Tag Archives: Fired

News

Mona Charen explains how individual initiative is dying in America

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Mona Charen writing in the National Review Online. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

A plucky teller foiled a robbery attempt at Key Bank in Seattle. But the story does not end happily. When a small man in a beanie cap, dark clothing, and sunglasses pushed a backpack across the counter and announced, “This is a ransom. Fill the bag with money,” teller Jim Nicholson ignored his training and “instinct took over.” He lunged across the counter and attempted to grab the thief by the throat, or at least to pull his glasses off. The nonplussed would-be robber bolted for the door with Nicholson on his heels. A couple of blocks away, with the help of others, Nicholson tackled the guy and held him until police arrived.

Two days later, Key Bank got in touch with Nicholson. A bonus, perhaps? A commendation? Not quite. He was fired. It seems he had violated the bank’s strict policy that tellers should always comply with robber demands. A Key Bank spokesman has not returned a call asking for comment.

It gets worse, though. OK, everyone know s that I absolutely adore birds. All kinds of birds, but especially cockatiels. Birds are the most cuddly and adorable creatures in the world and I want to make friends with all of them whenever I see them. We have Canadian geese that walk around my building and I whistle to them. They stop, lift up their heads and stare at me. Sometimes, they honk back, if I honked at them first.

Look at this tragedy:

We see Canadian geese crossing roadways all the time here in Fairfax County. Usually it’s an adult goose followed by four to six fuzzy gray goslings with another adult goose bringing up the rear. One assumes it is a family unit. Jozsef Vamosi was driving to work around 9:30 a.m. when he saw such a family assembling to cross a busy thoroughfare. “They were walking like gentlemen,” Vamosi told the Washington Post. “Like the Beatles on ‘Abbey Road.’” Vamosi got out of his car, held up a hand to stop traffic and escorted the birds to the median. He then did the same thing on the other side of the road. The geese went safely on their way. “Everything came out fantastic,” the Hungarian immigrant explained. That is, until a Fairfax County police officer arrived on the scene berating Vamosi and questioning his sanity. Vamosi was issued a ticket for jaywalking. A police spokesman advised, “We can appreciate the citizen’s response and compassion for wildlife. But a more prudent response would be to pull off the road and use their cellphone. Call the police, and have them respond.”

By the time even the most responsive police could have arrived for such a call (and don’t they have more important matters to attend to?) the geese would have been pâté. Nicholson and Vamosi acted on impulse — and I for one would not like to live in a country where such instincts have been ironed out of us.

Stop taking away all of our chances to be heroic, you stupid bureaucracy!

Oh – speaking of that, I was talking on my cell phone outside the office last week when one of our female Democrats came out. It had just started to rain really hard. So I asked her for her car keys and brought the car around for her so she would not get wet. (I got soaked!) I suppose that if the feminists find out, I would be sued. This is what men are supposed to do for women.

This is also why men (and women) should be allowed to own firearms and carry them. We should not be calling the cops when a crime can be prevented just by brandishing a firearm.

News

CRISIS! Obama fires Inspector General after investigation of Democrat corruption

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UPDATE: Hot Air says 2 IGs have been fired, and a 3rd is in trouble.

Michelle Malkin’s latest column explains the incident from the beginning. But I’ll jump to the middle for the excerpt.

Excerpt:

The second program Walpin challenged is the non-profit St. HOPE Academy, run by Obama supporter Kevin Johnson, the Democrat mayor of Sacramento and a former NBA basketball star. In a special May 2009 report, Walpin’s office blew the whistle on a highly politicized U.S. Attorney’s Office settlement with Johnson and his deputy, Dana Gonzalez. The pair exploited nearly $900,000 in AmeriCorps funding for personal and political gain.

But in the wake of Johnson’s mayoral victory and President Obama’s election in November, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento rushed to settle with the new mayor so he could avail himself of federal stimulus funds and other government money. It was, Walpin said in his special report last month, “akin to deciding that, while one should not put a fox in a small chicken coop, it is fine to do so in a large chicken coop! The settlement…leaves the unmistakable impression that relief from a suspension can be bought.”

Shortly after, the White House announced that it had “lost confidence” in Walpin. With Walpin’s removal, the top management positions at AmeriCorps’ parent organization are now all open. The decks are clear to install lackeys who will protect the government volunteerism industry and its Democrat cronies. And a chilling effect has undoubtedly taken hold in every other inspector general’s office in Washington.

This is a MUST-READ.

Let’s see what hope and change really means. Nothing like this abuse of power ever happened in 8 years under George W. Bush. Bush was an evangelical Christian who took morality and honor seriously. Even if he sometimes made mistakes, they were generally mistakes of policy – not abusing his power to cover up corruption.

In a Hot Air post we learn that Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill isn’t happy about Walpin’s dismissal.

“The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal of the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service.  The legislation which was passed last year requires that the president give a reason for the removal. ‘Loss of confidence’ is not a sufficient reason.  I’m hopeful the White House will provide a more substantive rationale, in writing, as quickly as possible,” McCaskill said.

Ed Morrissey writes “They can’t provide the real reason, which is that Walpin went after a political ally of the President’s.”

Fox News has more about Walpin. (H/T Hot Air)

In the letter, White House Special Counsel Norman Eisen wrote that Walpin was “confused” and “disoriented” at a May board meeting, was “unduly disruptive,” and exhibited a “lack of candor” in providing information to decision makers.

“That’s a total lie,” Walpin said of the latter charge. And he said the accusation that he was dazed and confused at one meeting out of many was not only false, but poor rationale for his ouster.

“It appears to suggest that I was removed because I was disabled — based on one occasion out of hundreds,” he said.

“I would never say President Obama doesn’t have the capacity to continue to serve because of his (statement) that there are 57 states,” Walpin said, adding that the same holds for Vice President Biden and his “many express confusions that have been highlighted by the media.” Obama mistakenly said once on the campaign trail that he had traveled to 57 states.

When tyranny comes to a nation, the honest men are the first against the wall.

News

Can same-sex marriage and religious liberty co-exist?

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UPDATE: Welcome readers from 4Simpsons! Thanks for the link Neil!

Maggie Gallagher has written an article in the National Review asking whether same-sex marriage will crowd out fundamental liberties, such as the religious liberty.

First, we need to understand that the public expression of religious convictions is a buffer against fascism, just like free market capitalism and the family unit.

Maggie writes:

Take “religious liberty.” Religious liberty is a deeply American solution to a perennial problem. It means that every individual has a right to pursue ultimate meaning without coercion from the government. Totalitarian governments repress religion because they recognize faith communities as competitors with the state’s power to define — or redefine — human rights.

But a funny thing happened on the way to defeating Communism. Religion has emerged as the sole institution standing in the way of a powerful neo-statist liberalism, in which equality doctrines are used not as a shield but as a sword — to legitimate state intrusion into once-private realms.

In practice, religious voters are the core of resistance to social liberalism, and they empower economic conservatism by providing a much broader base of voters for a center-right coalition government.

How will the left get rid of rights like the right to free speech, and the right of religious liberty, which stand in the way of their socialist road to fascism? Well, they might be able to use same-sex marriage.

Maggie goes on to wonder what the left will do in the USA, given what the left is doing in the UK:

Consider what is happening right now in Great Britain, our closest sister democracy and the one with the strongest free-speech tradition. How does the British government treat religious liberty when it clashes with “gay equality”?

Can the British government force a Catholic school to retain a principal who enters a civil union? Yes, it already has. How can that be, given British religious liberty? Well, the government says that if a religion teacher at a Catholic school enters a gay union publicly, he or she could be fired. But nobody else.

Can the government fine an Anglican bishop who refuses to hire an actively and proudly gay youth minister? Yes, it already has. (How is this justified by the above principle? I don’t know. I just know the government can do it, because it has.)

Consider this story from the UK Telegraph.

Religious groups are to be forced to accept homosexual youth workers, secretaries and other staff, even if their faith holds same-sex relationships to be sinful.

…Maria Eagle, the deputy equalities minister, has now indicated that it will cover almost all church employees.”Members of faith groups have a role in making the argument in their own communities for greater LGBT acceptance, but in the meantime the state has a duty to protect people from unfair treatment.”

But limitations on our rights because of same-sex marriage are already here, because of secularism. The denial of fundamental human rights, (which are illusory if God does not exist), is quite widespread in Canada and the United States. Atheists want to be happy, and they will sweep aside your Constitutional rights in order to get that happiness.

Consider the case of Julie Ward.

Ms. Ward was enrolled in a graduate program at the school and as part of her education was required to enroll in a counseling practicum. In that practicum, she was assigned a case involving a homosexual who needed help. Ms. Ward did not feel that she could affirm the student’s homosexual lifestyle because of her Christian beliefs, so she asked her supervisor what she should do. His advice was to refer the student to a counselor who had no qualms with affirming homosexual behavior. That is what she did, and it was all done before she saw the student. There was no counseling that took place between the two, there was no confrontation between the two, and there was no condemnation of homosexuality — just an honest confession of her deeply held religious belief.

Julea was summoned to appear before a disciplinary hearing and told that if she wanted to continue on with her graduate program, she would have to submit to a “remediation” program so that she could see “the error of her ways.” She refused to be forced into a re-education program designed to convert her from biblical faith, and as a result, she was kicked out of school. There’s your tolerance.

And consider homosexual indoctrination for 5-year olds. (H/T Stop the ACLU)

A California school district seems intent on teaching pre-school children to accept the homosexual lifestyle.

The Alameda Unified School District announced it was considering a supplemental curriculum to eradicate “homophobia” in kindergarten children. Brad Dacus, founder of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), said the meeting room for the public session earlier this week was overcrowded with angry parents.

“Nowhere at anytime did it give any protection for children being bullied because of their faith, their religion, their size, their race, ethnicity,” he points out. “It is only going to give this special anti-bullying protection for homosexuals and transsexuals.”

…Parents cannot opt out their children from the curriculum.

No wonder men don’t want to marry and have kids, and have the whole thing regulated by the government. If you can’t even pass on your worldview to your kids, or express your beliefs in public, because of all the left-wing cry-babies who are so intolerant that they can’t bear to hear other points of view, then why bother marrying and having children? If single women really wanted husbands and children, they wouldn’t vote Democrat (= anti-family).

Same-sex marriage activists believe in compelling celebration, respect and approval from Christians against their will and in violation of their human rights. If SSM ever became law, our entire society would be re-made so that no public expression of preference for traditional marriage would go unpunished.

Further study

Muddling Towards Maturity linked to two commentaries (one, two) by Chuck Colson listing the many examples of discrimination, including: the coercion of Christian business eHarmony to open up a business to homosexuals, suing people for refusing to facilitate weddings, suing doctors for refusing to provide therapy or in vitro fertalization, forcing adoption agencies to place children with same-sex couples, etc.

I documented the persecution of defenders of traditional marriage here.