Maggie's Farm

It takes the Marines to open just one!

Dunkin' Donuts, the well-established donut-and-coffee chain on the East Coast and in the Midwest — with 6700 store locations in the U.S. and 30 other countries — didn’t have a California location until earlier this month.

Located inside Camp Pendleton’s new MCX store (a one-stop shop for active duty military and their families), Dunkin' Donuts opened with little fanfare on May 3.

Upon hearing of the store's opening, I tried on numerous occasions to get a comment from the Dunkin' Donuts corporation based in Massachusetts. It took several weeks for a spokesperson to respond to emails.

On May 22, PR manager McCall Gosslin responded that they understand the demand for Dunkin' Donuts in California, pointing out that the state is number one in sales for their prepackaged coffee. But, he added, it will be a long time before other California locations are added. He said Camp Pendleton officials reached out to Dunkin' Donuts because of their popularity at other military installations.

Speculation as to why a multinational company won't have an additional presence in California can be drawn from an announcement last year that Carl’s Jr. will no longer seek to open additional California locations due to a regulatory process that takes two to three years.

On May 23, Dunkin' Donuts manager Daisy said they were extremely busy and that the Marines are aware of the fact that theirs is the first shop in California.

In the fall of 1971, in grad school, I did a 60-page analysis of the Nixon/Kissinger détente policy. I concluded it was largely a holding action meant to slow down what otherwise was believed by its primaries as the inevitable declining power of the West in the face of  rising Soviet and Chinese power. I termed it “existential defeatism”. Although pragmatic coping in many ways, defeatism or its better cousin called nuance, has not been terribly beneficial to US interests since.

There isn’t a linear relationship from 1971 to now, but rather a trend. This trend is toward restraint in asserting our interests, with the confused interruption of our Iraq experience. It is increasingly coupled with deference to the alternate or contrary interests of other countries, called internationalism.

These policies can take little credit for the fall of the Soviet Union, under the weight of its own internal contradictions, in 1989. On the other hand, China kept ascending, US fecklessness in Indochina is touted by Islamist radicals as encouragement for their causes, and Russia is following its old path contrary to Western interests. Meanwhile, many of today’s foreign policy gurus tout international law and international organizations, usually most often in play to hinder or attack Western interests.

Restraint in foreign engagements, particularly military, is certainly to be prized unless clear US national interests, mechanisms, and follow-through plans are pretty clearly present, and articulated by our national political leaders so necessary to domestic support. However, instead, what we’ve increasingly seen is muddling and disparagement of the very concept of US national interests, substituting outright negativity, conceptual distractions, and refusal to actively engage unless elusive or impossible international consensus is reached, to include Russia and China who aren’t shy about exerting themselves actively in opposition to US or Western interests. In effect, as well, the US and Western Europe have too often abandoned its moral core, as well, to the favor of those who don’t share it or deride or hate it.

All that said, this critique must face the serious real-world problems we face immediately in the Middle East and coastal Asia, and the influence of financial problems.

Understandably nervous and hesitant to confront crazies in the Middle East, we have defaulted influence to Iran and to Russia.

Not wanting to indiscriminately support or arm possible future foes, as we did in Afghanistan to chase out the Soviet Union, there is little effort to discriminate and strengthen those not antagonistic to the West. Syria has been a cat’s paw of Iran to ferment conflict. Our non-action furthers this, rather than decrease it, aside from the humanitarian toll on Syrians with Iranians on the ground adding to the murders and Russian arms arriving in torrents. The US is rightly seen in the region and elsewhere as ineffectual, hardly worth allying with. Meanwhile, enough said, Iran continues its steady march to nuclear weapons, stirring others in the region to possibly also do so, further destabilizing international order and security.

