Jennifer Rubin Slams Erick Erickson's 'Anti-Semitic Screed'

My post on the Jennifer Rubin profile at Politico was the top entry here through most of the day. Then this morning I saw Erick Erickson's attack on Rubin at RealClearPolitics. I noticed the Jewish slur, where Erickson deploys the disgusting dual loyalty smear, alleging that Rubin's "best understood as 'Likud' rather than Republican or conservative." Well Rubin pushed back, apparently. See Ben Smith, "Rubin dismisses Erickson's 'anti-Semitic screed'."

And Erickson's apologized, "An Anti-Semite?"

Erickson's a clueless hack, as I've held all along. In fact, I don't doubt his claim of ignorance at the apology, where he suggests that, "A friend of mine explains to me that a Jewish-American might find it insulting because it suggests they put Israel ahead of the United States." Hey, you think?

Just one more example of how overrated this dude is. What a loser.

Via Memeorandum and Weekly Standard.

Added: From PolitiJim, "I'm Sorry But Screw You Erick Erickson."

Police Deploy Flash Bombs at Occupy Oakland?

See Reason, "An Iraq War Veteran is in Critical Condition After Occupy Oakland Scuffles, Police Won't Confirm What Weapons They Used."

But watch the video:

Clearing the protest? Good. Police-state tactics? Not so good.

The New York Times has more, "Updates on Occupy Protests Nationwide":

Two veterans groups say that a protester who was badly wounded in Oakland on Tuesday night is a former marine who is now hospitalized with a fractured skull.

According to Iraq Veterans Against the War, the protester, Scott Olsen, is a member of their group who left the Marines in 2010, after serving two tours in Iraq. In a statement, the group's executive director Jose Vasquez, claimed that Mr. Olsen "sustained a skull fracture after being shot in the head with a police projectile while peacefully participating in an Occupy Oakland march," on Tuesday night. Mr. Vasquez added that Mr. Olsen, a systems network administrator in Daly, Calif. "is currently sedated at a local hospital awaiting examination by a neurosurgeon."

A series of bloody photographs that appear to show Mr. Olsen after he was wounded were posted on the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center's site, Indybay.org. Those images show that Mr. Olsen was wearing a brown military shirt with his last name on the front. Jay Finneburgh, the photographer who shot the images of Mr. Olsen, wrote on Indybay: "This poor guy was right behind me when he was hit in the head with a police projectile. He went down hard and did not get up. The bright light in the second shot is from a flash-bang grenade that went off a few feet from us. He looks like he might be a veteran. he was eventually taken to highland hospital."

Go back to New York Times to follow the links to IVAW and others.

The freedom to assemble is not unlimited. Time, place, manner restrictions are routine, and the police had already ordered the crowd to disperse. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

Police said they had to protect themselves from protesters who hurled rocks, bottles and paint, and ignored orders to disperse.

Still, that Olsen dude got beat up pretty bad. Looks like the police have some PR problems now.

More at London's Daily Mail, "Marine veteran fighting for life after being shot in the face with gas canister during Occupy Oakland clashes."

New Poll Finds Deep Distrust of Government

Hey, maybe the contradictions of capitalism are ripe for revolution.

At New York Times (via Instapundit):

With Election Day just over a year away, a deep sense of economic anxiety and doubt about the future hangs over the nation, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with Americans’ distrust of government at its highest level ever.

The combustible climate helps explain the volatility of the presidential race and has provided an opening for protest movements like Occupy Wall Street, to highlight grievances about banks, income inequality and a sense that the poor and middle class have been disenfranchised.

Almost half of the public thinks the sentiment at the root of the Occupy movement generally reflects the views of most Americans.

With nearly all Americans remaining fearful that the economy is stagnating or deteriorating further, two-thirds of the public said that wealth should be distributed more evenly in the country. Seven in 10 Americans think the policies of Congressional Republicans favor the rich. Two-thirds object to tax cuts for corporations and a similar number prefer increasing income taxes on millionaires.

