A Political Gadfly Lampoons the Left via YouTube

nytimes.com
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: September 18, 2009

WASHINGTON — James E. O’Keefe III, the 25-year-old video provocateur whose hidden camera galvanized Congress this week against the advocacy group Acorn, began his filmmaking career with a more modest target: Lucky Charms.

In 2004, at a buddy’s suggestion, he and a few fellow Rutgers students set out to satirize what they saw as a pious sensitivity to ethnicity on campus. The result is still there to see on YouTube: Mr. O’Keefe protesting to a slightly befuddled university dining official that the leprechaun on the cereal box “appears to be an Irish-American.”

“As you can see, we’re not short and green — we have our differences of height — and we think this is stereotypical of all Irish-Americans,” Mr. O’Keefe deadpans, as the official earnestly scribbles notes.
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Waters: Protesters should be probed for “racist” thoughts

hotair.com posted at 5:12 pm on September 16, 2009
by Ed Morrissey



To be fair, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) suggested that the media probe Obama critics for their latent racism, not the government, but in the end she’s sure it’s there. The Hill reports that Waters identifies racists by their use of the term “ObamaCare”, which would apparently include me. Gee, when I called it HillaryCare in 1993, was that racist too?
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What Van Jones signifies

powerlineblog.com
September 5, 2009
Posted by Scott at 6:46 AM

Not that we're inclined to do so, but it would be a mistake to write off Van Jones as a one-off nutjob in the Obama administration. He signifies. The Obama team sought him out and signed him up for his job as green jobs commissar precisely because he is who he is.

Listen, for example, to Obama alter ego Valerie Jarrett pay tribute to Jones before a friendly audience earlier this year: "Oooh. Van Jones, alright! So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We were watching him, uh, really, he's not that old, for as long as he's been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House."

Who do they have in the White House? A self-proclaimed Communist. A vulgar Marxist twice over. A supporter of cold-blooded cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal. A 9/11 Truther . A racist hater, whose hatred extends to the United States. And insofar as his current job is concerned, we have a man who sees the "green jobs" con as a tool for overthrowing capitalism. We have, in short, the complete left-wing nightmare package.
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Medical Care is a Successful and Growing Industry, not a Liability

americanthinker.com
By Wesley Clark, MD
September 03, 2009

The people of the United States find themselves in the midst of a severe recession, with unemployment higher than it has been in many years, housing prices cratering, retirement plans collapsing, and their lifestyles constricting.

The financial industry collapsed. We had to come to the rescue, pouring our own futures into saving the banks, brokerages, and insurance companies from their own greedy foolishness. The stagnant American automobile industry was imploding, and the people had to bail them out too, further mortgaging the future of their children.

Our politicians responded to this catastrophe by spending our future for us, and then by voting a $787 billion dollar "stimulus" bill that has so far produced no discernible improvement, but has flung pork into every corner of the nation, while funding their community organizer and special-interest groups. The government -- the State -- now effectively owns several giant banks, investment bankers, AIG, and two out the three domestic auto companies that were failing dismally.

There is still an industry that is growing and successful, that produces 17% of the Gross Domestic Product, and that employs over 10% of all American workers. The medical industry incorporates more than 820,000 businesses: hospitals, physician's offices, dentist's offices, home healthcare services, kidney dialysis centers, medical laboratories, X-Ray imaging centers, radiotherapy facilities, mental hospitals, physical therapy centers, nursing homes, outpatient surgical centers, dental laboratories, rehabilitation facilities and ambulance services with combined annual revenue of over $1 trillion. It immediately plows most its growing income right back into the economy for wages, and directs additional business to satellite industries such as pharmaceuticals, drugstores, and insurance companies. It even produces billions of dollars in revenues for the medical malpractice trial lawyers. Americans medical care costs more than government programs elsewhere, but it provides better care and better results, the best in the world. American patients, even the destitute, do not give birth in hallways, or wait months for essential diagnostic tests and treatments.

Suddenly, it seems that brisk industrial growth, creation of new technologies, expansion of employment, healing of once-fatal illnesses, prolongation of life, and prevention of pain are not even success, but a just terrible fiscal burden that our overlords deeply resent. They want that money to spend elsewhere, for monuments to their narcissistic prowess.
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Sentenced to death on the NHS

Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned.

By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent

Published: 10:00PM BST 02 Sep 2009
telegraph.co.uk

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.

“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.

“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."

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Native Americans and the Public Option

After decades of government-run care, some Indians are finally saying enough.

wsj.com
By TERRY ANDERSON

Bozeman, Mont.

Montana Sen. Max Baucus, a leading architect of national health-care reform, visited the Flathead Indian Reservation near Pablo, Mont., in May, and he was confronted with a surprising critique. "I hope any [new health-care] plan does not forget the nation's first people," Dr. LeAnne Muzquiz told the senator. Another person in the audience, according to the newspaper the Missoulian, followed up by telling the senator that the legislation pending in Congress would in fact do just that.


