Yale Bans F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes

Our friends at FIRE once again have to fight the most idiotic examples of censorship, which usually come from academics and college adfministrators. Adem Kissel sends the first shot across Yale’s bow:

President Richard C. Levin
Yale University
President’s Office
P.O. Box 208229
New Haven, Connecticut 06520

Sent via U.S. Mail and Facsimile (203-432-7105)

Dear President Levin:

     “You’ll hate school for a while, too, but I’m glad you’re going to St. Regis’s.”

     “Why?”

     “Because it’s a gentleman’s school, and democracy won’t hit you so early. You’ll find plenty of that in college.”

     “I want to go to Princeton,” said Amory. “I don’t know why, but I think of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be, and all Yale men as wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes.”

     Monsignor chuckled.

     “I’m one, you know.”

     “Oh, you’re different—I think of Princeton as being lazy and good-looking and aristocratic—you know, like a spring day. Harvard seems sort of indoors—”

     “And Yale is November, crisp and energetic,” finished Monsignor.

     “That’s it.”

     They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Princeton X ’17, This Side of Paradise

It is not a happy day when a Yale College dean with degrees from Yale and Princeton, an historian of art, declares that T-shirts quoting Fitzgerald are “not acceptable.” “What purports to be humor by targeting a group through slurs is not acceptable,” Dean Mary Miller wrote to the Yale Daily News, explaining her decision to “pull” the Freshman Class Council’s democratically chosen design targeting Harvard students as “sissies.”

No, not acceptable, not at Yale, the institution that issued the Woodward Report as official policy under President Brewster. This inspiring document argues that free speech “is a barrier to the tyranny of authoritarian or even majority opinion as to the rightness or wrongness of particular doctrines or thoughts” and argues for “the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable.” Yet, Dean Miller apparently knew what had to be done. She did not even see a need to consult the senior academics, diplomats, or national security experts who had so carefully assessed Jytte Klausen’s book.

Does it help the university’s case that the Freshman Class Council independently, afterward, decided to pull the design? It helps the students’ case; they listened to Dean Miller but made up their own minds, if we believe them. It does not, however, help Dean Miller’s case. Or did the Yale Daily News report incorrectly on November 19 that Dean of Freshman Affairs Raymond Ou “told” the Freshman Class Council to meet with students concerned about the T-shirts, and that Miller “decided to pull the design”?

President Levin, I trust that you are aware of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and some of our work on America’s college campuses. FIRE unites leaders in the fields of civil rights and civil liberties, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, academic freedom, freedom of association, and freedom of religion—as well as due process and legal equality. You might have seen FIRE’s name among many on the September 14, 2009, letter to you from Joan Bertin, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, regarding Yale’s removal of cartoons of Mohammed from Jytte Klausen’s The Cartoons That Shook the World. Just a few weeks earlier, Yale’s press had defended this censorship but qualified its moral position with this contradictory statement:

The University has no speech code, and the response to “hate speech” on campus has always been the assertion that the appropriate response to hate speech is not suppression but more speech, leading to a full airing of views.

The world—and Yale—are facing challenges much more serious than a word on a shirt. Yet, the world and the Yale community ought to be able to count on Yale College deans to respect freedom of expression enough to hold in abeyance any urge to censor. Does the Woodward Report exclude the word “sissies” from the principle that “the results of free expression are to the general benefit in the long run, however unpleasant they may appear at the time”? Does the report exclude images in a book from Yale’s stated principle that “a free interchange of ideas is necessary not only within its walls but with the world beyond as well”?

In matters large and small, Yale has taken steps that erode the freedom it once championed, teaching its students that the authorities ultimately decide which expressions are acceptable or unacceptable. This seems the very opposite of a liberal education in a free society.

Now that these decisions have been made, others may follow more easily and more quickly. Meanwhile, will students and even faculty members self-censor to avoid the deans’ hands, or will they test the boundaries of the deans’ tolerance? Are the deans prepared to spend time and resources on further censorship? Please let Yale be governed by its own admirable policies, including its own Woodward Report. In the end, these policies will serve truth and tolerance more than censorship will. Please respond by January 12, 2010, and reassure us that Yale will no longer seek to censor “the unmentionable.” We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Adam Kissel (Harvard ’94)
Director, Individual Rights Defense Program

Obama administration reverses course on TARP

He said he was winding the bailout program down and now has expanded it till almost 2011. Once again the rhetoric is 180 degrees apart from the action.

Our friends at Hotair.com have the details – go check it out HERE.

Congressional Candidate Lieutenant Colonel Allen West: We Were Tricked in 2008

Wow, this guy reminds me of Sam Adams. 1.9 million hits on Youtube.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Swiss ban on minarets was a vote for tolerance and inclusion

Editor’s Note – Ayaan Hirsi Ali escaped from radical Islam, female genital mutilation, an arranged marriage and a life of servitude under islamic culture. When sent on a plane to her forced marriage she fled to the Netherlands and received political asylum where she went to school, became a scholar and was elected to parliament. Ali made a film about how women are treated in the Islamic world with the famed Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh was stabbed in the chest and murdered with a death note addressed to Ali. Ali now lives with an islamic death mark and requires 24 hour security. Ali is the winner of many human rights awards. Her memoir is entitled Infidel.