One would hope that the US is doing more behind the scenes than is apparent, but no observers have seen such which is telling in the usually open sieve of reporting and NGOs. The US should be doing more in Syria, and more openly and assertively, including arms to those less problematic. The US should announce a date certain in 2012, after which all informed analysts recognize it will be too late, by which the US will devastatingly bomb—as only the US could --  Iran’s nuclear installations if there is not a convincing abandonment of Iran’s nuclear war-making capacities. Neither in Syria nor Iran are US military forces necessary on the ground. But short of that we have done far too little to influence the outcomes, leaving the threats to grow and to undermine confidence in the West, and influencing Middle East countries and citizens to accommodate or ally themselves with Iran.

The primary rationale for the US Senate to ratify its decades-pending Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) may be to strengthen the hand in an international forum of the states in coastal Asia against the expansiveness of China. However, all, including China, have long since joined LOST, and that hasn’t slowed China’s claim of virtually the entire South China Sea as its own. China’s navy is expanding, often acting aggressively toward other states, and its oil and gas exploration is reaching into deep waters near other countries. See this map, the red lines far away from China being ocean borders that China wildly claims.

This is in German, but you don't need to understand German to get it.

Several years ago I stood in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, and stood, and stood. Someone with me asked what I felt. I had no words and was silent. -- Early this morning, my boys and I will go to Rosecrans National Cemetary. I probably still will have no words. Sometime in the future, my sons may as they see the rows upon rows of graves and the many silent men and women within, and the loss in the faces of those standing, and hopefully my sons will be better than I am at expressing their feelings of deep missing and the honor of being in their presence.

Bird Dog is off partying like a Gatsby today.

The new Gatsby movie by Robert Redford: Citizen Kane version. Hmm! Bird Dog does keep mumbling about his rose buds.

Friday, Bird Dog extolled his Stanley Steamer service. No wonder, the way Bird Dog parties:

Christians and everyone else will appreciate this personal narrative of the loving influence of Fr. Trevor Huddleston CR.

Today (actually starting last night) is the Jewish holiday Shavuot. It comes 50-days after Passover, Shavuot celebrating the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Shavuot also is when the hard work begins to harvest, as the hard work of wandering in the desert for 40-years. A key reading is the Book of Ruth, the significance of which binding Jews and Gentiles is  contained in this link. -- Here's another: Shavuot and Pentecost have a common heritage: "both call to mind a God who wishes to reveal his plan, his power and his way to troubled humanities here below."

Five best memoirs of the Holocaust.

Review: Jeane Kirkpatick bio of a special woman and patriot

Jeane Kirkpatrick was not as much a political leader as she was a model citizen, a woman from the heartland who helped shape the time in which she lived. It is encouraging to know that our society can produce such citizens, but we'd have more confidence in the country's future if they were not so rare.

OK, time for breakfast:

Those who serve in our armed forces stand a bit taller and straighter when saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Remember these words when next you do. Remember the sacrifices we commemorate on Memorial Day. From a speech given by John McClain.

As you may know, I spent five and one half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the NVA kept us in solitary confinement or two or three to a cell. In 1971 the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.

This was, as you can imagine, a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs 10,000 miles from home.

One of the men who moved into my room was a young man named Mike Christian.

Mike came from a small town near Selma , Alabama . He didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old. At 17, he enlisted in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training School . Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the opportunities this country and our military provide for people who want to work and want to succeed.

As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to receive packages from home. In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items of clothing.

Mike got himself a bamboo needle. Over a period of a couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed on the inside of his shirt.

Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup, we would hang Mike's shirt on the wall of the cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know the Pledge of Allegiance may not seem the most important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it was indeed the most important and meaningful event.

One day the Vietnamese searched our cell, as they did periodically, and discovered Mike's shirt with the flag sewn inside, and removed it.

That evening they returned, opened the door of the cell, and for the benefit of all of us, beat Mike Christian severely for the next couple of hours. Then, they opened the door of the cell and threw him in. We cleaned him up as well as we could.

The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the middle on which we slept. Four naked light bulbs hung in each corner of the room.

