Saudi woman tells religious police to “drop dead”

The Saudi muttawa are the kingdom’s religious police, there to promote virtue and prevent vice — as defined by totalitarian, repressive, misogynistic Sharia law. It’s such a wonderful organization that, in order to preserve the virtue of young girls not properly dressed, they prevented their escape from a burning building, letting them die.

Lovely people, no?

Anyway, and on a much lighter note, some “mutts” tried to tell a Saudi woman to leave a mall when she (if I understand the situation correctly) wanted to try on nail polish where men might see it –THE HORROR!!

The lady, on the other hand, would have none of it:

Heh. What’s the Arabic for “You go, girl!” ?

via The Jawa Report

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

“Without them, who would we be?”

A superb essay by my friend Salena Zito for Memorial Day weekend:

Lyle Smith sat in a wheelchair on the grounds of the national cemetery, not far from the Tomb of the Unknowns.

“I never imagined there would be so many headstones,” he said, looking out over the green rolling hills covered with snow-white markers.

Smith was born seven years after the “War to End All Wars” ended; less than 20 years later, he left his family’s homestead in Columbus, Wis., as a volunteer to serve his country in another world war.

Except for time spent in the European theater, he never ventured far from Wisconsin; he married Shirley and they had a son and daughter, each of whom also had a son and daughter, and those four grandchildren each had a son and daughter as well.

“I’ve led a good life,” Smith, 87, said. “I’ve worked hard, I’ve loved my family.”

He made a living as a skilled carpenter and now volunteers at a senior center. He remains fiercely proud of his military service.

Smith struggled to find words to describe how he felt about being where former comrades are buried alongside soldiers from every U.S. conflict going back to the Civil War.

“It’s overwhelming,” he said. “And I think back to our very first war, our Revolution and those freedom fighters, and I have to thank all of them. Without every one of them, I would not be here.”

Be sure to read the rest.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The jihad in Mexico

Writing at the Gatestone Institute site, Raymond Ibrahim details the continuing efforts of Hizbullah and its Iranian paymasters, as well as al Qaeda, to strike at the United States through our porous border using a combination of missionary work and alliance with the drug cartels:

According to a 2010 report, “Close to home: Hezbollah terrorists are plotting right on the U.S. border,” which appeared in the NY Daily News:

“Mexican authorities have rolled up a Hezbollah network being built in Tijuana, right across the border from Texas and closer to American homes than the terrorist hideouts in the Bekaa Valley are to Israel. Its goal, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported on the investigation: to strike targets in Israel and the West. Over the years, Hezbollah—rich with Iranian oil money and narcocash—has generated revenue by cozying up with Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs and people into the U.S. In this, it has shadowed the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran, which has been forging close ties with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who in turn supports the narcoterrorist organization FARC, which wreaks all kinds of havoc throughout the region.”

Another 2010 article appearing in the Washington Times asserts that, “with fresh evidence of Hezbollah activity just south of the border [in Mexico], and numerous reports of Muslims from various countries posing as Mexicans and crossing into the United States from Mexico, our porous southern border is a national security nightmare waiting to happen.” This is in keeping with a recent study done by Georgetown University, which revealed that the number of immigrants from Lebanon and Syria living in Mexico exceeds 200,000. Syria, along with Iran, is one of Hezbollah’s strongest financial and political supporters, and Lebanon is the immigrants’ country of origin.

A jihadist cell in Mexico was recently found to have a weapons cache of 100 M-16 assault rifles, 100 AR-15 rifles, 2,500 hand grenades, C4 explosives and antitank munitions. The weapons, it turned out, had been smuggled by Muslims from Iraq. According to this report, “obvious concerns have arisen concerning Hezbollah’s presence in Mexico and possible ties to Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTO’s) operating along the U.S.—Mexico border.”

