NewsReal

New on NewsReal – Do Haley Barbour’s Racial Recollections Expose a Bad Memory, or Something Worse?

Calvin Freiburger civil rights, conservatism, GOP, Haley Barbour, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, NewsReal, race, racism, Republican Party, segregation

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

So common are accusations of racism from the Left that everyone with a right-of-center political disposition should expect to be accused of hating people with different skin colors at some point in his or her life. This week, it’s Haley Barbour’s turn. The Republican Governors’ Association chair is in hot water for comments that allegedly downplay racial strife in segregation-era Mississippi:

Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that managed to integrate the schools without violence. I asked Haley Barbour why he thought that was so.

“Because the business community wouldn’t stand for it,” he said. “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you’d lose it. If you had a store, they’d see nobody shopped there. We didn’t have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City.”

In interviews Barbour doesn’t have much to say about growing up in the midst of the civil rights revolution. “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” he said. “I remember Martin Luther King came to town, in ’62. He spoke out at the old fairground and it was full of people, black and white.”

At the Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg finds Barbour guilty of first-degree bigotry:

Writer Andrew Ferguson takes Barbour at his word, arguing that if Barbour’s segregationist roots become an issue in his presidential campaign, it will be because of “Washington political reporters who enjoy moralizing about race and public education while sending their own children to progressive schools like Sidwell Friends and St. Albans.”

The piece is an exquisite example of the conservative racial two-step: a blatant expression of racism, followed by aggrieved wailing at the mere thought of being called a racist. It proves that Barbour is either dishonest or so blindly ignorant that one can scarcely imagine how he’s managed a successful political career.

Of course, Goldberg has falsely smeared conservatives as racists before, undermining the idea that she’s accurately identified some common right-wing trope in the “conservative racial two-step.” But what of Barbour’s case?

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Celebs Butting Into Politics: Jon Voight Isn’t the Problem

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, conservatism, Democrats, foreign affairs, Hollywood, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jon Voight, Left, Mediaite, NewsReal, nuclear weapons, Russia, START Treaty

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

They may be outnumbered by their leftist counterparts, but Hollywood does have its share of conservatives. Among the most vocal and unapologetic is Jon Voight, who appeared on last night’s “Hannity” (guest-hosted by the incomparable Mark Steyn to discuss President Barack Obama’s deadly ineptness on nuclear proliferation, as characterized by the White House’s precious START Treaty:

VOIGHT: I hear Obama trying to convince the American people that if we give up our nuclear weapons, this will set a fine example and all other countries will follow suit. What a dangerous and naive notion that is. If President Reagan wasn’t such a powerful force of strength, we never would have seen Premier Gorbachev take down the Berlin Wall […] every American citizen should be up in arms and calling their senators to reject this Obama’s START Treaty. It’s, you know, without our nuclear might, we would be subject to becoming a weak nation and what would follow would be much more severe than what we are currently going through with 9.6 unemployment, add that to the idea that our allies are very concerned about their safety and they are warning us not to reduce our nuclear power because their very protection is dependent on our strength.

At Mediaite, Mark Joyella is perplexed that Fox News would bring in a mere actor to discuss foreign affairs…


Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’s Repeal Reminds Us That Joe Lieberman’s Still a Leftist

Calvin Freiburger Democrats, Don't Ask Don't Tell, homosexuality, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Left, military, NewsReal

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

With the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell finally coming to pass, the long-disgruntled gay Left finally has something to show for their support of Barack Obama. But right now the spotlight and accolades are going to a different Democrat with an estranged relationship to the Left. At the Daily Beast, Howard Kurtz sits down with Sen. Joe Lieberman to discuss his leadership on the issue, and whether or not it makes up for his heresy on the War on Terror:

Andrew Sullivan, the gay Atlantic blogger who has championed repeal of DADT, dubbed Lieberman a “civil rights hero.” But Alex Pareene, a liberal blogger for Salon, declared that “it’s still OK to hate Joe Lieberman”—the “single most annoying man in the United States Senate”—because he remains a “sanctimonious troll.”

Lieberman says he doesn’t know whether the battle will help him politically, and his relationship with home-state Democrats may have deteriorated beyond repair. A Quinnipiac poll last January gave him a 27 percent approval rating among Democrats, and several Dems are weighing a primary challenge for 2012.

