Martin Peretz Out at the New Republic!

It is not I who first discovered that as one ages past 70 one tends to mess up memory.   I often joke these days that I am still sufficiently youngish with the bull,  essays, and multiple choice, it’s the short answer stuff  which  stimies me at times……usually at inconvenient times……..and for those more experienced in this story  of aging life than I and can laugh about it,  I often can’t remember what I did five minutes ago.

So ….with the name “Marty Peretz” seen  while  browsing through Pajamas Media, I stopped!   “I know that name” I reported to myself.   I probably have a reserve of serveral hundred names in this political business stuff  for whom I can recognize as a political person with a political-social view of some sort.  

Example:   Paul Krugman was a hack, thug, screwball, bigotted writer for the New York Times ten years ago, and has remained roughly  the same except  he has slipped  even from his previous standards of low life writing.  Go to Paul Krugman for a mechanical Marxist oriented recitation void of thought.

Immediately ‘Liberal’ came to memory accompanied with a flicker of pleasantness…..reminding me that  Mr. Peretz was a name for some Liberal I could trust as a thinking person who represents his political positions well…….

“Oh, yes, I thrilled…..He’s the Peretz  at the “New Republic”.    (as with the name, Christopher Hitchens, Peretz is on the list of those I want to know what they are writing about)…. I found the following report by Ron Radosh at Pajamas Media, one of the best, most reliable conservative blog sites available for reliable information and conservative opinion.  Ron Radosh writes:

“Martin Peretz has been a pillar of responsible liberalism since buying The New Republic magazine in 1974.  While establishing himself as a respected teacher at Harvard, he also made TNR into one of the most exciting publications of the post Vietnam era.  Peretz gave graduate students like Michael Kinsley, Leon Wieseltier and Andrew Sullivan the opportunity to establish themselves as important public intellectuals and in return they helped him give a second life to The New Republic, a magazine of politics founded by Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann in 1914. Peretz defined its unique blend of muscular political journalism and literary and cultural criticism.  By the 1980s, TNR was the most influential small circulation magazine in the country, and unique among liberal publications in its defense of America in a time of Soviet advances and leftish infatuation with the Sandinistas and other totalitarian adventures, and also in its steadfast defense of Israel when the “progressive” attack on the only democracy in the Middle East, which Peretz saw would become a roar on the left, was still just a murmur.

In 2007, Peretz sold TNR to the Canadian media conglomerate Canwest, but retained his position as editor in chief.  Two years later, as the magazine’s circulation continued to fall, he formed a group of investors to buy it back.  Throughout all the changes, Peretz established himself as the liberal the left loved to hate, primarily because of his resolute  defense of Israel in an era when progressives, acting in concert with Islamic extremists, insisted that it was a reincarnation of Hilter’s Germany.  Peretz’s enemies bided their time, waiting for an excuse to isolate and stigmatize him. Their moment came a few weeks ago when he wrote in his New Republic blog, “The Spine,” about how the primary target of Islamist violence is other Muslims.  “Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims,” Peretz wrote.  “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense they will abuse.”

The reaction was immediate.  Leftist commentators from the elite media like The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof denounced Peretz’s Islamophobia.  Students at Harvard picketed him with signs calling him a “racist rat.”  Intellectuals such as Kinsley, Peter Beinart, The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg, and others whose careers Peretz made, left him twisting slowly in the wind. It was a full fledged public burning that culminated in a recent New York Magazine article titled “Peretz in Exile.” The piece by Benjamin Wallace-Well portrayed Peretz as an intellectual pariah who was unbalanced and ultimately undone by his betrayal of the left, and most of all by his rear guard commitment to Zionism.

Wells broke the story that as of the first of this New Year, Peretz would be stepping down and given the new largely honorary position of Editor in Chief Emeritus. Moreover, it was reported that his popular blog on TNR’s website, “The Spine,” would be dropped from the magazine’s site. This turned out not be true. I spoke to Peretz, who is teaching in Israel, by phone. He pointed out to me that he is actively writing new blog entries — as he has the past few days. Moreover, rumors that he was forced out of the editorship are not true. He was contemplating leaving that post the last few years, he said, and only pleas by Frank Foer and Leon Wieseltier kept him from doing so. Involved in other projects, Peretz feels he had no time for the responsibility and day to day work of an editor in chief, and felt that now was the right time to relieve himself of the job. Moreover, the implication that the Board of TNR wanted him out are also not true; nor were the rumors that they had a controlling share in the magazine and that he had to bend to its desires.

Daily Kos Reports Gay Demands to Run in GOP Presidential Primaries in 2011

By Lynda Waddington …….”Iowa Conservatives hope to exclude one 2012 GOP hopeful” is the title of the following article at Washington Independent found at Daily Kos.

The Daily Kos is the hysteria center of the American Far Left.  It tends to be youthful and gay…..and detests conservatives.   These are the times when such hysterics who support the American Marxist movement feel their nest of unacceptable ideas  is  endangered.   Even within the gay community often at the lead among Left fanatics,  a touch of rational thinking is occuring.   Rational thinking……such as understanding that the larger the government means the smaller each citizen.  Gays are leaving the Marxist coalition.

“Fred Karger, an openly gay Republican who has formed an exploratory committee in hopes of seeking his party’s nomination for president in 2012, has already had “conversations” with the Hawkeye State’s more socially conservative party members, but the discourse is heating up again as state activists aim to exclude Karger from upcoming debates.

Karger informed reporter Sean J. Miller of The Hill this weekend that he was excluded from a list of 2012 hopefuls invited to a March event hosted by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition (formerly Iowa Christian Alliance). Karger believes his exclusion is a direct result of homophobia.

… Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa group, said Karger wasn’t among the 15 potential candidates invited to attend because he only talks about one issue — gay rights. “We’re inviting all potential candidates who are legitimate candidates,” Scheffler told The Ballot Box. Karger “is not a legitimate candidate.”

