Worcester County Freedom Trail

This week, Wal-Mart joined the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. As part of the deal, they agreed to sponsor conferences and hold special classes for gay business owners on how to do business with Wal-Mart.

I’m all for fair and equitable treatment in business, but why do gays get a special course in how to pitch to Wal-Mart when I don’t get one? Nor does my husband? Why should gay people get preferential treatment? After all, when I pitch my business, I don’t start the conversation by saying, “Hey, did you know I’m heterosexual and my husband and I like sex?” If I did, I’d be thrown out of nearly every office I go into (save Hustler or Playboy).

But now gay people can walk into Wal-Mart and say “Hey, I’m gay so show me how I can get a leg up on other businesses who are also competing for your shelf space.”

What in heaven’s name does a person’s sexual preference have to do with business? Well, unless you’re in *that* business….?!

Here are a few of the other founders of the NGLCC who are walking a fine line between being accepting of all humans (which I’m all for) vs showing preferential treatment based on sexual behavior: IBM, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, American Airlines, Intel, Motorola, Wyndham, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American Express, Cisco, Avis, Orbitz, Intuit, Kodak, Mary Kay, and Morton’s Steakhouse.

I’m not an official of any kind in any political party, much less the Massachusetts Republican Party. So I’m free to take sides.

I’m posting this to urge everyone to support, with dollars or (if you are a Rhode Island Republican) votes for Stephen Laffey in the Rhode  Island Republican Primary for US Senate. He is trying to unseat the incumbant Republican: Democrat Lincoln Chafee.

Ann Coulter has a column today on the subject at Townhall.

If you are one of those who doesn’t like Ann’s aggressive style, don’t be turned off by her support of Laffey. He is a great guy from all I can tell (I don’t know him personally and have no connections to him or his campaign). Conservatives are very much behind his candidacy, and he has a real chance of winning. He is a self-made man, first in his family to go to college, then Harvard Business School, rising to president of Morgan Keagan (investment brokerage firm) at age 38 in 2000. The he quit and came back to New England to successfully run for Mayor of Cranston, Rhode  Island, when it was in deep financial doo-doo.

Finally, let me say I am quite peeved at President Bush for endorsing Chafee, and not just because Chafee is a Democrat. Politicians should stay out of endorsements in the primaries. It is up to us, the voters, to decide the primaries. Once we have spoken, then the President can endorse the winner. (Actually, given the effect of the President’s political endorsements of late, perhaps in fact he is trying to help Laffey?)

A new survey is out by UPI. They asked 5000 registered voters about their church-going habits and how they tend to vote.

WASHINGTON (UPI) — White U.S. voters who frequently go to church are more likely to vote Republican in November than white voters who do not, a Gallup survey said Wednesday.

Non-white voters are more likely to vote Democratic, regardless of church attendance, the survey said.

The number of white registered voters who frequently go to church — meaning those who attend church services weekly or almost every week — make up one-third of registered voters, the survey said. They are more likely to vote Republican by a margin of 24 percent.

The half of registered voters who are white but attend church monthly or less frequently are likely to vote Democratic by a 17-point margin.

The 16 percent of non-white registered voters, regardless of church attendance, intend to vote Democratic by a 59-point margin.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its findings. They estimate that the Senate’s “scamnesty” bill will cost over $126 billion over the next 10 years. So prepare for a huge tax increase. If this bill passes, you will have to foot the bill for an amount of money that comes to about $1800 for the average family of four.

The Senate will be back in session for a few days before the November election. Now is the time to tell them that the American people want secure borders first and foremost, and that any legislation that grants a path to citizenship for those who have ignored our laws and come to the US illegally is off the table.

Send an email to your legislator via the Center for Individual Freedom: http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/amnestyxixc.html.

It’s about time we reconsidered this. From Hugh Hewitt at www.townhall.com/blog/:

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

 

Professor Eastman in Dallas Tonight To Debate “Birthright Citizenship” at Federalist Society. Debate Moves to Houston, Austin, and Philly On Tuesday and Wednesday.

