Bias on Campus

Liberal bias on college campuses is a favorite topic of ours. Cathy Young writes in today’s Boston Globe,

A left-wing witch-hunt on campus
By Cathy Young May 2, 2005

THE NOTION of left-wing political bias in the universities is widely pooh-poohed
on the left as so much right-wing propaganda — a smokescreen for an attempt to
push a conservative agenda on college campuses. Sure, conservative professors
may be a rare breed; but that, we are told, is only because the academy is all
about intellectual openness, tolerance of disagreement, robust and untrammeled
debate, and all those other intrinsically liberal values that conservatives
presumably just don’t get.

Here is a real world example of lefty intolerance, from my alma mater Colby College, the school that put the liberal in liberal arts. This blog, Colby and Beyond, is a great site to see what life is like for a conservative on an overwhelmingly liberal campus. Some of the stories are funny, like the “Die In” to mock the Iraq war. And some are just pathetic, like the student reaction to Al Franken’s visit last year.

I only wish I was as firm in my beliefs then as I am now. What fun it could have been to upset the apple cart at Camp Colby.

Bill Kristol in The Weekly Standard,

What’s really going on here, of course, is this: President Bush, having
been elected and reelected, and with a Republican Senate majority, wants to
appoint federal judges of a generally conservative and constitutionalist
disposition. The Democrats very much want to block any change in the character
of the federal judiciary–a branch of government they have increasingly come to
cherish, as they have lost control of the others. It’s a political struggle, not
unlike others in American history, with both sides appealing to high principle
and historical precedent.

But it happens to be the case that Republicans have the better argument
with respect to the filibustering of judicial nominees. The systematic denial of
up or down votes on
judicial nominees is a new phenomenon. Republicans are
right to say that it is the Democrats who have radically departed from customary
practice.

More important, perhaps, the customary practice of not filibustering
presidential nominees–whether for the judiciary or the executive branch–is not
a mere matter of custom. It is rooted in the structure of the Constitution.
While the filibuster of judges is not, in a judicially enforceable sense,
unconstitutional, it is contrary to the logic of the constitutional separation
of powers.

DCEV10605010254
Originally uploaded by punditreview.

Laura Bush stole the show Saturday evening at the annual White House Correspondence Dinner.

There are three things I enjoy about this event. First, it gives the press a chance to take themselves slightly less seriously, if only for an hour or two.

Second, it is an occassion where the president gets to show his sense of humor.

Finally, there is a guest comedian. This is always interesting to see how they handle the situation. It can go really, really bad. Don Imus bad. Or it can be pretty damn funny as it was this year with Cedric the Entertainer. He did a good job and kept it short. I was impressed.

Massachusetts has the most lopsided state government in the United States. Of the 160 members of the House of Representatives, only 22 are Republicans. That means more than 85% of state representatives are Democrats, and the vast majority of those are liberal Democrats.

When you have such a one-sided legislature, the citizens have to put up with an incredible amount of nonsense,

60% of Voters Approve Income Tax Rollback, Legislature Says No, Then Raises
Taxes By $1.2 Billion & Spending By $600 Million

67% Of Voters Approve Charitable Deduction Ballot Initiative, Legislature Says No

By 2 to 1 Margin Voters Approve Clean Elections Initiative, Legislature Says No

The latest example from Beacon Hill is this,

House of Representatives Proposes Tuition Tax Breaks for ILLEGAL immigrants,

The proposal to allow children of illegal immigrants who have lived in the
state for three years and graduated from high school here to receive
taxpayer-subsidized tuition breaks was vetoed last year by Gov. Mitt
Romney. That the measure wasn’t even brought up for an override vote is a
pretty good indication lawmakers understood its controversial nature. It’s no
less controversial now, providing plenty of reason to subject the plan to more
legislative scrutiny than the budget debate allows.

Such scrutiny, we believe, will conclude that spending limited state
resources to reward lawbreaking is wrong. But if legislators believe overwise,
they should be willing to say so in a stand alone up or down vote.

Wife of injured officer hears the news

UPDATE: First the bad news…This story is more infuriating than first thought,

Lopes was detained April 4 by the U.S. Office of Immigration and Naturalization after sneaking over the border in Texas with her father, prosecutor Cesar Archilla said. She was released, but ordered back for a hearing.

and now the good news,

A Salem patrolman decorated for bravery last year is expected to make a full recovery after being struck by a car driven by a 17-year-old illegal immigrant from Brazil who didn’t have a license, authorities said.

The Salem native, who is married with four children and is a 17-year police veteran, was flown to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center with head injuries and originally listed in critical condition. By yesterday, his condition was upgraded, a breathing tube was extracted and some of the first words out of his mouth were “Am I going to make my cruise?”

He was scheduled for a week’s vacation beginning Sunday, Salem police Capt. John Jodoin said.

Original Post

Everbody agrees that we are a country of immigrants, give us your poor, your so on and so forth.

Immigrants are welcome in this country, if they go through the legal process. It is Illegal immigration that has to be stopped. Illegal immigrants who commit crimes in this country should be punished and sent home.

We need to make it clear that unless you do it legally, you will be treated like, well, a criminal.

Let’s start with 17 year old Leila Lopes, an illegal who enetered the US 10 days ago from Mexico.

How is her pursuit of the American dream going? Well, within ten days of arriving in the US, she made it from the great southwest to the northeast part of Massachusetts. She got access to a car, even though she had little experience driving one, and she mowed down a police officer working a traffic detail at 10:30pm. The officer is in a Boston hospital fighting for his life, fighting desperately to stay alive so he can see his wife and kids again. His pursuit of the American dream required lots of overtime to provide for his family and it may cost him his life. It may cost his children their father and it may make his wife a widow.

Police officer hospitalized after being hit by car

The driver, Leila Lopes, 17, of Brazil, was arrested at the scene. According to prosecutors, she told investigators she had illegally entered the country over the Mexican border just 10 days ago and was staying with a woman in Peabody.

O’Hearn said he was trying to turn onto Tremont Street from Tremont Place, a small dead-end street where he had been visiting his girlfriend. He said Shea had indicated with his flashlight for him to stop.”All of a sudden I saw him fly up in the air and do a 360,” O’Hearn said. O’Hearn said he rushed to the fallen officer, who was unconscious and bleeding. He said police and firefighters arrived in under five minutes.

The collision left a large, deep dent in the passenger side of the Honda’s windshield. The car continued several hundred yards down the street, nearly to the end of the block.

Neighbors quickly gathered as Shea was rushed by ambulance to a nearby soccer field where a helicopter could land. After Shea was taken away, a police hat lay next to a pool of blood on the sidewalk. His black-and-yellow flashlight
lay in the street, still turned on.

According to Lopes court appointed lawyer she is scared and would rather return to Brazil than be in jail. No kidding? You can go back to Brazil, don’t worry. But first you’ll be spending the next several years behind bars.

People will always want to come to this country to pursue their dreams and make a better life for their families. At the same time, we cannot continue to have open borders and allow absolutely anyone to enter this country and do whatever it is they do. Most come for work. Some commit crimes. Some may be terrorists. Who the hell knows what they do? There is no way to track illegals, that is why we need to make it so only legal immigrants enjoy the greatness that this country has to offer. Illegals should be considered criminals. After all, isn’t something illegal criminal?

this is why you have a 401K and they have a pension…

IBM, with hundreds of thousands of former workers, also was hurt by rising pension costs. Excluding the impact of pension expenses, the firm’s earnings would have been up 20 percent from a year ago.

UAW, GM to Work to Cut Costs

GM’s health care costs, which it expects to rise to $5.6 billion this year from $5.2 billion last year, and a surprising warning last month of its worst quarterly loss since 1992 led to some speculation that the automaker could ask the union to renegotiate parts of its current contract.

Ford falls after 2005 earnings warning

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Ford Motor Co. shares shed as much as 9% Monday after the automaker blamed soaring steel, energy and health-care costs for an earnings miss in 2005 that will undermine its $7 billion profit target for 2006.

Ford’s stock (F: news, chart, profile) finished down 59 cents, or 5.4%, at $10.44, after notching nearly a two-year low of $10.09 earlier in the session. In the fixed income market, Ford’s corporate bonds fell sharply in the wake of a negative shift in the outlooks from leading ratings agencies.

This is simply unbelievable,

Former Boston archbishop given role of honor in mourning for
pope

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in disgrace as
archbishop of Boston over his role in the clergy sex abuse crisis, has been given a role of honor in the mourning for Pope John Paul II.

The Vatican announced Thursday he will lead one of the daily Masses
celebrated in the pope’s memory during the nine-day period that follows the funeral, called Novemdiales. The service will be held Monday at St. Mary Major Basilica, where Law was appointed archpriest after leaving Boston.

Some Catholics in his former archdiocese immediately protested.

When it comes to Cardinal Law, the fundamental question is not “What is he doing at the Vatican?” or “Why was he given a role during the Pope’s funeral?”

THE question when it comes to Cardinal Law is this,

Why Isn’t Bernard Law in Jail?

The evidence speaks for itself: Last spring, Law admitted in a deposition
that he was aware that John Geoghan had reportedly raped at least seven young
boys in 1984 yet nevertheless approved the transfer of Geoghan to another
parish, working with other boys. Other documents revealed that Law similarly
knew of and ignored decades of reported child abuse by Paul Shanley, placing
Shanley in ministries with access to other children. Shanley is currently facing
trial on 10 charges of child rape and six counts of indecent assault and
battery. Law is jetting back and forth to Rome.

Throughout his tenure, Law seemed to reserve his warmest sympathy for
the abusers, not the victims. He lied to a West Coast bishop about Shanley’s
history. He signed a document attesting that another known child-molesting
priest, Redmond Raux, had “nothing in his background” to make him “unsuitable to
work with children.” Last week, more court documents revealed that the
archdiocese gave new jobs to two priests, one of whom was known to have molested
boys while the other had supplied cocaine to a teenage lover. Law’s responses to
these and earlier disclosures? The molesters had been cleared by physicians; the
church kept bad records; his subordinates vetted the transfers; he forgot; he
never knew; he’s sorry.