Obama's Stench of Desperation

This Ed Morrissey piece is must-read, "Axelrod: “There’s this reign of terror going on in the Republican Party”." Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod slurs congressional Republicans as Jacobin terrorists, in an interview with the National Journal, and Morrissey responds:

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised to hear this kind of rhetoric from the flailing and failing Obama campaign....

The actual “reign of terror,” for the sake of those as historically illiterate as Axelrod, took place during the French Revolution, when it turned bloody.  The revolutionaries became as despotic as the monarchy they deposed, executing thousands for dissent and purported betrayal of the revolution. It’s actually the opposite of what Republicans are doing in Congress by opposing Obama’s agenda and attempting to push forward their own. That’s as ignorant an analogy as one might see in American politics.

And here's this new Obama attack ad, dripping with desperation, via Politico and Memeorandum:

Desperate. Very desperate.

RELATED: From Instapundit, "ARE “BAINERS” the new “birthers?”"

Added: More from Twitchy, "New low: Obama bemoans negativity, releases ad mocking Romney’s patriotism."

Bonnie and Clyde Guns Expected to Fetch $200,000 Each at Auction

Fascinating.

At Telegraph UK:

Two guns recovered from the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde, the notorious gangster couple, are expected to fetch $200,000 each at auction in September.

The weapons were found on the outlaw lovers after they were gunned down in an ambush by Texas Rangers in 1934.

The Colt .38 revolver was taped to the inner thigh of Bonnie Parker and the Colt .45 pistol was tucked into the waistband of Clyde Barrow.

The guns will go under the hammer on Sept 30 at RR Auction in Amherst, New Hampshire, along with personal effects including Barrow's gold watch, a letter from his brother and Parker's cosmetics case.

Bobby Livingston, RR Auction's vice president, predicted that each gun would raise between $100,000 and $200,000.

"This is one of the finest Bonnie and Clyde collections you will ever see," he told CNN. "We expect the guns should sell anywhere between $100,000 and $200,000. But really the sky is the limit for these types of guns."

'Chariots of Fire' Remastered in Time for London Olympics

An amazing story.

I saw "Chariots of Fire" in Mexico City in 1982. Funny, but it was subtitled in Spanish, which I didn't need, obviously.

At Sky News, "Chariots of Fire Premiered For Re-Released." And at the Daily Mail, "Three decades on and they're still racing down the red carpet! Chariots of Fire stars turn out to celebrate re-release of the 1981 Olympics classic."

And at Telegraph UK, "Chariots of Fire, review":

If the London Olympics inspired the re-release of this lovingly remastered version of a soul-nourishing British classic, they've already been worthwhile. Chariots of Fire covers arduous ground — faith, conviction and history (both the making of it and the living up to it) — but it does so with the same courage and sincerity that drives the two young men at its heart.

They are, of course, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, respectively the Scottish evangelical Christian and Cambridge-educated Jew who ran for Great Britain, among other causes, at the 1924 Olympics.

Much has been written about the two extraordinary lead performances, and Ian Charleson and Ben Cross certainly fit the roles as snugly as Lycra does muscle. But director Hugh Hudson and writer Colin Welland invest just as much in the lightly sketched characters on the film’s periphery: I love Patrick Magee’s portrayal of Lord Cadogan, a cabbagey peer of the realm, and Dennis Christopher’s Charles Paddock, an American runner of almost extraterrestrial lissomness.

The opening beach run, set in Broadstairs but filmed in St Andrews – and soundtracked with that anachronistic yet curiously fitting electronic score by Vangelis – has become iconic; but for me the film’s finest sequence is the 100-metre sprint final in Paris.

Keep reading.

Syrian Jihadists Accidentally Blow Themselves Up

At Weasel Zippers, "Encore: Syrian Jihadists Blow Themselves Up While Praising Suicide Bomber…":

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Knew of False LIBOR Reporting in 2008

The New York Times reports, "New York Fed Was Aware of False Reporting on Rates."

Geithner was chair of the New York Fed in 2008. See the Wall Street Journal, "Geithner Wrote Libor Memo to UK in 2008" (via Google):

WASHINGTON—Timothy Geithner in 2008 sent a private memo to Bank of England Governor Mervyn King calling for six changes that he said would improve the credibility and integrity of the London interbank offered rate, a key interest rate that is now at the center of a international banking scandal, according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

At the time the memo was sent, Mr. Geithner was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the financial industry was about to enter one of the darkest periods of the financial crisis. Mr. Geithner is now U.S. Treasury ...

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has faced scrutiny in recent days after revelations that it had discussions in 2007 and 2008 with Barclays about the issue.

U.S. lawmakers in recent days have stepped up pressure on Mr. Geithner and the New York Fed for details of what they might have known regarding rate fixing in 2007 and 2008 and why more wasn't done to intervene. Both men are expected to be grilled on the subject at hearings later this month.

Twelve Senate Democrats on Thursday called on the Justice Department and federal banking regulators to pursue a widespread civil and criminal probe against bankers who might have unlawfully manipulated Libor.

The group of Democrats, including Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Carl Levin of Michigan, also asked the Justice Department to look into "allegations that U.S. and foreign bank regulators may have been aware of this wrongdoing for years."

They said "regulators who were involved should be held to account for any failures to stop wrongdoing that they knew, or should have known about."

The senators don't allege any wrongdoing by Mr. Geithner in their letters, but they call on the Justice Department to scrutinize the actions of regulators at the time.

No wrongdoing, eh?

Well, check Charles Gasparino at the New York Post, "What did Tim know? Geithner’s Libor labors":

The latest development in the Libor-manipulation scandal is that the banks weren’t really fixing the price of the key interest rate in total secret — US regulators were aware of the sleazy activities at the time, and seemed to have done nothing. Which should surprise no one.

I can’t tell you how much federal officials knew about the activities of Barclay’s, JPMorgan, Citigroup and the other big banks at the center of the maelstrom. In coming weeks, both Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will inevitably discuss the mess when they appear before Congress....

Long before President Obama tapped him for Treasury, Geithner was one of those bureaucrats. He worked at the Clinton Treasury, the IMF and then as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank for five years — where he played a key role in the bailouts and the rest of the government’s response to the financial crisis.

The New York Fed has two main functions: It handles the transactions whereby the overall Federal Reserve controls the nation’s money supply, and it’s supposed to be the chief regulator of the big banks in its region.

When Obama named him for Treasury, the banking industry hailed Geithner as a godsend. Shares shot up on his announcement, and CEOs called it a wise choice for a key job at a time of crisis.

But the dirty little secret on Wall Street is that the New York Fed is a horrible regulator: It sees its chief job as keeping the banking system intact. Since it needs its member banks to buy US government debt and to control the money supply, the last thing it wants to do is shed light on the banks’ shady practices.

Which is why the Wall Street power brokers loved Geithner so much: On his New York Fed watch, he basically let them get away with the financial equivalent of murder, letting them take on the astronomical amounts of risk that ultimately blew up the system in 2008.

And then, when they needed a bailout, he was there with a plan that made sure their banks and jobs were safe.

That’s why I’m saying Geithner is such an important witness as the Libor investigation expands to include the possibility that banking-industry cops like himself looked the other way.

Photo Credit: Treasury Secretary designee Tim Geithner meets Democrat Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus on November 25, 2008, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Long Road to the San Bernardino Bankruptcy

At the Los Angeles Times, "Plenty of blame on long road to San Bernardino bankruptcy":

Cash was so tight in San Bernardino that potholes went unfilled, burned-out streetlights were left untouched and ball fields languished unmowed.

That was two years ago, when the City Council learned that San Bernardino's $22-million budget shortfall would jump to $38 million by 2012, sending the city into financial ruin.

City leaders slashed the workforce, extracted temporary concessions from labor unions and auctioned off public land. But they failed to heed warnings that those steps weren't nearly enough to address endemic problems in the Inland Empire city. Instead, calls for swift, dramatic action — such as raising taxes or outsourcing the police and fire protection — fell victim to a noxious political atmosphere that has paralyzed City Hall throughout the economic crisis, according to interviews with past and present city officials.

"I told the council two years in a row that, if this continues, we're going to be looking at bankruptcy. I got criticized for bringing up the word 'bankruptcy.' They called it scare tactics," said former City Manager Charles McNeely, who resigned unexpectedly in May. "The politics of that place are just impossible to deal with."

McNeely wasn't surprised when the council, facing a $45.8-million budget shortfall in the current fiscal year, voted Tuesday night to seek bankruptcy protection, the third California city to do so in the last month. San Bernardino is broke, without even enough money to pay employees through the summer.

The financial turmoil in San Bernardino, while in many ways a product of its own politics, illustrates the devastating effect the economic downturn has had on cities and the basic everyday services they provide, Palmdale City Manager David Childs said.

Also at the Christian Science Monitor, "San Bernardino bankruptcy: Exacerbated by criminal acts?"

In Florida With Miranda Kerr for Victoria's Secret Cotton Lingerie Summer 2012

On location:

Also, at London's Daily Mail, "Lifting the summer spirit: Miranda Kerr sizzles as she debuts latest Victoria's Secret Cotton Lingerie range in sensual video."

Gustav Klimt Google Doodle

I recognized the artwork immediately. The L.A. County Museum of Art held a Klimpt exhibit back in 2006. The museum hoped to make Klimpt a permanent exhibit but it was impossible, considering how much the works got at auction. I especially like the main portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. See: "Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait."

The doodle's discussed at the Guardian UK: "Gustav Klimt honoured with Google Doodle."

See also Deutsche Welle, "Klimt was sexy, but authentic."

IMAGE CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons.

BONUS: There's even a book on this story, The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

The 25 Most Influential Women in Washington

Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers makes the cut.

See: "25 Most Influential Women in Washington - PICTURES," and "NJ’s Most Influential Women."

And the full feature is here: "Women in Washington."

Letterman Spoils 'Dark Knight Rises'

Ouch!

Really! Don't click the video if you don't want the spoiler - it's awful!

At London's Daily Mail, "Did David Letterman spoil end of The Dark Knight Rises during interview with Anne Hathaway?"

Just When You Thought the Left Hit Rock-Bottom: Progressive Hate-Blogger Sets up 'Dead Andrew' Twitter Account, Mocks #BrettKimberlin Targets

Really.

Keeping an eye on the "festering human pustules" of the left.

See Twitchy: "Vile lefty sets up @DeadAndrew Twitter account, mocks Kimberlin target."

Flashback: "Will People STFU About How Brett Kimberlin Affair is 'Non-Partisan'? This is an Epic Partisan Battle Over How 'Free Speech' Will Be Defined."

I'm still waiting for all the examples that this was all about freedom of speech, a supposedly politically neutral issues that both left and right could agree on ... blah, blah, blah.

Snooze...

20 Arrested As Mostly Peaceful Occupy LA Losers Protest for the Right to Use Chalk on Sidewalks

I snagged the headline from Jammie Wearing Fools.

And see Weasel Zippers, "Occupy LA Protesters Throw Rocks and Bottles at Police Officers After Being Told They Could Not Draw On the Sidewalk With Chalk…"

Losers:

U.S. Olympic Uniforms: Made in China by Democratic Donor's Company

A report from Washington Free Beacon (via Memeorandum):

Lawmakers were livid to discover that the United States’ Olympic team uniforms were made in China. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) even suggested “they should take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them and start all over again.”

The company who designed the uniforms, Ralph Lauren, has received less scrutiny. Few outlets have noted that Ralph Lauren himself is a prominent contributor to President Obama and the Democratic Party.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lauren has given $7,300 to Obama since 2008, and more than $35,000 to the Democratic National Committee.

And from Glenn Reynolds, "OUTSOURCING: Lawmakers are angry that the US Olympic Team uniforms are made in China, but to me the real issue is that they’re terrible. They look like something from an SNL skit about America becoming a gay military dictatorship."

Diamond Jubilee!

Psychology Isn't Science

Just plug in "political science" for "psychology" at the piece, and Alex Berezow might as well be explaining some of the philosophical debates my field. See, "Why psychology isn't science":

The dismissive attitude scientists have toward psychologists isn't rooted in snobbery; it's rooted in intellectual frustration. It's rooted in the failure of psychologists to acknowledge that they don't have the same claim on secular truth that the hard sciences do. It's rooted in the tired exasperation that scientists feel when non-scientists try to pretend they are scientists.

That's right. Psychology isn't science.

Why can we definitively say that? Because psychology often does not meet the five basic requirements for a field to be considered scientifically rigorous: clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled experimental conditions, reproducibility and, finally, predictability and testability.

RELATED: Interestingly, this piece, "Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment," an example of experimental political science, provided the background to some really ugly  left-wing intimidation during the Wisconsin recall. See Althouse, "'We have seen the power of a single mailer disclosing the voting behavior of oneself and one’s neighbors'," and "'We're sending this mailing to you and your neighbors to publicize who does and does not vote'."

Royal International Air Tattoo 2012 in Slow Motion

Via Theo Spark:

Obama's Spectacular Failure

From Caroline Glick:

Two weeks ago, in an unofficial inauguration ceremony at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi took off his mask of moderation. Before a crowd of scores of thousands, Mursi pledged to work for the release from US federal prison of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman.

According to The New York Times' account of his speech, Mursi said, "I see signs [being held by members of the crowd] for Omar Abdel-Rahman and detainees' pictures. It is my duty and I will make all efforts to have them free, including Omar Abdel-Rahman."

Otherwise known as the blind sheikh, Abdel Rahman was the mastermind of the jihadist cell in New Jersey that perpetrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His cell also murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York in 1990. They plotted the assassination of then-president Hosni Mubarak. They intended to bomb New York landmarks including the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the UN headquarters.

Rahman was the leader of Gama'a al-Islamia - the Islamic Group, responsible, among other things for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. A renowned Sunni religious authority, Rahman wrote the fatwa, or Islamic ruling, permitting Sadat's murder in retribution for his signing the peace treaty with Israel. The Islamic group is listed by the State Department as a specially designated terrorist organization.

After his conviction in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abdel-Rahman issued another fatwa calling for jihad against the US. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Osama bin Laden cited Abdel-Rahman's fatwa as the religious justification for them.

By calling for Abdel-Rahman's release, Mursi has aligned himself and his government with the US's worst enemies. By calling for Abdel-Rahman's release during his unofficial inauguration ceremony, Mursi signaled that he cares more about winning the acclaim of the most violent, America-hating jihadists in the world than with cultivating good relations with America.

And in response to Mursi's supreme act of unfriendliness, US President Barack Obama invited Mursi to visit him at the White House.

Continue reading.

Bastille Day 2012

It's the national holiday of France, today, remembering the launch of the French Revolution.

And see Ann Coulter, "On Bastille Day, Remember We Are Not French":

Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, the date our written demand for independence from Britain based on “Nature’s God” was released to the world.

The French celebrate Bastille Day, a day when a thousand armed Parisians stormed the Bastille, savagely murdered a half-dozen guards, defaced their corpses and stuck their heads on pikes – all in order to seize arms and gunpowder for more such tumults. It would be as if this country had a national holiday to celebrate the L.A. riots.

Among the most famous quotes from the American Revolution is Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Among the most famous slogans of the French Revolution is that of the Jacobin Club, “Fraternity or death,” recast by Nicolas-Sebastien de Chamfort, a satirist of the revolution, as “Be my brother or I’ll kill you.”

Our revolutionary symbol is the Liberty Bell, first rung to herald the opening of the new Continental Congress in the wake of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and rung again to summon the citizens of Philadelphia to a public reading of the just-adopted Declaration of Independence.

The symbol of the French Revolution is the “National Razor” – the guillotine.

Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, all died of natural causes in old age, with the exception of Button Gwinnett of Georgia, who was shot in a duel unrelated to the revolution.

Of all our Founding Fathers, only one other died of unnatural causes: Alexander Hamilton. He died in a duel with Aaron Burr because as a Christian, Hamilton deemed it a greater sin to kill another man than to be killed. Before the duel, in writing, Hamilton vowed not to shoot Burr.

President after president of the new American republic died peacefully at home for 75 years, right up until Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the French Revolution all died violently, guillotine by guillotine.

Romney Says Obama 'Absolutely' Owes Him an Apology for Bain Attacks

My goodness!

From CBS News, " Romney interview with CBS News: Full transcript ." (Via Memeorandum.)

What Happened to the 'Uniter'?

Via Theo Spark:

BONUS: Glenn Reynolds has a mini-roundup on the left's Bain attacks:

It doesn’t seem to me that Obama’s doing especially well, but judging by the flailing and desperation we’re seeing from his campaign, it must seem to them that he’s doing worse than I think.