Fiscal Cliff Deal Growing More Likely, Would Raise $715 Billion In Revenue

This whole fiasco started with the rejection of Simpson-Bowles by Obama. Then, read Woodward's book on the political jockeying going into the debt-ceiling talks early this year to see how Obama rejected a Boehner proposal agreed on by Pelosi, McConnell and Reid! Boehner caved so much that he allowed Obama to avoid a confrontation on the ceiling/budget until AFTER the election.

Now we are looking at a tax raise without real cuts in entitlements, which will have to wait until February, when Boehner & Obama will duke it out again over a debt-ceiling compromise.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Dalrymple on Moral Equivalence & Its Grandiosity

Forgiveness is a mantra that Dr. Dalrymple thinks is oversold.

The most notorious murderer whom I ever met during my time as a prison doctor was Frederick West. In a small house in Gloucester, he and his wife, Rosemary, had sexually tortured, murdered, dismembered, and buried 12 people, including two of their own children. Their crimes came to light in 1994, more than 20 years after they had committed the first of them; their depravity shocked even an age rich in criminal sensation. When I first encountered West, he seemed affable, spending much of his time playing pool with the prison officers (later, unexpectedly, he hanged himself, to the unanimous rejoicing of the other prisoners). Still, I found something sinister and lycanthropic about him, even when he tried to be deferential and charming.

The murderous couple’s modus operandi—except with their own children—was to drive out together in their car and offer lifts to isolated young women, sometimes suggesting that they come back to their house to sleep. The women probably would have refused the offers had they come from a man alone; they accepted them because of Rosemary’s reassuring presence. One victim abducted and murdered this way was Lucy Partington, a student of English literature at Exeter University; she wrote poetry, had recently converted to Catholicism, and had just applied to the Courtauld Institute in London to study medieval art history. Lucy was the child of a prosperous but bohemian family and a first cousin of the writer Martin Amis, who mentions her extensively in his memoir, Experience.

Lucy’s sister Marian has recently published a book, If You Sit Very Still, about the murder. The title refers to a dream that Marian had shortly after Lucy’s disappearance, in which her sister said to her: “If you sit very still, you can hear the sun move.” A comparison of Partington’s book with Obsessive Poisoner—written 40 years earlier by Winifred Young, the sister of an earlier serial murderer—is instructive in tracing a change in our cultural sensibility: from a robust and truthful common sense to a sickly and canting sentimentality.That Marian Partington suffered terrible loss and its consequent pain, however, does not justify self-centeredness, self-absorption, and self-congratulation, or absolve her of the responsibility to think clearly, at least when she lays her thoughts before the public. Over and over again, Partington extols forgiveness, indiscriminately and without proper examination, as if to fail to forgive were necessarily to fall prey to insensate vengefulness and automatically to inflict cruelty, and as if compassion required forgiveness of wrong in every case. Her book is a description, often unctuous and syrupy, of her struggle to forgive Rosemary West. In the process, she ropes in as many different kinds of mysticism as she can—both Buddhist, from Tibetan and Chinese to Zen, and Christian, from Saint John of the Cross and Rowan Williams to Quaker. For her, a cloudy benevolence always trumps a hard-edged truth; her views are therefore a potpourri, minestrone, or Mickey Finn of religious—or rather, religiose—ethics; she is that very modern type, spiritual but not religious. One can almost smell the joss sticks and hear, as she writes, the wind chimes tinkling in the background, above the healing chakras of the earth that happen to cross her garden (which is not far from a mountain that she considers holy, as did the ancient Celtic Druids).

It is not surprising that someone so indifferent to the propositional, and therefore potentially contradictory, content of different religions or mystical traditions easily elides or collapses moral distinctions. In particular, Partington repeatedly attributes moral equivalence to murder and what she calls “murderous rage.” When finally, after much hesitation, she writes to West in prison, she says: “When I vowed to forgive you I experienced murderous rage shortly afterwards. Somehow I knew that I could have killed someone too.” Speaking to prisoners in England, she says: “Like all of you, I have ended up having to search inside myself, investigating my own cycle of violence and abuse. I have found debilitating grief, fear, shame and murderous rage.” On a Buddhist retreat, she says, psychobabbling away: “Working towards becoming forgiving began with an experience of murderous rage. In other words, I was not so different from the Wests as I might wish to think. . . . From that moment it would not be possible to write off these people who had acted from this place.”

You have to read the entire piece which concerns the difference between two books written by the female relatives of victims of different serial murderers---in Partington's case, a married couple who tortured her sister and eleven other people to death, including two of their own children [!?!]

So Young's book was written in 1972 and Partington's very recently. Here's more on Ms Partington's book about her sister's grisly murder, after being raped and tortured & buried like a dog in the woods....

The author, too, has mastered the modern art of constantly talking about herself in an imprecise but self-important way, without revealing anything of herself—perhaps because there is little to reveal: “It seems that as soon as I feel as if I have understood something about myself the next layer of unresolved pain looks me in the eye, as if I am sabotaging my aspirations by thinking I have arrived somewhere safe and clear.” Or again:

I’m not sure when I did attain adulthood. Have I? Adulthood is something about responsibility. I have to reach a compromise between what is demanded of me within my family relationships (as a mother, partner, sister, aunt, niece, daughter) and what calls me, what I am called towards as a unique individual—when I allow myself to be unraveled and re-knitted.

Oddly enough, this constant focus on herself is carried out in the name of the reduction of ego: “The movement towards comprehension is neither logical or straightforward. Essentially it involves becoming less self-centered, which makes space for the experience for oneself and others. It involves getting out of the way. Ultimately it may involve becoming forgiving.” And, of course, the first person to be forgiven is herself: “It was necessary to dissolve my own grief and anger and find compassion for myself before opening up to the possibility of forgiving those who caused this terrible pain.” The dissolution of the ego is supposed to result in a universal compassion that moves beyond considerations of morality: “The attitude of insight and compassion, that is able to love my enemies and pray for them, is waiting to be known and expressed beyond that which is Ωright≈ or Ωwrong≈. If only ΩI≈ (my small self that I cling onto as my only identity) can get out of the way.”

By now, reading this, I felt slightly sick, as if I had eaten too many chocolates. One would not expect a person who talks so much of forgiving herself to have anything valuable to say about forgiveness. She does not consider the possibility that incontinent forgiveness, deemed good in itself regardless of the act to be forgiven or the attitude of the person to be forgiven, means that no human behavior is beyond the pale, that nothing is unforgivable. This is to turn forgiveness into a kind of inalienable human right of the wrongdoer (a profoundly un-Christian view, incidentally).

Parenthetically, IMHO, I would differ with Dalrymple in that if the wrongdoer sincerely ask for God's forgiveness, God would do so through Christ's redemptive sacrifice. This, of course, is a quibble in the sense that after Mr. West hanged himself in prison, his wife refused to correspond with Marian Partington concerning Marian's informing her that she was personally forgiven for torturing and murdering her sister Lucy. [see below]

That Partington thinks this way shows up particularly clearly in her reaction to Rosemary’s response to her letter of forgiveness. West chose not to respond herself. Instead, a note came from a prison official: “Ms West has received your letter and asked me to relay a message on her behalf and asked that you cease all correspondence, she does not wish to receive any further letters from you.” This utter rejection of her advances—the only comic moment in her book, albeit unintentionally and bleakly so—has no effect on Partington. Her forgiveness rolls on undeterred like a panzer division, flattening all monstrous immorality in its path.

So wrapped up in herself is Partington that the question of her locus standi to forgive does not occur to her. What is it that she actually forgives and has a right to forgive? She certainly has no right to forgive the torture and murder of her sister; it was her sister, not she, who was the principal victim. She could forgive Rosemary West the suffering that the torture and murder caused her, but this implies blindness to the sheer moral enormity of the crime. Nor does it occur to her that the Wests’ infliction of violence on 11 other victims, apart from her sister, reduces the significance of her forgiveness, even if she had the right to bestow it. Does she suppose that everyone else who suffered because of the Wests’ sadism should follow her example, or, if they do not, that they are her moral inferiors? Moral grandiosity hardly comes grander. Her forgiveness is like the grin of the Cheshire Cat, subsisting without anchorage to, or expression of, anything, except ego.

Dr. D is a bit harsh on the sister of the rape/torture/murder victim, but he notes that Ms. Partington has no right to forgive Ms West for the eleven other victims of her husband & herself's utter depraved monstrous behavior.

Ms Winifred Young in a different book writes in a different vein:

It is a relief, after bathing in this oil and syrup, to turn to Winifred Young’s account of her brother and of her reaction to his crimes. Unlike Partington, she is lucid, honest, straightforward, modest, and lacking in ego. For example, wondering whether anything in her brother’s home circumstances led him to the practice of poisoning, she writes:

So it was pretty quiet at home; and, really, there was nothing very exciting for Graham to do. Yet can one really say that if things had been much different; if there had been other things to occupy his mind, that he might have become a useful member of society, instead of the terrible menace he has become?

Her judgment is suitably tentative and yet sound and sensible: “I find it difficult to give a completely satisfactory answer to such a hypothetical question, but I don’t believe that there was anything in Graham’s home background that made him the psychopath he has become.” She sees her brother in a clear-eyed way, describing how he nursed an ambition to go down in criminal history as one of the great poisoners, reveling in his own notoriety; how he would poison people only if he could watch or monitor the effects, as if they were insects; how he would be apparently solicitous about the symptoms of some but cold-blooded about those of others.

