Jill Stanek: Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World"

Via Jill Stanek, Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" For June 4, 2009:

Related: I wrote on abortion politics last night. See, "Late-Term Abortions Get New Scrutiny."

Sotomayor: Ideology, Not Law, Drove Decision in Ricci v. DeStefano

Today's report at the New York Times,"New Scrutiny of Judge’s Most Controversial Case," is a frankly devastating portrait of Sonia Sotomayor's deeply flawed jurisprudence (and in light of this story, it's almost inaccurate to utter "Sotomayor" and "jurisprudence" in the same sentence):

Near the end of a long and heated appeals court argument over whether New Haven was entitled to throw out a promotional exam because black firefighters had performed poorly on it, a lawyer for white firefighters challenging that decision made a point that bothered Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

“Firefighters die every week in this country,” the lawyer, Karen Lee Torre said. Using the test, she said, could save lives.

“Counsel,” Judge Sotomayor responded, “we’re not suggesting that unqualified people be hired. The city’s not suggesting that. All right?”

The exchange was unusually charged. Almost everything about the case of Ricci v. DeStefano — from the number and length of the briefs to the size of the appellate record to the exceptionally long oral argument — suggested that it would produce an important appeals court decision about how the government may use race in decisions concerning hiring and promotion.

But in the end the decision from Judge Sotomayor and two other judges was an unsigned summary order that contained a single paragraph of reasoning that simply affirmed a lower court’s decision dismissing the race discrimination claim brought by Frank Ricci and 17 other white firefighters, one of them Hispanic, who had done well on the test.

The Ricci case, bristling with important issues, has emerged as the most controversial and puzzling of the thousands of rulings in which Judge Sotomayor participated, and it is likely to attract more questions at her Supreme Court confirmations hearings than any other.

Read the full article here. Memeorandum links to addtional opinions, here. Robert Stacy McCain offers a long discursion on the hypocrisy of leftist identity politics, here.

I'm simply struck by the sheer underqualification of Sonia Sotomayor. This woman is an ideological quota queen par excellence. That fact explains why she's so popular, and defended so vociferously, by the racial victimologists on the radical left. Indeed, radicals have now turned support for Sotomayor's nomination into a loyalty test of hardline leftist nihilism. See Dave Neiwert, "We Stand With Sonia Sotomayor," and "Stand with Judge Sotomayor Against the Right-Wing Attacks."

Uncomprehensible, really.

Gingrich, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly: Birth of a Nation?

I thought this Photoshop was a joke, but seriously, this thing's leading the editorial at the Boston Phoenix, "Right-Wing Terror: The Murder of George Tiller":

Before the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, before the attacks on 9/11, there existed operationally decentralized but ideologically coherent gangs of pro-life, pro-gun, anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant crazies who represented the clearest and most present danger to the nation. Their crowning achievement: the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 and wounded hundreds more.

Drawn from the ranks of fundamentalist Christians, neo-Nazis, survivalists, Ku Klux Klansmen, and radical pro-lifers, these nativist cadres have proven to be far more resilient than any of the putrid spawn of the so-called New Left, such as the Weather Underground.

Tiller's alleged assassin, Scott Roeder — an opponent of all but local government, a sometime tax resister who was once found by police with bomb-making materials in his car — appears to be a member of similar factions, including the "sovereign citizen" movement.

Like the New Left, the New Right advocates "power to the people" —its "people" being largely white, male, and Christian.

The mainstream political figure who most eloquently articulated the philosophy of the contemporary right was Senator Barry Goldwater. In his 1964 speech accepting the Republican nomination for president, Goldwater preached, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." Roeder would no doubt agree.

Ever since Goldwater, Republicans have successfully played footsie with the most repulsive elements on the right. It was part of President Richard Nixon's malevolent genius that he was able to defang the 1968 candidacy of segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace, capturing enough angry, racist votes to win the White House.

Ronald Reagan proved just as slick, kicking off his 1980 campaign at an all-white Southern church and pledging himself to "state rights," which is rightspeak for keeping the black man in his place. It was during the Reagan era that the many and varied apostles of hate and other assorted political misfits found common cause.

Shorter Boston Phoenix: "Conservatives are Nazis."

Of course, this editorial could have been written by Daily Kos. I just checked the Daily Kos tag for "George Tiller." What do I see? An advertisement for C-Span's book series, with the link to "In Depth: Bill Ayers."

Just keep the left's hypocrisy in mind when you read bullshit editorials like this. All mainstream conservatives denounced the Tiller murder in unequival terms. We've yet to see an equal response to the death of American troops at home.

It just keeps getting worse on the left.

Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit.

Want to Make Health Care Work? Yeah. Right.

I think most people, even those with good health coverage, would like to see more access to health care in the United States. They don't, however, favor a single-payer mandate on healthcare for everyone. And you can see why when you read stuff like this, from Open Left:

Subsidizing the continuating of the privatized welfare state is just about the worst thing we can do, on health care, or things like pensions, etc.

Your logical frame for discussion of health care benefits is misleading, and incorrect I think. We exempt health care benefits from taxation, a relic of the WWII era labor unrest of wage-price problems, where companies could deal with wage restraints by creating these fringe benefits, as they came to be called. They're still compensation, no matter what way you slice it. There is a cash value to it that is essentially deferred or foregone income. We are not looking at potential taxation of health care benefits as a new tax, but instead the ending of an exemption.

Want to make health care work? Tax whatever companies are paying in health care benefits and watch them clamor for a publicly-funded program real quick.

Cost of Health Care X Rising Cost of Health Care +Taxation of Health Care = Companies Loving Universal, Single Payer Health Care Program.

Read the whole post at Open Left.

Image Credit: Doug Ross.

Hat Tip: Dan Collins.

Left-Leaning Parties Falter in Europe

Via Memeorandum and Protein Wisdom, "Labour Suffers Wipeout in its Worst Local Election Results."

It turns out the Gordon Brown's party lost 300 local council seats in Labour's worst electoral blowout in thirty years.

But its not just Labour Party corruption in Britain that explains the wipeout. Social Democrat parties in Europe are facing rejection by voters. And this is counterintuitive. Marxist scholars have argued that the current economic crisis makes socialist policies more vital than ever. But perhaps not, actually. Take a look at today's Wall Street Journal, "Across Europe, Left-Leaning Parties See Clout Faltering":

The economic recession should have meant easy votes for Europe's left-wing movements, longtime critics of unchecked capitalism.

Yet as Europe goes to the polls, left-leaning parties across the continent are looking likely to falter. That's true both for those in government, such as in the U.K. and Spain, and in the opposition -- such as France, Germany and Italy.

France's Socialist Party is trying hard to rally voters ahead of Sunday's European parliamentary elections. "Let's unite with all the French who contest free market, unfair policies that aim at deregulating everything," party leader Martine Aubry urged at a pre-election rally.

Yet less than 20% of voters say they plan to cast their ballot for the Socialist Party, according to recent surveys. That would be a weak performance considering France's main opposition party got 29% of the votes in the last European parliamentary elections.

In Germany, the Social Democrats are expected to get only around 26% on Sunday, consistent with their low opinion-poll ratings ahead of Germany's national elections in September. Italy's center-left Partito Democratico is expected to get a similar percentage.

One reason is that as Europe tipped into recession, the right moved left -- appropriating some of the left's long-standing economic policies, including nationalizations and bailouts.

French conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, helped recapitalize French banks, earmarked six billion euros for the auto sector and lashed out at "rascal bosses" with huge pay packages.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has planted her conservative camp firmly in the political center. Ms. Merkel has largely given up her former program of market-oriented reforms, and has gradually approved various kinds of state intervention to protect workers during the current recession, from bailing out carmaker Opel to subsidizing payrolls at companies whose export orders have collapsed.

Even before that, right-wing parties across the continent began offering more pragmatic approaches to policy than they had traditionally done. In the past decade, conservative parties introduced competition or privatized some public services in France, Germany and Italy -- but they refrained from dismantling the health-care and public transport services cherished by voters.

In the past, there was a clear fault line between Europe's left-wing and right-wing parties. The left called for more social welfare programs and public spending. The right wanted the state not to interfere in market forces.

Read the whole thing, here. More commentary at Memeorandum.

What does this mean for the U.S.?

See Charlie Cook's analysis, "A Split Decision In 2010 Races?"

Late-Term Abortions Get New Scrutiny

The Washington Post reports that dilation-and-extraction fetal-termination procedures (late-term abortions) have come under increased scrutiny following the death of George Tiller. The Wikipedia entry, clinical as it may be, provides a grisly description of the operation: "Forceps are inserted into the uterus through the vagina and used to separate the fetus into pieces, which are removed one at a time." I truly shudder at the thought.

Jill Stanek writes on the Post article:

The Washington Post has an article on late-term abortions which basically allows Warren Hern, Leroy Carhart and the National Abortion Federation's Vicky Saporta to make a number of unsubstantiated claims about the women who come to them for post-viability abortions and the only response is a couple of short quotes from Operation Rescue.

Why couldn't the Post find a pro-life doctor who specializes in helping women who want to carry their children with fetal anomalies to term?

Well, they don't want to, naturally.

But what really caught my attention on this was a morally repugnant entry I found today at Edge of the American West: "Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days of Poor Arguments."

The author, Dana, is really irked by all the focus on late-term abortions. So, with reference to the chart above, she provides this analysis:

I have little to say on the murder of Dr. Tiller than hasn’t been covered adequately elsewhere (e.g.). But two persistent points have been getting on my nerves regarding late-term abortion in which Dr. Tiller had specialized. So let’s have some data.

1) The focus on late-term abortion, especially the straw-fetus of frivolous late-term abortion. The typical discussion runs as follows: a very serious person argues that while he’s personally comfortable with first trimester abortion, the thought of a woman wandering in and deciding that she doesn’t want her baby in week 35 of a pregnancy is horrifying. (e.g., makes him want to puke.) And let’s accept for the sake of argument that it is horrifying.* What can the pro-choice advocate say?

First, that late-term abortions are really, really rare. Here’s a chart from the Guttmacher Institute ....

The full document is here. The chart shows percentage of abortions by week of gestation. Note that the vast majority are in the first trimester, and over half are before 9 weeks. (The answer to “Abortion stops a beating heart” should be “Well, about that…”; the heart isn’t beating before five weeks.)

But let’s look at the late-term abortions. Only 1.1% are after more than 21 weeks. 21 weeks is about two weeks shy of the lower-end of viability. 21 weeks is still in the second trimester. We can safely assume that the number of abortions in the third trimester is even smaller, especially because abortion after 24 weeks is generally not permitted by law except in cases of danger to the health of the mother and the fetus.

Here's the link. If you're up to it, keep reading Dana's (morally bankrupt) justification for baby killing.

The basic point for Dana is that (1) dilation and extraction is "exceedingly" rare, and (2) the procedure, "We can safely assume," is necessitated by "fetal abnormalities," with Down Syndrome mentioned as the primary example.

Well, I doubt Dana's been to The Upside of Downs homepage. Aborting a Downs child is destroying a potential life. And for what? Choice? Convenience?

But more than that, let's "safely assume" that all of these abortions were purported "fetal abnormalities," or were deemed medically necessary to "save" the life of the mother.

Hello? The numbers are still staggering!

A 2008 report cited 1.2 million pregnancies that were aborted in 2005. According to the chart above, 1.1 percent of pregnancies were terminated after 24 weeks. As Dana acknowledges, that would leave a total of roughly 13,000 potential children destroyed in the maw of the pro-choice killing machine.

And the brutal truth is that untold numbers of late-term abortions, many performed by George Tiller himself, are simply "second-thought" terminations. Women have decided past the second trimester that they don't want the baby. What to do? Look up Tiller the Killer, of course.

If you check the state report, "Abortions in Kansas: Preliminary Reports," it turns out that "the majority of late-term abortions are purely elective."

So, back to Dana's query, "What can the pro-choice advocate say?"

They can't say anything. Choose abortion and you're going to kill a baby, plain and simple. Maybe there's some extreme case for a Solomonic judgment to save the life of the mother. And I don't think anyone, any decent, moral person, would sleep well even contemplating such a choice. The fact is that fetal brain development begins within 14 days of conception. That is, the miracle of life begins immediately. The relative moral importance of the stage of the pregnancy is really a matter of leftist propaganda. See, for example, "Miracle of Life: The Action-Packed Days of Unborn Babies."

The ugly fact is that the pro-choice movement is an extremist death cult. The "rights" of women trump moral considerations on the beauty of life. Leftists just want to have their "Happy Abortion Stories." (Or, "they want to kill that baby.")

What's most sickening, ultimately, is how the left has exploited the killing of George Tiller. Perhaps in this man's death, radical leftists can revive a movement that has continued to lose public support in recent years.

Megyn Kelly Takes on Playboy

Via The Rhetorican, check out Megyn Kelly hammering Playboy Magazine:

Related: Michelle Malkin, "Playboy “hatef**k” list fallout: AOL did what?"

Postmodern Reaction to Obama in Cairo

I thought I'd put up a mirror entry to my earlier post, "Neocon Reaction to Obama in Cairo."

So, what's happening on the radical left? How are the postmodernists framing President Hussein Obama's speech to the Muslim world. Well, a good start can be found in Rachel Maddow's positively orgasmic response to the president's speech:

So, let's take a look around the leftosphere and the liberal media for some of the postmodern commentary.

The Mahablog, for example, loves how Obama elevates everyone else's interests above our own:

With the Bush Administration, everything always was about them. I dimly remember a news story (if you can find this and link to it, I’d be grateful) in which Condi Rice was in the Mideast, meeting with representatives of several Mideastern countries. She dictated to them what the United States expected from them, adding something to the effect of “this is what we want for you.” Someone spoke up and countered, “What about what we want for ourselves?”

Well, there you have it: The U.S. can't be expected to have its own preconditions for peace in the Middle East. And of course, it's "the Bush administration" who's the bad guy!

Hilzoy piles on:

Bush took dishonesty in the Middle East to hallucinatory extremes, we had not been honest brokers, or willing to speak the truth, for some time before he came on the scene.

But wait! Here comes Lorelei Kelly at Huffington Post, "Our President in Cairo: Muslims Listened. Did America?":

For the past 8 years, our bad attitude made us really unpopular. Unappeasable, we became like the schoolyard bully -- you give him your lunch money and he still beat you up. President Obama is out to change this reputation.

But let's check around further:

* Carl at The Reaction is blinded by "Obama's Defining Moment": "Wow. I mean, wow. He invokes among the most holy of passages written in the Koran and challenges the Muslim world to live up to it."

* Faiz Shakir at Think Progress? How dare Republicans take issue with the speech?, "Inhofe Rips Obama As ‘Un-American,’ Suggests He’s On The Side Of Terrorists."

* John Amato at Crooks and Liars? Jewish neocons don't count, "A Memo to Krauthammer: President Obama's Speech Was Not Meant for You!

* Brian at Incertus demonstrates a pathetic ignorance President Obama's moral equivalence (and the implications thereof).

* Gershom Gorenberg, focusing on "the settlements myth," says its all "Benjamin Netanyahu's fault."

* Matthew Yglesias just attacks purveyors of "the settlements myth" as liars: "... it’s too bad that The Washington Post thinks its readers need to get commentary on this issue from the slipshod and dishonest Charles Krauthammer.

* And for the academic perspective on "going Palestinian," see Marc Lynch, "My First Take On The Speech."

Interestingly, Code Pink actually protested Obama's visit. At least Medea Benjamin's not ashamed to admit her allegiances lie with Hamas, pictured below:

When Hamas kingpin Khaled Meshal was asked about Obama's address, he refused to renounce the violent destruction of Israel.

Gee, what a great president we have!

See also, "Obama Overture to Hamas Suggests Inevitability of Terror Group's Dominance Among Palestinians."

More at Memeorandum.

A Blogger's Who’s Who: Wikio's Top 100 Political Blogs

Allahpundit's a little pissed he didn't make the cut at Wikio's latest top political blog rankings. Patterico is sympathetic, "There’s something farcical about a list that omits Hot Air and Ace of Spades, but includes Oliver Willis." Maybe. Patterico's #46 so who's to complain? Others are noticing Wikio, in any case. Here's the scoop, at The Note, "Who’s Who in the Political Blogosphere?" American Power is #71:

It’s crowded out there in the political blogosphere -- and there are as many ways to judge influence as there bloggers who stand ready to judge politicians.

But here’s an interesting tool I recently came across: From Wikio.com, it’s a ranking of political blogs -- emanating from everywhere from living rooms, mainstream media organizations, and the White House.

The rankings are compiled based on links from other blogs -- with extra weight given to blogs that rank higher via Wikio’s formulas, and based on how recently an item is published. Blog rolls aren’t taken into account, so only fresh postings impact the rankings. Wikio: About Us

One of the intriguing aspects of this list is that it puts everyone in the same pot. The list has mainstream media blogs -- from ABC News, CNN, The New York Times, and others -- alongside well-known partisan bloggers -- Michelle Malkin, FireDogLake -- and even government-run bloggers, like WhiteHouse.gov’s.

We got a sneak peek at the latest rankings -- due to be published Friday -- below. It’s a fun list to analyze: Huffington Post has the top spot, with the liberal Center for American Progress’ Think Progress and the conservative National Review’s The Corner right behind ...

Here’s the Top 100:

1 The Huffington Post 2 Think Progress 3 The Corner 4 Political Ticker - CNN 5 The Daily Dish 6 Political Punch 7 Michelle Malkin 8 Instapundit.com 9 Talking Points Memo 10 Political Animal 11 Firedoglake 12 Daily Kos 13 Crooks and Liars 14 fivethirtyeight 15 NewsBusters 16 The Caucus - New York Times blog 17 Gateway Pundit 18 Power Line 19 White House.gov Blog Feed 20 Michael Goldfarb - The Blog - The Weekly Standard 21 The Plank 22 AMERICAblog 23 Reason Magazine - Hit & Run 24 The Volokh Conspiracy 25 Balloon Juice 26 Washington Wire - WSJ.com 27 Marginal Revolution 28 Swampland 29 Glenn Greenwald 30 The Note 31 Atlas Shrugs 32 Hullabaloo 33 Wonkette 34 Eschaton 35 Political Wire 36 Jihad Watch 37 Lynn Sweet 38 The Jawa Report 39 George's Bottom Line 40 Political Radar - ABC Blog 41 The Next Right 42 forward movement 43 Don Surber 44 MyDD 45 JammieWearingFool 46 Patterico's Pontifications 47 iowahawk 48 The Blog 49 Stop the ACLU 50 Redstate - Conservative News and Community 51 Townhall.com 52 FP Passport 53 The Washington Note 54 TalkLeft 55 JustOneMinute

56 Ross Douthat 57 Outside the Beltway 58 Sweetness & Light 59 The Nation Blogs 60 Riehl World View 61 DownWithTyranny! 62 Flopping Aces 63 Oliver Willis 64 Gay Patriot 65 The Buzz Florida Politics 66 Global Voices Online 67 Michael J. Totten 68 jillstanek.com 69 Roger L. Simon 70 Moonbattery 71 American Power 72 PollingReport.com 73 Capitol confidential 74 GamePolitics.com 75 The Brad Blog 76 YID With LID 77 Debbie Schlussel 78 Confederate Yankee 79 The Club for Growth 80 The Belmont Club 81 Newshoggers 82 Soccer Dad 83 Say Anything 84 News Hounds 85 Founding Bloggers 86 the albany project 87 The Liberty Papers 88 The Anonymous Liberal 89 Mother, May I Sleep with Treacher? 90 Jack and Jill Politics 91 Burnt Orange Report 92 PoliGazette 93 The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney 94 Obama HQ 95 The LRC Blog 96 ScrappleFace 97 Sister Toldjah 98 The Strata-Sphere 99 The Sideshow 100 Naked Politics Ranking by Wikio.

Obama Visits Buchenwald

From the Washington Post, "Obama Tours Former Nazi Concentration Camp":

President Obama on Friday toured a former Nazi concentration camp that his great-uncle helped liberate, accompanied by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, perhaps the camp's most famous prisoner.

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U.S. President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Buchenwald concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel and International Buchenwald Committee President Bertrand Herz walk through the former Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany. Obama is visiting the site after his stop in Cairo, where in his speech to the Muslim world he made an appeal against Holocaust denial.

See also, Atlas Shrugs, "Elie Wiesel to Obama: The World Hasn't Learned."

Photo Credit: New York Post.

Added: Elie Wiesel video, at the link. And CNN has video as well:

The transcript, from the Elie Wiesel foundation, is here.

Democrats Play Politics With War Appropriations

Pathetic is the first word that comes to mind: "Democrats Postpone Action on War Bill":

Worried by their prospects in the House, Democrats postponed final action on a nearly $100 billion wartime spending bill until next week so as to buy more time for talks among lawmakers and the return of President Barack Obama from overseas.

The administration remains confident it can navigate between the conflicting pressures from the right and left. But for this confident young White House, which so prides itself on juggling many balls at once, the delay is a humbling reminder of just how complex the low-profile appropriations process can be.

Obama himself faces growing criticism for piling on new requests and not doing more to support his demands. Privately, officials now concede that the budget calendar put them at a disadvantage, forcing the new administration to submit its funding requests in April, even before its policies could be fully formed.

This was most embarrassingly true in the case of Obama’s plan to close the Guantanamo detention center. But in a single stroke, the same appropriations bill affects wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new alliance with Pakistan, the threat of pandemic flu, and complex civil liberties issues, such as whether the public should have access to damaging photos of post-Sept. 11 detainees held by the U.S. military.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Speech Reveals Obama's Middle East Sympathies

From the Los Angeles Times, "Do Obama's words reveal his Middle East sympathies? A close examination of the speech underscores how Obama, four months into his presidency, is still introducing himself - and what he stands for - to Americans and the world":

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama left some fuzzy edges to his biography. He affirmed strong support for Israel but implied a strong empathy for Palestinians. His personal story played up his introduction to the black church, leaving his father's Islamic roots in the shadows.

It was a narrative designed to ease any voter concern about Obama's background and counter false Internet rumors that he was a Muslim.

But now, with Thursday's speech in Cairo, Obama is laying bare more of his sympathies and inclinations in the volatile area of Middle East politics.

Obama spoke, for example, of Palestinian "resistance" -- a word that can cast Israel as an illegitimate occupier. He drew parallels between Palestinians and the struggles of black Americans in slavery and of black South Africans during apartheid. Both references made some allies of Israel uneasy.

Moreover, in his defense of Israel's legitimacy, Obama cited the Holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitism, but not the belief of some Jews that their claim to the land is rooted in the Bible and reaches back thousands of years.

A close examination of the speech underscored how Obama, four months into his presidency and five years after stepping onto the national stage, is still introducing himself - and what he stands for - to Americans and the world.

Actually, the Times is being way too objective here.

Check out Caroline Glick at National Review, "The End of America’s Strategic Alliance with Israel?":

From an Israeli perspective, Pres. Barack Obama’s speech today in Cairo was deeply disturbing. Both rhetorically and programmatically, Obama’s speech was a renunciation of America’s strategic alliance with Israel ....

The only silver lining for Israelis from the president’s speech in Cairo and his general positions on the Middle East is that Obama has overplayed his hand. Far from bending to his will, a large majority of Israelis perceives Obama as a hostile force and has rallied in support of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu against the administration. This public support gives Netanyahu the maneuver room he needs to take the actions that Israel needs to take to defend against the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran and to assert its national rights and to defend itself against Palestinian terrorists and other Arab and non-Arab anti-Semites who wish it ill.

Read Glick's entire piece, here. More analysis at Memeorandum.

Inside Baader-Meinhof

Jacob Laksin, at City Journal, reviews, Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F.:

The Weather Underground, a leftist terrorist group from the 1970s, played a bit role in last fall’s presidential election through the association of unrepentant former Weatherman Bill Ayers with his fellow Chicagoan, Barack Obama. That kind of connection would have come as no surprise in Germany, where the Weather Underground’s far more deadly counterpart, the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, continues to cast a shadow over the country’s politics.

In 1985, German journalist Stefan Aust published the definitive book on the RAF, The Baader-Meinhof Complex. His book has since been turned into a successful feature film of the same name, which was nominated last year for a foreign-language Oscar and is slated for U.S. release this summer. Aust, a former editor of Der Spiegel, has now reissued his earlier work, changing the title to Baader-Meinhof and updating it with information that has come to light since the end of the RAF’s reign of terror in West Germany 30 years ago. The new edition deserves attention, and not just because Anthea Bell’s deft translation preserves the dynamic, detail-rich prose that made Aust’s original read like a real-life thriller. Dense with insights into the psychology of terrorism, this history of West Germany’s struggle against RAF radicals also serves as a cautionary tale for the West in its war against the modern threat of jihadist terror.

The full review is here.

I blogged previously on the film, "Shattering Myths on Domestic Radicals: 'The Baader Meinhof Complex'."

Fausta: "Reading Sotomayor’s Thesis"

Fausta Wertz offers an interesting entry, "Reading Sotomayor’s Thesis":

I spent this rainy afternoon at Princeton’s Mudd archives ... reading Sonia Sotomayor’s 1976 senior thesis, La Historia Cíclica de Puerto Rico: The Impact of the Life of Luis Muñoz Marín on the Political and Economic History of Puerto Rico, 1930-1975.

Since I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and I am very familiar with the island’s politics in the 1970s, I thought it would be interesting to read what she had to say.

Read the whole thing, here. More at Memeorandum.

Sugar Daddy Dating

This unusual post comes courtesy of the Google ads at Three Beers Later.

Who knew that the rage in dating services is now young hotties seeking "established men" as "successful and generous benefactors to fulfill their lifestlyle needs"?

Yep, it's true, "Established Men, Where the Beautiful and Successful Meet":

San Francisco Puts Homeless Shoe-Shiner's Dreams on Hold

The San Francisco city bureaucracy provides a case study in how regulation kills the entreprenuerial economy. And in the case of Larry Moore, who's been homeless for six years, and hasn't had a drink of booze in 11 months, the city's policy is practically criminal:

Larry Moore wears a tie as he shines shoes at the corner of New Montgomery and Market.

He sleeps under a bridge, washes in a public bathroom and was panhandling for booze money 11 months ago, but now Larry Moore is the best-dressed shoeshine man in the city. When he gets up from his cardboard mattress, he puts on a coat and tie. It's a reminder of how he has turned things around.

In fact, until last week it looked like Moore was going to have saved enough money to rent a room and get off the street for the first time in six years. But then, in a breathtakingly clueless move, an official for the Department of Public Works told Moore that he has to fork over the money he saved for his first month's rent to purchase a $491 sidewalk vendor permit.

"I had $573 ready to go," Moore said, who needs $600 for the rent. "This tore that up. But I've been homeless for six years. Another six weeks isn't going to kill me."

The bureaucrat told Moore that she found out about his business after reading about his success in this paper.

Along Market Street, Moore's supporters are indignant. Nothing happens when mentally ill men wander the street talking to themselves and drunkards pee in the alleys. Yet Moore creates a little business out of thin air, builds up a client base, and the city takes nearly every penny he's earned.

Christine Falvey, spokeswoman for Public Works, said the department's contact with Moore was meant to be "educational."

"We certainly don't want to hamper anyone's ability to make a living," Falvey said. "Our education efforts are actually meant to support that effort by making our streets an enjoyable place for people to visit."

That is unlikely to mollify Moore's clients.

"Nothing like kicking someone when they are down," ranted attorney Loren Lopin, one of Moore's clients who donated $100 to help him get housing. "I am pissed."

More at the link.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum (where no leftists will touch this story with a ten-foot shoe-brush.)

Photo Credit: San Francisco Chronicle.

Neocon Reaction to Obama in Cairo

Here's Liz Cheney on President Obama's speech to the Muslim world. In 2005, Ms. Cheney was appointed Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State For Near Eastern Affairs for the George W. Bush administration. And she has been closely identified with neoconservative foreign policy:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

But check some other (generally) neoconservative voices as well:

* Abe Greenwald at Commentary, "Obama Obliges Ahmadinejad."

* Atlas Shrugs, "Obama to Ummah: "America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam" Usama: Called for "Long War Against Infidels."

* Rachel Abrams at Weekly Standard, "More Speech, In Brief."

* Dan Riehl, "Obama's Ich Bin Ein Muslim Speech."

* Max Boot at Commentary, "Obama in Cairo."

* Flopping Aces, "Obama’s Cairo Speech: So Many Apologies So Little Time."

* Peter Feaver, "Obama in Cairo - A Modest Step Forward."

* Michael Goldfarb at Weekly Standard, "A History of Violence."

* Ira Stoll at Commentary, "Awful."

* Israel Matzav, "Obama: Hamas and Hezbullah Are No Longer Terrorists," and "Obama's Moral Equivalence of the Day."

* Jennifer Rubin at Commentary, "Re: Obama in Cairo."

* Michelle Malkin, "Rainbows and Unicorns and a World Without the J-Word."

* Peter Wehner at Commentary, "The Not So Golden Mean."

* Power Line, "Obama's Cairo Speech, A First Take."

* Stephen Hayes at Weekly Standard, "The Speech."

* Debbie Schlussel, "The Obama Apologist Speech to Islam & Al-Azhar; CAIR and Faux-Conservative Ignoramus Loved the Speech."

* Yid With Lid, "How Obama's Cairo Speech Threw Israel Under the Bus."

I want to give a special shout out to Melanie Phillips, one of my favorite neocons, and her post, "Obama in Cairo":

So in conclusion, yes, there was some positive stuff in this speech – but it was outweighed by the United States President's shocking historical misrepresentations, gross ignorance, disgusting moral equivalence between aggressors and their victims, and disturbing sanitising of Islamist supremacism.

In short, deeply troubling.

I don't see anything yet from Jules Crittenden, Charles Krauthammer, or William Kristol.

Interestingly, Captian Ed thought the speech was "suprisingly good."

But for conclusive proof that Obama bombed with the neoconservative right, check Dan Frookim at the Washington Post, "Obama's Post-Neocon Appeal to Islam."

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UPDATE: I found Charles Krauthammer's response, "A Concoction of Canards for Cairo Crowd":

Obama says he came to Cairo to tell the truth. But he uttered not a word of that. Instead, among all the bromides and lofty sentiments, he issued but one concrete declaration of new American policy: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," thus reinforcing the myth that Palestinian misery and statelessness are the fault of Israel and the settlements.

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UPDATE II: See also the lead editorial at tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, "Barack Hussein Bush."

Plus, check out Three Beers Later, "A few slight corrections, Mr. President...", and Tom the Redhunter, "President Obama's Speech to the Muslim World."

Barack "Tutankhamen" Obama Tours the Pyramids!

Via Allahpundit, "New 'Tutankhamen of the World' Visits Pyramids":

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

See also, "Barack "Tutankhamen" Obama to Show Empathy for Muslim World!

Jihad Returns to America

From Robert Spencer's new essay at FrontPage Magazine:

According to a well-informed source, Carlos Leon “Corey” Bledsoe, who changed his name to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad after he converted to Islam, is from Memphis, Tennessee. He was a student at Tennessee State University, where he majored in business. After becoming a Muslim in 2004 at the age of 19, he quit college and embarked upon a path that ultimately led him to Yemen, where another American convert to Islam, John Walker Lindh, learned Arabic and Islam before moving on to Afghanistan, where he fought alongside the Taliban and Al-Qaeda against American troops before his capture in 2002.

Muhammad went to Yemen hoping to study with a jihadist imam, Yahya Hajoori. It is not clear at this point whether he actually studied directly with Hajoori, or with one of his students. Interestingly enough, he apparently traveled to Yemen on a Somali passport, and was jailed for a time in Yemen for doing so. In light of the recent involvement of Somali immigrants to the United States in the jihad in Somalia, it is significant that Muhammad would have this passport. Apparently this and more about Muhammad did not escape the notice of American law enforcement officials: when he returned to the U.S. from Yemen, the Joint Terrorism Task Force began to investigate him. Unfortunately, he appears to have been able to stay at least one step ahead of investigators.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media and the U.S. government have given this murder very little attention. After the murder of abortionist George Tiller last week, Barack Obama expressed his sorrow and indignation, and Attorney General Eric Holder ordered U.S. Marshals to protect abortion clinic. But so far Obama has said nothing about the murder of Private William Long, and no one has made any move to protect military recruitment centers. And NBC was sadly typical in breezing past Muhammad’s motive for committing this murder, and failing to mention his religion at all. During coverage of the murder on the Today show last Tuesday, NBC’s Ann Curry said nothing about the jihad doctrine or about Muhammad’s religion at all, failed to mention his trip to Yemen, and explained the murders by saying only that Muhammad was “upset with the military.” She acknowledged that he had “political and religious motives,” but didn’t mention what his religion was – nor did she give his name. By contrast, according to Newsbusters, “both ABC and CBS mentioned the conversion and the Yemen trip.”

Some analysts have opined that Muhammad was committing what has been described as “sudden jihad syndrome” – that is, something made him snap, and his murder was unpremeditated. However, Fox News reported Tuesday night that Muhammad was not acting alone. His act was part of a larger jihad plot to attack military personnel.

This was certainly not be the first act of jihad violence on American soil, or anything approaching the most deadly. But given the inadequacies of the response of the government and the mainstream media, it will almost certainly not be the last.

The full essay is available here.

David Carradine Dies: "Kung Fu" Star Found New Audience in "Kill Bill" Role

Actor David Carradine has died. The BBC has the full report, "Kung Fu Star Carradine Found Dead." "Kung Fu" aired from 1972–1975. My parents often let me and my sisters stay up to watch the show. It was always a special occasion. I loved that program. It was so idealistic, and so different from traditional Western folklore. I especially liked David Carradine himself. He seemed to really embody the spirit of peace that was found in Kwai Chang Caine."

See also, the New York Times, and Memeorandum. Also blogging: Dan Collins and Moe Lane.