This big.

In my senior year of high school, my buddy Steve Nordstrom and I were ditching class when we walked by a long line of freshmen waiting to get their pictures taken for the yearbook. So naturally, we got in line too. I wore my motorcycle helmet and gave my name as “Then Came Bronson,” after a popular TV show that I know many boomers still remember, because now and then someone calls me “Then Came.” Steve gave his alias as Steve McGarrett — the detective played by Jack Lord on Hawaii Five-O.

Steve and I were card-carrying apprentice hippies, but we both thought Five-O was cool. We listened to Hendrix, the Stones and the Who, but we thought the Hawaii Five-O theme was far out. Everyone did.

So how did we go from that to this:

Look at these guys. They don’t look qualified to solve a case of beer if you gave them a warrant and a 9 mm Glock bottle opener. As the Wall Street Journal reported this morning, the new McGarrett in the new Five-O on CBS spends a lot of time talking about his dad and runs around in unbuttoned shirts over T-shirts. I’d say Danno looks like an angry valet who is cheesed off because he can’t find the keys to that Cadillac he just parked. The new McGarrett is trying to look tough, but he just looks pouty, like he just got a Dear John text from his girlfriend.

Jeeze. Back in the original Five-O days, the cops were men. They didn’t whine about their dads or run around with their shirts unbuttoned. They were dads. And they knew how to tie a necktie for crying out loud. They didn’t rely on high technology or high-powered secret weapons. They relied on smarts, muscle and guts.

Yes, I know TV today is intended for a younger demographic. But consider this: We were pretty young in high school. But we still preferred Hawaii Five-O to Mod Squad, which became a put-down joke. It was just more believable that real grownup men would take on the bad guys. I mean, what kind of villain is worth worrying about if he can be butt-kicked by boys in T-shirts or that other tiresome and ridiculously improbable TV staple, the supermodel detective who karate kicks 250-pound biker thugs into a coma. I mean, how believable is that? “She’s pretty, but she can punch like George Foreman without missing a step in her stiletto pumps. ” Suuuuure.

Maybe the new Five-O will be good. I’ll give it a chance, if just to hear the theme song again. But I’m guessing Jack Lord will be missed, and “Book ‘em Danno” will sound more like “Make mine a double latte grande with no whipped cream.”

There’s a reason the street name for cops among drug boys is still “Five-O.” And it has nothing to do with 20-something boys who can’t button their own shirts.

Oh, and those pictures somehow made it into the yearbook. Which means I went to high school with Steve McGarrett. And I can tell you, he’s still cool.

– Where’s Gomer Pyle when you need him? Right about now, I’d love to see him run out into Main Street in Mayberry and holler “Citizen’s arrest!” at Sheriff Andy Taylor. In case you missed it, Andy Griffith has become the new spokesman for Obamacare — at taxpayer expense. That’s right, the Obama administration is spending $700,000 on advertising to tell us we’re all wrong about his massive, 2,000-page master plan for socialized medicine that prescribes assisted suicide for the world’s finest health care system. I have two words to describe how I feel about politicians who try to brainwash us with our own tax money: Induce vomiting. 

How bad is the health-care plan crafted by Democrats such as Cincinnati’s Steve Driehaus, who voted for it without reading it? Here’s a chart. For real. According to a Bloomberg columnist, “This clearly is a candidate for most disorganized organizational chart ever. It shows that the health system is complex, yes, but also ornate. The new law creates 68 grant programs, 47 bureaucratic entities, 29 demonstration or pilot programs, six regulatory systems, six compliance standards and two entitlements.”

Which looks like this:

Obamacare flow chart created by the staff of a Texas congressman. Pass this on to everyone you know.

Gollllleee, say it ain’t so, Sheriff Taylor. And why would Andy Griffith, the avuncular, folksy humorist who starred in No Time for Sergeants (a classic comedy) not see that “Obamacare” is a bigger oxymoron than “military intelligence”? Missouri got it right and voted by more than 71 percent on Tuesday to reject insurance mandates that shackle us to this nightmare. In November, the rest of us get a chance to take out the trash that passed it.

I call “Citizens arrest!”

– And speaking of military intelligence: Back in the dark ages of intolerant repression — say, 20 years ago — it was obvious that gays could not be in the military because of morale issues, and even more obvious that no homosexual should ever be given top-secret clearance because anyone so unstable and vulnerable to blackmail would be an enormous security risk. We have become much more enlightened since then.

The notion that a gay soldier would intentionally leak top-secret documents and put lives in danger just to retaliate against the authroitarian, “straight” military is ridiculous — but that doesn’t mean it’s not news.

You probably won’t hear anything about it in the left-stream media that is paralyzed by political correctness, but the soldier who is facing a courts martial for stealing top-secret information that was published on WikiLeaks is openly gay and has protested the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. His leaks may have already caused the killings of soldiers and allies who were named in the documents, as the Taliban scours the WikiLeaks postings for enemies of Islam. And the soldier, Bradley Manning, may have done it in an attempt to retailiate against the Army for not embracing h0mosexual soldiers. As Dave Barry likes to say, you can’t make this stuff up.

