Al Gore Extramarital Affair – An Inconvenient Truth?!!

Hey, found this at Jawa Report. Speculative or the real deal? See Star Magazine, "Exclusive: Al Gore Cheats with Larry David's Ex." And starting to get picked up, e.g., at USA Today, "'Star' Mag: Al Gore Affair Broke Up Marriage":

It was only a matter of time before the celeb mags started prognosticating about what really caused Al and Tipper Gore's marriage ended after 40 years.

On June 1, the couple said it was "very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration." Friends said they had "grown apart."

Now, Star magazine is reporting -- with no official comment or confirmation -- that the former vice president has been having an affair with Larry David's ex-wife, Laurie David. Larry and Laurie split in 2007. Laurie was a producer on Al's 2006 Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

No doubt most people knew all along, as I quearied wrote on June 1st, "any John Edwards moments for the Gores?"

IMAGE CREDIT: No Sheeples Here!

Taking Down Eric Boehlert

Patrick Frey and Matt Welch are just hammering useful tool Eric Boehlert of Media Mutters for America. We're talkin' utter devastation --- total Maximus Decimus Meridius takedown territory for the useful clown at MMFA.

Matt's piece is especially killer, "Don't You Go Calling Obama an 'ex-state senator, 'Hater!'."

Turns out Boehlert can't get out from under this comment:

And I don't even have to do a Google search to know for a fact that when President Bush was in office, there was nobody on staff at the Times, and certainly nobody writing off the opinion pages, who was allowed to so casually insult the office of the presidency on a regular basis.

Clear and unambiguous indictment, right?

So, Matt nails him on it, for example:

As the Internet kidz like to say, let me Google that for you. There'll you see a Bush-era L.A. Times columnist – one of the most consistently popular among the paper's stable at the time – who used these phrases to describe Obama's predecessor:

* "Bubble Boy"
* "willfully blind"
* "distracted and incompetent"
* "homegrown authoritarian"
* "Torturer-in-Chief"
* "a bad dream, a shameful, inexplicable interlude in American history"
* enabler of "the so-called Big Lie theory of political propaganda, articulated most infamously by Adolf Hitler."
* "if you dilute civilian control of the military, you end up with fascism or a Latin American-style military junta....we're already well on the way to having that kind of regime."
* "being a citizen in George W. Bush's America is like being a passenger in a car driven by a drunk driver."
* "I don't hate George Bush. But I sure hate what he's done to my country."

Incidentally, that columnist above, Rosa Brooks, has since gone on to take a job in Obama's Pentagon.

QED!

Well, except that obviously there's no meaningful reality for useful tool Eric Boehlert. He writes hopelessly in response, "Thanks to Matt Welch at Reason for proving my point about LA Times hating Obama."

I'll refer readers back to Matt Welch for more. But I'm thinking this is a good time to refer Eric Boehlert to Karen Alloy:

But to continue, go to Patterico for some epic smash-mouth politics: "Eric Boehlert: No, Seriously! Kick Me!" In what has to be the funniest investigation EVAH!! turns out Boehlert denied that he cross-posted his stuff to "Smirking Chimp," the Bush-era Bush-hating website. It's too good (so follow the links above), but Patterico went over there, signed up, and posted this:

There's lots more (so again, check those links). But hey, give it up for Patterico!

And FWIW, follow Boehlert's further circus performances on Twitter.

'Death to Israel' (in Hebrew and Arabic)

See Jawa Report, "'Death to Israel' Shirt at Irish 'Peace' Protest."

RELATED: At Blazing Cat Fur, "Alleged 'Fauxtilla Peace Activist' Kevin Neish Too Stupid To Keep His Stories Straight."

What Does It Take...

Here's Garland Jeffreys' 1982 cover of Junior Walker & the All Stars' 1969 chart-topper, "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)":

I listened to Jeffreys in the early '80s. It turns out his biggest hit was "Wild in the Streets." And funny timing, the Circle Jerks came out with a cover of "Wild in the Streets" in 1982, the lead track of the album of the same name.

At the Jeffreys clip above, notice Harvey Keitel in the opening scene (likely an MTV viddy, but I don't recall seeing it). [Added: Is that Joe Piscopo in there as well?]

The original song from Junior Walker & the All Stars is here.

RELATED: More music at PA Pundits International, "Sunday Music – All Along The Watchtower – The Bob Dylan Series (Part 11)."

Who's the Enemy in the War on Terror?

From Senator Joseph Lieberman, at WSJ:

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

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

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

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

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

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

After Obama? Progressives Getting Fed Up With 'The One'

Via Allahpundit, some interesting developments in the long-building Obama backlash on the progressive left. Actually, Allah's taking about British MP Daniel Hannan's buyer's remorse, but my interest is in Joan Walsh's piece at Salon, "Protecting the Obama Brand":

Two stories about President Obama this weekend pushed my growing unease with his recent moves into full-blown anxiety. They come on the heels of Tim Dickinson's devastating Rolling Stone piece laying out concrete problems with Obama's response to the BP oil spill – from delays in cleaning up the Minerals Management Service, distrusting scientists who correctly reported the spill was much bigger than BP said, and waiting more than a week to declare the crisis "an Oil Spill of National Significance," which corralled new services. Maybe the most damning section of Dickinson's piece comes when he quotes the president proudly announcing he'd reversed his stand against offshore oil drilling. "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills," the president said. "They are technologically very advanced." Dickenson notes: "Eighteen days later, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the Deepwater Horizon rig went off like a bomb."

