racism

New at Live Action – WaPo Columnist: It’s Racist to Defend Black Babies From Abortion

Calvin Freiburger abortion, demagogues, dishonesty, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, hypocrisy, Left, Live Action, pro-choice, race, racism

My latest Live Action post:

Lately, the mainstream media’s been doing a pretty good job of reminding pro-lifers that we hate women, but surely our malice isn’t limited just to women, is it? Of course not. Fortunately, dear readers, we have Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy to remind us that we’re racist, too. Milloy claims the real intent of the pictured billboard, sponsored by Life Always’ “That’s Abortion” campaign, is to “shame the black woman, single her out by race and cast her body as the personification of sin and death”:

[T]he conservative effort now underway to overturn the court’s decision is not just being waged on women’s reproductive rights, but on the black woman as a person.
Do white women recognize the difference?

“When you add racism to sexism, oppression manifests itself differently,” said Paris Hatcher, executive director of an Atlanta-based women’s advocacy group called SPARK Reproductive Justice Now. “In this country, it’s okay to shame and blame the black woman, to pathologize and criminalize her behavior. Black women become the nannies, the mammies, the Jezebels.”

That must be it! Why didn’t anybody see it before? Apparently the rest of us were taken in by Life Always’ clever ruse of staffing its four-person Board of Directors with two black men and one white woman, leading us to naively infer that the billboards were motivated by compassion for the innocent black girls killed by abortion. How foolish of us!

Read the rest at Live Action.

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The MSM Finally Starts Vetting Ron Paul. And It Ain’t Pretty.

Calvin Freiburger 9/11 Truthers, anti-Semitism, anti-war, appeasement, bigotry, conservatism, conspiracy theories, extremism, GOP, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Iran, Israel, libertarianism, MSM, racism, Ron Paul

Be careful what you wish for, Paulites. Now that people are paying attention to your Messiah, they’re paying attention to the whole story.

Having made my objections to Ron Paul abundantly clear—see, for instance, here,  here, and here—I don’t need to rehash them. Here, a quick roundup of the latest developments will suffice.
  • December 14: The Washington Examiner’s Phillip Klein highlights Paul’s habit of not only slandering Israel, but doing so on Iranian state TV.
  • December 16: After getting smacked down by Michele Bachmann the night before, Paul retaliates by smearing her: “She hates Muslims. She wants to go get ‘em.”
  • December 17: In the Weekly Standard, James Kirchick follows up on his original expose of the newsletters, reviewing the vile content, the money Paul made off of them, and Paul’s cozy relationship with raving lunatic Alex Jones.
  • December 18: former longtime Paul aide Eric Dondero tells the American Spectator that Paul didn’t write those bigoted, conspiratorial newsletters, “but he did read them, every line of them, off his fax machine at his Clute office before they were published. He would typically sign them at the bottom of the last page giving his okay, and re-fax them to Jean to go to the printer.”
  • December 20: Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid reports on Paul’s vocal support for cyber-anarchist “whistleblower” outfit WikiLeaks and their source, Bradley Manning, whom Paul calls a “hero” and “patriot” for indiscriminately leaking classified information.
    December 20: At Townhall, John Hawkins highlights 12 quotes that render Paul unelectable.
  • December 20: RedState’s Leon Wolf compiles the evidence that Paul is a 9/11 Truther.
  • December 21: RedState’s Leon Wolf reveals Ron Paul’s wildly anti-libertarian 2008 presidential endorsements, including Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader.
  • December 21: Paul loses his cool in a CNN interview about the newsletters, complaining that he’s addressed it so many times everyone should be satisfied with the (non-)answers he’s already given, flatly claiming he didn’t write them, never saw the bigoted content, “and that’s it.” He denies that he made nearly a million dollars on them (“I’d like to see that money”). When the interviewer says it’s a legitimate question because “these things are pretty incendiary,” Paul shoots back, “because of people like you,” takes off his microphone, and walks out.    
  • December 21: Jonah Goldberg finds 1988 video of Ron Paul claiming federal drug prohibition is a ruse to keep drug prices high to help the CIA fund its operations through drug trafficking. In the video, Paul also suggests electing George HW Bush, a former CIA chief, to the presidency would be the equivalent of the Russians putting an ex-KGB official in office.
    December 22: Video surfaces of Paul in 1995, promoting the newsletters he supposedly knew so little about: “Long term, I don’t think political action is worth very much if you don’t have education […] I also put out a political type of business investment newsletter that sort of covered all these areas.  And it covered a lot about what was going on in Washington, and financial events, and especially some of the monetary events.”
Let’s cut to the chase: making Ron Paul the Republican nominee would guarantee that Barack Obama gets a second term. We all know how Democrats love to tar their opponents as cranks and racists, even when there’s no evidence to support the smear; what do you suppose they could do with a candidate that does have such baggage, and lots of it?

We’d see the newsletters’ greatest hits—such as the ode to David Duke, the ranting about “terrorists” that “can be identified by the color of their skin”, the warnings to bar gays from restaurants because “AIDS can be transmitted by saliva”—saturate the airwaves and printed page. We’d get a refresher on every conspiracy & crackpot Paul has ever flirted with. We’d even see the president who killed Osama bin Laden credibly cast himself as a tougher wartime leader than the guy who opposed the operation.

And most importantly, all of this poison and insanity would be used not just to torpedo a presidential candidate, but also to discredit the principles of limited government and constitutionalism he claims to speak for. Every libertarian and conservative principle Paul allegedly embodies would be linked in the public’s minds to racism, paranoia. Make no mistake: the Right would be set back years, if not decades.

I gave up on expecting morals and good sense from libertarians a long time ago, but conservatives surely aren’t going to hand the Left victory on a silver platter. Are we?

New on NewsReal – Obama Puts Post-Racial America on Hold, Brings Racist, Anti-Cop Rapper to the White House

Calvin Freiburger bigotry, culture, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, NewsReal, Obama, police, politics, pop culture, race, racism, society

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Barack Obama is a man of many talents. Some presidents might be content to wreck the nation’s finances and display confused impotence to our enemies, but Obama also takes the time to needlessly poison America’s cultural well. Last night, Sean Hannity took the president to task for including Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., AKA rapper/poet “Common,” on the docket of a White House celebration of American prose.

Common’s prose covers all the bases of lefty thug culture, including railing against supposed warmongers:

Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push
No button
Killing over oil and grease
No weapons of destruction
How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one

And resentment of the law as the mortal enemy of blacks, who might want to consider packing heat, just in case:

Tell the law my Uzi weighs a ton
I walk like a warrior, from them I won’t run
On the streets they try to beat us like a drum
In Cincinnati another brother hung

Common is also a friend and defender of Obama’s old pal Jeremiah Wright—in 2008 he claimed what he “picked up from the pews…was messages of love.” Why, even love for the “US of KKK-A,” and those in the CIA who cooked up AIDS to decimate the black population! I don’t know about you, but I can certainly feel the love!

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Three Guesses Who Andrea Mitchell Thinks the Ryan Budget Will Hurt the Most

Calvin Freiburger bigotry, budget, conservatism, debt, Democrats, dishonesty, GOP, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Left, liberalism, NewsReal, Obama, Paul Ryan, racism

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Unfounded accusations of racism over political disputes usually anger me like few other things can, but lately I find myself reacting to them more with yawns than scowls. It’s the law of diminishing returns in action—overdo something, and it ceases to be effective.

Alas, Andrea Mitchell still hasn’t gotten the memo. NewsBusters’ Alex Fitzsimmons reports that the MSNBC host and her Democrat guest see the specter of bigotry behind Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) 2012 budget proposal:

“Representative Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget, released today, includes reforms, what they call reforms, and also big cuts in housing assistance, job training, and food stamps,” warned Mitchell. “All of which would have a very big impact on particularly poor and minority communities, some say.” Mitchell was mum as Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) bandied ludicrous assertions about the 2012 Republican budget, which would slash spending by nearly $6 trillion over 10 years mostly by reforming unsustainable health care entitlement programs.

“It’s clearly a nervous breakdown on paper and it will do enormous damage, I think, to the vulnerable populations of this country,” predicted the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, who added that the House Budget Chairman’s proposed cuts to non-defense discretionary spending would “devastate the poor,” particularly in America’s racial minority groups.

Citing a concise Jennifer Rubin piece, Fitzsimmons points out that the Ryan plan’s welfare reductions are modest by historical standards, and that it in fact merely “pare[s] back such programs to 2008 levels.” If anything, it sounds like the Ryan plan can be best described as a welcome opening act, but not enough to escape the hole we’ve dug for ourselves. CATO’s Michael Tanner writes that it “cuts spending by $6.2 trillion over the next ten years” yet “still adds $6 trillion to the national debt.”

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Katie Couric: A Muslim "Cosby Show" Could Help Cure America’s Bigotry

Calvin Freiburger bigotry, culture, elitism, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, Katie Couric, Left, liberalism, media, NewsReal, race, racism, TV

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Sometimes outside-the-box thinking proves invaluable in solving the controversies that plague us, but sometimes it turns out to be a minefield of useless self-embarrassment. CBS anchor Katie Couric’s novel approach to combating alleged Islamophobia falls firmly in the latter camp. During a panel review of 2010’s biggest stories, Couric lamented the American people’s clueless intolerance:

“The bigotry expressed against Muslims in this country has been one of the most disturbing stories to surface,” Couris said. “Of course, a lot of noise was made about the Islamic Center, mosque, down near the World Trade Center, but I think there wasn’t enough sort of careful analysis and evaluation of where this bigotry toward 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, and how this seething hatred many people feel for all Muslims, which I think is so misdirected, and so wrong — and so disappointing.”

One wonders how Couric is measuring this “seething hatred.” By what Americans say? Doubtful—Newsweek’s latest poll on the subject found that 67% of Americans believe that “only some” or “very few” American Muslims “support the goals of Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalists,” and 62% believe “most” or “many” are “peaceable and do not condone violence.”

Is she judging by what Americans do? Equally dubious—according to the FBI’s most recent statistics, Muslims were the victims of 7.7% of all religiously-motivated “hate crimes in 2008,” as opposed to Jews, who were the victims of 65.7%.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

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.

Around the Web

Calvin Freiburger 9/11, abortion, blog, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Mike Huckabee, misc, Planned Parenthood, racism, Robert Stacy McCain, Sarah Palin, Tom Coburn

My NRB colleague Walter Hudson takes on some fringe pseudo-conservative wackos freaking out over the casting of a black actor as a Marvel Comics version of a Norse god and secondary character in the upcoming Thor movie.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a local Planned Parenthood calling it quits because they refuse to offer abortion services, which the national Planned Parenthood finds intolerable. “Pro-choice” indeed…

Mike Huckabee vs. Sarah Palin on healthy diets in schools? Sorry Lisa, but I’m with Palin.

Tom Coburn explains why that healthcare bill for 9/11 first responders isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It passed anyway, though, and Coburn’s okay with the final version.

Be careful how you phrase things, Exhibit #804,792: Robert Stacy McCain explains yet again that he’s not a rape apologist. It’s a shame that an important point about safety and responsibility got lost amidst the hysteria.

Abolish the FCC? Go for it. Decisions with the force of law that affect Americans’ lives have no business being made by unelected, unaccountable agencies.

These Dogs Don’t Hunt

Calvin Freiburger blogosphere, conservatism, dishonesty, Hannity, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Johnny Dollar's Place, Left, media bias, NewsHounds, racism

This week I found myself in the middle of a fight between conservative media blog Johnny Dollar’s Place and liberal smear blog NewsHounds, with NewsHound Priscilla falsely claiming that a Johnny Dollar contributor plagiarized something I wrote for NewsReal back in May. Predictably, the smear turned out to be bogus – you can see my rundown on NRB here, to which Johnny kindly links here.

It seems Priscilla has gone into damage control mode:

[W]hile “Blackflon” did explain the origin of the quote on his original comment with Mr. Freiburger’s quote, that doesn’t excuse him from not using quotes in subsequent comments. 

So now the charge is reduced from plagiarism to merely being too lax in listing one’s sources. I guess this is the closest Priscilla will come to admitting that Blackfon wasn’t deliberately passing off my work as his own. And I’m sure our Arbiter of Blogosphere Commenting Etiquette holds her own commenters to such rigorous standards…right?

Surely, if Mr. Freiburger writes a term paper on – say – Shakespeare and, after using a quote from one of the plays, does not use quotation marks in subsequent use of the quote, his professor might not be pleased. 

Uhh…it’s not an academic paper. It’s a BLOG COMMENT SECTION. Where people go for informal, impromptu discussion of political issues. I knew she was petty, but this…wow.

And if Mr. Freiburger thinks that I’m going to waste my time responding to his original charges, he’s “barking up the wrong tree.” All I will say is that I stand by my original contention that Sean Hannity is a racist and that Mr. Freiburger’s defense of said racism suggests that he too might harbor the same sentiments. 

In other words, she doesn’t care that she writes demonstrable, vicious lies about people, and if I notice, that probably makes me a racist too. I think this says all we need to know about NewsHounds’ credibility. Thanks, Priscilla!

Mr. Feiburger, a student at Hillsdale College, needs to realize that he’s just a right wing blogger – in the same sense that I’m, as he calls me, a lefty blogger. He really is overinflated with his sense of self-importance.

If criticizing someone for defaming people is a sign of “self-importance,” then how self-important must the original act of defamation be? And wait! Now it’s “just” the blogosphere? I thought that a minute ago, even individual blog comments had to be held to the rigor of college term papers…

Ah, leftist demagogues…the gifts that keep on giving.

Journolist Leak Confirms What Everybody Already Knew

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, bias, Daily Caller, Democrats, dishonesty, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jeremiah Wright, mainstream media, media, NewsReal, racism, Tucker Carlson

In a sense, today’s revelation that numerous American journalists conspired to spike serious coverage of Barack Obama’s long friendship with America-hating bigot Jeremiah Wright isn’t really remarkable – this has been standard operating procedure for the mainstream media for ages. It is, however, rare to have these hacks admitting it in their own words, and catching them dead to rights is obviously helpful in convincing those still on the fence that the MSM isn’t trustworthy.

NewsReal’s Michael Van Der Gailen:

Leftists clearly believe that politics is war. They call conservatives racists, not because they are, but because it harms their reputation beyond repair, after which it’s fairly easy to beat them in elections. Conservatives have to be destroyed – no matter how.

NRB’s Paul Cooper:

Tomasky has often written for the hard Left and even once spoke at a Socialist conference, but as editor of Guardian America shouldn’t he be someone who isn’t pushing for silencing other journalists? (Ironically in 2003 Tomasky wrote a heralded piece attempting to prove that the liberal press wrote articles far more “civil” and “non-partisan” than conservative leaning press.)

On “Hannity,” Tucker Carlson just said the Daily Caller’s gonna break more news on the story tomorrow. Let the games begin…