Mad Women
It was one of those headlines that you know is fake news, or at least extremely-manufactured news. But, like a train wreck—it’s sometimes hard to look away. A recent Yahoo News (of course) headline screamed, “Disney Princesses Show the Terrifying Reality Facing Women in Trump’s America”. It was linked to an article in Glamour magazine’s news and politics section. Who knew the magazine that feeds women (and men) unrealistic images of how women should look and act had a political section, much less can be taken seriously on a topic they say is a “War on Women”?
Nevertheless, the article sounded the alarm to the women of America that women’s healthcare in the Trump administration may all but disappear. Healthcare, by the standards of women like this, is usually defined by two things: abortion and birth control. So this article claims that any dismantling of Obamacare will be especially devastating to women. The author pointed to a couple of women who wanted to use their writing and illustration skills to help combat the supposed “GOP war against women.”
Illustrator Maritza Lugo and writer Danielle Sepulveres joined forces and imagined life for several female Disney characters if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and replaced. They depict Beauty and the Beast’s Belle (below) as no longer being able to get her birth control; Disney’s first Latina princess, Elena of Avalor, getting turned away from Planned Parenthood (by Cinderella’s evil step-sisters, no less); Pocahontas being denied overage due to a pre-existing condition, and Aladdin and Jasmine are forced to hold a funeral for their miscarried child.
First of all, what kind of a twisted mind do you have that you re-imagine these fictional, innocent ladies as going to a Planned Parenthood clinic or buying birth control? Who even goes there?
Second, what world are they living in if they believe that women didn’t have access to Planned Parenthood and birth control until the Affordable Care Act became law? Women who wanted these services had wide-open access to them long before Obamacare, and nothing is likely to change that. That last scenario with Aladdin and Jasmine is just bizarre—has Trump made some proclamation that parents who experience the pain of miscarriage must hold funerals for them? Where do these women get this stuff?
I’m guessing it comes from people like those who planned and spoke at the rabid rally of women held right after Trump’s inauguration. When you get women like Ashley Judd and Madonna pouring out venomous rants in front of largely left-wing women who take the time to march for rights they already have, you’re bound to inspire other mad women to take something good and pure and turn it into something absurd.
If only they would open their eyes from their fantasy War on Women and fight against some real-world problems that are going on while they whine. Things like the women who leave Planned Parenthood every single day, no longer pregnant, but wounded emotionally and –very often—physically. Or why don’t they cry out for all of the Black and Hispanic babies who make up the vast majority of the innocent victims of Choice inside the walls of Planned Parenthood? How about shedding some real tears for the real women, girls and boys that are lost inside the dark underworld of human trafficking and slavery? Will they be planning any marches on their behalf?
No, but they are planning to continue their “fight” sometime soon (see update below). The planners of the Inauguration weekend women’s march are said to be planning more forms of resistance, like a strike to be held sometime in the near future. No one really knows what they’re striking against or when it will be. It could possibly be held on May 1st. That’s the day that many labor groups like the SEIU will be holding a strike to “resist fascism and autocratic leadership.” Or maybe tomorrow, International Women’s Day, will inspire them to go on strike against whatever it is they’re angered over–which seems to be just about anything.
Incidentally, these women really should be thanking the GOP this week. It seems that Paul Ryan’s new replacement for Obamacare keeps all the things that make it so horrible, and ignores the free market altogether. According to the Washington Examiner, “…the GOP bill preserves much of the regulatory structure of Obamacare; leaves the bias in favor of employer healthcare largely intact, replaces Obamacare’s subsidies with a different subsidy scheme, and still supports higher spending for Medicaid relative to what was the case before Obamacare.”
Nice going, GOP. Now you can own the healthcare mess. What was that some nice lady once said about putting lipstick on a pig?
UPDATE 3/8/17 5:14 CST: They did it! Today, International Women’s Day was “A Day Without Women” where women were supposed to forgo working in an effort to protest “inequality”. Nothing like protesting the supposed pay gap and glass ceiling by not showing up to the job you have—makes sense only to progressives.
Twisted fairy tales: What’s the world coming to when fictional women have to pay out-of-pocket for their birth control?
