Happy Mother’s Day

 

American-born impressionist Mary Cassatt (1844 - 1926) specialized in paintings depicting mothers and children. Our selection for this Mother’s Day, The Child’s Bath, is one of her most celebrated.

Happy birthday, Harry

Taking a moment to remember a Democrat we can admire. Never one to stick his finger in the air or rely on popular opinion for direction, he proudly displayed a sign on his desk indicating, The buck stops here.”

Assuming office after the death of President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II, and with limited previous interaction with FDR, he told reporters, “I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”

Harry would have been 124 years old today.

USA Day celebration on the AZ State Capitol lawn

Join in the festivities with your patriotic friends

Thursday, May 1, 2008    11:00am - 4:00 pm
Additional information, including map,  available here.

This event is organized by USA – United for a Sovereign America.

Holiday celebration lauds lawbreakers

 

With the Passover holiday approaching this weekend, we decided to check in with the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix for information on the holiday observances. What we found were two decidedly political articles, both going after Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The first one, an editorial commentary by a local rabbi, makes the bizarre analogy between the biblical Israelites in Egypt and today’s illegal aliens in America:

“Thirty-six times in the Torah we are commanded, “Do not oppress the stranger, the widow, and the orphan, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” We remember our people’s history. We have been the stranger, and we have been oppressed. We cannot oppress the stranger and victimize him.

The implicit underlying theme draws a fallacious analogy between Nazi roundups of Jewish citizens and the non-citizen illegals who, by virtue their very existence here, are lawbreakers.

“This scene conjures up all sorts of images in our minds,” the rabbi laments.” He describes “fully armed officers” as though wearing a sidearm was not basic to any law enforcement uniform.

What the rabbi hypocritically fails to take into account is the issue of the rule of law and the rights of sovereign nations to secure their own borders, especially in a post 9/11 world. Certainly Israel is doing that very thing today with the construction of a wall to protect her own citizens from invasion.

The second article, detailing a Passover ritual seder with members of the Latino community, refers to Sheriff Arpaio’s criminal patrols as “dragnets.”

The rabbi chastises “non-Latino” citizens for not speaking out against the patrols, in which “mothers and children (are) led to the mobile jail cell surrounded by heavily armed officers.”

With the distorted use of this provocative language, one can almost envision them being handed towels and bars of soap by SS officers as they are led to the showers, which turned out to be gas chambers. Using such an analogy constitutes an affront to the memory of those who were systematically slaughtered during the Holocaust.

Sheriff Arpaio’s patrols are world’s apart from the misinformation coming from this least likely quarter.

Seeing Red AZ is indeed seeing red over these distortions.

We send sincere good wishes for a blessed Passover to our Jewish friends.

Silencing Bardot

 

No First Amendment freedoms in France

French former film star Brigitte Bardot, now 73, has gone on trial for insulting Muslims. This marks the fifth time she has faced the charge of “inciting racial hatred” over her remarks about Islam and its followers.

Whatever happened to the freedoms the French once held so dear? Apparently, ils n’existent plus—they no longer exist.

What a shame that the French Revolution now appears to have been fought for naught.

“La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem once stood as a symbol of liberty, as evidenced in this memorable scene from the film “Casablanca,” as the Nazis attempted to drown out the then-patriotic French.

Thursday morning boost

More kick than a double Grande Cappuccino

This has been making the rounds for a while. If you missed it, this patriotic Army veteran will make you proud. Watch the brief video here.

The name game begins anew

Fish-wrapper calls for feds to retire ‘Squaw Peak’

When the daily ran a lengthy article last week on the five year memorial commemorating Lori Piestewa, it was clear this revival regarding the name of Phoenix’s popular mountain, would not be far behind. Piestewa died in 2003 while serving in the armed forces in Iraq.

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names now enters the picture with an April 10, 2008 vote which, if passed, would authorize the name be used on maps and other federal publication.

This interesting historical revisionism is included in today‘s front page article: Five years ago, Gov. Janet Napolitano and others successfully convinced a state panel to waive its own five-year waiting period to adopt the name Piestewa Peak.

Did we read that correctly?

That “convincing” was accomplished by the disreputable, ham-handed tactics of Gov. Janet Napolitano and her then henchman-in-chief, Mario Diaz. Diaz had served as her campaign manager and deputy chief of staff, and was no stranger to strong arm tactics. He attempted to pressure the chairman of state geographic names board to bypass the established five-year waiting period required when landmarks are posthumously named.

When brute force didn’t work, Diaz resorted to back-door intimidation tactics and coercement by buttonholing the man’s employer. Finally, the hapless chairman was removed from his leadership role and the name change was ramrodded through.

If this is “convincing,” dictionaries need to be revised.

Meanwhile, most of us continue to take our weekend hikes on Squaw Peak.

Why outlaw this? It’s just another cultural practice we should all embrace

The daily covers a staple of Mexican rodeos that some small-minded and bigoted lawmakers want to ban.

Shouldn’t we be celebrating the uniqueness of cultural diversity instead of prohibiting its components?

A Round in the Chamber

District of Columbia v. Heller and the Future of the Second Amendment

A new shot will be fired in the development of constitutional law this term when the U.S. Supreme Court decides the meaning of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller. Although the Court has only touched upon the Second Amendment in a few dozen cases, only once has the Court even begun to address its meaning. But the question presented in Heller requires a clear statement about its meaning. The Court will have to choose between three competing interpretations of the Second Amendment, a task made more difficult by a profoundly disappointing brief filed by the Justice Department in the case. What it does, and does not, decide will likely forever shape the future of Second Amendment jurisprudence and gun rights in America.

The excellent article, co-authored by Arizonan Sandra Froman and Kenneth Klukowski, for the Federalist Society, continues here.

A Stanford University graduate with a law degree from Harvard, Tucson lawyer, Sandra Froman is the immediate past president of the National Rifle Association.

Stepping in it again

Oh, those “typical white people” and their prejudices

During an interview with radio host Angelo Cataldi on Philadelphia sports station 610 WIP, Cataldi asked Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama about his recent speech on race. In that speech, Obama discussed his White grandmother and her prejudice.

Obama responded: “The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know—there’s a reaction in her that’s been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and sometimes come out in the wrong way and that’s just the nature of race in our society. We have to break through it. What makes me optimistic is you see each generation feeling less like that. And that’s pretty powerful stuff“

So, grandson Barack regards his now 86-year-old grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who helped raise him, as just “a typical White person?”

Even Jesse Jackson admitted to prejudice with this 1993 statement: “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life,” Jackson said, “than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see someone White and feel relieved.”

Does this comment make Jesse Jackson “just a typical Black person?“ Would Obama call Jackson an anti-Black racist? The double standard is astounding.

The complete interview audio is available here.