Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has been at the center of a storm since provocative questions about her migraines emerged two weeks ago. Now that the dust has settled, the question is … well, whether the dust actually has settled, or whether the dirt will emerge farther down the election trail.

It’s only been a few weeks since the original story about the migraines appeared, and the early verdict from political observers is that Bachmann didn’t just tread water, but might have come out stronger.

Former George W. Bush strategist and No Labels co-founder Mark McKinnon said Bachmann moved “quickly and effectively to knock down the story.”

Professor and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics Larry Sabato agrees: “From across the spectrum, I heard the issue was a nonstarter. Love her or loathe her, what do migraines have to do with anything?”

Exactly: what do they have to do with anything? But, she’s Michele Bachmann, a TEA Party and conservative favorite, and is unafraid to attack Obama’s policies.

That’s what many women asked. Migraines, which disproportionately affect females, reminded some of the ugliest stereotype in politics — that a woman can’t handle the stress of being president.

Kirsten Powers, a Fox News analyst and columnist for The Daily Beast, noted: “The way the migraines were talked about portrayed her as an unstable, pill-popping, hysterical female who can’t be trusted.”

In reality, Powers claimed, that’s exactly the opposite of the “energetic, incredibly stable and very clear-headed” woman Bachmann really is. The allegations, she argued, have only made the lawmaker sympathetic and thus strengthened her.

Most interesting was how many Liberal women, along with Conservative women, came to the defense of Bachmann over the silly migraine story, which never would have been tried against a man.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

GOP mega-stars U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin — both top Republicans who buck the status quo — have been unfairly mocked and broadsided with loaded, gender-biased questions, prominent women from both parties told the Herald yesterday.

“You have two women who’ve captured the attention of the general public and were climbing in the polls, and they face a higher bar,” said Shannon O’Brien, a Democrat whose campaign was painted as “unbecoming” by Mitt Romney when she ran for governor against him in 2002. “In order to be taken seriously as a candidate . . . a woman must do a better job and go further to credential herself with the public.”

These attacks tend to come from the left, who are supposedly champions of women’s rights and breaking the glass ceiling (as long as they are pro-abortion), as well as centrist (read “squishy”) Republicans, particularly since so many of these Republican women hold real Conservative positions. If people want to attack their positions, great, but, that is not what’s happening: the women are being attacked personally and held to a higher standard then the men. I see many in the Right side blogosphere who are against Bachmann, and when asked why, they give a tepid response about her being “extremist”, and some pap about her not being bright, not ready, yada yada yada, the same attacks they make against Palin, yet, they cannot say what positions, what policies, of Bachmann’s they are against.

Just yesterday, Bachmann had to combat suggestions that migraine headaches could hamper her performance in the Oval Office.

“Let me be abundantly clear — my ability to function effectively has never been impeded by migraines and will not affect my ability to serve as commander in chief,” Bachmann said.

Interestingly, Bachmann has rights covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Migraines are covered by these Acts, along with other federal and state laws. What if she was a paraplegic? Would she be attacked as unable to do the job of President? But, these attacks transcend normal politics, and go for the personal in a seemingly sexist manner.

The Daily Caller’s anonymously sourced hit job would never have been attempted against a male candidate. What’s next, an attack that she would be really bitchy a couple of days a month, and unable to do the job 1 out of every 28 days?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Brandon K. Thorp, a gay activist from the alternative weekly Broward-Palm Beach New Times newspaper, is only the latest left-winger to launch into a verbal assault on Lt. Col. Allen West, now a Representative from Florida’s 22nd District. Like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman, Rep. West is one of the many conservatives that leftists fear the most. We know this because the left’s constant, fevered, overwrought attacks tell us so.

This time Thorp, who also has worked for CNN, is all hot-n-bothered by West’s April 19 use of an historical reference to rally conservative and Republican women to the cause. In an address to a *Women Impacting the Nation meeting in Boca, West urged conservative women to raise strong men by relating to them the example of the Spartan women of ancient Greece.

