Our Idiot Vice President

If Vice President Joe Biden didn’t exist, you couldn’t invent him. You couldn’t invent him because no one would believe such a character possibly could exist. No Hollywood producer ever would believe someone that dumb could rise to that level without an “R” after his name.

But if someone did attempt to pitch a TV show with a character like Joe Biden, here is how it might go:

We’ve got this guy, and he’s an idiot. But he’s also vice president of the United States. Stay with me. He says things that are provably untrue, and he does it constantly. And not just untrue but outrageously so.

For example, he tells a crowd of black voters that his opponent is “going to put y’all back in chains” in the south. Then he mocks the woman doing sign language for the crowd with a bunch of hand gestures. But he’s not done.

See, he’s in Virginia, but like a member of Spinal Tap, he tells the crowd he’s in North Carolina. And he does all of this not over the course of a campaign, but in one speech.

As background on his character, this sort of stupidity is nothing new for him. In fact, he’s sort of legendary for gaffes like this. See, he’s VP for the first black president, and when he was running for president himself he called the future president “clean and articulate.” He could end it by saying something even dumber, such as, “That’s a storybook, man.” Even I admit that sounds a bit crazy, that no real human would say that, so maybe not that last bit. Still…

But anyway, we could make him saying dumb things on race a part of his history too. He could say something about going into a 7-Eleven or Dunkin’ Donuts and needing a “slight Indian accent,” or some other stereotypically stupid thing.

Obviously, we’d have to make it an absurdist farce so it would be believable, but that’s doable.

As such, we could give him a full history of lies and saying dumb things.

One option would be to have a scene, years earlier, where he chews out someone who asks him about how he did in college and law school. His answer could be like someone really worried his attempt to come off as intelligent could come crushing down, so he snaps at the guy.

He could say something absurd, such as “I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect.” Then he could rattle off a list of academic scholarships he earned, how he didn’t really care his first year of law school but then started to and graduated in the top half of his class, etc. Only it’s all a lie. He eventually has to admit it was all a lie. His scholarship was based on need, not academics, he didn’t graduate in the top half of his class – he was 76^th out of 85 … stuff like that.

Better yet, it’s the New York Times that calls him out on it. Years later the Times will defend him when he’s running for VP because Democrats must be protected, so they paint him as some sort of foreign policy genius. But actually, he will have advised against the raid that kill Osama bin Laden. Absurd, I know. But that’s this character. That’s what makes it a farce.

Just to make it so over the top, so no one would ever think this caricature is real, we can sprinkle in some plagiarism in law school that he’ll pass off as not being sure how to cite things properly. For good measure, we’ll even have him plagiarize a biographical passage from a speech of someone else, because who would believe that?

What do you say? Are we in business?

The producers would look at you and say, “No one’s going to believe that character exists. There’s no way someone with that baggage, that many gaffes, that stupid, could ever become vice president of the United States. But we like the idea, so here’s what we suggest. We change his name to Quayle, make him a Republican and change it from a comedy to a drama.”

That’s about how it would go, but everything I’ve written about the fictional Joe Biden was said and done by the real one. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

So as you watch the media “vet” Rep. Paul Ryan, just remember how little vetting they did of Joe Biden in 2008. Yet what little vetting the media did of Biden was like a colonoscopy compared to the vetting they did of Barack Obama.

Derek Hunter

Derek Hunter is Washington, DC based writer, radio host and political strategist. You can also stalk his thoughts 140 characters at a time on Twitter.

http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2012/08/19/our_idiot_vice_president/page/full/

Pictures of life

Recently, I was going through an old box and found a picture of my father. As I held it in my hands, I remembered his life, and it was amazing how many emotions the picture communicated.

I continued through other boxes, finding more and more photographs, and was struck again by the fact that, in every instance, I was looking at pictures of life.

Then it dawned on me—this is why the left hates ultrasounds, which are just another type of picture of life. They hate the emotion, the possibilities, and especially the metaphysical connection one life communicates to another, even in pictures.

And this goes a long way in explaining the all-out assault on ultrasound laws we’ve seen from the proponents of the culture of death in the last few years and especially in the past few months.

They want to hide the pictures in order to hide the life.

A simple Internet search for “ultrasound” and “abortion” uncovers myriad clips and articles on the subject, including a February 2012 exchange between the hosts of The View concerning the Virginia ultrasound law that was predominant in news coverage at that time.

