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."

'There are circumstances in which I think I’d advocate for someone’s firing, even for things they said...'

Well, it's no surprise, but this idiot progressive Bijan Parsia, in the comments at Loomis' latest Lumberjack ball-buster, advocates getting conservative academics fired for speech with which he disagrees:

Did Erik call, in any meaningful way, for anyone to be jailed for political advocacy? Are a few tweets sufficient? What actions were the tweets either intended or likely to trigger?

Contrariwise, people didn’t just tweet back: “I hope you get fired.” Or “I think you should be fired”. Or “You don’t deserve to be a professor.” They did things like call the FBI and the University (indeed, they called Erik’s ultimate boss). There were people calling for that as well (e.g., in this comment).

I don’t know that there were any direct calls for Erik’s firing from blog proprietors and there were a round of posts (e.g., Instapundit’s) saying that Erik wasn’t making threats, etc.

Given e.g., Malkin’s history, I’m not so convinced that the intended effect of all this wasn’t exactly what happened.

Now, with the possible exception of the call to the FBI (really?!) and some arguably defamatory statements, none of this is illegal. Nor, I think, should it be. There are circumstances in which I think I’d advocate for someone’s firing, even for things they said. I want those to be relatively rare, of course. Probably even exceedingly rare. I prefer them to be cases where there is a direct job connection.

An interesting case is Brad Delong’s explorations as to whether John Yoo’s tenure should be revoked.

(Personally, I think even if the case is reasonable, it wouldn’t be worth pursuing because of the potential backlash and precedent.)

Look, there's one standard for free speech. You're either for it or you're against it. Professor Parsia (yeah, a professor; follow the link at his login creditials) would like John Yoo's tenure revoked. He cites Brad DeLong. I don't care to follow the links, although I'm pretty sure what the outrage is. Hint: think "enhanced interrogations."

These people are authoritarian tools, progressive tools. I made the case against such hypocritical idiots yesterday: "Smirking Spectator? Guilty as Charged."

And Robert Stacy McCain has an update on Loomis the Lumberjack: "‘Candyass Blogger’ Update: Free Speech Absolutists Who Banned Mr. Althouse UPDATE: ‘These Are Historical Dildos’."

Hey, speaking of the "Candyass Blogger," remember this? "Althouse Slams Robert 'Porn Guy' Farley!" Douchebag.

The Post-Newtown Witch Hunt

From Michelle Malkin's syndicated column:

In the aftermath of the horrific Newtown school massacre, Americans from all parts of the political spectrum agree that we need to pay more attention to mental health issues. Public death threats and incitements to violence must be taken seriously. The incendiary witch hunt against law-abiding, peaceful gun owners is neither noble nor effective. It’s just plain insane.

Over the past week, I’ve witnessed a disturbing outbreak of off-the-rails hatred towards gun owners and 2nd amendment groups. Whatever your views on guns, we can all agree: The Newtown, Conn., gunman was a monster who slaughtered his own mother, 5 heroic educators, and 20 angel-faced schoolchildren. He ignored laws against murder. He bypassed Connecticut’s strict gun control regulations and he circumvented the Sandy Hook Elementary School’s security measures. Every decent American is horrified and heartsick by this outbreak of pure evil.

But tens of millions of law-abiding men and women own and use guns responsibly in this country. The cynical campaign to demonize all armed men and women as monsters must not go unanswered. What’s most disturbing is that the incitements are coming from purportedly respectable, prominent, and influential public figures.

Consider the rhetoric of University of Rhode Island Professor Erik Loomis. He teaches “U.S. environmental history, the Civil War, late 19th and early 20th century America, labor history, and the American West” in the university’s history department. Online, however, Professor Loomis is a militantly unhinged foe of all things conservative.

This week, the nutty professor took to Twitter to rail against law-abiding gun owners and the National Rifle Association. “Looks like the National Rifle Association has murdered some more children,” Professor Loomis fumed. “Now I want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick,” he added. (LaPierre is Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the NRA.) Professor Loomis was just warming up.

“F**k the National Rifle Association and its policies to put crazy guns in everyone’s hands,” Professor Loomis tweeted. “You are g*dd*mn right we should politicize this tragedy. F**k the NRA. Wayne LaPierre should be in prison,” he spewed. “Can we define NRA membership dues as contributing to a terrorist organization?”

Continue reading.