As I said, we tried to clean up Mike as well as we could. After the excitement died down, I looked in the corner of the room, and sitting there beneath that dim light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was my friend, Mike Christian. He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from the beating he had received, making another American flag. He was not making the flag because it made Mike Christian feel better. He was making that flag because he knew how important it was to us to be able to Pledge our allegiance to our flag and country.

So the next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you must never forget the sacrifice and courage that thousands of Americans have made to build our nation and promote freedom around the world.

You must remember our duty, our honor, and our country.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Pure schmaltz, and life, thanks to H/T from friend Rick at Brutally Honest.

I was just looking at the Memorial Day commemoration events around San Diego, mostly put on by veterans groups, and featuring speeches by politicians most of whom are there because elections come soon.

But, if you go to one, or are at some other event where Memorial Day is mentioned, look at the veterans who are there, especially those who served in a war. They are glad to be alive, sad to have lost comrades, quiet in their thoughts. It’s difficult to share with those who haven’t experienced it.

Here’s a letter from a young Marine who lost two limbs who attended a Marine reunion in Florida. It speaks to the bond among us, forged in duty, honor, country, forged in courage and sacrifice, forged in fun when we could. Across years, across generations, across wars, across miles, war veterans keep in touch with each other. How many of your school chums have you kept in touch with?  Far fewer, I’m sure.

It also speaks to that, thanks to better medicine and logistics, far, far fewer die from combat wounds today, but many suffered grievous wounds. If we are to match their spirit and guts, please remember to contribute to the various wounded warrior charities.

Keep reading his letter:

For those of you who, like I, enjoy “world music” it is saddening that a major venue in San Diego which largely targets children is sponsoring pro-Palestinian propaganda from a virulent anti-Israel, anti-US group operating under the misleading name Middle East Children’s Alliance. The WorldBeat Cultural Center sits on San Diego City property in Balboa Park and is funded by some prestigious foundations and corporate sponsors. This misuse of their funds, and reputations, deserves direct protests.

The Oakland Museum of Children’s Art had dropped this exhibit in October 2011, a Board member explaining:

[T]he museum canceled the show “because we lacked a formal policy for sensitive content and because were not confident that we had the resources to deal with the numerous concerns we received regarding the exhibit.”  

 

Rabbi James Brandt, CEO of the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay, was more direct in a joint statement with East Bay’s Jewish Community Relations Council and the Anti-Defamation League:

“A biased, one-sided perspective filled with depictions of violence has no place in a community-based museum dedicated to serving young children, including 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds,” the statement read….

Even without the stars of David identifying the soldiers [which IDF soldiers do not wear], Brandt maintained, the violent images were “inappropriate for this age group.” As for the Jewish star, he said, “for children in our region… their immediate association is not with the State of Israel, but [with] their classmates who have Jewish stars on their T-shirts from our Jewish camps and after-school programs.”

The exhibit is by the anti-Israel, anti-US Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA). The drawings were done under the supervision of “therapists” hired by MECA. Some art experts doubt the drawings were even done by children, or they were touched up by adults.  MECA is the funder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which sends young protestors to Israel to oppose its security fencing made necessary by Palestinian cross-border terror attacks and participated in the May 2010 flotilla from Turkey to Gaza. MECA also raised funds for George Galloway’s “Viva Palestine” convoy. MECA’s Executive Director wrote “I think the Jewish State is racist to the core.”  MECA states its goal: “We educate North Americans about children in the region and the brutal impact of US foreign policy on their lives.”

As with other drawings by Gaza children, the viewpoint is one of victimization and hatred as inculcated by all the official Hamas propaganda aimed at Gazan children. For example, a Gaza TV show for children tells them to slaughter all Jews, and another uses a rabbit to say he “will finish off the Jews and eat them, Allah willing."   Another encourages children of the glory of death for Allah in attacking Jews. And another Hamas childrens program: “Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews!" in reference to Muhammad's battle against Jews in the year 629. 

