Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

I saw this interview of Rick Perry yesterday afternoon, and I was impressed. 



I'm not willing to commit yet, because the field is not complete and I don't know enough about him, but I'm intrigued by Rick Perry.  (Thanks for all your prior comments, give me more.)

We cannot rest with those who were on the stage for the New Hampshire debate.

I like Tim Pawlenty the most of those on the stage, but he needs to break out of his shell. I could like Michele Bachmann, but not as long as she has an Andrew Sullivan as her campaign adviser; its a non-starter for me. Mitt Romney is the guy I want to like, a decent chap, but I'm not sure he shares my view that better big government is not the goal, better smaller government is the goal.

Give me more. And as he says, faster please.

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In the aftermath of the Palin email media frenzy debacle, various media outlets who were publicly humiliated are spinning the crowdsourcing as a new investigative reporting technique.

The analysis of Sarah Palin's emails over the past few days may end up teaching us more about the future of journalism than about the former Alaska governor's past.

Drawing on methods used by both Wikileaks and social networks, traditional news organizations such as The New York Times and The Washington Post used the Palin email dump as an experiment in new media techniques. They sought collaboration from readers and posted massive volumes of documents online before reporters even had a chance to read most of the papers.

That sort of public coordination — often called "crowdsourcing" — has drawn increasing interest from many journalists. David Lauter, chief of Tribune Co.'s Washington bureau, said he and his colleagues have wondered whether it would be a more productive way of analyzing data.

"It's a concept that we'd been looking at," Lauter said. "This seemed like a great opportunity to test to see how it might work."

Of course, we all call BS to that explanation, because the crowdsourcing was used on Palin only because Palin was Palin, and the mainstream media organizations did not have enough manpower to do the hit job themselves.

A reader wrote to me and wondered whether the crowdsourcing potentially created union contract problems for the newspapers, since they were outsourcing what normally was an in-house reporting function for which the people performing the work were paid.

I don't know enough about newspaper union contracts, and whether reporters even are covered, to opine on the union contract aspect.

But it does strike me that WaPo, The NY Times and others have adopted the HuffPo model of bringing together ideologically sypmathetic people to work for free for the profit of the media corporation. 

In the case of HuffPo, it was a community of bloggers who worked mostly for free to build a liberal online community from which the corporation and Arianna Huffington profited, and in the case of WaPo, The NY Times and others, it was to outsource a reporting function for which the media organizations used to have to pay.

Crowdsourcing at major media organizations has a bright future, because people love getting free stuff, particularly the people who run WaPo and The NY Times.

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Back in November, Sarah Palin delivered a sharp criticism of Fed monetary policy, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:

Sarah Palin, delving into a major policy issue a week after the mid-term elections, took aim Monday at the Federal Reserve and called on Fed chairman Ben Bernanke to "cease and desist" with a bond-buying program designed to boost the economy.

Speaking at a trade association conference in Phoenix, the potential 2012 presidential candidate and tea-party favorite said she's "deeply concerned" about the central bank creating new money to buy government bonds. Ms. Palin said "it's far from certain this will even work" and suggested the move would create an inflation problem.

The criticism was met with howls of derision, but as this NY Sun editorial points out (h/t reader Jay), has proven prophetic (emphasis mine):

The big question as Chairman Bernanke gets set for his first quarterly press conference is how Sarah Palin was able to figure out sooner than everyone else that the Federal Reserve’s campaign of quantitative easing wouldn’t work. Disappointment in the Fed’s policies is being reported this morning at the top of page one of the New York Times. It reports that “most Americans are not feeling the difference” from the Fed’s “experimental effort to spur a recovery by purchasing vast quantities of federal debt.” It reports that “a broad range of economists say that the disappointing results show the limits of the central bank’s ability to lift the nation from its economic malaise.”

It’s a terrific story, and well-timed, given that on Wednesday Mr. Bernanke will break tradition and meet with the press. It is part of the Fed’s effort to get ahead of what is emerging as a public relations catastrophe, as gasoline is nearing six dollars a gallon at some pumps, the cost of groceries is skyrocketing, and the value of the dollars that Mr. Bernanke’s institution issues as Federal Reserve notes has collapsed to less than a 1,500th of an ounce of gold. Unemployment is still high. Shakespeare couldn’t come up with a better plot. But how in the world did Mrs. Palin, who is supposed to be so thick, manage to figure all this out so far ahead of the New York Times and all the economists it talked to?

In other news, the most intelligent, nuanced and intellectually adroit President ever -- someone who can parse a sentence with his bare hands -- still is pushing windmills and high speed trains as the key to our economic future.

I'll take a mere commoner as the next president, you can have Don Quixote.



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Thank you, New York Times, for putting up your paywall. 

Although there are ways around it, as my readers have suggested, I'm actually glad you made it more difficult to access your content.

So much of my material over the past two and one-half years came from reacting to the bias of your news reports and the flame-throwing of your columnists, particularly Paul Krugman and Frank Rich.

It was easy and lazy pickings for me.

I still will click over occasionally when I see one of your articles linked elsewhere, and I am not swearing off ever responding to things you deem fit to print.

But the chain of addiction has been broken. 

I've learned in just the past several days that I can live without your material as blog fodder.

There is life after the NY Times.  Even for a blogger.

Update:  I need a little cooperation here, folks.  I can't do this alone.  Would you please stop tempting me:

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For almost the entire two and one-half years I've been blogging I've had to put up with Paul Krugman accusing Republicans, conservatives and Tea Party supporters of inciting violence through heated rhetoric over policy differences, particularly Obamacare.

I've even started a tag for Paul Krugman, which prior today had 24 entries.

It was Paul Krugman who joined the chorus of left-wing bloggers who blamed the shooting of Gabriell Giffords and the murder of several people in that shooting on right-wing rhetoric, even though there was not a shred of evidence that Jared Loughner was incited by political rhetoric, much less right-wing political rhetoric.  Yet Krugman wrote:

You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.

Krugman shut down the comments to that column, writing in an update:

I’m going to take down comments on this one; they would need a lot of moderating, because the crazies are coming out in force, and it’s all too likely to turn into a flame war.

For Krugman, making accusations that right-wing rhetoric is responsible for violence without any proof is nothing new.  Among other things, Krugman also falsely blamed the Holocaust Museum shooting on conservatives.

So imagine my surprise to see that Krugman penned a column titled Let's Not Be Civil:

 Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.

This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues. It’s much worse when many of those at the table are the sort of people who solicit and believe the kind of policy analyses that the Heritage Foundation supplies.

So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.

That's exactly what Republicans, and conservatives, and Tea Party supporters have been doing the past two years in criticizing the substance of Obamacare and Obama's policies, which earned Krugman's ire and accusations of hate-speech and inciting violence. 

But when Obama accused Paul Ryan not merely of having a supposedly flawed plan, but of wanting senior citizens, the disabled and the sick to suffer, that's okay with Krugman.  Dissent all of the sudden is patriotic.

I could go on and on, but the NY Times new firewall has blocked me when I tried to pull up additional Krugman columns:

 
Now I know the real reason for the paywall, to prevent those of us who do not want to feed the beast from getting the evidence to call Paul Krugman what he is, a complete and total phony, a hypocrite of the worst type, a has-been using his Nobel Prize as an excuse to call others names to cover up his lack of evidence. 

Thank goodness Paul Krugman has taken off the mask, and it's now patriotic to call Krugman a !@%$#% hypocrite.

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has posted on his website an Op-Ed The NY Times declined to run. (h/t JSOnline):

"In nearly every state across America, Governors are facing major budget deficits. Many, Democrat and Republican alike, are cutting state aid to schools and other local governments - which will force massive layoffs, massive property tax increases or both.

In Wisconsin, we are doing something progressive in the best sense of the word. We are implementing reforms to protect middle class jobs and middle class taxpayers. While our idea may be a bold political move it is a very modest request of our employees.

We are reforming the bargaining system so our state and local governments can ask employees to contribute 5.8% for pension and 12.6% for health insurance premiums. These reforms will help them balance their budgets. In total, our reforms save local governments more than $700 million each year.

