the United States military was loosed on the citizens of this nation and the only ones with assault rifles were the military? The Left likes to deride people who make these queries as crazy conspiratorial nut jobs, but this is not some fantasy that has never occurred. Governments are only benevolent until they aren’t. Then what? Lucky for us our founders thought of that and gave us the remedy. An armed populous is an unconquerable populous.

If the military is allowed far more powerful weapons than the average Joe, then the constitutional antibiotic for bad government is contaminated. The right to bear arms has nothing to do with duck season. It is this one thought that should be hammered into every argument with the Left. If that one point is left out and all one discusses is personal self-defense or hunting, then there really is no reason to have a semi-automatic assault rifle. For that matter, all semi-automatic weapons would be totally unnecessary. And that’s what the Left really wants: the outright banning of all semi-automatic weapons.

When I argue that capitalism pushes janitors to develop themselves and evolve into people who can create more value for society this isn't what I'm talking about.

I’ve been arguing with my leftist friends again. Bad habits die hard. I still manage to let the dirty laundry pile up for weeks too. Some day I’ll learn my lessons — and have more leftist drinking buddies and fewer days wearing faded t-shirts from college.

This time it’s Chris, an admitted Socialist and proud Union Man. (I suppose I’m being redundant aren’t I?)

An argument that started over the futility of the attempt to create a “digital picket line” to boycott the Huffington Post (Chris’s link was responsible for me suggesting to our star blogger Walter Hudson that he write this FANTASTIC post here) soon drifted over to the subject of the damaging effects of teachers unions. I challenged my friend when he seemed to play dumb on the horrific effects of lousy tenured teachers:

Oh come on, Chris. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Are you disputing the obvious reality that the result of making it much harder to fire elementary and high school teachers is that more bad teachers get to keep teaching kids poorly? It’s very hard to fire a tenured high school or elementary school teacher. The result of this is kids get left behind when they’re stuck with a lousy teacher for a year. Are you telling me that you’re perfectly satisfied with the status quo of the hoops that have to be jumped through to fire bad teachers?

I expected Chris to argue with me about this and insist that I’d been indoctrinated by evil right-wing talking points — not that I was genuinely concerned about children getting a good education. He’d demand that I produce statistics and research only to tell me why each factual piece I provided was somehow inadequate in its statistical methodology or that greater studies were required to prove what I claimed. Very smart leftists won’t disagree with you when the facts are clearly, indisputably on your side. Instead they’ll argue that it’s not adequate to prove what you claim and that instead more studies and research need to be conducted. This could be characterized as Socialism-via-Intellectual-Filibuster. (In these scenarios leftists don’t work to construct new socialist policies that will crush the American economy, but rather just keep the ones they have in place long enough to finish the job of bankrupting us.) Conservatives might be able to advance in the war of ideas but leftists will just keep setting the goal posts further and further away — but only if we don’t call them on it!

(Particularly academic leftists will often insist that online political debates have the same number of footnotes as scholarly papers. If you don’t have three citations to peer-reviewed journals to back up every sentence your write in your facebook comment then you’re not going to persuade them. Not that you’re ever going to change their minds even if you did meet all of their hard data demands.)

Instead, Chris admitted that lousy teachers keeping their jobs was a real problem — and that some form of merit-based pay for teachers might be a good idea. He then cited numerous examples of various teachers unions trying to correct this problem while acknowledging that not all union members and teachers were happy about it. In other words: he was actually willing to meet me halfway and agree on the nature of the problem so we could discuss techniques for solving it.

He seemed to expect that I would be horrified that some of my political opponents might actually be trying to sincerely solve real problems. What he doesn’t seem to grasp yet is that I’m not anti-union; I’m anti-the-problems-that-unions-usually-cause. Conservatives and Tea Partiers’ anti-union public policies do not have the end goal of breaking up unions but of correcting some of the problems that have resulted from union overreach. If unions didn’t actually hurt the people they claimed to be trying to help (as well as the rest of us too) then they would not be on the Tea Party’s radar. This was my response to Chris, which I tied into another economic debate he and I have had recently (which NRB readers might recognize from a sharp post the fiery Megan Fox wrote not long ago):

Well this is a more encouraging response — and further evidence that you are as I’ve regarded you for a long time, a political opponent more prone to decency and intellectual honesty than many in your movement.

But in your opening paragraph there’s still not a recognition of a core reality that seems to divide us. You say that bad teachers should simply be filtered out and not permitted to achieve tenure. That’s of course true, but the reality is that a good number of the bad teachers today may have been good enough to achieve tenure but wouldn’t if they were judged today. Having a job where you’re unlikely to get fired has the ability to change people. Stuff happens in life and people lose their motivation to work as hard as they once did. And that’s a core thing that we seem to disagree on at an implicit level: the reality that in this country people have the potential to go through pretty dramatic changes in their lives. We don’t stay the same people. (Most of the people in the bottom 20% of earners today won’t be there for their entire lives. If you insist on seeing the economic data proving this then I’ll be happy to provide it.)

For example, in the conversation about janitors’ salary I dispute paying janitors $50K per year not because I don’t think the work they do is meaningful and not because I don’t think they deserve to live comfortably. I’ve known plenty of janitors in my time and they’ve certainly been decent people. But the reality is that if people can live comfortably doing work that any high school dropout is qualified to do then there is nothing motivating — FORCING — people to try and push themselves to be something better than they are today. I spent years working entry-level jobs that paid around 25K a year. And what did that do for me? It pushed me to work harder so that someday I could provide more for my family and do more meaningful work. If the call center jobs I worked had paid me $50K per year then I would have had less motivation and would never have been forced to grow and evolve. I might still just be working these pretty easy, low-stress jobs and working on novels between calls. (Call center work is not as stressful as being in the Fight with David Horowitz.)

Thus, when you tell me that you think janitors should get paid $50K per year I don’t perceive that as you doing anything that actually helps janitors. Instead I see you creating a situation in which poor people are given incentive to spend their whole lives doing nothing more valuable than sweeping floors. Being a janitor is a job, not a career. People should aspire to more than mopping.

The honest truth, Chris, is that even though I might work full time for David Horowitz the political positions I advocate aren’t going to be based in some version of a conservative utopia but rather in a reaction to the leftist dystopia that we already see. It’s a politics of pragmatism. If leftist programs actually worked as people thought they did then I’d still support them. (I’d love to pay higher taxes if it meant that healthcare wouldn’t be as much of a pain in the neck as it is now! It sucks that we lose our health insurance if we lose our jobs and then face bankruptcy if something goes wrong. But it’s also a DAMN GOOD motivation to get a new job. If we had single payer healthcare system then I might work some easy, part-time job to just cover the bills and then spend all my time working on books.)

So your advocacy of $50K janitors doesn’t have the real world effects you think they do. All it does is hurt poor people more than it actually helps them — which is an apt description of most leftist political efforts to advocate on behalf of various disadvantaged groups.

Chris hasn’t responded to me yet. But I’m very interested in his answer.

Four Afghan women have achieved something that would have been unimaginable a decade ago: they are training alongside male recruits to become pilots in the Afghan Air Force. Amidst headlines about poverty, illiteracy, and breathtaking levels of violence against women, their accomplishments are beyond heartening.

Second Lt. Sourya Saleh hopes to serve as a role model for other Afghan women after completing her aviation training in the United States.

“We are very happy to be going to open these doors for the other women to come and join the military, to show them you can do this and make our country proud,” she said. “We want for all Afghan girls to know they can do anything.”

Another newly minted officer, Second Lt. Mary Sharifzada, told the Air Force Times that becoming a pilot has been her dream since she was a little girl:

“I want to show the people of Afghanistan that women are strong,” Sharifzada said. “We want to show the people of the world that the women of Afghanistan are strong and they can do anything they want.”

“They said I’m as brave as a man,” said Second Lt. Masooma Hussaini.

As brave as men, and according to Lt. Col. John Howard of the Thunder Lab training program, as capable as their male counterparts. But these women and future recruits may not get the chance to prove “they can do anything they want” if the United States selects Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer to supply turboprop planes for the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan.

In the April 2011 issue of Smart Girl Nation, my friend Ashley Sewell explains how the Brazilian plane would bar skilled female pilots from flying Light Air Support (LAS) and light attack and armed reconnaissance (LAAR) missions:

The front-runners are the American-made Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 (a plane like the T-6 training aircraft that would accommodate 95% of women pilots) and the Brazilian-made Embraer EMB-314 (a plane that sticks to older standards thus eliminating the possibility of being flown by a woman).

Those older standards exclude more than 80 percent of women (and small men) from safely flying the planes that will be used to train and equip the Afghan Air Force.

There’s no question that operational performance and pilot safety should be the primary criteria in choosing between the Embraer and Hawker Beechcraft planes. But if the two aircraft perform comparably, can we afford to indulge the Commander-in-Chief‘s childish love affair with Brazil, forcing the struggling Afghan Air Force to sideline much needed talent?

That’s not the only reason the Hawker Beechcraft proposal is superior.

When moral truth becomes politically incorrect, even otherwise sensible people lose their bearings. Thus it is with former NY Mayor Ed Koch, usually of sound mind on Middle East issues, who has joined the wolf pack attacking CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld who is the last man standing at CUNY who thinks it is a disgrace that the university would even think of honoring an Israel-hating demagogue like Tony Kushner. Koch, a longtime friend of Wiesenfeld is quoted in the Jewish Daily Forward as saying that Wiesenfeld was “obsessed” and that “It isn’t evil to be supportive of the Palestinian cause.” Au contraire. The last time I looked, the Palestinian cause was the destruction of the Jewish state. The “liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea” — the goal of Palestinian striving endorsed by every Palestinian leader — means in so many words the obliteration of the state of Israel. This is genocidal. This is evil. And the fact that even Ed Koch is hopelessly self-deluded on this issue is indicative of the moral abyss into which our intellectual elites have sunk.

Deborah Gardner, Peace Corps Volunteer, Murdered in Tonga

That great lefty favorite, the Peace Corps, just had a 50th birthday! You can tell, because it’s demanding presents. The Lefties who totally love conscience-salving stints in third world countries rejoiced and then swiftly returned to their soy lattes and organic arugula. Senator Harry Reid issued a breathless, sycophantic statement in which he, being Harry Reid, couldn’t resist making things up, pouting and petulantly trying to cling to funding.

I’m deeply discouraged that Republicans have proposed slashing significant funding for a program that trains workers for a 21^st century global economy, builds good will around the world and promotes public service. Instead of reducing the effectiveness of a highly cost-effective program, we should cut government spending in a smart, responsible way that targets waste and excess while keeping our economy growing.

Of course, he had nothing to say in response to charges that perhaps the Peace Corps isn’t so peaceful. At least not for the women who were raped – and then blamed for being raped - during their stints in the corps. No ado was made about the House hearing on Wednesday investigating the same, or the legislation proposed by Congressman Poe (R-TX) that would require some Peace Corps oversight. In fact, the New York Times reported that Democrats wished to, as always, sweep such things under the rug in fear that their precious funding might be lost:

[W]hether such a bill would pass Congress is unclear. Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, is co-sponsoring Mr. Poe’s bill, but other Democrats are skittish about it. They worry that the legislation, and Wednesday’s hearing, might be used to undermine the Peace Corps — the legacy of a Democratic president — and cut its funding.

Hey, what’s a little rape, with the added insult of victim blaming, as long as we keep our sweet, sweet funding? You know what I am skittish about, Democrats? Funding an organization wherein women are raped, assaulted and even murdered; 1,000 women have been sexually assaulted while in the Peace Corps in the past decade alone. And 23 Peace Corps volunteers have been murdered since its creation. This isn’t new, either. Peace Corps volunteer Deborah Gardner lost her life in Tonga in 1976.

Deborah Gardner was murdered by fellow Peace Corps worker Dennis Priven, who turned himself in. After stabbing her – 22 times – to death. The Peace Corps reaction? Try to cover it up:

“Even after everyone knew it was Dennis, already that effort by the Peace Corps to put the blame somewhere else. And to make things go away,” says [author Phil] Weiss. “That impulse has seized the Peace Corps within moments of Deb’s death.”

As revolting as that is, they went one further. The Peace Corps hired, and paid for, the best defense attorney available in Tonga. Priven was found not guilty and the Peace Corps quietly shuffled him back to the United States. Where he lived freely, for decades. Working for the government. No, really:

Weiss says Priven has led a small, anonymous life since then. He’s divorced, and he recently retired after working for decades for the U.S. government.

“Twelve years after Deb’s death, he was working for Social Security,” says Weiss. “And ultimately was their top computer guy in the Brooklyn office.

Kate Puzey was 24 years old when she was brutally murdered, her throat slit, while working for the Peace Corps in 2009. Her concerns about a fellow employee were ignored, and then the subject of an attempted cover-up after her death.

Jessica Smochek was gang-raped in Bangladesh in 2004.  This is how the Peace Corps gave her aid afterward: not only medical malpractice, but they blamed her. For being gang-raped (emphasis mine):

Peace Corps medical officer refused to give her a proper physical examination. Instead, the medic confiscated the former English teacher’s cellphone so that she could not alert her fellow volunteers and instructed her to tell anyone who asked about her sudden departure from the program that she was returning to the U.S. to get her wisdom teeth out. When Smochek arrived in Washington, D.C., a Peace Corps official asked her to write down everything she had done to provoke the attack.

“Shortly after I left, the country director — who never attempted to contact me after I was raped — called a meeting of several women in my former volunteer group and told them, without my permission, what had happened to me,” she said. “Then, he told them that rape was a woman’s fault and that I had caused what happened to me by being out alone after 5:00 PM. As for the other women in the group, who had been very vocal about being constantly stalked and afraid, he threatened them with administrative separation.”

Jessica was one of the courageous women who testified before Congress on Wednesday. You know, that same Congress that contains members more concerned with loss of funding than actual women and the violent crimes committed against them.

In beach lingo, THIS is the Anointed One

It’s hard for kids who grow up near the ocean in sunny Southern California. Who wouldn’t be tempted to spend all their time hangin’ at the beach, soaking up the surf, sand, sun, and bikinis? Of course, the responsible ones stay home and do their studying and go to college and get good jobs. When they grow up, if they stay in Orange County (the OC), the median annual income is $71,735. Not bad, right? They made the wise decision to hit the books instead of the beach, right? I mean, they’re way better off than the slackers who spend their lives down in the sand… right?

WRONG.

It utterly boggles my mind to report this, but city lifeguards in the swanky oceanside city of Newport Beach are UNIONIZED. In fact, they’ve got TWO unions – one for the full-timers and one for the part-time seasonal help.

So what I’m about to report next probably won’t surprise you one bit.

Newport’s full-time lifeguards make six figures. All 14 of them.

Well, okay. The lowest-paid collected $98,160.65 last year. The rest of them ranged from just over $100,000 to… wait for it… more than $200,000. (Two of them.)

That’s LIFEGUARDS, folks. You know – the job your kid had last summer? Too bad he didn’t work in Newport Beach, right? If he had, you wouldn’t have to worry about those college costs, because it would all be paid for, thanks to the dupes Newport Beach taxpayers.

Oh, we’re not done yet. I wish we were, but we’re not. The good people of the Lifeguard Management Association and the Association of Newport Beach Ocean Lifeguards were not content with obscene salaries – oh, no. That lifeguard work is stressful! Thirty years on the beach takes its toll! These poor slobs sitting in lifeguard towers their whole lives must be compensated for the tremendous burden imposed by their career choice: staring at girls, breathing crisp ocean air, tanning… you know, I’m getting choked up just thinking about the price these brave souls of the surf have paid to perform their selfless public service. Anyway, that’s the story their unions are sticking with, apparently.

Because Newport Beach lifeguards, after 30 years in the sand, can retire with 90 percent of their staggeringly inappropriate salary.

A group called Americans for Prosperity-California (wait – there are Americans who are for prosperity in California?) … anyway this brave and lonely band of right-thinkers points out that there is already at least one retiree who, if he lives to 80, will collect well over $3 million in retirement. (Strangely, that dude is doing the same thing now as when he was working – hanging out on the beach. Go figure.) And as more of these guys transition out of the lifeguard towers and down onto the sand – more and more of them will be retiring with $200K a year instead of $100K. Do the math. It’s not a day at the beach for Newport taxpayers, that’s for sure.

What does the union have to say about this?

“We have negotiated very fair and very reasonable salaries in conjunction with comparable positions… lifeguard salaries here are well within the norm of other city employees.”

THAT’S THE PROBLEM. Public worker pay is out of control in comparison to private sector salaries. Remember that OC median of $71K? That’s a median of ALL private salaries – from fast food workers to surgeons. So that median salary is $30K less than what city workers get – if they’re LIFEGUARDS.

So what have we learned, kids?

Stay in school!

Oops. No, that’s not what we learned.

We learned that public employee unions are, like, totally radical!

And I mean that in EVERY sense of the word.

Barack Obama is a man of many talents. Some presidents might be content to wreck the nation’s finances and display confused impotence to our enemies, but Obama also takes the time to needlessly poison America’s cultural well. Last night, Sean Hannity took the president to task for including Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., AKA rapper/poet “Common,” on the docket of a White House celebration of American prose.

Common’s prose covers all the bases of lefty thug culture, including railing against supposed warmongers:

Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push

No button

Killing over oil and grease

No weapons of destruction

How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one

And resentment of the law as the mortal enemy of blacks, who might want to consider packing heat, just in case:

Tell the law my Uzi weighs a ton

I walk like a warrior, from them I won’t run

On the streets they try to beat us like a drum

In Cincinnati another brother hung

Common is also a friend and defender of Obama’s old pal Jeremiah Wright—in 2008 he claimed what he “picked up from the pews…was messages of love.” Why, even love for the “US of KKK-A,” and those in the CIA who cooked up AIDS to decimate the black population! I don’t know about you, but I can certainly feel the love!

Of course, keeping in line with Wright, Common is also a racist. John Nolte revealed at Big Hollywood that Common disapproves of interracial relationships.

The usual defense of these guys is something along the lines of, “they may not be role models, but they’re not writing for kids.” Someone should tell that to Common himself, who says he is trying to “reach out and say something” inspiring to children, especially those who “don’t have parents around.” My hero.

In response to the uproar, the White House simply says that Common’s words has been distorted and that cop-killing isn’t the sum total of his work. Obama has never exactly been a crusader against filth in pop culture, but he did take a harder line as a candidate, when he called out rappers who degraded women and wrote in The Audacity of Hope (paperback pp. 60-61):

Progressives in particular seem confused on this point, which is why we so often get our clocks cleaned in elections. I recently gave a speech at the Kaiser Family Foundation after they released a study showing that the amount of sex on television has doubled in recent years. Now I enjoy HBO as much as the next guy, and I generally don’t care what adults watch in the privacy of their homes. In the case of children, I think it’s primarily the duty of parents to monitor what they are watching on television, and in my speech I even suggested that everyone would benefit if parents—heaven forbid—simply turned off the TV and tried to strike up a conversation with their kids.

Having said all that, I indicated that I wasn’t too happy with ads for erectile-dysfunction drugs popping up every fifteen minutes whenever I watched a football game with my daughters in the room. I offered the further observation that a popular show targeted at teens, in which young people with no visible means of support spend several months getting drunk and jumping naked into hot tubs with strangers, was not “the real world.”

It’s one thing that Barack Obama has been largely AWOL on race relations since becoming the nation’s biggest black role model, but now he’s elevating part of the problem. “Inspiring” black children with the message that the police everywhere are naturally inclined to oppress them not only stokes division and racial resentment, it can’t help but undermine the rule of law by conditioning mistrust for one of the government entities that actually is essential to society. The Common invite highlights how yet another of the promises of Obama’s election was never more than a pipe dream: the promise that he would lead America into a post-racial age.

From Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers, by Matthew Vadum (WND Books):

ACORN’s anti-democratic, un-American activities are not legitimate political advocacy protected by the First Amendment. They cry out for prosecution under federal racketeering laws. [The push for a racketeering probe got a boost in April 2011 when ACORN was convicted in a massive voter fraud conspiracy in Nevada. The felony conviction came after the book had gone to press. -MV]

Former Chicago ACORN leader Madeline Talbott is a master of the bank shakedown. She bragged about “dragging banks kicking and screaming” into questionable loans. Talbott thought highly of Barack Obama’s organizing work in the Windy City and invited him to lecture her staffers. She also led a mob attack on the Chicago City Council during a “living wage” debate. ACORN demonstrators “pushed over the metal detector and table used to screen visitors, backed police against the doors to the council chamber, and blocked late-arriving aldermen and city staff from entering the session.” Six people, including a defiant Talbott, were led away in handcuffs.

Then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had a taste of ACORN’s stormtrooper tactics in 1995, when about 500 ACORN activists took over the Washington Hilton, forcing Gingrich to cancel a speech to 2,500 county commissioners. Demonstrators chanting “Nuke Newt!” grabbed the microphone and commandeered the head table, then cheered when the speech was cancelled.

“ACORN is part of the enforcement wing and the intimidation wing of the left,” Gingrich said in an interview.

Members of ACORN assaulted New York state Sen. James Alesi, a Republican, and his chief of staff, during a raucous 2009 protest. Alesi said an angry mob nearly knocked him to the floor of the chamber and spat in the face of his chief of staff. ACORN was protesting after two Democratic state senators switched parties giving Republicans control of the New York Senate. ACORN’s political party, the Working Families Party, had invested considerable resources in state senate elections in the Empire State. WFP took credit for ending “30 years of right-wing Republican rule” in 2008.

Republican Mike Huckabee is another of many Republican officeholders to be terrorized by ACORN. In 1998, while governor of Arkansas, Huckabee prepared to deliver a speech on civil rights. Like Gingrich he was silenced by hundreds of screaming ACORN activists armed with bullhorns who stormed a Little Rock hotel conference room and drove him away. “They surrounded not only the outer walls, but then, much to the dismay of the state troopers who were with me, they then mounted the stage,” said Huckabee, who cut the speech short and left abruptly. “It was a very tense moment. It was totally unnecessary.”

During the anti-Huckabee demonstration, Johnnie Pugh, head of ACORN’s Arkansas chapter, seized the microphone. “We want justice,” she said. ACORN is “trying to get the bills paid and make a living wage and welfare reform is not working.” ACORN members chanted “The people united will never be defeated,” “Justice for welfare; Huckabee don’t care,” and “We’re fired up; we’re not going to take it no more.” A dozen ACORN activists ran after Huckabee. Some jumped on the governor’s car and pounded on it as others attempted to prevent him from leaving.

When Arkansas State Police investigated to determine if the demonstrators had broken any laws, Pugh called the probe “retaliation” and a “witch hunt.” She even threatened to hit Huckabee again with more in-your-face protests. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” she said.

This is hardly an exhaustive list of ACORN’s wrongdoings.

Radicals believe their goals warrant criminal means and “can be relied on to lie, steal votes and justify murder when committed by their political friends . . . because they are engaged in a permanent war whose goal is the salvation of mankind,” according to former radical-turned-conservative David Horowitz. “In this context, restraint of means can easily seem finicky.”

ACORN’s violence inciting techniques still flourish, practiced out in the open by organized labor and countless other radical groups. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, an ACORN ally, is unashamedly pro-thuggery. (Trumka is at center in the above photo.) He told members of the United Mine Workers in Illinois to “kick the [expletive] out of every last” worker who violated the sanctity of his picket lines.

The outrageous behavior tolerated by police today would have landed a person in jail earlier in America’s history. Political incitements to riot, which occur almost exclusively on the Left, fail to move law enforcement. Why? Because as a society we have gradually become inured to these evil tactics. It is “defining deviancy down,” to borrow a phrase coined by Daniel Patrick Moynihan to discuss the process by which society grows accustomed to antisocial behavior, rationalizing it away over time and redefining it:   “[T]he amount of deviant behavior in American society has increased beyond the levels the community can ‘afford to recognize’ and that accordingly we have been redefining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the ‘normal’ level in categories where behavior is abnormal by any earlier standard.” Moynihan warned ominously that “we are getting used to a lot of behavior that is not good for us.”

Early twentieth-century Americans were horrified by anarchist and labor union-initiated violence. Many labor organizations at the time were revolutionary terrorist groups. They killed people, incited riots, and fomented rebellion. But over time corporations and governments began to ignore the cardinal rule: don’t negotiate with terrorists.

They took a short-term perspective, deluding themselves into believing they were buying peace by caving in to terrorists’ demands, all in the hope of gaining market share or a few extra votes on Election Day.

The left-wing, pro-radical media has played a role too, lulling Americans into complacency by telling them nothing’s wrong. Leftists using ACORN-style tactics are portrayed as well-intentioned mainstream activists, noble crusaders for social justice who have everyone’s best interest at heart. Activists may get out of hand every once in a while, according to journalists, but they mean well.

Of course when patriotic Tea Party activists, alarmed that America is being transformed into a socialist state by the nation’s Community Organizer-in-Chief, express their well-founded concerns by merely booing a few congressmen and holding protest rallies, the media labels them heel-clicking fascist storm troopers. If there’s one thing the Left cannot tolerate, it is diversity of opinion and freedom of speech.

Americans have become so desensitized to in-your-face protest and shakedown tactics that ACORN’s jackboot activism, which rightly horrified society in past years, hardly registers today. Unless ACORN or its lawless brethren in the so-called progressive movement are wrecking front lawns, obstructing businesses, burning bankers in effigy, or chasing politicians from a stage, such groups are boring to Americans.

Maybe that’s why, in the words of former ACORN national board member Marcel Reid, it took “a half-naked 20-year-old” to spark the nationwide backlash that erupted against the group in 2009. Without the undercover videos masterminded by conservative activists James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles that showed ACORN employees offering advice on establishing an illegal brothel employing underage Salvadoran girls, Americans’ concern about the group’s persistent lawbreaking might never have reached a fever pitch that forced Congress to defund the group in September 2009, beginning its final slide into bankruptcy.

ACORN was only conducting business as usual, but the videos provided graphic evidence that the group’s business was not only unsavory but illegitimate.

Follow me on Twitter and check out my new book Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers. Copyright © 2011 by Matthew Vadum. View the Subversion Inc. page at Facebook.