WARNING: This Image of Hate From Occupy LA May Have Been Placed in Our Minds by GOP Mind Control Operatives

Jews across the country who were frightened by those anti-Semites at the Occupy Wall Street protests can all relax now, because the Slate’s Dave Weigel says it’s all safe. According to Weigel OWS isn’t really anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israel it’s all just a Republican plot. Although he doesn’t say it, the implications are clear. The GOP has mind control experts who have the know-how to cause Americans to see things that aren’t there.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the RNC and NRCC tried their damnedest to argue that Occupiers are inhabiting anti-Semites. The crown jewel of the effort is one of those videos that makes liberal use of shaky video and pounding music.

There is a problem: The movement isn’t anti-Semitic. It started in New York. Its ideological hero is Naomi Klein. This is a movement studded with liberal Jews! Here’s one video that’s gotten less play than the one of the irate anti-Semitic dipshit with the “Nazi bankers” sign: The Kol Nidre in New York, at the Occupy camp.

Is it just totally nuts to worry about anti-Semitism here? Well, no. This is a protest against the banking industry. The chairman of the Fed is Jewish. The president of Goldman Sachs is Jewish. The Secretary of the Treasury is Jewish. If “anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools,” there’s a hell of a risk that people could get foolish about this.

See? Dave Weigel who is Jewish, is so calming you wouldn’t know he is a bit off the mark on just a few key points.

• “It started in New York” What does that mean? Is that Dave’s version of Jesse Jackson’s calling the “Big Apple” Hymie Town? Sure, if it started in New York it must be pro-Jewish.  I guess Weigel forgot Al Sharpton got his start in NY, where he incited two anti-Semitic Pogroms, one in Crown Heights, the other in Harlem. “It started in NY” didn’t work in that case.

• “Its ideological hero is Naomi Klein” Oh thank God! She’s a Jew, that makes me feel so much better.  That Dave Weigel really knows how to calm people down.

Naomi Klein is the perfect person to be the OWS ideological hero, she has been attacking capitalism and corporations for her entire career.  Less known is the fact that, Klein has another ideological similarity to the OWS protests, she has been demonizing Israel for almost as long as she has been demonizing capitalism.

It’s not just that she disagrees with Israeli policy but she demonizes and tries to de-legitimize the Jewish state. She uses that age-old blood libel and invents Israeli atrocities.  “[Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free-card.”

In her book The Shock Doctrine Klein explains that Israel is run by a vast military-industrial complex who purposely perpetuates war against the Palestinians so they can develop and more importantly sell, new weapons on the world-wide market.

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The man who “runs the world’s money” has also been called, “The Great Seducer.” While I think they had something else in mind when they were talking “seduction,” there are some similarities here between taking our cash and taking whatever else you might think you want at the moment.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is the head of the International Monetary Fund and currently in jail for allegedly trying to rape a hotel employee while staying in a $3,000 a night room in New York.

This is what the media has mentioned early and often, but they are not interested in telling people who Strauss-Kahn really is.

The Great Seducer is a leftist millionaire Socialist who lives tax-free while taking $100 billion of our dollars in 2009. Wikipedia also calls him a “former Communist.” Not sure when he made the move from Communist to Socialist, but whatever fine line there is between the two, we know he likes taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. Here’s your modern day Robin Hood, folks.

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Where are the obvious transitions, the segues that TV news loves so much?

I’ve seen them so strained that while anchoring a newscast I once refused to read a segue that went from Thanksgiving dinner to a double fatal car accident. It went something like this, “One local family will not be enjoying their Thanksgiving dinner because they were killed while driving south on I-15.”  Yes — not this year’s dinner, or next year’s or the year after. Producers in newsrooms consider it an art to be able to tie stories together so that the viewers can feel the “flow” of a newscast. Many producers take great delight in being able to tie stories together that have no natural tie. Yes, we have all seen new anchors strain at trying to tie stories together.

Now the strain is to totally ignore the perfect segue.

I’ve been waiting patiently to see one of the net’s do this Blizzard Of 2010 story and follow it with …” Meanwhile, President Obama is in Hawaii playing his 4^th or 5^th round of golf during his vacation.” Hummmmm. Haven’t seen that yet. Good Morning America had both the snow story and an Obama story in their opening segment on Monday, but they painfully put a story about stolen fertility eggs between Storm Watch2010 and Obama’s support of Michael Vick. A natural transition lost, or intentionally avoided. Do not believe things like this happen by accident. Placement of stories are carefully considered to give a newscast the flow that they so badly want.  In this case, flow was ignored to protect Dear Leader.

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From the New York Post:

Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts — a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned.

Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south shore of Staten Island still remained treacherously unplowed last night because of the shameless job action, several sources and a city lawmaker said, which was over a raft of demotions, attrition and budget cuts.

Many of these cats rake in $100k and over for their jobs. That’s some swanky sanitation work. Many folks on Twitter have made the astute observation that these workers get paid more than our troops.

There have been multiple deaths as a result of the union bosses tantrums:

A blizzard baby delivered inside the lobby of a snowbound Crown Heights building died after an emergency call of a woman in labor brought no help for nine excruciating hours.

The baby’s mother, a 22-year-old college senior, was recovering Tuesday night at Interfaith Medical Center, where her newborn was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m. on Monday. That was 10 hours after the first 911 call from the bloody vestibule on Brooklyn Ave. in Crown Heights.

“No one could get to her. Crown Heights was not plowed, and no medical aid came for hours,” said the student’s mother.

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Media Matters’ Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert is apoplectic because Chris Christie went on vacation to Disney World when a blizzard hit New Jersey.

I am almost positive that Boehlert’s job description in the Senior Fellows sacred Buffalo Bob skin-bound job manual reads: Obsess over conservative dudes. It’s been his entire focus for the past several days, giving Andrew Breitbart a reprieve. It’s a good thing that Media Matters doesn’t pride itself on consistency, because some may be wondering where this lefty tenacity was when Kathleen Blanco hemmed and hawed during Hurricane Katrina when she should have been calling out the National Guard, something for which Bush was blamed.

No, “NJ” didn’t call out the National Guard. Chris Christie called out the National Guard because that’s the job of the governor. Of course, I don’t expect a “senior fellow” who so zealously attempts debate on the matter to actually know what he’s talking about if he comes from Media Matters. Soros pays him to be persistent, not knowledgeable, folks.

Media Matters of course loyally defended Blanco even though Blanco and Nagin’s (and Brown’s) ineffectiveness made this national disaster a catastrophe. I would say “and now MMFA assails Christie for that which they defended Blanco,” except doing so compares Chris Christie’s performance and Blanco’s performance which is illogical because they are not equal. Christie is employing all his state’s resources and didn’t have to be prodded by the President (curiously, MMFA doesn’t assail Obama for being out of town when the massive blizzard hit) to call out the National Guard.

Says Christie spokesman:

“Yes, this was a big snow, but we are a northeastern state, and we get plenty of snow, including heavy hits like this,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Hill. “But the sky really is not falling, and we’ll get through this just as we always have, notwithstanding complaints from opportunistic partisans like Lesniak.”

Christie appears to be doing as much as he can with state resources, but it doesn’t help when communities are waiting for the disbursement of federal emergency funds. New Jersey’s finances have been mismanaged for years with Christie walking into an $11 billion dollar budget deficit.

After slashing the budget and making ends meet the man, like anyone, is entitled to a vacation just as President Obama is entitled to a vacation … another one. For which we all pay. MMFA’s criticism of Christie rests upon the presupposition that Christie isn’t doing anything, which is why their hollow criticism is so comedically false.

Interestingly, they say nothing of Michael Bloomberg’s response. Bloomberg’s response is actually less about response post-blizzard and more about what he did leading up to the storm:

Overnight, it seems, the avenues of Manhattan, already choked with motor vehicular traffic, are losing a lane to accommodate new curbside bike lanes. Under the new plan, cars and trucks that elect to park now do so in an essential limbo – in “non-spaces” between the bike lane and the leftmost lane of traffic.

Work on the project, which began in June, has now been completed on First Avenue on the East Side and Columbus on the West but is ongoing. Eventually both sides will meet in the middle, hampering the flow of traffic on all the major arteries.

Yes, I’m sure the narrow streets due to the bike paths are much easier through which emergency vehicles to travel.

The remarks on Twitter have been comical, “Bloomberg takes salt from your food but not the snow from your sidewalk,” and this from Scott Ott:

I realize that there is only so much officials can do when hit with 20 inches of snow in such a short period of time and while I know how frustrating it can be (hey – in St. Louis city the side streets aren’t plowed AT ALL, EVER, folks, so we win Blizzard!), Bloomberg seems to be receiving a lot more flack that MMFA is, of course, ignoring.

But Soros isn’t paying MMFA to go after Democrats.

Who says conservatives don’t have “compassion?”  MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Friday lamented over the “sad,” “terrible” ordeal that Charlie Rangel endured during his censuring.  His more progressive Morning Joe cohorts like journalist Nora O’Donnell of course were full of that liberal piss and vinegar compassion usually reserved for radical imams or far-left politicians, calling it “very moving moment” and seemed moved to tears over Rangel’s “very emotional statement” on the floor of the House.  At one point, co-host Mika Brzezinski offered a one word description for the Democrat’s punishment: “Terrible.” (One wonders if they feel the same sadness for fallen Republican Tom DeLay, but that’s another story.)

For anyone wishing to understand some of the rancor that led to the walloping the Democratic establishment just experienced in the November mid-terms, all one need do is look into the happy face of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), former Chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

I just want you to imagine sitting across from an IRS auditor trying to explain how you failed to report: credit union balances, several investment accounts, vacant properties in New Jersey, stocks in your portfolio, rental income from a Costa Rican villa, etc.  And then explain how you “amended” your 2007 tax returns to include and extra $780,000 in assets income…oops! I dare say the IRS would do more than give you a tongue-lashing and then let you keep your position without further prosecution as a Congressional censure pretty much is just that.  (Ouch!  Don’t…stop…don’t…stop.)

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Stop the presses! This just in: The Associated Press “standards center” has issued a “staff advisory” on covering what is to be known from here on out as “the New York City mosque.” From now on, the AP “staff” – and, therefore, everybody who still actually reads newspapers that still actually use the wire service’s copy – is supposed to conform to what amounts to the Muslim Brotherhood narrative about the Islamic cultural center formerly known as the “Ground Zero mosque.”

AP’s Deputy Managing Editor for Standards and Production, Tom Kent, sent this “guidance” out to his colleagues, with inputs from Chad Roedemeier in the New York bureau and Terry Hunt in Washington: “We should continue to avoid the phrase ‘Ground Zero mosque’ or ‘mosque at Ground Zero’ on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at Ground Zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” Ground Zero, or two blocks away.”

Interestingly, among those who formerly used the now-proscribed descriptor “Ground Zero mosque” is none other than Feisal Abdul Rauf, its imam and chief promoter. He called it that even though the proposed venue has always been two blocks away from the World Trade Center site.

Perhaps Rauf used this moniker because his planned location for the mosque was part of the real estate attacked and damaged on 9/11 – the home of the Burlington Coat Factory until it was struck by a landing gear from a plane that struck one of the Twin Towers. Perhaps he used that term to brand his “Cordoba House” because body parts from the victims of those attacks have been found all over Lower Manhattan, including the old Burlington factory area, making it part of the hallowed ground.

Or perhaps, Imam Rauf called his project the Ground Zero mosque because he wanted to associate his 15-story, $100 million complex as closely as possible to the location where nearly 3,000 Americans and other innocent people – precisely because they were murdered there by people who wanted, as he does, to “bring shariah to America.” (more…)

It’s one of the most iconic images of America’s greatest city: Edward Hopper’s moody, evocative ode to the City That Never Sleeps: “Nighthawks.” But did the lobster-shift diner shown in Hopper’s most famous painting ever exist?

That’s the subject of a terrific Op-Ed in today’s New York Times by Jeremiah Moss, “Nighthawks State of Mind.”

IN 1941, Edward Hopper began what would become his most recognizable work, one that has become an emblem of New York City. “‘Nighthawks,’” Hopper said in an interview later, “was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet.” The location was pinpointed by a Hopper expert, Gail Levin, as the “empty triangular lot” where Greenwich meets 11th Street and Seventh Avenue, otherwise known as Mulry Square. This has become accepted city folklore. Greenwich Village tour guides point to the lot, now owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and tell visitors that Hopper’s diner stood there. But did it?

It’s a question writers, especially historians and writers of historical fiction about New York, often ask themselves. Often, our imaginations are fired by just such a thing as “Nighthawks,” by a glimpse into the souls of the denizens of the demi-monde: the couple, the man looking sharp in his undoffed fedora (which means he’s either married to the woman next to him or has no respect for her) as he speaks with the counterman; the woman looking indifferently at her nails; and the other guy, minding his own business, and glancing down either at his chow or perhaps the bulldog edition of one of New York’s many newspapers back then. Of such scenes are stories born. (more…)

David Brooks is a thoughtful writer and, by all appearances, a nice fellow.

But on his February 9 appearance on Charlie Rose, Brooks painfully revealed the limits of his understanding and the poverty of his vision.  These failings are not exclusive to Brooks — rather, they are typical of the class with which Brooks self-identifies, the hyper-educated coastal elite.

Of the Tea Party, for example, Brooks told Rose, “It’s not conservative, it’s not pro-Republican, it’s just a recoil from what’s happening [in Washington].”  Has Brooks actually convinced himself of this tripe?  The tea partiers recoil from Washington precisely because of their commitment to small-government conservatism; because Washington now represents the antithesis of their deeply held conservative principles.  Brooks would know this if he actually talked to some Tea Party members instead of viewing them with horror and barely concealed disgust from his Beltway offices. (more…)

Imagine if you could get full salary and benefits for a decent paying job and you didn’t have to work to get it. All you had to do was be accused of a crime.

What crime, you ask? How about molesting school kids? That’s what the teachers‘ unions in states like California and New York State are doing: coddling accused criminals — at your expense. And it’s probably going on elsewhere as well.

Believe it or not, New York is a lot tougher on them than California. From the New York Post:

At the beginning of his 32-year career as a math teacher in Queens, Francisco Olivares allegedly im pregnated and married a 16-year-old girl he had met when she was a 13-year-old student at his Corona junior high, IS 61, the Post learned.

He sexually molested two 12-year-old pupils a decade later and another student four years after that, the city Department of Education charged. But none of it kept Olivares, 60, from collecting his $94,154 salary.

He hasn’t set foot in a classroom in seven years since beating criminal and disciplinary charges. Chancellor Joel Klein keeps Olivares in a “rubber room,” a district office where teachers accused of misconduct sit all day with nothing to do. (more…)

Never heard of Leo Hindery?  Here’s his profile:

Leo Hindery, Jr., is Managing Partner of InterMedia Partners VII, LP, a New York-based media industry private equity fund which he founded in 2005 and which is a successor to six previous InterMedia investment funds that he formed beginning in 1988. The investments of those earlier funds were sold in 1998-1999.

Until October 2004, Mr. Hindery was Chairman (and until May 2004 Chief Executive Officer) of The YES Network, the nation’s largest regional sports network which he founded in the summer of 2001 as the television home of the New York Yankees, where he won five executive producer Emmys for outstanding programming. From December 1999 until January 2001, Mr. Hindery was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GlobalCenter Inc., a major Internet services company, which was then merged into Exodus Communications, Inc. Until November 1999, Mr. Hindery was President and Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Broadband, which was formed out of the March 1999 merger of Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) into AT&T. (AT&T Broadband encompassed all of AT&T’s video, local telephone and Internet services operations.) Mr. Hindery was elected President of TCI and all of its affiliated companies, then the world’s largest cable television system operator and programming entity, in February 1997.

Mr. Hindery is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and from 2003 through December 2007 was Senate-appointed Vice Chair of the HELP Commission formed by an Act of Congress to improve U.S. foreign assistance. From December 2006 until February 2008, he served as Senior Economic Policy Advisor for presidential candidate John Edwards.

Okay, so Leo got snookered by John Edwards. And, there’s been some criticism of some of his business activities. That doesn’t discount his importance within the Democrat Party — or what he’s saying now. (more…)

While the mainstream media swarmed all over Bernie Madoff, AIG and corporate billionaires, the gentlemen of the press, who are so proud of fighting for the Little Guy, were mostly out to an expense-account lunch when Melissa King allegedly made off with $42 million rightfully belonging to members of the Laborers International Union of North American (LIUNA).

In what is being called the largest union embezzlement in American history, the LIUNA Local 147 (New York) office administration was apparently unsatisfied with her meager $500,000 a year paycheck.

According to watchdog Carl Horowitz:

LIUNA Local 147 is an elite underground construction unit known as the “Sandhogs.” With roots going back well over 100 years, the heavily Irish-ethnic 1,000-member union represents the workers who dig New York City’s subway, sewer and water tunnels, often at hundreds of feet beneath the ground. It was the sandhogs who did the excavation work for such engineering marvels as the Lincoln, Holland, Queens-Midtown and Brooklyn-Battery Tunnels. Their massive ongoing main project, the Third Water Tunnel, when completed in 2020 at a projected cost of roughly $6 billion, will carry 1.3 billion gallons of water per day for 9 million area residents and ensure that water keeps running should either of the first two tunnels fails. It’s grueling and dangerous work. And the workers are paid well. They also expect to collect their full retirement benefits. But thanks to the alleged actions of Melissa King, there’s a distinct possibility they won’t.

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On January 3 the usually non-partisan Food Network had its closest brush with politics, with predictable results. Bait and switch, Washington style.

Food Network aired a two hour Iron Chef: America featuring Michelle Obama. Our choleric FLOTUS was there to provide a message about Childhood Obesity and tell the chefs what the secret ingredient for the competition was.  And the ingredient? Why, produce from the celebrated White House garden:

The chefs included White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford and star chefs Bobby Flay, Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse. Mrs. Obama showed up in an orange dress that looked like it would be very fashionable on runways. The kind planes land on. You half expected her to bust out some flags to wave at some passing aircraft. Then she declared they had to harvest the ingredients from the garden in order to create “five ultimate American dishes.” (more…)