The media is forever calling upon Republicans to denounce strident language. Their theory is, as far as I can tell, that moral norms are established by group consent, so if a group gives its implicit blessing to political violence, a very important restraint on human action is removed and political violence becomes more likely.

If political violence is what they seek to avoid, then of course they should patrol their own group for strident language -- Did you know Governor Walker was Hitler? Odd, I sure heard how dangerous this message was when applied to Obama -- to insure that the group for whom they help establish moral norms doesn't get the idea that violence is okay, either.

And if one of their own assaults a five-foot-two girl, they should certainly say something about that.

“This just can’t be tolerated anymore. It’s one thing to be called a violent teabagger. It’s another to be called a violent teabagger while you’re being assaulted. They’ve been comparing themselves to the Egyptians ousting Mubarak. Looks like they’re not too far off, given that they share the tendency to assault women with cameras.”

Jim Treacher dares the left to defend this miscreant. Enter George Soros token hire Oliver Willis (scan down) to call the incident "manufactured."

One thing I notice as a political writer is the usefulness of imprecise and vague words. What does "manufactured" mean? Checking the idiot token's oevure, I notice him using that word a lot. Can we be more specific?

"Manufactured" is a slippery term indeed because it embraces a very fat range of meanings. It can be a literal term -- something can be literally manufactured, created in whole. It can be more figurative -- we say something is "manufactured" if it's incited by craftiness. In baseball, they speak of "manufacturing" runs, by which they mean relying on less-spectacular methods of run production such as the combination of a walk, a steal, and a sacrifice fly.

Or "manufactured" may refer to the outrage over an incident, which is postulated to be false, and not the actual incident itself.

So a fat, dull, talentless hack like Oliver Willis can offer a general denial of an incident without really specifying in what particular way he denies it. He claims it's "manufactured." What does this mean? We don't know, and in all likelihood, neither does he. Being obese of mind as well as body, he is lazy and hasn't bothered to figure it out.

But he knows that his job relies upon him vomiting a steady stream of propaganda (as well as half-digested Filet O'Fishes), and so he obliges with a meaningless statement that pleases the leftist lunatics he preaches too and dissatisfies anyone with a working intellect.

The media slips an awful lot past the public with the word "context." They frequently claim they don't carry stories like this because the "context" doesn't support making it worthy of mention.

What does "context" mean? Well, it actually means additional information that sheds a different light on the known information. So what specific information are they referring to when they vaguely dismiss a story as not news worthy when one considers the "context"? What context do you specifically mean?

They don't say because they wish to be vague -- which is the difference between a true writer or reporter and a political operative. Vagueness and verbal fog are hateful to a writer; but they are the stock in trade of a political operative.

What "context" does the media have in mind when it tanks this story? I can think of several possibilities, not a one of which would the media dare admit to be the additional information they're considering "in context" when spiking the story. So that is why they won't specify these, and insist on the Silly Putty word "context."

1. We don't have to patrol the left for violence because the left is entirely non-violent and law-abiding. This assumption is of course false on its face and absurd even in postulation.

2. We don't have to patrol the left for violence because we have such moral certitude about the goodness of our ends that we are justified in using otherwise-immoral means, such as violence, to attain them.

As 1 is false on its face (check the videotape), I can only assume they mean 2, and can only assume then that "in context" they consider some lives to be less worthy of protection than others. That, given the choice between protecting people on the right from the infectious idea that violence is permissible by soundly rejecting it or accepting the benefits of some intimidation, thuggery, violence and even political murder, they choose the latter.

"Context." "Manufactured." Those who don't wish to say the truth -- and those who don't even wish to know the truth, to discover the horrors they actually believe in -- content themselves with such evasions.

Thinking men and women reject them, push past the gauzy haze of such vague words and demand to know (including demanding to know of themselves) what these words actually mean and what assumptions, precisely, we believe in.

If an assumption is too odious to be stated aloud -- there is a very good chance that assumption is false and hateful, isn't there?

What honest intellect needs to resort to lies and obfuscation about his actual philosophy?

More Hate? I think this one is a bit ticky-tack but the anti-American, violent leftists and the media (but I repeat myself) highlight such ticky-tack infractions when it's in their interest so here's a Fleabagger calling a good American "a bad Jew."

