Alongside the big three scandals currently rocking the nation, another is brewing within the U.S. military. According to a recent Pentagon report, 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted last year—that’s up 35 percent from 2010. The increase is due to victims being more willing to report the crimes and also a broadening of the definition of “sexual assault.”

Contrary to the Pentagon's report, there have been reports that these numbers are incorrect due to false reports of sexual assault:

False complaints of sexual abuse in the military are rising at a faster rate than overall reports of sexual assault, a trend that could harm combat readiness, analysts say.

From 2009 to 2012, the number of sexual abuse reports rose from 3,244 to 3,374 — a 4 percent increase.

During the same period, the number of what the Pentagon calls “unfounded allegations” based on completed investigations of those reports rose from 331 to 444 — a 35 percent increase.

In 2012, there were 2,661 completed investigations, meaning that the 444 false complaints accounted for about 17 percent of all closed cases last year. False reports accounted for about 13 percent of closed cases in 2009.

Despite the disparity in number of assaults, lawmakers are still calling for changes, and President Obama spoke out for more oversight by the military in the proper handling of sexual assault cases. The situation has been made even worse by reports that some service members responsible for preventing such crimes have been allegedly involved in sexual assault themselves. 

In response to the scandal, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the armed services to immediately re-train, re-credential and re-screen tens of thousands of military recruiters and sexual-assault prevention officers. Lawmakers are also considering stripping commanders of their sole authority to decide whether complaints of sexual assault go forward.

During congressional hearings on the issue of sexual assault in the military, Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh came under fire for citing a “hook-up culture” for part of the problem. He was accused, in essence, of blaming the victim. Welsh quickly recanted, saying, “I am sorry about that because there is nothing that is further from the truth as far as I personally feel.”

Even if Welsh didn’t mean to blame the victim, there are some who do. One study found that half of the women polled think that rape victims are to blame for “wearing a short skirt, accepting a drink or having a conversation with the rapist” or “dancing in a provocative way or flirting.”

When it comes to sexual assault and women in combat specifically, columnist Phyllis Schlafly wrote that “military women are already complaining about increased sexual assaults, and of course those problems will skyrocket. Only men will be deemed at fault because it is feminist ideology that men are innately batterers and women are victims.”

Some of the left lashed out at Schlafly for blaming the victim instead of the man: “If the rate of (male-on-female) sexual harassment goes up when women serve in combat positions, only men will be deemed at fault because only men will be at fault.”

While I am no lover of radical feminism and am opposed to women in combat positions (for reasons other than sexual temptation), I think it is a mistake for conservatives to blame the victim in any fashion when it comes to sexual assault. I think to do so shifts blame from where it belongs—on the evil actions of the perpetrator—and reinforces the perception that conservatives don’t care about women.

The argument that women should not serve in the military because they might be sexually assaulted assumes that men in our military have no self-control. This is an unfair assumption—about men in general. It has been my experience that good men behave themselves no matter how a woman acts or dresses or how intimate their working conditions are. And he especially behaves himself when she is simply a co-worker and not doing anything to “tempt” him other than being a woman. 

Bad men rape women. Bad men assault women. Bad men take advantage of women even when women have placed themselves in compromising positions, which still does not make her “responsible”—no more than the homeowner who leaves his door unlocked is “responsible” for getting robbed.

What do you think? Should conservatives be careful not to blame the victim when making arguments about women in combat, or do you think this is a legitimate argument despite heightened sensitivity to the issue, particularly among young women—a group conservatives are trying to win over?

Rock and Roll can only happen - really happen - in the Free World. The protesting, rebelling and emoting; the openly lusting, longing and exulting - These are Free World luxuries.  Rock and Roll expresses the bigness of our wishes, hopes and dreams, and expresses our anxiety, frustration and confusion in response to what the Free World has become. The joyful side of today's version of freedom, and the dark side, are there.

I like a good road trip with good rock and roll. I've recently taken a couple trips in my new car, and have particularly enjoyed the satellite radio. Between Classic Rock, Classic Vinyl and Deep Tracks, I'm all set for my "ride." I find that the songs help me cope with the unbelievably SAD and WORRYING news that relentlessly sideswipes us today. It also gives me relief and reminds me how fun and exciting it is to be free.  Even when from a liberal perspective, it expresses for me the indignation I feel about assaults on liberty; the rage I feel about the abuse of children;  the revulsion  I feel toward Brave New World artificiality.

So here is a list of songs that, for me, particularly convey the joy of freedom and the frustration over what the "Free World" has become.  From the Beatles line "I read the news today, Oh boy....." to Pink Floyd's line "Hello, hello, Is anybody in there?" to Earth Wind and Fire's line "Bless the Children" [from A Day in the Life , Comfortably Numb and Devotion], I think you'll see what I mean.

Cream - I Feel Free

Neil Young - Rockin' in the Free World

Richie Havens - Freedom

U2 - Beautiful Day

Grateful Dead - Box of Rain

Grand Funk Railroad - We're an American Band

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

Steppenwolf- Born to Be Wild

Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

Traffic - Dear Mr. Fantasy

John Lennon - Give Me Some Truth

George Harrison - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?

The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again

The Beatles - A Day in the Life

Jimmy Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower

Jackson Browne - Running on Empty

Eric Clapton - Blues Power

Queen - The Show Must Go On

Cold Play - Fix You

Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise

Led Zeppelin- Stairway to Heaven

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Can't Stop

Fleetwood Mac - Landslide

Joe Cocker - With a Little Help from My Friends

That's my list. What's yours? What songs particularly express the ups and the downs of living in the "Free World" today? Alternatively, what song or songs would you add to this list?


Joined
Feb '13

“With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or because of guys out for a walk one night who decide to kill some Americans, what difference, at this point, does it make?”

Thus did Hillary Clinton dismiss the question of why she blamed the attack on our Benghazi compound, resulting in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, on a purportedly “spontaneous” protest in response to a “disgusting” anti-Muslim video found only on YouTube.

Just weeks earlier, Mrs. Clinton thought the genesis of the attack was important enough to spend a great deal of her time identifying and denouncing it.  The State Department reportedly spent $70,000 of its scarce resources to air commercials in Pakistan condemning the YouTube video. 

Now Mrs. Clinton would like everyone to drop the subject.

The fact is, however, that the Benghazi tragedy illustrates the half-baked nature of the Arab Spring policy she has implemented, her failed management of the State Department, and her apparently treacherous qualities as a leader.  The picture is not flattering.  

With new pieces of the puzzle being supplied almost daily, two conclusions are coming into focus.  First, the “blame the video” narrative originated with Hillary Clinton.  Second, there is every reason to believe that Clinton herself knew it was false from the word go.  

