A potentially huge Democratic scandal is brewing in upstate New York, regarding a trophy-keeping abortion practitioner who had a collection of 17 frozen fetuses confiscated from a clinic in Albany back in 1996.  An assistant to the Attorney General’s office is now claiming that the doctor, Dr. Steven Chase Brigham, was never thoroughly investigated due to political pressure from the Albany Democratic machine.  Now, sixteen years after the fact, that same doctor has been charged with murder.

Dr. Steven Bringham

Could hindering an investigation of Dr. Brigham make Democrats in Albany an accessory to murder?

Last week, LifeNews reported on a pair of abortion practitioners who were charged with murder across two states:

Operation Rescue has learned that abortionists Steven Chase Brigham and Nicola Irene Riley have been charged with murder related to the deaths of viable babies at an illegal secret abortion clinic that the pair operated in Elkton, Maryland.

Brigham is currently in the custody at the Camden County Jail in New Jersey and Riley was arrested and is currently in the custody of the Salt Lake County Jail in Utah. Both are awaiting extradition to Maryland.

Brigham was charged with five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of second-degree murder. Riley was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder. The charges are the result of a Grand Jury investigation.

This is the same Dr. Brigham who had once been profiled in a New York Times article with sympathetic leanings to the cause of abortion doctors, even citing his record as “proof of the shortage of abortion providers” and demonstrating that “the small number of people still performing abortions are working in a war zone.”

(more…)

The last few votes are still being counted, and as of this writing Sen. Rick Santorum is on the verge of a stunning upset victory over Gov. Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses, leading by a margin of just several dozen votes.

(Update: The lead has changed hands yet again, with a few results still out. Update: And again! Now Santorum’s 5 votes up. Update 1:34 a.m. CST: Romney has now won by only 8 votes. What a ride.)

Yet regardless of who finds more votes in the final boxes, it seems clear that Iowa’s conservatives have chosen Santorum.

The maps below say it all.

The upper map is from the Des Moines Register, and shows the county-by-county results in tonight’s caucuses. The red counties are those where Santorum has won or is leading; the blue counties are going for Romney, and the yellow counties to Paul. (Two counties in pink went to Perry; Gingrich, who bested Perry statewide, did not win any counties.)

The lower map is from the New York Times, and shows the county-by-county election results from November 2008.

It’s clear that while Romney and Paul have largely won in areas that went for Barack Obama, Santorum’s wins have tended to come in areas that voted for John McCain. (more…)

When the House and Senate go back into session on January 17th and January 23rd respectively, shortly thereafter the Congress is expected to take up the issue of raising the nation’s debt ceiling from $15.2 trillion to $16.4 trillion, an increase of $1.2 trillion.

Communicating and visualizing a “trillion” of anything is difficult.  So let’s put a “trillion” in perspective.  According to CNBC.com:

This stack of cash - in $1 bills - would measure 67,866 miles, stretching approximately 2.72 times around the Earth’s equator.

If denominated in $100 bills, $1 trillion would be enough to fill 4.5 Olympic-sized swimming pools, with a total volume of 398,000 cubic feet. For comparison, there is only about $625 billion worth of $100 bills currently in circulation, according to the US Treasury bulletin, which would fill about 2.8 Olympic swimming pools.

With Occupy Wall Street’s “redistribution” rhetoric running rampant, perhaps another way to illustrate the enormity of America’s trillions of new debt is this: even if the government were to confiscate the net worth of the entire Forbes 400 list of richest Americans–people who create hundreds of thousands of jobs, as well as spin-off jobs and businesses–their combined $1.5 trillion of wealth would barely cover the forthcoming $1.2 trillion debt-ceiling increase.

(more…)

The Obama Department of Justice has used a mathematical trick in order to make its legal and public-relations case against South Carolina’s voter ID provisions. Officials of the DOJ intentionally created a false perception of the disparity between black and white voters in order to strike down the law that would haveve required photo ID or other proof for voters. Meanwhile, the media helped Eric Holder’s Department of Justice spin their intentionally misleading numbers to the general public.

This entire scam – there’s no better word for it – is based an interesting but totally irrelevant math quirk; when numbers are small, the difference between them is larger.

An Easy Math Trick

To understand the math behind this, let’s start simply and look at two very small numbers – 1 and 2.

If you had one dollar and I had two dollars, I have one dollar more than you. However, if I wanted to try to impress someone, just telling them that I was a dollar wealthier probably wouldn’t work. In an effort to sound more impressive, I could find a way to pump myself up by claiming that I had twice as much money as you. It’s true, of course – 2 is twice as much as 1 — but just knowing that I had twice as much money as someone else doesn’t really paint the whole picture.

If I want to get extra-fancy, I could also say “I have 100% more money than that person.” This is saying the same (misleading) thing as “I have twice as much” in a slightly different way. There’s a simple equation for determining this percentage difference for any two numbers.

(more…)

I am pleased to announce the winner of the First Annual Breitbart “Ambiguous Entity of the Year” award.

Our choice was inspired by the most under-reported story of the year: the dark side of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which the media attempted to hide.

From its origins, the Occupy movement has been riddled by rapes, sexual assaults, and countless other serious crimes–many of which were not reported to police because Occupy organizers understood that public police reports and media dispatches about crimes would hurt the movement’s image.

And, as one Occupier noted, “This is a battle over images, not just over the park.”

Had the Tea Party been ravaged by rapes, rampant drug use, vandalism, or assaults, those crimes would not only have been over-reported, they would have stopped the Tea Party in its tracks.

The mainstream media did its best to invent Tea Party misdeeds–imaginary “N-words” and all–where none existed. Prominent celebrities, athletes—even conservative ones, who support the Tea Party’s aims—have kept a low profile in the Tea Party for fear of being judged by the mainstream media’s double standard.

Yet the media-savvy, media-embraced Occupy movement used shout-outs from President Obama, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, rap impresario Russell Simmons, Alec Baldwin, Kanye West, Susan Sarandon, Roseanne Barr, Sean Lennon, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Tim Robbins, and Anne Hathaway to hide what was really going on at the makeshift encampments. (more…)

In a report today on the growing wealth gap between members of Congress and the constituents they represent, the New York Times credited Breitbart News editor Peter Schweizer as being partly responsible for having ignited “renewed attention” to banning elected officials from enriching themselves by using material, nonpublic information when making private investments.

From The Times:

While concerns go back decades about lawmakers trading on confidential information, the issue drew renewed attention with a new book on the topic, “Throw Them All Out” by Peter Schweizer, and a “60 Minutes” report in November. Both linked high-level briefings that Congressional leaders received on the 2008 financial crisis and on health care to their purchase and sale of certain stocks.

Members insisted that they never traded on information that was not public, and some Congressional leaders pointed out that their investments were in blind trusts managed by professional advisers. Nonetheless, the publicity led some 90 members of Congress to call anew for a ban on insider trading.

Citing an article in yesterday’s Washington Post, the report notes that from 2004 to 2010, the median net worth of members of Congress jumped 15 percent, even as the net worth of the richest 10 percent of Americans remained virtually unchanged. Median net worth for all Americans fared far worse, dropping 8 percent. And between 1984 and 2009, the median wealth of House members grew two and a half times (in inflation-adjusted dollars), whereas the average American family’s fell slightly.

