James Abourezk Rubs Shoulders with Communists

The latest column from Cliff Kincaid, editor of Accuracy in Media, is about "The Communist-influenced "Media Reform" Movement."

He tells us about the latest media Bush-bashing fest:

Having previously reported on the participation of Revolutionary Communist Party members at the “National Conference on Media Reform,” I can now confirm that members of the old Soviet-line Communist Party USA were there, too.

One of the commies, Teresa Albano, tells a good one: "...targeting the big corporate and right-wing interests that have taken over the news and other sources of information." Now that I've picked myself up off the floor from laughing so hard, I wonder how this lunatic gets "taken over the news" from Fox News, talk radio and a few blogs. I guess ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, et al just don't count, huh?

One of the things this Pravda-like bunch is selling is a re-institution of the (un)Fairness Doctrine which used to muzzle conservatives from getting their message out in the liberal dominated media.

South Dakota's own Jim Abourezk is hanging out with good company these days (actually, I don't think it's changed much):

...a National Press Club news conference sponsored by the “World Can’t Wait” coalition, which wants President Bush and his “regime” removed from office. Interestingly, Taylor serves on the advisory board of the coalition. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, notes that, “Some of the founders of World Can’t Wait are public supporters” of the RCP and cites Sunsara Taylor as one example. This would appear to lend credence to the suspicion that World Can’t Wait is nothing but a front organization of the RCP.


Other members of the World Can’t Wait advisory board are James Abourezk, former U.S. Senator, South Dakota; Rosemary Candelario, pro-abortion activist; Warren Hern MD, physician and pro-abortion activist; Mark Leno, California State Assembly; Mark Crispin Miller, professor & writer; Tomas Olmos, attorney; Boots Riley, hip hop performer; Lynne Stewart, attorney; Gore Vidal, writer; and Howard Zinn, historian.

Stewart, of course, is the attorney convicted of aiding an Islamic terrorist group.

Other speakers at the January 4 press conference included Cindy Sheehan and John Nichols, a writer for The Nation and co-founder of Free Press, the sponsor of the media reform conference.

Sexual Responsibility Not Just for Bible Thumpers

It seems sexual responsibility isn't just for unmarried Bible thumpers.

The Chicago Sun-Times features an article from two days ago entitled "No sex, thanks: In our erotically superheated society, celebs, and people next door, are reclaiming chastity."

Some interesting excerpts:

Michele, 39, a divorced mother of two, has been celibate for six months. She broke up with the man she loved because he "didn't want to be accountable." She decided: "Not only do you not deserve my body, you don't deserve my time."

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Some celebs have spoken publicly about keeping their pants on. Kirstie Alley told Oprah she was celibate for 4½ years; singer Pink wore white to her wedding after a celibate engagement; Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo eclipsed his two-year celibacy pledge by six months before getting engaged a year ago and married last May.

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"We talk about 'secondary virginity,' but usually we just say 'starting over,' " said Cori Moschberger, executive director of Caris Services, a 10-year-old abstinence education program serving 37 local public schools. "No matter what you did in the past, you can always make a decision to be abstinent until marriage."

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"I feel my decision to be sexually involved with my husband before marriage blinded me to character issues, created a false sense of intimacy and distracted us from building an honest friendship," she said. They were married nearly five years. After the breakup, her decision was to practice abstinence.

"He was the only person I had sex with, he was my first, there were no pregnancies, no STDs [sexually transmitted diseases], but the consequences were much greater than they would have been if we'd waited," she said.

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"Sure, I have been tempted to give it up," she said, "but I have to realize that if the man isn't willing to wait for me until I am ready, then he is not worthy of having me. The man who is willing to wait until he places a diamond on my left ring finger is the right man for me."

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As a teenager, Gonzalez said, casual sex caused "a lot of negative consequences in my life, broken relationships, objectifying women and using them for my own purposes." Instead of intimacy, sex brought "more brokenness." When he became a Christian, he vowed no sex until marriage.

Contempt for Responsibility

The CHADs are on the warpath against sexual responsibility again. I debated on whether to even acknowledge their silliness, but I guess in the end the temptation was just too great.

There was nothing in the integrity ball which absolved young men of their duty to responsibility, either in what was included in my article or what wasn't included. While I tried to include a comprehensive report of what was said, there's no way I could have included everything.

I'm just guessing here, but I think the reason why much of the encouragement to the young men was made as it was is because of the psychology of males. (I know the ubersexualists at CHAD probably disagree, but males and females actually do think and relate differently.) Males tend to think of themselves as bulletproof, so an appeal to the male to safeguard the welfare of others is more likely to be effective than to tell him that sex outside of marriage is just as harmful to him--after all, he thinks he's invulnerable). A wise teacher tailors his message for his audience (Jesus was the perfect example of this technique).

The CHADs seem to get some idea that Christians approve of having sex if it's with girls outside of their religion ("It says that women who are not virgins or not of their version of religion are exempt and therefore fair game.") ??? I guess if you operate outside the bounds of reality in the first place, there are no limits to the ideas you can manufacture ex nihilo.

Another example: "This kind of mentality encourages rape, abuse and sexual harassment." How you get that out of an event designed from start to finish to instill respect for women is beyond me. But then, see my last paragraph for a possible explanation.

Though the hyper-feminists at CHAD accuse Christians of the same, it is actually they who are obsessed with the concept of women as property (maybe it's an inferiority complex or something--I don't know). Real men, real Christian men, respect women as being of equal value in God's eyes, realize the value of a good woman as their life partner (Pastor Baker even said as much, warning young men if they failed to value the counsel of their future wives). They are so insecure about the strength and value of women that they transfer their own insecurities onto those they perceive as enemies. Sad that they fear those who respect women the most.

But if complete sexual autonomy is your ultimate goal, as it appears to be for the CHADs, you can't have silly things like rules, guidelines, boundaries, responsibility and mutual respect getting in your way.

Senate Passes "Ethics" Bill, Sans Grass Roots Restrictions

According to a Fox News report, tonight the Senate passed their controversial "ethics" bill, though without the much-feared (by both liberals and conservatives) restriction on grass-roots lobbying:

The Senate, on a 55-43 vote, approved an amendment pushed by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, to strip a provision requiring reporting of "grass-roots" lobbying.

Backers said it would shine light on special interest groups that use "hired guns" to organize mass mailings, phone-ins or e-mail campaigns. Opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union and conservative groups such as the Traditional Values Coalition, argued that it was a free speech issue, discouraging people or groups from organizing petition drives.

Had that provision passed, it would have been yet another serious erosion of the First Amendment, which already took a huge hit with the McCain-Feingold (aka Incumbent Protection) Act a few years ago.

We shouldn't rest easy, though. They might not have got it this time, but liberals and the power-hungry (regardless of whether a D or R follows their name) will undoubtedly try again to silence their critics.

The Death Penalty

Mark Creech's latest column examines "A Christian Response to Death Penalty Issues."

An astute analysis of the current state of the use of the death penalty in our country today:

...death-row inmates receive super due process of law that accounts for an average of 12 years of appeals, and...there exists no solid evidence of even one innocent nationwide being executed in over a hundred years

On the subject of those who like to twist the Scriptures to mean things they were never meant to say (you can confirm this contextually), Creech brings out an excellent point that I've never heard expressed before:

While anti-death penalty proponents from the faith community like Shirley Burns push for abolition and a moratorium on capital punishment in North Carolina, calling for citizens to forgive, they seem to forget that the persons with the greatest reason to forgive cannot because they've been murdered.

As one of the foundational characteristics of justice is the attempt to balance the scales for the person who has been wronged, Creech speaks to this as well:

Moreover, family members like Janice Hunter, whose 27-year-old daughter, Adrien, was brutally stabbed to death by serial killer Nathaniel White, can easily identify with her statement: "I have to go to the cemetery to see my daughter. Nathaniel White' s mother goes to jail to see him and I don't think it's fair."

To even think that capital punishment is "cruel and unusual" or anything of the like is utter nonsense. Cruel and unusual? It's as close as our imperfect society can get to balancing the scales of justice for the wronged--the victim and his/her family. Cruel and unusual is what we do to the loved ones of the victim when we prolong their agony by pussy-footing around justice.

Finally, he addresses this commonly heard statement that sounds so noble but is in essence completely asinine:

One final quote by William H. Baker best addresses the main concerns of abolitionists and moratorium advocates: "Some claim it would be better for a guilty man to go free than for an innocent man to die. Such an ethic must assume that the failure to apply justice is better than the misapplication of justice. Must we be faced with a choice of equal evil over against equal injustice? The issue is that anything less than death is not the full measure of justice; thus, anything less than death is an injustice.