I was recently invited to be apart of a gender-studies forum at a university up in Denver. I love these invitations because it allows the opportunity to mix with others who see the world a good bit differently. I wrote up some reflections on the experience over at Boundless.

Many things strike me about the gender-studies crowd, but one thing that is so obvious is that, as an “academic” discipline, they sure just make it up as they go along. And they are far more at odds with any current science than anything you will get from any religion department. There seems to be more evidence for Bigfoot than there is for the basic assumptions these folks operate under.

Two stunning examples of how the earnest folks over at MSNBC view children (and use them).

1) Here’s Melissa Harris-Perry explaining who your children “belong to.” Consider this is a very intentionally scripted promo piece, not a careless comment.

A blog post on The Atlantic last week (also picked up by the Daily Mail) details the circumstances surrounding a family being kicked off a Denver-to-Baltimore United Airlines flight because they asked that a violent PG-13 movie being shown on the drop-down television screens be turned off to prevent their four- and eight-year-old children seeing the movie.

The movie being shown was a moderately successful Hollywood action film called Alex Cross, which, according to the parents involved in the incident, was rated by United’s own in-flight magazine as “T” for “Adult Themes.”

Here’s the movie’s description on IMDB:

 A homicide detective is pushed to the brink of his moral and physical limits as he tangles with a ferociously skilled serial killer who specializes in torture and pain. 

Now, doesn’t that just sound like a fun movie for the whole family? Here’s a review from a website that advises parents on family-friendly films:

The violence isn’t as extreme as, say, a Quentin Tarantino movie, but it’s probably equivalent to one of the newer Bond films. In other words, it’s not just shootouts, but also scenes of torture, a decapitated head, and a pregnant woman killed for pleasure by a villain who takes joy in inflicting pain. Even iffier? In the end, the movie’s message seems to be that even officers of the law sometimes need to take a morally questionable path toward justice. Also expect some language (“s–t,” etc.), a scene with a lingerie-clad woman, and lots of GM vehicles.

Hmmm . . . decapitation, torture, and murdered pregnant women. It’s hardly Finding Nemo and it certainly makes these parents seem reasonable in their request to have their children spared seeing this violence.

#more#After these parents requested that the monitor be turned off, the flight attendant expressed concern for the folks sitting behind the family who would not be able to watch the movie (because clearly we should worry about the adults who will be robbed of this cinematic experience). Luckily, those passengers proved reasonable, telling the flight attendant that they did not need to see the film. Yet the attendant still refused citing lack of authority — because who doesn’t need the okay from the airline’s legal department to turn off a television?

When the parents asked if the captain had the authority to turn off the screen, the attendant told them that they would have to ask the captain after the plane landed . . . you know, after the blood and guts had been spilled on screen in full view of the children.

Shocked yet? Shocked at the utter stupidity of the cabin crew and the lack of common sense, decency, and kindness they extended to these parents who have every right to control the things their children see (particularly when they are paying customers just like the rest of the passengers)? Well, get ready for more shocking details.

More than an hour later the captain, [name withheld for now], announced that due to “security concerns”, our flight was being diverted to Chicago’s ORD. Although this sounded ominous, all passengers, us included, were calm. After landing a Chicago police officer boarded the plane and, to our disbelief, approached us and asked that we collect our belongings, and follow her to disembark. The captain, apparently, felt that our complaint constituted grave danger to the aircraft, crew and the other passengers, and that this danger justified inconveniencing his crew, a few of whom “timed out” during the diversion, and a full plane of your customers, causing dozens of them to miss their connections, wasting time, precious jet fuel, and adding to United’s carbon footprint.

Obviously, the Captain’s behavior was outrageous. One certainly hopes the airline reviews his competence to fly. Yet, there’s an issue that goes beyond the captain’s action.

United Airlines should take responsibility for choosing this wildly inappropriate in-flight film — particularly on a plane with drop-down screens. Unlike some PG-13 movies which receive that rating mainly for the adult storyline or for adult language, (which parents can deal with by not providing the child with earphones) the Alex Cross has visible violence which parents cannot control.

And if you think you can tell a four- and eight-year-old to simply avert their eyes (like one insensitive travel blogger suggested), you don’t know kids. I strictly limit my children’s television viewing, but when it’s on, they go into a coma-like state. Even if it’s on mute, my children’s eyes will stare, lifeless, at the screen.

