Tremseh Massacre Induces More Hand-Wringing on Syria

It's long past time for regime change in Damascus. The question is how to do it without making things worse.

Here's Reuel Marc Gerecht's plan, "To Topple Assad, Unleash the CIA":

Does President Barack Obama want Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to fall?

He's said he does, but fear of an interventionist slippery slope, re-election concerns, and anxiety about America's prominence in the Middle East have severely limited U.S. efforts to topple the Damascus regime. Shaming Russia into forsaking its Syrian ally appears to be the coup de grâce that Mr. Obama and his indignant secretary of state are still counting on.

This approach may not differ much from that of Mitt Romney, who has studiously avoided revealing what he would do in Syria. Even on the more hawkish right, there isn't a lot of appetite for committing U.S. military power to the conflict, except perhaps via the air in conjunction with Turkey. Tempers in Ankara are rising against the Assad regime, but Turkish civilian and military leaders still don't want to send tanks to establish Syrian "safe havens" for rebels and refugees whom Turkey is supporting on its side of the border.

Yet there is an alternative that could crack the Assad regime: a muscular CIA operation launched from Turkey, Jordan and even Iraqi Kurdistan. The trick for Washington is to go in big, deploying enough case officers and delivering paralyzing weaponry to the rebels as rapidly as possible.

Press reports already suggest that a rudimentary, small-scale CIA covert action is under way against Assad. But these reports, probably produced by officially sanctioned White House leaks, reveal an administration trying not to commit itself. According to Syrian rebels I've heard from, the much-mentioned Saudi and Qatari military aid—reportedly chaperoned by the CIA—hasn't arrived in any meaningful quantity.

Odds are that it won't, as the Saudis and Qataris are incapable of running arms on the scale required. Institutionally, intellectually and culturally, it's not their cup of tea. And intelligence officers tell me that the White House hasn't ordered Langley to move the weaponry. To the extent Syria's rebels have recently improved their performance, the reason is better coordination among the Free Syrian Army's units, more defections from regime forces, and raids on regular army depots.

But Langley can move weapons and rapidly develop complementary intelligence networks inside Syria. It may not do these feats brilliantly, but it can certainly do them better than anyone in the region.

And FWIW, see the report from Charles Dunne, David Kramer, and William H. Taft IV, at the Washington Post, "What the U.S. should do to help Syria."

RELATED: Telegraph UK has the background, "Analysis: What lies behind the Syrian massacres?"

Comic-Con Is So Gay

Well, everything is gay nowadays, so why not comics conventions?

At the Los Angeles Times, "Comic-Con: Gay characters enjoying new prominence, tolerance":

Caped crusaders are out and proud this year at Comic-Con International. Even Superman and Batman at the Prism Comics booth wear snug Underoos, capes and chef’s aprons — but not much else — as they entertain passersby. T-shirts featuring “Glamazonia: The Uncanny Super-Tranny,” “Wuvable Oaf,” a hairy-chested wrestler-type in pink shorts. and other less-famous characters line the walls of Prism’s booth — the unofficial hub of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community at this week’s convention.

“It feels revolutionary,” says Scott Covert, decked out as Batman’s sidekick, Robin, at one of the convention’s many panels about gay culture and the comic book world. He flips the lip of his cape as he adds, “There’s more tolerance this year.”

Gay Geekdom celebrated last month when Marvel’s mutant superhero, Northstar, married his longtime partner, Kyle, in “Astonishing X-Men No. 51.” The day the issue was released, comic book shops nationwide, including L.A.’s Meltdown Comics, hosted commitment ceremonies, vow renewals or parties; and there was a legal same-sex wedding at Midtown Comics in Manhattan.

Also in June, DC Comics resurrected the original Golden Age Green Lantern, featuring Alan Scott as a gay man. Even Archie Comics’ All-American Riverdale was the site of a biracial, military-themed, same-sex wedding earlier this year.

The effects of such publishing milestones are palpable at Comic-Con, which is seeing more gay-themed panels, parties, signings and off-site events than ever before, notes Justin Hall, author of the just-released “No Straight Lines,” a retrospective of LGBT comics.

“Queer fandom is absolutely galvanized by seeing more accurate representations of ourselves,” he says. “There’s a snowball effect.”

More at the link.

I'm sure Dan Savage likes comics.

Obama Gets Soaked in Roanoke

What a geek.

His comments are here: "Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Roanoke, Virginia" (via Memeorandum).

And see the Richmond Times Dispatch, "UPDATE: Obama caps swing through battleground Virginia."

Historic Black and White Images of the Dust Bowl

I missed it, but PBS ran a series last year called "Surviving the Dust Bowl."

Not to worry, though. London's Daily Mail has a nice report, "Portraits in defiance: Historic black and white images of gritty Dust Bowl survivors bring Dirty Thirties back to life."

Michelle Malkin on Obama's Bain Attacks: Romney-Types Sign the Front of the Paycheck, Obama-Types the Back

Mediate has a report: "Malkin Slams Obama’s Supporters: Romney Supporters Sign Front Of Paychecks, Obama’s Sign The Back" (via Memeorandum). You gotta love it:

And check the shocking dishonesty at No More Mister Nice Blog, "IF YOU'RE AN EMPLOYEE, RIGHT-WINGERS HATE YOU."

Only in Greater Commieland would anyone take Michelle's comments as an attack on those pulling down a paycheck. The fact is that Obama harms those who employ those trying to pull down a paycheck, which has led inexorably to more and more people signing the back of the government's welfare state paychecks. See, "A Stealth Expansion of the Welfare State," and "The Rise of Food-Stamp Nation."

IDF Woman Soldier in a Bikini?

At the New York Daily News, "Bikini-clad, gun-toting Israeli woman becomes an Internet sensation."

A photo of a gun-wielding, bikini-clad woman standing on a crowded Tel Aviv beach has become an Internet sensation, with thousands of viewers curious about whether the brunette beauty is part of Israel's military and why she wasn't in uniform with her weapon in tow.

The young woman, dressed only in a black-and-white string bikini, was captured chatting with a friend, rifle (with its magazine removed) slung casually behind her back. Though there's no uniform to identify her, the woman appears to be part of the Israel Defense Forces. Two years of IDF service is mandatory for most Israeli women at age 18. Men serve three years.

The photo was viewed 650,000 times in one day and was posted on sites including Facebook, Reddit and Gizmodo under titles like "Only in Israel," and "Badass Chicks in Israel Don't Go To the Beach Without Their Assault Rifles." It garnered a series of lascivious comments from male admirers but almost as many questions about the IDF's weapons policy for off-duty soldiers.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper, which picked up on the viral photo, wrote that "To an Israeli, the photo makes perfectly practical sense. When soldiers take their weapon off military premises, they must guard it closely and keep it on their person, at all times. Having one's weapon stolen is harshly punished with time in military prison a given. "

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds.

BONUS: She dodged mandatory military service, or so they say. But she's back in Israel visiting the homeland. At London's Daily Mail, "Back to the motherland! Bar Refeali goes home to Israel and heads straight out for sushi with friends."

Is Obama a Socialist?

Well, it depends what you mean by "socialist."

If you make a perfect equation between socialism and the totalitarian communism of the 20th Century Soviet Union, well then, no, Obama's not a socialist. But virtually no one defines socialism as that kind of perfect equation. No one except Milos Forman, perhaps, in his recent essay at the New York Times, "Obama the Socialist? Not Even Close.

Read it at the link. The analysis is deeply flawed but understandably so, given that Forman lived through real-life communism in Czechoslovakia from his birth in 1932 until 1968. That said, he's still wrong about Obama's socialism. See the response to Forman from Ron Radosh, "Is Obama a Socialist? An Answer to Milos Forman." Radosh is an ex-American communist and the author of the essential memoir of the movement, Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left

Here's a passage from the piece, published at PJ Media:

Forman accuses conservatives — he names Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh — of calling Obama a socialist. He writes:

They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.

In making that argument, Forman reveals his own confusion, and in effect says that to say Obama is a socialist is to say he is a Marxist-Leninist totalitarian. Of course Obama is NOT a communist. He is an elected leader of a politically democratic republic. He is constrained in policies he would like to implement by a Congress and a vigorous Republican opposition. Nevertheless, a strong case has been made — here at PJM and in other conservative journals of opinion and in various serious books — that Barack Obama favors and pursues policies that are indeed the equivalent of redistributionist socialist measures favored today, for example, by François Hollande and his new government in France.

To make this case hardly “cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism,” as Forman claims. The problem is that the social-democratic governments in Europe that Forman claims only favor “government provision of social insurance and health care” have their own serious problems. Most conservatives favor a social safety net, adequate health care, and other common-sense measures. What they do oppose is the limitless welfare state that seemingly never ends in its quest to further extend its grasp, in a manner that produces a whole new set of problems and brings modern economies to a grinding halt. And more:

America’s preeminent socialist leader in the 1980s was the late Michael Harrington, who carried on as the spokesman for social democracy, a post he inherited from his predecessors, Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas. Harrington was well-aware that the path to socialism, in which he ardently believed, was through continued extension of the American welfare state. He became a vigorous supporter of a meaningless bill passed by Congress in 1978 called the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, which stated that it was the policy of the United States to strive to attain a full employment economy.

Testifying before Congress in defense of the act, the dying Senator Humphrey asked Harrington: “Is my bill socialism?” The socialist leader responded, “It isn’t half that good.” His point was that socialism needed liberalism as a focal point from which to grow. As Harrington argued at the time, by laying out the principle that it was the duty of the state to create full employment, socialists could build upon that to move liberal supporters to advocate more extensive social-democratic programs that would challenge the hegemony of capitalist social relations, making it easier to advance real socialist measures at a future moment.

What Forman ignores, and does not really address, is that Barack Obama came into politics from the precincts of the Harringtonian left wing. He was a member in Chicago of the socialist New Party, which grew out of the activism of the Democratic Socialists of America, which Harrington led. His past, ignored but addressed in particular by Stanley Kurtz and now by Paul Kengor, was that of the sectarian left wing of the 1970s and ’80s.

Forman might not see “much of a socialist in Mr. Obama,” but he also writes that he does not see “signs of that system in this great nation.” That is because Mr. Forman is confusing Stalinism with social democracy. With that as his standard, he can easily ignore all signs of socialist policies and programs favored by Barack Obama. Like the Marxists, Obama said four years ago that we were on the verge of a “fundamental transformation” of the United States. What did he mean by that, if not his hope that the United States would soon become a nation more similar to the social-democratic welfare states of Europe?

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how the left's Democrat-Media-Complex has managed to sustain the lie that Obama's just a regular old "liberal Democrat." It's truly an amazing thing, three and a half years into this administration, that conservatives are still heckled and rebuked as conspiracy-mongers for mentioning the fact of Obama's socialism. In any case, scrolling through the archives I found this old piece from Jawa Report, "Question: Does Barack Obama Have Any Friends Who AREN'T Communists?":

The news of Barack Obama's close relationship with Frank Marshall Davis has been around before, but it's important....

Aren't we seeing a pattern here? One interaction with one old communist isn't particularly troubling. A handful of sporadic interactions with a handful of radical left-wingers may not be particularly troubling. But a lifelong pattern of extended associations and alliances with scores of fringe, America-hating radicals is very, very troubling indeed.

Just to be clear:

It's not just that Barack Obama's father was a Marxist economist or that his mother Stanley came from radical far-left roots.

It's not just that Obama's childhood mentor Frank Marshall Davis was a famous communist poet.

It's not just that Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor, counselor and spiritual mentor of 20 years is a racist, America-hating radical.

It's not just that Michael Phleger, Obama's other spiritual mentor is every bit as extreme as Wright.

It's not just that his wife Michelle has never been really that proud of America, or that she thinks this country is "mean".

It's not just that Obama refused to wear a flag, or that he refused to salute it during the national anthem.

It's not just that Obama's political and financial benefactor William Ayers is an unrepentant radical socialist terrorist.

It's not just that Bernadine Dohrn regrets that she didn't kill more people back in the 1960s.

It's not just that Alice Palmer, Obama's political mentor in Chicago, was a communist propagandist.

It's not just that Obama was a member of the radical socialist New Party or that he ran as a candidate for public office under their far-left platform.

It's not just that Obama was an agitator, trainer and attorney for the corrupt and radical-left ACORN.

None of these facts, by itself, tells you that much about Barack Obama. A reasonable person should, however, be able to look at this motley crew of left-wing communists and America-haters, realize that Barack Obama's rolodex is a veritable Who's Who of American Socialism, be very, very disturbed by that fact and ask some very probing questions about WHO Barack Obama is, WHAT he believes, and WHY this gang of radical America-haters considers Barack Obama such a good friend.

Check the post for all the links documenting those friendships.

And that was before Obama took office. Monica Crowley provides an excellent rundown of the socialist czars that Obama appointed to his administration, at FrontPage Magazine:

Obama doesn’t run around wearing a Carrie Bradshaw-esque nameplate necklace that says, “Socialist.” But his policies, actions, words, background, and associations speak louder than any ID necklace ever could. As a technical matter, economic fascism (government control of the means of production without ownership) more accurately describes what Obama is carrying out than socialism (government ownership of those means of production), but “fascism” and “socialism” are highly charged words—and arguments over the labels often obfuscate the reality of the policies. Obama has engaged in extreme government-directed redistributionism to undermine the free market, generate widespread dependency, and further centralize state power.

In the end, the term matters less than his policies and their effects. This is a man who spent his formative years learning at the knees of assorted communists, from his mother and father to Frank Marshall Davis to the Marxist professors and sundry socialists he admitted he sought out while in school to the self-avowed Communists (Van Jones, “green jobs” czar), Mao admirers (Anita Dunn, communications director) and radical redistributionists (Cass Sunstein, regulatory czar) he appointed as president. He spent a good deal of time mastering the art of Saul Alinsky’s tactics for advancing the socialist revolution. In 2007, he said of his years learning Alinsky’s methods, “It was that education that was seared into my brain. It was the best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School.” Indeed.

Right.

Notice how Crowley mentions "economic fascism" as a clarifying concept. Because as long as the U.S. maintains a relatively free market with private ownership, the U.S. can't be described as socialist. But that's a practical matter. If Obama could he'd bankrupt America's corporate sector and have the state take over. He may yet achieve that end in the healthcare sector with ObamaCare, and it's been but for the awesome resilience of the American economy and people that we've resisted the administration's socialist encroachments on the energy sector. That's why Crowley and others warn that Obama simply can't get a second term, lest he win the chance to complete the destruction he's already started.

In any case, there's still some time to continue hammering the real truth before the election. Toward that end, see Nice Deb, "The Vetting: Paul Kengor on Obama’s Communist Mentor, Frank Marshall Davis," and Dan Riehl, "New Book Claims Obama Mentored By Perverted, Drug Using Communist Frank Marshall Davis."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Meets Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi

Things are not going well.

See the New York Times, "As Clinton and Morsi Meet in Egypt, U.S. Voice Is Muted":

CAIRO — In the days before Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here on Saturday, becoming the highest-ranking American official to meet with Egypt’s newly elected Islamist president, she planned to deliver a forceful public speech about democracy.

But with the new president still struggling to wrest power from Egypt’s top generals, there were too many questions, too many pitfalls and too little new for Mrs. Clinton to offer, said several people briefed on the process. After rejecting at least three different drafts, the administration called off the speech days before its scheduled delivery, these people said.

The administration’s struggle to define a message here reflects its quandary with how to deal with a rapidly shifting contest for power whose outcome remains to be seen. Policy makers are struggling to balance a public push for a democratic Egypt against a desire to maintain long-term ties with both factions, the generals and the Islamists, in a context where almost any American statement is sure to provoke a backlash.

The generals have repeatedly rebuffed American pressure. The new president, Mohamed Morsi, and the other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood still harbor deep doubts about Washington’s agenda. Some of Egypt’s secular politicians are even accusing the United States, implausibly, of conspiring to back the Brotherhood. A secular political party and a Christian group have called for a protest outside the American Embassy against what they assert to be United States support for the Islamists.

All of which has lent what some American officials say is a sense of futility about Washington’s muffled voice in the future of a strategic ally.

“In some ways all the talk in Washington about what to do in Egypt is incredibly inefficient,” said Peter Mandaville, a political scientist at George Mason University who until recently advised the State Department on Islamist politics in the region. “At a time of virtually zero U.S. influence, we don’t need to waste so much time figuring out how to try to get the Egyptian people to like us.”

None of this is surprising.

Go back and read Caroline Glick's latest essay: "Obama's Spectacular Failure."

And see Barry Rubin as well, "Good News? Revolutionary Islamists Taking Power Produces Moderation and Ends Terrorism!"

How to Bag the Perfect Husband at College

At London's Daily Mail, "University of Georgia student writes step-by-step guide on how to bag the perfect husband."

One University of Georgia sophomore has written an insightful article outlining how female students ‘can attain the thing that is most essential in securing our futures.’

Amber Estes is not talking about getting an academic degree but securing a (Tiffany’s) ring on your finger.

In a easy step-by-step guide Estes sets out how to bag the perfect husband and warns girls to ‘stay classy’ as ‘a man won’t get down on one knee for a woman who is overly willing to get down on both of hers.’

Continue reading.

And check the responses at this comment board, "UGA student newspaper tells women how to find a husband." (And get ready for some college-level sexual vulgarity — or college-themed vulgarity, but your mileage may vary.)

Obama's Stench of Desperation

This Ed Morrissey piece is must-read, "Axelrod: “There’s this reign of terror going on in the Republican Party”." Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod slurs congressional Republicans as Jacobin terrorists, in an interview with the National Journal, and Morrissey responds:

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised to hear this kind of rhetoric from the flailing and failing Obama campaign....

The actual “reign of terror,” for the sake of those as historically illiterate as Axelrod, took place during the French Revolution, when it turned bloody.  The revolutionaries became as despotic as the monarchy they deposed, executing thousands for dissent and purported betrayal of the revolution. It’s actually the opposite of what Republicans are doing in Congress by opposing Obama’s agenda and attempting to push forward their own. That’s as ignorant an analogy as one might see in American politics.

And here's this new Obama attack ad, dripping with desperation, via Politico and Memeorandum:

Desperate. Very desperate.

RELATED: From Instapundit, "ARE “BAINERS” the new “birthers?”"

Added: More from Twitchy, "New low: Obama bemoans negativity, releases ad mocking Romney’s patriotism."

Bonnie and Clyde Guns Expected to Fetch $200,000 Each at Auction

Fascinating.

At Telegraph UK:

Two guns recovered from the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde, the notorious gangster couple, are expected to fetch $200,000 each at auction in September.

The weapons were found on the outlaw lovers after they were gunned down in an ambush by Texas Rangers in 1934.

The Colt .38 revolver was taped to the inner thigh of Bonnie Parker and the Colt .45 pistol was tucked into the waistband of Clyde Barrow.

The guns will go under the hammer on Sept 30 at RR Auction in Amherst, New Hampshire, along with personal effects including Barrow's gold watch, a letter from his brother and Parker's cosmetics case.

Bobby Livingston, RR Auction's vice president, predicted that each gun would raise between $100,000 and $200,000.

"This is one of the finest Bonnie and Clyde collections you will ever see," he told CNN. "We expect the guns should sell anywhere between $100,000 and $200,000. But really the sky is the limit for these types of guns."

'Chariots of Fire' Remastered in Time for London Olympics

An amazing story.

I saw "Chariots of Fire" in Mexico City in 1982. Funny, but it was subtitled in Spanish, which I didn't need, obviously.

At Sky News, "Chariots of Fire Premiered For Re-Released." And at the Daily Mail, "Three decades on and they're still racing down the red carpet! Chariots of Fire stars turn out to celebrate re-release of the 1981 Olympics classic."

And at Telegraph UK, "Chariots of Fire, review":

If the London Olympics inspired the re-release of this lovingly remastered version of a soul-nourishing British classic, they've already been worthwhile. Chariots of Fire covers arduous ground — faith, conviction and history (both the making of it and the living up to it) — but it does so with the same courage and sincerity that drives the two young men at its heart.

They are, of course, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, respectively the Scottish evangelical Christian and Cambridge-educated Jew who ran for Great Britain, among other causes, at the 1924 Olympics.

Much has been written about the two extraordinary lead performances, and Ian Charleson and Ben Cross certainly fit the roles as snugly as Lycra does muscle. But director Hugh Hudson and writer Colin Welland invest just as much in the lightly sketched characters on the film’s periphery: I love Patrick Magee’s portrayal of Lord Cadogan, a cabbagey peer of the realm, and Dennis Christopher’s Charles Paddock, an American runner of almost extraterrestrial lissomness.

The opening beach run, set in Broadstairs but filmed in St Andrews – and soundtracked with that anachronistic yet curiously fitting electronic score by Vangelis – has become iconic; but for me the film’s finest sequence is the 100-metre sprint final in Paris.

Keep reading.

Syrian Jihadists Accidentally Blow Themselves Up

At Weasel Zippers, "Encore: Syrian Jihadists Blow Themselves Up While Praising Suicide Bomber…":

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Knew of False LIBOR Reporting in 2008

The New York Times reports, "New York Fed Was Aware of False Reporting on Rates."

Geithner was chair of the New York Fed in 2008. See the Wall Street Journal, "Geithner Wrote Libor Memo to UK in 2008" (via Google):

WASHINGTON—Timothy Geithner in 2008 sent a private memo to Bank of England Governor Mervyn King calling for six changes that he said would improve the credibility and integrity of the London interbank offered rate, a key interest rate that is now at the center of a international banking scandal, according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

At the time the memo was sent, Mr. Geithner was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the financial industry was about to enter one of the darkest periods of the financial crisis. Mr. Geithner is now U.S. Treasury ...

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has faced scrutiny in recent days after revelations that it had discussions in 2007 and 2008 with Barclays about the issue.

U.S. lawmakers in recent days have stepped up pressure on Mr. Geithner and the New York Fed for details of what they might have known regarding rate fixing in 2007 and 2008 and why more wasn't done to intervene. Both men are expected to be grilled on the subject at hearings later this month.

Twelve Senate Democrats on Thursday called on the Justice Department and federal banking regulators to pursue a widespread civil and criminal probe against bankers who might have unlawfully manipulated Libor.

The group of Democrats, including Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Carl Levin of Michigan, also asked the Justice Department to look into "allegations that U.S. and foreign bank regulators may have been aware of this wrongdoing for years."

They said "regulators who were involved should be held to account for any failures to stop wrongdoing that they knew, or should have known about."

The senators don't allege any wrongdoing by Mr. Geithner in their letters, but they call on the Justice Department to scrutinize the actions of regulators at the time.

No wrongdoing, eh?

Well, check Charles Gasparino at the New York Post, "What did Tim know? Geithner’s Libor labors":

The latest development in the Libor-manipulation scandal is that the banks weren’t really fixing the price of the key interest rate in total secret — US regulators were aware of the sleazy activities at the time, and seemed to have done nothing. Which should surprise no one.

I can’t tell you how much federal officials knew about the activities of Barclay’s, JPMorgan, Citigroup and the other big banks at the center of the maelstrom. In coming weeks, both Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will inevitably discuss the mess when they appear before Congress....

Long before President Obama tapped him for Treasury, Geithner was one of those bureaucrats. He worked at the Clinton Treasury, the IMF and then as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank for five years — where he played a key role in the bailouts and the rest of the government’s response to the financial crisis.

The New York Fed has two main functions: It handles the transactions whereby the overall Federal Reserve controls the nation’s money supply, and it’s supposed to be the chief regulator of the big banks in its region.

When Obama named him for Treasury, the banking industry hailed Geithner as a godsend. Shares shot up on his announcement, and CEOs called it a wise choice for a key job at a time of crisis.

But the dirty little secret on Wall Street is that the New York Fed is a horrible regulator: It sees its chief job as keeping the banking system intact. Since it needs its member banks to buy US government debt and to control the money supply, the last thing it wants to do is shed light on the banks’ shady practices.

Which is why the Wall Street power brokers loved Geithner so much: On his New York Fed watch, he basically let them get away with the financial equivalent of murder, letting them take on the astronomical amounts of risk that ultimately blew up the system in 2008.

And then, when they needed a bailout, he was there with a plan that made sure their banks and jobs were safe.

That’s why I’m saying Geithner is such an important witness as the Libor investigation expands to include the possibility that banking-industry cops like himself looked the other way.

Photo Credit: Treasury Secretary designee Tim Geithner meets Democrat Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus on November 25, 2008, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Long Road to the San Bernardino Bankruptcy

At the Los Angeles Times, "Plenty of blame on long road to San Bernardino bankruptcy":

Cash was so tight in San Bernardino that potholes went unfilled, burned-out streetlights were left untouched and ball fields languished unmowed.

That was two years ago, when the City Council learned that San Bernardino's $22-million budget shortfall would jump to $38 million by 2012, sending the city into financial ruin.

City leaders slashed the workforce, extracted temporary concessions from labor unions and auctioned off public land. But they failed to heed warnings that those steps weren't nearly enough to address endemic problems in the Inland Empire city. Instead, calls for swift, dramatic action — such as raising taxes or outsourcing the police and fire protection — fell victim to a noxious political atmosphere that has paralyzed City Hall throughout the economic crisis, according to interviews with past and present city officials.

"I told the council two years in a row that, if this continues, we're going to be looking at bankruptcy. I got criticized for bringing up the word 'bankruptcy.' They called it scare tactics," said former City Manager Charles McNeely, who resigned unexpectedly in May. "The politics of that place are just impossible to deal with."

McNeely wasn't surprised when the council, facing a $45.8-million budget shortfall in the current fiscal year, voted Tuesday night to seek bankruptcy protection, the third California city to do so in the last month. San Bernardino is broke, without even enough money to pay employees through the summer.

The financial turmoil in San Bernardino, while in many ways a product of its own politics, illustrates the devastating effect the economic downturn has had on cities and the basic everyday services they provide, Palmdale City Manager David Childs said.

Also at the Christian Science Monitor, "San Bernardino bankruptcy: Exacerbated by criminal acts?"

In Florida With Miranda Kerr for Victoria's Secret Cotton Lingerie Summer 2012

On location:

Also, at London's Daily Mail, "Lifting the summer spirit: Miranda Kerr sizzles as she debuts latest Victoria's Secret Cotton Lingerie range in sensual video."

Gustav Klimt Google Doodle

I recognized the artwork immediately. The L.A. County Museum of Art held a Klimpt exhibit back in 2006. The museum hoped to make Klimpt a permanent exhibit but it was impossible, considering how much the works got at auction. I especially like the main portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. See: "Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait."

The doodle's discussed at the Guardian UK: "Gustav Klimt honoured with Google Doodle."

See also Deutsche Welle, "Klimt was sexy, but authentic."

IMAGE CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons.

BONUS: There's even a book on this story, The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

The 25 Most Influential Women in Washington

Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers makes the cut.

See: "25 Most Influential Women in Washington - PICTURES," and "NJ’s Most Influential Women."

And the full feature is here: "Women in Washington."

Letterman Spoils 'Dark Knight Rises'

Ouch!

Really! Don't click the video if you don't want the spoiler - it's awful!

At London's Daily Mail, "Did David Letterman spoil end of The Dark Knight Rises during interview with Anne Hathaway?"

Just When You Thought the Left Hit Rock-Bottom: Progressive Hate-Blogger Sets up 'Dead Andrew' Twitter Account, Mocks #BrettKimberlin Targets

Really.

Keeping an eye on the "festering human pustules" of the left.

See Twitchy: "Vile lefty sets up @DeadAndrew Twitter account, mocks Kimberlin target."

Flashback: "Will People STFU About How Brett Kimberlin Affair is 'Non-Partisan'? This is an Epic Partisan Battle Over How 'Free Speech' Will Be Defined."

I'm still waiting for all the examples that this was all about freedom of speech, a supposedly politically neutral issues that both left and right could agree on ... blah, blah, blah.

Snooze...

20 Arrested As Mostly Peaceful Occupy LA Losers Protest for the Right to Use Chalk on Sidewalks

I snagged the headline from Jammie Wearing Fools.

And see Weasel Zippers, "Occupy LA Protesters Throw Rocks and Bottles at Police Officers After Being Told They Could Not Draw On the Sidewalk With Chalk…"

Losers:

U.S. Olympic Uniforms: Made in China by Democratic Donor's Company

A report from Washington Free Beacon (via Memeorandum):

Lawmakers were livid to discover that the United States’ Olympic team uniforms were made in China. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) even suggested “they should take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them and start all over again.”

The company who designed the uniforms, Ralph Lauren, has received less scrutiny. Few outlets have noted that Ralph Lauren himself is a prominent contributor to President Obama and the Democratic Party.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lauren has given $7,300 to Obama since 2008, and more than $35,000 to the Democratic National Committee.

And from Glenn Reynolds, "OUTSOURCING: Lawmakers are angry that the US Olympic Team uniforms are made in China, but to me the real issue is that they’re terrible. They look like something from an SNL skit about America becoming a gay military dictatorship."

Diamond Jubilee!

Psychology Isn't Science

Just plug in "political science" for "psychology" at the piece, and Alex Berezow might as well be explaining some of the philosophical debates my field. See, "Why psychology isn't science":

The dismissive attitude scientists have toward psychologists isn't rooted in snobbery; it's rooted in intellectual frustration. It's rooted in the failure of psychologists to acknowledge that they don't have the same claim on secular truth that the hard sciences do. It's rooted in the tired exasperation that scientists feel when non-scientists try to pretend they are scientists.

That's right. Psychology isn't science.

Why can we definitively say that? Because psychology often does not meet the five basic requirements for a field to be considered scientifically rigorous: clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled experimental conditions, reproducibility and, finally, predictability and testability.

RELATED: Interestingly, this piece, "Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment," an example of experimental political science, provided the background to some really ugly  left-wing intimidation during the Wisconsin recall. See Althouse, "'We have seen the power of a single mailer disclosing the voting behavior of oneself and one’s neighbors'," and "'We're sending this mailing to you and your neighbors to publicize who does and does not vote'."

Royal International Air Tattoo 2012 in Slow Motion

Via Theo Spark:

Obama's Spectacular Failure

From Caroline Glick:

Two weeks ago, in an unofficial inauguration ceremony at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi took off his mask of moderation. Before a crowd of scores of thousands, Mursi pledged to work for the release from US federal prison of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman.

According to The New York Times' account of his speech, Mursi said, "I see signs [being held by members of the crowd] for Omar Abdel-Rahman and detainees' pictures. It is my duty and I will make all efforts to have them free, including Omar Abdel-Rahman."

Otherwise known as the blind sheikh, Abdel Rahman was the mastermind of the jihadist cell in New Jersey that perpetrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His cell also murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York in 1990. They plotted the assassination of then-president Hosni Mubarak. They intended to bomb New York landmarks including the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the UN headquarters.

Rahman was the leader of Gama'a al-Islamia - the Islamic Group, responsible, among other things for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. A renowned Sunni religious authority, Rahman wrote the fatwa, or Islamic ruling, permitting Sadat's murder in retribution for his signing the peace treaty with Israel. The Islamic group is listed by the State Department as a specially designated terrorist organization.

After his conviction in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abdel-Rahman issued another fatwa calling for jihad against the US. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Osama bin Laden cited Abdel-Rahman's fatwa as the religious justification for them.

By calling for Abdel-Rahman's release, Mursi has aligned himself and his government with the US's worst enemies. By calling for Abdel-Rahman's release during his unofficial inauguration ceremony, Mursi signaled that he cares more about winning the acclaim of the most violent, America-hating jihadists in the world than with cultivating good relations with America.

And in response to Mursi's supreme act of unfriendliness, US President Barack Obama invited Mursi to visit him at the White House.

Continue reading.

Bastille Day 2012

It's the national holiday of France, today, remembering the launch of the French Revolution.

And see Ann Coulter, "On Bastille Day, Remember We Are Not French":

Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, the date our written demand for independence from Britain based on “Nature’s God” was released to the world.

The French celebrate Bastille Day, a day when a thousand armed Parisians stormed the Bastille, savagely murdered a half-dozen guards, defaced their corpses and stuck their heads on pikes – all in order to seize arms and gunpowder for more such tumults. It would be as if this country had a national holiday to celebrate the L.A. riots.

Among the most famous quotes from the American Revolution is Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Among the most famous slogans of the French Revolution is that of the Jacobin Club, “Fraternity or death,” recast by Nicolas-Sebastien de Chamfort, a satirist of the revolution, as “Be my brother or I’ll kill you.”

Our revolutionary symbol is the Liberty Bell, first rung to herald the opening of the new Continental Congress in the wake of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and rung again to summon the citizens of Philadelphia to a public reading of the just-adopted Declaration of Independence.

The symbol of the French Revolution is the “National Razor” – the guillotine.

Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, all died of natural causes in old age, with the exception of Button Gwinnett of Georgia, who was shot in a duel unrelated to the revolution.

Of all our Founding Fathers, only one other died of unnatural causes: Alexander Hamilton. He died in a duel with Aaron Burr because as a Christian, Hamilton deemed it a greater sin to kill another man than to be killed. Before the duel, in writing, Hamilton vowed not to shoot Burr.

President after president of the new American republic died peacefully at home for 75 years, right up until Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the French Revolution all died violently, guillotine by guillotine.

Romney Says Obama 'Absolutely' Owes Him an Apology for Bain Attacks

My goodness!

From CBS News, " Romney interview with CBS News: Full transcript ." (Via Memeorandum.)

What Happened to the 'Uniter'?

Via Theo Spark:

BONUS: Glenn Reynolds has a mini-roundup on the left's Bain attacks:

It doesn’t seem to me that Obama’s doing especially well, but judging by the flailing and desperation we’re seeing from his campaign, it must seem to them that he’s doing worse than I think.

The Left's Celebration of Nihilism

One of the biggest, longest knee-slappers of the progressive idiots at Lawyers, Gun and Money, and elsewhere, is their supposed superior "knowledge" of nihilism. The dolt "Malaclypse" especially loves to hammer the point about how "the dumb Donalde" doesn't even know what nihilism means! Doh! The problem? Well, the idiots themselves don't actually know what it means, can't describe or explain it, and only object to the term because it must apparently hit close to home, or something.

Anyway, I'm getting a kick out of Lawrence Auster's discussion of the topic, at View From the Right, "BENEATH LIBERALS’ SELF-CELEBRATION, THE DESPAIR OF NIHILISM." It's a response to comments, so click the link for the whole context, but this part is good:

...Mr. Hechtman makes a good point. But I should have made clear that when I speak of liberals’ despair, I do not mean that they are consciously, literally in despair. Of course, on the level of their conscious experience, they are full of themselves and their “wonderful” existence. They are soaring in an afflatus of triumph. They are in a state of ecstatic disbelief that Tony Blair’s pledge fifteen years ago to “sweep away those forces of conservatism” has come true, so fast and so thoroughly.

But just beneath their surface joy, there is ever-increasing disturbance. How do we know this? Consider the fact that the more power liberals enjoy over society, and the more conservatives surrender to the liberal agenda (e.g. on the issue of homosexuals in the military), the angrier the liberals become, the fuller of fear and loathing of conservatives they become, the more they feel that conservatives threaten them, and the more they want to silence, suppress, and punish conservatives.

What explains this ever-growing turbulence and hatred in the souls of liberals, at the very moment of their world-historic triumph? It is the fact that their entire existence is based on rebellion against the order of being, or, more simply, against God. As a result, the more power and fulfillment they have, the more they are divided from the order of being, and the more the tension within them grows. Therefore they feel increasingly threatened by—and are compulsively driven to crush—any remaining sign of the Truth which they have apparently defeated. In their minds, it is conservatives that symbolize belief in the hated God and the hated order of being. So it is conservatives (or rather the fantasy demonized image they have of conservatives) that the liberals must destroy.

If this explanation sounds implausible to you, ask yourself why, if liberals are so happy and victorious, they are becoming more fearful, hate-filled, and tyrannical, instead of enjoying and relaxing in their triumph?

Back at the post it goes on like that, and then Auster replies to one more commenter:

Also, to avoid misunderstanding, when I speak of nihilism, I do not use it in the conventional, incorrect sense of “not believing in anything.” There is no human being who does not believe in anything. If “not believing in anything” is the definition of nihilism, then there is no such thing as nihilism. No. Nihilism is the denial of objective moral truth. Our contemporary nihilists believe in and enjoy all kinds of things, but they don’t believe that there’s any objective moral truth backing up the things they believe in.

I'll bet good money that freak leftist B.J. Keefe would blow this off as some "Greater Wingnuttia" hysteria. See, for example:

I was not typing "Blargh" in response to your effort to twist the definition of nihilism to fit your own preconceived notions. It was in response to everything else.

Oh, and don't miss the rest of the commentary at Auster's.

BONUS: When called out in the past on the "meaning" of nihilism, I almost always link to the definition at Dictionary.com, especially "1. a complete denial of all established authority and institutions" and "3. a revolutionary doctrine of destruction for its own sake..." And some real life examples here.

EXTRA: "Navigating Past Nihilism."

Romney Surrogate John Sununu: 'Can You Imagine How Dumb This President Is?'

The Hill has the full clip, "Romney surrogate: ‘Can you imagine how dumb this president is?’" (Via Memeorandum.)

“Can you imagine how dumb this president is?,” the former New Hampshire governor asked Sean Hannity on Fox News on Thursday night. “Introducing the concept of felony into the discourse, when this president comes out of Chicago politics, where felony and politics are sometimes a synonym?”

Sununu said that Obama is the one who has ties to felons.

“This is a president whose next-door neighbor was Tony Rezko, and President Obama’s first big revenue were real estate deals that had odd coincidences in time and space with a felon, Tony Rezko,” he continued. “This is a president whose political training was jowl to cheek with politicians like convicted felons like [former Illinois Gov.] Rod Blagojevich, and this president is dumb enough to introduce the concept of felon into the discourse, with a guy as clean as Mitt Romney.”

More at Memeorandum.

Mitt Romney Had 'Absolutley No Involvement' in Bain Management After Departure in 1999

This whole Bain blow-up is looking pretty ridiculous for the despicable smear merchants of the radical left. See Big Journalism, "Two Obama Supporters Verify Romney Left Bain in 1999, Why Won't Politico's Dylan Byers?"

And CNN's John King spoke with Bain Managing Director Steve Pagliuca, who said that Mitt Romney "had absolutely no involvement with the management or investment activities of the firm or with any of its portfolio companies since the day of his departure."

See also Weasel Zippers, "WaPo Fact Checker Gives “Three Pinocchios” To Obama’s Claim Romney A Possible Felon, Says They Are “Blowing Smoke Here”…"

It's not a hard issue: "Mitt Romney Left Bain Capital in February 1999." But progressives have nothing else, so they smear and lie and call people libelous names. Those Obama apologies are in order.

Mont Blanc Avalanche Kills Nine

Telegraph UK reports, "Three Britons killed in French Alpine avalanche." And, "Climbers triggered Mont Blanc avalanche which killed three Britons."

Also at the Los Angeles Times, "French Alps avalanche kills 9 on Mont Blanc."

Penn State Hid Sex Abuse Crimes

At the Wall Street Journal, "Penn State Concealed Sex Abuse, Report Says":

A scathing report that excoriated top Pennsylvania State University officials, including legendary football coach Joe Paterno, for failing to protect boys from a sexual predator sent a warning to other universities about the need to fully disclose suspected crimes on campus.

The report, released Thursday by former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Louis Freeh, also highlights the risk colleges face when they attempt to protect their sports programs from controversy.

The 267-page report, commissioned by university trustees after allegations surfaced about abuse by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, said top Penn State officials, including former President Graham Spanier and the late Mr. Paterno, "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade."

The report indicated Penn State had a lax reporting system for crimes or suspected crimes, and thus failed to carry out its requirements under a federal law called the Clery Act, which mandates universities collect information about allegations and warn the campus community about threats. The report also said university officials made decisions designed to protect its revered and highly profitable football program.

RTWT.

Plus, at Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Crush the Paterno statue." And at the Scranton Times-Tribune, "Paterno knew and did nothing."

More at the Boston Herald, "Penn State football deserves two-year banishment."

New Kelly Brook Bikini Pics

At Egotastic, "Kelly Brook Bikini Pictures Deliver the Sweet Curves to the Boot."

And at London's Daily Mail, "That didn't take long: Kelly Brook cools down in the sea in a flirty and frilly swimsuit."

Mitt Romney Left Bain Capital in February 1999

It got pretty ugly yesterday while I was out in Beverly Hills.

The Obama campaign --- and practically the entire radical left commentariat --- took after Mitt Romney, with even top Obama spokewoman Stephanie Cutter calling the former Massachusetts governor a "felon."

The Wall Street Journal had this background last night, "Timing of Departure From Bain Capital Emerges as Point of Dispute" (via Google):

A controversy over Mitt Romney's ties to Bain Capital erupted anew Thursday, with news stories suggesting the Republican presidential candidate continued to play a management role at the private-equity firm well after he has said he had stepped down.

But federal officials said the apparent discrepancy—stemming from differences between campaign financial disclosures and regulatory documents—wasn't unusual. A top shareholder might be listed on Securities and Exchange Commission forms as an executive even if he has no role in day-to-day management, said the officials, who asked not to be named because they didn't want to be drawn into a political battle.

Harvey Pitt, a former SEC chairman, said agency guidelines required Bain Capital to list Mr. Romney as executive at that time because Mr. Romney still owned controlling shares. "He had to be shown on those filings until his ownership of Bain shares was severed," said Mr. Pitt, a Republican who headed the SEC from 2001 to 2003 and is not affiliated with the Romney campaign.

People close to Mr. Romney said the seeming contradictions between financial disclosures and SEC reports result from a misinterpretation of Mr. Romney's departure terms from Bain Capital. He took a leave of absence from the investment firm in 1999 to run the struggling Salt Lake City 2002 Olympics, and didn't sign his retirement contract until May 2001, when it became apparent he wouldn't return to the company, these people said.

Mr. Romney has stated in federal election disclosure reports that he left Bain Capital in February 1999. Several documents Bain Capital filed with the SEC list him as president, chairman or chief executive for Bain Capital-related entities through January 2002. A Boston Globe story Thursday cited those SEC reports, as did earlier stories by Mother Jones and the Talking Points Memo website.

The Romney campaign and Bain Capital said Thursday that the candidate made no management or investment decisions for the firm after February 1999. "Due to the sudden nature of Mr. Romney's departure, he remained the sole stockholder for a time while formal ownership was being documented and transferred to the group of partners who took over management of the firm in 1999. Accordingly, Mr. Romney was reported in various capacities on SEC filings during this period," Bain Capital said in a statement Thursday.

And here's the headline at Business Week, "Romney Kept Bain Ownership After Leaving in '99." And also at Fortune, "Documents: Romney didn't manage Bain funds" (via Memeorandum).

Team Romney demanded an apology, seen at Fox News, "Mitt Wants Apology for 'Felony' Claim." And see Weasel Zippers, "Romney Campaign Demands Apology From Obama Over “Felon” Comments — Update: Obama Camp Says They Will Not Apologize…"

And FWIW, here's the report at the New York Times, "Campaigns Trade Salvos Over a Romney Role at Bain After 1999."

We'll see how it goes today. I don't think Romney can afford to take the high ground; this is such an intense attack that the response can't be, er, outsourced to subordinates. Romney's got to go toe to toe with Obama on this. It's the only way.

More later.

Millions of Field Mice Overrun Central Germany

Here's a change of pace for you, at Der Spiegel, "Worst Plague in 30 Years: Field Mice Overrun Farms in Central Germany":

Millions of field mice are overrunning the central German states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, much to the concern of local farmers. The rodents are devastating food crops, cutting yields by up to 50 percent. Getting birds of prey to hunt the critters didn't help, and now farmers want to be allowed to use a banned rat poison.

Under normal circumstances, you might think the 12-centimeter (5-inch) long field mouse looks innocent, or even cute. But farmers in the central German states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt wouldn't agree at the moment. The furry rodents are currently wreaking havoc in the states, which are suffering the worst field mouse plague in over 30 years.

Farmers in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt are complaining that millions of field mice are devastating their food crops, including corn, barley and winter wheat. "They are eating everything," said Matthias Krieg, who manages an agricultural firm near the town of Zeitz in Saxony-Anhalt. "Not even the sugar beets are safe." Farmers estimate that they may have to write off an average of 10 percent of their crops as a result of mouse damage, and up to 50 percent in extreme cases.

Farmers already noticed an increase in the field mouse population in 2011 and began to take counter measures. According to Reinhard Kopp, a spokesman for the Thuringian Farmers' Association, agriculturalists set up hundreds of perches in their fields to lure birds of prey to kill the mice. But the operation was only moderately successful. "The birds got so fat from eating all the mice that they almost couldn't fly any more," Kopp said. "But they still couldn't keep up."

Farmers in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt say that other measures used to control pests -- such as placing poisoned bait at the entrances to their underground nests -- will not be sufficient either: The crops are now too tall to allow farmers to locate the nests.

Continue reading.

Monica Crowley at the Wednesday Morning Club of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Beverly Hills, July 12, 2012

My apologies on the picture quality. I've been having problems with my camera, especially with the aperture and shutter speed settings, and the manual vs. automatic features. I'll work on that (maybe even junk this camera for a new one). I guess these are a lot better than nothing.

In any case, the talk was very straightforward. Dr. Crowley spoke for about 30 minutes or so, staying close to the material in her new book, What the (Bleep) Just Happened?: The Happy Warrior's Guide to the Great American Comeback. I've still got a couple of chapters to read, but the book offers a devastating critique of Barack Obama and the progressive left's assault on America since January 20, 2009. Dr. Crowley offers a wealth of detail in the book, including an almost encyclopedic recap of the president's past statements and current hypocrisies. Her theme is upbeat, though, positing that the road to American renewal lies in the cheerful restoration of American exceptionalism and optimism --- the fight of "The Happy Warrior," as Dr. Crowley likes to call it. And she models that happiness in person, and throws in a lot of good humor as well. In concluding her talk, Dr. Crowley indicated three key elements of renewal: (1) Throw the progressive bums out, especially Barack Obama, who can't be allowed a second term, lest he have the chance to finish the destruction that he started; (2) after kicking out the Obama redistributionists, we need to propose a set of commonsense policies designed restore economic prosperity (in all its facets, including healthcare, deregulation, etc.); and (3) Americans need an "attitudinal" adjustment, a vigorous (and optimistic) reassertion of the core values and beliefs that have fostered our prosperity. What Obama has been able to do is legitimize hardcore anti-Americanism by packaging old-left America-hatred in a spiffy 21st century wrapper. Through stealth and trickery, the left has fobbed off European-style dependency and decline. But take heed: success in combating the Obama legacy won't come overnight, because the left "never sleeps." We have to push back twice as hard in a multi-front war, political, economic, cultural, and international. It's going to happen, but it'll take time.

Dr. Crowley took a few questions and then the audience adjourned to the book signing in the foyer. It was an excellent event all around.

Monica Crowley: 'What the Bleep Just Happened?"

I'm heading out now to hear Monica Crowley speak to the Wednesday Morning Club of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. Jamie Glazov has the background, "Monica Crowley Speaking in Los Angeles, July 12, 2012."

I didn't know, but Crowley holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Columbia University, and was a personal assistant to former President Richard Nixon from 1990 until his death in 1994. She's discusses some of the things she learned from Nixon at this interview with Sean Hannity at the clip.

I'll have an update on the event tonight.

And get the book: What the (Bleep) Just Happened?: The Happy Warrior's Guide to the Great American Comeback.

Mitt Fights Back

The left has just begun to smear, but after a good start on responding to the despicable left-wing character assassination machine, Mitt Romney started to fall down on the job.

Here's this from the New York Times, "Conservatives Push Romney to Deliver Counterpunch":

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney and his team of advisers built a reputation during the Republican primaries as tough street fighters skilled in the tactics of political warfare. They quietly took pride in tearing apart Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and the rest of their rivals.

The aggressive posture ultimately became one of Mr. Romney’s selling points, particularly among conservative voters who were searching for the candidate tenacious enough to take out President Obama in the general election.

But now, even with polls suggesting he is battling Mr. Obama to a draw at this stage of the race, Mr. Romney finds himself confronting concern that he is not nimble and aggressive enough to withstand the Democratic assault against him.

The president and his re-election campaign have managed to turn the focus of the race in recent days to taxes, outsourcing jobs and Mr. Romney’s bank accounts — almost everything except the weak job-creation figures released last week.

That has stirred worries among some Republicans that Mr. Romney is allowing himself to be defined by the Obama forces and that he lacks the kind of powerful counterpunch the base of the Republican Party is craving.

Now deep into his second run for the White House, Mr. Romney has shown consistent discipline, sticking doggedly to his strategy of making the election about Mr. Obama’s stewardship of the economy and for the most part avoiding being baited into traps set for him by rivals.

“If you’re responding, you’re losing,” Mr. Romney told Fox News on Wednesday, his voice betraying no air of concern.

But the latest Democratic offensive has become so intense that the Romney campaign will start a new wave of television commercials on Thursday, aides said. In a rapid-fire era of presidential politics, when candidates have the ability to respond at a moment’s notice, the restraint of the Romney campaign over the last two weeks has opened a round of second-guessing about his insistent focus on the economy...

Good. Here's the website, MittRomney.com/truth.

And from Daniel Halper, at the Weekly Standard, "New Romney Ad Calls Obama Liar, Dishonest."

Excellent. The key now is not to let up. Forget that line about how responding is for losers, or whatever. A winner will have a vicious rapid-reaction team that hits back twice as hard. Leftists are f-king liars and thugs, and Obama is king of 'em all. Take 'em out.

Mitt Romney's Speech to the NAACP

Pundette has this, "Romney's NAACP speech":

That Mitt Romney got booed yesterday during his speech to the NAACP shouldn't come as news to anyone. The surprising part, for me, is that he didn't pander to his audience or soften his message, but instead uttered an inconvenient truth: that President Obama's policies have made things worse for black Americans "in almost every way." The speech strikes me as a sincere appeal for black votes, as well as an appeal to conservatives like me...

And me too. It's a good speech. And Romney was right to go before the NAACP with a message of traditional values.

RELATED: From Dan Riehl, "Tommy Christopher, Rachel Maddow Expose Their Racism In Misguided Romney Attack" (via Memeorandum).

The Total Hypocrisy of the Obama Administration

Here's Michelle Malkin on Hannity's last night:

PREVIOUSLY: "Barack Obama's Tax Shelters."

Freedom to Blog Update July 12, 2012

Alex Pareene published a ridiculously slimy account of the Brett Kimberlin controversy Tuesday, "Brett Kimberlin versus right-wing bloggers." Pareene is perhaps the prototypical progressive Internet sleezeball. A former blogger at Gawker/Wonkette, he's famous for attacking Michelle Malkin with crude Asian whore ping-pong ball slurs. Patterico has the epic smackdown, "Salon Does Damage Control for Brett Kimberlin":

Pareene describes Kimberlin’s victim’s as people who “receive a great deal of joy from pretending to be the victims of unprovoked and terrible persecution.” Ask Aaron Walker how much joy he received when he and his wife lost their jobs, he was arrested, and spent money defending against frivolous actions from Kimberlin. It was not “joy” I experienced when Kimberlin’s site published photos of my house and my address; when he filed a state bar complaint against me; when he attempted to file frivolous criminal charges against me with the California Attorney General and the stalking unit of my office; or when he complained to my office numerous times about me.

And so on and so forth.

Pareene mentions Kimberlin’s main defense to the bombings — that some of the witnesses were hypnotized — without mentioning the damning evidence against him, such as his possession of timers and explosive materials consistent with those used in the bombings. Nowhere is there a mention of the wrongful death judgment obtained by Carl DeLong’s widow, or the fact that Kimberlin refused to pay it while collecting over a million dollars from the Tides Foundation, Barbra Streisand, and other liberal marks.

There is so much more I could talk about, but I have to get to work.

This piece pretends to be journalism, but it isn’t. It’s cover to Brett Kimberlin, pure and simple. Pareene repeats Kimberlin’s allegations and doesn’t bother to talk to any of his victims.

It’s Gawker-style “journalism,” at Salon.

Pareene interviewed Brett Kimbelin, but not one of the conservatives who claim intimidation by the Kimberlin network. Robert Stacy McCain has more, "East Coast Opium Kingpin Alex Pareene Writes About ‘Standard-Issue Right-Wing Character Assassination’ of Kimberlin."

Plus, Bob Belvedere has an update on the saga, "The #BrettKimberlin Report D+46: Alex Pareene – Amateur."

And Pareene's laughing about it on Twitter, "Liberal bloggers make jokes about SWAT-ting."

I'm still amazed at those arguing that the Kimberlin story isn't partisan. Once again, there are a couple of progressives who see this as a First Amendment fight, but most on the left have blown this off as some conspiracy cooked up by the crazed conservatives on Twitter.

In any case, back over at the source of this, see Aaron Worthing, "Exclusive: The State’s Attorney Has Given Brett Kimberlin a License to Perjure Himself and He Used it in Kimberlin v. Norton."

I've spoken to my attorney and I'll be updating on Scott Eric Kaufman's campaign of workplace harassment and intimidation.

Luke Bryan Apologizes for Reading Words to National Anthem at All Star Game

I've never seen anyone read the lyrics off their wrist, but this guy did, and it was too obvious.

ABC News reports, "Singer Luke Bryan Apologizes for National Anthem Controversy."

And London's Daily Mail has the video, "Did country singer check his hand for National Anthem lyrics during All-Star Game?"

Michelle Fields and Sandra Smith Discuss New American Crossroads Ad 'War On Women' on Hannity's

It's a powerful ad.

Mitt Romney and the New Gilded Age — Really!

I was writing tongue in cheek when I snarked about how "this year the left is so utterly bankrupt that all they can do is hit Republicans as vicious, undeserving throwbacks to the (so-called) economic obscenities of the Gilded Age."

But it's true!

See #OWS cheerleader and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, at the Nation, "Mitt Romney and the New Gilded Age":

The election of 2012 raises two perplexing questions. The first is how the GOP could put up someone for president who so brazenly epitomizes the excesses of casino capitalism that have nearly destroyed the economy and overwhelmed our democracy. The second is why the Democrats have failed to point this out.

he White House has criticized Mitt Romney for his years at the helm of Bain Capital, pointing to a deal that led to the bankruptcy of GS Technologies, a Bain investment in Kansas City that went belly up in 2001 at the cost of 750 jobs. But the White House hasn’t connected Romney’s Bain to the larger scourge of casino capitalism. Not surprisingly, its criticism has quickly degenerated into a “he said, she said” feud over what proportion of the companies that Bain bought and loaded up with debt subsequently went broke (it’s about 20 percent), and how many people lost their jobs relative to how many jobs were added because of Bain’s financial maneuvers (that depends on when you start and stop the clock). And it has invited a Republican countercharge that the administration gambled away taxpayer money on its own bad bet, the Solyndra solar panel company.

But the real issue here isn’t Bain’s betting record. It’s that Romney’s Bain is part of the same system as Jamie Dimon’s JPMorgan Chase, Jon Corzine’s MF Global and Lloyd Blankfein’s Goldman Sachs—a system that has turned much of the economy into a betting parlor that nearly imploded in 2008, destroying millions of jobs and devastating household incomes. The winners in this system are top Wall Street executives and traders, private-equity managers and hedge-fund moguls, 
and the losers are most of the rest of us. The system is largely responsible for the greatest concentration of the nation’s income and wealth at the very top since the Gilded Age of the nineteenth century, with the richest 400 Americans owning as much as the bottom 150 million put together. And these multimillionaires and billionaires are now actively buying the 2012 election—and with it, American democracy.

The biggest players in this system have, like Romney, made their profits placing big bets with other people’s money. If the bets go well, the players make out like bandits. If they go badly, the burden lands on average workers and taxpayers. The 750 peo-
ple at GS Technologies who lost their jobs thanks to a bad deal engineered by Romney’s Bain were a small foreshadowing of the 15 million who lost jobs after the cumulative dealmaking 
of the entire financial sector pushed the whole economy off a cliff. And relative to the cost to taxpayers of bailing out Wall Street, Solyndra is a rounding error.

Connect the dots of casino capitalism, and you get Mitt Romney. The fortunes raked in by financial dealmakers depend on special goodies baked into the tax code such as “carried interest,” which allows Romney and other partners in private-equity firms (as well as in many venture-capital and hedge funds) to treat their incomes as capital gains taxed at a maximum of
15 percent. This is how Romney managed to pay an average of 14 percent on more than $42 million of combined income in 2010 and 2011. But the carried-interest loophole makes no economic sense. Conservatives try to justify the tax code’s generous preference for capital gains as a reward to risk-takers—but Romney and other private-equity partners risk little, if any, of their personal wealth. They mostly bet with other investors’ money, including the pension savings of average working people.

Another goodie allows private-equity partners to sock away almost any amount of their earnings into a tax-deferred IRA, while the rest of us are limited to a few thousand dollars a year. The partners can merely low-ball the value of whatever portion of their investment partnership they put away—even valuing it at zero—because the tax code considers a partnership interest to have value only in the future. This explains how Romney’s IRA is worth as much as $101 million. The tax code further subsidizes private equity and much of the rest of the financial sector by making interest on debt tax-deductible, while taxing profits and dividends. This creates huge incentives for financiers to find ways of substituting debt for equity and is a major reason America’s biggest banks have leveraged America to the hilt. It’s also why Romney’s Bain and other private-equity partnerships have done the same to the companies they buy.

These maneuvers shift all the economic risk to debtors, who sometimes can’t repay what they owe. That’s rarely a problem for the financiers who engineer the deals; they’re sufficiently diversified to withstand some losses, or they’ve already taken their profits and moved on. But piles of debt play havoc with the lives of real people in the real economy when the companies they work for can’t meet their payments, or the banks they rely on stop lending money, or the contractors they depend on go broke—often with the result that they can’t meet their own debt payments and lose their homes, cars and savings.

It took more than a decade for America to recover from the Great Crash of 1929 after the financial sector had gorged itself on debt, and it’s taking years to recover from the more limited but still terrible crash of 2008. The same kinds of convulsions have occurred on a smaller scale at a host of companies since the go-go years of the 1980s, when private-equity firms like Bain began doing leveraged buyouts—taking over a target company, loading it up with debt, using the tax deduction that comes with the debt to boost the target company’s profits, cutting payrolls and then reselling the company at a higher price.

Sometimes these maneuvers work, sometimes they end in disaster; but they always generate giant rewards for the dealmakers while shifting the risk to workers and taxpayers. In 1988 drugstore chain Revco went under when it couldn’t meet its debt payments on a $1.6 billion leveraged buyout engineered by Salomon Brothers. In 1989 the private-equity firm of Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts completed the notorious and ultimately disastrous buyout of RJR Nabisco for $31 billion, much of it in high-yield (“junk”) bonds. In 1993 Bain Capital became a majority shareholder in GS Technologies and loaded it with debt. In 2001 it went down when it couldn’t meet payments on that debt load. But even as these firms sank, Bain and the other dealmakers continued to collect lucrative fees—transaction fees, advisory fees, management fees—sucking the companies dry until the bitter end. According to a review by the New York Times of firms that went bankrupt on Romney’s watch, Bain structured the deals so that its executives would always win, even if employees, creditors and Bain’s own investors lost out. That’s been Big Finance’s MO.

By the time Romney co-founded Bain Capital in 1984, financial wheeling and dealing was the most lucrative part of the economy, sucking into its Gordon Gekko–like maw the brightest and most ambitious MBAs, who wanted nothing more than to make huge amounts of money as quickly as possible. Between the mid-1980s and 2007, financial-sector earnings made up two-thirds of all the growth in incomes. At the same time, wages for most Americans stagnated as employers, under mounting pressure from Wall Street and private-equity firms like Bain, slashed payrolls and shipped jobs overseas.

The 2008 crash only briefly interrupted the bonanza. Last year, according to a recent Bloomberg Markets analysis, America’s top fifty financial CEOs got a 20.4 percent pay hike, even as the wages of most Americans continued to drop. Topping the Bloomberg list were two of the same private-equity barons who did the RJR Nabisco deal a quarter-century ago—Henry Kravis and George Roberts, who took home $30 million each. According to the 2011 tax records he released, Romney was not far behind.

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We’ve entered a new Gilded Age, of which Mitt Romney is the perfect reflection...

I expect we'll be hearing a lot more of this "Gilded Age" bullshit.

Must-See TV: Romney Adviser John Sununu Schools MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Outsourcing

"You're struggling, Andrea, you're struggling."

PREVIOUSLY: "Barack Obama's Tax Shelters."

VIDEO: Ohio Freight Train Derails

Gnarly.

See the background report at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, "Ohio freight train derails, causing fiery blast."

The Obama Administration's Growing Welfare Dependency Regime

From Tuesday night on the O'Reilly Factor: