The Left Cries Rape | The Weekly Standard

Several friends have posted pieces on Facebook claiming the Right is trying to decriminalize rape, withhold protection from rape victims, make rape "not a real crime", and the like. Interestingly enough, when I read the stories, or look up the laws about which the hysterical fit is being thrown, I find they are either innocuous, or actually enhance protection for rape victims.

But it seems the left would rather accuse the right of aiding and abeting rapists than see more protection for victims.

The Left Cries Rape | The Weekly Standard

Jewish Groups Repudiate Jewish Funds for Justice Anti-Beck Effort - Big Journalism

Jewish Groups Repudiate Jewish Funds for Justice Anti-Beck Effort - Big Journalism
A Jewish group placed an ad in the Wall Street Journal, signed by 400 rabbis, calling for the censure of Glenn Beck.
Apparently, this group doesn't speak for all Jews.

Over the past few days, three of the groups used to corroborate the false charges raised by Jewish Funds For Justice have repudiated the letter arraigned by the George Soros proxy. All three weren’t contacted prior to the use of their names, disagreed with the thrust of the letter and were not happy that they were included. A fourth came out and said the letter was too one sided. Not surprisingly the only group/person not raising some objection to the letter has an association with George Soros.

....

Despite its best attempts to attack Fox News’ Glenn Beck, the vast majority people/organizations cited by the Jewish Funds for Justice as corroboration for their slander have labeled their open letter for what it is, a hypocritical effort on their part and by the 400 rabbis, to exploit the Holocaust for political purposes. I said it before and I will say it again, each and every one of those Rabbis should feel ashamed for their attempt to libel Glenn Beck and Fox News.

MercatorNet: Is “Yuck!” a good enough reason?

MercatorNet: Is “Yuck!” a good enough reason?

It is my grave duty to inform you that the same is true of the discipline of ethics, where the most reasoned and convincing arguments nevertheless rest upon a set of basic assumptions which we simply must accept or deny. Those who best represent traditional ethics exist in a kind of parallel universe to most modern academic ethicists, and, it seems, never the twain shall meet.
Hence, such philosophers as the renowned and infamous Peter Singer can freely condemn the irrationality of moral intuition or “the yuck factor”, thereby defending in principle such remaining taboos as bestiality and incest.

Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Misrule by Decree”

Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Misrule by Decree”

All I can say is -- thank goodness! Three cheers for Obama's moral resolve and newly grown spine -- because that smirking trick of his clears the decks for for legal challenges to be answered by attorneys for House and Senate Republicans, who actually support traditional marriage and oppose the same-sex inversion of marriage.

But Obama, Holder, and the entire administration are now openly at war with traditional marriage while aiding and abetting same-sex marriage, and congressional conservatives have been given the green light to vigorously defend the sanctity and necessity of a legal marriage being between one man and one woman. That very fact means that DOMA has a much greater opportunity to be upheld yet again.

Inadvertently, the tremendous victory is ours, not theirs, a gift from the smug and cocky Left. As usual, "Progressivism" overreaches and draws back a stump, setting itself up for voter blowback as well.

The Non-Defense of DOMA

The Non-Defense of DOMA
We have a precedent. It will be interesting to see what people do with it.

Top Six Planned Parenthood Deceptions: In Order of Increasing Absurdity

The secret camera folks are at it again, and Planned Parenthood doesn't seem to have learned from experience.

 Top Six Planned Parenthood Deceptions: In Order of Increasing Absurdity

via Big Government by Lila Rose on 2/9/11

Deception 6) "We reported this to the FBI"
Planned Parenthood wrote the FBI a letter a week after our investigation, only after they realized that Live Action had conducted the sting.They say this themselves. As much as they may pretend, Planned Parenthood was not attempting to help send human traffickers to jail; they were attempting to pre-empt the release of Live Action's footage.
If Planned Parenthood really cared about reporting potential sex traffickers to authorities, they would have called police while the pimp was in the clinic, or immediately after. Not wasting a minute. Planned Parenthood, where are the reports from the now SIX clinics we've released, that you immediately called the police?
Deception 5) Live Action Videos Are All "Doctored" and a "Hoax"
We have heard this tired claim from Planned Parenthood every time we release a video. Yet every time we've released a video, we post the full, unedited footage online for all to see, and send the full, unedited footage to state and federal authorities. Planned Parenthood can't argue with the full footage.
....
Planned Parenthood, if you really think our videos are "fake", "doctored" and a "hoax", why did you yesterday claim that you will be retraining your entire staff of 11,000?
Deception 4) "We are retraining our entire staff of 11,000″
First of all, we have heard the "retraining staff" excuse before.

When Live Action released undercover footage in December of 2008 showing the sexual abuse cover up of a 13 year old girl at Planned Parenthood, the organization called for "re-training". Clearly, that re-training (whatever it was) didn't last very long, if two years later Planned Parenthood workers are caught on tape working with human traffickers to provide services, ways to get around pesky parental involvement laws that protect children, tax-funded discounts and even business advice.
....
A final question: How exactly will Planned Parenthood be "training" it's staff? Will the training be a special seminar on how to recognize Live Action cameras?
Deception 3) Virginia Staff Acted "Professionally"
This is one of the most disturbing statements we have heard yet from Planned Parenthood higher-ups.
Virginia staff, on all four tapes released in Virginia, were very helpful to the self-identified pimp of underage sex slaves. Staffers assured him it was confidential, offered him information on how to get cheaper birth control (link: ), on how to get free STD testing, told him how to use the website and phone system  and even coached him how to use judicial bypasses to get secret abortions for his underage sex slaves.
....
This is not professional; this is criminal. It is criminal and incredibly offensive and harmful to the victims of abuse across our nation.
Deception 2) This is an "isolated incident"
....
Live Action has now released six more clinics in the past week, all showing Planned Parenthood workers, at all levels of the organization, willing to aid and abet the human traffickers of underage girls.
This is an institutional crisis that has engulfed the whole organization. No matter how many times Planned Parenthood's PR firm says "isolated incident", the growing body of evidence still stands.
Deception 1) We have a zero-tolerance policy for abuse, and you should trust us.
If anyone can still believe this, I don't know if there is any evidence in the world that will convince them otherwise.

What If We All Were Rich?

Extrapolating from current trends.  Still popular.

What If We All Were Rich?

via John Goodman's Health Policy Blog by John Goodman on 2/9/11

Barack Obama has said on numerous occasions that if you make less than $200,000 he wants the government to look after you, but if you make more than that you're on your own and can fend for yourself.
Okay, I know those weren't his exact words. But it's a reasonable approximation.
Now consider this. What if we lived in a world where the average family earned more than $200,000? What if almost every family earned more than $200,000? I'll tell you in a moment why it's reasonable to speculate this way and why it's relevant for current public policy. First, I want to consider the implications of almost everybody being rich.
For one thing, we could forget the funding problems of Social Security and Medicare. People who are rich can take care of themselves. In fact, without too much trouble we could cut the federal budget in half. We could eliminate the federal debt in fairly short order. Then we could cut everyone's federal taxes in half. We wouldn't need ObamaCare. There would be no appealing argument for card check. In fact, other than some environmental goals, the entire Obama domestic policy agenda would become unnecessary, superfluous and undesirable. Indeed, from the Obama administration's point of view, if everyone were rich there would be almost nothing for government to do!
Have I got your attention? Okay, now I'll tell you why this is not a pipe dream.
As Gary Becker pointed out the other day, from the middle of the 19^th century to the end of the 20^th century (about 150 years), real per capita income in the United States grew at an average rate of 2%. What if that growth rate continued for another 150 years?
If so, average income would double every 36 years. So today's average household income of $52,020 would exceed $100,000 (at today's prices) in 36 years and would double again to $200,000 after 72 years. Now if that doesn't knock your socks off, you need to know that 75 years is the planning horizon for Social Security and Medicare. It is smack dab in the middle of the retirement period for today's young people — people who think they are more likely to see a UFO than get the entitlement benefits they've been promised.
....
If we had to choose between shoring up today's entitlement programs and making sure that real income grows at 2% per year, shouldn't the latter be the more important goal? More specifically, suppose we have to choose between shoring up the entitlement programs with taxes on the rich (read: high taxes on capital) and a pro-growth policy (read: low taxes on capital). The choice should be a no-brainer.
Let's all get rich and make the welfare state a relic of the past.

Wheel of the Year

Here, within this circle, we shall learn the dance of the Lady, Mother of all things, and her beloved, the Lord of Death and Resurrection.

This dance is ancient beyond time, yet eternally new. It is the dance of atoms and of particles that flicker in and out of existence in a wink. It is the dance of the sun and the moon. It is the stately dance of galaxies in their courses. It is the birth and death of our universe itself - the breath of the Gods. This is the unbroken circle, the Wheel of the Year. The circle is never broken, and its movement is never-ending.

....

The tale of the Lord and Lady is told again and again by every voice in all of time and space. Everything in the universe, from the largest to the smallest, relates the story in its own way and its own time. Their story rings across space and time, and in all the worlds that spin their way through eternity.

We shall follow this dance, in its many intricate steps. Indeed, we shall see this dance as many different dances, woven together into a tapestry of space and time, of light and life, and of mystery. We shall follow the story of birth and growth, of discovery and mastery, of age, ripeness, and decay. We shall pursue the twin mysteries of death and resurrection, and of love, without which none of the other mysteries would take place.

(From the introduction)

Steppenwolf Planets

This article http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1102/1102.1108v1.pdf looks at the possibility of rogue planets in interstellar space harboring life.  The only source of heat would be from the planetary core -- residual heat of formation and radioactive decay.  But given a thick enough insulating layer of ice, that could be enough.

4.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

A Steppenwolf planet’s lifetime will be limited by the decay of the geothermal heat flux, which is determined by the half-life of its stock of radioisotopes (

40K, 238U,232Th) and by the decay of its heat of formation.

These decay times are

1−5 Gyr, so its lifetime is thus comparable to planets in the traditional habitable zone of main-sequence stars (Kasting et al. 1993).

If a Steppenwolf planet harbors life, it could have originated in a more benign era before ejection from the host star. Alternatively, life could originate after ejection around hydrothermal vents, which are a proposed location for the origin of life on Earth (Baross & Hoffman 1985). If life can originate and survive on a Steppenwolf planet, it must be truly ubiquitous in the universe.

We have shown that a rogue planet drifting through interstellar space could harbor a subglacial liquid ocean despite its low emission temperature, and so might be considered habitable. Such an object could be detected and followed-up using current technology if it passed within

O(1000 AU) of Earth.

Wheel of the Year - Now an e-book

The Wheel of the Year

This book is an exploration of the Wiccan Wheel of the year – the eight festivals of the year. This started out as a series of essays on The Witches' Voice. When I printed them out for a friend who was asking about Wiccan holidays, I realized I had the makings of a book.

The book is now available for Kindle users.

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By the way, you don't have to buy the physical device. You can download a reader for your computer.

Math without a license?

I guess Mr. Cox needs a deriver's license.

Looks to Me Like You've Been Doing Some Unlicensed Figurin'

via Hit & Run by Radley Balko on 2/4/11

A citizen in Raleigh, North Carolina presented the city a proposal to install traffic lights near his home. One city official responded by calling for the citizen to be investigated for what basically amounts to doing math without a license.

Cox and his North Raleigh neighbors are lobbying city and state officials to add traffic signals at two intersections as part of a planned widening of Falls of Neuse Road.
After an engineering consultant hired by the city said that the signals were not needed, Cox and the North Raleigh Coalition of Homeowners' Associations responded with a sophisticated analysis of their own...
The eight-page document with maps, diagrams and traffic projections was offered to buttress their contention that signals will be needed at the Falls of Neuse at Coolmore Drive intersection and where the road meets Tabriz Point / Lake Villa Way.
It did not persuade Kevin Lacy, chief traffic engineer for the state DOT, to change his mind about the project. Instead, Lacy called on a state licensing agency, the N.C. Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors, to investigate Cox...
Cox has not been accused of claiming that he is an engineer. But Lacy says he filed the complaint because the report "appears to be engineering-level work" by someone who is not licensed as a professional engineer...
Lacy said he had told the group last year that it should hire an engineer to make its case. He said he was surprised to see engineering-quality work in a report that was not signed by a licensed professional.
"When you start applying the principles for trip generation and route assignment, applying judgments from engineering documents and national standards, and making recommendations," that's technical work a licensed engineer would do, Lacy said.

Lacy is right. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if we let just regular, unlicensed people use sophisticated arguments when petitioning their government.
(Thanks to Michael Chaney for the link.)

Redefining Rape?

I've been seeing posts on Facebook throwing hysterical fits over the Speaker's "evil plan to redefine rape". According to the posts and the online petitions, the Speaker is offering a bill that will redefine to mean *only* forcible rape. Date rape, rape while the victim is under the influence of drugs, rape of the unconscious, and so on, would not count as rape. Are Republicans seriously planning to redefine rape?
No, not quite. Salon has a <a href = "http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/01/hr3_abortion_rape">piece</a> about it. It refers to HR 3, which proposes to limit funding for abortions. It doesn't specify that certain forms of rape are no longer criminal acts. It "merely" limits the forms of rape that will make the victim eligible for Federal funding for an abortion.
SEC. 309. TREATMENT OF ABORTIONS RELATED TO RAPE, INCEST, OR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER.
'The limitations established in sections 301, 302, 303, and 304 shall not apply to an abortion--
'(1) if the pregnancy occurred because the pregnant female was the subject of an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest...
<http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-3&version=ih&nid=t0%3Aih%3A40>
It all comes down to definitions.
In this case, rape remains rape, but only forcible rape qualifies for special coverage. In the same fashion, a law saying only murder with "special circumstances" qualifies for the death penalty is not "redefining murder". It's setting aside a particular class of murders that are subject to a particular action -- in this case, te death penalty.
Agree or disagree with the bill, the point -- the sole point of the original post -- is that the bill does not "redefine rape". It dec...lines to extend a benefit to a subset of people who might otherwise want it.
And for that matter, rape is handled under criminal codes at the state level and below, not at the federal level. I'm not sure a law redefining rape would make it past the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, my Facebook post, where I point out the bill does not redefine the crime of rape, but "merely" states only a particular subset of rapes will be eligible for federal funding of abortions, drew more comments than I've seen in any non-celebrity posts. (Around 90 at last count). Granted, a lot of those were my responses to people, but even so, that's a lot of commenting. And what's interesting is the bulk of the comments focused abortions. Why abortion should be legal. Why people should get federal funding for abortion. Why it's wrong to deny funding for abortion.
A similar post, where I went specifically into the question of whether people who are victims of crimes should receive federal funds to be made whole, has been dead.
Conclusion: The passion in the discussion is not about rape. It's about abortion.

Opposition to GM Organisms Hard to Justify

The basic theme of "Frankenstein" is, "There are things Man was not meant to know". The American Spectator : Opposition to GM Organisms Hard to Justify

Opposition to GMO's usually falls into one of three categories: (1) Biotech and "Big Agribusiness" want to make money at the expense of poor farmers; (2) GMO's are unnatural, and hence, undesirable; and (3) GMO's should not be made until proven safe for humans and the environment.

While #1 might be true, it is a matter of business ethics, not science. #2 is the biological equivalent of the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) argument; it is based entirely on emotion, not facts. Besides, all agriculture is "unnatural." The only truly "natural" way for people to eat is to be hunter-gatherers. Most people probably aren't ready for that lifestyle change.

#3 is the only scientific argument, but it has been mostly addressed. GMO's are already known to be completely safe for human consumption. The vast majority of corn and soybeans in the US are genetically modified. (And corn and soybeans are used in a lot of different foods found in the grocery store.) The concern for the environment is legitimate, but evidence already indicates that GM crops have few adverse effects on the environment. Of course, GM crops need to be carefully monitored for their ecological safety over the long-term, but this is not a sufficient cause to block their use right now.

There might be a case for concern over rogue scientists concocting a The White Plague, but the technology to do this already exists, and scientists out to develop a plague aren't going to register it with the EPA.

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Obamacare Unconstitutional

vinsonruling1 31 11
Interesting what you can find in the footnotes.

³⁰ On this point, it should be emphasized that while the individual mandate was clearly “necessary and essential” to the Act as drafted, it is not “necessary and essential” to health care reform in general. It is undisputed that there arevarious other (Constitutional) ways to accomplish what Congress wanted to do.Indeed, I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that "if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.” See Interview on CNN’s American Morning, Feb. 5, 2008, transcript available at:http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/05/ltm.02.html. In fact, he pointed to the similar individual mandate in Massachusetts --- which was imposed under the state’s police power, a power the federal government does not have --- and opined that the mandate there left some residents “worse off” than they had been before.See Christopher Lee, Simple Question Defines Complex Health Debate, Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2008, at A10 (quoting Senator Obama as saying: "In some cases,there are people [in Massachusetts] who are paying fines and still can't afford[health insurance], so now they're worse off than they were . . . They don't have health insurance, and they're paying a fine . . .”).

Gloria Allred, Pro-Abortion Lobby Jumping the Shark over Tebow Ad

Desperate to find lies where they probably don't exist... Gloria Allred, Pro-Abortion Lobby Jumping the Shark over Tebow Ad - Big Journalism

Ms. Allred’s complaint? That the ad (which she has not seen) will imply or state outright “false” and “misleading information.” You see, Ms. Allred contends that since Mrs. Tebow was living in the Philippines (as a Christian missionary) at the time she became pregnant with Tim, and that since Philippine law prohibits abortion, then she would not have – could not have – been advised by her doctor to have an abortion for health reasons.

....

Presumably, since Ms. Allred is herself a woman of mature age, she is bound to know that an American citizen, who became pregnant during the late 1980s could very easily have been advised that the pregnancy was in danger, due to prescription drugs ingested by the mother. An American citizen returning to the US from the Philippines to have an abortion – fully legal then – would have been as easy as hopping on a jet plane. Is Ms. Allred suggesting that Mrs. Tebow could not have done this if she had wanted to do it? Surely not. That would be stupid.

....

Yes, feminists will do everything they can to prevent the other side of the half-choice of abortion from coming to light.

The Closing of the Muslim Mind

Jihad Watch interviews Robert Reilly, author of The Closing of the Muslim Mind

...the Jabariyya (determinists; from jabr - blind compulsion) embraced the doctrine that divine omnipotence requires the absolute determination of man's actions by God. One of the names of God in the Qur'an is Al-Jabbar, the Compeller (59:23), whose power cannot be resisted. God alone authors man's every movement. To say otherwise ties God's hands and limits his absolute freedom. One of the exponents of this view, Jahm b. Safwan (d. 745), argued that man's actions are imputed to him only in the same way as one imputes "the bearing of fruit to the tree, flowing to the stream, motion to the stone, rising or setting to the sun - blooming and vegetating to the earth." As twentieth century Muslim thinker Fazlur Rahman summed up the dispute, "In the eyes of the orthodox, this freedom for man was bondage for God." Their theology made free will anathema. Reality was distorted to fit a deformed theology. Thus we have statements such as this from Ibn Taymiyya, the medieval thinker so in favor with Islamists today: "Creatures have no impact on God since it is God Himself who creates their acts." So freedom for God ended up meaning bondage for man.

....

It had a very dramatic effect on Islamic theology. It ended it. How can theology explore a God who acts for no reasons? By definition, He becomes incomprehensible. "Allah does what he wills." - Qur'an 14:27 "Dost thou not know that God has the power to will anything?" - Qur'an 2:106 This aspect of Allah was also remarked upon by the Islamist radical Sayyid Qutb in The Shadow of the Qur'an: "Every time the Qur'an states a definite promise or constant law, it follows it with a statement implying that the Divine will is free of all limitations and restrictions, even those based on a promise from Allah or a law of His. For His will is absolute beyond any promise of law." You may also recall the famous remark by Ibn Hazm that the Pope used in the Regensburg Lecture that "God is not bound even by his own word."

....

Reason was rejected because it is too corrupted by self-interest. But the real, deeper reason is because there is nothing for it to know. Reality is composed of a series of instantaneous miracles directly caused by God's will. Everything is directly done by God, who acts for no reasons. The catastrophic result of this view was the denial of the relationship between cause and effect in the natural world. Therefore, what may seem to be "natural laws," such as the laws of physics, gravity, etc., are really nothing more than God's customs, which He is at complete liberty to break or change at any moment. The consequences of this view were momentous. If creation exists simply as a succession of miraculous moments, it cannot be apprehended by reason. As a result, reality becomes incomprehensible. If unlimited will is the exclusive constituent of reality, there is really nothing left to reason about. In The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111), perhaps the single most influential Muslim thinker after Mohammed, vehemently rejected Greek thought: "The source of their infidelity was their hearing terrible names such as Socrates and Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle." Al-Ghazali insisted that God is not bound by any order and that there is, therefore, no "natural" sequence of cause and effect, as in fire burning cotton or, more colorfully, as in "the purging of the bowels and the using of a purgative." Things do not act according to their own natures - they have no natures - but only according to God's will at the moment.

Tucson Tea Party Speaks Out After Weeks of False Accusations & Death Threats

Tucson Tea Party Speaks Out After Weeks of False Accusations & Death Threats | The Gateway Pundit

...This brings us to the second part of the tragedy: the efforts of some to turn this horrific event and investigation into a political witch hunt. The Tucson shooter, by all accounts, acted irrationally and alone. However, the response by certain members of the media and political class was coordinated, pre-meditated, and certainly intended to do harm to people that they disagreed with politically, all the while knowing that there was no real connection.

The term, although rarely now used, is “calumny.” And it didn’t just start on the day of the shooting.

Because lies and intimidation couldn’t silence you, they now seek to ensnare you with a velvet rope of “civility.” The “tone and civility” argument is a wall that will grow ever higher as we try to scale it. No amount of grace, no level of penance, no measure of timidity can ever pay the price of a sin that we didn’t commit. We have been civil, we have shown restraint, we have gathered in large numbers to seek truth and earned the respect of the community for the measured manner that we did this....

For reference: Republican Rhetoric, Right-Wing Terror...

Palin Derangement Syndrome

Why the Left Hates Sarah Palin | FrontPage Magazine

Today, the conversation turned to Sarah Palin and my latest acquaintance blurted out: “Oh I hate her.” Since she did not yet know my politics, and since we were in Los Angeles, it is clear that she expected to hear back what you usually hear back in this city: “Yeah, I hate her, too.” Instead, I asked her why.

At this point I could have predicted her response because it’s the same response you get from liberals no matter who on the Right you’re talking about: “Because she’s stupid.” I replied: “Being stupid is no reason to hate someone, but tell me, which one of her policies do you disagree with?” It wasn’t hard to predict her response: “All of them!”

I continued to push. “Well, then, if it’s all of them, it should be easy for you to name one.” Her reply? “They’re too many to list.”

“So don’t list them, just give me one,” I said.

This went on for awhile until my new acquaintance finally admitted that she didn’t know any of Ms. Palin’s policies. Before she ran off – Democrats always run off when asked to provide facts to justify their hatred for Republicans – I looked her in the eyes and said, “If you don’t know any of her policies, perhaps you should look into them.” She promised she would. She won’t. If there are two things you can count on with Democrats, they are filled with hate and empty of facts.

So why the hate?

First, Ms. Palin is married with children. The Democrat Party’s treasured storyline is that women with children – especially those who take care of them themselves – are oppressed, victimized and doomed to a life without personal fulfillment. Ms. Palin’s life proves them wrong and the Democrats hate her for this. If Ms. Palin were a Democrat she would have offed the last child before he was born so that she could have more “me” time to pursue her own wants and pleasures. There is clearly something very “wrong” with this woman who allowed her “special needs” child to live. They hate her for that.

James Taranto tends to agree.

We'd say this goes beyond mere jealousy. For many liberal women, Palin threatens their sexual identity, which is bound up with their politics in a way that it is not for any other group (possibly excepting gays, though that is unrelated to today's topic).

An important strand of contemporary liberalism is feminism. As a label, "feminist" is passé; outside the academic fever swamps, you will find few women below Social Security age who embrace it.

That is because what used to be called feminism--the proposition that women deserve equality before the law and protection from discrimination--is almost universally accepted today. Politically speaking, a woman is the equal of a man. No woman in public life better symbolizes this than Sarah Palin--especially not Hillary Clinton, the left's favorite icon. No one can deny Mrs. Clinton's accomplishments, but neither can one escape crediting them in substantial part to her role as the wife of a powerful man.

....

To the extent that "feminism" remains controversial, it is because of the position it takes on abortion: not just that a woman should have the "right to choose," but that this is a matter over which reasonable people cannot disagree--that to favor any limitations on the right to abortion, or even to acknowledge that abortion is morally problematic, is to deny the basic dignity of women.

To a woman who has internalized this point of view, Sarah Palin's opposition to abortion rights is a personal affront, and a deep one. It doesn't help that Palin lives by her beliefs. To the contrary, it intensifies the offense.

....

What about male Palin-hatred? It seems to us that it is of decidedly secondary importance. Liberal men put down Palin as a cheap way to score points with the women in their lives, or they use her as an outlet for more-general misogynistic impulses that would otherwise be socially unacceptable to express.

Chris Matthews and Michele Bachmann

There are people who just seem to elicit a two-minute hate on the part of otherwise (presumably) sane people. One risk of indulging in the two-minute hate is people who aren't initiates to hater's worldview are liable to tune in to the object of the hatred to see what the fuss is about. Who knows what they'll see? Enough, Chris Matthews. Stop Lying About Michele Bachmann’s Iowa Speech - Big Journalism

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has gone on a three-day Bachmann-bashing binge over a speech she gave in Iowa last weekend. In the speech, Rep. Bachmann pointed out that the scourge of slavery was a horrible chapter in our country’s history, but we should give credit to our forebears who worked tirelessly to eradicate slavery. As an example, she offered up John Quincy Adams and his relentless efforts on behalf of the abolitionist movement.

....

Matthews, like a rabid dog with a bone, has twisted Rep. Bachmann’s statement and attempted to make it appear as though she is denying that slavery ever happened, or suggesting that Rep. Bachmann thinks our forefathers eradicated slavery. Get the difference? Adams, Franklin and Jefferson are forefathers, Lincoln, Grant and the politicians of the mid-nineteenth century are forebears. Since Mr. Matthews has had many days to reflect on the actual text of Ms. Bachmann’s speech we can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he is merely mistaken. No, at this point the only conclusion to reach is Mr. Matthews is lying.

Crusader Rabbis

Jeff Dunetz charges 400 rabbis with loshon hora (evil speech): Soros-Funded Attack On Glenn Beck Shames Rabbinical Profession, American Jewry - Big Journalism

In today’s Wall Street Journal, four-hundred Rabbis joined with a socialist Jewish organization called Jewish Funds for Justice (JFJ) to bring shame upon themselves, their holy profession and the entire Jewish people, and even worse have committed a Chillul Hashem (desecration of God’s name) with an open letter to Fox News against Glenn Beck.

Loshen Hora is not permitted even when true, but in this case there is nothing to worry about because it’s not true.

I can guarantee you not one of these Rabbis are listeners of Beck, because if they were, they would know that he hadn’t as the letter they signed said made, literally hundreds of on-air references to the Holocaust and Nazis when characterizing people with whom [Beck] disagree[s]. According to Jewish law, if they sign a letter saying that Beck made hundreds of on air references they should see the proof. So I ask Rabbi Steven Wernick, Executive Vice President, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement of Judaism of which my family and I are members, where’s the proof? To Rabbi Daniel Nevins, Dean, Jewish Theological Seminary Rabbinical School which recognized my wife and me for community service who also signed the letter, I ask: is this what you want to teach the rabbis of tomorrow? I invite any of the Rabbis who signed this letter did you watch the three day Soros series or did you just read the partial transcript sent to you? Did you know that almost everything that Beck said in those three days came directly out of the mouth of George Soros?

....

The Jewish Fund for Justice is waging this battle against Glenn Beck as an agent of George Soros. The group receives significant funding Soros’ Open Society Institute, which gave the organization $30,000 in 2008, $150,000 in 2009 and $200,000 in 2010, (H/T Ken Larrey). I wonder if any of the Rabbis who signed this letter knew the motivation, or that before Beck did his three day special on Soros, there was a meeting between senior staff of the two and Soros’ guy warned Beck’s not to do the expose? Of course not! A true rabbi would have called Beck and asked for his side; none did.

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On its website the Jewish Funds For Justice has a online library of articles, leadership and facilitation exercises, templates, and other helpful resources for you to utilize in your organizations. Feel free to download and share any of these materials.

An entire section of the library is about the “White Man” as the oppressor. A series of articles which say even if they don’t know it, the Caucasian is a racist and an oppressor, which gives insight into their beliefs behind social justice. This position seems to echo some of the positions of black liberation theology, which have been exposed by the Fox broadcaster. The thought that we are collectively guilty and our salvation will only come if we collectively repent against the social crimes that we have done.

And B. Daniel Blatt notes an apparent double standard"

Where were liberal rabbis when Democrats compared Republicans to Nazis?

It’s Jennifer Rubin, just read the whole thing.

I agree with her that Beck sometimes crosses a line, but he’s no worse than some on the left, like the aforementioned Tennessee Democrat, who regularly use Nazi imagery in describing Republicans.

Fine, criticize Glenn Beck, but then also criticize Steve Cohen. Why did these rabbis fail organize when Democrats and mainstream media outlets crossed this rhetorical line?