The Oscars

“What's fascinating is, people in Washington would rather spend time in Hollywood, and people in Hollywood would rather spend time in Washington.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Last night I watched the 85^th Academy Awards show — now known as the “Oscars” in honor of the statuette that is given to the winners. Once again the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) chose the Dolby Theater (formerly the Kodak Theater) as the venue for this gala night where Hollywood honors itself.

As usual the show was too long as were some of the acceptance speeches. The host, Seth MacFarlane, did a fair job, but to me some of his trials at humor fell short of the mark. I thought there were some highlights during the 3 hour and 35 minute show and definitely some low points. Here are my highlights:

76-year-old Shirley Bassey singing the theme song to Goldfinger during the salute to 50 years of James Bond 007 movies for which she received a standing ovation.

The tribute to 50 years of James Bond movies — no doubt the longest franchise in movie history with 23 films. It’s interesting to note that the first 007 movie — Dr. No had a filming budget of $1.2 million and the budget for the latest 007 film — Skyfall — was $230 million. This shows how the cost of movies has escalated in the past 50 years.

The musical performance by the cast of “Les Misérables.” Although the musical performances were a bit too long they did add a bit of entertainment to the commercial-laden show.

Adele Adkins singing the theme song she and Paul Epworth wrote for Skyfall for which they received the Oscar for best original song.

MacFarlane’s joke that Argo, a film about a secret operation to free some of the hostages during the Iran hostage crisis, was so secret the Academy did not know who the director was.

Now for the low points:

William Shatner dressed as his "Star Trek" character, appearing on a screen less than 10 minutes into the telecast to cut off what he called MacFarlane’s offensive jokes. Shatner said he was coming from the future to “stop you from destroying the Academy Awards.” He then went on to hold up a news article that read “Seth MacFarlane Worst Oscar Host Ever.”

Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow not being nominated for best director while their films were box office hits

Jane Fonda appearing on stage as one of the presenters. The 75-year old has been was showcased no doubt in an attempt to rehabilitate herself for her traitorous efforts during the Vietnam War. I would venture to say that every Vietnam vet watching the show was tempted to turn off the TV when she walked into the spotlight.

And no doubt the lowest point was when the aging and boring Jack Nicholson turned to introduce Michelle Obama as the presenter for the best picture award. Ms. Obama appeared on the big jumbotron screen above the stage flanked by a cadre of military members to introduce the films and then announce the winner. The only thing she lacked was the addition of firefighters, first responders, and actors playing doctors dressed in white lab coats. However, you have to give her some degree of credit as it was after midnight on the east coast.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the FLOTUS appearance was the work of Obama supporter and friend Harvey Weinstein and his daughter Lilly, who arranged for Academy representatives and show producers to secretly fly (via Disney's jet) to D.C. just two weeks ago to make the magic happen.

"This makes no sense, it adds nothing to the show," one industry expert told FOX411's Pop Tarts column with a bemused laugh, while another surmised it as something of a "suck job."

"Forget separation of church and state — we need a separation of Hollywood and state," conservative journalist Michelle Malkin retweeted, while others weighed in that it was "tacky and tasteless" and cheapened the Presidency.

After all they threw all the campaign parties, I guess it was Hollywood's way of acknowledging their continued love and support of the Obama's.

Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar acceptance speech for best original screen play for his horrible film racist film “Django Unchained.”

Now for my take on the winners and losers for best actress, actor, director, and film.

The Oscar for best actor went to Daniel Day-Lewis for his performance in “Lincoln.” I have not seen the film so I really have no opinion on this category, but I did like Ben Affleck’s performance in “Argo.”

Jennifer Lawrence took home the Oscar as best actress for her performance in "Silver Linings Playbook." In my opinion the best actress award should have gone to Jessica Chastain for her performance in “Zero Dark Thirty.” Her role of as the female CIA analyst who spent 10 years of her life doggedly chasing down Osama bin Laden was compelling and realistic.

The award for best director went to Ang Lee for his film "Life of Pi." I have not seen the Life of Pi and I am sure it is a beautiful and inspiring film but I think his award was cheapened without Affleck and Bigelow being in the running. This is the politics of Hollywood. Thank heavens Spielberg did not receive the award for his boring and historical inaccurate film “Lincoln.”

The Oscar for best picture went to "Argo." This is only the fourth time in the history of the Academy Awards that the nominee for best picture did not include the director. I was rooting for either Argo or Zero Dark Thirty. I thought both films were great and told compelling tales of the dedication and heroism of the much maligned people of the CIA.

Argo is the story about a CIA covert operator’s (Tony Mendez) effort to get six of the U.S. State Department employees out of Iran during the Iranian Revolution in 1979. While taking some license with historical facts the film still tells a great story of Mendez’s dedication and heroism — heroism for which he was awarded the Intelligence Star by the CIA.

Argo is historically flawed in a few of the scenes depicted in the film and for a few things not mentioned in the film:

• The climax of film is a chase down an airport runway, as gun-toting members of the Revolutionary Guard try to stop the plane bearing the American refugees from taking off. "Absolutely none of that happened," says Mark Lijek – one of the freed hostages. "Fortunately for us, there were very few Revolutionary Guards about. It's why we turned up for a flight at 5.30 in the morning; even they weren't zealous enough to be there that early. The truth is the immigration officers barely looked at us and we were processed out in the regular way. We got on the flight to Zurich and then we were taken to the U.S. ambassador's residence in Berne. It was that straightforward."]
• The part of the plot about the Revolutionary Guards discovering the diplomats' identities is fictional. They had left Iran with their fake identities with no hassle. So the scenes of trouble with the bearded guard at the last check point, the scene of the commander raiding the Canadian ambassador's residence, and the entire chasing scene at the airport and even on the runway are fictional.
• There is a sequence in the film where the six go on a location scout in Tehran to create the impression they are movie people. According to Mark Lijek, the scene is total fiction.
• "It's not true we could never go outside. John Sheardown's house had an interior courtyard with a garden and we could walk there freely," Mark Lijek says.
• The screenplay has the escapees—Mark and Cora Lijek, Bob Anders, Lee Schatz and Joe and Kathy Stafford—settling down to enforced cohabitation at the residence of the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor. In reality, after several nights—including one spent in the UK residential compound—the group was split between the Taylor house and the home of another Canadian official, John Sheardown.
• The major role of producer Lester Siegel, played by Alan Arkin, is fictional.

The film depicts a dramatic last-minute cancellation of the mission by the Carter administration and a bureaucratic crisis in which Mendez declares he will proceed with the mission. Carter delayed authorization by only 30 minutes, and that was before Mendez had left Europe for Iran.

On the other hand:

After the film was previewed at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2012, some critics said that it unfairly glorified the role of the CIA and minimized the role of the Canadian government (particularly that of Ambassador Taylor) in the extraction operation. Maclean's asserted that "the movie rewrites history at Canada's expense, making Hollywood and the CIA the saga's heroic saviors while Taylor is demoted to a kindly concierge." The postscript text said that the CIA let Taylor take the credit for political purposes, which some critics thought implied that he did not deserve the accolades he received. In response to this criticism, Affleck changed the postscript text to read: "The involvement of the CIA complemented efforts of the Canadian embassy to free the six held in Tehran. To this day the story stands as an enduring model of international co-operation between governments." The Toronto Star complained, "Even that hardly does Canada justice."

In a CNN interview, President Carter addressed the controversy by stating: "90% of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian. And the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA. And with that exception, the movie is very good. But Ben Affleck's character in the film was only in Tehran a day and a half. And the main hero, in my opinion, was Ken Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process."Taylor himself noted that, "In reality, Canada was responsible for the six and the CIA was a junior partner. But I realize this is a movie and you have to keep the audience on the edge of their seats." In the film, Taylor is also shown threatening to close the Canadian embassy in the movie; in reality, this did not happen and the Canadians never considered abandoning the six Americans who had taken refuge under Canadian protection.

Affleck asserted: "Because we say it's based on a true story, rather than this is a true story, we're allowed to take some dramatic license. There's a spirit of truth" and that "the kinds of things that are really important to be true are—for example, the relationship between the U.S. and Canada. The U.S. stood up collectively as a nation and said, 'We like you, we appreciate you, we respect you, and we're in your debt.' There were folks who didn't want to stick their necks out and the Canadians did. They said, 'We'll risk our diplomatic standing, our lives, by harboring six Americans because it's the right thing to do.' Because of that, their lives were saved.

Historically flawed or nor I still think it was a very good film about an actual event. As I have said before — “don’t get you history from a movie. Instead use the movie as a motivation to delve into the facts and learn history on your own.”

I did, however, think Zero Dark Thirty was a little bit better than Argo and I also thought that Bigelow should have been nominated for best director and her writer Mark Boal should have won for original screen play. Boal’s screen play was far better than Quentin Tarantino’s for Django Unchained.

Zero Dark Thirty and Bigelow were doomed from the get go by the Hollywood elite. People like Ed Asner, the unabashed Marxist, and Martin Sheen called for a boycott of the film. They wanted the boycott on the basis that Bigelow and Boal glorified torture in the film. Of course Asner in his performance in “Roots” was a slave master. Did he endorse slavery? Oh, how shot the memory of the liberal progressive. As C. Roger Denson writes in the Huffington Post:

“We expect actors as talented and esteemed as Martin Sheen, Ed Asner, and David Clennon to know all about the principles of irony, catharsis and sublimation at play in theatrical dramatizations. Simply stated, these are methods of portraying human events and behaviors that are detrimental to real people and societies, but which -- besides providing fuel for artistic and entertaining dramatizations -- are crucial to our understanding that simulation of inhuman behavior can be for a higher end. An end such as informing audiences of the hidden and heinous activities we want to eliminate from our lives and our governments -- not least of which are those activities of which many in the audience may be unaware.”

Even Rotten Tomatoes, a publication devoted to criticizing films gave ZDT a 94 out of 100 rating.

The film, which has sparked outrage among both Democrats and Republicans in Washington over its depiction of torture, and allegations that the Obama administration leaked classified intelligence to help the making of the film, won no major Oscars on Sunday and only one award overall.

Just three months ago, the thriller, which culminates in Osama bin Laden’s killing by US Navy Seals, was a strong contender to pick up the biggest prize of Best Picture, as well as the Best Actress and Original Screenplay awards.

By the end of Sunday night, however, it had picked up just one award – a shared Oscar for Sound Editing, which was a tie with Skyfall.

Early signs of trouble came in mid-December when leading US Senators Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin, both Democrats, and John McCain, the Republicans’ 2008 presidential candidate, sent a letter to movie studio Sony Pictures, castigating the film.

They called the film “grossly inaccurate and misleading” for suggesting torture helped the US track the al Qaeda leader to a Pakistani compound, where he was killed in 2011.

Three weeks later, the film’s director, Kathryn Bigelow, was omitted from the Oscar’s Best Director shortlist, chosen by about 5,800 movie industry professionals who make up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Bigelow was one of only four big directors to be snubbed while the film did receive five Oscar nominations

In January, Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan pointed the finger at Washington, writing: “Chalk up this year’s nominations as a victory for the bullying power of the United States Senate and an undeserved loss for Kathryn Bigelow.”

This is chilling as now these senators are calling for hearings to determine how much information Bigelow and Boal received from the CIA in the making of the film To this extent Boal has hired an attorney to represent him. These actions by the United States Senate harken back to the days of the Dies Committee (HUAC) and the Hollywood Ten — something the liberals in Hollywood still harp on. This is McCarthyism in reverse and it has a chilling effect on free speech.

It should be noted that the entire cast of ZDT is supporting a effort to get Dr. Shakil Afridi freed from a Pakistani prison. Afridi has been imprisoned for giving help to the United States for going door to door in Abbottabad under the guise of giving vaccination in order to collect DNA to determine if it truly was bin Laden sequestered in the compound where he was thought to be. Fox News reports:

“Zero Dark Thirty" actress Jessica Chastain has thrown her support behind the effort to free the jailed Pakistani doctor who was integral in helping the U.S. track down and kill Usama Bin Laden.

"[It ] breaks my heart he's still in prison," Chastain told Fox News on Sunday on the red carpet of the 85th annual Academy Awards, referring to Dr. Shakil Afridi.

Chastain played a C.I.A. agent who directed the operation to find Bin Laden, but told Fox news "there are hundreds of unsung heroes" in the successful operation and she didn't think there was "one person who should be credited."

…

Bob and Kira Lorsch and their RHL Group took out a full-page ad with the headline: “Oscar, Help Free Afridi. America’s Abandoned Hero.”

The ad, part of the group's “Free Dr. Afridi” campaign, read in part: “Dr. Shakil Afridi is the man who verified Usama bin Laden’s location in Pakistan for the United States. Without Dr. Afridi’s sacrifice, we may not have pinpointed the location of the world’s most dangerous terrorist. His Reward… he was abandoned, captured and is still being tortured by Pakistan ever since Bin Laden was killed in May 2011. After all, who will stand up to help America next time if this is how we treat our friends?”

The advertisement also acknowledged a number of individuals and organizations it says have championed the issue, including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the cast and crew of "Zero Dark Thirty," and Fox News Correspondent Dominic DiNatale and Producer Sib Kaifee, whose exclusive reporting has helped shed light on the Afridi case.”

You can read my critique of Zero Dark Thirty by clicking here.

For those of you who managed to miss the Oscars or don’t much here is complete list of the winners:

1. Best Picture: "Argo."

2. Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln."

3. Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook."

4. Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained."

5. Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, "Les Miserables."

6. Directing: Ang Lee, "Life of Pi."

7. Foreign Language Film: "Amour."

8. Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio, "Argo."

9. Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, "Django Unchained."

10. Animated Feature Film: "Brave."

11. Production Design: "Lincoln."

12. Cinematography: "Life of Pi."

13. Sound Mixing: "Les Miserables."

14. Sound Editing (tie): "Skyfall," ''Zero Dark Thirty."

15. Original Score: "Life of Pi," Mychael Danna.

16. Original Song: "Skyfall" from "Skyfall," Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth.

17. Costume: "Anna Karenina."

18. Documentary Feature: "Searching for Sugar Man."

19. Documentary (short subject): "Inocente."

20. Film Editing: "Argo."

21. Makeup and Hairstyling: "Les Miserables."

22. Animated Short Film: "Paperman."

23. Live Action Short Film: "Curfew."

24. Visual Effects: "Life of Pi."

All in all the night of the Oscars was average. Once again the Hollywood elites pushed their liberal agenda on the film makers demonstrating the films they approved of and those they don’t. The only true way to judge a film is to see it yourself and notice the public’s reaction by the box office receipts.

According to Townhall.com through their first 65 days of release, Zero Dark Thirty has made over seven times as much in U.S. box office receipts as did The Hurt Locker, with nearly $90 million in receipts just in the United States. That figure then represents the real difference between being pro and anti-American at the U.S. box office.

The Ineptocracy of the Obama Administration

“(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.” — The Urban Dictionary.

Last night in a fit of tolerance I watched President Obama’s campaign speech from Las Vegas, Nevada. There he was in his shirt sleeves giving shout-outs to his friends, supporters and Democrat politicians running for office. Then he spent a few moments praising Chris Stevens, the assassinated U.S. Ambassador in Libya. After that he went into his canned campaign speech of moving forward and other such nonsense. At this point I switched channels and watched some local news about a car chase of bank robbers through the streets of central Los Angeles, which was much more interesting than the Obama’s speech.

My first thoughts while watching Obama’s speech (if your allowed to think while the anointed one speaks) was what in the hell was he doing in Nevada while our embassy in Cairo is under attack and our consulate in Benghazi had been bombed and four U.S. officials, including the ambassador had been violently assassinated by Islamic terrorists? My next observation before changing the channel was that he never once mentioned the words “murdered”, “assassinated”, “terrorists”, “attack” or “radical Islam.” But then why would he? After all he called, and still does, the murders committed at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Malik Hasan “work place violence” even though he yelled “Allāhu Akbar” while pumping out 146 rounds of 9mm ammunition and killing 13 people and wounded 29 others. Instead he mentioned the word “tragedy.” I would like to take a moment to inform President Obama that “tragedy” is associated with earthquakes, tsunamis, accidental house files, and car crashes. Murders, while tragic, are still murders and are classified as crimes!

So while giving the terrorist a pass in Las Vegas Obama, his spokespeople, and the mainstream press decide to attack Mitt Romney for his clear, concise and statesman-like remarks on the events in Egypt and Libya:

“Good morning. Americans woke up this morning with -- with tragic news and felt heavy hearts as they considered that individuals who have served in our diplomatic corps were brutally murdered across the world.

This attack on American individuals and embassies is outrageous, it’s disgusting, it -- it breaks the hearts of all of us who think of these people who have served during their lives the cause of freedom and justice and honor.

We -- we mourn their loss and join together in prayer that the spirit of the Almighty might comfort the families of those who have been so brutally slain.

Four diplomats lost their life, including the U.S. ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, in the attack on our embassy at Benghazi, Libya. And of course with these words I extend my condolences to the grieving loved ones who have left behind, as a result of these who have lost their lives in the service of our nation.

And I know that the people across America are grateful for their service. And we mourn their sacrifice.

America will not tolerate attacks against our citizens and against our embassies. We’ll defend also our constitutional rights of speech and assembly and religion.

We have confidence in our cause in America. We respect our Constitution. We stand for the principles our Constitution protects. We encourage other nations to understand and respect the principles of our Constitution, because we recognize that these principles are the ultimate source of freedom for individuals around the world.

I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt, instead of condemning their actions. It’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.

The White House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn’t cleared by Washington. That reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world.

The attacks in Libya and Egypt underscore that the world remains a dangerous place and that American leadership is still sorely needed. In the face of this violence, American cannot shrink from the responsibility to lead. American leadership is necessary to ensure that events in the region don’t spin out of control. We cannot hesitate to use our influence in the region to support those who share our values and our interests.

Over the last several years, we’ve stood witness to an Arab spring that presents an opportunity for a more peaceful and prosperous, but also poses the potential for peril if the forces of extremism and violence are allowed to control the course of events. We must strive to ensure that the Arab spring does not become an Arab winter. With that, I’m happy to take any questions you may have.”

That’s right — ignore the terrorists killers and attack Romney. Is Obama and his minions in the press that fearful that these attacks will have the same effect on Obama as the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis had and Jimmy Carter. After all doesn’t Rahm Emmanuel believe you should never let a good crisis go to waste. Perhaps he (they) believes his chickens are coming home to roost.

I have heard many comments about Romney’s stepping in to make comments on the events in Egypt and Libya. What does the press think he should do — keep his mouth shut? The business of “politics end at the nations; shore” is blatant nonsense. I would imagine Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush would have appreciated that sentiment. Politics are the business of the American people and they don’t end anywhere. If Romney had made no comment he would have been chastised for not caring or having the intelligence to understand foreign affairs. Romney is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. That’s the nature of politics, so get over it Mr. Obama with you thin skin and man-up and tell the American people the truth.

Eric Erickson of Red States offers the following suggestion for Mitt Romney and how he should handle this crisis, suggestions I totally agree with:

“The Romney campaign would be well advised to be delicate and let surrogates handle most of the partisan shots, but there are absolutely some valid points Mitt Romney can and should raise.

First, this was the second September 11th anniversary since Osama Bin Laden was killed. Subsequent to his death several other top Al Qaeda leaders have been killed. Islamic radicals still demand revenge. It was quite foreseeable that Islamic radicals would find an excuse to attack us in some way on this September 11th. Why wasn’t the American security presence at American embassies in North Africa and the Middle East boosted prior to 9/11? Sending Marines to Libya now seems a bit too little too late.

Second, when the United States picked the side of rebels in Libya many media outlets reported the rebels also had ties to Al Qaeda. What happened in Libya was a foreseeable outcome. Who did the President think would get greater respect from Libyan rebels who, like Al Qaeda, were persecuted by Gaddafi? Would not the better response to the Libyan uprising have been to sit on the sidelines and do nothing?

Third, the Obama Administration has, for four years, sought greater accommodation of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that at no point in its history has shown itself to be a friend of western values in general or the United States in particular. Knowing the dangers, the United States under Barack Obama was perfectly happy to work with the Muslim Brotherhood. Why was this not foreseeable by President Obama when it was an obviously foreseeable event to so many?

Fourth, why has Barack Obama skipped more than half of his intelligence briefings? The Government Accountability Institute reports the President, since taking office, has attended just 43.8% of his Presidential Daily Briefings. Liberals, to this day, accuse George W. Bush of ignoring terror warnings leading up to 9/11 when he was in office less than 8 months before the attacks. President Obama has not even attended half his daily intelligence briefings in four years. He’s opted for written reports instead of being able to discuss, probe, and question his national security advisors.

Fifth, free speech is an American freedom and one recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It isn’t something our government should be condemning. Why was the American Embassy’s initial reaction to condemn persecuted Coptic Christians for making a movie? We’ve seen this over and over. Draw a cartoon of Mohammad? Riots. Make a movie? Riots. Burn a Koran? Riots. Radical Islamics riot at the slightest provocation. It is what they do. Throwing the First Amendment under the bus does nothing but send a signal that we do not value our most cherished constitutional rights when someone might be offended. Why do that?

Sixth, why did the President condemn Mitt Romney’s own campaign before condemning the violence and bloodshed?

These are difficult days for the United States and for its President. But the events of September 11, 2012, though not foreseeable in the form they took, was foreseeable in that Islamic radicals have been waiting for an opportunity to strike back at the United States and the date is a logical day to foment unrest. Turmoil against the United States’ interests in North Africa and the Middle East after the Arab Spring was predicted by many foreign policy experts. Ambassador Stevens’ death was an avoidable tragedy.

Mitt Romney can and should raise these points. President Obama supported the Arab Spring. He led a coalition into Libya to help Libyan rebels. Now, in the Arab fall, we are seeing the undoing of decades of American foreign policy designed to stabilize, as best we could, an unstable region.”

The events of Monday, more than any scholarly paper, underscore the craven cowardice and geopolitical ineptness of the Obama Administration.

Far from being a surprise, the sacking of two of our embassies and the slaughter of our ambassador in Libya can be rightly described as the logical outcome of the feckless fascination this administration has had with any group of armed thugs who lay claim to being freedom fighters. In short, what happened was a feature of American foreign policy under Obama, not an anomaly.