All Unborn Lives Matter
The annual gathering of pro-life advocates took place today in Washington, where just one week ago, Donald Trump was sworn in as our 45th president. As so often happens, those who march come from all over the country, braving the typical January gloom and cold weather in order to take their stand for the most innocent of human lives with this year’s theme being “The Power of One”.
Since the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in January 1973, more than 58 million innocent lives have been snuffed out—many for a profit—as was exposed by the horrific videos from an investigation done by the Center for Medical Progress in 2015. Hundreds of thousands showed up to hear speakers ranging from Vice President Mike Pence, Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah) and Baltimore Ravens team member Benjamin Watson. Watson issued a challenge to men to be leaders in the pro-life movement, telling the cheering crowd, “It is past time that we be the leaders, caretakers and providers that we were meant to be… even if it wasn’t demonstrated for you by a father, you can be different, you can change the course of [a] generation.”
Vice President Pence brought renewed energy that the new administration will be more open to the pro-life cause than the preceding one was. He is the first vice president (or president) to address the March for Life crowd in person. Before the march this morning, Pence encouraged participants by telling them, “Life is winning in America because of you…let this movement be known for love, not anger. For compassion. Not confrontation.”
That may have been a thinly-veiled jab at the lunacy, bitterness, and filth that came from the likes of Madonna and Ashley Judd, who led profanity-laced rantings at the Women’s March held last weekend after Trump’s inauguration. Of course, pro-life women were excluded from that one.
The March for Life comes just after a newly-released undercover video from the organization Live Action exposing the continual lie of Planned Parenthood that they are all about prenatal healthcare for women. Watch the video and you’ll see that they called and visited PP offices across the country—and found only 5 that actually offered it.
More good news for the unborn came earlier in the week when Congress voted for a permanent ban on taxpayer-funded abortions. The law also bans the federal government from subsidizing elective abortions. For his part, President Trump re-instated a ban that had begun with President Reagan against U.S. government funding and promotion of overseas abortions.
This isn’t a bad start for the new president, especially where life issues are concerned…unless you’re Madonna, Ashley Judd or one of the thousands of women who marched last weekend. They seem to be obsessed with their own bodies (and body parts), and their message does nothing but set women back decades, making us all look bad. (More on this next time)
For Christmas Geeks Only
It’s almost Christmas and nothing’s more fun than being with family, baking, eating and watching all those old Christmas movies. In the spirit of the season, here’s some Christmas trivia, mostly from films, to impress/ entertain/ bore your friends and family over the holidays.
It doesn’t get much better than It’s a Wonderful Life (1946): Proving that even a director with incredible talent can overlook some things, Frank Capra missed this one: when Clarence is showing George Bailey what life would have been like without him, he takes him to his younger brother’s grave, telling him that Harry fell through the ice and died at the age of nine. However, on the tombstone, Harry Bailey’s years of life are shown as 1911-1919, which means he could have been no older than eight when he died.
A Christmas Story (1983): One of the most famous scenes from this classic film is when one of Ralphie’s school pals, Flick, is “triple-dog-dared” into putting his tongue against a frosty flag pole to prove that it will stick. In order to make Flick’s tongue stick to the pole, a hidden suction tube was used to safely create the illusion that his tongue had frozen to the metal. Another bit of trivia: director Bob Clark makes an appearance as one of the neighbors who comes out to gawk at The Old Man’s “major award” in the hilarious unveiling of The Leg Lamp. He’s the guy who says, “Damn, hell- you say you won it?”
…which brings us to Elf (2003) where Peter Billingsley, who played young Ralphie in A Christmas Story makes an uncredited appearance as Ming Ming, the Head Elf. Also, if you ever thought, while you watched this movie, that certain things looked very familiar, you were onto something. The design for Santa’s workshop, all of the elf costumes and most of the animals in the North Pole were mirror images of those from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the much-loved Christmas special that has aired every year since its debut in 1964.
But Rudolph’s story had been around since 1939 when it was created for an advertising campaign for Montgomery Ward. The song about Rudolph was first recorded by Gene Autry and hit #1 on Billboard’s pop chart during the week of Christmas in 1949.
Gene Autry recorded another Christmas classic, “Here Comes Santa Clause” that gets featured toward the end of Christmas Vacation (1989) when the Clark Griswold home is ransacked by the S.W.A.T. Team. Earlier on, when Clark gets locked in a cold attic while everyone’s out shopping, he passes the time watching old films from family Christmases past. Look closely and you can see the front of the house from the 1960’s series Bewitched in Clark’s home movie.
Chevy Chase was just one of many actors considered for the part of Kevin McCallister’s (Macauley Culkin) dad in Home Alone (1990). That part eventually went to John Heard. In the scene where Kevin grabs his brother’s pet tarantula in order to scare bungling crook Marv (played by Daniel Stern), they were originally using a mechanical spider. It was decided the fake bug looked too fake, so Stern agreed to do just one take with the real thing, which Kevin drops onto his face, causing him to scream like a girl. Stern made the wise decision to mimic the scream so as not to spook the spider, and his scream was added in during post-production.
Perhaps no other story of Christmas has been told more often or in more ways than Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. His tale of redemption just celebrated its 170th anniversary (it was published on December 19, 1843). An interesting piece of trivia is that Dickens himself had some things in common with Mr. Scrooge. Like the famous miser, Dickens lost his favorite sister Fanny, who died, not in childbirth as Scrooge’s sister did, but of tuberculosis. Her son, Henry was crippled and was Dickens’ inspiration for the character of Tiny Tim.
What better way to close out this stocking full of Christmas trivia than with some tidbits from what many people, myself included, consider to be the most-loved Christmas special ever. When its director saw a rough cut of A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), he was sure he had a flop on his hands. There was no laugh track, as was typical of animated specials of the day, and director Bill Melendez had tried to get Peanuts creator Charles M Schultz to take out the Biblical references—particularly Linus’ speech from Luke 2. Reportedly, Schultz won him over by asking, “If we don’t do it, who will?” CBS executives were also nervous at the prospect of an animated Christmas special with such a blatant message. In spite of all this, the message remained, and that scene with Linus has become highly acclaimed, with multiple generations still enjoying this classic year after year. Only Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer can top it in longevity as far as television Christmas specials go.
“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11
…and as Linus said, “That’s what Christmas is all about.”
Merry Christmas, everyone!
A Charlie Brown Christmas- 1965
Golden Girls
It’s been a long, hot summer full of tragedies and triumphs. Just when you feel like you can’t take another day of the latest presidential election news, scandals and lies told by politicians and their political cronies—along came the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio like a cool breeze off the water on a stifling hot day.
Even if you don’t particularly follow the games, it would be hard not to be amazed by the results of years of hard work these athletes from all over the world exhibit in their competitions. Sure, the Olympics in Rio have had their share of low points like the earlier reports of bio-hazardous pools and rivers and the fake hold-up story from last weekend involving American swim team members.
Aside from those, Team USA has certainly shown up and out: as of now, US athletes have won the most medals of any nation—111 in all, including 40 gold. One of the most successful athletes from this Olympics is first-time Olympian Simone Biles, a 19-year-old gymnast. Her strength and amazing ability to do multiple twists, turns and flips seem to defy the laws of gravity. Biles will go home to Texas with five medals—four gold and one bronze—and most likely will be getting some lucrative endorsement opportunities as well.
That’s not too bad for a young lady who had a pretty rough start in life. Born to a drug- and- alcohol-addicted mother, Biles was raised and later adopted—along with her younger sister—by her maternal grandparents. Faith and family supported her on her path to gold, and during tomorrow’s closing ceremonies in Rio, Biles will have the honor of carrying the American flag.
Another medalist that made headlines was beach volleyball team member Kerri Walsh Jennings. A veteran of the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympics where she won gold medals, Walsh Jennings will leave Rio with a bronze medal. She raised the collective ire of liberal feminists everywhere—not an amazing fete—because she had the audacity to share with NBC during an interview that she was “born to have babies and play volleyball.”
Not only that, but Walsh Jennings gave credit to her children for inspiring her and giving her a new perspective saying, “It took my game and my desire and my passion for life to the next level. I am hugely indebted to my children.” Ouch…in the mind of some, you just don’t flaunt motherhood above your exceptional athletic abilities. Feminists lit up the Twitter universe complaining that NBC would run such an interview. Lefty online magazine Salon had one exasperated writer gripe “…I could do without upbeat stories on what great moms some Olympians are…” as she bemoans how female athletes are covered in the sports media.
That writer would absolutely hate the story of one female track star who likely would have graced a medal podium but for the fact that she and her husband had an unplanned pregnancy that caused her to get a little behind in her training for the Olympics. As a result, she didn’t qualify for the Olympic trials in July. Had Sarah Brown been of the same mindset as the writer from Salon, she would have “taken care of business” and gone on with her training. She chose motherhood above the Olympics and ended up with a baby girl instead of a gold medal. Not a bad choice in my humble opinion, but it must be quite a blow to femi-nazis who get tired of upbeat mom stories.
Finally, 19-year-old Virginia Thrasher won the first gold medal for Team USA during the 2016 Olympics. The chances are pretty good that Hillary Clinton and other liberal feminists won’t be tweeting about her accomplishments anytime soon since she won in the women’s ten meter air rifle competition. Thrasher had originally wanted to be a figure skater, but realized as a young teen that she just didn’t excel in that. She switched to shooting after going hunting with her grandfather, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Final Five of the US women’s gymnastics team receive their gold medals in Rio.
Purple Penguins Come Home to Roost
About a year and a half ago, I posted about a school district out west that was trying to get their students away from referring to each other by the “outdated” terms of “boys” and “girls”. Instead, they came up with the generic, nonsensical phrase “purple penguins” as a way to refer to students so that kids who may be questioning their birth gender wouldn’t get offended.
In the many months since then, this “tyranny of the minority” has only grown stronger. Now, after more than seven years of fundamental transformation, the Obama administration has issued a threat—uh, “guidance letter’—to every public school in America, from grade school through college. Obama’s edict issued last week proclaims that young girls and women must share their restrooms and locker rooms with members of the opposite sex—formerly known as boys or men—who have decided they don’t “feel” like a male. If they don’t, they will bring down the wrath of Big Government in the form of denial of funds for any activities that may be government funded (i.e. sports programs).
The guidance on restroom policies for public schools came down from the departments of Justice and Education just days after the Obama administration and the state of North Carolina filed lawsuits against each other over a recently-passed law in that state.
North Carolina’s House Bill 2 states that people must use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex on their birth certificate. The law also protects private businesses and other public facilities who wish to establish their own bathroom policies rather than be forced to allow men into women’s restrooms and vice versa. The government claims the law violates Titles VII and IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin and religion. Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex from participation in educational programs or activities that receive federal funding.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is accusing North Carolina of “state-sponsored discrimination against transgendered individuals”, and Governor Pat McCrory is charging the Obama administration with bypassing Congress and re-writing federal law. He said, “They are now telling every government agency and every company that employs more than 15 people that men should be allowed to use a women’s locker room, restroom or shower facility.”
Several states’ lawmakers are speaking out against Obama’s latest over-reaching into their business and refuse to be bullied by Obama’s threats of stripping them of funding for non-compliance with his rules (which are not legally binding). Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said they are prepared to forfeit billions of dollars in federal funding rather than comply with the Obama dictate for their 5.2 million students.
Superintendent of the Port Neches-Groves school district in Texas, Rodney Cavness, was right to the point when he said, “When I get that letter, I’ll throw it away.” Cavness said if and when the issue comes up in his district, they plan to deal with it on a case by case basis and not make a big deal of it because the job of the teachers and administrators is to love all the children. Cavness said they aren’t in the business of social engineering, they are “having school.”
That is exactly how all of these public schools should look at these kinds of federal intrusions. All of this is being done for a very, very tiny segment of society. According to the Williams Institute, just 0.3 percent of the population identifies as transgendered. It would seem that the majority of that 0.3 percent would be adults and therefore beyond school age, so we’re talking about vastly changing the idea of privacy in the bathroom for more than 99 percent of the people in order to satisfy a handful of people.
You have to wonder, what is this really about? Obamacare was never about healthcare. Gay “marriage” was never about marriage. Everything that a statist like Obama does usually involves control and pushing the envelope. You can be sure that Obama will continue to use the waning months of his presidency to issue more such edicts as this one.
With all of the really serious threats we face as a nation, isn’t it good to know that the president is so concerned about the restroom policies in public schools? The fact that such a thing as “restroom policies” even exist is a little disturbing. It’s not enough that liberal progressives have turned our military into their own private petri dish for every far-left agenda item, but in recent decades, they’ve been trying to do the same with education. Tyrants always target the children when attempting to change a society because they know there’s truth in the statement made by 18th century preacher and abolitionist John Wesley: “What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.”
About Those Super Bowl Ads…
The fanatics of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) have been having a hashtag hissy-fit over a Doritos ad that aired during Sunday night’s Super Bowl 50. It doesn’t take much to offend most people these days, but the religiously pro-abortion crowd at NARAL took to social media after the spot aired.
It features a couple in a doctor’s office. The woman is pregnant and is having an ultrasound, while her husband crunches through a bag of Doritos, much to his wife’s dismay. She apparently finds it an inappropriate time and place to be scarfing down chips. While he mindlessly enjoys his snack, we can see the unborn child on the monitor showing some interest in his (or her) dad’s Doritos. When the wife gets mad and throws a chip across the room…the baby decides to fly out after it.
NARAL failed to see the attempt at humor in the ad because they claimed it “humanizes a fetus”. Under the #NotBuyingIt, Twitter lit up throughout the game with tweets on spots they saw as sexist, and used #MediaWeLike for those that passed their politically correct test. Some of the other commercials that raised their ire: A Buick ad showing a wedding (for showing women fighting over a bouquet; an Audi ad (for having no female astronauts) and a Snickers ad (for being “transphobic” and claims it’s saying it’s “OK to objectify women as long as they have a snack”).
I have to comment on their objections to 2 of those ads. First, the Audi ad, called “Commander” is touching and nostalgic. It shows an elderly man who had once been an astronaut tearfully looking at photos on the wall of his glory days in space. Then his grandson comes by, and during a ride in an Audi R8, the older man’s spirits are lifted as a David Bowie tune plays. The NARAL complaint that there were no women astronauts shown is idiotic since there were not likely to have been any female astronauts back in his day.
Secondly, the Snickers spot is pretty clever and says absolutely nothing about objectifying women. Had the nags at NARAL bothered to check, they’d know that it’s one of a series of such ads telling viewers that people aren’t quite themselves when they’re hungry–until they have a Snickers. This is the “Marilyn Monroe” ad that spoofs her famous white-dress-blowing-up-around-her scene from the 1955 film “The Seven-Year Itch”. At first we see a director filming “Marilyn”, which is really a disgruntled dude in a white dress and heels—until someone gives him a snickers bar. Lo and behold, he is transformed into the real Marilyn now that Snickers has taken care of her hunger pangs. Snickers aired a similar commercial during last year’s Super Bowl with characters from “The Brady Bunch.” Talk about missing the whole point (and having no sense of humor).
They did manage to find at least one commercial that didn’t offend them, like the one by Axe for men called “Find Your Magic”. They liked that one because it showed “non-traditional” images of men…like a guy wearing high heels dancing in a nightclub.
As for that Doritos ad, perhaps the crazies at NARAL should get a grip and ask themselves why humanizing the “product of conception” (as Planned Parenthood clinics refer to the unborn) between two humans is wrong, offensive, extreme, etc. That’s not the image of a cat, a chicken or anything else on the ultrasound screen—it’s the image of a human being, and that’s the fact they can never get around. The personhood of the “fetus” upsets them because it forces them to see just what it is that is being destroyed on their altar of choice.
Super Bowls are known for their commercials and this year, sponsors paid $5million for a 30-second spot…but when they get people talking, tweeting and writing about their ads—for better or worse—that’s worth every penny.
The ad that made abortion supporters cringe.
The Lost Holiday
A couple of days before Halloween, I went into a grocery store and noticed they already had snowflakes painted on their windows. The frost is barely on the pumpkin before snowmen and colored lights greet us at every turn.
But wait—isn’t there another pretty important holiday in there somewhere? The one with the guys in funny black hats with big buckles on them—you remember—the Pilgrims. What about those cute turkeys made out of hand prints? Somewhere between feasting on candy corn at the end of October and the feasting on everything else at the end of the year, lies another feast. This feast, in the earlier days of our country, had nothing to do with parades, football, food…and certainly not shopping.
Like so many things in history, this day has a colorful—and at least at one point in time—a controversial story. A feast wasn’t always part of the day…just the opposite, in fact.
When the Pilgrims at Plymouth Plantation first celebrated, it was after a treacherous beginning in this new land. Many of them had not survived that first winter of 1620 due to illness, exposure and hunger—and a disastrous experiment with socialism. The Patuxet Indians had once inhabited the same area, but had been wiped out by a plague. There was, however, a lone survivor of the Patuxets named Squanto, who had been captured by an English explorer in the early 1600’s and taken to England where he learned to speak English. Captain John Smith took him back to New England in 1614, but he again was captured and sold into slavery in Spain.
As Divine Providence would have it, Squanto was then bought and rescued by some local friars in Spain who introduced him to Christianity. He ended up back in his homeland by 1619 to find his people were gone. Squanto adopted a new tribe, the Wampanoag Indians, and this was the tribe the Pilgrims partnered with to learn to make their way in a new environment. Chief Massasoit introduced them to Squanto, due to Squanto’s ability to speak English well. He was able to help the Pilgrims adjust, and Plymouth Governor William Bradford credited Squanto as being “an instrument of God” in helping the Pilgrims.
By the time the harvest of 1621 rolled around, things were much better, so Governor Bradford declared a day of Thanksgiving to give God His due for a successful harvest and for their friendship with the Wampanoag Indians. On that day Chief Massasoit and 90 of his men feasted with the Pilgrims on the fruit of the land. They enjoyed such delicacies as deer, eels (yuck!), fish, berries, popcorn and yes—turkey.
It wasn’t until 1863, when our young nation was in the midst of a civil war that President Abraham Lincoln established that the last Thursday of November should be set aside as a day of thanksgiving and fasting—not feasting—to humble ourselves and seek the face of God for direction and repentance. That’s quite a difference from today’s Thanksgiving. The holiday remained on that last Thursday for quite some time— until 1939, in fact.
It was then that Progressive Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (during his 3rd term in office) decided that there needed to be more time for shopping in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so bowing to complaints from retailers, he moved it to the 3rd Thursday. Leave it to a Progressive to take the focus off of thanking God for His many blessings to shopping and commercialism. It’s interesting how the Republicans are always the ones that are said to be focused on money and gain, while the Democrats (in the minds of some) are for “the little guy”.
Back when President Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving, so many people were against it that the new day became known as the “Democrat Thanksgiving”, while the traditional 4th Thursday was referred to as the “Republican Thanksgiving”. Some states refused to celebrate it on the new date, while some followed suit. This confusion continued until 1941 when Congress declared that Thanksgiving should fall on the 4th Thursday of November.
So, I guess we can blame President Roosevelt for the insanity that became Black Friday, and the evolution of that in recent years to stores opening earlier and earlier to where many of them are not even closed at all on Thanksgiving Day.
If we really want to do this Thanksgiving thing right, we’ll take the feasting and thanksgiving of the Pilgrims and mix it with the prayer and humility of Lincoln’s time. Bringing these things into our own traditions would make us less likely to bypass this wonderful holiday. If anything, it can prepare us for the joyful celebration of Christmas and Christ’s birth to close out the old year, and usher in New Year’s Day with a new hope for the future.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
Whiners and Warriors
It’s no wonder why some parents are reluctant to send their children away to college these days. College campuses are full of absolute chaos, as evidenced by the Yale Halloween costume controversy and the Missouri racial issues that resulted in the president of that school stepping down. College students seem mad all the time…angry at every perceived injustice. Students– aided by their left-wing professors and a 24/7 news cycle that feeds on the hash-tag-fight-of-the-day– are in a battle for everything.
Just a day after we remembered the service of our nation’s veterans, students across the nation walked out of classes to have their #MillionStudentMarch. They demanded to have a free education (because it’s a human right, don’t you know?), as well as a $15 minimum wage and student loan forgiveness. It was a collective large-scale temper tantrum with capitalism and traditional American ways being targeted for their “unfairness” and “injustice”.
One of the organizers, Keely Mullen, a student at Northeastern University, was interviewed on Fox by Neil Cavuto and it’s both painful and satisfying to watch. Mullen suggested that all these demands could be met if the “one percent” would just pay more taxes. When Cavuto calmly questioned her as to whether she or any of her peers would want 90 or 100 percent of their income confiscated through taxes once they become established, she hemmed and hawed and seemed pretty flabbergasted.
Mullen is a Marxist and is no stranger to far-left causes, so you would think she’d be better able to explain why she feels like things are so unfair for her and her fellow students. Lost in the coverage of the Million Student March is that she herself is part of the one percent whom she claims is “hoarding all the wealth” which causes so much distress for college students. Her LinkedIn profile picture shows her up on a stage with a bullhorn and she describes herself as a “student pursuing opportunities in community organizing and anti-racism advocacy work”. She’s majoring in political science and Sociology, so she’s probably had more than enough opportunities to have the idea of “white guilt” drummed into her, along with all the usual anti-capitalist, anti-American garbage.
Northeastern charges around $45,000 a year for tuition, so Mullen can look forward to a pretty hefty debt load once she’s finally finished with her four years of studying community organizing and interning with the ACLU. She complained to Cavuto about how high tuition was and that it’s just not fair that students here in the US have to actually pay for a college education when other countries give it to their citizens for free. Well, Keely- other nations also tax their citizens into lifestyles that you and your friends would find very hard to live in. You may also want to stop and think for a minute: Why do so many of them forego their free educations in their home countries to come to American universities?
I’d just like to know who twisted her arm and forced her to go to an expensive school, and major in two areas that almost guarantee unemployment after graduating? It’s not like she didn’t know going in what the cost would be—and why should her debt be forgiven? Many of us have had to struggle to pay off student loans years after our diplomas expired. She may want to think about the reasons why college is so expensive—high salaries paid to professors who can never be fired due to tenure; or the fact that the government is now in charge of student loans, so the higher the tuition, the more money that needs to be borrowed, and therefore more money rolling into the hands of the government. I’m sure she never gives a thought to those things when she’s out with her bullhorn making demands of her fellow Americans.
But in this country…at least for now…she has the right to speak. She has that right because of the First Amendment to the Constitution that so many people gave their lives to defend over the course of our history. One young active duty Marine had a different opinion on what the students were doing on college campuses this week, and took to social media to set them straight. Tweeting a selfie, dressed in fatigues and carrying a full load on his back, James Erickson said this: “I wanted money for school, so I marched too…#millionstudentmarch This one was about 25 miles…”
He didn’t even need a bullhorn.
The young and the restless- entitled students demand free education and debt forgiveness during the Million Student March.
Smashing Pumpkins
Some time ago, I posted about “The Greening of Lent”, where environmentalists gave people the charge to reduce their “carbon footprint” during the 40 days before Easter. Now, the kooks have moved their attention to Halloween costumes and fall festivities to deliver their politically correct message. If the thought of skeletons, zombies and angry clowns coming to your house tonight for free food makes you tense, you’ll be happy to know there are some new creatures that may be coming to your door.
The Department of Energy is encouraging potential ghosts and goblins to dress as alternative energy sources. It’s true. As if they have nothing else to concern themselves with, you may get to see kids dressed as wind turbines, solar panels and maybe even as the head of the department, Ernest Moniz. Not sure what’s scarier: a child who would want to dress in these costumes, or a child who actually knows who Ernest Moniz is.
The Department of Energy even has instructions on its website for kids who decide to take the environmentalist message into their Halloween costumes. The agency also made news this week after it claimed the most famous icon of Halloween—the jack-o-lantern—causes global warming. According to the website, once your happy or scary pumpkin face gets old, it will end up in a landfill, “adding to more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year… At landfills, MSW decomposes and eventually turns into methane—a harmful greenhouse gas that plays a part in climate change, with more than 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide (CO2).”
However, they do mention some actual good news. This waste can be used as bio-fuel that could help the country become less dependent on foreign oil (as if we really have to be anyway with all of the natural gas we have), but that’s another topic for another time. The Department of Energy doesn’t seem to discourage the carving of pumpkins, however. As with the costumes, they just encourage you to carve something energy efficient into them, such as the previously-mentioned wind turbine, a curly CFL light bulb or the shape of an atom. So if dressing up as a windmill doesn’t interest you, maybe you can just carve one into a pumpkin, set it out on your porch and then all your neighbors will know that you care about the planet.
This is confusing…like the jack-o-lantern, the “Energy Pumpkins” too will end up in a landfill until such time as the technology and resources are in place that can convert them into the bioenergy of which the bureaucrats at the DOE speak. So, given the choice between some boring costume or pumpkin carving, most of us prefer to stick with tradition…so fire up the jack-o-lanterns!
Only in America
Remember that teenager in Texas who started the school year last month by bringing his homemade “clock” to school and freaked out his teachers? Apparently, he’s been enjoying his 15 minutes of fame, which looks like it’s turned into a full hour. Leaving his books (and homemade clock/bomb) behind Ahmed Mohamed—aka “The Clock Kid”—has been traveling the world. Last night, he even appeared at the White House as the president’s special guest at the White House Astronomy Night.
Ahmed got his chance to meet NASA scientists and astronauts—minus his “clock”. After he was handcuffed, detained and released the same day for bringing in a briefcase-looking thing with wires coming out of it to his school in mid-September, Obama tweeted his support and invitation to the White House: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”
No doubt Obama was thinking that the Irving, Texas school officials and police “acted stupidly” in how they dealt with the Muslim teen. The WH spokesperson Josh Earnest even stated at the time that Ahmed’s teachers “failed him” by stereotyping him as they did. Prior to the White House shin-dig, Ahmed even told the press how hard it was for him to live in the United States and that probably if he had been a white kid, and not a Muslim, nothing would have happened to him. The ignorance of youth…so easily molded into the role of the victim.
Ahmed must have forgotten what happened to a little white boy, 7-year-old Josh Welch, who was suspended for 2 days from his Maryland school in 2013 because he supposedly ate a pop tart into the shape of a gun. Unfortunately, The Pop Tart Kid never received this kind of VIP support.
Maybe it was a little over the top to put The Clock Kid in handcuffs and haul him down to the police station for the day, but weren’t his public school teachers just adhering to Obama’s own adage to “say something when you see something” when it comes to terror threats? At 14, Ahmed should probably have been aware of the way things are in public schools, and that bringing a briefcase with wires sticking out of it into class might be a bad idea.
These two public school incidents remind me of that saying, “Everyone is equal…some are just more equal than others.” One kid eats a pop tart into a gun shape (he said he was trying to make it look like a mountain in a picture he drew) and gets suspended for a couple days…and has the suspension upheld by a judge the next year because the judge said the boy had a history of bad behavior in school. Another kid, twice his age, says he’s making a clock, that looks nothing like a clock by anyone’s definition of a clock…but it does kind of look like the makings of a bomb. He brings it to school and gets an invitation to bring it to the White House (which he didn’t do).
But it didn’t stop there for Ahmed the Clock Kid. He has since left his high school and is being home-schooled, and has visited Mecca, Google and Queen Rania of Jordan. The young inventor, son of Muslim activist Mohamed Elhassan Mohamad (who ran for the president of Sudan twice) even got to meet the Butcher of Darfur, Omar Hassan al-Bashi, who is the current president of Sudan. Al-Bashi is accused of ordering the genocide of hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur over the past ten years and is wanted for war crimes.
Ahmed has also been honored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as their “American Muslim of the Year”. By the way, CAIR remains an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case of several years ago where participants were charged with funding the terrorist group Hamas. Ahmed, since you live in Texas, maybe you should do a search for an old country song by Garth Brooks…it’s called “Friends in Low Places”.
So Ahmed goes from an obscure high school nerd to the Man About Town, or rather—The World. Wonder if he still thinks it’s so hard to live in America?
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