Merry Christmas! Katy Perry Holiday Bikini Pictures!

Well, a nice gift for my babe blogging readers!

At TMZ, "Katy Perry: Ho, Ho, HOT!"

Ron Paul Campaign Pushes Back Against Former Staffer's Report

I've commented pretty heavily on all of this already, but there's more news out today on the Ron Paul racism controversies.

National Journal reports that the Paul campaign is going ballistic over Eric Dondero's hit piece out today, "Ex-Aide: Ron Paul Foreign Policy is 'Sheer Lunacy': Eric Dondero says Paul is an anti-Israel 9/11 truther."

Dondero's report is at Right Wing News, "Statement from fmr. Ron Paul staffer on Newsletters, Anti-Semitism."

I saw it earlier at Althouse's, where she lasers in on the intensity of Dondero's descriptive language, "Ron Paul is not an anti-Semite, but he is 'most certainly Anti-Israel, and Anti-Israeli in general'." She also calls out Dondero for astonishingly bad writing, and commenter Deb provides this observation: "Dondero sounds a bit clueless too in his assessment of what is/is not anti-Semitic and homophobic." I agree. Because according to the report, Paul is vehemently, viciously anti-Israel --- and pro-Palestinian to boot. And combined with the statements Dondero says Paul made on Nazi Germany --- that the U.S. had no business fighting World War II --- there literally is no other conclusion to make. It's a devastating indictment. Pamela Geller picked up on that last bit big time, "RON PAUL: U.S. SHOULDN'T HAVE FOUGHT HITLER JUST TO SAVE JEWS FROM HOLOCAUST."

And in an epic example of trying to have your cake and eat it too, the New York Times has this, "Paul Disowns Extremists’ Views but Doesn’t Disavow the Support."

There's lots of links at Memeorandum as well.

I won't be surprised by a Herman Cain type meltdown for Ron Paul anytime now. And if it happens, credit bloggers for doing the heavy lifting.

Nashville Occupy Protesters Fight on Christmas Day

Freakin' animals.

At Frugal Cafe Blog Zone, "Christmas Day Fight Among Occupy Protestors in Nashville, Including Pregnant Woman, Police Called in."

And at Blazing Cat Fur,  "Occupests In Christmas Day Cat Fight."

Final Iowa Ad War Begins

At Los Angeles Times, "Christmas cease-fire over."

And for your full Iowa coverage, check the Des Moines Register's "Iowa Caucuses" blog and, of course, The Other McCain, "Fear and Loathing at BWI."

Robert Stacy McCain Heads to Iowa

See: "Memo From the National Affairs Desk: How’s the Weather Today in Vanuatu?"

Robert's been providing some excellent campaign coverage. And I'm interested in reports on the lead-up to the January 3rd  caucuses. It's coming down to the wire.

Plus, more McCain family videos at the link: "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

Aaron Rodgers Leads Packers Over Bears, 35-21

At Los Angeles Times:

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Aaron Rodgers threw five touchdown passes for the first time in his career and helped the Green Bay Packers nail down the No. 1 seeding in the NFC and claim another round of bragging rights in the NFL's most storied rivalry by knocking the Chicago Bears out of the playoff chase.

Rodgers threw two touchdowns to Jordy Nelson, another two to James Jones, and he found tight end Jermichael Finley for a score as the Packers beat the Bears, 35-21, on Sunday night.

Clay Matthews made a key first-half interception for the Packers (14-1), who needed the win to tie down home-field advantage in the NFC.

The loss eliminated the Bears (7-8) from playoff contention and put the Atlanta Falcons in the playoffs as at least a wild card.

PREVIOUSLY: "Leianna's Hot Green Bay Packers Lingerie."

VIDEO: Ron Paul's Keynote Address to the John Birch Society 50th Anniversary Gala

Well, there you go.

Is that strange, or what?

When I was a kid growing up in Orange County, folks attacked my home turf as the stronghold of the "racist" John Birch Society. When it was announced that the Society was a sponsor of the 2010 meeting of CPAC, progressives had a field day bashing conservatives as unreconstructed white supremacists. There's a bad reputation there that's not going away, despite the organization's best efforts to come out from the cold. See the New York Times, "Holding Firm Against Plots by Evildoers."

That's why it's revealing that Congressman Ron Paul decided it was perfectly fine to speak at the organization's 50th anniversary celebration in September. That's not the first time Paul has spoken at the Society's events, and his questionable ties to the group, obviously, haven't had a noticeably negative impact on his political fortunes. Perhaps that will change with Paul still leading in the Iowa polls. Jamie Kirchick focused explicitly on Paul's ties to the Birchers the other day: "Why Don’t Libertarians Care About Ron Paul’s Bigoted Newsletters?" And just out is this devastating indictment of Ron Paul at Bleeding Heart Libertarians, "How Did We Get Here? Or, Why Do 20 Year Old Newsletters Matter So Damn Much?" (via Memeorandum and Reason). The author, Steve Horwitz, speaks of the "Rothbard-Rockwell strategy" of appealing to the "paleo-libertarian" base to build a movement fighting "the collapse of Western civilization at the hands of the blacks, gays, and multiculturalists." And to quote Horwitz at length:

The paleo strategy was a horrific mistake, both strategically and theoretically ... The explicit strategy was abandoned by around the turn of the century, but not after a lot of bad stuff had been written in all kinds of places. There was way more than the Ron Paul newsletters. There was the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, which was another major place publishing these sorts of views. They could also be found in a whole bunch of Mises Institute publications of that era. It was the latter that led me to ask to be taken off the Institute’s mailing list in the early 1990s, calling them “a fascist fist in a libertarian glove.” I have never regretted that decision or that language. What the media has in their hands is only the tip of the iceberg of the really unsavory garbage that the paleo turn produced back then.

Through it all though, Ron Paul was a constant. He kept plugging away, first at the center of the paleo strategy as evidenced by the newsletters. To be clear, I am quite certain he did not write them. There is little doubt that they were written by Rockwell and Rothbard. People I know who were on the inside at the time confirm it and the style matches pretty well to those two and does not match to Ron Paul. Paul knows who wrote them too, but he’s protecting his long-time friend and advisor, unfortunately. And even more sadly, Rockwell doesn’t have the guts to confess and end this whole megillah. So although I don’t think Ron Paul is a racist, like Archie Bunker, he was willing to, metaphorically, toast a marshmallow on the cross others were burning.

Even after the paleo strategy was abandoned, Ron was still there walking the line between “mainstream” libertarianism and the winking appeal to the hard right courted by the paleo strategy. Paul’s continued contact with the fringe groups of Truthers, racists, and the paranoid right are well documented. Even in 2008, he refused to return a campaign contribution of $500 from the white supremacist group Stormfront. You can still go to their site and see their love for Ron Paul in this campaign and you can find a picture of Ron with the owner of Stormfront’s website. Even if Ron had never intentionally courted them, isn’t it a huge problem that they think he is a good candidate? Doesn’t that say something really bad about the way Ron Paul is communicating his message? Doesn’t it suggest that years of the paleo strategy of courting folks like that actually resonated with the worst of the right? Paul also maintained his connection with the Mises Institute, which has itself had numerous connections with all kinds of unsavory folks: more racists, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, the whole nine yards. Much of this stuff was ably documented in 2007 and 2008 by the Right Watch blog. Hit that link for more.

