Dr. Crouse's article does an excellent job in cutting through the politically motivated liberal spin of the Brookings Institution's press release of its latest report on poverty.   Read on. 

The Politicizing of Poverty
by Janice Shaw Crouse
Tuesday, March 27, 2007

It’s one thing to write policy recommendations; it is quite another to develop effective policy. Ironically, some of those who develop policy recommendations oppose those same ideas when implemented into policy –– especially when the wrong party does the implementing. For instance, the Brookings Institution’s Center on Children and Families just released a report, “Attacking Poverty and Inequality: Reinvigorate the Fight for Greater Opportunity.” Here’s how the press release for their paper begins.

The nation’s poverty rate is higher now than it was in the 1970s and there are large and growing gaps between the rich and the poor. No President since Lyndon Johnson has made fighting poverty a major plank of his campaign or goal of his administration.

Are these statements true? Yes. Do the statements give a fair and insightful representation of the facts? Hardly. Such statements will get the media’s attention, but why should top rank analysts like Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill pander to the media? The Brookings Institution ranks as one of Washington’s most prestigious liberal think tanks. Brookings is a big, top-drawer operation with $302 million in assets and is extremely well-funded by foundations with $56 million in operating revenue. By comparison the largest conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, has only about half as many assets, $160 million, and operating revenue of $40 million.

The first two sentences in the press release (which compress the first paragraph of the Haskins-Sawhill report) significantly misrepresent the facts of the situation. To see why they were inserted, ask whether readers, particularly reporters looking for a story, would have gotten the same sense of conditions under the current administration in the 2000-2005 period as compared to the 1970-1975 period if the opening sentence had read: Poverty rates for both unrelated individuals and persons in all family subgroups of the population, with one minor exception, are lower in 2005 than they were when the overall poverty rate reached its historic low of 11.1 percent in 1973 under the Nixon administration.”

Alternatively, what would the reader have come away with if the lead sentence had read as follows?

The poverty rate for children living in female-headed families was nearly 10 percentage points lower in 2005 than it was in 1973 when the overall poverty rate was at its historic low.”

Why focus on this particular rate? Because, in some sense the poverty rate for children living in female-headed households (without a spouse present) represents the gold standard for measuring the effectiveness of federal, state and local government programs aimed at alleviating economic hardship of one of the most vulnerable groups in society.

So why, if poverty rates for the various groups have gone down since 1973, has the overall poverty rate gone up? The Brookings report states, “A major factor in both generating and fighting poverty is the state of the economy.” That answer is wrong. The answer, though full of tedious statistics, is not all that complicated: the increase in the overall poverty rate is due to the decline in the percentage of the population living in married-couple families whose poverty rate is a fraction of that of any other group. (Emphasis added.)

In 1973, persons in married-couple families made up about 79 percent of the population, persons in female-headed families were 10.5 percent, and unrelated individuals were 9 percent. In 2005 persons in married-couple families had declined to only 63 percent of the population, persons in female-headed families (whose poverty rate is 5 to 6 times that of persons in married-couple families) had increased to 14.4 percent, and unrelated individuals (whose poverty rate is 3 to 4 times that of persons in married-couple families) had nearly doubled to 17 percent. Persons in male-headed families with no spouse present (whose poverty rate runs about 20 percent) had grown to 5 percent of the population in 2005.

These facts are important to establish in order to make the following point: If the family structure of the population had not changed from 1973 to 2005, the overall poverty rate – instead of increasing to 12.6 percent – would have decreased to 9.8 percent in 2005. Thus, it is not purely or even primarily weakness in the performance of the economy that has produced the increase in the overall poverty rate in 2005 as compared to the historic lows of the early 1970s.

A headline about changing family structure wouldn’t be effective, however, for two reasons. One, it would make reporters’ eyes glaze over, and two, it does not lay the blame for increased poverty at the door of the current administration and its so-called “tax cuts for the rich.” A third reason is that the problem relates to irresponsible sexual behavior. Much of the poverty problem is related to the growth of single-parent families, a fact that is recognized further down in the Brookings report in the following statement. Three of the most effective ways to reduce poverty are to increase work levels, reverse the growth of single-parent families, and improve educational outcomes.

Note that even liberal social analysts must come to terms with the negative outcomes of dysfunctional sexual behavior. They try to formulate policy proposals to deal with the consequences of non-marital sex in terms compatible with their world view that sees social structures as the sources of problems and government programs as their solutions. So, they seek funding for yet another iteration of government programs rather than acknowledge the root moral-values issues, which, to be fair, are the purview of today’s religious leaders, many of whom have forsaken the true message of their calling.

We know, too, that ever-larger funding for education is not going to change the reality that children who grow up without a father present often turn a classroom into barely controlled chaos where learning is a very difficult proposition. But these realities have not yet penetrated the culture. The downward trend in the marriage rate among unmarried women age 15-44 continues. The marriage rate today is a little less than half of what it was in the mid-1960s. Also the unmarried birthrate of women 20 and older continues to rise year after year.

The charge has long been wielded that the rise in unwed birth rates was the consequence of poverty. Yet, with the advent of the abstinence movement, the rise of the unwed birthrate among American teens miraculously stopped climbing in the early 1990s after rising almost every year since WWII. The unwed teen birthrate has since declined by 25 percent. Funny, after listening to the left incessantly sing the song that youths could not control their raging hormones, yet another myth has been swept into the trash can.

