Pathologically stupid "Jewish Forward" writer implies anyone who makes fun of Obamacare Pajama Boy is a Nazi

An article in The Jewish Forward by Jay Michaelson, the vice president of the Arcus Foundation, the world's leading LGBT funder, as well as the founder of Nehirim, an LGBT Jewish organization, is so astoundingly ridiculous and idiotic, it seems as if it could only have been written for the satirical website The Onion.

But it wasn't. 

In a deadly serious tome, Michaelson reveals his bizarre pathologies, insecurities and incredible stupidity by suggesting you must be an anti-Semitic, homophobic Nazi if you make fun of the epicene spokesthingee for Obamacare known as Onesie Pajama Boy.

Whether or not the Pajama-Boy bashers are unconsciously anti-Semitic or not, I don’t know. Consciously, they are against everything “Judaism” stands for, at least as construed by its enemies: outsiderness, cosmopolitanism, liberalism, a progressive rather than nativist agenda, an opposition to the notion that there is one kind of “normal” person, a sympathy for the underdog and the immigrant as opposed to the successful and the privileged, and, yes, a rejection of a certain gendered, masculinist understanding of justice wherein the strong survive and the weak are trampled underfoot like the untermenschen they are.

That fascistic outlook has long been a part of far-right conservatism – whether in revisionist Zionism, contemporary French/Hungarian/Greek nationalism, American Republicanism, or German fascism.

For some time, imbecile leftists have lobbed the term "fascist"  at anyone who disagrees with their sanctimonious ignorance.

But even so, by making weird allegations without an iota of substantiation, other than whatever is going on within his own unhinged thought processes,  it's rare that they go to the lengths Michaelson did to demonstrate the extent to which subservience to certain leftist ideologies resembles mental illness.




h/t Kathy S

Democrats' stupid solution for rape

"We should be telling men not to rape women" was the simple-minded solution offered by Democratic Party strategist Zerlina Maxwell to the way of stopping rape in America.

This was on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News where Maxwell appeared alongside Amanda Collins, the young rape survivor who testified in the Colorado legislature that had she been allowed to carry her licensed, concealed firearm, she would have been able to prevent her attack.

The attacker in Collins' case went on to rape two other women and murder one of them and he is now on Death Row.

The idiocy of Maxwell's logic is beyond absurd. People are educated not to steal, and yet the number of thefts in the US amount to many billions of dollars worth each year. No male with any reasonable education in America is oblivious to the fact that rape is a crime.

If there were an Olympic team for Stupid, Ms Maxwell could be America's captain.





h/t Blazing Cat Fur

Robert Bork and the birth of modern hyper-partisanship

Rivalry and competition between political parties is the essence of democracy. It's as old as politics and will never cease. But at the core of the legislative process in western democracies, there used to be the idea that the interests of the pubic should take precedence over the opportunity to get one upmanship over the opposition. The Democratic Party's' treatment of Robert Bork during his 1987 nomination to the US Supreme Court changed all that.

It also changed the nature of the highest judicial appointments in America from taking the best and the brightest to the quietest and most pliable.

Bork, who died last week at the age of 85, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to replace retiring Justice Lewis Powell. By any conceivable legal standard, Bork was eminently qualified to take a seat on the highest court. As an Appellate Judge he wrote the majority of the judgments for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia from 1982 to 1988 without once having a decision overturned by the Supreme Court. His Achilles Heel was that he was outspoken.

President Ronald Reagan with Robert Bork

A prominent legal scholar and thinker, he has published books and written decisions that made his position on the law and the Constitution clear.

After almost two full presidential terms of Ronald Reagan riding roughshod over the Democrats, and with another election looming, Ted Kennedy and his party decided to flex their muscles to try to reassert their place in the power sphere.  Bork was the opportunity they saw to get there.

Bork was publicly vilified, lied about and ultimately rejected as a Supreme Court justice. And though they won the battle, it was a Pyrrhic victory. An enduing, spiralling, petty tit-for-tat in Congress has lasted for the last quarter century that has made cooperation between the Republicans and Democrats increasingly difficult.

And since 1987, Presidents knew that strong, publicly stated opinions of outstanding legal minds would make  them assailable to the vicious, unfounded attacks launched by Kennedy and his colleagues against Bork. So less forthright, less brilliant, and less vulnerable jurists who were quietly vetted by presidential administrations became Supreme Court appointees.

Bork's defeat became America's open wound.

With his death, now might be an appropriate time to look back and see if there is a way to start healing a still debilitated process.

