Category Archives: morality

Another Battle

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…in the Progressive war on women.

Here’s it’s the Obama administration’s response to Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s injunction staying Obama’s  contraceptive mandate as it applies to the Little Sisters of the Poor and their nursing home/hospice in Colorado.  Sotomayor, in issuing her injunction, had ordered the Obama administration to respond by last Friday morning with their argument for why the injunction should be lifted.

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s response boiled down to the Little Sisters have no legal claim: they aren’t harmed by authorizing contraceptives to be covered by an insurer in their name because they aren’t offering the coverage directly.  Verrilli went on:

…are not required to offer group health plans in the first place.  [They can make a] “choice” between two legal options: provide a group health plan or risk payment of the tax.

As The Wall Street Journal put it,

This case is simply a raw assertion of state power directing the religious to follow orders.  Thus ObamaCare forces women who have taken a vow of chastity and minister for the dying to implicate themselves in what they consider to be grave moral wrongs.

Racism

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…and the left.  Yet another demonstration.

This time, it’s MSNBC and their gang: Melissa Harris-Perry, a PhD in Political Science and a Professor at Tulane, in addition to hosting a weekend opinion piece on the cable network; Pia Glenn, a panelist on the Harris-Perry racist segment in question; and Dean Obeidallah, another panelist on the segment; among others.

The occasion was a family portrait photo of Mitt Romney’s family, with his adopted grandson, who happens to be black, on his knee: this afforded the aforementioned trio an opportunity for their…japes.

Harris-Perry:

[M]y goal is that in 2040, the biggest thing of the year will be the marriage between Kieran Romney and North West.  Can you imagine Mitt Romney and Kanye West as in-laws?

Because—well because what, exactly?

Pia Glenn:

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn’t the same.

“Things,” is it?  And “it” is a cause for derision because he’s black baby in a predominantly white family?  Or is the “joke” that it’s a predominantly white family with a black baby family member?

Obeidallah:

…really sums up the diversity of the Republican Party, the RNC.  At the convention they find the one black person.

Because a baby, especially, makes a fine tool for a racist attack on those whose impudence leads them to disagree with you.

It gets worse, with their cynically faux apologies.

Obediah tweeted

I apologize to the baby if the baby was offended by my joke mocking GOP’s lack or [sic] racial diversity.

If?  If!?  And not a word to the Romney family, adult enough to understand the slur?  No, still picking on the baby.  And his “apology:” caveated on the premise that the outcome might not actually have occurred.  And regretting only that possible outcome, with not a syllable of apology for his actual misbehavior.

He extended his demonstration with this to CNN:

Occasionally my jokes have been known to “cross the line” and I can assure you that in the future some of my jokes will do that again.  My joke on MHP was not intended in any way to mock the Romney family or the baby they adopted.  Rather it was a joke about the lack of racial diversity that we see at the Republican National Convention.  I apologize to the Romney family and especially the baby if any of them were offended by that joke.

Yeah—he’s proud of the fact that he goes over the line, proud of the fact that he uses babies as political tools, and he intends to do so again.  And there’s that caveated regret only for a possible outcome, again, with not a bit of apology for the racist “joke,” or even just for the racist nature of it.

This pair of tweets from Glenn:

Yes, I sang the song.  There are many children in the pic & only 1 black child.  I don’t see that as mocking or attacking the baby.

If I point out the 1 black person & you translate that as an attack ON HIM, who’s racist?  I don’t personally see anything wrong with being black.

Well, Madam, you’re the only one who thinks a black baby in a predominantly white family is a big deal.  You’re the only one who’s making race an issue here.

It’s true enough that Glenn later issued an almost structurally correct apology,

I apologize to all families built on loving transracial adoptions who feel I degraded their lives or choices[,]

but at this late date, and given those earlier remarks, it’s impossible for me to believe her sincerity.

This from Harris-Perry:

I am sorry.  Without reservation or qualification.  I apologize to the Romney family.

Which came, carefully, Wednesday, well after her weekend…performance.  Here, too, even though her “apology” is sound structurally, it’s impossible for me to believe its sincerity.  Better to have said this last Monday, best by the end of her show.

Their racism is so ingrained, they can’t even recognize it.

Puff Piece

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…by a newspaper that masquerades itself as a serious journalism producer?

The New York Times published their report on the Benghazi terrorist attack that included the murders of our ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three ex-SEALs who were trying to protect him.

Months of investigation by The New York Times, centered on extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault.  The attack was led, instead, by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s extensive air power and logistics support during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi.  And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.

The NYT spent six “chapters” in that vein.

Never mind actual facts, from eyewitnesses on the ground during the attack.  Eyewitnesses who reported no particular gathering for a protest over a video, indeed no protest at all.  One special operator said

Guys were coming into the compound, moving left, moving right…and using IMT (individual movement techniques).  …  That’s not a spontaneous attack.

One guy was shooting, one guy was running.  There are guys watching the gates.  …  The bosses on the ground were pointing, commanding and coordinating—that is a direct action planned attack.

Never mind that the leader of the attack, Ahmad Abu Khattallah, is tied in with Ansar al Sharia, al Qaeda’s primary affiliate in Libya.

Never mind that the mortar fire in the second phase of the terrorist attack was too accurate, too rapid-fire for amateurs or spontaneous rioters to have been able to get going at night with no line of sight to their targets.

Never mind real-time reporting from within the compound back to State describing the terrorist attack underway.

Never mind searches that turn up no mention of any video in the social media until after the terrorists’ attack was over.

Never mind pesky any of those facts.  It’s Republicans and their sycophants who keep on about them; they can be discounted entirely, given the source.

It’s not even a very puffy piece.  Just foolishly fatuous.  Another cover-up attempt.

Minimum Wage as Politics

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Democrats looking to make gains in the 2014 gubernatorial elections are using a possible minimum wage increase as a way to win support among voters….

Democrats across the political spectrum have lobbied for a higher minimum wage this year, after Obama got the ball rolling on the issue by calling for an increase in his February budget speech. Since then, union-organized demonstrations in front of profitable mega-chains such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s have kept it in the public eye.

Senate Democrats have also pushed for a minimum wage increase going into 2014.  Their proposal would raise the minimum wage by 40%.

Of course there’s union involvement.  Aside from the Democrats being union meal tickets, increasing minimum wages protects union jobs—and so union leaders’ jobs—at the expense of the unemployed, those looking for a first job or for high school or college money, those looking for a second income, and the poor, who would gladly take the lower pay but who are priced out of the labor market by increased minimum wage.

We’ve already seen how that works.

Never mind the racist origin of minimum wage laws, instigated by FDR specifically to stem the tide of southern blacks moving north to take jobs at lower pay than white unions (blacks weren’t allowed in those unions, remember) wanted, and so taking jobs at the expense of those white union members.

Never mind that most of those unemployed and underemployed who will be priced out of the next round of hiring by these elevated minimum wages are the already vastly underemployed and underemployed black and Hispanic teenagers, black and Hispanic moms trying to work a family’s second job.  Regardless of current intent, the disparate impact of minimum wage laws is clear.  Where’s Eric Holder when we need him?

Nevertheless, Danny Kanner, Democratic Governors Association Communications Director had this to say:

The defining issue in every single one of these races is who is fighting for the middle class.

Yeah.  Never mind any of those poor, who’d like to get a job and work their way into the middle class.  Typical Progressive, playing politics, and with that play, ignoring the least among us.

Compare and Contrast

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First, the VA strikes again; Todd Starnes has this sorry…tale.

A choir from the Alleluia Community School, a high school in Augusta, GA, was told—when they arrived to perform at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, and not before—that they could sing about Frosty the Snowman.  They were explicitly barred from singing such offensive songs as “Silent Night,” “Joy to the World,” and “O Come All Ye Faithful” because the American veterans there, all of whom had fought for our country and suffered the consequences of those fights, couldn’t bear the stress of hearing such carols.

Brian Rothwell, spokesman for the VA center, had this excuse:

It is out of respect for every faith that the Veterans Administration gives clear guidance on what “spiritual care” is to be given and who is to give it.

Second, a tale of a Christmas in the Hanoi Hilton in 1970, via Richard Goldstein in The New York Times:

As Christmas 1970 approached, 43 American prisoners of war in a large holding cell at the North Vietnamese camp known as the Hanoi Hilton sought to hold a brief church service.  Their guards stopped them, and so the seeds of rebellion were planted.

A few days later, Lt Cmdr Edwin A Shuman III, a downed Navy pilot, orchestrated the resistance, knowing he would be the first to face the consequences: a beating in a torture cell.

“Ned stepped forward and said, ‘Are we really committed to having church Sunday?  I want to know person by person,'” a fellow prisoner, Leo K Thorsness, recounted in a memoir.  “He went around the cell pointing to each of us individually,” Mr Thorsness continued.  “When the 42nd man said yes, it was unanimous.  At that instant, Ned knew he would end up in the torture cells.”

The following Sunday, Commander Shuman, who died on Dec 3 at 82, stepped forward to lead a prayer session and was quickly hustled away by guards.  The next four ranking officers did the same, and they, too, were taken away to be beaten. Meanwhile, as Mr. Thorsness told it, “the guards were now hitting POWs with gun butts and the cell was in chaos.”

And then, he remembered, the sixth-ranking senior officer began, “Gentlemen, the Lord’s Prayer.”

“And this time,” he added, “we finished it.”

Yet, the VA claims its policy is meant to welcome and respect all faiths while at the same time protecting them from “unwelcomed religious material.”  By disrespecting the Christian faith.  By defining the Christian faith as “unwelcomed.”  The faith for which those men in the Hanoi Hilton had fought, even in barbarous captivity.

How does any of this work, exactly, Brian?  A (very) belated Merry Christmas to you, too.

 

h/t Power Line