NY Teacher Who Asked Students to ‘Argue That Jews Are Evil’ Reportedly Put on Leave
Parents
were horrified when it was revealed that a teacher at Albany High
School in New York was making students in her sophomore English classes
argue that “Jews are evil” as part of an exercise in persuasive writing.
TheBlaze’s Tiffany Gabbay explained the assignment and its wider implications:
“You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” read the description on the assignment, which the school superintendent said reflects the kind of sophisticated writing expected of students under the new Common Core standards and was meant to hone students’ persuasive argument abilities.
According to the Times Union, which broke the story, the teacher was not in class Friday and has been placed on leave. District
Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard held a news conference
apologizing for the assignment, but said it was too early to determine
what punishment the teacher will receive. It could apparently range from a letter of reprimand to termination.
“You
asked a child to support the notion that the Holocaust was justified,
that’s my struggle,” she said. “It’s an illogical leap for a student to
make.”
The
school district has not named the teacher, who has been described as a
veteran who likes to “challenge” students. Monday’s assignment was
brought to administrators’ attention by a horrified parent, before
making national news. Some of the children reportedly refused to write
the essay, but others were concerned it would irreparably affect their
grade.
“I
was putting it off because I didn’t want to think about it and I didn’t
want to say anything bad about Jewish people,” 16-year-old Emily
Karandy remarked. “We thought it would make more sense if we were Jews
arguing against Nazis.” She said she felt “horrible” when she turned it in.
New
York City Councilman David Greenfield was one of many to call for the
unnamed teacher’s resignation, concluding: “The teacher responsible for
coming up with and assigning students with this task must be held
accountable for attempting to indoctrinate children with anti-Semitic
beliefs…Quite obviously, this teacher lacks the judgment and common
sense necessary to have a position of such great responsibility and is
clearly not fit to return to the classroom.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/13/ny-teacher-who-made-students-argue-that-jews-are-evil-put-on-leave/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=Share+Buttons
Dad Furious After Finding This Crayon-Written Paper in Florida 4th-Grader’s Backpack: ‘I Am Willing to Give Up Some of My Constitutional Rights…to Be Safer’
Editor’s note: The school district has said a “review and investigation” will occur. Read more here.
The words are written in crayon, in the haphazard bumpiness of a child’s scrawl.
“I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.” They’re
the words that Florida father Aaron Harvey was stunned to find his
fourth-grade son had written, after a lesson in school about the
Constitution.
Aaron
Harvey’s son wrote as part of a school lesson, “I am willing to give up
some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.”
TheBlaze has redacted the child’s name.
Harvey’s
son attends Cedar Hills Elementary in Jacksonville, Fla. Back in
January, a local attorney came in to teach the students about the Bill
of Rights. But after the attorney left, fourth-grade teacher Cheryl Sabb
dictated the sentence to part of the class and had them copy it down,
he said.
The
paper sat unnoticed in Harvey’s son’s backpack for several months until
last week, when his son’s mother almost threw it away. The words caught
her eye in the trash, and she showed it to Harvey, who said he was at a
loss for words. He asked his son, who said Sabb had spoken the sentence
out loud and told them to write it down. Harvey said he asked some of
his son’s classmates and got a similar answer.
“Everybody
has their opinions,” Harvey told TheBlaze. “I am strongly for proper
education, for the freedom of thought so you can form your own opinion
and have your own free speech in the future… [but] the education is,
‘when was the Constitution drafted, when was it ratified, why did this
happen, why did we choose to do this…all these things, why did they
particularly choose those specific rights to be in our Bill of Rights.’”
Kandra
Albury, a spokeswoman for Duvall County Public Schools, which includes
Cedar Hills, told TheBlaze she didn’t know what prompted Sabb to have
students write the sentence. She
said the principal had fielded one parent’s concern about the lesson in
January, but it wasn’t Harvey. She said Thursday the district and
principal were “checking into” what had happened.
Harvey,
rather than asking the school for answers when he found the paper,
wrote his concerns in an email, which was then forwarded to TheBlaze. He
said he did it that way because he wasn’t sure he would have gotten a
straightforward answer if he asked the school directly.
He
said he just wants to see a “proper, unbiased education” system and
doesn’t want any kind of religion or politics brought into the
classroom. “I
believe in our Constitution. I am a veteran, I served for
six-and-a-half years proudly and I served to protect our rights,” he
said. “Now whenever I have someone coming in and trying to pollute my
child’s mind with biased opinions…there’s no education in that.”
Update, 11:36 a.m.:
Harvey told TheBlaze he received a call from the school Friday morning
that featured the principal, guidance counselor and Sabb. He was told
the sentence came during the lesson with the lawyer, that Sabb had
nothing to do with it, and that Harvey’s son “wrote it on his own free
will.”
Harvey said he had spoken to a girl in the class who specifically said Sabb handpicked students to write the sentence.
“All
the children are pointing at the teacher,” Harvey said Friday. “They
[the school] told me that my son wrote that on his own free will —
there’s no way he knew how to write that on his own free will. He likes
to use some big words to flourish — [but] if he was going to put
together a sentence that political I’m sure it would be more jumbled
than a nice sentence like that.”
Update, 4:20 p.m.: Read the school district’s response here.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/12/dad-furious-after-finding-this-crayon-written-paper-in-florida-4th-graders-backpack-i-am-willing-to-give-up-some-of-my-constitutional-rights/
‘Do Not Pick Up the Pencil’: New York Parents Coach Kids to Refuse Common Core Tests
Common Core, the controversial set of educational standards
aimed at firming up students’ grasp of math and language, has already
attracted criticism from sources both left and right. On the one hand,
privacy advocates fret over the program’s data mining on students. On the other, teachers complain that the standards are overly rigid
and won’t lead to a better education system. And now, parents angry
over their students being tested on subjects they haven’t had time to
learn are striking back as well — by giving their children a truly
hands’ on lesson in civil disobedience.
WHEC Rochester reports:
Some parents are really fired up over this. News10NBC talked with parents outside School No. 33 including city school board member Willa Powell. The New York State Education Department says students are obligated to take the state tests, just like any other test and cannot opt out. But parents say they have the ultimate authority when it comes to their kids. They’re going to tell their kids to not pick up the pencil and tell the teacher they don’t have to take the state test.
Willa Powell, City School Board Member, said, “Guide your child to tell them how they go about refusing. How they go about refusing is simply do not pick up the pencil. Do not put their name on the page and say I don’t have to take this test. It’s that simple.”
These instances of civil disobedience may hold back the test’s administration, though the extent to which they have that effect will depend on how many students are induced to behave in this fashion. Otherwise, a few students may end up simply failing due to blank tests.Beth Laidlaw, City School Parent, said, “My child would not take a test whose score is not reported to the classroom teacher so it can’t help the classroom teacher do her job better. The scores are not included in the report card grade so it can’t hurt the child not to take it. As a parent, as a U.S. citizen, it is wonderful that I am able to coach my child to refuse these tests.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/14/do-not-pick-up-the-pencil-new-york-parents-coach-kids-to-refuse-common-core-tests/
Truth in Fables: Why Progressives Hate Aesop
The fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is more applicable than ever in describing the environment in which we live. Each interest group, especially those interest groups on the left, is infected with the need to describe ever more frightening futures, regardless what their interest is -- environment, education, energy, medical care, or whatever else the cause du jour may be. Of course, they also try to sell the idea of submitting yourself to their tender mercies and giving them unlimited access to the Treasury (i.e., your money), with which they might be able to mitigate the horrors. But only if you grant them dictatorial power over you and all your actions.Sadly, there seem to be a lot of people who haven't heard of the fable the boy who cried wolf. Had they ever encountered Aesop at any time in a school setting, this technique wouldn't have worked for any of the special interest groups -- or the president, for that matter -- who use it again and again and again.