It kind of makes you wonder if there is any adult supervision in the Pentagon. First they have a Muslim who hates America who shoots up an Army base in Texas after everyone looked the other way and promoted him in spite of his increasing terrorist tendencies. Now an openly gay soldier who hates the Army was given top-secret clearance. As Slim Pickens would say, “What in the wide world of sports is goin’ on here?”

– Voters in California must be asking the same question.  It turns out that the judge who overruled 7 million voters by nullifying a statewide ban on gay marriage is… openly gay himself. Surprise. Now, I’m a hopeless retrosexual. I still believe marriage means one man, one woman, come out of your corners swinging. But I have nothing against the judge being gay. What triggers my gag reflex is the way this goes unmentioned in most of the media. Try to imagine the firestorm in the leftwing press if a federal judge who was a devout Catholic singlehandedly nullified the right to abortions. People might wonder if his decision was motived by something other than the case and the law. Ya think? Yet an ABCV News report (typical) did not even mention that the judge in California is gay.

Finally, here’s my column about one of Cincinnati’s real good guys:

Good Cop Cincinnati won’t find anyone anywhere better than Chief Tom Streicher. By Peter Bronson

Every traffic ticket has a name. Every complaint has a face. Every crime report has a cast of characters acting out their roles in the world’s longest-running reality show. Most fly past like rush-hour traffic. But some are impossible to forget.  Trina and Tony are two that are printed in permanent ink on the memory of Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher. “I was one of the first on the scene when Trina Dukes was thrown out of a fourth-story window up on Liberty Street,” he says.  The 7-year-old girl was playing with friends on the sidewalk on July 29, 1986, when she was lured into a vacant building around the corner by Tony Powell. He dragged her to the fourth floor. But the rape he planned was interrupted when Trina’s uncle came calling her name. She yelled back for help. Powell smothered her cries with his hand, threw her out the window and ran. Police later found Powell hiding behind the refrigerator in his mother’s apartment.  He’s serving life in Lucasville prison, eligible for his first parole hearing in 2013.  Streicher remembers it in HD detail: the way the young child cried as she was dying. Like all cops who are sworn to serve and protect, he has seen things he will never forget, and he knows things about the city that cannot be explained by any police report. And that’s part of what makes him a better chief.  Like all the Cincinnati Police chiefs before him, he was a beat cop. A sidewalk soldier. A pavement pounder. It’s an honored tradition. Chiefs come up from the ranks. They know Cincinnati the way a surgeon knows the human body, from the inside out, with all its flaws, frailties and fractures. It has made him one of the most successful and popular chiefs, with the longest service since Chief Stan Schrotel, who served from 1951-1966. Schrotel was profiled in Life magazine in 1957 and named “Top Cop” on the cover of Time magazine in 1961. He started as a beat cop, too, in 1934.  But that tradition could soon change.  Streicher plans to leave in March, 12 years after his hiring as chief. He will be just five months shy of 40 years on the job. Under terms of Ohio’s DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Program), he has to retire or forfeit a pension pot of about $1 million.  And some at City Hall are itching to push the button on a 2002 voter initiative that allows an outsider to be police chief. They will be tempted to play the affirmative action game, choosing by race or gender to “make history,” rather than on merit.  Assistant chiefs are already jockeying, Streicher says. Those eligible are Lt. Cols. Vincent Dimasi, Cindy Combs, James Whalen, Michael Cureton and Richard Janke.  Janke says he’s not interested and believes it’s time for an outsider. But Streicher says it’s not so simple. Other cities fire disposable chiefs whenever something goes wrong. “The average tenure is two-and-a-half years,” Streicher says. “Quite frankly, it might be refreshing to bring someone in, but how long does it take to learn the city? A long time.”  His advice: “Pick the very best person,” based on “their allegiance to the city.” He says he will make recommendations if the city asks. “It’s more than catching bad guys and writing tickets.” That’s one of the reasons he will trade his white hat and badge for a cap and gown this month and graduate with a master’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati.  Newspaper articles scorched Streicher’s $1 million payout. But the real cost is losing Streicher. The city may search in vain to find someone as qualified and knowledgeable to take his second-floor office on Ezzard Charles.  “Just when I think I’ve seen it all, something new comes along,” he says. And he has seen plenty since he became a cop in 1971. There was the police strike in 1979, when cops surrounded City Hall, locked their cruisers with the lights flashing and threw their keys at the base of the Police Memorial.  He’s seen cop killings that tore the city apart and a string of incendiary police shootings of violent black suspects.  He survived attacks by the local newspaper, rock-bottom cop morale, federal monitors, lawsuits and nasty racial politics.  In 1980, working on an undercover drug sting to buy $400 worth of Quaaludes, he shot and killed a suspect who drew a weapon on his partner. He still sees that film clip in his mind, at the strangest times. “You just snap back and wonder, where’d that come from?”  But his finest hours were the riots of April 2001, caused by a police shooting for which the officer was acquitted. The city manager wanted to fire Streicher to appease the mob. Instead, the chief stuck it out and led the city through its darkest days. “I can remember being up at Liberty and Vine. Fires were burning, smoke was everywhere, fire trucks were flying by, people were shouting and hollering and I was thinking, ‘This is all just a bad dream.”  A city council that indulged race-baiting for years blamed the police and sent in court-ordered outsiders to baby-sit them. But rather than quit and let the council ruin CPD, Streicher bit his tongue and gutted that out, too — except for the time he told one of the expert monitors that she was not even qualified to take a lieutenant’s exam.  “Out of all of that finger-pointing, bickering and nasty politics, came a much different city and region,” he says. “Eight years ago, we were at the top of the list for the public’s concerns. Now we (Cincinnati Police) don’t even show up on the list.”  He wants everyone to know that the city is safe and “downtown rocks.”  So what next?  “The sheriff’s position has been thrown at me.” Private jobs have also called. Or he might go fishing for a while. “There’s a lot of pressure, mostly the kind you put on yourself. But you also have to put your family second. As my wife asked, ‘How long do you want to live in the fish bowl?’”  Whatever he does, he will remember Trina Dukes dying on the ground, and Tony Powell hiding behind a refrigerator, and the drug dealer he killed, and all of the days he went home knowing he did something to make the city safer, to help someone through the worst hours of their life.  Critics of the retirement payout should answer: How much would you demand to go through all that? How many people do you know who would risk their life to protect you? And if a good cop is not worth it, who is? ?

Your government-subsidized media at work

During 30 years in the newspaper business, I watched as the newsroom herd of independent minds followed the cowbell of liberal bias over a cliff.  Every year it got worse, leading to the great leap for Obama that caused a cartwheeling free-fall of credibility. No wonder more than half the nation that calls itself conservative has turned its back on newspapers and the liberal Big Media networks. Big Media has lost its monopoly to talk radio and the internet, and circulation and viewership is falling like a poleaxed heifer.

So what is the answer from Liberal Land?

More cowbell.

Today’s Wall Street Journal op-ed page has a column by Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia  University, home of one of the most famous and respected journalism schools in the country. If you doubt his liberal credentials, this is the same guy who led the University of Michigan into a losing war for affirmative action.

And his answer, after much hand-wringing and rumination: Government should fund the media. Why not, he argues, when the press already takes money from big business, through advertising? And how is it any different from government-paid public defenders who oppose government prosecutors in court? Besides, he says, we already depend on government-sponsored news from BBC and NPR.

He wants the Fourth Estate to be “consolidated and augmented with those of NPR and PBS to create and American World Service,” he writes.  “Let’s demonstrate great journalism essential role in a free and dynamic society.”

Except that NPR and PBS are to great journalism what “Piss Christ” is to Rembrandt. They are a joke, an insult, a travesty to millions of conservatives who are compelled to provide tax subsidies for liberal propaganda and big-government cheerleading on government-run radio and TV.

NPR is home to hosts such as Dianne Rehm, whose has a voice like broken glass on a chalkboard even when she is not revealing her hostility toward Republicans or her hatred of President Bush. Although broadcasts often include talented and informative features that are non-political, the overall effect is of a plummy chorus of condescending intellectualoid liberals you could find in any faculty lounge on any campus in America. The cliches they spout are could be satire if they weren’t so self-serious. War bad. Capitalism evil. Minorities noble. Conservatives stupid. And bigger government is always the answer, even to questions that have never been asked.

NPR and PBS are simply what most journalists in most newsrooms would like to be if they could shed the last remaining shreds of professional standards. And witnessing the disinformation, laziness and bias of the mainstream media, I am less and less inclined to mourn its demise. The local paper I used to work for, The Cincinnati Enquirer, carries a relentless parade of liberal pundits “balanced” by one or two real conservatives. Letters are increasingly written by the same small huddle of “frequent callers” who are allowed to perpetrate the most breathtaking lies and fallacies without correction, such as “Bush tax cuts caused our trillion dollar deficit because the rich don’t pay taxes.”

This is the echo chamber of the liberal newsroom. I hold out hope that someday the editors will step outside and meet some real people and see how poorly they represent their community. I hold out hope that their extreme sensitivity to diversity will someday attend one of those involuntary seminars on diversity of thought and opinion.

But give them government subsidies, and we would not get that. We would get much more of the same. Subsidizing the media in the government feedlot would give us what we always find in a feedlot: a herd that is fat, dumb and lazy while it waits for the government run packing plant, leaving behind nothing but knee-deep fertilizer.

It would give us more cowbell.

Genesis Redevelopment was a 1990s West End scandal that spread like crabgrass at City Hall. It should have been pulled out by the roots, but the city had no stomach for it. Too many important people would have been embarrassed.

Set up to improve housing for the poor, Genesis burned through $800,000 in city grants with nothing to show but missing records, payouts to relatives and a few patched roofs. An audit found more than $80,000 went to board members and their families.

Blake and Petersen in the West End

Politicians feigned temporary outrage, but told city officials not to look too close at the Genesis gang: George “Junebug” Beatty, board president; his board-member brother Howard; and director Dale Mallory, whose powerful political family includes father Bill Mallory, a venerated former state House leader; brother William Mallory, a judge; and brother Mark Mallory, mayor of Cincinnati.

So while City Hall was busy looking the other way, the Genesis crowd sprouted in the West End Community Council, then again at the Cincinnati Empowerment Zone. And now it had some legal muscle: Ken “Lawdog” Lawson, the lawyer who was feared for his courtroom theatrics and incendiary accusations of racism until he was busted and admitted his longtime drug addiction.