Michelle cites numerous other examples of leftist loons chanting death to conservatives, and she writes:

So, it’s come to this: Advocating beheadings, beatings, and mass murder of peaceful Americans to pay for the sins of a soulless madman. But because the advocates of violence fashion themselves champions of non-violence and because they inhabit the hallowed worlds of Hollywood, academia, and the Democratic Party, it’s acceptable?

Blood-lusting hate speech must not get a pass just because it comes out of the mouths of the protected, anti-gun class.

The politics of the shooting are just getting going, if the Memeorandum feed is any indicator. [Added: Byron York indicates that things have gotten so bad that President's Obama's announcement of a commission to study gun violence is a way to "freeze" the politics and defuse the push for gun control legislation on the Hill: "Obama, Reid slam brakes on gun control."]

Meanwhile, Badger Pundit dug up Professor Loomis' dissertation abstract, and boy, what a find. Robert Stacy McCain has this, "He’s a Lumberjack, and He’s OK: The Wobbly Scholarship of Erik Loomis, Ph.D."

Expect updates...

PREVIOUSLY: "University of Rhode Island Condemns Violent Labor Historian Erik Loomis."

University of Rhode Island Condemns Violent Labor Historian Erik Loomis

The letter is posted to the main page at the university's website:

Statement From President David M. Dooley:

We appreciate your comments about a faculty member's recent personal social media posts. See URI President's Dooley's response.

My good friend Professor Daniel Nexon is not pleased, "Academic Administrative Fecklessness." But I'll disagree just a bit. As I noted previously, Loomis' timeline was practically splattered with blood from all the violent tweets and retweets he'd been sending out. It looked literally as if he'd blown a gasket, losing complete control of his faculties. At that point it became no longer a free speech issue but a public safety issue.

And it's not just on Twitter. Loomis' oeuvre featured death to conservatives as a supplementary byline. I've blogged on this for some time, for example, "Erik Loomis, University of Rhode Island History Professor, Calls for 'Decades-Long Fight to the Death' Against Conservatives." And on Loomis' Twitter threats, see "Obama and Progressives Exploit Child Killings to Advance Far-Left Agenda."

And see the search entry for "death threat connoisseur" Erik Loomis at Twitchy.

Added: At The Other McCain, "University President Repudiates Professor’s Violent Anti-NRA Messages."

MORE: From Robert "Che" Farley, who clearly advocates bloody eliminationist politics, "Intimidation." These assholes have no clue.

Robert H. Bork, 1927-2012

The great conservative jurist has died.

I've cited Judge Bork many times in my writings on the gay marriage debate, and he's the model for judicial restraint when I discuss the Supreme Court and constitutional interpretation in class. William Jacobson laments that Bork will be remember for the wrong reasons, "Robert Bork, R.I.P."

And at the New York Times, "Robert H. Bork, Conservative Jurist, Dies at 85" (via Memeorandum):

Robert H. Bork, a former solicitor general, federal judge and conservative legal theorist whose 1987 nomination to the United States Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate in a historic political battle whose impact is still being felt, died on Wednesday in Arlington, Va. He was 85.

Judge Bork’s death, of complications of heart disease, was confirmed by his son, Robert H. Bork Jr.

Judge Bork, who was senior judicial adviser this year to the presidential campaign of Gov. Mitt Romney, played a small but crucial role in the Watergate crisis as the solicitor general under President Richard M. Nixon. He carried out orders to fire a special prosecutor in what became known as “the Saturday Night Massacre.” He also handed down notable decisions from the federal appeals court bench. But it was as a symbol of the nation’s culture wars that Judge Bork made his name.

It is rare for the Senate in its constitutional “advice and consent” role to turn down a president’s Supreme Court nominee, and rarer still for that rejection to be based not on qualifications but on judicial philosophy and temperament. That turned Judge Bork’s defeat into a watershed event and his name into a verb: getting “borked” is what happens to a nominee rejected for what supporters consider political motives.

The success of the anti-Bork campaign is widely seen to have shifted the tone and emphasis of Supreme Court nominations since then, giving them an often strong political cast and making it hard, many argue, for a nominee with firmly held views ever to get confirmed.

Till the end of his life, Judge Bork argued that American judges, acting to please a liberal elite, have hijacked the struggle over national values by overstepping their role, especially in many of the most important decisions on civil rights and liberties, personal autonomy and regulation of business.

He advocated a view of judging known as “strict constructionism,” or “originalism,” because it seeks to limit constitutional values to those explicitly enunciated by the Framers and to reject those that evolved in later generations. He dismissed the view that the courts had rightly come to the aid of those neglected by the majority. By contrast, he felt that majorities, through legislatures, should be empowered to make all decisions not specifically addressed in the Constitution.

He most famously took issue with the Supreme Court’s assertion in the 1960s and ’70s that the Constitution implicitly recognizes a right of privacy that bars states from outlawing abortion or the use of contraceptives by married couples.

That position along with his rejection of court-mandated help to minority groups led a coalition of liberal groups to push successfully for his Senate defeat, motivated in no small part by their sense that he cared more about abstract legal reasoning than the people affected by it. They contended that his confirmation would produce a radical shift on a closely divided Supreme Court and “turn back the clock” on civil and individual rights.

Judge Bork, who was 60 at the time, was sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, often a steppingstone to the Supreme Court, when President Ronald Reagan announced on July 1, 1987, that he was nominating him to the high court to replace Lewis Powell, a moderate justice who was retiring. Within an hour of the announcement, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, set the tone for the bruising contest to come when he said in a speech:

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, school children could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.”

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

Added: At Althouse, "Robert Bork has died."

'The idea is to intimidate all of us into silence...'

Yes it is, at Patterico, "Stacy McCain on Cyberstalking."

RELATED: At Popehat, "Update On Defense of Patterico."

PREVIOUSLY: "Cyber-Stalking Harassment Troll Bill Schmalfeldt."

Progressives Can Just FOAD

From Zilla of the Resistance:

They have the "right" to FOAD, that's about it. MT @ampowerblog Plz RT is.gd/g5vl80 #TrollRights #SpeedwayBomber #GoonSquad #TCOT
— Zilla Stevenson (@ZillaStevenson) December 9, 2012

And from 20011 at AmPower: "Zilla of the Resistance! — 'Stand Against Evil - Never Let it Win'."

Plus, R.S. McCain's updated: "‘At a Time of My Choosing’."

PREVIOUSLY: "Cyber-Stalking Harassment Troll Bill Schmalfeldt." (With a detailed discussion of progressive hate-troll Walter James Casper III.)

Cyber-Stalking Harassment Troll Bill Schmalfeldt

At The Other McCain, "June 3: Bill Schmalfeldt Begins Cyberstalking Aaron Walker."

Schmalfeldt began trolling Aaron Worthing shortly after the latter published his magnum opus on Brett Kimberlin's legal harassment. Robert has screenshots of some of Schmalfeldt's tweets, and he writes:

this is liberal grouch, serial block an report abuser. Stalking me again @ The_Book_Jerk (remove the space)
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) December 9, 2012

What was Schmalfeldt seeking? Some way to discredit Walker, to create a narrative in which Kimberlin could be portrayed as the victim.

This is the “accuse the accusers” motif that has added layers of unnecessary confusion to this story: By a sort of narrative ju-jitsu — minimizing the deliberate harmfulness of Kimberlin’s actions, while depicting his targets as unethical, selfish or motivated by purposes of political revenge — the “accuse the accusers” strategy creates a false equivalence between victim and victimizer. This method of online obfuscation is effective because few people (including law enforcement officials and judges) have the patience necessary to trace the conflict to its origins, nor do they seem willing to contextualize any particular aspect of the conflict by studying it as part of an overall pattern of behavior.

Schmalfeldt began his involvement by declaring to Melissa Brewer (@catsrimportant) — an ally of Kimberlin and Rauhauser — that he wanted coverage of the Walker case not written by “some right-wing shithead.” He then started to hector Walker, questioning whether the convicted bomber Kimberlin had done anything threatening. Schmalfeldt offered as his motive his “strong views about the First Amendment.”

Keep in mind that, on May 20, Schmalfeldt evidently got himself banned from Daily Kos, where he’d been a diarist less than six months. Schmalfeldt’s stint as a blogger at the Examiner was terminated May 2, after he was accused of abusive conduct toward fellow Examiner contributor Joe Newby. (Shmalfeldt resurfaced June 22 as Examiner columnist “Bill Matthews,” only to be terminated again Aug. 6 after his deception was discovered.) His “strong views about the First Amendment,” we may suppose, involve Schmalfeldt’s antisocial belief that he should be able to say anything to anyone in other people’s privately-owned online space, without regard for the proprietors’ rules or even basic human decency. (See “Bill Schmalfeldt: Too Disgusting For Daily Kos,” Nov. 25, by Lee Stranahan.)

That sounds familiar. Progressive stalking trolls claim a "free speech right" to harass someone even after they have been told repeatedly to cease and desist. This is why I reported Walter James Casper III to the authorities: "Intent to Annoy and the Fascist Hate-Blogging Campaign of Walter James Casper III." As we've seen for some time, progressives have quite a different view of how free speech works, the most important manifestation being the notion that left-wing free speech includes the right to suppress political views that contradict the left's radical agenda.

For example, when I posted on Pamela Geller's new SOIA campaign yesterday, I linked the hideous left-wing fascist website "The Animal." The pigs there exhorted their readers to take their spray cans to the subways to deface Pamela's advertisements, with the reminder, "you know what to do." And right on cue, criminal harasser Repsac3 found "The Animal" links here and promptly put out his endorsement of that brown-shirted vandalism on Twitter, even quoting approvingly the method of the hate-fueled revisionist attack:

"Any war between man is savage." fb.me/1MVgYq1VJ
— J. Casper (@repsac3) December 8, 2012

Clearly these are not the tweets of someone committed to the free flow of ideas. Like Bill Schmalfeldt, Repsac3 does not go away, even after the authorities have been alerted to his criminal activities. I've blocked him at every turn, here at the blog's new comment system and on Twitter. And I've exposed his obsessive email stalking campaign and provided evidence of those attacks to the police. Even after all of that --- even after the hate-addled Repsac declared that I'd "won the Internet" --- this clinically-deranged asshole still can't keep away, he just can't let it go. His putrid attack-and-harassment blog is still up and running, now being updated daily by the flaming bunghole baker-boy Kevin "Rim-Station" Robbins.

And we know why. Like those of the Kimberlin-Rauhauser axis, Walter James Casper III is marinated in progressive evil, and he too believes that harassing those who speak truth to the radical left agenda is simply just one more acceptable element of the vicious drive to maintain Democrat-Socialist power. These people will stop at nothing. It's no coincidence that Repsac3 was a ringleader for the attacks on my workplace, coordinating his actions with Carl Salonen, and widely endorsing and facilitating the harassment by others, such as the notorious dirtbag (O)CT(O)PUS, a.k.a. David Hillman, the f-king perverted proprietor of The Swash Zone.

Robert Stacy McCain identifies this left-wing pathology as "troll rights":

“Troll Rights” may be an interesting legal concept, but it’s a lousy career strategy. Schmalfeldt entered early June with more than one burnt bridge behind him, and his apparent plan for redemption was to make himself the white knight who would slay the dreaded Aaron Walker dragon that was threatening that noble progressive, Brett Kimberlin.

“The Narcissist as Self-Imagined Hero” — Schmalfeldt isn’t the first such character we’ve encountered. Incapable of accepting responsibility for his own errors and misfortunes, the narcissist instead externalizes blame for his failures, demonizing and scapegoating others. Unwilling or unable to emulate successful people, the narcissist envies them. Viewing success as a zero-sum game, he convinces himself that the game is rigged against him, and that the success of others results from their unfairly taking advantage of the “system,” thus wrongly cheating him out of the rewards and admiration he believes he deserves.

Exactly. Walter James Casper III is another "such character we've encountered." A failed blogger who gets no more than 20 hits a day, he's for years harassed people better than him --- happy and attractive people like Tania Gail --- for no other reason than political disagreement. Repsac3 isn't content to just demonize people and lie about them, he goes so far as to hunt them down and help those launching workplace harassment campaigns. Again and again he's claimed that he will not be rebuffed, that it's his right to ram his noxious opinions down the throats of his enemies. He habituates the comment threads, spiking the football, at all the most reviled progressive attack blogs, from LGM to Sadly No! And it's all just more fun and games. But for the victims, it's online terrorism. Never ---- not once ever ---- has he stood against these attacks. While purportedly all about free speech, he supports trolls and attackers who mount campaigns of online lawfare against political enemies. But take note. Those who ask why bother? Why even deal with people like this, it's not worth your time? Think again. Turning a blind eye to evil simply empowers it by indifference. Robert Stacy McCain has been faced with this question:

Narcissists crave attention, and some people think that the best way to deal with Bill Schmalfeldt is to ignore him. Schmalfeldt started cyberstalking Aaron Walker in June, and I tried to ignore him. It wasn’t until September that his name was first mentioned on this blog. We keep re-learning the same sad lesson:

“It is very easy to decide ‘this isn’t any of my trouble’ and permit vicious behavior. . . . Who wants to get involved? Easier, and surely safer, just to duck one’s head and hide, and hope the danger visits someone else.” – Ace of Spades, May 22

Evil is persistent. Duck your head, shrug your shoulders — “Gosh, too bad what happened to Aaron Walker” — and never mind who will be visited next by this particular specimen of evil. Never mind what innocent person the monsters will choose to victimize, because nobody can be bothered to pay attention to what’s happening.

Head over to Robert's for the full post.

In some ways I've been lucky. I had pro bono legal representation that helped me defend against the literally unimaginable workplace attacks. I'm also a tenured professor with legal protections against the idiot progressives who repeatedly try to have me fired for my conservative beliefs. But from Scott Eric Kaufman to E.D. Kain to Carl Salonen and more, it's been quite the trial. These stupid demons think they can strike me down only to see me emerge stronger and more committed to exposing their deeds. And such moral clarity has only emboldened idiot narcissist Walter James Casper III. He just doesn't know when to quit. Indeed, he can't quit because he's in the grip of a malevolent fever. If he were to vanquish me, silencing my voice, he'd simply notch the victory and move on to his next victim ---- all part of the progressive campaign of demoralization and demonization of right-wing beliefs and traditional values.

This is the scourge of contemporary American politics. These battles are the those at the ramparts of freedom, and often the left has been winning. The lines are clearly drawn and progressive are on the march, but clear-eyed patriots know what's coming and the progressives are overplaying their hands in hubris and conceit.

Never cave to these people. They will not stop their attempts to put you under, but the tide is turning back, little by little, to decency and righteousness. The stakes for our nation have never been higher.

Kira Davis: 'I Am a Black Woman...'

At Right Wing News, "I Am a Black Woman And There’s No Way In Hell I'm Voting Democrat Again (Pic)."

Because Progressives Are All About 'Robust Debate' - Ann Coulter Disinvited From Fordham Speaking Event

The universities are the centers of ideological hatred and progressive intolerance, so this is no surprise.

At The Blaze, "UNIVERSITY PRES. SCOLDS STUDENTS FOR INVITING ANN COULTER TO SPEAK: ‘DISAPPOINTED’ WOULD BE ‘TREMENDOUS UNDERSTATEMENT’."

And at the school's newspaper, The Fordham Observer, "UPDATED: McShane Responds to College Republicans’ Cancellation of Ann Coulter Event."

Here's the letter from President McShane:

The College Republicans, a student club at Fordham University, has invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus on November 29. The event is funded through student activity fees and is not open to the public nor the media. Student groups are allowed, and encouraged, to invite speakers who represent diverse, and sometimes unpopular, points of view, in keeping with the canons of academic freedom. Accordingly, the University will not block the College Republicans from hosting their speaker of choice on campus.

To say that I am disappointed with the judgment and maturity of the College Republicans, however, would be a tremendous understatement. There are many people who can speak to the conservative point of view with integrity and conviction, but Ms. Coulter is not among them. Her rhetoric is often hateful and needlessly provocative — more heat than light — and her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature.

As members of a Jesuit institution, we are called upon to deal with one another with civility and compassion, not to sling mud and impugn the motives of those with whom we disagree or to engage in racial or social stereotyping. In the wake of several bias incidents last spring, I told the University community that I hold out great contempt for anyone who would intentionally inflict pain on another human being because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed.

“Disgust” was the word I used to sum up my feelings about those incidents. Hate speech, name-calling, and incivility are completely at odds with the Jesuit ideals that have always guided and animated Fordham.

Still, to prohibit Ms. Coulter from speaking at Fordham would be to do greater violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement. Preventing Ms. Coulter from speaking would counter one wrong with another. The old saw goes that the answer to bad speech is more speech. This is especially true at a university, and I fully expect our students, faculty, alumni, parents, and staff to voice their opposition, civilly and respectfully, and forcefully.

The College Republicans have unwittingly provided Fordham with a test of its character: do we abandon our ideals in the face of repugnant speech and seek to stifle Ms. Coulter’s (and the student organizers’) opinions, or do we use her appearance as an opportunity to prove that our ideas are better and our faith in the academy — and one another — stronger? We have chosen the latter course, confident in our community and in the power of decency and reason to overcome hatred and prejudice.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., President

And from the College Republicans, who collapsed faster than a New Jersey roller coaster in a hurricane:

The College Republicans regret the controversy surrounding our planned lecture featuring Ann Coulter. The size and severity of opposition to this event have caught us by surprise and caused us to question our decision to welcome her to Rose Hill. Looking at the concerns raised about Ms. Coulter, many of them reasonable, we have determined that some of her comments do not represent the ideals of the College Republicans and are inconsistent with both our organization’s mission and the University’s. We regret that we failed to thoroughly research her before announcing; that is our error and we do not excuse ourselves for it. Consistent with our strong disagreement with certain comments by Ms. Coulter, we have chosen to cancel the event and rescind Ms. Coulter’s invitation to speak at Fordham. We made this choice freely before Father McShane’s email was sent out and we became aware of his feelings – had the President simply reached out to us before releasing his statement, he would have learned that the event was being cancelled. We hope the University community will forgive the College Republicans for our error and continue to allow us to serve as its main voice of the sensible, compassionate, and conservative political movement that we strive to be. We fell short of that standard this time, and we offer our sincere apologies.

Ted Conrad, President Emily Harman, Vice President Joe Campagna, Treasurer John Mantia, Secretary

This is how the left wins. Coulter's routinely "disinvited" from universities, which serves no one but the progs themselves, who thump their chests in victory while sharpening knives for the next slash attack on vigorous debate. They simply can't stand their programs to be challenged, especially by someone as effective as Ann Coulter.

'Wednesday'

From Mark Steyn, at National Review, "The Edge of the Abyss":

Amid the ruin and rubble of the grey morning after, it may seem in poor taste to do anything so vulgar as plug the new and stunningly topical paperback edition of my book, After America — or, as Dennis Miller retitled it on the radio the other day, Wednesday. But the business of America is business, as Calvin Coolidge said long ago in an alternative universe, and I certainly could use a little. So I’m going to be vulgar and plug away. The central question of Wednesday — I mean, After America — is whether the Brokest Nation in History is capable of meaningful course correction. On Tuesday, the American people answered that question. The rest of the world will make its dispositions accordingly...

In 2009, the Democrats became the first government in the history of the planet to establish annual trillion-dollar deficits as a permanent feature of life. Before the end of Obama’s second term, the federal debt alone will hit $20 trillion. That ought to have been the central fact of this election — that Americans are the brokest brokey-broke losers who ever lived, and it’s time to do something about it.

Read it all.

Soviet-Style Snitching Right Here in Obama's America

Snitching wasn't just something that occurred historically in the Soviet Union, Orwell's 1984 makes a number of references to being "denounced" to the secret police for "thought crimes."

Well, history has a way of repeating itself sometimes, chillingly.

At iOWNTHEWORLD, "The Site Jezebel is Calling Schools to Make Trouble For Tweeters That Use the N Word When Referring to Obama – No Word On Whether They Do That to the Thousands of Students That Refer to Each Other as N***ers."

Obama Supporters Celebrate: 'No More Israel...'

This brief video clip is truly a microcosm of the future of our country. Conservative despair needs no explanation when you have such ready examples of the Obama coalition's human pustules.

From Anne Sorock, at Rebel Pundit (via Memeorandum):

Sprint to Tight Finish in a Nation Deeply Divided

A front-page report at yesterday's Los Angeles Times, "Obama, Romney sprint to tight finish in a nation deeply divided":

WASHINGTON — Against the backdrop of a sharply polarized nation, the long and mean-spirited 2012 presidential contest is barreling toward the finish with the outcome still in doubt.

President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney remain statistically tied in national polling, as they have been for much of the campaign. But the Democratic incumbent is clinging to a marginal advantage in enough key states to make him a slight favorite to gain reelection in a race that could still go either way.

Analysts in both parties expect Tuesday's vote to more closely resemble the tight 2000 and 2004 elections, which came down to a single state, rather than Obama's expansive 2008 victory. After years of weak economic growth and stalemate in Washington, opinion surveys show an electorate that is more divided than ever, especially along lines of race, age and party.

"We are deeply divided, and that has made a contribution to the closeness of the race. But the public is also divided about these candidates," said independent pollster Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. "They look at Romney now as a somewhat acceptable candidate, but they still have doubts about him personally with respect to trustworthiness and with respect to how empathetic he'll be to people like themselves. They also have doubts about Obama and about his ability to turn things around."

The future of a divided Congress is also up for grabs. Republicans are virtually certain to keep their majority in the House of Representatives. But barring a late GOP surge at the top of the ticket, Democrats are expected to retain control of the Senate, despite a potential loss of seats.

Romney has sought to frame the election around Obama's handling of the economy, and an uptick in the unemployment rate going into the final weekend of the race allowed the Republican to tell voters that joblessness is worse now than when the president took office. At 7.9%, unemployment is also the worst for any incumbent seeking reelection since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

A nice piece, except for that quote from Andrew Kohut, the progressive hack.

Anyway, that image is from the Looking Spoon, "Obama and Romney's Views On The Economy Make The Right Choice Crystal Clear."

A Vote for the Obama-Biden Ticket is a Vote for National Collapse

From Mark Steyn, at IBD, "A Vote For Obama-Biden Is A Vote For National Collapse."

Obama Bet His Presidency on Expanding Government Because That's Who He Is

At the Wall Street Journal, "Obama's Progressive Gamble":

Many of our friends who saw genius in the crease of Barack Obama's trousers four years ago lament that he might be cruising to re-election had he only focused first on the economy and postponed his liberal social priorities. This may be true, but it also misjudges the man and his Presidency.

Mr. Obama has governed from the left not because he miscalculated his priorities but because these are his priorities. His first term is best understood as a race to put himself in the pantheon of the great progressive Presidents—Wilson, FDR, LBJ—who expanded the state's control over the private economy and over the wants and needs of the American middle class.

The price of this governing choice includes a weak recovery, achievements like ObamaCare that are unpopular, the loss of the House in 2010, and a polarized electorate. Unable to run on his record, he has conducted a low-down re-election campaign based on destroying his opponent's character. If the polls are right, even if he wins re-election, he will do so as the first President since Wilson to win with a smaller margin than he did the first time.

But for Mr. Obama, this won't matter. His great progressive gamble will have paid off. His second term will be about preserving the government gains of his first term, especially ObamaCare, and using regulation to press government control wherever else he can.

Man, that's such a penetrating analysis it's almost depressing, and I mean from Obama's point of view. The poor guy. What a horrible existence and what a disastrous legacy. Government for government's sake, going against all that's great about this country. Tearing down personal liberty in the name of morally bankrupt statism. But that's what Democrats are about, and that's why Obama's doing as well as he is. A large chunk of Americans, roughly half if the polls are to be believed, have lost the initiative and moral bearing that built up this nation as the leader of the free world. From ObamaCare to the Middle East, this president has lied and bungled his way through a disgraceful interregnum. If he's reelected it will take that much longer to dismantle the apparatus of mindless bureaucracy, and not to mention the ideology of hate and recrimination.

The good news is that Romney's got momentum and he just may get over the finish line the victor. A bit of a prayer might help him, goodness be to God.

Whatever the Outcome, Election Will Leave Half the Nation Alienated

Yes, but if Romney wins progressives have again vowed riots in the streets.

Be that as it may, here's Ronald Brownstein, at National Journal:

CANTON, Ohio–The first words from Republican state Rep. Christina Hagan when she addressed the huge crowd braving a damp chill for a Mitt Romney rally here last Friday night might have sounded more natural coming from a pulpit than from a campaign podium.

“God is pretty good, isn’t he?” Hagan called out to encouraging applause from the virtually all-white audience of nearly 10,000 sprawled across a high school baseball field. A few moments later, she added, “I am not looking for applause. Nor am I looking for a handout.” With those two pointed remarks, Hagan briskly encouraged her audience to see itself as a community whose shared values are under siege from others—unnamed, but not difficult to picture—who supposedly don’t share them. Earlier that afternoon, about 100 people gathered for an early-vote rally at the Friendly Inn Settlement House, a community center that provides family services to residents of the surrounding Carver Park public-housing project in Cleveland. In this room, almost everyone was African-American—and the sense of siege was powerful here, too.

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, actor Jesse Williams, and local elected officials portrayed the election between Romney and President Obama as a critical turning point, particularly for the black community. Speakers denounced Romney’s secretly recorded comments about the “47 percent” as a signal of contempt for the people in the room. “How do you say you want to be president ... when you have disdain for 47 percent of the population?” asked fiery Democratic state Sen. Nina Turner. Anyone touring Ohio, the epicenter of Campaign 2012, is confronted not only with the visceral passion, but the cavernous divisions that this election has provoked. Here, and in all likelihood nationally, Obama and Romney are assembling coalitions that are inimical in their demography and priorities yet almost equal in size. Uniting Americans behind any common purpose after an election that appears certain to divide them that deeply and closely looms as a daunting, perhaps insurmountable, challenge for whichever man wins next week.

More at the link.

And recall that Brownstein's knows whereof he speaks. He's the author of The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America, a very perceptive --- and prescient --- analysis of America's political polarization.

Jew-Hatred at Occupy Wall Street's Facebook Page

Via Pamela Geller, "#OWS OCCUPY JEW-HATRED."

Here's Occupy's Facebook page.

PREVIOUSLY: "Hate-Blogger Walter James Casper III and Progressive Evil: Denial of Israel-Hatred Enables Exterminationist Anti-Semitism," and "Occupy Wall Street and the Jews":

Walter James Casper III has to answer for his ugly endorsement of the hate. Walter James Casper III has endorsed the anti-Semitism of the Occupy movement. Add this on top of his anti-black racist sentiments and the sponsorship of hatred at his blog under "free speech" pretenses, and it's beyond clear the depths of evil this man will go to destroy decent people, Jews and racial minorities especially, because they don't toe the collectivist line.

Crooked Timber's Chris Bertram is 'Very Sad' That Communist Historian Eric Hobsbawm Has Died

Chris Bertram is professor of philosophy at University of Bristol, in Southwest England. He's an expert on Rousseau, apparently, and, from what I gather, a fan of Karl Marx as well, or some variation of Marxism. Most interestingly, he's a defender of Joseph Stalin, or at least the Stalinist model of Soviet Communism, from what appears in the comments at his post at Crooked Timber, "Eric Hobsbawm is dead."

Perhaps he's just being playful, but Bertram's sense of humor is rather Stalinist as well:

Jonathan, ajay …

Annoying as our commenters often are, I’m not persuaded that it would less bad to murder them if there were more people around.

But especially interesting is Bertram's response to A.N. Wilson indictment of Hobsbawm at London's Daily Mail, "He hated Britain and excused Stalin's genocide. But was hero of the BBC and the Guardian, Eric Hobsbawm a TRAITOR too?"

Read that, and then Bertram's comment here:

That Daily Mail piece is truly marvellous. One of the upsides of the death of someone like Hobsbawm is that all the real arseholes are given an opportunity to remind us all what arseholes they are, and A.N. Wilson is no exception. The DM, of course, was rather partial to the Third Reich.

He doesn't dispute the facts in evidence regarding the Communist Hobsbawm. He simply, rather childishly, calls Wilson an asshole and the Daily Mail a Nazi organ.

Of course, this is Crooked Timber, an extreme left-wing academic blog, with contributors such as the socialist crank political scientist Henry Farrell, who I've blogged about many times. (Farrell got all butt-hurt when Glenn Beck singled out violent socialist Frances Fox Piven in his broadcasts a couple of years back.)

In any case, recall the comments from Bret Stephens' essay previously, "Eric Hobsbawm and the Details of History."

Contemporary leftists embrace their extremists and totalitarians, from the Occupy Movement to dictators like Fidel Castro. And for some, even Joseph Stalin wasn't too extreme. You simply cannot find comparable affinity to far-right extremism among today's conservatives in American politics. And it says something that it's the right that the mainstream press has attacked remorselessly this last few years as essentially white supremacists and Klansmen, while we have a president who was trained by Communist Party members and who palled around with Weather Underground terrorists in the radical leftist marination of Chicago's community organizing thug politics. All of these points are facts. The left has no problem with socialism and Communist Party politics --- for progressives and Democrat Party hacks, there are no enemies on the left, as I've long argued at this blog. Indeed, one of the lasting implications of the Obama interregnum will be the degree to which the extreme left ideological fringe has been mainstreamed in current political life.