Native Americans have received federally funded health care for decades. A series of treaties, court cases and acts passed by Congress requires that the government provide low-cost and, in many cases, free care to American Indians. The Indian Health Service (IHS) is charged with delivering that care.

The IHS attempts to provide health care to American Indians and Alaska Natives in one of two ways. It runs 48 hospitals and 230 clinics for which it hires doctors, nurses, and staff and decides what services will be provided. Or it contracts with tribes under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act passed in 1975. In this case, the IHS provides funding for the tribe, which delivers health care to tribal members and makes its own decisions about what services to provide
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Death Threats Against Bush at Protests Ignored for Years

zomblog
Aug 19, 2009

On Wednesday, August 12, a man holding a sign that said “Death to Obama” at a town hall meeting in Maryland was arrested and turned over to the Secret Service, which is pursuing an investigation into charging him with threatening the president.

As well they should. I fully and absolutely agree with this arrest, since anyone who threatens the president is breaking the law and should be prosecuted. It doesn’t matter that Obama was not at the meeting nor that the man was unarmed: the threat all on its own is a federal crime, according to the United States Code.

I support the arrest and prosecution of any person who threatens Obama or any president of the United States.


Bush was threatened frequently — but no arrests

But the story of this arrest got me to thinking: Why was no one ever arrested for threatening President Bush at protests, when they displayed signs in public that called for his death?

Many readers may naively think, “The answer is obvious: no protester was ever arrested for threatening Bush at a protest because no one ever threatened him at a protest. Who would be that stupid? I certainly never heard of any such threats.”

Alas, if only it were that simple. Because the bald fact is that people threatened Bush at protests all the time by displaying menacing signs and messages — exactly as the anti-Obama protester just did in Maryland. Yet for reasons that are not entirely clear, not a single one of those Bush-threateners at protests was ever arrested, questioned, or investigated.

Don’t believe me? Then keep reading. Because this essay exists for one reason only: To prove beyond any doubt that explicit and implicit threats to Bush’s life were commonly displayed at public protests throughout his term as president. Below this introduction you will find dozens of examples of such threats — unaltered photographs from a wide variety of sources, along with links verifying their authenticity.

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Nancy and the Astroturfers

lookingattheleft.com
Denver
August 6 2009


This was the scene when I arrived at Stout Street Clinic in downtown Denver. Nancy Pelosi is to pay a visit to the clinic within the hour. About 200 people opposed to Obama’s healthcare agenda braved the mile high Denver sun and high temperatures to show their opposition. Their signs indicate that they are well aware that they have been vilified and targeted in an Oval Office astroturfing campaign designed to discredit their opposition.




“When asked by a reporter whether the protests at various town-hall meetings represented legitimate grassroots opposition or were manufactured “AstroTurf” stunts, Nancy Pelosi replied, ‘I think they’re AstroTurf. You be the judge. They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.’” - Jonah Goldberg

Commonly at the tea parties and anti-big government protests hammers and sickles are used to protest democrat policies. The Democrat Party doesn’t seem to have a problem with wall to wall hammers and sickles and has never complained publicly. Maybe they think it’s a compliment? I find that interesting and very telling.

This clinic is adjacent to Denver’s day laborer pickup street, Park Avenue. Being fluent in Spanish, El Marco asked these guys “¿hablan ingles?” “casi nada” was the reply from our amigo on the left. I asked him if he could tell me what the signs said. “¿Quien sabe?” (who knows?) was all he said to me, with a big grin. I’m kicking myself for not asking them how much they were getting paid to support the grassroots.

The irony of their lack of comprehension of the signs they were holding was heightened by the fact that they were the most elaborate and detailed signs of either group.

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This is what mob rule looks like

michellemalkin.com
By Michelle Malkin
August 4, 2009 10:52 PM

I’ve noted the irony of the unhinged Left moaning about the “insane rage” of the Right many, many, many, many, many times.

Allahpundit reports tonight that the DNC is now decrying “mob rule.” Lefty bloggers are comparing grass-roots conservatives to Holocaust deniers and waving around the moral equivalence card to smear peaceful Tea Party activists as dangers to democracy and civility (check that link and you’ll get a chuckle out of Media Matters pointing to my archive exposing anti-war fraudsters, Code Pink thieves and home stalkers, and rock-throwing moonbats as some sort of proof that supporting the law-abiding Tea Party movement is hypocritical).
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The Folly of Hate-Crime Laws

washingtonpost.com
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, August 4, 2009

James von Brunn, who is alleged to have opened fire and killed a guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, is apparently a consummate bigot. His former wife said that his hatred of blacks and Jews "ate him alive like a cancer," so it might seem appropriate that in addition to having been indicted last week for murder and gun-law violations, he was also charged with hate crimes. At age 89, he proves that you are never too old to hate.

He also proves the stupidity of hate-crime laws. A prime justification for such laws is that some crimes really affect a class of people. The hate-crimes bill recently passed by the Senate puts it this way: "A prominent characteristic of a violent crime motivated by bias is that it devastates not just the actual victim . . . but frequently savages the community sharing the traits that caused the victim to be selected." No doubt. But how is this crime different from most other crimes?

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Legalizing Deception: Why “Gender Identity” Should Not be Added to Anti-discrimination Legislation

Catholic Exchange
June 25th, 2009
by Dale O'Leary

Certain national and international groups are pushing for the addition of “gender identity” and “gender expression” to anti-discrimination laws. According to activists, gender identity is defined as: “An individual’s self–perception or inner sense of being a man, a male, a woman, a female, both, neither, butch, femme, two-spirit, bigender, or another configuration of gender. Gender identity often matches the gender typically associated with the person’s anatomy but sometimes does not” and gender expression refers to: “Any combination of how someone outwardly presents external characteristics behaviors that are socially defined as masculine or feminine, including dress, mannerisms speech patterns and social interactions.”[1]

For example, a bill introduced in the Maryland legislature reads as follows: “An owner or operator of a place of public accommodation …may not refuse, withhold from, or deny to any person any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, or privileges of the place of public accommodation because of the person’s … gender identity.” This would mean that males dressed as females could use women’s restrooms and locker rooms.
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Ten reasons why America’s health care system is in better condition than you might suppose

August, 2009
Hoover Digest
By Scott W. Atlas

Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

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Homosexual Activists Intimidate American Psychiatric Association into Removing Homosexuality from List of Disorders

Conservative Colloquium
Posted by foospro86 on October 1, 2007
BY RYAN SORBA

“It was never a medical decision—and that’s why I think the action came so fast…It was a political move.”

“That’s how far we’ve come in ten years. Now we even have the American Psychiatric Association running scared.”
-Barbara Gittings, Same-gender sex activist

Let us, for a moment, rewind to the year1970. In this year, same-gender sex activists began a program of intimidation aimed at the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Activist Frank Kameny states the movement’s objective clearly, “I feel that the entire homophile movement…is going to stand or fall upon the question of whether or not homosexuality is a sickness, and upon our taking a firm stand on it…” (The Gay Crusaders, by Kay Tobin and Randy Wicker, p. 98)


In 1970, psychiatrists generally considered sexual desires toward members of one’s own gender to be disordered. Karoly Maria Kertbeny’s term, “homosexual” was the official descriptor for those inflicted by this mental-physical disassociative disorder. Psychiatry’s authoritative voice influenced public opinion, which at the time was negative toward same-gender sex. Of course, public sexual activity in parks and public restrooms contributed to societies negative views about the types of people that did such things, but “scientific opinion” was crucial in the public attitude.

Led by radicals like Frank Kameny, same-gender sex activists attacked many psychiatrists publicly, as Newsweek describes, “But even more than the government, it is the psychiatrists who have experienced the full rage of the homosexual activists. Over the past two years, gay-lib organizations have repeatedly disrupted medical meetings, and three months ago—in the movements most aggressive demonstration so far—a group of 30 militants broke into a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Washington, where they turned the staid proceedings into near chaos for twenty minutes. ‘We are here to denounce your authority to call us sick or mentally disordered,’ shouted the group’s leader, Dr. Franklin Kameny, while the 2,000 shocked psychiatrists looked on in disbelief. ‘For us, as homosexuals, your profession is the enemy incarnate. We demand that psychiatrists treat us as human beings, not as patients to be cured!’” (Newsweek, 8-23-71, p.47)

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Impersonating a Victim

American Thinker
July 27, 2009
By W. R. Wansley


This past March 29th, Professor Henry Louis Gates was being interviewed in front of a small group by Walter Isaacson on C-SPAN's Book TV. Thirty-three minutes into the discussion about his new book on Lincoln, Professor Gates began a detailed account of his own genealogy. He said that in doing so he had discovered he was about "50% white". He said that this was quote, "To my astonishment and horror...".


He continued by saying that he had subsequently sent his DNA off to be tested. This time, upon finding out he was "57% white", he said again, "to my horror .... I was becoming more white by the minute". To this Gates, Isaacson and everyone else there chuckled.


Something tells me that if Mr. Isaacson had said that he also had sent his DNA off and found that to his "astonishment and horror" he was 57% black, no one would chuckle, least of all the Professor of African American Studies at Harvard, Dr. Gates.

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CZAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACES

THE REAL POWER IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS UNCONFIRMED AND UNACCOUNTABLE

New York Post
By MICHELLE MALKIN
July 26, 2009

If you can't beat 'em, czar 'em. This is the standard operating procedure in Obama World. The time-honored Senate confirmation process proved to be a dangerous landmine for one too many of the president's picks. But the White House found the perfect cure for Obama Nominee Withdrawal Syndrome: Avoid future debacles by circumventing the nomination process altogether.

So far, czars have been installed in at least 35 posts through presidential executive orders that require no Senate approval. No Senate review, no questions. No questions, no problems.