CS Monitor:

The recent Swiss referendum that bans construction of minarets has caused controversy across the world. There are two ways to interpret the vote. First, as a rejection of political Islam, not a rejection of Muslims. In this sense it was a vote for tolerance and inclusion, which political Islam rejects. Second, the vote was a revelation of the big gap between how the Swiss people and the Swiss elite judge political Islam.

In the battle of ideas, symbols are important.

What if the Swiss voters were asked in a referendum to ban the building of an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles as a symbol of the belief of a small minority? Or imagine a referendum on building towers topped with a hammer and sickle – another symbol dear to the hearts of a very small minority in Switzerland.

Political ideas have symbols: A swastika, a hammer and sickle, a minaret, a crescent with a star in the middle (usually on top of a minaret) all represent a collectivist political theory of supremacy by one group over all others.

On controversial issues, the Swiss listen to debate, read newspapers, and otherwise investigate when they make up their minds for a vote.

What Europeans are finding out about Islam as they investigate is that it is more than just a religion. Islam offers not only a spiritual framework for dealing with such human questions as birth, death, and what ought to come after this world; it prescribes a way of life.

Islam is an idea about how society should be organized: the individual’s relationship to the state; the relationship between men and women; rules for the interaction between believers and unbelievers; how to enforce such rules; and why a government under Islam is better than a government founded on other ideas. These political ideas of Islam have their symbols: the minaret, the crescent; the head scarf, and the sword.

The minaret is a symbol of Islamist supremacy, a token of domination that came to symbolize Islamic conquest. It was introduced decades after the founding of Islam.

In Europe, as in other places in the world where Muslims settle, the places of worship are simple at first. All that a Muslim needs to fulfill the obligation of prayer is a compass to indicate the direction of Mecca, water for ablution, a clean prayer mat, and a way of telling the time so as to pray five times a day in the allocated period.

The construction of large mosques with extremely tall towers that cost millions of dollars to erect are considered only after the demography of Muslims becomes significant.

The mosque evolves from a prayer house to a political center.

Imams can then preach a message of self-segregation and a bold rejection of the ways of the non-Muslims.

Men and women are separated; gays, apostates and Jews are openly condemned; and believers organize around political goals that call for the introduction of forms of sharia (Islamic) law, starting with family law.

This is the trend we have seen in Europe, and also in other countries where Muslims have settled. None of those Western academics, diplomats, and politicians who condemn the Swiss vote to ban the minaret address, let alone dispute, these facts.

In their response to the presence of Islam in their midst, Europeans have developed what one can discern as roughly two competing views. The first view emphasizes accuracy. Is it accurate to equate political symbols like those used by Communists and Nazis with a religious symbol like the minaret and its accessories of crescent and star; the uniforms of the Third Reich with the burqa and beards of current Islamists?

If it is accurate, then Islam, as a political movement, should be rejected on the basis of its own bigotry. In this view, Muslims should not be rejected as residents or citizens. The objection is to practices that are justified in the name of Islam, like honor killings, jihad, the we-versus-they perspective, the self-segregation. In short, Islamist supremacy.

The second view refuses to equate political symbols of various forms of white fascism with the symbols of a religion. In this school of thought, Islamic Scripture is compared to Christian and Jewish Scripture. Those who reason from this perspective preach pragmatism. According to them, the key to the assimilation of Muslims is dialogue. They are prepared to appease some of the demands that Muslim minorities make in the hope that one day their attachment to radical Scripture will wear off like that of Christian and Jewish peoples.

These two contrasting perspectives correspond to two quite distinct groups in Europe. The first are mainly the working class. The second are the classes that George Orwell described as “indeterminate.” Cosmopolitan in outlook, they include diplomats, businesspeople, mainstream politicians, and journalists. They are well versed in globalization and tend to focus on the international image of their respective countries. With every conflict between Islam and the West, they emphasize the possible backlash from Muslim countries and how that will affect the image of their country.

By contrast, those who reject the ideas and practices of political Islam are in touch with Muslims on a local level. They have been asked to accept Muslim immigrants as neighbors, classmates, colleagues – they are what Americans would refer to as Main Street. Here is the great paradox of today’s Europe: that the working class, who voted for generations for the left, now find themselves voting for right-wing parties because they feel that the social democratic parties are out of touch.

The pragmatists, most of whom are power holders, are partially right when they insist that the integration of Muslims will take a very long time. Their calls for dialogue are sensible. But as long as they do not engage Muslims to make a choice between the values of the countries that they have come to and those of the countries they left, they will find themselves faced with more surprises. And this is what the Swiss vote shows us. This is a confrontation between local, working-class voters (and some middle-class feminists) and Muslim immigrant newcomers who feel that they are entitled, not only to practice their religion, but also to replace the local political order with that of their own.

Look carefully at the reactions of the Swiss, EU and UN elites. The Swiss government is embarrassed by the outcome of the vote. The Swedes, who are currently chairing EU meetings, have condemned the Swiss vote as intolerant and xenophobic. It is remarkable that the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, said in public that the Swiss vote is a poor act of diplomacy. What he overlooks is that this is a discussion of Islam as a domestic issue. It has nothing to do with foreign policy.

The Swiss vote highlights the debate on Islam as a domestic issue in Europe. That is, Islam as a set of political and collectivist ideas. Native Europeans have been asked over and over again by their leaders to be tolerant and accepting of Muslims. They have done that. And that can be measured a) by the amount of taxpayer money that is invested in healthcare, housing, education, and welfare for Muslims and b) the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who are knocking on the doors of Europe to be admitted. If those people who cry that Europe is intolerant are right, if there was, indeed, xenophobia and a rejection of Muslims, then we would have observed the reverse. There would have been an exodus of Muslims out of Europe.

