If any should doubt their claim, each of the women brandished a police report, order of protection, and a letter from Safe Horizon, a New York City domestic violence agency that bills itself as the “nation’s leading victim assistance organization” and operates eight shelters around the city with a total of 582 beds.

Problem is, it was all a scam designed to move the women to the front of the line in order to qualify for federally-subsidized Section 8 rent subsidies. As the New York Times deadpanned Wednesday, “it was a particularly imaginative scheme.” So when a Housing Authority manager noticed the women’s documents were suspiciously similar, an investigation revealed the papers had been forged. The police were called and the scofflaws arrested.

For now, we don’t know whether Safe Horizon masterminded the scam or simply played along with the gig by refusing to ask any hard questions. (One of the favorite mantras of the domestic violence industry is “always believe the victim” – unless the victim is a man, of course.) Either way, the case smells worse than 3-day-old carp piled on the South Street Seaport.

Like other abuse shelters, Safe Horizon makes a grand show of being perpetually hard-up for cash. Its website (www.safehorizon.org) pleads with prospective helpers, “we could not do the work that we do without help from our volunteers.”

But how many would-be donors know Safe Horizon resembles Citicorp or Bank of America, far more than a grass-roots organization dedicated to providing succor to persons down on their luck?

How many realize Safe Horizon rakes in nearly $56 million every year? Do recession-hammered donors appreciate the agency suckles $18 million annually from the federal teat? And how many understand that the shelter’s letter for the six “abused” women was bankrolled by a federal grant funded by the Violence Against Women Act that prohibits giving any legal assistance to a person falsely accused of partner abuse?

Safe Horizon’s website assures us our contributions help provide 15,000 referrals to abuse shelters, serve over 11,500 victims of crime, and assist 3,000 men and women who are being stalked. That’s very commendable.

But federal tax returns for Safe Horizon reveal skyscraper salaries that would put many bail-out bank executives to shame:

Scott Millstein, chief operating officer: $171,169
Beatrice Hanson, chief program officer: $157,776
Gordon Campbell, chief executive officer: $145,952
Michael Williams, general counsel: $141,093
George Johnson, vice president for human resources: $119,485
Nancy Arnow, senior vice president for programs: $116,038

To underwrite these generous salaries, Safe Horizon runs a well-greased corporate giving program. The agency shells out $217,192 to head rainmaker Maile Miske, plus an additional $155,354 to senior VP for development Katherine Wickham. Safe Horizon stages fund-raising events throughout the year, requiring $400,000 for an event planner and another $380,000 for “sponsorship proposals,” whatever that means.

Which means Safe Horizons spends over a million smackeroos a year to bankroll its fund-raising operation.

And that’s not all – there’s so much loose change rolling around the operation that it needs to pay chief financial officer Jay Aronowitz 175,000 greenbacks a year to keep the books in order, plus another 130 grand to an outside auditing firm. How’s that for going green?

Safe Horizons gives a brand new twist to the famous old expression, “Doing well by doing good.”

Email Safe Horizons: joanna.colangelo@safehorizon.org

The ménage a trois involves a government agency, a well-heeled trade organization, and 14 domestic violence shelters located around the state. Here’s how the scratch-your-back scheme works…

Any time a couple gets married or divorced in West Virginia, they are required to cough up a $15 fee to the Family Protection Services Board. That tallies up to $380,000 each year, a tidy sum for sure. The Board then doles out the money to one of the 14 licensed domestic violence shelters around the state.

So far, so good.

And how does a domestic violence shelter become licensed? Actually, the Board doesn’t set its own standards – that responsibility was outsourced to the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Now the plot thickens, because the Coalition was long ago hijacked by a radical feminist ideology. I recently visited its website at www.wvcadv.org and was jolted by this neo-Marxist cant: “violence against women is a political problem, a question of power and domination.”

That’s right, shove aside the research showing women are just as likely as men to be the instigators of partner abuse. Forget former NFL quarterback Steve McNair, shot in the chest four times in his chest by his ex-girlfriend as he slept. Sweep under the rug the fact that alcohol abuse is linked to most cases of abuse.

In other words, the Coalition openly proclaims its belief that domestic violence is all about unfettered patriarchy. And this group is no seat-of-the-pants operation – the trade organization’s annual budget of $1.2 million comfortably supports a staff of nine.

So if you’re looking for objective criteria for shelter licensure, you won’t find it at the Coalition. That’s because the group decrees that in order to become a certified domestic violence advocate, you have to swear fealty to the feminist catechism that “domestic violence is deeply rooted in historical attitudes towards women.”

Whether you believe that statement is laughable, bizarre, or merely one-sided, you can’t become certified in West Virginia unless you take the loyalty oath.

So the ideologically-driven Coalition establishes the certification standards. And the Board says before you can receive a penny of its money, at least one-third of shelter employees must be certified by the Coalition.

So where’s the kickback arrangement?

Because all 14 abuse shelters around the state are members of and pay dues to – you guessed it! – the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

This good-ol’-girls club does not take kindly to other groups that want to partake of the state’s abuse-prevention funding. So finally a group called Men and Women Against Discrimination had to file a lawsuit. The suit charged the policies of the Family Protection Services Board discriminated against male victims of domestic violence and deprived violence-prone women of access to perpetrator intervention programs.

When Judge James Stucky began to examine the case, he discovered bias pervaded the system from top to bottom. Take Judy Smith, one of the five directors of the FPSB and head of the Rape and Domestic Violence Information Center in Morgantown. Smith admitted – actually boasted – during her lawsuit deposition, “we do not shelter men in the shelter, even if it’s empty.”

Judge Stucky found the discrimination to be so widespread and egregious that last week he issued a summary judgment, taking all parties in the case by surprise: www.acfc.org/site/DocServer/WV_Findings_of_Fact.pdf?docID=2621

Noting the state legislature did not intend to restrict domestic violence services to the members of any one sex, he found the Board exceeded its statutory authority by delegating the standard-setting to a trade organization. “In practice this rule excludes any persons who does not adhere to the gender biased fundamental beliefs of the Coalition,” ruled the judge.

Appalled by the illegal actions of an organization driven by a cult-like ideology, Judge Stucky concluded the Board’s policies “are null and void.”

Civil rights advocates across the nation were elated. “Today, men and the women who love them have reason to celebrate,” notes columnist Teri Stoddard. But she cautions the fight may not be over: “lawsuits like this will unfortunately need to continue across the country.”

First, columnist Mike Adams reported on the plight of Mark Harwood, psychology professor at Humboldt State University which is located in Birkenstock-addled northern California. Based on extensive research, Harwood informed his students that women were as likely as men to engage in partner aggression.

Harwood probably was thinking of Sahel Kazemi who murdered former NFL star quarterback Steve McNair in July as he slept. Or Real Housewives starlet Kelly Bensimon who was arrested for hitting her boyfriend.

But scientific truth apparently did not goose the gander of these gender guerillas. So the women took it upon themselves to disrupt the class, taunting the good professor as a “privileged, rich, white male.” Judge, jury, and executioner!

Then the head of the Women’s Studies program demanded Harwood be barred from ever again teaching the course. In disgust, the professor resigned his post to go elsewhere.

An isolated incident? Judge for yourself.

Because a day later columnist Trudy Shuett reported on a woman named Amanda McCormick of Praxis International who blithely told a group of feminists attending an abuse conference, “I know a lot of men who deserve to be beaten.”

And exactly what is Praxis International? Funded to the tune of $1.5 million taxpayer dollars, its website is chock-full of gender liberation cant, claiming it works to “create a clear and cooperative agenda for social change in their communities.” Isn’t that what ACORN has been claiming to do all these years?

But is it going too far to assert that feminism is a hate movement? After all, think of all the opportunities that feminism has opened up for women — and what inspiring role models Hillary and Nancy have become for our daughters!

