UPDATE – Forbes reports that 13 year old pop sensation Rebecca Black already a millionaire. Black’s catchy tune “Friday” crushed the iTunes top 100 netting Ms. Black over $1.4million, not including YouTube ad revenue sharing on her video which has netted over 31 million views. Black is still accelerating on the iTunes top 100 chart.
What a charming first video for a 13 year old girl who had a dream and took a risk.
The video went viral.
Ms. Black comes across as charming and approachable. The production value of the video is pretty good especially considering the budget used. I wish her well. Let us hope that the coming attention and money does not exceed her character.
ARK Music Factory made this clever rap remix of the song. It is quite good.
The critics are done. The word is in. Simon Cowell loves the song.
Of course most of the nutty commenters are siding with the people making the death threats and condemning the author for just telling the truth, that conservative bloggers got the story right. There have been dozens of death threats in recent weeks, and violence (LINK1, LINK2) and the elite media ignores it all. Of course Fox is the only one with the guts to report it.
Wisconsin Democrat Gordon Hintz to Female Republican Michelle Litjens After Budget Vote: “You Are F*cking Dead!
Do you think of Republicans and the Tea Party as dangerous, violent extremists?
Do you think the Wisconsin protests over GOP Governor Scott Walker’s move to strip public sector employees of collective bargaining were peaceful?
Do you scoff at the right wing notion that mainstream media like the New York Times, the TV networks and NPR have a liberal media bias against the conservatives?
If you answered ‘yes’ to all three of those questions, then let me ask you one more…
Why isn’t the mainstream media talking about the death threats against Republican politicians in Wisconsin?
Try to set aside whatever biases or preconceptions you might have for a moment and ask yourself why death threats against politicians aren’t considered national news, especially in the wake of the all too fresh shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and other bystanders. And there hasn’t just been one death threat, but a number of them.
Here’s an example and it’s real…..
So of course the post went viral. I have been watching it on and off for hours the moderates came in and cleaned up the comments … LOL
Jim Treacher asks: What’s with all the death threats libs?
Somebody just sent James O’Keefe this lovely message on Twitter. [WARNING: Rude, moronic, violent language]
I’m going to assume this guy’s name is Mike Clark, and his Twitter bio says he’s in Memphis, TN. Sending somebody a death threat is dumb to begin with, but doing so via a Twitter account with your name and location on it? That takes a special brand of stupid.
Ann Althouse just received a direct threat to her person as well. Like O’Keefe, Althouse has raised the ire of the left by videotaping them in action. Tell the truth and they call it lies. Make your point nonviolently and they threaten you. It’s like clockwork.
And it doesn’t stop there. John Nolte at Big Government has put together a compilation of the last three weeks of left-wing threats and bullying in Wisconsin. It’s getting so bad that honest liberals (no, it’s not an oxymoron) like Lee Stranahan are fed up with the media ignoring these threats. “Don’t retreat, reload” is considered violent rhetoric if a conservative says it, but “I’m going to kill you” isn’t considered violent rhetoric if a liberal says it. I keep trying not to attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence, but are all these big-brained reporters really that inept?
By the way, if you want to bug me about this supposed “debunking” of O’Keefe’s video that I’m supposed to care about, read this, this, this, and this. And then, if you still want to whine about how a “discredited” guy like James O’Keefe keeps making fools of you, go bug NPR. If you can convince them it’s all just a lie, maybe those poor NPR execs will get their jobs back.
If I was a cold political strategist <grin> I would say OK Dems lets get you to puff your chests all up and be ready to shut the govt down for taxpayer dollars for abortion mills that cater to child prostitution and underage rape victims without reporting it (its on video), NPR execs who are willing to launder known terrorist money to trash Republicans (Thank you James!), and to the Cowboy Poetry Festival and have that fight.
While mocking them and their sacred cows listed above, I would drag them through the mud and use the publicity to let everyone know about the hidden multibillion dollar slush finds in Obamacare that the Dems told no one about.
I would use a government shut down to get the media attention on all of this and be aggressive. THEN I would repeal it.
My reasoning:
1 – What the Democrats have done is sleazy in a big, big way. They need to pay a very severe political price for it; especially the hidden slush funds.
2 – Most people don’t know the nature of the slush fund problem. The more the public knows the better it is for the GOP.
3 – The Democrats want a govt shut down anyways. First they said they won’t stand for $100b in cuts so the GOP compromised and lowered it to $61b. Then the Democrats said, no the $61b is draconian (silly ins’t it) we will meet you half way with a $10b cut (in Democrat math 10 is half of 61), Than it was if you accept the $10b cut, we also want full funding for NPR and Planned Parenthood etc. Do you see how Democrats keep moving the bar? They want a shutdown and seem hellbent on creating one so when it does that will be the time to wage a massive PR offensive.
There is a large fifth column of Americans who sympathize with our jihadist enemies and wish our nation ill. These are the people who seek to block every inquiry into Islamic terror, and every attempt to refer to “Islamic terror,” with cries of “McCarthyism” and “witch-hunt.” These attacks are designed to demonize the inquirers as “Islamophobes” and bigots who want to “lynch all Muslims.” This attempt by leftists and jihadists to conflate all Muslims with terrorists is merely the latest in a long history of radical attempts to hide their terrorist fish in the “ocean of the people.”
This very accusation was actually leveled at me at Brooklyn College the other night, after an hour-long talk I gave detailing the hate-filled, genocidal agendas of Hizbollah, Hamas, the rulers of Iran and the terrorist agents of the Palestinian Authority. [To see the full talk, Click Here] During my talk, I provided chapter and verse documentation of the bloody-thirsty intentions openly proclaimed by leaders of the Palestinian cause and supported by their campus sympathizers across America. The chants shouted during “Israel Apartheid Week” this spring demand a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.” A Palestine stretching from the Jordan River, Israel’s eastern boundary, to the Mediterranean sea, its boundary to the West, would obliterate the Jewish state, wiping it from the map. Which is precisely what these hate weeks against the Jews on college campuses are intended to bring about.
The Hamas supporters of the Palestine Club (sponsors of the hate week against the Jews on the Brooklyn campus) who came to hear my speech could only respond to the evidence I presented with this retort: “you want to lynch all Muslims.” They had no other response because there is no other response. The indisputable fact is that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority openly proclaim that Israel should not exist. Their supporters from the Muslim Students Association to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is an actual spin-off of Hamas, agree. Hence the only course open to them is to turn the aggressors into victims, and the victims into bigots.
No sooner was the video of my speech posted on the Internet than Philip Weiss who runs a blog for the Nation put up a version of the video, which had been edited with a hatchet. It is called “Horowitz Spews Hatred at Brooklyn College.” Weiss’s employer,theNation magazine, has a long history of supporting America’s enemies and their genocidal activities — from the Communists in Russia to the Communists in Cambodia and Vietnam. It came as no surprise to me, therefore, that the Nation’s leftists would be enablers of the Islamic jihad against the democracies of the West and of the war against the Jews. But even I was taken aback by the ham-fisted dishonesty of the cut that Philip Weiss had tossed off without even a note to the unsuspecting that the video had been doctored.
In Weiss’s video I am seen accusing Palestinian terrorists of being Nazis and Palestinians of having sunk to a moral low unequalled in history. But the reasons for these judgments were consigned to the cutting room floor, so they appear to be merely the kind of bilious venom that the left itself is so adept at. Here are statements I read to the audience (which can be viewed on the uncut video of my speech) from two Palestinian leaders – one the founder of Hamas, and the other the chairman of the Gaza parliament – expressing their intentions towards Israel’s Jews – and, indeed, towards all Jews:
“There is no place for you Jews among us, and you have no future among the nations of the world. You are headed to annihilation.” — Mahmoud Al-Zahar
“Be certain that America is on its way to disappear,… Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies… Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one.” – AhmadBahar
If these are not the sentiments of Nazis, then what is?
The other statement I made, that the Palestinians are morally sick and have sunk to a moral depth unrivalled by any other people in history, was a conclusion anyone might draw from what are indisputable facts. For while ethnic groups and races have been oppressed from the beginning of time, no other people in history has strapped bombs to its own children and sent them to blow themselves up in order to kill other children, telling them that if they committed these murders they would go to heaven and become saints and, if they were lucky enough to be males, would receive 72 virgins as a reward. If this isn’t morally sick, I don’t know what is.
