Banning Trolls

James B. Webb is a lot of fun to have around. The amusement factor is seriously unmatched, which is why as obnoxious as he is, I've never banned him. These are good lulz. Some time back I gave JBW a hard time about his radical atheistic progressivism: "James Webb, Atheist Hypocrite, Loves teh Gays." Come to find out then that the dude's seriously homophobic. Anyway, he was trolling away in the comments all day yesterday. It's not high-brow illumination, but what can you do? JBW's never made a principled empirical argument that he could back up, so WTF?

And speaking of trolls, the proprietor of Common Sense Political Thought's got a problem, so check the discussion that's broken out: "Open Letter to Dana Pico." Some folks are having a hard time with the free speech argument, but it's simple: Ban the pricks. It's like Amy Alkon said of the Sadly No! progressives: They're a bunch of "sick fuck adult losers." Yeah, but unlike RacistRepsac3, some are good for a few laughs, like the atheist hypocrite homophobe JBW.

Barack Obama's Transcripts

I think I mentioned this some time back, after attending the David Horowitz West Coast Retreat. One of the very best talks was by Victor Davis Hanson. He said he didn't really care so much about the birther controversy, but the lack of information on President Obama's academic record should be a big deal. And VDH recycles the theme in a discussion of Obama's fiscal policy postmodernism:

The president is cynical and says whatever he wishes without worry of consequences, because based on the past abyss between laurels and achievement (Harvard Law Review, offer of Chicago Law School tenure, record in the Senate, Nobel Prize, etc.), he feels exempt from scrutiny and audit. Indeed, he expects that he can always “hope and change” or “millions of green jobs” his way out of any rare, nit-picking journalistic follow-up. (A journalist will always declare him a “god” even if speech A nullifies speech B a day later).

Now here's Ace of Spades reporting on Obama's pick as editor of Harvard Law Review:

Obama may have had outstanding grades and may have earned every inch of the Law Review and magna honors. But the fact that his grades are kept as state secrets, while only the honors themselves are mentioned, makes me think we're looking at C+/B- situation here.

And Donald Trump's on the case:

Rep. Allen West Won't Be Intimidated

Progressives just aren't too bright of late. At some point, even the Democrat-Media-Complex reports this stuff, and it's getting pretty bad.

Javier Manjarres has the report, at The Shark Tank, "Allen West- “You’re Not Going to Intimidate Me”, Heckler Arrested at Townhall":

RELATED: At The Other McCain, "Former Air America Host Arrested After Heckling Rep. Allen West at Town Hall." (Via Memeorandum.)

'Dear Ayub, FYI — Most Terrorists Are Muslims. Bite Me'

More excellent stuff from the inimitable Blazing Cat Fur: "Intelligent Muslim: Only Support Dhimmi Candidates Who Agree To Make It "A Hate Crime to Associate Islam to Terrorism."

"Ayub" is Ayub Hamid of the Canadian Islamic Congress, who writes at the website's political magazine:

We should support only those non-Muslim candidates who are willing to present and support a Private Members’ Bill making it a hate-crime to publicly associate Islam to terrorism, whether in written, spoken, printed, broadcast or electronic media. At the same time, we must take a balanced approach instead of being carried away by a single issue. The following are examples of other important issues against which we should evaluate all candidates ...

Hey, killer platform. That oughta win a lot of progressive support!

But no matter, this Ayub guy's not too bright. Be sure to check out the rest of the post at the link. BCF hammers this freak terror-enabling airhead. Reminds me of RacistRepsac3 denying honor killings. These people are monumentally stupid --- evil even.

Rabbits at Long Beach City College

My college was in the news, on Easter:

Donald Trump Political Contributions Favor Democrats

I like him, but I can't see how this is going to help.

At WaPo, "Trump’s donation history shows Democratic favoritism":

Billionaire Donald J. Trump, an early presidential favorite among tea party activists, has a highly unusual history of political contributions for a prospective Republican candidate: He has given most of his money to the other side.

The real estate mogul and “Celebrity Apprentice” host has made more than $1.3 million in donations over the years to candidates nationwide, with 54 percent of the money going to Democrats, according to a Washington Post analysis of state and federal disclosure records.

Recipients include Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), former Pennsylvania governor Edward G. Rendell, and Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to President Obama who received $50,000 from Trump during his recent run to become Chicago’s mayor, records show. Many of the contributions have been concentrated in New York, Florida and other states where Trump has substantial real estate and casino interests.

The donations provide another view into the odd political spectacle surrounding Trump, who may be the most unlikely of possible GOP presidential hopefuls in an already eclectic field. Although candidates such as Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have spent years carefully crafting and plotting a White House run, the tycoon and fixture of the New York tabloids has leapt onto the scene with loud proclamations and surprisingly strong poll numbers among likely Republican voters.

The iconoclastic developer and television personality is attempting to appeal to social conservatives, even with a record of failed marriages and earlier statements in favor of abortion rights. His attacks on Obama have focused on conspiracy theories about the president’s birth in Hawaii that make many Republican leaders nervous. And Trump is considering a run for the nomination in an increasingly conservative Republican Party, despite years of donations to prominent Democrats.

None of which has stopped him from forging ahead with a potential candidacy, including a scheduled trip on Wednesday to the early primary state of New Hampshire.

Well, despite Frank Luntz comments at the video, Trump's starting to look pretty serious about all of this. That earlier support for abortion rights is also gonna hurt, but this pre-primary season's been quirky, so let's see how it things play out.

Poly Styrene, X-Ray Spex Singer, Dead at 53

One of the first British punk bands I listened to back in the day. Poly Styrene, RIP.

At New York Times, "Poly Styrene, Punk Singer of X-Ray Spex, Is Dead at 53":

Marianne Elliot-Said, who as Poly Styrene, the pioneering, braces-wearing frontwoman of the 1970s British band X-Ray Spex, made a place for feminine brashness in punk, died on Monday in East Sussex, England. She was 53.

Her death was reported on her Web site, and confirmed by her manager. She had been treated for cancer at a hospice in East Sussex, near her home in St. Leonards-on-Sea, in the south of England.

Ms. Said (pronounced sah-EED), the daughter of a Somali father and a British mother, who raised her alone, began performing as a free-spirited teenager, leaving home at 15 and ending up in London, where she studied to be an opera singer, said her manager, Shirin Koohyar. In 1976 she released a pop-reggae single under the name Mari Elliot on the GTO label.

But after stumbling upon an early performance by the Sex Pistols, she was inspired to place an ad in a British music magazine, searching for “young punx who want to stick it together.”

After a handful of rehearsals, the X-Ray Spex — whose early lineup included Jak Airport, Paul Dean, Rudi Thomson, BP Hurding and Lora Logic — quickly became fixtures on the 1977 London music scene. They performed in Chelsea and at the Roxy, the Covent Garden club that served as a punk incubator, adding a new instrument, the saxophone, to the chopping guitars and brazen lyrics of the genre.

More at the link above.

WikiLeaks: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Says He Beheaded Daniel Pearl Against Warnings

A nice background report on the WikiLeaks Guantanamo files, at Los Angeles Times:

The documents are part of thousands of pages of Pentagon dossiers that describe how the detainees were captured, the nature of their alleged crimes and what they had told interrogators — often under duress — in interviews between 2002 and 2008. In all, there are 779 total documents that are in the process of being released. The files are officially titled Detainee Assessment Briefs.

In the Daniel Pearl slaying, according to the newly released material, Sayf al-Adl, a former top Al Qaeda military commander, was outspoken in cautioning Mohammed against killing the reporter. But Mohammed turned for guidance to another Al Qaeda leader, identified as Sharif al-Masri, the group's chief financial officer, and the two of them "disagreed with Adl on this point." Next, "Pearl was taken to the house of Al Qaeda's finance chief in Pakistan, Saud Memon, and murdered" there.

Mohammed boasted in the documents that the "planes operation" of Sept. 11 was his "dream and life's work." A Pakistani raised in Kuwait, he was captured in March 2003, totally disheveled but wearing a ring and a Casio wristwatch, and later was forced to undergo 183 separate water-boarding treatments to get him to talk.

He described a plan to build remote-controlled firing devices disguised as Sega video game cartridges. He began preparations for bombing "the tallest building in California" — presumably the Library Tower (now the U.S. Bank tower) in Los Angeles, "using at least two separate shoe bombs to gain access to the cockpit."

He wanted to hit CIA and FBI headquarters and nuclear power plants, hack into U.S. bank computers and hijack U.S. cargo planes. He discussed a series of natural gas explosions he wanted to perpetrate in Chicago and researched "the feasibility of an operation to set fire to a hotel or gas station" there.

More at the link above.

RELATED: At Telegraph UK, "WikiLeaks: Guantánamo Bay terrorists radicalised in London to attack Western target," and "WikiLeaks: leaked files accuse BBC of being part of a 'possible propaganda media network." No surprise there. Next we'll see files showing NYT as part of a propaganda media network, etc.

Change! More Americans Dependent on Federal Welfare Payments Than Ever Before

Federal social welfare benefits now make up a record share of the nation's personal income. At USA Today, "Americans depend more on federal aid than ever":

Americans depended more on government assistance in 2010 than at any other time in the nation's history, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data finds. The trend shows few signs of easing, even though the economic recovery is nearly 2 years old.

A record 18.3% of the nation's total personal income was a payment from the government for Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits and other programs in 2010. Wages accounted for the lowest share of income — 51.0% — since the government began keeping track in 1929.

The income data show how fragile and government-dependent the recovery is after a recession that officially ended in June 2009.

The wage decline has continued this year. Wages slipped to another historic low of 50.5% of personal income in February. Another government effort — the Social Security payroll tax cut — has lifted income in 2011. The temporary tax cut puts more money in workers' pockets and counts as an income boost, even when wages stay the same.

More at the link.

Earned income is still 51 percent of total income, so the progressives haven't won the battle over personal industry quite yet.

Syria Crackdown

The Wall Street Journal reports, "Gunfire, Arrests as Syria Continues Crackdown":

Gunfire reverberated Tuesday in the southern Syrian city of Daraa where the dead still lay unclaimed in the streets a day after a brutal government crackdown on the popular revolt against President Bashar Assad, residents said.

Meanwhile, diplomats scrambled to find a way to stop the violence, appealing to Mr. Assad to withdraw his forces and seeking a special session of the United Nations's top human-rights body to condemn the bloody crackdown on protesters.

A Syrian human-rights group said authorities detained dozens across the country, mainly in several Damascus suburbs and in the northern coastal city of Jableh.

The Syrian army, backed by tanks and snipers, launched a deadly raid before dawn Monday on Daraa, where the uprising in Syria started more than a month ago. At least 11 people were killed in the southern city.

A relentless crackdown since mid-March has killed more than 400 people across Syria, with 120 dead over the weekend, rights groups said. That has only emboldened protesters who started their revolt—inspired by uprisings in the Arab world—with calls for modest reforms but are now increasingly demanding Mr. Assad's downfall.

See also earlier graphic video, at Pajamas Media, here and here (content warning). And at check The Lede for updated coverage, here and here.

Further, there's analysis at Frontpage Magazine, "The Bloody Streets of Syria." And especially, Fouad Ajami, "The Freedom Movement Comes to Syria":

Terrorism has always been part of the Assad regime's arsenal. It killed and conquered its way into Lebanon over three decades starting in the late 1970s. It fought and bloodied American purposes in Iraq by facilitating the entry of jihadists who came to war against the Americans and the Shiites. And in the standoff between the Persian theocracy and its rivals in the region, the Syrians had long cast their fate with the Iranians.

Under Bashar, the Syrians slipped into a relationship of some subservience to the Iranians—yet other nations were always sure that Syria could be "peeled off" from Iran, that a bargain with Damascus was always a day, or a diplomatic mission, away. It had worked this way for Assad senior, as American statesmen including Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were confident that they could bring that man, at once an arsonist and a fireman in his region, into the fold.

The son learned the father's tricks. There is a litter of promises, predictions by outsiders that Bashar Assad is, at heart, a reformer. In 2000, our emissary to his father's funeral and to his own inauguration, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, praised him in such terms. He was part of the Internet generation, she said.

But Bashar is both this system's jailer and its captive. The years he spent in London, the polish of his foreign education, are on the margin of things. He and the clans—and the intelligence warlords and business/extortion syndicates around him—know no other system, no other way.

"We need our second independence in Syria," an astute dissident, Radwan Ziadeh, recently observed. "The first was the freedom from the French and the second will be from the Assad dynasty." Would that the second push for freedom be as easy and bloodless as the first.

Because Communists on Campus Are Figments of the Imagination

I'm not exactly sure if it's denial, or simply defining communism down. Probably a bit of both, but it could also be actual ignorance. At communist Henry Farrell's Crooked Timber, for example:

There’s a few Marxists left in academia (like me, although being in math what parent would notice or care…?) but in all honesty the idea that someone’s kids could be indoctrinated into communism is sadly even" more absurd now than it was then. Anyway I’d guess that in 1951 there were even fewer communists on campus than today – the Legion didn’t need actual examples to create the spectre of the (Jewish, as has been mentioned) communist undermining the moral and character of American youth.

Folks should check the whole post for the context.

And then check the videos at Big Journalism, "Taking Bets On Whether the Media Will Cover Marxist Union Instruction," and Robert Stacy McCain, "Why Aren’t You Homeschooling Yet?"

Lots of communists on my campus, which I've documented many times, and will continue to do so.

RELATED: An event announcement from UCLA, "Intellectual Terrorism: The Left's War on Free Speech":

Bruin Republicans present...
Intellectual Terrorism: The Left's War on Free Speech
with David Horowitz
Featuring invited guest: Academy Award Winner, Jon Voight
Wednesday, May 11 · 7:30pm - 9:00pm

Voters Support Benefit Rollback for Public Workers in California

Jammie had yesterday's headline of the day, "Shock Poll: Extremist Teabagger Californians Want Givebacks From Public Employees."

See Los Angeles Times, "California voters want public employees to help ease state's financial troubles":

California voters want government employees to give up some retirement benefits to help ease the state's financial problems, favoring a cap on pensions and a later age for collecting them, according to a new poll.

Voter support for rolling back benefits available to few outside the public sector comes as Gov. Jerry Brown and Republicans in the Legislature haggle over changes to the pension system as part of state budget negotiations. Such benefits have been a flashpoint of national debate this year, and the poll shows that Californians are among those who perceive public retirement plans to be too costly.

Voters appear ready to embrace changes not just for future hires but also for current employees who have been promised the benefits under contract.

Seventy percent of respondents said they supported a cap on pensions for current and future public employees. Nearly as many, 68%, approved of raising the amount of money government workers should be required to contribute to their retirement. Increasing the age at which government employees may collect pensions was favored by 52%.

Although pension costs today account for just a fraction of the state budget, they are putting local governments under considerable financial strain, and analysts say effects on the state may not be far off.

"It's pretty clear that there's broad support for making changes in the area of pensions," said Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who co-directed the bipartisan poll for The Times and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

RTWT at the link above.

I've been making this argument at my college, especially during last year's negotiations over contract renewal. And earlier today I e-mailed this story to the college community, and one of my colleagues wrote back, saying: "I don't think the union leadership reads the newspapers."

Ouch.

Rachel Maddow is Definitely Not an 'Autocutie' a Cutie

She's a lying progressive lesbian dirtbag, at London's Guardian, "Rachel Maddow: 'I'm definitely not an autocutie' (via Memeorandum). (A really crappy piece of pseudo-journalism. See Jammie, "Newsflash: Rachel Maddow 'The Top US News Anchor', MSNBC Has 'No Political Agenda'".)

Gay Marriage Advocates Threaten Rule of Law

This is not new, actually.

I wrote at length about the extreme progressive thuggery in California upon the passage of Proposition 8 in 2008. And Michelle Malkin had outstanding coverage of the legal challenges to the initiative in federal court, for example: "The anti-Prop. 8 mob strikes again." (And breaking, as I write this: "California Judge's Partner Cited in Push to Uphold Same-Sex Marriage Ban.")

So what's interesting today about the latest gay marriage news is how progressive thuggery is once again driving developments in this controversial area of civil rights. The left can't win on the merits, so we get extremist cries of bigotry enforced by intimidation in order to carry the day.

The main story's at New York Times, "Law Firm Won’t Defend Marriage Act."

It turns out that Atlanta-based law firm King & Spalding caved to leftist intimidation and withdrew from representation. And in a very interesting development, former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement (pictured) resigned from the firm to protest its craven political correctness. Commentary at Althouse, Legal Insurrection, National Review, and Wall Street Journal.

Clement's letter is here.

And at Weekly Standard, "Gay Rights Group Contacted Law Firm's Clients in Campaign to Intimidate DOMA's Defenders":

King and Spalding's vague reason for dropping the case is that its vetting process was "inadequate," but Republicans are accusing the firm of putting "politics and profit" first. Indeed, the Human Rights Campaign, the country's leading gay rights activist group, took credit for applying the "pressure points" needed to "make it happen."

In addition to its public efforts, the Human Rights Campaign "contacted many of the firm's clients" as part of its campaign against King and Spalding, according to the email sent on behalf of HRC vice president Fred Sainz. The email doesn't provide details about what HRC officials said to King and Spalding's clients, and a spokesman for HRC could not be reached for comment ...

Check the link for the full intimidation e-mail from Human Rights Campaign.

Also, at Power Line, "THE LEFT POLITICIZES THE PRACTICE OF LAW" (via Memeorandum):

When a major law firm like King & Spalding puts politics above its duty of loyalty to its client, it is a sad day for our profession and for our country.

Word.

Video Blogger Rebel Pundit Threatened With 'Negative Repercussions'

At Rebel Pundit, "Citizen Journalist’s Rights THREATENED Over “Imbalanced Protester” Video":

Concerning one of your videos

You have a video of a gentleman at the tea party rally in Chicago this past tax day (Monday). I am requesting that you please remove it from Youtube as well as your website “rebelpundit.com“. If nothing is to be done on your side to remove this material from the internet, actions will be taken to make sure this video is removed and negative repercussions may follow. It is quite evident that you were harassing this man, and there is no evidence of a video/photo release statement. If this video is not taken down in a timely manner, please be aware that you will be contacted again quite soon. If you have any questions or concerns, please send them to my email account: (We have unpublished the email address from this post upon polite request from the author of the letter.).‬

None of this is surprising at all.

Of course I can already hear the refrain from the progressive chorus: "These people don't represent the Democrats or the progressive movement," blah blah ...

Wrong.

This is the progressive movement encapsulated.

P.S. The threatener's e-mail is still available at Big Journalism, "Citizen Journalist Threatened Over Youtube Videos." Rebel Pundit is too kind.

More From Las Vegas!

I took my youngest son to "Shark Reef" at Mandalay Bay. I love that place. And my son's still a few months short of his 10th birthday, so he's still endlessly fascinated by animals and nature. We had a great time. The photos are okay, but what the heck? They're worth sharing.

The jellyfish exhibit:

My kid really liked the Komodo dragon. We got all the way to the end the facility, to the "ship wreck" shark tank, and he wanted to go back up to see the Komodo! And he made sure to justify it, since we somehow missed the python exhibit, which we then noticed was right next to the dragon. Hanging with my kid's a riot:

He liked the piranhas too. Big suckers:

Everybody loves sharks:

But the sawfish was another one of my son's favorites. This shot's blurry because the sawfish swims up over the top of the glass after skimming along the bottom. He surprises you, unlike the sharks, who just kinda hover around:

Walking back out to find my wife, who hit the casino and then the Red, White and Blue restaurant, here's the "beach" at Mandalay Bay, which features a wave pool:

There's a tram that takes you back to the Excalibur Hotel, and then a skywalk leads back over to New York New York, and then MGM Grande. A view of the interesection:

We always have fun, but this was our first time staying at MGM and I'm completely sold. An excellent experience all around. I'll have another update on this later ...

Excavating Pure Evil — Failed New York Actor Carl Salonen Revealed as 'Tintin' at Sadly No!??

Take a few minutes to listen to this PJTV segment. Dr. Helen Smith interviews Barbara Oakley and Amy Alkon. The former has a new book out called Cold-Blooded Kindness: Neuroquirks of a Codependent Killer, or Just Give Me a Shot at Loving You, Dear, and Other Reflections on Helping That Hurts. And she's also the editor of Pathological Altruism, the thesis of which forms the basis for much of the discussion. Also interviewed is Amy Alkon. She's an author and a blogger at The Advice Goddess.

Especially interesting is the discussion, about a third of the way through, of Sadly No!'s attack on Alkon, which included a campaign of fake book reviews at her Amazon book page, as well as earlier allegations that she's a transsexual (Tintin at Sadly No! slurs her as Amy Arnold Alkon). This apparently became quite involved, and included a defacement of Alkon's Wikipedia entry (obviously by the "Sadly Nauts" but denied by Tintin). At the clip, the PJTV techs display a picture from Sadly No!'s post, "The “Lady” Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks." It's interesting that Alkon herself claims to be an independent, and thinks that "both sides do this." But there are key differences, as she notes in a blog post:

These are leftists, all these losers, and while I'm neither left nor right (I'm fiscally conservative and socially libertarian), it's my experience that people on the right will tell me they think I'm an idiot right to my face or openly, on a blog (because I was against the Iraq war, for example), while the left has resorted to denigrating me by trying to hurt my livelihood. And they do it anonymously.

And then, there's the manner in which they do it, by using transsexuality in hopes of derogating me. Who has a harder time in this world than somebody who's born one sex and feels very strongly they're another? They're using this to put me down? Ugly. And they're the left?

Alkon identifies Tintin as a "a 52-year-old unsuccessful actor in New York City named Carl Salonen ..." (And she slams the folks at Sadly No! as a bunch of "sick fuck adult losers.")

Interestingly, notice how Barbara Oakley doesn't hesitate to place these fuckers in the historic pantheon of history's most diabolical killers.

In any case, I'm glad I took the time to watch this clip, because boy was this like a treasure trove of information on the true lies of the progressive left, and especially the progressive thugs at Sadly No!

I'm not done with this. Because some claim that Sadly No! is a European blog --- no doubt to avoid lawsuits --- it's possible that Tintin's entire enterprise is based on lies and deceit. But I need more information. (And maybe I'm slow on the uptake here, but there's no way a Belgian blogger would have that degree of U.S. knowledge and American parochialism, so again, this PJTV clip has been quite a revelation.)

Lady Gaga 'Judas' No Shows in Easter Debut

I've been keeping my eyes open for this, given the major press for the video, with claims about an Easter release. At NME, "Lady Gaga to release 'Judas' video over Easter?" And Gigwise, "Lady Gaga 'Judas' Video to Debut Over Easter." Perhaps not, since no sign yet, and no clue at Gaga's Twitter feed.

Anyway, there's an interesting background report from Steve Pond, "Lady Gaga's Easter Marketing Plan for 'Judas': Tweets, Leaks, Sacrilege." Also, at In This Week, "Lady Gaga is In Love with 'Judas' and the Catholic Church is Pissed: What Would Madonna Do?"

RELATED: At Hollywood Life, "Catholic League On Gaga’s ‘Judas’: ‘If She Had More Talent, We’d Be More Offended’."

Lyrics here.

Road Trip Roundup

We're on the road from Vegas back to the O.C.

Should see regular posting pick up late tonight or in the morning. I have more photos to post. And some stories to tell.

Until then, check Bob Belvedere's, "Rule 5 Saturday." Also, William Teach, "Sorta Blogless Pinup Sunday."

And The Other McCain's 10 year-old son got one hella haircut.

BONUS: Theo Spark's "Bedtime Bunny."

President Reagan's 1983 Easter and Passover Address

Via Marathon Pundit: