Category Political Correctness

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Becoming the Persecutors

Dec 3, 11 1:11 AM

The summer after my senior year in high school was my first summer in Phoenix. That summer, my church held an anti-gay workshop over a weekend led by Exodus International – the anti-gay ministry arm of Focus on the Family. During that workshop, gay rights activists held a protest on the sidewalk in front of my church. At the time, I was still in denial. I honestly believed I was straight. My friends and I all talked about how wrong this group was and how much we hoped they’d come in and listen, but we all agreed that as long as they were on public property they had a right to protest.

Most churches would agree with that. In fact, nearly all would in the same vain hope – that the protesters would hear what they’re teaching and have that come-to-Jesus moment that everyone in the church tries to drag everyone into. Turn the tables, though, and it’s a different story – gay leftists in this country cannot stand it when bible-thumping holy-rollers come into their territory and preach. They do it in significantly lower numbers, too, but none of that matters. In Philadelphia a few years ago, I had contact with one Christian activist group known as “Repent America” – borderline extremist, but at least their leader had a civil conversation with me, proving that he’s not a hatemonger – that was protesting outside the big gay pride festival. They were set upon by a literal mob and were told by police that they, not the real instigators, had to leave.

There was no conversation. All there was was anger, yelling, screaming, open hatred – all from a group that is supposed to be more tolerant than others.

I’ve seen the same thing in gay neighborhoods, including my hometown of Houston (Montrose) and my mother’s hometown, San Diego (Hillcrest). I’ve seen it outside Phoenix gay pride. The two biggest reasons that I stay away from gay pride festivals now are 1) the shock-factor attendees who like to prance around in their underwear or even topless (sorry, but seeing a transgendered woman walking around in a Utilikilt, topless, with electrical tape over “her” nipples just about scarred me for life), and 2) the vehemently anti-Christian attendees who threaten violence against the Christians standing outside to preach and hand out tracts.

I have said before that hypocrisy is an irritation that I do not suffer gladly. I have been a hypocrite before, and I was a complete idiot. I have also said before that I have no patience for gay leftists who claim the mantle of tolerant self-righteousness and yet cannot tolerate others. About one month ago, in Montrose – the gay neighborhood of Houston – two area preachers well-known for holding signs, preaching and blowing on a shofar (a ceremonial Jewish musical instrument made out of a ram’s horn) were accosted by police, manhandled, arrested and had their signs and shofar confiscated. This was after a previous encounter with police that was far less confrontational. I’m usually the first to stand up for the police, and the young officers who spoke with them the first time were very cordial, but the officers who came later were remarkably unprofessional.

This was AFTER a number of residents in the area complained that they shouldn’t be there because they weren’t wanted.

David Stokes and David Allen have been doing this for around two years and all of a sudden it has become an issue. Now, I can understand complaints about the shofar; that thing can be awfully loud and Houston does have noise ordinances as far as I know. First Amendment freedoms, however, cannot be infringed upon unless their words become threats, and they never have. I have relatives that live in Montrose and they don’t care for these two preachers. I heartily disagree with their message AND their method, but agree or disagree, I would still fight to my last breath for their right to stand on the corner of Westheimer and Montrose and speak their message. Defending their rights is no different than defending my own, and if I dared take their rights away, it would be the same as giving mine up.

Today the Harris County Attorney dropped all charges against the two preachers, citing a lack of evidence. The charges were displaying illegal signs and playing an illegal instrument. I’m not going to say that I hope they file a complaint against the police, because I can see arguments both ways, even though I disagree with the police in this case. I’m not going to say I welcome them back, because I do not agree with them. I AM going to say that the gay leftists and their supporters need to be as tolerant as they demand others be, or they become the persecutors they have long claimed Christians to be.

Comments (6)

Fair Is Fair

Nov 29, 11 1:30 AM

Of my two jobs, my EMT work is my favorite. It’s made me a little cynical, and every day I do it I go on at least one call that will never have a happy ending, but I enjoy it. I’m not the kind of person who would enjoy doing whatever it took to make as much money as humanly possible; I do like making money, but I also have this unnatural need to work a job that means something more than money (besides, even though I’d fight to the death for their right to keep their money, those with lots of money and high social status always seem to lack even the most basic manners and can be outrageously inconsiderate – I don’t want to be that).

Once I make paramedic, I’ll be in a union. That union will be able to do a lot of things for me, but there’s a lot of others it won’t be able to do. Public safety jobs don’t always pay well. There is not a public sector union that can obtain the kinds of pay and benefits that the United Auto Workers’ union can – not by a longshot. UAW workers have, for a long time, enjoyed six figures a year plus amazing health care, vacation and sick time. Since Obama took office he has elevated unions to a status that Adolf Hitler did, calling them important to the function of our society – even calling upon union leaders for advice and support. Many of those union heads are well-known as thugs.

As an EMT-I, my pay tops out around $12.50 an hour. As a paramedic I’ll start somewhere around $15. I’ll have to not only do drug AND alcohol tests (which I’ve already done) to achieve that position, I’ll have to keep doing those tests to maintain my position and I’ll have to keep up with my immunizations. I face exposure to various pathogens via bodily fluids, and could end up with Hep C with the stick of a needle (which has happened to others in my profession). I have been called to domestic violence incidents, sexual assaults, gunshot wounds (with the gunman still running loose in the area), stabbings, police standoffs, you name it. I have been there to see medics inject a heroin addict with Narcan to save his life, only for that addict to get pissed that we ruined his high. I cannot ever say I’ve seen it all, because as soon as I do, that bastard Murphy will come around to kick me in the ass with some heretofore unseen calamity that will become the stuff of legend (I have three words: lost condom call).

All that considered, it pisses me off to no end that this was captured on camera outside a plant staffed by UAW workers.

I have an education. I am very good at writing reports. I have a freakishly accurate memory. I paid for my original EMT school and am working my way through my continuing education. Yet I, who have obeyed the law my whole life, make around half what UAW workers make and they have repeatedly been captured consuming alcohol and using illegal substances on the job. These guys are convicted felons and gang-loving thugs and they’re making twice what your average cop or EMT makes? And they can imbibe during their break times? How in the hell does this work?

Unions like UAW are largely responsible for the obscene amount of outsourcing that American companies do nowadays, yet you won’t hear a single damn one of these occu-pests calling them out or marching to their homes. They have played an enormous role in pricing us out of our own market. They went from fighting for the basic rights of workers to fighting for pay and benefits that most companies cannot sustain. Factories have since been moved to Mexico, with parts being made in China and the Philippines. The liberals make demands that companies can’t live up to and then they act shocked when those companies ship the jobs overseas – and THEN they claim that “the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer”.

What really roasts my ass about this incident is that every single one of the deadbeats you see in the video kept their jobs. They were suspended rather than fired. If any member of my crew pissed hot for narcotics or drank booze on the job, they’d be booted out the door so fast it would be painful. There would be no negotiation with the union. They’d be prosecuted, too.

I have to wonder what is so damned stressful about their jobs that they need to drink halfway through their day. I’ve gone on calls where I’ve had to tell a parent that we’ve just pronounced their child dead in a suicide attempt – believe me, I’ve wished I could have a drink after those. If assembling body armor is a new kind of stress that requires chemical intervention, then this is something that I’ve gotta try.

Comments (1)

Teach Your Children The Limits

Oct 29, 11 12:51 AM

In my July post Put the Candles Out, I wrote about the murder of 15-year-old Lawrence King at the hands of 14-year-old classmate Brandon McInerney. In that piece I talked about what led up to the shooting; I said then and I still say there is no justification for what Brandon did. He should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Something else I said at the time, however, was that Lawrence’s behavior was unacceptable. I had long since removed my personal email address from the website, but two liberals that I have known for a very long time sent me very hateful messages for what I said and severed all ties with me over that post. If they read what I’m about to write, they’ll be sending me death threats.

Yesterday, Tammy Bruce tweeted a news story from Denver about a seven-year-old boy named Bobby who essentially lives like a girl. He wants to join the Girl Scouts. His mother had apparently contacted the Girl Scouts about it and got a positive response – sure, bring him! We’re an inclusive organization, and if a child identifies as a girl, they can be a Girl Scout! Well, Mrs. Montoya took Bobby to the local troop only to be turned away by the troop mother, who said he couldn’t join because he “has boy parts”.

Okay…lemme speak from experience here.

When I was a kid, as far back as age five, I wanted to be a boy. My mother dressed me up in dresses and cute stuff but I wasn’t interested in girl stuff – He-Man and GI Joe were my heroes. Later I got heavily into Voltron and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My sister started an impressive Barbie collection, but I was more interested in going to the shooting range with my dad. I traded baseball cards with my brother. I practiced hard pitching with my grandfather. I wanted to be a Boy Scout; in fact I wished, after my friend’s older brother did it, that I could become an Eagle Scout (but to this day a girl would not be accepted, and it should stay that way). I got into politics and philosophy, learned to play guitar when I was 10, and if allowed I never would have worn another dress in my entire life. When grunge became popular I stole my dad’s old combat boots and wore them to school with my slashed jeans (actually, I had to sneak them into school and change because if my mother saw what I was wearing she’d have had apoplexy). The worst that my parents can say about me as a kid was that I was more interested in music and recreational reading and writing than I was in doing schoolwork.

My mother went way too far on a lot of things, but the one thing I can say for certain that I’m glad she wouldn’t budge on was the fact that I was not a boy. She could have gone about it much differently, but I’m glad that she insisted that I wear a dress to church. I wouldn’t be caught dead in one now, but that’s beside the point. My mother knew what I was too young and dumb to realize: when you deviate a little bit from the norm, it’s rebellion; when you deviate too far from the norm, you’re an instant target. And when you’re a kid you really don’t know what you are or want to be.

I wanted to be a boy when I was a kid, but now that I’m an adult I like being a woman. Yes, I’m a lesbian. I like women (as long as they are also lesbians). I lost interest in changing my gender when I was in junior high school. While I wish my mother would have enforced the rules just a tad differently, I have to say that I’m glad she didn’t wantonly feed into the fact that I wanted to be a boy.

It is important to let a child explore and, to some degree, be who or what they want. It is far more important, however, to set limits on children. What this little boy and his mother do not realize is that just by dressing and acting like a girl, he’s made himself a huge target. By going on the evening news for a feature spot, however, they’ve made him a pariah. In the feature, he admits to being bullied. Do you think that’s going to get better or worse now? Parents will tell their kids to stay away from him at school. Kids at school will be more merciless than before. He’s not learning limits – if his mother doesn’t rein him in quickly, he’ll end up acting like Lawrence King, prancing around school in stiletto thigh-high boots and wearing makeup, flirting with boys in the hallway who are not of that orientation and don’t understand what’s going on. If he survives that, he’ll go on to learn the hard way that the real world of adults can be just as cruel, if not more so.

Childhood is definitely a time of exploration and questioning. It is also the best time to set limits and teach rules. Bobby doesn’t know what he wants or what he is just yet; the greatest injustice his mother can commit is to fail to teach him that the real world has expectations no matter who or what you are and if you don’t have some semblance of normalcy in your life, the world will eat you alive. It is very unhealthy to allow any child to live as the opposite gender. He is going to grow up being loved and accepted at home and not understanding why the kids at school can’t stand him – and you’ll never be able to explain it. He will, however, grow up and get over having a few rules in life.

Comments (9)

May-HEE-ko

Oct 27, 11 4:33 PM

The one thing that Bush did that pissed me off the most was his handling of the Compean/Ramos case. On February 17, 2006, Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean encountered a drug smuggler named Osvoldo Aldrete Davila; he had a van packed with 800 pounds of narcotics. During a chase, Davila assaulted them to try to throw them off, including throwing rocks and kicking debris at them. They finally fired a shot at the smuggler, hitting him squarely in the ass – and the Mexican government immediately backed the thug by demanding that the officers be brought up on charges. Once they were convicted and sent to prison, Davila filed a $5M civil rights lawsuit. US Attorneys later admitted that Davila lied on the stand, yet nothing was done to correct the injustice. Bush commuted the officers’ sentences, when in reality he should have given them full pardons. The fact that he allowed this injustice to carry into their entire lives is the part that angers me.

Today, we’re getting news that another Border Patrol agent has been railroaded by the government he has served for seven years. In October of 2008, Officer Jesus Diaz took part in a major drug bust and arrested a 15-year-old drug smuggler in the same general area. Within hours of the arrest, the Mexican Consulate filed a complaint, claiming that the teenager had been beaten. Photos taken, however, contradicted this – he had no bruises or marks on his body other than the marks left by the straps of the pack he’d been carrying, which was laden with marijuana. The same US Attorneys office that hamstrung Ramos and Compean did the same to Diaz – and he’s just been sentenced to two years in the clink for “improperly lifting the arms of a suspect” during an arrest – a tactic I have used myself in an attempt to get a combative detainee to comply. It’s not torture, nor does it cause injury (at least not if you’re doing it right). It is a nonviolent persuasive action used almost universally by police and corrections officers.

Even worse – the snot-nosed little punk who claimed he’d been beaten was given immunity to testify against this veteran officer. And to top it all off, we’ve already been told that most of the witnesses – the non-US citizens – lied on the stand. Brilliant.

Yet again, the Mexican government orders us to jump and our government replies, “how high?” The Mexicans pushed for this prosecution, and we gave it to them. Now a good man with seven years of experience is in prison for something that everyone does, and officers will, once again, fear their own decisions.

How fair is it to make these guys second-guess themselves in the middle of a serious incident when their instincts are well-trained into them, and their training can save their lives? Why are we allowing our government to stab these men in the back for doing their jobs? And why in the hell are we allowing anyone in Mexico to dictate what we do?

I say we should throw diplomacy with them out the window. You don’t like the way we do business here? Fine – get the hell out. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass as you leave. You won’t dare cater to us, but you demand that we cater to you, and that’s not good enough anymore. You preach human rights and act all high-and-mighty in your refusal to use the death penalty – or extradite criminals who may face death in our courts – but your jails are the picture of inhumanity, filthy, no running water, little electricity (if any), and families have to send clothing and food (and your officers take what they want before giving it to the detainee). Inmates have been allowed to leave to run their criminal enterprises, and the officers are usually in on it. Not one soul in Mexico gains anything on merit, either; my Mexican friends came to the US because their degrees will get them quite a bit farther here than they ever would in Mexico, all because they don’t have any money or connections.

And you have the audacity to preach to us about how things should be run? I have to ask, other than my friends, what good has ever come out of Mexico? Hell, I don’t even like your beer and tequila – it all tastes like fratboy piss. You send over your uneducated and your criminals, and then when we send them back you get your knickers in a twist because we’ve supposedly violated their “civil rights”. I know better. You’re only mad at us because you never wanted them in the first place. Plus, we’ve long since clued in to your hope for re-claiming our land, and we’re not okay with that.

Oh, and Obama? He ain’t stayin’, either. Don’t get your hopes up. He might give you what you want for now, but eventually WE will have our say and the welcome mat will be rolled up.

It is an absolute travesty that the best of us are being locked away for doing their jobs. We should be ashamed that we allowed this to happen. Mark my words, we all bear responsibility. When this wrong is made right we owe that officer an enormous debt.

Comments (1)

Say It With Passion

Oct 19, 11 10:02 PM

Even if it’s a lie, folks…say it with gusto, with pride, and with the kind of passion that makes people wonder if they should applaud. Take a listen…it’s less than a minute:

This little rant of his pissed me off on a level that few can. It actually made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. You wish harm upon me, Mr. Biden? Lemme tell you about my experience. My experience is that my gun once saved my life. I was getting money out of an ATM machine when a kid pulled a knife on me (and I’m damn lucky that was all he had). He demanded my wallet. I faked like I was reaching for it and, instead, pulled my Ruger P94. I had it loaded with hollow-point ammunition. In one smooth and very well-practiced movement, I unholstered my concealed weapon, gave the slide a good yank, and brought it level with the bridge of this kid’s nose.

I thank God that I didn’t have to fire a shot. The kid pissed his pants and ran away. He was probably what we in juvenile corrections call a “little mafioso”, a guy who wants to be a badass so he pretends that he is one and hopes that nobody calls his bluff. I promise that after that experience, he did one of two things: he either got his act together and was scared enough never to try to rob another Arizonan again, or he went in the opposite direction and made damn sure that he had better firepower next time. Since he was never caught, I have no idea which it was. I can only hope it was the former.

Let’s talk about something else I have experienced. I’ve sat with actual rape victims and their loved ones and had to explain the process. I’ve told them how difficult it will be to prosecute their attacker. I’ve watched them cry and felt helpless to comfort them because their bodies are living crime scenes and any hugging, touching, kissing, ANYTHING can legally contaminate the evidence – and a defense attorney will have a field day with it. I’ve been there with those victims and I would love to hear you repeat what you had to say in that “speech” to them. Watch their reactions. Regardless of political affiliation, they’d all be mortified.

You know what pissed me off even more? Jason Mattera, speaking for Human Events, asked Mr. Biden if he regretted using such a crass, inconsiderate reference. Here’s his response:

Sir, if you are trying to see to it that you and your running mate get voted out of office next year, you’re doing a fantastic job. The question now is whether your constituents realize just how crude and condescending you and your aide are really being.

I cannot believe he had the unmitigated gall to say the things he said, particularly in the context in which he said them. He was pushing the president’s new JOBS BILL! I kid you not, folks, Bozo the Veep was going off the passionate deep end over jobs. Personal stories aside, that jobs bill isn’t going to be able to do what he cries for. As Ed Morrissey points out, this jobs bill – even if it does save a few police/fire/EMS jobs – isn’t going to help stop a rape or a holdup. How is a woman going to call 911 to report a man is trying to rape her if he’s disabled her phone? How is a store clerk going to get police there in time to stop a robbery in progress if the robber who has a gun pointed hat him is telling him to keep his hands up? The fact is that, in situations like these, 911 doesn’t get dialed until either the bad guy is gone and the victim is freed, or the victim is ultimately found dead by a loved one. Police don’t get to actively stop these kinds of violent crimes, and if you talk to them you’ll hear their frustration about that sort of thing. In the past four years, not once have I ever talked to a victim who credited the police with stopping the crime as it happened.

