That Does It

No sooner had I decided on a semi-permanent replacement for Newt on this blog-site, than The New York Times-Dem goes and ruins everything and condemns Newt, the South, and the Republican Party all in one typically foul editorial (h/t the not particularly Newt-friendly Contentions):



"In South Carolina, where a Confederate flag still waves on the front lawn of the State Capitol largely because of the efforts of the state Republican Party, it remains good primary politics to stir up racial animosity and then link it to President Obama. Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Santorum and the crowd that cheered them are following in a long and tawdry tradition, singling out a minority group for lectures while refusing to support policies that help all Americans."

!!!



There they go again.  Now they've forced me to put Newt back up on this page, put my bumper sticker back on the car, get a lawn sign,and give Newt more money. Damn.



But allow me to relocate my tongue out of my cheek for just one moment so as to tell The Times, Jimmy Carter, and each and every race-baiting, transparently partisan, intellectually dishonest, hateful, demagogic, cowardly, division-sowing, progressivist, group-identity obsessed, handout-fixated, economically illiterate oh-so-smart moron Obamazoid the following: go take your race card and stick it up your ass.



Have a nice day.

Dems Will Be Dems

Voter fraud in Troy, NY (Nice Deb):



"I know that we’re currently focused on voter I.D. laws because of the ungodly burden it puts on minorities. I understand that asking people to prove they are who they say they are when they vote is a violation of their civil rights and a blatant attempt to disenfranchise them. That is so obvious.



"But I just thought I’d try to direct our chief law enforcement officer to another uh – concern."

Newt

Though I must say I feel myself gravitating back to Newt every day I see the bullshit hurled his way.



Today it's the Democratic gift that keeps on giving: the disgraceful, worst-Presidential-mistake-of-all-time Jimmy Carter, accusing Newt of racism:



"President Carter told Morgan 'I think (Gingrich) has that subtlety of racism that I know quite well, that Gingrich knows quite well, that appeals to some people in Georgia.' "

The solipsism on the left is so intense, I am sometimes surprised they don't spontaneously implode into singularities all around us.  Knock, knock, Jimmy. The economy is a shambles. Dependency on handouts is skyrocketing and food stamp distribution is at an all-time high. WTFU, you anti-Semitic, left-wing pea-brain.

Scott Walker

I have settled on my new top right link...Scott Walker. A click takes you to his donation page. Defeat the self-righteous, anti-democratic, selfish, pampered PSU villains abusing the WI recall process to subvert representative government and fiscal survival.

Obama/Hillary State Department Caves To Econut Base, Puts The Kibosh On Keystone

Four more years of this economy-crushing idiocy and we won't have a country. Lord help us.



"The State Department will announce the decision on Keystone XL pipeline is 'no,' as early as Wednesday, an industry source told Fox News, suggesting that the department will say 60 days is inadequate time to do the required environmental impact assessment on the path of the coveted pipeline...



"...For three years, the State Department has been reviewing the initial proposal to run a pipeline from Canada down to Texas through a sensitive Nebraska aquifer -- authority it has because of the transnational path the route takes. The pipeline had been through several other federal, state and local approvals, but the department backed away from signing off on the plan last year after environmentalists complained."

Messiah Faces Up to Iran Threat: Pretty Please, Can We Talk?

Self-caricature:



"The White House had no immediate comment Wednesday on a claim from an Iranian lawmaker that President Obama called for direct talks with Iran in a secret letter to the Islamic Republic's supreme leader that also warned Tehran against closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz."

That last "warned Tehran" bit is Associated Press cover for His Oneness, putting as tough a gloss as possible on Obama's contemptible obsequiousness. What's to talk about, Barry?

Gingrich Wows 'Em

Figures this would come a day after I kick him off my blog. Well, this is the sort of thing that made me support him in the first place (via an uncharacteristically gracious-to-Newt Allah):







Can't pop his picture back up, though, until he dissociates himself from 'King Of Bain.'

UN War Against Israel Proceeds Apace

UN SG visits the woebegone UNIFIL; figures an inspection of a mission that has failed miserably because of the activity of Israel's enemies is a good opportunity to bash Israel:



"UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday slammed Israeli settlements as illegal and called for an end to the 'occupation,' AFP reported.



"Speaking at a conference on democracy in the Arab world in Beirut, Ban said that 'the Israeli occupation of Arab and Palestinian territories' and 'violence against civilians' must end."

That's just fine.  I think it's a good opportunity to cut our contribution to the UN, say, in half. Let the kings-of-sovereign-debt French pay for it.

Yeah, I Dropped The Link To Newt

I still may pull the lever for him. But I hold him responsible for "King Of Bain." And "King Of Bain" is left-wing shit.  Sure, Romney did, and does, Newt dirty and gets away with it. Sure, Romney has failed to, and needs to, rebut the Bain attacks. But that's no excuse. Newt (and his minions) could have hit back hard with conservative punches (notably on RomneyCare). And any mention of Bain should have been framed as an electability issue (as opposed to the electability effect being a mere afterthought, deployed tactically to deflect criticism).



