From Gateway Pundit

…Update: Gunman Dead, Hostages Released

James Lee- behind the Save the Planet Protest. He saw Al Gore’s junk-science movie and says he decided he had to do more… So he packed on bombs and took hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters.
From his website:

My name is Lee. Look for me on site. I will be demonstrating ideas on how to save the planet in front of the Discovery Channel Building each day until they give in. The idea to save the planet is based on the book “My Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn, where he suggests people can build on each other’s ideas to find solutions for saving the remaining species and living sustainably. The Discovery Channel, the networks, and the government, don’t care about planet-saving ideas that actually work. I say that they must give other ideas a chance. Join us in the protest to save the planet. So please, bring yourself, and maybe a sign with your own slogan with saving the planet as a theme, and some friends”

Nuts.
The police are negotiating with him and he is holding hostages. There are reports that there are people lying on the floor in the lobby.

An “Asian male” with a bomb strapped to his chest took hostages today at the Discovery Channel Building in Maryland. Police were initially dispatched to the building for the report of shots fired at about 1 p.m. Police are reporting the suspect is an Asian male. The individual held a protest there last year and has a website.
FOX News reported:

Police in Maryland are responding to a hostage situation after reports that a man with a handgun entered the Discovery Channel headquarters building in Silver Spring and fired at least one shot.

An official with the Montgomery County Police Department confirmed to Fox News that a man with an explosive device is holding at least one person hostage in the lobby of the building.

A Discovery employee reportedly told WJLA-TV that the building, located in suburban Washington, D.C., was on lockdown. The employee also said she thought she had heard five or six gunshots.

Dan Friz, a spokesman with the Montgomery County Police Department, reportedly told the station that a tactical team is trying to communicate with the gunman.

Friz said police were initially dispatched to the building after a report of shots fired at approximately 1 p.m.
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By Charles Krauthammer

Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat. Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the “bitter” people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging “to guns or religion or” — this part is less remembered — “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.”

That’s a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.

– Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party movement? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.

– Disgust and alarm with the federal government’s unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? Nativism.

– Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.

– Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero? Islamophobia.

Now we know why the country has become “ungovernable,” last year’s excuse for the Democrats’ failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities — often lopsided majorities — oppose President Obama’s social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.

What’s a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card. When the Tea Party arose, a spontaneous, leaderless and perfectly natural (and traditionally American) reaction to the vast expansion of government intrinsic to the president’s proudly proclaimed transformational agenda, the liberal commentariat cast it as a mob of angry white yahoos disguising their antipathy to a black president by cleverly speaking in economic terms.

Then came Arizona and S.B. 1070. It seems impossible for the left to believe that people of good will could hold that: (a) illegal immigration should be illegal, (b) the federal government should not hold border enforcement hostage to comprehensive reform, i.e., amnesty, (c) every country has the right to determine the composition of its immigrant population.
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from Gateway Pundit

KABOOM!
Far Left website TPM Muckraker took the offical walk of shame today and admitted that one of their unhinged bloggers was arrested for firebombing Congressman Russ Carnahan’s office. The suspected firebomber blogs at TPM under the name “Ripper McCord.”

When Leftie Bloggers Attack…

Dem operative, Russ Carnahan staffer, TPM blogger and suspected firebomber Chris Powers is the sweaty one pictured here on right during a rally for nationalized health care. Powers reportedly is was a paid canvasser for Russ Carnahan.

TPM reported:

Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) confirmed in a press conference yesterday that the suspect in an alleged arson at Carnahan’s campaign office is a former paid campaign worker named Chris Powers.

Powers has not been charged in the arson case. In a phone interview this morning with TPMmuckraker, Powers denied having any involvement with what local reports have described as a “fire bombing.”

“I’m innocent,” Powers said. “I was at home when Congressman Carnahan’s office was fired on. I have nothing to do with it.”

In the early morning hours of Aug. 17, someone broke a back window in Carnahan’s St. Louis campaign office and set a small fire, which caused minor damage in the office. Police arrested a suspect some hours later. They released him the next day, but have not divulged the suspect’s name. Police say it is up to the prosecutor’s office whether to issue a warrant; without it they can’t hold a suspect or release his name.

Powers’ identity was first reported yesterday by the St. Louis blog Gateway Pundit. After the claim gathered steam online, Carnahan held a press conference and confirmed that Powers is a former campaign worker. Carnahan said Powers was paid as a canvassing worker for about a week, but was fired for “not doing his job.”

When TPM asked Powers if he was the person initially arrested by police, Powers referred us to his lawyer, who was not immediately available for comment.

As several blogs have reported, Powers wrote a reader blog at TPMCafe under the name Ripper McCord. (Any TPM reader can create a blog and comment on the site, and Powers is not affiliated with TPM.)

Of course, the fact that a leftie blogger is also a suspected firebomber surprises no one.
Don’t expect the state-run media to touch this with a ten-foot pole.

also;

Unreal. Obama Hauls Arizona in Front of Sham UN Human Rights Council

Let’s face it… This guy hates America.
Our far left president just hauled the State of Arizona in front of the UN Human Rights Council. For the record, this sham council includes human rights offenders Cuba, China and Libya. The Obama administration told the United Nations Human Rights Council that America’s human rights record was less than perfect in a report this week.
AIP News reported, via Free Republic:

Apparently Barack Obama is not content to make a federal case out of his immigration feud with Arizona; he just made it an international one.

The president’s first-ever report on U.S. human rights to the UN Human Rights Council contains a rich vein of offensive material. So far, one aspect has not been reported: our petty president used the situation to bash Arizona’s immigration law — and possibly transfer jurisdiction over the law from Arizona to the UN. Throughout the report, which sounds like an Obama campaign speech, the president discusses “the original flaw” of the U.S. Constitution, America’s tolerance for slavery, and his version of our long and despicable history of discriminating against and oppressing minorities, women, homosexuals, and the handicapped. After each complaint, he addresses how he is delivering us from ourselves, patting himself on the back for such initiatives as ending “torture,” promoting Affirmative Action, and passing health care legislation.
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The question: How does it feel to curse out an old man who is a Holocaust survivor? How does that feel?

Our moral and intellectual superior: “I have no problem cursing out an unpatriotic, treasonous piece of garbage that wouldn’t know the (sacrilegious expletive) Constitution if it hit him in the (expletive) face, OK?”

I hope there was vodka in that water bottle.

From Jonah Goldberg: “In 2001, there were twice as many anti-Jewish incidents as there were anti-Muslim, again according to the FBI. In 2002 and pretty much every year since, anti-Jewish incidents have outstripped anti-Muslim ones by at least 6 to 1. Why aren’t we talking about the anti-Jewish climate in America?”

also

Charles Jenkins: He voted for it before he voted against it

From Red Maryland

Just to be upfront, this site has endorsed Mike Hough for Delegate in 3B rather than the incumbent Charles “I want you to think I’m Chuck” Jenkins, the O’Malley appointee.

We have a lot of reasons for doing this and we’ll begin examining them over the next few days.

Few things ever rate a unanimous vote in the House of Delegates. I suppose you could get the House to unanimously vote to observe July 4 as Independence Day, but some of the cretins from Democrat strongholds would probably balk at that. Last session that did happen. Back in February HB 65, introduced by Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio (R-37B). The bill was simple enough, it closed some loopholes in a federal law that encouraged human trafficking. The bill passed on a vote of 130-0. Voting to pass this bill, and rightfully so, was the new O’Malley appointee, Delegate Charles Jenkins.

What did this bill do? I simply required that anyone going through a marriage broker to obtain a wife (or I suppose husband) from overseas had to make available to the broker, who was required to make it available to the potential spouse, 1) a criminal background check, 2) a marriage history, and 3) the number to times the applicant has applied for a spouse. Federal law already requires this information to be provided to the broker, though enforcement is spotty, Ms. Haddaway-Riccio’s bill simply ensures the potential spouse received the information.

There are a lot reasons why guys get a wife from overseas via a marriage broker. I guess. But along with the honorable and understandable reasons there is that demographic that lacks the social skills to develop a relationship on the basis of equality. To them finding a bride who, upon marriage, is socially isolated and dependent upon them for their continued presence in the US has an appeal. A woman in this category would be less likely to report domestic violence. There is also a criminal element that uses the law to evade immigration laws for either direct payments by the inbound spouse or to deliver unsuspecting women into lives of prostitution and pornography.

In short, Delegate Haddaway-Riccio’s bill imposed no new duty on the applicant for a spouse but merely ensured that the potential spouse received the information. One would think we could all agree that, on balance, letting a woman know that her potential husband was a criminal, a child molester, or someone who thinks slapping girls around is manly is a good thing.

And so it was for a few days in the General Assembly last session.

The bill sailed through the Senate picking up a couple of amendments on the way. When it returned to the House for final passage it passed again. This time with a vote of 139-1.

Who was the sole vote against letting a woman know some very basic information about her potential spouse? Martin O’Malley appointee Charles Jenkins.

So what convinced Jenkins to change his opinion so radically in a two month period. What happened in his life that led him to decide that it was completely okay for a marriage broker to conceal a history of crime and spouse abuse from a potential bride? That a young woman had no real right to know that her American husband had also applied to import a half dozen other women? Or that he was already married?

We just don’t know. We can speculate… and I think we can do so with near 100% accuracy… if we simply follow the money. But Mr. Jenkins owes the voters of District 3B an explanation for this extraordinary about face on a bill that did nothing more provide a modicum of safety and dignity to another human being.

Gallup Ignoring Its Own Big Stories

by Laryn

The Gallup Poll is one of the oldest in polling organizations in America. Its reputation ought to be important. The articles which accompany Gallup’s polls, however, seem calculated to hide the real story. Consider an article last August, entitled “Political Ideology: ‘Conservative’ Label Prevails in the South.” That is not exactly earth-shattering news. Anyone who has even casual acquaintance with American politics knows that the South is the most conservative part of our country.

The subtitle of the article appears to tell more: “Conservatives outnumber liberals in nearly every state, but not in D.C.” That subtitle, in much smaller font below the headline, is, in fact, false. The data which Gallup provides in the actual poll reveals this remarkable fact: conservatives outnumber liberals in every single state of our nation, without exception, including such proverbial bastions of leftism as Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont, and Rhode Island. This is electrifying news, particularly in light of the Tea Party movement and the rebellion within the Republican Party against RINOs. Why would Gallup ignore this fascinating news it discovered? Why would Gallup place a subtitle around this poll which is not true and which understates the poll’s importance?

Six months later, Gallup announced a poll on the same question: the ideology of respondents in each of the fifty states. What was the title of this article? “Ideology: Three Deep South States Most Conservative,” although in much smaller print, the subtitle was “Only District of Columbia has More Liberals than Conservatives.” This reconfirms the almost unbelievable results of the August 2009 poll, yet Gallup practicably ignores what its own data shows.

