Woman Charged With Hate-Crime in Queens Subway-Push Murder

She hadn't been charged at the time of my earlier report, "Thirty-One Year Old Homeless Woman in Custody in Queens Subway-Push Death."

But now the New York Times reports, "Woman Accused of Hate-Crime Murder in Subway Push."

Robert Stacy McCain relates this story to the left's depraved gun control exploitation, "New York City Needs Subway Control."

And the sickening ghouls of the radical left fever swamps bubbled up to blame Pamela Geller for the murder, "WOMAN CHARGED WITH MURDER IN NY SUBWAY SHOVE DEATH, CLAIMS 9/11/01 WAS HER MOTIVE." (Via Memeorandum.)

It never ends with these scumbags.

Piers Morgan Threatens to Self-Deport

My dad always had guns in the house, most memorably a WWII-era M1 carbine, with a small-capacity clip kept in his top dresser drawer in the master bedroom. And he was a die-hard Cold War Democrat. He's gone now, but I doubt he'd be pleased with the left's ignominious child-death exploitation and its depraved push for extreme gun control measures. In his last few years, when he was in his 80's and 90's, my dad kept a small handgun on the pillow next to him while he slept. He had it just sitting right there. He felt safer with it.

Anyway, I'm just thinking about this while reading Piers Morgan's commentary at London's Daily Mail, "Deport me? If America won't change its crazy gun laws... I may deport myself says Piers Morgan" (at Memeorandum):

I have fired guns only once in my life, on a stag party to the Czech capital Prague a few years ago when part of the itinerary included a trip to an indoor shooting range. For three hours, our group were let loose on everything from Magnum 45 handguns and Glock pistols, to high-powered ‘sniper’ rifles and pump-action shotguns.

It was controlled, legal, safe and undeniably exciting. But it also showed me, quite demonstrably, that guns are killing machines.

Rarely has the hideous effect of a gun been more acutely laid bare than at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, two weeks ago – when a deranged young man called Adam Lanza murdered 20 schoolchildren aged six and seven, as well as six adults, in a sickening rampage.

He gets all whiney and admits that losing his cool with gun rights advocate Larry Pratt triggered the massive public relations campaign against him. Boo hoo. What a freakin' baby. A baby who wants to confiscate guns:

President Obama seems to agree it’s time for action. After four years of doing precisely nothing about gun control in America, he finally snapped after Sandy Hook and said he’s keen to pursue a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And he wants a closure of the absurd loopholes that mean 40 per cent of all gun sales in America currently have no background checks whatsoever – meaning any crackpot or criminal can get their hands on whatever they want.

These measures, which will be resisted every step of the way, won’t stop all gun crime. Nor all mass shootings. There are too many guns out there, and too many criminals and mentally deranged people keen to use them. But the measures will at least make a start. And they will signal an intent to tackle this deadly scourge on American life.

Obama should follow up by launching a Government buy-back for all existing assault weapons in circulation (as worked successfully in Los Angeles last week). I would go further, confiscating the rest and enforcing tough prison sentences on those who still insist on keeping one.

Either you ban these assault weapons completely, and really mean it, or you don’t.

It won't be just "assault" weapons, but progressives won't tell you that.

Continue reading.

At the essay's last line Morgan declares that he'd consider deporting himself if the laws don't change to reflect his decidedly un-American outlook.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, brother.

BONUS: A must-see entry at This Ain't Hell, "OK, CNN, you’re disqualified from the gun discussion."

UPDATE: EBL links, "Remember Piers Morgan is laughing all the way to the bank by making money off the blood of children." Thanks!

Laws Are for Little People

From Mark Steyn, at National Review (at Memeorandum):

A week ago on NBC’s Meet the Press, David Gregory brandished on screen a high-capacity magazine. To most media experts, a “high-capacity magazine” means an ad-stuffed double issue of Vanity Fair with the triple-page perfume-scented pullouts. But apparently in America’s gun-nut gun culture of gun-crazed gun kooks, it’s something else entirely, and it was this latter kind that Mr. Gregory produced in order to taunt Wayne LaPierre of the NRA. As the poster child for America’s gun-crazed gun-kook gun culture, Mr. LaPierre would probably have been more scared by the host waving around a headily perfumed Vanity Fair. But that was merely NBC’s first miscalculation. It seems a high-capacity magazine is illegal in the District of Columbia, and the flagrant breach of D.C. gun laws is now under investigation by the police.

