Wow. Teenager Does Wicked Michael Jackson 'Billie Jean' Dance Choreography

Via the Right Scoop.

'My Twisted World': Excerpts from Elliot Rodger's 140-Page Murder Manifesto

Nice, especially if you'd rather not wade through that 140 pages, at the Blaze, "Six Absolutely Shocking Details from Suspected Santa Barbara Shooter’s 141-Page Manifesto."



And read it at the link, "Three Bodies Pulled from Elliot Rodger's Apartment in #IslaVista."

Richard Martinez, Father of #UCSB Student Murdered in #IslaVista Rampage, Blames #NRA for Son's Death

So sorry for this man's loss --- it's really heartbreaking --- but the NRA's not to blame.

At Twitchy, "‘Craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA’ blamed for Santa Barbara mass shooting."



More at LAT, "Isla Vista shooting suspect targeted sorority, neighbors, strangers."

Much like James Holmes at Aurora, we'll see lots of medical information trickle out over the next few days and weeks on the suspect's psychiatric state. This guy was sick, bad, and should probably have been hospitalized. I'm watching CNN along with my wife, and she mentioned that one of the analysts there suggested that Rodger's parents might have been tired of dealing with their sick child and shipped him out of town to be out of their hair. I certainly wouldn't doubt it. Things look especially bad in that the family knew about the videos and the kid wasn't placed under the care of a psychiatrist. (He did have some treatment, but it clearly wasn't sufficient to prevent this kind of evil rampage.)

ADDED: From Weasel Zippers, "Father of Victim In Santa Barbara Killings Blames ‘Craven Irresponsible Politicians’ and “the NRA” for His Son’s Death":

Sigh, this father is overcome by grief, which media immediately exploit. Mr. Martinez, Elliot Rodger killed your son because he wanted to kill people. He is the responsible one for your son’s death.

Three Bodies Pulled from Elliot Rodger's Apartment in #IslaVista

Oh man, this is getting to be a major, major mass murder investigation.

At KEYT Santa Barbara, "Alleged Gunman's Apartment Now a Crime Scene: Three Bodies Pulled From The Capri Complex In Isla Vista":

#UPDATE: We've received a troubling manifesto from suspected shooter Elliot Rodger. Titled "My Twisted World" 140 pgs pic.twitter.com/Z0QxWkMYEA
— Joe Buttitta (@KEYTNC3Joe) May 24, 2014

The Santa Barbara County Coroner's team has established a crime scene at the apartment complex where suspected shooter Elliot Rodger claimed he lived, prior to Friday's mass murders in Isla Vista.

NewsChannel 3 witnessed forensics experts removing three bodies from the Capri apartment complex on the 6500 block of Seville Road Saturday afternoon.

There is no confirmation from authorities whether this latest discovery increases the number of people killed, which stands at seven, including the gunman.   The timing is significant based on a more than one hundred page manifesto Rodger allegedly published hours before the killings.

"On the day before the Day of Retribution, I will start the First Phase of my vengeance: Silently killing as many people as I can around Isla Vista by luring them into my apartment through some form of trickery."

I haven't read it yet, but here's the manifesto, "My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger."

ADDED: Read it here as well, at London's Daily Mail, "BREAKING NEWS: Three bodies removed from apartment of gunman in California shooting rampage as it's revealed the 22-year-old wrote about his plans to lure victims into his home in 140-page manifesto."

Elliot Rodger Stepmom Soumaya Akaaboune Appeared in Antiwar 'Green Zone' Opposite Far-Left Matt Damon

She also appeared in "Playing for Keeps" and "Lovelace." Typical leftist filmography.

Here's NewsBusters, "CBS's Smith Touts Anti-War Film 'Green Zone' as 'Bourne Meets Hurt Locker'."

Also at Fox News, "Critics Decry Matt Damon Movie 'The Green Zone,' Calling It 'Anti-American'," and Hot Air, "Surprise: Matt Damon anti-war movie an atomic bomb at the box office":

I admit that I haven’t seen it — and neither has anyone else, apparently — but the reviews from righty film critics were simply gruesome, with Kyle Smith moved by its smearmongering to call it “one of the most egregiously anti-American movies ever released by a major studio.”