There is indeed a wider international confrontation between Islam and the West. The Iraq and Afghan wars are part of that, not to mention the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians and the nuclear ambitions of Iran. That confrontation should never be confused with the local problem of absorbing those Muslims who have been permitted to become permanent residents and citizens into European societies.

British National Health Service: late cancer diagnosis kills 10,000 a year

Sadly, this speaks for itself.

UK Daily Mail:

Late diagnosis of cancer needlessly kills up to 10,000 patients every year, the Government’s director of cancer services has revealed.

Professor Mike Richards will this week unveil a shocking study of the three deadliest forms  –  lung, bowel and breast cancer  –  showing that early detection could save twice as many lives as previously thought.

He blamed the ‘unacceptable’ situation on both GPs and patients who fail to seek medical attention in time.

Professor Richards said: ‘Efforts now need to be directed at promoting early diagnosis for the very large number of patients  –  over 90 per cent  –  who are diagnosed as a result of their symptoms rather than by screening.’

The findings will add to the pressure on the NHS to make sure doctors recognise the vital signs which can enable a patient to benefit from life-saving surgery or chemotherapy.

Professor Richards, who compared one-year survival rates for the three cancers in England and other European countries, told the Guardian the number of preventable deaths was between 5,000 and 10,000.

His research will appear in the forthcoming British Journal of Cancer, published by Cancer Research UK.

CNN: Palin’s Popularity on the Rise

In December Governor Palin’s favorable rating matched President Obama’s at 46%. While it is interesting that CNN reported this, we are now at the end of January so the trajectory of Obama going down and Palin going up means that her approval by now is greater than the Presidents, so I do not expect to CNN to continue reporting these numbers. We shall see.

Governor Palin’s charm and credibility offensive has been pretty effective so far, especially the onslaught of mostly baseless attacks made against her by the elite media (To see a list of these attacks and how they were debunked mostly without retraction follow this LINK ; it starts on page 6 of our Palin category and continue forward). 

After Oprah she decided to talk only talks about serious policy issues which has served her well. Of course, those of us who have studied her record as Mayor, Energy Regulator and Governor are well aware that her record of accomplishment is outstanding, which is why her opponents either attack her children or just make up accusations that don’t bear 10 minutes of fact checking.

CNN:

Washington (CNN) – Sarah Palin has erased her drop in the polls that followed her resignation as Alaska governor, according to new national survey.

But when it comes to opinions of Palin, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday suggests a partisan divide and a gender gap.

The survey indicates that Americans are split on Palin, with 46 percent saying they have a favorable opinion of her and an equal amount saying they have an unfavorable view of last year’s Republican vice presidential nominee.

By the way, the Battleground Poll and Gallup Poll give similar results just as other have in recent weeks, once again the CBS Poll comes up with a way lower result for Palin, and (shocker) its a partial weekend poll; about what we have come to expect from CBS.

Culture of Corruption: Senator Baucus Nominated Girlfriend for U.S. Attorney

Roll Call Magazine:

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ (D- Montana) office confirmed late Friday night that the Montana Democrat was carrying on an affair with his state office director, Melodee Hanes, when he nominated her to be U.S. attorney in Montana.

According to a source familiar with their relationship, Hanes and Baucus began their relationship in the summer of 2008 – nearly a year before Baucus and his wife, Wanda, divorced in April 2009. The Senator had informally separated from his wife in March 2008 and they were living apart when he began dating Hanes, according to Baucus’ office.

If a Republican had done this the elite media would see to it he would be a household name .

Climate Scientist Idiotic Quote of the Day: Only 10% of Population Will Survive Global Warming

Can only a PhD be this stupid? And of course he is advising the government. Create crisis= get funding.

UK Daily Scottsman:

Warming will ‘wipe out billions’

By Jenny Fyall

MOST of the world’s population will be wiped out if political leaders fail to agree a method of stopping current rates of global warming, one of the UK’s most senior climate scientists has warned.

Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, believes only around 10 per cent of the planet’s population – around half a billion people – will survive if global temperatures rise by 4C.

Anderson’s warning comes just eight days before global leaders meet in Copenhagen for the most crucial talks on climate change reversal since the Rio summit in 1992. Current Met Office projections reveal that the lack of action in the intervening 17 years – in which emissions of climate changing gases such as carbon dioxide have soared – has set the world on a path towards potential 4C rises as early as 2060, and 6C rises by the end of the century.

Anderson, who advises the government on climate change, said the consequences were “terrifying”.

“For humanity it’s a matter of life or death,” he said. “We will not make all human beings extinct as a few people with the right sort of resources may put themselves in the right parts of the world and survive.

More Censorship on Campus: St. Louis University is banning David Horowitz as a campus speaker

Via Minding the Campus:

A Ban On Horowitz

Posted by John Leo

Yet another act of censorship by yet another college. St. Louis University is banning David Horowitz as a campus speaker. According to the College Republicans, who had invited the conservative activist to give a talk on October 13, Dean of Students Scott Smith said he could not allow the speech because Horowitz might “insinuate that all people of the Islamic faith are fascists.” Horowitz called this statement “a malicious falsehood.” John K. Wilson has an impressive commentary on his web site, College Freedom.

