Feminine Mystique at 50

"Betty Friedan hailed the advent of women’s studies. She should have looked more closely."

Lauren Noble  "The feminists in higher education today in fact have betrayed Friedan’s ideals. In the process, they have damaged the reputation of scholarship and hurt women who have invested in useless degrees. This cannot continue.
"In dealing with women, universities should focus on empowering and encouraging them to study the great books, politics, economics, and other disciplines that were once denied to them. The preoccupation with sexuality and popular culture is neither intellectual nor practical. Insultingly, women’s studies as currently constituted presumes that women are interested only in women’s issues. Women deserve better. And while Friedan was wrong about many things, today’s feminists seem to have overlooked some of her most important lessons."
Lauren Noble is the founder and executive director of the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale and a former writer for the Romney campaign. The views expressed here are her own.

What if One Day We Get a Bad President? The consequences of being saddled with a non-progressive, dumb chief executive are too horrible to imagine.

PJ Media  "So the only option left is to consider curtailing a bit of the power we’re allowing Obama, because someday we might have a president who is completely detached from average Americans, doesn’t care about our problems, and ruins everything he touches — someone completely unlike Obama. I mean, just imagine all that power Obama has in the hands of someone who completely sucks at being president. The economy would be ruined, we’d have disastrous situations abroad, and our liberties would be threatened. It would be a lot like now, but instead of it being Bush’s fault, it would be the fault of the current president. So to keep that from happening, we’ll have to do the hard thing and put more limitations on Obama’s power. I’m sure he’ll understand and not drone-strike us."

 

 

Audience Cheers and Applauds When Leno Says Obama 'Doesn't Understand Economics'

Leno is the non-Letterman.
Newsbusters  "It appears not everyone in America is as enthralled with Barack Obama's economic policies as his fans in the media.
"When NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno made a joke about the president not understanding economics, the studio audience cheered, applauded, and whistled (video follows with transcript and commentary):"  Read more:  

The state of journalism; let me count the ways

Via Lucianne:
The Truth Be Dimmed   "Maybe Sarah Palin could see Russia from her house -- but on my front porch, every morning, a view of Pravda-style reporting rolled up in the form of my local paper awaits me.  In Kentucky, many conservatives jokingly call Louisville's paper, The Courier-Journal, the "The Communist Journal." "  

Times Square Billboards: ‘It’s Time the Liberal Media Stop Censoring the News!’
"The five billboards are clustered together in Times Square and face in different directions, covering 3,800 square feet. Two of the signs read, “It’s Time the Liberal Media Stop Censoring the News!” and two others read, “Start Telling the Truth!” above an image of three monkeys, labeled ABC, CBS, and NBC, who are depicted as the  three mystic apes that see no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil."

CNN and NBC News: Is journalistic integrity dead?  "A recent article on the popular progressive website Politico refers to Obama as a “puppet master”, calling him “a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.” While this states the obvious, they go wrong in their claim that the media is powerless to do anything except parrot White House press releases and accept them as cold hard facts.
"Whatever happened to questioning the “facts”? Whatever happened to the power the media used to exercise, but apparently has forgotten still exists?"

Broadcast Networks Largely Ignore Jesse Jackson, Jr. Indictment  "On Friday, NBC's Nightly News gave the story short attention. By Saturday, Good Morning America gave the story a whole 18 seconds. Worse, even when the network news shows did report the story on Saturday evening, Jackson's party affiliation was never mentioned."

Reading list for Wednesday, Feb 20 (Soledad O'Brien update)

Breitbart:
Debate Commission Co-Chair: Yeah, Candy Crowley Was a 'Mistake'  "Crowley stirred controversy by intervening in the town hall-style debate to support Obama's contention that he had referred to the Sep. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi as a terrorist attack the day after it had occurred. In fact, as Crowley herself later admitted, Obama had not done so, referring only to "acts of terror" in general."

Report: Soledad O'Brien Out at CNN  "O'Brien's tenure hosting "American Morning" has been nothing short of a disaster for CNN. The ratings are embarrassingly low and the left-wing anchor has repeatedly made a fool of herself pretending to be an unbiased, objective journalist."

UPDATE: Apparently O'Brien tends to not have original thoughts, getting her talking points from other liberal sources:

She said that Critical Race Theory had nothing to do with white supremacy. Joel challenged her to come up with her own definition. After an awkward pause, in which she looked briefly like a squirrel on a highway with a tractor-trailer bearing down on her....

Republicans Push to Remind Americans Obama Owns Sequester  "The GOP is confident they can win the public to their side: it was Obama who originally proposed the sequester, declared during his reelection campaign that it would never happen, and then later signed it into law."

Pro wrestling's latest Bad Guy: a TEA-Partier  "Appearing on Monday Night Raw last week, [Jack] Swagger and [Zeb] Colter were booed by the crowd as they overzealously talked about the Constitution, the scourge of illegal immigration, and “true patriotism.” Other promotional videos of the two show them talking about freeloading immigrants and welfare recipients in front of the Gadsden flag, which has become symbolic of the Tea Party movement."  MRC video:

Conservatives wish for someone to articulate our ideas, but what good would it do when their voices are drowned out by the media, academia and Hollywood?

"Atlas Shrugs" on the "MYJIHAD" PR campaign

 

Alan Caruba; Witness to the Decline

Warning Signs  "If one were to try to identify the decline of the American society and system of governance, it would be tempting to say it began with the election of Barack Hussein Obama, but it began much earlier. I am inclined to believe it began in the 1960s when the nation’s educational system was taken over by the teacher’s unions and when education—a word that does not appear in the Constitution—became a federal government department in 1979. The systematic dumbing down and indoctrination of several generations of Americans began in earnest."...
Read the full article here.

Sowell on Guns and Pensions

Thomas Sowell  "Huge pensions for retired government workers can be found from small municipalities to national governments on both sides of the Atlantic. There is a reason. For elected officials, pensions are virtually the ideal thing to spend money on, politically speaking. Many kinds of spending of the taxpayers' money win votes from the recipients. But raising taxes to pay for this spending loses votes from the taxpayers. Pensions offer a way out of this dilemma for politicians.
"Creating pensions that offer generous retirement benefits wins votes in the present by promising spending in the future. Promises cost nothing in the short run -- and elections are held in the short run, long before the pensions are due."

Head Honcho Hassled Over Hagel Haggle

Heritage; Top 3 Reasons Chuck Hagel Is Wrong for Secretary of Defense "President Obama’s pick as the next Secretary of Defense is the wrong one. Heritage’s defense and foreign policy experts have examined the record of Chuck Hagel, the Republican former Senator from Nebraska, and concluded he simply does not have the experience and skills for the job. What’s more, his vision for dealing with other nations is dangerous for America.
"Here are the top three reasons Hagel is wrong for the job."....
The big reason for me in the above article is this next question:

Why Does Iran Endorse Chuck Hagel?  "Hagel has called repeatedly for better relations with Iran, the worst state sponsor of terrorism in history. In several past speeches (some not provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee), Hagel was open about the “need” to reach out to and have a normal relationship with Iran. He makes it appear as if the differences we have with Tehran—which supplied military-grade weapons to our enemies in Iraq specifically designed to kill Americans—are somehow our fault."

Which conforms serendipitously with Obama's own outlook, wouldn't you say? Does it not seem to you that Hagel would have been Ron Paul's choice as well? In the area of our Middle East policies I feel Paul would have been like having Chuck Hagel as president.  TD

seattletimes.com

Democrats can say stupid stuff too

http://terrellaftermath.com/

 

Rape comment by Rep. Joe Salazar reaps viral reaction   "Conservatives escalated their attacks on a Colorado Democrat Tuesday over his comments on rape, even falsely tying Rep. Joe Salazar to a 2006 university police memo that advised "vomiting or urinating" may ward off attackers.

But he did say this:

It's why we have call boxes. It's why we have safe zones. That's why we have the whistles, because you just don't know who you're going to be shooting at. And you don't know if you feel like you're going to be raped, or if you feel like someone's been following you around or if you feel like you're in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop... pop a round at somebody.

I like that "safe zone" idea; that should solve the problem. Before conservatives gloat, however, keep these words from Legal Insurrection in mind:
No, Democrats do not have a “full blown Akin” on their hands  "How do I know that this will not be the Democrats’ Todd Akin?
"Because he’s a Democrat, he’s at the state level, and this is not an election year.
"But mostly because he’s a Democrat."

Report: Hagel Said Israel Headed Toward Apartheid, Netanyahu a ‘Radical’

Washington Free Beacon.  "Kenneth Wagner, who attended the 2010 speech while a Rutgers University law student, provided the Washington Free Beacon with an email he sent during the event to a contact at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The email is time-stamped April 9, 2010, at 11:37 AM.

Donkey Hotey

" “I am sitting in a lecture by Chuck Hagel at Rutgers,” Wagner wrote in the email. “He basically said that Israel has violated every UN resolution since 1967, that Israel has violated its agreements with the quartet, that it was risking becoming an apartheid state if it didn’t allow the Palestinians to form a state. He said that the settlements were getting close to the point where a contiguous Palestinian state would be impossible.” "
....
"The Free Beacon is working to obtain transcript and video of Hagel’s comments during the question and answer sessions at Rutgers in both 2007 and 2010, and is continuing to speak to others who attended both events.
"A representative for Hagel did not respond to a request for comment by press time."

A Cluttered Desk is a Sign of Genius

TOTUS  There is another saying that "A cluttered chaotic desk is a sign of genius." A picture is worth a thousand words..........

William F. Buckley

 

Albert Einstein

 

Conservative columnist resigns after Kentucky paper refuses to run op-ed on publication’s liberal bias

Daily Caller  "Dyche says he quit after Pam Platt, the paper’s editorial page editor, left him a voicemail on Feb. 11 making it clear they wouldn’t run his piece about the paper’s politics.

“Hi, John David, it’s Pam Platt at the Courier-Journal and I’m just calling to let you know that I’m not going to run your column tomorrow,” Platt said, according to a transcript provided to TheDC. “To me it goes sort of off of what your column is supposed to be.”

Typical cartoon from the Courier-Journal

"Added Platt: “My understanding is a conservative take on issues of the day and that’s not what this is. So, anyway, thanks a lot and I’ll talk to you soon.”
....
"After Platt rejected the column, Dyche sent an email letter to her and publisher Wesley Jackson offering his resignation. He argued his submitted column very much fit under the category of “a conservative take on the issues of the day.”
“ 'One of those issues is liberal media bias,” he wrote in the email, which The DC obtained."

Here is the full opinion story by Dyche that was rejected:  An excerpt is posted below.

"The Courier-Journal opinion pages are stridently liberal. Journalistic jihads against Kentucky’s Republican U. S. Senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, and crusades for gun control and higher taxes, are in full force and frequently fill almost the entire editorial and op-ed pages. Such one-sidedness neither works in the marketplace nor serves the public interest."