Senate Rejects Elena Kagan Nomination

Oops!

Excuse me. Did I say "Senate Rejects Elena Kagan Nomination." No, no. I mean "Senate Rejects Robert Bork Nomination":

A fascinating clip. Not only do we see Senate Joseph "Bloviator" Biden in his prime grandstanding days, the segment is introduced by correspondent Judy Woodruff in her pre-CNN days (she's now back at PBS, which is the rest home for former news-anchor hotties). And notice dignified former Senator John Danforth (who was Clarence Thomas' sponsor during the 1991 nomination battle under Bush 41). Danforth is quite restrained. If it were me, I'd have stuffed a vuvuzela down Senator Bloviator's throat.

RELATED: At Weasel Zippers, "Kagan Evasive When Asked by Hatch if She Changed Language in Partial-Birth Abortion Findings, Refuses to Say She Wrote Memo, But Admits It’s in Her Handwriting…" Yet, "Confirmation all but sure, Kagan ends testimony." Somthing's FUBAR.

Elena Kagan's Partial Birth Deception

Saw this last night, at Astute Bloggers, "COULD THE KAGAN NOMINATION BE ABORTED DUE TO KAGAN'S NEWLY DISCOVERED PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION DECEPTION? YES!"

But see Byron York, "Slick Elena? Kagan evades questions on abortion memo" (via Memeorandum):

The memo, reported yesterday by National Review, has caused a stir in conservative circles because it appeared that Kagan, then a White House policy aide, put words in the medical group’s mouth in order to soften its position on the controversial procedure. But when Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch brought the subject up with Kagan, he had a hard time getting her to admit that she did, in fact, write the document in question.

“Did you write that memo?” Hatch asked.

“Senator, with respect,” Kagan began, “I don’t think that that’s what happened — ”

“Did you write that memo?”

“I’m sorry — the memo which is?”

“The memo that caused them to go back to the language of ‘medically necessary,’ which was the big issue to begin with — ”

“Yes, well, I’ve seen the document — ”

“But did you write it?”

“The document is certainly in my handwriting.”

More at the link.

And Kagan's been all over the place on "forthright" testimony, against her previous writings as well: "Change! Elena Kagan Backs 'Vapid and Hollow' Hearings at Her Own Confirmation!"

Charles Johnson Hearts 'Palesquishian Activist Rachel Corrie'

Hey, not exactly the language I would use, but you gotta love it when directed at the Madness of King Charles:

RELATED: In case you missed it, "Right Wing News vs. David Frum, Little Green Footballs, Media Matters, & Excitable Andy!"

Wednesday Diversions

Snagged straight from Theo's:

See also, Bob Belvedere, "They Don’t Make ‘Em Like That Anymore: Elaine Paul."

'Al Gore Is a Pervert & Sexual Predator'

Hey, that's my kind of headline!

At National Enquirer, "NEW EVIDENCE REVEALED: GORE SEX SCANDAL VICTIM TELLS ALL!!!":

AL GORE SEX SCANDAL ACCUSER reveals shocking NEW EVIDENCE -- ONLY to the NATIONAL ENQUIRER in a bombshell world exclusive interview!



"AL GORE is a pervert and sexual predator," declares MOLLY HAGERTY, 54, the massage therapist who told Portland, Ore. police that the ex-VICE President sexually assaulted her.



"He's not what people think he is - he's a sick man!"



Al Gore was unavailable for comment.



Yeah, but doubts persist, at Saberpoint, "Al Gore: Should Be Presumed Innocent Unless Further Support for Sexual Assault Tale is Forthcoming." Also at Memeorandum.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

My oldest son is excited. The film opens on November 19th. "Deathly Hallows Part II" is expected July 15th, 2011:

“Eat Shit and Die, ‘Blue Commie Texan’”

I can't recommend Melanie Phillips' new book enough: The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power. Those of us on the side of right are endlessly smacking down the upside-down destroyers of America. Phillips writes that the radical left possesses an "infallible" sense of certainty through which no amount of reason or evidence can penetrate. "It is hard to overstate the influence on our culture that is wielded by the doctrines of anti-imperialism, multiculturalism, feminism, environmentalism and the like." These are the foundations of the left's bankrupt "unchallengeable orthodoxy."

I mention this with reference to yesterday's beauty of a post, "Blue Texan at Firedoglake Trashes Right-Bloggers for Criticizing Senate Majority Cyclops Robert C. Byrd." It turns out that "Blue Texan" runs the asinine "Instaputz" blog, whose mission is in "Systematically documenting the putziness of Glenn Reynolds, Pajamas Media, and various other Putzen."

Right.

I guess it takes a putz to know one, given this case of classic upside-down leftist infallibility. Check the post. Blue Texan suggests I'm not very bright and then offers this epic-fail excuse of racist hypocrisy on the late KKK Senate Majority Leader: "Byrd renounced his past racism, and became a true champion for civil rights. Lott's voting record on civil rights sucks, and he's never renounced his ties to the CCC."

I'm tempted to dismiss Blue Texan as stupid, but that'd be getting off too easy. Blue Texan's in fact a morally decrepit liar. There was no Trent Lott renunciation of CCC? Well, yes there was, actually: "Lott Renounces White 'Racialist' Group He Praised in 1992." (This is what leftists do: lie and then lie some more as part of the never-ending campaign of death, denial, and destruction.)

And don't forget, Robert C. Byrd, that "true champion of civil rights," actually continued to slur "niggers" as recently as 2001. And let's remember, Blue Texan's Firedoglake patron never really did renounce her racist bona fides:

So let's sum up: Obviously, Blue Texan's one sick lying motherf***ing hypocrite.

And while I suggested yesterday that "words fail" with the deceit and depravity of Firegdoglake, Mike at Cold Fury disagreed:

Not me, they don’t. Eat shit and die, “Blue Commie Texan.” Everything you toss at us, we toss back from here on in. Don’t like it? I hate it for ya, you fuckin’ punk. Cry me a river, why don’tcha.

No links from me to the FDL sewer, but Donald has ‘em, along with screencaps.

Civil discourse? Here’s all the civil discourse these Red-toothed, America-hating douchebags deserve: fuck every last one of them. In the heart, railroad spike, cayenne pepper in the Vaseline; you know the drill.

Mofo! That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

RELATED: From John Hawkins, "Right Wing News vs. David Frum, Little Green Footballs, Media Matters, & Excitable Andy!"

Russian Spies on Facebook?

The social networking cold war, you might say.

Hot alleged Russian spy Anna Chapman is on Facebook.

A new era in espionage, that's for sure. See LAT, "Alleged Russian spy ring members led typical American lives":

Richard and Cynthia Murphy grew lettuce in a backyard garden, walked their daughters to the school bus each morning, and swapped Christmas cards with neighbors who had moved to Texas.

Their modest three-bedroom house sported maroon shutters and a wrap-around porch, and sat on a winding street in a well-heeled suburb across from Manhattan. They drove a green Honda Civic.

To all appearances, the Murphys were a typical, child-obsessed American family — not deep-cover Russian spies straight from a Cold War novel.

Their arrests, along with those of 9 other alleged Russian spies, has exposed a surprising side to modern espionage: The group led mundane lives far from the James Bond image. Instead of car chases and shootouts, they paid taxes, haggled over mortgages, and struggled to remember computer passwords.

As a result, the 11 — the biggest alleged spy ring every broken by the FBI — blended into American society for more than a decade. They joined neighbors at block parties, school picnics and bus stops. Four of the couples were married, and at least three had young children.

One suspect wrote columns for a Spanish-language newspaper in New York. Another ran an international consulting and management firm in Boston, while his wife sold high-priced real estate near Harvard University. Yet another drove a shiny blue BMW to his investment banking job in Seattle; he regularly updated his status on LinkedIn, a social networking site.

If their cover jobs were ordinary, their secret lives had a humdrum side that sometimes seems more like Woody Allen than John LeCarre.

One suspect, Anna Chapman, bought a Verizon cellphone in Brooklyn, N.Y., with a patently false address: 99 Fake Street. She also posted sultry photos of herself on Facebook and videos on YouTube. Another, Juan Lazaro, used a payoff from Moscow to pay nearly $8,000 in overdue county and city taxes, according to court documents.

Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley, the alleged spies in Boston, filed regular expense reports to Moscow Center, headquarters for Russia's foreign intelligence agency, called the SVR.

"Got from Ctr. 64500 dollars, income 13940, interest 76. Expenses: rent 8500, utilities 142, tel. 160, car lease 2180, insurance 432, gas 820, education 3600," plus medical, lawyers' fees, meals and gifts, mailboxes, computer supplies, and so on, they wrote in one, according to an FBI affidavit.

And the lettuce-growing Murphys of Montclair repeatedly argued with Moscow Center in encrypted computer messages last summer about who should legally own their $400,000 house — them or the SVR.

"From our perspective, purchase of the house was solely a natural progression of our prolonged stay here," the Murphy's explained, apparently after being reprimanded. "It was a convenient way to solve the housing issue, plus to 'do as the Romans do' in a society that values home ownership."

Murphy later whined to another spy about their bosses back in Moscow: "They don't understand what we go through over here."

The group allegedly attended one of Moscow's most elite spy schools before landing in America. Their mission was spelled out, somewhat awkwardly, in a 2009 message to the Murphy's from Moscow Center.

RTWT.

RELATED: Speaking of hot spies, maybe Donna Dixon will make a comeback.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2010 Teaser #1

Continuing our series on Sports Illustrated 2010:

See also "Wedneday Wenches," at Theo's.

List of French Citizens Who Collaborated With the Nazis During WWII to Be Published Online

At London's Telegraph, via Theo Spark.

One day, we'll also see a list of Americans who collaborated with global jihad in the post-9/11 era.

Justice Thomas's Finest Hour?

His concurring opinion in McDonald v. Chicago, at WSJ (via Insty):

Down in our nation’s capital, the day belongs to a lot of people: To retiring Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, who Monday capped his lengthy career on the court; to Elena Kagan, who survived her first day of Senatorial grilling; to Robert Byrd, an institution within the institution, who died on Monday at age 92.

But in the mind of some law professors and Supreme Court watchers, the day belonged to Justice Clarence Thomas, for his concurring opinion in McDonald v. Chicago. (Click here for the opinion; here for Nathan Koppel’s writeup in the WSJ; here for Adam Liptak’s treatment in the NYT.)

Understanding why requires us to back up just a bit.

In the McDonald case, the justices were asked by the plaintiffs to strike down Chicago’s gun-control ordinance as a violation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

In order to do so, the justices would have to make two maneuvers. Of course, they’d have to rule that the ordinance runs afoul of the Second Amendment’s prescription that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” But they’d also have to rule that the Second Amendment restricts not just Congress’s ability to make laws controlling the use of guns, but that of state governments as well. Remember, the Bill of Rights, as originally constructed, only applies to the federal government ....

