Walter James 'Occupy' Casper Continues Campaign of Lies: Childishly Whines About 'McCarthyism' While Endorsing Anarchists and Anti-Semitic Communists

My criminal stalker Walter James "Occupy" Casper III, a.k.a. "Hatesac3", continues to harass me and this blog with comments --- on top of his recent cyber threats to my family --- despite being banned long ago. This post is to record some key evidence in Walter James "Occupy" Casper's continuing campaign to undermine the foundations of the country with a clandestine Marxist program of communist subterfuge.

To put it plainly, "Hatesac3" can't stand the fact that today's Democrat Party is a socialist party with a large number of members in government who have allied with --- and provided aid and comfort to --- real live communists in furtherance of an ideological agenda that continues to shift this country away from its founding as a classically liberal democracy.

After a long rambling post of incoherent denials about the fundamental anarcho-communism and anti-Semitism riddled throughout the Occupy movement, "Hatesac3" dumps out this groaner of pathetic smear-mongering:

A political science professor who is alleging there are communists in the House and Senate? Communists?!? Somebody call Joe McCarthy...

Joe McCarthy investigated communists in government. McCarthy was right. He may have gone overboard, but the facts show that real communists had infiltrated the United States government. They were directed by Moscow and they were causing real damage to national security. Again, not all those accused by McCarthy were deemed national security threats, but when progressives throw out the "McCarthyism" card they're deceptively and malignantly casting a smokescreen in front of their support for Marxist-Leninist ideologies and goals. This is sinister. And that is why Walter James "Occupy" Casper continues his attempts hide behind the "McCarthyism" smear while working underground to destroy his political enemies through multifarious smear jobs, campaigns of workplace harassment and threats to freedom of speech, as well as cyber threats to the families of his enemies. Jonah Goldberg speaks truth to "McCarthyism":

Senator Joe McCarthy was a lout, generally speaking. But he was on the right side of history and, in a broad sense, of morality as well. If, in some sort of parallel-universe exercise, the same number of (now proven) Soviet-Communist spies, collaborators, sympathizers, and the like were somehow switched to Nazis, and McCarthy went after them with the same vehemence as he went after Reds, Joe McCarthy might well have universities and foundations named after him today. Just imagine if a ring of Nazi party members were found to be working in Hollywood, never mind the State Department, taking money from Berlin to advance the Nazi cause. Does anyone really think "McCarthyism" would still be denounced as an unmitigated evil, often put at the front of the parade of horribles alongside Hitlerism and Stalinism?

Now, I'm sure many people are rolling their eyes at this point. "It's not the same thing!" say those who believe that the lost jobs of a few Hollywood writers and the loyalty oaths reluctantly offered by some unjustly accused union officials are the American equivalent of concentration camps. Maybe, maybe not. The argument over which was worse, Communism or Nazism, will never be settled. Nor should we expect it to be. But even if you firmly believe that Nazism was more evil than Communism, as even Robert Conquest does, you must concede that Communism was evil enough. If the sight of an American Communist screenwriter being forced to take the Fifth Amendment before Congress and have his "career ruined" still fills you with blinding rage, it's indeed curious why the forced slaughter of millions by Stalin seems like a trivial event to you. After all, there were plenty of men and women invoking their "rights" as their heels left lines in the dirt on the way to the gulag. Needless to say, their careers were ruined too. And if the American Communists had had their way, much the same thing would have happened here as well. But, yeah, Roy Cohn's the devil.

Regardless, wherever you come down on McCarthyism, Communism, and the rest is a matter of opinion. What is a matter of fact — unmitigated, irrefutable, undeniable fact — is that there were hundreds of Communists working for Moscow, directly or indirectly, in the United States during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. The Rosenbergs were guilty and got what they deserved. Alger Hiss too. Victor Perlo, Judith Coplon, Morton Sobell, William Perl, Alfred Sarant, Joel Barr, and Harry Gold were all either pawns or lackeys of a foreign and evil foe. We know the Hollywood Ten were all Communists, but what else they were we can't know for sure, because they believed taking the Fifth was more important than protecting the country (and if you think it's unfair to cavalierly call people who devotedly followed the Moscow line for all their adult lives "Communists," I sure hope you don't ever call, say, President Bush a "fascist" on the basis of no evidence at all). The American Communist Party (CP-USA) was in fact a Soviet franchise.

In other words, you are free to describe McCarthyism as a witchhunt if and only if you are willing to concede that actual witches existed in our midst. The evidence — from declassified Venona transcripts, Soviet archives, memoirs, etc. — is still mounting, but what we have so far is plenty in itself. In 1996, Nicholas Von Hoffman wrote an essay for the Washington Post that caused no small amount of hysteria on the American Left, which has been milking its myths and denial for decades. McCarthyism was the product of the "paranoid style" in American politics. There were no witches — only zealots and brown-shirted bullies. The playwright Lillian Hellman declared: "The McCarthy group — a loose term for all the boys, lobbyists, congressmen, State Department bureaucrats, CIA operators — chose the anti-Red scare with perhaps more cynicism than Hitler picked anti-Semitism."

Yet, as Hoffman reluctantly conceded, these assessments were in turn lies, myths, and carefully constructed distortions. The reality was that "in a global sense McCarthy was on to something. McCarthy may have exaggerated the scope of the problem but not by much…

In other words, Walter James "Occupy" Casper III is ready to attack his enemies as "McCarthyites" while malignantly turning his eyes from the horrors of tens of millions killed in the name of the very ideology he's pushing.

And I've covered this ground before --- and repeatedly faced down all the denials by "Hatesac3" and his henchmen --- but here's David Horowitz on Representative Barbara Lee, "An Enemy Within":

REPRESENTATIVE BARBARA LEE, Democrat of Berkeley, was the only member of Congress who refused to defend her country under attack. The Los Angeles Times calls Barbara Lee a "liberal" and compares her to "anti-war" dissenters of the past, most notably Jeanette Rankin who cast the lone vote in the U.S. Congress against America’s entry into the Second World War and said after Pearl Harbor, "As a woman I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else." We are at war again, and it’s time to call things by their right names.

Barbara Lee is not an anti-war activist, she is an anti-American communist who supports America’s enemies and has actively collaborated with them in their war against America.

Continue at the link. And see Joseph Farah, "The truth about Barbara Lee."

Rep. Lee is just one of roughly nearly 100 members of the Democrat Party in Congress who are in fact communists in all but name. There's no need to keep going, since it's long ago been shown that Walter James "Occupy" Casper stands against all that is decent and good in America. I've chronicled his progressive hatred time and again. He's a stalking coward and an ideological snake. He has publicly endorsed the Occupy movement murderers, rapists, and anti-Semites. This is fact. And this is what Occupy is about. And I will continue to expose his deception because this is what today's left does. It's evil incarnate and people of decency have to expose these freaks to the light of truth.

Previously:

* "Comrade Repsac3: Racist Commissar of State Security, People's Commissariat for Internet Affairs?"

* "W. James Casper is a Coward, a Fraud, and a Liar."

* "Manifesto: Occupy for the Revolution."

Also, at Zilla of the Resistance, "Stand Against Evil - Never Let it Win."

Google Chrome Overtakes Internet Explorer 8

I like Chrome, but it freezes way too much, no matter which machine I use at home or the office.

See Los Angeles Times, "Google's Chrome browser overtakes Internet Explorer 8":

Did Google's Chrome browser just become the globe's most popular?

That's what StatCounter is reporting.

It says Chrome topped Internet Explorer 8 in the last week of November, when Chrome took 23.6% of the global market and IE8 took 23.5%.

Of course, if you combine all of the versions of Internet Explorer, it's still the browser champ. And in the United States, Internet Explorer is still on top, with 27% of the market.

So what's driving the growth? Aodhan Cullen, chief executive of StatCounter, says businesses as well as consumers are adopting Chrome.

Microsoft, which includes Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system, used to have a lock on the browser market. Google didn't even enter the market until 2008.

