The Media’s Unnatural Selection

May 17, 2013 by Leave a comment

Hear-No-Evil-See-No-Evil-Speak-No-Evil

“Media bias lies in selection — what you choose to cover and what you choose to ignore. Accuracy is a problem. But selection is the big manifestation of bias. It’s possible to be 100 percent accurate — white-glove clean — and yet loaded with bias.”  - Jay Nordlinger

So at the end of today, we’ve learned from sworn Congressional testimony from recently fired/resigned/leaving-anyway IRS commissioner Steve Miller that a spontaneous YouTube video demonstration, er, I mean a spontaneous press conference question, in which Lois Lerner disclosed that the IRS had targeted political enemies, was actually a terrorist attack, er, a staged question.

From today’s hearing:

Rep Nunes asked, “Was her question to Ms. Lerner about targeting certain groups planned in advance?”

Miller replied, “I believe we talked about that, yes.”

We also learned from testimony from Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George that he informed senior officials in the Treasury Department of his investigation into IRS corruption last June, which was smack dab in the middle of a tightly contested presidential campaign and a fierce battle for control of the Senate.

This all happened in the last twelve hours.  So doing a rewind to this morning, what are the five things ABC News thought you needed to guide you through the news of the day? Certainly they’d mention Benghazi, the IRS, AP wiretapping, the two suspected terrorists who suddenly vanished from the witness protection program, or even HHS Secretary Sebelius illegally pressuring health-industry companies for funds that Congress wouldn’t dish out? No? But they’d mention that the woman who was charged with examining tax-exempt organizations at the IRS during this episode of political intimidation now runs the Obamacare branch of the IRS, right? No? Well, what else is there?

Here’s where ABC thought the most relevant “5 Things to Know This Morning“: Read more of this post

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Creationists for Obamacare

April 5, 2013 by 3 Comments

hypocrisyI don’t really get “young earth” Creationism. If the world was created 6,000 years ago, then how do you explain the fossil record, which provides clear evidence of much older life? Why would God jam million-year-old bones into the bedrock just to confuse us? While He certainly isn’t averse to mystery (quite the contrary), this would fall into the realm of purposefully misleading.

On the other hand, I don’t get the near conniptions thrown by secular progressives in response to Creationists, as if a misguided belief about the origins of Earth is any more damaging to young minds than inadvertently hearing a Nicki Minaj song on the radio. Furthermore, their disgust with Creationists’ lack of acceptance of scientific evidence is a prime example of their not listening to Jesus’ teaching in the only subject they claim he cared about. Hypocrisy.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:3-5

Who really knows what happened 6,000 years ago? No one. But in the 5,999 years and 364 days since, people have consistently responded to financial incentives, yet the left still acts astonished when it happens. For example, when France’s new Socialist president enacted a 75% tax rate, a number of prominent millionaires left the country to avoid the extortion. How did the socialists react to this perfectly predictable response to their new policy? Shocked outrage.

Beyonce’s chart-topper Single Ladies is a tribute to fed up women who have finally kicked an unappreciative man to the curb. The culture rightfully cheers on those independent women.  Yet when the abuse is financial, and an unappreciative society undermines small business owners or others making more than $250,000, the rich are expected to turn the other cheek, and are vilified as ungrateful traitors when they have other ideas. All hail the god of Envy.

In another case of blind-faith-divorced-from-reality Read more of this post

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Regaining our moral vocabulary [VIDEO]

April 1, 2013 by Leave a comment

If human nature is not much more than modeling clay, and no permanent human nature exists by the hand of the Creator, then natural, unalienable rights can’t exist. And no human “rights” can finally claim priority over the interests of the state. – Archbishop Charles Chaput

The clip below shows a Planned Parent advocate unwilling to state that a living, breathing baby on a physician’s table has no right to be saved. The heartlessness on display is jarring. But also striking is the inability of the Florida legislators doing the questioning to articulate the source of their disgust.

We are a nation founded on the basis of inalienable rights with which we are endowed by our Creator, yet we’ve now handicapped our moral vocabulary to the point of speechlessness. A woman claims that a child laying on an operating table, begging for life with its cries, should have no expectation of being saved by those who could. Silence fills the room. The questioners have presumably made the determination that appealing to the Creator is off limits, and an argument derived from reason and natural law would lose the audience. So what’s left? Hoping the awkward silence will give those watching enough time to process the image and be shocked by the grotesque reality of it. But all they end up doing is giving their audience enough time to come up with a self-serving rationalization as to why letting that baby die is a necessary evil. In the face of moral monstrosity, dumbfounded looks have never sufficed.

Was that child not created equal? What of his inalienable rights? Has the woman pondered what she’ll say the day she meets God, and has to explain that she defended the convenience of a doctor over the life of a baby, the least of His people? We never get to find out.

“But you can’t legislate morality!” they’ll cry. Oh no? Read more of this post

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How Elephants Can Fight a Guerilla War

March 11, 2013 by 2 Comments

Rand Paul ignited an elephant stampedeWith his thirteen-hour filibuster of John Brennan, Rand Paul instigated the first elephant stampede in two years. He ignited a party so inured in screechy impotence and patchwork defense that it often fails to recognize winnable battles. Paul found such a battle, and accomplished a rare feat for Republicans. By putting U.S. assassination policy on national display, Paul not only inspired the GOP to attack, he also put Obama on defense.

Some of the old-guard Republicans griped. After dining with Obama the night before, John McCain took to the Senate floor the next morning, bashing Paul with snarky comments about appealing to “impressionable libertarian kids in their college dorms.” This one utterance summed up the GOP’s problems of 2008 and 2012. What sort of politician seeking national viability for his party knocks an appeal to any group of people? Paul’s filibuster united a diverse cross-section of Republicans and even some Democrats. This success should be saluted, not derided.

The Democrat support was a nice touch, generated by what’s known in chess as a discovered attack. By attacking Obama’s left flank on drone strikes and putting him in check, he forced Attorney General Eric Holder to answer Paul’s charges and develop a rationale that would inevitably rile the Democrat anti-war base. It’s a rare moment when the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and National Review’s Kevin D. Williamson agree. Rand Paul, bipartisan workhorse.

Paul also showed the GOP Read more of this post

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Why the Sequester is a win for fairness

March 1, 2013 by Leave a comment

sequester“Fairness” in politics is an arbitrary concept, which is exactly why liberal politicians love it. Once they’ve claimed the mantle of fairness, their policy prescriptions become unassailable. After all, who could be against “fairness”? Only Republican jerks, that’s who.

The increase in “fairness” between a 36% and 40% tax rate is intangible, and despite liberals protestations to the contrary, probably a net decrease.  But your opinion on the fairness of that tax code modification depends on your underlying assumptions about the proper role of government and your visceral reaction to income inequality.  When measuring fairness in that instance, logic and reason remain on the periphery.

But the sequester is a different story.  Read more of this post

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