Sorry Obamalings: Despite MN Law, A Gal is NOT a Dad, a Guy is NOT a Mom

What Is a Mother to Do? Questions for Same-Sex Marriage Advocates

by Deborah Savage at Witherspoon Institute

article sent by Mark Waldeland:

To demand that we recognize same-sex romantic relationships as marriages, and teach our children so, is to prevent them from discovering reality.

The speed at which marriage was redefined last month in the state of Minnesota has left me with a sense of vertigo. My head is still spinning. And though the war wages on, one thing seems clear: Those of us for whom same-sex marriage has been, until now, almost impossible to contemplate, have some things to figure out. Of those, the most urgent is the question of what we are to tell our children.

I am the mother of a ten-year-old girl, a beautiful child, more precious to me than anything you can imagine. When, on June 1, same-sex marriage became legal in the state of Minnesota, I needed to know what to tell her. How is this supposed to work—actually—in the concrete world of a ten-year-old child and her mother? Her father is wondering too, of course, but he is rather speechless at the moment. And the way it works in our house, though he is really good at protecting her from possible physical threats, it usually falls to me to protect her from the more psychological threats she encounters occasionally in her young life. But this is a new one. So I need some advice.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should state that, as a philosopher, I have gotten fairly skilled at treating the philosophical errors of our age in the classroom setting. But a ten-year-old is at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to the arguments I have developed against relativism, nominalism, dualism, materialism, and so on. And then of course, parenting comes with its own specific challenges. So I am hoping those who advocate same-sex marriage have given some thought to this, eager as they seem to be to take on the task of parenting themselves.

For starters, can we agree that, along with her father of course, I am still responsible to her for doing my part to raise her to be the intelligent, responsible young woman she is destined to be? If so, how should I help her grapple with what it means to know the truth about something? Doesn’t any claim to the truth have to begin with a grasp of what is actually so? Should there not be some sort of correspondence between what is so and what she thinks is so? At least, that is what I have been trying to teach her.

Can her efforts to come to grips with reality as something independent of her personal opinions still include the evidence of her senses—or not? Is she now required by law to doubt them? In other words, if she sees a man—or a woman—walking down the street, whether together or alone, is she now required to pause before drawing any conclusions about them?

With her child’s natural grasp of real things, she already knows that married people have babies, and she knows it has something to do with mothers and fathers. But since our state has declared that the categories of mother and father are no longer relevant for marriage, that marriage has nothing really to do with children, how shall I explain to her where babies come from? She already knows that little people like her would not even exist in a world where same-sex marriage was the norm. Do I get to make any claims about the fact that only a mommy and a daddy can actually produce one?

And what shall I tell her about what her body is for? Am I to tell her that it is sort of like a ship and her personal identity is the equivalent of the ship’s pilot, someone in charge but not personally affected by any damages to the vehicle in which she is riding? That her identity has actually nothing to do with her embodiment in a female body? That self- consciousness resides in her mind and that at some point it will simply be a matter of discerning which way her body is leading her? (She is pretty smart and so she might ask me if those two ideas don’t contradict each other somehow; any guidance on that would be appreciated).

But help me understand this. Is it sort of like one of those divining rods they used to use to find water? That might be hard for her to get at first but if we all keep at it, I am sure she will understand it eventually. And just as an aside, how shall I help her to reconcile this idea with all that stuff about the mind-body connection everyone is talking about? Her school offers yoga classes now and her teacher is always talking that way.

Oh, and will I now be required by law to sit silently when, a few years from now, I find her school has introduced a module into her sex education class on how homosexual persons go about having sex? Any suggestions on how I should help her with her homework for that class?

And how I should help her with her language arts studies? Do the definitions in the dictionary have any reference to any reality at all? Or am I now to teach her that words are just labels we annex to things, that they have no real meaning, no matter how long we have connected a word with the reality to which it points? What should I do if she argues with me about the definition of parent? Of freedom? Of truth? It has already gotten a little tricky—children seem to grow up so fast these days.

It doesn’t help to simply explain to her that same-sex marriage is a matter of civil rights. There are all sorts of things we are permitted to do in our culture, choices we make for which there is no actual law identifying it as a specific “right.” If marriage were a “civil right,” a lot of single women I know would be married already.

Besides, this issue has absolutely nothing in common with the civil rights movement. My daughter already knows that the civil rights movement had to do with who gets included in the category of human. Hopefully we have figured that one out by now, at least on paper. People have civil rights in virtue of being human and you have all the same rights that I do.

No, this debate is not about a civil right. No one has a “right” to pretend that a physical union (one of the characteristics of marriage in that dictionary I was talking about a minute ago) is possible when the body parts involved simply do not fit together in any feasible way.

The more I think about it, I am pretty sure those who favor redefining marriage have taken on a battle that they will never be able to win. Because as any parent knows, raising a child requires that I help my daughter grasp that there can be no debate whatsoever about whether or not any of us—gay or straight—get to define reality for ourselves.

I am also pretty sure that, even though the Supreme Court seems to have ruled that we all get to do that (remember Planned Parenthood v. Casey?), in the end we will discover that nature’s laws determine what is so.

I’ve also heard that rumor about reality being socially constructed. But I experimented with that when I was in my twenties and I have empirical evidence that it just isn’t true. No, really. And I think it will continue to be false no matter what our legislature says, no matter what the president says, no matter what the Supreme Court says. Even the media can’t make it true.

Which reminds me—it might be worth your while to take another look at George Orwell’s novel, 1984. It is amazing how prophetic that book was, though I doubt Orwell had in mind our current situation. But to save you some time, let me provide just a brief summary.