Thus, changes in social values –– the decline in marriage and increase in divorce ––rather than the performance of the economy or the particular economic policies pursued by government account for the increase in the overall poverty rate. This is not to say that some government policies are not better than others. Certainly welfare reform has been a tremendous success, a success however that is waning as liberal bureaucrats have found loopholes that they are using to revert to their old ways. In the end, for the most part, personal choices regarding sexual behavior, not government policy, determine marriage and child bearing, something over which (in our free society) government has only limited influence.

Ordinary people know from their experience trying to deal with cumbersome government bureaucracy that government solutions are inherently inefficient; only dreamers and liberal policy analysts think otherwise. Even the Brookings report noted that the over $580 billion spent by the government on means-tested programs designed to assist the poor (four times that spent in 1968) has failed to address and has even made worse the main causes of poverty. Sometimes in the wake of events like Hurricane Katrina, the citizenry’s frustrations with mismanaged government programs, to say nothing of the deliberate fraud and abuse, make them wonder if the best that can be hoped for from legislatures is that they not levy taxes that discriminate against marriage. These are unpalatable realities for those hopeful researchers and policy advocates with their faith that heaven is possible on earth if we just get the right mix of government policies . . . and, of course, elect politicians of the “left” sort.

Sadly, it’s not politically correct to focus on moral values and responsible sexual behavior but as the public relations folks at Brookings recognize, there is always a good market for yet another press release full of hopeful promises about governmental programs.

Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the think tank for Concerned Women for America, is a recognized authority on domestic issues, the United Nations, cultural and women’s concerns.

The following reader of Michelle Malkin's latest column posted this response.  Its message is priceless.

I Am A Loyal Democrat

I am Loyal Democrat.

I will take the side of any entity that declares itself to be an enemy of the United States. I will consider any action taken by my government to be improper, and defend the position of any nation that opposes my own. I will not stand by while the concepts of freedom and liberty are allowed to infect the thoughts of repressed peoples. Rather, I will combat such efforts and convince the slaves of dictatorships that they have it better than anyone else.

I am Loyal Democrat.

I will tell all Americans that they had 9/11 coming as retribution for all of our evil deeds inflicted upon members of the most peaceful religion on earth. I will work to undermine any effort to destroy the Islamic tidal wave of terror that has vowed to wash onto our beaches. I will strive to weaken our military as it attempts to carry out its mission overseas. I shall encourage total surrender to any foe that threatens us.

I am Loyal Democrat.

I shall stir up domestic unrest by separating my fellow citizens into groups, and then I will encourage each group to distrust the next, and convince each that I am their one true friend. Through this magnificent deception, I will rule them all. I will convince minorities that they are inferior, and that they need my special help to succeed in life. Once I have them suspicious of others and fully demoralized, I will keep them down, and make their every gain dependent on what I decide to let them do. I shall oppress minorites worse than any avowed racist could ever hope to.

I am Loyal Democrat.

I will make every effort to criticize people that achieve, to hinder those that aspire, and ridicule those that display self-worth. In spite of my lack of personal merit, I will elevate myself in the eyes of others by bringing people with actual character down. I will prey on people's envy of others' success, and I will gain undeserved power as a result. I will take from those that earn until they lose the motivation to build up mankind any longer.

I am Loyal Democrat.

I will promote the tyranny of socialism, and crush the only economic system that has advanced mankind. And when we are all financially destitute and controlled by an omnipotent government, I shall laugh at the destruction I have wrought, for I truly hate mankind.

I am Loyal Democrat.

Remember me in 2008 kiddies.....

The John Doe Manifesto
by Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Note: Earlier this month, six publicity-seeking imams filed a federal lawsuit against US Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Muslim clerics were removed from their flight last November and questioned for several hours after their suspicious behavior alarmed both passengers and crew members. Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten reported last week that the imams, advised by the grievance-mongers at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also plan to sue "John Does" -- innocent bystanders who alerted the authorities about their security concerns. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., has introduced legislation to protect John Does who report suspicious behavior from legal liability. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; talk show host Michael Reagan; Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, who heads the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; and Minnesota lawyer Gerry Nolting have all stepped forward to offer free representation to the imams' targets.

Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,

You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.

I am John Doe.

I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.

I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.

I am John Doe.

I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.

I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.

I will act when homeland security officials ask me to "report suspicious activity."

I will embrace my local police department's admonition: "If you see something, say something."

I am John Doe.

I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing "scholars."

I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.

I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.

I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.

I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.

I am John Doe.

Click here to read the rest.

Ky. cases pose question: What defines a father?
Lawsuits test extent of rights

By Andrew Wolfson
awolfson@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

For 11 years, Gary Denzik paid child support for the girl he loved and thought was his daughter. Then his ex-wife sent him a DNA test showing he wasn't the father after all.

"It killed me," said Denzik of Bowling Green. "It was like hearing your child had died in a car accident."

Denzik got a court order stopping his payments and sued his ex-wife for fraud. A jury later found she knew all along he wasn't the father -- that he was a so-called duped dad -- and awarded him $54,770 in damages, the amount he paid in child support the past five years.

The Kentucky Supreme Court narrowly upheld that verdict last June but left unanswered vexing questions about what makes a father a father: Is it the man who contributed only the sperm? Or the one who changed a child's diapers, taught her how to ride a bike and took her to soccer practice?

Courts around the country are struggling with those questions, including in two emotional cases from Jefferson County.

In one, Ren Hinshaw, 58, is fighting to retain joint custody of a child he helped raised and loves as his own, even after finding out the boy is not his biological child. "He is my son, and I am his dad," Hinshaw said in an e-mail to the newspaper.

The child's mother says Hinshaw should have no right to custody.

In another case, a biological father, James G. Rhoades Jr., 36, of Tallahassee, Fla, is battling to play a part in the life of a baby he fathered with a married woman from Louisville. The woman and her husband want to keep him out of the infant's life to preserve the sanctity of their family.

"I know this involves a family," Rhoades said, "but he is my family too."

The 'blood thing'

For centuries the definition of a father was simple: He was the man married to the mother. But with more than one-third of children now born out of marriage -- and the advent of inexpensive DNA testing -- the rules aren't so simple.

"DNA has changed everything," said Denzik's lawyer, Kelly Thompson, who has since been elected to the state Court of Appeals.

At least seven states -- but not Kentucky -- have enacted laws allowing men to challenge paternity whenever deception is discovered, no matter the child's age, so that they no longer have to pay child support.

The push for such laws is spearheaded by Carnell Smith of Decatur, Ga., who founded U.S. Citizens Against Paternity Fraud in 2001, after he was forced to make payments for a child who wasn't his.

He urges every divorced father who is paying child support to get a DNA test.

"If the DNA doesn't fit, you must acquit," is the rallying cry of the group, which lobbied successfully for a paternity fraud law in Georgia and claims members in 30 states.

The implications of the debate are enormous.

As many as 1 million of the 27.9 million fathers in the United States are caring for children who aren't theirs, according to a 2005 study published in Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and other data.

But advocates for children say it can be devastating when a man renounces his ties with a child who has thought of him as father.

"Children aren't into the 'blood' thing," Louisville social worker Linda Block-Coalter testified in the Hinshaw case. "Children are into who keeps them safe and who's there."

A duped dad

Denzik, a millwright at Bowling Green's Corvette plant, said he loved his daughter and visited her sporadically through the years as she moved from state to state with her mother.

Then, in 2000, she turned 13 and her mother, Candy Blazar, told Denzik that the girl was the product of an extramarital affair with a former boyfriend.

He said he decided to sue in part because she wouldn't let him see the girl anymore. He also said he wanted to "draw a line in the sand -- to say a woman can't do this."

Blazar claimed in court that she never deceived Denzik; she said she didn't realize her daughter wasn't his until she saw a photo of the ex-boyfriend's other daughter, who was the same age, and was struck by the resemblance.

But a jury in Warren Circuit Court concluded she knew from the start.

She had been having sex with the ex-boyfriend more than with Denzik at the time the child was conceived, according to court records. And when Denzik got a call at about that time from someone accusing her of having an affair, she insisted it was just a prank.

The state Supreme Court, voting 4-3, affirmed the verdict over the vociferous objection of Chief Justice Joseph Lambert, who warned the ruling would unleash an "open season" on paternity and destroy relationships between parents and children.

Though Denzik had paid child support for a child ultimately found not to be his, Lambert said, he received "the intangible value of 13 years of fatherhood of a child to whom he appears to have been devoted."

Denzik hasn't collected the $54,770 judgment and says he expects he never will because Blazar has moved to Missouri; she didn't return several calls seeking comment.

He said he hasn't seen the girl he thought of as his daughter, now nearly 20, in more than two years and that his legal victory was hollow.

"Everybody lost," he said.

But the opinion already has been cited in reversing a contempt citation -- and potential six-month jail sentence -- against a Barren County man who refused to pay child support after DNA testing showed he wasn't the father.

Denzik's lawyer sent Denzik a copy of the Barren County order, along with a note that said, "I just wanted you to know the good you accomplished."

A 'psychological father'

Hinshaw was in the delivery room when the boy he thought was his son was born in 1999.

He cut the umbilical cord and later changed the boy's diapers, taught him to talk and volunteered at his school, according to court records.

Hinshaw, a technology consultant at the University of Louisville's Kornhauser Health Sciences Library, described the boy in court records as the most important thing in his life.

But when the child's mother, Jacqueline, divorced Hinshaw in 2003, she disclosed he wasn't the biological father and asked Jefferson Family Court to deny him custody.

Judge Virginia Whittinghill ordered a counselor to meet with the child. She concluded he had bonded with Hinshaw and that it would be "very devastating to him if he was not in his life." She described Hinshaw as the boy's "psychological father."

Whittinghill not only granted Hinshaw's motion for joint custody, she also made his home the boy's primary residence and ordered his ex-wife to pay him $25,000 in attorney's fees.

The Court of Appeals last September affirmed the decision, saying the case wasn't about paternity but "the custody rights between a husband and wife as they relate to a child born and raised within the confines of the marriage."

Hinshaw's ex-wife, who has since remarried, is now asking the state Supreme Court to hear the case. She and her lawyer, Peter Ostermiller, declined comment, but in court papers they say that DNA should rule, even if the decision is not in the child's best interests.

They also contend that Hinshaw had no standing to seek custody, just as the state Supreme Court held last year when it denied such rights to a lesbian partner who was not a child's legal parent.

After two years as the boy's primary parent, Hinshaw said in court papers that his bond with the child has grown even stronger and that it would "take a chunk" out of his heart if the child was taken away.

"This is a bond that no person should put asunder," he said.

The marriage presumption

Rhoades said he was a graduate student when he met a married Louisville woman online and then in person in Florida, where she was living with her husband, a Navy officer stationed in Pensacola.

After the woman, Julia Ricketts, gave birth to a son in June 2006, a DNA test showed that Rhoades was the father, according to court papers filed later by Rhoades and his lawyer.

For three months, Ricketts allowed Rhoades to visit the infant at least a dozen times in Louisville, and Rhoades provided diapers, formula and clothing for the child, he and his lawyer, John Helmers, say in pleadings.

The visits were kept secret from Ricketts' husband Jonathan, Helmers said.

In August last year, after the relationship between Rhoades and Ricketts ended and she refused to let him see the baby anymore, Rhoades went to court and demanded custody, records show.

The Rickettses asked Family Court Judge Joseph O'Reilly to dismiss the case.

In court papers, the couple's lawyers, who include Jonathan Ricketts' father, Charles E. Ricketts Jr., said Rhoades had no right to file the case because one of the oldest and strongest presumptions under the law is that a child born to married parents is presumed to be their child.

"The principle that biology is not necessarily supreme … has a long and cherished history," they argued. The marital presumption, as it's called, is designed to foster stability within families.

In an interview, Julia Ricketts said she and her husband cut off communications with Rhoades in part so they could try to repair their marriage. She also said they were worried that they would lose the baby entirely because Rhoades had petitioned for "sole custody." Rhoades said he did that on advice of Helmers, "to start at the top."

The Kentucky courts have never ruled on whether someone in Rhoades' position has the right to challenge the fatherhood of a child born to married parents.

Other states, though, have ruled the married couple's rights are supreme. And the U.S. Supreme Court held in 1989 that a biological father outside of a marriage has no constitutional right to try to prove paternity of a child born to married parents.

But the courts also have held in a range of cases that fathers not married to the mother have a constitutionally protected interest in their children.

And ruling against the Rickettses, the Kentucky Court of Appeals last month refused to order O'Reilly to dismiss Rhoades' case, although the court didn't rule on the merits of the underlying issue.

That sent the controversy back to Jefferson County, where an attempt to mediate it failed, Rhoades said. A custody hearing is set for May 24.

Julia Ricketts said she still hopes the case can be settled "as carefully and lovingly as we can for all the parties."

Rhoades, who lives in Tallahassee, where he is a librarian at Florida State University, said he was allowed to see the baby for 15 minutes earlier this month, but that the visit was painfully short.

"I love and miss him terribly," Rhoades said. "He is the love of my life."

This article my Michael Medved brilliantly and beautifully analyzes the motivations behind modern liberalism.

What constitutes the essence of modern liberalism?

Conservatives will return to decisive victories only if we come to terms with liberalism’s visceral appeal. The best way to overcome our ideological adversaries is to understand their approach to major issues.

While conservatives obsess over distinctions of right and wrong, and insist that inevitable consequences must flow from good and bad behavior (see last week’s column), liberals focus on differences of another sort entirely.

The rhetoric of today’s left shows that they see society divided between the privileged and the powerless, the favored and the unfortunate, victors and victims.

Liberals feel an irresistible instinct to take sides with the less fortunate.

While the right wants to reward beneficial choices and discourage destructive directions, the left seeks to eliminate or reduce the impact of the disadvantages that result from bad decisions. In place of the conservative emphasis on accountability, the left proffers a gospel of indiscriminate compassion.

This leads directly, and inevitably, to the liberal passion to sanctify victimhood.

"Enlightened" lefties long to embrace and exalt all those who claim to have suffered from hard luck or oppression: the homeless, single mothers, "people of color," homosexuals, AIDS patients, feminists, convicted criminals, Native Americans, atheists, immigrants and many more. Recent Democratic Conventions have resembled festivals of fine whines, with countless testimonials from one victim group or another expressing hopelessness and helplessness unless the Donkey Party returned to power.

The leftist impulse to side with the underdog has become so powerful that liberals never bother to inquire whether a given "oppressed" group counts as deserving or not.

Click here to read the rest.

WARNING: This footage, showing a 6'1'', 250 lbs. off-duty police officer in a drunken rage, assualting a 5'4'', 130lbs. female bartender, is pretty disturbing.  As the news report says, the assailant has been stripped of his police duties and will probably be fired.  (He was released from jail after posting 70% of his bond.)

I hope a judge and jury throw the book at this jerk!

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=2734902&version=7&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

This is priceless.  Doug Giles's verbal smackdown of Rosie O'Donnell is about as good as Donald Trump's.

Rosie and Khalid Sittin’ in a Tree . . . K-I-S-S-I-N-G
by Doug Giles
Saturday, March 17, 2007

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) painted himself during his trial this week at Club Gitmo as employee of the decade for Al Qaeda’s Death Monkey Squad. This piece of Samsonite prattled on with Islamic glee about his noxious brain farts such as . . .

• The suicide hijackings of 9/11. Remember 9/11/2001? Think back, way back to like . . . uh . . . 5 ½ years ago when 3,000 people died during a terrorist attack here in the U.S. Does that ring a bell? It doesn’t? Just google it. It was pretty bad.

• Personally cutting off Danny Pearl’s head.

• The Bali night club bombings which blew to smithereens a couple of hundred people.

• The killing of one U.S. Marine on an island off Kuwait.

• The 2002 bombing of a Kenya beach resort frequented by Israelis.

• The failed missile attack on an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya.

And if that wasn’t industrious enough, KSM (according to him) had many other things up his long sleeve dress. Stuff like: plans to off a couple of U.S. Presidents (Carter and Clinton . . . Go figure!), rub out Pope John Paul II and Pakistan’s President Musharaf, plus bring down the Sears Tower in Chi Town. Uh . . . let’s see . . . what else? Oh yeah, bomb the Empire State Building, the New York Stock Exchange, the Panama Canal, some big clock in London and Heathrow Airport.

All in all, this one Muslim has claimed responsibility for masterminding the deaths of several thousand people and had tens of thousands of others marked for mayhem had not Bush and his boys busted the b*stard.

But then again, this all could be a scam cooked up by the Bush administration. Yes! That’s it! It’s all lies. Lies, I tell you. That is, if I am to believe Rosie O’Donnell (what a waste of an apostrophe!).

According to Orca, I mean, Facts-Be-Damned-O’Donnell, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a mere kitty cat and that mean old Bush has Lee Harvey’d him. Khalid wasn’t involved in any of the above. C’mon people. Wake up. That was Osama and Osama alone. We’re being hood-wigged and bamboozled by Bush, dammit, at least according to Rosie’s sweaty vociferations on The View.

The reason the shabby Sheikh confessed to these atrocities, thus saith the Rose, was because he was tortured. O’Donnell points to such evidence of his suffering to things like KSM’s ugly Glamour photo.

Yes, according to Mama Cass, for three years the CIA has been messing up Khalid’s hair (probably a series of violent noogies), not allowing him to shave very often and making him wear a Flash Dance T-shirt—and that lethal combination eventually caused the boy to cave. He couldn’t take it, man. He got to the place where he’d own anything for some Brylcreem, a Trac2 and some lycra.

Rosie bellowed, on the show she has now Jezebelled, that KSM is not an animal, but a man. I’ve got some news for you Rosie: so are you. As a matter of fact, take a picture of O’Donnell . . . any picture . . . and scribble a mustache on her/it, then scratch in some 5 0’clock shadow on her jowls and poof … you got yourself a Khalid Sheikh Mohammed! Try it. It’s fun. That’s why I think the big Rose is going to bat so hard for Khalid; they have so much in common, both physically and ideologically.

Barbara Walter’s, if you read my column (and I know you do, baby love . . . and sorry for not returning your calls yesterday), listen to me: you’ve got to fire Rosie now. Don’t be afraid of her. The veterinarians at the New York City Zoo have tranquilizer darts that’ll knock her straight out so that you can have her air lifted out of the building. It’ll be okay.

Bab’s, the girl is certifiable. Not only because she’s of the genus bovinae, but also because the girl has gone crazy! Do America a favor: get a saner chick on your show. Or get a good looking crazy girl. Or—if you’re going to do crazy, then get Charlie Manson. Channel him in every day from Corcoran State Prison and let’s watch him swing from a sprinkler pipe in his cell and howl at the moon. Chuck’s got two things on Rosie: 1) He’s more creative with his conspiracy theories and 2) He’s a better looking woman. Just a thought . . . toss it around with your producers and Joy and Elizabeth. Conference me in if you need to.

Lastly, in light of the Sheikh’s confession, I propose the following:

1. I say we give Bush and his crew a much deserved standing ovation for getting KSM.

2. Next, I say we “rob” Khalid of his humanity. He robbed us. We rob him. I suggest we strip him of his humanity with a bullet and broadcast it on Pay-Per-View.

3. On second thought, we shouldn’t kill him. Then he’d be praised as a martyr. Let’s keep him alive.

4. Instead of killing him, let’s put him in a non-air-conditioned cell down here in Miami, feed him ham sandwiches, only to be chased down with skunk urine while playing a 24/7/365 loop of Boy George’s music video “Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me?” with the volume ratcheted way up in his cell that’s been wallpapered, floor to ceiling, with O’Donnell in a Brazilian bikini. Let him experience a little temporal hell before he goes to an eternal one.

5. Whaddya think, too harsh? Yeah, it reads too harsh.

6. Let’s just shoot the guy and be done with him. No use torturing him.

7. Stay sober. Even though KSM was a major kernel of corn in the turd which is militant Islam, we can’t obsess on him now as there are thousands of murderous others currently looking to fill his sandals, and we’ve got to keep busy capturing and killing them.

* Logon to see Giles’ latest video: I’m Not Homophobic, I’m Chick-O-Centric. Also, check out Doug’s interview with Ambassador Dore Gold author of the book Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, The West and the Future of the Holy City.

Doug Giles is the creator and host of The Clash radio shows, winners of seven Silver Microphone Awards and two Communicator Awards in the last three years, and a contributing columnist on Townhall.com.

With all the hoopla on college campuses across the country over the "importance" of Women's Studies departments, why not level the playing field and establish Men's Studies departments to counter the radical feminist posion predominantly spewing out of the former?  Feminists are always yapping about equality.  What could be more equal than that?

This is one of the points made by economist and family, sex and relationship expert Jennifer Roback Morse in a recent debate at the University of Virginia entitled "Are we Getting it Right? The State of Women's Studies Departments."  (Click here to read all of Dr. Morse's remarks.)

Dr. Morse makes some powerful points on why Women's Studies departments are unnecessary, why Men's Studies deparments would serve as a great counter-balance, and, more importantly, how modern feminism has made men, women and children miserable.  She sums up her comments by recounting why she decided in the mid-1990s to give up her tenured economics professorship at George Mason University to move with her husband to California and be a full-time mom - with no regrets.

Dr. Morse closes with the following admonition to radical feminism:

"The women’s movement needs to abandon its old tired Leftist and Radical roots. We are living long enough that we can “have it all,” just not all at once. Young women today feel they must build their careers before they can start their families. But if we do that, our peak fertility years are behind us. Many of us miss the chance for marriage and family altogether. We’d be better off if employers and universities would accommodate us when we return to the public sphere after decades of nurturing the private sphere. We need career paths designed to work for us, instead of trying to compete with men on career paths designed for their needs as husbands and fathers.

The women’s movement could be based on respect for and appreciation of the distinct strengths men and women each bring to a marriage. Instead of demanding equality between the inherently unequal, we could set a higher standard for cooperation and complementarity. Instead of enshrining the most extreme form of radical individualism into marriage, we could work to make marriage more durable, for the mutual benefit of the spouses, for their children and the wider society. That is my vision for what the women’s movement should have been, and could yet become. "

Spoken like a true woman.

From CNSNews.com.

Some conservatives don't mind that Republicans have been under fire for legal, ethical and moral mishaps, but they are concerned that Democrats may be getting away with the same types of misconduct.

"Corruption is bipartisan, always has been," Kenneth Boehm, national chairman of the government watchdog National Legal and Policy Center, told Cybercast News Service. "The real issue is there ought to be one way to deal with every offender."

Last month's conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, for perjury and obstruction of justice brought back memories of an earlier incident involving a senior aide on national security.

Sandy Berger, the national security advisor for President Bill Clinton, admitted to stealing classified documents and even hid some under a trailer at a construction site near the National Archives.

He copped a plea, and a federal judge ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine, serve two years' probation, perform 100 hours of community service and submit to a polygraph "lie detector" test. He has yet to have the polygraph.

In comparing the Libby and Berger cases, David Bossie, president of the conservative group Citizens United, argued that the Libby case "came down to the old saw that the cover-up is worse than the alleged crime, whereas the latter [Berger case] amounted to one of the most brazen violations of classified material in our lifetime."

"Whereas Libby is now awaiting sentencing and faces up to three years in prison," Bossie noted, "Berger is a free man."

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter declared of the Libby verdict, "That makes it official: It's illegal to be a Republican."

Click here to read the rest of the article.

How Black and White Elites Benefit from Slavery
by Mary Grabar
Sunday, March 18, 2007

Looking to the case of Virginia, where legislators offered an expression of "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery, the Georgia NAACP is demanding that the legislature apologize for slavery. Thus, they continue to exploit the suffering of their slave forebears. One wonders, were it not for slavery, what would these agitators do?

Recognizing the hollowness of such "apologies," Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson said, "Nobody here was in office when slavery was practiced." He is right: Apologies on behalf of others are empty and do nothing more than promote one's estimation of one's self.

But that is precisely why liberals—who are most likely to mock the notion of personal sin—demand such an apology: The blame is cast on one's forebears and the price is paid by others.

Nor do the liberal elite enact legislation that affects them adversely. It is the elite white liberals who agitate for affirmative action—the collective amends and the implicit apology going on for decades now. It's easy for them. The elite do not stand in line before the factory door. They are not a number in a stack of applications in college admissions and financial aid offices. "Give them affirmative action!" they cry generously, while they use their family’s connections and earning power to get into the best schools and companies.

The same impulse motivated the well-heeled radicals in the 1960s, who blamed the injustices around them on others.

One need only look at the Port Huron Statement, written in 1962 by a twenty-one-year-old Tom Hayden with the input of 60 of his college-age peers that outlined the grievances of an admittedly privileged group who had the luxury of attending universities. All around them they saw injustice, poverty, and inauthenticity. They saw an unequal distribution of wealth and so they applied their parents’ playbook, The Communist Manifesto. But it was the real proletariat—the working classes—who paid the price for their selfish idealism. It was this disaffected group, disgusted by the behavior of the radical elites, that voted in Richard Nixon in 1968. The divide remains between red and blue America.

That generation—whether a public figure like Garrison Keillor on taxpayer- supported public radio or the radical at the neighborhood party--is very quick to claim credit for having "marched and changed the world." But that generation actually did harm to the Civil Rights movement—not to mention their responsibility for millions of deaths in Vietnam.

Being the spoiled egotists that they were, the radicals did not limit their project to redressing one aspect of American life that did not live up to the Founding Fathers' ideal that "all men are created equal." Instead, the flower children took it upon themselves to overthrow Western civilization and refashion society in their own image. A bunch of unkempt, loud, sexually promiscuous, and sometimes violent young people with an obvious communist platform alienated potential allies, who otherwise agreed with the idea of equal rights.

Yet, in their claim of having "changed the world" these flower children pride themselves as if they had withstood the tanks of Tiananmen Square. No credit is given to our culture’s heritage of Christian universal rights, which more than in any other place in the world has found its full realization. More often it was the working class, police officers and their families, who died and suffered.

As stated explicitly in the Port Huron Statement, the institution targeted to effect the overthrow of Western civilization was the university, where one has the luxury of instituting affirmative action and agitating for policies that will affect those outside its ivy-covered walls: workers, soldiers, and those who refuse to march lock-step to their ideology. Inside these walls the elites offer higher salaries to candidates of a certain race. They calculatingly write on the fashionable topics of race and thereby promote themselves. (Yes, Virginia, some whites who write dissertations and books on black issues do it because that’s where the jobs and publishing contracts are; just go to a graduate student or faculty party and listen in.) Furthermore, the radicals have changed the curriculum to eliminate the thinkers of past centuries and replaced them with—guess what--those after 1960. Now a student can just about graduate from a university without having read anything written before 1960 in a humanities class.

The ideology promoted in the universities is that the radicals and those who agree with them are responsible for all the good in this country. All that is bad is the result of the incompleteness of their project.

The effort to get apologies for injustices committed decades and centuries ago emanates from the view of activists as superior to their predecessors. It is the shout of the child to the parent: "Apologize!"

It is also a way to keep their status visible and to continue victimhood in order to continue such policies as affirmative action, an idea that directly contradicts notions of fairness and universal rights. The white promoters of affirmative action most often come from the privileged classes, those with the money and connections who know they will go to Ivy League Universities and get the best jobs.

Those who suffer from affirmative action are the lower classes, the students who may work harder but are beat out by the minority student, or who lose funding to minority students. They are the factory workers, like members of my family, who may have worked their way up to supervisory positions but are told explicitly that race trumps ability in job promotion. Or, told back in the 1970s that supervisory positions at the factory were to henceforth go to minorities, they left their jobs. It goes on.

It may be hard for the social progressives to believe this but it is true. Yes, white people who have no connections have to do things like wait on tables to put themselves through community college. I know because I had to do it. But people I know and am related to who have worked in blue collar jobs since they were eighteen and struggle to put their children through college will not speak up about this for fear of losing their jobs. The white elites rarely speak to the white working classes, unless it is to force their preconceived notions of "white privilege" on them.

Affirmative action offers upper management a way to get sacrifices from the real workers and then take credit for their largesse. Similarly, the students who had the money and leisure to march in the 1960s did it on the backs of their working class colleagues who fought their wars and picked up the slack from less qualified workers "affirmatively" ushered into the workplace.

But it’s the privileged—now in their fifties and sixties--who will corner you at a party and brag about how they "changed the world." The effort to get government apologies allows them and their children or grandchildren who tool around campuses clad in designer jeans in BMWs to wrap the cloak of righteousness around themselves.

It is the black liberals too who have hardly anything to say unless it exploits the sufferings of their slave forebears. Even while their and other non-white groups’ buying power "skyrockets," according to a recent University of Georgia study, even as they run the cities like Atlanta, write the editorials of the daily newspaper, they fall back to their slave forebears. The "legacy of slavery" also fuels the careers of rappers spewing out lyrics so vile their actual slave forebears would be ashamed. The "legacy of slavery" supports black and white poets and writers who exploit the suffering of slaves to advance their own careers.

The fact that slaves made incredible sacrifices for their children (as Frederick Douglass shows by the example of his mother in his autobiography) and even showed love for the children of their owners is a testament to the human spirit and Christian charity. Such examples, of course, have been repeated under other extremes of human injustice: Communist pogroms, concentration camps, war zones. In all periods of history are stories of the human spirit rising, and no less in the case of slavery in the U.S.

But rather than using the examples of their forebears as inspiration, many blacks and their white liberal exploiters, capitalize on slavery for their own advancement. If anything, the black descendants ought to criticize how the white elite have used the legacy of slavery to their own advantage, to cull political favor, to position themselves as superior to others in their own race, to write the books that publishers want and that will earn them royalty checks and gain them tenure.

One wonders, were it not for slavery, were it not for the suffering of these people that black and white elites cash in on, would these elites in the academy, the media, and public life be anything? Isn’t it time they stopped exploiting slaves? The apologies will do nothing for those who suffered, the slaves. They have gone on to their rewards.

Face it: It’s the elites who want to live off the capital of slaves in one way or another. The agitation for apologies reeks of insincerity and self-promotion.

It’s time to move on. Black descendants should display some of the dignity of their forebears. White elites should finally do some real, productive work.

Mary Grabar graduated from the University of Georgia with a Ph.D. in English and currently teaches at a university in Atlanta.

Today's NAACP symptom of black problems

By STAR PARKER
Scripps Howard News Service
2007-03-09

Bruce Gordon, who has resigned as president of the NAACP, got a crash course in the difference between the world of politics and the world of business. The former is driven by power and control, the latter by markets and service.

It's why countries with more of the former and less of the latter tend to be poorer than those where it is the other way around.

And it is one particular irony that the NAACP, an organization born with an agenda to advance freedom, over time morphed into an organization defined in every dimension by the culture of politics.

Gordon, a businessman and corporate executive by career, made a bad business call. He assessed the situation he was getting into incorrectly and learned, as we say, the hard way. He thought they wanted him to solve problems and build a better organization. They, or maybe more precisely, Julian Bond, NAACP's chairman, were looking for someone to carry their political baggage.

Meanwhile, it's obvious that an organization where its president quits 19 months after he'd been hired to replace a predecessor who himself left under duress, is a troubled organization. If the NAACP was publicly traded its stock would be sinking.

It's clear that the organization that Bruce Gordon decided to go to work for was not the organization he thought it was.

One reason may be that the NAACP today is not the organization it once was.

Founded at the beginning of the last century, the NAACP's challenges then were clear. The legal and institutional barriers to equal treatment and due process under the law for blacks were real and tangible. It required no subtlety of thought to understand what the battle was that needed to be fought, although there were differences of opinion regarding how best to fight the battle.

With the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1965, that battle was won. That's not to say the struggle was over. Life's struggles are never over. But it became a different battle. Once the chains are broken, the challenge translates into a human struggle of realizing one's potential in freedom. The battlefield moves from outside to inside.

But the black political leadership didn't want to let go. They wanted to keep the game political.

Today the NAACP has simply become a rote platform for left wing politics.

For reasons that I'll leave to others to explain, the organization has become more highly motivated to promote this left wing agenda than addressing the many problems of its own community.

Discussing his departure in an interview with Tavis Smiley, Gordon observed, "...In business terminology we would argue that organizations that are no longer customer focused, who lose the heart of the customer, who lose the choice of the customer, will ultimately fail."

Practically speaking, Gordon's observations are born out by the following:

Barely one in four blacks support legalization of gay marriage. Yet, one would be hard pressed to find a lawsuit pushing for gay marriage in which the NAACP is not a plaintiff.

Black support for school vouchers is stronger than white support. Almost three out of four blacks between the ages of 26 to 35 support vouchers.

Yet, the NAACP adamantly opposes vouchers and school choice. A great victory was just achieved in the state of Utah which will open the door to vouchers. NAACP opposition to Utah's new law is posted prominently on the homepage of its website.

Similarly with personal Social Security accounts. Young blacks poll strongly in favor. The NAACP opposes.

Even moderate black journalists now recognize and write that the challenge in black America today is social. AIDS, abortion, family breakdown, crime, poor education. These are problems of values and lifestyle, not politics.

Yet, like the old saying that to a man with hammer everything looks like a nail, NAACP leaders interpret the clear moral and social crisis in our inner cities as a political problem in need of government solutions. Ironically, and tragically, it was the invasion of government into family life, through the welfare state, that precipitated black family breakdown to begin with.

To Bruce Gordon's credit, he wanted to transform the NAACP into an organization in which blacks take responsibility for identifying and trying to solve the problems in their own community.

This was obviously too much for an organization that wants to pursue "social justice" in a world in which most black babies are born with no father at home.

The NAACP has become a symptom of the problems in black America rather than a source for solutions. Perhaps this latest crisis will provoke some badly needed soul searching and change.

(Star Parker is president of CURE, Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (www.urbancure.org) and author of "White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay.")

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.net)

Kudos to Kathleen Parker for calling our a race-hustling con artist for what he really is.

Al Sharpton's Faux Magic
by Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Al Sharpton's desperation is showing.

His recent attacks on presidential candidate Barack Obama and his threat to withhold his support have exposed the trick behind Sharpton's magic act. His audience is leaving the tent and Sharpton is scrambling for relevancy.

Sharpton has been challenging Obama's credentials in the black community and saying that Obama is the darling of white leadership, according to Democratic sources.

Sharpton told CBS News that he is withholding his endorsement until after his National Action Network summit next month. Meanwhile, he's playing hard to get between the Obama and Hillary Clinton camps, even declining to return calls from Obama's campaign.

Now, it is fair to ask, what is Sharpton really up to? What is his real objection to Obama? That Obama has white supporters? That Obama has become the first serious black presidential candidate in U.S. history? That he lacks the civil rights bona fides that Sharpton claims for himself?

Or is the real problem that Obama's biracial appeal has trumped Sharpton's race card?

For the past few decades, black votes have been promised and delivered by brokers like Sharpton. This isn't shocking in itself. Everybody does it. On the Republican side, certain individuals also promise to deliver certain votes. Evangelicals, for instance. It's the business of politics.

Sometimes, as in Sharpton's case, a vote broker will run for office himself. He knows he can't win, but he can raise enough money to run and to collect federal matching funds.

Such a candidate can live for a while in a style to which he would like to become accustomed. Limos, bodyguards, room service.

In 2004, when Sharpton ran for president, he ran up the highest average hotel bills of any candidate, with an average stay at the Four Seasons running at a whopping $3,598, according to Fundrace.org, a Web site that tracked campaign expenditures.

What happens when the money runs out and the campaign isn't doing so well? Ah. The constituency, so carefully cultivated, gets bartered. For a fair trade and a few perks: My votes are your votes.

Obama presents a particular problem for the Sharptons of the world because he doesn't need their help getting the black vote. Obama has mass appeal to both races. What happens to someone like Sharpton when his services are no longer needed?

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, perhaps. What we're witnessing now may be a variation on the psychiatric disorder -- a new twist in psycho-politics. Munchausen is usually associated with mothers who fabricate diseases or harm their children so that they can then tend to them and make them well.

In Sharpton's case, we might call it "Mighty Mouse Syndrome." His efforts to damage Obama suggest that Sharpton may be creating problems so that he can then solve them. Come to save the day, in other words.

Sharpton's Barack-bashing is more than politics as usual. It is also a historic watershed, the death throe of an old guard. Regardless of whether Obama wins, his candidacy has exposed Sharpton and other race peddlers for what they are -- and threatened their relevancy.

The trick for Sharpton now is how long to withhold his support. If he signs on with Obama too soon, his currency is less valuable. Next month's summit may still be too soon, but at least it gives him time to stall and rally his constituents. To build his product.

While Sharpton may believe that he is much desired by both front-runners, whisperers within some Democratic quarters wouldn't be sorry to see Sharpton attach himself to Clinton. They're banking on another syndrome -- the Ned Lamont Syndrome.

When Lamont defeated Joe Lieberman in Connecticut for the Democratic Senate nomination last year, who joined him on the stage? Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who also is being coy toward Obama -- leaning toward but not yet endorsing him.

Who lost in the general election? Ned Lamont.

Likewise, Clinton may not benefit from being frozen in the frame with Sharpton. Which is to say, Sharpton's magic has become an empty top hat.

The rabbit is on the run, and the cat is out of the bag.

Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

If we don't fry this S.O.B. and send a message to terrorists all over the world, then we don't deserve to win the War on Terror.

From Yahoo! News:

Suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl and a central role in 30 other attacks and plots in the U.S. and worldwide that killed thousands of victims, said a revised transcript released Thursday by the U.S. military.

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Mohammed is quoted as saying in a transcript of a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, released by the Pentagon.

"For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head," he added.

Mohammed's claimed involvement in the 2002 slaying of the Wall Street Journal reporter was among 31 attacks and plots — some of which never occurred — he took responsibility for in a hearing Saturday at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon said.

It released the bulk of the transcript late Wednesday, but held back the section about Pearl's killing to allow time for his family to be notified, said Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman...

Pearl was abducted in January 2002 in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamic militancy. Mohammed has long been a suspect in the slaying, which was captured on video.