Departure of Rhee Could Signal Shift in Direction of U.S. Public Schools

At WSJ:

Michelle Rhee announced her resignation Wednesday as the capital's schools chancellor, in what could prove to be a seminal moment in the increasingly divisive fight over the direction of U.S. public schools.

Ms. Rhee said during a news conference that her decision to leave was "heartbreaking" but necessary to give the presumptive next mayor, Vincent Gray, leeway to choose his own team and unify the city.

Mr. Gray trounced current D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty in last month's Democratic primary election, which many voters saw as a referendum on Ms. Rhee's aggressive schools overhaul. Washington's overwhelmingly Democratic electorate makes it a near certainty Mr. Gray will win the general election next month.

Ms. Rhee, 40 years old, will step down at the end of the month. Deputy Chancellor Kaya Henderson will serve as interim chief through the end of the school year.

When Ms. Rhee took over the D.C. schools in 2007, she became the most vocal proponent of a national movement for drastic changes to K-12 schools.

Along with New York City schools chief Joel Klein and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, she favors linking teacher evaluations to student test scores, purging low-performing educators and shutting failing schools. As head of schools in the nation's capital, she enjoyed a highly visible perch from which to try to prove these policies could work. She fired hundreds teachers and closed dozens of schools.

But her efforts ran into resistance, especially from teachers unions that rejected many of her ideas, especially mass firings. The Washington teachers union campaigned heavily against Mr. Fenty.

George Parker, president of the D.C. teacher's union, wouldn't comment on whether labor leaders were happy to see Ms. Rhee depart. But he said that, to reform a school district, "you have to be inclusive rather than exclusive, and Chancellor Rhee never learned that."

Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a nonprofit group that advocates for tougher education standards, called Ms. Rhee's departure a "sobering moment" in the education wars.

"The American public expresses support for the idea of education reform, but when it comes down to the tough decisions, like firing bad teachers or closing schools, they become more skittish," he said. "This sends a loud message to other would-be reformers that they have to keep up the fight."

PREVIOUSLY: "Michelle Rhee Resigns as Chancellor of D.C. Schools."

Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg Walk Off After Bill O'Reilly Says 'Muslims Killed Us on 9/11' — Heads Explode at Think Progress!

Via Gateway Pundit:

Bravo to Bill O’Reilly for telling it like it is. Today he told Whoopi and Behar that Muslims killed us on 9-11… because Muslims killed us on 9-11. Of course, Behar and Whoopi were so outraged at such a statement they actually walked off the set. Ah yes, what tolerance the left has.

BONUS: From the left-wing Democrat extremists at Think Progress (particularly odious comments highlighted):

After O’Reilly’s Rants About How ‘Muslims Killed Us On 9/11!’ Goldberg And Behar Walk Off Stage

well good job, better yet you should have made him leave!!!!

but bill the dill will think this is a victory!!

*****

This is how every pundit and politician that lies and spews misinformation should be treated, they should be mocked and ridiculed, even if like O'Reilly they feel no shame.

*****

They should have replied "Saudi Arabians killed us on 9/11".

Good for them walking off.

*****

And they should have reminded the idiot that he works for the Saudis!

*****

Good on you, ladies!

*****

O'Reilly is something else. Shameful performance. That outburst was akin to his rants about Dr. Tiller.

*****

The 'culture warrior' is culturally illiterate.

*****

They should have turned off his microphone and the lights as he does when someone doesn't cowtow to his obscene rants of hate on his worthless show. I saw him do it once in 2002 and haven't watched him since.

*****

This is where the English language is so pitifully inadequate for people such as O'Reilly.

Muslims did and did not kill "us" on 9/11.

Extremist Muslims killed people on 9/11. O'Reilly is not part of the group that died, nor did every Muslim join the fight to kill innocent people on 9/11.

I'm not expecting any sort of apology out of O'Reilly here, but I ask that he, for his own good, clarify his statement. If he refuses to, it will just show just how close-minded he can be with the English language.

*****

Dear Barbara Walters,
It is impractical to expect people to entertain bigots. Walking away IS the best solution to such idiocy.

*****

I wonder what the blond christofascist Elizabeth Hasselbeck was jumping up and down about.

*****

Hell Mr. O'Reilly we were attacked by MEN! We should ban all males over 18 from the WTC site. What a f---ing propagandist hack.

*****

This is a good thing. I think sometimes these guys get so used to their environment on FOX that they forget what the real world is like. It's good that these views are getting air time on more widely seen venues. Folks like O'Reilly don't realize that the majority of people don't share their views outside the studios of FOX.

*****

I spent over twenty years of my life supporting and defending the Constitution.. including the right to freedom of speech.... but O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh and all the other anti-USA hate speech azzhats out there should be told to STFU or go to jail for sedition and inciting violence.

Republicans are enemies of the United States.

*****

Once again, Bill O'Really has proved he is still a Scum Sucking piece of Sh!t.....he never disappoints.

*****

People like Bill-0 who act is if they speak for all Americans are douche-bags! Of course I speak only for myself

*****

Saying that "Muslims" killed Americans on 9/11/2001 is comparable to saying that "Christians" burn crosses to intimidate others. Most Christians would be appalled to be compared to members of the KKK, and most Muslims are appalled when compared to the monsters who hijacked planes and flew them into crowded buildings.

Of course, there are people who aren't interested in facts, nor are they interested in intelligent debate. They merely want to scream their bigotry and close their ears to reason. There is no way to convince them of anything other than their current mindset. O'Reilly is one of these people. The only way to deal with them is by removing oneself from their presence, as Whoopi and Joy did.

*****

WTF ! Who keeps giving lunatic O'Reilly air time which equates into some credibility????
Big mouth bully O'Reilly is a proven evil extremist Bigoted Hate monger who is a disgrace of a human being and should be treated as a dangerous. poisonous snake.

*****

WTF ! Who keeps giving lunatic O'Reilly air time which equates into some credibility????
Big mouth bully O'Reilly is a proven evil extremist Bigoted Hate monger who is a disgrace of a human being and should be treated as a dangerous. poisonous snake.

*****

I'm sorry but Barbar WaWa is wrong; you cannot have a conversation with someone that refuses to look at the common sense facts before them. To say the terrorists attack was an attack by Muslims is to say that the McVeigh attack was an attack by Christians. To label and entire people, race, creed or religion because of the acts of one, two or even 50 people is beyond stupid, but then prejudice is exactly that - beyond stupid.