On August 18, 2010, Gallup announced that “Voter Enthusiasm Highest Among Conservatives,” but don’t try reading the online article. Instead, watch and listen to Frank Newport, Editor in Chief, talking to you about the data but only barely showing it. Why not let visitors see the data instead of listening to Dr. Newport tell us what he thinks the data means (conservatives and liberals are the most enthused voters and moderates the least enthused)? Because — if you are prepared to stop and start the video clip and look for the faded numbers — the dramatic difference in ideological enthusiasm makes the title of the poll patently milquetoast. It is almost as if Gallup did not want you examining intellectually its data and wanted you, instead, to watch Newport’s bobbing head as he speaks on a busy city sidewalk.

Most curious of all is the poll dated August 17, 2010 with the title “GOP Shows Strongest Positioning Yet in 2010 Test Vote.” The four graphs in that article show that since January 2010, Republican support in the generic congressional ballot reached a high water mark in mid-August 2010: interesting, but with polls fluctuating all over the place in the last decade, how important is that polling data really? Surely Gallup did not appear to see much historic about the generic ballot data in August.

But the Gallup Poll released also in August 2010, entitled “Gallup Election 2010 Key Indicators,” shows something incomparably more interesting. The tables at the top show that Republicans have a seven-point lead in the generic ballot, and the graph immediately below that — which inexplicably stretches out a five-month period — seems to show that the lines of congressional ballot support for the two political parties have almost no trend at all. The bottom graph, which is curiously disconnected from the other graph, shows the generic ballot trends from 1950 to 2006. (Why not extend that to 2010?) That graph shows that, except for a brief period in 1994, when Republicans had a five-point lead for a few weeks, and for a briefer period in 2002, when Republicans had a four-point lead, Democrats have always led in the congressional ballot.

Go to yet another Gallup Poll, this one released on April 13, 2010, and the investigative reader would discover that in those periods not shown in the August 2010 article, Democrats led on the generic congressional ballot from 2006 through 2009 — which is not particularly surprising. Put these three separate articles together, and a genuinely dramatic fact can be deciphered: in August 2010, the Gallup generic ballot showed Republicans stronger against Democrats than in more than sixty years of tracking this data.

So why is the title to this article not “Republican Lead over Democrats Largest in Polling History”? Or why not “Democrat Generic Ballot Weakest in Sixty Years”? Why, since Gallup reports all this data in scattered reports and must have all the figures together in a single database, did someone at Gallup not play with a spreadsheet, push a button, and then say, “Wow! Look at this, guys! Republicans are in the best position on the congressional ballot than they have ever been! What a story!” We all know why, don’t we?

also:

Top US Marine General: Obama’s Afghan Deadline “Gives Sustenance to Enemy

From Gateway Pundit
”

Of course it does…
The top US Marine general told reporters today that Obama’s Afghanistan deadline has giving the enemy sustenance.
The Wall Street Journal reported, via Free Republic:

The top U.S. Marine general said President Barack Obama’s announced July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan had given “sustenance” to the Taliban.

“We know the president was talking to several audiences at the same time when he made his comments on July 2011,” Gen. James Conway told reporters on Tuesday. “In some ways, we think right now it’s probably giving our enemy sustenance….In fact, we’ve intercepted communications that say, ‘Hey, you know, we only have to hold out for so long.’”

Conway, who recently returned from a trip to the region, said he expected Marines to remain on the ground in southern Afghanistan, the traditional stronghold for the Taliban, well after July 2011, though he himself is set to retire in the fall.

“I certainly believe that some American units somewhere in Afghanistan will turn over responsibilities to Afghanistan security forces in 2011, I do not think they will be Marines,” he said.

The Marines form only one part of the 78,000-strong U.S. troop contingent, which is in turn part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, which includes some 120,000 troops from 47 nations.

also:

Obama’s Counter Terror Czar Storms Out of Washington Times Office When Confronted On His Radical Positions (Video)

In February Barack Obama’s radical counter terror czar John Brennan said that 20% recidivism rate for Gitmo detainees was not that bad. In May adviser John Brennan called Jerusalem “Al Quds.” He also said that “jihad was a legitimate tenet of Islam.”

When confronted about his controversial positions at a meeting in June, John Brennan stormed out of the office.
The Washington Times and Yid With Lid reported:

Mr. Brennan had visited the Washington Times Editorial Board on June 24 as a result of a June 11 Washington Times editorial he objected to. It did not take long for the White House counter-terrorism adviser to lose his temper with our editorial board’s questions regarding what he previously said about individuals who become terrorists.
(more…)

From Gateway Pundit

They can dish it out – But they can’t take it!
Radical Marxist co-founder of Code Pink and top Obama bundler Jodie Evans freaked out after protesters showed up at her fundraiser yesterday for Jerry Brown.

Protester Danny Gonzalez lied on the sidewalk outside the gated entrance with a sign that read, “Jerry Brown terrorist supporter?”

Kristinn Taylor and Andrea Shea King at Big Peace reported:

Melanie Morgan, founder of Move America Forward, the nation’s largest pro-troop organization, led about a dozen conservative activists who protested at the Venice home of Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans at a Saturday afternoon fundraiser for California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown.

Morgan reports the pro-American protesters, “blocked the entrance of hundreds of wealthy Democrat liberals, including Sally Kellerman and Cindy Asner, ex-wife of Ed Asner.” Protesters laid down on the sidewalk outside the entrance gate where guests had to step over them…

…Police were called and arrived in a squad car about an hour into the event. However, the trio of law enforcement officers found no reason to make any arrests.

Also observing the scene was Andrew Breitbart, who was wearing inline skates, as well as prominent blogger Mickey Kaus of Slate, who heard the disturbance from his house across the street. He came out and observed, but did not join the protest.