“That’s code for homophobia,” said Karger, who worked as a consultant on the late Ronald Reagan’s campaigns for governor and president. “I’m going to send him a letter and ask that I be included, and I’m going to look to the [Federal Election Commission] to see what the rules are.” …

It is hardly the first time that Karger and Scheffler have had an unpleasant exchange.

In May 2010, Scheffler — who also serves as one of Iowa’s representatives on the Republican National Committee — e-mailed Karger with a promise that he would “work overtime to help ensure that your political aspirations are aborted right here in Iowa.” Scheffler also indicated that Karger was part of the “radical homosexual community” that wanted to “harass supporters of REAL marriage.” Karger later utilized the exchange as a fundraising pitch after forming his exploratory committee.

The Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition has invited many potential GOP candidates to its upcoming event, including some that are only rumored or speculative contenders. A partial listing includes 2008 possible repeats former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich are also among those invited.

Although Scheffler challenged Karger’s potential candidacy as illegitimate due to a perceived one-issue bias, the group did extend an invitation to former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who has thus far generated press primarily for his stance on legalizing marijuana.

Karger has pledged to fight in order to participate in the upcoming Iowa event.”

Further comment:   Lefties are into interpreting CODES.   Sarah Palin’s targeting members of the House of Representatives for electoral removal is a “Code” for assassination attempts, for example.   No matter what any conservatives might utter, their words will be  open to attack by the Left as a “Code” for some poisons against their protective custody victimhood groups, gay being one of the most obnoxious and vile.

It is good for the country that  gays, especially the civilized,  be welcomed to think for themselves religiously, politically, and patriotically in hope that they also consider what is good for the nation within their own schemes.

It seems a scheme, a publicity stunt,  for Mr.Farber to demand  a chair on America’s political stage for the single purpose to advertise  gay news.  But, then there is always the chance that some  politically correct brainwashed RINO    bureaucrat might give him the okay.

Loughner ‘friend’ reveals Tucson killer’s ‘ideas’ to “Mother Jones”….(a very good read)

A piece from Mother Jones that is informative.   Warning!  Expect Mother Jones language upon occasion’  It passed my inspection, however.   Article written by Nick Baumann.

“At 2:00 a.m. on Saturday—about eight hours before he allegedly killed six people and wounded 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), in Tucson—Jared Lee Loughner phoned an old and close friend with whom he had gone to high school and college. The friend, Bryce Tierney, was up late watching TV, but he didn’t answer the call. When he later checked his voice mail, he heard a simple message from Loughner: “Hey man, it’s Jared. Me and you had good times. Peace out. Later.”

That was it. But later in the day, when Tierney first heard about the Tucson massacre, he had a sickening feeling: “They hadn’t released the name, but I said, ‘Holy shit, I think it’s Jared that did it.'” Tierney tells Mother Jones in an exclusive interview that Loughner held a years-long grudge against Giffords and had repeatedly derided her as a “fake.” Loughner’s animus toward Giffords intensified after he attended one of her campaign events and she did not, in his view, sufficiently answer a question he had posed, Tierney says. He also describes Loughner as being obsessed with “lucid dreaming”—that is, the idea that conscious dreams are an alternative reality that a person can inhabit and control—and says Loughner became “more interested in this world than our reality.” Tierney adds, “I saw his dream journal once. That’s the golden piece of evidence. You want to know what goes on in Jared Loughner’s mind, there’s a dream journal that will tell you everything.”

On Sunday, federal prosecutors charged 22-year-old Loughner with one count of attempting to assassinate a member of Congress, two counts of unlawfully killing a federal employee, and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee. Giffords was the target of Loughner’s rampage, prosecutors say, and the sworn affidavit accompanying the charges mentions that Loughner attended a Giffords “Congress in Your Corner” event in 2007. The affidavit also mentions that police searching a safe in Loughner’s home found a letter from Giffords’ office thanking the alleged shooter for attending an August 25, 2007 event.*

Tierney, who’s also 22, recalls Loughner complaining about a Giffords event he attended during that period. He’s unsure whether it was the same one mentioned in the charges—Loughner “might have gone to some other rallies,” he says—but Tierney notes it was a significant moment for Loughner: “He told me that she opened up the floor for questions and he asked a question. The question was, ‘What is government if words have no meaning?'”

Giffords’ answer, whatever it was, didn’t satisfy Loughner. “He said, ‘Can you believe it, they wouldn’t answer my question,’ and I told him, ‘Dude, no one’s going to answer that,'” Tierney recalls. “Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her.”

Tierney says he has “no clue” why Loughner might have “shot all those other people.” But, he notes, “when I heard Gabrielle Giffords has been shot, I was like ‘Oh my God…’ For some reason I felt like I knew…I felt like if anyone was going to shoot her, it would be Jared.” 

Loughner would occasionally mention Giffords, according to Tierney: “It wasn’t a day-in, day-out thing, but maybe once in a while, if Giffords did something that was ridiculous or passed some stupid law or did something stupid, he related that to people. But the thing I remember most is just that question. I don’t remember him stalking her or anything.” Tierney notes that Loughner did not display any specific political or ideological bent: “It wasn’t like he was in a certain party or went to rallies…It’s not like he’d go on political rants.” But Loughner did, according to Tierney, believe that government is “fucking us over.” He never heard Loughner vent about about the perils of “currency,” as Loughner did on one YouTube video he created.

Tierney, who first met Loughner in middle school, recalls that Loughner started to act strange around his junior or senior year of high school. Before that, Loughner was just a “normal kid,” says Tierney. When the two friends started hanging out in sophomore year of high school, “there was nothing really dark about Jared,” Tierney says. “He was playing drums, doing band things, playing sax. He was raised on writing and reading music.” Loughner also did a lot of creative writing in his high school days, Tierney says, and he used to carry around a copy of a short story he wrote involving a character named Angel; he’d ask people if they would like to read it. “It had a lot of hidden metaphors in it,” Tierney says.