Doubtless there is some conflict within the left-leaning American Federation of Teachers (AFT) ranks concerning whether or not anything written by Aesop should be taught at all. He was, after all, an old European, which by default means that he was an imperialist taking advantage of every innocent within his field of view. On the other hand, one could trumpet the fact that Aesop, who was a slave, overcame the stigma of slavery and become a famous writer.
But the overarching problem of Aesop for Progressives is this: his fables show that one of the linchpins of Progressivism -- i.e., that humanity and human behavior have "evolved" -- is utter nonsense. Reading Aesop undercuts the Progressive narrative that the behavior of mankind has progressed beyond the behaviors of the past, which was dominated by paternalism, militarism, homophobia, sexism, imperialistic ambition...well, you get the idea.
If people could remember "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" how effective would the campaigns of fear and panic ever be for the president, the environmentalists, the pro-choice crowd, the anti-gun mob, and all the others who want to control everything?
How much of the Progressive demand for "income redistribution" would be undercut if people had a knowledge of Aesop's fable "The Ant and the Grasshopper"?
What about Progressives who are seeking to control more and more of our production, taking more and more of our incomes, and directly controlling more and more of our wealth? Might they not be be tarred and feathered if those low-information unfortunates (who graduated from our public school system) had learned from Aesop about "The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs"? Might not that fable give even those low-information voters pause?
And Aesop is not unique in his ability as a fabulist to convey the real facts of life to ordinary people in so simple a way that even children can understand their messages. Hans Christian Andersen and his stories are equally effective. Who can read "The Emperor's New Clothes" and not immediately think of our political elites?
On the domestic front, there was a home-grown compendium of fables made famous by a journalist named Joel Chandler Harris. Harris compiled African-American folk tales in the second half of the nineteenth century. You may not recognize Harris's name, but the name of his fictional narrator has lasted in our collective memories for 150 years. The name? Uncle Remus, or course.
The left has effectively banned Uncle Remus from being taught as being demeaning to our black citizens, yet during the Vietnam conflict, during the buildup toward Iraq I and again for Iraq II, the left was quick to describe each of these conflicts as a "tar baby." That just drips with irony, doesn't it?
And now, those on the left who are formulating the so-called Common Core standards plan on limiting the literature that our kids and grandchildren are supposed to read in favor of more technical, non-fiction stuff. It's almost as if reading Aesop, Hans Christian Andersen, Uncle Remus, et al., is considered dangerous and harmful to the welfare of a minor.
But then perhaps the left isn't interested in your kids being able to see that "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" isn't just a story with a moral, but an illustration, clear even to children, of supposed adults who are acting like children. No, they want your kids to read things like the local library regulations or some such.
It appears that our exalted teachers' establishment, in emphasizing the ability of kids to read regulations, is more interested in teaching young minds to obey the rules than consider if those rules make any sense at all.
Of course, being leftists/Progressives, they might not be able to help themselves. Don't believe it? Read Aesop's "The Scorpion and the Frog." They are just acting according to their nature.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/04/truth_in_fables_why_progressives_hate_aesop.html#ixzz2QSvq1kb3
Obama Discourages Giving To Charities, Budget Increases ‘Charity Tax’...
President Obama’s long-awaited budget proposal,
does not come right out and say that it intends to reduce
contributions to charity—but that is almost certainly what would happen
were it to become law. Here’s why. The White House has effectively
doubled down on a tax change it has been pushing for four years that
would limit the value of the charitable tax deduction. The
Administration has, since 2009, pushed unsuccessfully to allow only 28
cents on a dollar donated to charity to be deducted—even though the top
tax rate for the wealthy donors who make most use of the deduction has
been 35 percent. In the budget released today, the President again
proposes to cap the charitable deduction at 28 percent—despite the fact
that the top rate on the highest earners has increased to 39.6 percent.
Think of it this way: the White House proposal would raise the cost of
giving to charity from 60 cents per dollar to 72 cents per dollar. That’s a 20 percent increase in what can be called the “charity tax.”
http://redflagnews.com/headlines/obama-discourages-giving-to-charities-budget-increases-charity-tax
Obama’s Budget Targets Energy Producers
President Barack Obama on Wednesday released his budget proposal, which includes more than $46 billion in added revenue over ten years from the oil and gas industry.
