Women Who Have Abortions Are Just Lazy, Irresponsible Sluts Ghouls Who Have No Regard for Human Life

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Soros-Backed Propaganda Machine Think Progress Pathetically Smears Benghazi Whistleblower Gregory Hicks Less That 48 Hours After Touting His Testimony as Debunking 'Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories'

Gawd, these idiots are pathetic.

Washington Free Beacon reports, "Think Progress Reverses on Benghazi Whistleblower."

Read it all at the link.

I saw the Soros monkeys fast out of the gate this week, spewing disinformation and smears against the whistleblowers and conservatives. It's a losing battle at this point. Derps.

American Crossroads: Benghazi

Via Astute Bloggers, "VIDEO: HILLARY'S 2AM CALL AND THE BENGHAZI COVER-UP."

Beer Tasting!

I joined some of my colleagues yesterday for a "Faculty Guided Beer Tasting & Reading" event, one in the "Know Your College, Know Your Colleagues" series sponsored by my department and the faculty union.

Presenting was Professor Matthew Lawrence, the author of Philosophy on Tap: Pint-Sized Puzzles for the Pub Philosopher. He's got a book page with his biographical information. And he's got an interview at the Huffington Post, "Interview with a Philosopher: On Beer and Thought."

We tasted five beers. Here's Matt's slide for Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier, a German hefeweizen.

Here's the beer list on the host's refrigerator:

In addition to Weihenstephaner, we tasted Boulevard Brewing Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale (Kansas City); Fuller's ESB (London): Alesmith Horny Devil Belgian Strong Ale (San Diego); and Left Coast Brewing Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout (Fort Bragg).

Here's the Rasputin Stout:

Matt recommended Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa for its wide selection of beers. I asked about picking up some of that Rasputin Stout for myself. Excellent beer. Shoot, they were all good.

Check the links for the beer pages and enjoy.

I'll see you at the pub!

Democrats v. Humanity

Via the Looking Spoon, "Here's a Hard Truth About Liberals Apologizing for Evil."

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney Gets Hammered With New Questions on #Benghazi

At Business Insider, "Jay Carney Gets Blasted Over Benghazi."

And at Twitchy, "Paging Candy Crowley: Jay Carney repeats debunked Benghazi lie from presidential debates."

#Benghazi Blows Wide Open — Scrubbed White House Talking Points Are Scandal's Smoking Gun

There's a tremendous amount of news, and still the scrubbed talking points are getting traction. The Benghazi scandal is getting to big to ignore.

Here's ABC's lead story trending at Memeornadum, "Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference."

And from Ron Fournier, at National Journal, "Scrubbing the Truth from Benghazi":

The White House has long maintained that the talking points were drafted almost exclusively by the CIA, a claim that gave cover to both President Obama and his potential successor, Clinton. “Those talking points originated from the intelligence community,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in November, adding that the only editing by the White House or the State Department was to change the word "consulate" to "diplomatic facility." Nuland’s emails prove him wrong. As I wrote yesterday (“Why Benghazi is a Blow to Obama and Clinton"), Obama has earned the trust of most Americans but credibility is a fragile thing.

More at the link.

And see Stephen Hayes' long report, at the Weekly Standard, "The Benghazi Scandal Grows."

Kate Upton 'Hottest Supermodel on Earth'

Well, she's at least continuing her reign as the "it girl" of the moment.

At London's Daily Mail, "Bombshell Kate Upton defends her 'natural' breasts and voluptuous body as she lands first US Vogue cover."

The Inconvenient Truth About Benghazi

From Peggy Noonan, at the Wall Street Journal, "Did the Obama administration's politically expedient story cost American lives?":

The Benghazi story until now has been a jumble of factoids that didn't quite cohere, didn't produce a story that people could absorb and hold in their minds. This week that changed. Three State Department officials testifying under oath to a House committee changed it, by adding information that gave form to a growing picture. Gregory Hicks, Mark Thompson and Eric Nordstrom were authoritative and credible. You knew you were hearing the truth as they saw and experienced it. Not one of them seemed political. You had no sense of how they voted. They were professionals. They'd seen a bad thing. They came forward to tell the story. They put the lie to the idea that all questioning of Obama administration actions in Benghazi are partisan and low.

What happened in Benghazi last Sept. 11 and 12 was terrible in every way. The genesis of the scandal? It looks to me like this:

The Obama White House sees every event as a political event. Really, every event, even an attack on a consulate and the killing of an ambassador.

Because of that, it could not tolerate the idea that the armed assault on the Benghazi consulate was a premeditated act of Islamist terrorism. That would carry a whole world of unhappy political implications, and demand certain actions. And the American presidential election was only eight weeks away. They wanted this problem to go away, or at least to bleed the meaning from it.

Because the White House could not tolerate the idea of Benghazi as a planned and deliberate terrorist assault, it had to be made into something else. So they said it was a spontaneous street demonstration over an anti-Muhammed YouTube video made by a nutty California con man. After all, that had happened earlier in the day, in Cairo. It sounded plausible. And maybe they believed it at first. Maybe they wanted to believe it. But the message was out: Provocative video plus primitive street Arabs equals sparky explosion. Not our fault. Blame the producer! Who was promptly jailed.

If what happened in Benghazi was not a planned and prolonged terrorist assault, if it was merely a street demonstration gone bad, the administration could not take military action to protect Americans there. You take military action in response to a planned and coordinated attack by armed combatants. You don't if it's an essentially meaningless street demonstration that came and went.

Why couldn't the administration tolerate the idea that Benghazi was a planned terrorist event? Because they didn't want this attack dominating the headline with an election coming. It would open the administration to criticism of its intervention in Libya. President Obama had supported overthrowing Muammar Gadhafi and put U.S. force behind the Libyan rebels. Now Libyans were killing our diplomats. Was our policy wrong? More importantly, the administration's efforts against al Qaeda would suddenly come under scrutiny and questioning. The president, after the killing of Osama bin Laden, had taken to suggesting al Qaeda was over. Al Qaeda was done. But if an al Qaeda offshoot in Libya was killing our diplomats, the age of terrorism was not over.

So clearly stated. And so ridiculously devastating. This is not going away.

Continue reading.

Is Leftist School Indoctrination Unstoppable?

From Bruce Thornton, at FrontPage Magazine:

Rush Limbaugh weighed in recently on the Republicans’ on-going debate about what went wrong in November. Elaborating on his earlier comment that he was “ashamed of America,” Limbaugh said, “The Left has beaten us. They have created far more low-information, unaware, uneducated people than we’ve been able to keep up with . . . I’ve always had a Civics 101 view of the country: People get what they want, they vote what they want, and they get the way they vote.” He added that the Democrats “control the education system . . . pop culture, movies, TV and books” and use that control to create “dependency” among voters.

Some may think this is a dog-bites-man observation, but it’s worth looking more closely at the most important item in Limbaugh’s list––the educational system. Everything else Limbaugh mentions is made possible because of the deep corruption in public education from kindergarten to university.

We often focus on the ideological biases of the university, where the more lunatic examples of political correctness get the most attention. But in education as in economics, there is a trickle-down effect. The grandees at the elite universities train the PhD’s who go on to second and third tier institutions, where they in turn train the students who get high school and grade school teaching credentials. They also write most of the textbooks that end up in K-12 classrooms. Thus the progressive ideology metastasizes throughout the educational system, determining the curriculum, the textbooks, and the point of view of the teachers. At that level the ideas may be garbled, half-baked, incoherent, and a collection of clichés and slogans. But they are still toxic and effective at transmitting a world-view to impressionable minds.

When my kids were in public school I witnessed this process over and over. Questionable leftist ideas I had to sit through in graduate seminars turned up regularly in my kids’ English and history courses and textbooks. In the Marxiste interpretation of history, for example, traditional historical narratives reflect the “false consciousness” of capitalism’s academic publicists justifying and “mystifying” a history marked by oppression and atrocities in service to a dehumanizing capitalist ideology.

The founding of the United States, then, was not about things like freedom and inalienable rights, but instead reflected the economic interests and power of wealthy white property-owners. The civil war wasn’t about freeing the slaves or preserving the union, but about economic competition between the industrial north and the plantation south. The settling of the West was not an epic saga of hardships endured to create a civilization in a wilderness, but genocide of the Indians whose lands and resources were stolen to serve capitalist exploitation. Inherent in this sort of history were the assumptions of Marxist economic determinism and the primacy of material causes over the camouflage of ideals and principles.

In the 60’s this narrative was married to identity politics: the defining of ethnic minorities and Third World peoples on the basis of their status as victims of this capitalist hegemony and it imperialist and colonialist mechanisms, which justified the plundering, oppression, and exploitation of the non-white “others” with racist notions of their natural inferiority. Various strains of postmodernism added a cultural relativism that put out of bounds any judgments of a culture’s values, since all such standards reflect the economic needs of the dominant power. Soon feminism added women to the list of victims sacrificed to the white-male power structure. Edward Said’s historically ignorant and tendentious Orientalism rationalized the failure of the Muslim Arab Middle East in the same way. Soon Said’s book expanded beyond Middle East studies to condition the way generations of English and history professors approach their traditional subjects––as narratives justifying an unjust, racist, exploitative Western power of which all right-thinking people should be ashamed.

The politicizing of the universities has led to two ill effects...

Continue reading.

Yeah, it's pretty awful out there. You have to deprogram your kids at home.

Cleveland Man Charged With Kidnapping and Rape

At the Wall Street Journal, "Charges Filed in Abduction: Police Report Describes Nightmare Scenario of Three Women Chained in Cleveland Home."

I'll have more on this later. I'm still trying to comprehend the enormity of evil. And I'm not sure why the brothers weren't also charged.

Robert Oscar Lopez Attends 'Schools for Subversion' at Luxe Hotel in Los Angeles

I mentioned that the event Monday night featured a rousing question and answer session. One animated participant was Professor Robert Oscar Lopez of California State University, Northridge. He mentioned that he'd been granted tenure, despite the stifling leftist political correctness on campus. He's apparently unable to get conference and grant funding on campus because of his conservative political views, however.

Professor Lopez is a regular contributor at American Thinker. His most recent piece is "Four Tiers of Failure: How the LGBT Lobby Dominates."

I blogged one of his essays in January, "Yes, Homosexuality's a Lifestyle Choice."

He seemed like a nice guy. But I never got a chance to introduce myself. He ended up leaving before the Q&A wrapped up.

PREVIOUSLY: Schools for Subversion: How Public Education Lays the Foundation for University Radicalism," and "Back From 'Schools for Subversion'."

Anne Hathaway Sports See-Through Dress and Platinum Hair Style 2013 Met Gala

I like that do!

At London's Daily Mail, "Braless Anne Hathaway leaves little to the imagination in racy see-through dress as she storms Met Ball with new platinum cropped hair do."

Many Americans Say They Can't Retire Until Their 70s or 80s

Well, I'll keep working until I'm at least 65.

I'm going to need the money!

At the Los Angeles Times:

It’s the new retirement: More than four in 10 Americans think they’ll have to work into their 70s or 80s because they can’t afford to retire, according to a new survey.

One in 10 people expects to toil into their 80s, while 32% expect to be on the job into their 70s, according to the report by insurer Northwestern Mutual.

On average, those surveyed expect to leave work at age 68. However, the report points out, that doesn’t jibe with reality.

The mean age of those already retired is 59, the study said.

An increasing number of people figure they’ll simply work longer to make up for inadequate nest-egg savings these days, not realizing how layoffs, poor health or other forces pushed their forebears out of the workforce far sooner than they wanted...

Continue reading.

Men Fake Orgasm? 'A quickened pace, a few moans, dramatic thrusts and a hasty retreat and most women, apparently, are none the wiser...'

Well, this is interesting.

At London's Daily Mail, "Could you tell if your man faked an orgasm? Shockingly, it's not as easy as you might think..."

Faking it just ain't happening in my experience.

Never heard of it. Must be a left-wing metro-sexual thing?

Or a crossover homosexual thing, the freaks. Yeah, those YMCA boys probably fake it all the time to keep their homo lovers from going all psycho. Wouldn't want to be strangled with some hardcore bondage gear or anything, that's for sure. Better to do the quick thrust thing and fake being all hot and bothered.

#Boston Bomber Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev is Prominent Jihadi

At Atlas Shrugs:

But but but Philip Mudd, former Deputy Director of National Security, FBI and the former Deputy Director of Counterterrorist Center for the CIA, said the bomber[s] "doesn’t have much of an ideological background."

"Exclusive: Dagestani Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is a Prominent Islamist" TIME Magazine via Yahoo, May 8, 2013

Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov. Six years older than Tsarnaev, Kartashov is a former police officer and freestyle wrestler—and one of the region’s most prominent Islamists.

In 2011 Kartashov founded and became the leader of an organization called the Union of the Just, whose members campaign for sharia law and pan-Islamic unity in Dagestan, often speaking out against U.S. policies across the Muslim world. The group publicly renounces violence. But some of its members have close links to militants; others have served time in prison for weapons possession and abetting terrorism—charges they say were based on fabricated evidence. For Tsarnaev, these men formed a community of pious young Muslims with whom he could discuss his ideas of jihad. Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, confirmed that her son is Kartashov’s third cousin. The two met for the first time in Dagestan, she said, and “became very close.”

Since April 19, when Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar were publicly identified as being the key suspects in the bombing of the Boston Marathon, investigators have been trying to work out how they were radicalized to the point of wanting to kill and main people in the United States, the country the brothers had called home for much of their lives. (Tsarnaev was killed during a manhunt for the two men in Boston; his younger brother was shot but survived and has been charged with acts of terrorism including using a weapon of mass desctruction resulting in death. If convicted he could face the death penalty.) Much of the investigators’ attention has focused on Tsarnaev’s visit to Dagestan in 2012. It appears that investigators have only recently begun exploring Tsarnaev’s links to his cousin.

On May 5, three agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service, the agency known as the FSB, interrogated Kartashov for the first time about the Boston bombings, according to his lawyer, Patimat Abdullaeva. The FSB agents were interested in whether Kartashov and Tsarnaev had ever discussed Islamic radicalism, Abdullaeva says.

Kartashov told them that they had, but claimed that Tsarnaev was the one trying to “pull him in to extremism,” says the lawyer, who spoke to Kartashov soon after the interrogation. (It was impossible to ask Kartashov about this directly; he has been in jail since April 27 after a brawl with police in northern Dagestan, and prison officials denied TIME’s requests to visit him or have him answer questions in writing. His lawyer agreed to pass a reporter’s questions to him in jail.) In recounting her client’s replies, the lawyer said: “Kartashov tried to talk [Tsarnaev] out of his interest in extremism.”

Kartashov told the FSB roughly the same story, Abdullaeva says, and it matches the accounts of five other men in Dagestan who know Kartashov and spent time with Tsarnaev. All of them dismiss the notion that Tsarnaev was radicalized in Dagestan. Instead, the picture that emerges from their accounts is of a young man who already carried a deep interest in Islamic radicalism when he came to Russia from his home in Massachusetts. But that curiosity evolved during his visit. The members of Kartashov’s circle say they tried to disabuse Tsarnaev of his sympathies for local militants. By the end of his time in Dagestan, Tsarnaev’s interests seem to have shifted from the local insurgency to a more global notion of Islamic struggle–closer to the one espoused by Kartashov’s organization.

Continue reading.

Michelle Malkin Slams Juan Williams' #Benghazi Ignorance: 'Only Somebody Who Did Not Honestly Watch That Comprehensive Hearing Today ... Could Remain in This Bubble of Unreality...'

Juan Williams were utterly pathetic. He had no business even going on the air:

Hillary Clinton's Chief of Staff Told Greg Hicks Not to Talk to Congress

At the Wall Street Journal, "The Benghazi Awakening":

Miracles happen, and even the sleepy Washington press corps seems to have paid some attention to Wednesday's House hearing on the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission last September in Benghazi. What they and the public heard is the beginning of a real accounting for a security failure that killed four Americans.

We say "beginning" because the entire story still isn't clear, in particular the roles played by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama before and after the attack. But the hearing led by House Republicans, amid months of media sneering, gave the civil servants who were on duty that September night a chance to give their side of the story.

Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Tripoli, recalled his last conversation with Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who told him, "Greg, we're under attack." Mr. Hicks said he knew then that Islamists were behind the assault. In other words, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's public claim at the time that an anti-Islam YouTube video spurred the assault was known inside the government to be false when she and White House spokesman Jay Carney said it.

Mr. Hicks said he briefed Mrs. Clinton that night, yet the father of victim Tyrone Woods says she later told him that the YouTube video maker would be "prosecuted and arrested" as if he were responsible for Benghazi. Stranger still, Mrs. Hicks says Mrs. Clinton's then chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, ordered him not to give solo interviews about the attack to a visiting Congressional delegation. Aficionados of the Clinton Presidency will recall Ms. Mills as one of Bill Clinton's impeachment lawyers.

After Stevens and an aide were killed at the mission, the militias turned on the CIA annex nearby. On the advice of the military attaché in Tripoli, Mr. Hicks said he asked for U.S. fighter planes to fly over the complex in an attempt to scare the attackers away. Libyans had seen U.S. air power during the NATO military intervention in 2011 and might have fled. But Mr. Hicks was told no planes were available. Early the next morning, two Americans died in a mortar attack on the CIA compound.

The Pentagon says no F-16s were on call that night, but why not? Why weren't contingency plans in place? The State Department's supposedly independent review panel said in December that "there simply was not enough time for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference." The review blamed lower level officials for the security failure and didn't even bother to interview Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Hicks says he was "effectively demoted" after Benghazi from "deputy chief of mission to desk officer."

Mr. Hicks also revealed that four special forces soldiers at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli were ordered by U.S. African command not to join a State team headed to Benghazi. The soldiers were the remaining parts of a 16-member security team that had been pulled from Tripoli the previous month. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey recently told another House panel that the African command stopped no one from aiding those besieged in Benghazi. That contradicts Mr. Hicks's account....

The immediate press spin on Wednesday's hearing is that there was no "smoking gun" proof of a cover-up, as if that is the only reason to find out what happened. It's clear enough already that senior Administration officials knew in September they had a politically potent debacle on their hands and did their best to delay and obfuscate any accounting. All of this warrants further investigation, and such oversight is part of Congress's job.

And watch the video from Hannity's opening segment earlier tonight. Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy are interviewed.

And see Hot Air, "Hicks: Higher-ups at State told me not to talk to GOP congressman about Benghazi; Update: “Effectively demoted”." (At Memeorandum.)

Devastating New Testimony on Obama Administration's Benghazi Cover-Up

You can't come away from watching these hearings and not just shake your head at the immense bankruptcy and corruption of our top Democrat administrative officials, including President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other leftist hack bureaucrats who politicized the response to the attack on the Benghazi consulate. But as devastating as this is, it's already clear that the left-wing partisans in most mainstream media outlets are determined to pooh-pooh today's hearings, and especially the explosive testimony of Gregory Hicks, former deputy Chief of Mission in Libya. Here's Michael Hirsh at National Journal, for example, "Benghazi: Incompetence, But No Cover-up." And also Joe Klein, at Times, "Benghazi Again." (Via Memeorandum.)

I'm going to have more on this throughout the night.

Meanwhile, Fox News Special Report had riveting coverage this afternoon:

And the opening segment with Bret Baier is here, "Benghazi Hearing - Obama Admin Lied & People Died - Wake Up America Our Country In Danger."

Also, from Bryan Preston at Pajamas Media, "7 Things We Learned from the Benghazi Whistleblower Hearing."

Plus, from the editors at the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Benghazi cover-up clear beyond a doubt":

As the events surrounding the Benghazi tragedy become increasingly clear, the Obama administration should no longer even try to deny it has covered up the truth in scandalous fashion.

We now learn that as a U.S. diplomatic outpost in the eastern Libyan city was being attacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2012 — an assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and State Department official Sean Smith, a San Diego native — embassy officials in Libya’s capital tried to get the Pentagon to scramble fighter jets over Benghazi in the hopes of deterring further attacks.

When the Pentagon refused, according to testimony slated for Wednesday from deputy embassy head Gregory Hicks, American officials tried to get four U.S. Special Operations troops dispatched to Benghazi early the next morning. They were told to stand down, Hicks said, according to a partial transcript of his testimony.

That morning, a second attack — on a CIA complex near the diplomatic outpost — led to the deaths of CIA contractors Glen Doherty of Encinitas and Tyrone Woods of Imperial Beach.

All of this is bad enough. But even more perplexing is the Obama administration’s continued refusal to come clean about exactly what transpired that horrific night — details that are finally emerging and casting the administration in a shameful and dishonorable light.

The Obama administration’s lengthy trail of deception and denial goes back to the very beginning, when the attacks were mischaracterized as a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam YouTube video. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice made the claim repeatedly, and when it became glaringly obvious the video had nothing to do with the attack, Rice was offered up as the sacrificial lamb and yanked from consideration as Hillary Clinton’s successor as secretary of state.

Two other witnesses said Clinton and an aide tried to cut the State Department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the loop as they and other Obama administration officials contemplated how best to respond to, and characterize, the attacks. One witness, counterterrorism official Mark I. Thompson, said his account was suppressed by the official investigative panel convened by Clinton. He, too, is scheduled to testify Wednesday.

With the latest revelations, it’s looking more and more like a government that’s either incompetent, dishonest or both. The Pentagon says it’s going to “review” Hicks’ testimony, while a State Department spokesman continues to insist the inquiry is “politicized.”

If anything’s politicized, it’s the Watergate-like cover-up, which began in the midst of what then appeared to be a very close presidential election. And that’s only fueling speculation that Democrats in the administration and Congress are more interested in saving face than in coming clean — because now that Obama has been re-elected, they don’t want Benghazi to hurt Clinton’s future political aspirations.

Shameful, just shameful.

Stay tuned.

Obama's Commencement Speech at Ohio State Would Have Perplexed the Founders

From Roger Pilon, at WSJ, "Graduates, Your Ambition Is the Problem":

Civic education in America took a hit on Sunday when President Obama, giving the commencement address at The Ohio State University, chose citizenship as his theme. The country's Founders trusted citizens with "awesome authority," he told the assembled graduates. Really?

Actually, the Founders distrusted us, at least in our collective capacity. That's why they wrote a Constitution that set clear limits on what we, as citizens, could do through government.

Mr. Obama seems never to appreciate that essential point about the American political order. As with his countless speeches that lead ultimately to an expression of the president's belief in the unbounded power of government to do good, he began in Columbus with an insight that we can all pretty much embrace, at least in the abstract. Citizenship, Mr. Obama said, is "the idea at the heart of our founding—that as Americans, we are blessed with God-given and inalienable rights, but with those rights come responsibilities—to ourselves, to one another, and to Well enough. But then he took that insight to lengths the Founders would never have imagined. Reading "citizenship" as standing for the many ways we can selflessly "serve our country," the president said that "sometimes, we see it as a virtue from another time—one that's slipping from a society that celebrates individual ambition." And "we sometimes forget the larger bonds we share, as one American family."

Not for nothing did he invoke the family, that elemental social unit in which we truly are responsible to one another and to future generations—by law, by custom, and, ideally, in our hearts. But only metaphorically is America a family, its members bound by tendrils of intimacy and affection. Realistically, the country is a community of individuals and private institutions, including the family, with their own interests, bound not by mutual love but by the political principles that are set forth in the Constitution, a document that secures and celebrates the freedom to pursue those interests, varied as they might be.

Alas, that is not Mr. Obama's vision. "The Founders left us the keys to a system of self-government," he went on, "the tool to do big and important things together that we could not possibly do alone." And what "big and important things" cannot be done except through government? On the president's list are railroads, the electrical grid, highways, education, health care, charity and more. One imagines a historical vision reaching as far back as the New Deal. Americans "chose to do these things together," he added, "because we know this country cannot accomplish great things if we pursue nothing greater than our own individual ambition."

Notice that twice now Mr. Obama has invoked "individual ambition," and not as a virtue. For other targets, he next counseled the graduates against the "voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works."

The irony here should not go unnoticed: The opponents that the president disparages are the same folks who tried to save the country from one of the biggest pieces of gum now in the works: Mr. Obama's own health-care insurance program, which today is filling many of its backers with dread as it moves toward full implementation in a matter of months.

None of that darkens Mr. Obama's sunny view of collective effort. What does upset him, still, is the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis: "Too many on Wall Street," he said, "forgot that their obligations don't end with their shareholders." No mention of the Federal Reserve, or Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, or the many other "big and important things" government undertook before the crisis hit, things that explain the disaster far better than any Wall Street greed. None of that fits in Mr. Obama's morality play. For that matter, neither do the Constitution's checks and balances. When the president laments that "democracy isn't working as well as we know it can," he is not talking about those big, misbegotten public projects but about the Washington gridlock that has frustrated his grander plans.future generations."

Well, Obama's a tyrant with tyrannical rhetoric disguised as "community."

Fascist asshole.

More at the link.

Obama's Benghazi Lies Begin Unraveling Today

The hearings are now live on Capitol Hill.

I'll have lots on them tonight.

Meanwhile, from the Washington Examiner, "Obama's Benghazi Lies Begin Unraveling Today."

And Katie Pavlich from this morning's Fox & Friends:

Operation Smear Benghazi Whistleblowers

From Michelle Malkin:

It’s on. As the White House grapples with a growing backlash over its Libya lies and lapses, President Obama’s apologists are gearing up for battle. Put on your hip-waders. Grab those tar buckets. Get ready for Operation Smear Benghazi Whistleblowers.

Capitol Hill hearings this Wednesday on the deadly 9/11 consulate attack by jihadists will feature three compelling witnesses, all State Department veterans: Gregory N. Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya and highest-ranking U.S. diplomat in the country at the time of the Benghazi jihad attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine who now serves as deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was the top security officer in Libya.

Nordstrom first testified last fall about how State Department brass spurned his requests for increased security at the compound. Hicks and Thompson are coming forward publicly for the first time this week with more damning evidence contradicting Team Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s claims about the administration’s response the night of the attack and in the ensuing months of cover-ups.

According to the House Oversight Committee, Hicks reportedly will refute Team Obama’s claims that nobody was told to stand down and that all military resources available were used in the rescue efforts. As Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi to save lives during the attacks, Hicks says the team received a phone call from the U.S. Special Operations Command Africa telling them “you can’t go” and that the decision was “purely political.”

The State Department press office already has accused Victoria Toensing, attorney for one of the Benghazi whistleblowers, of “lying” about administration pressure on her clients. Left-wing operatives funded by billionaire George Soros have taken to Twitter to mock reports of fear and intimidation among the new witnesses. White House press secretary Jay Carney continues to sing “Long, Long Ago” and deny all wrongdoing.
And one anonymous State Department official told Fox News reporter James Rosen that Hicks and Thompson have “axes to grind.”

Continue reading.

Also, from Marc Thiessen, "A Benghazi bombshell." (At Memeorandum.)

Plus, at Daily Mail, "Dick Cheney slams Obama administration's Benghazi performance." (At Memeorandum.)

Pamela Geller Nailed Rick Perry's Jihad Problem — And She's Vindicated Big Time With Outing of Holocaust Denier David Cole

Back during the primaries I wrote at least one post on this, "Is Rick Perry 'Pro-Sharia'?" I looked over some of the curriculum at the time and it didn't look good. Pamela had the goods, but she took heat from the right blogosphere's pro-Perry crowd.

Well, we had lots of new developments on this yesterday. Zilla reports, "Bed Down With Holocaust Denying Fraudsters, Wake Up And Eat Crow." And at iOWNTHEWORLD, "Pamela Geller is a Shrieking Harpy Flashback!!!"

And at Pamela's, "ACE AND WEASEL'S #1 SOURCE ON ISLAMIC CURRICULUM DENIAL IS HOLOCAUST DENIER DAVID COLE, MEA CULPA?," and "PERRY MAFIA PUNKED, "BECLOWNED" INDEED."

More at Jihad Watch, "'Source' who 'debunked' story of Rick Perry's Islam whitewash curriculum turns out to be Holocaust denier with false identity."

BONUS: At Da Tech Guys, "A Simple Fact about Pam Geller & Robert Spencer:

I’ve never understood the willingness of people, particularly on the right to go after Pam & Robert. I particularly don’t get the people who seem to have it in their minds they are all in this for the cash.

Forget about the cash. Even conservatives sometimes struggle to stay on the right side of decency and right. Pamela doesn't. That's why I'm always by her side.

PHOTO CREDIT: Norman Gersman.

Back From 'Schools for Subversion'

Here's the announcement, "Schools for Subversion: How Public Education Lays the Foundation for University Radicalism."

I had a wonderful time meeting and listening to Professor Mary Grabar at tonight's event.

I didn't take a lot of picture nor a lot of notes. I enjoyed all the speakers. And the panel was well moderated by Ben Boychuk. The question and answer session was still rolling along when I left the hotel at about 9:50pm. In fact, I was enjoying the Q&A almost as much as the panelists. There are some really deep and passionate opinions on these issues, and at times it feels as if it's impossible to overcome the enormously deadening leftist bureaucracy. I nevertheless felt as if there's plenty folks can do to make things better in public education. I'll try to have some more detailed thoughts later (on what little notes I took).

Oh, for now though, note that Mary's parents got her out of Yugoslavia (Slovenia) when she was 2-years-old. Mary's a naturalized American, an immigrant. When she talks about the crisis of liberty in education it's not theoretical. It's a real, visceral reaction to leftist totalitarianism in our most important cultural institutions.

Plus, note also that panelist Kyle Olson is the author of Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism. I'm going to order a copy for myself later this week when I get some downtime.

Schools for Subversion: How Public Education Lays the Foundation for University Radicalism

I'll be heading up to Los Angeles after classes today for an education panel, "Schools for Subversion." I'm meeting Professor Mary Grabar for coffee before the event, held at the Luxe Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. Mary's announcement is here.

And at the Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, "Symposium Debates Public School Indoctrination: Symposium Debates Public School Indoctrination":

CJHS Hosts Expert Panel to Dissect Controversial Topic, May 6, in Los Angeles
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Los Angeles, CA
Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, a Los Angeles based non-profit activist group, is sponsoring a symposium and expert panel discussion, Schools for Subversion: How the Public Education Lays the Foundation for University Radicalism, on Monday, May 6, at the Luxe Hotel Sunset in Los Angeles.  It has become common knowledge that universities are bastions of political correctness, but that waterfall is spilling down through public education institutions all the way to the elementary level.  Even a cursory look at headlines reveals that innocent children are being subjected to an all too often vicious form of political indoctrination designed to create a liberal mindset as early as possible.Doris Wise Montrose, president and founder of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors said, “The Nazi model for outcome based education was to transform the world by changing the children. Hans Schemm, leader of the Nazi Teacher’s League, clearly stated:  ‘Those who have the youth on their side control the future.’  We know how that ended and we must connect the dots. We have been asleep at the wheel with respect to public education.  America must wake up and act before it is too late.”It begins early in elementary school, when children are inculcated with lessons steeped in “social justice,” which is essentially radical egalitarian, social engineering. Although parents may not be aware of it, social justice creeps into just about every subject: social studies, language arts, science, even math.  It’s weaved into state curriculum standards. It is the focus of colleges of education. It is promoted by curriculum companies (sometimes tax-supported and tax-exempt) to teachers, cloaked in innocuous titles and feel-good text.The roots and real goals of this radical pedagogy will be examined by this panel. Among the topics for discussion:

• The latest Pew poll shows that 49 percent of young adults believe that socialism is a viable economic system. Only 43 percent say they have a negative view. The poll also found that just 46 percent of people age 18-29 have positive views of capitalism, and 47 percent have negative views.

• Even “global warming,” ostensibly a scientific issue, is really about the expansion of government. According to the alarmists, the alleged climate change has been the product of unbridled corporate America, so the government must rein them in.

• Is Islam really a “religion of peace?”

• Does Che Guevara deserve to be idolized?

• Does “The Three Little Pigs” really have a Eurocentric message?

• Is teaching anti-racist math really necessary?

• Why is it okay to teach young kids about the joys of collective bargaining but not about why capitalism is the best system on earth?

Larry Sand, retired teacher and one of the panelists said, “This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is essential that the public become fully aware of this troubling phenomenon and get more involved in their local schools with the goal of returning them to centers of learning rather than hubs of indoctrination.”

The expert panel includes:

Kyle Olson – Author of Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism and publisher of EAGnews.org, a news service dedicated to education reform and school spending research, reporting, analysis and commentary.

Larry Sand – Retired teacher, president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network, blogger and regular contributor to City Journal. Having taught for over 28 years, he has seen firsthand what Olson has written about.

Mary Grabar – Professor who’s forever battling the “re-educators,” and not coincidentally, forever battling for her continued employment in Georgia. She has written extensively about influence of radicals in our colleges, most notably chronicling the legacy of the late Howard Zinn whose politically charged and factually challenged “textbook,” A People’s History of the United States, is in wide usage in schools across the country. She is organizing the Resistance to the Re-Education of America at DissidentProf.com.

Bruce Thornton – Professor of classics and humanities at Fresno State University and a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of eight books, a regular contributor to FrontPageMag.com and perhaps the most articulate and prolific conservative college professor working today.

Ben Boychuk, moderator  – Currently an associate editor of City Journal, and a columnist for the Sacramento Bee and ScrippsHoward News Service, where he writes eloquently on a wide variety of topics. He has long been involved with education issues, including a recent stint at Heartland Institute where he was managing editor of School Reform News and remains a policy advisor on education issues.

Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors (CJHS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax exempt organization dedicated to educating the public in the United States and abroad about the intellectual and cultural climate that led to the Holocaust, and the ideas and philosophy that bring about a totalitarian dictatorship. CJHS seeks to protect freedom by raising awareness of the aggression and scapegoating that inevitably follow the abandonment of individual rights and the embrace of collectivism. CJHS advances these goals by hosting educational events concentrated in four areas: (1) examining U.S. diplomacy toward Israel and the Middle East, with a focus on the right of the State of Israel to exist and be recognized as a Jewish State; (2) restoring the teaching of and respect for Western values in K-12 education; (3) documenting anti-Semitism and promoting human rights; (4) exposing the existential threat posed by Islam to the liberties and freedoms of western society.  We know how it ends


Brad Butler
UniGlobal.Com Public Relations
Los Angeles, CA
323-410-7511

I'll be on Twitter throughout the night, and will be back to blogging ASAP.

Hope to see you there!

Lila Rose With Mike Huckabee

Following up on my earlier entry, "While You're Waiting for the #Gosnell Verdict.."

More at New York Daily News, "Philadelphia jury begins 4th day of deliberations in case of ghoulish abortion doc Kermit Gosnell."

Israel Airstrike Kills Dozens of Syrian Soldiers

At the Times of Israel, "‘Damascus airstrike killed dozens of elite troops’."

Also at the New York Times, "Israeli Attacks on Syria Fuel Debate Over U.S.-Led Effort."

Plus, commentary at Telegraph UK, "Syria’s tragedy can no longer be contained."

And Elliot Abrams, at the Weekly Standard, "Of Presidents and Bluffing."

Jodi Arias Murder Trial Verdict Expected

At CNN, "Haven't been following the Jodi Arias trial? Read this."

Maybe there'll be a verdict today.

Whistleblowers Set to Testify on #Benghazi

Here's the big Fox News report, "Clinton sought end-run around counterterrorism bureau on night of Benghazi attack, witness will say." (At Memeorandum.)

Also at Twitchy, "Must-read: Sharyl Attkisson previews Benghazi whistleblowers’ bombshells; ‘Felt helpless, abandoned’."

BONUS: From John Sexton, at Big Peace, "BENGHAZI WHISTLEBLOWER: 'MY JAW HIT THE FLOOR' AS WH BLAMED YOUTUBE."

Timothy McVeigh Photo Included in New York Times Report on Growth of Homegrown Jihad Terrorism

For the life of me I'm trying to make the connection.

This is supposed to be a report on Islamic jihadis organizing terrorist attacks online, but the World Wide Web was less than two years old when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Building, April 19, 1995. I guess as long at it's a "domestic" bombing that's all the connection one needs at the New York Times. Folks wouldn't want to think the online jihadi threat is anything new or more significant, and we certainly wouldn't want to overstate the international terror network effects. I mean these Tsarnaev brothers were just "knock offs," right? And hey, linking domestic bomber McVeigh at the photo is a nice touch, kinda like April 15th in Boston, when some progressives were citing Hitler's Birthday as a motive. You gotta keep hope alive!

See, "A Homemade Style of Terror: Jihadists Push New Tactics":

At a news conference on Tuesday, President Obama suggested that the bombers had acted on their own, saying that “one of the dangers that we now face are self-radicalized individuals who are already here in the United States.” Mr. Obama said such plots “are in some ways more difficult to prevent.”

So far, the Tsarnaev brothers appear to have been radicalized and instructed in explosives not at a training camp but at home on the Internet. Their bombs were concocted from inexpensive everyday items whose purchase set off no alarms: pressure cookers, nails and ball bearings, gunpowder from fireworks and remote controls for toys. Their choice of an open-air event meant no gate, metal detector or security inspection to pass through with their bombs.

In other words, as Dzhokhar told investigators, they followed the script from Inspire magazine, which Mr. Khan published in Yemen along with his mentor, the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in the same drone strike on Sept. 30, 2011. Mr. Awlaki’s incendiary sermons and Mr. Khan’s training articles survived them on the Web, where the brothers found them.

Read the whole thing. There's no mention of McVeigh at the piece, but again, the composite photo with the caption is perfect for the left's messaging. And the report continues to paint Tamerlan as a forlorn loner who suffered at the hands of the boxing league which disqualified him.

Right. That's gotta be it!

Now for some reality, see Walid Shoebat, at FrontPage Magazine, "The Boston Bombing: Inside The Shocking Web of Terror Training":

With 200 or so attempted terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11, most of which were thwarted, it now becomes easy to understand the origin of these terrorist attacks and where they came from.

Not easy for the progressive Mandarins at the Old Gray Lady, it turns out.

Startling New Information on #Benghazi Terrorist Attack

From Sharyl Attkisson, at CBS News, "Three more officials to testify about Benghazi attacks."

As the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya, Gregory Hicks was on the ground at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli on September 11, 2012, when terrorists launched two attacks on American compounds in Benghazi.

Hicks and two other government officials have been named as witnesses for a Congressional hearing Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee. The others are: Eric Nordstrom, the former lead security official for the State Department in Libya, and Mark Thompson, the acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism at the State Department. Other so-called "whistleblowers" from federal agencies, including the CIA, have provided information to Congressional investigators, but are said to be unwilling - so far - to speak publicly because they aren't authorized by their agencies to do so. Some claim fear of retaliation.

It's been a remarkably long period of silence from the dozens of American survivors and eyewitnesses who were in Libya the night of the attacks. It's not publicly known what testimony the witnesses will give at this week's hearing, but in a series of interviews and communications, CBS News has obtained information about some of areas of knowledge the witnesses can address.

Hicks was number two to Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the attacks. With Stevens in Benghazi on September 11, Hicks was the top Foreign Service official at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. When the first U.S. compound in Benghazi fell under attack, Hicks reportedly took the frantic call.

"Greg, we are under attack," Ambassador Stevens told Hicks on the phone. Those were the last words he heard from Stevens.

According to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who appeared Sunday on "Face the Nation," Hicks recently testified privately to the House Oversight Committee: "I never reported a demonstration. I reported an attack on the consulate...I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go. I think everyone in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning."

Continue reading.

That's an extremely compelling interview with Issa at the clip above.

Howard Kurtz Grovels Before the Commissars of Political Correctness

Look, Kurtz screwed up, and bad. But because he screwed up with the Jason Collins coming out story, there was progressive hell to be paid.

Sunday talk shows are usually pretty boring, but to watch this guy give the most abject apology and then to have himself flayed by these two lamestream media flacks is just stunning.

Part 2 is here.

Plus, "Howard Kurtz apologizes on CNN for errors" (via Memeorandum).

'How can we “gun people” honestly be expected to come to the table with anti-gunners when anti-gunners are willfully stupid about guns, and openly hate, despise and ridicule those of us who own them?'

Good question.

See Barry Snell, "Waking the dragon — How Feinstein fiddled while America burned."

Man, that's one hella essay.

Any quote would be outstanding. Here's one:

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they look down on us for defending the Second Amendment as vigorously as they defend the First Amendment — a fight we too would stand side-by-side with them on otherwise. We don’t trust anti-gunners because someone defending the First Amendment is considered a hero, but a someone defending the Second Amendment is figured down with murderers and other lowlifes. Where the First Amendment has its very own day and week, both near-holy national celebrations beyond reproach, anti-gunners would use the First Amendment to ridicule any equivalent event for the Second Amendment, like they did for a recent local attempt at the University of Iowa.

I think fortunately, at least this time around, the idiot "anti-gunners" are losing, and losing badly.

RTWT.

Alanis Morissette Rule 5

That baby mama's doing the full figure bikini stroll with her daughter.

At London's Daily Mail, "'Self Love': Bikini-clad Alanis Morissette shows pride in her womanly curves as she strolls the beach in Hawaii with son Ever."

For something a little more risque, check Bob Belvedere, "Rule 5 Saturday: Taylor Vixen."

More at Pirates's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup."

While You're Waiting for the #Gosnell Verdict...

Be sure to watch this clip from Live Action, via Pundette:

And from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Waiting for the Gosnell Verdict":

The wait for the verdict in the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell went on today as a jury continued to weigh the multitude of charges that the Philadelphia abortionist faces for butchering women and their babies. The case has gotten more attention in the mainstream media in recent weeks after conservative columnists lambasted it for ignoring a gruesome story that remains an embarrassment to the pro-choice side of the abortion debate. But it’s still unclear whether the country has even started to fully assimilate what these crimes mean about the state of health care for poor women in this country. Nor are many of us asking the big question that hangs over the Gosnell proceedings: how much of an aberration are the instances of infanticide that the testimony against the defendants revealed?

But there is one thing we know for sure. If Gosnell’s attorneys manage to convince a jury not to convict him, you can forget about any expectations that this case will lead to more scrutiny of clinics where late-term abortions are being conducted.

And that'd be not just a travesty of justice but an ultimate statement that the United States is no longer a nation under God.

More at the link.

Follow Michelle Fields

And she'll post beautiful photos in your timeline.

On Facebook and Twitter.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

More at Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES." And Theo Spark, "Cartoon Round Up..."

More at Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Nite Funnies."

CARTOON CREDIT: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – No Child Left Behind."

Melanie Phillips Reveals How She Fights the Left

An amazing essay, at London's Daily Mail, "Why the Left hates families: MELANIE PHIILLIPS reveals how the selfish sneers of Guardianistas made her see how the Left actively fosters – and revels in – family breakdown..."

Via Josh Painter on Twitter.

James Gilkerson Middlefield Police Shootout Video

The video's here.

Jawa Report has a bit longer version, "Crime Porn: Idiot With AK-47 Versus Police."

And amazingly, the idiot leftists thought this would seal the deal for the failed assault weapons ban?

At PuffHo, "Against Banning High Capacity Firearms? Then Watch This."

Well, I'm against extreme mental cases with high capacity firearms actually.

More at the Right Scoop, "Piers Morgan believes he has the smoking gun on why AK-47s should be banned…."

Background at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "2 Middlefield officers shoot, kill man after he opens fire on them, injuring both (911 audio recording)," and "Gunman who fired at Middlefield police said to oppose authority."

Jihadi Files Found on Computer of Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, Widow of #Boston Bomber

London's Daily Mail reports, "FBI focuses on Boston bomber's widow after agents discover radical Islamist files on her computer and traces of explosive residue throughout her home":

Federal officials investigating the Boston bombings have discovered radical Islamist materials on a computer belonging to the widow of the deceased suspect, it was revealed Friday.

Katherine Russell, 24, has repeatedly claimed through her attorney that she knew nothing about the deadly April 15 bombings allegedly set off by her late husband, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar.

However, the discovery of al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine on Russell’s computer, along with the presence of explosive residue throughout their home, have raised new questions about Russell's possible involvement in the act of terror.

According to a government document obtained by NBC News, an analysis of the bombs used at the Boston Marathon and pipe bombs that the Tsarnaevs had allegedly thrown at police may have been built following instructions that appeared in an Inspire article titled: Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.

Officials have yet to determine whether the Islamist files found in Russell’s possession belonged to the 24-year-old mother, her late 26-year-old husband or a third party, a source told The Washington Post.

Tamerlan Tsranaev was shot dead in a gun battle with police four days after the marathon bombings when he and his brother allegedly carjacked a vehicle in a Boston suburb.

His younger brother, 18-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had fled, setting off a massive manhunt that ended when he was discovered gravely wounded hiding in a boat. Russell's attorney, Amato DeLuca, had previously said his client was kept in the dark about the deadly plot, and she was shocked to learn that her husband and brother-in-law were allegedly responsible for the attacks.

Continue reading.

Plus, at Jawa Report, "'Sources': Feds Find AQAP's Inspire Mag & Other Jihadi Stuff On Computer Of Boston Bombers Widow."

And following the links, at the Washington Post, "Investigators sharpen focus on Boston bombing suspect’s widow."

PREVIOUSLY: "Tsarnaev Widow Katherine Russell Stops Cooperating With Police."

'Iron Man 3' Review

From Kenneth Turan, at the Los Angeles Times, "Review: 'Iron Man 3' smartly reboots the suit midflight":

The most interesting thing about this new "Iron Man" is that, far from being slicker than the first two versions, it is unexpectedly — and successfully — darker and more serious than its predecessors, with a cast including top actors like Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley and Rebecca Hall.

With former director Jon Favreau reduced to his acting role as Happy Hogan, now the obsessive head of security for Stark Industries, this latest "Iron Man" (co-written by Drew Pearce) has thankfully done away with most of the previous installments' tone-deaf repartee between Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow's indispensable (to him at least) Pepper Potts.

Pepper, now in charge of Stark Industries, is in residence at Stark's Malibu compound and sharing his life, though the man himself is far from his former carefree self. Skittish, uneasy, unable to sleep and given to compulsively building one high-maintenance Iron Man suit after another, Stark is still dealing with the anxiety attack aftereffects of fighting off all those aliens in last summer's "The Avengers," a movie which "Iron Man" blithely assumes everyone on the planet has seen (which may in fact be true).

Read it all at the link.

The most recent trailer is here: "Marvel's Iron Man 3 - TV Spot 11 - Now Playing."

I'm heading out right now with my boys to catch it at the Irvine Spectrum.

I'll be back!

Obama: Israel Has Right to Defend Itself From Hezbollah

Well, you think?

At the Times of Israel, "US president speaks out amid news of Israeli airstrike early Friday on missile warehouse at Damascus airport":

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — President Barack Obama said he won’t comment on an Israeli airstrike against Syria that targeted a shipment of advanced missiles believed to be headed for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Israeli officials on Saturday confirmed the Israeli Air Force strike, which took place early Friday.

Obama told the Spanish-language network Telemundo in an interview that he will defer to the Israeli government for comment. He also repeated his view that the Israelis justifiably have to guard against the transfer of advanced weapons to organizations like Hezbollah. The US considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

Obama conducted the interview Saturday, and a portion of the president’s answer to a question about the airstrike was broadcast on MSNBC.

Earlier Saturday, US officials told the New York Times that the Israeli airstrike hit a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah...

More at Memeorandum.

Holy Freakin' Cow! Judge Jeanine Pirro Lights Righteous Second Amendment Wildfire at NRA 2013!

Wow!

Get in, sit down, shut up, and hold the freakin hell on!

Via Maggie's Notebook, "Jeanine Pirro NRA Speech 2013: Accused of Denigrating All Muslims “How About Not Blaming All Gun Owners”."

Niall Ferguson Apologizes for 'Tactless and Stupid Remarks' About John Maynard Keynes

On Twitter:

I apologize deeply and unreservedly for stupid and tactless remarks about Keynes that I made on Thursday bit.ly/13cZ6B7
— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) May 4, 2013

Well, mob justice was swift. With luck he'll be able to hang onto his position at Harvard, although the Lawrence Summers precedent isn't encouraging.

Previously: "Harvard's Niall Ferguson Slams Famed Economist John Maynard Keynes: 'A Homosexual Married to a Ballerina'."

Ventura County Springs Fire — 30 Percent Contained

According to Christine Mai-Duc, "At this point, #SpringsFire is at 28,000 acres, 30% contained. Firefighters focusing most on Potrero road area."

Also at the Ventura County Star, "Day 3: Springs fire now 30% contained."

Fire crewsthat have worked 24 hour-shifts wait for relief crews this morning at #springsfire #kpcc twitter.com/ReporterSteph/…
— Stephanie O'Neill (@ReporterSteph) May 4, 2013

And from today's Los Angeles Times front-page, "Destructive 1993 blaze led to new firefighting strategy":

Scott Dettorre was a young firefighter in 1993 when the infamous Green Meadow wildfire swept through, leaving a path of destruction from Ventura County to Malibu.

The fire, which destroyed 53 homes and consumed 44,000 acres, caught firefighters unprepared and prompted officials to rethink the way they fight blazes driven by fierce Santa Ana winds.

This week, Dettorre helped lead the battle against the Springs fire, which like the devastating 1993 blaze covered a wide swath of the county. Dettorre, now a captain, said crews fought the blaze much differently this time.

It's a game plan that as of Friday evening was showing signs of success. Although the fire licked against several subdivisions and hillside estates, it has largely remained confined to rugged wildlands and agricultural zones.

"With this fire, having experienced Green Meadow, our commanding officers realized much sooner that we were not going to get ahead of this fire," he said Friday. "Consequently, we were able to put plans in place to minimize damage to a much greater extent. It is the lessons of Green Meadow that is allowing us to do what we are doing out here."

The fire, which had burned more than 28,000 acres by Friday evening, ignited Thursday morning amid historically dry conditions and strong Santa Ana winds considered unusual for May.

Fire officials quickly determined that the leading edge of the fire was too dangerous to confront head-on.

"It became apparent very quickly that this fire was going to overwhelm us," Dettorre said. "Instead of us being able to outflank the fire, the fire was outflanking us and putting all of the fire personnel in grave danger."

More at the top link. Check back for updates.

Harvard's Niall Ferguson Slams Famed Economist John Maynard Keynes: 'A Homosexual Married to a Ballerina'

Oh boy, this is too juicy!

At Financial Advisor Magazine, "Harvard Professor Trashes Keynes For Homosexuality":

Harvard Professor and author Niall Ferguson says John Maynard Keynes' economic philosophy was flawed and he didn't care about future generations because he was gay and didn't have children.

Speaking at the Tenth Annual Altegris Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., in front of a group of more than 500 investors, Ferguson responded to a question about Keynes' famous philosophy of self-interest versus the economic philosophy of Edmund Burke, who believed there was a social contract among the living, as well as the dead. Ferguson asked the audience how many children Keynes had. He explained that Keynes had none because he was a homosexual and was married to a ballerina, with whom he likely talked of "poetry" rather than procreated. The audience went quiet at the remark. Some attendees later said they found the remarks offensive.

It gets worse.

Ferguson, who is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, and author of The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die, says it's only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an "effete" member of society. Apparently, in Ferguson's world, if you are gay or childless, you cannot care about future generations nor society.

This takes gay-bashing to new heights. It even perversely pins the full weight of the financial crisis on the gay community and the barren.

Not only is this intellectually void, it's mad. And anyone with a moral conscience should be outraged. It is one thing to take issue with a society fueled by self interest and one fueled by a larger ethic. But it's entirely vulgar to make this argument about sexual preference -- and to do so glibly.

Okay, yes.

I'll feign my outrage now. How about this?

"Oh that is horrible, HORRIBLE!

That Professor Ferguson is a nasty brute. And so unfair to the homosexuals and the barren. It's an abomination. Economic conservatives are just like, well, HITLER!

Boycott Harvard until it fires that horrible, HORRIBLE man. Boycott I say! And disinvest!

How could anyone possible say such a thing, and so glibly, yes! That makes it extra mean. That he said it glibly is just HORRIBLE."

HAT TIP: Tufts Professor Daniel Drezner, who apparently thinks Ferguson is just horrible!

Also, here's the conference program and roster. Maybe a video will surface and we'll get some bonus lulz.

UPDATE: The story's building attention at Memeorandum. Ferguson is horrible, HORRIBLE! Extreme outrage all over the place. The speech ayatollahs are out in force! See especially Andrew Gelman at the Monkey Cage and Henry Blodget at Business Insider.

Sources Say Israel Launches Airstrike on Syria

From Barbara Starr at CNN, "Sources: U.S. believes Israel has conducted an airstrike into Syria." (Via Memeorandum.)

Also at the Times of Israel, "Israeli planes hit targets in Syria, say US officials."

UK Independence Party Surges to Best Showing Ever, Winning 150 Local Council Elections

From Tim Stanley, at Telegraph UK, "Ukip is a very British revolution":

The results aren’t all in yet, but it’s obvious what’s happening: Ukip are the moral victors in yesterday’s local elections. A party that was just two men on a golf cart ten years ago has placed second in South Shields and won county seats across the country. A few early observations:

1. The Lib Dems are at risk of becoming politically irrelevant. In South Shields they came seventh, a pathetic result for a governing party.

2. Ukip have helped to smash the BNP. By providing a non-racist Right-wing alternative, they reduced the BNP’s result in the Spalding East and Moulton ward in Lincolnshire from 20.5 per cent in 2009 to just 3.9 per cent today.

3. Labour did well but its gains were only modest. It held South Shields (the kind of seat that a donkey in a red rosette could win) but on a lower majority. Miliband is not popular in southern England and that will prove a problem in 2015.

4. Dan Hannan’s dream of a Ukip/Conservative coalition might actually happen in Lincolnshire and Gloucestershire – a fascinating laboratory for any future pact.

But the big story is the rise and rise of a tiny party once derided by its critics as full of fruitcakes and closet racists. It probably won’t gain any parliamentary seats in 2015: the electoral system is stacked against it and while Ukip’s support is broad, it isn’t deep enough in individual constituencies to win anything. This doesn’t seem to trouble Nigel Farage who says that he sees his party as playing the same role that the SDP played in the 1980s – driving the political agenda in his preferred direction.

RTWT.

Plus, "Ed Miliband needs to fear Ukip, too: Right-wing populism is in the ascendant."

Camarillo Springs Fire Has Now Charred 18,000 Acres

Here's the latest from KABC-TV Los Angeles, "Springs Fire: 10K acres burned from Camarillo to coast."

Sarah Palin Speech to National Rifle Association 2013

It wasn't as choreographed as the CPAC speech this year, and not quite as funny, but she's always a crowd-pleaser. And slamming Michael Bloomberg with that box of Skoal Tobacco was priceless.

Watch it at the link.

Motorcycle Crashes Into Cyclists on Dead Man's Curve

Well, it's an awful crash but there were no serious injuries --- thank God.

More at Biking L.A., "Exclusive — What really happened in the Mulholland motorcycle crash that took out two bike riders."

Jess Davies for ZIP Magazine April 2013

At Egotastic, "Jess Davies poses for ZIP Magazine April 2013."

Flaming Cocktail Fail

And it looked like it was going so well!

Via Blazing Cat Fur, "When bartending goes wrong..."

Unravelling the Boston Terror Plot

An interesting piece from Arnold Ahlert, at FrontPage Magazine.

Just go read it over there. These guys were hardly "knock off" jihadis. But it's still early. We'll know a lot more in due time.