RTWT.

Toward an International Relations Theory of Zombies

Seriously. (Or not.)

From Daniel Drezner, at Foreign Policy:

This zombie boom is -- and should be -- taken seriously. For some international relations thinkers, the interest in all things ghoulish might represent an indirect attempt to get a cognitive grip on what former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once referred to as the "unknown unknowns" in international security. Or perhaps there exists a genuine if publicly unacknowledged fear of the dead rising from their graves and feasting upon our entrails. Major universities have developed mock contingency plans for a zombie outbreak, and an increasing number of college students have been found to be playing "Humans vs. Zombies" on their campuses, whether to relieve stress or prepare for the invasion of the undead. The Haitian government takes the threat seriously enough to have a law on the books to prevent outbreaks of zombiism. No great power has done the same publicly, but one can only speculate on what plans are being hatched behind closed doors.

From a public-policy perspective, zombies surely merit greater interest than other paranormal phenomena such as aliens, vampires, wizards, hobbits, mummies, werewolves, and superheroes. Zombie stories end in one of two ways -- the elimination/subjugation of all zombies, or the eradication of humanity from the face of the Earth. If popular culture is to be believed, the peaceful coexistence of ghouls and humans is but a remote possibility -- outside of Shaun of the Dead, at least. Such extreme all-or-nothing outcomes are far less common in the vampire and wizard canons. Indeed, recent literary tropes suggest that vampires can peacefully coexist with ordinary teens in many of the world's high schools, provided they are sufficiently hunky. Zombies, not so much. If it is true that "popular culture makes world politics what it currently is," as a recent article in Politics argued, then the international relations community needs to think about armies of the undead in a more urgent manner.

Individual Rights and the Authoritarian State

Via Blazing Cat Fur, in the comments at Small Dead Animals (re. Toronto G-20 protests):

Well Kate, the same question might be asked of you. People stand up for their rights and you have a hissy fit.

Sure Arnie and Kathy and Mike and thousands of other Torontonians could have sucked it up for the greater glory of PMSH's billion dollar photo op. They could co-operate by pretending not to notice when some cops beat up a visiting British journalist.

They could forebear from wearing black.

They could have ID cards hanging from their necks to make the cops tough job easier.

They could leave their cameras, cell phones and backpacks at home.

In fact, if they wanted to really co-operate with the authorities, they could have just stayed inside their own homes. That way the police could easily tell who the criminals were.

There is a strong cleavage within the conservative interest between people who assert that individual rights and autonomy matters and those who believe in order and an authoritarian state.

It is pretty clear which side of that divide you come down on Kate.

If I Could Fall Into the Sky...

Some morning music, from Vanessa Carlton:

And related diversions at Washington Rebel.

Dragonfly Blogging

Wonderful story, so check the links, at Tigerhawk (and I love the camera work):

When Ann Althouse Gets Ahold of Those Archives...

Here she is, on the news of the $100K bid for JournoList, "Andrew Breitbart offers $100,000 for the full Journolist archive — with a promise to keep the source secret":

Surely, somewhere among the 400 members of that former discussion group, there is someone who feels motivated to fulfill the desire of the information to be free. I've listed reasons why I think it would be doing a good thing to make the archive public, and now there is an additional motivation — $100,000. Now, virtue is mixed with venality. But virtue is mixed with venality when it comes to keeping the archive private. The motivations for not disclosing are not pure. People are protecting their careers, hoping for favors from powerful and well-placed co-Journolisters. Breitbart has added economic incentive to the other side of the balance, and he fortifies his offer of payment with an ethical....

Lots more at the link.

100K is a lot of dough, but even the most self-interested might not want to get on the receiving end of Althouse's wrath (or at least Garance won't sell out):

RELATED: "'Welcome to the Journolist Top Secret Progressive He-Man Wingnut Haters Club and L33t H4xoR Chat Room'."

Change! Elena Kagan Backs 'Vapid and Hollow' Hearings at Her Own Confirmation!

The main story's at NYT, "Kagan Shifts on Disclosure of Legal Views at Hearings":

At the opening of questioning in her Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Solicitor General Elena Kagan quickly backpedaled from her past call for nominees to speak more openly and in specific terms about their constitutional views.

Under questioning by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, Ms. Kagan said she thought it would be inappropriate for her to talk about how she might rule on pending cases or cases “that might come before the court in the future” — or to answer questions that were “veiled” efforts to get at such issues.

Moreover, she said, she also now believed that “it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to talk about past cases” by essentially grading Supreme Court precedents, because those issues, too, might someday come again before the court.

In a 1995 book review, Ms. Kagan wrote that recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings had taken on “an air of vacuity and farce” because nominees would not engage in a meaningful discussion of legal issues, declining to answer any question that might “have some bearing on a case that might some day come before the Court.” She called on senators and future nominees to engage in a much more open and detailed discussion of legal issues.

Actually, Kagan was a little more elaborate in her 1995 article. She attacked what she called a confirmation process that was a "vapid and hollow charade."

Check the link and note (in the last few pages) how the public is served with a "serious" and "substantive" discussion of the constitutional issues when the nominee is Robert Bork (who threatened to bring about "Bork's America") and not someone like Elena Kagan (who took $20 million in royal Saudi money to establish a gender-oppressive center for Islamic studies at Harvard).

And check Neomi Rao, "Elena Kagan and the 'Hollow Charade': Progressive views of judging are difficult to defend. That's why no recent nominee has tried."

This woman is a disaster: Dishonest, indecent, and extremely radical. The public would be well served by an open and frank airing of Elena Kagan's views. Instead we get the vacuous spinelessness that is the essence of confirmation to the High Court in the post-Bork age.

Thanks Democrats.

More at The Hill and Memeorandum.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2010 Brooklyn Decker Diary

Brooklyn Decker at Sports Illustrated:

And check out Daley Gator while you're at it!

Campaign Contributors Sue Charlie Crist for Return of Donations

At the Fox News clip, and also Legal Insurrection, "Charlie Crist Sued For Return of Donations - Copy of Complaint Here."

RELATED: At Miami Herald, "Tom Grady files lawsuit demanding Charlie Crist return donations."

The Second Amendment and the Incorporation Doctrine

From Glenn Reynolds, at Pajamas Media, "The New Normal: The Second Amendment After Heller and McDonald":

Following Monday's McDonald decision, gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is the new normal, and the Second Amendment is now normal constitutional law.

I’ve been interested in the Second Amendment for a long time, but for a long time, it wasn’t really part of the Constitution.

Oh, I mean it was part of the Constitution — right there between the First Amendment on one side, and the Third Amendment (the only part of the Bill of Rights that really works — when did you last hear of troops being quartered in someone’s house?) on the other. But in “mainstream” constitutional discourse, it just didn’t exist.

Courts routinely rejected Second Amendment claims, frequently with atrocious misstatements of what little caselaw existed, and usually with almost no discussion. Popular discussion was, if anything, even more dismissive. Former Chief Justice Warren Burger said that the notion that the Second Amendment protected individual rights was a fraud, and that it only protected “state armies.” (And wouldn’t that have been interesting if it had turned out to be true. …) The general position taken by most mainstream media types, and most academics, was that the Second Amendment didn’t protect individuals, only the right of states to have a national guard, a right that was obsolete anyway. It had nothing to do with individuals owning guns.

There wasn’t actually much support for this “collective right” position, in terms of scholarship or caselaw — the 1939 case of United States v. Miller, often cited for that position, doesn’t actually say that, but for many years, unanimity substituted for understanding, and ridicule substituted for research. (Burger’s “state armies” claim appeared not in a law review, but in Parade magazine.) That began to change with Don Kates’ article, “Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment,” in the Michigan Law Review, and really picked up after the publication of Sandy Levinson’s “The Embarrassing Second Amendment” in the Yale Law Journal. Soon, scholarship accumulated, and it was possible even to speak of a ”Standard Model” of the Second Amendment, in which the linguistic, structural, and historical elements came together to explain, in a widely accepted way, why the Second Amendment did, in fact, protect an individual right to own guns.

Opponents continued to criticize this view and to characterize its proponents as shills for the NRA, but it was a rearguard action — especially as polls continued to show, despite contrary media efforts, that around three quarters of Americans believed the Second Amendment gave them a right to own a gun, and that legal efforts to limit gun ownership were unconstitutional.

RTWT at the link.

Professor Reynolds argues that the Second Amendment has now been incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment, and thus made a normal part of constitutional law.

RELATED: "5 Ridiculous Gun Myths Everyone Believes." And see all the discussion at Memeorandum.

Jennifer Love Hewitt Encore!

A sizzling hot encore to my recent Jennifer Love Hewitt blogging, posted at Theo's.

Elena Kagan Confirmation Hearings — Day 2

Picking up from yesterday, at USA Today, "Kagan Promises 'Impartiality' as Senate Hearings Begin."

And this morning at Daily Caller, "Republicans Bring Up Kagan's Record on Military":

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on Tuesday defended her policy of barring military recruiters from the Harvard Law School career counseling office, saying the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell” policy violated its anti-discrimination policy.

“We were trying to make sure that military recruiters had full and complete access to our students,” Kagan told Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, “and we were also trying to protect our anti-discriminatory policy. So we were trying to do both of those things.”

Kagan repeated before the Senate Judiciary Committee her opposition to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and said she subsequently eased the policy at the request of the Department of Defense.

Kagan said that as dean of the law school, she never totally cut off military recruiters’ access to students, but rather encouraged military veterans’ organizations, rather than the school, to sponsor these efforts.

“I said on many occasions that this (military service) was a great thing for our students to think about doing in their lives,” she told the Alabama senator. Kagan said that Harvard had a strict anti-discriminatory policy, “and the military could not sign that pledge.”

The recruitment matter is one of the few points on her resume that Republicans have been able to use against her. Her policies and writings on the issue call up broader themes of patriotism and equal rights, both emotional topics at a time when the nation is at war and both parties are gearing up for the midterm elections. In some measure, the November balloting will be a referendum on her patron, President Barack Obama.

But see John McCormack, at Weekly Standard, "Kagan Defends Discriminating Against Military at Harvard" (via Memorandum). And at Weasel Zippers, "Kagan Defends Discriminating Against Military at Harvard... Had No Problem Using Saudi Money to Establish an Islamic Law Program..."

Plus, live-blogging at Althouse.

RELATED: From Ed Morrissey, "Kagan's SCOTUS Deception to Defend Partial-Birth Abortions."

Blue Texan at Firedoglake Trashes Right-Bloggers for Criticizing Senate Majority Cyclops Robert C. Byrd

This is really rich.

Yesterday left-wing extremist Blue Texan at Firedoglake erupted in outrage at the right's relatively mild reaction to the death of former Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd. See, "Conservatives Trash Robert Byrd While His Body is Still Warm." Check the link. For reminding folks of Senator Byrd's disgraced past as an Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, Blue Texan writes, "As always, the right remains a paragon of class."

But back in January, Blue Texan attacked former GOP Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott as "chummy with racist hate groups." See, "Senate Majority Leader was Affiliated with White Supremacist Group."

Words fail.

Screen caps below.

I can't speak for fellow right-bloggers, but my personal policy is to denounce racism when I see it. That's apparently not the way it works with Blue Texan and Firedoglake. The hypocrisy is stunning of course. FDL is home to at least two of the biggest racist bigot bloggers on the web, Jane Hamsher (more here) and Tom Boggiani.

All in a day's work, I guess. Don't rest, friends. Expose these people for the enemies of truth and decency that they are.

Added: Cold Fury links with, "Death becomes them."

Sports Illustrated 2010 Anne V Model Diary

Following up from last night's entry ("Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2010 on Location — Lisbon, Portugal"), here's Anne V in a special clip:

David Weigel Joins MSNBC!

I saw some of the buzz on Twitter earlier, and tweeted:

So, I'm getting a kick out of this now as the news is confirmed. See Dan Gainor, "Weigel Goes Even Further Left, Signs as MSNBC Contributor."

Since I've been accused of leading "something of a crusade" against former Post blogger Dave Weigel, how could I resist this announcement? Weigel, who left the Post amidst a controversy where he bashed tons of conservatives, has joined the leftwing convention at MSNBC (video right).

According to a Tweet from "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann, Weigel has come on board as a contributor. "And confirming, @DaveWeigel is now MSNBC contributor @DaveWeigel Welcome aboard and my condolences, uh, congratulations!" wrote Olbermann.

Now Weigel has joined the team of Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz. This from the guy who just today told the world of his wonderful career saga that started out as editor of a campus conservative paper at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. "Was I really that conservative? Yes," he wrote, somehow expecting readers to believe him. While he admitted some of his troubles came from "hubris," much of what he wrote most already knew, that he was no friend to the right. "At Reason, I'd become a little less favorable to Republicans, and I'd never been shy about the fact that I was pro-gay marriage and pro-open borders."

Throw in Weigel's parade of assault on conservatives, prominent figures on the right from Rush Limbaugh to Matt Drudge and Newt Gingrich and the bigger question becomes, does he agree with the right on anything? The answer is: it doesn't matter anymore. He's gone from an organization fighting to keep its credibility to one fighting to lose what little it has.

More at Mediaite and Memeorandum.

AND PREVIOUSLY: "Updates on the David Weigel 'JournoList' Scandal."

The Enemy's Best Friend

At Bosch Fawstin:

RELATED: Jennifer Rubin, "Wanted: Grown-Ups to Take On Obama’s Iran Policy." And Bret Stephens, "Iran Cannot Be Contained."

Immigration Sob Story of the Day: 'Students Face Deportation to Countries They Don't Remember'

At LAT:

Early one morning in March, two Chicago-area brothers were dozing on an Amtrak train when it stopped in Buffalo, N.Y. A pair of uniformed Border Patrol agents made their way through the car, asking passengers if they were U.S. citizens. No, the vacationing siblings answered honestly, with flat, Midwestern inflections: We're citizens of Mexico.

And so it was that college students Carlos Robles, 20, and his brother Rafael, 19 — both former captains of their high school varsity tennis team — found themselves in jail, facing deportation.

Their secret was out: Despite their upbringing in middle America, their academic success and their network of native-born friends, they had no permission to be in the United States. Their parents had brought them here illegally as children.

The Robles brothers, now out of jail but fighting removal in Immigration Court, are among thousands of young illegal immigrants in similar situations, living at risk of being expelled to countries they barely remember.

Two weeks ago, a Harvard University student who came from Mexico at age 4, Eric Balderas, joined their ranks after he was arrested by immigration agents at an airport in San Antonio.

They are known in some circles as "Dream Act" kids, named after proposed legislation that would grant them legal status.

Their cases underscore a contradiction in the Obama administration's approach to immigration enforcement. Even though the president supports the Dream Act — which would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought here as children who enroll in college or the military — his enforcement bureaucracy continues to pursue deportation cases against the increasing number of students who would be protected by it. It's part of a push that is on track to remove a record 400,000 illegal immigrants this year.

Sorry. Don't feel sorry for these people. Here's what's really happening behind the media's sob-story headlines. It's the "Dream Act" immigration scam. First they come at you with cap and gowns and sad faces. Then once they suck some of the undocumented into the program, they pump them full of indigenous supremacy indoctrination. It's all of a piece. You can see how it all comes together. The "Dream" activists work side-by-side with the left wing extremists, working to delegitimize the U.S. and advance the Democratic Party's neo-socialist agenda. And despite the media spin, it's hard for Americans to be sympathetic in the face of crass exploitation of the migrant poor for the communist reconquista agenda:

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2010 on Location — Lisbon, Portugal

Sports Illustrated on Location in Portugal with Anne V, Cintia Dicker, Jessica Gomes, and Jessica White:

PREVIOUSLY: "Sports Illustrated 2010 Esti Ginzburg Photoshoot."

Obama's Racist Government

From Barbara Simpson, at WND:

For a president and an administration with the media in its pocket, it's amazing they haven't convinced the American public that it's OK to protect lawbreakers by racial profiling.

I know, I know – if you believe the left's rant, only conservatives are racist bigots. But the truth is, the liberals lead on that one, and they're proud of it.

When they demand special rights for a certain class of "brown" people, they're racially profiling and are bigots.

They should be ashamed. Not only have they opened racial divisions in this country that were virtually closed decades ago, but they cater to it and are moving this country to the breaking point.

The issue is illegal aliens: foreigners who cross our borders illegally, stay in this country illegally, take jobs using fake identification – both of which are illegal – and feed at the trough of American generosity for food, housing, medical care, education and whatever else they can get.

On top of that, too many get involved in criminal activities from petty crimes to felonies. The costs to the criminal justice system and the numbers of incarcerated illegals prove the point.

Arizona hit the breaking point: bankrupt hospital emergency rooms, overcrowded schools, enormous social costs on every level, escalating crimes, record-setting kidnapping rates and violence against private citizens as well as police officers and Border Patrol, including murder.

It's a basic responsibility of the federal government to protect the borders and the citizens living within them. There are laws on the books to accomplish that.

But for political and philosophical reasons, politicians for decades have chosen not to enforce the law. They've chosen not to think first of the welfare and safety of the country and all Americans. They do what they please, hoping it will buy them votes and change the face and culture of this country permanently to their advantage. Their attitude is: The country be damned.

RTWT.

Updates on the David Weigel 'JournoList' Scandal

Ann Althouse has been raising some big questions about the secretive JournaList. For example, "The entire Journolist archive needs to be made public."

Now there's an initiative to raise money and buy the JournoList archives so Althouse can open up that can of worms.

Meanwhile, Weigel offered a "weasely" explanation for the affair at Big Government this morning. Plus, Robert Stacy McCain's got an interview with Andrew Breitbart on what's up with all of this.

And recall my warning's about Weigel's progressivism over a year ago? Well, check this out at Politico, "On Right, Opinions Mixed on Weigel":

Starting last month, Dan Gainor, vice president for business and culture at the Media Research Center, the conservative media watchdog group, went on something of a crusade.

Angered by a joke that David Weigel made about Matt Drudge on his Twitter feed, Gainor contacted conservative groups asking them to stop cooperating with Weigel, who had recently taken his blog about the conservative movement to the Washington Post.

“We encouraged conservatives not to deal with him,” he said. “We contacted other conservative organizations and said, ‘This guy is no friend of the conservative movement. We recommend that you deny him access.’ Some did.”

When MRC asked the Heritage Foundation to disinvite Weigel from its weekly Tuesday blogger briefing, Rob Bluey, the briefing’s organizer, said the meeting was on the record and occasionally attended by liberal journalists, and declined to go along with the group’s request.

Most of the group’s other efforts also failed, but the MRC’s reservations about Weigel — voiced in an early letter to Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, and given public airing on Post Ombudsman Andy Alexander’s piece on the affair on Friday — have played a major role in shaping the debate over whether the Post made the right move in accepting Weigel’s resignation in the wake of leaked emails in which he disparaged prominent conservative figures. Alexander wrote that the “biggest loss” from the whole affair was “The Post’s standing among conservatives.”

But even as MRC and its fellow conservative media watchdog group Accuracy in Media enjoyed a “we told you so” moment over his resignation, other conservative voices — including many of those conservatives whom Weigel covered — have come out supporting his work.

And actually, the rest of of the piece cites commentators and journalists who're all backing Weigel. Maybe Politico's looking to hire Weigel as well!

Folks should read Dan Riehl for what's been consistently the best commentary on Weigel's failings. And Mike at Cold Fury's got a related piece that's worth a look as well.

My position, at this point in politics, is that it's pretty much impossible to be friends with someone who's simultaneously working to utterly destroy all that I hold vital in culture, politics, and national security.

Melissa Etheridge - 'Come to My Window'

Melissa Etheridge has a new album, "Fearless Love."

I've loved her music (and I'm always moved by cancer survivors --- cancer's a relentless killer). I'll update on the new release later. Until then, enjoy "Come to My Window":

Elena Kagan Confirmation Hearings

I'm getting to this kinda late, but there's a some kind of video feed here.

And at the New York Times, "Kagan Promises Impartiality as Hearings Open."

Check also Politico, "GOP plans attack on Kagan" (via Memeorandum.)

Added: I don't think Kagan's nomination will be defeated. Still, the Politico piece suggests Republicans will get mileage from trashing leftist judicial activism. There's also the threat of a filibuster. See The Hill, "Sessions leaves Kagan filibuster on the table." And while yesterday's Los Angeles Times sough to paint Kagan as a centrist ("Kagan's a not-so-leftist liberal"), the only thing that's changed since her socialist college days is the scale of her naked ambition and bogus appeals to moderation. The American Prospect is setting up some defensive talking point, in any case. See, "A Guide to the Kagan Smears."

And Ann Althouse has all kinds of Supreme Court blogging here.

John Hawkins: Why I Denied David Frum at Blogads Conservative Hive

Via Ann Althouse, just lovin' John Hawkins' post:

Now, as a general rule, I try to be very open minded about who gets into the Blogads Conservative Hive. If they're generally friendly to conservatives and seem to have a mostly conservative audience, I don't mind having them on board. So, aside from conservative blogs, there are Libertarian blogs in the Hive and there are blogs I'd call center-right. It goes without saying that there are plenty of issues where members of the Hive, myself included, don't see eye-to-eye.