Winifred Young’s reaction (and that of her family) to her brother’s first trial, in 1962, was of exemplary clarity:

“Even we, his family, persons who were more emotionally affected by it all; the ones who more than any others in the world, were reluctant to see him put behind bars, felt that this was the only right thing to do with him.”

This response is sophisticated compared with Partington’s pseudo-spiritual maunderings. Not only is it far from the vengefulness that Partington ignorantly supposes is the only alternative to forgiveness; it clearly draws a distinction, as Partington does not, between the private sphere of the emotions and the public sphere of policy.

When her brother is committed to Broadmoor, Winifred writes:

I must say I could never understand how the people at Broadmoor proposed to cure him. It did not seem to me that there was any way of effecting a cure by physical means. As psychiatrists explained it to me, Graham had no properly developed moral sense, no conscience. . . . I didn’t see how you could instill a moral sense into someone who, basically, had a character defect.

Indeed, the first psychiatrists to examine Graham Young agreed with Winifred; but by the late 1960s, therapeutic optimism reigned, and Young’s new psychiatrist mistakenly believed him cured and safe for release.

Winifred Young also deals with the question of forgiveness. She is obviously a good and kind person:

Reflecting on my personal feelings at the time, I remember that I was not at all bitter or angry with Graham. I felt ready to forgive him, as I think most of the family were except, perhaps, Dad. . . . Now that he was in Broadmoor, I couldn’t hate him.

When one bears in mind that Graham had nearly poisoned her to death, this statement is remarkable; but it becomes clear that she does not consider her more forgiving attitude superior to her father’s. Graham had observed with chilling detachment his father’s agony in the hospital from antimony poisoning, from which he nearly died. Winifred has no expectation that her father will forgive Graham. Nor is she in the least censorious when he says, understandably, that he wants never to see his son again and that he should be locked up for good. Further, she clearly believes that her own forgiveness is a personal matter; indeed, a precondition of it appears to be that her brother should be locked up.

She wrestles with difficult moral problems, but in a non-exhibitionist way. To what extent is her brother, clearly born different from most human beings, morally responsible for his actions?

My own attitude is still very confused and ambivalent. How far can you go feeling sorry for him, when he doesn’t feel—is, in fact, incapable of feeling—sorry for anything he has done; when he does not care about the havoc he makes of other people’s lives as long as he gets personal satisfaction. I cannot understand the hairline difference between being a psychopath and being insane.

Winifred Young is a genuinely compassionate person, for she describes her “most heart-rending and traumatic experience” of Graham as his telling her, just before his second arrest, that he could not “get close to people.” Winifred, unaware that her brother had returned to poisoning, suggested normal social activities that might help, to which he replied, “No, nothing like that can help. You see, there’s a terrible coldness inside me.” But her sorrow for him personally did not mean that she was unable to make distinctions: “I forgave him for trying to kill me. When he was arrested the second time I felt differently about him.” In other words, she could forgive him for what he did to her, but not for what he did to others. There she has no right to forgive.

Dr. Dalrymple believes that the two books are worlds apart, with the moral sickness of Western Civilization at present happening in the late sixties, when psychiatry began to follow the paths of semi-quacks like Laing and New World Soothsayers oozing soft nostrums to ease the Spartan discipline that the Cold War imposed on religion and morality. He describes the sickness succinctly:

The contrast between Marian Partington and Winifred Young is, I suspect, not merely one between two individuals, though it is that as well. The difference between the transparently honest, modest, public-spirited Young, whose ambivalence reflects the real moral dilemmas that the world throws up, and the patently dishonest, self-regarding, and complacent Partington, is cultural. The first grew up before the transformation of the 1960s; the second, probably not by nature a bad person, grew up during that transformation (and participated in it enthusiastically). Marian Partington’s book is a compendium of the spiritual sickness of our times; Winifred Young’s is a reminder of the possibility of real decency—of decency as a great social virtue.

Go to the link above to read the entire piece, and know that Dr. Dalrymple has ample credentials to write this article. I have read two of his books, and the incredible OUR CULTURE, WHAT's LEFT OF IT: The Mandarins and the Masses, describes his peripatetic tour of the world during 30 [thirty!] years as a doctor in the British National Health Service in a dozen countries in the Commonwealth as well as all over the UK. The Times Literary Supplement calls it an "urgent, important, almost essential book....elegantly written, conscientiously argued,provocative, and fiercely committed." Peggy Noonan calls Dalrymple "the best doctor-writer since William Carlos Williams."

This article is a neat précis of Dr. Theodore Dalrymple's perspective on the period from 1938, the year Winifred Young was born through 1948, when Ms. Partington was born, to the present moment.

Suffice it to say that our sad latter days are full of private concerns and sorely lacking in public accountability.

And Theodore Dalrymple is a sort of Thucydides wounded by experience, who looks at Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens as some sort of specimens of the traitorous Alcibiades inverting our moral compasses to another direction altogether. Victor Davis Hanson, PhD., understands Dr. Dalrymple's point of view better than all of us.

How the Fiscal Cliff Came to Be

The WSJ explains the sorry pass that the USA has come to.

Gun Control Has Murdered over 100 Million

Cyn Farah has this on her blog:

The documentary takes viewers though historic footage, much of it very graphic, on genocidal examples of regimes that disarmed their people, then murdered them. The documentary presents examples from the Russian death camps and starvation campaign, the Communist Chinese death regime, Germany’s Nazi Holocaust, the Cambodian, Rwandan, Armenian, Guatemalan, and Ugandan genocides, and other situations where not owning a firearm cost citizens their lives.

Something to ponder as the liberals go hysterical in their usual fashion over the latest trendy big thing. As the idiot mayor of Chicago once said, a crisis is a good time to take advantage.

10 Most Overdone Trends in 2012

Virginia Postrel is a delightful Facebook "friend" though I've never even met her. This is a funny collection, especially the one about cats on the internet, my all-time favorite subject.

Sen Kerry's Horrible Record in Latin America

Any Vietnam Era American will vaguely remember this specimen of lying perfidy slandering US soldiers with blanket condemnations and lies that launched his career as a crusading politico with absolutely zero humility or sense of responsibility to America's allies in Latin America.

His dishonesty is best illustrated by the three Purple Hearts he fraudulently obtained in Vietnam in 3 1/2 months of service on a Swift Boat. Thank God there were fifty-five other Swift Boat captains who called this phony POS's number on the Purple Heart issue. [Three PH's got you a ticket back to "The World" as we Vietnam grunts used to call it.] Thank God the American people were smart enough to reject this moral moron and his slimy sidekick John Edwards, two Demonrats cut of the same cloth. Here's Mary Anastasia O'Grady's wonderful deconstruction of this specimen of slithering marxist Manchurian Candidate:

With Susan Rice withdrawing her name for U.S. secretary of state, President Obama last week nominated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry for the job. Don't expect applause from beleaguered democrats south of the border.

Mr. Kerry's record of promoting American values abroad is dismal. It isn't that he opposes U.S. intervention—far from it. The trouble is that he has a habit of intervening on behalf of bad guys. A left-wing world view and an earnest conviction that it is his destiny to impose it on others may make him a perfect fit in the Obama cabinet. But it won't be good for poor countries or for U.S. interests.

US Senator John Kerry D-MA (R) watches as US President Barack Obama announces Kerry as his choice for the next secretary of state on December 21, 2012 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC

Latin America knows all too well the dangerous combination of Mr. Kerry's arrogance and, to be polite, let's say, naiveté. In 1985, in the midst of the Cold War, he led a congressional delegation to Nicaragua, where he met with Sandinista comandante Daniel Ortega. The Sandinista reputation as a human-rights violator was already well-established, and the Soviets were stalking Central America. Nevertheless, Mr. Kerry came back from Managua advocating an end to U.S. support for the resistance known as the "Contras." The House took his advice and voted down a $14 million aid package to them. The next day Mr. Ortega flew to Moscow to get $200 million in support from the Kremlin.

Searching for the truth requires humility, which may explain why Mr. Kerry was so dangerously uninformed. Years later, the writer Paul Berman exposed the realities of Sandinista oppression with "In Search of Ben Linder's Killers" (The New Yorker, Sept. 23, 1996). Mr. Berman went into the Nicaraguan highlands to learn how the Sandinista sympathizer from Oregon had died. In the process he also learned about the peasant rebellion against the Sandinistas.

Highland peasants had joined Marxist intellectuals calling themselves Sandinistas to overthrow dictator Anastasio Somoza, only to find themselves slaves of a new master in the 1980s. "Women from the poorest families balanced canastas filled with fruit or grains on their heads and went to market, exactly as they always had and the Sandinista police raided the buses and arrested the women as speculators." Locals "felt that they were losing control over their products, their freedom of action and their land." The pushback wasn't only from large landowners. "The smaller the patch, the more fiercely they clung to it."

Sandinista-backer Fidel Castro sent Cubans to help. "Almost instantly" Mr. Berman wrote, "a blazing hatred for the Cubans—known as Russians to the people who despised them—swept through the northern and eastern countryside." The peasants "came to a horrifying conclusion: that the Sandinista National Liberation Front was a political movement that was devoted to contempt of God and theft of land; a movement that called itself Nicaraguan but was actively trying to turn the country over to foreigners; a movement that claimed to be for the peasants and the poor but was actually their most implacable enemy."

Linder was killed, Mr. Berman was told by a highland local whose unit was involved, by the Contras because he was thought to be a Cuban.

