Friday Afternoon Roundup - The Fall of the House of Kennedy

Witnessing the end of the Kennedy era is a little like seeing the fall of the Berlin Wall. The retirement of self-destructive Kennedy scion, Patrick Kennedy, will now mean that for the first time in a long time, there will be not a Kennedy in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. Patrick Kennedy, may have retired to dodge some larger scandal, though considering the scandals he has already been involved in, it's hard to imagine what else there might be. Or he might simply be trying to protect his "legacy" by leaving before the voters kick him out.

One notable way Democrats have been dealing with the problem of incumbency unpopularity in the midterm elections is by purging some of their own incumbents behind the scenes by encouraging them to retire, rather than face a party endorsed challengers. While the DNC or Rahm Emanuel can't be blamed for "retiring" Murtha, some of the retirements of incredibly unpopular figures like Senator Dodd or Patrick Kennedy, might well have gotten their start with a Dem night of the long knives that may just be getting started.

But the end of the Democratic party's titled aristocracy, the Kennedy clan (not counting Ahrnold, a Kennedy by marriage, currently misruling over Khalifornia) is an occasion for celebration.

But maybe the party thinks it no longer needs the Kennedy brand, now that it has the Obama brand. A miscalculation considering the declining value of Obamamania (TM). If Biden and Gibbs have gotten desperate enough to try claiming credit for success in Iraq, then the stench of failure is really in the air.

None of this however should make Republicans feel too complacent. A public shift means that there will suddenly be a lot more public scrutiny aimed at the GOP, which has been safely ignored for over a year. Once people start taking Republican politicians seriously, the media will be primed to search and expose any scandal or weakness. We already saw how this went with the last fall of the Republican congress. And that means putting our own house in order first.

Glenn Beck performed a useful service by exposing Debra Medina on his show, as either a 9/11 Truther or a willing panderer to them.

Medina is one of the Paulian inflitrators who are hoping to piggyback on the Tea Party movement. This kind of thing is not limited to just the Paulians, as the following Gateway Pundit story reports, but the Paulians are the most aggressive in the 911 Truther/Far Right sphere.

Like Lyndon LaRouche's followers, their goal is to worm their way into any political organization and then hijack it for their own agenda. They will keep saying that their agenda is conservative, when in fact it's something else entirely. And if you haven't noticed it yet, the media has.

It's why the media will not expose Paulians, but someone like Beck has to. Instead the same outlets that routinely trashed the Tea Parties and Republican candidates, are touting and whitewashing people like Medina. Just as they did Ron Paul.

Any intelligent conservative should ask himself why the same media outlets that smear Republican candidates are enthused about the Paulians. Why about the only negative coverage of them that exists comes from conservative blogs and outlets. And it shouldn't be hard to figure out when looking at Paulian candidates like Adam Kokesh

After spending most of the last decade in the company of communists and anti-American groups like CodePink, ANSWER, Moveon.org, SDS and IVAW, Adam Kokesh is now a conservative republican running for congress.

Then there's Rand "Send the Gitmo terrorists back into Battle" Paul, running for Senate in Kentucky. Sarah Palin's endorsement has not stopped Ron Paul's organization, Campaign for Liberty, from running articles attacking her. The fun site also contains articles such as "Disinformation on Guantanamo Recidivism - More government propaganda. " and "Gun Control and the War on Drugs - They're related, and all who oppose one should oppose the other." This is what you get when you support or vote for Paulians. Pro-terrorism, pro-drugs and anti-American paranoid conspiracologists.

There are no shortage of people on the left and the right looking to either discredit or hijack the Tea Party movement. Many of them are well organized, aggressive and heavily financed. Meanwhile many of the authentic "Rocky" candidates in these races, such as Bill Johnson, who's running against Grayson and Rand Paul in Kentucky, or Tim Graney who's running against Ron Paul, are not being heard. Because they're being sidelined by a well organized political machine and a media that plays footsie with it, the way they would never do for any actual Republican.

Moving on now, Islam researcher Andrew Bostom, has an exclusive PJM three part series on Islamic anti-Semitism in Iran. One of the major planks of the Pro-Iranian nuke propaganda platform is that Jews are well treated in Iran and the Muslim world in general. Which is why Bostom's 3 part series is an important read.

Jihad and Genocidal Islamic Antisemitism in Shi’ite Iran

Jihad and Genocidal Islamic Anti-Semitism in Shi’ite Iran, Part Two

Jihad and Genocidal Islamic Anti-Semitism in Shi’ite Iran, Part Three

While we hear a great deal about the Sunni Jihad, by way of the Salafists, many Sunni will tell you that the Shiites are a good deal more dangerous than them. Whether or not that's the case, the Shiite Jihad based out of Iran is less concerned with camouflage... and a good deal more open about its intentions. Consider the following quotes from Part 1 of Bostom's article

For current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the destruction of Israel is an openly avowed policy driven by his eschatological beliefs. Mohammad Hassan Rahimian, a representative of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, summarized this annihilationist eschatology redolent with Koranic Jew-hatred (Koran 5:82) — which pertains to Jews generally, not “Zionists” — on November 16, 2006:

The Jew is the most obstinate enemy (Koran 5:82) of the devout. And the main war will determine the destiny of mankind. … The reappearance of the Twelfth Imam will lead to a war between Israel and the Shia

and

Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1942 speech, “Islam Is Not a Religion of Pacifists,” is a modern vision of these classical formulations, which states plainly (emphasis mine): 32

Those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [Allah’s law; the Sharia].

There is of course no compromise or negotiation with such an absolutist ideology. And one can only imagine what nuclear weapons at the service of such ideas will be used for.

Boker Tov Boulder meanwhile looks an unseeing world, that has failed to learn the lessons of history.

And from a fiction/non-fiction angle, Ruth Francisco has put her novel of a civil war in a future Amsterdam with its growing Muslim population on a blog, which you can see here.

At Maggie's Notebook, a shocking turnaround in NJ, where the new Republican governor, has actually frozen spending. I was happy to see New Jersey give the repulsive Jon Corzine the boot, but I didn't have particularly high expectations for a new Republican governor in the wake of Whitman's record. But this is a refreshing change.

And in Buffalo, at Tel Chai Nation, one Michael Abdallah, seems to be employing Saudi standards in America.

A 26-year-old Buffalo man remained jailed Monday on charges of holding a 13-year-old runaway in his house for six months, having sex with her more than 100 times and making her baby-sit his 1-year-old son.

Michael Abdallah pleaded not guilty in Buffalo City Court to second-degree rape, unlawful imprisonment and custodial interference Saturday, a day after being arrested at his home.

But there's good news for UN Watchers, Iran may be getting a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. (Israel Matzav).

That's right, after ethnic cleansing, sponsoring international terrorism and raping and murdering protesters, after stealing an election-- Iran will go where the likes of Libya and Sudan have gone before.

And Archaeosteam has his own commentary on my post from Thursday, informed by his own background in anthropology.

Fellow conservatives would congratulate me on ‘growing up’, having come out of the fog of academic rebellion to understand my role in the Real World, to see the folly of leftism and anti-western civilization as destructive towards my own goals of constructing a “better” world – I would not dispute that I am happier to keep up my studies of history and cultures in the mind that primitive is not necessarily more authentic. Anthropology is a child of the Englightenment with all its own history of prejudices and backwards thinking, but Ive quit the idea that there can be an objectivity, especially when it comes to the survival of my own culture. Faced with the barbarian at the door, we have a decision to make: do we welcome giving up what we have worked so hard to achieve? Or do we look primitivism in the eye and say “yes, you are the lesser choice. I will grow up and defend my adulthood.”

The entire thing is worth reading. Enjoy your weekend.