In the novel, Orwell’s hero-of-sorts, Winston Smith, works for the totalitarian government—everyone does as a matter of fact; his job is to change history by changing old newspaper records to match with the new truth decided by the Party. At the beginning of the novel, Winston is trying to find a way to escape the Thought Police long enough to join a mostly imagined resistance movement. He becomes obsessed with this and takes the incredibly courageous and foolhardy step of beginning to keep a journal to record his thoughts on the matter. Somewhere along the way, he encounters someone named O’Brien who he thinks is in the resistance. And at one point, Winston writes:

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O’Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote: Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

This debate is not merely about whether or not you get to have sex with whomever you like and still qualify for spousal benefits. Ultimately what it is about is the freedom to say that 2 and 2 is 4. At the end of the novel, poor Winston, having been captured and tortured by the Thought Police, having finally submitted to the demands of the Party and relinquished his grip on what had seemed patently obvious only months before, writes in his journal at a moment he describes as a victory over himself—that 2 + 2 = 5. And his life is over.

A long time ago, August Comte (the father of positivism) said something quite profound. He said that the only safe way to destroy something is to replace it. Clearly, this is the attempt that is underway. But I will never abandon my child or my grandchildren—or my neighbor’s children—to this.

For when you ask my daughter to accept that a man may marry another man, that a woman may marry another woman, you are asking her to suspend her capacity to judge the world around her and judge it truly. You are requiring her to declare that 2 + 2 = 5 as an act of victory over her natural inclination toward the true and the good. You are trying to trap her in a world where nothing is as it seems.

Deborah Savage is a professor of philosophy and pastoral ministry in the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas.

Lefty Eleanor Clift’s Mean Old Republicans Plotting Hunger for America

Eleanor Clift is standard American newsprint Marxist, 2013.

Eleanor Clift remembers the good-old-days especially those when Bob Dole liked the idea of feeding ‘the poor’.

But, in those days, food stamps were directed to aiding the destitute…..not buying votes Obama style.

What is the real number of food stamp collectors at present? Do you know, dear readers?

Somewhere around 48,000,000 Americans and others use GIFT food stamps paid for by the 49% of Americans who still pay federal income taxes from which foreigner president, Barack Hussein Obama can drill for more revenue…..Most are conservatives.

The majority of these fed-by-the-government have been hustled by our American 44th president……The major function of the present U.S. Department of Agriculture seems to be to build the Marxist base for present and future elections. It isn’t the only federal department to be devoted to this cause.

Eleanor Clift avoids the financial and political matters in her following article, preferring to remind lefties at and from the Daily Beast how mean, viscious, inhuman conservatives really are.

It is a female way of looking at things. Problem solving seldom arrives in the female mind. Feelings, such as doing good by robbing Peter to pay Paul with food stamps and re-electing security Marxists, help these unthinking make their way through the day.

Ms. Clift writes at the Daily Beast:

FOOD STAMPS UNDER THREAT: House GOP Wants to Cut $20.5B From SNAP

With the House about to take up the farm bill, the Republican Party’s ascendant libertarian wing is taking aim at the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Eleanor Clift on whether food stamps will survive.

It’s a big number and it gets people’s attention when they hear it: 47 million Americans receive food stamps in what is now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The program has expanded significantly under President Obama, who boosted benefits and allowed states to waive some work rules under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Still, the spiraling need for food assistance even as the unemployment rate has come down is tied to the weak economy and jobs that are so marginal that millions of working people earn so little they still qualify for SNAP.

This week, thirty members of Congress embarked on the “SNAP challenge,” eating on a SNAP budget for a few days or a week. “That’s $4.50 a day.” Above, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter took on a week long food stamp challenge, April 2012. (Matt Rourke/AP)

For decades, since the 1970s, food stamps enjoyed bipartisan backing, with farm-state senators and legislative icons George McGovern and Bob Dole championing the program. More recently, even the authors of the famed Simpson-Bowles report on deficit reduction left SNAP untouched. But House Republicans have a different mind-set about food stamps and want to cut $20.5 billion over 10 years from SNAP, five times more than the $4 billion authorized by a big bipartisan vote, 66 to 27, in the Senate this week, setting the stage for the kind of class-based and racially tinged debate about the poor that poisons our politics and on occasion breaks out into the open.

“All of a sudden it’s become a popular thing to go after SNAP. Some members want to eliminate it entirely,” says Rep. James McGovern (D-MA). “Balancing the budget by making it harder for poor people to get food is a rotten thing to do.”

Asked if he thought the fight over SNAP had a racial component, said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), “No question about it.” Opponents of food stamps are “intentionally creating myths to demonize the poor,” he says. Democrats quietly tucked an amendment sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) into the bill rather than vote on the punitive measure. It prohibits murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from getting food stamps once they’ve served their time. Cleaver says one of the myths is that prisoners receive food stamps, “and most people never take the time to ask what day do they put the prisoners on a bus and drive them to the Safeway.”

“Here’s my prediction,” Cleaver told The Daily Beast. There will be a fierce battle on the House floor to reduce the $20 billion in cuts and a Democratic proposal to cut subsidies to big oil instead. Democrats will lose, “and so the bill coming out of the house will cause many people to puke because of the damage done to the poorest people.” Democrats may regain some ground when the bill goes to conference and must be reconciled with the Senate version, but splitting the difference between $4 billion and $20 billion in cuts would still be significant.

The farm bill is close to $1 trillion over 10 years, and nearly 80 percent of that is food stamps, making it an attractive target for the new ascendant libertarian wing of the GOP. “They see a program that helps people who aren’t helping themselves, and they want to kick the crap out of it,” says a House Democratic aide. House Speaker John Boehner inflamed the divisions within his own party when he said this week that he will vote for the farm bill. The Heritage Foundation’s political arm is running radio ads against three Republicans and one Democrat in agriculture districts, accusing them, complete with pig squeals in the background, of “putting a tuxedo on a pig” by backing a farm bill that is really a food stamp bill.

