Guess when the pressure is on, Arizona State caves.  Everybody's drooling all over themselves to throw plaudits at this talentless hack.  Pathetic.  And what's with this "local criticism" b.s.?  Since when is 260,000+ signatures opposing his honorary degree "local"?

It is a happier Easter for me.  And no doubt for this man's family and friends.  Hooray for the United States Navy!

I don't think so. 

The President of the United States performs an obsequious act of submission to the leader of a Muslim country as part of the European visit in which he apologizes for America, offers to unilaterally disarm, and endeavors to set U.S. financial institutions under some kind of "global governance"????



No, I don't think there are more important issues.  (OK, I wouldn't vote for Nader, but as a kid I watched "Love, American Style" and thought this montage was hilarious.)

On, the other hand, this one's kind of fun, too:



Interesting choice of background music for that one.

Pathetic, isn't it, how Obama's press secretary has to lie and deflect. The only person whose job must suck more than Gibbs' is Tim Geithner's.

Camille Paglia.  Folks, read her whenever you can, but this is a good start.  She is a true liberal in the traditional (which is to say, 18th century) sense, proud of liberty, and freedom of speech, and differences of opinion, and personal success.  Any liberal who listens to and defends Rush Limbaugh is worth a read.  (And, as one who has read at least two of her books and innumerable articles, I can say she rarely disappoints.)

(For further proof, read the letters that follow Paglia's column - now, anyone who is HATED that much on Salon should definitely be read on Townhall!)

It's unfortunate, of course, that she's still so enamored with Barack Obama.  But it's not surprising, and it's NOT because she is an America-hating communist like so many of Obama's other cheerleaders.  She blames his gaffes on his goons.  Nice try, but Barack runs the show, and if she thinks otherwise, she is being naive.  But Camille Paglia is anything but naive, and so I think it is only a matter of time before she abandons him the way she abandoned the contemporary voices of "feminism."  And I, for one, will be waiting with anticipation for that essay.

I agree with everything Novak says here.  Except for the part about "respecting" Kmiec and Kaveny.  I'm sorry, but it doesn't take brains or guts to go along with the "leg-tingle" crowd, and only one utterly bereft of any knowledge of history or economics could support Obama's economic "plans."  Since both of these individuals are law professors, I can't give them a pass on that, either.

or more well-reasoned than this.  And I take great pleasure in seeing Robert George trump Doug Kmiec, whose political positions - grounded as they are in some misguided lefty contortion of Catholicism - are a profound disappointment,

 The American corporation has been the greatest creator – and distributor – of wealth in the history of the human race. Nothing else even comes close: no government, no individual, no private foundation. In fact, the largesse that governments, individuals and foundations “distribute” would not even be possible without the American corporation. (And Americans gave over $306 billion to charitable causes in 2007).

But you would certainly never know that from the news today. Corporations – and by extension inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs – are being demonized, denigrated and blamed for every social ill – including and especially the social ills that are the fault of well-meaning but brainless government programs like Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act.

This is the worst climate I can remember for American business in my whole life. Yes, the oil crisis of the 1970s was bad, and yes, the car companies’ reputation at the same time was not much better. But it was viewed as an economic crisis, not an identity crisis. Never have I seen such worldwide antipathy for business and commerce generally. People smashing bank windows, urinating on buildings, and carrying signs that read “capitalism is terrorism”? (Meanwhile, actual terrorists get a pass; they’re just misunderstood and in need of a great big geopolitical hug.)

Our President is not only not helping, he is inflaming the problem, as he usurps the authority of corporate boards, unilaterally fires executive officers, and calls for federal control over salaries. He may have “inherited” a wounded economy (*yawn* – that’s happened umpteen times before), but he has kicked it when it was down, by contributing to the perception that it is American commerce that is the problem; and that government takeover – specifically, takeover by Barack Obama -- is the solution. And he will take the same measures with every industry he can. It started with banks, the financial industry, and the car companies. Soon it will be insurance and medical care and pharmaceuticals. Every “takeover” will be precipitated by a “crisis” that will be translated as the American “public’s” call for more “federal intervention,” that will be touted as “temporary,” but will be permanent. Charles Krauthammer has called these measures a “sideshow.” With all due respect to that esteemed and honored journalist, he is wrong this time. These tactics are the main event. They are right out of the Marxist and socialist playbooks going back to the 1930s, and Barack Obama has been well-trained.

The presidency of Barack Obama is deplorable, and it is contributing devastatingly to American malaise. It’s long past time that American corporations take matters into their own hands, and take their message directly to the American public. So this, American corporations, is my message to you: STOP PARTICIPATING IN YOUR OWN DESTRUCTION, AND FIGHT BACK!

The media makes it look as if corporations are dependent upon government. It’s the other way around. Where would the government be without your taxes? Where would individual politicians be without your campaign contributions? Corporations often donate to both political parties, in order to curry favor no matter who is in office. Now that the Democrats are in power in the Executive Branch and both houses of Congress, how’s that working out for you? Have you figured out that you are funding the very organisms that are committed to destroying you? STOP. Stop funding gutless politicians who take your money, and then get on national television and blame you for the problems they themselves brought on. No more campaign contributions, no more lobbying as under the rubric of “special interests.” NOTHING. Cut them off. Deprive them of their lifeblood (which is really your blood). Starve them.

More to the point, stop letting the federal government tell Americans what to think about you. 56 million people voted against Barack Obama and the initiative-destroying socialism he represents. They and their families represent a wide and deep potential audience. As individuals, we may lack the assets to craft a polished message that will reach our fellow citizens; but you don’t. Most of us cannot reach millions of other like-minded folk; but you can. You have massive amounts of power that you have inexplicable ceded to Obama and Congress. Take it back. Use that power not to sell products this time, but to sell yourselves.  (Here’s my prediction: the first CEO to tell Congress to “*%$@ off” will single-handedly send the Dow up 500 points.)

What should your message be? That every American corporation is the product of someone’s dream. People like Henry Ford. Andrew Carnegie. John D. Rockefeller. Thomas Edison. Mark Charles Honeywell. William Proctor and James Gamble. John Deere. Benjamin Holt. Bill Hewlett and David Packard. Doris Christopher. Robert and Sheila Johnson. Bill Gates. Michael Dell. Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.   The American dream may be viewed as dead or dying in Washington, D.C., but it is alive in thousands of companies – public and private – across the United States. And every company has a compelling narrative. You all need to remind Americans what those narratives are.  

Entrepreneurial enterprise is the quintessentially American story. And America is a better place because of American corporations. Where there was once filth, American companies provided soap and sanitation.   Where travel was once confined to horseback, American ingenuity provided automobiles, trains, airplanes, and ships. Women once slaved over housework; American companies provided vacuum cleaners, ovens, washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers. (Even the Vatican opined, to much feminist consternation, that the washing machine was a greater liberator of women than the Pill.) Northerners went without fruit in the winter until American companies provided refrigerated transportation. Food spoiled until American manufacturers made freezers and refrigerators available. Farms could feed far more when machinery made large-scale agricultural production a possibility. Where disease and despair were once rampant, American scientists and American companies have provided life-saving drugs and other medical treatments. And where geographical distance traditionally meant long spans of time without correspondence with loved ones, Americans invented the telephone, and later commercialized personal computers and the internet, putting communication and information at our fingertips.

American corporations have not just made our lives better with the products and services they have provided for us. They have helped untold numbers of people in multiple generations achieve personal, if perhaps less grandiose dreams, by providing employment - including for those with little to no education, immigrants who fled unspeakable horrors or intractable poverty in other nations, and others who aspired to political and economic freedom. American corporations have also made millions more prosperous, financially secure, and even wealthy, with opportunities to invest – often one share at a time – in the growth of the companies themselves.

We are so accustomed to the prosperity that the American corporation has provided that we no longer appreciate it, even though most of us cannot conceive of life without it. If you want to know what life would be like without American enterprise and American corporations, just look at any third-world country: the poverty, the disease, the violence, the oppression, the truncated life expectancy.

Yes, it’s true that we’ve taken some serious bruises in the past year or so. But as with everything else, the Pravda press and our craven, opportunistic President love to tell about the extreme exceptions – but don’t tell about the rule: the vast majority of American corporations are not embroiled in financial scandals. Just as it would be manifestly ignorant to accuse all human beings of murder because some do, so it is that painting all corporations with the same brush of corruption is inaccurate and unfair.  And it is worsening the crisis by undermining American confidence in our companies, our products, our entrepreneurs, ourselves.

