Boris Nemtsov Murdered in Moscow

At the Los Angeles Times, "Boris Nemtsov, leading Russian opposition leader, gunned down in Moscow":

Leading Russian opposition politician Boris Y. Nemtsov, a former first deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, was shot dead on a Moscow street near the Kremlin early Saturday, Russian officials and news agencies reported.

A fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nemtsov had been preparing to join an opposition rally Sunday against the Kremlin leader’s backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine, which has brought international sanctions against Russia and sent its economy into a tailspin.

"An unknown person shot and killed Boris Nemtsov on St. Basil’s slope by four shots from a handgun," the Tass news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying. "A team of operatives and investigators is working at spot of the crime."

The Russian Interior Ministry, which oversees police and security operations, later confirmed that Nemtsov had been gunned down in the shadow of St. Basil’s Cathedral on a sidewalk across the street from Red Square.

Television and YouTube video from the scene showed the lifeless body of the 55-year-old politician -- once considered a future Kremlin leader -- sprawled on a sidewalk along the busy thoroughfare in the heart of the Russian capital.

Putin expressed condolences to the family of the slain politician, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“Putin noted that this was a cruel murder and bears all the signs of a contract killing which appears exclusively provocative,” Peskov told ITAR-TASS.

Nemtsov's close associate and opposition leader Ilya Yashin called the attack on his friend “a political murder.”

“Boris was the most outspoken critic of Putin and the most charismatic leader of the opposition, and his dead body found 100 yards from the Kremlin is a clear message to all the opposition activists and all people who do not support the Kremlin,” Yashin said in an interview with The Times. “This act of political terror is clearly aimed to stun and horrify the opposition to the Putin regime on the eve of the march we will now hold as a mourning march as originally planned on Sunday.”

President Obama condemned the slaying and offered condolences to Nemtsov’s family.

“Nemtsov was a tireless advocate for his country, seeking for his fellow Russian citizens the rights to which all people are entitled,” Obama said in a statement. “I admired Nemtsov’s courageous dedication to the struggle against corruption in Russia and appreciated his willingness to share his candid views with me when we met in Moscow in 2009.”

Nemtsov ran afoul of Putin's Kremlin administration years ago and had been active with the opposition coalition PARNAS.

A companion who witnessed Nemtsov’s killing was being questioned by police, the official Sputnik news agency reported.

Russia Today television, a pro-Kremlin mouthpiece, said on Twitter that the slaying “could be a provocation,” suggesting that the opposition was responsible for the killing to tarnish the Putin administration.

Pro-democracy allies and world leaders who knew the gregarious and energetic politician expressed horror over the killing that many were inclined to see as an assassination.

“Shock. Boris has been killed. It’s impossible to believe,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said via Twitter. “I’m certain the killers will be punished. Sooner or later.”

Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and another outspoken opponent of Putin, linked Nemtsov’s killing with other violence attributed to the Kremlin and its enforcers.

“[Journalist Anya] Politkovskaya was gunned down. MH17 was shot out of the sky. Now Boris is dead. As always, Kremlin will blame opposition, or CIA, whatever,” Kasparov said via Twitter.

More.

And at BuzzFeed, "Killing Hope In Putin’s Russia." And Memeorandum.

Rick Perry

He's at CPAC.

His speech isn't posted to the ACU YouTube page yet, so I'll update.

Hey Leftists, Stop Lying About Everything!

From Kurt Schlichter, at Town Hall, "Liberals, Stop Lying About Everything":

The last few weeks have raised a critical question for all Americans: Is the liberal elite unbelievably dumb or unbelievably cynical? Do our over-credentialed, under-educated, would-be betters actually believe the bullstuff they are shoveling, or do they really think that we normal Americans are so stupid that they can lie to our faces and we will just take it?

I’m guessing Door Number Two. Liberals know they are full of it; they just think the rest of us are as foolish as the welfare-guzzling mouth-breathers who vote for them.

It’s time for the lies to stop.

Liberals, stop lying about the weather. There is no climate change crisis. Whatever changes our climate is undergoing are part and parcel of the natural processes that have been going on since the Earth was formed. All the massaged, manhandled, and manufactured data in the world won’t change the simple fact that this is a naked grab for money and power by a liberal elite so concerned about carbon they choose to dump gazillions of pounds of it into the air jetting off to party with their denier denying pals.