Those of us who watched all of this happen over two decades knew it would come back to haunt us and so it has, unfortunately just as Ron Paul and libertarianism are on the cusp of something really amazing. And that only goes to show what a mistake the paleo strategy was: imagine if the newsletters were not an issue and Paul were to win Iowa. Yeah, he might get ignored, but he would not be the easy media target he is now, nor would all of libertarianism pay a potential price. The legions of young people supporting Paul did not come in via the paleo strategy; they came because libertarianism in general is on the rise in all kinds of venues (and yes, the Mises Institute’s post-paleo influence is important here, but it’s hardly the only institution that matters). These young people, for the most part, are surprised by all of this dirty laundry. That, in my view, is the real tragedy: I think libertarianism could have got to this point just as fast, maybe faster, without the toxic baggage of the paleo strategy.

So why deal with this now, when libertarianism is so hot? Because those newsletters are not what libertarianism is and the sooner and louder we make that clear, the better. There are too many young people who don’t understand all of this and who we need to help see the alternative liberal vision of libertarianism – and to understand that “liberal libertarianism” is radical, principled, and humane and not “beltway selling out.” To do that, we need to confront the past and explicitly reject it. That doesn’t necessarily mean rejecting Ron Paul in electoral politics, but it does mean that we cannot pretend the past doesn’t exist and it means that Paul and the others involved need to do the right thing and take explicit responsibility for what they said two decades ago. That has not happened yet. Then we need a complete and utter rejection of the paleo world-view and we need to create a movement that will simply not be attractive to racists, homophobes, anti-Semites etc., by emphasizing, as we have done at this blog, libertarianism’s liberal roots.

Read the whole thing at the link.

That's an admirable essay, and as an ideological initiative it's something that principled libertarians should be proud to embrace. The opposite is something like this, a particularly vile piece of paleo-bullshit propaganda: "Who Leads the Attack On Ron Paul?"

Israeli Proposal to Commemorate Armenian Genocide Causes Tension

At Los Angeles Times, "Tension over Israeli proposal to commemorate Armenian genocide."

Also at New York Times, "Turkey's Leader Counters French Law With Accusations of Colonial-Era Genocide."

'The Story of Israel: From Theodor Herzl to the Roadmap for Peace'

Well, somewhere in between bourbons, bon bons, and blog posts, I'm finding time to read one of the books I received for Christmas, Martin Gilbert's, The Story of Israel. I'll read more today and I'll also try to make it out to the movies with my boys. More on all of this later...

Seven Found Dead in Texas Shooting

At London's Daily Mail, "Christmas tragedy: Horror as family of seven shot dead by crazed gunman as they opened their presents at home."

Surprise Success for 'The Five' on Fox News

At New York Times, "In Beck’s Shadow, Rise of ‘The Five’."

Retailers Brace for Hordes of Post-Christmas Shoppers

I'm looking forward to the total retail sales numbers.

A big holiday season will give the 4th quarter GDP numbers a boost. That's going to be great for Americans, and could help Obama's reelection prospects --- to the great consternation of Republicans.

At Los Angeles Times, "Hordes of post-Christmas shoppers expected."

Kelly Brook Christmas Pictures

She's my favorite!

At London's Daily Mail, "'Look what came down the chimney': Santa looks very leggy this year in the form of Kelly Brook in a skimpy red dress."

Also, at The Sun, "Kelly Brook is a comedy cracker."

PHOTO CREDIT: Twitpic.

Queen Elizabeth Christmas Message 2011

At Telegraph UK, "The Queen's Christmas Message 2011":

In her traditional televised Christmas message, the Queen said she had been "inspired by the courage and hope" the royal family had witnessed in Britain and the Commonwealth in 2011.

RELATED: At London's Daily Mail, "Stunning Kate Is the Style Queen of Sandringham."

Mitt Romney Leads in New Survey From New Hampshire

At Los Angeles Times, "Poll: Mitt Romney in command in New Hampshire":

Christmas brought good news for GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney, who is holding on to his double digit lead in the critical early primary state of New Hampshire.

This morning’s Boston Globe poll shows the former Massachusetts governor leading the Republican field with 39% among voters likely to cast ballots in the Jan. 10 Republican primary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has led in some national polls, was tied with Texas Congressman Ron Paul in second place with 17%.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has spent virtually all of his time campaigning in New Hampshire, won the support of 11% of likely GOP voters. All of the other candidates ranked in the low single digits. (The University of New Hampshire Survey Center conducted the poll of 543 likely 2012 Republican primary voters. The margin of error within that group was plus or minus 4.2%).

Romney’s potential path to the Republican nomination relies on a sizable win in New Hampshire, where he owns a summer home and has been laying the ground work for his run since he withdrew from the 2008 presidential race. Though Iowans will be the first to cast ballots on Jan. 3, Romney spent three days touring New Hampshire last week in his campaign bus – hitting as many as six stops in one day.

We'll see how it goes. Romney should be okay with a New Hampshire win, and if Ron Paul takes Iowa we all can prepare for an epic attack campaign launched by the GOP political establishment. After that we could see Newt Gingrich raise a challenge in some key states. But the former House Speaker failed to qualify for the Virginia ballot, where the election is scheduled for March 6, which could cause problems for Gingrich if the campaign drags out to the later months of the season.

More a the Boston Globe (via Memeorandum).

Merry Christmas From Newt and Callista Gingrich

Well, here's a little equal time:

And at Los Angeles Times, "Gingrich may be too arrogant for Iowa."

Nigerian Explosion: Bombs Hit Churches in Christmas Day Terrorist Attacks

At Telegraph UK, "Coordinated bomb attacks across Nigeria kill at least 40," and "Boko Haram: the group behind the Nigerian attacks."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Bombs kills 39 at Catholic churches during Christmas Day mass as series of explosions rock Nigeria."

And at New York Times, "Churches Are Hit in a Series of Bombings Across Nigeria." (Via Memeorandum and The Other McCain.)

Bears vs. Packers

Looking forward to tonight's game.

Some background at Bleacher Report, "Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers Game Preview and Prediction":

The Chicago Bears (7-7) and the Green Bay Packers (13-1) will play tonight at Lambeau Field.

This marks the second time that the Bears and Packers will meet on Christmas night.

The last time they met on Christmas night was in 2005 when Chicago defeated Green Bay, 24-17.

Well, Green Bay can't afford that. See USA Today, "Three-and-out: Packers look to lock up home field vs. Bears." And at New York Times, "Once Beaten, Often Doubted, Packers Limp Into Game Against Bears":

On NBC last Sunday night, Tony Dungy — who led the Indianapolis Colts to a victory in Super Bowl XLI — said that if he were the coach of the Green Bay Packers, “I’d be worried right now.”

Dungy, however, is not Packers Coach Mike McCarthy.

“I feel very good about our football team,” McCarthy said after his team’s first loss of the season, 19-14, at Kansas City last Sunday. “We’re 13-1. Our team clearly understands the roller-coaster ride that everybody likes to take you on. We knew the ride would just go that way. So it’s important to stay in touch with reality.”

The reality is the Packers, who had won 19 consecutive games — the second-longest streak in N.F.L. history — lost for the first time in the calendar year. A defense that finished second in fewest points allowed last season has not performed anywhere close to that level this season — the Packers are tied for 14th in points allowed. It had not mattered, however, with quarterback Aaron Rodgers leading an offensive juggernaut that until last week was threatening the N.F.L.’s single-season scoring record established by the undefeated New England Patriots of 2007.

Continue reading.

Packers lingerie modelling by Leianna Kai.

Sunday Cartoons

See Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

Also at Reaganite Resistance, "Reaganite's CHRISTMAS Sunday Funnies," and Theo Spark, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Washington Crossing the Delaware

That's the 1851 painting by Emanuel Leutze.

I'm snagging the idea from Great Satan's Girlfriend, "Killing Our Enemies On Christmas Day Since 1776."

