Trump Won't Run

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

At The Rhetorican, "Trump Won’t Run For President."

Also at New York Daily News, "Donald Trump will not run for president in 2012 after toying with possible Republican candidacy."

Added: Trump's statement is at CNN (via Memeorandum).

Runoff Expected in Special Election for California's 36th Congressional Seat

And it looks like Marcy Winograd, the hardline progressive who took 41 percent of the vote against Jane Harmon in the Democratic primary last year, won't make the cut. See Politico, "Class divide in war for Jane Harman's seat":

Washington has largely ignored the special election here Tuesday, focusing instead on a competitive House race across the country in New York. But the winner of California’s 36th District contest could reveal who’s leading the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party heading into the 2012 cycle.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn is an urban Democrat with strong labor backing. She will square off against Secretary of State Debra Bowen, a progressive candidate supported by environmentalists.

Under new California election rules, the top two vote-getters will advance to a July 12 runoff. With 16 names on the ballot, that means a divided Democratic vote won’t tip the seat to a Republican.

Hahn, the front-runner, is a “beer-track” Democrat from a political dynasty. She has support from such politically muscular unions as the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, an AFL-CIO affiliate representing 800,000-plus workers in the region, and the California Service Employees International Union.

Bowen, who previously represented most of the district in the state Legislature, is a “wine-track” Democrat who made a name for herself as an environmental crusader, co-authoring one of the country’s most ambitious laws to curb global warming. That’s earned her strong support from the national Sierra Club and the California League of Conservation Voters.

“Whoever’s voters show up on Election Day, that’s what’s going to win this,” Hahn told POLITICO. “The labor piece in this election is key, and particularly, again, because it’s a special election. L.A. County Federation of Labor knows how to win these.”

Actually, there's really not that much of a "class-divide" here. The South Bay labor constituency boasts major backing from the left's communist organizations. Winograd marched with ANSWER and antiwar veterans groups, but the Los Angeles teachers unions and SEIU recently "dropped the mask" on their communist orientation, so clearly the local Democrat Party has been captured by the hard left. Hahn? Bowen? It doesn't really matter. The 35th District is pulling far left and whoever wins the runoff will be doing bidding for America's ideological enemies in Congress.

More on this at WaPo, "Fighting to be the real progressive in California special election."

Outing Tintin at Sadly No!

I'm on the verge of obtaining the mother of all tips on Tintin's identity. So until that information becomes available, and since Carl Salonen is threatening punitive retaliation against those looking into his shady activities, I'm temporarily pulling my previous posts in the series. Still available is "Excavating Pure Evil — Failed New York Actor Carl Salonen Revealed as 'Tintin' at Sadly No!??"

Interestingly, Tintin has agreed to delete any mention of Carl Salonen at Sadly No! The scrubbing conspiracy is complete:

For the record: Links to the mentions scrubbed from Brendan Keefe's (here), Lawyers, Guns and Murder (here and here), and Whiskey Fire (here and here).

Updates forthcoming.

Jewish Defence League Nakba Counter-Protest, Toronto, May 15, 2011

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Royal Ontario Museum Gift Shop Stormed In Nakba Rioting!"

Jewish Defense League Nakba Counter-Protest, Toronto, May 15, 2011

Also at BlogWrath, "JDL, NAKBA AND THE KILTED SCOTSMAN WITH KAFIYA":

If there is a lesson to be learned from the event – it is that not all people are mindless Chomsky zombies, most of us think and remember history. The lefties can’t dupe everybody into believing their mythology. We know the truth and we are not afraid to stand for it.

Chomsky zombies? Yep. Sounds about right.

In Honor of Israel's 63rd Independence Day

An IAF flyover (via Theo Spark):

RELATED: At ABC News, "Palestinians Demonstrate on Israeli Anniversary." Also, previously, "Nakba Violence Erupts in Middle East — Analysts: Iran, Syria Leveraging Arab Spring to Destroy Israel (VIDEO)." More on this later ...

Brandi Lynn Rule 5!

I haven't posted Rule 5 in a while.

I promised Marooned in Marin some linkage, so check it out: "Hippie Rock Star Santana Uses Baseball Game To Bash Georgia & Arizona's Crackdown On Immigration Lawbreakers."

VIDEO c/o Theo Spark.

And don't miss Bob Belvedere's fabulous Rule 5 entry: " The TCOTS Six Days Of Cheesecake: Saturday."

Anyway, here's some link around action: Astute Bloggers, Bob Belvedere, CSPT, Dan Collins, Eye of Polyphemus, Gator Doug, Irish Cicero, Left Coast Rebel, Mind-Numbed Robot, Legal Insurrection, Lonely Conservative, PA Pundits International, PACNW Righty, Pirate's Cove, Proof Positive, Saberpoint, Snooper, WyBlog, The Western Experience, and Zion's Trumpet.

Plus, top it off with with American Perspective, Maggie's Notebook and Zilla of the Resistance.

Let me know if I need to add your blog to the roundup.

Nakba Violence Erupts in Middle East — Analysts: Iran, Syria Leveraging Arab Spring to Destroy Israel (VIDEO)

The Astute Blogger's been doing some heavy reporting, for example, "TRUCK JIHADIST MURDERS ONE IN TEL AVIV."

Also, at Atlas Shrugs, "ISRAEL UNDER ATTACK: SYRIAN INVASION, LEBANON AND GAZA TOO, TRUCK ATTACK IN TEL AVIV, MUSLIM VIOLENCE ERUPTS IN ISRAEL." And Ynet,"Deadly clashes on Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon" (via Memeorandum).

Background at Time, "A Third Intifadeh? Deadly Nakba Protests Spark Fears of Israel-Lebanon Border Escalation." Also, at Christian Science Monitor, "Palestinian refugees call for third intifada during deadly clashes at Israel-Lebanon border," and "'Nakba' clashes: Iran, Syria trying to turn Arab Spring fury into attacks on Israel?":

Israeli officials have warned in recent weeks that "radical" Islamist groups and Iran are trying to leverage the unrest in the Middle East to expand their influence and pull Israel into the conflict.

Now, the unprecedented breadth of Sunday's border protests, which marked the anniversary of Israel’s independence in 1948 – known to Palestinians as the "nakba’’ or "catastrophe" – are likely to strengthen Israel’s anxiety that the so-called Arab Spring will destabilize its neighborhood. And that will make the Jewish state less likely offer concessions for peace, security and political analysts say.

"For decades, the Arab leaders used Israel as an alternative focus. In my view, this is a return to the era of trying to divert internal dissent into attacks against Israel," says Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar Ilan University. "It is possible that if Egypt and Syria were replaced by more open, pluralist regimes, they would be more focused on dealing with the internal issues, and less capable of diverting the population to targeting Israel, but this is still a long way off.’’

*****
Israeli analysts speculated the incident occurred with the blessing of the Syrian government, but was actually a sign of the weakness of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which has maintained a quiet border for decades.

On Sunday, the chief spokesman of Israel’s military, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, argued that the border protests in Lebanon and Syria bore the "fingerprints of Iranian provocation."

Plus, at New York Times, "Israel Clashes With Protesters on Four Borders."

RELATED: At Jerusalem Post, "Abbas: Those killed in Nakba Day clashes are martyrs," and "Syria condemns Israel's 'criminal acts' against protesters."