As Loughner and Tierney grew closer, Tierney got used to spending the first ten minutes or so of every day together arguing with Loughner’s “nihilist” view of the world. “By the time he was 19 or 20, he was really fascinated with semantics and how the world is really nothing—illusion,” Tierney says. Once, Tierney recalls, Loughner told him, “I’m pretty sure I’ve come to the conclusion that words mean nothing.” Loughner would also tell Tierney and his friends that life “means nothing,” and they’d reply, “If it means nothing, what you’re saying means nothing.” Other times, Tierney says, Loughner acted like any teen: “We’d go to concerts, play music, get into trouble.”  

Tierney believes that Loughner was very interested in pushing people’s buttons—and that may have been why he listed Hitler’s Mein Kampf as one of his favorite books on his YouTube page. (Loughner’s mom is Jewish, according to Tierney.) Loughner sometimes approached strangers and would say “weird” things, Tierney recalls. “He would do it because he thought people were below him and he knew they wouldn’t know what he was talking about.”

In college, Loughner became increasingly intrigued with “lucid dreaming,” and he grew convinced that he could control his dreams, according to Tierney. In a series of rambling videos posted to his YouTube page, dreams are a frequent topic. In a video posted on December 15, Loughner writes, “My favorite activity is conscience dreaming: the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don’t dream—sadly.” In another video, he writes, “The population of dreamers in the United States of America is less than 5%!” Later in the same video he says,  “I’m a sleepwalker—who turns off the alarm clock.”

“When you realize you’re dreaming, you can do anything, you can create anything.”

Loughner believed that dreams could be a sort of alternative, Matrix-style reality, and “that when you realize you’re dreaming, you can do anything, you can create anything,” Tierney says. Loughner started his “dream journal” in an attempt to take more control of his dreams, his friend notes, and he kept this journal for over a year.

In October 2008, Tierney was living in Phoenix, and Loughner came to visit. They went to see a Mars Volta concert with friends, and Tierney was surprised when Loughner said he had quit partying “completely.” Loughner, according to Tierney, said, “I’m going to lead a more healthy lifestyle, not smoke cigarettes or pot anymore, and I’m going to start working out.” Tierney was happy for his friend: “I said, ‘Dude, that’s awesome.’ And the next time I saw him he was 10 pounds lighter.” Tierney never saw Loughner smoke marijuana again, and he was surprised at media reports that Loughner had been rejected from the military in 2009 for failing a drug test: “He was clean, clean. I saw him after that continuously. He would not do it.”

After Loughner apparently gave up drugs and booze, “his theories got worse,” Tierney says. “After he quit, he was just off the wall.” And Loughner started to drift away from his group of friends about a year ago. By early 2010, dreaming had become Loughner’s “waking life, his reality,” Tierney says. “He sort of drifted off, didn’t really care about hanging out with friends. He’d be sleeping a lot.” Loughner’s alternate reality was attractive, Tierney says. “He figured out he could fly.” Loughner, according to Tierney, told his friends, “I’m so into it because I can create things and fly. I’m everything I’m not in this world.”

“He figured out he could fly.”

But in this world, Loughner seemed ticked off by what he believed to be a pervasive authoritarianism. “The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar,” he wrote in one YouTube video. In another, Loughner complains that when he tried to join the military, he was handed a “mini-Bible.” That upset him: “I didn’t write a belief on my Army application and the recruiter wrote on the application: None,” he wrote on YouTube. In messages on MySpace last month, Loughner declared, “I’ll see you on National T.v.! This is foreshadow.” He also noted on the website, “I don’t feel good: I’m ready to kill a police officer! I can say it.”

One of the last times Loughner and Tierney saw each other, a mutual friend had recently purchased a .22-caliber rifle. Until then, Loughner had never shown much interest in guns, Tierney says. “My friend had just gotten a .22, and Jared kept saying we should go shooting together.” But Tierney and the friend who had bought the .22 demurred. “We were sketched out,” Tierney says, “and we were like, ‘I don’t think Jared’s a good person to go shooting with.'” That was in February or March 2010. After that, Tierney didn’t hear much from Loughner.

Since hearing of the rampage, Tierney has been trying to figure out why Loughner did what he allegedly did. “More chaos, maybe,” he says. “I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what’s happening. He wants all of that.” Tierney thinks that Loughner’s mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: “He fucks things up to fuck shit up, there’s no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: ‘Another Saturday, going to go get groceries’—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in.”

Tierney dwells on the phone call he missed early Saturday morning. But it was late, and the TV show Tierney was watching was creeping him out. So he didn’t pick up. “I sort of wish I would have,” he says. “I wonder what would have happened if I answered it.”

*This sentence has been corrected to reflect that August 30, 2007 was the date of the letter, not the date of the event itself. The event was on August 25.

As Loughner and Tierney grew closer, Tierney got used to spending the first ten minutes or so of every day together arguing with Loughner’s “nihilist” view of the world. “By the time he was 19 or 20, he was really fascinated with semantics and how the world is really nothing—illusion,” Tierney says. Once, Tierney recalls, Loughner told him, “I’m pretty sure I’ve come to the conclusion that words mean nothing.” Loughner would also tell Tierney and his friends that life “means nothing,” and they’d reply, “If it means nothing, what you’re saying means nothing.” Other times, Tierney says, Loughner acted like any teen: “We’d go to concerts, play music, get into trouble.”  

 

Conservative Andy Breitbart to Host Big CPac Welcoming Party for Conservative Gays

There is a bit of trouble in Conservative  “River City”.  Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble…..gay trouble.   Republicans are gathering soon for a big CPAC meeting.   Turmoil has erupted about a conservative Gay organization attending the event.   For many in the conservative movement,  this is a ‘church’ issue.   Gays, as others in the victimhood group of the present Democrat Party American establishment…blacks, latinos, union members, and leftover Jews from their more anti’Christian past have been programmed by media and university to rally around the Left for special favors above and below tables.

