At a prominent university on Canada’s Pacific coast, the radical rabble rousers got together with a ‘special meeting’ of the subsidiary teaching/research staff union and demanded an immediate show of solidarity with the ‘suffering’ Lebanese and Palestinian people. The university and the province must divest from Israel and Israeli companies, these pro-Hezbollah folks demanded. And the union leadership was almost ready to cave in; you see Canadians generally do not have much of a backbone about standing up for matters of principle. But lo and behold….KsReaganite’s younger brother, one of the sharpest leaders of the union, was right there. With deft parliamentary maneuvering which left his audience at a loss for words, he quickly dispatched the motion with a substitute motion to study the issue by a special committee headed by himself that was to report in about two months. Now who would oppose the fine Canadian tradition of deliberation till death?

Divestment??? They don’t know how solidly and intellectually pro-Israel my brother is. Wait till his report comes out..heck, knowing him, he will probably recommend more investment in Israel!

Hezbollah and its Canadian allies lost the day to my brother and I am drinking a toast to him. Join me!

On one fundamental issue KsReaganite wholeheartedly agrees with the gay/lesbian lobby: it is the height of hypocrisy for so many Republican politicians to claim to ‘protect’ heterosexual marriage by various kinds of amendments. The idea of ‘marriage’ between two men or two women is beyond my imagination and beneath the dignity of a comment. But that preposterous idea is an extremely miniscule risk to traditional marriage compared to much bigger threats like adultery, spousal abuse, and no-fault divorce. And who are the loudest champions of prohibiting gay ‘marriage’? Here is a small sampling, federal and state:

1. Congressman Steve LaTourette of Ohio, the adulterer who filed to divorce his wife and mother of his five children so that he could openly shack up with his young paramour
2. Newt Gingrich…enough said
3. Congressman Tom Davis III of Virginia, who left his wife of 30 years, and mother of his three children, to marry the protégé he was having an affair with
4. State Senator Jeannemarie Devolitte of Virginia, who cheated on her husband of 24 years, and father of her four children, with Congressman Tom Davis
5. Former U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, who left his wife of 30 plus years, to shack up with a tobacco lobbyist fifteen years his junior
6. State Representative Mike O’Neal of Kansas, Chairman of the Kansas House Judiciary Committee, who left his wife of 15 odd years to put finishing touches on his affair
7. United States Senate candidate John Spence of New York, who left his wife and mother of two children without even the formality of a divorce, shacked up with his secretary by whom he had three kids…polygamy at its best!

If these Republicans were as serious about protecting marriage, they would act more ethically in their own marriages and set good examples for others. And, if they must do something legislatively to protect marriage, such an effort should be directed towards reforming the divorce laws so that children’s homes are not broken up just because a parent has a seven-year itch. Unlikely that this would happen since any common-sense, equitable reform of divorce laws will bring instant bombastic opposition from three most powerful segments of our society that make their living on the backs of broken homes: sleazy male politicians, the American Bar Association, and the National Organization of Women.

Having Tim Hutchinson and Jeannemarie Devolitte protect hetrosexual marriages is like having Sarah Brady protect the Second Amendment.

 

Old guard feminists are so fully stuck in the 1970s, it is almost laughable. That the world has changed and moved on is beyond the fading wits of the Gloria Steinems and Faye Wattletons and their sister hags. Their principal article of faith, that being pro-abortion rights is being pro-woman, has long lost its demographic validity: more American women are pro-life than pro-choice, women are substantially more pro-life than men, and the strongest support for abortion on demand comes from men between 18 and 35. Yet, these feminist dinosaurs cannot let it go…abortion on demand is their litmus test for everything and everyone. So much is their obsession with it that they will gladly label people like Bill Clinton and Teddy Kennedy “champions of women rights”. Tells you how much feminists are out of touch with real women when their heroes are misogynist men who have gotten away proudly with sexual harassment, workplace sexism, attempted rape, repeated cheating on their wives, and murder. Even now, as more and more neutrally culled data challenges feminism to its face, the middle aged feminists and their journalist buddies are calmly living in their cocoon world of three decades ago. A sample of the current facts that have passed the NOW dinosaurs (and their emasculated male Democrat and RINO allies) completely by:

1. Fifty four percent of Americans, men and women, consider the Bible to be literally true.
2. More women than the previous generation, most of them highly educated, are staying home to raise kids.
3. Only half of the college going women, supposedly the most socially liberal of all women, support abortion on demand
4. Close to a third of America’s women agree with the Southern Baptists that the husband is the head of the household
5. A large majority of American women do not consider themselves to be victims of gender oppression
6. Women are far more likely to go to church than men; the churches they go to in ever increasing numbers are the evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist, and conservative Catholic congregations, not the anything goes mainline Protestant ones.
7. A majority of America’s women think that the most important job for a woman is to be a good mother
8. Many Democratic women are solidly pro-life. The strong sanctity of life laws enacted recently in South Dakota and Louisiana were spearheaded by liberal Democratic women.