It's classic Steyn. More at the link.

And commenting is AoSHQ:

Does Howard Kurtz embrace that understanding of gun laws? Does Glenn Thrush? Do the various other know-nothings in the media -- who know both nothing about law and nothing about guns, but opine with great force and velocity on gun laws -- embrace this conception of gun laws, that gun laws should never target simple possession but only possession during the commission of a crime or possession with intent to commit a crime?

If not -- if they are less the right-wing gun nut than Ted Nugent (and even the Nuge might find this position too "extremist" for his taste -- then they are duty-bound to demand David Gregory's prosecution, as they would demand that any other Citizen Not On Television would be prosecuted.

They are endeavoring to explicitly create a High Caste with greater privileges than the lower castes, and immunities to the laws the lower castes suffer under, and that is a blood anathema to any real American -- and will be treated as such.

Also at Althouse, Ed Driscoll, Jawa Report, and Twitchy.

Senate Leaders to Work on Agreement

At LAT, "Obama 'modestly optimistic' that 'fiscal cliff' can be avoided":

WASHINGTON – President Obama said he was “modestly optimistic” that Senate leaders could reach an agreement to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, but he said that if the effort fails, he’ll demand a vote on his basic proposal to protect middle-class taxpayers from seeing their taxes rise.

Speaking to reporters in the White House on Friday evening, a stern Obama tried to ramp up the pressure on lawmakers as they cobble together a deal before a potentially growth-crippling combination of tax increases and spending cuts take effect in the new year.

“The hour for immediate action is here. It is now,” Obama said.

Obama spoke shortly after meeting with top congressional leaders at the White House, during which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed try to come up with a proposal before the Dec. 31 deadline.

The president called the meeting “good and constructive” and suggested there was still time to reach a compromise. But if lawmakers failed to find common ground, Obama said, he has asked Reid to bring up a vote on a scaled-back version of his original proposal.

“If members of House or the Senate want to vote no, they can,” Obama said. “But we should let everybody vote. That’s the way this is supposed to work.”

Lots more at Memeorandum.

Obama's Zero-Sum Universe

From P.J. O'Rourke, at the Wall Street Journal, "Dear Mr. President, Zero-Sum Doesn't Add Up":

Given that hypocrisy is an important part of diplomacy, and diplomacy is necessary to foreign policy, allow me to congratulate you on winning a second term.

I wish I could also congratulate you on your conduct of international affairs. I do thank you for killing Osama bin Laden. It was a creditable action for which you deserve some of the credit you've been given. Of course the intelligence was gathered, and the mission was undertaken, by men and women who, although they answer to your command, answer to duty first. And it is difficult to imagine any president of the United States who, under the circumstances, wouldn't have ordered the strike against bin Laden. Although there is Jimmy Carter. Thank you for not being Jimmy Carter.

But even though it violates the insincere amity that creates a period of calm following national elections, no thank you for the following, and it is only a partial list...

Continue reading.

In Ireland, Carbon Taxes Demonstrate Global Left's Radical Environmentalism in Action

This is a mind-boggling story, particularly since it's like a Twilight Zone preview of our Dystopian future, at the New York Times, "Carbon Taxes Make Ireland Even Greener":

DUBLIN — Over the last three years, with its economy in tatters, Ireland embraced a novel strategy to help reduce its staggering deficit: charging households and businesses for the environmental damage they cause.

The government imposed taxes on most of the fossil fuels used by homes, offices, vehicles and farms, based on each fuel’s carbon dioxide emissions, a move that immediately drove up prices for oil, natural gas and kerosene. Household trash is weighed at the curb, and residents are billed for anything that is not being recycled.

The Irish now pay purchase taxes on new cars and yearly registration fees that rise steeply in proportion to the vehicle’s emissions.

Environmentally and economically, the new taxes have delivered results. Long one of Europe’s highest per-capita producers of greenhouse gases, with levels nearing those of the United States, Ireland has seen its emissions drop more than 15 percent since 2008.