Andrew Breitbart and other better know conservatives in the talk0sphere and writosphere of conservative politics are staging a welcomed welcoming party for all conservatives specifically to ’embrace’ these more peculiar men and women in the eyes of some attendees, than they should be. 

It would be a good opportunity for both worlds to become better acquainted with each other.

I think loony Lefties and Liberals are far more peculiar and dangerous to the country, for that matter, than any gays I have ever met.  Even lesbians, but that is an entirely different breed.  Peculiar politically, I mean.   Most gays don’t dance around in tutus…..probably in the same numbers modern  American Marxists do and don’t . 

I, for one, support the traditional requirement for marriage, but believe conservatives should accept gay unions for tax purposes and other economic advantages available to ‘normal’ couples.   There should be conventions where open discussions resonate where various forms of conservatism can be enunciated so conservatives become better informed, if not in agreement.    I am allergic to Ron Paul, but I, as a conservative, cherish his vote.

Marxism is America’s enemy.  Most gays don’t yet understand that, is my guess.  Conservatism by argument these days is a much more persuasive language to be spoken than Marxism.    Gays aren’t always playing gay.   They vote and I submit most over 35 in serious relationships are conservative in life  in every measure but choice of mate.

The history of gay politics and hysteria over the past 30 years is as repulsive to me as it should be to all civilized Americans.  Evil people have done evil things in the name of gay rights for a long time.   It is not surprising that  many Americans with traditional American values are leery about mixing politically.   Not very many, but some in the gay community have settled down and grown up a bit.   Some have discovered that there are higher standards of human expression beyone whom someone might be bedding down with at night.

The following is a video carrying a discussion by Andrew Breitbart regarding the party and CPAC.

http://www.thehotjoints.com/2011/01/07/video-andrew-breitbart-throwing-big-gay-party-at-cpac/

Mark Steyn Writes on Violence Against Conservatives at University

The following article was written by Mark Steyn at SteynOnLine:

“The anti-Conservative violence in Canada that preceded Ann Coulter’s intended but canceled speech is not an oddity – there or here. It seems that free speech whether by private citizens, politicians, writers or members of the media is only free if it espouses principles that comport with far-left ideology. Many conservative speakers and politicians have been attacked or had their speeches disrupted or terminated by groups of the radical left yet little or nothing was mentioned in the “main stream” media. In the majority of these situations, it appeared that such disruptive behavior was officially countenanced and not adequately or expeditiously neutralized.

When was the last time a liberal speaker at a University had their speech cancelled by out of control conservatives? Can’t think of any.

If one unkind word is spoken against a far-left adherent, the media is in an uncontrollable frenzy. The reverse does not occur in that the media and our present government actually encourage wanton vicious attacks against the right.

There are several important lessons in all of this. First, we must stand up and protect and fight for our rights. We must not allow our conservative points of view to be officially suppressed, threatened or punished whether it is by our government or a public institution. If we back down and don’t fight back, the consequences will be further erosion of our rights and freedoms. This is what has happened even in Canada and, of course, elsewhere. Let’s not let it happen here in America. There are already proposals to do just this such as the “Fairness Doctrine” and Obama’s information czar who suggested controlling, correcting or deleting information on the internet that the government may deem “inaccurate” or “inappropriate”.

We also must not be apologetic for our points of view or for non-violent means to express them. The left has done this very well. We need to be more verbally aggressive, loud and persistent.

Oh, Canada!
by Ann Coulter   03/24/2010

Since arriving in Canada I’ve been accused of thought crimes, threatened with criminal prosecution for speeches I hadn’t yet given and denounced on the floor of the Parliament (which was nice because that one was on my “bucket list”).

Posters advertising my speech have been officially banned, while posters denouncing me are plastered all over the University of Ottawa campus. Elected officials have been prohibited from attending my speeches. Also, the local clothing stores are fresh out of brown shirts.

Welcome to Canada!

The provost of the University of Ottawa, average student IQ: 0, wrote to me—widely disseminating his letter to at least a half-dozen intermediaries before it reached me—in advance of my visit in order to recommend that I familiarize myself with Canada’s criminal laws regarding hate speech.

This marks the first time I’ve ever gotten hate mail for something I might do in the future.

Apparently Canadian law forbids “promoting hatred against any identifiable group,” which the provost, Francois A. Houle advised me, “would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges.”

I was given no specific examples of what words and phrases I couldn’t use, but I take it I’m not supposed to say, “F—-you, Francois.”

While it was a relief to know that it is still permissible in Canada to promote hatred against unidentifiable groups, upon reading Francois’ letter, I suddenly realized that I had just been the victim of a hate crime! And it was committed by Francois A. Houle (French for “Frank A. Hole”).

What other speakers get a warning not to promote hatred? Did Francois A. Houle send a similarly worded letter to Israel-hater Omar Barghouti before he spoke last year at U of Ottawa? (“Ottawa”: Indian for “Land of the Bed-Wetters.”)

How about Angela Davis, Communist Party member and former Black Panther who spoke at the University of Zero just last month?

Or do only conservatives get letters admonishing them to be civil? Or—my suspicion—is it only conservative women who fuel Francois’ rage?

How about sending a letter to all Muslim speakers advising them to please bathe once a week while in Canada? Would that constitute a hate crime?

I’m sure Canada’s Human Rights Commission will get to the bottom of Francois’ strange warning to me, inasmuch as I will be filing a complaint with that august body, so I expect they will be reviewing every letter the university has sent to other speakers prior to their speeches to see if any of them were threatened with criminal prosecution.

Both writer Mark Steyn and editor Ezra Levant have been investigated by the Human Rights Commission for promoting hatred toward Muslims.

Levant’s alleged crime was to reprint the cartoons of Mohammed originally published in a Danish newspaper, leading practitioners of the Religion of Peace to engage in murderous violence across the globe. Steyn’s alleged crime was to publish an excerpt of his book, America Alone in Maclean’s magazine, in which he jauntily described Muslims as “hot for jihad.”