They see a program that helps people who aren’t helping themselves, and they want to kick the crap out of it.”
Heritage is demanding Republicans honor their commitment to cut spending, and that includes subsidies to farmers as well as food stamps. Republicans have expanded a crop insurance program that is a federal subsidy by another name and potentially more costly. Heritage Action spokesman Dan Holler says the merits of food stamps and farm programs should be debated separately and that it’s time to end the “legislative log rolling” that couples the interests of farm state and urban members in the same bill. He concedes that it’s an open question whether either program would pass on its own.

More white people receive food stamps than black people, and able-bodied people without dependents are limited in the amount of time they can access the program. Sixty percent of working-age people in the program are women, most with children, and if the cuts go through, 210,000 children would lose their free school lunch benefit. On Thursday, almost 30 members of Congress embarked on the “SNAP challenge,” eating on a SNAP budget for a few days or a week. “That’s $4.50 a day,” says Michael Mershow, McGovern’s press secretary, “And no cheating, no office coffee in the morning, no bacon-wrapped scallops at receptions in the evening.”

Republicans say these Democrats are grandstanding and point out that SNAP is a supplemental feeding program that was never intended to be someone’s sole diet. But for the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly, or people just down on their luck, it’s what they depend on. Politics will determine whether food stamps, once an untouchable program, will suffer a body blow or survive largely intact. “What’s been sold over the years is that SNAP is an urban program, and the word urban can sometimes be a substitute for black or brown,” says Cleaver, who has worked hard to convince the farmers in the rural county of his district they have as much to gain from a robust food program as the folks in Kansas City.

Further comment: Lefties active in politics, Eleanor Clift for example, like to insert comfort reading to those racially and racistfully inclined, with phrases like…”the majority of recipients who receive federal benefits are WHITE….politically ignoring the fact that 88% of the American population is NOT BLACK.

Criminals, the violent, the brutal, in America are black males relative to their position of the American population as a whole…..yet, the majority of Americans in the rape, pillage, and burn business are certainly white…wouldn’t we all agree?

Statistics are things Marxists, especially Obamalings, love to play with, whether they are true or not.

Dennis Prager’s Basics for Civilizing American School Children

The following article was sent by Arlene Taber regarding modern Leftist American culture:

America has lost its decency, manners, politeness!…..

Listen to the young people, F-this, F-that, and nary anyone will step up and correct them- even with wife and kids in tow!

We watched high school principal Dennis Prager of Colorado , along with Sara Palin and Tom Brokaw on TV a couple of weeks ago….what a dynamic, down to earth speaker. Even though Palin and Brokaw were also guest speakers they did little but nod and agree with him. This is the guy that should be running for President in 2016!

A Speech Every American High School Principal Should Give. by Dennis Prager .

To the students and faculty of our high school: I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people.

I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers and against our country.

First , this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships. The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity — your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American.

This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans. If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity, race and non-American nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America , one of its three central values — epluribus Unum, “from many, one.” And this school will be guided by America ‘s values. This includes all after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes race, language, religion, sexual orientation or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness.

Your clubs will be based on interests and passions, not blood, ethnic, racial or other physically defined ties Those clubs just cultivate narcissism — an unhealthy preoccupation with the self — while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. So we will have clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, carpentry and more. If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interested in are those based on ethnic, racial or sexual identity, that means that little outside of yourself really interests you.

Second , I am uninterested in whether English is your native language. My only interest in terms of language is that you leave this school speaking and writing English as fluently as possible. The English language has united America ‘s citizens for over 200 years, and it will unite us at this school. It is one of the indispensable reasons this country of immigrants has always come to be one country. And if you leave this school without excellent English language skills, I would be remiss in my duty to ensure that you will be prepared to successfully compete in the American job market We will learn other languages here — it is deplorable that most Americans only speak English — but if you want classes taught in your native language rather than in English, this is not your school.

Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavor, everything in this school will reflect learning’s elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. Many people in our society dress more formally for Hollywood events than for church or school. These people have their priorities backward. Therefore, there will be a formal dress code at this school.

Fourth, no obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school’s property — whether in class, in the hallways or at athletic events. If you can’t speak without using the f -word, you can’t speak. By obscene language I mean the words banned by the Federal Communications Commission, plus epithets such as “Nigger,” even when used by one black student to address another black, or “bitch,” even when addressed by a girl to a girlfriend. It is my intent that by the time you leave this school, you will be among the few your age to instinctively distinguish between the elevated and the degraded, the holy and the obscene.

Fifth, we will end all self-esteem programs. In this school, self-esteem will be attained in only one way — the way people attained it until decided otherwise a generation ago — by earning it. One immediate consequence is that there will be one valedictorian, not eight.

Sixth, and last, I am reorienting the school toward academics and away from politics and propaganda. No more time will be devoted to scaring you about smoking and caffeine, or terrifying you about sexual harassment or global warming. No more semesters will be devoted to condom wearing and teaching you to regard sexual relations as only or primarily a health issue… There will be no more attempts to convince you that you are a victim because you are not white, or not male, or not heterosexual or not Christian. We will have failed if any one of you graduates this school and does not consider him or herself inordinately fortunate — to be alive and to be an American.

Now, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of our country. As many of you do not know the words, your teachers will hand them out to you.

A Repeat……. the Worthy, William Kristol’s “Born Free”…and Becky Gerritson’s Reminder

William Kristol……BORN FREE

article sent by Mark Waldeland, worthy of a second reading:

In Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio, the captive English maid, Blonde, scornfully rejects the advances of the powerful Osmin, overseer of Pasha Selim’s harem: “Pasha here, pasha there! Girls are not good to give away! I am an Englishwoman, born free, and I defy anyone who wants to force me to do anything!”

