Sorry, Charlie Hebdo

At the Wall Street Journal, "Western writers abandon their support for free speech":

Je suis Charlie. French for “I am Charlie,” the phrase became a global expression of solidarity and resolve after Islamist gunmen murdered 12 people at the Paris offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

In a terrifying copycat attack Sunday in Garland, Texas, two men with assault rifles attempted to gun down people attending an event satirizing Muhammad with cartoons. A single police officer managed to shoot and kill both gunmen before they got inside the event. With some 200 people in the building, the potential for another politicized mass murder was great.

On Monday authorities said one of the gunman, Elton Simpson of Phoenix, had been under surveillance for years because of interest he’d shown in joining jihadist groups overseas. He was found guilty of making false statements to the FBI, but a federal judge ruled there wasn’t enough evidence that Mr. Simpson’s activities were “sufficiently ‘related’ to international terrorism.”

Against this backdrop we have the extraordinary—almost comical—irony of some of America’s bien pensant intellectuals boycotting a ceremony Tuesday by the PEN American Center to confer its annual courage award for freedom of expression on Charlie Hebdo. PEN is an association of writers, and six prominent novelists—Peter Carey,Michael Ondaatje,Francine Prose,Teju Cole,Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi—have been trying to repeal the award for Charlie Hebdo.

Ms. Kusher said she was uncomfortable with the “forced secular view” and “cultural intolerance” represented by Charlie Hebdo, whose signature attacks were on organized religion. Before the boycott, Mr. Cole wrote in the New Yorker magazine questioning the praise for Charlie Hebdo in the wake of the massacre. He lamented that the concern for Charlie Hebdo’s murdered cartoonists won’t be matched by concern for the young men of military age “who will have been killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere.”

A separate petition signed by more than 200 PEN members complains that their organization is “not simply conveying support for freedom of expression, but also valorizing selectively offensive material: material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world.”

Trumpeting the list of petition signers was no less than Glenn Greenwald, last seen lionizing Edward Snowden’s right to go public with information stolen from the National Security Agency’s efforts to track the people who committed the Paris murders and tried to do it again in Texas this week.

Much of what Charlie Hebdo published was insulting and not infrequently obscene. No doubt that was true at the event in Texas. We would not routinely publish it in this newspaper. But insults are protected under the First Amendment. The terrorists who attacked cartoonists in Paris and in Texas hoped that murder would intimidate them—and others—into silence. As such theirs was not merely an attack on a publication; it was an attack on the foundations of liberal democracy.

All this PEN award does is underscore that in a civilized—indeed “tolerant”—society, you don’t get to murder people who insult or offend you. It is a principle that should be easy for everyone—especially acclaimed writers—to understand.

Of note: WSJ did publish images of the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons after the Paris attacks, unlike so many other craven Western news outlets.

RELATED: At the Other McCain, "TERROR IN TEXAS: Garland Gunman Elton Simpson Was Muslim Convert."

Obama's Haphazard Foreign Policy Makes the World More Dangerous

From Peggy Noonan, at WSJ, "America’s Strategy Deficit":

Something is going on here.

On Tuesday retired Gen. James Mattis, former head of U.S. Central Command (2010-13) told the Senate Armed Services Committee of his unhappiness at the current conduct of U.S. foreign policy. He said the U.S. is not “adapting to changed circumstances” in the Mideast and must “come out now from our reactive crouch.” Washington needs a “refreshed national strategy”; the White House needs to stop being consumed by specific, daily occurrences that leave it “reacting” to events as if they were isolated and unconnected. He suggested deep bumbling: “Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates” and declaring “certain capabilities” off the table is no way to operate.

Sitting beside him was Gen. Jack Keane, also a respected retired four-star, and a former Army vice chief of staff, who said al Qaeda has “grown fourfold in the last five years” and is “beginning to dominate multiple countries.” He called radical Islam “the major security challenge of our generation” and said we are failing to meet it.

The same day the generals testified, Kimberly Dozier of the Daily Beast reported that Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a retired director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, had told a Washington conference: “You cannot defeat an enemy you do not admit exists.” The audience of military and intelligence professionals applauded. Officials, he continued, are “paralyzed” by the complexity of the problems connected to militant Islam, and so do little, reasoning that “passivity is less likely to provoke our enemies.”

These statements come on the heels of the criticisms from President Obama’s own former secretaries of defense. Robert Gates, in “Duty,” published in January 2014, wrote of a White House-centric foreign policy developed by aides and staffers who are too green or too merely political. One day in a meeting the thought occurred that Mr. Obama “doesn’t trust” the military, “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his.” That’s pretty damning. Leon Panetta , in his 2014 memoir, “Worthy Fights,” said Mr. Obama ”avoids the battle, complains, and misses opportunities.”

