Americans the Obama Administration has left behind.
It sickens me that the Obama administration has been justifying ransoming terrorist leaders for a probable deserter by reciting the creed that America never leaves a man behind. The Obama administration frequently leaves men (and even children) to suffer and die, with minimal apparent effort on their behalf. A partial list:
Senator Richard Shelby’s poison pill in the Senate NASA budget bill that will double the cost of manned commercial space.
Essentially Shelby wants to require the commercial companies to follow the older paperwork requirements used by NASA in the past. Presently, the contract arrangements NASA has used for these new companies have been efficient and relatively paperwork free, allowing them to build their cargo freighters (Dragon and Cygnus) and their manned spacecraft (Dragon V2, CST-100, and Dream Chaser) for relatively little.
The older contract rules are what NASA has used for Constellation and SLS as well as all past attempts to replace the shuttle. In every case, the costs were so high the replacement was never finished. In the case of SLS, the costs will be so high it will never accomplish anything.
Why has Shelby (R-Alabama) inserted this language? He wants pork, and SLS is the way to get it. Rather than cut the cost of SLS to make it more competitive (and which will reduce the pork in his state) Shelby instead wants to make the new commercial companies more costly, thus making SLS appear more competitive. It will still cost too much and will not accomplish anything, but this way he will be able to better argue for it in congressional negotiations.
Shelby illustrates clearly that the desire to waste the taxpayers’ money is not confined to the spendthrifts in the Democratic Party. Republicans can do it to!
“Homofascism should be crushed.”
Klavan starts out by bluntly saying that he thinks the government should stay out of the marriage issue, and that if gays want to marry it ain’t any of his business. All power to them. Then he continues.
Having said all this, I think Homofascism — this current movement to regulate and restrict opinions and outlooks toward homosexuality — indeed, toward anything — should be crushed. Lawsuits against photographers who won’t shoot gay weddings. Television show cancellations because the hosts oppose gay marriage. Attempts to silence anti-gay preaching or force churches to recognize gay marriages. Crushed, all of it. Crushed by the united voice of the people, crushed in courts of law, in legislatures, in businesses and in conversation. When someone is sued, attacked, shamed, boycotted or fired for opposing gay marriage or just opposing gayness in general, straight and gay people alike should protest. No one should lose his television show, no one should be dragged before a judge, no one should have his business threatened. Don’t tell me about a company’s right to fire its employees. It has the right, but it isn’t right. It’s unAmerican and it’s despicable.
Very well said.
India and Narendra Modi: Freedom’s new trumpet?
What so many seem loath to accept is that India’s voters have dealt a massive, perhaps even final blow to a near 100-year failed investment in socialist economics. Modi’s [political party] and Modi himself are both emphatically pro-free market and were decisively elected in large measure due to their promise to free up India’s economy. Modi’s free market credentials were hard for even his harshest critics to gainsay. As three-term Chief Minister, or governor, of India’s most prosperous state Gujarat, Modi showed India and the world that indeed it was possible to replace the sclerosis of India’s hidebound bureaucratic morass with a thriving growth and prosperity.
India’s population has strongly recognized the value of freedom and individual achievement and rejected big government. If only this lesson could be learned here in the U.S.
Fascists: The Democratic Party’s proposed constitutional amendment to limit free speech.
More than 40 Senate Democrats have signed on to a constitutional amendment proposed by Senator Tom Udall’s (D., N.M.) that would fundamentally alter the right to free speech. Republicans are attacking the proposal, which would “give Congress clear authority in the Constitution to regulate the campaign finance system,” even though it has absolutely no chance of becoming a reality.
Key quote at the end:
It’s a reflection of today’s Democratic disrespect for free speech that an attempt would even be made. There was a time, not too long ago, when free speech was a bipartisan commitment.
It is important to note that this amendment is not being proposed by the fringe of the Democratic Party, but is endorsed by more than two-thirds of the party’s members in the Senate. It is in the mainstream of the liberal community, a community that increasingly relishes the idea of squelching free speech and blacklisting individuals because of their opinions.
The blackballing of conservative commencement speakers.
For the 2013 and 2014 commencement seasons, I looked up the guest commencement speaker at the top 30 universities and the top 30 liberal arts colleges as rated by U.S. News and World Report. In cases where there was no guest commencement speaker, I took the guest baccalaureate, class day or senior day speaker. In all cases, I noted if the speakers were American political figures, and if so their party affiliations. I counted people like the news anchor Chris Matthews, who worked for Democratic politicians, as a political figure. I didn’t count people like the author Toni Morrison, who is a Democrat but has never worked in a political office. I also only counted lead speakers, not recipients of honorary degrees.
As it turns out, I couldn’t find a single clearly aligned Republican political figure who spoke at any of these schools in the past two years. … Twenty-five Democrats spoke. Eleven Democrats gave the main commencement address among the top 30 universities, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and former Mississippi governor and current Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. At the top 30 liberal arts schools, it was 14 Democrats.
The article describes this disparity as the “disappearance” of conservative speakers, but I think it is a much more conscience effort to squelch and silence the opinions of conservatives. Conservatives are literally being blackballed out of the intellectual marketplace, and are expected to accept this silencing quietly and without protest.
“For lack of a better term, you’ve got an organized crime syndicate.”
Take a guess what this person is referring to.
Pigs fly! The University of South Carolina is closing its Women & Gender Studies department and replacing it with a program to teach the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.
It appears university administrators have decided that they don’t have the option to ignore a state law that requires them to teach these fundamental American documents, as they tried to do earlier What is especially interesting is their decision on what to shutter to pay for the new courses. I suspect they had enough of porno on campus.
At least they are finally being honest: The Democrats in the Senate moved this week to introduce a constitutional amendment for limiting the first amendment and the freedom of speech.
Standing up for freedom: A replacement commencement speaker for someone forced out by student protests today strongly criticized the students in his speech today.
William G. Bowen, former president of Princeton and a nationally respected higher education leader, called the student protestors’ approach both “immature” and “arrogant” and the subsequent withdrawal of Robert J. Birgeneau, former chancellor of the University of California Berkeley, a “defeat” for the Quaker college and its ideals.
I would hope more speakers did this. Sadly, I don’t get the impression many are.
That was fast: After it was revealed today that SunTrust Bank was cutting ties with the Benham brothers because it did not like their conservative beliefs and thus threatening their business, it now appears that the bank has backed down and has re-established those ties.
A short seven minute commentary by Bill Whittle explaining why some of us do difficult and challenging things, while others do not.
