Barack Obama lies about his clear public record yet again.

Via Hot Air

There's been a lot of ridiculous speculation and stupid controversy surrounding Trig Palin, most of which deserves to be completely ignored. This bit of commentary, however, deserves to be highlighted for how monstrous it is:

...a senior Canadian doctor is now expressing concerns that such a prominent public role model as the governor of Alaska and potential vice president of the United States completing a Down syndrome pregnancy may prompt other women to make the same decision against abortion because of that genetic abnormality. And thereby reduce the number of abortions.

This "doctor" seems to have no concern whatsoever for the humanity of those with Down Syndrome. It never seems to cross his mind. His primary concern seems to be that Sarah Palin's example may cause other women to... choose to have their babies, rather than have abortions.

Perhaps the thinking on the issue is different in Canada, but here in the US, the pro-choice side generally tends to try to appear as though they want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. This is a nod to the fact that no matter how you slice it, abortion is morally problematic. This "doctor," on the other hand, appears to be more concerned about the bottom line of the abortion industry than with looking at those tough moral questions in an honest manner. Ed Morrisey at Hot Air had this to say:

This sounds more like the abortion industry worrying over a declining demand than a physician caring for a patient. Parents of DS children manage to have fulfilling lives, and they would say because of their child and not despite the decision to give birth. The Palins do provide a role model in that manner, as do the millions of other parents with such children who get no special attention for their love and sacrifice.

What kind of doctor looks at this situation and says, “The worry is that this will have an implication for abortion issues in Canada”? Does the sight of a strong family represent that great a threat to the abortion industry in Canada or elsewhere?

Apparently so.

We head north once again to Canada, land of human-rights trampling "human rights commissions," to examine the case of the York University student union's effort to ban pro-life groups from campus, citing their inherently "sexist" nature:

In response to a series of controversies over abortion debates on Canadian campuses, the student government of York University in Toronto has tabled an outright ban on student clubs that are opposed to abortion.

Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students, said student clubs will be free to discuss abortion in student space, as long as they do it "within a pro-choice realm," and that all clubs will be investigated to ensure compliance.

"You have to recognize that a woman has a choice over her own body," Ms. Massa said. "We think that these pro-life, these anti-choice groups, they're sexist in nature ... The way that they speak about women who decide to have abortions is demoralizing. They call them murderers, all of them do ... Is this an issue of free speech? No, this is an issue of women's rights."

The school's administration condemned the decision as contrary to its academic mission.

I realize that Canada doesn't have the First Amendment, and as such the freedom of speech isn't as protected there as it is here in the US. But come on. To simply preempt any discussion of the issue of abortion unless it comes from a "choice" perspective? These people can't be serious.

And yet, there it is in black and white. The horror of being exposed to a contrary view - one that views abortion as morally wrong to boot (imagine that!) - is just too much for these tender souls to bear. So rather than expose the student body to the dangers of persuasion, the student union is going to preemptively ban the offending speech.

Do these people have no clue how clueless this makes them look? How dictatorial? How fascist? Ah well, this can at least serve as yet another example of the vaunted "tolerance" of the left.

Uncalibrated Irony Meter Alert: It turns out that Ms. Massa, the spokesperson for the York Federation of Students, has a pretty selective idea of what constitutes "free speech":

Gilary Massa, the vice-president, external, of the York Federation of Students and the driving force behind the proposed ban on anti-abortion groups, earlier this year defended free speech as she called for the lifting of a ban on the phrase "Israeli Apartheid."

In a letter to McMaster's provost and the Students Union Executive, Ms. Massa said she was shocked and dismayed to hear that the administration and McMaster Students Union had banned the use of the phrase "Israeli Apartheid" on campus.

The letter called for the ban on the phrase to be rescinded "in accordance with a basic commitment to freedom of expression and organization in the democratic context of the public university."

The letter added, "This strange and unprecedented ban is a blatant violation of democratic freedoms of speech and dissent, and an attack on students' right to organize. It is the position of the YFS and GSA [Graduate Students] that universities are sites where discussions and debates about difficult geopolitical questions should be promoted, not stifled. International controversy about use of the phrase 'Israeli Apartheid' cannot be resolved through repression, but through ongoing intellectual exchange."

Here's some free speech for you: Massa is DUMBER THAN A SACK OF HAMMERS.

"Science, simply put... cannot account for human equality, and does not offer reasons to believe we are all equal. Science measures our material and animal qualities, and it finds them to be patently unequal."