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Waterboarding, Torture, and Me

By Dennis Bartlett
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
thecatholicthing.org

During the Vietnam Era, I received a commission as a U.S. Naval intelligence officer. Part of my training involved a SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) episode at the euphemistically named Resistance Training Laboratory (RTL), then located at Warner Springs in the mountains east of San Diego. The RTL was basically a simulated POW camp to prep its pupils on what to expect if downed over North Vietnam and captured. As Yogi Berra says, "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." A case in point: We received about a week of instruction in the class room about what to do if captured, and took it all in like other class material. Then, when we were exposed to the real thing, it all went to hell in about a nanosecond. But that was part of the training, too. There is no substitute for experience.

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The Left Cries ‘Racist’ in a Crowded Country

By Andrew Breitbart Monday, June 15, 2009
The Washington Times

In its obvious zeal to create a one-party state, the Democrat-Media Complex (the natural coalition of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media) last week seized upon the horrific murder of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington as an opportunity to ascribe blame to the American conservative movement and to further marginalize the Republican Party.

In record time, the media's blind partisans and their feral friends in the left-wing blogosphere used the alleged "lone wolf" act of James W. von Brunn - an 88-year old self-avowed racist and anti-Semite - to try to affirm the controversial Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report that posited " right-wing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president" and are a becoming a growing domestic terror threat.

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Video: Economic reporting, then and nowposted

June 9, 2009 by Ed Morrissey hotair.com
Ed Frank finds something amiss in today’s media environment when it comes to economic trends and analyses. Frank notices that the media today seem willing and even eager to parrot the White House and Barack Obama in his sunny optimism, despite unemployment shooting up higher and faster than anytime in the last 70 years. Back in 2003-4, when the American economy recovered from what looks in comparison to a speed bump, Frank recalls a much different media environment:




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The End Of England?

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, June 02, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Culture: Two Christian preachers in Britain have been told that trying to spread the gospel to Muslims is a hate crime. It's another sign that much of England has given up on being England.

British media are reporting that Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, American evangelical ministers who've been living in Great Britain for years, were told by a police community support officer to "stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham."

Cunningham said the officer told him and Abraham in February that they "were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."

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Mapping the “climate of hate”

by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009
June 3, 2009 09:45 AM

When a right-wing Christian vigilante kills, millions of fingers pull the trigger. When a left-wing Muslim vigilante kills, he kills alone. These are the instantly ossifying narratives in the Sunday shooting death of Kansas late-term abortionist George Tiller versus the Monday shootings of two Arkansas military recruiters.

Tiller’s suspected murderer, Scott Roeder, was white, Christian, anti-government, and anti-abortion. The gunman in the military recruiting center attack, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, was black, a Muslim convert, anti-military, and anti-American. Both crimes are despicable, cowardly acts of domestic terrorism. But the disparate treatment of the two brutal cases by both the White House and the media is striking.

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Another Example of Deranged Public Behavior by Liberal Activists

This is the latest, in a long line of examples of bad public behavior by liberal activists. I have posted about 8 examples of liberal activists who attempt to discredit, ridicule, insult, bully, intimidate and demonize their opposition publicly in an effort to discredit, silence and marginalize them.

I challenge anyone to provide equally bad behavior on the part of conservatives in recent history. So far, you have a lot of catching up to do.

This bad behavior is straight out of Saul Alinsky's book: "Rules for Radicals". The following article illustrates how Barack Obama also follows the 5 basic rules outlined in Alinsky's book: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTY5ZTA5NmEwMGY4MTFhNDg2ZDg4NjU2MDkxOGYyYTE=&w=MA==

Despite Harsh Ridicule and Vicious Attacks, Miss California Keeps her Crown

Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples

Website © 2009 Family Research Council

"Married and Gay Couples Not All that Different," proclaimed the headline of a news article portraying homosexual households as remarkably similar to married couples. "We're the couple next door," claimed one partnered homosexual. "We have a dog and a cat. I drive a Volvo. I'm boring."[1] Such down-home portrayals of homosexual couples are meant to provoke the question: Since gay couples really differ only in that both partners are of the same sex, what rational basis exists for denying them full marriage rights?

Are homosexual households, as the article suggests, simply another variant of human relationships that should be considered, along with marriage, as "part of mainstream American society"?

On the contrary, the evidence indicates that "committed" homosexual relationships are radically different from married couples in several key respects:

· relationship duration
· monogamy vs. promiscuity
· relationship commitment
· number of children being raised
· health risks
· rates of intimate partner violence

Finally, this paper will present evidence from gay activists themselves indicating that behind the push for gay marriage lies a political agenda to radically change the institution of marriage itself.

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Mystery:Why Do Non-Conservatives Exist?

