In Hugo's 21st Century Socialism, Venezuelans grapple with food shortages

By David Paulin

These nearly empty shelves at a supermarket could be a scene from Cuba – yet this is Venezuela under what Hugo Chavez calls "21st Century socialism." 

A screen grab of these sparsely stocked shelves -- at a rural store near the port city of Puerto La Cruz -- says it all. No sugar. No flour. No toilet paper. You can thank draconian currency exchange and price controls for that --  along with epic levels of statism, mismanagement and corruption.

Globovision, a Caracas TV channel under attack by the Chavez's administration, reports that shoppers who live near the northeastern city -- a tourist destination and oil-refinery town -- report products are hard to find. And when they are found, prices are high and lines are long.

When I was reporting from Venezuela in the late 1990s, I noted in a story for Newday that painful free-market reforms -- belatedly introduced by President Rafael Caldera (Chavez's predecessor) -- were making life tough for poor Venezuelans. They were eating less meat as a consequence. 

Now, they may not be eating any meat at all.

Recently, the Los Angles Times reported that Venezuela's economy is a basket case, thanks in part President Chavez's election year giveaways that included apartments and appliances. As reporter Chris Kraul wrote:

As perishable foodstuffs rotted on cargo ships that had waited three weeks to unload at Venezuela's largest port, unsettled consumers this week found shelves at Caracas' main downtown market devoid of rice, cooking oil, sugar and other items.

Widespread scarcities and chaos at the nation's main ports, including Puerto Cabello, are just some of the problems Vice President Nicolas Maduro will face as he takes the reins of power in the absence of President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez is recovering from cancer surgery in Cuba, and his return is uncertain.

Other pressing issues include a 20% inflation rate, a ballooning government deficit and price controls that have created a thriving underground market in food staples. 

Despite an oil bonanza, U.S. dollars are scarce and worth four times the official rate on the foreign-currency black market.

Economists say Maduro will be forced to institute several unpleasant economic measures, possibly including spending cuts that would be especially hard on the poor, the Chavez government's chief beneficiaries.

With or without Chavez, Venezuela is facing some tough times ahead. 

In Cuba, Hugo Chávez gets spiritual support from Jesus -- not Marx

A case of religion for the classes -- and socialism for the masses?

 

David Paulin

 

Religion in Cuba has long been marginalized: Marx was promoted over Jesus. Communist elites along with their goons and starry-eyed wannabees wouldn't be caught dead at a Catholic mass -- a subversive act in the hemisphere’s last bastion of communism during its worst days; and now an act seen as politically incorrect.

 

So how ironic that Hugo Chávez, thought to be on his death bed in Havana while battling terminal cancer, is getting a boost from Jesus -- not Marx. Hundreds of Cubans and foreign officials have been praying for Chávez in some of the few churches on the Caribbean island -- an overwhelmingly secular state after generations of religions persecutions. What's more, the outpouring of religious feelings for El Presidente is apparently taking place with the blessing of the state (though it's not being played up in Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party).

 

Over the years, Cuba's communist ruling class has persecuted ordinary Cubans for embracing religion -- calling it the opium of the people and counter revolutionary. Yet an exception is being made for Chávez who, in recent months, has claimed to have found religion. In Venezuela, he has sprinkled his speeches with references to Christ and affirmed his "faith in God" – all while simultaneously promoting his vision of a utopian socialist state. On December 11, Chávez underwent a fourth delicate cancer surgery in Havana, and shortly thereafter he contracted a pulmonary infection that's now causing severe breathing problems.

 

Last Saturday, Chávez's new-found religious feelings got a boost at the Cathedral of Havana where 400 people prayed for his recovery. In his homily for Chávez, parish priest Yosvany Carvajal was quoted by Venezuelan news outlet Globovision as telling his audience: "Today, thanks to your faith, we pray in a very special manner for President Chávez; that the Lord bless him and accompany him on his speedy recovery." Among the well-to-do audience members: Venezuelan Ambassador Edgardo Ramirez and Alex Castro, a son of Fidel Castro and his staff photographer.

 

It was the second Catholic mass for Chávez, noted Globovision. The first on December 14 was at the church Jesús de Miramar in Havana. It was attended by Cuban and Venezuelan military officials and by Latin American diplomats based in Havana; and many no doubt shared a similar concern: If Chávez dies, the oil largesse and money he showers upon his allies may be shut off by pragmatic Venezuelan leaders.

 

Besides the Catholic masses, Globovision noted that Argentina President Cristina Kirchner arrived in Cuba last Friday carrying a bible for Chávez. She had lunch with the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul, and later met with Chávez's family members.

 

Cuba long ago became an overwhelmingly secular state -- at least for ordinary Cubans who now depend on the state for their emotional and physical sustenance. That the island's elites and visiting officials are attending Catholic masses for Chávez suggests that religion in Cuba – while not completely acceptable for ordinary people – is nevertheless acceptable for certain elites, under certain circumstances.

 

It's an odd case of religion for the classes – and socialism for the masses. 

 

Originally published at the American Thinker blog

Exxon Mobil Upbraids Vermont's Socialist Senator for His Tall Tales

By David Paulin

Exxon Mobil's public affairs department no doubt knows all about the dangers of the Big Lie -- a communications strategy perfected by Herr Goebbels, practiced by community organizer Alinsky & Friends, and now embraced by the powers that be in Washington.

 

Repeat an outrageous lie often enough, and the public will take it as the truth.

 

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist and advocate of wind power, has recently been playing the Big Lie game with Exxon Mobil -- claiming it paid no federal income taxes in 2009. Recently, the energy giant fought back with a letter-to-the-editor in the Wall Street Journal -- "Inaccurate Statements about Exxon Mobil" -- signed by Kenneth P. Cohen, Vice President of Public and Government Affairs for the Iriving, Texas-based company. He wrote:

 

In his Jan. 2 letter defending taxpayer subsidization of wind power, Sen. Bernie Sanders repeats his inaccurate claim that Exxon Mobil, one of the largest taxpayers in the United States, paid no federal income taxes in 2009.

 

That is not true, as we and others, including the PolitiFact truth-checking website, have told Sen. Sanders repeatedly.

 

He also incorrectly repeats the claim that billions in subsidies are going to the fossil fuel industry, when he's really talking about tax provisions available to all industries to support job creation and economic activity.

 

The fact is that Exxon Mobil is one of the largest taxpayers in the country. Over the past five years, our total U.S. tax expense was $57 billion, about $18 billion more than the company earned in the country during the same period.

 

You can read PolitiFact's analysis of Exxon Mobil's tax payments here. But don't expect this to make an impression on Sen. Sanders -- and nor on Occupy Wall Street protesters and their friends in Washington.

 

As they see things, Exxon Mobile got rich by making the rest of us poor.

 

Originally published at the American Thinker blog

Castro Fuels Rumors of a Chávez Death Watch

 
By David Paulin

Rumors are flying in Venezuela that Hugo Chávez is on his death bed – fighting a respiratory infection in a Havana oncology ward that, according to official statements, developed after his fourth cancer surgery. Now, Fidel Castro is fueling rumors of a death watch with an open letter to Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro.

It has the tone of a funeral eulogy.

Sent by Castro on New Year’s Day, the 350-word letter also was published in Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party’s Central Committee. Castro, a mentor to Chávez over the years, recalls his first meeting with Venezuela’s strongman in Havana in 1994; this was not long after Chávez, then a cashiered Army paratrooper, was released from prison for leading an aborted military coup in 1992. Castro details his revolutionary struggles with Chávez and – most tellingly – observes that “however painful (Chávez’s) absence, all of you will be capable of continuing his work.” Cuba has been a recipient of Venezuela’s oil and economic largesse; it has many agents in Venezuela helping Chávez’s security services.

The impetus for the letter, as Castro explained at the onset, was to mark the eighth anniversary for the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, currently an eight-member political and economic group that includes countries from Latin America and the Caribbean. An alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, it was put forth by Chávez to counter U.S. dominance in the region.
Recalling the first time he met Chávez, Castro wrote:

I met Hugo Chávez exactly 18 years ago. Someone invited him to Cuba and he accepted the invitation. He told me that he was thinking of asking for an interview with me. I was far from imagining that those soldiers branded as coup plotters by the news agencies, who sowed their ideas with so much discretion for years, were a select group of Bolivarian revolutionaries. I waited for Chávez at the airport, took him to where he was staying and talked with him for hours, exchanging ideas.
The following day, in the University of Havana’s Aula Magna, each one of us expressed our ideas.

(Readers can see Chávez’s speech, here. Although it’s in Spanish, two things surmount language barriers: Chávez’s telegenic presence and his aura of being a True Believer.)

Regarding Cuba’s close ties with Venezuela, Castro also mentioned Venezuela’s mudslide disaster in 1999 — and how Cuban physicians and medical aid were sent in response. “Our medical cooperation with Venezuela began as a result of the Vargas tragedy in which thousands of people died as a consequence of the abandonment and lack of foresight experienced by the poorest population of this state.”

It’s a fanciful narrative, to be sure, about what happened along the coastline of Vargas State, 20 miles north of Caracas. It ignores the truth: Chávez’s inept leadership and do-or-die political ambitions facilitated the deaths of 30,000 or more Venezuelans in the mudslide disaster. Most of the victims were poor.

Although not widely reported outside of Venezuela, Chávez and his advisers ignored the unusually heavy rains (and possibility of deadly mudslides and flooding), because they were determined to go ahead with a national referendum, on December 15, that was needed to adopt a new constitution. The constitution was a pivotal step in consolidating Chávez’s power – and enabled him to pack the Supreme Court with political cronies.

Despite the menacing rains, Chávez urged Venezuelans to go to the polls. No matter that emergencies were being declared and evacuations undertaken in neighboring states, including by Miranda state Gov. Enrique Mendoza – a Chávez opponent – who had a reputation for good governance.
Writing at the excellent blog Venezuela News and Views, Jorge Arena provides a cogent time line of what in fact happened, explaining:

On December 15, 1999 the referendum process started despite the heavy rains. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez appeared on TV and asked the Venezuelan people to go massively to vote and to vote early. He said that nobody should be prevented to go to vote because of the rains. He reminded Venezuelans of the old sentence by Simon Bolivar “If Nature is against us; we will fight against her and make her obey.” Many centers could not open and many table witnesses could not be present because of the rain situation. Problems were reported in several states. Members of the church with the CNE directory prayed to God for the climate to improve. Evacuations started in the state of Falcon.

On December 16, 1999 the country realized the magnitude of the disaster. Vargas state was completely cut from the rest of the country. Some Constitutional Assembly members celebrated the referendum win but others, like (Aristóbulo) Isturiz, asked for restraint.

