The Present-Day Haters

No More Mister Nice Blog does a big, long-winded tangential (and uselessly self-important) excursion into blathering nothingness, to end up here:

The present-day haters have distilled the old hatreds, the ones based on race and sex, and can apply them just as well outside the old categories as within those categories. Bigotry, in other words, evolves in order to adapt.

The guy's prefacing that he disagrees with Frank Rich. Except that he doesn't. So here's a clue: It's not race, or bigotry, or whatever kind of "hate" you're grasping for. I'm a tea partier. I've been deeply active with tea partiers for over a year. Tea partiers aren't talking about race-hatred, etc. Democrat-leftists are. But I'm also a teacher and political scientist. And the phenomena of ceaseless searching for the ghosts of hatred-past reflects a crisis of the current order. And this is a Democratic Party crisis. Think about it, with reference to Doug Powers' unrelenting fisking of Frank Rich, especially here:

Frank Rich and Friends have more in common with what they accuse tea partiers of being than with the civil rights pioneers whose principles they claim to be standing up for—people who endured similar baseless blanket statements, idiotic and ignorant stereotypes, generalizations, false accusations and yes, even sophomoric homophobic slurs.

Some of us, regardless of our color or sexual orientation, aren’t going to watch our country turned into yet another failed socialist utopia on the ash heap of history without saying a word about it — regardless of the color or sexual orientation of those who are trying to do so. If the only “logical” rebuttal Frank Rich has to people concerned for the future of their children is “racism,” then I’m more positive than ever that I’ve chosen the correct side.

As an added bonus, someone's attached one of my links to this message board entry, which includes the most saddening images of racial violence from the early- and mid-20th century ...

But what's also sad is the complete ahistorical frame of the author, who is apparently only willing to engage those who want to extrapolate Klan hatred as an explanation for the mindlessness of contemporary commercial culture. When the discussion went south, the guy lost it:

Unfortunately, this post was not able to exist for much more than 24 hours without exploding into derailing, misogyny, Obama as secret socialist and finally the Illuminati.

If you can look at graphic photographs of human beings who were brutally murdered surrounded by their murders who are gleeful about the murder they committed and were never punished for, and still derail, I think a lot less of you as a person.

If you can look at people who were horribly murdered and your primacy concern is third hand accounts about someone's niceness, I think your priorities are fucked up. The women who encouraged the lynching of young Emmet Till, and whole heartedly stood by their husbands, were nice community involved women, and their community supported lynching a black child for putting money in a white lady's hand, not on the counter.

If you can look at these photos of murdered people and still think it's all ironic, hilarious, and not worth taking seriously, I'm having a hard time seeing how different you are from the people who thought lynchings were the kind events to be commemorated with post cards and souvenirs hacked off the murdered person's body. Postcards and souvenirs aren't serious business after all.

If you want to learn, go the library. I'm not having a god damn teachable moment. Also, if you are a local or someone who chats with me via the internet let me give you a pro tip: All that bullshit right here, is the exact opposite of what I would like to chat about right now. If you want to have an epiphany on this issue, hug it out or talk it out, do it in your own space that is not at all part of my space. Also, don't tell me about it. Seriously.

All this mostly because of a bizarre tweet that's apparently an attack on Lady Gaga's explicit corporate product placement in "Telephone."

It's kind of a stretch, but I guess just mentioning "The Klan" sends progressive race hustlers into a deathly spiral. And, unfortunately, that's the exact opposite of an "effort to adapt." That's entropy.

Scenes from the Showdown: The Other McCain Reports!

It takes patriots to get the message right, from Robert Stacy McCain, "Tea Party With Sarah Palin: Scenes from the Showdown in Searchlight, Nevada" (the full image is here):

See also, RSM, "Tea Party Express III: Fear and Loathing — and Ann Coulter! — in Las Vegas."

Plus, related news at Instapundit, especially, from Rasmussen, "Most Say Tea Party Has Better Understanding of Issues than Congress." And also Memeorandum.

Angelina Jolie: Good in Green

Well, she's not my favorite, but Angelina Jolie looks beautiful in this picture, from Vanity Fair, "It's Easy Being Green."

Pictures at the link of Natalie Portman and Hillary Swank as well. I was trolling around VF's site to see if James Wolcott allows comments. He does not, which is no surprise, considering the smears.

In any case, I missed inclusion in Sir Smitty's weekly roundup of beauties, so perhaps some Green Angeline will get me back in good graces. In addition, I need to put a couple of links up for those who've been generous with me, or just plain deserving in any case. Thanks to:

* Astute Bloggers.

* Carolyn Tackett.

* The Daley Gator.

* Doug Ross.

* Gateway Pundit.

* Grandpa John.

* Hall of Record.

* Left Coast Rebel.

* Obi's Sister.

* Panhandle Poet.

* Pundit & Pundette.

* The Rhetorican.

* Snooper Report.

* Wordsmith.

* Yid With Lid.

Drop a comment or an e-mail if you'd like to be included in the next roundup.

BONUS: Don't miss the masters: GSGF and Theo Spark.

Old News: MSM Launches Latest Tea Party Delegitimation Campaign

Man this is getting old.

From Founding Bloggers, "AP Outrage! Egg throwing = 'Hospitality'":

"Regarding Andrew Breitbart, this gentleman said, 'Get him out of here or I’m going to jail today'."

*****

Yesterday in Searchlight, Nevada, supporters of Senator Harry Reid deliberately misdirected traffic in an attempt to confuse would-be Tea Partiers. One of those who was successfully misdirected was Andrew Breitbart, whom Time Magazine has recently dubbed “The Right’s New Loudmouth.” When they realized exactly who they had ensnared, they surrounded him, accused him of being a racist, threatened violence, blocked cameras that were accompanying him, and threw eggs at his person. As a final courtesy, they called the police and told them that it was Breitbart who had thrown eggs and who had provoked an incident. You wouldn’t know this had happened if you rely upon the Associated Press for your news – in fact, you would have read this:

Reid supporters set up a hospitality tent Saturday in the parking lot of a Searchlight casino, about a mile from the tea party rally.

And from Gateway Pundit, "CNN on Size of Searchlight Tea Party Rally: 'Hundreds of People, At Least Dozens'." (Via Memeorandum.)

Yeah. Right. Dozens:

Just a few dozen here as well, from Nice Deb:

Just Like Bush! Obama Makes Surprise Visit to Afghanistan!

At the New York Times, "Obama Makes a Surprise Visit to Afghanistan":

President Obama made a surprise trip to Afghanistan on Sunday, his first visit as commander in chief to the site of the war he inherited and has stamped as his own.

Air Force One landed at nighttime at Bagram Air Base after a 13-hour nonstop flight for a visit shrouded in secrecy for security reasons; Mr. Obama quickly boarded a helicopter for the trip to Kabul, landing at the presidential palace for talks with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.

General James L. Jones, the National Security adviser, told reporters aboard the flight to Bagram that Mr. Obama would try to make Mr. Karzai “understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have not been paid attention to, almost since day one.” Gen. Jones said those things included “a merit-based system for appointment of key government officials, battling corruption, taking the fight to the narco-traffickers,” which, “provides a lot of the economic engine for the insurgents.”

At the presidential palace, Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai walked and chatted along a red carpet as they made their way to an Afghan color guard, where the national anthems of both countries were played, in a welcoming ceremony that lasted 10 minutes.

White House officials disclosed no information about the trip until Mr. Obama’s plane had landed in Afghanistan, and had even gone so far as to inform reporters that the president would be spending the weekend at Camp David with his family. In fact, Mr. Obama’s trip is occurring during the Afghan night, and he is expected to be on his way back to Washington before most Afghanis wake up Monday morning.

This is a good indicator that Obama's looking to bolster his creds by playing up the Commander-in-Chief role. Of course, he'll never do that as well as President George W. Bush. Indeed, the grunts are still warming up to O-Bambi:

Also, at ABC News, "President Obama Makes Surprise Visit to Afghanistan to Meet with President Karzai, U.S. Troops: First Trip to Afghanistan for Obama as Commander-in-Chief."

Added: Now a thread a Memeorandum.

HotAirPundit has the video:

Obama's Entitlement Society

From Mike Lester, at the Rome News-Tribune:

More cartoons at Reaganite Republican, Theo Spark's, and Wordsmith/Flopping Aces.

Using Reagan to Defend ObamaCare?

From Johanna Neuman, "Same Healthcare Arguments, Just Decades Earlier":

When Medicare came into existence in 1965, those opposed - including Ronald Reagan - cried of socialism and loss of freedom.

President Harry S. Truman is considered the grandfather of universal healthcare, having first proposed it in 1945. "The health of American children, like their education, should be recognized as a definite public responsibility," he said.

Twenty years later, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare Act into law, he invited Truman, then 81 years old, to be at his side. Then LBJ enrolled Truman as the first beneficiary of the new program that provided healthcare for the 65-and-older set, calling him "the real daddy of Medicare."

But Medicare, much like President Obama's healthcare reform legislation, did not become law without a political fight. In fact, the American Medical Assn. mobilized a massive campaign against the idea, working tirelessly to stop the reform in Congress.

And to serve as the public face of its campaign against a government-sponsored health plan, the AMA chose none other than Ronald Reagan, the star of "General Electric Theater" and former president of the Screen Actors Guild whose views on politics matched its own.

Warning that enacting Medicare would lead to socialism in America, Reagan said that if Americans did not stop Medicare reform, "one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in America when men were free."

In an 11-minute recording for the AMA, Reagan invoked the name of Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party presidential candidate, saying:

"Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. . . . One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project ....

"Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We have an example of this. Under the Truman administration, it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this."

Reagan's prescription? "Write to our congressmen and senators," he said. "The key issue is this: We do not want socialized medicine . . . demand the continuation of our traditional free-enterprise system."

Sound familiar?

Now, of course, Medicare is a vastly popular program for seniors and the disabled, sacrosanct even among Republicans. For example, President George W. Bush twisted arms in a Republican Congress to enact a vast expansion of the program to pay for prescription drugs.

Typical MSM drivel.

There's more at the link, FWIW (which is not much, since Neuman bemoans Tom Daschle's withrawal as HHS nominee, as if he'd have made a bit of difference).

Getting Tough on Illegal Immigration?

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times ran competing commentaries from GOP gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman. See, "California must stem the flow of illegal immigrants," and "Meg Whitman: immigration reform, with respect."

I'm not impressed with either of them. Poizner's trying to rekindle the Pete Wilson magic of 1994 (it's feigned, and some of the thrill is gone, I'd say, in public opinion), and Whitman's simply hoping not to alienate the seal-the-border constituency on the hard right. Since both of these two are basically opportunistic leftists, it's hard to take them seriously.

But conservatives in Arizona are another story, especially Sheriff Joe Arpaio. As ABC News points out, the guy's authentic and making a difference on the front lines of the immigration wars. See, "Arizona Law Promises to Be 'Toughest' on Illegal Immigration: Republicans Float Bill to Charge Illegal Immigrants with Trespassing -- in the State":

A bill empowering police to arrest illegal immigrants and charge them with trespassing for simply being in the state of Arizona, is likely just weeks away from becoming the toughest law of its kind anywhere in the country.

Already passed by the state's Senate and currently being reconciled with a similar version in the House, the bill would essentially criminalize the presence of the 460,000 illegal immigrants living in the state.

The measure allows police to detain people on the suspicion that they are illegal immigrants, outlaws citizens from employing day laborers, and makes it illegal for anyone to transport an illegal immigrant, even a family member, anywhere in the state.

The bill's supporters say a local crackdown has become a necessity because the federal government has failed to adequately seal the borders or actively enforce its laws. They blame Arizona's spiraling crime and unemployment rates on its large population of illegal immigrants.

"When you come to America you must have a permission slip, period," said state Sen. Russell Pearce, the Mesa Republican who sponsored the bill. "You can't break into my country, just like you can't break into my house."

"It will be, there's no doubt, the toughest immigration enforcement bill in the nation," said Pearce, a former deputy in the Maricopa County Sherriff's Office, where he worked for Sheriff Joe Arpaio, nicknamed "America's toughest sheriff." Arpaio, who has stirred controversy over his roundups of illegal immigrants, is being investigated by the federal government for alleged racial profiling ....

Re: James Wolcott: 'I Don't Think the Tea Parties Are Going to Catch Fire'...

Shoot.

I can't even call this a badge of honor. This guy James Wolcott's just too damned stupid (Google link here):

Who is James Wolcott? Apart from being a wannabe intellectual with a sinecure at perhaps the East Coast's most liberal society magazine, he's one who probably shouldn't be commenting on politics. YOU. JUST. CAN'T. BE. MORE. TOTALLY. F**KING. WRONG.

Indeed, this is someone who should just STFU:

What a clown.

I'll have more on both of these jokers, SEK and Wolcott, but a word or two on the latter's cluelessness on the tea parties: The movement's become the dominant grassroots phenomonon of early 21st century. The White House is scared to death of them, and Wolcott's beloved Soros media-machine can't touch 'em. Recall that Media Matters, to discredit the event, claimed that last year's 9/12 tea party march on Washington reached "just" 70,000 activists. Of course, Charlie Martin's rigorously objective crowd estimate concluded that "probably well more than 850,000" were in the crowd.

And just today - roughly a year after Wolcott's lame bloviations above - thousands turned out for the Searchlight tea party, where Sarah Palin gave a barnburner. See Las Vegas Now, "Thousands Gather in Searchlight for Tea Party Rally," and Fox News, "Tea Party Targets Reid, Health Care Law in 'Showdown in Searchlight'."

And in my in-box, from Tea Party Express:

Crowd Estimates Range from 9,000 - 30,000 People for "Showdown in Searchlight"

Crowd estimates from 9,000 - 30,000+ people for today's Tea Party Express "Showdown in Searchlight" event featuring Governor Palin.

Members of the press corps estimated the crowd size between 9,000 - 14,000 but the security and crowd control firm working the event estimated 30,000+.

Lots of Searchlight pictures at Nice Deb.

I'll have more tomorrow.

The 'Bush Lied' Myth

GSGF keeps bugging to do more neocon blogging, so here a little something, from Peter Feaver, "When Will the 'Bush Lied' Myth Be Abandoned?":

My former White House colleague Pete Wehner has taken up the gauntlet thrown by the provocative leftwing pundit David Corn. Corn listed a number of what he claimed to be unambiguous lies by President Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war and he dared, and then double-dared, anyone to rebut them.

I am not a completely independent observer -- Wehner is a friend and I reviewed his response in draft -- but to my eyes he does a careful and thorough job of demolishing Corn's critique. Of particular value is Wehner's painstaking effort to show how Corn's critique involves cherry-picking intelligence quotes out of context that suit his thesis and ignoring the broad conclusions of those cherry-picked reports or the broader-still findings of the 2002 NIE on Iraqi WMD.

I don't for a minute think that Wehner has put the matter to rest once and for all, however. Even though he convincingly shows that each of Corn's major claims rests on a distortion or outright falsehood, in my experience this business is very much like playing whack-a-mole. The purveyors of the "Bush lied" myth never admit that they have made false claims and never concede when you show their charges to be false. They simply shift the focus a bit and say, "but what about this" and raise a whole new episode.

Nevertheless, I think Wehner has done a service in "re-litigating the past." Democracy flourishes best when there is a healthy marketplace of ideas and the propagation of conspiracy theory myths -- whether it be the "Bush lied" myths or the "9/11 truther" myths or what-have-you -- has a corrosive effect on that marketplace.

Conclusion at the link.

RELATED: Michael Rubin, "Why Neoconservatism Was and Is Right."

**********

UPDATE: I couldn't resist adding this from Peter Wehner:

Why does Saddam get a pass? Why do the words "Saddam Hussein lied" not pass the lips of David Corn more often (if at all)? And why the obsession with ascribing blame to President Bush -- particularly when, as we have seen, the charges against Bush are discrediting to those who make them?

It is impossible to know the answer to these questions. But this whole "Bush lied" enterprise, in addition to damaging the reputation of those who have engaged in it, has done considerable harm to our country. Propagating fantastic conspiracy theories, sowing unnecessary seeds of distrust and division, and allowing ideology to fan a burning hatred for an American president, often does.

The truth is troubling enough. There were serious intelligence gaps that we failed to find before the war. Some claims -- by Bush administration officials as well as by leading Democrats and leaders of other nations -- were made with too much certainty. And as I have written multiple times in the past, there were serious mistakes in the conduct of the war prior to the new counterinsurgency strategy being announced in January 2007. I have no interest in whitewashing history. But it is long past time that critics of the Iraq war stop willfully and deceptively twisting history to serve their own partisan ends.

The Left's Racist Tea Party Fetish

Colbert King offers really disgusting essay at WaPo, "In the Faces of Tea Party Shouters, Images of Hate and History."

Readers can check the link, but I swear it's actually degrading -- and downright ignorant -- to hear a grown black man compare tea partiers to KKK night riders.

My daddy used to drop down into his down home pitter-patter when dissing the self-loathing blacks who refused to get off the plantation. Some folks have attacked me as RAAACIST for ridiculing leftists and Obama-cultists that way. And let 'em. These people have no clue anyway. Besides, I'll let Dan Riehl have the honor of ripping into Colbert King tonight:

No idea what he'd do if his one note, dayz O-pressed us so much and fo so's long, now, theme ever stops resonating, as it should. But it keeps da chicken on da table, Ize guesses.

It is truly sad to see an allegedly free man squander so much of his life and thinking invested in so much racism, hate and non-existent victimization. He can't even see his way clear to open the door and step out from his cage. But they'll feed him, so long as he entertains and serves, I guess. So, it all works out okay in the end. I guess life on the plantation isn't really so bad, after all. If it were, he'd just leave. Then, massa would have to up and find himself another token house negroe, if'n he did dat.

More on the theme at AmSpec, where it's rightfully called "disgraceful."

And still more at BlogProf.

If I don't make fun of it, the sub-human thinking and mindset of tragic people like Colbert King makes me sick.

Spoken like a brotha. Thanks Dan.

Searchlight Tea Party Warns Washington: 'Are We a Threat? You Bet! We Vote!'

Gateway Pundit's got the video. Plus, at the Las Vegas Sun, "Sarah Palin to Tea Party Rally: Don't Sit Down, Shut Up." (Via Memorandum.)

But check out Founding Bloggers, "Pictures From Searchlight Nevada – Tea Party Express Kickoff":

And Robert Stacy McCain scoped things out last night. See, "Eve of the Showdown in Searchlight." Robert's full report is expected later ...

RELATED: At ABC News, "At Nevada Tea Party, Sarah Palin Has Message for Harry Reid, D.C. Establishment: 'You're Fired': 'Showdown in Searchlight' Draws Tea Partiers to Senate Majority Leader Reid's Hometown."

Scott Eric Kaufman, Self-Hating Skankwad, Does It Again!

Here's a follow up to January's entry, "Scott Eric Kaufman: If You Smear My Grammar at Least Edit Your F**KED UP Prose and Use Spell Check."

It turns out the hypocritical skank is at it again. See, "Donald Douglas Somehow Managed to Top Himself." The gist of the attack is that somehow I'm functionally illiterate:

... because he’s proven it’s possible to be gainfully employed in academia and functionally illiterate, I can’t even manage a few moments of schadenfreude.

Sure, to be fair to Skanky Little Scotty, my bad. I could have sworn that was Jeff's comments at the post, "Shorter Jeff Goldstein." Chalk one up for the Big Bad Boys at Lawyers, Gays and Marriage, where academic giants like Robert Fuckwad Farley stiff good-faith conservatives for a thousand bucks while sucking back a few whiskey sours. That's real class.

Besides, Little Scotty's schtick is to attack conservatives for bad writing and alleged "functional illiteracy" while demonstrating -- once again! -- actual functional illiteracy. See the original post in question:

Consider, for example, the condensed verion of the the rational arguments with which he and his commenters engaged my argument the other day ...

Look, I know math instructors don't like students to use a calculator (they need to show work). But I've never heard English instructors argue against spell check. No matter. When you troll the web all day to demonize supposedly inferior academics who cares if your own posts are routinely riddled with factual inaccuracies, spelling errors, and blatant lies? Hey, that's the postmodern sensibility, you know. Anyway, it's at the screencap just in case Skankwad Scotty updates the post. And folks can excuse my own alleged illiteracy, especially since Goldstein writes like this most of the time:

It is an Orwellian world in which we live when fucking novelists want to distance themselves from those who criticize the government.

Anyway, since Skanky Scotty was just doing skanky snark, I'll counter with the real thing:

Scott is a fly-eating fuck who wouldn't know his asshole from the worthless scrolled-end of the diploma granting his non-existent "Doctorate of Philosophy of English." You'd think a goddamned prick like this would have better things to do than travel around the web swinging his little penis and yelling, as if mentally challenged, "I'm smarter than you 'cuz I'm a self-proclaimed radical academic leftist with super cool blogging YouTubes to prove it!" This pretentious cock would do everyone a big favor if he'd for once turn his sights on the real evil, the Democratic-left's alliance of hate. But being the bottomless shit-eater that he is, he'll dismiss his ideological brethren as some kind of aberration, rather than the genuine representatives of his buttfucked worldview that they are:

Fuck you, Scotty Self-Hating Skankwad. Go shovel your shitpile of sickening self-said academic superiority somewhere else, you ugly motherfucking prick.

Fidel Castro Hearts ObamaCare!

At the Washington Post, "Cuban Leader Applauds US Health-Care Reform Bill":

It perhaps was not the endorsement President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress were looking for.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform "a miracle" and a major victory for Obama's presidency, but couldn't help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.

"We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama's) government," Castro wrote in an essay published in state media, adding that it would strengthen the president's hand against lobbyists and "mercenaries."

Hey, awesome! I'm sure recipients of the Cuban healthcare system can rejoice in El Presidente Castro's ringing affirmation of ObamaCare! See, El Marco, "Health Care Cuban Style":

And check out America's Dear Leader trumpeting the benefits of socialized medicine in the United States ... Yes We Can! ...

Democrat Thugs Attack Tea Party Express at Nugget Casino in Searchlight!

In my in-box from Tea Party Express and at Gateway Pundit:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 27, 2010

Harry Reid Supporters Egg Tea Party Express Buses in Route

Supporters of Senator Harry Reid have just thrown eggs at the Tea Party Express bus caravan - striking at least one of the three buses (the red Tea Party Express bus) with multiple eggs.

About 35 Reid supporters had lined Highway 95 in front of the Nugget Casino in Searchlight where they were attempting a counter-demonstration the tens of thousands of tea party supporters who are gathering for the "Showdown in Searchlight."

More details to follow...

Added: There's now a Tea Party Express thread at Memeorandum.

Also, Founding Bloggers reports that Andrew Breitbart was attacked as well, "Harry Reid Supporters Threaten Violence Against Breitbart at Tea Party Protest."

Hate-o-Crat Eliminationism: Leftists Move to 'Get Rid of Republicans Entirely'

Yesterday on MSNBC, Representative Alan Grayson alleged that all Republicans have left is "fear and hatred." He then goes on to call for the total elimination the GOP, and not just in November: "We have to put end to the style of politics, and that means getting rid of Republicans entirely."

Talk about fanning the flames. Check out Radio Equalizer, "Lib Talker Malloy Calls for Deaths of Limbaugh, Beck and O'Reilly" (via Memeorandum):

And from Bob Parks, "Let's Compare Hate":

... here are just a few samples of violence committed over the recent years by those tolerant, compassionate progressives ...

18 February 2010

Official: Plane crash pilot left anti-IRS Web note
Originally media-speculated as a Tea Party activist, Joseph Stack was a registered Democrat

4 September 2009

ELF Claims Responsibility For Radio Tower Sabotage

4 September 2008, World Socialist
Mass arrests of protesters at Republican National Convention

2 September 2008, Daily Mail, UK
250 arrested as Republican Convention protest descends into violence

2 September 2008, MPR News, Minneapolis
Authorities say splinter groups caused most of protest violence

28 August 2008, Guardian, UK

US election: Hundreds of anti-war demonstrators march on the Democratic convention hall

24 January 2008, Denver News
Anarchists Stalk Democratic Convention

11 September 2006, BBC
Bush assassination film defended

8 October 2005, Seattle, WA
Veteran’s Home Vandalized

4 September 2005, Louisiana

Democrat Senator Threatens Violence Against Bush
Mary Landrieu: I’ll Punch Bush, ‘Literally’

1 September 2005, National
Leftist Radio Host Encourages Looting

25 April 2005, National
Leftist Radio Threatens to Assassinate Bush

1 April 2005
Violent leftist/Democrat physically assaults conservative Pat Buchanan at Western Michigan University

17 February 2005, Portland, OR
Former Pentagon Adviser Assaulted at University
Protester throws shoe at Richard Perle

24 January 2005, Milwaukee, WI
Five Democrats Charged with Election-Day Tire Slashing

5 charged in GOP tire slashings

30 November 2004
Entire run of the November issue of the Yale Free Press, a conservative student publication, was stolen over the Thanksgiving break
Editors say Yale Free Press stolen

8 November 2004, San Francisco, CA
Muslim/Democrat Mob Attacks College Republicans

30 October 2004, Durango, CO

Liberal Professor Assaults Conservative Student

22 October 2004, Tuscon, AZ
Conservative Commentator Assaulted at University

5 October 2004, Orlando, FL
Democrat Mob Storms GOP HQ, Injures Staffers
Protesters Ransack Bush/Cheney Headquarters In Orlando

October 2004, National:

A Pattern of Leftist Hatred

17 September 2004, Huntington, WV:
3-Year-Old Girl Attacked by Democrat Thugs
Democrats accused of ripping Bush signs

20 March 2003, Madison, WI:
Republican Headquarters Vandalized
GOP headquarters in Madison hit with bricks, paint bombs

11 March 2003, Los Angeles, CA
Peaceniks Destroy 9-11 Memorial

1 March 2002
Liberals steal entire press run of a monthly conservative publication at the University of California-Berkeley and harass and intimidate its staff

October 1999
Liberals at California State University at Sacramento stole 3,000 copies of the student newspaper.
They were enraged because the paper, The State Hornet, had published the picture of a Hispanic man being arrested and charged with resisting arrest at a football game.

13 February 1996

Liberals steal press run of conservative newspaper Carolina Review in an effort to preserve victory for their liberal candidate

1992
Liberals vandalize offices of The Collegian at the University of Massachusetts

Timeline of Earth Liberation Front actions
Including break-ins, arson, use of pipe bombs, tree spiking, equipment sabotage, willful destruction of property, among other crimes.

And this is just a sample ...

Now That ObamaCare Has Passed...

Via Sir Smitty, a hammering video from the Heritage Foundation:

And via Memeorandum, at The Hill, "Obama Begins Tough Sell of Healthcare and Education Reform."

The piece notes that President Obama has dared Republicans to repeal the law. And no doubt that challenge is the pretext for all that will happen politically in 2010. And it's a big one. Democrats are taking on a huge challenge. They passed the bill with majorities opposing the legislation. And polls out this week found the public unhappy with the result. At CNN, "Americans don't like health care bill." And Gallup finds the most resistance among elderly Americans, "Majority of Poor, Young, Uninsured Back Healthcare Bill: A majority of seniors say passing it was a bad thing." So not only does Obama have to sell the legislation, he needs to energize the youth demographic - the newer voters who helped drive the Democrats to victory in 2008. But enthusiasm among the college-age cohort has declined dramatically over the last year, so the hurdles are extremely high for the president. This helps explain, obviously, why the Democratic-left has launched violent jihad against conservatives, Republicans and tea partiers. The "race card" is all they have left. That and a few well-placed but scurrilous allegations in the Oba-media might help shift a few fence-sitters over to the socialists. It won't be enough, of course. The GOP will pick up seats in November. That won't be enough to repeal the legislation, but it will set the table for the GOP to return to the White House in 2012. And when you see John McCain inviting Sarah Palin to introduce him at campaign rallies, there's hardly better indication of where the balance of ideological power is today in American politics.

Prepare for battle folks. The Dems are going get what's coming to them, big time.

Karl Marx and Postmodernism

It's been quite some time since I read Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto. Maybe I should read it again, or at least Walter Russell Mead thinks so, "Literary Saturday: The Communist Manifesto." What's interesting is Mead's counterfactual asking what Marx and Engels would think of today's academic postmodern Marxists:

I don’t think the various strains of academic radicalism rooted in the New Left of the 1960s would much enjoy a new edition of the Manifesto, either. Marx and Engels were unreconstructed Old Lefties who saw progressive ideology as being rooted in and concerned with the interests of the masses of the working poor. The New Left emphasis on identity, ethnicity and self-expression would fill them with contempt. The academic New Left would, I am pretty certain, appear to Marx and Engels as a new form of vile and self-indulgent petty bourgeois ideology that elevates the historical despair of a class at the end of its tether into a worldview. That ideology, rampant in the academy today, is what we sometimes call postmodernism. It’s the belief that the ‘grand narratives’ of history have collapsed, including the Marxist enlightenment of proletarian revolt and the broader Enlightenment narrative of progress. Instead of a grand social march forward into a better world, society as a whole seems stagnant. Liberation is no longer a project for society at large; it is something that small groups — cultural, ethnic, sexual minorities — achieve on their own. It is a kind of dystopian version of Frank Fukuyama’s end of history: things can’t get much better, and they aren’t very good.

Marx and Engels would, I think, excoriate this ideology of ‘tenured radicals’ and foundation staff as the attempt of petty bourgeois intellectuals to console themselves for their own political irrelevance — and to take their own ironic fate as ineffective and marginal critics in a society still dominated by the demands of a capitalist order as the inevitable fate for all mankind. The ’struggle’ to get another tenure-track position for an ethnic studies program, or to defeat a rival faction’s candidate for an academic post can be seen, sort of, as the contemporary version of the inspiring political struggles of old. One is at the barricades, even if all one ever actually does is publish technical articles in obscure journals. The continuing breakdown of academic disciplines into ever smaller and (at least in some cases) ever less relevant subspecialties reflects the wider breakdown of the social progress into the struggles of various smaller and more specialized minorities to define their identities and carve out some living space. From an old-fashioned Marxist point of view (and perhaps not only from that perspective) this looks indescribably petty and vain, especially when measured against the enormous scale of the upheavals and social explosions reshaping today’s world.

I may be missing the point completely; I’m sure that there are readers out there who could ‘unmask my ideology’ and Marxists used to say and show how my own take on the Manifesto reflects my own miserable economic interests and background. Certainly I’m not going to embrace any wild-eyed ideologies that would let the unwashed hordes past the gates of the stately Mead manor in glamorous Queens! And I’m careful to keep my copy of their collected works where the more excitable members of the grounds staff won’t see it lying around.

Mead's funny, but I think he needs to get out on the street more often. Lots of folks truly believe that we're now living crisis of capitalism foretold in the Communist Manifesto. The workers of the world are looking to throw off their chains, or at to least burn Israel to the ground. It's all about power, really. And today's academics, beyond their daily squabbles over tenure and contracts, would love to initiate massive capitalist expropriation, and they'd perhaps send a few capitalists to the camps as well. In any case, I'm looking at the Wikipedia entry for the Communist Manifesto right now, where it cites what's perhaps the most controversial passage of the book:

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

This is the thesis of the "withering away of the state," which is the Big Lie of communist revolutionary theory. The state will not wither away, and in fact the state will grow in inverse proportion to the immiseration of the people.

I like Walter Russell Mead. I just wonder if he spends as much time with actual Marxist revolutionary cadres as I do.

Marijuana Legalization Qualifies for November Ballot‎ in California

At the Los Angeles Times, "Initiative to Legalize Marijuana Qualifies for November ballot":

State election officials announced Wednesday that an initiative to legalize marijuana will be on the November ballot, triggering what will likely be an expensive, divisive and much-watched campaign to decide whether California will again lead the nation in softening drug laws.

Los Angeles County election officials Wednesday turned in their official estimate of the number of valid signatures, putting the statewide figure above the 433,971 needed for the measure to make the ballot. The county, where one-fifth of the signatures were collected, was the last to report its count, filing just before 5 p.m.

Polls have indicated that a majority of voters in California want marijuana legalized, but the margin is not enough to ensure the initiative will win. Two years ago, opponents defeated an attempt to relax the state's drug laws despite being outspent. "It's always easier for people to say no than to say yes for an initiative," said Mark Baldassare, the pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California. "Generally, all it takes is for people to find one reason to say no."

The initiative would allow adults 21 or older to possess up to an ounce for personal use. Possession of an ounce or less has been a misdemeanor with a $100 fine since 1975, when Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who was then governor, signed a law that reduced tough marijuana penalties that had allowed judges to impose 10-year sentences. Legalization supporters note that misdemeanor arrests have risen dramatically in California in the last two decades. The initiative would also allow adults to grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana per residence or parcel.

But the measure, known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, goes further, allowing cities and counties to adopt ordinances that would authorize the cultivation, transportation and sale of marijuana, which could be taxed to raise revenues. It's this feature of the initiative that supporters hope will draw support from voters who are watching their local governments jettison employees and programs in the midst of a severe budget crisis.

Just now heard of Frank Schubert (at the video), but he easily wins this round in the debate over decriminalization.

Raping Lady Liberty -- UPDATED!!

Check my response to Lawyers, Gays and Marriage, "Scott Eric Kaufman, Self-Hating Skankwad, Does It Again!"

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This cartoon's from No Sheeples Here! But speaking of Lady Liberty cartoons, it turns out there's a new left-wing nihilist insurgency against Darleen Click and Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom. The relevant posts are here, here, and here (the latter via Memeorandum).

But what really moved me to write is Goldstein's deliciously devasating slam on SEK:

Scott is a cartoon, a hack; a clearly clueless and remarkably dishonest bracketing brackety bracketer who stands on the sidelines cheering while Lady Liberty takes it in the cornhole. This pretentious character is a lying cock, a fucking pussy, and a fucking retarded scrotumless fuck wearing a hot-pink thong, or maybe white lace boyshorts, and he would not stop a rape in progress, but would instead go home and be so turned-on he’d write a paper about it. Effete attention whores like Scott Eric Robespierre are routinely beat up by bread and, like all leftist twatwaffles lusting for power, he is a haughty apparatchik with a lisp and a pedo beard who couldn’t find cool were he to stumble pantless into a caribou orgy. He roots for the Mets and is truly a prick.

Scott Erik Kaufman's a prick, plain and simple. Jeff Goldstein's more colorful about it than I am, which makes it all the more juicy.