This isn't about the anti-semitism so much as it's about the (of course unstated) assumptions packed within: That ethnic authenticity requires fidelity to a certain political party.

Yeah, that's a big one for them. And yet they rarely state it explicitly, because they realize how odious it sounds when stated clearly. So instead they just imply it. "Uncle Tom," etc.

If your beliefs are good and true, why must you hide them in the basement like whores and thieves?

"Edited:" There's another political-operative evasion which was used by the anti-American, violent leftist and the media (but I repeat myself) to suggest that Breitbart's ACORN sting wasn't real.

See, it was "edited."

What does that mean? In what way was it edited? News is edited; "edited" alone doesn't make it false.

Please specify the precise ways in which you claim it was edited which makes it false.

They've never been able to claim the conversations didn't occur precisely as presented. When they got specific (after months of vaguely saying "edited") it turns out their one example of falseness was interstititial/set-up footage of James O'Keefe dressed as an outrageous pimp stereotype in walking down the street, when in fact he wasn't dressed that way at ACORN.

But that was lampoon, and furthermore, the guy says directly to ACORN that he is a pimp and has a stable of whores, many underage. So in what way is this "edited" in such a way to undermine the basic story?

Answer: In no way. But they just keep on repeating the vague word "edited" and rely on their leftist propaganda consumers to supply their own meaning to to the word.

And:

And they also assume that the right side of the spectrum is comprised of people who, by definition (since they do not accept the politics of the left) are intellectually challenged and insensitive at best; or more likely evil, knuckle dragging, bigoted, hate-mongers. -- RM

Very true, and I sure wish they would state this assumption forthrightly so we can have an open and straight debate about it, rather than it always being gauzily implied as a secret assumption.

But they can't confess that assumption, since their false claim of objectivity would of course be scorched to dust by such an admission. You can't claim I'm objective and neutral as between lovely, intelligent human beings and Evil Monsters.

We are Evil Monsters in their eyes, and this is the open-secret assumption that is the special "context" that actually justifies, in their minds, the double-standard. But because they refuse to state it openly, we have proxy fights over the elephant in the room.

"Sometimes You Have To Get Out Into The Streets And Get A Little Bloody, When Necessary." And he said this flanked by a Democratic Congressman.

Hate speech? Dangerous? Well, dangerous to the right people. So long as leftists are protected from political violence, have a party. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:04 AM | Comments (268)
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Setting aside whether the President can choose not to defend in the courts laws that he believes to be unconstitutional and still meet his obligations under the Take Care Clause, it seems to me there's a more fundamental problem with his DOMA decision yesterday. He has stated that he (and the Attorney General) believes that DOMA section 3 is unconstitutional and therefore indefensible. But he has instructed Executive agencies to nevertheless continue to enforce this so-called unconstitutional law.

Notwithstanding this determination, the President has informed me that Section 3 will continue to be enforced by the Executive Branch. To that end, the President has instructed Executive agencies to continue to comply with Section 3 of DOMA, consistent with the ExecutiveÂ’s obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, unless and until Congress repeals Section 3 or the judicial branch renders a definitive verdict against the lawÂ’s constitutionality. This course of action respects the actions of the prior Congress that enacted DOMA, and it recognizes the judiciary as the final arbiter of the constitutional claims raised.

This split-the-baby approach is unjustifiable. The President has no obligation to enforce unconstitutional laws under the Take Care clause; in fact, I'd say he's obligated not to enforce unconstitutional laws and that's exactly what prior Presidents concluded. President Obama's waffling---enforce it, but don't defend it---leads to the same eventual outcome, but only by needless delay and wasteful litigation.

For example, if a gay federal employee who is lawfully married to another dude were to apply tomorrow to add his spouse to his health insurance or seek to file their federal income taxes jointly, OPM and IRS would reject those filings under DOMA section 3. To get relief, the employee would have to hail these federal agencies into court, wherein the DOJ would promptly turn against its own client agencies and tell the court that their actions were indefensible.

How is that a good plan? Well, it's a good plan if one wants to finally see the courts extend heightened scrutiny to cases of discrimination against gays and lesbians. To date the Supreme Court has been mum about just how much justification the federal government needs to have to discriminate against gays. Drew wrote about this issue in the context of the Prop 8 case; note that Gov. Schwarzenegger and AG Brown did the same thing as Obama and Holder: they continued to enforce Prop 8, even as they told the courts it was indefensible. How predictable then that the district judge concluded that discrimination against gays should be subjected to heightened scrutiny.