And it’s not just arms-smuggling and infiltration of Arab jihadis that we need to worry about; jihadist organizations are working hard to covert disaffected Mexicans to Salafist Islam:

Long a bastion of Catholicism, southern Mexico is quickly turning into a battleground for soul-savers. Islam, too, is gaining a foothold and the indigenous Mayans are converting by the hundreds. The Mexican government is worried about a culture clash in their own backyard… Muslim women in headscarves have become a common sight….

The Maya regions, particularly Yucatan, have long been a problem for Mexico City. An uprising there lasted from 1847-1901. A century later, will they face an intifada of their own?

Securing the border, as far as is practical, is essential. That doesn’t mean seal it, which would be impossible, but we need far better control over who crosses and why. And intelligence cooperation with the Mexicans, already underway against the cartels, needs to be expanded against the jihadists who seek to exploit our southern neighbor’s problems to get at us.

As Fausta puts it, “border security is national security“.

Because they’re still trying to kill us.

RELATED: An earlier post I wrote on Hizbullah in Tijuana, and Hamas getting in on the act.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Barack Obama: Can we call him a Socialist now?

Oh, my. Take a look at this:

It’s a reminder that the President presented himself as much more progressive during his time in Chicago. In this little-seen advertisement that ran in the Hyde Park Herald in 1996, Obama was listed on a panel sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), University of Chicago Democrats, and University of Chicago DSA. He also supported gay marriage back then.

Click through to see the image of the flyer.

Of course, long-time readers know that I’ve been certain Obama is a Socialist of one form or another for quite a while. Stanley Kurtz did the CSI: Politics work, and I found the argument convincing. Moreover, there’s never been a whit of evidence that Obama has abandoned or renounced his Socialist politics. At most, he’s given up the revolutionary radicalism he favored in his college years and migrated to an incrementalist, gradualist Socialism that seeks to change the system from within.

But, regardless, he’s still a Socialist.

PS: For those wondering if this really matters, it does. Understanding Obama’s political core gives us an idea of where he would like to take the nation in a second term, and forms a handy point of contrast to Mitt Romney. Also, Socialism has never worked wherever it’s been tried, something to keep in mind to tell people who say they don’t care about ideology, they just care about “what works.”

via Jim Hoft

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The CIA documents the global cooling research of the 1970’s

Reblogged from Watts Up With That?:

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Seal of the C.I.A. – Central Intelligence Agency of the United States Government (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Despite what NCDC’s Thomas Peterson, Wikiwrangler William Connolley, and John Fleck would like you to believe as a “myth” (The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus), there was in fact serious consideration of the global cooling issue in the 1970’s thanks to this 1974 document from the CIA.

Read more… 1,180 more words

I remember the global cooling hysteria from the 70s; my feeling is that the global warming... er.... "climate change" movement will look even sillier in just a few years.

Green hypocrisy? Nah…

Once again, some sanctimonious celebrity Gaea-cultist who wants us to cripple our economies and lifestyles to save the world from a problem that doesn’t exist, global warming, gets caught with his hand in the CO2-cookie jar:

Musician Will.I.Am has been criticised for arriving at a climate change debate in a private helicopter, producing the same amount of CO2 most people do in a month.

The Voice judge had been meeting climate change experts at Oxford University as part of a guest speaking role.

Despite his environmentally-conscious stance on green issues, the Black Eyed Peas rapper, 37, chose to take a private helicopter to the venue.

It is understood the journey, which is a 286 mile round-trip from London, used 71.5 gallons of fuel and released three-quarters of a ton of CO2 into the atmosphere.

He even tweeted pictures of the so-called “hip.hop.copter” for fans to admire, after landing at the Oxford’s University Parks.

From there, the singer used a pedal cycle to travel the remaining few hundred yards to the Radcliffe Observatory Weather Centre.

See? He’s committed to a Green lifestyle! The wealthy, globally conscious one-percenter used a bike to reduce his carbon footprint! An example for all of us: environmentally safe, fossil-fuel free, it’s enough to make any member of the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming swoon in religious ecstasy.