“When you understood what made the Spartan men strong it was the Spartan women,” West told those gathered. Thorp thought this whole meme was not only “ungraceful,” but proved West is “hateful and stupid.” Further Thorp’s poison pen informs us that he thinks West is “not nearly smart enough to give coherent extemporaneous speeches.”

Thorp’s first offbase criticism is over whether West should have been addressing his comments to mothers or fathers.

If he’d had more than ten minutes to think about it, West probably would have realized that his riff about Spartan mothers was a little less than empowering. Given some reflection, West might also have realized that it’s the American father, not the American mother, in need of a good pep talk about child-rearing.

And who is it, might I ask, that allows these men to roam from baby-momma to baby-momma? Why, yes, that would be women. Sorry, Thorpster, but women set the tone for a marriage and a family. It has always been thus. Does it absolve men for their roaming around? No, of course not. But to say, as Thorp did, that women are any less in need of a pep talk about childrearing is simply Thorp’s PCism run amuck. He is one of those castrati that can’t possibly imagine that a woman might need a pep talk about anything. In his weak-willed world, women can’t be wrong because, why, they are oppressed “minorities,” you see?

The fact is that both sexes need this pep talk, women no less than men. Still, it is women that need to be strengthened first and foremost, before the men, because it is women who are the backbone of the family. Strong women do, indeed, make strong families and raise strong children. Men are in need of the talk, too, but to say women don’t just because they are women is poppycock.

West went on to lambaste these “Planned Parenthood women, these Code Pink women” that are “neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness.” This, Thorp asserted is “as hateful as it is stupid.”

Then Thorp tried to lull the reader into the assumption that the extremist, left-wing, anti-American group Code Pink is supported by “left of center” Americans. This is a misconstruction of how extreme the Code Pinkos are. Neither Code Pink nor its supporters are in any way left of center. They are extremists of the far left, not moderates.

Worse, this fellow tried to cast Allen West as wanting to murder his opponents.

…the left-of-center half of America is not trying to enslave the right-of-center half. If we were, the right-of-center half would have every right to murder us on sight. That is what you do with people who mean to enslave you, especially if you are a warrior.

So, what we have from this extreme, left-wing writer is that Allen West is stupid, he is a wannabe murderer, and he hates women while desirous of letting men play the field without being scolded for their adulterous behavior. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But Thorp has let his hate guide him.

Yep, that sort of absurdly hyperbolic hate tells us exactly what Thorp thinks. He is overwrought, filled with vitriol, and unable to keep his cattiness out of his writing.

If you missed it, here is West’s address in two parts:

*Women Impacting the Nation is a group that is “made up of women who want to impact our nation.” They “believe it is time to stand up and speak out for what we believe.”

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has had an epic week.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was her guest at a closed-door session on the Constitution, and her tea party rebuttal to the State of the Union exploded on the cable networks, allowing her to grab the spotlight as a standard-bearer for the conservative movement. Cable chatterers and newspapers talked just as much about Bachmann as they did about the official Republican responder, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.

And therein lies the challenge for Republicans.

For all of Speaker John Boehner’s efforts to stage-manage the opening days of the Republican House, handpick his inner circle and keep his party on message, Bachmann keeps jumping into the fray. The tea party loves her, the media promotes her, and she is a huge draw on the fundraising circuit.

Obviously, this must not bode well, right?

The GOP strategy, in fact, seems to be to treat her like any other member of the House Republican Conference.

Ask anyone in the newly minted House Republican leadership about the telegenic Minnesotan, and all you’ll get is a dismissive shrug.

Boehner didn’t even tune in for her performance on CNN.

“No, I did not; I had other obligations,” Boehner said Wednesday when asked whether he watched Bachmann’s address.

The story continues on with a few Republicans somewhat upset over her SOTU response. The entire point is to attempt to marginalize Bachmann, so that her message will be dismissed and ignored, by saying that even Republicans are upset with her. Love her or hate her, she is an attention getter, and much harder to destroy than the media’s favorite target of sexism, Sarah Palin. And she will smack around the Republican leadership when they fail to perform, and deviate from the road they were elected on.

An extremist Muslim group banned in several countries was cleared by police and a local council to use a town hall to spread its message. The radical Hizb ut-Tahrir – Party of Islamic Liberation – paid Melbourne’s Moreland Council $300 to use Brunswick Town Hall for an Israel-bashing conference in which it claimed that armed conflict was a legitimate response to defend the Islamic “caliphate” against the West.

The extremist group has previously said insurgents fighting against Australian and other Coalition troops in Iraq had a “universal right and religious duty”. It is banned in Russia, Germany, China, Egypt and Jordan as an organisation capable of inciting terrorism.

Just last month the controversial group sparked protests when they held a meeting in Sydney urging all Muslims to shun democracy.

However Moreland chief executive Peter Brown yesterday defended his council’s decision to allow the conference to go ahead, arguing Hizb ut-Tahrir was not banned in Australia. Mr Brown said the council supported cultural and religious inclusiveness.

Hizb ut-Tahrir’s mantra is “democracy is a bankrupt and irrational idea” and “all indicators are pointing to the decline and inevitable collapse of Western ideology”.

ASIO and some other Western spy agencies have advised that banning the group would drive supporters further underground. About 40 people attended Sunday’s meeting, including three community policing officers and an Australian Federal Police agent.

Mr Brown said he was advised by police last week that Hizb ut-Tahrir presented no security risk. “Council’s decision to accept the booking came after receiving advice from the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police that the group was not a threat and was not banned,” Mr Brown said.

“This decision is based on our strong belief in political and religious freedom but council will remain vigilant and ensure that our city’s facilities are not used to incite violence, racism, sexism or religious intolerance. “Our ethos is ‘One community proudly diverse’, and with that we welcome political debate. But we will always protect that in the process, all of our residents are treated with the respect that makes Moreland a great place to live.”

More here

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Welcome once again to our top ten most left-biased working journalist list and now it’s time for number five in the countdown. As we begin our downward slope to the number one most biased, it is fitting that we come to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker as our fifth worst, most biased American journo.

Unlike the other left-wingers that merely hate conservative Americans, Cynthia Tucker seems to hate all of us. That seems true at least if her latest outrageous comment on MSNBC can be taken for granted.

In recent comments made on Chris “Leg Tingle” Matthews’ MSNBC show, Tucker said that, unlike the Cold War days, today’s American enemy is “us.” Naturally The Tingler chipped in with a hearty “exactly.”

Expounding upon her claim that we, each of us, is an enemy to the country, Tucker went on:

And one of the differences between the ’50’s when Sputnik was launched and now, that was a battle against Communism. It’s always much easier to rally Americans against an external threat, an external enemy. In this case, the enemy is us. Americans are addicted to petroleum. We use way too much oil. So it’s a little harder for the president to turn around and call on Americans to sacrifice. You remember what happened to Jimmy Carter when he did that.

Now I happened to think Jimmy Carter was right.… Well, if he had done the things that, if we had done the things that Carter called for then, we may not be looking at this huge oil spill now.

Carter? One of the most failed presidents in American history comes in for praise? From Cynthia Tucker he sure does. She should know. She’s an expert.

Now we can all easily see that Tucker is a political history savant. Why, not long ago Tucker was busy on MSNBC telling us all in her inimitably brilliant way that Congress was “dominated by Republicans” in 2007. Sadly, no one bothered to inform her that the Democrats took over control of Congress in 2006 and by 2007 had one of the largest Democrat majorities in decades. So much for her grasp of even recent history.

Tucker fancies herself an economics expert, too. In April, she informed us that only government spending could save us from depression and lamented that Obama didn’t have a more “robust” stimulus. “Ironically,” Tucker assured us, “a more robust government response to the recession would have saved more jobs.” Really? Then why isn’t Greece the most “robust,” employed country in the world?

Well, don’t go confusing her with facts, OK?

So with her perspicacity now fully ascertained we can move on confident in Tucker’s analysis, right? So let’s find out what this deeply philosophical thinker feels about you tea partiers, shall we? Would you be surprised that she thinks you are all racists? I didn’t think so.

In fact, she feels that between 45 and 65 percent of tea partiers are racists. That figure was “just off the cuff,” of course.

Naturally, Tucker also thinks that only racists oppose Obama’s socialist healthcare policies, its price tag billions and billions higher than its proponents claimed, and its destruction of so many industries and businesses, not to mention the thousands of new rules and regulations that will pile more costs onto everyone. In fact, in a Sept. 2009 column, Tucker said exactly that.

Many commentators, political analysts and fellow Democrats share Scott’s view that some part — perhaps just a sliver, perhaps more — of the right-wing assault on President Obama’s health care reform plans stems from a deep-seated racial antagonism toward the president. Count me among them.

I’ll bet you didn’t realize that when you stood against Hillarycare in 1993 you were a “racist,” did you?

Like so many black journalists that pander to a racemongering audience, though, the bulk of Tucker’s work is filled with beating that dying horse. Naturally, only Republicans come in for the epithet.

Just as naturally, Tucker talks out of both sides of her mouth on the issue of race, too. In March, for instance, Tucker said that racism is “a reflection on the Grand Old Party,” yet but a few months later she was saying that the only reason the GOPs black Party chief Michael Steele wasn’t fired is because he was black. How a party can be so racist yet won’t fire a black party chairman is a bit hard to understand.

Further, how can a party be so racist, yet elect an African American party chief in the first place? For a thoughtful person it would be a bit hard to reconcile the two. Thankfully, Cynthia Tucker does not have the limitation of logic to get in her way.

But racism isn’t the only hurdle that America can’t seem to mount according to the brilliance of one Cynthia Tucker. There’s also that old bugaboo of sexism. Women just can’t get a head in this darned ol’ country, Tucker says.

It’s so bad, Tucker posits, that if Obama’s Supreme Court Justice nominee, Elana Kagan, doesn’t ascend to the court, then it is because of “latent sexism” in America. Let’s set aside the fact that we’ve had women in nearly every position in America’s power structure except president and vice president and let’s ignore that we’ve already had three previous female Supreme Court Justices. No it’s got to be “sexism” that will keep Kagan off the bench. Yes, it’s obvious that woman just can’t get ahead in America today, isn’t it?

Well, if reality so rudely intrudes on your perception, we should be glad that Cynthia Tucker does not have that problem.

And so, free of all those annoying encumbrances of logic, a command of history, and veracity, Cynthia Tucker has won a spot on our list of most left-biased American journalists. Congratulations, honey, you’re in.

Please check back tomorrow for left-biased journalist number four in our series.

On Tuesday night, CNN’s Larry King had comedian Sarah Silverman on his program and, towards the end of the show, Silverman made a crack about whether Sarah Palin should pose for Playboy. Silverman said “I think she should go for it” and King responded, “Agreed.”

As might be expected, the comment has irked some.

Lulu Flores, president of the National Women’s Political Caucus, told POLITICO that King’s comments were, “waaaaayyy inappropriate.”

Other than the NWPC (which says it is bipartisan, but is heavily concerned with “reproductive rights” and other left wing causes), most who criticized King were Conservatives. No complaints of the blatant sexism inherent in the remarks. But, then, hey, nobody watches CNN in the first place, so, how would they know? They are all watching Fox News.

Just imagine if something like that had been said about…………well, this is embarrassing. I can’t actually think of a Democrat with the same standing as Palin that would be a candidate for Playboy. So, maybe this isn’t a big deal (it isn’t), and was more of a compliment from Silver and King (?)

Elisabeth Badinter, a leading French feminist, has warned the green movement is threatening decades of improvements in gender equality by forcing women to give up their jobs and become earth mothers.

Mrs Badinter claims a “holy reactionary alliance” of green politicians, breast-feeding militants, “back to nature” feminists and child psychologists is turning Frenchwomen into slaves to green “fads” like re-usable nappies and organic food.

In her new book, Conflit, la Femme et la Mere (Conflict, the Woman and the Mother), Mrs Badinter contends that this politically correct cabal is burdening mothers with intolerable guilt unless they stay at home and breast-feed for as long as possible.

And, of course (and unfortunately), a good chunk of these Greenies are climate alarmists who link virtually every issue to globull warming. For instance, you should not use disposable diapers because they end up in a landfill and create methane, so, switch to re-usable, because they aren’t made from petroleum, because petroleum creates CO2. The greenies tend to avoid discussion that disposable diapers tend to be safer from a health point of view for babies and those who handle the toxic mix filled diapers. And, oh, put out less CO2 in reality.

If you want a good take on organic food, I’d suggest you read the book The Last Centurion by John Ringo. Yes, it is a science fiction book, however, it describes how n0t-well organic works, much in the same way Michael Crichton’s book, State Of Fear describes climahysteria.

Their perfect French mother, she writes, “breastfeeds for six months and doesn’t put her baby in a crèche or not too early, because baby needs to be with mum and not in a nest of germs; she is wary of all things artificial and is ecologically-minded. The jar of baby food has become a sign of selfishness; we’re back to the purée mashed by mum.”

Women in childbirth are even made to feel that epidurals are wrong, she goes on, adding: “We don’t need to bow down to nature.”

Those who choose to stay at work or to not have children are ostracised.

Of course, it is the Left who tends to, in practice, expose themselves as true sexists. Witness recently the treatment of Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. And the greenies tend to be primarily composed of …… leftists!

The Telegraph does provide some quotes from those who disagree with Badinter, but, as one would expect, the replies are in Lib Speak, and do not even come close to answering the charges.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

U.S. troops in Afghanistan are having a hard time understanding what is a strange Afghan cultural practice to them. The practice can be summed up in the ages old Afghan phrase, “women are for children, boys are for pleasure.”

Yes, that phrase means what you think it means. It has been well known for a long time that some parts of Afghanistan have an odd sexual practice ensconced in its culture. Men have sex for pleasure with boys often eschewing women. Sometimes these men even claim to be disgusted by the idea of sex for pleasure with a woman. Yet none of these Afghani men think of themselves as homosexual because they don’t “love” their male sex partners. They just love the sex.

This fact had become well known by Americans back in the 1980s when we were assisting the Mujahadeen to fight the Soviets. CIA operatives, social psychologists and cultural experts working with the government and Army personnel learned this strange habit long ago. But now that we are back in force in Afghanistan we are encountering this practice again and it is causing no end of confusion for U.S. forces — especially medical personnel.

According to Fox News, American doctors are trying to teach Afghani men that they are getting sexually transmitted diseases from the anal sex they are having with each other. The docs are telling these men that they must stop the practice.

The problem is, though, that these Afghani men refuse to take the doctor’s advice because they say it is their cultural practice. In fact, they say that the Koran tells them to do this.

The Fox report includes this statement by an Afghani that surely reflects his cultural bias on the issue. The report mentions that the U.S. medical personnel was trying to tell these men that sex with women will keep them from getting these diseases. The Fox News report said, “when it was explained to him what was necessary, he reacted with disgust and asked, ‘How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean, when one could be with a man, who is clean? Surely this must be wrong.’”

So why do I peg this to a backwards Islamic practice? Because the problem here isn’t just a weird interpretation of Islam isolated in one small corner of the earth it is Islam itself that is the problem.

Certainly we don’t necessarily see this homosexual practice in every Islamic culture, though it does exist in larger numbers than one might think. But the root of the problem is wrapped up in what the Afghani man above said about women. “They are unclean,” he told the U.S. doctors. This idea that women are “unclean” is ubiquitous throughout the religion.

This disgusting devaluing of women doesn’t just happen in Afghanistan, though it seems to be especially virulent there. This devaluing of women is rampant throughout the Islamic world. Islam hates its women. Islam beats its women. Islam rapes its women. Islam murders its women. From every corner of the earth Islam is anti-female.

So, it is no surprise that in at least one Islamic culture even having sex with women makes Islamic men sick.

For Islam to come from the 13th century into the 21st Century it must learn to treat its women with respect.

Just hearing her name causes me pain and normally I wouldn’t waste a minute’s time worrying about what this vacuous little child has to say on much of anything — as is evidenced by the fact that this is the first time my keyboard has shuddered out her name. However, Meghan McCain’s latest blog post is a piece of conventional wisdom that, while not unique to little Meaggie’s fallow mind (which itself is de rigeuer for the girl, sadly), it is one that has been heard since the day women began to stride into the world of western politics. However, it is one that I think no longer applies. So, I’d like to address the empty reasoning on women in politics despite that it emanated from McCain’s somewhat barren pen.

Here is McCain’s prosaic premise: The attacks on Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have made it harder for women and is proof that no woman will ever be “just right” for politics. To which anyone not looking to make excuses can only say a resounding “yeah, right.”

The simple matter of fact is that anyone that clamors for great power will stir great passions in those whom they wish to govern. And those that find wide support among the people will find that such support is ephemeral once decisions start having to be made. It doesn’t matter if the powerful is man or woman.

Let’s take General George Washington, for instance. He was the Father of our country, we all know. When he first deigned to accept the title of our first president his approval rating would most assuredly have been in the upper reaches of the 90th percentile range should early Americans have had the misfortune to have had nation-wide polling services like Zogby or Pew Research in the 1780s.

But even as he took his seat at the head of the nation the grumbling began. It wasn’t long before much of the good will he had truly earned as the general that won our independence began to wear thin, replaced by rumors of his doddering mental state, his purported lack of intellect, and his detached unconcern for his nation. The sniping got so bad that President Washington almost refused to run for a second term and always preferred to be called general instead of Mr. President. Save James Monroe, few presidents since have ever enjoyed an “era of good feeling” without the poison pen of his enemies nipping at his heels.

And this is true of any great leader. It’s been true of Senators, Speakers of the House, presidents, generals and statesmen all over the world and throughout time.

For her part, McCain worries that the constant and virulent attacks on Palin and Clinton is emblematic of how women are unduly attacked in the political realm. She terms it “misogyny” and feels it’s a “double standard” exclusively used against powerful women. Finally she feels that these illicit and unusual attacks will only serve to keep young women from an interest in politics.

The reality is, however, that only one thing is used against women that isn’t used against men: physical looks. Clinton is too ugly, Palin too pretty, so they say, but looks are rarely held against male politicians. If they were Henry Waxman could never have been elected, even to such a lowly position as dog catcher. So, yes, there is one thing unfairly used against female candidates. But is this really such a major factor as to make it so much harder for women to have successful political careers than for men? I, for one, don’t see it.

Long gone are the days when a female politician was looked upon as derelict in the duties of femininity for seeking office. Gone are the days when men considered politics not something women were “allowed” to join. It isn’t 1920 any longer.

But there is still this whiny notion that women have a tougher time in politics merely because they are women. I say pish tosh to that notion. Women of strong opinion are no worse treated than men of strong opinion. Ask George W. Bush if he thinks he gets an easier way cleared for him because he was born a George instead of a Georgina! Ask anyone if they think Teddy “the Swimmer” Kennedy was less virulently opposed by the right merely because he was a fella!

No, I believe we have soared past the time when women in politics were eschewed merely because they were women. Women have achieved equality with men in every way that matters in the political arena. Now we can rejoice because we can hate Hillary Clinton because she is a closet Marxist. We are free from having to worry if she’s woman enough to be allowed to run for office. The left can attack Governor Palin because they feel she is an idiot and they don’t have to worry if her gentler, female side will make her too weak to be a politician.

We no longer have to hate a woman solely for her gender. Now, at long last, we can hate her because of her ideas. Now THAT is progress!