It all depends on whether the speaker of the racial slur is a Privileged or Disfavored Speaker, of course.

The left is of course hostile in a palpably racial way towards Ben Carson.

Posted by: Ace at 09:10 AM | Comments (311)
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I'm not sure this is anything, but you be the judge.

The bulk of the dialogue between Thomas "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Frank and a guy named Adolph Reed Jr is mostly about their upset that Obama isn't sufficiently pro-labor or pro-income redistribution.

I'll leave it up to you add to your own editorial punctuation to that sentence, but, for the lazy among you, here are some pre-written editorial punctuation marks you can just slip in there: (!), (?), (!!?), (????!!!!), (WTF, DUDE?!?!!)

Reed's central criticism of the contemporary left is that it has become focused on identity politics. As he says in the interview: "The problem with a notion of equality or social justice that's rooted in the perspectives of multiculturalism and diversity is that from those perspectives you can have a society that's perfectly just if less than 1 percent of the population controls 95 percent of the stuff, so long as that one percent is half women and 12 percent black, and 12 percent Latino and whatever the appropriate numbers are gay."

This he attributes to "electoralitis," the imperative of electing Democrats to public office. While Reed and Frank acknowledge that such an approach has been successful in some elections, they are scornful of it. Says Frank: "[Democrats] think they have an iron clad coalition behind them. They have this term for it: the Coalition for [actually 'of'] the Ascendent. I forget what it is. Made up of these groups, and labor is not one of them."

Reed disdains what he calls "the cult of the most oppressed," the idea "that there's something about the purity of these oppressed people that has the power to condense the mass uprising. I've often compared it to the cargo cults. . . . As my dad used to say, 'If oppression conferred heightened political consciousness there would be a People's Republic of Mississippi.' "

Go to Taranto (the link goes to BotW) for the discussion of "sociopathy." Reed analogizes Obama's "blank slate" persona to that of a sociopath, notoriously manipulative individuals who can become whatever their intended target needs them to be. He doesn't push on the idea too hard (and it does seem a bit overmuch), but I thought it would make for a good screaming headline.

The media taught me that!

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (210)
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Go figure. The "#banbossy" meme is up and running. The publicity campaign is co-sponsored by the Girl Scouts.

Now they don't want to make it an actual against-the-law crime, but they do want to stigmatize the word, such that, you know, you've committed a social crime if you call the person who's trying to control your expression "bossy." There should be consequences, you see, for saying the B-word.

The new B-word I mean. The old one is still also out, of course.

Allah notes that this is done, it is alleged, to help girls. But it's not girls who are falling behind in education, and therefore falling behind on their career track.

It's boys.

Posted by: Ace at 07:37 AM | Comments (443)
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I love self-described “bi-partisan, super lobbyist” John Feehery. If you wanted to create a caricature of the out of touch, self-important, above it all Republican establishment class you’d have to invent him. Thankfully he already exists and he loves to take to the digital pages of The Hill every now and then to remind the rest of us who runs things.

TodayÂ’s sermon is dedicated to the joys of knowing your place if youÂ’re a conservative. You see according to Feehery the real problem in the GOP and our politics at large is too much individualism and not enough collectivism with a chosen few (not surprisingly he's among the few) leading the way. Sure it starts out as a bashing of millennials but he really only warms to the task when he gets to his frequent targetÂ…conservatives.

For our kind of democratic Republic to work, the people have to delegate certain powers to their elected representatives, and with that delegation comes a certain amount of trust. But if the people donÂ’t trust their fellow citizens, how can they trust their elected representatives?
And that is where you hit the limits of individualism.

We are seeing the fraying of the social contract in both political parties, but perhaps more acutely in the Republican Party today.

Sure, Barack Obama is unpopular with the conservative base, but almost as unpopular are Republican leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. There is little patience to follow the leaders within the GOP. Trust has broken down. The movement will not be satisfied.

The Republican Party used to fall in line, but now, it is seemingly falling apart. The Tea Party insurgency is virulently distrustful of big government, big business and big labor. It despises the “Republican Establishment.” It has even declared war on the Chamber of Commerce.

The Democratic Party will not escape this chaos, as we hit the limits of individualism. The gender and racial political alliances upon which the modern party is built are not sturdy. One slip of the tongue, one off-color joke can end the career of a Democratic politician.

Liberals are even more anti-establishment than the Tea Party. They glorify Edward Snowden just as they call for the dismemberment of Wall Street. The Democrats are primarily a secular party that ignores, if not condemns, most church teachings (such as on abortion and gay marriage). The party has come unmoored from any religious values. It glorifies the individual, no matter what choices that individual might make.

Someone actually wrote with pride and a sense of loss that “the GOP used to fall in line”. And look where that got us. Bigger government, record debt, oh and the loss of the House, the Senate and the White House.

While those results might be cause for concern if you care about the future of the country more than a party, Feehery longs for those days. He seems very upset that conservatives arenÂ’t satisfied with a pat on the head for their volunteer efforts and votes. Now they want not just rhetoric but results? ItÂ’s terribly embarrassing for everyone when the help forgets their station.

I love the part where he’s absolutely flummoxed as to why conservatives would turn on the Chamber of Commerce so allow me to help… they supported Obama’s so-called “stimulus”, they are cutting deals with big labor to force amnesty on the country and exists basically to get as much money and regulatory favor from taxpayers via D.C. as possible.