Here’s a sample of the exhibit at the San Diego World Beat Cultural Center :

If you don’t think that a little ‘ol blogger like me can take on and win against a trillion-dollar industry’s corporate welfare scheme and its political allies, then read on. I won through careful research and persistence. Then I lost once the allies of the giants of the tourism industry came to power in 2008. But, this tale displays that individual bloggers can have major impacts on legislation, now more than ever as the alternative media has grown and the 2012 elections may turn the tide in Washington.

Unless you are a foreign tourist entering the US, paying $14 to enter, you probably haven’t heard of Brand USA. Today, the Washington Free Beacon describes “The Cronyism Board” of this public-private partnership to promote tourism to the US: “It is governed by an 11-member board. John Connor, director of the Office of White House Liaison at the United States Department of Commerce, appointed the board members….All of the board members Connor has appointed have donated to Democrats and Democratic organizations almost exclusively, if they have donated at all.”

Briefly, the impetus for Brand USA came from the giants of US corporations, immensely profitable already from tourism. Rather than use their own deep pockets to promote tourism, they sought additional taxpayer and tourist funding for their advertising.

In 2007, I caught on to the scheme...

The federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandates that all hospitals, including Jewish or Moslem, must serve pork instead of beef. Pork is lower in fat and calories, thus better for health, and less expensive than beef, thus better for healthcare spending. HHS opines that only synagogues and mosques may continue to ban pork from their menus.

Can you hear the uproar? Jews and Muslims are required to break their basic dietary laws, rooted in many centuries, to obey a federal mandate. Every civil libertarian and all faiths would protest.

Yet, except for the support of Orthodox Jews, who actually have less stringent prohibitions than Catholics, and the Southern Baptist Convention, most groups which otherwise defend  individual and group liberties are silent in backing Catholics in challenging the ObamaCare mandate to provide contraception and abortion by their non-church charities.

Jonathan Tobin lays it out:

One needn’t oppose the president’s re-election or endorse the Vatican’s stance on contraception in order to understand that a ruling against the church would grant the government nearly unlimited power to restrict religious freedom. In the weeks and months ahead as this issue continues to be debated, it is vital that more faith groups rally around the church and make it clear to the administration and the courts that when it comes to protecting First Amendment rights, the church does not stand alone.

 

You might speak with your pastor or rabbi and ask them not to be silent when Catholics' constitutional right is abridged. Silence is not moral.

(Note Added: There is no such HHS mandate to serve pork, at least yet. It is plausible because of the extent and nature of other ObamaCare intrusions into personal choice and beliefs.)

Ed Morrisey ably sums up the intimidation campaign by a convicted murderer, Brett Kimberlin, against several bloggers. As Michelle Malkin writes: “This is a convoluted, ongoing nightmare that combines abuse of the court system, workplace intimidation, serial invasions of privacy, perjury, and harassment of family members.” Read it all.

A highly notable issue, aside from that the legacy media has failed to take up the matter, is that the funding for this campaign comes from some of the most-darling of liberal-left foundations (see this list, and some more background on Kimberlin's trail of BS), using the Tides Foundation as their beard. The Tides Foundation acts as a secret conduit to leftist causes for donors, that include George Soros and Teresa Hines-Kerry as well as numerous other liberal foundations but also benefits from grants from the US government. See here.

Morrisey and Malkin and many other bloggers call for a free speech blogburst, of which this post is part. There is more at stake than the first amendment right to factually expose a campaign of intimidation against bloggers who have exposed Brett Kimberlin and his backers. There is the need to further expose the network of leftist donors and by example require greater transparency and accountability to their whole range of activities.

Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club, as usual, sees more clearly, deeply:

We often think that politicians know when they are misleading the public and when they are not. But there’s one other possibility. They don’t know themselves what the truth is any more.  They are like a bunch of pirates who, after making the master mariner walk the plank realize they can’t read the “books of navvigashun” for the life of them. They are irretrievably lost and the only thing the pirate chieftains can do is pretend to pore over them.

The situation may be reaching the point where it has become counterproductive to listen to “the leaders” who have neither the knowledge nor skill to think or do anything definite.  Perhaps recovery — when it comes — will be the result of people just doing stuff. Creating new businesses, innovating or just adapting to changed circumstances without much reference to the Big Leaders who will continue to pretend to know everything when they know nothing. Maybe the end of Peak Government has already started. The “leaders” will pronounce more and more, and they will matter less and less.

Paul Mirengoff’s lawyerly skills rebut Karl Rove’s campaign skills on whether Rev. Wright should be raised as an issue in the 2012 presidential campaign. The difference is between inside-Beltway and what turns on (or off) the jurors, voters.

Karl Rove considers President Obama’s twenty-year attachment to his radical minister as old hat, largely because failed presidential contender John McCain declined to raise it in 2008, and because the Obama administration’s record is so bad in itself that it should be enough to defeat him in 2012.

Paul Mirengoff, however, says that “presidential elections aren’t just about issues; they are about the person in whom we are entrusting our highest office.” Mirengoff then goes into how campaigns actually occur:

The second argument for shying away from Wright is that raising the issue will backfire, as pro-Obama forces accuse Romney of personal attacks and racism. But Romney need not, and should not, make the attacks; nor should the major PACs that back him. If the issue is raised –- after testing it with focus groups — it should be raised by lesser groups, as was the case with ads attacking John Kerry over his military service….It’s not racist to be disturbed by the fact that Obama chose a rabidly anti-American, who happens to be Black, as his spirtual [sic] leader. And, of course, Obama’s associations with white radicals can be invoked as part of the same line of attack.

In 2004, defenders of Kerry insinuated that Karl Rove was involved in the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth campaign to show that Kerry’s narrative of Vietnam heroism was false. Their only “proof” was that some of the same people supported President Bush and the Swiftees or that anti-Kerry Swiftees lacked enough documented evidence in Navy records.

That would be a problem for a Wright-Obama campaign in 2012, except that Kerry’s critics were the witnesses to his overblown attempted image whereas Obama’s own words and actions are the witness to his radical past. Further, Obama’s radical past is directly in line with his radical presidential policies and actions.

Were it only Rev. Wright that might be downplayed as but one indiscretion, albeit a twenty-year one. But, throughout Obama’s life his self-proclaimed formative mentors were cut of the same radical cloth, and in his administration he has appointed others of this ilk.

During the 2004 campaign I was interviewed by a star New York Times reporter, pro-Kerry, about the Swiftee campaign. I was fairly quoted, and continued an email correspondence with the reporter. After Bush narrowly won, this was our last email exchange:

Note to Todd Purdum, New York Times: If not for the anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans, shifting many thousands of votes, the election may well have been lost by Bush.

 

Reply from Purdum: Hard to argue with your analysis.

 

Mirengoff wins the dispute.

Roger Kimball is one of too few conservative writers who can lend deep erudition to connect the central tenets of Western civilization with today’s immediate events and concerns. Kimball’s influence is not only through his own writings but his featuring of that of others at his The New Criterion and its blog Arma Virumque (I’ve been overhonored to appear at the blog) and his publishing house Encounter Books. 

Now, you have the chance to get in depth with Kimball’s learning and lessons in his new book The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia.  Order at this link.

Kimball entices you with a few short excerpts:

Why does relativism, which begins with a beckoning promise of liberation from “oppressive” moral constraints, so often end in the embrace of immoral constraints that are politically obnoxious? Part of the answer lies in the hypertrophy or perversion of relativism’s conceptual enablers— terms like “pluralism,” “diversity,” “tolerance,” “openness,” and the like. They all name classic liberal virtues, but it turns out that their beneficence depends on their place in a constellation of fixed values. Absent that hierarchy, they rapidly degenerate into epithets in the armory of political suasion. They retain the aura, the emotional charge, of positive values. But in reality they act as moral solvents, as what Gairdner calls “value-dispersing terms that serve as an official warning to accept all behaviours of others without judgment and, most important, to keep all moral opinions private.” In this sense, the rise of relativism encourages an ideology of non-judgmentalism only as a prelude to ever more strident discriminations.

 

And…

[T]he fruits of egalitarianism are ignorance, the habit of intellectual conformity, and the systematic subjection of cultural achievement to political criteria. In the university, this means classes devoted to pop novels, rock videos, and third-rate works chosen simply because their authors are members of the requisite sex, ethnic group, or social minority. It involves an attack on permanent things for the sake of the trendy and ephemeral. It means students who are graduated not having read Milton or Dante or Shakespeare—or, what is in some ways even worse, who have been taught to regard the works of such authors chiefly as hunting grounds for examples of patriarchy, homophobia, imperialism, or some other politically correct vice. It means faculty and students who regard education as an exercise in disillusionment and who look to the past only to corroborate their sense of superiority and self-satisfaction.

 

And…

You should have children who act like you.

Or

Someday, You’ll see.

Either usually expressed in exasperation.

I sound like my mother.

Usually expressed in shock, then realization that she was correct, but it took our children to get it through to us.

With the enlargement of federal powers and intrusions into individual’s lives, the 9th Amendment to the US Constitution, part of our Bill Of Rights, may well gain more judicial attention.  The 9th Amendment should be elevated to central prominence, as it was intended, in applying judgment of all federal legislation, regulations and actions. Our revolution is based in restriction of central powers and must again be reignited to, no exaggeration, save our liberties. Here's the spare words of the 9th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The 9th Amendment is the least cited or relied upon in Supreme Court cases. The lack of agreement among constitutional scholars as to the specific meaning of the 9th Amendment is largely the reason. This lack of agreement also exceeds the general lack of agreement – usually along liberal and conservative lines – as to many other sections of the Constitution. Focus on transgressions of the first eight Amendments, more specific as to particular rights, and cases specifically concerned with how broad should be an enumerated (listed) power, was usually enough until now.

But constitutional scholars do agree on a basic point: the 9th Amendment was intended to be a guiding construct to interpretation of the rest of the Constitution, although specifics may be either lacking or in contention. After all, the 9th Amendment was considered necessary to be part of our Bill Of Rights without which the Constitution would not have been ratified.

Today, there are new factors requiring more attention to the 9th Amendment: the cumulative and continuing expansion of federal legislation into territories formerly outside its enumerated reserve, the almost unchecked latitude claimed by federal regulatory rules, and technologies’ facilitation of increased central controls and uniformity. The runaway employment of the federal purse and tax to compel obedience is, simply, out of control at the same time that it is evident that the economic security of the nation is imperiled by it.

If the Federalist Papers are ignored or given inadequate attention in today's colleges, the Anti-Federalist Papers are consigned to the memory hole as a challenge to prevailing liberal thought.

Peter Berkowitz has created some stir with his Wall Street Journal column, "Why Colleges Don't Teach The Federalist Papers." Many blogs have printed this excerpt:

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of The Federalist for understanding the principles of American government and the challenges that liberal democracies confront early in the second decade of the 21st century. Yet despite the lip service they pay to liberal education, our leading universities can't be bothered to require students to study The Federalist—or, worse, they oppose such requirements on moral, political or pedagogical grounds. Small wonder it took so long for progressives to realize that arguments about the constitutionality of ObamaCare are indeed serious.

For the full answer, if Berkowitz offers one, you'd have to be a paid subscriber to the Wall Street Journal. A lawyer before becoming a columnist, Jennifer Rubin offers explanations, "The first has to do with the transformation of law schools from intellectual institutions to professional trade schools. Especially with the astronomically high tuition at most law schools, the emphasis, by necessity, is on preparing students for the practice of the law....Second, law schools have given way to the notion that the Constitution is whatever the Supreme Court says it is." She concludes:

The reason in large part is the defect in legal and collegiate education, and the mindset behind the indifference to seminal documents that reveal the ingenious and enduring structure of our Constitution.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius pens an optimistic description of "Our Plentiful Future."  According to analysts he cites, the US could reduce its energy imports to 22% by 2020 due to our natural-gas boom, and reduce our dependence on the unstable Middle East even more due to Canadian supplies.  In turn, this will decrease the cost of manufacturing at home, a high percentage of companies which have outsourced to China bringing several million jobs home.

What Ignatius fails to mention is that with regulatory interference and increased taxes, the Obama administration is doing everything it can get away with to puncture these possibilities. Leaving out that important blockage, Ignatius is engaging in the happy talk that comes from an Obama supporter.

Right behind the economy, the issue that will sway swayable voters in November is the repeated displays of arrogance by President Obama and his administration, inept arrogance at that. Indeed, that arrogance has been so heavy- and ham-handed that it has and will continue to undermine almost every other appeal the Obama campaign may make to marginal voters. Those on the dole or looking forward to being on it may shrug, but those with a shred of self-respect will be repulsed.

Obama's arrogance has reached the point of making him a laughing-stock. Obama’s inflated self-image will continue to overreact, making him appear more unworthy of confidence. Yeah, that’s the ticket! The best worst efforts of many in the major media to cover it up will be pierced, demonstrating their own lack of credibility. Others clinging to a shred of journalism will have to report the Obama campaign’s lack of credibility. There’s my forecast. And, I’m sticking to it.

P.S.: For those wondering about how Romney will capitalize on this, his campaign and those of us in the alternative media have shown how to expose the fool behind the curtain. All Romney himself has to do regarding Obama's buffoonery is remain the gentleman that he is, and toss out an occasional barb at the overinflated balloonery from the Obama camp.

Photo taken in wealthy, liberal Marin, CA by our friend at Bookworm Room:

A group of students at the University of California, San Diego, claim exclusive rights to wear clown costumes, and accuse anyone else wearing one to be clownaphobic. Ridiculous, right?

Then, keep reading.

After the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine at UCSD lost the vote in the student government for divestment from Israel, they have turned to baseless and in this case utterly absurd attacks upon anti-divestment members of the campus.

First they made up charges against a music professor that he’d intimidated a student, which the official UCSD Office of Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination investigated, clearing the professor.

Now, beclowning themselves, SJP member Noor El-Annan and cohorts accuse a campus-wide elected member of the student government, Ashton Cohen, who voted against divestment, of being Islamaphobic, denigrating Moslems, and being culturally insensitive. The pretext: the student Senator wore an Arabic costume at a costume party.

The student is a Persian Jew, with Moslem family members. He bought the outfit in Dubai, and wore it there for comfort when it was very hot. On that same trip, as a guest of the Indian government along with other US student government leaders, he’d also bought Indian garb, but it was at his family’s house in L.A. If he’d worn that Indian garb, would he be Indianaphobic? Ridiculous.

At the costume party a photo was taken of him, along with three female friends, two of whom are Moslem. One of the females posted the photo with a humorous subtitle, “three wives?” That’s what the pro-Palestinian fanatics call an insult to Moslem polygamy practices. Would they have preferred photos of clitorectomies, which is also a common Moslem practice?

Here’s the photo:

On June 1, 2001, a Palestinian terrorist killed 21 young people, and wounded 132 others, in a discotheque in Tel Aviv. The terrorist was heralded by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as one of their own, and his family rewarded by the Palestinian Authority. Shortly after the attack, the graffiti appeared near the discotheque, “They won’t stop us from dancing.”

Thursday, April 26, is the 64th birthday of Israel, still dancing. Indeed, if there were a “Dancing With The Stars” competition for countries, Israel would win for its remarkable, seemingly miraculous successes in all fields of endeavor against all odds during its creation and 64 years, combined with the spirit that keeps striving for improvement and for peace with intractable enemies.

We celebrate life and togetherness through dance.