Both of them also flew jet airliners full of passengers into skyscrapers in lower Manhattan, resulting in thousands of deaths. No, wait—that was somebody else.

Curiously, however, there was no evidence that either the cartoons or the column did, in fact, incite hatred toward Muslims—nor was there the remotest possibility that they would.

By contrast, conservative speakers are regularly subjected to violent attacks on college campuses. Bill Kristol, Pat Buchanan, David Horowitz and I have all been the targets of infamous campus attacks.

That’s why the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute (a sponsor of my Canada speeches) and the Young America’s Foundation (a sponsor of many of my college speeches) don’t send conservatives to college campuses without a bodyguard.

You’d have to be a real A-Houle not to anticipate that accusing a conservative of “promoting hatred” prior to her arrival on a college campus would in actuality—not in liberal fantasies of terrified Muslims cowering in terror of Mark Steyn readers—incite real-world violence toward the conservative.

The university itself acknowledged that Francois’ letter was likely to provoke violence against me by demanding—long after my speech was scheduled, but immediately after Francois disseminated his letter—that my sponsors pony up more than $1,200 for extra security.

Also following Francois’ letter, the Ottawa University Student Federation met for 7 1/2 hours to hammer out a series of resolutions denouncing me. The resolutions included:

“Whereas Ann Coulter is a hateful woman;
“Whereas she has made hateful comments against GLBTQ, Muslims, Jews and women;
“Whereas she violates an unwritten code of ‘positive-space’;
“Be it resolved that the SFUO express its disapproval of having Ann Coulter speak at the University of Ottawa.”

At least the students didn’t waste 7 1/2 hours on something silly, like their studies.

At the risk of violating anyone’s positive space, what happened to Canada? How did the country that gave us Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Martin Short, Dan Aykroyd and Catherine O’Hara suddenly become a bunch of whining crybabies?

After Tuesday night, the hatred incited by Francois’ letter is no longer theoretical. The police called off my speech when the auditorium was surrounded by thousands of rioting liberals—screaming, blocking the entrance, throwing tables, demanding that my books be burned, and finally setting off the fire alarm.

Sadly, I missed the book-burning because I never made it to the building.

But, reportedly, a Canadian crowd hasn’t been this excited since they opened a new Tim Hortons. Local reporters couldn’t make out what the crowd was chanting, but it was something about “Molson” and a “sled dog.”

I’ve given more than 100 college speeches, and not once has one of my speeches been shut down at any point. Even the pie-throwing incident at the University of Arizona didn’t break up the event. I said, “Get them!” and the college Republicans got them, and then I continued with my rambling, hate-filled diatribe—I mean, my speech.

So we’ve run this experiment more than 100 times.

Only one college speech was ever met with so much mob violence that the police were forced to cancel it: The one that was preceded by a letter from the university provost accusing me of hate speech.

(To add insult to injury, Francois didn’t even plan to attend my speech because Tuesday is his bikini wax night.)

If a university official’s letter accusing a speaker of having a proclivity to commit speech crimes before she’s given the speech—which then leads to Facebook postings demanding that Ann Coulter be hurt, a massive riot and a police-ordered cancellation of the speech—is not hate speech, then there is no such thing as hate speech.

Either Francois goes to jail or the Human Rights Commission is a hoax and a fraud.

Charles Krauthammer on Constitutionalism and the Flag

“For decades, Democrats and Republicans fought over who owns the American flag. Now they’re fighting over who owns the Constitution.

The flag debates began during the Vietnam era when leftist radicals made the fatal error of burning it. For decades since, non-suicidal liberals have tried to undo the damage. Demeaningly, and somewhat unfairly, they are forever having to prove their fealty to the flag.

Amazingly, though, some still couldn’t get it quite right. During the last presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama, asked why he was not wearing a flag pin, answered that it represented “a substitute” for “true patriotism.” Bad move. Months later, Obama quietly beat a retreat and began wearing the flag on his lapel. He does so still.

Today, the issue is the Constitution. It’s a healthier debate because flags are pure symbolism and therefore more likely to evoke pure emotion and ad hominem argument. The Constitution, on the other hand, is a document that speaks. It defines concretely the nature of our social contract. Nothing in our public life is more substantive.

Americans are in the midst of a great national debate over the power, scope and reach of the government established by that document. The debate was sparked by the current administration’s bold push for government expansion – a massive fiscal stimulus, Obamacare, financial regulation and various attempts at controlling the energy economy. This engendered a popular reaction, identified with the Tea Party but in reality far more widespread, calling for a more restrictive vision of government more consistent with the Founders’ intent.

Call it constitutionalism. In essence, constitutionalism is the intellectual counterpart and spiritual progeny of the “originalism” movement in jurisprudence. Judicial “originalists” (led by Antonin Scalia and other notable conservative jurists) insist that legal interpretation be bound by the text of the Constitution as understood by those who wrote it and their contemporaries. Originalism has grown to become the major challenger to the liberal “living Constitution” school, under which high courts are channelers of the spirit of the age, free to create new constitutional principles accordingly.

What originalism is to jurisprudence, constitutionalism is to governance: a call for restraint rooted in constitutional text. Constitutionalism as a political philosophy represents a reformed, self-regulating conservatism that bases its call for minimalist government – for reining in the willfulness of presidents and legislatures – in the words and meaning of the Constitution.

Hence that highly symbolic moment on Thursday when the 112th House of Representatives opened with a reading of the Constitution. Remarkably, this had never been done before – perhaps because it had never been so needed. The reading reflected the feeling, expressed powerfully in the last election, that we had moved far, especially the past two years, from a government constitutionally limited by its enumerated powers to a government constrained only by its perception of social need.

The most galvanizing example of this expansive shift was, of course, the Democrats’ health-care reform, which will revolutionize one-sixth of the economy and impose an individual mandate that levies a fine on anyone who does not enter into a private contract with a health insurance company. Whatever its merits as policy, there is no doubting its seriousness as constitutional precedent: If Congress can impose such a mandate, is there anything that Congress may not impose upon the individual?