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered: yet we have this consolation with us -- that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

If You Have Time, Read This Review of Corey Robin's Book, The Reactionary Mind, at the New York Review

It's a great piece, from Mark Lilla, "Republicans for Revolution."

I'd never heard of Corey Robin until last week, when progressives online were touting his piece on the death of Hitchens, "Christopher Hitchens: The Most Provincial Spirit of All."

Lilla's review of Robin's book will make you chuckle. He writes, for example:

Robin, who teaches political science at Brooklyn College, has been writing thoughtful essays on the American right for The Nation and other publications over the past decade. The Reactionary Mind collects profiles of well-known right-wing thinkers like Ayn Rand, Barry Goldwater, and Justice Antonin Scalia, and some deserters who turned left, like John Gray and Edward Luttwak. There are also a few that look beyond our borders, including an excellent piece on Hobbes as a counterrevolutionary thinker. But the book aims to be more than a collection. It is conceived as a major statement on conservatism and reaction, from the eighteenth century to the present. And this is where it disappoints. The problems begin in the opening paragraphs, where Robin lays out his general picture of political history. It is not overly complex:

Since the modern era began, men and women in subordinate positions have marched against their superiors in the state, church, workplace, and other hierarchical institutions. They have gathered under different banners—the labor movement, feminism, abolition, socialism—and shouted different slogans: freedom, equality, rights, democracy, revolution. In virtually every instance, their superiors have resisted them, violently and nonviolently, legally and illegally, overtly and covertly…. Despite the very real differences between them, workers in a factory are like secretaries in an office, peasants on a manor, slaves on a plantation—even wives in a marriage—in that they live and labor in conditions of unequal power.

This is history as WPA mural, and will be familiar to anyone who lived through the Thirties, remembers the Sixties, or was made to read historians like Howard Zinn, Arno Mayer, E.P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, and Christopher Hill at school. In their tableau, history’s damnés de la terre are brought together into a single heroic image of suffering and resistance. Their hats are white, immaculately so. Off in the distance are what appear to be black-hatted villains, though their features are difficult to make out. Sometimes they have little identification tags like those the personified vices wear in medieval frescoes—”capital,” “men,” “whites,” “the state,” “the old regime”—but we get no idea what they are after or what their stories are. Not that it matters. To understand the oppressed and side with them all you need to know is that there are oppressors.

Exactly.

And this is no doubt why Robin is gaining traction with the idiots of the progressive fever swamps.

But Lilla has some props for Robin as one who takes conservatives seriously. I'm more interested in what Lilla has to say than what Robin does, actually, especially since I think "reactionary" is a utterly misused term in political discourse.

But continue reading the review. There's some excellent clarification of what conservatives are and what they stand for. And Lilla is another author who cites the isolationist trend among the GOP base that could well emerge as a more welcomed position for the party in the months ahead, especially depending on how things turn out in the primaries coming up in a few weeks.

I'll try to come back to this topic. It's Christmas though, and it's going to be a busy morning, with perhaps a little more sleep fitted in here somewhere among other things.

Merry Christmas from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

From the Prime Minister of Israel:

Jerome Simpson Front-Flip Touchdown

At Los Angeles Times, "Jerome Simpson flip: A video clip that must be seen."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Is this the best touchdown ever? NFL star's amazing front flip lands him in history books (but he could be fined $25,000)."

Added: Ann Althouse has the NFL video, in case this YouTube gets pulled, "'Bengals WR Jerome Simpson flips over a Cardinals defender...'"

Politically Aware Songs Go Missing in 2000s?

So say Reed Johnson and Deborah Vankin, at the Los Angeles Times, "For politically aware songs, the '00s were all for naught":

The '60s gave us "Blowin' in the Wind," folk-poet Bob Dylan's challenge to the brutal status quo. The '70s served up Neil Young's "Ohio," an anthem of generational rage against the military-industrial machine. The '80s laid down "The Message," Grandmaster Flash's hip-hop jeremiad about the vicious cycle of race-based poverty. The '90s broke loose with Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade," a rap-rock rant targeting corporate greed and cultural imperialism.

And the '00s? It's produced some memorably sardonic screeds (Green Day's "American Idiot"), patriotic hell-yeah's out of Nashville like Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue (The Angry American)," and dirges of quiet desperation emanating from "The Suburbs," courtesy of Arcade Fire.

But much of the music that has topped the Billboard charts in the new millennium — Britney, Lil Wayne, Lady Gaga — might suggest that America has been one big party since 2001, despite the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, two major wars, a wobbly economy and a bitterly divided government. Likewise, the recent popular manifestations of that unrest, the tea party and Occupy Wall Street movements, so far seem to have been largely lost on popular music.

That has left some artists, music industry professionals and listeners pondering how well today's music is serving the restless masses and capturing the essence of times that indeed are a-changin'.

Look, not everyone can be the Bob Dylan of the age, but I'm not buying the lack of "politically aware" songs for an entire decade. And the authors are mostly shilling for #OWS, which is too bad, since it's a really lame movement. Besides, Keith Morris is still jamming. Amazing that the Los Angeles Times overlooked Off! in their own backyard:

Your high social caste
Privileged friends
You lure me in
But I can't be your friend
Hit on Miss Liberty
Under the cherry tree
Drunk on hypocrisy
I'm standing in the shadows
And I'm pissing in the punchbowl
I don't belong
Cocktail party
Pin the tail on the donkey
Icing on my face
But I don't like the taste
Right wing mentality
God and democracy
Red carpet royalty
I'm standing in the shadows
And I'm pissing in the punchbowl
I don't belong

Merry Christmas From the Romneys

It's a nice touch:

America Remains Predominantly Christian Nation

As measured by public opinion survey data, at Gallup, "Christianity Remains Dominant Religion in the United States":

PRINCETON, NJ -- This Christmas season, 78% of American adults identify with some form of Christian religion. Less than 2% are Jewish, less than 1% are Muslim, and 15% do not have a religious identity. This means that 95% of all Americans who have a religious identity are Christians.

Well, yeah.

But you wouldn't know it by the way the radical progressives and their atheist allies have demonized those who openly profess their faith.

See previously: "The War on Christmas."

'Home for the Holidays'

I've been meaning to post some Carly Foulkes Rule 5, and I was reminded of that by seeing this T-Mobile ad during yesterday's Chargers game.

Background here: "Magenta Meets New Directions For T-Mobile."

Merry Christmas!

BONUS: At American Perspective, "Rule 5 Aishwarya Rai."

Even Profitable Firms Fleeing California

Something I've written about on numerous occasions.

At O.C. Register, "California businesses can expect little sympathy from leadership in Sacramento":

Democratic reaction to the news that Waste Connections, a $3.6-billion company and major Sacramento-area employer, is headed to Houston to seek a friendlier business climate tells other businesses all they need to know about the attitudes of those who run California's government.

State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, gave these clueless and snarky remarks in response to the news: "In this instance you have a company that is, in fact, profitable, making significant revenue gains in 2011 and 2010. That doesn't speak to a bad business climate here in California when a good company is able to thrive in that way. So whatever Mr. Middelstaedt's (company CEO) reasons are to leave the great state of California, I know I'm pushing back."

Steinberg claims to have worked on improving the state's business climate, but from what we see in Sacramento, Steinberg and the party he helps lead have been pushing hard mainly for additional regulations and much higher taxes. The California Democratic Party's attitude long has been that businesses are basically trying to rip off the public, and the source of all wealth and advancement can be found in the public sector, When businesses leave. Steinberg and Co. show little sympathy.

That's because Democrats suck.

Continue reading at the link.

