Here’s a reminder of why I started this semi-irregularly scheduled feature. When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot, liberals fell all over themselves blaming conservative rhetoric, graphics with targets, and of course talk radio for supposedly creating the environment for such an assassination attempt. It was clear that they had contributed just as much, if not more, themselves prior to the shooting. "Civility Watch" came about to show how little they really would even take their own medicine. It’s been made clear, since then, that uncivil discourse is really only uncivil if it’s a Republican saying it.

The most recent cases in point: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told Tea Partiers that they can go "straight to hell". Now you know what they think of responsible spending. And liberal columnists, even those that have other issues with Waters, praise that outburst and wish for more, and excuse that incivility by saying, "They started it!" Yeah, right.

Also, Rep. Andre Carson (D-MI), a leader in the Congressional Black Caucus, claimed that Tea Partiers would “love to see us as second-class citizens” and “some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.” This is not only incredibly over the top, but also has the added benefit (to him) of being believed simply because he said it, lacking a shred of proof or naming names. He can say it with impunity, and the audience just accepts it as The Truth.

The Left simply cannot sell themselves as the ones who are for civil discourse, at least to those who are truly paying attention.

Guns: A year after a law was passed in Virginia allowing those with permits to carry concealed weapons into bars (i.e. "alcohol-serving businesses"), gun-related crime in bars actually declined slightly. They did not turn into the shooting galleries that were predicted. This didn’t make national news, of course, because it doesn’t fit the narrative. If it had gone up, I’m quite sure we’d have heard about it for days on the evening newscasts.

Politics: First Ed Schultz and MSNBC selectively quote Gov. Rick Perry to make it sound like he’s being racist against the President. Seems you can’t say the word "black" in any context without it being called "racist". Then, MSNBC’s newest talker, Al Sharpton, takes the smear and, ironically, calls Gov. Perry divisive and ugly for saying something he didn’t ever say! Say what you want about Fox News, but if you don’t see far, far worse bias on the part of MSNBC, you’re just not paying as close attention as you think you are.

The Economy: The US may have lost it’s AAA rating from Standard and Poor’s, but on that same day, Ohio’s rating went up. Republican Governor John Kasich has presided over newly-balanced budgets, an 8.6% unemployment rate, and a steadily improving economy, coming back from the recession quicker than the Feds. This was done with reducing the size of government and rewarding job-creators.

And speaking of the economy (click for a larger version):

While the riots in London and its environs may have started as a peaceful vigil to protest the shooting of an alleged drug dealer, a certain sort of folk were glad to join in and ramp it up for their own purposes. Let’s ask a few of these concerned citizens why they are rampaging and looting, shall we?

You sir, why are you stealing electronics from the local shop?

And you, ma’am, what is the purpose of all this?

Now, the first fellow, who’s trying to get his taxes back, as he says, might sound to you like some Tea Partier here in the States. However, no Tea Partier thinks that those taxes should be extracted directly from the shelves of local businesses. It’s local businesses that Tea Partiers are trying to support as the real source of economic growth. So no, this is not really a conservative position being taken. It’s more of a narcissistic opportunism at work.

At least the ladies in the second video are being more honest about their motivations. They’re getting back at the rich, "showing the rich we do what we want". Ah, well this will show ’em, eh? And their definition of "rich" seems to mean anyone who owns a business, hence the open season on any business anywhere; national chain or local shop.

Going after evil corporations, getting back at the rich… Hmm, which political philosophy have I heard these sentiments from? And further, can we blame those who put forth that political philosophy for these riots, much like a shooting a few months ago was also blamed on some political philosophy? There’s actually a real, spoken connection this time, as opposed to an assumed connection before. I expect Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz to castigate the Left, er, whatever that political philosophy might be. If, that is, they want to be taken seriously.

Ah, the civil discourse of the Left.

Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit, according to several sources in the room.

Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.

“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists.”

This is the very type of rhetoric that conservatives were accused of, supposedly leading to the shooting of Gabriel Giffords. Ironically, while Biden was describing Republicans has having a "gun to their heads", Giffords showed up for the first time since the shooting. A rather foolish turn of a phrase, especially on that day.

The Left would rather point the finger at entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and be willfully ignorant of eliminationist rhetoric at the highest levels of government, especially when it’s their guys holding those positions. Hopefully, the public will remember this the next time liberals try to portray conservatives as the sole owner of uncivil discourse.

