You'll Never See a Cartoon of Muhammed but...

This despicable cartoon ran in the Washington Post two days after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. In the meantime, almost every mainstream news source reluctantly reported there was no connection between Jared Lee Loughner and the Tea Party. Oh well. Who needs facts when you can portray a whole group you disagree with politically as dangerous nuts?

Reason Magazine has further details of the double standard and these "wise words" from the cartoonist who drew it (along w/ some other irresponsible depictions of conservatives as killers):

"In a larger sense there is a link between anti-government rhetoric and the actions of this obviously deranged man. He is not "troubled", he is crazed. But he knows that the larger enemy is the "government", even though I suspect he has no idea, other than the police, what the government is. So in my experience, there is plenty of linkage, the linkage of a constant steady pressure, constant yammering on right wing radio, and constant political advertising to strike at the government, linking to a weak and distracted mind, inured to the real cost of violence by video games and super-violent films. And to this the easy availability of Glocks in a state like Arizona, and the result is more than predictable. Only willful political opportunism could blind anyone [sic] to it. This same connection drove Timothy McVeigh and others. This won't, I regret to say, be the last incident, not as long as the self-hatred in this country goes unanswered. [...]

The disgusting part is the lack of inclination to blame the people ultimately [sic] responsible. They are again being given a pass for the viciousness they have engendered, at least in part."

Remember, with Nadal Hasan we were told not to jump to conclusions - not even days or weeks after the Islamo-fascist took out his wrath at Fort Hood. But there appears to be a coordinated effort to connect Loughner (a white male) to any and all conservatives - despite evidence to the contrary. When the narrative being painted by the powers that be differs so starkly from the facts on the ground, you know a nation is at a crossroads. With all due respect to the victims, there is more to fear from the environment the Left has intentionally created since the shooting than there is from the type of random act of violence that took place Saturday.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has put together a page of more of the Left's "civility" (really, it's quite a collection) that obviously no mainstream media is concerned might contribute to a "climate of hate." And you may remember this video from last year: When Democrats Attack Free Speech.

Left's Assassination Attempt on American Liberty

There aren't enough words to describe the tragedy that occurred in Arizona when 22 year old gunman Jared Lee Loughner walked into a Safeway in Tucson and shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, along with 19 others. Fortunately, thanks to a fast-thinking intern, quick medical attention, the miracle of prayer, and the luck of where the bullet entered and exited her skull, Rep. Giffords is still with us. Doctors remain optimistic about her recovery, and that is great news.

Sadly, six other victims weren't as lucky. Thoughts and prayers go out to their families. No mother, father, son, or daughter can imagine such a horrific event taking their loved ones from this world. I hope they are in a better place now where there's no such thing as a 24 hour news cycle. To use their deaths, as some have done to demonize their political opponents, shows a complete callousness for life and does a great disservice to the families. It disappoints me to think the American political process could stoop this low. And yet here we are.

Just minutes after Rep. Gabrielle Gifford was shot, before the blood was dry, progressives began blaming the tea party, Sarah Palin, and conservative rhetoric for this massacre. Was the shooter a member of the tea party? No. Was there any proof he had ever supported Sarah Palin or paid attention to her tweets and facebook posts? No. But such lack of evidence didn't stop the Left. They had a narrative to push, a narrative laid out nearly a year ago by President Clinton, that somewhere on the right the next Timothy McVeigh was out there and continued opposition to Democrat Party ideas was surely to push them over the edge. This is worse than guilt by association. It's connecting dots where none exist to silence dissent.

It didn't take long for pundits on the Left to take up Bill Clinton's campaign. Before a shooter's name was even disclosed, Markos Moulitsas and Paul Krugman had already begun to paint right-wing political rhetoric as the culprit fostering hate in America. In fact, it got so out of control that Sarah Palin became a trending topic on twitter and google during the aftermath of the deadly shooting. Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, where true hate speech flourishes, tweeted, "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin." And that was one of the nicer things that was said all day.

As for Krugman at the NYT, one can only hope he's ashamed of printing this nonsense:

"We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was.

She’s been the target of violence before... she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that "the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list.

Just yesterday, Ezra Klein remarked that opposition to health reform was getting scary. Actually, it’s been scary for quite a while, in a way that already reminded many of us of the climate that preceded the Oklahoma City bombing."

In other words, it had to be an anti-Obamacare, tea party member because hey, they ran against her in a tough-contested election. What?! Anyone who refuses to condemn Krugman for printing such false assumptions with no evidence to speak of is clearly as sick as he is, and that brings up a very important point. If the Left really believes that charged political rhetoric causes violent outbursts by deranged individuals, why are they using this same vitriol against Sarah Palin? Either they don't believe the very hypothesis they've been hyperventilating over the past two days or they are hoping something equally despicable happens to the former governor. Which is maybe why this image is making the rounds online: 

Now I don't believe this will lead some sicko to kill Sarah Palin, as disgusting an image as it may be. I do find it extremely distasteful, bordering on an actual threat (you can imagine the outrage if this image was found in the shooter's home with Giffords depicted instead). It's surely more egregious than the map liberals are whining about with "targets" over congressional districts. But obviously the Left must not believe such over-the-top political rhetoric causes disturbed individuals to commit bloody slaughters or it wouldn't be making the rounds online. Unless they really want to see Sarah Palin assassinated. Thus, the outrage is manufactured.

At this point, I would normally spend time defending Sarah Palin and the tea party, dissecting the idiocy of Paul Krugman's statements, pointing out that one of the shooter's high school friends said he was an atheist and called him "left wing." I might also point out that Rep. Giffords was the first Jewish member of Congress to be elected in Arizona and that Jared Lee Loughner cited Adolf Hitler's Mein Kamph as one of his favorite books. Or that he seems to have been planning this mad act of violence long before Palin's map or the tea party ever took form. But none of that really matters. Jared Lee Loughner was obviously a twisted individual.

Here's what does matter. We cannot let a personal tragedy for some become the great American tragedy by senselessly banning forms of political speech or attempting to police the thoughts of our citizens. We cannot become a nation that tries to set guidelines to determine which dissent is appropriate and which is incendiary. To do so would shred the Constitution, limit the right of the people to redress grievances against their government, and shrink the voice of the opposition in the face of an all-powerful state.

Now is not the time to throw out liberty for the promise of a little more security for our elected officials. Thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of over-the-top political statements have been uttered by both the Left and the Right over the past few years, yet incidents of violence have been so rare, they are nearly nonexistent. Perhaps one of the best examples of over-the-top rhetoric is that of "truthers" who believe the government of the United States is responsible for the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11. Yet rather than force this kind of speech underground, giving it a kind of dangerous legitimacy by banning it, the most effective response is to refute it with facts out in the open, to smoke out the moonbats and let Truth prevail.

Millions of examples of vitriol dot the landscape of American history. So far, no event, not even the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, has caused Congress to re-think free speech or pass a law to limit political discourse as protected under the first amendment. Not only does this incident not rise to the standard of those tragedies, there's no evidence that the shooter in this case was ever influenced by the statements of any political speech, Democrat or Republican. It's more likely he was a nut, and like John Hinckley, could have just as easily taken the wrong cue from a movie starring Robet DeNiro and Jodie Foster.

Any effort to limit political speech by this Congress, and you know it's coming from the Democrats, should be firmly rejected. This is as close to a Reichstag fire moment as we've come to in this country recently. Should the first amendment be chipped away to only protect non-offensive, politically correct speech, we really will be entering a new era of tyranny. January 8, 2011 will go down not as the day a sitting congresswoman was almost killed, but as the day American liberty took a great fall.

Yes, the Left's reaction to this random shooting is a threat to our liberties, and no, I won't tone down my rhetoric to please Paul Krugman or Ezra Klein. But, then again, I don't find the Constitution "old and confusing."

Taking Moral Relativism to New Levels: NY Times Calls Sudan's War Criminal President "Pragmatic"

Sometimes you have to read a paragraph twice to make sure the writer meant to say what they said. Such was the case earlier this week regarding this article written by Jeffrey Gettleman in the New York Times about the civil war in Sudan:

"Both sides, according to many analysts, are more pragmatic than they are often given credit for. Despite being portrayed as careless brutes in many Western countries, the Islamist cabal that controls Sudan, starting with Mr. Bashir, has shown surprising elasticity." [emphasis mine]

Let's see if we can get this straight. The president of Sudan, Mr. Bashir, and his well-funded, government-backed Janjaweed militias are responsible for 200,000 to 300,000 deaths and the displacement of 3 million refugees. He has been cited for human rights abuses by hundreds of watchdog groups and charged with war crimes and genocide by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Even Time magazine has said of the Sudanese president's Islamist regime:

"Amid the chaos, the regime of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir continues its brutal crackdown, aggressively attacking rebel redoubts, indiscriminately killing civilians and razing entire villages."

Yeah, sounds like pragmatism to me. And that doesn't even include the well-documented rapes and child beheadings. So how could this regime be unfairly portrayed as careless brutes by anybody, let alone the West? Even activists on the Left have been willing to call out the Islamist northern Sudanese government as "evil." Such tepid writing by Mr. Gettleman is either the worst case of moral relativism ever or the result of new NYT sensitivity training to placate the international Muslim perspective (which can easily be summed up as "Israel is behind this to divert attention from their own crimes.").

Do we have to start placating the Al-Qaeda perspective now everytime we mention 9/11? This isn't objectivity in reporting. This is whitewashing the truth, blurring right and wrong in the name of political correctness.

A Kinder, Gentler Facetwitch

You will notice some changes as we enter the new year. They are mostly cosmetic. I wanted to give the blog a more reader-friendly appearance, but I also wanted to open the door for adding more variety in content. I also wanted something I could direct potential employers to as writing becomes more of a full-time job for me. Don't worry. My opinions haven't gotten any gentler. You will get the same brazen, well-thought out commentary with a side of snark (when deemed appropriate). And when it's not well-thought out, as always I'm sure you will let me know with your comments.

You will notice some new pages on the menu bar at the top of the screen. They are all currently under construction, but in the coming days I hope to have them up and working. I will share links to the most pertinent news stories of the day and some of my favorite videos. This is all in an attempt to turn this more into a blog you can visit daily and find new things, as opposed to just waiting around for my next column. My columns tend to take longer to write, because so much gets covered everyday in talk radio and the big blogs that I don't want to spend time rehashing. You deserve more than talking points. So I sift through hundreds of websites and wait for inspiration to strike.

I am also finally mastering the use of twitter. I've added several twitter tools to my computer and phone so I can share more thoughts (in 140 characters or less) with my readers - even when I'm away from my desk. Hopefully, these pass the censors at the FCC who have appointed themselves the new nannies of the internet. If you are interested in following my tweets (where I will also link to the best news stories of the day), simply add me. My handle is real easy to remember. It's @facetwitch.

May you and your family experience a renewal of liberty and a wealth of blessings in 2011! Here's hoping the 112th Congress undoes the damage caused by Nancy Pelosi's bunch.

10 Biggest Disappointments of 2010

Happy 2011! As trite as I find end of year lists (check out this top ten from last year if you don’t believe me), I am going to introduce one more to the already overcrowded field. Please accept my apologies up front, but I felt the need to reflect once more on the pain and agony 2010 brought so many of us (unless you’re Mark Zuckerbucks). Seriously, if facebook is the story of 2010, we’ve sunk to a new low in banality. So here’s to Twenty O’leven (much easier to say than two thousand and eleven) and the TEN BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS OF 2010:

10) US Soccer in the World Cup – The experts told us we should have high hopes for this team, yet we barely advanced to the second round (it took a breakaway goal in overtime) and then lost to Ghana in our first playoff game. Ghana! Most Americans can’t even find Ghana on a map (which could qualify as the 11^th biggest disappointment of the year). Oh well, there’s always next year… er... in four years.

9) Hollywood’s Lousy Movie Releases – In a few weeks, ten films will be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Unfortunately, there probably weren’t ten films worth seeing in 2010. Martin Scorsese released his worst effort in years (Shutter Island) and it turns out the critical early favorite is a film about facebook. At least it’s not in 3D. Who knows? Maybe next year we’ll get a sequel about ebay or the kindle.

8) Tea Party Candidates for U.S. Senate – They had solid ideas, but poorly run campaigns by inexperienced candidates combined with the smear tactics of the mainstream press doomed Joe Miller in Alaska and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of all was watching Sharon Angle fall to Harry Reid in Nevada. On the bright side, we got Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Still, if the conservative resurgence is going to save America from becoming the next Greece or Spain, we are going to have to do better in 2012.

7) Tiger Woods – We loved to root against him in the past, but when he’s struggling to find moral clarity and swinging his club more like the man in front of the golden EIB microphone than the Golden Bear, it just isn’t any fun to watch the world's former greatest golfer lose anymore. Here’s hoping Tiger gets his personal and professional life back on track in 2011 so we can root for the other guy again without feeling guilty.

6) Scott Brown – From the great new hope of the Republican Party and firewall against Obamacare to the disappointing RINO who might end up with a voting record to the left of Arlen Specter, no politician in Washington could disappoint us more in less time without the initials B.H.O. But maybe, just maybe, it will remind conservatives why Massachusetts Republicans can’t be relied on in presidential races either.

5) The Cupcake Fad – Gourmet cupcakes. Designer cupcakes. Five dollar cupcakes. Cupcakes not shaped like cupcakes. Everywhere you turned in 2010 there were cupcakes. Doctors offices, dry cleaners, and barber shops closed at an alarming rate but we got 20 new places to buy cupcakes. Surprisingly, they taste like... cupcakes. Perhaps no one looked sillier all year than a fifty year old man in a business suit licking the icing off a cupcake. We’re still a nation of adults, aren’t we?

4) Football in Texas – The Lone Star State prides itself on football. There is no greater church for the Texas sporting fan. And yet for the first time in recent memory, the Dallas Cowboys failed to make the playoffs AND the Texas Longhorns didn’t qualify for a bowl game. There was even talk of a Cowboys Super Bowl at the beginning of the year. HA! Meanwhile, Florida stole the Longhorns' coach-in-waiting,  and the Houston Texans are, well, the Houston Texans. The only bright spot of the year is TCU. Not to take anything away from what they’ve accomplished, but when TCU is the pinnacle of Texas sports, you know it’s been an unusually bad year.

3) Homeland Security – The myopic agency ended 2009 by failing to heed the warnings of a father in the U.K. who tipped off the CIA that his son was planning some kind of attack. You would think such a tip from a credible witness would at least initiate a red enough flag to get the underwear bomber’s name on a No Fly list. Nope. Follow that with the failed Times Square plot and efforts to placate every radical Muslim by calling their religious beliefs “peaceful” and refusing to use the word “terrorist” except when referring to Christian militias. Then initiate a heavy-handed security protocol at the airport that wastes valuable resources on law-abiding, non-threatening citizens and gropes and undresses ten year old children. We’re not any safer, but we’re conditioning our kids to give up their liberties and be less vigilant when faced with the all-powerful state.  It’s time for this bloated, intrusive, and ineffective government agency to go.

2) The Economy – Too many longtime local businesses have closed their doors. Unemployment has hovered around 10% all year. If you didn’t lose your job this year, you know someone who did. One in six Americans is on food stamps. Obamanomics hasn’t been good for anyone really except Goldman Sachs. Contain. Control. Regulate. Restrict. These are all words the Left uses to describe their favored government policy toward business and they are all antonyms of GROWTH.

1) Eric Holder’s Justice Department – They couldn't get a conviction against an Al-Qaeda terrorist accused of blowing up two African embassies in 1998, failing on 179 out of 180 counts, but they have the people of Arizona back on their heels for daring to check the legal status of arrested residents. They dropped all charges against two black panthers for intimidating voters outside the polls dressed in military-style uniforms and waving weapons. Most recently, they sued a school district for refusing to give a Muslim teacher a month off so she could take a vacation to Mecca. This is the most political Justice Department in history. What local or state entity will the federal government sue next for failing to give greater influence to special interest groups dear to Mr. Holder and President Obama?

Barack Obama's Department of Social Justice

Over at Powerline, they're referring to it as the Department of Selective Justice, but I think we all know what the true criteria is for selection. First the Arizona lawsuit, now this. As reported by IBD:

On Monday, Justice sued an Illinois school district for rejecting a Muslim teacher's request to take a three-week leave of absence to travel to Mecca. The suit claims that the Berkeley School District discriminated against middle-school instructor Safoorah Khan, whose religion "required" her to perform the hajj, and is seeking damages for this so-called victim.

But it's not stopping there. It seeks an order mandating school officials adopt policies accommodating all Muslim customs, no matter how unreasonable.

I have written before about the dangers of social justice and how it perverts every citizen's rights. Once again, Eric Holder is ignoring the American system of equality under the law to play favorites with select groups or classes of citizens. The repercussions of the Justice Department winning this lawsuit are truly frightening. It opens the door for all sorts of abuse, giving Muslims the status of protected citizens and possibly forcing our courts to recognize Sharia law down the road. And to think, they laughed at Oklahoma voters for overreacting when they passed a resolution to prevent courts from taking Sharia law into account. Suddenly, Justice is leading the charge to bring such radical change?

When it comes to our public schools, Jesus is apparently out but Mecca is in. I can't imagine the Justice Department getting involved in this matter if the teacher was asking for a three week break to visit Israel or take a Christian mission trip to Africa. Nor should they. It's a personal decision by the employee who clearly has a choice in their time and place of employment. It's not the responsibility of employers to accommodate such a leave of absence for any reason short of health and/or maternity leave.

No business could remain productive while trying to placate every worker's whim and religious "need." We'd sink into a depression, or worse, become Spain. The school industry is no different. I believe the needs of a child's education rank higher than the vacation plans of the hired help - no matter how holy. The question is why doesn't President Obama or Eric Holder?

Clinton's Phony Legacy

It certainly seemed strange this week to see Bill Clinton pressing for a tax compromise (along with President Obama) that prevented the tax rates from his presidency from coming back to fruition. After all, all we’ve heard for years from the center-left media and the Democratic Party is how great the economy was in the 1990’s as a result of Bill Clinton's tax hikes.

Well, with the tax rates expiring and going back to Clinton era levels without action by Congress, don’t we have a chance to test that very hypothesis? If it was the tax rates under Bill Clinton that led to good economic times (and a budgetary surplus), then why is the former president so dead-set against allowing them to go back to 1990 levels? Why is Bill Clinton avoiding the tax rates he put into place to instead endorse the tax rates created by George W. Bush? Will any Democrat remember this in a year and a half when they start clamoring for tax increases again?

I think we all know the truth. Bill Clinton’s economic legacy is a fraud. He got lucky in that 1) Republicans came to power in 1994 and forced spending cuts and welfare reform (I do give Clinton credit for signing that legislation) and 2) the dot.com bubble took place as the internet was developed and companies like google, yahoo, and amazon were created. Of course, the tech bubble later burst, but that was in the final four months of the Clinton presidency, overshadowed first by the Florida recount in a razor-close election and a year later by the tragic events of 9/11.

President Clinton is petrified of the truth, that his tax increases had nothing to do with the booming economy of the 1990’s, and he knows it’s a media myth that would be exposed by raising taxes in this economy with an attentive voting public. During bad times, the damage caused by tax hikes on families and businesses becomes evident. People feel the pain. In a good economy (and especially a bubble economy), the pain is camouflaged. In fact, there may be enough economic momentum to outlast the negative consequences of tax increases in the short term. In the long-term, however, tax hikes still aren’t good – even if they erase the deficit, because tax hikes stunt future growth and punish productivity.

The big news isn’t what Democrats or Republicans gained or gave up in pushing this tax compromise forward. The big news is President Obama and Bill Clinton endorsed George W. Bush’s tax rates over the Clinton tax rates. Incredible, if you think about it! For Obama, it improves his chances of getting re-elected, and for William Jefferson,  it protects his phony legacy.

If anyone is enjoying a “comeback” in Washington, I’m sorry Mr. Krauthammer, but it’s not President Obama. It’s George W. Bush.

Obama Bows Again, This Time to Bill Clinton

Tired of bowing to foreign leaders, President Obama bowed out to former president Bill Clinton on Friday at a White House press conference. In one of the more bizarre (and weakest) moments in modern presidential history, the so-called leader of the free world left Bill Clinton alone at the podium speaking to reporters about the White House tax plan as if he had just returned to Camelot. The real president, it turned out, had to attend a Christmas party, leaving the former president to run things. The only thing that would have seemed stranger perhaps would have been if Obama left Joe Biden in charge. I'm not sure Jill even leaves Joe in charge of the DVR.

Imagine for a moment if Bush 43 had ceded the stage to his father, Bush 41. Imagine the reaction the press would have had, how far in over his head they would have deemed him, especially given the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine that scenario, which is frightening to say the least, and you get a feel for just how bad this looks and how inept Obama's leadership has become. Someone page Rahm Emanuel, because it appears his president has completely checked out.

None of this should be surprising. Barack Obama has spent a lifetime bolting for the exit before the going gets tough. There's a reason he has a history of all those present votes in the state senate of Illinois. There's a reason he let Nancy Pelosi take the lead on so much legislation for the past two years. Barack Obama has spent a career running for office without ever actually running an office. Running an office, after all, tends to lead to decision-making. And making tough decisions in the face of adversity is the fastest way to lose popularity. Witness George W. Bush and the surge.

Two years in, and Barack has lost interest because he can't further his self-interest. Being president is getting in the way of his golf game, his approval ratings, and perhaps even his trip to Hawaii to celebrate the winter solstice (or whatever progressives celebrate on December 25). And coincidentally, if you look at Obama's entire political career, two years in is about as long as he can last before seeking further adulation in another position of power.

It was just two years into his term in the U.S. Senate when freshman Senator Barack Obama began his campaign for president. He made his first failed attempt for U.S. Congress just three years in as a state senator in Illinois. And it was only two and a half years later when he made the decision to run for the U.S. Senate. Unfortunately, there's no higher office to run for this time and Obama knows it. He's stuck governing for another two years, and in more difficult circumstances than ever. Add in a Republican controlled House, and not only will he be unable to control the agenda, his cabinet will be open to investigation while his popularity takes a nose-dive. And for a narcissist like Obama, nothing could be more consequential.

If Obama wasn't already a puppet of George Soros and John Podesta, he's now being upstaged by a shadow president in Bill Clinton. Funny, but Iowahawk predicted this day back in 2008. So much for satire. It really is starting to get confusing exactly who is in charge. Foreign leaders have to be licking their chops at such a show of impotence. That is, if they weren't licking their chops already back when Obama was offering hot dogs to Iranians to celebrate the 4th of July, getting the Russian translation wrong on "reset buttons", and bowing to Saudi princes.

What are the odds that President Obama won't seek re-election in 2012? I can't imagine him not running, because the process pretty much starts in six months and his ego won't allow him to not begin the campaign - but the chance of him bowing out of the race before the Democratic National Convention, for "health" or "family reasons" perhaps, seems to me greater than ever.