So for blurting out the impolitic truth I am tarred now as an anti-Muslim bigot by supporters of Jew-hatred and terror at the Nation Institute, and by their mindless cohorts on the political left, and by the supporters of Hamas among the members of the Palestine Club and the Muslim Students Association and their campus allies. I can live with that. But don’t think for a moment that this is my personal problem. It is the problem faced by everyone and anyone who will stand up to the enemies among us, who hate our freedoms, and are working within our institutions and our homeland to take those freedoms away.
Palin’s Successors (Republicans Too) Seek to Dismantle Her Energy Legacy
JUNEAU, Alaska — While every online swipe from former Gov. Sarah Palin still draws national attention and stirs fresh speculation about her political ambitions, back home she is no longer quite so imposing.
Even as she casts herself as an energy expert and is quick to attack the Obama administration on oil and gas issues, the two most prominent energy policies she put in place as governor of Alaska face new challenges less than two years after she left office.
Gov. Sean Parnell, Ms. Palin’s fellow Republican and former lieutenant, has announced that it is his top priority to undo parts of major oil tax increases that Ms. Palin made law. He argues that high state taxes, not just federal regulations, are preventing oil companies from exploring new drilling in Alaska and therefore jeopardizing future state revenues.
“Lower taxes means more competitive,” Mr. Parnell said last week. “It means more jobs.”
Sounds pretty bad doesn’t it? It is intended to. As the article goes on it does not indicate just what Changes Gov Parnell wishes to make. So how do you really know her “legacy” is at stake? The narrative that the NYT wishes you to believe is that even the Republicans thought she was misguided and had no idea what she was doing.
Are you ready for the truth? This is wht the NYT decided you didn’t need to know.
Before Gov. Palin blew the whistle about the bribes to keep the Alaska Oil Royalties down Alaska had nearly the lowest oil royalties in the world. You can examine a chart at the following link – http://www.iraqdividend.com/World_Oil_Tax_Policies.pdf
When she ran for Governor Mrs. Palin promised to make the royalties competitive so that the Alaska citizens were not getting ripped off. In fact, Governor Palin sent much of that money to Alaska residents in the form of checks directly to citizens. On top of that Alaska now has a $12 billion rainy day fund (that Democrats are itching to blow).
1 – 20% production tax credits for oil and gas investment in Alaska
2 – 22.5% tax rate on “net” positive cash flow or “Production Tax Value”
3 – Progressivity: A higher tax rate (.25) kicks in when oil sells for more than $55 per barrel.
4 – Requires a report in 2011 about how well all the incentive provisions are working to enhance exploration, development and production in the state.
The taxes the oil companies had to pay on the value of the oil increased by 22% which still puts Alaska at a below average tax rate for oil drilling. This is still a good deal for oil companies, but not one that leaves Alaskan’s short changed.
So what is the problem? As the Alaska Daily News reports, the progressive increases in the tax rate per barrel of oil get pretty high when you see oil going to $120 or $130 mark. ADN points out that most legislators did not foresee such prices as being likely. When the price of a barrel of oil gets rather extreme as it is today that tax goes up too high thus making it more profitable to pull oil resources out of Alaska and place them elsewhere.
Here is an even bigger rub, Governor Palin’s bill accounted for this and as you can see section 4 above demands a report in 2011 to see how the bill’s rates and incentives are working to prevent decreases in oil production and potential job loss. Thanks to OPEC and Obama’s illegal off shore drilling ban this is exactly what we are facing. This mandated report, as well as others, show that production and investment in Alaska has fallen since the 2009 oil price spike and is now getting worse.
As a result Gov. Parnell wishes to adjust the progressive part of the oil tax downward to attract more production and job expansion. Governor Palin would have done exactly what Governor Parnell is doing now. Parnell is not reversing Palin’s legacy, he is reaffirming it.
As the number of deans, associate deans and program directors grew at the Flint campus over the last five years, so have administrative paychecks.
Six-figure salaries more than doubled on campus since 2006, according to the newest faculty and staff salary information recently released by UM.
Nearly 50 of the roughly 1,000 employees made $100,000 or more at UM-Flint, compared to about 20 four years earlier.
Budget constraints also didn’t prevent raises. Among the top 30 earners, the average raise hovered around $3,000 with the highest raise being $10,000. The campus paid out nearly $95,000 total in raises among the top 30, according to a Flint Journal review.
Critics argue that at a time when layoffs and pay cuts elsewhere have made it harder for families to afford college, big raises and paychecks don’t help the case of colleges that continue to hike tuition every year.
“The hiring trend has unmistakably gone toward hiring far more non-teaching employees than teaching employees,” said Matthew Ladner, vice president for research at the Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based public policy research organization that studied administrative expenses at top universities last year. “You start throwing around six-figure salaries like it’s nothing because everyone else is doing it but the status quo doesn’t work anymore. Administrative bloat is driving up costs.”
By the way, some of these Democrats do not have the funds to live in a hotel for a month on the road, so someone is donating the money and since this is out of state travel it means that the money is almost certainly illegal.
Although the Republican right-to-work proposal prompted the walkout, the protest was expanded to include education reforms.
The protesting Democrats have objected to charter school expansion in House Bill 1002, as well as a proposal to allow low-income parents to have scholarships for private school tuition.
Amid the ongoing controversy, local education reform leaders are offering the first local showing of the film, “The Cartel,” Tuesday at the Indiana Historical Society. The film shows the practical effects of the status quo in education as well as corruption in the current system. Sponsored by the Freedom Foundation for Educational Choice, this film is just one of several pleas to put children first in education.
An earlier movie, “Waiting for Superman,” offered moving accounts of children longing for a better school.
One of those better schools locally is Herron High, which state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett has cited for its gains on Advanced Placement tests. The percentage of the Indianapolis charter school’s students who passed an AP exam increased from 5 percent to 38 percent last school year. With its college prep emphasis, Herron also has seen a 78 percent increase in students who take AP exams.
It’s hard to tell why the House Democrats mixed up worker rights with opposition to education reform. In staying out to protest charters, Indiana Democrats have put themselves at odds with national Democratic leaders such as President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
State Democrats also object to private school choice for low-income families. Yet that idea originated in Milwaukee with a Democratic mayor, John Norquist. A Democratic candidate for mayor of Indianapolis, Louis Mahern, advocated the idea in his campaign 20 years ago.
Where were these Democrats when Mahern was running for mayor? Where are they now when one of their own, former Mayor Bart Peterson, has helped lead the charge for charter schools?
“There’s a schism in the Democratic Party around education reform,” notes David Harris, founder and CEO of a local reform group, The Mind Trust. “A new generation of Democrats, led by the president and Secretary Duncan, is demanding we remake public education even though that means upsetting the teacher unions. But we don’t have enough Obama/Duncan-style Democrats in Indiana.”
House Minority Leader Pat Bauer has identified the reform legislation as part of a war against the middle class.
What will really hurt the middle class is killing these education reform initiatives.
Where do thousands of kids learn such nonsense in lock step. If I were a union rep I would blame the parents I imagine. Except where would the parents get everyone together to get so many thousands of kids to learn such uniform extremism?
Ann Althouse getting threats from far left thugs – LINK
20 Days of Left-Wing Thuggery in Wisconsin: When Will Obama, Democrats, and MSM Call for Civility? –LINK
Speaking of radicalized schools – look at what George Washington University paid for with “a generous donation”. Oh just a call for leftist revolution…
Via Campus Reform: Students from various colleges attended the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Young Feminist Leadership Conference at The George Washington University. The conference was held March 12-13, 2011 and GWU supported the conference with a “generous donation.”
In 2012, the only way someone can vote for Obama in good conscience is by ignorance.
This is an administration that does not act in good faith.
UPDATE I – Listen for yourself all:
Democrat energy policy: Less drilling, more deficit spending. Pinheads like Debbie Schultz have said that there would be “no immediate” new oil if we started drilling today is cute, but they have been saying that for 20 years. Now if we started more drilling back then, or even five years ago it would be an entirely different story. By the way Obama’s illegal drilling ban has already cost many thousands of jobs.
If I start digging a well, it will not immediately result in more water, so lets all have massive thirst. If you start your car, it will not immediately result in you being at work, so lets ban cars and have trains….
Someone is voting for these idiots.
NOTE – If Sarah Palin had uttered the shear nonsense that Schultz puts out on a regular basis it would be the headline almost every other night on the news.
Schultz has been making these kind of orbital statements for a long time. I think it is time for Rush Limbaugh to start giving her a little of what the Democrats need right now:
The IUSB Vision Weblog 