Deborah Gardner, Peace Corps volunteer, brutally murdered in Tonga

That great lefty favorite, the Peace Corps, just had a 50th birthday! You can tell, because it’s demanding presents. The Lefties who totally love conscience-salving stints in third world countries rejoiced and then swiftly returned to their soy lattes and organic arugula. Senator Harry Reid issued a breathless, sycophantic statement in which he, being Harry Reid, couldn’t resist making things up, pouting and petulantly trying to cling to funding.

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“However, I’m deeply discouraged that Republicans have proposed slashing significant funding for a program that trains workers for a 21^stcentury global economy, builds good will around the world and promotes public service. Instead of reducing the effectiveness of a highly cost-effective program, we should cut government spending in a smart, responsible way that targets waste and excess while keeping our economy growing.”

Of course, he had nothing to say in response to charges that perhaps the Peace Corps isn’t so peaceful. At least not for the women who were raped – and then blamed for being raped - during their stints in the corps. No ado was made about the House hearing on Wednesday investigating the same either, nor the legislation proposed by Congressman Poe (R-TX) that would require some Peace Corps oversight. In fact, the New York Times reported that Democrats wished to, as always, sweep such things under the rug in fear that their precious funding might be lost:

But whether such a bill would pass Congress is unclear. Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, is co-sponsoring Mr. Poe’s bill, but other Democrats are skittish about it. They worry that the legislation, and Wednesday’s hearing, might be used to undermine the Peace Corps — the legacy of a Democratic president — and cut its funding.

Hey, what’s a little rape, with the added insult of victim blaming, as long as we keep our sweet, sweet funding? You know what I am skittish about, Democrats? Funding an organization wherein women are raped, assaulted and even murdered; 1000 women have been sexually assaulted while in the Peace Corps in the past decade alone. And 23 Peace Corps volunteers have been murdered since its creation. This isn’t new, either. Peace Corps volunteer Deborah Gardner lost her life in Tonga in 1976.

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Have you ever heard someone say that a rape victim was “asking for it” by dressing a certain way, entering a certain place, or behaving a certain way? You’d rightly dismiss them as sociopaths or enablers or sociopaths. However, a growing number of media figures– Mediaite,  Time’s Joe Klein, and now even FNC’s Bill O’Reilly– would have you believe it’s a valid assertion, if we’re to apply their logic concerning Floridian Koran-burner Terry Jones.  Instead of framing the recent murders in Afghanistan as a shocking overreaction to an insensitive expression of free speech, these personalities and publications focused their ire and blame on Jones.

Terry Jones

“This Terry Jones idiot has blood on his hands;  he had to know fanatical Muslims would go crazy,” O’Reilly stated. Ah, yes, because as we all know, the only possible response from the Muslim world would be violence; that’s not an ugly, condescending stereotype at all!  I’m no fan of Sharia, but to insinuate Jones “should have known” that someone would take anger beyond any acceptable societal standard without personally knowing any of the individuals who killed is just like saying that a rape victim “should have known” that the sight of her would cause her assailants to fly into an uncontrollable lustful rampage.

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So what’s the most dangerous nation on earth for journalists? Which nation jails and tortures them at the highest rate?

The question was answered on June 16 by the Committee to Protect Journalists‘ Executive Director, Joel Simon. The setting was a hearing on “Press Freedom in the Americas,” held by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.  And quite interestingly, none of that very hemispheric press has yet seen fit to report this item.

So let’s ask the multiple Peabody and Emmy award winning American journalist Dan Rather if he knows who jails and tortures the most journalists on earth.

Fidel Castro is Cuba’s Elvis!

Nope.  Seems that Dan’s no help. Okay, now let’s ask the same question to Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism- winner, Andrea Mitchell: (more…)

First it was Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. Then it was Sarah Palin’s very existence. And now, courtesy of the once-interesting but now completely unhinged blogger/amateur gynecologist Andrew Sullivan, it’s the Palin Family Fence.

You heard that right.

Poor Sullivan. Once one of the most interesting writers in the blogosphere, the Prince of Provincetown has managed to parlay an exalted state in both the MSM and online into a crude caricature of his former self.

The occasion for his latest burst of high dudgeon is the Palin family’s newly constructed fence between their property and a rental house being leased by Joe McGinniss, the writer whose last major book, the true-crime thriller, Fatal Vision, was published in 1983, yet whose name still retains some cachet among his former journalistic brethren. McGinniss is currently at work on a book about… wait for it — Sarah Palin. (more…)

Whenever I’d watch old WWII movies and saw the occupying Nazi soldiers demand papers from French citizens I’d think how lucky we are that here in America we don’t have to be subjected to this treatment. Since the Arizona governor signed an immigration law, Democrats and their fellow alarmists in the MSM are desperately trying to equate it with Nazism and the civil rights abuse of Hispanics. President Obama hinted that the federal government may have to circumvent the law.

As a Hispanic I recognize this ploy for what it is- a desperate attempt to incite militant Hispanic groups into protesting Arizona and liberals into boycotting the state. Why, you may ask? Because if what Arizona did spreads to the entire country, the Democrats are toast. And their media pals know this.

Ironically even some Republicans like Karl Rove and Lindsey Graham are worried that the law allowing police to ask potential illegal immigrants for papers will lead to abuses. Michael Gerson explained the potential civil rights violation in his Townhall column: (more…)

Except to say that I never thought I would see the day when Americans would so meekly accede to threats, or even hints of violence, this news from Comedy Central is hardly surprising anymore.  From the Hollywood Reporter:

‘Muhammad’ now a dirty word on ‘South Park’

Now “South Park” can’t even say the words “Prophet Muhammad.”

After last week’s episode of the Comedy Central series sparked a threat (and yes, it was certainly a threat) from a radical Islamic website, the network has cracked-down-for-their-own-good on creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone during last night’s continuation of the show’s storyline.

For their own good… right.

For those who missed the drama, the show’s 200th episode last week mocked the one “celebrity” that the series has been largely unable to depict, the Prophet Muhammad, who was hidden from view in a bear costume. A U.S.-based website RevolutionMuslim.com then warned Parker and Stone they could end up like Theo Van Gogh (the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered by Muslim extremists after depicting Muhammad on his show) and even posted the address of the show’s production office. The site has since been shut down.

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s what happened to Theo Van Gogh for the crime of making a movie that criticized Islam: (more…)

Talk about social promotions! Laura Berman, a writer for The Detroit News, recently penned a column about Otis Mathis’ inability to write a coherent sentence.

Berman offered readers several examples of Mathis’ unique talent. Here’s one of his emails:

If you saw Sunday’s Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason’s he gave for closing school to many empty seats.

Another:

Do DPS control the Foundation or outside group? If an outside group control the foundation, then what is DPS Board row with selection of is director? Our we mixing DPS and None DPS row’s, and who is the watch dog?

Mathis, a product of the Detroit public schools, is none other than the president of the Detroit school board – a man who “repeatedly failed an English proficiency exam” at Wayne State University (also in Detroit) but was shrewd enough to mount a legal challenge against the requirement. (more…)