Although much of that decline can be attributed to a recession, changes in behavior also played a major role, experts say, noting that the country’s emissions dropped 6.7 percent in 2011 even as the economy grew slightly.

“We are not saints like those Scandinavians — we were lapping up fossil fuels, buying bigger cars and homes, very American,” said Eamon Ryan, who was Ireland’s energy minister from 2007 to 2011. “We just set up a price signal that raised significant revenue and changed behavior. Now, we’re smashing through the environmental targets we set for ourselves.”

By contrast, carbon taxes are viewed as politically toxic in the United States. Republican leaders in Congress have pledged to block any proposal for such a tax, and President Obama has not advocated one, although the idea has drawn support from economists of varying ideologies.

Of course they're politically toxic. Can political elites be more stupid?

It turns out that all is not well in Ireland:

Not everyone is happy. The prices of basic commodities like gasoline and heating oil have risen 5 to 10 percent. This is particularly hard on the poor, although the government has provided subsidies for low-income families to better insulate homes, for example. And industries complain that the higher prices have made it harder for them to compete outside Ireland.

“Prices just keep going up, and a lot of people think it’s a scam,” said Imelda Lyons, 45, as she filled her car at a gas station here. “You call it a carbon tax, but what good is being done with it to help the environment?”

The coalition government that enacted the taxes was voted out of office last year. “Just imagine President Obama saying in the debate, ‘I’ve got this great idea, but it’s going to increase your gasoline price,’ ” said Mr. Ryan, who lost his seat in the last election and now leads the Green Party. “People didn’t exactly cheer us on.”

Keep reading.

Taxes are added by as much as 36 percent of a car's market price at the point of sale, factored into the sticker price. And additional taxes are billed directly to drivers, often adding thousands of dollars to annual vehicle operating costs. And because people at lower incomes are less able to afford newer cars with all the latest "green" technologies, the tax system is heavily regressive. But read the whole thing. You can bet Ireland's experience will be touted as a model for radical environmentalists here at home, and folks in Washington (the progressive political class) have been talking about all kinds of alternative taxes systems, such as value added systems. Unless Americans start turning back toward freedom and free markets, such schemes will be increasingly a part of our lives as well, with the least well-off bearing the brunt of the impoverishment and with our overall standard of living imperiled.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio Deploying 'Armed Posse' to Schools

At Fox News, "Arizona Sheriff Arpaio: Armed Volunteer Posse Should Guard Schools."

Video Credit: Nice Deb, "Sheriff Arpaio to Deploy Armed Posse to Guard Phoenix Schools (Video)."

Gun-Grabbing Democrats Exploit Tragedy to Push Radical Agenda

A great segment from Hannity's last night:

Stay with that video until the 6:00 minute mark or so, with the brutal discussion of Sam Donaldson and the progressive elite.

Also at Power Line, "Democrats Seek the Holy Grail of Gun Control." (Via Memeorandum.)

Reason's New Los Angeles Headquarters

This is interesting.

I'd like to go to one of those Reason parties. See: "Check out Reason's New LA Headquarters!"

And a sample from the magazine, featuring Jacob Sullum, "The Rioter’s Veto: Can violence in the Middle East justify censorship in the United States?"

That's also the left's veto. So far the only person arrested or jailed following the Benghazi scandal is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the director of "Innocence of Muslims."

A Weaker Tea Party?

Here's the headline from yesterday's New York Times front page: "Sidestepping Fiscal Showdown, Weaker Tea Party Narrows Focus."

The main thrust of the piece is to brush off the tea party as an irrelevant "fringe" movement following Obama's reelection and internal divisions among prominent organizations. There are indeed problems, but by no means is the tea party finished as a movement. The congressional elections saw some significant tea party victories and the tea partiers will no doubt have a strong voice in 2013, as their bread-and-butter issues of limited government and fiscal restraint prove more relevant than ever.