Capitalism is under attack. American enterprise and ingenuity are under attack. But every entrepreneur knows that a problem contains the seeds of an opportunity. Americans are growing weary of the daily onslaught of negativity, and the government that is fueling it. The opportunity here is for visionary corporations to remind Americans about what has always been great and grand about you – and by extension, about themselves. In the short term, people will buy your products when you make them feel good about being Americans again. But the larger point is that it’s no longer market share you are fighting for; it’s your very survival.

Star Parker's article today contains startling and disturbing information that everyone should read.  Please keep in mind that we are borrowing from Social Security to pay Medicare and Medicaid.  Guess what?  $3 billion won't be enough.

I called this months ago.

And, as I often say paraphrasing Thomas Sowell, "and then what?"

I agree with Fred Barnes.  But if conservatives want to accomplish anything, they need to come up with a line of attack that is something more than, "You'd better watch out, because people are gonna catch on."  "Misdirection"???  Stop dancing around it, and call it what it is.

People love to compare Bush to Hitler.  What a joke.  Hitler was far more effective.  Obama's style is far more Hitlerian.  Here are some indications, out of Hitler's own mouth:

"All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies."

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty."

"It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of the nation, that the position of the individual is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole."

“It is not truth that matters, but victory. The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.” 

"How fortunate for leaders that men do not think."

So, is this the "moderate" Taliban Obama is so eager to negotiate with?  I'll bet Sasha and Malia would be thrilled to know that, in addition to the "baby" they might be "punished" with if they had sex, a flogging "by a pre-pubescent boy in a private setting" would be right up there, too.  And I, for one, am glad to know that our President thinks highly enough of the leaders of these countries that he sees fit to prostrate himself before them.

I want to puke.

Now, let me just be clear: I am no enemy of breast-feeding. I nursed both my daughters and would not take back that experience for all the world. But I did not breast-feed them exclusively. I had a mother who breast-fed in the mid-’60s despite the disgust of friends and family, and who insisted that my happiness depended on giving them one bottle of formula a day. I was in France, where their doctor started adding fruits and vegetables to their diet at about three or four months. And where it was easy, after a few miserable weeks, to give up on pumping milk, if only because it made me feel like a cow.

Is it at long last possible – on this side of the Atlantic – to suggest that we’ve maybe taken “breast is best” a bit too far? That a mother’s need for some semblance of physical dignity is perhaps a right worth respecting? That supplementing with formula – if it makes for greater happiness (and emotional availability) in the baby’s most important caretaker – isn’t necessarily an act of gross irresponsibility?

 

Mothers try this. Grow up. People will always judge you for you [sic] parenting style. You’re too indulgent. You’re too harsh. If a mother doesn’t want to breastfeed, then don’t. If a mother wants to breastfeed do. There are plenty of things that you’ll do along the way that will mess us [sic]your kids much more than giving your baby a bottle.

 

Kevin Williamson at NRO called this piece by Julie Limbaugh "cringe-worthy" self-promotion.  Actually, I thought her description of her cousin Rush was poignant and thoughtful.  What's "cringe-worthy" is that she can't point to a single thing he's said that is factually incorrect, or why he's embarrassed by her association with him for any (good) reason other than that she is a self-identified liberal (a position similarly unexplained, and the audience is just supposed to "get it," I guess.  Nudge-nudge-wink-wink-ya-know-whattah-mean?)  But how does that make her different from any of the others?

... you mean, like, paying a guy for sex, hiring him as an "assistant," and then denying you know he's been running a homo whorehouse out of your apartment?  That kind of disorder?

to do the world's dirty work.  For which they will be demonized, even though everyone will be secretly relieved.  You'd think people would be able to show a little gratitude.

Mark my words.

I've heard this for at least 15 years (Harrison Ford as Hank Rearden?).  But now it seems people are actually considering making Atlas Shrugged into a film?  I don't like Angelina Jolie, but I think she could carry it off.  Back in the day when I first heard discussions about this, my casting call for Dagny would have been Sigourney Weaver - who is now, I say with PROFOUND regret - too old for the part.  But I don't think anyone could have carried off sexy-and-tough without being over the top like the woman who made "Ripley" a film heroine for all time.