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released a new study concluding that income distribution had become much more uneven in the last three decades, a report that could figure prominently in the battle over how to revive the economy and rein in the federal debt.

The poll findings underscore a dissatisfaction and restlessness heading into the election season that has been highlighted through competing voices from the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements, a broad anti-Washington sentiment and the crosscurrents inside both parties about the best way forward.

Not only do 89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, but 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress — warnings for Democrats and Republicans alike.

Also:

Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats, two-thirds of independents and just over one-third of all Republicans say that the distribution of wealth in the country should be more equitable...

Hey, that Obama-Pelosis class warfare really works!

RELATED: At The Blaze, "RADICAL BILL AYERS SPEAKS TO OCCUPY CHICAGO PROTESTERS ABOUT REVOLUTION & THE TEA PARTY."

Jennifer Rubin Profiled at Politico

I don't read her that much, although I'm not hostile to Rubin as are some blog colleagues on the right. Dan Riehl and I occasionally go back and forth about Rubin on Twitter.

See "Rick Perry's worst nightmare: Jennifer Rubin."

Rubin describes herself as a mainstream conservative, if not a a movement loyalist.“I don’t take a check-the-box, down-the-line view of conservatism. I think on foreign policy and economics I’m very much a Reagan conservative,” she said.

But many conservative bloggers don’t view her as one of them.

“I don’t have time to waste bytes on someone not in the conservative movement,” RedState’s Erick Erickson, who broke with Rubin over her support for the release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, told POLITICO when asked about her in an email.

Dan Riehl, another conservative blogger, described her as an “establishment Republican” and a “neocon” and said he suspected the Post uses her as a kind of foil, to define the rightward limit of the debate as relatively close to the center.

“She’s kind of like [center-right New York Times columnist] Ross Douthat in lipstick, assuming he doesn’t wear any,” Riehl said. “I guess she couldn’t get a job with Romney so she stayed with The Washington Post.”

(In fact, the Post has recently been courting other opinion writers on the right, in particular former Jesse Helms spokesman and Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, the leading defender of former Vice President Dick Cheney and the harsh interrogation he championed.)

But Rubin, who has never shied from a fight, says that her role is different from conservative bloggers: She’s commenting on the right, not defending it.

Lately I'm "commenting on the right" as well, since I haven't settled on a pick for the nomination, or at least not yet, since Michele Bachmann's numbers took a dive.

More later ...

Police Fire Tear Gas at Protesters in Oakland, California

At The Lede:

1:40 a.m. [EST] Updated - Police officers shot several rounds of tear gas into a crowd of hundreds of protesters from the group Occupy Oakland on Tuesday night, as the protesters tried to re-enter an area outside of City Hall that the police had cleared of their encampment on Tuesday morning.

“It sounded like bombs,” said Joaquin Jutt, 24, a digital animator who was among the protesters. “There was a stinging and burning in my throat, eyes and nostrils. My eyes burned like there was hot sauce in them.”

And a nice photo-blog, at J.P. Dobrin's, "PHOTOGRAPHY OF POLICE DISMANTLING OCCUPY OAKLAND."

German Officials Reopen 1980 Oktoberfest Bombing Investigation

This is interesting.

At Der Spiegel, "Oktoberfest Bombing Under Review: Officials Ignored Right-Wing Extremist Links":

It was less than two weeks before the Oct. 5, 1980 German parliamentary election, and the CSU and its then Bavarian state governor and chancellor candidate, Franz Josef Strauss, were not interested in right-wing extremist terrorism. In their worldview, the threat always came from the left. The social climate was toxic, and the Strauss camp, and others, treated left-wing extremist terror group the Red Army Faction (RAF) and its sympathizers as Germany's public enemy number one.

What did not fit into this worldview was the idea that right-wing extremist groups were at the same time developing their own, loosely defined terrorist network, with cells in Hamburg, Nuremberg, Esslingen near Stuttgart, as well as in Antwerp and Bologna. Not surprisingly, efforts to investigate the threat from the far right were half-hearted at best.