The new Republican House will henceforth require, in writing, constitutional grounding for every bill submitted. A fine idea, although I suspect 90 percent of them will simply make a ritual appeal to the “general welfare” clause. Nonetheless, anything that reminds members of Congress that they are not untethered free agents is salutary.

But still mostly symbolic. The real test of the Republicans’ newfound constitutionalism will come in legislating. Will they really cut government spending? Will they really roll back regulations? Earmarks are nothing. Do the Republicans have the courage to go after entitlements as well?

In the interim, the cynics had best tread carefully. Some liberals are already disdaining the new constitutionalism, denigrating the document’s relevance and sneering at its public recitation. They sneer at their political peril. In choosing to focus on a majestic document that bears both study and recitation, the reformed conservatism of the Obama era has found itself not just a symbol but an anchor.

Constitutionalism as a guiding political tendency will require careful and thoughtful development, as did jurisprudential originalism. But its wide appeal and philosophical depth make it a promising first step to a conservative future.”

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

The above article was published in the Washington Post.

Roger Kimball on Paul Krugman’s Depth of Lowness……Explains “Targeting”

“A question for the metaphysicians and cultural pathologists:  just how low can former-economist Paul Krugman, hysteric-in-chief for The New York Times, go?

Yesterday’s homicidal rampage in Tucson, which left (as of this writing)  six dead and another thirteen wounded, may give us an approximate answer.

A nine-year-old girl was one of those murdered. So was John Roll, a federal judge who was appointed by George H.W. Bush.

And as all the world knows by now, one of the casualties was Gabrielle Giffords, the forty-year-old Blue-Dog Democrat, who was seriously wounded when Jared Lee Loughner, an ostentatiously disturbed 22-year-old, shot her point-blank through the head. Giffords remains in critical condition but — a ray of light in this ghastly episode — her doctors are optimistic about her recovery.

Loughner’s pistol was probably still warm when Krugman wheeled into print in an effort to make political capital out of the tragedy.  “Assassination Attempt in Arizona” should join that rogues’ gallery of disgusting Times stories that wallow in the gutter of political innuendo and mendacity even as they preen themselves on their exhibition of holier-than-thou virtue.

The folks at Powerline instantly got to the crux of the matter with The Contemptible Krugman, noting that he was among the first to “seek political advantage from mass murder.” Krugman’s column, they show, belongs to the Lillian Hellman species of utterance as described by Mary McCarthy: everything he wrote is a lie, including “and” and “the.” “We don’t have proof yet that this was political,” Krugman begins,  “but the odds are that it was.”

John at Powerline asks the right questions: “Really? Based on what?” Here’s what Krugman — or, in Powerline’s apt epithet, “hack columnist Paul Krugman” — offers by way of evidence:

She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list.

As John notes, “there is zero evidence that any of this had anything to do with Jared Loughner, who had no known connection to the Tea Party, the Republican Party, Sarah Palin, the Democratic Party, or anything else related to sane politics.”

Let’s pause over Hack Columnist Krugman’s reference to Sarah Palin’s “infamous” crosshairs list.  Here’s the image that so exercised him:

Every crosshairs represents a Democrat from a conservative district who voted for ObamaCare.  The map exercised not only Hack Columnist Krugman but many other Palin haters on the Left. In an earlier column, H-C Krugman wrote that:

All of this goes far beyond politics as usual. Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush — but you’ll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials.

Will you, Paul? Will you “search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence” from members of Congress?

It all depends on whether you bother to look.  An enterprising blogger at Verum Serum didn’t have far to look for this:

Got it? “Targeting strategy” for Democrats who hope to go behind “enemy lines” and score a bullseye by nailing the target.  That comes from the the Democratic Leadership Committee website in 2004. (And let’s not forget the president of the United States, who recently urged Latinos to “punish our enemies” and said at a rally in Philadelphia “if they bring a knife to the fight we bring a gun.”)

As I say, Hack Columnist Krugman wasn’t the only one exercised by Sarah Palin’s map. Verum Serum also quotes Rep. Chris Van Hollen, leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, denouncing it to Chris “the thrill is gone” Matthews: “I really think that that is crossing a line…In this particular environment I think it’s really dangerous to try and make your point in that particular way because there are people who are taking that kind of thing seriously.”

What about this map, Chris?

You remember that map, right? It comes from — what do you know! — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee website. And there’s more. Each of those tokens leads you to a “targeted Republican,” Thaddeus McCotter, for example.

But back to H-C Krugman:

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.

Hate-mongers, eh? Beck, Limbaugh, “etc.”? What “hate” are they mongering?  John at Powerline gets it in one:

This would be outrageous even if Krugman himself were not one of the worst hatemongers in public life, a man whose hysterical rhetoric exceeds anything you hear from Limbaugh, Beck, or any significant figure on the right who comes to mind. But this sort of contemptible demagoguery is exactly the kind of thing we have come to expect from Krugman.

Indeed we have.”

Roger Kimball is a regular writer for  the New Criterion and at Pajamas Media.

Arizona Daily Star Article on Tragedy in Tucson

“The man arrested on suspicion of opening fire at a community meeting held by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Saturday – killing six people and injuring 13 others – disrupted classes at Pima Community College, tried to manipulate his dreams and posted rambling messages on the Internet.

The suspected shooter is Jared Lee Loughner, a 22-year-old who lives on the northwest side. He is mentally unstable and may have had an accomplice, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said Saturday evening.

A former classmate of Loughner at Pima, from which he was suspended Sept. 29 for code-of-conduct violations, said he was “obviously very disturbed.”

“He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts,” said Lynda Sorenson, who took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College’s Northwest campus.

Dupnik said the suspected shooter has made death threats before and been contacted by law-enforcement officers. The threats weren’t against Giffords, Dupnik said.

Investigators are looking for a second person who may be an accomplice, Dupnik said.

