Gates/Crowley… the Issue That Will Not Die

Frankly I think there are few people on the sphere who bring greater gravitas to the entire matter about the Gates /Crowley affair than Sister Toldjah. Yesterday morning’s post on that point reinforces that perception.

— President Obama expressed “regret” yesterday – but did not apologize – for the choice of words he initially used to describe the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.:

President Obama said Friday that he “could have calibrated” his words more carefully in the controversy over the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. but added that he believed there was an “overreaction” by both sides in a case that has inflamed racial tensions across the country.

Mr. Obama said he hoped the case became “a teachable moment” to be used to improve relations between minorities and police officers.

Oh yes – it’s certainly been a “teachable moment” – at least of terms of how we know our President will use issues like this to his advantage, anyway.

— Related to Obama’s “change in tone,” he has also expressed an interest in having both Crowley, who he called Friday, and Gates visit the WH to “have a beer” with him, in an apparent gesture meant to bridge the racial divide.  Gates has responded by saying he would be interested as well … as a way of “using” his “racial profiling experience” as a way to improve the justice system for black people in the future:

“It was very kind of the President to phone me today.  Vernon Jordan is absolutely correct: my unfortunate experience will only have a larger meaning if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling and to enhance fairness and equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and for people of color.

And to that end, I look forward to studying the history of racial profiling in a new documentary for PBS. I told the President that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative. I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sgt. [James] Crowley for a beer with the President will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige.

After all, I first proposed that Sgt. Crowley and I meet as early as last Monday. If my experience leads to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling, then I would find that enormously gratifying. Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which ‘equal justice before law’ is a lived reality.”

Translation: I’m going to milk my “victimhood” status for all it is worth.

There’s far more in a way of commentary on her site this morning about this nonsense.  She has it right, of course, that Gates’s milking the victimhood status, and frankly that Obama is, as well.  And the thing is, it’s not like this whole thing wasn’t predictable.  It was bound to come up eventually.

The one thing about all of this I’ve not seen anybody make note of yet is that this is just one more example of how far out of touch with mainstream America this White House really is. Obama’s insistence on playing the race card , his knee-jerk tendency to play the victimhood card, may play well among certain segments of black America.  But it is certainly not playing out well with the majority of us.  And so we continue to watch the Obama polling numbers drop precipitously by the day.

So much, then, for the post racial society that we were promised.  Apparently, we are to accept that in the same light that we accept the promises of the stimulus keeping the unemployment rate in the single digits.  We are to accept these statements in the same light that we accept the promise of a pony in every garage, if we would but accept that government is the one to be running health care.  And so on.

And why not?  According to the polling numbers and the vast majority of black America does.  Given that bit of intellectual dishonesty we see coming from the 90 percent of black America who still supports Obama, I can’t help but wonder if this presidency hasn’t damaged our progress toward the post racial America that we were promised.  It certainly hasn’t advanced it.  The presidency, if nothing else, is a trust.  Given the massive failures of this presidency, even just six months into it, it’s a struggle to envision the American people trusting someone so prone to racial identity with the office again.

When reading the ravings of Steve Benen, one should be prepared for certain level of irony at the off.  However, when coming from one of the most insufferable leftists rating on the sphere today, the following statement of Benen’s brings incredulity to a new level.

. Conceit is nearly always unseemly, but it takes a smug fool with misplaced arrogance to be truly offensive.

Ladies and gentlemen are must tell you in all candor: My irony meter just had an accident.

Thing is,  he keeps going from there.

The Weekly Standard‘s Fred Barnes devotes his latest column to bashing President Obama’s economic policies. That, in and of itself, is unremarkable. Barnes is a Bush/Cheney Republican, and Obama isn’t. They’re bound to see economic policy differently.

What’s striking, though, is how Barnes presents his argument. Instead of simply making the case against the administration’s policies, he feels comfortable arguing that Obama is “an economic illiterate,” the “Know-Nothing-in-Chief,” and a leader lacking “even a sketchy grasp of economics.” This from a shameless conservative hack who has never demonstrated any proficiency in any area of public policy.