Naturally ...

The Racist 2012 Republican Field?

So far both Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have been attacked as racist. Check Matthew Yglesias, "Newt Gingrich Proposes Reviving “Poll Tests” of the Sort Outlawed in the Civil Rights Era." He did nothing of the sort, but Yglesias cites race-monger Ta-Nehisi "Don't Spell My Name Wrong" Coates as an authority. It's just a warm-up. The entire GOP field will be attacked as "racist," pretty much for just running against Barack Obama. He's black. How dare you??!!

Via Memeorandum (with some bonus dolt-douche thrown in).

Ron Paul Wouldn't Have Voted for the Civil Rights Act

And Scott Lemieux uses that wholly unsurprising revelation to slur Robert Stacy McCain as racist? Well, yeah.

Lame-ieux links to Robert's essay, "Whatever Happened to AuH2O?" And Robert mentions Rand Paul's controversy over the Civil Rights Act back in May 2010, where Rachel Maddow saw an opportunity and squeezed it for all the racism juice she could get out of it. I wrote at the times, in "Rand Paul on Rachel Maddow: 'IDEOLOGICAL EXTREMISM = RACISM'":

Paul wants government out of enforcing behaving among individuals, consumers, and places of business in the economy. We are 46 years since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and it certainly seems difficult --- given the crises of that era --- to envision progress in eradicating that kind of Jim Crow racism in the absence of federal intervention.

I actually had a lot more to say, but basically I doubt any libertarian argument can carry the day on that issue, and I recall Ace of Spades making a really in-depth repudiation of the kind of libertarianism favoring private discrimination. See: "A Little History For Rand Paul."

That said, I know Robert Stacy McCain pretty well. He's a helluva lot smarter than Scotty Lame-ieux. But colorblind fairness (which is how I've come to see Robert's interaction with people) means nothing when progressives break out the long knives. It's pretty awful, but that's the way thing are nowadays.

RELATED: "Burlyce Sherrell Logan Returns to the University of North Texas."

Burlyce Sherrell Logan Returns to the University of North Texas

She's interviewed at New York Times, "A College Degree, 55 Years and an Era in the Making."

Burlyce Sherrell Logan, now 73, faced horrendous, racist attacks when she attended the university back in 1956:

“One day I was walking across campus, going to another building, and I saw a bunch of placards out,” she said. “I thought someone was going for office.” She recalled that she started reading the signs and they said, “ ‘Jungle bunnies go home,’ ‘Africans go home,’ ‘Burrheads go home.’ And I was totally shocked, but I had noticed there were a bunch of kids ganging up behind me. And I don’t know what made me do this, but I just started knee-slapping laughing, and I couldn’t stop. I think they think I went crazy, and they all ran away.”

She quit as bad grades piled up; moved west; married, divorced and remarried; raised three children; worked as a banker and a secretary. Then, in 2006, Ms. Logan returned to a changed university, now with 36,000 students — about a third of them black, Hispanic or Asian. It took 55 years, but she has earned a bachelor’s degree, her only worry whether her cranky 73-year-old knees can carry her up the steps and across the stage to collect a diploma that is as much about a life journey as any academic achievement.

Read the whole thing.

Ms. Logan is not bitter. Times have changed, and she's appreciative of the second chance and wise to the social transformations since 1956. That's apparently not enough for the racial grievance masters at The Root:

I wonder if some are in too much of a hurry to close the door on past injustice without exploring the history first. At a time when there is a disturbing rumble about race under the surface of so many of our discussions, we need to hear the survivors' tales. America has changed since 1956, or even 1976. It wouldn't hurt to remind America of the enormous psychic and emotional price that African Americans paid to simply exercise their rights.

Oh no. Wouldn't want to close the door on the last deep wellspring of radical left-wing power. Americans want to move forward and provide citizens with equal opportunity, and, unfortunately, more often than not, what's holding folks back is the Democrat stranglehold on inner-city political and educational institutions, not to mention the culture of anti-intellectualism that's gripped those trapped in the black underclass. But The Root says don't "close the door on past injustice ..." It's all we've got left!

Gov. Jerry Brown Won't Ask for Income Tax Increase in 2011

Maybe he should hold off on tax increases altogether. Let the market work things out and continue to rationalize spending.

At LAT, "Gov. Brown to skip tax increase this year":

A surge in revenue has prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to scale back his proposal for more taxes, even as his administration on Friday announced its intention to close 70 state parks.

Officials familiar with Brown's plans said the revised budget he presents Monday will propose raising income tax rates on Californians for four years rather than the five he initially wanted. The higher rate would not take effect until 2012.

The governor will continue to push for a five-year extension of increases in sales taxes and vehicle fees that are due to expire by July 1, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan has not been made public. Brown wants lawmakers to put some levies in place before July 1, to be ratified later by voters, the officials said.

Islamo Fascist Third Intifada Launched

The Astute Blogger has the coverage, "BREAKING: THIRD INTIFADA BEGINS: VIOLENCE IN JERUSALEM." Also, at Gateway Pundit, "Leftist-Islamist Third Intifada Is Underway – Rioting in Jerusalem After Teen Rock Thrower Shot Dead."

See also Atlas Shrugs, "MUSLIM JEW-HATRED SPIKES."

RELATED: From Caroline Glick, "Column One: Obama’s newest ambush":

It is hard to believe, but it appears that in the wake of the Palestinian unity deal that brings Hamas, the genocidal, al-Qaida-aligned, local franchise of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, into a partnership with Fatah, US President Barack Obama has decided to open a new round of pressure on Israel to give away its land and national rights to the Palestinians. It is hard to believe that this is the case. But apparently it is.

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that while Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is in Washington next week, and before the premier has a chance to give his scheduled address to a joint session of Congress, Obama will give a new speech to the Arab world. In that speech, Obama will praise the populist movements that have risen up against Arab tyrannies and embrace them as the model for the future. As for Israel, the report claimed that the Obama administration is still trying to decide whether the time is right to put the screws on Israel once more.

RTWT.

No suprise at all. Obama's down with folks like anti-Israel propagandist Ziyad Clot, "Palestine Papers: Why I blew the whistle" (via Memeorandum). And Ashraf Ezzat, "Third Intifada Launched in Tahrir Square While US Peace Envoy Quits."

'Rolling in the Deep' Tops U.S. Singles Chart

Perhaps I should lighten it up a bit. Enjoy Adele, "Rolling in the Deep":

There's a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch, and it's bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your sheet bare
See how I'll leave with every piece of you
Don't underestimate the things that I will do

There's a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch
And it's bringing me out the dark

The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless
I can't help feeling
We could have had it all
Rolling in the deep
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
You had my heart inside of your hand
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
And you played it to the beat
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep) ...

RELATED: "Adele replaces Katy Perry atop U.S. singles chart," and "Adele wows Washington, D.C. with an unpolished but Streisand-ian performance."

BONUS: "Who Sings ‘Rolling in the Deep’ Best?

AND THANKS: To Pundit & Pundette for the sidebar link yesterday.