Jodie Evans became visibly agitated when confronted by Morgan about Code Pink’s $600,000 donation to the families of terrorists who murdered U.S. troops in Fallujah. Evans snapped “you are on crack!” as Morgan persisted.

Morgan added, “these liberals were shocked that we turned up. They were extremely angry about our obnoxious support of U.S. troops… and completely oblivious to the irony. The most fun was watching Jodie Evans’ skin mottle in anger, matching her dyed red hair!”

Andrew Marcus of Big Government and Founding Bloggers videotaped the protest and remarked on the irony that one of the Code Pink greeters complained about being protested, a tactic commonly associated with Code Pink.

Top Obama campaign bundler Jodie Evans from Code Pink who raised nearly $100,000 for the Democratic candidate was also a top activist with the Gaza flotilla terror group that attacked the IDF in May.

Evans snuck in the RNC and rushed the stage during Sarah Palin’s speech in 2008.

If ever there were two anti-American pro-terrorist socialists who deserved to be hounded in public it would be Code Pink co-founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin. Maybe we’ll see more of this in the future.

also:

Close Your Eyes… Now Imagine George W. Bush With a Record 9.5% Unemployment Rate

If you ever wondered about the depth of corruption in the state-run media is, read this…
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by ShawnMillerick

There’s only one way the tragic airplane crash in Alaska that ended the life of former-U.S. Senator Ted Stevens could have been better, according to New Hampshire Democratic activist and State Rep. candidate Keith Halloran: If Sarah Palin had been on it.

In a Facebook post, Halloran, who describes himself as “an active local citizen and supporter of NH Governor John Lynch,” said of the plane crash, “Just wish Sarah and Levy were on board.”

Democratic State Rep. candidate wants Sarah Palin dead

Halloran serves on the Rindge, NH Planning Board and is a Democratic candidate for State Representative in Cheshire County. He is a prominent supporter of Democratic frontrunner Ann McLane Kuster, who is running for Congress in NH-02. His comment appeared in response to a post by another Facebook user on the tragedy.

New Hampshire Republicans were not pleased with Halloran’s remarks.

“Mr. Halloran’s outrageous comments are a new low, even by the standards of the New Hampshire Democrat Party,” said New Hampshire GOP spokesman Ryan Williams. “His publicly stated death wish for Governor Palin and her family is abhorrent, and has no place in public discourse. Governor Lynch and Ann McLane Kuster need to immediately denounce Mr. Halloran’s hateful remarks and demand that he personally apologize to the Palin family.”

also:

Liberal Lawyers again getting Innocents Killed

The Gratuitous, Vicious Murder of Stephen Pitcairn as a Reflection of Baltimore and Maryland’s Failed Criminal Justice System

–Richard E. Vatz at RedMAryland

By now virtually everyone in Maryland knows that a wonderful young man, Stephen Pitcairn, was killed on July 25, as described in The Baltimore Sun, while walking on St. Paul Street after having left a Bolt Bus at Penn Station. He was talking to his mother on his cell phone, a loving parent who suggested that Mr. Pitcairn take a cab home. He was accosted by malevolent criminals, who murdered him despite his apparently complying with their demands that he give up his money and wallet.

John Alexander Wagner and Lavelva Merritt are charged with his murder, first-degree murder, and the evidence of their guilt leaves little room for doubt, except regarding relative responsibility between the two miscreants. The evil nature of the accused can be inferred from the facts of the crime and the additional datum that, as the Sun reported from “court records,” they bragged after the slaying that they had been “hunting to rob someone” and that “they had robbed and ‘hurt’ a ‘white boy…’ ”

The question almost immediately came up: why were these homicidal criminals free to roam the streets? As The Washington Post wrote in their barebones coverage: “Thirty-four-year-old John Wagner has a long criminal record but has served little prison time.”

The Sun sums up as follows the difficulties of those in this case who sincerely want to aggressively pursue the incarceration of violent criminals as well as some of the outcomes perpetrated by irresponsible and apparently unaccountable principals:

•Wagner pleaded guilty to a vicious assault on his then-girlfriend in 2008 and received eight years in prison, but the entire sentence was suspended. He was charged with violating his probation on four occasions, but each time a city judge ordered that the terms of his supervision remain unchanged.
(more…)

also:

Who is Rob Fisher?

Posted by Mark Newgent from Redstate.

Red Maryland has obtained documents, which show cyber security executive, Rob Fisher, who is challenging GOP favorite Andy Harris in the Republican primary for Maryland’s first district congressional seat, has stronger ties to the Commonwealth of Virginia than Maryland.

According to the Maryland State Board of Elections Fisher registered to vote in Maryland in 1996 but has not voted in a single election in Maryland since registering. However, Fisher has been registered to vote in Virginia since 2006

Fisher’s Federal Election Commission candidate filing statement lists his address as 310 Park Lane Federalsburg, MD. The Maryland State Department of Taxation and Assessments shows that property is owned by his parents Robert Allan Fisher Sr. and Diane M. Fisher. Virginia records show Fisher and his current wife have paid property taxes on a home in Chantilly, VA since 2004.

These documents beg several questions:

Why is Fisher running for Congress in Maryland?

Is Fisher a Maryland resident? If yes, then why is a self-admitted millionaire —he told Politico he’s worth $5 million — living with his parents?

Fisher claims “deep roots” in the first congressional district. Why hasn’t he voted in a single election in Maryland in the last 14 years?
(more…)

also:

Stupid Libs of the Week
Thanks to Red Maryland for the first two videos:

Barbara Mikulski believes there will be confirmation hearings for President Obama’s recess appointment of socialized medicine loving, wealth redistributing technocrat, Donald Berwick

,

also:

Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee still believes South Vietnam exists a political entity.

and:

Taking on the Food Police

from One Cosmos

I’ll get back to the cardinal virtues in due time. After all, they’ve been here for over two millennia, so they’re not going anywhere.

But I wanted to discuss a valuable book I recently finished, New Threats to Freedom, while it’s still fresh in my mind. It’s a compilation of thirty relatively short and crisp essays on — you’ll never guess — new threats to freedom. I’ll just quote from the product description:

“In the twentieth century, free people faced a number of mortal threats, ranging from despotism, fascism, and communism to the looming menace of global terrorism. While the struggle against some of these overt dangers continues, some insidious new threats seem to have slipped past our intellectual defenses. These new threats are quietly eroding our hard-won freedoms, often unchallenged and, in some cases, widely accepted as beneficial.”

Of the thirty essays, I would say that about a third are quite good, a third mediocre, and another third slightly lame. I suppose for the sake of “diversity” — ironically, one of the new threats to freedom — they included a number of liberal authors, and their intellectually flabby contributions are the weakest, being that liberalism is the greatest contemporary threat to liberty (by its own acknowledgment, since it knowingly barters away liberty for its fantasies of equality).

In this context, it’s a little like inviting communists to discuss new threats to private property, or NAMBLA to discuss new threats to children.

Judging by the density of my highlighting, it looks like the greatest threats to liberty are, in no particular order, the decline of American press freedom, the closing of the liberal mind, the new dogma of fairness, single women (this was one of the more important essays, as we shall see), the loss of the freedom to fail, the EU, the rise of anti-religious (really, anti-Christian) orthodoxy, multiculturalism and the threat of conformity, the tyranny of the news cycle, transnational progressivism, anticapitalism, and the rise of mass dependency.
(more…)

also:

Journalists Stir Faux Controversy

From Powerline

In a farcical sequel to the Mavi Marmara episode, journalists are complaining that Israel’s government is using videos they left behind on the ship to prove that the violence was started by pro-terrorist thugs. The Associated Press is somehow able to keep a straight face:

Israel’s military is using video confiscated from people on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla to justify opening fire during its deadly raid on the ships, drawing sharp criticism Thursday from foreign correspondents who say some of the footage was shot by journalists. …

The military allowed some journalists to board vessels used in the raid, and several dozen reporters were on board the flotilla’s six ships as well.

It would be interesting to know more about those several dozen reporters.

The Foreign Press Association, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories, demanded Thursday that the military stop using the captured material without permission and identify the source of the video already released.

“The Foreign Press Association strongly condemns the use of photos and video material shot by foreign journalists, now being put out by the (military) spokesman’s office as ‘captured material’,” the FPA said in a statement. It said the military was selectively using footage to back its claims that commandos opened fire only after being attacked.

The FPA didn’t explain, of course, in what way the IDF was being selective, or what footage may exist that shows the soldiers fired their weapons before they were attacked with knives, clubs, slingshots, etc. It is somewhat ironic that the only reason the journalists’ video is seeing the light of day is that the journalists are no longer in possession of it. I think it is safe to say that video showing the pro-terrorists for what they really are would otherwise have been suppressed.

Actually, it isn’t clear that any of the footage the IDF has released was shot by journalists. There are only a couple of possibilities; this one is the most dramatic. It shows the pro-terrorists attacking Israeli soldiers as they try to board the ship:

This one shows the pro-terrorists assembling their weapons in anticipation of the Israelis’ effort to board the ship. It was filmed by a couple of security cameras:

This is just one more instance, I guess, of journalists’ never-ending quest for truth.

From Gateway Pundit

A minority student admitted to hanging a noose in the campus library at UC San Diego. The incident sparked several protests at the campus. The student said that the act was not meant to recall the lynching of blacks. Um-kay.
The LA Times reported:

The campus paper publishes an anonymous letter by a minority student who calls the incident ‘a mindless act and stupid mistake.’

The UC San Diego student reportedly responsible for hanging a noose last week in a campus library issued a public, but anonymous, apology Monday and said she had no racist motivation.

The noose’s discovery set off protests at a school that is already tense from recent racially charged episodes and triggered condemnations from UC leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In a letter published Monday on the front page of the UC San Diego student newspaper, the Guardian, the student wrote that the incident was “a mindless act and stupid mistake” and was not meant to recall the lynching of blacks.

“As a minority student who sympathizes with the students that have been affected by the recent issues on campus, I am distraught to know that I have unintentionally added to their pain,” the student wrote. She was suspended Friday and remains under investigation for a possible hate crime.

The letter is signed “Anonymous UCSD Student” and offers no clues about her identity or ethnicity.

Sari Thayer, the Guardian’s Web editor, said in an interview that the woman had asked the paper to publish the letter and that “a reliable source” confirmed its authenticity.

The woman wrote that she and friends had been playing with the rope early last week, making a lasso and then a noose.

also:

Captured ETA Terrorist Trained With FARC in Venezuela; Supported By Chavez Regime

Yesterday it was reported that the Chavez government assisted Marxist FARC and ETA terrorist groups in a plot to murder popular Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
(more…)

From Powerline

Unholy Alliance

We’ve written many times about the seemingly odd-bedfellow alliance between the Left and Islamic radicals. Today, the Telegraph reports on the “infiltration” of the Labour Party by Islamists:

The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) — which believes in jihad and sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state — has placed sympathisers in elected office and claims, correctly, to be able to achieve “mass mobilisation” of voters.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties. …

IFE activists boasted to the undercover reporters that they had already “consolidated … a lot of influence and power” over Tower Hamlets, a London borough council with a £1 billion budget. We have established that the group and its allies were awarded more than £10 million of taxpayers’ money, much of it from government funds designed to “prevent violent extremism”.

This is a common dodge. Gullible (or worse) governments funnel money to extremist organizations in the guise of fighting extremism.

IFE leaders were recorded expressing opposition to democracy, support for sharia law or mocking black people. The IFE organised meetings with extremists, including Taliban allies, a man named by the US government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and a man under investigation by the FBI for his links to the September 11 attacks.

Moderate Muslims in London told how the IFE and its allies were enforcing their hardline views on the rest of the local community, curbing behaviour they deemed “un-Islamic”. The owner of a dating agency received a threatening email from an IFE activist, warning her to close it.

George Galloway, a London MP, admitted in recordings obtained by this newspaper that his surprise victory in the 2005 election owed more to the IFE “than it would be wise – for them – for me to say, adding that they played a “decisive role” in his triumph at the polls.

Galloway is, of course, a perfect example of how easily the far Left can accommodate itself to Muslim radicalism. On the whole, I think the Telegraph gives Labour too much credit in saying that pro-sharia elements were required to “infiltrate” the party.

also:

Patriot Act Extended

The Democratic House and Senate have voted to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act which many liberals have criticized for the last eight years, and today President Obama signed that extension into law. One of these provisions allows investigators to obtain a warrant to wiretap all phones that may be used by a terrorist, not just a particular phone number. Federal agencies have had this power, which is obviously necessary in an era of disposable cell phones, for quite a few years in organized crime investigations, but only with the Patriot Act was the authority extended to terrorism. Another provision allows the government to subpoena records more or less as lawyers have had the ability to do in civil cases forever. This is the notorious “library” provision that has nothing in particular to do with libraries. The third provision allows federal agencies to surveil “lone wolf” terrorists who may be dangerous even though not affiliated with a particular group, like the Washington snipers of a few years ago.

This legislation shouldn’t be in the least controversial, but Democrats spent years demagoguing the Bush administration’s efforts to prevent terrorist attacks. The Democrats’ shameful conduct included countless attacks on the Patriot Act. Yet, now that they have the responsibility of governing, those attacks are forgotten–the extension passed the House 315-97 and Obama signed the legislation quietly, without a whimper.

I suppose it’s too much to expect the Democrats to admit they were wrong all along.

Not Your Parents’ PTA

We’ve written a number of times about Minnesota’s Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), a charter school that appears to be Muslim in all but name, and is closely affiliated with, if not an alter ego of, the radical Muslim American Society. The American Civil Liberties Union is engaged in litigation against TIZA, in which the ACLU alleges that the school unconstitutionally promotes religion at taxpayer expense. That litigation has gotten quite bitter.

Our friend Kathy Kersten has done more than anyone else to shed light on TIZA and its relationship with the Muslim American Society through her columns in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Now, relying on court records, she details allegations of threats made against those who have provided information about the school’s operations:

In January, the ACLU sought a protective order, telling the court that intimidation by TiZA was discouraging potential witnesses from appearing. …

Elmasry is one witness who sought such protection. In January, he testified about TiZA’s financial entanglement with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota at a Minnesota Senate subcommittee hearing on charter school lease aid. Shortly thereafter, Elmasry says in an affidavit, he was informed by a friend and TIZA parent that TiZA authorities had called a parent meeting, where they showed a video of Elmasry’s testimony. Then, according to the parent’s account, Asad Zaman, the school’s director and an imam — or Muslim religious leader — accused Elmasry of talking to the Minnesota Department of Education and “selling” his “Iman,” meaning his Islamic faith, according to Elmasry’s affidavit.

Elmasry was frightened, he says. “It is well-known in Islam that a Muslim who rejects his or her faith is committing an act punishable by death,” according to his affidavit. “There are many accounts of Muslims taking matters into their own hands and killing people they believe have sold or rejected their Islamic faith or Iman.”
…
TiZA denies that a threat was intended, according to documents filed with the court. “Even if the Court accepts the comment alleged by Elmasry,” the school maintains, “such remarks have significance only when issued by a proper Islamic judge, of which Elmasry and Zaman are not.”

Well, that’s reassuring.

Elmasry is not the only fearful witness. Edwards, who left her job at TiZA in 2009, also hesitates to testify about what she saw and heard during her years there.

During her tenure, she says in an affidavit, she saw “no real distinction” between the operations of TiZA and the Muslim American Society, with which the school shares a building. For years, “I watched [school officials] lash out in order to control those around them, and to retaliate against anyone who spoke poorly of the school, or otherwise challenged their authority.” According to her affidavit, Zaman suggested that “we could just kill you” after becoming upset when she “challeng[ed] his authority.”

Kathy’s conclusion is apt: “we have to pinch ourselves to remember that we’re talking here about a Minnesota public school — financed with our tax dollars.”

and:

Global Warming Fraud: The Big Picture
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from Flopping Aces

How long until the Warmer’s admit it’s all been a big fat LIE?

It was just a week ago that I posted on the near total collapse of global warming hysteria. No warming, no increase in hurricane’s fury or frequency, no melting Himalayan glaciers or destruction of the Amazon rain forest.

The last few months have seen one domino after another dropping to expose the fallacy of man made global warming. Now, the latest, coming to us from the left wing Guardian newspaper in Britain:

Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels
Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report’s author now says true estimate is still unknown
By David Adam
Guardian.co.uk
Sunday 21 February 2010

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.

