Joseph Muto was an employee working on a Fox News opinion program when he was caught stealing material from the show and using it for personal gain. What he and his lawyer said about the matter is instructive.
Muto:
I wouldn’t have done it had I known I’d end up in this courtroom. To answer your question of “was it worth it?” I wouldn’t have done it.
President Barack Obama wants to forgive another batch of debt, this time owed by America’s youth. This is another of those tidbits buried in his latest pseudo-budget proposal.
Obama wants to
increase the number of borrowers eligible for a program known casually as income-based repayment, which aims to help low-income workers stay current on federal student debt.
Borrowers in the program make monthly payments equivalent to 10% of their income after taxes and basic living expenses, regardless of how much they owe. After 20 years of on-time payments—10 years for those who work in public or nonprofit jobs—the balance is forgiven.
Last month US Federal Judge Edward Korman ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must permit the morning after pill—the so-called Plan B pill—to be sold over the counter, to be stocked on store shelves rather than held behind the pharmacist’s counter, and to be saleable to “women” of all ages—i.e., including to children. And saleable to these children without any parental involvement, which is the outcome of eliminating the FDA’s by-prescription and age-limited sales. That’s bad enough.
Recall that in the last election season, the Internal Revenue Service demanded of a number of nonprofit organizations information about the nature of their politics, who their contributors were, even asking about family members. The IRS intended to use this information to challenge the organizations’ nonprofit status. That this was a biased request is demonstrated by the fact that only conservative nonprofits were targeted, and they were targeted on the basis of the presence of terms like “patriot” and “tea party” in their organizational names.
The then-IRS commissioner, of course, denied this. Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012,
When a Progressive says so.
Former New Mexico Gov Bill Richardson said Sunday that Republican Sen Ted Cruz, whose father was a Cuban immigrant, should not be “defined as a Hispanic” because of his stance on immigration legislation.
Richardson justified his redefinition with this:
I don’t like his politics…. No, I don’t think he should be defined as a Hispanic[.]
Just like conservative blacks must be uppity Uncle Toms and conservative women must be sluts, so an Hispanic who holds views that are disapproved by Progressives must be drummed out and denied his heritage.
…and not just on our freedom of expression.
Todd Starnes has the tale.
A Texas high school track team was disqualified from competing in the state championships because one of the runners made a gesture thanking God after he crossed the finish line.
Derrick Hayes, the anchor of the Columbus High School 4×100 relay team had just crossed the finish line when he raised his finger to the sky—thanking the Lord for winning the race that would send them to the state finals.
President Barack Obama, through his State Department, had this to say about al Assad’s massacre of Syrian civilians last Thursday [emphasis in the original]:
Massacre in al-Bayda
Press Statement
Jen Psaki
Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
May 4, 2013The United States is appalled by horrific reports that more than 100 people were killed May 2 in gruesome attacks on the coastal town of al-Bayda, Syria. Regime and Shabiha forces reportedly destroyed the area with mortar fire then stormed the town and executed entire families, including women and children. We extend our deepest condolences to the families of the victims of this tragedy.
Adam Housley, writing for Fox News, had this on the Benghazi fiasco:
On the night of the Benghazi terror attack, special operations put out multiple calls for all available military and other assets to be moved into position to help—but the State Department and White House never gave the military permission to cross into Libya[.]
Normal ops in locations like Benghazi has the Chief of Mission in charge—Ambassador Chris Stevens in this case—who has procedures for calling for help and transferring authority in exigent circumstances. With Stevens (and such protection as he was allowed to have) trapped, his “distress button” was pushed, and authority was transferred to State, where again in the Benghazi case, response oversight and authority transferred to then-Secretary Hillary Clinton and one of her Undersecretaries, Patrick Kennedy.
Herb Croly, a founder of the Progressive movement, had this to say about the advantages of Progressivism:
To be sure, any increase in centralized power and responsibility, expedient or inexpedient, is injurious to certain aspects of traditional American democracy. But the fault in that case lies with the democratic tradition; and the erroneous and misleading tradition must yield before the march of a constructive national democracy. …the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.
From The Wall Street Journal:
President Barack Obama said the White House needed further proof that Syria’s security forces gassed civilians and rebels to change his “calculus….”
And
[T]he president walked a fine line by defending his insistence that he would not tolerate the use of chemical weapons, but also by saying he would not be pressured into quick military action in Syria.
Of course, it’s not possible to help the 70,000 Syrians already butchered by al Assad. I’m sure, though, the surviving Syrians, including those who will be killed by al Assad’s repudiated government in the coming days and weeks will by heartened by Obama’s…studiousness.