 Explaining how Chávez put the Vargas disaster to good use, Arena added:

On December 24, 1999 the judges of the new Supreme Court, baptized “Tribunal Supremo de Justicia” (TSJ) were swore in. They were hand-picked by the so-called “Congresillo”, a subset of the Constitutional Assembly that had taken the role of the dissolved Congress. In the turmoil that followed the disaster, very few eyes were paying attention to this very important nomination. The smooth transition that was supposed to take place from the old to the new Constitutional rule did not take place given the state of emergency.

So, by the end of December 1999, Venezuela had a brand new Constitution and a brand new Supreme Court. Chávez had won the first round for the absolute control of the country. There were however tens of thousands deaths, a major economic disaster and entire areas of the country to be rebuilt. If the government had declared the State of emergency sooner, stopped the referendum and evacuated as quick as possible the affected areas thousands of lives could have been saved. They did not do it because they put their political agenda before the well being of the Venezuelan people.

To me, that is criminal negligence. History will be the judge. 

Interestingly, it was during the Vargas disaster that Chávez established his anti-American credentials – turning away U.S. Navy ships that were steaming to Venezuela with military engineers, physicians, and equipment — part of the international aid effort. They’d been invited by a senior military official in Chávez’s government. Ten years later, residents of Vargas still complained bitterly about Venezuela’s inadequate response to the natural disaster. Vargas remained a mess.

Although Chávez turned away the U.S. Navy ships, the U.S. nevertheless played a significant role in helping Venezuela – as Venezuelans clearly saw when U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters were carrying out rescue flights. Yet Chávez’s officials attempted to minimize the U.S. aid as was noted in a Washington Times article that I wrote as a Caracas-based correspondent.

How long will Chávez live? Venezuela’s government has treated his cancer as a state secret, releasing few details. But the little information that has been released suggests to some cancer specialists that Chávez (in light of four surgeries to the pelvic area, radiation treatment, and chemotherapy) is suffering from a sarcoma. “Patients who suffer from sarcoma tumors that are aggressive and incurable usually live between one to three years. If Mr. Chávez suffered from advanced sarcoma when he was diagnosed, he would be in the middle of that range right now,” the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out in an article, “Outlook for Chávez darkens, doctors say.”

And in an observation that may surprise Michael Moore, that same article indicated that Chávez’s insistence on being treated in Cuba was a fatal mistake: Havana’s cancer center, after all, “isn’t considered among the elite anticancer or sarcoma centers, a handful of which are located in the U.S. and Europe, doctors say.”

Vice president Nicolás Maduro, a Chávez yes man, was a bus driver-turned union leader before getting into leftist politics. He lacks Chávez’s charisma and connection to Venezuela’s poor majority. Yet some political observers regard him as more pragmatic and flexible than Chávez – perhaps less likely, in other words, to put leftist ideology and anti-American hatred above the welfare of Venezuela’s people who, thanks to Chávez, are enduring record levels of crime, corruption, and food shortages.

If Chávez dies or steps down, presidential elections will be held in 30 days. Even if an opposition candidate wins, Venezuela will not recover anytime soon from 14 years of Hugo Chávez.

Originally published at FrontPage Magazine. 

America's 'Gun Culture' and Piers Morgan's Selective Outrage

By David Paulin

It's a strange omission: liberal pundits like CNN's Piers Morgan are fulminating over America's "gun culture" following Newtown's school massacre -- yet they seem blissfully ignorant about what happened after Britain's draconian handgun ban following a school massacre in Scotland, in 1996, eerily similar to Newtown's.

After the ban, more than 160,000 law-abiding citizens gave up their handguns. The idea was to stop gun violence. But ironically, crime-related gun violence jumped a whopping 40 percent in the two years after the ban. And since then, gun crime has continued to soar at an alarming rate. Anti-gun liberals may be aghast, but as that old NRA bumper sticker stated: "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." One wonders how long before guns are used in another massacre in the United Kingdom; or perhaps next time it will be done by a madman carrying a can of gasoline.

Piers Morgan, an urbane native of England, surely knows what happened after Britain's gun ban. But like others anti-gun media elitists and politicians (whose children are defended by armed guards at upscale private schools) Morgan avoids discussions of the complexities and nuances of gun control and their impact on ordinary people -- that is, law-abiding gun owners. "You're an unbelievably stupid man, aren't you?" Morgan told Larry Pratt, director of Gun Owners of America, during a discussion about gun regulations that included proposed bans on large clips and military-style weapons like the AR-15 used by Newtown, Connecticut's shooter Adam Lanza. Now, an online petition demanding that the smug Brit be deported is drawing tens of thousands of signatures.

Morgan surely knows about Britain's failed effort to reduce gun violence - and how those efforts backfired. Even the lefty BBC took notice -- explaining that the 40 percent surge in gun violence suggested the handgun ban was "targeting legitimate users of firearms rather than criminals." Specifically, the BBC explained that, "The Center for Defense Studies at Kings College in London, which carried out the research, said the number of crimes in which a handgun was reported increased from 2,648 in 1997/98 to 3,685 in 1999/2000." Moreover, it noted there was "no link between high levels of gun crime and areas where there were still high levels of lawful gun possession; that "of the 20 police areas with the lowest number of legally held firearms, 10 had an above average level of gun crime. And of the 20 police areas with the highest levels of legally held guns only two had armed crime levels above the average."

Interestingly, the massacre in Dunblane was hardly the case of an upstanding citizen inexplicably exploding into a murderous rage. Thomas Hamilton, the 43-year-old shooter, had been on the radar of law-enforcement authorities and townspeople for some time, just as Newtown shooter Adam Lanza was on the radar (both to school officials and townspeople) for having significant mental health issues.

Yet in each case, nothing was done.

Hamilton was a closet homosexual and serial child abuser. Interestingly, police were aware of his proclivities for young boys. Parents had lodged a number of complaints about Hamilton's sordid behavior as a Scout leader and in other youth groups. Yet Hamilton, a shopkeeper and registered gun owner, was never brought to justice by legal authorities. It's an issue that came up repeatedly after his rampage, provoking charges that police engaged in a cover-up regarding Hamilton's sexual crimes. Suspicions of police negligence were further aroused when records pertaining to the sexual abuse allegations were sealed for 100 years (ostensibly to protect Hamilton's abuse victims), Although Hamilton escaped legal prosecution for molesting children, he was nevertheless shunned by townspeople. His shop went out of business. And community leaders prohibited him from leading or organizing anymore groups for boys.

On March 13, 1996, Hamilton took his revenge, entering the Dunblane Primary School with four handguns - two 9 mm Browning HP pistols, and two Smith & Wesson M19 .357 Magnum revolvers. All of them were legally held. He carried 743 bullets.

He fired 109 times and killed 16 children, ages 5 and 6, shooting them at close range in a gymnasium. He murdered their teacher as she tried to protect them. He shot up other parts of the school, then returned to the gym where he committed suicide by putting the barrel of a handgun against the roof of his mouth and pulling the trigger. Fifteen others were wounded in his rampage.

Britain, to be sure, has not experienced another massacre. But given the number of handguns still in Britain - now mostly in the hands of bad guys and not good ones - it's only a matter of time before another massacre happens. After all, when guns are outlawed, only outlaws (and madmen) will have them. And if they can't get their hands on a gun, they'll find another means to kill.

Interestingly, some anti-gun elitists who would deprive ordinary law-abiding citizens from owning firearms seem unconcerned about madmen obtaining nukes in Iran and North Korea. They entertain the naive delusion that the United Nation's Security Council and Human Rights Commission will keep these madmen at bay, just as they naively believe the United Kingdom's mostly unarmed police officers can keep growing gun crime at bay.

One thing can be safely inferred about Thomas Hamilton's mental state: He had no reason to fear that an armed policeman might quickly show up: Scotland's police, like England's famous bobbies, are mostly unarmed.

Piers Morgan, for his part, says that in the unlikely event he's deported, he may broadcast from the Caribbean island-nation of Jamaica, part of the British commonwealth. Does Morgan know that Jamaica has one of the world's highest murder rates? And that obtaining a handgun permit there, especially for non-Jamaicans, often drags on for months and months?

Good luck, Piers.

Originally published at The American Thinker

In Key West, the 'Hemingway Home' Battles the Feds over Cats

 
By David Paulin   

Michael A. Morawski, chief executive of the iconic Hemingway Home & Museum in Key West, Florida, has spent nearly 10 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees fighting the feds - all to stop them from regulating the 43 resident cats that roam the museum's grounds to the amusement of visitors. His dealings with the United States Department of Agriculture - in meetings, administrative hearings, and the courts - ended earlier this month at the Atlanta-based United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh District.

He lost his appeal.
  
Yet he had reason for hope, because this was a rare case in which federal judges suggested the laws they were obligated to follow had produced an unjust outcome. In its unanimous decision, the three-judge panel ruled that federal authorities may regulate the 43 cats roaming the grounds of the Hemingway Home - the residence of novelist Ernest Hemingway in the 1930s, and now Key West's most popular tourist attraction. The decision reaffirmed an earlier district court ruling.

From the start, the issues for Morawski were not only about his cats but the proper role of the federal government; specifically, this was about the USDA's contention that it had the authority to regulate the Hemingway Home's felines that are thought to be decedents of Snowball -- a polydactyl cat (meaning it had extra toes) that Hemingway owned. The six-toed feline was said to be a gift from sea captain Stanley Dexter, a Hemingway friend.

Cat Fight
  
The USDA contended Congress gave it - not Florida or Key West -- the ultimate say regarding the cats under the Commerce Clause and Animal Welfare Act of 1966. Although the appeals court agreed, its sympathies were with Morawski and his cats. "Notwithstanding our holding, we appreciate the museum's somewhat unique situation, and we sympathize with its frustration," Chief Judge Joel Fredrick Dubina wrote earlier this month for the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit in his 13-page ruling. "Nevertheless, it is not the court's role to evaluate the wisdom of federal regulations implemented according to the powers constitutionally vested in Congress."

"I'm still dumbfound. This is overreach by the federal government," said Morawski, during an interview this week with American Thinker. Morawski said he ran up $500,000 to $600,000 in legal fees over most of the decade in his futile efforts to get the feds off his back and force it out of the cat-regulating business.

Not long after Hemingway died in 1961, his sons sold the Key West property for $80,000 to Bernice Dixon, a local jewelry store owner and Morawski's great aunt. The cats were already there, and like Snowball many of them were polydactyls. "The cats provide a link to the past," said Morawski. Some of Hemingway's sons have recalled as boys that their father had cats at his home in Cuba, not Key West; but the appeals court accepted as fact that the cats were descendants of Snowball.

