Monday afternoon round-up and Open Thread

Victorian posy of pansiesI hate it when people make promises on my behalf, knowing that I’m deeply opposed to what they’re promising, but causing innocent third parties to rely on those promises. It’s tacky, unprincipled behavior. Now that I’ve got that off my chest, on to the links, of which there are many:

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If you haven’t yet read your eight free Commentary Magazine articles for June, you can easily read Jonah Goldberg’s epic analysis of everything wrong with Thomas Piketty’s “Big Book of Marxiness.” Alternately, for a mere 99 cents per month, you can have full online access to everything Commentary has to offer.

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The New Republic leaps in to save Hillary “I’m not really rich despite tens of millions of dollars” Clinton. It’s a little incoherent, but as I read it, while Romney was a rich person, and therefore to be despised, Hillary is a woman of the people despite being obscene rich, and is therefore to be lauded. The key difference is that Hillary thinks it’s okay for the government to steal everyone’s wealth but hers, whereas Romney was less sure about the merits of government theft.

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Elliott Abrams provides chapter and verse for every Middle East muck-up Obama caused. In 2009, the Arab/Muslim Middle East was getting more stable and Iran was boxed in. In the five and a half years since then, the Middle East is a mess and Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.

No wonder that Roger Simon says the real spring isn’t an Arab one, but a jihadi one, something that bodes badly for Israel’s well-being. I can’t help but wonder if this was Obama’s plan all along.

Equally no wonder that Glenn Beaton is able to make a strong argument that Obama is the Manchurian candidate made flesh.

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Arabs are whiners. They whine endlessly about their dispossession in 1948. Perhaps Jews should whine more about their dispossession in that same year, and for decades after.

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Fundamentally, though, the public just doesn’t care.  Scott Elliott, who’s been remarkably accurate in predicting election outcomes, thinks that 2014 might just be a status quo election. The middle is shrinking and the partisan sides are too entrenched to change.

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If you need further evidence that gun control is racist, look no further than the six dead in a single weekend in Chicago: Six black people dead. Gun control matters only when white people shoot black people or when they shoot aggregates of white people.

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The same Bay Area liberals who cheer on abortion are spending $76 million in taxpayer money to put a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge. As you think about that, you might want to read this week’s Watcher’s Council forum asking why abortion is treated differently from suicide and euthanasia.

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Even as the Middle East burns, the border melts, and the economy fades, John Kerry is paying attention to the really important issues of the day: the need for transgendered ambassadors.

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Yes, global warming is a scam. A big scam. A big, disgraceful, disgusting, patently dishonest scam. But other than that….

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“Everyone’s special, Dash.”

“Which is another way of saying ‘no one is.'”

And why did I play that snippet? Because it’s a reminder that if everything is rape, than nothing is.

This is what rape really looks like and it doesn’t involve drunken hook-ups in a co-ed dorm.

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George Will makes solid points to explain why it’s time for the IRS scandal to get a special prosecutor. Do I have to repeat my long-standing contention that this is the worst scandal ever in American history because it’s directed, not at political in-fighting, but at every citizen? We shouldn’t let the massive cover-up obscure the monumental crime.

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A theme I’ve been hitting for the last few days is that, looking at the war on the ground in Iraq (our troops versus their troops), we had every reason in 2003 and beyond to believe that we could win. Moreover, all credible intelligence in 2002/2003 said that Saddam Hussein had WMDs.

What made us lose in Iraq wasn’t the war as justified, planned, or fought.  Instead, it was the Fifth Column at home: the anti-War DemProgs who battled the US both on the streets and in Congress. Our military wins wars; our DemProgs lose those same wars.  It’s been that way since Vietnam:

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Mike Rowe gets a lesson in litigation and it’s not pretty.

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But we can still laugh:

Dog involved in sex scandal