KsReaganite does not necessarily agree with all the points raised above. But the question that begs an answer is this:

What Feminist Majority are these NOW cows representing? There isn't a feminist majority!

KsReaganite’s tentative answer is this: These NOW cows really represent that small sliver of Prozac prescribed well-to-do women who have been educated beyond their intelligence, have hyphenated names, sip martinis while the daycare raises the kids, cheat once in a while to feel liberated, and show up Sunday mornings at mainline churches that tell them whatever they want to hear to feel good about their sorry lives.

Further effort by Kansas Reaganite to help you translate liberspeak. The first sentence is what you hear and the second is what is meant..and so on for each pair of sentences.

Young people need mentors and positive role models.

Kids’ parents are too busy to guide them so they need someone else.

I am a fiscal conservative and social moderate.

I don’t want to pay high taxes and don’t want to offend the media.

There is too much partisanship in Congress these days.

I like the Democratic kind of partisanship, not the Republican kind.

My politics is middle of the road; I am a moderate.

I am a liberal who is too chicken to admit it.

I am pro-woman and therefore pro-choice.

I am a moron who doesn’t realize that a plurality of women are pro-life.

I want the federal government out of the abortion issue.

I didn’t know the Roe v Wade Supreme Court was part of the federal government.

I am a Republican but don’t like the Bible thumpers that dominate the party these days.

I am clueless about how participatory democracy works.

I am a liberal Christian.

I belong to one of those mainline denominations which are DNC spiritual subsidiaries.

I am spiritual but not religious.

I am confused but want to appear respectable.

The government should provide more money for childcare.

I am too much into making money to take care of my kids.

Reagan didn’t win the Cold War, the Soviet Union just collapsed by itself.

I had too much dope and too many liberal professors in the 1980s in college.

Communism is really very good in theory.

I have never met anyone who lived under Communism.

I am personally pro-life but…..

I was born a Catholic but want to be a politician in a blue state

 

Next time you are tempted to strangle your kids out of frustration (and I think all sane parents have that passing thought once in a while!), please move to Texas. If you end up following through on your frustration, chances are that the state will pay for your mental hospital stay and then let you go home once some quack shrink certifies you “recovered”. Yep, that’s what Andrea Yates, the cold blooded murderer of her five children, gets. Not one day in prison, not a dime in fines, not an hour of community service.

Not that it should surprise too many people. For all its reputation of a conservative law and order place, the Lone Star state has a strange record of punishing those who harm children. Couple of years ago a thirty some year old teacher was found guilty of statutory rape of a fourteen year old. You know what happened? A fan of Texas like me had a hard time believing it: Thirty days jail time. The child conceived as a result of this statutory rape was given to the rapist while the young victim was ordered to pay child support and required to stay away from the child!! A Texas state judge made these orders with a straight face. I am not kidding!

Many liberals support killing unborn children. Seems that many conservative Texas judges and juries don’t particularly mind the killing of toddlers or the rape of teenagers.

 

In my great state of Kansas, there is a full fledged Republican primary coming up. The primary pits the Reagan wing of the party against many of the so-called moderate Republicans. These ‘moderate’ Republicans, largely from the tony Kansas City suburbs and Lawrence, are good people with lots of money and membership in beautiful country clubs. They just want to get along with everyone without making too much noise and do not particularly care for the ‘western’ Kansas people, i.e. those in our state who live anywhere west of the famously liberal University of Kansas. The only difference between these Republicans and the state’s Democrats is that the Democrats actually do believe in something greater than manicured lawns in Shawnee Mission. The last pro-life, pro-gun governor of this ‘red’ state was the late Joan Finney, a feisty liberal Democrat.

Well, we have a chance in the next few weeks to place real Republicans in office in Kansas again. Being the true ‘Reaganite’ (in case you did not see the blog name!), I have the honor of supporting the following state-wide nominees who reflect the vision and values of the greatest Republican of our generation.

1. For Governor: Dr. Jim Barnett (a down to earth family physician who takes his Hippocratic oath seriously and has none of the snobbishness of most people in his profession). His running mate is Senator Susan Wagle, a cancer survivor and a successful businesswoman who calls them as she sees them.

2. For Secretary of State: Kay O’Connor (a state senator, businesswoman, mother, wife, and observant Roman Catholic in the famously liberal Kansas City suburbs. The few contacts I have had with her have made me astonished with her humble demeanor. She reads her emails and writes back in detail even in the midst of a legislative session!)

3. For Attorney General: Phil Kline (the man who went to the U.S. Supreme Court to fight for the right of Kansans to legislate their own laws and won, and then took on the abortion industry and its supporters as they try hard to hide rape, incest, and pedophilia. This attorney general has guts to take on the bar association, the Johnson county mega bucks, and the liberal media.)

4. For Insurance Commissioner: Eric Carter (no-nonsense state legislator who intends to monitor the insurance industry rather than be its pet which, unfortunately, the current liberal Republican incumbent has become.)

 

That politics is sometimes no better than prostitution, often worse, is amply demonstrated again by today’s bon homie between a struggling Joe Lieberman and a beaming Bill Clinton. Few men in the United States Senate, of either party, can match Lieberman’s reputation of personal decency and quiet integrity. As for the former Governor of Arkansas, the less said about his integrity and credibility, the better. Yet, as President Reagan once famously remarked, the world’s oldest profession has lots in common with its second oldest counterpart. Hence, a rapidly sinking Joe Lieberman calls in Bill Clinton to endorse him publicly in the Connecticut Senate race.

But I am being unfair to ladies of the evening. Most prostitutes do what they do to put food on the table, send their kids to school, and keep body and soul together. They operate in the shadows of society, condemned by the high and mighty in public and sought after in the dark. Without the protection of law, at the mercy of thuggish 'facilitators', and disdained by self-proclaimed denizens of decency, these women carry on a lifestyle that is far more honorable than most politicians and many average citizens. You don’t say!!

Yes, I do so say. A prostitute sells her body to keep her kids fed and clothed. A politician sells his soul and his honor to keep the privilege of feeding from the public trough. An adulterer or adulteress does the same thing as a prostitute not for feeding the children but to partake in deception for the thrill of it. A prostitute does not deceive and does not break faith; many politicians and all cheaters do both.

I have far more respect for prostitutes than for many people whose names are prefaced with ‘The Honorable’. And a prostitute is far more credible than many a respectable suburban spouse whose cowardly life of deception harms her/his own family, children, community, and country.

Ideally, we should let Israel do its job. The best thing for Washington to do would be to keep quiet and not interfere. In the past, every time Israel came close to mopping up the terrorists, we had intervened to bring ‘peace’: in 1967, 1973, and 1982. Please, let them do their job. Yes there are casualties but Israelis are traditionally very conscientious about hurting civilians and go out of their way to avoid that kind of ugly business. Frankly, if Lebanon’s government cannot keep its borders clean of militants that lob rockets at the neighbors, someone has to step in to restore the peace. And if Israel wants to hit a couple of places in Syria, so be it. My experience with the Middle East and in that region has been that from time to time some of these thuggish colonels do need a dose of reality check in the form of pin-prick air strikes. Call it booster vaccines..they keep the rabies at bay for a while. Israel, with the world’s absolute finest air force, is perfectly suited to do it, and it is a necessity of survival for them.

Go Israel!!!! Mazel Tov!!

Hugh Hewitt made a very good point about the change in Congressional leadership that'll happen if the Democrats win Congress in November. Notwithstanding the Democratic Party's assertion of support for Israel, the fact is that many senior Democrats in Congress, those in line to be charimen of key committees and sub-committees are quite leftist and lukewarm towards our Middle Eastern ally. This is all the more sad considering that American Jews are solid supporters of the Democrats in the voting booth. But, Mr. Hewitt's point goes beyond the foreign policy dimensions.

By voting to change from Republican to Democrat, voters don't just get a new party in power. Rather, they get the leadership of that party in power...a leadership that is quite different from the rank and file average Democrat. The Congressional leadership of the Democratic Party is not exactly representative of the blue-collar, patriotic, hard-working family in the Alleghanies who are registered Democrats. No...not even close. The values of Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Charlie Rangel are the values of the blame-America-first Hollywood crowd. These are values that celebrate burning the flag and denigrate the ordinary faith of the average American. This is the crowd that lip syncs support for the working family and then forces that family to send its children to failing schools because the teachers union so demands. This is the cabal that would let Mr. Kofi Anan, tell us when to use our troops in combat. This is the coterie that requires devout Christians to subsidize abortions. This is the group that wants to put up a sign on our courthouses warning "Believing Catholics need not apply".