Given the effects on the economy that Obama has had…. not only in precisely the wrong direction, but in precisely the opposite direction from the one he predicted, (our economy is still in free fall, and unemployment is still going up when it’s already at a level well above the unemployment we were promised by Mr. Obama and company )  it appears that the kinder of the two conclusions that could be drawn about Mr. Obama and his economic prowess is that he is a complete economic illiterate .  The only other conclusion that one could draw is he knows exactly what he’s doing and he is thereby damaging our economy intentionally. Somehow, I don’t think that’s the argument that Benen would prefer.

Benen complains about a lack of economic acumen on the part of Fred Barnes.  Yet, Benen comes up with incredibly stupid lines like this :

..there’s no evidence tax increases on the very wealthy have ever stunted economic growth.

Anyone, and I mean anyone coming up with a line like that is obviously at a kindergarten level of economics or below.  Else, they’re so blinded by politics that they don’t really care about the economics of the thing.  Either one of those could explain Benen’s factless knee jerk support for PrezBO.

If there is anybody inserting himself into this conversation that is an embarrassment, it is Benen.  One can only wonder what color this guy is on Benen’s world… but perhaps on the other hand there are some things that are better left unknown.

Welcome to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the Texas Taurus Edition Amazing, what people will send me. A big BBCT to Harman, who tells me he’s from from Floydada, Texas, for tonight’s Nightly Ramble graphic. Floydada, for those who don’t know, is the home town of one Don Williams, who is one of the all time Country music greats and certainly a favorite of mine.  It’s also the pumpkin capital of the world, or so Harm tells me. Only one question, Harm… how much paint did you pull off with that packing tape, anyway?  

For the rest of you… you budding electronic graphic artists, you…  Care to build up a Nightly Ramble Graphic of your own? Sure, send it along, and I’ll take a look. Maybe you can have your work posted here.

• Profiling?  I have been watching, with train-wreck facisination, the discussion on the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. David has done his usual fine job in his writings on the matter here, of course… but what amazes me is some of the the comments that come from posts around the spehere. One of them, over at OTB we’ve both joined.  The frightening part about all this is the sheer number of people who are willing to shout ‘racism’ at the top of their lungs in situations like this. Example: When the point was made that the description of the people breaking into the house included the info that the ‘perps’ were black, the response was predictably amusing:
  

  So the fact that they are black should hold some special significance to the officer?

  Well, yes, it would tend to narrow the search parameters somewhat. You see, whereas the TSA, driven by the political correctness of it, will strip search 68 year old grandmothers looking Arab Terrorists using explosives, street cops tend to limit their searches to people who actually match the operational description.

  And of course the politically correct, among them, PrezBO,  would have us consider that limitation ‘profiling’. The Presdient’s response to the matter seems to me a blatant and cynical play on racial stereotypes. He blames white cop as a knee jerk response in spite of the fact that even he admits: He’s only “vaguely” familiar with the situation.  Indeed, if anyone in this whole thing is profiling. The White House knows it too.  And for that matter, so do cops around the country. Is any of this getting through? Jen Rubin comments. And so does Kaus. 

  UPDATE:  The Politico is now reporting BO has backed down. Well, Sorta….

  President Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Friday to address the spiraling controversy over his comments on the Monday arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department.

  Just hours after Cambridge police union officials called on Obama to apologize for saying the officers involved in the incident behaved “stupidly,” Obama conceded that he erred in his “choice of words.”

  Obama said he spoke to James Crowley, the sergeant who arrested Gates, “and I have to tell you that, as I said yesterday, my impression of him is that he was an outstanding police officer…and that was confirmed in the phone conversation.”

  “In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically,” Obama said, walking back his sharpest criticism.

  Well, no. You didn’t give that impression. You WERE “maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically”, Barry. There’s no argument or discussion on this. Nor does this non-apology of yours make it all go away. This wasn’t a poor choice of words, it was a knee-jerk racist reaction. Your racism was revealed for all to see. Period, end of story. So much for your stated vision of a “post racial society”. My contempt for Obama has no reached the stage of ‘boundless’.

