So I take Paul at his word that he’s not a racist. What he is, however, is an ideological extremist. He is so categorically opposed to public regulation of private enterprise that he cannot even bring himself to say that the Woolworth lunch counter should’ve been desegregated. Instead, he falls back on the remedies of the market: “I wouldn’t attend, wouldn’t support, wouldn’t go to,” a private institution that discriminates, he told Rachel Maddow. But he would let them discriminate.

Basically Ezra is claiming that since Rand Paul is ideologically consistent even in uncomfortable situations where many would not be that makes him ideologically extreme. Ok… that’s fine. We can go with that definition if Ezra likes.

Unfortunately for him, if we do go with that definition, that makes Ezra an “ideological extremist”. Take for instance this post from his days at the American Prospect entitled “Nazi Ideas“:

Nazi Ideas

I’m with Jane Galt on this one: Not everything the Nazis touched was bad. Hitler was a vegetarian. Volkswagen is a perfectly good car company. Universal health care is a perfectly good idea. Indeed, the Nazis actually did a pretty good job increasing economic growth and improving standards of living (they were, many think, the first Keynesians, adopting the strategy even before Keynes had come up with it), pushing Germany out of a depression and back into expansion. Unfortunately, they also set out to conquer Europe and exterminate the Jews. People shouldn’t do that.

Here you see Ezra supporting a Nazi style socialized medicine, a Nazi style nationalized automotive industry, and a seemingly a wide variety of other Nazi style economic programs. All of which, I think it’s safe to say, are ideologically consistent with a liberal economic philosophy but which most liberals would not claim support for. Thus, by his own definition, Ezra is “ideologically extreme”. Not two ways about it.

So the only thing for Ezra to do in order to retain whatever shred of integrity remains in his name is to either admit he is also an ideological extremist or immediately retract what he wrote about Rand Paul. Which will it be Ezra?

My review of Jason Mattera’s book “Obama Zombies” was published by them today and I think you should, ya know, go read it. Here’s a taste to get your appetite going:

In 2008, twenty-somethings like me began to notice a disturbing new creature appearing on their college campuses around the country and all over their favorite social networking sites.  They seemed to spread out everywhere, spewing meaningless dribble in the form of campaign slogans and infecting others as the year went on until it appeared a full-blown epidemic had emerged.  What were these ominous beings and where did they come from?

In case you missed it here it is:

Its crazy isn’t it? It really looks like the military is just picking up some guy and taking him away at first glance… but a second look reveals that the men in the video are wearing different kinds of camouflaged fatigues that many have claimed aren’t up to military standards. Plus the fact that two police officers can be seen at the tail end of the video doesn’t help clear up the situation. And, of course, this picture taken by a University of Pittsburgh photographer doesn’t help matters:

Well… I was really confused about what actually happened in this video so I decided to do a little leg work and find out for sure. First I was able to confirm, through a spokesperson, that the men in the video are NOT from the Pennsylvania National Guard who are on the ground assisting the police in crowd control but are NOT carrying weapons or making ANY arrests.

Next, given that the people in the video aren’t from the Pennsylvania National Guard, I wanted to see what the Police had to say about the video. So I contacted the Pittsburgh Police Department and they gave me the number for the G-20 Joint Information Center which handles press requests on G-20 related security questions.

The G-20 Joint Information Center, which can be reached at 412-402-7630, issued this statement to me which explains exactly what is going on in that video:

The individuals involved in the 9/24/2009 arrest which has appeared online are law enforcement officers from a multi-agency tactical response team assigned to the security operations for the G20.

It is not unusual for tactical team members to wear camouflaged fatigues. The type of fatigues the officers wear designates their unit affiliation. Prior to the arrest, the officers observed this subject vandalizing a local business. Due to the hostile nature of the crowd, officer safety and the safety of the person under arrest, the subject was immediately removed from the area.

So, yes, the video is real. However, it wasn’t the military and the guy wasn’t being kidnapped. Instead he was being arrested for vandalism.

It’s been a while but here’s your required daily reading for today:

• The Daily Kos and Megan McCain fight about who the bigger gay marriage proponent is… PLUS: Tommy Christopher throws his two cents at Markos!
• The Judicial Confirmation Network mails out a letter to senators regarding SCOTUS nominee Sotomayor
• Caleb Howe reviews the real climate of hate over at RedState

Enjoy!

I am happy to say that it contributed to the retraction of the Politico story. Read up and enjoy!

Besides if you don’t read his post you won’t get the full story and you might not fully understand how I came to my conclusions.

The basic summary is that the History Channel in all likelihood didn’t commission or run these anti-American ads (click to enlarge):

And this anti-Christian/western ad (click to enlarge):

However, the ad agency which works for the History Channel (among many others), Ogilvy & Mather, did commission the ads then brand them with History Channel logos and even submit them to the prestigious CLIO awards. And what’s worse is that these absurd ads actually won a CLIO award.

Now, again, Caleb Howe has great insights into all the things wrong with this situation and these ads so go read his post. But, he doesn’t go quite far enough down the CLIO trail. There is definitely a lot more to this.

I mean, sure, I could buy that the award ceremony disregards political messages and judges the entries based off of their creativity and visual appeal… except that those ads are neither creative or visually appealing. They look like something a 6 year old made in paint on windows 95. For goodness sake if that’s all it takes to reach the pinnacle of print advertising then sign me the heck up!

I’ll be raking in the millions in no time and I can barely get by with my cheap rip off of photo shop. Seriously, look at those pictures. It’s just a quick and simple cut and past job. And a crappy one at that. Those stupid billboards couldn’t look less like they were a part of the picture. Over all this potential campaign is just a worthless piece of crap.

So that leads me to this question: HOW THE HECK DID THIS WIN A PRESTIGIOUS AWARD???

Despite the in depth analysis a screaming question like that might seem to require I can offer only this: It’s anti-American political message. Nothing else makes a lick of sense.

The call comes after Pelosi vomitted her lies all over the CIA. Sure he’s gone off on her over this before and sure this is little more than grandiose political theater that will lead to nothing in the end… but it’s still fun to listen to someone give ol’ Nancy a much deserved smack down:

In a column for the conservative publication Human Events, the former House Speaker takes aim at Pelosi’s press conference last week, during which she said the CIA did not tell her in 2002 that it used the aggressive interrogation technique of waterboarding. She went on to allege the CIA routinely misleads Congress.

“She charged that the CIA, deliberately and as a matter of policy, violated the law by lying to Congress,” Gingrich writes in the column. “And with that allegation, Speaker Pelosi disqualified herself from the office she holds.”

“Speaker Pelosi has damaged America’s safety,” Gingrich also writes. “She’s made America less secure by sending a signal to the men and women defending our country that they can’t count on their leaders to defend them.”

Indeed all those things are true. And, yes, she should resign. But lets be honest… she won’t and the Dems won’t do a thing to her. So really the political hacks used as human shields surrounding Pelosi got this one right:

A Democratic leadership aide Wednesday called Gingrich’s comments a “political ploy.”

“This is an ethically challenged former Speaker of the House who is out to sell books,” the aide said.

Of course, like I said before, the fact that Newt’s comments are next to meaningless in reality… it doesn’t make them any less true. And I suppose it is always nice to hear another high profile person stick it to ol’ Nancy.