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• Video: Two Paths
• Sex Selection Abortion in America
• Barack Obama: Public Equity President
• It’s Romney’s private equity vs. Obama’s public equity
• Tim Noah’s Sad Parade
• Daily Links – May 29, 2012
• Harry Reid’s No Illegal Left Behind Policy
• The Tyranny of Straight A’s
• Latest Scott Walker ad: “Crime.” #wirecall
• Syria, Iran and an Explosive Middle East
• Veterans support Romney over Obama by 24%
• One Metric on Impact: SWATting
• Morning Briefing for May 29, 2012
• Obama’s Election 2012 dilemma: the DOOM that came from suburbia?
• Tech at Night: FCC impedes universal access; Obama and the UN both want to regulate the Internet

Video: Two Paths Posted: 29 May 2012 04:00 PM PDT A new video from Ben Howe via Breitbart.tv (h/t @LarryOConnor): It never ceases to amaze me how good Andrew Breitbart was at summing up a situation, or to sadden me that he’s gone. And he’s right. We have only two choices for the top of the ticket in November. It’s important to remember that. Consider this an Open Thread.

Sex Selection Abortion in America Posted: 29 May 2012 03:00 PM PDT From the diaries. In the wake of Chen Guangcheng arriving safely in the United States, after years of persecution in China for his anti-abortion activism, The House of Representatives will vote tomorrow on H.R. 3541 (also known as the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act – PRENDA), a bill to ban sex-selection abortions in the United States.  Although the US has strongly condemned China for their sex-selection abortion practices, only four states (AZ, OK, PA and IL) currently have laws banning the procedure.  Sex-selection abortions have long been an issue around the globe, most notably in China and India, and studies show they are rampant in the US.  A series of videos, the first of which was released by Live Action this morning, exposes the role Planned Parenthood plays in America’s sex-selection abortion problem. The first video, shows a woman visiting a Planned Parenthood facility in South Austin, Texas.  The woman, undercover for Live Action, spoke at length with a Planned Parenthood employee about how to proceed with an abortion should she find out that she is pregnant with a girl.  The employee’s instructions included how to use local OB/GYNs to find out the sex of the baby and how to defraud Medicaid to pay for all the costs associated.  She also advised the woman that many “regular” doctors would not provide an ultrasound should she indicate her desire to abort, as sex determination is usually made 5 months into the pregnancy and pretty much everything (including the brain) is already developed. During Live Action’s investigation, Planned Parenthood became suspicious that their involvement in gendercide might be exposed.  Two representatives of the organization wrote at RH Reality Check last month about Planned Parenthood’s official stance on sex-selection abortion. Gender bias is contrary to everything our organization works for daily in communities across the country.  Planned Parenthood opposes racism and sexism in all forms, and we work to advance equity and human rights in the delivery of health care. Planned Parenthood condemns sex selection motivated by gender bias, and urges leaders to challenge the underlying conditions that lead to these beliefs and practices, including addressing the social, legal, economic, and political conditions that promote gender bias and lead some to value one gender over the other. The Huffington Post also came to the defense of Planned Parenthood, claiming that Live Action heavily edits their videos in their efforts to misinform the public. Yet, Live Action has also posted the original, unedited video that shows no conflict between it and the final video. Further, when Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) first introduced PRENDA, Planned Parenthood was quick to come out in strong opposition of the bill.  While PRENDA only bans abortions used to discriminate based on the unborn baby’s gender or race, and it exempts the would-be mother from prosecution, Planned Parenthood claims the bill will “further isolate and stigmatize some women — particularly those in the Asian American and Pacific Islander and African American communities.”  In fact, a study of the 2000 US Census showed that, unless there was already a boy in the family, the number of boys born outnumbered girls by 50%.  The majority of sex-selection abortions in the US appear, according to the study, to be by Chinese, Korean and Asian-Indian women, in keeping with cultural heritages that traditionally favor boys.  In a 2011 study, 89% of Asian-Indian participants chose abortion when they found out they were carrying baby girls.  Many admitted to being victims of physical violence and starvation by their families in efforts to coerce the women into abortion.  Planned Parenthood’s willingness to provide sex-selection abortions only helps to further victimize these women. A recent poll by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, showed  that 77% of Americans (and 80% of women) would support a ban on sex-selection abortions in the U.S.  The passage of PRENDA will be in line with the views of the majority of Americans and, with the help of video evidence by Live Action, the abortion extremists at Planned Parenthood won’t force their opinions on the country.

