Crush Liberalism

Liberalism: Why think when you can “feel”?

Alter defends Obama’s outreach to black racist

Tucker Carlson takes leftard Jonathan Alter behind the woodshed on this one. Jonathan Alter, hopelessly leftist “editor” from Newsweak (you know, those guys who made up the whole Koran-flushing story?), tries to whitewash NYC Councilman Charles Barron. Barron, a former Black Panther and big time apologist for Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe (who starves his own people), is remembered for his “I wanna slap Whitey” remarks.

Anywho, Alter gets schooled, as seen here on Newsbusters:

Understanding fellow, that Jonathan Alter . . .

On this afternoon’s “Tucker Carlson” on MSNBC, the eponymous host mentioned that Barack Obama had travelled to NYC to seek the support of Charles Barron of Brooklyn. Carlson knows Barron well, the NYC Councilman being a frequent guest on Tucker’s show. Carlson described Barron as a “pretty straightforward racist, pretty straightforward black nationalist, anti-white character, exactly the kind of person you would not expect Obama to be courting.” He then asked guest Jonathan Alter: “What is Obama doing?

SENIOR NEWSWEEK EDITOR JONATHAN ALTER: “Well, I think Obama wants the support of everybody, and I think the question is whether he can have a tent that’s actually as big as the United States . . . The whole point of his campaign Tucker is to say “don’t judge me by any one of my supporters, I’m trying to get a super-big tent here” . . . I think it would be unfair to hold any of his supporter’s politics, you know, hold him accountable for what Charles Barron thinks.

Tucker wasn’t buying, and drew the logical analogy.

MSNBC HOST TUCKER CARLSON: If Rudy Giuliani went down and asked David Duke for his support, would you say, “you know, it’s unfair to hold Rudy Giuliani accountable for what David Duke said?” No, of course not! You’d write a cover story attacking him. That’s a ludicrous point.

ALTER: Charles Barron is not David Duke, so let’s not let that slide through, he’s not David Duke.

CARLSON: I would say he’s pretty close.

ALTER: If he was David Duke, you really wouldn’t have him on your show, Tucker. Even you have limits.

CARLSON: No, actually, I don’t.
…
Whether Barron is a black David Duke can be debated. But it is beyond cavil that Alter would vociferously condemn a Republican candidate who sought the support of a white leader with views mirroring Barron’s.

Score this one for Tucker.

Score, indeed. Alter is typical of what I generally expect to get from the left: a P.C. panderer who speaks before he thinks (since he also “feels” before he thinks). Carlson nailed him with an appropriate analogy, and the best that Alter could muster was “it’s not the same thing”…when actually, yeah, it is the same thing.

So, to recap Alter’s position: shmoozing with a black racist is “super big-tent outreach”, but shmoozing with a white racist would be horrible. Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

June 27, 2007 Posted by | bigotry, hypocrisy, media bias, political correctness | 1 Comment

"Ex-Marine teaches pickpocket a lesson"

Naturally, the AP gets the headline wrong. There are very few “ex-Marines” (James Carville and John Murtha as exceptions). Once a Marine, always a Marine. Anywho, from the AP:

Bill Barnes says he was scratching off a losing $2 lottery ticket inside a gas station when he felt a hand slip into his front-left pants pocket, where he had $300 in cash.

He immediately grabbed the person’s wrist with his left hand and started throwing punches with his right, landing six or seven blows before a store manager intervened.

“I guess he thought I was an easy mark,” Barnes, 72, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story Tuesday.

He’s anything but an easy mark: Barnes served in the Marines, was an accomplished Golden Gloves boxer and retired after 20 years as an iron worker.

Jesse Daniel Rae, the 27-year-old Newaygo County man accused of trying to pick Barnes’ pocket, was arraigned Monday in Rockford District Court on one count of unarmed robbery, a 15-year felony.

Barnes said he had just withdrawn the money from a bank machine and put it in the pocket of his shorts before driving to the Marathon service station and Next Door Food Store in Comstock Park, a Grand Rapids suburb.

He remembers noticing a patron acting suspiciously, asking the price of different brands of cigarettes and other items. While turned away, Barnes felt the hand in his pocket, so he took action.

“I guess I acted on instinct,” he said.

Kent County sheriff’s deputies said the store manager quickly came around the counter. The three of them struggled through the front door, where two witnesses said the manager slammed Rae to the ground and held him there.

“There was blood everywhere,” said another manager on duty, Abby Ostrom, 25.

Barnes was a regional runner-up in Golden Gloves competition in the novice and open divisions before enlisting in the Marines in 1956.

He lived most of his adult life in Comstock Park with his wife, Patricia, before recently moving to Ottawa County. The couple have three children.

After retiring as an iron worker, he now works part-time as a starter at a golf course.

Barnes said he’d probably do the same thing again under the same circumstances, if for no other reason than what he would face back home.