It turns out that young people aren't "self-entitled, coddled slackers":

Young Americans have a reverence for national institutions, traditions and family values, a U.S. survey indicates.

A survey of so-called "millennials" -- those between 21 and 29 -- revealed the group overwhelmingly said they support monogamy, marriage, the U.S. Constitution and the military, The Washington Times reported Sunday.

"We were completely surprised. There has been a faulty portrayal of millennials by the media -- television, films, news, blogs, everything. These people are not the self-entitled, coddled slackers they're made out to be. Misnomers and myths about them are all over the place," said Ann Mack, who directed the survey and is the official "director of trend-spotting" at J. Walter Thompson, the nation's largest advertising agency.

Via the Corner, where Mark Steyn notes:

The movie biz in particular seems to believe the big bucks are in unpopular popular culture. One day someone will figure out the flaw in that formula.

May that day come soon.

Mark Steyn, commenting on the disturbing trend in the UK:

Thatcherism liberated the British economically and, despite ten years of Blair and Brown, they still pay less tax than most of their Continental neighbors. But, lacking any meaningful equivalent to America's social conservatives, values voters, small-government types, Second Amendment gun nuts and other familiar figures of the US scene, Britain has become a land of economic plenty with a welfarist sensibility. The "yobs" who rampage through town shopping centers turn out to be not downtrodden and impoverished but living in suburban cul-de-sacs with two-car garages. This is a very contemporary problem: an underclass that's too rich.

OK, so Kwame's problems aren't just about his affair and perjury; it turns out that there's also possible favors for friends in city contracting, the infamous Manoogian Mansion stripper party is back, and by gum if this doesn't also have a whiff of murder about it:

A retired Detroit Police Department clerk came forward Monday to say she saw a police report in 2002 in which stripper Tamara Greene described being attacked by Carlita Kilpatrick, wife of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, during a party at the Manoogian Mansion.

The court affidavit by former clerk Joyce Carolyn Rogers of Troy marks the first time a Detroit police employee has stated that a report on the long-rumored party and assault exists.

Rogers told the Free Press she came forward on the advice of her psychiatrist.

"According to the report, the mayor's wife walked into a room and witnessed Ms. Greene touching Mayor Kilpatrick in a manner that upset the mayor's wife," Rogers, 65, said in the affidavit. "The report further states that the mayor's wife witnessed this, left the room and returned with a wooden object in her hand and began assaulting Ms. Greene."

The report indicated Greene was taken to a hospital because she was injured, Rogers said. "It was clear to me as a clerk working in records that Ms. Greene wanted to press charges against Carlita Kilpatrick," Rogers said in the affidavit.

It's a mystery that never had a definitive answer, the story of a Detroit stripper known as Strawberry who was killed in a hail of gunfire while sitting in a car with her boyfriend in the predawn darkness of April 30, 2003.

Since then, Detroit police and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick have combated persistent rumors and lawsuit allegations that Tamara Greene was killed because she danced at a wild party at the Manoogian Mansion.

Despite repeated denials by the mayor and a state investigation that dismissed the claims as urban legend, the story has persisted and is being fueled by fresh allegations raised by a former homicide detective as part of a lawsuit filed on behalf of Greene's 14-year-old son.

In a 10-page affidavit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, former Lt. Alvin Bowman says he believes Greene, 27, was killed by a Detroit cop and that police officials derailed his homicide investigation.

"I suspected that the shooter was a law enforcement officer, and more specifically, a Detroit Police Department officer," Bowman said in the document.

Spend a few moments scrolling through the Detroit Free Press archive of Kilpatrick scandal-related coverage and your jaw will drop. Considering that Kwame is just the latest in a long line of lousy officials in Detroit, it's really no surprise that a once-great city has been reduced to a hellhole. This is the sort of thing that happens when the politics of a city become entirely dominated by race, bad economics, and corruption.


Michigan Central Station, Abandoned - Corktown, Detroit


Tiger Stadium, Abandoned - Corktown, Detroit

Unfortunately, he doesn't appear to have a brain. Last night, he gave his annual State of the City address and had this to say about the sex and perjury scandal that he has, through his own actions, mired himself in:

And finally tonight, and this may be the most talked-about part of this speech after laying out all of that, but I feel that I cannot leave this auditorium with my wife and my sons sitting there without addressing this issue. In the past 30 days, I've been called a n------, a n----- more than any time in my entire life. In the past three days, I've received more death threats than I have in my entire administration. I've heard these words before, but I've never heard people say them about my wife and children. I have to say this because it's very personal to me. I don't believe that a Nielsen rating is worth the life of my children or your children. This unethical, illegal, lynch mob mentality has to stop. And it's seriously time, we've never been here before and I don't care if they cut the TV off, we've never been in a situation like this before. Where you can say anything, do anything, have no facts, no research, no nothing and you can launch a hate-driven, bigoted assault on a family.

I humbly ask members of council, I humbly ask the business community, I humbly ask the religious community, I humbly ask the brothers and sisters of the city of Detroit, I humbly ask we say 'No more' together. I humbly ask that we say "No more' together.

Give the man credit for that greatest of modern Democrat virtues, audacity, but no more credit than that. I find it somewhat hard to believe that Kilpatrick is being flooded with racist hate mail threatening him and his family, but then again, who knows. Perhaps there is a significant cadre of racist morons out there who simply can't figure out that this case is about race about as much as Bill Clinton's impeachment was about sex - specifically, not at all. It's about perjury, lawbreaking, character, and the fitness of an executive to lead a city or the country. For Kilpatrick to play the race card in order to weasel out of the consequences of his actions is laughable and pathetic. "Unethical, illegal, lynch mob mentality"? What, for reporting what you clearly did and demanding that you be held accountable for the $8.4 million you cost to an already financially devastated city? Where's the regret for your clearly unethical and illegal activities that got you and your city into this mess in the first place?

I believe the Detroit media has responded to Kilpatrick's tantrum. The Detroit News editorializes:

...for the longest time, it seemed as if he were going to stare past that elephant in the room and focus determinedly on the progress of his administration and the hopes for the future. It was a rousing speech, filled with new initiatives aimed at easing his citizens' concerns about public safety, education and neighborhood services. Not a word about his personal travails, until the end.

And then Kilpatrick blew it. He angrily and audaciously defined the scandal as a bigoted attack, claiming he's been called the n-word; that he and his family have been threatened; and that opponents with an "unethical, illegal lynch mob mentality" are trying to tear him down.

He blamed everyone but the real villain -- himself.

It's not the first time Kilpatrick has selfishly played the race card to escape a jam. But it may be the most cynical, coming at a time when his personal conduct and poor choices have stalled progress in Detroit and slammed a hammer into the fledgling and fragile attempts to get beyond differences and establish regional unity in Metro Detroit.

The Free Press has two editorials on the matter. From the first:

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick gets at best an "incomplete" for Tuesday night's State of the City address. At worst, an "incredible" for what he didn't address and a closing rhetorical flourish in which Kilpatrick declared himself and his family to be victims of his self-created problems.

Ending a fairly lackluster speech, the mayor said he has faced unprecedented death threats, racial slurs and "a hate-driven, bigoted assault on our family" since the so-called text-message scandal erupted. He called for unity and said he "will continue to focus on building the next Detroit," without acknowledging that he's the one pulling focus from the myriad tasks at hand, and diverting money the city could use to get some of the work done.

And here's a portion of the second:

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was right on when he said Detroiters are concerned about crime.

What he didn't say is that denizens of his violence-ridden city are also concerned about whether HE will be charged with a crime.

Stephen Henderson in the Free Press:

In his State of the City speech a year ago, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick issued a challenge.

It moved me then. It saddens me now.

"Men of Detroit," the mayor implored, "I am talking to you not just as mayor, but as a father, a husband and a fellow Detroiter. As men of Detroit, we must step up together and take a leadership role in saving our city. ... Men of Detroit, the time is now for us to take the openhearted and courageous way."

Wonderful words to inspire Detroiters to "man up" against violence, crime and joblessness in the city. In a broad sense, to take responsibility for themselves, their own actions, and how they relate to the city's future.

But they were words that could have been directed at the mayor himself Tuesday, as he gave his 2008 address under the cloud of his inartful dodging of responsibility for the text message scandal.

Was Kilpatrick's tirade at the end of his speech, in which he claimed the media and nearly everyone else are to blame for the brutal effects of this scandal on his family, his idea of taking responsibility? The shameful, divisive words he used to draw false lines between those who want him to own up and those he expects to give him a pass will serve only to prolong the agony in this community.

This whole episode was sad to begin with, but Kilpatrick just made it pathetic. Predictable, considering that this is Detroit after all, but pathetic.

Great news! 25% of teenaged American girls have an STD!

Thank God we no longer have to deal with those restrictive "moral standards" anymore. Man, was that ever a drag!