Dixon turned the home into a museum in 1964, and upon her death in the late 1980s left the property to her family. The Southern colonial house - where Hemingway wrote masterpieces such as " For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" - now attracts some 250,000 people annually. Beautifully maintained, the family-run museum provides a fascinating glimpse into the writer's life in Key West. This includes the fact that Hemingway - a man's man according to the norms of his day - was a cat lover.

As for museum's cats, Morawski said neither Key West authorities nor the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have ever complained about how they were being treated; some were given away over the years, he said, but none were ever sold. The appeals court panel acknowledged as much, also noting the museum had cared for them, fed them, and provided weekly visits from a veterinarian. But nearly 10 years ago, one Key West resident contacted the USDA and raised concerns about the cats, thus setting off Morawski's battle with the feds. A USDA official investigated. Hemingway Home was subsequently classified as an "animal exhibitor" under the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 - all for exhibiting its cats as part of the museum's admission fees ($13 for adults, $6 for children) and for featuring them in advertising. Under this classification, Hemingway Home's cats fell under federal control because they were regarded as being the equivalent of animal performers in circuses, zoos, and carnivals.

As Judge Dubina recounted in his ruling, the USDA then issued a number of edicts to the museum: "obtain an exhibitor's license; contain and cage the cats in individual shelters at night, or alternatively, construct a higher fence or an electric wire atop the existing brick wall, or alternatively, hire a night watchman to monitor the cats; tag each cat for identification purposes; construct additional elevated resting surfaces for the cats within their existing enclosures; and pay fines for the museum's non-compliance with the Animal Welfare Act."

To Morawski, it all ignored the nature of cats - especially the option about caging them up. "Obviously, cats are roamers. I don't know of any community that has a leash law for cats." Interestingly, the Illinois legislature did in fact adopt a state-wide leash law for cats in 1949, but Gov. Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat, vetoed the "Cat Bill" with a famous rebuke, including that lawmakers "have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency."

Morawski, for his part, initially protested the federal edicts. USDA officials then refused to issue an exhibitor's license and threatened to confiscate the museum's cats. The impasse ended when Dr. Chester A. Gipson, a USDA deputy administrator for animal care, granted an exhibitors license to the museum in 2008, without prejudicing its right to contest in court the USDA's authority to regulate its cats, which Morawski was anxious to do. "I kept wanting to get this in front of the federal court, and I had to get a license before we did that," he said.

One of the USDA's concerns was that the museum's cats might jump the 6-foot-high brick wall enclosing the property - an issue that come up during a visit by a USDA official. "She saw a cat sitting on a fence and said, 'Oh, that's a problem,'" Morawski related. So an 8-foot-tall black mesh fence was put up next to the brick wall. Morawski also registered each of his 43 cats with the USDA and made minor modifications to their abode, a "cat hotel" that resembles the Hemingway Home. 

Despite making changes, he said he'd rather not be dealing with federal officials regarding his cats.
During his dealings with the USDA, Morawski solicited help from Florida's U.S Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican. "She helped us and assisted us the best she could."

One issue still puzzles Morawski: How come his cats can be regulated under the Commerce Clause which, after all, is only supposed to regulate interstate commerce? "We're a local business," he pointed out. "Our goods don't go outside of Key West. So how can we be involved in interstate commerce?"
  
But Judge Dubina, after some erudite legal reasoning, explained that Congress can indeed regulate the museum's cats under the Commerce Clause. He wrote, "The Museum invites and receives thousands of admission-paying visitors from beyond Florida, many of whom are drawn by the Museum's reputation for and purposeful marketing of the Hemingway cats. The exhibition of the Hemingway cats is integral to the Museum's commercial purpose, and thus, their exhibition affects interstate commerce. For these reasons, Congress has the power to regulate the Museum and the exhibition of the Hemingway cats via the Animal Welfare Act."

What's next for Morawski? Getting justice in the courts has become too expensive, he said. "We're better off investing our money back into the business and employees. So I think we're probably dealing with a legislative issue now." Accordingly, he plans to enlist the help of like-minded members of Congress, starting with Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, to introduce legislation that would "rein in the scope of the federal government."

So how many cat lovers are members of Congress? That may be the best indicator of whether Morawski has a fighting chance in shooing the feds away from his cats.

Originally published at The American Thinker

New York Post's subway death photo stirs debate over journalistic ethics

By David Paulin

Some journalistic values are not necessarily the same as human values -- a fact that explains much about the uproar over Tuesday's front-page photo in the New York Post. "Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die," screamed the headline under the word: "DOOMED."

The man's name was Ki Suk Han, a 58-year-old Korean immigrant from Queens. The photo capturing the last seconds of his life has provoked soul-searching and outrage over journalistic ethics -- or lack of them.

Practically nobody is defending the Post for publishing it -- or its photographer for taking it. Aside from journalistic misconduct, there were disquieting reports that none of the 18 bystanders bothered to help Han. Yet various witnesses said he was on the tracks for a minute or more, scrambling to pull himself onto the platform.

Overwhelmingly, outrage over the photo is being directed at photographer R. Umar Abbasi, a freelancer for the iconic tabloid that regularly trades in sensational stories.

As the subway bore down on Han, Abbasi snapped photos of him clinging to the platform - instead of helping him up from the tracks. Or at least, that's how it seemed.

No doubt sensing a controversy over Abbasi's actions, the Post's original story lamely explained that he'd used his flash to alert the subway's motorman to Han's presence. Accordingly, photographing Han about to be "crushed like a rag doll" was merely incidental to his efforts to save him. It was hardly credible.

Abbasi also initially claimed that he wasn't strong enough to lift Han up from the tracks (although Abbasi's photo suggests that Han, who was trying to pull himself up, only needed a helping hand to climb onto the platform). Nobody offered him one. Han had reportedly exchanged words with his dread-locked attacker, a loud-mouthed panhandler. Police subsequently arrested 30-year-old Naeem Davis.

In a first-person account in Wendesday's New York Post, Abbasi defended himself with a slightly different version of his role in the tragedy than what was originally published in the Post. He insisted he was never close enough to help Han and has been anguished over what happened.

One can debate the ethics of publishing the photo, presenting arguments for and against. On the negative side, of course, the photo sells newspapers by appealing to an ugly voyeuristic and prurient streak in readers. On the other hand, it provides a searing and unforgettable drama of a horrific crime, showing the dark side of New York's subway system where predators are all too common. Even so, didn't the Post have any more appropriate photos to publish for the sake of good taste, decency, and the feelings of Han's family? It seems that the paper did have other photos based on what Abbasi related.

Abbasi's conduct would be indefensible if he could have helped Han but instead chose to take pictures. True, journalists and photojournalists ought to be impartial professional witnesses; but that detachment doesn't mean they stop being citizens, first and foremost.

Criticism over Abbasi is that if he had the presence of mind to snap photos of Han, then he surely had the presence of mind to make a credible rescue effort; and after that effort he could have taken all the photos he wanted - either of Han having survived a terrible scare or alternatively (if his rescue effort had failed) of Han's being tended by a doctor who was among the bystanders. Either way, Abbasi would have been a hero -- not a villain (although Abbasi now says in his first-person account, to be sure, that there was too little time for a rescue; that he only could fire off his flash to catch the motorman's attention).

Outrage over Abbasi's actions are similar to the public revulsion over the paparazzi in France who eagerly snapped close-up photos of a dying Princess Diana. None of those photographs were ever published in mainstream publications; editors felt that doing so would push the limits of decency and good taste. Couldn't the Post have made a similar decision?

Journalistic misconduct aside, there also were all those distributing reports of able-bodied witnesses doing nothing to help Han, who was heading to renew his passport. Some bystanders were stunned or afraid, clueless as to what to do. "People who were on the platform could have pulled him up but they didn't have the courage. They just didn't react like that," said Patrick Gomez, 37, who admitted to being guilty of the same inaction.

Aside from fear, there were examples of callousness. The subway's traumatized motorman expressed disgust that as a young doctor and others tended to Han, some bystanders "were taking pictures of the poor gentleman. They didn't want to leave." How to explain this? It could well be the result of a society saturated for years with violent and vulgar images on television, video games, and the Internet. For them, Han's death represented an opportunity to take some photos with their cell phones in order to post them on YouTube or show to friends.

To be sure, there are reports every day of ordinary citizens -- good Samaritans -- who risk physical danger to come to the aid of others. And, yes, this happens in New York City. But unfortunately, none of these sorts of people were around to help Han.

Other able-bodied witness may have figured that somebody else would come to the rescue -- a reflection of a certain mind set that can occur among numerous bystanders: what's now called the "Genovese Syndrome" -- a phenomena of "diffused responsibility" leading to inaction. It was coined after the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old New Yorker who was stabbed to death near her home. Her cries for help were ignored by numerous apartment dwellers according to initial media reports. Although the "Genovese Syndrome" is now taught in psychology and sociology classes, later investigations raised doubts about what neighbors in fact heard or failed to do.

As more information comes to light about Ki Suk Han's gruesome death, a more sympathetic picture may well emerge to explain the behavior of some bystanders -- those who should have done more.

As for Abbasi and his editors, their careers will forever be defined by a low point in American journalism.


Originally published in the American Thinker blog on  Dec. 5, 2010

University of Iowa's intolerant liberal law faculty

"Athens of the Midwest" is how many deep thinking liberals in America's heartland describe Iowa City. If they mean the Athens that forced Socrates to drink hemlock because of his unorthodox ideas, they may have a point.

  

By David Paulin 

"Athens of the Midwest" is how many deep thinking liberals in America's heartland describe Iowa City -- the artsy and liberal college town that's home to the University of Iowa. But as many conservatives might have guessed, some of Iowa City's most self-important elites -- the powers that be in the University of Iowa's law school -- have much in common with those intolerant ancient Athenians who tried and executed Socrates because they didn't like his politics.

As Exhibit One, consider a recent court case that's been drawing belated attention over the weekend in some corners of the Internet. The issues were summed up in an editorial last month in the Des Moines Register, appropriately titled: "U of I needs to respect diversity of thought, too." Here's an excerpt: 

The University of Iowa College of Law dodged a potential employment discrimination verdict in a case tried in Davenport last week. But the case could still come back to haunt the university.

 Regardless of the outcome, this case raises questions about the hiring policies at the University of Iowa College of Law, and perhaps in the university as a whole. The U of I respects the goal of diversity for race, religion and gender, but it should show the same respect for diversity of political thought.

 This case involves a lawsuit filed by Teresa Wagner against the law school after she was turned down for a faculty position in the legal analysis, writing and research program. Wagner is a Republican who has worked for anti-abortion organizations. She alleged that she was passed over the position not because she lacked the qualifications but because she was blackballed by liberal members of the law school faculty.

The law school denied politics were involved in the decision not to hire her. The university claimed Wagner was turned down because she had performed poorly in an interview.