Of the weekend's worrisome Obama stories, the first was Politico's Roger Simon's interview with Obama, published in full today, in which his self-defense about how he's handled the BP oil disaster sounded whiny and juvenile, and raised big questions about whether he's capable of fighting the battles he needs to enter and win to move the country forward. The other was Matt Bai's "Democrat in Chief?" in the New York Times Magazine, which showed that Obama and his team seem more focused on protecting the "brand" that they believe galvanized millions of new voters, young voters and independents in 2008, to potentially realign American politics, than with helping Democrats hold the House and Senate.

Not sure why Walsh doesn't link to NYT's Sunday Magazine, so here goes, "Democrat in Chief?"

But be sure to finish Walsh's piece. She can't help laying some of the blame on the tea parties:

There are two pressing reasons that I find Obama's current stasis so worrisome. One is that we're at a dangerous time, given the world economy, and on the right, Obama's election has worsened a 20-year pattern of Republican obstruction and destruction (and it's got an undercurrent of hate and demonization that can't be denied.) At the same time, Obama has an incredible moment to articulate what Democratic leadership stands for: Improving the lives of ordinary Americans, protecting the country from the unbridled, deregulated dangerous corporate excess, and moving boldly on problems, like climate change, that require boldness and leadership.

And "boldness" on climate change? Well, it takes boldness to pass off that much B.S. on the public, especially since the AGW consensus has been completely destroyed.

(Note that unhappiness with Obama's been growing for some time, and if this progressive dissent keeps building look for Jane Hamsher and her henchmen to back a 2012 primary challenge a la Eugene McCarty '68.)

And by the way, Melanie Phillips has a fabulous discussion of the AGW fraud and more at her new book, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power. I'm really enjoying it. Most important book I've read this year.

'Alejandro' Fashion Credits

A pretty wild photo-portfolio, at NICOLA FORMICHETTI'S BLOG!! (Lady Gaga's stylist.)

Click on the image and enlarge for full effect. And lots more pics at the link at top.

See also Nicola's, "LADY GAGA AT RAINFOREST FUND SHOW -- WITH STING AND ELTON JOHN" (and Blondie too!)

And don't forget, I've had a little crush on Gaga for some time now, despite the Katy Perry backlash. I just don't think about her politics (or racial double standards). She's doing some pretty wicked stuff no matter your ideological or musical take on things. (Although she'll score some points with a production riff on Muhammed!)

Midnight Blue Eye Candy!

That's cool.

My good friend Tania Gail is featured in my other good friend Chris Muir's political cartoon, "Day-by-Day":

See beautiful Tania here: "Pennsylvania Conservative Council in 2010" and "Beautiful, Smart Conservative Women."

Renee Ellmers: Let's Stop the Obama Bullying Thug Congress

The Democratic Party is circulating a set of talking points in response to the Bob Etheridge college journalist assault --- Dems are making outraged allegations that a GOP "tracker or intern" maneuvered to "incite this very type of reaction."

But WaPo's Jonathan Capehart is having none of it:

It doesn't really matter what prompted it. By grabbing the arm of someone who said he was a student working on a project and then grabbing him by the neck after not being told where he went to school, Etheridge displayed thuggish behavior that must never be condoned. Not when it's done by rowdy Tea Partiers outside the Capitol, and certainly not by people who are elected to serve there.

The event is obviously a career-killer for Etheridge.

Renee Ellmers is the GOP challenger for North Carolina's 2nd congressional district. And my blogging colleague John Hawkins obtained an exclusive response for Ellmers on the incident, "Bob Etheridge’s Opponent, Renee Ellmers, Responds To His Assault On A Student Film Crew":

I reached out to Renee Ellmers' campaign and they have released their FIRST written statement about the incident to Right Wing News. Here's what Renee Ellmers has to say,

If a teacher or principal treated a student this way – it would raise serious questions and he would be suspended. This kind of behavior is equally unacceptable in a Congressman. Bob Etheridge needs to make a full, complete and candid public explanation for this behavior. His describing his behavior as “a poor response” is not adequate. Most important of all, Congressman Etheridge should apologize – in person – to the two students.

You can donate to Renee Ellmers' campaign here. Additionally, you can follow Renee Ellmers on Facebook and Twitter.

Gather Your Armies

“Now, I took an oath to defend that with my life, and I can’t stand by while these evils are perpetrated.” More at Hot Air:

UC Irvine Suspends Muslim Student Union for Disrupting Speech by Israel Ambassador Michael Oren

At Instapundit, " UC Irvine suspends Muslim student group for disrupting Israeli ambassador’s talk," and at LAT, "UC Irvine wants Muslim student group suspended":

The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine should be suspended for one year for its involvement in repeated disruptions of a February speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, according to a disciplinary report released by the university.

The Muslim Student Union has appealed the recommendation.

The speech about U.S.-Israeli relations was interrupted 10 times by students who got up and yelled out things like, "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech."