•  Obama Stumbled on Healthcare:  The Wall Street Journal has a firm grip on the obvious. So does Doctor Krauthammer.
• One hand dirties the other:  I commented yesterday that the faiure of the Stimulus isn’t helping the Healthcare scam move along. Byron York agrees.
• The manipulation of the news by the MSM:  Billy points up another one.
• The Religion of peace in action: Will someone please explain to me why anyone thinks the culture that gives us honor killings such a this  or ‘shunning’ such as this.. should be taken seriously and with any level of respect at all? Please? Or perhaps someone can explain to me how anyone calling for such cultures to be treated as equals, should not be considered as accessories to, in these cases, murder and child abandonment.

Professor Ann Althouse plays Sigmound Freud.   The professor  parses Barack Obama with a very fine toothed  comb and offers an interesting suggestion, Ann Althouse:

Obama’s use of the word is a little off. I think “jigger into” is unidiomatic in a way that makes it hard to figure out if it’s supposed to have the transitive or the intransitive meaning. But maybe he’s picturing jerking up and down or manipulating. Whatever. It’s not particularly wrong, but it’s interesting that he shifted from “jimmy” to “jigger.” If a white person made that shift in the context of this story, people might suspect racism (because of the word it rhymes with).

But I don’t think he was drawn to the word “jigger.” I think he was trying to get away from the word “jimmy.”

Whatever you do, don’t make them think of Jimmy!

Maybe the one isn’t as naccacist as I though and he is capable of at least partial self-awareness.   Very interesting.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the “We Need a Basketball” Edition

• The Infomercial: Heck no, I didn’t watch it. Neither did most other Americans. Those who did are reporting about what I expected… Obama didn’t deliver. Instead, he ended up trying to defense the indefensible. It’s clear to anyone who has been wathing, for example that his claim of ‘our economic recovery rides on healthcare’ is pure crap.. at least insofar as how HE means it. In reality, the only way this economy is going to recover is if Obama doesn’t get his wish about the government takeover of our healthcare.  Boortz has comments. So does Michelle.  So does Stephen Green.  And Kaus. Karl Rove, too.
• The Votes aren’t there for Obamacare: If you want further proof that the dog and pony show run by Obama last night did’t sell a soul on the plan, look at the reaction from Dingy Harry. He’d not be pushing this thing off if he had the votes. Oh… and neither does Pelosi.
• Did Stimulus help or hurt?  Most say it hurt. I can’t imagine that perception is helping Obama with his Obamacare sales pitch, either.  As a whole, they think the country is pointed in  the wrong direction.
• In Jersey, everything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught (Extra points: Where’s that line from?)
• Camero??
  

  The Caddy CTS-V

  What are the implications of the Chevy Camero being a hot sales item?  Look, the issues about salesmanship aisde, for the moment… the thing is selling well above sticker in most cases… when you can get the bleedin’ thing. But none of the suppsoedly ‘eco-freindly’ cars are anywhere near that status. Think about what that means in terms of customer preferences. Personally, I’m looking at a Caddy CTS-V. This thing is a monster… and one I want. I’ll get one, too, eventually. 560 HP, 6 speed. Rear drive, and a real frame, as God intended. Zero to sixty in under 4, top ends at about 165 and handles like it’s on rails and still very much a Caddy. May as well be comfortable while you’re pissing off that moron in the Prius with the ‘save the world’ stickers holding the back end of it together.

 

The president is “not familiar” with the bill. No one can explain how it will work yet, as Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told a contentious town meeting. There are various plans, and negotiations are still in the early stages.

But whatever it is, we should be for it.

Am I missing something?

Susan Estrich, Rassmussen Reports.

Hat tip:  Moe Land, Red State

.