I don't like Romney. His political style is simultaneously dirty and passive. But now Newt is down in the gutter with him. If I hold my nose and vote for Gingrich, it will be just that: a vote and nothing more.

Ron Paul Occupies The Foreign Policy Vacuum

Because the 'Stache never ran, and the MSM is uninterested, and the front runner is timid and thinly informed, Ron Paul is permitted to run up big votes by staking out - essentially unchallenged - his sincere, flashy, bold, and entirely insane foreign policy positions.



Steyn:



"Ron Paul says he would pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan 'as quickly as the ships could get there.' Afghanistan is a land-locked country, but hey, that's just the kind of boring foreign trivia we won't need to bother with once we're safely holed up in Fortress America. To those who dissent from this easy and affordable solution to America's woes, the Paul campaign likes to point out that it receives more money from America's men in uniform than anybody else. According to the Federal Election Commission, in the second quarter of 2011, Ron Paul got more donations from service personnel than all other Republican candidates combined, plus President Obama. Not unreasonably, serving soldiers are weary of unwon wars – of going to war with everything except war aims and strategic clarity. I would hazard that the recent video of U.S. Marines urinating on Taliban corpses is a coarser comment on the same psychosis, and the folly of fighting a determined and murderous enemy by distributing to your officers bulk orders of that charlatan's best-seller 'Three Cups of Tea.' There is a logical progression from three cups of sweet tea to those acts of micturition that the Pentagon would do well to ponder."



The Hammer also has something to say about the looming Paul Catastrophe:

"He is Jesse Jackson of the 1980s, who represented a solid, African American, liberal-activist constituency to which, he insisted, attention had to be paid by the Democratic Party. Or Pat Buchanan (briefly) in 1992, who demanded — and gained — on behalf of social conservatives a significant role at a convention that was supposed to be a simple coronation of the moderate George H.W. Bush.

"No one remembers Bush’s 1992 acceptance speech. Everyone remembers Buchanan’s fiery and disastrous culture-war address."

Stache' Endorses Romney; Rudy Scolds Newt

My two favorites. These clips weigh heavily on my brain (courtesy Verum Serum), especially with the loathsome class warfare attack being launched against Romney. Yes, it's a 'Super PAC,' but I don't know how Newt escapes responsibility for the tenor of this ad. Saying 'he did the same to me' doesn't cut it; I already knew Romney was a crum. Now I know you're one too, Newt? The defense of the anti-Bain attack (even putting aside the propaganda of the actual PAC video) that depends upon dubious, anecdotal, trees-for-forest 'narratives' about lost jobs is strained at best (Goldman).



On the other hand, the idea, endorsed by Fred Barnes, that the "seeds" of a November disaster are being planted now by Perry and Gingrich is ludicrous. If you don't realize that Obama and Co. have a storehouse full of Bain-centric attacks ready to go you must be new to this game. This is Romney's opportunity to rebut the attacks before the Dems regurgitate them. He may yet owe Newt a debt of gratitude.



Stache':









Rudy:

Voter Fraud Is A Wide Open Door For Dems

O'Keefe unmasks it in NH (Breitbart.tv):









Hardly surprising that Holder's working to undo voter ID, is it? I'm sure the Dems are gearing up for November.  What a frickin' disgrace.

For Dems Excited About The December Jobs Numbers

The mother of all economic graphs (Pethokoukis channeling Calculated Risk):

We've been in recovery over 2 years, folks. Your precious Obama is guilty of the worst post-recession management of - at least - the last 60 years.

He is an economic imbecile. Own it.

So Soon?

The race card already?

Via Nice Deb:



Newsbusters:



"...Speaker Boehner did not 'reject' Obama’s request to address Congress, but instead suggested that the president delay the speech for one day, to avoid it being held on the same night as a Republican presidential debate. (And that’s what happened.) Rosenthal’s suggestion that Boehner’s move was somehow racist is too pathetic to even merit a response."



Life News:



"When Rick Santorum dared to allude to the dehumanization of black Americans in our country’s flawed history, liberals went into full attack mode. What is it about the documented past that causes such a visceral adverse reaction from liberals? Santorum, in a January 2011 CNS interview about President Obama’s denial of personhood to the unborn, found it remarkable for a 'black man to say no, we’re going to decide who are people and who are not people.' "



Via Ace (re: LA Moron Times vs Gateway Pundit fracas):



"The left is simply now saying 'racist' equals 'mean.'



"Yes, it is mean. Mean is not racist. Idiots."