Most Democrats are as patriotic as Republicans. The Democratic leadership, however, is an entirely different story.

 

 

PUNISHING PATRIOTISM, KANSAS STYLE

Most societies honor their warriors, or at least show them gratitude, by way of bestowing gifts, medals, awards and monuments. In Kansas, we punish our warriors by robbing them of what is more dear to them than life itself: their children. In a stunning assist to the Iraqi insurgents and terrorists facing our servicemen around the world, the Democrat dominated Supreme Court of Kansas on July 15, 2006, upheld a lower court ruling that servicemembers deployed abroad could lose custody of their children for being away on their country’s call. Our august justices, ensconced in the stately Justice Center far away from any combat, held that fighting abroad for America was not good enough to invoke the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. Rather, a soldier or marine had to produce detailed orders and combat calendars to be even considered a real ‘servicemember’ (and make the New York Times publish more of our military secrets to the world, I am sure).

Marine Corporal Levi Bradley and his mother Starleen Bradley were given full custody of his infant son Tyler last year when his now ex-wife Amber decided to abandon the child and move in with her boyfriend. Levi Bradley deployed to Iraq safe in the knowledge that his little boy would be cared for well by grandma, a well respected schoolteacher in Ottowa, Kansas. Even before the marine faced bullets in Iraq, Amber and her taxpayer funded lawyers went to court to modify the custody; the hearing judge James Smith, a colleague of Amber’s mother, granted the motion. The plea of Levi Bradley that he be at least given the chance to return home and fight for his son fell on deaf ears. A caring grandmother was left with a picture of the grandson she has cared for since birth. This was the miscarriage of justice that the Kansas Supreme Court upheld on Friday, July 15 in a sneaky decision that was not released till the end of the week when most people were busy with weekend plans.

This is how we in Kansas, unfortunately, treat those who put their lives on the line for us. Every man and woman in uniform that I know would rather face a thousand bullets than lose his or her child. Yet today, the Kansas Supreme Court has made petty district court judges tinged with nepotism far more dangerous to an American serviceman than roadside bombs, sniper bullets, and all the insurgents in Falluja.

I am waiting for the high command of the Iraqi insurgency and the Taliban to send congratulatory flowers to the seven judges of the Supreme Court of my great state.

 Since my college days I have been hearing this self-righteous argument of many a liberal that we conservatives are out to impose our morality on them. In the past, I was somewhat conventional in arguing the point, almost defensive you can say. Not anymore...I go on the offensive myself. My lefty friends are taken aback or even shocked when I tell them how unhappy I am at their constant desire to impose their morality on me. "Our morality??", comes the beweildered response. Yes!! You want me to live under your rules on environmentalism, pay for the the poor, bear the burden of public education..etc, etc, etc, don't you?

"Yes, of course! But those the are the right things to do!"

"Right things? You mean the proper and moral thing to do for society?"

"Yes, yes.!!" they are relieved I finally see the point.

Then I go for the jugular.."And why do you have to impose your morality on ME!!?"

Mumbles, grumbles, and groans by folks beaten at their own game.

Please. Stop imposing your morality on me before making asinine comments.

 Fundamentally then, the NEA and AFT represent those who look at teaching as another job. It is a far cry from those dedicated teachers whose life’s work, heart and soul are devoted to impart learning to the child left in their care. Real learning that helps the child compete in the real world with knowledge, character, and boldness. Many such teachers, like my former colleague Karen, paid their mandatory monthly NEA dues to keep the peace but went on to teach children the real stuff: reading, writing, numbers. For it is in the classrooms that the exporting of jobs is either stopped or accelerated…a kid knowing how to weave baskets and sing kumbaya is a cool kid, but no match in the job market for a Korean kid who can write programs like a whiz and ftp them to a North Carolina software company.

The difference is teachers with a calling…these are the women and men that shape the minds and characters of children. It is little wonder that more and more secular private schools are doing thorough vetting of those they hire to teach their charges. For more parents are insisting that their children be taught by those whose credentials, character, and ethics are above reproach. Perhaps they have had enough of intellectually shallow and ethically challenged teachers like Debra LeFave and Mary Kay Letorneau in their schools.

Ethics count. Specially so for parents and teachers, whose words and actions are emulated by children, often unbeknownst to themselves. With professional labor unions (both NEA and AFT are member organizations of AFL-CIO) in charge of public education, it is little surprise that ethics and education are amongst the surest casualties in K-12 classrooms.

 One of the more brazen examples of the teachers union grandstanding is its total disregard of facts. The media goes along with the non-sense that more dollars will cure it all in our public schools and make them world class. The facts not only dispute that kind of self-serving baloney, but actually fly in the face of it. World Class?

World class are the schools in India, China, Korea, and Singapore whose eight graders have a better grasp of math, science, and English than many graduates of our public high schools. They spend a fraction of what we do and yet kick our rear end in aptitude and application. Just take a look at the demographic composition of America’s engineering and computer schools, her hi-tech industries, and, increasingly, her boardrooms. How do these folks do it?

By making sure that teachers teach and students learn against high standards (yes, those hated tests!). Less emphasis on self-esteem, condoms, basket-weaving, and class trips to Aruba and more on reading, writing, comprehension, and algebra. Most Asian kids go to school 10 months a year…ours barely make it 8 months. Only an absolute idiot or a credentialed NEA boss will claim that the length of the school year has nothing to do with learning. No, the NEA and AFT want to keep the long luxurious vacations and hates the idea of teaching more students with more rigorous standards. But please, these lazy teachers need a pay raise.

What a fraud on the children of America…mostly those children whose parents cannot afford the luxury of sending them to private/parochial schools where learning does actually happen…the same private schools that the liberal defenders of teachers unions send their kids to.

 

Few brazenly ludicrous things affect the average American family more than the raw power politics of public education. The use of children (and their parents) as hostages by those in whom the care of our children is entrusted several hours a day is a sight to behold. I am the son of a school teacher myself…needless to say that I hold them in extremely high regard and to extremely high standards. Perhaps my ire is better directed at the teacher’s unions (NEA and AFT and their state level affiliates) than teachers themselves because there are a few teachers I run into who do consider their profession a calling rather than a mere career.

Therein lies the difference. In the past generations teachers molded not only the intellect but the hearts of their pupils. They taught the alphabet, the arithmetic, and reinforced the values instilled in homes. My mother’s students have found their way into lucrative careers and into the halls of NYU and UPenn. I doubt that would have happened had she been busy teaching them self-esteem, handing out condoms, and marching on the capitol demanding legalization of gay marriage. She had been entrusted by the parents and her Creator to help develop the minds of young children; she is the partner, not protagonist, of parents as they instill their values in their offspring. It’s a calling…something more sublime and more spiritual than mere careers. Those who go into teaching for the money or any other material fulfillment are in the wrong career. Mom left a lucrative career as a microbiologist to become a teacher…trust me, it wasn’t the money that made her switch.

Today so many public school teachers care about instilling their ‘modern’ values into kids because parents apparently are too ‘old fashioned’ to do so. Some, like Debra LaFave and Mary Kay Letourneau, become child rapists to make sure that kids are getting the ‘modern’ sex education. Then their labor union demands better pay, smaller classes, and letting them of the hook for molesting children placed in their care. Once upon a time not too long ago, hiring teachers involved thorough vetting of not just their education credentials but also their discernment, emotional health, morals, and lifestyle. Not anymore. Any Tom, Dick, Harry, Jane, Jill, and Mary can become a teacher. Heck, there are teachers in my public school district in south-central Kansas who are lucky that I don’t have kids in the district: I’d have put restraining orders on them to keep them away from any of my kids.

No wonder, public education is in shambles.

 Like we can create the ideal characters in SimCity or similar games, I wish we could do the same for Presidential candidates, at least the GOP nominees. That ideal candidate would have personal honor and public courage. Someone who believes, and whose record so proves, in small government, lower taxes, strong defense, deep compassion for the poor, and abiding respect for the right to life, liberty, and property.  He will hold strong convictions but treat his political adversaries with respect. He will make sure that each federal department and every federal bureaucrat treats the people of America, their masters, with dignity and respect and without any discrimination based on race, religion, or gender.

He will believe, in the heart of his hearts, like Ronald Reagan did, that America is great because it is good and for her to remain great, she must remain good.


Well, seems Giuliani, Buchanan, and Pataki are out with that kinda criteria.