*****

Still waiting to hear what poll Bildo cited as having 70% of Americans opposing the cultural center at 51 Park Row, NYC . .

*****

Demonizing Muslims has been a boon in promoting the military occupations of countries whose resources we covet .

The Muslims are to the American fascist what the Jews were to the Nazis !

Who exactly in either party is opposing militarism by our nation abroad , a nation which spends as much as the entire planet combined on it's so called defence ?

*****

That is just plain hateful.

*****

Billy O'Really is nothing more than a "HATE MERCHANT", that's all he will ever be, because that's all he have ever been. His viewers tune in each day to get their 'Daily Dose' of Hate, like a run of the mill crack addict.

His "PRODUCT" is consuming him like a Cancer.

*****

I just watched the whole segment.

Billdoh O'liely IS the pinhead, as Barbara Walters suggests at the close, "Maybe it is you who is the pinhead."

Joy and Woopie came back AFTER Barbara made him apologise for his bigoted statement against ALL Muslims.

And Hasselback was quick to DEFEND O'Liely by saying that Obama, early on in his term, refused to use the word "TERRORIST" and instead said terms like Muslim extremists or radical Islamists and THAT is why people now closely align Muslims with terrorists.

Yea, right Liz... Bigots R-U!

*****

We have all the evidence we need to prove that Zionist crackpots are responsible for 9/11. Everything has been prepared but the gallows.

*****

The fact that individuals like this can spew bigotry and claim righteousness is disgusting.

Love that cognitive dissonance from the crowd as well in the ensuing moments

*****

This is a choice between whether we want to be grownups or whiny children, whether we want to accomplish a goal or just stomp and scream and get attention (and make some megabucks doing it).

Any thoughtful observer, and many who have spoken out on the subject, knows that having responsible, modern, moderate Muslims come to the forefront in America and help us all to understand their point of view and way of life is going to work out much better in the end that having the screamers dominate the scene. From everything I read, the New York mosque would be a blessing to the community... already is, in fact. Wanna have it replaced with half a dozen hysterical bloodthirsty madrasas teaching kids to live only to die for hate?

Face it, if a significant number of them are totally alienated, to the extent of wishing us dead and working to make it so, we are doomed, or at least in for a miserable existence. We should be joining with the (so far) great preponderance who are sensible, peace-loving people and trying to move forward, not listening to the haters who only want to stir up more trouble, mostly for their own benefit....

*****

Tim McVeigh. Isn't that an Irish name, just like O'Reilly? Oh my God, the Irish bombed the Murrah Federal Building! And as I typed that, I remembered "I.R.A.," Irish Republican Army. I believe they were also involved in some terroristic acts.

*****

OMG Muslims killed people on 9/11, O'Reilly is so wrong, we all know it was Presbyterians from Sweden that did the dirty deed.

*****

I am so sick and tired of hearing about how 70% of Americans don't want the Community Center located where it is planned to go. Let me make this clear, The Bill of Rights is not subject to majority opinion. Period.

Deb Frisch, Left-Wing Blogger/Stalker, Mounts New Attacks on Goldstein Family

This is an old blogspheric story (here, here, and here). Former University of Arizona Adjunct Professor Deborah Frisch stalked Protein Wisdon's Jeff Goldstein, threatening his 2 year old with death and sexual molestation. But threats have picked up for Jeff, with some new and simply insane stalking and threats on his family. See, "Redundancy [updated x12 (now with fresh Thursday crazy!)]." Check the whole thing. This is truly unreal. It's amazing that this person remains at large. Posts at Frisch's blog go up and then almost immediately are taken down, only to go up again later, and then repeat. One entry attacked Jeff's mother and posted her picture and contact information at the blog. Deb Frisch trolled through phone books and cold called until she got Goldsteins' mom on the phone, "The Snatch That Hatched Count Cockula":

That post was taken down, but there's yesterday's entry, still up as of Noon October 14, 2010, "Doris the Diddler":

Hello?
Hello, is this Doris Goldstein?
Yes.
Do you have a grandson Satchel in Denver?
Yes. Who is this?
I'm a reporter from San Francisco doing an article on Count Cockula.
Who?
Jeffrey Todd Goldstein. Do you know him?
Yes, he's my son.
Was he obsessed with his penis as a small child? Did you diddle him, ma'am?
Who is this?

That's what Jeff's mom had to deal with, and it's still going on.

The scale and horror of this unmitigated evil is unfathomable.There's nothing more contemptible than going after your family. I've been stalked and harassed by the enemies of moral right. One of the Sadly No! demons continues the recent assualts on American Power, and has been e-mailing me with ugly slurs and threats at both my private and college e-mail addresses. Earlier, I had both David Hillman (The Swash Zone) and E.D. Kain (Balloon Juice) contact my college in multiple campaigns of workplace intimidation and harassment. American Nihilist was a co-conspirator in this workplace intimidation, and that blog routinely post vicious attacks on me, so vile as to make the likes of Deb Frisch proud. And Scott Eric Kaufman continues his campaign of threats against my employment with an endless stream of deranged libelous accusations. And of course there's the moral relativists at the Gay Teen Forum who have been frequenting my blog and flooding the comments. Alex Knepper's pedophilia story is especially freaky in that I have two young sons. It does hit close to home sometimes.

It's just nastly out there --- there is genuine evil in the world. The left is clinically insane, viciously intolerant, and demonstrably violent. And God help anyone who threatens my family.

And to my friends and long time readers: Stay well and care for your loved ones. The enemies of freedom have been on the march, and even amid the conservative resurgence the dregs of Satan continue their predations. And never forget: This is what conservatives face on a daily basis.

Trapped

For David Frum:

trapped, i'm trapped
trapped, i'm trapped
trapped, i'm trapped
trapped, i'm trapped

what did i do to deserve this?
i've painted myself into a corner
what did i do to deserve this?
painted myself into a corner
no windows, doors or a ladder

trapped, i'm trapped
trapped, i'm trapped

what did i do to deserve this?
running down a black alley way
what did i do to deserve this?
trash cans, chain link fence line the way

i'm trapped
i'm trapped
trapped, i'm trapped
trapped, i'm trapped

what did i do to deserve this?
dug a hole and there's nowhere to go
what did i do to deserve this?
mental rut, i'm going nuts!

trapped, i'm trapped
trapped, i'm trapped

Pedophile Posing as a Conservative: Alex Knepper and Moral Relativism

Ann Coulter has picked up on the Alex Knepper pedophilia controversy, and she tweeted a few of the relevant reports, snarking "COULTER ATTACKED BY ACTUAL PEDOPHILE!"

Ann correctly identifies Alex Knepper as a "pedophile posing as a conservative." And it goes without saying, really, since throughout this episode the pro-pedophile defenders of Alex Knepper have been former conservatives and radical leftists. QED.

And there's some new developments at my blog, in any case. Checking my Sitemeter earlier, I found that Alex Knepper linked one of my entries at the gay hookup site Gay Teen Forum:

The author of the posting is "Lostpainting," a.k.a. Alex Knepper, as identified at NewsReal Blog, "David Frum and His Pro-Pedophile Protege Alex Knepper." And scrolling down Gay Teen Forum we find this comment from Lostpainting:

Someone from RightWingNews.com told me in an e-mail that he couldn't believe that someone with the username "lestermolester" was on this board talking about CHILFs with me. I absolutely savaged him in my response, but I'm sure he'll take me out of context in the printed piece.

But, I mean, these people are living in an utter fantasy world.

Anyone stupid enough to think that the user "lestermolester" is an actual child molester should be waterboarded and deported.

That "someone" from Right Wing News is John Hawkins, who has posted his exchange will Alex Knepper at the blog: "The David Frum/Alex Knepper vs. NewsReal Child Sex Fight – Exclusive: Alex Knepper Comments." John provides the background to the story, but the highlight is the e-mail communication. Folks should RTWT. And pay attention to John's excellent analysis, and not to mention his non-confrontational approach to Knepper. The money quote, from John, regarding Knepper's contorted response to inquiries:

The impression that letter leaves is of someone who got caught publicly saying really disgusting things, doesn't have a good answer for why he said them, and now, he's trying to lash out to distract people from what he's done wrong.

It is that, but it's more. At one point Knepper notes that:

People's sexuality is wildly in flux at this age, although most of us were fortunate enough not to have creeps like you rummaging through our sexual past. Of course, you and your readers probably think that the only proper partner I should have in my sex life is Jesus, who will keep me from doing something evil like having sex outside of marriage.

Notice the blaming, but besides that, to be precise, it's not "people's sexuality" that's influx, but the social norms that historically constrain sexual behavior and mores. As can be seen at the "Lostpainting" quote above, Knepper believes that those who disagree with his set of morally-relativist values are "living in an utter fantasy world." Sad to say, but it's in fact Knepper who's living an ethereal fantasy world of complete obliteration of society's moral standards, a world of reckless moral abandon seeking the fulfillment of unlimited man-boy sexual desires. This is the world of the members of the Gay Teen Forum, as seen from the comments at my post from last night:

If you say that in your opinion it is morally wrong for a twenty year old to have sex with a sixteen year old I won't argue with you. Morality is, to a large extent, subjective, so what I consider moral and you consider moral are two entirely different things.

Well, no, actually. Morality is not subjective. Individuals in society simply don't get to decide what's right or wrong (or even what they think is right and wrong). Western values in the Judeo-Christian ethic are universal standards and are the basis for what we identify today as moral conduct and human rights. There will always be rejection of those standards by individuals and groups who refuse to live in a civilized society. Moral right --- along with law and order --- holds people accountable. And if need be, the law imposes consequences for violations of the prevailing moral and legal regime of acceptable behavior. Adult sexual intercourse with children is not only illegal, but deeply immoral. Alex Knepper has protested ad nauseum that he's within his legal right to engage in sexual intercourse with a 16 year-old boy. And while that may be so (depending on the state, incidently), there are no exceptions for adult sexual intercourse with 8 year-old children. Alex Knepper pleads that he's just joking when making statements of such desires. If so, the question becomes one not only of moral relativism and depravity, but of Knepper's psychiatric firmity as well. Habitual references to CHILF, to miniture penises, to child rape, and so forth, reveal not the mind of a healthy individual and upstanding member of the larger community. These behaviors, statements, gay hookup postings, etc., indicate a pathological contempt for the inalienable rights of society's most vulnerable, and for the objective moral system that protects them. This is a dangerous and deranged moral relativism that puts lives at risk. Anyone who defends this genuinely contemptible behavior is hardly better than the perpetrators themselves. They are enabling pedophilia. And they are not conservatives.

RELATED: At First Thoughts, "Does David Frum’s Moral Compass Need Calibrating?", Weasel Zippers, "Alex Knepper and David Frum, the Gatekeeper of CHILF-Loving Writers."

Michelle Rhee Resigns as Chancellor of D.C. Schools

The main story is at Washington Post. She's too hot politically, but she's got what it takes to shake up the union stranglehold on education:

Rhee's goals - higher student achievement, better teachers and greater accountability for their classroom performance - were generally shared by her predecessors. But with new powers putting the struggling school system under mayoral control, Rhee pursued the goals with an unprecedented zeal.

She closed more than two dozen schools, fired teachers by the hundreds and spent more than two years negotiating a labor contract that gives principals new control over teacher hiring while establishing a new performance-pay system that ties compensation to growth in student test scores.

Rhee also dramatically expanded the number of spaces in preschool, pre-K and Head Start, and opened the Early Stages diagnostic center to help flag learning disabilities in children ages 2 to 5. She piloted a program of "wrap-around" support services for at-risk middle school kids and launched a program of "themed" schools focusing on science and technology, world cultures and the arts.

I'll have more on education issues in upcoming days. But Sweetness & Light adds this on Rhee's departure:

But do note that we have had complete silence about Ms. Rhee from Mr. and Mrs. Obama. Both of whom constantly pretend to be concerned about education, despite doing everything in their powers to undercut any and all teacher reforms. (Such as doing away with vouchers in the District’s system.)

Of course, in actual truth, the Obamas are only interested in funneling more money to their foot soldiers in the teachers unions.

And never mind that they send their own children to the non-union Sidwell Friends school, just like good Washington Democrats always do.

Axis of Pedophilia: Former Conservative David Frum Protests 'Vicious, Invasive and Outrageous' Bullying While Cutting Loose Pervy Protégé Alex Knepper

David "Axis of Evil" Frum, the one-time presidential speechwriter, and now disgraced former conservative who was ignominiously dismissed from AEI, has charted new territory in RINO douchebaggery with his sleazy take-no-responsibility faux firing of proven pedophile and FrumForum blogger Alex Knepper. See "About Alex Knepper."