David Horowitz at UCLA, 'Intellectual Terrorism: The Left's War on Free Speech'

From Mark Tapson, at FrontPage Magazine, "Horowitz and Intellectual Terrorism at UCLA":

Last Wednesday, evening the Freedom Center’s David Horowitz gave a much anticipated and ferociously opposed presentation before a crowd of more than 300 people at Moore Hall at the University of California at Los Angeles. The event was hosted by the Bruin Republicans, self-described as “the only officially right-of-center organization on the UCLA campus” – which is a good, albeit disheartening, indicator of the very issue Horowitz has been addressing on hundreds of campuses across this country, and which was the evening’s topic: the fact that our institutions of supposedly higher learning are utterly dominated by intolerant progressive academics who are ill-serving and mentally straight-jacketing their students.

Horowitz’s speech was as blunt as the title of his presentation – “Intellectual Terrorism: The Left’s War on Free Speech.” Pacing back and forth at the front of the hall, he was revved up right out of the gate and became even more impassioned as he went on. He began the wide-ranging, forty-minute speech with a condemnation of academics who indoctrinate rather than teach (“The students who suffer most are those of you who are on the left, because your assumptions are never challenged.”) Among other topics, he went on to decry campus anti-Semitism and to identify Islam as the greatest oppressor of women and gays in the world today. He delivered a myth-busting history of “Palestine” and a concise explanation of his opposition to slavery reparations a hundred years after the fact. And he attacked the Muslim Student Association, ubiquitous on major college campuses, as a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, a supporter of the terrorist organization Hamas and the sponsor of Israel Apartheid weeks across the country.

He was flanked throughout the speech by very visible security – a tragic necessity for Horowitz, who is a lightning rod for some of the most bilious hatred that has ever been directed at a conservative public figure. He regularly receives threats prior to speaking engagements and has in fact been physically attacked. This is the inevitable result of his having once been a radical leftist himself, for the Left is only marginally more forgiving of its apostates than fundamentalist Muslims are of theirs.

RTWT at the link.

I mentioned Horowitz's security earlier: "Tense Atmosphere at David Horowitz Lecture at UCLA."

Plus, from Thursday morning: "VIDEO: David Horowitz at UCLA, "The Left's War on Free Speech," May 11, 2011."

Althouse Taken Down??!! — UPDATE: Althouse Restored!

Seriously!

Check the Blogger link to Althouse --- and poof!!

Also, at Instapundit, "ALTHOUSE’S BLOG IS DOWN ..." And more here.

And at Red State, "Google/Blogger going after Ann Althouse?"

And at Althouse2, Ann's backup blog:

You know, I'm beginning to suspect that there's some behind-the-scenes campaign to report my blog as abusive. People who hate/fear the Althouse blog could make a loud noise to Google.

No doubt.

But Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Murder is throwing up a smokescreen, suggesting the take-down is due to a post at Althouse on the job finalists for a new dean at the University of Wisconsin law school.

Added: More from Althouse2, "'So, your blog goes down right after being reported as a cesspool of [misogyny] and homophobia? Hmmmmm . . .'"

UPDATE: Althouse's blog is up: "Is this thing really back?"

UPDATE II: Check Patterico, who's taking this pretty seriously: "Don’t Let Google Off the Hook: Evidence Aplenty That Cretin “Nitecruzr” Represents Google — And Even Has the Ability to Flag Your Google Account!"

Tense Atmosphere at David Horowitz Lecture at UCLA

There were rumors that communists and Muslims were planning protests against David Howoritz's talk at UCLA on Wednesday night. The disruptions never materialized, but one couldn't miss how much security David Horowitz requires. He had his personal security guards, of course, and then UCLA police were on hand as well. There were a couple of tense moments when I saw what looked like some leftist students moving quickly up and down the aisles in the lecture hall, but nothing happened. I keep looking over at the event organizers, the Bruin Republicans, as well. They looked apprehensive.

In any case, David Swindle has a report on this, "At UCLA the Campus Left and MSA Skip David Horowitz’s Speech."

Bar Refaeli Breaks Up with Leonardo DiCaprio

Or did Leo break with Bar? No matter. I'm putting Bar up in the title. With luck I'll get some Google traffic out of it (like Left Coast Rebel and The Other McCain).

In any case, People Magazine confirms the story, "Leonardo DiCaprio & Bar Refaeli Split."

And yeah, I know, she's a draft-dodging Israeli leftist, but she's a beauty, nevertheless --- and in the news too. See London's Daily Mail, "She's in the army now: Bombshell Bar Refaeli's topless military shoot... seven years after dodging national service." There's video at the link, although I like this one better:

Southern California Home Sales Down 9.2 Percent in April

I might have to update my "Atlas is Shrugging" post from last month.

See Los Angeles Times, "April home sales in Southern California hit three-year low for the month":

It is shaping up to be a silent spring for the housing industry.

Warmer days and the need for many families to make a move during the summer school recess have long made spring the peak season for buying homes. But lingering economic uncertainties and the expiration of federal tax incentives — which juiced up sales last year — have turned the market soft.

April home sales in Southern California were down 9.2% from a year earlier. The figure, the lowest for April in three years, was 25.4% below the month's average since record-keeping began in 1988, DataQuick of San Diego reported Thursday.

The median price paid for a home in the region fell 1.8% from a year earlier to $280,000.

"The market is just kind of putzing along," said David Emerson, a Lakewood agent with Prudential California Realty. "This should be the hottest time of the year in terms of deals going into escrow, but — especially once you consider where interest rates are — it is still a struggling market."

More at that link above, and some graphics at "Housing Chill."

Osama Bin Laden's Pornography Stash!!

The dude was all lubed up and ready to go!!

At Reuters, "Exclusive: Pornography found in bin Laden hideout: officials" (via Jawa Report and Memeorandum).

Added: Jonah Goldberg holds out for more evidence, and suggests the big find will be if Osama starred in any porno tapes:

The titles write themselves: “I Jihad To Have Her,” “72 Virgins Gone Wild,” “OBL’s Hot Qtub Party,” “Abbottobad Girls,” “Sheep Are For Practice,” etc.

Bin Laden on Killing Americans

At LAT, "Osama bin Laden's journal contains his thoughts on killing Americans":

Osama bin Laden kept a personal journal in which he contemplated how to kill as many Americans as possible, including in terrorist attacks against Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, according to U.S. officials.

The handwritten journal was part of a vast cache of digital and printed material hauled away from Bin Laden's hide-out after U.S. Navy SEALs killed him last week in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

One official said Wednesday that the trove provided "terabytes" of new information about Al Qaeda.

The official described the journal as full of planning ideas and outlines of potential operations — "aspirational guidance" on how to kill the maximum number of people rather than specific proposals or plots that were actually underway.

In one passage, Bin Laden wondered how many Americans would have to die in U.S. cities to force the U.S. government to withdraw from the Arab world. He concluded that it would require another mass murder on the scale of the Sept. 11 attacks to spur a reversal in U.S. policy, an official said.

The officials declined to provide details about potential plots in Los Angeles and Chicago. Bin Laden discussed an operation in Washington, one official said, "because of its iconic value."

Read it all at the link upstairs.

