On Saturday the entire film will be screened at Citizens United’s CPAC Theater – Delaware Ballroom: the World Premiere of the AFDI/SIOA documentary film on the Ground Zero Mosque.More on this later ...
On a seeming collision course toward the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney spoke to cheering crowds Friday at the second day of a gathering of the nation's conservatives, blasting President Obama for what they said was his failure to lead on national security and the economy.More at the link.
While Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, and Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, have not formally declared their intentions, their White House ambitions appear more evident every day.
Romney's wife, Ann, introducing him to the packed house at the Conservative Political Action Conference, came close to an admission, saying that she "hoped" to see her husband elected. And when Romney, who has been on a nationwide tour, said at one point "if I decide to run for president," some in the room chortled.
But neither Pawlenty nor Romney, nor any of the other featured speakers here Friday, which included possible 2012 contenders Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, could compete with the rowdy reception given Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas libertarian.
Depeche Mode was played; a fight nearly broke out between two people who were too drunk to explain what they were fighting about; some people were convinced that Dana Loesch, who was wearing leather pants, couldn't have possibly been Dana Loesch, because she was wearing leather pants.Well, I met Dana Loesch yesterday. Her leather pants were real and fabulous.
During his speech, which was added to the CPAC agenda at the last-minute, Trump hinted that the time may be right for him to run for president, arguing that he had had at least as much experience as President Obama.
“Our current president came out of nowhere,” Trump said.
He laid out his policy viewpoints in straightforward terms: “I’m pro-life. I’m against gun control, and I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it with something that makes sense for people in business and not bankrupt the country.”
Trump added, “If I decide to run, I will not be raising taxes.” He also pledged to help America re-gain a competitive advantage with China and other countries that he said “are screwing us.”
I liked it!
And my full report is here: "Updates from CPAC — Donald Trump Disses Ron Paul!"
More CPAC reporting later!
Business mogul Donald Trump said Thursday that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) could not possibly win the 2012 presidential race.Bonus: Apparently the same crowd heckled Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, seen below. The former vice president is not falling asleep. Rather, he's reading his notes:
"By the way, Ron Paul cannot get elected, I'm sorry to tell you," Trump said at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday. "I like Ron Paul, I think he's a good guy, but honestly he just has zero chance of getting elected."
Both Trump's names and Paul's have been mentioned as possible candidates for the 2012 presidential race.
Trump, who was a late addition to the speech schedule at CPAC, said in the same speech that he is considering running for president and would make an announcement if he decides to run in the first half of this year.
And until later, see Midnight Blue's CPAC updates.* Douglas Feith, "Dictators and Hedgehogs."
* Douglas Murray, "Cameron's Multicultural Wake-Up Call."
* Henry Olson, "After the Republican Wave."
* Kay Hymowitz, "Sarah Palin and the Battle for Feminism."* Lila Rose, "Planned Parenthood NY: Giving Pimps Discounts, on the Tax Payers’ Dime."
Only one ReaganThat's pretty classic Palin derangement, and it's especially interesting that the Times gave this woman's letter top billing in today's edition.
Re "Palin casts self in Reagan mold," Feb. 5
Sarah Palin's attempt to cast herself in the Reagan mold is laughable at best. Her anti-intellectual position is nothing more than another of the ad hominem, bandwagon, emotive arguments for which she is so famous, stirring up "mob mentality" by attacking the present administration.
The "small government" Palin advocates would be far more authoritarian than anything proffered by the Obama administration. Indeed, a Republican (or "tea party") government would basically annihilate Social Security, Medicare and the Environmental Protection Agency, remove a woman's right to choose and promote some extremist brand of Christianity, autocratically removing more and more of the freedoms we currently enjoy.
Palin stands for nothing more than promotion of Sarah Palin. The fact that so many people are actually convinced by her brand of argumentation is truly frightening. She is most definitely not Ronald Reagan.
Rebecca S. Hertsgaard
Palm Desert
(UN)RELATED: At The Other McCain, who I'll be hanging with, "LIVE AT FIVE – 2.8.11."
The extradition hearings in London Monday of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange drips with intrigue: a mysterious Australian hacker accused of sex crimes by two Swedish women. Now add this to the mix: Monday, a retired female judge accused the female Swedish prosecutor attempting to extradite Assange of having a "biased view" against men.More at the link above, and at Telegraph UK, "Julian Assange extradition hearing: Swedish prosecutor 'is biased against men': Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, is the victim of a "malicious" attempt to extradite him by a Swedish prosecutor who is "biased against men", a court has been told."
As part of the two-day hearing to determine whether Assange should be taken to Sweden to face sex-crimes charges, retired Swedish appeal court judge Brita Sundberg-Weitman launched an outspoken attack on Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny. Sundberg-Weitman was flown to London by Assange's legal team to give evidence supporting their argument that Assange's extradition would be a "flagrant denial of justice".
They got their money's worth, as Sundberg-Weitman a published academic and associate professor at Stockholm University, accused Ny of having a "rather biased view against men," according to an account by Britain's Press Assocation.
Well, I’ve never attended a CPAC conference ever so Sarah Palin Throws Support Behind GOProud Participation at CPAC." And quoted there: I was a little taken aback this go around when I couldn’t make it to this one either and then there was a speculation well I either agree or disagree with some of the groups or issues that CPAC is discussing ... perhaps what it is that you’re suggesting in the question is should the GOP, should conservatives not reach out to others, not participate in events or forums that perhaps are rising within those forums are issues that maybe we don’t personally agree with?This has generated a little controversy. Shane D'Aprile reports, "Conservative group wants answers from Palin on gay rights":
The conservative American Principles Project, which is already boycotting this week's Conservative Political Action Conference over the inclusion of a gay GOP group, is now demanding "clarity" from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.More at the link.
The organization wants to know exactly where Palin stands on the inclusion of GOProud as one of CPACs sponsors and wants clarity on her stance on gay marriage after Palin suggested over the weekend that she supports the group.
Asked about the controversy over GOProud's presence at CPAC, which has led to a boycott of the event by several leading conservative groups and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Palin told the Christian Broadcasting Network that she desires a "healthy debate."
"Should conservatives not reach out to others, not participate in events or forums that perhaps arising within those forums are issues that maybe we don't personally agree with?" Palin asked. "And I say 'no.'"
Palin's comments to CBN were highlighted by Andrew Breitbart, who is a member of GOProud's board and will take part in one of the group's events during CPAC later this week.
But the interview raised the ire of APP's President Frank Cannon, who demanded answers from Palin on Monday.
"The concern of conservatives is over the participation of a group whose stated goals run at odds with that of core conservative principles, not over debate over those issues," Cannon said in a statement. "Governor Palin should clarify her comments by letting us know whether in her definition, traditional marriage is a core component of conservatism."
Palin's views on gay rights aren't entirely clear. She drew attention earlier this year after she re-tweeted a message from conservative talk host Tammy Bruce that was seen by many as expressing support for the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Palin later said she didn't support the repeal.
Genuinely smart people see through Yglesias, and recognize him as a blowhard. Add to his many defects as a pundit and a thinker his particularly fervent advocacy of dishonesty, and his resort to obscenities when challenged (more on this later), and you have a blogger thoroughly and completely out of his depth, and exposed as a fraud.And I thought Diary of Daedalus was thorough in its destruction of Charles Johnson. Man, this is like a nuclear detonation.
Meanwhile, Robert Stacy McCain is not impressed: "HuffPo/AOL Deal: On Second Thought … Hell, No, It Still Doesn’t Make Any Sense."
The Huffington Post may have been founded as the liberal answer to the conservative Drudge Report, a place for progressive wound-licking in the wake of George W. Bush’s re-election.I doubt progressives have much to worry about. The Huffington Post will hardly be turning into a web copy of the Wall Street Journal. And Arianna Huffington's a progressive through and through, despite her well-documented hypocrisy.
But on Monday, Arianna Huffington was distancing herself from the lefty label as she announced the sale of HuffPost to AOL for $315 million.
“We don’t see ourselves as left,” she told POLITICO. “And I think it’s one area where news consumers are ahead of the media, because they know that continuing to see everything that’s happening as a right-left issue is missing what’s happening, and is also making it much harder for us to be properly informed.”
Some on the left worry that the sale to AOL could mean an end to HuffPost in its current incarnation — away from its roots in the progressive community, which were its first bloggers, commenters and readers, and toward a more middle-of-the-road posture, to make it more broadly appealing.
I probably have a very unusual view of things, but pretty much everything I read on Huffington Post comes from their original reporting wing, and they have a growing staff in that department delivering very strong content. It’s good for progressive media in general to see a business model thriving, and while there are concerns about a general flattening of the online space that’s already happening, and this at least plants a flag on the left side.RELATED: From former Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman, "The Huffington Post and AOL: 'Going There' Goes Global."
The advertising bowl that took place inside Super Bowl XLV on Sunday offered a wild — and somewhat welcome — ride through six decades of popular culture.RTWT.
Thankfully, many viewers had probably fastened their seat belts before tuning in to Fox, considering that almost half the companies that bought commercial time in the game had something to do with the auto industry, among them nine car brands from A (Audi) to V (Volkswagen), along with Bridgestone, CarMax and Cars.com.
The traffic jam may be another sign of the postrecession recovery on Madison Avenue, but it made for occasional difficulty in distinguishing the Elantras from the Optimas.
It would also have been difficult to figure out most of the 60-plus commercials without a working knowledge of Americana or, at least, access during the game to Wikipedia (if not WikiLeaks). The spots dished up a dizzying — and at times ditzy — mélange of celebrity star turns, movie references, homages to television shows, snippets of songs and even hat-tips to other spots.
To fully appreciate the commercials, it helped to be at least passingly familiar with “Almost Famous,” “Back to the Future,” Roseanne Barr, Busby Berkeley, Justin Bieber, Adrien Brody, David Bowie, Diddy, the “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings, Howdy Doody, early video games, Thomas Edison and Eminem (who turned up in two spots, for Chrysler and Lipton Brisk).
Also, Facebook, geeks, “Glee,” Jimi Hendrix, Faith Hill, home-improvement TV series, Timothy Hutton, Janis Joplin, Kenny G, “Lassie,” Richard Lewis, nerds, “1984” (the novel) and “1984” (the Apple commercial from the 1984 Super Bowl).
Plus, Joan Rivers, silent movies, the Snickers spot from the 2010 Super Bowl, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, spy movies, “Star Wars,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “Tiny Dancer,” “The Twilight Zone,” western movies, the “Where’s the beef?” commercial for Wendy’s and yuppies.
Whew. That is a big barrel of borrowed interest, to use the marketing term for wooing consumers by filling ads with familiar elements. The Super Bowl sponsors last year did it, too, rolling out proven draws like Kiss, “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and Betty White, but they were pikers compared with the advertisers and agencies that raided the national memory banks on Sunday.
AMID the talk last week of a Facebook revolution across the Middle East, Americans and other English speakers took to Twitter — to post about their love lives.More at the link.
Hashtags — the community-driven shorthand used to identify conversation themes — like “icantdateyou” and “worstpickuplines” were vastly more popular a few days ago than ones like “Egyptians” or “jan25,” a reference to Day 1 of the Egyptian protests. In just one hour last Tuesday, “icantdateyou” racked up nearly 274,000 mentions on Twitter, with posts like “icantdateyou if all you wanna do is fuss” and “icantdateyou if you look like your brother.”
Alas, poor “Mubarak” rated fewer than 11,000 during the same hour. (Many Egyptians could not post on Twitter because their government had temporarily cut off most Internet and cellphone service.)
Sure, many of us are more inclined to toss off frivolous posts than politically charged ones. But a new study of hashtags offers some insight into how and why some topics become popular quickly online while others don’t.
People generally pass on the latest conversational idioms — like “cantlivewithout” or “dontyouhate” — the first few times they see them on Twitter, or they never adopt them at all, according to the study by computer scientists. The researchers analyzed the 500 most popular hashtags among more than three billion messages posted on Twitter from August 2009 to January 2010.
“Idioms are like a sugar rush,” explains Jon Kleinberg, a professor of computer science at Cornell and a co-author of the study. “You see it once, you either use it or you don’t, but the rush wears off.”
More contentious themes like politics take longer to catch on, the researchers found. People tend to wait until they have seen a more polarizing phrase — like “sarahpalin” or “hcr,” short for health care reform — four, five or six times on Twitter before posting it themselves.
We already know that people often influence one another’s behavior. That is the monkey-see-monkey-do premise behind advertising. And it may seem intuitive that different kinds of information spread differently on the Web.
Time magazine's cover this week features a Photoshopped picture of Ronald Reagan with his arm around President Obama. The cover story purports to answer the question of why Obama is channeling Reagan, a question no one was asking until Time brought it up. It's a standard newsmagazine technique to add a "why" to the thesis of a story. It makes it seem deeper, even while skipping over the hard part of whether it's true.Actually, I think Kinsley's got a simple view, but RTWT if you're up to it.
If Obama is attempting to emulate Reagan, there is no mystery about why. Reagan carried 49 states in 1984, the year he was reelected. But Time contends the 44th president is following the example of the 40th in some unusually profound way.
I hope that's not true. Reagan was a nice enough man — but a terrible president. I know, I know, you're not supposed to say this. Even political opponents are supposed to recognize and applaud his sunny disposition, his death grip on various bromides, his mystical connection with the voters, the wisdom in his simple view of a complicated world and so on. I am unpersuaded.
Football fans know what happened in Super Bowl I. The game, which was played on January 15, 1967, was the first showdown between the NFL and AFL champions. It ended with the Green Bay Packers stomping the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.More at the link.
Unless they were one of the 61,946 people at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that day, or one of the fans who watched it live on NBC or CBS, there's one thing that all football fans have in common: They've never actually seen the game.
In a bizarre confluence of events, neither network preserved a tape. All that survived of this broadcast is sideline footage shot by NFL Films and roughly 30 seconds of footage CBS included in a pre-game show for Super Bowl XXV. Somehow, an historic football game that was seen by 26.8 million people had, for all intents and purposes, vanished.
HBO executive Rick Bernstein, who produced a two-part history of sports television in 1991, is one of many who have searched for a tape. He says his team chased numerous leads, from a reported copy in Cuba to rumors that Hugh Hefner might have recorded the game on a videotape machine in the Playboy Mansion. Nothing turned up. "It's the holy grail," Mr. Bernstein says.
The long search may finally be over. The Paley Center for Media in New York, which had searched for the game footage for some time, has restored what it believes to be a genuine copy of the CBS broadcast.
There's been a bit written recently on the death of blogs, and while there will -- I hope -- remain space for some, there's little doubt that the online world of politics is no longer limited to this form ... Some of the older blogs on right and left are still thriving, while others -- like TPM and the Hot Air bloggers -- have worked to turn themselves into broader news platforms. But the form now feels a little quaint.So, the death of blogs. I hadn't actually seen too much on that. Or, mostly, what I have seen and written about is the fascination with new media, especially Facebook and Twitter. But I just found a report on the death of blogs at New York Observer, "The End of Blogging." Folks can read it at the link. All of this is mostly a matter of definition. Blogging per se isn't going anywhere. Twitter is micro blogging. It's the hippest medium right now, but it may well be replaced with some new application or publishing format soon enough. The larger issue is the future of news publishing altogether. Folks might check James Rainey's piece yesterday on the SoCal newspaper industry: "Consolidation seen as inevitable for Southern California's newspapers." The dead-tree news model is nearly a thing of the past. Consumers get their news online nowadays, and those formats best able to attract advertising revenue will keep publishing. My sense is that, yeah, reverse-chronology blogs are someone quaint, as Ben Smith notes, but the power of blogging remains as great as ever. Top bloggers breaking top stories will survive. And the numbers will include a lot more than those mentioned by Ben Smith, who, incidently, made his own "quaint" blogging comment on a blog. Perhaps folks will just shift over to the online newspaper format. Think Daily Caller or Huffington Post, or on a smaller platform, Maggie's Notebook, NewsReal, or PA Pundits – International. And then there's Althouse. She keeps plugging away on Blogger, and if it's good enough for her it's good enough for me! I'll be keeping American Power running, whether on Blogger or Wordpress, a switch that remains in the contemplation mode. I'm also in talks for my own blog at NewsReal, which means I might be joining the David Horowitz publishing house as a formal member. Again, that's just in the discussion phase, but I'll know more after CPAC next week, where I'll be hooking up with some folks.
Shortly after Kerry's loss in 2004, at MyDD, Chris wrote "Conservatism is our enemy" which I think is the first time I ever encountered a direct ideological assault on conservatism itself. Along with Phil Agre's rightly famous essay on the subject, it began me on a road and mission to better understanding this beast. Everything I have learned to date from then continues to bolster Chris' original thesis. Conservativism is still the primary enemy of progress, justice, fairness and widespread happiness for humanity. It remains a destructive and corrosive force on the institutions of democracy and the single biggest obstacle to world peace ....These fights will have to go on. Conservatism is a destructive system of hierarchy and zero-sum power seeking that has no place in the running of a modern society. It is some kind of evolutionary anachronism, the ingrained desire to accumulate power and resources to the exclusion of "the other" against times of need in Hobbes' jungle. Since about 1850 we (in the West at least) have lived in the world of surplus resources where there really is enough stuff for everyone to go around, but still we live with about half the population intuitively working the politics of a Malthusian state where every hamburger you eat is one of my kids going hungry. Even today in the shadow of the Great Recession, world GDP per capita (PPP) stands at over $10,000 per year. About 1 billion live on less than $400 a year. Another billion live on less than $750 a year. Clearly there is enough to go around, we just suck at distribution. Is it really so crazy to imagine we could get those bottom 2 billion up to $1000 or $2000 a year?
In the field of pursuing the ideal human society, liberalism is the science of pursuing human well being. It combines the empiricism and rationalism of science with the goal of maximizing human happiness. The process is iterative and the specific means change as well meaning ideas are found wanting, and as science improves our understanding of humans themselves and what it takes to make them happy. There is no other school of thought that both seeks to improve the lot of all, and actually can do it. The ultimate goal of liberalism is that we should not need the word "liberalism" because no one would need a special word to describe the self-evident way people determine solutions to societal problems. That's what liberalism is, and why it must win or all humanity will fall back into ruin, scarcity, ignorance and fear. We live in a world with plenty of those things, but also a world where solutions to them are in reach, which was never true any time before. Après liberalism, le déluge.
Look, that's not "liberalism" — that's radical progressivism. And as long as these f**kers keep agitating for the neo-Stalinist revolution, I'll be out pushing back, smacking these freaks down like a whack-a-mole.
As always, drop your link in the comments to be added to the roundups.
Emergency demonstrations in solidarity with the uprising of the Egyptian people are taking place across the country to demand that the U.S. government stop all aid to the Mubarak dictatorship.As I've reported many times, the ANSWER contingents have been at the center of every left-wing mobilization over the past decade, from the Iraq war to Proposition 8 to the anti-SB 1070 campaign last year. The left's all-purpose protest machine, ANSWER is bolstered by Democrats and progressives, many of whom have ties to the Obama administration. Code Pink's Jodie Evans, for example, served as a top campaign fundraiser for Barack Obama, and now her organization is leading a fundraising operation for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: "Code Pink: Obama, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood Ally Raising (Tax Exempt) Money to Overthrow Egypt Gov’t:
As we reported previously, Code Pink has been on the ground in Cairo since the beginning of the uprising. The group has made nine trips to Egypt in the past two years as part of a campaign to undermine the Egyptian government and the blockade against Hamas-controlled Gaza.For over a week now we've had international solidarity protesters calling for an anti-American, anti-Zionist revolution in Egypt, so, folks might want to step back and go easy on the freedom euphoria just a bit (in favor of a prudent democratic realism).
So here are my two cents: next time when you head to Tahrir, alongside blankets and food and medicine, please get some foldable tables, chairs, papers, pens, a laptop and a USB connection. Set up a bunch of tables and start registering the protesters. Get their names, ages, addresses & districts. Based on location, start organizing them into committees, and then have those committees elect leaders or representatives. Do the same in Alex, In Mansoura, in Suez, in every major Egyptian city in which the Protesters braved police suppression and came out in the thousands. Protect the Data with your life. Get encryption programs to ensure the security of the data. Use web-based tools like Google documents to input the data in, thus ensuring that even if your laptops get confiscated by State Security Goons, they won’t find anything on your harddrives. Have people outside of Egypt back-up your data daily on secure servers. Then, start building the structure.That sounds awesome. The only problem is that during revolutionary crises the most highly organized factions often seize power through divide, conquer and assassination politics. We know now that Egypt's Arab street will not be silenced. But the shape of developments is still extremely fluid, and given the left's heavy investment and mobilization in the Muslim Brotherhood, a certain caution is well warranted.
You see, with such Proper citizen organization and segmentation, we’ll have the contact information and location of all the protesters that showed up, and that could be transformed into voting blocks in parliamentary districts: i.e. a foundation for an Egyptian Unity party. That Egyptian Unity Party will be an Umbrella party that promotes equality, democracy & accountability, without any ideological slants. It should be centrist, because we don’t want any boring Left vs. Right squabbling at that stage. Once you institute the structure, start educating the members on their rights and their obligations as citizens. Convince them to bring their friends and relatives into meeting. Establish voters’ critical mass , all under that party.
The Egyptian Unity Party, however, will not be a permanent structure, but rather a transitional entity with a clear and direct purpose: create the grassroots organization to take back the parliament and presidency in the next elections. Once sufficient votes and seats have been obtained, the party will amend the constitution to promote civil liberties, plurality, and truly democratic elections. Once that constitution is in place, the party can disband, and its elected members can start forming their own parties and collations, based on their personal beliefs and ideologies, or they can join any of the existing parties, and breathe some life into their decaying carcasses. We will end up with an actual political process and representative political parties that will actually discuss policy and have to represent those who voted for them so that they can get re-elected. Democracy in action. An old but brilliant concept. A way to ensure that no matter what, we will have a huge influence on who becomes the next Egyptian President come election day in September.
It seems news of Mubarak's resignation as head of the ruling National Democratic Party may have been premature. Confirmation cannot be obtained by many news outlets and the state TV seems to be reviewing its earlier announcement of the move.And check this, at NY Daily News, "Katie Couric fires incorrect tweet saying that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down." That's getting way ahead of events. Way to go CBS!
And here's the huge promotional poster next to the entrance there:
C-17 Globemaster III -- The C-17 is the world's premier heavy-airlift aircraft and has proven itself as a versatile strategic and theater airlifter in every recent worldwide operation, from Operation Iraqi Freedom to humanitarian relief missions. Worldwide, there are currently a total of 209 C-17s in service. Boeing is under contract with the U.S. Air Force to design, build and deliver 213 C-17s through July 2011. Boeing has delivered 202 aircraft to the Air Force as of September 2010.My host took me through each production area for every phase of the manufacturing process. It takes about six months for the construction of each finished aircraft. Each unit contains well over a million individual components, including everything from wiring and insulation, from cargo fasteners to jet engines, to the aviation cockpit equipment. It's pretty awesome.
Psychiatry is the most lamentable, malevolent, tragically destructive pseudoscience that the modern West has ever dealt with. Baseless conjecture built upon a nonsensical dualism -- and backed up by state power.He had over thirty comments, and I added mine:
Alex: Psychiatry is indeed a medical science, based on empricism, etc. How can you seriously claim otherwise? What is your evidence?Alex responds:
Donald, you malicious cunt. After playing into that demented, psychotic monster Swindle's vendetta and libeling me on your blog as a pedophile and accusing me of wanting to rape children, you have the gall to ask me a casual question like we're old buddies? Get the fuck out of here and don't speak to me ever again, unless it's in the form of your begging for an apology from me for the horrid way that you treated me.I guess he's not over that whole "pedo" scandal thingy, and still lashing out pretty heavily. I responded:
If you hate me so much you would have deleted my friendship, Alex. Do so now if you choose. I "played into" it because I thought you were wrong. Have you learned anything?Alex responds:
Deleting your friendship would be irrelevant; my Facebook is public and anyone can post on my statuses.My response:
What have I learned, though? I've learned that I cannot trust that creepy middle-aged men like you won't be snooping on forums for young ...people to try to destroy a college kid's reputation. There's something infinitely creepier about a middle-aged man snooping into a 19/20-year-old's posts on a gay forum advertised for people aged 14-25 than a 20-year-old having (legal) sex with a 16-year-old, which you were so appalled by. (By the way, since you worship psychiatry, I should note that the DSM-IV says that all of my attractions are completely normal.)
I also have a lostpainting account on a Britney Spears forum, breatheheavy.com/exhale. Would you like to go investigate that, too? Since you're so obsessed with digging into my private (that is: non-political, non-public) life.
If Swindle thought the material was troubling, he should have first approached me with it in private for an explanation and discussion, like any normal person would do. Instead, his -- and your -- first reaction was to think "What a great blog post! Let's write about it and take him by surprise so we can try to ruin him!" That shows your true intentions, and it reveals you for the monstrous, morally-bankrupt piece of shit you are. The fact that you are old enough to be my father only compounds the creepiness. I spend countless hours every week feeling miserable about you people's horrific smears and how they have affected my life. It's like being raped over and over again. I'd rather have been raped, in fact, than have been subject to such a hit job.
I didn't investigate you, Alex. You're lashing out pretty hard here. At the time, I commented on the debate as a friend. We had had some pretty decent exchanges, and I had no vendetta.Alex responds:
You may just possibly be more deranged than Swindle if you thought that your post was 'friendly.'My response:
Go pull up the post and link it. I didn't investigate you, and I said that we indeed had had exchanges. That's not true?Alex responds:
My response:...You said that I was a "pedophile posing as a conservative," that I was fired in a "pedophilia scandal," that I promote "man-boy" sex, and that I "have contempt for the rights of the most vulnerable." All because I had legal sex with som...eone four years younger than I am.
It's a real mystery as to why I'd take offense to that, isn't it?
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/pedophile-posing-as-conservative-alex.html....
Here's you: "Alex Knepper has protested ad nauseum that he's within his legal right to engage in sexual intercourse with a 16 year-old boy. And while that may be so (depending on the state, incidently),"
Um, yes, Donald, I follow the laws OF... THE STATE I LIVE IN. Not sure about you.
"there are no exceptions for adult sexual intercourse with 8 year-old children."
This is completely true but also completely fucking irrelevant, given that the guy I had sex with was sixteen and not eight.
I still stand by the argument, Alex. I think most folks were concerned with a higher law, a moral standard, which many thought you'd crossed.And that was it. No further responses from Alex Knepper. I gather he wants to protect the cocoon of denial he's built up to justify his pursuit of adolescent boy sex. He still digs Justin Bieber, that's for sure:
Deleting this shit at my mom's request; you've caused enough anxiety to me; no need to torture her, too.Well, how about that? Alex's mom monitors his Facebook threads? That's something else? Maybe she should have been monitoring some of those man-boy chat threads, and perhaps I wouldn't be having an exchange like this.