“We are not convinced he acted alone,” Dupnik said of the shooter. “We have photos,” he said, of a man in his 50s.

“There’s some reason to believe that (the shooter) came to this location with another individual. And there’s reason to believe the other individual would in some way be involved,” he said.

Loughner has several online accounts, which suggest he has spent most of his life on the northwest side: His MySpace profile says he attended Thornydale Elementary School, Tortolita Middle School and Mountain View High School.

As a middle school student, Loughner was “kind of an outcast,” said Shannin Macey, who said via e-mail she attended Tortolita and Mountain View with him. In high school, Loughner was in jazz band and played the saxophone but he dropped out in junior year, said Tommy Marriotti, who was a high-school friend of Loughner.

At the time he dropped out, Loughner was having drug problems, Marriotti said, but he seemed to do well once he started taking classes at Pima.

Loughner attended Pima courses from summer 2005 until he withdrew in October after his suspension, the college said.

He tried to enlist in the Army in 2008 but was rejected, said First Sgt. Brian Homme, who oversees Army recruiting in Tucson. Loughner was sent to Phoenix to take a test and physical, but “he was found to be unqualified,” Homme said.

Loughner registered to vote for the first time in 2006, said Chris Roads, Pima County’s registrar of voters. He registered as an independent and last voted in the 2008 general election.

Sorenson, Loughner’s classmate at Pima, said he was asked to leave the pre-algebra class several times and eventually was barred from class.

Pima officials said in a news release that from February to September 2010, Loughner had five contacts with PCC police for classroom and library disruptions at Northwest and West campuses.

Another Pima classmate, Lydian Ali, said Loughner would frequently laugh aloud to himself during the advanced-poetry class they attended. Only about 16 people were in the class, so Loughner’s behavior stood out, Ali said.

“It almost seemed like he was on his own planet, because his comments would have nothing to do with what we were talking about,” Ali said.

Loughner’s online accounts contain some political comments but are dominated by bizarre discussions of his desire to establish a new currency and his disdain for what he considered the public’s low literacy rates. He also wrote threatening and despairing messages.

“WOW! I’m glad i didn’t kill myself. I’ll see you on National T.v.! This is foreshadow …. why doesn’t anyone talk to me?..” he posted on MySpace Dec. 14.

On Dec. 13, he wrote: “I don’t feel good: I’m ready to kill a police officer! I can say it.”

In a posting on YouTube, Loughner wrote repeatedly about a new currency.

“I’m thinking of creating a new currency,” he wrote. “Therefore, I’m thinking of a design for my new coins size, shape, color, material, and image to start a new money system.”

He also wrote repeatedly about literacy. In a message on YouTube, Loughner wrote: “The majority of people, who reside in District-8 are illiterate – hilarious. I don’t control your English grammar structure, but you control your English grammar structure.”

In a message posted on his MySpace account, titled “Goodbye friends,” Loughner said: “Dear friends…please don’t be mad at me. The literacy rate is below 5%. I haven’t talked to one person who is literate.” It was unclear when it was posted.

In a MySpace profile, Loughner said “My favorite interest was reading, and I studied grammar. Conscience dreams were a great study in college.”

Conscious dreaming is trying to manipulate your dreams, an interest Loughner pursued, Marriotti said.

He lists among his favorite books “Mein Kampf” and “The Communist Manifesto”. But he also includes a broad variety of other titles, including: “Animal Farm,” “Brave New World,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.

In another YouTube message, Loughner said: “I know who’s listening: Government Officials, and the People. Nearly all the people, who don’t know this accurate information of a new currency, aren’t aware of mind control and brainwash methods. If I have my civil rights, then this message wouldn’t have happen.”

“In conclusion, my ambition – is for informing literate dreamers about a new currency; in a few days, you know I’m conscience dreaming! Thank you!”

In a YouTube video dated Dec. 15, titled “Introduction: Jared Loughner,” he describes himself as a U.S. military recruit who had applied to join the Army.

In the video, Loughner makes a rambling mention of “MEPS in Phoenix” an apparent reference to the Military Entrance Processing Station in the state capital that all Arizona recruits from every branch of service pass through before leaving for basic training.

“Every United States military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix is receiving one mini bible before the tests,” it said. “Jared Loughner is a United States military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix. Therefore, Jared Loughner is receiving one mini bible before the tests.

“I didn’t write a belief on my Army application and the recruiter wrote on the application: None.”

Sgt. Homme declined to say why Loughner was rejected, citing confidentiality laws.

Loughner has had at least two minor run-ins with police, online court records show.

In October 2007, Loughner was cited by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department for possession of drug paraphernalia, a charge that was dismissed in November 2007 when he completed a diversion program.

One year later, in October 2008, Loughner faced a “local charge” in Marana Municipal Court. That charge was also dismissed following the completion of a diversion program in March 2009.

Court records indicate the Marana case file is due to be purged in December 2013. It’s unclear what the exact charge was.

Grant Wiens, 22, attended Mountain View High School with Loughner, although they were not in the same grade.

Wiens also took a class with Loughner at Pima Community College, where they occasionally talked, he said.

“He was a guy in high school who definitely had his opinions on stuff and didn’t seem to care what people thought of him,” Wiens said. “He did his own thing.”

Contact Tim Steller at 807-8427 or tsteller@azstarnet.com. Reporters Carol Ann Alaimo, Alex Dalenberg, Fernanda Echavarri, Patrick Finley, Ernesto Portillo Jr., Kori Rumore and Sarah Trotto contributed to this report.

New York Times Uses Giffords Tragedy to Smear Arizona in Its International News

“Arizona is not a world apart, but its political culture has often resided at a distance from much of the nation”,  is the opening of this article by Jennifer Steinhauer.   That the state is being invaded by drug dealers, killers and invaders of all sorts of stripes from Mexico is not mentioned as a possible cause, if, indeed, the sentence is true.