Most workers outside of government would love our proposal. Over the past several months, I have visited numerous factories and small businesses across Wisconsin. On these tours, workers tell me that they pay anywhere from 15% to 50% of their health insurance premium costs. The average middle class worker is paying more than 20% of his or her premium.

Even federal employees pay more than twice what we are asking state and local government workers to pay and most of them don’t have collective bargaining for wages or benefits. These facts beg the question as to why the protesters are in Wisconsin and not in Washington, D.C. By nearly any measure, our requests are quite reasonable.

Beyond helping to balance current and future budgets, our reforms will improve the quality of our governments. No longer will hiring and firing be done solely based on seniority and union contracts. Instead, schools - as well as state and local governments - will be able to make decisions based on merit and performance...."

More at the link.

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I have highlighted the romanticized view of uprisings in the Middle East taken by NY Times reporters and pundits, projecting Western liberal values onto what in many cases were fundamentalist and virulently anti-Semitic Islamists:

• NY Times Whitewashes Return of Anti-Semitic Egyptian Cleric
• Who's Afraid Of The "Arab Street"?
• The Yuppie Revolution In Egypt Is Over, The Islamist Revolution Has Begun

The NY Times slowly is awakening to the fact that Islamists are on the upswing, although The Times acts as if this were a surprise development, Islamist Group Is Rising Force in a New Egypt:

In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.

It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.

As the best organized and most extensive opposition movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an edge in the contest for influence. But what surprises many is its link to a military that vilified it.

What a bunch of dupes and fools.  Not the Egyptians, the Editors, reporters and pundits at The Times. 

The NY Times' reporters on the ground in Egypt apparently did not see Islamism coming, unlike the right-bloggers in pajamas sitting in dimly lit basements with candy wrappers strewn on the floor.

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From some of the reports, one would think Wisconsin farmers had turned out en masse with their tractors to side with public sector employee unions against Gov. Scott Walker and the Republicans who control the legislature.

The New York Times reported that "Farmers descended on the Capitol in Madison to protest the budget bill, trundling around in a brigade of tractors," and featured a photo of someone on a tractor in its story about the protest yesterday in Madison.

A brigade of tractors?  I realize The Times probably was using the term figuratively, but even so, since a brigade typically is 3,000-5,000 soldiers in number, certainly The Times was talking big numbers of tractors in Madison, right?

If not several thousand tractors, certainly the 1000 or more which were driven through Paris, France last spring in protest over food prices, right?  After all, the event was highly publicized by the union movement, as reflected on this Facebook page:

Saturday, at 10am, farmers from the dairyland will bring tractors and solidarity to the Capitol to fight for labor rights and a just state budget. Rural communities will be disproportionately hurt by the cuts to education and Badgercare. Farmers in Wisconsin stand with state workers and all working and middle class families in the state. The event is sponsored by Family Farm Defenders and the Wisconsin Farmers Union. All farmers... and eaters welcome and encouraged to come!

Funds were raised to pay the fuel expenses to encourage participation.

John Nichols at The Nation described the significance of the farmers and workers uniting:

So when the farmers of Wisconsin arrived Saturday, on tractors that rolled in from across the state, Wisconsinites brought this movement full circle.

The tractorcade, organized by the Wisconsin Farmers Union and Family Farm Defenders, began a day of rallying at the Capitol that drew the largest yet—and that signaled the determination of Wisconsinites to keep fighting the Walker agenda....
Wisconsin workers and farmers have, in the words of the tractorcade organizers, decided to “Pull Together!” That’s a slogan that recalls the historic organizing of the farmer-labor movements of the upper Midwest, which had their expression in Wisconsin in the Progressive Party that sent Robert M. La Follette Jr. to the US Senate and elected Phil La Follette as governor in the 1930s.

It has been a long time since Wisconsin has been this united, and since the farmers and workers of the state have spoken in so loud and clear a voice.

So how many tractors actually were driven through Madison?  Well, like the crowd estimates (ranging from 50,000-100,000), it depends who you ask.

But no news reports says there were actually that many. AP reported:

Saturday's protest got a boost from a parade of more than 30 tractors driven by farmers supporting the union workers.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which used the term "tractorcade" put the number at 60.  The Wisconsin State Journal put the number at 50.

All these efforts and fundraising, all the hype about the return of the Fleebagger 14 to Madison, the last great rally to show the world that the workers of Wisconsin have united, and they only could get 30-60 farmers to bring their tractors to the parade? 

Even these low numbers, however, tend to overstate the significance, because it is not clear that the farmers who drove their tractors even support the unions. Rather, as this article in a local progressive website shows, the farmers were most upset about budget cuts unrelated to collective bargaining.  And Gov. Walker continues to have the support of many agricultural groups.

So there was no Brigade of Tractors, not even anything that legitimately could be called a Tractorcade.

Just fanciful exaggerations by people who bitterly cling to the glory days of the 1930s union movement, not realizing that the world has passed them by.

Update 3-14-2011:  My First Media Matters Post.

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Related Posts:
Great Morning - MoveOn Confirms Paltry Protest Numbers And Village Voice Messes Up
50-State Union Protest Falls Far Short Of Predicted Turnout
The Nation Mag Still Spreading Pandemic Lies

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There is a sentence no one seems to pay attention to in an opinion piece masquerading as reporting  in The NY Times on how Beck and Fox News -- supposedly -- will be parting ways at the end of the year.

The rest of the "story" has heartened the left-blogosphere into declaring that this is the end of Beck because he has lost one-third of his viewership.

 Anyway, here is the sentence no one wants to focus on:

"He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined."

I have no idea if Beck and Fox will part ways; the "reporter" for The Times could turn out to be the proverbial broken clock. 

But if Beck's sinking numbers signal the end of his television career, what does that mean for "all his competition combined" who do not equal Beck's numbers collectively?

Update:  This reminds me of my prior post, The Sarah Palin, The Glenn Beck and The Rush Limbaugh.

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The Board of Editors of The New York Times is demanding significant cut backs in public sector union contracts, but refuses to recognize the cause of the problem, which is the entire structure of public employee unions:

At a time when public school students are being forced into ever more crowded classrooms, and poor families will lose state medical benefits, New York State is paying 10 times more for state employees’ pensions than it did just a decade ago....

In all, the salaries and benefits of state employees add up to $18.5 billion, or a fifth of New York’s operating budget. Unless those costs are reined in, New York will find itself unable to provide even essential services.

To point out these alarming facts is not to be anti- union, or anti-worker. In recent weeks, Republican politicians in the Midwest have distorted what should be a serious discussion about state employees’ benefits, cynically using it as a pretext to crush unions.

Yet The Times Editors, in the subsequent paragraphs, acknowledge that the public sector unions are not willing to make the necessary changes:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pursued a reasonable course, making it clear that he expects public unions to make sacrifices, starting with a salary freeze. He wants to require greater employee contributions to pensions and health benefits, with a goal of saving $450 million.

Negotiations begin this month, but so far union leaders have publicly resisted Mr. Cuomo’s proposals. If they don’t budge, Mr. Cuomo says he will have to lay off up to 9,800 workers. That would damage the state’s struggling economy. Some compromise must be found.

Having secured very sweet contracts for their members through political influence, the public sector unions have no incentive to change.  They know from history that politicians eventually back down or move on, and the consumer of public sector services ends up paying through higher taxes and diminished services.

The current system also pits older union membership, which has vested in all these benefits, against younger members, who will bear the cost of cutbacks and likely never will see such sweet deals for themselves because there simply is not enough money.

The cause of the problem is not just the terms of a particular public sector union contract, it is the system which allows public sector unions to pass costs onto future generations of taxpayers and union members.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is correct to recognize that collective bargaining for benefits is the cause of the problem, and that it is not enough to treat just the symptoms.

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The New York Times had an article today about David Koch, focused on the opening of a cancer center in Boston donated by Koch, but also touching on the Think Progress and left-wing smear campaign against Koch.

Koch made an interesting comment regarding the "prank" call in which a left-wing blogger impersonated Koch to get through to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (emphasis mine):

“It’s a case of identity theft,” Mr. Koch said of the call in which the liberal blogger got through to Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, drew him out about his plans to weaken unions and posted a recording of the call on the Internet, making news and embarrassing the governor. Mr. Koch, whose company, Koch Industries, had given major campaign support to Governor Walker, among other conservative candidates and causes, added, “I didn’t even know his name before this brouhaha erupted.”

Mr. Koch joked that the call could cause him problems. “I was thinking to myself, ‘My God, if I called up a senator or a congressman to discuss something with them, and they heard ‘David Koch is on the line,’ they’d immediately say, ‘That’s that fraud again — tell him to get lost!’ ” he said with a laugh.

This comment about identity theft has generated outrage at Raw Story (warning, the comments there are vulgar) which failed even to address Wisconsin law, as well as being the focus of an article at the Milawaukee Journal Sentinal.  The story is beginning to trickle out into other blogs as well.

For my readers, this is not news.  On February 25 I wrote Phony David Koch Call Wasn't Just A Prank, It May Have Been Identity Theft:

"There certainly is a good argument to be made that the "prank" fits the definition of identity theft [under Wisconsin law]."  

Remember, you heard it here first.

(As an aside, be sure to seek John Hinderaker's explanation of how The Times misleadingly bought into a Think Progress meme on the issue of a Koch subsidiary opposing classification of formaldehyde as a carcinogen.  Apparently, that is a legitimately disputed issue.)

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In what will come as a shock to no one who lives in reality, the revolutions throughout the Middle East, while sparked in many instances by people who share western-style democratic values, are turning Islamist, and the Obama administration is dithering and accepting the outcome as a foregone conclusion:

Via The Washington Post:

The Obama administration is preparing for the prospect that Islamist governments will take hold in North Africa and the Middle East, acknowledging that the popular revolutions there will bring a more religious cast to the region's politics....

Since taking office, President Obama has argued for a "new beginning" with Islam, suggesting that Islamic belief and democratic politics are not incompatible. But in doing so, he has alarmed some foreign-policy pragmatists and allies such as Israel, who fear that governments based on religious law will inevitably undercut democratic reforms and other Western values.

Some within the U.S. intelligence community, foreign diplomatic circles and the Republican Party say Obama's readiness to accept Islamist movements, even ones that meet certain conditions, fails to take into consideration the methodical approach many such parties adopt toward gradually transforming secular nations into Islamic states at odds with U.S. policy goals.

Exactly.  The Islamist parties throughout the Middle East use democracy as the device to destroy democracy, even in nations such as Turkey which have a long secular democratic history.

Which makes the most recent column by Roger Cohen at The NY Times so laughably absurd:

The Arab awakening is not yet about Israel — I never heard the word “Israel” during two weeks in Cairo — but that could change if another skirmish erupts. Nothing would radicalize regional sentiment, now focused on building rather than destroying, as quickly.

I guess Cohen wasn't in Egypt when over a million Egyptians greeted the return an anti-Semitic cleric and chanted "To Jerusalem We go, for us to be the Martyrs of the Millions."

The Obama administration could have played a pivotal role in supporting more secular and less extremist forces in the Middle East.  Instead it has sat on the sidelines while commissioning studies, as if the experiences of Iran, Gaza and Lebanon were not lessons enough.

We are led by political and media elites who are so blinded by a desire not to be seen as anti-Islam, that they have increased the likelihood that tens of millions of Muslims will meet the fate of the people of Iran.

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Frank Rich, one of the worst flame throwers at The NY Times (which is saying a lot) and a frequent subject of posts here, is leaving The Times to join New York Magazine:

Frank Rich is joining New York Magazine, beginning in June. Rich will be an essayist for the magazine, writing monthly on politics and culture, and will serve as an editor-at-large, editing a special monthly section anchored by his essay. He will also be a commentator on nymag.com, engaging in regular dialogues on the news of the week.

"Frank Rich is a giant — a powerhouse critic of politics and culture, a rigorous thinker, a glorious stylist, a skeptic and optimist at the same time. There is just no one like him in American journalism,” said New York editor-in-chief Adam Moss. “He is also a friend. I have had the privilege to work with him for almost 25 years. Since the day I came to New York, I have hoped I could persuade him to join us here. I'm ecstatic that he will now be bringing his wisdom to our growing audience. This is a very big day for New York.”

What possibly could go wrong with Rich being let loose in a forum where he no longer will have a word limit restraining his attacks on Republicans, Conservatives, Tea Party supporters, and eveyone else in the cabal of what he views as the racist, hate-mongering, violent right-wing?

From my Frank Rich archives:

• Count Frankula's Blood Lust
• Adirondack Doug Gets The Caribou Barbi Treatment
• Balloon Boy Derangement Syndrome

What is next for New York Magazine? Keith Olbermann?

While we're on the subject, now that there is an opening at The NY Times for a columnist, hello?

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Paul Krugman (emphasis mine):

I don’t watch cable news, or actually any kind of TV news. But I gather that there’s a virtual blackout on the huge demonstrations in Wisconsin, except on Fox, which portrays them as thuggish and violent.

What that makes me think of is January-February 2003, when anyone watching cable news would have believed that only a few kooks were opposed to the imminent invasion of Iraq. It was quite spooky, realizing that hundreds of thousands of people could march through New York, and by tacit agreement be ignored by news networks whose headquarters were just a few blocks away.

And it’s even more spooky to see it happening all over again.

Yes, everyone outside the Krugman cave knows that no one is paying attention to the Madison protests, except people who watch CBS :



Or ABC:



Or any of the NBC affiliated cable stations:



Or the internet.

Just think, if there were television back in 2002, we might never have invaded Iraq.

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To its credit, The New York Times ran the video produced by the Wisconsin Republican Party of signs carried by union protesters against the Governor of Wisconsin (featured in my post here), under the headline Republicans Accuse Liberals of Hateful Rhetoric in Wisconsin:

The Republican Party of Wisconsin has produced a striking web video highlighting the angry rhetoric coming from the pro-union protesters in Madison.

Among the signs that the video highlights are ones comparing Scott Walker, the state’s Republican governor, to Adolf Hitler and Hosni Mubarak, the recently deposed Egyptian president.

“Scott Walker = Adolf Hitler. Don’t let history repeat itself!” one sign reads. Another says “Midwest Mussolini.” A third accuses Mr. Walker of “raping” public union workers and says, “Rape is never a good solution.”

The web video contrasts the angry rhetoric with accusations from Democratic leaders and liberal activists that conservatives used inappropriate language during the debate over health care.

The comments were pretty much what you would expect, but one caught my eye, from Phil CT, suggesting that only right-wingers commit actual violence, "Wake me up when a liberal goes on a civilian shooting spree":


Phil, you need to stop reading only The New York Times, Think Progress and Firedoglake.

I'm sure you have heard of one of the most infamous shooting sprees in recent years, by Amy Bishop, who shot up her professors and colleagues at the University of Alabama - Huntsville. I bet you think she was a right-winger, right? Right?

WAKE UP, Phil!

Although the mainstream media and left-blogosphere tried to paint her as a Tea Partier, in fact Amy Bishop was a hardcore liberal who was obsessive in her adoration of Obama:

"A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting."

Amy Bishop did not shoot up her school because she was liberal; she was just crazy, like Jared Loughner (who a former friend described as "quite liberal" but whose politics were other-worldly by the time he shot Gabrielle Giffords) and a host of other twisted people you probably thought were right-wingers but were not..

Tell me, Phil, who were the non-liberals motivated by political rhetoric who have gone on shooting sprees or committed other high-profile acts of violence since Obama became President? 

The Fort Hood shooter?  The people who killed Census worker Bill Sparkman?  The guy who flew his plane into an IRS building? The Pentagon shooter? The guy who stabbed the Muslim cab driver?

In each of those cases, you probably thought the perpetrator was a right-winger drunk after consuming a cocktail of Rush-Beck-Hannity liquor.  But you were wrong.

Phil, you think you are enlightened because you read The New York Times and post witty comments, but in fact you are intellectually cloistered inside a castle of like-minded individuals who have created a false reality of right-wing violence.

Note to Phil -- Frank Rich and Paul Krugman do not know Win-The-Future they are talking about.

Wake Up! Phil from Connecticut.

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The New York Times has a story on the return of Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi to Egypt (emphasis mine):

Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Sunni cleric who is banned from the United States and Britain for supporting violence against Israel and American forces in Iraq, delivered his first public sermon here in 50 years on Friday, emerging as a powerful voice in the struggle to shape what kind of Egyptian state emerges from the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak....

Sheik Qaradawi, a popular television cleric whose program reaches an audience of tens of millions worldwide, addressed a rapt audience of more than a million Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to celebrate the uprising and honor those who died....

On Friday, he struck themes of democracy and pluralism, long hallmarks of his writing and preaching. He began his sermon by saying that he was discarding the customary opening “Oh Muslims,” in favor of “Oh Muslims and Copts,” referring to Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. He praised Muslims and Christians for standing together in Egypt’s revolution and even lauded the Coptic Christian “martyrs” who once fought the Romans and Byzantines. “I invite you to bow down in prayer together,” he said.

Scholars who have studied his work say Sheik Qaradawi has long argued that Islamic law supports the idea of a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy.

In fact, Sheikh Qaradawi is a vile anti-Semite who seeks the destruction of Israel:



That a million Egyptians showed up to cheer Sheikh Qaradawi is a sign of bad things to come.

Update:  MEMRI has more on the speech in Tahrir Square, including the call to conquer Jerusalem.

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Now this represents real change. 

After two years of using the pages of The NY Times to lash out at peaceful health care protesters and Tea Parties, the Board of Editors of The New York Times has decided that actual violence by unions in Wisconsin is "not surprising" (emphasis mine):

"Like many governors, [Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker] wants to cut the benefits of state workers. But he also decided a budget crisis was a good time to advance an ideological goal dear to his fellow Republicans: eliminating most collective bargaining rights for public employees.

Not surprisingly, thousands of workers descended on the Capitol building, pounding on windows and blocking doors, yelling “shut it down.”  ...

Keeping schools closed and blocking certain public services is not a strategy we support and could alienate public opinion and play into the governor’s hand. Short of that, the unions should make their voices heard and push back hard against this misguided plan."

And just what does "push back hard" mean?  Those sound like fighting words to me. 

If one of the union members hurts someone, will that also be "not surprising"?  Are the Editors contributing to a "gale of anger" the consequences of which will be their responsibility?

And what process is it that the Editors find so distasteful that they feel mob rule is needed? Why, it's the democratic process in the Wisconsin state legislature.

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In the wake of the overthrow of Hosni Mubarek, we have heard much praise for the "Arab Street," including by Roger Cohen writing in The New York Times two days ago:

In the Middle East you expect the worst. But having watched Egypt’s extraordinary civic achievement in building the coalition that ousted Mubarak, having watched Tahrir Square become cooperation central, and having watched the professionalism of the Egyptian army, I’m convinced the country has what it takes to build a decent, representative society — one that gives the lie to all the stereotypes associated with that dismissive shorthand “The Arab Street.”

In fact, post-Tahrir, let’s retire that phrase.

Let's not retire the phrase. 

There is a reason Jews in particular fear the "Arab Street" and that fear has not gone away, as this recent video of "death to the Jews" being chanted outside a synagogue in Tunisia shows (h/t Solomonia):



The use of the term "Arab Street" has nothing to do with those in the Arab world who preach tolerance and want peace.  Those demonstrators should be praised.  Unfortunately, those with a Western bent never seem to control the street for long.

The "Arab Street" is bad enough when it is marching outside a synagogue in a country which has few Jews left. 

If the "Arab Street" takes over the largest military in the Arab world bordering Israel, I wonder if Roger Cohen still will be singing its praises.