Obama The Criminal

Yoo crushes Tribe:



"Tribe, I’m afraid, has it wrong, though I am glad to see he is arguing on the basis of the Constitution’s text, structure, and history and not on the need to strike a blow for consumer rights with a person from Ohio (which so far has been the White House’s explanation). First, on the history: All of the precedents cited by Tribe occurred when the Senate was adjourned. The question was when does an adjournment of the Senate become long enough to qualify as a 'recess' under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. As far as I know, and Tribe cannot claim to the contrary, no president has ever made a recess appointment when the Senate was formally in session. This is not a question of when does an adjournment become a recess — here, there has been no adjournment."



The WSJ weighs in:



"Remember those terrible days of the Imperial Presidency, when George W. Bush made several 'recess appointments' to overcome Senate opposition? Well, Czar George II never did attempt what President Obama did yesterday in making recess appointments when Congress isn't even on recess.



"Eager to pick a fight with Congress as part of his re-election campaign, Mr. Obama did the Constitutional equivalent of sticking a thumb in its eye and hitting below the belt. He installed Richard Cordray as the first chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and named three new members to the National Labor Relations Board. He did so even though the Senate was in pro forma session after the new Congress convened this week.



"A President has the power to make a recess appointment, and we've supported Mr. Obama's right to do so. The Constitutional catch is that Congress must be in recess."

Impeachment Time?

Crime, sure. But is it high yet?



When the number one executive in the land deliberately, explicitly defies the Constitution, you can certainly make the case.



Allah:



"Meanwhile, Iain Murray at National Review reminds us that the names of the three NLRB appointees were only sent to the Senate three weeks ago. They haven’t been filibustered, so there’s no obstruction — yet. So eager is President Working Class Hero to start off an election year by defying Congress that he picked this fight before he had to.



"Via CNS, here’s Carney warning the press corps yesterday that Obama was prepared to engage in unilateral executive action 'small, medium, and large' to push his agenda. Let’s put this power grab in the 'medium' category; 'large' is reserved for wars like Libya that he’s undertaken without so much as a resolution of good luck from Congress. The more I think about this, the more it smells like O’s version of FDR’s court-packing plan, except (a) this is more constitutionally dubious and (b) this is transparently a cheap election-year pander. Exit question: What will the next Republican president use this exciting new precedent for, pray tell?"



"Update: Via Free Republic, enjoy this 2008 AP story describing how Democrats successfully used pro forma Senate sessions to block evil monarchical lawless cowboy president George W. Bush from making recess appointments of his own."



Oh, yeah, and before I forget...Thanks, Obamazoids!



Addendum:  McCarthy isn't sure it's frankly unconstitutional, but he is certain that it's plenty wrong:



"The hypocrisy here is blatant, even by congressional standards. In 2007, Reid kept the senate in pro forma session in order to block President Bush from making recess appointments — particularly, the eminently qualified Steve Bradbury’s appointment to head DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel. 'I had to keep the Senate in pro forma session to block the Bradbury appointment,' Reid recounted in 2008. 'That necessarily meant no recess appointments could be made.' "

The Scandals

Malkin delineates the sordid Obama '11 scandal story:



"With 2011 drawing to a close, it is time to account. As an early-and-often chronicler of Chicago-on-the-Potomac, I am amazed at the stubborn and clingy persistence of President Barack Obama’s snowblowers in the media. See no scandal, hear no scandal, speak no scandal.



"Dartmouth College professor Brendan Nyhan asserted in May — while Operation Fast and Furious subpoenas were flying on Capitol Hill — that 'one of the least remarked upon aspects of the Obama presidency has been the lack of scandals.' Conveniently, he defines scandal as a 'widespread elite perception of wrongdoing.' "



On top of the stupidity/incompetence, the radical, rigid, socialist ideology, the unadulterated partisanship, and the tyrannical, executive edict spewing contempt for the democratic process, this is the crookedest administration since Nixon's.



All easily predictable in 2008 by any with eyes to see.

Thanks, Obamazoids!!

'Stache Attack!

"I think it's terribly important that we elect a real commander-in-chief next November." Suck on this, Paulbots and Obamazoids:







Addendum - via Hot Air - Robert Reich imagines an Obama/Clinton ticket in order to...wait for it..."deflect attention from the bad economy and put it on foreign policy, where she and Obama have shined."



You can't make this stuff up.



And they believe it, too. The left really does misunderstand principles of foreign policy so abysmally, and calculate "success" there so cynically, that they honestly imagine that the sequence of drone take-outs and the bin-Laden termination mark Messiah as a foreign policy hero.  It's pathetic, really.

In Case You Were Going To Sleep Over The Holidays

Iran is threatening a clear-cut act of war:



"Iran is threatening to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz – a key world oil route in the Persian Gulf – if the West imposes more sanctions over its controversial nuclear energy program."



Even Obama would pull the trigger and take out their nuclear installations if they did this.



Wouldn't he?