I have no principled objection to political parties and movements establishing litmus tests—even single-issue litmus tests—for their candidates. That’s their prerogative. But it is telling that left-wing Lieberman haters have chosen national security of all issues with which to divide allies and enemies. Once upon a time, Americans on both sides of the aisle believed that politics stopped at the water’s edge; the Left has since fallen so far from that ideal that today, no cause, principle, or value is safe from partisan venom or opportunism.

Speaking of those principles, Lieberman’s critics also suffer from fatal tunnel vision. Sure, he agrees with conservatives on several foreign policy issues, but on just about everything else, he’s a true-blue leftist.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – How ObamaCare and Its Apologists Make a Mockery of the Constitution

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, Constitution, Founding Fathers, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, judges, NewsReal
My latest NewsRealBlog post:
As a victory for constitutional originalism and a major blow to Barack Obama’s agenda, Judge Henry Hudson’s ruling against ObamaCare’s individual mandate has many conservatives cheering. But is it too soon to break out the champagne glasses? UC Boulder law professor Paul Campos thinks so. At the Daily Beast, he says that the Left may yet have the last laugh:

Judge Hudson’s decision, by ruling the individual mandate unconstitutional but leaving the rest of the Affordable Care Act intact, would, if it were to stand up on appeal, essentially be a death sentence for the private medical insurance industry in America.

After all, under the remaining provisions of the ACA, insurance companies would still be legally required to enroll applicants despite whatever pre-existing conditions the applicants might have—but they would no longer benefit from the crucial legislative quid pro quo that anyone who did not purchase insurance would be subject to a penalty in the form of a tax.

Perhaps (though it’s unclear how big the difference will be, since many will buy health insurance regardless of whether the law says they must). But that’s the thing about conservatives: we don’t assume that the courts will resolve all our political goals for us. Instead, we’re holding our lawmakers’ feet to the fire to see ObamaCare repealed legislatively. Likewise, if the individual mandate is unconstitutional, it’s unconstitutional. If an act of Congress can’t operate without a provision the Constitution doesn’t allow, that’s an argument against the act, not for the provision.

Of course it’s always possible that the Supreme Court would strike down the ACA as a whole. But given that even many of the biggest opponents of the law concede that its other provisions are constitutional, this seems extremely unlikely.

“Many” ObamaCare critics concede the constitutionality of the rest of the law? Name one.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

New at NewsReal – Media Matters Grasps at Straws Trying to Pit Hannity Against Bush

Calvin Freiburger blogosphere, Bush, Congress, dishonesty, Hannity, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Media Matters, NewsReal, politics, Senate, taxes

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Attempting to paint one political opponent as undermining another is an especially tempting line of political attack, sometimes so tempting that a propagandist will settle for the most contorted, threadbare argument to that effect. Such is the case with Media Matters’ latest attack on Sean Hannity. Seizing upon Hannity’s latest interview with GOP Congressman Steve King about Congress’ current tax bickering, Media Matters claims to have caught Hannity admitting that the Bush tax cuts were “madness”:

Speaking with Rep. Steve King about the estate tax, Hannity made the following complaint:

HANNITY: If you died last year it was 45 percent, if you die this year it’s zero percent, if you die next year, it could be 55 percent: Only Washington could think of this madness. 

That’s so true. Only in Washington could such a crazy plan be hatched. Only in the Bush White House, to be specific. Bush, and a Republican led Congress chose to have the Bush tax cuts “sunset” on the last day of 2010, largely because Republicans neglected to propose any way to pay for the hugely expensive cuts, and letting them expire after nine years mitigated the enormous price-tag that accompanied these cuts (because price estimates are calculated over a 10-year period). 

First, our leftist friends apparently hope none of their readers will stop to think about what a sunset provision is. Sunset provisions set a date by which a measure will expire, unless it’s reauthorized. Note well the last part: politicians know when something is going to happen well in advance, and have to act to decide whether or not to do anything about it.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – What Motivates Radical Libertarians’ Blind Allegiance to Anti-Government Thugs Like Julian Assange

Calvin Freiburger conservatism, Founding Fathers, Julian Assange, libertarianism, limited government, national security, NewsReal, Ron Paul, WikiLeaks

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

The outpouring of support WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have received from the usual paleo-libertarian suspects is as illuminating as it is predictable. Take, for example, Ron Paul’s latest attempt at LewRockwell.com to make excuses for the leaking of highly sensitive government data because—as always—the real villain we should be worried about is Uncle Sam:

[S]tate secrecy is anathema to a free society. Why exactly should Americans be prevented from knowing what their government is doing in their name?

In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, however, we are in big trouble. The truth is that our foreign spying, meddling, and outright military intervention in the post–World War II era has made us less secure, not more […]

The neoconservative ethos, steeped in the teaching of Leo Strauss, cannot abide an America where individuals simply pursue their own happy, peaceful, prosperous lives. It cannot abide an America where society centers around family, religion, or civic and social institutions rather than an all-powerful central state. There is always an enemy to slay, whether communist or terrorist. In the neoconservative vision, a constant state of alarm must be fostered among the people to keep them focused on something greater than themselves – namely their great protector, the state. This is why the neoconservative reaction to the WikiLeaks revelations is so predictable: “See, we told you the world was a dangerous place,” goes the story. They claim we must prosecute – or even assassinate – those responsible for publishing the leaks. And we must redouble our efforts to police the world by spying and meddling better, with no more leaks.

True to form, Paul doesn’t even try to address the evidence that WikiLeaks is a national-security threat operating against the law and beyond the First Amendment’s protection. As usual when it comes to foreign policy, the self-appointed spokesman of our forefathers is actually on the wrong side of the Founding regarding the necessity of maintaining a certain level of secrecy (see Federalist 64 and Federalist 70). And once again, the Paulite cult’s strange fixation on Leo Strauss pops up. (On that note, I have a suggestion for NRB’s Paulite readers: when you comment on this post—and I know you will—instead of regurgitating the same old complaints, how about explaining to me just what nefarious Straussian teachings we “neocons” are under the influence of?)

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

New at NewsReal – Are the Assange Rape Charges a Pretext to Bust Him for WikiLeaks? Maybe – and That’s Okay

Calvin Freiburger http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Julian Assange, Justice, national security, NewsReal, sex crimes, Wendy Murphy, WikiLeaks

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This weekend at NewsRealBlog, we had quite the brawl over the sexual-assault charges against WikiLeaks’ anarchic head honcho, Julian Assange. Today, let’s look at the arrest at a different angle: regardless of whether or not he assaulted anyone, is it right to use these charges as an excuse to punish his cyber terrorism?

Child abuse and sex crime victims’ advocate Wendy Murphy isn’t so sure. At the Daily Beast, she says the charges, if true, would be worth pursuing, but the prosecutors’ motives don’t pass the smell test:

[I]f Assange were any other guy, he would not be sitting in a British jail and there would have been no international manhunt, no matter how may times his condom broke during sex.

Because the public understands this, they also understand that the timing of Assange’s arrest on sex charges is suspicious. The charges are either a substitute for a lack of evidence in conjuction with a WikiLeaks indictment, or they’re “holding charges” meant to keep the guy penned up while the world figures out where, if anywhere, Assange might actually be prosecutable for the release of government files.

Either way, when prosecutors use the public’s money to pursue a criminal case as a pretext for some other agenda, people become cynical and mistrustful of the rule of law. During impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton for his lie about Monica Lewinsky, the public was plenty offended by Clinton’s behavior, but the impeachment proceedings were so over the top, many came to believe the process was nothing but a contrived show trial, generated by people who couldn’t have cared less about presidential lying but who hoped to seize the moment for political gain.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

Around the Web

Calvin Freiburger abortion, Andrew Sullivan, Barack Obama, class warfare, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Iran, NewsReal, nuclear weapons, Robert Stacy McCain, sex crimes, taxes, WikiLeaks

Is WikiLeaks an agent of liberty? No way, says Janet Daley.

Another powerhouse from my NRB colleague, Megan Fox: 28 Revolting Quotes That Define the Pro-Abortion Left.

The Other McCain has the scoop on a lefty academic and commentator who’s been charged with carrying on a sexual relationship with his own daughter.

Check out this priceless takedown of Andrew Sullivan’s never-ending dishonesty.

Doug Powers slaps down Bernie Sanders’ class-warfare demagoguery.

Has the Republican Party learned nothing? (That’s a rhetorical question, by the way).

Investors’ Business Daily has more on the not-so-dreamy effects of ObamaCare on the medical profession.

And in Iran, Stuxnet, the world’s early Christmas gift, keeps on giving.

New on NewsReal – In Search of the Statist Social-Con Menace

Calvin Freiburger blogosphere, conservatism, homosexuality, NewsReal, social conservatism, social issues, Tea Party

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My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Earlier this week, I asked Lori Heine who and where the “statist control freak” social conservatives she’s afraid of are, pointing out that what’s commonly referred to as the social conservative agenda isn’t statist at all. She responds by conceding that her fears might be overblown, but still has a few concerns:
People like Farah and Sprigg make a lot of noise, and everyone outside the audience of the mainstream conservative media hear this noise and make much of it.  Do they make too much? That is quite possible.  But besides Freiburger and a few like him, how many on the Right are stepping forward to set the record straight?
Sadly, I am aware of no conservative—social or otherwise—who tackled the Sprigg story, other than me. Perhaps some simply missed it, but I suspect many chose to ignore it in the hopes that it would just blow over. Bad move, guys. But Farah is another matter. Lori notes that Coulter slapped him down, but so did plenty of others, including NRB, Right Wing News, Red State, Big Government, and more. Besides, many on the Right have been sick of the Birther conspiracies Farah’s been peddling since well before the HomoCon scandal, so it’s not surprising that many wouldn’t bother wasting time with him in the first place.

Indeed, recall that anti-gay buffoon Ryan Sorba got soundly booed by the conservative audience of CPAC 2010, leading one lefty blogger to opine:
When conservatives are standing up for gays, and Democrats treat us like we are an embarrassment, there’s a problem.
Lori continues:
Not only the hard Left, but also much of the political middle believes that social conservatives are dangerous.  This is exactly why the Tea Party movement deemphasized social issues in the first place, and it is also why it has enjoyed so much success.
While fighting fiscal disaster might have been Priority Number One for the Tea Party, Lori makes too much out of the alleged distance between Tea Partiers and so-cons:

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Media Matters Incites a Word War with Fox News Over Term "Public Option"

Calvin Freiburger Bill Sammon, Fox News, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Johnny Dollar's Place, mainstream media, media, media bias, Media Matters, NewsReal, public option

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Language is a powerful tool. Those who define what words mean (or are at least believed to mean) can drastically influence our government and culture. According to the Left’s lexicon, killing is “choice,” racial discrimination is “affirmative action,” thought control is “sensitivity training,” and property confiscation is “economic justice.” But does the Right play similar propaganda games?

At the Daily Beast, Howard Kurtz seems to think so. Today he reports on a “new” Media Matters attack on Fox News.

As the health-care debate was heating up in the summer of 2009, Republican pollster Frank Luntz offered Sean Hannity some advice. 

Luntz, who counseled the GOP on how to sell the 1994 Contract With America, told the Fox News host to stop using President Obama’s preferred term for a key provision.

“If you call it a public option, the American people are split,” he explained. “If you call it the government option, the public is overwhelmingly against it.”

“A great point,” Hannity declared. “And from now on, I’m going to call it the government option, because that’s what it is.”  

On Oct. 27, the day after Senate Democrats introduced a bill with a public insurance option from which states could opt out, Bill Sammon, a Fox News vice president and Washington managing editor, sent the staff a memo. Sammon is a former Washington Times reporter. 

“Please use the term ‘government-run health insurance,’ or, when brevity is a concern, ‘government option,’ whenever possible,” the memo said.





The possibility that Sammon’s motives were partisan and that he was trying to influence Fox’s viewers against ObamaCare can’t be completely dismissed—“government option” polls the way Republicans want it to, and as Kurtz points out, Sammon is a right-leaning commentator who wrote several conservative books. Accordingly, I have scant patience for Sammon objecting, “Have I said things where I take a conservative view? Give me specifics.”

That said, there’s an obvious flip side that Kurtz and Media Matters ignore.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.