Hat tip:

I commented on the saga of  poor oppressed Henry Gates, earlier.   What happened to Professor Gates wasn’t “racial profiling” then and it isn’t now.   Even if the accusation comes from the chief law enforcement officer of the nation, the one, a/k/the President of the United States, a/k/a Barack Obama, via Mark Silva, Swamp :

“I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here,” Obama said tonight. “I don’t know all the facts. What’s been reported, though, is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house, there was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place.

“So far, so good, right?” he said. “The police are doing what they should. There’s a call. They go investigate.

“What happens? My understanding is, at that point, Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in. I’m sure there’s some exchange of words. But my understanding is — is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house, and at that point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct, charges which are later dropped.

“Now, I’ve — I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry.

“Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcing disproportionately. That’s just a fact…

“That doesn’t lessen the incredible progress that has been made,” said Obama, the first African-American president. “I am standing here as testimony to the progress that’s been made. And yet the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, this still haunts us.”

William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection:

Gates wasn’t arrested for being in his own home. He was arrested after police reacted — maybe overreacted — to Gates’ verbal assault on the police. Obama’s statement did not leave open the possibility that Gates caused the problem not by being in his home, but by overreacting to police officers investigating a complaint of a burglary in progress

Ferentz  LaFargue, Puffington Post:

Unfortunately, in Gates’ lifetime, the quest for elitism has become intertwined with the quest for celebrity. That so many people are simply famous for being famous makes people like Gates and the aforementioned Christian Bale vulnerable to the engines propelling these vapid strains of elitism. In this particular instance, like Bale in his infamous encounter with a stagehand, Gates felt that his space had been invaded by the police officer. The officer was wrong for arresting Gates, but not for investigating the incident for which he was called to the scene, just as the stagehand was not wrong for being on set. Gates was inevitably flexing the same muscle, the same power that I found alluring in that Vibe photo when he shouted down the officer, and Bale’s intensity dressing down the stagehand likely correlates with why he is now the star of two blockbuster movie franchises, Batman and The Terminator. Neither Gates nor Bale were willing to concede that what they saw as an intrusion on their space, their antagonists saw as simply doing their jobs, and in both instances these stars were left to piece back together their shards of celebrity

Obama admits to not knowing all the facts of the case, yet while adding some new ones.    While pleading incomplete knowledge, Obama still sees fit to slander the police officer.   Obama refers to the actions of the police, but not Professor Gates as stupid.   Funny when I got stopped last week, I never yelled the officer nor did I get arrested.   Yet somehow Gates did both.  Coincidence?

It seems clear that Professor Gates was angry at the police officer.  Yet Obama seems to defend anger at police officers and abusive treatment police officers as expected behavior (for all of use, or just blacks?).

Obama conflates the circumstances of Professor Gates arrest.   Gates wasn’t arrested for breaking into his own house.   He was arrested for rowdy behavior.   Can professor of constitutional law tell the difference.

Finally, Obama refers to the arrest of Professor Gates as a incident of “racial profiling” when it certainly was not.    The police did not question Professor Gates because of race, but because he was seen breaking into a house. albeit his own.

Yesterday Barack Obama had an opportunity to act like the President of the United States, the so-called leader of the free world, or like a mere community organizer.   Sadly for both Obama and our nation, Obama took the low road. and did the latter.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble.

This is The “Highest form of Patriotism” Edition

• Principle?  In fairness, Billy,(And Martin)  Sowell’s wording in your quote suggests he was addressing a particular segment of his readership.  I suspect his understanding of the matter to be at least equal to your own regardless that he’s not arguing it on the level you might. Not everyone understand it on your level,and I suppose him to be arguing from a level that segment will understand.  I think he’d have been better served saying  “(Even IF)  you think that any situation you don’t like is a reason to give politicians a blank check for ‘change” instead of what he said. That’s what I get he was trying to say at least. (Shrug)
• Obama tells Seniors to drop dead:  I think we can take that as a literal statement. So does Doug Ross. I’ve been saying for years that when government runs health care it not your health they’ll be concerned with, but how much your being healthy costs them, thus preventing b their excessive of power. Obama just demonstrated this for us, with rather startling clarity. What amazes me is that anyone ever thought this was going to go down any other way once Democrats were given power. If you think I’m kidding, check Michelle’s post to the point today. 
• Meanwhile, in the polls: Rasmsusen says  53% are now opposed to Obamacare. I begin to suspect the Democrats know they’re in serious trouble.  It’s why they’re trying to cram it through.
• Matter of fact, USELESS TOADY points out that Obama’s not doing as well as Jimmy Carter did, numbers-wise. Remember the walking disaster that Carter was, and do the math.
• Yet more vindication:  More proof of my call being correct on Obama duplicating Bush in the War On Terror. Oh.. Here at OTB as well.
• Toomey Ties Specter:  Speaking of polls, the Quinnipiac University Poll says Specter 45% Toomey 44%… within the margin of error.  Remember, gang this is a strong Democrat district.  Bye Bye, Arlen.  It’s going to be hard to judge which will hit your butt first… the door, or the voters boots. I think we can safely ask, however, if this can be taken as indicative in the 2010 election in other races.
• Where’s all the added taxes plus added deficits lead? VDH tells us.  So does Newt Gingrich.  Far as I can tell these two generally can’t agree on lunch, much less anything more complex.

My first  president was Harry S.  Truman, not that I actually remember Harry as President.   However what I  like and admire about  Harry is that he  knew the difference between Harry the haberdasher from Missouri and the 33rd President of the United States.

Alas poor Barry is no Harry.   Unlike Truman, Obama the Narcissistis is unable to tell the difference between a community organizer from Chicago and the 44th President of the United States. from Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit and Jammie Wearing Fools, the one’s, a/k/a Barack Obama, reaction to Senator Charles Grassley’s assessment that the one’s proposed nationalization of health care is not going well in Congress:

‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.’

Barry, while you may be President,  it is not your presidency.    The office is that of the People.    Thatn is, Obama is entitlted to be President until his term office expires and he remains the good grace of the American People.   For the presidency belongs not to Obama but rather to the People.   Obama is not our lord, master and king.   He is our servant.    He can, and will, be replaced.   The republic will survive

Isn’t it rather early in his term to be worried about his legacy?

As JWF indicated, Jim DeMint’s Waterloo comment apparently strikes closer to home than the one  cares to admit.

Noted in passing, a note from NRO’s Nina Owcharenko, in which we find:

This weekend President Obama dedicated his weekly address to defending Congress’s plans for an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system.

He argued, “Once you’ve seen enough ads and heard enough people yelling on TV you might begin to wonder whether there’s a grain of truth to what they are saying.”

Here’s the truth, brand-new analysis (pdf) from The Heritage Foundation — conducted by The Lewin Group — shows that the public-plan component within the House Democrats’ health reform bill is in conflict with how the Congress and the President are selling their reform plan.

“If you like your health plan, you can keep it, the only thing that will change is that you’ll pay less.” Remember that? Well, according to the new Lewin study:

* Approximately 103 million people would be covered under the new public plan and as a consequence about 83.4 million people would lose their private insurance. This would represent a 48.4 percent reduction in the number of people with private coverage.

* About 88.1 million workers would see their current private, employer-sponsored health plan go away and would be shifted to the public plan.

* Yearly premiums for the typical American with private coverage could go up by as much as $460 per privately insured person, as a result of increased cost-shifting stemming from a public plan modeled on Medicare.

So, is there truth in the way the President and Congress are advertising their plans?

Obviously, the answer is a resounding “no”. It seems to me a mark of just how weak Obama considers his plan to be that he can’t use the truth in arguing for it.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the Early Days Edition

BitsBlog... The Early Days

• The Public is losing trust in Obama: The Politico says:
  

  Trust in President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies to identify the right solutions to problems facing the country has dropped off significantly since March, according to a new Public Strategies Inc./POLITICO poll.Just as Obama intensifies his efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and reach an agreement with Congress on health care reform, the number of Americans who say they trust the president has fallen from 66 percent to 54 percent. At the same time, the percentage of those who say they do not trust the president has jumped from 31 to 42.

  The president’s party has taken a similar hit since the last Public Trust Monitor poll, with only 42 percent of respondents saying that they trust the Democratic Party, compared with 52 percent who do not. The party’s numbers are nearly the inverse of March’s survey, in which 52 percent said they trusted Democrats and 42 percent did not.

  Quite predictable, actually. I told you for years that the biggest reason to vote Republican is Democrats in power. It seems the voters are starting to understand that point first hand. There’s more at the link of course.

• It’s even worse:  The Gallup poll agrees with the PSI polling, and takes it a step farther:
  

  WASHINGTON — Qualms about President Obama’s stewardship of the economy are growing, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, as Americans become more pessimistic about when they predict the recession will end.
  At six months in office, Obama’s 55% approval rating puts him 10th among the 12 post-World War II presidents at this point in their tenures. When he took office, he ranked seventh

  All of which leads us to ask at wh

• It’s not just an ipod….  It’s a lighter, too.
•  Healthcare?  No, it’s all about government power. Boortz has a great one of this today.
• And about central control: Reynolds mentions Kindle:
   

MORE ON THE KINDLE SCANDAL: “Now, that we’ve discovered that Amazon can remotely and automatically delete your books without your knowledge or consent, what’s to stop Amazon, some other company, or the government from not merely deleting it, but replacing it with an edited version? Nothing.” This is, I’m afraid, inherent in any e-book system with centralized control….

So says Glenn Reynolds. And that’s important, certainly. But now, let’s ponder in that light, the implications of a centralized database of healthcare records, shall we?

Welcome one and all, to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere…. The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble.

This is the “Plant it” Edition

• Will someone please tell me why the bleep I care… about Paula Abdul not being on the set of American Idol next season?  Talk about priorities needing to be hashed out.
• Ham, Pork, close enough.
• Ah, the wonders of  Mass Transit. Now, if they had enough cars and trucks to haul the injured to the government run hospitals…
• Need a pot dealer? Your Iphone has an ap for that.  For the record, I carry a Palm Treo. Meanwhile, not everyone thinks the iphone’s going to be around long.
• How Obama lost me:  Look, Ann, it’s not like we didn’t warn you, or anything.
• Boortz has a firm grasp of the totally obvious: Let’s start working on hm now about the lower levels of obvious. Like ADHD an an example.
• Sorry, Hillary:  She is one of the sorriest people on the planet, in fact. Too bad she claims to speak for us.
• Times Sells WQXR: Fybush says the classical station in NY has been sold. WQXR-FM long been owned by the New York Times has been sold. Actually, given the financial problems at the Times, I’m flat out amazed it’s not been sold previously. Apparently the staff there’s getting blwon our as a result of the sale, too.
• ObamaCare and the Tea Party Effect: At Pajamas Media
• Housekeeping: Finally solved an issue with a bad font call in the block quotes. sorry about that. Didn’t look bad except the font I called didn’t contain the quote marks. Also, I’ll be doing a bugfix upgrade on the core software tonight at some point, You shouldn’t notice the difference.

The Sarartest Woman in the World again displays the fact that she is an utter moron, from the Robert Burns, Associated Press:

MUMBAI, India — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton opened a three-day visit to India on Saturday by urging India not to repeat American mistakes in contributing to global pollution, and she passionately defended U.S. demands for help in fighting terrorism.

“We acknowledge now with President Obama that we have made mistakes in the United States, and we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to the problem that we face with climate change,” she said. “We are hoping a great country like India will not make the same mistakes.”

Hat tip:  Gateway Pundit.

A person so stupid as to believe Al Gore’s pet fiction of antropogenic global warming would be  so stupid as to actually believe her hasband, B.J. Clinton  would be faithful to her.

A disturbing report from the Jerusalem Post‘s Sabrina Amidi:

In a shocking and unprecedented interview, directly exposing the inhumanity of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s religious regime in Iran, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia has told this reporter of his role in suppressing opposition street protests in recent weeks.

He has also detailed aspects of his earlier service in the force, including his enforced participation in the rape of young Iranian girls prior to their execution.

…

He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so “impressed my superiors” that, at 18, “I was given the ‘honor’ to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death.”

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a “wedding” ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard – essentially raped by her “husband.”

“I regret that, even though the marriages were legal,” he said.

Why the regret, if the marriages were “legal?”

The Religion of peace in action

“Because,” he went on, “I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their ‘wedding’ night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

Shift back to a post at Stop The ACLU, dated June 23, 2009 a repost by Anne Bayefsky:

And when asked again, “If you do accept the election of Ahmadinejad … without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working to achieve?” He answered: “We can’t say definitively what exactly happened at polling places.”

And asked again: “Why won’t you spell out the consequences that the Iranian people…” He answered: “Because I think that we don’t know yet how this thing is going to play out.”

And yet again: “Shouldn’t the present regime know that there are consequences?” He answered: “We don’t yet know how this is going to play out.”

The context of Obama’s statements of course, can be found in smaller amounts on any stable floor. That’s clear.

The article goes on:

The president’s storyline that we don’t know what has transpired in Iran is an insult to the intelligence of both Americans and Iranians. Our absence from the polling booths doesn’t mean the results are a mystery. The rules of the election were quite clear. Candidates for president must be approved by the 12-member Council of Guardians. As reported by the BBC, more than 450 Iranians registered as prospective candidates while four contenders were accepted. All 42 women who attempted to run were rejected. So exactly what part of rigged does President Obama not understand?

Instead of denouncing the fake election, President Obama now tells Iranians who are dying for the real thing “the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Whose sovereignty is that? The Hobbesian sovereign thugs running the place? Sovereignty to do what? To deny rights and freedoms to their own people? In a state so bereft of minimal protections for human dignity, why should the sovereignty of such a government be paramount?

But President Obama didn’t want to dwell on the daily reality of sovereign Iran: A criminal code that permits stoning women to death for alleged adultery and hanging homosexuals for the crime of existing. Instead, he repeatedly invoked “respect” for “their traditions and their culture.”

This is a mantra we’ve heard from the left for far too long.  Consider the juxtaposition, of a left who will invariably argue vehemently against traditional western culture and yet will argue for at culture that mandates rape as punishment. Cold Fury notes the same article, and says, angrily:

All the oh-so-tolerant, politically-correct “religion of peace” bullshit in the world can’t erase the stain of a hideous crime like this. And you can bet Western liberal apologists will get busy quick to find a way to either ignore it, or excuse it by saying it has “nothing to do with Islam” or is an isolated incident, a perversion of a noble religion.

But fundamentalist Islam is itself a perversion — and most especially Iran’s theocratic version — its very core being the indulgence of a sick, juvenile sexual insecurity; everything else seems to flow from that diseased center. It is a blight on humanity, and very little else.

Mark Steyn, who is a master of saying it in one line, agrees:

Must be convenient to have a legal code that obliges all your pathologies

I mean, can someone please explain to me why we’re to show any respect whatever to these animals?
And before you start… no, this is not an isolated incident. Amidi points up the long track record with this kind of horror. And the Democrats have their own record of support for the regimes involved.

Eventually, one would hope that liberals… and Feminsits in particular, would catch on to this barbarity, and understand what it is they’re supporting. The recent moves by Obama with Iran, though show otherwise.

It is hard to believe that Carol Costello is a college graduate.   She is clueless.    Here she gets taken to the woodshed and is too stupid to realize it, video:

Hat tip video; Gateway Pundit.

Baltimore has been called Murder City   Yet Maryland already has what Costello would consider prudent gun contorl, from the Washington Examiner:

Yes, Maryland. A paradoxical state that enforces tough gun control regulations and contains one of the lower rates of guns per household in the country yet ranks as one of the worst in violent crimes. Somewhere, politicians and commentators began riding on the wrong rail when discussing violence in the Old Line State.

Yet it does not work.  Much like Costello’s brain.