How Did Harry Reid Get So Rich?

From Glenn Reynolds, and he's not joking: "BEYOND THOSE PEDERASTY RUMORS: So, Seriously, How Did Harry Reid Get So Rich?"

But then again, "THOSE PEDERASTY RUMORS THAT HARRY REID’S OFFICE REFUSES TO DENY seem to be making an impression on Google."

PREVIOUSLY: "Harry Reid Pederasty Rumors."

Jessica Biel at Premiere of 'Total Recall' at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood

At Celebslam, "In beautiful people news ... Jessica Biel" (via Linkiest).

BONUS: More photos at the San Francisco Chronicle, "'Total Recall' premiere."

Michelle Malkin at Defending the American Dream Summit

Check the video at Gateway Pundit, "Michelle Malkin Brings Down the Roof at AFP Defending the American Dream Summit (Video)."

Plus, "BREAKING: Hating Breitbart & Gateway Pundit to Make Major Announcement at AFP Event Saturday."

It might have something to do with this, at The Hill, "Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity plan $24M swing-state ad buy." I like "Koch-backed." That adds a nice touch of conspiracy.

Ezra Levant and Kathy Shaidle Discuss Chick-fil-A

Always a good show:

Also at Kathy's blog: "Democrat admits, ‘Attack on parental rights’ is ‘the whole point’."

PREVIOUSLY: "Hollywood Chick-fil-A 'Kiss-In' Day: 'Jesus Is a C*nt'."

Hollywood Chick-fil-A 'Kiss-In' Day: 'Jesus Is a C*nt'

From Zombie, at PJ Media, "Chick-fil-A Kiss-In, Hollywood: The Pictures," and at Weasel Zippers, "Pics From The Hollywood Chick-Fil-A “Kiss-In” – “Jesus Is a C*nt” …":

These people are deranged, to state the blatantly obvious.

Hey, it's free speech!

Did Media Coverage Ignore Chick-fil-A 'National Appreciation Day'?

Actually, the New York Times buried its report on page A9, although the Los Angeles Times put theirs on the cover of Thursday's business section. Still, how many newspapers put Chick-fil-A on the front cover? AoSHQ wants to know, "Media Blacked Out Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day."

The jury's still out for me. If we see front-page shots like this tomorrow, then the game is rigged.

Added: From Twitchy, "Media swoons over pitiful Chick-fil-A ‘kiss in,’ sweeps appreciation day success under lapdog rug; Update: Media using misleading photos."

'Tastes Like Hate' — Classy Homosexuals Vandalize Chick-fil-A for National 'Kiss In' Day

From NBC Los Angeles:

Message painted on a Torrance #Chick-fil-A early Friday ahead of kiss-in protests 4.nbcla.com/RhqZUS twitter.com/NBCLA/status/2…
— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) August 3, 2012

More at Sooper Mexican, "Chick-Fil-A Spraypainted with Message “Tastes Like Hate”."

And at LAT, "Conservatives blast Chick-fil-A 'Tastes like hate' vandalism," and "Chick-fil-A 'kiss in' protest off to a slow start." (And at Memeorandum.)

And spend some time reading the comments at Joe. My. God. See: "Man Fired After Chick-Fil-A Protest," and "More Gasoline."

RELATED: At Ace of Spades HQ, "At a Hollywood Chick-fil-A, Police Called To Escort Disruptive Protestors From Premises - Did I Say Disruptive Protestors? I Meant Disruptive Media."

Yowsa! New Luisana Lopilato Ultimo Lingerie Pics!

This lady is smokin'!

At Egotastic, "Luisana Lopilato Ultimo Lingerie Pictures Continue to Stimulate the Libido (and Stoke Buble Jealousy)." (She's married to singer Michael Buble.)

More at London's Daily Mail, "Argentinian lingerie model Luisana Lopilato supports Team GB the best way she knows how ... by posing in patriotic pants."

PREVIOUSLY: "Luisana Lopilato Ultimo Lingerie Video."

The Jacobin: Chris Hayes of MSNBC

A couple of weeks back, TPM ran an interview with far-left cable host Chris Hayes, "MSNBC’s Chris Hayes: No Symmetry Between Fox News And MSNBC."

There's a whole lot there worthy of ridicule, and Tim Graham performs some of it at NewsBusters, "MSNBC's Chris Hayes Disses Most of Network's Hosts, Claims MSNBC Is So Much Fairer Than Fox." But what caught my attention was Hayes' response to the very first question:

Can you describe what you read, how you get the news?

I subscribe to a number of magazines. I’ve always been a magazine lover from the time I was 11 or 12. My dad subscribed to a bunch of magazines. If you asked me at 14 what my dream in adulthood would be, it would have been to someday have a David Levine caricature of me in the New York Review of Books. So I read the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, The Nation, Harper’s, The Baffler, Jacobin. As far as my daily media consumption habits, I’ve almost entirely abandoned RSS, which I think is interesting because at one point it was so central. But now I mostly just do it through Twitter...

Keep reading for the rest of Hayes' news regime, but notice the highlighted section. This guy is f-king far-left revolutionary in the mold of Maximilien Robespierre.

And I would't have thought much more of it, but a couple of days ago Connor Kilpatrick linked me in an essay at Naked Capitalism, and then Kipatrick's piece was cross-posted to Alternet.  It turns out that the dude's the managing editor at Jacobin magazine. When I clicked around at the essay, "The Libertarian Con: Favorite 'Rebel' Ideology of the Ruling Class," one of the links took me over to the Jacobin, a piece by Seth Ackerman, "Burn the Constitution." I read that, then clicked "main" and voila! I see the banner headline for the Jacobin's interview with the one and only Chris Hayes, "The Age of Illusion: An Interview with Chris Hayes."

I had to chuckle a bit, because the serendipity was too perfect. And what does Hayes have to say in his Jacobin interview? Lots actually, but this is interesting:

JB [Jake Blumgart]: With the massive power differentials you describe, how can we hope to enact real reform? In the case of, say, abolition or civil rights there were other powerful groups for the oppressed to ally with. Or a strong labor movement, or mass based political party that wasn’t dependent on wealthy. That seems harder to imagine here. I don’t really see a power base that can push back.

CH [Chris Hayes]: The argument I make in the book, and it’s a tentative argument, but I do think there is a potential for a radicalized upper-middle class. We already see that, it’s just a question of how that gets channeled. Everything about the Netroots, the anti-war, anti-Bush sentiment ... One of the interesting things about the way our certain kind of fractal inequality has manifested, the people who see it the most, have the closest proximity to it, say, the top 2 to the top 20 percent: ‘I went to law school with Joe and I have some job at a firm and I’m doing alright, but he went into a hedge fund and is making $10 million.’

That is a lot of power, resources, cultural capital, network, class, monetary power. The working class has already been ground into dust in terms of political power, as I cite in the book the Martin Gilens and Larry Bartels studies showing [the preferences of voters in the top one-third of income distribution are represented in the votes of senators to the exclusion of everyone else]. It’s not uncommon for revolutions to stem from a radicalized group just outside the circle of power. That’s what the French Revolution was all about, that’s what the American Revolution was. The question is will all those groups, because of the nature of partisan polarization and ideological polarization, just going to fight each other? Or is there capacity to organize?

That's a Marxian analysis in essence, but reading much of Hayes' interview, he doesn't appear a doctrinaire Marxist. He says, for example, that he rejects the necessity of Marx's crisis of capitalism, which requires the complete breakdown of the market and a concomitant "immiseration of the proletariat" that would require unemployment at levels to rival the Great Depression. Hayes rejects that scenario:

Its [the system's] potential for crisis is clear to everyone but the actual depth and acuteness of the current crisis [is felt by] people who are poor or unemployed. It’s horrible and miserable and acute. But 8 percent unemployment is not 20 percent unemployment. There is this weird, frustrated sense of unhappiness with the status quo, and yet, a sort of return normalcy. I want us to make the changes we need to make, and redistribute power in the way we need to, but I don’t wish for crisis.

Hayes then rejects an endogenous crisis in favor of outside ("exogenous") shocks:

So what you really need to do is create disruption, because there is either going to be exogenous disruption, which will mean another shock, another crisis, or you create the disruption through movements, through street protests, through all sorts of creative ways to say no, this is not tenable.

And what would be the vehicle for that? The "Occupy mobilization," to quote Hayes. The problem with that, then, is how Hayes --- who considers himself one of the comfortable elite, who is no doubt interested in retaining that privilege --- ends up equivocating and obfuscating his fundamentally radical revolutionary agenda. The Occupy movement is in fact "communism reborn." Its roots are in the anarco-syndicalism of the campus fee-hike protests and in the ACORN-style "boring-from-within" mobilizations designed to bring about systemic crisis and demands for all-powerful government and the destruction of capital. Many sympathizers either ignore the true goals of Occupy or are ignorant of them. But its objectives are ultimately the revolutionary overthrow of the oppressor class, the capitalist overlords of racism and imperialism.

