Sandra Fluke Outed As Complete Tool of Corrupt Democrat Party Infanticide Industry

I shake my head at these people, the scum of the earth.

It turns out that Sandra Fluke was in Tampa, making the political rounds, accompanied by party big-wigs like Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Rockin' conservative Dana Loesch tried to track her down and get a commitment for a woman-to-woman debate on women's issues. So far Dana hasn't heard back. And recall Fluke's scheduled for a big speech at the Democrat convention next week:

I’m told by a few that Fluke’s public remarks are heavily orchestrated, thus the reason she dodged open discussion at #RNC2012 w dissenters.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) September 1, 2012

And the Daily Caller has a write-up on this, "Sandra Fluke chickening out on women’s issues debate with Breitbart’s Dana Loesch?":

Loesch isn’t surprised that Fluke has not agreed to a debate.

“If Sandra Fluke is going to come here and talk about women’s issues, then why not talk to actual conservative women about women’s issues?” Loesch told The Daily Caller. “I mean, that’s the whole point. You can’t just come here and hold a press conference and not take any questions. You can’t just go on MSNBC and say whatever you want. Is she an advocate or propagandist? Which one is she? If she’s an advocate, she’s completely willing to have a discussion on the issues. Democrats don’t speak for women. They don’t speak for me. I would like to hear why she thinks she speaks for all women because she obviously does not.”

“She hasn’t shown any desire to listen to what conservative women have to say and why they’re happy with the Republican Party and why they are voting for Republicans,” Loesch continued. “She thinks that the Democrats have a patent on women’s issues? Here you have the Obama White House which has actual pay inequality and here you have the Obama White House which removed the sovereignty women have over their own body and then there’s this unelected board for Medicare that’s not regulated by HHS? Where is she on those issues if she’s such a women’s advocate.”

Because Fluke is “not willing to engage on the issues,” Loesch said that “signals to me that she’s not an advocate but she’s a propagandist.”

“I’m genuine,” Loesch said. “I want a genuine discussion. I don’t understand why Democrat women — when they claim to speak for all women — why they’re stopping this very important discussion.”

“Is she afraid to be challenged on the ideas?” Loesch added. “That’s what it signals to me is that she’s unwilling to actually engage in a conversation with real conservative women. Is it because she’s afraid and doesn’t have the strength of her own conviction? That says to me quite a lot. I’m willing to put it on the line, why isn’t she?”

Loesch said she thinks Fluke is nothing more than a creation made by President Barack Obama as part of an effort to push liberal politics. “I don’t know of any other ‘private citizen’ who is represented by the Knickerbocker PR firm in Washington, D.C., which happens to be run by Anita Dunn, Barack Obama’s former communications director,” Loesch said. “I don’t know any private citizen who just happens to have that affiliation. This was an entirely fabricated narrative from the Democrats and they needed a face to put on it and so Sandra Fluke was the face that they put on it. I want to know if she’s woman enough to come talk to me.”

Fluke has not responded to a request for comment from The Daily Caller about Loesch’s challenge either.

Sandra Fluke is a kept woman. Her entire public charade has been a top Democrat Party political production. Sure, it's propaganda. But at base Fluke can't talk to Dana Loesch because she --- just like any other ethically bankrupt pro-abort progressive --- can't defend the left's moral abomination of the abortion holocaust industry. It's as simple as that. The left is not about "choice." They are about killing the innocent. It's the biggest stain on America since the Jim Crow segregation. But that we overcame. Where we had once reached a high point of moral decency in working to desegregate and guarantee equal justice for all, the left has spent four decades expanding the immoral atrocity of abortion, with today's Democrat Party platform abandoning it's not-so-long-ago purported commitment to making baby-killing exceedingly rare. Now no one even attempts to cover up left-wing infanticide. It's late-term abortions all the way, and nothing's going to stop me! My body. My choice. My dead baby.

I'm think I'm going to be sick.

Wife-Auditioning: Secret Scientology Ritual Picked Iranian-Born Beauty Nazanin Boniadi to Wed Tom Cruise Over Katie Holmes

I don't know if Scientology's weird so much as Tom Cruise is weird, but you gotta admit: Wife auditioning? That is a bit over the top.

At Vanity Fair, "Tom Cruise’s Scientology Marriages: The Secret Wife-Auditioning Process Before Katie Holmes, Revealed":

In the October issue, Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth reports that in 2004 Scientology embarked on a top-secret project headed by Shelly Miscavige, wife of Scientology chief David Miscavige, which involved finding a girlfriend for Tom Cruise. According to several sources, the organization devised an elaborate auditioning process in which actresses who were already Scientology members were called in, told they were auditioning for a new training film, and then asked a series of curious questions including: “What do you think of Tom Cruise?” Marc Headley, a Scientologist from age seven, who says he watched a number of the audition videotapes when he was head of Scientology’s in-house studio, tells Orth, “It’s not like you only have to please your husband—you have to toe the line for Scientology.” Both Nicole Kidman and Penélope Cruz ran afoul of Scientology and David Miscavige, according to another former Scientologist. “You can’t do anything to displease Scientology, because Tom Cruise will freak out,” Headley says. (Scientology representatives deny that any such search took place and have dismissed several of the story’s sources as disgruntled apostates. David Miscavige and Tom Cruise declined to be interviewed.)

According to Orth, Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born, London-raised actress and Scientologist, was selected and dated Cruise from November 2004 until January 2005. Initially she was told only that she had been selected for a very important mission. In a month-long preparation in October 2004, she was audited every day, a process in which she told a high-ranking Scientology official her innermost secrets and every detail of her sex life. Boniadi allegedly was told to lose her braces, her red highlights, and her boyfriend. According to a knowledgeable source, she was shown confidential auditing files of her boyfriend to expedite a breakup. (Scientology denies any misuse of confidential material.) The source says Boniadi signed a confidentiality agreement and was told that if she “messed up” in any way she would be declared a Suppressive Person (a pariah and enemy of Scientology).

Definitely bizarre.

There's more at that top link.

And also, "Scientology, Katie Holmes, and Tom Cruise: Who Is Nazanin Boniadi?"

BONUS: At London's Daily Mail, "Revealed: How Scientology officials 'auditioned dozens of women to marry Tom Cruise'... and Katie Holmes 'WASN'T their first choice'."

PHOTO CREDIT: Nazanin Boniadi, at the 2008 London premiere of "Iron Man," via Facebook.

Lauren Booth, 'Pro-Palestinian' Activist, Refuses Questions on the Hamas Charter

You know, responding to reasonable questions about the Hamas Charter's plan for the extermination of Israel is just crazy talk. Lauren Booth, sister-in-law to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and convert to Islam, has no time for anything like that.

Via Blazing Cat Fur, "Lauren Booth's Hate Speech":

Lauren Booth spoke at the Ar-Raham Mosque in Fontana, CA, 7/20/2012, and spewed so much hatred no one would believe it if it wasn't on film - Nobody from the Mosque was the least bit fazed or embarrassed.

Lauren Booth's hate speech lies were spread out among the Jews, Israelis, Americans, Christians, and Zionists. The Muslim Americans at the Mosque loved the message. Watch the video and come to your own conclusions."

Ice Picks Make Comeback As Weapon of Choice for New York City Gangsters

This is a fascinating piece, at the New York Times, "The Ice Pick Seems Antiquated, but It Still Shows Up on the Police Blotter":

The young man staggered down a city street as blood flowed from a puncture wound. The weapon used in the steely attack — an ice pick — was sticking out of his lower back.

The scene was reminiscent of an era in the 1930s and ’40s when members of a notorious Brooklyn murder syndicate left a trail of bodies riddled with ice-pick holes. This attack, however, was set in modern-day New York City, specifically, on Aug. 21, at 4:20 p.m. in the Norwood section of the Bronx.

While guns top the list of weapons used in violent assaults, every so often, a crime is committed with a weapon that is suggestive of a different era and seems mystifyingly out of place in the New York City of today.