Forty years ago we were going into an ice age, and the solution was to give more power and money to liberal elites. Ten years ago, we were a decade away from the Arctic ice cap melting and the polar bears being parboiled, and the solution was to give more power and money to liberal elites. I don’t even want to guess what the next lie is going to be about the perpetual crisis around the corner, but I know to an absolute certainty that the solution is going to be giving more power and money to liberal elites.

Liberals, stop lying about our war with radical Muslims. This bloodshed isn’t “random.” This isn’t about “violent extremism.” Mass enslavement, mutilation and murder isn’t “workplace violence,” and these semi-human freaks aren’t going to stop if someone hands them a mop, bucket and paycheck.

We are at war – war – with radical Islam, and we need to end the lies, the equivocation and dissembling and speak the truth. Our enemies think they are Muslims, and they think the Koran commands their actions. This isn’t about theology – whether their version of Islam is a misunderstanding or misinterpretation is utterly irrelevant. They think they’re pious Muslims even if we, as well as most of the world’s Muslims, disagree...

More.

Senior Pentagon Official Warns that Washington Can't Take Technological Dominance for Granted

At Foreign Policy, "Top Intel Official: U.S. Facing ‘Unprecedented’ Array of Threats":

ST. PETE BEACH, Florida — U.S. special operations forces now face a widening array of “non-geopolitical threats” that challenge them in realms in which the United States once held undisputed sway, a senior Pentagon intelligence official said Wednesday.

As an example, Garry Reid, a top deputy to Michael Vickers, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, cited the widespread availability of commercial satellite imagery. “Where once you could assume that only you had the bird’s-eye view of the target area, now just about anybody can have [it],” he said during an address to a gathering of current and former special operations personnel here.

Reid said the proliferation of “quite challenging” commercial encryption capabilities also threatens U.S. dominance in signals intelligence, the difficult act of cracking into phone, Internet, and other forms of telecommunications networks around the world. “It’s not as easy as it once was to exploit adversary communications,” he said.

And without saying so in as many words, Reid suggested that technological advances are making it increasingly difficult for the United States to place intelligence operatives undercover. “Global biometrics, identity management, and the ability to track people [using] your electronic signature around the world becomes a challenge for us,” he said.

In his remarks, Reid led the audience on a global tour of what he described as an “unprecedented” plethora of challenges facing the United States, from the rise of the Islamic State and other violent Islamist extremist groups to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and Russian aggression against Ukraine. The confluence of so many asymmetrical challenges will continue to place a high demand on U.S. intelligence and special operations forces well into the future, he said.The confluence of so many asymmetrical challenges will continue to place a high demand on U.S. intelligence and special operations forces well into the future, he said.

“We’re sitting on top of the most powerful military arsenal … ever assembled,” he said, but added that most “conventional forces and strategic forces are barely applicable to any of these problems. That is quite a vexing scenario.”

More.

And this is interesting. I've been wondering about the current status of U.S. dominance of some of these areas, especially in light of Barry Posens' 2002 piece, "Command of the Commons."

Quinnipiac University Poll: Scott Walker Holds Early Lead in Iowa Republican Caucuses

This is great.

Indeed, the race is wide open, Jeb Bush.

At Quinnipiac, "Walker Has Strong Early Lead In Iowa GOP Caucus, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Conservative Base With Large Dose of Tea Party."

More from Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, "Video: Is Jeb Bush inevitable?"

ADDED: From Ronald Brownstein, at National Journal, "In Early Polling, Walker Stands Apart" (via Memeorandum).

Sorry, Jeb, the Race Is Wide Open

From Peggy Noonan, at WSJ, "Democrats may be ready for Hillary, but nothing is inevitable for the GOP":

Thoughts on the 2016 presidential primaries:

No one expects anything from the Democrats. They will back, accept or acquiesce in a coronation. This will not be called passive but disciplined. But when you think about it—one of our two major parties, in a time of considerable national peril, will settle its presidential nomination without vigorous debate—it is weird and disturbing.

Republicans are the action, and will draw all the lightning. A read on where the base—huge, broad and varied, including but not limited to attendees of this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference—is:

Republicans this year are not looking for Reagan. They’re looking for Churchill. They’re looking for the guy who knows the war is already here, not the guy who knows the war can be averted if we defeat the guys who would wage it. What is “the war”? Everything from scarily sluggish economic growth to long-term liabilities and deficits; from the melting away of the post-World-War-II order to the Mideast to domestic terrorism. Every four years there is frustration and argument; this year there is urgency.

What the Republican Party needs in a presidential candidate is not a centrist who can make the sale to conservatives in the primaries; it is a conservative who can win over centrists in the general election. That means the Republican nominee should be a man or woman who can redefine conservative thinking for current circumstances and produce policies that centrists and independents will find worthy of consideration.

Jeb Bush is said by some and treated by many as the front-runner, the one to beat. I don’t see it. In fact I think he’s making a poor impression.

It’s a commonplace to say nobody’s watching this early. But some people are, especially activists in the base and the mainstream media, which is picking up impressions that will harden into widespread clichés. What are they seeing?

Mr. Bush is spending much of his time in The Rooms—offices and conference rooms—with millionaires and billionaires. Money in politics is very important, and Mr. Bush makes a great impression on the denizens of The Rooms. He speaks their language. They like his experience, the fluency with which he speaks of domestic policy. Here his family name helps him; they know he is politically vetted, a successful former governor, is respectful of the imperatives of business, and is bottom-line sane.

It is going so well that Patrick O’Connor of the Journal reported this week the Bush team is asking fundraisers who want to join the campaign’s top tier to collect $500,000 by the end of March. But veteran bundlers expect it will cost more “to reach the inner circle . . . because deep-pocketed donors have been so eager to write big checks.”

All this reflects a deliberate allocating of the candidate’s time. The Bush campaign will vacuum up money now and be interesting and compelling later. They’re trying to force rivals out of the race by picking up their potential donors and leaving nothing but crumbs.

Mr. Bush’s operation is also, according to the New York Times, muscling party strategists and policy specialists to advise only him and no one else. Again a message is sent: Be with us now or we’ll remember later. It sounds tough and Clintonian. Actually it looks less like a sales pitch than a hostile takeover.

There’s something tentative and joyless in Mr. Bush’s public presentations. He isn’t mixing it up with voters or wading into the crowd. So far he is not good at the podium. His recent foreign-policy speech was both bland and jangly, and its one memorable statement—“I am my own man”—was the kind of thing a candidate shouldn’t have to say.

What is most missing so far is a fierce sense of engagement, a passionate desire to lead America out of the morass, a fiery—or Churchillian—certainty that he is the man for the moment. In its place we see a softer, wanner I’m smart, accomplished, know policy, and it’s my turn.

I am not sure Mr. Bush likes the base. If he doesn’t, it would explain some of his discomfort. I am wondering if he sees the base as a challenge, not a home, something he has to manage, not something he is of. He was perhaps referring to this in December when he said you have “to lose the primary to win the general.” Actually you have to win it, but to really succeed you have to show you share the base’s heart, that you understand its beginning points and align with it on essentials. When you disagree with it you address those issues among friends, and with confidence. You can’t cover up differences in a passive-aggressive way—at their feet when you really want to be at their throat.

A certain resistance to the idea of Mr. Bush is bubbling up among some journalists and intellectuals. In an arresting piece in the Atlantic, David Frum asked if he is the Republican Obama —essentially bicultural, interested in transforming a nation he finds lacking. “Both Jeb Bush and Barack Obama are men who have openly and publicly struggled with their ambivalence about their family inheritance. Both responded by leaving the place of their youth to create new identities for themselves: Barack Obama, as an organizer in the poor African-American neighborhoods of Chicago; Jeb Bush in Mexico, Venezuela, and at last in Cuban-influenced Miami. Both are men who have talked a great deal about the feeling of being ‘between two worlds,’ ” Mr. Obama in his books and Mr. Bush in his speeches. “Both chose wives who would more deeply connect them to their new chosen identity. Both derived from their new identity a sharp critique of their nation as it is. Both have built their campaign for president upon a deep commitment to fundamental transformation of their nation into what they believe it should be.”