What a bunch of ungrateful bastards these small government, pro liberty conservatives are. Why arenÂ’t showering the entrance of the ChamberÂ’s offices with rose petals?

This self-declared elite wasnÂ’t built in a day and it wonÂ’t be destroyed in one election cycle either. But when people wonder why I donÂ’t really care if the GOP wins the Senate or even the presidency (get in line and support Chris Christie! Or Jeb Bush!) guys like this are at or near the top of the list. Putting the same people back in power and expecting different results is a foolÂ’s errand.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:41 AM | Comments (314)
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ICYMI, William "Wild Bill" Guarnere of "Band of Brothers" fame passed away over the weekend.

Posted by: andy at 02:59 AM | Comments (215)
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Due to a customer emergency tonight's ONT will be skeletal.

"The Affair of the Sausages"

Apparently whether you were allowed to eat sausage during Lent was a big theological issue that led to the Reformation in Switzerland. Here's what Wikipedia says:

The Affair of the Sausages (1522) was the event that sparked the Reformation in Switzerland. Ulrich Zwingli, pastor of Grossmünster in Zurich, Switzerland, spearheaded the event by publicly speaking in favor of eating sausage during the Lenten fast. Zwingli defended this action in a sermon called Von Erkiesen und Freiheit der Speisen (Regarding the Choice and Freedom of Foods), in which he argued, from the basis of Martin Luther's doctrine of Sola Scriptura, that "Christians are free to fast or not to fast because the Bible does not prohibit the eating of meat during Lent."

So there you have it.

And it was this article that led me to look up the L'Affaire de Sausages: Repent of Lent: How Spiritual Disciplines Can Be Bad for Your Soul

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:42 PM | Comments (799)
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• More Sitcom Than CENTCOM
  
• Back From Vacation, Obama Tackling Multiple Crises at NYC Fundraisers
  
• Dem Controlled State Legislature Quietly Passes 20 Week Abortion Ban
  
• Koch's Donate Money To Hospital, Liberal Protest
  
• How Idaho's Governor Ended Up In A Soft Core Porn Film
  
• Iran's Weapons Shipment Safely In Israeli Hands
  
• NYT: Why Poland Cares About The Ukraine
  
• Me: Why Poland Cares About The Ukraine
  
• Has Obama Changed His Mind About Syria?
  
• A Late Surge For Republicans In FL-13?
  
• Obama To Cut Key Reconnaissance Fleet By 25 Percent
  
• Sharyl Attkisson Resigns From CBS
  
• The New Glenn Beck
  
• The Murders Before The Marathon
  
• NHL Game Postponed After Player Collapses On Bench
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:22 AM | Comments (299)
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Time-lapse photography so good you'll have to say "FAKE!!!"

Damn, this is pretty impressive. Storms, the Milky Way, buttes, and cornfields. What's not to like?

It's like the trailer for the next True Detective. The killer will violate people with corn.

It was shot by a guy called Randy Halverston, who calls it "Dakotalapse."

Very sweet pictures. You could take any eight of them and insert them into Cosmos tomorrow and people would say "Wow, professional shots." If I'm reading him right he caught all of this in just six days.

Thanks to @rdbrewer4. You might want to check out the Jovian photography in the sidebar, too.

And Open Thread.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:43 PM | Comments (696)
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Ideological bias is last year's news.

Now it's more about simple partisan bias.

This sounds like CAP ejecting the left's anti-war ideological stance to help out a partisan figure they approve of.

Of course, this writer was read the riot act after White House officials called to complain about the piece.

Completely unrelated I'm sure, but Sharyl Attkisson's stories dropped by two thirds in terms of making it on to the CBS Evening News since shortly after Obama took office.

She was the 18th most aired reporter among all network reporters from 2008-2009... and then fell to 78th place.

Apparently her digging into political wrongdoing was appreciated up until Obama was sworn into office, and not so much thereafter.

Posted by: Ace at 03:04 PM | Comments (135)
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Turley avoids calling him a dictator and in fact says he's not.

But...

The United States is at a constitutional tipping point: The rise of an uber presidency unchecked by the other two branches.

This massive shift of authority threatens the stability and functionality of our tripartite system of checks and balances....

James Madison fashioned a government of three bodies locked in a synchronous orbit by their countervailing powers. The system of separation of powers was not created to protect the authority of each branch for its own sake. Rather, it is the primary protection of individual rights because it prevents the concentration of power in any one branch. In this sense, Obama is not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system; he has become the very danger that separation of powers was designed to avoid.

The suspension of a portion of the ACA is only the latest such action related to the healthcare law...

Not even the power of the purse, which belongs exclusively to Congress, is sufficient to deter the White House. The Obama administration took $454 million from a fund established to help prevent illness and put the money instead toward paying for the federal health insurance exchange. Even leading Democratic members denounced this as "a violation of both the letter and spirit of this landmark law."

Meanwhile, Peggy Noonan questions whether Obamcare is even a "law" anymore.

@charlescwcooke summed this up a while back on the podcast: It's not a law. It might have been passed in a law-like form, but it has been "interpreted" by Obama to not be a law at all.

It is simply an Enabling Act, a block grant of legislative authority to the executive on anything in the category of "health care."

This, of course, is illegal, and unconstitutional. Even if Congress wished to give their powers to the Executive, it would be illegal for them to do so, and the Supreme Court would call it illegal.

And yet here the President simply asserts that Congress has handed him his powers, and only a brave few say anything about it at all.

Posted by: Ace at 01:53 PM | Comments (348)
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