But Chrome recently surpassed Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser, which it used to support. Firefox launched in 2004 and drove innovation in the market, which was dominated by Internet Explorer since IE overtook Netscape's browser in the late 1990s.

RTWT.

VIDEO: Moving Picture Highlights of 2011

From Sky News:

Candidates Spar in Last GOP Debate of the Year

The New York Times has a report, "Gingrich Parries With Challengers in Final Debate Before Iowa Caucuses" (via Memeorandum):

From the start, the candidates faced a series of questions on their biggest vulnerabilities, a tough, year-end parting gift from a network that has a lineup of sympathetic opinion hosts, but whose news anchors have pulled no punches on Republican candidates in debates and interviews. The race has played out, to a large degree, on Fox News.

Mr. Gingrich called “laughable” the accusation this week from Mr. Romney that he is an “unreliable conservative.” But, facing some questions about his consistency, he added, “I do change things when conditions change,” adding, however, that beating Mr. Obama is “a very large change.”

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, whose candidacy depends on a comeback in the Iowa caucuses, did not hold back against Mr. Gingrich. She called it “shocking” that he would accept $1.6 million to advise the government-owned mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

“That is something that our nominee cannot stand for,” Mrs. Bachmann said.

More at that top link.

Also at Los Angeles Times, "Newt Gingrich under fire in final GOP debate before Iowa vote."

Plus, a neat post at Legal Insurrection, "Sioux City Debate Tweets of Night."

RELATED: At National Journal, "Previewing Gingrich's Down Escalator."

Taking Ron Paul Seriously

Jeffrey Lord has this at The American Spectator, "The Ron Paul Newsletters" (via Memeorandum). And from Dan Riehl as well, "Ron Paul Can't Withstand the Scrutiny of Being a Frontrunner."

But don't miss especially Ace of Spades HQ, "Only Ron Paul Can Restore America to Its Former Greatness*." Check that link for what follows after the asterisk. The post is a devastating indictment of what looks like a blatantly racist newsletter program of pandering ggressively to paleoconservatives and "libertarians and old-time neoconfederates and former Klanners."

And according to Ace, "it wasn't just the newsletters." Here's the block quote from the post:

Paul is closely con­nected to the Lud­wig Von Mises Insti­tute, founded by the lib­er­tar­ian con­ser­v­a­tive Mur­ray Roth­bard and cur­rently run by Lew Rock­well. Rock­well was for­merly Paul’s chief of staff.
...

For Roth­bard, free­dom was best when it wore pants: he blamed the “ori­gins of the Wel­fare State” on “the legion of Yan­kee women, in par­tic­u­lar those of mid­dle– or upper-class back­ground, and espe­cially spin­sters whose busy­body incli­na­tions were not fet­tered by the respon­si­bil­i­ties of home and hearth.” He regret­ted the Con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment that had “imposed” women’s suf­frage on the nation.

In 1963, for exam­ple, at the height of the Civil Right move­ment, Roth­bard warned about “the negro cri­sis as a rev­o­lu­tion.” “Demon­strat­ing Negroes,” he said, “have taken to a favorite chant: ‘What do we want? Free­dom! When do we want it? Now!’” One might expect a lib­er­tar­ian to like such a chant, but Roth­bard found the idea of free­dom for negroes alarm­ing: they did not under­stand it prop­erly. Free­dom was a “hope­lessly ambigu­ous word as used by the Negro move­ment,” and “the very fuzzi­ness of the goal per­mits the Negroes to accel­er­ate and increase their own demands with­out limit… it is the very sweep and vague­ness of the demands that make the move­ment insatiable.”

An insa­tiable desire for free­dom usu­ally stands in lib­er­tar­ian accounts as the most praise-worthy of human attrib­utes, but Roth­bard found the African Amer­i­can free­dom strug­gle alarm­ing. Roth­bard wor­ried not just about “insa­tiable” negroes, but also about King and his non-violent protests against “pri­vate cit­i­zens as store-keepers or own­ers of golf courses; their rights are already invaded, in a “non-violent” man­ner, by the estab­lished Negro ‘Cen­ter’.” Roth­bard explored ways to stop “the negro rev­o­lu­tion:” his words are worth quot­ing in full.

There are two ways by which it might be crip­pled and defeated. First, the retal­ia­tory cre­ation of a white counter-revolutionary mass move­ment, equally deter­mined and mil­i­tant. In short, by the re-creation of the kind of Ku Klux Klan that smashed Recon­struc­tion and the Negro move­ment in the late 19th cen­tury. Since whites are in the major­ity, they have the capac­ity to do this if they have the will. But the will, in my opin­ion, is gone; this is not the 19th cen­tury, nor even the 1920’s. White opin­ion, as we have seen, has dras­ti­cally shifted from racism to egal­i­tar­i­an­ism; even the South­ern whites, par­tic­u­larly the edu­cated lead­er­ship, con­cede the broad merit of the Negro cause; and, finally, mob action no longer has respectabil­ity in our soci­ety. There have been attempts, to be sure, at mass counter-revolutionary white action: the Ku Klux leader in Geor­gia told a rally that “we must fight poi­son with poi­son,” armed con­flict between white and Negro mobs has bro­ken out in Cam­bridge, Mary­land, and white hood­lums have repeat­edly assaulted Negro pick­ets in the Bronx. But all this is a fee­ble replica of the kind of white action that would be nec­es­sary to defeat the rev­o­lu­tion; and it seems almost impos­si­ble for action to be gen­er­ated on the required scale.
...

Not sur­pris­ingly, the Von Mises Insti­tute he founded and ran is allied with the “League of the South,” which views the Civil War as a cri­sis over state’s rights and calls for an inde­pen­dent south­ern repub­lic and wants, yes, “to return to a sound cur­rency” based in gold. The League of the South laments the fact that “aliens” now gov­ern the for­mer Con­fed­er­acy. It wants to return rule to the heirs of the “Anglo-Celtic tra­di­tion.” Roth­bard and the Von Mises Insti­tute sim­i­larly describe the Civil War as an unjust inter­ven­tion, and claim slav­ery would have van­ished on its own. The North, they argue, cre­ated racism in what had been a benign nat­ural hier­ar­chy

That sounds pretty nasty.

But Ace has lots more. For example, to quote Ace himself:

Another thing I don't believe is that Ron Paul's thick-as-thieves relationship with fringe lunatic crank and Truther Alex Jones is just some kind of coincidence, given that Paul can't seem to stay away from the ghastly paranoid Here's Alex Jones following around Michele Malkin, shouting at her for being a "neocon" (he has referred to her as a "monster" and "Marxist"). One of his little goon squad there shouts "Kill Michelle Malkin!"

When I say Alex Jones is Truther, I don't mean he flirts with it. I mean he says the United States government loaded the buildings with explosives and detonated them.

And that's not even the craziest thing he believes. He happens to believe that this is just one of many attacks on citizens by the global cabal that runs the world.

But continue at the link.

It's pretty devastating all around, and it needed to be said.

And some bonus video:

War in Iraq Officially Over

The main story is at New York Times, "U.S. War in Iraq Declared Officially Over." (At Memeorandum.)

Also, the president's speech at Fort Bragg is at the video here. I watched it. It's ceremonial and symbolically important.

What's bothersome is that Barack Obama, during his time in the U.S. Senate and as a candidate for the White House, held more outright hostility to the war than any other Democrat at the time --- and that's quite an achievement, given the extreme antipathy to the mission in Iraq among the shitwad hate-America dirtbags, murderers, and rapists who did everything in their power to sabotage the deployment. Screw these people. At the video above, Obama in 2008 chirps all the far-left talking points on the war. None grates more obnoxiously than the claim that the "failed" and "mistaken" mission in Iraq was "detracting" from the war in Afghanistan. No sooner did Obama come to power than the stab-America-in-the-back progressives start clamoring for an end to the Afghanistan war. Yes, we can claim we won in Iraq --- and that's what the president did Wednesday in North Carlolina --- but it's an especially triumphant victory given that we beat our foes on the ground in combat and our political foes here at home. The left's war on the Bush administration's national security policy was a treasonous display of hatred that is literally unforgivable for any decent citizen who recognizes the costs of the mission for the country, and especially for those who have fought it. I am not, however, joining the bandwagon of those criticizing the administration's withdrawal. The White House botched negotiations for a continued troop presence --- and no doubt Iran will be increasing its influence in Iraq and across the region by the day --- but our support will continue in other ways, such as the continued deployment of stand-by forces throughout the Persian Gulf theater of operations.

