Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Political Islam: 'Why the U.S. Needs a New Loyalty Oath...'

I missed the chance to post this last weekend, but I'd be remiss now if I didn't, with all the news yesterday.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Swearing In the Enemy":

What is political Islam? It is not precisely the same as the spiritual dimension of the faith. Islam is multidimensional. It has a religious and social aspect but also a very strong political dimension. Political Islam is a comprehensive vision of ideas and ideals derived from Islamic scripture as interpreted by various scholars widely accepted as authorities on its meaning. Virtually all of these scholars agree that Muslim societies must accept Allah as the sovereign power and struggle to abide strictly by Shariah law as exemplified in the Sunna (the life, words and deeds of the Prophet). Political Islam prescribes a set of specific social, economic and legal practices in a way that is very different from the more general social teachings (such as calls to practice charity or strive for justice) found in the spiritual dimension of Islam, Christianity, Judaism and other world religions.

All of this, obviously, flies in the face of the American—and more broadly Western—ideals of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. But most Americans ignore the fundamental conflict between political Islam and their own worldview. Perhaps this is because they generally assume that "religion," however defined, is a positive force for good and that any set of religious beliefs, however unusual, should be considered acceptable in a tolerant society. I agree with that.

The problem arises when those who adhere to a particular faith use it as divine license to break the law. It is a wonderful truth about America—one of its powerful attractions for millions of immigrants like me—that you may think and say whatever you wish as long as you do not act on your beliefs in a way that harms others. Unfortunately, a minority of the adherents to political Islam wish to take violent action in support of their beliefs—threatening the lives of innocents like those killed and maimed as they stood watching the Boston Marathon.

It is reasonable to ask yourself: How many more young men like Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are already living a double life in America, ready to take up arms for the cause of political Islam? And how many more will be naturalized this year? None? That seems pretty unlikely.

In a 2011 Pew survey, 1% of American Muslims said that suicide bombings were "often justified"—a tiny proportion, to be sure. The overwhelming majority of American Muslims want to lead peaceful lives. But 7% of those surveyed said that suicide bombers were "sometimes justified," and 5% said they were "rarely justified." Taking Pew's conservative estimate that Muslims now constitute 0.6% of the adult population of the U.S., this means that more than 180,000 American Muslims regard suicide bombings as being justified in some way...

RTWT at the link.

Piers Morgan Bans Dana Loesch From His Show Over 'Glib' London Beheading Tweet

Mediaite, with a good amount of leftist spin, reports:

It’s hard to believe it, but CNN’s Piers Morgan was shocked to learn, Wednesday night, that conservative radio host and frequent Piers Morgan Tonight guest Dana Loesch says things that are horrible and/or make absolutely no sense. Loesch tweeted “Was the guy with the machete a member of the NRA?”, a reference to one of the two men who murdered a British soldier in what has been described as a terrorist attack in London today. Morgan chastised Loesch for being “glib” about the soldier’s death, and later announced that he was banning the conservative provocateur from his show.

The exchange is at the link.

There followed one of the more vicious and vile left-wing feeding frenzies I've seen. These ghouls were bloodthirsty, "'Drop dead, you C*NT': Vicious lefties attack Dana Loesch for believing in self-defense."

I had a brief exchange with Dana, offering words of support:

@ampowerblog Thank you :)

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) May 23, 2013

Absolutely Barbaric Beheading of Soldier in London Shows New Normal of Terrorist Jihad

I've been following this story all day, as best I could.

Telegraph UK wasted no time in calling the barbarity a terrorist attack, "British soldier beheaded on busy London street in terror attack." Also, "'Soldier beheaded' in Woolwich machete attack: latest." And see the Wall Street Journal, "A Killing Puts U.K. on Guard for Terror."

And see Clive Irving's concise analyis, at the Daily Beast, "London Attack: The New Face of Terror":

A blood-splattered jihadist with a meat cleaver in one hand declaring to a bystander’s smartphone camera “Allahu Akbar” and “we will always beat you” in a pronounced south London accent?  While waiting twenty minutes for the police to arrive after he’s taken part in what seemed like a ritual assassination of a British soldier?  Exactly what terrorist profile does this conform to?

None.

And that’s what concerns British terrorism officials. Is this bizarre episode the beginning of a new, unpredictable pattern of loners operating without any organized backing behind them, or a one-off?

The two assailants could, indeed, just be a couple of deranged freelancers. But the guidance British ministers have been giving reporters assumes something much graver, a form of terrorism so unsophisticated and amateur that it can’t be detected by existing surveillance methods.

The fact that the wild, bloodied harangue to camera was delivered by a black man with no trace of a foreign accent – indeed, in an accent that seemed to originate in south London in particular – suggests homegrown militants, perhaps men radicalized via the Internet, through a form of widely dispersed propaganda rather than targeted brainwashing...

More at the link.

Plus, at Atlas Shrugs, "MUSLIMS SCREAMING "ALLAHU AKBAR" BEHEAD BRITISH SOLDIER ON PUBLIC STREET," and "BRITISH MUSLIM WHO BEHEADED SOLDIER ON WOOLWICH STREET: 'YOU PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE SAFE'."

More, "BRITISH MUSLIM WHO BEHEADED SOLDIER ON PUBLIC STREET: 'MANY MANY SURAS IN THE QURAN.......'."

Telegraph UK Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army

It was a phishing scam. A pretty sophisticated one, apparently.

At the Telegraph, "How the Telegraph was hacked."

Both the Financial Times and the Guardian were hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army as well. These are Assad loyalists retaliating on Western media outlets for their reporting on the civil war.

Stealth Marxist Eric Garcetti Wins Los Angeles Mayor's Race

Here's the Los Angeles Times article from February highlighting Garcetti's Marxist years at Columbia, "The L.A. City Council member and mayoral candidate was a committed young progressive known on campus for gliding between different worlds and liberal causes.

And now he's won election to City Hall, "Garcetti beats Greuel: Councilman big in central L.A., does well in the Valley."

Here's the headline at Capital News from the other day, "Menshevik vs. Bolshevik for L.A. Mayor—Greuel vs. Garcetti."

Well, Bolshevik is more appropriate for Garcetti than the writer probably intends. The dude was in all the "correct" progressive causes in college. He's spent his years since pulling off an Obama-style transformation to "political moderate."

You gotta root these people out, freakin' anti-American thugs.

Jodi Arias Sentencing: Death Penalty Would Cause More Pain

She's a convicted murderer. But she deserves a "second chance." Right.

At Fox News, "Jodi Arias, in jailhouse interview, says her lawyers let her down."

Ibragim Todashev, Friend to Boston Bombing Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Killed in FBI Shootout

At the Wall Street Journal, "Associate of Boston Bombing Suspects Is Killed: Orlando Man Connected to Tsarnaev Brothers Fatally Shot After Trying to Attack FBI Agent."

