Ex-FBI Special Agent Calls Eric Holder Out For His Epic Failures

/3 Comments/in , /by

K. Dee McCown, a former Special Agent who served 12-years with the FBI, wrote an absolutely damning open letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. Mr. McCown, the Director of Global Security and Loss Prevention for the multi-billion dollar industrial supply company W.W. Grainger, recently verified his authorship of the letter stating “It’s time to stand up and speak truth to power.”

Hitting Holder for inflaming racial tensions in the country, Mr. McCown stated that he was

appalled at your lack of leadership as the Attorney General of the United States and your blatant politicizing of the Department of Justice. Your actions, both publicly and privately, have done nothing to quell the complex racial issues we face in our country and have done everything to inflame them. As the “top cop” of the United States, you share in the blame for much of the violence and protests we are now witnessing against law enforcement officers honorably serving throughout our nation.

As an example, he points out how Holder reacted to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson:

At a decisive moment in history when our nation required a strong and unbiased voice from its’ senior law enforcement official, you Mr. Holder, made it your personal mission to join with other racial antagonist and politicize a tragic event, accusing a young white police officer of a racially motivated killing in what we now know was a justified self-defense shooting of a predatory felon. Your behavior is unbelievable. You sir, have sacrificed your integrity on the altar of political expediency. You, Mr. Holder, are the “coward” and hypocrite you so loudly denounce when speaking of broken race relations in America.

Mr. McCown also hammers Holder’s sordid relationship with the “charlatan, ‘the Reverend’ Al Sharpton”:

[L]aw enforcement officers around the country remain dismayed and shocked at the counsel you keep; that being your close relationship with none other than Al Sharpton, a racist “shake down artist” who spreads hate, divisiveness and the promotion of anti-law enforcement sentiment throughout the country; a tax evading fraudster who has unbelievably visited the White House over 80 times in recent years. It is simply beyond my comprehension as a former federal law enforcement professional, that you, the Attorney General of the United States, joined arms in common cause with a charlatan like “the Reverend” Al Sharpton; and it speaks volumes to your personal character and lack of professional judgment.

Mr. McCown identifies one of the root causes of inner city turmoil the “absence of strong male leadership in fatherless black families.” He goes on to describe the “reason that our local police officers are so often entwined in tragic events in black communities is because it is the police that have filled the void in these communities that should be occupied by moral and strong black men leading family units with Godly values.”

His conclusion is damning:

Mr. Holder, the public is aware of FBI statistics that tell a different story than the one you and Sharpton preach. We know that young African American males, representing a tiny fraction of the U.S. population, are by far the greatest perpetrators of violent crime in America when compared to their peers in other ethnic groups, and, we know that citizens of African American descent overwhelmingly make up the majority of their victims. We also know that incidents where white police officers shoot and kill black perpetrators are rare and on the decline. We know further that although there are legitimate and bona fide Federal Civil Rights investigations in the United States worthy of pursuing, they are miniscule when compared to the false narrative portrayed by you, President Obama and Sharpton declaring rampant discrimination against African American men by police officers throughout the country. You are just plain wrong.

The entirety of Mr. McCown’s letter where the ex-special agent calls Eric Holder out for his “appalling lack of leadership” appears below.

___________________________________________________

K. Dee McCown

College Station, Texas
December 28, 2014
Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder,

It is unlikely that we met while I served in the FBI. That being said, we served at the Department of Justice (DOJ) during the same years and on the same “team” conceptually speaking. During my service in the FBI I worked with a number of U.S. Attorney Offices in the United States to include a tour at FBIHQ where I worked with the Department of Justice (Main) on a daily basis.

I begin my letter with this comment to highlight that I am not a bystander on the topic of law enforcement in the United States. I worked and managed a variety of federal investigations during my 12 years of service in the FBI, to include the management of several Civil Rights cases in the State of Texas. In fact, during my last tour in the Bureau, I was an FBI Supervisor responsible for managing federal investigations in nine (9) Texas counties, many of which were rural; in places where one would suspect racism to flourish given the narrative often pushed by Hollywood and urban progressive elites like yourself. I performed this mission diligently and under the close supervision of two FBI managers; an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) and Special Agent in Charge (SAC,) both of which happened to be African American and outstanding law enforcement professionals. I also performed this mission serving side by side with a variety of law enforcement agencies at the Federal, State and local level.