Jim Geraghty of National Review writes of “considerable evidence that there’s a lot of Jeb-skepticism out there among conservatives.” Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard says Mr. Bush may be “cornering the market” on professional Republicans but asks: “What is the case for a Bush restoration, beyond the fact that it would make the professional GOP comfortable once again? Why should average Republican primary voters—the insurance salesmen and truck drivers, not pollsters and policy advisors—choose Jeb over Scott Walker, Chris Christie , Ted Cruz, or the dozen other potential nominees?”

These are respected voices read by many conservatives...

More.

Shop Amazon - St. Patrick's Day

For my Irish readers --- and those who love to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Shop Amazon - St. Patrick's Day - Books, Party Supplies, Costumes & More.

'You know who you are'

Heh.

I love this, at the Hill, "Boehner reminds members of dress code: 'You know who you are'":

Boehner said that adhering to the House chamber rules dignifies the environment.

"Following the basic standards of practice will foster an atmosphere of mutual and institutional respect and will ensure against personal confrontation amongst individual members, between members, and the presiding officer," Boehner said.

"It will enable accurate transcriptions of the proceedings and, in sum, will ensure the comity that elevates the spirited deliberations above mere arguments," Boehner concluded.

The Future of Charlie Hebdo in Doubt

I suppose this dénouement was inevitable.

At WSJ, "Rift Among Charlie Hebdo Staff on Future of Newspaper Enriched by Tragedy":

PARIS—Less than two weeks after the terror attack that devastated their newsroom, Charlie Hebdo’s surviving staff members gathered in a borrowed conference room to discuss an unexpected dilemma.

The satirical newspaper, once on the edge of bankruptcy, was selling millions of copies, and many on its staff were suddenly demanding that it become a cooperative to give everyone a say in how to use the resulting windfall.

“It’s completely out of the question,” responded Laurent Sourisseau, known as Riss, one of only two surviving shareholders in Charlie Hebdo and its new top editor. Moments later, according to people present, he stormed out of the meeting.

A rift has emerged inside Charlie Hebdo over how the leftist newspaper should handle its transformation from a financially troubled niche journal to a global brand enriched by tragedy.

After burying their colleagues and getting back to work, many on staff are pressing the publication’s owners to give up their shares and place the newspaper in the hands of all its employees. But those atop the newsroom—including Mr. Sourisseau, who received his 40% stake as a symbolic gesture when the shares were essentially worthless—have resisted, saying it is too early to make any changes.

“I don’t think a cooperative is the best way to run a newspaper,” said Gérard Biard, the No. 2 editor under Mr. Sourisseau, in an interview. “Money can make people crazy.”

A spokeswoman declined to make Mr. Sourisseau available, and he didn’t respond to requests for comment.

On Wednesday, after a pause to regroup, Charlie Hebdo will publish its second issue since brothers Chérif and Said Kouachi assaulted its offices on Jan. 7, killing eight staff members and four others in what the terrorists said was retaliation for the newspaper’s caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

The attack turned Charlie Hebdo into one of the world’s best-known symbols of free expression, with the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan resonating globally. But it also brought to light long-simmering tensions inside and outside the weekly, where the biggest commercial successes have often come when it has been at its most controversial, particularly in its treatment of Muslims and Islam.

In the weeks since the attacks and Charlie Hebdo’s decision to print another caricature of the Prophet Muhammad, the newspaper has sold nearly eight million copies, more than 200 times the normal level, which will generate about €12 million ($13.6 million) after printing and distribution expenses, the distributor said. It has also attracted 250,000 new subscribers who each spent roughly €100 for a year, and it received around €4 million in donations, a lawyer for the newspaper said.

At the same time, Charlie Hebdo has faced sometimes violent protests across the Muslim world. Online, a counter movement dubbed “Je ne suis pas Charlie” (I am not Charlie) has also gained momentum. A former Charlie Hebdo staffer, Delfeil de Ton, blamed murdered editor Stéphane Charbonnier for provoking the assault, asking in an article published last month in French magazine l’Obs: “Why did you drag the whole team along in your escalation?”

Inside the newspaper, there is debate over how—or whether—Charlie Hebdo should assume the mantle that has been thrust upon it. It has already, with the help of the French newspaper Le Monde, released a smartphone app, and it will continue to offer a digital version with English translations. A complete redesign is planned for the fall.