And pay no attention to the helicopter; I’m sure it will be converted to algae-power real soon.

RELATED: Meet some more elite eco-hypocrites: liberal fascist NYT columnist and China  admirer Thomas Friedman and “do as I say, not as I do” Robert Redford. Oh, and let’s not forget the high priest himself, Al Gore.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

UK embraces centralized energy planning policy

Reblogged from Watts Up With That?:

Global Warming Policy Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New Energy Bill Is A Disaster

Press Release from The Global Warming Policy Foundation

London, 23 May:  With the publication of its draft Energy Bill, the government has announced its intention to reverse the course of energy deregulation.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation warns that any attempt to turn back the clock to the dark period of centralised energy planning will not only damage Britain’s economy, but will almost certainly end in failure, just like other attempts to impose a centralised system of energy controls have failed in the past.

Read more… 435 more words

And this is from a "Conservative' government?

Convicted domestic terrorist stalks conservative writers

I haven’t had time to write about this story, thanks to jury duty, but it’s one that needs to be passed along. Thankfully, my blog-buddy ST is on the case:

When you get into the business of writing about politics and current events, whether you do it for the love of it, the money, or both, you set yourself up for being a target of your political opposition.  It is the nature of the beast. Most of the time  if the opposition isn’t trying to counter your points respectfully,  they’ll just laugh at you and/or call you nasty names over a period of time and move on. Other times they won’t move on, but they won’t carry it any further than just online word wars. But there are also cases where it can escalate way beyond that into territory it never should – where people’s families, homes, and livelihoods are directly targeted, threatened, and negatively impacted by thugs who have absolutely no concept of what “freedom of speech” means, and who believe there are no boundaries/limits whatsoever that they shouldn’t be allowed to cross in trying to “shame” those who they oppose.  Such is the case with Brett Kimberlin, a despicable human being who has waged a disgusting campaign of legal terror and abuse against conservatives who write truthful articles about him and his domestic terrorism past.   The man is vile. Absolutely vile:

Be sure to read the rest, and also the first link to Aaron Worthing’s original report on this nightmare. It’s in situations such as these that free speech meets its test, and when writers Right, Left, Center, or apolitical have to stand together in support of this crucial principle — and of the people under attack.

Let the Brett Kimberlins of the world know they cannot get away with this crap.

Which states are doing better in this lousy economy?

States controlled by Republicans, of course. And, conversely, states controlled by Democrats are showing the least improvement. Jeryl Bier at Speak With Authority provides some telling facts:

• 9 of the 10 states with the lowest current unemployment rates are under Republican control, including six under complete Republican control, one of which is North Dakota with the lowest rate of 3%
• 5 of the 10 states with highest current unemployment rates are under Democratic control, and the four worst are all under Democratic control, one of which is Nevada with the highest rate of 12%
• 8 of the 10 states with the greatest improvement from 2009 to 2012 are under Republican control (and 7 of those are under complete Republican control)
• 7 of the 10 states with the worst performance from 2009 to 2012 are under Democratic control
• 10 of 17 states with current unemployment rates greater than the national average are under Democratic control
• The state with the greatest improvement from 2009 to 2012 (36%) is Michigan, under Republican control
• The two states with the worst performances from 2009 to 2012, Louisiana and Idaho (the rates actually went up,) are under Republican control, but their current rates are still less than the national rate of 8.2%
• States under Democratic control saw an average decrease of 7.7% in the rate of unemployment
• States under Republican control saw an average decrease of 15.3% in the rate of unemployment, virtually double the improvement of states under Democratic control

In other words, to the extent Obama can claim a recovering economy during his term, it’s largely due to states being run by people inclined to do the opposite of what Obama recommends.

I call that a Good Idea(tm), one that should be taken to the national level, no?  Republicans should point this out as often as possible between now and November.

Be sure to click through to read Bier’s analysis.

via Tim Groseclose

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Romney campaign quick to take advantage of Democratic gaffes

Gaffes of the Kinsleyan kind, wherein a politician accidentally speaks the truth. Over the last weekend, prominent Democratic figures have criticized the Obama campaigns mendacious attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Corey Booker, Harold Ford, jr., and former “Car Czar” Steve Rattner all came out with “knock it off” messages. (1)

In fairness, Booker at least was also attacking Republicans for raising the Reverend Wright issue again, but what’s important here is his (and others’) criticisms that feed the idea that Obama is way too far to the left for most Americans.

Which he is.

This was hugely embarrassing for Obama, since, especially in the case of Mayor Booker, a charismatic and popular moderate Democrat, the deviations from the party line badly undercut one of Obama’s key class-warfare campaign messages.

Team Romney was again Johnny-on-the-spot:

I think you’ll be seeing this a lot in the coming months.

via the PJ Tatler

Footnote:
(1) And Booker has now paid the price for his “wrong thought,” being forced to abase himself on Twitter and on video to show his loyalty to The One. Where’s Andrei Vyshinsky when you need him?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Doing my civic duty

Posting may be very light here the next few days, as I just started jury duty and was promptly seated on a case expected to last into next week. Epic fun.

My blog-buddy Sister Toldjah has graciously agreed to crosspost from her blog when she can to help fill the gap; I think you’ll like her stuff. In the meantime, do be sure to check the fine sites listed in the sidebar to the right.

PS: No, those aren’t my judges. Pity, that.

Democrats seeking to disenfranchise Arkansas voters, and PA in play?

A few days ago, I wrote about the possibility, albeit it an unlikely one, that President Obama could lose the Arkansas Democratic primary to a little-known challenger. Well, now it seems the Arkansas Democrats, with perhaps a little push from the DNC, are trying to tell angry Arkansans that their votes don’t count, if they’re the wrong votes:

After a poll released this week showed President Barack Obama only beating his Democratic primary opponent John Wolfe Jr. by seven points, 45 percent to 38 percent, in Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District, state Democrats moved to practically disenfranchise Arkansas voters. “[D]elegates Wolfe might claim won’t be recognized at the national convention,” national party officials are telling state Democrats. Wolfe is being accused of not following the party rules.

“They want a coronation,” Wolfe tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “They’re conflating [Obama] with the party. Are we supposed to call him ‘Dear Leader’? Is this some kind of North Korea thing?”

Wolfe insists he’s done the due diligence to qualify for delegates and that the state party is making decisions ad hoc to get the results they desire.  “This is ridiculous,” he says. “These guys are trying to tamp down voter enthusiasm.”

Bear in mind that this comes after Obama gave up 41% of the vote and ten counties to a federal prisoner in West Virginia, while, in North Carolina, he gave up 20% of the vote to “Mr. No Preference.” At Breitbart.com, John Nolte explains why the Democrats are so worried:

As I mentioned in my interview with Wolfe earlier this week, Wolfe’s story is one the media doesn’t want to tell. The Narrative is supposed to be about presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney having trouble consolidating his base, not the Democrat incumbent who is also the media’s chosen candidate.

If the exact same scenario were in play but with players who each had an “R” after their name as opposed to a “D,” I suspect the media would’ve done everything in their power to turn Wolfe into a folk hero by now in an effort to undermine the sitting Republican. Thus far, however, the media’s reaction to Wolfe has been one of almost total radio silence — a position that will be difficult to maintain should Wolfe achieve a respectable showing in a couple of days.

Nolte also points out that Wolfe is on the Texas primary ballot, and the DNC is worried that a good showing by him in Arkansas could lead to more embarrassment in the Lone Star State.

But it isn’t just in the South that Obama has problems, which Obama apologists will no doubt spin as “racism.” (Insert eye-roll as needed.) As I speculated in that same piece last week, the troubles in WV, NC, AR, and possibly TX could be adumbrations of real danger in Pennsylvania, where the Average White Guy/Jacksonian Democrat voter is none too happy right now.

Well, now we’re starting to get some confirmation. From Roll Call:

Pennsylvania is also well-known as a state with a large number of working-class whites, particularly in northeastern (Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton, for example) and western Pennsylvania (Erie, Johnstown and Pittsburgh) — the kind of people one GOP strategist says “have their names on their shirts when they are at work.”

Candidate Obama had problems with those kinds of voters in 2008 — county-level data shows he did worse than Kerry in 2004 in a swath of counties running from southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia through extreme southwestern Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and into Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. If anything, he seems weaker in those areas this year.

These voters don’t have an automatic cultural connection to Obama (or to presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney), and the president’s recent announcement supporting same-sex marriage isn’t likely to be a plus with them. Jobs, of course, remain a big issue with these voters, and whatever hope they had that Obama would turn the economy around has almost certainly evaporated.

Potentially, Romney could outperform most national Republicans in the southeastern corner of the state, as he is a better “cultural fit” there, particularly in Philadelphia’s upscale suburbs (Montgomery, Bucks and Delaware counties).

(…)

Given these considerations, is there enough reason to include Pennsylvania in a short list of swing states? Not yet, for me. But there certainly is enough reason to treat Pennsylvania as a potential battleground and to continue to monitor the presidential numbers in the state.

There’s a lot more in this article, and Stuart Rothenberg is a very experienced analyst. Well-worth reading.

Meanwhile, if I were in the Obama campaign inner circle, I’d be very worried.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

California’s government spends millions to put people *on* foodstamps

Sometimes I really do think this state is hopeless. Now we have Sacramento re-branding the food-stamp program with the happy-face “CalFresh” and spending public money to convince people to become dependent on Nanny State.

That’s the last item in this video from the California branch of Americans for Prosperity. Earlier segments include Governor Brown’s admission he has no clue what he’s doing, and Obama’s insistence (1) that we get busy with our high-speed railroad boondoggle.

*sigh*

PS: Suggestion to the presenter, Jessica Headley. Think about dropping the “cute” hand gestures. They’re not funny and they only distract and annoy. Otherwise, nice job.

Footnote:
(1) Dear Mr. President: We don’t need any encouragement to spend like a drunken sailor in a brothel on payday. In fact, we wrote the book for you guys.

(Video) Our fourth-greatest president, revisited

“Tell me you love me!”

Back around Christmas, our Savior-President announced that he was the 4th-best president in our history. Some of us foolishly tweaked Obama for this, mistaking this moment of self-effacement for an act of monumental ego. American Crossroads, indeed, went so far as to make a video unfairly mocking Obama for simply expressing the humble truth.

Well, here we go again. Howling, raging right-wing fanatics have again reacted like instinct-driven haters and jeered at Obama for inserting himself into the biographies of almost every president over the last 100 years.

And Karl Rove’s American Crossroads has another video:

Oh, is there no end to the disrespect and mockery?

Nope.

via ST.

PS: By the way, according to a North Carolina teacher, disrespecting Obama is criminal.

Bain vs. Bane

The Obama campaign, including their allies in the media, have tried their best to make Mitt Romney’s time at turnaround investment company Bain Capital a negative for him, portraying him as a heartless, greedy capitalist. (1)

The IBD’s Michael Ramirez parries those attacks with one simple cartoon that compare Romney’s record as a CEO to Obama’s as president:

(Click the image for a larger version)

As they say, ’nuff said.

And be sure to check out Michael’s archive at IBD; he’s the best conservative political cartoonist in the business these days and one of the best, ever.

Footnote:
(1) Sadly, some Republicans helped give them ammunition. And let’s not speak of Obama’s corporate donors and the rewards they get; that would be racist.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

(Videos) 23 million out of work

The Romney campaign has a new series of videos focusing on the 23,000,000 Americans out of work. I think they’re both pretty good:

While the video is way too long for TV, it can easily be edited into 30-second spots. Bonus points to anyone who noticed the tombstone in the graveyard shot with the name “CARTER” on it. Well played, Romney-ites. Well-played.

