Chelsea Clinton: One of the 1%, Happily
Chelsea Clinton is daughter of impeached president Bill Clinton and his wife, current US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Chelsea has grown up exceptionally wealthy and connected to people in positions of power. She has never had a “job,” certainly not a professional job, not a career where she developed as a person, but she just got hired by NBC News.
Chelsea Clinton is going to be a top-level reporter and commentator for an international news program.
Chelsea is accomplishing something that 99.99% of college graduates her age can only dream of. Except that those people know that in order to land a job like that, they have to gradually prove themselves from job to job over time, over decades.
Chelsea is very much a member of “The 1%” as the Occupy ________ folks call hard working, successful Americans.
You can’t help but wonder how her achievement looks and is perceived by the people with whom she shares so many political views. She has it made. She has Easy Street. Her dad made a phone call and got her the job of a lifetime, and she didn’t have to work for it at all.
But you just know that once Chelsea is in there, reporting just the facts, of course, that she will stand as one with the Occupy _________ people. And they will give her a pass, because she is the right political party…so much for any principles in any of this situation, right?
And it is just one more example of how the politically correct in America choose to say one thing, but do another.
Our American Veterans: Thank You, Thank You, Thank You
Dear American Veterans of our Armed Services,
Thank you for your service to our great nation, and for your daily sacrifices to provide all citizens with the day to day comfort and security that we take for granted.
We value everything you do for us, and on this Veterans Day, we take special note of it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Josh
Joe Paterno gets fired, the end of innocence
When Paterno got fired from Penn State, it marked the true end of the innocence that defined much of Happy Valley’s day-to-day existence.
For Paterno to have to leave at the end of the season was a big blow to the whole university-football-alumni-money system.
For Paterno to be summarily fired, by phone and before the end of the season, indicates the depth of the failure and the cost of the coverup now dawning on Penn State’s board of directors.
Such a thing was unimaginable a week ago.
To make such a move is to sacrifice much short-term stability, long-standing tradition, and external confidence in PSU. But the trade-off is that eventually that outside confidence will return, because the board acted decisively and painfully.
Spanier’s firing is a whole other matter.
Spanier was not a fixture of PSU like Paterno had been, and he was not co-identified with the university. Paterno was Penn State, while Spanier was simply working at Penn State. Sure, Spanier was there a long time and he liked to present himself as being as much a fixture as Paterno, but he wasn’t one.
Firing a university president is a sad but important fact of academic life. While it is usually painful, most college presidents (and I have met or worked with at least a dozen in my career) are just as human as you and I, except that they all have gigantic egos for reasons that no one else outside of academia can understand. These folks are no more deserving of adulation than anyone else, and actually probably get fired a lot less than they deserve or experience. My city’s garbage men perform a more necessary and appreciated service than any college president, so Spanier gets zero sad faces from me on account of his termination.
But Penn State, my shining city on the hill, that is still getting sad faces. And we still do not yet know what happened to get us all to this point. The Sandusky scandal probably goes deep.
Here is an indication of just how broad the scandal is: A small independent news source in Israel actually wrote a report titled “Football Related Scandal Traumatizes the United States,” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/149584#.Tr1TyPL4J6Q.
A quick search of other international news outlets indicates that PSU has a far bigger reputation than I would have ever guessed. And I’m one to think that the world revolves around Penn State and State College.
Resolution had better be done correctly, or we will end up looking even worse.
Joe Paterno steps down…end of an era
Joe Paterno has just announced that he will step down from his head coach position at the end of this football season.
The Jerry Sandusky scandal has ended Joe’s career on a negative, when it should have ended on a positive. People argue that Joe could not have ended it on a positive no matter what, because he had groomed no successor, seemed unwilling to face his age, and has been disengaged from the actual sideline coaching.
I will miss Joe, for all of the obvious reasons: His leadership, his values, his dedication. I am pained that a bunch of little boys had to be raped by his subordinate in order to bring this change.
It’s not the way that anyone saw anything related to PSU turning out.
Herman Cain Now Being Hunted by a Wolf Pack
Herman Cain’s sole mistake is that he is born black and has the nerve to break from the ranks of 95% of the rest of the black community, which is mired in failed welfare state thinking.
White liberals think that they more or less own the black community, an occasionally potent political force, and are now unleashing a wolf pack to bring down Cain. White liberals cannot afford to leave a successful challenger to their vision of the black community as anything other than dependent.
Let’s look at the wolf pack.
Analyzing each “accuser,” as they are called in the mainstream media, we get an easy check-off for each one. Two are partisan, employed by the Obama administration or connected to his administration in some substantially political way. Knock them off the list of credible challengers. Making it worse, they want to remain anonymous but get their hits in on Cain nonetheless. That’s cheap and meaningless.
Another one, the Bialek lady, has had such a long history of run-ins that one of her former bosses said that he would be surprised if her description of events with Cain was not completely reversed, with her as the attacker. Watching her deliver a dolled-up, grinning, scripted delivery while reading from a piece of paper, with partisan activist lawyer Gloria Allred guiding her, you know she is a fake, too. Given her financial issues and laundry list of run-ins, and her getting her fifteen minutes of fame on the TV shows, well, she smells bad, Allred smells bad, her claim smells bad. Knock this one off the list for lack of credibility, too.
Then there’s another “accuser,” whose sole complaint is that Cain asked her to arrange dinner with a woman who asked him a public question at a speaking event. Dragging several other uninvited people into the dinner, they were all left with the tab for their dinners and Cain’s expensive wine. It’s funny, and I like his style.
It is possible for a married man to be attracted to a woman, want to be around her for conversation, mental stimulation, and companionship, and yet have no actual intentions for physical contact. It’s an old-fashioned thing, and Cain is certainly old-fashioned. But it is not a crime.
Well, let me say, it should not be a crime. But I worked in Washington, DC, for the first seven years of my career, and I saw this stuff happen frequently in that insane atmosphere there. All a woman had to say was that a certain man made her feel “uncomfortable,” and badda bing, he was marked.
A guy did not have to say anything or even do anything to the “accuser.” His mere presence in her orbit could and evidently still is sufficient grounds for being “accused.” His career could be sidelined, or worse.
His sole offense might simply be that he is tall, or rugged, or have a loud laugh, and be gregarious. Or he could have ignored her advances.
Sexist against men, right?
Well, it’s not sexist to the mainstream media, which is on a hunt for Cain’s head on a pole. Cain terrifies these folks, and they will do anything that they can to bring him down. And we haven’t yet addressed the racist aspect of these attacks on Cain’s character.
I am doing my part to keep him moving forward, and I’ll be donating $25 to Cain’s campaign this afternoon. I hope that you will join me.
Josh
Earthquake in State College, Now Here Comes the Tsunami
Earthquake in State College, Now Here Comes the Tsunami
© By Josh First
November 6, 2011
Late this past week an earthquake was felt in State College, and the resulting cascade of day-by-day events signal that a tsunami is following close behind. If you think that an earthquake is bad, wait until the tsunami hits. It’s much worse than the earthquake.
First the earthquake: Jerry Sandusky was a household name in the State College I grew up in, the 1970s through the 1980s, when I graduated from Penn State. Heir apparent to coach Joe Paterno, Sandusky was a household name, a golden name. As the high-performing caretaker of Penn State’s famous “Linebacker U” identity, Sandusky epitomized the toughness, braininess, and determination of one of college football’s all-time greatest programs, the Penn State Nittany Lions.
That golden program’s glow illuminated all that sat in its shadow, and Happy Valley has radiated quiet quality and confident happiness for decades. Sandusky was at the center of an empire built on trust, integrity, and clean living, qualities of which we stodgy, old-fashioned old Penn Staters are tremendously proud. It’s all at risk, now.
Now, according to charges brought against him, Sandusky appears to be heading toward the lowest reputation a man can have, a pedophile. Of course, he is innocent until proven guilty, but the crimes appear to be so numerous, so egregious, that if even just one is eventually proven, it alone would be too much to bear. The whole debacle threatens to drag down Penn State with it.
For the first time in Penn State’s storied football program, and by extension the university’s own administrative reputation, an event so dramatic has occurred that it potentially strikes at the core of the universal happiness. After the earthquake, a stain is seen slowly spreading on the kingdom that Joe built. Guilt by association with the charges against Sandusky is not far behind.
And here’s that tsunami, bearing down on all of Penn State: According to additional charges announced a day later against PSU heavies Tim Curley (Athletic Director) and Gary Schultz (Vice President for Finance and the campus police), a house of cards artificially held Sandusky in place, professionally and socially. Despite rumors and actual eyewitness reports of Sandusky’s crimes being conveyed to Curley and Schultz, neither of them relayed the accusations to the police. Under their protective gaze, Sandusky continued to use his Second Mile charity for at-risk children to put yet more children at risk.
Schultz’s attorney claims that his client is under no obligation to report child abuse allegedly committed by a former employee. Yeah sure, that’ll fly, when Sandusky was allowed to use the same university facilities where some of the alleged assaults occurred because of his former Golden Boy status and tight small town, big program, charitable relationships with Tim Curley and Gary Schultz. It doesn’t matter whether the cops, district attorney, or a jury of their peers eventually agree with that line of thinking.
What matters most is public perception, and the general perception is that these two senior PSU executives demonstrated fatally poor judgment. That public perception is going to quickly become public pressure, and the two men will go into retirement some time in the coming weeks. We know it’s coming.
Adding insult to injury is PSU president Graham Spanier’s lame defense of Curley and Schultz. In what has to be the most public display of Good Old Boy Circle The Wagons defense we’ve seen since the tobacco company executives took their congressional oaths years ago, Spanier actually testified to the good judgment of both men and promised they would be exonerated.
Popularly known as ‘doubling down’, Spanier’s bigger bet on the two men is going to be a loser. Mr. Spanier, you can’t really be president of one of America’s premier academic institutions and defend the indefensible. Spanier is demonstrating the clueless arrogance that goes with all big fishes living in small ponds, and he, too, is about to feel the wrath of public pressure. If Spanier lasts another month as Penn State’s president, it’ll be a miracle.
And if you love Penn State as I do, which is fanatically, then the final outcome of this sordid affair is likely to be bittersweet.
With the Athletic Director spot about to be empty any day now, and with the President spot likely to be empty any week now, our aged hero, head coach Joe Paterno, will find himself all alone at the top of a heap over which he has little control. Change will be in the air in State College in the coming weeks, and it is unlikely that Paterno will survive it. Curley and Spanier both tried to bump Paterno out years ago, and both lost. They are soon to be gone, and new people with no history or loyalty to Joe will fill their seats. The new folks will make it a fast and final decision. Penn State will have a new coach within a year of now.
Like Penn State, the institution known as Coach Joe Paterno has my love, appreciation, admiration, and respect, for all of the obvious and same reasons he inspires that devotion among millions of others. I grew up with his wholesome kids and played in his all-American home, watched him recruit new players and listened to him lecture the young men on the straight-and-narrow Penn State way. He is a moral giant in a field crawling with opportunism and outright cheating. His example and principles are needed now more than ever. But if there is one more indication that Coach Paterno has lost the ability to hold on, it’s that he didn’t blow the whistle on Sandusky with more force.
Right now, Penn State is reeling from the earthquake. But no one can withstand a tsunami. What will be left at University Park after the coming tidal wave passes through will be interesting. Hopefully, what is left will be a return to the simple, humble, noble traditions that made us Nittany Lions great to begin with.
© Josh First, licensed to Rock The Capital, www.rockthecapital.com
Sexual harassment for real: Jesse Jackson sued, by a guy
Somehow the mainstream media forgot to mention that racist rabble rouser Jesse Jackson is being sued for sexual harassment. And by a guy, no less.
Jackson’s unfettered ability to move about freely among mainstream media reporters without taking any questions on this affair demonstrates that if you stay on the Plantation, then you will be taken care of.
If you are a Herman Cain, an independent thinker, why then nothing you say or do can clear your name, and the mainstream media reporters and talking heads will hound you to the ends of the earth. Thus demonstrating why so many Americans have lost faith in the mainstream media (NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN etc.).
And demonstrating why Cain’s popularity and fundraising are soaring, despite the attacks.
Maybe if Jesse Jackson becomes a Republican, he’ll benefit from the same effect helping Cain. C’mon, Jesse, give it a spin. Get your real freak on.
Read the gross details here:
http://www.thegrio.com/politics/gay-ex-employee-alleges-sexual-misconduct-bias-by-rev-jackson-and-staff.php
Obama administration’s corruption headed for investigation
Solyndra money laundering with taxpayer dollars, Homeland Security policies of catch-and-release of dangerous illegal aliens…all are coming home to roost after years of White House stonewalling. The subpoenas are flying.
Barack Hussein Obama promised Americans the most transparent, most accountable, most open administration in American history. Instead, he has behaved in the most concealed, corrupt way possible.
If the past is any indication of the future, a special investigator will have to be appointed to sort out the cycle of taxpayer money grants to Solyndra and many other partisan organizations, which then give their money to their partisan foot soldiers, who then go out and proclaim the Obama administration’s agenda.
Read on here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/3/house-subpoenas-white-house-solyndra-documents/
Media lynching of Cain under way
Herman Cain is now being publicly lynched by Joy Behar, the Washington Post, and other mainstream establishment media.
Allegations of unwanted advances, long long ago resolved with big pay-outs, are now the media’s silver bullet to kill Cain’s political candidacy.
What a joke.
First, these are the same media sources, reporters, and personalities who ignored Bill Clinton’s many many indiscretions. And who more recently refused to investigate Barack Hussein Obama’s radical, racist, and corrupt background.
These establishment media sources, and their politically partisan partners in advocacy groups and academia, pooh-pooh every indiscretion, coverup, and corrupt act by the politicians they support.
The same reporters and political activists who accused all criticism of Obama as “racism.” Now they actually accuse Cain of being racist for having different political views. What hypocrites. What obviously partisan phonies they are. Their criticism of Cain is phony.
So, Herman Cain, I stand with you, and so will all of your other supporters. This phase of your campaign is just a blip generated by partisan enemies of America.
Freak snow. Does it mean global climate change?
Global climate change, caused exclusively by humans and especially Western democracies, has been a cornerstone article of faith among the most outspoken environmental advocates.
No matter what the weather is, it’s always too extreme, too variable, too much of an outlier for the activists. Wild and even moderate swings in weather are proof of global warming, they constantly say.
If it’s unusually hot for a day, a week, a year, why that is obvious proof of global warming, they say.
If the weather turns prematurely cold or snowy, then that unusual deviation becomes yet another proof of global warming. After all, goes the thinking of the advocates, all unusual weather is evidence. Their first baseline is the past 100 years since weather data has been collected. Their second baseline is the past few hundred years of relatively stable weather patterns around the planet. The past couple of thousand years have seen several long periods of drought and wet, long before human populations either grew significantly or developed modern technology and industrial processes.
Their third baseline is the past ten thousand years, a period of relative calm when compared to the hundred-foot-thick glaciers that covered huge portions of Earth for thousands of years.
Yesterday we had an unusual October snow storm that left an inch or two of wet, heavy snow clinging to trees, buildings, light poles, and lawns. Could this be more evidence of global warming?
Let’s compare this snow to a mid-April snow storm I experienced on the first day of trout season in 1986, in central Pennsylvania. That day I was casting flies on Big Fishing Creek to hungry trout while enveloped in a white-out fog of swirling, blowing snow flakes. At that time, experts claimed the freak snowstorm was evidence of the mini ice age the planet was entering. Not global warming, but global cooling.
Twenty-five years later the global climate change claim is the opposite.
The problem with all this talk of global warming and cooling is that no matter what the weather is, unusually hot or unusually cold, certain advocates claim it is more proof for their current pet end-of-the-world issue. With all weather types and the full spectrum of weather now used to bolster the claim of global warming or climate change, it becomes an un-disprovable claim. All weather is “evidence.”. There is no weather that can be used to prove the opposite claim.
The biggest problem with “global climate change/warming/cooling” is that its advocates steer limited resources away from solving real environmental issues, like water pollution and profligate land development patterns.
I’m going to enjoy this unusual, pretty snow laying out on my lawn, because although it felt like the sky was falling, I rest happily knowing that it really isn’t.