From Conservapedia

Conservative principles are based on reason. So why do non-conservatives still exist? Here are some reasons:

Statistical Analysis
(Estimates)

30%: did not hear about conservative principles, their logic and full benefits until after they made up their mind and, perhaps due to pervasive societal bias, refuse to reconsider

15%: lack of desire to find the truth, and a greater desire in gaining attention, praise by liberal teachers, getting along by going along, and not standing up to liberal bullies

15%: refuse to let go of their past, especially their past mistakes and image

10%: fooled by the demonizing of conservatives and mistakenly feel that conservative benefits are available only to those who are from an intact family or privileged background

10%: refuse to rise above their personal temptations, often self-destructive, and hate conservatives who criticize their self-indulgent behavior

10%: bitterly unemployed, or having a salary or benefits that conservatives would reduce, such as public school teachers, and a refusal to rise above self-interest

5%: were told off or disciplined once by a conservative, often a parent or ex-spouse, and harbor a grudge or refuse to rise above the animosity

5%: like an anarchist, genuinely want to believe in and propagate destructive ideas

What Triggers Reconsideration of Liberal Beliefs?
What triggers reconsideration of liberal beliefs? Here are some estimates:

25%: raising or teaching children, and realizing how destructive liberal values are to many of them

20%: a religious conversion followed by taking the Bible to heart

15%: a loss of a loved one that resulted from accepting or promoting liberal values, as in losing a loved one to crime caused by pornography, drug addiction, gambling, etc.

10%: a new friendship with someone who is conservative, and realizing how much good flows from the conservative values[1]

10%: simply by maturing and seeing liberalism's impact around them, and realizing what they were taught as youth was wrong

10%: a desire to learn the truth, and a dislike for those who mislead

5%: using conservative values to overcome an addiction, and then realizing the benefits of conservative values in many other ways

5%: taking a truthful course in economics, or learning it in the workforce[2]
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Why Liberals Fear Global Warming More Than Conservatives Do

June 20, 2006
By Dennis Prager

Observers of contemporary society will surely have noted that a liberal is far more likely to fear global warming than a conservative. Why is this?

After all, if the science is as conclusive as Al Gore, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times and virtually every other spokesman of the Left says it is, conservatives are just as likely to be scorched and drowned and otherwise done in by global warming as liberals will. So why aren't non-leftists nearly as exercised as leftists are? Do conservatives handle heat better? Are libertarians better swimmers? Do religious people love their children less?

The usual liberal responses -- to label a conservative position racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic or the like -- obviously don't apply here. So, liberals would have to fall back on the one remaining all-purpose liberal explanation: "big business." They might therefore explain the conservative-liberal divide over global warming thus: Conservatives don't care about global warming because they prefer corporate profits to saving the planet.

But such an explanation could not explain the vast majority of conservatives who are not in any way tied into the corporate world (like this writer, who has no stocks and who, moreover, regards big business as amoral as leftists do).

No, the usual liberal dismissals of conservatives and their positions just don't explain this particularly illuminating difference between liberals and conservatives.

Here are six more likely explanations:
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The meltdown and the bailout - why, how, and what they mean

February 13, 2009

Backwoods Home Magazine
By John Silveira

To understand how the recent meltdown and bailout came about, you have to know what brought them on. According to some, there are PhDs who have problems grasping what happened. I don't know if that's true, but I don't think it has to be made that difficult.

.......This has been described as a failure of the free-market system and leaders from both parties, including John McCain and Barack Obama, made the charge that the meltdown came about because of corporate greed. Both refused to acknowledge that the seeds of the meltdown began in Washington, D.C., and, when measures could have been implemented that would have started undoing the bad government decision, members of Congress got in the way.

Many congressmen have proclaimed the meltdown occurred because there wasn't enough oversight and that it was preventable—but they had fought against any changes for years.

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Pacifists versus Peace

RealClearPolitics.com
July 21, 2006
By Thomas Sowell

One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.

"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.

Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed Germany.

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Hiding the Truth About the Pay Gap Between Men and Women

A study on the gender wage gap has been removed from the website of the Labor Department — and the timing is suspicious.

February 3, 2009 - by Michael J. Eastman -Pajamas Media

The argument that the pay gap must be closed rests on the assumption that the pay gap is largely attributable to employer discrimination. However, if the pay gap is to be used to justify such significant changes in the law, it seems entirely appropriate to examine the pay gap itself. Does it really measure employer discrimination? Do other factors play a greater or lesser role?

Economists who have studied the pay gap have observed that numerous factors other than discrimination contribute to the wage gap, such as hours worked, experience, and education. For example, Professor June O’Neil has written extensively about how time out of the workforce, or years spent working part-time, can reduce future pay. Likewise, economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth, in her book Women’s Figures, has written about the decisions that women are more likely to make to choose flexibility, a friendly workplace environment, and other nonmonetary factors as compared to men.

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Professors Indoctrinating Students? Not in Our University

· 08 December 2008
By Mary Grabar - PajamasMedia.com

A New York Times [1] article reporting on studies that purportedly show that professors’ ideological views — overwhelmingly [2] liberal — have no or negligible impact on students’ opinions has been plastered triumphantly on college bulletin boards across the land.

Conservatives’ worries about political indoctrination, according to reporter Patricia Cohen, are “overwrought,” indeed “fantasies.” The reactionary Don Quixotes have instigated a culture war, going so far as introducing “intellectual diversity” legislation and recruiting volunteers to monitor classrooms. At my community college, the headline, “Professors’ Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not,” was circled in red magic marker, as if to suggest that those who still believe that our educational system harms young people might be ready for the meds.

I wonder which of my colleagues posted this article. Was it the one who wears the yin-yang ring, who one day during election season pulled a MoveOn.org email blast about Palin’s “[3] Troopergate scandal” from the department printer, asking if I had seen this “news” item? Or was it the instructor who posted next to her office door a photo of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, signed by Biden with, “Thanks for your help!”? Or was it the instructor who shows Michael Moore and Al Gore movies as “documentaries”?

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Relics of the good old days

Dog gyms, hedge funds, stainless steel. What were we thinking?
Joel Stein
January 16, 2009 LA Times

In the clear recessionary morning, all that stuff we've been binge buying suddenly looks gaudy and ridiculous. It's been a 25-year blur of fluorescent Frankie Sez shirts, logo handbags, Hummers and ring tones. We need to have one giant national garage sale and invite the world.

If there are pictures of you with any of the things listed below on Facebook, immediately remove them. Replace them with one of those stately, unsmiling group portraits our grandparents and great-grandparents took that made us feel like we came from important stock. You don't want your descendants to lose all hope when they realize that Great-Grandpa Jaden was flashing fake gang signs at Treasure Island while downing a Grey Goose and Red Bull before his "American Idol" audition.

Opinion L.A.: Your list of indulgencesTasting menus: The idea that an appetizer, entree and dessert wasn't enough -- that you had to taste everything -- was a pretty clear sign we were on our way toward being a fat, indebted nation. If Morgan Spurlock had tried to follow up "Super Size Me" with a movie in which he had to go 30 days eating only tasting menus -- and accept the wine pairings if they were offered -- he would have died by Week 2. I went with four people to Per Se in New York, and two of them barfed as soon as we got home. To be fair, it was the most delicious barf they'd ever had.

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Immigrants ravage U.S. infrastructure

Financial analyst: $1.6 trillion required to repair devastation

Posted: January 15, 2009, 11:50 pm Eastern By Chelsea Schilling © 2009 WorldNetDaily

The United States will need $1.6 trillion to repair damage to its infrastructure from a massive influx of immigrants, a new report reveals.

In his report titled, "The Twin Crises: Immigration and Infrastructure," prominent researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein examines 15 categories of infrastructure: airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (the power grids), hazardous waste removal, hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, ports and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems.

Rubenstein, a financial analyst and former contributing editor of Forbes and economics editor of National Review, claims the nation is facing a crisis – with immigration responsible for at least 80 percent of spending needed to expand the U.S. infrastructure before the middle of this century.

"If the infrastructure crisis could be fixed by spending money, there would be no crisis," Mr. Rubenstein explained in a statement. "Since 1987, capital spending on transportation infrastructure has increased by 2.1 percent per year above the inflation rate. At $233 billion (2004 dollars), infrastructure is already one of the largest categories of government spending. Our infrastructure is 'crumbling' because population growth has overwhelmed the ability of even these vast sums to expand capacity."

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Homosexual Men Account for 65 Percent of Syphilis Cases, CDC Study Finds

Thursday, January 15, 2009, By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor(CNSNews.com)

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says homosexual men accounted for 65 percent of the nearly 12,000 cases of syphilis in the United States in 2007, making them the “primary driver” of increased syphilis rates overall.

In a report on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) issued Tuesday, the government said syphilis, a disease that was almost eliminated as a public health threat less than 10 years ago, is on the rise -- with cases increasing each year since 2000.

It remained a serious health threat in the United States in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available, largely because of increased transmission among “men who have sex with men” (MSM) in the United States, according to the CDC.

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PC Campus: Academia’s Top 10 Abuses of 2008

Banned conservative speakers, stolen votes, assaults on religious liberty, gay English classes, and forbidden Thanksgiving & Christmas celebrations

By Jason Mattera
Young America’s Foundation Spokesman
December 2008

Political correctness ran amuck in our nation’s school system this past year, and Young America’s Foundation has once again compiled our “best of the worst” academic abuses for 2008. From “free speech zones” to transgendered speakers at military academies, the following list may make you both laugh and cry in the same breath. That probably isn’t too surprising, however, since we are talking about academia after all…
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A life thrown into turmoil by $100 donation for Prop. 8

Steve Lopez December 14, 2008 (LA Times)

Margie Christoffersen didn't make it very far into our conversation before she cracked. Chest heaving, tears streaming, she reached for her husband Wayne's hand and then mine, squeezing as if she'd never let go.

"I've almost had a nervous breakdown. It's been the worst thing that's ever happened to me," she sobbed as curious patrons at a Farmers Market coffee shop looked on, wondering what calamity had visited this poor woman who's an honest 6 feet tall, with hair as blond as the sun.

Well, Christoffersen was a manager at El Coyote, the Beverly Boulevard landmark restaurant that's always had throngs of customers waiting to get inside. Many of them were gay, and Christoffersen, a devout Mormon, donated $100 in support of Proposition 8, the successful November ballot initiative that banned gay marriage.

She never advertised her politics or religion in the restaurant, but last month her donation showed up on lists of "for" and "against" donors. And El Coyote became a target.A boycott was organized on the Internet, with activists trashing El Coyote on restaurant review sites. Then came throngs of protesters, some of them shouting "shame on you" at customers. The police arrived in riot gear one night to quell the angry mob.

The mob left, but so did the customers.

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'Day without a gay' protest fizzles

Matthai Kuruvila, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2008 (SFGate)

Activists had billed Wednesday as "a day without a gay," when gays and lesbians across the country would call in sick, boycott shopping and show the impact of their absence from everyday life.

Designed to be a protest against the Nov. 4 passage of Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, the day's events drew only scattered support in the Bay Area, the heart of the gay rights movement, and also criticism.

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A Response to Marc Shaiman's Musical Against Prop 8

December 09, 2008
By Dennis Prager

Marc Shaiman, the Tony Award-winning composer of the film and stage musical "Hairspray," has done the country a major, if inadvertent, service. He has composed a brief musical piece against California Proposition 8 that takes only three minutes to reveal the ignorance and hate that pervades so much anti-Proposition 8 activism.

This short musical, viewed more than 2 million times on the Internet, features major Hollywood talents playing (through song) two groups on a beach -- gay men and women in beach clothes and a stuffy formally dressed church group composed of whites and blacks.

Its message begins with a religious man and woman reacting to the cheerful gay group (celebrating the Barack Obama victory) by singing these words:

"Look! Nobody's watching

It's time to spread some hate

And put it in the constitution

Now, how? Proposition Hate!

Great!"

Shaiman puts hateful words in the mouths of the religious proponents of the man-woman definition of marriage: "It's time to spread some hate and put it in the constitution." But no one put hate in the constitution. The only words Proposition 8 added to the California Constitution were: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." What is hateful about that? It may be wrong, but why is it hateful?

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This is what patriotism looks like

By Michelle Malkin • December 9, 2008 10:44 PM

A naturalized American from Korea loses his entire family in the military jet crash that wrecked his house and killed his infant daughter, toddler daughter, wife, and mother-in-law. But he refuses to blame the pilot or bash the military. Reader Mitch in San Diego e-mails: “I’m not even religious and I’ll say a prayer for this man. He has my utmost admiration. Truly an amazing gesture of forgiveness and patriotism on his part. There would be no discussion about immigration, illegal or otherwise, if this was the caliber of most coming here. Amazing.”

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Scientists Back Brain Drugs for Healthy People

By MALCOLM RITTER AP Science WriterNEW YORK December 7, 2008 (AP)

Beyond disease, brain-boosting drugs should be available for healthy people, scientists say

Healthy people should have the right to boost their brains with pills, like those prescribed for hyperactive kids or memory-impaired older folks, several scientists contend in a provocative commentary.

College students are already illegally taking prescription stimulants like Ritalin to help them study, and demand for such drugs is likely to grow elsewhere, they say.

"We should welcome new methods of improving our brain function," and doing it with pills is no more morally objectionable than eating right or getting a good night's sleep, these experts wrote in an opinion piece published online Sunday by the journal Nature.

The commentary calls for more research and a variety of steps for managing the risks.

As more effective brain-boosting pills are developed, demand for them is likely to grow among middle-aged people who want youthful memory powers and multitasking workers who need to keep track of multiple demands, said one commentary author, brain scientist Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania.

"Almost everybody is going to want to use it," Farah said

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Words associated with Christianity and British history taken out of children's dictionary

Julie Henry, Education Correspondent
Last Updated: 8:06AM GMT 08 Dec 2008 (telegraph.co.uk)

Westminster Abbey may be one of Britain's most famous landmarks, but the word abbey has been removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary.


Oxford University Press has removed words like "aisle", "bishop", "chapel", "empire" and "monarch" from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like "blog", "broadband" and "celebrity". Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.

The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.

But academics and head teachers said that the changes to the 10,000 word Junior Dictionary could mean that children lose touch with Britain's heritage.
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HOW COULD 50 STATES BE WRONG?

Chuck Baldwin Live chuckbaldwinlive.com

Somewhere along the way, the Federal Courts and the Supreme Court have misinterpreted the U. S. Constitution. How could fifty States be wrong?

THIS IS VERY INTERESTING! The United States were founded on the principles of God, and an alliance with God. America's founders did not intend for there to be a separation of God and state, as shown by the fact that all 50 states acknowledge God in their state constitutions or preambles:

Alabama 1901, Preamble. We the people of the State of Alabama, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution.

Alaska 1956, Preamble. We, the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land....

Arizona 1911, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arizona, grateful to Almighty God for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution...

Arkansas 1874, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arkansas, grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government.....

California 1879, Preamble. We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom......
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Hank Paulson, Naked Emperor

Friday, November 14, 2008

by Michelle Malkin

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson finally confirmed what lonely bailout opponents tried to tell the American public all along: The man doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

Paulson held a bazooka to taxpayers' heads. He groveled on his knees in front of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He lured leaders from both political parties into linking arms in a panicked Chicken Little line dance for the beleaguered mortgage industry. Paulson demanded an unprecedented $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program for the good of the country. For the health of the housing market. For the survival of the economy. No time for deliberation. No time to review the failures of such interventionist approaches around the world. Now, now, now!
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Time To Spread Some Hate?