So let’s ask the good folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center who run HateWatch. They’re the experts, they should know. On its website HateWatch says a hate movement is “an organization or individual that advocates violence against or unreasonable hostility toward those persons or organizations identified by their race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, or disability.”

Hmmm. When a person sees fit to entertain a group of domestic violence workers with the remark, “I know a lot of men who deserve to be beaten,” doesn’t that indulge in a contemptuous attitude towards members of the opposite sex? Does that give women a green light to be violent to their partners?

HateWatch further defines a hate movement as one that disseminates “historically inaccurate information with regards to these persons or organizations for the purpose of vilification.”

So have you ever noticed how these women habitually pony up “statistics” that portray men in the worst possible light? Ever wonder why these ladies never divulge the scientific basis of their ideologically-driven claims?

More alarming is how these scornful women have stampeded lawmakers to approve domestic abuse laws that gleefully trample on Constitutionally-mandated protections.

Probable-cause for arrest? Now a mere historical footnote in 22 states that have “mandatory” arrest laws for domestic violence on the books.

Equal treatment under the law? Not in 24 states that have “primary aggressor” laws, code language for “haul away the man” no matter what the evidence may say.

Due process? Not part of my living, breathing Constitution.

Innocent until proven guilty? Don’t be absurd, we have an epidemic of partner abuse that must come to a stop!

Each year, over one million Americans are hit with a trivial or false accusation of domestic violence. These persons are plunged into an Alice-in-Wonderland justice system that spurns reason and fairness. Railroaded by hearsay and circumstantial evidence, a false charge stigmatizes a man as an abuser, drains his assets, and can break up his family.

Fortunately, persons are beginning to wake up to the hellish biases that lard our partner abuse system. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and a number of groups have banded together to reform the system. The month’s theme is “Restore Civil Rights to the Violence Against Women Act.”

Driven by a destructive gender ideology, our domestic violence laws now represent the most breath-taking roll-back in Constitutionally-protected rights since the era of Jim Crow.

One tape showed an ACORN employee named Tresa Kaelke of San Bernardino, Calif. bragging how she had murdered her husband: “I shot him. And he died. Right there.” To perfect her alibi, the ACORN worker declared how she had gone to a local domestic violence shelter where she “pleaded my case.”

Following release of the video, a red-faced Kaelke claimed she was just playing along with the Candid-Camera gag, and local police reported her former husbands were alive and well.

We’re relieved to hear the men are safe. Still, there’s something deeply disturbing about Kaelke’s boast.

Recently Trudy Schuett of Examiner.com published an insider account of abuse shelters. She reveals, “We’ve seen cases where fictional abuse, contrived for the purposes of leverage in court, became a reality.” In other words, shelter workers coached women like Tresa Kaelke how to fabricate a White Lie for purposes of manipulating the legal system.

Others have developed a similar jaded view of shelters’ claims of protecting women from their villainous tormentors. In July, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his plan to rescue the state from the brink of financial insolvency, cutting all funds for domestic violence shelters in the state.

Over the years I’ve had occasion to visit abuse shelters, speak with their employees, and peruse their literature. Just like the kiss-and-tell videos reveal fraudulent actions at ACORN offices around the country, I have found evidence of widespread malfeasance.

These are some of the more spectacular examples:

Arizona: A female resident sexually assaulted a 12-year-old boy staying at the Brewster Center Domestic Violence Services, but shelter staff wouldn’t allow police on the premises to investigate. In Phoenix, the Shield Foundation operates an immigration scam operation that relies on well-rehearsed shake-downs of alleged abusers.

Arkansas: A resident made up tear-jerker accounts of partner abuse and medical emergencies, duping staff at the Options shelter in Monticello to loan her $25,000.

Georgia: The Cherokee Family Violence Center in Canton fabricated an allegation of child neglect by a shelter resident who complained too often, causing the mother to lose custody of her infant for five months.

Oklahoma: The YWCA Crisis Center in Enid lures prospective residents with the promise, “We do NOT require proof of abuse.” Cindy Lou Shores, former director of the South Central Region Tribal Nations program, now resides in a federal prison for embezzling $106,000. At SafeNet in Claremore, the director was ordered to avoid any further contact with a former resident’s children. Earlier this month the children’s father filed a multi-million lawsuit against the shelter.

Texas: The Bay Area Turning Point program in Houston hosts dating parties, pairing up abused shelter residents with local dandies for an evening of schmoozing and boozing.

Virginia: Bethany House of Northern Virginia has a long record of problems. First, two female shelter workers were fired for sexual advances of the residents. Then an attorney appeared at a client’s house demanding sex for his pro bono services. Later the shelter waged a six-year campaign to harass the husband of a mentally-deranged resident, what the judge later described as “Kafkaesque litigation.”

West Virginia: The staff of the Hope House in Charleston lied to police about a woman in their facility, preventing her from getting needed mental health treatment. And the director of the Domestic Violence Information Center in Morgantown recently admitted under oath, “we do not shelter men in the shelter even if it’s empty.” Now a group called Men and Women Against Discrimination has filed a sex discrimination lawsuit.

Washington: A blind woman was ridiculed and finally ejected by staff at WomenCare in Bellingham for requesting basic safety accommodations like Braille dots on the security keypad at the shelter entrance.

In Florida, shelters are in a state of disarray. At SafeSpace shelter in Stuart, a 16-month-old toddler was run over in the shelter parking lot, and a woman was later fatally stabbed by a shelter co-resident. The Shelter for Abused Women and Children in Naples fired its former director for harassing and assaulting shelter employees.

At Another Way in Lake City, a four-year-old girl was vaginally penetrated by an older girl staying at the facility. Shelters managers drive shelter vans for personal use. Overt sex discrimination. Illicit drug use. Employees convicted of multiple violent crimes. An astronomical staff turn-over. And more.

No doubt some abuse shelters are providing a tremendous service to their communities. But considering abuse shelters take in $1.4 billion from the government and other sources annuallly, there are far too many bad apples in this barrel for Congress to continue to turn a blind eye on this sordid affair.

And history shows liberals are willing to take almost any measure to keep the population in check – just so long as the program can be cloaked in mesmerizing happy-talk.

Want to stop the beating hearts of 46 million unborn children each year? Then just call it “promoting choice and empowering women” – doesn’t that sound wonderful!

Desire to kill off 30 million African children from the ravages of malaria? Then ban DDT in the name of saving the bird shells!

Yearn to see the deadly AIDS epidemic continue to rage out of control? Then push the “safe sex” campaigns that tell teenagers to indulge in carefree sex, just so long as you use a condom.

And when all else fails, try forced sterilization. I’ve previously described how progressive-inspired racial purification schemes led to the sterilization of 400,000 undesirables in Nazi Germany: www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/090827 .

Sterilization is not merely a hush-hush liberal policy of a by-gone era. Sterilization continues to be topic of debate to the present day. And I’m not just talking about repressive societies like Communist China.

(As First Lady, Hillary Clinton decried China’s one-child policy as a violation of human rights. But as Secretary of State, Clinton completely swept the issue under the rug during her recent trip to China. But I digress.)

And now there’s a whole new chapter to the eugenics saga.

In 1977 Paul and Anne Erlich wrote Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment. The book is so replete with Chicken-Little scenarios and mad-scientist nostrums that if I paraphrase, you’ll accuse me of making this up. So allow me to recite a few lines as you hum along to the tune of Three Blind Mice.

Paul and Anne Erlich begin by declaring, “Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”

That’s what’s called a living, breathing Constitution.

But compulsory abortion alone will not suffice: “A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men,” they urge.

For reasons unknown, these benevolent people say they prefer to target women.

How to bring this about? “The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control.”

Ever heard of Norplant?

If that fails, the Erlichs propose a back-up plan: “Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods.” To meet stringent FDA standards, the sterilant “must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets or livestock.”

At least Fido and Fufu will be safe!

Admitting there are “very difficult political, legal and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems,” the Erlichs still express hope their idea will one day bear fruition.

