BECAUSE MARXISM HAS GLOBAL SUPPORT: This is the answer to the question Steven Hayward over at Power Line asks: “How is Liberation Theology Still a Thing?”  Liberation theology is a Marxist version of Catholic teaching, which views poverty through the lens of capitalist oppression, much like Black Liberation theology–of which President Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is an adherent–views black poverty as a consequence of white, wealthy capitalist oppression of blacks.  As Hayward observes, yesterday’s front page New York Times story about Pope Francis’s actions to bring liberation theology out of the shadows, a subject I’ve I’ve written about before.  But in typical NYT fashion, the reporter fails to even seriously consider the deep Marxist undertones of liberation theology, much less what the Pope’s embrace of it might portend. The only mention of Marxism comes in this brief passage:

“With the end of the Cold War, he [Francis] began to see that liberation theology was not synonymous with Marxism, as many conservatives had claimed,” said Paul Vallely, author of “Pope Francis: Untying the Knots.” Argentina’s financial crisis in the early years of the 21st century also shaped his views, as he “began to see that economic systems, not just individuals, could be sinful,” Mr. Vallely added.

Since becoming pope, Francis has expressed strong criticism of capitalism, acknowledging that globalization has lifted many people from poverty but saying it has also created great disparities and “condemned many others to hunger.” He has warned, “Without a solution to the problems of the poor, we cannot resolve the problems of the world.”

Notice that liberation theology’s linkage to Marxism is dismissed offhand as a “conservative[] . . . claim.”  Yet in the next breath, the NYT reporter concedes that Pope Francis “has expressed strong criticism of capitalism.”  Hayward is right to ask why liberation theology is “still a thing,” but the answer is that it never stopped being a thing, because the Marxist ideology is alive and well, with powerful apologists or allies (even if not full-fledged adherents) in the Vatican, White House and beyond.

STATE-BY-STATE CONSIDERATION IS HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO WORK:  A psychiatry professor’s WSJ oped, “The Assisted Suicide Movement Goes on Life Support,” explains why voters in liberal/progressive states such as Massachusetts have refused, and California is presently hesitating, to follow in the footsteps of existing right-to-die states such as Oregon and Washington.

Californians are realizing that assisted suicide represents the slipperiest of slopes. This can be especially true for those who rely on emergency rooms for primary care, lack health-care access, or who predominantly come from minority or immigrant communities with documented health-care disparities where many remain uninsured. They would have every reason to mistrust a health-care system under considerable pressure to drive down costs.

Furthermore, what message are we sending to teens and young adults if California legislators promote suicide as an appropriate response to difficult life circumstances? Suicide in the U.S. is a public-health crisis. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated a “social contagion” aspect to suicide, which leads to copycat suicides. . . .

The suicide rates in Oregon rose dramatically in the years following the legalization of assisted suicide there in 1997. After declining in the 1990s, rates rose between 2000 and 2010, surpassing the rate of increase nationally. As of 2010, suicide rates were 35% higher in Oregon than the national average.

As a psychiatrist, I have evaluated thousands of individuals who tell me they want to die. If they are helped through these crises—given the medical, psychological and social support they need—they are later grateful for that intervention.

A large body of psychiatric research has demonstrated that 80% to 90% of suicides are associated with depression or other treatable mental disorders. Yet only 5% of the individuals who have died by assisted suicide under Oregon’s permissive law were referred for psychiatric consultation before their death. This lack of basic psychological evaluation and treatment constitutes medical negligence.

I’m not so sure that California will reject the measure as did Massachusetts. Earlier this week, the California Medical Association became the first medical association to withdraw formal opposition of physician-assisted suicide, in exchange for language in the ballot measure that would allow health care professionals to “opt out” of the practice, if enacted.

Allowing States to experiment with new social policies is the appropriate way to handle issues about which there is tremendous disagreement– whether assisted suicide, gay marriage, abortion, polygamy or anything else.  In a federal system such as ours, the national government has only limited and enumerated powers, and the residuum remains with the States.  The Constitution does not mention any of these things, of course, and constitutionalizing them upsets the federalism architecture, imposing a one-size-fits-all decision when it would be much better to simply allow the people to decide, state-by-state, via the democratic process.

SO NOW IT’S A CLIMATE “WAR”:  The rhetoric on global warming climate change is heating up  (pun intended).  In addition to President Obama’s recent remarks to the Coast Guard Academy–when he said “the science is indisputable” and “[b]y the middle of this century, Arctic summers could be essentially ice free”–the liberal/progressive forces are gearing up to scare LIVs into believing global warming climate change is a national security risk.  An oped by CNN’s homeland security analyst Juliette Kayyem is now trying to co-opt the overused “war on” shibboleth:

It is often a misleading analogy, but it is meant to get the public to respond to a dire need, just as they would in wartime. The terminology, however, is entirely accurate — and literal — when it comes to our need to address the changing environment as “the war on climate change.”

. . .

Skeptics of these global seismic shifts are not simply denying science, they are denying safety and security. Until we recognize — with the immediacy we would if a nation launched missiles against our cities — that climate change isn’t something that can be debated, but must be mitigated or, failing that, adapted to, we will not expend the effort or resources to prepare ourselves to the one phenomenon that we know is coming: simply, the waters are rising and this is a war.

So now, if one rejects massive economic reorganization based upon ever-changing evidence of cyclical, fluctuating global temperatures, one is not merely a “science denier,” but also putting U.S. national security at risk.  Ironic, given that this accusation is coming from the same people who are so intimidated by ISIS that they dare not insult Mohammed, and think that talking about “radical Islam” is discriminatory because hey, as President Obama said, “Islam is a religion of peace.”  But global warming climate change!– now that’s a real security risk!

These radical climatists don’t want to hear about contrary evidence, of which there is plenty.  And indeed, if someone dares to publicly disagree with the progressive orthodoxy on global warming climate change, he is likely to be branded a heretic.

I hope the Republican candidates for President are readying themselves to punch back twice as hard when the mainstream media and Queen Hillary hit them with this “national security” accusation.

GAME OF THRONES “RAPE” SCENE:  Feminists are in a tizzy about the supposed rape of Game of Thrones character Sansa Stark.  There’s a defense of the storyline and character development by Leslie Loftis in The Federalist today.  But even Loftis assumes that the scene involved a rape. I’m a fan of the show, and I saw the scene.  But I honestly don’t understand why everyone is assuming this was a “rape.”

During the episode, Sansa was married to character Ramsey Bolton (a creepy, sadistic character, for sure).  Immediately after their wedding, Ramsey asks Sansa to undress.  She complies, and then one hears her crying, presumably as Ramsey is raping her.  But the two are married, and Sansa never once indicates, overtly or even implicitly, that she objects to having sex with him.  So if she does not object in any way, would not her husband reasonably assume she consented?  If one wanted to shoot a “rape” scene, should not the script writer have at least provided some indication that Sansa articulated a “no”?

I understand that Ramsey is an icky character, that he asked his slave to watch them have sex, and that he would not have taken a “no,” even it if had been uttered or indicated by physical resistance (in which case continuation would clearly have been a rape).  But given that the scene offers no manifestation of objection by Sansa, is it even fair to characterize this scene as a “rape”?

“AFTER MY ELECTION I’LL HAVE MORE FLEXIBILITY”: These were President Obama’s infamous words to Dmitry Medvedev back in spring 2012.  David Adesnik at NRO now asks, “Is the Obama Administration Readying More Concessions to Russia?”

TED NUGENT’S COMMENCEMENT: In today’s Daily Caller, rocker Ted Nugent has a few words of advice for graduates.  His first four pearls:

1. Life is not fair. Get used to it.
2. Social justice is a commie scam. Read the drivel of Saul Alinsky and fight it with all you’ve got.
3. Nobody owes you jacksquat. You will either earn your own way, or feel like a helpless leech. There is no middle ground.
4. Economic equality is for sheep. If you really believe we are all equal in our capabilities you will go nowhere.

As Nugent said in his song, “Workin’ Hard, Playin’ Hard”:

Now it’s my turn to show my stuff;
It’s sometimes fun and sometimes rough.
I’m workin’ hard to earn my way;
But, lucky me, my work is play.

Workin’ hard, playin’ hard;
Helps me get thru each day and night.
Workin’ hard, playin’ hard;
Makes everything all right.

Exactly.

THE “GOTCHA!” IRAQ HINDSIGHT HYPOTHETICAL: Charles Krauthammer: You want hypotheticals? Here’s one.

The current collapse was not predetermined in 2003 but in 2011. Isn’t that what should be asked of Hillary Clinton? We know you think the invasion of 2003 was a mistake. But what about the abandonment of 2011? Was that not a mistake? . . .

And the damage was self-inflicted. The current situation in Iraq, says David Petraeus, “is tragic foremost because it didn’t have to turn out this way. The hard-earned progress of the surge was sustained for over three years.”

Do the math. That’s 2009 through 2011, the first three Obama years. And then came the unraveling. When? The last U.S. troops left Iraq on Dec. 18, 2011.

Want to do retrospective hypotheticals? Start there.

All of these retrospective, if-you-were-omniscient hypotheticals are a waste of breath.  But at least this one focuses on the role that the current Administration has played in the disintegration of the region, rather than continuing their silly “It was Bush’s fault!” distraction game.  What I want to know is:  What, Mr. President, do you plan to do now to stop the region from becoming even more dangerous to U.S. interests?

THE TRIGGER-HAPPY GENERATION:  Peggy Noonan’s new column in the Wall Street Journal documents the sad legacy of progressive censorship in the name of political correctness:

Well, here are some questions and a few thoughts for all those who have been declaring at all the universities, and on social media, that their feelings have been hurt in the world and that the world had just better straighten up.

Why are you so fixated on the idea of personal safety, by which you apparently mean not having uncomfortable or unhappy thoughts and feelings? Is there any chance this preoccupation is unworthy of you? Please say yes.

There is no such thing as safety. That is asking too much of life. You can’t expect those around you to constantly accommodate your need for safety. That is asking too much of people.

Life gives you potentials for freedom, creativity, achievement, love, all sorts of beautiful things, but none of us are “safe.” And you are especially not safe in an atmosphere of true freedom. People will say and do things that are wrong, stupid, unkind, meant to injure. They’ll bring up subjects you find upsetting. It’s uncomfortable. But isn’t that the price we pay for freedom of speech?

You can ask for courtesy, sensitivity and dignity. You can show others those things, too, as a way of encouraging them. But if you constantly feel anxious and frightened by what you encounter in life, are we sure that means the world must reorder itself? Might it mean you need a lot of therapy?

Yeah, I shudder to think what kind of President this generation could potentially produce. There are still many good, intelligent, and strong young people within our universities. The question is:  Will they find a way to lead, and fight back against this progressive, PC censorship nonsense, or will they allow themselves to be silenced?

BECAUSE #WHITEPRIVILEGE!:  Charles Blow at the New York Times continues his bloviating about the racial injustice of media coverage of the Waco biker gang violence versus that of the riots in Baltimore and Ferguson.

In Waco, the words used to describe the participants in a shootout so violent that a local police spokesman called the crime scene the bloodiest he had ever seen included “biker clubs,” “gangs” and “outlaw motorcycle gangs.” . . .President Obama and the mayor of Baltimore were quick to use the loaded label “thugs” for the violent rioters there. That the authorities have not used that word to describe the far worse violence in Waco makes the contrast all the more glaring.

The words “outlaw” and “biker” while pejorative to some, still evoke a certain romanticism in the American ethos. They conjure an image of individualism, adventure and virility. There’s an endless list of motorcycle gang movies. A search for “motorcycle romance” on Amazon yields thousands of options. Viagra, the erectile dysfunction drug, even has a motorcycle commercial.

While “thug life” has also been glamorized in movies, music and books, its scope is limited and racialized. It is applied to — and even adopted by — black men. And the evocation is more “Menace II Society” than “Easy Rider.” The pejorative is unambiguous. . . .

Blow’s conclusion? It’s all just more evidence of pervasive racial hatred (as if he needs more evidence, as he sees it everywhere, all the time):

And while we can’t demand that the world love our flesh as we do, we can — and must! — demand that it stop pretending that its hatred of it is some cultural chimera concocted by a racial grievance industry. We can demand that the data around racial bias, which stretches across society, be accepted as fact rather than opinion.

We can demand the right to call hatred by its name and to its face. We can demand the right to exist, fully and freely, in the wholeness and beauty of our own humanity.

We must see the brilliant light in our beautiful darkness and love the brown bodies that the world would just as well mark and discard — even the “thugs.”

Or maybe, Charles, you could just stop assuming that every single thing in the world is racially motivated, and start acknowledging the “beauty” and “humanity” of whites and “love the [white] bodies,” even the bikers and rednecks and (gasp!) conservatives.  We can demand the right to call your hatred by its name and to its face.

RELATED:  C.W. Cooke disembowels this #whiteprivilege narrative:  

All in all, there is a pretty simple answer to the question, “Why didn’t Americans rack their brains upon hearing the news that a motorcycle gang had shot up another motorcycle gang?” That answer: Because that’s what motorcycle gangs do.

THE CRUMBLING TEFLON PRESIDENCY?:  Jeffrey Toobin has a piece in The New Yorker today called “Obama’s Game of Chicken with the Supreme Court.”  His thesis is that if the Supreme Court rules against the Obama Administration in the Obamacare subsidy case, King v. Burwell, the blame for the loss of subsidies of individuals living in States without State-operated health insurance exchanges will not fall on the Republicans’ shoulders, but the President’s:

If the Obama Administration loses in the Supreme Court, the political pain will fall almost exclusively on the President and his Party. To paraphrase Colin Powell and the Pottery Barn rule, President Obama will have broken health care, so he owns it. To the vast mass of Americans who follow politics casually or not at all, Obamacare and the American system of health care have become virtually synonymous. This may not be exactly right or fair, but it’s a reasonable perception on the part of most people. . . .If the Supreme Court rules against him, the President can blame the Justices or the Republicans or anyone he likes, and he may even be correct. But the buck will stop with him.

Toobin says this reluctantly, but at least he says it.

Toobin’s overall sentiment–that a ruling for the plaintiffs in King will be a political loss for President Obama (as it should be, since it was his decision to disregard the plain language of his own signature legislation)–is likely correct.  But what’s even more noteworthy is that it evinces that the Teflon President’s non-stick coating is finally wearing a little  thin with (at least some in) the mainstream media. Unfortunately, the criticism is mostly limited to foreign policy. Evidence of such Teflon thinning includes the Washington Post’s editorial board’s skepticism about the Iran nuclear deal (including his failure to respond to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s arguments before Congress), longtime Democratic pollster Pat Caddell’s recent statement that the Obama Administration is more corrupt than Nixon’s, Chris Matthews’ thrill dissipating to the point where he has called Obama “intellectually lazy,” Kirsten Powers’ criticism of Obama on the ISIS persecution of Christians, and Jon Stewart’s “je suis to be kidding me” quip about Obama’s failure to attend the unity rally in Paris following the Charlie Hebdo terrorism–something veteran liberal foreign affairs expert Leslie Gelb labeled a “horrendous gaffe” that “demonstrated beyond argument that the Obama team lacks the basic instincts and judgment necessary to conduct U.S. national security policy in the next two years.”

Of course there are many, many other liberals/progressives in the mainstream media who continue to stick their heads in the sand and dare not criticize the Great Leader on anything.  But it is good to see that, for at least some of them, they are beginning to see that the Emperor has no clothes.

DON’T BELIEVE HIM:  Obama seeks to boost ties with Jewish Americans amid Iran nuclear talks.  Obama claims, “If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it’s my name on this.”  Yeah, kind of like Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove.

PUT IT OUT OF ITS MISERY: Justice Kennedy’s Affirmative Action Do-Over.

The opportunity comes in a petition the Court will take up Thursday to hear another challenge to the University of Texas’s sneaky use of race in admissions in flagrant disregard of Justice Kennedy’s 7-1 majority opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas. That 2013 ruling held that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals erred in accepting the school’s use of race and sent the case back to subject the preferences to “strict scrutiny.”

That means schools must use precise techniques to accomplish their goals, proving in particular that they could not get a diverse campus without favoritism based on race. That’s a challenge at the University of Texas, which guarantees admission to the top tier of graduates from each of the state’s public high schools. In 2004 this brought an freshman class that was 21.4% African-American and Hispanic without using race.

That didn’t deter UT, which came up with a new rationale for preferences—the need for “diversity within diversity.” That is, the school said it wasn’t admitting enough minority students from majority-white school districts. These tend to be the children of affluent minority parents who live in the suburbs. The Fifth Circuit ruled that this racial tactic is fine even under “strict scrutiny.”

Truth be told, progressives/universities consider “diversity” to be inextricable from their mission. Even if the Supreme Court boldly declared the obvious–that race-based discrimination in admissions is racial discrimination, and hence, per se a violation of equal protection–I have serious doubts that universities would stop the practice.  As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her dissent in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003):

The stain of generations of racial oppression is still visible in our society, and the determination to hasten its removal remains vital. One can reasonably anticipate, therefore, that colleges and universities will seek to maintain their minority enrollment–and the networks and opportunities thereby opened to minority graduates–whether or not they can do so in full candor through adoption of affirmative action plans of the kind here at issue. Without recourse to such plans, institutions of higher education may resort to camouflage. For example, schools may encourage applicants to write of their cultural traditions in the essays they submit, or to indicate whether English is their second language. Seeking to improve their chances for admission, applicants may highlight the minority group associations to which they belong, or the Hispanic surnames of their mothers or grandparents. In turn, teachers’ recommendations may emphasize who a student is as much as what he or she has accomplished. If honesty is the best policy, surely Michigan’s accurately described, fully disclosed College affirmative action program is preferable to achieving similar numbers through winks, nods, and disguises.

Translated: We have to let universities continue to employ overt race-based admissions criteria because otherwise, the progressives/liberals who run them will just “resort to camouflage” and “winks, nods, and disguises” and do it anyway.  Not even a Supreme Court ruling telling them their behavior is unconstitutional will stop them, so don’t even bother.  They won’t care.  Yep.

THEY’RE NOT SCIENCE DENIERS, THEY’RE SCIENCE FAKERS: What is it about progressives and their manipulation of scientific data?  It’s not just global warming climate change; now it’s social science on gay marriage.

According to the study, people from communities hostile to gay marriage could have their opinions shift dramatically after spending just a few minutes speaking with a gay person who canvassed their neighborhood promoting gay marriage. . . .

The study, among other things, lent support to the notion that those opposed to gay marriage simply don’t know or interact with open homosexuals. More broadly, it was seen as an important development in the science of how people can be convinced to change their minds on ideologically-charged issues.

The study began to fall apart when students at the University of California at Berkeley sought to conduct additional research building off of it, only to find major irregularities in how its research was apparently conducted. . . . 

Donald Green, a professor at Columbia University and a co-author of the paper, made the decision to retract it after having a confrontation with co-author Michael LaCour, a graduate student at UCLA. While LaCour maintained that he hadn’t fabricated the data, he was also unable to produce the original source files supposedly used to produce it. When he failed to write-up a retraction, Green took the initiative and did so himself.

Guess some folks think they can fake it ’til they make it.  Or maybe it’s just Alinsky’s “the ends justify the means.“

NATION’S PASTIME IS PAST ITS TIME:  Why children are abandoning baseball.  Sadness. I think it’s just too slow paced for the multi-tasking, frenetic, technology-obsessed generation.

HOLD ONTO YOUR HATS–“CHANGE” IS COMING:  The White House has released “The National Security Implications of a Changing Climate,” a PR/battle plan for President Obama’s fundamental transformation of America.  Obama will use this document as the basis for remarks he will give to the Coast Guard Academy’s commencement.  A summary:

With climate change, certain types of extreme weather events and their impacts, including extreme heat, heavy downpours, floods, and droughts, have become more frequent and/or intense. In addition, warming is causing sea level to rise and glaciers and Arctic sea ice to melt. These and other aspects of climate change are disrupting people’s lives and damaging certain sectors of the economy. The national security implications of climate change impacts are far reaching, as they may exacerbate existing stressors, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and political instability, providing enabling environments for terrorist activity abroad.

Too bad the NOAA report, “Explaining Extremes of 2013 From a Climate Perspective,” debunked this whole climate-change-causes-extreme-weather claim. But again, global warming climate change isn’t really a battle about science; it’s a political wealth redistribution scheme disguised as science.

UPDATE:  House Homeland Security Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) says “Incredibly, the President’s proposed budget allocates more money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to combat global warming than to counter violent extremism.”

SERIOUSLY, THIS GUY IS BRAIN DEAD:  William Saletan at Slate has perhaps the most idiotic piece on ISIS that I have ever read, the central thesis of which is that ISIS’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, “sounds like a Republican candidate for president.” His argument:

O Muslims! Do not think the war that we are waging is the Islamic State’s war alone. Rather, it is the Muslims’ war altogether. It is the war of every Muslim in every place. … O Muslims everywhere, has the time not come for you to realize the truth of the conflict and that it is between disbelief and faith? … This war is only against you and against your religion.

2. Coexistence is impossible. Is authentic Islam compatible with Western values? Many conservative activists and politicians say it isn’t. This belief suits Baghdadi. He tells Muslims that they must choose:

O Muslims! Whoever thinks that it is within his capacity to conciliate with the Jews, Christians, and other disbelievers, and for them to conciliate with him, such that he coexists with them and they coexist with him while he is upon his religion and upon tawhīd (monotheism), then he has belied the explicit statement of his Lord (the Mighty and Majestic), who says, “And never will the Jews or the Christians approve of you until you follow their religion. … And they will continue to fight you until they turn you back from your religion.”

3. Islam is a religion of war. Santorum, Rudy Giuliani, and other Republicans say ISIS has a scriptural basis for its violence. Two weeks ago Jeb Bush said “part” of the Muslim world was “not a religion of peace.” Baghdadi, too, rejects the religion-of-peace narrative:

O Muslims, Islam was never for a day the religion of peace. Islam is the religion of war. Your Prophet (peace be upon him) was dispatched with the sword as a mercy to the creation. He was ordered with war until Allah is worshipped alone. He (peace be upon him) said to the polytheists of his people, “I came to you with slaughter.” … He never for a day grew tired of war.

The religion-of-war narrative, whatever its scholarly merits, serves political interests on both sides. It gives the Republicans red meat for the primaries, and it helps Baghdadi persuade Muslims that they’re commanded by God to support ISIS.  . . .

Republicans seem determined to prove Baghdadi right. . . .The convergence of Republican rhetoric with jihadist propaganda isn’t new. It’s been building ever since George W. Bush left the White House. Liberated from presidential responsibility, Republicans degenerated into a party that uses Islam for domestic politics instead of thinking about how their words resonate overseas. That’s how they became backup singers for Osama Bin Laden. Now they’re working for Baghdadi.

IT’S COMING: A PROGRESSIVE UTOPIAN “MASTER PLAN”:  A Wall Street Journal oped reveals how Minneapolis-St.Paul’s 30-year master plan is a liberal/progressive utopian vision:

Here in the Twin Cities, a handful of unelected bureaucrats are gearing up to impose their vision of the ideal society on the nearly three million residents of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro region. According to the urban planners on the city’s Metropolitan Council, far too many people live in single family homes, have neighbors with similar incomes and skin color, and contribute to climate change by driving to work. They intend to change all that with a 30-year master plan called “Thrive MSP 2040.” . . .

Thrive MSP 2040 is part of a nationwide movement called “regionalism.” Regional planning of infrastructure is important, of course. But regionalism, as an ideology, is about shifting power away from local elected officials and re-engineering society on behalf of “equity” and “sustainability.” According to regionalist guru David Rusk, author of the book “Cities Without Suburbs,” federal programs that promote regionalism should strive to produce “racially and economically integrated and environmentally sustainable regions.” . . .

The council has provided few details, beyond noting that it will emphasize construction of low-income housing in “higher-income areas.” But the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development—the source of the $5 million planning grant used to fund the racial mapping—says that mapping is intended, in part, to identify suburban land-use and zoning practices that allegedly deny opportunity and create “barriers” for low-income and minority people. Under its forthcoming “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule, HUD will provide communities with “nationally uniform data” of what it views as an appropriate racial, ethnic and economic mix. Local governments will have to “take meaningful actions” to further the goals identified.

 So basically, the progressive master planners are already planning to change your neighborhood and force it to be just like every other neighborhood.  They want to “spread the wealth around,” not just with taxes, but with housing as well.

 The UC-Berkeley Group for Architecture and Planning has developed it’s own master plan for its utopian “NanoCity,” a new city designed around the concepts of “sustainability” (driven by global warming climate change, of course) “equity” and “inclusion.”  Sounds basically like a commune to me, and so long as I’m not forced to live there, I’m happy to let them live as they wish.  The MSP master plan seems more nefarious to me, as it would use government dollars to  “equalize” existing neighborhoods and force changes based on global warming climate change.  People really should get more involved in these local planning exercises.  

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS:  Jim Treacher reports that these posters of Mattress Girl, Emma Sulkowicz, titled “Pretty Little Liar” are cropping up all over NYC, near Columbia University. Good to see someone is punching back.

HARVARD’S ASIAN PROBLEM:  Jason Riley has an oped in the Wall Street Journal titled “The New Jews of Harvard.”  Harvard is likely on the first of many elite, liberal/progressive universities (redundant, I know) to now find their affirmative action admissions policies biting them in the tuchus.

A coalition of more than 60 Chinese, Indian, Korean and Pakistani organizations is asking the U.S. departments of Justice and Education to investigate possible racial bias in undergraduate admissions at Harvard. The complaint announced on Friday, echoing a lawsuit filed by another group in November, accuses Harvard and other elite institutions of holding Asian-Americans to far higher standards than other applicants, a practice used to limit the number of Jewish students at Ivy League schools in the first half of the 20th century. . . .

A 2009 paper by Princeton sociologists Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford found that “Asian-Americans have the lowest acceptance rate for each SAT test score bracket, having to score on average approximately 140 points higher than a white student, 270 points higher than a Hispanic student and 450 points higher than a black student on the SAT to be on equal footing.”

It’s too early to tell whether the Obama administration will take action or wait for the legal process to play out.

I’m pretty sure we know that the Obama Administration won’t be spending its resources to fight for equality for Asian Americans, as it has evinced a single-minded obsession in pursuing only racial matters that affect blacks.

The Asian-American coalition’s lawsuit could be the nail on the coffin for affirmative action, though the Supreme Court may nail it down sooner if it grants review in the new round of litigation in University of Texas v. Fisher.  As Chief Justice Roberts said in the Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007) “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

GOVERNMENT DOESN’T “ASK” ANYTHING:  Thomas Sowell rips apart President Obama’s recent remark opining that the way to reduce poverty is to “ask from society’s lottery winners” that they make a “modest investment” in government programs to help the poor.

[T]he federal government does not just “ask” for money. It takes the money it wants in taxes, usually before the people who have earned it see their paychecks. Despite pious rhetoric on the left about “asking” the more fortunate for more money, the government does not “ask” anything. It seizes what it wants by force. If you don’t pay up, it can take not only your paycheck, it can seize your bank account, put a lien on your home and/or put you in federal prison.

So please don’t insult our intelligence by talking piously about “asking.”

And please don’t call the government’s pouring trillions of tax dollars down a bottomless pit “investment.”

As for referring to successful individuals as “society’s lottery winners,” Sowell observes:

Most people who want to redistribute wealth don’t want to talk about how that wealth was produced in the first place. They just want “the rich” to pay their undefined “fair share” of taxes. This “fair share” must remain undefined because all it really means is “more.”

, , , ,

Obama goes further than other income redistributionists. “You didn’t build that!” he declared to those who did. Why? Because those who created additions to the world’s wealth used government-built roads or other government-provided services to market their products.

And who paid for those roads and other government-provided services if not the taxpayers? Since all other taxpayers, as well as non-taxpayers, also use government facilities, why are those who created private wealth not to use them also, since they are taxpayers as well?

The fact that most of the rhetorical ploys used by Barack Obama and other redistributionists will not stand up under scrutiny means very little politically. After all, how many people who come out of our schools and colleges today are capable of critical scrutiny?

Yep, it’s the LIVs who fail to realize they are being brainwashed by mainstream media “journalists” and Marxist professors who keep this “us against them” tactic alive.  Conservatives need to increase their ranks in the media and the academy, or none of this can change.  If the Koch brothers or other wealthy libertarian/conservatives really wanted to help change things, they would start endowing some U.S. civic and history programs at the secondary school level, funding academic positions in universities for those who possess libertarian/conservative views, and buying major newspapers (and ensuring that its editorial board was not leftist).  These investments would buy more bang for the buck than all the white papers in the world.

FROZEN HUMAN LEFTOVERS:  The Washington Post has an interesting story today about “leftover” embryos from fertility treatment that are in indefinite frozen limbo in storage facilities across the country.

Loblein was 35 when she walked down the aisle for the second time, and she was already a mother to three children from her first marriage. But the meteorological satellite operator knew that she wanted a child with her new husband, and in vitro fertilization was necessary.

Today, they have a little boy and a little girl — and, despite Loblein’s best efforts not to create more than they needed, that extra embryo she had wanted to avoid. Waiting in limbo for her to decide its fate.

The Lobleins are among thousands of couples and individuals in the United States grappling with difficult choices regarding their stored genetic material. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that more than 600,000 frozen embryos are stored nationwide, in addition to countless more cryo-preserved eggs and sperm.

Some States, such as Georgia and Louisiana, have laws that specifically allow for embryo adoption.  In most States, however, a frozen embryo is just a form of “property,” that can be relinquished the same as eggs or sperm.  Disputes over who has the right to frozen embryos in the context of divorce are shockingly common.  The “ownership” of frozen embryos post-mortem is likewise increasing.

It is kind of depressing to think of all those frozen embryos that could find good homes with couples that are desperately waiting to adopt. There are frozen embryo adoption agencies, but the biggest impediment seems to be convincing the progenitors to cede the excess embryos to others:

One survey of more than 1,000 patients from nine U.S. fertility clinics who had extra embryos found that nearly 60% said they were “very unlikely” to donate them to another couple trying to have a baby; only 7% were “very likely” to consider this option. “It was the idea that their child was walking around, and they couldn’t ensure it was having a great life,” says lead author Dr. Anne Drapkin Lyerly, an ob-gyn and associate director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “If they couldn’t raise that child, many felt that the responsible choice was to make sure they didn’t become children in someone else’s life. One woman told me, ‘I’d rather have them destroyed than born.’ ”

Yeah, I can understand that sentiment.

THE IRAQ WMD UNICORN:  Jamie Weinstein debunks the liberal/progressive’s favorite myth: That President Bush intentionally lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He concludes, “It would be nice if the left would stop falsifying history.”

Yeah, and it would be nice if they would all grow some common sense, a backbone, and some appreciation for the Constitution, but that won’t happen, either.

IT SANK A LONG TIME AGO: Howard Kurtz: George Stephanopoulos, Brian Williams and the media’s sinking reputation.

When these episodes erupt, critics carp about how this or that organization has suffered a grievous blow. What’s often missed is that all of us who practice journalism suffer as well, that it reinforces public doubts about whether the business is riddled with bias and conflicts of interest.

Mainstream media has died.  RIP.  All that’s left now is a bunch of progressive/liberal zombies out for ideological flesh. Most people know better than to listen to them anymore.

PORTION OF MARYLAND INCOME TAX RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL:  The Supreme Court today ruled 5-4, in Comptroller of the Treasury v. Wynne that Maryland’s income tax law is an unconstitutional violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause.  Specifically, the Court ruled that Maryland’s income tax unduly burdens interstate commerce by not offering Maryland residents a full credit against income taxes they pay in other States.  The State’s failure to give its residents a credit for income earned outside Maryland constituted double taxation.

There are two quick points of note:  First, the 5-Justice majority lineup was not along purely ideological lines, with the majority consisting of Alito (who wrote the opinion), Chief Justice Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer and Sotomayor (the last two being on the “liberal” wing of the Court).  Scalia, Thomas, Ginsburg and Kagan dissented in various forms.  Second, the Court seems to reinforce its view (illustrated in other cases such as Citizens United) that there is no meaningful difference between individuals and corporations, thus requiring parity of tax treatment between the two (inso far was what out-of-state income may be taxed) by the State.

RAND PAUL VOWS FILIBUSTER:  He’s threatening to filibuster the Patriot Act reauthorization. The Act automatically expires on June 1, unless Congress reauthorizes it.  Senator Paul is opposed to section 215, which has been interpreted by some courts to allow NSA to collect so-called “metadata” on cell phone usage.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently interpreted section 215 more narrowly.

Congress is slated to recess by Memorial Day.