VIDEO: David Horowitz at UCLA, "The Left's War on Free Speech," May 11, 2011

I'll have a write-up on the event later. And check over at NewsReal Blog as well:

Geert Wilders Interview with Sun TV's Ezra Levant

Geert Wilders with Ezra Levant:

RELATED: At Blazing Cat Fur, "Five Feet of Fury discusses Geert Wilders with Ezra Levant, and Kathy Shaidle, "Joe Warmington is an idiot, but there’s a lot of that going around."

'Law and Order'

Before I started full-time at LBCC, I was fanatical about "Law and Order." Basically, all through the 1990s. I'd watch on NBC and TNT, and some of the other franchises were on USA. But I couldn't stay up until 11:00pm on most Wednesdays in the early 2000s, so I lost my mojo. Anyway, this Los Angeles Times piece argues that the entire Dick Wolf enterprise could be on the way out soon, "Critic's Notebook: A new order in 'Law & Order: L.A.'":

"Law & Order" itself may be running out of juice: the original was axed on the verge of its becoming television's longest-running drama (it tied but did not surpass "Gunsmoke"); "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," which NBC shares with USA to split costs, is in its final season, and though "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" is the fourth-place network's highest-rated drama, that is not saying much these days. (It finished 44th last year.)

Still, looking again over his episodes, it's clear that there are some actors who can live in creator Dick Wolf's universe more comfortably than others — sincere Sam Waterston and wry Jerry Orbach are the prime examples — and that much of what makes for success there is the ability to distract the viewer from the fact that, underneath its veneer of naturalism, the franchise is heavily stylized, with a tendency toward corn and cliché. The short scenes that are its building blocks leave little room for casual talk, and the series runs on speeches, sermons and tough-guy quips. "If the STDs don't get you, the blunt-force trauma will."

Herman Cain Responds to President Obama's Border Speech

I'm beating The Other McCain to this one.

Plus, Wall Street Journal has the speech, "Text of Obama’s Speech on Immigration." And at Pundit & Pundette, "Obama: 'That fence is now basically complete; They'll never be satisfied'." (At Memeorandum.)

Noam Chomsky, Osama Bin Laden's Fellow Traveler

See Bret Stephens, at Wall Street Journal, "From Chomsky to bin Laden":

Ho-hum: Can anyone be surprised anymore by what Mr. Chomsky thinks and says? Not really. In one of those little ironies of leftist politics, the author of "Manufacturing Consent" has become a victim of what my former colleague Tom Frank likes to call "the commodification of dissent," in which even the most radical ideas come stamped with their own ISBN number. In the West at least, the marketplace of ideas is also the great equalizer of ideas, blunting edges that might once have had the power to wound and kill.

So it is that Mr. Chomsky can be the recipient of over 20 honorary degrees, including from Harvard, Cambridge and the University of Chicago. None of these degrees, as far as I know, was conferred for Mr. Chomsky's political musings, but neither did those musings provoke any apparent misgivings about the fitness of granting the award. So Mr. Chomsky is the purveyor of some controversial ideas about this or that aspect of American power. So what?

Here's what: Dulled (and dull) as Mr. Chomsky's ideas might be in the West, they remain razors outside of it. "Among the most capable of those from your side who speak on this topic [the war in Iraq] and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war," said bin Laden in 2007. He was singing the professor's praises again last year, saying "Noam Chomsky was correct when he compared the U.S. policies to those of the mafia."

These words seem to have been deeply felt. Every wannabe philosopher—and bin Laden was certainly that—seeks the imprimatur of someone he supposes to be a real philosopher. Mr. Chomsky could not furnish bin Laden with a theology, but he did provide an intellectual architecture for his hatred of the United States. That Mr. Chomsky speaks from the highest tower of American academe, that he is so widely feted as the great mind of his generation, that his every utterance finds a publisher and an audience, could only have sustained bin Laden in the conceit that his thinking was on a high plane. Maybe it would have been different if Mr. Chomsky had been dismissed decades ago for what he is: a two-nickel crank.

More at the link.

PREVIOUSLY: "Noam Chomsky Attacks Israel's 'Expansion Over Security' at UCLA Lecture on 'Palestine in Crisis'," and "Noam Chomsky Lecture at UCLA Tonight: 'Palestine and Israel in Crisis'."

Geert Wilders' Canadian Tour!

Blazing Cat Fur might be posting some video later.

In the meanwhile, see Sun News, "Keep Islamic ideology out of Canada":

TORONTO - Canada should ban Islamic schools, outlaw the wearing of burkas and put a stop to the building of mosques, a controversial Dutch politician said on Monday during a stop at SUN News Network.

If Canada wants to protect its democratic freedoms and Western beliefs, it must act now and keep "Islamic ideology" outside of Canada's borders, said Geert Wilders, leader of Holland's Freedom Party, during an interview on The Source with Ezra Lavant.

"If (Muslims) want to have Islamic culture, (they should) stay in the country where (they) came from," said Wilders, who is doing his first-ever speaking tour of Canada. "There is no moderate Islam... There is no good part of the Qur'an."

Wilders has also called for the ban of the Qur'an - Islam's holy book - in Holland and other democratic countries, likening it to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

In Toronto to speak at Canada Christian College Monday night, Wilders called Islam an "ideology of hate" and said there is only one kind of Islam - a radical one.

Throughout the interview, Wilders kept coming back to one of his core beliefs: Islam is not a religion, it's an ideology of "totalitarian" philosophy, intolerant of any other religion or viewpoint.

RELATED: At National Post, "Islam a threat to Western freedom: Wilders." And from Jonathan Kay, "Geert Wilders’ problem with Islam."

Courtney Messerschmidt at Best Defense!

That's Thomas Ricks' blog, at Foreign Policy. Courtney's got a guest post: "Courtney Me 109 on the meaning of bin Laden's death for her peer group."

For those of us who were 10 or 11 years old on 9/11, the news of bin Laden's death is worthy of celebration. It is a tremendous moral victory for our nation and it validates what so many of us have learned in the past decade -- that America really is a magical nation -- the only one of her kind (more on this in a bit).

It's the triumph of good over evil. Sound passé'? Au contraire -- most of us reject moral relativism.

It's because for half of our entire lives we have lived with scary and creepy stuff like Taliban, al Qaeda, jihad, and the threat of terrorism on a mass attack scale from the indescribable horrors we saw live on TV that day -- with almost daily threats from various branches of aQ that they would gladly kill more Americans anyway and anytime they could.

Unlike the Soviet threat in ancient times -- al Qaeda had no embassies or diplomats at U.N. to double talk and speak of peaceful coexistence. aQ was always intolerant, and totally hot for murderous activities that targeted innocents by design.

9/11 was the pivotal day in our very young lives and OBL's timely demise seems to have closed a chapter that lasted forever.

This is significant.

More at the link.

Hat Tip: Charli Carpenter (of all people).

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver to Separate!

She's moved out.

At Los Angeles Times, "Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver announce separation":

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, have separated, with Shriver moving out of their Brentwood mansion while the two determine the next step in their 25-year marriage.

Shriver has been residing apart from the actor-turned-politician for the last few weeks. The former first couple confirmed the separation in a joint statement released Monday after questions were raised by The Times.

More at the link.

She's losing faith:

Her transitions video, mentioned at the article, is here.

The Jihadi Rail Threat

It's real, but Democrats aren't serious about this. See Michelle, "Schumer is not serious about rail security":

The GAO has issued rail security recommendations since at least 2004-2005.

What have opportunist Dems like Sen. Schumer — and what has the Obama administration — done on rail security since then?

And flashback to 2004, at Barcepundit on the Madrid bombing:

You can see the three blasts (the third one is specially big). Later, while police and paramedics where assisting the wounded, there was an alert because somebody thought that another artifact was going to blow up (something that in the end didn't happen, fortunately).

Communists and SEIU March in Los Angeles on May Day 2011

RACIST REPSAC = CASPER dropped in for a drive-by comment at Lawyers, Guns and Murder on Saturday, and he again offered up a variant of his pathetic delusion that there are no communists allied with the Democratic Party in contemporary American politics. Read the verbatim comment here. But to be clear: All Democrats are not socialists or communists. But old school Democrats of the Joseph Lieberman mold are a dying breed. And the Democrat hardline base is clearly populated by a large number of people either formally allied with socialist and communist organizations, or willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with them at protests and rallies and job actions, whatever. We saw this most powerfully at last year's "One Nation" rally in D.C., and earlier this year in Wisconsin. And we have yet another example from May Day in Los Angeles last week. Zombie has an entry on this, "SEIU drops mask, goes full commie." And following the links takes us to Ringo's blog, "Unions and Communists March Side By Side at May Day Rally - Los Angeles, Ca 5/1/2011."

Be sure to check the entire post. Ringo says he's never seen so many communist flags in his entire life. And he's got this video below as well, of the ANSWER contingent --- the ubiquitous neo-Stalinist organization involved in everything from antiwar protests to anti-Prop 8 demonstrations to the anti-SB 1070 marches in Arizona:

So, again, Democrats are not necessarily communists. But the Democrat Party base, made up of self-styled "progressives," are neo-Marxist collectivists who advocate statist redistributionism and social justice. As I've written previously:

In any case, progressives today are not social and economic reformers, or those who're directed toward modernization and social improvement. They're totalitarian ideologues working for the idealized utopia that always historically ends in the terror and the gulag.

The evidence is all around. It's a matter of objective fact. Those like RACIST = REPSAC = CASPER who weasel out of truth recognition are the ideological and intellectual Luddites of the day. Paul Kengor wrote on the Democrat-socialist alliance after the "One Nation" rally last year, "Progressives and Communists: Out of the Closet -- Together":

A close look at the Saturday "One Nation" rally in Washington reveals something quite telling. It was a major gathering of the "progressive" left, highly billed, vigorously promoted. And it happened to include -- in fact, it warmly accepted -- the endorsement of Communist Party USA.

Expectedly, a bunch of the rally's endorsers carried the word "progress" or "progressive" in their title, from People’s Organization for Progress to Progressive Democrats of America. More still unhesitatingly describe themselves as progressive, from racial eugenicist Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood to Norman Lear's heirs at People for the American Way, plus the usual suspects from the "social justice" Religious Left.

And then, too, there was CPUSA.

Why is this so remarkable? It's remarkable because historically, communist involvement at these rallies has been meticulously concealed, hidden from progressives, with the communists using the progressives as props -- as dupes. That the two sides here, on Saturday, happily accepted one another, proudly uniting, shows how far to the left progressives have moved, not to mention their unflagging confidence under the ascendancy of Obama-Pelosi-Reid.

Once more, the majority of rank-and-file Democrats --- who political scientists identify as members of the "party-in-the-electorate" --- are not communists. But the loudest, most activist segments of the Democrat coalition, most importantly SEIU, seen at May Day in Los Angeles, are now clearly aligned with the Communist Party in a coalition of "No Enemies on the Left." According to watchdog website Open Secrets:

During the 2010 election cycle, SEIU spent nearly $15.8 million on advertisements and other communications known as independent expenditures that overtly advocated for or against federal political candidates, with Democrats benefiting from almost all of them.

I do not believe RACIST REPSAC = CASPER is a communist. He may be an anti-Semite, in addition to being a racist, and he's definitely a progressive. But that doesn't matter much to the foregoing analysis. The post shows conclusively the infiltration of the Democrat Party by the long-term ideological enemies of the United States. It's fact. That said, facts to not penetrate the world of blind hatred of RACIST REPSAC = CASPER, so this is just for the record, once again. But be warned: Pathetic RACIST REPSAC = CASPER, unfortunately, is potentially even more dangerous than those hoisting banners on the street, for he works in the Alinsky mold of destroying American greatness from within. You gotta watch out for these people. They'd kill you if they get the chance.

How Long Will it Take for Jobs to Come Back?

I used to read chapters from Greg Mankiw's introductory economics textbooks in grad school, when I took seminars in international political economy. Mankiw blogs, but he's quite the opposite of Paul Krugman: more conservative and, especially, humble. We can see that in his essay yesterday at the New York Times, "Three Questions for America's Financial Future." On the jobs picture:

Looking ahead, an open issue is whether the recession will leave scars that prevent a return to jobless rates that were considered normal just a few years ago. A striking feature of today’s labor market is the rise of long-term joblessness. The average duration of unemployment is now almost 40 weeks, about twice what it reached in previous recessions. The long-term unemployed may well lose job skills and find their future prospects permanently impaired. But because we are in uncharted waters, it is hard for anyone to be sure.

Actually, one of my favorite writers of all is Victor Davis Hanson. A classicist and military historian, he's also unmatched on political and social commentary on issues ranging from culture to farming to immigration. See his essay from Saturday, "Thoughts on a Surreal Depression":

Here in Fresno County, in the heart of California’s San Joaquin Valley, the official unemployment rate in February to March ranged between 18.1 and 18.8 percent. I suspect it is higher in the poorer southwestern portions, especially near my hometown of Selma, about two miles from my farm.

Since 2000 we have both lost jobs and gained people, and the per capita household income is about 65% of California’s average, the average home price about half the state norm.

In some sense, all the ideas that are born on the Berkeley or Stanford campus, in the CSU and UC education, political science, and sociology departments, and among the bureaus in Sacramento are reified in places like Selma — open borders, therapeutic education curricula, massive government transfers and subsidies, big government, and intrusive regulation. Together that has created the sort of utopia that a Bay Area consultant, politico, or professor dreams of, but would never live near. Again, we in California have become the most and least free of peoples — the law-biding stifled by red tape, the non-law-biding considered exempt from accountability on the basis of simple cost-to-benefit logic. A speeder on the freeway will pay a $300 ticket for going 75mph and justifies the legions of highway patrol officers now on the road; going after an unlicensed peddler or rural dumper is a money-losing proposition for government.

The subtext, however, of most of our manifold challenges here in the other California are twofold: we have had a massive increase in population, largely driven by illegal immigration from Latin America, mostly from Oaxaca province in Mexico, and we have not created a commensurate number of jobs to facilitate the influx.

I often ask business people on the coast why there are not more industries in places like Selma other than agricultural related work that is locale specific. I would sum up their responses as something like the following: Our workforce does not have the educational and linguistic skills to justify, in global terms, the amount of wages and benefits necessary to employ them, hence jobs are mostly in service and government. Software engineering, computers, or Silicon Valley-like industry are out the question. But apparently so are large manufacturing jobs, despite an abundant workforce. As I understand employers, they seem to suggest that steel pipe, electrical wire, or radios would not be better manufactured or fabricated here, and yet still cost two to three times more than a counterpart assembled abroad.

In addition, they believe that the state government would look upon any employer of a large industry not as a partner that would alleviate unemployment and lessen county expenditures, but more or less a sort of target to regulate, advise, lecture, and chastise, both to justify the expanding government regulatory work force and to achieve a fuzzy sort of social justice. There are, of course, large plants and businesses here, but hardly enough to absorb the thousands entering the work force.

The result is about one in five adults is not working in the traditional and formal sense. A morning drive through these valley towns confirms anecdotally what statistics suggest: hundreds, no, thousands, are not employed. Construction is almost nonexistent. Agriculture is recovering, but environmentally driven water cut-offs on the West Side (250,000 acres), increasing mechanization, and past poor prices have combined to reduce by tens of thousands once plentiful farm jobs.

My dad moved to Fresno in the mid-70s and I graduated from Fresno State in 1992. If you ever want to get the feel of what it must have been like during the Great Depression, take some country drives around the Central Valley --- in towns even more remote than Selma --- and you'll be taken back into your own Grapes of Wrath experience. The Democrats make this bad enough, but it's a statist anti-entrepreneurial regulatory stranglehold that's killing employment and the quality of life for large segments of society. I'm noticing it even in parts of the O.C., where unemployment was less than 2 percent in 2000. Hope for the best, I guess, but prepare for the worst.

Noam Chomsky Attacks Israel's 'Expansion Over Security' at UCLA Lecture on 'Palestine in Crisis'

I experimented with video blogging, and this clip captures more of Chomsky's comments on U.S. policy than his remarks on Israeli expansionism. Here he argues that from Washington's perspective democracy and freedom in the Middle East are antithetical to American interests. The U.S. and Israel allegedly fear the Arab Spring because the revolutions threaten American hegemony in the region. Chomsky spouts a lot of disinformation, which is his trademark. He says at 40 seconds that "about 90 percent of Egyptians view the United States as the main enemy" and that "about 80 percent in the region wanted to be sure Iran had nuclear weapons":

Actually, public opinion in Egypt is much more complicated than that, and while there's obviously variation across individual polls and over time, there's no support for Chomky's claim of "80 percent" across the region supporting Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. In fact, according to a Pew Global Attitudes survey in April 2010, "a majority of respondents in Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon as well as Israel said the spread of nuclear weapons was a major threat" (the number was 41 percent in Egypt).

But these are only quick examples of the kind of propaganda one hears at a Noam Chomsky lecture. Indeed, what's even more fascinating than hearing Chomsky's America-bashing is observing the rock star status he's afforded by the huge crowd of collegiate wannabe bohemians, diehard pro-terror communists, and the campus Islamist jihadis who thronged the event. I'll post pictures later. Chomsky was swarmed by extremist acolytes upon entering the lecture hall. Upon speaking, it was as if his attacks on "American imperialism" and "corporate dominance" were like throwing bags of candy to children. I arrived at UCLA at 5:00pm, and the event was scheduled from 6:00 to 8:00pm. There was a long line out in front of the lecture hall, and while I was dressed casual with my baggy shorts and Famous Stars and Straps shirt and cap, I nevertheless hid the cover of Peter Collier and David Horowitz's, Anti Chomsky Reader with my copy Chomsky and Ilan Pappé's Gaza in Crisis. No need to get these thugs riled. That said, I haven't shaved in weeks, and the beard's getting a little scruffy, frankly, and thus I imagine that grizzled look went over well among the hordes. Honestly, some Muslim women simply do not smell good, and that's to say nothing of the countercultural radicals who look like they just awoke from a night's sleep out on the sidewalks of Westwood. Hey, I guess it's a good thing that the Muslim dude I saw in building of the Samueli School of Engineering, where I stopped off to take a leak before heading back out to the parking garage, was performing his ablutions right there at the bathroom sink!

In any case, listening to Chomsky drone on lethargically, I was reminded of this passage from David Horowitz's essay at the reader, "Noam Chomsky's Anti-American Obsession":

It would be easy to demonstrate how on every page of every book and in every statement that Chomsky has written the facts are twisted, the political context is distorted (and often inverted) and the historical record is systematically traduced. Every piece of evidence and every analysis is subordinated to the overweening purpose of Chomsky's lifework, which is to justify an idée fixe -- his pathological hatred of his own country.

The point was evident at the moment Chomsky commenced. The talk was on "Palestine and Israel in Crisis," but Chomsky was emphatic in stressing the everything Israel does "is at the direction of the United States." That claim sets the tone, of course, for Chomsky's attacks on America's imperial ambitions in the region. But despite the monotonous delivery, Chomsky was sharp intellectually and stayed on point in discussing the Middle East "crisis." And note that nothing, not a single fact surrounding the cycles of violence and bloodshed in the region, is the fault of the Palestinians. He made a big point, a number of times, to stress that the U.S. and Israel face a "crisis of legitimation" in world opinion. He argued, by that token, that this was in fact an increasing "crisis of delegitimation" that's bringing about a "tsunami" of condemnation against the United States, which Chomsky eagerly claimed to be a declining power, but which will nevertheless will remain influential of global affairs for some time to come. (Which begs the question of course of whether or not the U.S. really is the "hegemon" that's the basis for Chomsky's decades-long excoriation of his own country.)

Another term Chomsky used repeatedly was "illegal" --- as in Israel "illegally" occupying Gaza and now "illegally" occupying the West Bank with its "illegal" settlements that form the basis for its policy of "expansion over security." That theme, which was essentially the thesis of the night, was that, according to Chomsky, never has Israel been about peace in the Middle East. He cited a number times when Israel allegedly rejected accommodation with the Palestinians, and instead the Jewish state was alleged to be bent in expansion into the territories it claimed in its numerous wars of conquest. Chomsky laid out a vision of either a future two-state accommodation on the basis of peace (not likely) or Israel's complete decimation of Palestine resulting in a one-state domination. A third option was "what's happening right now." Israel will continue to expand the "illegal" settlements, and the U.S. will continue its "hegemonic" role of regional domination in the Middle East.

At the conclusion of the event, Chomsky responded to questions and went off on his familiar rant about how those who proclaim themselves pro-Israel are actually working feverishly for its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction. Chomsky then returned to the comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa, and while he admitted key differences, he argued that in one key similarity the time will come when Israel's crisis of legitimation becomes overwhelming, and forces upon it a reckoning for the survival of the Jewish state.

I note here at the end that Chomsky concluded the question and answer session by arguing that Osama Bin Laden was assassinated, "murdered," so that the U.S. could avoid putting Bin Laden on trial, because "they have no evidence against him."

That final jab at the U.S. went over extremely well with the crowd of anti-Americans and Arafat-styled student-cum-terrorists.

Bin Laden's Compound Videos

At NYT, "Videos From Bin Laden’s Hide-Out Released." (Via Memeorandum.)

And at Lonely Conservative: "The dude lived like a pig. At least we know he wasn’t living in the lap of luxury."

RELATED: "Bin Laden’s Secret Life in a Diminished World." (At Memorandum.)

Noam Chomsky Lecture at UCLA Tonight: 'Palestine and Israel in Crisis'

I'm heading out to cover Noam Chomsky's talk tonight at UCLA, sponsored by the Students for Justice in Palestine.

I wrote previously about these people: "UCLA’s Palestine Awareness Week: Students for the Extermination of Israel."

I think given events of the past week, it's going to be even more of an Israel-hating, America-bashing blockbuster. See Ann Althouse, "Noam Chomsky: 'It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law'." Or, go straight to the link: "Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death."

Check back late tonight or in the morning for a report.

Is Sarah Palin Over?

Asks Newsweek's Howard Kurtz. Obviously not, but it's an interesting piece, especially the insider gossip on Palin's relationship with the folks at Fox News. People are apparently dissing her appearance, of all things. She looks great to me:

Scott Lemieux Backs Anti-Semitic Tony Kushner at Lawyers, Guns and Money

So now Lawyers, Guns and Money is a Jew-bashing, BDS-backing, anti-Semitic hate-site? Well, of course we know that Robert Farley worships Che Guevara, so fanatical Israel-hatred is the logical next step for LGM. The confirmation is in Scott Lemieux's jihad against Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, a Member of the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York, who has spoken out against the the university's plan to give an honorary degree to gay socialist playwright Tony Kushner. Here's the screencap of Lemieux's attack on Wiesenfeld this morning, "The CUNY Disgrace."

I commented at the post:

I’m calling you out right now as an Israel-basher, Scott. And a hypocrite. You’re for free-speech for Israel’s critics but you want to punish Israel’s defenders. Seriously. You’re a sick fucker.

And here's the hypocrisy, from an earlier post where Lemieux decried "political correctness":

If there was a contest among the trustees to see who could commit the most egregious breach of CUNY’s mission and traditions, I think we have a winner! Well, at least we know that Roger Kimball has a point about “political correctness” running amok on campuses ...

Actually, the issue here isn't political correctness. It's whether some forms of speech, while protected, are unworthy of the legitimacy and recognition that's conferred with an honorary degree. Frankly, Kushner's attacks on Israel are anti-Semitic, as Wiesenfeld wrote in an essay at The Algemeiner:

When you hold the State of Israel – a nation in a struggle for its survival from the beginning, a target for the misogynist, racist, anti-western, dictatorial regimes which surround it – to a standard you would hold no other nation under normal circumstances, let alone under such exigencies – and when you spew libel against our sole regional democratic ally for “crimes” concocted by delegitimizers, you are an anti-Semite.

See also, "Transcript of CUNY Trustee’s Speech on Kushner Award."

And Bruce Kesler's been all over this at Maggie's Farm, for example, "CUNY Chairman: Kushner 'made the trains run on time'."

And from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "The New York Times Piles on Kushner’s Critic":

A New York arts world that considers a hard-core leftist theatrical polemicist like Tony Kushner to be “compassionate” and fair-minded must find it hard to accept the fact that there are people in the world who deem his anti-Zionism so hard to stomach they refuse to remain silent when asked to honor him. The belief that Kushner is a “writer of rare intellectual scope” with an “extraordinary, active empathy that pervades every one of his plays” is clearly the dominant viewpoint among the city’s chattering classes, and it is hardly surprising that dissenters like Wiesenfeld will be treated harshly as a consequence. The drumbeat of incitement against Wiesenfeld, in which Kushner is falsely portrayed as a victim, will accelerate in the days to come. By the time this nonsense is played out, Kushner may be in line for a Nobel Peace Prize.

That is the way the cultural elites play hardball. Wiesenfeld must understand that he will not be forgiven for his act of lese majeste against a leading cultural liberal. But in standing up against a man whose opposition to Israel has always brought him honor rather than the shame it deserved, Wiesenfeld has restored a little bit of balance to New York’s cockeyed world of high culture.

Also, from Phyllis Chesler, "Communist University of NY (CUNY) Denies Honor to Israel-Bashing Playwright Tony Kushner":

I once labored at the City University of New York (CUNY). I am amazed but thrilled that enough (five) members on their twelve member Board of Trustees actually viewed Kushner’s views on Israel as “racist.”

I once taught a graduate course at the very branch of CUNY which proposed Kushner. Once, I was friendly with some of the professorial union thugs who literally occupy positions to the left of Stalin.

Yes, many are gay, many are feminists. Some are also homophobic and sexist. Life is complicated over there at Communist U because I am describing the same people as well as their opponents.

God bless CUNY Trustee Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, who was the first to speak against Kushner. He said that Kushner had tied the founding of the state of Israel to a policy of “ethnic cleansing.” He was surprised that he got the votes necessary to knock Kushner’s honorary degree off the table.

RELATED: From David Horowitz, "Andrew Sullivan’s Misguided Defense of the Regrettable Mr. Kushner":

Andrew Sullivan has posted an attack on CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld for blocking a politically motivated honorary degree that was to be given to the over-rated, crypto-communist and Israel-demonizing playwright Tony Kushner. Andrew’s intelligence is on display in the opening paragraph of his piece where he reiterates his clear-headed views of Kushner’s inflated literary reputation. Kushner’s Pulitzer-winning agitprop, Angels in America, is a puerile embarrassment and in recognizing this Andrew shows that he is capable of breaking out of the bubble of liberal derangement when it suits him. All the more reason that Andrew’s attack on Wiesenfeld is an instructive illustration of the unhinged attitudes of current “critics” of Israel, who are apologists for Hamas and their Gaza supporter.

More at the link.

Also, on the front page of today's New York Times, "Tony Kushner Is Now Likely to Get CUNY Honor."

Figures.

Front page treatment at New York Times too. Another nail in the coffin.

Sympathy For Osama Bin Laden

With apologies to The Rolling Stones.

From (left/libertarian) Brendan O’Neill, "The rise and rise of a pity-for-Osama lobby: How did ‘I hate bin Laden and I’m glad he’s dead’ become the most shocking thing one can say in polite society?" (via Ed Driscoll):

Behind the high-falutin’ expressions of passion for justice over shoot-to-kill, much of the pity-for-Osama lobby is really concerned with expressing its moral superiority over apparently vengeful Americans. Where ‘them’ Yanks still have an attachment to nationalism and war, ‘we’ Europeans are post-nationalist, cosmopolitan, empathetic rather than vengeful, and are far more comfortable with having a man in a wig rather than a man with a gun sort out our moral and political problems.

*****

It is extraordinary, and revealing, how quickly the expression of concern about the use of American force in Pakistan became an expression of values superiority over the American people. The modern chattering classes are so utterly removed from the mass of the population, so profoundly disconnected from ‘ordinary people’ and their ‘ordinary thoughts’, that they effectively see happy Americans as a more alien and unusual thing than Osama bin Laden. Where OBL wins their empathy, American jocks receive only their bile.

