COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Via OGF, anti-Hillary video making the rounds - (she and her ex-Marine husband are staunch Republicans, a dying breed in Vegas)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TfG0bSK6fH4
*********
I disagree that there is only one truly evil country in the middle east. I count more than that.
Still lovely day here.
Cheers
Kit Carson is out in California fighting the Mexicans on Fox, so I'm going for a walk.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm glad the Protestant Work Ethic won out over the Siesta, as it generally does.
Quirk has always disagreed with me on this.
(which is why he went into advertising)
DeleteBritish voters’ warning to Hillary Clinton
ReplyDeleteBy Post Editorial Board
May 8, 2015 | 7:59pm
Modal Trigger
British voters’ warning to Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton Photo: AP
Hillary Clinton might want to take note of the shocker across the pond.
For weeks, as the UK’s general election approached, polls had the Conservative and Labor parties in a too-close-to-call race, even headed to a “hung Parliament” where neither had enough votes to form a government.
Yet, when all the votes were counted Thursday night, the Conservatives had a clear (if narrow) majority — better than they’d done last time out.
Labor — after a hard left turn that repudiated its mid-’90s resurgence under then-Prime Minister Tony Blair — lost 26 seats and was virtually wiped out in Scotland.
This should be a warning for Clinton, who has herself shifted left on crime, immigration and even “income inequality” — i.e., class warfare.
Clinton has been reinventing herself to please the polls for decades. Now her pollsters have plainly told her the voters want something well to the left of the New Democrats Bill Clinton led two decades ago (which, in fact, inspired Blair’s New Labor).
Beware, Hillary. Polling has been overinflating the left’s strength in recent contests around the globe, from last year’s US midterms to this year’s Israeli voting to, now, the UK general election.
Indeed, the right’s been on the rise across the English-speaking world, from Australia to Canada to India and now Britain.
The class-warfare stuff, in particular, seems a hard sell.
After all, last fall, Mayor de Blasio, keynoting Labor’s party conference, called income inequality “the issue of our time throughout the globe.”
He told Labor leader Ed Miliband, “You are on the right side of history.”
Oops. After his historic loss, Miliband quit his leadership post Friday.
The Clinton campaign might want to look for a slightly different “issue of our time.”
http://nypost.com/2015/05/08/british-voters-warning-to-hillary-clinton/
****************
Poll Question of the Day
Are Ash, Rufus, Deuce
1) Rats on a Sinking Ship
2) Destined for the 'Dustbin of History'
3) Irrelevant to Modern Life
4) Sad old political Moonshiners
5) Other
Results published tomorrow p.m.
.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama made his case for his free trade pact with Asia by directing some tough words at a traditional ally: Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
“She’s absolutely wrong,” Obama said of the Democratic senator from Massachusetts in an interview with Yahoo News that was posted Saturday.
Warren, who has strong support among liberal, pro-labor Democrats, suggested last week that a bill granting Obama fast-track negotiating authority to complete a 12-country free trade bill could weaken U.S. financial regulations that the president championed and helped put in place after the last deep recession.
She called the deal “an overlooked threat to the safety of our financial markets.”
Obama suggested that Warren’s critique was driven by politics and her desire to promote her populist brand.
“Think about the logic of that,” the president said of the senator’s criticism. “The notion that I had this massive fight with Wall Street to make sure that we don’t repeat what happened in 2007 and 2008. And then I sign a provision that would unravel it? I’d have to be pretty stupid. And it doesn’t make any sense.”
Obama has touted the 2010 financial reform bill as one of the major legislative achievements of his first term. He went on in the interview to dismiss Warren’s claims as “pure speculation.
“The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else,” Obama told Yahoo. “And you know, she’s got a voice that she wants to get out there. And I understand that. And on most issues, she and I deeply agree. On this one, though, her arguments don’t stand the test of fact and scrutiny.”
The U.S. Senate will begin debate as soon as Monday on “fast track” legislation that will allow Obama to complete negotiations on the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Congress must then approve or reject the deal, but cannot modify it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-warrens-critique-of-free-trade-bill-doesnt-make-any-sense/2015/05/09/ffe7b048-f6a6-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html?tid=hpModule_f8335a3c-868c-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&hpid=z9
Warren is of course correct on this issue and Obama wrong.
.
.
ReplyDeleteThe largest blocs in both parties back the House bill, negotiated with Mr. Lee and Mr. Leahy. But another faction, led by Mr. Paul, Mr. Wyden and Mr. Merkley, has vowed to strengthen that legislation. Still another bipartisan bloc wants changes to the Patriot Act, but do not want to go as far as the House bill.
Even presidential politics has muddled the vote counting, with Mr. Paul rallying supporters behind a stronger bill; Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, backing the USA Freedom Act; and Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, backing Mr. McConnell’s straight extension.
Further complicating the issue are senators — like Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin — who voted against a procedural measure on a similar overhaul bill last year but are facing competitive re-elections next year. Mr. Johnson is likely to face former Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat, the only senator to oppose the Patriot Act when it passed in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/us/politics/court-ruling-on-nsa-data-collection-jolts-both-defenders-and-reformers.html?mabReward=A2&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine
A vote on the USA Freedom Act is coming up.
If I thought Cruz or Rubio had a chance of becoming president, their position on extending the Patriot Act without change would be enough to make me vote against them.
.
Rubio has a chance.
ReplyDeleteQuandary time for Quirk, if Rubio is the nominee of the Republicans.
He is pledged not to vote for Hillary.
Might be third party time again for Q.
So, the footballs are deflated ?
ReplyDeleteSo what ?
I don't see how this is to anyone's advantage as things would even out.
Unless one team goes to the pass much more often than the other, perhaps.
Even so, there is the issue of the ease of interceptions for the defending team.....
.
Delete1:00 AM and thinking of deflated footballs in a distracted way.
I'm sure Freud could write a book on it.
(Well, if he weren't dead, I mean.)
.
As a retired 60 something closer to 70 than 60, and as a prostate cancer survivor, and as an avid football fan I will remind you that Freud once said:
Delete"Sometimes a telephone pole is just a telephone pole, and a cave is just a cave."
Perhaps you are projecting your own withered deflated aging crinkled balls into a reflection of a purer kind.
Je Suis Pamela Geller
ReplyDeleteMay 8, 2015 by Robert Spencer
I was standing next to Pamela Geller just after our American Freedom Defense Initiative/Jihad Watch Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest ended last Sunday in Garland, Texas when one of our security team ran in and told us that there had been a shooting outside. As the audience was led to another area inside the building and the outside was swept for bombs and additional jihadis, Geller and I were hurried to a safe room. It was the last time since then that Pamela Geller has been safe.
The Islamic State quickly issued a communiqué that included this:
The attack by the Islamic State in America is only the beginning of our efforts to establish a wiliyah [actually wilayah, administrative district] in the heart of our enemy. Our aim was the khanzeer [pig] Pamela Geller and to show her that we don’t care what land she hides in or what sky shields her; we will send all our Lions to achieve her slaughter. This will heal the hearts of our brothers and disperse the ones behind her. To those who protect her: this will be your only warning of housing this woman and her circus show. Everyone who houses her events, gives her a platform to spill her filth are legitimate targets. We have been watching closely who was present at this event and the shooter of our brothers. We knew that the target was protected. Our intention was to show how easy we give our lives for the Sake of Allah.
On top of that, instead of rallying to her defense and to that of the freedom of speech, the mainstream media, both on the Left and on the Right, has spent the week excoriating Pamela Geller for daring to “provoke” the poor jihadis, as if the two Muslim gunmen who showed up at our event would have become fiercely patriotic stockbrokers if only we hadn’t shown those cartoons.
It is therefore clear that if, God forbid, anything does happen to Pamela Geller, the talking heads will look soulfully into the cameras and say, Of course we are shocked…Of course we condemn….but…wellllll…she had it coming…she should have submitted to Sharia blasphemy restrictions like the rest of us…
The reality is that if the gunmen were “provoked” by the Muhammad cartoons, they would have been “provoked” by something else. What had the Jews in the Hyper Cacher supermarket in January done to “provoke” the Muslims? They dared to be Jews. What had the people in the Lindt Chocolat Cafe in Australia done to “provoke” the Muslims? Dared to be non-Muslims.
People who say our cartoon contest deliberately tried to provoke a violent reaction are under the apparent delusion that if we abide by Muhammad Atta’s advice to the passengers on his doomed plane on September 11, 2001, all will be well. Atta told the passengers, “Stay quiet and you’ll be OK.”
They weren’t.
The jihadis are already “provoked.” As I show in my forthcoming book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS, they were already planning and preparing for massive jihad attacks in the United States long before our cartoon show was ever considered. No amount of submission on our part is going to change that. In fact, the more we submit to violent intimidation, the more violent intimidation we are going to get. Why should the jihadis abandon a winning formula?
DeleteThe world rallied to proclaim “Je suis Charlie” after the massacre of Muhammad cartoonists in Paris in January. But when those jihadis targeted our Muhammad cartoon event last Sunday, few were saying “Je suis Pamela Geller.” What’s the difference? The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were reliably Leftist, while Geller is identified with the Right. And now it is clear: the Leftist intelligentsia would rather see the freedom of speech restricted, and Sharia censorship imposed, rather than stand with someone whose opinions they find unacceptable.
That really isn’t any surprise. The Left in America is increasingly authoritarian, intolerant, and opposed to the freedom of speech. Leftist thinkers speak only to each other, dismissing challenges from the Right with ad hominem attacks or ignoring them altogether. It would be easy for those who live in that echo chamber to think of the Garland jihadi gunmen, Ibrahim Simpson and Nadir Soofi, as ideological kin: assassins rather than character assassins, but with the same goal in mind.
Those who understand, however, that the freedom of speech, and free society in general, cannot possibly survive the imposition of censorship to avoid offending a group that reacts with murderous violence to being offended, are indeed saying Je Suis Pamela Geller today. If the free world ever remembers that obeying someone who will kill you if you disobey only reinforces your slavery, it will owe her a debt of gratitude of awesome proportions.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
LIKE Frontpagemag.com on Facebook and Subscribe to Jamie Glazov Productions.
About Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We’re In.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/robert-spencer/je-suis-pamela-geller/
.
DeleteI was standing next to Pamela Geller just after our American Freedom Defense Initiative/Jihad Watch Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest ended last Sunday in Garland...
You mean the AFDIJWMAECC?
.
Yes, that is what Sir Robert was referring to, the popularly known AFDIJWMAECC.
DeleteTucker Carlson: Jihadists have “already won”
DeleteMay 9, 2015 5:28 pm By Robert Spencer
Tucker CarlsonTucker Carlson is way off base when he says that Pamela Geller “sets out to infuriate people.” What she does is tell truths that others fear to tell, and that infuriates the moneyed and powerful Leftist and Islamic supremacist elites. But his little avowals that he is not off the PC reservation concerning Geller aside, Carlson is absolutely right that jihadists “already won because they have successfully intimidated many of the elites in this country.” He is also right when he says: “The New York Times editorialized on behalf of Andres Serrano to do the crucifix in urine; they editorialized on behalf of The Book of Mormon, even though it offended religious groups; they editorialized against Pamela Geller. What’s the difference? Well, the Mormons and the evangelicals weren’t threatening to murder those artists.”
Indeed. The opposition to Geller by the erstwhile champions of free speech is a canonization of the assassin’s veto, an affirmation that terrorism works, which means we will only see more of it.
“Tucker Carlson: The Jihadists Have ‘Already Won,’” by Andrew Kirell, Mediaite, May 8, 2015:
According to Fox’s Tucker Carlson, the jihadists have already won by effectively “intimidating the elites” into never publicly criticizing Islam.
Appearing Friday morning on America’s Newsroom, Carlson suggested that while controversial anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller “sets out to infuriate people” and uses tactics that many reasonable people would find disagreeable, “you can’t use violence to stop people from saying things you don’t agree with.” The Fox & Friends Weekend host was referring to the thwarted attack on Geller’s “Draw Muhammad” contest in Garland, Texas, this past Sunday afternoon.
“You have a right to say what you think, period,” Carlson continued, in the clip first spotted by Grabien. “Nobody has a right to kill you for saying that; that’s the core value of America. Once you give that up, everything falls apart.”
Asked what would have happened had the two deceased gunmen been successful in their attempt to kill people at Geller’s event, Carlson said that jihadists “already won because they have successfully intimidated many of the elites in this country.” His example: “The New York Times editorialized on behalf of Andres Serrano to do the crucifix in urine; they editorialized on behalf of The Book of Mormon, even though it offended religious groups; they editorialized against Pamela Geller. What’s the difference? Well, the Mormons and the evangelicals weren’t threatening to murder those artists.”
Watch below, via Fox:
video
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/tucker-carlson-jihadists-have-already-won
Hope I haven't scared everyone else away.
ReplyDeleteCheers !!
out
Someone here once suggested the Jews poisoned Yasser Arafat, but they did not, nor did another Palestinian faction.
ReplyDeleteMay 10, 2015
Did Palestinians poison Yasser Arafat?
By Michael Curtis
In his musical-comedy film, The Court Jester, Danny Kaye amused us with the tongue twisting line, “the pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle.”
The long-running non-musical Palestinian theater of the absurd about who employed the poison that killed Yasser Arafat and how it was done is not as amusing but it is nearing its resolution.
The Palestinian comedy appears to have ended with the decision on April 30, 2015 of French investigating judges that there was no foul play in the death of Arafat, the PLO leader, who died aged 75 on November 11, 2004 at the Percy de Clamart hospital near Paris. They concluded there was no evidence he had ingested Poloniuim-210 before his symptoms of stomach pains that occurred while he was living in Ramallah. The judges reported to the French prosecutor, who now must make a final decision, that Arafat’s death was not the result of poisoning..............
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/05/did_palestinians_poison_yasser_arafat_.html
The old goat finally died of natural causes, to the great great relief of his younger wife.