‘Stomping Deniers’?

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In my American Spectator column this morning, I noted that Joshua Green of The Atlantic Monthly had been quick to use the phrase “brutally attacked” to describe Tim Profitt’s stomping of MoveOn activist Lauren Valle.

Well, was it an “attack”?

Green now coins the term “stomping deniers” to describe people who’ve questioned the Left’s narrative of this incident. When I first saw the TV news video of the incident Monday, my comment was: “I’m hesitant to jump to conclusions about what actually happened in this kind of made-for-TV publicity stunt.” It seemed to me that there had to be some kind of back-story to the incident, and I didn’t feel like we had the whole story.

Good hunch there, because Red State has posted this video showing what happened before the now-infamous stomping incident:

As you can see for yourself, Valle lunges at Rand Paul’s vehicle as he arrives at the Lexington event, thrusting her sign through the open window of the vehicle. This certainly appears to corroborate Profitt’s account of his concerns:

Profitt told the Associated Press that he and one of his friends had talked to police officers at the scene, trying to warn them that Valle “was getting ready to do something,” but the police answered, “That’s not our job.” When the Republican candidate arrived, Profitt and his friends tried to block Valle’s path to the candidate because they were “concerned about Rand’s safety,” Profitt told the AP.

I’m not denying anything, nor do I wish to justify Profitt’s stomping of Valle. But there were clearly extenuating circumstances here. Profitt tried to do the right thing, warning police of his worries about Valle. Police failed to act on that warning. Valle’s lunge toward the vehicle certainly could have caused Profitt to be “concerned about Rand’s safety,” and what we initially saw on the TV news video was not the whole story.

At this moment, I’m sitting here with MSNBC on the TV in my office, listening to Chris Matthews pretend that the Red State video doesn’t exist, that and that Valle did nothing to provoke the incident that followed her lunge at Paul’s vehicle.MSNBC also is ignoring Valle’s felony record. So far, Joshua Green hasn’t acknowledge Valle’s involvement in the Louisiana eco-vandalism incident, nor has he acknowledged the Red State video.

Who’s the “denier” now?

UPDATE: Profitt interviewed by a Lexington TV station:

“She’s a professional at what she does,” Profitt said, referring to the MoveOn.org activist, “and I think when all the facts come out, I think people will see that she was the one that initiated the whole thing.” . . .
“Well I’ll just say it, if the police had done what they were supposed to do, it would have never happened,” Profitt said.

In both of these assertions, Profitt is correct. Police were warned about Valle and failed to act on that warning. And she is indeed a professional protester.

Wow. You know who’s about to show the Red State video? Keith Olbermann.

UPDATE II: OK, Olbermann just aired the video and generally mocked the idea that anyone would have thought Valle posed a threat to Paul. Olbermann then showed a statement by a MoveOn.org official, to the same effect, and brought on a Democrat “strategist” to discuss how the incident would affect the election.

Olbermann thus abets the purpose of Valle’s stunt, i.e., to affect the Kentucky election.

Somebody in the comments, please feel free to link video of Olbermann discussing  “disruptions” at health-care townhalls, so that we can compare his treatment of those citizen-activists to his treatment of Valle.

UPDATE III: Looking for a copy of the MoveOn.org official’s statement, I went to their Web site and found this ad where they’re claiming the Illinois Republican candidate for Senate is a tool of corporate “front groups.”

Yeah. Republicans are corrupt tools of Big Money. Like bankers who loan millions of dollars to crooks.

VIDEO: Front Page, Featuring Steven Malanga, Required Viewing For All, Esp. Those Who Can Vote Against Jim Moran

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by Smitty

Click the image of Allen Barton to view:

Steven Malanga, of City Journal, and author of Shakedown, talks to Allen Barton about how the left has seized power in Washington, D.C. Incumbents and public service unions have gamed the system and are upending prosperity in America. Does government now exist simply to serve the needs of unions and politicians?

As a squid, I think that the government needs unions about like the US Navy. Oh, and collective bargaining in the Navy is referred by the term “mutiny”. Yet, the Navy does just fine with the UCMJ.
Click the image for a closer look at the book in question:
Public sector unions, and the general conflict of interest represented by a Federal government that treats the 10th Amendment like Joy Behar treats Sharron Angle (heh), are among the structural reasons supporting “Gentleman” Jim Moran’s longevity.
Watch the clip. Understand that there is a reason for the gripping sensation in the vicinity of your wallet. And, if you live in VA-8 and care fig #1 about the future viability of the country, next Tuesday vote

PATRICK MURRAY for U.S. CONGRESS
Jim Moran affords common citizens the level of regard he gives military service. Also, dryer lint.

Rick Moran: Inadvertent Adrenaline Dispenser

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by Smitty

Centralization, the collapse of all things into DC, is the chief ailment of the country, but some like Rick Moran seem oblivious to the root causes of the current crisis:

Getting the deficit under control and getting people back to work are legitimate GOP aspirations and if voted into office, members of congress can claim a broad mandate to accomplish those goals. The “return to Constitutional government” – whatever that means specifically – is also broadly accepted as part of the Republican platform, although such a nebulous goal can be interpreted a thousand different ways. Then there is the rollback of Obama’s agenda in health care, financial reform, and other Washington power grabs that enjoy the support of a plurality of voters – if that.

How much success will the Republicans have in accomplishing any of those goals? The answer is, this is an agenda bred for failure.

As long as President Obama remains in office, it is not likely that any GOP measures to cut the deficit, create jobs, repeal Obamacare, repeal FinReg, or “return” the country to someone’s idea of Constitutional government will succeed. The Republicans will not have anywhere near the numbers to overturn any Obama veto. And the idea that 20 senate Democrats and 40 House Democrats will suddenly see the light and vote to emasculate their own party’s president by refusing to uphold his vetos is not in the realm of possibility on this planet.

A compromise with the Democrats might get some of those items passed into law. But incredibly, the GOP has already signaled that there will be no compromise.

Unable to get anything passed because their numbers are too few, the GOP will refuse to deal with the president because their rabid, frothing at the mouth base of partisans equates compromise with weakness. The art of governance is lost on these mountebanks — as it was with their counterparts on the left in 2008 — because so certain are they of the moral rightness of their cause that they regard compromise as dealing with the devil (or, for the left, whatever the secular equivalent).

I’ve met Rick Moran at CPAC a couple of years ago, so I’m confident that he exists and is not a nom de gloom for Eugene Robinson: “If GOP wins, expect more obstruction.” Let us be clear on a few of points:

  • The country is about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
  • These fundamentals cannot be compromised without endangering the fabric of the country.
  • To the extent that the Imperial Federal Government already has, Washington DC must be peacefully, forcefully opposed by anyone interested in the preservation of the country.
  • Compromise for its own sake, as Robinson would demand and Rick Moran would seem to cheerfully offer, is shameful.

Man up, Moran. Common sense analysis declares significant portions of the Obama agenda Unconstitutional.  It’s so bad, that common sense is threatening to leak into too legal system!  Let’s wait until after the election and the ObamaCare verdict before polishing the kneepads, eh, Moran?

Let the vetos pile sky high, say I: they’ll have the effect of bringing more independents to the conservative fold.

Thanks for this, though: reading your Quisling post restored some will to resist, a perhaps unintended virtue.

Is there a 10th Amendment Cult? To me, it’s an aphrodisiac jacket:

Good-Bye, California

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Despite fond hopes expressed by professional Republican “experts” — and Smitty, too — we must consider the unfortunate likelihood that the many millions spent by Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman will purchase only defeat.

Conservative friends familiar with California have praise for Fiorina. Whitman . . . eh, not so much.

Just as I hate to think a mere poll conclusively proves that GOP hopes in California are as extinct as a mastodon in the La Brea tar pits, I hesitate to judge people based on press accounts. But after reading this story about Whitman’s campaign spending, the obvious question is: Why would Republicans expect anyone to vote for such a damned fool?

Whitman has pumped more than $141 million of her own money into the campaign, and some $17 million has been spent on consultants and related expenses. . . .
Whitman has relied on a number of former eBay colleagues with limited political experience. Tokoni Inc., founded by former eBay executives Mary Lou Song and Alex Kazim, has been paid about $4 million to handle online services . . .
Henry Gomez, who oversaw public relations at eBay during Whitman’s tenure, is now a senior advisor to her campaign, overseeing speechwriting and press relations. His firm, HSG, has been paid nearly $913,940, according to campaign finance reports. Gomez and Kazim are both registered Democrats. . . .
Whitman’s team also includes veterans, such as chief strategist Mike Murphy, who once advised Mitt Romney and John McCain among other Republicans. His firm, Bonaparte Films, LLC, earns $90,000 a month. Campaign manager Jillian Hasner, the wife of Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, (R-Boca Raton), earns $30,000 a month.

There’s a lot there to make your eyes roll, but just imagine: Paying your “chief strategist” three times what you pay the campaign manager, while spending millions more to pay registered Democrats to work for your Republican campaign.

And I’m sure lots of grassroots conservatives in California are lined up outside Whitman’s campaign offices awaiting their opportunity to be unpaid volunteers, knowing that Murphy collects $3,000 a day to strategize the campaign that Hasner is paid $1,000 a day to manage.

All this called to mind a post from two months ago, quoting the words of a soldier who commented on the incompetence of his commanders in a letter home:

“Mother, do not wonder that my loyalty is growing weak. . . . I am sick and tired of the disaster and the fools that bring disaster upon us.”

Belvedere Ups The Ante On The Axis Of Fedora

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by Smitty

The Axis of Fedora is continuing its relentless program of blogospheric expansion, this time sliding Bob Belvedere under the brim.

Of course, this puts pressure on fellow fashion Fernando Paco to step up to the haberdashery and show us the lid.

This post should also take a moment to not some deplorable developments in flyover country. ‘Axis of Cheddora’. Really? Is that all you’ve got? Don’t you know who won World’s Best Medium Cheddar this year? Let me know when you think your sad little state knows thing #1 about cheese, Steve Burri, or hats.

And no noise out of Lance, either, unless he’s willing to meet over on Yahoo Games for a desperately needed cribbage clinic.