Hillary Clinton was the first senior Obama Administration official to publicly blame the video for the Benghazi attack.  In prepared remarks at the State Department on September 12, Mrs. Clinton suggested that “[s]ome have sought to justify this vicious behavior, along with the protest that took place at our Embassy in Cairo yesterday, as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet.”  Francis Urquart would blush.  

We can tell where the video narrative did not come from:  the career Foreign Service.  On the night of September 11, State’s top diplomat for the region, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, sent an email to Clinton, her chief of staff Cheryl Mills (a former member of her husband’s legal team and not a Foreign Service officer), State spokesperson Victoria Nuland, and Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, reporting that “the group that carried out the attacks, Ansar al-Sharia, is affiliated with Islamic terrorists.”  Greg Hicks testified that he personally briefed Clinton during a 2 a.m. call on the night of the attack.  Hicks did not mention a demonstration spinning out of control, he said, because there wasn’t one.  Instead, he told Clinton, it was an attack, plain and simple.  

If the assault on the consulate was the result of a spontaneous protest, over an internet video, the responsible career Foreign Service officers, including Mr. Hicks and Ms. Jones, would have reported this to Secretary Clinton.  They did not.  

The White House did not initially adopt the video narrative.  In a September 12 press “gaggle” on Air Force One in Las Vegas, Jay Carney said only that the incident was still “under investigation.”  Carney was more concerned with echoing  President Obama’s charge that Mitt Romney had played politics with the Benghazi tragedy.  

By September 13, Mrs. Clinton blamed the video for the Benghazi assault explicitly.  Speaking at a State Department meeting with the Moroccan President, she pinned not only the Benghazi attack, but the violent outbursts spreading across the Arab Middle East, on Muslim popular outrage triggered by the “disgusting and reprehensible,” “deeply cynical” video.  In that day’s gaggle, Carney merely referred to and repeated Clinton’s remarks.  

On September 14, Mrs. Clinton went all in.  Speaking at Joint Base Andrews, in front of cameras, flag-draped caskets, and the families of four murdered Americans, she said, “[w]e’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with.”  According to the parents of the former Navy SEALs at the ceremony, Clinton also privately blamed the video for their sons’ deaths, promising to “make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.”  

Now the White House was also fully on board.  Jay Carney blamed the video for the attacks at that day’s press conference, and the President himself would go on to denounce the video and its “shadowy” creator in important policy venues like “The View,” “Late Night with David Letterman” and the United Nations General Assembly.

Then, during her infamous round of the Sunday talk shows on September 16, Susan Rice insisted that the video was “in fact” the cause of the Benghazi attack.  Inconveniently, the Libyan President had just publicly asserted that Benghazi was a pre-planned, terrorist assault.  

When DCM Hicks, shocked by Rice’s statements, asked Assistant Secretary of State Jones why Susan Rice had blamed the video, Jones curtly told him to drop the subject.  

This is one of the most overlooked aspects of Hicks’ testimony.  If indeed an intelligence assessment supported the video story, why didn’t Ms. Jones just say so?  Mr. Hicks, then the acting Chief of Mission in Tripoli, surely had a “need to know” and every security clearance necessary to be told.  Instead, he got “Don’t ask."  

This is where the flap over the Benghazi “talking points” -- purportedly the source of the bad “best assessment” provided by “the intelligence community”-- discloses another critical piece of the story:  the video narrative predates the draft talking points, but was never included in them.  This is key to identifying the source of the phony “video” narrative.  

As a preface, a couple of things need to be kept in mind:  

First, the talking points were prepared at the request of, and for use by, the members of the House Intelligence Committee.  In other words, this was an opportunity for the Obama Administration to influence what key members of Congress would say about the attack, and that is how the White House and State Department looked at it.  The emails show that the White House worried about the “messaging ramifications” of “wrong information” coming out of Congress.  State did not want to give Members of Congress points that “could be abused . . . to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings”.  It was only late Saturday night that a member of Susan Rice’s staff asked for a copy of the points for her to use on the Sunday talk shows.  

Second, while the Obama administration sources continually refer to the “talking points” as a CIA or “intelligence community” product, this is not accurate.  CIA may have held the drafting pen, but the points were an “interagency” (committee) product.  Where there is disagreement between agencies, the White House is the final arbiter.  

The emails recently pried from the Executive Branch show this.  It was Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser, who played the arbiter role and who, on September 15, gave Susan Rice the go-ahead to use the talking points.  

The first draft was not circulated until 11 a.m. on Friday, September 14 -- well after Mrs. Clinton had publicly described the Benghazi attack as the fatal result of a spontaneous demonstration provoked by an anti-Muslim internet video.  

Notably, the first draft (1) explicitly referred to previous terrorist threats to Western diplomats in Benghazi, (2) stated as fact (“we do know”) that Islamic militants affiliated with al Qaeda had participated in the attack, and (3) made no mention of the video as a cause.  If the “best assessment” of the intelligence community was that a Benghazi demonstration against an anti-Muslim video had spun out of control, then why wasn’t that included in talking points the CIA drafted nearly two days after the Secretary of State had gone public with that explanation?

The answer is now clear:  that was not the assessment of the intelligence community.  In fact, CIA had been directed not to make such an assessment.  A September 14 email from CIA General Counsel to staff reminded them that on “express instructions from NSS/DOJ/FBI, in light of the criminal investigation, we are not to generate statements with assessments as to who did this, etc., -- even internally, not to mention for public release.”  (emphasis added).  In other words, because the Obama Administration was treating the Benghazi attack as a criminal matter, the CIA had been instructed to leave the determination of who was responsible to the White House, DOJ and FBI.  

Drafts of the talking points included references to CIA warnings of threats to Benghazi, and to the participation of Islamic militants in the Cairo protests and attack in Benghazi.  This was not satisfactory to “building leadership” at State; Victoria Nuland candidly wrote that State was afraid this would make them look bad and fuel Congressional criticism.  Late on Friday, Ben Rhodes reminded everyone of the “significant policy and messaging ramifications” at stake, and that the views of all agencies had to be taken into account.  

When the talking points were finalized Saturday night, lo and behold, all references to the CIA’s previous warnings and the participation of al Qaeda affiliated Islamic militants were removed -- even after one person involved in the drafting noted that "FBI says AQ [not AQIM] was involved."  What had been initially described as knowledge that al Qaeda affiliated terrorists had participated in the “attack” on Benghazi became mere “indications” that “extremists” of no apparent ideological flavor had participated in “violent demonstrations.”   

So the final draft of the talking points did not blame the non-existent Benghazi demonstrations the mysteriously influential YouTube video.  And, notably, the newly released emails show that on Saturday, September 15, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) told the ranking House Intelligence Committee Democrat that while the Middle East was a “permissive environment for terrorists” and “we have some indicators al Qa’ida and other groups are seeking to establish a presence in Libya” the DNI was “very cautious about drawing any firm conclusions at this point with regard to the identification and motivation of the attackers.”  Indeed, the DNI's message refers five times to the "attack" or "attackers" and never to any "demonstration."

