Thursday, March 21, 2013

What the Iraq War's Critics Choose to Ignore 10 Years Later

From the editors at the Wall Street Journal, "Iraq in Retrospect":
It was 1998, and Iraq and the U.S. were edging toward war.

The Iraqi dictator, President Clinton warned that February, "threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region, and the security of all the rest of us. Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal." In October, the Iraq Liberation Act, which made regime change in Iraq official U.S. policy, passed 360-38 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate. In December, Mr. Clinton ordered Operation Desert Fox, a four-day bombardment of Iraq with the declared purpose of degrading Saddam's WMD capability.

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process," said Rep. Nancy Pelosi, justifying the case for military action on the eve of Mr. Clinton's impeachment.

***
Whatever else might be said about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which began 10 years ago, its origins, motives and justifications did not lie in the Administration of George W. Bush. On the contrary, when Mr. Bush came to office in January 2001 he inherited an Iraq that amounted to a simmering and endless crisis for the U.S.—one that Saddam appeared to be winning.

American and British warplanes enforced a no-fly zone over northern and southern Iraq at a cost of $1 billion a year. The U.N.'s Oil for Food sanctions designed to "contain" Saddam were crumbling amid international opposition to its effects on the Iraqi people, even as the regime used the sanctions as a propaganda tool and as a vehicle to bribe foreign officials. Iraqi Kurds were in perpetual jeopardy, as Saddam demonstrated in 1996 when his Republican Guard took the city of Irbil and shot 700 Kurdish partisans.

Most seriously, after 1998 Iraq rid itself of weapons inspectors, meaning there wasn't even a small check on Saddam's ambitions to rebuild a WMD capability he had already proved willing to use. When the weapons inspectors finally returned to Iraq in the run-up to the invasion, they found Saddam playing the same cat-and-mouse games that had defeated them in the 1990s.

"No confidence can arise that proscribed programs or items have been eliminated," chief U.N. weapons inspector (and avowed war opponent) Hans Blix reported to the Security Council in January 2003, adding that "the Iraqi regime had allegedly misplaced 1,000 tons of VX nerve agent—one of the most toxic ever developed."

It was on these bases, and in the wake of the deadly 9/11 attacks, that Mr. Bush ordered the invasion. If he had lied about the intelligence—as was so widely alleged after the failure to find WMD—then so had Mr. Clinton in 1998, and so had the intelligence services of every Western intelligence service, including those of countries like Germany that opposed the war. Similarly, if Mr. Bush is to be blamed for going to war "illegally" because the U.S. failed to obtain explicit Security Council authorization, then so must Mr. Clinton for going to war with Serbia over Kosovo without U.N. blessing.

So much for the usual canards about the war. As for the failure to find WMD, what the postwar Iraq Survey Group concluded was that Saddam had the intention of restarting his weapons programs as soon as sanctions were lifted. "It was reasonable to conclude that Iraq posed an imminent threat," David Kay, the ISG's first head, testified to Congress in January 2004. "What we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war."

***
The larger intelligence (and military) failure was not anticipating the kind of war the U.S. would wind up waging in Iraq. General Tommy Franks planned a conventional military thrust to Baghdad while Saddam was laying the groundwork for the insurgency that would follow. The result was that U.S. commanders thought the war was effectively finished before it had really begun.

That mistake was compounded by General John Abizaid's "light footprint" strategy, which effectively ceded cities such as Fallujah to the insurgents while U.S. forces stayed on secure bases or conducted search-and-destroy operations. By the time Mr. Bush finally ordered Fallujah taken, late in 2004, the insurgency was full-blown and increasingly difficult to contain.

Those weren't Mr. Bush's only mistakes. He agreed to Paul Bremer's over-long regency in Iraq. He allowed Colin Powell to try diplomacy with Syria even as Bashar Assad was turning Damascus into a safe haven for Saddam loyalists and a transit center for al Qaeda jihadists. He did little to stop Iran from supplying both Shiite and Sunni insurgents with armor-busting munitions that killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers. He deferred for too long to mediocre commanders who thought it wasn't their business to defeat an insurgency they believed could only be solved through political means.

Above all, the Administration proved amazingly inept at rebutting its critics, particularly the politicians and pundits (you know who you are) who supported the war when it was popular and opposed it when it was not. Joe Wilson was proved a liar by a bipartisan Senate report, yet the myth persists that President Bush misled the public in his 2003 State of the Union address by claiming that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa, largely because Administration officials needlessly conceded a point on which they were right...
RTWT.

Plus, more lies right here, at the faux Conservative Heritage Times.

John Yoo on the Iraq War 10 Years After

At Ricochet, "Considering Iraq: Another View."

Read it all at the link.

Those who're arguing against the war, saying it wasn't worth it, essentially favor tyranny over democracy. That is, the antiwar idiots think Iraq would be better off had we never toppled Saddam. Who knows where the Middle East would be with the Ba'athists still in power today? But we know that Iraq is not threatening the region with weapons of mass destruction, that Iraqis have freedom and self-determination, and that regional tyrants know that America will stand up for its interests and for the rule of law internationally (or at least they did know, when G.W. Bush was in office).

See also Fouad Ajami, "Ten Years Ago, an Honorable War Began With Wide Support":
There is no way of writing a convincing alternative history of the region without this war. That kind of effort is inherently speculative, subject to whim and preference. Perhaps we could have let Saddam be, could have tolerated the misery he inflicted on his people, convinced ourselves that the sanctions imposed on his regime were sufficient to keep him quarantined. But a different history played out. It delivered the Iraqis from a tyranny that they would have never been able to overthrow on their own.
RTWT.

America's precipitous withdraw under President Obama risks squandering the blood, treasure, and sacrifice of American people for Iraq and the Middle East.

BONUS: For your boilerplate leftist 10 year antiwar anniversary, see Neta Crawford, at Foreign Policy, "The Iraq War: Ten Years in Ten Numbers."

Readers Fume Over Failure of Feinstein's Gun-Grabbing Bill in Senate

This is hilarious, at the Los Angeles Times, "Fuming over the assault weapons ban's failure."

PREVIOUSLY: "Feinstein's Gun-Grabbing Legislation Fails — On Cue, New York Daily News Exploits Newtown Dead to Attack 'Spineless Pols'."

Child Services, Police Descend on Home After 10-Year-Old Poses with Hunting Rifle

See the report at Big Government, and here's the father's post at the Delaware Open Carry discussion board, "I stood my ground."

Plus, Michelle Malkin's comments from last night's Hannity:

Who's Afraid of Homosexual Pornography?

Well, I guess Dan Riehl's not, if this tweet's any indication:


The gay porn star, Conner Habib, has more on his ordeal, "Why Are We Afraid to Talk About Gay Porn?":
Last week, I was informed by Corning Community College Vice President and Dean of Student Development, Don Heins, that the school's president, Katherine Douglas, had singled out my talk and decided to cancel it, against student wishes. They agreed to honor the contract (which they'd signed off on and which contained a cancellation fee), but they were worried that the talk would be "controversial." I wasn't scheduled to speak about porn, but to talk more broadly on sex and culture. The reason I was banned was because she'd changed her mind after discovering that I was not, as she'd thought, an educator who used to be in porn, but rather a university instructor before I started appearing in adult films.

I was told she stated, empathically and more than once, that pornography cannot and should not be linked to LGBT rights.

When I communicated with frustrated students, I told them that I'd consider coming anyway and that I could work on finding another venue if they were interested. Then I was informed that administrators contacted a local hotel and local businesses to make sure I wouldn't be coming to town, that a student was pulled aside and told not to give direct comments to the press, that the president wanted to schedule her own talk to tell students about why she canceled my appearance, and that if I were to appear in the town of Corning, students were not to attend my lecture.
Continue reading.

And checking over at the college's homepage, this announcement was at top, "CCC's Center for Diversity and Inclusion Grand Opening." Well, obviously "diversity and inclusion" doesn't include LBGT student groups who'd like to hear a gay porn actor discuss human sexuality. Too diverse, I guess.

American Withdrawal Means Global Disorder

A great piece from Eliot Cohen, at WSJ:
Since the days of the Monroe Doctrine, American foreign policy has rested on a global system of explicit or implicit commitments to use military power to guarantee the interests of the U.S. and its allies. The current administration has chosen to reduce, limit or underfund those commitments, and the results—which we may begin to see before President Obama's term ends—will be dangerous.
RTWT.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

'I'm Gay and I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage'

From Doug Mainwaring, at the Public Discourse.

And here's the key section, which dovetails with the argument I've been making at this blog for years:
We are in the middle of a fierce battle that is no longer about rights. It is about a single word, “marriage.”

Two men or two women together is, in truth, nothing like a man and a woman creating a life and a family together. Same-sex relationships are certainly very legitimate, rewarding pursuits, leading to happiness for many, but they are wholly different in experience and nature.

Gay and lesbian activists, and more importantly, the progressives urging them on, seek to redefine marriage in order to achieve an ideological agenda that ultimately seeks to undefine families as nothing more than one of an array of equally desirable “social units,” and thus open the door to the increase of government’s role in our lives.

And while same-sex marriage proponents suggest that the government should perhaps just stay out of their private lives, the fact is, now that children are being engineered for gay and lesbian couples, a process that involves multiple other adults who have potential legal custody claims on these children, the potential for government’s involvement in these same-sex marriage households is staggering.

Solomon only had to split the baby in two. In the future, judges may have to decide how to split children into three, four, or five equal pieces. In Florida, a judge recently ordered that the birth certificate of a child must show a total of three parents—a lesbian couple and a gay man (the sperm-providing hairdresser of one of the lesbian moms). Expect much more of this to come.

Statists see great value in slowly chipping away at the bedrock of American culture: faith and family life. The more that traditional families are weakened in our daily experience by our laws, the more that government is able to freely insert itself into our lives in an authoritarian way. And it will.
I said earlier that "gay conservative" is an oxymoron. Mainwaring could be an exception to the rule. He's got more here, "Same-Sex Marriage: We're Playing Chess, Not Checkers."

Is Obama Trying to Undermine Israel?

From Caroline Glick, "Obama's mysterious visit":
Obama will not use his speech before Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's most outspoken critics to express remorse over the hostility with which he treated Israel's leader for the past four years. He will not admit that his decision to coerce Israel into suspending Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria in his first term gave the PLO justification for refusing to meet with or negotiate with the Israeli government.

So since he doesn't think he's done anything wrong, and he intends to continue the same policies in his second term, why did he decide to come to Israel? And why is he addressing, and so seeking to empower the radical, unelectable Left? Obama's speech in Cairo to the Muslim world was held at the Islamist Al-Azhar Univerity. By speaking at Al-Azhar, Obama weakened Mubarak in three different ways. First, Al-Azhar's faculty members regularly issue religious rulings calling for the murder of non-Muslims, prohibiting the practice of Judaism, and facilitating the victimization of women. In stating these views, Al-Azhar's leadership has demonstrated that their world view and values are far less amenable to American strategic interests and moral values than Mubarak's world view was. By speaking at Al-Azhar, Obama signaled that he would reward the anti-American Islamists at the expense of the pro-American Arab nationalists.
Be sure to read it all. I'm embarrassed by my own president.

Feinstein's Gun-Grabbing Legislation Fails — On Cue, New York Daily News Exploits Newtown Dead to Attack 'Spineless Pols'

Click through at Memeorandum. I'm not linking the asshole Mike Lupica. The kids deserve better than that.

And also at the front-page of today's Los Angeles Times, "Feinstein's assault weapons ban loses this round":
NY Daily News Bankrupt photo ny_dn-4_zps22cac22e.jpg
WASHINGTON — To advance a cause that has defined her political career, Sen. Dianne Feinstein brought the father of a child killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School to Capitol Hill, where he talked about the last time he saw his first-grader alive. She brought in police officers to press her case against her law-and-order opponents.

She made it personal, evoking the time she had sought a pulse on the wrist of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, shot seconds before, and found her fingers "in a bullet hole." And she erupted in a rare display of public anger when a Republican senator questioned her understanding of the Constitution.

But on Tuesday, none of that was enough as the Senate majority leader, a fellow Democrat, excluded Feinstein's proposed assault weapons ban from a broader gun package. Nevada Sen. Harry Reid said he made the move out of fear the Feinstein ban would jeopardize the passage of more popular measures.

"I'm not going to try to put something on the floor that won't succeed," Reid said.

That was the unofficial death knell, and brought Feinstein to a place she has been before. She suffered similar disappointment in 2004, when Congress allowed her 1994 assault weapons ban to expire.

The California senator would not publicly acknowledge defeat, vowing to continue to lobby colleagues as she brings the ban up as an amendment to the broader bill. She said she would also seek a vote to ban ammunition magazines that can accept more than 10 rounds.

"Obviously I'm disappointed," she said. "I tried my best, but my best, I guess, wasn't good enough."

But there was a tinge of irritation as well. Citing public support for an assault weapons ban, she said, "You'd think the Congress would listen, but they clearly listen to the National Rifle Assn."

Feinstein's measure would prohibit the sale, import and manufacture of more than 150 weapons — including the make of Bushmaster rifle used in the Newtown, Conn., school shooting — and also ban the larger ammunition magazines. People who legally own assault weapons — 3.5 million to 4 million such guns exist, by one estimate — would be allowed to keep them. To buy one of the existing weapons, buyers would have to undergo a background check.

Gun violence has propelled Feinstein's political career. She became San Francisco mayor after Mayor George Moscone and Milk were shot to death at City Hall in 1978.

She pushed for the 1994 ban after a series of shootings, including a 1993 rampage in a San Francisco office building that left eight people dead and six wounded. She has become a favorite nemesis of the NRA, which has used her visage to raise money.

This time around, she spent weeks working to rally support for a new ban in the belief that the December school massacre would turn the debate. She pushed back against the notion that assault weapons should be allowed for hunting.
More at that top link.

And remember, gun control is for the little people: "Dianne Feinstein's Concealed Carry Permit."

Harry Reid Shamelessly Ties Marines' Explosion Deaths to the Sequester

From Katie Pavlich, at Townhall, "Shameless Harry Reid Uses Dead Marines to Fearmonger on Sequester" (via Memeorandum):

As Ben Shapiro would say, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is dancing on the graves of dead Marines in order to score political points. Today during remarks on the Senate floor about an explosion at an Army base in Nevada last night that killed seven Marines during a training exercise, Reid shamelessly implied sequestration and cut backs in funding were to blame for the accident.

Student Suspended for 'Hot for Teacher' Essay Sues Oakland University Administrators

This is an amazing case, at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

More here, "‘So, Are You SURE I Can Write Whatever I Want in This Assignment?’"


Billy Idol Plays Surprise Concert at Hinano's Bar in Venice Beach

Boy, that would have been a lot of fun.

At London's Daily Mail, "Still rebel yelling: Billy Idol, 57, defies his age as he performs topless in surprise show at small bar."

And he'll be playing again at Temecula's Pechanga resort in May, opening his U.S. summer tour there. I'll update if my wife and I score tickets. We'll be seeing the Eagles next weekend in Las Vegas, so not sure about the Pechanga gig.

More: "[VIDEO] 57 Yr Old Billy Idol Rips Killer Set At Hinano on St. Patricks Day In Venice Beach."

The Other Marriage Inequality

Glenn Reynolds discusses declining marriage rates among the low and lower middle classes, at USA Today.

A great piece.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Cyprus Rejects Rescue Plan

At WSJ, "Nation's Future in Euro Zone in Doubt After Blocking Controversial Tax on Deposits":

Cyprus's parliament rejected its government's bailout deal with the euro zone without a single vote in its favor, a move that could hasten the potential collapse of its banks and send the tiny island nation hurtling out of the euro zone.

Even the ruling party of President Nicos Anastasiades, who negotiated the agreement four days ago, declined to support it, leaving the country with few options to avert a financial-sector meltdown. The rejection was centered on the most controversial aspect of the deal—a tax on individual bank deposits—and came even after officials tried to calm objections by exempting depositors with less than €20,000 ($26,000).

Meanwhile, a government delegation led by the finance minister headed to Moscow to present a long-shot plan to ask Moscow for billions of dollars in return for stakes in the island's troubled banks and its energy assets.

Tuesday's vote came after days of fraught political talks in the Cypriot capital. Cyprus's banks are due to stay closed until at least Thursday, with some officials saying the holiday could stretch to Tuesday, March 26.

What happens next isn't clear. A senior European official said after the vote that the euro zone would continue to wait for a counterproposal from Nicosia, outlining how it would raise the €5.8 billion it needs in order to secure the €10 billion bailout it had agreed upon with the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund.

"The ball is now really in Cyprus's court," Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Dutch television after the vote, adding there would be no new money for Cyprus beyond the amount already set. "Cyprus was granted some freedom, but it will have to settle with the maximum amount of €10 billion."

Apart from negotiating the rescue deal, the government has been working on a Plan B that would involve support for its banks from Russia, a longtime friend of the country and the largest source of foreign deposits in Cyprus's banks. Cypriot officials were planning to offer Russia stakes in energy projects and banks, two officials familiar with the situation said. The Cypriot finance minister is due to meet with his Russian counterpart in Moscow on Wednesday.

In the past, Moscow has been cool to Cypriot requests for more assistance beyond Russia's current €2.5 billion bailout loan to Cyprus.

"It's anybody's guess what the developments will be from this point on," said Theodore Couloumbis, professor emeritus in international relations at the University of Athens. "My hope is that there will be a renegotiation. But it appears that a catastrophic scenario is not out of the question—and that is bankruptcy that could lead to a Cypriot exit from the euro zone."
Also at the Economist, "The bail-out of Cyprus: We'd rather not."

You Know You're Over the Target...

When the deranged progressive trolls attack you out of the blue as EVIL!!


Here's what set the dude off, the idiot: "States Using 'Civil Protection Orders' to Roll Back Second Amendment Rights." And don't miss the comments at the thread. I won't be surprised if the workplace harassment complaints start kicking up again. Express an opinion at odds with the accepted progressive narrative and be prepared to weather the juvenile backlash. Clueless fucks.

The Progressive Shift — To the Expropriation of Capital!

Occasional (neo)conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks gets back to basics with this piece, proving he really does get it regarding the radical transformation of the Democrat Party in the Age of Obama.

See, "The Progressive Shift":
There is a statue outside the Department of Labor of a powerful, rambunctious horse being reined in by an extremely muscular man. This used to be a metaphor for liberalism. The horse was capitalism. The man was government, which was needed sometimes to restrain capitalism’s excesses.

Today, liberalism seems to have changed. Today, many progressives seem to believe that government is the horse, the source of growth, job creation and prosperity. Capitalism is just a feeding trough that government can use to fuel its expansion.

For an example of this new worldview, look at the budget produced by the Congressional Progressive Caucus last week. These Democrats try to boost economic growth with a gigantic $2.1 trillion increase in government spending — including a $450 billion public works initiative, a similar-size infrastructure program and $179 billion so states, too, can hire more government workers.

Now, of course, liberals have always believed in Keynesian countercyclical deficit spending. But that was borrowing to brake against a downturn when certain conditions prevail: when the economy is shrinking; when debt levels are low; when there are plenty of shovel-ready projects waiting to be enacted; when there is a large and growing gap between the economy’s current output and what it is capable of producing.

Today, House progressives are calling for a huge increase in government taxing and spending when none of those conditions apply. Today, progressives are calling on government to be the growth engine in all circumstances. In this phase of the recovery, just as the economy is finally beginning to take off, these Democrats want to take an astounding $4.2 trillion out of the private sector and put it into government where they believe it can be used more efficiently.

How do the House Democrats want to get this money? The top tax rate would shoot up to 49 percent. There’d be new taxes on investment, inheritance, corporate income, financial transactions, banking activity and on and on.

Now, of course, there have been times, like, say, the Eisenhower administration, when top tax rates were very high. But the total tax burden was lower since so few people paid the top rate and there were so many ways to avoid it. Government was smaller.

Today, especially after the recent tax increases, the total tax burden is already at historic highs. If you combine federal, state, sales and other taxes, rich people in places like California and New York are seeing the government take 60 cents or more out of their last dollar earned.

Democrats would make that weighty tax burden much, much heavier. In fact, the entire Democratic governing vision, from President Obama on down, is based on the notion that we can have a growing welfare state and pay for it by taxing the top 2 percent.

The first problem, of course, is that there aren’t enough rich people to cover even the current spending plans.
Well, the left's "fair share" boilerplate is based on the massive lie that the rich don't pay enough in taxes. And the fact that there aren't enough "rich" people is only a minor inconvenience to the socialists in Washington. Taxes are hitting everybody, even down to the working poor who're paying more in payroll taxes under Obama. These leftist tyrants have an insatiable demand for more --- more! --- revenue, no matter what it takes. And that, my friends, is statist evil in textbook form.

PREVIOUSLY: "Is Obama Really Socialist?"

Uncommon Knowledge: Bernard Lewis and Norman Podhoretz

Via the Hoover Institution, "Bernard Lewis and Norman Podhoretz discuss the Middle East":
This week on Uncommon Knowledge, Islam historian Bernard Lewis and Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz discuss the history and future of the Middle East. (56:54) “Deterrents worked with the Soviets and the Chinese because the Soviets were not suicidal and because they knew that, if they launched the first strike, there would be a second strike that would annihilate them. Mutually assured destruction. And mutually assured destruction can’t work in relation to Iran because these are people who you might say are in love with useful death.”

'God Hate Fags'

Look, I slam the homosexuals pretty often, but this is a bit much.

At E! Online, "Singer Michelle Shocked Goes on Anti-Gay Rant During San Francisco Show, Cancellations Follow":
Michelle Shocked stunned last night in San Francisco—and not at all in a good way.

"I live in fear that the world will be destroyed if gays are allowed to marry," the 51-year-old singer-songwriter reportedly told an appalled crowd at live-music venue Yoshi's.

She summed up by saying, "You can go on Twitter and say ‘Michelle Shocked says God hates f-gs,'" according to Matt Penfield, who was live-tweeting the show from the stage. "all cool. 2nd set, she got up went full hate speech," he wrote.
Former Michelle Shocked fan Lisa Hubbert was at the concert, tweeting with great anticipation (here and here, for example), and then this:


Lots more commentary at Memeorandum.

Talk about going the full Westboro. Ms. Shocked is a born again ex-lesbian, or something. Schizophrenic as well, apparently.

Hate the ideology. Don't hate the hater-homosexuals. Sheesh.

GOP After-Action Report Calls for Major Changes

Pardon my language, but the Republican Party is f-ked.

The New York Times reports, "G.O.P. Report Is Blunt in Its Call for New Direction."

And at Townhall, "Post Mortem: RNC Report Calls for Major GOP Overhaul":

Republicans have gotten their backsides kicked in the last two presidential election cycles, which are essentially the "Super Bowls" of American politics. The party's standard-bearers have lost the popular vote in five of the last six contests, with the lone exception of President Bush's 2004 re-election. Bluntly stated, the GOP's national political model is broken. The Republican National Committee has just published an exhaustive report about what went wrong in 2012, when a Democratic president with mediocre approval ratings and historically poor economic indicators won a second term by a comfortable, 3.5 million vote margin. The political bubble and its inhabitants are infamous for self serving ass-covering, which is why the RNC's new autopsy deserves significant credit for its refreshing -- and at times startling -- frankness. Though various elements within the conservative coalition will surely identify elements to criticize, the 100-page report advances some hard, unvarnished truths about the party's deficient mechanics, assumptions and strategies -- as well as the changing face of the electorate. It draws conclusions based upon raw data and feedback from tens of thousands party organizers, political practitioners, pollsters, candidates and elected officials, technology experts, grassroots activists, and swing state focus group participants.
Here's the report: "Growth and Opportunity Project."

More at WSJ, "GOP Issues Scathing Self-Analysis." (Via Memeorandum.)

And see especially, at the Washington Examiner, "RNC chief retreats after report endorses immigration reform." Like I said, these people are completely screwed.

Surviving Obama's Drone Strikes

From Diogenes' Middle Finger:

Monday, March 18, 2013

Obama as Satan?

Well, yes, it's a striking resemblance.

At London's Daily Mail, "Why does the devil in ‘The Bible’ look exactly like President Obama?"

And Althouse explains things, "This is actually an easy question to answer" (via Memeorandum).

