But here's a really stupid thing, something she actually let loose from her keyboard so the Internet could suffer her stupidity right alongside her:

There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the “reading specialist” — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, seemed to have performed bravely. According to reports, she activated the school’s public-address system and also lunged at Lanza, before he shot her to death. Some of the teachers managed to save all or some of their charges by rushing them into closets or bathrooms. But in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.

Because of course, men never get shot. There were plenty of men in the Aurora movie theater, and people died. This isn't a gender thing. It's the unbalanced advantage a guy with a military-style rifle loaded with lots of bullets has over people whose flesh is ripped apart by said bullets.

What is so difficult about understanding that? Of all the apologetics I've read for why guns are never, ever the problem, this one ranks as the stupidest. Because there were no men on the campus?

But wait, it gets even dumber when she turns to Adam Lanza, who she says was coddled and enabled by his mother.

Parents of sick children need to be realistic about them. I know at least two sets of fine and devoted parents who have had the misfortune to raise sons who were troubled for genetic reasons beyond anyone’s control. Either of those boys could have been an Adam Lanza. You simply can’t give a non-working, non-school-enrolled 20-year-old man free range of your home, much less your cache of weapons. You have to set boundaries. You have to say, “You can’t live here anymore — you’re an adult, and it’s time for you to be a man. We’ll give you all the support you need, but we won’t be enablers.” Unfortunately, the idea of being an “adult” and a “man” once one has reached physical maturity seems to have faded out of our coddling culture.

Hm. Wait a minute here. On the one hand, the problem at the school is an absence of men, and on the other it's the mother's fault because she "coddled" the man-child? What twisted logic arrives at stupid conclusions like this?

Here's a newsflash for Charlotte Allen: It's not that hard to simply say that Adam Lanza exercised free will and walked into a school full of people with a damned arsenal worthy of Baghdad at the height of the Iraq war. He then used those weapons of human destruction to destroy. To destroy children. To destroy teachers. To destroy women.

It would behoove Ms. Allen to think about what she spews before she deems it worthy of anyone else's attention. This kind of nonsense just blows smoke over the real problem, which stems from the fearmongering nonsense conservatives spew out on a daily basis.

They argue they need guns in case the government goes out of control. I've got news for them, courtesy of an old friend. Their government has nuclear weapons, tanks and grenades, paid for by the taxpayers. So good luck with that attempt to "keep your government in line." It's a BS line for a BS argument.

Sandy Hook may have suffered a tragedy last week, but it would not have been the enormous tragedy that it was without the assistance of weapons that do not belong in any civilian's hands. That's all, Ms. Allen. End of discussion.

*Conservatives from The Weekly Standard and The Daily Caller admit to host of The Big Picture, Thom Hartmann, that closing the gun show loophole would be a good idea.

Somehow, between breathless fanboy posts alerting his readers to the every movement of Rick Perry (he sure is dreamy!), The National Review's Kevin Williamson found time to prostrate himself (not once, but twice) before National Rifle Association (NRA) talking points, support the interests of al-Qaeda, and fit multiple lies all into one little screed.

Pretty impressive work, especially when you factor in his limited availability. I mean, those Rick Perry posters aren't going to just stare at themselves.

In these pieces, al-Qaeda Tool Williamson did what gun fetishists and NRA apologists always do when inconvenient truths about the blood already on their hands, or yet to come, are presented to them: He threw out random vituperation (even attacking one of his colleagues at NRO who happens to have more common sense than he could ever possess--he must be an absolute joy to work with!), and some misdirection that would make Houdini proud.

My problem, of course, is that I don't much like wannabe-bullies. Especially those who view the NRA like David Vitter does a lady-of-the-night with extra Huggies in hand, even more so when they lie and attack my friends at Media Matters on an issue I work on and care about, with Bachmannian reasoning to boot. So I thought I might respond, you know, for fun.

The crux of our story is that Adam Gadahn, the American-born al-Qaeda spokesman, made a statement that was 90% correct about the easy availability of firearms for terrorists in the US (because of people like Williamson and the NRA), so this al-Qaeda Tool, of course, chose to focus on the 10% that wasn't accurate. Here is our own David Neiwert's explanation of what set off this jack-in-the-box originally:

That popping sound you hear is the heads of NRA loyalists exploding from massive cognitive dissonance, all because of the release this week of a video showing a spokesman for al-Qaeda, Adam Gadahn, urging would-be jihadis to go out and stock up on as many guns as they can get their hands on -- through the gun-show loophole

So what do you do when you're a shill for the NRA and have to explain why you don't support the simple common sense of 69% of NRA members and 85% of Americans, (in a poll conducted by known liberal Frank Luntz for Mayors Against Illegal Guns) all of whom want to close the Gun Show Loophole? The one that Al Qaeda thug Gadahn spoke about. The one that has allowed everyone from Hezbollah to Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell to the Columbine killers to arm themselves--and provided a nice source of income for Timothy McVeigh. The one that sadly, as the thug Gadahn points out, would allow any Ayman al-Zwahiri to walk into a gun show in the 33 states that have not closed it, and buy a gun from "private sellers" without any kind of background check.

What you do is lie of course, and portray private sales of firearms as "Uncle Bubba," deciding "to swap his deer rifle to Otis for $100 and a case of Bud."

Continue reading »

If you haven't noticed lately, the Washington Post has become the NRO for the most awesome Rahm Emanuel. Dana Milbank penned a column that could have been dictated to him by Rahm and then came another one basically saying all the same things. Rahm is teh Awesome and Obama is not.

We've had big problems with Broder, but even these weird displays of over the top Rahm leaking riled up the King of the Village:

In the space of 10 days, thanks in no small part to my own newspaper, the president of the United States has been portrayed as a weakling and a chronic screw-up who is wrecking his administration despite everything that his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, can do to make things right.

This remarkable fiction began unfolding on Feb. 21 in the Sunday column of my friend Dana Milbank, who wrote that "Obama's first year fell apart in large part because he didn't follow his chief of staff's advice on crucial matters. Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter," i.e., a one-term failure.

A week later, presumably the same anonymous sources convinced Milbank to pronounce that Obama "too often plays the 98-pound weakling; he gets sand kicked in his face and responds with moot-court zingers."

And on Tuesday, The Post led the paper with a purported news story by Jason Horowitz saying that a president with Obama's "detached, professorial manner" needed "a political enforcer" like Emanuel to have a chance of succeeding, "because he [Emanuel] possessed a unique understanding of the legislative mind." Unfortunately, the story said, "influential Democrats are -- in unusually frank terms -- blaming Obama and his closest campaign aides for not listening to Emanuel."

Rahm was instrumental in recruiting many new Blue Dogs in 2006 and 2008. If he was so great, then why didn't he get the ConservaDems and Lieberman on board with health care?

I posted about the NRO's Ed Whelan outing of a liberal blogger that wanted to remain anonymous because he couldn't take any criticism, but now sees the errors of his ways.

My Apologies to Publius

On reflection, I now realize that, completely apart from any debate over our respective rights and completely apart from our competing views on the merits of pseudonymous blogging, I have been uncharitable in my conduct towards the blogger who has used the pseudonym Publius.

Earlier this evening, I sent him an e-mail setting forth my apology for my uncharitable conduct. As I stated in that e-mail, I realize that, unfortunately, it is impossible for me to undo my ill-considered disclosure of his identity. For that reason, I recognize that Publius may understandably regard my apology as inadequate.

The damage is done, but at least an apology came. I hope this sends a message to others (it seems to be a right-wing thing) who similarly believe it's just fine to dig up personal information and expose it about a blogger (or anyone else) who wishes to remain unknown, just because they have a mean streak and a taste for vengeance. It's not fine. You listening, Michelle?

Most people in the blogosphere know what harm Michelle Malkin causes when she posts personal information of groups or people that she disagrees with on her blog. It's a revolting practice, but that's Malkin. I exposed her when she did it to some Santa Cruz students and they asked me for some help, if you remember, back in 2006. (Here's the entire story: Malkin crosses the line Santa Cruz.)

Jane reminded me that it infuriated so many bloggers at the time that even right-wing bloggers wanted to punish her over it. An "Online Integrity" group was formed in response -- one that I would never have joined. Many of us do have ethics.

I listed many more of Malkin's horrendous behavior in outing people in this post: The right wing attacks Henrietta Hughes

Well, she's started a trend that now the NRO's Ed Whelan just practiced on an anonymous blogger who writes on Obsidian Wings. Exposing an Irresponsible Anonymous Blogger

What a bastard. Yes, I almost cursed, but I have my standards...

And Whelan heads up an Ethics center, fergawdsake! That must be some kinda standards they're setting there, huh?

tbogg explains:

That is to say that publius was "irresponsible" in that he criticized Whelan and, for that crime, Whelan wants to f*&k with publius' life. Why else out him? (Publius responds) Oh course the real kicker is that Asshole Ed points out the "poor quality and substance of his [publius] blogging" when the whole problem stemmed from Whelan's inability to write a "quality" post.

(Added): Wow. I had no idea that Whelan had such an extensive history of being wrong and then acting like a whiny bitch when it was pointed out to him. It must be fun to play golf with Ed. "Mulligan!" "Mulligan again!""Whoopsie. I call mulligan."...and you still haven't left the first tee. I'm kidding of course. Whelan doesn't look athletic enough for golf....

Whelan is pond scum, but hey, Ed is a former Bush DOJ/Office of Legal Counsel official during 2001-2004 -- when that Office authorized torture, illegal surveillance and a host of other radical, disgraceful policies -- as well as a former law clerk to Antonin Scalia and current contributor to National Review. Would we expect anything less?

As you know, I'm a huge baseball fan, and even Major League Baseball is saying that Sonia Sotomayor ended the strike that almost destroyed the game under the idiot, Bud Selig.

It was Sotomayor's ruling that forced Major League Baseball players and owners to resume the national pastime in 1995 after a 234-day player strike wiped out the final six weeks of the regular season and the entire postseason in 1994.

On Dec. 23, 1994, with collective bargaining negotiations at a standstill, the owners implemented a salary cap. Commissioner Bud Selig announced at the time: "We are committed to playing the 1995 season and will do so with the best players willing to play."

----

The strike ended when Sotomayor issued a preliminary injunction against the owners on March 31, 1995. Three days later, the day before the season was scheduled to start, the strike was finally over. Sotomayor's decision to effectively order the 1990 work rules to be reinstated received support from a panel of the Court of Appeals for the New York-based Second Circuit, which denied the owners' request to stay the ruling.

Hey, Ted Frank of the NRO, it's not me saying this, but the MLB. It's on their own website.

Duncan cracks me up.

Jim Geraghty Comes Undone

As I noted at the time, the United States is a nation of 300 million people. They aren't all named Fred Jones. Assuming that a name is fake just because it is unusual, or "funny," or the same as the name of a celebrity, is nothing short of stupid.

Unfortunately, that's a lesson some people have to learn the hard way. Jed L at Daily Kos points out that the National Review's Jim Geraghty made a fool of himself by mocking American Prospect writer Adam Serwer based on just such an assumption:

Now, unless A. Serwer thinks that there is actually a registered voter named "Duran Duran" in New Mexico, he ought to refrain from sputtering that those who disagree with him are 'racist' and 'paranoid.'

You see where this is going, don't you? Yep.

Here's Geraghty's follow-up:

UPDATE: I am floored by the fact that the white pages for Albuquereque, New Mexico has a listing for "Duran Duran." Mea culpa.

For those of you who don't know, I did tour with Duran Duran a few years ago.

K-Lo---Please, make it stop. It hurts.

If Obama could go to Germany and give a speech in English and be not only understood but well-received, why does he say we all need to learn another language?

(illustration by Tom Tomorrow)

Revisionist wingnut Jonah Golberg, aka Doughy Pantload, is asking for input on what you "think Bush’s legacy will be."

Not kidding. I suspect we may have at least a few readers who wouldn't mind helping him out.

Obama's family must be Commies. That's a new one.

John Cole:

Lisa Schiffren at the Corner, perfect representative of the modern GOP:

Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.

***

Time for some investigative journalism about the Obama family’s background, now that his chances of being president have increased so much.

Cole: You know what that means- someone needs some pictures of 60’s era countertops. CITIZEN JOURNALISTS, YOU HAVE YOUR MARCHING ORDERS!