No one thinks this administration is the A Team when it comes to foreign affairs, but this is unprecedented push-back from top military and intelligence players. They are fed up, they’re less afraid, they’re retired, and they’re speaking out. We are going to be seeing more of this kind of criticism, not less...

More.

Santa Barbara News-Press Won't Back Down on 'Illegals'

Good.

At LAT, "Amid outcry, News-Press is adamant on provocative term for immigrants":

A few decades ago, it wasn't unusual for American newspapers to refer to people living in the United States without legal permission as "illegal aliens," or even "illegals."

Those terms were criticized as offensive and eventually gave way to "illegal immigrant," a label that itself was jettisoned by most outlets two years ago, when the Associated Press banned the term from its stylebook in favor of language that more precisely describes a person's immigration status.

That approach — adopted by The Times in 2013 — seemed to have taken root and defused the criticism in most places. But the local newspaper's decision to call such immigrants "illegals" has turned idyllic Santa Barbara into an unlikely flashpoint in the nation's immigration battles.

The News-Press ran the headline "Illegals Line Up for Driver's Licenses" on Jan. 3, prompting protests and a message painted in red on the wall of the newspaper's offices. The paper used the term again last Friday in another front page story: "Driving Legal Opens Door to Illegals' Past."

News-Press officials have stuck by their choice of language, saying that describing someone living in the country illegally as an "illegal" is accurate, and compared the vandalism on their offices to the deadly attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

"We will not give in to the thugs who are attempting to use political correctness as a tool of censorship and a weapon to shut down this newspaper," News-Press co-publisher Arthur von Wiesenberger wrote on the website of the Minuteman Project, which opposes illegal immigration.

But community groups have denounced the newspaper, calling for an advertising boycott.

"They have a racist perspective and they don't seem very apologetic about it," said Savanah Maya, a Santa Barbara City College student and member of People Organizing for the Defense and Equal Rights of Santa Barbara Youth.

The dispute erupted anew Monday, when protesters for and against the newspaper staged dueling rallies in a downtown plaza.

Using the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as a backdrop for their positions framed as human rights and freedom of speech issues, one side argued that the headline was racist and the other argued that it was an accurate description of immigrants applying for driver's licenses without having to prove citizenship. The licenses became available under a state law that took effect Jan. 1.

The two sides had limited interaction during the peaceful rallies, which attracted several hundred people. Police put up a temporary fence to separate the groups.

"I respect their right to free speech," said City Councilwoman Cathy Murillo, who attended the pro-immigrant rally, "but they don't have to be hateful. It's like the 'N-word' for blacks."

The rally in support of the News-Press was staged by We the People Rising, a Claremont-based group that favors tough enforcement of laws against illegal immigration.

"They should be allowed to decide the type of language they want to use," said Robin Hvidston, executive director of We the People Rising. "They have a right to use that word. Where do you stop?"

The News-Press, which began in 1855, has experienced diminished goodwill in the community since 2006, when reporters and editors began departing en masse, citing editorial meddling from billionaire owner and publisher Wendy McCaw.

Don Katich, director of news operations for the News-Press, said Monday that the newspaper has used the word "illegals" for a decade to describe immigrants in the United States without permission, and does not plan on changing its policy despite criticism or financial pressure.

He said that the federal government uses the word online and on official documents, and that a vast majority of people agree that it's an appropriate term.

"It accurately describes the 800-pound gorilla in this whole story," Katich said. "People are in this country illegally.… I think that's why this has tapped a national nerve."...

More.

Video here: "Santa Barbara News-Press Protested by Open Border Extremists."

BONUS: At Michelle Malkin's, "Attack of the Open-Borders Mau-Mau-ers":

News-Press publisher Wendy McCaw told me this week that the free speech-stifling thugs “have threatened to return on January 19 to deliver a petition and stage another protest against us if we do not offer a retraction by 3 p.m. that day.” McCaw vows she will not bend to the ultimatum or any other — and she has a track record to prove her toughness.

McCaw has defied the progressive forces of political correctness for years in previous First Amendment battles over whom she should hire and how she should run her newspaper. Radical elements in her community and industry have long held a grudge against her and her paper for resisting union pressure and refusing to conform to left-wing orthodoxy.
And boy, do these people know how to hold grudges.

In addition to the paint bombs, unhinged mau-mau-ers spray-painted a radical Reconquista slogan on the News-Press building: “The border is illegal, not the people who cross it.”

Yes, they’re still trying to re-fight the Mexican-American War of 1848 and re-litigate the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. No surprise. Santa Barbara has been a longstanding hotbed of tribal grievance politics. In the late 1960s, liberal Latinos at the University of California at Santa Barbara unveiled El Plan de Aztlan, which states:

“We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent. Brotherhood unites us, and love for our brothers makes us a people whose time has come and who struggles against the foreigner ‘gabacho’ who exploits our riches and destroys our culture. With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture.”

The Aztlan plan birthed Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) — an identity politics indoctrination machine on publicly subsidized college and high school campuses nationwide whose members have rioted in Los Angeles and editorialized that federal immigration “pigs should be killed, every single one” in San Diego.

As I’ve reported previously, the MEChA Constitution calls on members to “promote Chicanismo within the community, politicizing our Raza (race) with an emphasis on indigenous consciousness to continue the struggle for the self-determination of the Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlan.” “Aztlan” is the group’s term for the vast southwestern U.S. expanse, from parts of Washington and Oregon down to California and Arizona and over to Texas, which MEChA claims to be a mythical homeland and seeks to reconquer for Mexico.

MEChA’s symbol is an eagle clutching a dynamite stick and a machete-like weapon in its claws; its motto is “Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.” Translation: For the Race, everything. For those outside the Race, nothing.”

Tell me who the racists are again.

PREVIOUSLY: "Leftist Open-Borders Vigilantes Attack Santa-Barbara News-Press for Accurately Identifying Illegal Aliens."

MSNBC Morons Hilariously Censor Images of #CharlieHebdo Muhammad Cartoons

"Hey, we're a progressive network! We can't go around offending tender Muslim sensibilities. Besides, we could get killed!" --- MSNBC talking heads.

Icons of liberty over there. Truly courageous.

At NewsBusters, "MSNBC's Maddow Shows ‘Piss Christ’ But Not Latest ‘Charlie Hebdo’":

On MSNBC Tuesday night Rachel Maddow described the cover of the latest edition of Charlie Hebdo because, "NBC News will not allow us to show it to you." A different perspective than Maddow and MSNBC had in 2011 when showing the image of the “Piss Christ” photo by Andres Serrano.

"The cover is a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed shedding a tear beneath the words ‘all is forgiven’ he’s also holding a sign that says 'Je suis Charlie'", Maddow said on her program. "The reason I’m describing it to you rather than showing it to you – is because we operate under NBC News rules and NBC News will not allow us to show it to you."

On April 18, 2011 Maddow and her network had no difficulty showing and discussing the “Piss Christ” photo by Andres Serrano after it was destroyed in a museum in France by protestors upset with the image of a crucifix submerged in urine...

Because consistency and integrity, or something. Fucking morons.

More at Jihad Watch, "MSNBC blurs Charlie Hebdo cover during interview with contributor":

This represents a capitulation to the jihadists who murdered twelve people in the Charlie Hebdo offices. They committed mass murder in order to “avenge” Muhammad. They didn’t want people drawing Muhammad. They wanted the West to comply with Sharia blasphemy restrictions. And MSNBC, along with most others in the mainstream media, appears happy to accommodate them...

Say it ain't so, Joe!

After #ParisAttacks, Obama to Enlist 'Social Service Providers' to Fight Terrorism

Because at base, it's a law enforcement and social welfare issue --- and that's not a joke!

My god we're doomed.

At the Washington Examiner, "After attacks in France, White House enlists 'social service providers' to fight terrorism":

On Sunday the White House announced that President Obama will convene a "Summit on Countering Violent Extremism" on Feb. 18. By "violent extremism," the White House means the Charlie Hebdo and kosher grocery attacks carried out in Paris last week by Islamic jihadists.

The White House has long made a point of leaving the word "Islamic" out of discussions of Islamic terrorism, choosing instead to refer to it as "violent extremism." For example, an April 2010 New York Times article on White House efforts to reach out to Muslims noted that top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan and others "have made a point of disassociating Islam from terrorism in public comments, using the phrase 'violent extremism' in place of words like 'jihad' and 'Islamic terrorism.'" A May 2010 Times article noted that "Mr. Obama avoids the word 'Islamic' in his discussions of 'violent extremism."

So the upcoming White House summit, spurred by radical Islamist attacks, will be devoted to countering a mysteriously-motivated "violent extremism." The summit will emphasize the soft side of the problem, seeking social scientists and other professionals to address the root causes of what administration officials refer to as a "really negative" ideology.

"Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) efforts rely heavily on well-informed and resilient local communities," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in the announcement Sunday. "Boston, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-St. Paul have taken the lead in building pilot frameworks integrating a range of social service providers, including education administrators, mental health professionals, and religious leaders, with law enforcement agencies to address violent extremism as part of the broader mandate of community safety and crime prevention. The summit will highlight best practices and emerging efforts from these communities."

Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed the "root causes" orientation of the summit during an interview with CBS Sunday. "The president has announced that on February the 18th, we will host a summit in Washington, DC," Holder said, "so that we can come up with a way in which we can deal with the root causes of this. Countering violent extremism is what we call it, that we can deal with the new causes of what it is that attracts these young men to these really negative ideological groups."

Yes, let's really nail it down to "root causes," which is of course everything but radical Islam.

French Jews to Consider Immigrating to Israel After #ParisAttacks

As much as I love Claire Berlinski and her bravery, and think the trend among commentators is for the Jews "to get the hell out of France," to quote Paula Stern.

With Israel, Jews have a true home literally dedicated to their people's survival. I think Pamela Geller nailed it with her piece the other day, "The Death of the Jews of France."

The New York Times wrote yesterday on the Jews in France "weighing" an exit to Israel. And now here comes the Los Angeles Times, "Jews worry about their future in France after attack on kosher market":

A pair of soldiers toting submachine guns patrolled Tuesday outside a Jewish school on Rue Pavee in Paris' Marais district, where shoppers and tourists mingled with black-clad, ultra-Orthodox men.

Across the street, the owner of the Pitzman falafel shop eyed customers warily under gray skies and an occasional chilly drizzle in the city's traditional Jewish quarter.

At the school day's end, parents sidestepped the beret-wearing French soldiers in body armor and combat boots to pick up their children in the midst of the bustling neighborhood.

"I don't know if there will be a future for my children here in 10 years," said Joy Bengoussan, a mother of four, holding hands with two daughters, Haya, 4, and Rahal, 3, expressing a sentiment on the minds of many other Jewish people. "This didn't just start now. It has been going on for a while."

Last week's Islamist terrorist attacks included the killing of four people at a kosher market Friday, the latest blow for France's reeling Jewish community, Europe's largest at about 500,000 people. Thousands of Jewish people have left France for Israel or other destinations in recent years, many citing economic reasons and unease related to anti-Semitism.

The attack at the market, which ended with authorities killing the gunman, came two days after a dozen people were slain in an assault by two brothers on the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine targeted for lampooning Islam. The militants were at large until Friday, when they were killed by authorities. A policewoman was also killed in an attack last week.

In response to the violence, the government said 10,000 troops and additional police would be ordered to the streets of Paris to guard "sensitive" sites, including more than 700 Jewish schools. Jewish residents in the city and elsewhere generally welcomed the bolstered security presence.

But many in the Jewish community remained angry about what they see as a lapse in protecting the nation against homegrown militants mostly arising from the alienated immigrant enclaves on the fringes of Paris and elsewhere in France. A demonstration Sunday that featured more than 1 million people marching in a show of unity did little to quell some people's discontent.

"I respect the values of liberty. I am French. But the government needs to do something about this or everything will be lost," said one Jewish student, who, like many others, declined to give his name for privacy reasons. The march against terrorism "was a positive thing," he said.

The market attack victims were laid to rest Tuesday in Jerusalem, where Israeli authorities called on French Jews to return to their "historic home."

Many are taking the advice.

France has become the major country of origin for Jews returning to Israel, and the numbers are on the rise. A record of almost 7,000 immigrants from France arrived in Israel last year, according to the Israeli government, double the previous year. The figure is expected to exceed 10,000 in 2015. Experts say that a perception of growing anti-Semitism in France only partially explains the flight, which is also related to economic, personal and other reasons that may prompt French Jews to emigrate.

Some government officials are alarmed...

Yeah, "alarmed," blah blah.

Still more at the link.

Leftist Open-Borders Vigilantes Attack Santa-Barbara News-Press for Accurately Identifying Illegal Aliens

Radical open-borders thugs have laid siege to the Santa Barbara News-Press, after the newspaper ran a completely accurate report headlined, "Illegals Line Up for Drivers Licenses."

That's it. But in this age of manufactured "micro-aggression" perpetual outrage, publishing the truth on the front page of the daily news is likely to bring down the the left's fascist thought police, to say nothing of graffiti vandals and violent anarcho-communists. Unfortunately, the French jihadist attack on Charlie Hebdo has given the left a successful template on how to shut down speech and exterminate political enemies.

At NewsBusters, "Santa Barbara Newspaper Building Vandalized for 'Worst Ever' Headline on 'Illegals'."