Update:  In a story just reported, it turns out that in the moments after Hosni Mubarek resigned the crowds in Tahrir square were not all so peaceful, Lara Logan Suffered 'Brutal' Sexual Assault In Egypt.  I assume that will be Roger Cohen's next column.
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I heard Supreme Court Justice Antonin "Nino" Scalia talk many years ago at a function in Rhode Island held by the Justinian Law Society.  If I recall correctly, the topic was the "living Constitution."

Scalia was both brilliant and entertaining.  He is a wonderful speaker, and I would jump at the chance to listen to him directly again.

So too did over 30 members of Congress the other day, and it appears that Scalia has not lost any of his touch, impressing both Republicans and Democrats (emphasis mine):

Scalia spoke to The Hill briefly following an hour-long closed-door meeting with 30 to 40 House lawmakers on the Constitution’s separation of powers. The event was organized by Tea Party Caucus founder Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)

Scalia said he told the members at the meeting to “follow the Constitution” but wouldn’t go into depth on his advice.

At least four Democrats attended the unusual briefing with Scalia. Democratic Reps. Mike McIntyre (N.C.), Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) and Mel Watt (N.C.) participated in the event alongside many GOP freshmen lawmakers and a handful of veteran GOP members.

McIntyre called Scalia “engaging and entertaining,” a common reaction from lawmakers who attended.

Lawmakers said a number of hot-button issues came up, as members asked Scalia’s views on the constitutionality of earmarks, the line-item veto and the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Scalia weighed in on issues that the Court has already ruled on, like the line-item veto and the EPA, but he would not discuss issues that could come before the justices in the future.

The challenge to last year’s healthcare law, which is expected to reach the Supreme Court, did not come up during the discussion, Bachmann said.

Schakowsky said the talk was “fascinating” and “perfectly suited for a bipartisan audience.”

“He started out by saying, ‘You’re not going to like some of the things I have to say about the ability of the Congress to limit the executive, et cetera,’” Schakowsky said.

She said Scalia also urged the members to “get a hard copy of the Federalist Papers and read them and underline them and dog-ear them.”

Lawmakers said Scalia didn’t say anything controversial or surprising, though he repeated his well-known position that the Constitution is not “a living document.”

Remember, Scalia has come under attack by Democratic interest groups for giving this talk, as part of a larger tactical assault on the conservative members of the Court.

Contrast the actual talk with how the Board of Editors of The New York Times summed up the advance criticism of Scalia's appearance:

The Tea Party epitomizes the kind of organization no justice should speak to — left, right or center — in the kind of seminar that has been described in the press. It has a well-known and extreme point of view about the Constitution and about cases and issues that will be decided by the Supreme Court.

By meeting behind closed doors, as is planned, and by presiding over a seminar, implying give and take, the justice would give the impression that he was joining the throng — confirming his new moniker as the “Justice from the Tea Party.” The ideological nature of the group and the seminar would eclipse the justice’s independence and leave him looking rash and biased....

By presiding over this seminar, Justice Scalia would provide strong reasons to doubt his impartiality when he ruled later on any topic discussed there. He can best convey his commitment to the importance of his independence, and the court’s, by deciding it would be best not to attend.

Scalia is an intellectual giant compared the the Board of Editors of The NY Times, and stands so far above the Times Editors that they barely can see his shoelaces.

Now that the reviews are in from Democrats who attended the Scalia lecture, I'm sure we can expect a retraction in the next NY Times editorial opinion.

Update:  I recommend this 60 Minutes interview of Scalia:





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As reported by The NY Times (via NRO, h/t Weasel Zippers), Jared Loughner -- among his many mental illnesses -- was caught up in Bush Derangement Syndrome (emphasis added):

He became intrigued by antigovernment conspiracy theories, including that the Sept. 11 attacks were perpetrated by the government and that the country’s central banking system was enslaving its citizens. His anger would well up at the sight of President George W. Bush, or in discussing what he considered to be the nefarious designs of government.

So will all the people claiming that right-wing rhetoric inspired Loughner now run corrections?

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