And the New York Times, "Man Being Queried on Tsarnaev Ties Is Killed by Officer":

BOSTON — A man in Orlando, Fla., who was being interviewed early Wednesday morning by an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Massachusetts state policeman about his ties to the deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect, was fatally shot after he tried to attack them with a knife, according to a senior law enforcement official.

The authorities were questioning the man — who was identified by a law enforcement official as Ibragim Todashev — about whether he had played a role in a triple murder on Sept. 11, 2011, in Waltham, Mass.

“The investigators were working on the theory that he and Tamerlan had done the murder,” said the official, referring to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the deceased marathon bombing suspect. One of the victims was a friend of Mr. Tsarnaev.

The F.B.I. agent, who was from the Boston field office, sustained minor injuries in the episode, the official said.

The official said that the authorities had spoken to Mr. Todashev at least twice since the April 15 bombings, which killed three and injured about 200.

Continue reading.

Lois Lerner Pleads the Fifth: 'I Haven't Done Anything Wrong...'

A weaselly freakin' POS.
d

And a discussion from Carol Platt Liebau, at Townhall, "Taking the Fifth — What It Does (& Doesn't Do) for Lerner" (via Memeorandum).

French Nationalist Dominique Venner Commits Suicide in Paris Notre Dame Cathedral

I'm not sure what good it'll do. He was supposed to be protesting France's move to legalize homosexual marriage, but frankly, I'd bet a lot of people are cheering the dude's death.

At Independent UK, "Far-right French historian, 78-year-old Dominique Venner, commits suicide in Notre Dame in protest against gay marriage":

Mr Venner, a prolific author of books and tracts on extreme nationalist themes, has been one of many vociferous critics of the law. Some of his work as a historian has been well-received, incuding a 1981 book on the Red Army which won a prize from the Académie Française. Much of his work has been steeped in the racist ideology of the far-right, apologising for the pro-Hitler regime in Vichy in the Second World war and warning of conspiracies to destroy European civilisation and to swamp the white race.

Mr Venner was also an expert, and the author of several books, on hunting and fire-arms. In the 1960s, he was a member of the Organisation de l'Armée Secrète - the extreme nationalist terrorist movement which opposed the French withdrawal from Algeria and attempted several times to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle.

More at the Astute Bloggers, "WILL DOMINIQUE VENNER'S POLITICAL SUICIDE IN NOTRE DAME SET OFF A REVOLT LIKE MOHAMMED BOUAZIZI'S DID IN TUNISIA?"

Nah. This is a last gasp from a long gone era of French politics, a weird throwback that reminds me of what real ideological politics looks like.

Desperate Minutes in School Razed by Tornado

At WSJ, "Oklahoma Tornado: Long Minutes of Desperation Inside School Razed by Storm."

And about the erroneous death toll, at LAT, "Chaos after tornado led to double reporting in death toll."

#IRS Toady Lois Lerner to Take the Fifth

A very significant development, at the Los Angeles Times, "Top IRS official will invoke Fifth Amendment."

The Times buried the story at the bottom of the homepage, apparently. Pirate's Cove has it, "Lois Lerner to Plead 5th at IRS Hearing." And at Big Government, "Gee, It's Almost Like the LA Times Is Trying to Hide Its Own Huge Scoop."

.@charlescwcooke Precisely. People take the 5th when they have something to hide or someone to protect. @aceofspadeshq #IRS
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 21, 2013

'Stop #IRS Abuse of Power': Tea Party Swarms Santa Ana on National Day of Protest

Villa Park City Councilwoman Deborah Pauly organized today's IRS protest in downtown Santa Ana.

I made it down there a little after Noon and hundreds of patriots were lining the sidewalks to demonstrate their outrage with this criminal clusterf-k administration.

Out on Civic Center Drive, Councilwoman Pauly protests the tyranny, at right:

"Stop IRS Abuse of Power":

More patriots:

More patriots on the North side of the street:

And more on the protests from around the country, at Michelle Malkin's, "Photos from IRS protests around the country today."

And at Director Blue, "40 PHOTOS: Conservatives March on the IRS Building; IRS Agents Respond by Mocking Protesters."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Angry tea partiers rally at IRS headquarters in Washington with stern warnings: 'They're going to have to produce all the documents' on targeting scandal."

Instapundit has huge roundups here (in Tennessee) and here (nationwide).

More at Instapundit, "AP: Protesters Rally Over IRS’ Tea Party Scrutiny," and "VIDEO: TEA PARTY PATRIOTS PROTEST OUTSIDE IRS."

Drop your protest inks in the comments and I'll update...

UPDATE: Instapundit links. Thanks!

Storm Over 'Swivel-Eyed Loons' Engulfs British Prime Minister David Cameron

At Independent UK, "'Swivel-gate': David Cameron goes to war with the press over 'swivel-eyed loons' slur":

PM backs his friend as Tory co-chairman Lord Feldman denies he is source of damning remarks about local party members.

David Cameron risked a major blow to his authority after he defended one of his closest friends over claims that he had described Tory activists as "mad, swivel-eyed loons".

The Conservative co-chairman Lord Feldman, a tennis partner of the Prime Minister, was forced to deny making the remarkable attack on party members, which reportedly arose during a conversation with journalists at an event in London.

The peer, who attended Oxford University with Mr Cameron, said it was "completely untrue" that he made the derogatory remarks that several newspapers reported as being made by an unnamed member of Mr Cameron's inner circle. Downing Street later announced that the Prime Minister was backing his friend.

But both The Times and The Daily Telegraph, which put the incendiary remarks on their front pages yesterday without naming Lord Feldman as the alleged source, last night said they stood by the story – threatening an extraordinary stand-off between Downing Street and newspapers.

The row deepened the bitter internal schism between Mr Cameron's inner circle and the rest of the party – particularly over issues including the European Union and gay marriage.

The UK Independence Party, which has been mopping up support from disenchanted Tory voters in recent months, immediately seized on the dispute. Its leader, Nigel Farage, remarked: "If you are a Conservative supporter who believes in Ukip ideas then your party hates you. Come and join us."

And see historian Tim Bale, at Telegraph UK, "Swivel-eyed loons, or seeing clearly?"

Sounds like Britain's elite needed some shaking up. Good for those loons!

'You're All I Got Tonight'

From yesterday morning, on the Sound L.A.:

Accidents Will Happen - Elvis Costello: 10:20am

Abracadabra - Steve Miller: 10:09am

About a Girl - Nirvana: 10:06am

Abacab - Geneis: 9:59am

Sunshine of Your Love - Cream: 9:54am

Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen: 9:52am

Stairway To Heaven - Led Zeppelin: 9:44am

Shadow of a Doubt - Tom Petty: 9:37am

Everybody Wants Some!! - Van Halen: 9:32am

Born on the Bayou - CCR: 9:26am

You're All I've Got Tonight - The Cars: 9:22am

Notice at 10:00am, "A to Z" week kicked in: "You won't hear a song repeated for over a week."

