Some thoughts from Ken at Popehat on the plaintiff’s legal prospects:
Yesterday the other shoe dropped and Mann sued NRO, CEI, Steyn, and Simberg in D.C. Superior Court for libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress (or, as I prefer to call it, Butthurt in the First Degree). The Legal Times has posted the complaint. I’ve reviewed it, and have some initial thoughts.
First, the complaint seems almost calculated to support likely conservative narratives about it. It’s very heavy on arguments by authority, citing the National Science Foundation and Columbia Journalism Review and Discovery Magazine and others for its propositions that the defendants are simply wrong in their criticisms of Mr. Mann. It fairly drips with righteous indignation over the existence of persistent global warming deniers. Global warming skeptics have been asserting that the scientific establishment is hostile to any dissent on global warming; this complaint isn’t going to dispel that impression.
Investigative journalist Aaron Klein has reported that the “consulate in Benghazi” actually was no such thing. He observes that although administration officials have done nothing to correct that oft-repeated characterization of the facility where the murderous attack on Stevens and his colleagues was launched, they call it a “mission.” What Mr. Klein describes as a “shabby, nondescript building” that lacked any “major public security presence” was, according to an unnamed Middle Eastern security official, “routinely used by Stevens and others to coordinate with the Turkish, Saudi and Qatari governments on supporting the insurgencies in the Middle East, most prominently the rebels opposing Assad’s regime in Syria.”
We know that Stevens‘ last official act was to hold such a meeting with an unidentified “Turkish diplomat.” Presumably, the conversation involved additional arms shipments to al Qaeda and its allies in Syria. It also may have involved getting more jihadi fighters there. After all, Mr. Klein reported last month that, according to sources in Egyptian security, our ambassador was playing a “central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.”
Unfortunately, they can, and they undoubtedly will:
You would think that at some point, decent people would be ashamed to be associated with the Democratic Party. For all too many, that hasn’t happened yet. In the meantime, fasten your seat belt, because the Democrats are about to pull out every stop in their desperate greed to hang on to unearned wealth and political power.
Nope, they’re shameless. We saw that in the nineties.
Has Al Gore’s life been completely in vain? Actually, perhaps we should thank him for his hyperbolic support of his cause — it helped us to kill it off.
Shock horror! Guilty as charged! Santa Claus smokes! He also breaks and enters, travels without a passport, violates the terms of goodness knows how many countries’ airspace, and doesn’t pay taxes. He is overweight and he has little plan to do much about it. He’s a terrible drunk, at least in Britain and Australia, where he is left sherry; and in Ireland, where he is traditionally provided with beer. He fails on the diversity and equal-protection fronts, too. His name, “Santa Claus,” comes from the Christian tradition, and yet he presumes imperiously to shower gifts on all the world’s children. Well, actually not all of them. Being a dastardly Manichean sort, Santa divides children into “naughty” and “nice” categories and allocates their gifts accordingly. Moreover, his offerings are desperately unequal: Some children get more and nicer gifts than others. In some households, parents do not receive any at all.
Here’s an interesting commentary by Scott Pace and…Eric Anderson. I would have thought that an unlikely combination. Note the lack of specifics, including a monster rocket. Which is a good thing, I guess. It’s basically just “Obama’s space policy sux, and Romney’s will be great.” I’m thinking it’s not likely to move anyone’s vote.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s the counterpoint lauding Obama’s policy. I have to say that I agree with the criticism of Romney. If I were a single-issue voter on space, I’d vote for Obama, except for the fact that his general economic policies are harmful for small business and startups, which would make it harder to develop a privatized industry.