And be sure to read the UCI administration's May 27th letter to the Muslim Student Union.

The Left's Reaction to Afghanistan's New Mineral Riches‎

Okay, NYT's got what's apparently a big deal, "U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan." I'm just now checking Memeorandum, and boy folks are excited. The Times' story is sensational. The mineral find is estimated at $1 trillion, and "Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world..."

The U.S. does not fight wars for treasure, of course (which is actually kinda dumb, when you think about it, considering how China's reaping the strategic-economic gains from America's military sacrifices). But my first thought upon seeing the headline is "Great, now all the netroots neo-communists will be attacking the Afghan deployment as an imperialist boondoggle all along, blah, blah, blah ..."

It's not, but that won't deter a new round of unhinged attacks from folks on the left who just a few short years ago argued that Iraq was distracting the U.S. from our real, more important war in Afghanistan. Michael J.W. Stickings pretty well sums up the left's cravenly antiwar political opportunism:

I will admit that, like many, I was an early supporter of the Afghan War. But I was a supporter specifically of the effort to topple the Taliban government and to remove al Qaeda from its safe haven. Since then, though, it has been a badly mismanaged war, largely because Bush shifted focus to Iraq, but also because the war, with the Taliban overthrown and al Qaeda pushed back into the mountains and the Pakistani border regions, lacks a compelling purpose, let alone any sort of realistic objective.

So, let's take a look around the 'sphere. What do we find?

At:

* AmericaBlog, "Without a strong environmental protection organization, chances are high that the dash for cash will lead to grabbing minerals in the fastest way possible without considering the environmental impact."

* Attackerman, "And now, naturally, someone’s telling [NYT'S James] Risen about the specter of great-power resource competition that just so perfectly implies a new rationale for extended war and post-war foreign influence."

* Balloon Juice, "Maybe it’s just my sour nature and dim view of humanity, but I fail to see why the discovery of trillions of dollars of minerals in Afghanistan is Good News for America®."

* Daily Kos, "We have no need to worry that Afghanistan is suddenly going to transform itself in a stable, China-friendly minerals exporter any time soon. After we leave, it will probably collapse into civil war, which is none of our business. These discoveries are no reason to stay in Afghanistan."

* Democracy Arsenal, "The only thing this story shows is the desperation of the Pentagon in planting pie-in-the-sky news stories about Afghanistan and trying to salvage the lost cause that is our current mission there."

* Digby's Hullabaloo, "As if people and nations never fought to the death to possess humongous mineral resources."

* Kevin Drum, "I have a very bad feeling about this. It could quickly turn into a toxic combination of stupendous wealth, superpower conflict, oligarchs run wild, entire new levels of corruption, and a trillion new reasons for the Taliban to fight even harder."

* Matthew Yglesias, "In general, though, waging war for control of natural resources makes a lot of sense for third world bandits & militias or would-be coup leaders, but doesn’t cost out for citizens of a developed market oriented democracy."

* Marc Ambinder, "The general perception about the war here and overseas is that the counterinsurgency strategy has failed to prop up Hamid Karzai's government in critical areas, and is destined to ultimately fail. This is not how the war was supposed to be going, according to the theorists and policy planners in the Pentagon's policy shop ... What better way to remind people about the country's potential bright future -- and by people I mean the Chinese, the Russians, the Pakistanis, and the Americans -- than by publicizing or re-publicizing valid (but already public) information about the region's potential wealth?"

* Melissa McEwan, "I don't know what the perfect word is to describe the reserved happiness I feel on behalf of the many average people of Afghanistan who just want a functional country with a modern infrastructure bought by a stable economy, shot through with a steely bolt of panic that the very discovery which might allow that very thing will instead bring a whole new fresh hell for them as colonialists and warlords and corrupt members of their own government stake out positions around the vast reserves of minerals which have been discovered in Afghanistan by Pentagon officials and US geologists."

* Naked Capitalism, "This vastly ups the stakes. It now isn’t hard to see that we will continue to pour resources and young men’s lives into Afghanistan to make sure we control these riches, just as we continue to throw money and personnel into Iraq to hold the prize of the second largest oil reserves in the world."

* Newshoggers, "When the NYT published Risen's story to the web last night, I tweeted "What a convenient time to find $1 trillion, eh?" and "Just as McChrystal's in big trouble, liberal thinktanks starting to shift anti-war, Pentagon publicizes $1 trillion Afghan treasure trove," because this is a zombie story, resurrected yet again for political purposes."

* No More Mister Nice Blog, "If anything, this will further alienate Obama's onetime supporters from the anti-war left, just in time for 2010 -- blood-for-treasure is a recognizable narrative -- and it means Ralph Nader will have to do very little rewriting of his old campaign speeches when he runs in 2012. (An Obama defeat in 2012 isn't going to reverse this course, however -- do you really think Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin will reject the opportunity to get sanctimoniously choked up at the noble sacrifice of young men and women dying in Afghanistan for niobium?)"

* Political Carnival, "We’re never leaving now, never..."

* Prairie Weather, "You can forget about socially-awkward burqas and Taliban insurgents as viable reasons for war and occupation. The capitalist market demands Afghanistan's mineral deposits. Who does mining better than the US?"

* Steve Benen, "As a growing number of observers, here and around the world, raise questions anew about whether Afghanistan's future offers any hope at all, along comes a carefully leaked story about nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits, which could fundamentally improve the country's economy, stability, and long-term prospects."

* Talking Points Memo, "Afghanistan's a pretty out of the way place. But it's not like it hasn't gotten a good bit of attention from great powers in the past. First the Brits, then the Russians, now us. So no one else ever looked or they didn't find anything ... And with so much in play right now about the future of the US mission in the country, the timing of the revelation is enough to raise some suspicions in my mind."

* Taylor Marsh, "Instead of pushing for people to help Afghanistan and offer troops, Afghanistan could end up being the poor girl at the prom who just won the lottery. And we all know where most lottery winners end up."

* Unqualified Offerings, "For my part, I would be content to leave Afghanistan alone and say that if somebody there somehow finds himself in control of minerals and manages to dig them out of the ground, we are willing to pay cash on delivery. We are NOT, however, willing to do our own pick-up or provide armed escorts for those who do the pick-up or the mining. The terms are cash on delivery ... Some will say that it is ruthlessly amoral to not do anything to ensure that the extraction is done by “good guys” rather than “bad guys” but I say that going in with force to ensure that the mining is done by (and profits are received by) some particular government, company, warlord, or whoever is by far a greater evil in practice than simply paying cash on delivery to whoever manages to show up with the minerals."

* Wonkette, "If you thought Afghanistan was only profitable for opium wholesalers and the defense industry, think again! According to some convenient new geological study of the mountainous, wild land that has broken the backs of so many empires, the whole place is chock full of precious metals..."

BONUS: Steve Saideman offer a thoughtful political science take on the story, "Resources in Afghanistan!?"

**********

UPDATE: Linked at Andrew Bolt, Instapundit, Shout First, and Where Are My Keys. Plus, at Right Truth, "Problems With Afghan Mineral Deposits."

Thanks!

Sunday in San Francisco

Looks like unusually good weather in San Francisco. Below is the Bay Bridge. More great pics via TigerHawk:

Change! Near-Record 49% Say Democratic Party 'Too Liberal'

At Gallup:

In the past two years, Americans have become increasingly likely to describe the Democratic Party's views as "too liberal" (49%), and less likely to say its views are "about right" (38%). Americans' views of the Republican Party, on the other hand, have moderated slightly, with a dip in the percentage saying the GOP is too conservative from 43% last year to 40% today, and an increase in the percentage saying it is about right, from 34% to 41%.

The recent increase in perceptions of the Democratic Party as too liberal could be a response to the expansion in government spending since President Barack Obama took office, most notably regarding the economic stimulus and healthcare legislation.

The 49% of Americans who now believe the Democratic Party's views are too liberal is one percentage point below the 50% Gallup measured after the 1994 elections, the all-time high in the trend question first asked in 1992.

*****

In their efforts to attract widespread voter support in general elections, parties and their candidates generally want to avoid being perceived as too ideologically extreme. Indeed, a common strategy in U.S. electoral politics is for Republican candidates to try to paint their Democratic opponents as too far left, and Democratic candidates to try to convince voters that their Republican opponents are too far right. Currently, by 49% to 40%, more Americans perceive the Democratic Party as too liberal than say the Republican Party is too conservative, giving the Republicans an advantage in an important election year. With Election Day more than four months away, however, the Democratic Party has an opportunity in the 2010 campaign to try to alter voters' perceptions of the party's ideology.

IMAGE CREDIT: iOWNTHEWORLD.

Democrats Are Thugs

A metaphor for ObamaCare itself.

A couple of points: First is that YouTube [initially] pulled the video from its site, which means someone threatened them, not the least of these being this congressman's staff. Second is a response to those who say "they all do it": Well, I guess so, but only Democrats beat young college kids asking about ObamaCare. This congressman might as well be a rep for SEIU. The report's at Big Government, and Ed Morrissey adds this, "Video: Rep. Etheridge assaults student on street; Update: Video restored" (via Memeorandum):

His opponent is Renee Ellmers, who works in the health-care industry and is a staunch opponent of ObamaCare, opposes the bailouts and Obamanomics, is pro-life, wants to try terrorists in military courts, and demands immigration enforcement. It doesn’t appear that Ellmers is a big fan of assaulting students on the street, either. Perhaps this R+2 district might be ready to exchange their current Congressman for someone who understands the proper relationship between elected officials and their constituents — and the laws regarding assault and battery.

UPDATE: The jerk apologizes, kinda, "Etheridge Statement on Viral Video." Meanwhile, Mediate blames the young videographer.

Flotilla Sickness and the 'Progressive' Mind

From Melanie Phillips:

We have endured the fabricated claims of Israeli massacres in Jenin, the 2006 Lebanon war and Cast Lead; the charge that Israel is an ‘apartheid’ state, that it has committed genocide, ethnic cleansing and is starving the people of Gaza; that it is the aggressor in the Middle East.

How is it possible that so many believe all these lies? How can so many Jews believe them? As I have described in my new book, The World Turned Upside Down (please forgive the commercial) the witch-hunt against Israel is the pivotal example of the West’s repudiation of reason itself, leading to a widespread inversion of truth and lies, justice and injustice, right and wrong.

