Britian's PC Enforcers Attack Melanie Phillips Over Column Denouncing Palestinian Terrorists as 'Savages'

The story's at London's Guardian, "PCC investigates Melanie Phillips' Spectator blog" (via Blazing Cat Fur and Memeorandum). As readers here of course know, Phillips is one of the most penetrating writers on the moral depravity not just of Islamist jihadists, but of their progressive enablers in the press, left-wing parties and online fever-swamps. Robert Spencer offers an excellent response, "UK columnist investigated for referring to jihad murderers of Jewish family as 'savages'." And check the commentary at Spectator's "Coffee House" blog, "The threat to a British liberty":

We have no First Amendment protection in this country, and we're suffering from it. Freedom of expression under attack in Britain, from our notorious libel laws to this new phenomenon of police forces being asked to investigate what people put on their blogs.

Well, even the First Amendment is no guarantee against the kinds of assault on liberty progressives have mounted on truth-tellers worldwide. (Hat Tip: Israel Matzav.)

VIDEO: Night Sky Explosions Over Tripoli, Libya

Awesome clip:

And see the news updates at New York Times, "Allies Open Air Assault on Qaddafi’s Forces in Libya," and Telegraph UK, "Libya: British forces launch missile attacks on Gaddafi." Also at Memeorandum.

'Taxi Driver' - 35th Anniversary, Digitally Restored

I took my oldest son and he had a blast. He asked me on the way out, "Why did he do that? Was he kinda crazy?" I said, "Yeah, crazy but in a good way."

From the AMC homepage:

It was playing at The District in Tustin, minutes from my home. Also showing Tuesday night. The movie's riveting climax is here.

The Absentee Administration: Obama Falls Silent Amid World Crises

I've forgotten now, but I saw some progressive network bloviator the other day defending President Obama's lame Brazil trip while the rest of the world was literally melting down. The jokes write themselves at this point: Hillary Clinton campaigned against Barack Obama's unpreparedness for the crucial "3:00 AM" moment, and then she ends up announcing she won't hang around for a second term at precisely the crucial foreign policy crisis where Americans would have preferred she was answering the red phone. Kimberley Strassel was on this the other day, "President 'Present'." And here's this classic summary from Donald Sensing:

There is nothing at all in Obama's pre-presidential resume that shows he ever made highly difficult decisions that depended, at the end, on his own personal reservoir of wisdom and experience. So he does not tackle the inbox because its contents are above his competence. (One is reminded of Obama telling Rick Warren that when an unborn child gets human rights is "above my pay grade.") He tends instead to lesser matters that match his lower level of competence, such as filling out basketball brackets and flying down to Rio on a five-day trip of little importance, but which conveniently corresponds to his daughters' spring break. So tourism time will be a heavy feature of the agenda. But will anything presidential be accomplished?

See also, Rex Murphy, "When crisis strikes the world, Obama falls silent" (at Memeorandum).

Long Beach City College Announces Cuts, Layoffs

Below is Ann-Marie Gabel, Vice President for Administrative Services, speaking on the fiscal situation last month. Turns out the college administration is making haste on those reductions she's talking about. Budget chopping begins right now. At Long Beach Press-Telegram, "LBCC to Cut 222 Courses Next Fall":

LONG BEACH - About 1,000 fewer students will be able to attend Long Beach City College this fall due to a string of budget cuts that include the elimination of 222 course sections, college officials announced Friday.

The cuts for new academic year also include layoffs, furloughs, salary reductions and the suspension of the golf and tennis programs.

Like schools across the state, LBCC is experiencing one of its toughest financial years in its history. Governor Jerry Brown's proposed budget calls for a minimum of $290 million in reductions to community colleges and $1 billion in cuts to the University of California and California State University systems.

LBCC, which serves more than 30,000 students between its two campuses, is facing a $7 million shortfall in its roughly $110 million general fund.

And that's the best-case scenario.

More at the link.

The college faculty union reached agreement with the administration in January.

War in Libya!

Well, what do you know? The most antiwar president since at Jimmy Carter has authorized his very own military engagement. Frankly, I wondered if he had it in him. It'll be interesting to watch how this frazzles the Democratic coalition. These freaks are reflexively antiwar. Some progressives will hammer the administration as capitulating to Cheneyesque warmongering, while neocon wannabe interventionists will slam Obambi for his useless dithering. Add on top of that the feminist angle --- that Hillary, Samantha, and Susan are hot for high-value targets --- and this makes one hella progressive battle royal!

The feminist angle is at Christian Science Monitor, "A 'gender gap' in Obama administration’s approach to war?", and Althouse, "A feminist milestone: Our male President has been pulled into war by 3 women" (via Memeorandum). And the big headline is a Fox News, "U.S. Launches Cruise Missiles Against Qaddafi's Air Defenses." And at Los Angeles Times, "U.S. warships launch airstrikes on Libya":

U.S. and British warships launch more than 110 Tomahawk missiles at defense facilities on the Libyan coast, a naval commander at the Pentagon says. The strikes are intended to help an international coalition establish a no-fly zone in Libya ....

The U.S. is on the "leading edge" of the coalition military action that is designed to prevent further attacks against Libyan citizens, especially around the city of Benghazi, the main stronghold of rebels seeking to overthrow Kadafi's regime. The U.S. strikes are intended to defeat the Libyan government's ability to resist the implementation of a no-fly zone, said a senior U.S. military official.

The U.S. moved ahead Saturday with a three-pronged approach in what has been code named Operation Odyssey Dawn: launch targeted cruise missiles against Libyan air defenses, jam communications of Kadafi's forces and establish the central command and control for the operations.

Also previously at Wall Street Journal, "Allies Rally Against Gadhafi: Obama Demands That Libya Halt Attacks on Civilians as World Leaders Plot Military Strategy."

Middle East Turmoil Messes Up Progressive Foreign Policy

There's a lot out there on this, so it's a surplus of fodder for hammering progressive moral bankruptcy in foreign policy. Note first how Glenn Reynolds couldn't resist pointing out the laughable hypocrisy of Andrew Sullivan (yeah, I know, the world's moved on from Sully, but it's irresistible):

ANDREW SULLIVAN, who once complained that Bush wasn’t interested enough in invading Iraq, is now unhappy with Obama on Libya. Yeah, I know, who cares — but it’s worth recording for posterity.

That second link goes to Sully's post, "The Imperial President." And you gotta love this:

To launch a war on these grounds is to set a precedent that would require a kind of global power and reach that not even the most righteous neocons have pushed for.

Really? I guess Sully's not hip to Great Satan's Girlfriend!

More on that later.

I'm especially tripping on Hillary Rodham Clinton, who's basically said "f**k this s**t" on Obama's FUBAR foreign policy. See New York Times, "Shift By Clinton Helped Obama Take a Harder Line" (via Memeorandum). And just breaking, "France Sends Military Flights Over Libya."

Caroline Glick: 'Israel's indivisible legitimacy'

Another great essay, at Jerusalem Post.

The Left's Enduring Shame

I want to take another moment and really rub dolt-douche Thers' face in it. Like Scott Eric Kaufman, no doubt this guy would do Itamar-style violence to conservatives if he could. People like this --- Thers, SEK, and more --- are consumed by ideological bigotry. It's a vile blackness that warps both reason and compassion. And of course it's impossible to argue with them, for they promptly retreat into their bestial comment-thread cocoons, where the likes of REPSAC = CASPER spew the devil's frenzied caterwauls of hate. So here we have --- today and over the last few weeks --- the "empirical reality" of a systematic, widely reported progressive descent into newfound depths of pathological hatred. In response, again and again, Thers has issued bald-faced lies declaiming the seething demonology. Just today he's got two posts smearing Ann Althouse, who had the temerity to denounce the militant manifesto that announced: "WE WILL FUCK YOU UP!" Baseballs on the lawn seemed to be the out for Thers, making it easy to dismiss Shankman's threat to "beat the ever loving shit out of" Meade if he dared to "to get all tough with us." More innocent baseballs, no doubt.

In any case, check Patterico, "The Greatest Blog Post Ever Written?" And the topic there, which I found earlier, is Lee Stranahan's essay at Huffington Post, "Shame: Ignoring Death Threats to Wisconsin Politicians Is Media Bias." It's best to just read it in full. And after that, head over to the dude's Twitter feed. The guy's way left wing, but different: He's honest and willing to denounce the violent advocacy that's become the signature identity of today's progressives.

VIDEO: Alyssa Miller Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2011

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Because it's Friday...and it's Pin-Up Wars Round 2."

Let see if the lovely Alyssa Miller rates a link at the roundup:

More blogging later ...

Intimidation in Wisconsin

There's a lot developing in Wisconsin. A Dane County judge has halted the state's new collective bargaining statute. That'll be a big story throughout the day, so we'll see.

What's even more interesting is the left's escalation of progressive thuggery. William Jacobson comments: "And On the 21st Day the Intimidation Did Not Rest In Wisconsin." And following the link there takes us to John Nolte at Big Government, "20 Days of Left-Wing Thuggery in Wisconsin: When Will Obama, Democrats, and MSM Call for Civility?":

Most of all though is the mind-blowing threat/manifesto against Ann Althouse: "Union thuggery against Althouse and Meade."

We are NOT radically nonviolent. We comply with the laws of the Citybecause it is our City and we love it, but OH MY GOD do we hope Meade tries to get alltough with us. WE LOVE IT. LOVE IT. Just last night we saw a Jimmy John's worker who we know beat the ever loving shit out of some idiot drunk asshole who wouldn't be civil and polite in his workplace. We have the numbers and we don't back down from anyone. We all know each other. We know each other from Service Industry Night at the Orpheum, because we're regulars at the same coffee shops, restaurants and bars,we know each other from the co-ops, we know each other because we've had a million jobs each (and we all worked at CapTel at least once), because we live in every shitty townie house in ever-changing groups of 2 – 7 people, because we are young and horny and screw each other incessantly, because we're all on facebook, and because we aren't anti-social, life-denying, world-sterilizing pieces of human garbage like the two of you. WE WILL FUCK YOU UP.

That's not intimidating at all, right? RTWT at "Operation: Countertroll."

And amazingly, Dan Riehl has interviewed this progressive asshat, "Exclusive Interview With Jim Shankman, the Man Behind the Ann Althouse Threat." It's pretty interesting. Shankman self-identifies as a "radical progressive," but then denies he's a "socialist" or "Marxist." Apparently Shankman was previously a member of International Workers of the World (IWW/AI), an anarchist syndicate, which makes sense since the dude's anti-Althouse manifesto is all about the F**KING OCCUPATION!

BONUS: It turns out, incredibly, that dolt-douche Thers has a bigger crush on Althouse than REPSAC = CASPER has on me. Thers, who thinks he's smarter than the entire universe, denies that Shankman's threatening Alhouse and Meade, focusing on the part about throwing "f**king baseballs" on Althouse's lawn, with the address posted at the manifest as well, naturally. See the entries from dolt-douche Thers here and here. Then compare to Kenneth Anderson at Volokh, who suggests this might be a bit more serious than tossing baseballs.

Not So Fast on Japan's Chernobyl

From The Blog Prof, "Vlog: Fukushima is No Chernobyl, and Here's Why":

RELATED: At New York Times, "Data Show Radiation’s Spread; Frantic Repairs Go On at Plant." And more at Memeorandum.

'To hint that those who grew up in a household with a mother and father are somehow less black than those who did not is beyond ridiculous'

An incredible essay (in that it had to be written at all), and powerfully uplifting. At New York Times, "Grant Hill’s Response to Jalen Rose."

United Nations Approves Military Action Against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi

At Los Angeles Times, "U.N. authorizes military action against Kadafi":

U.S. and allied forces began preparing for military operations against Libya despite doubts the outgunned rebels can be saved.

At New York Times, "U.N. Approves Airstrikes to Halt Attacks by Qaddafi Forces." Also, from Roger Cohen, "Be Ruthless or Stay Out":

What’s clear to me is that there is no halfway house. Spurn conscience-salving gestures. The case against going in prevails unless the West, backed and joined by the Arab League, decides it will, ruthlessly, stop, defeat, remove and, if necessary, kill Qaddafi in short order. I’m skeptical that determination can be forged. Only if it can be does intervention make sense.

But who takes power after Gaddafi's gone? That's one "con" that Cohen doesn't address?

Body-Slammed Bully Should Apologize

I saw the video previously. But here's this right now Fox News, "Mother of Bully Body-Slammed in Video Demands Apology From Her Son's Victim." That may be erroneous, however. See Australia's Daily Telegraph, "Clarification - an apology to Tina Gale":

IN an article published in The Daily Telegraph yesterday headlined "Bully's angry mum wants victim to apologise", it was written that bully Ritchard Gale's mother Tina wanted her son's victim to apologise for slamming her son to the ground.

But she had, in fact, said she wanted her son to apologise to his victim.

The Daily Telegraph apologises for the error.

By way of analogy, Casey Heynes is the American taxpayer slamming the progressive union thugs to the cold cement. These Big Labor bullies have been practically getting away with murder. The GOP's righteous smackdown will continue beyond Madison.

Keffiyeh-Clad Communists Call for Revolution in Chicago

Because, you know, it's all just a bunch of "imaginary communists" --- just ask Tintin, the blogging asshat at Sadly No!

"Because we do in fact hate commies, at least real commies, not the imaginary commies that community college Assistant Associate Professor Douglas sees lurking behind every potted plant."

More potted plants in Chicago.

At Rebel Pundit, "Anti-American, Pro-Socialist & Communist Immigrant Youth: “Open The F**KING BORDERS!!”":

Also, "COMING SOON – ChicagoSocialists.org & Immigrant Youth Justice League Join Forces In Chicago Preview," and "Communist Revolutionary Comes out of the Shadows to Protest in Chicago."

The keffiyeh is the universal symbol of anti-colonialism and murderous pro-Palestinian radicalism. It's the symbol of anti-Semitism and diabolical evil. Stupidity is no justification for such cheap and easy death-to-Jews advocacy. These people are a disgrace --- the dregs of humanity, along with their pro-terror enablers on the progressive left. Yeah, that's you pro-terror Tintin Sadly-Nihilist.

Jews in Settlement Community Save the Life of Palestinian Woman and Her Newly Born Infant Wednesday

This kinda goes against the bloodthirsty libel of the global anti-Semitic campaign against Israel. At Elder of Zion, "Evil, extremist settlers save Arab baby's life. Leftists don't notice." And following the link there takes us to Ynet, "IDF, settlers save Arab baby."

After reading those pieces, check over at Jerusalem Post, where this letter was published yesterday, "So it’s our fault?" An excerpt:

Sir, – I sit here in shock as Gershon Baskin looks to blame Israel for the lack of progress in the so-called peace negotiations (“The clock is ticking,” Encountering Peace, March 15). He babbles on and on about a Palestinian narrative of how Israel stole all the land, made the Palestinians refugees and now denies them their dignity...

We are all grateful – and I’m sure the Fogel family is very comforted – that Baskin condemns, along with all Palestinians, the slaughter at Itamar. But he does note that Itamar is home to some of the most fanatical settlers. I am sure that a three-month-old infant fits into this group.

Perhaps Baskin should look for another place to live. Why be part of such an awful nation that, unlike the loving and caring Palestinian people, doesn’t want to be a partner for peace?

JONATHAN SURASKY
Ra’anana

More letters at the link.

The Neocon Cudgel

I wanted to comment earlier on this Politico piece attacking the emerging GOP field as a bunch of "neo-cons" on foreign policy. I thought it simplistic, for one thing, and as usual, the essay wrongly generalizes neoconservatism as exclusively an expansionist foreign policy ideology. It's not. But because questions of war and peace (and support for Israel) have become among the most contentious political issues of recent years, the neocon label has become the all-purpose slur to demonize and marginalize political opponents. That said, it's interesting to see Matt Lewis jumping in here to disaggregate the simplicities. See, "Abusing and Misusing The ‘Neo-Con’ Label":

Perhaps seeking to contrast himself with the rest of the 2012 Republican crowd, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour recently said the U.S. should consider reducing forces in Afghanistan.

Noting that Barbour is the lone voice among likely GOP candidates making this argument, Politico’s Ben Smith and Byron Tau argue that neo-cons are “winning the fight for the direction of the [Republican] party.” (As far as I know, Barbour did not use the term neo-con).

The term “neo-con” originally was used to describe former Democrats (often Jewish intellectuals — but not always) who were, as Irving Kristol put it, “mugged by reality”.

Over time, the meaning has evolved — so much so that apparently the modern definition includes anyone who isn’t an isolationist. Today, neo-con is essentially shorthand for “quixotic warmonger.” (That Pawlenty, Romney, Gingrich — and the rest of the GOP field — are all essentially being labeled neo-cons speaks to the bastardization of the term.)

Putting aside whether or not Governor Barbour’s position on Afghanistan is correct or not, I can’t help thinking the label is now just a cudgel, casually employed by people who don’t know the original definition of the word — or are merely looking for a cheap way to discredit their adversaries. (And for journalists, the term is simply a good shorthand — which makes its overuse all the more common).

Unfortunately, anyone who disagrees with a given instance of military intervention can dismiss their intellectual adversaries by simply labeling them with the term. This, of course, dispatches with the messy work of actually debating the merits of intervention on an ad hoc basis (I would argue that sometimes intervention is good and sometimes it is bad).

I'd just simply remind folks of the deeply moral dimension of neoconservative thought, which is the key reason it's despised by the America-hating left. And in case you missed it, Irving Kristol's posthumous collection of essay is out, The Neoconservative Persuasion: Selected Essays, 1942-2009.

RELATED: At GSGF, "Regional Strategery."

Maybe It's Worth Stopping for a Moment to Reflect on the Fogel Family Murders

Listen to Glenn Beck's commentary, one of the only mainstream commentators who has taken a moment or two to reflect on the unspeakable evil visited upon the Fogel family, all of Israel, and the moral universe. At the second half of the clip Beck makes a reference to Bernadine Dohrn, whose hero was Charles Manson. The thought of Dohrn's murder-worship is soul-crushing, but so is progressivism. See Walter Hudson as well, "Horrific Stabbing of Infant Shows Flaw in Leftist Worldview."

I'll have more on all of this. Folks have been appreciative of these essays.

The Signature Moral Issue of Our Time

From Melanie Phillips, "A Terrible Resonance" (via Blazing Cat Fur):

Religious fascism as thus displayed by Arabs from Ramallah to Gaza City is bad enough. But it is the evil that now consumes Britain and the west which so completely chills the heart and prompts a terrible despair. For such moral blindness and worse means that, facing the heirs of the Nazis, the Jews once again find themselves abandoned, their victimisation once again dismissed and themselves once again blamed for their own persecution. Listen to the BBC, read the British newspapers or the New York Times, read the vicious readers’ comments on so many websites (including this one) and you will see that the blind eye to deranged racism and totalitarian mass murder that paved the way for so much slaughter under Nazism and Stalinism is rampant once again, showing us once more that civilisation is merely a thin veneer for barbarism.

In the face of this crisis of western civilisation and its chilling implications for the Jewish people, Israel itself is worse than useless. This is because -- contrary to the brutish power ascribed to it by its enemies -- Israel is pathologically timid. And so, even when faced with the terrifying consequences for its own security from the moral inversion of the west, it has chosen to stay silent.

It does not say what it should be shouting from the rooftops, that it is being forced by Britain, America and Europe to cut its own throat and that it refuses to do so; that it stands for truth, justice and international law while Britain, America and the EU stand for their negation; that it is not Israel but these western powers that are the cause of the Middle East impasse, because from the get-go the more the Arabs massacred the Jews the more Britain and the west rewarded them and punished their Jewish victims, a pattern which continues to this day.

The question now has to be asked of every person in Britain and the west who promotes the boycott of Israel, or wears the keffiyeh in solidarity with the ‘Palestinians’, or so obsessively demonises the ‘settlers’ or ‘apartheid’ Israel, or makes vicious comments at the dinner tables of the elite about the bloody Jews and shitty Israel, why these ‘enlightened’ folk turn a blind eye to the slaughter of infants as they sleep, and assist Jew-hating fanatics in their racist aim of destroying Israel and denying to the Jews alone the right to live in their own historic country – and all because Israel is reluctant to reward these fanatics by giving them the territory from where they can finally achieve their murderous aims. These ‘progressives’ need to be outed for what they are – the fellow-travellers of psychotic religious fascism.

Israel is the signature moral issue of our time. Which side people choose to be on in the Arab and Muslim war against Israel tells us whether they are on the side of truth, justice and basic humanity – or the side of evil. The sickening response to the slaughter of the Fogel family shows us all too horrifyingly which side the west is on.