Amazon Ends Affiliate Program in California

I got the email earlier, "Notice of Contract Termination Due to Potential New California Law."

See San Francisco Business Times, "Amazon threatens to drop California associates" (via Instapundit):

Last night, California Democrats reached an agreement with Gov. Jerry Brown on a proposed state budget that, among other things, would force online retailers like Amazon.com and Overstock.com to collect sales tax in California.

Already, Amazon has made its objections clear, threatening to drop the thousands of "Amazon Associates" in California who make money by referring web users to Amazon.com to buy goods.

Pitting the wealthiest and most populous state in the union against the premier online retailing conglomerate, this is a battle of two amazons — Goliath vs. Goliath, if you will.

But caught in between are thousands of bloggers, marketers and publishers who make money through Amazon's affiliate program, called Amazon Associates. Basically, if a blogger links to Amazon products on a post and a reader ends up buying something through that link, then the blogger gets a percentage of the sale for making the "referral." Small retailers and marketers also use the Associates program.

All these people are at risk of being cut off from this revenue source should the California budget pass on Tuesday.

And it's a done deal.

At Sacramento Bee, "Brown signs tax bill; Amazon tells California affiliates it will drop them":

Amazon.com today said it will sever ties with some 10,000 affiliates in California to protest the Internet sales-tax law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown Wednesday.

The big online retailer has been threatening to cut those ties since February. In emails today to its California affiliates, Amazon called the bill "unconstitutional and counterproductive. " The bill is part of the budget package passed by the Legislature.

The affiliates are businesses and nonprofits that have Amazon links on their websites. When someone clicks through that link and buys something from Amazon, the affiliate gets a fee.

Under the bill, Amazon will have to collect sales tax on all sales to Californians.

Also at Los Angeles Times, "Amazon.com to start collecting sales taxes from California customers."

And from Amazon's email:

Hello,

For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of California residents. Unfortunately, a potential new law that may be signed by Governor Brown compels us to terminate this program for California-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers - including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you - even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.

As a result, we will terminate contracts with all California residents that are participants in the Amazon Associates Program as of the date (if any) that the California law becomes effective. We will send a follow-up notice to you confirming the termination date if the California law is enacted. In the event that the California law does not become effective before September 30, 2011, we withdraw this notice. As of the termination date, California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned on or before the termination date will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

Bummer.

Great job Democrats!

Added: Astute Bloggers links. Thanks!

VIDEO: President Obama News Conference Addresses Debt Ceiling and Taxes

At Los Angeles Times, "Obama challenges GOP on tax breaks at press conference." And at USA Today, "Obama challenges Congress on taxes, debt limit":

WASHINGTON — President Obama warned Wednesday about "unpredictable" cuts in federal programs if Congress fails to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit by Aug. 2. He challenged lawmakers to "do their job."

In a news conference notable for its defiant tone, Obama defended both his leadership on the issue and his insistence that tax increases be included among the trillions of dollars all sides want to cut from future deficits while raising the debt ceiling.

The Republican leaders' position that as much as $4 trillion should be cut from spending alone, without any tax changes for the wealthy or profitable companies, isn't "sustainable" in bipartisan talks, Obama said.

"This is a jobs issue. This is not an abstraction," he said of the Aug. 2 deadline, which the Treasury Department has said could change by a few days. "The consequences for the U.S. economy will be significant and unpredictable. We don't know how capital markets will react."

See also, National Journal, "Obama: It's Kids Versus Corporate Jets on Debt-Ceiling Talks," and New York Times, "Obama: Republican Leaders Must Bend on Taxes" (via Memeorandum).

Violent Austerity Protests in Greece

The Los Angeles Times has an excellent slideshow, "Protesters clash with riot police in Athens strike." Also: "Greece OKs austerity bill as protests rage."

The scene's extremely violent, and the most menacing images are of those protesters clad in black, apparently identifying or affiliating with the Black Bloc anarchist movement. See Paul Mason, at BBC, "Greece: what’s burning is consent."

Teacher Evaluation System Examines Classroom Performance

I'm all for increasing performance, but most of the time it's not the fault of the teachers if students aren't learning. The culture's totally FUBAR, as I've written here many times. That said, I'm not against the classroom observations, as discussed at the article. It depends though: Who are the evaluators? If it's a bunch of progressive educators marinated in failed methodologies of reform (I don't do "group work", for example), will teachers get a fair shake? A lot of these evaluation systems seem punitive. Still, it's a complicated issue, for while I'd probably stand with the unions against flawed evaluations, I'd oppose them on fiscal reforms and teacher pay and benefits. Anyway, at least the fear factor pushes teachers to excel in the classroom.

At New York Times, "Teacher Grades: Pass or Be Fired":

The evaluation system leans heavily on student test scores to judge about 500 math and reading teachers in grades four to eight. Ratings for the rest of the city’s 3,600 teachers are determined mostly by five classroom observations annually, three by their principal and two by so-called master educators, most recruited from outside Washington.

For classroom observations, nine criteria — “explain content clearly,” “maximize instructional time” and “check for student understanding,” for example — are used to rate the lesson as highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective.

These five observations combine to form 75 percent of these teachers’ overall ratings; the rest is based on achievement data and the teachers’ commitment to their school communities. Ineffective teachers face dismissal. Minimally effective ones get a year to improve.

Ouch! That is harsh!

The Billions Behind 'Cultures of Resistance' Filmmaker

An excellent essay from Dave Swindle, at FrontPage Magazine, "The Flotilla Jihadists’ Artsy Propagandist and Her Billionaire Husband." And propaganda it is. A sample:

And she's affiliated with this premiere group of communists and anti-Semites:

Israel's Settlements Are Not the Problem

An awesome essay at the July/August Foreign Affairs, by Elliott Abrams, "The Settlement Obsession: Both Israel and the United States Miss the Obstacles to Peace." It's a review essay, in fact. Abrams covers Occupation of the Territories: Israeli Soldiers' Testimonies 2000-2010, a collection of interviews from Breaking the Silence, available online. And also Gadi Taub's, The Settlers: And the Struggle over the Meaning of Zionism, at Amazon.com.

I read Abrams' review in hard copy on the road out to Pechanga, and I'd envisioned writing some big analysis with lots of block quotes, etc. But I'm not in the mood now. Mostly, it's a piece of scholarship and it requires shifting back into a more neutral, analytical frame of mind while reading. It's tempting to look at any analysis of the Middle East through current events, such as the Gaza flotilla. But Abrams avoids that, which is impressive, since Occupation of the Territories is about Jew-bashing propaganda more than close empirical and historical analysis. Indeed, Abrams notes:

Some of the testimonies are deeply affecting, and there is no doubt that occupation duty brings out the worst in some soldiers: violence, bullying, vandalism, and theft. Official accounts of the U.S. occupation of Germany after World War II, for example, make clear that there is no such thing as an immaculate occupation. But in this book, Breaking the Silence appears less interested in the current impact of the settlements and the backdrop to the IDF's actions in the West Bank than in advancing particular ideological and political points. For one thing, why produce a volume in 2010 that has so many testimonies about Gaza, from which all Israeli forces withdrew in the summer of 2005? Why include so many interviews from 2000-2002, the years when the second intifada was at its height, rather than interviews from more recent years? In the section on the methods the IDF uses to prevent terrorism, for example, there are 67 interviews, but only five are from 2008 or later; similarly, a section on how the IDF carries out a "policy of control, dispossession, and annexation of territory" contains 44 interviews, of which just six are from 2007 or later.

A logical inference from this data would be that the IDF's conduct is improving, but Breaking the Silence does not discuss this possibility. Nor does it discuss what the IDF was attempting between 2000 and 2002, namely, trying to stop terrorist acts that were maiming and killing thousands of Israelis. There is just one sentence about terrorism in this entire volume, acknowledging that "it is true that the Israeli security apparatus has had to deal with concrete threats in the past decade, including terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens."

That sounds like blogging rather than research, but Abrams gives the work a fair shake.

As for The Settlers, Abrams' review of that book forms the bulk of the essay, and there's a key thesis that emerges: The future of Israel will play out over the issues of religion and secularism. The Jewish state as originally established was based on sovereign territory as a secure safe haven for any Jew anywhere in the world. Israel was to be a secular democracy with a Jewish majority. It wasn't until 1967, and the beginning of the occupation, whereby the most dramatic assertions of religious Zionism emerged. This might sound strange for those most informed by the blogosphere, but the Taub book sounds like a magisterial accomplishment. I learned a lot just from Abrams' overview. The entire work is no doubt a keeper. In any case, some of Abrams' conclusions indicate that religious Zionism --- which is only a small part of settler activity in the West Bank --- is unsustainable over the long term. Here's an interesting quote, which again, goes against what partisans normally argue:

The conflict between secular Zionism and the settler movement did not appear overnight following Israel's conquests in the 1967 war, for there was an argument that bridged the gap: security. The Israeli right viewed the settlements as critical for Israel's future. The old borders were not defensible, Israel could be attacked again from the east, and settlements on the ridges of Judea and Samaria were part of the state's new system of defense. So the religious settlers and Israeli hawks made common cause, and year after year, settlers by the tens of thousands moved to the West Bank.

For the religious settlers, this was an exciting period, filled with spiritual and also political and psychological satisfaction. Whereas the Orthodox had largely sat out the hard work of building Zionist institutions and founding the state, Taub says, "the act of settlement was a chance to reenact the days of pioneering glory, which religious Zionists felt they had half missed."

The alliance between the religious settlers and secular Israeli hawks held for some years, but before long, the underlying contradiction began to emerge. In 1974, Gush Emunim, or "Bloc of the Faithful," was founded as the main settler organization, and its manifesto spoke of its "obligation toward the Land of Israel." To the actually existing State of Israel, there was apparently no such obligation. Three years later, in 1977, leaders of the Israeli right were forced to confront this uncomfortable fact when Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat came to Jerusalem offering peace in exchange for the Sinai. Menachem Begin, founder of the Herut Party (a predecessor of the right-wing Likud coalition), handed the Sinai back to Egypt in 1982 and in the process evacuated 2,500 Israelis from Yamit, a settlement there. It was apparent, Taub explains, that "in Begin's view the realization of the right of Jews to settle anywhere in the Land of Israel was always subordinate to a higher value: political independence, the sovereignty of the state."

A far more significant moment came in 2005, when Sharon evacuated all Israeli settlers from Gaza and also removed four tiny settlements in the West Bank. The settlers, Taub recounts, found that their adoption of the security argument as a means of reaching out to secular Israelis had backfired badly. For in the end, Sharon and his fellow hawks had come to the conclusion that keeping all the territories was a huge mistake and a danger to the Jewish state itself. As Taub writes:

Even staunch secular hawks in Likud understood that extending Israel's sovereignty to the territories, as opposed to maintaining the temporary status of these regions, would spell an end to Zionism; it would force the state into a double-bind where it would have to choose between a non-Jewish democracy and a Jewish apartheid. . . . Likud under Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ariel Sharon, despite repeated declarations that Judea, Samaria, and Gaza would remain forever a part of Israel, never considered such a possibility seriously, and so never moved to annex these territories.

For both the Israeli center and the Israeli right, the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000 and the ensuing intifada taught a lesson: a negotiated settlement was unlikely. Combined with the continuing Palestinian insistence on the right of return of millions of Palestinians to Israel, an outcome that would doom Israel as a Jewish state, the seeming impossibility of a negotiated deal led Sharon to favor unilateral withdrawal. That approach, Taub says, "gradually acquired legitimacy. . . . Leaving the territories no longer looked to many like a concession to the Palestinians. It began to look like an urgent Israeli interest." The alliance between the settlers and the hawks against the Israeli left, or "the peace camp," was now at an end; the right joined the left in believing that separation from the West Bank was desirable.

Anyway, I promised I wouldn't go overboard on this blog post. Read the whole thing. You'll need to, in order to understand Abrams' conclusion:

In the face of this cessation of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation and peace negotiations, the issue of settlement activity will rise again in importance in many capitals, especially in Washington. In an odd way, current U.S. officials have now adopted the mirror image of the religious settlers' obsession. The more extreme settlers believe that settling the land is more important than protecting the interests of the State of Israel. At the same time, according to current U.S. policy, getting them off that land -- indeed, stopping them from placing one more brick on it -- is worth badly damaging Washington's relationship with a longtime ally and putting Israel's security and reputation in jeopardy. The settlements, and the end of the settlements, are a great problem for Zionism, but they are not the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. The sooner the United States realizes that, the sounder and more constructive its Middle East policy will become.

Fran Drescher on 'Happily Divorced'

Our television viewing is a little messed up, being at the Pechanga hotel and all. Normally I might watch some Fox News or "Nightline" while skimming the headlines around the web. But I'm holed up in the hotel room with my youngest son while my wife's out playing slots. My oldest boy's at a friends house (the resort's in Temecula). So, I'm watching Nick at Nite with my youngest, and the network's been running "The Nanny" reruns, which are a lot of fun. But they just broke up programming with a half-hour of "Happily Divorced," and it's pretty good. And Drescher looks great --- she's got one of the best smiles on television. No previews on YouTube, but TV Land has some videos. And here's this from "The View":

Fran Drescher is lovely, and that reminds me: It's almost time for weekend Rule 5.

Eye of Polyphemus is due for some linkage, and Zion's Trumpet's got some totties.

RELATED: At Los Angeles Times, "There's real drama behind the comedy 'Happily Divorced'."

John Lennon a Republican?

Well, if true, I might be able to enjoy The Beatles again (or enjoy them more, since I won't be so reminded of Lennon's stupid political idealism, and I love George Harrison no matter what).

At the Toronto Sun, "Lennon was a closet Republican: Assistant."

And worth a look: Daniel Foster, at National Review, "Fool Comes Down from Hill." (At Memeorandum.)

VIDEO: 'What Liberal Women Don't Get About Liberal Men'

At Right Wing News, "Liberalism in 120 Seconds":

Kathy Shaidle blogs at Five Feet of Fury.

NewsBusted: 'Tom Hanks says Obama has saved 1 billion jobs'

Via Theo Spark:

Pechanga Getaway

I'm with my family at Pechanga Resort.

Here's the view from my room, Northeast, earlier today, about 6:00pm. Beautiful:

And speaking of rooms with a view, have you been reading Andrew Sullivan? I haven't, but since E.D. Kain's been featured here recently, my web surfing's taken over me over to RAWMUSCLEGLUTES' page, at The Daily Beast. (And his latest "View From Your Window.")

Suffolk University Poll: Bachmann Gains in New Hampshire; Minnesota Congresswoman Tops Field as 'Most Conservative'

Fox News has a write up, "Poll Shows Bachmann Gaining Momentum Among NH GOP Voters." Mitt Romney is by far the GOP frontrunner in New Hampshire, but as other media outlets are stressing, Michele Bachmann comes on strong in the survey, surging 8 points in favorability since May. The Suffolk press report is here, and the poll data here. What I liked best is that Bachmann beats out the field as the "most conservative" candidate in the race. Bachmann was most conservative at 15 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 13 percent, and Romney at 11 percent. The rest of the candidates were in single digits, and the roster includes big name personalities such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Bachmann's had a big week. One of the indicators of that is how aggressively the Democrat-Media-Complex has been trying to take her down.

There's a whole string of threads on Bachmann at Memeorandum, and just now the San Francisco Chronicle's Mark Morford (who announced that Barack Obama was the "Lightworker" in 2008) has weighed in with the latest misogynistic sleaze attack on the congresswoman, "Michele Bachmann, Hell's Barbie":

Yes, Michele Bachmann is running for president. Michele Bachmann, fundamentalist Christian zealot, paranoid isolationist, lowbrow conspiracy theorist, heavily shellacked automaton, anti-choice anti-gay anti-everything neo-Stepford throwback and easily the flat-out nuttiest female ever to raise a hugely depressing $13 million for her clumsy campaign launch, Michele wants to lead us all to salvation.

It's been a week of virtually non-stop attacks like this. No doubt Bachmann's sending shivers down the spine of the progressive establishment. And that's on the left. Will the GOP embrace Bachmann as well, or would Beltway insiders prefer a McCain 2.0 over the Iowa-born congressional upstart?

The GOP needs a conservative candidate. And while Sarah Palin may still enter the race, Michelle Bachmann's making all the right moves, and getting some well-deserved recognition among potential voters.

RELATED: At National Journal, "Is There a 'Generic Republican' to Beat Obama in the Polls?"And the discussion with Gretchen Carlson on Fox & Friends this morning:

What You Should Know About the Second Gaza Flotilla

Read the whole thing, at Yid With Lid.

(Added: Just found this at Blazing Cat Fur, "The Truth behind the Freedom Fauxtilla.")

And at Britain's far-left Guardian, "Alice Walker: Why I'm joining the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza."

And see the responses at CAMERA, "Color Purple Author Smears Israel with False Colors," and CiF Watch, "Alice Walker and the audacity of useful idiocy."

Melanie Phillips Quits Britain's Spectator Magazine

She has two announcements, "Why I left the Spectator," and "My blog's new home."

There's very little written regarding an explanation why, although Phillips writes: "Those interested to learn more can do so in the update on this CiF Watch post, the original quote from which led to this apology." The apology issued was to Alastair Crooke, Director of Conflicts Forum, "an international movement which engages with Islamist movements broadly ..."

Given Mr. Crooke's background, folks probably have an inkling as to what happened: Melanie blogged about Crooke, he got mad, launched legal action, harming the Spectator financially, and Melanie Phillips felt it necessary to resign.

That just the line of logic, but let's see if I can piece some of this together. For one thing, reports indicate that Alastair Crooke, a former member of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency, had direct and ongoing contacts with Hamas as part of his official business at the British consulate in East Jerusalem. A 2007 blog post by Israeli Eliyahu m'Tsiyon has the details, including a quotation from Melanie Phillips which is no longer available elsewhere. And London's far-left Guardian reported on this, "UK recalls MI6 link to Palestinian militants." These are some really sinister dealings, and Phillips wrote about them. See Jihad Watch, "Melanie Phillips on Alistair Crooke." And following the links takes us to FrontPage Magazine, "Alistair Crooke's Meeting with Sheikh Yassin." I don't see the exact date of Crooke's departure from MI6, but even left-wing sources report on his deep ties to global terrorism. See Mother Jones, "The Spy Who Loved Hamas. And Hezbollah. And Iran."

Now note that the Spectator published an apology to Alastair Crooke, cited by Roy Greenslade at the Guardian:

A blog by Melanie Phillips posted on Jan 28 2011 reported an allegation that Alastair Crooke, director of Conflicts Forum, had been expelled from Israel and dismissed for misconduct from Government service or the EU after threatening a journalist whose email he had unlawfully intercepted. We accept that this allegation is completely false and we apologise to Mr Crooke.

Again, I'm piecing things together, but it looks like Spectator issued the apology as part of a legal settlement, which has the New Statesman's Mehdi Hasan jumping for joy:

... was this a voluntary or enforced departure? The blogger Guido Staines beat me to it, but I can't help but notice how the Spectator has had to apologise to Alastair Crooke, director of Conflicts Forum, on its website this week, after a blogpost by Phillips made "false" allegations about Crooke's past. Phillips's decision to move on might just be a coincidence but a well-connected source tells me that the payout to Crooke cost the Spectator "tens of thousands of pounds" and left Fraser Nelson and Andrew Neil "furious" with her.

So we're now back to Melanie Phillips' blog entry, where she writes, "For legal reasons, I cannot go into the details."

The legal reasons appear to be (further) threats of legal action, but Melanie Phillips has rejected the premise of the apology. And CiF Watch says Phillips made "no such" allegation regarding threats from Alastair Crooke.

Well, we know that Alastair Crooke's collaborating with terrorist organizations, and as Melanie Phillips was writing about it, my sense is that someone made threats, and since this controversy involves people at the highest levels of British power, clearly some pro-jihadists had strong incentive to destroy Melanie Phillips. And what's more fascinating is that so called right-wing outlets are simply crippling under threats and apparent litigation. Indeed, Mehdi Hasan can't contain his glee:

Blinded by their monomaniacal obsession with Islamists under every British bed, members of the UK media's neoconservative faction have been the subject of other (successful) legal complaints and libel actions in recent years.

These legal complaints look sketchy, "successful" or not, given all that we know about Alastair Crooke. Clearly, if Melanie Phillips was speaking truth to power her own health and livelihood became increasingly at risk. And this is something I've been writing about quite a bit, since Scott Eric Kaufman and Carl Salonen launched campaigns of workplace intimidation against me, including libelously false allegations of sexual harassment, with potentially very damaging personal consequences, simply for speaking truth to their evil deeds. And while I'm not an author of such prominence as Melanie Phillips, some allegations against me have gone all the way to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, a Democrat. So the similarity is to the lengths at which progressives will go to literally destroy those who speak the truth. Remember, for radical leftists and jihad enablers, "truth is the new hate speech." And I want to remind people of my report on Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, who announced on Canadian television:

The thing is, you don't care about freedom of speech until you've lost it. But I'm here to tell you that I will never, ever give up the fight for freedom of speech.

Neither will I.

'American Girl'

Well, the big surprise of the day, at Politico: "Tom Petty wants Bachmann to lay off 'American Girl'."

It would be another way in which a GOP candidate could compare themselves to Ronald Reagan, who Bruce Springsteen called out for using "Born in the USA" as a campaign song.

And at Raw Story, "Tom Petty reportedly issuing cease and desist letter to Bachmann" (via Memeorandum).

Michele Bachmann on John Quincy Adams

Nothing Michele Bachmann said was factually wrong. The controversy hinges on whether John Quincy Adams was part of the Founding generation. He was. President George Washington appointed John Quincy Adams Minister to the Netherlands in 1794. The Bill of Rights to the Constitution was ratified in 1791 during the same presidential administration. And John Quincy Adams traveled to Paris with his father John Adams, when the latter served as America's Ambassador to France from 1778 until 1779. Hence, Congresswoman Bachmann's statements aren't all that off the mark. John Quincy Adams was not a signer of the Declaration of Independence or Constitution, but certainly was serving importantly as a member of the era, as Bachmann states after George Stephanopoulos tries to elicit a misstatement:

John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy but he was actively involved.

I try to like Stephanopoulos, despite the fact that he was a top adviser to President Bill Clinton. See, "John Quincy Adams a Founding Father? Michele Bachmann Says Yes" (via Memeorandum). Was John Quincy Adams a Founder as in a signer of our founding documents? No? Was he a member of the Founding generation who would have a substantial impact on the course of American history? Absolutely. Yes.

Wouldn't it be nice if folks like Stephanopoulos went after Democrats just an aggressively?

ADDED: I've got some progressive idiots visiting from Instaputz's stinkhole, and one of these idiots writes:

That 57 states gaffe said THREE YEARS AGO is still giving you wingers serious mileage isn't it?

The number of gaffes Obama has made compared to the number of gaffes Bush made... anyone? ...

Well, folks can check out how many gaffes Bush made, but he never made one like this:

I wrote on this last week, but Michael Barone points out today the wicked media double standards when it comes to political misstatements, "Mainstream media covers up horrifying Obama mistake" (at Memeorandum):

It’s interesting that mainstream media journalists who are so eager to zing Michele Bachmann for getting John Wayne’s birthplace wrong, have not been interested in asking whether this was a mistake Obama made in ad libbing or whether the White House speechwriters and fact-checkers fell down on the job. You might think that their chief motive is to make Obama look good and to suppress facts that make him look bad.

Well, yeah, you might think. Idiots.

Joshua Treviño on Twitter!

You gotta follow this guy.

He tweets with the frequency of a man on a mission, and boy has he pissed off some of the pro-terror progressives on Twitter. Remember M. Jay Rosenberg from Media Matters, the guy who tweeted that Benjamin Netanyahu is a terrorist? Well, he's all up in a ruffle over Treviño. See, "Former Bush Speechwriter: Shooting People On Gaza Flotilla 'OK' Because Participants Are Like Nazis." And you can see why at the post. I scrolled through Treviño's feed to find some of his other tweets, but there were so many it was taking too long (a sample is here, though). And I'll tell you, if Americans are on board the flotilla ships, I won't weep if they're killed during an engagement. They're deliberately sailing into harm's way. We'll know more, of course, especially if there is a clash at sea. But last year the "human rights activists" on the Mavi Marmara beat Israeli soldiers and turned their own weapons against them. The IDF killed nine and injured dozens in self-defense. That's not the story one hears from the Israel-hating global media, but the truth doesn't matter to progressives and anti-Semites. Lies are their coin.

Blagojevich Likely to Lose State Pension

But he also has a federal pension, available at age 62, for the three terms he served in Congress.

At Chicago Tribune:

SPRINGFIELD — Ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich stands to lose a $65,000-a-year state pension as a felon, but he's likely to be eligible for $15,000 a year in federal retirement pay for his time as a congressman.

The defrocked Democrat also would be eligible for a refund of about $128,000 in personal contributions he made to the state's retirement fund.

Such is the financial fallout Blagojevich and his family face following Monday's guilty verdict on 17 corruption counts and last year's conviction for lying to the FBI.

Blagojevich served 10 years in state government — four years as a state representative and six as governor — before he was impeached and tossed from office in January 2009. Had he not been convicted of any crimes, Blagojevich would have been able to draw a $65,000-a-year state pension beginning Dec. 10, when he turns 55.

No ruling has been made on whether he can collect the state pension.

Obama Courts Wealthy Contributors

Yeah, because Hope-and-Change has worn thin with the progressive youth of '08.

At Los Angeles Times, "Obama campaign team courts wealthy donors."

President Obama's reelection team has launched an invigorated effort to draw money from wealthy donors, buttressing the campaign against a potential decline in contributions from the everyday supporters who helped fuel his massive take in 2008.

A new program called Presidential Partners asks supporters to commit $75,800 to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint project of the campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

That would put Democratic contributors at the maximum they are allowed to give national party committees for the entire 2012 cycle — leaving then unable to donate to the party's congressional fundraising entities.

The effort to court deep-pocketed backers comes amid uncertainty about whether Obama will be able to reproduce the level of small donations that were estimated to have made up about half of the $745 million he raised in the 2008 campaign.

The Obama campaign has not given up on recharging that source of support: A recent email solicitation offered four supporters a chance to have "Dinner with Barack" for as little as a $5 donation.

But the increased emphasis on major fundraisers — including those who gathered money for Hillary Rodham Clinton's competing presidential bid — carries some risks. While Obama continues to woo supporters at low-dollar fundraisers, his meetings with high rollers — including a $35,800-a-plate dinner Thursday night with Wall Street executives in a posh Manhattan restaurant — could undercut the image he has tried to craft.

Yeah. "Dinner with Barack." And with Joe "Big Effin' Deal" Biden. Losers:

Seagull Steals Video Camera in Cannes, France

At London's Daily Mail, "Bird's-eye view: Seagull 'steals' video camera and shoots footage of its soaring flight above French Riviera." The only question I had is how the owner of the cam found it, which is discussed at the link. Otherwise, looks legitimate.