Extremist NOH8 Campaign Exploits Christina Santiago Death for Crass Political Gain

This is disgusting.

They couldn't have just given her a beautiful commemoration. They had to turn Ms. Santiago death into sick sympathy shakedown:

Tragedies like this just illustrate how important it is for couples to have the rights that allow them to celebrate their love and their lives now.

Christina and Alisha were one of the first couples to get a civil union in Cook County when civil unions became legal in Illinois earlier this year. Those who claim the issue of same sex marriages and civil unions can "wait" should think hard about that idea after reading stories like these. This beautiful couple only had a short few months together to celebrate their civil union -- but we take solace in the fact they at least had that opportunity to prove their love to the world, however brief.

A beautiful young woman is dead. And LGBT ASFL NOH8 couldn't simply commemorate her life with dignity. These idiots had to turn it into some kind of epic guilt trip about "only" a few months to celebrate a civil union.

People die. And always, every death reminds us for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

A much more reserved article at Chicago Tribune, "Health center mourns staffer killed in Indiana State Fair stage accident."

Democrats Pushing Obama to Do More to Create Jobs

At LAT, "Democrats urge Obama to be more aggressive on jobs."

They claim to have "new ideas." But Democrats simply want more spending. The innovation comes from the subterranean language devised to slough off these new big-government boondoggles on the people.

After Iowa, Republicans Face a New Landscape

At New York Times, "After Iowa, Republicans Face a New Landscape."

WATERLOO, Iowa — The leading Republican presidential candidates scrambled to take command of a new landscape on Sunday after Tim Pawlenty abruptly ended his campaign and a three-way race began taking shape to find a nominee who can emerge as the strongest challenger to President Obama.

While Gov. Rick Perry of Texas had hoped to turn the contest into a two-man duel with Mitt Romney, he starts by facing Representative Michele Bachmann, whose weekend victory in the Iowa straw poll reordered the top tier of candidates. On the second day of his announcement tour, Mr. Perry sent a subtle message: making his first Iowa appearance in her hometown, but not taking her on directly.

While Mrs. Bachmann, Mr. Perry and Mr. Romney each have emphasized cutting attacks on Mr. Obama, they now face the need to begin drawing distinctions with one another and set up what could be a long and hard-edged campaign for the party’s nomination.

More at that top link.

Plus, I suspect Los Angeles Times is straining a bit here, trying to spin a different angle: "Perry overshadows Bachmann's Iowa victory."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces and Reaganite Republican.

Tim Pawlenty Ends Presidential Campaign

I just clicked on The Other McCain and saw this: "Tim Pawlenty Quits!" While the news could probably use a couple of exclamation points!!, I'm not surprised. The GOP field is getting crowded with Rick Perry's entry into the race, and as we saw from the debate the other night, Pawlenty was hoping for the knock out blow against Michele Bachmann and he failed miserably. She held her own and made Pawlenty look a Republican Mario Cuomo. Bachmann went on to win Iowa and that had to be like a right upper-cut landing on Pawlenty's chin. He's down.

See also Legal Insurrection and New York Times (via Memeorandum).

The New Britannia

From Mark Steyn, at National Review:

The trick in this business is not to be right too early. A week ago I released my new book — the usual doom’n’gloom stuff — and, just as the sensible prudent moderate chaps were about to dismiss it as hysterical and alarmist, Standard & Poor’s went and downgraded the United States from its AAA rating for the first time in history. Obligingly enough they downgraded it to AA+, which happens to be the initials of my book: After America. Okay, there’s not a lot of “+” in that, but you can’t have everything.

But the news cycle moves on, and a day or two later, the news shows were filled with scenes of London ablaze, as gangs of feral youths trashed and looted their own neighborhoods. Several readers wrote to taunt me for not having anything to say on the London riots. As it happens, Chapter Five of my book is called “The New Britannia: The Depraved City.” You have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat me to Western civilization’s descent into barbarism. Anyone who’s read it will fully understand what’s happening on the streets of London. The downgrade and the riots are part of the same story: Big Government debauches not only a nation’s finances but its human capital, too.

Keep reading.

It's really astounding, the prophecy in that book. Don't miss it.

Michele Bachmann Wins Iowa Straw Poll

Straw polls are like beauty contests --- they're a chance for everyone to get a good look at you. But in this year's Ames straw poll, I'm betting Michele Bachmann gets a nice boost from her victory.

At Chicago Tribune, "Bachmann: Win a 'down payment on taking the country back'":

Lots more news at Memeorandum.

'All You Need Is Love'

I've been out all night. It's just after Midnight. Normally I'd have a few scheduled posts going live, but I've been partying. The family had a blast at the Beatles LOVE. I'll look for some LOVE videos I haven't posted and update later. The second time around is different, but the first is, well, the first time. Nothing like it. That said, I could see it again and again. It's so fun. I kept checking over at my kids and my oldest's (sorta) girlfriend. They loved it. And my youngest just turned 10 and he's already a HUGE Beatles fan. The Beatles are the great generational unifier

Governor Rick Perry Throws His Ten-Gallon Hat in the Ring

Some folks have criticized Rick Perry's timing , but I'd say it's one heckuva campaign launch (and so does Nikki Haley). Perry seems both amicable and capable, and the record of job creation in Texas would be a huge asset against Obama in the general election. But that's about all I know, so more on Perry later. A interest group sent me the YouTube below, FWIW, "Keep Conservatives United Aiming To Even Playing Field For Bachmann."

And at New York Times, "Promising Better Direction, Perry Enters Race," and "Money No Obstacle as Perry Joins G.O.P. Race."

Kate Weaver on the State of International Political Economy (IPE)

At Duck of Minerva, "State of the Field, Redux: What's Wrong with IPE?"

What caught my attention about Weaver's post is that she cites Dr. Benjamin J. Cohen's book, International Political Economy: An Intellectual History. Professor Cohen is on faculty at UC Santa Barbara's Department of Political Science. He was a key mentor to me during my years there in graduate school, and we still communicate by e-mail. I posted an essay from Professor Cohen last year, "'Are IPE Journals Becoming Boring?'"

In any case, check over at Duck of Minerva for the post.

I'm starting my Fall 2011 World Politics course on Monday.

Charlotte Allen: 'The Mess at Widener Law School'

At Minding the Campus (via Glenn Reynolds):

Old Law School culture revolves around a traditional curriculum—those torts and contracts courses—and the Socratic method of instruction, with its pointed and rigorous give-and-take between professors and students. Old Law School assumes that the process of training lawyers is training them to a centuries-old Anglo-American tradition of lawyerly thought, which rests on the careful crafting of legal arguments and the relentless challenging of those arguments, often by the professor in the classroom. Old precedent-setting cases may be supplanted by newer cases, and legal principles may shift, but the underlying methodology of close analysis of written court opinions and the arguments on which they rest, along with certain assumptions underlying the American legal systems—that human beings are generally capable of exercising reason and free will and thus should be held responsible for their actions—are Old Law School constants.

New Law School culture, growing out of the Critical Legal Studies movement that first surfaced in law schools during the 1980s, is quite different. In New Law School thinking, the law does not embody a rational system of justice—or even strivings toward such a system—but is essentially a political construct that has historically operated to keep the rich and powerful in their places of wealth and power and other groups—women, racial minorities, the disabled, and the poor—in their socially subordinate places. If this characterization sounds Marxist, that is because Critical Legal Studies—and its intellectual progeny, Critical Race Theory and Feminist Legal Theory—grew out of the New Left radicalism of the 1960s, which viewed American governmental and social structures as systems of oppression. It has also been influenced by postmodernist literary theory, with its assumptions that there is no objective truth or reality. In New Law School thinking, reason, free will, and personal responsibility are illusions, for all legal battles are actually struggles of race, class, and gender, in which power, not justice, is the ultimate goal. In New Law School scholarly writing, rigorous analysis of court opinions and the drawing of fine distinctions underlying legal arguments have been supplanted by “story telling": personal narratives typically involving the law professors’ own experiences as members of an oppressed group with the race-gender-class matrix that is the source of their oppression. Since a shift in the power structure, not justice, is the goal, any tactic that coerces the recalcitrant into conforming to the new power regime is permissible in New Law School thinking.

Continue reading. Especially good is Allen's discussion of Linda Ammons. I wrote briefly along the same lines here, "Widener's Dean Linda Ammons Goes After Law School Professor Lawrence Connell."

And from Allen's conclusion, she notes that Professor Lawrence Connell was exonerated of the allegations against him, yet Ammons still prevailed on her preposterous charge that Connell "retaliated":

What is appalling is that, despite both exonerations, Ammons appears to have gotten her way in the end after all, exacting sanctions against a tenured professor that are not only costly but humiliating (he is supposed to apologize to the complaining students. The charge of retaliation, based on a vague prohibition in the faculty handbook, seem especially flimsy. Connell’s e-mail to his students in December neither named his accusers nor referred to them in any way. As for the lawsuit, Connell never waived his right to seek redress in court against individuals whose false accusations have already cost him quite a bit of money and promise to cost much more. But that is the way of New Law School. It is perhaps only Old Law School, with its emphasis on fairness, reasonableness, and color-and gender-blind justice, that would find something totalitarian in Widener’s treatment of Connell and accordingly demand Linda Ammons’ resignation. In New Law School thinking, where power is everything, and the claims of grievance-bearing identity groups will always prevail over fairness, it is perfectly fine to strip your perceived opponent of his livelihood and to consign him to the ministrations of your own Nurse Ratched—and there is no such thing as abuse of power.

Anne Wilderspin, Sister of Murder Victim Richard Bowes: 'It is sad these rioters have not found a purpose in life'

Richard Mannington Bowes was murdered in Ealing as he confronted mob youths set to burn down the town.

Richard Bowes died from head injuries days after the attack in Ealing on Monday night.

He was pictured lying face down in a pool of blood after being assaulted while trying to stop youths setting fire to large rubbish bins across the green from the flat where he lived alone.

His sister said, "I feel sad that these rioters haven't found another purpose in life rather than just destructive violence."

Check the Independent UK as well, "Ealing reflects on the death of a 'shy, quiet, quirky-looking' man," and "Man arrested following Ealing riots death."

And since I've mentioned Irish commie Henry "erect cocks" Farrell, check the thread at Crooked Timber, where the commenters are fully down with the rioting hooligans: "London."

Ann Althouse Attacked at Wisconsin Capitol Singalong

This is generating some interesting discussion: "Attack on Althouse at the Wisconsin Capitol singalong" (found at Memeorandum).

Plus, Althouse gets picked up at Breitbart TV, and from the comments there:

As they keep doing this kind of behavior on a near daily basis now, they do not realize that America has grown tired of this and their patience will eventually wear thin. Because the left is losing power and their true agenda is now exposed in the light of day for the Communist agenda that it is, they are desperate to achieve that ever elusive and imaginary Utopia their leader has promised. When in reality, all they accomplish by doing this is to unite the opposers to Obama's agenda even more.

Not to mention the fact that some day, probably soon, they will pick on the wrong person and find out what it feels like to have your ass beat, and good.

Well, yeah. All in self-defense, of course.

Butter Cow

Robert Stacy McCain's really enjoying himself! "The Butter Cow Is SEXY!

More from ABC News:

Protection Racket: 'Responsibility to Protect' Becomes a Doctrine

From Joshua Muravchik, at World Affairs:

The world has mostly enjoyed peace since 1945, but that owes nothing to the UN and everything to American power, exercised mostly in the form of guarantees to Japan, NATO, and other allies, rather than in shooting wars. In this era when violence within states is far more common than between them, cases of extreme abuse will sometimes cry out for outside intervention. But the traditional doctrine of humanitarian intervention, invoked by the United States and other democracies at their own discretion, is likely to offer a more usable basis for such action than the shiny new version called R2P, which places all authority in the paralytic hands of the United Nations Security Council.

It's a good piece. RTWT.

And recall David Rieff, at National Interest, "Saints Go Marching In."

African Indigents with Massive Erect Cocks?

Hey, that's not me, sheesh!

It's freak Irish commie Henry Farrell, at Crooked Timber, '“The Duty of Journalists is to Tell The Truth”.'

Henry "erect cocks" is alleging that the Irish Independent's Kevin Myers is --- wait for it! --- racist. See, "Feral rioters all have one thing in common -- a lack of father figures." (It's a good piece, but no talking honestly with the left's "elite" opinion police.)

Anyway, I left a comment for Henry "erect cocks," which is probably not likely to make it out of the moderation queue, naturally:

Oh, bugger off, Henry. You’ll change your commie leftist beliefs about as fast as Michael Moore trims down to a slim 180 pounds American.

And “African indigents with massive erect cocks”?

Quite a racist flourish there yourself. Sure would look great in the pages of, say, Foreign Affairs, eh?

RELATED: Melanie Phillips has some updates, thank goodness.

Candice Swanepoel Victoria's Secret Bikini Photoshoot

Lots of pics, at London's Daily Mail, "Bikini babe Candice Swanepoel hits the surf as she shoots sexy new Victoria's Secret campaign."

Blah, Blah ... More Progressive Hysteria About 'Broken' Politics

From Charles Krauthammer, at National Review, "The System Works."

Of all the endlessly repeated conventional wisdom in today’s Washington, the most lazy, stupid, and ubiquitous is that our politics is broken. On the contrary. Our political system is working well (I make no such claims for our economy), indeed, precisely as designed — profound changes in popular will translated into law that alters the nation’s political direction.

The process has been messy, loud, disputatious, and often rancorous. So what? In the end, the system works. Exhibit A is Wisconsin. Exhibit B is Washington itself...

Keep reading.

The terrorists broke it.

Rioters to Be Stripped of State Benefits in Britain's Online Petition

At Telegraph UK, "UK riots: we will make criminals suffer, say MPs." Also, at Montreal Gazette, "Britons call for looters to lose benefits":

And at London's Daily Mail, "Rioter's family is first to be kicked out of their council house because of teenage son's 'looting'."

Sarah Palin at Iowa State Fair

I wish I was there!

See Daily Caller, "Palin at Iowa State Fair: I’m still undecided on 2012" (at Memeorandum).

RELATED: At The Other McCain, "Herman Cain Speaks at Iowa State Fair."