We always find a way to prevail despite the treacherous agenda of the domestic enemies at home.

See also American Glob from last year: "Let Me Be Clear: Obama Deserves ZERO Credit For Iraq."

RELATED: At Los Angeles Times, "U.S. military formally ends mission in Iraq."

'The Israel Lobby' Continues to Poison Leftist Politics

(Note: When I place "The Israel Lobby" in quotes like that, I'm referring to the Mearsheimer and Walt smear thesis of a Jewish interest group section that dominates U.S. policy making toward Israel. I thought I'd put this up at top so there's no misunderstanding about my meaning at the title.)

There's a ferocious backlash against Thomas Friedman's latest New York Times column, "Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir."

Instapundit has the link to Jennifer Rubin's essay hammering Friedman, and see also Power Line, "Tom Friedman Goes Mearsheimer and Walt."

And still more from Jonathan Tobin at Commentary, "Thomas Friedman and the New Anti-Semitism-Part One":

The notion that the only reason politicians support Israel is because of Jewish money is a central myth of a new form of anti-Semitism which masquerades as a defense of American foreign policy against the depredations of a venal Israel lobby. This canard not only feeds off of the traditional themes of Jew-hatred, it also requires Friedman to ignore the deep roots of American backing for Zionism in our history and culture.

Friedman goes on to embarrass himself by contrasting the reception Netanyahu received on Capitol Hill to the one he might get at a center of leftist academia such as the University of Wisconsin. There’s little doubt he would not be cheered there. But the same would be true of most American politicians or thinkers who deviated from leftist Orthodoxy. The notion that liberal campuses are more representative of opinion about Israel than Congress is laughable. It is the sort of whopper one has come to expect from the liberal chorus on the Times op-ed page and shows Netanyahu may have a better feel for what Americans think than Friedman.

And continued here: "Thomas Friedman and the New Anti-Semitism-Part Two."

Meanwhile, check yet another installment of Mondoweiss thanking God for Mearseimer and Walt, "Why did it take 6 years to talk about the Israel lobby?"

My good friend Norm tells me that these people hate, that progressive especially hate Israel, and that it's not going away. But I can't stop shaking my head at the enormous chasm I see whenever I read this stuff. Mondoweiss (and I mean Phillip Weiss) argues that "The Israel Lobby" smear has now gone mainstream and that it's "safe" for journalists like Chris Matthews to come aboard the good ship anti-Semitism. I guess that it's just that I'd not realized how exterminationist is the left-wing project. So, I shake my head partly out of my own naïvity. There's a war going on, and it's fully enjoined on the question of the defense of Israel. Game on, I say. And give no quarter to these f-kers.

Anyway, more from Elliott Abrams, "Mr. Friedman’s Diatribe Against Israel."

Romney Goes for Aggressive Attacks on Gingrich

At New York Times, "Shifting Tactics, Romney Attacks Surging Gingrich":

Mitt Romney, his presidential aspirations suddenly endangered by Newt Gingrich’s rapid resurgence, is employing aggressive new arguments in an effort to disqualify Mr. Gingrich as a credible choice to Republicans, calling him “zany” in an interview on Wednesday and questioning his commitment to free enterprise.

But in an acknowledgment that he might not be able to reverse Mr. Gingrich’s momentum quickly, Mr. Romney and his team are bracing for a far rougher slog through the early Republican nominating contests than they had envisioned even a few weeks ago and preparing for months of a state-by-state, delegate-by-delegate fight.

The Romney campaign and its allies are unsure whether the attacks on Mr. Gingrich’s stability, temperament and worldview will take hold before the voting begins. Mr. Romney and some of his aides and advisers suggest that their revised campaign strategy will rely on advantages in organization and financing for the long run while moving quickly in the short term to turn Mr. Gingrich’s own words against him.

Mr. Romney is seeking to paint Mr. Gingrich as “an unreliable conservative” on issues like climate change. And he is seizing on a remark Mr. Gingrich made this week, condemning Mr. Romney for profiting from layoffs and corporate restructuring he oversaw in his years running Bain Capital, that many conservative commentators said sounded like a Democratic antibusiness refrain.

Mr. Romney said voters should take a closer look at Mr. Gingrich’s history of policy ideas.

“Zany is not what we need in a president,” Mr. Romney said. “Zany is great in a campaign. It’s great on talk radio. It’s great in print, it makes for fun reading, but in terms of a president, we need a leader, and a leader needs to be someone who can bring Americans together.”

Continue reading.

Plus, more at Memeorandum.

BONUS: Check out more aggressiveness at National Review, "Winnowing the Field." It's a merciless attack on Gingrich.

Obama Struggles to Explain His Failed Economic Policies to Hard-Core Supporter

He's the worst.

Notice Obummer blaming the depression on the 2008 financial crisis, not on his own fiscal and social-policy wrecking ball of a job destroyer:

And here's Cold Fury on the Democrats' refusal to approve the XL pipeline:

If Ogabe and his merry Democrat Socialist marauders are that firmly opposed to job creation, energy independence, and affordable gasoline prices for the American working stiff, let them put themselves on record as such. Then hang it on them from now til election day next year, and beyond. Let’s see if their Watermelon pals can save them from the wrath of the American people at the ballot box next year. Rethugs should not let anybody forget what this vote represents. Not ever.

Democrats Backing Away from Occupy Wall Street

See Roll Call, "Occupy, Liberals Can’t Get Together."

A planned meeting today between the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Occupy Wall Street activists was scuttled late Tuesday after Roll Call inquired about it, highlighting increasing tensions between Democrats and the movement.

While Democrats are adopting the movement’s “99 percent” language, they are increasingly retreating from the protesters themselves and their anti-capitalist rhetoric. Some in the party view the Occupy activists — camped out in grubby tent cities around the country — as a potential liability in 2012.

“Democrats should reject Occupy Wall Street as the spokesmen for the 99 percent,” said Kelly Bingel, who served as former Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s (D-Ark.)chief of staff until 2005 and is now a partner with Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti Inc. “The chance of those guys going out and voting or encouraging anyone else to vote is very low.”

Another Democratic lobbyist and early supporter of President Barack Obama agreed. “I think Democrats need to stay away from embracing OWS. We can acknowledge their frustrations without embracing their movement,” he said. “They are too fringe-y and don’t play well in middle America. Let the Republicans be the party of the angry right. We need to be the party where moderates feel welcomed.”

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus apparently got cold feet after someone leaked news of the planned #OWS meeting to the press.

Obviously not all Demo-Commies are backing away from these drug addicts, murderers and rapists. Walter James "Occupy" Casper aggressively defends the movement, whining about how it wouldn't be fair to brand all the movement's supporters as criminals and communists. No doubt Racist Repsac3 is especially thrilled by Occupy's anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish bankers.

Video Hat Tip: Lew Waters.

Newt Gingrich 'Mic Checked' at University of Iowa

These people are the biggest freakin' losers.

At Washington Wire, " Occupy Protesters Interrupt Gingrich":

IOWA CITY, Iowa–Before beginning a campaign event in a packed lecture hall at the University of Iowa, Newt Gingrich was interrupted by Occupy Wall Street protesters.

“Mic check!” a protester yelled, a phrase used by the movement to begin a chant. Mr. Gingrich didn’t appear to catch on at first. “What’s wrong?” he said.

Also at Fox News, "Newt Gets 'Occupied' at the University of Iowa."

Democrats Attack Romney as the Candidate of the 1 Percent

As the video indicates, Democrats aren't too smart to attack Romney this way. The epic hypocrisy will come back to bite them. But perhaps that reality swooshes right over the head of radical progressive WaPo blogger Greg Sargent: "Is Mitt Romney the candidate of the `one percent’?"

PJ Media Exclusive: 'How Newt Gingrich Could Win the GOP Nomination'

My latest essay at PJ Media is here.

I finished the draft over the weekend and the race is already changing. There's talk that Ron Paul could actually take Iowa. I raise the possibility at the essay, although looking beyond Iowa it's a battle between Mitt and Newt, and Newt's really coming on strong.

Ann Coulter: Romney the Most Conservative Candidate for Republican Nomination

At Fox News, "What Made Ann Coulter Change Her Mind About Mitt Romney?"

The Dahmer jab is toward the end of the clip.

Ad Executive Crushed to Death in Elevator Accident in Manhattan

At New York Times, "Suzanne Hart Crushed in Midtown Elevator":

The woman, Suzanne Hart, a director of new business content and experience at Y&R, one of the world’s leading advertising agencies, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, which happened around 10 a.m. at 285 Madison Avenue, a 28-story building at the corner of 40th Street.

A Fire Department official described the accident as follows:

Her foot or her leg are heading into the elevator while the door is open. Her one foot is in the car; but then, the doors close on her leg and the elevator shoots upward. And she is just kind of yanked up with it. Then, the elevator car becomes pinned between the first and second floor. It seems like her body is what stops the elevator’s movement.

The official said that it took about an hour just to remove the two other passengers, who were not hurt but were taken to New York University Langone Medical Center. “I don’t think any physical injuries,” he said. “It is just what they saw, traumas.”

Ms. Hart’s body remained jammed in the elevator for considerably longer, stuck in what is called the blind shaft between the first and second floors, the official said.

Also at Fox News New York, "Woman Crushed By Elevator In Midtown."

More at London's Daily Mail, "Madison Avenue advertising executive crushed to death after elevator starts moving with the doors still open."

'The Protester' is Time's Person of the Year

Well, at least they didn't give it to Obambi. Oh, I forgot. They did that already.

At Time, "The Protester." (Via Fausta, The Hill, and Memeorandum.)

Also, at Washington Post, "Why Steve Jobs isn’t Time’s Person of the Year."

And Daily Caller, "TIME’s ‘Person of the Year’ selection about as annoying as you’d expect."

PHOTO CREDIT: El Marco, "Zuccotti Utopia: Portraits of The New Revolutionaries."

Gunman in Belgium Targeted Christmas Shoppers With Grenades, Firearms

At Telegraph UK, "Liege attacks: Lone gunman brings terror to streets of Belgian city with hand grenade attack":

A lone gunman spread terror in the Belgian city of Liege, opening fire and throwing hand grenades onto a square packed Christmas shoppers, killing five people and himself, and injuring scores.

At Pamela's, "MORE ON MUSLIM GUNMEN IN BELGIUM," and "BELGIUM GRENADE ATTACK BY MUSLIM[S]: 4 DEAD, 75 WOUNDED."

Also at Vlad Tepes, "SUN TV News report on Attack in Belgium." And Right Wing News, "Surprise! Belgium Grenade Attack Might Be Linked to Islamists."

Racial Disparities in Autism Services

On any issue like this you'll always get the inequality arguments. From the continuing series on autism at Los Angeles Times, "Warrior parents fare best in securing autism services":

Public spending on autistic children in California varies significantly by racial or ethnic group and socioeconomic status, according to data analyzed by the Los Angeles Times.

For autistic children 3 to 6 — a critical period for treating the disorder — the state Department of Developmental Services last year spent an average of $11,723 per child on whites, compared with $11,063 on Asians, $7,634 on Latinos and $6,593 on blacks.

Data from public schools, though limited, shows that whites are more likely to receive basic services such as occupational therapy to help with coordination and motor skills.

The divide is even starker when it comes to the most coveted service — a behavioral aide from a private company to accompany a child throughout each school day, at a cost that often reaches $60,000 a year.

In the state's largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, white elementary school students on the city's affluent Westside have such aides at more than 10 times the rate of Latinos on the Eastside.

It might be tempting to blame such disparities on prejudice, but the explanation is more complicated.

“Part of what you're seeing here is the more educated and sophisticated you are, the louder you scream and the more you ask for,” said Soryl Markowitz, an autism specialist at the Westside Regional Center, which arranges state-funded services in West Los Angeles for people with developmental disabilities.

In both the developmental system and the schools, the process for determining what services a disabled child receives is in essence a negotiation with the parents.

RTWT.

The photos themselves are intense. And some of the family vignettes are sad. But then, that's exactly what this series is about: building an agenda for more state funding for those who're underserved --- and the program's already an entitlement, spending billions annually. The problem is those with less economic resources lack the skills and time to navigate the system and secure the lion's share of support.

And while autism is pretty undefined --- and yeah, it's probably over-diagnosed, ---I know from my own's son's experiences that there are real health issues at stake for families. And again, look at those pictures.

Previously: "Unraveling Autism."

Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers: 'We Are Changing the Course Here in America to a Pro-Growth Agenda'

McMorris Rogers hammers the administration's threatened veto of the payroll tax cut extension with the Keystone XL provision.

Also earlier at New York Times, "House Republicans’ Bill Sets Up Pipeline Battle."

PREVIOUSLY: "House Approves Payroll Tax Cut Extension."

'Exmoor Emperor'

Althouse has the story of the mounted head of the 9 foot deer stag that was Britain's largest indigenous animal at the time it was killed. A hunter apparently nabbed him fair and square. But clearly, killing a majestic animal like that is the perfect trophy for abolitionists, not tourists.

See "'To come out and proudly boast you have one of the country's most magnificent creatures hanging on your wall is both unscrupulous and, frankly, professional suicide'."

Eric Holder Gets Tough on Voter Laws

Eric Holder is the worst of the worst AGs. The dude should be out on his can over Fast and Furious, and he's long epitomized the administration's culture of corruption. Now he's arguing that to look the other way amid blatant voter fraud is a "moral imperative." Right. Give me a break, you crook.

At New York Times, "Holder Signals Tough Review of New State Laws on Voting." (Via Memeorandum.)

And at Power Line, "OBAMA ADMINISTRATION COORDINATING WITH LEFT-WING GROUPS ON VOTER FRAUD?":

Democrats want felons to vote, because an overwhelming majority of them will vote Democratic. They want illegal aliens to vote for the same reason. And they want loyal Democrats to vote more than once where they are able to do so. Where there is no voter security, these abuses will increase. So, either through legal rulings or through intimidation, the Democrats want to disable the states from protecting the integrity of the ballot box. It appears that Obama’s politicized Department of Justice will be in the forefront of this effort.

FDR Prolonged the Great Depression

From the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.

Michelle Fields narrates:

RELATED: At The Other McCain, "‘F– Michelle Fields!’ — Interview With Reporter Harassed at Occupy DC Protest."

California Indian Tribes Eject Thousands of Members

This is fascinating.

It's a common story line --- there have been lots of reports of tribal members being cut loose for lack of lineal documentation. But this report at New York Times is particularly interesting. The Chukchansi Indian Casino is up near Fresno. My wife likes to go out there when we're in town.

See, "In California, Indian Tribes With Casino Money Cast Off Members":

COARSEGOLD, Calif. — The six-page, single-spaced letter that Nancy Dondero and about 50 of her relatives received last month was generously salted with legal citations and footnotes. But its meaning was brutally simple. “It is the decision by a majority of the Tribal Council,” the letter said, “that you are hereby disenrolled.”

And with that, Ms. Dondero’s official membership in the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians, the cultural identity card she had carried all her life, summarily ended.

“That’s it,” Ms. Dondero, 58, said. “We’re tribeless.”

Ms. Dondero and her clan have joined thousands of Indians in California who have been kicked out of their tribes in recent years for the crime of not being of the proper bloodline.