Some inside the newsroom say Charlie Hebdo must reject its new symbolic role. Others say they must embrace it. “We must become a global newspaper of freedom,” said Patrick Pelloux, a veteran Charlie Hebdo columnist. “It’s an enormous responsibility.”

Amid the debates, there appears to be broad internal agreement that Charlie Hebdo must not let its newfound wealth and readers change its editorial tone...

More.

Chicago Mayoral Runoff

Exquisite.

At the Chicago Sun-Times, "Analysis: Runoff election is 'still Rahm's to lose' — and still a huge embarrassment."

Ontario Sex Ed Curriculum

Video hat tip: The Other McCain, "You Had Me at ‘Pansexual’."

Plus, at the National Post, "Ontario’s new sex ed covers homosexuality, masturbation — and consent. Not everyone’s saying ‘yes’," and "Read Ontario’s new sex ed curriculum for yourself."

'Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature'

Here's Robert Stacy McCain's new book:

Radical feminism has declared war on human nature. Feminists assert that everything most people think of as normal and natural about sex -- including basic ideas about what it means to be male and female -- is oppressive to women. Award-winning journalist Robert Stacy McCain examines these theories and warns that feminism's radical ideas about "equality" could destroy our civilization.

This is cool. Buy the book.

3 Jihad Wannabes Arrested in Plot to Join Islamic State, Kill Obama

The FBI can't stop every one of these homegrown terror plots. One of these days the jihad wannabes are going to get lucky and pull off a major attack.

At iOTW Report, "3 NYC men arrested after plotting to join ISIS, kill Obama."

And at Blazing Cat Fur, "Two Uzbeks and a Kazakhistani walk into a bar."



More at the Los Angeles Times, "3 planned to kill in U.S. if unable to join Islamic State, FBI says."

And at CNN, "FBI: Three men attempted to join ISIS."

ADDED: From the Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Three Brooklyn Residents Charged with Attempt and Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to ISIL." (Via Memeorandum.)

The Science Is Settled: Yes, Leftists Are Less Patriotic

Heh.

From Rich Lowry, at National Review (with the headline above snagged from Instapundit), "Yes, Liberals Are Less Patriotic."

Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez, Suspect in Oxnard Metrolink Crash, Previously Convicted of DUI

At LAT, "Pickup driver in Metrolink crash was previously convicted of DUI, traffic violations."

Plus, "Story So Far: Metrolink derailment."

Bwahaha! Lunatic Left-Wing Attacks Boost Bill O'Reilly's Ratings on Fox

OMG this is hilarious!

The idiotic attacks from far-LWNJ David Corn are backfiring, big time. The O'Reilly Factor's not only getting a healthy ratings boost off the attacks, but turns out the loons at Mother Jones are getting played like a bunch of losers.

Don't stop, leftists! Don't stop lol!

At WaPo, "Crisis management, Fox News style: Bill O’Reilly goes for the jugular":

Bill O’Reilly and Fox News seem to have decided that the best defense is a good offense. A lot of offense.

Faced with accusations that he exaggerated some of his reporting exploits over the years, the combative cable news star has gone into full battle mode, employing the public relations equivalent of the nuclear option.

Since Mother Jones magazine published its story about O’Reilly’s claims last Thursday, O’Reilly has done far more than deny the allegations. He has called the story “slander” and labeled its principal author, David Corn, “a liar” and “a guttersnipe.” In one of the numerous interviews he has done with reporters, O’Reilly suggested that Corn should be put in “the kill zone” for his story.

He’s also been pushing around the reporters reporting the fallout. O’Reilly began an interview with this newspaper last week by saying, “I’m recording this, so you’d better report this accurately.” On Monday, he made his intent explicit, warning a New York Times reporter that if the coverage was inaccurate or inappropriate, “I am coming after you with everything I have. You can take it as a threat.”

This may not be the best way to make a crisis go away. And indeed, O’Reilly may not want it to.

O’Reilly’s aggressive statements have kept the Mother Jones story in the news for several days, which may have fueled a mini-bump in his ratings. The O’Reilly-hosted “O’Reilly Factor” attracted 3.33 million viewers on Monday night after several days of headlines, a 10 percent increase over his average for the month...

More.

Plus, at the New York Times, "Why O’Reilly Isn’t Going the Way of Williams."

President Franklin Delano Obama Addresses the Threat of 1930s Violent Extremism

From VDH, at Pajamas:

Imagine Obama as an American president in 1939.

“The United States has made significant gains in our struggle against violent extremism in Europe. We are watching carefully aggressions in Czechoslovakia, Austria, and in Eastern Europe. My diplomatic team has made it very clear that aggression against neighbors is inappropriate and unacceptable. We live in the 20th century, where the 19th century practice of changing borders by the use of force has no place in the present era.

“Let me be perfectly clear: Mr. Hitler is playing to a domestic audience. He adopts a sort of macho shtick, as a cut-up in the back of the class who appeals to disaffected countrymen. Our task is to demonstrate to Mr. Hitler that his current behavior is not really in his own interest, and brings neither security nor profit to Germany.

“As for acts of violence in Germany itself, we must express our worry to the German government over apparent extremism, but at the same time we must not overreact. As far as these sporadic attacks on random civilians, as, for example, during the recent Kristallnacht violence, we must keep things in perspective, when, for example, some terrorists randomly targeted some folks in a store. My job is sort of like a big-city mayor, to monitor these terrorist acts that are said to be done in the name of the German people. Let us not overreact and begin to listen to radio commentators who whip us up into a frenzy as if we were on the verge of war. We must not overestimate the SS, a sort of jayvee organization that remains a manageable problem.

“Here let me just say that we must never fall into the trap of blaming the German people abroad, but especially our German community here at home. National Socialism by no means has anything to do with socialism. These terrorists are desperate for legitimacy, and all of us have a responsibility to refute the notion that groups like the SS somehow represent socialism because that is a falsehood that embraces the terrorist narrative. It is true that America and Germany have a complicated history, but there is no clash of civilizations. The notion that the America would be at war with Germany is an ugly lie.

“So make no mistake about it: National Socialism has nothing to do with Germany or the German people but is rather a violent extremist organization that has perverted the culture of Germany..."

More.

Fox News Mounts Aggressive Defense Against Unhinged Leftist Attacks on Bill O'Reilly

Heh.

At the New York Times, "Bill O'Reilly and Fox News Redouble Defense of His Falklands Reporting":

The Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Monday stepped up his defense against reports that he embellished stories about his war reporting earlier in his career, while some former colleagues continued to say he had exaggerated his experiences.

Mr. O’Reilly is contesting an article in the magazine Mother Jones and subsequent interviews with former journalists at CBS News that accuse him of misrepresenting his coverage of the Falklands war in 1982 as a young correspondent for CBS News.

The central dispute is whether Mr. O’Reilly reported from active war zones, as he has repeatedly said on the air and in his 2001 book, “The No Spin Zone: Confrontations With the Powerful and Famous in America.”

Mr. O’Reilly has said that he had never claimed he reported from the Falkland Islands, where the fighting occurred. “I said I covered the Falklands war, which I did,” he said last Friday. He went on to describe his coverage of protests in the aftermath of the war on the streets of Buenos Aires, some 1,200 miles from the Falklands.

On Monday’s show, Mr. O’Reilly played CBS News footage from 1982 that showed the violent protests and quoted other correspondents describing the scene. He also included an interview with Don Browne, a former NBC News bureau chief who oversaw coverage of Latin America, who said there were tanks on the streets of the Argentine capital. “It was a real country at war,” Mr. Browne said. “It was a very intense situation where people got hurt.”

Mr. O’Reilly’s efforts to refute the claims by Mother Jones and some former CBS News colleagues occurred both on the air and off on Monday. During a phone conversation, he told a reporter for The New York Times that there would be repercussions if he felt any of the reporter’s coverage was inappropriate. “I am coming after you with everything I have,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “You can take it as a threat.”

David Corn, one of the reporters on the Mother Jones piece, said that the issue was not whether Mr. O’Reilly had reported on a violent protest, but whether Mr. O’Reilly had reported from a war zone...

More.

And see especially Jonathan Tobin, who lampoons the left's attacks as a "non-scandal," at Commentary, "Forget O’Reilly, Fox Is Still the Real Target":

When you host the most-watched cable news show and do it on the Fox News Channel, you’ve got to expect your share of brickbats from the left. So it was not terribly surprising that in the wake of the Brian Williams scandal, some on the left would seek to take down someone on the right, especially one of the stars of the dominant cable news channel that liberals love to hate. But as much as the commentary about this non-scandal that is being hyped as one has understandably revolved around Bill O’Reilly and his incendiary personality, it has little to do with him and everything to do with the antagonism that the left feels toward his network.

Despite the attention being lavished on this story by Fox rival CNN, there’s not all that much here to unwrap. The story published by Mother Jones magazine has an inflammatory headline comparing O’Reilly to Brian Williams, but even if you take the piece at face value — which is unjustified by its clear bias and use of innuendo — the comparison is pure hyperbole. There’s no dispute about O’Reilly being on the scene in Buenos Aires as riots convulsed Argentina as the Falklands War came to a disastrous end for that country. Nor is there [...] real dispute that those riots were violent and that people were shot there. The only possible point on which O’Reilly can be called out is whether reporting from Argentina can be termed “war reporting” or “combat” since he was not in the Falklands but rather on the Argentina home front.

It is, at best, a semantic point....

As we have come to see, Fox isn’t just the most-watched cable news outlet. It is the scapegoat for all of the anger harbored by both liberal journalists and politicians toward those who question their policies. It is no accident that both President Obama and Attorney General Holder regularly use Fox as a punch line in their speeches to tame liberal audiences. It is not so much an antagonist as it often pursues negative story lines about the administration that mainstream liberals ignore as it is a metaphor for the Democrats’ inability to silence dissent against their beloved president or his policies.

Fox’s conservative bias is no secret, though it is far more balanced at times than the openly and almost uniformly left-wing voices heard on MSNBC and often fairer than the supposedly down-the-middle CNN. The channel’s popularity is a function of the fact that almost half the country feels disenfranchised by mainstream outlets that cover up their liberal tilt with a veneer of faux objectivity.

This motive wouldn’t protect O’Reilly if he was actually caught in a Williams-style lie. But he wasn’t, so the intense focus on him on CNN tells us more about liberal resentment than it does about his supposedly fast-and-loose style.

Perhaps O’Reilly would be better off just ignoring the attacks as pinpricks from a jealous rival. But it’s hard to blame him for defending his reputation, especially when characters like Engberg are concerned. But though his furious response may have given this story some extra life, all it really has done is give us another opportunity to ponder the left’s pointless Fox obsession.

And yet still more, at Mediaite, "Ex-NBC Bureau Chief Backs Up O’Reilly’s Account of Falklands War Riot."

Path Clears for Net Neutrality Ahead of F.C.C. Vote

Lame.

At NYT, "As Republicans Concede, F.C.C. Is Expected to Enforce Net Neutrality":

WASHINGTON — Last April, a dozen New York-based Internet companies gathered in the Flatiron District boardroom of the social media website Tumblr to hear dire warnings that broadband providers were about to get the right to charge for the fastest speeds on the web.

The implication: If they didn’t pay up, they would be stuck in the slow lane.

What followed has been the longest, most sustained campaign of Internet activism in history, one that the little guys appear to have won. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote to regulate the Internet as a public good. On Tuesday, Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, all but surrendered on efforts to overturn the coming ruling, conceding Democrats are lining up with President Obama in favor of the F.C.C.

“We’re not going to get a signed bill that doesn’t have Democrats’ support,” he said, explaining that Democrats have insisted on waiting until after Thursday’s F.C.C. vote before even beginning to talk.

“I told Democrats, Yes, you can wait until the 26th, but you’re going to lose the critical mass I think that’s necessary to come up with a legislative alternative once the F.C.C. acts,” he said.

In the battle over so-called net neutrality, a swarm of small players, from Tumblr to Etsy, BoingBoing to Reddit, has overwhelmed the giants of the tech world, Comcast, Verizon and TimeWarner Cable, with a new brand of corporate activism — New World versus Old. The biggest players on the Internet, Amazon and Google, have stayed in the background, while smaller players — some household names like Twitter and Netflix, others far more obscure, like Chess.com and Urban Dictionary — have mobilized a grass-roots crusade.

“We don’t have an army of lobbyists to deploy. We don’t have financial resources to throw around,” said Liba Rubenstein, Tumblr’s director of social impact and public policy. “What we do have is access to an incredibly engaged, incredibly passionate user base, and we can give folks the tools to respond.”

In mid-October, the technology activist group Fight for the Future acquired the direct phone numbers of about 30 F.C.C. officials, circumventing the F.C.C.’s switchboard to send calls directly to policy makers at the agency. That set off a torrent of more than 55,000 phone calls until the group turned off the spigot Dec. 3.

In November, President Obama cited “almost four million public comments” when he publicly pressured the F.C.C. to turn away from its paid “fast lane” proposal and embrace a new regulatory framework.

Since then, the lobbying has only grown more intense. Last week, 102 small Internet companies, including Yelp, Kickstarter and Meetup, wrote the F.C.C. to say the threat of Internet service providers “abusing their gatekeeper power to impose tolls and discriminate against competitive companies is the real threat to our future,” not “heavy-handed regulation” and possible taxation, as conservatives in Washington say.

On Feb. 5, the Mozilla Foundation, makers of the popular Firefox web browser, posted a pro-net neutrality banner just below its search window, proclaiming, “In just a few days, the web could change forever,” and imploring users to sign the firm’s petition; close to 300,000 have signed, said Dave Steer, Mozilla’s director for advocacy, who has helped mobilize Silicon Valley for Net Neutrality.

“This is not East Coast-West Coast thing. It’s not a for-profit company versus nonprofit thing. It’s all of us,” he proclaimed. “We came together under the banner of Team Internet.”

Republicans who had branded net neutrality “Obamacare for the Internet” have grown much quieter under the barrage.

“Tech companies would be better served to work with Congress on clear rules for the road. The thing that they’re buying into right now is a lot of legal uncertainty,” said Senator Thune, who warned that the F.C.C.’s new rule would face litigation from opponents and a possible reversal from a future, more Republican F.C.C. “I’m not sure exactly what their thinking is.”

More.

Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism

Here's the link to Stanley Kurtz's opus, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism.

President Barack Obama surprised many voters during a pre-election interview when he approvingly noted that Ronald Reagan had “changed the trajectory of America” in a way that other presidents had not. In effect, Obama was saying that he, too, aimed to transform America in some fundamental way. Yet while Americans in 1982 may have been divided over Reagan’s politics, at least they knew what he stood for. Do we really understand Obama’s vision for our country?

In his controversial new book, veteran journalist Stanley Kurtz culls together two years of investigations from archives and never-before-tapped sources to present an exhaustively-researched exposé of President Obama’s biggest secret—the socialist convictions and tactical ruthlessness he has long swept under the rug.

A personable figure, a thoughtful politician, and an inspiring orator, Obama has hidden his core political beliefs from the American people—sometimes by directly misrepresenting his past and sometimes by omitting or parceling out damaging information to disguise its real importance. The president presents himself as a post-ideological pragmatist, yet his current policies grow directly from the nexus of socialist associates and theories that has shaped him throughout his adult life.

Kurtz makes an in-depth exploration of the president’s connections to radical groups such as ACORN, UNO of Chicago, the Midwest Academy, and the Socialist Scholars Conferences. He explains what modern “stealth” socialism is, how it has changed, and how it continues to influence the Democratic Party. He sheds light on what the New York Times called a “lost chapter” of the president’s life—his years at Columbia—and proves that Obama’s youthful infatuation with socialism was not just a phase. Those ideas have shaped his political views and set the groundwork for the long-term strategy of his administration.

It could be argued that Obama’s past no longer matters, but, in a sense, it matters more than the present. Obama has adopted the gradualist socialist strategy of his mentors, seeking to combine comprehensive government regulation of private businesses with a steadily enlarging public sector. Eventually, in his hands, capitalist America could resemble a socialist-inspired Scandinavian welfare state.

The gap between inner conviction and public relations in Obama’s case is vastly wider than for most American politicians. If Americans understood in 2008 the facts Kurtz reveals in this shocking political biography, Obama would not be president today. The fears of his harshest critics are justified: our Commander-in- Chief is a Radical-in-Chief.