Oh, Capper

I don’t know whether or not Chris “Capper” Liebenthal was blogging about politics on the Wisconsin taxpayers’ dime, but I do know he’s a weaselly little punk.

(Hat tip: Boots & Sabers)

Reminder: Charles Jonhnson Still a Petty Jerk (Updated)

See here.  Congrats for breaking an important story, Chuck, but you’re still garbage.

UPDATE: Drama Rat updates by blasting Allahpundit for…being whiny.  Least self-aware blogger ever?

Helen Thomas is Helen Thomas. Film at Eleven.

Yep, Helen Thomas has been saying ugly things about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I’m with Johan Goldberg:

But beyond that, can we do away with all of the shock and dismay at Thomas’ statement? Spare me Lanny Davis’s wounded outrage. Everyone knows she is a nasty piece of work and has been a nasty piece of work for decades.

And when I say a nasty piece of work, I don’t simply mean her opinions on Israel. She’s been full-spectrum awful. I’ve known a few people who knew her 40 years ago, and she was slimy then too. One small example can be found in James Rosen’s excellent book on John Mitchell, The Strong Man. Mitchell’s wife Martha was a mentally unstable alcoholic who would call reporters to vent sad, paranoid, fact-free theories and diatribes. At first, many reporters were eager to hear her out, but over time it became obvious that Martha Mitchell was not well and it was cruel to exploit her. Obvious, that is, to nearly everyone butHelen Thomas who continued to milk Martha Mitchell for damning quotes and nonsense

[…]

All of these condemnations, equivocations, repudiations, and protestations are all fundamentally silly because they are part of a D.C. Kabuki that treats the last straw as if it was wholly different than the million other straws everyone was happy to carry.

Yawn.

A Word of Advice to the Non-Insane Paulites (if You Exist)

I’ve been in lots and lots of arguments about Ron Paul over the past several months, in which serious doubts as to the congressman’s credibility have been raised.  In response, I’ve been treated to all sorts of inane lectures of varying literacy on non-interventionism, blowback, history, progressivism, the Constitution, and, of course, those darn Jews.

What I’m almost never treated to are serious attempts to refute the facts backing up my claims (despite the fact that Paulites are pretty adamant that I’m “slandering” their prophet).  For instance, when I argue that Paul presents a biased, misleading view of the Founders’ foreign policy views, they don’t bother to explain why my read of the evidence is incorrect, or put forth new evidence that would change the picture.  When I reveal that Ron and Rand misrepresent the facts surrounding Iran (as well as other facts about the War on Terror), they’re similarly silent on the details.

Here’s a tip: If you guys wanna be taken seriously as anything other than blind cultists, evangelizing with pre-scripted talking points isn’t gonna cut it; you have to honestly consider and respond to what people actually say about your guy.  When you try to change the topic, you’re not making dents in anything but your own credibility.

Crooked FL GOP Chair Indicted

Throw the book at him:

According to state investigators, Greer devised a scheme to siphon off a cut of the donations from major Republican donors after he had fallen on hard financial times, despite a party salary of $130,000 a year.

Statewide Prosecutor William Shepherd said Greer used a company called Victory Strategies LLC to launder the money, pocketing a total of $125,161.50. Greer’s hand-picked executive director and partner in Victory Strategies, Delmar Johnson, collected another $65,093, according to an affidavit that accompanied a search warrant sought by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

“Mr. Greer just used the money for his own personal lifestyle,” Shepherd said.

The Orlando Sentinel first disclosed the existence of the Victory Strategies contract in February, a month after Greer was forced to resign as party chair. By then, top Republican leaders had also discovered the contract and quietly forced Johnson to resign.

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).

Memorial Day Weekend Is Coming. Where Will Your President Be?

Hint: It’s not Arlington National Cemetery.

Nope, he’ll be vacationing in Chicago.  Oh, he’ll manage to find time in his busy schedule to say a few words at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, but the traditional wreath-laying at Arlington?  That’s what vice presidents are for, apparently.  It’s not like Obama’s the commander-in-chief or anything…

To quote Doug Powers: “I’m starting to think that West Point speech wasn’t from the heart.”

The Paul File Continued (Updated)

The following is an addendum to my recent NewsReal posts about Ron & Rand Paul’s disgusting relationship with radicalism and their dangerous misrepresentation of facts on all things national-security and foreign-policy related:

During the 2008 Republican National Convention, Ron Paul held a counter-event, & the campaign invited crackpot Jesse Ventura to speak there. Ventura’s tirade about what “really happened” on 9/11 was met with wild applause by Paul’s audience.

On 9/11 Truther Alex Jones’ show in 2007, Paul claimed, “if you have a 9/11 incident or something like that, they use that to do the things that they had planned all along.”

In January 2008, Paul’s Midland County, MI, campaign coordinator was one Randy Gray, who happened to moonlight as “a longstanding active and vocal organizer for the Knight’s Party faction of the Ku Klux Klan.”  The campaign did not comment on the controversy, but did scrub all traces of Gray from their websites.

Hot Air: Another American Media Failure

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey has an invaluable post compiling HA’s coverage of the various climate-related scandals that have come to light over the past several months, all of which the American mainstream media has been almost completely AWOL on.  It makes for a handy reference source the next time some clueless lefty blathers on about the science being “settled,” so make sure to bookmark it (while we’re on the subject, my takedown of FactCheck’s failed ClimateGate rebuttal, which also compiles several other useful links, would also be handy to have around).

A Special Message to My Special Friend Marcus

I made a new friend recently!  He goes by the screen name “Marcus Brutus,” and attended my school, Hillsdale College, some time ago.  Unfortunately, thanks to our disagreements about Ron Paul and the War on Terror, we didn’t exactly hit it off.

“Marcus” wants me to know that he fared much better academically than he supposes I did: “I’ll ask [Hillsdale President] Dr. [Larry P.] Arnn at the next fundraiser if you’ve had a chance to examine that desk of his yet…my name is on plaques at Hillsdale, and yours isn’t.” He doesn’t think I have much “intellectual cultivation,” or that I’d make it “as a secretary for any office in any level of the federalist society in [his] chapter.”  Why, my heart positively shatters! (I don’t presume to be some great scholar, and I confess that I haven’t a single plaque to my name, but in my defense, I’m not exactly dead weight.)

His intellect, by contrast, is highly cultivated, and it’s very, very important for him that his readers know just how much, via seemingly-endless references to Scripture, English history, ancient Athens, and such.  Since graduating, he professes to have had quite the accomplished career—Marine Corps, Iraq, application to the bar, even some time spent in Israel.

Unfortunately, I don’t think “Marcus’s” way of going about things is doing him any favors.  In the spirit of friendship, allow me to humbly offer my fellow Hillsdalian some helpful advice.