It is less than merely cheap to use this kind of reference when pushing a jobs bill, Joe. It’s less than low. It is a deliberate lie, one crafted to appeal to unchecked emotion – the same kind that has ruined many a nation with its inability to see past immediate human desire. You should be ashamed of yourself. You owe every conservative and every crime victim an apology.

Endnote: anybody notice his aide’s reaction? That irritated question, “who are you with?” that might as well have been, “I can’t believe anybody let you in here, and we’ll make damn sure you don’t get in again because only the reporters who ask proper questions are ever allowed to take up his time!” You never heard Bush get this snarky with reporters. Sure, his aides planted one in the press pool to ask softball questions, but he never once told any reporter what they should and should not say – nor did he try to kick a reporter out for asking him tough questions. I remember thinking Bill Clinton was frightening. He was the Easter Bunny in comparison.

Does anyone think the MSM is going to have questions about his comments or his outburst with Jason Mattera? I ain’t holdin’ my breath.

(Tip of the black cowboy hat to Jennifer Leslie, fellow Texan and leader of Smart Girl Politics in Tucson, for giving me the heads-up on Mattera’s smackdown.)

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Lies, More Lies, and Damned Lies From the NYT

Aug 27, 11 9:12 PM

I’m not sure whether we should continue to be surprised by the outrageous claims made on the front page of the New York Times. I’d like to say that I wasn’t considering their miserable track record, but yet again, I have been utterly flabbergasted by the out-and-out refusal to acknowledge the truth about certain conservative politicians. On August 14, Times writer Eric Lichtblau published a front-page story questioning California Rep Darrell Issa’s business dealings – and whether he’s used his position in Congress to further his own enterprises.

I have twice in the pages of this blog made mistakes that I was called out for. When called out in a civil fashion, I have no trouble admitting when I have been wrong (and I’ve long since stopped trying to blog while also doing other things that split my attention). When I make an honest mistake, I have no trouble being respectfully corrected. Lichtblau, however, isn’t the first bleeding-heart liberal to willfully print multiple “errors” on the front page of the Times only to be defended by his equally-liberal editors, despite being proven wrong by at least three other left-leaning publications.

Besides, I’m a piss-ant little blogger. I have two jobs AND I go to school. Lichtblau likely very easily makes five times what I do in his profession, and writing is his entire job. I’d just about cut off my left foot to get paid to write full-time and be recognized and respected for my work. I’m conservative, though, so that’s about as likely as Nancy Pelosi switching parties.

The very first paragraph in the article heralds what may well end up being Lichtblau’s demise:

VISTA, Calif. — Here on the third floor of a gleaming office building overlooking a golf course in the rugged foothills north of San Diego, Darrell Issa, the entrepreneur, oversees the hub of a growing financial empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Issa himself, the owner of the building in question, and every major news outlet that has covered the article’s incredible inaccuracies has called this out, yet here’s what Lichtblau himself had to say in an email to Rep. Issa:

“As for the office building, the leasing agents for Thibodou have advertised its views of the Shadowridge golf course. It appears that it’s certainly visible to the southwest from offices in the building.”

Here’s what Times editor Dean Baquet said to Politico:

“I don’t think it implied — at least to my mind — that Issa’s office overlooked the golf course…I think it is trying to give a sense that this is a building in a cool area. That’s the way I always read it. Otherwise it really would have said his office overlooked the golf course. That would have been even cooler to say.”

I don’t think Baquet actually read the article. Either that or he must have been the guy to first suggest Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense. If you like, take a look at the online brochure issued by the leasing agents of Issa’s office building – I don’t see one single reference to views of a golf course. Shadowridge golf course is over a mile away. Lichtblau claims that he visited the third floor and couldn’t see Shadowridge, but that he went to the golf course and could see the building. Exactly which advertisement was he looking at for his info?

That’s just the icing on the cake. There were multiple errors that I’d question whether Lichtblau really did any digging on.

-He claimed that Issa bought a property for $10.3M only to see it appreciate 60% to $16.6M after Issa secured earmarks for road and sanitation improvements surrounding the property. This is untrue. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Issa bought it for $16.6M and even took on a partial loan for the property, likely after the earmarks were secured at the behest of constituents. In a correction, the error was blamed on the San Diego County Assessor’s office.

-He claimed that a $19,000 investment in the AIM International Small Company Fund produced a 1900% windfall, reaping a $357,000 benefit. Untrue; Issa actually dropped half a million on the investment and lost $125,000 when he unloaded it. THAT particular faux pas was blamed on other faulty documents (there seems to be a pattern here).

-He called Issa’s original DEI Holdings – well-known for its production of the Viper alarm system – “a major supplier of alarms to Toyota” and used the claim to question his role in the Congressional hearings as “going too easy” on the automaker. This is also false. Toyota told the Union-Tribune that DEI is NOT, in fact, a Toyota supplier. Issa, in fact, had more questions than most, wanting to include ALL automakers and even question how $18M a year can be blown on a federal agency that is supposed to be watching out for these things.

-The Union-Tribune, while sending reporters to personally follow up on the dispute between Issa and Lichtblau, said they tried to gain access to the Shadowridge golf course to see if Lichtblau’s claim of being able to see Issa’s office building from there could be corroborated. Reporters say they were denied access – they said it was a private course.

He doesn’t mention that Issa’s family still resides in the home they purchased in 1990. According to the North County Times, he’s humble enough to do his own grocery shopping (something Sheila Jackson-Lee has staffers doing, even when she needs garlic pills). He and his wife live relatively frugally, driving cars 7 and 10 years old and flying coach on commercial airlines. He also donates his entire Congressional salary every year to his family’s foundation, which is run by his wife and son.