The exchange begins with one host complaining that such a law would force “girls who are pregnant to see the child, the infant, the fetus, whatever at that point.” In a politically correct, egalitarian approach, the host was saying whether you call the baby a child, an infant, a fetus, whatever at that point, her problem was forcing girls to see what was inside them.

The irony came when another host, who was listening to all the names that could be applied to what the girl was carrying, interjected unwaveringly—“the fetus,” i.e., don’t call the baby a baby! After all, that’s one of the few four-letter words that the left does not want to hear.

This entire exchange, the terms used, and the terms avoided, revolve around a fight to prevent pictures of life.

What the hosts of The View and so many of their friends in other pro-abortion circles know is that none of their “word-smithing” will matter if a 17-year-old girl is allowed see pictures of her baby. At that point, words like “fetus” are irrational, for a mother is looking at her child and can no longer deny its humanity.

When such light is shed, the darkness of denial is lifted.

Pictures of life are important. And whether we’re talking about the one I found of my father or the one a distraught young mother will see of the child she’s carrying, they all remind us that life is too precious to be discarded.

Alan Sears

Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor in the Reagan Administration, is president and CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal alliance employing a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

http://townhall.com/columnists/alansears/2012/07/18/pictures_of_life

Letting a child surf smut in a public library is plain obscene By Kerry Dougherty

I wouldn’t last one day as a librarian. And not just because I talk too much.

It’s because I’m not a calm, nonjudgmental person who could find a child viewing lewd pictures on a library computer and do nothing about it.

I definitely couldn’t suggest that this budding pervert move to a more secluded part of the room so that others wouldn’t be offended by the raunchy images he was enjoying.

Think this doesn’t happen? Think again.

Better yet, talk to Linda Lavender, a teacher at Virginia Beach‘s Advanced Technology Center. It’s been about a week since she stumbled upon a kid who looked to be “12 or 13″ watching a raw animated movie on a computer near the middle staircase in the Meyera E. Oberndorf Central Library.

This tech-savvy high school teacher is still fuming about what happened after she reported the kid to the librarians.

“They asked me if he was watching child pornography,” she recalled. “And when I told them no, but that it was really, really graphic stuff, they told me they were sorry, but there was nothing they could do.”

Lavender, who includes sessions on ethical behavior in her computer classes and is well-versed in the school division’s tough rules on computer use, was stunned. She pointed out that very young children, coming down the stairs, could view what was on that kid’s screen.

That’s when Lavender learned that the only remedy would be to move this little smut lover to a more remote section of the library where he could watch his “constitutionally protected” movie in private.

I know. I’m ready to scream too. Not sure this is what the framers had in mind when they crafted the First Amendment.

When I first talked to Lavender on Wednesday, I was sure she was exaggerating or that she’d encountered a couple of novice librarians who were flummoxed by the situation.

So I called Martha J. Sims, director of public libraries for Virginia Beach.

Guess what? Looks like Lavender got it right.

“All of our computers are filtered, based primarily on words,” Sims said, noting that the filters are mandated by Virginia law. But those filters, she said, “don’t necessarily catch all of the images.”

Beyond that, anyone 18 or over can ask to have the filter removed. Although that certainly didn’t happen here.

Look, I understand that librarians have historically fought censorship, and I applaud those efforts. But we’re not talking about banning “The Catcher in the Rye,” “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” or “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.“

Libraries continue to offer copies of edgy and controversial literature, as they should, despite protests by prudes.

Still, the last time I checked, library shelves were not packed with porn. If that’s what someone wants, they have to head to an adult bookstore.

But computers – especially after the filters are removed – have access to all of the detritus available on the Internet.

Sims spoke with resignation about the struggle to allow patrons, young and old, to exercise their constitutionally protected rights while “making the libraries a comfortable place for everyone.”

“Besides, everyone has their own standard of what’s offensive and what’s not offensive,” she said.

Hence the suggest-a-person-move-to-a-computer-in-a-more-private-part-of-the-library solution.

Wait. There’s more. Sims said privacy screens are being ordered for library computers around the city, but they aren’t in the main library yet.

The complicated rules regarding computer use in libraries are rooted in law and court cases, Sims noted. Beyond that, while schools fill an in loco parentis role, libraries do not.

“A library is a public place, like an airport,” Sims replied after I asked about protecting kids who patronize the library without their parents.

Frankly, I’m starting to think that airports may be a more wholesome place for kids than public libraries. At least newsstands there keep the raunchy magazines behind the counter.

Imagine, for a minute, a man sitting in a public library soaking up all the dirty delights the Internet offers – except kiddie porn, which is illegal – as book-loving cherubs wander by on their way to check out “The Velveteen Rabbit.”

Think about that, next time you drop off your darlings at the library.

On second thought, don’t leave your kids at the library. Go in with them. Hover like a helicopter while they’re on the computer. If you catch your offspring watching dirty movies, do what I’d do right before I’d get sacked as a librarian: Whack ‘em with a paperback and pull the plug on their fun.

http://hamptonroads.com.nyud.net/2012/05/letting-child-surf-smut-public-library-plain-obscene

Judge Takes a Chisel to the Ten Commandments

God Almighty needs an editor, according to a federal judge in Virginia. At least, He does when the Ten Commandments are on government property.

The ACLU had sued the Giles County district for posting the Ten Commandments in its public schools, and U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski sent the case on Monday to mediation, suggesting a compromise: deleting the first four commandments. Here’s the short version of those:

1. I am the LORD your God. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not worship idols, for I am the LORD your God.

3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

An Obama appointee, Judge Urbanski also issued a preliminary injunction on behalf of the ACLU in February prohibiting the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors from “invoking the name of a specific deity associated with any one specific faith or belief in prayers given at Board meetings.” No word yet on how much this ticked off the local Hittites and voodoo priests.

It’s all part of the campaign for “religious equality,” in which atheism and tree worship are considered equal (or superior) to the nation’s founding faith. The only surprise Monday was that the ACLU didn’t immediately object to leaving intact the commandment against adultery.

Among the items displayed alongside the Ten Commandments at Narrows High School are the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact, the Magna Carta, the words to the Star-Spangled Banner, and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

Since none of the other 10 documents is being challenged, it’s obvious that the Ten Commandments are offensive solely because they are religious in origination, and remind people of America’s dominant faiths, Christianity and Judaism.  In a brief filed on behalf of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the ACLU says the presence of the Decalogue violates the Establishment clause of the First Amendment.

For 10 years, the Ten Commandments had been posted in a frame in each of the public schools of Giles County. They were gifts to the schools from a local pastor, who thought they would be a good addition in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado in 1999.

The displays were not a problem until December 8, 2010, when the Freedom from Religion Foundation sent a letter to the superintendent demanding that the displays be removed after a single complaint by a student and the student’s parent.

The schools tried a variety of solutions, including replacing the Ten Commandments with a copy of the Declaration of Independence. This didn’t sit well with many in the community. On Jan. 11, 2011, a meeting was held with about 200 people, including pastors, and a short time later, the school board voted to reinstall the displays.

The Commandments were re-posted, and then taken down again upon the advice of counsel. A local attorney proposed a display that would include the Decalogue in a historic exhibit about Western foundational law and government.

It’s unclear whether the ACLU will accept the judge’s offered compromise, since the six remaining commandments came from the God Who is not supposed to be mentioned on government property, even though it’s part of the universe that He created.

“We intend to show that the School Board cannot simply shroud its religious purpose for posting the Ten Commandments by surrounding it with historical documents,” said ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca Glenberg.

The ACLU’s press release notes that “The Ten Commandments are posted on a main hallway at the high school, near the trophy case and on the way to the cafeteria, where it is seen by students every day.”

If that’s not enough for a sensitive, easily offended student to lose his or her lunch, what is?

According to Liberty Counsel, which is representing the school district, “The Virginia Standards of Learning requires students to know about the foundational principles of civilizations, including the Hebrews, and the foundations of law and government. Secular textbooks published by Prentice Hall and McGraw-Hill trace the roots of democracy and law and specifically refer to the Ten Commandments and many of the documents posted as part of the Foundations Display.”

To the ACLU, the other documents are fig leaves:

“Given the history of the School Board’s Ten Commandments displays, any alleged secular purpose for the current displays are [sic], and will be perceived as, a sham. The displays were erected with the primary aim of advancing religion.”

 

It’s a warped reversal of the ACLU’s logic back when they argued that fig leaves like Hugh Hefner’s hedonistic “Playboy Philosophy” essays turned his skin magazines into constitutionally protected works of literary merit.  Hefner’s primary aim, of course, was to advance pornography (and his wallet), but in the ACLU’s world, that’s more than okay. So what if it was a sham?

C.S. Lewis observed that the agenda of the Left is to make religion private and pornography public.  In Virginia, the ACLU, otherwise known as the devil’s law firm,  is still doing its best to live down to that demonic goal.

Robert Knight

Robert Knight is an author, senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union and a frequent contributor to Townhall

http://townhall.com/columnists/robertknight/2012/05/13/judge_takes_a_chisel_to_the_ten_commandments/page/full/

Undiscovered Country

I studied the map as my husband and I drove up the east coast of Virginia. We were looking for any road that would take us to the seashore. Finally, I found one and we turned toward the sun.

In only a few minutes, we were laughing in delight when—just before the seashore—we happened upon a national wildlife refuge. All around us were dunes and marsh and beach grasses and an abundance of gulls, egrets, and blue herons. It was active and loud and wonderful! We had arrived at Chincoteague and Assateague Islands—famous for the annual pony swim from one island to the other. Others had realized its value and beauty long before, but to us it was undiscovered country.

The Scriptures are like “undiscovered country” to many. They have never discovered the valuable treasures found in the eternal words of the Bible. The Bible is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, exposing our innermost thoughts and desires (Heb. 4:12). It is like a lamp to illuminate our path (Ps. 119:105), and it has been given to equip us for God’s purposes (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Open the Bible and read it so you can find these treasures. It’s time . . . to discover!

Exhaustless store of treasured gems Within this Book I hold; And as I read, it comes alive, New treasures to unfold.—Mortenson

Rich treasures of God’s truth are waiting to be discovered by you.

http://odb.org/2012/04/22/undiscovered-country/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+odb%2Ffeed+%28Our+Daily+Bread%29

Ultrasounds Are Only ‘Rape’ If They Prevent An Abortion

Virginia recently enacted a new law making theirs the eighth state to require an ultrasound to be performed prior to an abortion. As with other states that have passed similar measures, Virginia’s law provides the mother “an opportunity” to view the ultrasound image of her [baby] prior to the abortion,” but it is an option she can decline.

And because ultrasound technology poses a threat to the abortion industry—inasmuch as it allows a mother to see the life within her in a way that we couldn’t even imagine decades ago—supporters of death have been rallying the troops against the progress being made in Virginia and equating such ultrasounds with rape.

Their basis for making this claim is that women who want to have an abortion, but are less than 12 weeks along in their pregnancy, will have to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound: one in which “a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced.”

Straining to prove this mad assertion, abortion supporters are claiming that such an ultrasound requirement will result in women being “forcibly penetrated,” and therefore, violated by the state.

What’s strange is that these same people have no ethical qualms about allowing an abortionist’s scalpels and vacuum devices to be inserted into a woman as her baby is literally ripped from the womb limb by limb. And they apparently feel no angst over a pre-born child being injected with medicine that stops his or her heart so that labor can be induced and the stillborn child can be disposed of in a trash can (or a dumpster) in much the same way one would dispose of a banana peel or moldy bread.

Of course, there is no constitutional prohibition on providing women with full information about this life-and-death decision, as the Supreme Court has affirmed.  Nor is the ultrasound requirement an unlawful “search” by the government, any more than would be a legal requirement that a doctor take an x-ray of a broken limb before setting it.  In fact, even abortionists like Planned Parenthood admit that they routinely do ultrasounds before abortions to confirm gestational age – it is the standard of practice for this “business,” as confirmed by the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

If the truth were told, what bothers opponents is not really the ultrasound requirement per se, but the combination of the ultrasound and the waiting period which gives the mother time to see and think about things before making a decision which, as the Supreme Court acknowledged in a recent case, “she may come to regret.”

Here’s the exact wording of the law:

Except in the case of a medical emergency, at least 2 hours before the performance of an abortion a qualified medical professional trained in sonography and working under the direct supervision of a physician licensed in the Commonwealth shall perform fetal ultrasound imaging and auscultation of fetal heart tone services on the patient undergoing the abortion for the purpose of determining gestational age. The ultrasound image shall be made pursuant to standard medical practice in the community, contain the dimensions of the fetus, and accurately portray the presence of external members and internal organs of the fetus, if present or viewable.

