Riehl World View

Hey! Sue Me, Too!

Well, this really isn't very democratic, especially for an organization calling itself the DNC.

the cease-and-desist letter from an attorney representing the DNC to Free Republic.

Instapundit has a podcast on these types of libel claims at his post: POWERLINE TO THE DNC:

So sue us! "We therefore associate ourselves with our reader's statements regarding Governor Dean and invite Mr. Sandler to sue us for defamation as he threatens to sue Free Republic. This is to put him and his client on notice, however, that we intend to seek our attorney's fees under federal law for the assertion of a frivolous claim if he does so."

It seems to me that more people are trying to silence bloggers all of a sudden. Well, they told me that if George W. Bush were reelected, people who criticized the powerful would suffer. And they were right!

I posted on it at the time - is this DNC discrimination, or did the question mark get me off? What about the two blogs that track backed my post and the twenty something others I found in a few minutes? Come on, DNC - play fair. Be democrats and try and sue the long tail!

Dean To Sebelius: Let Them Eat Flak?

Scream If You Love Disaster-Exploiting Puppetry from Suitably Flip

2007.05.10 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup from Bill's Bites
See previous: 2007.05.09 Dem Perfidy

Two more blogs here with an additional 19 links to that via Technorati

Get Over It, Green Bay

As an aside, as you'll see from bottom link, I don't know that Starr ever managed to blow an important game with four interceptions. But I digress.

The GOP presidential hopeful (Brownback) drew boos and groans Friday at the Wisconsin Republican Party convention when he used a football analogy to talk about the need to focus on families.

"This is fundamental blocking and tackling," he said. "This is your line in football. If you don't have a line, how many passes can Peyton Manning complete? Greatest quarterback, maybe, in NFL history."

Oops, wrong team to mention in Wisconsin, once described by Gov. Tommy Thompson as the place "where eagles soar, Harleys roar and Packers score."

Realizing what he had said, the Kansas Republican slumped at the podium and put his head in his hands.

"That's really bad," he said. "That will go down in history. I apologize."

His apology brought a smattering of applause and laughter. He tried to recover, saying former Packer Bart Starr may be the greatest of all time, but the crowd was still restless.

"Let's take Favre then," Brownback said. "The Packers are great. I'm sorry. How many passes does he complete without a line?"

"All of them!" more than one person yelled from the back.

Meltdown granted. Maybe a stupid metaphor to start, though I'm far from convinced. But really, it isn't any more dumb than a bunch of clowns fond of wearing cheese wedges on their heads on Sunday, now is it? I mean, come on. The Packers are a legendary franchise, I wouldn't take anything away from them. But this whole cheese head thing always leaves me feeling like some of their fans really need to get a life.

2004: In the playoffs the Packers would face the Vikings again after two thrilling regular season wins. However, this time the Packers would dig themselves an early hole as they fell behind in the 1st Quarter 17-0. The Packers would never recover as Favre had 4 passes intercepted in a crushing 31-17 loss at Lambeau Field.

History? Science?

The failed history of misnomer consensus science? How dare you, sir? We don't need no stinking science! Don't need no stinking history, too! This is a matter of faith, my friends! The Great Awakening meets the weather channel, narrated by evangelist Al Gore! Say it with me, now!

Our Blather

Our blather, that farts green ribbons,

Humongous be thy frame,

thy Oscar come,

thy shill be done,

everywhere, as it is on CNN.

Give us this day our carbon credits

And forgive us our capitalist footprints,

As we forgive communists with trade wars against us,

And lead us not into SUV's,

But deliver us from prosperity,

for thine is the serfdom,

without power,

except for Gore,

for ever and ever,

Oh man!

Obama Full of It

Hypocrisy, hi-test, or both: take your pick.

The Democratic presidential contender was in Detroit on Monday, oozing charisma and environmental awareness as he chided local automakers for building too many big vehicles and not enough fuel-efficient hybrids.

So his choice to drive a V8 Hemi-powered Chrysler 300C emits a whiff of hypocrisy along with its exhaust fumes.

Meanwhile, Jules has several items up on Iraq.

Pelosi At HuffPo: Does She Know Any History At All?

Amazing. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi apparently has no understanding of American history whatsoever. If she had, she could hardly have written this based upon and extensively quoting Julia Ward Howe:

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
- Julia Ward Howe, Mother's Day Proclamation, 1870

These words are from Julia Ward Howe, who called for a day in 1870 that carried a meaning different from the cards, flowers and chocolates we've come to associate with Mother's Day today (not that I mind the chocolates). After witnessing the devastating effects of the Civil War, Howe began what she called Mother's Day for Peace-a call to women across the globe to come together and bring an end to war.

Yes, Speaker Pelosi, she most assuredly did - in 1870, as you note. And below is what she wrote in 1862, during a Civil War her abolitionist beliefs compelled her to support.

Early in the war, Julia Ward Howe wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" to the tune of "John Brown's Body."

America was not at war in 1870 and I suspect she very much wanted to prevent another of any scope - as would any decent human being.

After the war she focused her activities on the causes of pacifism and women's suffrage. She was a member of the Unitarian church.

Read what Howe wrote in 1862, Speaker Pelosi. Tell me, post 9/11, with the prospect of freeing millions of Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's oppression, or their deaths at the hands of terrorists, which words of Howe's do you really believe she would invoke, Madam Speaker? Somehow I don't think it would be Happy Mother's Day, Peace - especially were she to be entrusted with the responsibilities of your current office: responsibilities you have proved time and again you are not up to shouldering. You should step down. Just wait until after Mother's Day. I wouldn't want it to break your heart. Read it all. A Fearless Voice you are not, Madam Speaker. Not even close.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Shocker: Magician Actually Makes Himself Disappear

From Las Vegas and a host of, if not all American venues, I'd wager. For his next trick he claims he will eventually get his own show in Vegas. I doubt even Houdini could pull that one off.

Swedish magician Joe Labero has provoked a strong reaction with suggestions that Las Vegas is controlled by "Jewish business syndicates, American dollar millionaires and homosexual booking agents".

The magic master's comments were made in an interview with rail company SJ's on-board magazine Kupé.

As a prelude to his controversial thesis, Labero explained that he has long been close to getting his own show in Las Vegas.

"But at the end of the day it seems to be impossible - unless you are a homosexual, a Jew or an American.

"I don't mean to sound prejudiced of course, I'm just cynical. A blond Swedish Viking will have a hard time breaking through the hierarchies that control Vegas, where power rests in the hands of Jewish business syndicates, American dollar millionaires and homosexual booking agents.

"But I will get there, sooner of later," Labero told the magazine.

Good luck with that one, dude.

Tufts: Been There, Done That

While my only direct involvement at Tufts has been recruiting there for a corporation some years back, as a conservative editor of a college publication, I have been through precisely this kind of attack. In my case, for allowing the publication of student opinions in a letters to the editor section - opinions with which the mostly liberal faculty disagreed. Actually, I disagreed with a great many of those opinions, too.

Having read the substantive items on the current controversy at Tuft's, which I'll link as I go, perhaps I can share some perspective, if not actual light - IMO, all is far from lost at Tufts, for now. The fight is far from over, but it has certainly begun. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has a press release here.

Over twenty years ago, the intimidation this Student Life Committee is attempting to achieve didn't come through an organized committee. That was left to individual professors, some of whom became fond of calling me a Nazi, a racist and, in some cases, even a Republican, from a distance as I made my way through different school buildings and halls. None of those claims were true. Eventually the harassment started to take place in individual classrooms until some fellow students started noting the occurrences and I had to threaten to sue. Ultimately, through mostly a back room deal with the college President and a Dean of Student Life, the thing worked out, ending in re-assignment of the publication's faculty adviser and the completion of my full editorial term. Ironically, the Dean of Student Life was a minority and also very much on my side. Who knows what may have happened had he formed a seemingly non-democratic committee.

At least, that committee linked above does not appear to be democratic. There's nothing to suggest so in its bylaws.

A Committee on Student Life, consisting of five or more members. This Committee shall have concern for student circumstances, activities, and affairs and shall have jurisdiction over those, which are not in the province of any other committee. It shall ensure that the ideals, principles, and ethical values characteristic of academic institutions are maintained. Its responsibilities shall include the following:

Fortunately, it's power seems fairly weak and my first question would be, what supposedly empowers it to dictate editorial policy at Tufts conservative student newspaper: The Primary Source, or any Tuft's publication for that matter? That question stems from reading its conclusions in this short pdf.

Consequence
From now on, all material published in The Primary Source (whether characterized as satirical or otherwise) must be attributed to named author(s) or contributor(s).

Any consequence here, for now, seems to stop at a form of intimidation, not censorship, in essence stripping away the publication's ability to include anything from "the Editors," if you will. That's a convention so commonly accepted, I have a hard time believing any informed regulating body of student publications at Tufts would allow it to stand. And if they don't have such a body, they certainly should.

There's no reason to think a group of mostly associate professors, from Drama and Dance to Child Development and Biology have any special insight into what regulating an allegedly free press demands, student produced, or otherwise, for heaven's sake.

Nor would I suggest, as this Student Life Committee recommends, that any ultimate act of censorship be left solely to a student government through some ad hoc decision involving funding year by year. Seemingly, Tuft's Student Life Committee is very much in need of a life, itself, along with at least a modicum of understanding when it comes to free speech and a free press. Hopefully any pressure they are attempting to exert over students rights to publish viewpoints with which they disagree or, incredibly, in this case, facts they just don't like, will come to naught. Naughty liberal faculties who love to crush dissent are nothing new, but they certainly have come a long way, baby, since the 80's, anyway. Fortunately, now with new media, there are a great many more voices willing to push back.

In my case all the faculty accomplished was making me a more dedicated conservative who started voting Republican. That wasn't the case so much before the whole thing started. It opened my eyes to the real danger from the Left.

Recommendation

We ask that student governance consider the behavior of student groups in future decisions concerning recognition and funding.

via Michelle Malkin:

The president of Tufts is Lawrence Bacow. Send him a message here.

HB-Oh, Beat Her Up, It's Fine

Next time you're disturbed by one of today's all too common stories about college and, or pro athletes displaying incredibly bad and even criminal behavior, yet sailing right along with their careers, take a look at what Cable giant HBO has been up to for twenty years.

At first, HBO chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht only took a leave of absence to get sober after a drunken brawl with his girlfriend in Las Vegas, now he's been fired as the LA Times revealed a 1991 incident HBO bought his way out of for close to half a million bucks. But his abusive behavior doesn't end there and the fellow who oversaw the payoff and possibly others over the years, Jeffrey Bewkes, he gets to be Time Warner's next CEO.

In 1991, Time Warner Inc.'s HBO paid a settlement of at least $400,000 to a female subordinate with whom Albrecht was romantically involved after she alleged that he shoved and choked her, according to four people with knowledge of the matter who declined to be named because the payment was confidential.

Now Nikke Finke's Deadline Hollywood reports these aren't exactly isolated incidents twenty years apart.

So I'll add a bit more to Claudia Eller's account: I'm told by sources that there have been allegations of other incidents -- at least two, "but I recall three," according to one knowledgeable insider -- involving Chris Albrecht and women at HBO over the years, all quietly "handled" by the cable pay channel with no obvious career repercussions for the 22-year HBO exec who rose to become chairman/CEO.

(I)nsiders spoke to me about "Chris's wild side," especially when it comes to women, and agreed that HBO has overlooked it again and again.

The entire network should be sentenced to community service and made to run Lifetime re-runs for a season. Maybe then they wouldn't have so much money sitting around next time they want to pay off the victim of a serial abuser with a knack for programing just too good to let go - no matter how many female employees he cuffs around.

ABC Sitcom: Islam For The Defense

via Talk Left: Oh, sorry, it isn't a joke.

I have no idea if the charges against Sabir are true, but he sure isn't presenting a sympathetic portrait of himself for the jury. And, I can't help but wonder if he had a lawyer, whether these domestic incidents or his polygamy would have come in at all.

Click through to read the rest:

When he began testifying at his own trial this week, a Florida doctor accused of pledging to support al-Qaida hoped to convince a jury that the FBI had it all wrong: He was a man of peace.

If that was the plan, then Rafiq Abdus Sabir had a disastrous day on the witness stand Friday.

Gawd - it just keeps getting better and better - what a dunce.

Under cross examination, the Columbia University-trained physician was forced to acknowledge a history of family violence, a fascination with weapons and a belief that good Muslims should engage in armed jihad, or holy war.

While You Were Out: Pakistan Just Exploded

Update2: Roads closed in and to city. PR isn't Musharraf's strong suit, despite his book tour. Most likely he has his security people operating without informing local police. And I wouldn't want to be in that copter they suggest Chaudhry use.

Senior city police officer Mushtaq Shah said he did not know who had parked trucks and oil tankers and placed containers across city roads, virtually sealing of the airport, the High Court and much of the city centre. He said police would try to remove them.

But a government official, who declined to be identified, said authorities had blocked the roads in the interests of maintaining order. Authorities had suggested that Chaudhry travel from the airport into the city centre by helicopter, he said.

Update: First reported gunfire - looks like Musharraf is serious in tamping down the protest. It's morning there now, by morning here we'll see what's what.xt:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Unknown gunmen opened fire early Saturday on political workers of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League in Karachi, killing one and wounding two others, police said.

The workers were putting up welcome posters for deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was scheduled to address a bar association meeting in the city later Saturday.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf removed Chaudhry from his post on March 9, accusing him of misusing his powers. The dismissal has sparked widespread demonstrations

Okay, not yet.

Pakistan set to declare state of emergency
Times Online, UK - 2 hours ago
President Musharraf could declare a state of emergency in Pakistan amid growing civil unrest against his increasingly embattled regime. ...
Pakistan to deploy 15000 forces to avert violence over judicial crisis Canada.com
Pakistan Detains Hundreds of Activists Ahead of Anti-Government Rally Voice of America
15000 police set for Pakistan protests Boston Globe