The Center for American Progress' Israel-Bashers

An awesome piece, from Alana Goodman, at the New York Post, "The White House’s Israel-bashing pals":

Last December, a top anti-Semitism watchdog group accused the Center for American Progress, a prominent Washington think tank, of peddling anti-Israel and borderline anti-Semitic material on its Web site and Twitter feeds. Six days later, President Obama met for coffee with the man who oversaw the offending content — Faiz Shakir, the site’s editor-in-chief.

That the president met with Shakir amid the ballooning scandal illustrates just how close the administration is with CAP. Now that association may come back to haunt the White House, as three leading Jewish groups — the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Simon Wiesenthal Center — have accused CAP and its staff of publishing “anti-Israel,” “hateful” and “toxic anti-Jewish” material.

The Jewish organizations’ ire is directed even more strongly at Media Matters for America — another influential, activist liberal Washington group. But CAP’s failings are more significant, because it has been a revolving door to the administration.

CAP founder John Podesta piloted Obama’s 2008 presidential transition team and now holds a State Department advisory role; founding board member Carol Browner served as Obama’s energy czar. CAP Action Fund President Jennifer Palmieri just joined the White House as deputy communications director.

And Shakir has had multiple meetings with White House officials, including one last August with the National Security Council’s Quintan Wiktorowicz.

Making these close ties to the administration especially troubling is CAP’s intensely anti-Israel slant.

Speaking with the Jerusalem Post recently about CAP and Media Matters, the American Jewish Committee’s Jason Isaacson said, “Think tanks are entitled to their political viewpoints — but they’re not free to slander with impunity . . . References to Israeli ‘apartheid’ or ‘Israel-firsters’ are so false and hateful they reveal an ugly bias no serious policy center can countenance.”

The Wiesenthal Center found the writers “are guilty of dangerous political libels resonating with historic and toxic anti-Jewish prejudices.” The ADL noted: “Most of their blogs come from a perspective of blaming Israel for the lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian affairs and minimizing or rationalizing the Iranian threat.”

The controversy reached a new height over the use of the term “Israel firster.” The phrase, popularized in White Power newsletters in the 1970s and ’80s, accuses American supporters of Israel of being more loyal to the Jewish state than to their own country. Later adopted by fringe pro-Palestinian groups, the slur has since become common on extremist white supremacist and anti-Israel Web forums.

Then it surfaced in writings put out by Media Matters and CAP. “Waiting 4 hack pro-Dem blogger to use this [link] 2 sho Obama is still beloved by Israel-firsters and getting lots of their $$” wrote Zaid Jilani, a reporter for CAP’s site, on Twitter last July.

At Media Matters, Senior Fellow MJ Rosenberg openly delights in using the term. “Cool. A major journalist, who I won’t name, gives me credit for making term ‘Israel Firster’ acceptable. I wish. But I’ll do my best,” he wrote on Twitter.

While Rosenberg continues to use the term, the uproar prompted CAP’s Jilani to apologize, saying he hadn’t realized the connotations. CAP’s blog avowed, “We don’t endorse the term ‘Israel firsters’ or demonize the Jewish state on ThinkProgress. Further, there is no anti-Semitic or anti-Israel ‘hate speech’ written anywhere on this blog.”

But American Jewish groups disagreed. The ADL pointed to a CAP article that suggested the Israel lobby had pushed America into war with Iraq. In another, its Middle East Progress director, Matt Duss, called “the entire Israeli occupation” of Gaza “a moral abomination” like the Jim Crow South.

The AJC noted the odious “Israeli apartheid” references, such as a Jilani tweet: “So DC ‘liberals’ are going to spend a lot of time defending Obama against the charge that he’s not supportive enough of Israeli apartheid.”

CAP hasn’t distanced itself from these comments or even acknowledged that they’re anti-Israel. If it deems them acceptable public comment, one wonders what the internal dialogue is like at the think tank — and among the alumni who have gone on to the Obama administration.

The radical left hates Israel. It's no surprise that such anti-Semitism reaches right up to the top advisers to the White House.

PREVIOUSLY: "Hate-Blogger Walter James Casper III and Progressive Evil: Denial of Israel-Hatred Enables Exterminationist Anti-Semitism."

Republicans Do Have a Plan. That's What Scares Democrats

From David Harsanyi, at the Federalist:

In which I unload both barrels at the Trump & Republican "plan" to replace Obamacare. Here's why: people will die. https://t.co/dqvh6zemd7 pic.twitter.com/fvuMomuxxH

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) January 5, 2017

"This is a life & death issue..people will die if the #ACA is dismantled" -- CA @RepSpeier to @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/mKCzZiaTPz

— Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) January 7, 2017

At SF press conference, CA @RepSpeier vows to "fight w all our might" against GOP and Trump efforts to repeal #ACA

— Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) January 7, 2017

"We seem to forget how the insurance companies would manipulate the system to deny coverage- and that all ended w the #ACA" -- @RepSpeier

— Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) January 7, 2017

"#MakeAmericaSickAgain is what the PEOTUS and the GOP Congress intend to do" -- @RepBarbaraLee pic.twitter.com/KgyO1SIRIC

— Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) January 7, 2017

Dem Leader @NancyPelosi in SF says #ACA fight is "about respecting the dignity" of Americans -- and saving money pic.twitter.com/KOejE5rNet

— Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) January 7, 2017

.@NancyPelosi to GOP: "Do they want to go from affordable care to chaos? We just won't let them do that. We just won't let them do that."

— Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) January 7, 2017

So #MakeAmericaSickAgain is the slogan Democrats cooked up to oppose Republican health-care reform efforts. That’s because, as you may recall, before 2010 America’s streets were strewn with the bodies of the neglected and dead.

Since Democrats are focusing their campaign on the myth that Obamacare is working for most Americans, it’s imperative they create the impression no viable alternative exists. After all, it’s been nearly a week since the new congressional session started, and Republicans still haven’t produced a comprehensive plan to replace a massive federal health-care law.

The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof leaves a blank paragraph in his column to illustrate what a Republican “plan” to replace Obamacare will look like, before indulging in the customary “people will die!” scaremongering. (Kristof’s newspaper, by the way, featured a piece headlined “Republicans’ 4-step plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act” the same day his column ran.)

Now, if by “plan,” Kristof is using the contemporary Left’s definition, meaning a expensive, constricting federal regulatory scheme that forces Americans to participate through a series of mandates, then one hopes Republicans never have a “plan.” If the word “plan” still means “a proposal for doing or achieving something,” the GOP have many.

Although there may not be space in either of Kristof’s truth barrels to mention this proposal put forward by the speaker of the House, or the numerous other conservative plans that have been floated, they do exist even if he doesn’t approve. Figuring out a way to turn them into legislation that can pass both houses and meet the approval of a new populist president (who, by the way, isn’t even in office yet) will probably take more than a couple of weeks.

You can have plans. And they can change. I know this because Democrats had many big plans in 2008 but they did not have a finished bill ready to go on day one. This, even though they’d been talking, campaigning, and promising to reform the health-care system for decades. When running for president, Barack Obama (supposedly) opposed the idea of an individual mandate — the device on which Obamacare’s rickety viability hinges — yet it was only later part of the plan. While he was changing his mind, the Senate Finance Committee held 31 meetings to develop Obamacare specifics.

Democrats also had to drop the “public” option and rejigger their abortion coverage to make the bill politically palatable for the moderates in their own party — not the GOP. Even after this the Democrats, who passed the basic structure of Obamacare without having to worry about any Republican opposition, were only later forced to use reconciliation to make it acceptable for the House.

Perhaps Republicans are embracing a newfound competence by avoiding those political pitfalls. Perhaps they’re looking for consensus on timelines and specifics that will make it more feasible. Most likely, it’s going to be messy again. It’s not unprecedented.

Of course politicians grapple with the reality of power. Democrats have grappled with the failure of their policy promises for six years. Krugman, like everyone else perpetuating the myth that there are no replacement plans, act as if coverage can only exist through fake state-run exchanges or welfare.

Don’t worry, though; today’s “they have no plan!” is tomorrow’s “that plan is extremist!”

It is worth reiterating that the replacement plan doesn’t have to be conceptually or functionally similar to Obamacare, no matter how often the Paul Krugmans of the world demand it. The comprehensiveness and rigidity of Obamacare are things to avoid. So replacement plans can be passed piecemeal...

More.

Rocky Mountains Planned Parenthood CEO Says No Reason to Believe Colorado Springs Would Be Targeted (VIDEO)

Definitely a sad day in Colorado, and for the nation.

At the New York Times, "During Planned Parenthood Shooting, Fear and Chaos at Shopping Center."

Leftists were off the bat faster than a Mike Trout long ball, politicizing the shooting to advance the far-left extremist agenda.

See Leon Wolf, at Red State, "Planned Parenthood Shooter Finally Convinces Leftists that Beliefs Matter." And at Gateway Pundit, via Memeorandum, "COURT RECORDS: Colorado Planned Parenthood Shooter NOT Republican, Identifies as Woman."

Sounds like a leftist, heh.

More at CNN, "Rocky Mountains CEO Vicki Cowens says she has no reason to believe that their Colorado Springs facility would be targeted by a gunman":

Ron DeSantis: The New Champion of Trumpism (VIDEO)

From Batya, at UnHerd, "The Florida Governor has found a winning formula":

Democrats were expected to suffer a crushing red wave in Tuesday’s midterm elections, but it never materialised. Despite polls and pundits predicting massive Republican gains, the results have been tepid at best, with control of the Senate leaning Democratic and the House teetering toward a slim Republican majority.

Many are breathing a sigh of relief, casting Trump’s election night losses as a sign that his influence over the party is waning. Indeed, candidates endorsed by former President Donald Trump fared especially poorly, with many routed by Democratic opponents in what were seen as winnable races.

But the real lesson of the 2022 midterm elections is slightly different: Trump might be over, but Trumpism had a great night. Trump the man is simply no longer the conduit of his own legacy.

The clearest sign of the health of Trumpism without Trump was the biggest blowout of the night: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s victory over Democratic challenger Charlie Crist. The Democrats and their allies in the media have done their best to cast DeSantis as a hate-mongering authoritarian, yet he won in a landslide against Crist, a notorious flip-flopper who infamously told a reporter that he did not want the votes of DeSantis supporters. DeSantis netted what may turn out to be a 15-point victory over Crist, and a 20-point lead over his own numbers from just four years ago. It was something DeSantis made a point of noting in his acceptance speech:

It’s clearly apparent that this election we will have garnered a significant number of votes from people who may not have voted for me four years ago, and I just want to let you know I am honoured to have earned your trust and your support over these four years. - RON DeSANTIS

How did he do it? Despite what the Democrats want us to believe, DeSantis is no Right-wing extremist; he cruised to victory thanks to a record of ruling over Florida for the past four years as a populist appealing to the middle and working class irrespective of their party affiliation. DeSantis has figured out something that’s lost on most politicians, that there are a lot of Americans who are culturally conservative and fiscally protectionist in both parties whom no one is speaking to. These voters are united on issues like Covid-19 lockdowns, sexualised messaging in early childhood education, and immigration, and on each of these issues, DeSantis took a big swing that signalled his willingness to represent this forgotten constituency and give them a voice.

In other words, he took Trump’s central insight, that the white working class has been abandoned by an elitist, Leftist cultural hegemony that looks down on working Americans, and he expanded it to include working-class Hispanics and working-class liberals...

 

Lieberman: "Forever is a Long Time"

Joseph Lieberman appears on the verge of servering ties with the Democratic Party, according to USA Today:

Eight years after being nominated for vice president at an exuberant Democratic convention, Joe Lieberman describes himself as so estranged from the party over the Iraq war and national security policy that he is committed to siding with Senate Democrats only "for now" as he campaigns for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

In an interview in his Capitol Hill office, the Connecticut senator tapped by Al Gore as a running mate in 2000 says he hopes to persuade disaffected supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton to back McCain. He's prepared to deliver a speech on his friend's behalf at the GOP convention in September.

Will he also attend the Democratic convention in August? "That could be dangerous," he says with a rueful laugh.

Elected to a fourth term in 2006 running as an independent, Lieberman has given Democrats majority control in the closely divided Senate by caucusing with them. Democrats kept him in his post atop the Homeland Security Committee.

Still, he's "not comfortable with any political party," he says, voting at times with Republicans, at times with Democrats.

"For now, I've decided to stay and fight for the kind of security policy, foreign policy that I think the party stood for when I joined in the '60s," Lieberman says. Asked if he plans to be a Democrat "forever," he replies, "You know, forever is a long time."

I think Lieberman's well-established disillusion with the Democrats, and especially the party's antiwar base, is one of the most powerful indicators of how far out of the mainstream the Democrats have moved.

Recall, in March, Lieberman announced, on This Week with George Stepanopoulos, that the party had been hijacked by its extremist netroots fringe.

See also, "Lieberman Derangement Syndrome."

Question for Readers: Do you think Lieberman will have to retire from politics at the end of his current term, since on social policy he may not have a home in the GOP.

Obama Pushes Radical Gay Rights Agenda Internationally

Moonbattery has the bullseye headline: "Obama Using Foreign Aid to Advance Homosexual Depravity Throughout the World."

But see New York Times, "US to Use Foreign Aid to Promote Gay Rights Abroad."

And then check CNN, "Candidates quick to pan Obama foreign aid decision," and Reuters, "Conservatives bash Obama for gay rights stand." Also at ABC News, "Rick Perry Says Human Rights for Gays 'Not in America's Interests'."

And for the record, the United States can promote human rights without making a push for the radical homosexual agenda. People should be protected against threats to their dignity, period. The gay extremist agenda is a pet project of Western elites and won't do a damn for the billions of the world's poor living on less than $2 a day. What a disgrace.

'Climaquiddick'

From Transterrestrial Musings, "Nomenclature":

Some have noted, and I agree that it’s a misnomer to call this “ClimateGate.” In addition to the fact that simply adding “Gate” to a scandal is so late twentieth century, calling it a “Gate” would imply that it’s something that the media will go into a frenzy over, because it’s a scandal about something politically incorrect (e.g., Nixon). No, a better name for it (again, not original with me — I think it showed up in comments at one of the PJM pieces) is “Climaquiddick.” In other words, expect the media to try to whitewash and minimize it.

Check the post for numerous updates, with citations for the term's growing usage.

It's the whitewashing and minimizing that's really kind of sickening. So far I haven't seen much on the denialist-left that's been worth quibbling with (mostly just stupid stuff, really); but I can't say that about this whopper of a post at Open Left, "The Puke Funnel is Trying to Disrupt Copenhagen; the CRU Hack Story Continues."

Take a couple of minutes and read through that entry. Then you'll see why there's unlikely ever to be any real "bipartisan compromise" in our lifetimes. Melanie Phillips said it best, in "Green Totalitarianism," where she suggests:

Which is the more terrifying and devastating: if people are bent and deliberately try to deceive others, or if they are so much in thrall to an ideology that they genuinely have lost the power to think objectively and rationally?

That's the first thing that came to me when reading Open Left's unbelievable psychological projection. It's truly derangement - and remember, the folks involved in the CRU scandal aren't first year graduate students. I cited today Kevin Trenberth - the lead scientist at the U.N.'s IPCC - but to hear the crazed commie ghouls at Open Left, someone with Trenberth's unimpeachable credibility is blown off as "meritless."

It's truly totalitarian, that kind of leftist ideological rigidity; and that's why I get almost sick to the stomach, since I know dealing with these people will be a lifelong battle, fought for preserving a good, viable future for our children. I have to admit: It's actually kind of scary. Not only do we have a press that's in the tank for the progressive radicalism eminating from the Obamunist (remember John Holdren, the extremist at the White House, is in on the e-mail scandal), but the media elites are practically biological predetermined to nihilism. As Dr. Sanity notes, some "people, groups, and nations" are so committed to denial that their "entire sense of identity is dependent on a certain view of the world and they would rather die than relinquish that view."

Anyway, be sure to check Air Vent for lots more devastating (and scientifically rigorous) developments in "Climaquiddick":

Plus, see James Delingpole (still calling it "ClimateGate"):

AGW is about raising taxes; increasing state control; about a few canny hucksters who’ve leapt on the bandwagon fleecing us rotten with their taxpayer subsidised windfarms and their carbon-trading; about the sour, anti-capitalist impulses of sandal-wearing vegans and lapsed Communists who loathe the idea of freedom and a functioning market economy.

We know it’s all a crock and we’re not going to take it.

More at Memeorandum. Also, Iain Murray, "Climategate — or Climaquiddick?"

Hat Tip: Five Feet of Fury.

Glenn Greenwald Launches 'The Intercept' in Pathetic Diversion Against Impending Criminal Charges of Fencing Stolen Intelligence

I mentioned yesterday that Glenn Greenwald's a pathological liar. And what better way for a pathological liar to deflect the buring heat of justice bearing down than to accuse your accusers of being pathological liars?

And what better venue to denounce your accusers than the communist Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!, which is the most anti-American news outlet this side of MSNBC?



The occasion for Greenwald's cries and accusations is the launch of his much-touted, Pierre Omidyar-backed media venture, "The Intercept."

They've got three pieces up at the website, which launched today: "Welcome to The Intercept"; "New Photos of the NSA and Other Top Intelligence Agencies Revealed for First Time"; and "The NSA's Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program." (At Memeorandum.)

Both Greenwald and partner Jeremy Scahill stress the intense urgency of getting their Omidyar-backed media project off the ground as soon as possibly, purportedly in order to mount an aggressive push-back against what Greenwald calls the "criminalization of journalism."

The problem, of course, is that their program's in fact cyberterrorism disguised under the cloak of journalism, and is thus arguably shielded by the First Amendment protections afforded to those who speak out against U.S. power.

The next problem, obviously, is that Greenwald's patent panoply of lies is pathetically enabled by a virtually unified left-wing partisan press that has continued its work of tearing down the United States since at least 2003 and the Bush administration's enforcement of the 1991 U.N.-backed armistice against Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Recall that the entire mountain of lies surrounding Greenwald, his husband David Miranda, and the latter's intelligence-running to Berlin-based activist Laura Poitras, came crashing down under the withering and dogged reporting of blogger and columnist Louise Mensch. The facts are not in dispute. It's only Greenwald et al.'s disgusting and insipid spin that has worked to obscure the true scale of criminality here. Louise has the goods, at the Telegraph UK, "David Miranda detention: Why I believe the Guardian has smeared Britain's security services," and at Unfashionista, "David Miranda – Snowden’s Mule, and physical data," where she writes:

Look, boys and girls, you hold politicians to account, hold YOUR OWN to account too. No fear no favour – stop turning a blind eye and swallowing the spin so uncritically.

Ask yourselves this damned obvious question. If the data was copied everywhere and it didn’t matter, why is Rusbridger talking about “copies in New York and Rio”?

Why is David Miranda carrying it on encrypted thumb drives?

Why is David Miranda acting as a go-between at all?

Haven’t Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenberg and the Guardian heard of Dropbox? Or P2P filesharing sites? There are a million ways to store locked data in the cloud.

Let’s review:

He was returning to their home in Rio de Janeiro when he was stopped at Heathrow and officials confiscated electronics equipment, including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

This Guardian quote does not say “rolls of film… written notebooks” etc. It describes only electronic storage devices for data. They could have saved David Miranda “He is my partner, he is not a journalist” ‘s ticket price and expenses by, you know, storing all that in the cloud or shipping it via FedEx.

Glenn Greenwald to the New York Times:

Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden.

But Miranda and Poitras used a human mule (if indeed we believe him, I absolutely don’t, that he didn’t know what he was carrying).

Why?

Yes, I realise I’m asking journalists to ask hard questions about another journalist and they like to keep those for people outside their club. Thank goodness for blogging and Twitter – and the smashing of big media’s gatekeeping hold on information.

Ask yourselves if Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras, are actively assisting Edward Snowden in his treacherous dissemination of classified, incredibly sensitive US and UK intelligence? From where I’m sitting, it looks like an attempt to fight charges in advance – by claiming that they are journalists and everything they do is covered by the First Amendment. Hence the New York Times putting Poitras on the cover of its magazine supplement this week and Greenwald’s repeated lies about the role of his husband and the events and aftermath of the detention to British journalists, unchallenged anywhere in the UK press, until I started tweeting about it & wrote my last blog on the topic.

They hope that claiming a journalistic role will protect them when they are stealing, storing and disseminating classified intel about not just NSA snooping but America’s intelligence programmes against China, Russia and so forth. They are, in doing so, risking countless lives. So are the Guardian newspaper. As Malcom Rifkind said countering BBC bias yesterday on the Today programme, the Guardian had no right to store that stolen intelligence or to report even on GCHQ data collection (legal, not illegal, data collection). As he said, the Guardian’s angle was the GCHQ could legally penetrate comms in a deeper way than was known – and of course the Guardian let Al Qaeda and others know that, meaning that terrorists will start protecting their communications. Some terrorists are sophisticated – others, like many extremist Islamist cells, are not. The latter have been warned off by the Guardian from ways that UK spooks were tracking them.

Read it all at the link.

As Louise notes, "If Obama were Bush, the U.S. media would be all over" this --- from the failure to prevent Edward Snowden's treasonous pilfering of top-secret intelligence, to the criminal dissemination of vital data on all aspects of the U.S. national security regime, including most diabolically the release of confidential information identifying human assets in American and British governmental organizations, putting lives gravely at risk.

BONUS: There's some background on the launch from Lloyd Grove, at the Daily Beast, "Welcome to Glenn Greenwald, Inc.?"

Ho-Hum, Sally Ride Was Lesbian

I cracked open the hard-copy version of the Los Angeles Times this morning with my coffee. Sally Ride's obituary is front page news, "Sally Ride dies at 61; first American woman in space."

It's a straightforward obit, but getting to the end of the piece we have this:

Ride is survived by Tam O'Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years; her mother, Joyce; her sister, Karen, known as "Bear"; and a niece and nephew.

I thought, great, she's lesbian and decided to keep her personal life private while she pursued her career. She was married in 1982 but divorced five years later with no children. That would be 1987, and in fact, it's quite possible that she left her husband, astronaut Steven Alan Hawley, for a woman. Now that would have been news! She could have caused a sensation, struck a blow against the patriarchy! Women of the world unite! But no, she was at the pinnacle of her profession and decided to continue achieving. She could have come out as lesbian any time after that. Why not? Who knows? But it's not like there wasn't a massive homosexual rights campaign raging all those years. I think she just thought better of it, and went about pursuing her dreams without all the gay extremist showboating. Frankly, just being a woman in space was f-king pathbreaking. No doubt she thought busting through one glass ceiling was enough, at least in her case. Indeed, according to the Times, Ride saw the rights of women as the key civil rights struggle:

In 2001, she founded her own company, Sally Ride Science, to encourage women and especially young girls to become interested in science. She also wrote five children's books encouraging an interest in science.

So it turns out when I logged onto Memeorandum, I found the big headline from the sensationalist BuzzFeed, "First Female U.S. Astronaut, Sally Ride, Comes Out In Obituary." Looks like everyone else wanted Ride out of the closet except Ride.

And here's this at excitable Andrew Sullivan's page, "America's First Woman In Space Was a Lesbian":

Now talk about a buried lede! The only thing preventing the NYT from writing an honest obit is homophobia. They may not realize it; they may not mean it; but it is absolutely clear from the obit that Ride's sexual orientation was obviously central to her life. And her "partner" (ghastly word) and their relationship is recorded only perfunctorily. The NYT does not routinely only mention someone's spouse in the survivors section. When you have lived with someone for 27 years, some account of that relationship is surely central to that person's life. To excise it completely is an act of obliteration. I'm afraid the Beast's tribute is worse. Lynn Sherr manages to write an appreciation which essentially treats Ride as a heterosexual.

The horror!

Homophobia! It's homophobia!

Isn't it always?

Notice that the New York Times "buried the lede!" Imagine what that would been, "Rockin' Sally Ride, First Butch to Blast Into Space, Dies at 61."

And for more humorous pleasure, notice how Towleroad missed the part about Ride's lesbianism, and the readers go batsh*t crazy in the comments: "Towleroad jumps the shark - every hour, on the hour." And note Joe. My. God., "Sally Ride Outed In Obituary," which includes Twitter embeds bemoaning the awful, just awful situation where Ride's partner, Tam, would be "denied" federal survivor's benefits. That would be a monstrous inhumanity, except that according to the Sally Ride Science homepage:

Dr. Tam O'Shaughnessy is the COO and Executive Vice President of Sally Ride Science and a Professor Emerita of School Psychology at San Diego State University. Dr. O'Shaughnessy has been interested in science since she was a little girl.

Right. I'm sure Dr. O'Shaughnessy will live out the remainder of her life in crushing destitution, or at least that's what the idiot progressives would have you believe.

Frankly, Sally Ride is one more example of a great American, a great American who happened to be lesbian. She made a life for herself and her partner and thrived. I mean, what held her back? Nothing. But don't tell that to the hate-addled homosexual progressives currently attempting to dismantle decency and respect in this country.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Who's the Enemy in the War on Terror?

From Senator Joseph Lieberman, at WSJ:

The U.S. is at war with violent Islamist extremism, and the Obama administration does moderate Muslims no favor by refusing to recognize this.

In the new National Security Strategy released by the White House last month, the Obama administration rightly reaffirms that America remains a nation at war. Unfortunately, it refuses to identify our enemy in this war as what it is: violent Islamist extremism.

This is more than semantics. As military strategists since Sun Tzu have appreciated, the first rule in war is to know your enemy so you can defeat it. The 2006 National Security Strategy did this: It correctly identified our enemy as "the transnational terrorists [who] exploit the proud religion of Islam to serve a violent political vision." The Obama administration removed those accurate and important words.

One argument administration officials use to defend their avoidance of terms like "violent Islamist extremism" is that they are imprecise and lump together a diverse set of organizations with different goals, motivations, and capabilities. Yet the administration's preferred alternative term—"violent extremism"—is much more vulnerable to such criticism.

To state the obvious, there are many forms of "violent extremism" with which America is not "at war." The strategies and capabilities needed to counter the specific threat of violent Islamist extremism are very different from those needed to deal with white supremacist extremists in the U.S. or genocidal militias in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet at no point does the 2010 National Security Strategy explain or defend its repeated use of the nebulous euphemism "violent extremism," which also has appeared in other strategy documents over the last year ....

There is no question that violent Islamist extremists seek to provoke a "clash of civilizations," and that we must discredit this hateful lie. We must encourage and empower the non-violent Muslim majority to raise their voices to condemn the Islamist extremist ideology as a desecration of Islam, responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of innocent Muslims and people of other faiths. How can we expect those Muslims to have the courage to stand and do that if we are unwilling to define and describe the enemy as dramatically different from them? ....

The Obama-Salahi Connection: Why No Invite for White House Gatecrashers?

I'm honored that my work on the Salahis was picked up by Atlas Shrugs, Gateway Pundit, Hot Air, and World Net Daily (as well as many others to whom I've linked in earlier entries).

World Net Daily's piece develops the implications of Tareq Salahi's Palestinian ties in full, "White House 'Gatecrashers' Tied to Terror Sympathizer":

But Reliapundit at the Astute Bloggers has questions: For example, why would the Salahis sneak into a state dinner if they knew the president? The Secret Service confirmed, after the gatecrashers left the party unescorted, that the couple had not been officially invited. It's now known, of course, that Barack Obama met the Salahis as far back as 2005, and the couple claims to have been in "the Obamas' glass-enclosed viewing area after an inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial." So, there are a lot of unanswered questions.

The intense severity of the security breach is foremost, with scrutiny focusing on the breakdown at the Secret Service. As this morning's Washington Post indicates, "Security experts called the breach an indefensible breakdown that will almost certainly lead to changes within the Secret Service ..."

But after that we're left with Tareq Salahi's shadowy ties to radical Islamists and terror-enablers, especially Columbia University's Rashid Khalidi. Certainly these relationships aren't something that the mainstream press wants to discuss. As Debbie Schlussel noted yesterday, the New York Times, in previously published reports, removed reference to Tareq Salahi's membership at the American Task Force on Palestine, an Israel-bashing group now shown as having long relations with the terrorist organizations in the Middle East. See, "NY Times Scrubs Its Own Reporting on White House Party Crasher Tareq Salahi’s Board Membership in Pro-Palestinian Terror Group."

And Media Matters doesn't want to discuss Salahi's Palestian ties either; and in fact, the Soros-backed unit describes Jim Hoft's entry on the story as a "conspiracy." See, "Gateway Pundit Concocts Conspiracy Theory Involving WH Party Crashers, Rashid Khalidi, and Obama's 'Radicalism'."

The Salahis' reasons for crashing the event are being questioned as well, and the couple's now denying any profit-motivations for their actions. See Fox News, "White House Crashers' Rep Reportedly Says They Do Not Seek Cash for Interviews." (Although Anne Applebaum's piece this morning chaulks it up to the routine climbers' quest for "wealth and fame." See, "Social Climbing With a Twist: White House Gate-Crashers in a Long Tradition.")

So why, then? It's clear that the couple's forthcoming reality show gig was already clinched (a Bravo camera crew was trailing the Salahis at the entrance to the White House). Perhaps, given the Salahis' well-advertised earlier meetings with the Obamas, lacking an invitation, the couple felt entitled to be at the dinner anyway. And if that's so, the White House had to play dumb. After Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Barack's long association with the sleazy Chicago underworld of ACORN thugs and (alleged) secret homosexual lovers, the last thing the president needs is for an old Palestianian pal to demonstrate open entrée at a state dinner hosting the prime minister of India.

So, perhaps besides the egregious security breakdown (which amply illustrates gross administration incompetence; no White House social-functions personnel were stationed at the gates), it's mostly a White House in damage control issue at this point. Van Jones, Anita Dunn, Bertha Lewis ... the list goes on. Maybe there's a limit to the heat the president's willing to take on his outrageous ties to ideological extremists and Palestinian lobbyists.

Fresh Conservative takes a look at this angle, "Gate Crashers or Genial Guests?":

Over the years, Barack Obama has distanced himself from the circle of extremist associates like Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Yet, while the White House denies it was the notorious Ayers on the White House visitor’s list, the cofounder of Weather Underground’s name has mysteriously disappeared from the roster.

New questions arise: could Khalidi, supporter of Palestinian terror and former Palestine Liberation Organization worker, have an ideological association to zany power couple Tareq and Michaele Salahi, crashers of the State Dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh?

Coincidentally, it appears that one half of the reality TV Washington, DC couple that allegedly busted through the security detail at the White House is Tareq Salahi of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) Board of Directors. The American Task Force on Palestine is an inadvertent successor group of the American Committee on Jerusalem (1995-2003), to which Khalidi once served as President.

Tareq Salahi’s picture, which was still posted a week ago on the American Task Force on Palestine website, is currently deleted from the Board of Directors gallery. Yet, as cited by TPM Document Collectors, the audacious party boy remains on the Board of the American Task Force on Palestine’s website.

At the State Dinner, the Salahi’s were officially announced and took cozy photographs with the Vice President, Chief of Staff and Katie Couric. And if that weren’t stunning enough, it now appears, “President Obama met the couple…as they went through the receiving line.” The Secret Service is downplaying security threats posed by the couple, and the Salahi’s attorney Paul Gardner claims his, “clients were cleared, by the White House to be there.” If it is found out that Salahi was a valid guest, the question that deserves an answer is who granted the Khalidi-styled Director entry to the function? Specifically, because the Obama administration, on perpetual surveillance for threats posed from right-wing extremists, pro-life advocates, ex-military, and born again Christians are, together with the Secret Service, bizarrely downplaying security threats posed by the Salahi’s.

Supping around the First State Dinner table with cronies like Michaele and Tareq wouldn’t be a first for Obama, who admittedly dined on more than one occasion with the likes of Mona and Rashid Khalidi. Based on President Obama’s comfort level dining with PLO activists, its feasible that either he, or a close associate, extended the invitation to kindred Palestinian sympathizer Tareq Salahi and his wife.

Let’s review: Salahi is on the Board of Directors of the Palestinian Task Force, which has connections to the former American Committee on Jerusalem, who’s president was Rashid Khalidi. Obama is a friend and supporter of Khalidi. Then, out of nowhere the Salahi’s show up at the first White House State Dinner, and make it past high security barriers to the reception line, successfully gaining direct access to the President of the United States.

Could this be one big serendipitous twist of fate? Perhaps, but if Michaele and Tareq were indeed legitimate White House guests, such a revelation would be indicative of anti-Israeli sentiment deep within the recesses of the Obama administration, and would be more unsettling than two reality TV wannabes successfully crashing a White House party. If proven that the Salahi's are old friends of Obama, such startling news could be all that is needed to catapult the president into his own starring role in a reality show entitled, How to Dupe a Nation. The series could be a primetime special where a left wing, liberal, anti-America, Israel hating, radical socialist, swindles America into electing a barefaced impostor to the undeserved position of leader of the free world.

'Our Youngest Hostage'

This is so evil I can't believe it.

At Gateway Pundit, "Jihadists Post SHOCKING PHOTO of Their “Youngest Hostage” in Syria."

But the source Raymond Ibrahim has the links to Arabic-languages websites. So, there's that. Horrifying.



And in related news, "Advanced U.S. Weapons Flow to Syrian Rebels: Supplies of Anti-tank Missiles Will Test Whether Fighters Can Keep Arms Out of Extremist Hands."

Yeah, better be careful not to arm the "extremists." (Eyeroll.)

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Vows Revenge for Beheadings — #KenjiGoto

This is like, "Whoa!"

At the New York Times, "Departing From Country’s Pacifism, Japanese Premier Vows Revenge for Killings":

TOKYO — When Islamic State militants posted a video over the weekend showing the grisly killing of a Japanese journalist, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted with outrage, promising “to make the terrorists pay the price.”

Such vows of retribution may be common in the West when leaders face extremist violence, but they have been unheard of in confrontation-averse Japan — until now. The prime minister’s call for revenge after the killings of the journalist, Kenji Goto, and another hostage, Haruna Yukawa, raised eyebrows even in the military establishment, adding to a growing awareness here that the crisis could be a watershed for this long pacifist country.

“Japan has not seen this Western-style expression in its diplomacy before,” Akihisa Nagashima, a former vice minister of defense, wrote on Twitter. “Does he intend to give Japan the capability to back up his words?”

As the 12-day hostage crisis came to a grim conclusion with the killing of Mr. Goto, the world has suddenly begun to look like a much more dangerous place to a peaceful and prosperous nation that had long seen itself as immune to the sorts of violence faced by the United States and its Western allies...

More.

Professor Scott Lemieux: Lone Pro-Life Wacko More Threatening to Americans Than Phony, Unconstitutional Global War on Terror, or Something

Scott Lemieux's Spencer Ackerman moment.

No doubt this kinda stuff got Lemieux booted from Hunter College. He's now flailing away at The College of Saint Rose. Yeah, they've probably got some social justice types who like such filth. Shoot, Lemieux's far left-wing fanaticism might even look good for the tenure review committee.

Anyway, check Lawyers, Guns and Murder:

Backround at Reuters: "Wisconsin man charged with plan to attack abortion clinic." The suspect's a nut-job. But in the sick progressive mindset, someone like this is even more dangerous than the September 11 attackers or the likes of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad. See: "The troubled mind of a would-be abortion doctor assassin."

RELATED: Lemieux's got a piece on the Goodwin Liu filibuster fiasco, "Let My Judges Go!"

The piece is getting ripped in the comments:

Where the heck was your similar article when the Democrats deep-sixed a bunch of George W. Bush's nominees!? You Progressives are really something else. The one-sided reporting makes this article complete garbage.

And:

It is totally ridiculous to try to portray Liu as anything other than the radical left extremist that he has shown himself to be by his writings. Not to mention the fact that he has absolutely no judicial experience.

Perhaps Obama should consider nominating people who are not guaranteed to be activist judges who believe that they can interpret the Constitution any way they like.

Progressives only hate the filibuster when it messes up their side. Just ask George W. Bush appointees Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owens, etc. Democrat filibusters at the time were unprecedented. Lemieux is an America-hating hack. He's lucky to have landed a post with a bunch of liberation theologists, or whatever.

The Roots of Obama's Appeasement

From Victor Davis Hanson, at National Review:

Members of the Obama administration have insisted that the Taliban are not terrorists. Those responsible for the recent Paris killings are not radical Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular. Jihad is a “legitimate tenet of Islam.” And “violent extremism,” “workplace violence,” or “man-caused disaster” better describe radical Islamic terrorism. Domestic terrorism is just as likely caused by returning U.S. combat veterans, according to one report by a federal agency.

What is the point of such linguistic appeasement?

The word “appeasement” long ago became pejorative for giving in to bullies. One side was aggressive and undemocratic; the other consensual and eager to avoid trouble through supposedly reasonable concessions.

But appeasement usually weakened the democratic side and empowered the extremist one.

The architect of appeasement — for example, Neville Chamberlain, former prime minister of Great Britain — was predictably a narcissist. Chamberlain believed that his own powers of oratory, his insights into reason, and his undeniably superior morality would sway even a thug like Adolf Hitler.

President Obama currently is convinced that his singular charisma and rare insight into human nature will convince the Taliban to peacefully participate in Afghan politics. Obama will supposedly also win over the Iranian theocracy and show it how nonproliferation is really to everyone’s advantage.

“Reset” diplomacy with Putin was supposed to lessen tensions — if, after the 2012 election, Putin just had more exposure to a flexible statesman of Obama’s wisdom.

Throughout history, without the vanity of the conceder, there would never have been appeasement.

Appeasement also always subordinates the interests of vulnerable third parties to the appeaser’s own inflated sense of self. When Chamberlain and the French prime minister Edouard Daladier signed the 1938 Munich Pact, they worried little about the fate of millions of Czechs who lost their country — and less about millions of Poles who were next in line for Hitler’s Blitzkrieg.

Reset diplomacy with Russia in 2009 was not much concerned about the ensuing danger to Crimeans or Ukrainians. When the Taliban takes over, hundreds of thousands of reformist Afghans will die.

Obama sees a deal with Iran as a way to cement his legacy as a breakthrough statesman. In comparison, the long-term consequences of a nuclear Iran on the security of tiny Israel or on the stability of the largely Sunni Arab Middle East are future and more abstract concerns for others.

Even major concessions never satisfy aggressive powers. It is a traditional Western liberal delusion — brought on by our wealth, leisure, and the good life — that autocrats appreciate magnanimity rather than see it as timidity to be exploited further...

More.

The Pending November 'Shellacking' for Democrats

At the Los Angeles Times, "Democrats face a tough slog in midterm battle to keep Congress":

Democrats have long known history is not on their side in the 2022 midterm elections. But as they enter this campaign year, the steep climb to keep their majorities in Congress appears even more daunting with the COVID-19 pandemic stubbornly persistent and voters concerned over inflation and crime.

The unsettled national climate — if it holds in November — will likely favor Republicans, who need just five additional seats to take control of the U.S. House and only one more for a majority in the Senate.

The sitting president’s party almost always loses ground in midterm elections — doing so in all but two such contests since the end of World War II. And Democrats hoping to buck precedent have few easy fixes for the problems on voters’ minds or for President Biden’s underwater approval ratings.

“Sometimes you have a messaging problem, and other times you just have a problem. In this situation, [Democrats] just have the latter,” said Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist who ran communications for the GOP’s House campaign arm in 2018. “No slogan or single policy achievement can turn around a broader environment. There would have to be a seismic shift.”

Democratic campaign officials reject predictions of a gloomy November, saying they’re confident they’ll have a solid pitch for voters.

“Democrats are going to hold the House because we are delivering for the American people,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He pointed to millions of jobs created in the last year, as well as vaccine distribution and efforts to lower healthcare costs.

“Kevin McCarthy and his band of extremist House Republicans have yet to present a single realistic idea to move this country forward,” he said, referring to the congressman from Bakersfield who leads the GOP in the House.

There are some silver linings for Democrats.

The party probably avoided a worst-case scenario in the redistricting for the House. Though the GOP had an overall advantage in drawing the new congressional maps, so far they’ve mostly tried to shore up existing red districts instead of aggressively creating new ones, experts say.

In the Senate, Democrats are defending seats in battleground states that Biden won last year, albeit by the barest of margins in places like Arizona and Georgia. Senate races can also depend more on individual candidates, making Democrats slightly less vulnerable than their House counterparts if there is a wave election against them.

Still, “it obviously takes unique circumstances to redirect a midterm election,” said Stuart Rothenberg, senior editor of Inside Elections, a nonpartisan political newsletter. “I don’t know whether there’s anything that’s going to happen that’s so shocking to people, so stunning that it will give the Democrats the ammunition they need to change the election.”

Privately, Democratic strategists acknowledge the difficulties ahead, particularly after losing the Virginia governor’s race in the fall and barely escaping a similar defeat in deep-blue New Jersey. Those off-year races often have served as early indicators for the direction of the midterms.

The Democrats’ challenge partially lies with the nature of midterms: Supporters of the party in power are often disappointed that the president’s campaign promises have not yet been fulfilled, dampening their enthusiasm, while the opposition is motivated by unhappiness at being out of power.

Republicans, meanwhile, have a more basic task: keeping the focus on the majority party.

“The strategy for Republicans is a pretty simple one: Don’t screw it up,” said Ken Spain, former spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Don’t make yourself the issue and allow the election to be a referendum on Democratic control of Washington.”

Distilling the party’s campaign message, Emma Vaughn, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, kept the focus tightly on Biden.

“Biden has lost all credibility — he has failed to ‘shut down the virus’ like he promised, pushed Americans out of work with unconstitutional mandates, overseen a rise in crime, presided over skyrocketing prices for everyday goods and promoted trillions more in reckless spending,” she said...

 

Judge Jeanine Slams Extremist Left's Attack on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (VIDEO)

I used to post Judge Jeanine's opening monologues quite often.

She's a real treasure (and doesn't take any crap). 

At Fox News:

What Happened to the Paulbots?

This post is a follow-up to my earlier entry, "Ron Paul: The Angry White Man."

In the wake of Jamie Kerchick's New Republic article exposing Ron Paul's extremist newsletters, as well as the Paul campaign's non-showing in the New Hampshire primary, Captian Ed asks, "Did The Ronulans Disappear Overnight?" Check it out (via Memeorandum):

A funny thing happened on my way to the predictable onslaught of Ron Paul supporters in my comments section after yesterday's post about his newsletters. The onslaught never arrived -- and neither did the supposed Revolution from New Hampshire. Could the two be related?

Almost like clockwork, any time a blogger posts anything remotely critical about Ron Paul, it attracts hundreds of comments, most of them refusing to deal with the substance of the criticism. Instead, they usually contained cap-locked diatribes about the Federal Reserve, the Constitution, and how anyone who doesn't support Paul is a traitor or a fool. Many start off by saying, "I am a Hispanic/Jewish/black voter who cares about freedom ..." as a means of defusing the awkward inks between Paul and his newsletters and donation from neo-Nazi Don Black, as well as his 40-plus appearances on the radio show of Truther and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

But not today. It's been more than 14 hours since I posted about the TNR story, and so far ... nothing. I really expected to find scores of outraged commentary in the Disqus moderation queue when I woke up this morning, but so far, it's been as quiet as a church mouse.

The results from Iowa and New Hampshire may have finally broken the spell. Paul's supporters had insisted that the Revolution would launch from Iowa and New Hampshire, but Paul only won marginal support. Even in Iowa, where he ran only against Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson -- and where his libertarianism should have won significant traction -- his campaigning left him without a single delegate to the convention. Last night's election put him behind Rudy Giuliani in fifth place, even though Giuliani didn't exactly strain himself with Granite State campaigning.

The Revolution turned out to be a dud. Even the writers at Reason now wonder what kind of crypto policy Paul may have been hiding, and Andrew Sullivan has (rather bravely) called out Paul for his association with the vile rhetoric published for over seventeen years under his own name.

The green curtain has been pulled back, I think, and rational minds have taken control. The comment sections will never be the same.

Perhaps. We won't really see the end of Ron Paul's 2008 phenomenon until he formally withdraws from the race. It won't be too soon.

Treasons of the Democrats

From David Horowitz, at FrontPage Magazine:

The Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky once described Stalinism as “the perfect theory for glueing up the brain.” What he meant to dramatize was the fact that a regime as monstrous as Stalin’s, which murdered 40 million people and enslaved many times more, was nonetheless able to persuade progressives and “social justice” advocates all over the world to act as its supporters and defenders. These enlightened enablers of Stalin’s crimes included leading intellectuals of the day, even Nobel Prize winners in the sciences and the arts like Frederic Joliot-Curie and Andre Gide. Brilliant as they were, they were blind to the realities of the Stalinist regime and therefore of the virtues of the societies they lived in.

What glued up their brains was the belief that a brave new world of social justice – a world governed by progressive principles - existed in embryo in Soviet Russia, and had to be defended by any means necessary. As a result of this illusion, they put their talents and prestige at the service of the totalitarian enemies of democracy, acting, in Trotsky’s words, as “frontier guards” for the Stalinist empire. They continued their efforts even after the Soviets conquered Eastern Europe, acquired nuclear weapons and initiated a “cold war” with the West. To the progressives seduced by Stalinism, democratic America represented a greater evil than the barbaric police states of the Soviet bloc. Even half a century later a progressive culture still refers to the formative phase of the Cold War as years of a “Red Scare” – as though the fifth column of American progressives whose loyalties were to the Soviet enemy, whose members included Soviet spies, was not a matter of serious concern, and as though a nuclear-armed, rapacious Soviet empire did not pose a credible threat.

How were these delusions of otherwise intelligent and well-intentioned people possible? How were otherwise informed individuals able to deny the obvious and support the most brutal and oppressive dictatorship in history? How did they come to view a relatively humane, decent, democratic society like the United States as evil, while regarding the barbarous communist regime as its victim? The answer lies in the identification of Marxism with the promise of social justice and the institution of progressive values, which will take place in a magical socialist future. Defense of the progressive idea trumped recognition of the reactionary fact.

Once the Stalin regime was identified with the imaginary progressive future, everything followed – its status as a persecuted victim, and its adversary’s role as a reactionary force standing in the way of the noble aspiration. Every fault of the Stalin regime, every crime it committed if not denied by progressives was attributed to the nefarious actions of its enemies, most glaringly the United States. Once a promise of redemption is juxtaposed to an imperfect real world actor, all of these responses become virtually inevitable. Hence the glueing of the brain.

The Soviet Union is gone, and history has moved on. But the Stalinist dynamic endures as the heritage of a post-Communist left, which remains wedded to fantasies of an impossibly beautiful future that bring it into collision with the flawed American present. This left is now the dominant force in the Democratic Party. Its extreme disconnect from real world realities is encapsulated in its support for the transparently racist movement called Black Lives Matter, which attacks law enforcement and defends street predators, excusing their crimes with the alibi that “white supremacists” create the circumstances that make them commit criminal acts. This extremist movement has the “strong support” of the entire spectrum of the “progressive” left (including 46% of the Democratic Party, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC news poll).

Black Lives Matter is a movement built on the fiction that police have declared an open season on innocent blacks. According to progressive fictions, police are the agents of a “white supremacist society” – a claim alone that should make one wary of the sanity of those who advance it. Facts belie the very basis of the claim that there is open hunting season on African Americans. African American males, accounting for 6% of the population are responsible for more than 40% of violent crimes. But a Washington Post report on all 980 police shootings of 2015 reveals that only 4% of fatal police shootings involved white officers and black victims, while in three-quarters of the incidents, cops were either under attack themselves or defending civilians,” in other words,” as Michael Walsh observed in the NY Post, they were “doing their jobs.”

One such job done by Officer Darren Wilson in the suburb city of Ferguson, Missouri, became the launching point for the Black Lives Matter movement and its malicious claim that innocent blacks were being wantonly gunned down by racist police...

Still more.

The Rise of Authoritarian Transgender Politics

Everything's escalating to DEFCON levels.

"Call me Caitlyn, or else."

From Brendan O'Neill, at the Spectator UK, "The Cult of Caitlyn confirms that there is nothing progressive in transgender politics":

The Vanity Fair photo of Bruce Jenner in a boob-enhancing swimsuit is being described as iconic. Bruce, one-time American athlete, now wants to be known as Caitlyn, having recently undergone some gender transitioning. And he’s using the cover of the latest Vanity Fair to make his ‘debut as a woman’. Next to the headline ‘Call me Caitlyn’, he’s all photoshopped svelteness, pampered hair and look-at-me breasts, in what many experts are already describing as ‘an iconic image in magazine history’.

The photo is indeed iconic. And not just in the shallow celeb meaning of that word. It’s iconic in the traditional sense, too, in that it’s being venerated as an actual icon, a devotional image of an apparently holy human. It’s an image we’re all expected to bow down to, whose essential truth we must imbibe; an image you question or ridicule at your peril, with those who refuse to genuflect before it facing excommunication from polite society. Yesterday’s Jennermania confirms how weirdly authoritarian, even idolatrous, trans politics has become.

There is a palpable religiosity to the wild hailing of Bruce/Caitlyn as a modern-day saint, a Virgin Mary with testicles. Within four hours, more than a million people were following Bruce/Caitlyn’s new Twitter account, hanging on her words like the expectant horde waiting for Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai. Her every utterance, all banal celeb-speak, was retweeted tens of thousands of times. Celebs and commentators greeted her as a kind of messiah. ‘We’ve been waiting for you with open arms’, said an overexcited editor at Buzzfeed. Across the Twittersphere Caitlyn was worshipped as a ‘goddess’, a ‘goddess in human form’, a ‘goddess made manifest on Earth’. ‘Caitlyn Jenner could fucking stab me right now and leave me for dead and I’d die fucking overjoyed we are not WORTHY OF THIS GODDESS’, said one trans tweeter, and she wasn’t joking.

In the media, the talk is of how Caitlyn and her iconic likeness might give an adrenalin shot to humanity itself. A writer for the Guardian describes Caitlyn as a ‘queen’ and instructs us to ‘bow down, bitches’, telling us her icon on the front of Vanity Fair is ‘life-affirming’. Treating Caitlyn as a kind of Christ figure, only in a push-up bra rather than smock, Ellen DeGeneres says this goddess brings ‘hope for the world’, and we should all try to be ‘as brave as Caitlyn’. Susan Sarandon celebrated Bruce/Caitlyn’s mysterious ‘rebirth’ while Demi Moore thanked him/her for sharing with humanity ‘the gift of your beautiful authentic self’. A writer for the Huff Post says the name Caitlyn means ‘pure’ – ‘what a perfect meaning, right?’ Truly, yes, for St Caitlyn, reborn to educate us all, is most pure.

With its millions of agog followers, its worship of an iconic image, its insistence we all ‘bow down’, the Cult of Caitlyn gives Catholic mariolatry a run for its money in the blind-devotion stakes. And of course, as with all venerated icons, anyone who refuses to recognise the truth of Caitlyn’s Vanity Fair cover has faced mob punishment or finger-wagging corrections of their goddess-defying blasphemy.

So when Drake Bell, a former American child star, tweeted ‘Sorry… still calling you Bruce’, he became the subject of global fury. The Cult of Caitlyn went insane. Even after Bell deleted his blasphemous comment, tweeters mauled him, suggesting he deactivate his Twitter account, or better still, ‘deactivate his life’. Meanwhile, a Twitter robot called @she_not_he has been set up to correct any ‘misgendering’ of Caitlyn. Winning high praise from much of the media, this bot is ‘scrubbing Twitter, looking for anyone who uses the “he” pronoun in conjunction with Caitlyn Jenner’s name’. The bot’s inventor says he is delighted that these misgendering miscreants have been ‘apologetic in their replies to the bot’, and ‘some have even deleted their original tweet’.

In short, they’ve repented...

Well, payback's a bitch.

Folks can only estimate how long it'll be before "Caitlyn" flames out in divine glory. If the Kardashians are any guide, we'll be having many more cycles of soap opera madness before the crash and burn of "Caitlyn." Who knows what's going to happen? Either way, society's pretty fucked up.

More.

question for the male media types/extremist activists (but I repeat myself) insisting that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman: Would you fuck her?

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015

this question isn't as crude as it sounds. It's merely direct. If you are insisting that "Caitlyn" is in all ways a woman, then naturally...

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015

..."she" would be on your list of possible sexual partners. Y'all keep saying how hot she is. So is she on your list of possible partners?

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015

if "she" is not on a straight progressive man's list of possible romantic dalliances, are you saying "she" is not entirely a woman?

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015

what is the truth here? The actual truth? Not the progressive falsehood we pressure people into agreeing to?

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015

I have no problem or interest in Caitlyn Jenner' decisions, except when it becomes formally demanded of me that I repeat a falsehood.

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015

Should she be credited as holding all Decathalon records for a female athlete?

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015

This is of a piece with the left's constant demand that we accept the crudest, most extremist restatements of their political desiderata.

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015

And these are "Political truths," by which I mean, Not Truths: absurdly crude falsehoods urged as true by a faction of the Prog caucus.

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015

the media, as always, swoops in as the angel-winged, spear-carrying Valkerie for segments of the Democrat political coalition.

— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015