Note too that the tea party isn't so much a protest movement any more as it is a political tendency seeking to place activists into positions of power at all levels of government. I love the protests, but that energy has been increasingly channeled into electoral activities and organization. Leslie Eastman comments on that, at Legal Insurrection, "Tea Party tidal surge, not tsunami." And a local example is conservative activist Mike Munzing, who I first met at tea party rallies in 2009. He was elected to the Aliso Viejo City Council in November. A number of other local tea partiers either ran or were elected to the Orange County GOP Central Committee in recent years. Basically, the movement helped generate a mass of activists moving into formal political organizations.

Having said all that, the latest high profile conflicts at FreedomWorks are like catnip to the liberty-haters on the left. The Other McCain has the story with lots of links, "The Bloody Mess at FreedomWorks."

Either way, it's best not fall for the Democrat Media Complex's operation demoralize narrative. Taking back the country will require lots more activists to redouble their efforts at all the forms of grassroots participation. There's going to be ups and downs. Ignore these stupid memes about a "weaker tea party."

Progressives Lose the Gun Control Narrative

From Kurt Schlichter, at Townhall, "Liberals Panic As They Lose the Gun Narrative":

When you argue for a living, you can tell how an argument is going for you. The evidence and my gut both tell me that the liberals have lost control of the gun control narrative.

Not for lack of trying – it was almost as if they were poised to leap into action across the political, media and cultural spectrum the second the next semi-human creep shot up another “gun free zone.” This was their big opening to shift the debate and now it’s closing. They’ve lost, and they are going nuts.

The evidence is all around that this is not going to be the moment where America begins a slide into disarmed submission through an endless series of ever-harsher “reasonable restrictions” on our fundamental rights. You just have to look past the shrieking media harpies to see what’s really happening.

Let’s start with the most obvious omen that this tsunami has peaked...

Continue reading.

Democrats might get something on semi-automatic weapons and large capacity clips. Beyond that, bupkes.

Still, take a look at this piece at The Economist for an idea of how dramatic the impact of Newtown has been on the gun control narrative, "Newtown’s horror."

The Reality of Modern Politics, We Go After Each Other

An outstanding essay from Kathleen McKinley, at Right Wing News:

I am about fed up with all of politics. I’ve never been as SICK of it in my life as I am now, and I have been in it ALL my life.

This is the time we should be focused on our families. We should be focused on our country getting through this terrible economic time, and terribly sad time.

Focus on what matters. Don’t focus on anger, pettiness, and self righteousness.

The media needs to decide what it is going to be in the future. Is it going to be what it is supposed to be? Reporting fairly both sides? Or is it going to continue to promote a liberal agenda? Because as long as it does the latter, then other news organizations will pop up, like Fox News, that reports on the conservative side, and we have no unbiased reporting whatsoever.

So, decide media. It’s up to you.

If the liberals current political fight continues as “divide and conquer,” then I congratulate them. They are winning. They won the Presidency that way, and they continue to win that way.

But what a price America is paying for that. Neighbor against neighbor. Friend against friend. Brother against brother.

RTWT.

Thanks Democrats: Sluggish Economic Growth Locked-In for 2013

At IBD, "Economy 2013: Mediocre Growth Will Be the New Good":

Next year may be when Americans stop waiting for faster economic growth to make everything better again and finally learn to accept the current modest pace as good enough now and good enough later.

Even if lawmakers reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff's full impact, tax rates will still go up for many Americans, and government spending will go down.

Incomes, which have seen little growth during the recovery, are unlikely to start shooting higher. Aging consumers haven't regained their lost net worth and aren't ready to load up on new debt.

"It's a very different economy than what we've seen in the last 20 to 30 years," said Steve Blitz, chief economist at ITG Investment Research.

Gross domestic product has expanded at an average rate of just over 2% a year since the recession ended, and many economists expect more of the same in 2013.

That assumes a fiscal cliff deal. But the chances of a pact before year-end are now looking increasingly bleak, and a prolonged standoff could deal another blow to the fragile economy. The U.S. could fall back into recession, the Congressional Budget Office has said.

Even without a "cliff" shock, the National Association for Business Economics, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Monetary Fund all see 2013 growth at or just above 2%.

ITG's Blitz also thinks the U.S. will expand by about 2%, with some positive momentum in housing but not much improvement in consumer spending.

