Also, see Atlas Shrugs, "IRAN: Day 16 Liveblogging the Revolution."
A June 24-26 Mason-Dixon poll for Ron Sachs Communications (MoE +/- 6 in primary questions, 4 in general election) shows Charlie Crist leading Marco Rubio in the Republican U.S. Senate primary 51 percent to 23 percent. Just 52 percent of likely primary voters had heard of Rubio, while Crist was almost universally recognized.It's no surprise. Crist voted for the Obama porkulus maximus back in January. He has no creds among the conservative base of the party.
Get this: Among Republican voters who recognize both candidates, 33 percent back Crist and 31 percent back Rubio.
Mr. Crist is ... pushing a federal disaster-insurance fund, probably because he knows the risks he's taking and wants all American taxpayers to bail out his Florida schemes when future hurricanes hit. Meantime, he continues to perpetuate the myth that Florida property owners can have billions of dollars of subsidized insurance at little expense or risk. It's this kind of something-for-nothing economics that gave us the debacle of Fannie Mae. With that philosophy, Mr. Crist would feel right at home in Washington.
As is true for most discussions of affirmative action, the fight over Ricci has completely ignored the countless ways that whites in America have long benefited, and continue to benefit, from exactly the sort of non-merit considerations which affirmative action opponents decry. As Justice Ginsberg noted, whites had a virtual monopoly for decades on firefighter positions until Congress extended Title VII to public employment ("firefighting is a profession in which the legacy of racial discrimination casts an especially long shadow"), and city officials in this case determined that the test in question was flawed because, among other things, it did not reward merit ....From Christy Hardin Smith:
Anyone who tries to tell you that this is simply a race issue or an easy call doesn't know jack about labor law.From Melissa McEwan:
A very disappointing, if unsurprising, ruling. Typically, it was Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas in the majority, with Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, and Stevens dissenting. Ginsburg authored the dissent and noted, that the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."From Freddie DeBoer:
They had no vested right to promotion is pretty much the crux of the whole case, as far as I'm concerned. Seven words that say a hell of a lot about entitlement and privilege.
I am afraid for my country. This country has a permanent black underclass; Hispanic economic mobility is not much better. Decades of affirmative action have done little to fix that. Now, we appear ready to abandon those attempts to level the playing field entirely. Of course, principles and ideals are important. But my question is open, and I apply it to the most thoughtful opponents of affirmative action and the most rabid and unthinking alike: what are the effects, for our country, of a permanent racial achievement divide? And can we reasonably expect to maintain a peaceful and just society with such a gap between the races?From Joe Sudbay:
This decision will be the focus of a lot of spin today and for the next several weeks. Republicans have been looking for a line of attack on Sotomayor -- and may try to make this case a bigger issue. As far as I can tell, Sotomayor and her colleagues on the Court of Appeals were following precedence in their decision. Today, the Supreme Court changed the precedent and the interpretation of federal employment law.From Hullabaloo:
Those on the right wing will certainly spin this as proof positive of Sotomayor's incompetence, or her hatred of white people, etc. They've been preparing the ground for this ruling as a "seminal moment" that could derail the nomination, and they will come up with whatever distortions necessary to try to ensure that. But the charge rings pretty hollow and is based on a misunderstanding of the law, which is characteristic of many conservative arguments, actually.From Bit Tent Democrat:
In light of the SCOTUS' decision in Ricci, Congress must again act to rebuff the efforts of extreme right wing judicially activist Justices to roll back civil rights law ...From Darren Lenard Hutchinson:
As in Parents Involved, the extreme conservative, brazenly judicially activist Gang of 5 has made clear their own willingness to overturn actions by the elected representatives of the People to act to remedy centuries of discrimination.
The Congress can not let this brazen act of judicial activism stand. It must enact legislation overturning the Court's unprincipled decision in Ricci.
It is difficult to disagree with the White House statement (and the SCOTUS analysis), which says that the opinion proves that Judge Sotomayor is not biased.
As I stated in my prior analysis, even with the 5-4 reversal, 12 judges have voted against the firefighters, while 11 voted for them. This definitely shows that the issue was unsettled and that Second Circuit ruling was within the mainstream of legal thought (on a highly divisive issue).
I suspect that her opponents, however, will not let it go. Despite the fact that 11 other judges, including 4 who sit on the Supreme Court, have ruled the same way, they will still make noise about the ruling proving that she is unqualified for the Supreme Court. Ultimately, there complaints will have no effect.
BONUS OPINION ... From moderate Jonathan Turley:
It is a decision with which I expect most Americans would agree. It will be interesting to see if Congress attempts to amend the law to negate the ruling. The optics in “putting a thumb on the scale” of a test for firefighters is not good.
As for Sotomayor, these opinions have all of the substance that is missing in the Second Circuit opinion. Judge Cabranes is proven correct about the deeper issues here. One of my greatest concerns about Judge Sotomayor has been the lack of any deeper or more profound analysis in her opinions, which all too often tend to dismiss such issues.
The prefab conservative, or prefab-con, brings the same attitude to political discourse: rather than using reason and critical thinking to craft arguments that fit the real world, he trots out prefabricated memes, arguments and conclusions that are passably functional at best. All too often, they are even worse: the typical prefabcon lives in an intellectual house of ugly, wobbly walls that collapse on themselves in slight gusts. Undaunted, he throws up another structure on the same spot, though that wolf named reality is standing right there, ready to huff and puff again.For his key example, Friedersdorf offers up conservative talkshow host Kevin James, who came up empty-handed in a May 2008 appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews. James' problem was that he clearly didn't know the history of the Munich crisis - you know, that little bit about "peace in our time" that has come to define craven diplomacy in the face of unspeakable evil. Yeah, Chris Matthews pounded Kevin James for ignorant posturing, and rightly so.
People will endure remarkable hardship, at least once, to expel an invader from their country. Like France after Verdun, the horrific experience might be great enough to force a nation into a purely defensive posture, but even post-WWI France, which is a better comparison with post-1988 Iran, did not sink into pacifism.This was a breathtaking revision of history, especially Larison's analysis of the Maginot Line and French pacifist public opinion. As I wrote at the time:
Indeed, the occupation of the Rhineland, security guarantees to central European states and the building of the Maginot Line all point not to pacifism, but to an assumption that another war might come and France should be prepared for it. The Maginot Line came out of the experience of Verdun, which was that the defensive position held the overwhelming advantage in modern warfare; the problem with the Maginot Line was not that it was defensive and therefore somehow “weak” or pacifistic, but plainly enough that it did not guard the entire border.
Historians have long since shown that "pacifism" in the interwar context is captured by the entire collapse of social will that indicates a stage existential crisis far beyond numbers of men under arms or military armaments. The French case is even worse than the British, for as Eugen Weber has shown in his book, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930's, the entire national posture in France in the face of the rising Nazi challenge was one of national decay, moral laziness, and cowardly inaction. If anything, the Maginot was the greatest French symbol of the refusal to fight. I mean, really, the Maginot Line was a huge national system of underground bunkers within which French troops could hide from German Panzer divisions! There was no "overwhelming" advantage to defense on the eve of World War II. It was the opposite, as the German High Command's blitzkrieg strategy was to illustrate in the rapid defeat of the French in 1940. Basic books of French interwar history have covered the theme of French pacifism and moral decay for decades. William Shirer's The Collapse of the Third Republic is the central first-hand journalistic account, and the outstanding scholarly synthesis of the historiography can be found in Robert Young's, France and the Origins of the Second World War. Young's theme is strategic "ambivalence" rather than pacifism, so if folks want to quibble with details, you might be able to throw Larison a bone with that.The exact historical debate on the origins the French collapse in 1940 is less important than discerning the countours of the "prefab conservative" template.
But wait!
If it's really as Friedersdorf suggests, that "the prefabcon's core flaw is a misunderstanding of what it means to be principled," then it frankly seems that Friedersdorf himself should be in running as well! Hey, maybe Andrew Sullivan and the boys at Ordinary Gentlemen are "prefab conservatives" too. They seem to be, to a man, supporters of Barack Obama and the diplomacy of deceit and weakness, not to mention the abandoment of democracy and human rights. On that point, maybe someone who is a "prefab conservative" isn't conservative at all. Maybe "prefab conservative" is just another nifty little attack slogan that these "neoclassicons" have invented to advance the cause of postmodern hypocrisy. "Prefab conservative," as a term, is similar to "Rovian Islamist". It's not a term of meaningful debate. It's a moniker of excoriation, an attack grenade in the left-libertarian rearguard battle against the current top conservative on the American right.
If that's the case, no worries: Idiots like Larison are already totally marginalized. And folks like Conor Friedersdorf are simply chumming the waters to build a personal sinecure as a "house conservative" at some liberal mainstream journalistic outpost. Thank goodness the inane hypocrisy of these folks is so transparent. Let them stay over at American Conservative and the Atlantic. That way they won't bother anyone of real credentials on the genuine conservative right.
It really is hard to understand why some adults feel the need to make fun of Trig Palin, a one-year old who has Down Syndrome. Politics alone cannot explain it. If you don't like Sarah Palin, fine, but why go after Trig?It's a good question: Why go after Trig? But not only that, why demonize conservatives for actually thinking that there are some realms of the personal that should be free from partisan battle. Didn't President Obama suggest during the campaign that "Palin's family should be off limits"? Well, not for Wonkette at least. Those folks just can't help attacking the Alaska Governor and her family:
The Virgin Palin, Our Lady of Eternal Anger, gave birth to the New Jesus at some point last year — or not, who knows, and now Andrew Sullivan just cares about Iran (which is a good thing!) so we’ll never find out the truth — and ever since it has been both a Cardinal/Venial Sin and Sharia Law that no mortal shall “desecrate” an image of the Sacred One … no one but Sarah Palin herself, because Allah both allows and encourages the use of the Holy Infant as a cheap political prop as long as such cruel hackery is performed by the Virgin Palin herself.Notice the layered slurs herein. By linking approvingly to Andrew Sullivan, Wonkette gives full endorsement to the most crazed schemes of the left's Bush-Palin-Rovian-Islamist derangement. For Wonkette, Governor Palin, not unlike the Islamist barbarians in the Middle East, will be launching a terrorist "jihad" against her ideological opponents.
Palin’s fury was such, when she found out some blog “on the Internet” had combined a picture of her cradling one of her Magic Babies together with a picture of her Jedi Master, some dingbat old radio talk-show clown in Alaska, that she did verily send her dumbest disciple, “Brother Meg,” to start a Jihad against the Entire Internet.
** GRASSLEY PUSHING PROBE OFINSPECTORS GENERAL FIRINGS.Also, Robert Stacy McCain, "The ‘Domino Theory’ in the IG Scandal."
** AMTRAK 'SYSTEMATICALLY'VIOLATED LAW, SENATOR SAYS.
** 94-PAGE REPORT (PDF)
** MICHELLE MALKIN: Biden Connection
** DAN RIEHL: Amtrak VP Is Lobbyist
One of Michael Jackson's most famous lyrics proclaims, "It don't matter if you're black or white." But when it comes to the late singer's identification with African Americans, that declaration becomes much cloudier.Also, here'a bit from the Globe's story:
Jackson's massive popularity was continually shadowed by his evolving physical makeover from a dark-skinned boy with obvious ethnic features to a lighter-skinned man who had extensive plastic surgery on his face and nose, prompting concerns among African Americans and others that Jackson was trying to deny his heritage.
His high-profile relationships with white actresses, his marriages to Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe (who are both white) and suspicions that he wasn't in fact the biological father of his light-skinned children further divided African Americans. Some felt alienated by the singer's actions; others dismissed them as the acceptable eccentricities of a creative genius.
In 1993, Jackson told Oprah Winfrey - and, by extension, the entire planet - that he struggled with a skin condition called vitiligo that drained the pigment out of this skin. Regardless of whether this was actually the case, his face itself told the story of a torn soul. By the time of his death, he had become the perverse personification of the “double-consciousness’’ that W.E.B. DuBois described more than a century ago in “The Souls of Black Folk.’’It's hard to deny that in all of this, for Jackson, there was some racial self-loathing. Like black men of the pre-Civil Rights era - many of whom "pomaded" their hair with a nylon stocking-cap overnight, Jackson took efforts to minimize his blackness and make integration into the dominant white society easier. In so doing, his political message was a pop-culture version of the great '60s era of black Civil Rights: Racial integration was the last best hope of black American upward mobility. Economically, Jackson's phenomenal wealth, especially in the years prior to his personal decline, illustrated that the American dream was indeed available to those of talent and effort, irrespective of race.
“It is a peculiar sensation,’’ DuBois wrote, “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. . . . The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, this longing . . . to merge his double self into a better and truer self.’’
Through his ongoing plastic surgeries and increasingly pale skin, Jackson took this longing to a kind of tragic extreme. The African features of his youth that he had been conditioned to loathe - through his troubled upbringing, through the limiting funhouse lens of popular culture - steadily disappeared. His wide bulb of a nose became a precariously slender triangle. His ice-cream-scoop Afro and, later, his juicy Jheri curl dried into cascade of straight, ravenous hair. And his bumpy brown skin became a chalky mask with a model’s cheekbones, a starlet’s doe eyes, and a matinee idol’s cleft chin. Jackson had grafted America’s white beauty myth (for both genders) onto his face.
This always happens to me. If there is a lonely dirty old man around he will undoubtedly find me and attach himself to me like a moth to a flame. He started talking about the current world we live in and how different it is for kids blah blah blah. So I humored and said yes it is different and continued with how I am getting old and am feeling it since all the icons from when I grew up pretty much all died in one day. I was of course being sarcastic, since there are still plenty of living icons from the 70's and 80's. He said, who? Michael Jackson? An icon? No way. Now this man was at least 20 years older than me and was acting like we were kindred spirits growing up in the same decade. Whatever. So I said well, he was pretty huge when I was a kid. He said, no he was only famous for a while, and then turned into a weirdo. He said some other choice things, but I tuned him out like a man watching football.
Thirty-four more pictures, at the link.
Of course, the Honduran military acted with the support of that country's supreme court, who had ruled Zelaya's proposals to change the constitution so that he could remain in power illegal. Also of course, Zelaya is a radical leftist allied with Hugo Chavez.Fox News notes the administration's quick action, "Obama Calls for Order as Honduran Military Arrests President." More at Memeorandum, and The Rhetorican.
Wow, the Obama administration springs immediately into action to succor a wannabe Marxist dictator, yet Beloved Leader Barrack couldn't find it in his heart to say a few "just words" when Iranians were dying in the streets under the thumb of the mullahs.
In a blatant attempt to stop the march of progress, comes this outrage. If newspapers are dying, good riddance to bad rubbish. The death of propagandists and disinformationalists can't come soon enough. America is in trouble. The inadequate traitor in the White House could never have been elected had it not been for the greatest act of perfidy in the media history. They have long abdicated their role as public servant. They are guilty of high treason.Interesting examples at the link.
Over the last few days I’ve noticed that a couple Republicans are taking to Twitter to discuss some pressing issues — boobs.NTTAWWT!!
Chris Wysocki, Blasting Caps and Dynamite, Moonbattery, Sweating Through the Fog, Three Beers Later, PA Pundits, Paco Enterprises, Ken Davenport, Sister Toldjah, Blazing Cat Fur, Dan Collins, Scott Kingsmore, The Astute Bloggers, The BoBo Files, Grant Jones, Tapline, New Testament News, Wizbang, William Jacobson, Phyllis Chesler, TigerHawk, Point of a Gun, Right Wing News, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Nice Deb, Becky Brindle, GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD, Fishersville Mike, Monique Stuart, No Sheeples Here!, Dana at CSPT, Glenn Reynolds, Obi’s Sister, Right Truth, Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels, Chicago Ray, Ace of Spades HQ, Natalie's Blog. Ann Althouse, Track-a-'Crat, Right View from the Left Coast, Generation Patriot, Macsmind, Flopping Aces, Edge's Conservative Movies, Stop the ACLU, Snooper's Report, Grandpa John's, Cranky Conservative, Jimmie Bise, Little Miss Attila, Moe Lane, Private Pigg, Pundit & Pundette, The Rhetorican, R.S. McCain, Saber Point, Stephen Kruiser, Suzanna Logan, TrogloPundit, Villainous Company, PoliGazette, Prying 1, The Western Experience, The Oklahoma Patriot, Right Wing Sparkle, Conservatism With Heart, Duck of Minerva, Doug Ross Journal, Wolf Howling, Right Wing Nation, Right Wing Nuthouse, Melissa Clouthier, Paula in Israel, Pamela Geller, Vanessa's Blog, Pat's Daily Rants, Bob's Bar & Grill, Power Line, Melanie Morgan, Dave in Boca, Neo-Neocon, Right in a Left World, Flag Gazer, Stephen Green, The Tygrrrr Express, The News Factor, Israel Matsav, The Conservative Manifesto, Gates of Vienna, Joust The Facts, Panhandle Poet, Steven Givler, The Astute Blogger, The Daley Gator, Just One Minute, Dave's World, Sparks From the Anvil, Gateway Pundit, Political Pistachio, Liberty Pundit, Not One Red Cent, Right Truth, Dave's Notepad, The Red Hunter, Maggie's Farm, The Next Right, This Ain't Hell, Stop the ACLU, Politics and Critical Thinking, Riehl World View, Midnight Blue, Caroline Glick, The Average American, The Griper, FouseSquawk, The Other McCain, Cheat Seeking Missiles, Roger Simon, Classical Values, Samantha Speaks, Grizzly Mama, The Capitol Tribune, The Patriot Room, The Real World, RADARSITE, Serr8d's Cutting Edge, Bloviating Zeppelin, Born Again Redneck The Educated Shoprat, St. Blogustine, Yid With Lid, Pondering Penguin, Betsy's Page, The Anchoress, Ace of Spades HQ, Right Wing Sparkle, Thunder Run, The Classic Liberal, Conservative Grapevine, Cassy Fiano, Jim Treacher, NetRightNation, Q and O, Urban Grounds, Ed Driscoll, Cold Fury, Michelle Malkin, Neptunus Lex, Neo-Neocon, The Liberty Papers, The Monkey Cage, Law and Order Teacher, Mike's America, AubreyJ, Dan Collins, The Jungle Hut, Wake Up America, Dan Riehl, Nikki's Blog, Maggie's Notebook, Hummers & Cigarettes, Mark Goluskin, Jawa Report, Darleen Click, The Skepticrats, Fausta's Blog, Clueless Emma, Obob's World, Seymour Nuts, Red State, Dr. Sanity, The Desert Glows Green, Not One Red Cent, Vinegar and Honey, Sarge Charlie, Thoughts With Attitude, Kim Priestap, Swedish Meatballs Confidential, Five Feet of Fury, Amy Proctor, Blonde Sagacity, Liberty Papers, The Blog Prof, and Big Girl Pants.
Also, never forget Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit!
Rusty, you look younger than 63 in your picture.
James brags at the post that "I am well into my second bottle of wine..."
That's some bottled courage for you. Well, folks know what happens to young cocky suckers like James Webb. Recall Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, "Get off my lawn." Chinese Kid: "You better watch your back":
This is how James Webb operates. Just an ass, totally. See also James' social toxicity in, "How Not to Get a Million Hits On Your Blog, And Not Score With Hotties. Ever."I sent the reader the link to another post, where "ex DLB" adds, "And Don, you were probably an ugly baby, too."A commenter named ex DLB posits: "To be perfectly fair, Eddie Burke was probably just as ugly as a baby. Sorry if that upsets anyone." And JBW replies: "There's nothing worse than an ugly baby, ex DLB."
Okay ... dance around this as much as you like, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist, nor an intellectual genius to understand that Trig Palin is the baby being discussed here. It's just another of the 'nudge, nudge' comments made by these quasi intellectual, heartless, individuals whose words are used to cause as much pain as possible. No wonder the Greek root of the word "sarcasm" means "to tear the flesh." Dr. Douglas, you are right in calling them out on this, and exposing them for what they are. Their treatment of Governor Palin and her innocent children aren't their only targets, obviously. How sad when one's purpose in life is nothing more than to tear down another's reputation, and to harm them, emotionally. If this is representative of the Democratic majority, then we, as a nation, are in big, big trouble.
The underlying dynamic here illustrates why it’s always been a mistake to try to draw a contrast between gay rights groups’ efforts to secure equality through the courts and to secure equality through the political process.Shorter Yglesias: The political process is illegitimate in the absence of toeing the hardline gay rights agenda.
You know, I'm a college instructor by trade, I'm registered as an Independent, and hold a slightly Libertarian bent. I would love to see how he responds to students who write work Don doesn't like from a political standpoint.This is really interesting.
His language on his blog with respect to certain topics could be called borderline unethical for a college prof. If you disagree with gay rights/marriage, yay for you. But to use it as a slur against opponents would really make some of my superiors take notice in a way that Don wouldn't like. And some of them hold definite conservative leanings.
I wish you came out with some of the information you blog on in your lectures ...And that's the thing. My blog is separate from my lectures. I sometimes pull it up in class, for example, in my recent discussions on democracy I've played some of the videos from Iran's protests. (Seeing that violence, students are stunned by the disconnect between their liberty at home and the brutal authoritarianism abroad.) I will sometimes also point students to my blog to find my published essays or other important articles that relate to what we're doing.
The streets of Tehran are quiet once again. But the multitudes who protested the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad haven't gone home and put their rage in a closet.Read the whole thing, at the link.
They are carefully weighing their options, balancing personal lives, economic well- being and political aspirations -- and trying to determine whether they have any real leadership.
Perhaps the anger will reignite on July 9, the 10th anniversary of a student uprising that prompted a campaign to crush reformist aspirations. Or the match may be lighted the next time authorities roll out the Guidance Patrol, which stops women on the streets for allowing too much hair to peep out from under their head scarves.
The government has shown that it's willing to pay a high price in blood and international isolation to maintain its hold on the direction of the country.
But what price are protesters and other citizens willing to pay? Are they ready to go underground, let dark roots overwhelm their blond highlights and shed petite mini-coats to hide tracts and underground newspapers beneath all-covering black chadors?
See also, the New York Times, "In Tehran, a Mood of Melancholy Descends," via Memeorandum.
And, London Telegraph, "Iran dissident remembers the torture his comrades are now going through in Tehran."
Cartoon Credit: Americans for Limited Government, and William Warren.
The site's hard-charging reporting tactics and impressive record of accuracy have drawn stunned admiration from rivals but also angry denunciations from actors, public relations representatives and government agencies.
TMZ earlier this year posted what looked like an evidence photo of pop singer Rihanna's battered face after a fight with boyfriend Chris Brown. Outraged Los Angeles Police Department officials promptly launched an investigation into the leak, which the judge at Brown's trial last month said was possibly criminal.
"There are documents that come out that they get that frankly they never should," said Courtney Hazlett, a columnist and celebrity correspondent for MSNBC.com. "The Rihanna photo is Exhibit 1A."
Lurking behind much of the suspicion is a sense that TMZ is flouting not so much the law as journalistic ethics. Rivals have consistently accused Levin and company of paying for information. Most news-gathering organizations do not allow reporters and editors to pay sources for tips or quotes, although it has become a common practice for magazines and TV news shows to pay tens of thousands of dollars for exclusive access to celebrity weddings or baby pictures, often with interviews included as part of the arrangements.
"Why would somebody who works in the hospital give them the information? Out of the goodness of their heart?" said Rob Silverstein, executive producer of NBC Universal's "Access Hollywood," referring to the tip that led to the Jackson report. However, he conceded that he did not have "absolute proof" that TMZ was paying for information.
TMZ officials in the past have dismissed the skepticism. "People bring us stories because they want to see them get out," Paratore said in a recent interview. But Saturday, Levin, who repeatedly refused to be interviewed for this report, was quoted in the New York Times as saying the site pays "tip fees" that lead to stories, but not for stories outright, without explaining the distinction.