Progressives Conflicted Over 'Assassination' of Osama Bin Laden

I've written a couple of times now on John Yoo's thoughts on the Bin Laden killing. Recall that Yoo argues that President Obama had choices. U.S. forces could have gone in with a much heavier contingent for the primary purpose of capturing Bin Laden. We captured Saddam Hussein, for example. We could have taken Bin Laden as well. And, sure, we now know that Bin Laden's (purported) resistance was the (potentially lethal) fact of a couple of guns within arm's reach, and perhaps a suicide bomber's vest that could have been detonated as the commandos stormed the upper chambers of the compound. But given the administration's failure to close Guantanamo, and its backtracking on civilian trials for al Qaeda's leadership, it's entirely within reason to consider that President Obama frankly didn't want to deal with it. Screw it. Kill the f**ker and be done. The truth is, John Yoo's offered one of the most compelling explanations of the operation yet. And now the folks at Balloon Juice are freakin' out over his hypothesis, chest thumping at how the killing of Bin Laden has allegedly caused conservative heads to explode. See "Only Real Men Torture Folks…" (via Memeorandum and Talking Points Memo). Again, all of this is about claiming credit. The left's hypocrisy on national security is unmatched, and Republicans are going to have an enormous opportunity to clarify the debate in 2012. Indeed, it's not the idiotic dolts at Balloon Juice who represent the long-term progressive stand on this, but folks like Michael Moore. The communist filmmaker was on Piers Morgan's last night gnashing his teeth about how horrible it is that Americans killed Bin Laden. But not for the reasons that John Yoo identifies. No, Moore's just unhappy that U.S. forces would actually kill our foremost enemy. More than unhappy, in fact. He's completely dejected, "The world's a better place without him," Moore says, but "it's not necessarily the way" he would have done it:

At least Moore's honest about this. Most progressives are just too busy spiking the football to let both their rank hypocrisy and epic fail sink in. See Dana Loesch for more on that: "In the Left’s Rush to Politicize Bin Laden They Overlook Their Hypocrisy."

RELATED: At the Rhetorican, "White House Messaging Fail: Farenheit 2011?"

And Christopher Taylor, "The Vindication of Former President Bush?"

Show the Proof, Mr. President

It's so elementary.

See Peggy Noonan, "Americans don't want to 'spike the ball.' They want to show they crossed the goal line."

Here is the fact of the age: People believe nothing. They think everything is spin and lies. The minute a government says A is true, half the people on Earth know A is a lie. And when people believe nothing, as we know, they will believe anything. We faked the moon landing, there was a second gunman in Dallas, the World Trade Center was blown up in a U.S.-Zionist conspiracy, Hitler grew old in Argentina.

There will always be people who believe conspiracy theories, and with the Internet there will be more. They are impervious to evidence. But people who care about the truth need to be armed with evidence to refute them.

Mr. Obama misunderstands all this. He tells Steve Croft Sunday on Sixty Minutes that showing photos of the dead Osama would be to "spike the football." "We don't trot this stuff out as trophies." Trophies? Who does he think we are?

It's not about pride, it's about proof. "We got him, shot him and immediately threw him in the sea" is not enough. The U.S. government should release all the evidence it has that does not compromise security. Pictures of Osama are said to be gruesome. Then get the least gruesome one and put it out. Release the DNA evidence, incriminating information found in the house, and pictures of the raid. If there was a passport under the mattress, make it public. And let the SEALs tell their story. Allow them, if they are willing and eager, to go on "Nightline," "Frontline" and "60 Minutes." If they cannot be identified or don't wish to be, put a blue dot over their faces, filter their voices, and don't use their names.

All of this should be put in one big package and released to the world. In this way you give the nation and the world data, and a lot to talk about. That talk will crowd out and diminish conspiracy theories and deather denialism.

Americans don't want to spike the ball. They just want to show they crossed the goal line.

Al-Qaeda Vows Revenge

And that's after President Obambi bent over backwards not to inflame Islamist sensibilities.

See USA Today, "Al-Qaeda confirms bin Laden's death, threatens new attacks." (At Memeorandum.) Plus, a video report at CNN, "Al Qaeda, in Web message, confirms bin Laden's death."

John Yoo: 'This Administration' Really Doesn't 'Want to Capture al Qaeda Leaders'

A follow up to my essay from Wednesday, "The Editors at the New York Times are Living in Another World." I quoted John Yoo's latest op-ed at the Wall Street Journal, discussed at the clip below with Eliot Spitzer. It gets a little heated toward the end, and that's when Yoo reiterates his thesis: The Obama administration made a political decision to not even attempt a capture of Bin Laden, and this may have deprived the U.S. of valuable intelligence, while also adding more fuel to the hypothesis that reelection considerations were at least as important as national security in White House decision-making on the raid in Abottabad:

City University of New York Blocks Honorary Degree for Anti-Semitic Playwright Tony Kushner

At NYT, "CUNY Blocks Honor for Tony Kushner."

And see Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, "Tony Kushner, an Extremist, Can’t Represent CUNY" (via Maggie's Farm):

Following our consensus decision to table the honorary degree nomination of Mr. Tony Kushner it is worthy to note that Mr. Kushner repeats the ugly charges against Israel for which he is known in a letter to the City University Board of Trustees and the media, in which he attempts to defend himself. He is disingenuous and dissembling.

If his libelous statements against Israel were made by anyone outside the Jewish community, that person would be correctly labeled an anti-Semite. When you hold the State of Israel – a nation in a struggle for its survival from the beginning, a target for the misogynist, racist, anti-western, dictatorial regimes which surround it – to a standard you would hold no other nation under normal circumstances, let alone under such exigencies – and when you spew libel against our sole regional democratic ally for “crimes” concocted by delegitimizers, you are an anti-Semite.

More at the link above.

And it turns out that Kushner's views on Israel are informed by hardline BDS types, including Norman Finklestein, who Weisenfeld cited when calling out Kushner.

And right on cue the Israel-hating left has jumped to Kushner's defense, at Lawyers, Guns and Murder and Mondoweiss. Plus, some overtime action from Justin Elliot at and Salon: "School blocks Kushner honor over Israel" and "Fight over Israel and Tony Kushner heats up" (via Memeorandum).

Changing Reports on Bin Laden Raid

At Toronto Star:

Re: U.S. won’t release bin Laden photos, president says, May 5

It is somewhat disconcerting to hear the ever-changing reports from American officials regarding the death of Osama bin Laden. First, he was killed by Navy Seals following a firefight at his compound. Later it was announced that there were no armed guards at his compound. First, one of his wives was used as a human shield and was killed in the battle. Later it was stated that she wasn’t used as a human shield but was shot in the leg. First reports from American officials were that when the Navy Seals broke into his bedroom, he picked up a gun and was shot in an exchange of fire. Later it was reported that he wasn’t armed.

Although few in the western world will shed any tears over his death or the manner in which he was killed and his body dumped into the sea, it is important that we in the West observe the rule of law. If bin Laden was not armed and was not killed “in the crossfire,” then he should have been captured and put on trial for his crimes against humanity. This practice was properly observed with Saddam Hussein and the world didn’t fall apart.

Saul D. Paton, Toronto

Bin Laden Cartoon Roundup

At Orange County Register, "Cartoon Gallery: 40 Osama bin Laden Cartoons."

And at Cap'n Bob & and Damsel's, "Pakistan - No Ally in GWOT."

Bin Laden's Cowardly Last Moments

At New York Post, "Bin Laden acted 'cowardly,' confused in final moments."

The terrorist leader was apparently within reach of two guns when he died during Sunday's raid. A senior US official confirmed that bin Laden was near the door along with the two weapons -- an AK-47 and a Makarov hand gun -- which are now in US custody.

And Fox News' Jennifer Griffin spoke with agents who were on the ground: