The Liberalism Of The Associated Press On Display: Again

Read this article about an abortion clinic in Kansas.

What got my attention was this paragraph:

The licensing law is part of an unprecedented surge of anti-abortion legislation that has advanced through Republican-controlled legislatures in many states. Collectively, the measures create an array of new obstacles -- legal, financial and psychological -- for women seeking abortions and doctors performing them.

This is a prime example of how the media promotes it's far-left agenda.

Notice the verbiage.

"Anti-abortion" legislation. It is always anti-abortion, not pro-life. Conversely, it is never pro-abortion it's pro-choice.

The measures create an "array of new obstacles". The legislation is not intended to save the life of unborn children. It's not intended to regulate a health care facility to be sure women are provided safe abortions, something all on the left are always blathering on about. We need to keep abortion legal so women do not have to go to back alleys for abortions. Isn't this legislation attempting to regulate the practice to keep it safe? No, according to the AP it is not attempting to make the abortion safe for the women or save the life of the child, it's intended to block women from exercising a "choice" or "family planning".

Then there is the "psychological" obstacles. How exactly is the AP determining that the bills being passed are damaging women psychologically? What measure did they use to determine this? Without a way to determine it definitively it becomes an opinion.

Nothing new here, just venting.

Can The UN Be Anymore Absurd?

North Korea to Chair UN Disarmament Conference

Read the article

Well, the title pretty much says it all. North Korea is chairing the United Nations Conference on Disarmament.

What else is there to say?

What Do You Think About This?

Supreme Court Strikes Rule Banning Violent Video Game Sale to Kids

Read the article.

SCOTUS has ruled that states cannot restrict sales of video games with adult content to minors.

What do you think about this?

Is this a 1st amendment issue?

Do states have a right to protect children?

What about pornography sales to minors?

Do you agree with the decision?

“I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of African-American history in this country, and tell me if I’m crazy: Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms into our urban centers, across this country, that are killing black and brown children,”

Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy

Source

I only have one question about this.

Huh?

Is Entitlement The New Normal? Part III, Where To Next?

In the first part of this I posted about poverty and it’s effect on people. The second post was about how we got to the entitlement culture. Today the question is, what’s next?

As I said at the close of yesterday’s post, entitlement has become a belief system in our society.

This is the real problem. How do you change cultural beliefs? Do you? Is this what we have now?

One of the changes would have to come to our politicians and even to the political system itself. Our political system is set up to where politicians are not rewarded (re-elected) by looking out for the country. They are rewarded by giving their constituents what they want or, more accurately, keeping them thinking that they are getting or will get what they want. In other words, politicians in impoverished areas have made a living off of keeping their constituents happy, not keeping the country afloat.

Then we have the media. The majority of the media is not only liberal but many of them are far left. One only has to see how they promote the current inhabitant of the White House and his attempt to push the country towards socialism. Look also at how they supported the attempt at nationalizing our health care.

The media does not typically promote entitlements openly, there is still a small vestige of an attempt to appear impartial.

Their support is generally one of selective reporting. They choose which stories to run on a given topic, say health care. These choices are generally such that the positive stories get ran and the negative or oppositional stories get buried.

A person may say that they do not let the media think for them, they hear the info and make up their own mind. To this I have a tendency to agree, for most people. There are two problems with this though.

One, remember that many of the people receiving entitlements tend towards lower education, They were raised in an environment in which education was not respected. This is an easy target for the media.

Two, a person, no matter how intelligent, can only form an opinion based on the information they have. This is the real danger of a biased media. This is where they accomplish their goals. They are not clever enough to indoctrinate most people and they know this. Bottom line though is if they only report that health care is a human right, that the health care reform pushed by Obama will insure more people for less money, that they will keep their own doctor, etc, than this becomes truth. If they refuse to report the opposing arguments about panels established to decide level and accessibility of care (popularly called death panels), if they gloss over the access to illegal immigrants long enough for it to be removed, if they gloss over the provision of abortion funding against federal law until it’s withdrawn, then none of it’s in the bill.

People get their information form the media, we do not all have insiders in Congress to feed us info, this is what they base their decisions on. This is how the media controls the message.

Some in the media will go even farther and venture into actual cheerleading of a cause and ridiculing opposition to it. We have all seen reporters in the leftist media attacking conservatives as mean-spirited, hateful, racist, etc.

Look no further than the current Medicare reform attempt by Paul Ryan. This is an entitlement that few will argue against reforming. There have been many on the left, including former President Bill Clinton, who have agreed that it needs reform. The media and politicians on the left smelled a chance to score points though and attacked Ryan for suggesting that we reform the entitlement.

What was the message? Entitlements are good and reforming them is mean-spirited and cruel. Paul Ryan wants to deprive your grandmother of health insurance. There have even been suggestions, not so subtle, that he was trying to kill old people.

Finally, we have the welfare system itself. The recipients of assistance have to visit an office for their initial sign up and to continue receiving benefits.

These offices are staffed with like-minded people. The staff exist in these offices to assist the recipients to get what they can. They are there to make sure they get all they are “entitled” to.

They are pros at gaming the system. If there is a benefit out there, they will know of it and how to get it. There has even been plenty of anecdotal evidence that they will go as far as coaching recipients on how to tweak the rules a bit to squeeze more out of the system. Coach parents and their children on how to qualify for SSI.

So, we have a culture comprised of people who believe they are owed a living. They have been raised this way. They have been taught, both told by their parents and peers and had the behavior modeled for them, that they deserve these benefits.

We have politicians whose very livelihood depends on their constituents continuing to believe that they are entitled to this assistance. They therefore work tirelessly to re-enforce the attitude and keep the benefits flowing to them.

We have a media in the US that leans fairly far to the left and is comprised of members who believe that a socialistic US is desirable and within reach.

We have a welfare system that, maybe not through design but through practice, is rigged to perpetuate the culture. They too, like the politicians, have a vested interest in keeping the entitlements alive because their very careers depend on there being welfare recipients.

So, the question is, can this be fixed?

Sorry I do not have an answer, just questions. What are your thoughts?

Is Entitlement The New Normal? Part II, The Beginning, Middle, And Present

Yesterday I wrote about poverty and how the two different ideologies, conservatism and liberalism, approach it. For today’s post the focus will mostly be on liberalism because I feel they are largely responsible for where we are now. With that said, we do have to realize conservatives also must share some blame, partly from complacency but also for some there has been complicity.

I believe the sense of entitlement has it’s origins in the 1960’s and President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.

This set the stage for the welfare policies of the 1970’s, 1980’s, and a fair portion of the 1990’s.

The welfare policies in place then made it punitive for mothers to be married. This certainly was not the goal of the programs (one would like to hope) but it was definitely the result.

Women were given more money if they were a single mother, or, less if they were married. While it could be reasonably argued that a single mother has it tougher and needs the assistance, these policies had the undesirable effect of giving women an incentive to not get married.

There also was the added bonus of receiving more assistance for having more children.

This was a double blow to the family structure in the US and helped lay the foundation for our entitlement culture.

Yesterday I wrote about poverty in the US. I feel that a lot of today’s poverty woes and the sense of entitlement that follows it is the direct result of the breakdown of the American family and I attribute a lot of this to the war on poverty and the ensuing welfare policies.

Because of these policies we had a significant portion of a generation of Americans who grew up without a father in the household. We had single mothers raising children.

These mothers were less likely to have a high school education and far less likely to have post secondary training. Due to this, there was less of a chance they would have a full appreciation for the value of education and therefore less likely to instill this value in their children.

They were less able to discipline and control their children on their own. Less able to keep them in school. Less able to keep them from becoming involved in criminal activity.

We had a generation of children that grew up without an appreciation for education, without someone to model a strong work ethic. Some communities now have less than a 50% graduation rate, 25% of ninth graders in Detroit will graduate. Unemployment and underemployment is endemic in this culture.

Add to this the fact that we instilled in these children that a family does not need two parents. We raised a generation of girls who believed a child, or children, out of wedlock was okay. A generation of boys that had no sense of responsibility for the children they were producing. It is easy to be critical of these people but a person is what we teach them.

This culture morphed from one in which a lack of education, lack of a two-parent household, and an unwillingness to work for a living was not only tolerated but expected, defended, and celebrated.

Many in this culture had open disdain for education. Education was looked upon with derision. Children were not only not encouraged to go to school but were often ridiculed by their peers if they attempted to learn.

Single motherhood became celebrated. I grew up in an impoverished area of Flint, Michigan in the 70’s. I remember going to high school basketball games and it being quite fashionable for the high school moms to bring their babies to the games. The fathers weren’t there and if they were they had no interest in the child, it wasn’t their problem.

Unemployment wasn’t frowned upon, it was envied as the ability to hang out and have fun without being encumbered with having to work. These people didn’t have to punch a clock.

People no longer were ashamed to get welfare, recipients openly talked about going to the welfare office. People began to grumble if they were not receiving enough or because someone harassed them at the welfare office about getting a job.

Finally, possibly the most devastating blow to the notion that one should work for what they have, welfare recipients were punished financially if they worked. If a mother were to make an attempt to go out, find a job, and earn money to raise her family out of poverty, she saw her welfare benefits cut. This created a disincentive to work for a living.

These people had children and the cycle continued. These children were now being raised in households that not only had the belief that assistance was to be tolerated but expected.

We had politicians that made a living off of this expectation. If you have the belief that you are entitled to assistance and a local politician says he or she will fight for this assistance, and delivers, who will you vote for?

These politicians helped bring us to where we are today.

People began to feel as if they were owed a living, health care was a right, and any notion that one should earn any of this was heartless and, often racist.

These people elected like-minded politicians. They elected politicians who were socialistic or communistic at nature. Many of them were themselves raised in the welfare culture. Their lives were one of entitlement.

These politicians knew that if they wanted to keep their jobs, they had to keep the people of their district satisfied. These politicians had an easy audience. They had people that were largely uneducated and felt they were owed a living by the government.

They always promised and occasionally delivered. It was this promising that helped perpetuate the notion of entitlement. They told their constituents exactly what they wanted to hear. They convinced themselves they were helping their constituents.

This belief is the crux of today’s post.

We complain about the entitlement. We talk about how they feel this way. The reality is, they believe this.

I listened to a woman speak one day at a conference. She was a director at an Emergency Room and she was a great speaker. Her talk was primarily on customer service.

As with all ER nurses and doctors, she loved telling stories. The funny thing was that she told the same stories that we tell. It seems idiocy is universal across the country.

She said something that stuck with me. She was talking about how we all complain about the people that want medications or something else free from the ER but they will have expensive painted nails or they smoke. This is a common frustration for us.

Anyways, she said “they are missing this page from their book”. In other words, they don’t get it. It is not maliciousness, they really believe it is okay for them to have other people support them.

I see this in the ER. People are so casual about asking for help. Many of us would be devastated to have to admit we need a stranger to buy Tylenol for our child. These requests are made in conversational tones. No down-looking awkwardness, they could have been asking me if I knew what time it was. If we have the nerve to make the suggestion that unbranded acetaminophen works just as well and is very cheap at Walmart, etc, they are outraged.

This is not to excuse the behavior, simply making a point.

So, tomorrow the question is, what do we do? Is there a way to change societal attitudes or is this the new normal?

Is Entitlement The New Normal? Part I, The Underlying Issue

I was reading a post from friend and fellow blogger Mustang at Social Sense yesterday that got me thinking about the sense of entitlement in the US today, how we got here, and if this is the new norm.

After starting to write this I realized it quickly became too long for one post. This is a mix of Mustang’s post striking a nerve and me being long-winded. With full deference to Mustang and his ability to strike a nerve in me, a fair amount of it is my long-windedness. This is something my wife has accused me of more than once while reviewing my writing for me. I will therefore post this in a three part series. Please return tomorrow and the next day for the rest of it.

As most regular readers know, I am a Registered Nurse in an inner city Emergency Room. I deal with poverty a lot.

There are misconceptions about poverty. Misconception number one is that it is strictly due to laziness.

This is not entirely true. It is certainly not entirely untrue, many people are poor because they are lazy and unambitious. Some though really have had a crappy life that most of us could never fully understand.

First off is parenting. Most of us have had at least a decent life. We have had good parents (two of them, opposite sex). We were given the chance to succeed. While we have likely all had hard times, my wife and I had a helluva time while I was putting myself through college, by and large we had chances and we took them.

Even for those of you who had a rough upbringing, divorced parents, a parent with substance abuse problems, low income, most of you have not faced real poverty or truly bad parents.

I am talking about parents so bad that they actually damage their children.

Imagine spending your entire childhood being told you were a mistake, a burden, the product of a rape, your mother hates your father and so therefore hates you.

Imagine not knowing who your father is or having a new "father" every six months. Some are actually sort of likable, some beat you and your mother.

Imagine being molested and forced to perform sex acts for a drunken boyfriend or boyfriends of your mother.

Imagine raising yourself since you were five or six years old because your mother is out hooking or home and drunk.

I see all of this on a regular basis in the ER. These kids are so F'ed up by the time they get to their late teens it's no wonder they cannot be productive members of society.

Finally, it happens a lot more than what most people think.

So, these kids become adults. They no longer have even the meager support their parents provided them. Were do they go from there?

Most of us also don't understand true poverty. Few us haven't had some time in our life where we were completely broke. Maybe a time when you did not know how you were going to pay the mortgage. Or a time when you had trouble feeding your kids for a week or two. You did it but it wasn't easy.

My wife and I have some rough stretches, I know what it is like.

With that said, most of us don't know true poverty. Most of us have not had to decide between having a place to live and feeding our kids. Then our house is broken into and the money we had set aside for groceries this week was stolen.

The staff of the ER I work in had to go to a poverty simulation a while back. There was a lot of it I did not agree with and it was clearly designed to produce sympathy for poverty but I actually did learn some things from it.

Basically the outline of it was a month in poverty with four fifteen minute "weeks" in which we had a fixed income, bills to pay with this income, and unexpected events. It was clearly rigged so that you could not win. It was designed quite well though.

The unexpected events were tough and did give an idea of how simple things like your car breaking down can have a profound effect on your life if you have no money.

In summation, there is real poverty in the US and it is not always self inflicted.

So, what do we do about it? This is the question that goes to the heart of the divide between the conservative and liberal ideologies.

Conservatives take the tack that the poor should be empowered to help themselves out of poverty. This is America, the land of equal opportunity.

To conservatives, poverty is not a disease but a symptom of an ailment that needs to be cured.

We are not mean-spirited and want to let people starve. I, for one, am not against public assistance. I think there are times when people need a helping hand. I just feel like it should not be a career option.

We are, proportionally, more generous in giving to charity than our liberal counterparts. We feel that charitable organizations are a good means for temporary help to the poor.

We have expectations. We expect people to take advantage of the assistance given them to not only survive but strive to better themselves so they can eventually become a productive member of society. They can then give back to society what they have been given.

Liberals believe that poverty is not a symptom but a disease. They do not want to cure it but instead treat it, for a lifetime.

They are not interested in a hand-up but a hand-out.

Proportionally they are less giving to charity, believing instead that any extra wealth a person has should be given to the government for the government to then dole out to the poor.

There are no expectations that one rise above poverty. To them, public assistance is a legitimate career choice. They will not say this but support it instead through tolerance of it.

This is all simple review and I certainly do not mean to insult the reader’s intelligence with it. I use it only a means to explain how we got to the sense of entitlement society we find ourselves in now.

Tomorrow, the road to entitlement

Remember This Dude?

NASA scientist James Hansen made a name for himself when he attacked the George W Bush administration for silencing scientists who did not adhere to the administration line that global warming was not man made.

"A NOAA scientist cannot speak with a reporter unless there is a 'listener' on the line with him or her,"..."it seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States. The claim is that the 'listener' is there to protect the NOAA scientist. If you buy that one, please see me at the break; there is a bridge down the street that I would like to sell to you."

James Hansen, The Nation, source

Well, flash to today.

NASA Scientist Accused of Using Celeb Status Among Environmental Groups to Enrich Himself

Source

First as an aside. Reading about this, I am struck with how naive we were back then as to just how secretive and punitive an administration could really be. Think back on how Bush was vilified for how secretive his administration was. Think about how he supposedly punished critics of the administration. We've come a long way since then huh?

Back to Mr. Hansen though.

Read the article. He seems to have gotten over the inability to speak freely very nicely. In fact, he doesn't seem to speak for free at all. He has made millions speaking out about climate change, most of it possibly illegally.

Now that we have a new administration that prides itself on openness and accountability, what do you think will happen to this gentleman?

This Can't Be Good For Obama

African-American unemployment at 16 percent

CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports that, historically, the unemployment rate for African Americans has always been higher than the national average. However, now it's at Depression-era levels. The most recent figures show African American joblessness at 16.2 percent. For black males, it's at 17.5 percent; And for black teens, it's nearly 41 percent.

Source

It may not be a deal breaker for Obama but it would be hard to argue that the black vote is not very important to his re-election chances.

Further, I don't think the black vote will run in droves to the GOP.

What do you think will happen though if these numbers stay as they are now?

George Bush, not wildly popular among black voters, collected about 10 - 11% of their vote in 2000 and 2004.

Obama took 96% of the black vote in 2008.

The black vote works out to be about 12% of the vote in a Presidential election.

If the next GOP candidate took back 5% points of the vote Bush got this would be about a half a percent of the electorate or roughly 500,000 votes.

Realize this is not a loss of 500,000 votes - it's a million vote swing, a 500,000 vote loss for Obama and a corresponding 500,000 vote gain for the GOP candidate.

Think that will matter in what is likely going to be a close election?

The more likely scenario is that a significant portion of the black vote could stay home. Not traditionally a reliable vote, their peak was in 2008 when almost 13% or 13 million blacks voted. Of these 13 million, 96% were for Obama.

If 10% of these voters are unhappy and stay home it's a loss of in the neighborhood of one and a quarter million votes for Obama.

Again, close election.

Add to this the following

-Many conservatives stayed home in 2008 to "protest" John McCain (don't even get me started on this). These people have come to their senses after the wild success of their plan in 2008 and will actually vote this time.

-Obama is losing the independent vote, an important part of his victory in 2008

-Hispanics on the left are not happy with Obama over his lack of immigration "reform". They are not any happier with the GOP but many of them will stay home nonetheless

-White liberals are unhappy because (pick one) we do not have abortion shops on every corner fully funded by the government, we are not the communist utopia he promised, people are still expected to work for what they want, we have not destroyed our national energy apparatus to finally get that damned polar bear off of that ice floe we keep seeing the picture of, we have not fully embraced sharia law, wealthy people still have money (with the obvious exemption for George Soros), Fox News is still on the air spreading the truth their lies, we still have a standing military, the country still exists.

I'm telling you folks, this election is not near over yet.

What Do You Think About This?

Congressional members from both parties are pressuring Obama to ask for congressional approval for the US' actions in Libya under the war powers act.

In the latest attempt to get him to do it, they are threatening to cut off funding for the "kinetic military action" as Obama puts it.

So, the question is two-fold this week.

Should Obama be required to ask approval under the war powers act? Does it qualify? Is it a "war" instead of a simple military action? Does asking him tie the hands of the President to rapidly respond to an emerging crisis? Should Obama, given his status as the first black President and an all-around great guy, be exempt when other Presidents would not?

Secondly, does cutting off funding go too far? Is this a legitimate exercise of Congressional powers or is it using politics to get a point across at the risk of endangering our troops?

What are your thoughts?

Quote Of The Week

"Did I understand him correctly that he has been here since 1988?"..."Why aren’t you speaking in English then?"

Texas State Senator, Chris Harris, Arlington

Source

Antolin Aguirre of the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition, was giving testimony on an illegal immigration bill. For the testimony Mr. Aguirre was using a Spanish interpreter.

This is a question that needs to be asked more often. We spend millions upon millions (billions?) each year in the US providing interpreters for people who refuse to speak English.

This is a shift from the past. At one time in our society it was assumed that if a person moved to the US they would take an English class and learn to speak the language of the US, English.

I very much doubt that English interpreters are as prevalent in Mexico or most other Spanish speaking countries. I find it highly unlikely that government offices, health care facilities, and retailers in these countries provide a staff of English speaking interpreters free of charge.

I see this first hand in the hospital I work at. I work at an inner city ER in a Catholic hospital in a city with a sizable Hispanic population. We get a high percentage of Hispanics.

I mostly enjoy our Hispanic patients. They are more often than not good, hard-working people. They have a strong family culture and take very good care of their children. They generally tend to be polite and grateful for the care we provide.

I have no numbers but we have to spend a million dollars or more a year on interpretation services. This is not a service that can be billed to the patient or their insurance. It is a service that comes directly out of my paycheck or is taken away from purchasing equipment for us to use for our patients.

I do want to make clear that I often see interpretation as an important service. Health care is important and we have to make decisions that can often literally be life or death. As a strong patient advocate, I want a patient to understand what we are saying so they can make an informed decision.

With that said, I get incredibly frustrated with people that I know are in the country for years and are refusing to become proficient in English. At what point do we stop providing this service?

Many on the left are going to attack Senator Harris as a racist.

His question though is one that is overdue. If someone has been in the United States for 23 years, why aren't they speaking English?

The (Continuing) Brilliance Of The Left

“As we look to be informational, we should include an analysis of how Christian militants or others might bring down the country. We have to look broadly, do we not?”

Sheila Jackson Lee.

Rep. Lee made this remark at the King hearing on Islamic radicalization in US prisons.

Why does this genius think we need to look at Christians while we are investigating Islamic terrorism? Because there have been a few abortion clinics bombed.

Islamic terrorists have killed thousands of people in the US. They are responsible for almost all of the international terrorism of the last 40 years.

Some abortion clinics (where millions of babies have been murdered) have been bombed. Not by organized religion. Not directly in the name of Jesus (as Islamic terrorism is in the name of Mohammed). To my knowledge, no one has died in any of these bombings although one could pretty easily argue a lot of lives have been saved because of them.

Ms Lee may be on to something here, they are eerily similar.

And yes, this is the same Sheila Jackson Lee that has brought us these other gems:

"whether the Mars Pathfinder had taken an image of the flag planted on Mars by Neil Armstrong in 1969."

"Twenty-seven other countries, including Rwanda, Afghanistan, Algeria and China have equality provisions,"

"Today, we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South, exchanging and working. We may not agree with all that North Vietnam is doing, but they are living in peace. I would look for a better human rights record for North Vietnam, but they are living side by side."

The sad thing? She's one of the brighter leftists in Congress.

Sometimes There Is Justice

This dude won't be missed IMHO.

Man Dies While Raping Elderly Texas Woman

Read the article.

This POS rode a bike 2 miles, in Texas in the summer, to rape a 77 year old woman. Shortly afterwards, he didn't feel well, rolled over, and died.

Good riddance.

What Do You Think About This?

Semper No: Pennsylvania Marine Barred From Wearing Uniform at High School Graduation

Read the article.

This young lady got out of school early and went through basic training. She wants to wear her dress uniform for graduation and the school is saying no, she needs to wear the gown like everyone else.

What are your thoughts?

Should the school stand by it's dress code? No matter what?

Should the girl accept it?

Give me your thoughts.

“Strong rural communities are key to a stronger America,”

Barack Obama, June 9, 2011

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Barack Obama, April 6, 2008

Source for both quotes

"Barack Obama is so full of shit he draws flies"

Chuck Thinks, June 9, 2011

Source

Beyond Pathetic

From The NYT:

Help Us Review the Sarah Palin E-Mail Records

From The Washington Post:

Help analyze the Palin e-mails

Evidently e-mails from Sarah Palin's tenure as Alaska Governor are being released tomorrow and the NY Slime and the Wash Post are going to post them online and are asking volunteers to read them and post any goodies found in them.

I don't even know what to say about this anymore. They leftist media cannot get anymore pathetic than it is now.

For a really good time read the comments on the NYT article. See how many people are asking if they did this with the Obamakare bill.

Some Balls For A Change

Iranian Women's Soccer Team Disqualified From Olympics Over Headscarves

Read the article.

The FIFA has ruled head scarves cannot be worn in their matches because having them wrapped around the neck is a safety hazard.

Nice to see someone with the balls to say the Muzzies have to follow the rules for a change.

This is really fun too.

"These are the dictators and colonialists who want to impose their lifestyle on others,"..."We will deal with those who carried out this ugly job. We follow definite rights of our girls."

President Imanutjob, Iran.

It's touching to see Iran lead the way in women's rights.

What Do You Think About This?

Gay softball league limit on straight players OK'd

Read the article

Basically, there is a ball league (pun intended) for gays and their rules say they can only have two "straight" men per team. A team was sued because it was supposedly violating the rule.

One argument is that they had men that were bisexual.

The other argument is that they were not "gay enough" and in fact could even have been ringers.

My intention is not really to discuss the issue of whether they should be allowed to discriminate because, quite frankly, the whole thing seems ridiculous.

To be honest, I'm not really against an all gay league. The only problem I would have is that these same people would never stop raising hell if someone were to form a league and exclude gays.

What caught my eye is the notion that a gay team would feel it necessary to bring in "straight" ringers and that other teams would fight it.

Is this an acknowledgement that fruits aren't as tough and athletic as real men?

What are your thoughts?

Quote Of The Week

“If we’re going to play that game, I think that game can be played here as well, because after all, the minimum coverage provision only kicks in after people have earned a minimum amount of income,”...“So it’s a penalty on earning a certain amount of income and self insuring. It’s not just on self insuring on its own. So I guess one could say, just as the restaurant owner could depart the market in Heart of Atlanta Motel, someone doesn’t need to earn that much income.

Neal Kumar Katyal, acting Solicitor General, Obama Administration

Source

Mr Kaytal was arguing before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that if a person does not like the mandate in Obamakare, they can just make less money.

If this isn't the definition of leftism, nothing is. Earn less money so the gubmint can support you.

You just can't make this shit up.

Pomp And Circumstance

I would swear to God that the above picture was taken just yesterday.

I remember the boy in it. Always willing to share. Always a happy baby.

Tonight that little kid in the picture graduated with highest honors from High School.

He has made us proud, as all of our children do.

Please join me in congratulating Chuck Thinks Right Jr on his graduation.

You Don't Have To Be An Idiot To Work Here, But It Helps

MSNBC's Martin Bashir: Palin Bus Tour In "Breach Of Federal Law"

Read the article and see the video here

The left has always worked pretty hard to smear Sarah Palin. There has also been a cottage industry that has sprung up to attempt to have her investigated for various legal issues. All in the name of destroying someone who scares them.

Martin Bashir has staked a claim to be among the best though.

He is making the assertion that she is in violation for using the American flag for advertising purposes and is thus breaking the law.

The quotes from him on the above link are essentially incomprehensible. He alternately accuses her of self-promotion, promoting her book, and running for President. He then followed it up with the declaration that none of this is for a presidential run.

This is why I am a little confused as to what he is accusing her of.

I did do a little research and this is what Wiki said about the flag code

The United States Flag Code establishes advisory rules for display and care of the flag of the United States. It is Chapter 1 of Title 4 of the United States Code (4 U.S.C. § 1 et seq). This is a U.S. federal law, but there is no penalty for failure to comply with it and it is not widely enforced — indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

Source

Oh well, I guess someone had to take Ed Schultz's place this week.

This is Going To Be An Interesting Election

“We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country that are part of the backbone of our economy and this is not only a reality but a necessity," she said. "And that it would be harmful--the Republican solution that I’ve seen in the last three years is that we should just pack them all up and ship them back to their own countries and that in fact it should be a crime and we should arrested them all.”

Source

For those of you who despaired when Howard Dean left the DNC don't worry, his idiot love-child is now in charge.

This genius has insisted that people are not required to buy insurance under Obamakare.

Finally, check out this site for more Schultzisms.

Now all we need is for them to let Joe Biden out of the closet they've been hiding him in. Tighten your seat belts, this is going to be fun.