Racist Walter James Casper III Doubles-Down on Endorsement of Revolutionary Anti-Semitic Occupy Wall Street

You know, that's the thing about progressives: When they encounter some embarrassing, incriminating facts, they lash out in anger and denial, and try to twist reality to conform to their demented views --- views marinated and metastasized under their sick revolutionary progressive ideology.

Racist Repsac3 has a big butthurt post whining about how he's not really a racist anti-Semitic Jew-basher, despite endorsing a movement that was founded on property expropriation, revolution, and anti-Jewish and anti-Israel eliminationism.

In fact, racist Walter James Casper spouts lies to cover up for his endorsement of the hate:

The movement is about income inequality, joblessness, and ways to make the system (financial, and electoral) more fair. Money is not speech. Corporations are not people. Equitable taxation, where everyone above poverty wages pays their fair share on all they earn. The people should have more political power and access than those who can pay for it. Politicians and their votes shouldn't be for sale.

God, that's so bad I don't even know where to start.

But first, to reiterate, it's a lie. Walter James Casper III is lying again, attempting to blow a smokescreen over his extreme radical agenda, his live and let live, if it feels good do it, anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-Israel revolutionary program. I've documented the facts here many times, and racist anti-Semite Walter James Casper III deliberately avoids the truth because he cannot answer for the hate. Progressive hate. Walter James Casper III is the epitome of the exterminationist, big-lie neo-commie hate-filled progressive.

But let's review: Recall that the origins of Occupy predate the Zuccotti Park mobilization by at least a couple of years, and I've covered much of that here at the blog. See my report from last month, "On the Origins of the Occupy Movement." The initial Occupy mobilizations were explicitly revolutionary, advocating militant collective action. They were not about this stupid "money is not speech" bullshit. Occupy is working to destroy capital altogether. The militants were about occupying the capitalist occupiers and expropriating the capitalist expropriators. Idiot racist Repsac3 stupidly parrots the Rachel Maddow talking points. It's f-king embarrassing. Sheesh.

Now, setting aside the original occupations, let's continue with New York's Occupy Wall Street. Recall that the impetus for the New York action is found in the agitation of Adbusters, the glossy Canadian anti-capitalist magazine. The Tablet published an exposé on Adbusters early this month, a devastating indictment of rampant Jew hatred and eliminationism that the institutional Democrat left and MFM have systematically ignored: "Busted: The Canadian magazine Adbusters sparked the Occupy Wall Street movement. It also has a weakness for Israel-bashing conspiracy theories." And don't forget that Adbusters continues to be the leading media organizer for the movement. It's the authentic source and undeniable inspiration for the left's exterminationist ululations. This is who racist Walter James Casper III endorsed when he put out the call to "occupy wherever you are." Zuccotti Park spread Occupy to the masses. Anti-Semitic Adbusters sparked it. To say otherwise is to spew malicious lies and denials of what you're about. It's f-king pathetic.

Jew-hating Walter James Casper weaselly claims that he's never said anything against the Jews. And that's irrelevant. He confirmed that he endorsed the movement but denies the central role of anti-Semitism to the group. As usual, racist Walter James Casper aggressively ignores the facts that prove his demonic hatred. As Jonathan Neumann argued at "Occupy Wall Street and the Jews":

To highlight such talk [of Occupy's anti-Semitism] 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.

In other words, advocates and endorsers of Occupy are lying when they claim, as does racist Walter James Casper III:

...all he's doing is linking to the few anti-semitic (or illegal, or immoral) incidents that occurred at or near occupy sites -- the perpetrators of which for the most part were just strangers on the street, not long-time liberal activists with any connection to occupy or any other movement -- and pretending that these few people and/or incidents represent the thinking of every single person who attended or in any way supports any portion of the occupy movement.

This is the kind of deranged progressive denialism that Dr. Pat Santy has documented thoroughly. It's literally an illness, a pathological infliction, rooted in hate-based ideology which blinds progressives to the truth: They literally can't deal with reality, so they invent a new one.

Racist Repsac3 lumps in a number of objections in that denial quoted above. Jonathan Neumanns' article documents widespread anti-Jewish hatred at Occupy not from people who "for the most part were just strangers," but from central activists and organizers from New York to Los Angeles and from Oakland back to Boston and then some. This kind of thing "wasn't confined to New York," Neumann writes.

So perhaps what racist Repsac3, in his derangement, really means to claim is that these "outliers" were just some random criminals, rapists, and murderes who had nothing to do with the movement. Nope. Wrong again. Walter James Casper is a despicable liar. So far at least 9 people have died at Occupy encampments, and in Oakland and Eugene it was key Occupy activists suspected of committing murder. There have been over 5,000 arrests at Occupy protests --- indeed, as of yesterday there were a recorded total of 5,681 arrests, and movement activists take pride in the numbers! In Zuccotti Park it got so bad that women protesters built a rape shelter to protect themselves from sexual assault predators --- right smack dab in the center of the encampment! But look out for those strangers!

Racist Walter James Casper III tweeted his endorsement to "occupy wherever you are," and no doubt that means occupying women's reproductive sexual organs, the freakin' morally degenerate progressive criminal!

See Doug Ross for more on the "strangers": "Occupy Hatred: A Gallery of #OWS Sickness." And Marathon Pundit, "Occupy Occtrocities: Christmas Vandalism Edition."

And finally, I posted a couple of days ago Adbusters' latest exhortation to revolution in the United States. See: "Occupy Wall Street Plans 'American Spring' to Bring U.S. 'One Step Closer to Revolution'." Again, despite the pathetic loser man-child Walter James Casper's shitty lies, these people ARE the movement. The hate-mongering Walter James Casper whines like a spoiled toddler about how "racist" the tea partiers are, and thus he shouldn't be held accountable for endorsing the racist, anti-Semitic #OWS. Nope. Wrong. The racists that popped up at the tea parties were genuine fringe loners. They were driven out of every single tea party where they showed their faces. Indeed, the press wanted the tea parties to be racist so bad that they just manufactured racists. There was never any proof, for example, that tea partiers "hurled" racial epithets at the Congressional Black Caucus, so the MFM just made that shit up. But racist anti-Semites at Occupy have been central to every Occupy mobilization, starting at Zuccotti and spewing hate right down to Southern California.

And the tea parties, more importantly, were founded on the principles of limited government, limited taxation, and pay as you go government. That's what's it's been about. There were no arrests. The tea party repudiates Occupy Wall Street. Got that racist Repsac3 sleazeball? No arrests. None. Zip. Nada. Zero. You're a freakin' liar. Occupy Wall Street on the other hand is founded not only in the hardline communist expropriation militancy and criminal anarchy, but the more stupid Democrat-MFM version is about outright class warfare and radical redistributionism. This video has the facts down:

View it and weep, Walter James Casper III, you pathetic scum dirtbag anti-Semitic neo-commie. THIS IS WHAT YOU STAND FOR.

You're a criminal stalker, workplace harassment instigator, and moral reprobate. You keep sponsoring and endorsing the bigotry, collectivism, Jew-bashing and anti-Americanism --- and the threats --- and I'll be right there documenting it for the whole world --- and for the law enforcement authorities --- to see.

7 Reasons Why Mitt Romney's Electability Is a Myth

From John Hawkins, who's been one of the leaders of the "Not Romney" movement, at Right Wing News.

Israeli Graduate Student Smadar Bakovic Wins Dissertation Review After Anti-Israel Advisor Spiked It

A great story, from CiF Watch, "CiF Watch exclusive interview with Smadar Bakovic, who fought anti-Zionist bias in UK Academia & won!"

Via Israelly Cool, "Speaking Truth To [The Ivory] Tower":

As we prepare to light the sixth Chanukah candle tonight, here’s a Maccabee-esque story about the few prevailing against the many – a lone Israeli student taking a year to fight an unfair system, and winning. On the downside, it’s only a partial victory, as the university is shamefully backing this ‘professor’, who is an affront to academic integrity, and has forfeited the privilege of guiding the careers of rising young academics like Smadar Bakovic.

Word.

When you take it out on a student because of ideological hatred, there's nothing more reprehensible professionally. Another case of radical left-wing extremism destroying the academy.

Michelle Fields C-SPAN Interview

I watched it.

The Dailly Caller has a write-up, "TheDC’s Michelle Fields discusses journalism in the new media age."

And Dan Riehl steps up with a post defending Michelle from yet another deranged progressive attack from the Betsy Rothstein gang: "FishBowlDC's Ignorant, Inaccurate Sexist Attack on Michelle Fields." The FishBowl piece is a rank hit-job that completely decontextualizes Michelle's comments, even deliberately distorting some of her more significant and substantive points --- points that might elude someone not hip with the game-changing political role of social media communications. Dan has the bingo quote here:

Read the FBDC item, then take time to watch the full hour and decide for yourself which is supercilious and not much worth one's time, as opposed to what appears to be a very substantive young woman well on her way to saying something important enough that many people will want to hear it via New Media.

I found the interview particularly useful from the perspective of a professor of political science who teaches a large number of young people with very limited skills in information technology. A light went off when Michelle explained how she gets her morning news. She just logs on to Facebook and Twitter and checks out what her friends are reading and linking. That's actually not uncommon for people in the industry (in spite of FishBowl's attacks). I'm old fashioned and still get the hard copy Los Angeles Times delivered to the door. It's only a small part of my news diet, and mostly superfluous, but old habits die hard. Michelle, on the other hand, personifies the way today's consumers get their news and how today's reporters cover it. The FishBowl idiots ridicule the idea of citizen journalism as if the very notion itself is a joke. I'm not sure if that's just plain hubris or just a really lame opening shot at Michelle. Probably a little of both. For us old-timers, the laughs come when Michelle admits she has no clue about folks like Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry! That said, Michelle evinces a savvy sophistication about human nature (her discussion of Washington, D.C., for example) and the importance of family in the preservation and regeneration of traditional values. She goes off track a bit with a kind of grade-school crush for Ron Paul, but that's fine in the context of a well developed sense of libertarianism. She was an activist in college and Ron Paul's been hip with young people for the last couple of electoral cycles. Other than that, it's an impressive interview with a very intelligent young woman who's obviously got a bright future in cutting-edge social media-driven reporting.

P.S. This just came to me before posting, more thoughts on Michelle's comments about "biased" news. The point needs to be developed more analytically. That is, we've moved into an era of a "partisan press," one that resembles the kind of journalism that thrived during the early party system of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Technology brought changes back then, ultimately towards a national media market and professionalized, mostly objective news reporting. That era's long gone. Michelle understands this intuitively and may well turn out to be a key player in the new journalism that evolves with increasingly overt partisanship in the years ahead.

More Democrat Assploding 'We Are the 99%' Hypocrisy

From Doug Powers, at Michelle's, "Pelosi Spends the Holidays Sacrificing on Behalf of Her Beloved 99%."

And see Hawaii Reporter, "While President Obama Arrives in Hawaii Amidst Security and Fanfare, Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Slips Quietly into Big Island Resort."

It's just too easy to pin these idiots down for their sick redistributionist ideological hypocrisy.

See: "Pelosi: Occupy Movement Enhances Dems’ National Message."

PREVIOUSLY: "Whoo Hoo! Michelle Fields Calls Out Hypocrite Statists on Tax Hikes for 'Patriotic Millionaires'," and "Christmas Smear: MSNBC Hack Ed Schultz Slurs Tea Partiers as 'Sewer Rats' — Assploding Hypocrite W. James Casper Hardest Hit!"

Oh, and something assploding hypocrite Walter James Casper III conveniently ignored in his stupidity-induced rejoinder this morning: "Occupy Wall Street Plans 'American Spring' to Bring U.S. 'One Step Closer to Revolution'." But of course, it's just a "few" on the "fringe" here and there, right? Not representative of anything? Nope. Wrong. The Jew-bashing revolutionary comrades ARE the movement. Democrats are piggy-backing out of pure progressive opportunism, just like racist Walter James Casper III.