Barack Obama: Public Equity President Posted: 29 May 2012 02:15 PM PDT Today, American Crossroads released a new web ad titled “Public Equity President”: From the description: “As a public equity investor, President Obama wasted billions of taxpayer money on companies with flawed business plans, which the government knew were risky investments, and which ended up costing thousands of jobs.” After weeks of the Obama campaign attacking Mitt Romney over private equity, it’s about time we take a look at the job losses, wasted taxpayer dollars, and bankrupt companies that have been the trail of destruction left behind by President Obama’s failed investments of America’s money.

It’s Romney’s private equity vs. Obama’s public equity Posted: 29 May 2012 01:15 PM PDT Today, the Romney campaign released a new video, “Not Even Half” taking President Obama to task for the billions of taxpayer dollars he has given to companies that later failed — including companies that were run by Democrat donors: Solyndra: $535 Million in taxpayer loan guarantees – Bankrupt. First Solar: $3 Billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees – Cutting jobs and stock near all-time low. ECOtality: $126 million in taxpayer money – Lost $45 million and under investigation. SunPower: More than a billion dollars in loan guarantees – Lost half a billion last year and laying off workers. In his Newsweek article, “Obama Campaign Backers And Bundlers Rewarded With Green Grants And Loans,” Peter Schweizer noted that more than $16 billion dollars went to companies like Solyndra that are linked to big Obama and Democrat donors: “In the 1705 government-backed-loan program, for example, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted as of Sept. 15 went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers-individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.” According to Schweizer, the appearance of impropriety was so bad that “the Department of Energy's inspector general, Gregory Friedman, chastised the alternative-energy loan and grant programs for their absence of ‘sufficient transparency and accountability.’” We are just passed Memorial Day weekend and the presidential campaign appears top have been framed. With Obama attacking Romney for his private equity experience at Bain Capital, and Romney attacking Obama for his public equity adventures as president is the campaign going to be Romney’s private equity vs. Obama’s public equity? Romney laid out this comparison in his “Obama’s Government-Centered Society” speech he gave after sweeping the primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C.: “The president has pledged to transform America. And he’s spent the last four years laying the foundation for a new government-centered society. I will spend the next four years rebuilding the foundation of an opportunity society led by free people and free enterprises.” Just as the T.E.A. Party folks would have it, the campaign is going to be about the size of government. Obama would have you believe that Romney’s private equity experience is somehow disqualifying because in making companies stronger some folks lost jobs. Congressman Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, blew that ridiculous Obama argument away during an appearance on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”: “You’re going to have some casualties, but that’s exactly what we need in Washington and why I’m so delighted to support Gov. Romney. He understands that our government has gotten too big, there are agencies that need to be reformed, closed, combined, something the president has talked about but hasn’t done. [. . .] There’s got to be a way to take money out of GSA and other agencies that are throwing fancy parties and make it available for the essential services that the American people want. It’s not nice, it’s not easy to lay people off, but it’s the right thing to do if you’ve got a bloated government. That’s what Gov. Romney promises to do.” How else will we ever reduce the size of the federal government and end Obama’s $trillion dollar deficits for years to come?

Tim Noah’s Sad Parade Posted: 29 May 2012 11:30 AM PDT The publication of Jonah Goldberg’s new book The Tyranny of Clichés has brought forth a number of responses from liberals and progressives, many of them either essentially proving Goldberg’s point or entirely avoiding grappling with the book’s substance. The latest entrant is Tim Noah, now writing with The New Republic, who seeks to offer a companion to Goldberg’s collection of liberal clichés with his own “conservative clichés.” It is clear from the column that Noah either (1) did not read the book, (2) completely missed its point, or (3) simply could not come up with counter-examples of the same type. If you haven’t read The Tyranny of Clichés, Goldberg has not set out to gather liberalism’s strongest, weakest, most ideological or most fact-challenged arguments and contest them, but rather to focus on criticizing a particular type of liberal argument, arguments that (1) pretend not to be liberal or (2) pretend not to be arguments at all. He also takes on a variety of the kinds of shopworn slogans that sound like truisms and are often found on bumper stickers, but don’t stand up to even the most minimal scrutiny if taken seriously – the sort of thing Bill James used to do with old saws like “baseball is 75% pitching.” One of his main points is how these clichés allow people posing as something other than political ideologues to spread an explicitly political ideology without seeming to do so. And, as with his prior book Liberal Fascism, he puts a lot of effort into illustrating the intellectual and political history of the clichés he’s discussing, history that is often ignored by the people deploying them. Front and center are his critiques of clichéd claims by liberals to be pragmatic, non-ideological, without labels and opposed to dogmas. These are big-picture themes, themes that often suffuse how modern liberal-progressivism is presented in academia and popular culture. Noah, by contrast, sets his sights mainly on explicitly ideological arguments in the immediate political context of the day, thus missing the point completely. For example, a number of Noah’s beefs are with politicial euphemisms like “Broaden the tax base” and “Job creator”. Goldberg takes a few shots of his own in the book at euphemisms, which are pervasive on both sides of the aisle, but it’s not even close to the point of the book. Noah’s entry on “job creator” is, in fact, just an excuse for him to exhume the phrase “trickle down economics,” which Democrats have been using as a euphemism of their own for so long that Wikipedia traces it back to William Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech at the 1896 Democratic Convention. Others are simply things Republicans say that Noah disagrees with, like “If you tax something, you get less of it” (Noah offers the stinging riposte that if you tax land, you won’t have less land, which is thuddingly obvious but at the same time ignores the fact that most property taxes are pegged to the developed value of property) or “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen,” which he does not even try to grapple with. In other places, Noah simply snipes at terms like “central planning” and “mainstream media” that he feels Republicans use too selectively. Noah argues that the phrase “Kicking the can down the road” is a cliché used by both sides to refer to failing to solve the budget deficit, although he doesn’t even address the main current conservative usage of the term to refer to failing to fix entitlements. Finally he snipes at the phrase “War on Christmas,” which is basically a Fox News shorthand for a longstanding cultural and legal battle over how a predominantly but not exclusively Christian country celebrates Christmas. You can argue that this is a silly term for this particular controversy, but basically everyone associates this phrase with Fox News, which makes it the very opposite of the kind of insidious stealth argument Goldberg grapples with. This is not to deny that there are such things as conservative clichés, bumper-stickerisms that oversimplify issues and fail to stand up to even basic logical scrutiny the way so many of Goldberg’s targets do (e.g., “America: Love it or Leave it”). But the fact that Noah – a veteran liberal pundit writing in a venerable liberal magazine – cannot come up with even a vaguely comparable list simply underlines Goldberg’s central thesis about the asymmetry between how conservatives and liberals approach the elaboration of their own ideas: Liberals aren’t oriented toward their own intellectual history the way conservatives are. This has the result of making them more, not less, dogmatic. Indeed, they are so dogmatic, they can’t see it. They think they’re ideology free. This is the lie liberals tell themselves and then everyone else: “We’re not ideological, we’re pragmatists!”

Daily Links – May 29, 2012 Posted: 29 May 2012 11:00 AM PDT Today is May 29th. On this date in 1453, the Siege of Constantinople ended, and the city was conquered by the Ottomans. An artist’s rendering of the battle can be found here. Also on this date, in 1864, Union troops reached Totopotomoy Creek, only to find that the Confederates had anticipated their move and beat them to it. All fighting ceased as everyone tried to figure out how to pronounce the name of the creek. On this date in 1913, Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Le Sacre du printemps made its debut, to jeers and catcalls from an audience unprepared for its weirdness. Coincidentally, Le Sacre du printemps is also the name of a creek in Virginia. And finally, today is “End of the Middle Ages Day“, when the world comes together to encourage Justin Bieber to retire so civilization can begin to advance again. Consider this an Open Thread. J. Christian Adams Tells Tony Katz How DOJ Can End "SWATting" | All Patriots Media “Radio host Tony Katz speaks with former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams of the ElectionLawCenter.com about how citizens can end "SWATting" and fight back against those who want to silence free speech.” Four More Years? | WSJ “If you think the first Obama term has been bad, just wait.” NBC ‘Today’ Panel Rips Chris Hayes: ‘He Looks Like a Weenie’ | Newsbusters “During a panel on Tuesday’s NBC Today, liberal pundits Star Jones, Donny Deutsch and Nancy Snyderman condemned left-wing MSNBC host Chris Hayes for suggesting fallen U.S. troops are not heroes.” Obama Adviser: Voters Will Support ‘The Black Guy’ | Free Beacon “An Obama operative claims that working-class voters would rather have a beer with ‘the black guy’ than the president's Republican opponent Mitt Romney.” Big Labor's War on Wisconsin: Rally for Rebecca online fund-raising event today! | Michelle Makin We were able to give her a considerable boost, but Big Labor is pouring a last-minute infusion of coerced dues-funding into the coffers of her challenger. Unions threaten to ground the airline industry | Human Events “A giant of the airline industry is weathering a quiet coup by labor groups, eyeing fatter checks and deeper dues. Big Labor wants to ground American Airlines.” The Right Response to SWATting from Loren Heal. varlet (VAHR-lit): noun; 1. A knavish person; rascal. 2. A. An attendant or servant. B. A page who serves a knight. (via Dictionary.com)

Harry Reid’s No Illegal Left Behind Policy Posted: 29 May 2012 09:45 AM PDT For those in the media who suffer mental gyrations over the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, here is a story that exemplifies the obstacle to working together. We all know that there are sharp disagreements over tax policy and immigration policy, but we can all agree that illegal aliens should not receive $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits.  Can we? Last July, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Collection released a shocking report detailing how illegal aliens are able to utilize a filing loophole to obtain billions in Additional Child Tax Credit (the refundable portion) funds.  While the Earned Income Credit (ETC) is protected from illegals (those who don't engage in identity theft) because they are only awarded to those who provide a valid Social Security number, the same cannot be said for the ACTC.  Illegals can receive the ACTC by merely providing an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) on their 1040 form, which is blithely issued by the IRS.  In 2010, according to the report, illegals received $4.2 billion in ACTC payouts.  That accounts for roughly 15% of all outlays for that refundable credit. Last Tuesday, Senators Sessions and Vitter attempted to bring the Child Tax Credit Integrity Preservation Act (S. 577) to the Senate floor for a vote.  The bill would merely make the ACTC like the EIC by requiring all recipients to submit a valid identification number for the filer and each child.  All this bill would do is ensure that illegals are not entitled to the refundable portion of the child credit.  The House already passed such a provision in the bill that repealed and replaced the sequester.  This bill should receive unanimous support and become law this week.  So who would block unanimous consent? Well, Harry Reid, of course – and every other Democrat in Washington. “Seems to me the problem is illegal aliens receiving the credit wherever they are physically, not people outside the country receive the credit —some of whom would qualify for the credit,” Reid said. “The Vitter-Sessions legislation, however, eliminates the tax credit for filers who are compiling with the law,” Reid continued. “That isn’t a good result. In fact, this legislation that’s proposed here fails to address the issue of the child tax credit being claimed for children not living in the United States. So the problem is not being solved by this legislation. The legislation goes well beyond what’s necessary to stop fraud and the child tax credit program.” The only problem is that it's not true.  Social Security numbers are available for all green card holders.  It works for the earned income credit.  Why should this be any different? This is just one more illustration of how Democrats have no interest in dealing with illegal immigration.  They claim that it's a logistic problem rounding up 12 million people.  However, the reality is that all we need to do is stop incentivizing and subsidizing this behavior.  Unfortunately, Democrats view the subsidization as a prudent investment in future voters – and they get to implement it with taxpayer dollars. Cross-posted from The Madison Project

The Tyranny of Straight A’s Posted: 29 May 2012 09:00 AM PDT Across a wide range of schools, As represent 43% of all letter grades, an increase of 28 percentage points since 1960 and 12 percentage points since 1988. Ds and Fs total typically less than 10% of all letter grades. Private colleges and universities give, on average, significantly more As and Bs combined than public institutions with equal student selectivity. (HT:Mark J. Perry) Hey! You wannna graduate with a 4.0? Then you should go to an expensive private college. Seriously. This is the latest insidious impact of greed for money on the quality of education at American colleges and universities. People are receiving inflated grades which make most grade point averages meaningless accept as a high-pass filter. Therefore employers are unwilling to hire college graduates since they can no longer use GPA as a discriminating factor to ascertain potential employee quality.* What this means is that expensive schools are keeping 90% of the people they enroll around for four to six years as sources of tuition rather than educating them or proving their worth to the outside world. In an article entitled "Where A Is Ordinary: The Evolution of American College and University Grading, 1940–2009" Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy describe the difficulties this causes recruiters and Graduate School admissions personnel. It is likely that at many selective and highly selective schools, undergraduate GPAs are now so saturated at the high end that they have little use as a motivator of students and as an evaluation tool for graduate and professional schools and employers. Former Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich pointed out some obvious and tragic truth recently when he told recent college graduates they were (expletive deleted)**. Reich pointed out the following labor market casualty figures. That's been the pattern over the last three graduating classes: It's been taking them more than a year to land the first job. And those who still haven't found a job will be competing with you, making your job search even harder. While Dr. Reich and I agree on relatively little politically, I respect the man for speaking unpalatable truths in The Glorious Land of Hopium. He then goes on to discuss how this will put them behind just about every wealth creation power curve that exists. All of this is fundamentally true and is a worthwhile analysis for any young graduate to read and accept as a grim truth. Reich's analysis of education as a public good is also quite prescient. Unfortunately, it is also dated. What Reich should have said is that education is intended as a public good. This is where Perry and Reich intersect. Reich explains college graduates are not likely to be hired. He explains that the economy is wrecked and people are not looking to hire. Perry explains why they are loathe to hire college graduates. I'll conjecture that hiring authorities are hiring fewer college graduates precisely because of grade inflation. They can no longer tell the difference between average and good based upon GPA. This causes them to view college graduates as a higher risk of failure than they used to be. That, combined with the subpar economy,*** causes massive unemployment among new college graduates. By deliberately inflating grades to keep subpar students on campus to pay more tuition, colleges and universities are sabotaging the future of students who truly work hard and earn As. * – This has also effected certain fields of study more than others. This is why some liberal arts and soft science degrees have fallen into disrepute, while some STEM fields have held their value. ** – He didn't mean you were about to get laid. ** – I could toss in the increasing cost of providing mandatory benefits for human capital. That's another blog for another day.

Latest Scott Walker ad: “Crime.” #wirecall Posted: 29 May 2012 08:30 AM PDT Let me spell this out for the Democrats: this ad would probably doom Tom Barrett if he was ahead in the polls right now. Narrator: This two year old spent six days in intensive care after being severely beaten. But Tom Barrett's police department didn't consider it a violent crime. Tom Barrett claims: Tom Barrett: Violent crime is down 15.5 percent. Narrator: But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that hundreds of beatings, stabbings, and child abuse cases were never even counted. Violent crime in Milwaukee is up, and Tom Barrett isn't telling the truth. As it stands, it’s just another nail in the coffin.  In fact, it’s so much a nail in the coffin that I’m going to take this opportunity to remind people from Wisconsin: they shouldn’t just vote for Scott Walker in next Tuesday’s recall election. They should make sure that they vote for Rebecca Kleefisch for Lt Governor as well. Better safe than sorry. Moe Lane (crosspost)