In short, nothing in the information released to date suggests that anyone in “the intelligence community” made an assessment blaming the Benghazi attack on a video-provoked demonstration.  Quite the contrary, it appeared to those same agencies that there was substantial reason to believe that al Qaeda affiliated terrorists were involved.  

Nevertheless, Susan Rice took to the TV to assert that “[t]he information, the best information and the best assessment we have today is that in fact this was not a preplanned, premeditated attack. That what happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video.”  A month later, in an October 15 with The Washington Post, that Amb. Rice would blame this “best assessment” on the allegedly faulty work of the “intelligence community.”

The emails now show these statements were false on three counts:  (1)  the “intelligence community” had not then made an assessment, and indeed had been forbidden to do so; (2) the talking points said nothing more than that “currently available information suggests” that the attack evolved out of demonstrations; and (3) the talking points never attributed the attack to demonstrations provoked by the video.  

So where did the “video” narrative come from?  There is only one apparent source:  Hillary Clinton.  If she didn’t think it up herself, she certainly approved it, and she was its first and most diligent proponent.  

Now back to the question Mrs. Clinton intended to be rhetorical.  What difference does it make whether Ambassador Stevens was murdered by “guys out for a walk,” or by an organized al Qaeda affiliate executing a pre-planned assault -- presaged by the CIA -- on the anniversary of September 11? 

What difference does it make whether the Obama Administration’s “lead from behind” Middle East policy, orchestrated by Clinton, has not produced flowering democracies, but a stubborn, volatile mess?  Whether this policy, and not the Mesmerizing influence of an obscure video,  unleashed a wave of violent uprisings that reflects a growing Islamist anti-Americanism?  

What difference does it make that senior officials of the United States Government, including the Secretary of State and the President, would propagate an elaborate but absurd fiction to obscure the disturbing differences between their campaign “narrative” and reality?  

Hillary Clinton thought it made a difference.  And she’s right.  

Because now, even more information has come out.

Start with the fact that we have yet another resignation:

President Obama on Thursday appointed senior budget adviser Daniel Werfel as the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, as that agency manages a scandal stemming from its targeting of conservative groups. The appointment is effective May 22.

More changes in the IRS leadership team were announced Thursday as well, with Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division, planning to retire on June 3, according to an IRS statement.

Obama on Wednesday demanded and accepted the resignation of the acting IRS commissioner, Steven Miller. The president said it is important to have a new leader for the organization while it attempts to put in safeguards to ensure the special screening of political advocacy groups does not happen again. Werfel has agreed to remain in the new job through Sept. 30.

Anyone who thinks that Grant’s resignation is just coincidental likely would be a good target for those seeking to unload subprime mortgage packages. Also, this is yet another nail in the coffin of the claim that responsibility for bad behavior was confined to low-level employees.

It’s also worth noting that the latest incredibly ridiculous excuse for the IRS scandal—courtesy of incredibly ridiculous people—is that the IRS abuses were justified by a “doubling” of claims from tea party groups for tax exempt status since the Citizens United ruling. The problem is that this excuse is utterly shredded by, you know, facts:

Applications for tax exemption from advocacy nonprofits had not yet spiked when the Internal Revenue Service began using what it admits was inappropriate scrutiny of conservative groups in 2010.

In fact, applications were declining, data show.

Top IRS officials have been saying that a “significant increase” in applications from advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status spurred its Cincinnati office in 2010 to filter those requests by using such politically loaded phrases as “Tea Party,” “patriots,” and “9/12.”

Both Steven Miller, the agency’s acting commissioner until he stepped down Wednesday, and Lois Lerner, director of the agency’s exempt-organization division, have said over the past week that IRS officials started the scrutiny after observing a surge in applications for status as 501(c)(4) “social welfare” groups. Both officials cited an increase from about 1,500 applications in 2010 to nearly 3,500 in 2012. President Obama ask Mr. Miller to resign on Wednesday.

The scrutiny began, however, in March 2010, before an uptick could have been observed, according to data contained in the audit released Tuesday from the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.

The number of 501(c)(4) applications for all of 2010 was actually less than in 2009.

“It doesn’t bear out the statement that there was a surge in 2010,” said Bruce Hopkins, a tax attorney specializing in nonprofits. “That’s inconsistent with what Lois said last week.”

Facts don’t matter to liars, of course. But they should and do matter to those of us who are morally decent and intellectually honest.

tabula rasa
Joined
Jun '10

I've had occasion recently to read or re-read most of the works of C. S. Lewis. It's been a great experience, but it has caused me to ponder an issue that was often on Lewis's mind: Lewis was never comfortable with the modern world, and had an active dislike for much of it.  

His literary world was that of Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, and the first Queen Elizabeth. His religious world was orthodox Christianity (with the miraculous and supernatural included)-- which he saw fading before his eyes. On the other hand, he didn't try to live a 16th century existence. When his wife was diagnosed with cancer, she underwent the most modern treatments available, and there's some indication if may have extended her life.

So here's the question: Are there things you hate about the modern world? Are there things you love? Are there things about the past and its traditions that you wish would re-enter 21st century life?

I'll start with things I like about the modern world:

1. Air travel.

2. Modern medical care (including antibiotics and modern surgical techniques).

3. Hot water on demand.

4. Air conditioning.

Things I dislike about the modern world:

1. Even though I like email and the other gadgets (including the fact that I can make this Ricochet post), I HATE the idea that we can never really get away from work (some call it the "electronic leash").

2. I hate the idea of cable TV with hundreds of channels.

3. I hate the fact that Americans, on average, read significantly fewer books than in the past.

4. I despair at times about what's happened to the American family.

5. Sitting down to dinner with family and friends and watch people at your table pay far more attention to their iPhone than to the people at the table.

Things I'd like to bring back from the past:

1. John Wayne as the kind of hero we admire.

2. More Americans returning to the active religious life.

3. The 5.3% illegitimacy rate (it's +40% now) of 1960 (along with a bunch of other traditional values).

4. The great writers: there may be a Shakespeare, a Dickens, a Cervantes, or an Austen out there, but they aren't Updike, DeLillo, Roth, Pynchon, or John Irving (I know this is like putting a target on myself--blast away).

Feel free to criticize my choices. But also add what you like, hate, and wish to reinvigorate into the modern world.

Albert Arthur
Joined
Oct '11

I was once arguing with an old college buddy on Facebook about abortion when one of his Facebook friends (a woman that we went to school with, but with whom I'm not friends) chimed in that her own abortion had been no different than "having a wart removed."

... That's some serious denial.

So what's the craziest thing a liberal has told you? I'm talking real conversation stoppers here; the kind of the thing that you can't even respond to because it's so nuts.