On Sunday evening, I was following the hashtag "#compromise" on Twitter. Folks who were begging, pleading, pontificating and yelling at their elected representatives for a debt ceiling compromise used that tag on their posts. "Get it done!", some whined. "#compromise #compromise #compromise #compromise", some less articulate folks said, trying to bring the point home. Last night, after a compromise was reached, the hashtagged messaged now complained loudly about the particular deal that was worked out, some following VP Biden’s "terrorist" rhetoric. So the true colors came out. "Compromise", to the Left, means "do it my way, or you’re a terrorist!"

You may want to bookmark this link to my "Civility Watch" entries for the future. The Left has often leveled the "hate speech" charge at conservatives to blame them for some event that has happened. It’ll happen again.

Quote:

The debt ceiling should not be something used as a gun against the head of the American people

[emphasis mine]

From some radical right-winger? Some looney tea-party nut? Nope. Straight from the President himself.

Think there will be any nonsensical criticisms from the left on this one?

Tim Groseclose is a distinguished professor of political science. He is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA. He holds joint appointments in the political science and economics departments. He has held previous faculty appointments at universities including Stanford and Harvard. In short, he is certainly not  a member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.

And yet he is coming out with a book,"Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind", that has been researched over eight years, using "state-of-the-art statistical and social-scientific methods", and which comes to the conclusion that, indeed, the media is so biased to the left that Fox News doesn’t get credit for it’s centrist stance. The PowerLine blog reprinted the preface on Sunday, will reprint the introduction today, and chapter 8 Tuesday through Friday.

This purports to prove scientifically that there is liberal bias in journalism, and that it works; it shifts the general public to the left which, in turn, remakes the "center" in this country more liberal. Which then feeds on itself.

This could be a very important  book in the coming years. Worth keeping an eye on.

Newsweek and the Washington Post (no members of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, they) both have polls that put schools in Red states at the head of the class.

When it come to excellence in education, red states rule — at least according to a panel of experts assembled by Tina Brown’s Newsweek.  Using a set of indicators ranging from graduation rate to college admissions and SAT scores, the panel reviewed data from high schools all over the country to find the best public schools in the country.

The results make depressing reading for the teacher unions: the very best public high schools in the country are heavily concentrated in red states.

Three of the nation’s ten best public high schools are in Texas — the no-income tax, right-to-work state that blue model defenders like to characterize as America at its worst.  Florida, another no-income tax, right-to-work state long misgoverned by the evil and rapacious Bush dynasty, has two of the top ten schools.

Newsweek isn’t alone with these shocking results.  Another top public school list, compiled by the Washington Post, was issued in May.  Texas and Florida rank number one and number two on that list’s top ten as well.

There’s something else interesting about the two lists: on both lists only one of the top ten public schools was located in a blue state.  (Definition alert: on this blog, a blue state is one that voted for John Kerry in 2004; red states cast their electoral votes for Bush.)

There were no top ten schools on either list from blue New England states like Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut.  Nor were there any in the top 25.  By contrast, Alabama made both the Newsweek and the Washington Post top ten.  Only two public schools from these states made the Washpost top fifty list; zero made it into Newsweek‘s elite.  150 years after the Civil War, South Carolina is kicking New England’s rear end when it comes to producing great public schools.

More interesting details at the link. So what are the implications of these list?

Defenders of the high tax, high regulation, highly unionized model of state governance that characterizes the blue states like to point to their higher quality of government services as justification for the taxes they pay and the regulations they accept.

Let those crackers and hillbillies in the red states wallow in their filth and their ignorance, say proud upholders of the blue state model.  We blue staters believe in things like quality education — and that costs money.

In theory, perhaps, but in practice the extraordinary achievement of so many red state schools strongly supports the idea that blue state governance is no friend to excellence in education.  Having low taxes and governors descended from George H. W. Bush seems to offer students more hope than having high taxes and strong teacher unions. At the very least, the rankings suggest that blue state taxes and management philosophies aren’t knocking the stuffing out of their allegedly underfunded and poorly run red state competitors.

Indeed, taxes are the payment for living in a free society, but, as with many things, it can be overdone, or not done well. Cutting taxes, or shifting revenue, to put dollars (perhaps fewer dollars) into better programs is not cutting the budget on the backs of the poor.

With fervor and scrutiny they’ve not shown for anything related to Obama (his personal communications, the health care bill, budget spending, etc.), the media has pounced on the e-mails of a vice presidential candidate from 3 years ago who is, so far, not running for any political office. Yeah, and it’s a Republican they’ve saved their diligence for. Surprised? Yeah, me neither.

James Taranto, who’s column should be required reading, had a great take on the whole thing. It’s a non-issue, and the media just hates that.

The Left’s ‘Birth Certificate’
Lots of journalists spent lots of hours poring over Sarah Palin’s gubernatorial emails. What did they find? The best part of the Los Angeles Times’s ,1,300-word story is the list of contributors at the bottom:

[Matea] Gold reported from Washington and [Robin] Abcarian from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Maloy Moore and Ken Schwencke in Juneau, Ben Welsh in Los Angeles, Kim Murphy in Seattle and Tom Hamburger, Kathleen Hennessey, Kim Geiger, Christine Mai-Duc and Melanie Mason in the Washington bureau also contributed to this report.

What shocking revelation did these 11 reporters find? "Palin Closely Guarded Her Public Image, Emails Show."

Other headlines:

• "Sarah Palin Emails Provide No Big Bombshells"–Politico
• "Palin’s E-Mails Undercut Simplistic Views of Her, Both Positive and Negative"–New York Times
• "Palin Emails Don’t Contain Any Bombshell, ‘Gotcha’ Moments"–Anchorage Daily News
• "Search Shows Few Michigan References in Palin Emails"–Detroit News

London’s Daily Telegraph reports that Palin "received a barrage of abusive emails including death threats in the run up to the 2008 presidential race." Don’t expect to read that in the New York Times, which is heavily invested in the lie that political "incivility" is the exclusive province of the right.

The Times did, however, publish this hilariously oblivious observation:

Another near certainty whenever Ms. Palin is involved: a media spectacle.

In terms of the zeal with which they were demanded and the anticlimax of their release, the Palin emails are the left’s equivalent of President Obama’s long-form birth certificate. Except, of course, that sensible conservatives never took birtherism seriously. What we’ve learned here is that major news organizations are populated with the left-wing equivalent of Donald Trump and Jerome Corsi.

Our favorite Palin email bit is a hysterical–and hysterically funny–screed by Patricia Williams, a Columbia professor, in London’s Guardian, titled "Sarah Palin Emails: Banal, Hypocritical and Smug . . . We Already Knew That." Among other things, Williams is outraged to learn that Gov. Palin employed speechwriters and prayed for guidance:

One wonders if she isn’t going to come out ahead at the end because her correspondence is boring. This is playing against the backdrop of revelations that New York Congressman Andrew [sic] Weiner sent hundreds of salacious texts and photos to women who were not his wife. By contrast, Palin’s correspondence seems a paragon of virtue, as she is revealed fussing about her hair, wondering about dinner, and hiding the hootch from the kids. You could almost forget she’s an idiot.

Williams writes that she spent at least two hours "trolling" the Palin emails. There is no reason to think Palin would spend two minutes reading any of Williams’s writing. Who’s the idiot?

If you drove on a public highway yesterday, then you almost killed someone else in a head-on collision
Or so goes the logic which was applied to Joe Zamudio. Zamudio was the armed citizen who happened to be buying cigarettes inside a store near where Gabby Giffords was conducting her constituent meet-up. Upon hearing (and recognizing) the gunshots, he ran towards the scene and helped secure the alleged shooter. While he considered drawing his weapon, his assessment of the situation upon his arrival was to keep it holstered. From an LA Times article, we read,

A bystander with a Ruger intent on ending the violence almost shot the wrong guy. But he made a split-second decision to keep the weapon in his pocket.

(emphasis added)

So, as Massad Ayoob, firearms trainer and podcaster, says,

…by that standard, if you’re listening to this podcast while driving, you just “almost” had a hundred head-on collisions with traffic in the opposite lane.

You can listen to an extended interview of Zamudio, by the Ayoob group, in which he explains not only what happened that day he was buying cigarettes, but afterwards with the media. The Zamudio interview begins around 10 minutes into the podcast.

Note that Zamudio categorically states that he did not draw his weapon. Yet another quote from the Times article states,

Zamudio, 24, had his finger on the trigger and seconds to decide.

He lifted his finger from the trigger and ran toward the struggling men.

No, he did not have his finger on the trigger.

Bottomline: if the media ever wants to interview you, then make sure you also record the entire interview.

###

An interview of the Bell on Hell Interviewer
Audio interview of Martin Bashir, who recently interviewed Rob Bell regarding his universalist book Love Wins and, according to many Bell followers, was really mean to Bell.

###

“Ghandi’s in hell? He is? And someone knows this for sure?”
Christians… beware.

###

“Ideas… have consequences.”
On the conclusions of world without objective morality. Visit godawa.com

Cruel Logic – short film from Brian Godawa on Vimeo.

When the minimum wage goes up, low-wage jobs are lost. This isn’t a prediction, it’s an observation. The Wall St. Journal notes it’s happening again, at the worst time for it, and mostly for minorities.

Syria pulled out of the running for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. The problem is that they pulled out rather than being pushed. Given the number of human rights violators on that council, they could have easily been approved.

"I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic." Read why here.

The headline says it all: "WikiLeaks Threatens Its Own Leakers With $20 Million Penalty If They Leak Elsewhere". Transparency for thee but not for me.

Green energy losing green: A solar farm in Texas is losing money because the property taxes are so high.

High-speed rail losing speed: "California’s much-vaunted high-speed rail project is, to put it bluntly, a train wreck." Of course, the solution, according to the LA Times, is do it over, throwing good money after bad ($43 billion of bad money).

What a shock! "Autotrader survey shows most motorists go green to ‘save money, not the environment’." Make green energy affordable, and the world will beat a path to your door.

A big reason health care costs are rising so fast is because of central planning (aka Medicare, Medicaid). The Democrats solution? More central planning.

Civility Watch: Wisconsin Attorney General releases 100 pages of threats against lawmakers during the budget battle.

The White House shut out a reporter from the Boston Herald because of a critical editorial that the Herald put on their front page. The issue with Obama is not Fox News; it’s anyone who disagrees with him. But if you didn’t know about this, it’s not your fault. The rest of the media, who you’d think would be all over this treatment of colleagues, were virtually silent on the matter.

The anti-war crowd has seemingly melted away into the woodwork with the election of President Obama. I mean, if George W. Bush had violated federal law by invading a country without, within 60 days, getting congressional approval, how loud would the outcry have been, from the Left and the Media? Instead, a collective yawn.

(Sorry, no cartoon this week.)

In addition to the doctor shortage the US is going to have when us Baby-Boomers hit retirement, Obamacare is going to make the problem even worse, based on current trends, how socialized medicine "works" elsewhere, and the government’s own numbers.

In 2005, when the press was enamored with Cindy Sheehan, Chris Matthews suggested she run for Congress. Yeah, how about now? Cue the crickets chirping.

Seal Team Six was an evil, secret, assassination squad manipulated by Dick Cheney. At least, that’s what it was when a Republican was President. Today, under a Democrat, they’re heroes, and not associated with Obama or Biden in the slightest. What a difference a "D" makes.

And speaking of contrasts, we have Nancy Pelosi on bin Laden, then and now.

Michael Barone notes that, to get bin Laden, Obama relied on policies he decried.

You know that kids that had George W. Bush in their classroom on 9/11? This is a good TIME magazine article on what they were thinking at the time when Bush was given the news, and what their reaction is now.

Over half of the country pays no income tax. But "the rich" still don’t pay "their fair share", eh?

While the bin Laden story stole the front page, the Conservatives in Canada won historic victories. Later, the Liberal Democrats in England suffered their worst losses in 30 years.

The conventional wisdom on salt intake may not be right after all.

Civility Watch: "So when does Seal Unit 6, or whatever it’s called, drop in on George Bush?"

"Democrats blame Bush for high gas prices"? No, not now; back in 2006. And in 2008, Nancy Pelosi blamed the "oil men" in the White House. They’re much quieter now.

A reform to watch: Indiana lawmakers OK broadest voucher plan in US.

It’s so very sci-fi-sounding, but some physicists believe that something from emanating from the sun is now causing radioactive decay to occur faster.

Worst of all, if the decay rates of matter are being mutated then all matter on Earth is being affected including the matter that makes up life.

The mutation may go so far as to change the underlying reality of the quantum universe—and by extrapolation-the nature of life, the principles of physics, perhaps even the uniform flow of time.

In fact, some evidence of time dilation has been gleaned from close observation of the decay rate. If particles interacting with the matter are not the cause—and matter is being affected by a new force of nature-then time itself may be speeding up and there’s no way to stop it.

And finally, a history lesson from Tom McMahon. (Click for the blog entry.)

Question: What government program costs us 7 times what NASA does?
Answer: The department of Improper Payments.

Question: In a study looking at data from over 50 years, towards which political party does the NY Times lean? 
Answer: Well, do you really have to ask? And it’s more about what stories are covered than about bias within stories.

Question: Why do movements like pro-democracy or the Tea Party seem to balloon overnight?
Answer: The "Preference Cascade".

Question: What are 5 truths about Planned Parenthood that you’re not likely to hear in the media?
Answer: Read them here.