And see KEYT-TV Santa Barbara, "Protestors Rally Against Santa Barbara News-Press: Paper Defends Use of "Illegals" in Front Page Story on Undocumented Immigrants":

Thursday afternoon, News-Press Director of News Operations Don Katich released this statement:

"It has been the practice for nearly 10 years at the Santa Barbara News-Press to describe people living in this country illegally as “illegals” regardless of their country of origin. This practice is under fire by some immigration groups who believe that this term is demeaning and does not accurately reflect the status of “undocumented immigrants,” one of several terms other media use to describe people in the Unites States illegally.

You have to look no further than the White House website to see the term “illegal” used when describing the 2 million illegal immigrants President Obama has deported since taking office for being in the U.S. illegally.

It is an appropriate term in describing someone as “illegal” if they are in this country illegally.

The colossal mess that describes the U.S. immigration policy is a product of unenforced laws, conflicting legislation, unsecured borders, executive action and political pandering. However the most egregious aspect of the U.S. immigration condition is the appearance of lawlessness that subjects millions of people living in this country illegally as pawns in a never-ending game of political posturing.

The outrage voiced by immigration advocates should be directed at the current immigration system that takes years of bureaucratic red tape to complete. This outrage is shared by those who go through the process legally and stand at the end of the line of those who skirt U.S. law.

Ours is a system of laws, a system so valued that people from around the world – including many from lawless nations – flock here to be a part of it. The United States of America affords those seeking it a lawful immigration process; it also affords the politically persecuted a haven from persecution. With this freedom comes responsibility. As history has shown, some choose to wait out the process, while others choose to come here on their own terms. The latter are illegal in the eyes of this valued system and the Santa Barbara News-Press calls them so.

When breaking the law becomes the norm, America is no better than other lawless nations."

Remember, truth is the new hate speech. And leftists will enforce their ideological prohibitions against truth with violence and destruction.

#ParisAttacks: Death of the Jews of France

From Pamela Geller, at Breitbart, "THE DEATH OF THE JEWS OF FRANCE":

In the wake of the slaughter of four Jews in a Paris kosher supermarket by an Islamic jihadist, a Parisian Jew said: “In the past year, 7,000 Jews have already left France and after this there will be many thousands more. We are not safe in France any more. There is no future for Jews here in France. We are finished in France.”

Europe loves to memorialize dead Jews, even to the point of fetishizing them – it’s live ones that they cannot tolerate. The idea that French President Francois Hollande did not want Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at a memorial march for Jews who were slaughtered in exactly the same way as Jews were in 2012 in Toulouse —where he said they were murdered because they were Jews, and even more importantly, in the same way as the Germans murdered Jews — speaks volumes. Inviting the head of a terror movement,

Mahmoud Abbas, because Netanyahu was coming, was depraved. With Muslims now accounting for 10% of France’s population, Jew-hatred is at a fever pitch...

RTWT.

Patton Oswalt's Deleted Tweets

My god this is absolutely hilarious.

Via AoSHQ, "The Year in Outrage."

Gonna leave Twitter for a bit. Deleted my last Tweet. Just because "Don Sterling" rhymes with "Gone curling" doesn't make it funny.

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) May 7, 2014

What Drives Leftist Ideological Hatred?

From Spengler, at Pajamas, "Why Liberals Really, Really Hate Us":

They really, really hate us. George Orwell wrote a morning “Two Minutes Hate” session into the daily life of his dystopia in 1984. One blogger notes that 2,000 of Rachel Maddow’s facebook fans wished that Ted Cruz would fall into an open elevator shaft. What would he have made of the hyperventilating hatred that liberals display against conservatives? Over at National Review, Katherine Timpf reports on a hate manifesto published by the chair of University of Michigan’s Department of Communications. Republicans “crafted a political identity that rests on a complete repudiation of the idea that the opposing party and its followers have any legitimacy at all.” wrote Prof. Susan Douglas. “So now we hate them back,” she explains. “And with good reason.”

In fact, they have their reasons to hate us. They are being silly. We know they are being silly, and they know we know, and they can’t stand it. It isn’t quite how we repudiate the idea that the opposing party has any legitimacy at all. But we can’t stop giggling.