I have observed you closely during your tenure as Attorney General and notably during these last tumultuous years; watching you negotiate a number of controversial public matters to include the ATF Fast and Furious scandal, Black Panther Party intimidation at voting booths, IRS targeting of American citizens (citizen groups opposed to the Obama Administration,) the ignoring of US Immigration laws, DOJ criminal indictments of select news reporters and your management of several high profile criminal investigations involving subjects of race, notably African Americans.

Until today, I chose to hold my tongue. However, with the assassination of two NYPD Lieutenants last weekend in New York City, at the hands of a African American man with a lengthy criminal record, fresh from his participation in anti-police activities; coupled with numerous “don’t shoot, hands up,” and “black lives matter” anti-police protests (some of which are violent) occurring daily around the nation, I am compelled to write you this letter.

To be blunt Mr. Holder, I am appalled at your lack of leadership as the Attorney General of the United States and your blatant politicizing of the Department of Justice. Your actions, both publicly and privately, have done nothing to quell the complex racial issues we face in our country and have done everything to inflame them. As the “top cop” of the United States, you share in the blame for much of the violence and protests we are now witnessing against law enforcement officers honorably serving throughout our nation.

During one of your first public speeches as Attorney General you made it a point to call America “a nation of cowards” concerning race relations. That speech, followed by other public announcements where you emphatically opined that the odds were stacked against African Americans in regard to the enforcement of law, your intention to change the law and permit convicted felons to vote after incarceration, and your changes to federal law ending “racial profiling,” are poignant examples of how detached you remain from the challenges faced by law enforcement officers serving in crime ridden neighborhoods throughout the nation.

These opinions are also indicative of a man that lives and works in the elitist “bubble” of Washington D.C.

Your performance, as the nation’s Attorney General, during the Trayvon Martin case in Sanford, Florida and the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri clearly highlights your myopic view on this topic. Contrary to your embarrassing prejudgment in the Brown case and evasive post trial remarks on the Martin case, neither Brown nor Martin were targeted and/or killed because of their African American race.

Rather, as non-emotive investigations determined, both teens died as a consequence of their own tragic and egregious behavior; behavior that involved a violent assault on a law abiding citizen in the Trayvon Martin case, and a violent assault on a young police officer in the Michael Brown case. Yet you, as the number one spokesman for law enforcement in the country, blame the deaths of these men on years of institutional racism and the alleged epidemic targeting of African American men by police departments around the country; nothing could be further from the truth. Following the Michael Brown case Grand Jury decision all you could muster was the following comment: “The Department of Justice is currently investigating not only the shooting but also the Ferguson police department in what is called a “patterns and practices” inquiry to determine if the police department has engaged in systematic racism.”

So, let’s get this straight. At a decisive moment in history when our nation required a strong and unbiased voice from its’ senior law enforcement official, you Mr. Holder, made it your personal mission to join with other racial antagonist and politicize a tragic event, accusing a young white police officer of a racially motivated killing in what we now know was a justified self-defense shooting of a predatory felon. Your behavior is unbelievable. You sir, have sacrificed your integrity on the altar of political expediency. You, Mr. Holder, are the “coward” and hypocrite you so loudly denounce when speaking of broken race relations in America.

Further to this point Mr. Holder, law enforcement officers around the country remain dismayed and shocked at the counsel you keep; that being your close relationship with none other than Al Sharpton, a racist “shake down artist” who spreads hate, divisiveness and the promotion of anti-law enforcement sentiment throughout the country; a tax evading fraudster who has unbelievably visited the White House over 80 times in recent years. It is simply beyond my comprehension as a former federal law enforcement professional, that you, the Attorney General of the United States, joined arms in common cause with a charlatan like “the Reverend” Al Sharpton; and it speaks volumes to your personal character and lack of professional judgment.

Violent crime, out of wedlock births, drug abuse, rampant unemployment and poverty found in many low-income minority neighborhoods are not a result of racist community policing and racial profiling as you so quickly assert, and frankly most law abiding Americans are exhausted of hearing this false narrative repeated time and again by you and others in the racial grievance industry. While no one, me included, would ever suggest that African Americans have not suffered from institutional racism in the past, I would strongly argue that we no longer live in the Mississippi of 1965, nor do we live in a country that even closely resembles the “Jim Crow” South of yesteryear. Those days, thankfully, are in the past as are the generations of Americans that supported such egregious behavior and endured such suffering.

Rather, Mr. Holder, we live in a day and time where the root cause of many problems faced in our African American communities can be attributed to the breakdown of civil order due to the rejection of institutional and family authority and the practice of counter-culture values; and most notably, from the absence of strong male leadership in fatherless black families. The reason that our local police officers are so often entwined in tragic events in black communities is because it is the police that have filled the void in these communities that should be occupied by moral and strong black men leading family units with Godly values. You, Mr. Holder, especially, should be thanking the police rather than persecuting them for the gap they fill in these communities because if it were not for the intervention of local police many African American neighborhoods would be in a state of total anarchy.

Yet tragically, you and your race-baiting colleague Al Sharpton (a paid media personality under contract with MSNBC news) choose to remain silent because to publicly speak this self-evident truth threatens to not only alienate and offend the most loyal voting constituency of the Democratic Party but diminish your and Al Sharpton’s self-serving power base in these suffering communities. God forbid that you would suggest individual citizens accept responsibility for their own behavior and the collective failure of their communities; it is so much easier for you and others like you to make excuses, play the victim card, and pander rather than address the real root causes that plague many low income neighborhoods.

Mr. Holder, the public is aware of FBI statistics that tell a different story than the one you and Sharpton preach. We know that young African American males, representing a tiny fraction of the U.S. population, are by far the greatest perpetrators of violent crime in America when compared to their peers in other ethnic groups, and, we know that citizens of African American descent overwhelmingly make up the majority of their victims. We also know that incidents where white police officers shoot and kill black perpetrators are rare and on the decline. We know further that although there are legitimate and bona fide Federal Civil Rights investigations in the United States worthy of pursuing, they are miniscule when compared to the false narrative portrayed by you, President Obama and Sharpton declaring rampant discrimination against African American men by police officers throughout the country. You are just plain wrong.

In closing Mr. Holder I will leave you with this thought; you were given a rare opportunity to lead with integrity during a variety of divisive and controversial issues during your tenure as the 82d Attorney General of the United States and rather than be a man of moral courage you chose instead to cower, further inflame racial tensions, advance false narratives and play progressive political activist.

Time and again you chose to “politicize” the mission of the Department of Justice rather than pursue justice and now, tragically, we are witnessing the fruits of your irresponsible behavior in the murder of two innocent police officers in New York City, assassinated by a man motivated by the flames of racial hatred that you personally fanned. How many more police officers will be injured or die in the coming days because of the perilous conditions you helped create in this nation. You, President Obama and Al Sharpton own this problem lock, stock and barrel and now it is your legacy.

As thousands of NYPD officers turn their collective back on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, another dishonest politician and Sharpton disciple, so too do countless Federal law enforcement officers turn our backs on you.

K. Dee McCown
FBI (1997 – 2008)

CC: Senator Mitch McConnell
Senator John Cornyn
Senator Ted Cruz
Senator Harry Reid
The Honorable Bill Flores
The Honorable John Boehner
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

If Atlanta Fire Chief’s Termination isn’t a Religious Liberty Case, Then Nothing is

/2 Comments/in , /by

The New York Times offers a lead editorial today supporting the termination of Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran. The editorial argues that Cochran’s Christian beliefs about homosexuality are “homophobic,” “virulent anti-gay views.” It denies that Cochran’s firing has anything to do with religious liberty, but only with Chief Cochran’s failure to get permission to publish the book, commenting on his suspension, and exposing the city to lawsuits.

But is this really accurate? Do the editors really believe that Chief Cochran’s primary error was failing to get permission to publish the book? Mayor Kasim Reed, who fired Chief Cochran, first commented on the book in November. He made it plain that his main problem was with the message of the book, not with how it came about. Mayor Reed writes:

I was surprised and disappointed to learn of this book on Friday. I profoundly disagree with and am deeply disturbed by the sentiments expressed in the paperback regarding the LGBT community. I will not tolerate discrimination of any kind within my administration…

I want to be clear that the material in Chief Cochran’s book is not representative of my personal beliefs, and is inconsistent with the Administration’s work to make Atlanta a more welcoming city for all of her citizens – regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, race and religious beliefs.

These comments make it clear that the offense was primarily the Christian views expressed in the book, not how the book came about. The mayor states plainly that the Chief’s Christian convictions are incompatible with being Chief. In fact, the Mayor says that his Christian views amount to “discrimination” against the LGBT community. The Mayor’s comments are a matter of public record. How then can the “paper of record” fail to see the religious liberty question at stake?

The Times editorial also acknowledges the fact that the Mayor’s own investigation turned up no evidence of discrimination against LGBT people on the Chief’s part. The Chief treated all his employees fairly, regardless of their sexuality. Nevertheless, the editorial says something quite stunning:

It should not matter that the investigation found no evidence that Mr. Cochran had mistreated gays or lesbians. His position as a high-level public servant makes his remarks especially problematic, and requires that he be held to a different standard.

Did you get that? The editors at The New York Times think that it doesn’t matter that Chief Cochran treated all of his employees well. His views are so toxic that he has to be “held to a different standard”—apparently a standard that punishes city employees for their religious views.

The Times editorial is a case-study in missing the point. Chief Cochran’s book is not primarily about homosexuality. The offending remarks are only mentioned on a single page—a passing reference to what Christians have always believed about homosexuality. There’s no evidence the Chief shared his book to make a statement about homosexuality. Nor is there any evidence that he mistreated any of his employees. Nevertheless, the editors at The New York Times are treating him like Jim Crow.

Do we really want to treat Christians as if believing the Bible amounts to discrimination? Do we want to foster public institutions that prohibit convictional Christians from believing and expressing their views? If these issues aren’t religious liberty questions, then nothing is. The editors at the New York Times ought to be able to see that.

(Read more about the religious liberty case HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Why Do Libertarians Support Putin Given His Catastrophic Corruption?

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: American Conservative Over 100,000 entrepreneurs and small business owners are in prison in Russia for not paying bribes to assorted inspectors or because parties to business disputes bribe police to arrest them on trumped-up charges. Russia’s private sector has very little security in law for its property rights. Almost everybody dragged before any court is found guilty. The consequences are minimal re-investment, low productivity growth, and owners who seek security by taking out maximum cash and, if able, stashing it abroad.

Consequently, Russia depends upon imports for 90 percent of its consumer goods. Its agriculture is still a shambles, with no secure property rights, lousy roads to get products to markets, and younger farm workers fleeing the boredom and poverty of the countryside. Just fly over any Russian city, as I have done, and see how little of the land is cultivated compared to cities in the rest of Europe.

Yet many leading libertarians have been very soft on Putin’s elimination of political freedoms and ruination of his country, excusing Russia because of NATO expansion and Western support for the overthrow of Ukraine’s Moscow-backed Yanukovych government. Some conservatives have even argued that Putin is an ally in supporting traditional “family values” because of his public opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage.

Ron Paul defends Putin, writing that there was no proof that Russian missiles shot down Malaysia’s Flight 17 over Ukraine. His allies argue that criticism or exposure of Putin’s regime merely strengthens the War Party in Washington, helping it to gain more spending and bring about more wars against more nations. They argue that it was NATO expansion and NATO’s attack on Serbia launched by Bill Clinton that ultimately led to the reactions and new aggressiveness of Russia. This is an argument I once appreciated, but it’s not a reason to whitewash today’s Russian dictatorship and incredible corruption. (Read more about why this author believes Libertarians support Putin HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Insane Case for Attacking North Korea

/1 Comment/in , /by

[Editor’s Note: Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry argues in an opinion piece in The Week entitled “The Case for Invading North Korea” that the US should attack North Korea now. Daniel Larison argues in response that this would be “insane.” His comments follow].

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry outdoes himself with this blithe argument in favor of attacking North Korea:

U.S. forces should be able to destroy all of North Korea’s artillery in one strike. After all, if there’s one thing that the U.S. military is very good at, it’s launching enormous amounts of rockets and bombs with great precision. With satellite, any significant artillery positions are known. Given the U.S.’s overwhelming technological advantage and total dominance of the sky, and the effect of surprise, it should not be impossible to pull off . . .

If any part of Gobry’s “plan” were to go less than perfectly, Seoul would be reduced to a ruin in a matter of hours and it is more than likely that millions of people would be killed in the ensuing war. In order for this so-called “plan” to “work,” the regime would have to collapse almost instantly, but that is the least likely thing to happen in a country that has known no other government for more than half a century. And no matter how widely hated the regime is, the first instinct of people everywhere when they come under attack is to rally against the foreign attacker. If the regime did collapse in fairly short order, that would produce an unparalleled humanitarian disaster for which no neighboring country could possibly be prepared. (Read more about the case for attacking North Korea HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The Coming Republican Failure on Immigration

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Examiner
Republicans in Congress are nearly unanimous in opposing President Obama’s unilateral executive action on immigration. Nearly all want Congress to overturn the president’s edict. But how to do it? Republicans have two basic options, and as the time to act nears, it appears they are preparing to choose the one more likely to fail.

The first option is to pass a brief, simple bill that denies funding for the implementation of Obama’s action, as announced last Nov. 20 and as outlined in memoranda from both the Department of Homeland Security and the White House. Such a move would be direct, unambiguous, and would focus specifically on Obama’s action, which is what the controversy is about in the first place.

The second option is to begin with a defunding measure but then add other provisions, targeting not just Obama’s executive action but also a large chunk of the president’s immigration policy going back five years.

The first, simpler, option probably has the greatest likelihood of success. The second is more complex, and each additional component is likely to give some lawmaker — a few moderate Republicans or the Democrats whose votes are needed for passage in the Senate — a reason to vote against the measure.

While nothing is set in stone, it appears the GOP leadership seems to be headed toward the second option. In answering the president’s overreach on immigration, Capitol Hill Republicans are engaging in some overreach of their own. (Read more about the upcoming republican failure HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Jeb Bush: Shut-Up and Accept Homosexual Marriage (and Pretend the Courts Follow the Constitution)

/6 Comments/in , /by

By Philip Rucker. Has Jeb Bush offered the Republican Party a new way to talk about same-sex marriage? . .

In 1994, Jeb Bush argued that gay men and lesbians did not deserve special legal protection and said that “sodomy” should not be “elevated to the same constitutional status as race and religion.” But this week, Bush said people should accept court rulings that legalize same-sex marriage and “show respect” for gays in committed relationships, while reiterating his long-held belief that “marriage is a sacrament.”

Bush is trying to shift the Republican Party’s rhetoric on an issue on which the public has been evolving much faster than the GOP. A party that not long ago championed its opposition to same-sex marriage now finds itself on the defensive — even within its own ranks, where social conservatives are at odds with business leaders and young people who openly support gay rights.

In recent presidential cycles, Republican candidates have proudly carried the conservative evangelical banner on same-sex marriage, asserting as Mitt Romney did in 2012 that marriage should be between a man and a woman. But the 2016 GOP field divides into two camps, according to gay rights activists. Most potential candidates have said they oppose same-sex marriage, but some — including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence — have suggested that it is not a motivating concern and that they would focus on other issues. (Read more about Jeb Bush urging the GOP to accept homosexual marriage HERE)

________________________________________________

Children Raised by Homosexuals Recount “Unpleasant Upbringings,” Oppose Same-Sex Marriage

By Cheryl Wetzstein. [F]our adult children of gay parents — acting as a “quartet of truth” — have submitted briefs to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opposing same-sex marriages, with several saying that growing up under the rainbow was neither normal nor pleasant. The court, which is considering whether to uphold the man-woman marriage laws in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, will hear arguments in New Orleans on Friday.

There are “two rights” that every child shares when they arrive in this world, Katy Faust wrote in her brief. “First, the right to live. Second, the right to have a relationship with his/her father and mother.”

Dawn Stefanowicz said her gay father was so preoccupied with sex that when she was in high school and brought home a male classmate, both her father and his lover propositioned him for sex.

B.N. Klein said her mother and lesbian partner disdained heterosexual families completely, and she didn’t have a clue about the daily interactions of a husband and wife until she went into foster care.

Robert Oscar Lopez said his two lesbian mothers were conscientious about his upbringing, but he became so emotionally confused that he turned to gay prostitution as a teen and gay and bisexual relationships as an adult. (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Why Do Liberals Cower in Front of Muslim Fundamentalists?

/4 Comments/in , /by

By Michael Weiss. The New York Times tweeted today that the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which found itself the victim of a gruesome massacre, “long tested the limits of satire.” I did not know that there were limits to satire or that the Gray Lady, which often unintentionally engages in the art form, had managed to uncover them. The implication here is one that will surely become as tediously explicit in the hours and days ahead as it is familiar: If you “provoke” Muslims by mocking their religion, then you’ve only yourself to blame for what happens next.

Some in the media are admirably honest about why they go mum in this regard. Stephen Pollard, the editor of London’s Jewish Chronicle, today explained that his newspaper will not run any of Charlie Hebdo’s notorious cartoons in its coverage of the terrorist attack on the French weekly: “Get real, folks. A Jewish newspaper like mine that published such cartoons would be at the front of the queue for Islamists to murder”. . .

But now contrast Pollard’s justification with how Bruce Crumley, Time magazine’s then-Paris bureau chief, characterized the work of satirists after Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed in 2011 for the ostensible “offense” of putting Mohammed in the editor’s chair for a single issue: “[N]ot only are such Islamophobic antics futile and childish, but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good. What common good is served by creating more division and anger, and by tempting belligerent reaction?”

Openly beg. I wonder if Crumley will write that the 10 Charlie Hebdo employees gunned down today by men claiming (evidently in perfect French) to have “avenged the Prophet Muhammad” got what they deserved or were perhaps laïcité’s answer to suicide bombers. . . (Read more about the liberal media’s refusal to confront Muslim fundamentalists HERE)

______________________________________________

Guess Who Gives Cover to the Jihadist Murderers?

By Ben Shapiro. Here are the top ten recent examples of top politicians and media figures providing justification for jihadi killing of those who slander the prophet of Islam.

President Barack Obama, 2012: On September 11, 2012, Islamic terrorists attacked the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, murdering four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. President Obama and his administration promptly blamed a filmmaker who made the YouTube film “The Innocence of Muslims.” He then went to United Nations on September 25, 2012, and said:

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. . .

General David Petraeus, 2011: The general in charge of America’s war in Afghanistan ripped Pastor Terry Jones of Florida after Jones burned a copy of the Koran. Petraeus said that burning the Koran was

hateful, it was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible. . .

President Bush, 2008: After a video emerged of an American sniper shooting a Koran, White House press secretary Dana Perino said that Bush had apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki:

He apologized for that in the sense that he said that we take it very seriously. We are concerned about the reaction. We wanted them to know that the president knew that this was wrong.

Bush State Department, 2006: After the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a cartoon of Mohammed, ambassadors from 11 Islamic countries demanded that the newspaper be punished in a letter to the Danish prime minister:

We deplore these statements and publications and urge Your Excellency’s government to take all those responsible to task under law of the land in the interest of inter-faith harmony, better integration and Denmark’s overall relations with the Muslim world.

(Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Civic Virtue in Decline, Expert Says “No Recovery” for US

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: The Patriot Post As we enter 2015, it’s worth looking back on some key cultural indicators from 2014. Here is one bad omen: According to a 2014 Associated Press-GfK poll, Americans’ sense of civic virtue is in serious decline. “I don’t see any recovery,” said Rutgers University Professor Cliff Zukin. “The people who were 40 two decades ago aren’t as engaged as the people who were 60 two decades ago. This generational slippage tends to continue.”

The poll was a reprise of questions asked in 1984, and it focused on six civic-oriented activities: voting, volunteering, jury service, reporting crimes, knowing English and keeping on top of news and public issues. . .Only 28% of Americans consider volunteering a “very important obligation.” And while 75% characterize voting a central obligation of citizenship, talk is cheap: Voter turnout in the last presidential election dipped to 57.5% of eligible citizens compared to 62.3% in 2008. Voter turnout in 2014? The 36.4% of eligible citizens who bothered to vote represented the lowest turnout in any election cycle since World War II.

Most Americans do feel some sense of duty to the nation, with 90% characterizing the reporting of a crime one has witnessed, voting in elections, knowing English and serving on a jury when called as “somewhat important” obligations of citizenship. And a majority of Americans consider them “very important” obligations. Yet with an exception for voting, those majorities have declined by an average of approximately 13 percentage points over the last three decades.

Leading the pack are adults under 30 years of age. In every category except volunteering, they were less likely than elder generations to see any obligation, and also felt less obligated than young people of the past. Even more ominously, nearly one in four feel no obligation to keep informed, volunteer or speak English.

. . . Ronald Reagan made it clear[] in his inaugural address as California governor: “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Civic virtue and the obligations of citizenship cannot be separated from the preservation of freedom. We allow their continued deterioration at our own peril. (Read more about U.S. civic virtue in decline HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Blockbuster Report: Academia’s Liberal Bias is Killing Social Science

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: stepnout

Photo Credit: stepnout

I have had the following experience more than once: I am speaking with a professional academic who is a liberal. The subject of the underrepresentation of conservatives in academia comes up. My interlocutor admits that this is indeed a reality, but says the reason why conservatives are underrepresented in academia is because they don’t want to be there, or they’re just not smart enough to cut it. I say: “That’s interesting. For which other underrepresented groups do you think that’s true?” An uncomfortable silence follows.

I point this out not to score culture-war points, but because it’s actually a serious problem. Social sciences and humanities cannot be completely divorced from the philosophy of those who practice it. And groupthink causes some questions not to be asked, and some answers not to be overly scrutinized. It is making our science worse. Anyone who cares about the advancement of knowledge and science should care about this problem.

That’s why I was very gratified to read this very enlightening draft paper written by a number of social psychologists on precisely this topic, attacking the lack of political diversity in their profession and calling for reform. For those who have the time and care about academia, the whole thing truly makes for enlightening reading. The main author of the paper is Jonathan Haidt, well known for his Moral Foundations Theory (and a self-described liberal, if you care to know). . .

They start by debunking published (and often well-publicized) social psychology findings that seem to suggest moral or intellectual superiority on the part of liberals over conservatives, which smartly serves to debunk both the notion that social psychology is bereft of conservatives because they’re not smart enough to cut it, and that groupthink doesn’t produce shoddy science. For example, a study that sought to show that conservatives reach their beliefs only through denying reality achieved that result by describing ideological liberal beliefs as “reality,” surveying people on whether they agreed with them, and then concluding that those who disagree with them are in denial of reality — and lo, people in that group are much more likely to be conservative! This has nothing to do with science, and yet in a field with such groupthink, it can get published in peer-reviewed journals and passed off as “science,” complete with a Vox stenographic exercise at the end of the rainbow. A field where this is possible is in dire straits indeed. (Read more about academia’s liberal bias HERE)

Follow Joe Miller at Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Jeb Bush Must Answer Whether He Stands with Boehner

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

By Matthew Boyle. “We’ve had nonstop Jeb Bush talk the last two weeks,” Levin said in an email to Breitbart News late Tuesday evening. “Is there a reason why he’s silent now about the GOP leadership debacle in the House? They are his supporters after all.”

Reached earlier in the day by phone, Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said, when asked for her boss’s thoughts on the scandal, that she hadn’t spoken with Bush about it yet. But she promised to track him down sometime on Tuesday and get a statement to Breitbart News about it later in the day—a statement that still hasn’t materialized.

Levin’s right that Bush’s silence about this GOP leadership scandal is intriguing since Bush was the talk of the political world in the days leading up to this scandal. Right after he announced he was actively exploring a run for the presidency in 2016, he topped a CNN-ORC poll of potential GOP candidates.

The poll found Bush far and away leading the pack of potential GOP candidates in a primary, with 23 percent of support. The next best potential candidate was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with 13 percent, followed by Dr. Ben Carson with 7 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tied with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) with 6 percent. (Read more on whether Jeb Bush stands with Boehner HERE)

____________________________________________________________

Why Jeb Bush Can’t Bypass Conservatives

By W. James Antle. Before Jeb Bush announced he was “actively exploring” a presidential bid came news he was just as actively seeking a way to avoid appealing to conservatives. (The Bushies prefer the word “pandering.”)

The would-be King Bush III consulted one of the country’s foremost experts on excelling in the Republican Party without being too conservative: Arizona Sen. John McCain.

“I just said to him, ‘I think if you look back, despite the far right’s complaints, it is the centrist that wins the nomination,’” McCain told Bush, according to The New York Times. (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.