Oh, I forgot to mention one important detail.

Ecoscience was also co-authored by John P. Holdren, recently named as President Obama’s chief science advisor. Considered an expert on global climate change, Holdren has a wide-ranging mandate to advise the president how science and technology impact domestic and international affairs.

To this day, Holdren has yet to repudiate any of the frightening proposals outlined in his book. So until the Sterilant-in-Chief departs from the Obama administration, my advice to you is this: Keep a close eye on the drinking-water.

Peddling his healthcare plan to an increasingly skeptical electorate, Obama claimed, “The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” The truth is, Obama’s healthcare reform bill contains no mechanism to verify whether persons are U.S. citizens before they receive government benefits. So the president’s statement was, a-hem, highly misleading.

For years, conservatives have been unfailingly polite and duly respectful when confronted with the standard array of leftist slanders, half-truths, distortions, and outright prevarications.

But have you noticed how it’s getting harder these days to sort out the lies from reality? We’ve reached the point that propagandistic claims are beginning to permeate our culture – the media, our schools, the workplace, not to mention in political discourse.

Of particular concern are the falsehoods regularly doled out by former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara Mikulski, along with all the rest of their N.O.W. sidekicks.

So for the sheer pleasure and entertainment of my loyal readers, herewith I list my 10 favorite feminist follies. Ready for a couple belly-laughs?

Lie #1: Women require special preferences and set-asides so they can compete fairly with men.
Truth: Can you believe feminists would make such a disparaging remark about the abilities and ambitions of women?

Lie #2: Women are more ethical and morally-upright than men.
Truth: Knowing this was one of candidate Hillary Clinton’s applause lines, any attempted refutation on my part would be redundant.

Lie #3: Women are the victims of wage discrimination (another of Hillary’s favorites)
Truth: Women work fewer hours, have less work experience, and more often work in air-conditioned comfort, compared to men. When these factors are taken into account, women are paid the same as men.

Lie #4: Only men care about the trappings of political power.
Truth: I am “the most powerful woman in America…All right, let’s hear it for the power!” – Nancy Pelosi, January 3, 2007, upon being named Speaker of the House

Lie #5: Women were routinely excluded from medical research studies (Sen. Mikulski milked this ha-ha for years).
Truth: Although women were slightly under-represented in heart studies, they were substantially over-represented in cancer research. Nowadays, two out of three research participants in National Institutes of Health studies are female.

Lie #6: Male lawmakers have historically given short-shrift to the needs of women.
Truth: Consider Social Security, Medicare, and the full gamut of social welfare programs – services that were passed into law by male legislators, and serve mostly women.

Lie #7: The glass-ceiling stops women from reaching the highest levels of business and politics.
Truth: Few women wish to put in 70-hour work weeks and sacrifice time with their families to reach the pinnacle of their profession.

Lie #8: Women are incapable of slapping, hitting, or otherwise harming their partners.
Truth: Research shows women are equally violent as men in their intimate relationships. Just ask former NFL star Steven McNair.

Lie #9: Men don’t do their fair share of childcare or housework.
Truth: When you add up the total number of hours that men and women put in on the job and at home, men are very much pulling their weight, and more.

Now, are you ready for the Big Kahuna? The Grand Gagger that forms the basis for all other feminist lies? Here goes…

Lie #10: For millennia, women have suffered from patriarchal oppression wielded by over-bearing and wicked men.
Truth: That’s plain ridiculous. Why do these women choose to ignore the countless men who have given their lives defending kith and kin? And the husbands who clock extra hours on the job so their wives can enjoy the good life?

So I want to offer a challenge to my readers. When you hear a liberal fabrication, stop being so polite. Acquiescing to the bully tactics only reinforces the behavior. Here’s a more apt response: “You lie!”

That’ll stop them in their tracks.

And what of President Obama’s August 6 admonition, “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking.”? Apparently he was referring to Republicans, conveniently ignoring the fact that the bloated Medicare and Medicaid programs were the brainchild of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson.

That same week the White House launched its fishy-fact hotline to combat “disinformation about health insurance reform.” That’s right, if you are one of millions of Americans who believes Obamacare will escalate the national debt, ration medical care, and pay for abortions, obviously you’ve been duped.

To avoid further embarrassment, please report for assignment to the appropriate re-education class.

Actually, the Obama Administration’s purge of the political opposition started months before — on April 9 to be exact. That’s when the Department of Homeland Security released a document bearing the none-too-subtle title, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

Warning “rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears,” the report is a concoction of loony conspiracy theories, not a document that resembles anything like a credible intelligence assessment.

And exactly who are these potential extremists?

Well, are you White? Then you have likely “capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns.”

Are you a returning veteran? Do you believe in the Second Amendment? Have you ever worried about “perceived government infringement on civil liberties”? Are you opposed to abortion? Do you question federal authority in favor of state or local authority? Wary of illegal immigration?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, Homeland Security has now classified you as an extremist.

That’s right folks, we’ve eliminated the terrorist threat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now we can go after the real terrorists – all those returning G.I.s who were expecting a hero’s welcome!

The bizarre DHS report set the stage for media coverage of the April 15 Tea Party protests. Despite the spirited tone of the rallies, media commentators took delight in linking the event to an obscure homosexual fetish. And President Obama pretended to not notice, with ABC inexplicably reporting, “The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties and will hold his own event today.”

A call to arms was sounded at the state level. A Maryland National Guard report warned ominously, “Commanders are encouraged to update alert rosters and review emergency evacuation plans/rally points. Ensure all facilities have emergency phone lists posted (i.e. FBI, FIRE, POLICE, HOSPITALS, EMS, ETC…). Be aware of and avoid local protests.”

Yikes!

Then on June 26 the White House named feminist Lynn Rosenthal as the White House Advisor on Violence Against Women. It’s no secret the domestic violence industry is marinated in make-believe statistics, anti-male ideology, and ever-expanding definitions of abuse. So with that appointment the White House placed its seal of approval on the continuing wave of unconstitutional mandatory arrests of Americans falsely accused of “domestic violence.”

(A few days after Rosenthal’s appointment, former NFL quarterback Steve McNair was shot and killed by his ex-girlfriend as he slept. But according to the $4 billion abuse industry, a woman killing a Black man is not domestic violence, so no cause for worry.)

And two weeks ago President Obama upped the ante, authorizing Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether CIA officers broke the law to interrogate al Qaeda suspects.

The truth is, as a result of enhanced questioning methods, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed spilled the beans on a whole range of al Qaeda activities. This information led to “specific, actionable intelligence, as well as a general increase in the amount of information about al Qaeda and its affiliates,” according to a recently-released Department of Justice memo. But Obama brushed that aside.

Presidential shunnings. A White House snitch line. Peaceful protesters smeared as terrorists. A politically-motivated witch hunt of government officials.

It’s all so….post-Orwellian.

And the article’s original title was so outrageous that within hours the USA Today editors felt compelled to tone it down. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It’s no secret that men been hit hard in the current recession. The USA Today article acknowledges that men have lost 74% of jobs since December 2007, with women losing the remaining 26%. The reason is men predominate in construction and manufacturing, sectors that have suffered a massive hemorrhaging of jobs.

Most would view these numbers with dismay and even alarm. In many families men are the primary breadwinners and men’s job loss hurts their wives, children, and dependent parents. And unemployment is emotionally devastating to many men.

But socialists view massive male unemployment with undisguised glee. After all, if we can’t force more women out of the home into the workplace, then we can achieve numerical workforce equality by throwing millions of men off the assembly line.

USA Today quotes economist Heidi Hartmann of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research: “It was a long historical slog to get to this point.” Apparently Hartmann’s only regret is the recession didn’t hit a few years sooner.

And wait, there’s more good news!

Not only have men lost 4.75 million jobs, but now that the economic stimulus plan is kicking in, men are having trouble getting back on their feet.

Why? Because federal stimulus money is being directed to education, healthcare, and social services, sectors that tend to be female-dominated. (This didn’t happen by accident — here’s why: www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/090723 ). Local jurisdictions have cut 86,000 men from payrolls during the recession, while hiring 167,000 women, a transformation USA Today applauds as “remarkable.”

For those who have a remaining scintilla of concern over the plight of men, University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan assures us, “Unemployment among men isn’t going to last forever. People will move from construction and manufacturing to industries that are creating new jobs.”

That’s right, guys, if you got laid off as a $35 an hour crane operator or tool-and-die worker, not to worry. With a little training you can become a home health aide, social worker, or teacher’s assistant!

It’s not just the article itself that created such a fuss. Its original title, “Women Take Over Job Market,” was seen as overtly gender-baiting. So within hours it was changed to read, “Women Gain Historic Shift as Men Lose Jobs:” www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-09-02-womenwork_N.htm

But on one point, the reporter commendably veered away from the predictable liberal lies. For years Democrats have claimed that women have been subjected to wage discrimination, noting that women earn 77% of what men make. But this time USA Today admitted the true cause of the gender gap: “On average, women work fewer hours than men [and] hold more part-time jobs.”

And if there is any doubt about the radical social agenda that lurks behind the USA Today article, flip ahead to the article’s concluding sentence: “The image that the man has to be the breadwinner has changed.”

For millennia, men have been the providers and protectors of their families. But now we are being instructed to sweep that shibboleth into the dust-heap of history. USA Today has decreed it doesn’t matter how much anguish and misfortune families suffer from the lay-off of male breadwinners.

All that matters are the green-shaded tallies of the social bean-counters.

Letters to the editor: letters@usatoday.com

Take Margaret Sanger – public health nurse, rabid feminist, and avowed socialist. Doing her rounds in New York City’s immigrant ghettos, she became enamored of the biological and political possibilities of birth control. A prolific writer, she churned out numerous books and articles. In Women and the New Race, Sanger ominously expounded: “no Socialist republic can operate successfully and maintain its ideals unless the practice of birth control is encouraged to a marked and efficient degree.”

Margaret Sanger regarded members of both sexes with a decidedly misanthropic disdain. Of men she wrote, “In all of the animal species below the human, motherhood has a clearly discernible superiority over fatherhood….natural law makes the female the expression and the conveyor of racial efficiency.”

Members of the female sex were equally worthy of contempt: “woman has, through her reproductive ability, founded and perpetuated the tyrannies of the Earth. Had she planned deliberately to achieve this tragic total of human waste and misery, she could hardly have done it more effectively.”

In 1921 Sanger established the American Birth Control League, which later assumed the sanitized moniker Planned Parenthood. The League’s co-founder was the anti-Semite Lothrop Stoddard, who would later aver the “Jew problem [is] already settled in principle and soon to be settled in fact by the physical elimination of the Jews themselves from the Third Reich.”

Two years later Sanger launched her notorious Birth Control Review. The journal would publish propaganda pieces like “Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need” by Ernst Rudin, Hitler’s director of sterilization and a founder of the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene. The American counterpart to the Nazi group was the American Eugenics Society, of which Sanger was a prominent member.

In 1939 Sanger created the Negro Project with the avowed purpose of reining in the unchecked growth of the Black population. But her true intentions went beyond mere population control: “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,” she cautioned a friend.

At that time Blacks numbered 12 million persons, representing about one-tenth of the U.S. total.

The acme of Sanger’s career came in 1932 when she unveiled her Plan for Peace. The fascistic manifesto urged the U.S. Congress to “apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of populations whose progeny is tainted” and to “give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization.” Sanger’s wide-ranging hit-list included “morons, mental defectives, epileptics,…illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, [and] dope-fiends.”

Sanger admitted these persons constituted an “enormous part of our population,” upwards of 20 million persons. That represented about 15% of the American population.

A mere year after Sanger expounded on her peace plan, Adolf Hitler signed the infamous Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. During the ensuing years, the Nazi regime sterilized an estimated 400,000 persons deemed to be racially, physically, or mentally unfit.

At the Nuremberg Trials, Allied prosecutors recited the horrifying litany of Nazi crimes, including the practice of compulsory sterilization. Without mentioning Sanger by name, the German Socialists defended their harsh population control measures by explaining it was the United States from whom they had taken inspiration.

Over the years, Margaret Sanger used her bully pulpit to call for the segregation or sterilization of 15% of the U.S. population, and the extermination of another tenth of the citizenry. Despite those fascistic designs, Margaret Sanger still occupies a revered position in the pantheon of American liberalism.

Every year Planned Parenthood bequeaths its Margaret Sanger Award to recognize “outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement.” Past recipients include such liberal luminaries as Bella Abzug, Phil Donahue, and Jane Fonda.

Any guesses who carried home the award in 2009? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But how many conservatives who are targets of such slurs know these liberals are indulging in one of the greatest intellectual ruses in history? How many realize it’s a matter of the red-faced pot calling the kettle black?

Esteemed reader, you are about to learn the truth of the long-standing love affair between American progressivism and European fascism.

As Jonah Goldberg reveals in his bestseller Liberal Fascism, that romance can be traced back to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The Democrat was both a progressive and racist who famously wrote, “The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation…until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.”

Shortly after America entered World War I in 1917, Wilson signed an Executive Order establishing the Committee on Public Information, a propaganda apparatus designed to whip Americans into a patriotic fervor. The following year Wilson pushed for the Sedition Act which banned the use of any “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the government. That sweeping language served to squelch all forms of political dissent.

The notorious Sedition Act occasioned the arrest of an estimated 175,000 Americans accused of essentially failing to be sufficiently patriotic – leading Goldberg to dub the Wilson presidency a “fascist police state.”

For those who wonder whether the phrase “liberal fascist” is a little over the top, in fact it was coined by science fiction novelist H.G. Wells. In 1932 the progressivist Wells delivered a speech that called for a revitalization of the fading liberal movement: “the Fascists of Liberalism must…begin as a disciplined sect, but they must end as the sustaining organization of a reconstituted mankind.”

Wells was also a friend and confidante of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Struggling to rescue America from the dregs of the Great Depression, FDR was fully aware of what was transpiring in Europe and sought to emulate its accomplishments. Roosevelt once bragged, “what we are doing in this country were some of things that were being done in Russia and even some of the things that were being done under Hitler in Germany.”

European fascists returned the presidential compliment. In 1934 the Nazi Party’s official newspaper sang the praises of FDR, describing him as a “warm-hearted leader of the people with a profound understanding of social needs.” And the Fuhrer himself sent Roosevelt a private letter applauding his “heroic efforts in the interests of the American people.”

Mussolini was even more enthralled with the American commander. Upon reading Roosevelt’s Looking Forward, Mussolini fawned, “The appeal to the decisiveness and masculine sobriety of the nation’s youth, with which Roosevelt here calls his readers to battle, is reminiscent of the ways and means by which Fascism awakened the Italian people.”

Il Duce was of course referring to the sweeping New Deal policies that established massive job programs, centralized power in vast government bureaucracies, and imposed rigid price controls on the economy.

But the ugliest chapter in the progressive-fascist alliance centered on eugenics, the pseudo-science of racial purification. Three prominent persons, all of the liberal persuasion, were prominent flag-wavers in this execrable episode of American history.

Woodrow Wilson was one of the first American politicians to promote eugenic policies. As governor of New Jersey, Wilson approved a law in 1912 that created the Board of Examiners of Feebleminded, Epileptics, and Other Defectives.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was another progressive icon of the era. Holmes wrote the flawed Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell that put the legal stamp of approval on compulsory sterilization. “Three generations of imbeciles are enough,” Holmes infamously wrote.

A few years later in 1934 the American Eugenics Society published the Case for Sterilization, a book that piqued the interest of the Fuhrer himself. One leading member of the American Eugenics Society was Margaret Sanger. The birth-control crusader was the moving force behind the Negro Project, which enlisted ministers such as Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. in the crusade to restrict reproduction among “inferior” stocks of Blacks.

So fellow conservatives, arise! The next time you are slandered as a proto-Nazi or angry White male (which in the liberal mind are one and the same), drag out the fascist skeletons rattling in the progressive closet. Mention Woodrow Wilson’s infatuation with racial cleansing, the FDR-Hitler mutual admiration society, Justice Holmes’ authorship of Buck v. Bell, and Margaret Sanger’s Negro Project.

If that doesn’t stop the guilty-minded liberal in his tracks, mention how progressive-inspired eugenics policies were the prime moving force behind the forced sterilization of 400,000 undesirables in Nazi Germany.

That inconvenient truth is certain to focus the discussion.

Eileen Pope was diagnosed with a mental disorder and was prescribed psychotropic medications in late 2006. The pills interfered with her sleep to the point that she eventually stopped taking them, and she relapsed into her bouts of verbal abuse.

One day in January 2007 Mr. Charles Pope came home to find his wife in a highly agitated state. He immediately telephoned the family pastor, Rev. Linda Duncan, for help. Without warning, Mrs. Pope began to threaten and chase him around the table. Just as the pastor came in the house, she violently shoved him backwards.

The police arrived shortly afterwards. Because they were trained to believe the male partner is always culpable for domestic violence, they started to arrest him. But the pastor, who had just witnessed the incident, explained it was Mrs. Pope who was the aggressor.

The police took Mrs. Pope to the Charleston Area Medical Center for treatment. There she falsely told the social worker that she, not her husband, was a victim of domestic violence. The hospital worker took her claim at face value and didn’t bother to check the police report. Mrs. Pope, now officially dubbed a “victim” of domestic violence, was transferred to the nearby Hope House shelter.

According to its website, the mission of Hope House is to “eliminate domestic violence through leadership, education, empowerment, and community collaboration.” Hope House operates on a budget upwards of three-quarters of a million dollars, so it’s safe to say the program is no fly-by-night operation.

According to Mrs. Pope’s recent statement, “I told the shelter staff that I was a victim of domestic violence and needed help…The staff asked me for no proof [of abuse] or no identification. The truth was I was not a domestic violence victim but had abused my husband.” (emphasis added)

Once ensconced at the facility, Mrs. Pope faced a decidedly non-therapeutic environment. “I often felt unsafe. There were several physical and verbal altercations between the shelter residents. I had clothing stolen from me,” she relates.

She began to fret she wasn’t getting psychiatric help. “Several days later, I notified my pastor, Reverend Linda Duncan, of my whereabouts. Reverend Duncan, in turn, told my husband.”

So on January 16, 2007, Mr. Charles Pope filed an Application for Involuntary Custody for Mental Health Examination. The Mental Hygiene Commissioner approved Mr. Pope’s petition, ordering the sheriff to escort Mrs. Pope to a hearing in his chambers the next day.

But when the sheriff arrived at the shelter, Mrs. Pope wasn’t there – at least that’s what shelter staff said.

But that wasn’t true, according to Mrs. Pope: “My husband attempted to get help for me through a mental hygiene petition. However, the YWCA Hope House Staff blocked my husband’s efforts by telling the officials (law enforcement) that I was not at the domestic violence shelter.”

Mrs. Pope missed her hearing with the Mental Hygiene Commissioner, haplessly concluding, “This prevented me from getting the professional assistance I desperately needed.”

Three months later the distraught woman found herself languishing at the shelter. But in mid-April events took an unexpected course. “The staff and administrators appeared to be angry with me. I did not know why. Then the director told me that I must leave the shelter,” Mrs. Pope recounts. Three days later she was out the door, dispatched to a homeless shelter.

And why the sudden change of heart? Because Mr. Pope had succeeded in finding a public forum to share the account of his wife, who was unable to get urgently needed psychological help.

Most abuse shelters impose a 1-2 month limit. So why did the Hope House keep the woman in the shelter for so long? Mrs. Pope believes the reason was less than altruistic: “I believe there was some financial incentive for YWCA Hope House to have me remain at the domestic violence shelter because I am physically handicapped, mentally handicapped, over the age of 40 years and an African American female.”

Throughout her shelter stay, she did not receive any prescribed medicines for her mental health condition or undergo professional counseling. By Mrs. Pope’s account, the Hope House staff thwarted a sheriff’s attempt to comply with a court order, did not provide a safe environment, and deterred her from receiving the medical care she required.

When these facts came to light, she was summarily removed from the facility.

Ginsburg’s atavistic views can be traced back to the pioneering work of Margaret Sanger, the celebrated American feminist who later founded Planned Parenthood.

Beyond her feverish crusade to convince women to use birth control, Sanger was an unapologetic eugenicist. In her book The Pivot of Civilization she wrote, “More children from the fit, less from the unfit—that is the chief issue of birth control.”

In 1934 she wrote her infamous Code to Stop Overproduction of Children that advocated, “no woman should have a legal right to bear a child without a permit…no permit should be valid for more than one child.” (Think China’s One-Child Policy.)

Nor could there be any doubt about Sanger’s genocidal motivations. In 1926 she gave an impassioned speech at a New Jersey KKK rally and later established the euphemistically named “Negro Project.” Sanger would later confide to a friend, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”

But the long-standing feminist interest in promoting “good births” is not limited to race alone. Feminists regard women, especially white women, as a sort of uber-species, a superior breed of human-beings who are endowed with greater foresight, wisdom, and understanding.

One such advocate is Sally Miller Gearhart, author of The Future – If There is One – Is Female. Here’s Miller’s uniquely gendered solution to over-population: “The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.” In commemoration of Miller’s accomplishments, a fund was later established in her name for the University of Oregon’s women’s studies program.

Valerie Solanas is another female supremacist. Author of the SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men) Manifesto, Solanas referred to men as a “biological accident” and called on women to “destroy the male sex.” Upon her death in 1988, Solanas was lionized by the president of the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women as an “outstanding champion of women’s rights.”

Mary Daly, former professor at Boston College, was one of the early proponents of the “goddess movement,” which seeks to replace Christ-centered religion with a polytheistic pantheon that includes Earth Mother, Gaia, and other icons of womanist theology. In 2001 Daly wrote, “If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this process will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.”

But in one of history’s supreme ironies, the feminist scheme to “decontaminate” the Earth by weeding out male undesirables backfired. It boomeranged largely due to feminists’ own doing. As a result of widespread availability of abortion services and the decision of millions of pregnant women to abort their fetuses on the basis of sex, the lives of millions of unborn girls in India, China, and elsewhere have been tragically snuffed out.

As Charles Dickens once wrote in A Tale of Two Cities: “Every revolution eventually turns on itself.”

But most gender supremacists are well-schooled in the methods of soft totalitarianism. They eschew the ham-fisted rhetoric of boot-jacked fascism in favor of kinder, gentler catch-phrases such as “female empowerment” and “gender consciousness-raising.”

So rather than engage in a “drastic reduction” of the male population, feminists now implement laws and policies that are designed to incrementally stigmatize and ultimately marginalize men.

Let’s start with NPR analyst Cokie Roberts’ recent comment, “Men are just lesser beings.” That misandrist attitude may be more widespread than persons like to admit.

Once a substantial minority of the populace comes to believe that men are “lesser beings,” it becomes easy to jigger policies that make it harder for men to get a fair shake.

Take Obama’s stimulus package – remember how the $787 billion was going to create “shovel-ready” jobs, rebuild the infrastructure, and restart the economy? As it turned out, the stimulus package will hire thousands of social workers, nurses, and teachers’ aides, allowing women to commandeer 42% of all the new positions, even though four out of five persons who lost their jobs in the recession were male.

Consider the millions of dollars spent for “women’s health” programs, even though men die 5 years sooner than women. And ponder the irony of colleges that sponsor “women’s studies” programs, while the number of men in higher education continues to dwindle.

So is it far-fetched to countenance the quest for a new Master Race based on neo-eugenic feminist ideology? Columnist Jonah Goldberg offers this terse, if sobering answer in his recent opus: “The white male is the Jew of liberal fascism.”

Not to be outdone, last week NPR analyst Cokie Roberts opined in the Washington Post, “Women tend to be a lot more commonsensical than men are” and admitted to hectoring her husband that “Men are just lesser beings.”

Call it whatever you want – female empowerment, turning the tables, girls letting off a little steam, whatever — it’s time to blow the whistle on feminist-inspired misandry.

For decades, male-bashing has been deemed an amusing side show in the Battle of the Sexes. Some consider it funny when an advertisement depicts a man maimed by his girlfriend. Others will say an abused man simply had it coming. (Think former NFL star Steve McNair, shot four times in his sleep by a jealous girlfriend — but no one could bring themselves to call it “domestic violence.”)

In recent years, gender supremacism has entered the mainstream of political discourse. Former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas once declared, “I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which a man structurally does not have.”

And consider Hillary Clinton’s remark, “Research shows the presence of women raises the standards of ethical behavior and lowers corruption.” Thank goodness we have ethical paragons like Hillary to show us out of the wilderness.

Sometimes pronouncements of women-as-uber-species approach the point of logical absurdity. Appearing on NPR radio, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona once gushed that women “get so much done because we make lists.” Somehow that sounds like the freakish musings of an obsessive-compulsive, not the reflections of a person trying to make the world a kinder, gentler place.

A February 5 editorial in the Christian Science Monitor announced grandly that “a woman leader governs differently than a man, bringing new perspectives and helping other women.”

I’m sure that came as a surprise to the men who worked long and hard to enact Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a bevy of other programs that primarily benefit women.

Sometimes the gender supremacists get downright ugly, lapsing into demagoguery to cast men as abusers, deadbeats, and batterers. If you want a real eye-opener, take a look at University of Michigan Catherine McKinnon’s writings. And don’t forget Valerie Solanas’ SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men) Manifesto.

Not all academics are enamored of the feminist antics. Professors Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young of McGill University have written two scholarly tomes that probe the feminist dystopia. Their first book, Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture, lamentably concludes “men are society’s official scapegoats and [should be] held responsible for all evil, including that done by the women they have deluded or intimidated.”

Their second work, Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systematic Discrimination Against Men, reveals how feminists have capitalized on their disdain for men to reshape policies in such wide-ranging areas as marriage, divorce, custody, and even employment.

Case in point is the recent revelation that President Obama’s stimulus plan is skewed to favor women, even though men in the manufacturing and construction industries have been hit hardest: www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/090723 .

America has a courageous record of drawing on our traditional notions of fairness and justice to confront supremacists in our midst. We have faced down the bigots, the xenophobes, left-wing fascists, and race-baiters.

Now we must come to terms with the dark side of modern feminism, a movement that fosters contempt and scorn for men.

To resolve the galloping debate, the NYT editors summoned Carol Smith, senior vice president for the Elle Group. In case you haven’t made the acquaintance, the Elle Group woos new members with the breathless claim it will “enrich your life, pamper your body, nurture your spirit, accelerate your business, and celebrate your soul.” Sorry, no men allowed.

Ms. Smith is possessed of an uncanny, indeed unfathomable acumen such that she is able to dispense with the usual accoutrements of objective inquiry, so no need to do an employee survey or commission a national poll. It’s what they call a woman’s intuition.

Here’s Ms. Smith at her most lucid: “In my experience, female bosses tend to be better managers, better advisers, mentors, rational thinkers.” Why? Because “Men love to hear themselves talk.”

(In my time hanging around the office water cooler, female workers do far more conversing than men. But who am I to doubt Ms. Smith’s firm grasp on reality?)

Oh, and women are terrific list-makers. “They will do their to-do list. They will prioritize their to-do list. They will get through their to-do list,” Smith compulsively writes.

That’s right guys, forget that aspiration of getting an MBA, all you need to do is pull out pencil and paper and start making lists!

“Hands down women are better. There’s no contest,” Smith zestfully concludes. And lest she come across as a smug know-it-all, “I want less of that self-righteousness,” she avers.

I hate to differ with the erudite pronouncements of Ms. Smith, but my experience has been of a different ilk. I well recall a female co-worker who whispered to me in the hallway, “I can’t stand working for women!” Her female supervisor micromanaged and publicly berated her for every shortcoming, imagined and real, to the point she had to go to the union with a harassment complaint.

My personal you-won’t-believe-this story involved an office where women outnumbered men three to one. My supervisor, a female, had hand-picked all the women. On good-hair days, she would refer to her staff as “my dysfunctional family.” On bad days, staff would hole up in their offices, waiting for the storm to blow over. She was eventually forced into retirement by senior management. And yes, she was good at making lists.

What do polls of female employees show?

Three years ago the publishing company Vault did a Gender Issues in the Workplace Survey. The results shocked many: Only 9% of women said they preferred to work for a woman, while three times that number, 28%, preferred a male boss. The majority of respondents had no preference. One woman explained, “Men are generally more decisive, quicker, and focused in their decisions. Women approach work with more emotion than men.”

A similar survey by Harper’s Bazaar queried 500 English professional women working in finance, media, and healthcare. A majority – 60% — of these high-status women stated their preference for male bosses. Seven out of 10 admitted they would be delighted to see a female colleague fail, and 86% said they would flirt with a male co-worker if it would boost their job prospects.

Maybe the Sisterhood isn’t all it’s been made out to be.

When men of an earlier era engaged in such unabashed buffoonery, they were derided as chauvinist Neanderthals. So thank goodness we have Carol Smith’s screwball humor to relieve the workday tedium for the rest of us.

One such shelter is Harbor House, located in Orlando. Before delving into the findings of the probe, I’ll excerpt the message I received last year from a distraught Caucasian woman whom I’ll call Mrs. R:

“I went to a shelter in Orlando, Fl. Orange County called Harbor House back in 1990…There were women there who were there to get welfare benefits only. One woman stole quite a bit of cash from me.”

One day Mrs. R noticed the husband of a shelter resident cruising the street in front of the facility. She then recounted the following:

“I told her [the man’s wife] we have to go in and alert the others for lock down. Next thing I know, all of the black residents were plotting against me…They accused me of being a snitch….None of the counselors were on premises at night. After she [the wife] was moved away, one very big woman threatened to kill me.”

Not surprisingly, Mrs. R fled the shelter and returned to her abusive relationship.

So how is Harbor House faring these days? Not much better, according to the recent Inspector General report.

One afternoon a two-year-old boy in the shelter was left without adult supervision. During that time the child reportedly jumped off a counter, injuring his head. By law, a staff member is required to immediately report the incident to the Florida Abuse Hotline.

But when the staffer told her supervisor she planned to file a report, she was summoned to the office of director Carol Wick, who instructed the worker that Ms. Wick was the CEO and “the only person allowed to call the Hotline.” Fearing for her job, the employee remained silent about the incident.

The IG Investigation 2008-0106 dated July 14, 2009 somberly concludes, “Chief Executive Officer Carol Wick failed to make a mandatory child abuse report to the Florida Abuse Hotline and prohibited a staff member from making a mandatory child abuse report.”

The second IG report probed a shelter known as Another Way, located in the sleepy northern Florida town of Lake City. A year ago I published an exposé documenting so many tribulations at this facility that its motto should read, “Another Way: Any Way but Our Way.” www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/080728 .

Of grave concern, I reported a sexual assault that had taken place on shelter premises:

“On June 5, 2008, a four-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a nine-year-old female at the shelter while the two were left unattended… The incident took place around 9:30 on Saturday evening. But the assault wasn’t reported to the police until noon the following day.” www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/080722

Thanks the courageous efforts of a (now former) shelter employee, a complaint was lodged with the Office of the Inspector General. Bearing an eerie resemblance to the Harbor House incident, the Another Way case also involved ill-supervised children, failure to promptly report child abuse, and attempts to dissuade others from doing so.

In this case, when the girl’s mother learned of the assault, she demanded that the incident be reported to the abuse hotline and to local police. But the shelter advocate discouraged her from this course of action, warning the mother that state investigators would come in and ruin her life, and instructed her to instead “go to bed.”

The name of the shelter employee is Gloria Taylor. Ms. Taylor had been previously convicted for a series of violent crimes, including improper exhibition of a dangerous weapon and two counts of written threats to kill or injure. These charges landed Taylor in prison for 32 months: www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/081009 .

The IG report also looked into allegations of financial misconduct, concluding Another Way managers had repeatedly squandered shelter assets. Executive director Donna Fagan had used the shelter vans for personal use and allowed long-distance phone calls from her son for non-work-related purposes.

The complete report can be seen in the IG Investigation 2008-0074 dated July 17, 2009.

In both investigations, the problem was traced to the highest management levels. In a sane world, both Carol Wick and Donna Fagan would now be out on the street looking for a job, shamed by the memory that they failed to meet their fiduciary duties to shelter residents, staff, and taxpayers.

But to this day both Wick and Fagan remain on the payroll, drawing handsome salaries of $75,000 and $95,000 respectively. In Florida, being a shelter director means never having to say you’re sorry.

This employment gap prompted University of Michigan economist Mark Perry to dub the downturn a “man-cession in the lipstick economy.”

So in his Inauguration speech, Barack Obama glowingly promised, “We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.”

Within days, the newly-installed president unveiled his stimulus proposal, vowing it would create millions of “shovel-ready” jobs. And on February 17, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

That would get men back on the job and ready to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, persons assumed. And if you visit the government’s ARRA website — www.recovery.gov – you’ll see upbeat pictures of hard-hatted carpenters, energy-efficient courthouses, and gleaming hospitals.

But following passage of ARRA, unemployment continued to rise and the gender gap worsened. By May of this year, 10.5% of men, compared to eight percent of women, filled the ranks of the unemployed. That’s the worst gender gap reported since 1948.

So where did the $787 billion economic stimulus package go wrong?

Part of the problem is the crass influence of pay-back politics. According to a July 8 USA Today report, counties that supported Obama in the November election received $69 per person, compared to $34 per capita in counties that voted Republican.

Another reason is the hefty outlay of stimulus money to state governments at the expense of local groups. “You don’t fertilize a tree from the top down,” quipped Democratic senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. “Too much of this is going to the top.”

But far worse is the fact that the Obama Administration sold out to the feminists. Christina Hoff Sommers’ recent exposé, “No Country for Burly Men,” offers a stunning account of the legislative transmogrification: www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/659dkrod.asp

As soon as Obama released his stimulus proposal, the National Organization for Women and other feminist groups swung into action. They knew the head of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, Lawrence Summers, would be a push-over following the putsch at Harvard University.

So following a flurry of closed-door meetings, emails, petitions, and op-ed columns that derided Obama’s “Macho Stimulus Plan,” the White House staff set out to revamp the proposal. They released a report assuring that 42% of all jobs would go for females, openly admitting the new approach “skews job creation somewhat towards women.”

When the final bill was signed into law, the feminists were ecstatic. NOW president Kim Gandy exulted how the law contained many of the “very specific proposals that we had made” with price tags carrying “numbers that started with a ‘B’ (as in billion).” And $325 million was allocated for family-busting domestic violence programs.

Less than four months later the Associated Press would report, “Most of the roughly $300 billion coming directly to the states is being funneled through existing government programs for health care, education, unemployment benefits, food stamps and other social services.” In Georgia, two-thirds of the state government’s stimulus money would pay social programs. In Mississippi, only 13% of the stimulus money is projected to go for road construction, according to the AP.

“We talked about ‘shovel-ready’ since September and assumed it was a whole lot of paving and building when, in fact, that’s not the case,” complained Chris Whatley of the Council of State Governments.

The irony is the male vote was a decisive factor in Obama’s improbable quest to reach the White House. During the primary campaign, the white male vote propelled Obama to victory in 10 out of 17 states: www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/080624 . And last Nov. 4, males again played a crucial role, with 49% of men casting their vote for Obama, compared to 48% siding with McCain.

Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly believes the goal of the reverse discrimination that lards Obama’s stimulus plan is to “make men, husbands, and fathers irrelevant as family providers.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 7.5 million American males are now listed on the unemployment rolls. That’s a lot of irrelevant men.

On July 4 the former NFL star was killed by girlfriend Sahel Kazemi. McNair was shot as he lay asleep on his couch, first in the left temple, twice in the chest, and finally in his right temple.

So why are the news media stubbornly refusing to put the words “Steve McNair” and “domestic violence” in the same sentence? And where are all the hand-wringers who reflexively shriek we need to break the shroud of silence that surrounds partner abuse?

On July 2 a distraught Kazemi met an acquaintance in the parking lot of the restaurant where she worked. For $100, the 20-year-old woman found herself the new owner of a fully-loaded 9mm semiautomatic pistol.

The following day Kazemi told a co-worker, “my life is a ball of ****, and I should just end it.” Leaving the restaurant, the Iranian-American went home, then drove over to McNair’s downtown apartment in the Cadillac Escalade the former NFL quarterback had given her. McNair was not home, so she awaited his arrival.

McNair returned to his apartment between 1:30 and 2am. We do not know what words the two exchanged, or what time he eventually fell asleep. When the police arrived at the scene of the crime, there was no evidence that McNair had raised his hands to ward off the shots, confirming the theory that he was asleep at the time.

So what did the media do with the story?

A July 6 article in the New York Times conjectured the incident may have been a “double homicide or part of a murder-suicide.” But no mention of domestic violence.

A July 8 story from ESPN relied on artful phrasing to sidestep the dreaded “DV” words. Police “waited for further tests and the revelations about Kazemi’s personal problems before concluding that she pulled the trigger,” ESPN explained.

Excuse me, but what do revelations about someone’s personal life have to do with figuring out whether she pulled the trigger?

By the following day, the rehabilitation of Ms. Kazemi had shifted into high gear. An article in the Washington Post was crafted to evoke the reader’s sympathy, informing us she was “increasingly tormented by a rush of personal problems” and “her life was falling apart.”

So while the Washington Post article took pains to highlight Kazemi’s emotional turmoil, it glossed over how well Steve McNair was coping with the injuries that sidelined him during most of his previous season with the Baltimore Ravens, and how he was coming to terms with his recent retirement following 13 years in the harsh glare of the National Football League.

Domestic violence workers will insist until they’re blue in the face that domestic violence is the consequence of patriarchal oppression. As such, women are constitutionally indisposed to resort to such nefarious actions, they claim.

So when women deep-six their boyfriends and husbands, their apologists turn to the thread-bare excuse that she was only acting in self-defense. But in this case the self-defense ploy doesn’t fit. Kazemi had bought the gun two days before, she pursued her prey to his apartment, and he was aslumber when she squeezed the trigger.

If the self-defense argument doesn’t fly, then go to Plan B — the “he had it coming” excuse. While I certainly don’t condone infidelity, there are lots of women I know who have strayed from the straight and narrow. Somehow I don’t remember anyone insulting their memory with a “she had it coming” comment.

McNair threw for 174 touchdowns and more than 31,000 yards. His extraordinary skill and exuberant passion for the sport inspired a generation. So let’s take a collective deep breath and utter these mournful words: “Former NFL star Steve McNair was a victim of domestic violence, killed at the hand of a spiteful girlfriend.”

When Pizzey wrote a book revealing this sordid truth, she encountered a firestorm of protest. “Abusive telephone calls to my home, death threats, and bomb scares, became a way of living for me and for my family. Finally, the bomb squad asked me to have all my mail delivered to their head quarters,” she would later reveal.

According a recent report, the domestic violence industry continues to engage in information control tactics, spewing a dizzying series of half-truths, white lies, and outright prevarications. The report, “Fifty Domestic Violence Myths,” is published by RADAR, Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting: http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-50-DV-Myths.pdf

How often have you heard the mantra-like claim, “domestic violence is all about power and control”? That’s code for the feminist dogma that domestic violence is rooted in men’s insatiable need to dominate and oppress the women in their lives.

And the obvious solution to partner abuse? Eliminate the patriarchy!

I know it all sounds far-fetched, but that’s what the gender ideologues who get their funding from the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) believe. And no surprise these programs have been an abject failure. As Dr. Angela Parmley of the Department of Justice once admitted, “We have no evidence to date that VAWA has led to a decrease in the overall levels of violence against women.”

Once you blame the whole problem of partner abuse on patriarchal dominance, the women who proudly call themselves the “VAWA Mafia” find themselves compelled to dress up the fable with a series of corollary myths.

Here are some examples: When a woman attacks her boyfriend, claim she was only acting in self-defense. Shrug off her assault with the “He had it coming” line. Aver her short stature prevents her from ever hurting her man. Or assert she grew up in an abusive household, as if that somehow lets her off the hook.

Above all, the ideologues will never admit that partner violence is more common among lesbians than heterosexual couples. Just consider the case of Jessica Kalish, the 56-year-old Florida woman who was stabbed 222 times last October with a Phillips screwdriver wielded by ex-girlfriend Carol Anne Burger. But no one dared call it “domestic violence.”

Once you begin to play tricks with the truth, you need to invent ever grander prevarications. So sit back and get ready for a good chuckle, because there’s not a shred of truth to any of these claims regularly put forth by the domestic abuse industry:

1. A marriage license is a hitting license. (Truth is, an intact marriage is the safest place for men and women alike.)

2. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women. (The leading causes of female injury are unintentional falls, motor vehicle accidents, and over-exertion. Domestic violence is not even on the list.)

3. The March of Dimes reports that battering is the leading cause of birth defects. (The March of Dimes has never done such a study.)

4. Women never make false allegations of domestic violence. (That’s the biggest whopper of all.)

5. Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for violence against women. (Will the abuse industry never tire of its demagoguery?)

These are just five of the 50 domestic violence myths documented in the RADAR report. As former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once deadpanned, “You’re entitled to your own opinions; you’re not entitled to your own facts.” Hopefully the $4 billion partner abuse industry will begin to pay attention.

On this count, there is reason for worry.

Sotomayor herself has admitted, “Writing remains a challenge for me even today…I am not a natural writer.” Reporter Stephanie Mencimer has characterized Sotomayor’s legal opinions as “good punishment for law students who show up late for class.”

A cursory pass of Sotomayor’s writings reveals them to be clumsy to the point of being impenetrable. This comes from her “wise Latina” speech: “I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation.”

So exactly what does “start your own evaluation” mean?

And this ringing – but ungrammatical — declamation: “Other simply do not care.” Maybe it’s acceptable to drop the final ‘s’ in Spanish, but not in English.

Then there’s the time Sotomayor referred to a chirping insect as “Jimmy the Cricket” – with no apologies to “Jiminy Cricket.” That malapropism triggered a summer reading assignment for the future Supreme Court nominee to immerse herself in a round of children’s classics.

When it comes to Spanish grammar, Sotomayor doesn’t have a clue. In a 1996 speech she uttered this blooper, “in Spanish we do not have adjectives. A noun is described with a preposition.”

There is in fact a good Spanish adjective for such an off-key statement: “absurdo.”

(For the compulsive linguists in the room, Sotomayor’s name comes from a combination of the words soto (“thicket”) and mayor (“greater”). Mayor is the adjective that modifies the noun soto. So Sotomayor means “greater thicket.”)

Most telling is a person’s ability to think analytically and reason logically, as revealed in a jurist’s ability to write well. Here again, Sotomayor’s nomination raises eyebrows.

Ms. Sotomayor has asserted her Latino heritage makes her a better, “wiser” judge. So see if you can follow this obtuse legal argument:

“For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork….My Latina identity also includes, because of my particularly adventurous taste buds, morcilla, — pig intestines — patitas de cerdo con garbanzo – pigs’ feet with beans, and la lengua y orejas de cuchifrito, pigs’ tongue and ears.”

So let’s get the word out to our nation’s jurists, Consuming swine guts makes you a more discerning and compassionate judge!

And when Sotomayor was asked to defend her membership in the all-female Belizean Grove, she rendered this risible verdict: “to the best of my knowledge, a man has never been asked to be considered for membership.”

In a 1986 interview on Good Morning America, Sotomayor railed against the sex discrimination she allegedly had encountered. Want proof? “And if you’re a male that grew up professionally in a male-dominated profession, then your image of what a good lawyer is a male image.”

That’s right, discrimination has nothing to do with the actions you may commit, it’s clinging to a politically-incorrect “male image.”

The real problem, of course, has nothing to do with one’s image of being a good lawyer. The concern is the extent to which the affirmative action mindset has permeated our society, watering down standards and discriminating against more qualified applicants. “I am a product of affirmative action,” Sonia Sotomayor boasted in a 1994 interview. “I am the perfect affirmative action baby.”

During her now-famous address at the University of California School of Law, Judge Sotomayor concluded in her rambling, nearly incoherent prose:

“There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We, I mean all of us in this room, must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making.”

If the Senate confirms Sonia Sotomayor next month, it will be only a matter of time until such sentiments begin to make their way into the legal opinions handed down from the High Court.

These slightly irreverent images came to mind as I surveyed the advertisements for Father’s Day this year.

Go to Amazon.com, for example, where you’ll see a creative listing of gifts for Workaholic Dads. The featured item? An iRobot 560 Roomba vacuuming robot. Act now – it’s available in black and silver!

What if housecleaning is not on this weekend’s honey-do list? Then get him the Birmingham Executive 60-inch executive desk and a Boss B8601 Executive Leather chair. What better reminder for him to go into the office Sunday and catch up on that pile of tedious paperwork!

For Chef Dad, a cheery assortment of grills, cookware, and barbeque aprons greets us. For the hard-to-please father, how about the Chris & Chris Chef Kitchen work station? He’d love that, I’m sure.

Here’s my personal favorite: the Eastman Outdoors Reveo MariVac food tumbler. The speed and timing controls will please the most demanding of fathers. And it’s only $199 bucks. (Kids, I hope you’re paying attention!)

Then there’s the usual array of carpentry gifts and gadgets. About.com exhorts us to “Give a woodworking gift to your dad this Father’s Day.” Bar clamps, jigsaws, router kits, miter saws — or best of all, a band saw. Proudly plying his battery-interchangeable tools, just think of all the odd jobs that dad can knock out this weekend!

And then the greeting cards that send the none-too-subtle message: “Dad we love you, as long as you work, work, work!”

One Hallmark card depicts a dad stomping the daylights out of a gargantuan spider. The card recounts, “Fatherhood can be an icky job, But somebody’s got to do it!” (Consider the counterpart card for Mother’s Day: A picture of a frazzled woman sweeping a floor with the caption, “Motherhood can be yucky work, But somebody’s got to do it!”)

And for those dads who think Father’s Day is about copping a little R and R, consider this greeting card message: “Take it easy, let the lawn go, and don’t repair a thing! Just lie back on the couch and watch TV till you fall asleep!…You know, just treat it like any other Sunday afternoon!”

How’s that for laying a guilt-trip on dad for his Special Day?

While we’re on the topic of Father’s Day, I do have a serious request: Please, no more neckties. My closet is brimming with a cacophony of appreciative neckware. Subdued, outrageous, plaid, checkered, wide, or narrow — you name it, I’ve got it.

And really, how many dudes come home from a long day at work, eagerly looking forward to slipping into a comfy necktie?