Full Video: President Obama's AIPAC Policy Speech

Debate continues over the president's speech today in Washington.

Obama more than once said that the United States will not stand by while Israel is delegitimized. And he sounded forceful. But he remains committed to a Palestinian state that would cut through territory Israel needs to maintain its security from hostile neighbors. Contiguity for Palestine means dividing Israel geographically where there's been no basis in negotiations previously. Israel will be required to relinquish a corridor from Gaza to the West Bank that divides the county on the map. See, "Obama’s ‘Contiguous’ Palestinian State Could ‘Split Israel in Half,’ Says Middle East Expert." That will open up Israel's strategic vulnerability and impede transportation corridors necessary for national defense. It's absurd. Besides, I doubt there's any realistic chance for the old-time "two-state solution." The demand for Palestinian right of return is the dominant theme. The "Nakba" the basis for historical grievance, despite the myths behind it. The administration should be pushing the other way, against the Fatah-Hamas alliance committed to Israel's destruction, and against the Muslim anti-Semitism that's darkened the region like a terminal malignancy. This is why the AIPAC speech is a lost opportunity.

Barbara Efraim at UCLA: 'David Horowitz and Noam Chomsky Deserve Equal Coverage'

My former student and friend, at the Daily Bruin:

Bruin Republicans held an event May 11 that demonstrated the tolerance and civility of the UCLA community. David Horowitz, a former radical leftist and now conservative activist, gave a speech, followed by a Q&A, titled “Intellectual Terrorism: The Left’s War on Free Speech.”

In the past, he has gotten pies thrown at him, and his speeches at universities across the nation are regularly interrupted by hecklers from various student organizations. But this time, there were no outbursts during the speech.

The civility Horowitz received is exceptional, but it does not belie the pressure Bruin Republicans and the David Horowitz Freedom Center received prior to the event. Such were the pressures that the group was advised to hire armed campus security officers to be safe. The event nearly filled Moore 100 and while I’m glad it ran smoothly, I wonder where the dissenting voices went.

It’s remarkable that conservative groups have to use enhanced security measures to ensure events are uninterrupted. On May 7, I attended Noam Chomsky’s lecture hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine in Young Hall, CS 50.

There was a long line, formed hours before the start of the event, and people were waiting to take a seat and listen to a lecture that would attack American foreign policy and compare the Israeli democracy to South African apartheid. I agree that Chomsky has the liberty to speak, just as I expect someone who shares my beliefs would have a right to make his views heard.

But as opposed to Horowitz, Chomsky did not have any security guards at his side.

More at the link above. The full video at FrontPage, "David Horowitz at UCLA."

Also, Barbara's at AIPAC in D.C. and just tweeted: "Obama showed that he's still his arrogant, demagogue-like self."

No doubt.

Obama at AIPAC

Pamela reports: "AIPAC 2011: OBAMA'S SPEECH TO JEWS."

Also, from Jennifer Rubin:

The president just finished speaking to a packed convention room at the AIPAC policy conference. He was not booed when he entered; most stood and offered brief applause. Still, the crowd during the speech had long periods of stony silence, and audible boos were heard when he brought up his plan to base an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal on the 1967 border lines. President Obama took nothing back from his foreign policy speech on Thursday and blamed the press for any controversy. He doubled down, making this upcoming presidential election a time for choosing for friends of Israel.

See also, Elliott Abrams, "Obama at AIPAC: Correcting Some Errors, Compounding Others." Plus, from Bruce Kesler, "Reactions to President Obama at AIPAC" (via Memeorandum and Power Line).

If You Believe That Anyone Like Me Within a Song...

Flashback to 1981.

The Psychedelic Furs, "Into You Like A Train":

'Carrie' Remake in the Works?

People are talking about it. But why? Hard to improve on a classic:

The 12-Step Plan to Make Amanda Marcotte's Head Explode

And other feminists too, of course.

From Gavin McInnes, at Taki's (via FFOF). The whole thing's riot, for example, "Step 10" to restore femininity:

DON’T CUT YOUR HAIR

As Steve Sailer has made very clear, the traits we find attractive in the opposite sex are based on exaggerating our differences. Men can’t grow hair as long as women can, so prove you’re a woman and let it grow to the floor. American women seem to think that once they give birth, they have to visit Rachel Maddow’s barber for the rest of their life. This is tantamount to rape, because when we have sex with you from behind, we look down and see this weird smirking Boy Scout getting drilled. Thanks for that.

Interestingly, Amanda's Saturday post is inspired by Sadly No!, although it's anybody's guess whether the essentials of McInnes' 12-step plan would bear the slightest bit of interest to Carl "Young & Hung" Salonen, ringleader of the Sadly comment threads. (Yo, that's comedy!)

Obama 'Black Mascot' of Wall Street

I saw this earlier, but William Jacobson's covered it for the Saturday night race card, "Progressives Devouring Their Own Tail":

More at West's interview with Truthdig:

“We have got to attempt to tell the truth, and that truth is painful” ... “It is a truth that is against the thick lies of the mainstream. In telling that truth we become so maladjusted to the prevailing injustice that the Democratic Party, more and more, is not just milquetoast and spineless, as it was before, but thoroughly complicitous with some of the worst things in the American empire. I don’t think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Obama. If it turns out in the end that we have a crypto-fascist movement and the only thing standing between us and fascism is Barack Obama, then we have to put our foot on the brake. But we’ve got to think seriously of third-party candidates, third formations, third parties.”

I'm just laughing at how Obama suckered these idiots. I don't care about the empire bull, but I've long hoped that Obama would genuinely work to help the disadvantaged, and he's done jack as far as I'm concerned, especially on the school choice issue. What a waste of opportunity.

RELATED: At Saberpoint, "My Impression of CORNEL WEST (Photoshop)."

Code Pink AIPAC Flashmob

At Bare Naked Islam, "CODE PINKO PIGS sing in support of Islamic terrorists in Union Station, Washington DC":

RELATED: At Zion's Trumpet: "Do American Jews Hate Themselves and Israel? Why Do They Support an Anti-Semitic President?"

BWAHAHA!!! Jack Stuef Out at Wonkette!

From Dana Loesch, "Writer Who Started “Trigs Crew” Phenomenon Out at Wonkette."

And from Stuef's farewell post.

A few times I’ve made fun of people who really didn’t deserve it, and when it was pointed out to me, I apologized. This sort of thing happens, even when you make a point of trying to stay true to yourself as much as you can, because you’re human.

Well, bail on progressivism before you start blabbering about being human. Loser.

Background is here: "Wonkette Deletes Trig Palin Post as Advertisers Leave Site."

What Are Israel's Defensible Borders?

An excellent video from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Also, from Dore Gold, President of the Jerusalem Center, at Wall Street Journal, "Israel's 1967 Borders Aren't Defensible":

It's no secret that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to lobby the U.N. General Assembly this September for a resolution that will predetermine the results of any Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on borders. He made clear in a New York Times op-ed this week that he will insist that member states recognize a Palestinian state on 1967 lines, meaning Israel's boundaries before the Six Day War.

Unfortunately, even President Barack Obama appears to have been influenced by this thinking. He asserted in a speech Thursday that Israel's future borders with a Palestinian state "should be based on the 1967 lines," a position he tried to offset by offering "mutually agreed land swaps." Mr. Abbas has said many times that any land swaps would be minuscule.

Remember that before the Six Day War, those lines in the West Bank only demarcated where five Arab armies were halted in their invasion of the nascent state of Israel 19 years earlier. Legally, they formed only an armistice line, not a recognized international border. No Palestinian state ever existed that could have claimed these prewar lines. Jordan occupied the West Bank after the Arab invasion, but its claim to sovereignty was not recognized by any U.N. members except Pakistan and the U.K. As Jordan's U.N. ambassador said before the war, the old armistice lines "did not fix boundaries." Thus the central thrust of Arab-Israeli diplomacy for more than 40 years was that Israel must negotiate an agreed border with its Arab neighbors.

More at the link above.

Added: Now a thread at Memorandum, featuring Israel Matzav.

Lady Gaga's Next Chapter

At New York Times, "Lady Gaga Has a New Album, 'Born This Way'."

And from the comments at Althouse:

Gaga: progressively more tiresome.

I'd say more like a cross between Madonna and the Spice Girls with some Marilyn Manson thrown in for good measure.

I posted on Gaga's "Judas" previously, and ace commenter Dennis was also unimpressed.

Update on Noam Chomsky

It's been busy lately blogging the unholy alliance of communism and Islamic jihad. I haven't had the chance to post a couple more of my pics from the Noam Chomsky event at UCLA. I noted previously that "Chomsky was swarmed by extremist acolytes upon entering the lecture hall," some of whom can be seen here:

And here's Chomsky's being fitted with a microphone by Hamzah Baig, who I covered previously at FrontPage Magazine, "UCLA’s Palestine Awareness Week: Students for the Extermination of Israel":

Recall that Hamzah Baig was extremely nervous by the attention I was paying to him, and he made sure to be on record that UCLA's Students for Justice in Palestine "provides no support for terrorism whatsoever."

Right.

The folks from the International Communist League were right outside the entrance, handing out literature:

These dolts publish this stuff: "U.S. Murders Its Frankenstein’s Monster Bin Laden: “War on Terror”: Marauding Abroad, Repression at Home; Imperialists Out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya!"

Makes sense, I guess. Goes hand-in-hand with the latest propaganda Chomksy's peddling, in a newsletter out yesterday: "Chomsky's More Detailed Response to the News of bin Laden's Murder" (via Memeorandum). Chomsky places President George W. Bush on a plane of moral equivalence to Adolph Hitler, which is, of course, central to Chomsky's oeuvre. The guy's not only an idiot, but a liar as well. See Brad DeLong's comments on the memo: "Stupidest and Most Dishonest Man Alive of All Time: Noam Chomsky." (And well, that explains why Robert "Che Porn Guy" Farley's down with the MIT crackpot.)

All in a day's work. Freakin' commie-progressive jihad-lovers. Sheesh.

Los Angeles 'Gold Card Desk'

Old media's dying, but some venerable old media institutions are still doing excellent journalism, so CWCD. The Los Angeles Times had the story the other day on the L.A. city government's "Gold Card Desk," where local officials got expedited treatment to make parking violations go away: "'Gold Card Desk' dismissed some L.A. parking tickets without justification, audit finds." And here comes the story on the front-page of this morning's paper: "L.A. Drops its Parking Gold Cards."

A plastic parking bureau Gold Card was apparently distributed to city offices and included a special phone number for a holder who had an "urgent need to resolve any parking citation matter which requires special attention." The card promised that "you will be immediately connected to our Gold Card Specialist."

Moe Tkacik: 'Look at Me!'

Remember Moe Tkacik? The background's here and here.

Well, she's got an interesting piece at Columbia Journalism Review: "Look at Me! A writer’s search for journalism in the age of branding."

Get a cup of coffee and read the whole thing. Moe's a great writer, and actually has an extensive background in journalism, which I did not know. She was fired from the Wall Street Journal for getting too close to the facts on Abercrombie & Fitch's racist corporate practices:

I went to great lengths to corroborate the facts, which is where I fucked up; I e-mailed a draft of the piece (a decision inspired by a respected journalist I’d read about who said he did this all the time) to a trusted source, and he e-mailed it to someone else, and eventually it made its way to Abercrombie’s corporate offices and in turn to the company’s fearsome New York “crisis PR” firm. And because Wall Street Journal investigations are the sort of thing that affects the stock prices of companies, this was a fire-able offense. In retrospect, as much as I felt like a failure and a fuckup, I didn’t actually mind being liberated from the constant, insane pressure not to fuck up. All year I’d been variously accused of being “in the pocket” of one company or its rival by analysts, money managers, publicists, lawyers, etc., and I’d found it preposterous. What did I care who prevailed in the sneaker wars or the doll wars or the Japanese-hipster-credibility-halo-effect wars?

What I couldn’t understand, though, was why they killed the story. Sure, it wasn’t Blackwater, but this was a store that at least half our readers’ kids would have killed to work for, and it was being run by some racist, frat-boy cult, and the suburban teenagers it hired and fired so mercurially were going to grow into adults who thought this was . . . normal? That in the modern American workplace, this sort of Lord-of-the-Flies management strategy was just par for the fucking course?

I ended up handing over my notes to a civil-rights lawyer who was leading a class-action race-discrimination suit against Abercrombie. A few years later, more than ten thousand former brand representatives got checks in the mail as part of the $40 million settlement.

More here.

Caroline Glick: 'Obama's Abandonment of America'

At "FrontPage Magazine":

I was out sick yesterday so I was unable to write today’s column for the Jerusalem Post. I did manage to watch President Obama’s speech on the Middle East yesterday evening. And I didn’t want to wait until next week to discuss it. After all, who knows what he’ll do by Tuesday?

Before we get into what the speech means for Israel, it is important to consider what it means for America.

Quite simply, Obama’s speech represents the effective renunciation of the US’s right to have and to pursue national interests. Consequently, his speech imperils the real interests that the US has in the region – first and foremost, the US’s interest in securing its national security.

Obama’s renunciation of the US national interests unfolded as follows ...

PHOTO CREDIT: Atlas Shrugs, "NEW YORK LOVES ISRAEL."

Judgment Day

Some background at New York Times: "Harold Camping Rapture Prophecy Tests Families." Actually, progressive atheist blogs are all over this, although I saw this at CSPT: "May 21, 2011 The World Ends W/ The Rapture."

More here.

Netanyahu Rebukes Obama

At WSJ, "Israeli Leader, Obama Clash: Netanyahu Delivers Rare Public Rebuke to U.S. President Over Proposal to Restart Peace Talks."

See also, Yid With Lid, "SLAM!! Bibi Diplomatically "Slaps" Obama During White House Press Op," and Doug Ross, "Obama orders Jews to Ghetto in preparation for final final solution."

Huge Waves at the Wedge in Newport Beach

At Los Angeles Times, "Huge waves hit Southern California's south-facing beaches." And this picture's a riot!

I cruised over there this afternoon:

That's one of Newport's lifeguards. Some of these guys are extremely well-paid. See "VIDEO: Newport Beach, California, Pays Lifeguards More Than $200,000 a Year!"

For GOP Contenders, Love Always Means Having to Say You're Sorry

From Ronald Brownstein, at National Journal, "After Glasnost: Why the 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls are facing multiplying demands to renounce earlier positions":

In the 2012 Republican presidential race, love apparently means always having to say you’re sorry.

On an array of issues, the field of GOP contenders is facing enormous pressure from an ascendant conservative base to renounce earlier positions that challenged orthodoxy on the right. Their response to those demands could cast a big shadow over not only next year’s Republican primary but also the general-election contest against President Obama.

The emergence of these pressures testifies to a decisive shift in the GOP’s balance of power. The ideas now drawing the most fire from conservative activists—including support for a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse-gas emissions, a mandate on individuals to purchase health insurance, and a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants—all flowered in Republican circles during the middle years of George W. Bush’s presidency, especially among governors.

In different ways, each of these proposals embodied the common belief that Republicans had to broaden their message beyond a conventional conservative argument focused almost exclusively on reducing government spending, taxes, and regulation. Intellectually, these initiatives reflected an impulse to redefine conservatism in ways that accepted a role for government in empowering individuals or promoting market-based solutions. Politically, they reflected the belief that to build a lasting majority, Republicans needed to attract more minority voters, especially Hispanics, and to loosen the Democratic hold on blue states by reclaiming more suburban independents.

More at the link above.

Basically, RINO-Republicans are getting deep-sixed, and thank goodness for that.

RELATED: At Snooper's Report, "Obama Praises Romney for 'Assist' in Passing Obamacare." Figures.

EXTRA: At CNN, "GOP contenders: Obama has 'thrown Israel under the bus'" (via Memeorandum). Well, perhaps there's a ray of hope after all.

Newt Gingrich Dancing Queen!

Hey, feel the beat from the tambourine.

Newt's hoping "anybody could be that guy" for the nomination, and idiot Alex Pareene's jonesin' for it.