For centuries, American Indian tribes have banished people as punishment for serious offenses. But only in recent years, experts say, have they begun routinely disenrolling Indians deemed inauthentic members of a group. And California, with dozens of tiny tribes that were decimated, scattered and then reconstituted, often out of ethnically mixed Indians, is the national hotbed of the trend.

Clan rivalries and political squabbles are often triggers for disenrollment, but critics say one factor above all has driven the trend: casino gambling. The state has more than 60 Indian casinos that took in nearly $7 billion last year, the most of any state, according to the Indian Gaming Commission.

For Indians who lose membership in a tribe, the financial impact can be huge. Some small tribes with casinos pay members monthly checks of $15,000 or more out of gambling profits. Many provide housing allowances and college scholarships. Children who are disenrolled can lose access to tribal schools.

Continue reading.

Some in Congress want to give the federal courts or the Bureau of Indian Affairs the authority to rule on what in many cases are tribal expulsions based on blatant greed.

I have a lot less sympathy for the plight of Native Americans after hearing stories like these.

Orange County Chick-fil-A Cashier Fired for Racist 'Ching' and 'Chong' Receipts

At Orange County Register, "Chick-fil-A fires cashier who mocked Asians":

A Chick-fil-A restaurant in Irvine has fired a cashier who typed the names "Ching" and "Chong" onto the receipts of two Asian customers – an affront that has flashed through the blogosphere in recent days.

The company quickly issued a media statement distancing itself from the "inappropriate and unthinking behavior" of its employee. The woman, identified only as Lia on the undated receipts, was immediately dismissed, according to the statement.

A UC Irvine student posted a picture of the receipts on his tumblr blog late last week. He wrote that the cashier never asked for the names of the two men when she took their order, and instead typed "Ching" and "Chong" into the "Guest ID" field on their receipts.

"Racism is still alive these days, people," wrote the blogger, who identifies himself only as Kelvin on his tumblr page.

The "angry asian man" blog picked up the story. Then the OC Weekly did. By Tuesday, national media were reporting on the "Ching" and "Chong" receipts.

Continue reading. Continue reading.

I can't believe people like that. But you have to stand up against that kind of racism and bigotry. Unfortunately, progressive racism of the same stripe is pretty common online. I discussed it at Zilla's in the comments regarding the disgusting bigotry of Walter James "Racist" Casper III.

House Approves Payroll Tax Cut Extension

At National Journal, "House Passes Payroll-Tax Package Obama Has Threatened to Veto":

Legislation to extend the payroll-tax holiday, reduce and extend unemployment benefits, and avoid a 27 percent cut to Medicare doctor reimbursement passed the House on Tuesday by a vote of 234 to 193.

The legislation, which passed with just 10 Democratic votes, will head to the Senate where a vote is expected later this week. Leadership aides in the Senate said they expect the GOP-drafted legislation to fail when it reaches the Senate floor.

Leaders in both the House and the Senate have agreed to extend the programs in the GOP legislation, but the fight still continues over the size of the unemployment program, the future of the Keystone XL pipeline, and how to pay for the package. Democratic objection to the House-passed bill led to an official veto threat from President Obama on Tuesday.

Also at New York Times, "House Passes Extension of Cut to Payroll Taxes" (via Memorandum).

Gingrich Surges Past Romney in GOP Race

At Wall Street Journal, "Gingrich Surges Past Romney in GOP Race" (via Google): Republican voters now heavily favor Newt Gingrich over Mitt Romney as the party's

nominee, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, but it also found deep unease with Mr. Gingrich among independents and swing voters who normally decide presidential elections.

With less than three weeks before the first votes are cast in Iowa, Republicans give the former House speaker the most commanding lead of any candidate this year: He has 40% support among likely GOP voters, compared to 23% for Mr. Romney. All of the other Republican candidates fell short of 10% support in the poll.

Further showing Mr. Gingrich's advantage, his lead over Mr. Romney appears set to grow if other candidates drop out of the race. In a two-man contest, Mr. Gingrich leads Mr. Romney by 23 points, winning the support of nearly six of 10 Republicans.

The Gingrich surge comes after he drew support from only 13% of likely GOP voters in last month's Journal poll, which Mr. Romney led with 28%. Herman Cain drew 27% of the support in November, but he has since suspended his campaign.

The survey also offered stark illustration of the challenge Republicans face as they lean toward two candidates who have yet to generate much spark among the wider electorate.

Check that Google link for the full report.

And at WSJ's Washington Wire, "WSJ/NBC Poll: Republicans Rate GOP Field ‘Average’."

Fully half of Republicans said they would not vote for Newt Gingrich if he were the nominee, compared to 44 percent who would not vote for Romney.

See also John Harwood, at CNBC, "Gingrich Surges to Wide Lead Over Romney: NBC Poll."

RELATED: At Legal Insurrection, "Taking their anti-Newt ball and going home for the general election," and "Doomsday Poll – Who would cause you to stay home or vote for Obama?"

Added: At MSNBC, "NBC/WSJ poll: Romney struggles with primary voters, Gingrich with general electorate" (via Memeorandum).

Plus, linked at Astute Bloggers. Thanks!

'I Understand'

From Angelic Upstarts:

Nineteen years old
What an age to die
Ashford is a prison
where they hide a lie

Richard Campbell
Were you mad?
Or just a bit insane?

Was it being a Rasta
cause you so much pain

white nigger
black nigger

Bleed the same

white nigger
black nigger

Rasta boy in prison

white nigger
black nigger

they made sure,
He'd never
see his twentieth year

when you're a number
you're never a name

they took away his faith
...a candle
...without a flame

the law of animals
destroy what you don't understand...

Richard Campbell's death is discussed by Richard Smith, "The State of the Prisons," British Medical Journal (January 1984):

Campbell's family were unhappy with this verdict ["dehydration due to schizophrenia"] and arranged for the Battersea and Wandsworth Trade Council to hold a public inquiry. Many individuals and groups, but not the Home Office, gave evidence to this two day inquiry, which concluded: (a) that there had been no good evidence that Campbell was schizophrenic; (b) that he had been failed by the legal profession, by the probation service, and by the authorities at Ashford Remand Centre; and (c) that he died "because of the negligence of the authorities."

Occupy Wall Street to Attend Capitol Hill Meeting Chaired by Congressional Progressive Caucus

The congressional commies will hold a hearing with the anarcho-commie scumbag murderers and rapists.

See Weasel Zippers, "Report: Occupy Wall Street Protesters oo Address Congressional Progressive Caucus Meeting…" (via Astute Bloggers).

Yep.

Real revolutionary communists to meet with real congressional communists, despite the lies of their progressive enablers. See: "Communist REPSAC = CASPER Takes Umbrage?"

RELATED: At Commie Blaster, "PROGRESSIVES = SOCIALISTS = COMMUNISTS = LEFT-WING RADICALS = ANTI-CAPITALISTS = UNAMERICAN."

BONUS: At Fire Andrea Mitchell, "Marxist Congresswoman Susan Davis Speaks to Occupy San Diego talks about fishermen and cutting holes in boats."

The Basis of Left and Right

At Power Line, "NEW POWER LINE SERIES: THE BASIS OF LEFT AND RIGHT, PART 1":

The divisions between left and right are fundamental and unbridgeable. A frequent trope of political rhetoric is that everyone agrees about the ends; we merely disagree about the means. Although this is often true at the level of a discrete policy issue (for example, how to broaden access to health care), it is wrong at the deeper level of what might be called the “tectonic plates” that drive the individual political battles. Reducing left-right differences to disagreements only over means has a numbing effect on clear thinking, and is an obstacle to grappling with some of the larger problems that now need reform that goes far beyond the business-as-usual tinkering around the edges, such as entitlement spending. Liberals tend to believe in old-fashioned leveling egalitarianism; conservatives do not. (Much more on this point in due course.) Rather than evade or gloss over fundamental differences, highlighting them is the vital pre-condition to finding any middle ground for possible compromise.

That's one hefty essay, and I'm looking forward to the next installment in the series ---although the main problem right now is that "liberalism" really isn't a left-wing ideology. It's an invention of American progressives to mask their socialist ideological foundations. This guy gets closer to the real American left, but also continues to call them "liberals" when they are not. See "Utopian Folly: Liberalism’s Philosophical Problem."

Supreme Court Agrees to Review 9th Circuit Ruling on Arizona's SB 1070

At New York Times, "Court to Weigh Arizona Statute on Immigration." (At Memeorandum.)

And Governor Jan Brewer applauds the Supreme Court's announcement on Facebook.

FLASHBACK: "'Phoenix Rising' for SB 1070 at Arizona State Capitol."

Romney Used a 'Bucket' When He Was a Mormon Missionary in France in the 1960s

Well, that's just going to sink his candidacy.

At London's Daily Mail, "Too much information, Mitt!":

Mitt Romney is seen as a boring and risk-averse candidate by many voters, so this latest nugget of information might turn a few heads.

The GOP presidential candidate has revealed he defecated into a bucket while serving as a Mormon missionary in France in the 1960s.

Mr Romney spent two and half years knocking on doors as he was greeted by locals with guns, or their barking dogs chasing at his heels.

‘A number of the apartments I lived in when I was there didn’t have toilets,’ he said in Hudson, New Hampshire, reported the New York Times.

‘We had instead the little pads on the ground. OK, you know how that works. There was a chain behind you. It was kind of a bucket affair.’

They used to bathe by using a hose in a sink. ‘I said to myself: “Wow, I’m sure lucky to be born in the United States of America”,’ Mr Romney said.

More at that link.

That's just the way they do it over there, Mitt. You're making it sound more gnarly that it is.

GOP Debates Making a Difference

Have the debates been lame? Have the numerous meetings been overkill?

I don't think so. And in fact this last debate in Des Moines was extremely significant. Decisive even, especially if Mitt's been finally banished from the perennial frontrunner's perch.

But see Jamelle Bouie, "Were the Debates a Mistake?":

If you can get past the attacks on President Obama, the disregard for actual economic conditions, and the assertion of “philosophical decreptitude” in American liberalism, you’ll find a smart point about the GOP presidential debates in Fred Barnes’s latest op-ed for The Weekly Standard. For your sake, I’ll just post it here:

Besides aiding Obama, Republicans have hurt themselves in numerous ways by letting the debates be the organizing events of the campaign. The stronger candidates have been diminished by appearing, debate after debate, on equal footing with also-rans whose chances of winning the party’s presidential nomination are nil.

Given the extent to which Barnes is a solid member of the conservative establishment, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were echoing the thoughts of many other conservative elites. The debates have had an astonishing and unprecedented impact on how conservative voters view and evaluate the Republican presidential candidates, and it’s hard to say that this has been a positive development.

Oh, Fred Barnes. So what? He's a reliable establishment conservative. And that's just it: He is establishment. The debates have been at times boring and excessive, but they've been the best thing for the nomination campaigns I can remember in a long time. And they're making a difference.

See Wall Street Journal, "The Front-Runners Start to Go at It."

Perry Web Video Slams Romney For $10,000 Bet

Via RealClearPolitics:

Naked Man Chased by Police Dog

Boy, everything's available via YouTube these days, and this was in Southern California as well.

At London's Daily Mail, "He's got some cheek! Naked man tackled by police dog 'after stealing limousine'."

Roundup on Newt Gingrich and the 'Palestinians'

In the odd case that you missed it, the video's here: "Newt Gingrich on Palestinians at GOP Debate in Iowa: 'These People Are Terrorists'."

Now, see Caroline Glick, "Gingrich's Fresh Hope." It's a long post, but interestingly the biggest challenge to Gingrich is not the Arab liars backing the Hamas-dominated Palestinians, but the U.S. conservatives attacking Newt for "turning his back on a 30- year bipartisan consensus" on the (failed) two-state solution for Middle East peace.

And check Daniel Greenfield, "A Badly Invented People." This is excellent:

Palestinian identity is just so much gibberish. The official definition of that identity encompasses only those parts of the Palestine Mandate which Israel holds today.

The people who live on the parts of the Palestine Mandate that were turned into the Kingdom of Jordan in 1921 are not Palestinians. There is no call to incorporate them into a Palestinian state. The people who lived in the parts of Israel that were captured by Jordan and Egypt in 1948 weren't Palestinians, and there was no call to turn the land that today comprises the so-called "Occupied Territories" into a state. But in 1967 when Israel liberated those areas-- only then did they magically turn into Palestinians.

How is anyone supposed to take this nonsense seriously?

But RTWT.

And from Melanie Phillips, "Hey, stop this dangerous candidate! He's told the truth!":

US presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich ... has recently demonstrated yet again Melanie’s First Rule of Modern Political Discourse – the more obvious the truth that you utter, the more explosive and abusive the reaction.

For Gingrich said the Palestinian Arabs were ‘an invented people’ – and the world promptly started hurling execrations at him, as if such a statement proved beyond doubt that Gingrich was indeed a dangerously extreme individual who, when it came to political positioning, was just off the graph altogether.

More at the link (with additional sources at the discussion).

And there's lots of stuff at FrontPage Magazine, for example, from David Horowitz, "Gingrich Gets It Right":

In an interview on Saturday, Newt Gingrich put some reality into the surreal discussion of the Middle East conflict and (as he put it) the delusional nature of the current “peace process.” The Palestinians are indeed an “invented people” — invented by the Nasser dictatorship and KGB by the way — and the Hitlerian lie that Israel occupies one square inch of “Arab” let alone “Palestinian” land needs to be buried for any clarity on what the conflict is about, let alone progress towards peace.

Of course there is no peace in the Middle East and there can be no peace so long as the Muslim Arabs want to kill the Jews and destroy the Jewish state. That is the explicit goal of the enemies of Israel in the terrorist entities of Gaza and the West Bank, and also of Israel’s principal enemy the Islamic Republic of Iran.

And another essay from Horowitz, "An Invented People Despite Some Doubters":

Some conservatives, most notably Elliot Abrams, have criticized Newt Gingrich’s observation that the Palestinians are an invented people by saying that even if they are — (and there is no real question but that they are) — they’ve been around long enough (50 years, or since the creation of the PLO in 1964) so that we need to deal with that fact — not. What makes anyone think this is a people even today? Last spring I spoke at Brooklyn College. My speech was attended and then obstructed by a sizeable contingent from the Brooklyn College “Palestinian Club” — at least fifty people, all ethnic Arabs claiming to be Palestinians. During my talk I referred to the Palestinian death cult, its admiration for Hitler, its determination to wipe the Jewish state from the face of the earth, its eagerness to kill any Jew and to blow up its own children in the process. I said it was a “sick, sick culture.” But when the members of the so-called Palestinian Club erupted at me, what they said was “Why do you want to lynch all Muslims?” (This is on video available on YouTube or on our site — under “Videos” — for anyone who wants to check. It comes in the Q&A period.) This does not sound like a nationalist movement.

But the evidence is that Palestinians are a political fiction for a movement whose organizing desire is the destruction of the Jewish state and expulsion of the Jews is far stronger than this small incident. In 1948, 80% of the so-called “Palestine Mandate” had been given to the Hashemite minority in control of Jordan. The Jews were given half of the remaining 20% and the Arabs the other half. A nationalist movement would surely have accepted the partition and then laid claim to the 80% controlled by the Hashemites in Jordan. No such thing happened. Instead the Arab states including Jordan attacked the Jewish state with the intention of destroying it.

The upshot of that war was a Jewish victory in 1949. Whereupon Egypt annexed Gaza and Jordan annexed the West Bank — all the territory that had been offered to the so-called Palestinians and rejected by them. There was not a peep out of the Arab world — or out of the so-called Palestinians — over this rejection. Why? Because a Palestinian state was never their agenda. Their agenda was and is the destruction of the Jewish state and the expulsion of the Jews from the Middle East — or failing that, their absolute subjection as a hated minority without access to state power.

See also Bruce Thornton, "Newt Challenges the Myth of Palestinian Nationalism," and Ryan Mauro, "History of ‘Palestine’ Becomes Center of GOP Debate."

BONUS: See the letters to the editor at New York Times, "A Spotlight on Gingrich and Romney."

Dominique Storelli: Winner Maxim's 2011 Hometown Hotties

Well, here you go:

Previously: "Maxim's 2011 Hometown Hotties: Jordan from Arizona," and "Maxim's 2011 Hometown Hotties: Windy City's Jelena."

VIDEO: West Coast Port Shutdown

More Occupy freaks to enliven your day.

Oakland at the video:

And a nice roundup from Long Beach at LAist, "Police Declared Occupy The Ports Unlawful Assembly, 2 Arrests Made." And at Los Angeles Times, "Occupy protests shut down 2 Portland terminals, spread to Seattle." And more for the Los Angeles Times here.

And ICYMI, Michelle has an epic post, "Your guide to D12: Occupiers return to ports for West Coast shutdown; Updated."

Nude Santas Occupy San Francisco

Really.

See Zombie, "S.F. puts the “X” back in Xmas: Occupying human rights for naked Santas."

Hey, these are some of those folks who "can choose to express their sexual desires freely, partnering in whatever ways make sense to them."

Freaks.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Goes All Baghdad Bob on Obama Administration's Epic Unemployment Numbers

U.S. unemployment was 7.2 percent in December of 2008, which at that time was the highest since 1993, according to a New York Times report from January 2009 (the month Barack Obama took office). But don't tell that to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who sounds like Saddam Hussein's Minister of Information, Baghdad Bob:

Via RealClearPolitics, "DNC Chair Denies Unemployment Has Gone Up Under Obama." And Miami Herald, "DNC chair Wasserman Schultz stumbles on Obama unemployment stat."

And more at Hot Air, "DNC chair: Unemployment didn’t go up under Obama!"

Lonely Conservative has it all graphed out: "Obama’s Unemployment Record." Plus, "Unemployment Is 11% If You Count Those Who Gave Up In Despair."

Right Wing News: 'The 40 Best Conservative Blogs For 2011'

John Hawkins has released his list of hot blogs for 4th Quarter 2011, and American Power made the cut at #38: "40 Best Conservative Blogs For 4th Quarter of 2011."

What's interesting is how many on John's list are either unfamiliar to me or infrequently visited. Frankly, it's hard keeping up with the 10 or 15 blogs on the top of my list --- and I don't even have a list! I guess that's the problem. I should really have a definitive list. I've started one over on my sidebar, although I'm still making additions. As usual, I tend to read and link to a lot of blogs that link here, and that generates some FMJRA action, or it at least it should. (And I read a lot of blogs not listed at John's, so others might consider writing up their own top blog lists.)

So, to get an early start a New Year's Resolution, here's the blogs on John's top 40 that I'm unfamiliar with (in alphabetical order). I'll try to read more widely going forward:

* Creative Minority Report.

* The Mellow Jihadi.

* Naked DC.

* Vox Popoli.

* Wintery Knight.

Romney Didn't Bargain for a Bitter Fight

That's not too smart. I don't know why he'd think he was a shoo-in.

At Los Angeles Times:

As voting for the Republican presidential nomination rapidly nears, Mitt Romney is facing a troubling truth: This is not the race he signed up for.

The former Massachusetts governor, who has spent most of the year as a shaky front-runner, may still be the most salable GOP candidate in a general election, given his comparative moderation and buttoned-down persona.

The favorite of the moment, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, remains in danger of spontaneously combusting, given his long record of doing just that.

But right now it is Romney who is struggling, and the reason is clear: For most Republican voters, this contest has ceased to be about jobs and the economy, and instead rests on which candidate can shove a fist the furthest down President Obama's throat.

Romney came into the GOP contest figuring his blue-chip business background would make him the strongest contender at a time when pocketbook issues seemed like voters' overwhelming concern. For a while, it worked. Though Romney has never enjoyed the support of much more than a quarter of the Republican electorate, he remained at or near the top of voter surveys as several would-be alternatives rose and then imploded.

But as Saturday night's boisterous debate in Des Moines demonstrated, the fight for the GOP nomination has become just that: a test of pugilistic skills.

Continue reading.

I'm not so sure that Gingrich will implode. He's chuggin' along pretty nicely now and handling the barrage of attacks against him rather effectively.

More later.

Interview With David Fincher, Director of 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'

I'm reading the Stieg Larsson novel --- and it's fantastic. This movie looks like a don't-miss film. Fincher directed "Fight Club and "Seven," if that gives you an idea of his oeuvre.

At New York Times, "Obsession, Reignited."

Time for Jews to Wake Up to Renascent Bigotry and Hatred

From David Solway, at PJ Media, "Resisting the Obvious":

In much of my recent work — books and articles — I have addressed the issue of antisemitism in the contemporary world. That the beast is once again slouching, not only towards Bethlehem as in the Yeats poem, but towards Oslo, Paris, London, Stockholm, Malmo, Copenhagen, Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, Washington, Toronto, Sydney, Caracas, Brussels, Amsterdam, and many other cities and regions around the globe, should come as no surprise. From biblical times to the present moment, in their own homeland or “scattered among the peoples,” Jews have never been safe. This is precisely what distinguishes the Jewish people from the rest of humanity, the specific nature of their “chosenness.” Wherever they may find themselves they are always at risk, whether actively or potentially, targeted for slander, exclusion, or extinction.

In developing this argument in such books as The Big Lie (2007) and Hear, O Israel! (2009), I have been condemned by a number of my critics, who accuse me of exaggeration, self-pity, or a sort of obsolescence, as if my gaze were fixed on the past at the expense of a more amenable or complex present. The fact that many of these detractors are themselves Jewish is only to be expected, for Jews have a long history of wilfully ignoring the signs and rejecting the self-evident. It is not only the JINOs (Jews in Name Only), the “non-Jewish Jews” flagged by Isaac Deutscher, or the apikorsim (“wicked sons” of Jewish public life) enamored of their enemies who are blind to the historical fatwa against them. It is also those whom I refer to as the “good Jews” and whom author and Sun Media columnist Ezra Levant calls the “official Jews” — that is, a significant number of Jewish communicants, as well as their secular counterparts — who refuse to read the writing on the wall even when it is in their own language, inscribed in block letters, and blazoned on every street corner.

These Jewish critics — I have in mind people like Richard Just, editor of The New Republic, éminence grise Clifford Orwin of the Hoover Institution, and Canadian poet Harold Heft, among others who share their inveterate myopia — assailed my analysis as, variously, hyper-inflated, unfair to Islam, scare-mongering, one-dimensional, and so on, as if I refused to align my perspective with the mores of the enlightened and democratic West.

But the enlightened and democratic West is no longer what it very intermittently was — or rather, it is certainly not what it presents itself as being. The legacy media, academia, the political class, and an alarming proportion of the public have made common cause with the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish campaign of the growing Islamic hegemony in the realms of ideology and practice. This is especially true of Europe whose Jewish population is increasingly under threat. As French philosopher Guy Milliere observes in his new manuscript Dissident: Why Europe Is Dead and What It Means for America and the World (not yet published), “Almost everywhere in Europe, it is now dangerous for a practicing Jew to wear a yarmulke,” a development that he regards as a visible and repellant symptom “of a wider and more disquieting decay.” There is no doubt, he continues, “that there is something rotten in today’s Europe.”

God, that sounds awful, and worse because it's so objectively true.

But continue reading here.

Zilla Brings Down the Hammer on Romney!

A crushing review of Mitt Romney's positions on Islam: "DhiMITTude."

'New Year's Eve'

I don't know about this one. Maybe I'll wait 'till it's out on cable.

At Reuters, "'New Year's Eve' leads as movie box office fizzles."

BONUS: "Lea Michele invites Ashton Kutcher home for the holidays, 'New Year's Eve' costar politely declines." I guess Ashton's gonna survey the field for a while before any more big commitments. That was a rough breakup with Demi.

Unraveling Autism

At Los Angeles Times:

Amber Dias couldn't be sure what was wrong with her little boy.

Chase was a bright, loving 2 1/2-year-old. But he didn't talk much and rarely responded to his own name. He hated crowds and had a strange fascination with the underside of the family tractor.

Searching the Internet, Amber found stories about other children like Chase — on websites devoted to autism.

“He wasn't the kid rocking in the corner, but it was just enough to scare me,” recalled Dias, who lives with her husband and three children on a dairy farm in the Central Valley town of Kingsburg.

She took Chase to a psychologist in Los Angeles, who said the boy indeed had autism and urged the family to seek immediate treatment.

But a team at the Fresno agency that arranges state-funded services for autism said Chase didn't have the disorder. His problems, staff members said, were nothing more than common developmental delays that he would eventually outgrow.

Unconvinced, Dias imagined the worst — that Chase would never have a girlfriend, a job, a place of his own. She pressed the agency to reconsider and hinted at a lawsuit. Finally, officials relented, and her son began receiving 40 hours a week of one-on-one behaviorial therapy.

She had to hint about a lawsuit? God, that is awful.

My wife's grandparents lived in Kingsburg. For a while, we went down there from Fresno every week or two for dinner with the whole family. It's total heartland territory. It feels like the Midwest, with all the agriculture and Scandinavian culture.

Anyway, continue reading at the link.

Jennifer Aniston Voted Hottest Woman of All Time — C'mon, Jennifer Aniston?!!

She's nice, but seriously, who are these people doing the judging?

See London's Daily Mail, "Jennifer Aniston named Sexiest Woman of ALL Time beating out arch-nemesis Angelina Jolie."

Actually, it's Men's Health, "The 100 Hottest Women."

And Neo-Neocon is having none of it: "Are you kidding?!!"

Everybody needs to boost their traffic, that's for sure.

West Coast Port Shutdown Planned for Today

I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago: "New Direction for Occupy Wall Street?" Here's the latest from Occupy Oakland, "MONDAY PORT BLOCKADE: last minute info." And from Occupy Long Beach, "Occupy the Ports."

And while the San Francisco Chronicle has this, "Opposition grows to Occupy's port shutdown plan," the Occupy Oakland organizers are pushing back, "Longshore Workers Being Told to Not Cross the Picket Line." My hunch is that regular hard-hats want to stay on the job but the militants inside the union and out want confrontation with the 1 percent. That said, here's this from a self-described New Left radical at Firedoglake, "#Occupy Oakland: WTFWMD":

This morning’s SF Chronicle has the requisite Occupy concern-troll stories spread throughout several sections, including a lead story headlined “Opposition growing to shutdown of Port.” In addition to interviews with union members and truckers who are conflicted about supporting the shutdown, the story says that “some activists” have concluded that a port blockade is “too extreme” and so strongly disagree with confrontational tactics that they now call themselves “99 Percenters” instead of “Occupiers.” Various groups affiliated with Occupy Oakland have been holding trainings on diversity of tactics and non-violence strategies in anticipation of tomorrow’s events. On several Facebook forums there are very heated discussions involving rumors of peacekeepers who may be planning to “kettle” any comrades who do not comport themselves in whatever they deem to be an acceptable fashion.

As I read this, as always, I think: What the Fuck Would Mario Do?

Check that link. This lady's a freakin' communist. Sheesh. (Also at Lonely Conservative and Memeorandum.)

RELATED: From The Other McCain, "ACORN Returns as ‘Occupy’."

Michelle Obama Secret Affair?

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Michelle's Havin an Affair and Is Barack Obama Gay?"

Well, it's a tabloid report, but you never know with these things.

Previously: "Obama's Gay Nightmare: Still Waiting for Barry's Backside Boogie Pics!"

Twitter and the Campaign

From the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, "HOW THE DISCUSSION ON TWITTER VARIES FROM BLOGS AND NEWS COVERAGE AND RON PAUL'S TWITTER TRIUMPH."

A detailed examination of more than 20 million Tweets about the race for president finds that the political discussion on Twitter is measurably different than the one found in the blogosphere-more voluminous, more fluid and even less neutral.

No surprise there, but RTWT.

Hat Tip: John Pitney.

God's Quarterback: Tim Tebow Phenomenon Gathers Acolytes

At Astute Bloggers, "VIDEO: TEBOW DOES IT AGAIN!"

At San Jose Mercury News, "NFL: There is no denying Denver Broncos, Tim Tebow in overtime win over Chicago Bears."

And see USA Today, "Networks look to cash in on Tebow-mania." And also Bleacher Report, "Tim Tebow and His Religious Rhetoric Should Be Applauded, Not Ridiculed." And New York Times, "Tim Tebow’s Gospel of Optimism."

PREVIOUSLY: "Tim Tebow Powers Broncos to 16-13 OT Win Over Chargers: Hardest Hit — TBogg, Racist Anti-Christian Bigot at Firedoglake."

Strong Support for Israel is Litmus Test for Conservatives

See David Bernstein, at Volokh, "Israel as a Litmus Test for Conservatives."

It's an interesting discussion of how support for Israel is becoming generally more widespread on the right side of the political spectrum. Bernstein also addresses Ron Paul's Israel problem. See: "Ron Paul Tells Newsmax: I Support Israel." And Jonathan Tobin, "No Need for the RJC to Invite Paul to Forum":

People like Ron Paul have taken the valuable libertarian creed of opposition to intrusive government and support for individual freedom and twisted it into a belief system that doesn’t view U.S. security abroad or the life of a besieged democratic Jewish state as something Americans should care about. Far from respecting Israel’s sovereignty, Paul is willing to watch with complacence as its very existence is called into question without the U.S. feeling obligated to lift a finger. His “respect” for Israel is little different from the sentiments voiced by an earlier generation of isolationists — the “America First” group — whose admiration of Nazi Germany and indifference to the fate of the Jews restrained the country’s initial response to both Hitler and the Holocaust.

And that is why I wrote two posts hammering Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. We went around on Twitter for a while and he was unable to defend his opposition to Israel. Faced with the fact that "Palestinians" repeatedly call for Israel's destruction, Mataconis was relegated to calling me names like "nutjob" and "Pamela Geller loon."

See: "Newt Gingrich Attacked By Weasels," and "Newt's Backtracking on Palestinians as 'Invented People'?"

Kate Upton GQ 'Body of the Year'

I'm not going all in for "body of the year," but she's definitely an up-and-comer.

At Gentlemen's Quarterly, "GQ's Model Behavior Body of the Year: Kate Upton."

And at The Other McCain, "Rule 5 Sunday: Obsolete."

See Bob Belvedere, "Rule 5 Saturday: Tanit Phoenix."

And at Maggie's Notebook, "Rule 5 Saturday Night: Bonnie Jill Laflin – Conservative ESPN Star," and Pirate's Cove, "If All You See…is snow created by too much CO2, you might just be a Warmist."

Now, at Randy's Roundtable, "Midweek Rule 5 Break: There is no such thing as too much Kate Upton.." Plus, from Gator Doug, "DaleyGator DaleyBabe Ali Landry."

Also, from Soccer Mom, "'House Bunny' Anna Faris - Rule 5." And Eye of Polyphemus, "Reese Witherspoon."

BONUS: From Theo, "Bedtime Totty..." And Proof Positive, "Friday Night Babe: Danielle Bux."

Drop your links in the comments if you'd like to be added...

UPDATE: From Jake Finnegan, "Burkalesque Babe: Scarlett Johansson," and "Burkalesque Babes: Jacksonville Jaguars Cheerleaders!"

Newt Gingrich on Palestinians at GOP Debate in Iowa: 'These People Are Terrorists'

Here's the video:

Somebody oughta have the courage to tell the truth: These people are terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools...

Previously: "Newt Gingrich Attacked By Weasels," and "Newt's Backtracking on Palestinians as 'Invented People'?"