Alt-right critic Amanda Marcotte says white supremacists are harder to see at the end of 2017

Everyone's harder to see right now. They're all inside because it's like - 11 degrees F outside.

Here:

White supremacists may be harder to see at the end of 2017, but the problem they represent is not going away any time soon.

25 "conservatives" worth following I already avoided long before Rush Limbaugh told me to

Hell, I've never even heard of some of 'em. The list includes people like David Frum and Jennifer Rubin. You know, them.

Recommended here by Salon.

Salon post on Michael Savage fizzles at the end

The piece by Robert Hennelly does a fair job of laying out the Savage oeuvre, only to show exhaustion at the end and descend into dark speculation that Savage wants part of the country to secede.

Paranoia will destroy ya.

Camille Paglia likes Trump's swaggering retro machismo, is repelled by Cruz' weirdly womanish face

Here:

Cruz’s lugubrious, weirdly womanish face, with its prim, tight smile and mawkishly appealing puppy-dog eyebrows, is like a waxen mask, always on the verge of melting.

Carly Fiorina, call your office.

Donald Trump channels Al Franken on John McCain?

Al Franken, quoted here in 2000:

"I doubt I could cross the line and vote Republican. I have tremendous respect for McCain but I don’t buy the war hero thing. Anybody can be captured. I thought the idea was to capture them. As far as I’m concerned he sat out the war."

Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood

So says Camille Paglia, here.

Adam Carolla: What are female comedians doing about the lack of Jewish roofers? I demand answers!

Here in "The gay mafia is real."

JFK, The So-Called Anti-Communist: "I'd Rather My Children Be Red Than Dead"

Quoted here:

At one point, after leaving the room to take another urgent phone call, he came back shaking his head and said to me, “I’d rather my children be red than dead.” It wasn’t a political statement or an attempt at levity. These were the words of a father who adored his children and couldn’t bear them being hurt.

Hillary Has More Sooty Baggage Than A 90-Car Freight Train

So says Camille Paglia, here:

'It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts. I for one think it was a very big deal that our ambassador was murdered in Benghazi.'In saying “I take responsibility” for it as secretary of state, Hillary should have resigned immediately. The weak response by the Obama administration to that tragedy has given a huge opening to Republicans in the next presidential election. The impression has been amply given that Benghazi was treated as a public relations matter to massage rather than as the major and outrageous attack on the U.S. that it was. Throughout history, ambassadors have always been symbolic incarnations of the sovereignty of their nations and the dignity of their leaders. It’s even a key motif in “King Lear.” As far as I’m concerned, Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make what we knew and when we knew it, Senator?” Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood.'

Pelosi Backs Off Romney Tax Returns. Does She Fear Having To Release Her Own?

She's rich as Croesus, after all. Her financial disclosure for 2010 makes her nearly as rich as Romney.

Roll Call reports here that only 17 of 535 elected members of the US House and Senate have disclosed their tax returns:

The Minority Leader faced questions about the issue after a McClatchy News report showed only 17 of 535 Members released their tax returns when asked. ...

“Some people think the same standard should be held to the ownership of the news media in the country who are writing these stories about all of this. What do you think of that?” she asked.

How quickly they pivot to put the focus anywhere but where it belongs get the stink off.

Hey, but while we're at it, how about Diane Sawyer, who married the descendant of a famous communist? She makes an awful lot of money, asking no important questions of anyone, especially of Democrats.

According to salon.com, here:

In 2008, Forbes ranked her 65th on the list of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.” She is said to command a salary of between $12 and $15 million a year.

Obama has spent about $100 million trying to put the stink on Romney, and it isn't working. Obama's rating on his handling the economy has slipped into the 30s during the same interval.

Pelosi is telling him it's time to move on.

MoveOn!

Forward! 

Glenn Greenwald Gets Hysterical About Law Enforcement Against Occupy Wall Street

Here.

Robocops. Sadists. You get the picture.

Never once does it penetrate that true believer's mind, the qualitative difference between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. Everywhere the former goes there is crime; everywhere the latter went . . . nothing but law and order, followed by an historic electoral change across America and in the US House of Representatives.

Greenwald can keep repeating that OWS is about peaceful protest all he wants, but it isn't. And we're all tired of it and support the police in preserving the rights of all citizens to unimpeded access to all public places without fear of harassment and intimidation.

The denizens of UC Davis chant "Our university!" as if to say it's their turf and the cops are trespassing, but it isn't, and they aren't. It belongs to everyone, students or not. But especially to the taxpayers.

Winter's just a few weeks away, as is the 100th anniversary of Amundsen's spectacular south polar expedition.

The world could use more clear-headed achievers like Amundsen, but I doubt they'll come out of Occupy Wall Street, or UC Davis . . . or Salon.

The Atlantic Doesn't Really Care What Kind of Nut Michele Bachmann Is

Just that you know she's a nut.

Joshua Green here thinks she's a Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran anti-Catholic nut, even though she's formally separated herself from the group after many years.

The reason surely has to do with theological views she has which are errors according to these Lutherans. Green would like Bachmann to be all about the Lutheran position that the pope is the Antichrist, a position Bachmann has gone on record disavowing.

You'd think Green would dig a little deeper because of that, say at Salon here or especially Mother Jones here, to gain a little wider appreciation for Bachmann's interest in an apocalyptic timetable at the center of which is the state of Israel, and the dispensationalism and millennialism which goes with it, all of which are eschewed by Lutheran interpretation.

Lutheranism is amillennial, and Pauline in its insistence that the Church is the Israel of God, and has replaced it in the world. For Lutherans, the state of Israel is theologically irrelevant. And therefore it is impossible for them that one's relationship to the state of Israel could be talismanic in any way, as Bachmann appears to believe.

For end times enthusiasts like the Congresswoman, the Antichrist is an historical personage who is revealed before the end of the world, not a spirit of error who perennially inhabits the seat of Roman Catholic false doctrine, as the Lutherans believe.

I don't find it surprising at all that Bachmann has parted ways with Lutheranism in the light of these facts. What is surprising is that it took her so long.

She may herself be still quite confused about much of this. Lots of Christians are, and spend inordinate amounts of time trying to figure it all out. But who can really say, except Bachmann herself? About that Green is correct.

The political ramifications for Bachmann's presidential run are not inconsiderable, since many of the people on all sides of these issues in the churches are her potential base of support. For fervent believers as many of them are, positions taken on these issues can be fundamentally alienating.

It's fascinating in a way . . . kind of like a train wreck.

Conservatism Has Always Been Counter-Revolutionary

A frequent MO of the left is to substitute its own definition of something for the real thing, and then argue against it. Otherwise called setting up a straw man. Words mean whatever they say they mean.

That's what Michael Lind has done to Russell Kirk over at Salon.com.

A commenter on his "The three fundamentalisms of the American right: How conservatism went from orthodox and traditional to radical and counter-revolutionary" here gets it exactly right:

The stupidity is also amusing for the way Lind telegraphs his punch in the title, since Russell Kirk, channeler of Burke, consistently advocated for the counter-revolutionary interpretation of the American Revolution throughout his career. More than that, he thought that his own interpretation of the American Revolution as a revolution not made but prevented was entirely consistent with E.J. Payne's interpretation of the Burke who famously loathed what became of France's revolution. Kirk lays out his interpretation in this famous essay, stating from the start his indebtedness to Payne for the idea:

The most learned editor of Burke’s works, E. J. Payne, summarizes Burke’s account of the events of 1688-89 as “a revolution not made but prevented.” Let us see how that theory may be applicable to North American events nine decades later.

On this interpretation, the King of England was the revolutionary, against whose red-coated infringers on the chartered rights of Englishmen the American colonists reluctantly and at length opened fire with more than just words.

Lind would like things to be as they once were, when conservatism was still inchoate, unsure of itself, and above all, politically ineffectual:

Back when conservatism was orthodox and traditional, rather than fundamentalist and counter-revolutionary, conservatives could engage in friendly debates with liberals, and minds on both sides could now and then be changed.

But now that conservatism is a genuine threat to the revolutionary left which has taken control of America, it's time to sound the alarms:

Sooner or later, dogmatism and reality will collide, and it is not reality that will crumple like tinfoil. The only question is how much damage will be done to the American polity before the revolution of the saints fizzles out.

"Collide." "Crumple." "Damage." Sounds more like an invitation to a train wreck than to a battle, but I could be wrong.

Round one to the right last November. More skirmishes to follow. 

Whose Side Are You On?

So asks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of the US House.

Glenn Greenwald notices that in saying so, the Obama regime sounds just like the Bush regime.

Here.

None dare call it liberalism.

How We Punish Determines Who We Are

A concept I have not found discussed anywhere in the wake of the "bin Laden" execution, except here at Salon by Glenn Greenwald.

The reason? Only about 14 percent of you give a damn.

If the US Navy Seals were sent to take no prisoners, how are we any different than bin Laden?

"Narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it."

The Terrorists Have Won Because They've Already Imposed Authoritarianism

Leftist Glenn Greenwald seems happy John "Don't Touch My Junk" Tyner is a reader and gets off a couple of good lines at the government and the media at Salon.com here:

[G]overnment officials run to the nearest media outlet ... and anonymously scream "TERRORISM." No evidence is needed; the anonymity precludes all accountability; fear levels are quickly ratcheted up; and everything the Government wants to do then becomes justifiable in its name. That's the frightened, authoritarian society we've allowed ourselves to become. ... [J]ournalists ... dutifully disseminate whatever fear-mongering claims their anonymous government friends tell them to write . . . .

It's a recurring phenomenon that left and right in America often agree on a few things, because they are not nihilists and actually believe in something, unlike many self-identifying Democrats and Republicans. But I digress.

Greenwald is worth reading.