Catalogue Of A Super-Genius Presidency

Bill Whittle (h/t Nice Deb) runs down the Obama miracle:

Romney's Lies

And as any blue state conservative subjected to left-wing idiocy can tell you, mockery (of the uninspired sort) is the oh-so-very-easy default of those without counter-arguments. Distorting mockery is the cocktail party (or campaign trail) equivalent of the bumper sticker.  Which is why it is so disheartening to see the likely Republican standard-bearer deploying it with abandon - against one our own (who happens to be my preferred candidate).



Simberg at PJ Media:



"As I noted at National Review Online the following Monday, these are not current Gingrich policy positions, or campaign talking points, but rather a couple ideas from a book he wrote over a quarter of a century ago that David Brooks had cited in a column at the New York Times the day before the debate. But either Romney himself or his campaign staff apparently decided that it would be politically advantageous to mock Newt’s vision, making his ideas sound too 'far out' for America.



"In the days after, it became clear that it wasn’t just an off-hand comment, but a calculated ongoing strategy to marginalize Gingrich by reinforcing the narrative that Gingrich is mercurial, with half-baked ideas. Romney started to use the word “zany” to describe the former speaker’s positions. This past Sunday, on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, he doubled down when asked to be more specific on what was “zany” about Gingrich’s ideas:

This was being battled on Capitol Hill and the speaker sat down with Nancy Pelosi and spoke in favor of legislation dealing with climate change. He has been unreliable in those settings and zany, I wouldn’t think you’d call mirrors in space to light highways at night particularly practical or a lunar colony a practical idea. Not at a stage like this."

Defense Of Newt On 'Palestinians'

The problem isn't Newt, it's historical illiteracy on the other side.



Hanin at Big Peace:



"Gingrich also knows historical evidence confirms Israel existed as nation as early as1300 BCE, some two thousand years before Islam. Yet there has never been ANY evidence of a Pales­tin­ian nation. Simply put, if there is no historical evidence to separate Palestinians from Arabs then Palestinians ARE Arabs. The fact is there has never been an authentic Pales­tin­ian lan­guage, a dis­tinct Pales­tin­ian cul­ture, Palestinian currency (except while under British Mandate) or even land once ruled by Palestinians. These facts would give any historian pause, and it did with Gingrich, who used it as an opportunity to set the record straight. Gingrich had to address the Palestinian narrative head-on. For that he should be applauded not ridiculed."



1300 BCE I think overstates it a bit; I think it's more like 800 to 900.  To that you can add that since that time there has been a continuous Jewish (Hebrew) presence. The case stands.

The Fascinating Extent To Which Jews Lent Their Support To The Thoroughly Anti-Semitic OWS

Neumann at Commentary:

"Certainly, the Occupiers were more hostile toward Jews than toward any other ethnic or religious group. And certainly they were more hostile toward Israel than toward any other foreign state and more preoccupied with Israel than with any other foreign policy issue. There were no claims of Islamophobia or Christianophobia. Why were only Israel and the Jews singled out?



"No doubt, the core priorities of Occupy Wall Street were a hodgepodge including grievances against the financial system and a laundry list of demands relating to tuition and college loans and the like. But Jews and Israel were never far from those core concerns, as a worrying proportion of protesters and sympathizers made repeatedly clear. As ever, conspiracy theories attempting to link small and influential cabals with finance, corporations, arms, and imperialism came to implicate Jews and Israel. It was predictable from the start, and it was visible throughout.



"Which makes the prominent Jewish involvement in these protests all the more curious and alarming."

Dems Rub Hands In Glee

See how smart they are?  They screw the country by pulling a fast one on a distracted public, finagling an utterly moronic 2 month tax 'holiday' that explodes their 'guardians-of-social security' posturing (not that they admit it) for transparently partisan gain at the explicit expense of the national interest, and pull on a 'tax-cutter' costume for 2012.



Psychopaths.



The Hammer:



"This is a $121 billion annual drain on the Treasury that makes a mockery of the Democrats’ reverence for the Social Security trust fund and its inviolability. Obama’s OMB director took Social Security completely off the table in debt-reduction talks under the pretense that Social Security is self-financing. This is pure fiction, because the Treasury supplies whatever shortfalls Social Security faces. But now, with the payroll tax holiday, the administration openly demonstrates bad faith — conceding with its actions that the payroll tax is, after all, interchangeable with other revenue and never actually sequestered to ensure future payments to retirees."

Super Genius Hero Messiah

H/t Jacobson:

Mitt Scared Of Newt

What a surprise (Jacobson).

Merry Christmas

Obama style:

How To Most Effectively Destroy The US Economy? A: Re-elect Obama

You CAN. NOT. Make this crap up.



Just un-frickin-believable.



Anyone pretending this administration cares about jobs, energy independence, or the economy is a liar or a fool:



"At an unusual gala ceremony on the release of a major new Environmental Protection Agency rule yesterday, chief Lisa Jackson called it 'historic' and 'a great victory.' And she's right: The rule may be the most expensive the agency has ever issued, and it represents the triumph of the Obama Administration's green agenda over economic growth and job creation. Congratulations."



They're running coal-fired electricity plants out of business by executive diktat, ignoring statutory responsibilities along the way.



But hey, it's OK, because they know they're right. The law books are as 'alive' as the Constitution, ain't they?

Kim Jong Il Escapes Justice, Dies Of Natural Causes

Chaos warning.

Iceland Beclowns Itself; Stabs Israel In The Back

Abrams at the Weekly Standard explains how Iceland on December 15th recognized a PLO state in the West Bank:



"In this context it is worth noting precisely what Iceland recognized, and it was Palestine within the '1967 borders.' That means that according to Iceland, Palestinian sovereignty includes 100 percent of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. Palestine, as Icelanders see it, includes the Western Wall of the Second Temple, Judaism's holiest site. The judenrein policy enforced by Jordan during the years it ruled Jerusalem, would thus be reinstated. And Israel in any recognizable form would anyway disappear, for the Allthingi resolution calls for all Palestinian refugees--of whom according to the U.N. there are five million--to 'return' to Israel. Finally, lest there be any of this nonsense about moral distinctions between U.N. member states and terrorist organizations, the resolution treats Israel and Hamas as equals by demanding that the 'conflicting parties cease warfare and acts of violence forthwith.' "

In Defense Of Newt

McCarthy at NRO (yes - that NRO!) (h/t Jacobson):



"And as for Gingrich’s Republican 'colleagues,' whom the Editors applaud for ejecting him from the speakership, no one can deny that they had their reasons. But is there not another side of that story worth telling? In the seven years they controlled Congress after Gingrich left, didn’t these esteemed colleagues have something of a 'weakness for half-baked (and not especially conservative) ideas'? Under a Republican president, they added over $3 trillion to the federal deficit, shunned conservative policy in favor of Beltway influence-peddling, and so damaged the GOP brand that we ended up, first, with an electoral rout that lost the majority Gingrich had worked years to forge, and then, with Obama. How much should I really care that Newt’s fabulous colleagues think his reemergence would be a disaster for Republicans? Lest these characters forget, it is the Tea Party and President Obama’s radicalism that have put them back in the saddle — 2010 was not a merit promotion; they were the only alternative in town."

Messiah Plays URJ Crowd Like A Fiddle

http://www.allfreelogo.com

Feeling the heat resulting from his unremitting hostility toward Israel, Obama lies with abandon to a friendly crowd of Reform Jews, scheming to lure them back into the fold.



There is a sucker born every minute. It's a fact.



Rennert at American Thinker:



"Second, there was one important name missing from Obama's speech when he lavished praise on worthy U.S. and Israeli companions in his efforts to make a better world: the name of Benjamin Netanyahu. Not once did Obama refer to Israel's democratically elected leader. While he threw a bouquet to Ehud Barak, Israel's more dovish defense minister, the president's lips were sealed about Israel's head of government.



"Obama may depict himself as an unassailable friend of Israel, but don't assume this includes Bibi. And with Bibi relegated to the wings by the president of the United States, one can't help but wonder how solid the U.S.-Israel relationship really is."

And They Criticise NEWT For Grandiosity? He's Got NOTHING On THIS Guy

Obama ranks himself with the greats (Brietbart.tv):

Genius Messiah Is Full Steam Ahead On High-Speed Rail

http://www.ratbehavior.org/

Do Dem voters ever learn? What in God's name compels them to continue to vote for the idiots who perpetuate overwhelming insanity like this?



Morrissey:



"Er, no. The worst thing they could do is to waste taxpayer money on a boondoggle that, at least at this point, actually has no realistic final price. The new estimate includes a risk of a 20% increase from the new $99 billion estimate based on 'route options,' and that’s before any work has even been started. Once ground breaks, the project will undoubtedly face unexpected setbacks and need for new cash infusions, a pattern seen on every public works project in memory."

Not Just The Economy

Obama has been a feckless idiot in foreign affairs too.

Krauthammer:



"Obama imagined that his silver tongue and exquisite sensitivity to Islam would persuade the mullahs to give up their weapons program. Amazingly, they resisted his charms, choosing instead to become a nuclear power. The negotiations did nothing but confer legitimacy on the regime at its point of maximum vulnerability (and savagery), as well as give it time for further uranium enrichment and bomb development.



"For his exertions, Obama earned (a) continued lethal Iranian assistance to guerrillas killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, (b) a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador by blowing up a Washington restaurant, (c) the announcement just this week by a member of parliament of Iranian naval exercises to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and (d) undoubted Chinese and Russian access to a captured U.S. drone for the copying and countering of its high-tech secrets.



"How did Obama answer that one?



"On Monday, he politely asked for the drone back."



The praise heaped on Messiah for finally getting around to relenting to Panetta's pressure to OK killing bin Laden is ridiculous.

Tom Friedman: Moron

I generally can't be fully bothered with Friedman's semi-sentient tripe, but Hinderaker bravely waded in (I hope he wore his hazmat suit) - so here's JH's take:



"Friedman’s thinking on this entire subject is hopelessly confused, as shown by his casual smear of Newt Gingrich:

That thought came to mind last week when Newt Gingrich took the Republican competition to grovel for Jewish votes — by outloving Israel — to a new low by suggesting that the Palestinians are an “invented” people and not a real nation entitled to a state.

"Stop to consider that for a moment. Gingrich and other Republicans are “grovel[ing] for Jewish votes” by supporting Israel? How much does Friedman know about the demographics of America west of the Hudson? As of 2010, there were 6,190 Jews in Iowa out of a population of more than three million–0.2% of Iowa’s population. How many of those do you suppose are Republican caucus-goers? A few hundred? Then there is New Hampshire, where Jews represent 0.8% of the population; Republican Jews, a smaller proportion still. Or South Carolina, where a little over 11,000 Jews are sprinkled among a population of more than 4.5 million. And finally–I can’t resist this one–ask John Thune what he thinks about Israel. Thune represents South Dakota, home to a grand total of 395 Jews, which rounds to 0.0% of the state’s population."



The "invented people" line sure sticks in some commenters' craws.



Off the top of my head, here are a few legitimate "peoples" (as in "nations," as in "cohesive human communities larger than small groups of clans, uniquely identifiable by shared language, culture, history, governance, and ties to a contiguous land over an extended period of time"*) without their own states right now, more deserving (by a few light-years) than the Palestinians:



Kurds.

Tibetans.

Scots.

Welsh.

French Canadians.

Oh yeah, and the Jews.



Not that I think any of them (other than the Tibetans and the Jews) ought to get states, mind you. That isn't the point. The point is the historicity of each of their claims is vastly superior to that of the Palestinians.  Yet it is the historicity of the Palestinian claim, supposedly, that justifies the vilification of Israel and demonization of her people, the domination of the UN agenda year in and year out by the Palestinians, the unending Palestinian terror campaign, and the self-righteous clamoring of left-wingers and anti-Semites around the world for the creation of a new (inevitably hostile, tyrannical, and terror-supporting) Palestinian state on the border of country to whose destruction it is committed.

But people keep gobbling up Friedman's idiotic books.  I guess he's another genius, like Obama.





* I popped that off on the spur of the moment.  Wasn't hard at all.   What's so complicated?



Addendum: CAMERA chimes in (quoting disallowed).



And More - Radosh at PJ Media:



"As an unnamed Democratic aide on the Hill told Rubin, there is 'genuine, bipartisan support for Israel that reflects America’s heartland.' It is the new liberal/left intellectuals in the liberal think tanks that are now leading the charge against Israel. Clearly, Thomas Friedman has become the most important outfront member of this group. It is they, however, who are out of touch with the American people. One must ask them, do they really want Republicans to be the only political party in our country standing firm with Israel?"



And yet more - Tobin at Contentions on Netanyahu's refusal to rebut Friedman on The Times-Dem's op-ed page:



"Netanyahu’s office is only just now noticing something the paper’s readers deduced long ago. The editors of the Times abandoned any semblance of balance on their opinion page many years ago. In terms of American domestic politics and foreign policy that means a preponderance of liberal views with only token and half-hearted opposition by the Times’s house 'conservatives.' However, when it comes to Israel, it means a page in which Israel’s friends are unwelcome while its critics and enemies enjoy a year-round open season on the Jewish state. In the not-so-distant past, writers like A.M. Rosenthal and William Safire​ would balance the views of the editorial column and the paper’s left-wing columnists, but now there is no one on staff ready to do so."

Old Games

Hartwell at PJ Media notes the Dems new/old efforts to sabotage electoral integrity and fair play. Not hard to see why:



"Democrats, it seems, are adamantly opposed to asking voters to confirm their identities. Indeed, the DNC’s email claims that requiring voters to identify themselves violates 'fundamental rights.' "



I guess voting multiple times or under an alias or if you aren't even a citizen is a "fundamental right."



"Fundamental right."  That's the term Dems use about an opinion of theirs that they want to place above debate, because their argument is too weak to sustain itself.

Something Else To Worry About

Though I doubt the Obama administration has the brains to do so.



Silver at PJ Media:



"Our political leaders tell us the way out of our current financial crisis is through American innovation. But what if we are unable to participate in the next great American discovery simply because this time we don’t control the necessary raw materials? The millions of jobs flowing from these inventions would blossom where the materials are available. Today that place is China.