KC Mulville
Joined
Jan '11

Corruption is a slow change, a slow devolution, from what you ought to be … to something less. You still keep the façade, but the reality is much less, or much different. In physical terms, the body doesn’t have its former strength or smoothness. In moral terms, corruption is the distance between what you ought to be doing versus doing something else. Corruption is the distance between façade and reality.

  • Power corrupts when it’s given for one purpose but used for another. If you have power that belongs to your office to perform public service, but then you use it for private purposes, then power is what made that separation possible.
  • What happens next, in corruption, is that you can’t admit the reality. You can’t admit that you’re not what you’ve cracked yourself up to be. That failure is galling and too horrifying to admit. So you deny it about yourself … and then the telltale sign … you start lying about it to others. Lying is the red flag.

Most people think they’re doing the best job they can do, and if their decisions are borderline, well, that’s because the situations in which they find themselves (and the problems they’re trying to fix) are murky and uncertain.

The uncertainty, however, gives cover. It covers and hides weaknesses. Maybe, it’s because you stink at the job. Maybe you can’t pick the right direction because you don’t know enough about things you should know about. Maybe you’re not all you’ve cracked yourself up to be. Even worse, if you’ve spent your time building yourself up to be a competent, insightful, decisive, and visionary leader, then it’s difficult to confront powerlessness. It’s difficult to admit that you’re no better than anyone else, and that you don’t know any more than anyone else.

------------

I say that the Obama Administration (not just Obama, but also many of the key players in his Administration) are corrupt. They’ve set themselves up for a fall. They’ve portrayed their stewardship of government as the way to address and resolve all kinds of national problems. Their façade is a picture of ability. Hey – they can overcome racial and political divides, balance rich and poor, bring healthcare that everyone can afford, and restore the adoration of the world for America. They can even control ocean levels.

But Washington partisanship is as bad as ever. The economy stinks. Healthcare is an expensive boondoggle. The world hates us just as much, and can attack us at will. In every job of government, this Administration is facing its own powerlessness.

There is a huge gap between what this Administration’s façade and what reality is. They can’t admit it, and so they lie about it. That is corruption, defined.

Benghazi is important because it vividly reveals the difference between the Obama Administration’s exalted view of its own ability and the deadly reality they cannot fix. The chilling fact about Benghazi is that the Administration is powerless to prevent or protect our people from such attacks. They didn’t respond on the night of September 11, 2012 because they couldn’t. That’s bad enough, but the corruption comes when they lied about it. They couldn’t afford to admit, particularly close to an election, that they hadn’t defeated al-Qaeda and were powerless to stop these attacks. They’re not what they cracked themselves up to be.

Like the economy, Benghazi is a concrete example of this Administration believing they can control things, and not being able to accept the reality of their powerlessness.

So they lie. Lying is the telltale sign; the red flag.

This Administration is corrupt. And unless they admit their powerlessness and stop lying about it, they can’t be reformed or redeemed.

Lady Ricochet readers: If you were upset about potentially losing your right to bear an oversize soft drink in New York City, perhaps you will take comfort in knowing that at least some rights remain vigilantly protected by the Bloomberg regime:

The command was read [in February] at 10 consecutive roll calls. Each of the city’s 34,000 officers, in theory, got the message: For “simply exposing their breasts in public,” women are guilty of no crime.

Whether any officer encountered such a brave-hearted, bare-chested soul is not clear, nor is the reason for the Police Department’s concern about such matters in the dead of winter...

“I thought you had to have body paint,” a female officer said.

“No,” the first replied. “You don’t need that.”

144109-NY_SODA_BAN_25314715

(Mayor Michael Bloomberg points to that which is legal in New York City.)

Blake
Joined
Oct '10

“What is the good of telling a community that it has every liberty except the liberty to make laws? The liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people.”

- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

The audience question at an otherwise sleepy conference that allowed the IRS to ever so slightly frontrun the revelation that it targeted conservative organizations was, in the event, planted by the IRS

The Internal Revenue Service wrote and planted the question asked on May 10 that led to the IRS scandal, the questioner said in a statement today.

Celia Roady, a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in Washington, said she received a call May 9 from Lois Lerner, the mid-level IRS official in charge of tax-exempt organizations. Both were planning to attend a tax conference the next day in Washington.

Here's the question that was asked:

“Lois, a few months ago there were some concerns about the IRS’s review of 501(c)(4) organizations, of applications from tea party organizations. I was just wondering if you could provide an update.”

Just wondering, baby. An IRS official scripted that breezy question, so that the IRS could appear to be nonchalantly coming clean about a minor infraction that it knew would be revealed in a few days. This is almost theatrically evil. 

Rob, let's get to work on the screenplay, shall we? We're going to need a parking garage.

JFleisher
Joined
Dec '12

We always hear cliches about finding common ground between people of different political persuasions, but I've noticed, especially since Obama's presidency, that there are very few issues that I agree with liberals about. 

What are your thoughts and experiences with this? Is this idea of 'common ground' becoming less realistic in America? And, if so, what do we do about it? 

Fred Cole
Joined
Nov '11

In the new Ricochet podcast, The Future of the Right, Peter Robinson talks about what he calls the "the great weakness of the libertarian ethic."  (He begins around 35:33):

If you have a fragmented family across the nation you cannot have small government.... You have just such an overwhelming impulse, a kind of permanent scream for assistance that people will vote for welfare.

So if you take the libertarian insistence on limited government seriously, you must begin searching for ways to shore up the American family.

To which Ben Domenech agreed, adding:

I think with stronger families comes stronger neighborhoods comes less of a demand for government to come into that space.

True enough.  

If you expand this notion further, you're talking about civil society.  

The definition of what counts as "civil society" is contested.  So for clarity's sake, let's say we're talking about non-governmental entities that provide social support structures.  And let's broaden that definition enough so that it would include families, neighborhood associations, businesses, religious organization, clubs, charities and other private entities.

In the absence of those entities, society cannot function. Most people rely on other people for one thing or another. People rely on family and friends in time of need, for instance.  

The support structures that civil society provide are essential to anyone other than hardened individualists living alone in the woods in a cabin they built themselves, out of logs they chopped down on their own, with an ax blade from their own forge.

These are facts. People need other people to function. Cheerfully conceded.  

The Korean DMZ is 155 miles long and two-and-a-half miles wide. Since the Korean Armistice it has mostly been devoid of humans. In the absence of humans it has becomes an enormous thriving refuge for wildlife, including several species considered rare and endangered. Nature abhors a vacuum and in the absence of humans retarding it, it filled the Korean DMZ with plants and wildlife.  

No one needed to seed the ground. No one needed to reintroduce endangered species. No one directed nature to do this. No one replanted trees. No one needed to shore up nature.  Nature has regenerated on its own -- as it does over time if you leave it be.

There is a parallel to civil society in the United States.  

As government assumed more roles, civil society withered. When government became the educator, private education withered. When government became the charity, charities withered. When government became the neighborhood association, people retreated inside their homes. When government became the father, the family withered.

When government assumes the roles of private entities, those entities are subverted.   Government crowds private entities out of the market by providing the services they provide and absorbs the energies and markets they need to exist.

The stronger the government, the weaker the civil society. The stronger the civil society, the less we need government. But the solution to that isn't more government action. Government action created the problem.  

Government has clear cut the forest of civil society. The solution isn't more clear cutting. The solution is to shut off the chainsaws.

The sooner you do, the sooner civil society can begin to regenerate. You don't need a government program to plant trees and shore them up. You don't need a government program to move in soil. You don't need a government program to seed the ground. You don't need a government program to reintroduce birds and deer.

People form into families and build private entities because, unless a government stops them, they are necessary.  

You don't need government to build civil society. Nature abhors a vacuum. People will build families and private organizations on their own because they're essential to functioning. That's why they came to being in the first place.

You don't need government action to shore up the family. You just have to stop clear-cutting it. Civil society can and will return on its own. 

And who better to illustrate that than Dita von Teese, a Vargas girl made flesh.

Behold: Dita is wearing the first-ever 3D-printed dress, created by designer Michael Schmidt:

With the help of architect Francis Bitonti, Schmidt used digital rendering technology to design the dress and then collaborated with Shapeways, a 3D printing company, to create the dress with a fabric-like substance called powdered nylon. The final product was painted black and covered with 12,000 black Swarovski crystals.

 

Dita von Teese via Stylite.com

The gown is made of thousands of plastic joints that are tiny enough to allow the material to drape like fabric. Bitonti started with Schmidt's iPad sketch of the gown and then created a computer model of the "network of curves" of Dita's body to match the gown to her shape. "Her body actually became an input for the software," he said

The technology is intriguingly disruptive, in that it hands a jealously guarded creative pursuit -- fashion design -- to the hoi polloi. "You can use an iPhone app to take 40 photos of an object, and the software will then stitch the photos together so you can recreate, modify and print the design," explained Duann Scott, a "designer evangelist" at Shapeways, the 3D printing startup that manufactured the gown. 

entaste.com

One of these is a real wine review:

1. Overall character is that of a sex-loaded scarlet; endowed, jaunty and erotically scented with every part smelling and tasting provocative, flamboyant and blooming. Its gorgeous, vaunting style is burning, mantling and amorous with an extravagant softness that is grandiose, exotic and pursed lipped. There is an edginess, sophistication and dominating air that questions whether your palate has the true aptitude to handle the complete clutch of this much worldliness.

2. This supple, chocolatey, full-bodied blend of cabernet franc and merlot teases the palate with a spicy, jammy, in-your-face hit of blackberries laced with Swiss cacao by way of cherry blossoms in the dewy morning. The hibiscus nose, heady with fruit-forward notes of nectarine and plum, lulls you into submission and then hits you full-bore with neon purple magic-marker tannins on the finish. As much at home beside a slab of bloody prime rib as it is gracing an earthy pot-au-feu, this isn't the flirty tween in the cutoffs by the pool. This is her mother in the diamonds on the chaise-longue, checking you out and finding you wanting. Serve the rabble your Mondavi cab; keep this one for yourself. 91.

Okay, which is the real one? (Answer at the bottom of the post.)

I'm a big wine lover (and cocktail fan), but have always suspected that much of the language thrown around in the assessment of wine is the purest nonsense. I operate on a fatally pedestrian "yummy," "whoa, even yummier!" "sweet Lord above, this is the yummiest" metric, so I'm at a bit of a loss when somebody starts declaiming about straw-peachy noses and the hint of the barnyard and, heaven help us, flaccidity. 

A website called i09: We Come From the Future shares my skepticism. A Robert T. Gonzalez makes the following points:

1. Wine experts contradict themselves. Constantly: 

Statistician and wine-lover Robert Hodgson recently analyzed a series of wine competitions in California, after "wondering how wines, such as his own, [could] win a gold medal at one competition, and 'end up in the pooper' at others." In one study, Hodgson presented blindfolded wine experts with the same wine three times in succession. Incredibly, the judges' ratings typically varied by ±4 points on a standard ratings scale running from 80 to 100. Via the Wall Street Journal:

A wine rated 91 on one tasting would often be rated an 87 or 95 on the next. Some of the judges did much worse, and only about one in 10 regularly rated the same wine within a range of ±2 points.

Mr. Hodgson also found that the judges whose ratings were most consistent in any given year landed in the middle of the pack in other years, suggesting that their consistent performance that year had simply been due to chance.

It bears repeating that the judges Hodgson surveyed were no ordinary taste-testers. These were judges at the California State Fair wine competition – the oldest and most prestigious in North America.

2. Expert wine critics can't distinguish between red and white wines. You've probably heard about this one:

In 2001, researcher Frédéric Brochet invited 54 wine experts to give their opinions on what were ostensibly two glasses of different wine: one red, and one white. In actuality, the two wines were identical, with one exception: the "red" wine had been dyed with food coloring.

The experts described the "red" wine in language typically reserved for characterizing reds. They called it "jammy," for example, and noted the flavors imparted by its "crushed red fruit." Not one of the 54 experts surveyed noticed that it was, in fact a white wine.

3. We taste with our eyes, not our mouths:

Actually, scratch that. We taste with our eyes, ears, noses, and even our sense of touch. We taste with our emotions, and our state of mind. This has been demonstrated time after time after time.

Research out of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab has shown that people will rate food as more enjoyable if it's consumed in the relaxed atmosphere of a fine dining environment, as opposed to a noisy fast food restaurant.

A 2006 study, published by the American Association of Wine Economists, found that most people can't distinguish between paté and dog food.

A recent New Yorker piece describes a followup to Brochet's 2001 study, wherein he served wine experts a run-of-the-mill Bordeaux in two different bottles:

One bottle bore the label of a fancy grand cru, the other of an ordinary vin de table. Although they were being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the bottles nearly opposite descriptions. The grand cru was summarized as being “agreeable,” “woody,” “complex,” “balanced,” and “rounded,” while the most popular adjectives for the vin de table included “weak,” “short,” “light,” “flat,” and “faulty.”

4. Wine critics know wine reviews are b*****t. Rodriguez quotes Joe Power, editor of Another Wine Blog:

There is no hard science involved in reviewing wine, no real way to quantify results, no test cases, and certainly no verifiable set of standards that everyone adheres to. Everyone makes up their own processes for reviewing from Wine Spectator to us and all of the way down to the most recent person who just discovered how easy it is to set up a blog of their own.

When asked point blank what he thought of the aforementioned results from Robert Hodgson's study (see Exhibit A) wine-maker Bob Cabral said he was "not surprised":

In Mr. Cabral's view, wine ratings are influenced by uncontrolled factors such as the time of day, the number of hours since the taster last ate and the other wines in the lineup. He also says critics taste too many wines in too short a time. As a result, he says, "I would expect a taster's rating of the same wine to vary by at least three, four, five points from tasting to tasting."

Rodriguez ends by citing MIT behavioral economist Coco Krume, who recently performed a meta-analysis of the language used in wine reviews. She found that reviewers 

tend to use "cheap" and "expensive" words differently. Cheap descriptors are used much more frequently, expensive ones more sparingly. Krume even demonstrated that it's possible to guess the price range of a wine based on the words used in its review. "From a quantitative standpoint," Krume writes, "there are three types of words more likely to be used for expensive wines":

  • Darker words, such as intense, supple, velvety, and smoky
  • Single flavors such as tobacco or chocolate versus fruity, good, clean, tasty, juicy for cheap wines
  • Exclusive-sounding words in place of simple descriptors. For example, old, elegant, and cuvee rather than pleasing, refreshing, value, and enjoy
  • Additionally, cheap wine is preferentially paired with chicken and pizza, while pricey wine goes with shellfish and pork

Using her scientific metric, Krume goes on to create the most expensive-sounding wine review ever penned: "A velvety chocolate texture and enticingly layered, yet creamy, nose, this wine abounds with focused cassis and a silky ruby finish. Lush, elegant, and nuanced. Pair with pork and shellfish." If that sentence made you yearn for a glass of classy red, congratulations, there's a very real chance you're a pompous *****.

(The real wine review is #1. I made up #2.)

Back in January I posted here lamenting the sudden absence of Milt Rosenberg from the WGN radio lineup. Today I was gratified to discover that he has launched his own program on the Internet. Appearing as his first guest is friend of Ricochet Mark Steyn. What’s not to like about that?

If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Rosenberg you can consider yourself blessed to discover him now. If, like me, you were a regular listener to his show on WGN, you can consider yourself equally blessed to hear his voice once again.

Welcome back, sir.  We’ve missed you.

(And a note to the management at WGN: I haven’t listened to your station since Milt Rosenberg’s last show.)

While we're all lost in the Benghazi, DOJ, and IRS scandals (and the anticipation that the President will eventually just decide to hit for the cycle and quarter troops in the homes of Americans), it bears noting that an earlier White House exercise in making the Constitution an outhouse accessory came back to the fore this week. From Damon Root at Reason:

In a decision handed down Thursday morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that Obama violated the Constitution by making a recess appointment to the National Labor Relations Board in 2010 when the Senate was not actually in recess. In an unprecedented move two years later, when the Senate was holding pro forma sessions for the precise purpose of denying him the lawful ability to make a recess appointment, Obama simply ignored this legal impediment and made four purported recess appointments anyway, including the addition of three members to the NLRB.

In its decision, the 3rd Circuit strongly rejected Obama’s unilateral action. “Nothing in the text of the Clause or the historical record suggests that it is intended to be a type of pressure valve for when the president cannot obtain the Senate‘s consent, whether that be because it has become dysfunctional or because it rejects a president‘s nominations,” the court held. Indeed, the opinion continued, under the government’s interpretation, “If the Senate refused to confirm a president‘s nominees, then the president could circumvent the Senate‘s constitutional role simply by waiting until senators go home for the evening.” So much for the separation of powers.

This is the second major ruling against Obama’s recess appointments. In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voided all three of the president’s 2012 additions to the NLRB. As Chief Judge David Sentelle held in that case, Obama’s actions “would demolish the checks and balances inherent in the advice-and-consent requirement, giving the President free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction.”

Big John
Joined
Feb '11

So, now that summer is here, we will replace our DVR patterns with off-season fare like AMC's Longmire and USA's Psych and Burn Notice. We also cycle through Netflix collections of British stuff. We loved Foyle's War and Inspector Lewis, and have  now started George Gently. We need more stuff to watch in our Instant Queue while we escape the Texas heat. What are some recommendations, fellow Ricochetti?

This week, we've been told over and over just how much members of the Obama administration know they didn't know.

It's the week of:
• the IRS I dunno,
• the Benghazi blame dodge,
• and the AP-AG answer refusal/alleged recusal.

But today I discovered something else that a member of the administration maybe didn't know she didn't know. And this time it hit close to home. You see, last summer, I had the audacity to suggest that the Department of Education ought to fine Yale University for failing to report multiple cases of sexual assault--as required by law. And if they didn't, then what's the point of having an Office for Civil Rights, anyway?

Within days, the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, Russlynn Ali, took to the pages of The Huffington Post to call me out by name, attack my op-ed, and call into question my credibility:

"Mr. Harden's post makes a number of inaccurate and misleading claims...He suggests that "a significant fine" should have been levied against Yale "if the government wants to send the message that it takes the law seriously." He concludes that "it looks as if a well-connected university like Yale is considered above accountability."
Not one of these characterizations is accurate. "

... With respect to Mr. Harden's disappointment that OCR did not fine Yale -- the law does not authorize OCR to assess fines.

Lo, and behold: Ten months later, I'm scanning the headlines this morning and what do I see?

Yale Fined $165,000 For Underreporting Sex Offenses

Following a seven-year investigation, the Department of Education has fined Yale $165,000 for failing to report four incidents of forcible sex offenses...

Is it possible that Russlynn Ali really didn't know that her office has authority to levy fines? Hmm...

That got me thinking: It's natural for us to be skeptical at all the political amnesia coming out of the White House these days. The lack of self-knowledge in the Obama Administration may well be unprecedented in the history of political corruption. But maybe, just maybe, there are some hacks in this administration who are so incompetent--so blissfully ignorant as they went about accidentally using the IRS as a political war machine, and going all police state on the news media--that they really, actually, truly didn't know anything that they or anyone else around them was doing, or did, or asked them to do, or even had authority to do.

How else would you explain the fact that the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education went on record saying the Department of Education had no authority to levy fines against Yale University ten months before the Department of Education did exactly that?

I can't stop asking myself: What didn't the Assistant Secretary not know she didn't know?

One more question: What would you all say is the more dangerous trait in a politician, anyway? The tendency to lie? Or the tendency to not know what the hell you're doing?

Before anyone calls me on Godwin's Law, I'd just like to say that I don't believe in Godwin's Law. (For reasons we can perhaps discuss another time.)

Anyway, to my headline. Though I'm not saying Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler are peas in a pod, I do think there are certain similarities going on in the way their administrations work - as I argue in more detail here.

Did Obama personally order the IRS to persecute Tea Party and Conservative charities? I doubt it. No more than he directly ordered his Department of Justice to launch those two raids on Gibson; nor than he ordered the EPA to launch its various hit jobs on the coal industry.

But then, he didn’t need to. It’s called the Fuhrer Prinzip. You don’t need to get a direct order; you just need to anticipate the leader’s wishes and act accordingly. Get it right and much career success will follow. Get caught and the leader can plausibly deny that he didn’t know anything about this nefarious scheme which of course, had he known, he would have nixed.

The thing I love about you Americans is that you take your checks and balances very seriously. And your guns. If this goes on much longer, you're going to need them all.

tabula rasa
Joined
Jun '10

My electronic version of National Review just arrived. I, of course, went to Steyn, Lileks, and Long first. I can get to that other stuff any time. Steyn has a great column on the savaging of Niall Ferguson and Jason Richwine (Ferguson's apology was, as Steyn called it, a "self-neuter"). Rob imagines how the talking points for Pearl Harbor and 9-11-01 would have been handled by the Obama Administration.

But the first line of James Lileks' column wins line of the day (or week):  "Second terms are the price a man pays for the hubris of thinking he deserves one."

And may his hubris continue to be dealt back to him.

Roman Genn's cover picture of Hilary Clinton is a classic. I hope he'll post it for us.

Bill Buckley would be proud of his magazine, and Ricochet should be proud of its guys (btw, when will Steyn be back for a podcast?)

Western Chauvinist
Joined
Dec '10

Republicans are, once again, squandering a critical opportunity. Mitch McConnell's "The truth will come out, no matter how long it takes" is cold comfort to those of us with any sense of urgency about the disastrous course this country is on, and any experience with Republican "effectiveness" in fighting this administration. And John Boehner's Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife, "I want to know who's going to jail!" idiocy is entirely missing the point.

There are three critical common elements in Scandalpalooza. First and foremost (and to be repeated ad nauseum) these scandals all had the intent (and likely effect) of affecting the electoral outcome of the 2012 campaign. The Benghazi cover-up was intended to deceive the American people about the foreign policy incompetence of Barack Obama's administration. The IRS refusal of tax-exempt status to political advocacy groups in opposition to Obama's policies was political suppression, straight up. And the AP scandal was about keeping the administration's media lapdogs on a short leash (The White House didn't need to know who leaked "sensitive classified" information to the media about the bin Laden get, because the leak came from within the White House to burnish Obama's war on man-caused-disaster cred!). 

All three scandals prove Lord Acton's axiom, "All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." They are the best arguments made for limited government in 30 years! How much better to have real-life examples of incompetence and injustice perpetrated on  citizens by their overextended, grossly powerful government than having to make the philosophical case of the Founders to philosophical/historical illiterates (thank you, government education!)? Even liberals are noticing the truth of the matter (cf, Chris Matthews, et al.). We should use this opportunity to dismantle the IRS, abolish the income tax, and implement a consumption tax. Taxes paid at the register are devoid of opportunities for political corruption. If conservatives can't make the case now, we never will.

And finally, there may never again be a better opportunity to discredit big government progressive Democrats with the American public. The Left's argument has long been, "big government isn't bad, as long as the right people are in charge." Well, the "right" people were in charge when all this scat hit the fan. Even Democrats are not to be trusted with big government. Big government serves the interests of Big Government Democrats, not the people, and now we know, they're not to be trusted -- period. 

Don't talk impeachment. It doesn't matter who gets fired or who gets jail time. What matters is pushing back hard against the power-grubbing, crony-capitalist statist agenda. We may never get another chance like this.

All you 24 fans can grab your popcorn and beer because Jack is back. Fox is rekindling the popular show as a miniseries called 24: Live Another Day, starring Kiefer Sutherland.

jack-bauer

Unfortunately, it will run at half the length, with 12 episodes instead of the full 24. The show will be in chronological order but will skip some hours and is expected to kick off on Fox in the summer.

While I can’t wait to hear Jack Bauer say in those raspy tones, “Do Your Job!” and kick some terrorist butt, I’m disappointed by the 12-episode series. A big part of the excitement of 24 is the seamless ride through the entire day. I wonder how much that will change by skipping hours.

While this new “limited edition” of 24 is being slated as a “miniseries,” I’ve noticed that most dramatic series these days run about half the time they used to. Nothing is more frustrating, and unsatisfying, than settling in for a good show and having it over in 10 episodes (Game of Thrones!). Just when you’re really getting into it, it’s over. And even worse is when, after three or four episodes, they play a re-run or take a break for several weeks (ahem, Lost!).

I remember the days when a series started in late summer or fall, ran straight for 25 to 30 weeks, and then the re-runs would start. But, those were the good ole days.

I understand the shortened seasons are due to money. It’s just more expensive to make television now. But isn’t advertising more expensive too? Don’t you make money with every show you air whether there are 12 episodes or 24—especially if it’s a popular series? If anyone can explain this trend to me, I’d appreciate it.

As for the show, any other 24 fans out there looking forward to seeing some subtle conservative-minded antics on display and good old-fashioned heroism that spawned “Jack Bauer for President” bumper stickers? I, for one, can’t wait. It will be a welcome relief from watching news of real-life scandals where there aren’t any Jack Bauers to save the day.

OBike

Further proof that a huge swath of academic research being done today results from researchers daring each other to see how bizarre their projects have to get in order to scare off funding. From Science Daily:

Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

...  The researchers collected data on bicep size, socioeconomic status, and support for economic redistribution from hundreds of people in the United States, Argentina, and Denmark.

In line with their hypotheses, the data revealed that wealthy men with high upper-body strength were less likely to support redistribution, while less wealthy men of the same strength were more likely to support it.

"Despite the fact that the United States, Denmark and Argentina have very different welfare systems, we still see that -- at the psychological level -- individuals reason about welfare redistribution in the same way," says [researcher Michael Bang] Petersen. "In all three countries, physically strong males consistently pursue the self-interested position on redistribution."

Men with low upper-body strength, on the other hand, were less likely to support their own self-interest. Wealthy men of this group showed less resistance to redistribution, while poor men showed less support.

There are a couple of crumbs of crazy here. First is the fact that someone actually underwrote this study (although it becomes more intelligible when you learn that the research came out of California and Denmark). Second is the fact that -- reading this account, anyway -- it's not clear that the findings actually support the conclusion. Based on this account, there seems to be an awful lot of variability within the strength classes based on income. Maybe the spread is tiny by comparison to the difference between groups, but you can't tell from how this is written.

What rankles the most, however, is the characterization of opposing redistribution as the "self-interested position." We're talking about the confiscation of property here, albeit legally. If you think it's more important to retain a chunk of your income to support your wife and kids than to have that money deployed to make sure that the CEO of Solyndra has just the right Montblanc rollerball on his desk, is that really the apex of avarice?

What about those who think minimizing redistribution is the practical position? Those who acknowledge the need to pay taxes and are probably even amenable to a social safety net, but who believe that, beyond that threshold, it quickly devolves into a sucker's game for all involved? If a logically thought-out position results in you keeping more of your own money, does that still render it intrinsically greedy?

twmoat_bulworth

If we had no New York Times, where would we get our morning humor? From "An Onset of Woes Raises Questions on Obama Vision," today:

Yet Mr. Obama also expresses exasperation. In private, he has talked longingly of “going Bulworth,” a reference to a little-remembered 1998 Warren Beatty movie about a senator who risked it all to say what he really thought. While Mr. Beatty’s character had neither the power nor the platform of a president, the metaphor highlights Mr. Obama’s desire to be liberated from what he sees as the hindrances on him.

First things first. If you are not familiar with the film (heck, even if you are), read John Podhoretz's brilliant review from 1998.

OK, so Obama wants to go Bulworth? What would that mean? The point of Bulworth is that a senator stops being a phony who says what he has to and starts promoting socialism. No, really. A major part of the film is when, um, Warren Beatty starts rapping about socialism.

My husband asks, "How would Obama even "go Bulworth"? Let us know just how liberal he is? Let us know he hates the GOP leadership? We got it, em kay?"

o-ANTI-ISLAM-FILM-570

I'm in New York, where I attended the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty's annual Canterbury Medal Dinner last night. This year's winner, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, spoke about the rising threats to religious liberty. You can read his remarks here.

The Becket Fund is something of an ACLU for religious liberty. Their events tend to look like the World Parliament of Religions. Last night's official program included a Pentecostal minister, an LDS leader and an Orthodox Jewish rabbi (if it means anything for a Lutheran to have a favorite Orthodox Jewish rabbi, this guy, Meir Soloveichik, is mine). Also, I got to see Ricochet's own Bill McGurn.

Last night's dinner was festive, but the overall climate is difficult. A highlight for me was meeting members of the Green family, owners of the Hobby Lobby stores. At great cost to themselves, they're refusing to abide by HHS regulations that violate their religious liberty. The Becket Fund has taken on their case, for which oral arguments are next week before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

This is a long way of introducing what I remain worried about this morning. Of the many poor responses to the Benghazi tragedy, one of the worst was how some of our political leaders deliberately led people to believe Benghazi occurred because of someone exercising his rights of speech and religion. Further, they suggested, this should lead to voluntary or forced limits on religious expression. From Reason magazine's "Hall of Shame" on this point:

Fourteen days after Ambassador Chris Stevens was murdered by Islamists, President Barack Obama stood up in front of the United Nations and  declared that the "message" of a movie virtually no one will ever see "must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity," that "the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam," and that we all should "condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shiite pilgrims."

Stephen F. Hayes' piece in The Weekly Standard this morning is a must-read. He briefly and clearly explains what remains troubling about the latest version of the talking points story, including concerns about how our country came to blame a YouTube video maker.

Religious liberty is the canary in the coal mine of civil liberties. And I suppose it should be no surprise that even presidents fail to appreciate its importance. But kudos to the Becket Fund for defending our rights to religious liberty, no matter our religion, against threats by local, state and federal governments.

There's no real reason to post this, except I think it's cool:

CkHRf9Z

I found it, and some other cool Cold War stuff, here.

For some reason, this stuff still seems more thrilling to me than an iPhone.

Check out my op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal about the crazy campus overreach coming from the Department of Education and the Department of Justice: 

The scandals roiling Washington over the past two weeks involve troubling government behavior that had been hidden—the IRS targeting of conservative groups and the Justice Department's surveillance of the Associated Press, among others. Largely overlooked amid the histrionics has been a shocker hiding in plain sight. Last week, the Obama administration moved to dramatically undermine students' and faculty rights at colleges across the country.

The new policy was announced in a joint letter from the Education Department and Justice Department to the University of Montana. The May 9 letter addressed the results of a year-long joint investigation by the departments into the school's mishandling of several serious sexual-assault cases. The investigation determined that the university's policies addressing sexual assault failed to comply with Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

But the joint letter, which announced a "resolution agreement" with the university, didn't stop there. It then proceeded to rewrite the federal government's rules about sexual harassment and free speech on campus.

... The letter rejects the requirement, established by legal precedent and previous Education Department guidance, that sexual harassment must be "objectively offensive." By eliminating this "reasonable person" standard—which the Education Department has required since at least 2003, and which protects the accused against unreasonable or insincere allegations—the right not to be offended has been enshrined in a federal mandate.

You can read the whole piece here.

ThePullmanns
Joined
Mar '12

Sol Stern is a nice man. It’s too bad he’s deceiving himself and others about Common Core, an enterprise that essentially nationalizes U.S. education. He and Joel Klein write in the WSJ, in the latest pro-Common Core PR piece:

Conservative critics ignore how the Common Core Standards support teaching all students about the nation's rich heritage of constitutional government, which is often overlooked in K-12 schools. For example, one of the Common Core's reading standards [in English] for grades 9-10 calls for students to analyze and understand the arguments in "seminal U.S. texts, including the application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning." How many American public schools do that today?

That sounds so great. Too bad there's no evidence it's true. Neither are most of the other things Stern and the hardly right-wing Klein want Americans to believe about centrally planned education.  

If these fellows read Common Core, they would see no definition of “seminal U.S. texts.” For Stern, that term likely implies the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. To the average high school English teacher (who is lucky if she has any historical knowledge, because schools of education shudder at content) it is entirely open to interpretation.  This is how, over the past 50 years, we have become a nation where even a college degree does not improve civic knowledge and fewer than half of adults can identify the three branches of government. One of the two people (neither of whom has ever written standards or been a classroom teacher) who wrote the English Common Core has given a model lesson on how to treat the Gettysburg Address and Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. David Coleman instructs English teachers to not give students background information and to read the words without emotion. Ah, instruction in the “heart of American heritage.”

Furthermore, as one of the world’s top literacy experts has been screaming for years, it is entirely inappropriate to demand that English teachers teach history and civics, along with their other duties. Perhaps that’s why Common Core dilutes classic literature instruction, which research shows is crucial to preparing students for college. Funny, Stern and Klein didn’t mention that.

Yes, the Constitution and Federalist Papers are mentioned in a Common Core appendix of voluntary suggested readings. If suggesting such readings meant more students learning them, it would have worked by now, because that’s the system we have had.

But the biggest problem with the article is that it entirely sidesteps the evidence that Common Core was written by special interests and federally-funded non-profits in secret,; that it was pushed on states by the federal government before they even saw the final product; that its requirements are vague, meaningless, and of shockingly low-quality; that is an entirely unproven set of mandates untried anywhere in the world; that states are incorporating creepy data-mining on teachers and kids; and that the history of American education shows, as the Soviets did on a larger scale, that central planning breeds corruption and destitution. 

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