Syria, Iran and an Explosive Middle East Posted: 29 May 2012 07:05 AM PDT Download audio here Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Peter Brookes talks about the latest developments in Iran, response to the Syrian massacre and the explosive situation in the Middle East. We’re brought to you as always by Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show. Related Links: After Talks Falter, Iran Says It Won't Halt Uranium Work Syrian massacre: Kofi Annan to have 'serious and frank discussions' with President Bashar Assad English-Language Cyberwar Software Might Have Targeted Iran Peter Brookes at The Heritage Foundation Follow Brad on Twitter Follow Ben on Twitter Subscribe to The Transom The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Veterans support Romney over Obama by 24% Posted: 29 May 2012 05:04 AM PDT On Memorial Day, Gallup reported that U.S. veterans support Mitt Romney over Barack Obama for president by 24 percent — 58 percent to 34 percent. This is a  finding that is likely to doom Obama’s efforts  to gain support among military voters. According to NPR’s Greg Allen, the Obama campaign hopes to capitalize on what the Obamacrats perceive as a  generational change in the military.  Team Obama focuses on the statistic that four years ago, although he lost the veteran vote overall, President Obama won among vets under age 60.  Based upon that slim reed Obama is now actively campaigning to win the votes of those in the military. The Obama campaign’s focus on veterans and active military includes a new ad, launched last week, aimed at veterans and military families, as well as support for increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, a revamped GI Bill and a job training program for returning vets. Obama’s scheme to gain the support of military voters isn’t going to work. Romney campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said Obama has failed to keep faith with veterans: “He is quadrupling health care premiums for military retirees, has quadrupled the number of veterans who have to wait months on end to receive their benefits, and created a jobs environment that has put a staggering 20.2 percent of our young returning veterans out of work.” In addition, the New York Times reports that 870,000 veterans are awaiting response to claims submitted to the Department of Veterans Affairs, a waiting list that has doubled under President Obama. According to the Associated Press, almost half — 45 percent of the 1.6 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seek disability compensation. Democrats lost the veterans vote by big margins in the last two presidential elections. In 2008, Obama lost among veterans to  McCain, 55 percent to 45 percent. In 2004,  President George W. Bush out-polled Kerry among vets 57 percent to 41 percent. Based on Gallup’s polling President Obama will lose the veterans vote by big margins as well: “Age makes little substantive difference in the vote preferences of male veterans. Those younger than 50 are roughly as likely to support Romney as are those 60 and older. Male veterans aged 50 to 59 are slightly less skewed toward Romney, but still support him by a 15-point margin.” Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University, is also skeptical that the voting patterns of veterans are changing that much. But Professor Feaver is concerned that Obama’s active campaign for the military vote risks politicizing America’s armed forces: “That is a special institutional role that historically we’ve tried to preserve by keeping the military as a nonpolitical institution. Yes, they may vote as private citizens. But … it’s not in their interest and it’s not in the interest of the U.S. — national security more generally — for them to be viewed as an interest group.” So why would Obama make the effort? Perhaps because the critical states of Virginia, North Carolina and Florida have a lot of veterans and Obama desperately wants to carry those states. Just more of Obama’s politics of expediency.

One Metric on Impact: SWATting Posted: 29 May 2012 01:46 AM PDT Last week I wrote about the Speedway Bomber and current left-wing activist Brett Kimberlin. In 2011, after writing about Kimberlin, LA County Prosecutor Patrick Frey was rousted out of bed after midnight by the LA County SWAT Team. Someone had called 911 claiming to be Frey saying he’d just murdered his wife. Sunday night as my family and sister’s family were around the dinner table and playing outside, sheriff’s deputies pulled into my driveway responding to an accidental shooting at my home. One deputy was in the driveway. Another blocked the end of the driveway with his car. A neighbor tells me another was up the hill from the house. There was no shooting at my home. Someone called 911, claimed to be at my home, and claimed to witness a shooting at my home. As the one deputy and I spoke, the other deputy walked up the driveway, positioned himself behind the car in the driveway, and kept his eyes on me and his hand on his gun. My three year old ran between us all thinking it was so cool to have a police car in the driveway with its blue lights flashing. Luckily, after I had starting writing about Kimberlin, I advised the Sheriff’s Department to be aware this could happen. It was a prank, but not just any prank. This is a prank left-wing activists are increasingly deploying against those who dissent from their political views. When Barack Obama told his supporters in 2008 to bring guns to knife fights, some of his supporters took him more literally than I assume he intended. The stories of what is happening are not getting much traction outside of right-of-center blogs and the occasional opinion column at the Wall Street Journal, D.C. Examiner, and Washington Times. The Obama campaign set up a website listing major donors to a Super PAC supporting Mitt Romney. Naturally, individuals listed by the Obama campaign saw their lives turned upside down by investigators linked to Democratic opposition research firms. They, their families, their businesses, and their employees were harassed. Seemingly random people from random states started requesting old court case files involving the donors. It was intimidation. And now this. Brett Kimberlin has created several organizations that have gotten money from the Tides Foundation and other organizations. Kimberlin spent many years in prison, convicted of a series of bombings in Speedway, Indiana. Now, when conservatives start pointing out his past and his ties, they have been subject to swatting and other forms of bullying. We do not live in a Banana Republic, but the left does not seem to care. I take my family’s swatting as a badge of honor. We are having an impact. It is very necessary though that we continue to speak up and not be silenced. The activities of these people suggest one thing clearly — they are losing. We must ensure they do.

Morning Briefing for May 29, 2012 Posted: 29 May 2012 01:45 AM PDT RedState Morning Briefing May 29, 2012 Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge. 1. One Metric on Impact: SWATting 2. The Harrassment of Patterico & Its Roots In Left-Wing Activism 3. Obama Wants to Redistribute Our Sovereignty with the Law of the Sea Treaty 4. Wisconsin: Barrett Fails to Play Big in First Debate 5. Failed Earmark Culture Should Not Return ———————————————————————- 1. One Metric on Impact: SWATting Last week I wrote about the Speedway Bomber and current left-wing activist Brett Kimberlin. In 2011, after writing about Kimberlin, LA County Prosecutor Patrick Frey was rousted out of bed after midnight by the LA County SWAT Team. Someone had called 911 claiming to be Frey saying he'd just murdered his wife. Sunday night as my family and sister's family were around the dinner table and playing outside, sheriff's deputies pulled into my driveway responding to an accidental shooting at my home. One deputy was in the driveway. Another blocked the end of the driveway with his car. A neighbor tells me another was up the hill from the house. There was no shooting at my home. Someone called 911, claimed to be at my home, and claimed to witness a shooting at my home. As the one deputy and I spoke, the other deputy walked up the driveway, positioned himself behind the car in the driveway, and kept his eyes on me and his hand on his gun. My three year old ran between us all thinking it was so cool to have a police car in the driveway with its blue lights flashing. Luckily, after I had starting writing about Kimberlin, I advised the Sheriff's Department to be aware this could happen. It was a prank, but not just any prank. This is a prank left-wing activists are increasingly deploying against those who dissent from their political views. When Barack Obama told his supporters in 2008 to bring guns to knife fights, some of his supporters took him a metaphorically than I assume he intended. Please click here for the rest of the post. 2. The Harrassment of Patterico & Its Roots In Left-Wing Activism Let me add one thing here. Every belief system – political, religious, philosophical, lifestyle – attracts some nutty people, some stupid people, some evil and dangerous people. You can't judge those belief systems by their craziest adherents. Liberalism, as understood in the United States over the past half-century or so, involves the belief in a lot of nonsense, but it is basically a peaceable creed. But increasingly since the late 60s, we have seen the emergence of a particular style of activism – occasionally aped in some corners of the Right, but systematically practiced on the Left – that takes as its creed "the personal is political" and that everything is politics, and follows that to its logical conclusion by such methods as: -Picketing the homes of political opponents and business executives. -Boycotts aimed at donors and sponsors of political causes and political commentators. -Efforts to "out" political opponents, ranging from disclosing the identities and addresses of anonymous or pseudonymous writers to targeting closeted homosexuals among Congressional staffers. -Googlebombs designed to skew internet searches for information about a targeted person. -Reporting targeted opponents to ISPs, hosting companies or Twitter as spam. Please click here for the rest of the post. 3. Obama Wants to Redistribute Our Sovereignty with the Law of the Sea Treaty One of the problems we find in politics these days is the rash of bills with rather Orwellian titles. The best example in recent years is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (you know, Obamacare). But fortunately, some things have titles that are all too appropriate. The Law of the Sea Treaty is one of them, which is rather fittingly known as LOST. Please click here for the rest of the post. 4. Wisconsin: Barrett Fails to Play Big in First Debate Sitting in the pressroom before Friday night's televised debate between Governor Scott Walker (R) and Mayor Tom Barrett (D) the question was: will Tom Barrett do anything to change the momentum of the race? Since emerging from a divisive primary fight on May 8 that saw him trounce Big Labor's candidate of choice, Kathleen Falk, Barrett has been working to shift the momentum of the race to his favor. Operatives on both sides agree that with almost no independent voters left to fight over, the election comes down to voter turnout and the margin of victory will likely be unpredictable and close. Unconfirmed reports are that early voting in the Democrat-vote rich City of Milwaukee, Barrett's home turf, total 3,300 due largely to coordinated efforts by labor groups and community organizing outfits. Please click here for the rest of the post. 5. Failed Earmark Culture Should Not Return From Congresswoman Adams (R-FL) The 2010 election spurred hundreds of Americans to call for a change in the direction our nation was taking. They were sick of the reckless spending of the Democrat-controlled Congress and they wanted their representative to be above the culture of corruption in Washington, D.C. As a result, November saw 87 new Republicans elected to the House of Representatives with a mandate to enact changes to the way Washington, D.C. works. I was proud to be one of those historic freshmen. Over the past year and a half, I have spent my time in Congress trying my best to serve my constituents and uphold the conservative principles on which I ran. Please click here for the rest of the post.

Obama’s Election 2012 dilemma: the DOOM that came from suburbia? Posted: 28 May 2012 06:00 PM PDT Right now, somebody in the DNC’s HQ is likely sitting in a room somewhere getting morosely drunk, and it’s because of articles like Michael Barone‘s.  You see, Michael sat down and looked at the various reactions to Barack Obama’s possibly ill-advised (and certainly ill-executed) Bain Capital-themed line of attack on Mitt Romney, and concluded: it’s likely to provoke a backlash among affluent voters (particularly those in suburbia).  And the reason why people should care about that is because 2008 exit polling showed that voters from households making more than $100 grand a year made up a quarter of the electorate, and that they split their vote down the middle between Obama and McCain. And how are they voting now? Michael sees some interesting trends: The popular vote in House elections is a good proxy for presidential and party support, and voters with incomes over $100,000, evenly split in 2008, voted 58 to 40 percent for Republicans in 2010. Northern Virginia, which Obama carried 59 to 40 percent and which provided 95 percent of his statewide popular vote margin, went 52 to 47 percent for House Republicans in 2010. Nine suburban Denver counties voted 53 to 46 percent for Obama but switched in 2010 to 54 to 42 percent Republican. There’s more data – Michael Barone mentions similar shifts in Pennsylvanian and Michigan suburbs – but the concept that Virginia and Colorado are slipping out of the Democrats’ fingers would be sufficiently unnerving to operatives of that political party as it is.  I truly believe that Team Obama expected to be fighting out 2012 in North Carolina and Florida, and possibly Iowa, with all the implications about the larger electoral picture that one might expect from that (i.e., a narrower but decent win for the Democrats).  Fighting in Virginia, Colorado, and possibly Michigan instead implies something else.  Something wonderful. Unless you’re a Democratic operative.  Hence, the entire ‘getting morosely drunk’ thing. Moe Lane (crosspost) PS: This, of course, does not mean that Mitt Romney has a lock on the election.  And the Republican party needs to keep the electoral pressure on until the moment that Barack Obama gets on television and congratulates Romney for his victory (no doubt through gritted teeth).  But we do seem to have caught a break, for once; as Michael Barone notes. Romney did very well in precisely the suburban areas that Obama seems so determined to alienate.  Provided that Republican activists can continue to keep fostering in the candidate a laudable wariness – not to mention healthy fear – of provoking us, we stand an excellent chance of shifting this election from a 50/50 squeaker to a full-throated repudiation of Obama’s Chicago Way…

Tech at Night: FCC impedes universal access; Obama and the UN both want to regulate the Internet Posted: 28 May 2012 07:45 AM PDT Memorial Day weekend brought little news, so Tech at Night will be quick tonight. Enjoy. It’s an argument we’ve all made, but it apparently still needs to be made: Market pressure is better than government at protecting people’s ability to get what they want. We can see this from the actual behavior of actual companies, and that’s just one reason that Net Neutrality and countless other power-grabby regulations are wrong. The FCC is America’s greatest impediment to universal access to high-speed Internet. Get it out of the way. Oh that evil Comcast, look at them joining the early adopter effort for IPv6. We don’t need it yet, but Comcast is going early. It’s a good thing we haven’t completely regulated out of existence the ability of an ISP to manage its network. IP neutrality, require IPv4? How long until FCC demands that? Yes, it’s bad that the UN wants to regulate the Internet, but will the Obama administration admit it’s also wrong for them to do it?

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