It's amazing that I need to even comment, but it's clear that moral clarity on the other side has been entirely absent. And it's really simple. The evidence of Alex Knepper's pedophilia is exquisitely detailed at NewsReal Blog: "David Frum and His Pro-Pedophile Protege Alex Knepper." It's devastating. The report exposes a depth of moral depravity --- with graphic evidence of Alex Knepper's predation of pre- and post-pubescent children --- that left many readers turning away in uncontrollable fits of nausea. Unbelievable is an appropriate word here. It seems netherworldly just to read through some of Knepper's thinking, that for example, "sexy kids" are "the main cause of pedophilia," and that "the best thing about having sex with 28 year olds" is that "there's 20 of them." And it makes no difference if Knepper frequented this gay hookup board three years ago or last week, which is one of the defenses that both David Frum and Alex Knepper have offered. Who can honestly say that proclaiming "CHILF lust" is a wholesome attribute in either a male adolescent teenager of a young man of 20 years-old, which is Alex Knepper's age today? And the allegations that critics are motivated by homophobia is absurd. No parent wants their children to become victims of sexual predators. Indeed, this fact is perhaps the most frightening thing about David Frum's fauxpology. Not once does the formerly conservative Frum denounce the sheer perversion and imminent catastrophic danger inherent in it.

For example, Frum actually attacks David Swindle and the NewsReal establishment for mounting an alleged assault on Alex Knepper's character, as if there were any moral character left to assault:

NewsRealBlog’s behavior in this case was vicious, invasive and outrageous. I wonder what would remain of the reputations of NewsRealBlog’s editors if their expectations of privacy were ripped away, if their private emails were published, their sexual fantasies and peculiarities exposed to public view.

NewsRealBlog’s editors have fused high school cyber-bullying and New Left character assassination. They have relentlessly harried and pursued somebody himself only months out of his own adolescence. They bombarded him with accusations long before they did the snooping that provided their squalid evidence. They have sought to destroy a career in the midst of the worst job market for young journalists since the 1930s, all to settle a private score.

Readers will recall that I have no axe to grind. See my previous report: "Alex Knepper, FrumForum Blogger, Fired by Daily Caller Over Pedophile Controversy." I've been an acquaintance to Alex Knepper for nearly two years, and I hadn't much knowledge of the earlier controversy of Knepper's dismissal from NewsReal Blog. I'm interested now because I'm utterly flabbergasted at the refusal of those defending Alex Knepper to see what's really going on here. This incident dramatically demonstrates the incredible degree of social degradation in America today, that for example among leftists there's widespread acceptance of the notion that homosexual males of legal age have a right to sexual intercourse with 16 year-old boys. The question of "age of consent" is irrelevant. Such actions are morally illicit, and to advertise the lifestyle and celebrate the CHILF-Y conquests makes a grotesque mockery of the hopes for childhood justice. These pedophilia apologists endanger all children. Where is David Frum's outrage? When events like this come to light people of good will and moral righteousness have a responsibility to stand up. That is exactly what David Swindle has done. He has both my congratulations and support.

RELATED: See Calvin Freiburger, "The Shameless Hypocrisy of Character Assassin David Frum."

ADDED: Dan Riehl, "Frum Drops Knepper, Excuses His Lying, While Blaming NewsRealBlog."

After 40 Years, Photographer Captures Lightning Bolt Striking Statue of Liberty

At London's Daily Mail, "That's some attraction: Photographer captures amazing image of lightning bolt as it strikes Statue of Liberty":

This is the amazing moment a lightning bolt was captured as it struck the iconic Statue of Liberty.

The impressive image was caught by New York photographer Jay Fine who spent the night braving the storm in Battery Park City, Manhattan, in a bid to get the perfect picture.

Mr Fine spent nearly two hours poised with his camera and took more than 80 other shots before striking lucky with this particular bolt of lightning at 8.45pm on September 22.

The 58-year-old, who has been trying for more than 40 years to capture the magnificent moment, said he was stunned when he saw the image.

Michael Tracey, Editorial Intern at The Nation, Blows Off Evidence of Alex Knepper Pedophilia as 'Trivial Bunk' - UPDATED!!

Alex Knepper's been laying kinda low this last couple of days, following the explosive evidence of his tendencies toward pedophilia. Alex tweeted yesterday that he'd have a "Statement forthcoming that will put all of this in its proper context." And he tweet this morning that his statement is delayed because "I'm in talks."

Considering the evidence that's been collected on Alex Knepper's pedophilia, particularly his long series of morally repugnant and possibly criminal postings on gay teen message-boards, it's hard to phathom that anyone would want to negotiate these issues over "talks." Seriously. Knepper needs some time off. A long time. Possibly behind bars.

And David Frum needs to fire Alex Knepper. The most recent figure to call for Knepper's termination is Erick Erickson, at Red State, "David Frum and the Limits to Deviancy":

What makes this relevant, despite its sordid nature, is NewsReal Blog having tipped off Frum to his employee’s behavior and other conservative sites giving this Alex Knepper character a forum. You’d like to think that had they known of his predilections, they would not.

Ironically, when I mentioned this on Twitter, the only people who spoke up in the guy’s defense were some of the more rabid socialists defending the guy’s “refreshingly unconventional conservatism,” which is to say he is not a conservative at all.

Nope.

Not conservative at all. With the exception of the faux-conservatives at FrumForum, the only support for Alex Knepper is coming from the extremist fringes of the radical left, including Michael Tracey, editorial intern at The Nation:

And leftists are supposed to represent some "reality-based community"? I guess the reality is that, for socialists, there's no traditional moral standard worth preserving these days. As Erick Erickson indicates:

If we are to accept that Alex Knepper is 20 and therefore a kid, we should not treat this kid as any sort of authority on any vein of conservatism. If we accept he is an adult and we should engage on his thoughts, then we must recognize that his behavior is outside the bounds of acceptable conduct and he should not be rewarded while engaging in perverse behavior.

There is no place in normal society for this — no place at all.

RELATED: "Why is FrumForum Featuring the Internet’s Foremost Defender of Perverts?"

**********

UPDATE: Dave Swindle sends along this response:

"I spent over an hour yesterday on the phone with Michael Tracey explaining the evidence, our motivations for publishing the story, and the background. He struck me as sincere in wanting to uncover the truth, a decent human being, and in no way willing to excuse pedophilia. If he writes a story for The Nation I hope he will do so once he has come to a solid conclusion about whether Alex Knepper actually is a pedophile or not."