The politicization of science

Romney scores big in first presidential debate

The consensus from last night's presidential debate is that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney scored a resounding victory over President Barack Obama. Romney exceeded expectations in a measured yet forceful performance. The one major advantage the Republican challenger had was that the US economy is in troubling shape, with the president seeming ineffectual in his handling of the high unemployment and  massive deficit that has characterized the whole of his term in office.

A high placed source and confidant of the President told me a few months ago that the economy would be the deciding factor in November, and if unemployment remained at 8%, where it currently is and has been for some time, then the president would likely not be reelected.. 

The New York Times had the following:

The immediate reaction to Wednesday night’s presidential debate was a torrent of criticism directed at President Obama, with Republicans, and as well as many Democrats, accusing Mr. Obama of delivering a flat, uninspired and defensive performance. 
Republicans seemed genuinely surprised that his opponent, Mitt Romney, was energetic, aggressive and presidential during his first-ever general election debate.

“In a thoroughly dominating performance, Romney bested Barack Obama in both tone and substance,” Stephen F. Hayes of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine wrote after the debate. “Obama often found himself at the end of a verbal cul-de-sac, seemingly unaware of how he’d ended up there.”

On Twitter, some of Mr. Obama’s Democratic allies expressed anger and disappointment that the president did not make better use of the “47 percent” speech by Mr. Romney and other missteps that the Democratic campaign has spent months honing into attack ads and stump speeches.

Andrew Sullivan, a blogger and strong supporter of Mr. Obama, echoed Peggy Noonan, a former Republican speechwriter, on Twitter, saying that “this is a rolling calamity for Obama.” Mr. Sullivan added: “He’s boring, abstract, and less human-seeming than Romney!” 

Yesterday's man introduced by song "Don't Stop (thinking about tomorrow)"

One of the ironies of Bill Clinton's rousing oratory to the Democratic convention last night was the song played as he waved to the crowd before his speech kept repeating the strains, "yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone" from Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop.

The song was used as the theme song of Clinton's first presidential campaign, but is now a reminder of the relevance of his presidency to Obama's.

Yesterday is gone and Bill Clinton is yesterday's man. Clinton is a great speaker and a President fondly remembered as governing during one of America's strongest economies in a period that reaped the benefits of Ronald Reagan's victory but had not yet suffered the travails of 9-11. It's sometimes thought that one of the reasons Al Gore lost to George W Bush was because Clinton was kept under wraps during the Gore presidential campaign. Whether it was because the former Vice President did not want to be outshone by his old boss, or the wounds from the Monica Lewinsky scandal were too fresh, it turned out to be a big mistake.  Al Gore's stiff personality, without the boost from the personable, warm Clinton kept him from getting into the big chair in the Oval Office.

Barack Obama knows better and Clinton turned in a typical Clinton performance, eloquent, intelligent, emotionally stirring, and about twenty-five minutes too long to hold everyone's complete attention.

|The former President's heart seemed strangely not entirely in his performance. Probably because he didn't believe all of his finely crafted speech. At one point, Clinton said, "though I often disagreed with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far-right, that now controls their party, seems to hate our President."

If that level of anger is mystifying to Clinton, perhaps we wan't paying any attention to what Democrats were saying in the eight years after he left office. The hatred and invective by them, that still continues, against George W. Bush is staggering by any standard. Leftist Democrats continue to utter Bush's name as if it were a swear word.

But one doesn't listen to Slick Willie for 100% accuracy, one listens to him to hear a good talk. He may have re-written the history of his own presidency through the lens of nostalgia and Obama's through salesmanship, but in the speechifying department, he certainly delivered the goods.

Democrats pull a fast one on God and Jerusalem

Democratic Convention Chair, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for a voice vote approving of  former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland's motion to change the party's platform:

“I come before you today to discuss two important matters related to our party’s national platform,” Strickland said from the convention floor. “As an ordained United Methodist minister, I am here to attest and affirm that our faith and belief in God is central to the Aamerican story and informs the values we’ve expressed in our party’s platform.” 

“In addition,” he continued, “President Obama recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And our party’s platform should as well.”

The vote required a two thirds majority to pass. Mayor Villaraigosa had to call the vote three times and said in his view, the motion passed and it is now the policy of the Democratic Party.

But listening to the vote, it sounded as if the nays, if not more numerous were at least as loud as the yeas.

New York Democrats may nominate the next Cynthia McKinney

Former Black Panther Charles Barron is a huge fan of murderous dictators like Robert Mugabe and Muammar Gaddafi, he thinks schools should teach Ebonics,  he is contemptuous of Jews, and he hates Israel.

Apparently, the Democrats are terrified that he may actually get the party`s nomination for Congressional candidate in Brooklyn`s 8th District and make the national party look like idiots.

h/t Doug D.

10 points about Romney, Newt and the primaries

The wind is blowing in too many directions for me to even bother to guess the outcome of the Republican primaries any more, other than to make the bold prediction that, under no circumstances, will Ron Paul be the winner.

As to the Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney battle, here are some facts to be taken into account:

1. Nobody outside his immediate family actually likes Mitt Romney.

2. Rick Santorum stands no chance.

3. Ron Paul is crazy. I'm not sure how that's relevant to these points, but I'm talking about all the other remaining Republican candidates and I didn't want him to feel left out.

4. Mitt has a lot of money, but he isn't going to be able to spend it in every state the way he had in Florida to smear Gingrich.

5. So far, including the Florida results, only 5% of the total delegates to the Republican convention have been allocated.

6. Mitt Romney is an uncharismatic stiff that makes Al Gore seem like a rock star by comparison.

7. If Santorum gives up his hopeless campaign, the bulk of his support would likely go to Gingrich.

8. If Santorum doesn't give up his hopeless campaign before the convention, he can turn his delegates over to Gingrich then.

9. Mitt has the GOP establishment behind him, but those Tea Party people punch above their weight in party activism and most of them are in the Gingrich camp.

10. Super Tuesday looms large and Gingrich will do well in a lot of those states.


Even though the primary battle between Gingrich and Romney seems to be exposing lots of dirty Republican linen, the benefit from the process is that it's giving the candidates an opportunity to be able to respond to attacks now instead of when the Democrats bring them up in the fall Presidential campaign. That dirt is also getting the American public familiar with the attack points, so the November election may rest less on what the Democrats say about the Republicans than how Americans feel about Obama's handling of the economy and America's place in the world.

The Food Stamp President becomes the Class Warfare President

With what may be President Obama's final State of the Union address , he has outlined the divisions that will define the philosophical conflict in the 2012 election. The conflict to be played out will be the battle between American exceptionalism and European-style class resentment.

“You can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

Obama didn't actually distinguish what kind of taxes he was talking about during his attempt at divisive populism during his State of the Union speech tonight. The reason those billionaires are paying less in taxes is because they tend to make more income from Capital Gains taxes. That's tax on profits from investments bought with money they have already paid taxes on. Like when you get taxed on interest in your bank account.

What does raising the tax rate on investment income usually accomplish? Lower investment rates. Investments are what create jobs and drive industry. If Obama had ever held a real job in his life, he might understand that better. But seemingly motivated by the defunct, vapid Occupy movement's call to class warfare and vilifying the "1%", the Food Stamp President, who is in danger of losing the 2012 election, has leaped upon the opportunity to exploit class resentment.

A disciple of radical activist Saul Alinsky, Mr. Obama may not have a tremendous understanding of the American spirit, which is something very different than the attitudes in the socialist Europe he admires and wants to emulate.

That weakness has laid bare the Republican strategy, to play upon optimism and the American dream and use it against Mr.  Obama's 21st Century version of Jimmy Carter's National Malaise.

The man who came to Washington promising "change" is now likely to be remembered as "The Great Divider," being responsible for more political polarization than a predecessor who was relentlessly accused of that fault.

Obama's State of the Union shows a President who thinks he leads a nation as pessimistic as he is. That betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the American character and one that will likely cost him more votes than the Deocrats' war chest can buy between now and November.




Update: I think I know where Obama's getting his stupid economic ideas

Herman Cain's response to the State of the Union address was rather good:



The rest of Cain's response is at The Other McCain

Ron Paul goes further off the deep end - says Iran justified in closing Strait of Hormuz

Ron Paul is the Republican who could guarantee an Obama re-election.

The man is crazy. Now Paul's saying that America is at fault in its difficulties with Iran and the Islamic dictatorship would be justified in closing the Starits of Hormuz.. That should make him popular in Tehran.

If Iowa hands him a primary win, Paul could do for the Republicans what Eugene McCarthy did for the Democrats in 1968, and hand the election to the other side.

The future ain't what it used to be

You never know how things are going to turn out until they happen.  But the events of past years and the histories of the players on the world stage can give us some revealing clues about how 2012 may unfold.  So despite Yogi Berra's sound warning that "it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future," now that we're about twelve hours into the new year, I'm going to unleash my prognostications.

In Canada, we'll have a sound economic year. The next general election is about four years away, and the Conservatives have a solid majority, so the Canadian political scene will remain stable. The New Democrats will elect a new leader who is profoundly uninspiring and unable to connect with people in any meaningful way. The Liberals will sit back and watch NDP support gradually erode as the ineptitude of their parliamentary representatives makes itself obvious. The NDP and Liberals will do whatever they can to try to get attention for themselves, but the public will remain more interested in the latest Kardashian gossip than the teapot tempests the opposition parties try to stir up.

The battlegrounds that will form in the new year in Canada will largely involve the Labour movement and governmental austerity programs. Governments at all levels will attempt to reduce spending and their will be significant reductions in the number of public employees. Public service unions will try to make it an all-out fight, framing spending reductions as "a class war on the poor" and threatening horrors of cutbacks and social upheaval if the cuts occur.

What the public service unions won't realize until it's to late is that the public is fed up with them and sees through their self-interested hyperbole. We've reached the stage where most union members are disgusted with and humiliated by union leadership, who clearly are acting, not in the interest of the taxpayers or even public sector workers, but for themselves.

Union funded professional protesters like the Occupy movement, OCAP and their controlled mouthpieces like rabble.ca, will do little to sway the majority of Canadians who see them as a bizarre form of  paid lobbyists who utilize street theatre as their communications strategy.

The Occupy Movement itself will continue to desperately try to get attention and struggle for some relevance, but without any real success. The word is out on them;  it was never a grass-roots movement. Occupy was an orchestrated effort by public sector unions, socialists, Marxists, and their bigoted strategists like Kalle Lasn of Adbusters. These aren't new people protesting new problems, they are the same old full-time malcontents utilizing a new public relations approach. The camping-out technique did let them swell their usual numbers with the ranks of homeless, mentally ill and criminals, but the result was that their protests also featured assaults, rapes, murders, and drug-overdoses.

Occupy was characterized by incompetence evidenced through an inability to accomplish anything other than to demonstrate the intellectual bankruptcy of radical socialists who want to run the world, but couldn`t even effectively manage a campground.

The other domestic battlefield will be in education, where radical socialists are trying to indoctrinate future generations with the aid of hapless provincial education ministers. The public has caught on to this and with increased attention on the matter, a strong backlash is brewing.

In the US, there is a very good chance that the Republicans will implode and Barack Obama will be elected to a second term. Ron Paul, an isolationist extremist and crackpot, will not get the Republican nomination. But the infighting between him, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney leading up to the convention could create serious enough harm to let Obama recover from his slump in popularity.

A lot will depend on what happens to the US economy in the next ten months, and how Obama deals with crises like Iran`s posturing and nuclear ambitions. The Republicans may pull out a November victory if Gingrich of Romney emerges as the nominee and presents a reasonable, centrist candidacy that isn`t embarrassed by American Exceptionalism and presents sound economic alternatives. But the Republicans have a way of shooting themselves in the foot, so we`ll just have to see how things turn out. My actual prediction here is that the Republicans do capture the White House in the election, but I`m not going to bet the farm on it.

As far as the rest of the world goes, it`s going to be a mess. South America is going to have economic disasters and political upheavals, although on the bright side, Hugo Chavez may die and a responsible government could be restored in Venezuela.

Islamic extremism will continue to be a major threat to the civilized world. The middle eastern Arab upheavals will lead to Islamist regimes that claw back human rights. There won`t be the sort of full-fledged tyranny in any of them that emerged in Iran following its 1979 revolution, but that part of the world will become more dangerous and more extreme. The Palestinians leadership will conitue to give contradictory messages about its intentions towards peace while their incompetence and hate prevents any progress from being made. Israel, hamstrung by horrendous proportional representation system that almost guarantees government participation by religious extremest parties will muddle through the status quo for another year. The barbarity of the Arab upheavals and Iran, combined with the US election will reduce pressure for any meaningful progress in the Palestinian/Arab/Israeli peace process.

One very dangerous development that may occur is that Iran, facing economic and military pressure, may utilize its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah to start another war in the region to deflect attention from the Islamic Republic. If that happens, they will also be utilizing their useful idiot proxies in the west to wage a propaganda war on their behalf.

On the whole, 2012 will be another year where Canadians should be very grateful for having one of the safest, most prosperous and free countries in the world as their home.

Head of Jewish Anti-Defamation League tries to raise money by attacking Israel's best friend in Congress

Abe Foxman, the head of the anti-Defamation League, which invents more cases of "anti-Semitism" than Jerry Seinfeld's Uncle Leo, has sent out a fundraising letter with a veiled attack against Congressman Allen West.

"If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat Party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine," West told reporters in Washington on December 15, by way of trying to explain Republican unpopularity in some districts "Let’s be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are complicit with this and enabling them to get that type of message out."

It should not require an explanation to understand that when talking about propaganda, even in a hyperbolic, politicized context, it isn't trivializing the Holocaust or anti-Semitic to comparatively invoke the most infamous propagandist in history.

West put it correctly when he responded, “What I'm talking about is a person that was the minister of propaganda. And I'm talking about propaganda. So please."

Hearing the name of a Nazi uttered by a US Congressman evidently got Foxman salivating at the prospect of raking in some extra donations, so he promptly put out a fundraising letter to try to exploit  the situation. Perhaps Foxman was so blinded by little dollar signs floating in front of his eyes that he didn't quite realize who he was vilifying in his money-grubbing scheme.

There is no member of Congress more supportive of Israel and Jews than Allen West. But some of the self-appointed spokesmen for American Jewry and their organizations seem more concerned with their political allegiances and the fat salaries they draw than the actual interests of the people they claim to represent.

Foxman's cowardly attack, in which he didn't even have the guts to name West, went out in an email saying:

Just this past week, a Member of Congress was quoted referencing Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels when discussing communication techniques of the Democratic Party.

We are truly living in troubled times when politicians feel they can benefit the national discourse with such vitriolic comparisons which insult the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust.

This was not the first time this has happened in this political season and I fear it will not be the last time we hear such ignorant and spiteful discourse between now and next November.

If he's going to suggest that every reference to a Nazi is the same thing as an insult to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust,  Foxman should refrain from painting other people as "ignorant."

Encouraged by the idiocy of statements like Foxman's, the Democrats launched a failed motion to censure West.

Foxman has disgraced his organization by showing himself as willing to exploit a friend as a foe in pursuit of self-interest.

But the remaining question is, when is Foxman planning to make a few bucks by asking Jerry Seinfeld to apologize for his frivolous Goebbels reference?

Tea Party ahead of Republican establishment on Gingrich

The Tea Party again may be ahead of the Republican establishment and its far-right mavens. Despite the recent bemoaning on the conservative shortcomings of Newt Gingrich from the likes of Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter of how Gingrich doesn't represent Tea Party ideology, the former Speaker of the House has the actual Tea Party endorsement.

There seems to be fear among the prognosticators of hyper-conservatism that Gingrich may be soft on abortion, immigration, global warming and a slew of their other issues. They've even voiced the fear that the Reaganite who ushered balanced budgets and welfare reform through Congress may actually be a closet progressive.

That's just the kind of short-sightedness and self-absorbed shallow thinking that could hand Barack Obama a second term.

The Tea Party outlook may have its many failings. Any movement that has had love affairs with candidates who are as unelectable as Sarah Palin and Christine "I am not a witch" O'Donnell has some obvious shortcomings. But as a young movement whose core issue is the reduction of government spending and taxes, it has shown the capacity to learn and evolve and unlike its self-proclaimed proponents, understands that whomever ends up winning the Republican primaries will be running for President of the United States, not President of the Tea Party.

Disaffected Democrats along with independents put off by Obama's mishandling of the economy and foreign affairs will have to be won over by the Republican nominee. Mitt Romney isn't that guy. Romney is the Republicans' Al Gore, an unlikeable, unnatural stiff that couldn't win a national election on his own. A hard-right social conservative who appeals to the core concerns of the Palin Republicans could alienate swing voters more than enough for the eloquent, intelligent sitting president to be able to overcome his present unpopularity.  

For all their Newt-bashing, the GOP right-wingers haven't been able to come up with a viable alternative to him, and they should be thinking of that basic fact before they open their mouths or put finger to keyboard (or pen to paper as a previous generation would say). There are no better choices in the current slew. Paul is crazy, Bachman is inept, Santorum is a non-starter, and Huntsman has a lot of the right qualities except for the most essential; he hasn't been able to get anyone to be interested in him.

Newt's performance in the weeks leading up to the Iowa Caucuses have proved he still has the sharpness and the capability to lead and to attract new converts. He should not have to win over the people he should already have in his corner.

Gingrich may not be the dream candidate of the far right, but he's the best hope they have for a Republican to beat Obama next November. So to the Coulters and Steyns who are griping loudly enough to potentially hurt the Republicans' best shot at the White House, the advice I'd offer would be from Stephen Stills' classic song; if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

Morning Joe: Obama sees democracy as a stumbling block getting in the way of his greatness

Article at NewsBusters

Rahm Emanuel wins Chicago mayoral race in landslide

Registered Democrat voters in Chicago rejoice!

"We haven't had so much fun since Prohibition ended!"

Yay Rahm!

Democratic Congresswoman wants to ban the term "ObamaCare" from House floor

The Hill reports:

After two House Republicans called it "ObamaCare," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) asked the chairman whether these "disparaging" remarks should be allowed on the House floor.

"That is a disparaging reference to the president of the United States; it is meant as a disparaging reference to the president of the United States, and it is clearly in violation of the House rules against that," she said.

Is a Democrat admitting that Obama's health care plan is so terrible that associating him with it is 'disparaging'?

The ultimate filibuster - Wisconsin Democrats hide in Illinois to avoid union wage cut vote

In another sign of what may spread throughout North America, the battle between the public and their elected officials who need to find ways of balancing budgets versus unions and their supporters has become ridiculous and desperate.

In order to enure that a quorum could not be reached on a vote they were going to lose, Democratic state legislators in Wisconsin fled to Illinois. The Republican-backed bill would force most unionized state workers to pay half their pension costs and 12.6% of their health care coverage. Barack Obama weighed in calling the bill "an assault on unions."

Obama's criticism led Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to retort, "We are focused on balancing our budget. It would be wise for the government and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budgets, which they are a long way off from doing."

With the public increasingly turning against public service unions, whose self-interest and hypocrisy is evident, they are likely to continue pulling more desperate stunts. It speaks volumes to the dearth of intelligence among union leaders that their belligerent actions which betray the interests of democratic institutions only increases public opposition to them.

Union-linked Ontario Coalition Against Poverty's John Clarke warned that he will attempt more outrageous actions like those in the video below. Each one costs his and the unions' cause more in public support.

If Sarah Palin caused the Arizona shootings, then Heavy Metal causes teen suicides.

In the aftermath of crazed killer Jared Loughner's murder of six people and wounding of many others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, there has been a rush to exploit the tragedy for political purposes.

Without any actual evidence that Loughner was influenced by or even listened to any of Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck's "right-wing rhetoric," Democrats leaped upon the opportunity to lay blame on their political and ideological opponents for the act of a mentally disturbed individual.

But the facts that we do know are that Palin, Beck, and Rush Limbaugh never had any direct contact with Loughner. They never told him, or anyone, to go out and commit acts of violence.

This brings to mind the people who try to lay blame for teen suicides on Heavy Metal bands that the perpetrators of their own deaths listen to. In those cases, some conservatives exploited an opportunity to attack something they disliked with absurd allegations. As one empirical study observed to discredit such contentions, " it seems more plausible that those angrier after listening to preferred music were individuals with some combination of personal characteristics and/or life situations that have resulted in a general proneness to feeling angry, and that these characteristics and situations are tied to reduced reasons for living."

Now the tables have turned and the left is engaging in the same absurd, expolitative hysteria. What Jared Loughner did was because of what was going on in the warped mind of Jared Loughner and not because of American political rhetoric.

In a case brought against Judas Priest following the suicide of two young men who listened to their music, the Heavy Metal band's lawyer said, ''the risk that ideas may cause undesirable behavior'' in a small and unstable segment of the population ''is a small price to pay for a free society.''

There is no proof that in the Loughner case it was the ideas espoused by Republicans that inspired his actions, just as there is no proof that music causes suicides. Even if there were, the principles of the First Amendment and that of personal responsibility should matter even more.

Why the Left lost it - from The Wall Street Journal

Dan Henninger wrote an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal explaining the left's particular reaction to the Arizona mass murder by Jared Loughner. It's a very insightful perspective.

Hillbuzz summarizes it as follows:

Henniger says two things:

 (1) Leftist writers like Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, Jonathan Alter, and the rest who have been shamelessly using this tragedy to score political points for Democrats do so because they don’t know how to write any other way: they are just programmed to turn anything that happens into something that they think will help Democrats and hurt Republicans. They are purely agenda driven in all their content.

(2) The Leftist writers, and the Left in general, genuinely believe the lies they tell. And they are terrified of the Left being banished to the political wilderness for another three decades or so, the way it was after Carter’s disastrous presidency. They must, thus, stop at nothing to destroy the things they know will bring the Left down…and that is personified in Governor Palin and the Tea Party movement.