One such weapon is the ice pick — often associated with the 1940 murder of the Russian Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky: He was killed with an ice pick’s cousin, an ice ax, while he was in exile in Mexico, by an assassin who, acting on the orders of Joseph Stalin, crept up behind Trotsky and slammed the ice ax into his skull.

“There is no prohibition right now against carrying an ice pick in New York City,” said City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., chairman of the Public Safety Committee, “which is interesting because I don’t know of any legitimate use for an ice pick.”

“I think the ice pick went the way of the milkman,” he added.

Not so. Plenty of hardware stores around the city still sell ice picks.

At NHS Hardware on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx, a worker, Jose Santana, strode toward the back of the store and grabbed a $3.89 model, whose wrapper said that it was of “professional quality” and “high carbon steel,” from a display of ice picks hanging from a peg.

“There are some weird people looking for this,” Mr. Santana said with a hint of a smile. “It’s weird, no?” ....

The ice pick never completely disappeared as an implement of crime, but it seems to have rebounded as one recently.

Late last year, a Bronx man, John Martinez, was dubbed the Ice-Pick Bandit by prosecutors and the news media after being caught and convicted of a series of robberies and burglaries. On separate occasions, Mr. Martinez brandished an ice pick and terrorized six women, stealing cash, jewelry and cellphones. In one case, Mr. Martinez threatened to stab a woman’s child if she did not hand over more cash.

The recent attack in the Bronx unfolded when an unidentified man, apparently lying in wait inside a parked car, ambushed two young men, ages 19 and 20, on the corner of East 208th Street and Perry Avenue. A witness described seeing one victim with the ice pick jutting out of his back.

The attacks were not fatal, though one victim was seriously injured. A police spokesman said the motive remained unknown and no arrests had been made.

Under the city’s consumer-protection and public-safety laws, it is illegal to sell a box cutter to anyone under 21. Retailers who break the law face a maximum $500 fine for each violation.

When asked whether the law also applied to ice picks, Mr. Vallone said it did not — and then got to thinking: Why not? The question prompted him to draw up a bill that would amend the law to include a ban on the sale of ice picks to anyone under 21. He said his committee would probably hold a public hearing on the proposal in the next several months.

“I would entertain expanding it further, banning all public possession, once we learn, during the hearing process, whether there are any legitimate uses in this day and age for an ice pick,” he said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

Mann Rosa, 32, who lives on Perry Avenue about a block from the scene of the recent attack, said ice picks were back in vogue among street gangs all across the city.

“The ice pick, from what I know, is the new thing,” Mr. Rosa said, noting how easy it was to buy and conceal. “It’s definitely the new wave.”

That's gotta be a gnarly way to go, like Trotsky, getting hammered in the back of the skull with an ice-axe.

Video Shows Taliban Militants With 'Severed Heads' in Pakistan

These are Pakistani Taliban.

At London's Daily Mail, "Horrific picture shows armed Taliban militants lording it over 12 decapitated heads of Pakistani 'soldiers'."

Watch it here: "Pakistani Taliban release video of severed heads" (via Bare Naked Islam).

More at Weasel Zippers, "Taliban Release Video Showing Severed Heads of 12 Pakistani Soldiers…"

And there's background at Long War Journal, "Pakistani Taliban 'chopped off the heads' of 7 Pakistani soldiers in South Waziristan."

PREVIOUSLY: "Taliban Release Video of 17 Beheaded Pakistani Soldiers."

Michelle Fields Out at 'Daily Caller'

I guess Tucker Carlson fired her for a "lack of productivity."

FishbowlDC reports, "Michelle Fields Out at The Daily Caller."

And it's appropriate that FishbowlDC's reporting, as those freaks have been jonesin' on Ms. Fields since she arrived in Washington: "FishBowlDC's Bizarre Obsession With Michelle Fields."

Michelle's on Facebook here and Twitter here.

She's young, beautiful and smart. We'll be hearing from Michelle for a long time to come.

BONUS: Reaganite Republican has a crush on her, "RED HOT Conservative Chicks- Daily Caller/Fox News' Michelle Fields!"

And the hat tip goes to The Other McCain, "Thank You, Everybody! (And Thank God)."

Paul Ryan Could Pave Romney Path to Victory

At IBD, "Could Paul Ryan Pave Romney's Path to Victory?":

Can a vice presidential candidate be the decisive factor in a presidential race?

Most analysts will tell you that no presidential contest has ever been decided by a vice presidential pick. But Paul Ryan is putting that record to the test.

Since picking Ryan, Mitt Romney's poll numbers have risen, the GOP has unified and Romney has added the dimension of entitlement reform to his campaign.

And the Obama campaign seems worried enough that it put out an Internet ad attacking Ryan almost exclusively.

History weighs against Ryan having a big effect. In 1988 Lloyd Bentsen, vice presidential candidate for Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, destroyed Republican George H.W. Bush's running mate, Dan Quayle, in one of the most lopsided debates ever. Yet Dukakis lost to Bush.

Some delegates still think Ryan's impact will be sizable.

"Ryan is a real, true asset to Romney," said Will Deschamps, a delegate and state chairman of Montana. "Watch how they react between themselves. They seem very comfortable together."

On Aug. 9, the day before Romney announced Ryan as his running mate, the Real Clear Politics average of national polls showed President Obama leading 48.4%-44%. Since then, his lead has shrunk to 46.8%-45.7%.

We can do this.

Continue reading.

Image Credit: The Looking Spoon.

Teenager Killed While Sticking Head Out of Roof Hatch on 'Sweet 16' Party Bus — Hit Head on Highway Underpass Near George Washington Bridge

I wonder if the kid was decapitated. It's bad all around, but to see the kid's lifeless body like that, headless ... that would be a life-scarring event for some of the kids on board, 65 in all, en route to a "Sweet 16" birthday party.

At the New York Times, "Teenager Dies After Sticking Head Through Bus Hatch and Striking Underpass."

Jason Biggs, 'American Pie' Star and Voice of Leonardo on Nickelodeon's 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles', Deletes Vile Sexual Assault Tweets Without Apology

This story's been going on for a few days, and folks have been sending their outraged responses to Nickelodeon on Twitter.

At Twitchy, "American Weasel: Jason Biggs quietly deletes vile tweets about Ann Romney and Janna Ryan."

Nickelodeon's Twitter feed is here.

More at Twitchy, "Pressure mounting for Nickelodeon to throw the pie at American idiot Jason Biggs."

Well, if he gets fired, perhaps he'll be able to find a job as a Democrat congressional or White House staffer.

Donny Ray Williams, Jr. — Ex-Obama Staffer Accused of Drugging and Sexually Assaulting Women

And let's just stipulate, okay: The dude's a big black mofo.

At London's Daily Mail, "Ex-Democrat staffer who briefly worked for Obama administration 'drugged, sexually assaulted and threatened women'."

And from Daniel Halper at Weekly Standard, "Former Dem. Hill Staffer and Obama Admin. Official Accused of Drugging and Sexually Assaulting Women."

The initial report is at the Washington Post and Memeorandum.

And Halper adds:

"And though the Washington Post story fails to mention it: The staffer has worked only for Democrats, including: Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Rep. Jan Schakowskay of Illinois, Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, and Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, among others."

Plus, Jammie snarks:

"Maybe Donny Ray Williams is available to speak at the DNC."

No doubt.

They're a bunch radical homosexual-enabling criminals as it is. Throw in a few Democrat congressional rapists and then folks will really be going to town.

MORE: At PJ Media, "Accused Democrat Sex Predator: ‘If it can be done on the Hill, I’ve done it’."

Ellen 'I Love Everybody…Except U Right-Wing Fuckin' Morons' Barkin: Clint Eastwood Wants to Kill President Obama

At Twitchy, "Ellen 'I Love Everybody…Except You Right-Wing Fuckin' Morons' Barkin: Clint Eastwood Wants to Kill President Obama."

Barking Ellen Barkin tweeted:

"Been unable 2 watch any RNC convention "speeches"...but did Clint Eastwood really make the slitting throat motion...meant for our POTUS???"

And then all the progressive douchebags yammer, "He did, he did. Call the Secret Service!"

And there's more: "Ellen Barkin: Is Twitchy defending Clint Eastwood’s ‘death threat’ against Obama?"

"Wow Is Twitchy defending Eastwood gesture..."as he revealed his secret disire to kill the POTUS" ? No violence/death threat there, right?"

Secret desire. Okay.

Ellen Barkin's a gasbag. What a progressive gay-enabling loser.

PREVIOUSLY: "Ryan Killed It, Romney Rocked It, and Clint Eastwood Hammered the Living Shit Out of Barack Hussein."

Lean Forward Bend Over: How MSNBC Became the Most Blatantly Dishonest Network on Cable News

Every time I watch the hacks on MSNBC I'm impressed by how shamelessly they lie. They lie about everything, and then they forget their own lies. A few months back I posted on Rachel Maddow's Fast and Furious lies, then debunked them with programming from her own earlier episodes. If you've ever had the misfortune of knowing a pathological liar, then you've already experienced what it's like to watch MSNBC.

In any case, Alessandra Stanley, at the New York Times, perhaps thinks she's clever with the comparison to Fox News at her article on the self-identified socialist network, "How MSNBC Became Fox’s Liberal Evil Twin." The end result, however, is to ridiculously impugn the conservative network with the comparison. MSNBC's ratings have improved, sure. But that's because progressives will swallow anything they're told. Not only that, Stanley gets some of the basics of the story wrong, for example:

Both Fox News and MSNBC have experienced reporters in the field who stay neutral even when their anchors let loose. The NBC network’s anchors keep their opinions to themselves, and so do its star reporters, like Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd, who appear on both cable and network shows, and somehow skillfully navigate past the rockier shoals.

Umm, no.

You can't count the number of times that Andrea Mitchell's been hammered for her bias by the conservative blogosphere. For example, when Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitchell made the disgusting comment that Ryan wouldn't appeal to suburban women. Ericka Johnson, for one, reported on that at Hot Air, "MSNBC’s Mitchell: Ryan “not a pick for women”." And see NewsBusters as well, also calling out Stanley's huge errors in reporting, "NYT Admits MSNBC's Liberal Bent, But Falsely Claims NBC's Chuck Todd, Brian Williams, Andrea Mitchell Stay Neutral."

That said, Stanley does tear into the hopelessly stupid hacks at the network, especially Chris Matthews, who outdid himself with this week's convention coverage:

MSNBC has a growing cast of anchor-bloviators — hosts like Martin Bashir, Tamron Hall and, of course, Al Sharpton, who rant and then invite like-minded guest commentators to assure them that they are right.

Chris Matthews, who hosts a Sunday talk show syndicated by NBC and a daily MSNBC show, seemed determined during this convention to outflank his most outspoken rivals, including Mr. Sharpton.

He started with a bruising harangue against Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee Chairman, that made even his hosts on “Morning Joe” wince. Mr. Matthews looked almost thuggish on Wednesday night when the Arizona governor, Jan Brewer, 67, speaking from the din of the convention floor, complained she couldn’t hear his question.

“You can’t hear me?” he said. “Well, that’s convenient.”

On Thursday, Mr. Matthews fulminated against Paul Ryan’s — admittedly misleading — assertion that Mr. Obama did nothing to prevent the closing of a GM plant in 2008. Then Fox News attacked media figures who attacked Mr. Ryan. CNN took the harder course of parsing the entire issue: The correspondent Tom Foreman gave a long, industrious analysis that explained where and how Mr. Ryan finessed the facts.

MSNBC talk shows are to network newscasts what blogs are to newspaper columns, shaggier and often less considered. And increasingly, viewers, like readers, have a hard time distinguishing one from the other. But it’s all that attitude on MSNBC that raises eyebrows.

Read it all at the link.

PREVIOUSLY: "The Jacobin: Chris Hayes of MSNBC."

RELATED: At The Other McCain, "When It Comes to ‘Brazen Lies,’Nobody Excels Joan Walsh." That's the brazen liar Walsh appearing at the clip on Matthews' show.

Three Violent Incidents Rekindle Debate on Use-of-Force at LAPD

At the Los Angeles Times, "Violence in 3 recent LAPD incidents rekindles use-of-force debate."

Three violent altercations caught on tape involving Los Angeles Police Department officers have rekindled the long-running debate about LAPD use of force and are shaping up to be a significant test for Chief Charlie Beck.

All three incidents occurred during seemingly routine calls and inexplicably turned violent.

Several weeks ago, a cellphone video showed four police officers tackling a 20-year-old Venice skateboarder they said was resisting arrest. One officer hit him in the face.

This week, videotape emerged in which two LAPD officers in the San Fernando Valley were shown slamming a handcuffed woman to the ground before appearing to give one another fist bumps. The woman, a nurse who was pulled over for holding a cellphone while driving, suffered large bruises to her face and body.

But the most serious incident came to light late Thursday, when LAPD officials revealed that a woman had died during a confrontation in July outside her South Los Angeles home. Police said the woman had gone to a police station to drop off her children because she said she could not take care of them. Police returned to her house to arrest her on suspicion of child endangerment.

"Each incident is disturbing," said Police Commission member Richard E. Drooyan on Friday. "In each of these cases, we are talking about different places in the department with different races and genders involved."

Beck spent Thursday night moving through the city and talking to officers about the incidents.

"I was in the field last night and visited half a dozen police stations," he said. "I looked hundreds of police officers in the eye as I discussed their responsibilities. I have faith in them."

More at that top link.

Sean Hannity Interview With Mia Love

We need more women like this in politics, way more.

See also, "Rockin' Conservative Mia Love Sets GOP Convention on Fire."

The Death of the Left

From Michael Ledeen, at PJ Media (via Instapundit):

Hegel would have well understood one of the most interesting contemporary developments:  the old liberal establishment is shrinking, both in numbers and in confidence, and their political/ideological opponents are growing.  Several smart people have noticed the extraordinary depth of the conservative political team, many of whose members were on display in Tampa this week.  The Ryans and the Romneys, the Christies and the Haleys, the Loves and the Rubios, the Brewers and the Walkers, on and on.  They have a much clearer vision of the real world, and they accordingly have more realistic political approaches than those on the left, who are trapped in a world that no longer exists.

Here’s another way to grasp the dialectical process:  look at Wisconsin.  Long considered one of the wackier leftist places in America, it is now the cradle of creative conservatives. The Progressive mission known as the “Wisconsin Idea” is politically and intellectually dead and buried.  Wisconsin now votes for Paul Ryan and Scott Walker (and probably Tommy Thompson in a couple of months).

If you’re one of those leftists, unable to sort out how the world works nowadays, and unable to win an honest debate with your political and intellectual opponents, it makes you very angry, and you lash out at them with a violence that often surprises observers who are less engaged in the political or intellectual wars.  The left has died as an intellectual force worth taking seriously.  Its mission belongs to another time.   It is reduced to fighting for political power alone, and its weapons are what we recently called “the politics of personal destruction.”  It’s the only way they can hope to win.  None of us should be surprised when the leftists accuse the righties of pushing old women off of cliffs, or murdering cancer-afflicted employees, or waging war on women, and so forth.  They have to destroy their opponents one by one.  They no longer have a “movement” of any significance.

That’s what happens when you become an anachronism...

Victoria's Secret Angel Doutzen Kroes in 'Amazing' Photo Shoot in New York City (VIDEO)

Before you know we'll be having the 2012 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and I'll have all the reporting on that.

Until then, enjoy Doutzen Kroes:

FLASHBACK: "Victoria's Secret 2011 Fashion Show Will Air Tuesday, November 29, On CBS."

The Left's Racial Code Words

This is funny:

Michelle developed this theme earlier, "RNC Derangement Syndrome."

Mitt Romney, His Family, and Life (VIDEO)

Via Marathon Pundit:

Sheldon Adelson's Daughter Manhandles Male 'Democracy Now' Producer...

From Dan Riehl, "Video: Sheldon Adelson’s Daughter Manhandles Male ‘Democracy Now’ Producer, He Promptly Soils His Shorts."

South Africa Charges Miners in Deaths of Striking Miners

South Africa, the banana republic.

At the New York Times, "In Police Shooting of Miners, South Africa Charges Miners":

Several thousand workers at a platinum mine, in the town of Marikana, northwest of Johannesburg, went on strike this month, demanding a raise. The mine is owned by Lonmin, a company based in London. The men were members of a radical, breakaway union whose leaders were trying to drum up membership and had urged workers to strike to get higher pay and better working conditions. They occupied a rocky hill, armed themselves with machetes, spears and clubs, and chanted war songs and anthems from the struggle against apartheid.

For days, the authorities watched warily as the crowd grew more militant. Two police officers were hacked to death, and eight other people were killed in violent clashes. On Aug. 16, the police were given the order to move in. The police said that they tried to chase away the miners with rubber bullets and stun grenades, but that they were forced to resort to live ammunition when the miners surged at them. The police said they retrieved six guns from the scene, including one that belonged to one of the dead police officers.

The bloodshed, so reminiscent of the horror of the apartheid-era police force’s firing on protesters, stunned the nation. The government, trade unions and the opposition roundly condemned the violence, and President Jacob Zuma set up an independent commission to investigate the killings and gave it broad powers to subpoena testimony.

The police involved in the shooting could still face criminal charges as well. The inquiry set up by Mr. Zuma has the power to refer cases for prosecution, and it is expected to deliver a report in five months.

RTWT.

PREVIOUSLY: "South African Police Open Fire on Striking Miners (VIDEO)."

Ryan Killed It, Romney Rocked It, and Clint Eastwood Hammered the Living Shit Out of Barack Hussein

I commented previously on this, "Clint Eastwood's Throat-Slashing Speech to the Republican National Convention." And Mitt here and Paul Ryan here.

But seriously. Have people lost their minds?

Eastwood pulled off an extremely interesting impromptu speech performance that certainly packed enough punch to elicit a very insecure response from the president. According to reports, Clint's speech was indeed improvised --- he asked for a chair to be placed on stage at the last minute. That is the complete opposite of widespread political expectations. These conventions are buttoned-down, totally managed with 100 percent scripted presidential endorsements. Eastwood caught people off guard, and the crowd was roaring. Oh sure, no doubt many a Republican strategist winced as the 82-year-old actor drew a finger across his throat to signal that Barack's days are numbered. But again, seriously. We now have the Los Angeles Times suggesting that 12 minutes on that stage in Tampa tarnished an entire film career? Yes we do: "Did Clint Eastwood tarnish his film legacy?" Well, for crying out loud. Only the ensconced media elite would mount such a relentless attack. I mean, an icon of Hollywood not down with the approved Hollywood narrative? Heaven forbid. And the political pundits? They're calling it a "disaster," what else? They're clueless Beltway bitches, mostly at MSNBC, represented below by Andrea Mitchell and Brian Williams, wound up tighter than Roseanne Barr in a shrunken bikini:

So let's be honest: The Republican National Convention rocked. Both Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney raised the roof. The roster of speakers was so diverse and dynamic that MSNBC literally censored parts of the proceedings lest the American people get a glimpse of what true diversity looks like. And the message after three days was upbeat and genuinely progressive --- conservatives are looking ahead to restoring our country and reviving the American dream. "We can do this," in the words of the veep nominee.

Robert Stacy McCain has more, "How Awesome Was Clint Eastwood?" And from Bridget Johnson, at PJ Media, "Eastwood Turns in a Performance to Remember at RNC."

Australia Stunned by Deaths of Five Soldiers in Afghanistan

At the New York Times, "5 Soldiers' Deaths in Afghanistan Mark Australia's Worst Toll Yet."

Jennifer Lopez Rocks Yellow Bikini in Miami, Florida

Here's a little bikini hotness to lighten things up a bit.

At Egotastic, "Jennifer Lopez Bikini Pictures for a Bit of Veteran Saucy Pool Drop."

And London's Daily Mail, "She's going straight to the bottom! Curvy J-Lo takes a leap of faith as she jumps into swimming pool in teeny yellow bikini."

Clint Eastwood's Throat-Slashing Speech to the Republican National Convention

Don't let the deranged progressive spin fool you.

Clint Eastwood gave a phenomenal speech at the RNC last night.

Early evidence of this can be seen at the initial headline at ABC News, "Clint Eastwood Electrifies RNC Crowd, Interviews Invisible 'Obama'."

Sure, there were a few awkward moments, perhaps a little too unscripted for that venue, but overall the effect was devastating to the White House. And I mean f-king devastating! Throat-slashing gestures! How dare you disrepect "The One"?!!

William Jacobson has that, "This is not the tweet of a confident man," on President Obama's response to Eastwood on Twitter. And at Nice Deb, "The Narcissist in Chief Strikes Again."

And check over at Lonely Conservative, "Video: The Clint Eastwood RNC Speech Everyone is Talking About." And Maggie's Notebook, "This will go down in history as the best political speech EVER!"

In his quirky, completely spontaneous way, Clintwood has thrown the left into a frenzy of apoplectic fits. See John Nolte at Big Hollywood, "MEDIA STRIKES BACK AFTER DIRTY HARRY DARES TO MOCK OBAMA" (via Memeorandum):

Newsflash: Obama can't take a joke. But we already knew that.

For four long years we've waited, hoped and prayed that some young comic would break free of the politically correct demands of The State and mock Obama the way all presidents and all people in power should be mocked. But for four long years (with a few exceptions) all we've seen instead are cowardly toadies of The State: Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, David Letterman, Chris Rock, the cast of "Saturday Night Live"…

Who would've ever thought that one of the men who would display enough backbone and "edge" to finally take it to Obama with wicked mockery on about 30 million live television screens would be 82 year-old Clint Eastwood? ...

Yeah, that's about it.

You gotta love it. More at Memeorandum.

The Left Responds to Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech

William Jacobson notes how the progs at MSNBC about f-king popped at Romney's key line about how Obama pledged to save the earth. See, "About last night":

Immediately after Romney spoke I switched over to MSNBC. Heads exploding hardly begins to describe the reaction from Chris Matthews. Romney’s mocking Obama’s promise to halt the rise of the oceans really got under their skin...

Daily Kos has a progressive roundup, and Matthew Yglesias pokes his ugly mug out with a boilerplate progressive screed about how conservatives harm women, "Mitt Romney's Incoherent View of Mothers." (Via Memeorandum.)

I'm still reading around the horn.

Folks are wiggin' over Clint Eastwood's speech so look for an update on that.

Mitt Romney's Speech to the Republican National Convention

It thought it was fine speech. Romney was confident and warm. He again showed his love for family, his own and the institution itself, which he wants to restore at the foundation of the political culture of individualism and self-reliance. That's key to bringing this country back from the failed interregnum of the nearly four years of the Obama administration.

The New York Times reports, "Romney Vows to Deliver Country From Economic Travails." And the transcript, "Romney’s Speech to the Republican Convention."

RNC Derangement Syndrome

At Michelle's, "RNC Derangement Syndrome and the demise/dementia of the neutrality posers":

The media crazy train is standing room only.

As the GOP and the Right have gotten better and better at telling their stories and pushing back against progressive narratives, the gate-keepers who once held a monopoly on controlling the airwaves and printing presses have become more than unhinged.

They’ve become completely untethered from rationality:

- sloshing on the whitewash in a desperate attempt to stifle minority Republican voices;
- invoking RAAAAAAACIISSSM at every turn;
- circling their biased wagons for their hapless colleagues;
- dripping with open contempt; and
- spinning like tropical storms while posing as neutral fact-checkers.

2012 is the year that MSM “fact checker” officially became a punch line.

We’ve been heading towards this moment for some time, of course. For two decades in my newspaper column and nearly a decade on this website, we and the growing Right Media have chronicled the demise and dementia of the objectivity posers from Rathergate to the attempted media crucification of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party and all points in between.

This year, more than ever thanks to social media (including an army of Twitter conservatives and a weaponized generation of citizen journalists/fact-reclaimers inspired by Andrew Breitbart), the lapdogs’ insanity and pretenses have been met with effective exposure, resistance, mockery, and disarmament.

R.I.P.

More at the link.

And ICYMI, Guy Benson had the best piece pushing back against the left's bullsh*t "Paul Ryan lied" meme. See, "Obama Camp Melts Down Over Ryan's Speech."

More later.

I'll be embedding some of tonight's speeches from the convention. Mitt's going to rock it!

Paul Ryan Interview With Wolf Blitzer on CNN

That was one hella speech last night, and the radical left has popped a collective vessel.

Memeorandum has all the controversy.

And ICYMI, at The Other McCain, "When It Comes to ‘Brazen Lies,’ Nobody Excels Joan Walsh":

By now, you’re familiar with the pattern for Republican National Convention coverage: Democrats choose their themes, issue their talking points and their media henchpersons then repeat the partisan spin as if it were a matter of indisputable fact.

It was decided in advance that a major theme of media coverage would be “Republicans Are Racists,” and the liberal lapdogs in the press obligingly parroted the message. Chris Matthews declared it, and MSNBC contorted their coverage to conform to the Democrat talking points. (In case you didn’t realize it, “Chicago” is now a racist dog-whistle code — the “C-bomb,” as they call it at MSNBC.)

In advance of Paul Ryan’s speech — as demonstrated by the fundraising e-mail from DNC executive director Patrick Gaspard decrying “false attack after false attack” — it was decided to call Ryan a liar. This was the pre-determined theme, and when the DNC issued its message memo, their obliging stooges in the press corps repeated the contents without bothering to verify the facts for themselves.

Democrat drum majorette Joan Walsh rushed to the head of the parade to accuse Ryan of “brazen lies,” and the Washington Post ‘s Glenn Kessler took dictation from David Axelrod...

Continue reading.

Long Beach Students Head Back to School

School's back in.

The Long Beach Press-Telegram reports, "First day of school in Long Beach a lesson in waiting":

LONG BEACH - Long Beach City College student Vicky Van was hoping to enroll in a psychology class on Monday, but at No. 14 on the wait-list, Van knows her chances are slim.

"I'm going to try again on Wednesday, but I doubt I'll get in," said the 19-year-old Wilson High School graduate. "It's just so crowded this year."

Thousands of area college students headed back to school on Monday for the first official day of the fall semester. And as community colleges and universities face millions in state budget cuts, students are being greeted with higher tuition, crowded classrooms and fewer courses.

Education officials warn that more cuts loom on the horizon if voters fail to pass a November tax initiative designed to fund public education.

The article discusses Long Beach State, and then continues:

Long Beach City College is also facing significant budget challenges.

Funding for California's community colleges has been cut by $809 million over the past three years. California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott has said the system will face another possible $338 million loss in funding depending on the outcome of the November tax initiative.

As a result of the budget cuts, community college students this fall are facing fewer classes, fewer instructors, higher fees and larger class sizes. On Wednesday, Scott and other system leaders plan to hold a news conference to discuss the steps that colleges are taking to offset funding cuts at a time of increased demand for community colleges.

Meanwhile, LBCC this month announced a plan to cut up to 20 instructional programs and lay off about 10 full-time faculty members next year for a savings of $2 million.

LBCC President Eloy Oakley said the college plans to cut less popular programs in an effort to focus more resources on the core courses students need for transfer and graduation.

This fall, the college increased class sizes by about 10 percent for the majority of its courses, said LBCC spokesman Robert Garcia.

Many students on LBCC's liberal arts campus said classes this fall seem larger and also more affected than in previous years.

"I was surprised because I registered early this summer and I still got wait-listed," said 19-year-old Long Beach resident Jonathan Bealta.

Bealta said he was originally No. 12 on the wait-list for his English class but was bumped to No. 2 on Monday after several students didn't show up for the first day of class.

There's another video with President Oakley, and he makes no mention of the layoffs, "LBCC - 2012/13 Message to Faculty and Staff."

My classes were jam-packed. Lots of students are petitioning classes and I routinely admit all comers --- 13 students petitioned my Monday-Wednesday 11:00am class in American government, and there were almost that many trying to add my Tuesday-Thursday early morning classes.

These are tough times and students not only enroll in large numbers, but way fewer of them drop out than in earlier years. The tough fiscal times have forced students to be more careful about maintaining their enrollment, even if they're not doing especially well in their classes, which is an ongoing problem.

More on that later.

Meanwhile, also at the Press-Telegram, "California community colleges facing dire times."

Proof That Left-Wing Radicalism Makes You Stupid

This is extremely cringe-worthy, at Gateway Pundit, "#OccupyRNC Goon says ‘F*** The Rich’ – Wants Marxism (Video)."

BONUS: From Michael Totten, at World Policy Journal, "Noam Chomsky: The Last Totalitarian."

It's an interview with Benjamin Kerstein, who's written a book on Chomsky. And this is gold:

Michael Totten: Can you boil down your case against him into a couple of sentences or paragraphs?

Benjamin Kerstein: There are a couple of main points that should be made. First, Chomsky is an absolutely shameless liar. A master of the argument in bad faith. He will say anything in order to get people to believe him. Even worse, he will say anything in order to shut people up who disagree with him. And I’m not necessarily talking about his public critics. If you've ever seen how he acts with ordinary students who question what he says, it's quite horrifying. He simply abuses them in a manner I can only describe as sadistic. That is, he clearly enjoys doing it. I don't think anyone ought to be allowed to get away with that kind of behavior.

Second, Chomsky is immensely important to the radical left. When it comes to American foreign policy he isn't just influential, he's basically all they have. Almost any argument made about foreign affairs by the radical left can be traced back to him. That wasn't the case when he started out back in the late '60s, but it is now.

Third, he is essentially the last totalitarian. Despite his claims otherwise, he's more or less the last survivor of a group of intellectuals who thought systemic political violence and totalitarian control were essentially good things. He babbles about human rights all the time, but when you look at the regimes and groups he's supported, it’s a very bloody list indeed.

Communism and fascism are obviously dead as the proverbial doornail, but I doubt the totalitarian temptation will ever go away. The desire for unity and a kind of beautiful tyranny seems to spring from somewhere deep in the human psyche.

Fourth—and this may be most important—he makes people stupid. In this sense, he's more like a cult leader or a New Age guru than an intellectual. He allows people to be comfortable with their prejudices and their hatreds, and he undercuts their ability to think in a critical manner. To an extent, this has to do with his use of emotional and moral blackmail. Since he portrays everyone who disagrees with him as evil, if you do agree with him you must be on the side of good and right. This is essentially a kind of secular puritanism, and it's very appealing to many people, for obvious reasons, I think. We all want to think well of ourselves, whether we deserve it or not...

RTWT.

'A Conclave of Lily-White Racists'

Doug Ross reports, "I refer, of course, to vintage media -- the biggest collection of lily-white racists I've ever encountered. Consider the following incidents (all "coincidental", mind you)..."

More at Instapundit, "MATT LEWIS: On paranoia and the left’s obsession with hearing ‘dog whistles’."

Paul Ryan Speech to the Republican National Convention

I loved it.

Ryan is handsome and articulate. He hammered Obama personally and politically, and made stark contrasts between the GOP ticket and the moral bankruptcy of the Obama administration's nearly four years in office. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Ryan Pledges GOP Rebirth":

TAMPA, Fla.—Rep. Paul Ryan took the national political stage Wednesday as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate, giving a televised speech that laid out one of the GOP's sharpest cases yet against a second term for President Barack Obama, and for Republicans as the party of small government.

Mr. Ryan's address to the Republican convention was his introduction to a national audience only now beginning to take his measure as one of the GOP's leading figures and the partner of presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

He blended notes of partisan rancor with personal touches, such as a nod to his taste for rock bands AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, as he tried to build a case that Mr. Obama had hindered the economy and piled on debt.

"After four years of getting the runaround, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Gov. Mitt Romney," Mr. Ryan told the crowd gathered at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

Mr. Ryan's selection heralds the emergence of a new generation of Republican leaders willing to reshape the main pillars of a social safety net that has been in place since the 1960s.

The 42-year-old Wisconsin congressman is the architect of far-reaching legislation to cut federal spending and to overhaul entitlement programs, including a proposal to transform Medicare from open-ended health coverage for seniors into a system in which future beneficiaries buy private insurance, or buy into the traditional Medicare program, with premiums subsidized by the government.

Democrats call it a voucher system that will shift health-care costs to seniors. Mr. Ryan and his allies say the plan will save Medicare from insolvency.

Mr. Ryan didn't shy from his Medicare plan Wednesday. "Medicare is a promise, and we will honor it,'' he said, an effort to blunt Democratic attacks that his plan would undermine Medicare and shift costs to future retirees. "A Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare, for my Mom's generation, for my generation, and for my kids and yours."

The congressman then blamed Mr. Obama for failing to curb the deficit, wasting stimulus money to revive the U.S. economy during his first year in office and passing a new health-care law that should "have no place in a free country."

Mr. Ryan said the president has shirked responsibility for the sluggish recovery. "College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life," he said.

More at that top link.

Plus, from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Ryan’s Star Turn Shows GOP Ready to Rumble on Medicare."

And see The Other McCain, "COMPLETE TEXT: PAUL RYAN’S SPEECH TO THE GOP CONVENTION."

BONUS: At The Lonely Conservative, "What Are the GOP ‘Pros’ Who Panned the Ryan Pick Saying Now?"

Alanis Morissette: 'I Live for Having the Larger Conversations...'

At the Los Angeles Times, "Alanis Morissette nurtures 'Havoc and Bright Lights'":

The heat outside a North Hollywood rehearsal studio is in the triple digits, and inside isn't much better, but Alanis Morissette manages a cool, beatific calm beneath the hot lights of a film crew. She is fast approaching "the fever pitch" of activity that accompanies her every album release, even after a break of four years.

A camera sweeps in on a boom for a close-up of the singer-songwriter, cheerful in a gleaming white blazer, her auburn hair long and parted down the center. She is here to talk up a new album, "Havoc and Bright Lights" (out Tuesday), and her new life of marriage and motherhood for an online video piece hosted by Wal-Mart.

A young interviewer with a clipboard asks about her newest songs, and as Morissette begins — "On 'Woman Down' I comment about the patriarchy and misogyny ..." — it's immediately clear that the singer's first album since 2008 will pull no punches, regardless of recent domestic bliss in her own life.

"It's a challenge to be away from my son for too long, but I live for this," Morissette, 38, says minutes later, settling into her dressing room couch. On her left forearm is a tattoo of a tiger, drawn around the word "gentle." "I live for having the larger conversations that are spawned by the content of the songs. That's what I'm here to do, whether I like it or not."

More at that top link.

Condoleezza Rice Speech to the Republican National Convention

This was an interesting speech. She hinted about how a girl from Birmingham could become president. Hmm...

And she said improving neighborhood schools in poor communities is the defining civil rights struggle of the day, something I've repeatedly highlighted at this blog.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Condoleezza Rice Hits Obama Policies." And at Fox News, "Transcript of Condoleezza Rice speech at the RNC."

The 'Cultural War' Is Not 'Fringe'

Amazing how the post-modern left has perverted truth and decency to elevate radical homosexuality and environmental extremism, and infanticide and totalitarian secularism and God knows what else, to the "mainstream," while those standing up for goodness, decency and family values are "fringe."

But that's the meme running through this piece at the New York Times, "From the Fringe in 1992, Pat Buchanan's Words Now Seem Mainstream":

TAMPA, Fla. — Twenty years ago, Patrick J. Buchanan rocked the Republican convention in Houston by declaring there was a “cultural war” taking place for the soul of America, denouncing the Democratic Party as one that supported abortion, radical feminism and the “homosexual rights movement.”

“The agenda Clinton and Clinton would impose on America — abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat — that’s change, all right,” said Mr. Buchanan, a conservative commentator who was a rival to President George Bush in the 1992 campaign. “But it is not the kind of change America wants.”

The speech — along with similarly sharp-edged addresses by the evangelist Pat Robertson and Marilyn Quayle, the wife of Vice President Dan Quayle — pushed issues like abortion, gay rights, religion and the role of women in society to the front of the stage, often loudly. Supporters of Mr. Bush pointed to the tone of the convention as one of the reasons he lost the election that November to Bill Clinton.

Yet Republicans gathered here to nominate Mitt Romney suggest that those speeches would hardly give them pause today. What many viewed as the fringes of the Republican Party 20 years ago have moved closer to the mainstream — evidence, Mr. Buchanan said, of the extent to which a Republican establishment that was once relatively moderate on social issues has been pushed rightward by grass-roots conservatives.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Buchanan, who is not attending the convention here, said he was struck by what he described as the warm reception in the hall in 1992. He said that Mr. Bush’s aides were similarly praiseworthy after he walked off the stage. The temperature soon cooled but, he said, he had no doubt the speech was the right speech for the right audience in 1992 — and even more so today.

“That speech was then, and is now, consistent with the heart and soul of the Republican Party,” Mr. Buchanan said. “The country-club and the establishment Republicans recoil from the social, cultural and moral issues which many conservatives and evangelicals have embraced.”

Mr. Buchanan said Mr. Bush would have been well served had he seized on the issues Mr. Buchanan raised and used them in his campaign against Mr. Clinton.

“The issue on which they were most vulnerable was social and cultural issues,” Mr. Buchanan said. “That is what they could have won on.”

More at the link.

Buchanan's full speech is here. The dude was on fire.

Rockin' Conservative Mia Love Sets GOP Convention on Fire

William Jacobson has been boosting Mia Love for some time know, but this is the first I've really listened to her. What a phenomenal lady. No wonder she's throwing the left into just horrible fits of racist demonology. 

Here's the speech from the RNC, via Instapundit:

And at Twitchy, "Mia Love gives star-making speech at RNC; Left sees ‘GOP token’," and "Sick: Wikipedia entry calls Mia Love ‘dirty, worthless whore’ and ‘House Nigger’."

More at Twitchy.

And back over at Instapundit, "ROGER SIMON: DATELINE TAMPA: RACISTS OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA." Follow that link for the excellent update at the post.

Expect updates here as well...

Chris Christie's Speech to the Republican National Convention

At The Other McCain, "COMPLETE TEXT: CHRIS CHRISTIE SPEECH TO GOP CONVENTION."

And from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Chris Christie’s Republican Party."

Also at Breitbart, "EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: ROMNEY REACTS TO CLIMAX OF CHRISTIE'S SPEECH.

RELATED: I've said it before, but it bears repeating: "Chris Christie for Governor --- of California!"

If only.

See the Orange County Register, "Chris Christie's pep talk for California":

TAMPA, Fla. – While California residents are justly proud of many elements of life in the Golden State, when it comes to public policy, California would do well to follow the lead of New Jersey.

The Garden State's tell-it-like-is governor, Chris Christie, has taken on public employee unions, overcome a significant state budget gap and advocated for lower taxes and fees. He recounted his successes to a breakfast gathering Monday hosted by the California Republican Party's delegation to the Republican National Convention.

Gov. Christie's approach is perhaps the polar opposite of that taken by California Gov. Jerry Brown. Gov. Brown has remained closely aligned with the state's powerful public employee unions, which did much to get him elected. He also is pushing to raise taxes via his Proposition 30 on the November ballot.

The states themselves share many political similarities. Both are longtime strongholds of the Democratic Party, which controls the legislatures, in concert with government-employee unions, and enjoys an advantage in voter registration.

As Gov. Christie told a room full of convention-goers, California and New Jersey face "similar challenges." He pointed to debt and deficits, people trying to get back to work and trouble with home mortgages. He chastised Gov. Brown's policies, while rejecting the notion that California is ungovernable.

"When I became governor of New Jersey, they said the same things to me. I heard people in California saying ... we don't know if it can be fixed; the problems are too big, the challenges are now too grave. Maybe we have just given California away to the public sector unions, to the masters of huge spending and huge government. But it doesn't have to be that way," Gov. Christie said.

"California and New Jersey made two very different choices," and "California made a bad choice" in electing Gov. Brown. "I have to sit at the National Governors Association with this guy and have him come up to me and say, 'Gov. Christie, stop telling people that I want to raise taxes. I am not trying to raise taxes.' And I said, 'Yes you are, Jerry.' And he says, 'No, I am going to put it on the ballot, and let the people decide.' Hey, that's leadership, isn't it?

"If you made a different choice ... California would be moving in a different direction today," he said. "I hear California is blue, but it's no bluer than New Jersey is. What matters is leadership," reminding his audience that New Jersey "hadn't elected a Republican in 12 years statewide" until his victory in November 2009...

More at the link.

Ann Romney is Indeed Mitt's Greatest Asset

An interesting commentary, from Jennifer Rubin, at Right Turn, "Ann Romney at the RNC."

PREVIOUSLY: "Ann Romney's Speech at the Republican National Convention."

Seventh Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

At the Los Angeles Times, "Hurricane Isaac prepares to test New Orleans."

And ICYMI, at the New York Times, "The Storm, Again." But see Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Exploiting Hurricane Will Hurt Dems."

And a 2005 flashback, from Bob Williams, "Shifting Blame in the Katrina Tragedy."

IMAGES: Via Wikipedia.

Private Medicare Plans Find Success Despite Democrat Bleatings

At the New York Times, "Despite Democrats’ Warnings, Private Medicare Plans Find Success."

Rachel Corrie's Parents Talk to Communist Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

My earlier entry is here, "Court Rules Rachel Corrie Death Accidental":

Ann Romney's Speech at the Republican National Convention

I thought this was fantastic. She's so beautiful and so genuinely in love with both her husband and her country. What a contrast from Mooch Obama.

See National Journal, "Full Text: Ann Romney's Speech at the Republican National Convention."

And at the New York Times, of course, "Stepping Out of a Husband’s Shadow, and Perhaps Overshadowing Him."

Also, at yesterday morning's Los Angeles Times, "A toughened Ann Romney's convention role is to show her husband's softer side."

Court Rules Rachel Corrie Death Accidental

At Israel Matzav, "No pancakes for St. Pancake." And Atlas Shrugs, "Blood Libel Exposed: Court Vindicates Israel in Rachel Corrie Case."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Israel judge rules Rachel Corrie responsible for her own death":

JERUSALEM — Nine years after their daughter was crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, the parents of American activist Rachel Corrie lost their legal bid Tuesday to hold Israel responsible for her death and force authorities to reopen the investigation.

A Haifa judge rejected the parent's negligence lawsuit, calling Corrie's death an accident that she brought upon herself by refusing to leave what had been declared a closed military zone. "It was a very regrettable accident and not a deliberate act," said Judge Oded Gershon.

Family members vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court and accused the Israeli government of covering up the truth.

"I believe this was a bad day not only for our family, but for human rights, for humanity, for the rule of law, and also for the country of Israel," said Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, after the verdict was announced.

The court rejected the family's request for a symbolic $1 in damages and legal expenses.

Members of the Corrie family, who live in Olympia, Wash., have traveled to Israel for sporadic hearings over the last two years, listening to graphic testimony about how Rachel Corrie, then 23, was run over by a slow-moving bulldozer in Rafah near the border with Egypt.

Corrie, a college student, traveled to Gaza with the group International Solidarity Movement to act as a human shield to prevent Israeli soldiers from demolishing Palestinian homes and farms.

During the trial, the Israeli bulldozer driver, who was never identified, testified that he did not see Corrie standing in front of his vehicle. He ran over the young woman, than backed up and drove over her a second time, witnesses said.

Activists testified that the driver must have seen Corrie, who was wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and standing just a few feet away. They said it appeared Corrie became trapped in the dirt and debris and was unable to escape at the last moment.

The court agreed with an Israeli military investigation that concluded that the driver's field of vision was limited, and blamed Corrie and other activists for putting themselves in harm's way.

"She did not move away as any reasonable person would have done," Gershon ruled. "But she chose to endanger herself ... and thus found her death."

Continue reading.

More from Con Coughlin, at Telegraph UK, "What on earth was Rachel Corrie doing in front of an Israeli army bulldozer in the first place?"

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons.

Hurricane Isaac Updates

Check out the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

And at the website, "Isaac slows, now forecast to pass New Orleans at 1 a.m.", and "Nearly 50,000 without power as Hurricane Isaac approaches."

Lots more at that top link.

And at the American Political Science Association, "2012 Annual Meeting - CANCELED."

I'll be updating throughout the night.

5:53pm Pacific: The New York Times reports, "Hurricane Isaac Makes Landfall Along Gulf Coast":

NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Isaac made landfall along the Gulf Coast on Tuesday night as a Category 1 storm, smaller than initially feared, forecasters said.

The National Hurricane Center announced at about 8 p.m. Eastern that Hurricane Isaac had hit southeastern Louisiana with sustained winds of 80 miles per hour. The storm was moving northwest at a slow pace of 8 m.p.h., making serious flooding more likely as the storm lingers over land. There have already been reports of flooding and power failures in several areas along the Gulf Coast.

The National Hurricane Center said in a statement that a storm surge of eight feet was recorded at Shell Beach in Louisiana.

“Now is the time to hunker down,” Mitch Landrieu, the mayor of New Orleans, said in a televised news conference as the storm came to shore.

The coast — and areas extending inland from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle — was bracing throughout the day for strong winds, heavy rain and flooding. The threat of tornadoes has also increased with the approach of the storm.

A hurricane warning was in effect for areas east of Morgan City, which sits on the Atchafalaya River in south-central Louisiana, and extending into Mississippi. That stretch of coast includes New Orleans.

And also video from CNN, "See new images of Isaac from space."

William Jacobson Launches 'College Insurrection'

I read Legal Insurrection every day, multiple times a day. I'm proud to call William a friend. But for some reason I missed his announcement in June that he was launching a new blog, called "College Insurrection."

Here's the announcement, "Welcome to College Insurrection."

And here's the heads-up from June, "The next Insurrection":

Because most campuses are dominated by liberal adminstrators, faculty, and student activists, conservative/libertarian students often feel isolated and alone, and up against seemingly insurmountable forces which wield power over their lives.

For many students, the risk/reward ratio says to shut up and just go along so as not to be singled out and targeted.

In reality, they are not alone.  They are the silenced majority.  They are a youthful Army of Davids.  They just don’t know it yet.

So the next project will be …

Col·lege In·sur·rec·tion

More at the link.

One of the more interesting things, in my teaching experience, is the large number of conservatives students --- students with very traditional values --- who are laid back, quiet and low key. They listen a lot and hold back from the discussions. LBCC is a majority-minority institution, and for the bulk of black and Hispanic students, there's literally no questioning the hard-left line on politics, racism, or you name it. Sometimes, though, I like to have students think through their assumptions, or the assumptions they've been fed by the mass media. I followed the media stories on the Trayvon Martin shooting during classes last semester, and I swear some students where heartbroken to learn a different point of view, to find out the shooting was much more complicated than they'd heard. When ABC News posted images of George Zimmerman's injuries, which seemed to confirm his account that he'd been pushed to the pavement by Trayvon, some of my students went into shock. They really want to think that racism is everywhere and all-encompassing. A left-wing professor will of course encourage such thinking, for sure on my campus, especially in the history classes, and sociology and psychology, off the top of my head. I will often get only one or two conservative students who'll speak up with their opinions in class, because they don't want to deal with being heckled, or called racist. It does happen. A few years ago, I had a homosexual student who claimed in class that traditional marriage didn't matter. He said that anyone could get a sperm donor and have a baby. I asked him then why have marriage at all? He didn't go so far as to want to abolish it, but that was the implication of his argument. I was surprised when a young conservative student spoke up from the back of the class. He said something like, "Everything is about gay politics nowadays. The gay rights groups get whatever they want. And you can't criticize them or you'll be attacked. It's crazy." Needless to say the discussion was getting a little heavy, but that was a rare event. Most conservative students won't express their opinions like that because they're intimidated by a stultifying environment of political correctness.

As for "College Insurrection," there's still a lot I don't know about it, some further plans for the blog, additional goals, range of contributors, etc. But if it generates a critical mass of conservative commentary on academe it will be extremely helpful. And I'll be glad to help toward that goal.

Congratulations to William.

More on this later as things develop.

'Comment is Free' Fires Joshua Treviño After Just 10 Days

There's a lot of his stuff I disagree with, but he's a firecracker on Twitter. Extremely interesting man. And it's no surprise that The Guardian canned his ass in less than two weeks. Amazing he was even given a slot over there in the first place.

At the Times of Israel, "In firing Treviño, Guardian’s hypocrisy laid bare."

Dear IDF: If you end up shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla -- well, most Americans are cool with that. Including me.
— Joshua Treviño (@jstrevino) June 25, 2011

The Guardian’s August 15 announcement that Joshua Treviño would be joining its US politics team provoked predictable outrage by some of the most virulent Israel-haters.

One of the first screeds published on the appointment of Treviño was by “one-stater” racist Ali Abunimah, himself a contributor at the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” through June 2009, who wrote a piece for Al Jazeera, as well as several others at his own Electronic Intifada site, to protest the Guardian’s apostasy.

MJ Rosenberg and Richard Silverstein also condemned the appointment. On August 19, the Guardian published a letter criticizing the appointment of Treviño, by a who’s who of anti-Israel campaigners, chastising the Guardian for employing someone they characterized as holding “extremist views.”

The main complaint of all Treviño’s critics is the now-famous flotilla-related tweet by Treviño in June 2011 – 106 characters which, according to Abunimah and his anti-Zionist friends, represent “incitement to murder”....

The hypocrisy of this group of hardcore Israel-haters and apologists for Islamist extremists — who comically wear the mantle of “anti-racists” — is staggering. None of these sensitive souls was the least bit bothered by “Comment is Free” publishing, for instance, Azzam Tamimi – who supports suicide bombing against Israelis.

Indeed, in 2011, Guardian editors published a letter by a UK professor explicitly endorsing, on ethical grounds, deadly terrorist attacks by Palestinians on Israeli civilians — a decision which was later defended by Guardian readers’ editor Chris Elliott. And none of those protesting Treviño’s appointment have seen fit, of course, to object to the fact that the Guardian has repeatedly published articles by Hamas leaders....

The Guardian’s recent addition to its stable of writers of anti-Zionist blogger Glenn Greenwald, who has a long record of advancing explicitly anti-Semitic tropes on his blog at Salon, about the power of the Jewish lobby over the US government, is another example of the institution’s selective tolerance of bigotry.

Sure enough, the Guardian fired Treviño, citing a completely bogus conflict of interest as the cause, when the fact is that the paper gave in to pressures from extremists and those who wish the Guardian to remain an echo-chamber for shrill and malign anti-Zionist rhetoric.

The supreme hypocrisy of the Guardian has been laid bare, as it demonstrates that it is morally unburdened by hideously anti-Semitic, pro-terror commentators and journalists but will cravenly give in to arguments by extremists suggesting that those on the mainstream American right — commentators who take the threat to Western values posed by Islamist terrorism seriously — are beyond the pale.

There's more at the link.

I don't really read the Guardian, but it's not that much different from left's maelstrom of hatred at most other outlets for progressivism. People like that want to destroy their opponents, not debate them. And they especially want to destroy someone like Treviño, who is so exceptionally good at exposing them for their evils.

And see Treviño's commentary here, "My 2011 Gaza flotilla tweet: a clarification."

Hat Tip: Carl in Jerusalem.

'The New Normal' Is Anything But

At AWD, "NEW GAY TV SHOW ‘THE NEW NORMAL’ NOT NORMAL AT ALL!"

And from the Los Angeles times, "NBC affiliate KSL-TV in Utah declines to air 'The New Normal'."

Tropical Storm Isaac Moves Into Gulf of Mexico

At the Wall Street Journal, "Isaac Heads to New Orleans: Echoes of Katrina as GOP Gathers."

And at NewsBusters, "NYTimes Cynically Deploys Isaac Threat to Paint GOP As Opposed to 'Care of Its Most Vulnerable'."

Also, at the APSA, "2012 Meeting to Proceed as Planned on Thursday."

The New York Times Shrinks James Holmes

See, "Before Gunfire in Colorado Theater, Hints of 'Bad News' About James Holmes":

AURORA, Colo. — The text message, sent to another graduate student in early July, was cryptic and worrisome. Had she heard of “dysphoric mania,” James Eagan Holmes wanted to know?

The psychiatric condition, a form of bipolar disorder, combines the frenetic energy of mania with the agitation, dark thoughts and in some cases paranoid delusions of major depression.

She messaged back, asking him if dysphoric mania could be managed with treatment. Mr. Holmes replied: “It was,” but added that she should stay away from him “because I am bad news.”

It was the last she heard from him.

About two weeks later, minutes into a special midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” on July 20, Mr. Holmes, encased in armor, his hair tinted orange, a gas mask obscuring his face, stepped through the emergency exit of a sold-out movie theater here and opened fire. By the time it was over, there were 12 dead and 58 wounded.

The ferocity of the attack, its setting, its sheer magnitude — more people were killed and injured in the shooting than in any in the country’s history — shocked even a nation largely inured to random outbursts of violence.

But Mr. Holmes, 24, who was arrested outside the theater and has been charged in the shootings, has remained an enigma, his life and his motives cloaked by two court orders that have imposed a virtual blackout on information in the case and by the silence of the University of Colorado, Denver, where Mr. Holmes was until June a graduate student in neuroscience.

Unlike Wade M. Page, who soon after the theater shooting opened fire at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, killing six people, Mr. Holmes left no trail of hate and destruction behind him, no telling imprints in the electronic world, not even a Facebook page.

Yet as time has passed, a clearer picture has begun to surface. Interviews with more than a dozen people who knew or had contact with Mr. Holmes in the months before the attack paint a disturbing portrait of a young man struggling with a severe mental illness who more than once hinted to others that he was losing his footing.

More at that link. It's a lengthy piece.

What's so amazing is all the initial reports coming out of Aurora said that Homles was an exemplary student and citizen, and the university boasted about how extremely few students flunked out of their neuroscience program. Man was that some kind of epic damage control before all the facts became known.

Piecing together the tidbits of news clearly revealed this guy went off, as I mentioned previously, "Shooting Suspect James Holmes Failed Oral Examination, Made Threats, Prosecution Reveals."

My Dream Speech for Romney

From Dennis Prager, at National Review, "This election is a referendum on whether we keep our traditional system of government."