Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Did You Catch These?

* President Obama, superb patriot that he is, announced yesterday that he's "proud generally" of what U.S. troops have achieved in Afghanistan.

* ...James O'Keefe's new video from Vermont could not be more timely, coming the day after the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division blocked a Texas photo ID requirement for voters--to the applause of the American Civil Liberties Union, which claimed that the law was “discriminatory” against “Latinos, African-Americans, elderly citizens, and others.”

As the Project Veritas video shows, the current system in Vermont discriminates against actual legal voters, who must face the prospect of disenfranchisement by those who would vote in their stead illegally, or have their votes cancelled out by those voting illegally in place of deceased voters who have yet to be removed from the rolls. If it is not discriminatory for Vermont citizens to be required to show ID to get married or buy alcohol, it is certainly not discriminatory to make them show ID to vote…

* "For years, I've warned conservatives about the bigoted rhetoric and dubious analysis that Rush Limbaugh offers on his radio program. There is no bigger critic of the man than me. I am nevertheless appalled by the prominent liberals who want the state to use its coercive power to silence him…" (Conor Friedersdorf)

* It's a bad day for optics in the White House, and a bad day for the administration's strategy of deflecting from these awful truths with an elaborately-staged press conference on contraception designed to divert attention away from a two-pronged failure: the attack on the free practice of religion by way of abridging employers's freedom to choose faithfully against providing "free" contraception, and the sinking confidence in the President concerning his mismanagement of the nation's economy and energy policies… (Dana Loesch, "Obama's 'War On Women' Backfires")

* ...Fortunately, a student at WSU did know the law and contacted David French at the ACLJ. Shortly after receiving a First Amendment lesson from French, WSU revoked the discriminatory policy and restored equal funding rights to its religious groups. This area of law is settled; what is surprising is that there are still universities out there that continue to pretend they didn’t "get the memo." They need to watch Office Space before they get sued and wind up with a bad case of the Mondays. (My apologies go out to those who haven’t seen the movie and missed the pop culture reference altogether).

Religious speech on campus must be treated like all other speech on campus. To say that a student group should be disfavored simply because its viewpoint is based on religion - rather than any other belief or “orientation” – is unmitigated bigotry. To permit such a distinction would be to allow the university to silence any speech that does not conform to administrative orthodoxy. Put simply, it would cause the university to cease being a university.

It is good that WSU has chosen to repent and turn from its sinfully censorious ways. Credit belongs to those First Amendment evangelists who spread the good news of religious liberty on our nation’s campuses. Real scholars would be lost without them.
(Mike Adams, "The Wichita Lineman")

* ..."Welfare Queen Fluke will never produce anything of value to society. She will fit easily into the industry of regulation, bigger government, and reduced personal freedoms. She believes everything she wants -- birth control, abortion, whatever -- is an entitlement for which the government must pay. The welfare queens of the 1980s were small-timers. Welfare Queen Fluke and her ilk are an existential threat to fiscal responsibility. Just think about how many thousands of them are graduating this year to enter government jobs or political campaigns…" (Jed Babbin, American Spectator)