And David Frum "fires" Alex Knepper with a counter-attack on NewsReal that's simply insane: "About Alex Knepper."

I'll have some my thoughts on this later this afternoon.

Mainstreaming Genocidal Insanity? Pamela Geller in the New York Times

Digby's a bit jealous:

I've been following Atlas Shrugged since 2005. If anyone would have told me then in five years she'd be heading a national anti-Muslim movement and would be profiled in the NY Times, I would have thought it was a joke. She was always at the very fringe of the hysterical war bloggers, set apart from the worst genocidal hatemongers only by her pulchritudinous crudity. In this insane political period, she's thoroughly mainstream. Wow. Just wow.

It's ugly jealousy, that's for sure. The post's URL reads "mainstreaming-genocidal-insanity."

Digby suspects Pamela Geller wants to round up Muslims for the camps? That's a little much, and no doubt Pamela's wall-to-wall Sunday coverage was too. Pamela's havin' a huge impact (I'm sure King Charles dropped a load as well). I saw the Times' write up early Saturday, so it took a little while to make the blog cycle. Pamela repudiated the report, saying "It is full of distortions, inaccuracies and lies from beginning to end." She liked the interview, however, which was published separately. See Atlas Shrugs, "The New York Times: Outraged, Outrageous and Unhinged."

She not dissing the publicity, in any case. And who would? "Wall-to-Wall Atlas in The New York Times."

And here's Pamela at the 9/11 SIOA rally, and my photo-essay: "Faith, Freedom, and Memory: Report From Ground Zero, September 11, 2010."

'Teaching is the most intellectually stimulating thing that I've ever done. There is no other job that is as difficult or interesting'

"To Miss With Love"?

More on Katharine Birbalsingh, at London's Telegraph:

Katharine Birbalsingh, deputy head of an inner-city secondary school, kept an online diary in which she recounted events involving unnamed pupils and colleagues.

In her blog, she describes in eloquent, despairing voice how schools suffer from high levels of disruption and underachievement – problems she claims are the fault of the system itself.

"I feel torn between the loyalty that I have to my school and the loyalty that I have to children in general," she says.

"Teaching is the most intellectually stimulating thing that I've ever done. There is no other job that is as difficult or interesting.

"But British education is not just broken it is fundamentally broken.

"I hope the public will read about this, remember it and insist on change. Because we are in desperate need for change."

Hat Tip: Carouser in the comments.

RELATED: "The Political Persecution of Katharine Birbalsingh."

New Miley Cyrus Video Too Hot?

She's only 17, so yeah, these underage hotties are a little freaky. But not for MTV, apparently: "Old Prudes Complain That Miley Cyrus' 'Who Owns My Heart' Is Too Sexy‎."

The video's at the link. This young lady still plays on Disney Channel. But they all play up the sexiness as they get older (remember Selena Gomez), since that's the name of the game in the industry nowadays.

And hey! No doubt Scott Eric "Taliban" Kaufman's on the case!

Aboard the Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carrier USS Nimitz

Via Theo Spark:

The P.J. O'Rourke Interview

C/O John Hawkins at Right Wing News:

P.J. O'Rourke is not only knowledgable, he's one of the best writers the Right has ever produced. Additionally, he's the single best foreign affairs reporter I've ever read. Nobody makes another country come alive like P.J. O'Rourke.

I can also tell you from personal experience that P.J.'s new book Don't Vote It Just Encourages the Bastards is outstanding. If you won't take my word for it, then look at the quotes I compiled from his book and make your own judgment.

What follows is a slightly edited transcript of an interview I did with P.J. last Wednesday. Enjoy!

Head over to Right Wing News for the interview.

Yet More Leftist Accusations of RAAAAACISM!!

At Sean Linnane, "STORMBRINGER ACCUSED OF RACISM":

BarryS - Linnane, you only have to read your blog to know that you are a racist, and that you surround yourself with racists. Do you call your wife a “Klingon” as Michelle Obama was described on your blog?

The full details are at the link. What's key is that if a leftist made such allegedly disparaging ("Klingon") remarks the Democrat-secular collectivists would be stumbling over themselves proclaiming the "free speech" rights to hatred. Typical leftist hypocrisy.

Dana Loesch Takes Over as Editor-in-Chief at Big Journalism

And that makes my day.

See Dana's post, "Allow Me to Introduce Myself…" (via Instapundit):

I don’t know if I ever believed in the infallibility of a journalist’s objectivity, but I definitely stopped flirting with the notion as a young adult. There is bias for agenda and bias for truth.

Though I work in broadcasting and host a daily radio show, I got my start in print journalism. I’m a weensy-government conservative from the Midwest, Christian, mother of two, homeschooler, and my hobby, profession, and passion is news. I regularly provide political analysis on Fox, CNN, CBS, and ABC, and have been featured before on Big J as a contributor. I’ve blogged since 2001 and was first attracted to the medium by its wild west aesthetic, if simply telling the truth that corporate media wasn’t telling could be so rebellious as to be defined as “wild west.” Now, with the advance of social media, the combination of the mediums in a new era of information distribution are endless. It’s a great time to work in this field.

RTWT.

And congratulations to Dana Loesch!

Secret Service Releases 'Overexhuberant' Book-Thrower

And being a Democrat helps, no doubt.

Had this guy been a tea partier DHS would have escalated the threat level and the entire leftist netroots fever swamp would have been screaming bloody murder at the "right-wing eliminationism." As it is we've got some new leftie outrage over RAAAAACISM this afternoon: "White Men With Guns — Reconstruction Redux." Oh brother. Geez, that's a new one. And hey, I'm a swarthy non-Scotsman, but the bigot commenters at Bonejob Keefe's think that's just great freedom of expression. But wait 'till November 3rd. The tidal wave will be bigger than anyone's predicting, and no doubt a few lamebrain lefties will scream RAAAAACISM!!

Dick Cheney Appears 'Gaunt and Frail' at Bakersfield Business Conference — Leftists Celebrate With Death Chants

Via JammieWearing Fool, and at NY Daily News.

And from the comments at the article:

THE DEVIL KEEPS HIS FAVIORATE SON GOING AFTER FIVE HEART ATTACKS, WELL GOD WILL END THAT SOON ENOUGH SON OF SATAN, SPAWN OF LUCIFER.

*****

Paybacks a bi**h isn't it you war profiteering dirt bag.

*****

Anyone want to start a "DEATHPOOL?"

*****

Why won't this man just die already?

*****

Was the event during the day? Because obviously it was before he could feed himself from the blood of innocents.

That is the first five comments, if you can believe it. There's a total of 69 comments at the link, but no need to go further. This is typical Democrat-leftist hatred and secular demonology.

I report this stuff all the time. The usual rejoinder is "both sides do it." And I'm sure they do. What you don't see is folks on the right working overtime to defend the the "free speech rights" of the demons of the leftist fever swamps. Truly disgusting, but not out of the ordinary at all.

Obama-Dems Reach New Low

At Cold Fury:

And with the sleazy passel of grifters currently running the criminal enterprise misnomered the “Democratic” Party, that’s saying something. But my God, the balls on our sorry excuse for a Pee-resident, and his henchmen too.

“Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie: They’re Bush Cronies. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce: They’re Shills for Big Business,” the ad’s narrator says. “And they’re stealing our democracy. Spending millions from secret donors to elect Republicans to do their bidding in Congress. It appears they’re even taking secret foreign money to influence our elections.”

The president leveled a similar charge while on the campaign trail last week in Maryland, saying, “Just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations.”

“Have these people no shame?” Rove said of the attacks leveled at him and the Chamber. “Does the president of the United States have such little regard for the office he holds that he goes out there and makes these kind of baseless charges against his political enemies? This is just beyond the pale. How dare the president do this?”

“This is a desperate and I think disturbing trend by the President of the United States to tar his political adversaries with some kind of enemies list, without being unrestrained by any facts or evidence whatsoever.”

The punchline here, of course, is that one of the means by which the jug-eared son of a bitch hijacked American democracy and stole the ’08 election — aside from vote-suppression efforts by his pet goons in the New BlacKKK Fascist Party, and who even knows how many hundreds of thousands of instances of vote-fraud by his ACORN sneak-thieves — was via a long list of all kinds of financial chicanery up to and including…wait for it…accepting secret, illegal foreign campaign contributions. You were supposed to have forgotten all about that by now, assuming you’re among those who penetrated the Zombie Media blackout and knew of it at all. But Doug remembers, presenting a recounting of the shocking jiggery-pokery that helped put this swindler in the office he’s so manifestly unfit for. Glenn hasn’t forgotten, either.

Time to do more than just pay Democrat Socialist-style lip service to draining that swamp. Too bad this November we won’t have the opportunity to give it the good, thorough, top-down scrubbing it so desperately needs.

And there's an update at the blog, "The Bottom of the Barrel":

I could’ve attached this as an update to the “New low” post below, but it’s just too delicious to languish away down there. Come for the exposure of the sleazy lie, stay for the groveling-coward backpedaling:

White House officials acknowledged Friday that they had no specific evidence to indicate that the chamber had used money from foreign entities to finance political attack ads.

“The president was not suggesting any illegality,” Bob Bauer, the White House counsel, said. Instead, he said Mr. Obama’s reference to the chamber was meant to draw attention to the inadequacies of campaign disclosure laws in allowing groups to spend large amounts of money on politics without disclosing their donors.

Yeah, right. Spoken like a truly greasy, squirming lawyer trying to defend a most un-presidential president, who just stepped in a pile of his own deceitful bullshit and fell in right up to his scrawny neck.

Dirtbags.

And typical leftists.

Obama's Hypocrisy, Obama's Fraud

Just before the 2008 election I published an essay on campaign finance at Pajamas Media, "Obama’s Fundraising Fraud." No candidate in American history has raised more money for a presidential bid than Barack Obama. Great story, but what's normally stuffed under the rug is the massive amounts of money that were funneled to the campaign through illegal sources. This was widely documented at the time, but the MFM largely ignored the scandal (WaPo was the major exception). But now there's the new convenient outrage on the left over alleged foreign sources of campaign influence. Michelle has been reporting on this, "Newly nativist Democrats and their own foreign funny money." And also William Jacobson, "Obama Was Right About Xenophobic Bitter Clingers."

And Sister Toldjah caps it off with more on the left's blatant hypocrisy: "Barack Obama: so hypocritical, it’s almost grotesque."

Forget whether the charge is correct or not. Ignore the fact that this is a desperate, xenophobic smear job by a party facing a massacre at the polls.

It’s the hypocrisy that’s jaw-dropping, given that Obama’s own presidential campaign winked at foreign money. Michael Barone explains:

Glenn Reynolds nails this one: the Obama Democrats’ campaign riff against foreign donations to Democrats is bogus—and according to the New York Times, no less. This looks like a matter of projection, since it’s well documented that the 2008 Obama campaign did not put in place address verification software that would have routinely prevented most foreign donations. In effect they were encouraging donations by foreign nationals. Here’s the Washington Post on this back in October 2008: Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed. Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged.”

Go read the rest of the article and follow the other links back to reports from 2008 on the Obama campaign and odd donations. Here’s another. Obama and the Democrats engaged in rampant cheating regarding foreign donations, and now they have the gall to falsely accuse the Chamber of Commerce of doing what they themselves did?

More: "Axelrod: Chamber must prove foreign money allegations false." (Via Memeorandum.)

Book Thrown at Obama at Philadelphia Rally: Crickets Chirp on the Left

Jim Hoft has the video:

And don't you love it. Not a single leftie blog posting on this right now, at Memeorandum.

But in December 2008, the left was all over the shoe attack on President Bush in Iraq:

Folks can hate President Obama, or President Bush, but throwing things at them is unacceptable. I don't condone it, and one might think that leftist bloggers would draw the line at this kind of stuff. But no one wants to talk about it, apparently, because it would open them up to criticism of their own rank hypocrisy.

And, yeah, and that's all around us: "Leftist Hypocrisy All the Way Down."

RELATED: From Doug Powers, "Great Moments in Product Placement History." (Streakers too!)

Franchise

By Chris Muir, at Day by Day Cartoons:

Democrat Dabbling

Great post from Warner Todd Huston, at Right Wing News, "Which is Worse?"

Well? Is it worse that a teenaged girl played around with the idea of the occult or are the others here a bit worse? What do you think?

Check the link. Other Democrat Dabblers: Robert "KKK" Byrd, Edward "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy, Jesse "Love Child" Jackson, Eliot "Call Girl" Spitzer, and Bill "I Never Had Sex With That Woman" Clinton. (And no doubt we could come up with some more.)

Men's Style

I've lost a little weight. Not much, about 4 pounds. I've been exercising and eating fruits and veggies (especially carrots). I'm making no predictions, but if I can keep going I'd like to go down a couple of belt sizes and buy a new suit or two and get back in the practice of dressing up for lectures.

Anyway, via Paco Enterprises, here's an interesting piece on men's fashion, from William M. Briggs, "Men’s Fashion Advice":

If you’re wearing a jacket (and you should) that has a breast pocket, that pocket should be filled to overflowing with a pocket “square”. The material of this object must only be cotton, linen, or silk. Polyester or any blend is forbidden because it looks cheesy.

Why wear one? Several reasons. The pocket square, like the tie, breaks up the monotony caused by draping one’s chest entirely in one fabric. Nobody now has the fortitude to wear a boutonniere, but these provide the same effect. The more the jacket angles towards one color and lack of pattern, the more the pocket square is needed. And if a jacket is loudly patterned, again, the pocket square can bring relief to the eye.

Ancient advice recommends a pocket square not be cut from the same bot as the tie. This advice is ancient because it is true. If the tie and pocket square match, the eye is strongly drawn to them, and you risk looking studied or goofy: worse, nobody will look at your face. Matching a pocket square to tie can be done, but the probability of a pleasing result is so low that it should not be attempted by the amateur.

More at the link.

The Left's Continued Campaign Against American Power

Scott Eric Kaufman's not obsessing much. No, not at all:

...until The Donalde proves that his appreciation is for the human form by posting artistic photographs of naked men on a regular basis, I’ll continue to think the man is a menace and do all I can to warn future students away from him.

Look, I'm straight. If I'm going to appreciate the human form sans des vêtements, then it's going to be with the ladies. And here's the point: Scott Eric Kaufman has no business "warning" future students away from my classes. This is just one more leftist campaign of harassment and intimidation. I haven't written about it, since it was an official legal matter where outside attorneys were involved, but the controversy surrounding my bulletin board --- and the campus progressives' screening of Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" --- resulted in an embarrassing black eye for those who made hate-crime allegations against me. The First Amendment prevailed. And I'm sure that pissed off the nihilists even more, which is why these assholes continue the attempts to shut me down by bullying and coercion. So word to SEK: Back the fuck off. My college doesn't want anything to do with you. It's leftists like you who are damaging whole generations of young people. Talk about danger. I FEEL BAD FOR YOUR STUDENTS. But they'll have to suffer through the abuse without any attempted warning from me --- it's none of my business. No doubt, though, your obsessive campaign of effete elitism and puerile hatred is truly sick. And you're having no effect other than to perpetuate the hatred at LGM. And I know that pisses you off. But you keep coming back. And me, I have the constant affirmation of my students, who repeatedly praise my teaching, and many of my political science majors remain in close contact, often providing tips on upcoming events of interest to American Power readers. (I met one of my former students, now at UCLA, at last month's David Horowitz event in Beverly Hills.) Oh, and what's particularly interesting is how the mentally-challenged trolls at Lawyers, Gays and Money seem to have lost interest in SEK's constant but mindless drivel. It's an attack blog, sure, but even rodents need something fresh to gnaw on now and again. Oh well, all in a day's work at American Power. Moral clarity, you know? Can't touch that.

RELATED: "It's Hard Out There: The Radical Assault on American Power," and "It's Come to This: Progressives Reduced to Racist Slurs Against American Power."

Leftist Hypocrisy All the Way Down

The great bulk of recent blogging has covered the virtually unlimited examples of radical left-wing hypocrisy.

Last week's "One Nation" showcased not only the widespread radicalism at the base of the Democrat Party, but also the longstanding official party ties between top Democrat Party organizers and key left-wing movement activists who put together the October 2nd event. But of course neo-commies continue to whine: "But there's no such thing as the monolithic 'left'." We've also had the news of Barack Obama's gangsta rap playlist, which shows how the president has endorsed the racial stereotypes and "pathologies that still haunt and cripple far too many in the black underclass." Where's the outrage against President Obama's racist iPod? We've also had yet another round of classic leftist misogyny with Jerry Brown's "whore" slur of Meg Whitman, but not only has the response been muted (or even buried, in the case of MSNBC), but a purported "women's rights" umbrella group came out to endorse the Democrat candidate within 24 hours of alienating any woman who resents being called a whore. And as I reported today, we saw that Ted Rall, the well-known and award-winning leftist editorial cartoonist, openly proclaimed his call for a revolution against the United States and the installment of a communist dictatorship of the proletariat in its place. On top of that we've got the New York Times and its leftist minions once again distorting the record on Pamela Geller and the opposition to the Ground Zero Cordoba Center. Of course, the great majority of Americans see the mosque project as an affront to the families of the fallen, but the leftists have pushed a false "anti-Muslim" meme that has done nothing except further polarize that nation. (And the left's endorsement of the "Muslim backlash" myth is understandable, since from the academy to the mainstream press and beyond, there's been an open embrace of romanticism and self-denial surrounding radical jihad).

It's all of a piece, as I've said many times. Another one of the hypocrisies of modern times is the deification of Che Guevara to communist sainthood. Humberto Fontova has more on that, "Che Guevara: Guerrilla Doofus and Murdering Coward":

Forty three years ago this week, Ernesto "Che" Guevara got a major dose of his own medicine. Without trial he was declared a murderer, stood against a wall and shot. Historically speaking, justice has rarely been better served. If the saying "What goes around comes around" ever fit, it's here.

"When you saw the beaming look on Che's face as the victims were tied to the stake and blasted apart by the firing squad," said a former Cuban political prisoner Roberto Martin-Perez, to your humble servant here, "you saw there was something seriously, seriously wrong with Che Guevara." As commander of the La Cabana execution yard, Che often shattered the skull of the condemned man (or boy) by firing the coup de grace himself. When other duties tore him away from his beloved execution yard, he consoled himself by viewing the slaughter. Che's second-story office in Havana’s La Cabana prison had a section of wall torn out so he could watch his darling firing-squads at work.

Even as a youth, Ernesto Guevara's writings revealed a serious mental illness. "My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any vencido that falls in my hands!” This passage is from Ernesto Guevara's famous Motorcycle Diaries, though Robert Redford somehow overlooked it while directing his heart-warming movie.

More at the link.

I'll have more on all of this later. No doubt much of the electorate's repudiation of the Democrats lies in the party's rank dishonesty and hypocrisy, from the president all the way down to the lowest neo-commie netroots bloggers. Meanwhile, previously at American Power: "Progressives Are Communists (If You Didn't Know)."

Fixing Our Schools

I'm heading out to see "Waiting for Superman." The film trailer is here. I'll have more on this later, but I'm reading Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. She makes the interesting argument that a genuinely conservative approach to education reform is to be wary of "speculative" and "uncertain" educational fads. She's particularly worn out on the decades-long push for market-oriented reforms focusing on choice and business-driven "total quality management," which she says basically deteriorated into the raw accountability movement. I'm not near ready to jettison potential reforms focusing on school choice. Still, Ravitch also points out that what all schools need is a coherent curriculum grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, as well as expectations that schools and students should together be working harder, in terms of hours of teaching and homework, than has become the norm today.

I'll have more on these issues in an upcoming post. Here's President Obama's weekly address below. I simply don't trust this administration on education reform, so more on that later. For now check WaPo's forum, "How to fix our schools: A manifesto by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee and other education leaders."

Cartoonist Ted Rall Calls for Communist Revolution: 'I Would Like to See a Completely Leftist Proletariat Dictatorship'

A violent revolution and the establishment of a proletarian dictartorship in the U.S.?

Right.

But of course, there's no "real commies" around any more. Just "imaginary" ones. Just ask Tintin, the blogging asshat at Sadly No!

"Because we do in fact hate commies, at least real commies, not the imaginary commies that community college Assistant Associate Professor Douglas sees lurking behind every potted plant."

Here's the book: The Anti-American Manifesto.

Rall's interviewed at Washington City Paper:

Washington City Paper: What’s your new book about?

Ted Rall It’s about the desire to replace the two-party system with something better. Understanding the fact that’s not going to happen by marching in the streets, or writing poetic letters to the editor, made it obvious that as it has always been and as it always will be, that if we want to improve our lives we’re going to have to take some radical chances.

WCP: Why do it now, post-Bush/Cheney, or even post-Reagan for that matter?

TR: Obama is why, actually. He’s about the best that the system has to offer. This two-party system, owned by corporations, is not going to give us a president who is less owned by corporations, or who is smarter, or who has more integrity. This is about it, this is as good as it gets. It’s very clear that he’s neither willing nor able to solve the problems that face the country. He’s not willing or able to stimulate the economy, to put people back to work, to stop the widening disparity of wealth, to pass a real health care plan, to get us out of Afghanistan, to get us out of Iraq… if he’s the best that they’ve got, we need better.

WCP: So the situation that we’re in right now—would you blame Bush for it, or would you go back further?

TR: Oh, we’re talking about decades of malfeasance, corruption, and a country that’s intentionally deciding to become a poor one on purpose. It’s really kind of crazy, so it’s not just Bush. Reagan and Clinton bear a lot of the blame for free trade agreements that sent American jobs overseas, for the widening disparity of wealth, for crushing the unions—it goes on and on. You can go back a lot further than that too. In the most recent era I would say that it began with Reagan ....

WCP: I must say that personally I have a little trouble trusting the mob, much like the founding fathers did.

TR: Well, yeah, if the United States proves anything, it’s that democracy doesn’t work. You can look at California’s referendums to prove that. I’m being droll there, but in reality the country is too undereducated to have a functioning democracy. As Toqueville said, you need a well-educated, well-informed electorate in order to make democracy work and we don’t have that. In fact it’s considered geeky or dorky to be an intellectual, and if you are, you’re supposed to pretend that you’re not ...

WCP: In your first chapter, you talk about this being late-stage capitalism, but to me it looks vaguely like a return, at least during the Bush years, to early-stage capitalism with less rules, less taxation, and the like. I would have said something like FDR’s New Deal would have starting moving us to a late-stage capitalism. Can you talk about why you think we’re in a late-stage capitalism now?

TR: It’s the classic Marxist model, where the trend toward monopolization has gone to an extreme, to the point where competition has been stifled, and where new generations of young people find their road to advancement cut off and are unable to find work or start new businesses. Capital has frozen. You know the country’s still rich. In 2008, money didn’t go away. We didn’t become poor. The lifeblood of the economy stopped circulating and rich people stopped investing. It’s really quite crazy if you think about it. The thing about American capitalism is that it does everything exactly backwards. When it should be audacious, like now, it’s timid, and when it should be timid, like during the late 1990s, it’s profligate. It’s really an incredibly stupid system (laughs) . The reason I wrote this book is that it’s become obvious to everyone. You couldn’t call for revolution in 1989—well you could call for it, but no one would have cared. I think more people are open to the message now. Someone asked me the other day, ‘well, how are you going to radicalize people?’ and I said ‘you don’t have to radicalize anyone.’ Once you get a pink slip and an eviction notice from a bank that is paying its CEO $40 million a year, you’re radicalized. You don’t to need read Mao’s Little Red Book ...

WCP: When you call for revolution, what would you see replacing the current system? Parliamentary democracy?

TR: I’m all the way on the far left, as far as you can get, so I would like to see a completely leftist proletariat dictatorship, but what I want is neither here nor there. I don’t think that what I want is important, or relevant, or realistic to even discuss, because once you unleash the forces of revolution, anything could happen. You could end up with a right wing coup. Who knows where you’re going to end up? You could end up with a Christian theocracy. What the revolution does is create the physical and ideological space for the discussion to take place. Right now, we don’t really know what Americans want, but what we do know is that this system is currently broken, and what we need is to come in with a clean slate, start from scratch and undergo the difficult process that the United States has not undergone for 200 years of figuring out how we really want to live in the year 2011.

The full interview's at the link.

Rall is an award-winning leftist political cartoonist. Totally mainstream. His cartoons are syndicated in over 100 newspapers around the country. And here he is advocating the violent overthrow of the United States and the establishment of a communist dictatorship. But there won't be a peep by anyone in the MFM. It's the tea parties who're routinely portrayed as extremist right-wing fringe elements. It's all pretty messed up. Check those links, and then Gates of Vienna's comments:

I’m not going to examine the latest from The Guardian in any detail, since it’s really just more of the same. I’m just posting this article to point out the extent to which the leftist press are using the websites of ICLA and 4Freedoms — not to mention American Counterjihad sites — as sources for their reporting.

As you read through this, see if you come to the same conclusion I did: The Gnudaria doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on. They read our blogs and our forums, and they quote our words, but it’s like a deaf person reading a musical score — they have no real sense of what it all means. This is especially true of their account of what is going on here in the USA, for which they have a thoroughly tin ear.