Elliot Rodger was marinated in über Hollywood leftism. See London's Daily Mail, "'He was a very disturbed boy': British grandmother of Santa Barbara mass killer on boy who grew up with Hollywood royalty but posted chilling blogs vowing 'revenge' against the women who rejected him."

Disgusting leftists are desperately trying to slough off this evil prog on the right. It ain't working.

PREVIOUSLY: "Spoiled Hollywood Leftist Elliot Rodger Mass Murder in Isla Vista at #UCSB."

Also, "Elliot Rodger Facebook Photos Show Life of Hollywood Luxury"; "The So-Called 'Men's Rights Movement' is a Far-Left Progressive Project"; and "No More Mister Nice Blargh! — Prepping for 'Right Wing Reaction' to Leftist Elliot Rodger!"

No More Mister Nice Blargh! — Prepping for 'Right Wing Reaction' to Leftist Elliot Rodger!

No More Mister's record on this front isn't so hot, lol.

But full steam ahead in any case. Here's his post desperately attempting to deflect attention away from Elliot Rodger's sick leftist misogyny and hatred, "CALIFORNIA SPREE KILLINGS -- I'M BRACING MYSELF FOR THE RIGHT-WING REACTION."

So far all the idiot leftists can muster is that Rodger was some kind of "men's rights" activist, which is stupid, not to mention dishonest. I blogged it here, "The So-Called 'Men's Rights Movement' is a Far-Left Progressive Project."

And here's Kash Hill with a Twitter stream debunking the leftist idiocy and denialism:

Rich, privileged, narcissistic 22-year-old murders at least 7 people because despite being the "perfect guy," women wouldn't sleep with him.
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) May 24, 2014

So sick, so disturbing, and so clear from the trail left behind on Facebook, YouTube, and a Bodybuilding forum (where users challenged him).
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) May 24, 2014

One of the bodybuilding forum users said last week that he had "the mannerisms of patrick bateman down to a T." http://t.co/ZSNZo3LRJa
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) May 24, 2014

Bodybuilders tried to talk sense into disturbed person but his view of what world owed him was set in crazy concrete. http://t.co/x5CQjsCkl8
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) May 24, 2014

His Facebook page is full of selfies, as well as photos of him at Hunger Games premiere, flying first class & at Katy Perry private concert.
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) May 24, 2014

His Facebook page is full of selfies, as well as photos of him at Hunger Games premiere, flying first class & at Katy Perry private concert.
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) May 24, 2014

Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger said in May 18 forum post that parents had seen YouTube videos - pic.twitter.com/AHpMIke9MP
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) May 24, 2014

I don't think pick-up artists/men's rights movement is what inspired Santa Barbara shooter to murder 7 people.
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) May 24, 2014

Guy was more into Pokemon videos than PUA ones. He was mentally disturbed, lonely, and felt women should want him because he drove a BMW.
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) May 24, 2014

SB shooter was being treated by "multiple therapists." Parents say they reported disturbing YouTube videos to police. http://t.co/eIn8953zGj
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) May 24, 2014

A sick leftist afflicted by pathological entitlement. There's no progressive spin to cover for the guy's Hollywood privilege and far-left bona fides. But that won't stop dumbasses like No More Mister from trying.

The So-Called 'Men's Rights Movement' is a Far-Left Progressive Project

As I noted earlier, "The depraved Obama-protection media will be spinning this Elliot Rodger as some kinda of NRA-survivalist tea party conserva-libertarian, or something."

Well, that "or something" is the so-called "men's rights movement," which murderous leftists are attempting to spin as a bastion of "reactionary" conservatism.

Fail.

In fact, this so-called "men's rights movement" is bathed in progressive, me-culture leftism in which the Hollywood luxury boy Elliot Rodger glommed onto like a baby to the teat.

See Amanda Marcotte, at Raw Story, "Why Progressive “Men’s Movements” Are Bound to Fail."

Linked there is the leftist Good Men Project, which boasts bona fide progressive credentials, and includes on the frontpage a photograph of Democrat Party propagandist Shepard Fairey:



Some idiot feminists have sought to portray the "men's right's movement" as conservative, for example, Anne Theriault, at PuffHo, "Why the Men's Rights Movement Is Garbage":

MRAs believe that feminists are to blame for basically everything that's wrong with their lives. The Men's Rights Movement is a reactionary movement created specifically to counter feminism, and most (if not all) of their time and resources go towards silencing and marginalizing women.

Actually, it's a misogyny movement of sick privileged men who can't stand strong women, a textbook trait of far-left progressivism. Leftists want their women dependent on government handouts (Sandra Fluke) and protected by a legal regime of "equal pay" and affirmative action. Indeed, one of the most prominent men's right's groups, "A Voice for Men," is characterized as a "humanist" organization critical of traditional conservatism and founded by "human rights activist" Paul Elam. The group's motto is " Humanist Counter-Theory in the Age of Misandry."

Men attached to this movement are insecure pansy-assed losers. Here's a post at Pete Billing's blog that's all about humanism and moving past stultifying socially constructed gender roles, "Do We Need a Men’s Movement?"

Further, another prominent "men's rights" group, the National Coalition For Men (NCFM), positions the movement in nurturing, rights-talk foundationalism:

We have heard in some detail from the women’s movement how such sex-stereotyping has limited the potential of women. More recently, men have become increasingly aware that they too are assigned limiting roles which they are expected to fulfill regardless of their individual abilities, interests, physical/emotional constitutions or needs. Men have few or no effective choices in many critical areas of life. They face injustices under the law. And typically they have been handicapped by socially defined “shoulds” in expressing themselves in other than stereotypical ways.

Society has taught us, for example, that a “real” man is strong… courageous… knowledgeable… disciplined… level headed… competitive… successful… in control …unemotional… heterosexual… sexually aggressive… sexually competent… and silent-suffering. A man is also dependent on women for satisfying relationships, for child rearing and for routine home and health maintenance like housekeeping and cooking. All of this and more, society has taught us, constitutes a man’s role privilege or burden as the case may be.

Many men, however, are no longer comfortable with the traditional male role. Emotionally adrift, they are searching for a new identity; yet they find few viable alternatives to traditional masculine behavior (and even these few are narrow and limiting).

That program is distinctly opposed to traditional conservatism, which sees a prudent and socially regenerative function of traditional gender roles in society (think Edmund Burke).

Frankly, Elliot Rodger was a freak loser and Hollywood entitlement baby who failed to grow up to be a responsible adult. Here's an interesting discussion at We Hunted the Mammoth, "Video allegedly from mass killer in Santa Barbara: “If I can’t have you, girls, I’ll destroy you.” [TRIGGER WARNING]":

As the person who sent this video to me this morning noted, it sounds almost like a parody of the misogynistic beliefs and rhetoric that I write about on this blog. His language and his melodramatic tone both echo the writings of many of those young men who consider themselves “incels.” His anger is the same anger we see from the rejected men who lash out with insults and threats on OkCupid when their often crude advances are turned down. He reminds me of every so-called “nice guy” who is inwardly seething with resentment born of sexual entitlement denied. He even, at one point, calls himself a “gentleman.” He also calls himself an “alpha.”

It is clear that his  resentment at women was stoked by what I call the “new misogyny” and by steeping himself in at least one online community that reaffirmed his exaggerated, unwarranted sense of victimhood. So far we have evidence that he was a commenter at PUAhate, a site ostensibly designed to critique PUAs but which has degenerated into a haven for misogynistic “incels” and angry trolls. I suspect we will find that he was also a reader of, or  a commenter at, some of the other sites I critique on this blog.

For those of you who cannot make it through the video — I found it very hard to watch — here is a transcript of what he said.

Well, it was hard to watch, that's for sure. Rodger's mimicking "evil laughter" is literally unbelievable, impossibly gauche, but at the same time preternatural, considering the scale of genuine evil this man-child Hollywood leftist rained down.

Elliot Rodger Facebook Photos Show Life of Hollywood Luxury

Following up on my earlier report, "Spoiled Hollywood Leftist Elliot Rodger Mass Murder in Isla Vista at #UCSB."

And now at the Blaze, "13 Facebook Pictures Reveal the Luxurious Life of Suspected UCSB Campus Killer":

He attended a “Katy Perry private concert.”

Must be rough.

The murderer was living in the lap of leftist luxury.

His Facebook page is still up, with this entitlement profile photo:



More at Memeorandum.