Former Soviet Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev Calls on Russian President Vladimir Putin to Resign

The interesting thing is that the Soviet Union disintegrated exactly 20 years ago today.

See Telegraph UK, "Mikhail Gorbachev calls for Putin to resign."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev calls on Putin to resign as 50,000 take to the streets of Moscow to protest over vote-rigging claims":

Mikhail Gorbachev, who resigned as Soviet president 20 years ago Sunday, has urged Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to follow his example and step down.

Gorbachev said if Putin resigned now, he would be remembered for the positive things he did during his 12 years in power.

The former Soviet leader spoke on Ekho Moskvy radio yesterday after a new wave of protests against alleged election fraud drew tens of thousands to Moscow's streets.

It was the largest show of public outrage since the protests in 1991 that brought down the Soviet Union.

Christmas in Bethlehem

At LAT, "Christmas Eve in Bethlehem: A hub of activity":

And at BBC, "Bethlehem Christmas: Christians celebrate Midnight Mass."

Bombs Raise Stakes in Syria

At Wall Street Journal, "Assad Regime Blames al Qaeda for Twin Blasts in Damascus, Escalating Conflict" (via Google):

Syria's government blamed al Qaeda for two suicide bomb attacks that rocked Damascus on Friday morning, opening a dangerous phase in the Syrian conflict just one day after an Arab League advance mission arrived in the country under a plan to resolve the spiraling crisis.

"Initial investigations point to al Qaeda," read headlines on Syrian television.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks. But the government's claim set off waves of speculation among activists and observers over what group could be capable of spectacular strikes on state-security offices at the heart of the capital—Syria's first reported suicide bombings in a decade.

Some security experts said al Qaeda or other insurgents could conceivably be responsible. Others joined Syrian activists in blaming the government itself for staging the attacks, a claim impossible to verify. But many pointed out that the government's claim, grounded or not, could provide cover to mount further crackdowns against the nine-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

The two attacks came within minutes of each other. They killed 44 people—mostly civilians, but also security officers—and injured 166, Syrian state media reported.

State television broadcast images of smoke and bloodied debris at the scene, to sounds of sirens. Men were shown dragging a charred torso into an ambulance. The road was piled with bodies wrapped in sheets and blankets.

And see Legal Insurrection, "Will car bombings save Assad?"

Christmas Smear: MSNBC Hack Ed Schultz Slurs Tea Partiers as 'Sewer Rats' — Assploding Hypocrite W. James Casper Hardest Hit!

From Radio Equalizer (via Randy's Roundtable):

Walter James Casper III got all butthurt for being called out as a rabid anti-Semite ---  and that's on top of his history of sponsoring white supremacist hate rantings at his attack blog. Racist Repsac3 is whining about how "poor Donald" is so hateful --- HATEFUL, WAAAHHH!! --- but the idiot never has a word of condemnation for his sick puppy progressive allies, like loser Ed Schultz who slurred good people AS A GROUP just days before Christmas. That's bigotry.

Frankly, politics doesn't stop for the holidays, but if you're a pathetic racist anti-Semitic Occupy-endorsing Jew-bashing neo-commie, it's par for the course. Freakin' assploding hypocrite bigot. Walter James Casper III is despicable.

FedEx Guy Throws Computer Over Fence

Althouse has the video:

And at London's Daily Mail, "'This won't be his best day': FexEx vows to track down delivery man who tossed computer monitor over fence."

Victoria's Secret Holiday Rule 5

Jake Finnegan gets into the holiday spirit here: "Burkalesque Babes: We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

Also at Pirate's Cove, "If All You See…is a rising sea that will swamp the island, you might just be a Warmist." And Eye of Polyphemus, "Sara Underwood for Christmas Eve."

More at Gator Doug, "DaleyGator DaleyBabe Alina Kabaeva."

And really hot at Hookers and Booze, "Christmas Eve Hooker."

From Bob Belvedere, "Rule 5 Saturday: Carol Alt." And Randy's Rountable, "Thursday Nite Tart: Laura Acuna."

Also at Reaganite, "You Know Who's Kinda HAWT? Miss Argentina 2011 - Antonella Kruger!"

RELATED: At Blazing Cat Fur, "Silent Night," and Teresamerica, "Simply Magnificent - The First Noel by Jackie Evancho."

BONUS: At Wintery Knight, "The meaning of Christmas, from a Charlie Brown Christmas."

And at The Other McCain, "I DENOUNCE THIS ATROCITY!" (Check that link to see what's behind the curtain.)

Plus, I have some Christmas Day Rule 5 in the hopper, so drop your links in the comments to be added!

Why the Left Doesn't Mourn Vaclav Havel's Passing

From Ron Radosh, at PJMedia, "How the Left sees the Life of Vaclav Havel, and why they Do Not Mourn his Passing":

PJ Media readers know why we mourn the passing of Vaclav Havel. On this site, Michael Ledeen beautifully laid out the reasons why the world knows it has lost one of its greatest leaders. Ledeen put it in these words: “he was one of a handful of people who changed the world by fighting totalitarian Communism and then, having defeated it, inspired his people to rejoin the Western world, embrace capitalism, and support democratic dissidents everywhere.”

But now that a week or more have passed since Havel’s death, some on the Western Left have decided to let their true feelings about Havel out. Despite having to give some lip service to Havel’s integrity and what he accomplished, these men of the Left quickly get to what they really think: Havel helped destroy the great ideal of Communism as a worthy goal, and for that, he cannot be forgiven.

The most egregious is the article in the British paper The Guardian. The headline to Neil Clark’s article reads, “Another Side of the Story.” Clark immediately ties Havel up with another individual who has just passed way, Christopher Hitchens, whose “consecration” he strongly objects to. For Hitchens was, he writes, “ another ‘progressive’ opponent of the communist regimes of eastern Europe who found favour with Washington’s neocons.”

Clark does not question that Havel was “a brave man” who stood up for his views. That he cannot deny. It is Havel’s views, and his anti-Communism, that he detests. For Havel, he writes, did not help make his country “and the world, a better place.” In particular, denying everything we know about the nature of Stalinism in Eastern Europe — the repression, the bureaucracy, the lack of necessary consumer goods to lead a decent life, the ever pervasive secret police — he faults Havel for the following:

Havel’s anti-communist critique contained little if any acknowledgement of the positive achievements of the regimes of eastern Europe in the fields of employment, welfare provision, education and women’s rights. Or the fact that communism, for all its faults, was still a system which put the economic needs of the majority first.

Surely Mr. Clark must be kidding. Has he not read any of the scores of books revealing the nature of life under what his comrades then called “really existing socialism”? Does he not realize that all these so-called “positive achievements” were there mainly in the minds of the state and Party propaganda apparatus, and that the only people to have them were the Party’s apparatchiks? Does he really believe that communism put the needs of “the majority first”? What accounts, then, for the scores of brave crowds who swept Havel into office, and who openly taunted the regime’s spokesmen as liars and no different than the Nazis who ruled before them?

Clark does not stop with the above. In true Communistpeak, he attacks Havel as “the son of a wealthy entrepreneur,” in other words used by the Maoists of the day, a “capitalist roader.” How dare the son of a bourgeois merchant becomes a national hero? Havel, to Clark, as to the comrades who ruled for decades, had no right to power, since he came from the hated capitalist class.

Continue reading.

Also, from Darleen at Protein Wisdom, "Pining for the fjords Communism." Hammering Whoopi Goldberg's comments on communism, Darleen adds:

The base misanthropy of collectivist advocates is glaringly clear. From communism [international collectivism] to national socialism [national collectivism], these are anti-human systems that declare individuals are not sovereign beings with inherent rights, but units that live at the pleasure of the regime. A regime that decides what needs are to be met and who will be sentenced to fulfilling those needs.

