'Homosexual Money'

A robo-call from the Chicago-based Family-PAC, targeting State Rep. Mike Smiddy, D-Hillsdale:

"Your state representative, Mike Smiddy, has received $6500 from Chicago homosexuals promoting same-sex marriage, according to state records. Same-sex marriage denies children the right to know who their real parent is. Now Smiddy is threatening to vote in favor of the same-sex marriage bill. Who is Smiddy representing? The Chicago homosexuals or your family? Tell Smiddy to vote no on same-sex marriage and return the homosexual money immediately."

The flaming leftists have their panties in a wad, screaming "bigotry!"

At Memeorandum, "State Rep. Says Robocalls About Taking ‘Homosexual Money’ Are Offensive."

Bunch of crybabies.

If you don't like being called homosexual don't be homosexual. Sheesh.

Celia Bigelow Confronts Democrat Congressman Jim Moran

I told you this lady's passionate!

At Fire Andrea Mitchell, "Virginia Democrat Rep. Jim Moran can’t answer Celia Bigelow question why he wants to legislate women into being victims (Video)."

And here's Bill O'Reilly smacking down Kirsten Powers, who's spouting some pretty leftists talking points on the gun choice issue --- and I just love Powers, but here she sounds tentative and defensive:

Also at Twitchy, "Second Amendment defenders descend on Rep. Jim Moran’s anti-gun ‘conversation’ [video]," and National Review, "Female Gun Owner Confronts Dem Jim Moran."

Leftists Exploit Zerlina Maxwell's 15-Minutes of Fame

Big MSNBC blowhard Ed Schultz is all outraged --- outraged! --- at the three horrible tweets Zerlini Maxwell received after her recent Hannity appearance. My earlier comments are here: "@ZerlinaMaxwell Should Never Be Threatened for Making Stupid Comments, But That's No Excuse for Stupidity."

And from the big blowhard's opening segment yesterday:

And here's feminist Jessica Valenti at the Nation, "Rape Is Not Inevitable: On Zerlina Maxwell, Men and Hope."

And Katrina vanden Heuvel, the publisher of that Marxist rag, is at the clip.

The Left's Culture of Death

An essential commentary, from Bob Belvedere, "The Naked Face of Leftism: Death Mongers."

Genuine progressive ideology --- and by that I mean Marxist-infused social justice redistributionism and nihilist anti-morality --- is the contemporary evil of the modern political world. Make no mistake, Councillor Collin Brewer's comments, discussed at the post above, we're frankly depraved. But considering the left's abortion holocaust alone, as just one example, they were quite tame.

I'm personally horrified by much of what counts as "progressive" politics. It's taken me a long time to truly understand how deeply corrupted society is by the disease of leftism. I don't know how we turn things around, how we help young people realize that their interests are harmed by the Kool-Aid of radicalism, but whatever the answer, it's a program of civic renewal that should be the cause of any real conservative activist.

Folks should read Neo-Neocon's outstanding piece at PJ Media from a week or so back, "Why Do Some Liberals Become Conservatives?" Unlike other accounts of political transformation (change) from left to right --- and recall that Cinnamon Stillwell's, "The Making of a 9/11 Republican," remains the best --- Neo-Neocon (a.k.a. Jean Kaufman) offers an explanation based on cognitive consistency theory:

Rarely, if ever, are prospective changers actually seeking change. In fact their previous political positions on the left may be quite firmly and strongly held, and they would probably consider anyone quite mad who had the audacity to inform them of the transformation about to take place.

But although they may not be interested in change, change is interested in them. It usually begins with something external, some new information encountered seemingly by accident, something that starts to bug the person because it contradicts or doesn’t fit easily into his or her pre-existing framework. It’s like a buzzing fly that won’t quit and can’t be ignored. It causes discomfort, a sense of unease, and the disequilibrium that comes from the dilemma known as cognitive dissonance.

It’s such an unpleasant experience that people are usually eager to resolve it. How they do that is one point at which changers split off from non-changers. The latter group, if faced with that very same information, might just swat that fly — that is, in their discomfort at the knowledge that seems incongruous with their previous beliefs, they would either discredit the new information, minimize it, rationalize it, or shut it out entirely, thus ending the discomfort and the dilemma.

But those who ultimately end up as changers can’t seem to put it away that easily. For them, something once seen cannot be unseen. Perhaps they have a different habit of mind to begin with, one more accustomed to challenging its own beliefs and assumptions, one more uncomfortable with contradictions.

Keep reading.

That model theorizes something of an abrupt shift in ideology triggered by an event that jars an individual's sense of consistency. But that's not always how people change ideological positions. In contrast, for example, gradual change is consistent with the idea of politics as a life-long learning process. People become set in their ways. And hence, people become conservative in terms of doing things a "right" way. People might think they're "liberal" in their youth, but they realize they're quite traditional in a number of respects, especially regarding thrift, morality and personal enterprise. In my case, I thought I was "liberal" into my 30's. My dad especially was a New Deal Democrat and a black American who instilled the values of the civil rights movement in me and my sisters. But the Democrat Party of today bears little resemblance to the party of the middle 20th century. The notion of centrism here might apply, for while Democrats have always been concerned about using government to shift resources to those with less, the left today is an explicitly statist, far-left anti-capitalist tendency bereft of the moral epistemology of America's founding. The left today is at the least a movement toward (European-style) socialist democracy and more likely a movement toward a (Utopian) proletarian revolution through a re-engineering of society (i.e., popular entertainment and the mass media) and the corruption of the cultural institutions of the state (i.e., public education). I was always conservative in terms of personal responsibility, honesty, and hard work. When I realized that most people on the left didn't share those values I knew that I was no longer a Democrat. Most of all, the left's stab-in-the-back on the Iraq war sealed the deal and I became an activist for truth. Throw in becoming a parent and basically experiencing a religious awakening (in the personal sense of objective truth), I found out once and for all that everything I'd come to believe about "leftist morality" and being a "liberal" was stupid.

Progressives are evil. (Remember, "liberals" aren't liberal.) Nothing brought the truth home on that count more than blogging over this last 7 years. People know my battles with leftist ghouls and their program to destroy decent people on the right. The culture of death Bob writes about is seen in all of the manifestations of collectivist harassment, stalking, and lies. As I've said many times, leftists would actually murder their conservative opponents if they could get away with it. One of the main reasons conservatives should never cave on gun rights is some day they might need firearms to guard against the tyranny of a progressive majority that's captured the state. (It's not just state power that's a threat, but progressive majoritarian redistributionist state power.) Seriously. Patriots need to bear arms against socialists who want to deprive them of life, liberty and property through the corrupted power of the collectivist state. Nothing can stand in the way of this, from the left's ideological perspective, because it's truly totalitarian in its goal to eradicate all sources of resistance. Death then becomes part of the progressive agenda, as we've seen from Stalin to Pol Pot to Che Guevara. Liberals have no values --- they must make gods of men --- because their ungodly campaign of death and destruction demands it. There can be no other way for collectivists.

In any case, don't miss the all the good stuff over at TCOTs.

Rand Paul Moves the Ball on Foreign Policy

From Matt Welch, at Reason, "Toward a Libertarian Foreign Policy."

I spoke about Rand Paul's foreign policy speech to the Heritage Foundation earlier (available here). He's proposing basically a pro-Israel realism, which is very attractive after more than 10 years of war. I'm not a libertarian, however. I would support more forceful U.S. foreign policy on Syria and al-Qaeda in Africa. But again, Rand Paul is striking some very appealing positions, and he's someone I could support in 2016.

RELATED: ICYMI, an outstanding essay from AoSHQ, "McCain, Graham Need to End the Super-Hawk Crap If They Want Any Kind of Hawkishness In American Foreign Policy at All."

'Susie Q'

Yesterday morning's song lineup as I was dropping my kid off for school, at The Sound L.A.:

(Don't Fear) The Reaper, Blue Öyster Cult at 8:06am

Bennie and the Jets, Elton John at 8:01am

Suzie Q, Creedence Clearwater Revial at: 7:56am

White Wedding, Billy Idol at 7:52am

Roadhouse Blues, The Doors at 7:48am

CNN's Dana Bash Interview with Senator Rand Paul

I missed him explaining how his filibuster worked, via Senator Paul's YouTube page. This is an excellent discussion:

Paul Krugman Files for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Hoax

The Boston Globe got punked, although the left was all over Breitbart for posting on the story.

See, Twitchy, "Liberals rip Breitbart.com for false report based on erroneous Boston Globe article."

Yeah, Barack Obama's a Freakin' Joke Alright

Michelle Fields lays into our joke of a president and the "apocalypse" of the sequester:

Celia Bigelow on ObamaCare

She's very passionate about politics:

And see the Washington Examiner, "Obamacare requirements will drive up premiums."

The Left's Campaign to Ban 'Page 3' of the Sun Newspaper

Robert Stacy McCain reports, "British Left’s War on ‘Page Three Girls’."

Read it all at the link.

Honestly, I doubt the ugly feminists will have much success — Page 3's a freakin' institution.

BRAND NEW Page 3 Trending Ten: Who is no. 1? @hollyjadepeers @missireynolds @sabinejofficial? bit.ly/YDr3gP twitter.com/officialpage3/…

— Page 3 (@officialpage3) March 5, 2013

And more from the Sun, "Trending Ten."

Nate Thayer Tells Atlantic Magazine FU

You're gonna love this, "A Day in the Life of a Freelance Journalist — 2013":

Thanks Olga:

I am a professional journalist who has made my living by writing for 25 years and am not in the habit of giving my services for free to for profit media outlets so they can make money by using my work and efforts by removing my ability to pay my bills and feed my children. I know several people who write for the Atlantic who of course get paid. I appreciate your interest, but, while I respect the Atlantic, and have several friends who write for it, I have bills to pay and cannot expect to do so by giving my work away for free to a for profit company so they can make money off of my efforts. 1200 words by the end of the week would be fine, and I can assure you it would be well received, but not for free. Frankly, I will refrain from being insulted and am perplexed how one can expect to try to retain quality professional services without compensating for them. Let me know if you have perhaps mispoken.

best,

Nate

Read the whole thing.

Smokin' Wife of Long Island Millionaire Gets Judge to Throw Out Prenuptual Agreement

In your morning New York tabloid news, at the Post, "Wife of millionaire LI real-estate mogul gets judge to rip up her prenup":

The beautiful wife of a millionaire Long Island real-estate mogul got a judge to rip up her prenup — a rare, precedent-setting decision that could influence countless marriages to wealthy people.

Elizabeth Petrakis, 39 — sometimes acting as her own lawyer — got a an appellate panel last month to toss the agreement she signed with Peter Petrakis, 41, four days before their lavish 1998 wedding.

The prenup stipulated that Peter, who parlayed a string of smoke shops into a $20 million commercial real-estate empire, would keep everything in his name if they split up.

But Elizabeth argued for seven years that Peter coerced her signature, threatening to call off the wedding even though her father had already paid $40,000 for the reception.

“He told me he would rip it up as soon as we had kids,” Elizabeth, who has since had twin sons and a daughter, told The Post at her Old Brookville mansion.

“But he never did. The reason this happened was I was an advocate for myself and I didn’t give up.’’

She called the document “a knife in my heart from Day One.’’

Colorado Democrat Attacks Rape Survivor Amanda Collins

Democrats are determined to demonize conservative women working to defend themselves against rape.

Here's yesterday's entry on the topic, ICYMI: "@ZerlinaMaxwell Should Never Be Threatened for Making Stupid Comments, But That's No Excuse for Stupidity."

And the controversy that brought about the latest debate, at Twitchy, "Rape survivor Amanda Collins hits back at anti-gun state Sen. Hudak: ‘You weren’t there’ [video]."

And Gretchen Carlson's interview with Ms. Collins a couple of days back:

Karzai Accuses U.S. of Collaborating With the Taliban

Our bumbling, stumbling Secretary of Defense denies the allegations at the clip.

But see the Wall Street Journal, "Karzai Inflames U.S. Tensions: Afghan President's Claim Taliban Kill 'in Service to America' Clouds Hagel Visit":

KABUL—America's fraught ties with Afghanistan suffered a jarring blow Sunday, when Afghan President Hamid Karzai said during a visit by the new U.S. defense secretary that the Taliban were killing Afghan civilians "in service to America."

The remarks, in a televised speech hours before Mr. Karzai's meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, capped a series of confrontations between the Afghan president and the U.S. over his demands to assert Afghan sovereignty and curtail American military operations.

Mr. Karzai met Mr. Hagel a day after suspected Taliban suicide bombers killed at least 18 people at the Ministry of Defense in Kabul and in the eastern province of Khost.

In his address, Mr. Karzai said the U.S. doesn't want to leave the country after the NATO coalition's mandate expires at the end of 2014 because it covets Afghan resources and is talking with Taliban leaders behind his back.

"Taliban are every day in talks with America, but in Kabul and Khost they set off bombs to show strength to America," Mr. Karzai said. "The bombs that went off in Kabul and Khost yesterday were not a show of power to America, but were in service to America…It was in the service of foreigners not withdrawing from Afghanistan."

U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, who took command of coalition forces last month, called Mr. Karzai's charges "categorically false."

"We have fought too hard over the past 12 years, we have shed too much blood over the last 12 years, we have done too much to help the Afghan security forces grow over the last 12 years to ever think that violence or instability would ever be to our advantage," he said.

Mr. Karzai's remarks blindsided American officials who had hoped to use Mr. Hagel's two-day visit, his first overseas trip as defense secretary, to shore up fragile relations with the Afghan president as the U.S. ends its longest foreign war.

More at the link.

BONUS: At the Other McCain, "‘Green on Blue’: Two U.S. Special Forces Troops Killed in Afghanistan Attack" (via Memeorandum).

Democrats to Introduce First Budget in Four Years

At Roll Call, "First Budget in Four Years for Senate Democrats."

And here's Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, delivering the GOP's weekly address on Saturday:

Really Good Liars Enjoy the Process of Deceiving Other People

Well, of course you can guess who immediately came to mind. Yep, that's right: Barack Obamocchio.

At Psychology Today, "Top 10 Secrets of Effective Liars":

One of the reasons most people make bad liars is that they find lying a deeply unpleasant activity. Fear and guilt are evident in their facial expressions. They want to get the process over as quickly as possible, so they show relief when their interrogator changes the topic. That's a dead giveaway. Really good liars, on the other hand, actually enjoy the process of deceiving other people. "The best liars don't show any shame or remorse because they don't feel it," says Cohen. "They get a thrill out of actively misleading others. They're good at it, and they enjoy the challenge."

Via Instapundit.

Pro-Life: Jessica Simpson Talks Pregnancy on Kimmel

Via Jill Stanek:

Reforming the Roman Catholic Church

All of a sudden today, for no particular reason, I found myself reading a lot of articles on the problems and prospects of the Catholic Church after Benedict XVI.

I particularly liked this piece at the Economist, "Pope, CEO: Management tips for the Catholic church."

Also interesting, from the communist perspective, at Truthout, "Will the next pope embrace liberation theology?"

And see also Walter Russell Mead, "Scandals Are Only One Half of the Catholic Story."

Also at Der Spiegel, "Zero Hour at the Vatican: A Bitter Struggle for Control of the Catholic Church," and the Los Angeles Times, "Roman Catholic Church feels Europe slipping from its hands."

More later. The big question is will the conclave go big with a new Pope from the global South. We'll see..

British Hostage Killed in Nigeria

It's not just Britain, although at the video is British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

See, "British hostage killed because kidnappers thought UK was launching rescue mission":

A British contractor executed in Nigeria may have died because his kidnappers mistakenly thought British military aircraft landing in the country to ferry troops to Mali were instead part of a rescue mission.

Brendan Vaughan was killed with six colleagues, from Italy, Greece and Lebanon, who were all taken hostage last month by gunmen from Ansaru, an offshoot of Nigeria’s al-Qaeda-allied militants, Boko Haram.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, on Sunday promised to work with Nigeria to “hold the perpetrators of this heinous crime to account”.

“It is with deep sadness that I must confirm that a British construction worker... is likely to have been killed at the hands of his captors, along with six other foreign nationals who we believe were also tragically murdered,” he said. “This was an act of cold-blooded murder, which I condemn in the strongest terms.”

Mr Vaughan was working for Setraco, a Lebanese road construction company with extensive operations across Nigeria, and was kidnapped from the firm’s compound in the town of Jama’ale in north-east Nigeria in February.

His kidnappers promised to execute all seven hostages if there was any attempt to rescue them.

Also at France 24, "Britain, Italy, Greece say hostages killed in Nigeria."

And at the Guardian UK, "Ansaru, the Islamist group behind foreign hostage killings in Nigeria."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Backlash Following Funeral for Venezuela's Hugo Chavez

At Telegraph UK, "Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticised for hugging mother of Hugo Chavez":

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been accused of betraying Islam after he was pictured in an emotional embrace with the mother of Hugo Chavez at the late Venezuelan leader's funeral.

The Iranian president's domestic opponents reacted furiously after photos emerged of him giving Elena Frias de Chavez, 78, a consoling hug at last Friday's funeral in Caracas - at which he also kissed Mr Chavez's coffin.

Religious conservatives said the act insulted Iran's religious dignity and amounted to "haram" – a term used to describe a religiously forbidden act under Islamic rules.

Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, the Friday prayer leader of Iran's second city, Isfahan, told Mehr news agency that Mr Ahmadinejad had "lost control".

He added: "Shaking hands with a non-mahram (unrelated by family) woman, under any circumstances, whether young or old, is not allowed. Hugging or expressing emotions is improper for the dignity of the president of a country like the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Mohammad Dehghan, a member of the governing board of Iran's parliament, the Majles, said the episode exposed the true nature of the "deviant current", the term used by allies of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, to describe Mr Ahmadinejad and his allies.

Well, that's an internal power struggle at work. From Iran's strategic point of view, kiss the coffin is tantamount to flipping America the bird, and no one in Tehran has a problem that.

And notice at the end of the clip above, Raul Castro was right there at the casket. No protest against the kiss from him. The Axis of Evil lives, bigger than ever.

Matt Yglesias Retweets New York Times Op-Ed Challenging Israel's Right to Exist

Well, it's not so much that he retweeted it, but that he really likes that bit quoted at the tweet.

“one really ought to question Israel’s right to exist” opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/on-…
— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 10, 2013

The link to the article is at the tweet, but it's the same anti-Israel eliminationism folks have been dealing with for years. Here's this from the conclusion:

I conclude, then, that the very idea of a Jewish state is undemocratic, a violation of the self-determination rights of its non-Jewish citizens, and therefore morally problematic. But the harm doesn’t stop with the inherently undemocratic character of the state. For if an ethnic national state is established in a territory that contains a significant number of non-members of that ethnic group, it will inevitably face resistance from the land’s other inhabitants. This will force the ethnic nation controlling the state to resort to further undemocratic means to maintain their hegemony. Three strategies to deal with resistance are common: expulsion, occupation and institutional marginalization. Interestingly, all three strategies have been employed by the Zionist movement: expulsion in 1948 (and, to a lesser extent, in 1967), occupation of the territories conquered in 1967 and institution of a complex web of laws that prevent Israel’s Palestinian citizens from mounting an internal challenge to the Jewish character of the state...

There's still more at that tweet. It's not a compelling argument for a number of reasons, the most basic being that it's only Israel that's singled out for this kind of analysis of the state's democratic legitimacy. There are no other democracies in the Middle East, outside of Iraq and Egypt, only marginally so (as Egypt is now verging on single-party Islamic rule, and hence undemocratic).

The author, Joseph Levine, thus engages in the exact kind of anti-Semitism that he claims to be avoiding: singling out the Jewish state for disparate treatment, subjecting it to standards of legitimacy that none of Israel's Arab enemies have to face. But this is progressivism in action, and it's pretty interesting that Matthew Yglesias felt so strongly about the piece to tweet it with such a clearly avowed rejection of Israel's existential rights.

BONUS: The piece is picked up by Yglesias' buddies at the Socialist Worker, the communist rag of the revolutionary International Socialist Organization: "Saying no to Israel's 'right to exist'."

@ZerlinaMaxwell Should Never Be Threatened for Making Stupid Comments, But That's No Excuse for Stupidity

Oh mercy, John Marshall, the homo editor-in-chief at TPM, has his Calvin Kleins in a wad over the attacks-nobody's-even-heard-of against the lovely young progressive Zerlina Maxwell.

Look, stupid idiots who are clearly not conservative attacked her with vile, illiterate slurs such as, "Nigger! I hope you get raped and your throat slit. May be then you understand why white women have to be armed! DIE BITCH!" There are two more like this embedded at the post. And zOMG! The Interwebz is just terrible. That's RAAACISM!

Or, in Marshall's words, "Monstrous" (at Memeorandum):

This is a kind of blood-curdling story I just learned about this afternoon. Zerlina Maxwell is an acquaintance who I’ve watched from a distance as she builds a media career as a progressive pundit and activist — succeeding to an amazing degree while also getting a law degree. I met her for I think only the second time in person at my birthday party last weekend. I just found out that since an appearance on Hannity on Tuesday she’s basically been under an escalating online assault filled with racist epithets and threats of rape all for stating what I think is a fairly straightforward opinion on the intersecting issues of guns and rape.

Oh jeez yes, the world is coming to an end. Say Josh, you think you might spend a day reading Twitchy? I know you're a first generation blogger, but new social media is not hard. Try it. You'll see how this depraved kinda stuff makes the progressive left go 'round. And by the way, Ms. Zerlina's "straightforward opinion" is lame. She shouldn't be threatened for making stupid statements, but she should certainly hit "block and report" rather than cry like a freakin' little black baby whose mom's too busy with a crack pipe to pay her any attention. Duh.

Did you listen at the clip? Ms. Zerlina's been programmed by extreme left ideology toward seeking to socially re-engineer the entire world. Pro Tip: Men know rape is wrong. Just the same as men know murder is wrong. But some men (or women for that matter) don't care whether a criminal act is wrong. They will commit the crime anyway. That's why all the social engineering in the world won't protect a woman from the potential crime of rape. And thus, it's not politically incorrect to suggest that women arm themselves with guns against such attacks. It's common sense. The implication of the leftist position is to dis-empower women and make them perpetual victims. And for a black woman to be making such a case, given America's history of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, is downright shameful. Be that as it may, progressives and feminists occupy another world, an ideological world that is more likely to get them raped and killed regardless of the actions of some deranged Internet trolls tweeting on the web.

RELATED: Ms. Zerlina's post at Feministing, "Telling women to get a gun is not rape prevention."

Toronto District School Board Promoting Cross-Dressing to Preschoolers

Because everything's "normative" or something like that.

At Eye Crazy (via BCF).

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

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

More at RCP, "Cartoons of the Week."

CARTOON CREDIT: William Warren.

I Was Just Thinking About Posting a Drone Video, and Here Come Althouse With "A 4-minute video by the Air Force Research Laboratory on 'micro aerial vehicles'..."

Actually, I was thinking along the lines of a Predator drone, but this is cool.

Via Ann's blog:

Sunday Rule 5 — Jennifer Nicole Lee

I missed my good friend Dana Pico in yesterday's Rule 5 roundup, but he's up this morning with a new entry, "Rule 5 Blogging: Basic Rifle Marksmanship with the Delta Dragons."

And here's Jennifer Nicole Lee while we're at it, at Egotastic!, "Jennifer Nicole Lee Bikini Pictures Shower Down and Towel Off." And at London's Daily Mail, "Strong is the new sexy! Jennifer Nicole Lee shows her perfect six-pack while working out in the Miami heat."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Oops! She Does it Again! Smokin' Jennifer Nicole Lee Bikini Malfunction in Las Vegas."

* "Yet Another Batch of Jennifer Nicole Lee Bikini Pics!"

* "Another Jennifer Nicole Lee Bikini Booty Slip!"

That lady loves her some booty slips!

Added: At Pirate' Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is a planet boiling fridge (ice maker and coolants are Bad), you might just be a Warmist."

Lena Dunham: Nudity on 'Girls' Not Meant to Shock

Here's Dunham in an interview on CBS News, "Lena Dunham on 'Girls': Nudity not meant to shock." Well, maybe "nudity" on "Girls" isn't meant to shock in general, but Lena Dunham nude is rude. Shockingly rude. She's a skanky wench. (Remember, I watched it, despite the vocal warnings of R.S. McCain.)

"We have this insane culture in which girls who don't, you know, look like "Gossip Girls" are put into, like, sweaters and nightgowns to sleep in..."

Actually, Ms. Dunham, you need to be put in sweaters and nightgowns. Eww, skank. Freakin' gross.

Jeb Bush's Rocky Political Reentry

Earlier this week, the New York Times slammed Bush's "rocky" entry into the 2016 presidential circus.

See: "Jeb Bush Enters Debate, and Possibly 2016 Race."

More at the Hill, "Jeb Bush: ‘I applaud the president’ for outreach to GOP lawmakers" (via Memeorandum).

Melissa Harris-Perry Rips Michael Bloomberg's Teen Pregnancy Campaign

Well, we wouldn't want to inhibit teen girls from getting pregnant, or anything. And get this part about blaming poverty on our "financial system that concentrates wealth at the top." No, it's never poor individual choices or a culture of poverty among the idiot Democrat constituencies.

And remember, Harris-Perry is a political scientist. Imagine this were a lecture class:

Africa's Catholic Clout

At the Los Angeles Times, "Conservative brand of Catholicism thrives in Africa":

KAMPALA, Uganda — On Sunday mornings, worshipers arrive two hours early to wait in line for one of 200 seats in the Missionaries of the Poor chapel. By the time Mass begins at 8 a.m., they have been joined by 2,000 more parishioners who sit outside in the sun.

Roman Catholic churches in Uganda are packed these days, the participants traditional-minded, their faith vibrant and strong.

Across Africa, the church reinforces the staunchly conservative values of a population that often attends services several times a week, for hours on end. Catholic leaders also provide homes and food for poor and disadvantaged people whom the state doesn't help, including orphans, abandoned children, the homeless and the disabled.

 Vatican officials announced Friday that cardinals from around the world would open a conclave Tuesday to choose a successor to Benedict XVI. Many wonder whether choosing an African would create a sense of excitement, drawing in new membership and reinvigorating the faith while ensuring that it stands firm on its conservative social mores. But as strong as it is in Africa, the Roman Catholic Church faces stiff competition here from Pentecostal preachers whose charismatic services are closer to African tradition.

Among the Africans mentioned as having a chance to be elected pope are Ghana's Cardinal Peter Turkson and Francis Arinze of Nigeria. Arinze, now 80, had been considered a strong possibility to succeed John Paul II in 2005.

In the last century, the Catholic Church grew faster in Africa than anywhere else, with 16% of the world's Catholics living on the continent, according to a Pew Research Center report.

The stark contrast between the church's growth in Africa and decline in Europe provides perhaps the greatest logic for an African pope. Vatican statistics published last year showed 800 priests being added in Africa while the number declined by 905 in Europe. Africa also showed the largest increase in Catholic seminary students, rising 14% from the previous year, compared with a 10% decline in Europe.

More at the link.

And Ed Morrissey's at the Vatican, "Breaking: Papal conclave to start on March 12th." And, "Re: Sistine Chapel walk through."

Astronaut Mark Kelly Proves That Spacemen Don't Always Come Down to Earth

Retired astronaut Mark Kelly, husband to former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, proves not only that spacemen don't always come back to earth, but that politics ain't as easy as it looks.

At Lonely Conservative, "After Testifying Against Assault Weapons Mark Kelly Bought an AR-15," and Weasel Zippers, "Ooopsie, Gun Control Proponent Caught Buying AR-15 and Pistol, Now Says He Wasn’t Going to Keep the AR-15."

Democrats are idiots, as I always say.

Leftist Israel-Haters Call for Intifada at AIPAC Convention

Via Weasel Zippers and Gateway Pundit:

On March 3, 2013, a group of “pro-peace” leftists and Pro-Palestinian activists organized by the radical CODEPINK organization held a rally outside of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual Policy Conference (AIPAC) in Washington DC. They called for killing Jews.

“Long live the intifada… Intifada, intifada!”

Harvard Hacked Staff Emails

Gawd, this is lame.

At NYT, "Harvard Hacked E-Mails in Search of Media Leaks."

And last month at Instapundit, "HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Harvard Cheating Scandal Ends In Dozens of Forced Withdrawals. (And at the search, "Harvard cheating.")

Angry White Dude on #StandWithSpencer

I love it:

Watch closely to see who and what groups still attend CPAC under the censorship jihad of Grover Norquist! #standwithspencer #cpac #tcot

— angrywhitedude (@angrywhitedude) March 9, 2013

And ICYMI: "#StandWithSpencer — John Hawkins Attacks Counter-Jihad Patriot Robert Spencer."

Game of Drones

At the Looking Spoon, "HBO Could Make Obama's Drone Strikes Into This Hit Series."

RELATED: From Senator Jim Webb, at the National Interest, "Congressional Abdication."

And also at the New York Times, "How a U.S. Citizen Came to Be in America's Cross Hairs," and "The Drone Question Obama Hasn't Answered." (At Memeorandum.)

Well, Here's Your Saturday Afternoon Rule 5

I was worried that I didn't have any Rule 5 material, but what do you know? Logging into Twitter brings up Ms. Chantell at my "who to follow" suggestions.

More here, "Chantell Dhir Strips Off After Winning Our ZOO Real Girls Competition!"

@zoo #ZOOTwitties x x twitter.com/Chantell_D_UK/…
— Chantell (@Chantell_D_UK) March 9, 2013

And now for some fellow babe bloggers:

See Animal Magnetism, "Rule 5 Sequestration Friday."

At Subject to Change, "Bikini Babe Caption Contest."

Also, at 90Miles From Tyranny, "Hot Pick of the Late Night," and "Lovely Ladies." Plus, one more "Hot Pick of the Late Night."

More at Randy's Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart - Klara Wester."

Some politics at EBL's, "The obligatory Ashley Judd senate race announcement Rule 5 post..." Also at Daley Gator, "Remember when Ashley Judd was hot, and not an annoying loud-mouthed Leftist?"

Still more, with a great roundup at Woodsterman's, "Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

Also at Reaganite, "'Miss Kosovo 2012' is the Drop-Dead GORGEOUS Diana Avdiu." And at Diogenes' Middle Finger, "Fishnet Friday."

More from In a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, "Well, it's Friday again and I have not been droned by the dictator yet, so it's been a good week - Pin up babe."

And at Wirecutter's, "Curves."

See also Bob Belvedere, "Rule 5 News: 09 March 2013 A.D."

Plus, at Pirate's Cove, "If All You See……is snow created by massive heat, you might just be a Warmist (HOT!)."

At Theo's, "Bonus Totty..."

BONUS: Lot's more Rule 5 at The Other McCain, "Rule 5 Wednesday: Snowed Out At The Tax Mines." And from Proof Positive, "Best of the Web* Linkaround."

Ronda Rousey Armbar Domination

I missed this earlier, when I linked to Instapundit, "The Allure of the Catfight."

Here's the background on Rousey's domination, "Ronda Rousey controversy continues with victory."

And from last month, at USA Today, "Ronda Rousey retains title over Liz Carmouche at UFC 157." And, "Tate sees Zingano as steppingstone to Rousey rematch."

Just the Beginning

From Sen. Rand Paul, "My filibuster was just the beginning":

By the end of the night, I was tired and my voice was cracking. I ended by saying, “The cause here is one that I think is important enough to have gone through this procedure.” I talked about the idea of compromise, but said that “you don’t get half of the Fifth Amendment.” I argued that we need more extended debates. And finally, at 12:40 a.m., I yielded the floor.

On Thursday, the Senate confirmed John Brennanas director of the CIA. But this debate isn’t over.

The Senate has the power to restrain the executive branch — and my filibuster was the beginning of the fight to restore a healthy balance of powers. The president still needs to definitively say that the United States will not kill American noncombatants. The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment applies to all Americans; there are no exceptions.

The outpouring of support for my filibuster has been overwhelming and heartening. My office has fielded thousands of calls. Millions have followed this debate on TV, Twitter and Facebook. On Thursday, the White House produced another letter explaining its position on drone strikes. But the administration took too long, and parsed too many words and phrases, to instill confidence in its willingness or ability to protect our liberty.

I hope my efforts help spur a national debate about the limits of executive power and the scope of every American’s natural right to be free. “Due process” is not just a phrase that can be ignored at the whim of the president; it is a right that belongs to every citizen in this great nation.

I believe the support I received this past week shows that Americans are looking for someone to really stand up and fight for them. And I’m prepared to do just that.

RTWT.

IMAGE CREDIT: Becca Lower, "Hey Girl… It’s Rand Paul!"

Jumping the Sequester

ICYMI, Kim Strassel's awesome op-ed from yesterday's WSJ, "When the president canceled White House tours, he revealed his claims as ludicrous":

The phrase "jumping the shark" describes that gimmicky moment when something once considered significant is exposed as ludicrous. This is the week the White House jumped the sequester.

The precise moment came Tuesday, when the administration announced that it was canceling public tours of the White House, blaming budget cuts. The Sequesterer in Chief has insisted that cutting even $44 billion from this fiscal year will cause agonizing pain—airport security snarls, uninspected meat, uneducated children. Since none of those things has come to pass, the White House decided it needed an immediate and high-profile way of making its point. Ergo, it would deny the nation's school kids a chance to view a symbol of America.

The act was designed to spark outrage against Republicans, yet the sheer pettiness of it instead provided a moment of clarity. Americans might not understand the technicalities of sequester, but this was something else entirely. Was the president actually claiming there was not a single other government item—not one—that could be cut instead of the White House tours? Really?

The cancellations were an open invitation for the nation to dive into the gory depths of the federal budget—and re-emerge with a debate over waste and priorities. Over the past week, an entire cottage industry has sprung up of journalists, watchdog groups and average citizens reporting on the absurdities of federal spending. Republicans have lit up Twitter with examples of indefensible projects (#SequesterThis).

We've learned that the White House employs three calligraphers, who cumulatively earn $277,000 a year. The Environmental Protection Agency gave $141,000 to fund a Chinese study on swine manure. Part of a $325,000 National Science Foundation outlay went to building a robotic squirrel.

The government gave a $3,700 grant to build a miniature street in West Virginia—out of Legos. It shelled out $500,000 to support specialty shampoo products for cats and dogs. A San Diego outfit got $10,000 for trolley dancing. The feds last year held 894 conferences that each cost more than $100,000—$340 million altogether. But Mr. Obama is too broke to let American kids look around the White House.

Continue reading.

VIDEO CREDIT: iIOWNTHEWORLD, "Even NBC Sees Sequestration Bias."

Added: Sen. Tom Coburn also wrote on the sequester yesterday at WSJ, "The Drama Over, Time For Smart Budget Cuts."

A New Generation Takes Up the Torch

Here's the Tea Party Patriots' video, "A Movement On Fire at CPAC 2013."

Via Melissa Clouthier on Twitter:

I love that message, but young tea partiers must fight infiltration from the Islamists as well. And they must resist the temptation to sell out to the establishment.

PREVIOUSLY: "#StandWithSpencer — John Hawkins Attacks Counter-Jihad Patriot Robert Spencer."

Starkly Different Responses to Defeat of Proposed Los Angeles Sales Tax Hike

A follow-up to my post from yesterday, "South-Central Voters Went 60-100 Percent in Favor of Failed Los Angeles Sales Tax Hike on Tuesday's Ballot."

And remember, the local sales tax would have surged to 9.5 percent. An Angelino would be paying nearly an additional 10 percent to taxes for each taxable consumer purchase in Los Angeles.

At the Los Angeles Times, "L.A. tax-hike vote patterns tell a tale of two realities":

Those in higher-crime areas, who vote in lower numbers, supported the proposal almost to the same extent that more affluent voters rejected it. The hike was defeated.

Nearly every week, 70-year-old Barb Johnson hears word of a nearby robbery or car break-in in Vermont Knolls, her neighborhood of modest bungalows just west of the Harbor Freeway in South Los Angeles.

So it was alarming, she says, to learn this week that voters had rejected a proposed city sales tax increase that the mayor, the police chief and other civic leaders said was vital to shoring up the Los Angeles Police Department and improving emergency services.

"How are we supposed to keep our streets safe if there's no money?" the retired office manager asked.

Over the mountains, in the distant northwest San Fernando Valley suburb of West Hills, Orly Salem, 59, was unmoved by City Hall's plea. A construction company bookkeeper, Salem dismissed the proposed half-cent increase in the sales tax with a weary assessment: Enough is enough.

"Every time it's more, more, more," Salem said. "When I don't have money, I cut my expenses. Why can't they do the same?

A detailed Times analysis and interviews with those and other voters found starkly contrasting vote patterns and perceptions of the proposed sales tax hike across the nearly 469-square-mile expanse of the sprawling city.

In many South Los Angeles precincts, support for the tax increase was overwhelming, as high as 86%. The opposite was true across large swaths of the northwest San Fernando Valley, the Westside and San Pedro, where "no" totals ran as high as 83%. Overall, the measure was defeated with 55% of voters opposed, according to unofficial results.

The contours of the results — and the overall outcome — show the well-established voting dynamics in Los Angeles that will play a significant role in the current campaign to replace Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. More fiscally conservative, independent and Republican voters are concentrated in middle- and upper-income neighborhoods on northern, western and southern fringes of the city. And Tuesday they followed a historic pattern of going to the polls in larger numbers.

Yeah, that's pretty predictable.

The haves vs. the have nots, right? Or the big-government dependents vs. the anti-tax hike independents. Either way, this local divide says a lot about American politics. Mitt Romney's 47 percent comments were crude and politically incorrect. But they really captured the essence of the debate on the role of government in society today.

#StandWithSpencer — John Hawkins Attacks Counter-Jihad Patriot Robert Spencer

I saw Pamela's post last night, "WHEN BLOGGERS ATTACK: JOHN HAWKINS TAKES A DIVE FOR GROVER NORQUIST."

It wasn't a surprise. I saw the fight breaking out on Twitter the other day. Robert Spencer won CPAC's People's Choice Award this year, and apparently a condition for accepting the award was that, at the conference, Robert was prohibited from publicly criticizing Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan. Robert and John Hawkins dispute what was said in their discussion on accepting the award. Pamela has statements from both Robert and John at her post. It's heated. John ends his comments as follows:

I’m the one who talked to Robert Spencer and I’m the one who’s saying that I think demanding the right to throw a tantrum as a condition of accepting an award is unacceptable. All I can say beyond that is that I hope lying to get his 5 minutes of PR was worth burning people who’ve been supportive of him, because he is dead to me.

Those are fighting words. Strong words. iOWNTHEWORLD has more about them, "Stop Digging."

I'm friends with all the particpants to this conflict. And in particular, I am very close personal friends with Pamela Geller. I can't say I'm happy to take sides, because I think John Hawkins has been a great leader of the conservative blogosphere. And while I don't have enough information to determine whose version of the awards acceptance dispute is correct, I'll simply say that that's the minor detail here. The major detail is that John's on the wrong side altogether. CPAC is completely corrupted as a leadership organization. I can't understand how anyone would want to be affiliated with the group in an official capacity, because to do so would be to call into question one's conservative bona fides. That's the situation in which John Hawkins now finds himself. And believe me, I know, the attraction of CPAC is enormous. All the bright lights and big names. All the spectacle and pageantry of the big conference center. All the parties and beautiful women. And of course, all the opportunities for posing, brown nosing and money grubbing. That's enough to make you sick right there. But if that was all it's about I could still handle it. Everyone has their immediate material interests. But that's not what it's all about. It's about a battle over existential values. This is a battle over fundamental freedoms of which there can be no compromise. And this is a battle for the soul of CPAC that's been been raging for quite sometime now. It was raging when I was in attendance in 2011. Some folks might recall David Horowitz's keynote address sounding the tocsin against the Muslim Brotherhood's infiltration of the conservative movement. It's all well-documented. There's no conspiracy here. Either people decide to face facts or not. Listen beginning at 5:00 minutes, or at just before 7:00 when David calls out Suhail Khan by name, denouncing him as a traitor of the United States:

There's more background, with all the evidence, from Frank Gaffney, at FrontPage Magazine, "A Jihadist in the Heart of the Conservative Movement."

And see Pamela at FrontPage Magazine, "CPAC Shills for Islamic Terrorists."

Plus, Robert has this, "CPAC blog award update: John Hawkins of Right Wing News does damage control for Norquist and CPAC, throws Spencer under the bus."

Again, it's not fun to write this, because I've long respected John Hawkins. But people need to speak up. Sorry, but John, take it from me, you're not coming up roses on this. Not just because of the dispute over the award, as bad as that is, but because you're on the wrong side if it's true that you're shilling for Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan. It's time to rethink your goals as a conservative activist. You may still generate lots of money and traffic, but you'll have lost your soul.

Added: Blazing Cat Fur links. Thanks!

Anger Management to Buy Bullets in Florida

At Hot Air, "Florida lawmaker: Why not require everyone purchasing ammo to take anger management courses?"

And check out Scottie Nell Hughes on Twitter.

Dorian Electra

A Reason.tv interview with the lovely little libertarian. Smart and articulate:

And watch: "I'm in Love with Friedrich Hayek."

The Left's Dance With Terror

From Ann-Marie Murrell, at FrontPage Magazine:


Dr. Jamie Glazov’s brilliant book, “United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror,” explains the bizarre love affair that the Left has had for every mass-murdering Communist, Dictator and/or Marxist throughout time.  It chronicles their dangerous obsession with evil from the likes of Stalin and Mao to their current tolerance for all-things-Islam, all the while shouting their anti-capitalistic mantra that “human blood purifies the earth”.

“To be materially comfortable meant to be empty and selfish,” writes Glazov.  “They consider free expression their inalienable right, but hated the society whose institutions gave it to them…”

An especially disturbing case-in-point is found in Chapter 7, “Flirting with Mao’s Executioners” when in 1972,  actress/believer Shirley MacLaine toured communist China. Charmed by the propaganda thrown her way by Mao and company, MacLaine viewed China as a leftist utopia instead of the oppressive, murderous country it really was.  Unfortunately, her belief that the Chinese had caused “the better side of human nature to dominate” involved ignoring the fact that over 70 million Chinese who had been exterminated by her beloved Mao.  As Glazov writes, “The Chinese children who had not died of starvation or been eaten by their starving parents greatly impressed MacLaine.”

Another interesting aspect covered in “United in Hate” is the fact that despite the Left’s “anything goes” mentality here in America, they adore oppression in other countries.  They cheer the unisex clothing of China and the burqas of the Middle East, hypocritically proud of women for covering up any type of sexuality as opposed to the “evil ways of the West”.  Of course what they forget to mention (or choose not to think about) is the fact that these women aren’t given a choice about what to wear and, in fact, are beaten mercilessly if they dare to show their faces in public.

According to Glazov, the self-loathing and guilt associated with living in the greatest country on earth is what drives people like Jane Fonda to climb on the enemy’s tank in Hanoi, or to make Steven Spielberg describe his meeting with Castro as “the most important eight hours of my life.”

RELATED: At the Los Angeles Times, "Sean Penn in Venezuela to mourn 'friend' Hugo Chavez."

Did You Hear About the Guy With the Sex Toy Up His Behind?

I know this is gross, but R.S. McCain was cracking me up on Twitter this morning with this story. See: "Ace of Spades was running a whole riff on Mister Bunghole’s Very Bad Day."

And the #1 person you don't want to follow on Twitter is ... huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/liv… OUCH. EWWWW.
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) March 8, 2013

And clicking over to AoSHQ, "Dude Goes to Hospital With Rude Complaint."

McCain and Graham Try to Ruin the Party

Well, there's still lots more buzz on Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster. The Old Guard's feathers are ruffled. Chris Stirewalt reports, at Fox News, "Can GOP Learn to Live With Libertarianism?"

(Plus, at the Daily Caller, "Mark Steyn: McCain, Graham ‘mercurial figures,’ ‘not helpful to the Republican Party cause’."

And you gotta love how the McRINO senators are the ultimate useful idiots for the progressive hacks at MSNBC. Seriously. This is a news channel?

Back From the Conference

I attended a political science conference today at the Newport Beach Hyatt Regency. Here's my tweet from the event this morning.

At the Hyatt Newport Beach, for a political science teaching conference. #StandWithRand twitter.com/AmPowerBlog/st…

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 8, 2013

The book I'm using is published by Cengage Learning, the same folks who flew me out to North Carolina.

South-Central Voters Went 60-100 Percent in Favor of Failed Los Angeles Sales Tax Hike on Tuesday's Ballot

It was an extremely low-turnout election, but looking at the map of Tuesday's voting demographics, the communities of South-Central Los Angeles sure aren't defying Mitt Romney-style stereotypes of governmental dependency. Here's the report at the Times, "More cuts in services seen as L.A. voters reject tax hike."

The failure to win a half-cent increase in the sales tax, to 9.5%, sets the stage for what could be an impassioned debate at City Hall and on the campaign trail about the proper workforce size and spending priorities of the nation's second-largest city.

Well, read the whole thing. The sky-is-falling campaign pitches turned out to be overblown. Amazing how the big government types never see a tax increase they can't support, especially the union hacks.

Here's Some Alessandra Ambrosio Bikini Pics to Hold You Over

I'm conferencing in Newport Beach today with my book publisher, again. Posting will be light until later tonight.

Meanwhile, at London's Daily Mail, "A true professional! Alessandra Ambrosio braves the wintry beach for bikini photo shoot."

John Brennan Confirmed as Director of Central Intelligence

You gotta love Glenn Greenwald on the left's hypocrisy:

4 years ago, Brennan's advocacy of torture forced him to withdraw for top CIA spot; now, all Dems except 2 vote to confirm him #ObamaLegacy
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 7, 2013

The straight background from Aaron Blake, at WaPo, "John Brennan confirmed as CIA director, but filibuster brings scrutiny of drone program."

But check this on the bizarre ideological alliances from Adam Serwer, at Mother Jones, "John Yoo to Rand Paul: Leave Barack Obama Alone on Targeted Killing!" Well, as I noted yesterday, U.S. citizens on U.S. soil who have not been declared enemy combatants ain't gonna to cut it. (Actually, any U.S. citizen who hasn't been declared an enemy combatant won't cut it.) Otherwise, bombs away!

Morningside Heights Deli of White Racism Identified

Well, except there are no whites who work there, according to Steve Sailor at this hilarious post smacking down the ultimate race-hustler Ta-Nehisi Coates:

A friend in New York identifies the Deli of Discrimination where, according to an NYT column by Ta-Nehisi Coates ("The Good, Racist People"), white racism caused actor Forrest Whitaker to be suspected of shoplifting:

Oferrcrissakes.

Coates never mentions the name of the place. I had to find that out somewhere else.
It's the Milano Market. Too pricey for me. Everyone who works there is either Hispanic, or Muslim - or perhaps, African. But that's true of ALL the small markets in all of Manhattan, not just the UWS. There are no white deli help, cashiers, stockers, etc.*

If he was stopped, it was not by a white person.

But of course, it's all whitey's fault.

The comments are sickening. Sometimes the Times actually has perceptive or dissenting comments, but apparently not this time.

Check back at the post for the link to Coates' piece at NYT, to say nothing of Sailor's conclusion, which is the best.

WSJ Tells Rand Paul to 'Calm Down'

It's subscription only, but here's the key part, "Rand Paul's Drone Rant":

Calm down, Senator. Mr. Holder is right, even if he doesn't explain the law very well. The U.S. government cannot randomly target American citizens on U.S. soil or anywhere else. What it can do under the laws of war is target an "enemy combatant" anywhere at anytime, including on U.S. soil. This includes a U.S. citizen who is also an enemy combatant. The President can designate such a combatant if he belongs to an entity—a government, say, or a terrorist network like al Qaeda—that has taken up arms against the United States as part of an internationally recognized armed conflict. That does not include Hanoi Jane.

The editors fail to note that the administration killed Anwar Awlaki's 16-year-old son without designating him as an enemy combatant. He wasn't on a kill list. He was just killed. A boy. An American boy.

As I always say, I really don't care that the U.S. is killing terrorists with drone strikes. What is interesting hilarious is the hack partisanship of it all, especially now that this president has declared himself judge, jury and executioner. And of course, if it had been President George W. Bush...

Added: From Diana West, "THE FILIBUSTER HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD?":

One of the stranger results of the popular Paul filibuster was the instant coalescence of an ad hoc “Calm down, Rand” (read: shut up) effort. This political eruption loosely and overlappingly linked “surge” and Arab Spring diehards, neocon-esque conservative journals and blogs, and establishment pooh-bahs such as Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

I think the common ground here is that these groups basically favor the Bush-Obama drone wars that allow them to believe we are winning, or at least fighting, the war on terror, even if the unacknowledged reality is that we are losing the free world to what we might call “noncombatant” (or pre-combatant) Islamization. Maybe they think deep inside that if drone wars were deemed unconstitutional in any way – or, worse, ineffective – the hollow offensives the U.S. continues to support would eventually collapse, giving rise to panicky paralysis. In such an event, the absurdity of picking off terrorist leaders worldwide as a national strategy to fight “terror” might emerge with distressing clarity, while the Islamic law and money that have almost wholly engulfed Western institutions might become frighteningly apparent.

Maybe that’s why it seems as if blind trust in presidential discretion now trumps the bounds of the Constitution. But I hope not.

Hey, I just like killing terrorists. But if it were me, we'd be putting boots on the ground, in Syria, Africa, you name it. Take it to the terrorists, I say. And don't be hypocritical about it.

U.S. Postpones 'Courage' Award to Rabidly Anti-Semitic Egyptian Activist Samira Ibrahim

At WaPo, "U.S. postpones award to honor Egyptian woman activist in light of anti-US, anti-Semitic tweets."

The State Department hilariously claimed the woman's Twitter account was hacked.

Proof of lies, from Arieh Kovler, at the Times of Israel, "Samira Ibrahim is probably lying: technical evidence." (At Memeorandum.)

Of course she lied. But that the State Department tried to foist the lies on the American people is especially despicable. Par for the Obama administration course, that's for sure.

Added: From Jeffrey Goldberg, "Is Michelle Obama About to Honor an anti-American antiSemite?"

More: From Lee Smith, at the Weekly Standard, "Samira Ibrahim Speaks":

Ibrahim claimed yesterday that her Twitter page had been “stolen” and she was not responsible for the hateful comments. Today the State Department announced it was deferring her award pending further review.

Finally, Ibrahim herself has spoken, writing in Arabic on her Twitter page. Egyptian democracy activist Mina Rezkalla provides the translation: "I refuse to apologize to the Zionist lobby in America regarding my previous anti-Zionist statements under pressure from American government therefore they withdrew the award.”

This would seem to settle the question as to whether or not her page had been “stolen.” Now all that’s left is for the State Department to demand that Ibrahim reimburse American taxpayers for her trip to the United States.

Not too smart, obviously.

Senators Graham and McCain Are the Real Threat

At RCP, "Ingraham Slams McCain, Graham: Chavez Would Have Supported Drones."

#StandWithRand US Senate unveils plans to preserve and permanently display senators McCain and Graham #tcot
— The People's Cube (@ThePeoplesCube) March 7, 2013

"It’s you and Senator McCain. That’s the threat we face. We keep having these squishy, moderate Republicans telling us what we need to do, and meaning ‘Stand down: don’t defend that Constitution,'" nationally syndicated radio show host Laura Ingraham said today.

“Hugo Chavez would have been for the drone program.” Ingraham said, “He took out people, he took out lots of people… [N]ow we want to give that authority to the President of the United States on our soil? I don’t think so!”

PREVIOUSLY: "Rand Paul's Political Genius."

Rand Paul's Political Genius

Here's Charles Krauthammer's comments from the Fox News All Star panel:

Also, from Ross Kaminsky, at the American Spectator, "A Political Earthquake":

Senator Paul’s filibuster was dramatic and historic. Indeed, while CSPAN2 is normally less interesting than a 3 AM half-hour long infomercial for Facelift in a Flash, not once from the time I started hearing Senator Paul, before 10 AM here in the Rocky Mountains, through at least 10 hours later as I write this note, did I consider changing the channel.

To give you a sense of Paul’s intensity and seriousness, he gave every one of the following remarks within a five-minute span just after 7:35 PM Eastern Time:

* Can the president have the power to decide when the Bill of Rights applies?
Someone in the media should ask the president…“Do you plan on killing Americans who are not in combat…people he might be accusing of some kind of crime but who are not actually engaged in combat?” It should be an easy question.
* We’ll take a telegram. We’ll even take a tweet…if they let us know that they acknowledge that their power is not unlimited.
* If you have a war that has no end, if you have a war that has no geographic limit, and then if you have strikes that have no constitutional bounds, basically what you have is an unlimited imperial presidency.
* But even under George Bush, nobody ever maintained they could kill Americans at home. I can’t imagine that the president, when he comes forward and says that he hasn’t killed Americans yet and he doesn’t intend to do it, but he might, that somehow we’re supposed to be placated by that.
* The president who ran for office and said we’re not going to tap phones without a warrant, the president who ran for office and said we’re not going to torture people now says we’re going to kill people with no due process. I find that incredibly hypocritical and incredibly ironic.

I repeat: that was in one five-minute span.

Continue reading.

Yesterday was a big day for Senate Republicans, and I mean the New Guard Senate Republicans. The Old Guard? Not so much.

More coming up shortly.

And also at Memeorandum.

Barack Obama, the Democrats, and the Mainstreaming of Socialism

I have only a few quibbles with Tod Linberg's outstanding essay at Policy Review, "Left 3.0: Obama and the Emergence of a New Left."

Lindberg refuses to identify what he calls the "newer left" with what by all accounts is a 21st century, culturally Marxist-infused democratic socialism.

In a strange comment, Lindberg suggests that folks like communist and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers are now the "pets" of the Democrat Party establishment rather than its "vanguard," and he gets the facts blatantly wrong regarding the left's motivating tendency toward political violence today (see here and here, for starters). From the essay:

Though largely unspoken, the Left’s implicit acceptance of limiting principles for its egalitarianism now constitutes one of its key strengths and is the first element that distinguishes Left 3.0 from its progenitors. The acceptance of limiting principles allows the Left to avoid the temptation of radicalism. It keeps the Left in “the system.” The Left’s ambition is to obtain majority political support — no more, no less. The Revolution has been canceled. “The system is the solution.” The Democratic Party is the sole legitimate representative of the aspirations of Left 3.0.

There are, no doubt, a few aging radicals who still dream of sweeping the whole capitalist system away and starting over. But never in the history of the Left have such views been so marginal. Once the vanguard of the Left, the radicals are now its pets.

Violence on the Left seems largely confined to scuffles during demonstrations, and indeed, the Left is now heavily vested in the proposition that the real danger of political violence comes from the extreme right. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, casts a longer shadow now than any remnant of the Weather Underground. The last thing Left 3.0 would wish to be thought is dangerous.

For the most part, though, I think Lindberg nails it here:

The Democratic Party’s oneness with Left 3.0 is a new phenomenon. Political scientists tell the story of the great “sorting” of the political parties. There used to be such creatures as liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats; considered as a whole, the parties were less ideological. That in turn meant accommodating diverse interests, which led to dissatisfaction on both Left and Right. On the Democratic side, Bill Clinton staked his political fortunes on his claim to be a “New Democrat,” by which he meant: not a left-wing Democrat. Although everyone on the Left loves him now, it’s not because he continues to draw a distinction between himself and his party’s left wing. On the contrary, in 2003, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean emerged as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination promising to represent “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” — an explicit repudiation of Clinton’s “Third Way” centrism and triangulation between the gop-controlled Congress and old-school liberal Democrats. Running for president in 2007–08, Hillary Clinton was certainly not representing herself as “New Democrat” redux. When she lost to Barack Obama anyway, whatever remained of the “New Democrat” sensibility dissolved harmlessly into the mainstream of the party. Obama’s appointment of her as his secretary of state was (among other things) an insurance policy against a “New Democrat” resurgence around the figure of outsider Hillary Clinton.

The disappearance of a powerful, avowedly centrist element was essential in making the party congenial to Left 3.0. Conservatives have long claimed that the United States is a center-right country, and for many years, many Democrats believed them. Efforts to reach the center of the electorate often alienated the Left, giving rise to such phenomena as Ralph Nader’s 2000 third-party candidacy for president — which arguably cost Al Gore the election in Florida. When the party in 2004 nominated John Kerry, a candidate sufficiently congenial to the Left to avoid consequential defections from the Democratic cause, he came up short in the center.

The notion of an invincibly center-right electorate was anathema to the emerging Left 3.0. A key moment in its reconciliation with the Democratic Party was the latter’s abandonment of policies designed with a center-right electorate in mind. For the foreseeable future, the party would lay claim to the center not on the basis of adopting positions to appease moderates and independents, but on the basis of winning more than 50 percent of the vote on election day for candidates congenial to Left 3.0 and garnering majority public support for positions congenial to Left 3.0.

The role of Barack Obama in this transformation can hardly be overstated. His 2008 campaign was intentionally vague, promising post-partisan transformation and renewal in a time of economic crisis highly conducive to the hopes of a challenger to the incumbent party in the White House. But in the primaries, he was also the candidate untainted by the whiff of anything “New Democrat.” He was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war, and his voting record in the Senate, though short, did nothing of consequence to displease “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.” And if there was not much content to his 2008 message, neither did he give the Left any particular reason to worry about his intentions.

Lindberg, writing at a mainstream policy journal, naturally has a huge incentive to eschew the polarizing language of the hardline, grassroots conservative opposition to President Obama, his administration, and his socialist allies in the Democrat Party. But his hesitant, oblique discussion of the left's ideological transformation can't hide the larger significance of his argument: Obama is the leader of a newly rejuvenated ideological party apparatus that seeks a fundamental reshaping of American society in the image of the radical egalitarians of socialist history. It can't be a vanguard revolutionary agenda because this is America and Americans are too steeped in the classical liberalism of the founding. What the left has done extremely well since the 1960s, however, is to push its Gramscian program of "boring from within" society's institutions to bring about radical change in politics and culture. One of the biggest indicators of current ideological shifts is the percentage of the Millennial Generation who explicitly advocate radical socialist policies. (Recall the report at Pew Research from 2011 in which 49 percent of those 18-29 evinced a favorable view of socialism and 47 percent viewed capitalism negatively.)

Lindberg rightly notes that ideological and partisan trends could see a reversal, that the current hegemony of far-left politics could well be reversed in a couple of election cycles. But he's clear that we're currently eperiencing an Obama-led era of radical equality-obsessed partisanship. Note too that the left's coalition is extremely unified, to the deep consternation of conservatives and the GOP.

As I always say, those on the right have their work cut out for them. The fight to restore traditional American values must be fought economically, politically, and culturally. And we're already seeing signs of progressive overstretch and popular push-back. But patriots can't get cocky. This is the long game, decades of work educating up-and-coming generations on the blessings and moral superiority of free markets and limited government --- the foundations of American society that the left has come this close to destroying.