More than two centuries later, Becky Gerritson, speaking to the House Ways and Means Committee about IRS harassment of the Wetumpka, Alabama, Tea Party, picked up the baton: “I am not here as a serf or vassal. I am not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born free American woman, wife, mother, and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my well-being and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty. And you have faltered.”

And so they have. Not that IRS bigwigs like Doug Shulman and Lois Lerner really believe that they faltered. They don’t seem any more contrite about their bullying than Osmin was about his. The IRS poobahs aren’t quite as imperious as Osmin—though they do seem to have followed the extravagant lead of Oriental seraglios when arranging their own conferences and conventions. But nothing has been more striking over the last few weeks than the annoyed dismissal by the IRS officials and their apologists, particularly the reprehensible representative Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), of the notion that their duty might be to serve the public rather than to boss them around. Nothing has been more striking than their complacent assumption that regular Americans out in the countryside enjoy their rights only at the sufferance and discretion of their political and bureaucratic masters in Washington.

That’s the heart of the IRS scandal. It’s about liberty. It’s about self-government. As Becky Gerritson explained, “This was a willful act of intimidation to discourage a point of view. What the government did to our little group in Wetumpka, Alabama, was un-American. It isn’t a matter of fining or arresting individuals. The individuals who sought to intimidate us were acting as they thought they should in a government culture that has little respect for its citizens. Many of the agents and agencies of the federal government do not understand that they are servants of the people. They think they are our masters, and they are mistaken.”

It’s surely no coincidence that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups. The Tea Parties are the clearest example in recent times of Americans coming together to act on their own, exercising what Tocqueville called the “art of association,” an art crucial to self-government and threatening to the nanny state. Why did the IRS go after the Tea Parties rather than well-established conservative groups or even big Republican donors? Somehow the IRS sensed that the existence, the flourishing, and the possible success of Tea Parties represented a more fundamental threat to the soft despotism of the nanny state than more conventional conservative efforts.

The spirit of self-government manifested by the citizens who have formed and chosen to associate with thousands of local Tea Parties stands in deep opposition to the modern progressive bureaucratic state, which is all about top-down control by experts, not about citizens choosing to govern themselves. That’s why liberals in Congress and the media, like the bureaucrats in the IRS, sense that somehow the Tea Party is a fundamental threat to their dominance. After all, why do liberals so loathe and fear the Tea Party? Isn’t the movement unpopular, as the liberal media keep reminding us? Haven’t Tea Party efforts often been ineffectual, and haven’t they sometimes backfired, as the liberal media claim? If they really believed what they say, wouldn’t liberals sit back and enjoy watching the Tea Parties take conservatism and the Republican party over the cliff?

But they don’t sit back. They know the Tea Parties are a threat. They know what Osmin knows: When Blonde declares that “a heart that is born in freedom will never allow itself to be enslaved,” Osmin exclaims, “By Allah! She would be capable of making all the women rebellious against us.” The spirit of the Tea Party is capable of making Americans rebellious against their overseers in Washington. Thus the attempt to strangle this citizens’ movement in its cradle.

What is to be done by Republicans in Congress and conservatives outside? Investigate, investigate, and keep on investigating. Hold more hearings. Get the facts. Don’t take seriously the crocodile tears of liberal commentators, allegedly worried that Republicans might overreach. Sure, a few congressmen will say foolish things, and not every hearing will produce witnesses as eloquent and sympathetic as last week’s. But the key is to forge ahead, and to determine just what happened and just how pervasive the efforts to target inconvenient groups were.

Nor should Republicans become obsessed with the role of the White House. The notion that a scandal isn’t a scandal unless the president is personally involved is short-sighted. The point is not to indict the president, or some White House apparatchik, personally. The point is to indict the spirit of the Obama administration and of big government liberalism. The point is to defeat the president’s broad project to restore faith in big government and to convince Americans to accept and embrace dependency on government.

Exposing the bureaucratic arrogance that lies beneath the claims of governmental benevolence, lifting the veil on the liberal yearning for domination and mastery that lies behind the expressions of sympathy and concern—these would be the real benefits of laying bare what happened at the IRS. As Evelyn Waugh once said about an attempt at oppression by the British Labour party, “There we have the progressive cat, a great brute of an animal, clear out of the bag.” The IRS scandal is the progressive cat, clear out of the bag.

Many conservatives are worried that the last election suggests a majority of Americans like that cat. We doubt it. One night last week Jay Leno remarked in his monologue, “President Obama says he’s renewing his efforts to close Guantánamo Bay. Guantánamo Bay? How about closing the IRS? Why don’t we do that?” Thunderous applause. Leno continued, “How about shipping the IRS to Guantánamo Bay?” Thunderous applause again. If Republicans proceed with the nerve of Blonde and the wit of Leno, they’ll get the thunderous applause they deserve. They should remember that at the end of theAbduction, a cheerful Blonde goes free, and a thwarted Osmin storms off the stage in impotent rage.

MPIRG MARXISTS NIGHT OUT SEPARATING THE NAUGHTY FROM THE NICE

A couple of years have gone by since my last visit from MPIRG canvasers checking out the neighborhoods for money and Marxists or for money from the confused.

This is an ancient University of Minnesota student funded, Marxist enterprise to raise experience, collect knowledge, and print money, propagandize, and take count of the naughty and nice, for specific left wing causes of the day.

The couple of years ago MPIRG visit came from two gals, a chubby chatty pleasant one, and a Madame DeFarge-to-be for the Obama revolutionary crowd.

The Obama revolutionary crowd has returned with only one representative this evening…..a bouncy guy with a friendly smile to a point of quick ‘return’.

Again, MPIRG is funded by Minnesota students who pay university tuition. How’s that for a Marxist enterprise?

Let me see what the University of Minnesota is selling these days: According to their public internet spot they claim to be:

“Nonprofit organization founded, funded and directed by college and university students. An advocacy group on issues of the environment, consumers and social …”

….and another more directed: “University of Minnesota – Twin Cities – MPIRGwww.mpirg.org/students/U-M_twin_cities.html‎ ……..This semester, we are focusing our efforts against the anti-marriage amendment and the voter suppression amendment on the Minnesota ballot. We are actively …” At this point I decided to check Wikipedia to see how this Marxist group is identified. Wiki reads:

“The Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (also known as MPIRG) describes itself as “a grassroots, non-partisan, nonprofit, student-directed organization that empowers and trains students and engages the community to take collective action in the public interest throughout the state of Minnesota.” [1]“

I turned to the MPIRG page for its institutional propaganda and found the Marxist devoted group claiming the following:

Empowering Students Since 1971

Mission // The Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG) is a grassroots, nonpartisan, nonprofit, student-directed organization that empowers and trains students and engages the community to take collective action in the public interest throughout the state of Minnesota.

MPIRG works with seven colleges and universities in Minnesota. Nominal student membership fees provide for a support staff who works with students and shows them how to stand up to powerful interests.

How Are Issues Selected? // The Issues & Actions Conference is held every year in April to set the agenda of MPIRG and to select its issues and campaigns. It is the mechanism by which MPIRG continues to be responsive to the needs of students and community members. Issues are selected for three years (but may be renewed). The current issues are environomics, corporate accountability, and affordable higher education. Specific legislation and campaigns are selected for each issue by the Board of Directors. MPIRG also selects projects each year, which include fair trade, campus sustainability, women’s rights and youth voter participation.

Organizational Structure
Board of Directors // An essential part of MPIRG’s mission is to be a student-directed organization. MPIRG’s board of directors is entirely composed of students that are elected from each campus chapter. The board of directors elects the statewide leadership at its annual meeting in May.

The leadership is comprised of a chair, a vice chair, a treasurer, a secretary, a representative of the public colleges, a representative of the private colleges and a representative of the Greater Minnesota colleges. The board is responsible for the governance of the organization, sets the budget and reviews all financial documents, hires and fires staff, raises funds for the organization, coordinates the short-term and long-term planning processes and hosts the annual Issues & Actions Conference.

Over 130 students gather at MPIRG’s annual fall retreat to set priorities for coming year..

Staff // The Executive Director is the head of the paid staff and oversees the day-to-day operations of the organization. MPIRG has a Community Organizing department of field and phone canvassers that connect to the broader community. The Campus Organizing department consists of campus organizers who work directly with students on each campus.

School Chapters // Students may sit on the local board of directors of their school. Each chapter is run by a student chair or co-chairs. Chapters are further divided into task forces which are facilitated by a task force leader. MPIRG’s structure is rooted firmly in democratic principles, with chapter members electing task force leaders, co-chairs and local board members; local board members electing state board members; and state board members electing the organization’s leadership, to whom the staff are accountable.

No mention seems to be made that every student who pays tuition contributes to this Marxist organization….Minnesota’s State Religion. It is the only religion that has received judicial approval.

My visit with the bouncy MPIRG salesman was very short. He instroduced himself as a MPIRG representative.

I asked him what his mission was this time…..and he responded….ORGANIZING….ORGANIZING BIG TIME…..

I told him I wasn’t interested in organizing for “YOUR PRESIDENT.”…He immediately snapped back in angry defense….”Your president started a War in Iraq.”…

I discovered all I wanted to know and asked him to leave.

Minnesotans are simple minded people. As Leftists they are very fond of themselves. They believe education is good for souls, but no longer know what education means. “Peace” is also a popular word…..almost as popular as “feminism” at the University, the female institution that restricts all knowledge to one Party thinking, collecting, and voting.

Feminists, that is, female Marxists, are against thinking. Reason is so male, so “thing of the past”, so “era of wars”, replaced by female superiority, women’s intuition and her inate quick action of feelings.

Soviet Style U.S. Journalism at work in North Carolina

Yet another arrest-ridden liberal protest gets the atta-boy from national press

by Mary Katharine Ham, article from HotAir:

I mentioned yesterday the ongoing liberal protests in North Carolina dubbed “Moral Mondays.” Protesters are self-consciously modeling their efforts on Wisconsin’s, which as I noted, doesn’t necessarily bode well for them. But it does give us a chance to witness, once again, the breathtaking double standard in media coverage for protests populated by liberals vs. protests populated by conservatives.

You’ll remember back in 2009, conservatives packed health care town halls to object to Obamacare. There was pointed questioning, occasional yelling, and rare cases (nonetheless very well publicized) of physical altercations of some sort. Back in 2009, in my post-mortem on the August town halls, which had inspired national media to openly fret about the impending doom of the Republic, I calculated that there were about 11 incidents of documented violence at more than 500 health care town halls, and that the majority of them were perpetrated by liberals on conservatives. This, of course, was not the narrative that emerged from that month or what most people remember from it because the media was busy freaking out about how all these peaceful demonstrators and pointed question-askers were bringing the nation to the brink of collapse.

Since then, we’ve seen the destruction of public parks, total disregard for permitting rules, frequent violent eruptions, and occasional sexual assaults or mysterious deaths of Occupy Wall Street glossed over by media in their fervor to continue a national dialogue about inequality and stuff. Had a Tea Party ever resulted in mass arrests, defecating on cop cars, or sexual assaults of attendees, the public policy concerns of the protest’s participants would have been quickly dismissed and the group demonized. For Tea Partiers, those things happened despite holding actual peaceful protests in which public lands were left often better than they were found.

Now, we have “Moral Mondays.” Check out the L.A. Times’ coverage and imagine this kind of press release ever appearing on a Tea Party gathering in national news. Now, imagine that Tea Party protest had included hundreds of arrests. Laugh with me, people.

Raleigh, N.C. — The Rev. Deborah Cayer arrived at the state Legislature building here Monday night wearing a protest button and toting an umbrella. She had tucked her driver’s license into her skirt waistband.