(more…)

Democratic National Committee

Minutes

December 24, 2011

OFFICERS PRESENT

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, National Chairleader

Mike Honda, Vice Chair, UAW Liaison

Donna Brazile, Vice Chair, Hemispheric-Americans Voting Rights Coordinator

Linda Chavez-Thompson, No Relation to Cesar or Fred

OTHERS

Akio Toyoda, President, Toyota Motor Company

James Clyburn, Emissary, Congressional Black Caucus

Diane Sawyer, Network Lackey

Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger, Print Shill, New York Times

Eric Holder, Attorney General for Minority Rights

Dennis Kucinich, Director, Munchkins United for America PAC

Betty Friedan (1921-2006), Founder, League of Dead Women Voters
(Whoopi Goldberg, Channeler))

PROCEEDINGS

Ms. Wasserman Schultz called the meeting to order at 10:14 a.m. after police were called to settle a dispute between Mr. Honda and Mr. Toyoda.

On secure video uplink, President Obama spoke briefly from the Kauai Lagoons Golf Club putting green.  He warned of the hard road ahead.

AG Holder arrived at 10:23, claiming he never received a memo about the session.

OLD BUSINESS

1.  Ms. Wasserman Schultz announced that Planned Parenthood had submitted the winning design for the new Democratic National Committee logo.

(more…)

Eric Holder has been on a racialist bender the last few weeks.  Last week, he said his skin color is responsible for the fury of criticism over his Justice Department allowing thousands of guns to flood Mexico.  Friday, he blocked South Carolina from implementing a voter ID law under the Voting Rights Act saying it was racially discriminatory.

Sixteen states, including South Carolina, must submit all election law changes to the United States Justice Department for approval.  States also have the option of bypassing DOJ and going straight to court for approval, an option they should readily choose.  This law, unlike so many federal laws, actually has a legitimate Constitutional basis – the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which bars racial discrimination in voting.  Passed in 1965, it was designed to prevent states from drifting toward renewed discrimination.  It is now being challenged as unconstitutionally outdated by Arizona and Shelby County (AL) in federal court.

Eric Holder’s Voting Section, where I used to work, interposed an objection late in the day today.  These Christmas Eve gifts are becoming tiresome.  In 2009 it was Obamacare.  Today, it was blocking Voter ID.

In the objection letter, DOJ said that South Carolina did not meet its burden to prove that photo identification laws did not have any discriminatory effect.  Notice the word “any,” more on that later.  The data show, according to DOJ, that 1.6 percentage points more voting blacks don’t have a driver’s license than whites.  Roughly 10 percent of blacks registered to vote don’t have a photo ID, and 8.6 percent of whites don’t.  That represents a “discriminatory effect” under the statute.

There are several problems with the objection.  But some law first:

(more…)

Tom Cotton, born and raised in rural Arkansas, is also a Harvard graduate (college and law school), an experienced lawyer and management consultant, and a U.S. Army veteran with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s a conservative with a grounding in political philosophy and a sense of humor. He’s running for the newly-open seat in Arkansas’s newly-redrawn fourth congressional district, which has a Cook rating of R+8.

In short: Tom Cotton is one of the best candidates running for Congress this election cycle–and possibly ever.

If he wins the Republican primary on May 22, 2012, he will likely go on to win the seat–and he will likely serve for a very long time. Given the fact that Cotton is only in his mid-30s, and with his impressive record, he is likely to be a force in Republican politics for many decades, shaping the future of the party and the country. (more…)

Michelle Malkin reports today, based on the Obama administration’s latest document dump of visitor logs, that convicted fraudster and community organizer Robert Creamer has visited the White House sixty times since January 2009–five times in August 2011 alone.

As first reported at Big Government, Creamer is the apparent architect of the Democrats’ political strategy for imposing Obamacare on the nation, composing a “blueprint”–that was later endorsed by high-level Obama advisers–while he was in federal prison. Creamer also claims to have been “one of the major architects of the successful 2005 campaign to defeat the Bush plan to privatize of Social Security.” In 2010, Creamer led efforts to rally the Democratic base by demonizing Republicans and making wildly optimistic predictions of victory:

Big Government also reported in May that Creamer, who worked for the Obama campaign in 2008, has also set up a nationwide political consulting firm to provide field operations and propaganda for Obama and the Democrats in the 2012 elections.

The timing of the August 2011 efforts is particularly interesting, given Creamer’s efforts this fall to promote the Occupy Wall Street movement and to target Bank of America in particular. Creamer told the New York Times in October that he hoped the Occupy movement would “inspire the progressive base” and help President Obama frame the issues for his re-election campaign. (more…)

There are certain “types” of people who are just not allowed to be conservative. You know what I’m talking about. For example, a certain African American Supreme Court Justice will always be the subject of bilious contempt because he holds legal and constitutional views that differ from what a black public servant is expected to hold.

We saw this dynamic play out recently in the Washington Post’s vicious and sloppy attack on Sen. Marco Rubio. Rubio is, of course, a quickly rising star in the Republican Party; one with broad – even national – appeal. Clearly the left knows the threat Sen. Rubio presents to its grip on Hispanic voters, so they felt it necessary to muddy him up with a shoddy news story questioning his family story.

Now come the attacks on New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez. The attacks on Martinez are much subtler than those on Sen. Rubio, but no less dangerous if left unanswered. They come in the form of a pervasive rumor about her family origins; a rumor that has been reported uncritically by the mainstream media, including the New York Times.

Here we have a popular and successful Latina politician with a bold, conservative agenda in an important swing state. As far as the mainstream media is concerned, there has to be a catch.

“Ms. Martinez, who grew up along the border, is also Mexican-American, with news reports since her election revealing that her paternal grandfather came to the United States as an illegal immigrant,” wrote Marc Lacey in a New York Times profile three months ago.

“…The New Mexican’s Sandra Baltazar Martínez reported recently, at least two of the governor’s grandparents also were [undocumented immigrants],” wrote the Santa Fe New Mexican in a recent editorial.

Lest you be under any illusions about the nature and motives of these news items, bear in mind that Gov. Martinez wants to roll back certain of her predecessor’s policies regarding illegal immigration in New Mexico, most notably, a policy that allows illegal immigrants to secure drivers licenses. “The governor’s opponents have pointed to her immigrant grandparents as an example of why New Mexico should welcome illegal immigrants and continue to allow them to get a driver’s license,” reports the Associated Press.

Obviously, the stage is set for the media and her political rivals to paint Gov. Martinez as a hypocrite and a traitor to her people.

There’s only one problem: The story about Martinez’s grandparents is junk. The Governor’s grandparents were not U.S. citizens, but they were most certainly not illegal immigrants.

(more…)

Far-left social justice teachers never miss an opportunity to push their agenda in the classroom.

As you’ll see in my upcoming book, “Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism,” leftist teachers use moments like the #OccupyWallStreet protests around the country to push their agenda of shifting America leftward away from a free market system.

One such teacher, Bob Peterson, who moonlights as the president of the Milwaukee teachers union, fawned all over a music video produced with footage from the various protests.  He called it “a great video rich with teaching possibilities.”

In one part, the camera is panning across pictures of Bush administration officials, to these lyrics:

War mongers only make the war longer

More sons and daughters sent on tour for slaughter

Pure mongers no conscience – killin’ machines

Ten years later and we’re still on the scene

Bush passed the hot grenade – now Obama gotta save the day

Before we waste away it’s safe to say

We need to make a change – celebrate the slain

Maybe take the blame and tear down the main frame

It’s called “Occupy Stand Up” by the Royal Kush Band and can be seen here on YouTube.

(more…)

UPDATED.

From Politico:

Less than 24 hours after Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government posted a video of New York Times freelancer (and former POLITICO/occasional On Media blogger) Natasha Lennard speaking on a panel about Occupy Wall Street, the Times defended her reporting, but says it has “no plans” to use her on future stories on the protests.

Lennard became one of the first journalistic stars of the growing protest movement when she was arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in the course of covering the protests for the Times – an experience she blogged about on the Times’ City Room blog under the title, “Covering the March, on Foot and in Handcuffs.”