That's where Chris Hayes is coming from. And remember, this is the guy who recently generated a firestorm of outrage with his comments about the American military, "MSNBC's Chris Hayes 'Uncomfortable' Honoring Fallen U.S. Troops, Spews About 'Rhetorically Proximate' Justifications for More War."

This is all much needed context for understanding the programming available every night on MSNBC. Amazingly, Hayes claims that his network is "objective" and "mainstream," in contrast to Fox News, which he argues is ideologically conservative, essentially Republican in its partisan agenda. And that tells you something: Progressives like Hayes live in a rarefied intellectual milieu in which all other media phenomena are biased or extreme, outside of the appropriate centrist meme. That's an illusion, of course, and it's fueled by a foundation of the hard-left intellectualism that Hayes cites as teeth-cutting ideological fodder --- the ideological Gatorade of the academy. And his agenda is obviously marketable to large numbers of people who question the historic model of mobility in America, and the constitutional priority of limited government that favors the individual. Yet Hayes is too smart to come out hitting like a revolutionary firebrand and vanguard of the proletariat. But that doesn't mean he's not actualizing that role in his perch at the far-left network MSNBC.

Gabby Douglas Personifies the American Dream

From Bill Reiter, at Fox Sports, "DOUGLAS IS SYMBOL FOR AMERICAN DREAM":

“I just wanted to seize the moment,” the 16-year-old said. “It hasn’t sunk in yet. The team final hasn’t sunk yet. It will though. It will.”

It will for her, and it will for all of us, too. It is sinking even now, that joy that we felt when Douglas became the first American to win both a team gold medal and the individual all-around gold medal morphing into the meaning behind those feelings. This was special, what happened in London, something transcendent to fight back against the pessimism rampant in today’s headlines and worries.

US gymnast Gabby Douglas will win your heart in London. Douglas — bouncing up and down in her glowing shoes, smiling, throwing out jokes and being so innocent, so much the happy kid she was — had become a walking, visceral, inspiring projection of the American Dream. All that’s great about our country was suddenly reflected in a golden hue from Gabby Douglas right back at us.

And a video report at ABC News, "Gabby Douglas Wins Gymnastics Gold Medal."

Kayla Harrison Makes U.S. Judo History With Gold Medal Win in London

The Los Angeles Times reports, "Kayla Harrison makes U.S. judo history with win."

At the clip, Speaker Boehner congratulates Ms. Harrison, who represents Ohio at the Olympics. He doesn't mention her abuse ( by her coach), but I watched the interview on NBC, and she was openly discussing it. That must be extremely difficult, but she said her success in judo means more than anything and she was glad to bring attention to the issue to help others. The New York Times has that angle, naturally, "Kayla Harrison Overcame Horror to Win Judo Gold":

The questions she fielded at the end of her match, about what she was thinking on the podium, about what the medal means to her, about how this compares to her own struggles, could be wince-inducing in their coy inquiries into such a painful topic.

But she answered them all with the same composure she had just used against her opponents on the mat.

“It’s no secret,” she began, after a long pause, when a reporter asked her to name the worst moment she had to face in her career, “that I was sexually abused by my former coach. And that was definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever had to overcome.”

Harrison has told her story before, first to USA Today only days after the indictment of Jerry Sandusky came down and the front pages were full of news about Penn State, sexual abuse and coaches who exploit their authority.

She said she felt it necessary to speak out so that others in her position could take heart.

She told it to newspapers and magazines, about how her coach had insinuated himself into the family, how sexual contact led to sexual intercourse over a period of years, on trips to Venezuela, Russia and Estonia, until she was 16. She told about finally revealing this to a friend (a firefighter who would become her fiancé) and then to her mother, who smashed out the coach’s car windows with a baseball bat. (The former coach, Daniel Doyle, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and banned from the sport.)

And she told about how she was a mess — desperate, unhappy and ready to give up on everything — when within weeks her mother, Jeannie Yazell, took her from Ohio to study judo with Jimmy Pedro and his father, Jim Pedro Sr., at Pedro’s Judo Center in Wakefield, Mass.

“We just felt like she just had to get back to what she knew how to do,” Yazell said. “She could have control over what went on on the mat.”

The French Railroad and the Transportation of the Jews to the Nazi Death Camps

From Michael Curtis, at the Gatestone Institute, "The French Railroad and the Holocaust: Is a Public Company Private?":

Did the SNCF [the French national railroad] have any choice other than to transport the 76,000 Jews to death camps? By an agreement of June 30, 1940, Germany approved the principle of French operation of the French railroads under German supervision. Like other French agencies, the SNCF willingly undertook the services required by the Nazis. Although it did in reality have a margin for manoeuvre and to undercut orders, it ran the transport trains without any secrecy on regular schedules, in full knowledge of the ultimate fate of the Jewish passengers. It never tried to delay a train or to prompt sabotage. Except in a few cases, orders were carried out without protest or resistance. The railcars were disinfected after each deportation and prepared for the next shipment. Senior rail officials accompanied the trains to the French border.

Continue reading.

Sir John Keegan, 1934-2012

A fascinating obituary, at the Telegraph UK, "Sir John Keegan" (via Memeorandum).

I recall just skimming some of his books during graduate school. He was more of a generalist, writing large sweeping histories. Not exactly what I needed to write my thesis, and then later I moved on from that historiography.

Kathleen McKinley, at KRIV-FOX Houston, Comments on Chick-fil-A Buycott

Kathleen blogs at the Houston Chronicle.

She comments on Chick-fil-A at the clip.

The homosexual dude is Noel Freeman, President of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus. He goes off on all the issues that bug the gays about Chick-fil-A, especially the concern's support for conservative causes. Freeman is interviewed at Wednesday's piece at the Chronicle, "Crowds flock to Chick-fil-A to back anti-gay marriage view."

Today: 'National Same-Sex Kiss Day at Chick Fil A'

Just be nice, progs.

At the Christian Post, "Mike Huckabee Says 'More Power' to Gay Activists Planning Chick-fil-A 'Kiss-In'."

RELATED: At iOWNTHEWORLD, "Cardinal George Questions the Chicago Left Machine When They Claim That They Set Chicago Values."

Packed Double-Decker Megabus Slams Into Illinois Interstate Bridge

At Instapundit, "THE HORROR OF MASS TRANSIT."

Raw video is here.

Lesbian Becomes Mother to Baby Girl After Finding Perfect Match on Her Own Sperm Donor Website

It's an interesting story, at London's Daily Mail, "San Diego lesbian gives birth to baby girl after finding perfect match on the free sperm donor site she founded."

RELATED: "The Kids Are Not Alright."

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Apologizes to Sheldon Adelson

They're just awful people, Democrats. They're awful. Anyone with money who supports Republicans shall be destroyed, damn the facts.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Democratic committee apologizes to GOP donor Sheldon Adelson":

Apparently hoping to stave off a lawsuit, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued a sweeping apology Thursday to billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson -- perhaps the last man to whom Democrats want to utter the words, "We're sorry."

The DCCC said it was retracting statements "that attacked Sheldon Adelson, a supporter of the opposing party." Those statements accused Adelson of personally approving of prostitution at his company's casinos in Macau, China, according to his lawyers and published reports.

The DCCC's retraction called those allegations "unsubstantiated." Using remarkably contrite language, it added: "This was wrong. The statements were untrue and unfair and we retract them. The DCCC extends its sincere apology to Mr. Adelson and his family for any injury we have caused."

The Killing of Michael Nida

At Reason, "Cops with Machine Guns: The Killing of Michael Nida."

Nida had a fear of law enforcement and ran from police. He was shot when he turned toward officers, who thought he was armed. That much is not at issue. It's why are local police armed with sub-machine guns on routine police calls? The last third of the clip is especially good. The recent Anaheim "officer-involved" shootings were pretty questionable, and the local community is right to protest the brutality. Unfortunately, the city reported that most of the anarchists destroying property were from out of town. So then it turns into a lame social justice mobilization, which then causes alienation and support for the police to put down the thugs. Idiots.

That said, I doubt drug decriminalization is going to bring an end to the drug wars, which is big pet issue for the libertarians.

New Blake Lively Advertisement for Gucci

She's glamorous.

Via London's Daily Mail, "Blake Lively is a golden girl as she shows off her slender figure in new perfume advert."