 After a weeklong trial, the jury ruled in favor of the school on the allegation that Wagner's political beliefs were a "motivating factor" in her rejection. But the jury of 12 deadlocked on a separate question whether Wagner was treated differently than other job applicants because of her political beliefs. If the school did that, that would violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
  
It's possible these questions will be rehashed in court as Wagner has asked for a new trial. U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt will rule on that later.

Well, let's be clear about one thing: such intolerance is not confined only to the legal windbags at Iowa's law faculty. As evidence, consider Exhibit Two: the experience that historian Mark Moyar, a Harvard and Cambridge grad, had during his unsuccessful application five years ago for a professorship at the University of Iowa's history department. Moyar at the time was the Kim T. Adamson Chair at the U.S. Marine Corps University and had authored respected revisionist histories of the Vietnam War. In an article in National Review, "Diversity is for Democrats" Moyar observed that Iowa's history faculty wasn't much interested in listening to ideas that contradicted their own - ideas that presumably were all the more rankling (one can assume) because they came from a conservative middle-aged white guy.

The University of Iowa College of Law

To create greater diversity of ideas, Moyar offered this advice:

Students, parents, alumni, taxpayers, and politicians should pressure the University of Iowa's administration to enforce the university's non-discrimination policies, and to create new faculty positions for conservatives beyond the reach of other professors' tentacles, as other schools have started doing. They should demand that the university use its lecture series to bring in conservative speakers, not just liberals and radicals. In the meantime, students must realize that the university is not a free market of ideas, but a one-party state that strives to convert the impressionable and unwary by hiding half of the political spectrum.

Regarding Iowa Law: In one respect, it's ironic that its faculty members are overwhelmingly liberal and, by inference, Obama fans. Because in the miserable economy that Obama owns, less-than-top-tier law schools like Iowa's don't cut it anymore. To be sure, I know one grad of Iowa Law, a former next-door neighbor and occasional boyhood chum, who became a successful corporate lawyer and partner in a prestigious firm. Today he's a judge in Iowa. And a high school classmate from Illinois who graduated from Iowa Law is now a partner in a top Chicago firm. Lucky for them, they graduated from Iowa Law in the 1980s - during the go-go economy of President Ronald Reagan.

Unfortunately, the days are gone when nearly all top and grads of Iowa Law reached such stellar heights. And disgruntled recent grads are, increasingly, finding that out the hard way. That's reflected in a blog called "third tier reality." It warns potential Iowa Law students to stay away - unless somebody else pays for their exorbitant tuition and, most importantly, that they have a job lined up through the help of friends or family connections. Or maybe, I might add, if they know Obama.

Ironic, isn't it? Iowa's law faculty and the political and economic ideology they embrace (and political leaders they support) may be the cause of their own irrelevance.

Full disclosure: Back in my younger and more vulnerable college days, when I was a Democratic, I took a class in "international law" at the University of Iowa College of Law. Despite my political immaturity and open-mindedness, I was nevertheless troubled by my professor's high-minded talk about how a U.N.-like body would ensure world peace and social justice - even though thug states would, in the professor's vision, have as much say as Western democracies in that body. Raising my concerns, the white-haired prof, Burns H. Weston, seemed peeved and snapped: "So what? What's your point?" And then there were Prof. Weston's idiotic discussions about terrorism, the implication being that one man's terrorist was another man's freedom fighter; that if we were a victim of terrorism, it must be because of something that we did to them.

Nor did I ever quite understand that lecture about the "sources" of international law. According to him, they included the scholarly writings of law professors, including himself. "Can I make international law?" he asked with a big smile and twinkling eyes - and of course the answer was supposed to be "yes."

Not long ago, I learned that this left-wing blowhard -- the son of an official in FDR's administration -- was a 9/11 "truther" whose members believe that the Bush administration had some complicity in 9/11 and its "cover-up." It was all a pretext to go to war.

Well, I'm really not surprised given the ideological indoctrination that took place that class, which included no diversity of ideas that might have been taught by allowing a visiting speaker into the class -- one like, say, John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under George W. Bush.

Hey, Iowa Law, can I get my tuition back for that course?"

 Hat tip: TaxProf Blog and Memeorandum

Originally published at American Thinker blog, albeit with some minor additions due to a few other things that came to mind.

Mitt's unwitting campaigner in Florida: Hugo Chávez

By David Paulin


Yes, the Romney campaign has enlisted the help of Venezuela's leftist president in the pivotal swing state of Florida. Hugo Chávez figures prominently in a 30-second Spanish-language television ad being run by the Romney campaign. It starts with a narrator asking: "Who supports Barack Obama?" 

Next comes the answer: a television clip of Venezuela's anti-American president. "If I were American, I'd vote for Obama," he says.

Later in the ad, Chávez says: "If Obama were from Barlovento, he'd vote for Chávez." (Barlovento is a Venezuelan town whose population is overwhelmingly black.)

Chávez, who has made anti-Americanism a cornerstone of his foreign policy, endorsed Obama last September in an interview on Venezuelan television.  

In the same ad, the narrator points out that Fidel Castro's daughter Mariela Castro also supports Obama. "I would vote for President Obama," she says.  
Finally, the narrator points out that the "Environmental Protection Agency sent out e-mails for Hispanic Heritage month with a photo of Che Guevara." It's all true, of course, and the Obama campaign is furious, and an article in the Miami Herald - a paper that just endorsed Obama - called it an example of unseemly negative campaigning.

But it's sure to energize Cuban-Americans to get to the polls. They comprise a third of Florida's Hispanics, vote overwhelmingly Republican, and they're no fans of Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, nor Che Guevara. The ads comes as a new poll, whose results were published on Saturday by the Miami Herald, gives Romney a 51 to 45 percent lead over Obama. 

Citing a survey from Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, the Herald said Governor Romney's strengths include "independent voters and more crossover support from Democrats relative to the Republicans who back Obama."Other polls, to be sure, are predicting a tighter race, the Herald noted - a fact that must be a relief to the Herald's editorial board and the paper's left-leaning reporters and columnists.  

Oh, and don't forget to take a look at that television ad in which Hugo Chávez has been transformed into a Republican campaign stooge. Even if you don't understand Spanish, you'll catch the drift of things - and smile.

Originally published at The American Thinker blog

Obama and the 'Repo Games' Voters

By David Paulin

Originally published at The American Thinker

Here's a brain teaser for you: what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?  If you're still thinking, you've got something in common with more than a few of the contestants on a reality-television show called Repo Games.  In case you've missed it, the Spike TV series follows veteran "repo men" Tom DeTone and Josh Lewis, who double as engaging game show hosts.  Showing up to repossess a vehicle, they offer the debtor a way out as cameras roll: answer three out of five trivia questions correctly, and the vehicle loan will be paid off.  Otherwise, the vehicle will be towed away.

"F--k you!  You're not taking my car" is how more than a few contestants respond, before being coaxed into playing "Repo Games."  Others initially threaten violence -- flailing arms, screaming profanities, and even producing kitchen knives and pots to ward off the repo man.  One hot-tempered man with a pickup menacingly pointed an assault rifle at DeTone.

"I'm a crazy mother-----r.  Somebody will get hurt!" he warned.  Later, DeTone recalled seeing his life flash before his eyes.

Interestingly, some contestants who you'd assume would be winners are utter losers, as was reflected in a segment in which a fourth-grade teacher was asked: "What South American country has over 2,700 miles of coast but is only 150 miles wide?"

"Cuba?" she replied , tentatively.  She flubbed the other two questions, too.
Repo Games isn't all about laughing at dumb and ill-mannered people, however.  It also lets viewers root for contestants who seem nice and perhaps have had some bad luck (and there are of course lots of those types of folks in the miserable economy).  Some of the more sympathetic contestants are single moms.  You also can't help but feel sorry for the contestant who loses a Corvette or BMW parked in the driveway of his nice-looking home.

As for that silly question: what weighs more -- a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?  Yes, it was asked of a "Repo Games" contestant.  He said he didn't know.

Ultimately, it's the numerous stupid and vulgar contestants who are the most memorable -- and in the segments featuring them, Repo Games inadvertently veers from goofy entertainment into trenchant social commentary.  Indeed, in the low-income neighborhoods seen in many Repo Games segments, the residents are what socialist writer Michael Harrington sympathetically called inhabitants of the "other America" -- poor America.  This is where food stamps and welfare have hit record levels over the past four years, reflecting stubbornly high unemployment rates and the Obama administration's efforts (including through radio ads) to get as many people on the dole as possible.  Yet, as Repo Games reveals, these folks are definitely not poor in the conventional meaning of the word.  Their neighborhoods in fact seem rather nice -- suggesting they don't, as liberals would suggest, suffer from a deficit of social justice.

And besides living in decent houses and apartments, they own late-model cars -- albeit on which they're not making regular payments.

The poverty in which these folks exist needs to be viewed from a certain perspective -- something a Heritage Foundation report did not long ago when observing that "most of the persons whom the government defines as 'in poverty' are not poor in any ordinary sense of the term. The overwhelming majority of the poor have air conditioning, cable TV, and a host of other modern amenities. They are well housed, have an adequate and reasonably steady supply of food, and have met their other basic needs, including medical care."

From another perspective, the real problem many of these folks have is not poverty, but a deficit of middle-class values and social skills.

Consider, for instance, the volatile reactions many contestants display after being told their car is being repossessed.  Flailing arms, vulgarities, and threats of violence -- it's the same manic behavior found in high-crime areas where mundane disputes quickly escalate into physical violence.  This is related to a lack of interpersonal skills and self-control -- an inability to negotiate a nonviolent solution after (in their minds) being "disrespected."  This behavior is constantly on display on Repo Games.

Intriguingly, once the repo man calms down these contestants, they seem like perfectly nice people, albeit without the social skills and manners that exist among the middle class -- a term that in this sense describes certain cultural values and manners rather than a particular income bracket.
In Las Vegas, the Repo Games crew may have thought they were in a decent neighborhood, but it's where they had their most dangerous encounter: a middle-school special-education teacher started firing a handgun in their direction.  He was reportedly upset that a Repo Games vehicle had parked on the street outside his house.  Police charged him with attempted murder.

Bad behavior aside, there's that interesting sense of entitlement that more than a few contestants reveal with their initial remarks: "F--k you, you're not taking my car!"
Presumably, most of the contestants on Repo Games are Democrats and ardent Obama supporters, though one shouldn't presume they bother to vote -- and why should they?  Entitlements are now written in stone, and they're unlikely to change much with a Democrat or Republican in the White House.

It's hardly a coincidence that Repo Games, now going strong in its second season, also comes amid a terrible economy in which the mortgage crisis has festered -- as the Obama administration has bent over backwards to enable people to remain in houses they never should have purchased.
All in all, the Obama years have been profitable for the car repossession business -- and for Repo Games.