Sunday Cartoons

See Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

Also at Reaganite Resistance, "Reaganite's CHRISTMAS Sunday Funnies," and Theo Spark, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Washington Crossing the Delaware

That's the 1851 painting by Emanuel Leutze.

I'm snagging the idea from Great Satan's Girlfriend, "Killing Our Enemies On Christmas Day Since 1776."

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered: yet we have this consolation with us -- that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

If You Have Time, Read This Review of Corey Robin's Book, The Reactionary Mind, at the New York Review

It's a great piece, from Mark Lilla, "Republicans for Revolution."

I'd never heard of Corey Robin until last week, when progressives online were touting his piece on the death of Hitchens, "Christopher Hitchens: The Most Provincial Spirit of All."

Lilla's review of Robin's book will make you chuckle. He writes, for example:

Robin, who teaches political science at Brooklyn College, has been writing thoughtful essays on the American right for The Nation and other publications over the past decade. The Reactionary Mind collects profiles of well-known right-wing thinkers like Ayn Rand, Barry Goldwater, and Justice Antonin Scalia, and some deserters who turned left, like John Gray and Edward Luttwak. There are also a few that look beyond our borders, including an excellent piece on Hobbes as a counterrevolutionary thinker. But the book aims to be more than a collection. It is conceived as a major statement on conservatism and reaction, from the eighteenth century to the present. And this is where it disappoints. The problems begin in the opening paragraphs, where Robin lays out his general picture of political history. It is not overly complex:

Since the modern era began, men and women in subordinate positions have marched against their superiors in the state, church, workplace, and other hierarchical institutions. They have gathered under different banners—the labor movement, feminism, abolition, socialism—and shouted different slogans: freedom, equality, rights, democracy, revolution. In virtually every instance, their superiors have resisted them, violently and nonviolently, legally and illegally, overtly and covertly…. Despite the very real differences between them, workers in a factory are like secretaries in an office, peasants on a manor, slaves on a plantation—even wives in a marriage—in that they live and labor in conditions of unequal power.

This is history as WPA mural, and will be familiar to anyone who lived through the Thirties, remembers the Sixties, or was made to read historians like Howard Zinn, Arno Mayer, E.P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, and Christopher Hill at school. In their tableau, history’s damnés de la terre are brought together into a single heroic image of suffering and resistance. Their hats are white, immaculately so. Off in the distance are what appear to be black-hatted villains, though their features are difficult to make out. Sometimes they have little identification tags like those the personified vices wear in medieval frescoes—”capital,” “men,” “whites,” “the state,” “the old regime”—but we get no idea what they are after or what their stories are. Not that it matters. To understand the oppressed and side with them all you need to know is that there are oppressors.

Exactly.

And this is no doubt why Robin is gaining traction with the idiots of the progressive fever swamps.

But Lilla has some props for Robin as one who takes conservatives seriously. I'm more interested in what Lilla has to say than what Robin does, actually, especially since I think "reactionary" is a utterly misused term in political discourse.

But continue reading the review. There's some excellent clarification of what conservatives are and what they stand for. And Lilla is another author who cites the isolationist trend among the GOP base that could well emerge as a more welcomed position for the party in the months ahead, especially depending on how things turn out in the primaries coming up in a few weeks.

I'll try to come back to this topic. It's Christmas though, and it's going to be a busy morning, with perhaps a little more sleep fitted in here somewhere among other things.

Merry Christmas from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

From the Prime Minister of Israel:

Jerome Simpson Front-Flip Touchdown

At Los Angeles Times, "Jerome Simpson flip: A video clip that must be seen."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Is this the best touchdown ever? NFL star's amazing front flip lands him in history books (but he could be fined $25,000)."

Added: Ann Althouse has the NFL video, in case this YouTube gets pulled, "'Bengals WR Jerome Simpson flips over a Cardinals defender...'"

Politically Aware Songs Go Missing in 2000s?

So say Reed Johnson and Deborah Vankin, at the Los Angeles Times, "For politically aware songs, the '00s were all for naught":

The '60s gave us "Blowin' in the Wind," folk-poet Bob Dylan's challenge to the brutal status quo. The '70s served up Neil Young's "Ohio," an anthem of generational rage against the military-industrial machine. The '80s laid down "The Message," Grandmaster Flash's hip-hop jeremiad about the vicious cycle of race-based poverty. The '90s broke loose with Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade," a rap-rock rant targeting corporate greed and cultural imperialism.

And the '00s? It's produced some memorably sardonic screeds (Green Day's "American Idiot"), patriotic hell-yeah's out of Nashville like Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue (The Angry American)," and dirges of quiet desperation emanating from "The Suburbs," courtesy of Arcade Fire.

But much of the music that has topped the Billboard charts in the new millennium — Britney, Lil Wayne, Lady Gaga — might suggest that America has been one big party since 2001, despite the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, two major wars, a wobbly economy and a bitterly divided government. Likewise, the recent popular manifestations of that unrest, the tea party and Occupy Wall Street movements, so far seem to have been largely lost on popular music.

That has left some artists, music industry professionals and listeners pondering how well today's music is serving the restless masses and capturing the essence of times that indeed are a-changin'.

Look, not everyone can be the Bob Dylan of the age, but I'm not buying the lack of "politically aware" songs for an entire decade. And the authors are mostly shilling for #OWS, which is too bad, since it's a really lame movement. Besides, Keith Morris is still jamming. Amazing that the Los Angeles Times overlooked Off! in their own backyard:

Your high social caste
Privileged friends
You lure me in
But I can't be your friend
Hit on Miss Liberty
Under the cherry tree
Drunk on hypocrisy
I'm standing in the shadows
And I'm pissing in the punchbowl
I don't belong
Cocktail party
Pin the tail on the donkey
Icing on my face
But I don't like the taste
Right wing mentality
God and democracy
Red carpet royalty
I'm standing in the shadows
And I'm pissing in the punchbowl
I don't belong

Merry Christmas From the Romneys

It's a nice touch:

America Remains Predominantly Christian Nation

As measured by public opinion survey data, at Gallup, "Christianity Remains Dominant Religion in the United States":

PRINCETON, NJ -- This Christmas season, 78% of American adults identify with some form of Christian religion. Less than 2% are Jewish, less than 1% are Muslim, and 15% do not have a religious identity. This means that 95% of all Americans who have a religious identity are Christians.

Well, yeah.

But you wouldn't know it by the way the radical progressives and their atheist allies have demonized those who openly profess their faith.

See previously: "The War on Christmas."

'Home for the Holidays'

I've been meaning to post some Carly Foulkes Rule 5, and I was reminded of that by seeing this T-Mobile ad during yesterday's Chargers game.

Background here: "Magenta Meets New Directions For T-Mobile."

Merry Christmas!

BONUS: At American Perspective, "Rule 5 Aishwarya Rai."

Even Profitable Firms Fleeing California

Something I've written about on numerous occasions.

At O.C. Register, "California businesses can expect little sympathy from leadership in Sacramento":

Democratic reaction to the news that Waste Connections, a $3.6-billion company and major Sacramento-area employer, is headed to Houston to seek a friendlier business climate tells other businesses all they need to know about the attitudes of those who run California's government.

State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, gave these clueless and snarky remarks in response to the news: "In this instance you have a company that is, in fact, profitable, making significant revenue gains in 2011 and 2010. That doesn't speak to a bad business climate here in California when a good company is able to thrive in that way. So whatever Mr. Middelstaedt's (company CEO) reasons are to leave the great state of California, I know I'm pushing back."

Steinberg claims to have worked on improving the state's business climate, but from what we see in Sacramento, Steinberg and the party he helps lead have been pushing hard mainly for additional regulations and much higher taxes. The California Democratic Party's attitude long has been that businesses are basically trying to rip off the public, and the source of all wealth and advancement can be found in the public sector, When businesses leave. Steinberg and Co. show little sympathy.

That's because Democrats suck.

Continue reading at the link.

Former Soviet Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev Calls on Russian President Vladimir Putin to Resign

The interesting thing is that the Soviet Union disintegrated exactly 20 years ago today.

See Telegraph UK, "Mikhail Gorbachev calls for Putin to resign."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev calls on Putin to resign as 50,000 take to the streets of Moscow to protest over vote-rigging claims":

Mikhail Gorbachev, who resigned as Soviet president 20 years ago Sunday, has urged Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to follow his example and step down.

Gorbachev said if Putin resigned now, he would be remembered for the positive things he did during his 12 years in power.

The former Soviet leader spoke on Ekho Moskvy radio yesterday after a new wave of protests against alleged election fraud drew tens of thousands to Moscow's streets.

It was the largest show of public outrage since the protests in 1991 that brought down the Soviet Union.

Christmas in Bethlehem

At LAT, "Christmas Eve in Bethlehem: A hub of activity":

And at BBC, "Bethlehem Christmas: Christians celebrate Midnight Mass."

Bombs Raise Stakes in Syria

At Wall Street Journal, "Assad Regime Blames al Qaeda for Twin Blasts in Damascus, Escalating Conflict" (via Google):

Syria's government blamed al Qaeda for two suicide bomb attacks that rocked Damascus on Friday morning, opening a dangerous phase in the Syrian conflict just one day after an Arab League advance mission arrived in the country under a plan to resolve the spiraling crisis.

"Initial investigations point to al Qaeda," read headlines on Syrian television.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks. But the government's claim set off waves of speculation among activists and observers over what group could be capable of spectacular strikes on state-security offices at the heart of the capital—Syria's first reported suicide bombings in a decade.

Some security experts said al Qaeda or other insurgents could conceivably be responsible. Others joined Syrian activists in blaming the government itself for staging the attacks, a claim impossible to verify. But many pointed out that the government's claim, grounded or not, could provide cover to mount further crackdowns against the nine-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

The two attacks came within minutes of each other. They killed 44 people—mostly civilians, but also security officers—and injured 166, Syrian state media reported.

State television broadcast images of smoke and bloodied debris at the scene, to sounds of sirens. Men were shown dragging a charred torso into an ambulance. The road was piled with bodies wrapped in sheets and blankets.

And see Legal Insurrection, "Will car bombings save Assad?"

Christmas Smear: MSNBC Hack Ed Schultz Slurs Tea Partiers as 'Sewer Rats' — Assploding Hypocrite W. James Casper Hardest Hit!

From Radio Equalizer (via Randy's Roundtable):

Walter James Casper III got all butthurt for being called out as a rabid anti-Semite ---  and that's on top of his history of sponsoring white supremacist hate rantings at his attack blog. Racist Repsac3 is whining about how "poor Donald" is so hateful --- HATEFUL, WAAAHHH!! --- but the idiot never has a word of condemnation for his sick puppy progressive allies, like loser Ed Schultz who slurred good people AS A GROUP just days before Christmas. That's bigotry.

Frankly, politics doesn't stop for the holidays, but if you're a pathetic racist anti-Semitic Occupy-endorsing Jew-bashing neo-commie, it's par for the course. Freakin' assploding hypocrite bigot. Walter James Casper III is despicable.

FedEx Guy Throws Computer Over Fence

Althouse has the video:

And at London's Daily Mail, "'This won't be his best day': FexEx vows to track down delivery man who tossed computer monitor over fence."

Victoria's Secret Holiday Rule 5

Jake Finnegan gets into the holiday spirit here: "Burkalesque Babes: We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

Also at Pirate's Cove, "If All You See…is a rising sea that will swamp the island, you might just be a Warmist." And Eye of Polyphemus, "Sara Underwood for Christmas Eve."

More at Gator Doug, "DaleyGator DaleyBabe Alina Kabaeva."

And really hot at Hookers and Booze, "Christmas Eve Hooker."

From Bob Belvedere, "Rule 5 Saturday: Carol Alt." And Randy's Rountable, "Thursday Nite Tart: Laura Acuna."

Also at Reaganite, "You Know Who's Kinda HAWT? Miss Argentina 2011 - Antonella Kruger!"

RELATED: At Blazing Cat Fur, "Silent Night," and Teresamerica, "Simply Magnificent - The First Noel by Jackie Evancho."

BONUS: At Wintery Knight, "The meaning of Christmas, from a Charlie Brown Christmas."

And at The Other McCain, "I DENOUNCE THIS ATROCITY!" (Check that link to see what's behind the curtain.)

Plus, I have some Christmas Day Rule 5 in the hopper, so drop your links in the comments to be added!

Why the Left Doesn't Mourn Vaclav Havel's Passing

From Ron Radosh, at PJMedia, "How the Left sees the Life of Vaclav Havel, and why they Do Not Mourn his Passing":

PJ Media readers know why we mourn the passing of Vaclav Havel. On this site, Michael Ledeen beautifully laid out the reasons why the world knows it has lost one of its greatest leaders. Ledeen put it in these words: “he was one of a handful of people who changed the world by fighting totalitarian Communism and then, having defeated it, inspired his people to rejoin the Western world, embrace capitalism, and support democratic dissidents everywhere.”

But now that a week or more have passed since Havel’s death, some on the Western Left have decided to let their true feelings about Havel out. Despite having to give some lip service to Havel’s integrity and what he accomplished, these men of the Left quickly get to what they really think: Havel helped destroy the great ideal of Communism as a worthy goal, and for that, he cannot be forgiven.

The most egregious is the article in the British paper The Guardian. The headline to Neil Clark’s article reads, “Another Side of the Story.” Clark immediately ties Havel up with another individual who has just passed way, Christopher Hitchens, whose “consecration” he strongly objects to. For Hitchens was, he writes, “ another ‘progressive’ opponent of the communist regimes of eastern Europe who found favour with Washington’s neocons.”

Clark does not question that Havel was “a brave man” who stood up for his views. That he cannot deny. It is Havel’s views, and his anti-Communism, that he detests. For Havel, he writes, did not help make his country “and the world, a better place.” In particular, denying everything we know about the nature of Stalinism in Eastern Europe — the repression, the bureaucracy, the lack of necessary consumer goods to lead a decent life, the ever pervasive secret police — he faults Havel for the following:

Havel’s anti-communist critique contained little if any acknowledgement of the positive achievements of the regimes of eastern Europe in the fields of employment, welfare provision, education and women’s rights. Or the fact that communism, for all its faults, was still a system which put the economic needs of the majority first.

Surely Mr. Clark must be kidding. Has he not read any of the scores of books revealing the nature of life under what his comrades then called “really existing socialism”? Does he not realize that all these so-called “positive achievements” were there mainly in the minds of the state and Party propaganda apparatus, and that the only people to have them were the Party’s apparatchiks? Does he really believe that communism put the needs of “the majority first”? What accounts, then, for the scores of brave crowds who swept Havel into office, and who openly taunted the regime’s spokesmen as liars and no different than the Nazis who ruled before them?

Clark does not stop with the above. In true Communistpeak, he attacks Havel as “the son of a wealthy entrepreneur,” in other words used by the Maoists of the day, a “capitalist roader.” How dare the son of a bourgeois merchant becomes a national hero? Havel, to Clark, as to the comrades who ruled for decades, had no right to power, since he came from the hated capitalist class.

Continue reading.

Also, from Darleen at Protein Wisdom, "Pining for the fjords Communism." Hammering Whoopi Goldberg's comments on communism, Darleen adds:

The base misanthropy of collectivist advocates is glaringly clear. From communism [international collectivism] to national socialism [national collectivism], these are anti-human systems that declare individuals are not sovereign beings with inherent rights, but units that live at the pleasure of the regime. A regime that decides what needs are to be met and who will be sentenced to fulfilling those needs.

Remember that as Obama and statist Democrats continue their attempts to fundamentally transform America.

Freakin' murderous asshats.

The War on Christmas

From Blazing Cat Fur:

Plus, at Telegraph UK, "The War on Christmas is real, and the atheist barbarians are winning it."

BONUS: At Lonely Conservative, "Random Ramblings – Christmas Edition."

Wall Street Journal Weekend Interview: Mitt Romney On Taxes, 'Modeling,' and the Vision Thing

It's amazing that Newt Gingrich dropped back down in the polls so quickly. The negative attacks took their toll and the Newt-phoria on the Iowa campaign trailed cooled off rather decisively. Now it's Ron Paul's turn to start fading in the less-than-two weeks we have left until the caucuses. All the attention to the racist newsletters should take some of the luster off Paul's campaign, although he's got the ground game in place so who knows? If Romney can hold on for the win in New Hampshire he'll be able to match whatever momentum emerges for the Iowa winner, and with his fundraising edge he'll likely be able to compete more effectively in the number of upcoming contests through January.

In any case, an interesting interview at WSJ, at the link:

Does Mitt Romney have a governing vision, a dominating set of political principles? It's the big question many voters say they have about the GOP presidential candidate. So when the former Massachusetts governor visited the Journal editorial board this week, we put it to him squarely, if perhaps tendentiously.

Voters see in him a smart man, an experienced executive, plenty of managerial expertise, great family—but they also see someone with the soul of a consultant who has 59 economic proposals because he lacks a larger vision of where he'd take the country. What does he think of that critique?

Mr. Romney has been garrulously genial for an hour, but here he shows a hint of annoyance. "I'm not running for president for 59 ideas," he says. "I'm not running for president because the country needs a management consultant or a manager. I'm not even the world's greatest manager. There are a lot better managers out there.

"People who know me from my years at Bain Capital, Bain and Company, the Olympics and Massachusetts wouldn't say he was successful because he was a great manager. They'd say I was successful because I was a leader, that I had a vision of how to change the enterprise, any one of those three enterprises, to make it greater." And that vision is? Mr. Romney says he's running "to return America to the principles that we were founded upon." He goes on, expanding on his campaign theme, Believe in America: "We have a choice in America to be remaining a merit-based opportunity society that follows the Constitution, or to follow the path of Europe.

And I'm the guy who believes in the former. I believe America got it right. I believe Europe got it wrong. I believe America must remain the leader the world. . . . I am absolutely committed to an American century. I see this as an American century."

He concludes with even more force, "America doesn't need a manager. America needs a leader. The president is failing not just because he's a poor manager. It's because he doesn't know where to lead."

Continue reading.

Newt Gingrich Goes After Ron Paul on Newsletters

At New York Times, "With Paul on the Rise in Iowa, Gingrich Takes Aim":

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Newt Gingrich turned his fire on Representative Ron Paul of Texas on Friday, saying that his Republican opponent had to answer for political and investment newsletters that included racist, anti-gay and anti-Israel passages that Mr. Paul has disavowed.

Mr. Gingrich also sharply criticized Mr. Paul for what he said were his isolationist views on foreign policy. The pointed comments suggested a new dynamic in the presidential primary race, with Mr. Paul as a new and enticing target. His fortunes have risen in Iowa, scrambling the field as some polls suggest that Mr. Paul could pull off a victory in the caucuses on Jan. 3. But in recent days, he has come under increasing scrutiny for offensive passages in newsletters that bore his name, although he has denied writing or approving them. 

“These things are really nasty, and he didn’t know about it?” Mr. Gingrich said to reporters after a town-hall-style meeting here.

At the same time, Mr. Gingrich refrained from criticizing Mitt Romney, with whom he has frequently sparred, calling him, at worst, “a Massachusetts moderate.”

Speaking to a large and enthusiastic crowd outside the Blue Marlin restaurant here on a warm and sunny day, Mr. Gingrich mainly framed his candidacy in opposition to President Obama. But he strongly criticized Mr. Paul’s foreign policy positions. Mr. Paul’s criticism of American military involvement overseas is at odds with the views of many Republican voters who may otherwise be attracted to his strong antigovernment message.

“The only person I know who is for a weaker military than Barack Obama is Ron Paul,” Mr. Gingrich said.

“His positions are fundamentally wrong on national security,” he added. “I do not agree with him that America is at fault for 9/11, I do not agree with him that we can ignore an Iranian nuclear weapon, and I do not agree with him that it’s O.K. if Israel disappears.”

A top official with the Paul campaign, Jesse Benton, suggested that Mr. Gingrich’s comments were slanderous and an overreaction to the possibility that Mr. Gingrich might not have collected enough signatures to get on the nominating ballot in Virginia — a matter not yet resolved.

“Today was a bad day for Newt Gingrich,” Mr. Benton said in an e-mail, adding that the former House speaker had “jumped the shark trying to slander Dr. Paul.”

Continue reading.

And notice at the video how Rachel Maddow and Melissa Harris-Perry are using Paul's racist newsletters to smear not only the American right, but American society all together!

Ron Paul won't be the nominee --- indeed, he's probably in a situation akin to Herman Cain's: caught in the headlights upon emerging as the frontrunner, and even if he wins Iowa it's going to be a long primary process and Paul's scrutiny will only intensify. He'll have to answer and answer decisively at some point. But as noted, there's something of a nativist and isolationist trend that animating the primary process. That's something quite different from the small-government conservatism that drove the tea parties in 2009. All this together is extremely fascinating. And how some of these tensions are resolved over the next few months will go a long way towards determining the GOP's chances in defeating the Democrats next November.