Junebug Beatty took over the West End Community Council, then passed that off to Dale Mallory — who appointed Beatty to the Empowerment Zone board. Junebug’s brother, Howard, was also on the EZ board; Junebug’s wife collected a generous
salary (along with soon-to-be City Council member Laketa Cole); and Dale Mallory eventually joined the EZ payroll.

“Genesis was just like the Empowerment Zone,” says Keith Blake, a West End resident since 1989. “The city had oversight but did nothing but run and hide.”

Another West-Ender, David Petersen, has lived at Dayton and Linn for 12 years and served on the EZ Board for three years. “It was clear to me that nobody was going to ask the tough questions,” he says. “It’s a bucket of worms.”

As Junebug and Dale Mallory took turns running the West End Community Council, Blake and Petersen battled both. They won a vote in 2006 to impeach Mallory, but they say the price was threats, rigged elections, theft and property damage.

“I was the architect for Dale’s impeachment,” Blake says. “We are not friends.”

“That stuff is old news,” Mallory replies. “Extremely old. That stuff doesn’t matter to anyone but them.”

But Petersen and Blake remember it well. Such as the time Petersen says he was threatened by Junebug, “Sit down and shut up or I’ll kill ya.” It was an open secret that Junebug was a drug dealer. He and Lawson are now in a federal prisons on drug charges. They were busted shortly after Howard Beatty was sent to prison for murdering Junebug’s activist enemy Kabaka Oba in front of City Hall in 2006.

I heard similar stories of property damage, violence and intimidation by the Beattys when I wrote about Junebug’s crime-magnet Parktown Café. The West End bar set records for police calls, but somehow still obtained city subsidies. Petersen and Blake say Junebug ruled the West End and used the Community Council to squelch complaints. The Parktown finally was shut down after Mallory was impeached.

By then, Junebug was at the Empowerment Zone and had a new business on Linn Street, Junebug’s Cafe, in a building purchased by Empowerment Zone Executive Director Harold Cleveland. In return, Beatty and other board members approved Cleveland’s salary. At last report, Cleveland was paid $170,000, plus a car allowance, a 401(k) that matched every employee dollar with $6, and a 12 percent “retention” bonus.

“I appreciate what the board did,” Cleveland says of his $20,000 bonus. “We followed the regulations. This was the most regulated program I’ve ever been involved in.”

He says every dime of EZ spending was approved by HUD, which handed the money and oversight to City Hall. “They can audit till the cows come home, but we have passed more audits than anybody I know of,” Cleveland says. That included a review of his purchase of the Junebug’s Cafe, he says. “There was nothing underhanded.”

But Councilman Charlie Winburn wants an audit to follow $25 million in EZ money. For example, a 2006 city report said that during one 18-month period, the city passed through $2.9 million in HUD grants — and 58 percent (more than $1.7 million) was spent on “administrative costs.” Another audit showed 84 percent of the loans in default.

“I don’t know of anyone who ever totally got to the bottom of it,” says one investigator, because auditors “were frustrated” by tangled and missing records.

Cleveland says, “Overall, administrative costs were much lower. In a snapshot, they may look higher.”

Anyone can build their own conclusions from a lumber yard of public records: city documents, news reports and a diary of the West End mutiny at impeachmallory.blogspot.com.

City Manager Milton Dohoney took a quick look and rejected Winburn’s demand for audits. He says spending was approved by HUD and “documentation shows that their expenditures were in compliance with regulations.” He passed the buck to the feds.

“I don’t think the city will do anything,” Blake says. “They’re compromised. They are responsible. They knew this crap was going on. They had a member on the board.”

And too many people might have to answer uncomfortable questions. Maybe Cleveland and Dohoney are right, and the EZ followed all the rules. But with Junebug’s gang in charge, color me day-glo-orange skeptical. And even if the city and HUD approved it all, sometimes it’s the stuff that’s legal that oughta be a crime.

According to HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who created Empowerment Zones for the Clinton administration: “The concept was to lure businesses into areas that were at a competitive disadvantage • for the purpose of bringing jobs back to the distressed communities.”

But the jobs goal was soon stretched to include the kind of “midnight basketball” social programs that were scorched in Congress by public protests. Until President Bush ordered a refocus on jobs, the local Empowerment Zone contract goals were: job training, family wellbeing, neighborhood environment and civic infrastructure.

That four-lane highway was wide enough for bumper-to-bumper truckloads of soft social spending. It’s a textbook example of how government stimulus wastes millions, strays off course and winds up miles from its intended destination. Such as:

Why was the city taking EZ money? The city Health Department, Grass Roots Leadership Academy, Recreation Commission and Human Relations Commission together took more than $1 million. No wonder the city would not turn off the spigot when its own cup was overflowing.

What about organizations such as Volunteers of America ($125,000), the Urban League ($1 million), Media Bridges ($131,000) and programs to teach boxing and Bushido? What jobs and businesses were created?

Every group, business and individual on the list of more than 100 EZ cash recipients should be audited. Such as the Mallory Center in Avondale — not the West End — which got $182,000. It was one of only two projects approved outside the Empowerment Zone, Cleveland says.

Winburn says records are missing. Just as they vanished at Genesis and the West End Community Council. And once again, City Hall doesn’t want to look too hard.

Dale Mallory is now a state representative. “I’m doing other things now, bigger and better things,” he says. “A lot of people have moved on and grown, but some haven’t.”

Yes, it’s old news, but it keeps coming back. And it will happen again if nobody is held accountable.

But an investigation could embarrass Mayor Mark Mallory and blemish the distinguished Mallory name. And plenty of others should be worried.

The Empowerment Zone’s unlikely advocate is West Side conservative Republican state Sen. Bill Seitz, whose big fees came in for criticism at council meetings.

Former and current council members, such as former mayor Roxanne Qualls, promised the Empowerment Zone would transform the West End, reduce poverty and create jobs. It created jobs for the Genesis gang. Beyond that, it’s sketchy.

Cleveland claims more than 4,500 jobs were created or retained, but retained jobs are easy to exaggerate. The West End poor are still poor. Jobs are still harder to find than shell casings. And $25 million later, the money and many who spent it are gone.

Along the way, the collateral damage included City Link, a plan by local churches to create a one-stop campus for social services in the West End. When City Link allied with Dale Mallory, unwittingly associating with Junebug as well, “That poisoned it for well-meaning people in the West End,” Blake says. At best, the church groups were naïve, Petersen says. City Link won its court case, but still has not won over West End support.

Junebug’s is empty. The billboard mural of the Lawdog is gone. And the Empowerment Zone is back in the news.

“It was another one of those •This is a black thing, let’s not touch it,’” says Blake, who is African-American. At meetings of the West End Council run by Dale Mallory and Junebug, “Any non-black person who showed up would be scrutinized, shouted down, threatened or have their property damaged,” he says. “The race card was being dropped. I think that was paramount in the whole behavior.”

Nobody did anything about Genesis in the 90s, or the West End Community Council after that. And there’s no appetite for an investigation now.

Race-poisoned politics is Cincinnati’s crazy aunt in the attic. It’s our vodka bottle in the bushes. It’s the family secret nobody wants to talk about. So chances are, it will embarrass the city again soon. ]]> http://www.peterbronson.com/?feed=rss2&p=736 2 http://www.peterbronson.com/?p=715 http://www.peterbronson.com/?p=715#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 14:24:39 +0000 Peter Bronson http://www.peterbronson.com/?p=715

Shepard Fairey mural in Covington, from the Enquirer

I guess the issue is settled. Covington has better taste and higher standards than Cincinnati.

The local media have been gushing about murals in Cincinnati by artist Shepard Fairey. You can hardly turn a page in town without stumbling on one of his Stalinesque works of art, “inspired” (shoplifted?) from Communist propaganda.  

What the fawning stories about the heroic “street artist” never tell you:

He has been accused of plagiarism, but is suing the Associated Press for unauthorized use of his work.  He uses income from his art to support the communist revolutionary Zappatistas in Mexico. He has been called a “controversy magnet” and “quasi communist” in the Wall Street Journal. And although most know him for his creepy Maoist posters of Obama, he also has deified Che Guevara, “Our Friend Mao,” Angela Davis and various communist propaganda images such as raised fists, stomping boots and raised guns.

Murdering "revolutionary" Che Guevara

His latest poster of an Asian kid carrying an automatic weapon was too much for Covington business owner Michael Claypool, who told the Cincinnati Enquirer he never bargained for such an image when he agreed that Fairey could use his wall. So he had it painted over.

The gun mural faced an elementary school. “We had no clue what they were going to put up,” Claypool told the Enquirer. “We were not advised in advance. When it went up, we were the first to think it was offensive.”

No kidding. When I first saw the image in the newspaper, it immediately struck me that anti-gun liberals should be outraged. In a city with soaring homicides, this is the picture to display in public? But it was liberals who were first to defend Fairey’s mural. The same people who would have seizures about public art that depicted a heroic U.S. soldier or policeman brandishing an “assault rifle” apparently think it’s cutting-edge art when it has the aroma of communist propaganda. 

I also wondered how a mural that would have been right at home in North Vietnam must look to Vietnam vets.

Fairey's "friend" Mao

Fairey, who has mocked President Bush in posters as he celebrated Obama, said the mural was supposed to make us think about comparisons of Vietnam to Iraq. (Another artwork by him says “Drop sneakers, not bombs.”)

Instead, it made me think about comparing Fairey and his fans to the “useful idiots” described by Lenin: People too shallow, uninformed or fanatic to face the honest truth about the murdering, oppressive communist ideology they celebrate.

It also made me think maybe Fairey was on to something. While the rest of the left was bending over backwards to deny it, he was sending us a message that Obama was right at home among those revolutionary communists.

Belafonte and his buddy, Hugo Chavez

If Political Correctness is a boy band like the Jonas Brothers, the Cincinnati Enquirer is a 13-year-old girl.

In case you somehow failed to notice because you have joined the thousands who are so fed up they no longer subscribe, the Enquirer was almost peeing itself over the Civil Rights game this weekend. Saturday spread the story all over the section fronts. And today it was more coverage than the moon landing or the attack on 9-11.

Nearly every section front was smothered in coverage. I counted nearly seven pages, and I probably missed something in the comics or fashion section.

And yet…

With all that coverage, with all those fawning stories, tributes and “I am more virtuous and politically correct than you are” columns, they forgot to tell you a few things about one of the “Heroes” they praised on Page 1, Harry Belafonte. 

Such as:

In 2002 he decided that Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice were not black enough.  “There is an old saying, in the days of slavery. There were those slaves who lived on the plantation, and there were those slaves who lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master, do exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him. That gave you privilege.  Colin Powell is committed to come into the house of the master, as long as he would serve the master, according to the master’s purpose. And when Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture. And you don’t hear much from those who live in the pasture.”

In 2005 he told Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez: “No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we’re here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people … support your revolution.”

Along with actor Danny Glover, Belafonte is one of the biggest pals of   Chavez, who is a serial abuser of civil rights.

Belafonte smooching Danny Glover

And he compared President Bush to the 9/11 hijackers. “What is the difference between that terrorist and other terrorists?”  he said. ”What do you call Bush when the war he put us in to date has killed almost as many Americans as died on 9/11 and the number of Americans wounded in war is almost triple? [...] By most definitions Bush can be considered a terrorist.”

Belafonte, who has traveled to Venezuela to trash America and call our president a terrorist, who has called our Homeland Security the “Gestappo,” who makes racist statements about who is black enough, calls himself a “patriot.”

Somehow, the Enquirer forgot to mention all that juicy controversy.  They airbrushed his outrageous insults and anti-American “activism” as if it is somehow inappropriate to bring up. After all, this was the great Civil Rights Game celebration. Never shall be heard a discouraging word when the liberal press is on its PC soapbox.

If a controversial conservative had been honored in Cincinnati, you can bet we would have been treated to every quotation and accusation. But political correctness is a mental illness in Big Brother media. It causes amnesia, delusions and hallucinations.

So the Enquirer looks at Harry Belafonte — rabid Bush hater, anti-American, apologist for terrorists, friend of dictators — and sees a hero.

You can call that politically correct. Or dishonest. 

I call it disgusting.

The Most Transparently Irresponsible Administration in American History [Andy McCarthy]

How could the Attorney General of the United States malign a state law as raising profound constitutional questions, imply that the lawmakers who drafted it are racists, and direct a Justice Department review of the law without having read the law?

If you thought Mr. Holder’s stubborn refusal to speak the words “radical Islam” was bad during yesterday’s House testimony, get this one:  “I’ve just expressed concerns on the basis of what I’ve heard about the [Arizona immigration] law. But I’m not in a position to say at this point, not having read the law, not having had the chance to interact with people are doing the review, exactly what my position is.”

Bear in mind that, contrary to Obama era federal legislation that runs into the thousands of pages, the Arizona statute (SB 1070) is only about 17 pages long, the provisions about which controversy has been stoked run only a few short paragraphs, and the few passages in issue have been amended (by HB 2162) to make crystal clear that the law will only apply in the case of a lawful “stop, detention, or arrest” by law-enforcement — i.e., it would no longer apply in the case of any “lawful contact” by state authorities (as the statute previously read), even though, as I explain here, there was nothing wrong with that prior articulation.

I’ve been following the debate, and I am sure Holder speaks for nearly all of the condescending intellectuals on the left who have blown their O-Rings in outrage at the Arizona law. It’s pretty obvious to anyone who is paying attention that they have not read it. They only joined the crowd to march along with Holder and Obama and all the East Coast pundits who say it’s the reincarnation of the Third Reich, because it allows police to single out Mexicans, arrest them and deport them.

That’s not even remotely true, no matter how many times the media repeats it. The truth: The law specifically prohibits stopped based on race.  Police can ask for I.D. when they stop someone for some other violation – as they always do. Have you ever been stopped for speeding without being asked to show a driver’s license? Me neither. (Not that I have even been stopped for speeding …  this month.)

So now we know the criticism from Holder and so many others is entirely dishonest and irresponsibly ignorant of the law itself. Before he shoots off his mouth about state laws, you would expect the Attorney General of the U.S. to read them. Maybe he could at least read the federal immigration law that the Arizona law simply enforces.

Amazing that this is the gang who accuses conservatives of being uninformed followers.

Cincinnati Tea Party

Nothing unmasks the hypocrisy and schizophrenia of the Republican party like Issue 1 in Ohio. Business leaders who normally condemn socialism and defend free markets swoon for it. But real conservatives see it for what it is: welfare for a few hand-picked corporations, chosen by the state.

The backers, including many powerful business groups, hospitals and state institutions such as universities – who stand to haul in millions – are borrowing the strategy of the successful casino initiative. This time, it’s all about jobs.

They claim that $1.2 billion already borrowed by Ohio’s Third Frontier program has created 10,000 jobs directly, and another 35,000 indirectly. But measuring indirect jobs is like selling bottled sunshine. And 10,000 jobs at $1.5 billion is $150,000 each.

Last time the Third Frontier was sold to voters, it was peddled as a way to bring Ohio into the 21st Century, by attracting high-tech economic development. So how’s that working out? In 2009, Ohio lost 255,000 jobs.

And now we’re supposed to believe that borrowing another $700 million to spend on state-selected high-tech projects will help thousands of unemployed Ohio workers? That doesn’t compute. Most of the people who have been laid off won’t qualify for that kind of jobs.

But here’s the real problem. It comes down to a simple conservative principle that anyone can understand. Ohio can’t afford it.

Ohio is already up to its bulging eyeballs in $7 billion worth of bounced checks. That’s the budget deficit the state faces right now.  Only government could face record unpaid bills and decide the answer is to go out and borrow $700 million for another spending spree.

And here’s a question for the free-market business leaders — if there are any of them left: What’s the logic in allowing government to borrow billions in the first place?

There’s no rational reason for government to borrow. Government is supposed be supported by tax revenues, and everyone in Ohio knows we contribute far more than enough. So why borrow? Because it’s a way to scam taxpayers into taking on more debt. It’s a lay-away plan — spend now, pay later.  Eventually, taxes must be increased to pay for the debt, because we already know state government is incapable of cutting its extravagant spending.

And here’s another question: What business does the state have in choosing which high-tech projects deserve research and millions in subsidies? What have our governor and state leaders ever done to possibly justify the notion that they know how to run anything? They can’t even supervise inmates pulling weeds at the governor’s mansion without creating a stupid political scandal.

This is Obama Stimulus by another name. It’s a fundamentally socialist approach, putting state government in command of a large sector of our economy. And even if it created the jobs it boasts about, it would still be wrong. Because every dollar the state borrows then taxes is taken from the pockets of taxpayers and businesses — draining the private sector that really creates jobs - so it can be mismanaged, misdirected and finally spent in quarters and dimes after the state bureaucracy has taken its generous cut.

By now, you’d think people would be fed up with arrogant, reckless spending and debt. This calls for a Tea Party. We shouldn’t just say no, we should say “Hell no!” to the Third Frontier casino con. We can’t afford it.

Postscript: I find it harder and harder to read the Enquirer opinion pages. Last week, they gave Rep. Steve Driehaus the last word in dueling guest columns with his opponent Steve Chabot — violating a basic principle of fairness. Chabot replied to the first column by Democrat spendalholic Driehaus. Then the Enquirer gave Driehaus another free shot  to pitch a fit and attack Chabot. Someone needs to grow a spine. 

Today I almost spilled my tea when I saw that they endorsed Jennifer Brunner, who even Democrats admit is one of the most fanatically partisan politicians in Columbus. She’s the secretary of state who fiercely defended same-day registration voter fraud in the last election, putting Ohio at the top of the list of states scammed by ACORN. And the Enquirer thinks she should be elected in a primary for the U.S. Senate — joining union-labeled Democrat Sherrod Brown to give Ohio the most left-wing pair of Senators in the country, including California and Commissar Al Franken of the People’s Republic of Minnesota. Believe it or not, the Enquirer was once proudly conservative. The Gray Lady of Vine Street must be weeping.

President Obama's "secure" border

Arizona’s tourism officials should jump on this like a roadrunner on a stick-lizard. The Great Liberal Boycott of the Grand Canyon State could turn Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff  into the new vacation destinations for conservatives.

San Francisco, the Democratic Party and most of the liberal media are already supporting the boycott while they sputter and spit about how Arizona is now a Nazi “police state” for daring to enforce its own border.

So why not advertise getaways in a “liberal-free paradise” and make the most of it? I will gladly support it.

When I moved away from Tucson in 1992, illegal immigration was just a fact of life — as much a part of the landscape as the people who built houses, laid bricks, worked concrete and planted Palo Verdes and Mesquites. They came and went among the staff at the local restaurants. Everyone knew it, but nobody much cared. It was just another spice in the colorful Southwestern carne asada.

But somewhere in the past 10 years or so, something changed. The stream turned into a river, and that turned into a flash flood, inundating schools, hospitals and jails. From the distance of Cincinnati, I thought everything was the same. But when I called a friend I worked with at the Tucson Citizen (R.I.P.),  I was surprised to hear the anger and frustration coming from someone who hardly would call himself a conservative. They were drowning in it.

At some unremarked hour on an ordinary day, Arizona reached the tipping point, and the invasion of illegals became overwhelming. The locals were fed up. They talked about thousands coming over daily. They talked about ranchers who were afraid to walk their own fence lines. They talked about epidemic thefts, kidnappings and drug crimes. A sheriff’s deputy explained how illegals brought tons of meth, heroin and cocaine across the border.

They appealed to our sympathy, telling us about the hundreds who died trying to cross, and others who were killed or kidnapped and forced to smuggle drugs.

They appealed to our patriotism and security by forming teams of border-watching vigilantes and Minutemen, who were willing to do what the government would not: Watch the border.

They tried balloons, fences, the National Guard, helicopters, walls, cameras, patrols, police, you name it. And still, nobody would listen.

So finally, last week Arizona got a bright idea: Just apply the federal immigration law as a state law. If the feds refused to protect the border, the state would do it.

And now, suddenly, everyone is listening. All those “experts” who seem to know so much about Arizona, even though they’ve never been farther west than the edge of Manhattan, are paying attention. Or rather, they listened just long enough to get all the facts wrong and spout ignorant invective, making it sound like Arizona is rounding up illegals in concentration camps.

The Arizona law is not primary enforcement. Police are specifically prohibited to stop someone based on race alone. But if they catch someone speeding and find a carload of people who don’t speak English and look very much like illegals, they can ask for I.D. and enforce the same law that already makes illegal immigration a federal crime.

So what’s the big deal? The big deal is that the big media and most liberals are so paralyzed by political correctness that they want our immigration law to be deaf, dumb, blind and stupid. They want toothless police officers to ignore the blatant crime of illegal immigration just in case enforcing could be offensive to a minority group.

Most who are arrested will be Mexicans and other Hispanics from south of the border. And that is intolerable to the sensitive left. Then again, most of the outraged critics don’t live in Arizona.

The last time I visited Arizona, I could see the difference. Tucson was edgier, more uneasy. It was hard to buy gas with a credit card without submitting to an on-the-spot background check. When I asked, the clerk said, “Well, it’s the illegals. Lots of theft.”

The laid-back, boots-and-jeans city I love had changed. The quality of life was noticeably frayed at the edges. People were as jumpy as those mythical stick lizards that carry twigs to climb on when their feet get too hot. At a car wash I talked to three different people. Two of them told me their cars had been stolen in the past month.

So welcome to Arizona, conservatives. It’s a great place to visit. Just ask anyone in Mexico.

Matt Maupin

At the door they handed out rubber wrist bands that said, “Let Us Never Forget.” That, in a few words, was all that really needed to be said at the Yellow Ribbon Scholarship Fundraiser last night at the Oasis in Loveland.

Of course, there was more to say. The Maupins were there, honoring their son Matt, whose capture and MIA status captivated Cincinnati and broke our hearts for more than four years, until he was finally brought home and laid to rest two years ago this spring. I remember that powerful, inspirational welcome-home funeral at the Great American Ballpark.

Just as I remember going to a candlelight prayer service for him, shortly after he was captured. “Love never loses its way home” was the prayer of his family and friends, and it became the mission statement of the Yellow Ribbon Support Center founded by the Maupins, to give comfort and aid to soldiers at war and to the loved ones they leave behind.

Matt Maupin became a stand-in for all those families and all those soldiers. And thanks to generous donations last night, their sacrifices are raising scholarship money to help their own children and the children of families they never met. That is so American.

 So last night was a powerful evening. I’m pretty sure there was not a dry eye in the packed hall during a video that showed the faces of soldiers who have given their lives for our safety and freedom. There were so many from our own little region. And then the slides showed one or two representing every state. With few exceptions, they were very young – hardly old enough to drive a car, drink a beer, kiss a girl and carry a gun. Except for the uniforms, their pictures could have been taken from high school yearbooks.

But they are American heroes. And so are their families. As we sat near tables decorated with gold stars, signfying families who have lost a son, brother or husband in Iraq or Afghanistan, I was humbled and deeply touched as I tried to imagine the sacrifice they have given to our country. Nearby, an older gentleman in jeans and a flannel shirt, wearing a veterans’ cap, struggled to his feet with a cane, to stand and salute the lives that have been lost – including one from his own family. A son, I figured. A good boy he loved, who was young, strong, innocent, full of life and courage, eager to honor his dad’s service with his own tour of duty. How do we ever replace something like that? How do we honor such selfless sacrifice?

We can’t. But we can remember them and honor them, like the rubber wrist bracelet says: “Let us Never Forget.”

There were speeches. Rob Portman was there. His remarks were short, simple, graceful and fitting, as always. And there was a letter with a surprising response that really is not so surprising at all when you think about it.

The letter was from our president. Not the one who can’t pronounce corpsman and thinks flag-waving is some cheesy ritual by people who cling to their guns and religion. I’m talking about the last real commander in chief, George W. Bush.

President Bush sent a touching, personal letter of support to the event. And it was greeted with strong and sustained applause for him.

Maybe that’s because people remember his visits to the Maupins. Maybe they remember how he teared up when I asked him about one of those visits during a campaign swing in 2003. Maybe they always liked him and admired the courageous way he stuck with the troops and stayed on the mission even when the whole political world was running for  its exit strategies. That’s the way I feel. I never gave up on Bush because he never gave up on our soldiers, never gave up on the war on terrorism and never gave up on the things that make our country great.

And thinking about that brought to mind a couple of images. Such as this billboard:

The answer is yes.

And these photos from the Los Angeles Times, comparing the reaction of the troops to President Obama and President Bush:

Take a look at those pictures. Notice the look on the faces of the troops. They tell the story. Obama is aloof, reaching across a barrier, standing above, looking down. Those closest to him are polite, welcoming. But a few feet away they are grim, expressionless, looking away. Then look at how the troops greet Bush with love and excitement, and how he wades into the crowd, with hugs to show his gratitude.

I guess you can’t fool the soldiers at the front lines. They know who is on their side. And they remember, even when so many of us forget.

My prayer: Thank God they do, and thank God they are there for us.

May the Lord bless them all and keep them safe from evil. And when we lose them, may God bless the families who gave us these heroes.