Tag Archives: morality

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

Broken Immigration

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This is how twisted things can get with a Byzantine legal system, here concerning our immigration laws, combined with an Obama administration that enforces or disregards the laws at political convenience.

Chris Crane, National ICE Council President, says

That’s what we do now, we babysit kids.

The very people patting themselves on the back as humanitarians are putting these children at more risk than they’ve ever been before.

What Crane is talking about is a ruling and public statement issued by Federal Judge Andrew Hanen in US v Nava-Martinez, a case concerning the defendant’s attempt to smuggle a 10-year-old child to her illegal alien parents.

Hanen says that immigration officials arrest human traffickers smuggling children and then

deliver the minors to the custody of the parent illegally living in the United States.

And

The DHS has simply chosen not to enforce the United States’ border security laws[.]

And

Time and again this court has been told by representatives of the government and the defense that [drug] cartels control the entire smuggling process. … the government is not only allowing [illegal immigrants in the US] to fund the illegal and evil activities of these cartels, but is also inspiring them to do so.

And

To put this in another context, the DHS policy is as logical as taking illegal drugs or weapons that it has seized from smugglers and delivering them to the criminals who initially solicited their illegal importation/exportation.  Legally, this situation is no different.

And morally, too.  Except that the guns aren’t at risk of being harmed en route, like the children are.

So: DHS breaks the law to unite children with their parents, while those parents are here illegally.  It’s a truly broken immigration system that allows illegal aliens to be here with impunity, that puts children at risk in smuggling operations ostensibly aimed at reuniting those children with their parents, all while funding drug dealers.  The system needs to be fixed.

Hanen’s ruling can be seen here.

Who’s Excluding Whom?

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Todd Starnes has this sorry tale.

It seems a high school teacher in a Connecticut high school has decided to ban explicitly Christmas decorations from her classroom door, never minding that decorating the classroom door is a tradition at this school, and she’s the only one to ban the practice there this year.  A parent reported to Starnes that

[The teacher] said no reference to Christmas at all can be on the decorations on the door[.]

Greg Hatzis, the school’s…headmaster…proffered this rationale:

It is the policy of the Board of Education that no religious belief or non-belief will be promoted by the district or its employees and none will be disparaged.

Never mind that the teacher’s (apparent) non-belief is exactly what’s being promoted by her ban, or that a religious belief specifically is being disparaged.  Hatzis went on:

The difficulty is that we want everyone to feel a part of the school community.  Anytime there is a preponderance of any particular holiday, you don’t want people to feel excluded.  It’s really a lesson in respect.  It’s a lesson in community.

We want people to be able to have a chance to celebrate, but just in a way that is not exclusionary.

We don’t want somebody to be offended.  We try to make sure that everybody understands the need for respect and diversity.

But where is Hatzis’ or his teacher’s sense of community?  What “lesson in community” is being taught here—that the minority view gets to exclude the majority view?  If there’s a “preponderance of a particular holiday,” it’s because that community preponderantly celebrates that holiday.  By excluding Christmas decorations at Christmas, those who celebrate are being deliberately and carefully excluded.

There’s no sensitivity here, either: none at all toward those who celebrate Christmas.  The only sensitivity present is that of a few, who thereby are allowed to dominate the rest.

This is not “respect for diversity;” this is the hypocrisy of political correctness.