Last night, Big Government’s Lee Stranahan posted a video from an Oct. 14th panel discussion on the protests at Bluestockings bookstore, organized by Jacobin magazine.

[...]

The New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy responded to questions about Lennard’s status and the Times’s policies on freelancers with a statement:

This freelancer, Natasha Lennard, has not been involved in our coverage of Occupy Wall Street in recent days, and we have no plans to use her for future coverage. We have reviewed the past stories to which she contributed and have not found any reasons for concern over that reporting.

All our journalists, staff or freelance, are expected to adhere to our ethical rules and journalistic standards, and to avoid doing anything that could call into question the impartiality of their work for The Times.

Lennard defended herself on Twitter this morning, quipping, “ugh. last time i offer a post-structuralist critique in public!” (more…)

A newly-discovered video–filmed by Occupy Wall Street supporters themselves–reveals that New York Times reporter Natasha Lennard is not merely covering the protests, but is also apparently taking part in planning and executing them.

In the video, Lennard is seen participating as a featured speaker in a discussion among anarchists, communists, and other radicals as they examine the theory, strategy and tactics of the Occupy protests.

The discussion was held at the left-wing Bluestockings book store in New York on Friday, Oct. 14, and filmed and promoted by the radical magazine Jacobin. The audience included participants in, and apparent organizers of, the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in lower Manhattan.

Lennard, who has also written for Politico and Salon, is identified in the video by the panel’s moderator as a freelancer for the Times, and also as the Times reporter who was arrested along with seven hundred activists on the Brooklyn Bridge on Oct. 1.

When Lennard reported on her arrest at the time, she appears to have concealed her own apparent role in the Occupy protests, implying that her arrest was an abuse of press freedom. She used her affiliation with the Times to win her early release.

Sympathetic media expressed shock that a reporter had been taken into custody by allegedly overzealous police. Only sources like Newsbusters questioned that narrative at the time. The video suggests that the skeptics were correct in their suspicions.

In the video of the panel discussion, Lennard reveals herself to be a passionate Occupy supporter, and appears to have personal knowledge of its planned future activities, including illegal occupations of banks in New York City.

We have decided to post the entire video of the panel discussion–below, in full, as first posted by Jacobin magazine. We have made no edits; the jump cuts are apparently caused by the videographer.

Lennard, the woman at far-left (coincidentally), speaks as a “comrade” of the panelists and the audience–one actively part of the far-left intellectual theorizing and organizing behind Occupy, and also as someone with deep knowledge of its plans.

For example, at roughly 1:15:15, an audience member asks a question about how to manage the growing ideological divisions among anarchists and communists as they form “a new society” through the Occupy movement.

Lennard’s answer suggests that she identifies with the anarchist faction holed up at Zuccotti Park–and that she identifies with efforts by Occupy activists to conceal their true beliefs and goals:

(more…)

There is a long 20^th century history of Wall Street protests in America.  After all, Wall Street is the financial center of the country. Today, we’re in a financial crisis so Wall Street (or its financial center equivalent in other cities) is the logical place to protest, right?

Actually, we think it’s a poor second to Lafayette Park across from the White House — where the current crisis was hatched and nurtured.  No, this isn’t an anti Obama screed.  His predecessors (several of them) are far more to blame for the current economic disarray in which we find ourselves, although we think his proposed remedies are anything but remedial.

“Occupy Wall Street” and “Wall Street Greed” are great memes.  They are highly memorable and easily passed on as a rallying cry. Unsurprisingly, President Obama and the left has sought to adopt them.  Of course, the protestors are an outgrowth of the wider sense of entitlement many young people have developed (including quotas disguised under the term “diversity”).  As George Will stated in his column in The Washington Post on October 13, 2011:

“Demands posted in [Occupy Wall Street’s] name include a ‘guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment’; a $20‑an‑hour minimum wage (above the $16.00 entry wage the UAW just negotiated with GM); ending ‘the fossil fuel economy’; ‘open borders’ so ‘anyone can travel anywhere to work and live’; $1 trillion dollars for infrastructure; $1 trillion dollars for ‘ecological restoration’; ‘free college education’, and forgiveness of ‘all debt on the entire planet.”

But abuses by Wall Street are an affect, not the cause of the current economic disarray. As anyone who has read our essays knows, we carry no brief for Wall Street excesses or those of the various Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE’s) that are the real culprits. But Wall Street was simply the vehicle by which the White House, Congress, the Fed and the Washington bureaucracy carried out very ill advised objectives. As is well known by now, the seeds of our current discontent were sowed a quarter century ago when President Jimmy Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).  This legislation and the regulatory policies that it set in motion may have been well intentioned, but as history teaches, roads paved merely with good intentions often lead where no one wants to go.

(more…)

Murder and violent crime rates were supposed to soar after the Supreme Court struck down Chicago’s and Washington, D.C.’s gun control laws. Politicians predicted disaster. “More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence,” Washington’s Mayor Adrian Fenty warned the day the court made its decision. Chicago’s Mayor Daley predicted that we would “go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle it in the streets.” The New York Times even editorialized last month about the Supreme Court’s “unwise” decision that there is a right for people “to keep guns in the home.”

But Armageddon never happened. Newly released data for Chicago shows that, as in D.C., murder and gun crime rates didn’t rise after the bans were eliminated; they plummeted. They have fallen much more than the national crime rate, but the national media has been completely silent. One can only imagine the coverage if crime rates had risen.

In the first six months of this year, there were 14% fewer murders in Chicago compared to the first six months of last year– back when owning handguns was illegal. It was the largest drop in Chicago’s murder rate since the handgun ban went into effect in 1982. Meanwhile, the other four most populous cities saw a total drop at the same time of only 6 percent.

Similarly, in the year after the 2008 Heller decision, the murder rate fell 2.5 times faster in D.C. than in the rest of the country. It also fell more than three times as fast as in other cities that are close to D.C.’s size. (more…)

BILL DALEY: Boehner’s office just called, sir.  He’s changed his mind.  Says you can address the joint session next Friday at 2:00 a.m.

OBAMA:  Cheeky b**tard.  All right, accept.  Eric, have Federal marshals available to round up and escort legislators to the Chamber.  Encourage them to be rough with Republicans.

JAY CARNEY: Our dirty tricks team affixed a wireless speaker under Joe Wilson’s seat, sir. We’ll trigger it to replay “You lie!” four minutes into your remarks.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:  Afterward, our technicians will enhance the audio, pinpoint the source, and nail him.  Wilson will deny, but voiceprint analysis confirms it’s his voice.

OBAMA:  And another firestorm.  Man never learns.

DAVID PLOUFFE:  Lotta voters throwing the Kool-Aid back in our faces, sir.  I wonder if a speech touting investment in urine-powered cars and prefabricated bamboo homes will help your numbers.

OBAMA:  Anyone with a better idea?

CARNEY:  Do a 180, sir: have a “Come-to-Jesus Moment” before the whole country, announcing you’ve finally realized you’re a socialist ideologue. (more…)

As a trial lawyer, I appreciate the panicked attempts of the liberal elite and its mainstream media suck-ups to focus the upcoming election on the religious views of the Republican candidates.  I face – and defeat – this kind of tactic all the time.  But don’t underestimate it, and don’t think we can just ignore it.  Misdirection is a powerful tool in the arsenal of the desperate, and let’s face it – if the liberal demographic they’re aiming to terrify with the specter of a GOP nominee dedicated to the goal of becoming the John Lithgow of a Footloose-esque theocracy was smart enough to see through such a transparent appeal to raw bigotry, its members wouldn’t be liberal.