Next…

This one reminds the viewers of the non-union workers at auto-parts maker Delphi who were screwed out of much of their pensions by Barack Obama in the GM and Chrysler bailouts, so he could pay off his UAW benefactors. This one still galls me. Expect it to get a lot of play in Ohio.

Overall, these videos represent good strategy: while people on the outside of the campaign, from super-PACs to bloggers, engage in direct fights against the Obama campaign’s latest attempts at distraction via class and cultural warfare, Team Romney stays focused like a laser on the economy, the one thing Obama does not want to talk about.

And with 23 million Americans out of work (and so many giving up on finding any), you can bet Romney will have plenty more stories to tell between now and election day.

PS: Romney 2012.

PPS: Did you know Obama made “old Mexican ladies” cry in college? (Just a little push-back on the “Romney was a bully” attempted distraction.)

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

When US diplomats saw Islam clearly

Sadly, we have to go back to the 19th century for that. Dr. Andrew Bostom provides this quote from US diplomat Edward A . van Dyck, who was at the time stationed in Cairo:

In all the many works on Mohammedan law no teaching is met with that even hints at those principles of political intercourse between nations, that have been so long known to the peoples of Europe, and which are so universally recognized by them. “Fiqh,” as the science of Moslem jurisprudence is called, knows only one category of relation between those who recognize the apostleship of Mohammed and all others who do not, namely Djehad [jihad[; that is to say, strife, or holy war. Inasmuch as the propagation of Islam was to be the aim of all Moslems, perpetual warfare against the unbelievers, in order to convert them, or subject them to the payment of tribute, came to be held by Moslem doctors [legists] as the most sacred duty of the believer. This right to wage war is the only principle of international law which is taught by Mohammedan jurists; …with the Arabs the term harby [harbi] (warrior) expresses not only an unbeliever but also an enemy; and jehady [jihadi] (striver, warrior) means the believer-militant. From the Moslem point of view, the whole world is divided into two parts—“the House of Islam,” and “the House of War;” out of this division has arisen the other popular dictum of the Mohammedans that “all kinds of unbelievers from but one people.”

In other words, if you’re not Muslim, you’re a target.

I disagree with van Dyck a bit; Islamic law also deals with treaties between believers and, well, everyone else. As in the treaty of Hudaybiyya, such agreements for peace are really cease-fires while the Muslims build their strength. The diplomacy itself is servant to the cause of conquest.

This quote is part of a larger article by Bostom recounting a debate between the courageous Wafa Sultan, a psychologist unafraid to challenge Islamic tyranny, and Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, a leading jihadist cleric. Well worth watching.

Moving from tragedy to farce, the UN condemns the evil that is… Canada

Well, at least they’re on the same wavelength as South Park.

No, seriously. The “Special Rapporteur on the right to food” for the UN Human Rights Council (We’ve met them before) has decried the lack of “a national right to food strategy” in one of the wealthiest, best-run democracies on the planet:

“Canada has long been seen as a land of plenty. Yet today one in ten families with a child under six is unable to meet their daily food needs. These rates of food insecurity are unacceptable, and it is time for Canada to adopt a national right to food strategy,” said Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, on the last day of his official visit to the country.*

“What I’ve seen in Canada is a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and Aboriginal non-Aboriginal peoples. Canada is much admired for its achievements in the area of human rights, which it has championed for many years. But hunger and access to adequate diets, too, are human rights issues — and here much remains to be done.”

The UN human rights expert was nonetheless confident that the country could move towards establishing food systems that deliver adequate and affordable diets for all, and called upon the Canadian government to convene a national food conference that would clarify the allocation of responsibilities between the federal level, the provinces and territories. “All political parties have expressed support for the establishment of a national food policy, and the engagement of citizens through food policy councils across the country is truly impressive. But in order to address them, Canada must first recognize the reality of the challenges it faces,” he stated.