Remember that as Obama and statist Democrats continue their attempts to fundamentally transform America.

Freakin' murderous asshats.

The War on Christmas

From Blazing Cat Fur:

Plus, at Telegraph UK, "The War on Christmas is real, and the atheist barbarians are winning it."

BONUS: At Lonely Conservative, "Random Ramblings – Christmas Edition."

Wall Street Journal Weekend Interview: Mitt Romney On Taxes, 'Modeling,' and the Vision Thing

It's amazing that Newt Gingrich dropped back down in the polls so quickly. The negative attacks took their toll and the Newt-phoria on the Iowa campaign trailed cooled off rather decisively. Now it's Ron Paul's turn to start fading in the less-than-two weeks we have left until the caucuses. All the attention to the racist newsletters should take some of the luster off Paul's campaign, although he's got the ground game in place so who knows? If Romney can hold on for the win in New Hampshire he'll be able to match whatever momentum emerges for the Iowa winner, and with his fundraising edge he'll likely be able to compete more effectively in the number of upcoming contests through January.

In any case, an interesting interview at WSJ, at the link:

Does Mitt Romney have a governing vision, a dominating set of political principles? It's the big question many voters say they have about the GOP presidential candidate. So when the former Massachusetts governor visited the Journal editorial board this week, we put it to him squarely, if perhaps tendentiously.

Voters see in him a smart man, an experienced executive, plenty of managerial expertise, great family—but they also see someone with the soul of a consultant who has 59 economic proposals because he lacks a larger vision of where he'd take the country. What does he think of that critique?

Mr. Romney has been garrulously genial for an hour, but here he shows a hint of annoyance. "I'm not running for president for 59 ideas," he says. "I'm not running for president because the country needs a management consultant or a manager. I'm not even the world's greatest manager. There are a lot better managers out there.

"People who know me from my years at Bain Capital, Bain and Company, the Olympics and Massachusetts wouldn't say he was successful because he was a great manager. They'd say I was successful because I was a leader, that I had a vision of how to change the enterprise, any one of those three enterprises, to make it greater." And that vision is? Mr. Romney says he's running "to return America to the principles that we were founded upon." He goes on, expanding on his campaign theme, Believe in America: "We have a choice in America to be remaining a merit-based opportunity society that follows the Constitution, or to follow the path of Europe.

And I'm the guy who believes in the former. I believe America got it right. I believe Europe got it wrong. I believe America must remain the leader the world. . . . I am absolutely committed to an American century. I see this as an American century."

He concludes with even more force, "America doesn't need a manager. America needs a leader. The president is failing not just because he's a poor manager. It's because he doesn't know where to lead."

Continue reading.

Newt Gingrich Goes After Ron Paul on Newsletters

At New York Times, "With Paul on the Rise in Iowa, Gingrich Takes Aim":

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Newt Gingrich turned his fire on Representative Ron Paul of Texas on Friday, saying that his Republican opponent had to answer for political and investment newsletters that included racist, anti-gay and anti-Israel passages that Mr. Paul has disavowed.

Mr. Gingrich also sharply criticized Mr. Paul for what he said were his isolationist views on foreign policy. The pointed comments suggested a new dynamic in the presidential primary race, with Mr. Paul as a new and enticing target. His fortunes have risen in Iowa, scrambling the field as some polls suggest that Mr. Paul could pull off a victory in the caucuses on Jan. 3. But in recent days, he has come under increasing scrutiny for offensive passages in newsletters that bore his name, although he has denied writing or approving them. 

“These things are really nasty, and he didn’t know about it?” Mr. Gingrich said to reporters after a town-hall-style meeting here.

At the same time, Mr. Gingrich refrained from criticizing Mitt Romney, with whom he has frequently sparred, calling him, at worst, “a Massachusetts moderate.”

Speaking to a large and enthusiastic crowd outside the Blue Marlin restaurant here on a warm and sunny day, Mr. Gingrich mainly framed his candidacy in opposition to President Obama. But he strongly criticized Mr. Paul’s foreign policy positions. Mr. Paul’s criticism of American military involvement overseas is at odds with the views of many Republican voters who may otherwise be attracted to his strong antigovernment message.

“The only person I know who is for a weaker military than Barack Obama is Ron Paul,” Mr. Gingrich said.

“His positions are fundamentally wrong on national security,” he added. “I do not agree with him that America is at fault for 9/11, I do not agree with him that we can ignore an Iranian nuclear weapon, and I do not agree with him that it’s O.K. if Israel disappears.”

A top official with the Paul campaign, Jesse Benton, suggested that Mr. Gingrich’s comments were slanderous and an overreaction to the possibility that Mr. Gingrich might not have collected enough signatures to get on the nominating ballot in Virginia — a matter not yet resolved.

“Today was a bad day for Newt Gingrich,” Mr. Benton said in an e-mail, adding that the former House speaker had “jumped the shark trying to slander Dr. Paul.”

Continue reading.

And notice at the video how Rachel Maddow and Melissa Harris-Perry are using Paul's racist newsletters to smear not only the American right, but American society all together!

Ron Paul won't be the nominee --- indeed, he's probably in a situation akin to Herman Cain's: caught in the headlights upon emerging as the frontrunner, and even if he wins Iowa it's going to be a long primary process and Paul's scrutiny will only intensify. He'll have to answer and answer decisively at some point. But as noted, there's something of a nativist and isolationist trend that animating the primary process. That's something quite different from the small-government conservatism that drove the tea parties in 2009. All this together is extremely fascinating. And how some of these tensions are resolved over the next few months will go a long way towards determining the GOP's chances in defeating the Democrats next November.

Occupy Wall Street and the Jews

Walter James Casper III has to answer for his ugly endorsement of the hate. Walter James Casper III has endorsed the anti-Semitism of the Occupy movement. Add this on top of his anti-black racist sentiments and the sponsorship of hatred at his blog under "free speech" pretenses, and it's beyond clear the depths of evil this man will go to destroy decent people, Jews and racial minorities especially, because they don't toe the collectivist line.

Here's Jonathan Neumann, at Commmentary:

Defenders and supporters of Occupy Wall Street have tried to downplay the extent of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hostility, but it was more prevalent than their initial denials suggested or their belated statements of concern conceded.

To begin with, any conspiracy theory that connects a tiny portion (in this case 1 percent) of the population with exploitative banking practices is susceptible to taking on anti-Semitic undertones. This is especially the case when the list of supporters includes the American Nazi Party, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, Louis Farrakhan, white supremacist David Duke, Socialist Party USA, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Hezbollah, 911Truth.org, International Bolshevik Tendency, and myriad other dubious organizations and individuals. With such comrades in arms, leaders of Occupy Wall Street ought to have been much on guard against anti-Semitic talk.

Nor was the hostility a matter of undertones only. The tone, very early on, was set in part by signs and messages that were overtly anti-Semitic. “Google: (1) Wall St. Jews, (2) Jewish Billionaires, (3) Jews & FedRsrvBank,” read one sign. Another: “Nazi Bankers Wall Street.” The man holding up a sign that read “Hitler’s Bankers,” upon being pressed by passersby to explain himself, replied “Jews control Wall Street.” He was then asked whether the Fox News Channel had asked him to hold up the sign, presumably to make Occupy Wall Street look bad, and he responded, “F— Fox News. That’s bulls—t. F—ing Jew made that up.” Another protester, upon being interrogated by a skeptical elderly passerby sporting a yarmulke, brushed him away saying, “You’re a bum, Jew.”

An Occupier who had traveled from Georgia explained his anti-Jewish animus to a reporter from the New York Post by stating that “Jews are the smartest people in the world,” that “they control the media,” and that nobody is willing to point out this simple truth because “the media doesn’t want to commit suicide by losing the Jewish advertisers.” Still another Occupier expostulated in a widely circulated video: “The smallest group in America controls the money, media, and all other things. The fingerprints belong to the Jewish bankers who control Wall Street. I am against Jews who rob America. They are one percent who control America. President Obama is a Jewish puppet. The entire economy is Jewish. Every federal judge [on] the East Coast is Jewish.”

Occupy Wall Street’s group page on Facebook was littered with images of the title page of Henry Ford’s notorious pamphlet, The International Jew, as well as a picture featuring the phrase Arbeit Macht Frei, lifted from the entrance gate at Auschwitz, with the accompaniment: “We don’t work for bad money.”

At Occupy Los Angeles, one sign explained, in remarkable detail: the “[The] satanic cult called the Illuminati…represents Masonic and Jewish bankers who finagled a monopoly over government credit….Thus the people who control our purse strings are conspiring against us.” (It went on to claim how this nefarious force funded the first two world wars and is planning a third.) Another sign read “Humanity vs. the Rothschlds” [sic] as a speaker further advanced this classic trope: “How many people know that the wars, in WWII, both sides, were funded by the Rothschilds? Those are the bankers. So banking and war is [sic] very intertwined.”

To highlight such talk is to invite one predictable retort: One cannot hold an entire movement responsible for the excesses of outliers. But, despite the assertions of its advocates, Occupy Wall Street was not in fact a movement. Its ranks never numbered more than a modest few hundred people in Manhattan—which made its anti-Semitic cohort statistically significant. Its lack of structure, moreover, and near inability to repudiate sentiments by its participants meant that even a fringe was no less part of the whole.

And Neumann illustrates how the widespread anti-Zionism at Occupy Wall Street showcases the ruthless anti-Jewish eliminationism of the global left's Israel extermination industry:

And what of anti-Zionism? Naturally, given the resonance of the word occupy in association with controversial Israeli policies toward the West Bank and Gaza, the protests were a word-association game waiting to happen. On a random visit to Zuccotti Park in October, three signs were observed by this writer that related to American foreign policy, two of which pertained specifically to Israel. One read: “Obama stop giving bunker buster bombs to an extremist Israeli regime. Stop being Israel’s hit-man. AIPAC will still dump you in 2012.” The second: “USA and Israel are criminal psychopathic nations, an axis of evil, mass murderers, financial predators if not stopped no one has a future! Hands off Iran.” A small table exhibiting books for purchase was dominated almost exclusively by Marxist and Communist literature. Among the offerings, the one seeming anomaly was a book on Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS), an organization that seeks to isolate Israel on all fronts.

But the BDS book was no aberration; the policies and input of that organization seem to have been welcomed by Occupy Wall Street. On October 13, BDS issued a statement entitled “Occupy Wall Street, Not Palestine,” expressing solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and hailing the objectives of the two as analogous. After all, “Palestinians, too, are part of the 99% around the world that suffer at the hands of the 1% whose greed and ruthless quest for hegemony have led to unspeakable suffering and endless war.” A month later, Adalah-NY, an organization that campaigns in New York for the boycott of Israel, relayed a message of support for the protests from the Palestinian Arab chapter of BDS and led a question-and-answer session at Occupy Wall Street on the ‘‘growing movement for BDS against Israel until it complies with international law.’’

Last summer mass domestic protests overtook Israel—protests that attracted hundreds of thousands rather than the scant crew down by Wall Street. When an organizer of those protests came to speak in Zuccotti Park, a member of the Occupy Wall Street outreach working group, Andy Pollack, decried the appearance of “Zionist racists.”

An anti-Israel group, If Americans Knew, sustaining the conspiratorial notion of an America-Israel corporate nexus, distributed fliers headlined “Occupy Wall Street…not Palestine!” and noted that “while people are losing jobs, homes, and hope, politicians—dominated by powerful special interests—are sending more of our tax money to Israel than to any other country on earth.”

On October 28, Zuccotti Park hosted “Kaffiyeh Day at Occupy Wall Street”—the kaffiyeh being the Arab headdress associated most famously with Yasir Arafat—and protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted “Free Free Palestine” and “Long live Palestine! Occupy Wall Street.”

Nor was this sort of thing confined to New York. At Occupy Oakland, anti-Zionist commentators were fixated on the allegation that the tear gas used by the police to break up their encampment was manufactured by the same American company that makes tear gas for the Israel Defense Forces. The left-wing Jewish poet Amirah Mizrahi wrote, “i was palestine in oakland,” and Max Blumenthal, an anti-Zionist blogger, insisted that, far from being a distraction from the essential economic concerns of the Occupy protests, the Arab-Israel issue had now become more difficult to avoid, as the protesters were being confronted with the very same weapons used against Palestinian Arabs.

No, it's not confined to New York at all.

And it is in fact a movement, and the radical extremists are working to leverage Occupy into a long-term program against the establishment. President Obama and Leader Nancy Pelosi endorsed Occupy. Today's Democrat Party is infiltrated with neo-communists who wouldn't flinch at the sight of Israel going up in flames  amid a Middle East holocaust to rival the interwar years. This is the program of the radical left.

Neumann goes on with further examples, citing the organizing magizine Adbusters, which is known for its virulent anti-Semitism:

And are the two—anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism—so easily divided? To begin with, the protests were originally a response to a call issued by the virulently anti-Zionist magazine Adbusters, a publication most noted for a short 2004 article entitled, “Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?” Speculating that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was carried out to serve the interests of Israel, the essay explored the close affinity of Jewish neoconservatives for the Jewish state and emphasized the Jewish identity of several prominent neoconservatives within and without the Bush administration. In so doing, was Adbusters being anti-Zionist or was it being anti-Semitic?

What about the protester at Occupy LA who said, “I think that the Zionist Jews who are running these big banks and our federal reserve, which is not run by the federal government, I think they need to be run out of this country”? Was she being anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic? Or the Kaffiyeh Day participant at Occupy Wall Street who shouted ‘‘Occupy Yahudi!’’ and ‘‘Yahudi are kafirs!’’ (‘‘Occupy Jews!’’ and ‘‘Jews are infidels!’’) and whom the group refused to silence? Was he being anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic? Or a protester at Occupy Oakland who, reacting to a speech from a Palestinian Arab youth crying “down with Israel,” turned to his fellow attendee and commented: “F—ing Jews.” How about the aforementioned protester from Georgia at Occupy Wall Street who explained that “the reason the Arabs hate us” is because of “the Jews”? Or the founder of Occupy D.C., Kevin Zeese, who has a history of lamenting the power of the “Israel lobby” in the United States?

These do not begin to exhaust the extent or foulness of the sentiments toward Jews and Israel that emanated from the Occupy protests—sentiments so extreme as to compel even Michael Lerner, editor of the left-wing magazine Tikkun, to share his ‘‘distress at the hatred toward Israel and/or toward Jews’’ on display in Oakland.

Continue reading.

Neumann explains how Jewish social justice activists became central organizers in Zuccotti Park --- and thus gave cover to those attacking the movement for its rampant anti-Semitism.

PREVIOUSLY: "Manifesto: Occupy for the Revolution."

Also, "Continuing Lies by Cowardly Hate-Blogger W. James Casper in Left's Demonic Workplace Intimidation Campaign," and "Deranged Stalker Walter James Casper III Fires Up the Criminal Hate-Blogging for the Holidays."

Iowa and the Future of the GOP

This is a point I argued previously.

From David Yepsen, at Wall Street Journal, "No matter the outcome, Ron Paul's strength indicates a resurgence of the libertarian and isolationist wings of the Republican Party":

This race feels a bit like 1980. Democrats and some pundits tee-hee about the "dwarfs" in this race, but perhaps their snickers are premature. Can "has-been" politicians stage comebacks? Yes. Can new stars emerge? Yup. With the right candidate, can the party pick off a sitting Democratic president with weak poll ratings? You betcha.

Some insights to consider as the contest enters the final days:

• No matter the outcome, Ron Paul's strength indicates a resurgence of the libertarian and isolationist wings of the Republican Party. Hard times and unpopular wars will do that.

It's always wise to watch which candidate is attracting new people because they—or their message—are on to something. That was true with George McGovern in 1972 and Pat Robertson in 1988. In this race, the one candidate attracting hordes of new people is Mr. Paul. Many of them are young—and while Mr. Paul is unlikely to become the GOP nominee, those young adults will mature into a political force, just as Mr. McGovern's antiwar factions and Mr. Robertson's religious conservatives have done.

• The Iowa contest will also help the party chart its course on immigration—and it may not be a successful or wise one. Candidates are falling over themselves to bash illegal immigration.

While that plays well to GOP activists, it fuels the fire of nativism that burns so hot inside the GOP today. It also alienates people of Latino ancestry and is driving them and their children into the Democratic Party. That shift will have a huge impact in the fall campaign, since many toss-up states could be decided by the votes of Latinos.

You'd think the GOP would learn. Just as the Yankee Brahmins drove the Irish into the Democratic Party generations ago, many GOP leaders are pushing Latinos there today.

• Too much is made of the power of social conservatives, perhaps because both politicians and pundits tend to fight the last war. Polls show that only about 40% of likely caucusgoers describe themselves as evangelicals or born-again Christians. That would mean 60% aren't. (In 2008, some polls had it 60%-40% the other way.)

Continue reading.

Yepsen warns that the GOP could end up like McGovern in '72 --- getting clobbered in a landslide of epic proportions. But I'm not down with that suggestion. A conservative candidate --- I'd prefer Michele Bachmann --- can beat the president by hammering the administration on the economy. Progressives laugh when they hear such stuff, but hubris will do them in, and the president's the most hubristic of all.

NewsBusted: 'The Chuck E. Cheese pizza chain has been fined for violating federal child labor laws'

Via Theo Spark:

New York Times Decries 'Right Wing Extremism' — Again

Well, since I've been reading the Times' editorials, here you go with the latest attack on the "extremist" right, "The Race to the Right":

The toxic effects of right-wing extremism in Washington were vividly on display during the payroll-tax fiasco — even to the right wing. On the campaign trail, though, those lessons are being ignored. The leading Republican presidential candidates are overtly competing for the title of Most Conservative, distorting their own records and advocating increasingly radical positions.

Candidates often move to the ideological edges to win a primary, because that’s where the primary voters are, but the frenzied efforts of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are particularly hard to watch. Neither has a record as a dogmatic conservative, and they are competing with candidates like Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann who have much longer and more consistent conservative records. That makes their rush to the right all the more desperate and convoluted.

Last week, Mr. Romney blasted Mr. Gingrich as “an extremely unreliable leader in the conservative world,” citing specifically Mr. Gingrich’s criticisms of Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan and his appearance with Nancy Pelosi in a commercial against global warming. Mr. Gingrich, in turn, claims he’s “a lot more conservative” than Mr. Romney.

Real conservatives, in their columns and magazines, say neither of them qualifies, noting that both have previously called themselves “progressives” when appealing to very different audiences than the ones in Iowa and New Hampshire. Mr. Romney once supported abortion rights, though now he says he has changed his mind. Mr. Gingrich fiercely opposes the government’s role in the housing market, but worked for Freddie Mac. Both have supported an individual mandate for health insurance, as well as the TARP bailout of Wall Street.

To make up for their lapses in orthodoxy, each has now adopted positions at the far end of the ideological spectrum. Mr. Romney wants to send home all 11 million illegal immigrants and make them wait many years to return. He equates the president’s goal of raising taxes on the rich with redistributing wealth until the government achieves “equal outcomes” for everyone, all but calling President Obama a Marxist. Rather than demonstrate prudence after the death of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, he recklessly demanded that the United States now push for regime change there. (Without feeling any need to explain just how that might be done, just as he has failed to explain precisely how he will end Iran’s nuclear ambitions once and for all.)

Mr. Gingrich, meanwhile, is now dispensing with the Constitution in his call to drag federal judges before Congress to explain their decisions...

Continue reading.

Call me a right wing extremist, because I don't think any of that stuff from Romney is that exceptional. Sure, both Romney and Gingrich are pandering to the base, but frankly, the concerns of the tea party and others at the grassroots aren't going to be easy to ignore heading into the general election. Republicans have to stay on  message on the economy. They have to hammer this administration for painting extreme economic conditions  in order to seize more power for a massive bureaucratic response to the recession. It hasn't worked. Just keep plugging away on that and in no time the payroll tax debacle will be ancient history and Obama will have to run on his economic record fair and square. And screw the New York Times' editors. These people are pathetic losers cheerleading for more of the same old failed policies. Progressives suck like that.

Five Myths About Margaret Thatcher

I was thinking about this the other night, while watching the preview for "The Iron Lady" at the movies.

See Claire Berlinski, at Washington Post.

Ron Paul Has a Lot of Disqualifiers That Make It Impossible for Him to Be the Next President of the United States

From John Hawkins, at Right Wing News, "Liberalism In 120 Seconds: Ron Paul’s Fans Can’t Have It Both Ways":

Also, from Jamie Kirchik, at The New Republic, "Why Don’t Libertarians Care About Ron Paul’s Bigoted Newsletters?" (via Eric Dondero).

Bikini Christmas!

'Tis the season:

And I don't see a 2011 Lucy Pinder Christmas video, but here's one from a couple of years ago.

Merry Christmas!

Ron Paul Portrays Himself as Champion of Minorities in Interview on Fox News' Neil Cavuto

He still doesn't address the core issue: Why would Ron Paul permit such inflammatory newsletters go out in his name? Paul says it's ironic he's getting hammered on this, since he's the biggest "civil libertarian" in the race, who backs the rights of minorities against government. That's chutzpah, I'll tell you. And he goes on to blow off the more incendiary charges as perhaps a failure of management. By now most people don't buy that Paul had no clue of these things, and the candidate simply keeps the discussion away from the clearly racist statements by saying that the "race war" stuff was less than 1 percent of what was published in what was basically a "hard money newsletter."

See also New York Times, "Gingrich Criticizes Paul on Newsletters and Foreign Policy."

And Robert Stacy McCain has a limited defense of Paul, seeing the newsletters as fringe fundraising classics of the pre-Internet era, "Classics of the Golden Age of Fringe, Or: Ron Paul Digs the Beatles’ White Album."

EXTRA: Ta-Nehisi Coates has a sick obsession with finding racism in every crack or crevice under the sun, so it's no surprise that the Paul letters have been a bonanza for his blogging. That said, I can't really disagree with this:

Yesteday [sic] Ron Paul claimed on CNN that he'd never read the newsletters that went out in his name. Here is Ron Paul in a 1995 video discussing the very newsletters he claims to never have read.

If you can find away to explain away a hateful newsletter written in someone's own name, it's likely you can find some way to explain this video away too. There's always a path to make yourself right, if that's your intent. Indeed, at this point it probably behooves me to stop arguing.