That was all she carried. She had come prepared to spend the night in jail.

Along with 83 other opponents of the Republican-led legislature, Cayer and several fellow clergy members were arrested at a rainy “Moral Monday” protest. Their civil disobedience — they ignored police orders to disperse — was the latest in a growing series of protests over the conservative agenda of North Carolina’s Republican-run state government.

“I wanted to be a part of this, and to be heard,” Cayer, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Durham, said moments before a police officer gently wrapped plastic flex cuffs on her wrists and led her off to jail. Her button read, “Forward together — not one step back” — a theme of the more than 380 protesters arrested in the six weekly protests held so far.

North Carolina has long portrayed itself as a progressive former Confederate state — a moderate Southern beacon in civil rights and social justice. That image has been challenged since November, when Republicans won the governor’s race and took control of both the Legislature and governor’s mansion for the first time since Reconstruction.

For the state’s Democrats, Barack Obama’s narrow victory in North Carolina in the 2008 presidential election — the first by a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976 — seems a long, long time ago.

Since November, Republicans have proposed or passed measures to cut unemployment insurance; impose a voter ID law; divert public money to private and religious schools through vouchers; and trim public education budgets. The state has joined at least 12 other states in rejecting billions of dollars in federal Medicaid expansion funding under the Affordable Care Act.
“Impose,” “divert,” and “reject,” being the impartial verbiage favored by the very groups that sponsor these protests, but no matter. The thing goes on and on and on. The protesters are inspiring, facing odds and dutifully being arrested for what they believe in, man. There is no investigation of who is behind them, no impugning the protesters’ motives, and no hand-wringing about the assault they’re launching on a peaceful capital, as there would be with the much more peaceful and orderly Tea Partiers.

The protests have settled into a well-rehearsed drama: On Monday, as before, protesters sang, prayed and refused to disperse. Police officers lined up, coils of white plastic cuffs in hand. Jeff Weaver, chief of the General Assembly police, warned protesters they had five minutes to end their “unlawful assembly.”

Five minutes later, with news photographers and police officers recording the event, protesters offered their wrists for cuffing. The officers politely escorted them to an elevator for a short walk to a prison bus that would take them to jail. One officer carried the handbag of woman he had arrested. Outside, other protesters cheered as each handcuffed arrestee boarded the bus.

Recent protests have focused on Republican-sponsored tax reforms that Democrats say would benefit corporations and wealthy individuals while imposing sales taxes with a proportionally greater impact on poor and middle-class consumers. Republicans say the proposals eliminate tax disparities and encourage investment in the state.

“This is a plan of action that respects all our citizens,” state Rep. John Szoka, a Republican, said this week.

The Legislature has also alarmed environmentalists with bills that favor developers over environmental regulations. One proposal would repeal restrictions on upstream sources whose pollution flows into Jordan Lake, a major municipal water supply in central North Carolina.
Conservatives learned in 2009 and 2010 that their right to assemble and protest faced limits the Left’s does not. Those limits were mostly public relations obstacles, imposed by a press that treated them quite differently than other protesters and very unfairly. The Tea Party adapted, making efforts to police itself for LaRouchie outliers and rude signs that could be used to impugn the whole movement. Gatherings left the grounds of every park they graced immaculate, and participants made a point of thanking police presence for their contributions. Despite their best efforts, and more meek and mild behavior than any major protest movement in several decades, they were demonized. The gap between the standards is so great as to still boggle my mind no matter how many times I see it.

It’s so great as to conclude it is an intentional attempt to discourage one side from exercising its rights, and not just a symptom of reporters being more sympathetic to liberal politics. The coverage of the Tea Party, especially racism charges, is meant to discourage home-schooling moms and flat-tax dads from getting involved and to put off possible newcomers. The press largely finds it distasteful when conservatives voice their beliefs in public and would like them to keep it as quiet as possible if they feel the need to talk at all.

The persecution of Tea Party groups at the hands of the IRS institutionalized this message. One method was unfair and unethical; its ensconcing in the halls of government power was unconstitutional. But make no mistake about it. Neither is merely a mistake.

Crisis of the Century…..Schumer’s Immigration Bill Mexicanizing Uncle Sam

WAKE UP! by Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller regarding the urgency for Republicans to defeat the forever devious Senator Charles Schummer’s immigration bill.

In 2007, John McCain’s “comprehensive” immigrant-legalization bill failed after opponents flooded the Senate with calls, shutting down the switchboard. Despite considerable press hype, the bill didn’t even muster a majority on the crucial cloture vote.

It won’t be that easy this time. For one thing, they have a better switchboard, I’m told. For another, the Republican consultants–e.g. Gillespie, Rove–who helped Mitt Romney lose the 2012 election have taken their own failure as an excuse to push what they’ve wanted all along–a business-pleasing immigration policy guaranteeing a supply of inexpensive labor from abroad and a stream of campaign donations to pay Republican consultants. It beats rethinking the rest of the GOP agenda.

In fact, despite all the talk of polarization and Citizens United, the big money in the immigration fight almost unanimously favors a bipartisan, legalization-first bill. Kochs included. The GOP donor class is asserting itself, Ross Douthat has noted. It’s spotted what it thinks is an intersection of crude self-interest, high-minded tolerance, partisan strategy and libertarian philosophy.

One of the more influential members of this “donorist” class is Rupert Murdoch, which means that FOX News has for all intents and purposes switched sides, giving immigration “comprehensivists” a monopoly in the MSM–five networks to none. As goes Murdoch, so goes Hannity.

If you are a Republican who worries that a flood of low-skilled immigrants would drive down wages and make America an uglier place, where the rich have cheap servants but even diligent unskilled work doesn’t afford a life of dignity–well, we’re sorry. We’ve booked our Republican for the panel this week–Senator McCain! A member of the famous Gang of 8! He always puts on a good show, don’t you agree? (If you are a Democrat who worries about immigration and low wages, you probably don’t exist, and certainly don’t hold elective office. In 2007, populist Dems like Senator Byron Dorgan still walked the halls. Now they’ve been driven out–or underground–by the lure of ethnic identity politics).

Worst of all are distractions that weren’t around in 2007. Probably through sheer bad luck, a series of dramatic scandals has captured the attention of both the press (which would ordinarily be celebrating the Gang of Eight’s epic achievement) and conservatives, who would ordinarily be kicking up a fuss. The distraction factor applies with special force to right-wing talk radio hosts, who instead of mobilizing opposition are pontificating in a daze of either overconfidence (i.e., ‘Democrats want this bill to fail’) or fatalism.You’d think Rush Limbaugh–a rare non-Fox conservative star, who understands what is at stake– might have a good deal of time to spend on the Gang of 8 bill the day before its first test vote in the Senate. You would be wrong. Rush talked mainly about the NSA.

If the conservative public were paying attention, the flaws and crude deceptions of the Schumer-Rubio bill would be common knowledge. They are so obvious, especially in the border enforcement area, that even Sen. Rubio pretends to be dissatisfied with his own bill. Byron York reports that many conservatives are shocked when they learn that Rubio’s bill doesn’t secure the border before legalization. It doesn’t! ”First comes the legalization,” as Rubio boasted yesterday. That’s been obvious for months, but now it’s news. (The border security requirements, themselves evanescent, would only prevent legalized illegals from moving to upgrade from legal status to getting green cards and citizenship.)

It’s time to wake up! Conservatives–while you are (rightly) excited about NSA snooping and partisan IRS corruption, the Congress is about to change America in a more profound, permanent way right under your noses. In the process it will hand President Obama the major second term achievement that will help him overcome the very scandals that are distracting you–or, rather, make his survival or re-ascendance unimportant. He will have won. Democrats will have shaped the future electorate to their own liking. They’ll have transformed what America is.

Please forget about Benghazi and Cincinnati and Edward Snowden’s girlfriend for a minute and pay attention to the main event.

You have one weapon in your arsenal that can trump the big money behind the Gang of 8 bill (S.744). That weapon is fear. It’s not as if the Republican elite has suddenly been persuaded that an amnesty-first immigration bill is a good idea, after all. They’ve always preferred amnesty. They were just too scared to pursue it. What stopped them was the prospect of swift retribution from the electorate, not limited to the Republican primary electorate.

This fear hasn’t disappeared. The elites were scared of voters before and they can be scared again. This applies to red state Democrats like Mark Pryor and primary-able Republicans like Lisa Murkowski. It applies to fence-sitters like Lamar Alexander. It even applies to those like Kelly Ayotte who have now committed to supporting instant legalization (despite having campaigned against it). If voters now make their displeasure with Ayotte known–well, politicians at the top have a way of backtracking from unpopular stands. That’s how they got to the top. At the very least Ayotte’s difficulties would serve as a cautionary example to others.

There will probably be several big votes–most likely on a House-Senate conference bill–before any amnesty can become law. Speaker Boehner will have to make a crucial decision on whether to break the “Hastert Rule” and try to pass a bill in the teeth of his own caucus’ strongly held views. In every case, fear will be the crucial factor. If Senators fear losing their office if a bill becoming law–and they tend to be highly risk-aware–it often has a way of dying without any fingerprints on it (which is arguably what happened in 2007).

There’s a list of Senate phone numbers and emails here. Numbers USA has a handy page that lets you send a fax here. The Capitol switchboard is 202 224-3121.

Ignore the f—ing scandals for a few days and save the country from Chuck Schumer.

John Kerry, so fitting an Obamaling misfit, in trouble aleady

KERRY LANDS ON HOT SEAT OVER STATE DEPARTMENT MISCONDUCT CLAIMS

by Julian Pecquet at the Hill:

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) is demanding that Secretary of State John Kerry provide him with the names of any State Department higher-ups who may have been involved in squashing internal investigations.

A leaked report from the department’s Office of Inspector General alleges that the agency may have interfered in at least eight Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) cases concerning use of prostitutes and other abuses by State Department officials, including an ambassador. In a letter to Kerry, Royce said he was “deeply troubled” by the allegations of political meddling.

“The notion that any or all of these cases would not be investigated thoroughly by the Department is unacceptable,” Royce wrote. “In light of the possibility that the Department interfered with the independence of DSS investigations, I ask that you provide Committee staff with a briefing on this matter as soon as possible.”

He gave Kerry until June 25 to tell the committee whether the allegations of meddling are true and, if so, who was involved and what the department is doing about it.

The internal memo specifically alleges that the chief of staff to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Cheryl Mills, asked investigators to stop looking into Obama’s pick to be ambassador to Iraq. Brett McGurk dropped out of contention last year after his extra-marital affair with a Wall Street Journal reporter covering him became public.

The internal memo also says Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy called off a probe into allegations that Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, a top Obama donor, solicited prostitutes — a charge Gutman vehemently denies. The memo also says unidentified department personnel told an agent to drop his investigation into reports that Clinton’s security detail solicited prostitutes during her travels abroad.

Kennedy has denied the allegations.

“The Foreign Service has been my life for over forty years and through several Secretaries of State,” he said in a statement. “I have always acted to honor the brave men and women I serve, while also holding accountable anyone guilty of wrongdoing.

“In my current position, it is my responsibility to make sure the Department and all of our employees — no matter their rank — are held to the highest standard, and I have never once interfered, nor would I condone interfering, in any investigation.”

Comment: Count the devious, the dishonest Obamalings surrounding the disingenuous and duplicitous Barack Hussein Obama….. Pelosi, Schumer, Waters, Kerry, Hillary, Squaw Warren, Harry Reid, Al Franken, the Congressional Black Caucus gang, Alan Grayson, the Obama Rep who worried about Guam sinking into the ocean if more troops were sent to the base there, and so many others….21st Century Democrat-Marxists….led from behind by 3rd World president, Barack Hussein Obama…..how did America collapse so low so quickly?

What do you Know about Tribal Colleges?

Tribal Colleges: A Dubious Government Investment

from the National Center for Policy Analysis:

Everyone knows a little about the University of Chicago, MIT and Harvard, but few know about the country’s tribal colleges. They are fairly new — Congress authorized and funded them in 1978, and most of today’s 35 colleges got their start even more recently. Funds for the colleges come overwhelmingly from federal taxpayers; state taxpayer funds and casino profits contribute a very small portion of total funding, says Tom Burnett, a former member of the Montana House of Representatives.

Enrollments at tribal colleges range from a few hundred to nearly 2,000. The schools emphasize Native American cultural preservation, and preparation for service in tribal government and social service agencies.

•Readying students for transfer to rigorous colleges and to compete in the global job market has a low priority.
•These colleges not only have high costs per graduate, but also weak educational results.
•The reasons are complex, but they start with the fact that many reservations are places of despair with levels of alcoholism, drug use, suicide, out-of-wedlock childbirth, violence and unemployment that would shock the average American.
•Crucially, tribal students at these colleges pay little or nothing. One faculty member claimed, “If you’re Native American, it basically costs you nothing to come to college.”
Graduation rates are low. When they do complete school, students receive certificates or degrees in a variety of subjects, including accounting, business, Indian arts, native language, nursing, customer service, office technology and commercial driving. The main emphasis is on training students to serve the social services programs on a reservation. The needs of tribes determine the course offerings. The idea that an individual would advance himself or herself, probably leaving reservation boundaries and succeeding in the market economy, seems incidental, and possibly opposed to the program design.

Furthermore, the goals of tribal colleges, as given by their mission statements, focus on cultural transmission. Even cultural transmission efforts fail, though. An official at Little Bighorn College admitted that for all the money schools spend to teach native language, few students show interest. She said the only hope is for parents to tutor language at home, a solution that seems to have little chance of success because few parents do it.

Spending on tribal colleges has proven to be a dubious investment. Tribal colleges should sink or swim on the educational value they provide, not on the ability of officials to wheedle money out of far-away politicians.

Source: Tom Burnett, “The Tragedy of Tribal Colleges,” Pope Center for Higher Education, June 9, 2013.

Senate Left Bribes for Immigration Support for New Open Door Invasions

Legalization, yes. Citizenship, no:

Ross K. Baker at USA TODAY:

Naturalization is a precious gift. So why grant it to those who didn’t play by the rules?

Immigration measure has something for everyone, except serving public interest.
For most, legal resident alien status will be enough.
They will be spared deportation, and be able to live normal lives.
There is something for almost everybody in the Senate’s immigration bill, which was recently approved by the Judiciary Committee and is headed for the floor this week. At more than 1,000 pages, it lives up to its boast of being “comprehensive.”

There is something for the high-tech industry in expanded H-1B visas that ease the way into this country for foreign techies.

There is a generous allowance of temporary workers for agribusiness. Big labor and big business sat down months ago and decided how many construction workers would be allowed in — not so many as to deluge unionized labor and not so few as to disappoint the American business community’s thirst for cheap labor.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., even got a generous visa allowance for foreign ski instructors.

What about public interest?

The interest that was not served in this giant auction, however, was the public interest and the values that we purport to uphold.

There is a lofty term in common use among conservatives who oppose the kind of reform that is making its way through the Senate. The phrase is “rule of law.” Translated into every day speech it means “playing by the rules,” a principle deeply embedded in our culture. You don’t jump the line. You don’t shortchange. And if you do, you shouldn’t expect to be rewarded for it. The reward, in the case of the comprehensive immigration bill, comes in the form of “a pathway to citizenship.”

Citizenship is the most precious gift that America can confer. For many people outside our borders, it is equivalent to winning a megabucks lottery. So why are members of the Senate so determined to grant it to people who did not play by the rules?

Democrats want to reward a constituency that has proved itself both loyal and influential. Republicans see it as a form of damage control, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Hispanic voters whom they have systematically alienated. Each party sees a political dividend in creating millions of new voters who could be registered upon receiving citizenship.

But conservatives might have a good point. Why confer an unmerited reward of citizenship on those who entered the country illegally?

Proponents of a path to citizenship argue on their behalf that they are living “in the shadows.” But bringing them out into the sun light can be accomplished by legalization and registration. Our security will be enhanced because we will then know who and where they are. They will be spared from deportation and able to lead normal lives. For most, legal resident alien status will be enough. It is unlikely that removing the path to citizenship will cause many to pull up stakes and return to their native country.

Now, there are about 2 million people judged as illegal who are completely blameless and should be placed on an expedited path to citizenship: the people brought to this country as children by illegally entering parents. For them, called the DREAMers after the DREAM Act, the shadows need to be lifted. They are certainly worthy of citizenship, much like non-citizens who served in the U.S. military after 9/11.

While lawmakers are at it, they might want to reassert the validity of the birthright provision of the 14th Amendment, which states that those born in the USA are citizens. Enough of the disparaging term “anchor babies,” used by those who quibble with the amendment’s plain language. They are our babies because they were born on our soil.

The immigration process still has a long way to go. It will be subject to amendment on the floor of the Senate and then be taken up by the House, where many Republicans consider the citizenship provision objectionable.

Rather the risk losing the bill in its entirety, senators should be prepared to abandon the path to citizenship portion when they sit down with their House colleagues.

To endow a pathway that began in a violation of the law with the gift of citizenship is to venture down a road of moral hazard and perverse incentives that invites the gaming of the system.

Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.