The problem for the liberal elite is that its guy has made such roadkill out of the economy in his attempt to transform America into a socialist utopia that if the 2012 election revolves around the fact that most Americans are struggling to stay afloat because of him, Obama is going to be sent packing right back to Bill Ayers, Reverend White, and the rest of his commie pals in his old Chicago neighborhood.

So, the lib establishment’s strategy is crystal clear – play to the primitive prejudices of the Democrat base by doing its very best to convince them that should Perry or Bachman or Romney or any of those conservatives get elected, then Kevin Bacon shall boogie no more!

Bill Keller, editor of something called the New York Times, which used to be a newspaper of some note in the old days before the free flow of information, eagerly capered for his liberal overlords last week with a couple of columns that set out a series of questions to the GOP candidates about their religious views.

Note that these questions are only directed at Republicans – the liberals know that with a few exceptions the religious posturing of their Democrat favorites is a sham designed to appeal to the few sub-constituencies of the Democrat Party (like black women) who actually do hold sincere religious beliefs.  For most liberals – especially the base – religion is just one more wedge issue to be exploited in pursuit of a collectivist nirvana.

(more…)

[As the Republican nominee begins his opening statement, President Obama reflects.*]

I

Ooooh . . . he speaks, the right’s Orion!

Expel your foul dis-charges—phew!

Could glares steal breath, Paulie Ryan,

‘Bout now you’d be turning blue!

Huh?  Big spending cuts are needed?

Ah, Fed tax rates mustn’t rise.

And these . . . “facts” I’ve not conceded?

Why?  They’re falsehoods, damn your eyes!

II

In the past we’ve had discussions–

“Paul–thanks for coming!”—I must bear

Rants on Market repercussions,

Treas’ry futures, budget snares.

Our job outlook’s pathetic; rarely

Has it been this bad, I think.

Want a deal to face this squarely?

Want emetics in your drink? (more…)

Gwen Ifill of PBS had a “panel of cultural and academic luminaries” at Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center last Wednesday. Their purpose was to have an “effective racial dialogue” with one another.

As is typically the case when there is a “racial dialogue,” the panel was filled with like-minded liberals endlessly agreeing with each other and solving nothing. The participants included, among others, Gwen Ifill, New York Times columnists Charles Blow, and Anita Hill–who is apparently a “legal commentator.” Absent was a single conservative. Maybe an insightful conversation could have occurred if there were actually diverse thoughts present.

Instead they had Tim Wise, a supposed “anti-racist” author and speaker. Wise is popular among college leftists for his style and bold remarks. Some of those remarks, however, are possibly the most angry, hateful remarks any public figure has recently uttered. For example, Wise recently attacked not only Andrew Breitbart, but his family as well:

“[Andrew Breitbart]…I want that bastard destroyed. Now. [...] when I say I want him destroyed I am not kidding. I want to see him penniless, homeless, begging on the street for money to buy food [...] he can die on the street so far as I’m concerned [...] let you and your rich ass Brentwood family suffer”

Wise also falsely and embarrassingly accused Breitbart of approving of a cross burning, which was in reality directed at Breitbart and his friend. Wise then reiterated:

“this Tulane grad [Tim Wise] is committed to [Andrew Breitbart's] utter destruction …I mean, the kind of destruction that involves the complete evisceration of his entire career. I want him destroyed. Penniless. Starving. I have never detested anyone this much…but for him, I will make an exception.”

Yes, penniless, starving, the evisceration of Breitbart’s career, we get it. Good luck with that, Tim. His recent racial slur of Herman Cain would, in a just world, disqualify him from being a prominent “anti-racist” and being invited to these events. But it doesn’t; instead, he has two new books coming out which will probably become required reading in college campuses across the country, like his previous books.

The question is, will Gwen Ifill, PBS, and CNN give this man a platform like they have in the past to spread his ideas on “effective racial dialogue” and “reconciliation?”

(more…)