The ‘progressive’ left-wing intelligentsia now subscribes to a world-view that, over a wide range of issues, subordinates truth to ideology. This manifests itself in utopian creeds that hold that the world would attain a state of perfection if only it wasn’t for capitalism/America/ industrialisation/men/the nation state/those damned Jews.

Since these creeds are axiomatically the embodiment of virtue, all who dissent must be treated as moral outcasts and their views stifled.

From this Manichean mindset, which decrees that all who are not the left are a) the right, and b) intrinsically evil, it follows that anyone who challenges the lies generated by ideological dogma is by definition right-wing and evil. As a result of this knee-jerk name-calling, people dismiss such inconvenient truths even when they stare them in the face.

This terrifying mindset is the left’s default position. That is why this madness towards Israel is not confined to gentiles. Indeed, even Jews who consider themselves to have the interests of Israel at heart sometimes tragically end up believing the lies and supporting positions that would destroy it.

Hey, no problem on the commercial. Buy the book here, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power.

Sarah Palin's For Real (IYKWIMAITYD)

At People's Cube:

We need to shine the headlights of truth on this issue. Why can't these boobs get a handle on this. I personally don't give a hoot er whatever. People are simply trying to rack up points. Get back into the fields comrades. What has this to do with the price of melons.

And at Hot Air, "Palin: No, I haven’t had implants":

Daily Kos on Helen Thomas: Jews Back to Poland Just 'Human Nature'

Hey, when the whole of society is irredeemably racist, sexist, and homophobic, who cares about a little anti-Semitism among the left-wing media elite.

At Daily Kos, unsurprisingly, "Helen Thomas and the Veneer of Civilization":

Bigotry lies just below the surface in many of us. Below the level of consciousness. Strip away the veneer of what we consider civilized deportment, and it will appear in more of us than most people realize. It occasionally shows itself in flickering glimpses. Romanticizing the Confederacy. Attempting to forget the internment of the Japanese during the Second World War. Ignoring the continuing suffering of the descendants of those that survived the genocide of this continent's native peoples. Omission can be every bit as revealing and damaging as commission.

Bigotry reveals itself when the GLBT community is criticized for demanding basic rights, and people are shouted down and told to be patient with what is characterized as their special agenda. When immigrants are blamed for lost jobs or increased crime, despite statistics proving they are responsible for neither. When people confuse Israel with Jews, or call AIPAC, which enjoys support from but a minority of the American Jewish community, the "Jewish lobby." The ease with which the Bush Administration used a terrorist attack executed by a small band of Saudis and Egyptians, and planned in Afghanistan and Germany, to foment a pandemic hatred that ended up directed at a nation of Arabs and Muslims that had had absolutely nothing to do with that attack. The welfare "reform" signing ceremony that used black women as props for the photo op. The irrational fury unleashed by the election of this nation's first black president ...

The lesson of Helen Thomas should not be taken as a statement only about Helen Thomas ...

RTWT. It's. Just. Really. Sick.

Kinda like the KKKos-kiddie's virulently anti-Semitic diary, "Eulogy before the Inevitability of Self-Destruction: The Decline and Death of Israel."

And no matter if it's a front-page essay, deep-buried diary, or hate-filled comment thread: Hey, the entire Kos community adds values. It's all one big happy commentocracy of hate. According to Kos editor Susan Gardner, "They’re giving community what the community wants, which is different than the outside world."

RELATED: Jeff Dunetz at Big Journalism, "How the Media Got It Wrong Re the Helen Thomas Affair."

Iran's Green Movement Protests at Foreign Policy

A photo-essay at Foreign Policy. (The picture below captures the essence of power. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets the blessing from Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.)

Plus, "'Even the Regime Hates the Regime': Don't be fooled by Tehran's show of strength. The revolutionary rot runs deep."

The Veil and the Challenges

I recently saw a woman with a full-length black burka at the bank. My response was a bit of surprise (although it shouldn't be), and I wanted to take a picture.

Anyway, at New York Times, "Behind the Veil." Photo slide-show is here. (And notice how the staff cover the windows with paper when Sarah Ahmed works out.)

And recall previously at Sissy Willis, "Exposed: What really goes on beneath the burka."

Flashback Obama: 'My Muslim Faith'

Follow-up to yesterday's post, "Obama Tells Egyptian Foreign Minister: 'I am a Muslim'."

But Althouse warned at the time, "let's not stoop to portraying "Muslim" as the equivalent of evil. That's ugly and destructive."

Well, don't blame me. Egypt's Ahmed Aboul Gheit started it (at page 3):

Obama Bails Out Public Sector Unions While Deficits Spiral Out of Control

At WaPo and Memeorandum:

President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters" and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year's huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy's free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. "We must take these emergency measures," he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party.

But see Heritage Foundation, "Federal Spending by the Numbers 2010."

Videos c/o Blog Prof and Nice Deb:

Electronic Armageddon: Nuclear Explosion in the Sky

At Fox News, "Electronic Armageddon? Congress Worries That Solar Flares Could Spell Disaster." And National Geographic:

What do future presidents need to know about existential dangers this country could face? Explorer investigates the science behind the dangers of a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse, or HEMP. Picture an instantaneous deathblow to the vital engines that power our society, delivered by a nuclear weapon designed not to kill humans but to attack electronics. What could happen if an electromagnetic pulse surged to earth, crippling every aspect of modern society's infrastructure?

All About That Personality Crisis...

At New York Dolls, a couple of live clips, "Personality Crisis":

And you're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon
Change on into the wolfman howlin at the moon hooowww

All about that Personality Crisis you got it while it was hot
But now frustration and heartache is what you got...

RELATED: "Charles Johnson's Latest Bid for Relevance." And, "Ace of Spades Smacks Charles Johnson in a Post Every New* Blogger Should Read."

Charles Johnson's Latest Bid for Relevance

Charles Johnson picked up one of my throwaway tweets the other day:

CJ's been making a schizophrenic bid for relevance of late. He attacks so-called wingnuts and slanders his old nemeses Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Meanwhile, he's been trying to regain some of the Dan Rather mojo of yore, which hasn't turned out too well, considering how he stole his Reuters "scoop" from other bloggers. AOSHQ masterfully takes him to task, "Charles Johnson Whines: Why Isn't The Story About Me Anymore?", and "Blog Drama":

As to whether he grabs credit and swipes stories: This is a bit of complicated issue, involving blog courtesy and such. Since the rest of this post is so inside-blogball, I guess there's no harm in going further down this rathole.

Let me talk about "swiping stories." Johnson believes that if he throws in a lame hat-tip at the end of a post, he hasn't "swiped a story," because he's given you attribution.

That's not the case. A lame hat-tip at the end of a post covers one's ass, I suppose, in terms of attribution, but it fails to do what a proper link is supposed to do: Throw some traffic.

Some blogs are deliberately "gateway blogs," throwing out traffic wide and far in general furtherance of good-guy blogger boosterism. is deliberately, and most famously, this kind of blog.

Instapundit looks for excuses to link blogs -- not media stories, though he links them too of course; but his primary goal is to call attention to other blogs and "share the wealth." He has a very good reputation along these lines; the only problem with an Instapundit link is that it doesn't throw as much traffic as you'd think it would, but that's largely because he's linking so many blogs during the day that you're just getting a small slice of his readers.

Crucially, if a blog mentions, say, a Reuters story, Instapundit tends to link the blog which tipped him, rather than the Reuters story itself; anyone interested in that story, then, has to at least go through the blog to get to the story. They'll end up at Reuters, but they go through the tipping blog first.

On the other hand, some blogs are very jealous and ungenerous about throwing links and traffic to "competitors." Some blogs fancy themselves not "gateway blogs" but "destination blogs," and attempt to set themselves up as the only blog you need to read.

Not a portal, then, but a terminus.

It has always been my belief that Charles Johnson fancied his blog as that...

It's all goodness, so more at the link --- and I don't know if I'm throwing Ace much traffic, LOL!

Heidi Klum in German GQ

At Germany's GQ, "Aber Heidi!"

And be sure to check out my good friends for some "Rebel 5" action!

* Another Black Conservative.

* Astute Bloggers (Honorary).

* Blazing Cat Fur.

* Bob Belvedere.

* Classical Liberal.

* Daley Gator.

* POWIP.

* The Other McCain.

* Reaganite Republican (Honorary).

* Saberpoint (Honorary).

* Serr8d (Honorary).

* Snooper's Report (Honorary).

* Stormbringer.

* Theo Spark.

* Washington Rebel.

* WyBlog.

BONUS: Don't forget Instapundit.

Obama, Israel & American Jews: The Challenge

At Commentary:

We asked 31 prominent American Jews to respond to this statement:

The open conflict between the Obama administration and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has created tensions between the United States and Israel of a kind not seen since the days of the administration of the first President Bush. And those tensions are placing unique pressure on American Jews, who voted for Barack Obama by a margin of nearly 4-to-1 in 2008 after being assured by Obama himself and by his supporters in the Jewish community that he was a friend and an ally of the State of Israel despite his long association with, among others, the unabashedly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

We argue that American Jews are facing an unprecedented political challenge, and at a crucial moment, with the need to address the existential threat to Israel—and by extension to the future of the Jewish people as a whole—from a potentially nuclear Iran. How will American Jews handle this challenge? Can Obama’s Jewish supporters act in a way that will change the unmistakable direction of current American policy emanating from the White House? Will American Jews accept Barack Obama’s view that the state of Israel bears some responsibility for the loss of American “blood and treasure” in the Middle East? Will they continue to extend their support to the Obama administration and to Barack Obama’s political party?

And the 31 respondents:

Elliott Abrams, Morris J. Amitay, Peter Berkowitz, Kenneth J. Bialkin, Matthew Brooks, Mona Charen, Alan M. Dershowitz, Nathan J. Diamentis, Ira Forman, Abraham H. Foxman, Jonathan Gurwitz, Jeff Jacoby, Jeremy Kalmanofsky, Jonathan Kellerman, Ed Koch, Martin Kramer, William Kristol, Michael Medved, Aaron David Miller, Tova Mirvis, Daniel Pipes, Norman Podhoretz, Dennis Prager, Gary Rosenblatt, Jonathan D. Sarna, Robert Satloff, Dan Senor, Tevi Troy, Ruth R. Wisse, David Wolpe, and Eric H. Yoffie.

I poured over the essays for a couple of days. It's hard to pull out a favorite. I'll leave Jonathan Kellerman, but the whole thing's worth your time:

The only surprise about the tension between the Obama administration and Israel is that anyone is surprised.

While President Barack Obama was less than frank about his intentions to govern from the center, he never projected himself as a supporter of Israel beyond a few bland campaign clichés. There were certainly clear indicators of what to expect: he palled around with Palestinian scholar and Israel-basher Rashid Khalidi and sipped Chardonnay with “reformed” domestic terrorists who’d been overtly hostile to Israel for decades. He admired Edward Said. He sat in a church pew for years and blithely ingested anti-Israel and frankly anti-Semitic rhetoric without a word of protest.

The greater issue isn’t that Obama is no great friend of Israel and never will be. The fascinatingly perverse tendency of Jews to vote against their self-interest is. Even with my psychological training, I don’t understand it. However, it is nothing new. Our history is rife with fractiousness and the tendency to over-intellectualize and to complicate simple issues of self-preservation. To some extent, our ability to promote an infinite array of opinions has contributed to the richness of our culture. Often, however, it has lead to tragedy. Let’s not forget that it was a certain group of Jews that invited the Romans into Jerusalem.

My personal opinion—and I’ve written about this before—is that the bifurcation of Israel and Judaism is structurally fallacious. The Land of Israel is an essential ingredient of Judaism practiced fully. Thus, it is impossible to be anti-Israel and not be anti-Jewish. And in fact, the war being waged against Israel by the Muslim world is, at the core, a religious dispute. Radical Islamists no longer talk about Zionists; they come right out and broadcast their goal of eradicating worldwide Jewry. The same squarely theological cast informs Islam’s struggle against “Western values,” which is really a buzzword for Christianity. Failure to recognize any link between Israeli and Jewish survival is the same old pathological denial that has informed the most tragic chapters of Jewish history.

No doubt there are many people who will disagree, ranging from the pseudo-Zionists of J Street to the Satmar Hasidim. Hostility toward Israel engenders fascinating levels of Jewish “pluralism.”

Obama will come and go. Jewish antipathy toward Israel and Judaism itself will endure. And that is the challenge.

Watching Jason's Statham's 'Death Race'

Cool flick:

Obama Tells Egyptian Foreign Minister: 'I am a Muslim'

No lie.

It's at Israel Today, May 2010, page 3:

The feeling among the Israeli public is that Obama is appeasing the Muslim world at the expense of Israel. “The American President told me in confidence that he is a Muslim,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Nile TV.

That could explain why Obama has instructed that the term “Islamic extremism” no longer be used in official government documents and statements. Furthermore, the US is now accusing Israel of harming American interests in the Middle East. General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, said Israel’s intransigence on resolving the conflict with the Palestinians is endangering US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the US Congress considers Obama’s behavior toward Netanyahu humiliating. Three-quarters of the House of Representatives, 337 of 435 members, signed a bipartisan letter to Clinton expressing “deep concern over recent tension” between the two countries, and demanding that it be smoothed over quickly and in private.

“Obama is a real problem for Israel,” a senior official told told Yediot. “He is Israel’s biggest strategic catastrophe.” The newspaper also quoted another official who believes that for the first time Washington has switched sides. “The Obama White House is putting pressure only on Israel

Pamela has more (via Memeorandum).

Save Mosab Hassan Yousef

Some of my blog budds have started a new effort: Save Mosab Yousef: Help Him Stay In The U.S.

More at Bob Belvedere's, "HELP SAVE MOSAB YOUSEF FROM CERTAIN DEATH," and Steven Givler, "Please Support Mosab Hassan Yousef."

Background at Maggie's Notebook, "Mosab Hassan Yousef Homeland Security: Homeland Security to Deport Mosab Hassan Yousef," and WSJ, "Deporting 'Son of Hamas': The U.S. may send an antiterror agent back to the West Bank":

Mosab Hassan Yousef is a best-selling author who wrote "Son of Hamas" about his life as a Palestinian who became an informant for Israeli intelligence. He's probably near the top of every Islamist terror hit list, yet, incredibly enough, the U.S. may soon deport him as a terror threat.

In 2007, Mr. Yousef came to the United States, where he converted to Christianity from Islam and applied for political asylum. The request was denied in February 2009, Mr. Yousef says, on grounds that he was potentially "a danger to the security of the United States" and had "engaged in terrorist activity." His case has automatically proceeded to the deportation stage, and on June 30 at 8 a.m. he will appear before Judge Rico Bartolomei in Homeland Security Immigration Court in San Diego.

Homeland Security is well aware of the author's history, and in fact is using it against him. According to Mr. Yousef, a letter from Homeland Security attorney Kerri Calcador cites passages in "Son of Hamas" as evidence of his connection to terrorist leaders and suggests that the work he did for Hamas while spying for Israel provided aid to terrorists. "At a bare minimum, evidence of the respondent's transport of Hamas members to safe houses . . . indicates that the respondent provided material support to a [Tier I] terrorist organization," the U.S. lawyer wrote.