Perhaps these airlines need a reminder that they charge parents for children’s tickets and therefore should afford a parent’s wishes a little respect. United Airlines should be ashamed of their behavior and rethink not only their in-flight selection, but how they treat people traveling with children.

From the Sun-Times:

Parents urge Emanuel to walk same school routes their kids will take

“Walk the walk,” parents said Tuesday morning at a demonstration at City Hall, calling on Mayor Rahm Emanuel to try out the often dangerous routes between the schools that Chicago Public Schools officials aim to close and the schools where their children will be sent instead.

Starting Tuesday, groups of parents will walk the routes to point out problems along the way, parents said at an emotional news conference at City Hall organized by the group Raise Your Hand.

“Gangs are going to interact with our children. I don’t want to see no child harmed,” Avanette Temple said of Delano Elementary School, 3937 W. Wilcox.

If the school board approves the closing, Delano students will be joined in their current building by children from Melody Elementary, 412 S. Keeler, more than half a mile away. The school will be called Melody.

“Mayor, you said you were going to take care of our children,” Temple said, crying. “I need you to walk that walk. We have to do it, our children have to do it.”

The rest here.

I’m a mom of three little boys. BOYS.

Life can be a little messy in our house. And, truth be told, I sometimes feel like I’m an unpaid short-order cook in the county jail . . . that is, when I’m not an unpaid laundress at the county jail. But you know what’s really nice? It’s nice when companies try to figure out what I want and what will make my day go by a little smoother. You know why I appreciate this? Because Mother Nature isn’t one of your girlfriends and she’s not going to come over to sit with the kids while I go have a mommy-timeout at the nail salon. Want proof? Watch Survivor.

Luckily, companies are trying hard to tap into that mom and dad demographic. You know who I’m talking about, the “good grief, I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in seven years” demographic. That’s the demographic to which, sadly, I belong, and I kind of like the fact that companies are trying to impress me.

I like cheese sticks, single-serving applesauce, and JELL-O and yogurt cups. I love that some genius at StarKist came up with the idea to stick a tiny spoon, mayonnaise, relish, and some crackers on the side of an easy-to-open can of tuna. I love the already sliced apples that now come in Happy Meals and the fact that fast food restaurants figured out that square cartons of milk don’t fit in car cup-holders. I love squeeze-y yogurt packs and those adorable boxes of mini-penne and tiny bow-tie pastas. Snack packs of goldfish and crackers are a life-saver and who doesn’t love tossing a kid a 100-calorie serving bag of cookies. I love disposable diapers (sorry, hippy cloth-diaper devotees). I love fitted sheets, and kid-sized towels, and modern strollers. I love (the now-unavailable) drop-side cribs. I love dishwashing detergent that comes in tiny little packets and I love those laundry pods — those ingenious little one-stop shops for sudsy goodness. Baby products have evolved to such a degree that my mother now actively resents these products being absent during my baby years.

Why do I love these things? Because I’m tired. I’m tired of messes, and cling wrap, and washing tiny plastic containers, and sometimes it’s nice to throw a cheese stick in my kid’s home-packed lunch. I like it when companies think about the mommy demographic because I’m tired of cleaning up the detergent spills on top of my washer.

Yeah, yeah . . . first world problems. I get it. But can’t we just celebrate — for once — how fortunate we are to live in an economy where the market responds to parents’ demands? That some guy or gal gets a paycheck to tell the corporate heads what Julie — the tired mom of three energetic, mess-making little boys — needs to make her life just a smidge easier? That’s pretty cool, right? I’m no different than most moms. I want convenience, short-cuts, and a smattering of hassle-free products.

What I don’t want is some do-gooder worrying that I’m not doing my job properly. What I don’t want is some celebrity food writer with a live-in nanny and housekeeper making me feel guilty for occasionally letting my kid have some goldfish crackers and telling me kale chips are super easy to make (do these people actually wash the kale — a rather time-consuming endeavor — or do they consider the sand and grit just a good fiber source?). What grates on me is when these nannies assume I don’t know how to keep dishwasher and laundry pods out of the mouths of my children.

Concern that kids will mistake these small laundry pods for food or candy is a particularly bizarre issue, made even more bizarre when a United States Senator decided to warn the American public of the dangers of these laundry pods. Apparently forgetting that children mistake basically everything for food, New York senator Chuck Schumer said of the laundry pods: “I don’t know why they make them look so delicious.”