What Obama has tried to do is create an aura of action and progress by glomming onto breaking events and trying to gain credit from them. There is no rhyme or reason in our foreign policy that cannot be adequately contained in the next State Department press release or by inserting Obama, in Kim Il-Sung fashion, into the lives of previous presidents.

When Barack Obama tacitly consented to the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak many thought this was a good idea. Mubarak, after all, represented the last generation of Arab strong men in the Egyptian tradition. His regime was repressive and the time was deemed right to nudge him out of the way before he could pass on the presidency to his son. Troubling, for a lot of us, was the fact that on one had a clue as to who would take over. But what was known was that the only viable political opposition was the terror connected Muslim Brotherhood — a group that is now feted at the White House.

The same situation applied in Libya. An aging and harmless dictator was ousted after a bloody and protracted civil war. This time the U.S. actively aided the rebels despite numerous press reports that Jihadis were coming home from around the globe to fight for the rebels. Our only stake in that fight that delivered the Libyan government to al-Qaeda and Libyan oil to Russian and France was apparently the thought that offing Qaddafi would be really neat and build Obama’s tough guy standing.

In neither case was the future of the Mediterranean rim a consideration, Obama and his ineptocrats were too busy basking in the soft afterglow of Arab Spring to worry about long term effects.

So today we mourn our dead. We look in shame on our burned embassies. And we remember that the administration that set this deadly sequence of events into motion wants four more years.

If the West loses the cultural war that is underway with various forms of totalitarianism it will not be because of the actions various people in the West who have abolished God and substituted the worship of Tolerance.

I don’t know much about this rube pastor Terry Jones or rogue film maker Sam Bacile, other than they have Islam’s number down pat — or at least Islam as practiced outside its Western enclaves. When a rent-a-mob operating at the behest of the governments of Egypt and Libya (I say operating at the behest, I do so because there is no freedom of assembly in those countries and for a mob to assemble there has to be governmental complicity) stormed our diplomatic facilities there.

In the prelude to the attacks our embassy in Egypt was sending out tweets denouncing Mr. Bacile and his works and even issued an official statement condemning him. Instead of sticking up for American values, like free speech and freedom of religion, our government was attacking a US citizen.

Today a variety of other administration toadies are even advocating that Mr. Jones be prosecuted for exercising his rights under the First Amendment. Cretins like Mike Barnicle who, as might be expected, reside on MSNBC when he said:

“Given this supposed “minister’s” role in last year’s riots in Afghanistan, where people died, and given his apparent or his alleged role in this film, where, not yet nailed down, but at least one American, perhaps the American ambassador is dead, it might be time for the Department of Justice to start viewing his role as an accessory before or after the fact.”

A University of Pennsylvania professor demanded that the film maker Sam Bacile be rounded up when she tweeted:

“Good Morning. How soon is Sam Bacile going to be in jail folks? I need him to go now. When Americans die because you are stupid.”

If you think this is bad how about a high-ranking government official like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey calling a citizen and asking them not to do something.

Nobody in the U.S. government, least of all the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acting in his official capacity, should be calling Terry Jones or any other American citizen about the Mohammed spoof. Not only does that elevate Jones to some sort of semi-official status, but spoofs of deities are entirely within our rights and absolutely no business of the government’s. How about calling Bill Maher and asking him to knock off his anti-Christian remarks.

The U.S. government should not be taking an official position on the Mohammed spoof or any other exercise of free speech. It is entirely outside the official competence of United States military to be calling private citizens asking them be quiet, especially when they are exercising a constitutional right. Offending people is not an incitement to violence. Otherwise I could get everyone who wears a Che Guevara t-shirt brought up on charges of incitement.

Meanwhile, members of Congress should formally protest General Dempsey’s phone call to Terry Jones. I know Petraeus did it when Terry Jones was going to burn some Korans, but he was wrong then and General Dempsey is wrong now. In their private capacity they can make whatever phone calls they want. In their official capacity they have no business making phone calls like this. This is tantamount to the government suppressing our First Amendment rights and is Wilsonian in nature.

Military leaders phoning citizens to ask them to pipe down for the sake of the troops sets a bad precedent. If more copycats do emerge, will Dempsey phone all of them? Will the Pentagon set up a special phone bank for officers to phone critics of Islam and let them know that they’re hurting national security by giving nut cases a pretext to make trouble? If we’re going down this road, let’s just establish a PR bureau inside the Defense Department to issue official statements of patriotic disapproval anytime a U.S. citizen says something that’s unhelpful to the wider strategy in the Middle East

This is shameful. Instead of this being an eye opener into our enemy, our Quislings are frantically searching for ways to placate them.

This is an issue on which all of us should be able to agree. If you believe we live in a liberal, secular society we should be united in our defense of Mr. Jones right to say pretty much whatever he wishes without necessarily agreeing to it. We should condemn the people who use their own religious bigotry to riot and murder. More importantly, if you believe we live in a Western and Christian culture you should be aghast that our government is attacking US citizens for professing their faith.

As I wore yesterday the “film” was not the problem. The Libyan attack was a planned military-like operation to commemorate the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was also revenge for the drone strike in Yemen killing Saeed al-Shihri, al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader. The film was merely an excuse for the riots in Cairo. So let’s move away from this film business and focus on the real issue — Radical Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. “Americans have watches, but we have time.”

Final Thoughts on the DNC Carnival in Charlotte

Final Thoughts on the DNC Carnival in Charlotte

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." — John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776.

The northeastern town of Borja, Mexico garnered global press attention after residents decried the well-meaning restoration efforts of Cecilia Gimenez, described as being in her 80s, who made a horribly botched attempt to restore a flaking oil painting of Christ wearing the crown of thorns. Gimenez’s restoration did not work out very well, the "restored" painting looks like a pale monkey's face surrounded by fur, with misshapen eyes and nose, and a crooked smudge for a mouth. Some media have called it the worst restoration in history.

Just as she attempted to refurbish the cracked and peeling fresco, however, Democrats at their North Carolina convention tried — and failed just as miserably — to improve the image of their own tarnished and faded messiah.

In a video produced for the opening of the convention, Democrats succinctly summed up their entire philosophy: "Government is the only thing we all belong to. We have different churches, different clubs, but we're together as a part of our city, or our county, or our state, and our nation." Everything separates us but government. Indeed, the rest of the convention paid homage to government as the be all and end all, the Alpha and Omega, the solution to every problem. Because, let's face it, as someone once said, "You didn't build that."

The Obama campaign quickly denied having anything to do with the video, but no one doubts it's Obama's vision. And nothing could be further from what our Founding Fathers established — a republic with limited and enumerated powers in which "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" were the rights and values to be cherished, not the bureaucratic labyrinth at the Department of Health and Human Services.

It was also no small irony that the gavel came down on the convention just as our national debt passed $16,000,000,000,000. Democrats have done more than their "fair share" to help us reach that horrendous number.

With all that in mind, we chose a few of the more egregious quotes from the DNC floor — and believe us, the choosing was hard — with concise rebuttals to the various attacks, distortions and outright lies.

On Thursday, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) made some bold claims about the GOP’s handling of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — the nation’s largest, most intensely valued — and most controversial — entitlement programs. The congressman said that “Republicans stood on the sidelines” when these programs were created, a notion that PolitiFact found to be false.

“When too many of our senior citizens who were living their golden years in the darkness of economic security, Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt and a Democratic congress created Social Security, lighting a candle, while the Republicans cursed the darkness,” Clyburn said during his DNC speech.

And he wasn’t done there.

“When too many of our elderly found their lives darkened by unaffordable and inaccessible health care, Lyndon Johnson and a Democratic Congress lit the candles of Medicare and Medicaid, while Republicans stood on the sidelines and cursed the darkness,” he then added.

But, here’s what PolitiFact had to say about these claims:

“Although some of the biggest and most vocal opponents of the bills were Republicans, it’s wrong to say that “Republicans stood on the sidelines” when the bills were being considered. On the final vote on Social Security, Republicans overwhelmingly supported the bill. On Medicare and Medicaid, a majority of Republicans voted for the bill in the House, as did a significant minority in the Senate. We rate Clyburn’s claim False.”

This statement came from Clyburn just days after he made the bold — and factually inaccurate claim — that Republicans who happen to be Christians think “there‘s something wrong with feeding people when they’re hungry. I refer to what Frederic Bastiat said 150 years ago (Just substitute progressivism for Socialism):

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."

Vice President Joe Biden took the stage, too, last night, where he made a statement about Romney and Osama bin Laden that wasn’t factually accurate. Rather than placing the comments in their proper context, Biden claimed that Romney once said “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth” to catch the infamous terrorist.

Under a section called “Biden’s bin Laden Baloney,” FactCheck.org wrote:

“The claim, which Republicans disputed, fails to include the rest of Romney’s quote from an Associated Press story. Romney said the country’s focus should not be on one person, but it should be a “broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.”

President Barack Obama, too, had some verbal blunders. Among his misleading statements was a claim that his tax plan would merely restore rates to what they were under President Bill Clinton’s administration. This, though, doesn’t take into account the tax increases that the wealthy will face as a result of Obama care; these additional taxes kick in next year. FactCheck.org writes:

“Obama refers to his wish to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for families with over $250,000 annual income, or for individuals with over $200,000. The top marginal income tax rate would return to 39.6 percent, where it was set by Clinton’s 1993 tax increase, up from 35 percent, where it has been since 2003.

But that’s not the whole story. Obama has signed some ”new” taxes to help finance the Affordable Care Act, increasing the burden on those upper-income taxpayers. Starting Jan. 1 next year, they will pay an additional 0.9 percent of wages for Medicare payroll taxes. And they will also be subject to a 3.8 percent tax on investment income from such things as stocks, bonds and sale of real estate. Those are taxes that didn’t exist when Clinton was president. If Obama succeeds in raising the top income tax rates to Clinton-era levels, total taxes on those making over $250,000 family income are thus likely to be higher than they were under Clinton.”

Obama also repeated the same claim that Clinton was called out for on Wednesday — that the current president has a plan that will cut deficits by $4 trillion. During his speech, Obama said, “Independent analysis shows that my plan would cut our deficits by $4 trillion. Last summer, I worked with Republicans in Congress to cut $1 trillion in spending.”

The Washington Post’s The Fact Checker debunked this claim, once again, writing:

“But, while the numbers seem large, the results are unimpressive. At the end of the 10-year budget window, Obama would have the national debt at a 76.5 percent of gross domestic product. That actually would be an increase over the 74.2 percent of GDP in this year. In contrast, the debt reduction plan envisioned by the Simpson-Bowles commission — cited by the president — would reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio close to 60 percent.

Moreover, independent analysts have criticized the administration for claiming some $800 billion in phantom savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the administration had long made clear those wars would end. (The Bush administration had started the wars on borrowed funds.) Then, the president proposes to spend a good chunk of the nonexistent money on other spending — as he put it in his speech, “rebuilding roads and bridges; schools and runways.”

The $1 trillion in savings negotiated with Republicans, mentioned by the president, actually accounts for the bulk of his proposed reduction in spending. Indeed, much of the president’s debt reduction would come from tax increases on the wealthy, not spending cuts.”

The final lie comes, again, from Biden. During his speech, he contended that “the experts” claim that Romney has a corporate tax plan that would create hundreds of thousands — 800,000 jobs, to be exact — overseas. In reality, only one expert asserted that this is the case and she was careful to say that it depends on the details.

Even if these jobs do grow in other countries, she said it was possible for that to happen without hampering U.S. employment. FactCheck.org explains:

“She notes in her study that “jobs abroad need not displace jobs at home” — that is, provided that the present economy improves, and U.S. unemployment drops to a low level. So depending on the economic circumstances, creating jobs overseas doesn’t necessarily mean losing jobs in the U.S., as Biden’s listeners might have assumed.

Furthermore, a critique of Clausing’s figure by the Tax Foundation (a group supported in part by corporate donations) says that she based it on current corporate tax rates — not on the lower 25 percent rate that Romney proposes. The lower rate, it is argued, would attract foreign investment and lead to importing jobs.”

I could on with more exposé of the lies and half that were uttered at the Dependency National Convention, but I would need 100 pages to tell all.

Now to some other observations on the convention.

A Godless Party Expels the Creator

“The authors of the Democratic platform have inadvertently revealed to the world the sea change that has taken place in that party we once knew. Pat Buchanan writes in Human Events:

“For the first time — and in the longest Democratic platform in history, 26,000 words — there was not a single mention of God, the Creator, whom Thomas Jefferson himself, father of the party, proclaimed to be the author of our right to life and liberty.

The convention had approved the new platform, but when a firestorm erupted, a panicked Barack Obama hastily ordered “God” reinstated.

But when the amendment was offered to the convention by its chairman, Antonio Villaraigosa, the idea of restoring the name of God to the platform was hooted, jeered and booed by half the delegates on the floor, who three times howled, “No!”

The omission of God is being called an oversight. But the viral reaction to returning God, even when Obama asked that it be done, testifies that this was no accident. God was deleted deliberately.

This process has been under way for a decade. In the 2004 platform, there were seven references to God. In 2008, one.

Like the European Union, whose Christian heritage is being excised from official documents by its secularist elite, the country led by the Democratic Party of Obama is being de-Christianized.

Still, why would Democrats do something so seemingly stupid, something that will inevitably cause a backlash among believers?

Answer: Millions of Democrats are themselves offended when God is included, because for them, the God of the Old and New testaments is an impediment to the progressive march of mankind.”

What would you expect from a party dedicated to killing the unborn, at any stage of their gestation and embracing every deviant form of behavior on the planet?

Thought Police Patrol Convention’s Radio Row

Conservative talk-show hosts who came to Charlotte to interview political figures are furious. For the first time in anyone’s memory, Radio Row — the designated set of booths available to visiting talk-show hosts — has seen restrictions placed on its use by Team Obama. DNC staffers at Radio Row will book leading Democrats for slots on conservative stations but then cancel the appearances an hour or so before broadcast “because you’re not our audience.”

John Fund writes in the National Review Online:

“Roger Hedgecock, a former mayor of San Diego now hosting a nationally syndicated talk show, decided to pack up and leave Charlotte early because “we were blocked from getting any guests that mattered. It was a complete freeze.” Larry O’Connor of Breitbart Radio told me, “It was the most bizarre act of censorship. These shows paid large fees and spent thousands on equipment setup and they couldn’t do their programs because of interference.”

“According to sources at Talk Radio News Service, placing a stringer outside the designated TV area to ask high-level Democrats to stop by radio row has also been banned by the DNC,” Ben Shapiro wrote at Breitbart’s Big Journalism:”

“When I approached liberal activist John Podesta about appearing on KRLA’s “Heidi Harris Show” along with me and my co-hosts Heidi Harris (conservative) and Brian Whitman (liberal), his handler quickly intervened. Later, the handler stopped by to clarify: did the show have two liberals and one conservative, or two conservatives and one liberal? When I stated that it had two conservatives and one liberal, he quickly shook his head and sprinted away.”

So much for the transparency, openness, and tolerance to contrary thought of the Obama era. It should be pointed out that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Sandra Fluke were busy traversing the floor and giving interviews to MSNBC, MediaMatters, and other left-wing organs at the Republican National Convention without being harassed or evicted.

Steelworker Featured at DNC Didn't Work for Bain.

The Democratic National Convention on Wednesday featured three speakers billed as "former employees of companies controlled by Bain Capital."

They each told compelling stories about jobs lost, allegedly because of the actions of Bain under Romney's leadership.

According to Yahoo News one of these workers did not work for Bain, but was a union official:

“But it turns out one of those employees never actually worked for a company controlled by Bain Capital. David Foster was supposedly one of those former employees on the convention schedule. He told the story about 750 steelworkers who lost their jobs when the Bain-controlled company GST steel filed for bankruptcy in the early 1990s.

"In 2001, with GST bankrupt and Romney still CEO of Bain, I stood in front of hundreds of steelworkers in their 50s and 60s, and retirees in their 70s and 80s, and told them Romney and Bain had broken their promises. Jobs, vacation pay, severance, health insurance and pension benefits that were promised - they were all gone," he said. Read his full speech here.

But Foster, according to a former spokesman for GST Steel, never actually worked for the company. "David Foster was never an employee of GST Steel's Kansas City plant. He was employed by the United Steelworkers of America as their regional union director to represent GST Steel, but was not employed at our facility," according to BC Huselton, who was head of HR at GST. Instead, Foster was a union organizer, who negotiated for workers that did work for the company. Foster explained in his remarks that he was an organizer during his dealings with GST Steel.”

Lack of Support, Not Rain, Chased Obama from 74,000-Seat Stadium.

Republican strategist Bradley A. Blakeman, who organized a number of presidential campaign events in his career, tells Newsmax that he simply isn’t buying the Democrats’ argument that the threat of inclement weather chased President Obama’s acceptance speech from a 74,000-seat outdoor stadium to an indoor arena that will accommodate considerably fewer supporters.

Paul Scicchitano writes in NEWSMAX:

“It’s not going to rain. It’s going to be crystal clear,” Blakeman confidently predicted in an interview on Thursday some six hours before President Obama was set to formally accept his party’s nomination for a second term at the slightly more than 20,000-seat Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, which has hosted all of the major DNC speeches.

“Back in 2008 the Obama supporters would have stood in a torrent of rain for the anointed one,” he explained. “The president was messianic. Does that mean that nobody plays football, nobody plays baseball? Why do we have open-air events? If there’s even a hint of rain we don’t play baseball? We don’t play football? We don’t play soccer?”

Blakeman, who oversaw the convention schedule for Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush during the ‘88, ‘92 and 2000 campaigns, said it is routine to set up a back-up location along with the main venue for campaign events, but that decisions to make weather-related changes are typically made on the day of an event, not several days before as in the case of Obama’s acceptance speech.

The speech was moved earlier this week from the Bank of America Stadium, which is the home to the NFL's Carolina Panthers.

He said he “never, never” would have moved an outdoor event like Obama’s speech on a weather-related “threat as it existed this week.” Such decisions would have typically been made after consulting the Secret Service, media and campaign earlier in the day.

“I would have had a backup venue like they did, and I would have pulled the plug probably this morning,” he said. “But not just drizzle. It would have to be something substantial.”

He believes that the Obama campaign doesn’t want to say publicly that it couldn’t fill the outdoor venue. “He wasn’t going to fill the arena. I’ve been told college students were not taking tickets, that they were trying to give people tickets in bars,” said Blakeman. “Then they demanded that the unions come. . . The unions said ‘we’re not going to come and save the day. We’re not going to come and pour union workers into a place that wasn’t built with union labor.’”

With the smaller venue, thousands of hardcore Obama supporters, who had been given credentials for the outdoor event, were suddenly left with no chance of hearing the president’s acceptance speech, a highlight in every campaign.”

The Anointed One’s Speech

When you are in a tight race with your political opponent, you should not recycle a Jobs Act speech that failed to even persuade Democrats in Congress to pass your signature re-election initiative.

But that’s what Barack Obama did. A day after Bill Clinton brought the house down, Barack Obama took to the stage and reduced, reused, and recycled old states of the union speeches that have failed him for four years.

It was boring. It was unoriginal. And it was filled with promises when he hasn’t kept his past promises. Clint Eastwood’s empty chair could have given a better speech than what Barack Obama offered up. And to think he wanted to give that in a stadium.

This was a safe speech you give when you have a lead. This was not a speech you give in a tight race. Don’t believe me? Here are excerpts from his past States of the Union and Jobs Act speech. Lots of platitude, lots of rhetoric, little in detail, and a lot of worn out lines that have failed him before.

I’m honestly stunned he did this, particularly after Bill Clinton.

Listen to these lines. This speech was unoriginal. He stacked it with straw men and ignored his own two major initiatives from the first term: ObamaCare and the Stimulus.

This was a failure and you know it was because he failed to even bring up his own major initiatives. On ObamaCare, he mentioned parts of it, but never defended it or referenced the “Affordable Care Act.”

Thursday night in his speech to Obama belittled Republican tax cuts. Instead, he proposed more of the same with his tired policies: still more subsidizing “green” energy production, still more special tax treatment for select manufacturing industries, and still more money towards public schools and the teachers’ unions. But rather than letting individual investors determine where they can get the highest return for their money, Obama wants to pick the winners himself by using tax dollars to help them out.

American investors were smart enough not to invest their own money into ethanol, solar, or wind energy. Only government invests in businesses where costs greatly exceed revenue

Despite Republican attempts to cut taxes, the United States still has by far the highest marginal corporate income tax rate in the world. The US also has the most progressive tax structure, with the richest Americans paying a larger share of total tax revenue. The richest 10% of Americans pay 45% of the taxes. The average for the 34 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is only 32%.

The top income earners are not the only ones who face penalties from earning more. President Obama has increased the effective penalty even for low- and moderate-income families earning more money. Not only do people lose federal earned income tax credits as well as pay federal and state taxes as their income increases, but they also lose the ever expanding government handouts including housing subsidies, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program, and food stamps.

The loss of these welfare programs and taxes is so large that when the average person earning between $10,000 and $40,000 makes an additional dollar they lose 82 cents — 53 cents worth of government welfare programs and another 29 cents is lost through reduced tax credits and higher taxes. Who wants to work more when they lose 82 cents of each additional dollar that they earn?

And finally there are the F**k Cardinal Dolan tweets from the tolerant Democrats.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan surprised people on both sides of the aisle last week when he announced that he would be offering the benediction at the Democratic National Convention — an odd occurrence, considering the Catholic Church’s ongoing debate with the Obama administration over the controversial contraceptive mandate.

The Blaze reports:

Following his prayer, detractors went on an anti-Dolan extravaganza — or, as LifeSiteNews puts it, they “tweeted F-bombs” to the Catholic leader. According to the news site, hundreds of angry liberals took to Twitter to deride Dolan. The outlet collected and posted this sampling of tweets. Click here to view some of the vulgar and obscene tweets. (Warning: graphic language)

So with its lineup of Sandra Fluke, Caroline Kennedy, Elizabeth (Pocahontas) Warren, Jennifer Granholm (the Canadian born ex-governor of Michigan), and a host of other misfits the Democratic Convention came to an ignominious end — thank the God the Democrats don’t believe in. Now it’s on to the debates and more spin from the mainstream media.

Another Example of Tyranny from the Left

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. — First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

I have written ad nausea about the fact that tyranny has always began from the left, not the right. It has always been the progressive liberals that have wanted to impose their will on the people. Another example of this is illustrated by a recent example what has happened to school teacher in Florida.

Lake County Schools in Florida suspended Jerry Buell, a high-school teacher with a reportedly impeccable record for 22 years, for posting his opposition to New York’s new gay-marriage law, and will start termination proceedings against him. The case will test First Amendment rights and encroaching political correctness:

“Jerry Buell, a veteran American history teacher at Mount Dora High School, was removed from his teaching duties as school officials in Lake County investigate allegations that what he posted was biased towards homosexuals.

“We took the allegations seriously,” said Chris Patton, a communication officer with Lake County Schools. “All teachers are bound by a code of special ethics (and) this is a code ethics violation investigation.”

Patton said the school system received a complaint on Tuesday about something Buell had written last July when New York legalized same sex unions. On Wednesday, he was temporarily suspended from the classroom and reassigned.”

So what did Buell write on his Facebook page that was so offensive to the political correct tyranny of the left? His first comment was posted on July 25 at 5:43 p.m. as he was eating dinner and watching the evening news:

“I’m watching the news, eating dinner when the story about New York okaying same-sex unions came on and I almost threw up,” he wrote. “And now they showed two guys kissing after their announcement. If they want to call it a union, go ahead. But don’t insult a man and woman’s marriage by throwing it in the same cesspool of whatever. God will not be mocked. When did this sin become acceptable?”

Three minutes later, Buell posted another comment:

“By the way, if one doesn’t like the most recently posted opinion based on biblical principles and God’s laws, then go ahead and unfriend me. I’ll miss you like I miss my kidney stone from 1994. And I will never accept it because God will never accept it. Romans chapter one.”

The school district suspended Buell, who had been the school’s Teacher of the Year in 2010-11, because thelley are concerned that gay students might be “frightened or intimidated” in his class. That’s a pretty thin rationale for punishing someone over what appears to be more or less mainstream opposition to the gay-marriage law. Even saying the above in a classroom would be a thin rationale for disciplinary action, unless school districts will be taking action against all teachers who talk politics in the classroom, and a Facebook posting is not a classroom speech.

If school districts are worried about hate speech outside the classroom, wouldn’t we be demanding that these Wisconsin teachers get fired?

Wonder how many of these were talking about the Wisconsin PEU reform in their classrooms? A few of them brought their students out to protest, as I recall. Should they be suspended and fired, too? Isn’t this “intimidating and frightening” to conservative-minded students in Wisconsin?

A recurring theme here is how The Left redefines what they want when they want to advance their extremist agenda. How else can it sell policies in contravention to the commonsense, traditional, natural and foundational — a way of life counter to all that is intuitive and instinctive? More than that, it will take opponents’ statements or positions, as straightforward as they may be, and literally (ironically) repurpose the statement or position into something utterly not what it is. If a conservative says he’s for a balanced budget without raising taxes, leftists will excoriate him for saying he favors starving the poor, and no amount of facts will set the record straight in the Left’s collective mind. To the Left, its what it wants you to have said so it can demagogue you.

Teachers are American citizens with same rights as every other American citizen. They get to have opinions and express them publicly. The school can and should control classroom conduct, and should butt out of other speech entirely. And here’s a lesson about free speech and the Constitution that Lake County Schools apparently hasn’t grasped: there is no freedom from offense built into the First Amendment. We don’t curtail speech on the off chance it might hurt someone’s feelings. If we did, we wouldn’t have any free political speech at all. And I would make the same argument in support of a teacher suspended from a public school for offering Facebook support for New York’s gay-marriage bill.

In steps the school district’s communications officer, Chris Patton is way off base. Not only was what Mr. Buell wrote “disturbing” (his opinion is disturbing but two men kissing on television is not?), but none of what he wrote is “personal.” According to the Minister of Information Mr. Patton:

“He has (more than) 700 friends. How private is that — really? Social media can be troubling if you don’t respect it and know that just because you think you are in a private realm — it’s not private.”

First, it was his personal opinion. Of course, once he wrote it, it was no longer something he held to himself. All opinions are personal and we know each other’s’ personal opinions because we tell each other! If it was private he’d never have announced it. Facebook is a place where you choose your friends and share what you want. Is Mr. Buell’s time on the social media giant relegated to clicking “likes’ on sports contests and posting updates on the lines at the grocery store?

Second, one’s personal Facebook account is not a school district maintained site. That might be different given whatever rules it might establish. Third, do Lake County employees forsake their rights to have opinions? Especially given his occupation — academic freedom anyone? The same Left defends to the death professors who demagogue outrageous and preposterous assertions and promulgate the most offensive theories on faith and country.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference. Freedom of expression consists of the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the implied rights of association and belief. The Supreme Court interprets the extent of the protection afforded to these rights. The First Amendment has been interpreted by the Court as applying to the entire federal government even though it is only expressly applicable to Congress. Furthermore, the Court has interpreted the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the rights in the First Amendment from interference by state governments.

The most basic component of freedom of expression is the right of freedom of speech. The right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without interference or constraint by the government. The Supreme Court requires the government to provide substantial justification for the interference with the right of free speech where it attempts to regulate the content of the speech. A less stringent test is applied for content-neutral legislation. The Supreme Court has also recognized that the government may prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence. The right to free speech includes other mediums of expression that communicate a message. The level of protection speech receives also depends on the forum in which it takes place.

Despite popular misunderstanding the right to freedom of the press guaranteed by the first amendment is not very different from the right to freedom of speech. It allows an individual to express themselves through publication and dissemination. It is part of the constitutional protection of freedom of expression. It does not afford members of the media any special rights or privileges not afforded to citizens in general.

I wonder if Mr. Buell would have received a similar punishment had he posted comments expressing his disapproval of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or Governor Scott Walker’s actions in Wisconsin opposing collective bargaining for public school teachers. The answer is probably no. The left is selective when it comes to free speech, it always has been. Its mantra is free speech for me but not for thee.

Just look what public figures and politicians have had to say about the Tea Party with Senator John Kerry advocating censorship of Tea Party opinions in the media when he said:

“And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely, the media in America has a bigger responsibility than it’s exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual.”

And:

“It doesn’t deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do. And the problem is everything is put into this tit-for-tat equal battle and America is losing any sense of what’s real, of who’s accountable, of who is not accountable, of who’s real, who isn’t, who’s serious, who isn’t.”

I wonder if that bastion of liberty, the ACLU, will take Mr. Buell’s case and bring a whopping suit against the Lake County School District. And what about that special code of ethics Mr. Patton is referring to? What are those ethics? Do the prohibit dragging middle school children out of class to protest an anti-collective bargaining bill or to a rally for liberal politician? Do they include union teachers openly protesting Arizona’s immigration bill? Do they include teachers going to a NEA convention and openly protesting conservatives and holding rallies in support of Gay marriage, illegal immigration, and other left-wing causes?

These are rhetorical questions and the answer to each one is probably no. Mr. Patton is espousing a very thin reason for the dismissal of Mr. Buell. I would imagine the attorneys for the Lake County School Board are not very pleased with the actions of who ever made the decision to suspend Mr. Buell over hos Facebook comments. They no doubt are trying to figure out how they will be paying Mr. Buell the compensation he will receive from his suit and how the will wipe the egg of the faces of the school board members.

Liberal Censorship

Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. — Frederic Bastiat

As I have said in previous posts every totalitarian and tyrannical dictatorship from has begun on the left. Most recent examples of this fact are the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Maoist China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Rwanda and Uganda. All of these tyrannical governments began with the cry of “for the betterment of the people.”

The one thing they all have in common is that they muzzled the free press and any opposing opinions to their elitist socialist programs. They could not have gained power unless the press was either muzzled or they had enough sycophants in their camp to spin their dialect.

The York Times economic columnist Paul Krugman on Tuesday said it was a "moral issue" for the press to censor conservative views about the debt ceiling.

Quite shockingly, the Nobel laureate took to his blog to complain that the news media are being too fair and balanced in their coverage of this highly contentious issue:

“Watching our system deal with the debt ceiling crisis — a wholly self-inflicted crisis, which may nonetheless have disastrous consequences — it’s increasingly obvious that what we’re looking at is the destructive influence of a cult that has really poisoned our political system.

And no, I don’t mean the fanaticism of the right. Well, OK, that too. But my feeling about those people is that they are what they are; you might as well denounce wolves for being carnivores. Crazy is what they do and what they are.

No, the cult that I see as reflecting a true moral failure is the cult of balance, of centrism.”

Wow! Balance and centrism is a "true moral failure":

“So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent — because news reports always do that.”

In Krugman’s elitist view we, the people are to stupid to understand the complexities of our national debt and budgets. Only “educated” folks like Krugman should be listened to:

“The reality, of course, is that we already have a centrist president — actually a moderate conservative president. Once again, health reform — his only major change to government — was modeled on Republican plans, indeed plans coming from the Heritage Foundation. And everything else — including the wrongheaded emphasis on austerity in the face of high unemployment — is according to the conservative playbook.

What all this means is that there is no penalty for extremism; no way for most voters, who get their information on the fly rather than doing careful study of the issues, to understand what’s really going on.

You have to ask, what would it take for these news organizations and pundits to actually break with the convention that both sides are equally at fault? This is the clearest, starkest situation one can imagine short of civil war. If this won’t do it, nothing will.”

I'm not sure what news reports Krugman has been watching, but the ones I’ve been monitoring at concerning this matter, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Krugman’s own New York Times, have been anything but balanced.

The take for weeks has been that taxes must be raised to solve this problem and that it is the Republicans — and, in particular, Tea Party freshmen in the House — that are refusing to "compromise."

A new Media Research Center study on this issue found that ABC, CBS, and NBC have consistently cast the GOP as the villains in this debate: (You can download the PDF version by clicking here)

“On Election Day 2010, then-CBS Early Show anchor Harry Smith posed a hypothetical question about newly-elected Republicans to Ann Coulter: “There’ll be a routine vote, for instance, to increase the debt ceiling and the Tea Party guys are going to say, ‘Over my dead body,’ and the government comes to a screeching halt. Then what happens?” The conservative author confidently predicted: “Well, the media will blame the Republicans.”

And that’s precisely what has occurred. A Media Research Center study of the Big Three network evening and morning programs finds that, when it came to assigning blame for lack of a debt ceiling resolution, ABC, CBS and NBC’s coverage has placed the overwhelming majority of the blame on Republicans’ doorstep.

MRC analysts watched all 202 stories on the debt ceiling from July 1 through July 22, looking for statements which assigned blame or responsibility for the failure to reach a settlement. Of the 85 stories that included such statements, the skew was lopsidedly anti-Republican, with 56 stories (66%) mainly assigning them the blame for the impasse. Even though Democrats control both the Senate and the White House, only 17 network stories (20%) suggested they bore more responsibility, a greater than three-to-one disparity (see chart at right). Twelve stories offered a balanced discussion of which party ought to be blamed.”

But Krugman in his strange world doesn't see it that way:

“What all this means is that there is no penalty for extremism; no way for most voters, who get their information on the fly rather than doing careful study of the issues, to understand what’s really going on. And yes, I think this is a moral issue.”

So, in Krugman's view, it has become a "moral issue" for the news media to only report the side he agrees with. To solve this, he is advocating the press censor reports attempting to present the view from the right. And he works for one of the largest newspapers in the country.

As viewer of numerous news and opinion shows and reader of various Internet news sites and blogs I can tell you that only the Fox News Channel presents a balanced debate on the debt ceiling issue. They consistently bring conservatives, liberals and Tea Partiers to present their side of the issue. Most of the time the liberals can only present spin and talking points while, in my opinion the true conservatives put forth facts. As John Adams said during his defense of the British soldiers accused of murder in the Boston Massacre; “facts are stubborn things.”

Progressive liberals like Krugman do not care about facts. They care about ideology and social justice. Due to their academic pedigree they can’t tolerate contrary opinions to their closely held beliefs. They are like professors who will beat you over the head with their academic status and brilliance, but as a mentor of mine told me years ago; “Your academic pedigree does not outweigh the validity of my argument.” Or to quote Marcus Tullius Cicero; “Rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.”

Over the years there have been “brilliant” academics that believed the earth was flat, an iron ball would fall faster than a feather and the sun and planets revolved about the earth. When I study physics in 1955 we used a text book written by “brilliant” academics in the 1940s that stated the atom was the smallest element in the universe. Of course Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not happened at the time the book was written.

There is a common perception in the media today that goes like this. If you are a conservative with a university education your academic pedigree is securitized (Sarah Palin). If you are a conservative without a university education you are just dumb. If you are a liberal with a University pedigree you are brilliant (Barack Obama) and if you are a liberal without an university pedigree you are an artists or an activist.

Progressive left-wing liberals like Krugman and his sycophantic followers just can’t tolerate any opinion other than the ones they cling to. They want those other “diverse and contrary” views silenced because they believe those opinions muddy the waters they are swimming in. They want everyone to march in lockstep to their ideology and woe to you if you don’t.

Well I certainly will not but Krugman’s pontifications. In fact I rarely read the New York Times. Liberal commentator and Fox News contributor Bob Beckel (a person I rarely, if ever, agree with) claimed he did not read the New York Times and quipped on the new FNC panel show, The Five, when the subject of Obama’s recent speech at the University of Maryland in which he talked about the increasingly “splintered” media with Democrats only getting their news from The New York Times and MSNBC while Republicans use Fox News and editorials in the Wall Street Journal came up. While these aren’t exactly new comments from the President, the panelists read much into them and had a lot of issues. Bob Beckel’s were probably the most entertaining. His problem? No one watches MSNBC.

While Greg Gutfeld and Dana Perino speculated that the statement was a veiled attack on Fox News, guest host Andrew Napolitano thought Obama was excusing his own failings and Andrea Tantaros contributed by claiming she uses the New York Times for toilet paper (ouch), Beckel went right for MSNBC:

“First of all, the President also ought to know, when he talks about that, I don’t know of six people that watch MSNBC. I don’t want to pick on a rival but they’re not a rival. They’re like a kindergartner playing baseball against the Yankees.”

If Krugman watched this show (which I doubt he did) he would have gone ballistic. Oh my God, no one watches the left-wing MSNBC and uses my paper as toilet paper. No wonder he wants censorship. How dare these right-wing fascists cast dispersions on the views of the left? In Krugman’s view he is in the tower and we, conservatives, belong in the dungeon. Krugman would have given Goebbels run for his job.

It's getting really scary out there, folks. When the pinhead, pimple on the ass of the world Krugman reaches the intellectual of Hazlitt, Hayek, von Mises or Friedman I might give his some respect, but until then he is someone to simply ignore. So he was given the Nobel Prize, but so were Jimmy Carter and Barack Hussein Obama.