But unless Ms. Calcador knows more than she's saying, this is bizarre. As a spy for Israel, Mr. Yousef had to make his colleagues believe he was a loyal member of Hamas. He used that trust to gain information that he provided to Israeli intelligence, which used it to prevent terror attacks and save lives. One of Mr. Yousef's handlers at Shin Bet confirmed his book's account to the Israeli daily Haaretz, and his father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, has disowned him from the Israeli prison he has occupied since 2005. (See our Weekend Interview with the younger Yousef, "They Need to Be Liberated From Their God," March 6, 2010.)

The problem seems to be that, under a provision of U.S. immigration law, anyone who is shown to have provided "material support" for terrorist organizations is automatically denied asylum. In the relentless way that bureaucracy works, this is being interpreted as leaving little discretion for deserving exceptions like the case of Mr. Yousef ...

RTWT.

Gold! It's Never Too Late to Secure Your Future With ... Gold!

I often see this commerical multiple times a day during the business week. And now here comes NYT with a background report. I guess it's not just G. Gordon Liddy types either, "Uncertainty Restores Glitter to an Old Refuge, Gold":

It is the resurgent passion of the doomsday crowd, a bet that everything will go wrong. No matter what has you worried, they say, the answer is gold.

Inflation, deflation, government borrowing or the plunging euro — you name it — the specter of these concerns has set off a dash to gold, driving the precious metal to new highs and illustrating how fears of economic turmoil have moved from the fringe to the mainstream.

And gold bugs, often dismissed as crackpots who hoard gold bars in the basement, are finally having their day.

“I just think you’re in a world where a lot of chickens are coming home to roost,” said John Hathaway, manager of the Tocqueville Gold fund. “Gold is an escape hatch.”

The most visible new gold enthusiasts range from the Fox News commentator Glenn Beck on the right to the financier George Soros on the left, with even some sober-minded Wall Street types developing a case of gold fever. While their language may differ, they share a fundamental view that the age-old refuge of gold is relevant again, especially as other assets like stocks and national currencies show signs of weakness.

Now, individual investors are following their example around the world. The United States Mint is running short of gold coins, and the South African mint increased Krugerrand production by 50 percent late last month, to its highest level in 25 years, on brisk European demand.

The debt crisis in Europe and the ensuing drop in the value of the euro are the most recent catalysts for gold’s spike last week to $1,254 an ounce, a record before adjusting for inflation, but the deeper concern is that even in the United States, government borrowing is unsustainable and the day of reckoning is at hand. Sales of American Eagle one-ounce gold coins tripled in May from the month before.

If governments print more money to pay off their debts, the logic goes, inflation will destroy the value of the dollar, the euro and other paper currencies — thus enhancing the value of gold. What is more, with tax increases unlikely and with Europe on the brink, the unthinkable — a sovereign debt default or the collapse of the credit system — has suddenly become thinkable.

RTWT.

The piece discusses Goldline, which advertises on Glenn Beck's show. That was too much for Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, it turns out, "Rep. Anthony Weiner targets Glenn Beck and Goldline International."

Also, "GLENN BECK HITS BACK AT REP. ANTHONY WEINER OVER GOLD SCAM CLAIM."

Truth is the New Hate Speech

I've been finding this out at my college, but it's all around. If you so much as offer facts that effectively debunk the leftist narrative, you'll be attacked as racist and charged with making "hate speech." At my school, once I posted information on illegal immigration, someone --- again, probably faculty members in the history and sociology departments --- complained that my bulletin board constituted "hate speech." I've filed a complaint against the administration, but that immediately got turned into a counter "investigation" against me, since obviously the college's double standards could raise civil rights liabilities, so they had to push back.

So, it's tough and grinding sometimes, fighting the good fight.

A couple of examples:

At Atlas Shrugs, Pamela reports that PayPal's cutting her off by designating her blog a "hate site." See, "Paypal Cuts Off Atlas: Truth is the New Hate Speech."

And Caroline Glick reports, "YouTube Silences Latma, Removes 'We Con the World'."

As Israel went offline for the Jewish sabbath, YouTube removed most versions of Latma's hit parody song We Con the World. If you try to access the song on YouTube you receive the notification: This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Warner/ Chappell Music, Inc.

Copyright experts we advised with before posting the song told us in no uncertain terms that we were within our rights to use the song because we did so in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine. The Fair Use Doctrine, copied and pasted below from the US Copyright Office stipulates that it is legal and permissible to use copyrighted material under the fair use doctrine for purposes of parody.

Copyright attorneys also warned us that given our clearly lawful use of the song We are the World, if anyone wished to silence our voices, they wouldn't target us. Instead they would target YouTube. It is YouTube's standard practice to remove any material that they receive even the flimsiest threat for because the company wishes to avoid all litigation.

More at the link. And in Caroline adds, in another post:

YouTube's decision to pull Latma's hit song We Con the World after 3 million viewers shows that Israel's enemies are afraid of us. Since they cannot refute our points, they are trying to silence us. First they threw ridiculous accusations at Latma that our parody of We are the World was racist. When that didn't stick and more and more people continued to watch our song, they decided to silence us.

Obviously this means that we need to redouble our efforts. It also means we'll have to diversify our posting options to make sure that a call to YouTube won't suffice to silence us.

Ed Morrissey is hopeful that Eyeblast will demonstrate more balls: