Around the Web

Tim Pawlenty is set to make his presidential bid official today. Yawn.

JB Van Hollen comes out against the lawless decision of Judge Maryann Sumi to block the budget repair bill, and Charlie Sykes has the scoop on Sumi’s conflict of interest regarding unions.

On federal spending and government shutdowns, Russ Vought makes the case for drawing a line in the sand.

Mark Levin has an excellent comparison of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush’s conservative credentials.

More union thuggery here and here.

And it turns out that Mitch Daniels is even worse than you (and I) thought.

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Around the Web, GOProud Edition

There are a couple noteworthy things in Los Angeles Timesreport on the storm brewing over GOProud’s involvement in CPAC. First, the conference has lost its biggest name yet: the Heritage Foundation. Second comes a new indication that tolerating gay people isn’t the problem: “CPAC has refused to schedule a panel about traditional marriage.” Third, the paper quotes Family Research Council president Tony Perkins as emailing to supporters: “Conservatives and homosexuals cannot coexist in a movement predicated on social values.” But that’s not how the quote appears in FRC’s strong public statement: “Conservatives and homosexual activists cannot coexist in a movement predicated on social values.” Either Perkins changed his tune for public consumption, or the LA Times is lying. I’m gonna guess it’s the latter.

At NewsReal, David Swindle and the infamous Ryan Sorba are debating, “should gays be part of the conservative movement?” David’s correct as far as the debate goes, but frankly the whole conversation draws time and attention away from what the GOProud controversy is really about: not gay rights, but whether or not the radical gay agenda is infiltrating the conservative movement.

Speaking of confusing the issue, Andrew Breitbart’s take is more than a little disappointing: “even though I’m sensitive to the social conservative movement […] the treatment that they’re giving gay conservatives at CPAC deeply offends me.” Y’know what offends me, Andrew? Blatant misrepresentation of what’s going on. What treatment? Which gay conservatives have been mistreated? Details, please.

Around the Web

My NRB colleague Walter Hudson takes on some fringe pseudo-conservative wackos freaking out over the casting of a black actor as a Marvel Comics version of a Norse god and secondary character in the upcoming Thor movie.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a local Planned Parenthood calling it quits because they refuse to offer abortion services, which the national Planned Parenthood finds intolerable. “Pro-choice” indeed…

Mike Huckabee vs. Sarah Palin on healthy diets in schools? Sorry Lisa, but I’m with Palin.

Tom Coburn explains why that healthcare bill for 9/11 first responders isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It passed anyway, though, and Coburn’s okay with the final version.

Be careful how you phrase things, Exhibit #804,792: Robert Stacy McCain explains yet again that he’s not a rape apologist. It’s a shame that an important point about safety and responsibility got lost amidst the hysteria.

Abolish the FCC? Go for it. Decisions with the force of law that affect Americans’ lives have no business being made by unelected, unaccountable agencies.

Around the Web

The Iraqis don’t want us to leave yet, and a narrow majority doubts that Barack Obama cares about their situation. Great…

Is Christianity true?

In National Review, Jason Lee Steorts reveals the dark side of Ayn Rand.

I love the video game Portal as much as the next guy, but giving people academic credit for playing it is really pushing it.

Here are two links about alleged right-wing violence not being so right-wing after all. (Hat tip to Ann Coulter)

And here comes backdoor amnesty. Boy, some leadership from the opposition party would be nice….

Around the Web

At Power Line, Bill Otis has “a short list of lies, not in any rigorous order, that are doing” Barack Obama in. Always handy.

At NRB, Phyllis Chesler takes on Wonder Woman’s new costume. As I said in the comments, “The new costume isn’t great – the prominence of black is dumb, and the jacket seems too casual for such an iconic hero (kinda like putting Batman in a hoodie) – but I’d be careful about inferring too much about the patriotism angle, one way or another. It’s all more subtle in the new design, but most of the patriotic elements – red, blue, stars, the eagle – are all still there (here’s a bigger pic), and if this promotional art for the new look is any indication, they’re not shying away from her patriotic roots.”