I got to work when "Accidents Will Happen" came on --- and weird, but what a blast from the past.

Well, Yeah. Damned Tyrant

Via Knuckledragging.

'We know who you are. You cannot hide. You cannot escape. We are legion. We never forget. We never forgive. We are everywhere. And we are better than you...'

From Mandy Nagy, at Legal Insurrection, "Israeli counter-hackers claim to expose #OpIsrael hackers":

It appears that the battle between Anonymous hackers embroiled in the #OpIsrael campaign and Israeli counter-hackers continues.

A video posted at a new website titled “Anon Bastards” claims to have exposed those behind the last round of #OpIsrael attacks.

Is This the Face of Tolerance in Europe?

I hope not, at Der Spiegel, "EU Survey Shows Widespread Homophobia in Europe."

Of course, "homophobia" is a fictitious term. If it's anything, it's plain hatred straight up.

That's Christopher Bryant below, via Independent UK, "Gay couple beaten in park urge MPs to moderate language on gay marriage."

And back stateside, there's also no such thing as a "hate crime." But the left gets more mileage out of the attacks, like the one last week in New York. See, "Killing in Greenwich Village Looks Like Hate Crime, Police Say." And the Daily Beast works the exploitation angle like a Stradivarius, "New York Shooting Highlights Surge in Hate Crimes." There's no evidence for the "surge," actually. But facts don't matter for progressives (too inconvenient), so they go for emotionalism and lies.

Beat them at the polls. They're progressive losers and idiot social outcasts. Don't freakin' beat them. Sheesh.

'Brass-Knuckled Intimidation' – Megyn Kelly and Michelle Malkin on Obama's Chicago Way

Another great segment:

Wild Night at the Billboard Music Awards

At London's Daily Mail, "Still shedding the pounds! Christina Aguilera wows as she shows off her very slim body in a low-cut black dress at 2013 Billboard Music Awards," and "She's a very cheeky girl! Ke$ha plays coy in a little black dress that exposes her derriere at the 2013 Billboard Music Awards."

Barack Obama's Subversion of Democracy

Here's the banner headline at yesterday morning's PuffHo, "DOJ Calls Fox News Reporter James Rosen 'Co-Conspirator' In Leak Case; Journalists Outraged." And, "The DOJ's Targeting Of Fox News Reporter Risks Criminalizing Journalism."

Hmm, I thought, "Maybe some of the left-wing outfits are starting to take this seriously." Then I scrolled over to the Washington Post's big breaking story on Obama's DOJ targeting and noticed E.J. Dionne's pathetic little piece bemoaning the horrible --- HORRIBLE! --- collapse of democratic government in the West! See, "Political dysfunction spells trouble for democracies."

I was almost laughing, except people like Dionne still garner a lot of attention. So I got a kick out of James Taranto slamming the JournoList-ing idiots bemoaning the alleged "demise" of democratic government, "A Crisis of Authority." To be specific, it's a crisis of left-wing statist authority, which can only be propped up with a deepening circle of lies:

"After a week of scandal obsession during which the nation's capital and the media virtually ignored the problems most voters care about--jobs, incomes, growth, opportunity, education--it's worth asking if there is something especially flawed about our democracy," declares the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne.

He goes through a partisan litany of complaints--"a radicalization of conservative politics, over-the-top mistrust of President Obama on the right, high-tech gerrymandering in the House and a Senate snarled by non-constitutional super-majority requirements"--but makes no mention of the abuses of power by the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department. He does hint at Benghazi, in his concluding paragraph, but only to pooh-pooh it:

Since World War II, bouts of economic growth have allowed democracies to buy their way out of trouble. One can hope this will happen again--and soon. In the meantime, politicians might contemplate their obligations to stewardship of the democratic ideal. They could begin by pondering what an unemployed 28-year-old makes of a ruling elite that expends so much energy feuding over how bureaucrats rewrote a set of talking points.

But if the purpose of that rewriting was, as it appears to have been, to deceive voters and bolster the president's re-election prospects, then it was a subversion of democracy.

RTWT.

Plus, Glenn Greenwald also went to town on this, "Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes":

Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ - that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for "soliciting" the disclosure of classified information - is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself. These latest revelations show that this is not just a theory but one put into practice, as the Obama DOJ submitted court documents accusing a journalist of committing crimes by doing this.

More at that link.

There's a lot I disagree with, for example, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are cyber-terrorists, not journalists.  But as always, Greenwald's good for lighting a fire on the hypocritical JournoList circle jerks.

Ray Manzarek: 1939-2013

An obituary, at the Los Angeles Times, "Ray Manzarek dies at 74; keyboardist for the Doors."

'I'd Love to Change the World...'

From Ten Years After.

And from the band's Wikipedia entry:

The song was written and sung by Alvin Lee. The song reflects the widespread confusion concerning world events in the time-frame when it was written. With lyrics such as "Tax the rich, feed the poor/ till there are no rich no more," the song derides the standard counter-cultural position on social issues, contending that higher taxes on the rich would only wipe out the upper class, while leaving poverty as much of a problem as ever. The chorus of "I'd love to change the world/ but I don't know what to do/ so I'll leave it up to you," adds an ironic twist to such sentiments, since changing the world is unlikely with a simple rock song. The song features a folk-inspired chord pattern to support the melody.

A studio version is here.

*****

[guitar]
Spoken 'Now, turn on'

Everywhere is freaks and hairys
Dykes and fairies
Tell me where is sanity?

Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no, rich no more

I'd love to change the world
(Dee-dee-dee-dee)
But I don't know what to do
(Dee-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
So I'll leave it up to you-ooo-ooo
(Be in my prayer)

Population, keeps on breedin'
Nation bleedin', still more feedin'
Economy

Life is funny, skies are sunny
Bees made honey, who needs money?
Monopoly

I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
(Dee-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
So I'll leave it up to you-you-ooo
(We-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)

Oh, yeah!
[guitar]

Rescuers Search Into Night for Moore Schoolchildren

At the Oklahoman, "Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin confirmed that bodies of children had been found at Plaza Towers Elementary School. She also confirmed that bodies of adults had been found on the school lawn."

And at the New York Times, "Vast Oklahoma Tornado Kills at Least 91."

VIDEO: Melissa Debling and Daisy Watts X-Rated

I think they're exaggerating the "X" rating, although it's a little kinky alright.

PREVIOUSLY: "Melissa Debling and Daisy Watts."

#PrayForOklahoma

From Michelle Malkin:

HOPE. MT @micahjmurray Another beautiful picture of a child rescued from the rubble. #PrayForOklahoma @ap twitter.com/micahjmurray/s…

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 21, 2013

Dozens of children are still unaccounted for, reports Fox News. Please pray.

Taylor Swift 'Haters Gonna Hate' Unicorn Shirt at Billboard Music Awards

At Twitchy, "‘Haters gonna hate:’ Taylor Swift dons unicorn t-shirt at #BBMAs."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "'My relationship with my fans is the longest and best I have ever had!' Taylor Swift refers to her own troubled love life as she picks up one of her EIGHT Billboard Music Awards."

Dozens Killed in Monster Oklahoma Tornado

CBS News is reporting "at least 51 dead," on Twitter.

And at ABC News, "'Horrific' Tornado Tears Through Oklahoma, 51 Dead."

I'll have more..

Why Student Behavior Matters

A great letter at the Los Angeles Times:

Re "Rule on defiant students revised," May 15

The Los Angeles Unified School District's ban on student suspensions for "willful defiance" reminded me of when I was observing class as a requirement for my teaching credential roughly 40 years ago.

The teacher I was observing sent a defiant student out of the room. Not having had a classroom of my own yet, I still believed everything I had been told in my teacher training classes.

After class, I questioned the instructor, noting that the student sent out of the classroom wasn't learning anything. Her reply: "Yes, but the rest of my students are."

My question was off-base. The student was learning that there are consequences.

Doreen Lorand
Downey

It's mind-boggling how much common sense is out there, but the sick progressives push their disgusting "restorative justice" on the schools, and everyone's too damned PC to push back against such leftist abominations.

PREVIOUSLY: "Willful Defiance: LAUSD Caves to Political Correctness on School Discipline Policy."

Glenn Greenwald Goes All Out in Defense of Professor Joseph Massad's Anti-Semitic Screed

I'm a firm believer in free speech, and if it was me I wouldn't have taken down Columbia Professor Joseph Massad's vile essay attacking World War II-era supporters of a Jewish homeland as "Zionist anti-Semites." But I wouldn't be going to bat for such vile people either. Not so for Glenn Greenwald, who's been on a Twitter jihad attacking Al Jazeera for removing Massad's hate-piece.

Al Jazeera publishes an article by Columbia Professor Joseph Massad, then deletes it when usual suspects complain electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abun…
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 19, 2013

If you want to read the Joseph Massad Op-Ed published then deleted by Al Jazeera, it's still herem.aljazeera.com/story/20135127…
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 19, 2013

If Al Jazeera is going to delete an Op-Ed it itself published, shouldn't there be some explanation?Did someone err in publishing it?
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 19, 2013

If you only want to publish things that don't upset anyone, please don't go into journalismelectronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abun…
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 19, 2013

Jane Mayer: "'Chilling' isn’t quite strong enough, it’s more like freezing the [journalism] process into a standstill.” #ChillingEffect
— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) May 19, 2013

One thing I refuse to do is explain difference b/w a) objecting to censorship of Argument X & b) defending Argument X electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abun…
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 19, 2013

I don't know why, but it always shocks me that so many people can't distinguish between "X shouldn't be censored" & "I agree with X"
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 19, 2013

I emailed Al Jazeera earlier today for some explanation on this - still no answer: they have to provide one electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abun…
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 19, 2013

Al Jazeera now deleted the mobile version of the Massad Op-Ed, too- who would do this without explanation?electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abun…
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 20, 2013

Dear Al Jazeera: if you think you can delete your Op-Ed, refuse to comment & have everyone move on, you're very wrong electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abun…
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 20, 2013

There are a lot of great journalists at Al Jazeera, many of whom are very upset by the deletion of the Massad Op-Ed.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 20, 2013

Here's the problem for Greenwald: Even the most ardent free speech advocate would still recoil from defending Massad --- because people like this are perverting the history of the Holocaust in promotion of a second Holocaust against the Jews. William Jacobson has the story, "Al-Jazeera runs then deletes anti-Semitic screed by Columbia Univ. Prof. Joseph Massad":

Even Mondoweiss, yes Mondoweiss, the harshest of websites when it comes to Israel, had trouble stomaching Massad’s arguments:

Well, with Massad we’ve come a long inverted way. He sees the Jewishness that most Jews celebrate as colonial and – criminal.

Massad stops short – I think – of a Euro-American Jewish Zionist conspiracy to dominate the world.

Understanding Jewishness at war with the world and with Jewishness itself. It’s a tough sell.

Now the Massad article is gone from Al-Jazeera (h/t @GlennGreenwald). Spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories was not too much for Al-Jazeera initially, but perhaps the attention called to the screed was too much. I’d be curious if the article ran in non-English versions of Al-Jazeera and if it has been removed there.

More at the link. And really, if Mondoweiss has second thoughts, then, boy, that's really gotta be some over-the-top screed.

In any case, check Greenwald's timeline for updates.

Obama's White House Counsel Learned of Illegal #IRS Targeting Weeks Ago

Yes, and of course the president was completely out of the loop. Completely!

Hey, I guess there's something to be said for incompetence. "We're not dishonest, just bloody stupid."

At WSJ, "Obama's Counsel Told of IRS Audit Findings Weeks Ago":

The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House official said Sunday.

That disclosure has prompted a debate over whether the president should have been notified at that time.

In the week of April 22, the Office of the White House Counsel and its head, Kathryn Ruemmler, were told by Treasury Department attorneys that an inspector general's report was nearing completion, the White House official said. In that conversation, Ms. Ruemmler learned that "a small number of line IRS employees had improperly scrutinized certain…organizations by using words like 'tea party' and 'patriot,' " the official said.

President Barack Obama said last week he learned about the controversy at the same time as the public, on May 10, when an IRS official revealed it to a conference of lawyers. The president's statement drew criticism, focusing attention on his management style and whether he has kept himself sufficiently informed about the agencies under his authority.

Others, including veterans of previous scandals, said the counsel—whose role is to advise the president on all legal matters concerning his job and the White House—was right to avoid telling Mr. Obama about the audit's early findings. Doing so could have caused a new storm by creating the appearance of meddling in an independent investigation that hadn't yet concluded, former officials said.

The White House, which declined to make Ms. Ruemmler available for comment Sunday, wouldn't say whether she shared the information with anyone else in the senior administration staff.

The new detail doesn't help answer some fundamental questions about the IRS scandal, including how it began and who, if anyone, in the administration was aware of the severity of the inspector general's probe before last November's presidential election.

Instead, it focuses attention on the White House's handling of the matter, which has blown up into the kind of crisis that could persist.

Actually, I suspect Obama was completely updated about that report and chose to lie about it in a cover-up of his administration's tyrannical harassment of political enemies.

Whistle-blowers are going to come forward. It's just a matter of time. And Americans want the truth. It's long past time we hear it.

IMAGE CREDIT: Zook Zangsten.

It Isn’t Watergate, but It Is Nixonian

At WSJ:

WASHINGTON–Veteran journalist Bob Woodward accused Obama administration officials of invoking the worst instincts of former President Richard Nixon in their response to last year’s deadly attack on two U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya.

“This is not Watergate, but there are some people in the administration who have acted as if they want to be Nixonian, and that’s a very big problem,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The longtime Washington Post journalist, whose reporting on the Watergate burglary led to the resignation of Mr. Nixon in 1974, questioned the Obama administration’s editing of talking points requested by congressional leaders days after the Sept. 11, 2012 attack killed four Americans, including Chris Stevens, the American ambassador in Libya.

Last week, the White House released emails that documented a charged debate over what the administration should say publicly about the attack. Officials at the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency raised concerns about releasing details that could undermine the evolving investigation. The State Department’s spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, also objected to providing details that members of Congress could use to “beat up” the administration for not responding to CIA security alerts from Libya.

The final talking points, used by United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice on the Sunday morning talk shows right after the attack, stripped out references to specific militant groups, including al Qaeda affiliates, that were suspected of involvement in the Benghazi attack.

“This is a business where you have to tell the truth–and that did not happen,” Mr. Woodward said.

Well, yeah.

They're a bunch of pathological liars, from Obama on down.

More at that top link.

'The world has become a disgusting place...'

Yes it has.

Via Miss Qadeeri on Twitter:

First Rhode Island and now Minnesota. The world has become a disgusting place. Marriage equality is a joke.
— Madeena. (@Miss_Qadeeri) May 14, 2013

Pallywood's Muhammad al-Dura Wasn't Killed in Second Intifada

At My Pet Jawa, "IDF Investigation Concludes: Pallywood's Muhammad al Dura Was Not Killed," and Jihad Watch, "Second intifada symbol Mohammed al-Dura didn't really die in 2000 shooting."

And from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Why the al-Dura Blood Libel Still Matters":

There have been many good accounts of this affair, including this piece by Nidra Poller published in COMMENTARY in September 2005. I’ve also written about it on our blog several times, including this piece from last year about the French court case. Yet even before those were published one of the first Western accounts of the al-Dura affair got to the heart of this problem. James Fallows’s June 2003 article in the Atlantic, “Who Shot Mohammed al-Dura?” pointed out not just the fact that there was good reason to doubt the initial version of the story but that the facts wouldn’t change anyone’s mind because of the iconic status of the photo allegedly depicting the boy and his father. Indeed, he seemed to suggest in a deconstructionist spirit that objective truth was itself impossible since both sides sought to create their own facts in order to prove they were right.

RTWT and ollow the links

Melissa Debling and Daisy Watts

At Zoo Today, "Melissa Debling and Daisy Watts present: 69 of the rudest pics you'll see all year!"

Love this pic 💋 twitter.com/daisywatts/sta…

— Daisy Watts(@daisywatts) May 18, 2013

And check out Daisy Watts on Twitter.

BONUS: Some Rule 5 at the Daley Gator, "DaleyGator DaleyBabe Denise Milfort and an overdue Rule 5 Link-a-Round."

And Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is local and sustainable produce, you might just be a Warmist."

E.W. Jackson Wins Virginia GOP Lieutenant Governor Nomination

This dude is rad!

At Big Government, "E.W. JACKSON WINS GOP NOMINATION FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR IN VIRGINIA."

And flashback to last year, at PJ Media, "Bishop E.W. Jackson: ‘It Is Time For a Mass Exodus from the Democrat Party’":

More at BuzzFeed, "Republican Virginia Lt. Governor Nominee: Obama Sees World “From a Muslim Perspective”" (via Memeorandum).

And at WaPo, "Va. GOP picks conservatives for fall ticket; black minister is lieutenant governor choice," and "Va. GOP settles on Cuccinelli, Obenshain and Jackson for November ballot":

RICHMOND — Virginia Republicans shook up the outlook for the November elections Saturday, choosing Chesapeake minister E.W. Jackson to run for lieutenant governor alongside their gubernatorial pick Ken Cuccinelli II and attorney general nominee Mark D. Obenshain. Jackson became the GOP’s first African American nominee for statewide of

fice since 1988, overcoming six other hopefuls for the No. 2 spot on the ticket after four dramatic ballots lasting nearly 10 hours. He bested several candidates with deep ties to the state party, more money and long records in elected office, appealing to the more than 8,000 delegates in the Richmond Coliseum as a grass-roots crusader for the Constitution and social conservatism.

Before the balloting, the crowd erupted as Jackson vowed to “get the government off our backs, off our property, out of our families, out of our health care and out of our way.”

Jackson never trailed, leading after the first ballot and holding on despite sustained attacks and determined horse-trading by his opponents. He was joined on stage by Cuccinelli and Obenshain after 10 p.m., projecting an image of Republican unity at the conclusion of a fractious convention.

VA politics is where the action is for 2014! This is going to be fabulous!

More at Memeorandum.

Sunday Cartoons

An Obamagate-palooza, at Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

Also at Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES," and at Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Night Funnies."

More at Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Stupid Pet Tricks."

Cartoon Credit: William Warren.

Yahoo's Tumblr Porn Problem

I'm not on Tumblr, but when I was searching for Kelly Brook photos awhile back it wasn't long before I was "tumbled" to a lot of disgusting pornography.

At Business Week, "If Yahoo Buys Tumblr, What Will It Do With All That Porn?":

If Yahoo! succeeds in its attempt to acquire Tumblr, it will end up with one of the hottest Internet properties in today’s Web, with access to the coveted youth market and a foothold in mobile.

It will also wind up with a whole lot of porn.

Tumblr has many options for people interested in artsy photography or teenaged musings. Then there are Tumblrs with such names as We Want Porn, Above Average Porn, Defcon Porn, Porn Gif Haven, POV Porn, Porn and Weed, and When Tumblr porn goes wrong.

It will be fun to see how these are integrated into Yahoo News.

Tumblr’s terms of service are pretty clear: Sexual material is welcome. It just asks that such posts be tagged as NSFW, noting that its users include many people “from a variety of locations, cultures, and backgrounds with different points of view concerning adult-oriented content.” (And, presumably, some people who work in offices with open seating plans.) The one exception is that Tumblr does not want to host people’s pornographic videos. Even this seems to be more about bandwidth than morality.

“We’re not in the business of profiting from adult-oriented videos and hosting this stuff is … expensive,” the company explains.

Tumblr does have standards. It objects to bigotry, sexually suggestive content including minors, anything that promotes self-harm, or gore that is posted just to be shocking.

Well, it's not like you can't find porn on the Internet. Maybe Marissa Meyer will crack down. We'll see.

Also, at AllThingsD, "Why Yahoo Doesn't Think Tumblr Has a Porn Problem," and "Yahoo Tumblrs for Cool: Board Approves $1.1 Billion Deal as Expected ."

Senior White House Adviser Dan Pfeiffer on IRS Scandal: 'The law is irrelevant...

Via Instapundit, "OBAMA AIDE: Legality of IRS targeting conservative groups “irrelevant”."

Plus, at Gateway Pundit, "OH GOOD GRIEF… Top White House Official: “It’s Largely Irrelevant” Who Doctored Benghazi Memo (Video)," and "Top Obama Official on Bengahzi: I Don’t Remember What Room Obama Was In – “It’s a Largely Irrelevant Fact” (Video)."

Rob Ford Crack Scandal

The Toronto Star's got a punishing editorial, "Rob Ford crack scandal: Time for mayor to step down."

And at Blazing Cat Fur, "Toronto Mayor Rob Ford owes his supporters a serious explanation over crack cocaine allegations."

#RememberWhenBarackObama

At Twitchy, "#RememberWhenBarackObama: Time for a trip down gaffe-paved memory lane."

#RememberWhenBarackObama hated everything that #Bush did, only to quadruple down on them as president? twitter.com/Shaughn_A/stat…

— Shaughn (@Shaughn_A) May 18, 2013

Willful Defiance: LAUSD Caves to Political Correctness on School Discipline Policy

Here's Sandy Banks, the far-left black feminist columnist, at the Los Angeles Times, "Troubled youths deserve more effective discipline than suspension":

The limits on student suspensions approved by the Los Angeles Unified school board this week may burnish the district's progressive credentials, putting L.A. in the forefront of a national shift away from zero-tolerance policies that ban kids from campus for minor offenses.

But the measure, which forbids suspensions for "willful defiance," has also shown how complicated and emotional the issue of student discipline can be. The two school board members who voted against it have markedly different perspectives that rarely make them allies.

The ban was prompted by national research that suggests suspension is a tool capriciously used and that it unfairly penalizes black children, who tend to be punished more severely and for less serious offenses than other students.

In Los Angeles Unified, blacks account for 26% of the district's suspensions, but only 9% of its students. That imbalance troubles Supt. John Deasy. He championed the measure, backed by community groups who consider suspension a "push out" practice that creates a "school-to-prison pipeline" for black and Latino students.

Yet the school board's only African American member, Marguerite LaMotte, voted against the ban, and lectured the students who crowded the board room to support it.

"I'm going to vote 'no' because it will give you the wrong message," she told them. "I'm not going to give you permission to go out and act crazy and think there are no consequences for your behavior."

LaMotte represents the region with the most black students in the district. She sees toleration of bad behavior as a disincentive for good behavior, a soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations deal.

"We love you," LaMotte told the students. "But there's a path you have to walk."

Board member Tamar Galatzan represents a suburban chunk of the San Fernando Valley with the most white students in the district. She didn't need to give a speech; her hard-edged 'no' made her feelings clear.

"It frustrates me," Galatzan told me later, "to hear all the protesters talk about the rights of the students who are causing problems in class, and there's nobody that's talking about the rights of the other 35 students who are trying to get an education."

I've heard grumbling like that from parents and teachers, who imagine good kids held hostage by troublemakers, out of discipline's reach.

The problem is that the troublemaker and the kid who wants to learn just might be the same student. And tough love feels like no love if we bounce them out of school...

Yes, because the troublemaker kids are really victims!

She goes on:

"Willful defiance" is a very broad label that can cover anything from wearing baggy pants to fighting to mouthing off in class. The category accounts for almost half of California's 700,000 yearly suspensions, and more than one-third of those in LAUSD.

Critics say it gives school officials too much discretion and too little incentive to work with struggling children.

"Teenagers misbehave. They make mistakes, bad choices, a lot," said Jose Huerta, principal at Garfield High. "We react to that. The kid disrespects a teacher, says the F-word in class and you don't know what to do. So you kick him out until you figure it out.

"And you miss a chance to help a kid who may be crying out for help,"

The ban is part of a broader push to move away from suspensions as a disciplinary tool. Research shows they do more harm than good, depressing achievement and alienating students who don't see incentives to improve.

The resolution is loaded with timelines and noble concepts like "restorative justice," but short on guidance for a teacher wondering what exactly she's supposed to do when Johnny curses her out in class.

School board President Monica Garcia doesn't see that as a drawback. Schools need to find ways to engage students who feel angry, disrespected, unloved. "I'm expecting that an educated adult ...can create [disciplinary] alternatives that don't say to a student 'You don't deserve to be in school.'"

Yes, and it's no surprise that statistics show the 53 percent of public school teachers cite discipline problems as a reason for leaving the profession. (And teachers at LAUSD charter schools have especially difficult challenges.)

But hey, "restorative justice"!

Here's the Times' report from this week, "LAUSD board could ban suspensions for 'willful defiance'."

I'm surprised this comment squeezed by the newspaper's moderators:

"And a disturbing finding has surfaced: African Americans are bearing the brunt of the harsh discipline policies. Statewide, black students are three times as likely as whites to be suspended; in L.A. Unified, 26% of those suspended in 2010-11 were African Americans although they make up 9% of students."

Notice the Orwellian phrasing here. Suspensions just happen, unrelated to student conduct. The only possible explanation for a racial disparity in suspenions is racism. Carefully avoiding the fact that black students are EARNING the suspensions because black students are COMMITTING INFRACTIONS at a much higher rate. But at the L. A. Times you are not allowed to commit truth if it reflects badly on blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, or homosexuals.

The average black IQ is 85. The average white IQ is 100. Low IQ is closely correleated with poor impulse control, high time preference, poor ability to foresee consequences, low ability to retain previously imparted information, lower ability to engage in delayed gratificiation, and even lower empathy. We should EXPECT, not be shocked, by blacks causing trouble and getting suspended more often. Nor should we consider it unjust any more than the overwhelming portion of prison inmates being male a reflection of "sexism" in the justice system. The fact is, men are overwhelmingly more likely to commit violent crime.

Yes, Orwellian language.

It's all Orwell these days, from the White House on down. Truth is thought crimes and hate speech.

Mid-level Officials in the White House and the State Department Do Not Call the Shots — They Carry Out Orders

From Andrew McCarthy, at National Review, "The 10 P.M. Phone Call: Clinton and Obama discussed Benghazi. What did they say?":

‘What would you be focusing on in the Benghazi investigation?” I spent many years in the investigation biz, so it’s only natural that I’ve been asked that question a lot lately.

I had the good fortune to be trained in Rudy Giuliani’s U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. Rudy famously made his mark by making law enforcement reflect what common sense knew: Enterprises take their cues from the top. Criminal enterprises are no different: The capos do not carry out the policy of the button-men — it’s the other way around.

So if I were investigating Benghazi, I’d be homing in on that 10 p.m. phone call. That’s the one between President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — the one that’s gotten close to zero attention.

Benghazi is not a scandal because of Ambassador Susan Rice, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, and “talking points.” The scandal is about Rice and Nuland’s principals, and about what the talking points were intended to accomplish. Benghazi is about derelictions of duty by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton before and during the massacre of our ambassador and three other American officials, as well as Obama and Clinton’s fraud on the public afterward.

A good deal of media attention has quite appropriately been lavished on e-mail traffic between mid-level administration officials in the days leading up to Sunday, September 16. That is the day when Ms. Rice, a close Obama confidant, made her appalling appearances on the Sunday-morning political shows. Those performances were transparently designed to mislead the American people, during the presidential campaign stretch run, into believing that an anti-Islamic Internet video — rather than a coordinated terrorist attack orchestrated by al-Qaeda affiliates, coupled with the Obama administration’s gross failure to secure and defend American personnel in Benghazi — was responsible for the killings.

Fraud flows from the top down, not the mid-level up. Mid-level officials in the White House and the State Department do not call the shots — they carry out orders. They also were not running for reelection in 2012 or positioning themselves for a campaign in 2016. The people doing that were, respectively, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.

Continue reading.

Sabine Jemeljanova Bikini Crew

Via Twitter:

Warning Graphic: Sryian Rebels Execute Regime Loyalists

Man, that's painful. I mean for the dudes getting shot, to say nothing of those watching the damned video.

And who knows if these are regime forces, loyalists or civilians? They're dead now.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Today in Syrian Atrocity - Our Aid Recipients Execute 2 of Assad's Men - Graphic Content."

Kitten Freaks Out Over Lizard

Pretty funny:

Deer Crashes Through Bus Window

The deer makes it out of the bus. Bruised and battered, but still alive: "On camera: Deer crashes through bus window."

White House Should Try the Truth

From Charles Krauthammer, at the Washington Post, "Let the facts speak for themselves":

Note to GOP re Benghazi: Stop calling it Watergate, Iran-contra, bigger than both, etc. First, it might well be, but we don’t know. History will judge. Second, overhyping will only diminish the importance of the scandal if it doesn’t meet presidency-breaking standards. Third, focusing on the political effects simply plays into the hands of Democrats desperately claiming that this is nothing but partisan politics.

Let the facts speak for themselves. They are damning enough. Let Gregory Hicks, the honorable, apolitical second-in-command that night in Libya, movingly and grippingly demolish the president’s Benghazi mantra that “what I have always tried to do is just get all the facts” and “every piece of information that we got, as we got it, we laid it out for the American people.”

On the contrary. Far from assiduously gathering and releasing information, the administration was assiduously trying to control and suppress it.

Ezra Klein 'may turn out to be one of the stupidest people ever to be given column inches in a printed medium of any variety...'

Jeff Goldstein slams WaPo's juicebox moron, "BREAKING: The Scandals are Falling Apart!":

The fact is, Klein is right, but not for the reasons he wants us to believe. That is, his premise — that a scandal is only a scandal if high-level political figures fall — is true. But his implication — that because Obama and Holder and Hillary Clinton likely won’t fall, we aren’t in the midst of any scandals — is cynical, disingenuous, and largely exactly what you’d expect out of a useful idiot who fancies that he’s respected by those whose approval he so longs for.

The truth is, Obama and Holder and Hillary Clinton likely won’t fall because they will find protection in the arms of the ruling class, while lower-level functionaries will act as fall guys and scapegoats. And that’s because it is, as I’ve been saying, not a real two-party system any longer, but rather the ruling class vs. the rest of us.

Congress never pressed the IRS issue. Boehner is resisting calls to impanel a special committee on Benghazi, and the AP, once they get over the butt hurt of realizing that, for all the cover they’ve given progressives, ObamaCo just really isn’t all that into them, will go right back to fluffing up the President, rationalizing to themselves that they are making a sacrifice to the greater good. There has been no special prosecutor called for in the House to look into the IRS; the Senate is giving us Carl Levin and Max Baucus as investigators — two men who themselves engaged in the very conduct that politicians are now pretending to be outraged by.

So let’s not be coy: if the scandals fall apart it won’t be because no scandals existed, as Klein wants to pretend. Instead, it will be because the ruling class and their parasitic fluffers like Klein care more about the furtherance of big government statism than they do about truth or justice or the people they ostensibly represent or keep informed while working diligently to do neither.

Well, I'd add further that Klein's also wrong on the basic facts at hand. But read his idiocy at Goldstein's click through. These scandals indeed reach up to the highest levels, contra the juicebox moron. And top players have lied on the record, from the president on down. As more whistle-blowers come forward we may approach smoking gun territory. The pathetic press lapdogs will still cover for the administration, but voters are not fools. The ultimate reckoning will come at the polls next year and in 2016. Never let a scandal go to waste.

Frank VanderSloot on O'Reilly Factor

At great talking points segment followed by the VanderSloot interview.

President Obama personally smeared Mr. VanderSloot, which paved the way to official harassment, including an audit by the IRS.

Kim Strassel reported on this yesterday:

Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do. "He put a target on our backs, and he's now going to blame the people who are shooting at us?" asks Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot.

Mr. VanderSloot is the Obama target who in 2011 made a sizable donation to a group supporting Mitt Romney. In April 2012, an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a "wealthy individual" with a "less-than-reputable record." Other donors were described as having been "on the wrong side of the law."

This was the Obama version of the phone call—put out to every government investigator (and liberal activist) in the land.

Twelve days later, a man working for a political opposition-research firm called an Idaho courthouse for Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records. In June, the IRS informed Mr. VanderSloot and his wife of an audit of two years of their taxes. In July, the Department of Labor informed him of an audit of the guest workers on his Idaho cattle ranch. In September, the IRS informed him of a second audit, of one of his businesses. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never been audited before, was subject to three in the four months after Mr. Obama teed him up for such scrutiny.

The last of these audits was only concluded in recent weeks. Not one resulted in a fine or penalty. But Mr. VanderSloot has been waiting more than 20 months for a sizable refund and estimates his legal bills are $80,000. That figure doesn't account for what the president's vilification has done to his business and reputation. The Obama call for scrutiny wasn't a mistake; it was the president's strategy—one pursued throughout 2012. The way to limit Romney money was to intimidate donors from giving. Donate, and the president would at best tie you to Big Oil or Wall Street, at worst put your name in bold, and flag you as "less than reputable" to everyone who worked for him: the IRS, the SEC, the Justice Department. The president didn't need a telephone; he had a megaphone.

Thug government, Obama's Chicago way.

Christy Turlington Fabulous at 44

She looks great:

At London's Daily Mail, "'I can't wait to be 50': Christy Turlington, 44, says she'll 'never have surgery' as she stuns in racy new photo shoot."

Rosie Jones Frolicking With Lacey Banghard

Crazy ladies:

“@missnicoleneal: My girlies @rosieofthejones & @laceybanghard cuddling....😚 twitter.com/MissNicoleNeal…” aww jonesy keeping me warm 💜 xx

— Lacey Banghard (@laceybanghard) May 17, 2013

Plus, at Egotastic!, "Rosie Jones, Courtnie Quinlan, Nicole Neal, and Other Topless Hotties for i-D Magazine’s Spring Fling."

Gallup Poll: 74 Percent Want Investigation of #IRS Scandal

And the public wants answers on Benghazi too.

At Weasel Zippers, "Gallup: 74% Of Americans Want IRS Scandal Investigated Further, 69% Want Benghazi Follow Up…"

Steven Miller's testimony earlier was a complete disaster. This Lou Dobbs panel just rips the administration --- on the IRS, Benghazi, and the culture of corruption:

More at Neo's, "Are we paying attention yet?"

Obama Says Reject Voices Warning of Tyranny

Via the People's Cube.

And from Katie Pavlich, "FLASHBACK: Obama Tells Graduates to Reject Voices Warning of Government Tyranny."

Obama Forces Marines to Break Protocol

It's against Marine Corps regulations for Marines to hold umbrellas.

But as Obama is commander in chief, he can force Marines to violate the rules. At CNN, "Marines holding umbrellas 'extremely rare'."

Of course, there's no rule against the president acting like a selfish asshole. That just comes naturally to Obama. We used to have dignity in our presidents, especially when George W. Bush was in office. This president is just an egotistical prick.

Added: At Twitchy, "Sarah Palin to Obama: ‘When it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas’."

Obama Administration Crushes Free Speech on Campus

From Greg Lukianoff, at the Wall Street Journal, "Feds to Students: You Can't Say That":

The scandals roiling Washington over the past two weeks involve troubling government behavior that had been hidden—the IRS targeting of conservative groups and the Justice Department's surveillance of the Associated Press, among others. Largely overlooked amid the histrionics has been a shocker hiding in plain sight. Last week, the Obama administration moved to dramatically undermine students' and faculty rights at colleges across the country.

The new policy was announced in a joint letter from the Education Department and Justice Department to the University of Montana. The May 9 letter addressed the results of a year-long joint investigation by the departments into the school's mishandling of several serious sexual-assault cases. The investigation determined that the university's policies addressing sexual assault failed to comply with Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

But the joint letter, which announced a "resolution agreement" with the university, didn't stop there. It then proceeded to rewrite the federal government's rules about sexual harassment and free speech on campus.

If that sounds hyperbolic, consider the letter itself. The first paragraph declares that the Montana findings should serve as a "blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country." After outlining the specifics of the case, the letter states that only a stunningly broad definition of sexual harassment—"unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature"—will now satisfy federal statutory requirements. This explicitly includes "verbal conduct," otherwise known as speech.

Look, from Obama on down, the left can't tolerate freedom of expression. Speaking out freely undermines the progressive agenda in all respects. These people are totalitarian. Folks are just now starting to wake up to the abuses. But it's going to take a long, hard fight to destroy the left's anti-speech ghouls. It's a fight necessary to save freedom in America.

Acting IRS Commission Steven Miller Can't Remember Who Was Responsible!

Hello.

Pretty sucked optics for the embattled White House. This crapweasel Miller is lying through his teeth.

What a farce, at Politico, "Miller: IRS provided 'horrible customer service'."

And from Byron York on Twitter, "IRS digs in: No targeting, no bias, focus on conservative groups just employees seeking greater 'efficiency'."

And here's National Journal, "How Republicans Will Try to Pin the IRS Scandal on Obama."

#IRS Scandal Started at the Top

From Kim Strassel, at the Wall Street Journal:

Was the White House involved in the IRS's targeting of conservatives? No investigation needed to answer that one. Of course it was.

President Obama and Co. are in full deniability mode, noting that the IRS is an "independent" agency and that they knew nothing about its abuse. The media and Congress are sleuthing for some hint that Mr. Obama picked up the phone and sicced the tax dogs on his enemies.

But that's not how things work in post-Watergate Washington. Mr. Obama didn't need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he'd like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.

RTWT.

The WSJ crew is just hammering this criminal clusterf-k administration.

David Beckham Retires From Soccer

At London's Daily Mail, "End it like Beckham: England legend calls time on glittering career and retires."

Video c/o Los Angeles Times, "Watch some of David Beckham's amazing free kicks."

The video has been viewed more than 8 million times and for good reason. Beckham's free kicks were a sight to behold, with the ball streaking into the net with a speed and right-to-left arc that looked like a Zack Greinke curveball.

Bubble of Unreality: Leslie Marshall Claims #IRS Conspiracies on Sean Hannity's

An utterly jaw-dropping exchange. Dana Loesch just destroy's the idiot Leslie Marshall

Michele Bachmann Talks Obama Impeachment

At CNN, "After IRS targeting, tea party says their fears confirmed."

'We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate...'

This is most urgent, the most morally devastating essay I've yet to read the week's developments, from Peggy Noonan, at WSJ, "This Is No Ordinary Scandal" (via Memeorandum):

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they're seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration's credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone.

Something big has shifted. The standing of the administration has changed.

As always it comes down to trust. Do you trust the president's answers when he's pressed on an uncomfortable story? Do you trust his people to be sober and fair-minded as they go about their work? Do you trust the IRS and the Justice Department? You do not.

he president, as usual, acts as if all of this is totally unconnected to him. He's shocked, it's unacceptable, he'll get to the bottom of it. He read about it in the papers, just like you.

But he is not unconnected, he is not a bystander. This is his administration. Those are his executive agencies. He runs the IRS and the Justice Department.

A president sets a mood, a tone. He establishes an atmosphere. If he is arrogant, arrogance spreads. If he is to too partisan, too disrespecting of political adversaries, that spreads too. Presidents always undo themselves and then blame it on the third guy in the last row in the sleepy agency across town.

The IRS scandal has two parts...

Continue reading.

Idiot progressives are just in denial over this. But things are really coming to a head.

Fatal Crash Near Long Beach City College

At the Long Beach Patch, "Woman Killed in Long Beach Hit-and-Run."

I had two students come about a half-hour late to my 11:10am class. I thought nothing of it until a phone starting ringing like it was an alarm or something. I said, "What was that"? And one of the women said, "There's a crash out there," pointing out the window to the intersection at Carson and Clark Streets. Then when I started my 12:45pm class, a young man told me that someone had been killed. I went over to the intersection after class to check it out.

Also at the Long Beach Report, "UPDATE: 47 Year Old Long Beach Woman Dies, 21 Year Old Bellflower Man Arrested, In Alleged Hit and Run, Carson/Clark (LBCC Area); LBPD Says Driver Hit Three Vehicles at High Rate of Speed, Was Allegedly Unlicensed Driver."

Yeah, probably an illegal immigrant.

More photos at the Long Beach Press Telegram, "Long Beach police capture suspect at LBCC in fatal hit-and-run."