Obama’s budget includes $44 billion in new revenue, achieved by removing certain provisions in the tax code, and $2.5 billion from reforming the royalty system. The Oil and Gas Journal reported that a proposal to repeal the current method of accounting used in the industry would cost the industry a further $80.8 billion.
Four red state Democrats signed a letter in February imploring Obama not to single out the oil and gas industry. Democratic Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mary Landrieu (La.), and Mark Pryor (Ark.) argued the oil and gas industry currently accounts for 9.2 million jobs and 7.7 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product.
The Wall Street Journal notes that at least one of the deductions, which allows energy and some other companies to deduct 6 percent of qualifying income, applies to all manufacturers, but the president has only proposed repealing it for energy companies.
The American Petroleum Institute contends that raising taxes on the oil and gas industry now would cost 22,000 jobs and $223 billion in government revenue and would reduce the supply of oil and gas by 280,000 barrels a day by 2030.
The president’s budget would use part of the revenue from the oil and gas industry to fund a $2 billion Energy Security Trust to further finance green energy research despite the recent furloughs at Fisker Automotive and failures at other green energy companies.
http://freebeacon.com/obamas-budget-targets-energy-producers/
Manchin-Toomey 'Compromise' Creates $100m Yearly Grants To Bribe States
The Background Check 'Compromise' put forward by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) creates $100 million in grants for "each of fiscal years 2014 through 2017" for the federal government to disperse to states if those states implement the expanded background check system contained in the bill.As Sec. 103 says, from this money amounts will be made available
by the State, or units of local government of the State, Indian Tribal government, or State Court system to improve the automation and transmittal of mental health records and criminal history dispositions, records relevant to determining whether a person has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, court orders, and mental health adjudications or commitments to Federal and State records repositories.
Upon passage of the bill, states have four years for full implementation. During those four years there are benchmarks that have to be met for progress--the two-year mark is such a benchmark--and inspections during these years will determine if states are moving on a pace that will allow the new system to be in place by the end of the four years.
The government will be pumping portions of the $100 million into the states to cover the expense of moving over to the new system--but if states don't move fast enough for Manchin and Toomey, the federal funds to such states will be cut by increasing percentages.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/14/Manchin-Toomey-Compromise-Creates-100-Million-A-Year-In-Grants-To-Bribe-States-To-Cooperate
Two Christians Beheaded in New Jersey By Muslim Man: Media, Silent
While the national media covers the Oscar Pistorius murder case wall to wall, the gruesome murder and beheading of two Coptic Christians by a Muslim has been virtually blacked out.This despite the fact that the story was broken by an ABC television local affiliate in Jersey City two weeks ago.
MUSLIM ACCUSED OF BEHEADING 2 CHRISTIANS IN U.S.
Torture, persecution of faithful no longer reserved for Islamic nations
by BOB UNRUH
Authorities in New Jersey allege a Muslim man beheaded two Coptic Christians, burying their bodies and heads and hands in separate graves near Philadelphia, bringing the horror of the persecution of Christians in Islamic nations to the United States.
According to New York’s WABC-TV, the Muslim was identified as Yusuf Ibrahim, 28. He was taken into custody after the bodies were found.
The report said investigators alleged Ibrahim killed the victims then severed their heads and hands, and buried the remains in the back yard of a home in Buena Vista, N.J. The report said the victims were from the Coptic Christian community in the area. One of the victims had come from Egypt not many years ago.
While the report said police did not indicate a motive, friends of the victims wondered if it was something to do with religion. WABC reporter Jeff Pegues wrote: “To members of the close knit Coptic Orthodox church the pain is real.”
“It’s a shock, something like this doesn’t happen to people like that,” one resident told him. The report said police described the suspect as “ruthless” and “calculating” and said he belongs behind bars.
Pamela Geller, who blogs about Islam at Atlas Shrugs, said it “appear have been a ritual killing, religious in nature.”