"Even more threatening in the short term, China can at any moment easily challenge our military might by simply refusing to ship rare earths to America. U.S. high tech manufacturing would grind to a halt within months. This includes production of bulletproof vests (yttrium), night vision goggles (gadolinium), and the guidance systems on rockets, drones, and tanks (erbium, neodymium).



"Would China actually use the threat of discontinuing U.S. rare earth shipments as a political weapon? It already has.



"China did so to Japan 13 months ago. In October 2010, Japan arrested a fishing boat captain who wandered near islands in the East China Sea that both nations claim sovereignty over. In response, China instructed its customs offices to stop shipping rare earths to Japan. Within hours Japan released the captain. Japan knew it was out of business without rare earths."



Holy frickin cow! I must admit this wasn't on my radar.  And Silver warns the econuts:



"The U.S. environmental movement supports restrictions on mining. They need to realize this is a Catch-22 that threatens the very future of our country — as they themselves envision it! They cannot both demand a green technology future and simultaneously stand in the way of mining the raw materials essential to manufacture these products. Simply not blocking approvals will not be enough; they must actively demand a fresh approach to critical mineral mining."

Glick Backs Newt

Hat tip to Professor Jacobson.



Glick:

"Both Rubin and Abrams, as well as Romney, justified their attacks on Gingrich and their defense of the failed consensus by noting that no Israeli leaders are saying what Gingrich said. Rubin went so far as to allege that Gingrich's words of truth about the Palestinians hurt Israel.

 

"This is of course absurd. What many Americans fail to recognize is that Israeli leaders are not as free to tell the truth about the nature of the conflict as American leaders are. Rather than look to Israel for leadership on this issue, American leaders would do well to view Israel as the equivalent of West Germany during the Cold War. With half of Berlin occupied by the Red Army and West Berlin serving as the tripwire for a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, West German leaders were not as free to tell the truth about the Soviet Union as American leaders were.

 

"Today, with Jerusalem under constant political and terror threat, with all of Israel increasingly encircled by Islamist regimes, and with the Obama administration abandoning traditional US support for Israel, it is becoming less and less reasonable to expect Israel to take the rhetorical lead in telling important and difficult truths about the nature of its neighbors."

Truth. LEADERSHIP.

Professor Jacobson comments upon Newt's reiteration of his statement of fact about 'Palestine' and the 'Palestinians.'



"The importance of Gingrich’s comment was that it skewered a false historical narrative which dominates the international debate and is used for the demonization of Israel and its chief supporter, the United States.





"Newt was absolutely correct to say enough already with the falsehood. If it upset the Palestinians, well too bad. It’s about time a prominent political figure in the United States didn’t just voice support for Israel but did so in a historically accurate manner which addressed the false Palestinian narrative of perpetual victimization."









Go ahead, Ostensibly-Israel-Supporting-Obamazoids. Watch.  Listen.  I dare you. You wish Obama - or any Dem - would - could  - talk like this.



Keep dreaming.

Who Says It Better Than Steyn?

Yet another must-read from the Master Of Mayhen, the King Of Catastrophe, Mark Steyn:



"The political class looted the future to bribe the present, confident that tomorrow could be endlessly postponed. Hey, why not? 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day,' says Macbeth. 'To borrow, and to borrow, and to borrow,' said the political class, like Macbeth with a heavy cold (to reprise a rare joke from Mrs. Thatcher). And they failed to anticipate that the petty pace would accelerate and overwhelm them. On Thursday, John Corzine, former U.S. senator, former governor of New Jersey, former Goldman Sachs golden boy and the man who embodies the malign nexus between Big Government and a financial services sector tap-dancing on derivatives of derivatives, came to Congress to try to explain how the now-bankrupt entity he ran, MF Global, had managed to misplace $1.2 billion. The man once tipped to be Obama's Treasury secretary and whom Vice President Joe Biden described as the fellow who's always 'the smartest guy in the room,' explained his affairs thus: 'I simply do not know where the money is.' Does that apply only to his private business or to his years in the Senate, too?"

Crookedest, Stupidest Administration Evah?

LightSquared ruins GPS signals (Morrissey):



"Why is this important? Philip Falcone is a big donor to the Democratic Party, and he has billions of dollars at stake in LightSquared’s approval. Also, Obama himself was an investor in LightSquared at one point, as were or are a number of his associates. The resounding failure in this test makes it look like the White House pressured witnesses to back off of exposing LightSquared’s product as exactly the kind of dangerous problem that critics had maintained all along — with the intent to mislead Congress into moving forward with LightSquared’s government contracts."

egotvonline.com

Making The Right Enemies

Go Newt, go!!



Spokespersons for Abbas mouth off hysterically over Gingrich's interview with the Jewish Channel:



"Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, described his comments in an interview as "despicable." Hanan Ashrawi, another top official, said Gingrich's 'very racist comments' showed he was 'incapable of holding public office.' "



See, in the West Bank and Gaza the little Hitlers get to determine who is capable or "incapable" of "holding public office."



Hey Hanan, you might want to peak over the wall at Israel one of these days. You might figure out how democracy works.

Corruption

"Holder, Blago, Richardson," oh, my!



Malkin:



"The feds had been digging into a nationwide web of favor-trading between financial firms and politicians overseeing local government bond markets. CDR was tied to a doomed bond deal in Alabama, which, according to Bloomberg News, threatened to cause the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. CDR raked in nearly $1.5 million in fees from a New Mexico state financial agency after donating more than $100,000 to Richardson’s efforts to register Hispanic and Native American voters and to pay for expenses at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the news service reported."

I Think I'll Crow Some More About Newt's Glorious 'Palestinian' Comment

When a major Presidential candidate says out loud what you know is true, have said yourself for years is true, is vitally important, and has been to this moment completely suppressed at all levels of mainstream debate (thereby corrupting and poisoning dialogue), it's bloody worth savoring.



Daniel Pipes at The Corner:



"Everyone from the PLO to a Mitt Romney spokesman jumped on Gingrich for this assertion, but he happens to be absolutely correct: No Arabic-speaking Muslims identified themselves as 'Palestinian' until 1920, when, in rapid order this appellation and identity was adopted by the Muslim Arabs living in the British mandate of Palestine."



Perhaps this is the sort of thing the Newt-critics call 'undisciplined,' what Noonan calls the "wild side."



I call it leadership.  I'm sure the possibility 'disturbs' some people.

Newt On The "Palestinians"

Via Legal Insurrection:







And to extend a point, here is Steven Hayward parrying the typical arguments against Newt by drawing parallels between Newt and Churchill (they're just parallels; don't come back at me with straw-man arguments about Hayward saying Newt is the same as Churchill 'n' all):



"As to Ramesh’s challenge, did Churchill ever take $1.6 million to side with the enemy, well, if I adopt the rather latitudinarian understanding of 'enemy' Ramesh deploys here, I believe the answer is actually yes. First, as chancellor of the exchequer in the 1920s, Churchill consistently sought to cut defense spending, and also expressed support for appeasement, saying on many occasions that Germany had been mistreated at Versailles. In other words, when Churchill was attacking appeasement and calling for more defense spending in the 1930s, he was assailing policies that he himself had helped set in motion. Yes, circumstances had changed; in this regard, everyone should read Churchill’s essay 'Consistency in Politics' and the complete rebuttal to Ramesh’s premise."

Dem Playing To Type

Cheating in Wisconsin (Jacobson):



"The video is here. Unfortunately there is no embed code available.



"But rest assured, 'punchy' Democratic spokesman Graem Zielisnki assures us that it’s not true, and that the guy in the interview suffers from mental illness and is not credible.



"Remember, the election officials in Wisconsin already have announced they will not be checking for duplicates, so the burden will fall to anti-recall forces, who already are organizing."

Slammin'

With The Hammer:



"It seems that he and his policies have nothing to do with the current state of things. Sure, presidents are ordinarily held accountable for economic growth, unemployment, national indebtedness (see Obama, above). But not this time. Responsibility, you see, lies with the rich.



"Or, as the philosophers of Zuccotti Park call them, the 1 percent. For Obama, these rich are the ones holding back the 99 percent. The 'breathtaking greed of a few' is crushing the middle class. If only the rich paid their 'fair share,' the middle class would have a chance. Otherwise, government won’t have enough funds to 'invest' in education and innovation, the golden path to the sunny uplands of economic growth and opportunity.



"Where to begin? A country spending twice as much per capita on education as it did in 1970 with zero effect on test scores is not underinvesting in education. It’s mis-investing. As for federally directed spending on innovation — like Solyndra? Ethanol? The preposterously subsidized, flammable Chevy Volt?"

Dems Vs. Israel

Someday some people may wake up (Taranto):



" 'Two of the Democratic Party's core institutions are challenging a bipartisan consensus on Israel and Palestine that has dominated American foreign policy for more than a decade,' Politico reports:

The Center for American Progress, the party's key hub of ideas and strategy, and Media Matters [sic], a central messaging organization, have emerged as vocal critics of their party's staunchly pro-Israel congressional leadership and have been at odds, at times, with Barack Obama's White House, which has acted as a reluctant ally to Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli government.

"Whatever one may think about the Middle East, the emergence of CAP and MediaMutters as 'core institutions' of the Democratic Party is unsettling. It suggests that the donks are increasingly organizing themselves around tactics of bullying and slander. That's good news for the GOP inasmuch as it indicates the Dems' underlying weaknesses. But it's bad news for the country that one of the two major parties has so lost its moral bearings."



Wanna support Israel? Vote Republican. Simple and indisputable.

Genius Messiah Radiates Intellectual Omnipotence

With the following statement (Powers at MM):



“ 'However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline,' he said, 'they’re going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance.' "



Yes, he did!