Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 2 Comments

I hope you’ll take the time to read this, especially if you don’t have access to the cable news options . . .


Covering the convention
Linda Chavez (archive)

September 1, 2004 | printer friendly version Print | email to a friend Send


I’ve been going to political conventions — Democrat and Republican — for 32 years, and I’ve never seen a bigger disconnect between what is actually going on at the convention and the way it is being reported.


 The networks decided to skip the opening night of the Republican convention. So unless you were one of the fewer than 10 million Americans who tuned into Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC or C-SPAN to hear Sen. John McCain or former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, you’d have no idea how powerful a case these two men made for George W. Bush’s re-election.


 Inside Madison Square Garden, the crowds were passionate, hanging on every word of Rudy’s long oration, jumping to their feet when he promised “President Bush will make certain that we are combating terrorism at the source, beyond our shores, so we can reduce the risk of having to confront it in the streets of New York . … President Bush will not allow countries that appear to have ignored the lessons of history and failed for over 30 years to stand up to terrorists, to dissuade us from what is necessary for our defense. He will not let them set our agenda. Under President Bush, America will lead rather than follow.”


 Even up in the nosebleed section where I watched the speech, the crowd’s enthusiasm rocked the Garden. But the New York Times didn’t see it that way. Instead the nation’s “paper of record” reported: “There is only the finest of lines between invoking a disaster in which all New Yorkers, and all Americans, regardless of party, felt such a devastating stake, and exploiting it for partisan advantage. From morning to night, the Republicans strode proudly, even defiantly, right up to that line — if not over it — and the delegates responded with roaring approval.”


 In other words, Republicans were being their usual Neanderthal selves. Interestingly, the Times didn’t feel the Democrats had exploited 9-11 for partisan purposes, despite some 100 mentions of 9-11 during the Democratic convention. “At their convention in Boston last month, the Democrats offered their own emotional tribute, with stirring music and videos, and delegates holding small flashlights simulating candles in the darkened hall. But that was nothing compared to the intense and personal speeches here,” writes the Times, “and Mr. Bush has already faced criticism for using images of firefighters and the flag in early campaign advertising.”


 Criticism from whom? Why, the liberal media, of course. The media are the arbiters of acceptable behavior. When Rudy Giuliani recounts what he and many New Yorkers felt — and said — on Sept. 11, 2001 — “Thank God George Bush is our president,” he’s politicizing a national tragedy. But when a prominent Democrat accuses the president of having been “warned ahead of time by the Saudis” that the country would be attacked, as Howard Dean did to little notice on National Public Radio earlier this year, well, that’s just one man’s opinion.


 When Democrats host a convention featuring military themes even though delegates are overwhelmingly opposed to the war in Iraq, the media sees no inconsistency. But when the GOP invites pro-choice Republicans to address the convention — not on abortion, but on the war on terrorism and tax policy — that’s proof that those sneaky right-wingers are trying to pull a bait-and-switch on the unsuspecting public, and it’s the media’s role to report endlessly on the GOP’s attempt to put forward a disingenuously “moderate” image.


 Thankfully, we no longer have to accept the New York Times’ version of the truth. More Americans are getting their information from alternative news sources today than ever before, including talk radio and the Internet. But the problem is too many people have simply decided to tune out altogether. I’m not sure what’s worse, remaining totally ignorant or accepting the deception that masquerades as news being dished out by the liberal media.



Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Townhall.com member organization.


©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 2 Comments

I hope that what Senator Zell Miller says is true . . .


and that a lot of Democrats out there actually support President Bush.  He wrote the following:


There are many Democrats like me, Democrats who believe in a strong military, and giving our military what it needs to get the job done.


When the Democrats met in Boston, they talked a lot about John Kerry’s service in Vietnam, but barely even mentioned his 20 years in the Senate.


Let me say as clearly as I can, what Lieutenant John Kerry did in Vietnam, is to be praised, and we should thank him for it every day, but not his shameful record on national defense as a U.S. Senator.  And not for voting to send our troops to war, but against the $87 billion to give them the equipment to fight that war.


I am honored to be speaking in New York, and I am proud to be a Democrat.  Mostly, I am proud to support President George W Bush.


I was encouraged by what former Mayor Koch said regarding the President, and I’m hoping that the Democrats that sent Zell Miller to Washington follow his lead and vote for President Bush as well.  I think there are a lot of Democrats out there that are Democrats in the same way that they are Smiths, or Browns, or Millers.  Their daddies, grand-daddies, and great-grand-daddies were Democrats and it’s a heritage thing.  They don’t realize just how far from real America the Democrats have moved.  Hopefully, with prominent Democrats speaking out in favor of the President, they will see the truth of what John Kerry stands for and realize that it is possible, and responsible, to vote for the man rather than the party.


I tell you, if I lived in Georgia, I’d vote for Zell Miller and I’m a Republican!

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 1 Comment

This is greatly encouraging to me . . .


Why Koch is on Bush’s bandwagon
Jeff Jacoby (archive)

August 30, 2004 | printer friendly version Print | email to a friend Send

 Ed Koch identifies himself with pride as a lifelong Democrat.  The former New York City councilman, congressman, and three-term mayor says his values have always been those of the broad Democratic center — the values of FDR and Harry Truman, of Hubert Humphrey and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  He disdains the Republican worldview as cold and unfeeling — “I made it on my own, and you should too.”  The Democratic philosophy, by contrast, he sums up as: “If you need a helping hand, we’ll provide it.”  No surprise, then, that Koch disagrees with George W. Bush on just about every domestic issue, from taxes to marriage to prescription drugs.
 
    But he’s voting for him in November.
 
    “I’ve never before supported a Republican for president,” Koch told me last week.  “But I’m doing so this time because of the one issue that trumps everything else: international terrorism.  In my judgment, the Democratic Party just doesn’t have the stomach to stand up to the terrorists.  But Bush is a fighter.”
 
    Koch was surprised and impressed by Bush’s resolve after Sept. 11.  “He announced the Bush Doctrine — he said we would go after the terrorists and the countries that harbor them.  And he’s kept his word.”  Koch doubts that the leadership of his own party could have mustered the grit to topple the Taliban or drive Saddam Hussein from power, let alone to press on in what is going to be a long and grinding conflict.
 
    “Already, most of the world is caving.  If you didn’t have Bush standing there, you’d have everybody following Spain and the Philippines” in retreat, he says, trying to appease the terrorists instead of fighting them.
 
    How much of his party does Koch speak for?  We won’t know for sure until Election Day, when exit polls help gauge how many Democrats crossed party lines to support Bush.  But Koch knows he’s not the only Democrat to regard the war against militant Islam as the most critical issue of the campaign.  And he doesn’t think he was the only one dismayed by what he saw at the Democratic convention in July.  From Michael Moore’s seat of honor next to Jimmy Carter, to the thunderous applause that greeted Howard Dean, to the 9 out of 10 delegates who want to pull the plug on Iraq, the convention exposed the radical antiwar mindset that dominates the Democratic Party leadership.
 
    But hasn’t Kerry pledged to stay in Iraq and to go after the terrorists?  “That’s what he says to appeal to moderates and conservatives during the campaign,” Koch replies.  But the party activists who nominated him would compel him to back down once he was in office.  The people now running the Democratic Party want no part of the war, and “when the chips are down, Kerry will do what they want.”
 
    It bears repeating: This is a faithful Democrat talking.  And it is as a faithful Democrat that Koch so sharply resists his party’s left wing.  (“The radicals don’t like me,” he once wrote.  “And they have good reason, because I despise them.”) Though he calls himself a “liberal with sanity,” he governed the largest city in America as a decided centrist.  Twice he was re-elected in massive landslides.  New Yorkers came to trust Koch’s instincts and judgment because they resonated so closely with their own.
 
    And what those instincts and common sense tell Koch today is that nothing matters more than beating back the threat from Islamic terrorists.  “I want a president who is willing to go after them before they have a chance to kill us,” he says.  “Party affiliation is an important consideration,” but it’s not more important than winning the war.
 
    In his 1984 autobiography, “Mayor,” Koch tells of his appearance before the Republican Party’s platform committee in 1980.
 
    “I was the first Democratic mayor to do so in anyone’s memory.  And it caused a stir.”  For the better part of an hour, Koch gave the Republicans his views on some of the era’s most intractable municipal issues, including unfunded federal mandates, block grants, and the heavy burden of Medicaid.
 
    “They were with me on all of these items,” Koch recalled — so much so that when the session ended, GOP Chairman Bill Brock half-jokingly invited him to join the Republican Party.  “I respectfully decline,” Koch answered.
 
    “Then we all went outside for pictures.  There I was asked by a reporter, `Mr.  Mayor, isn’t this political treason?’
 
    “I said, ‘If this be treason, make the most of it.  But it ain’t.'”
 
    It ain’t treason this time either.  In 1980, Koch’s highest concern was the fiscal security of New York City.  In 2004, it is the national security of the United States.  Americans are at war with fanatical enemies, and above all else, they need a commander-in-chief who can face those enemies without flinching.
 
    Koch’s political home remains where it has always been — in the party of FDR and Truman, Humphrey and Moynihan.  He is a loyal Democrat.  But as JFK once said, sometimes party loyalty asks too much.



©2004 Boston Globe

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 1 Comment

I just love Mike Adams’ columns . . . he’s so intelligent and witty, and his columns are incredibly on-point (IMHO):


Of mice and menopause
Mike S. Adams (archive)

August 27, 2004 | printer friendly version Print | email to a friend Send


You probably know her. She’s only in her forties, but she’s already on her fourth marriage. Her kids are grown so she decides to get a job at the local university. Now she has secure employment, even if her salary and benefits are not up to par. But, most of all, she likes what she hears from day one; namely, that her employer will assiduously defend the rights of blacks, women, and gays never to be offended in the workplace. She is protected by the campus speech code.


At first it starts with the occasional offhand remark. She jokes with a student worker, saying that she should just sleep with her professor to get a better grade. Then she jokes with a professor by telling him that the female office staff “sexually evaluate” him when he isn’t around. Then she embarrasses a student worker who complains about a kidney infection by saying “yes, we all know where that came from.”


But then it happens. Someone offends her. And it isn’t a woman or an African American. It isn’t even a homosexual. It’s just a conservative professor.


At first she says that she just wants to talk to him. But he doesn’t react the way that she expects. He isn’t condescending or angry. He just politely asks her what he might have said to offend her. So she starts to cry. Then she raises her voice. Then she asks for a three-way meeting with the department chair as she storms out of the office.


But the meeting never happens.  Instead, while the accused “offender” is at lunch, she runs to the department chair, saying she was made to feel uncomfortable by the professor’s political remarks. She cannot identify anything specific but the chair caves in anyway. He calls the professor into the office to make sure that he stops saying the unknown word or phrase that made her feel uncomfortable.


The woman I am referring to suffers from what I call Free Expression Menopause Syndrome (FEMS). FEMS causes her to have hot flashes and to become emotionally unraveled every time she hears an opinion contrary to her own. But this kind of reaction is by no means a female problem.


In fact, you probably know him, too. He’s in his thirties. He came out of the closet in his twenties. He’s never worked anywhere but a public university. He thinks that the speech codes were written because of cases like the one involving Matthew Shepard. And he thinks they were written for gays only.


He recently helped to organize a trans-gendered law seminar at the university. It was there that he made offensive remarks about Christians. But when a professor later writes to ask how much money the seminar cost the taxpayers, he suddenly remembers the university speech code that protects him from offensive speech.


So he refuses to release the information about the cost of the seminar. The professor asks again, suggesting that such costs are a matter of public record. He says that he is familiar with the professor’s tone (it is allegedly homophobic). Then he warns him that the conversation is “elevating in a way that makes him feel uncomfortable.”


The “man” I am referring to suffers from what I call First Amendment Male Menopause Syndrome (FAMMS). FAMMS causes him to have hot flashes and to become emotionally unraveled every time he hears an opinion contrary to his own.


Both of these syndromes, FEMS and FAMMS feed off of the cowardice of the majority. Decent people capitulate to these hypersensitive censors, often thinking that appeasement is the easiest way to handle them. They are wrong.


But, fortunately, there is a simple remedy to be found in the speech codes themselves. Anyone can use this remedy the next time that, for example, a gay man with FAMMS tries to suppress free speech because he is “offended” by apparent opposition to homosexuality.


First, the “offender” must take the time to make that opposition more clear. If he chastises the “offender” with an angry email, the appropriate response is a nice email, preferable with a Bible verse included below the signature. If someone really wanted to have fun, he could make it Leviticus 18:22.


If you decide to send such a note, get ready for the inevitable complaint accusing you of engaging in “discriminatory speech” by offending someone on the basis of sexual orientation. Then be ready to fire off your own complaint, stating that you were “offended” by the classification of your religious speech as “offensive.” Furthermore, cite the very filing of your accuser’s complaint as an act of religious discrimination.


Pretty soon, the university will get the point that its speech code is unworkable, not to mention unconstitutional. If they don’t get the point, drop me a line. I know a few lawyers who are ready to deal with this kind of “misunderstanding.”


Remember that the First Amendment does not protect people from being offended by your speech. In fact, it was written to protect speech that is offensive.


Most people understand that. Most college administrators do not.




©2004 Mike S. Adams

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 2 Comments

Does it bother anyone else that President Bush has asked that the ads regarding Kerry’s military service cease?


I love my president, but I am highly disturbed that he would ask this.  And it has nothing to do with “well, they did it, so why can’t we?”  It’s a matter of free speech.  I am against campaign finance reform because it stifles free speech.  Short of paying someone for their actual vote, I think all Americans should be free to shout from the rooftops their opinions regarding those in office or running for office.  Granted, some pocketbooks are deeper than others and can buy larger megaphones, but we all have voices and come in contact with many, many people every day.


How long before they shut blogs down like ours — blogs that say the same thing those ads do?

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 3 Comments

A funny (but accurate) joke from a friend:


Hot Air Balloon


A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, butI don’t know where I am.” The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and
100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.


She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be a Republican.”


“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”


“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”


The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Democrat.”


“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”


“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You’ve risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met but, somehow, now it’s my fault.”

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 1 Comment

Can you believe that someone could be so cruel to the very parent who gave them life????


I read the following in my email box earlier, and it gave me pause, for sure.  I’d always thought the idea of a “living will” to be a good one.  As best I understood it, one could put in writing her desire to go “peacefully into that good night . . . ” without lingering on like a cabbage connected to a high-tech irrigation system of life-prolonging tubes and wires.


Well, according this article, a living will also gives one’s relatives and physicians the ability to withhold food and water when one has ceased to have value in the eyes of those relatives and/or physicians.  At least that’s the way I read it.  Tell me what you think.  Do you think your kids should be able to decide when you’ve lived a good, long life?  When it should end?  And should they be able to decide to end it by withholding food and water?  How humane is that????


Louisiana Court Allows Family to Withdraw Life-Sustaining Nutrition, Hydration from Mother

WEST MONROE, Louisiana, August 23, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An 89 year-old woman who suffered a debilitating stroke is being denied life-sustaining food and water by her family and doctors — a court said it was okay because Doris Smith signed a living will. The daughter of the woman argues, however, that her mother never intended to be starved to death when she signed the legal document before her stroke.

Nurses at the nursing home stopped administering food and water to Mrs. Smith Monday, following the instruction of two other children, despite the efforts of attorney Jack Wright. The Louisiana Supreme Court refused to hear Smith’s daughter, Oris Pettis’, appeal. “We’re at the end,” Wright told the Associated Press.

“Most people have no idea that when it states in a Living Will/Power of Attorney that no further medical treatment will be provided in certain circumstances that it means they will also be denied food and fluids,” according to Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. “The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is called regularly by people who have no intention of granting their doctor or family members the right to dehydrate and starve them to death and yet have a Living Will/Power of Attorney document that would do just that.”

Pettis argued in three courts that her mother was not aware that waiving her right to “life-sustaining procedures” included the denial of food and water. The document signed by Smith is nearly identical to a standard state form used by thousands of Louisianans. In a list of definitions, not located directly on the living will form, but separately, is included the denial of food and water as part of the forfeiture of life-sustaining procedures.

“To intentionally kill someone by dehydration and starvation is euthanasia,” Schadenberg said. “This differs from removing fluids and food from someone who is nearing death and who’s body is shutting down, that act is normal protocol.”

“The dehydration and starvation of Doris Smith is a wake-up call,” Schadenberg continued. “The message is that everyone needs a Power of Attorney document that protects them. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition distributes the Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care. It is a legal document that will protect you from being dehydrated or starved to death and allow you to die a natural dignified death.”

Contact the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition for more information:
http://epcc.ca

Read local coverage: http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-11/109300584267841.xml&storylist=louisiana

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 10 Comments

Something to ponder for those who put too much emphasis on “feelings” . . .


“America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive. A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans. … The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity.” –Dick Cheney

Posted on by Laura Jinkins

Wisdom from Miss O’Hara . . .


If I may quote:


Anyhow. Most Americans, being economic ignoramuses for whatever reason, usually jump up from their La-Z-Boy and cheer when they hear that taxes are being raised on some sort of money-making operation. Of course, they don’t realize that raising the tax rate on the corporation will inevitably mean job loss, lower investment in other area businesses, and a general shrinking of the local or even national economy – higher tax rates on anyone is a bad idea, regardless of reason. One can explain these things – or at least attempt to do so – to folks, but they blow you off and tell you that you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’d have better luck explaining quantum physics to a six-year-old.


And back to me . . .


This is sooooo true!  Trust me.  I love to spend money.  Who doesn’t?  (Well, Ebenezers, of course . . .) But for the most part, we are a nation of consumers.  We consume, consume, consume.  We consume food, we consume clothing, we consume gas, we consume vehicles, we consume houses, furniture, entertainment, on and on and on.  WE CONSUME!  And all those things that we consume have to be produced by people who are in the employ of ack! corporations.  And when those corporations are taxed, they can’t afford to employ those people.  (Which lends itself to the minimum wage equation as well — if I have to pay $6,000 to 5 people, when I’ve only budgeted $5,000 — well, I’m probably going to have to let one of those people go.)


Anyway, higher taxes slow down everyone’s consumption of products!  I can’t buy as much as I might have before higher taxes.  The corporations can’t employ as many people as they might have before higher taxes/minimum wages.


It’s not rocket science, is it?