It is still not clear whether Mr. Kerry realizes he was flacking for jackboots. Let's assume that he was merely a sucker who fell for Soviet and Cuban propaganda. Does a similar knowledge deficiency explain why, when he ran for president in 2004, he told a Boston audience that the Colombian guerrillas, famous for killing and maiming civilians, "have legitimate complaints"?

That same year, Sandinista comandante Tomás Borge and Argentina's Peronist Cristina Kirchner both endorsed presidential candidate Kerry. More strange friends.

In June 2009, Mr. Kerry again went to bat for the dark side, this time in Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya, an ally of Hugo Chávez, had been unconstitutionally trying to extend his time in office. The Honduran Supreme Court ordered the military to arrest him. All the other branches of government, the Catholic Church, Honduras's human-rights ombudsman and Mr. Zelaya's own party backed the court's decision.

Mr. Chávez, Fidel Castro and the Obama administration became furious, called it a "coup d'état" and moved to isolate the tiny country. When Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) planned a fact-finding trip to Tegucigalpa, Mr. Kerry's office tried to stop him by blocking funding. When the Law Library of Congress concluded that the Honduran high court had acted legally, Mr. Kerry wrote to the head of the library demanding that the opinion be retracted and "corrected." In the spring of 2010, a Kerry staffer traveled to Honduras to pressure officials there to adopt the Obama administration's "coup" narrative.

It is also worth recalling that Mr. Kerry's running mate in 2004, John Edwards, promised to force the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement if the Kerry-Edwards ticket won the White House.

There's a pattern here and it features Mr. Kerry continually on the wrong side of history. Asking Americans to believe that he will be any different as secretary of state is asking them to suspend disbelief.

This opportunistic girlie-man was quick to court Sen. Heinz's widow, almost while Heinz's body was still warm. The worm then parked his 100-foot boat in Rhode Island because of Massachusetts' stiff tax rates.

This hypocritical impostor will represent the US as badly as Obama did during his 'apology tour' in 2009 and will predictably be the darling of the NYT and its pilot fish. He can't do much worse than the butch bitch he's replacing. But look for North Korea and other international pariahs to get support from this tax-the-rich-except-for-himself FREAK.

Wind Power is a Total Rip-off.

The distinguished scholar & former Senator Phil Gramm waxes eloquent about the ridiculous subsidies the government pays for wind power. The US is not the only idiotic country, as Germany plans to convert its entire energy generation in twenty years to wind & solar. Given German weather, the USA will pass Germany economically in a spectacular fashion:

Federal subsidies for new wind-power generation will end on Dec. 31 unless they are renewed by Congress. For the sake of our economy and the smooth operation of the energy market, Congress should let the subsidies lapse. They waste taxpayer money, subvert the allocation of capital, and generate a social cost many times the price tag of the subsides themselves.

Since 1992, the federal government has expended almost $24 billion to encourage investment in wind power through direct spending, tax breaks, R&D, loan guarantees and other federal support of electric power. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that a one-year extension of existing federal subsidies for wind power would cost taxpayers almost $12 billion.

The costs of wind subsidies are extraordinarily high—$52.48 per one million watt hours generated, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. By contrast, the subsidies for generating the same amount of electricity from nuclear power are $3.10, from hydropower 84 cents, from coal 64 cents, and from natural gas 63 cents.

In addition, wind power benefits from federal mandates requiring the use of renewable energy by federal agencies along with preferential treatment by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. Many states provide additional tax breaks, subsidies and mandates for wind power. The total value of these additional subsidies has never been calculated.

But the cost to taxpayers is only part of the problem. Subsidized, wind-generated electricity is displacing other, much cheaper sources of power. The subsidies are so high that wind-power producers can pay utilities to take the electricity they produce and still make a profit. Such "negative pricing" has occurred for some time in the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest and in Texas—and, according to the Energy Information Administration, it will likely grow.

In West Texas, where wind power is a larger percentage of total electricity production than in any other part of the country, negative energy-price distortions have occurred 8% or more of the time for the last five years. Donna Nelson, the chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission, warned in September that the market distortion caused by negative prices "makes it difficult for other generation types to recover their cost and discourages investment in new generation."

The net result is that federal subsidies are triggering an inefficient and costly transformation of grid resources from low-cost megawatts to high-cost "maybe" watts—electricity generated only when the wind blows.

When electricity demand peaked in Chicago on July 6, 2012, wind energy, which comprised 2,700 megawatts of capacity, was able to supply only four megawatts of electricity, a stunning 99.8% failure rate. In Europe, one day this February wind power produced almost a third of Germany's electricity—but four days later it produced none (it was a still day).

Power grids that rely on wind-generated electricity have to maintain redundant, backup generating capacity in case the wind isn't blowing and the demand for electricity is high. Many of these backup sources, such as coal and gas-fired plants, have to be kept up and running to be available when they are needed—even if they are not used. This partially offsets the environmental benefits of wind power.

Senator Gramm continues in this article to demonstrate the absurdity of wind power. Recently, I saw a documentary movie about the perils of windpower in upstate New York. All one can say is that wind and solar are heavily subsidized and ridiculously inefficient. Read the rest of the article in the link above.

Thomas Sowell's Thoughts on Guns

Sowell is one of the USA's most broad-gauged thinkers. Here's an interesting take on guns in Townhall:

When I was growing up, an older member of the family used to say, "What you don't know would make a big book." Now that I am an older member of the family, I would say to anyone, "What you don't know would fill more books than the Encyclopedia Britannica." At least half of our society's troubles come from know-it-alls, in a world where nobody knows even 10 percent of all.

Some people seem to think that, if life is not fair, then the answer is to turn more of the nation's resources over to politicians -- who will, of course, then spend these resources in ways that increase the politicians' chances of getting reelected.

The annual outbursts of intolerance toward any display of traditional Christmas scenes, or even daring to call a Christmas tree by its name, show that today's liberals are by no means liberal. Behind the mist of their lofty words, the totalitarian mindset shows through.

If you don't want to have a gun in your home or in your school, that's your choice. But don't be such a damn fool as to advertise to the whole world that you are in "a gun-free environment" where you are a helpless target for any homicidal fiend who is armed. Is it worth a human life to be a politically correct moral exhibitionist?

The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a wrecking crew, dismantling civilization bit by bit -- replacing what works with what sounds good.

Some people are wondering what takes so long for the negotiations about the "fiscal cliff." Maybe both sides are waiting for supplies. Democrats may be waiting for more cans to kick down the road. Republicans may be waiting for more white flags to hold up in surrender.

If I were rich, I would have a plaque made up, and sent to every judge in America, bearing a statement made by Adam Smith more than two and a half centuries ago: "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."

If someone wrote a novel about a man who was raised from childhood to resent the successful and despise the basic values of America -- and who then went on to become President of the United States -- that novel would be considered too unbelievable, even for a work of fiction. Yet that is what has happened in real life.

Many people say, "War should be a last resort." Of course it should be a last resort. So should heart surgery, divorce and many other things. But that does not mean that we should just continue to hope against hope indefinitely that things will work out, somehow, until catastrophe suddenly overtakes us.

Everybody is talking about how we are going to pay for the huge national debt, but nobody seems to be talking about the runaway spending which created that record-breaking debt. In other words, the big spenders get political benefits from handing out goodies, while those who resist giving them more money to spend will be blamed for sending the country off the "fiscal cliff."

When Barack Obama refused to agree to a requested meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- the leader of a country publicly and repeatedly threatened with annihilation by Iran's leaders, as the Iranians move toward creating nuclear bombs -- I thought of a line from the old movie classic "Citizen Kane": "Charlie wasn't cruel. He just did cruel things."

There must be something liberating about ignorance. Back when most members of Congress had served in the military, there was a reluctance of politicians to try to tell military leaders how to run the military services. But, now that few members of Congress have ever served in the military, they are ready to impose all sorts of fashionable notions on the military.

After watching a documentary about the tragic story of Jonestown, I was struck by the utterly unthinking way that so many people put themselves completely at the mercy of a glib and warped man, who led them to degradation and destruction. And I could not help thinking of the parallel with the way we put a glib and warped man in the White House.

There are people calling for the banning of assault weapons who could not define an "assault weapon" if their life depended on it. Yet the ignorant expect others to take them seriously.

Prof. Sowell is a credit to the academic community. Yet a "glib & warped man" is a nice way to describe the huckster we have in the Oval Office.

Austrian Music Psychology Prof Wants Death Penalty for AGW Deniers

Tallbloke tells of an Austrian prof born in Oz who wants the death penalty for opposing a disputed scientific theory...

Read on if you want to see what 1984 looks in the light of the commie misfit Gramsci's playbook.

Too Much NBA Action

Five NBA games in one day and I am now in a bleary-eyed state of drowsiness after my faves won four of five [the despised Lakers beat the Knicks to spoil my day.]

The Heat beat the Thunder and the Rockets TROUNCED the despised Bulls and the Clippers made it 14 straight. The Heat were 19 out of 19 from the free throw line and LeBron spoiled Skip Bayless's Christmas by just missing a triple-double.

I thought I saw Jack Nicholson at the Clippers game on the sideline seats, but it could have been a body-double. Billy Crystal is a lifer Clippers fan and regaled Breen & Van Pelt with memories of the Clippers over the last 20 years.

Between the Heat and the Packers, this could be an enjoyable Winter.

And I enjoyed dinner with my wife's parents while all this was happening. All in all, a fine winter's nap coming up.

Zakaria on Demography is Destiny

Fareed may have lost a lot of cred with his plagiarist fiasco, but he's right on target with this Time Mag article.

ESPN's Skip Bayless: Watchable Insanity

Skip is a Tebow lover and a LeBron hater. I love them both. Read the Men's Journal about the "mad monk" who's the most popular, or maybe the right word is watchable, commentator on sports TV.

Nationalism Trumps Globalization in New IT Era

Robert Kaplan is one of the most accomplished foreign policy and historical analysts in the USA. Kaplan correctly skewers the self-referential boobies stateside and in Europe who interview each other and like-minded liberal elites in Egypt and India and elsewhere to give a false sense of kumbayeh peace and harmony breaking out everywhere. Here's Kaplan:

Western elites believe that universal values are trumping the forces of reaction. They wax eloquent about the triumph of human rights, women's liberation, social media, financial markets, international and regional organizations and all the other forces that are breaking down boundaries separating humanity.

Tragically, they are really observing a self-referential world of global cosmopolitans like themselves. In country after country, the Westerners identify like-minded, educated elites and mistake them for the population at large. They prefer not to see the regressive and exclusivist forces—such as nationalism and sectarianism—that are mightily reshaping the future.

Take Cairo's Tahrir Square in early 2011. Western journalists celebrated the gathering of relatively upper-income Arab liberals with whom they felt much in common, only to see these activists quickly retreat as post-autocratic Egypt became for many months a struggle among the military, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist Salafists—with the Coptic Christians fearing for their communal survival.

Though secular liberals have resurfaced to challenge Egypt's Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, do not be deceived. The military and the Muslim Brotherhood both have organized infrastructures. The liberals have only spontaneous emotion and ad hoc organizations. An Islamist-Nasserite regime-of-sorts is likely to emerge, as the military uses the current vulnerability of the Muslim Brotherhood to drive a harder bargain.

I have been to Egypt a dozen times while doing political risk assessments for Amoco and know that the Ikhwan & Army have gigantic networks of members comprising over 50% of the population. I saw the pathetic Mohammed El Baradei on a PBS interview last night downplay the size and importance of these two controlling influences on Egypt. El Baradei said to wait for the upcoming parliamentary elections to see.

Sadly, there is little prospect of a liberal majority, unless, as in the constitutional referendum polling last week, there is a very low turnout. [The referendum failed in Cairo and other large cities, by the way, but the large rural turnout, including many of the 30% of Egyptians who are illiterate, voted for the Islamist agenda.]

But wait, there's more bad news for the Boy Wonder to "lead from behind" on:

Egypt and the Middle East now offer a panorama of sectarianism and religious and ethnic divides. Freedom, at least in its initial stages, unleashes not only individual identity but, more crucially, the freedom to identify with a blood-based solidarity group. Beyond that group, feelings of love and humanity do not apply. That is a signal lesson of the Arab Spring.

An analogous process is at work in Asia. Nationalism there is young and vibrant—as it was in the West in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Asia is in the midst of a feverish arms race, featuring advanced diesel-electric submarines, the latest fighter jets and ballistic missiles. China, having consolidated its land borders following nearly two centuries of disorder, is projecting air and sea power into what it regards as the blue national soil of the South China and East China seas.

Japan and other countries are reacting in kind. Slipping out of its quasi-pacifistic shell, Japan is rediscovering nationalism as a default option. The Japanese navy boasts roughly four times as many major warships as the British Royal Navy. As for Vietnam and the Philippines, nobody who visits those countries and talks with their officials, as I have, about their territorial claims would imagine for a moment that we live in a post-national age.

The disputes in Asia are not about ideology or any uplifting moral philosophy; they are about who gets to control space on the map. The same drama is being played out in Syria where Alawites, Sunnis and Kurds are in a territorial contest over power and control as much as over ideas. Syria's writhing sectarianism—in which Bashar Assad is merely the leading warlord among many—is a far cruder, chaotic and primitive version of the primate game of king of the hill.

The US and Europe are introspective and distracted. America under this second-rate president is fast losing ANY leverage in foreign policy except that wielded by its overwhelming military advantage---which Obama will be loath to ever use, given the vociferous self-referential imbecility of his left-wing Demonrats.

But wait, there's more:

Nationalism is alive and thriving in India and Russia as well. India's navy and air force are in the process of becoming among the world's largest. Throughout most of history, India and China had little to do with each other, separated as they were by the Himalayas. But the collapse of distance by way of technology has created a new strategic geography for two big nations. Now Indian space satellites monitor Chinese military installations, even as Chinese fighter jets in Tibet have the possibility of including India within their arc of operations. This rivalry has further refined and invigorated nationalism in both countries.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin's nationalism is a large factor in his high popularity. President Putin's nationalism is geographical determinism: He wants to recreate buffer states in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, like in the old Soviet Union. So he does everything he can to undermine the countries in these regions.

Western elites hope that if somehow there were truly free elections in Russia, then this foreign policy might change. The evidence is to the contrary. Race-hatred against Muslims is high among Russians, and just as there are large rallies by civil-society types, there are also marches and protests by skinheads and neo-Nazis, who are less well-covered by the Western media. Local elections in October returned a strong showing for Mr. Putin's party. Like it or not, he is representative of the society he governs.

Nor can Europe be left out of this larger Eurasian trend. A weakening European Union, coupled with onerous social and economic conditions for years to come, invites a resurgence of nationalism and extremism, as we have already seen in countries as diverse as Hungary, Finland, Ukraine and Greece. That is exactly the fear of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize committee, which gave this year's award to the European Union in order to make a statement against this trend.

Fascists are not about to regain power anywhere on the Continent, but the age of deepening European integration is likely behind us. Get ready to see more nasty and thoroughly frightening political groupings like Greece's Golden Dawn emerge across the Continent.

Putin is no less than a new incarnation of the Czars, or more frighteningly, Stalin. Russia has a huge demographic problem in that sparsely populated Siberia looks tempting to a China burgeoning with hundreds of millions of Malthusian manpower. Siberia's natural resources would tempt any powerful neighbor and Putin is acutely aware of the necessity of keeping China in the friendship column.

India is also frightening, as the nationalist parties appear poised to make electoral gains against the Congress Party's wobbly cobbled-together scrum of squabbling factions. India with the bomb and Pakistan also with the bomb in turmoil, a situation Kaplan leaves out of his excellent analysis, could flare up as easily as a Sino-Indian contretemps.

Kaplan sums up the battle between values and interests:

We truly are in a battle between two epic forces: Those of integration based on civil society and human rights, and those of exclusion based on race, blood and radicalized faith. It is the mistake of Western elites to grant primacy to the first force, for it is the second that causes the crises with which policy makers must deal—often by interacting with technology in a toxic fashion, as when a video transported virtually at the speed of light ignites a spate of anti-Americanism (if not specifically in Benghazi).

The second force can and must be overcome, but one must first admit how formidable it is. It is formidable because nations and other solidarity groups tend to be concerned with needs and interests more than with values. Just as the requirement to eat comes before contemplation of the soul, interests come before values.

Yet because values like minority rights are under attack the world over, the United States must put them right alongside its own exclusivist national interests, such as preserving a favorable balance of power. Without universal values in our foreign policy, we have no identity as a nation—and that is the only way we can lead with moral legitimacy in an increasingly disorderly world. Yet we should not be overturning existing orders overnight. For it is precisely weak democracies and collapsing autocracies that provide the chaotic breathing room with which nationalist and sectarian extremists can thrive.

The narcissist in the White House toppled Mubarak after the aged Egyptian leader, who was never the fascist ogre portrayed by the silly libtard US media, gave the arrogant Boy Wonder a short lecture on the phone about ancient societies and the hazards of rapid political or economic change [The Shah's "White Revolution" led to a massive exodus from countryside to cities and sparked the 1979 Iranian Republic and its subsequent mischief-making.].

The miffed Child Wonder threw a tantrum and promptly phoned the Egyptian military to threaten withdrawal of US security assistance if Mubarak stayed in power. Mubarak departed against the advice of seasoned senior diplomats like Frank Wisner and now women and Copts in Egypt are in the gunsights of the new Islamist ascendancy, while the idiot in the White House golfs the time away, heedless of the turmoil he caused in touting what he imagined was the "Arab Spring," now rife with Summer thunderstorms.

Syria is the best example and Obama's cowardly diffidence will again show that the US is "leading from behind," afraid to ruffle the feathers of Russia and China. Now Obama can talk to Medvedev, as he promised to when an open mike betrayed this pernicious double-talking politico's perfidious underhanded dishonesty for all the world to see. The US will pay dearly for re-electing a stooge for POTUS.

Merry & Blessed Christmas...!!!

Pope Benedict XVI admonished the world that life is moving too fast nowadays and that we should often pause to reflect on first and last things.

I was watching the Christmas Eve Mass at the Vatican on NBC [It wasn't Midnight Mass because of the Pope's failing health] and two deacons from the midwest USA [Duluth & Indianapolis] were assisting him at the High Mass. Slumber overtook me and I'm turning in early.

No more midnight Masses for this dude---I'm seventy now and gotta cut back on the night life...!!!

FBI Investigated 'Occupy' As Possible 'Terrorism' Threat, Internal Documents Show

Those "peaceful protestors" burnt paper bags filled with fecal material and hurled bags full of sh*t onto police vehicles parked near Zucotti Park, just for instances of its anarchic activities.

Wearing the "V" Guy Fawkes masks was a thinly-veiled reference to blowing up government and other public buildings. OWS was always a dud of a movement, consisting largely of what Marx called the "Lumpenproletariat" and what today is often called the "scum of the earth."

And the often-derided Tea Party actually elected about sixty Congressmen in 2010 whereas OWS fizzled out in apoplectic anarchism. OWS was always an astroturf media concoction by the largely hyperkinetic denizens of the Far Left TV, Hollyweird and academicide outposts trying to impose a Police State by taking away citizens' guns

In a Police State only the police have guns, plus the government. "Big Sister" Napolitano has been attempting a government coup d'etat against the Constitution ever since she began staining the Cabinet with her fascist Gestapo tactics.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Some Russians & Georgians Celebrate Stalin's Birthday

The hideous monster Stalin remains popular to a tiny minority of homines-Sovieticus who still regard Djugashvili as a great leader. The question remains:

Fooling FDR was not difficult. Often a fool is easily fooled. And Stalin was a beast who killed his own people on purpose---perhaps 50 million died because of his malignant malice and they were mostly citizens of the USSR. At least Hitler reserved his rage for citizens outside of Germany [except for German Jews]. Mao was the worst and may have killed up to 70mm Chinese citizens. Why do Communist revolutions kill their own citizens, ala Pol Pot?

And another question remains; did Stalin who was half-Georgian & half-Ossetian really like ethnic Russians? Remember that Stalin got Lenin's attention originally by his study of the ethnic composition of the USSR in 1918, just after the revolution succeeded and while various parts of the USSR were independent republics, like Georgia & Azerbaijan.

"Koba" spoke Russian with a noticeable Georgian accent and his father was Ossetian [a Persian-related ethnic minority] in heritage. It was occasionally remarked that he hated Russians, but couldn't act on this primal urge. "Young Stalin" by Montefiori has much interesting info on how this political perv became perhaps the greatest monster of the twentieth century.

Despite Anne Applebaum's Pulitzer-winning Gulag, some Americans still regard Stalin in a favorable light---even Henry Wallace visited Vorkuta [especially cleaned up like a Potemkin village] up in Eastern Siberia---a camp which rivaled some of Hitler's Death Camps in its winter mortality rate..! Happily, Truman was chosen in 1944 as Veep or else America would have had the village idiot as POTUS, a totally gullible fan of Uncle Joe's. Wallace was sent on some junket after he was deposed as Vice President---good riddance to bad rubbish...!

Here's another version of how Georgians in particular are divided about this most famous offspring of their country.

Obama's Narcissism Starting to be Cringeworthy

Obama's eulogy at Sen. Inouye's funeral in the National Cathedral was so self-centered that even the Dems think it was cringeworthy. This isn't the first or second or third time that BHO has filled his speeches with egregious solecisms. His narcissistic and self-referential asides are practically a normal staple now of his speeches and political stances.

Bob Woodward's "Price of Power" demonstrates how little his Democratic colleagues on the hill think of him, including Pelosi & Reid. Obama makes little effort to work the House & Senate and his neglect of the personal touch and his remote aloof personality have made the Hill indifferent to him even though he has the bully pulpit & vast administrative power.

Skip Bayless Crucifies Rex Ryan

Skip doesn't mince words and has been a Tebow fan from the get-go.

Did Ringmaster Rex ever pull one over on us. Did he ever sell a bill of goods to a yes, sir/no, sir sucker named Tim Tebow and to the media and fans who bought into Rex Ryan's bombastic baloney.

Hurry, hurry, step right up and see Tim Tebow & half man, half wildcat & come to New York and revolutionize the way the Jets play offense!

In the end Tim Tebow's lost season appears to have been little more than a publicity stunt designed to steal media attention away from the defending champion New York Giants and feed it to the biggest coaching ego in sports -- Rex's. Did it ever work. While the Giants toiled in relative camp obscurity, the satellite trucks surrounded Rex's no-ring circus. Rex delighted in dropping bombshell hints about secret Tebow packages. Would Tebow and Mark Sanchez alternate series, or even starts? Would Rex sometimes play them together?

You won, Rex. You punk'd us.

And you just might have lost your job.

It's difficult to know who deserves the most blame for acquiring Tebow: GM Mike Tannenbaum, owner Woody Johnson or Rex. But that tabloid-rocking move wrecked the Jets' season because it soon shattered what was left of Sanchez's glass psyche. The last thing poor Sanchez needed after an 8-8 season in which he threw 18 interceptions and lost eight fumbles was Tebowmania looming on the sideline. After Sanchez hit bottom Monday night at Tennessee with four interceptions and a fate-sealing fumble, Rex announced he was benching Sanchez in favor of & Greg McElroy, the former seventh-round pick.

Not Tebow, the former first-round pick, for whom the Jets gave Denver a fourth and a sixth.

McElroy.

No way Rex wanted to give Tebow two full-game chances at season's end to make him look like a fool for not playing Tebow much earlier.

It was shameful the way Ryan and very offensive coordinator Tony Sparano used and misused Tebow. But the joke ultimately was on them. The Jets' season kept BEGGING for Tebow to save it, just like he turned around last year's Broncos from 1-4 to division champs who beat Pittsburgh and its No. 1-ranked defense in a playoff game. Yet by the week Ryan grew more stubbornly proud, began to resent the media monster he'd created by hyping Tebow and dug in with HIS quarterback, the one he called "The Sanchise." He kept treating Tebow like a publicity stunt instead of giving him a chance to save the job Rex might lose.

Playoff-missing justice finally prevailed.

That's Skip Bayless just getting started..!! Read the rest of the link above to see him utterly demolish Ryan as a total fool and mega-ASSHOLE...!!!

UPDATE ESPN Analyst Merrill Hoge called Tebow as "phony as a three-dollar bill." It should be remembered that this former RUNNING BACK retired because of a BRAIN INJURY that left Hoge having to learn to read again because he experienced memory loss, confusion and headaches.

Even Jaws, a great Super Bowl QB, defended Tebow.

A running back like Hoge knows little about the QB position. Former lineman ESPN analyst Mark Shlereth knows more about QB's than brainfart-susceptible Hoge.

Here's an article in ESPN, Hoge's employer, that makes him out to be a bigger POS than ever. Ryan all but denies that Tebow refused to play the wildcat. But Rex is crazier than Hoge, in the opinion of the other ESPN analysts.

Rich Cimini is ESPN's chief writer on the Jets. Here's his best take on the next QB for the Jets after ditching Sanchez, Tebow, and demoting McElroy:

Ryan Fitzpatrick, Bills -- His days in Buffalo appear numbered because of a $3 million roster bonus due in March. The Bills would take a $10 million cap hit by releasing him, but it appears they want to start over at quarterback. Fitzpatrick hasn't been the same since signing a six-year, $62 million contract in 2011 (he has received $26 millon of that amount), but he has an 82.9 passer rating this season, which isn't horrible on a bad team.

Potential fit with the Jets: He's still only 30 years old, knows the AFC East and could be serviceable in the right offense. Of course, he's a Harvard man, which means he's probably smart enough to stay away from the Jets.

Roger that, Rich. As long as Ryan is coach, the team is doomed.

Richard Trumka On Fiscal Cliff: Not Ready To Blow Up Deal Over Obama's Social Security Concession

Trumka is usually the Rex Ryan of the Democratic Left. He has lost a few fights recently over Right to Work in three states and is now indicating his willingness to at least postpone his opposition to the POTUS's plan.

Since the GOP couldn't muster enough votes for Plan B, it's dead in the water anyway.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Assault on Chuck Hagel from Left & Right

Jennifer Rubin says opposition to Hagel from both left and right presage an early end to his candidacy for SecDef.

Hagel’s fate was likely sealed today when the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which raised loads of cash for President Obama, called Hagel’s remarks “unacceptable” and suggested he’d have a hard time serving in government with his negative views of gays.

Frankly this sounds like the Democrats are now trying to off-load Hagel with tips to sympathetic journalists about his anti-gay record.

Meanwhile, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) makes a forceful statement in opposition to Hagel: “I have deep concerns about Sen. Hagel’s attitude toward Israel and his approach toward dealing with Iran. If President Obama nominates Sen. Hagel for Secretary of Defense, I intend to seek explanations regarding his opposition to sanctions, his support for negotiating with Hamas, and his view on America’s ongoing relationship with Israel.” It is no coincidence that in 2010 Hagel weighed in on Toomey’s Senate race in favor of Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), whose Israel record was roundly criticized. Toomey, I am certain, owes no Senatorial courtesy to Hagel.

Then Sen. Marco Rubio’s spokesman almost, sort of said he’d consider a hold on Hagel over his pro-Cuba views. (“Promoting democracy in Latin America is a priority for Sen. Rubio, and he’s put holds on other administration nominees over the issue. If President Obama were to nominate Sen. Hagel for a cabinet position, I’m sure we would have questions about Cuba positions.”) Is there any Republican who does not have serious concerns and would welcome the opportunity to bloody him up in a confirmation fight?

Jennifer, the answer is no.

It gets worse when dozens of Senate aides have come forward telling tales out of school about Hagel's inability to treat staffers with even a minimal amount of human respect. One story has the noble Senator yelling into a terrified aide's face that he's "fvcking stupid."

This is sad, because when I was Scholar-in-Residence at the Middle East Institute back in the day, Hagel would visit the HQ on N St., NW, without much todo and go to our conferences. He seemed to be the only member of the government seen in such venues.

Now, many fear that if he were appointed to Secretary of Defense, he would not know how to be deferential to many civilian staff whose seniority and knowledge of the ways inside the Pentagon's rings would have to be respected by any appointment Obungler makes.

Sparano Defends Tebow

Tony Sparano is very unlike his black-Irish boss, the execrable Rex Ryan, in that he's a decent human being and a stand-up guy.