"What the economy is not going to do is accelerate toward the trend path where we were pre-recession," he said. "We're not going to make up that lost ground."

More at that top link.

While I think both parties suck, it's definitely the Democrats who're by design seeking to hold the economy back by punishing wealthy high-achievers in the name of social justice. Even far-left hack Jamelle Bouie admits it, "Why Democrats insist on upper-income tax hikes."

Fiscal Cliff Dive Would Impose Steadily Increasing Pain and Hardship

At the New York Times, "Fiscal Cutoff Gradually Morphs Into Horizon":

Negotiations are set to resume in the coming days, following a break for Christmas, although hopes for a so-called grand bargain have faded. Instead, President Obama is pushing for a scaled-back plan that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts on incomes below $250,000, while suspending the automatic spending cuts and extending unemployment benefits.

Michelle Meyer, senior United States economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said there is a 40 percent chance of what she calls a “bungee-jump over the fiscal cliff,” with Congress failing to act until after Jan. 1 but eventually averting the full package of tax increases and spending cuts by mid-January. If that were to happen, she predicts a steep sell-off on Wall Street, which would quickly force political leaders to compromise.

Over all, Ms. Meyer estimates that the economy will grow by just 1 percent in the first quarter of 2013, well below the 3.1 percent pace recorded in the third quarter of 2012.

What’s worrisome, she added, is that consumer anxiety about the fiscal impasse has begun to mount, catching up with business leaders who have been warning of economic danger since summer. “What’s been missing in this recovery has been confidence,” she said. “We’d see a healthy recovery if it weren’t for this uncertainty and the potential shock from Washington.”

Indeed, the economy has been showing signs of life recently. Unemployment in November sank to 7.7 percent, a four-year low. Consumer spending has been picking up, and the housing market has continued to recover in many parts of the country. Overseas worries like slowing growth in China and recession in Europe have also faded.

Those trends have encouraged some observers, like Steve Blitz, chief economist at ITG Investment Research. He estimates that the economy will grow by nearly 2.5 percent in the first quarter if Washington comes up with even a modest compromise. In the absence of a deal, the pace of growth would be more like 1 percent, he said.

“I don’t think that not having a deal going into the new year is all that critical,” Mr. Blitz said. “It doesn’t mean you will immediately go into a recession.”

RTWT at the link.

And that's Maria Bartiromo at the clip, mercilessly hammering the befuddled Democrat Senator Ben Cardin, via Eliana Johnson at National Review, "Maria Bartiromo Lays the Smackdown on Ben Cardin, Trading Floor Erupts in Cheers."

And see Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Democrats Can’t Avoid Fiscal Cliff Blame."

Is Hate a Liberal Value? Reflections on Newtown

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today:

1. When Twenty Minutes Is Forever. According to the CNN timeline for the Sandy Hook tragedy, "Police and other first responders arrived on scene about 20 minutes after the first calls." Twenty minutes. Five minutes is forever when violence is underway, but 20 minutes -- a third of an hour -- means that the "first responders" aren't likely to do much more than clean up the mess.

This has led to calls -- in Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, St. Louis -- for armed officers or staff at schools. Some object. But we have people with guns protecting airports, hospitals and politicians. And leading anti-gun crusaders like New York's billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg and press lord Rupert Murdoch are protected by armed security teams that could probably topple some third-world governments. Why are our children less worthy of protection?

Then there are our homes. If police took twenty minutes to respond at a school, how likely are they to get to your house in time? For those of us without "security teams," the answer isn't reassuring.

2. Is Hate A Liberal Value? A 20-year-old lunatic stole some guns and killed people. Who's to blame? According to a lot of our supposedly rational and tolerant opinion leaders, it's . . . the NRA, a civil-rights organization whose only crime was to oppose laws banning guns. (Ironically, it wasn't even successful in Connecticut, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.)

The hatred was intense. One Rhode Island professor issued a call -- later deleted -- for NRA head Wayne LaPierre's "head on a stick." People like author Joyce Carol Oates and actress Marg Helgenberger wished for NRA members to be shot. So did Texas Democratic Party official John Cobarruvias, who also called the NRA a "terrorist organization," and Texas Republican congressman Louis Gohmert a "terror baby."

