Interesting, isn’t it, how anytime a liberal “progressive” agenda is realized to even the slightest degree, its proponents invariably begin the push to see how much they can milk out of it.

For example, the abolishment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

From One News Now:

BOSTON - A group of married “gay” current and former military personnel has sued the federal government, seeking equal recognition, benefits and the same support as married heterosexual couples.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Boston says the government’s Defense of Marriage Act violates their constitutional rights and asks the military to recognize their marriages. The suit was filed by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

Executive director Aubrey Sarvis says homosexual service members deserve the same protections as heterosexual couples because they make the same sacrifices.

It never fails, and before the fact, warnings are never heeded for the simple reason that the lefties behind these agendas employ what amount to first steps
as merely a foot in the door.

Opponents of President Obama’s decision to oveturn “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy warned that such a lawsuit would be coming once that restriction was removed.

Read the article here, and weep.

My own position on the so-called “Occupy Wall Street” movement, or whatever you call it, is one that both approves and disapproves.

While I don’t agree with their rhetoric (not that more than 5% of those involved is likely to have any technical knowledge of economic issues, anyway, or any proactive ideas as to how to enact the positive change they apparently want to bring about), I do see what they’re doing as exercising a fundamental American right to assemble and protest. Where I come from, doing what they’re doing would likely end them up in a filthy, overcrowded prison, a harsh labor camp, or worse. The worst that’s happened to the most obstructive in the OWS crowd has been a shot or two of pepper spray and a single night in a city jail, after which they were released and allowed to return to their assemblage. We already saw what such protest gatherings are met with in China.

So on that level, I see nothing wrong with those people doing what they’re doing. This is, after all, America.

On the other hand, there’s this, which serves only to undermine whatever dubious message the “legitimate” protesters are trying to get out.

Seth has spoken of the differences between the conservative side of the street and the liberal side of the street once the many demonstrations and/or counter-demonstrations he’d been to had ended, the former left pristine by the right thinking crowd while the latter had been “trashed” and left as such by the lefty faction.

The men, women and whatevers among the OWS people are obviously “progressives”, so the drugging and the unruliness are to be expected, especially in a protracted gathering such as the one in question.

BUT… I believe that in the spirit of American freedom we MUST allow those who disagree with our point of view to express theirs.

Unfortunately, we have become so polarized that while our side of the street objected to the treatment “the opposition” gave the Tea Partyers, we are doing the same thing to the Occupy Wall Streeters.

In 2009, where Democrats saw an unruly mob, Republicans saw patriotism.

In 2011, where Republicans see an unruly mob, Democrats see patriotism.

That was the “tea party.” This is the “Occupy” movement.

Reaction to the “OccupyWall Street” protests, which have now spread to Washington and other American cities, broke down along party lines Sunday, with Democrats voicing support for the movement and some Republicans painting the demonstrators as anti-capitalist agitators backed by big labor, anti-war groups and other liberal activists.

Since the tea party’s birth in 2009, conservative lawmakers, candidates and pundits have praised it as the natural reaction to an unprecedented explosion of government spending and federal regulation on a litany of issues including health care. Democrats and many of their liberal allies in the media, however, have often painted tea party members as “racists” and “bigots” who oppose President Obama’s every move simply because he’s black.

While the two movements are backed by opposite ends of the political spectrum, each party reciting the other’s talking points from two years ago, some see similarities between them.

The “core” grievance of the Occupy protesters “is that the bargain has been breached with the American people. There’s a lot in common with the tea party,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden said last week, citing the anger of both the tea party and the OccupyWall Street crowd toward federal bailouts of banks and other financial institutions.

Man, I hate quoting a Biden quote here, but the Veep’s right, even though, thankfully, he’s just Biden his time until he and his boss are voted out next year, relegated to a one termer.

But let’s be tolerant, here. The Tea Partyers, as good conservatives, conducted themselves with dignity and patriotism. As we see in the first linked article above, the OWSers are being the usual collective of liberals, so let’s allow them to make themselves look like dumb bunnies, dancing bears, idiots and buffoons while we honor their Constitutional Right to do so.

UPDATE: I had meant to include the Cain take on the Occupy Wall Street “movement”, which, since the bulk of our economic woes can be laid at the feet of the (previous) Democratic majority and the exacerbation of these woes at the feet of the Obama-in-Chief himself makes sense to me!