Question: How could you defend the use of sola Scriptura, "Scripture alone", to someone who objects on the basis that humans are fallible, so you just can’t be sure what is Scripture?
Answer: C. Michael Patton has a good response.

Question: Has Paul Krugman ever flip-flopped on an issue for politics’ sake? Not a little quibble, but on really substantial stuff?
Answer: Oh yeah, he has.

Question: Has Nancy Pelosi ever flip-flopped on an issue for politics’ sake?
Answer: Well, she blamed high gas prices on "two oil men in the White House" before. Wonder who she’s blaming now.

Question: Is Syria, a country that is killing its own citizens for protesting the government, really being considered for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council?
Answer: Oh yeah, it is. And the UN is divided on whether it should even investigate their recent human rights abuses.

Question: Was Stanley Ann Dunham punished with a baby.
Answer: No, the baby (Barack Obama) was not a punishment, even though Barack’s campaign rhetoric would tend to suggest otherwise.

Question: Has Hamas moderated, since it had to take on political leadership and run the Palestinians?
Answer: Oh no, it hasn’t.

Question: Did Fox News push the whole "birther" issue the most?
Answer: Oh no, they didn’t.

Question: Does Europe want us Yanks, with our neo-con aggression, out of their backyard?
Answer: According to this Norwegian liberal, oh no, they don’t.

Question: Shouldn’t the federal government be a limited one?
Answer: Click for a larger image.

Kenyans have been winning marathons all over the world. The Dutch have decided to try and keep them out by only giving 1% of the prize money to any foreigners who win the Utrech Marathon. I don’t think that’s racism, but I do believe it’s wrong anyway.

Don’t bet your life on outrageous claims by proponents of embryonic stem cell research. Someone  has, though.

Civility Watch: The Left has been sending death threats to the eeevil Koch brothers. The wrong Koch brothers.

Civility Watch 2: Who said, "Civility is the last refuge of scoundrels" and "Let’s not be civil"? (And said it in the same paper that blamed the Giffords shooting on incivility from Republicans.)

Civility Watch 3: If a Republican had said this, he would have been called "racist" or "Islamophobic". But a member of the Obama administration said it, so no outcry.

Do iPads cause unemployment? Does Jesse Jackson, Jr. think we should have banned cars to keep the buggy builders in business?

Hanging a small cross inside your company van is a firing offense in the UK, apparently.

A death panel in Canada pronounced their sentence on a baby in Ontario by saying that life support should be removed, against the parents’ wishes. Instead, they brought him to a country that, so far, does not have a fully socialized system (that would be America), and the child did so well that he was weaned off the ventilator and is now back home.  It’s still touch and go, I imagine, but critics said he’d never get off mechanical breathing. Way to go, baby Joseph! (Which begs the question; if the US goes fully socialized, where will Canadians go for good health care?)

And finally, the same old song. (Click for a larger image.)

NewsBusters has done a study on how the media covers Earth Day vs how it covers Easter.

Major Findings:

Media Undermine Christian Holiday: Nearly two thirds of all stories about Easter were negative (22 out of 34).

Easter Used to Attack Catholic Church: Ninety-one percent of the negative Easter stories were about the pedophilia scandal in the Roman Catholic Church.

Love That Mother Nature: 100 percent of Earth Day stories were positive.

Easter is the quintessential Christian holiday – the celebration of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. Although it has been celebrated by billions of people around the world for nearly 2,000 years, the mainstream media would rather celebrate the liberal holiday known as "Earth Day" and connect Easter to the abuse scandal that surrounded the Roman Catholic Church.

Holy Week marks the seven days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. Christians around the world mark it by attending services, praying and piously observing the holiday.

But in 2010, ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows mentioned "Easter" primarily in connection to the pedophilia scandals that swirled around the Vatican last year, being sure to highlight the "gravest outrage," "scandal," "sexual abuse" and "crisis."

Instead, the networks chose to worship something else: Mother Earth. In contrast to Easter, the 40-year-old eco-holiday Earth Day that focuses on the "plastic lying around the earth" and "going green," managed to get nothing but positive attention from the broadcast media.

The Culture and Media Institute examined reports during Holy Week (Mar. 28 through Apr. 4, 2010) and Apr. 15, 2010, through Earth Day to contrast the two weeks of media coverage.

More at the link.

It’s been a little while since I had an update, but that doesn’t mean the incivility hasn’t been happening. John Nolte at BigJournalism.com chronicles "20 days worth of the death threats, vandalism, and intimidation practiced by pro-union thugs opposed to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair bill". None of which the MSM will ever hold the Left accountable for.