Cupp: Muslim Uprising Not About A Movie

"We've got this all wrong," says S. E. Cupp.

Our public statements on the developments in Libya, Egypt and now Yemen, have bought wholesale into the false premise that the attacks on our embassies and assets were in retaliation for an amateur video some idiots made lampooning Islam.

The tawdry little film is the red herring. As was the Danish cartoon, and every other rationale Islamic terrorists have given for killing innocent people (including many Muslims). Even acknowledging the film in our official statements is giving credence to a lie. Waxing poetic about free speech and religious tolerance might make us feel like good and high-minded people, but it does nothing to alter the threat. Islamic extremists will not be intellectually bullied into sanity or respect for life. Our imposing strength, our military might and our readiness to use it is the only response that matters.

The UK Independent reports that the "U.S. State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert ..."

Some More Equal Than Others?

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius violated the Hatch Act by campaigning for a candidate while in her official capacity, an "activity that is illegal and normally results in the offender's termination from government employment," explains the Daily Caller.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) said Wednesday that Sebelius violated the law when she publicly endorsed President Barack Obama’s re-election during a taxpayer-funded public event on Feb. 25, 2012.

Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner wrote to Obama that the OSC found Sebelius “violated the Hatch Act by making extemporaneous political remarks in a speech delivered in her official capacity” on Feb. 25.

“The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from using their official authority or influence to affect the outcome of an election,” Lerner wrote to the president. “A federal employee is permitted to make partisan remarks when speaking in their personal capacity, but not when using an official title or when speaking about agency business.”

Thus far no action has been taken by the White House.

Inactive Map of Muslim Protests Around Globe

"If you can't keep track of all the Muslim protests erupting across the globe, writes the Atlantic wire, "you're not alone." So they've created an interactive map of the 20-plus locations of Muslim uprisings with links for more details:

If corporations aren't people, then neither are governments

"Corporations are not people," Elizabeth Warren said last week. "People have hearts. They have kids. They get jobs. They get sick. They cry. They dance. They live, they love and they die." To liberals, corporations are greedy, heartless institutions.

But if corporations aren't people, neither are these four beloved liberal institutions that are arguably more greedy and heartless than corporations:

1. Governments. Federal, state, and local governments fuel their greed with countless taxes, fees, and penalties assaults on taxpayers — from fishing licenses to death taxes — and no one can ever accuse the IRS, the EPA, the TSA, or any other government agency of having a heart.
2. Unions. The Chicago Teachers Union is a timely case in point. Although the average teacher salary is $71,000 (well above the $47,714 average salary of the college-educated tax-paying Chicagoan), the union just rejected a $400 million package that included a 16% pay raise.That's greed.
3. Universities. The overall inflation rate since 1986 is 115.06%, yet college tuition increased 498.31% during the same period. Universities hold billions of dollars in endowments — University of Virginia topped the list in 2011 at $4.8 billion — while their students accumulate millions in student loan debt. That's heartless.
4. Public Schools. American public schools spend an average $91,700 per student between the ages of 6 and 15 (not all the way to 18), the second highest per pupil spending behind Switzerland among the world's industrialized nations. Yet public schools continue to demand more money each year from local governments (property taxes), state governments (income taxes), and federal governments (income taxes). At the same time, public schools lobby vigorously against allowing even a small portion of a child's tax-appropriated dollars to follow him or her to a charter school, a private school, or a parochial school of choice. All greed and no heart for the kids trapped in really bad public schools.

At least corporations seek to please their customers. These liberal darlings don't need to bother.

"Kanye West: Is Profanity in Music Okay?"

"Over the weekend," writes Emily Esfahani Smith at ricochet.com, "Kanye West took to Twitter to have a philosophical conversation about whether it is ever acceptable to use the B or N words in music or conversation."

It seems like West is having second thoughts about the type of language that he uses in his songs–maybe he’s even worried about the messages that his music–and that of his hip hop peers–sends out. Another thing to worry about is the type of behavior such extreme language could encourage in listeners (mostly young men) who would otherwise suppress their more violent impulses. I can’t help but think here of hip-hop singer Chris Brown and Rihanna, whose relationship ended after Brown beat up Rihanna so badly that she ended up in the hospital.

Toward the end of his trail of tweets, West has two pretty insightful points. The first is a litmus test about how we know if it’s ok to use these vulgar words:

Here’s the age old question, would we refer to our mothers as [expletive]? Would’ we call our fathers [expletive] or better yet [expletive]?

The answer is obviously no. He goes on to ask:

If [expletive] is such a positive word, why do we feel so uncomfortable for white people to say it, even with a hall pass?

The implicit answer is that it’s not such a positive word. Though he then asks whether the United States should allow profanity on the radio, he concludes by appealing to a higher standard of both music and manner–the great Stevie Wonder.

“Stevie Wonder,” West writes, “never had to use the word [expletive] to get his point across.”

Well said.

ObamaCare Causes 50% Jump in NC Student Premiums

CNN reports that student semester health insurance premiums jumped by more than 50% this fall at colleges and universities in North Carolina, in part due to the ObamaCare law, according to university officials.

In April, Tom Ross, the president of the University of North Carolina system, sent a letter to the university's board of governors announcing that students should brace for a hike in the cost of university-provided insurance plans.

Ross explained that at least 64,000 North Carolina college students - roughly a third of those enrolled in the state's 17 public universities - should expect to see "substantial" increases in health coverage costs for the 2012-2013 academic year.

"Based on more than three semesters of actual claims experience, as well as the new provisions of the Affordable Care Act, we are facing large increases in premiums for our students," Ross wrote in the letter.

In North Carolina, college students are required to have proof of health insurance, either through their university, their parents or a private provider.

Students who purchase insurance plans from North Carolina public universities this fall will be shelling out $709 per semester. That's up significantly from a cost of $460 per semester last year.

As Ed Morrissey at hotair.com explains, the low-cost student health plans available to students last year were eliminated under ObamaCare, so students are forced to buy high-cost comprehensive plans instead.

If students wanted a comprehensive-policy option, they could have gotten it without ObamaCare, and now students no longer have the more sensible low-cost option thanks to ObamaCare’s mandate. ...college students haven’t realized so far just how badly ObamaCare exploits them to lower costs for the more politically reliable 40-54 YO demographic, who really benefit most by forcing younger people to pay higher premiums. They may begin to understand it, though, as those health-insurance bills get delivered this month.

"Painful Pandering to Women"

"It’s the year of the woman — or at least the year of the painful political pander to women," writes Karol Markowicz. "Both political parties are bending over backward to cater to this underrepresented minority group, which made up just 54 percent of voters in 2008."

...why, exactly, are women being treated as some sort of mass unit? All this catering to “women’s issues” assumes that all women feel the same way about all issues — and that those issues are almost all tied to sex or reproduction. That women may worry about taxation, terrorism, government spending, jobs or other “men’s” issues is apparently inconceivable.

It’s not a step forward for women that we are the focus of all this; it’s condescension, pure and simple.

If the goal is still equality between the sexes, then the pats on the head women have been receiving from politicians in the last year show we’re just not there yet.