I’m sure Issa isn’t perfect. What about the more overt crooks in Congress’ midst? Let’s see something about the Times’ coverage of corruptocrat Charlie Rangel. He’s been caught procuring rent-controlled apartments for his home and campaign office in Harlem. He also used Congressional letterhead to solicit donations to a NYC College center to be opened in his name; when Nabors Industries faced the prospect of losing their tax shelters, they donated over $1M to that very college center and Rangel made an about-face, defending the tax shelters he’d previously questioned. He was caught reporting income levels at half of what he was actually earning, failing to declare worth in high-valued stocks and not paying taxes on multiple properties in New Jersey, and accepting “gifts” in the form of vacations to the Caribbean from the Carib News Foundation – a group that had multiple issues before the House Ways and Means Committee, which Rangel chaired. The Times has reported on the trials with a tinge of hope that he’d see a favorable outcome, with Kareem Fahim even writing that Rep. Peter King might even consider lowering the consequences and pointing out what Rangel wasn’t accused of. Where’s the witch-hunt for his head?

The Times rightly screamed bloody murder about the Abramoff Lobbying Scandal, but what about Maxine Waters? She arranged for board members of OneUnited Bank, which her husband owns stock in and once directed, to meet with officials from the Treasury Department to make a plea for TARP funds (which the bank didn’t qualify for) and an exemption from FDIC rules that is very rare. The bank neared insolvency when its investments in Fannie and Freddie went sour. The CEO was arrested in 2007 for possession of cocaine, and the bank was issued a cease and desist order over their highly risky practices. Waters circumvented all of that to secure illegal funds, then went on to have a provision added to the Dodd-Frank act (the same bill that whittled debit card swipe fees to almost nothing in a huge price-fixing scheme) that exempted minority-owned banks from new federal financial overhaul. That legislation would essentially back her actions as perfectly legal and would explain her office’s tap dancing act. She’s since had the unmitigated gall to accuse the House Ethics Committee of unethical behavior while fellow Democrats gum up the works by firing lawyers, ignoring subpoenas and refusing to hire new staffers necessary to hold the hearings. A deceptively titled Times article purported to question the minority provision to the Dodd-Frank Act but didn’t really question anything.

Where’s the down-and-dirty on her? Where are the bold statements that she’s corrupt and needs to be publicly called to account for her actions? You won’t find them on the pages of the Times.

Don’t even get me started on the Times’ coverage of Robert Byrd. That he was not corrupt is immaterial to me; once he passed on, there was not a single question raised by the Times about his past or the things he’d said. When Bill Clinton spoke at his memorial, he said, “he once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, what does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means: he was a country boy from the hills and hollows of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected.” The Times never questioned that statement, not once. In reality, Byrd had organized the KKK chapter in his area, ardently seeking new members and organizing the group himself. It was a member of that group that suggested that he get into politics. If such a falsehood had been uttered in memoriam for conservative icons such as Bush, Coulter, Breitbart or Reagan, liberals would instantly be frothing at the mouth to correct the record.

Hell, when Sarah Palin made mention of partying “like it’s 1773″, it was as if liberals had ESP. I heard their screeching before I ever saw footage of her comment. When some educated soul pointed out that the original tea party protest took place on December 16, 1773 (the dumping of tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation), liberals still refused to let it go. I STILL hear liberals bitching about that comment, and it’s almost heart-warming to see the dejection on their faces when I point out what happened in 1773.

It seems to me that it would behoove a major newspaper to hire writers who care about getting their facts straight and editors willing to take them to task when they don’t. Instead, we get lies and barely halfhearted attempts to issue corrections and accompanying statements that support the original body of work. It’s a crying shame.

Comments (2)

The Even Playing Field

Aug 18, 11 9:43 PM

I almost never write about either of my two professions. I certainly never say exactly who I work for. My EMT work is only part-time and I’m studying to become a paramedic. All I’ll say about who I work for is that it is a large municipal fire department whose incident structure has been put into place by fire departments much older in other parts of the country. As an EMT who hopes to become a firefighter I know the process inside and out. It’s largely the same across the country.

I have, for a few years now, followed an ongoing issue in the Chicago Fire Department: a group of African-American firefighter candidates (in other words, those who applied to become firefighter trainees) sued the department, claiming discrimination on a mass scale. At issue was a test conducted in 1995. According to the suit, the written test, which is the first step in the process to becoming a firefighter, was too stringent – leaving minority candidates out of the running. According to the now six-year-old court ruling, the expectations of the 1995 test “favored white candidates” because the cutoff score was too high. In other words, the suit all but claimed that minorities aren’t as intelligent as white job seekers and deserved special consideration.

I don’t believe for a New York minute that any minority is less intelligent than a white person. Believe me – I spent time living in the Deep South and I’ve met plenty of white people whose lack of education was astounding. Because I have seen many black and Hispanic people educate themselves and succeed in ways that many white people never could, I refuse to believe that those qualification scores ever needed to be lowered for anybody. The color of your skin does not indicate your level of intelligence; your willingness to push hard, learn the material and make sure you can do it does. I have seen people of all colors pass the test despite being dyslexic.

In light of the outrageous argument that the cutoff was set too high, I fail to understand how any judge could rule that the test was discriminatory and six thousand firefighter hopefuls who happened to be black will get another shot after failing the first time without having to take the test again.

Those who know me know that I have struggled with weight for much of my life. It’s something I’m extremely self-conscious about. When I graduated high school I couldn’t even climb a flight of stairs without having to stop and take a breather. I beat myself into shape, became an EMT, worked in corrections, worked as a martial arts instructor, then when I lost a relationship on the heels of one injury only to be sidelined by another injury a year later I let myself waste again. In my present state, some people in the fire service find it humorous that I want to be a firefighter.

Those people don’t know what I used to do or what I am capable of. All they know is what they see. A person who is overweight isn’t usually expected to be able to dead-drag 200 pounds, climb stairs or help carry 80 pounds of gear, but I can do it. Because of the nature of being an EMT and what’s required of firefighters, though, I can’t blame them for questioning whether I’m able to help when I arrive on scene. I can’t be offended. Hell, I’ve done the same thing and I know from personal experience that some overweight people are remarkably adept at this job. I absolutely refuse to remain in this state and the firefighters I work with most often know this about me.

Part of their job is to look out for themselves and each other. They need to be able to trust that if they get hurt, I will be able to help them. They also need to know that they will be able to help me. Being a firefighter or medic is a very physically demanding job. I know that every firefighter I meet questions my ability to do what I’m there to do. If I wanted to be a jerk about it, I could get offended and file complaints left and right, but that would be completely wrong.

In fire service culture, if you cannot pass basic tests meant to prove that you meet the bare minimum requirements for the job, the guys don’t trust you. If you got your job based purely on the fact that you were a person of color or a certain gender and the passing threshold was lowered in a special circumstance for you, they’ll never trust you, and with good reason.

I never, NEVER complain about the fact that my abilities are questioned based on my appearance. I wouldn’t dream of filing a lawsuit to force my department to hire me. I would never make it if that were the only reason I got in, because I would have to work a hundred times harder than everyone else just to prove myself when I should have been able to do it during the initial testing phase. The tests, both written and physical, are base requirements for what I’ll have to be able to do in the academy. If I can’t pass the initial test, how can I expect to make it through the academy?

It irritates the hell out of me when decisions like this are handed down. If none of those men passed the test, they shouldn’t have an argument, nor should they receive any special treatment. Not only would I not dare ask for any special consideration, I would be offended if it were offered. And I would never dare ask anybody to trust me with a task that I know I’m not 100% capable of carrying out. I know I can dead-drag a full-grown man, breach a door, and carry nearly 100 pounds of gear. But could I sustain it for two hours? No. Until I can, I don’t deserve it.

So the City of Chicago will hire 111 black men to become firefighters despite their inability to meet the same requirements that a host of others did. They’ll also shell out tens of millions of dollars in back pension for each of those men along with millions more for those who really do lose out. It’s all because a test, whose questions had nothing to do with race, was too much for some. The men who will be hired from this issue will have to find out the hard way what it can do to a career in the fire service. For some, it will be a disappointment at best. It could shatter dreams for others.

Race should never be used to even the playing field, regardless of the color of your skin.

Note, 03/20/2012: I wanted to add something to this that I forgot in the original posting. I have tested several times. I have a high IQ, a damn good education, and I retain information incredibly well (I remember things I’d rather forget). The first time I took the test for my department, however, I failed. It was the first time in my life I had failed a test on a subject I loved. I depended too much on memory and didn’t study enough. I wasn’t the only one, either. Many of the best firefighters I know and respect failed the first time. I know guys who have failed the Captain’s exam a few times, but they don’t claim discrimination because the test was too hard.

Everyone who fails and still hopes to make it does the same thing: we study harder and go back and take it again. The very next year I passed the written exam with flying colors, yet I still didn’t get picked. They didn’t discriminate against me because I’m a woman, they simply picked the candidates who best fit their requirements at that time. Having worked as an EMT with these guys for several years now, working out with them and bouncing nutrition plans off of them, many have become unofficial mentors and hope that I succeed the next time our department does hold a test.

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Yes, I Am Islamophobic – Three Years Later

Aug 17, 11 10:50 AM

Just three years ago, Steve found a missive I’d written on a MySpace blog (remember that site?) and invited me to join the family here at gayconservative.org. I’ve enjoyed connecting with everyone I’ve met here in that time. I thought, in light of Obama’s continued claims that lone-wolf, homegrown terrorists pose a greater threat to us than the jihadists who continue to plot against us, it would be appropriate to repost the article that ushered me into the fold.

* * *

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, otherwise known as CAIR, has become widely known for throwing around the term “islamophobic” as widely as the gay community uses the word “homophobic.” Any time a news story appears involving some wrong, real or perceived, against a Muslim anywhere in America, CAIR jumps on it with both feet crying “ISLAMOPHOBIA!!!”

Ashraf Al-Jailani was ordered to deport to Yemen in 1999 by a federal judge. He didn’t. In late 2002, he was arrested after his business credit card and contact info were found in the posession of another Al-Qaeda operative in Chicago. He was arrested, and CAIR began it’s anti-islamophobe campaign, decrying the move as islamophobic. They said it was a case of “living in America while Muslim.” Al-Jailani had three children with an American woman, and he viciously abused all of them. He gave up his case after CPS authorities took the kids, and he self-deported to Yemen. As soon as he got there, CAIR and his idiot wife took up the cause of getting the kids back, and as soon as CPS did it, mom took the kids to see dad in Yemen (after swearing she wouldn’t). Yemen wasn’t part of the Hague Convention on international kidnapping. So when Al-Jailani took the kids and sent his wife back to the States, nothing could be done. Sami, Amina, and Layla Al-Jailani will likely never be seen again.

If believing that Al-Jailani was an abusive man who should have been deported without his children makes me islamophobic, then yes, I am.

In 2006, Yaser Abdel Said suspected that his teenage daughters, Sarah and Amina, were dating American boys in the small Texas town where they’d been raised as Americans. When he searched the girls’ cell phone records, he discovered that they were spending a lot of time talking to the same boys. He tasked their brother with “escorting” them everywhere, and he forbade the girls from doing anything without their express permission. Their mother went with them and their boyfriends to try to escape, but Said talked her into coming back. Then he had mom talk the girls into coming back, too, even after threatening to kill them for refusing to obey his wishes for arranged marriage. Last year, he took the girls out in his cab, shot them to death, and disappeared, probably back to his native Egypt. CAIR and the Said family is lambasting the American public for calling it for what it is–a Muslim honor killing. They say we’re just islamophobic.

If believing that Said did what he did because of his Muslim upbringing, just like 5,000 other men do every year to women in their family, makes me islamophobic–then yes, I am.

Mark Steyn, a Canadian pundit, just finished a massive court battle for supposed “hate speech.” He had the audacity to speak his mind about the realities of Islam in pop culture; his books “America Alone” and “The New Criterion” called a spade a spade and pointed out that America is the only nation on the planet willing to fight back in the “age of Jihad.” The Ontario Human Rights Commission filed a legal complaint about 22 articles Steyn had written related to his views on Islam. Canada, which puts a limit on so-called hate speech, called Steyn before three different HRC tribunals. One is still pending. CAIR and others say Steyn is islamophobic.

If believing that one has the right to criticize Sharia law and Jihad makes you islamophobic…yes, I am.

Every day, rockets are fired into Israeli towns such as Ashkelon and Sderot from Palestinian (read: MUSLIM)-held Gaza. Fighters from Hezbolla make strikes into Israeli territory where they beat, torture, kill and kidnap innocent Israelis. A Palestinian gunman walked into a Jewish religious school and fired 500 rounds, killing eight and wounding scores. The belief of all Muslims is that Israel doesn’t deserve the land she occupies and that the Jews should be forced into servitude. Yesterday, a report said that there is a massive movement of weapons stockpiles into Palestinian neighborhoods that harbor Hezbollah terrorists despite the cease-fire. Why? Read the Qur’an–no Muslim is required to abide by any truce or agreement to non-Muslims. I have a copy if you’d like to see it for yourself.

On September 11, 2001, 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked four American passenger airliners. Two were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center; one was flown into the Pentagon; and the other crashed during a courageous fight in a field near Shanksville, PA when the passengers realized what their captors were doing and refused to let them win. There is now a hole in the New York City skyline where the towers stood, and the buildings around them were destroyed when the towers finally gave way and collapsed. Nearly 3,000 Americans died in the attack, and the final words of the hijackers were captured by air traffic controllers: “La illaha ill Allah, Muhammadur Rasul Allah.” It’s known as Shahada, or the Muslim creed: there is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.”

If believing that Israel has a right to defend herself from Islamic Jihad, Muslims want to see America destroyed, and 9/11 was merely a precursor to what they will do if given the opportunity, and if believing that the Hezbollah flag is a giant flashing neon sign that we should stop allowing Johnny Jihad to beat us half to death with our own rules is islamophobia…

Then, yes. I AM ISLAMOPHOBIC.

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Economics Just Aren’t Sexy Enough

Aug 6, 11 8:38 PM

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.” -Mark Twain

Matt Damon was captured on camera defending all teachers as angels and our educational system as a modern marvel. When caught in an error and called on it, he became indignant and spit out expletives to defend himself and his mother (who, coincidentally, is a teacher). Never mind the fact that public education in America falls well below the standard in other countries. Never mind the fact that kids that I went to school with managed to graduate despite being damn near illiterate, and it’s only gotten worse since then. Never mind the fact that our public schools churn out violent thugs with an efficency only a prison could admire. And please, never mind that guy doing that horrible rap calling achievement a “crime spree”.

We now have a generation coming up that cannot bother themselves to understand the facts before deciding what they believe – and basing it entirely on their feelings – and our celebrities are defending our educational system as above reproach. It’s almost as if they want things to be this way.

So, naturally, as soon as Standard & Poor’s, the famous credit rating agency, downgraded the US credit rating, the MSM began trumpeting the Democratic Party’s view that the decision to downgrade was a “flawed”, “facts-be-damned” decision based on so-called fuzzy math. It’s easy for the Democrats to say that; they’re going to do what they must to defend their positions. The MSM is practically owned by liberals, so they are going to spit out what Democrats feed them. Then, all of these folks who don’t want to lose precious time learning actual facts will take such claims as gospel, believe them wholeheartedly, and parrot them unfailingly.

Then, when you hit them with facts, they’ll come up with some pretty outrageous stuff – arguments such as, “how come S&P didn’t downgrade the credit rating of all those subprime mortgage beasts but they’re downgrading the country’s credit rating now? They’re hypocrites!”

Here and I was hoping for a real challenge.

The role of a credit rating agency is pretty simple. They assess risk. That’s it. They look at a handful of factors and determine the risk of granting credit to a person, company or government. We all know the three major credit bureaus to be Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, and for the most part we all understand what they do. They take our income into account, look at the debt that we’re paying (including mortgages, rent, car loans, credit cards, etc.), and issue a score that companies use to decide whether or not to issue us a new line of credit falling into one of the aforementioned categories. Companies also use those bureaus to determine a job candidates’ eligibility. If the risk is too great – meaning we’re not making enough money to pay our debt or not paying the debt on time without taking out more debt – our score dwindles and most companies won’t grant any new credit. Experian doesn’t take it upon itself to examine the investments I’m making and whether or not I’m taking a risk there; if they did, my credit rating would be better than it is.

Nor is it the job of larger-scale credit rating agencies to make a determination of the risk of investment being made by a company or a government.

Take a look back at the beginning of subprime mortgage as we knew it. Alan Greenspan went on TV and essentially told the country, everybody, from peons like me to the CEO’s in mansions, that investing in real estate was a flawless move because once people buy a house and move in, they don’t want to move out – ever. It’s a pain, he said, so turn your attention to mortgages.

Banks and other lenders began to look more closely at a very convenient piece of legislation known as the Community Reinvestment Act. In 1977, then-president Jimmy Carter signed into law the act that would make it a crime for any lender of any kind to red-line risky neighborhoods and required those lenders to, in effect, accept a certain percentage of risky lending as a requirement of being in the business. In essence, the government stepped in and guaranteed that people who were not credit-worthy obtained credit anyway, facts be damned. Sound familiar?

Entire companies sprang up to take advantage of a whole new opportunity: subprime lending. It’s an infallible investment, right? Nobody wants to move out of their house. They’ll do whatever they can to keep it. So let’s lend to anyone and everyone because the government has sanctioned it. Oh, even better, once we get these mortgages out there, let’s create a whole new type of security investment based on packages of these mortgages and ignore the credit-worthiness that they’re based on! We’ll be billionaires overnight!

Everyone got on that get-rich-quick scheme just as quickly as they got on the dot-com train. They failed to recognize the exact same indicators of a pending doom that George W. Bush tried to warn Congress of as early as 2003. Bush, while I sincerely disliked his fiscal policies, had few options on what to do. People on BOTH sides of the aisle failed to see what was coming, and as long as everyone was rolling in money, it didn’t matter whether they had an R or a D behind their name – nobody was willing to ruin a good thing. As long as real estate was popular, values were driven up so high they were astronomical. Eventually they could only go one way. Something rising that rapidly will always, without fail, suddenly stop and plummet.

It’s damned easy now to look back and see what was wrong with it. I dare ask how many of these screaming liberals also bought into that scheme only to see the value of their property drop like a rock after cashing out the inflated value of their homes and ending up owing nearly twice what the property was really worth. Everybody was to blame, but not one person has acknowledged the fact that a Republican pointed out the pending doom and a Democrat (Barney Frank) shot him down by waving off the warning as baseless.

S&P, Moody’s and Fitch were not tasked with determining the risk of their investment. Their role was to examine what was on the books of those companies, how much business they were doing, and give them a rating based on the risk of issuing credit to those companies. When there was a hell of a lot of money in it, it was impossible to expect them to downgrade those companies because, at the time, there was little to no risk in issuing that credit.

The federal government, on the other hand, doesn’t have enough money to back themselves up. They are spending too much money and are refusing to cut back – in fact, they’ve only spent more than any of us could have imagined. Democrats want to crucify Bush for the bank bailout, and I disagreed with it, too; we were going to feel the pain of that crash one way or another. They are conveniently forgetting their role in the disaster and are using smoke and mirrors to deflect the blame on everyone but them. They are covering up the fact that by refusing to do something early, they left Bush with few options on how to fix the problem. And now that they are in a position of power, they are holding the economy hostage and blaming the Tea Party with accusations of terroristic hostage-taking.

Unfortunately, no liberal will come close to seeing these realities even if they do read this. Why? Because unless Hollywood can make a realistic movie about economics and make it look sexy, they just won’t be interested enough to educate themselves. So we end up with a generation being fed by Matt Damon and Sean Penn how to stop caring about their own achievement and care more about their feelings – and the rest of the world prepares to eat them alive. It’s more important to stick up for a feel-good ideal and throw money at something than it is to fix it and teach the people involved to make something of themselves that doesn’t include daydreaming of being a movie star and not needing a real education.

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Put The Candles Out

Jul 18, 11 8:21 PM

With cute shows like Glee on the airwaves to make gay seem chic, it has become surprising to most adults just how cruel kids are still being to each other. The problem with this is that bullying isn’t cute. The victim usually doesn’t have a small army of friends nearby (especially not ones on the football team) to come to their defense. I can’t stand that show because it never works that way in real life. I was VERY different, and I didn’t have anybody there to come to my defense. Girls particularly didn’t want to be around me, not with rumors flying about that I was a lesbian. I learned to watch my mouth because I knew it would get worse if I didn’t. Besides…a gay guy usually has a girlfriend or two with shoulders he can cry on. Who sticks up for the lesbians? It sure as hell ain’t the boys. I had it pretty rough as a kid. I was soundly beaten the one time I told a girl in the 6th grade that she was beautiful. I didn’t stop acting like a boy bent on being a rock star, but I kept my thoughts and feelings to myself because I knew it wasn’t normal.

On February 12, 2008, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney pulled a .22 pistol out of his bag in the middle of an English class and shot classmate Lawrence “Larry” King twice in the back of the head as the class worked on a WWII assignment. In the weeks leading up to the shooting, a lot happened. There was also a lot of history prior that is simply being ignored, and regardless of what King’s adoptive father Greg says, gay groups have made a crusade out of his murder. So have anti-gun groups.

Larry King started accessorizing like a girl when he was just ten years old. By the time he was 15 – the day of his death – he’d come to school wearing stilettos, knee-high pink boots, brightly-colored clothing, hair gelled into different styles, and enough makeup to put Elizabeth Taylor to shame. By the time he arrived at E.O Green Middle School, he was chasing other boys, openly expressing affection for them, and staring at boys in the locker room. He was tormented, but he didn’t make it easy. Here’s where I piss off every gay liberal on the planet.

Larry didn’t know how to control himself. Teachers didn’t know how to guide him. As a result, his classmates, for the most part, didn’t know quite what to do with him. His behavior was out of control, and no amount of bullying excused his reactions.

Newsweek did a surprising article on the incident in which they actually flirted with an unbiased opinion. They quoted his father as saying, “I think the gay-rights people want it to be a gay-rights issue, because it makes a poster child out of my son.” He doesn’t like the idea that Larry turned into a cause celebré overnight because of what happened.

I learned early on to not cross the boundaries with people. Every kid has to go to some extreme at some point; mine ended up being religion. I got into my religion in a huge way and wore it in neon lettering on my sleeve. Other kids go goth, emo, country, rap, metal, nerd…or gay. When I was a kid, nobody could get away with openly admitting to being gay. Things have come a long way, but they have a long way to go yet and we are openly lying to ourselves if we think kids are really capable of comprehending the issues involved.

If a 15-year-old boy sexually harassed a girl the way Larry is purported to have harassed Brian McInerney, he’d be disciplined harshly. The instant it came to light that the boy was asking her out, whispering “I love you” in the hall and claiming to have scratched her arm during sex, there would have been major meetings with the parents and the two would be separated immediately. If the boy then broke the new rules and asked that girl to be his valentine, he’d have been immediately suspended.

Why is it impossible to conceive of doing this when a boy acting out as a homosexual makes overtures to another boy?

Most of the teachers and executive staff apparently didn’t help. Some did try to formally complain about the lack of discipline concerning Larry, but they were told nothing could be done because of California state law that banned gender discrimination – including gender identity discrimination. Larry was allowed to continue wearing outrageous clothing, makeup and hair gelled to a bouffant because nobody wanted to stop the distracting behavior. Never mind that every kid in school talked about him constantly. The lesbian assistant principal reportedly encouraged him and stifled dissent among teachers who tired of his antics. Another teacher brought him a gift in the form of a green formal dress that Larry immediately ran to try on.

We’re talking about a group of junior highers. They don’t understand sexuality yet. They certainly don’t understand homosexuality, and because it isn’t the norm (get used to it, folks, it isn’t and never will be) it results in the sometimes-violent ostracizing of kids who display same-sex behaviors.

What Brandon McInerney did was reprehensible. He deserves to go to prison for the rest of his life for his actions. We cannot, however, make Larry a poster child when his behavior cannot be excused, either. He did blow kisses at straight boys. He told Brandon he loved him. Two days before his murder, he trotted onto the basketball court to ask Brandon to be his valentine in front of the whole school. None of that was okay. If we delude ourselves into believing that it was just harmless fun, that neither Larry nor Brandon should have been hurt, then we do a disservice both to gay and straight kids alike. Gay rights groups need to learn to stay within the same boundaries that everyone else operates in.

For once, we need to put the candles out and start really holding ourselves up to the same standard that we expect everyone else to live by.

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