Nor were reporters, who are supposed to be neutral, much better. As The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg commented, "Reporters on my Twitter feed seem to hate the NRA more than anything else, ever. "

Well, left-wing "tolerance" at work. Continue reading at that top link.

PREVIOUSLY: "Erik Loomis' Twitter Timeline Available Dating Back to June 2012."

NBC's David Gregory Under Investigation by Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police

Wiilliam Jacobson has been all over this story, "NBC News stonewalls inquiries regarding David Gregory and “active investigation” by D.C. Police":

As previously reported, last Sunday David Gregory held up what he described as high capacity AR-15 ammunition magazine, which would violate the District of Columbia’s gun law if the magazine were real.

My multiple attempts last Sunday to obtain a response from NBC News as to whether the magazine was real were met with stone cold silence. None of the three senior communications executives with responsibility for Meet the Press responded.

Now there is news via Breitbart.com (h/t Drudge) that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department is investigating.

I spoke with Officer Alali, the spokesman on duty today at the MPD, who refused any further comment except to confirm that there is an “active investigation.”

It may be even worse for Gregory and NBC News. According to an e-mail received by The Patriots Perspective website, which originally broke the Gregory story, NBC News had inquired whether it was permitted to use the magazine and was told that it was not permitted. The authenticity of the email has not been verified.

More at the link.

And following it, here's Warner Todd Huston, at Big Journalism, "DC Police Investigating NBC's Gregory for Brandishing Illegal Magazine." Also at Patriot Perspective, "David Gregory Violated DC Gun Laws After Being Denied By DC Police?"

And here's a kicker, at the Weekly Standard, "W.H. Petition: 'Press Charges Against David Gregory' for Breaking D.C. Gun Laws." (Via Memeorandum.)

'So Depressing and Communist!'

It's Milla Jovovich on Twitter:

Awww! Found this old baby pic if me from Russia in the 70's! So depressing n communist! Too cute! instagr.am/p/TpFRbkTMqd/
— Milla Jovovich (@MillaJovovich) December 25, 2012

And see London's Daily Mail, "Milla Jovovich shares adorable childhood picture from her days in Russia."

Amazing, isn't it?

Beautiful immigrants like Ms. Jovovich move to America to be free of communist oppression. And the damned progressives are doing their absolute best to foster and promote that same communist oppression right here at home.

Sigh...

When the immigrants stop coming, and they will, you'll know it's all over. The American dream will be over.

RELATED: "Stunning Picture of Milla Jovovich."

Counterterror Agents Monitored Occupy Movement

At the New York Times, "F.B.I. Counterterrorism Agents Monitored Occupy Movement, Records Show."

The were considered domestic terrorists. You think?

Erik Loomis' Twitter Timeline Available Dating Back to June 2012

I wrote earlier, quite seriously, of Professor Erik Loomis:

No one's as stupid to violently rattle off the death chants while still an untenured assistant professor at a research university. "Dim bulb" is charitable.

Thinking back now, that's even an understatement, a big one. It's possible that no one --- no academic faculty member at a major college or university --- has ever acted as stupidly vis-à-vis his or her own viability as an employee. Loomis is behaving stupidly and recklessly, as if he's got a "termination wish" (like a death wish, but meaning instead a pathological need to get fired in pursuit of romantic martyrdom in some larger cause of crusading labor unionism, perhaps harking back longingly to an earlier, valorized era of violent class struggle).

In any case, see Robert Stacy McCain's report, "The Vocabulary of Professor Erik Loomis: ‘Motherf–ing F–kheads F–king F–k’."

Folks should be sure to read the whole thing at The Other McCain. Read it carefully. And then check the full Twitter timeline (available in pdf). Note especially how Loomis indulges in using the f-word quite a bit. Indeed, "overindulge" might be the better verb form (his f-bomb usage is clearly overdone and all too frequent, transparently uncomfortable as if a poorly-offered cover for insecurity). But it's always the context of things that's even important (an importance Loomis' defenders have proved beyond a reasonable doubt with their systematic omission of any of Loomis' statements outside of the key "metaphor" at issue). Rattling off death chants as an untenured faculty member isn't smart. But it's as dumb as one can possibly be to diss your own job responsibilities --- more so with so much obvious contempt for your institution and its structure of hierarchical authority. Here's a surprisingly revealing tweet as to Loomis' state of mind:

Again, read the full timeline for the context.

Committee service is a major part of serving as a professor --- and of the collegiate life of a university more generally. It's an especially important function to untenured faculty members because such work is a key manner in which unfamiliar and untested colleagues pay their dues. And it should be obvious, but when you're dissing committee work as pointless you are dismissing as useless the work of a great many of the leaders on a given campus, people who have put in enormous numbers of hours in attempting to have a voice in the institution's decision-making --- and to hopefully have a greater voice in final outcomes affecting the institution, the faculty, students, and the curriculum. Some faculty members earn most of their professional self-esteem through the work they provide on committees. It's a deeply embedded aspect of the academic culture. So, the kind of opposition to the norms of collegiality that Loomis demonstrates is utterly astounding --- even exponentially astounding, again, given that Loomis lacks the security of tenure. He is demonstrating that he is, by definition, as dumb as an ox. The problem with that, clearly, is that research universities are supposed to be populated with smart people. Really smart people. And a public university such as the University of Rhode Island is tax payer supported, so there's a particularly high level of public accountability. People on the outside, taxpayers as well as moneyed players supporting campus foundations, and so forth, want to think their support is in furtherance of an elite and respected body of scholars and practitioners. Educators at these places are cut tremendous independence because they are society's most esteemed role models. They are the masters of the (knowledge) universe who're transmitting society's essential values and learning to the next generations. But there are limits.

For someone like Loomis to show such outward contempt for all of this is simply mind-boggling. It's even more astounding given that Loomis spends so much time online. He should know better. The norms of academic hiring and promotion may have changed since 2005 when Daniel Drezner was denied tenure (largely on the suspicion that blogging was taking up too much of his time). But they haven't changed that much. It's just not well-advised to be so outspoken --- virtually all the time --- on social networking sites and on widely-read partisan blogs. For a lot of elite power-brokers in academe, such patterns of behavior are unscholarly. And to be so stridently unscholarly goes 100 percent against what the ideal candidate for tenure is supposed to be like. I would personally advise anyone entering the job market or working on becoming tenured to avoid hard-core partisan blogging and tweeting. To do otherwise is to court trouble, the kind of trouble that could ruin one's career. This is why I sense that what Loomis lacks in brains he more than equals in social insecurity. All that tweeting, and blogging too, is designed to buff this guy's creds among the hard-left commentariat. But for what? So the communist freaks at Crooked Timber will post a couple of huzzah! blog posts in solidarity. That's manifestly not worth it.

In any case, if anyone were really, truly looking to get Loomis fired this is the argument they'd want to make to the administration of the University of Rhode Island. One could contact the university and make the case that is isn't a matter of freedom of speech, or of academic freedom. It's a matter of basic professionalism toward one's vocation and the standards of institutional and professional decorum. Loomis reflects badly on the university. He reflects badly on the hiring committee that brought him there in the first place. Folks on the outside, the tax payers and other supporting constituencies will ask, "How could they have possibly hired this idiot? He's making the university look like a bloody circus." And they'll be well warranted to ask such questions. A lot of money goes into to recruiting and investing in productive academic colleagues. These are people who're expected to be teaching, publishing and performing community service. There are very high standards involved, or there should be. Which is why if people of professional standing raised these points to university president Dr. David Dooley it's quite possible the administration will reflect even more deeply on the problem in the days and weeks ahead. I mean, it's been well over a week since this story first broke and the university now has a huge and extremely prominent posting of the administration's condemnation of Professor Loomis. And looking at this again, President Dooley has updated the language since I last check over at the university's homepage:

Statement from URI President David M. Dooley

Over the past several days we have heard from many individuals concerning statements made or repeated by Professor Erik Loomis. Many writers forcefully expressed serious concern about his statements and many others expressed very strong support for Professor Loomis, especially in regard to his First Amendment right to share his personal opinions. In the statements at issue, Professor Loomis did not make it clear that he was speaking solely as an individual, and that the views he expressed were his alone and did not reflect the views of the University of Rhode Island. This was the rationale for our original statement.

The University of Rhode Island strongly believes that Constitutionally protected rights to free expression are the foundation of American democracy, and central to our mission of imparting knowledge and promoting the exchange of ideas. It is our conviction that Professor Loomis's personal remarks, however intemperate and inflammatory they may be, are protected by the First Amendment, as are the views of those who have contacted us in recent days.

Here's the link to the scanned document now available at the website.

I quoted and screencapped the president's initial comments at the time, dated December 18th, "University of Rhode Island Condemns Violent Labor Historian Erik Loomis." No doubt the backlash escalated enormously since then. In no time the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the story, "‘Head on a Stick’ Tweet Lands U. of Rhode Island Professor in Hot Water." And Inside Higher Ed also took it up, "Who's Overreacting? Professor's tweet and university's reaction stir debate on academic freedom."

So my sense is that this issue is far from over. It's Christmastime. That's the slowest time at the university. And if the administration feels it needs to have its statement placed so largely and prominently at the website, it's clear that the backlash isn't close to subsiding. People on campus will be dealing with these matters when business gets going again in the new year. Opponents of Loomis' tenure bid might not relent in their vocal outrage at this man's outward violence and incivility. But the more troublesome issue, on a practical working level, is Loomis' clear propensity toward uncollegialty and unprofessionalism. All together, the profanity-laced death chants, etc., and the dissing of the university's committee service responsibilities, could very well create a picture for outside constituencies of unworthiness for the honorific of academic tenure. As I've said, Loomis is really dumb. He's joking all about it over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, but when your professional future is so seriously on the line, this is hardly a laughing matter.

Newtown's Big Tradition of Gun Rights

I wondered --- and others may have as well --- but what got into Nancy Lanza that she became such an unabashed lover of firearms? Perhaps one factor is the deep cultural tradition of gun ownership in Connecticut. The Los Angeles Times reports on the region's huge local defense of Second Amendment rights. See, "Newtown's firearms tradition clashes with gun-control push":

NEWTOWN, Conn. — When the wind blows a certain way across the tree-topped hills, Gary Bennett can stand in his yard and hear echoes of gunfire from his hunting club five miles away. The sound comforts him.

"It's a huge tradition here," said Bennett, a retired electrician and former president of the club, which helped defeat a proposal to tighten Newtown's gun ordinances in September. "I'd rather see more gun clubs come to town, training people with the use of firearms so that everyone's doing it safely."

Anguished families are still burying the 20 children and six women who were shot to death by a lone gunman last Friday just after the morning Pledge of Allegiance at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But a surprising local undercurrent has emerged: Many gun owners here say the slaughter has sharpened their view that guns alone aren't the problem.

"I wish that at that school somebody was armed," said Kuthair Habboush, a software engineer who keeps a weapon at home for protection. "If a security guard or a teacher or a principal had been armed, somebody could have taken the [killer] out" before his lethal rampage.

Firearms are deep in the culture of this corner of New England. Two of America's most storied weapons manufacturers, Colt and Winchester, were based in Connecticut. Some historians say the West was won in Hartford — the state capital and birthplace of the Colt revolvers favored by lawmen and outlaws alike beginning in the 1830s.

Today, dozens of gun dealers, gun instructors, gun repair shops and shooting ranges do a brisk business in Newtown and nearby cities and towns. Private hunting clubs are widespread, many with waiting lists for membership.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a powerful lobbying group for gun retailers, has its headquarters across the highway from Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"You'd be surprised," said Sean Eldridge, owner of Parker Gunsmithing, a gun repair shop in nearby Danbury, referring to his customers. "They're regular people and they have an arsenal in their basement."

That was the case with Nancy Lanza, a wealthy divorced mother who enjoyed jazz, craft beer and frequent visits to shooting ranges. She kept at least five weapons, all legally registered to her, in the large Colonial-style house she shared with her 20-year-old son, Adam.

Continue reading.

Actually, the Times' report was out last week, so it's not true that Newtown's still burying its dead. See the New York Times, "Newtown Mourns Last of Its Children Killed in Massacre."