I don't really care. Obama's not Satan, but as the folks at the People's Cube point out:

The Source of Obama's Power

Via the Looking Spoon, "Everyone Knows Where Obama's Power Comes From Except The Source Itself":

Ignorance Obama

The Left's CPAC Lies

Robert Stacy McCain reports, at the American Spectator, "The Liberal Media Lie About CPAC." (via Memeorandum):
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — The liberal media covered the 40th Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) pretty much like they cover everything else — deceitfully, with a partisan bias that is transparent to every honest and intelligent person who actually pays attention. On any subject of potential political significance, there is a yawning chasm between (a) actual events and (b) the deliberately dishonest portrayal of those events by the hired liars whose biggest fraud is their ludicrous pretense to objectivity. If the New York Times could find a way to put a liberal spin on sports, they certainly would: “Louisville Gets Top NCAA Seed; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”

Take, for example, the young comedian Steven Crowder. While serving as emcee on the Potomac Ballroom stage Saturday at CPAC, Crowder made a joke about actress (and, it is rumored, future Kentucky Senate candidate) Ashley Judd: “This just in, Ashley Judd just tweeted that purchasing Apple products is akin to rape — from her iPhone.” Which is pretty doggone funny if you know that, as Alex Pappas of the Daily Caller reported, Judd has claimed that the purchasers of the iPhone and other Apple products are “financing mass rape” by using minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Judd has a penchant for throwing around “rape” in her far-left political rants. She has compared coal-mining in Kentucky to rape and, also, to genocide in Rwanda. Judd’s long history of such outrageous comments has Republicans laughing mirthfully at the prospect of the actress challenging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky next year. But according to liberal journalists — whose cheerleading for Democrats is now so unapologetically blatant that it is taken for granted — the real outrage is that any Republican would criticize Judd’s lunatic utterances.

This is apparently why the Huffington Post decided to lie about Crowder’s joke. “Steven Crowder, a Fox News contributor who hosted part of Saturday’s activities at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference, made a questionable remark about actress and possible Kentucky Senate candidate Ashley Judd,” a post at the site described it, omitting both the factual context and the first part of the joke, quoting only Crowder’s follow-on comment: “What is this obsession with Ashley Judd and rape? It’s pretty unnerving.”

By tagging Crowder as a “Fox News contributor,” the writer of the HuffPo item signaled to liberal readers that the young comic is a hate-object. Evidently, the unnamed writer – the cowardly HuffPo liar didn’t put a byline on this cheap smear-job – didn’t trust his readers to have enough sense to decide whether or not Crowder’s joke was “questionable.” And, of course, there was the clever ju-jitsu reversal: The story is not about whether Ashley Judd’s rhetoric was too over-the-top for a Senate candidate — Judd’s own remarks aren’t even quoted — but rather whether a comedian’s joke about Judd is “questionable.”
Continue reading.

Recall that the leftist media goons were tracking Pamela Geller down like a pack of hyenas. These people are vile. And the work they do aids the enemies of the United States.

Rep. Tom Cotton: 'Just and Noble War in Iraq'

It's the ten-year anniversary of the Iraq war and the left is using this as a chance to (hypocritically) delegitimize the use of force in national security policy. But Rep. Tom Cotton, an Iraq war veteran and freshman Member of Congress from Arkansas, is having none of it. He's a very articulate spokesman for the nobility of the mission and for the sacrifices Americans have made for freedom in the Middle East:


Also at the video is Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. She's also very articulate, but unfortunately is typical of the Democrat Party stab-in-the-back mentality on Iraq.

Plus, more leftist treason from Howard Fineman, at PuffHo, "Iraq War 10th Anniversary Reminds Us of the Questions We Didn't Ask" (via Memeorandum).

More, typically antiwar in tone, at USA Today, "10 years later, many see Iraq War as costly mistake."

I think this ABC News poll captures the trajectory of the politics of the war. Iraq was popular at the beginning, but Americans rejected the prolonged deployment. See, "A Decade on, Most are Critical of the U.S.-Led War in Iraq." Especially interesting is the partisan breakdown:
There are lingering political and ideological differences in views on Iraq, with support much higher among Republicans and conservatives compared with others. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans and 55 percent of conservatives say the war was worth fighting; just 35 percent of independents and 27 percent of Democrats, respectively, agree, as do just three in 10 liberals and moderates alike. Results on Afghanistan are similar among partisan groups.
The Democrats: the party of defeat and treason.

Pope Francis is Obstacle for Argentines Who Want Their Country to Be the Next Venezuela

From Mary Anastasia O'Grady, at WSJ, "Behind the Campaign to Smear the Pope":
Argentines celebrated last week when one of their own was chosen as the new pope. But they also suffered a loss of sorts. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a tireless advocate of the poor and outspoken critic of corruption, will no longer be on hand locally to push back against the malfeasance of the government of President Cristina Kirchner.

Argentines not aligned with the regime hope that the arrival of Francis on the world stage at least will draw attention to this issue. Heaven knows the situation is growing dire.

One might have expected a swell of pride from Argentine officialdom when the news broke that the nation has produced a man so highly esteemed around the world. Instead the Kirchner government's pit bulls in journalism—men such as Horacio Verbitsky, a former member of the guerrilla group known as the Montoneros and now an editor at the pro-government newspaper Pagina 12—immediately began a campaign to smear the new pontiff's character and reputation at home and in the international news media.

The calumny is not new. Former members of terrorist groups like Mr. Verbitsky, and their modern-day fellow travelers in the Argentine government, have used the same tactics for years to try to destroy their enemies—anyone who doesn't endorse their brand of authoritarianism. In this case they allege that as the Jesuits' provincial superior in Argentina in the late 1970s, then-Father Bergoglio had links to the military government.

This is propaganda. Mrs. Kirchner and her friends aren't yet living in the equivalent of a totalitarian state where there is no free press to counter their lies. That day may come soon. The government is now pressuring merchants, under threat of reprisals, not to buy advertising in newspapers. The only newspapers that aren't on track to be financially ruined by this intimidation are those that the government controls and finances through official advertising, like Mr. Verbitsky's Pagina 12. Argentines refer to the paper as "the official gazette" because it so reliably prints the government's line...
Continue reading.

Rob Portman ABC News Interview on Support for Homosexual Marriage

It's a compelling interview, although I don't believe that Portman didn't know is son was gay. But whatever, this was a bonanza for the homosexual leftist media.


RELATED: From Bryan Fischer, at Renew America, "Rand Paul's view of marriage would be a disaster for America":
The fatal weakness of libertarianism is that it inevitably and ineluctably deteriorates into license. That's not the America our Founders established. They predicated the entire American experiment on ordered liberty, the capacity of Americans to govern themselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.

Everyone in society was expected, by scriptural teaching, social custom and public policy, to arrange their lives according to the moral standards of the Judeo-Christian tradition. America was not, and can never be, a culture in which every man does what is right in his own eyes. If we get to the point where that becomes the official position of the government, America will no longer be America. That is a recipe for social fragmentation and eventual destruction.

D-Day for Press Freedom in Britain

At Instapundit, "IN BRITAIN, IT’S D-Day For Press Freedom, as political hacks try to muzzle newspapers."

States Using 'Civil Protection Orders' to Roll Back Second Amendment Rights

You can see that hand of the radical feminists at work in this, and it's amazing how sympathetic the New York Times is to the meme. See, "Ruled a Threat to Family, but Allowed to Keep Guns." A felony conviction is required to strip an individual of the right to bear arms, but the left is working hard to take guns away from anyone who runs afoul of the feminist victims' power lobby. It's obscene.

Read it all at the link. Strange how hard the gun-grabbing push has become in the wake of Newtown.

Democrat Post-Natal Abortion

Via the People's Cube:

Post-Natal Abortion

Cyprus Rescue Risks Backlash

At WSJ, "Unprecedented Move to Levy Fee on Island's Bank Accounts Stokes Worry in Euro Zone; Asian Markets Open Lower":

The euro zone took the unprecedented step of taking a bite out of depositors' accounts in Cypriot banks to help pay for its bailout of the island's financial system, a high-risk decision that could erode savers' confidence across the currency bloc and add to popular anger over its handling of the crisis.

The decision to raise €5.8 billion ($7.6 billion) from taxes on depositors—including individuals with small amounts in their accounts—risks a political backlash for the newly elected center-right government on the Mediterranean island and a wider political fallout for the euro-zone leaders who are guiding the bloc's crisis strategy.

Asian shares and the euro fell sharply in early trading Monday as markets reacted to the bailout. Japan shares dropped 1.8%, Australia fell 1.5% and South Korea fell 0.5%. "The feeling is that the euro crisis could be back and that you could see full-on contagion," said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at Amp Capital in Sydney. "But I suspect that we are going to hear reassurances from other countries."

A tax on depositors—6.75% on deposits up to €100,000, and 9.9% above that level—was the only way out for the bloc's finance ministers after Germany, the euro zone's biggest economy, and the International Monetary Fund insisted that financial aid to Cyprus should be limited to €10 billion.

With the money due to have been withdrawn electronically from bank accounts over the weekend, politicians in Nicosia were discussing how they might adjust the levy to make it appear fairer. Monday is a public holiday on the island, when banks are closed, but European officials said contingency plans were being put in place to calm any turmoil in the country's financial system when the banks eventually reopened.

Since the global financial crisis began in 2008, few European bank depositors have taken losses. Denmark forced some large depositors to do so in 2011, when two midsize lenders collapsed. Iceland also decided not to repay foreign depositors when it suffered a bank crisis in 2008—although the British and Dutch governments stepped in to make sure savers didn't incur losses. In 1992, Italy imposed a small tax on its depositors.
More at Zero Hedge, "Cyprus: The World’s Biggest 'Poker Game'." And Journal 14, "€urosclerosis: The bank account levy in Cyprus."

And from Megan McArdle, at the Daily Beast, "After Cyprus, Is Rest of Europe Next?"

Rae Stabosz, 63-Year-Old Catholic Grandmother, Viciously Attacked While Filming Botched Abortion Incident

At Astute Bloggers, "VIDEO: HOW LEFTISTS REACT TO A FREE PRESS WHEN IT EXPOSES THEM."

More here, "Praying Catholic Grandma Violently Attacked at Planned Parenthood While Filming Botched Abortion Incident."

Establishment Hack Karl Rove Lashes Out at Sarah Palin

This story was trending yesterday at Memeorandum. Here's the clip:


He's an ass. An ultimate ass.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Sunday Cartoons

Here's the late evening edition, via A.F. Branco, "Size Matters":

Big Pants

More at Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

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

Why is Obama Determined to Crash and Burn?

Because he couldn't care less about destroying the economy in furtherance of the left's egalitarian Utopia?

From Ted Van Dyk, at the Wall Street Journal, "My Unrecognizable Democratic Party":
As a lifelong Democrat, I have a mental picture these days of my president, smiling broadly, at the wheel of a speeding convertible. His passengers are Democratic elected officials and candidates. Ahead of them, concealed by a bend in the road, is a concrete barrier.

They didn't have to take that route. Other Democratic presidents have won bipartisan support for proposals as liberal in their time as some of Mr. Obama's are now. Why does this administration seem so determined to head toward a potential crash and burn?

Even after the embarrassing playout of the Obama-invented Great Sequester Game, after the fiasco of the president's Fiscal Cliff Game, conventional wisdom among Democrats holds that disunited Republicans will be routed in the 2014 midterm elections, leaving an open field for the president's agenda in the final two years of his term. Yet modern political history indicates that big midterm Democratic gains are unlikely, and presidential second terms are notably unproductive, most of all in their waning months. Since 2012 there has been nothing about the Obama presidency to justify the confidence that Democrats now exhibit.

Mr. Obama was elected in 2008 on the basis of his persona and his pledge to end political and ideological polarization. His apparent everyone-in-it-together idealism was exactly what the country wanted and needed. On taking office, however, the president adopted a my-way-or-the-highway style of governance. He pursued his stimulus and health-care proposals on a congressional-Democrats-only basis. He rejected proposals of his own bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission, which would have provided long-term deficit reduction and stabilized rapidly growing entitlement programs. He opted instead to demonize Republicans for their supposed hostility to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

No serious attempt—for instance, by offering tort reform or allowing the sale of health-insurance products across state lines—was made to enlist GOP congressional support for the health bill. It passed, but the constituents of moderate Democrats punished them: 63 lost their seats in 2010 and Republicans took control of the House.
Obama'a an amateur president and a professional asshole.

More at that top link.

The High Cost of Drug Decriminalization in Czech Republic

Something for the libertarian losers to put in their bongs.

At Der Spiegel, "Czeched Out: The Losers of Prague's Drug Liberalization":
The Czech Republic's 2010 decision to lower drug possession from a criminal to misdemeanor offense has turned the country into a mecca for drug users. The change has spawned a profitable sub-economy, but also come at a high social cost.

The problem has its roots in a rectangular tent made of black plastic that looks like an oversized mobile wardrobe. It's as tall as a man, almost completely odor-tight and provides space for four fully grown cannabis plants. The "Growshop" in the Prague city district of Zižkov sells the tent for the equivalent of €400 ($520), including a fan, ventilation ducts, a 400 Watt spotlight, fertilizer and a bag of potting soil. It's easy to set up this black contraption at home and start growing your own weed. Any 14-year-old can do it -- and that's the problem. The market is flooded with marijuana.

"Prices are falling," says Marek, a local dealer with a hairdo that looks like a wire wig. He has picked out a restaurant near the Charles Bridge, where he orders goulash with mashed potatoes and complains about declining profits. The dope-dealing business has seen better days, he says. He currently gets 1,500 crowns, or roughly €60 ($78), for 10 grams of weed. Regular customers -- who Marek prefers to calls "friends" -- buy on credit.

To avoid boring his "friends," he regularly brings them samples of new strains. "White Widow" is currently doing well, meaning that it gets you high as a kite. Marek stresses that his product is far better than what the competition offers. "My stuff is grown with love, not like the shit that the Vietnamese produce. They grow their weed in warehouses." The Vietnamese are the second problem. Marek says they only care about business, not quality, like the Czech growers do. They aren't devoted to the art of gardening, he claims.

Both Marek and his suppliers benefit from the fact that reefer has become an integral part of Czech folklore since the early 1990s, like pilsner beer and dumplings with sauce. Half of all Czechs between the ages of 15 and 34 have smoked pot at least once in their lives. According to statistics by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the Czech Republic ranks among the top cannabis-smoking nations in Europe, right up there with Italy and Spain.

Many years ago, the police gave up issuing warnings to everyone who took a toke on a joint. Unable to stop the practice, the government decided it should at least regulate it. Since 2010, Czech authorities have no longer treated possession of narcotics or psychotropic substances in small quantities as a criminal offense, but rather as a misdemeanor subject to a maximum fine of €600. The Czech Republic -- which borders Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Austria -- now lies like a drugged-up green oasis in the midst of narcotics laws that range from fairly strict to absolutely rigid.

An official table lists the maximum legally allowed amounts: For personal use, each individual is allowed to carry up to 15 grams of marijuana, four ecstasy tablets, two grams of crystal meth, one gram of coke or one-and-a-half grams of heroin without having to fear criminal charges. Dealing drugs is still a criminal offense, but cannabis growers, cocaine smugglers and meth labs have been earning good money again since 2010.

Critics see the new laws as a capitulation, and law enforcement agencies condemn the lax legislation. The Czech interior minister is having troubles with authorities in the neighboring German states of Bavaria and Saxony, which are complaining about drugs being smuggled over the border.
Hey, that's progress --- and it's coming to America!

More at the link.

Republican Ana Navarro on Rob Portman Conversion: Homosexual Marriage is All About Family Values

Listen to this clip featuring blithering idiot Ana Navarro blabbering like a fool about how Sen. Rob Portman's support for homosexual marriage is just really all about how Republican policy has always favored same-sex marriage, or something. Truly bizarre. And stupid. It's not even been six months yet since Romney's meltdown and GOP consultants act like bathhouse bunghole jumpers are a key conservative constituency:

Steubenville Defendants Found Guilty of Rape

At the Columbus Dispatch, "2 Steubenville football players found guilty of rape."

And folks should read Lee Stranahan, "GUILTY VERDICT IN STEUBENVILLE RAPE CASE THAT SAW ANONYMOUS TERRORIZE A TOWN."


The Steubenville travesty has not been an obscure story. In fact, in late December and early January the story made headlines internationally and the trial this week is being covered by heavy hitters like CNN, the Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times and was featured on ESPN and 20/20 this past week. Although the Steubenville rape case story has received scant mention on conservative websites, the story has been covered extensively by mainstream media, pop culture shows and top left leaning blogs.

During the initial media maelstrom, the Steubenville rape case was featured on NPR, by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic, PolicyMic, several stories on The Atlantic Wire, The New Yorker, The Nation, Truth-out, Democratic Underground, DailyKos, Buzzfeed, Gawker, Al Jazeera, Slate, Natasha Lennard writing for Salon, a number of pieces on The Huffington Post, a tweet to 200,000+ followers by Mother Jones, articles on Raw Story, Pam Spaulding at FireDogLake, Chez Pazienza at The Daily Banter, Meagan Carpentier writing for U.K’s The Guardian extensive coverage in U.K.’S the Daily Mail. In the mainstream media, it’s been extensively discussed on CNN, CNN This Morning, Jane Valez Mitchell, Nancy Grace with special guest star Roseanne Barr, Dr. Drew, a number of segments on Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta, a full hour on Dr. Phil, plus segments on ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s The Today Show.
More at that top link, at at Stranhan's Steubenville page, "The Trial’s Over: Now Can We Talk About Drinking, Hookup Culture & Social Media?"


Adam Corolla Agrees — Kids Do Better With Normal Parents and 'Opposite Sex' Marriage!

This is video is wild, "Adam Carolla on Gay Parents vs. Straight Parents."

Via Blazing Cat Fur, "Amicus Brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry Demonstrates Children Fare Better With Biological Parents in Traditional 'Opposite Sex' Marriage."

Is Snoop Lion's Transformation the Real Dope?

Snoop Dogg is now Snoop Lion, and the dude's got a reggae album coming out on April 23rd. Is he for real? The Los Angeles Times reports, "Snoop Dogg was gangsta; Snoop Lion is Rasta."

This is pretty fascinating. Bunny Wailer is not pleased:

Snoop Lion
"I had got to a point in my career where I had done it all," the performer, 41, explained between drags in the hotel suite on a blunt. "I had reached the pinnacle of rap. It was too easy. I was looking for a new challenge. I needed to speak to the people but not from a hip-hop voice — from a different angle."

Given Snoop's other recent stabs at musical rebranding, his latest iteration may strike some as little more than a countervailing persona served up via a new film and a new album. He insists it isn't an act.

"Reincarnated," a travelogue documentary that reached theaters March 15, chronicles the artist's 2012 journey to Jamaica. Shuttling from shantytown to Nyabinghi temple by minivan and inhaling industrial quantities of ganja, the Boss Dogg is shown immersing himself in reggae culture and being inculcated into the Rastafarian religion — he's instructed to ditch the "Dogg" alias in favor of the more righteous Snoop Lion by none other than reggae legend Bunny Wailer. The film, which premiered at September's Toronto International Film Festival, also captures Snoop recording an all-reggae, non-hip-hop album — his first — also titled "Reincarnated," due out on RCA Records April 23.

If his journey of self-discovery and musical rebirth is authentic, it could have far-reaching implications for one of gangsta rap's keystone figures, a hard-core stalwart (real name: Calvin Broadus) whose "Murder Was the Case" fatalism and 1996 acquittal on murder charges helped cement his street bona fides while paving the way for Snoop to become one of the most sought-out performers in hip-hop history. Some who spent time with the artist in Jamaica — including Wailer — have doubts about his transformation...
More:
With its boilerplate reggae references to "revolution," "ghetto youth," the opening of a "third eye" and frequent salutation to the Rastafarian creative force Jah, the debut Snoop Lion album (executive produced by Grammy-nominated hit maker Diplo) reflects the performer's burgeoning consciousness and apparent finesse with his adopted musical idiom. Add in guest contributions from a host of hip-hop and R&B heavyweights including Rita Ora, Drake, Chris Brown and Busta Rhymes as well as such Jamaican musical luminaries as Mavado and Collie Buddz, and "Reincarnated" provides a surprisingly satisfying pupu platter of reggae styles, referencing dancehall, dub, roots rock reggae and even rub-a-dub style electro-clash.

Not everyone associated with the project is overjoyed with the performer's transformation, however. Wailer has accused the star of "outright fraudulent use of Rastafari Community's personalities and symbolism," insisting Snoop failed to meet "contractual, moral and verbal commitments" in a seven-page demand letter that also orders him to give up using the "Lion" part of his name, demanding he pay unspecified "financial and moral support." (Snoop disputes the allegations but refuses to condemn Wailer.)
Boy, those Rastafarians don't mess around with the brand!

VIDEO: Pamela Geller at 'The Uninvited' Panel at #CPAC2013

This is nothing short of explosive. Mute the television, pull the iPod ear buds from your ears, tell your kids to take a walk, you're busy. Take 8:00 minutes and listen to Pamela. No one in American politics speaks more clearly and forcefully on the threat of stealth jihad and the cancer of political correctness stifling free speech in America.

At Atlas Shrugs, "VIDEO: PAMELA GELLER SPEAKS AT CPAC BREITBART EVENT."


And don't miss Robert Spencer's comments from the panel as well, at Jihad Watch, "Video: Robert Spencer at CPAC "Uninvited" Panel."

Amicus Brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry Demonstrates Children Fare Better With Biological Parents in Traditional 'Opposite Sex' Marriage

At the Foundry, "Social Science Confirms: Kids Need Married Moms and Dads."

(The brief is here, "AMICI CURIAE BRIEF OF SOCIAL SCIENCE PROFESSORS IN SUPPORT OF HOLLINGSWORTH AND BIPARTISAN LEGAL ADVISORY GROUP ADDRESSING THE MERITS AND SUPPORTING REVERSAL.")

And see also this Heritage report, "Marriage: What It Is, Why It Matters, and the Consequences of Redefining It."

Boy, it's all homosexuals all the time these days. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. Oral arguments are expected Wednesday, March 27th.

Top Syrian General Defects, Assad Freaks Out

At NYT, "Assad Issues a Worldwide Plea as a Top Syrian General Defects."

Also at CNN, "Syrian general apparently defects, says morale among troops at a low."

And the dilemmas of U.S. policy are discussed by Walter Russell Mead, "The Fruits of Inaction in Syria."

We should have toppled the sucker years ago, but it's too late for that now. It's going to play out. And the U.S. is going to pick of the "bad" rebels with Predator drones. Oh boy, this is lovely.

I'm Seeing Some 'Feedly' Links in My Sitemeter

Thanks to readers who are following the blog on RSS.

I'm seeing some Feedly links and I was reminded of this story I saw earlier, at Slash Gear, "500,000 Google Reader users convert to Feedly":
When one door closes, another one opens, and that statement proves very true for Feedly. After Google’s shocking announcement that it’s going to shut down its Google Reader service, Feedly’s user base has increased phenomenally. The service has already gained over 500,000 new users in just 48 hours. Feedly has done a great job in enticing Google Reader users to convert to its service, and it has launched new servers and increased its bandwidth by 10 times in order to keep up with demand.
RTWT.

It's easy to make the switch from Google to Feedly, but don't wait too long.

Oh My! Pamela Geller Smacks Down Orly Taitz at #CPAC2013

Now I would have liked to see this:


Via Atlas Shrugs, "CPAC-Snaps: The Passing Parade."

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Depraved, Hypocritical Leftists Attack Conservatives for Standing Up for Conservative Principles

If libertarian "conservatives" think they're doing the GOP a favor by pushing the party toward accepting homosexual marriage as a matter of policy, they need to think again.

The leftist media went batsh*t at the news of Sen. Rob Portman coming out for homosexual marriage. This was a yawner to me, so I ignored it at the time. But now here comes the depraved homos at Think Progress with their creepy CPAC video alleging that conservatives are bigots for disagreeing with Sen. Portman's change of heart. See: "VIDEO: CPAC Attendees Blast GOP Senator Who Announced Support For Marriage Equality." (Watch the clip here.) And don't you love the headline at Towleroad?, "CPAC Attendees Blast Sen. Portman For Loving His Gay Son: VIDEO."

Actually, conservatives are not "blasting" him for "loving his son," but for abandoning conservative principles. But compare the CPAC attendees who stayed true to their values to the depraved progressive hypocrites who viciously attacked Portman for coming out for so-called "marriage equality." You'd think he'd be getting big cheers on the left for finally seeing the light, but you'd be wrong. Portman was vilified and demonized as only the left knows how. At Twitchy, "No gay-lo for Rob Portman: Many libs lash out at senator for 'evolving' on same-sex marriage."








Personally, I'm not impressed with Portman's change of heart, but Glenn Greenwald has a word or two for the progressives attacking him:
Portman's explanation [of a family member coming out as gay] is far from aberrational or confined to one ideological group: it's how political opinions are often shaped and how political progress is often achieved. And it's definitely the leading reason why so many people who opposed gay equality a short time ago now support it.
And for alll those libertarian "conservatives" who think they're on the right side of history, the Atlantic's Noah Berlatsky illustrates the kind of thanks you'll get from the left, "Rob Portman's Selfish Reversal on Marriage Is a Triumph for Gay Rights":
Portman ... [sees] his personal experience with gay issues in political terms. That's not because he's especially sensitive or thoughtful — there is no reason to think he is either. Rather, it's because gay rights advocates have been so successful in linking the personal and the political together that even the most unreflective career pol can't help but connect them....

[His] op-ed makes him sound like someone who, faced with a moral dilemma, has muddled through as best he can with the least thought and effort possible. The fact is, though, that most of us, most of the time, are more like Rob Portman than we are like, say, Mildred Loving, the woman whose Supreme Court case overturned the laws against interracial marriage. The marriage equality movement, like any moral movement, has been built by activists with great struggle and courage. But it's success is measured by the fact that it has framed the issues in question such that even the selfish and small-minded can, given a little push by their families, make the right choices. Portman is not an inspiring figure. But there is something inspiring in realizing that the movement has reached a point where even someone like him finds it easier to make the right choice than the wrong one.
Yay, Sen. Portman! Way to win friends and influence people on the left!

Look, voters are not fools. If they're picking candidates and parties on the basis of policies like homosexual marriage, they'll go for the truly left-wing party every time: the Democrats. The so-called conservatives at CPAC who're deluding themselves as hip and cool for supporting same-sex marriage are essentially being hammered by the progressive degenerates for whom bunghole bungee-jumping is a regular pastime.

The conference looked like a lot of fun, but considering my firm belief that legally nationalizing homosexual marriage will be a disaster for America's children, I'm glad I held off on attending #CPAC2013.

Pamela Geller Slams ACU's Suhail Khan as 'Worse Than al-Awlaki'

At Atlas Shrugs, "ENEMEDIA IN AN UPROAR OVER PAMELA GELLER'S STATEMENT ON SUHAIL KHAN'S STEALTH JIHAD."

Checking Twitter you can see how the depraved progs, including Evan McMorris-Santoro, were tracking down Pamela like a pack of hyenas:

And Pamela writes:
I knew when I said that Suhail Khan was worse than Anwar Awlaki that the enemedia would jump all over it as a "gotcha" quote, and Salon (the hopeless Alex Seitz-Wald again) and BuzzFeed jumped right on it. Of course Khan's stealth jihad is more dangerous. Awlaki is dead. Suhail is working his treachery every day, under the guise of a "conservative" mask. Anwar al-Awlaki was a moderate Muslim before he wasn't. He was praised in the New York Times. Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a friend of Norquist and Khan, was also a moderate before he wasn't. Alamoudi was Suhail's mentor before he went to prison for terror-related crimes. Alamoudi was al-Qaeda's largest secret financial courier.

Suhail Khan is tightly linked to jihadists who want to take down this country.

Here is the background: Suhail Khan Exposed.

The damage that covert jihadists do is incalculable. They have enabled Muslim Brotherhood access to the highest levels of government. They have deeply compromised our resistance to jihad. And they lull people into complacency about the jihad threat.
The left tracks down Pamela Geller because she threatens their program of Dhimmitude and treason.

Here's McMorris-Santoro's smear, "Pamela Gellar: CPAC's Muslim Board Member Is 'Worse Than Al-Awlaki'." (At Memeorandum.)

Sarah Palin Lights a Fire Under #CPAC2013!

Earlier on Twitter, Jimmie Bise argued that "Sarah Palin has upped her game." And having now watched the speech, all I can say is "no doubt."

This is freakin' amazing. Palin was on fire and brought the house down, at the clip: "CPAC 2013 - Former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK)."

Sarah Palin at CPAC 2013

Palin joked about her husband Todd buying her a gun rack for Christmas: "He's got the rifle, I've got the rack" (and she then pulled out a Big Gulp from the below the podium).

At Twitchy, "Awesome: Sarah Palin sips Big Gulp during CPAC speech; ‘Bloomberg’s not around’ [pics and video]."

And at the Hill, "Sarah Palin fires up conservative grassroots in speech at CPAC" (via Memeorandum).

Alice Goodwin at Zoo Today

Here's some pre-Rule 5, with Alice Goodwin. I'm getting the weekend emails for some babe blogging roundups, but that'll have to wait. There's a lot going on at CPAC that I want to watch and post, especially the Sarah Palin talk and the panel with Pamela Geller.

Meanwhile, enjoy the lovely Alice Goodwin:

David Bowie's New Album

An upbeat and positive review and commentary on Bowie's new album, "The Next Day," from Robert Dean Lurie, at National Review, "Throwing Shadows":

As 2013 rolled around, very few people could have reasonably expected anything new from David Bowie. Rumors of ill health had flitted about for years, and even many of his former associates had assumed he’d retired. Then, on January 8, a new single appeared on iTunes, along with an announcement of the imminent release of The Next Day. It was one of the most exquisite sneak attacks in the history of rock. And with the excitement came speculation: Which Bowie would we get this time?

David Bowie’s current image, as it turns out, is no image. He has refused all new interview requests. He has ruled out a tour. The album’s artwork consists simply of the cover of his earlier release Heroes with the singer’s face blocked out by an empty white square. At age 66, Bowie has made possibly his most outrageous move yet: He has finally gotten out of the way of his music, and in so doing has brought a little bit of mystery back into pop culture. While everybody else has a reality show, David Bowie has a white square where his head should be.

He can get away with this because The Next Day is an honest-to-God album, meant to be listened to as one piece rather than as a scattered collection of iTunes downloads. In this sense it is both archaic and forward-looking — its very existence is a sign, or a hopeful prediction, of some kind of return to craftsmanship in popular music. We’ve already seen harbingers of this in the success of Adele’s album 21 and the resurgent popularity of “roots” music among younger listeners; people are once again responding to music that sounds real. The Next Day, even with its freaked-out guitars and fuzzy synths, feels similarly authentic: It is refreshingly free of any discernible loops or electronic drums; the vocals have not been strangled by Auto-Tune; none of the musicians e-mailed their parts in from distant locales. It sounds like what it is: a small group of people working closely together in a studio, tracking much of the music live.
RTWT.

With a Speech, Cardinal Set Path to Papacy

I love this story, at WSJ, "Argentina's 'Father Jorge' Gained Late Support With His Call to Focus on Humility and Justice; Discussions Over Soup":
VATICAN CITY—It took Jorge Mario Bergoglio four minutes to convince fellow cardinals he was their leader.

Speaking in the Paul VI grand hall of the Vatican, the Argentine cardinal warned the Catholic Church against focusing too much on matters close to home—advice that came against the backdrop of a papacy that had been consumed by infighting among Vatican officials, a dwindling flock in Europe and secular trends in the West.

The 76-year-old Father Jorge, as he is known back home, said Roman Catholicism needed to shift its focus outward, to the world beyond Rome—rather than being "self-referential," he said. Its core mission was humility, dignity and justice. It should help the poor.

It was a week before the secret conclave to elect the new pontiff would begin. But the speech sowed the seeds of one of Catholicism's boldest moves—the election of a pope from the New World, a man likely to steer the church's focus toward social justice and the problems of the world's periphery, rather than on the intrigue and controversy of its central administration.

This account, based on interviews with four cardinals, lifts the curtain on the dynamic that led the church's highest officials to shun the European basin from which Catholicism has drawn most of its leaders. Just before his speech, at a dinner of English-speaking cardinals, the future pope's name had come up over a meal of soup and wine but hadn't generated a buzz. "The speech was decisive," said one voting European cardinal...
More at the link.

The New York Times also reported on this yesterday, "Snub of Reformers' Choice Seen Before Pope's Anointing."

Obama's Unprecedented Secrecy is Unacceptable in a Democracy

From David Keene and David Cole, at the Los Angeles Times, "Secrets no president should keep":

There is simply no legitimate reason to withhold from the American people the legal rules and standards under which our government operates, particularly when asserting the power to take human life. Certainly aspects of national security programs should remain secret. The evidence collected in counter-terrorism operations, information showing our intelligence agencies' sources and methods, and the strategies government agents use to intercept terrorist plots are all appropriately protected as classified information.

But with targeted killing, the cloak of secrecy has been extended to cover the very rules themselves. That practice dangerously undermines our system of checks and balances. It makes robust oversight impossible. It excludes the public from meaningfully participating in or collaborating with their government. It breeds distrust. Secret law has no place in a democracy.

There may not be much that can unite conservatives and liberals these days, but a commitment to transparent government should be something we can all agree on. Obama says he gets it; during Sunshine Week the White House blog has been highlighting an Obama initiative demonstrating his commitment to open and accessible government. The drone policy hasn't been mentioned so far.

Now Americans of all political allegiances must come together to demand that our president tell us the ground rules that govern his claimed authority to have us killed.
More at that top link.

The hypocrisy's even worse than the secrecy.

Libertarians Rising at #CPAC2013

I think this is all pretty fascinating.

From Reason.tv:


It's going to be even more fascinating to see how this all plays out politically. To be honest, to the extent that CPAC goes more libertarian it becomes more leftist. Rand Paul is a special case being a U.S. Senator who's speaking out on national security and the Constitution. I doubt he'll get so much widespread support if he launches a high-profile campaign to legalize marijuana nationwide or if he becomes Congress' most vocal advocate for legalizing homosexual marriage. Those positions are consistent with Paul's ideological persuasions, but it'll stretch the conservative movement even further should he be the one to champion those issues on the national stage, and likely as well, on the presidential nomination stage. Time will tell...

Homosexuals Infiltrating #CPAC2013

Bryan Fischer interviews Cliff Kincaid following the "gay conservative" controversy:


And my earlier comments, "The 'Gay Conservative' Oxymoron."

Also from Star Parker in 2011, "'Gay Conservative' Is an Oxymoron":
The idea of “gay conservative” is an oxymoron.

“Gay” is everything that “conservative” is not.

The foundation of the worldview that so-called “gay conservatives” embrace has far more in common with liberalism than with conservatism.

It’s a worldview that is man-centered rather than God-centered. It is a worldview that rejects eternal truths passed on from the beginning of time. Although the worldview that “gay conservatives” choose to invent may diverge from the worldview of liberals, their common ground is that they make it all up.

And it is here where “gay conservatives” and “liberals” fundamentally depart from conservatives.

Conservatives believe that there are objective and eternal truths, not of the product of any individual human mind, that are transmitted through the generations. Culture is not like HDTV or iPhones where the newest model is the best.

These eternal truths provide the light in the fog that keeps us from crashing on the rocky shores where our base instincts lead us.

“Gay” is liberal, not conservative, regardless of what their stand may be on government spending or taxes.
More at the link.

Street Performer Punches Heckler in the Face

The clip's from Surfer's Paradise, Queensland, Australia.

At the New York Post, "Human statue takes down heckler."

Toby Hayden Beat Girlfriend to Bloody Pulp, Spared Jail Time With 'Community Service'

This is mind-boggling, at London's Daily Mail, "Drunken thug who battered girlfriend in the street making her face 'explode like an airbag' walks away with community service despite the fact he was on PROBATION."

The woman, Loretta Butterworth, 22, was shocked at the magistrate who released Hayden.

Friday, March 15, 2013

'Recently I went home with a kinky man after our first date. The experience phased in and out of being consensual throughout the night. I distinctly left his apartment feeling violated and I continued to feel violated for several days after...'

This is interesting, to put it mildly, at the Frisky, "The Soapbox: On Abuse Within Kink (Or This One Time Some Really Bad Stuff Happened to Me)."

Read it all at the link. I'm fascinated by this idea of consent throughout every single kind of possible sex act. Basically, if there's one single thing you do to or with a woman while having sex that's not 100 percent agreed upon up front then you're committing rape. Stop means stop so you stop right? Perhaps. But how many men do not stop? Say, in the heat of the moment, animalistic instinct takes over, extreme sexual tension is relieved, only to be followed by guilt and recrimination over the absence of consent. Here's all the radical left's "rape" talk for you. Rape is not the kind of rape in the movies --- I'm thinking Ally Sheedy being raped in "Bad Boys" (and since I don't see it at Google I'm going off memory, but it's a brutal rape scene). No, nowadays rape is pretty much a phenomenon when a chick gets pissed at her boyfriend about something and accuses him of rape because he didn't keep asking for consent for every sideways kiss during sex. Or, whatever. Who can keep up? All these women who've been "assaulted" nowadays, right? Remember R.S. McCain's post, "Unintentional Hilarity: Feminists Ask If Julian Assange Committed ‘Rape-Rape’"?
Listen up, sweetheart: You buy the ticket, you take the ride.
Anyway, hat tip to Instapundit. He reads the Frisky website so we don't have to...

Katie Holmes Strips Down for H. Stern 'Iris' Collection Jewelry Campaign

Good for her.

At London's Daily Mail, "Katie Holmes peels off her bra to frolic on a sandy beach for high-end jewellery campaign."

John McCain Apologizes to Rand Paul and Ted Cruz

At Hot Air, "McCain: I apologize to Rand Paul and Ted Cruz for calling them “wacko birds”."

There's video at that link.

Clearly "The Maverick" see's the balance of GOP power in the Senate shifting to the young guns of the tea party. Allahpundit makes an astute observation about that:
By the way, am I misunderstanding or does he seem to think Ted Cruz, like Paul, is some sort of isolationist? I’m … not sure why. There was no one in the Senate, McCain included, who was tougher on Chuck Hagel than Cruz. When the Washington Free Beacon asked him to explain, Cruz said it’s because Hagel “has repeatedly been soft on our enemies.” Paleocons have also noticed that Cruz, despite often being lumped in with Paul on foreign policy, sounds plenty hawkish on Iran. Maverick’s likely concluded that because Cruz and Paul both speak frequently about the tea party and the Constitution and because Cruz was, after all, Paul’s wingman during the drone filibuster that they’re simpatico on foreign policy, but I suspect that’s untrue. In fact, Cruz and Paul seem to me to represent the two sides of the tea-party coin. From the beginning, Ron Paul fans have insisted that he’s the “godfather” of the movement; there are certainly tea partiers, especially the younger set, who are doctrinaire libertarians and whom Rand is trying to mobilize. But there’s another wing, which skews a bit older, that’s composed of more traditional conservatives — hawkish, concerned about “values” — who are disaffected with the GOP leadership’s squishiness and looking to rebrand themselves. The two wings overlap on spending, the core tea-party concern, and on stricter observance of constitutional limits on government, but they diverge on social issues and on foreign policy. Cruz was an ally of Paul’s during the drone debate because of that constitutional overlap, and of course because it was a chance to rebuke Obama. If a bill hit the floor tomorrow authorizing military action against Iran, though, I’m a lot less confident than Maverick that Cruz would end up on Paul’s side rather than on McCain’s and Rubio’s. We’ll find out…
I don't know. But just love watching Ted Cruz grilling all the leftists idiots up on the Hill. He's been on fire.

Smokin' Hot Panel of Conservative Women at #CPAC2013

I sat down and listened to this entire video a little over an hour ago. What a wonderful group of conservatives, "The Right View and the Real Issues."


* Kate Kieffer, Columnist & Commentator

* Kate Obenshain, Author & Conservative Blogger Divider-in-Chief: The Fraud of Hope and Change

* Katie Pavlich, News Editor, Townhall Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up

Crystal Wright, Editor & Publisher, conservativeblackchick.com

Moderator: Rachel Campos-Duffy,( Wife of Rep. Sean Duffy) National Spokesperson, The LIBRE Initiative
The conference schedule is here.

And lots more coverage at Memeorandum. I would have loved to see the panel with Pat Caddell ripping the GOP consultant establishment. That guy is incredibly plain-spoken. He gets to the heart of the issues like few others. Bob Belvedere has that, "Pat Caddell Rips the GOP a New One."

When the U.S. Kills an American Citizen

From the letters to the editor, at the New York Times:
Re “A U.S. Citizen, in America’s Cross Hairs” (front page, March 10), about the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen:

I am a United States citizen; I was born here and have lived here all of my 81 years. If I were a threat to this country’s safety, I would expect to be caught and brought to justice.

The idea that any president can kill an American citizen without a trial is abhorrent and frankly scares me more than any act of any “terrorist.”

Senator Rand Paul’s politics are not mine by any stretch of the imagination, but I applaud him for trying to make the American public aware of what those we elected are doing.

It is a disgrace.

RITA LASAR
New York, March 10, 2013

The writer, whose brother died in the World Trade Center, is a co-founder of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.
More at the link.