And, at the same time that Canada is heartlessly letting people starve, De Schutter covers all his bases by warning an even great number are obese:

Second, more than one in four Canadian adults are obese, and almost two thirds of the population is overweight or obese, costing at least 5 billion Canadian dollars annually in health care costs and in lost productivity. “This is also a result of poverty: adequate diets have become too expensive for poor Canadians, and it is precisely these people who have to pay the most when they live in food deserts and depend on convenience stores that charge higher prices than the main retailers.”

Over-fed, under-fed, wrongly-fed… Canada just can’t win.

Of course, the UN bureaucrat’s recommendation is… Wait for it… more government intervention in the economy, including (he hints) price regulations and income guarantees for farmers. And, of course, it’s a shame that school meal policies are left to the locals. National planning is the answer.

And it’s not just for access to food. When complaining about the lack of access to nutritious diets, De Schutter subtly suggests a need to control what Canadians eat, too. This guy would be right at home in a North Carolina preschool. Or maybe De Schutter, Mayor Bloomberg, and Michelle Obama could get their own FoodTV show, “Nanny cooks — and you’ll like it!”

Gosh, I don’t know. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that the democratically elected governments of Canada –federal, provincial, and local– can decide for themselves what kind of food policy Canadians need. If Canadians need any at all, since they’re perfectly capable of deciding for themselves what they want to eat and whether they have access to what they need.

Though I’ll grant it’s a bit much to expect a transnationalist statist bureaucrat from the mack-daddy of transnationalist statist organizations to grasp that simple concept, since it means he’d have fewer opportunities for globe-hopping, expenses-paid  trips to hector other people.

Naturally, the Canadian government wasn’t amused, as Reuters reports:

After De Schutter complained in a newspaper interview that no federal cabinet minister had agreed to meet him, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, from Canada’s aboriginal Inuit population, met him on Wednesday.

But the meeting did not seem to go well.

“I met with the individual this morning and I found him to be an ill-informed, patronizing academic studying, once again, the aboriginal people, Inuit and Canada’s Arctic from afar,” Aglukkaq told Parliament.

Looks like DeSchutter’s report will get the reception it deserves — a trip to the ash can.

via Nile Gardiner, to whom I give the last observation:

One would think the United Nations would be concerned with real deprivation and hunger, in places like North Korea and Zimbabwe, instead of focusing on one of the richest countries in the world, with among the highest overall living standards on the planet. Even the UN’s own Human Development Index (HDI) ranks Canada sixth in the world out of 187 countries. But then again, De Schutter represents the discredited UN Human Rights Council, which includes in its membership some of the world’s worst human rights abusers, such as China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Its bar has been set so low that even Libya under Colonel Gaddafi was elected to membership. The HRC is a farce, and their latest report on Canada is further proof of it.

Indeed.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Andrew Malcolm pops Obama’s ego balloon

Background in this post about Obama or some sycophant on his team inserting Obama into every biography of every president from Coolidge on, except Gerald Ford.

With regard to Ford, Malcolm observes:

The only modern president left out of the Obama bio adjustments is Gerald Ford. But the All-American football player, lawyer, wartime lieutenant commander,  veteran House member and Minority Leader and vice president had an actual resume when assuming office.

BURN.

Malcolm, you meanie.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Could Obama lose the Arkansas primary?

I saw this news yesterday and laughed:

A new poll of Arkansas Democrats shows Barack Obama receiving support from only 45 percent of Democratic primary voters in Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District, while 38 percent support his underfunded and relatively unknown primary challenger, Tennessee lawyer John Wolfe, Jr. Seventeen percent are undecided in the district poll.

In an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Wolfe said the poll results were “unbelievable” and said a defeat for Obama in the Arkansas primary would be “politically cataclysmic.”

