KK takes on journalism

Here's some of what she said, the rest can be read at

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/99664484.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:Ug8P:Pc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr

"

It's an open secret that American journalists lean to the left. For 40 years, surveys have found that self-described liberals in the media outnumber conservatives by as much as five to one.

President Obama's rise to power has supercharged journalists' liberal inclinations. Going into the 2008 election, Slate -- an online, Washington Post-owned news magazine -- was the only media organization that actually polled its staff, to my knowledge. Obama won by a landslide: 96 percent. At the Post itself, omsbudsman Deborah Howell acknowledged after the election that she had voted for Obama, along with "most Post journalists." In August 2008, she reported that the Post had given Obama front-page coverage three times more often than McCain -- a "disparity ... so wide," she admitted, "that it doesn't look good."

During the 2008 campaign, the American people sensed that the media were in Obama's corner. In July 2008, a Rasmussen survey found that more than three times as many likely voters "believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage" rather than McCain. A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll found that almost 70 percent of Americans believed "most members of the media" wanted Obama to win.

Now we have new revelations of media bias -- perhaps the most dramatic yet -- with the release of e-mails from Journolist, an invitation-only listserv founded in 2007 by Washington Post staffer Ezra Klein. Journolist members included about 400 journalists, editors, bloggers, magazine writers, academics and policy wonks -- among them dozens of straight-news reporters from organizations such as Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, the Economist, Politico, PBS and a large NPR affiliate

Recently, a website called the Daily Caller obtained Journolist's e-mail archives. The e-mails resoundingly confirm the public's image of liberal journalists as cheerleaders for the Democratic Party, and especially for Obama. At Journolist, news reporters collaborated with open partisans to craft talking points to champion Obama and his agenda.

In September 2008, for example, when McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, Journolist participants strategized about how to poison Palin's candidacy.

Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation wrote that Obama's "non-official campaign" would need to mount a coordinated attack. "This seems to me like an occasion when the non-official campaign has a big role to play in defining Palin, shaping the terms of the conversation and saying things that the official [Obama] campaign shouldn't say -- very hard-hitting stuff ... scare people about having this ... right-wing Christian wing-nut a heartbeat away." He exhorted fellow J-listers to "bang away at McCain's age."

Time's Joe Klein linked to his own article on Palin -- partly drawn, he said, from Journolist brainstorming. "Here's my attempt to incorporate the accumulated wisdom of this august list-serve community," he wrote, calling Palin's ideology "militant."

In April 2008, when ABC News raised the issue of Obama's 20-year relationship with antiwhite radical Rev. Jeremiah Wright, many J-listers immediately sensed a threat to an Obama victory. They urged their compatriots to bury the story and to attack any journalist who might consider covering it.

"What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left," exhorted Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent. He advocated racial smears: "Take one of them -- Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares -- and call them racists. ... This makes them 'sputter' with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction."

Many J-listers routinely flaunted their political biases. David Weigel -- a blogger who covered conservative politics for the Washington Post -- maligned conservatives as racists and "morons." After Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized, Weigel expressed a wish for his death. An NPR affiliate's news producer chimed in that Limbaugh's death would make her "laugh ... like a maniac."

Is Journolist a smoking gun that reveals a grand liberal media conspiracy? I don't think so. In my years as a journalist, I've concluded that bias is largely the product of the insular, cloistered world in which most media people move. When nearly everyone around you shares your worldview, groupthink is the inevitable result.

Media people, like the rest of us, also covet "insider" status -- they want to be part of the club. Often, that can mean snickering together at conservatives like Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin while treating a liberal icon like Keith Ellison with kid gloves."

KK takes on the Morroco Ambassador

Here's some of the article:

"Minneapolis lawyer Sam Kaplan -- a DFL fundraiser extraordinaire -- was a member of Barack Obama's national campaign-finance committee. In 2009, Obama rewarded him by naming him ambassador to Morocco.

The exotic posting must have seemed a plum job. Morocco has been known as an oasis among Arab nations -- largely free of the repression that mars so many other Muslim countries. It's "the opportunity of a lifetime for a guy from Minnesota," Kaplan enthused to the Star Tribune in April.

But since Kaplan's arrival, Morocco has turned from a diplomatic dream job to a depressing despotic reality. Since March, it has expelled about 100 foreigners, including 50 U.S. citizens. Among the deportees were foster parents at an orphanage, businesspeople and aid workers who taught the poor to grow their own food.

Their crime? Christian "proselytizing" -- against the law in this Muslim monarchy.

On June 17, some deportees told their heart-wrenching stories at a hearing convened by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va, cochairman of Congress's Human Rights Commission.