And at the Santa Barbara Independent, "Seven Dead, Seven Injured in Isla Vista ‘Mass Murder’ Shooting."

Spoiled Hollywood Leftist Elliot Rodger Mass Murder in Isla Vista at #UCSB

Virtually to the one, psycho mass shooters have been flaming progressive leftists.

And now we have this born-in-privilege, BMW-driving Hollywood leftist Elliot Rodger, who went on a rampage late last night at UCSB.

Astute Bloggers has it, "UCSB SHOOTER, ELLIOT RODGERS: PSYCHO SPEWING POSTMODERNIST CRAP."

More at Bearing Arms, "A MASS MURDERER MADE IN HOLLYWOOD: Spoiled, Rejected Son of Hunger Games Assistant Director Murders Six In BMW Drive-By Shooting Before Committing Suicide":

Curiously, American media outlets like the Chicago Tribune, NPR, CNN, and NBC LA have refused to name the suspect, even though he posted his rant justifying the mass murder before it took place on social media video sites YouTube and Liveleak.

This is incredibly bizarre behavior by a mainstream media that is very quick to speculate on the identity of suspects in high-profile crimes with even the flimsiest of evidence (for example, slandering Olympic Park hero Richard Jewell as the suspect in Eric Robert Rudolph’s 1996 Summer Olympics bombing, and claiming that the Sandy Hook shooting was carried out by Adam Lanza’s brother). Here, they seem to have circled the proverbial wagons around this son of Hollywood royalty in a protective measure.

Likewise, the Facebook pages and Twitter feeds of Michael Bloomberg-funded citizen control cult Moms Demand Action/Everytown for Gun Safety and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) remain mute on the killings, when such crimes are generally exploited immediately for public relations purposes by these groups.

Why?

I hate being cynical, but it appears that the gun control groups and the mainstream media are more interested in protecting the image of their progressive Hollywood allies than they are telling the story of what happened last night.

You think?

You can watch his deranged leftist entitlement manifesto at the Blaze, "Extreme Caution: This Frightening YouTube Video May Be the Manifesto of Santa Barbara Mass Slayer."

Don't know if Rodger was a Democrat, but he was a classic spoiled-brat postmodern leftist.

Here's the MSM report at LAT, "7 dead in drive-by shootings near UC Santa Barbara."

The depraved Obama-protection media will be spinning this Elliot Rodger as some kinda of NRA-survivalist tea party conserva-libertarian, or something.

Sorry, but that ain't gonna fly. This guy had the Hollywood leftist silver spoon in his mouth since diapers. Cradled in privilege, he resorted to the only thing leftists know when they don't get what they want: murderous eliminationist violence.

PREVIOUSLY: Add Elliot Rodger to the list, ""Well, so another Leftist wacko snapped, huh? Oooops, here's some 'inconvenient truth' for you Leftist trolls..."

ADDED: From the Other McCain, "Hollywood Director’s Son Kills Six in Shooting Rampage Against ‘Sluts’":

At the root of the “Nice Guy” rationalization is a narcissistic blindness to his own shortcomings and a sense of entitlement to female companionship. He cannot admit (especially to himself) that his own resentments are actually motivated by envy, nor that his rage against women is a type of “sour grapes” rationalization: Frustrated desire expressed as rejection of those who reject him.

There isn’t really a political aspect to this kind of maladjustment although, as with every mass shooting, the Left is trying to play “pin the tail on the right wing,” and conservatives are pushing back..

Indeed, most of the time there's little that's really political about these mass shootings, and even when a political official is involved (Gabby Giffords) the mainstream press botches the story ghoulishly, pinning blame on fictional Republican "target maps" or what not. But because there are huge political implications, conservatives can't sit by idly and let the left's lies take over the popular imagination. These people are not just depraved. They're evil.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq Releases Shocking GoPro-Quality Propaganda Video

At CNN, "Brutal terrorist group showcases their violence in glossy new video":

A shocking and frightening new video produced and released by a terrorist group formerly associated with al Qaeda is showcasing horrific killing sprees in Iraq deliberately recorded on camera.

"The Clanging of the Swords” is a graphic and disturbing film made by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Running over an hour, it displays bombings, executions, kidnappings, beheadings and more.  Analysts say the video proves ISIS - a group so extreme that al Qaeda has disowned it - is becoming an even deadlier threat, and they wonder who is providing it with weapons, and the equipment needed to produce the videos.

"This is funded," says Nadia Oweidat, a Middle East Analyst. "This is geopolitics. There is money behind it. It's not just idiots; these idiots have somebody controlling them and providing them with equipment that is very expensive. You can't just get it in a cave."

A far cry from the grainy out-of-focus terrorism videos that have proliferated in the past decade, this one has glossy camerawork and high-level production techniques – as if these terrorists had taken cues from Hollywood movies like "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty" in order to maximize the terror for viewers.

The full video is here, "This is what happens when you give al-Qaeda a bunch of GoPro cameras and have a professional video editor as a member of your terror cell."

And this isn't the "former" terrorist group al Qaeda. This is al Qaeda. See CFR, "Al-Qaeda in Iraq (a.k.a. Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria)."

Mass Islamic Immigration Has Turned #Sweden Into the Rape Capital of Europe

Well, here's more on the Utopian Scandinavian welfare states, this time Sweden.

From Pat Condell:



Remember, in Sweden, "Freedom Equals Racism." Where have I heard that before?

Oh, and don't forget this:

Leftism is a disease. Racist, imperialist, and fundamentally evil. As much as I admire the Scandinavian countries, stories like this remind us always --- always --- that nothing impedes human improvement like the statist abomination of far-left leftist regressivism.

Ta-Nehisi Coates' Insidious, Invidious 'Case for Reparations'

I have not read the article at the Atlantic, "The Case for Reparations."

According to William Jacobson, it's a 15,000 word essay, and frankly wading through it doesn't seem like an enjoyable prospect. Perhaps I'll read it at the newsstand.

Meanwhile, I have watched this video, an interview with Bill Moyers:



What strikes me about Coates is his infantile psychology. He clearly has no compelling answer to the question of black progress in America. If the United States is so implacably racist, if we are doomed (damned) to perpetual white supremacy, how is it possible that Barack Obama could have become president of the United States? Or, how is it possible that Oprah Winfrey could have become perhaps the most powerful woman in the television industry at one time? How is it possible that over the past 50 years we've had a consistent and compelling story of the expansion of a large and prosperous black middle class? How is it possible that the entertainment industry today -- from music to films -- is filled with prominent and influential black leaders?

Are we where we need to be? Definitely not. But to constantly harp on this point that America is not discussing race at a "deep" level is nothing but a despicable lie. And it's a lie that's perpetuated by America-hating hypocrites like Bill Moyers. If anyone should appreciate and understand our progress on race relations it's Bill Moyers. He was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary. Johnson was the civil rights president. He took the case to the nation that "we will overcome." He made the case to the nation that we can't "take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."

They're shameless, inveterate liars.

Ta-Nehisi Coates' whole existence is a lie. He's a walking ball of contradictions and deceit. A contributing writer at the Atlantic Monthly, he's a regular columnist at the New York Times who turned down a permanent job at that newspaper. And he also just completed a "dazzling two years" as the MLK Visiting Scholar in Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Really? I mean really?!! America is so racist, America is so supremacist, that there must have been some kind of mistake made somewhere to give this black man all the benchmarks of a highly successful if not privileged life. I mean blow me down! How is that possible? Does Ta-Nehisi need even more "reparations" to elevate him to an even higher level of success and prestige in American life? The self-conscious psychological denial here is practically violent. It's obtrusive and obstreperous. It's assaulting my sense of decency and propriety. Seriously. I mean who will now have to pay this "case for reparations" proposed by this walking shell of far-left hypocrisy? This hulk of hatred who looks at any white person as a ghost of the Klan?

He's evil. And Bill Moyers is evil. They're evil not just for their lies --- epic, hateful historical lies --- they're evil for the statist, collectivist, redistributionist order that they're working diabolically to impose over our nation's model of equality of opportunity. No level of civil rights progress is enough, because there's no level of social and economic equality that's good enough for the radical left. The fact is freedom has to be abolished in the name of equality. That's the endgame. For when everyone is equal --- when you abolish this ever present system of white supremacy --- no one will be free. Everyone will be crushed under the jackboot of leftist egalitarianism.

That's why I'm not interested in wading through this long, long piece at the Atlantic. It's not like I've haven't heard it before. All we ever hear about these days is "racism" and "diversity" and "white privilege" and "ethnic appropriation" and ... well the list goes on. The American dream is alive and well for any American to seek it and enjoy its blessings. There remains poverty not because of intractable racism but because the left has an investment in perpetuating an underclass. The Democrat Party has an investment in racial failure, for when racism recedes from the spotlight, the party's reason d'etre evaporates. Unfortunately, the left has been marching through the institutions of power and everyday Americans are being blindsided by a Gramscian Marxian collectivist order designed to break American exceptionalism and replace it with an endless regime of racist victimology. And the real racists are those now running these institutions. Look at any public school system in America today, and when you see diversity initiatives what lies beneath is totalitarianism.

The "case for reparations" is just recycled race-baiting far-left hatred and recrimination. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a mountebank and a huckster. Any decent conservative with half a brain would eat him alive. His only response would to scream racism in the desperate hope of preserving his insidious, invidious reparations scam.

'Dr. Monica Wehby presents a very big problem for #Democrats...'

From Dan Calabrese, at Best of Cain, "Democrats' war on women: The character assassination of Dr. Monica Wehby."

Will Ferrell vs. Chad Smith Drum-Off

Via Louise Mensch:

“Do you play for the Luke Warm Chili Peppers?” Will Ferrell v. Chad Smith in awesome drum-off: http://t.co/o06aZlz93m pic.twitter.com/W0I9OEQH3e

— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) May 23, 2014

So this happened... http://t.co/7HVJcFe7jn pic.twitter.com/bKWr5iEOze

— Kerrang! Magazine (@KerrangMagazine) May 23, 2014

Click through at Mashable for the video.

The 'Little Pink Pill' for Female Sexual Dysfunction

This is interesting, at ABC News, "'Little Pink Pill' for Women Sparks Big Sexism Controversy."

Surge by UKIP Throws British Labour Into Crisis

At Telegraph UK, "Surge by Ukip throws Labour into crisis for general election":

Ed Miliband's hopes of winning 2015 general election severely undermined by Nigel Farage's success in the local elections.

Ed Miliband's hopes of winning next year’s general election were seriously undermined by the UK Independence Party’s surge in the local and European elections on Friday.

Nigel Farage proclaimed that Ukip had become a “serious player” in British politics after it managed to win council seats in traditional Labour strongholds – and areas which Mr Miliband must secure if he is to become prime minister.

Previously, Ukip’s major advances had largely been at the expense of the Conservatives, who also continued to suffer in the latest polls.

The development saw Labour MPs openly attacking their leader with members of the shadow cabinet at odds over how to counter the emerging Ukip threat.

More at the Independent UK, "Local elections 2014: Ukip makes major gains as Labour takes Tory flagship Hammersmith and Fulham."

RELATED: At Cambrian Dissenters, "EU Election Earthquake - Tribal Voters Need Help to Cross the Rubicon," and the Mellow Jihadi, "The socialist dragon that must be slain!"

Bar Refaeli Wicked Hot for Spain's Elle Magazine

At Egotastic!, "Bar Refaeli Covered Topless and Just Wicked Wicked Hot in Elle Spain."

Vincent Harding Dies: Advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., Wrote Anti-American Speech Attacking the Vietnam War

At the Los Angeles Times, "Vincent Harding dies at 82; historian wrote controversial King speech":

Exactly a year before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, he delivered a speech that alienated ordinarily sympathetic politicians, liberal commentators and even some of his fellow leaders in the civil rights movement.

In a blistering address at Riverside Church in New York City, King denounced the Vietnam War, likened U.S. bombings to Nazi atrocities, and called for unilateral withdrawal. The problems eroding America, he said, were "the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism," and as a Christian, he had to "speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation."

King advisor Vincent G. Harding, a historian and lay minister who wrote what is said to be the Nobel Peace Prize laureate's most controversial address, died Monday in a Philadelphia hospital from the effects of a heart aneurysm, according to the University of Denver's Iliff School of Theology, where Harding taught for many years. He was 82.

Years after King's April 4, 1967, speech, Harding recalled its explosive reverberations. Other black leaders, he said, were concerned about offending President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had pushed through landmark advances in civil rights.

"All the keepers of the conventional wisdom, especially in the New York Times and the Washington Post, simply vilified and condemned Martin," he said in a 2007 interview with Sojourners magazine. "They spoke about the fact that he had done ill service, not only to his country, but to 'his people'."

The Riverside speech — known as "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" — was pilloried by 168 newspapers, said commentator Tavis Smiley, who produced an hourlong PBS special on it in 2010.

It "led to the demonization of King," Smiley told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution that year. "The speech caused black leaders to turn against him. It got him disinvited by LBJ to the White House. He couldn't get a book deal. It's fascinating, given the adulation and adoration we have for MLK today." ...

In 1965, Harding, then chair of the history and sociology department at Atlanta's Spelman College, wrote an open letter about Vietnam to King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

"I raised the question as to whether or not we could, in conscience, keep still about what was going on in Vietnam," Harding recalled in 2007, describing the war's origin as an "anti-colonial struggle."

King and other black leaders wrestled with the question for two years.

"Down deep within all of it," Harding said, "was America's racist attitude, which essentially said, 'It's all right, King, for you to talk about colored things but, when it comes to foreign policies, that's our business. We really don't want to hear anything from you about it because that's our business."

More.

Shoot, Noam Chomsky would have had nothing on MLK's anti-Americanism. Indeed, Life Magazine denounced King at the time, calling the Riverside speech "a demogogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi."

Frankly, I never liked MLK's views on Vietnam, and the record here tarnishes an otherwise noble legacy on civil rights. Clearly, those who then attacked MLK as a tool of global Communism were on firm ground when they referenced Dr. King's bankrupt anti-Americanism on Vietnam.

At the video, Vincent Harding is interviewed by Tavis Smiley, and notice how the far-left '60s radicalism bleeds through. These are the kind of people who have destroyed the moral firmament of America. They have created a cut-and-run ideology in which America is always questioning the rightness of its cause. Tavis Smiley himself has compared Vietnam to Afghanistan, a move besmirching American national security policy and the war on terror as a "racist imperialist paradigm." In short, what people thought was the extreme radicalism of MLK in the 1960s has become the mainstream of the Democrat Party left today. It's a shame that we're not honest enough as a nation to recognize the roots of treasonous national destruction in the coterie of advisers, speechmakers and friends who influenced the 20th century's greatest leader on civil rights.

Thomas Piketty Cooked the Data in 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century'

Well, what do we have here?

At Legal Insurrection, "Report: Thomas Piketty’s numbers are off."

They're "off" --- to say the least. Shoot, they're "manufactured" is probably closer to the truth.

At Instapundit, "LEFTY WISH-FULFILLMENT BOOK ALL FAKED-UP? THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE. The Financial Times Isn’t Just Saying Piketty Made A Mistake — They’re Saying He Manipulated Data."

Piketty admits he made "some improvements" in the data:

The central theme of Prof Piketty’s work is that wealth inequalities are heading back up to levels last seen before the first world war. The investigation undercuts this claim, indicating there is little evidence in Prof Piketty’s original sources to bear out the thesis that an increasing share of total wealth is held by the richest few.

Prof Piketty, 43, provides detailed sourcing for his estimates of wealth inequality in Europe and the US over the past 200 years. In his spreadsheets, however, there are transcription errors from the original sources and incorrect formulas. It also appears that some of the data are cherry-picked or constructed without an original source.

Contacted by the FT, Prof Piketty said he had used “a very diverse and heterogeneous set of data sources ... [on which] one needs to make a number of adjustments to the raw data sources.

“I have no doubt that my historical data series can be improved and will be improved in the future ... but I would be very surprised if any of the substantive conclusion about the long-run evolution of wealth distributions was much affected by these improvements,” he said.

Right.

I'd be "very surprised" if the rest of his flimflam socialist tome doesn't keep falling apart at the seams.



More from Erika Johnson, at Hot Air, "Financial Times: We’ve found some, ahem, “serious inconsistencies” in Thomas Piketty’s numbers." And at Memeorandum.

13 Ukraine Troops Killed in Rebel Attack Near Donetsk

I saw this photo online yesterday. The hand sticking out from under the blanket is so grim.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Pro-Russia militants wage deadly offensive as Ukraine election nears."