“I wouldn’t want my wife to give me hell for lettin’ that guy get my money,” he said with a smile.

Wait until the guys in the joint find out that Rae got his #ss kicked by a 72-year-old. He’ll be somebody’s b#tch by the end of his first week!

June 27, 2007 Posted by | humor, non-political | Leave a Comment

Popular liberal talk radio host claims libs can’t get fair shot on radio

Ed Schultz, one of the only successful liberal talk radio hosts (and in cherry red North Daokta, no less), laments that his leftist brethren can’t get a fair shake on talk radio. From NewsMax:

A popular left-wing talk show host claims liberal radio listeners are being denied the “fair market opportunity” their conservative counterparts receive, but a national media expert countered that the only standards any radio personality must meet are “ratings and revenue.”

“The numbers are undeniable – this industry is owned, operated and programmed by conservatives,” Ed Schultz said during a broadcast late last week. As a result, he told listeners that “progressive talkers are being held to a totally different standard than conservatives.”

“What you hear on this program you do not hear from 450 right-wing talkers in America who permeate the ears of those who don’t follow the news and [who] influence elections,” said Schultz, who is carried on more than 100 stations nationwide.

“This is about market opportunities. This is also about ownership. This is also about being given an opportunity to be on an equal signal with equal promotion,” he said.

Ed, you guys had (and still have) plenty of opportunities, especially with Air “we pilfer from the poor” America. AA was broadcast in liberal enclaves like NYC and LA, and it still failed. Conversely, Ed, your show broadcasts in a conservative city and state (Fargo, ND). Obviously, there’s more to it that you’re letting on to, you know. Continuing:

… “In Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, San Diego and Albuquerque, we [liberal radio shows] are making tremendous gains, and these radio stations are viable, salable products,” he said. Why don’t companies that own several stations “go after some progressive talk?” he wondered.

If those gains are as tremendous as you claim, then what are you b#tching about? Maybe this?

Highlighting what he said were the problems hosts like himself face, Schultz said he had been put on the air in Salt Lake City, but after two weeks, the program was taken down after “some soccer moms” gave the station “a little smoke and a little pushback.”

You mean…the market in Salt Lake wasn’t receptive to your message? Well, it MUST be the market’s fault, right?

OK, enough of his pap. Time for the debunking:

But Michael Harrison, publisher of the Talkers trade magazine, said Monday he did not believe that liberal and conservative talk show hosts are judged by different standards.

“The only standards anyone is held to are ratings and revenue,” he told Cybercast News Service. “Liberal or progressive hosts face the same challenges that conservatives do.”

While acknowledging the success of conservative Rush Limbaugh, Harrison said he “does not represent across-the-board radio. At his biggest and his best, he is only a small player in the broader picture of radio.”

Harrison was also critical of the report and those who support its conclusions, saying it merely proves that “conservative talk radio is dominated by conservatives, just as sports talk stations are dominated by football.”
The writers of the report “picked more than 200 stations owned by certain companies and created the impression that’s all of talk radio, and that all of talk radio is dominated by conservatives,” he said.

“Where’s National Public Radio [in the report]?” Harrison asked. “Millions and millions of people – some of the biggest radio audiences in the country – are listening to NPR. It certainly is not conservative, but it certainly is talk.“
…
“Stations that play rock don’t like to play opera. What if you did a survey of the top 200 rock stations and found they’re 95 percent rock and only five percent classical music? Would that mean opera is held to a different standard than rock?“

The finishing touches:

Even if what the report said is true, he said, “it’s still very dangerous” for politicians to determine such issues for the media. “I think that terrestrial radio is regulated enough as it is while it competes against all the other media available today.”

Harrison stressed that both he and his magazine are nonpartisan. “The only reason I’m critical of this [liberal report] is because it’s wrong. I would be critical of anything that the conservatives came out with that was wrong as well.

“What I’m in favor of is what should be on everyone’s agenda – free speech, the free marketplace of ideas and the First Amendment,” he added.

Yes, but “free speech, the free marketplace of ideas and the First Amendment” have never been the left’s area of expertise, now has it? That, in addition to their shameful desire to silence their ideological opponents in a manner used by Hugo Chavez, is why they want Big Daddy Gubmint to come to their rescue.

June 27, 2007 Posted by | Fairness Doctrine | Leave a Comment

"Big-Government Conservatives"

Excellent column by John Stossel, via RCP:

“Reviving the Hamilton Agenda.” That’s the headline the New York Times gave David Brooks’s recent column honoring Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father perhaps least interested in limiting political power. Unlike his rival Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton favored strong central government and weaker states.

And he didn’t trust the free market. He was an old-fashioned mercantilist — he wanted politicians and bureaucrats to control private economic activities for the sake of special business interests.

In the true Hamiltonian spirit, Brooks also doesn’t trust the market — which means he doesn’t trust free, peaceful individuals and private property. He writes, “We Hamiltonians disagree with the limited government conservatives [I assume Brooks has libertarians like me in mind] because, on its own, the market is failing to supply enough human capital.”

Now David Brooks is a bright guy, so I wonder how he can blame the free market for failing in this way. He continues, “Despite all the incentives, 30 percent of kids drop out of high school and the college graduation rate has been flat for a generation.”

Excuse me, but why is that the market’s fault? Government dominates education in America. K-12 education is a coercive, often rigidly unionized government virtual monopoly that fights every attempt to experiment with free-market competition.

Brooks writes that Hamiltonians like him “think government should help people get the tools they need to compete.” But when has government ever been good at that?

He claims the state can “increase the quality of human capital” by, for example, providing “Quality preschool [to] help young children from … disorganized homes. … “

Really? What is the chance that it would be “quality” preschool if government runs it? Even the acclaimed Head Start has not been shown to have any lasting effect on academic performance.

Why does Brooks think the government is competent enough to “help … people compete”? He writes that liberals’ “programs haven’t worked out,” but then proposes his own. When I challenged him on that, he said his ideas are in a “different category” and argued that some intervention is effective and necessary.

Please. When I asked Brooks why a government that performed as ineptly as FEMA did after Hurricane Katrina will be better at running preschools, he said, “Some lives are so screwed up, it’s hard to make them worse.”

Government coercion almost always makes things worse. It discourages individual effort, and sucks capital away from more productive uses.

Brooks, like a good Hamiltonian, favors coercive government micromanagement. He says, “Bigger child tax credits and increasing the earned income tax credit [welfare] can reduce the economic strain on young families. … [G]overnment should increase funding for basic research, especially in math, engineering and physics.

“The list could go on.”

That’s what I’m afraid of.

Government will choose which “basic research” to fund? Does he recall the 1970s synthetic-fuels program or the 1990s Superconducting Super Collider boondoggle ?

Child tax credits? Just cut taxes for everyone!

Brooks even advocates national service, “forcing city kids to work with rural kids, and vice versa.”

Why are pundits and politicians so eager to use force against others?

America became an economic power despite, not because of, Hamiltonian intervention. Hong Kong and much of East Asia went from abject poverty to affluence in a few decades not because their governments gave people “tools they need to compete” — they didn’t — but because they exercised limited powers.

I wish Brooks and other Hamiltonian conservatives understood that freedom and prosperity have nothing to do with bureaucrats managing society through schooling and tax manipulation. Prosperity comes from leaving people free in a legal system that respects their persons and property so they can pursue their dreams while taking responsibility for their actions. Free people find their own tools if the state leaves them alone.

In the era of big government, the last thing we need are champions of the statist Hamilton. What we need now are champions of the libertarian Jefferson, who said in a very un-Hamiltonian way: “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”

June 27, 2007 Posted by | economic ignorance | Leave a Comment

Hamas member works for the Beeb

That would explain why the Beeb was soliciting tips on allied troop locations in Iraq last month, now wouldn’t it? From Hot Air:

And just like that, last summer’s controversy over the mixed motives of Arab stringers takes on a repulsive yet exciting new dimension. What’s next? Hizb ut-Tahrir members working for the Guardian?
Despite Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) opposition and per the request of the BBC, the coordinator of government activities allowed a Hamas member who works for the BBC to enter the Gaza Strip last week to assist in efforts to release kidnapped journalist Alan Johnston.

Defense officials told The Jerusalem Post that a week ago, a request came from the BBC asking that a Palestinian employee of the news company who is believed to be a close associate of senior Hamas officials be allowed to enter Gaza.

And to think, I thought the biggest absurdity of the Alan Johnston kidnapping would be Hamas playing the role of hostage negotiator. Exit question one: Why would an infamously left-wing news organization employ members of a genocidal religious fascist group? Hmmm.

LGF asks a valid question: “Can anyone explain to me how this does not violate British law? Because Hamas is an officially proscribed terror group in the UK.”

Nope…no liberal media bias! Actually, I can’t use that tagline anymore for the Beeb, since they admitted that they are indeed left-wing.

June 27, 2007 Posted by | Beeb, media bias, religion of peace, shameful | Leave a Comment

Quote of the day

As many of you know, the Senate voted to invoke cloture yesterday on the wildly unpopular amnesty bill, bought and for by business interests. A bunch of Republicans insulted your intelligence by claiming that they voted for cloture but will vote against the bill (apparently, Kerryitis is contagious), knowing that the bill is likely to pass despite their “No” votes. Interestingly and surprisingly, socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) voted “No” to invoke cloture.

With that in mind, I bring you today’s “Quote of the Day” from Laura Ingraham:

When Bernie Sanders is more in touch with the American people than President Bush on this issue, you know the Republican Party is in trouble.

Ouch.


Just want to come here, work, assimilate, etc. Right?

June 27, 2007 Posted by | illegal immigration, quote of the day | Leave a Comment

   

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