On This Day: Bolsheviks Murder Romanovs, July 17, 1918

"The shooting of the Romanov family, of the Russian Imperial House of Romanov, and those who chose to accompany them into exile, Dr. Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp, and Ivan Kharitonov took place in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918 on the orders of Vladimir Lenin."

And at Bob Belvedere's, "The House of Special Purpose."

RELATED: Claire Berlinski, "A Hidden History of Evil":

It is widely understood that the Nazis’ ideology—nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle—led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains inexplicably indifferent and uncurious about the deadliest ideology in history.

Center for Immigration Studies: 'Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border 2'

I've published some of the raw video previously, but CIS has put together a documentary summation of recent clips and news reports, "Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border 2: Drugs, Guns and 850 Illegal Aliens":

This new 10-minute mini-documentary raises the bar, featuring footage of both illegal-alien entry as well as gun- and drug-smuggling. At minimum, the inescapable conclusion is that hidden cameras reveal a reality that illegal-alien activity is escalating.

The hidden camera footage, acquired from a variety of sources, indicates that there is an unfortunate lack of federal law enforcement presence on Arizona’s federal land on the border in Nogales, in the Coronado National Forest (15 miles inside the border), and the Casa Grande Sector (80 miles inside the border).

U.S. Born Majority Backs SB 1070 in New California Field Poll, 54 to 41 Percent

At San Diego Union-Tribune, "State's voters tilt toward Arizona law: Field Poll results show 49% in favor, 45% oppose illegal-immigration move." Support has dipped slightly across all respondents, but the findings among American-born voters are revealing:

U.S.-born voters favored the Arizona law 54 percent to 41 percent; just 28 percent of those born outside the U.S. said they backed it.

One of the strongest single blocs of support came from registered Republican voters, 77 percent of whom said they favored the law. Meanwhile, 62 percent of Democrats said they disagreed with the law, and nonpartisans were about evenly divided.

Only about one in four voters who said they preferred the gubernatorial bid by Attorney General Jerry Brown , a Democrat, or a re-election bid by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., approved of the Arizona law. But four of five supporters of former eBay executive Meg Whitman, the Republican running for governor, or former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina , the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, said they backed the law.

Whitman has come out against the Arizona law; Fiorina favors it. Voters who are undecided in the governor’s race support the new law and undecided voters in the Senate race are divided with 49 percent in support.

Opinions were strong on both sides. Of the 49 percent of voters who said they approve of the Arizona law, 37 percent said they approved strongly. Likewise, of the 45 percent who disapproved of the law, 34 percent said they disapproved strongly.

The poll shows that most California voters continue to believe illegal immigrants have a negative effect overall on the state, but that view has steadily diminished for three decades. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said illegal immigrants have an unfavorable effect on the state, compared with 75 percent in 1982 and 67 percent in 1994.

See the full results, "CALIFORNIA VOTERS SPLIT ALMOST EVENLY ABOUT ARIZONA’S NEW ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION LAW. OPINIONS DIVIDE SHARPLY ALONG PARTISAN AND RACIAL/ETHNIC LINES. ISSUE HAS BIG EFFECT ON SUPPORTERS OF CANDIDATES IN GOVERNOR AND SENATE RACES."

In related news, it turns out USA Today 's weekend edition reports that immigration is "just now" emerging as a top national priority for November. See, "Immigration re-enters national debate." The issue framing is obviously lame, although the report's not too bad actually. For example, this passage reinforces the Field Poll's findings on the deep political divisions, and especially noteworthy is that Hispanic constituencies are nearly unanimous pro-open borders:

This week, nine state attorneys general — including three Republicans running for governor — filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing Arizona in its fight with the federal government. Latino groups, meanwhile, unveiled polling data showing the Arizona law has infuriated the nation's fastest-growing voting bloc.

All of this is happening at a time when, according to federal government statistics, illegal immigration is down and "the border is safer than it has ever been," says Doris Meissner, a former U.S. immigration commissioner now with the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank.

That's not how it feels to people living there, Giffords argues. She points to reports of drug-related beheadings and lynchings in Mexico, just a few miles from some of her constituents' homes. "The crime in Mexico has created a different kind of fear than we have seen before," Democratic pollster Lisa Grove says.

Elsewhere in the nation, immigration appears to be serving as a stand-in for even deeper anxieties.

"The problem of illegal immigration only compounds the frustration people are feeling with the federal government," Barletta says.

Pollsters are tracking two trends that appear to be on a collision course for the Nov. 2 general election:

•A wide majority of Americans consistently say they favor the Arizona law. Separate Quinnipiac surveys in the battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania showed overwhelming support for the measure. "This is a very powerful issue," says Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll.

•Hispanics are equally unanimous — on the other side. A survey released this week by a coalition of Hispanic groups found that eight in 10 Hispanic voters oppose the Arizona law. Arturo Vargas of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials said those numbers track "a dramatic shift in Latino attitudes" that his organization found in a separate survey, to be released next week.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio Launches Human Smuggling and Crime Suppression Sweep in Arizona Desert: .50-Caliber Machine Gun 'Sends Message to Mexico'

At Arizona Republic, "Joe Arpaio Launches 16th Immigration Sweep in Desert":

In a stretch of barren desert alongside Interstate 8 near Gila Bend that has become a corridor for human and drug smuggling, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and about 100 men staged a crime-suppression operation Thursday.

Arpaio brought with him a belt-fed .50-caliber machine gun that can shoot accurately up to a mile as a display of the kind of force he would use if anyone hurts a deputy.

"I am trying to send a message to Mexico," he said. "We will not take anyone hurting our deputies. We will fight back."

The 7-year-old gun has not yet been used, Arpaio said. "It is more for defense." Nor have any of his deputies yet been harmed in a border scuffle.

"We have been very lucky," he said.

The sheriff said criminals smuggling drugs and immigrants across the border are now carrying AK-47s along the swath of desert that is seldom patrolled. The Barry M. Goldwater Range is used for shooting and cannot be patrolled without permission from the United States Air Force. That gives smugglers an easy path for entry, Arpaio said.

Often smugglers cut through Vekol Valley east of Gila Bend, then come north to vehicles waiting on Interstate 8, he said. Those usually head to Phoenix on back roads.

The volunteers and paid deputies arrived in about 20 vehicles to stage the first-ever suppression operation in the desert.

By 8 p.m. Thursday, the deputies had made two arrests at traffic stops, but those were outside their staging area. One was nabbed for a criminal traffic violation, and the other had a warrant for a criminal traffic violation.

RTWT.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton Hears First Arguments in Court Challenges to SB 1070; GOP Steps Up Effort to Fight Federal Lawsuit

A couple of local stories: "Judge hears first lawsuit against SB1070," and "1070 demonstrations outside court house as lawsuit arguments begin."

But see also Politico, "GOP Fights Immigration Lawsuit":

As Arizona’s controversial immigration law enters the courtroom, Capitol Hill Republicans are trying to intervene in the legal brawl.

This week, Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and David Vitter of Louisiana introduced legislation that would block the Obama administration from suing Arizona over its new law to crack down on illegal immigration. Sen. John McCain of Arizona donated $5,000 to a legal defense fund to fight challenges to the law.

And the GOP-dominated House Immigration Reform Caucus will file a friend of the court brief early next week, backing Republican Gov. Jan Brewer as she seeks to defend the law from a Justice Department lawsuit.

“Instead of spending time and taxpayer resources on a lawsuit, the Obama administration should be securing the border,” said Wesley Denton, a spokesman for DeMint. “The president and his administration are trying to invalidate a law that simply enforces federal law.”

Both parties are accusing the other of playing politics with the immigration issue and the Arizona law.

“It’s political opportunism,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said of Republicans. His district runs along the U.S.-Mexico border and he has called for economic boycotts of the state until the law is overturned. “It’s a very divisive issue not only in Arizona but obviously in other parts of the country. Showing support for [Arizon’s law] is supposed to show hardness on immigration, but it’s appropriate that they wait and see whether this law passes constitutional muster.”

More at the link.

Arizona's Fight – America's Fight

At FrontPage Magazine. (PDF document here):

In mid May, 2010, Mexican President Felipe Calderon took advantage of a state visit to the U.S. to excoriate Arizona before a joint session of Congress. He called the law recently passed by the state that allows police to question the citizenship status of individuals detained on other matters “a terrible idea” and, echoing the pronouncements of many of the liberal legislators he was addressing, stigmatized it as “racial profiling.”

The Arizona law is explicitly not about that, as anyone who bothered to read it would know. (Not that Sr. Calderon should be particularly faulted in this regard, since Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, and others in the current administration who have also criticized Arizona haven’t read it either.) But the deliberate mischaracterization of what Arizona has done — creating state law that mirrors a federal law that the federal government has ignored — was only one small part of the cynicism that characterized Calderon’s unseemly harangue. Far more glaring was the spectacle of the head of a country so precariously close to failed statehood, a country devolving more deeply every day into violence and mayhem, lecturing a neighbor—in this case, Arizona—for trying to protect its people from the spillover of that chaos.

Arizona was forced to act because it is being squeezed by two hostile forces. On one side is a foreign government, the Republic of Mexico, whose leading export to America are the millions of illegal immigrants now living in the U.S. and creating social and financial costs that threaten the stability of communities, regions, and state governments through the Southwest. A growing problem for America because of the legal, economic, and cultural chaos they create, these illegal immigrants are for the Mexican government merely a form of human capital to be manipulated — people who send home hundreds of millions of dollars every year in the form of “remittances,” thus helping to keep in power an oligarchy whose policies have helped create the poverty that leads to massive flight across the border in the first place.

Squeezing Arizona from the other side is WashingtonD.C, which has stood by fecklessly as ...

RTWT.

Stimulus Signage Stirs Up GOP Angst Over Wasteful Spending

At Fox News:

Some local officials are spending freely to post street signs that let people know the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- better known as the stimulus bill -- has funded a highway project in local neighborhoods, an expense that has Republicans blistering over why taxpayer money is being used to promote how taxpayer money is being used.

State governments are estimated to be using millions of dollars to put up the signs that say what a great job they are doing spending money. Some examples:

-- In Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spent $10,000 for a single 10-by-11-foot sign displayed at a highway project, advertising that the $15 million in stimulus funds the District received were provided by the stimulus.

-- Illinois spent about $650,000 during the last 14 months for 950 signs to be placed on 850 highway projects, Department of Transportation spokesman Josh Kauffman told FoxNews.com.

-- Pennsylvania spent $157,477 of the $1 billion in stimulus funds it received on 70 signs for 37 projects, Department of Transportation press officer Alison Wenger told FoxNews.com. The average cost of each sign was $2,250.

-- Tennessee bought 324 signs for $12,931, ABC News reported.

But some states, including Florida, Vermont, Arizona and Virginia, aren't following neighboring states' signs.

"We decided that we were going to take all the money that we got from our stimulus projects and put it into the road," said Jeff Caldwell, chief of communications for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

RTWT.

Few Americans Think Stimulus Helped

At Fox News, "Obama Job Approval Down, Few Think Stimulus Helped":

Most Americans see little benefit from the federal government's economic stimulus plan, as President Obama's job performance rating drops overall, and hits a new low among Democrats.

A Fox News poll released Thursday finds that 43 percent of voters approve of the job Obama's doing, matching a previous low in early April. Two weeks ago 47 percent approved, and a year ago 54 percent of voters approved. His highest approval thus far was 65 percent in January 2009 ...

More than 6 in 10 American voters think the economy would be in the same or better shape if Congress hadn't passed the economic stimulus bill
, while a small minority thinks things would be worse without it.

If Congress had done nothing, the largest number of voters — 43 percent — say the economy would be in about the same shape as it is today. Another 22 percent think the economy would be in better shape without the stimulus plan. About a third — 31 percent — thinks the stimulus bill helped and the nation's economy would be in worse shape without it.

Wednesday the White House said the $862 billion stimulus bill was responsible for saving or creating between 2.5 and 3.6 million jobs.

The poll finds about a third of voters think the economic stimulus plan created "a lot" (5 percent) or "some" new jobs (29 percent). Twenty-three percent think the plan created "a few" jobs, while the biggest portion of voters — 40 percent — thinks the stimulus created "hardly any new jobs at all."

Fail.

NewsBusted — Obama Approval at 38% With Independents...

NewsBusted 7/16/10 (via Theo Spark):

And from Gallup previously, "Obama Job Approval Rating Down to 38% Among Independents."

Audacity of the Dope: Obama Pushes Agenda That Public Disapproves

At New York Times (via Memeorandum):

If passage of the financial regulatory overhaul on Thursday proves anything about President Obama, it is this: He knows how to push big bills through a balky Congress.

But Mr. Obama’s legislative success poses a paradox: while he may be winning on Capitol Hill, he is losing with voters at a time of economic distress, and soon may be forced to scale back his ambitions.

The financial regulatory bill is the final piece of a legislative hat trick that also included the stimulus bill and the landmark new health care law. Over the last 18 months, Mr. Obama and the Democratic Congress have made considerable inroads in passing what could be the most ambitious agenda in decades.

Mr. Obama has done what he promised when he ran for office in 2008: he has used government as an instrument to try to narrow the gaps between the haves and the have-nots. He has injected $787 billion in tax dollars into the economy, provided health coverage to 32 million uninsured and now, reordered the relationship among Washington, Wall Street, investors and consumers.

But as he has done so, the political context has changed around him. Today, with unemployment remaining persistently near double digits despite the scale of the stimulus program and the BP oil spill having raised questions about his administration’s competence, Mr. Obama’s signature legislation is providing ammunition to conservatives who argue that government is the problem, not the solution.

What Mr. Obama and his allies portray as progressive, activist government has been framed by his opponents as overreaching and profligate when it comes to the economy.

Even before the November elections, the White House is being forced to recalibrate. This week, Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats decided to press ahead with a scaled-back energy bill, having concluded after months of gridlock that the sweeping measure they once envisioned simply would not pass. It is a tactic that the president will likely have to employ more and more after the November elections, when Democrats will almost certainly lose seats — and may even lose control of the House or Senate.

“They clearly made a decision that political capital was something that should be used, not saved,” said Steven Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who worked for years as a senior leadership aide on Capitol Hill. “The reality is, he talked before the election about what he wanted to do, and he’s done it. He didn’t trim his sails, he didn’t change his philosophy. He didn’t compromise. The test will come in the fall: can he and Democrats in Congress make the case to the American people that what he did was the right thing to do?”

See also, Jennifer Rubin, "Gray Lady to Obama: You Sound Like George Bush on a Bad Day":

We get a brutal assessment of Obama’s performance from none other than the New York Times, which tells its doubtlessly shell-shocked liberal readers that all those “wins” in Congress are really losses. (”While he may be winning on Capitol Hill, he is losing with voters at a time of economic distress, and soon may be forced to scale back his ambitions.”) Here’s a low blow:

You know, sometimes these pundits, they can’t figure me out,” the president said last week, campaigning in Kansas City, Mo., for the Democratic Senate candidate there. “They say, ‘Well, why is he doing that?’ That doesn’t poll well. Well, I’ve got my own pollsters, I know it doesn’t poll well. But it’s the right thing to do for America.”

It is an argument that sounds eerily similar to the one Mr. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, made to justify an unpopular war in Iraq as he watched his own poll numbers sink lower. Mr. Bush and his aides often felt they could not catch a break; when the economy was humming along — or at least seemed to be humming along — the Bush White House never got credit for it, because the public was so upset about the war.

The difference, however, is that Bush turned around the war. Obama has failed to do so on the economy and is now paying the price for his liberal joyride ...

Gulf Spill Cap Won't Save Obama's Political Disaster

At Politico, "Obama: Oil disaster not over yet."

A day after BP temporarily capped its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, President Barack Obama welcomed the development as “good news” but cautioned Friday that the largest oil disaster in US history is far from over.

“It's important that we don't get ahead of ourselves here,” said Obama, speaking from the Rose Garden before departing to Maine. “You know, one of the problems with having this camera down there [in the Gulf] is that when the oil stops gushing, everybody feels like we're done, and we're not.”

BP finally restrained the growing environmental catastrophe Thursday by placing a tighter sealing cap over the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig that’s been spurting oil into the ocean since April 20. After the cap was installed, the live video feed of oil and gas billowing from the broken pipe on the ocean floor showed the leak gradually slowing before it stopped completely.

It's doubtful that Obama political disaster is over yet, despite declining news coverage of the oil spill:

Remember this week's polling, "Confidence in Obama reaches new low, Washington Post-ABC News poll finds." And it's off to the Maine vacation, and that's after Michelle Obama's exhortation that Americans holiday in the Gulf States. "Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Michelle Obama Encourages Americans to Vacation in Gulf, Obama Family Takes Mini-Vacation to Maine."

Fail.

Terrorist Attorney Lynne Stewart Gets 10 Years in Prison

At New York Post, "Attorney who helped terrorist gets 10 years in prison." (Via Memeorandum.)

And from the background at Discover the Networks:

After Stewart's arrest, a litany of leftwing organizations and activists instantly rushed to her aid. These included Pravda; the World Socialist website; the Committee to Support Revolution in Peru (an arm of Peru's "Shining Path" rebels); International ANSWER; the National Lawyers Guild (which condemned "the witch hunt against Stewart" as "yet another attempt by the government to dismantle the Constitution and deprive fundamental rights in furtherance of the War on Terrorism"); Refuse and Resist, a group headed by Revolutionary Communist Party leader C. Clark Kissinger; the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (which filed a number of amicus curiae briefs on Stewart's behalf); George Soros's Open Society Institute (which made a September 2002 grant of $20,000 to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee); and the Center for Constitutional Rights (which issued a press release describing Stewart's indictment as "an attack on attorneys who defend controversial figures and an attempt to deprive these clients of the zealous representation that may be required").

Quickly becoming a veritable icon of the left, Stewart was invited to speak at college campuses all across the United States.

Also, at NewsReal, "America-Hating Terrorist Lynne Stewart May Die In Prison. Good."

Additional commentary at Commentary, JammieWearingFool, Jules Crittenden, and Weasel Zippers.

Racist TBogg Swallows SEK Lies, Smears AmPow as Juvenile Sexual Predator

Resident Racist FDL Secular Demonologist in Chief is over at Lawyers, Gays and Marriage joining Scott Eric Kaufman's smears of AmPow as a juvenile sex offender:

Based on the fact that Donald is now linking to soft core teen porn, I guess we should be grateful that he’s teaching at a juco and not at a middle school.

Recall this kinda stuff below at TBogg's is considered cool left-wing social commentary. And if you check the thread, Godless freak-nozzle and Xtremist hate-merchant Repsac3 piles on the allegations of juvenile sexual predation despite facts that put the lie to these sick malevloent dopes as totally FUBAR. THIS IS THE FACE OF NIHILISM, with deep-dreaded ice-cold blackness in the heart. This is why good conservatives like Michelle Malkin travel with a bodyguard --- these folks have already tried to destroy my economic livelihood; I expect physical threats to my safety as forthcoming ... so always remember --- leftists are pure evil.)

Romney Advisor Smears Sarah Palin as 'Not a Serious Human Being'

I saw this story last night, and now it's picking up steam. Dehumanization is dehumanization, but this one's over in Andrew Sullivan territory, which is helluva feat.

At Politico, "Palin aide swats Romney team." (Via Memeorandum.)

Tammy Bruce has the must see essay, "When it Comes to Palin, Romney Decides the Gutter Suits ":

So, let’s interpret this–the Decent Man-of-Faith Mitt Romney is so decent, so trustworthy, that his first plan of action, his first choice of attack is to call into question not Palin’s ideas, or strategy, or approach, but her very humanity; an attack which blatantly attempts to dismiss her as a silly girl, someone not with whom he disagrees, but beneath complete human status. Normally, your first plan of attack is your best, most thoughtful plan. This says volumes about Romney’s nature and character and it will not be forgotten.

Romney’s flip-flopping and hypocrisy on most every important issue during the last campaign is chronicled by Conservatives4Palin. Perhaps Romney knows his lack of character and political opportunism make it impossible to confront Palin on the issues. But if he’s hoping for the traditional conservative ‘turning of the other cheek ‘ this time around, he’s got another thing coming,

And the Republican operative? Attempts to reduce her to an animal, literally, and a cat, no less. Sleek (attractive) and fast (dangerous), but also, essentially, not serious. An interesting conjunction and indicative of established Romney and frightened Republican party line.

Here’s a word of warning to all the establishment politicians who think dismissing or denigrating Sarah Palin will pay off. The tact has been tried and has already failed. The same smear was tried by Nikki Haley’s opponents, and it helped propel her to victory. Why? Because the American people are sick and tired of gutter-tripe tossed at women who dare to pursue their American dream.

We already know of the rank and obscene sexism rife in the Democrat Party. Men in the Republican Party were supposed to be more decent, have more character, and be more understanding of the diversity and strength of the American people. So here’s a suggestion to you more decent, more Godly, more in-touch Republican Elitists, contemplating the gutter from which to smear Palin, or Haley or any other conservative woman–instead of working out your issues about women while campaigning or in public office, work them out in a psychiatrist’s office and let the women who are striving to right this nation get to work.

Arizona Will Scrap Janet Napolitano's Highway Speed Trap Cameras

I noticed these damned speed trap buzzards when I drove out to AZ for the immigration protests. Freaky.

At NYT, "Arizona Halts Photo Enforcement of Speed Laws":

PHOENIX — At the first tick of the clock Friday, an array of automated cameras on Arizona freeways aimed at catching speeders were to stop clicking.

There is no glitch. The state, the first to adopt such cameras on its highways in October 2008, has become the first to pull the plug, bowing to the wishes of a vocal band of conservative activists who complained that photo enforcement intruded on privacy and was mainly designed to raise money.

It was a tumultuous, impassioned run here. A man wearing a monkey mask racked up dozens of tickets, fighting them in court, to protest the system. Vandals at different times attacked the cameras with Silly String and a pickax.

More seriously, the operator of a van carrying a mobile speed camera was shot to death on the side of a freeway in April 2009. The suspect is being prosecuted on first-degree murder charges and the family of the victim has announced a lawsuit against the Department of Public Safety.

Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican seeking election to a full term, never embraced the program, begun under her predecessor, Janet Napolitano, a Democrat whose revenue projections from the tickets fell short largely for a simple reason: violators tended to ignore them.

The cameras, which included 76 units either mounted near the shoulder or operated from vans, were adept at snapping speeders as they whizzed past sensors, but getting offenders to pay after the tickets were mailed to them was another matter.

Less than a third of the 1.2 million tickets issued were paid, and the state collected $78 million, far below the projected $120 million annual revenue.

Some of those tickets, typically $181 apiece, no doubt were lost in the mail; others no doubt were not paid as violators tested a legal theory that they needed to be served in person. Process servers who were supposed to follow up could hardly keep up with the load.

Ms. Brewer made no secret of her disdain for the system operated by Redflex Traffic Systems, which will turn off the cameras the moment its contract expires.

Florida Teenager Loses Hand in Alligator Attack

These kinds of stories are unreal, and not just fascinating to my 8 year-old and his age-cohorts. At LAT, "Florida teen loses hand in alligator attack":

A Florida teenager was attacked by an alligator and had his left hand torn off when swimming in a popular neighborhood canal.

Tim Delano, 18, of Golden Gates Estates, Fla., was attacked by the 10-foot alligator while he was swimming at dusk Sunday in a drainage canal known to locals as "the Crystal."

"I saw my bone, I had no hand," Delano told the Naples News.

The animal attacked Delano, pulling him underwater and going into a "death roll," during which gators roll over and over until their prey drowns.

"Fortunately, I had enough sense to take my right hand and I started punching it," Delano said. He got the alligator to release him, but when Delano got to the surface he realized that his left hand was gone.

Delano started screaming, saying that the pain was "excruciating."


With the help of his friends, Delano called 911, and while awaiting the emergency medical services arrival he called his mother, leaving her the message: "Mom, I have no left hand. Goodbye."

RTWT.

Censorship as ‘Tolerance’

From Jacob Mchangama, at National Review:

The ubiquitous European hate-speech laws represent a clear and present danger to freedom of expression in the Western world. Not only do they interfere with the basic right of the individual to speak his or her mind even if it causes offense, they are inherently arbitrary and prone to abuse. The determination of which expressions are “hateful” or “derogatory” is highly subjective; the atheist and the fervent believer are unlikely to agree on where the limits of religious satire should be drawn. And in an era of identity politics, when people are encouraged to think of themselves primarily as members of racial, religious, or ethnic groups with special rights rather than as individual citizens with equal rights before the law, “racism” and “hatred” have become very broad concepts indeed.

RTWT.

Hat Tip: BCF.

Living Like a Liberal (Progressive)

This is one of those articles that you have to consume casually, perhaps with a drink. I found myself laughing quite a bit. It turns out Matt Labash lived the life of a liberal (progressive) for ten days. His point of departure was Justin Krebs's leftist manifesto, 538 Ways to Live Work and Play Like a Liberal.

At Weekly Standard, "Living Like a Liberal: It’s Hard Work, Politicizing Your Whole Life." Here's a snippet:

If I am to be a good liberal ... I can no longer be a conservative child, harboring trace amounts of arsenic and ignorance. I have to think harder about what I am putting in my mouth. So no more Safeway for me. Krebs urges joining a food co-op. I check out the Maryland Food Collective, a “not-for-profit, worker-owned and operated organization” providing “quality, organic, seasonal, fair-trade, and healthy food” at affordable prices. I scout them using the Internet, because it’s 40 miles away, and I’m trying to drive less and “shrink my hoodprint” (whenever multiple Krebsian commandments are in conflict, I usually err on the side of laziness).

Most of their recipes have offputting names. Food incongruity dominates the menu: “Famous Nut Burgers,” “Peanut Stew,” “Rainy Day Chili of Doom.” But with a full price list, I set about making my fantasy liberal sandwich with my fantasy liberal fixings: Three Seed Healthy Loaf Bread (90 cents), baba ghanoush (60 cents), four slices of tofurkey (80 cents), hummus (60 cents), bean spread (60 cents), tzatziki (35 cents), three slices of soy cheese (90 cents), and “goddess dressing,” which is like Thousand Island to non-Gaia worshippers (25 cents). It comes out to five dollars on the nose, without tax. What corporatist chain would’ve thought of making fantasy sandwiches with fresh ingredients for a mere five bucks?

But unlike the so-called “sandwich artists” at Subway, with their functional uniforms and plastic gloves, the Maryland Food Collective posts staff photos. Here, workers often use the co-op “as a platform for politics and creative expression.” They look it, too. They don’t appear overly clean. The creative expressionists aren’t wearing gloves. There’s lots of facial hair and flannel and piercings. Their staff guide says they have to “wear sleeves that cover their armpits”—not very reassuring. Most look like they’re on sandwich-making work release from a prison-hospital’s heroin treatment program. I think, sandwiches-wise, I’ll go locavore and stick with the nearby Subway.

But I still have to grocery shop. Krebs suggests going with a green-conscious option, like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, even though the latter is currently being boycotted by some of its liberal base since its CEO did not support Obamacare. That doesn’t matter to me, though. Both stores are like Willy Wonka’s wonderland of progressive goodness.

At first, I am intimidated, as any rookie would be standing in front of the vast selection of sea salts at Whole Foods. But as I fill my cart, I quickly get my sea-salt legs beneath me by realizing the principle upon which liberal grocery-shopping turns. Liberals don’t just need their food to come comestible or tasty or biodynamic or free-range or locally grown. They—rather, we—need it to come with a philosophy and a parable. We need our food to tell a story. Why else would I pay 17 bucks for 32 ounces of McLure’s Pure Dark Amber Maple Syrup? Easy. Because it makes me feel better about my purchase to hear the story of how five generations of Granite State McLures have been overcharging for syrup that doesn’t taste as good as Aunt Jemima’s. In other words, our food should have the same affectations as the people eating it.

So as much time as I spend filling up my cart with blueberry muesli and tomato-basil artisan foccacia and gluten-free organic red quinoa, I spend even more time taking notes on the histories, core values, and Samarian proverbs on the labels, which, like my Tazo Brambleberry Herbal Infusion juice, promise “an enticing source of wonder, inspiration and antioxidants.”

By the time I get home with my liberal bounty, I feel more like I’ve been shopping at Holy Foods. I tried to be mindful of Krebs’s admonition to “think of plant-based foods—beans, grains, fruits, veggies, nuts—as your own personal source of solar power.” Sounds more like a source of wind power, if you know what I’m saying, but I feel good nonetheless. I feel clean surrounded by my Rosemary & Olive Oil Asiago and my Pomegranate Green Tea. Seeking further validation of the nobleness of my purchases, I follow another of Krebs’s directives and check out everything I buy at the Responsible Shopper guide at Greenamericatoday.org. I punch in “Whole Foods,” and that’s when the horror begins.

It says that Whole Foods has been less than transparent about the use of genetically modified organisms in store-brand products and has ignored shareholder requests for information on the use of toxic chemicals in products such as baby bottles. (Damn you, Whole Foods, if I’d wanted to poison my baby, I’d have stayed conservative.) Likewise, union organizing at Whole Foods met with opposition from management, “with reports of surveillance and termination of employees who solicit union participation.” That seems to be in direct violation of three of the seven core values that I saw posted in their store (delight, happiness, and partnership).

The 'Hotness Gap' Just Too Much for Illiterate English Professor Scott Eric Kaufman!

I've hammered Scott Eric Kaufman so many times now it's ridiculous. The guy's a deranged stalker, of course (and an English professor who can't write English), so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he keeps coming back for more. And this time I'm not just getting allegations of sexual harassment of my female college students, but allegations of criminal activity as well:

“Shoot, I’m not even always right, LOL!”

So writes everyone’s favorite conservative blogger, seemingly confused as to whether he’s a teenager now or in 1955. Not that he’s “teenybopper blogging,” but when you think that Selena Gomez, whoever that is, quitting Wizards of Waverly Place, whatever that is, constitutes “breaking news,” you’re damn close. Either way, someone should inform him that just because he thinks and writes like he’s underage doesn’t make it legal for him to possess or disseminate semi-nude images of jail bait.

Of course, I'm not "in possession" of "semi-nude images of jail bait." Well, semi-nude, perhaps, but not jail-bait. The alleged "jail-bait" in question is in fact 21 year-old Lauren, sidekick to über neocon Courtney at GSGF:

Note too that Little Scotty suggests some kind of pattern around here, considering my recent post on 17 year-old Selena Gomez (of whom SEK admits no clue). But as noted previously, when the Disney Channel constitutes the main staple around the AmPower family room 24/7, it's real news when the network's top actresses call it quits.

But I'm sensing something much larger here, and that's SEK's middle-aged loser syndrome, which is obviously exacerbated by the radical left's hotness gap. So let's compare: American Power mentors neocon hotties like GSGF (and then some) while SEK (and his loser posse) boasts women like the unsightly lefties below. Yep, that hotness gap is a bitch, although it does help explain SEK's completely unhinged attacks on AmPow.

Fail!

Bell, CA – Poor L.A. County City, 90 Percent Hispanic, 53 Percent Foreign-Born – Boasts Among Highest Paid Municipal Governments in the U.S.

Talking Points Memo is all up in arms about Erskine Bowles, who co-chair's the Obama administration's deficit commission. It turns out TPM's hammering Bowles for his alleged "ignorance," with special emphasis on how much Bowles earns as an employee of Morgan Stanley, a bailed out TARP institution:

Some may wonder how much people get compensated for such extraordinary displays of ignorance. This is easy to answer. One of Mr. Bowles paying gigs is as a director of Morgan Stanley, the Wall Street investment bank that was rescued from bankruptcy by the taxpayers two years ago. Mr. Bowles gets $335,000 a year for that job.

By comparison this is almost 25 times as much as the average Social Security benefit that Mr. Bowles has said he wants to cut. It is more than 10 times what the median household over age 65 earns. Such are the rewards of ignorance.

I find it hard to be outraged. Bowles is currently President of the University of North Carolina system and a longtime Democratic political insider dating back to the Clinton administration. I can't see that he's overcompensated, and if ignorance is a disqualifier, Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano should both be out of jobs.

Speaking of which, this bring me to the City of Bell, in Los Angeles County. It turns out this tiny municipality, which recently took over city services for the bankrupt immigrant sanctuary city of Maywood, boasts among the highest paid municipal governments in the county. Maybe TPM should be getting fired up about that. At Los Angeles Times, "Is a city manager worth $800,000?", and "Bell city manager might be highest paid in nation: $787,637 a year":

Top city officials in the small, relatively poor city of Bell might be the highest paid in the nation, according to documents reviewed by The Times.

In addition to the $787,637 salary of Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo, Bell pays Police Chief Randy Adams $457,000 a year, about 50% more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck or Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and more than double New York City's police commissioner. Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia makes $376,288 annually, more than most city managers.

Experts in city government said they were amazed at the salaries the city pays, particularly Rizzo's. "I have not heard anything close to that number in terms of compensation or salary," said Dave Mora, West Coast regional director of the International City/County Management Assn., and a retired city manager.

By comparison, Manhattan Beach, a far wealthier city with about 7,000 fewer people, paid its most recent city manager $257,484 a year. The city manager of Long Beach, with a population close to 500,000, earns $235,000 annually. Los Angeles County Chief Executive William T Fujioka makes $338,458.

Leftist love the adjective "criminal," as in the "criminal wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. So, where's the outrage? The Bell City Council may well in fact be – wait for it – criminal!! See, "$100,000 salaries for council members in small town of Bell: Is that a crime?"