Still, to the best of my recollection, there have only been two bloggers ever denied a spot in the Blogads Conservative Hive for ideological reasons. One of them was Charles Johnson from Little Green Footballs whom, ironically, I sponsored at Blogads and invited to the Hive, and then later booted from the Hive after his blog went completely off the rails to the Left. In that case, I didn't even get to discuss it with Charles because my emails bounced (I assumed he blocked them -- yes, I've been told he does that sometimes)...although I really tend to doubt that he cared since I'm undoubtedly just conservative creep #8,642 to him at this point.

The other blog denied entry into the Blogads Conservative Hive for ideological reasons was FrumForum.

I love it!

Charles Johnson and David Frum get the RWN boot. Talk about delicious fail!

Lots more at the link. Added: Now a Memeorandum thread.

Daisy Lowe at Esquire UK

It's scandalous.

See, "UK Model Daisy Lowe, Topless, Fab in Esquire."

Hat Tip: Theo Spark.

Robert C. Byrd, Longest Serving KKK Leader in U.S. Senate, Dead at 92

God rest his soul.

At the video, former Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, in a 2007 floor speech, decries as barbaric Michael Vick's dog-fighting operation.

Byrd was 92 and the longest serving member of the U.S. Senate. A former member of the Klu Klux Klan and "Exalted Kleagle," Bryd was the only senator to vote against both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas for confirmation to the Supreme Court. As late as 2001 Byrd was known to still deploy the epithet "nigger" in political debate. But the Democratic Party and leftist leadership groups nevertheless championed racist Senator Byrd as a lion of the Senate. The man should have retired decades ago, along with the hatred with which he represented.

RELATED: At Fox News, "Robert Byrd, Longest-Serving U.S. Senator, Dies at 92" (via Memeorandum). And Moonbattery, "Item #3: White Sheets to be Flown at Half-Staff Today."

And nothin' but encomiums for Exalted Kleagle Byrd at the racist Daily Kos. Go figure.

'Imma Be'

Some Black Eyed Peas to get readers hip-hoppin' this mo'nin', yo!

Decentralized Democracy: The Way Out of Afghanistan

Lots of coverage on Afghanistan today at Memeorandum. Of special note is Jules Crittenden's post, "Quagmire!" (on the Christian Science Monitor).

If it was me in charge, I'd be making the case to stay in Afghanistan as long as necessary --- it's the central front in our ongoing GWOT (with AFPAK). It's been a long time, though, and with Barack Hussein in power, we have no leadership in foreign affairs.

In any case, check out the useful analysis from Stephen Biddle, Fotini Christia, and J Alexander Thier, at Foreign Affairs, "Defining Success in Afghanistan: What Can the United States Accept?"

We won't build a centralized democracy in Afghanistan, but a decentralized model might work:

Power sharing would be easier under a decentralized democracy, in which many responsibilities now held by Kabul would be delegated to the periphery. Some of these powers would surely include the authority to draft and enact budgets, to use traditional alternatives to centralized justice systems for some offenses, to elect or approve important officials who are now appointed by Kabul, and perhaps to collect local revenue and enforce local regulation.

Increasing local autonomy would make it easier to win over Afghans who distrust distant Kabul and would take advantage of a preexisting base of legitimacy and identity at the local level. The responsibility for foreign policy and internal security, however, would remain with the central government, which would prevent even the more autonomous territories from hosting international terrorist groups or supporting insurrection against the state.

A decentralized democracy along these lines should be an acceptable option for the United States. Its reliance on democracy and transparency is consistent with American values. Individual territories with the freedom to reflect local preferences may adopt social policies that many in the United States would see as regressive. But the opposite could also occur, with some places implementing more moderate laws than those favored by a conservative center. By promoting local acceptance of the central government, this option would remove much of the casus belli for the insurgency. And it would preserve a central state with the power and incentive to deny the use of Afghan soil for destabilizing Pakistan or planning attacks against the United States.

A decentralized democracy would comport with much of the post-Cold War experience with state building elsewhere. A range of postconflict states in Africa (Ethiopia and Sierra Leone), Europe, (Bosnia and Macedonia), the Middle East (Iraq and Lebanon), and Asia (East Timor and, tentatively, Nepal) have used some combination of consociationalism, federalism, and other forms of decentralized democratic power sharing. Although it is too early to make definitive claims of success, to date not one of these states has collapsed, relapsed into civil war, or hosted terrorists. And some, such as Bosnia and Ethiopia, have remained tolerably stable for over a decade. This is, of course, no guarantee that decentralized democracy would work in Afghanistan. But its track record elsewhere and its better fit with the country's natural distribution of power suggests that it offers a reasonable chance of balancing interests and adjudicating disputes in Afghanistan, too ....

Afghanistan is not ungovernable. There are feasible options for acceptable end states that would meet core U.S. security interests and place the country on a path toward tolerable stability. The United States will have to step back from its ambitious but unrealistic project to create a strong, centralized Afghan state. If it does, then a range of power-sharing models could balance the needs of Afghanistan's internal factions and constituencies in ways that today's design cannot, while ensuring that Afghanistan does not again become a base for terrorists. In war, as in so many other things, the perfect can be the enemy of the good. The perfect is probably not achievable in Afghanistan -- but the acceptable can still be salvaged.

Badge No. 3478

I had a feeling they'd be down there today...

At Five Feet of Fury, "My blogger-husband & I ordered to stop videotaping on public sidewalk, by Toronto cop today, badge #3478."

And Blazing Cat Fur, "Five Feet of Fury Meets Badge No. 3478":

This is pretty funny. Sadly it's the missed photo-op of the day. I only caught the tail end of our conversation with Badge No. 3478, an arrogant boob too dim to understand that he serves the public and not the other way around. Read 5 Feet's account for the details ....

Actually, be sure to RTWT at both links.

Charles Johnson's Got Nothing Left

Charles Johnson's not well, seriously:

Robert Stacy McCain has some background, "A. Charles Johnson."

And all of this is just rehash. I wrote about it here: "A Theory* of Racist Smears and the Case of Robert Stacy McCain."

'Restrepo'

Didn't get a chance this weekend. It's playing up in L.A. and my wife's been working. Might get there later in the week. The homepage is here. And from LAT:

From the frightening chaos of daily firefights to the backbreaking boredom of digging bunkers in unforgiving terrain, in "Restrepo" (pronounced re-STREP-o) which deservedly won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance earlier this year, the filmmakers have given us war at its most elemental. For all the high-tech equipment and the precision of high-flying bombers that have come to define modern warfare, the film is a reminder that much fighting is still done if not quite hand to hand, then alarmingly close enough to see the enemy's breath fog the frigid mountain air.

Sports Illustrated 2010 Esti Ginzburg Photoshoot

"Esti Ginzburg, 19, is a native of Tel Aviv, Israel. " Well, hey, I'm a Zionist already!

Amanda Marcotte is Mad – Mad!! – at the 'Haters' Who Destroyed David Weigel

Seriously.

You can't make this stuff up:

In case it’s not obvious, Jesse and I are both on Journolist. Unlike a lot of people, I have no doubt that it was someone on the listserv --- someone who agreed to keep the listserv private --- that leaked the emails to the gossip blog Fishbowl. I know back-stabbing hater behavior when I see it, and this is textbook. Dave rather recently got the plum job at the Washington Post, and that’s the sort of thing that brings haters out of the woodwork. Whoever decided to ruin him probably thinks of him or herself as a good liberal, and probably thinks they deserve the job that Dave got. Well, you’re not, and I’ll bet a million dollars that you don’t. So congrats. Enjoy your moment of successful hating today. Tomorrow morning, whoever you are, you’re going to wake up the same hack you always were. Except now you’ll be covered in slime and responsible for taking someone out of a job where they were actually doing good, useful work. You fail on every level, asshole. Maybe if you spent more time working and less time hating on people with more talent than you, you wouldn’t be driven to perform gross acts of haterade.

More talent?

Right. At, uhmm, teabagging them before they teabag you, I guess:

The 'Homeless Guy' Slam on American Power!

God, this hilarious!

It turns out the STFUSexists has a pretty good readership, mostly college-age feminists, from what I gather. And what holds these youngins together is summed up by Robert Stacy McCain, who notes:

Anyone who has read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed (as everyone should) recognizes in this a signature trope of elitist liberalism: “We are enlightened and sophisticated, whereas conservatives are benighted and bigoted.”

In other words, the little women at STFUSexists are intolerant know-it-alls who know little when it comes to conservative ideology and politics.

And on that note, looky here: One of Miss Olga's readers was moved to write a full post after skimming my blog, and then writes:

I just got done looking at his blog as well and that was the first thing that struck me, how naked Katy is fine and dandy on a cover because she is ‘classy’ to Lady Gaga’s dead-body using weird. I also noted the obligatory nods to ‘Socialism’ without any clear understanding what that is or intelligent tying of it to our current president. My favorite had to be the pic of him outside of Kohl’s buying ‘patriotic clothes’, stocking up for the 4th as he puts it. Normally, I wouldn’t notice or care, other than to remark that he looks a lot like a homeless guy in that get up, but on a tea bagger’s, lefty watchdog blog I kind of take it more as it was intended-as in that he is more patriotic and therefore more deserving of having a voice in this country. This is my biggest angst/source of hilarity with these assholes, that they claim so much love of our country while having absolute disdain for the election process and for the rights and freedoms that this country actually stands for (or should be).

Where to begin?

Well, first I'm dyin' to know what's the "homeless guy' tip off at the pic. I mean seriously ... I just shaved, LOL!!

And I know GSGF is lovin' it:

Besides that, well, no need to go on too much about all of this. I would like to know the basis for our friend's claim that I haven't "any clear understanding" what socialism is, nor an "intelligent tying of it to our current president."

I guess our little one didn't spend much time in the archives. One of my widely read posts during the campaign was "The Ideological Foundations of the Obama Phenomenon," illustrated with a cartoon that might well describe the thinking of Miss Olga's followers:

And if I don't mind saying, I know a thing or two about ideology, and one thing I know is that my knowledge is most assuredly not based on the same kind of self-annointed omnipotence we find among leftist little tikes like these.

For edification, here's a few suggestions, since I doubt our little know-it-all is quite as versed on Marxist theory and praxis as she implies.

Let me recommend:

David Priestland, The Red Flag: A History of Communism.

Jamie Glazov, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror.

Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders - The Golden Age - The Breakdown.

BONUS: Walter Russell Mead, "Literary Saturday: The Communist Manifesto."
And here's the perfect quote (at Hole Snipe):

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

-- Winston Churchill