Obama Post-Recession Recovery Badly Lags the Reagan Recovery After the Severe 1981-82 Recession

At Investor's Business Daily, "Five Myths About President Obama Economic Recovery":

Over the past several months, President Obama has spent much time pleading for patience on the sluggish economy and ongoing high unemployment, arguing that the economic hole was so deep and the crisis so monumental that a slow recovery — now in its 30th month — was inevitable.

But in making his case, Obama appears to be perpetuating several myths about the recession he inherited and the slow recovery over which he's presided. Among them....

2) The country had to dig out of a historically deep hole. Obama often explains the length of the recovery by noting how deep the recession had been.

But while the so-called Great Recession lasted 18 months and sent unemployment to 10.1%, the 1981-82 recession was comparable in length and severity. That one lasted 16 months, and pushed unemployment even higher, to 10.8%.

The difference is that today unemployment is still at an historically high 8.6%, and it's only that low because the labor force has declined. Real GDP is a mere 0.04% above its pre-recession peak. At the comparable point in the Reagan recovery, unemployment had plunged to 7.3%, while the economy had grown 12% above its pre-recession peak, and was still climbing fast.

RTWT at the link.

PHOTO CREDIT: The White House, "President Barack Obama talks with a patron at Reid's House Restaurant in Reidsville, N.C., during a lunch stop on the American Jobs Act bus tour, Oct. 18, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza).

New Air Jordans Cause Race Riots Across the United States

That's hardly exaggerating.

See the headline at Edmonton Journal, "New Air Jordan shoes cause shopping frenzy in Seattle, across U.S."

And at Small Dead Animals, "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire."

Added: At London's Daily Mail, "Arrests, pepper spray, brawls and doors pulled off hinges: Chaos at stores across U.S. as thousands of shoppers scramble for new Air Jordans."

Ron Paul Talks About Newsletters in 1995 Video

Ron Paul can't keep walking out on interviewers when asked about racially inflammatory statements.

With videos like these, he's on record in the mid-1990s as being very knowledgeable about the content of things put out under his name. The New York Daily News has a report, "Video surfaces of Ron Paul talking about racist newsletters in 1995, far earlier than he said he knew about them."

And the New Republic has a roundup, "TNR Exclusive: A Collection of Ron Paul’s Most Incendiary Newsletters."( Via Memeorandum.) And see also David Weigel, at Slate, "Ron Paul and the Coming Race War."

By this time it's pretty much all out there. The best thing for Ron Paul would be to come clean. His name is on some of these newsletters, so it sounds like a bald faced lie when he denies knowledge of them.

And see previously at Pamela's, "BOMBSHELL! RON PAUL'S RACIST NEWSLETTERS."

Mitt Romney Highlights His Marriage in New Hampshire

This is part of Romney's bid to batten down the hatches in the Granite State.

At Los Angeles Times, "Spotlight on Romney's marriage casts shadow on Gingrich's past":

Reporting from Lancaster, N.H.— It was a simple errand, a husband buying a Christmas gift for his wife. But in this case it was Mitt Romney buying for Ann Romney, the woman he introduces alternately as "my bride," "my sweetheart" and occasionally "the boss."

And with 13 days before the first votes are cast — with thousands of voters to win over — the former governor brought more than a dozen reporters, cameramen and photographers along for the holiday excursion.

Taking his wife of 42 years by the hand, the former Massachusetts governor led the way Thursday around the outdoor outfitter Simon the Tanner: "Ann, keep your eyes open here."

They reminisced about the best Christmas gifts he's given her — a horse, which he called "the gift that keeps on giving" — and the worst.

"For the first, I don't know, 10 years of our marriage, I would buy her clothing of various kinds," the candidate told reporters at the store, "and she would say, 'Ohhhhh, this is so nice,' and then it was gone a week later."

The candidate suggested presents along the shelves without much success. Finally, Ann Romney tried on a sleek white ski jacket and modeled it for her husband as he looked on approvingly.

"Christmas accomplished," he beamed. After picking up the $300 tab, which included socks for his eldest granddaughter, he joked to his wife that she was lucky he hadn't picked out her gift at the next stop, an Agway farm store.

Continue reading.

Romney denies that he's playing the marriage card to hammer Newt Gingrich, but with this latest video narrated by Ann Romney --- featuring nostalgic pictures of the early family --- it's undeniable that the value of family is central to Mitt's persona. And no doubt he has a nice family. He seems genuinely doting. But some have already indicated that Romney will get hammered for suggesting his family's better than Gingrich's. Divorce is a fact of life in this country. The issue is whether Newt cheated during his first and second marriages. Perhaps so, although there's considerable dispute on the details. Either way, it's a potential minefield. Gingrich has admitted his mistakes and signed a pledge to "uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others." Romney will look like he's browbeating if he keeps harping on the issue.

Niccolo Caldararo, Lecturer in Anthropology, San Francisco State, Hails North Korea as 'Ripe for Capitalism'

Well, I was waiting to see something like this. The U.S. leftists are falling in behind the Communist Party of Canada in support of the Kim regime in totalitarian North Korea --- and publishing their pro-communist agitprop at the anti-Semitic hate blog Daily Kos. See NewsBusters, "Daily Kos Comes to Defense of North Korea; No Worse Than South Korea, USA."

Following the link takes us to the diary at Daily Kos, "North Korea & Hysteria, Madness." I love this passage:

We have to realize that much of what is written about North Korea is for popular digestion regarding potential invasion. Let's face it, North Korea is ripe for capitalism, there are millions of potential workers who will work for near nothing. The hope is that the regime will crumble like the Soviet Union and give way to massive investment opportunities.

Right.

Millions of potential skeletons, but check the post. I can see where Professor Caldararo is coming from. He cites some political science literature on Cold War international politics, and he places North Korea in the framework of a besieged state surrounded by hostile powers. This is something of a realist take, but realism has been perverted by the academic left to demonize Israel as a detriment to U.S. security interests. This Caldararo piece is another application of such abstract analysis in furtherance of the far-left agenda. In particular, this piece is noteworthy for its extreme moral equivalence between North and South Korea, and thus their respective patron systems, communism and capitalism. But while Caldararo is quick to point out the authoritarian politics of the South Korean state, he omits that today Seoul is a democratic regime and perhaps the most successful developing economy in the world today. He also leaves out the enormous human rights abuses and North Korea's threats to international security and regional order, such as state-sponsored terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Inconvenient facts, I guess.

In any case, see Doug Bandow at American Spectator, "Otherworldly Defense of North Korea":

There is much to complain about South Korea under military rule. But, in case the professor didn't notice, the South Koreans escaped repression and achieved freedom. It turns out that nasty dictator Park Chung-hee (and he was nasty!) followed economic policies which allowed his people to avoid famine and escape poverty. And dictator Chun Doo-hwan responded to mass protests by holding an election. Silly fellow. He was later convicted and originally sentenced to death for his crimes. His successor, a former general and ally named Roh Tae-woo, allowed another election in which former dissident Kim Young-sam was elected. Roh also later was convicted and sentenced to prison.

These guys were amateurs compared to the Kims.

See what I mean?

But this is the progressive left for you. "No enemies on the left," and all that. It's the evil U.S. imperial system that's the real problem, to hear it from these idiots. And of course, the hate trolls of the progressive fever swamps won't be inundating the administration at San Francisco State with demands that this guy be fired. No, that's reserved especially for people who dare to indicate a believe in God and moral decency.

It's pretty messed up. But this is just one more example of the upside-down world we live in where good and decency are deemed as evil and real evil is championed as the saving grace of humanity.