Me-First Parents

The New York Post’s Andrea Peyser with an outstanding commentary on today’s me-first parents and their offspring, for which society is paying a heavy price.

The subject is a 37-year-old birth mother who gave the world a 16-year-old who put a bullet into the head of an innocent 15-year-old girl.

Mom was too busy pursuing her own selfish wants and desires. The kid was left to be raised by his cousins, felons one and all, memberso f the Bloods street gang. No surprise the kid turned out to be a monster.

Like having your kid raised by the Gambino crime family.

This is all too common. Read the whole thing. It’s frightening.

NRSC Still Stuck On Stupid

Once again, Jon Cornyn and the National Republican Senatorial Committee prove pretty much useless, stuck on stupid, incapable of finding their own collective rear end with both hands.

I received an NRSC survey to fill out and submit by e-mail. Most of the questions were routine … until I get to this one:

What’s wrong with that picture? Insert Final Jeopardy theme here. Answer must be in the form of a question.

“What is ‘What About Increase Cost and Decrease Quality,’ Alex.”

You just won Final Jeopardy.

What idiot clearly stuck on stupid sent this out without proofing it? It almost makes the Democrats’ case for passing the bill for them.

Ideological Test For Teachers In Minnesota

In order to obtain an education degree from the University of Minnesota, potential graduates will now have to pass a rigid leftist ideological test.

Conservatives need not apply.

Do you believe in the American dream — the idea that in this country, hardworking people of every race, color and creed can get ahead on their own merits? If so, that belief may soon bar you from getting a license to teach in Minnesota public schools — at least if you plan to get your teaching degree at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.

In a report compiled last summer, the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the U’s College of Education and Human Development recommended that aspiring teachers there must repudiate the notion of “the American Dream” in order to obtain the recommendation for licensure required by the Minnesota Board of Teaching. Instead, teacher candidates must embrace — and be prepared to teach our state’s kids — the task force’s own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic.

The task group is part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative, a multiyear project to change the way future teachers are trained at the U’s flagship campus. The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers’ lack of “cultural competence” contributes to the poor academic performance of the state’s minority students. Last spring, it charged the task group with coming up with recommendations to change this. In January, planners will review the recommendations and decide how to proceed.

The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the “overarching framework” for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep.

The first step toward “cultural competence,” says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize — and confess — their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the reeducation camps of China’s Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.

That is political correctness as cultural Marxism on display for all to see, complete with its own set of re-education camps.

So if you believe in the traditional concepts of America, you either will be forced to renounce your views or give up your career ambitions.

Nice. Welcome to Obamamerica.

Ed Morrissey weighs in at Hot Air:

Isn’t the point of teaching to actually teach?  As in, mathematics, reading, and science?  Instead of focusing primarily on educating Minnesota youth, UM wants to indoctrinate teachers into becoming community organizers.  After all, what else are we to conclude when the university states that the biggest priorities in elementary education aren’t illiteracy and scientific ignorance but “heteronormativity,” “hegemonic masculinity,” and “internalized oppression”?

That last example is high irony indeed.  Want to see “internalized oppression”?  This program gives a very good example of it, with its demand of ideological purity as a prerequisite to earning a teaching degree.   The fact that the program’s advocates can’t see the irony of their proposal speaks volumes about Academia in general, and the people in charge of the education program at the University of Minnesota.

With Minnesota students needing teachers who can teach useful skills rather than navel-gazing concepts such as “heteronormativity,” how about we give the political correctness a rest and encourage rather than discourage young men and women to enter the classrooms?   Put aside the Chomsky and Ayers political Kool-Aid, and stick to education.   The only agenda that should be in place is competence.

The FDIC Is Broke

Yes, $8.2 billion in red ink as of the 3rd quarter.

From Market Ticker:

That’s broke. Bankrupt. Kaput. Gone. Poof. Dead. Rotting. A corpse.

Yes, yes, I know, Treasury has their back. But let’s not forget – The FDIC does not have a legal “full faith and credit” guarantee from the US Federal Government and Treasury.

It has a “sense of Congress” resolution, but not a formal, legally-binding guarantee.

Karl Denninger puts it so even a liberal can understand it:

YOUR SO-CALLED “DEPOSIT INSURANCE” AND THE SEVERAL TRILLION IN CITIZEN BANK DEPOSITS ARE BACKED BY THE SAME AMOUNT OF CAPITAL THAT AIG HAD TO BACK THEIR CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS: BUPKIS.

Yet Another Reason To Homeschool

Our gummint-run skoolz on display, folks, courtest of The All-American Blogger.

An 11-year-old girl is forced to draw an ejaculating penis as a homework assignment.

Here’s the video of her mother testifying to a Massachusetts legislative committee:

The only question from the zombies on the committee came from a legislator who asked if there was any notification of parental consent, not whether the idea was wrong to begin with.

The parent is testifying in support of the David Parker Parental Rights Bill in the Massachusetts Legislature, named for the parent who was arrested and convicted for protesting the teaching of homosexual advocacy to his then-six year old in 2005.

You can read about the case itself here.

The Messiah Limbo Continues

How low can He go?

Our Lord and Savior Barack Hussein Obama continues His limbo in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, hitting a new low of -15.

What’s more, public support for ObamaCare his hit its lowest level ever. Hello, Congress? Still sure you want to do this?

Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.

Keep in mind this survey was taken before the Senate voted along party lines to begin debate.

A Real Document Drop

Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government has the scoop on how the San Diego branch of ACORN — the Association of Corrupt Organizations Registering Non-voters — conducting a real — as opposed to figurative — document drop.

Under investigation by the California attorney general’s office, ACORN literally threw thousands of sensitive documents related to the investigation into dumpsters.

That after an ACORN official stated publicly that the organization was cooperating with the investigation.

Go here to see pictures, video and DocStoc of what Big Government investigators learned and recovered from the dumpster.

Quite frankly, ACORN should be on the receiving end of a federal RICO probe. It’s nothing more than organized crime. Voter registration and election fraud, welfare fraud, prostitution, you name it.

The Mafia would be proud.

America’s Mounting Debt

This is frightening to comprehend. Even al-New York Times gets it.

The Perfect Storm of debt is about to strike, and the politicians in Washington are about to pass a federal takeover of the health care system that will only add trillions to that debt.

WASHINGTON — The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with IOU’s on terms that seem too good to be true.

But that happy situation, aided by ultra-low interest rates, may not last much longer.

Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.

Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today’s low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent legions of overstretched homeowners into default on their mortgages.

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Note the phrase “if annual budget deficits shrink drastically.” That ain’t happenin’. The government is doing absolutely nothing to cause real economic growth; e.g., across-the-board tax cuts.

In fact, the policies being pursued by Our Lord and Savior and the folks who put the “con” in Con-gress are aimed at limiting economic growth at best — growing government instead — which will eliminate jobs and make even more Americans dependent on government, thus causing government to grow and spend more money.

Which, I believe, is their real objective.

We have Congress pursuing a federal takeover of the health care system. We have Congress pursuing a potentially devastating carbon tax. We have Bela Pelosi talking about a European-style VAT, or value-added tax, next year. We have Congress willing to allow a retroactive tax hike in allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire next year — and Congress willing to to pursue back tax collections on individuals all the way back to 2001 when those tax rate reductions went into effect. And more than that.

Everything seems to be specifically designed to destroy the U.S. economy a la Cloward-Piven in an attempt to usher in Marxism.

We have story after story on phony job creation and savings from the porkulus bill. The government’s propaganda website boasting about jobs created and saved in imaginary congressional districts is something that would make Joseph Goebbels proud.

We have hyped reports about supposed economic growth last quarter that was larger than expected. Never mind that it was all government spending rather than the economy growing. Now those rosy figures are being adjusted back to reality as of today.

Fact is, there is no economic growth out there. People know it. They can see what is happening around them.  The real unemployment rate is 17.5 percent. That means one in six Americans is out of work.

How’s that hope and change workin’ out for ya?

To paraphrase Ronaldus Magnus:

Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose your job. Recovery is when Barack Obama loses his job.

Lieberman Stands In The Way

Although Sen. Joseph Lieberman gave his assent to the debate on government-run health care beginning, his opposition to any form of a public government-run option hasn’t changed.

In fact, if there is a public government-run option in any final Senate bill, he says he’ll block a vote on the bill.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: “I’m going to be stubborn on this.”

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a “public option,” or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won’t vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.

Probe for a catch or caveat in that opposition, and none is visible. Can he support a public option if states could opt out of the plan, as the current bill provides? “The answer is no,” he says in an interview from his Senate office. “I feel very strongly about this.” How about a trigger, a mechanism for including a public option along with a provision saying it won’t be used unless private insurance plans aren’t spreading coverage far and fast enough? No again.

So any version of a public option will compel Mr. Lieberman to vote against bringing a bill to a final vote? “Correct,” he says.

This is, of course, more than just one senator objecting to one part of health legislation. This is the former Democratic vice presidential nominee, now an independent, Joe Lieberman, still counted on to be the 60th vote Democrats will need to force a final vote on health legislation. In opposing a public option, he is opposing the element some Democratic liberals have come to consider the cornerstone of a health-care bill.

Unless the Democrats can flip a RINO like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins or George RINOvich, Lieberman’s opposition means the bill cannot come to a vote.

The Wall Street Journal speculated that Lieberman might be bargaining for a watered-down option he and other moderate Democrats can support, but it doesn’t sound like it.

It sounds like NO means NO.

Jimmy Carter Returneth

Remember the days of Jimmy Carter? Not the parts of double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, gas lines, shortages, malaise. Rather, the impotent foreign policy where every tinhorn tyrant and dictator around the world laughed at the United States and mocked us, daring us to do anything.

Those days are back, and with a different kind of foreign enemy, it may be worse this time.

Writing at The American Spectator, Ken Blackwell explains how we’ve returned to the bad ol’ days of Jimmy Carter, now America’s Second Worst President Ever.

He cites an interview that America’s Worst President Ever gave to al-CNN. In it, Our Lord and Savior made the following statement:

I think this notion that somehow we have to be fearful, that these terrorists are — possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking then — them up and, you know, exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake.

Namely, once again returning to the misguided approach of treating the war against international jihad to a matter of law enforcement.

Blackwell exposes the dangerous naivete of the Little Black Man-Child:

This is a week that saw the execution in Virginia of John Allen Muhammed, the convicted Beltway Sniper. President Obama also recently visited Fort Hood for a memorial service to the 14 victims of a terrorist shooter.

We know already that the Fort Hood shooter was in contact with a jihadist imam in Yemen. The Internet — which did not exist in Jimmy Carter’s heyday — now provides instant communication through the World Wide Web between terrorists there and terrorists here.

What if we had one hundred John Allen Muhammeds driving one hundred cheap junker cars with one hundred teen shooters hiding in the trunks of those vehicles? It does not take a great deal of imagination to see how the country could be paralyzed by a small number of terrorists. They could all be activated by Al Qaeda operatives based in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Texas.

Think about that last scenario. Remember back to the period before Muhammed — yes, a Muslim terrorist — and his accomplice were captured. Widespread fear gripped the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Many of us who followed the case had already read about jihadist plans captured in Afghanistan detailing such attacks in various communities, with the end result being crippling terror. We knew the enemy was planning such attacks. We still don’t know if Muhammed talked to any imams, as did the Fort Hood shooter, or simply took it upon himself to conduct his own personal jihad.

Imagine this scenario being played out in, say, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Atlanta at virtually the same time. It doesn’t have to be a large metropolitan area. Try, say, Green Bay. Or even smaller communities. It has the potential to paralyze those communities.

And the Narcissist-in-Chief doesn’t think our enemies have special powers?

We know there are enemies plotting against us inside our borders. We’ve let them come here and have been reluctant to weed them out and round them up as well as shutting down the mosques of hate that breed new jihadists.

But, for crying out loud, do we have to dismiss them as being no real threat to us? How naive can He be?