For three decades, the official explanation for the Oktoberfest attack involved the theory of a confused "sole perpetrator." In May 1981, after just eight months of investigation, the Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) postulated this theory in its "final comment" on the case. The Federal Prosecutor's Office also noted that there was "no evidence whatsoever" that "third parties" could have influenced Köhler. Case closed -- or so it seemed.

Until now, this final comment was the only document relating to the case that had been made available to the public, while the investigation files on which it had been based remained unknown. Now SPIEGEL has evaluated these files for the first time, in addition to dossiers from the former East German secret police, the Stasi, and other records, some of which were formerly classified -- a total of 46,000 pages.

Bikini Calendar Photoshoot Whistler, Canada

Via Theo Spark:

'The Internet Creates a Misinformed Electorate'

I don't think so, but interesting discussion, in any case.

At Business Week:

Inaccuracies, lies, and innuendoes racing throughout the cyberworld give voters a false sense of knowledge about political candidates. Pro or con?

Lindsay Lohan Nude!

Well, not yet actually.

It was the big celebrity buzz yesterday, in any case.

At LAT, "Lindsay Lohan may be in Playboy — now use your imagination."

The Post-Global Warming World

From Wall Street Journal (at Theo Spark):

The science on climate change and man's influence on it is far from settled. The question today is whether it makes sense to combat a potential climate threat by imposing economically destructive regulations and sinking billions into failure-prone technologies that have their own environmental costs.

Well, WaPo's Eugene Robinson says the debate's over.

Right. Freakin' idiot.

Homosexual Extremists Attempt to Get New Jersey Teacher Fired for Posting Alleged 'Anti-Gay' Comments on Facebook

A little late getting to this, but considering what's been happening here, it's worth weighing in.

See Los Angeles Times, "New Jersey teacher in trouble over anti-gay Facebook comments." And New Jersey Online, "Union Township school officials investigate teacher who allegedly made anti-gay remarks on Facebook":

The case raises broader questions about rights of teachers to speak freely in the age of social media.

No doubt.

Also at The Blaze, "GAY ADVOCATES PETITION TO HAVE TEACHER FIRED AFTER SHE POSTED ANTI-GAY MESSAGES ON FACEBOOK."

WikiLeaks May Shut Down

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of cyber-terrorists.

At Forbes, "Wikileaks to Close Over Funding Blockade?"

The Romney Implosion?

Perhaps Mitt Romney's still the "inevitable" nominee, but all of a sudden he looks more vulnerable, and decidedly un-conservative.

At The Other McCain, "Herman Cain Builds Lead Over Romney, Rick Perry 5th in New CBS/NYT Poll." Perhaps 21 percent isn't that bad, right? Well, ICYMI, on one of the hottest conservative causes of the year, and Romney waffles? See WSJ, "Romney Riles Conservatives by Declining to Weigh In on Ohio Union Referendum," and RealClearPolitics, "Romney Steers Clear of Union Fight in Ohio." And Dave Weigel, "In Ohio, Mitt Romney Punts on Health Care and Union Rights."

It's not a hard issue. We've had practically a year of Wisconsin politics. Folks on both sides are mobilized on collective bargaining, and Romney waffled. See Michelle as well, "Battleground: Ohio."

Matt Bai, at New York Times, says Romney's doing just fine: "Why It’s Good for Romney to Be at 21 Percent."

UPDATE: Linked at The Other McCain. Thanks!

Occupy Oakland 'Anarchist' Speaker Calls for 'End of Liberal Democracy'

Via Founding Bloggers, on Twitter:

Also, at Los Angeles Times, "Police raid Occupy Oakland encampment, arrest dozens."

Lots more at Memeorandum and Verum Serum. Also, at Hot Air, "Video: “The Man” 1, Occupy Oakland 0; Update: Protesters try to re-enter park."

