Greetings, morons and moronettes! Welcome to your Weekend Travel Thread, brought to you by 2000 Miles:

I was away last weekend visiting a sick parent. Not a very fun form of travel (nor economical). I think the five day trip ran over four grand. (Mr Y-not is hiding both the bills and all sharp objects from me -- there goes our 30th wedding anniversary vacation!)

Anyway, it was a trip packed with plenty of time (too much time) to sit and ruminate, especially about people... more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:19 PM | Comments (268)
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And yes, as Brendan Eich could tell you, it's now a crime to do so.

There will be personal consequences for opposing the left. The consequences will not just be the political ones we all accept -- that is, if we lose on an issue in the normal democratic process, then we lose.

We all know to accept that as the cost of being part of the American democracy.

No, the new rules are not just that you will lose on the political point, but that you will then be hounded personally for having dared to venture a contrary opinion at all.

And no one has accepted that as part of the increasingly high cost of being an American.

I have devoted most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives. It is those principles—the principles of a free society—that have shaped my life, my family, our company and America itself.

Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law and personal freedom are under attack by the nation's own government. That's why, if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for those principles. I have been doing so for more than 50 years, primarily through educational efforts. It was only in the past decade that I realized the need to also engage in the political process.

A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value. In a truly free society, any business that disrespects its customers will fail, and deserves to do so. The same should be true of any government that disrespects its citizens. The central belief and fatal conceit of the current administration is that you are incapable of running your own life, but those in power are capable of running it for you. This is the essence of big government and collectivism.

More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned that this could happen. "The natural progress of things," Jefferson wrote, "is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." He knew that no government could possibly run citizens' lives for the better. The more government tries to control, the greater the disaster, as shown by the current health-care debacle. Collectivists (those who stand for government control of the means of production and how people live their lives) promise heaven but deliver hell. For them, the promised end justifies the means.

Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.) This is the approach that Arthur Schopenhauer described in the 19th century, that Saul Alinsky famously advocated in the 20th, and that so many despots have infamously practiced. Such tactics are the antithesis of what is required for a free society—and a telltale sign that the collectivists do not have good answers.

Rather than try to understand my vision for a free society or accurately report the facts about Koch Industries, our critics would have you believe we're "un-American" and trying to "rig the system"...

Meanwhile, the Unleashed Left is also calling for "global warming deniers" to be prosecuted for manslaughter.

Sonny Bunch has written a post on The Illiberal Left, which is 90% of it. Though he does note one lefty, Michelle Goldberg, worrying in the Nation about the left's sudden embrace of Progressive-themed fascism.

t’s increasingly clear that we are entering a new era of political correctness. Recently, we’ve seen the calls to #CancelColbert because of something outrageous said by Stephen Colbert’s blowhard alter ego, who has been saying outrageous things regularly for nine years. Then there’s the sudden demand for “trigger warnings” on college syllabi, meant to protect students from encountering ideas or images that may traumatize them; an Oberlin facultydocument even suggests jettisoning “triggering material when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals.” At Wellesley, students have petitioned to have an outdoor statue of a lifelike sleepwalking man removed because it was causing them “undue stress.” As I wrote in The Nation, there’s pressure in some circles not to use the word “vagina” in connection with reproductive rights, lest it offend trans people. …

At times like this, politics contract. On the surface, the rhetoric appears more ambitious and utopian than ever—witness, for example, the apparently sincere claim by Suey Park, creator of the #CancelColbert hashtag, that Twitter activists intend to “dismantle the state.” But at the same time, activism becomes less about winning converts and changing the world and more about creating protected enclaves and policing speech.

"Policing" speech is a bit of euphemism. What is objectionable here is that we have historically understood speech to be a mode of persuasion -- but that many (and more and more each day) see political "activism" to consist primarily of coercion -- intimidation, and the infliction of genuine personal harm on someone for having dared to raised his voice in opposition.

But they don't call this fascism. They call it "social justice."

Even this idiot sees the problem:

If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.

-- Andrew Sullivan on "The Hounding of Brendan Eich"

On the other hand, Dave Wiegel sees little problem at all.

Posted by: Ace at 02:29 PM | Comments (295)
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A nice, big map for all of you to get your election hats on.

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Posted by: CAC at 03:30 PM | Comments (176)
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Depraved. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:44 PM | Comments (321)
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Dave Letterman has announced he will be retiring in 2015.

Good. He's plainly been longing for retirement for about ten years now.

I asked a while ago, because it's been obsessing me: Will Craig Fergussen play in the 11:30 slot?

I have no idea why Craig Fergussen has been obsessing me, but he has. I barely watch his show, but when I do, I like it, and keep wondering why I never saw it until four months ago (after several morons recommended it).

The catchy theme (which he wrote and sings) obsesses me. As do his odd choices in second and third bananas: a gay robot skeleton named Geoff Peterson and a pantomime horse.

Because the show is almost entirely improvised, it feels different than other shows. It might be good, it might be bad. Either way, it's all pretty much made up on the spot.

Anyway, I hope CBS gives him a chance to do the show as it exists right now, and don't screw it all up by demanding it be just like every other damn show on late night, with scripted crap. The scripted jokes aren't funny anyway; at least if someone's making them up on the spot there's a sports-like interest in the jokes (in as much as one's curious to see if someone can pull something off).

With an increasingly fractured audience, there is a lot to be said for doing something that's a little bit different. No, not everyone's going to watch a foul-mouthed Scotsman make up jokes with his gay robot skeleton friend and waste network time by reading emails and tweets on the air.

But you're not going to get a large audience anyway, are you?

Rumors: People seem to think that Ferguson might be some kind of conservative. I really have no idea. I doubt it. He's Scottish/European and a performing artist.

However, I do see why people might say that.

Bonus: Is This Something? more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (249)
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And he got the three "liberals" to agree with him on this proposition.

[W]hy have the court's "liberals" adopted a hostile attitude toward political speech, which has long been understood as being at the core of First Amendment protection? In his McCutcheon dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer elaborates the theory behind this odd development.

...

In making the case for the constitutionality of restrictions on campaign contributions, Breyer advances an instrumental view of the First Amendment. He quotes Justice Louis Brandeis, who in 1927 "wrote that the First Amendment's protection of speech was 'essential to effective democracy,' " and Brandeis's contemporary Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who in 1931 argued that " 'a fundamental principle of our constitutional system' is the 'maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people" (emphasis Breyer's).

You'll see here that Breyer does not accept that free expression is a natural right. Instead, he recognizes it as a right (or perhaps a "right") only insomuch as it furthers the end of what he would characterize as a properly-functioning government.

This is important. Free-speech liberals crusade to push an absolutist position, in which the government does not get to weigh in on the social or political usefulness of one's speech, because they do not trust the government (a highly interested party) to make such decisions, and further, because the right to speak and believe as one wishes is a natural right, descended from God, not permitted to a man by a benevolent government (so long as he uses that right "properly").

Breyer subscribes to the notion that this is a collective right (or "right"), and is only a true right to the extent it furthers the ends of the collective.

Thus making Free Expression subject to a vote of the majority of the collective -- which makes it not a right at all.

After citing Jean-Jacques Rousseau's (!) views on the shortcomings of representative democracy, Breyer quotes James Wilson, one of the Founding Fathers, who argued in a 1792 commentary that the First Amendment's purpose was to establish a "chain of communication between the people, and those, to whom they have committed the exercise of the powers of government." Again quoting Wilson, Breyer elaborates: "This 'chain' would establish the necessary 'communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments' between the people and their representatives, so that public opinion could be channeled into effective governmental action."

And here's how Breyer sums it all up: "Accordingly, the First Amendment advances not only the individual's right to engage in political speech, but also the public's interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters."

The emphasis on "matters" is again Breyer's. We'd have italicized "collective" as the key concept. As with the Second Amendment, he and the other dissenters assert a "collective" right, the establishment of which is purportedly the Constitution's ultimate purpose, as a justification for curtailing an individual right.

Dave Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy calls Breyer's position not just wrong, but absolutely "dangerous," noting that there are now four votes on the Supreme Court for the proposition that speech is now a sort of public good held in a collective trust, to be limited or banned whenever the majority feels that the speech in question might not be being used in furtherance of the proper ends.

Bernstein traces Breyer's dangerous claims to the Progressives of the early twentieth century, who were in fact hard-core collectivists (approving of fascism -- my words, not his) and who were always skeptical of this "right to free speech," worrying that people could be misled by false speech, and so needed to be protected from such, if their glorious plans were ever to come to fruition.

The Progressives long attacked liberals for fetishizing speech rights -- aren't speech rights merely a means to the end of enlightened progressive governance? -- and only bought into the liberal view when it served their interests, when Wilson began jailing Reds and so forth.

And for many years, Progressives sort of pretended to be in favor of free speech, not out of any conviction, but probably more due to just not wanting to be too obvious about reversing their position on free speech the moment they no longer had fear of the state, but instead now wished to use the power of the state to shut down those engaging in Wrongful Speech.*

But the masks are now all coming off now.

It's a dark day for freedom. Brendan Eich has stepped down from his brief tenure as Mozilla's CEO -- you see, Mozilla didn't realize how upsetting Eich's previous use of his right to free speech would upset the "Mozilla community," so the Community has decided to punish him for this expression of his beliefs, by taking away his job.

Oh, they claim this decision was Eich's. Sure. Whatever.

The important thing to remember is that "The Community" gets to decide if your speech is helpful to "The Community's" political goals. If it is helpful, then you have the right to free speech.

If not, not.

* I've mentioned previously that there's a new book on the history of "progressivism" that discusses the Progressive-Liberal split, then the Progressive-Liberal tactical alliance.

I'm not sure how many actual "liberals" there are now on what is increasingly-erroneous called "the liberal left." Most seem to have adopted the Progressives' view that to permit an opponent to speak freely is a sign of weakness and cowardice.

After all, if you are strong in your convictions, you won't let some girly adherence to procedure and civil rights impeded you in your quest.

Interesting Thought: From "NotCoach."

Honestly I think this is a new way to attack the 2nd Amendment, and Taranto points it out. If we redefine the 1st as a collective right it is only a short step to redefine all enumerated rights as collective.

Indeed, but you know what? I think they're sufficiently hostile to the First Amendment to wish to make it a "collective" right, even without the additional inducement of providing a backdoor manner of making the Second Amendment a "collective" right, too.

Posted by: Ace at 11:40 AM | Comments (518)
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Hm.

The House Oversight Committee will vote next Thursday on whether to hold former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress, sources say.

The vote, NRO is told, will take place next week.

In a prelude to next week’s vote, the Committee last month released a 141-page report making its case that Lerner’s testimony is critical to its investigation and that she has obstructed the panel’s work by providing it with inaccurate information. The report says that without Lerner’s testimony, “The committee will never be able to fully understand the IRS’s actions. Lerner has unique, firsthand knowledge of how and why” the IRS decided to scrutinize conservative applicants for tax exemption.

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (279)
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Greetings gardening enthusiasts! Welcome to your Saturday Yard and Garden thread. I'm putting it up early because I'm still battling a cold and won't be around much today, I think.

My partner in crime is at some undisclosed location with his lovely bride. (I believe there may be coconut butter involved.) So you're stuck with me. In other words, I'm going solo today:
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:32 AM | Comments (116)
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I'm just getting to this. I had no idea these hearings were so explosive.

That's because I read the American Media.

I just got an email from CBS calling Benghazi a "local crime story." Also, any allegations of a White House cover-up campaign to deceive the public on Benghazi is also a "local crime story."*

This Bret Baier panel begins with a clip of Michelle Bachman telling Morrell that he himself made most of the changes in the Talking Points "for" the White House.

Steven Hayes notes that Morell had previously denied "coordinating" with the White House on the talking points -- stating that he had just provided the talking points to the White House for purposes of "awareness" -- but not testifies he delivered them for "final coordination" with the White House.

This Fox report (of course it's Fox; who else would report?) has video of Morell's testimony.

[H]e did confirm that he overruled guidance from the CIA chief of station in Libya that the attacks were "not/not an escalation of protests."

Morell, explaining his decision, effectively challenged the evidence his chief of station brought to the table in his message, sent via email a few days after the attack. He said the claim that there was no protest was based only on "press reports" and reports from officers who arrived in Benghazi after the attack had already started.

He said that basis was not "compelling" enough.

Still, Morell explained that when he received the email from the CIA chief of station, he recognized the "discrepancy" between what he was saying and what other analysts were saying. He said he quickly had his analysts "revisit their judgment" that a protest was underway -- but "based on a totality of the information available to them, they stuck with their initial conclusions."

The testimony was met with skepticism in some corners. One source who was on the ground in Benghazi that night questioned the claims.

"Why would he ever believe that people who weren't there hold credence [over] those of us that were...and even his own respected Chief of Station?" the source said. "It [makes] no sense."

Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., repeatedly pressed Morell on the flawed talked points and accused the administration of using them for political purposes.

Morell also answered questions about Beacon Globan Strategies.

The former CIA boss also fielded questions about Beacon Global Strategies, the firm he later went to work for, and Washington's revolving door. The company is led by people close to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as the former staff director for the intelligence committee.

Morell said his first discussions with the company about working for them began in November, four months after he left his job.

Another Fox report (of course) notes this:

According to a source with first-hand knowledge of events, during a secure video conference call two days after the Sept. 11, 2012 attack, Morell told the team in Libya that there was intelligence a demonstration preceded the assault. Fox News is told that based on communications with CIA headquarters, the chief of station understood as early as Sept. 13, 2012, that the burden was on him to prove that there was no protest.

The burden of proof was on the station chief to prove that Morell's "protest" story was false.

Morell, meanwhile, is also appearing for public testimony after facing accusations by Republicans of misleading lawmakers over his role in the talking points. He initially claimed the talking points, before Rice's interview appearances, were provided to White House officials for awareness and not for their input. Emails later released show administration involvement began at the earliest stages, and Morell personally cut 50 percent of the text.

Emphasis added.

Morell also claimed to not have seen Ambassador Rice's false claim that a YouTube video spurred the attacks, and did not even read about them until days after the appearance.

REP. JEFF MILLER, R-FL: What was your reaction when you saw her explanation about what happened?

MORELL: I did not see her on the Sunday shows, as I said --

MILLER: You have never seen -- you have never seen --

MORELL: I did not see her on the Sunday shows, as I said. And it was probably days later that I read what she said on the shows.

MILLER: And what was your reaction when you finally did?

MORELL: My reaction was two-fold. One was that what she said about the attacks evolving spontaneously from a protest was exactly what the talking points said, and it was exactly what the intelligence community analysts believed. When she talked about the video, my reaction was, that's not something that the analysts had attributed this attack to.

Uh-huh.

Krauthammer and others note that when Clapper was asked who changed the talking points, Morell was sitting right next to him. When Clapper claimed that he didn't know who changed them, Morell remained silent. He characterizes this as a deliberate effort to mislead Congress -- or permit them to be misled.

I'm sure CBSNews' new correspondent Michael Morell will have all sorts of input into this story.

* In case this isn't clear: Any statement that "I just got an email from [Important Newsmaker X]" is a joke. I have used this set-up a lot.

If, one day, an Important Newsmaker really does email me (doubtful), I will say something like "No, I'm serious this time, I actually got an email."

All other claims of getting emails and phone calls from VIPs and major corporations are jokes.

Posted by: Ace at 09:21 AM | Comments (331)
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A lot of important stuff reported on Twitter, and in article format on her website.

There is a maze of contradictory testimony. First, Petraeus said the FBI, not the CIA, removed the references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorists."

Mike Morrel, Petraeus' former number two, admitted on Tuesday it had been the CIA, not the FBI, who deleted these references.

Within hours of Morrel's statement, CIA officials "corrected" it, stating that it was their belief CIA officials had deleted the references, not the FBI.

Morrel claims this was some kind of error on his part.

But how could Morrel erroneously think the FBI was deleting references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorism" when it was his own CIA doing so, and when he knew that he himself had deleted references to previous "warnings" of a coming terrorist attack?

But if you're worried that Morell might be out of a job due to all these "errors" he makes when preparing Talking Points for Susan Rice or in his Congressional testimony, don't sweat it for him.

He's doing okay.

There's more in the collection of Tweets I linked first.

From her article about this:

Under questioning from members on the committee, Morell described a process under which C.I.A. analysts in Washington provided an early assessment without seeking or receiving information from the many C.I.A. officers and other witnesses on the ground in Libya. And when the C.I.A. Tripoli station chief attempted to correct the record in an email to headquarters on Sept. 15, 2012, Morell says it was discounted as unreliable. According to Morell, the email claimed the attacks were “not an escalation of a protest.” However, Morell said that intel relied on press reports and C.I.A. officers on sight who probably would have arrived too late to see a protest anyway.

Emphasis added.

Morrell decided the actual people on the ground would "probably" have arrived too late to see the attack, so he ignored their attempt to clarify that this wasn't a "protest," and stuck with his Washington DC analysts.

...

Morell did acknowledge personally removing the word “Islamic” from the phrase “Islamic extremists” in the talking points and says he did it for two reasons: so as not to further inflame passions in the Islamic world and because “what other kind of extremists are there in Libya?”

Morell also explained why he removed language that his own agency had included in the talking points disclosing that the C.I.A. had provided “warnings” in advance of the attacks. Morell differed with his boss, then C.I.A. Director David Petraeus, who wanted the warning language included.

“I reacted very strongly to inclusion of the warning language,” Morell testified. “I thought it was an effort on the C.I.A.’s part to make it look like we had warned and shift any blame to the State Department…I made a decision at that moment I got the talking points I was going to take the… language out.”

Indeed, one State Department source says they felt the C.I.A. warning language was “throwing them under the bus.” The references were removed. It was left unexplained as to why Morell was calling the shots, subordinate to his boss, Petraeus who wanted the warning language included.

I'd like to hear Petraeus testify on this point, in light of Morrell's fresh disclosures. Representative Peter King characterized Petraeus as "passive" in the shaping of the talking points. I'm wondering if Petraeus had much to do with it at all, or just assigned it to his Deputy, Morrell.

Oh, and Morrell isn't just with an Obama and Hillary connected communications firm now.

CBS froze out Attkisson, but they did make space in their roster to hire a consultant.

After retiring from the C.IA. last year, Morell was hired as counsel to Beacon Global Strategies, a communications firm operated primarily by former Obama administration and Hillary Clinton officials. He also became a consultant for CBS News.

For a guy hired for his "communications" skills, Morell sure seems to make a lot of errors in communicating.

Posted by: Ace at 08:32 AM | Comments (250)
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