The combination of a waiting period and an ultrasound is a one-two punch against the culture of death, and its proponents don’t like it. They’d rather keep everything moving quickly so the woman doesn’t have time to think about the fact that she’s ending a human life – one that is her own flesh and blood. Members of the culture of death, used to peddling what the Supreme Court has called “the abortion distortion,” can call it “rape,” but reasonable people see this for what it is—an attempt to appeal to every sensibility in the mother’s heart and mind in the hope that she will become fully aware of what she’s actually doing to her pre-born child.

Tags:                 A Culture of Life            ,                                    Abortion            ,                                    Pro-Life            ,                                    ultrasounds

Steven Aden

Steven H. Aden is senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org).

http://townhall.com/columnists/stevenaden/2012/03/06/ultrasounds_are_only_rape_if_they_prevent_an_abortion/page/full/

Abortion Zealotry on Display in Virginia

Over the last few weeks, an intense controversy has raged in Virginia, where Republicans have introduced a bill that requires — among other things — that women undergo an ultrasound prior to getting an abortion.  The pro-abortion lobby has hysterically opposed the legislation (does their opposition ever take any other form?), going so far as to compare it to forcible rape.  Their point, to be charitable, is based on the fact that one form of ultrasound involves a more invasive probe than the over-the-abdomen method many people associate with the practice. The usual crowd of media dupes have carried water for the extremists, parroting various interations of the “mandatory ultrasounds = rape” talking point.  The problem?  It’s thoroughly bogus.  Commentary’s Alana Goodman has emerged as a one-woman debunking machine:
 

The complaints are the ultrasounds are needlessly invasive, not medically necessary, and would be forced on women seeking abortions, even if they don’t want them. This criticism misses one crucial point: Planned Parenthood policy already requires ultrasounds before abortion procedures. “That’s just the medical standard,” said Adrienne Schreiber, an official at Planned Parenthood’s Washington, D.C., regional office. “To confirm the gestational age of the pregnancy, before any procedure is done, you do an ultrasound.”

According to Schreiber, Planned Parenthood does require women to give signed consent for abortion procedures, including the ultrasound. But if the women won’t consent to the ultrasound, the abortion cannot take place, according to the group’s national standards. “…If she’s uncomfortable with a transvaginal ultrasound, then she’s not going to be comfortable with an equally invasive abortion procedure,” Schreiber told me.

So the outrageously invasive rape-like affront to “women’s rights” is actually Planned Parenthood’s standard medical practice.  Subsequent reporting has established that the nation’s largest abortion provider already requires ultrasounds for 99 percent of the abortions it performs.  Therefore, according to the Virginia law’s shrillest critics, Planned Parenthood routinely “rapes” women.  Ms. Schreiber’s quote above also begs the question: If an ultrasound is tantamount to rape, how might these people describe the surgical abortion itself?  It’s an absurd argument that bears no resemblence to medical reality.  So if the loaded invocations of “rape” don’t apply, why are they being made?  What changes to current practice does the Virginia bill seek to accomplish?  Based on my reading, I see three significant changes:
 

(1) The law would codify widely-accepted medical procedures and require abortion providers to obtain the woman’s informed consent (the definition of which entails several common-sense elements — see Section C) prior to performing an abortion.

(2) It would mandate that after the ultrasound or sonogram, a copy of the image of the unborn child be included in the patient’s medical file, and require the doctor to offer to review the file with the woman.

(3) Abortion providers would be obligated to observe a 24-hour waiting period between the informed consent phase of the process and the abortion procedure.

All three of the items above provide women with important information about their choice (which some abortion providers have a history of withholding), and a reasonable period of time to think it through, based on said information.  Abortion supporters like to call themselves “pro-choice,” and sometimes the label fits.  The repulsive truth, however, is that hardcore “pro-choice” activists are really pro-abortion.  If a woman sees a photograph of the child whose heartbeat she is considering snuffing out, she might reconsider her choice — especially if she’s given one day to process the gravity of the her decision.  Pro-abortion extremists are threatened by this possibility, so they scream “rape,” lie, obfuscate, and accuse their opponents of extremism.  Unfortunately, their theatrics are often effective.  In this case, they prompted Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell to request changes to the legislative language.  That hardly represents a defeat, but it shows that a relentless campaign of misinformation can force even well-intentioned politicians to abandon reason and make meaningless concessions based on narrative, not science or facts.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/02/24/abortion_zealotry_on_display_in_virginia