“It says the momentum is good,” Wolfe said about the poll. “This is democracy in action.”

Remember, we’re talking about a primary involving the incumbent president, which almost by definition should be a cakewalk for him. And yet, he faced a strong challenge in West Virginia from a federal prisoner who took 41% of the vote and ten counties. And now with this news from Arkansas, it’s evident that there is deep discontent with Obama in at least certain sectors of the Democrat rank and file. But why?

Brian Bolduc offers an explanation:

The main problem with Obama’s presidency, [primary challenger John] Wolfe argues, is that the chief executive has merely “ratified institutional failures.” The corrupt government in Afghanistan? “He expanded our commitment to it.” Our expensive health-care system? “He made a deal to protect Big Pharma.” The irresponsible lending on Wall Street? “He perpetuated ‘too big to fail.’”

And the reason for Obama’s failure to change Washington stems from his personnel: He surrounds himself with bankers, such as former chief of staff Bill Daley (JP Morgan) and current head staffer Jack Lew (Citibank).

“We need someone who will represent the people, not just bankers,” Wolfe concludes. “He doesn’t visit the South that much, either. He needs to show more concern here.”

(…)

Wolfe’s critics might claim that he’s a Republican in disguise, but the candidate says he’s a progressive through and through. He notes that Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, whom he describes as “perfect,” were progressives. “Republicans are not doing what I would like them to do,” Wolfe says. “They weren’t always this way. Even Ford and Nixon would still stand up against industrial waste and pollution. They would stand up against corporate greed.”

The Democratic party, meanwhile, is “immersed too much in identity politics,” Wolfe says. “I don’t necessarily like that. I think my thoughts are traditionally progressive, and those values a long time ago were shared by Democrats and Republicans alike.”

And now that the president has announced his support for same-sex marriage, it’s likely the discontent among southern Democrats will only increase.

In other words, populism and traditional values. The anti-elites and anti-Establishment view of people going through hard times, who look at Obama appointing corporate bigwigs to high office and then jetting off to hobnob with the Hollywood glitterati, and think to themselves, “he just doesn’t represent us. He’s not one of us, and it’s nothing to do with his name or his skin color.” I think we saw something similar yesterday in Nebraska, but mirrored from the Right, when the heretofore little-known State Senator Deb Fischer beat two career politicians for the US Senate nomination.

But I don’t agree with Wolfe that his views are “progressive,” at least not as the progressive movement has evolved in the US. The chords I hear are those of the Populist movement of the late 19th century, which even for a while formed a strong third party and still influences American politics to this day. With the fading of formal Populism, many of these people became Democrats. And it’s the descendents of those same voters who are now shoving a grapefruit in Obama’s face.

Bolduc then quotes a Republican state official in Arkansas to the effect that Obama has trouble in Virginia and North Carolina (1). But it’s more than that, and it’s touched on by Bolduc when he cites Obama’s “Appalachian problem.” While he describes it geographically, the South and southern Appalachians, it’s really cultural.

My friend Salena Zito has written many articles about the politics of the “average White guy,” the Jacksonian Democrat who’s culturally conservative and patriotic, lifelong hard-workers, typically Democratic but voted in big numbers for Reagan. (For a good example, see…) With her focus on eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, we see the same cultural traits that caused Obama pain in neighboring West Virginia and, I’d argue, farther afield in Arkansas.

And it’s here we see the real danger for Obama. To answer the question in the subject line, I don’t think Obama will lose the Arkansas primary. (2) And there’s equally no way he’ll win it in the general.

But, those rumblings from unhappy culturally conservative populist voters in Arkansas and West Virginia are real signs of trouble for him in Ohio and Pennsylvania, states he desperately needs to retain to win. What we’re seeing now may just be foreshocks of a real political earthquake in November.

Footnotes:
(1) Frankly, I think he can wave bye-bye to North Carolina, too.
(2) But, if he did, I would laugh like a hyena.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)