“The victims were Coptic Christians and the murderer was Muslim (and we are painfully aware of the status and treatment of Coptic Christians under Muslim rule in Egypt),” she wrote.
“The killing evokes this passage in the Quran: ‘When thy Lord was revealing to the angels, ‘I am with you; so confirm the believers. I shall cast into the unbelievers’ hearts terror; so smite above the necks, and smite every finger of them!” – Quran 8:12.”
Samy Hohareb, a friend of the victims, said, “I leave it for the police and the investigation.” The New York Daily News reported Ibrahim was nabbed by detectives on Sunday after the bodies were found.
Authorities said the suspect was found driving a white Mercedes Benz that belonged to one of the victims.
Ibrahim was being held at the Atlantic County jail on charges of murder and desecration of human remains.
WND reported in September a jihadi writer who has praised the murderer of a Dutch filmmaker suggested beheading as a way of curbing criticism of Islam. The report came from the Muhib Ru’yat al-Rahman, a senior writer of a leading jihadi forum called Shumoukh al-Islam, suggested that Muslims living in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S. kill Westerners who criticize Islam and display their decapitated heads along roads, according to the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor, a unit of the Middle East Media Research Center.
“While expressing respect for those calling to boycott European and American products over the release of the film ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ which negatively depicts Muhammad, Muhib insists that the best way to deter people from insulting Muhammad and his wives is to implement his proposal,” the report said.
The writer praised Dutch-Moroccan Muslim Muhammad Bouyeri, who killed Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh in 2004 over the production of “Submission,” a film criticizing Islam’s treatment of women. Dozens of forum members praised the post, expressing their agreement with the writer’s suggestions, the report said.
Geller summarized the report: “More tolerance and respect from savages demanding tolerance, respect and submission.” She has waged a battle in New York, Washington and other cities to post a pro-Israel ad after numerous pro-Palestinian ads already have appeared
http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/04/06/two-christians-beheaded-in-new-jersey-by-muslim-man-media-silent/
Judge Rules Drunk-Driving Illegal Alien Incompetent To Stand Trial Due To ‘Unique Cultural Background’
Meanwhile, back in Crazy Town: An illegal alien in Massachusetts who was drunk driving when he hit and dragged a Milford, Mass. man to his death has been ruled incompetent to stand trial.Insane? Nope. Mentally handicapped? Not even close. “Unique cultural background”? You got it.
Judge Janet Kinton-Walker ruled that Nicolas Guaman’s “unique cultural background” prohibits him from understanding the U.S. legal process. The judge also ruled that Guaman lacks the ability to effectively consult with his attorney. (What, they couldn’t find a Spanish-speaking attorney in all of Massachusetts?)
FOX 25 in Boston broke the story and covered it extensively.
“My first reaction yesterday was devastation,” Maloney said. “I just can’t believe that he was found mentally incompetent based on his education level and unique language. However, after being able to think about it overnight, I’m hoping that this will close whatever loopholes that the defense has to try to appeal or get a retrial if we ever get to a trial.”
“I think this does give the defense attorney the opportunity to request the bail for Guaman,” said Maloney. “Up until now, he has not been eligible for bail, so he may be eligible to be released on bail because of this recent decision.” (Gee, the southern border is just as easy to cross heading south, isn’t it?)
When asked whether she believes Guaman does not understand the court process in the United States because of his language barrier, Maloney said: “No, I don’t believe it. In the past, he’s had other run-ins with the law. He’s been in court multiple times on other charges prior to all this in August 2011, and a Spanish interpreter or no interpreter was used for those hearings and he’s always managed just fine.”
Without a doubt, defense attorneys across the nation will be watching this case and its outcome very closely. If, somehow, Guaman avoids justice – you can count on this defense coming to a courthouse near you – soon.
¿me entiendes?
CORRECTION: The assistant editor made an error and wrote that Guaman pleaded “guilty” to the charge. He actually pleaded not guilty, as pointed out by the author Michael Miller.
http://www.ijreview.com/2013/04/46285-judge-rules-drunk-driving-illegal-alien-incompetent-to-stand-trial-due-to-unique-cultural-background/
What Is “News”?
When the massacre in Newtown occurred, it received wall-to-wall coverage, as well it should have. We’d never seen anything like this before – a mentally ill gunman shooting tiny children and their teachers in an elementary school. It shocked the senses and dominated the national conversation – as well it should have.And aside from opportunistic leftists, such as Michael Moore and Piers Morgan, the original coverage leaned toward what caused the murderer to act and how such mental illness might be addressed in the future. But just as a serious and productive conversation was beginning, the political agenda of those in the mainstream media overtook it.
This was not an opportunity to address mental illness in this country and truly head off such disasters – that’s not all that compelling a story and nobody really has the answer – but it was time to talk gun grabbing. It was time to dust off all the old measures that never worked, all the “solutions” that never could move forward under the democratic process and try to use this tragedy to accomplish them.
It’s hard to blame politicians. They can’t help themselves; they can’t let a good crisis go to waste. But we ought to be able to expect a little more from our media – something a little closer to real life than the political agenda of far-left members of Congress.
So, instead of seriously addressing what makes the Adam Lanzas of the world tick, we put a Band-Aid on cancer in pursuit of decades-old liberal causes. And the media cheerleads as if this were a useful use of leaders’ time. Shame on all of them.
Meanwhile, back at Atrocity Ranch, we have Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the butcher of Philadelphia, charged with eight murders and accused of more than 100. Yet the media – until being publicly shamed into switching course late this week – has been silent.
What was missing from the Gosnell story? Why did it not measure up? The details of Gosnell’s actions are so gruesome, so inhuman, as to defy belief. Were they too horrific? Did we not get pretty into the weeds on the Jeffrey Dahmer story?
And why are babies screaming as their spinal cords are snapped to “finish the job” considered not a story by the same people who bring us every shot, slice and stab of the Jodi Arias trial. The world had never heard of Arias or her boyfriend before his murder and, frankly, never should have after.
But a doctor on trial for eight gruesome murders with the implication of hundreds more approaches a serial killer level of fetish for death. Had Gosnell used a gun, we would know all about what he did. The president, the media and the leftists in Congress would have seen to it.
But the weapon here wasn’t a gun; it was progressive sacred cow – abortion. Think what you will of abortion, but there’s a reason the late-term partial birth abortion is performed the way it is – with the baby being brought out backwards to the neck, then piercing the skull to vacuum out the brain – and it’s because if the baby, so near to natural birth, came out head first it would breathe on its own and, even by the old liberal definition, be considered legally alive. And that would make the next step – the step Gosnell seemed all too willing to take – murder.
Details aside, the fact you had heard literally zero about the Gosnell trial until late in the week tells you all you need to know about how utterly corrupt the media has become. Politico economics reporter Ben White tweeted Thursday night, “This Gosnell story which I just began to read up on is unbelievably awful and horrifying.” You wouldn’t expect an economic reporter to write about it, but you’d think a journalist would’ve at least heard about it. But not at Politico. To that day, his employer had not published a single story on the topic.
On Friday, the media began to face the music. Anderson Cooper did the first 15 minutes of his show on these atrocities. But one of his guests, CNN legal analyst Jeffery Toobin, tried to explain the media’s lack of interest in the case when he said, “It’s a business decision. We are not operating with a political agenda here. We pick stories, by and large, for reasons that we think people will be interested. I don’t think we’re covering this up. So I just think that’s a way of ginning up their (pro-life groups) supporters.”
Somehow the Trayvon Martin case warranted hours of coverage, but an alleged stationary serial killer operating in the political left’s favorite vocation is passé. The media created a new race of human, the “white Hispanic,” in the Martin case to give it a racial spin it could use to stoke racism. But Gosnell is black, as were most of his victims. The media, filled with liberal progressives, doesn’t care about black victims of crime unless they were victims of a white criminal. How else can you explain the relative silence over the murders in Chicago?
The media has devolved human life into a stereotype template – white criminal, minority victim = news; white criminal, multiple adult or child victims = news; female, attractive, large-breasted, white criminal or victim = news; any other configuration of victim or perp, unless they’re famous, isn’t news.
How many stories of busty blondes disappearing have we heard of? Are black women never abducted? Of course they are. But the racist media doesn’t care. This can be applied to any sort of crime. If it doesn’t fit the template, if it doesn’t look like a good “business decision” to cover, then crickets.
There is a genocide happening in the black community. Not only do half of all pregnancies end in abortion, the majority of gang- and drug-related murders in this country are of young black men, by young black men. Yet few politicians bother to address this slaughter because the media doesn’t deem it newsworthy. Or vice versa. The chicken-and-egg argument doesn’t matter here. The result is the same – young people dying unnecessarily.
Toobin is fine with this. It’s a “business decision” to him, and anyone who wants to talk about crimes other than those deemed worthy by him and his ilk, merely want to “gin up supporters.”
So why what Kermit Gosnell is accused of isn’t news to those who decide what warrants news is fairly simple: 1) What he did was committed in the name of abortion, and everyone in the media knows the only gruesome and newsworthy acts involving abortion are committed by those who oppose it; And 2) What he did – killing poor black people in as gruesome a way as is imaginable – leaves the Toobins of the world less “interested.”
It’s that mindset that separates crimes into levels of priority based on the leftist mainstream media’s perceived importance of the victims. In the big scheme of things, that might be the most disgusting part of the whole story.
http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2013/04/14/what-is-news-n1566883/page/full/
PK'S NOTE: This is a long piece but worth it.
The Bloomberg Presidency
Obama puts the priorities of the elite over the people
This has been the case since President Obama’s reelection. A December 2012 Bloomberg poll, conducted prior to the Newtown shooting, found the public’s top priorities were unemployment and jobs (34 percent), the federal deficit (19 percent), and entitlements (11 percent). Immigration was number seven, with only 4 percent of respondents saying it was their top priority. Guns did not make the list.
Newtown changed that. By a mid-January CNN poll, gun policy had moved into fourth place. But it still only rated single digits. The economy was priority number one (46 percent), the federal deficit was number two (23 percent), and health care was number three (14 percent). Immigration was sixth on this list, with 3 percent.
Guns moved into third place in a late January, early February Quinnipiac poll, three points higher than health care but far behind the deficit (20 percent) and the economy (35 percent). Once again immigration was near the bottom of the list.
However, a few weeks ago, when CBS asked, “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” only three percent of respondents said guns. As always the economy and the deficit and health care were at the top. This time immigration did not make the list at all.
The American political class, in other words, is debating a set of issues that has little or nothing to do with the priorities of most of the human beings that that class purports to represent. And the American political class is having this debate, in the most vulgar terms, at a time when millions of Americans are out of work, when energy and food prices are on the rise, and when the deficit remains enormous. Why?
Perhaps it’s because President Obama won reelection without having an agenda. His 2012 campaign apparatus, not to mention self-inflicted wounds on the part of the Republican candidate, provided him a narrow victory in the popular vote. But Mitt Romney won a majority of the votes of the 59 percent of Americans who said the economy was the most important issue, and narrowly beat Obama on the question of who would better handle the economy.
Winning an economic election despite lacking an economic agenda and confidence in economic leadership left the president with a challenge: What, exactly, to do? Finally make that “pivot” to the economy the media have promised the American people since Obama wasted the first half of his term passing a health care law the public did not want? Or continue instead to pummel Republicans, this time by using social issues to divide them?
We know the answer. Rather than pursue his American Jobs Act with anything approaching vigor, or authorize a no-brainer such as the Keystone XL Pipeline, or try new approaches that might conceivably attract Republican support, Obama chose the social issues, with an eye to changing control of the House in 2014. His current agenda embodies perfectly the concerns and worldview of the wealthy men and women who fund his party. Republicans are not the only ones affected by “donor-ism.” Guns and immigration are perennial favorites of the Bloomberg set—the class of liberal rich that fatuously believes it is somehow “above politics.” This isn’t the beginning of Obama’s second term. It’s the beginning of Bloomberg’s first one.
The Bloomberg style has several distinctive features. The first is a complete indifference to or dismissal of middle class concerns. In this view, it matters less that the middle class is enjoying full employment or economic independence or a modicum of social mobility or even action on issues it finds important, and more that it has access to government benefits generous enough to shut it up.
Recall that in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy Bloomberg was far more interested in seeing the Yuppie-filled New York City Marathon take place, and in linking the storm to apocalyptic climate change, than in mobilizing the combined forces of municipal and state and federal government to take care of the white working class on Staten Island and in the Rockaways. Similarly, Barack Obama has nothing new to say on the economy or deficit, but delivers speech after speech on gun regulations that would not have stopped the Sandy Hook massacre, while his allies in the Senate work to import low-wage labor on the one hand and high-end Silicon Valley labor on the other. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the nation hopes for better days.
Another hallmark of the Bloomberg style is its insufferable condescension. One need only have heard the tiniest whine of a Bloomberg speech to know what I’m talking about. The preening attitude of superiority manifests itself in a form of moral blackmail. Adversaries of the Bloomberg-Obama agenda are not simply mistaken. There is, it is implied, something wrong with them personally.
Opponents of superfluous gun regulations are viewed as accessories after the fact to the latest mass shooting. Opponents of an immigration amnesty are either racist or nativist or cruel. Skeptics of the relevance or efficacy of efforts to halt climate change are “denialists” similar to the cranks who say the Holocaust did not happen. “The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence,” wrote Oscar Wilde. That is a fair description of American political discourse in the age of Bloomberg and Obama, when the rich and liberal exploit pity, shame, and guilt to further their agenda.
What makes the Bloomberg method so insidious is its hold over the media. The vast majority of “content producers” for print and digital and television subscribe to the agenda of rich liberals because they are either part of that class, or wish to be part of it one day, or are directly employed by the companies controlled or likely to be controlled by its members, including the billionaire mayor, who spends much of his time at his $10 million Bermuda mansion.
Consequently, news coverage is distorted beyond repair. Take for example the “debate” over the immigration reform being secretly negotiated in the Senate. It is lopsided to an unquantifiable degree. Hardly anyone in print or on cable television is saying a word opposed to amnesty and increased migration at a time of low wages and suffering incomes.
The debate over gun control is not much better. This is an issue on which supposedly “objective” journalists collapse into a bundle of clichés at the first opportunity. “What would opponents of the bill say to parents of the Newtown dead?”—a line concocted in the bowels of the Obama White House—has been parroted on air whenever an advocate for gun rights appears before a camera. Anderson Cooper had the temerity to say the other day that he does not have a position on universal background checks. If you believe that, I own a $10 million Bermuda mansion I’d like to sell you.
Never does it seem to occur to the representatives of Bloomberg-ism in the White House or on the set of “Morning Joe” that one can only ignore the public’s priorities for so long. The meddling and moralistic overreach of rich liberals generates its own backlash. Bloomberg’s nutrition crusade is a classic instance. The media moan about the obesity of their social inferiors, only to discover the public is outraged when Bloomberg wants to control what they can eat and drink. Then the grand plans for better living through paternalism fall apart when the judges or the voters step in.
It is magical thinking to believe the current liberal moment will persist indefinitely. The gun or immigration legislation could fall apart at the slightest moment—indeed most likely will fall apart if Republicans, or even Democrats who still might like to speak for the working man, wake up and ask why American politics is occupied by the pet issues of liberal elites.
This is not the first time Obama has ignored the importance Americans place on the economy in favor of liberal obsessions. Last time, in 2010, it cost him the House and six seats in the Senate. Now, his approval rating has fallen appreciably since January. Republicans are guardedly optimistic about 2014.
There is, however, one salient difference between Barack Obama and Michael Bloomberg that deserves our gratitude. Obama hasn’t compelled the legislature to change the law so he can run for a third term. Yet.
http://freebeacon.com/obamas-elitist-agenda/
PK'S NOTE: I include this because it makes me laugh:
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