Except that kids don’t really think that way. They don’t just think laundry pods look delicious; they think everything looks delicious. Kids are well known to stick just about anything in their mouths. Reasonable moms know this. So, maybe Senator Schumer should advise parents to start acting more reasonably by putting these pods (and basically everything that shouldn’t be consumed by a child) out of the reach of children? Might a little personal responsibility be in order here?

And, as long as we’re trading horror stories; how about one about pour-able detergent, in which a friend of mine told me that the reason he and his wife switched to the single serving pods of detergent was because one his children poured detergent on himself and it was a hassle to clean up both him and the floor. As my friend said of his own experience with the laundry pods, “we’ve never had a problem with pods because all of kids know that we do not keep food on top of the washing machine.”

Smart Dad. Smart kids.

Look, I get it. People care. But wouldn’t it be nice if they just kept their caring to themselves. Let me care about my own kids and trust me to have the sense to keep dangerous items on high shelves.

More importantly, let’s not discourage industry from coming up with these innovations, innovations that make my life just a little easier.

Even though my fellow NRO writer David French pretended to like Woody Allen movies during our short period of dating, he began watching high-body-count movies as soon as I said “I do.” The more explosions, aliens, and patriotic themes, the more enthusiasm he expressed as he walked out of the theater. The new movie Olympus Has Fallen — about the coordinated attack of North Korean terrorists on the White House — seems like the type of movie my husband (and maybe other NRO readers) might enjoy.

According to Rebecca Cusey’s review:

There’s something about the narrative that hits a sweet spot in the zeitgeist. It’s the sense of America hit from without by barbarians. It’s feeling of America as Rome, battered and tested, but America finding deep within the courage and strength that made her great in the first place.

With lots and lots of explosions. 

She concludes:

Some critics will surely hate the flag waving and simplicity that the movie projects. It lacks nuance. It’s too black and white. We never sense the depth of the bad guy’s suffering soul. Too rah-rah, patriotic, basic good versus evil.

They’re right. And that’s why you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. 

Read her whole review here, and enjoy the trailer below.

A Tampa bus driver has been fired after video surfaced of her — literally — kicking a special needs student off of the school bus:

Hillary has now announced she now supports same-sex marriage after many years of opposing it. Actually, Hillary’s articulated support for the natural family has been quite clear and well thought out through the years, significantly more so than many of her liberal peers trying to walk a tight-rope for political reasons.

Here are two of the most notable examples:

Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman.

And, from It Takes a Village:

[E]very society requires a critical mass of families that fit the traditional ideal . . . an adult mother and father and the children to whom they are biologically related . . . both to meet the needs of most children and to serve as a model for other adults who are raising children in difficult circumstances. We are at risk of losing that critical mass in America today.

Is it conceivable that both Clinton and President Obama, who has recently “evolved” on the issue, did not recognize this “fundamental civil right for all American citizens” (as they phrase it in the current, sound-bite tested rhetoric) before now? Or did they not really believe what they previously said about the importance of marriage as an institution binding men and women to one another? Either conclusion is deeply troubling if we are to take them at their word. 

Shocker: The shoes Sarah Jessica Parker wore while playing Bradshaw in the HBO series and movies have ruined her feet.

Joseph C. Phillips — the actor who played Denise’s husband on The Cosby Show (and later became famous as Justus Ward on General Hospital) is speaking out after a social-studies teacher asked his 15-year-old son if he was mentally unstable. What would cause a teacher to ask such a question? The Blaze reports:

 

Phillips explained for radio host Tony Katz on Saturday that California social studies teacher James DeLarme was walking by when he saw Phillips’ son and his friends looking at the picture. The 15-year-old has been working part time and chose to buy the Airsoft BB gun with his earnings, his dad said, and wanted to show his new purchase to his friends.

The teacher “snatched” the camera out of his hands, and when the teen asked when he would get it back, the teacher reportedly responded: “That’s for the police to decide.”

“It’s just a picture, Tony!” Phillips told the radio host. “There were no threats involved; there was no horseplay, monkey business happening at the time. It was my son’s camera; he shows it to his friends, who are all very interested and excited about it as well. The teacher happens by, snatches the camera, and that’s when the real nonsense began . . . ”

The teacher then allegedly took the camera to another teacher, who said she was “disturbed” by the image. After scrolling through the entire memory and returning the camera, the teachers began to question the “mental state” of Phillips’ son, he said.

Read the whole, ridiculous story here. My favorite line was Phillips’s assessment of the social-studies teacher who initially questioned his son: “I’m not sure he’s qualified to teach social studies. He certainly isn’t qualified to psychoanalyze my kid.”

For Christmas, I got my two oldest kids calligraphy pens to make their Lord of the Rings elvish writing look more authentic. (I’m married to this guy, so they didn’t really have a chance to escape their geek heritage.) However, I didn’t know how lucrative calligraphy could be, at least if you are employed by tax payers. Apparently, sequestration has caused the White House to shut its doors to tourists coming through Washington, but not to cut the salaries of these three people:

Patricia A. Blair, who has an annual salary of $96,725, and her two deputies, Debra S. Brown, who gets paid $85,953 per year, and Richard T. Muffler, who gets paid $94,372 every year. 

I can’t say anything bad about this dad’s actions:

A Watertown man has pleaded guilty to a criminal charge for smashing up a head shop after his adult son overdosed on bath salts from the store.

Dan Avery, 49, pleaded guilty Friday in Jefferson County Court to a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree criminal mischief. He was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay $638 in restitution for the damage he did to Tebb’s Headshop in Watertown.

Plus, you gotta love that Avery called 911 on himself:

Avery was arrested in July after he went to Tebb’s the day after his 24 year-old son was hospitalized after overdosing on “glass cleaner” that he’d bought at Tebb’s.

Avery drove to the store from the hospital and asked the clerk if the store sold bath salts or glass cleaner, Avery has said. The clerk then showed him the products and instructed Avery how to use them, Avery said.

He told The Post-Standard in July that he “just went crazy” in response to seeing his son in the hospital. He smashed a glass countertop and a couple glass ashtrays, then threw glass pipes from the shelves at the store clerk, Avery said.

Afterward, Avery returned the bat to his truck, went back into the store and lectured the clerk.

“You’re a sick man to sell this to these kids, knowing it’s gonna twist their minds, ” Avery remembered saying. “You’re pathetic.” Then Avery asked the clerk for a phone, called 911 and waited for police to arrive and arrest him, Avery said.

The Miami-face-eater attack, which was blamed on bath salts at the time, happened in May 2012. Governor Cuomo went on to ban the synthetic drugs in August 2012.

Recently, Todd Palin and his partner Scott Davis headed out again on their annual Iron Dog race.  As you heard many times during the hysteria of the 2008 election, he’s won the race several times — four at last count!  This year, after traveling over 2,000 frozen miles, they sped across the finish line in Fairbanks.  

In a very classy move, he donated his winnings to the Chris Kyle Memorial Fund.  See a photo of a decal on his snow machine honoring the American sniper here.

As a parent, without looking at this with a liberal or conservative viewpoint, here’s what I don’t get: Why is President Obama putting universal pre-school ahead of full-day kindergarten programs?

Laura Bornfreund writes at the liberal New America Foundation (emphasis mine):

An under-examined aspect of President Obama’s new early childhood education plan is his proposal to encourage states to create more full-day kindergarten seats . . . though only after states are able to guarantee access to pre-K for all 4-year olds from low and moderate-income families.

At Early Ed Watch, we believe full-day kindergarten should be more than just a second-fiddle issue. High-quality kindergarten is key to retaining and building upon the advances made in preschool, and even more crucial for those children who were not enrolled in a quality pre-K program. Currently, most states do not require school districts to provide full-day kindergarten. Moreover, states do not necessarily fund kindergarten at the same levels as grades 1-12, providing little incentive for districts to offer a full-day program. Some districts manage to do so by covering the cost on their own, or by charging families for the additional half day. So while the president stated that only about six out of 10 kindergartners have access to a full day of learning, there is no way to know how many of those children’s parents are paying for half that day. Even fewer children likely have access to a full, free day of learning.

The administration should consider multiple pathways to expanding access to full-day kindergarten. If there are additional rounds of the Race to the Top state or district-level competitions, the Department of Education could make providing full-day kindergarten — and funding it at the same level as first grade — a priority of the competition; the same could be required if there are additional rounds of the Race to the Top — Early Learning Challenge. Under the School Improvement Grant program, the Department could more explicitly recommend full-day kindergarten as a strategy for turning around low-performing elementary schools.

The rest here.

Again, without looking at this through a liberal or conservative prism and ignoring Bornfreund’s fallacy that public school is “free,” she is correct that kindergarten shouldn’t be “second fiddle” to the president’s universal pre-school scheme.

Today reports that Craig and Mary Romney are the proud parents of twins.  Check out Ann Romney’s tweet.  Yep, that makes 20.

David Brooks has an op-ed today on President Obama’s SOTU proposal to increase funds for early childhood education. Some excerpts:

Today millions of American children grow up in homes where they don’t learn the skills they need to succeed in life. Their vocabularies are tiny. They can’t regulate their emotions. When they get to kindergarten they’ve never been read a book, so they don’t know the difference between the front cover and the back cover.

But, starting a few decades ago, we learned that preschool intervention programs could help. The efforts were small and expensive, but early childhood programs like the Perry and Abecedarian projects made big differences in kids’ lives. The success of these programs set off a lot of rhapsodic writing, including by me, about the importance of early childhood education. If government could step in and provide quality preschool, then we could reduce poverty and increase social mobility.

Let’s drop the political correctness here. What Brooks is saying is that we have millions of American children who have failing parents. We have kids from single-parent homes. Kids whose parents have never bought them a book. Kids who are being raised with little to no respect for education.

But somehow, the government, can fix this? Can replace parents?

Brooks, after admitting that the data on Head Start shows it isn’t working, writes:

Enter President Obama. This week he announced the most ambitious early childhood education expansion in decades. Early Thursday morning, early education advocates were sending each other ecstatic e-mails. They were stunned by the scope of what Obama is proposing.

But, on this subject, it’s best to be hardheaded. So I spent Wednesday and Thursday talking with experts and administration officials, trying to be skeptical. Does the president’s plan merely expand the failing federal effort or does it focus on quality and reform? Is the president trying to organize a bloated centralized program or is he trying to be a catalyst for local experimentation?

So far the news is very good. Obama is trying to significantly increase the number of kids with access to early education. The White House will come up with a dedicated revenue stream that will fund early education projects without adding to the deficit. These federal dollars will be used to match state spending, giving states, many of whom want to move aggressively, further incentive to expand and create programs.

As probably one of the few conservatives in the history of the world to have sent their son to a Harlem public school, let me offer my opinion: this won’t work.

The school I sent my school to was a charter of sorts, but was created before there were charter schools. It was called Central Park East and made famous in the Meryl Streep movie Music of the Heart about teaching the violin to kids from Harlem, a core part of the curriculum for select students at school. Since the school was a NYC school controlled by the DOE, but allowed to uses its own curriculum, the entrance requirements for the kids focused more on making sure the parents bought into the school’s teaching philosophy than if the students were good kids or not. Basically, the school wanted parents who a) understood that CPE teaches differently than the rest of the DOE schools and b) were going to be involved.

No teacher, no program, no amount of money can replace an involved parent. Involved parents make sure their kids do their homework. Involved parents make sure their kids are on time and not missing too much school. And most important, involved parents value the education and help the teachers make the school better.

Don’t get me wrong. I think our education system, especially for children with failing parents, needs a major overhaul. But the first step to making the system better is to realize and accept that all parents are not created equal. This is evidenced in the superb documentary, Waiting for Superman, about Harlem parents and the lottery process to get their kids into a charter school, and a better education. They want options. They are demanding options. But school teacher unions and Democrats won’t give them to parents. Brooks thinks the news on the Obama reforms “so far. . .is very good.” 

I guess Brooks missed the whole Obama-Democratic-Union axis-of-mediocrity and their continued attempts to end the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. 

I’ll end with one last Brooks excerpt:

These programs do not perform miracles, but incremental improvements add up year by year and produce significantly better lives.

Incremental change. That’s it. That’s what Brooks wants for billions in taxpayer money? A recent Pew study on second-generation immigrants in America shows the folly of Brook’s incremental change argument. Some of the study’s major findings:

Educational and Economic Attainment: Adults in the second generation are doing better than those in the first generation in median household income ($58,000 versus $46,000); college degrees (36% versus 29%); and homeownership (64% versus 51%). They are less likely to be in poverty (11% versus 18%) and less likely to have not finished high school (10% versus 28%). Most of these favorable comparisons hold up not just in the aggregate but also within each racial/ethnic subgroup (e.g., second-generation Hispanics do better than first-generation Hispanics; second-generation whites do better than first-generation whites, and so on).

And. . .

Belief in Hard Work. About three-quarters of second-generation Hispanics (78%) and Asian Americans (72%) say that most people can get ahead if they’re willing to work hard. Similar shares of the immigrant generations of these groups agree. By contrast, 58% of the full U.S. population of adults feel the same way, while 40% say that hard work is no guarantee of success.

Immigrants to America — both legal and illegal — aren’t waiting around for incremental change. In one generation, the children of immigrants are better off than the parents and view hard work will lead to success.

Yes, this ad is real:

And here’s the website to buy the shoes if you are so inclined. 

Phil Bronstein, executive chairman of the Center for Investigative Reporting, wrote an amazing article in conjunction with Esquire. The piece is a profile on the man who killed the most wanted terrorist of our time — Osama bin Laden — but it is also a chilling portrait of what happens to these super-elite soldiers once they’ve accomplished their mission. Bronstein writes about his first interaction with the man to whom he refers as “the shooter:”

This was my first face-to-face meeting with the Shooter, following several phone conversations and much checking on my journalism background, especially in war zones. In a corner, pouring drinks, he and I established some rules. He would consider talking to me only after his last, upcoming four-month deployment to Afghanistan had ended and he had exited the Navy. And he would not go public; he would not be named. That would be counter to the team’s code, and it would also put a huge “kill me” target on his back.

The resulting article is a fascinating look at the historic raid they thought they’d never return from:

“We all wrote letters. I had my sh-tty little room and I’m sitting on my Pelican case with all my gear, a manila envelope on my bed, and I’m writing letters to my kids. They were to be delivered in case of my death, something for them to read when they’re thirty-five. I have no idea what I said except I’m explaining everything, that it was a noble mission and I hope we got him. I’m saying I wish I could be there for them.

“And the tears are hitting the page, because we all knew that none of us were coming back alive. It was either death or a Pakistani prison, where we’d be raped for the rest of our lives.”

He gave the letters to an intel guy not on the mission, with instructions. He would shred them if he made it back.

“You write it, it’s horrible, you hand it off, and it’s like, Okay, that part’s over. And I’m back, ready to roll.”

The article provides fascinating nuggets about the raid. “The shooter” reveals what quote from President Bush was going through his head en route to the compound, what music he listened to, what he thought when he saw bin Laden (about his height and his hair), and what happened immediately after they got him. Amazingly, “the shooter” didn’t die as he expected and returned back to his civilian life without anyone ever knowing of this huge accomplishment. Though Hollywood made a film out of the raid and books were written, the man who pulled the trigger came home, retired from service, and lost his military insurance.

“My health care for me and my family stopped at midnight Friday night. I asked if there was some transition from my Tricare to Blue Cross Blue Shield. They said no. You’re out of the service, your coverage is over. Thanks for your sixteen years. Go f-ck yourself.”

In fact, Phil Bronstein discovered many of these lethal, highly trained American heroes are in a similar circumstance:

That night, one of the Shooter’s comrades, lantern-jawed, articulate, with a serious academic pedigree, told me: “I’ve seen a lot of combat, been in some pretty grisly circumstances. But the thing that scares me the most after fifteen years in the SEALs?

“Civilian life.”

Another Navy SEAL friend said:

“My wife doesn’t want me to stay in one more minute than I have to,” he says. But he’s several years away from official retirement. “I agree that civilian life is scary. And I’ve got a family to take care of. Most of us have nothing to offer the public. We can track down and kill the enemy really well, but that’s it.

“If I get killed on this next deployment, I know my family will be taken care of.” (The Navy does offer decent life-insurance policies at low rates.) “College will be paid for, they’ll be fine.

“But if I come back alive and retire, I won’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out for the rest of my life. Sad to say, it’s better if I get killed.”

Bronstein’s compelling piece gives insight into the type of men who pulled off the unthinkable. It’s the kind of article that makes you thankful America is still producing men like this, yet infuriated we don’t honor their sacrifices once they’ve survived. Paul D. Miller — who worked in the White House as Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2007 to 2009 — wrote about his mixed feelings upon seeing Zero Dark Thirty and concluded with a lovely quote from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. Lincoln called upon our still-divided nation “to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.”

We would be wise to heed Lincoln’s timeless words.

Read Bronstein’s article here.

The Left defends tele-medicine for abortions.

Do you remember when George H. W. Bush was accused of being a “Brooks Brothers Republican?” Or in 2000, when a group of conservative protestors were dubbed the “Brooks Brothers Brigade” for rioting at the Miami-Dade county polling headquarters during the Florida recount?

This morning, I take a look back at the clothing company, which has — for better or worse — been a part of the . . . ahem . . . fabric of American politics since it first gave Abraham Lincoln his legendary black frock coat.

Read the article here.