Editor’s Note: The following opinion essay originally appeared Verdengs Gang — Norway’s largest daily newspaper

As the old adage reminds us, you can tell the nature of a country by the way it treats its women. You can also assess the condition of civilization by the way it responds to oppression and misogyny.

This week the Myanmar military junta is once again putting Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of the pro-democracy forces in her country on trial.

————-

Oppressed people have always looked to women for change and reform, which is why the world’s tyrants create a special sort of hell for those who dare to speak up, challenge authority or dare to be journalists or politicians.

————-

Her house arrest was set to expire on May 27, yet she now faces the absurd charge of violating the terms of her detention because a troubled American swam across a lake to her home. Her new crime? Giving the exhausted and ill American refuge for two days.

At this moment, two American women journalists are held captive by the despotic North Korean government. Linda Ling and Euna Lee have been refused counsel and remain isolated and silenced.

Keep Reading …

Even the European press recognize the Obamas’ first 100 days marker as rife with broken promises, crippling debt and bizarre and dangerous domestic and foreign policy, yet that’s not the message you’ll hear from the fawning orgiastic American Establishment Media for the next several days. — You will also likely not hear a peep about Roxana Saberi, Laura Ling and Euna Lee. They’re too much an an inconvenient truth.

Roxana, Laura and Euna. All three American journalists, all women of color, who languish as hostages in foreign prisons of state-based terrorists.

When you abandon Americans held by terrorists, and then reward terrorists who trained with Al Qaeda, some might argue it’s more than priorities that are screwed-up in the White House.

You may be most familiar with Roxana’s name. She is the American journalist who was kidnapped and is being held hostage by the Iranian regime. Fortunately for her, her plight, at least, has received worldwide attention.

Iranian tyrants first arrested Saberi on a charge of buying wine, then changed it to not having the proper press credentials, and finally to spying. Make no mistake, Saberi’s situation is not one of “arrest” or “conviction,” this is a terrorist nation which has grabbed another American and is holding her hostage.

But Roxana is not the only American journalist (and woman of color) who is held  hostage by a terrorist nation. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were kidnapped by North Korean forces and have been held by that terrorist nation since March.  Taking Iran’s cue, and seeing a typically “pantywaisted” response from the Obama administration, North Korea has announced they have charged the American women with ‘unspecified crimes’ and will try them.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, Obama is very much concerned with people locked up in prisons-specifically Islamist terrorists we’ve secured at Guantanamo Bay. Someone should mention to “Barry” that Bad Guys are supposed to remain in custody while innocent American journalists are the ones who are supposed to get government-wide advocacy, massive media attention, and the fixation of the American president.

Keep Reading …

President Obama’s mob normally shouldn’t be able to do this. But they can, and are, because when you’re in the “business of winning elections” (and can’t even manage that) as opposed to being in the business of leadership, it means the enemy can, and will, define you. Here’s how Peter Nicholas puts it in today’s Los Angeles Times:

“The White House is pushing the message that the provocative radio host is pulling the party’s strings.

The Obama White House has begun advancing an aggressive political strategy: persuading the country that real power behind the Republican party is not the GOP leaders in Congress or at the Republican National Committee, but rather the provocative radio talk show king Rush Limbaugh.

Obama himself, along with top presidential aides and outside Democratic allies have been pushing the message in unison.”

Part of that push is the orchestrating of the “fight” between Steele and Limbaugh which simply highlights the rank absurdity of the entire situation. The Obambi Mob, while wrecking the economy, has realized they can define the Dead Old Party (DOP) and distract average Republicans at the same time by pitting Steele and Limbaugh against each other. And both took the bait. They’re now talking about each other instead of the leftist in the White House running roughshod over this country. This because of the continued lack of coordinated leadership within the GOP.

This current public fight between Limbaugh and Steele, two important and influential conservative men, reveals just how deeply in trouble the DOP really is. What happened to the Grand Old Party? Its so-called leadership has been inside the Beltway too long, going to the same cocktail and dinner parties for decades.

Ironically, one of the many important and attractive elements of the conservative ideal is that it is principally resistant to the very notion of “leadership.” The always astute Ann Coulter has noted that conservatives have no leaders, per se. The individualistic nature of the Authentic Conservative eschews the idea of being organized or led. It is, as they say, our greatest strength and greatest weakness. Yet, as a former leftist organizer I know the power and importance of a clear and directed message.

Reagan understood this, too. Reagan was a man, however, who did not “lead” us — he reminded us who are as a people and then cheered us on.

This current public fight between Limbaugh and Steele, two important and influential conservative men, reveals just how deeply in trouble the DOP really is. What happened to the Grand Old Party? Its so-called leadership has been inside the Beltway too long, going to the same cocktail and dinner parties for decades.

Keep Reading …

For several months now, before the polls were in a dead heat, before Joe the Plumber, before Obama let it slip he’s a socialist with Marxist tendencies, even before he revealed his plan to make the bitter and clingy unemployed by bankrupting the coal industry, I have been predicting a McCain win on November 4th. Now, as the campaigning comes to a close, I am more confident than ever.

In the simplest of terms McCain will win because he is the better, more decent man. Obama, not having those virtues, relied on hype and hoped celebrity would give people the impression of greatness. Obama’s celebrity strategy did make an impression–one of arrogance and elitism, exactly the things in Washington with which we’re disgusted and rejecting. McCain’s victory will rely on a number of reasons but ultimately it’s because he is a vote for our future, while Obama is a vote for wallowing in victimhood.

Bottom line: John McCain will prevail because we have grown tired of men who think more of themselves than they do of us.

Keep Reading …

As an authentic feminist and independent conservative I am thrilled with McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for Vice-President.

I have to confess, I didn’t give him enough credit. I have come to support McCain grudgingly, only after Giuliani and then Romney. And when the VP stakes began both on my Web site and radio show Palin had been a consistent favorite of readers and listeners. As disappointment and even hostility with Washington has grown, McCain has done something so many of us were hoping for–he made a daring, maverick and ultimately the right choice for his running mate.

Keep Reading …