As the Jets prepare to host San Diego on Sunday with former third-stringer Greg McElroy as their starter, Sparano was asked why the Tebow package hasn't worked.

"It's combination of things but I wouldn't use the words 'didn't work' at all," Sparano said.

As Tebow quietly fumes and Sanchez looks into options outside New York, Sparano might be one of the few in New York to hold that opinion. But Sparano echoed coach Rex Ryan's unwillingness to critique the team's plans as it plays out the string.

"We had a plan going into this thing," Sparano said. "But obviously the plan always, at that particular time, was that Mark was the quarterback and Tim would have a role and to what degree the role was, if I remember correctly, it was one-to-20 plays in a game. Some days it was eight, some days it was one, some days it was none. Just predicated on what we saw out there. Tim has worked really hard out here, he's done a good job, he's worked hard on the practice field, but that's where we are."

Where the Jets are is ranked 30th in the NFL in total yards and passing yards and 31st in interceptions and yards per play. The offense's point of pride, the rushing game, is 10th in the league in yards per game.

Sparano, who by many accounts could be one of several Jets looking for a new job after the season, seemed like a coach highlighting the positives in his weekly news conference Thursday. Asked about the decision to bench Sanchez and start McElroy, Sparano complimented his boss, saying Ryan asked him and others for advice "like any outstanding head coach does."

He said the Wildcat was efficient with Tebow when he could get a first down, but that there weren't many high-yardage packages built in.

Beefhead Coach Ryan was flummoxed on Monday when he tried to explain why he wasn't starting Tebow.

Smart money has it that Rex the Ridiculous was afraid Timmy would pull off a couple of wins and make Ryan look like even a bigger fool than he appears to be at the moment---admittedly a genuine feat.

Chinese Communists Demand Disarming US Citizens

Brandon Darby has an article on Xinhua's insistence that US gun laws become tightened drastically.

The official Chinese government news agency, Xinhua, has demanded the US immediately adopt stricter gun control measures to reduce the number of firearms the US populace is permitted to possess.

The Chinese state-controlled media’s statement, titled “Innocent Blood Demands No Delay for US Gun Control,” is primarily focused on the Newtown tragedy in which 26 Americans were killed by a mad gunman. Twenty of the victims were young children. The Chinese government stated, “Their blood and tears demand no delay for the U.S. gun control.”

In an apparent effort to restrict information to their populace, the Chinese government wrote of a number of US mass shootings but failed to mention they were either stopped by a citizen legally carrying a firearm or otherwise only occurred in the controversial gun-free zones that critics say make prime targets for madmen.

The Chinese government states:

The past six months have seen enough shooting rampages in the United States. Just three days ago, three people were shot dead at a shopping mall in Oregon. Two weeks ago, a football player shot his girlfriend dead and then committed suicide. Five months ago, 12 people were killed and 58 wounded in a shooting spree at a midnight screening of a Batman film in Colorado.

The government went on to express a strong dislike of the National Rifle Association while also attacking the Republican Party as somehow complicit in the violence. Conversely, the article heaps praise on the Democratic Party:

The Clinton government launched a series of gun control policies at the end of last century. And the Democrats lost the Congressional election in 1994 and the presidential election in 2000, with the shadow of the NRA present in both defeats.

The current Chinese government, the communist People’s Republic of China, was established in a revolution led by Mao Zedong, who killed an estimated 40-70 million people with starvation, executions, and re-education camps.

Infowars has more on the interest of the Chinese to see America adopt the Communist policy that prevents ALL civilians from owning or possessing firearms.

Bath Township School Bombing in 1927--38 kids dead, 7 adults

Newtown is a terrible horrific disaster for every American, but read this:

Bath Township was the scene of the May 18, 1927, Bath School Disaster, named for the bombing of an elementary school; related bombings occurred at the perpetrator's farm and house, and with his truck near the school. The bombings killed 45 people and injured an additional 58; 38 of the dead were children in the second through sixth grades. The Bath School Disaster is the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in United States history, claiming more than three times as many victims as the Columbine High School massacre, and half-again as many victims as the Virginia Tech shootings. It has been described as the worst act of domestic terrorism in the United States until the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Andrew Kehoe, the perpetrator, was described as seeking "murderous revenge" for having lost an election for town clerk in the spring 1926 after briefly holding the position as an appointee. In addition, he was under personal and financial stress; his wife had tuberculosis, and he had stopped making mortgage payments and been notified of foreclosure. He claimed it was valued too high and he had paid too much for it, but was unable to negotiate changes. Over months, he bought and set explosives at his farm and the community school. On May 18, he achieved revenge by destroying both. He began with murdering his wife and committed suicide in the last explosion.

Sad and meaningless acts of madmen should not guide adjustments to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Death Panels for Alzheimer's Sufferers?

Belgium is considering a death panel for killing elderly people suffering from Alzheimer's.

France is chugging along just behind her northern neighbor.

Seems Sarah Palin was right, more or less, about ObamaCare's death panels. It's only a matter of time. The Netherlands already makes euthanasia legal.

And in France, those greedy heirs to fortunes may now petition to "accelerate" the death of the family patriarch/matriarch to get their hands on those Napoleon d'Or that the French love to hoard.

Rex Delendum Est, Et Sanchez certiter.

Rex Ryan should revert to what he does best, build a defense as a superb defensive coordinator like his brother in Dallas Rob.

Sanchez generated five turnovers, against a Titan team with a QB making his tenth start because of severe injuries over the last two years who didn't produce ONE turnover. The Jets should have coasted past the injury-riddled Titans, but instead made the hapless Tennessee team look good compared to the Jets' zany play-calling and pitiful execution.

Tebow should finally get his big chance to start next week, shouldn't he? Not in the cloud-cuckoo world of Rex Ryan, who is full of grudges for Tebow's Broncos beating the Jets last season & keeping them out of the playoffs.

So third-stringer McElroy will start, his first start ever, and Tebow is now looking for another place to peddle his talents---now that the nasty incompetent Ryan has pole-axed his professional standing.

ESPN has the most biting commentary of the major sports sites on the internet, although the NY Post should have a field day with Rex's stupendously silly antics.

New York Jets coach Rex Ryan made the first part of his quarterback decision late Monday night, informing Mark Sanchez he was benched. Part two -- the bombshell -- came Tuesday.

Instead of promoting backup Tim Tebow, Ryan named third-string quarterback Greg McElroy -- inactive in all but one game -- as the starter Sunday against the San Diego Chargers.

Leave it to the Jets to turn a quarterback change into a multiple-choice controversy.

“In dealing with it, I told Mark, 'I think we need to make a change,' and he respected my decision. That's not easy, that's for sure.” -- Rex Ryan on benching Mark Sanchez

To make it worse, Ryan muddied an already complicated situation by refusing to cite his reason for bypassing Tebow, whose NFL resume is far superior to that of McElroy.

The hotheaded Ryan is setting himself up for close scrutiny as the Jets are shedding fans by the Stadium-load through his zany, off-the-wall silliness & tantrum-prone idiocy. Rex may be the first to go.

It was the biggest decision of his head-coaching tenure, raising questions about the futures of Sanchez and Tebow, who are signed through 2016 and 2014, respectively. It also could impact Ryan's own future.

Ryan insisted it was his call, and that owner Woody Johnson didn't force him into it. As recently as late last season, Ryan said Sanchez would be his quarterback for as long as he was the coach. The Jets (6-8), eliminated from playoff contention with Monday night's 14-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans, could face major changes in the offseason.

Sanchez played horribly in the game, throwing four interceptions. In fact, the Jets' last three possessions ended with a Sanchez turnover inside the Tennessee 26-yard line -- two interceptions and a fumbled snap in the shotgun. He leads the league with 24 turnovers -- an NFL-high 50 over the past two seasons.

Things got worse after the game for Sanchez, who received a series of death threats from one disgruntled fan on Twitter. League spokesman Greg Aiello said the NFL's security staff was aware of the man's threats and was working with the Jets to assist on the matter. The team declined comment through a spokesman.

Ryan was seething after the game, according to players. He didn't even wait until they got home from Nashville before breaking the news to Sanchez, who was benched for the first time in his career.

A lot of gainsayers are already saying that the decision to start a totally untested QB like Greg McElroy might be to avoid having Timmy Tebow winning the last two games and making Ryan look even more stupid than he appears now.

Ian O'Connor of ESPN has the ultimate tribute to the spurned Tebow.

Remember when the Jets left him alone at the introductory news conference, feeding him to the news media wolves at their Florham Park, N.J., training facility while they cowered behind a palm tree at the league meetings in Florida?

That was the first sign, and it was as big as the one his sponsor, Jockey, had posted over the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel. "We Support Tebow & New York," it read. Well, at least somebody did.

Choosing Greg McElroy to replace Mark Sanchez as the Jets' starting quarterback is a monumental slap in the face for Tim Tebow.

Nine months later, the Jets stuck it to Tebow in a way few New York franchises have ever stuck it to a big-name athlete. The day after Mark Sanchez played his way to the bench for keeps, Rex Ryan announced that his third-stringer, Greg McElroy, had made a Bob Beamon leap off the inactive list and over the second-stringer, Tebow, smack into Sanchez's spot.

And you thought the Mets stuck it to R.A. Dickey by whispering nasty things about his alleged devotion to his three favorite teammates -- Me, Myself and I (Note to Toronto: Any self-promoter who wins a Cy Young Award and speaks out against sexual abuse and human trafficking is a self-promoter worth hiring).

The Jets used Tebow, and then abused him. They used him to sell tickets and PSLs and to steal a few more headlines from the local big-boy franchise that had just won another Super Bowl title.

They abused him Tuesday by declaring that a seventh-round pick who has been inactive for 13 out of 14 games gives the Jets a better chance to do something they often fail to do: win.

"A gut feeling," said the coach who no longer has much of a gut.

Ryan no longer has much of a clue, either. He needs to go with whatever postseason purge Woody Johnson orders up after his 6-8 Jets are done with their final two Sundays. If it's Mike Tannenbaum or Tony Sparano or Sanchez or all of the above, Ryan should be right there with them, as he's no longer fit to lead.

Rex mismanaged the quarterback position like he's mismanaged so many things over the last two seasons, and Johnson needs to call him on it. Of course, Johnson needs to call himself on his most controversial player acquisition, one that made the Brett Favre deal look like a garden-variety move.

Now it turns out that gutless Rex Ryan, for all his bellowing and BS, is just a garden-variety coach---one that kills the plants, not grows them.

Newtown Shooter Had Bizarre Weird Condition

Lanza only participated in one extracurricular activity in high school before his mother yanked him for home schooling and that was the "Tech Club." The advisor there took an interest in him because he was very bright and very unusual, to say the least.

The link above shows the advisor recounting that Adam was UNABLE TO FEEL PHYSICAL PAIN & apparently EMOTIONAL pain or empathy as well. The parallels between this freak who lit his arm with lighters to see if he could feel anything and the crazed idiot in Aurora who shot up a movie theater are not striking, but they're there. Very intelligent but emotionally remote and very nerdy.

However, the young man in Newtown was going to be a complete washout, spending his time figuratively in his mom's basement playing video games, which glorify violence and death.

I spent several minutes last night watching that disgusting pompous pile of BS named Piers Morgan, who spouted inaccuracies at a guest who was cool as a cucumber. The creep from the UK wants to turn the US into another clone of the European slave states where the individual is subsumed into the anthill of state slavery.

I want an assault rifle to defend my individual rights against tyrannical government such as freaks like Morgan and other misbegotten media automatons would have me give up.

Rep Tim Scott Newest Black GOP Senator

Senator Scott was appointed by Nikki Haley, the Indian American governor of South Carolina, a sign of how the GOP is falsely accused of being an old white man's club---from the JackAss Party & its racist louts and degenerates. You know, Marx's Lumpenproletariat that Lenin characterized as "useful idiots."

Here is more on Scott from the National Journal.

You can bet the racist Democrats will do anything to get rid of Scott like they did Allen West---the JackAss Party wants all the political blacks to be from their plantations---Chicago, LA, NYC, Philly, Baltimore & other urban blight locations [St Louis is one example].

Bye bye Jets & Rex Ryan [Hopefully]

The New York Jets seem to be imitating the New York Mets in managing to turn a silk purse into a sow's ear. I watched in fascination as Mark Sanchez self-destructed again on national TV---as badly as the Fabulous Thanksgiving Butt-Fumble Circus...!

My daughter dated Middle Linebacker Colin McCarthy her Junior year at U. of Miami, but Colin couldn't play because of a concussion. In fact, the Titans were so banged up, it was a miracle that the Jets couldn't beat a team with half its offense on injured reserve. Mike Turico mentioned when Sanchez completed a pass for a touchdown over Colin's replacement, #59 Shaw, that McCarthy woulda/coulda handled it better than Shaw, who missed getting to the TD reception.

The Jets needed a miracle and even Tebow couldn't supply one on the series of downs he played.

The sensation I had while watching the hapless Titans outplay the pitiful Jets was the old adage of Napoleon: "When your opponent is in the process of destroying himself, it's best not to interfere in the process."

The cantankerous blowhard Rex & his incompetent Offensive Coordinator simply are out of touch with the concept of winning Methinks it's time for Rex & Mark Sanchez [with his $8 million guaranteed contract next year] to go.

Obama Makes Third Fiscal Cliff Offer

Why not tax rates rising to the level of $1 trillion versus the savings and reduction of useless & redundant government programs plus health care adjustments which also equal $1 trillion?

The US already has the highest corporate tax rates in the world at 40+%. 39.5% rate for those earning $500k+? Debt ceiling out one year moratorium?

The numbers should roughly coincide, and Boehner did Obama a big favor last year by agreeing to put the fiscal negotiations AFTER the presidential elections.

Read all about it in "The Price of Power" by Bob Woodward, who describes the players in the debt ceiling negotiations warts and all. Interestingly, Boehner had Pelosi & Reid & McConnell on board for his plan, but Obama scotched the whole deal & went for the 'fiscal cliff' scenario.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

When Will China [& US] Restrain N. Korea?

US policy toward the obnoxious international criminal state of North Korea has been strongly restrictive until an imbecile named Jimmy Carter broke the Logan Act in 1994 & went to Pyongyang to great fanfare. This perverted creep got Bill Clinton, barely better in his personal conduct than Carter's zany mishaps abroad, to succumb to his worse instincts and send incompetent SecState Albright to Pyongyang looking like the proverbial little old lady in tennis shoes.

Of course, N. Korea's people at the time of Albright's visit were starving at the rate of a million deaths per year of simple malnutrition. Clinton arranged what he naively believed was a "deal" whereby N. Korea would terminate its nuke reactors in exchange for food. The US delivered on its end---Kim Jung Il did not on his.

GWB held the fort against the N. Korean polymorphous perversity when it became obvious that Pyongyang was building a bomb & missiles with money from the food it received from the US & China.

A recent CBS 60 Minutes program outlined how NK prison camps still starve their inmates for the non-crime of being related to relatives who defected [over 50 years ago!!!]. And Americans are not immune from the pervasive paranoia and parochialism of the moronic mindset of Pyongyang---as Mr Kenneth Bae, still a prisoner of the NK fascists, can attest.

And realists have been telling Hillary, the latest moronic Clinton to succumb to kumbayeh BS on NK aid, that her aid is killing people in the NK Gulag Archipelago where prisoners are shot, hanged and flayed alive while Hillary travels the world with her female entourage attending to her every need.

As long as China treats Pyongyang as a spoiled child and gives the rat-regime of Kim Jung Un just enough to get by, the NK will make money peddling nuke & missile technology to rogue regimes around the world. And the Boy Wonder will not raise a finger to stop it.

It's obvious that the so-called "civilized" world doesn't give a rat's ass about Commie crazy states like Cuba & NKorea because the belief that the forces of "progress" will lead to generational change. Ditto for Mullah-ridden Iran & the newest theocratic monstrosity, Egypt.

Iraq is now "free" to jail its Sunni Vice President on a technicality and the rump of Iraqi Kurdistan may declare a Kurdish state with the Kurdish parts of Syria & Turkey & Iran wanting to join tout de suite.

I hope John Kerry is up for all this diversity in perversity, because Hillary Clinton and the Boy Wonder who "leads from behind" sure didn't.

Although I really can't forgive Kerry for his ridiculous and treasonous remarks back in the day when he accused US soldiers of war crimes that he claimed to have witnessed.

The clown was only in Vietnam for 3 1/2 months, and accumulated THREE [3] purple hearts without a scar to show for them... What a hoax...! But then, he's a Democrat.

Is The Pack Really Back?

Seifert is ESPN's writer for the NFC North & thus would presumably be biased in favor of the winner of its championship with two games left:

The Packers have won eight of nine games since starting 2-3, and their newfound expertise in winning "ugly" has girded them for the type of competition they'll face in the NFC playoffs.

At the moment, the Packers are the conference's third seed. When you look at the Atlanta Falcons (No. 1) and the San Francisco 49ers (No. 2), do you see a team fundamentally better than the Packers? I don't, and some of the Packers' most important figures are coming around to the same conclusion.

"Not to diminish anything," McCarthy said, "but we are just getting started. We feel that way as a football team. Not trying to be arrogant, [but] we feel that a lot better football is in front of us. It was an extremely important game for everybody involved today, but we fully expected to come in here and win this thing."

McCarthy's strong talk was reminiscent of his message during the Packers' run to Super Bowl XLV two years ago. The Packers' confidence was illustrated Sunday in the decision to hold out defensive back Charles Woodson because, Woodson said, "we felt like they could come down here and get a 'W' whether I played or not."

The Packers have some issues to work through, including the continued struggles of place-kicker Mason Crosby, who missed from 42 and 43 yards Sunday. McCarthy's own hubris helped the Bears keep Sunday's game close; afterward McCarthy admitted that his ill-fated decision to approve a trick play on a fourth-quarter punt return was "clearly not the highlight of my coaching career."

Check current playoff seedings and figure scenarios through the end of the season. Playoff Machine But as we've discussed multiple times this season, the Packers have morphed into a team that grinds out imperfectly played games. An interloper might have watched Sunday's affair and concluded the Packers aren't championship material because they couldn't put away a depleted opponent. Those of us who have watched the Packers all season know they have demonstrated their skill in manufacturing victories.

I know Green Bay plays the Vikings next week & I believe the Titans later, or perhaps it's vice versa. The Vikes are starting to pick up momentum and who knows how Adrian Peterson is going to perform on his way to attempting to beat Eric Dickerson's NFL rushing record?

I just don't want to see another pitiful loss to the Giants as happened last year and several years before that in the playoffs.

Louie Gohmert Says More Guns Are Answer To Preventing Mass Killings

Rep Gohmert is correct, although he hardly argues his case well or even grammatically. Chicago has the strictest gun laws and the highest murder rate per capita in the USA. NYC has brought its homocide rate down, but still has a high murder rate, as does Wash., DC, where guns are strictly forbidden, but come into DC from across Key Bridge and the Beltway from VA, where gun laws are more in compliance with the Second Amendment. Baltimore in MD & Philly have high restrictions on firearms & high murder rates---criminals act less fearfully in robbing civilians if they know they're not armed.

Bernie Goetz of NYC is still my hero... He was prosecuted for shooting five vicious criminal gun-toting freaks on an NYC subway... That's what liberals do, prosecute the innocent & let the criminals run free. Thank God for Giuliani, who cleaned out NYC of a lot of its riffraff.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Noonan on Republican Need to Talk to Each Other

Peggy Noonan is usually very sober, though living on the Upper East Side of Meanhattan [sic] means she sometimes drifts into unconscious tropes of liberal-brainfart BS. Here she voices some uncomfortable truths:

If Mitt Romney had won this year, he would have had a very tough presidency, with the left revived and the coffers empty and the president having to move deftly, brilliantly, to summon and keep support. And while there were many things in Mr. Romney's toolbox, deft political brilliance wasn't one of them. Meanwhile, demographic and cultural changes would have proceeded apace. So 2016 and after would have been brutal for the party.

Yes, much as I admired the tall, dark & handsome Mitt, he was an atavism from the fifties in many respects, and his stubbornness in keeping Stuart Spencer churning out strange stuff on his behalf showed that as POTUS, he would have been susceptible to frequent faux pas. But Noonan falls into nitpicking and non sequiturs in her caustic and silly complaints about Ryan & Rubios' recent speeches at the Jack Kemp dinner in NYC.

Rep. Ryan's speech was OK but insufficient. He didn't say anything terrible but he didn't stake out new ground or take chances. Actually, the part where he said Mitt Romney made "a big election about big ideas and offering serious solutions to serious problems" was slightly terrible because it isn't in a general way true, and it forestalls analysis that might actually be helpful in the long term. Mr. Ryan got points for loyalty but no one doubts he's loyal, and it undercut his central message, which is that the Republican Party needs "new thinking," "fresh ideas and serious leadership," and must find "new ways to apply our timeless principles to the challenges of today."

Well, yes, that's true. But what thinking do you suggest? In what area? Which fresh ideas? Do you have one?

The thrust of Mr. Ryan's remarks seemed to suggest the party has to show its economic stands are aligned with the views of the working and middle classes. Fine. But how, exactly? What changes should be made, not just to message, but to content?

If conservatives are going to appeal to the nonrich, perhaps we want to be talking about—I don't know, let's float an idea—breaking up the banks? Too big to fail is too big to live, didn't we learn that in 2008? Why aren't we debating this? How about doing away with the carried interest deduction? Would billionaire hedge-fund contributors not like that? Isn't that just kind of . . . too bad?

Those are two ideas that, while politically difficult, would have broad populist appeal and are conservative in essence.

This is not the time to be describing the problem—we need "new thinking"—it's the time to start coming up with the new thinking.

And the splendid orator and spellbinding narrator Sen. Rubio doesn't get better marks than Cong. Ryan... Watch the spinster aunt cackle at Marco for not giving an inaugural address manqué at the Kemp affair...

Sen. Rubio had a better speech in that it was deeper, more broadly philosophical and less prescriptive. He told of how he'd spoken, at the August convention, of his father, a bartender in banquet halls. Recently he spoke in a "fancy" hotel in New York—that was rather Sarah Palin, the "fancy"—and the ballroom workers gave him a badge that said "Rubio, Banquet Bartender." He should wear that badge on his suit every day. It's better symbolism than Mr. Romney's car elevator.

But Mr. Rubio also indulged a rhetorical tic that we hear a lot and that is deeply obnoxious. He said the words "middle class" 12 times on the first page alone. Repeating that phrase mantra-like will not make people think you're concerned about the middle class, it will only make them think you're concerned about winning the middle class. It is important to remember in politics that people aren't stupid.

I find both Mr. Ryan's and Mr. Rubio's media expertise mildly harrowing—look at the prompter here, shake your head here, lower your voice there, raise it here, pick up your pace in this section. An entire generation of politicians in both parties has been too trained in media, and to their detriment. They are very smooth but it doesn't make them seem more convincing, it makes them seem phonier. My old boss had actually been an actor, but he didn't seem like a phony. He talked like a normal person at a podium, with a nice voice, and occasionally stumbling. It's not bad to be human when you're trying to appeal to humans.

These speeches were lauded, but they didn't scour, Abe Lincoln's term for a speech that says what needs saying. We know we need "new thinking." Let's hear it.

Yadda, Yadda, Yadda, und so weiter und so fort. But Noonan is not done with the hectoring tone, although the last paras do offer some good advice...

A final note, connected to an earlier point.

Republicans are now in the habit of editing their views, and they've been in it for 10 years. The Bush White House suppressed dissent; talk-radio stars functioned as enforcers; the angrier parts of the base, on the Internet, attempted to silence critical thinkers. Orthodoxy was everything, or orthodoxy as some defined it.

This isn't loyalty, it's lockstep. It has harmed the party's creativity, its ability to think, when now more than ever it has to. Enough. A final note, connected to an earlier point.

Republicans are now in the habit of editing their views, and they've been in it for 10 years. The Bush White House suppressed dissent; talk-radio stars functioned as enforcers; the angrier parts of the base, on the Internet, attempted to silence critical thinkers. Orthodoxy was everything, or orthodoxy as some defined it.

This isn't loyalty, it's lockstep. It has harmed the party's creativity, its ability to think, when now more than ever it has to. Enough.

I hope she doesn't mean Rush when she's talking about Rush, the "Show Me" state's contribution to truth in advertising---even if Limbaugh does get more Catholic than the Pope sometimes.

That would be Upper East Side arrogance pushed to its ne plus ultra. .

Christie Too Hefty for POTUS Job?

Baba Wawa doesn't think her speech defect disqualifies her from being an on-air journalist, but muses to Gov. Christie, who fascinates her, about his weight. Read the rest at the link above.

Susan Rice Withdrawal: How Obama's Likely Secretary Of State Pick Fell Apart

Rice might have been the scapegoat that would erase POTUS BHO's embarrassing address to the UNGA after Rice's TV appearances. Obama was lying through his teeth in the UN, but Rice certainly had the sense to know when she was being rolled by bad talking points for the TV Sunday gamut.

WH Press Sec'y Carney's limp dick defense of Rice indicated that the vibes were going the other way in the WH. Vietor knows that Rice has to have strong Senate support to get a higher job in State or elsewhere---she is somewhat 'damaged goods' in that now people know she can be rolled.

In the end, Rice showed poor political judgment in going out to appease McCain, Lindsay & Ayotte. Susan Collins delivered the coup de grace after the GOP triad had bloodied Rice after her confab. Better to keep her in the UN where she can stand up to the Russians and Chinese.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Exit Susan Rice

As a former State Dept FSO & trained Arabist at the Foreign Service Institute, I was almost screaming at my TV set while Rice made her preposterous exaggerations of the effect of a film that almost no one had actually seen for the first six months it was on YouTube. I knew from the outset after the descriptions by the Libyans, who certainly know their country better than we and who are on our side & have no real reason to lie, that it was some sort of terrorist operation----9/11 was an elephant in the room that Ms. Rice obviously chose to overlook.

As did the half-wit POTUS in his address to the UNGA almost two weeks later where the word terrorist & terrorism didn't sully his mouth, so insistent was he that the attack was simply a protest demonstration which got "out of control." He knew he was lying and Rice should have known better---had she not, she didn't have the chops to be SecState in the first place. Hillary wisely kept inventing reasons not to testify, while Rice raced into the fray with flags flying.

Even with Kerry's shortcomings, he'll be a better SecState than Rice would have been. Over thirty years on the Senate Foreign Relations Cte. has to rub off. [Though Biden, with his remarks that Hezbollah had been driven out of Lebanon, one example of Joe's egregious solecisms, means that extended tenure in the SFRC doesn't confer expertise on foreign policy.]

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

No Dice For Rice

Susan Rice sent a letter to Obama requesting not to be considered for the job of SecState. Here's the NYT descending into bathos:

Ms. Rice has cut a wide swath at the United Nations, where she is currently trying to marshal international sanctions in response to North Korea’s launching of a long-range missile this week.

But Ms. Rice became the focal point of criticism for the administration’s handling of the Benghazi attack, and that proved to be only the beginning of her problems. The more Mr. Obama appeared to be leaning toward appointing Ms. Rice, the more critics appeared ready to pile on.

Perhaps the most damaging critique came from Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine. After meeting with Ms. Rice, Ms. Collins said, “I continue to be troubled by the fact that the United Nations ambassador decided to play what was essentially a political role at the height of a contentious presidential election campaign.”

She also raised a new concern: Ms. Rice’s role in protecting embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that were bombed by terrorists in 1998. While allegations that she did not respond to requests by the embassies for additional security proved groundless, they also echoed decades-old questions that were suddenly being raised about Ms. Rice’s role as an aide on Africa policy during the Clinton administration.

Reporters dug up old anecdotes, like when Ms. Rice, as a young aide in the Clinton White House, once questioned whether the United States should embrace the term “genocide” in Rwanda because it could put President Bill Clinton in an awkward position in midterm elections. For all that, friends of Ms. Rice said she believed she could win nomination and be a successful secretary of state. The hardest part, they said, was explaining to her two children why she had decided to bow out.

Let's see if the usual imbeciles on the left ascribe this to "racism," as they wear that term right out of any meaning whatsoever.