Prince Philip Leaves Hospital After Heart Surgery

Well, that's the spirit.

At Telegraph UK, "The Duke of Edinburgh is discharged from hospital and heads straight for a shooting party."

Whoo Hoo! Michelle Fields Calls Out Hypocrite Statists on Tax Hikes for 'Patriotic Millionaires'

Because there's no better form of hypocrisy that Democrat-Socialist redistributionist hypocrisy.

See Daniel Mitchell, "Rich Statists Exposed as Complete Hypocrites" (via Instapundit).

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

Freakin' progressive dirtbags.

Santorum Surging in Iowa?

Well, Santorum's pumped up for a big showing next week, although he's not quite going all in to predict a top spot in the caucuses. Here's the video from Linkmaster Smith:

But check Flopping Aces, "Newt Implodes As Santorum Surges."

Meanwhile, Robert Stacy McCain is on the ground with first-hand reports. See, "Republicans With Shotguns."

BONUS: Mark Blumenthal has a big analysis on the polling situation in Iowa, "Iowa Caucus Polls: Ron Paul And Mitt Romney Lead, But Surprises Likely" (via Memeorandum).

Added: Tina Korbe has this, "Santorum: If I finish “dead last” in Iowa, I’ll drop out." Yeah, maybe Santorum's just putting on the happy face. He couldn't even bag that Steve King endorsement, so what can you do?

VIDEO: Store Clerk Derek Mothershead Clocks Would-Be Robber In Gold Store

Well, my guess is that the robber, Mostafa Kamal Hendi, is Muslim.

And I'm going to fall laughing on the floor when the pro-HAMAS Islamic diversity industry cries RAAAAACISM!!!

At My Fox Phoenix, "Video: Store Clerk Fights Back Against Robbery Suspect."

Occupy Wall Street Plans 'American Spring' to Bring U.S. 'One Step Closer to Revolution'

Somehow I get the feeling this is a little more than stepped up get out the vote efforts.

At Weasel Zippers, "Occupy Wall Street Leaders Promise 'Asymmetrical Warfare Strategies' Bringing Us 'One Step Closer to Revolution' In 2012…"

PHOTO CREDITS: Ringo's Pictures, "The Occupation of Los Angeles - Part 6 - 10/15/2011: The Global Day of Action."

The 10 Big Takeaways from America's Adventure in Iraq

From Ian Livingston and Michael O'Hanlon, at Foreign Policy, "The Damage Done":

With a wave of over a dozen bombings ripping through Baghdad just a week after U.S. troops officially pulled out, new questions are being raised about the country's ability to stand on its own without U.S. security assistance. Before looking ahead to whether Iraq can withstand a potential new wave of sectarian violence, it's crucial to take measure of where the country currently stands and the effect of eight years of war on its people and institutions.

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, researchers at the Brookings Institution began the Iraq Index to keep tabs on how the war progressed. As students of counterinsurgency know, it is difficult to find the right metrics to evaluate how a war effort of this type is going. It is also challenging to obtain reliable data even if relevant metrics have been identified. The most important metrics can also change with time; additionally, some can be leading indicators of change, while others tend to lag broader improvements.

In the war's early days, the general sense of disorder and chaos and the disempowerment of many former Baathists and former soldiers were probably the most important metrics. They augured poorly for the future -- while official U.S. data focused more on restoration of infrastructure and other generally positive indicators that though important may not have been quite as crucial as they seemed at the time. Then U.S. attention turned to building up Iraqi security forces, but, alas, progress in their training, numbers, and equipment could not trump the growing sectarian fissures that were widening within the government, Army, police, and country writ large.

Metrics of violence were recognized as the most important indicators by 2006 and 2007, when the country was being ripped apart. The success of the surge was fairly easy to see, as these numbers plummeted in late 2007 and 2008. Since then, however, tracking Iraq's changes has become harder as progress has slowed and politics have become at least as important as security and quality-of-life indicators.

With U.S. military engagement in Iraq having come to an end, here are 10 key metrics that reveal both the damage wrought by the war and the state of the country that U.S. forces are leaving behind...

Continue reading at the link.

Army Tanks, Heavy Shelling and Gunfire in Homs, Syria's Third-Largest City

At New York Daily News, "Syrian opposition asks Arab League to intervene after killings in city of Homs." And Telegraph UK, "Syria: tanks filmed roaming the streets of Homs."

More at Los Angeles Times, "Syria opposition says at least 20 killed in Homs."

My Love Will Keep You Safe

I saw this at Theo's earlier, and now at SDA, "Military Wives Choir: Wherever You Are":

And see Melanie Phillips, "Military Wives' single tunes into our highest ideals."

Occupy Wall Street: Anti-Semitism, Socialism, Crime and Public Defecation

Following up on my earlier entries: "Occupy Wall Street and the Jews," and "Christmas Smear: MSNBC Hack Ed Schultz Slurs Tea Partiers as 'Sewer Rats' — Assploding Hypocrite W. James Casper Hardest Hit!"

Walter James Casper III continues the lies and distortions, claiming that, for some reason, for him to be called out for his racist, anti-Semitic support for the criminal Occupy Wall Street movement isn't "politics." Nope. Wrong. It's political --- and criminal, and socially deviant, and deranged. Here's the whining man-child prevaricating like a blithering freak:

Even when he does use social or political terms, their denotative and connotative definitions bear no resemblance to what I stand for politically or socially. For Donald, there is no difference between calling someone a communist or racist, and calling that person a fuckwad. As used by Dishonest Don, these political and social labels are nothing more that ad hominem insults and rhetorical ejaculations.

These are like the rants of a child who's been busted for stealing down at the local drugstore. The manager calls the parents and the child caught red-handed mumbles as if he didn't know that stealing was wrong.

Walter James Casper III is a racist who has endorsed the Occupy Wall Street program, tweeting "Occupy wherever you are." To date Walter James Casper has chosen to lash out in anger rather than explain why in the world he would endorse a movement that is anti-capitalist, anti-American, and anti-Jew. By exhorting people to Occupy wherever they are --- a literally global statement of solidarity --- Walter James Casper has given approval and sanction to all the horrible acts of rape and violence, property destruction and public defection, and racist eliminationism --- acts all in the name of the Occupy program. THAT IS where Walter James Casper stands "politically or socially."

This is what the movement is about. People have been reporting on this for months. Bill Whittle nails it at the video above. Progressives justify the hate by attacking the non-existent 1%. By his refusal to even address what's been repeatedly pointed out and documented, Walter James Casper III acts no differently than a petulant child who refuses to take responsibility for his actions --- which is exactly what the occupiers do, blame everyone for their problems but themselves. But we know this. Walter James Casper has basically cried out over and over again, "was that wrong?" Yes, you scumbag loser. It's wrong. After launching a hate blog, recruiting progressives to harass my work and threaten my means to earn a living, after sponsoring and defending racist white-supremacist statements at an attack blog and in comment threads elsewhere, and now after endorsing on Twitter the Occupy Wall Street movement, all Walter James Casper III can do is whine like a spoiled brat that it's all some kind of conspiracy, some wicked pack of lies. WAAAHHH!!! Well, it's not. When you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas, and Walter James Casper III is the king progressive fleabag and neo-commie Jew hater. It's on the record. Walter James Casper III's tweet of endorsement is on the record. And as always, I will continue to point the spotlight on the hate. I will continue to stand up against the hatred, lies, and anti-Americanism. I will continue to highlight evil in the real world, the world as it is, and not the make believe, irresponsible world of demonic man-children racist hatred. Walter James Casper's world. Stupid criminal idiot.

Democrat Elizabeth Warren is 'Occupy' Candidate for U.S. Senate

What a dirtbag.

She's thrown in her lot with the rapists, drug addicts, criminals, murderers, and anti-Semites (what a totally FUBAR movement).

At Los Angeles Times, "In Senate race, an ally of Occupy."

Democrats: The party of bigotry and hate.

Man Dies After Eating Cocaine From Brother's Butt

A few days late on this one, but it's worth posting for the sheer stupidity of it all.

At London's Daily Mail, "Man dies after eating cocaine from his brother's butt to help hide evidence while the pair were in the back of police car."

There's video at the link. I'm not embedding these stupid freakin' idiots.

Three Years Under Obama

Three disastrous years.

Here's Bill Whittle:

The Persecution of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

Jamie Glazov interviews Sabaditsch-Wolff at FrontPage Magazine.

And a bonus video from Blazing Cat Fur, "Michael Coren Interviews Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff Free Speech Heroine":

Maria Shriver Reconsiders Her Divorce from Arnold Schwarzenegger

At Fox News, "Maria Shriver Has Second Thoughts About Divorcing Arnold Schwarzenegger, Report Says."

And lots of pics at London's Daily Mail, "Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver spend Christmas together as she 'reconsiders' their divorce."

I guess Arnold's aggressively wooing his ex-wife. That's a big one, having a child by the maid. But forgiveness is divine, so who knows? He has no future in politics, so perhaps they can grow old together and be happy.

Rick Santorum Hunts for Caucus Success in Iowa

At Los Angeles Times, "Santorum fails to bag endorsement from Iowa's King."

And there's a striking picture at the New York Times, "Santorum Hunts for Birds and an Endorsement, but Leaves Disappointed."

Plus, an update from Robert Stacy McCain, "Santorum Gets 4 ‘Clean Kills’ in Pheasant Hunt With Steve King; No Endorsement."

Fatal Stabbing on Oxford Street at Boxing Day Sales

Well, not all the bad holiday news was stateside.

At London's Daily Mail, "Murdered at Boxing Day sales: Teenager stabbed on Oxford Street and ANOTHER knifed in separate attack as horrified shoppers look on."

Jameela Barnette, Woman Who Threatened Pamela Geller, Killed by Police in Marietta, Georgia

You know, I've had police involved after some of the progressive stalking and complaints at my college. Some of the people who have attacked me online have taken it into my personal life and it's dangerous. Pamela Geller, who is one of the most courageous freedom fighters I've ever met, finds herself in dangerous situations virtually every day, as she fights to preserve freedom and moral right.

Now one of those who went after Pamela online got what she had coming. See Pamela's post, "Muslim Who Threatened King, Geller, SIOA Goes On Christmas Jihad, Killed By Cop."

And there's a video at Fox 5 Atlanta, "Marietta Woman Linked to Suspicious Package Killed by Officer."

My prayers go out to Pamela. No one should be subject to such abuse and threats to life and limb.

Robert Spencer has more on the woman, "Georgia Muslim woman, "Messenger of Allah & Defender of Islam," who threatened Rep. King shot dead in struggle with a cop."

PREVIOUSLY: "Roundup on Progressive Campaign of Workplace Intimidation and Harassment," and "Walter James 'Occupy' Casper Continues Campaign of Lies: Childishly Whines About 'McCarthyism' While Endorsing Anarchists and Anti-Semitic Communists."

How Social Media Fuels Social Unrest

The funniest thing about this piece at Wired is that I read it over a week ago in hard copy while out shopping for Christmas presents at Barnes and Noble. I came home that night and logged on looking for it, but the Wired homepage hadn't updated with the January magazine information. It's the holidays, so what the heck? I still thought it strange for a tech-driven magazine to basically make a social media report available in dead-tree media and not online.

In any case, the essay, by Bill Wasik, offers pretty compelling explanation for how social media enable radicals and inflame protests. See "#Riot: Self-Organized, Hyper-Networked Revolts—Coming to a City Near You." This passage was particularly interesting:

In trying to understand how and why crowds go wrong, you can have no better guide than Clifford Stott, senior lecturer in social psychology at the University of Liverpool. Stott has risked his life researching his subject. Specifically, he has spent most of his career—more than 20 years so far—conducting a firsthand study of violence among soccer fans. On one particularly dicey trip to Marseilles in 1998, Stott and a small crowd of Englishmen ran away from a cloud of tear gas only to find themselves facing a gang of 50 French toughs, some of them wielding bottles and driftwood. “If you are on your own,” a philosophical fellow Brit remarked to Stott at that moment, “you’re going to get fucked.” This, in a sense, is the fundamental wisdom at the heart of Stott’s work—though he does couch it in somewhat more respectable language.

To Stott, members of a crowd are never really “on their own.” Based on a set of ideas that he and other social psychologists call ESIM (Elaborated Social Identity Model), Stott believes crowds form what are essentially shared identities, which evolve as the situation changes. We might see a crowd doing something that appears to us to be just mindless violence, but to those in the throng, the actions make perfect sense. With this notion, Stott and his colleagues are trying to rebut an influential line of thinking on crowd violence that stretches from Gustave Le Bon, whose 1895 treatise, The Crowd, launched the field of crowd psychology, up to Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. To explain group disorder, Zimbardo and other mid-20th-century psychologists blamed a process they called deindividuation, by which a crowd frees its members to carry out their baser impulses. Through anonymity, in Zimbardo’s view, the strictures of society were lifted from crowds, pushing them toward a state of anarchy and thereby toward senseless violence.

By contrast, Stott sees crowds as the opposite of ruleless, and crowd violence as the opposite of senseless: What seems like anarchic behavior is in fact governed by a shared self-conception and thus a shared set of grievances. Stott’s response to the riots has been unpopular with many of his countrymen. Unlike Zimbardo, who would respond—and indeed has responded over the years—to incidents of group misbehavior by speaking darkly of moral breakdown, Stott brings the focus back to the long history of societal slights, usually by police, that primed so many young people to riot in the first place.

Meeting Stott in person, one can see how he’s been able to blend in with soccer fans over the years. He’s a stocky guy, with a likably craggy face and a nose that looks suspiciously like it’s been broken a few times. When asked why the recent riots happened, his answers always come back to poor policing—particularly in Tottenham, where questions over the death of a young man went unaddressed by police for days and where the subsequent protest was met with arbitrary violence. Stott singles out one moment when police seemed to handle a young woman roughly and an image of that mistreatment was tweeted (and BBMed) throughout London’s black community and beyond. It was around then that the identity of the crowd shifted, decisively, to outright combat against the police.

Stott boils down the violent potential of a crowd to two basic factors. The first is what he and other social psychologists call legitimacy—the extent to which the crowd feels that the police and the whole social order still deserve to be obeyed. In combustible situations, the shared identity of a crowd is really about legitimacy, since individuals usually start out with different attitudes toward the police but then are steered toward greater unanimity by what they see and hear. Paul Torrens, a University of Maryland professor who builds 3-D computer models of riots and other crowd events, imbues each agent in his simulations with an initial Legitimacy score on a scale from 0 (total disrespect for police authority) to 1 (absolute deference). Then he allows the agents to influence one another. It’s a crude model, but it’s useful in seeing the importance of a crowd’s initial perception of legitimacy. A crowd where every member has a low L will be predisposed to rebel from the outset; a more varied crowd, by contrast, will take significantly longer to turn ugly, if it ever does.

It’s easy to see how technology can significantly change this starting position. When that tweet or text or BBM blast goes out declaring, as the Enfield message did, that “police can’t stop it,” the eventual crowd will be preselected for a very low L indeed. As Stott puts it, flash-mob-style gatherings are special because they “create the identity of a crowd prior to the event itself,” thereby front-loading what he calls the “complex process of norm construction,” which usually takes a substantial amount of time. He hastens to add that crowd identity can be pre-formed through other means, too, and that such gatherings also have to draw from a huge group of willing (and determined) participants. But the technology allows a group of like-minded people to gather with unprecedented speed and scale. “You’ve only got to write one message,” Stott says, “and it can reach 50, or 500, or even 5,000 people with the touch of a button.” If only a tiny fraction of this quickly multiplying audience gets the message and already has prepared itself for disorder, then disorder is what they are likely to create.

"BBM" is BlackBerry Messenger, the main device that helped set off the rioting in Enfield, near London, earlier this year.

But check the whole piece, at the link.

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."

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