The Once and Future German Problem

My dad used to always warn against the eventual rise of Germany after World War II. It's a question that's always fascinated me. Germany's already wielding tremendous influence amid all the economic turmoil, but if the Eurozone crashes say goodbye to a united Europe and the promise of peace it established.

At Washington Post, "In Europe, new fears of German might."

BERLIN — For decades, Germany’s role in Europe has been to supply the cash, not the leadership. With fresh memories of war, the continent was cautious about German domination — and so were the Germans themselves.

But the economic crisis has shaken Europe’s postwar model, and Germany increasingly calls the shots. As countries struggle to pay their debts, only Chancellor Angela Merkel has enough money to haul them out of trouble. And the price Merkel is demanding — more control over how they run their economies — is setting off alarm bells in capitals across the continent.

In Athens, protesters dressed up as Nazis routinely prowl the streets, an allusion to the old model of an assertive Germany. In Poland, accusations that Germany has imperial ambitions became a campaign issue in the recent presidential election.

And although German leaders have sought in recent weeks to soothe others’ fears in advance of high-level meetings in Brussels on Sunday and in coming days, the tone has sometimes sounded pugilistic.

Germany reengineered its culture after 1945. And I expect its role as economic powerhouse will satisfy renascent nationalist aspirations for European dominance. But there were predictions of a return to multipolarity and armed conflict in the years following the end of the Cold War. Hyper-institutionalization in the European project made that an impossibility. But times change. A lot depends on the role of the United States, whether we stay engaged in NATO and continue to keep Germany down, as we had throughout the postwar era. Is war among the leading European powers even a possibility at this point? Well, probably not --- I haven't heard a lot of calls for territorial revisionism, for example --- but you can't rule these things out. The pillars sustaining the peace are giving way. See Joshua Goldstein's recent essay, "Think Again: War."

RELATED: Anne-Marie Burley (Slaughter), "The Once and Future German Question."

Public Divided Over Occupy Wall Street Movement

This should send some tingles down the legs of the Occupier-in-Chief's communist base.

At Pew Research, "Tea Party Draws More Opposition than Support."

About four-in-ten Americans say they support the Occupy Wall Street movement (39%), while nearly as many (35%) say they oppose the movement launched last month in New York’s financial district.

By contrast, more say they oppose the Tea Party movement than support it (44% vs. 32%), according to the latest survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and The Washington Post, conducted Oct. 20-23 among 1,009 adults. One-in-ten (10%) say they support both, while 14% say they oppose both.

If the media bothered to cover the endemic anti-Semitism, public defecation, rat-infested conditions, outdoor sex, and revolutionary communism, I doubt you'd see this level of support. That's why bloggers are essential to getting the truth out on these idiot commies. See: "'Occupy Wall Street' Almost Entirely Socialist/Marxist."

IMAGE CREDIT: Bosch Fawstin, at Pajamas Media, "Seven Images That Will Make The Occupiers Cry."

Update on Zilla's Resistance Honor Roll

A follow-up to my earlier entry: "Conservatives Stand Up! — Zilla's Resistance Honor Roll Keeps Getting Bigger!" And Zilla's is here: "Stand Against Evil - Never Let it Win."

I didn't get a chance to link everybody up last time, and I've also been getting support via e-mail. Maggie Thornton sent this, "Harrassment":

Donald, the Left must deeply hate that you have classrooms of young minds in front of you every day. You are in their dominion, Education, and they believe they own it. How dare you treat with those they believe they own. You are their nightmare. Then you are bold enough to leave the classroom and share with your blog readers the insanity of promoting the destruction of capitalism and all that made this country great. You write from strength, with passion, and moral vision. I will pray that you be given the energy and will to prevail against this evil. Never forget that you are on a good and righteous mission.

Maggie

I don't, Maggie. And I appreciate the support.

And Jimmie Bise published a response to the progressives at his blog, "Beware the Howling Mob." Jimmie starts with a discussion of Ann Coulter's phenomenal book, "Demonic," and then writes:

My friend Zilla has been the subject of the left-wing mob, to the point where she ingeniously erected a Troll Tollgate which allows people to yell at her to their heart’s content so long as they fill up her tip jar for the privilege. Thus far, though, Zilla’s thuggish trolls have restricted their activities to childish rants in the comment sections of her blog posts.

Donald Douglas, on the other hand, has suffered that and far more. Left-wing agitators have gone after him, very personally and directly. They have dedicated a blog to his personal destruction and have attempted to get him fired on several occasions over the past three years. So far, they have failed, but their efforts have cost Donald countless hours of his time and, I will assume, some nontrivial amount of money to defend himself from the baseless attacks.

And all he did was give voice to his conservative political opinions.

Smitty, in a post on the subject, noted that it is not sufficient to the left that they prove their ideological opponents wrong. They must oppress. They must take away your ability to speak freely. We can complain about how unfair they are to us, but it won’t matter. They will not change. That is what they do. That is who they are. Progressivism over the decades is nothing but instance after instance of pure power politics: the rule of the howling mob, the haughty “We won”, the vicious “push back twice as hard”.

Here’s the thing, though. That exercise of power requires a faceless mob. When we begin to name and shame the offenders, the power diminishes. Their mob tactics require that they remain numerous and anonymous and that the victim remain isolated. When we band together and identify them as the thugs they are, their courage runs away like water.

It’s time we made the cowards run.

Just keep an eye on these people, Jimmie, and don't let your guard down. They're merciless bastards!

Also, Tania at Midnight Blue stands up as well: "A Progressive Attack on Conservative Blogger." And at Invincible Armor, "Stand With American Power Against Intimidation and Harassment."

Thanks!

And very interestingly, The Independent Realist has administered a brutal flogging to stalking asshat W. James Casper. In fact, Independent Realist engaged RACIST = REPSAC only to come away convinced he wasted his time on an epic loser. See, "Repsac3, W. James Casper — The Final Word." And from the conclusion there:

So there you have it. The whole sordid story of my involvement with a paranoid delusional. I gave him his chance to defend himself, and instead he now spends his days and nights tapping away on his keyboard writing post after post about the evil me and the conspiracy I am leading to ban him from the internet. The comment queue for this blog is filled with his rants are his blogs. As I have no desire to fuel his paranoia any further (not to mention that I don't enjoy playing games with the mentally ill), I am done with him. He cannot be rational or logical, and has slid down into irrational delusions. I fear for his sanity, and I can only hope that he will seek professional help, and not harm himself or others.

The Independent Realist has two other entries, here and here. Amazing isn't it? It took Independent Realist about two seconds to pin down W. James "Costanza" Casper. The idiot's completely deranged. It's too freakin' obvious. Indeed, Casper the hate-blogger responded with some incoherent ramblings attempting to deflect Independent Realist's devastating takedown, only to get hammered by one of his own progressives in the comments! His commenter calls out RACIST = REPSAC as crossing the line, indicating that Casper's campaign of intimidation is becoming "a real drag." Of course, you can't help someone who refuses wise counsel. RACIST = REPSAC's a nut case. A raving hatemonger and lunatic. He rambles at the post, spewing lies about how he's going to stop stalking me, and then says screw it, and starts up again with a new sets of rants.

Clinical.

Kudos to The Independent Realist. Thanks for taking this idiot Casper out back for a smackdown! The dude needs some help, no doubt. Sad.

Useful Idiots of Occupy Wall Street Get Lesson in Communism

Via Reaganite Republican, "Former Soviet Citizen Confronts Historically Ignorant OWS Boneheads re. 'Socialism'."

Miranda Kerr Fantasy Bra

This is the big event every year at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

See Sydney Morning Herald, "Miranda Kerr's Fantasy come true."

RELATED: From 2009, at WSJ, "Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Shows Off $3 Million Harlequin Fantasy Bra."

What's in the Bag? Shannan Click Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2011

Some Rule 5:

Previously: "Shannan Click Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2011."

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