“Reductio ad absurdum” does not begin to characterize the utter silliness of liberals, whose governing dogma holds that everyone has a right to invent their own identity. God is dead and everything is permitted, Zarathustra warned; he should have added that everything is silly. When we abhor tradition, we become ridiculous, because we lack the qualifications to replace what generation upon generation of our ancestors built on a belief in revelation and centuries of trial and error. Conservatives know better. G.K. Chesterton said it well: “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”

The antics of the “small and arrogant oligarchy” that controls the temples of liberal orthodoxy have turned into comic material that Monty Python couldn’t have dreamed up a generation ago. There are now dozens of prospective genders, at least according to the gender studies departments at elite universities. What do the feminists of Wellesley College do, for example, when its women become men? The problem is that no-one quite knows what they have become, as a recent New York Times Magazine feature complained:

Some two dozen other matriculating students at Wellesley don’t identify as women. Of those, a half-dozen or so were trans men, people born female who identified as men, some of whom had begun taking testosterone to change their bodies. The rest said they were transgender or genderqueer, rejecting the idea of gender entirely or identifying somewhere between female and male; many, like Timothy, called themselves transmasculine.

Use the wrong terminology and you’re burned for a bigot. There used to be jokes such as: “How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, and it’s not funny.” You can’t tell that sort of joke about  Wellesley because the LGBTs never will agree on the lightbulb’s gender. There are rare cases of babies born with ambiguous genitalia, to be sure. There also are a few individuals obsessed from early childhood with the idea that they were born in the wrong body. They have difficult lives and deserve sympathy (but not public mandates for sex-change operations). Gender ambiguity in its morphological infinitude as a field of personal self-development, though, has become the laboratory for cutting-edge liberal thinking, the ultimate expression of self-invention. LGTB Studies (or “Queer Studies”) departments have or soon will be established at most of America’s top universities, classifying, advocating and defending an ever-expanding number of newly-categorized gender identities...

Yep. It's out of control.

Funny, too, how I just blogged about the transgender movement taking over women's colleges --- because if you don't capitulate you're a hater!

BONUS: "Marquette Suspends Professor John McAdams for Exposing Leftist Totalitarian Faculty."

Marquette Suspends Professor John McAdams for Exposing Leftist Totalitarian Faculty

This is just wow.

Professor McAdams is a political scientist and the publisher of the Marquette Warrior blog.

At Truth Revolt, "Marquette Suspends Conservative Professor for Exposing Totalitarian Leftist Faculty."

This part's the killer:

Once McAdam's blog post went viral, [Teaching Assistant Cheryl] Abbate and several professors signed a petition to have McAdams disciplined for his public dissent. Shortly thereafter, McAdams received the following letter of suspension from Marquette Dean Richard Holz...

Here's the offending blog post: "Marquette Philosophy Instructor: 'Gay Rights' Can't Be Discussed in Class Since Any Disagreement Would Offend Gay Students." And see, "Reprisal: Marquette Warrior Under 'Investigation' by University."

More: From Inside Higher Ed, "Ethics Lesson."

Added: At Instapundit, "HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Professor Suspended for Blogging."

How to Finally Kill #ObamaCare

A great piece from Randy Barnett, at USA Today.

This is some freakin' serious stuff.

The Lies That Are Central to Obama's Agenda

From Kyle Smith, at the New York Post:

What’s important about [Jonathan] Gruber’s words is that they highlight the fact that ObamaCare isn’t just “controversial” or “divisive” or “hotly debated.” It is fraudulent. Being based on lies, it is illegitimate.

Word.

But RTWT (via Memeorandum and RCP).

Jonathan Gruber's 'Stupid' Budget Tricks

The totalitarian progs are all, "Nothing to see here. Move along!"

But see WSJ, "His ObamaCare candor shows how Congress routinely cons taxpayers":

#GruberGate basically: a) Exposed Obama as a liar b) Gave the supreme court the underpinnings to gut #Obamacare in the spring.

— RockPrincess (@Rockprincess818) November 16, 2014

As a rule, Americans don’t like to be called “stupid,” as Jonathan Gruber is discovering. Whatever his academic contempt for voters, the ObamaCare architect and Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his candor about the corruption of the federal budget process.

In his now-infamous talk at the University of Pennsylvania last year, Professor Gruber argued that the Affordable Care Act “would not have passed” had Democrats been honest about the income-redistribution policies embedded in its insurance regulations. But the more instructive moment is his admission that “this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.”

Mr. Gruber means the Congressional Budget Office, the institution responsible for putting “scores” or official price tags on legislation. He’s right that to pass ObamaCare Democrats perpetrated the rawest, most cynical abuse of the CBO since its creation in 1974.

In another clip from Mr. Gruber’s seemingly infinite video library, he discusses how he and Democrats wrote the law to game the CBO’s fiscal conventions and achieve goals that would otherwise be “politically impossible.” In still another, he explains that these ruses are “a sad statement about budget politics in the U.S., but there you have it.”