The title is….”Shooting Highlights Arizone’s Charged Politics”…..what does “Charged Politics” mean.   Who and what is doing the charging…..What do we know about the “charger” in the Giffords tragedy except that the attacker seems to have serious mental issues?     The  Tribune-Times article is sent to posts abroad.   This is what the world reads if they pick up this issue.   It continues:

“But after the fatal shooting of six that left Representative Gabrielle Giffords critically injured, Arizona has shifted from a place on the political fringe to symbol of a nation whose political discourse has lost its way.

The moment was crystallized by Clarence W. Dupnik, the Pima County sheriff, who, in a remarkable news conference on Saturday after the shooting, called his state “the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

On Sunday, the state found itself increasingly on the defensive against notions that it is a hothouse of hateful language and violent proclivities. It was as if Arizona somehow created the setting for the shocking episode, even though there was no evidence to support the claim.

Arizona’s United States senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, both Republicans, moved quickly to defend their home state, denouncing before national audiences the man accused in the shooting, and, in Mr. Kyl’s case, suggesting that Mr. Dupnik had overreached. “I didn’t really think that that had any part in a law enforcement briefing last night,” Mr. Kyl said Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS.

Other elected officials were pressed to explain why the assault might have taken place in their state. “Arizona’s the epicenter of a lot of division and a lot of hard politics,” Representative Raul M. Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “From the top to the bottom of not only our elected leadership, but community.”

In recent years, where much of the nation has seen intolerance, Arizona has cited security. What other Americans have viewed as outlandish, Arizona has interpreted as independence. It is one of the few states in America that would produce a politician like Ms. Giffords: a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, tough on border issues, and a Democrat passionate about the health care overhaul.

Its unusual mix of residents largely born and raised outside of the state, its three-way political divide — independents are as numerous as Republicans and Democrats — bifurcated urban and rural culture and strong pro-gun laws give the state an independent, and at times almost isolated, streak.

While the individual components of Arizona are shared by other states, the mix of the state’s border proximity, rapid growth and dire fiscal circumstances have combined in the last few years into a riveting and sometimes chilling theater of fiscal, political and cultural tensions.

The shooting comes soon after the passage of a strict anti-immigration measure that is being challenged by the federal government, the killing of a rancher that led to the law and the revelation that the state has stopped paying for some transplants for critically ill patients. There is also the state’s role as an early promoter of the effort during the 2010 Senate campaign to write the children of illegal immigrants out of the 14th Amendment provision that grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

“Just when we were starting to emerge from the P.R. trauma of the immigration law, and with the eyes of the nation upon us for the college football national championship all week for Monday night’s game, we offer up our state as the land of Oswalds,” said Jason Rose, a native Arizonan and a well-known political adviser in Phoenix. “This tragedy can’t help but curtail, at least for some time, Arizona’s role as a Wild West incubator.”

Talk radio, which has a long tradition in Arizona, has been particularly heated as the state has struggled with immigration. “You’ve got a lot going on in Arizona that feeds into the kind of discourse that some people think is creating a contentious climate in this country,” said Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers magazine, which covers the industry. “I wouldn’t say that talk radio is more contentious or extreme or radical in Arizona, but they are just closer to the issues at hand. It’s a national story elsewhere; there, it’s a local story.”

Arizona has found itself in the position of self-defense against a critical nation before. Shortly after taking office in 1987, Gov. Evan Mecham rescinded the state holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a move that enraged state workers and caused a boycott of the state, which was the last to finally embrace the holiday.

“Arizona’s at the tip of the spear,” said Kelly Townsend, a co-founder of the Greater Phoenix Tea Party. “I think people are getting to the pressure point where they can’t restrain themselves anymore in expressing their feelings.

“I don’t mean restrain themselves in terms of violence, but calling names. It’s a reaction to all the pressures we’re facing. It’s not that anyone is trying to hurt anyone. It’s just that our budget is so incredibly stressed right now that we can’t afford to be paying for so many people coming into our state. There’s a lot of pressure on the backs of everyone, and so the anger and these kinds of statements are made underneath that pressure.”

While many states have nonrestrictive gun laws, Arizona’s zeal for weapons has often made headlines. It recently became one of just a few states with a law that allows people to carry concealed guns without a permit. Last summer, Ms. Giffords’s Republican opponent, Jesse Kelly, had a campaign event in which voters were invited to “shoot a fully automatic M-16” with him to symbolize his assault on her campaign.

The state also allows for weapons in bars, which is unusual. Last year, an unsuccessful candidate for Congress, Pamela Gorman, ran on a pro-gun platform; a campaign video depicted her firing off rounds several times.

Arizona may now stand at a crossroad, in which the state’s more moderate, independent political factions begin to seize the state’s political discourse, in the spirit of Barry Goldwater and the pre-2008 Mr. McCain, or becomes all the more polarized. But, said Mr. Rose, who at one point was a spokesman for J. D. Hayworth, the former radio host who challenged Mr. McCain in the primary last year, “Either way, a giant collision is about to occur.”

New York Times Leftwing Columnist and  “noted economist”, Paul Krugman, wrote the following:

“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.”
Marxists like Paul Krugman don’t need facts and use truth when needed.   The Times specialist wrote the article yesterday midday shortly after the attack occurred.    Please click here for more:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/assassination-attempt-in-arizona/?src=twt&twt=NytimesKrugman

I cannot describe the  political climate in Arizona these days.  I can imagine the anger among the citizens that the border areas are a war zone of murderers and drug dealers and that Americans are not safe in their own homes.   Now that might upset a few folks……But, how does this atmosphere transfer to the horrors of yesterday’s shooting  particularly between the attacker who seems to have mental problems and his intended victim, Gabrielle Giffords? 

Not all Leftists are Marxists and loonies.  Howard Kurtz is one you might not dislike.  He wrote an article at Politico, titled:  “Should We Blame Sarah Palin for Gabrielle Giffords’ Shooting?”    click to read:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-08/gabrielle-giffords-shooting-dont-blame-sarah-palin/?cid=columnists