At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study “strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results“. The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.
…
Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: “It’s one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science.” He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study’s conclusion.

“Retraction is a regular part of the publication process,” he said. “Science is a complicated game and there are set procedures in place that act as checks and balances.”

Nature Publishing Group, which publishes Nature Geoscience, said this was the first paper retracted from the journal since it was launched in 2007.

In a statement the authors of the paper said: “Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.

And yet, despite ALL these revelations, the Warmers continue to insist that they are right after all and that the only way to combat man made global warming is to impose some huge tax on energy use (as if that would have the SLIGHTEST impact on lowering CO2 emissions).

Even as the lies, distortions and half truths of globaloney are exposed the Warmers cling to their religion. Remember what Obama said about people who cling to religion? He and his Warmer friends should know. But it is becoming increasingly clear that they are only deceiving themselves.

also:

Code Pink – Mission Aborted @ CPAC

The drama did not end with Breitbart slamming all comers at CPAC. Susie (Medea) Benjamin was called out as she and her partner Tighe Barry snuck into the ballroom while Beck was finishing up his speech.

Towards the end of Glenn Beck’s keynote speech while I was busy tweeting on my @#$%@# netbook, Doug Welch (Stix Blog) mentioned to me that he just saw Code Pink walk through Bloggers Lounge towards steps leading to the floor of the ballroom. I immediately grabbed Doug, notified Caleb Howe and encouraged other bloggers to head out into the ballroom in search of Code Pink. With in a few minutes, I spotted Susie (Madea) Benjamin walking with Tighe and carrying a huge pink purse. Yelling her name to get the attention of her and my blogging buddies, I asked her what was the going rate of an IED. I cannot see how any real woman could rename herself after a mythological woman who exacted revenge on her husband by murdering their children. I wonder if Susie (Madea) Benjamin/ Code Pink is continuing the myth by facilitating the murder of US sons and daughters by sending cash and aid to al-queda in Iraq?

You know she did not sneak in through the bloggers lounge to satisfy her desire to listen to Glenn Beck. In order to access the lounge you had to have a credential, she had no credentials on her person when we called her out. I am absolutely certain she was planning some disruption and the actions of alert bloggers stopped her.

“adviser” = Czar
“vision” = Marxism
“racist” = Shut up!
“progressive” = Communist
“recovery” = 3 Million jobs lost
“investment” = Deficit Spending
“bi-partisan” = Shut up and agree
“peace process” = Sellout to the Arabs
“jobs bill” = Billions for banker bonuses
“reproductive care” = Tax funded abortions
“road to recovery” = We’re heading for the dumper
“tax reform” = Take money from taxpayers to buy votes.
“climate change legislation” = Energy tax to buy votes.
“health care reform” = Government takeover and rationing of health care.

*progressive: I am elite and smart, you are stupid, therefore I will be your master

Dr. Thomas Sowell on Intellectuals

http://usataxpayer.org/?0028068146

HR4530 The Progressive’s Plan for Your Chil

Submitted by Laryn

“The simplest explanation tends to be the most likely.” – Occam’s Razor

It’s fair to say that progressives (liberals in the modern sense) believe what they believe as strongly as any of us. They don’t spend their time and energy, fighting so hard to bring about political, social and cultural change, just for laughs or for the entertainment value. So how is it that their assessments of situations differ so vastly from the way things are in the real world? How is it they always seem to reject the most likely answers to questions, or solutions to problems, in favor of those which are completely off-the-wall?

Let’s start with an idea that might seem quite odd. It’s a notion I’ve been entertaining for some time now – a theory I’ve been testing that, remarkably, seems to bear itself out consistently. My theory is this:

Progressives are hard-wired opposite from the rest of us, in sort of a reverse polarity, which causes them to view the world backwards.

Now, don’t tune me out here. I understand that this idea is a bit abstract and will likely prove unprovable. But my intention isn’t to claim a scientific certainty as much as it is to propose an idea that may help to explain why many of us look at the political actions of liberals and ask ourselves, “What in the world could they possibly be thinking?”

My basic premise takes shape around a strange but simple idea: Progressives look at everything — the environment, people, politics, situations, institutions and ideas – through the looking glass, and therefore deal with things in the exact opposite way that logic, common sense, human instinct and the laws of nature would dictate.

What do I mean by that? Consider: If a crime is committed, liberals will take the side of the criminal, not the victim. If political corruption is uncovered, liberals will give the benefit of the doubt to the corruptocrat* (provided he’s on their team.) If a poll says 67% of Americans oppose government run health care, liberals will claim the 33% in favor represents a mandate to continue. If Sarah Palin writes a few notes on her hand, liberals obsess over it while ignoring Obama’s teleprompter dependency. If a natural event takes place one time, progressives will ignore the 10,000 other times it happened differently and declare the occurrence a new scientific norm. If a bone or fossil is found which has just one feature different than any before, progressives will immediately declare it definitive proof of the evolution of man from simpler life-forms. If 300 million people believe something, progressives will declare the remaining 2 dozen people who hold the opposing view the majority.

And so on. Liberals invariably reject the most likely explanation in favor of the implausible, the improbable or the downright silly.
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from Red Maryland

Tom Schaller’s Baltimore Sun columns are usually full of the latest and greatest progressive fallacies. However, his latest column “Policies favoring conservatism built into the system” contains both a “well duh” moment and a stunning admission.

The “well duh moment” is Schaller’s revelation that our constitutional order has built-in conservative features. Yes, that’s true because conservatism is rooted in the classical liberal ideals of the American founding. Thank you captain obvious!

The president and his partisans overlook the Massachusetts result at their peril. But the big news – frustrating as it should be for Democrats and liberals – is hardly news at all, for the asymmetries that favor conservatism as an ideological orientation, and the status quo in American politics more generally, are an old and familiar story for which last week was merely the newest chapter.Let me preface the following analogy by clarifying that I am not equating conservatives or Republicans to terrorists. But enacting progressive change is akin to defending against terror in one important way: Progressives must win repeatedly and at every stage, whereas those opposed to change typically need to win but once, at any stage. Power is as power resists.

The tacit admission there, which I find stunning, is that Schaller damn near openly admits what progressives have long sought to hide: their hostility to the Constitution specifically the checks and balances that diffuse power, which in turn prohibit a majority faction from running roughshod over the nation.

Of course, anyone who knows anything about history knows that from it’s inception the progressive movement sought to overturn the old classically liberal constitutional order of the founders. Progressive dashboard saints Thomas Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Woodrow Wilson especially viewed the constitution and it’s negative liberty as a bloated corpse standing in the way of realizing their vision of the modern god-state. The intellectual roots of American progressivism (and European fascism) are found in the works of German philosopher Friedrich Hegel, who in his book, The Philosophy of History, wrote “the state is the actually existing, realized moral life… It must further be understood that all the worth which the human being possesses — all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the state. For Hegel and his progressive progeny the state is “the divine idea as it exists on earth.”

After all it was early progressives, who labeled classical liberalism as “conservative,” and themselves as liberals. Indeed Hillary Clinton in a 2007 presidential primary debate admitted more than she probably cared to when she said “I prefer the word ‘progressive,’ which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century.”

The same is true to the man who defeated her in the primary. When President Obama said he wanted to “fundamentally transform the United States of America,” he meant it. He is merely the most recent in a long line of progressives whacking away at our constitutional order for the last 100 years. Don’t believe me? Then read Obama’s own words on the subject.
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Albert Mohler’s sidekick Russel Moore denounced the Obama Effigy as “Satanic”. Was this theologian as outspoken in condemning similar outrageous attacks against other political figures such President Bush and Sarah Palin? More importantly, would he now care to speak out against the Founding Fathers for similar protests against King George during the Revolutionary War, or is this form of protest only immoral when directed against a Black person?

New York City health officials in a pamphlet are teaching junkies the proper method for shooting up dope. Yet it must be pointed out that this is the jurisdiction where scholastic bakesales are on the verge of prohibition and where, if city officials had their way, table salt would be frowned upon apparently more now than hard narcotics.

French thought police plot to invade private homes. This is to be done in the name of preventing “psychological violence” by criminalizing robust domestic verbal disagreements. However, what advocates of this law might not be telling you is that, to the left-leaning man-haters out there, this offense consists of little more than simply disagreeing with a woman, verbally boring into a woman during a spat started by a woman, or merely speaking to one when they’ve basically told you to shutup.

It should be interesting to see how this law plays out. For you see, France is being overrun by Islamic immigrants and it is part of their religion to beat their wives and even kill them when they get out of line. Since France is a Western European social democracy, in most instances these multiculturalists lack the spine to declare that a foreign culture is in the wrong. Therefore, what will happen will be that the Muslims will continue to do whatever it is they do to their women and it will be the European male that will be further denuded for fear of criminal prosecution.

A major university is in a tizzy that only 20% of bicyclists are women. It is amazing the kinds of things that will set the Leftist mind into a hand-wringing depression. Before it is all over with, men will be chewed out for doing even environmentally conscious things.

A second grader was suspended and ordered to have a psychological evaluation for drawing a picture of Christ upon the cross for an assignment about what reminded the student about the holidays. Had the lad placed his art work in a vat of urine he could qualify for a government grant or, if he peed on it himself, he could get his own HBO sitcom. School officials claim the child is guilty of drawing a “violent picture”. Newsflash, boys — unless you want them emasculated and docile — draw violent pictures. With China on the move around the world and the Towelheads constantly on the rampage, these scholastic sisses better pray boys keep drawing violent pictures if they want this great country to survive as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
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by Laryn

Code Pink deliberately targets kids from military families

Imagine you’re a youngster, a child of a parent who serves in the military. You are invited to “trick or treat” at the White House on Halloween night.

As you are standing in line, a parade of goblins and ghosts passes by. But these are no ordinary specters. They are members of Code Pink dressed up to make the point that your military parents are fighting in evil wars.

Kristinn Taylor and Andrea Shea King of Big Government have the story:

Dressed as ‘zombie soldiers’ killed in combat, ‘ghosts of war victims,’ witches and healthcare fairies, members of Code Pink menacingly paraded in front of a captive audience of children one block from the White House, who waited along the sidewalk in front of Decatur House just off Lafayette Park for a Halloween party hosted by President Obama.

Last Saturday, the President hosted several hundred military families for trick or treating. Also invited were children of White House staff and about 2000 children from eleven D.C. area elementary schools.

In a press release published at their website, key Obama ally Code Pink – a group co-founded by one of Obama’s top funders Jodie Evans, announced they were targeting military families for what can only be called psychological abuse by conducting a macabre protest of the war in Afghanistan as the families waited in line to enter the White House grounds.

Dressed in fatigues with a bloody bandage wrapped around her head, Benjamin loudly moaned as she emoted being a ‘zombie soldier’, while holding a black cut-out of a rifle and wearing a pink sign that read, “The White House is haunted by the ghosts of Bush’s war.”

That’s just what children of soldiers fighting for our freedom should see, yes? Well, if your intent is to wage psychological warfare on the families of our troops to aid our terrorist enemies then the answer would indeed be, “yes.”

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