Supreme Court Rules Against #Aereo Streaming TV Service

At Ars Technica, "Supreme Court puts Aereo out of business," and the Los Angeles Times, "Supreme Court rules against upstart Aereo TV service in copyright case."

Also at the New York Times, "Aereo Loses at Supreme Court, in Victory for TV Broadcasters":

WASHINGTON — Aereo made an all-or-nothing bet. The digital start-up threatened to upend the media industry and transform the way people watch television.

It likely will end up with nothing.

In a case with far-reaching implications for the entertainment and technology business, the United States Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Aereo, a television streaming service, had violated copyright laws by capturing broadcast signals on miniature antennas and delivering them to subscribers for a fee.

The 6 to 3 decision handed a major victory to the broadcast networks, which argued that Aereo’s business model was no more than a high-tech approach for stealing their content.

The justices’ ruling leaves the current broadcast model intact while imperiling Aereo’s viability as a business, just two years after a team of engineers, lawyers, marketers and even an Olympic medalist came together with a vision to provide a new viewing service that “enables choice and freedom.”

Broadcasters applauded the ruling, and shares in the media groups shot up on Wednesday.

“For two years they have been in existence, trying to hurt our business,” Leslie Moonves, chief executive of CBS, said in a telephone interview. “They fought the good fight. They lost. Time to move on.”

Chet Kanojia, Aereo’s founder and chief executive, said in a statement that the ruling was a “massive setback” for consumers and “sends a chilling message to the technology industry.”

Aereo had previously said it had “no Plan B” if it lost in court. On Wednesday, Mr. Kanojia said that “our work is not done” and that Aereo would continue to “fight to create innovative technologies,” but he did not specifically say how the company would move forward. Analysts and legal experts said Aereo was left with few options in an opinion that rejected all of its major arguments.

"No Plan B"? Ouch.

Continue reading.

Also at SCOTUS Blog, "Opinion analysis: A clever new technology thwarted — for now," and "But what about the “cloud”? The Aereo argument in Plain English."

William Jacobson Speaks at Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel, Los Angeles

Following-up, "Professor William Jacobson, 'The Case for Israel and Academic Freedom,' Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel (June 17, 2014)."

I tweeted from the lecture:

.@Liberty_Chick Professor William Jacobson, of @LegInsurrection, now speaking in Los Angeles. #Israel pic.twitter.com/zcVrR1OIfh

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 18, 2014

The presentation was very familiar to me, as I'm an avid reader of William's blog. But check the archives for some of his work on the left's academic boycott of Israel. Also, I expect the talk tonight was quite similar to the lecture William gave at Vassar, where the college's 39 academic boycotters refused to accept William's offer of debate. See, "Vassar College Wins (Update – Video added)."

The folks at CJHS videotaped the event and no doubt the clip will be posted at Legal Insurrection when it's available.

Plus, I had the pleasure to meet Darleen Click of Protein Wisdom, and she was taking notes. So, it's good bet she'll have a review posted right away and I'll update.

Overall, a great event and a nice break from blogging. Conservatives are the best people. I always enjoy meeting up with them.

Mark Steyn Out at National Review — UPDATED! CORRECTION APPENDED

There's an update on the case of Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn, from Jonathan Adler, at Volokh, "Mann v. Steyn – Mann wins round two." (Via Instapundit, who worries about Steyn representing himself in court.)

Basically, there's a new judge, who's rejected Steyn's motion to dismiss and lifted a stay of discovery.

But what struck me is that National Review's apparently thrown Steyn under the bus, "Trial, and Error":

As readers may have deduced from my absence at National Review Online and my termination of our joint representation, there have been a few differences between me and the rest of the team. The lesson of the last year is that you win a free-speech case not by adopting a don't-rock-the-boat, keep-mum, narrow procedural posture but by fighting it in the open, in the bracing air and cleansing sunlight of truth and justice.

I don't read National Review all that often. Indeed, Steyn and VDH are the main reasons I visit the site. I posted on Steyn's December entry, "The Age of Intolerance." It turns out that he came under fire for it. While I recall reading Steyn's response, "Re-Education Camp," I hadn't noticed his dearth posting at National Review. Here's the last one, dated December 24th, "Mumbo-Jumbo for Beginners."

One of the things I've learned about blogging is that when the going gets rough, you're going to tough it out by your lonesome. That is to say, don't expect others to join you in your blog battles, and when they do, be sure to count your blessings and share your gratitude. It's lonely out here sometimes, a lesson Steyn learned sometime ago:

As to his [editor's] kind but belated and conditional pledge to join me on the barricades, I had enough of that level of passionate support up in Canada to know that, when the call to arms comes, there will always be some “derogatory” or “puerile” expression that it will be more important to tut over. So thanks for the offer, but I don’t think you’d be much use, would you?

Steyn's editor had problems with the former's humorous references to left's homosexual fascists as "fruits." Personally, I'm lol at that stuff, but the in-your-face style of freedom-to-blog advocacy often causes self-said allies to turn tail at moment's notice. People simply don't like confrontation, and they certainly don't want to lose followers on Twitter. The horrors!

More a V-Dare, "Mark Steyn Out at NATIONAL REVIEW?"

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg, who is editor at National Review Online, tweets:

.@irishspy @AmPowerBlog @DirectorBlue news to me. His column is in the current issue.
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) January 25, 2014

And here it is, "Yes, We Can (Say That)."

CORRECTION: Just want to be on the record that Steyn is not "out" at National Review. He's not published at "The Corner" for nearly a month, but he's still a columnist for the magazine. Sorry for the mistake.

If You Ain't Black, You Ain't No 'Foremost Public Intellectual'

I don't take Ta-Nehisi Coates all that seriously. Reading him, fifty years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, you'd think Martin Luther King Jr. never lived. Shoot, "12 Years a Slave" might as well have taken place during the Reagan administration.

So, his recent self-loathing rant about how Melissa-Harris Perry's the country's "foremost public intellectual" was just one more unintentional parody from the left's Wonderland of racist recrimination. (It's here, for what it's worth, "What It Means to Be a Public Intellectual.")

The piece caused a Twitter war when Politico's Dylan Byers slammed Coates idiocy. And ding! Byers was promptly attacked as racist. Byers' response is here, "What it means to be a public intellectual."

I saw this as it was developing, but didn't blog it at the time. But the controversy caught the attention of AoSHQ, "Ta-Nehisi Coates: Melissa Harris Perry Is The Country's Foremost Public Intellectual, And If You Disagree, You're Racist."

Yet, it's funny that for the left the country's "foremost public intellectuals" have to be black. Almost 20 years ago, at the Atlantic (ironically, the same outlet now employing Coates) published Robert Boynton's, "The New Intellectuals." You can see where the piece is headed by the cover artwork.

And from the essay (the Atlantic, March 1995):

ONE of the few things most intellectuals will agree on in public is that the age of the public intellectual is over. By and large, American intellectuals are private figures, their difficult books written for colleagues only, their critical judgments constrained by the boundaries of well-defined disciplines. Think of an intellectual today, and chances are he is a college professor whose "public" barely extends beyond the campus walls.

This was not always the case. Originally an intellectual was someone who was very much engaged in the public realm; the term itself was coined to describe those who waged the campaign in defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in 1898, Emile Zola among them. Further designating an intellectual as "public" would have struck a late-nineteenth-century listener as tautological, if not absurd. By then the core elements of a definition of the public intellectual were already in place: he was a writer, informed by a strong moral impulse, who addressed a general, educated audience in accessible language about the most important issues of the day.

That the charges against Dreyfus stemmed from anti-Semitism lent those intellectuals defending him an aura of Jewishness, and this association with the word was strengthened when the Jewish immigrants on New York's Lower East Side who gathered together in the early 1900s to study American literature also called themselves intellectuals.

Today our image of the public intellectual is locked safely in the past, associated almost exclusively with the literary and social critics who gathered around the Partisan Review in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Such writers as Philip Rahv, Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, Alfred Kazin, Irving Howe, and Daniel Bell formed the core of the New York Intellectuals, a group famous for its brazen style, which Howe once described as a combination of "free-lance dash, peacock strut [and] knockout synthesis."

The world of the Partisan Review was one in which ideas mattered and battles were waged in small, well-read journals–the historian Richard Hofstadter called the Partisan Review the "house organ of the American intellectual community." The favored form of expression was the literary essay; although wide-ranging and often demanding, it was free of technical jargon. Composed with the care of the expert and the passion of the anti-specialist, these essays moved easily between literary and political judgments before bringing them together in a larger moral conclusion. As cultural radicals, the New Yorkers synthesized socialist politics and literary modernism, internationalizing the culture of America by bringing the best of European arts and letters to its shores. They also held convictions about the primacy of high culture and the special role of the intellectual in society.

Their seemingly endless debates–over communism and the viability of an anti-Stalinist left, and, later, over competing forms of anti-communism–echoed the succession of political challenges confronting America, a sympathetic resonance that in turn gave these writers an influence far exceeding their numbers. Oppositional figures who prized their place on the margins, dissenting from conventional wisdom ("even when they agreed with it," Kazin noted), they believed that being seduced by mainstream culture was the greatest evil that could befall a true intellectual. "Alienation," Howe recalled, "was a badge we carried with pride."

Chronicled and romanticized in a flood of biographies and memoirs, the New York clan has become a veritable gold standard for public intellectuals. Now more praised than read, its members are literary curiosities in the museum of culture; even their most important works-Wilson's To the Finland Station, Trilling's Liberal Imagination, Kazin's On Native Grounds, Bell's The End of Ideology, Rahv's Image and Idea–are largely ignored or out of print.

The public intellectual's death knell was sounded by Russell Jacoby in his book The Last Intellectuals (1987), an indictment of contemporary academic irrelevance which argued that the New Yorkers were not only America's greatest public thinkers but also its last. Academic specialists, rather than sophisticated generalists, now dominated intellectual life, leaving us duller for the loss. "One thousand radical sociologists, but no [C. Wright] Mills; three hundred critical literary theorists but no Wilson," Jacoby lamented. "If the western frontier closed in the 1890s, the cultural frontier closed in the 1950s." With its fashionably apocalyptic title and nostalgic tone, Jacoby's book was a hit, sparking a heated debate ("Hey, what about us?" cried an army of radical academics of every political stripe). Yet even though individual thinkers here and there were cited against Jacoby's thesis, a consensus soon formed that the era of the public intellectual was indeed over.

But no sooner had the last opinion piece about Jacoby's book been written than another group of intellectuals began getting quite a bit of attention. If they didn't conform precisely to Jacoby's ideal of the public intellectual–which bears so close a resemblance to the New Yorkers that it is difficult to use as a general definition–they were at the very least developing a significant presence by consistently and publicly addressing some of the most heavily contested issues of the day. The differences were striking, though: Whereas Jacoby's intellectuals were freelance writers based in New York, most of this group is ensconced in elite universities across the country. Whereas the New Yorkers were predominantly male and Jewish, this group includes women and is entirely gentile. In contrast to the New Yorkers, who were formed by their encounters with socialism and European culture, these intellectuals work solidly within the American grain, and are products of the political upheaval of the 1950s and 1960s. And, most significant, they are black.

A COMPLEX FATE

WHEN the best-selling author Cornel West, now a Harvard professor, and the critic Stanley Crouch appeared on The Charlie Rose Show to discuss the connection between race and cities during the Los Angeles riots, they contributed to a tradition of urban social philosophy which originated with Lewis Mumford. When Henry Louis Gates Jr., also of Harvard, denounced black anti-Semitism on the New York Times op-ed page, he no doubt reached a wider audience than Norman Podhoretz ever did with similar pieces on black-Jewish relations. When Stephen Carter, of Yale, appeared on the Today show to talk about the intricacies of competing affirmative-action policies in the wake of Justice Clarence Thomas's nomination, he took his place alongside Lionel Trilling and Alfred Kazin in explaining the travails of a successful minority figure in a WASP-dominated culture.

Toni Morrison, whose fiction and criticism regularly (and simultaneously) sit on best-seller lists, wins both Nobel and Pulitzer prizes; the Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson's study of freedom wins the National Book Award; Shelby Steele receives the National Book Critics Circle Award for his best-selling meditation on race; David Levering Lewis wins a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of W.E.B. Du Bois; the essayist Stanley Crouch receives a MacArthur "genius" grant; West, Gates, Morrison, and Steele all get six-figure offers for their next books. Add to these names thinkers such as Patricia Williams, William Julius Wilson, bell hooks, Houston Baker, Randall Kennedy, Michael Eric Dyson, Gerald Early, Jerry Watts, Robert Gooding-Williams, Nell Painter, Thomas Sowell, Ellis Cose, Juan Williams, Lani Guinier, Glenn Loury, Michelle Wallace, Manning Marable, Adolph Reed, June Jordan, Walter Williams, and Derrick Bell, among others, who appear in magazines and newspapers and on television programs around the country, and one begins to suspect that we are witnessing something bigger than a random blip on the screen of public intellectual culture.

In addressing a large and attentive audience about today's most pressing issues, these thinkers have begun taking their places as the legitimate inheritors of the mantle of the New York Intellectuals. Street-smart, often combative, and equipped with a strong moral sense, they, too, have a talent for shaking things up. This is not at all to say that the current constellation represents America's first black public intellectuals, which would be to ignore the tremendous contributions of such figures as Alain Locke, W.E.B. Du Bois, St. Clair Drake, E. Franklin Frazier, John Hope Franklin, and many others. Rather, the claim is that although opinions may differ about the work of individual contemporary authors, as a group they are indisputably receiving extraordinary attention, especially considering the marginal role of the intellectual in America. Nearly all between the ages of roughly thirty-five and fifty-five, the new black intellectuals have achieved a level of recognition usually reserved for near-emeritus figures with numerous books behind them and few years ahead.

There's lots more at the link, but there's a vast chasm in the quality of the intellectuals mentioned.

Who'd be your pick for the country's "foremost intellectual"? Or, who'd have been been your pick back in 1995? We hardly recognize half of those names nowadays, and Michael Eric Dyson's no match for the genuine intellectual giant Walter Williams. (Derrick Bell, who passed away, was Obama's Marxist mentor at Harvard, if you recall.)

Whatever. I still think it's impossible Ta-Nehisi didn't pick Soledad O'Brien as the nation's foremost public intellectual. Stop dissing Soledad!

Freedom to Blog Update: Standing Up to Evil

Every single time I've been the target of left-wing harassment and intimidation --- including the numerous and despicable libel campaigns against my college employment --- it's been the result of blogging the truth about despicable leftists and their depraved ideology of hate, envy, and coercive redistributionism. There's nothing left-wing monsters hate more than people shining the truth on their acts of godless hatred, harassment, and intimidation. I'm proud of everything I've ever done to earn that kind of enmity, because I always stand for decency and right. I won't stop shining that spotlight of truth, ever.

So it's with a deep sense of investment that I link to this piece from Robert Stacy McCain, "The Fact of Evil: @Popehat Describes Brett Kimberlin’s Lawsuit Against Truth." And he writes:

Liars hate truth, and the wicked fear justice. Every honest man must oppose harassment and intimidation intended to silence those who call evil by its right name, because if truth is silenced, the righteous and innocent shall become prey for the wicked and dishonest.

Continue reading.

And following the links, don't miss Popehat, "The Popehat Signal: Help Fight Evil In Maryland."

Don't back down. Speak the truth and stand tall against these f-kers. They're genuinely evil.

Freedom to Blog Update: September 4, 2013

No big long preamble needed.

Robert Stacy McCain has been sued by the Speedway Bomber Brett Kimberlin.

BRETT KIMBERLIN’S PLAN TO AVOID UNWANTED INTERNET ATTENTION doesn’t seem very well thought-out. http://t.co/UYvJUHzr9e - via @instapundit
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) September 5, 2013

Click through for updates at the post.

And at Zilla of the Resistance, "Perpetually #ButtHurt Free Speech Hating #ConvictedTerrorist #SpeedwayBomber #BrettKimberlin Sues Bloggers – AGAIN."

Pamela Geller: 'With Friends Like These...'

There's been some significant developments since Britain banned Pamela Geller.

At Atlas Shrugs, "WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE ......"

Also, "MORE FRIENDLY FIRE."

It turns out that Melanie Phillips had some not so supportive things to say about the whole thing, at her blog, "The British government's jihad against free thought." It's an otherwise quite excellent denunciation of the cowardice of the British government, all except Phillips completely declaims Pamela and Robert Spencer. If anyone is diminished it's Ms. Phillips:

By banning from the country as extremists the American anti-jihadis Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, the Home Secretary Teresa May has not only made herself look ridiculous but has sent the enemies of the United Kingdom the message that they have it on the run.

I do not support the approach taken by either Geller or Spencer to the problem of Islamic extremism. Both have endorsed groups such as the EDL and others which at best do not deal with the thuggish elements in their ranks and at worst are truly racist or xenophobic.

The result has been a serious blow to the credibility of these two writers, with particular damage being done to Spencer whose scholarship in itself is scrupulous. It has also split the defence against Islamic extremism, and handed a potent propaganda weapon to those who seek falsely to portray as bigoted extremists all who are engaged in the defence of the west against the Islamic jihad.

The bitter irony here is that Ms. Phillips is nearly as reviled as is Pamela, and if she wasn't British she'd long ago have been banished from the country one way or another. The Times of Israel has more on that, "The woman Britain's left loves to hate." She has a new book out called "Guardian Angel." And from what I've been reading of her lately she's attempting to reposition herself on the left, hence, she's been frequently seen as softening her attacks on Islam. It's too bad, but it's not easy standing up for truth, consistently and with no prevarication.

In any case, I took to Twitter this afternoon to express some thoughts about all of this:

Enemies of freedom are winning, people. I #StandWithPamelaGeller when weaselly so-called freedom fighters say they do but really don't.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

@AmPowerBlog I couldn’t believe Melanie Phillips. I expected better from her.

— Natasha (@mooseandskwerl) June 28, 2013

@MooseandSkwerl She's really a leftist who's upset with social change. She can't go all the way and defend people like Pamela Geller.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

I stand with @MaroonedInMarin too. A great blogger and patriot freedom fighter. #FF

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

Freedom fighters don't whine about counter jihadists being "shrill." That's adopting the tactics of the left. Resist that. Stand and fight!

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

If conservatives have learned anything it's that the left will use any means necessary to destroy patriots and freedom fighters. Don't cave.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

It doesn't mean you have to pick a fight with everyone who has a difference of opinion. Simply that you there is a time to stand and fight.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

Thank you my friend! RT @AmPowerBlog: I stand with @MaroonedInMarin too. A great blogger and patriot freedom fighter. #FF

— Marooned in Marin (@MaroonedInMarin) June 28, 2013

This is one of those times. When you are banned from a democracy based on the lies of the left, no one is safe. People will come for you.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

And regarding Britain, we can now only loosely apply the democratic label. Home Secretary Theresa May has cravenly capitulated to true evil.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

I stand with @AmPowerBlog a great writer & Patriot #FF

— Marooned in Marin (@MaroonedInMarin) June 28, 2013

And the lies are so thick you'd need an ICBM to break through them. This is not new, friends. Terror-enablers stop at nothing to push jihad.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

Why do you think leftists back the most hardened terrorists and demonize counter-jihadists? They both want the same thing, destruction...

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

...and by destruction, I mean destruction of goodness, decency, values and tradition. That's what stands up to nihilism and relativism.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

And bet your bottom dollar the MSM goons are in on this, for they attack @PamelaGeller with a glee that's truly criminal. Stand against it.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

Have people forgotten the warnings of Pastor Martin Niemöller? This isn't fun and games. You have skin in the game without realizing it.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

My friend @RSMcCain is standing up as I write all this. See his post, "The Face of Cowardice: Theresa May." http://t.co/vPW6yUb4VB #Freedom

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

#FF @Sultanknish @MarkTapson @CraigR3521 @Vermontaigne @ZillaStevenson @JihadWatchRS @SouthSalem @BigFurHat @BlazingCatFur @MadJewessWoman

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 28, 2013

And click on this:

RT @MrsShitrit: I want to post this again by hope not hate - controversial twitter Auschwitz post https://t.co/YayqWtYeRT

— Pamela Geller (@pamelageller) June 28, 2013

And this:

A gross double-standard over hate-speech: http://t.co/8FxoggY5zc

— Douglas Murray (@DouglasKMurray) June 27, 2013

BONUS: There's further background, with embedded tweets, at the New York Times, "American Declared Blogger Non Grata in Britain for Anti-Islam Crusade."

The Other McCain Has Now Banned Bill Schmalfeldt From Posting

That's at Hogewash, "Is #BillSchmalfeldt Appealing?"

And linked there is R.S. McCain, "Imaginary ‘Rights’ You Don’t Have, You Sad and Disgusting Troll, Bill Schmalfeldt."

Yeah, don't let those f-kers use your own comments to harass you.

Asshole leftist trolls.

PREVIOUSLY: "Freedom to Blog Update: June 15, 2013."

Freedom to Blog Update: June 15, 2013

I haven't done a Freedom to Blog update in awhile.

It turns out that Robert Stacy McCain has been updating us on the developments with the ultimate harassment troll Bill Schmalfeldt.

See, "Peace Order Against Bill Schmalfeldt: A Defeat for the ‘Troll Rights’ Movement," and "Hoge’s Victory Lap."

Hoge is John Hoge of Hogewash. And at his blog, "WOOT! Peace Order Granted Against Schmalfeldt," and "My Side, Part 2."

'Some people, ah, are willing to go to jail for their beliefs...' http://t.co/Xo6lcACDgZ @RSMcCain
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 15, 2013

'... but I see that as a risk in this, ah, ongoing exploration of Internet First Amendment rights...' http://t.co/Xo6lcACDgZ @RSMcCain
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 15, 2013

.As long as Donald Douglas is posting a public blog that accepts comments, I'm going to continue to comment on what he posts...' @RSMcCain
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 15, 2013

That's what my troll rights harasser @ Repsac3 wrote after I banned him, and he never stopped, even after I went to the police.
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 15, 2013

So, yeah, the Hogewash post hits pretty close to home: https://t.co/ESpsaLxgnJ @RSMcCain
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 15, 2013

.@RSMcCain Repsac3 Banned from American Power http://t.co/QCmTjk1xNR @Smitty_One_Each
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 15, 2013

'As Stacy McCain has often said, you don't have to let trolls use your own bandwidth against you." via @Stogie2 @RSMcCain
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 15, 2013

I've amended this post in response to Mr. Hoge's comment.

Added: Here's a quote from my deranged criminal stalker admitting that he'd been banned from my blog -- but also claiming that since I had continued to comment about about him at my blog, he had a right to continue to harass me in the comments section. This is, in fact, the definition of troll rights harassment:

Donald did very clearly announce that I was banned from commenting on his blog ... As he did not choose to ban himself from attacking me ..., however, I did not take his verbal banning very seriously, and continued to submit comments to those posts where he referred to me or my blog by name or other identifying feature.

Stalkers have no right to directly address you after they have been warned to cease and desist. But left-wing stalkers like Repsac3 are very determined in their vile programs to harm and torment their ideological opponents.

Mr. Hoge has updated his blog, for example, "#BillSchmalfeldt, Anti-First-Amendment Troll":

Let me state this one more time: I fully support Bill Schmalfeldt’s First Amendment right to write whatever he wishes about me so long as he stays within the law’s usual limits regarding threats and defamation. However, I do not wish for him to contact me, attempt to contact me, or harass me, and I will seek enforcement of the peace order if I believe that it has been violated.

More at Aaron Worthing's, "BREAKING: Brett Kimberlin Ally Bill Schmalfeldt Threatens Me (and Mr. Hoge) With a Peace Order (Update: Schmalfeldt Bravely Runs Away!)."

The Death of Collaboration in the Independent Blogosphere

Robert Stacy McCain published an interesting post the other day, "Where Were You in 2002?"

He's asking about where folks were 11 years ago when the independent blogosphere was the vital forum for news reporting and analysis independent of the mainstream media. 2002's a long time ago. I don't think I was reading blogs intentionally at that point. It was still early in my career at LBCC and I was focused mostly on teaching and  research in political science. It was Dan Drezner's 2004 blogging piece in Foreign Policy that turned me on to the blogosphere and there's been no turning back (see, "Web of Influence"). At that time I was reading Drezner and Virginia Postrel. A little later Althouse became my favorite blog, and by 2006 I decided to get my blogging feet wet. American Power went live in October 2007. I've had a good run so far and I expect to be plugging away until I get bored or the progressives are successful in getting me fired. (Hell, that wouldn't stop me anyway, so WTF).

I've never considered myself an influential blogger (although my inbox, filled with all kinds of free books and promotions from publishers and blog newbies, often tells me otherwise). It was during the 2007 GOP primaries when I got really serious about having an impact and in 2008, when John McCain won the Republican nomination, I felt some vindication for my efforts. One result was that I got picked up by RealClearPolitics later that year. But honestly, I've had more fun these last few years following The Other McCain's advice on "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year." Sure, the babe blogging around here's become a major pastime, but actually, the idea of building community through "reciprocal linkage" has been one of the more important elements of my program. Folks need to exercise the "The Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around":

Reciprocal linkage is the essential lubricant that makes the blogosphere purr with contentment. If somebody's throwing you traffic, you should either (a) give them a link-back update, or at a minimum (b) keep them in mind for future linkage. Because you don't want to end up on the wrong end of a kharmic unbalance in the 'sphere, where you're always taking and never giving.

As blogging has become almost exclusively professionalized in the last few years, the notion of "The Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around" seems kind of quaint. But don't be fooled. We've still got lots of independent bloggers out there doing what the mainstream press refuses to do. For example, Robert mentions Professor William Jacobson's Legal Insurrection as a model of high-impact professional blogging to which we should all aspire. And of course Glenn Reynolds continues to plug away at Instapundit, resisting the lucrative lure of a huge corporate sponsor (even more lucrative, that is, as Glenn's already got great model of monetization). There are lots more examples --- and apologies to some of the great new blogs, like Rebel Pundit and SOOPER Mexican, for not highlighting their work more often --- although it's clear there are increasing sustainability issues for smaller "mom and pop" blogging outfits. Here's how Robert describes the problem at The Other McCain:

This network/community concept seems to have been lost by (or, more likely, was never known to) newer arrivals in the ‘sphere. The idea that each of us is contributing to a common project is not just some kind of “Stone Soup” idealism, but is in fact the only way to build any genuinely meaningful alternative to that pathetic exercise in groupthink we call the Mainstream Media. Bloggers who don’t help build the alternative can complain about the MSM “borg” all they want; they aren’t really making a difference. There are two ways in which bloggers actually help sabotage the blogosphere:

Turn your blog into a series of lectures...

Never link another blogger. It’s weird that some bloggers would rather link a story in the New York Times or the Washington Post than to link a fellow blogger. Why this is, I don’t know. Sometimes it seems like everybody has the same idea: Grab an MSM headline off Drudge, link it, include a brief blockquote and add some political snark. Not only does this effectively surrender content control to Drudge — so that bloggers are merely replicating the headline selection there — but nobody’s snark ever goes beyond their own readership, because no blogger ever quotes another blogger.

Be sure to read the rest for additional insight.

Those bloggers who "never link another blogger" are the kinds I generally avoid. Sure, few bloggers can worry about linking all their buddies all the time, but throwing some hits to your friends once in a while is the friendly thing to do, especially when you've been a mensch yourself, linking and forwarding your posts with breaking news and so forth. Which is why I was surprised yesterday at popular pro-life blogger Jill Stanek. I woke up about 4:00am and wrote a post on WND's piece on Planned Parenthood's grotesque sex education promotions ("Sex-ed cartoons 'too graphic' for N.Y. Times." I later tweeted it to Robert and cc'd Jill:

.@rsmccain Planned Parenthood Sex Education Graphics Too Grisly for the New York Times is.gd/HBetXJ @jillstanek @directorblue
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) April 29, 2013

Then checking back on Twitter about an hour later I see Jill in my timeline with a new blog post:

Ew, gross! @nytimes,@washingtonpost reject THIS @amerlifeleague ad of Planned Parenthood sex ed images jillstanek.com/?p=122100
— Jill Stanek (@JillStanek) April 29, 2013

Jill's post is time-stamped at 4:14pm in the afternoon, 1:14pm Pacific time, 50 minutes after I tweeted my link to her. Now, perhaps Jill had her entry all queued up or was already familiar with WND's reporting. I don't know. I can say that Jill isn't a big proponent of the Full Metal Reach Around community-building strategy. I've sent her lots of stuff in the past and have been linked perhaps a couple of times at her blog. I don't know. Perhaps she wanted to have this Planned Parenthood "scoop" all to herself, with no hat tip to WND, much less myself. That's how some bloggers roll. It's not the best way to build community, in any case.

Again, maybe Jill got that post going without ever seeing my tweet. But if it were me, I'd probably have replied on Twitter in the first place and then posted a hat tip if I blogged it. Your mileage may vary.

Either way, I couldn't help thinking that yesterday was one good example of the lack of collaboration in the blogosphere. And it's not an insignificant issue. Now more than ever American democracy needs alternative voices. American politics needs citizens to upend the establishment narrative. People frankly need to build on the social media revolution to bring greater accountability to government at at time when the press has abdicated its historic role as freedom's watchdog. Bloggers are upsetting and will continue to upset the accepted memes and force big media to report real news that's important to real Americans. Along with other forms of citizens' social media, blogs promote accountability and deliberation. William Jacobson had something on that yesterday, "If not for prior #Gosnell Twitter campaign, would MSM be covering Bronx and DC revelations?"

But "social" means you can't do it alone. The best of the top bloggers recognize the vital role newbies play in keeping the 'sphere an essential place for alternative reporting. And new bloggers entering the arena might heed the warnings of The Other McCain (and others) on the dangers of the death of collaboration in the independent blogosphere.

The Honey-Trap of Moral Equivalence

From Douglas Murray, at Gatestone:

Today, in an age that often seems of pragmatism and managerial-ism in politics, if there is a way not just to honor the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's memory but to continue her legacy it should be to encourage and praise those rare individuals who are willing to buck such trends. In Canada recently, I have had an opportunity to reflect on the perhaps surprising fact (also surprising to many Canadians) that in recent years Canada has shown itself to be a home to convictions which ennoble the present and can stand proud before history. The Harper government's moral clarity on a number of issues –in particular religious freedom and Israel – demonstrate a stand that can be rightly admired and celebrated by free peoples around the world.

Over the last decade the issue of religious freedom has come out of the rear-view mirror to a position of utmost importance, especially among minority communities. But nowhere does it matter more than in the Middle East. As Canada's Foreign Minister, John Bair, must have been reminded on his recent trip to the region, whether you compare what is happening across that region to events in Europe in 1848 or 1991, such historical comparisons are of limited use. What is happening there now, the upsurge of Islam, is a once-in-a-lifetime event. And although none of our countries may any longer have the capability or will to have a permanent military presence in the region, the significance of what soft diplomacy we can muster, and what moral stands we insist on, may yet prove far more important.

Continue reading.

Hat Tip: Blazing Cat Fur (the essential Canadian counter-jihad blog).

Pamela Geller Stands for Freedom at Chabad of Great Neck

My good friend Norman Gersman lives an "outfielder's strong arm throw" from the Chabad of Great Neck. He sent along the picture below. Norm mentioned to Pamela that he'd be forwarding it to me, and she says, "I love the American Power Blog!"

That's cool!

In any case, at Atlas Shrugs, "FORWARD: 'PAMELA GELLER GOT THE LAST LAUGH'." And, "HUNDREDS RALLY FOR FREE SPEECH AND THE OUSTER OF HABEEB AHMED."

Easter Sunday Roundup

How about something more lovely?

At Maggie's Farm, "Saturday morning links," and "Dead wood, Blue Model Churches, and celebrating a Living Easter amongst family, good old and new friends, and good food."

And at Director Blue, "Larwyn's Linx: When Men Forsake God, Tyranny Always Follows."

Also at iOWNTHEWORLD, "Happy “Spring Spheres” Hunting!" And EBL, "National Clams on the Half Shell Day."

Plus, from Blazing Cat Fur, "Must Be Easter... The Star Publishes Muslim Brotherhood Rant Against Christians, Conservative Government."

More from WyBlog, "To celebrate Good Friday the Star-Ledger editorializes religion equals bigotry."

Victory Girls, "Happy Easter from the Victory Girls!"

Still more at The Other McCain, "Obama Hasn’t ‘Evolved’ That Far … Yet." And MAinfo, "Homeland Security Demands Blind Obedience From Agents."

At Neo-Neocon, "Celebrate freedom: Passover and beyond."

And Chicks on the Right, "Here's How Google Is Recognizing Easter." And Darleen at Protein, "Compare & contrast."

At Pirate's Cove, "If All You See……is a forest dying and a river drying up because Someone Else drove a fossil fueled vehicle, you might just be a Warmist."

Also at AWD, "WASHINGTON POST: THOSE EVIL WHITE MEN ARE THE REAL PROBLEM!"

And Pat Dollard, "CRY-BABY CAN DISH IT OUT BUT CAN’T TAKE IT: JIM CARREY CONSIDERS SUING ‘BULLIES’ AT ‘FUX NEWS’ FOR ‘VICIOUSLY SLANDERING’ HIM."

More roundups and Rule 5 blogging later. Forward your blog posts and I'll get you linked up!

PHOTO CREDIT: Theo Spark, "Bedtime Totty..." Also, "Sunday Totty..."

Anti-Marriage Extremist Walter James Casper III and the Unitarian Push for Polyamorous Sexual Licentiousness

The disgusting Occupy-endorsing, anti-Semitic hate-bagging progressive Walter James Casper III writes:

Marriage law is not primarily about continuing the species or the optimal raising of children, especially to the detriment of any family situation other than the supposed optimal one for raising children. If it were, we would hear all of the results of these studies that say "mommy and daddy in committed marriage is best," and perhaps outlaw more of what is less than optimal... poverty, single parenthood, divorce, ...

Legal marriage can and often does include children, but it isn't -- and shouldn't be -- defined by children or the possibility of creating them. To my knowledge, it never has been -- except of course, as an argument against marriage equality....

I know? How could anyone be this dishonest? Folks can Google the post, titled "We Just Disagree (Marriage Equality)." I won't link the lies, because that's all this guy has --- lies, deceit and the destruction of decency and moral regeneration of family, faith and country. This is progressive radicalism and licentiousness at its most disgusting.

Hatesac is a pathological liar. Marriage is and has always been at base about the union of man and woman for the biological regeneration of society. To brutally rip the centrality of the marriage union from procreation and family is to adopt nothing less than the cultural Marxist ideological program of destruction of decency in the name of state power. Marx and Engels specifically called for the obliteration of the family in furtherance of the Utopian communist state. Walter James "Hatesac" knows all of this. He simply will not acknowledge the truth of the millennium. He's a disgusting, anti-God prick. A hateful degenerate who's out to destroy the moral fiber of the nation.

As David Blankenhorn has written:

Marriage as a human institution is constantly evolving, and many of its features vary across groups and cultures. But there is one constant. In all societies, marriage shapes the rights and obligations of parenthood. Among us humans, the scholars report, marriage is not primarily a license to have sex. Nor is it primarily a license to receive benefits or social recognition. It is primarily a license to have children.

And Hatesac lies about this alleged dearth of "studies that say 'mommy and daddy in committed marriage is best'." Unbelievable dishonesty. Or, it'd be unbelievable for a normal person, but hate-bagging Repsac3 is not a normal person. If he was, if he was honest, he'd cite the wealth of research arguing that indeed kids do best in the biological mom/dad family unit. I just wrote about this the other day, and given Hatesac's obsession with this blog, he certainly knew the truth but choose to lie anyways. See, "Amicus Brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry Demonstrates Children Fare Better With Biological Parents in Traditional 'Opposite Sex' Marriage." And this bullshit about "banning" other situations like "poverty" and "divorce" is just straw man stupidity. Poverty is worsened by current progressive social policies and divorce --- especially "no fault" --- is a product of radical left-wing social disorganization. But liar Hatesac won't discuss these truths. He's just making shit up as he goes along. A truly bad person. Evil incarnate. Seriously, it's people like this who're dragging this country to the depths of perdition. Horrible.

Of course, longtime readers will recall that Walter James "Hatesac" Casper is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church --- a religious organization that is outside all mainstream denominations, and has been likened to a faith of cultural nihilists and radical collectivists. Gven Hatesac's perverted views on the institution of marriage, it's clear that his Unitarianism is busting out in all of its disgusting, orgiastic licentiousness. See the Washington Post, "Many Unitarians would prefer that their polyamory activists keep quiet":

The joke about Unitarians is that they’re where you go when you don’t know where to go. Theirs is the religion of last resort for the intermarried, the ambivalent, the folks who want a faith community without too many rules. It is perhaps no surprise that the Unitarian Universalist Association is one of the fastest-growing denominations in the country, ballooning 15 percent over the past decade, when other established churches were shrinking. Politically progressive to its core, it draws from the pool of people who might otherwise be “nones” – unaffiliated with any church at all.

But within the ranks of the UUA over the past few years, there has been some quiet unrest concerning a small but activist group that vociferously supports polyamory. That is to say “the practice of loving and relating intimately to more than one other person at a time,” according to a mission statement by Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA). The UUPA “encourages spiritual wholeness regarding polyamory,” including the right of polyamorous people to have their unions blessed by a minister.

UUA headquarters says it has no official position on polyamory. “Official positions are established at general assembly and never has this issue been brought to general assembly,” a spokeswoman says.

But as the issue of same-sex marriage heads to the Supreme Court, many committed Unitarians think the denomination should have a position, which is that polyamory activists should just sit down and be quiet. For one thing, poly activists are seen as undermining the fight for same-sex marriage. The UUA has officially supported same-sex marriage, the spokeswoman says, “since 1979, with tons of resolutions from the general assembly.”

More:

In 2007, a Unitarian congregation in Chestertown, Md., heard a sermon by a poly activist named Kenneth Haslam, arguing that polyamory is the next frontier in the fight for sexual and marriage freedom. “Poly folks are strong believers that each of us should choose our own path in forming our families, forming relationships, and being authentic in our sexuality.”

Right.

That's exactly what the putrid Hatesac argues at his scummy, morally depraved essay, "We Just Disagree (Marriage Equality)." Again, it's too sick to even link. Folks can Google it if they can stomach Hatesac's "cutting-edge" views about how Americans should "choose their own path" on abandoning the historic conception of marriage as the foundation of healthy children and the survival of decency in society.

But this is radical progressivism we're talking about, which seeks the cultural Marxist overthrow of basic goodness and moral clarity in society. The genuine evil here is literally astonishing.

Bill Schmalfeldt is Disgusting

The Other McCain's continuing coverage of Bill Schmalfeldt, which is really just the residuals of the freedom to blog battles of last year, which generated a lot of attention nationwide at the time of the swattings, is endlessly fascinating. This is so especially since while Schmalfeldt is truly bizarre, he's not that bizarre in the context of the left-wing ideology that is the foundation of his evil. He's really quite representative of the depravity of progressivism.

See, "Dishonest Bill Schmalfeldt Got Banned from Daily Kos for Anal Rape 'Satire'."

Read it all at the link, but worth adding here is the link to Lee Stranahan's post, "Bill Schmalfeldt: Too Disgusting For Daily Kos":

R.S. McCain has been putting the career of Bill Schmalfeldt into proper perspective over at The Other McCain and it felt it was time to highlight another aspect of Schmalfeldt’s work and personality.

Bill Schmalfeldt is disgusting.

That sounds like a petty insult. It’s not. In the case of Mr. Schmalfeldt, it’s true and very specific.  He is intentionally sickeningly repulsive and his writings show a sexual obsession that is profoundly disturbing.

I’m not a prude. I’m not easily offended. This isn’t even a liberal / conservative thing. Bill Schmalfeldt actually managed to offend the readers at the Daily Kos so much that he was essentially run off the website back in May of this year in an article entitled The REAL Conservative Case Against Gay Marriage.

Here’s just one paragraph from that article. Welcome to the mind of Bill Schmalfeldt...

Keep reading both of those posts at the links.

Schmalfeldt's Photoshops are too disgusting to post here, and that's a lot, since I post just about anything.

Ban, Block and Report Walter James Casper III in 2013

Walter James Casper III was banned from this blog in April 2010. I wrote at the time that "I rarely ban radical leftist commentators" but that I was getting tired of Repsac's disgusting racism and rank stupidity. I'd also grown tired of this idiot's perpetual lies and taunting harassment even when proven wrong beyond any doubt. That's not debate or engagement. That's stalking and harassment. A few months back, after Walter Russell Mead prohibited commenting at Via Media, Vox Day wrote:

Vox Popoli is not, and will never be, an echo chamber. There are not, and will never be, any topics that are definitively outside the scope of permissible intellectual discourse ... The only commenters whose participation I will not tolerate is those who repeatedly lie, who demonstrate proven intellectual dishonesty, and who simply refuse to admit it when someone else has publicly shown them to be wrong. If you are not at least capable of acknowledging that you could be wrong about an idea, no matter how near and dear it is to you, then you will probably be better served commenting at a place where your ideas will not be questioned or criticized.

More than ever, that's key. The complete intellectual dishonesty and moral bankruptcy of a person who refuses to admit that, you know, he might have been wrong about something. It is, in a word, anti-intellectual. It's also morally bankrupt. That is why Walter James Casper III was banned.

Since then, Walter James Casper III has continued to stalk this blog, claiming "trolling rights" to comment here whenever he pleases. See: "F*** You, Douglas! — W. James Casper = COBAG = Repsac3!!" Of course, no one has a "right" to comment on someone else's blog. The right to freedom of speech guarantees freedom from discrimination by government. Repsac3, despite claiming worldly expertise on politics and government, just doesn't get a basic point --- indeed, has no clue --- of public goods theory or the politics of pooled resources. So here's a lesson.

"PUBLIC COMMENTING SYSTEMS":

In denying his stalking and harassment --- criminal activity of which I have reported to the police --- Repsac3 claims that he was only "submitting comments to an area open to public comment, in rebuttal of posts attacking me by name." See that? He was only harassing this blog on the justification that the commenting system here is an area "open for public comment." The problem, of course, is that there's no such thing as a "public" blog open to "public comments." Put aside the obvious fact that Blogger blogs are owned by Google and not the U.S. or any state government (and hence privately owned), the individual proprietor of a blog, even a Blogger blog, retains all the rights to allow any and all comments at the site. But for some reason, serial harassers have claimed a "trolling rights" theory to justify their despicable harassment of people with whom they disagree and of whom they wish to terrorize. And this is after being repeatedly warned to cease and desist, the legal threshold over which Repsac3's actions became criminal. Robert Stacy McCain identified this criminal activity in the case of Kimberlin-Rauhauser bully Bill Schmalfedlt. By developing a psychotic theory of "public commenting," radical leftist harassers delude themselves that they have a "right" to torment their targets. A blog, of course, is nothing like, say, a public park. Anyone can use the park, regardless of whether they contributed to the provision of that park, a public good, through tax contributions or user fees to the government agency responsible for providing that service. In other words, there are distinct realms of consumption of good and services. The oceans are common pool resources that no single nation-state owns. The public good problem is the incentive for one state to use more resources than it would be allowed under existing norms, regimes, or legal treaties. Even in this case, an otherwise common resource is nevertheless restricted in its use by state actors, otherwise the common resources --- say fisheries --- would be depleted. In sum, Walter James Casper III has invented a system of "public commenting" that only exists in the dark recesses of his addled and hateful mind. There is no right to comment on someone else's blog, no matter the kind of commenting system the blog uses. To this day racist Repsac3 is a raging, roiling hate-filled loser who rues the day that I switched to Disqus commenting, which has a fabulous black-listing system to ban persistent harassment trolls such as the dick Repmaster Troll. Suck it up and get used to it, asshole. You're banned.

*****

Criminal harasser Repsac3, in his deranged world of never entertaining an idea that conflicts with his communist ideological program, has also developed a theory of generalizations which, when deployed, is purported to reject any argument about the obvious and inherent anti-social and collectivists tendencies of the radical left. With this theory, Repac3 can justify in his mind that progressive collectivism is a benign, benighted system of thinking, the correct ideology to lift the human race, bring peace, and end racism and poverty through "social justice." The facts, of course, are exactly the opposite, as over a century of history have shown with communist ideologies of the kind that Walter James Casper consumes and promotes in his radical political identity and activities.

"NO SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS":

Repsac3, at his Twitter profile, claims he's against "sweeping generalizations." Indeed, when union goons are repeatedly caught out as violent thugs, and when the union leadership advocates violence, union backer Repsac3 denounces the "sweeping generalizations," stupidly claiming that it's only "individuals" committing violent acts, not the unions. Of course idiot Repsac3's spouting illogical bullshit. To be clear, generalizations are a form of argument to explain general tendencies. To say that unions are violent and thuggish is a generalization that is repeatedly demonstrated as true. The examples of individual union members who do not engage in violence or thuggery don't disprove the generalization. If one says that "seat belts save lives" the claim is not invalidated by the example of someone being killed in a car crash despite wearing a seat beat. It's a clear generalization that is borne out by experience. Further, if one argues that progressives favor high taxes to fund a massive state sector of public services and transfer payments, and that these programs violate the liberty of Americans, the point is not invalidated by a few individuals who identify as progressive but don't favor higher taxes. Take Occupy Wall Street as one example that Walter James Casper III loves to defend by attacking "sweeping generalizations." Occupy is a movement that has been marked by violent protest and thousands of criminal arrests. It's own website declares, with a closed-fist icon of violent resistance, that it's a movement for a worldwide revolution and "is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia." The original founder of Occupy's New York mobilization, Kalle Lasn, is a proven Jew-basher and anti-Semite. And the initial Occupiers in the streets demonstrated widespread anti-Semitism on a daily basis and research shows that Jew-hatred is not a bug but a feature of the movement. A few Judeophile supporters of Occupy Wall Street do not disprove the generalization that the movement is anti-Semitic, despite the deranged and desperate bleatings of Repsac3 to the contrary. Indeed, the Democrat Party from President Obama and Nancy Pelosi on down has declared their solidarity with the Occupy movement, but polls have shown that only minorities of self-identified Democrats support or sympathize with Israel as an independent state with the right to self-defense. The generalization that Democrats ---- who are public backers of Occupy Wall Street --- don't support Israel is borne out by the data.

Again, the fact of some union members who are not violent thugs, or some individuals who are not violent Occupy activists, or who are strong supporters of Israel, does not disprove the generalizations. A generalization is a general pattern, a statement of a tendency. If "Hatesac" is bothered by the generalization of progressive violence and hatred and bigotry, perhaps he should reject those ideologies rather than defend them.

*****

"LIBERAL-DEFENDER NOT LIBERTY-DEFENDER":

Walter James Casper III has used his hate-blog American Nihilist to publish my workplace information with exhortations for progressives to contact my college administration, with the obvious intent to get me fired for my conservative advocacy and allegedly politically incorrect statements. The widespread understanding among free speech advocates is that it's not appropriate to get someone fired because of their political views. But Repsac3 offered his co-bloggers front-page posting time to launch ideological attacks on my livelihood. The fact is that Repsac3 always had --- and still has --- editorial control over the contents published at his blog. If he didn't, then the post targeting me would still be available at the blog. (It has been edited by the blog administrator, Repsac3, to remove my contact information, as it should have been from the start, but wasn't.) Of course, it should have never been published in the first place, under any circumstances, and the "personal responsibility" for the post rests not with the author but with the person who provided the pixels at the front of the hate-blog, Walter James Casper, the blog publisher of American Nihilist. No amount of dodging can possibly escape the truth, which is why Repsac3 has been universally condemned for his intimidation campaigns among conservative bloggers and free speech advocates. See: (O)CT(O)PUS, "DEFAMATION - DONALD STYLE," February 12th, 2009. After Carl Salonen and SEK launched their vicious libel campaigns at my workplace, Repsac3 praised those attempts to get me fired, remarking that such attacks worked in having me no longer blogging about those pricks. By such actions, which are logically unsupportable, Repsac3 objectively backs efforts to shut down his political opponents and he in fact befriends and embraces some of the most vile criminal goons populating the left's intimidation networks. Further, as the left's campaigns of lawfare and workplace intimidation have become widespread, Repsac3 has repeatedly defended the hate and laughed off attacks on conservatives has "wingnut" whining. This utterly bankrupt behavior puts Reppie up there with the main Kimberlin-Rauhauser henchmen, like Schmalfeldt. See: "Pray for Ten Thousand Angels."

These activities grow from Walter James Casper III's radical ideological commitments, which I have documented in recent posts:

* "Communists Angela Davis and Danny Glover to Headline Democracy Now!'s Inauguration-Night 'Peace Ball' in Washington D.C."

* "Far-Left Whack-Job Thom Hartmann Wants to 'Outlaw Billionaires'."

* "Harvard Grad, Occupy Wall Street Activist Busted on Bomb-Making and Weapons Possession Charges."

So, for all of my readers and blog allies, remember that this is a dangerous ideological opponent and political enemy who is working to do harm to those with whom he disagrees. Like Zilla of the Resistance has advised, the best remedy is to ban these assholes, block them from your comments sections and block and report them on Twitter for stalking and intimidation.

The Leftist Scum Betraying Our Country

It's still a great country. California is nearing lost-cause status, but nationally the political order remains vital in many respects. But as I've been saying, conservatives and patriots must keep pressing on toward reform. It's not just about better policies or higher standards of living. It's about the very survival of America as the beacon of freedom in the world. I've learned a lot from reading my good friend Stogie's blog Saberpoint, and I'm glad he's not beating around the bush regarding the nature of the enemy. See, "Communist Revolution: I Never Thought It Would Come to This":

The long march through the institutions was completed some time ago, and both academia and media have a near monopoly on the transmission of biased news, cultural demolition and the ability to affect public attitudes. The "closing of the American mind" is just about complete. Moonbattery blog has an article today called "Brainwashing Works." The author, Dave Blount, points to a sign in NYC's Penn Station where a graffiti artist has penned "Kill All Republicans!" This sentiment is not an isolated occurrence. Twitchy.com reports daily the most vile bile from the left, the unhinged hatred, the desire for violence against Republicans and conservatives. The Democrat Media Complex has created a vast swath of human botnets, which can be set off in mass to launch denial-of-liberty attacks on any and all who oppose the New Progressive Order. Like computer botnets, the human variety is programmed and programmable and act in concert, unhindered by scruples or actual thought.

Lately swarms of human maggots on Twitter have tweeted their joy at the death of General Norman Schwarzkopf yesterday, expressing hope that he died painfully and is now burning in Hell. They have said similar things about former President George H.W. Bush, who is in the hospital with a serious illness, hoping that he dies "in agony." I do not recognize this leftist human scum as fellow citizens, but as traitors, agents of hostile foreign powers and ideologies. With the election of one of their own to the presidency, they are now emboldened to finish off the Republic, and as Blount notes at Moonbattery, are now in a rush to disarm us.

Read the whole thing at the link.

It's not the death wish agitation that's evidence for the left's treason, but if that kind of pure hatred --- the overwhelming desire of progressives to literally kill their political enemies --- is a needed prompt for identifying the enemy for what it is, all the better. For me, I started blogging because I'd learned that the values that I'd once identified with as "liberal" and "progressive" were in fact the very opposite. At that time, in 2006, little did I know just how depraved was the radical left. But once you start to expose these douchebags you're placed in the cross-hairs yourself. There are no misunderstandings by that time. You know intimately that progressives will stop at nothing to destroy barriers to the ideological agenda. This next year will be a time of reorganizing and redoubling efforts among the forces of decency and traditionalism. But conservatives need to abandon the nice-guy mentality that makes them suckers over and over again for the machinations of the left. Don't be fooled by progressives who attempt to befriend you with idle chit-chat. They'll sell you out in the name of the totalitarian agenda faster than you can say Lev Trotsky. And be ready to fight fire with fire. See Nice Deb for more on that, and be sure to check the links: "Hoisting Them on their Own Petards."

PHOTO CREDIT: Moonbattery.

Erik Loomis' Twitter Timeline Available Dating Back to June 2012

I wrote earlier, quite seriously, of Professor Erik Loomis:

No one's as stupid to violently rattle off the death chants while still an untenured assistant professor at a research university. "Dim bulb" is charitable.

Thinking back now, that's even an understatement, a big one. It's possible that no one --- no academic faculty member at a major college or university --- has ever acted as stupidly vis-à-vis his or her own viability as an employee. Loomis is behaving stupidly and recklessly, as if he's got a "termination wish" (like a death wish, but meaning instead a pathological need to get fired in pursuit of romantic martyrdom in some larger cause of crusading labor unionism, perhaps harking back longingly to an earlier, valorized era of violent class struggle).

In any case, see Robert Stacy McCain's report, "The Vocabulary of Professor Erik Loomis: ‘Motherf–ing F–kheads F–king F–k’."

Folks should be sure to read the whole thing at The Other McCain. Read it carefully. And then check the full Twitter timeline (available in pdf). Note especially how Loomis indulges in using the f-word quite a bit. Indeed, "overindulge" might be the better verb form (his f-bomb usage is clearly overdone and all too frequent, transparently uncomfortable as if a poorly-offered cover for insecurity). But it's always the context of things that's even important (an importance Loomis' defenders have proved beyond a reasonable doubt with their systematic omission of any of Loomis' statements outside of the key "metaphor" at issue). Rattling off death chants as an untenured faculty member isn't smart. But it's as dumb as one can possibly be to diss your own job responsibilities --- more so with so much obvious contempt for your institution and its structure of hierarchical authority. Here's a surprisingly revealing tweet as to Loomis' state of mind:

Again, read the full timeline for the context.

Committee service is a major part of serving as a professor --- and of the collegiate life of a university more generally. It's an especially important function to untenured faculty members because such work is a key manner in which unfamiliar and untested colleagues pay their dues. And it should be obvious, but when you're dissing committee work as pointless you are dismissing as useless the work of a great many of the leaders on a given campus, people who have put in enormous numbers of hours in attempting to have a voice in the institution's decision-making --- and to hopefully have a greater voice in final outcomes affecting the institution, the faculty, students, and the curriculum. Some faculty members earn most of their professional self-esteem through the work they provide on committees. It's a deeply embedded aspect of the academic culture. So, the kind of opposition to the norms of collegiality that Loomis demonstrates is utterly astounding --- even exponentially astounding, again, given that Loomis lacks the security of tenure. He is demonstrating that he is, by definition, as dumb as an ox. The problem with that, clearly, is that research universities are supposed to be populated with smart people. Really smart people. And a public university such as the University of Rhode Island is tax payer supported, so there's a particularly high level of public accountability. People on the outside, taxpayers as well as moneyed players supporting campus foundations, and so forth, want to think their support is in furtherance of an elite and respected body of scholars and practitioners. Educators at these places are cut tremendous independence because they are society's most esteemed role models. They are the masters of the (knowledge) universe who're transmitting society's essential values and learning to the next generations. But there are limits.

For someone like Loomis to show such outward contempt for all of this is simply mind-boggling. It's even more astounding given that Loomis spends so much time online. He should know better. The norms of academic hiring and promotion may have changed since 2005 when Daniel Drezner was denied tenure (largely on the suspicion that blogging was taking up too much of his time). But they haven't changed that much. It's just not well-advised to be so outspoken --- virtually all the time --- on social networking sites and on widely-read partisan blogs. For a lot of elite power-brokers in academe, such patterns of behavior are unscholarly. And to be so stridently unscholarly goes 100 percent against what the ideal candidate for tenure is supposed to be like. I would personally advise anyone entering the job market or working on becoming tenured to avoid hard-core partisan blogging and tweeting. To do otherwise is to court trouble, the kind of trouble that could ruin one's career. This is why I sense that what Loomis lacks in brains he more than equals in social insecurity. All that tweeting, and blogging too, is designed to buff this guy's creds among the hard-left commentariat. But for what? So the communist freaks at Crooked Timber will post a couple of huzzah! blog posts in solidarity. That's manifestly not worth it.

In any case, if anyone were really, truly looking to get Loomis fired this is the argument they'd want to make to the administration of the University of Rhode Island. One could contact the university and make the case that is isn't a matter of freedom of speech, or of academic freedom. It's a matter of basic professionalism toward one's vocation and the standards of institutional and professional decorum. Loomis reflects badly on the university. He reflects badly on the hiring committee that brought him there in the first place. Folks on the outside, the tax payers and other supporting constituencies will ask, "How could they have possibly hired this idiot? He's making the university look like a bloody circus." And they'll be well warranted to ask such questions. A lot of money goes into to recruiting and investing in productive academic colleagues. These are people who're expected to be teaching, publishing and performing community service. There are very high standards involved, or there should be. Which is why if people of professional standing raised these points to university president Dr. David Dooley it's quite possible the administration will reflect even more deeply on the problem in the days and weeks ahead. I mean, it's been well over a week since this story first broke and the university now has a huge and extremely prominent posting of the administration's condemnation of Professor Loomis. And looking at this again, President Dooley has updated the language since I last check over at the university's homepage:

Statement from URI President David M. Dooley

Over the past several days we have heard from many individuals concerning statements made or repeated by Professor Erik Loomis. Many writers forcefully expressed serious concern about his statements and many others expressed very strong support for Professor Loomis, especially in regard to his First Amendment right to share his personal opinions. In the statements at issue, Professor Loomis did not make it clear that he was speaking solely as an individual, and that the views he expressed were his alone and did not reflect the views of the University of Rhode Island. This was the rationale for our original statement.

The University of Rhode Island strongly believes that Constitutionally protected rights to free expression are the foundation of American democracy, and central to our mission of imparting knowledge and promoting the exchange of ideas. It is our conviction that Professor Loomis's personal remarks, however intemperate and inflammatory they may be, are protected by the First Amendment, as are the views of those who have contacted us in recent days.

Here's the link to the scanned document now available at the website.

I quoted and screencapped the president's initial comments at the time, dated December 18th, "University of Rhode Island Condemns Violent Labor Historian Erik Loomis." No doubt the backlash escalated enormously since then. In no time the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the story, "‘Head on a Stick’ Tweet Lands U. of Rhode Island Professor in Hot Water." And Inside Higher Ed also took it up, "Who's Overreacting? Professor's tweet and university's reaction stir debate on academic freedom."

So my sense is that this issue is far from over. It's Christmastime. That's the slowest time at the university. And if the administration feels it needs to have its statement placed so largely and prominently at the website, it's clear that the backlash isn't close to subsiding. People on campus will be dealing with these matters when business gets going again in the new year. Opponents of Loomis' tenure bid might not relent in their vocal outrage at this man's outward violence and incivility. But the more troublesome issue, on a practical working level, is Loomis' clear propensity toward uncollegialty and unprofessionalism. All together, the profanity-laced death chants, etc., and the dissing of the university's committee service responsibilities, could very well create a picture for outside constituencies of unworthiness for the honorific of academic tenure. As I've said, Loomis is really dumb. He's joking all about it over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, but when your professional future is so seriously on the line, this is hardly a laughing matter.