Follow the Campus Freedom link, it shows you the rank intellectual and rhetorical dishonesty St Louis U went through to at first wage a non-denial denial, and then play semantics to make the most unreasonable of positions, seem reasonable. College Republicans should sue.

Rasmussen Poll: 71% of Americans Angry at Government, 46% “Very Angry”

Up 5 points since September.

Sleeping giant awakening?

Rasmussen Reports:

Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government’s policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry.

Men are angrier than women, and voters over 40 are more angry than those who are younger. A majority of those over 40 are Very Angry. Only 25% of under-30 voters share that view.

The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September.

Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

Elite Press Still Spinning Bad Economy for Obama – “Unexpected Growth in Job Loss” – Oh Really?

Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, spending was down 8.6%, November retail sails fall, December home resales are down 17%, consumer spending is down again, ….

…so with numbers like that, would someone care to explain how a rise in unemployment can be described as “unexpected”?  This was the spin from much of the elite media to the newly released jobless numbers:

Labor Department Reports Unexpected Rise In New Jobless Claims

Unemployment figures for those newly seeking jobs continue to bounce around, as the latest Labor Department figures show an unexpected rise. While the trend has been downward, this week’s numbers rose unexpectedly to 482,000.

While many say the economy has exited recession, to those seeking jobs, the economy is still in bad shape. Layoffs have slowed, but new hires have not picked up at the pace that many would expect. The unemployment rate overall remains at 10 percent.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose by 36,000. Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected a small drop.

Drops in consumer spending means more unemployment; or as a teenager might say, “No Duhhhh”.

If Bush were president would this be reported as “unexpected”, or would they list what I have and say “See….”?

This is another of the countless examples of a simple truth, most economists are good at applying flawed Keynesian theory, but do not genuinely understand economics, and most economists are either political “whores” or creatures of ideology, using their education to push a political agenda because they are paid to or because they have ideological and/or emotional hangups.

Partisan economist’s like Teresa Ghilarducci can write great papers on 401K reform and talk about how they need to have more diversity of investment to help prefund people’s retirement, and at the same time say that Social Security should not prefund people’s retirements at all as President Bush proposed. I am convinced if Obama had said the same thing Ghilarducci would be all for it.

Obama Chief Economist Christina Romer is a good economist, as some of her papers are required reading for many economics students, and now that she is in the White House she makes statements as if she had forgotten much of what she had written previously.

Some people claim that the NYT writer Paul Krugman is a good economist, yet I am amazed at the amount of basic economics he has to forget to write much of the nonsense he does every week.

UPDATE – Ed Morrissey at Hotair.com went back and looked up the “unexpectedly” use in the elite media and they apply it to almost every piece of economic bad news in recent months – LINK.

Democrats Party ID at Record Low

One of the key indicators, and perhaps the key indicator, of the political mood of voters is the party identification poll. This is the measure used often by political scientists who try to get to the real mood instead of making a poll to make news to be spun and consumed by the “masses”.

Rasmussen Poll:

In December, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell to the lowest level recorded in more than seven years of monthly tracking by Rasmussen Reports.

Currently, 35.5% of American adults view themselves as Democrats. That’s down from 36.0 a month ago and from 37.8% in October. Prior to December, the lowest total ever recorded for Democrats was 35.9%, a figure that was reached twice in 2005. See the History of Party Trends from January 2004 to the present.

*Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based on telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002. The margin of error for the full sample is less than one percentage point, with a 95% level of confidence.

Columbia Journalism Review Abandons Journalism Standards

As we have reported before, Columbia Journalism Review might as well be an arm of the Democrat National Committee.

I get a copy of the review when it comes out and there is no attempt at objective journalism whatsoever; it is bold-faced partisan advocacy and today we have a new example. The CJR attacks ProPublica, a non-profit news service, for daring to report the wasteful spending of the Obama stimulus package.

CJR refers to ProPublica as “some obscure tea bagging organization”. CJR doesn’t tell you that the Tea Party movement is now the mainstream, as Tea Party candidates defeat Democrats and Republicans in generic polls. A recent Senate election on Massachusetts reminds us of this reality. So it has coem down to sexual based name calling.

Via the Instapundit Prof. Glenn Reynolds:

Columbia Journalism Review goes after a fellow non-profit news organization, ProPublica, for a ProPublica article on wasteful stimulus spending. Columbia Journalism Review criticizes ProPublica for using a quotation from a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, which Columbia Journalism Review sneeringly and condescendingly and dismissively and, well, offensively, characterizes as “some obscure tea-bagging operation.” Citizens Against Government Waste has been around since 1984, and its 2007 IRS Form 990 indicates it had revenue and expenses of about $4.4 million, more if you include an affiliated 501(c)4 group. It claims “more than one million members and supporters.” Its directors as of the 2007 Form 990 included Vin Weber, who is a big deal. Its annual “pig book” report is widely covered. I’m on the CJR spam list, and it seems to me that the quality of work there has fallen notably over the past several years, while the CJR has grown progressively more politicized. That they’ve reached the point of attacking ProPublica — hardly a right-leaning organization itself — is indicative.  Posted at by Glenn Reynolds

 

Chicago Tribune: White House pressuring Democrats not to appear on Fox News

Chicago Tribune:

At least one Democratic political strategist has gotten a blunt warning from the White House to never appear on Fox News Channel, an outlet that presidential aides have depicted as not so much a news-gathering operation as a political opponent bent on damaging the Obama administration.

Political consultants are a staple of cable television talk shows, analyzing current events based on their own experiences working on campaigns or in government.

One Democratic strategist said that shortly after an appearance on Fox he got a phone call from a White House official telling him not to be a guest on the show again. The call had an intimidating tone, he said.

The message was, “We better not see you on again,” said the strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to run afoul of the White House. An implicit suggestion, he said, was that “clients might stop using you if you continue.”

In urging Democratic consultants to spurn Fox, White House officials might be trying to isolate the network and make it appear more partisan.

Government Vaccine Estimates off by 77%.

And some of you want these people to run health care….

Tarrant County College denying free speech to students, faces law suit it has no chance of winning..

Stories like this don’t amaze me because it seems that every other week something like this is happening. What does amaze is that allegedly highly educated faculty and administrators at universities, the latter often paid six figures to exercise good judgement, just can’t seem to bring themselves to obey federal law and the Constitution of the United States.

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE):

FORT WORTH, Texas, November 5, 2009—Tarrant County College (TCC) students Clayton Smith and John Schwertz filed suit in federal district court late Tuesday against TCC. The students are seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent TCC from quarantining protected speech to the school’s tiny “free speech zone” when they participate in a national “empty holster” protest coordinated by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) that is scheduled for November 9-13. TCC has prohibited students from participating in identical symbolic protests twice in the past two years. The suit was filed by Fort Worth attorney Karin Cagle in cooperation with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas.

“For far too long, Tarrant County College has flouted the First Amendment and prevented its students from engaging in core political speech on campus anywhere outside of its so-called free speech zone,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “By restricting campus speech to this tiny ‘free speech zone,’ TCC has stifled students and ignored its legal obligation to ensure that speech remains free on campus. After failing to heed repeated warnings from FIRE, TCC now must answer for its brazen disregard for the Constitution in federal court.”

The suit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, asks the court to ensure that Smith and Schwertz are allowed to fully participate in the upcoming protests. As members of SCCC, a national organization that “supports the legalization of concealed carry by licensed individuals on college campuses,” Schwertz and Smith seek to distribute flyers in public areas on TCC’s campus and to wear empty holsters. The empty holsters would signify opposition to state laws and school policies denying concealed handgun license holders the right to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. The suit also asks the court to enjoin TCC’s requirement that students wishing to use the free speech zone submit a form requesting permission at least 24 hours in advance of the planned expressive activity.

Of course, after jumping through all of TCC’s illegal hoops and paperwork, they were still denied anyways.

FIRE wrote to President Thomas on April 24, 2008, explaining that TCC’s free speech zone represented a serious threat to liberty on campus and that FIRE has defeated similar free speech zones on campuses across the nation, including the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, West Virginia University, University of Nevada at Reno, Citrus College in California, and Texas Tech University. A TCC administrator responded on May 20, 2008, informing FIRE that the university would not reverse its decision. Poulos’ protest did not take place.

Flashback Laugh of the Day, Associated Press: Republicans doomed in 2009 elections…

November third the elite media was predicting doom and gloom for the GOP. Now Republicans have won governors races in New Jersey and Virginia, swept lesser statewide races on swing states such as Pennsylvania and Florida and now have won the vacated Senate seat in Massachusetts where Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats 3 to 1.

Here are the key excerpts.. hilarious.

Associated Press Washington — For Republicans, an election win of any size today would be a blessing. But victories in Virginia, New Jersey or elsewhere won’t erase enormous obstacles the party faces heading into a 2010 midterm election year when control of Congress and statehouses from coast to coast will be up for grabs.

So even if political winds start blowing harder behind them and even if they can capitalize on Democratic missteps, Republicans will have a long way to go over the next year because of their party’s own fundamental problems – divisions over the path forward, the lack of a national leader and a shrinking base in a changing nation.

In fact, 2009 seems to have underscored what may be the biggest impediment for Republicans – the war within their base.

Al Gore could become the world’s first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies.

UK Telegraph:

Last year Mr Gore’s venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology.

The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient.

The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.

The move means that venture capital company Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.

Washington Examiner: White House Featherbedding Stimulus Numbers

Examiner:

Featherbedding occurs when paychecks are issued for nonexistent employees and the money goes directly into union coffers. Thousands of the jobs Obama officials say were saved or created by the stimulus program are no more real than those invisible positions invented by unions to bulk up their treasuries. We know this to be the case because as Obama’s chief economist, Christina Romer, admitted several weeks ago, “It’s very hard to say exactly because you don’t know what the baseline is, right, because you don’t know what the economy would have done without [the economic stimulus program].”

Even if we take at face value the White House claim that it created or saved all these jobs with approximately $150 billion of the economic stimulus money, a little simple math shows the taxpayers aren’t getting any bargains here: $150 billion divided by 650,000 jobs equals $230,000 per job saved or created. Instead of taking all that time required to write the 1,588-page stimulus bill, Congress could have passed a one-pager saying the first 650,000 jobless persons to report for work at the White House will receive a voucher worth $230,000 redeemable at the university, community college or trade school of their choice. That would have been enough for a degree plus a hefty down payment on a mortgage.

Actually, taxpayers would be better off with such a deal, too, compared with the reality of the Obama stimulus program. Among the top 10 stimulus contracts awarded, there is the one for nearly $339 million that allegedly created or saved 41.19 jobs, or about $8.3 million per position. It was even worse with the $258 million contract to Brookhaven Science Associates in New York, where 25 jobs were saved or created, at a cost of $10.3 million per position. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the ranking House minority member of the Joint Economic Committee, said it best: “What we know for certain is that 2.7 million payroll jobs have been lost since the Obama stimulus was signed into law, hundreds of thousands of more jobs are being lost each month, and America is so deep in debt, China and France are lecturing us to get our financial house in order.”

Dems Culture of Corruption: Dozens in Congress Under Ethics Inquiry

Washington Post:

Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry.

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.

The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.

Washington Post:

Nearly half the members of a powerful House subcommittee in control of Pentagon spending are under scrutiny by ethics investigators in Congress, who have trained their lens on the relationships between seven panel members and an influential lobbying firm founded by a former Capitol Hill aide.

The investigations by two separate ethics offices include an examination of the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense, John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), as well as others who helped steer federal funds to clients of the PMA Group. The lawmakers received campaign contributions from the firm and its clients. A document obtained by The Washington Post shows that the subcommittee members under scrutiny also include Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) , C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).

Confirmed: Long-term English as Second Language programs lower performance.

L.A. Times:

Many L.A. students not moving out of English language classes

Almost 30% of those placed early on in such programs in L.A. Unified were still in them when they started high school, study says. The sooner students moved out, the more they excelled.

October 29, 2009|Anna Gorman

Nearly 30% of Los Angeles Unified School District students placed in English language learning classes in early primary grades were still in the program when they started high school, increasing their chances of dropping out, according to a new study released Wednesday.

More than half of those students were born in the United States and three-quarters had been in the school district since first grade, according to the report by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at USC.

The findings raise questions about the teaching in the district’s English language classes, whether students are staying in the program too long and what more educators should do for students who start school unable to speak English fluently.

“If you start LAUSD at kindergarten and are still in ELL classes at ninth grade, that’s too long,” said Wendy Chavira, assistant director of the policy institute. “There is something wrong with the curriculum if there are still a very large number of students being stuck in the system.”

Researchers tracked the data on 28,700 students from the time they started sixth grade in 1999 until graduation in 2005. They found that students who were moved to mainstream classes by the time they were in eighth grade were more likely than students who remained in English language classes to stay in school, take advanced placement courses in high school and pass the high school exit exam.

Flashback: Pelosi’s Public Option Unveiling Closed to the Public…

This is another part of what Pelosi calles the most transparent process in history…. wow the lies are just amazing.

October 29th.

and via Brietbart News they denied all access to the anouncemnt for the unveiling…

Washington Times – Democrats handpick reform bill audience…

What if George W. Bush had done that?

Politico:

A four-hour stop in New Orleans, on his way to a $3 million fundraiser. 

Snubbing the Dalai Lama.

Signing off on a secret deal with drug makers.

Freezing out a TV network.

Doing more fundraisers than the last president. More golf, too.

President Barack Obama has done all of those things — and more.

What’s remarkable is what hasn’t happened. These episodes haven’t become metaphors for Obama’s personal and political character — or consuming controversies that sidetracked the rest of his agenda.

It’s a sign that the media’s echo chamber can be a funny thing, prone to the vagaries of news judgment, and an illustration that, in politics, context is everything.

Conservatives look on with a mix of indignation and amazement and ask: Imagine the fuss if George W. Bush had done these things?

Indeed. Add to the list breaking promises about transparency while claiming the most secretive process in history is the most open, breaking his tax pledge in the campaign in mere weeks of attaining office, having a fiscal responsibility summit that was a lobbyist convention, having a jobs summit with far left special interest and no Chamber of Commerce, or NFIB or any small business allowed to attend, having a banking summit to encourage them to give loans to small businesses when government rules (such as the benchmark lending rate and others) encourage exactly the opposite, campaigning against lobbyists and then signing an order relaxing lobbyist restrictions…

… this is a list that could go on for the entire page.

Prager University: It is actions that matter; not thoughts or often even intentions

Dennis Prager: Why Do Leftists Hate Christians & Sarah Palin

Brilliant commentary from Dennis Prager

Candidate Obama vs. President Obama

House Conference Chair Mike Pence:

Even as he campaigned on a platform of change and transparency, an examination of Barack Obama’s comments during the election-and his actions since taking office-indicates that on both politics and policy, the President has changed his tune on numerous issues of relevance to the proposed government takeover of health care, which may lead many to wonder where exactly he stands:

 

Then:  “Senator McCain wants to pay for his plan by taxing your health care benefits for the first time in history.”

– Barack Obama, speech in Roanoke, Virginia, October 17, 2008

 Now:  “This reform will charge insurance plans a fee for their most expensive policies…”

– Barack Obama, address to a joint session of Congress, September 9, 2009

 

Then:  “You will not have to change [health insurance] plans.  For those who have insurance now, nothing will change under the Obama plan-except that you will pay less.”

– Obama campaign handout, “Questions and Answers on Health Care Plan”

Now:  “I mean-when I say if you have your plan and you like it and your doctor has a plan, or you have a doctor and you like your doctor that you don’t have to change plans, what I’m saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform.”

– Barack Obama, White House press conference, June 23, 2009

Then:  “Massachusetts has a mandate right now. They have exempted 20 percent of the uninsured because they have concluded that that 20 percent can’t afford it.  In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can’t afford it, so now they’re worse off than they were. They don’t have health insurance and they’re paying a fine.”

