Coulter Clears It Up

Just as a quick follow up to my last post, Ann Coulter wrote a column today expressing her weariness of being exploited by hypocritical liberals bent on lying.

You can read the column here.

What really stood out to me was how little of Coulter's usual shtick there is in this column. Oh, she still gets her digs in, but many of them are unusually subtle and it is clear from the tone of the article that Ann is more than a little ****ed off.

Anyway, we'll see how long it is before she's further misquoted.

Slander

Never let it be said that one can't profit from lies. Just ask Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards (and his wife). With some sixteen months to go before the election, Edwards is already turning (again) to one of his favorite sources of income, conservative commentator and columnist Ann Coulter.

Ms Edwards called in on Chris Matthews' MSNBC show Hardball while Coulter was being interviewed and confronted her with allegations of "hate speech," citing specifically comments made by Coulter on Good Morning America the day before (we'll get to those comments in a second). I've read several articles about the incident on GMA as well as Ms Edwards' rather ridiculous phone call. Nearly every single one presents it as Ms Coulter saying she wished Edwards would die in a terrorist attack. No context given; just a factual statement that Coulter wants Edwards dead.

So is it true that Coulter really said she wishes John Edwards had been killed in a terrorist attack? Let's hear her comments in their context:



So Coulter's comments were clearly in reference to Bill Maher's comments that if the terrorist attempt on Vice President Dick Cheney's life had been successful "people wouldn't be needlessly dying." In other words, she was exposing the hypocrisy of liberals in their giving other liberals a pass to say almost anything but railing against conservatives when they essentially say the same thing.

Of course, this didn't stop the Edwards campaign from posting the clip on YouTube...without its context...as a campaign ad:



And thus the liberals once again unwittingly proved Coulter's point in a blatant display of hypocrisy. Just as they did with Coulter's comments regarding Edwards and the word "faggot," which were (as she clearly explained) a joke in reference to actor Isaiah Washington "going to rehab" after making disparaging remarks about his homosexual costar on the show Grey's Anatomy. (I agree with Ann about the absurdity of equating an insult to serious problems like drug addiction to the extent that "rehab" is needed, and in that context her jab at Edwards was both funny and effective.)

Ann's formula is tried and true: make a joke (usually involving Edwards...an easy target), using similar comments to those made recently by a tasteless liberal, and it sends everyone in an uproar. Watch them foam at the mouth like lunatics, unleashing the liberal media machine on her. Then let conservatives, one by one, expose the hypocrisy of these liberals to all their liberal friends.

Redistribution of Wealth

I just get done researching that outrageous pharmacy bill and what do I see? An article by the Washington Post detailing a Democrat plan to impose a 4.3% surtax on the richest households.

Among the brilliant comments in this article:

"There is consensus to make sure that we have some responsible tax policy that will also treat taxpayers fairly." - Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.)

How exactly is this fair to the 2% (roughly 6,000,000 people) of Americans who are being targeted for higher taxation for no other reason than that they make more money than others?

Basically, the federal government stepped on its own nuts by not accounting for inflation in the Alternative Minimum Tax, and so a tax law that was intended to stop a very small number of wealthy individuals from escaping any taxation through loopholes and deductions is now beginning to hurt a lot more citizens who fall into normal tax categories. But rather than come up with an improved version or an new law which closes those loopholes, Democrats are instead looking at it as an opportunity to redistribute wealth like the good little socialists they are. They're engaging in typical class warfare rhetoric, trying to pass themselves off as Robin Hood as though the wealthy have stolen their money from the little guy and the Democrats are just heroically returning it.

It's very telling that some of them are wanting to postpone action on this to give them enough time to "educate" the masses about this issue. IOW, they want to have plenty of time to spin this into another faux-populist "we care about the working people" move by lying through their teeth in saying that they care about cutting taxes. This move doesn't cut taxes, it redistributes the tax burden from one group of people to another based on nothing but their income level. Shift it one way and it's "unfairly targeting people based on their income." Shift it the other, and it's "fair."

Ethical Phramacists Targeted

A Democrat effort is now underway to turn pharmacies into abortofacient vending machines.

Two Democrat Congresspersons from NY and NJ (go figure!) have introduced a bill that, among other things, would fine pharmacists up to $500,000 for acting out of ethical duty in refusing to dispense drugs which they feel may not be safe or appropriate for the customer.

Let me repeat that last part again...for the customer.

Though pharmacies are subject to some federal regulations because of the nature of the products they dispense, they are a business just like any other. Setting aside for a moment the issue of the abortofacients this bill is really meant to protect, this is a clear case of government once again trying to tell businesses how they must be run (which is ludicrous considering how poorly the federal government is run). Government has no right to tell a business they must either stock and sell a particular product or give them the information on how to purchase it from one of their competitors.

Of course, the real reason behind this measure is to ensure that abortofacients like the Plan B or "morning-after pill" are freely available regardless of whether or not a professional pharmacist believes the product to be hazardous or unethical. The issue is being cast as one of women's health and constitutional rights.

"Access to birth control is a women's health issue, a private matter and a constitutional right. No one – not pharmacists, politicians, or religious leaders – should be able to tamper with that right," co-sponsor Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) said.

I would like Ms. Maloney to show me in the Constitution of the United States of America where exactly access to birth control is a protected right. Utilization of preventative birth control may be a federally protected right, but access to it via consumer products most certainly is not. But abortion proponents such as NOW President Kim Gandy continue to paint this as an issue of "basic healthcare" and call any who dares refuse to dispense the "morning-after pill" abortofacient "religious and political extremists" engaged in an "all-out attack on birth control in this country."

In reality, a pharmacist is a professionally trained person who operates under a code of ethics just like a doctor, but that doesn't stop the bill's sponsors and supporters from politicizing their decisions.

"A pharmacist's personal beliefs should not come between a patient and their doctor," said co-sponsor Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). "Tomorrow it might be painkillers for a cancer patient. Next year it could be medicine that prolongs the life of a person with AIDS or some other terminal disease."

Typical liberal demagoguery. A phramacists professional and ethical opinion necessarily comes between a patient and their doctor. Otherwise there would be no need for professional pharmacists.

This quote by Lautenberg really gets me: "Pharmacies have an ethical and legal obligation not to endanger women's health by withholding basic health care."

First of all, no matter how many times this lie is offered, birth control is NOT basic health care. Any medication which is elective in nature cannot possibly fall under the category of "basic health care." They make it sound as though these people will keel over and die if they don't take their birth control pill or fix the mistake they made the night before.

Second, these pharmacists have an ethical and legal obligation not to endanger anyone's health. Period. What this legislation is attempting to do is REMOVE the pharmacist's ability to act according to their professional and ethical views. As Concerned Women for America rightly points out, "This bill would force pharmacists to distribute the controversial morning-after pill, … trampling on any professional or ethical concerns."

Make no mistake about it. This is yet another in a long line of legislative efforts to continue promoting convenience over responsibility and perpetuate the culture of death in this country.