 

Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 8:24 AM

 

“Smart Guy” John Eastman will debate “Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment” at a series of debates sponsored by the Texas Lawyers Chapters of the Federalist Society: Tonight, Aug. 29, in Dallas; Wednesday midday, Aug. 30, in Austin; and Wednesday evening, Aug. 30, in Houston. Other participants include James C. Ho, former Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration & Subcommittee on the Constitution and LTC Margaret D. Stock, Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, United States Military Academy. The Dallas event is free and open to the public. Details here. The Austin event is $15 for Federalist Society members, $20 for non-members, and RSVPs need to be made to RSVP to 512-374-4441 by August 25th. Contact Michael Massengale at 713-229-1814 for details regarding the Houston event.

Eastman will also debate “Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment” at the American Political Science Association’s 2006 Annual Convention in Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon, Aug. 31. Other participants include University of Georgia Professor Peter Spiro; Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Tamar Jacoby; and Matthew Spalding, Director of the Simon Center for Constitutional Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Additional details available here.

Can’t make any of the debates? You can download Eastman’s Fall 2005 testimony on the subject before the House Judiciary Immigration subcommittee HERE.

Hugh Hewitt post on www.townhall.com/blog/:

 

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

ABC’s “The Path to 9/11″

Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 9:04 AM

A lengthy and very favorable review in Human Events. Excerpt:  Fortunately, Nowrasteh and the producers of this miniseries have gone out on a limb to honestly and fairly depict how Clinton-era inaction, political correctness, and bureaucratic inefficiency allowed the 9/11 conspiracy to metastasize. Let me say here though that “The Path to 9/11″ is not a partisan miniseries or a “conservative” miniseries. It simply presents the facts in an honest and straightforward manner (the producers have backed up every detail of the miniseries with copious amounts of research and documentation), and the facts are that for seven years, from 1993 to 2000, the Clinton administration bungled the handling of the world-wide terrorist threat. The miniseries is equally honest in depicting the Bush administration. It shows a few points where administration officials, following in the tradition of the Clinton years, do not follow certain clues about the terrorist plot as zealously as they should have. Nonetheless, “The Path to 9/11,” by honestly depicting the unfolding of events over eight years, makes it clear that most of the conspiracy leading up to 9/11 was hatched during the seven years of the Clinton administration, and that since Bush was in power for only eight months when 9/11 occurred, he can hardly be blamed for the entire disaster. “The Path to 9/11″ does a tremendous job in bringing to life the complex web of international characters and organizations that lay behind the events of that tragic day. ABC has created a miniseries that is truly epic in scope – a richly textured tapestry that weaves together a fascinating array of people, places, organizations and events both here in America and around the world. I was impressed by how vivid every character was, however briefly he or she may have been on the screen – and how quickly, clearly, and economically Nowrasteh and Cunningham depicted complex events. I absolutely loved the on-location work they did, and the great character actors of every nationality that they brought together. Cyrus Nowrasteh’s background as an Iranian-American seems in particular to have given him a special insight into both the Middle-Eastern and American aspects of the story. Director David Cunningham, the son of a missionary, also brings an obvious love of foreign cultures and locales to his direction. The result is an engrossing, atmospheric tale of foreign intrigue. It was fascinating to see the crowded urban slums of Pakistan where the CIA captured Ramzi Youssef, the desert fortresses of the Taliban and Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, the Manila nightclubs where the 9/11 hijackers planned their attacks, the Tanzanian locales where the embassies were blown up, the meetings of the terrorists in Spain, and the various locations across America where the conspiracy comes together. Part 1 of the program airs at 8 PM, Sunday, September 10, and part 2 at 8 PM the following night, the fifth anniversary of the attack.

   

Of course, none of us are really going to be shocked by this, but we should be. In a new Townhall article, Kevin McCullough documents how “liberals are actively undermining first amendment rights to free speech by trying to crush opposing views.” Wildly anti-American, anti-God, and anti-Bible, the radical leftists are trying to outlaw everything they disagree with.

Take California’s SB 1437 bill, one of four recent bills designed to punish people who disagree with Democrat Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and his fellow Democrats. These bills require that in every classroom from K-12 that perverse sexual activity be praised and highlighted in a positive light. Textbooks would have to praise such things as men wearing women’s underwear. And school districts would be unable to bar females from displaying dildos on the outerwear of their prom dresses.

Here’s the most shocking part, no teacher, not even in science class, can talk about the negative health impact of homosexual behavior.

Well, if we wanted more public funding for an even larger AIDS epidemic, here’s how…!

Read the full article at Townhall.

In reaction to the Big Brother politics of Massachusetts, where Walmart was forced to sell the Plan B contraceptive, states are now mobilizing to allow pharmacies to choose what they dispense.

According to the Washington Times,

Lawmakers in nearly half the states have introduced bills in this year’s legislative sessions to allow pharmacists not to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception or other birth-control medicines based on their religious or moral objections. Four states — Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Dakota — have passed laws that permit druggists to deny certain prescriptions, including emergency or other contraceptives.

What I don’t understand is how our society got so far down the entitlement curve that we’ve arrived at the point where we think we can demand businesses provide anything we want. Businesses need to make money in order to pay their employees, improve their operations, and continue on. They make the decisions that best support that model. If they don’t, then they’re out of business. If they do, they thrive.

And where in heaven’s name did anyone come up with the idea that they’re entitled to cheap and easily obtainable contraception and abortions? If you want to avoid the consequences of pregnancy, then stop having sex. Don’t be looking to the government to save you from yet another bad decision on your part.

Peter Porcupine, a conservative blogger from Cape Cod, discovered something interesting. The President of Iran, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, has a blog.

While it’s nicely formatted and easy to read (he provides several different language translations, including English and French), at the moment it’s just a soliloquy abut his life. You probably won’t be surprised at the poll question that’s online:

Do you think that the US and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another world war?

As Peter points out, the good news is that apparently they’re letting the software do it’s job and not forcing the numbers. The results current stand at 71% “no” and 29% “yes.” Get your vote in today! 

Or “touched in the head.”

We all know one of the hallmarks of the left is that they are the “annointed,” the ones who know  best how each of us should live our lives. Lawyers for the past 80 years or so have pretty much tracked the left on that point.

But at least the left, once in a  while, seems to acknowledge that they don’t exactly have a commanding majority of the hearts and minds of Americans, even if at the same time they posture that that it is the right (by their definition, there is only a radical right, not any other type) that is usurping the age-old established order of things…as though, for example, the federal register always numbered the tens of thousands of pages it does now, or all taxes combined  always took the 40 or 50 or whatever percent of our productivity that they do, or that we always had Medicare and Medicaid.

But LOOK at what the elite lawyers think of themselves:

Outgoing ABA President Michael Greco recently delivered his valedictory address (video available here) at the ABA’s annual meeting in Honolulu. Among his remarks:

“Our fellow Americans, as never before, are looking to our Association with hope, with trust, and with respect for our leadership.”

“In our generation, it is the lawyers of America who by destiny and by choice are the guardians of the walls of freedom.  It is the American Bar Association that is protecting the separation of powers and the balance of powers by checking the excesses of any branch of government that would overreach.”

Can he POSSIBLY be serious? Ask any 100 people (non-lawyers) about lawyers, and you will find about 95 of them hold lawyers and the state of the law, courts, justice, etc in absolute contempt. The American public most decidely looks at laywers and judges as one of our biggest problems, and Michael Greco thinks we are all looking to the American Bar Association as our savior??

H/T to Ed Whelan at “Bench Memo’s” at National Review Online.

And, by the way, I am a lawyer.