– Barack Obama, Democratic primary debate, February 21, 2008

Now:  “Under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance…”

– Barack Obama, address to a joint session of Congress, September 9, 2009

Then:  “If they cannot afford [health insurance]…what are you going to do about it?  Are you going to fine them?  Are you going to garnish people’s wages?”

– Barack Obama, Democratic primary debate, January 31, 2008

Now:  “For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase.”

– Barack Obama, trying to explain tax penalties for refusing to purchase government-forced health insurance, interview with George Stephanopoulos, September 20, 2009

 

 

Then:  “I can make a firm pledge.  Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.  Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

– Barack Obama, Rally in Dover, New Hampshire, September 12, 2008

Now:  “The one commitment that I’ve been clear about is I don’t want that final one-third of the cost of health care to be completely shouldered on the backs of middle-class families who are already struggling in a difficult economy.  And so if I see a proposal that is primarily funded through taxing middle-class families, I’m going to be opposed to that because I think there are better ideas to do it.”

– Barack Obama, White House press conference, July 22, 2009

Then:  “It turns out that Senator McCain would pay for part of his [health care] plan by making drastic cuts in Medicare…even though Medicare is already facing a looming shortfall.”

– Barack Obama, speech in Roanoke, Virginia, October 17, 2008

 Now:  “The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud [in Medicare]…”

– Barack Obama, address to a joint session of Congress, September 9, 2009

 

Then:  “The Obama [health care] plan will cost between $50-65 billion a year when fully phased in.”

– Obama campaign handout, “Questions and Answers on Health Care Plan”

 Now:  “Add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years…”

– Barack Obama, address to a joint session of Congress, September 9, 2009

 

Then:  “What we will do is, we’ll have the [health care] negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.”

– Barack Obama, town hall meeting in Chester, Virginia, July 21, 2008

 Now:  “At a certain point you start getting into all kinds of different meetings-Senate Finance is having a meeting, the House is having a meeting….I don’t think there are a lot of secrets going on in there.”

– Barack Obama, trying to explain closed-door health care negotiations, White House press conference, July 22, 2009

At best, the significant changes in position show the differences between lofty campaign rhetoric and the realities of governing; at worst, they reveal an Administration willing to abandon many of its key campaign promises in order to pass its government takeover of health care.  Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the President’s policy positions-either those outlined “then” or “now”-many may wonder what exactly the President believes in-and, given his repeated reversals, why the American people should believe in him.

Nutty Journalist Quote of the Day! Florida Journalist can’t hide his hate.

John Guerra is a small time journalist at The Key News in Key West, FL.

A factually accurate press release from Florida Congressman Connie Mack, about how crooked the health care legislation is, generated this RESPONSE from one of those who believes he has the monopoly on virtue and tolerance. 

Guerra:

I don’t believe one word you or other conservatives say. The Republican Party is now a mentally ill group of people who want nothing more than to destroy Obama’s first term no matter how much the country needs his policies. I despise your party’s activities and the hatred you spew on Fox and other sounding boards for the insurance companies. Please don’t you dare get him killed, which is the underlying goal of you right wing nuts.

Of course, JFK was assassinated by a communist but is he presented as some “nut job?”

This is exactly the kind of knee jerk, ignorant emotionalism that I have come to expect from journalists and even when they aren’t this emotional, usually they are this ignorant, unlike some college professors who come up with brilliant rationalizations for their emotionalistic thinking that is divorced from reality.

How did Guerra get this way, odds are he came to his view at university as this is exactly the type of radicalism promoted by much of academia today. See the Following….

https://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/iu-school-of-journalism-humiliated-by-bogus-bill-oreilly-study/

https://iusbvision.wordpress.com/the-story-of-stuff-marxist-indoctrination-video-for-kids/

https://iusbvision.wordpress.com/the-duh-generation/

https://iusbvision.wordpress.com/the-lefts-last-argument-shut-up/

https://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/the-story-of-the-nigerian-teacher-who-moved-to-america-only-to-have-her-black-students-call-her-an-oreo/

Why are conservatives so mean?
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC6MnwknfmU]

Corrupt AARP Health Care Deal Puts Seniors at Risk

Previous coverage of this story HERE.

House Conference Chair Mike Pence:

Speaker Pelosi recently called insurance companies “immoral villains,” and Sen. Jay Rockefeller derided their tactics as “rapacious,” yet the majority has simultaneously relied on an organization that has received billions of dollars in windfall profits from those same insurers as an “independent” source to support their government takeover of health care-AARP.  The Democrat majority has even relied on AARP’s support for legislation (S. 1776) that would increase the federal debt by nearly $250 billion to fund physician reimbursements, even though the bill would raise seniors’ Medicare premiums by over $60 billion.  AARP opposed unpaid-for legislation as recently as December for that very same reason.  An analysis of Democrats’ rhetoric and actions provides evidence why AARP may have changed its position-in exchange for its support of a government takeover of health care, AARP has received special considerations regarding several provisions in health “reform” legislation that could benefit the organization quite handsomely:

• While the AARP website claims that the organization supports “guaranteeing that all individuals and groups wishing to purchase or renew coverage can do so regardless of age or pre-existing conditions,” a review of the New York State Insurance Commissioner’s website finds that AARP-branded Medigap coverage imposes a six-month waiting period for individuals with pre-existing conditions. Yet Section 111 of H.R. 3200 would exempt Medigap policies from new limits on pre-existing condition restrictions-thus allowing AARP to continue to deny Medigap claims of individuals with serious health conditions.

• The health “reform” bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee would eliminate the tax deductibility for all insurance company executive salaries over $500,000. However, as drafted by the Committee, the legislation would exempt AARP from this requirement, even though fully 38 percent of its $1.1 billion in 2008 revenue came directly from “royalty fees” paid by United Healthcare-more than AARP received in membership dues, grant revenue, and private contributions combined. But for Chairman Baucus’ exemption, AARP salaries would in fact be subject to the penalties in the Finance bill-in 2008, then-CEO William Novelli received total compensation of $1,005,830-more than 78 times the average annual Social Security benefit of $12,738.

• Speaker Pelosi has recently discussed the imposition of a new “windfall profits” tax on insurance companies as a potential addition to the House’s health “reform” bill. However, she has made no comments indicating that she would apply a similar tax to AARP-even though the organization by its own admission has received nearly $3.4 billion in profits from selling health insurance and other similar products. Thus it is entirely possible that Democrats could exempt AARP from the insurance windfall profits tax, in the same way that Chairman Baucus created a loophole to allow AARP to continue paying its CEO more than $1 million per year without penalty.

• White House senior advisor David Axelrod recently offered Administration support for price control provisions included in H.R. 3200 that would require insurance companies to pay out a minimum percentage of their premiums in medical claims. However, while H.R. 3200 would place strict price controls on Medicare Advantage plans-requiring them to pay out 85 percent of premium revenues in medical claims-Medigap policies face a far less strict 65 percent requirement. In other words, under the Democrat bill, seniors could pay as much as 20 cents more out of every premium dollar to fund “kickbacks” to AARP-sponsored Medigap plans.

• A Bloomberg news analysis published in December highlighted what one observer called AARP’s “dirty little secret”-overcharging its senior members, many of whom who felt betrayed after paying hundreds of dollars above market price for AARP-branded coverage. One noted that “AARP has great buying power, and people should be able to get the best deal….This is unconscionable, what AARP has allowed to happen.” Another disillusioned senior wrote to the organization’s leadership asking whether AARP had a “‘special relationship’ with [insurance carriers] by which it receives commissions, incentives, rebates, or dare I say ‘kickbacks?'”

• In November, news sources reported that AARP suspended the sale of “limited-benefit” health insurance policies, largely as a result of pressure from Republicans in Congress concerned that the organization was selling policies advertised as a “smart option for the health care insurance you need,” even though the policies would only pay up to $10,000 for surgery costs. However, the fate of the more than 1 million policy-holders who purchased limited-benefit coverage from AARP remains unclear-and the organization has made no public offers to return the “royalty fees” on the “bare bones” policies it sold under questionable pretenses.

California Treasurer to Legislature: “STOP IT JUST STOP IT!!” There is no more money!

Ayn Rand said that the left will spend until they run out of other peoples money.

FACT CHECK: Health Insurance Profits Not So Fat

WASHINGTON (AP) –

Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They’re all more profitable than the health insurance industry. In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making “immoral” and “obscene” returns while “the bodies pile up.”

Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That’s anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the largest insurers were downgraded to negative from stable heading into this year, as investors were warned of a stagnant if not shrinking market for private plans.

Insurers are an expedient target for leaders who want a government-run plan in the marketplace. Such a public option would force private insurers to trim profits and restrain premiums to compete, the argument goes. This would “keep insurance companies honest,” says President Barack Obama.

The debate is loaded with intimations that insurers are less than straight, when they are not flatly accused of malfeasance.

But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground. A look at some claims, and the numbers:

THE CLAIMS

_”I’m very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also welcomed the attention being drawn to insurers'”obscene profits.”

_”Keeping the status quo may be what the insurance industry wants their premiums have more than doubled in the last decade and their profits have skyrocketed.” Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the Democratic leadership.

_”Health insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe.” A MoveOn.org ad.

THE NUMBERS:

Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th on the Fortune 500 list of top industries. As is typical, other health sectors did much better – drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10.

The railroads brought in a 12.6 percent profit margin. Leading the list: network and other communications equipment, at 20.4 percent.

HealthSpring, the best performer in the health insurance industry, posted 5.4 percent. That’s a less profitable margin than was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach and Molson and Coors beers.

The star among the health insurance companies did, however, nose out Jack in the Box restaurants, which only achieved a 4 percent margin.

UnitedHealth Group, reporting third quarter results last week, saw fortunes improve. It managed a 5 percent profit margin on an 8 percent growth in revenue.

Van Hollen is right that premiums have more than doubled in a decade, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study that found a 131 percent increase.

But were the Bush years golden ones for health insurers?

Not judging by profit margins, profit growth or returns to shareholders. The industry’s overall profits grew only 8.8 percent from 2003 to 2008, and its margins year to year, from 2005 forward, never cracked 8 percent.

The latest annual profit margins of a selection of products, services and industries: Tupperware Brands, 7.5 percent; Yahoo, 5.9 percent; Hershey, 6.1 percent; Clorox, 8.7 percent; Molson Coors Brewing, 8.1 percent; construction and farm machinery, 5 percent; Yum Brands (think KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), 8.5 percent.

Dr. Friedrich Hayek: Democracy does not mean limited government and the dangers of an “Omnipotent Elected Assembly” that gives particular benefits to particular groups.

He predicted it.

Vacation is over! More posts soon with lots of news updates…and wow do we mean lots….

Stay tuned…. :-)