Witnesses included Eddie and Lynn Padilla, foster parents at Village of Hope orphanage. The orphanage -- which has both Christian and Muslim staff -- cared for 33 abandoned children and had operated for 10 years with official approval. But in March, the police moved in and swept through children's bedrooms while they slept, searching for Christian literature.

After three days of grilling, the Padillas and others were given two hours to clear out, as their children sobbed in anguish. Though no evidence was presented, their assets were seized and their bank accounts frozen. Since their departure, there is evidence that some children have been beaten or drugged.

Witness Michael Cloud, also a Christian, founded 12 centers that treat Moroccan children with cerebral palsy. Cloud testified that authorities barred his reentry as he tried to return from Egypt (where his wife was being treated for cancer). He was held for 13 hours and deported with no explanation. The "hard work" of 14 years was lost, he stated.

So how's our man Sam Kaplan doing defending American citizens from these egregious human-rights violations?

The Padillas testified that the U.S. Embassy had no time for them during their ordeal: "They just told us, "Do what they are telling you to do.' They offered no help ... [or] any kind of counsel, just pack and go." Cloud testified that when he sought help, the embassy just gave him a list of lawyers.

At the hearing, international-law expert Sandra Bunn-Livingstone stated that despite victims' pleas, Kaplan refused to release a Moroccan government diplomatic note with a list of deportees, citing protocol. As a result, "Americans who would like to appeal under Moroccan law ... have been refused that right" since they lack written proof of expulsion, she said. The British and Canadian governments did hand over such notes, she added.

Perhaps Kaplan had other priorities. "A few weeks ago," Cloud testified, "the American embassy in Rabat brought Moroccans to Washington, D.C., and fed them and housed them to help them brainstorm on how to build businesses in the Muslim world."

That would make sense. According to the embassy website, Kaplan's goal as ambassador is "to help fulfill President Obama's vision of a new beginning for U.S. relations with the Muslim world based on mutual respect and ... mutual interest."

In April, Kaplan responded to critics. He told the Star Tribune he had released a statement saying that the embassy was "distressed" by the expulsions. "We hope to see meaningful improvements in the application of due process," he wrote.

What's Kaplan doing to alleviate distress and promote due process?

A top priority seems to be to impress the Moroccan media, which complained that his statement had "stepped over the diplomatic line," according to the Star Tribune. "When your press has been almost unanimously positive for 5 1/2 months, the change is something that is different," Kaplan explained.

Cozy relations with the Moroccan monarchy are another priority. According to the Star Tribune, "Kaplan noted that King Mohammed has spoken about judicial reform in the past."

"We're not speaking out in contrast to what the government has said," Kaplan told the paper. "We're simply joining with His Majesty and saying if we can be helpful, we'd like to do that."

Wolf rejects this. "An American embassy should be an island of freedom" in the country where it's located, vigorously advocating for its citizens, he says. "Every ambassador has to decide whether to represent Americans' interests in the country they're in or whether to represent the country they're in to America.""

The entire article is posted here:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/99142164.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:Ug8P:Pc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr

Katherine Kersten is a Twin Cities writer and speaker. Reach her at kakersten@gmail.com.

KK Takes on gay rights ... again

If it becomes the law of the land, expect wide-ranging consequences.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/98635529.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ

Here's some of the article:

"Is same-sex marriage just over the horizon in Minnesota? Many say yes. A suit to legalize it has been filed in Hennepin County, and a slew of bills on the subject were introduced in the last legislative session. All the Democratic candidates for governor -- along with Independent Tom Horner -- endorse gay marriage.

At the national level, a federal judge in Massachusetts recently ruled unconstitutional the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Any day now, a federal judge in California is expected to strike down Proposition 8, which was endorsed in 2008 by California voters and defined marriage as a male-female institution in the state's constitution.

Same-sex marriage supporters assure us that redefining marriage is no big deal. "How will my same-sex marriage hurt you?" they ask, expecting the answer to be "it doesn't."

Don't believe it.

Same-sex marriage would transform American law and social life. That's because it's grounded in a radical idea: that male-female marriage, an institution rooted in human biology and intended to create the best setting to beget and raise children, is just irrational bigotry.

The implications of this revolutionary notion are far-reaching, and many are unforeseeable. But one thing is certain: If adopted, it will put government on a collision course with religious institutions and believers, and it's a sure bet government will win.

Male-female marriage is a foundational tenet of all the major world religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam. If gay marriage becomes government policy, people who believe that kids need both a mother and a father will be treated with the contempt formerly reserved for racial bigots.

If you think I'm exaggerating, listen to Mark Dayton, who may be Minnesota's next governor. In 2004, he told a crowd of gay-rights activists that people who support a constitutional amendment to protect male-female marriage are "the forces of bigotry and hatred" who "spew hatred and inhumanity," according to the Star Tribune.

Today, we're already seeing the implications of this view play out:

•If gay marriage becomes law, churches and religiously affiliated organizations may be denied tax exemption, on grounds that their beliefs are "contrary to public policy." The threat is "credible" and "palpable," according to Robin Wilson, a law professor at Washington and Lee University. In New Jersey, for example, a Methodist ministry had to fight government officials to defend its tax exemption for a facility after declining to allow two lesbian couples to use it for civil union ceremonies.

•Some faith-based charities may have to stop providing social services. Catholic Charities in Boston -- which specialized in adoptions involving hard-to-place kids -- had to give up adoption after gay marriage began in Massachusetts. Religiously affiliated hospitals, rehabilitation centers and homeless shelters that get government contracts or deal with Medicaid and Medicare may be similarly threatened.

•Public employees may be disciplined or dismissed if they refuse to approve of homosexual acts. Recently, for example, a professor who taught Catholic theology at the University of Illinois was fired after a student accused him of hate speech. The professor had written in an e-mail that Catholic theology teaches that "sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same," and had said he agrees with this view.

•In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Christian Legal Society at the University of California, Hastings, College of the Law could be denied status as a registered student group because it holds that the only rightful form of sex is between a man and woman within marriage -- a view that violates the school's nondiscrimination policy on sexual orientation. The ruling may sound the death-knell for orthodox Christian, Jewish and Muslim campus groups.

•Small-business owners could be liable under discrimination laws if they decline to provide goods or services in contexts that violate their beliefs -- providing wedding photography at a same-sex marriage, for example. Boards that license professionals, including psychologists and social workers, may require approval of same-sex marriage for licensure or admission to professional schools.

In California in 2008, we saw what's in store for traditional-marriage supporters who stand up for their beliefs. Same-sex marriage activists there vandalized property, targeted jobs and defaced houses of worship. Here in the Twin Cities, leaders of the recent Gay Pride celebration also refused to tolerate dissent. They went to court in an unsuccessful attempt to bar a lone Christian evangelist from handing out Bibles in the public park where their event took place.

In its early years, the gay-rights movement ...."

Katherine Kersten is a Twin Cities writer and speaker. Reach her at kakersten@gmail.com.

KK takes on government spending

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/98142604.html

Here's some of what KK writes:

Sometimes it seems the news from Washington couldn't get worse. With their addiction to spending, President Obama and Congress appear willing to mortgage not just our children's future but our great-grandchildren's as well to impose their big-government ambitions.

Fortunately, some political leaders offer an alternative vision. Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey are creating state-based laboratories that showcase the benefits of limited government.

Daniels, a former businessman, spends weekends riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle around Indiana, talking with voters.

When he came to office in 2004, Indiana had a hefty deficit and hadn't balanced its budget in seven years. Four years later, it boasted a budget surplus of $1.3 billion. Home property taxes have been cut dramatically -- by a third, in most cases -- and are capped at 1 percent of a home's value. For the first time since the 1970s, more people are moving to Indiana than leaving.

Daniels has achieved this by governing with a private-sector-style discipline and a relentless focus on quality and efficiency. "Government's the last great monopoly, overcharging and underserving its customers," he told BusinessWeek. As governor, he has said, he does what businessmen do: "You look for underperforming assets and turn them around."

Job creation is Daniels' top priority. But he puts businesspeople and entrepreneurs -- not "stimulus" or "bailouts" -- at the center. The result: This year, Indiana, with only 2 percent of the nation's population, has created 7 percent of America's new jobs.

Daniels is adamant about curbing spending on public employees. On his first day in office, he jettisoned an executive order giving state workers collective-bargaining rights. He's also initiated a "pay for performance" policy, rewarding state employees who meet specific goals. On his watch, the state payroll has fallen from 35,000 workers to less than 30,000 -- its level in 1982.

Daniels believes that politicians have a "solemn duty" to conserve taxpayer dollars. He has saved millions by centralizing and contracting out state services. His efficiencies range from leasing Indiana's toll road to private contractors to insisting that state newsletters -- once printed in color -- are now in black and white.

In Indiana, only 61 cents of every educational dollar makes it into the classroom. Now when local school boards request more money, voters can use Daniels' "Citizens' Checklist" to ensure that officials are taking every possible cost-cutting measure -- like eliminating professional association membership fees and outsourcing custodial services.

Hoosiers love Daniels' policies. He won by a narrow margin in 2004 but was reelected in 2008 by 18 points, even as Indiana lined up for Obama.

In New Jersey, Chris Christie made news in 2009 when his election as a Republican in one of America's bluest states was hailed as a barometer of public dissatisfaction with Obama and Big Government.

The Garden State has one of the nation's highest tax burdens. After decades of overspending, it teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, as productive residents and businesses flee out-of-control tax increases -- 115 in the last eight years.

Christie's solution? Slash the taxes and regulations that kill jobs and hamper wealth creation. To do this, he has taken on the state's public-sector unions -- arguably the nation's most powerful. There are "two classes of citizens in New Jersey," says this blunt former U.S. attorney. "Those who enjoy rich public benefits and those who pay for them."

In his first 60 days, Christie prevailed on Democrats in the legislature to pass substantial public pension and benefit reform. And he went to war with the teachers union over generous salaries and benefits. When a teacher complained at a town hall meeting that her job didn't pay enough, he shot back, "Well, you know what? Then you don't have to do it."

Is it "fair to have New Jersey taxpayers foot the bill for 100 percent of the health-insurance costs of teachers and their families from the day they are hired until the day they die?" Christie demanded. After he urged voters to reject school budgets if teachers in their districts didn't accept a one-year wage freeze, fed-up citizens flocked to the polls -- defeating almost two-thirds of local school-budget proposals.

Recently, Christie has celebrated other victories. Two weeks ago, the legislature approved his fiscal 2011 budget, which slashed spending and closed a $10.7 billion gap without raising taxes. Lawmakers also failed to override his veto of a so-called millionaire's tax hike. Now he's pushing to cap annual property-tax increases at 2.5 percent."

Katherine Kersten is a Twin Cities writer and speaker. Reach her at kakersten@gmail.com.

KK takes on personal happiness

Here's some of what KK writes:

"On July 4, we celebrate the great day that our Founders proclaimed Americans' "unalienable rights" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

This Independence Day, however, many Americans are expressing concern that the system of limited government bequeathed by our Founders is under attack. If the policy course being set in Washington, D.C., continues, the viability of the Founders' vision -- and the American Dream it spawned -- may be in doubt.

In a new book, Arthur Brooks -- president of the American Enterprise Institute -- explains that we're witnessing a clash of visions that will determine America's future for decades. In "The Battle: How the Fight between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America's Future," he describes the relentless expansion of government that is constricting our liberty and limiting our ability to pursue happiness.

In an April 2009 survey, for example, 69 percent of voters preferred "a smaller government with fewer services and lower taxes" to a "larger government with more services and higher taxes." Only 21 percent favored larger government.

The 30 percent coalition's celebration of big government and the welfare state is based on a misunderstanding of the human heart, writes Brooks. Our political class thinks that "money buys happiness, as long as it is distributed fairly." But the secret of human flourishing -- no matter your status -- is not money but "earned success" in life, he says.

Earned success is the creation of value in our own lives or the lives of others. People who believe they are creating value -- whether through their job, as parents or as volunteers -- are generally happier than people who don't believe they've earned their success. That's why a person receiving welfare is much less happy, on average, than an equally poor person who isn't, according to many studies. Lottery winners too often become less happy.

A vibrant free-enterprise system is vital for the pursuit of happiness, because it makes earned success possible for the greatest number of people. It does so in three ways, says Brooks. First, it creates optimism by giving people the opportunity to better themselves through hard work and perseverance -- to "reinvent themselves." We know this as the American Dream.

Second, a free-enterprise system helps people to create meaning by enabling them to find work that matches their skills and passions. Americans are 46 percent likelier than the heavily taxed and regulated French, 52 percent likelier than Germans and 190 percent likelier than the Spanish to say they are "completely satisfied" with their jobs, according to Brooks.

Finally, the free-enterprise system creates happiness by giving people control over their daily lives. Flourishing, happy people believe they can determine their own destinies through hard work, while people who feel powerless are the most miserable.

Business owners have the highest overall well-being and job satisfaction in America -- though they work longer hours and earn less on average than executives who work for large organizations, according to Brooks. The group that scores lowest in well-being is low-control union jobs in manufacturing.

The free-market system is a moral imperative, because it allows people of all economic conditions to pursue happiness. But today, government policies from bailouts to heavy-handed regulation are putting that system at risk.

This July 4, we should heed Patrick Henry's warning: "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel." And Benjamin Franklin's counsel: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Brooks dubs the two contending forces in this battle the "30 percent coalition" and the "70 percent coalition."

The 30 percent coalition -- led by President Obama, Democrats in Congress, and their allies in academia, the media and Big Labor -- holds the levers of power in Washington. They gained control in 2008, in part, by successfully hijacking the language of "fairness."

The 30 percent coalition rejects our Founders' belief that the role of government is to ensure the rule of law so individual Americans can pursue happiness. Instead, its members want government itself to dispense happiness -- by regulating more and more sectors of American life and by redistributing income, goods and services.

The 70 percent coalition -- the rest of America -- says..."