It is historically noteworthy that Obama announced his DOMA decision yesterday. The governor of Hawaii also signed that state's new civil unions law yesterday. It was a Hawaii judicial decision in 1993 that the state must show a compelling interest, that is pass heightened scrutiny, in prohibiting gays from marrying. The nationwide fear that this decision would soon lead to legalized gay marriage culminated in DOMA in 1996.

Related: The Maryland legislature is poised to legalize gay marriage. It would join New Hampshire and Vermont in coming to gay marriage via the legislature and not the courts. As in the other places to legalize through the legislature, Maryland's law contains religious conscience protections for churches, religious organizations, and individual religious objectors.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:41 AM | Comments (306)
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No power in the 'Verse can stop me.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:56 AM | Comments (192)
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FunwithpicturesthatIwouldcallacontestbutnoprizeforyousothere time, morons.
Amongst all this week's doom was the state-by-state Presidential approval rating dump from Gallup.

Too lazy to upload their image here showing states that like him, states that hate him, and states in which he polls at his national average, I nevertheless took the liberty of creating a horribly crappy visual of Obama's key supporters, those tried and true blues who still get the vapors when he clears his throat:

So here is the super-fun-with-images-contest-that-isn't: save the image, go full snark on it, then resend it to me HERE (along with your regular art submissions). I will go through them and the ones that give me the biggest laugh will be re-uploaded in a follow-up thread on Sunday. You can use photoshop, mspaint, whatever you want to alter it, but the basics (the sad islands of blue) have to be somewhat visible.

Now onto the meat of the art thread this week.

more...

Posted by: CAC at 12:19 AM | Comments (11)
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Welcome to tonight's 45%-assed hump day ONT.

Hey Hey It's The Monkees!

Not only are they not dead but apparently they're actually going on tour this summer. Well except for Michael Nesmith.

I have vague memories of watching the Monkees TV show as a little kid. I always assumed that it was a current show but years later I discovered that I must have been watching re-runs broadcast long after the show was canceled.

Oh and a little Michael Nesmith trivia for you: his mother invented Liquid Paper, he was the executive producer of the movie Repo Man, and he and PJ O'Rourke used to do cross-country road races together in the 80s.

69 Years Ago Today The Japanese Bombed California
And chaos ensued.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:50 PM | Comments (887)
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Present.

Weak sauce as far as action:

Obama said his staff will work with the international community to discuss the volatile situation and the administration is "doing everything we can to protect American citizens," calling it his "highest priority."

I love a discussion.

Although I should be fair: I don't think I want tangible American action here. Arabs have enormous chips on their shoulders about the West and like slightly-demented loser little brothers they sort of need to make their own way, even it it's a bit pathetic. American involvement gives them what they most need -- a scapegoat, someone to blame their failures on.

I could be wrong.

On CNN... A guy is saying that Libya, the state, may not survive Qadhafi's ouster; the state may split into tribe-controlled regions.

Does anyone care about this? Is there a single good reason to champion these arbitrary lines and larger-than-needed-or-wanted states which unite tribes that don't want to be under a single authority?

Do we have some sentimentalism about our old maps? Do we fear having to draw new ones?

This expert wasn't necessarily against Libya splitting into smaller states, but his general tone was one of alarm.

I don't get that. Why do we care if Libya splits into seven more homogeneous tribal regions?

Given the huge amount of trouble in this part of the world, and their inability to run functional modern-style governments, shouldn't we be in favor of smaller states?

Oh, right, the dream of multiculturalism. We have to champion multiculturalism not only in our own peaceful country but in barbaric tribal semi-states.

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (617)
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We were assured there was no problem with gay marriage on the state level, because we had DOMA to thwart lawsuits to force it on to unwilling states.

Fooled ya!

“My own belief is that when two people love each other and enter the contract of marriage, the Federal government should honor that.

I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It was the wrong law then; it is the wrong law now; and it should be repealed.”

As usual, marriage is being redefined from a manner of producing stability in families and therefore creating and caring for children to a Valentine's Day sort of romantic/sexual "love."

Marriage is now just a Federal Certificate of Goin' Steady.

Odd that we never before needed a government sanction for Goin' Steady before.

Just recently we were informed by McClatchy newspapers that a "new, crafty" type of leadership had been invented by Obama -- not leading.

Isn't it funny that Obama is capable of the Old and Busted style of leadership (where you, you know, lead) on issues he cares about?

Why no "new, crafty" style of leadership on gay issues?

But: You bitter clingers should know Obama's still on your side, sort of. He's still "grappling" with the issue.

Spokesman Jay Carney said Obama has always opposed the Defense of Marriage Act as "unnecessary and unfair." But Carney said there's no change to how Obama views gay marriage itself.

He's not sure if gays should have the right to get married, but he's certain that it's "unnecessary and unfair" to deny them marriage.

What? Doesn't that mean he's actually decided?

No, no, no. He's still "grappling." Because his pollsters told him to say that.

See, he's conflicted and open-minded, just like you. Except he's acting like a determined ideologue. But inside he's all confused and "grappling." And that's what's important. Or something.

Posted by: Ace at 12:23 PM | Comments (467)
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Check out taxpayer-paid liar Jay Carney take a big gulp of guilty water as he trots out his "scheduling issue" evasion.

All I can tell from Obama is that it's dangerous to be a friend to the US and safe to be an enemy. When a US ally (even an autocratic one) is in trouble, Obama's got the pom-poms out for revolution.

When a confirmed US terrorist enemy is in trouble, suddenly Obama has "scheduling issues" or even actively supports the regime.

Is it time to take a stance? Given that army units are defecting and Qaddafy is losing cities, and given this key claim:

Army units that defected from Khadafy claimed control over almost the entire eastern half of Libya's coast -- where most of the oil is.

...it would seem that Obama could afford to be as forward-leaning against Qaddaffy as he was against US ally Mubarak. Qaddaffy seems at least as imperiled as Mubarak -- if not more so. Mubarak's army didn't actively side against him until the endgame of the crisis.

What accounts for Obama's continued support of resolutely anti-western despots? It must be the idea that these are "authentic" third-world people's movements and ultimately anything contrary to the US interest is in the interest of the People of the World.

Good Reason? DrewM. points out that Americans are being evacuated from Libya:

Supposedly it's because Americans are being evacuated today and the worry is Kadaffey would grab them.

Not sure how much I believe that but let's see what happens this evening when they are clear.

Ah. Well, that would be a very good reason to delay a statement. I'm with Drew in taking a wait-and-see attitude then, I guess. I confess I hadn't considered that and now that I do my criticism is half-cocked.

I'll wait for the evacuation. (Although, seriously, this didn't already begin and end?)

Posted by: Ace at 11:32 AM | Comments (209)
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I don't know what the answer is. The culture promotes idleness and powerlessness, which leads to conspiracy theories of victimization and power-fantasies about defeating one's persecutors.

That's always a compelling narrative for losers. One that Al Qaeda enjoys.

Saudi ArabiaÂ’s King Abdullah boosted spending on housing by 40 billion riyals ($10.7 billion), and earmarked more funds for education and social welfare amid popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world.

...

The Saudi government announced in August a $385 billion, five-year spending plan as the kingdom tries to reduce a jobless rate of as high as 43 percent for Saudis between the ages of 20 and 24. The overall rate was 10.5 percent in 2009, according to data from the Central Department of Statistics and Information.

43 percent? Good Lord. This seems to happen to mineral-extracting cultures. Mineral-poor cultures tend to become hard-working and industrious (the Japanese), while mineral-exploiting cultures become indolent and weak (the Spanish in the Age of Exploration).

Add that to a culture that already has the bizarre norm built into it that men are princes and shouldn't work; labor is for children and women and you're really cooking with gas.

Even though there's a huge amount of turmoil that is spiking oil prices, I suppose that there is a chance that OPEC will wind up weakened as many of its member states are forced to pump more oil, to either cover the costs of buying off the unemployed or to rebuild after a calamitous revolution.

I don't put much hope in that hope, though.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (234)
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This isn't an accusation, it's a straight question: I expected that this story would blow up on Monday (or Tuesday, given Monday was a holiday) and it seems to have, er, not.

I don't usually listen to talk radio so I don't know.

I don't know how votes get changed without the pressure of the talk radio guys.

Posted by: Ace at 09:21 AM | Comments (205)
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