Yes you do. Such admissions aren’t revelations, since the truth has long been obvious to anyone curious enough to look. We and other critics wrote about ObamaCare’s budget gimmicks during the debate, and Rep. Paul Ryan exposed them at the 2010 “health summit.” President Obama changed the subject.

But rarely are liberal intellectuals as full frontal as Mr. Gruber about the accounting fraud ingrained in ObamaCare. Also notable are his do-what-you-gotta-do apologetics: “I’d rather have this law than not,” he says.

Recall five years ago. The White House wanted to pretend that the open-ended new entitlement would spend less than $1 trillion over 10 years and reduce the deficit too. Congress requires the budget gnomes to score bills as written, no matter how unrealistic the assumption or fake the promise. Democrats with the help of Mr. Gruber carefully designed the bill to exploit this built-in gullibility.

So they used a decade of taxes to fund merely six years of insurance subsidies. They made-believe that Medicare payments to hospitals will some day fall below Medicaid rates. A since-repealed program for long-term care front-loaded taxes but back-loaded spending, meant to gradually go broke by design. Remember the spectacle of Democrats waiting for the white smoke to come up from CBO and deliver the holy scripture verdict?

On the tape, Mr. Gruber also identifies a special liberal manipulation: CBO’s policy reversal to not count the individual mandate to buy insurance as an explicit component of the federal budget. In 1994, then CBO chief Robert Reischauer reasonably determined that if the government forces people to buy a product by law, then those transactions no longer belong to the private economy but to the U.S. balance sheet. The CBO’s face-melting cost estimate helped to kill HillaryCare.

The CBO director responsible for this switcheroo that moved much of ObamaCare’s real spending off the books was Peter Orszag, who went on to become Mr. Obama’s budget director. Mr. Orszag nonetheless assailed CBO during the debate for not giving him enough credit for the law’s phantom “savings.”

Then again, Mr. Gruber told a Holy Cross audience in 2010 that although ObamaCare “is 90% health insurance coverage and 10% about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control. How it’s going to lower the cost of health care, that’s all they talk about. Why? Because that’s what people want to hear about because a majority of Americans care about health-care costs.”

More.

And see Gateway Pundit, "BOOM! Gruber White House Meeting Included CBO Director, Robert Gibbs, Axelrod and Barack Obama."

BONUS: "#ObamaCare Architect Exposes Progressive Totalitarianism — And Repsac's Too!"

#ObamaCare Architect Exposes Progressive Totalitarianism — And Repsac's Too!

But hey, "Gruber Shmuber," right?

All the leftist lies, deceit, and tyrannical corruption are fine and dandy, as long as it provides a few victims of "capitalist oppression" access to ObamaCare!

Newly Insured Through Exchanges Give Coverage Good Marks http://t.co/tMazy4D6zs / Gruber Shmuber. THIS is what matters.

— Walter James Casper (@repsac3) November 14, 2014

Well, maybe not.

See Bruce Thornton, at FrontPage Magazine:

Professor Jonathan Gruber of MIT, who designed the Affordable Care Act, used to be the symbol of the Democrats’ technocratic bona fides, and an example of how big government with its “scientific” experts can solve social and economic problems from health care to a warming planet. Yet a recently publicized video of remarks he made at a panel in 2013, along with 2 other videos in the same vein, has now made him the poster child of the elitist progressives’ contempt for the American people, and their sacrifice of prudence and reason to raw political power.

In the video Gruber explains the spin and lies the Dems used to give cover to their Congressmen so they could vote for Obamacare. Especially important was avoiding the “t-word.” So, Gruber crows on the video, “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” He also explained how the bills’ writers covered up the obvious redistributionist core of the legislation, which to work has to take money from the healthy young to pay for health care for the sick and old. “If you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in — you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”

Then this handsomely paid consultant to the “most transparent administration in history” revealed the foundational contempt progressives have for the “people” whose champions they claim to be: “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.” As David Horowitz tweeted, “Progressive totalitarianism: We know what’s good for you and will lie, cheat and then compel you to agree with us.”

This modern version of the Platonic “guardians,” who possess superior knowledge but who must camouflage their tyrannical rule with lies, is now over 100 years old, and has become deeply embedded in our politics. It was the fundamental assumption of American Progressivism, which argued that modern technology and social change had rendered the old constitutional order a dangerous relic....

The politics of today’s progressives all have their roots in the old Progressive assumptions––that enlightened elites know better than the people what is good for them, and that the people, being such unenlightened clods, need to be manipulated and lied to for their own good. Most important, the freedom and autonomy of the people must be limited by intrusive federal agencies and regulations in order for these utopian goals to be achieved.

Or to put it in other terms, this set of progressive beliefs––which we have seen acted on for the last six years by the president and practically every government agency––is totalitarian at its core. Not the brutal despotism of Italian fascism or Soviet communism or German Nazism, but Tocqueville’s “soft despotism,” the kinder, gentler Leviathan which undermines self-reliance and self-government by taking responsibility for the people’s comfort and happiness, and financing its largess by the redistribution of property. But no matter how comfortable in the short-term, such a condition is nothing other than servitude. And as Tocqueville warns, “No one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a subservient people.”

Repsac's a fascist asshole, so it's easy to see why he's all "Gruber Shmuber" at this outlandish revelation of the massive Obama-Democrat lies, hypocrisy, and jack-boot authoritarianism. It's what he's all about.

End of Combat Operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Fortunately, the U.S. isn't going for the full cut-and-run from Afghanistan. The U.S. has negotiated a status-of-forces agreement that will leave at least 9,800 troops in Afghanistan after 2015.

Meanwhile, at the New York Times, "U.S. and British Troops End Operations in Key Afghan Province."

From Comedy to Farce

From Victor Davis Hanson, at Pajamas Media:

It was tragically comical that the commander in chief in just a few weeks could go from referring to ISIS as “jayvee” and a manageable problem to declaring it an existential threat, in the same manner he upgraded the Free Syrian Army from amateurs and a fantasy to our ground linchpin in the new air war. All that tragic comedy was a continuance of his previous untruths, such as the assurance that existing health plans and doctors would not change under the Affordable Care Act or that there was not a smidgeon of corruption at the IRS.

But lately the Obama confusion has descended into the territory not of tragedy or even tragic comedy, but rather of outright farce...

Keep reading.

Richard Engel: #ISIS Hasn't Been Degraded at All

Of course not. Random pinpricks won't do jack.

Obama's national security policy continues to inspire no confidence whatsoever.



PREVIOUSLY: "Obama's Desultory Bombing Mission Won't Defeat #ISIS."

Obama's Desultory Bombing Mission Won't Defeat #ISIS

From Frederick Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, at the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. strategy against Islamic State is too much air, not enough boots":

Air operations in Iraq and Syria have not stopped the advance of Islamic State. Despite the bombing, the Al Qaeda splinter group has launched a series of offensives in Iraq, gaining new ground in Anbar Province, and it has continued its offensive in Syria.

The desultory bombing mission — far too limited to merit being called an air campaign — has no chance of enabling local allies to eliminate Islamic State sanctuaries. It may not even be enough to keep Islamic State, also known as ISIS, from expanding. After 50 days of obvious failure, it's time to consider an approach that might work: Get American special forces on the ground with the Sunni Arabs themselves. The only other alternative is to resign ourselves to living with an Al Qaeda state and army.

Islamic State seized the Iraqi city of Mosul on June 10 with a multipronged assault supported by military vehicles. The offensive continued over days, destroying two Iraqi army divisions and driving on Baghdad.

The Iranian military responded at once — reports indicate that Quds Force Commander Qassem Suleimani was in Baghdad with advisors on June 12. Iranian advisors and proxies began flowing into Iraq immediately. The U.S. took no action until Aug. 8, nearly two months later, dropping a small number of bombs aimed at opening a corridor to allow besieged Yazidis to escape from certain death on Mt. Sinjar.

The U.S. has hit about 334 mostly tactical targets in both Syria and Iraq in the intervening 50-odd days. To put that number in perspective, the 76-day air campaign that toppled the Taliban in 2001 dropped 17,500 munitions on Afghanistan. Those bombs directly aided the advance of thousands of Afghan fighters supported by U.S. special operators capable both of advising them and of identifying and designating targets to hit. There are no U.S. special operators on the ground in Iraq or Syria, no pre-planned or prepared advance of Iraqi security forces, and no allies on the ground in Syria. This is not an air campaign.

Islamic State is an adaptable, smart enemy, and its fighters are dispersed through population centers, with an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 of them controlling an area the size of Maryland. Hitting a series of fixed targets such as bases and destroying small concentrations of vehicles will not defeat it. Rather, enabling the air campaign to do meaningful damage to the Islamic State army requires putting some U.S. troops into the Sunni Arab areas that Islamic State now holds. Special forces serving as forward air controllers can direct airstrikes to meaningful targets that are not observable by satellite and overflight...

Keep reading.

Remember, the Kagans have advocated for a ground deployment of at least 25,000 troops. See, "A Strategy to Defeat the Islamic State."

'There is no level of depravity to which they will not sink...'

British Prime Minister David Cameron, referring to Islamic State, not the Democrat Party.