A warning, via the Hot Air headlines, you better not let Terry Savage catch your kids giving away lemonade. Wacky libertarians!

Robert Stacy McCain, intolerant as ever.

At Andrew Breitbart’s brand-new Big Peace: has Mullah Omar been captured?

Around the Web

Great Britain can’t stand Obama.  I thought Democrats were supposed to repair America’s sagging reputation after the sorry state mean old George Bush left it in.

At NRB, I take on a military-trashing teacher, who the powers that be are probably gonna let skate with a slap on the wrist.  Seems to me the Tea Party movement could do some good in a situation like this, by keeping the pressure on the school district to do the right thing and can her, but unfortunately they tend to settle for “teachable moments” – whatever that means.

Olbermann vs. Kos?  Did hell just freeze over?

Jill Stanek exposes the butchers at Planned Parenthood pretending to care about truth in advertising.  Who would have guessed that people who murder babies for a living would also be less than completely honest?

Krugman in Wonderland” is one of the best blog names I’ve seen in a while.  Definitely adding it to the blogroll.

Real-life lightsabers?  Not quite (although those are on the way), but Wicked Lasers’ sub-$200 “most dangerous laser ever created,” capable of causing blindness, cancer, and setting skin on fire, is sure to induct more than a few wannabe Jedi into the Darwin Awards…

Around the Web

At NRB, I review Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One.

Also at NRB, Horowitz and Knepper tear apart Andrew Sullivan, Patron Saint of Fail, over the Gaza flotilla attack.  The outrage over Israel defending herself (with, er, paintball guns) drives home one important truth America should have learned years ago: “international opinion” is worse than worthless.

Speaking of which, you probably won’t hear much about the Turkish “peace” activists’ terror ties on MSNBC or NPR…

As many as three million Chinese babies are hidden by their parents every year in order to get around the country’s one-child policy, a researcher has discovered.”  Yeah, but America has human-rights issues of its own, so really, who are we to judge?

Here’s LifeNews on the GOP’s dereliction of duty in letting pro-abortion zealot Elena Kagan slide.

Dan Riehl opines on Jim DeMint’s “telling inconsistency” on anti-war Republican candidates.

The Pope talks immigration.  Do his words actually bring anything useful to the debate?  They’re written in extremely general terms that don’t speak to whether or not any given voices are describing the issue’s various facets accurately.

ARE YOU BLOODY KIDDING ME?!

Here’s a new site conservatives should keep an eye out on (h/t David Swindle).

Around the Web

Required reading on the Left’s “violent tea partiers” meme, courtesy of Michelle Malkin.

Is David Frum a victim?  It sure doesn’t seem that way.  Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.

Jill Stanek takes a look at Bart Stupak’s reelection prospects, post-betrayal.

Global warming caused the plagues that helped Moses free the Hebrew slaves?  Who knew that ancient Egypt had SUVs?

Also via Power Line, another handy primer on what’s in ObamaCare: “A Good Government Advocate’s Nightmare.”

America needs about 5,000 more Andrew Breitbarts (hat tip to the Other McCain).

A Case of Mistaken, Rabid Identity (Updated for Hypocrisy!)

Milwaukee blogger Chris Liebenthal (Boots & Sabers regulars may know him as Capper) has a cookie-cutter post about the tightrope future Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will supposedly have to walk between the crooked & incompetent GOP establishment on the one hand, and the tea-party lunatics on the other.  Blah blah blah…

Amusingly, the centerpiece of the post is a comment from somebody named “Calvin” on this post from Charlie Sykes’ blog.  Out of the State of Wisconsin’s five-and-a-half-million people, there’s apparently only one right-winger by that name, so Capper pegs me as the commenter.  I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you’ve got the wrong man.

I do, however, appreciate being recognized as a “rabid right winger.” Remember, kids: Calvin Freiburger is precisely the kind of ignorant, intolerant, right-wing extremist scum your Homeland Security Secretary warned you about!

Calvin Freiburger Online: shouldn’t you be reading?

UPDATE: Understandably embarrassed at his blunder, Capper is digging in his heels in the comments, insisting that some nonexistent inconsistency between my words here and there somehow proves Sykes-Calvin and I are one and the same.  Apparently his brilliant mind cannot grasp the concept that, in the comment he imagines to be a smoking gun, I was responding to a specific claim by Anonymous (who, now that I mention it, is probably the same “Anonymous” from that other article I was reading last week!).  With such a tenuous grasp on reality and utter disregard for truth, no wonder the guy’s a liberal.

In all honesty, though, I should have known better than to waste my time wading into Capper’s cesspool – after all, a central tenet of the liberal playbook is to make a scandal out of the very act of defending one’s self from a vapid liberal attack.  Live and learn, I guess.

In honor of what feels like the ten-thousandth time one of these bozos has given blogging a bad name, it seems like a great opportunity to revisit this Steven Crowder classic:

UPDATE 2: So it turns out that yesterday, Cappy whined about falling victim to the very same thing he did to me.  You can’t make this stuff up…

UPDATE 3 (12/22/09): The Capster’s paranoia has been going on for even longer than I thought.  If it weren’t so stupid, I’d be flattered.

Around the Web (Extremist Edition)

Think your neighbor might be a racist?  Via Power Line, here’s a handy chart that helps you find out (Newsweek can help in that regard, too).

The Washington Post reports that the US Court of Appeals for the DC circuit has struck down some major campaign finance restrictions; political advocacy groups “are now free to accept unlimited contributions, to spend unlimited funds independently supporting or opposing federal candidates.”  Interestingly, this particular suit was first filed by the pro-abortion Emily’s List, yet the report stresses that the ruling could be “a boon to groups tapping into the fervor of anti-Obama activity and ‘tea party’ events.”  Regardless of whose ox is being gored, the fewer restrictions on participation in the political process, the better.

Via Hot Air, even more reasons to distrust David Brock’s con men at Media Matters: first, they accuse Hot Air of “smearing” Van Jones by making the true statement that he was a 9/11 Truther.  Of course, in order to support this lie, MM needs to selectively omit pesky language about “immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.”  Second, they’ve been caught selectively editing video of Glenn Beck discussing the recent ACORN sting operations, removing precisely what they accuse Beck of not saying.  Unbelievable.

Speaking of Glenn Beck, conservative-hating conservative David Frum has been on the warpath against Fox’s newest rising star.  David Horowitz has been sticking up for Beck, and catching Frum in a lie or two in the process.  Frum has nothing to say about the substance of Horowitz’s arguments, aside from complaining that Beck’s apparently too cozy with Ron Paul.  Is he?  I don’t know—it’s late, I’m not Glenn Beck’s spokesman (I tend to think he does more good than harm, but he’s unquestionably eccentric), and I’ve got better things to do than watch old cable news interviews.  You can decide for yourself if you’re so inclined.  I will say, however, that I strongly disagree with any conservative who gives so much as a second’s airtime to this lunatic, and Beck deserves criticism for that, no matter how defensible some of Paul’s domestic-policy ideas may be.  But is a TV host being overly-friendly to certain guests grave enough to warrant the kind of purge Frum (ironically, given his big-tent worship) demands?  I don’t think so.

Earlier this week, Frum also linked uncritically to this HuffPo piece claiming that Beck has supposedly lost over half his ad revenue…without mentioning it’s a reprint of the press release from Color of Change, the guys behind the boycott.  Neither did he mention that their claims are crap.

Lastly, in case you haven’t noticed, alleged onetime conservative (and current pathetic toad) Charles Johnson has incurred the wrath of Robert Stacy McCain for his rank smear-mongering.  Here’s Stacy’s latest.  Required reading?  Nah, but it’s darn satisfying.  Oh, how I love the smell of smoked weasel in the morning…