A Democrat, that is, to finally preside over the downgrading of America’s credit rating.

From the Washington Times:

The Obama administration has made history by presiding over the first-ever downgrade in the U.S. credit rating. President Obama has outdone all his predecessors in wrecking America’s good name. His answer to this problem: Spend even more.

Raising the debt ceiling was sold as a way of guaranteeing the U.S. credit rating. It had the opposite effect, which makes sense to anyone who understands credit. Take a family with a median household income around $50,000. If they spend $85,000 a year and have debt at $300,000 and growing, it’d be foolish to let them borrow more because they don’t have the income to pay it back. Raising the debt ceiling ignored this reality. Then, the Obama administration immediately demonstrated its utter lack of creditworthiness by blowing 60 percent of the initial $400 billion increase in one day, the largest single-day accumulation of debt in U.S. history.

While they don’t have Bush to kick around anymore, they kick at him just the same, not out of any sense of vindictiveness, but because one of the hallmarks of today’s liberal dominated Democrats is that taking responsibility for their actions is unheard of, and since Bush has been the all purpose pin cushion for blame since the Obama Empire Administration began, why stop now?

The White House blames the George W. Bush administration for every economic woe, but the numbers speak for themselves. In 2008, the federal budget deficit was around 3 percent of gross domestic product. In 2011, it’s around 11 percent. Total federal debt was $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008 and is currently $14.6 trillion. Debt as a percentage of GDP was a painful 69 percent at the end of the Bush years, but Mr. Obama is pushing it over 100 percent, another disgraceful historic milestone. A record 45.8 million are on food stamps, and the percentage of working-aged Americans who have jobs is the lowest in three decades. According to Gallup’s daily tracking poll, in late January, 44 percent of Americans felt the economy was getting better, and 52 percent thought it was worsening. Now only 17 percent have a positive view; 77 percent understand our economy is nosediving.

Well, like the opening line of the linked article says, The Obama administration has made history…

Not the kind of history most presidents would want to be remembered for, but from Obama’s point of view, at least it’s some kind of change.

I’ve been meaning to share this Dennis Prager column I read the other day, it speaks for itself, so there’s really nothing I can think of to add.

While liberals are certain about the moral superiority of liberal policies, the truth is that those policies actually diminish a society’s moral character. Many individual liberals are fine people, but the policies they advocate tend to make a people worse. Here are 10 reasons:

Read ‘em here and (if you despair of the damage these lefties have been and are continuing to do to our beloved country) weep.

As far as I’m concerned, if a couple of people of the same sex want to sleep together or “whatever”, in private and keep it private, more power to ‘em.

That said, however…

From the Washington Times:

Four branches of the military have begun sending training material to 2.2 million active and reserve troops as a prelude to opening the ranks to gays, with instructions on, for example, what to do if an officer sees two male Marines kissing in a shopping mall.

In a word…Disgusting!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am one of those that believe in the Constitution.

More importantly, I believe that those we elect to govern this great nation should view the Constitution as, as Seth once put it here at Hard Astarboard, their employee handbook.

Then along came a whole bunch of politicians over the last few decades who saw fit to reinterpret that august document to meet their very unconstitutional political agendas, the Obama Administration and the Pelosi/Reid Democrats by far the worst offenders.

They saddled us, among other things, with the dreaded Healthcare Bill.

This bill is like a festering rash that is increasingly difficult to eradicate, as the new Republican majority in the House is discovering, so now the states have had to take matters into their own hands. Given that the Healthcare Bill has absolutely no respect for states’ rights (which are of major import in the Constitution), they seem to have an uphill battle to negotiate.

With efforts to repeal the health care law stalling on Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers in states across the country are turning to another tool in the Constitution to try to limit the law’s reach — interstate compacts.

To backers, it’s almost like discovering a secret weapon hidden within the Constitution. Compacts, which are roughly like treaties between states, have the force of federal law, and a coalition of lawmakers and conservative activists and academics say they could just as easily be used to pry back from the federal government some areas of responsibility, including health care.

…it’s almost like discovering a secret weapon hidden within the Constitution…

This is tantamount to freedom loving Americans having to use portions of the Constitution to try and stave off forces of totally anti-America socialism coming from their own government, the same people who are supposed to be following the Constitution to begin with.

This strikes me as very wrong.

Shame on Obama and shame on every last one of those Democrats in Congress who have the audacity to describe themselves as Americans!

The whole article is here.

On another and lesser note, when Seth finally gets his already too-long problem out of the way and returns to join us in normal living, I somehow doubt that he’ll want to stay in New York, at least within the five boroughs.

Thanks to efforts by the little brat my husband calls “the pint sized Napoleonic maggot” (Michael Bloomberg), as of May 23rd, it will be illegal to smoke in public parks or concourses or on beaches within the jurisdiction of New York City.

This is the same mayor who elected himself transfat police, and whose administration couldn’t handle a simple snow emergency that went down on his watch. Yes, that one, the one who bribed the corrupt city council to allow him to run for a third term, whom Seth once said is doing his level best to tear the heart and soul out of New York before he leaves office.

While neither Wolf nor I smoke, Seth does (semi-copiously at times). For the last two and a half years, it’s been his only vice, believe it or not, as he actually quit consuming alcoholic beverages back then.

However, figuring what cigarettes cost in southern and some other states ($4.50 - $6.50) vs what they cost in New York City ($13.00 and change, I understand), it’s pretty obvious that the city and state collect at least $7.00 a pack in taxes. Now, there is no way you can tell me that between Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island anything less than a million packs a day are sold. So, that’s seven million times seven, or forty nine million a week?

Yet the same corrupt New York politicians who enjoy having all that tax money to waste and allocate to enterprises profiting their equally corrupt friends in the private sector are more than happy to oppress the same people who pay those taxes by making it more and more difficult to use the merchandise they pay all those taxes on.

You’ll notice that while they officially attack the rights of cigarette smokers, they won’t make tobacco products illegal and therefore lose all that tax revenue…

Anyway, that’s why I have the feeling that whenever he gets back to New York, Seth’s stay here will be relatively short.

…I simply must share it, in case someone who visits Hard Astarboard hasn’t seen it.

An indignant President Obama complained last week, “I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.” Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — not international law or global diktats.

Case in point: Last week, Obama’s State Department handed in America’s first-ever report to the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in conjunction with something called the “Universal Periodic Review.” In short, the 29-page document (pdf) is a self-aggrandizing report card touting the administration’s far-left domestic and foreign policy initiatives for the world’s approval. The report boasts of racial- and gender-bean-counting in the executive branch; Justice Department outreach to Muslim grievance groups opposed to post-9/11 security measures; teachers’ union payoffs in the federal stimulus law; continuing commitment to closing the Gitmo detention facility for enemy combatants; and the illusory lifesaving effects of Obamacare on minorities through “expanding community health centers” (which have yet to be built, but not that it matters in our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president’s age of post-achievement).

The report also includes a section on “values and immigration,” which essentially singles out Arizona’s immigration enforcement law as a human rights deficiency “that is being addressed in a court action.”

Yeah, this issue had mention here a few days ago, but some things bear repetition when they are downright offensive, so, truncating a bit…

No one should be surprised, of course, that the Department of Blame America First is prostrating itself before the likes of repressive U.N. Human Rights Council members Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China. No one should be surprised that Obama’s globalist panderers couldn’t simply keep their mouths shut and refrain from trashing Americans with whom they disagree. In May, you’ll recall, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner preemptively trashed our country’s human rights record to Chinese government officials and humiliated Arizonans — and all Americans — who support states’ rights to protect their borders and enhance their security through strict immigration enforcement. An obsequious Posner called S.B. 1070 “a troubling trend in our society” in his bow-and-scrape conversations with the ChiComs.

The inclusion of Arizona in a politically correct catalogue of human rights and wrongs is more than “downright offensive,” as Brewer put it. It’s a national travesty. In the very same Obama administration document, the State Department praises the administration for its “robust protections for freedom of expression.” The report notes sanctimoniously: “As a general matter, the government does not punish or penalize those who peacefully express their views in the public sphere, even when those views are critical of the government. Indeed, dissent is a valuable and valued part of our politics.”

Yeah? Tell that to the Democratic members of Congress leading the punitive economic boycott and political demonization of Arizona. Or to Attorney General Eric Holder, who rushed to attack S.B. 1070 before he had even read it. Fresh off this U.N. mess, Holder’s Social Justice Department has launched yet another vendetta against Arizona. On Monday, DOJ filed suit against Phoenix-area community colleges because they imposed strict citizenship screening of potential employees.

As Obama throws America under the bus for the cause of open borders, the shady U.N. human rights police must be laughing their jackboots off.

The entire column is here.

November, 2012 is sure taking its sweet time getting here…

…this kind of filthy, sleazy prophylacticism generally leads to instant dismissal, and with good cause.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer demanded Friday that a reference to the state’s controversial immigration law be removed from a State Department report to the United Nations’ human rights commissioner.

The U.S. included its legal challenge to the law on a list of ways the federal government is protecting human rights.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Brewer says it is “downright offensive” that a state law would be included in the report, which was drafted as part of a UN review of human rights in all member nations every four years.

Governor Brewer is absolutely right, in fact…

“The idea of our own American government submitting the duly enacted laws of a state of the United States to ‘review’ by the United Nations is internationalism run amok and unconstitutional,” Brewer wrote.

And some actually deny that the leftists running our government are traitors!

…at least if one were a member of the party on the left side of the aisle, would have to be “Ouch!”

“We the people” are the familiar opening words of the Constitution of the United States– the framework for a self-governing people, free from the arbitrary edicts of rulers. It was the blueprint for America, and the success of America made that blueprint something that other nations sought to follow.

At the time when it was written, however, the Constitution was a radical departure from the autocratic governments of the 18th century. Since it was something so new and different, the reasons for the Constitution’s provisions were spelled out in “The Federalist,” a book written by three of the writers of the Constitution, as a sort of instruction guide to a new product.

The Constitution was not only a challenge to the despotic governments of its time, it has been a continuing challenge– to this day– to all those who think that ordinary people should be ruled by their betters, whether an elite of blood, or of books or of whatever else gives people a puffed-up sense of importance.

While the kings of old have faded into the mists of history, the principle of the divine rights of kings to impose whatever they wish on the masses lives on today in the rampaging presumptions of those who consider themselves anointed to impose their notions on others.

The Constitution of the United States is the biggest single obstacle to the carrying out of such rampaging presumptions, so it is not surprising that those with such presumptions have led the way in denigrating, undermining and evading the Constitution.

As is always the case with Thomas Sowell, very well put.

To truncate a bit…

It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be in the forefront of those who seek to erode Constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government. How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?

To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America. This has been going on piecemeal over the years but now we have an administration in Washington that circumvents the Constitution wholesale, with its laws passed so fast that the public cannot know what is in them, its appointment of “czars” wielding greater power than Cabinet members, without having to be exposed to pubic scrutiny by going through the confirmation process prescribed by the Constitution for Cabinet members.

Now there is leaked news of plans to change the immigration laws by administrative fiat, rather than Congressional legislation, presumably because Congress might be unduly influenced by those pesky voters– with their Constitutional rights– who have shown clearly that they do not want amnesty and open borders, despite however much our betters do. If the Obama administration gets away with this, and can add a few million illegals to the voting rolls in time for the 2012 elections, that can mean reelection, and with it a continuing and accelerating dismantling of America.

Infuriating, at least to those of us who love America and embrace both the wisdom and the freedom guaranteed us by the Constitution, but true.

Read the entire spot-on column.

I’ve always thought that a strange title for an organization that’s more a Murder Incorporated for defenseless unborn, but very much alive, babies.

Naturally, since baby murder goes well, somehow, with the doctrine that’s become popular among our intellectual elite and the “progressive” politicians they elect, it is also supported by the mainstream media who, as we know, have a habit of reporting only what is convenient for the public to know in order to press their political agendas. As often as not, there are a few twists, spins and, to those who actively seek the truth, some profoundly loud omissions.

Fortunately, there are a few honest journalists out there, including those who write for the Culture and Media Institute.

Speaking of which…

Media Ignore Planned Parenthood’s $1.3 Billion Federal Funding Discrepancy

Networks and newspapers silent on government report contradicting abortion group’s taxpayer funding figures.

If $1.3 billion is unaccounted for and the media don’t report it, did it really happen?

According to an American Life League review of Planned Parenthood’s annual reports, the organization received more than $2 billion in federal grants and contracts between 2002 and 2008. A June 16 Government Accountability Report, however, found that the organization spent just $657.1 million of taxpayer money in the same time period.

The $1.3 billion discrepancy failed to catch the attention of the nation’s major media outlets. None of the networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) or major newspapers (Los Angeles times, The New York Times, USA Today and The Washington Post) reported it.

A Culture and Media Institute review of coverage found that only one newspaper listed among Nexis’ “major newspapers” – The Houston Chronicle – even mentioned the GAO report. The Chronicle’s June 16 article noted that Planned Parenthood spent $657 million of federal money over seven years, but did not mention the income/outlay discrepancy.

Amazing, here are all these media institutions in whom the public place their (I would say “our”, except I don’t trust those leftist turds, not me) trust for news, and only one of them even seems to “know” about a “discrepancy” on the part of an organization that our government siphons hundreds of millions of our hard earned tax dollars to.

Don’t Follow the Money

The media have made Planned Parenthood a go-to source for several stories over the last six months, including debate over abortion language in health care reform legislation, the trial of the activist who killed abortionist Dr. George Tiller, and the 50th anniversary of the Pill.

From Dec. 28, 2009, to June 28, 2010, the broadcast networks and the “Big 4” newspapers mentioned Planned Parenthood 56 times in news stories. None of those stories mentioned the GAO report, and only one article reported the amount of federal money going to Planned Parenthood.

The February 27 article in The New York Times mentioned an investigative operation by pro-life activist Lila Rose which found Planned Parenthood clinics willing to accept donations from people who wanted African American babies aborted. A separate New York Times report on January 28 characterized the investigation as “prank calls” to Planned Parenthood.

Four reports referred to state funding of Planned Parenthood, but did not mention federal resources granted to the organization.

Planned Parenthood’s 2008 Annual Report says $349.6 million in taxpayer-funded grants and contracts accounted for more than a third (36 percent) of the organization’s income that year, second only to health center revenue. Federal funding for Planned Parenthood has increased by 45 percent since 2001-2002, when it received a reported $240.9 million from taxpayers.

While federal orders mandate that government money not be used directly for abortions, pro-life advocates point out that federal money used to cover non-abortion costs frees up private money to pay for abortions.

“Frees it up.”

Favorite Experts

Planned Parenthood is by far the most cited pro-abortion group when it comes to national media coverage. In the last six months, 30 broadcast and print reports have quoted Planned Parenthood representatives and another 26 have mentioned the organization.

The 56 mentions of Planned Parenthood dwarf other pro-abortion groups, including the National Organization for Women (30) and NARAL Pro-Choice America (15).

When abortion was a major focus of health care reform debates, the media turned to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and other affiliated representatives to statements and analysis. When the media celebrated the 50th anniversary of “the Pill,” the media commemorated Planned Parenthood’s role in making it possible.

A February 26 profile in The Washington Post painted a glowing picture of abortion doctor Carol Ball. The article described a “difficult time” for Ball and other doctors who perform late term abortions in South Dakota.

When Planned Parenthood produced an ad in response to Focus on the Family’s pro-life Super Bowl ad, the media praised it. USA Today noted it “defend[ed] abortion rights,” although the Focus on the Family ad did not target abortion “rights.”

The New York Times on January 27 turned to Richards on the increase in teen pregnancy rates, and she used the opportunity bash abstinence education. “This new study makes it crystal clear that abstinence-only sex education for teenagers does not work,” Richards said.

In addition to news reports related to Planned Parenthood, newspapers published five letters to the editor from readers mentioning the organization and fives letters to the editor from Planned Parenthood executives.

Another seven op-eds and entertainment reviews mentioned Planned Parenthood, as well as 15 death notices, and a couple of comedians’ jokes. All told, the networks and newspapers mentioned Planned Parenthood more than 80 times in the last six months.

But when someone noticed a $1.3 billion discrepancy in Planned Parenthood’s handling of federal money – crickets.

See what I mean about the mainstream media?

The Sound of Silence

One letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times February 7 illustrated the effect the media blackout has had on public perceptions of Planned Parenthood.

Responding to the media-manufactured controversy over Focus on the Family’s pro-life Super Bowl ad, a reader wrote, “If I had it, I would give millions to Planned Parenthood to advertise on CBS during the Super Bowl.”

Well, dear reader, your wish has already come true. You might not know it from reading the Times, but Planned Parenthood already receives more than $350 million every year from you and every other American taxpayer, with no oversight from the “watchdogs” in the media.

$350 million every year!!!!

Of yours and my tax dollars, monies we could find much better uses for than having a bunch of “progressive” politicians give it to Planned Parenthood.

More than enough in any reasonable man’s book to justify giving every politician involved his or her just desserts.