Religious stupidity.

I've counted 16 lib journos so far tweeting snide mockery of Michele Bachmann for asking God's help in deciding whether to run for Senate.

Keep openly mocking people who lean on their faith when making momentous life decisions, geniuses.

Marginalize yourselves into oblivion.

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) January 2, 2018

"Happy Labor Day: Top 10 union thug moments of the year."

Michelle Malkin catches the holiday spirit.

Only #8 and #5 take place in Madison, Wisconsin. And #1, which takes place in Boston, is a rally "in solidarity" with the Wisconsin protesters. The Democratic congressman, Mike Capuano, tells people to "get a little bloody":



Now, let's be fair. The full quote is: "Every once in a while you gotta get out in the streets and get a little bloody when necessary." Every once in a while — not all the time. Get a little bloody... a little! Not a lot. When necessary — no gratuitous violence. That's almost surgical. Does that deserve to be labeled "thuggery"?

The word "thug" has evolved over the years. Here's the etymology:

thug — 1810, "member of a gang of murderers and robbers in India who strangled their victims," from Marathi thag, thak "cheat, swindler," Hindi thag, perhaps from Skt. sthaga-s "cunning, fraudulent," possibly from sthagayati "(he) covers, conceals," from PIE base *(s)teg- "cover" (see stegosaurus). Transferred sense of "ruffian, cutthroat" first recorded 1839. The more correct Indian name is phanseegur, and the activity was described in English as far back as c.1665. Rigorously prosecuted by the British from 1831, they were driven from existence, but the process extended over the rest of the 19c.

Strangled?! This gives me an idea for another top 10 list: Top 10 judicial thug moments of the year! I've got your Wisconsin judicial thuggery right here. Help me fill out the list. It needn't be literal strangling. Other brutish behavior, physical or otherwise, may make the list, especially if you're fingering a cunning ruffian (or armor-plated fossil).

Newsweek gets "crazy eyes" to appear on Michelle Bachmann's face.

And it drives Michelle Malkin — who's been crazy-eyed herself — crazy.

This reminds me of why I wouldn't let Isthmus photograph me when it did a cover story about me. I figured they'd take a lot of shots and pick one that made me look crazy or bad in some other way.

But I wasn't striving for media coverage, and Bachmann is. She's got to take what she can get. The media is (mostly) liberal. Deal with it. You've got to manage your face if you want to get elected.

Now, the truth is — I've heard this from a friendly professional photographer — that you should make an effort to open your eyes really wide. It's usually the drooping eyelids that make you look bad. I said I thought it would look weird, and he was all: Trust me. It won't. But he was committed to getting a good photograph, and I'm sure he discarded the shots where I took the eye-wide advice too far.

Madison schools close for a second day tomorrow, as the state teachers' union calls for more protests against the Gov. Walker's budget.

Wisconsin State Journal reports:

"This is the scariest thing I've ever seen," Betsy Barnard, a physics teacher at West High School, said of the Walker proposal. "This is going to change Wisconsin forever."

Barnard and other teachers at the rally said they are willing to make wage and benefit concessions to help fix the state budget, but Walker's plan to effectively dismantle the 50-year-old collective bargaining process for public employee unions goes too far.

"We risk our public image," Barnard said...

ADDED: "Lawmakers are making some changes to a bill that would make public workers pay more for their benefits, but the bill will still take away almost all union rights from them."

Here is Michelle Malkin's coverage, with video.

GayPatriot says: "What’s happening in Wisconsin should be happening in California, with public employee unions upset at anticipated cuts in their benefits and legislation limiting their power. Both the Badger State and the (once-)Golden State have similar rates of unionization in their workforces, 16 and 17% respectively. Both face huge budget gaps."

Mashed-up mascara'd Olbermann.

Ha.

"Is InstaPundit for sale, you ask? A better question: Who would buy it?"

Glenn Reynolds reacts to the sale of the blog Hot Air. I don't really understand what it means to sell a blog that has its character by virtue of a particular writer's voice (or, in the case of Hot Air, 2 writers' voices). It's especially incomprehensible when the person pocketing the money — Michelle Malkin, who owned Hot Air — is not the writer of the blog. Or does it make more sense that way? Ed Morissey and Allahpundit were paid by Malkin — I wonder how much — and now they will be paid by Salem Communication, which operates the poorly designed, ad-cluttered site Townhall.com.

Presumably, Ed Morissey and Allahpundit will retain the motivation to keep writing in the same way, but what if they don't, or what if they leave? What do their contracts look like? Presumably, they can't go off and start a new blog, taking their readers with them. But if Malkin is the one who got the money, and they are the ones who provide the entire substance of Hot Air, then how did Salem protect its interests? If Ed and Allah's writing is so valuable, wouldn't they be open to better offers? If they take them, where does that leave Salem?

Anyway, I've never wanted to be paid by someone to write my blog. I've turned down offers, because I'd be afraid of what that would do to my motivation. I wouldn't want to be constantly thinking about whether I'm writing because I have something to say and I'm having fun or because I need to give value for the money. (This doesn't mean I don't want to make money. I do! I just want the incentive of owning my own business. I make money through BlogAds. And I accept PayPal contributions from readers who want to give me, say, $10 now and then to show their appreciation.)

"The total mindless, morally bankrupt, knee-jerk, fascistic hatred, without which Michelle Malkin would just be a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it."

When you're accusing someone of hate speech, use the best hate speech you can muster. That way your target will seem all the more... d'oh!

The Obamas selected a work of art that's an outright copy of Matisse — done by an African-American woman.

Michelle Malkin shows the 2 pictures side-by-side and reprints this bilge from Art in America:

A good place to begin thinking about Alma Thomas’s ravishing late work might be the moment in 1964 when, close to paralysis and bedridden, the 73-year-old artist found herself staring at the hollyhock shadows she had known her entire life and calculating how to use them in her paintings. A year earlier, she had seen the late Matisse cutouts at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Matisse’s work had prompted her to paint an acrylic-on-canvas version of his collage The Snail (1953), in which nearly all the original colors were reversed. Thomas named her painting Watusi (Hard Edge), after Chubby Checker’s dance hit “The Watusi.” As well as marrying high modernism with the popular culture of black America — then entering the American mainstream — the title she chose noted Matisse’s debt to African art.

You know, the dance hit, which is actually titled "Wah-Watusi," was by The Orlons. It's not a Checker hit (though he may have covered the song). The Orlons are black too though, so it's as if it doesn't even matter to Art in America, as it makes up its inane explanation of what the old woman was doing.

Anyway, it's really sad to see this sentimental stretching to identify African-American artists. There are plenty of real ones, and mistakes like this make it seem as though there are not and that patronizing — which really ought to be called racism — is necessary.

"Yes, the picture is real, nutroots," says Michelle Malkin.

Okay.

But when I looked at that photograph, I got a flashback to that day about a year ago, when that other Michelle, Michelle Obama, bestowed a visit on my little town.

Schumer on "those little tiny, yes, porky amendments": "The American people really don't care."

Yikes. The contempt.

(Via Michelle Malkin.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Synova said:

Just for my curiosity...

Who is "the chattering class"?

Joe said:

Anyone who disagrees with Schumer.

More generally, anyone who attempts to actually debate the contents of any bill in Congress.

reader_iam said:

Schumer--Schumer!--dissin' chattering?!?

Now, THAT'S what I call high comedy. Next thing you know, he'll be dissin' TV cameras! Can't wait, myself.

LMAO.

MEANWHILE: Barack Obama says:

We’ve had a good debate, but the time for talking is over.

You hear that? Shut up!

Habitat for Humanity houses -- 8 years old and alive with "cockroaches, mildew and mysterious skin rashes."

Jimmy Carter was one of the 10,000 volunteers who built the Fairway Oaks housing development in 17 days. Now, there's a lawsuit, but it doesn't seem to be based on the shoddy workmanship of amateurs. It seems to be mainly about the site — a garbage dump:

One man pulled up his floorboards to find rubbish 5ft deep under his kitchen. Other complaints include cracking walls and rotting door frames that let in rats and ants.

Habitat must have a system that limits and supervises all those volunteers. It's too easy to laugh at the do-gooders. Even when you use professional builders, you can have problems like rotting door wood, especially in a wet climate. You have to take care of your house, and even when you try, you do periodically find things that have gone bad, and it's your responsibility to make repairs. But once you decide to sue about one thing — here, the site — the lawsuit becomes a grab bag of all your complaints.

Which side should Michelle Malkin be on?

All Jimmy Carter-bashing and schadenfreude aside, do the residents have a bona fide case or are these professional moochers trying to pin blame on others for their own lack of personal responsibility?...

I’ve watched enough of these “environmental justice” activists to know that they coach their clients to complain about vague ailments (“mysterious skin rashes”) that have no relation in reality to the environmental conditions they claim are the cause. These professional grievance-mongers have blocked countless private redevelopment and remediation projects — and milked tens of millions in settlements — based on bogus scientific and medical claims....

The Left has stoked both eco-zealotry and the entitlement culture with impunity. Perhaps they’ll feel a little less inclined to feed those beasts after getting bitten squarely in the ass.

"PITTSBURGH MUTILATION INCIDENT A FAKE, according to police. Advantage: Ann Althouse and Michelle Malkin!"

Writes Glenn Reynolds, linking back to his post from last night, where he said that I was "joining the crowd suspecting a hoax."

Isn't it interesting that the women smelled the hoax while the men were such respectful believers? I guess you men have been well schooled in your gender studies classes. Let me quote something I said in the comments to my "Ashley Todd confessed" post:

This idea of believing women -- which got started in an era when too many real rape accusations were rejected -- should not become a leap of faith. Look critically at the evidence. The best version of feminism treats women as human beings, and human beings are capable of lying and doing vicious things. Don't be a chump.

Attacked by Drudge and Malkin, Gwen Ifill breaks an ankle.

1. Drudge, Malkin, etc., lay into Ifill -- the chosen moderator for the VP debate -- because she's got a book coming out about the success of various black politicians, notably Barack Obama.

2. Suddenly, we hear that Ifill has tripped at home on a staircase and broken her ankle. Coincidence? Looking for a graceful exit via a clumsy fall?

***

So far, Ifill is not backing out, and I don't think she should. The campaigns agreed on the moderators, and the McCain campaign agreed on Ifill. I'm sure their desire for a black/female moderator led straight to Ifill. It's pathetic to whine now that they weren't specifically informed about this book, especially since it's not "Why I Love Barack Obama" or some piece of gushing fluff.

Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men and women who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, and also covers up-and-coming figures from across the nation. Drawing on interviews with power brokers like Senator Obama, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and many others, as well as her own razor-sharp observations and analysis of such issues as generational conflict and the "black enough" conundrum, Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history.

It would be low -- and stupid -- at this point to impugn Ifill.

What do you think of Ifill and her book?
	Outrageous! She should be replaced.
	Not a big deal, and the McCain campaign should have known.
	Bad, but complaining or replacing her will only make it worse.
	Not that bad, but she should be replaced to preserve the appearance of neutrality.
pollcode.com free polls

Is Barack Obama "a walking, talking gaffe machine"?

Michelle Malkin marshals the evidence. I'm inclined to be a little lenient about gaffes, though I understand the urge to avenge Dan Quayle, who was — the legend has it — destroyed over the misspelling of a single word. A presidential candidate is constantly talking, responding to questions and situations ad lib, and he's going to make some gaffes. It can't mean that he's incompetent or an idiot. I love to post and laugh about these gaffes — like the "57 states" one — but it has almost no effect on what I think of the man. A good candidate should try to avoid giving his opponents this ammunition as much as he can, but there are more important things than avoiding ever saying anything wrong.

But there's one thing on Malkin's long list of gaffes that mattered to me:

Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama’s Dreams from My Father: “Then, there’s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don’t exist, say the magazine’s own historians.”

I don't remember seeing that Chicago Tribune story. Malkin's piece — in the National Review — doesn't link to anything, but here's the article. I read "Dreams from My Father" and took it to be a truthful story. Obama makes seeing those pictures in Life magazine a pivotal event in his life:

He is 9 years old, living in Indonesia, where he and his mother moved with her new husband, Lolo Soetoro, a few years earlier. One day while visiting his mother, who was working at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Obama passed time by looking through several issues of Life magazine. He came across an article that he later would describe as feeling like an "ambush attack."

The article included photos of a black man who had destroyed his skin with powerful chemical lighteners that promised to make him white. Instead, the chemicals had peeled off much of his skin, leaving him sad and scarred, Obama recalled.

"I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation," Obama wrote of the magazine photos in "Dreams."

Yet no such Life issue exists, according to historians at the magazine. No such photos, no such article. When asked about the discrepancy, Obama said in a recent interview, "It might have been an Ebony or it might have been ... who knows what it was?" (At the request of the Tribune, archivists at Ebony searched their catalogue of past articles, none of which matched what Obama recalled.)

In fact, it is surprising, based on interviews with more than two dozen people who knew Obama during his nearly four years in Indonesia, that it would take a photograph in a magazine to make him conscious of the fact that some people might treat him differently in part because of the color of his skin.

Obama, who has talked and written so much about struggling to find a sense of belonging due to his mixed race, brushes over this time of his life in "Dreams." He describes making friends easily, becoming fluent in Indonesian in just six months and melding quite easily into the very foreign fabric of Jakarta.

The reality was less tidy....

Former playmates remember Obama as "Barry Soetoro," or simply "Barry," a chubby little boy very different from the gangly Obama people know today. All say he was teased more than any other kid in the neighborhood--primarily because he was bigger and had black features.

He was the only foreign child in the neighborhood. He also was one of the only neighborhood children whose parents enrolled him in a new Catholic school in an area populated almost entirely by Betawis, the old tribal landowning Jakarta natives who were very traditional Muslims. Some of the Betawi children threw rocks at the open Catholic classrooms, remembered Cecilia Sugini Hananto, who taught Obama in 2nd grade.

Teachers, former playmates and friends recall a boy who never fully grasped their language and who was very quiet as a result. But one word Obama learned quickly in his new home was curang, which means "cheater."

When kids teased him, Obama yelled back, "Curang, curang!" When a friend gave him shrimp paste instead of chocolate, he yelled, "Curang, curang!"

Zulfan Adi was one of the neighborhood kids who teased Obama most mercilessly. He remembers one day when young Obama, a hopelessly upbeat boy who seemed oblivious to the fact that the older kids didn't want him tagging along, followed a group of Adi's friends to a nearby swamp.

"They held his hands and feet and said, `One, two, three,' and threw him in the swamp," recalled Adi, who still lives in the same house where he grew up. "Luckily he could swim. They only did it to Barry."

The other kids would scrap with him sometimes, but because Obama was bigger and better-fed than many of them, he was hard to defeat.

"He was built like a bull. So we'd get three kids together to fight him," recalled Yunaldi Askiar, 45, a former neighborhood friend. "But it was only playing."

Obama has claimed on numerous occasions to have become fluent in Indonesian in six months. Yet those who knew him disputed that during recent interviews.

Israella Pareira Darmawan, Obama's 1st-grade teacher, said she attempted to help him learn the Indonesian language by going over pronunciation and vowel sounds. He struggled greatly with the foreign language, she said, and with his studies as a result.

The teacher, who still lives in Obama's old neighborhood, remembers that he always sat in the back corner of her classroom. "His friends called him 'Negro,'" Darmawan said. The term wasn't considered a slur at the time in Indonesia.

Still, all of his teachers at the Catholic school recognized leadership qualities in him. "He would be very helpful with friends. He'd pick them up if they fell down,'' Darmawan recalled. "He would protect the smaller ones."

Third-grade teacher Fermina Katarina Sinaga, now 67, has perhaps the most telling story. In an essay about what he wanted to be when he grew up, Obama "wrote he wanted to be president," Sinaga recalled. "He didn't say what country he wanted to be president of. But he wanted to make everybody happy."

When Obama was in 4th grade, the Soetoro family moved. Their new neighborhood was only 3 miles to the west, but a world away. Elite Dutch colonists once lived there; the Japanese moved in during their occupation of Indonesia in World War II. In the early 1970s, diplomats and Indonesian businessmen lived there in fancy gated houses with wide paved roads and sculpted bushes.

Obama never became terribly close with the children of the new school--this time a predominantly Muslim one--where he was enrolled. As he had at the old school, Obama sat in a back corner. He sketched decidedly American cartoon characters during class.

"He liked drawing Spider-Man and Batman," said another friend, Widiyanto Hendro Cahyono, 46. "Barry liked to draw heroes."

Uh oh. I'm quoting way too much. And there's much, much more really interesting stuff — really humanizing stuff. Much better material than you'll find in "Dreams from My Father." Thanks to Michelle Malkin for prompting me to pull this thing out of the archive! For whatever reasons, Obama wrote a book framing his life story as a story about the search for racial identity. I think it was probably what the publishers wanted from him, and it may have also seemed like a good way to build his career. He's much more lovable in the Chicago Tribune version — even if it does call him out on the Life magazine story.

Uncle Jay Explains the News.

Today's key word, kids: Blogosphere.

ADDED: Beltway Blogroll transcribes my favorite part of the video:

Among the thousands of political blogs, he said, there is "one for every type of political prejudice." He divided them into helpful categories and flashed screenshots of examples for each category:

1) The "godless, socialist, hate America, Bush-is-Hitler, cut-and-run, nanny state, tree-hugging, amnesty, traitor, left-wing, scumbag blogs": Crooks & Liars, Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo and TalkLeft.

2) The "neocon, corporate, racist, Bush-is-god, flag, Bible, homophobe, cold-dead-hands, transfat, right-wing scumbag blogs": Instapundit, La Shawn Barber's Corner, Little Green Footballs, Michelle Malkin and SteynOnline.

3) And the "more independent-thinking, left or right, perhaps libertarian, make-up-your-mind, who's-side-are-you-on, mamby-pamby, scumbag blogs": Ann Althouse, BuzzMachine, Lileks.com and Andrew Sullivan.