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Dec. 5, 2008 garyganu

Watch the following anti-prop 8 video and let me know who is spreading hate?

This star studded, Hollywood produced music video accuses Christians and those who are in favor of Prop 8, of being haters and bigots.

In my opinion, it is equally harmful to falsely accuse people and entire religions of bigotry and hate, as to actually practice bigotry.

In this case, it is the Hollywood anti-Prop 8 crowd, who is practicing bigotry and hate.

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Ottawa university boots cystic fibrosis from charity drive

Joanne Laucius, Canwest News Service Published: Tuesday, November 25, 2008

'I think they see this, in their own twisted way, as a win for diversity'

OTTAWA -- The Carleton University Students' Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not "inclusive" enough.

Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it.

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Self-Embedding Disorder: Teens Putting Nails, Paper Clips in Bodies, Study Finds

Wednesday, December 03, 2008 Reuters (via foxnews.com)

Some troubled teens are embedding nails, paper clips, bits of rock, glass and even crayons in their bodies as a way to cope with disturbing thoughts and feelings, U.S. researchers said Wednesday.

They described cases in which teens had forced numerous objects into their arms, hands, feet, ankles and necks in a condition they are calling self-embedding disorder, a step beyond more common forms of self-mutilation.

"We identified a group of 10 patients over a three-year period of time that have this pattern of self-inflicted injury," said Dr. William Shiels, chief of radiology at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He presented his findings at the Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago.

"It's cutting gone to the next level," Shiels said in a telephone interview.

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IDF (Israeli Defense Force) preparing options for Iran strike

JPost.com » Iran news » Article
Dec 4, 2008 0:40 Updated Dec 4, 2008 11:32
By YAAKOV KATZ

The IDF is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

While its preference is to coordinate with the US, defense officials have said Israel is preparing a wide range of options for such an operation.

"It is always better to coordinate," one top Defense Ministry official explained last week. "But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination."

Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused.

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Peter Schweizer: Conservatives more honest than liberals?

Commentary Jun 2, 2008 3:00 AM (184 days ago) by Peter Schweizer, The Examiner

The headline may seem like a trick question — even a dangerous one — to ask during an election year. And notice, please, that I didn’t ask whether certain politicians are more honest than others. (Politicians are a different species altogether.) Yet there is a striking gap between the manner in which liberals and conservatives address the issue of honesty.

Consider these results:

Is it OK to cheat on your taxes? A total of 57 percent of those who described themselves as “very liberal” said yes in response to the World Values Survey, compared with only 20 percent of those who are “very conservative.” When Pew Research asked whether it was “morally wrong” to cheat Uncle Sam, 86 percent of conservatives agreed, compared with only 68 percent of liberals.

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Anti-religious sign at state Capitol raises eyebrows

05:14 PM PST on Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Associated Press & KING5.com

OLYMPIA, Wash. - An atheist group has unveiled an anti-religion placard in the state Capitol, joining a Christian Nativity scene and "holiday tree" on display during December.

The atheists' sign was installed Monday by Washington members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national group based in Madison, Wis.

With a nod to the winter solstice - the year's shortest day occurring in late December - the placard reads: "At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

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Liberals clinically mad, concludes top shrink

Posted: November 12, 20086:33 pm Eastern© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Eminent psychiatrist makes case that leftist thinking is a mental disorder

WASHINGTON – Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder
.
"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."

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An Ugly Attack on Mormons

The religious group has been the target of a campaign by liberal supporters of same-sex marriage.

Jonah Goldberg (LA Times)
December 2, 2008

Did you catch the political ad in which two Jews ring the doorbell of a nice, working-class family? They barge in and rifle through the wife's purse and then the man's wallet for any cash. Cackling, they smash the daughter's piggy bank and pinch every penny. "We need it for the Wall Street bailout!" they exclaim.

No? Maybe you saw the one with the two swarthy Muslims who knock on the door of a nice Jewish family and then blow themselves up?

No? Well, then surely you saw the TV ad in which two smarmy Mormon missionaries knock on the door of an attractive lesbian couple. "Hi, we're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!" says the blond one with a toothy smile. "We're here to take away your rights." The Mormon zealots yank the couple's wedding rings from their fingers and then tear up their marriage license.

As the thugs leave, one says to the other, "That was too easy." His smirking comrade replies, "Yeah, what should we ban next?" The voice-over implores viewers: "Say no to a church taking over your government."

Obviously, the first two ads are fictional because no one would dare run such anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim attacks.

The third ad, however, was real. It was broadcast throughout California on election day as part of the effort to rally opposition to Proposition 8, the initiative that successfully repealed the right to same-sex marriage in the state.

Click here for the entire LA Times article by Jonah Goldberg entitled: An ugly attack on Mormons.