THE UNION-LEADER GOES AFTER GUN-CONTROL PROPONENTS’ “BULLYING” OF SEN. KELLY AYOTTE: “What is disgusting is deliberately mischaracterizing someone’s position for the purpose of portraying that person as a willing accomplice to murder. That has been the left’s strategy since Newtown. It is a testament to the Senate that a majority of its members, including Ayotte, did not cave to such bullying.” Hiding behind victims and the grieving is a sort of rhetorical “human shield” strategy, designed to block counterarguments with claims that disagreeing with the victims is mean.

Indeed. Related thoughts here.

STUART ROTHENBERG: The He Said, She Said of Gun Control: Get Over It. “The deep disappointment coming from the White House, gun control advocates and the parents of Newtown, Conn., at the demise of the Manchin-Toomey Senate compromise gun bill is understandable. But some of the rhetoric following the amendment’s defeat has been over the top.”

Related: Support For Gun Control Bill Falls Below 50%.

POLITICO: GUN DEBATE TRIGGERED NEW HIGHS IN MEDIA BIAS:

If you thought President Obama was outraged after the Senate killed the plan to expand background checks on guns, you should have seen some members of the press.

Even by the standards of today’s partisan media environment, the response has been noteworthy. Television hosts, editorial boards, and even some reporters have aggressively criticized and shamed the 46 Senators who opposed the plan, while some have even taken to actively soliciting the public to contact them directly.

Conservatives are doubly frustrated because amid all this cheerleading, the media largely turned a deaf ear to one of the right’s central substantive arguments: There is little evidence that the Manchin-Toomey plan could prevent another Aurora or Newtown — a fact many reports glossed over. Indeed, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein recently stated on the Senate floor that universal background checks, while “very important… would not have been prevented the tragedy in Newtown.”

Nonetheless, leading media figures and outlets still tried to shame the Senate.

It’s pretty irritating, being shamed by people who have none themselves. And if you’re going to act as agitprop operatives for one party, don’t be surprised if people no longer give you the respect you feel you deserve as professional journalists.

Plus: “The media institutions of the Acela corridor are so disconnected from American society that Americans no longer pay attention.”

EVALUATION: Barack Obama can’t pass gun control despite 90 per cent support. Truly, he is a lame-duck president. “Yes, Newtown shocked the nation – but the top priority for the public remains the economy.”

ROLL CALL: After Gun Defeat, Where Does Obama Go From Here? “The president is vowing that the fight for tighter gun control measures is not over. But Obama’s cachet in Congress has always been low, and it appears his strategy for continuing to push the issue largely rests on something that has proved elusive to him in other recent policy fights, including this one: public pressure. . . . Despite public declarations of optimism from supporters on background checks, sources said privately that the Senate may never be able to pass those items. Republicans and many red-state Democrats — four of whom defected on the background check bill — still fear the repercussions of crossing the National Rifle Association.”

Also, their constituents. Gun-control supporters also poisoned the well immediately after Newtown by accusing the NRA, and gun-rights supporters generally, of being accomplices to murder — when they weren’t actually calling for them to be shot. That polarized things, making it harder for those swing Senators to endorse a bill. This sort of politics may be emotionally satisfying to Obama’s base, but Obama’s base wasn’t big enough to pass the bill.

The result: Headlines like the one above, or this one from The Hill: Senators reject gun control in devastating blow to Obama.

NO WONDER HE’S ACTING SO DESPERATE: Obama’s Approval On Guns, Immigration, Deficit Underwater. “Forty-five percent approve of the president’s push to reform the nation’s gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. school shooting, while 52% say they disapprove.”

And just look at this survey of police officers on gun control. It’s a damning indictment of pretty much the entire Obama approach to guns and crime.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Pro-Gun Laws Gain Ground: Since Newtown Massacre, More States Ease Regulations Than Bolster Them.

THERE’S NO IQ TEST FOR POLITICIANS: Obama: Fully Automatic Weapon Used In Newtown. Here’s the White House transcript.

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: WaPo: Firearms advocates target gun-control measures. “Gun-control measures that seemed destined to become law after the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., are in jeopardy amid a fierce lobbying campaign by firearms advocates.” Nice to see people standing up for civil rights, and against hysteria.

TWO REDFORDS IN ONE: “Actor-director Robert Redford used his opening address at the Sundance film festival last night to add to the pressure on Hollywood to rein in its depiction of gun violence in the wake of the Newtown school massacre,” the London Guardian reported in January.

The Guardian failed to mention that Redford’s next film, due out in American theaters early next month, is a homage to Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground. When it played the Venice Film Festival in September, Time magazine gave it a boffo review: “Robert Redford’s The Company You Keep: Old Radicals Die Hard:”

For how many decades of your life do you have to be the person you were in your twenties? Small-town lawyer Jim Grant (Robert Redford) wonders that when he hears the news that Susan Solarz (Susan Sarandon), a long-ago member of the Weather Underground who has lived incognito as a quiet housewife and mother, had been arrested and charged with murder for her radical activities in the ’70s. For Jim, the question is not academic. Under his real name, Nick Sloan, he had been one of Solarz’s comrades in the bombings of government buildings at exactly that period when political idealism soured into potentially lethal criminality.

This film sounds like the bomb!*

Time’s review adds, “The Company You Keep is streaked with melancholy: a disappointment that the second American Revolution never came…” I wonder if Time realizes the implications of those words, even as employees of Time-Warner-CNN-HBO continuously attack those Americans who would seek to defend themselves if it ever did.

Fortunately, to borrow a phrase used by one of Ayers’ acquaintances, Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity rhetorically punch back twice as hard at Redford’s moral equivalency; watch the video at The Right Scoop.

Incidentally, this isn’t the first Hollywood film that’s a paean to the Weathermen; 1988′s Running on Empty was directed by the late Sidney Lumet and starred otherwise good guy actor Judd Hirsch in the Ayers-inspired role of a former terrorist on the lam.

* To paraphrase the late Andrew Breitbart’s remarks in response to the dinner that Ayers himself served him, after the Daily Caller pledged the most in a fundraiser to win a surreal dinner date with Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn early last year.

UPDATE: Redford’s pro-Weathermen film was originally shot in 2011, and Kathy Shaidle was writing about it when it was previewed at Sundance in January of 2012:

Over twenty years after Running on Empty came out and more than ten years after Bill Ayers told The New York Times (in its 9/11/01 morning edition, no less) that he regretted not setting more bombs, Robert Redford’s next movie sees him playing “a fugitive Weather Underground radical who has been in hiding for 30 years.”

I suppose it makes for a nice change from Weather Underground radicals who teach at major universities and hang out with the president.

No doubt when the film, called The Company You Keep, tanks at the box office, Redford will issue a condescending statement bemoaning the ignorance of America’s moviegoing public. Thank God he doesn’t have to rely on us plebes, though. The 2012 Sundance Festival has just wrapped up, but it doesn’t take a weatherman to know which movie will top next year’s roster.

I wonder if the gap between when it was originally filmed, when it was previewed at Sundance and its opening in American theaters means that a lot of editing has been going on in an effort to salvage the film. That could also explain its relatively low rating at IMDB — 6.3 on a scale of one to ten — and IMDB readers definitely tend to grade on a curve — as of the time of this post.

(Cross-posted at Ed Driscoll.com, if you’d like to comment there.)

DEHUMANIZING ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC:  “[Anyone] who would run out to buy an assault rifle after the Newtown massacre has very little left in their body or soul worth protecting,” tweets Jim Carrey, in-between sparring with moviegoers on Twitter who disagree with his anti-Second Amendment viewpoint.

Presumably Carrey is wishing for his box office appeal to become increasingly “selective,” as Spinal Tap manager Ian Faith euphemistically explained his charges’ own declining popularity.

Update: An Insta-reader emails that Carrey’s hateful rhetoric is “a pretty harsh thing to say about Gabby Gifford’s husband….”

Meanwhile, Greg Gutfeld and Dana Loesch punch back twice as hard; including Loesch asking Carrey if he’ll be denouncing his own upcoming Kick Ass 2 movie, to remain consistent with his anti-gun rhetoric; Carrey bravely runs away in response. Unexpectedly.

(Bumped to top.)

ANDREW MALCOLM: Finally, Obama’s gun confession: Unable ‘to prevent every act of violence.’

THE HILL: Reid guts Senate gun control bill. “The gun control bill headed for the Senate floor bears little resemblance to the far-reaching proposal President Obama unveiled after the deadly shooting in Newtown, Conn. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided the federal assault weapons ban will not be a part of the base bill and warned Tuesday an expansion of background checks to cover private sales might not make the cut, either.” Good.

OBAMA CAN ONLY MAINTAIN A CRISIS ATMOSPHERE ON ANY ONE TOPIC FOR SO LONG: National Journal: Has The Gun Control Moment Passed? “At the start of this year, pressure was building for stricter gun laws with the country still in shock over the tragic shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. President Obama and gun-control advocates in Congress were ready to move quickly on legislation. Now, strong Republican opposition and a loss of momentum are putting the proposals at risk.”

Actually, most of the “pressure” came from the press and pundits who always support gun control. There was never any real groundswell of gun-control support. In truth, the NRA is closer to the public than Obama is.

CIVIL RIGHTS PROGRESS in Tennessee.

MORE BOGUS EDITING FROM MSNBC: Outrageous: How the left-wing media lied about Newtown ‘hecklers’.

Related: The Week: The bogus news story about the Sandy Hook ‘hecklers’: Outrage erupts on liberal sites, but the video tells a different story. “The problem is that Heslin wasn’t really heckled. The Connecticut Post seems to have exaggerated what happened, since video of the incident shows that Heslin asked a question, waited for a response, and received one.”

Via Twitter, I understand they’re still lying about it on CNN.

UPDATE: Shock: A few lefty outlets acknowledge media was wrong about Newtown ‘heckling’; Piers Morgan ‘apologizes,’ sort of.

WHY AL FRANKEN IS LOOKING IFFY ON GUN CONTROL: Minnesotans Buying Guns In Record Numbers. “Across the country, firearms industry analysts point to soaring numbers — including first-time gun buyers now making up a quarter of all sales and nearly 75 percent of gun retailers reporting sales boosts over last year. Minnesotans are riding that same wave, prompting more than 25,000 law enforcement queries tied to permit applications since Dec. 18. That’s more than double the 10,681 checks run for permits during the same period a year ago. . . . Those burgeoning numbers worry gun control advocates, who are puzzled that the reaction to the Newtown tragedy has been this massive firearms buildup.”

They don’t understand things very well, do they? But then, the gun-control movement is a bunch of old, out-of-touch white people, clinging to the politics of the last century.

JOHN FUND: Obama’s Completely Bogus 40% Number On No-Background-Check Gun Sales. “If you look at guns that were bought, traded, borrowed, rented, issued as a requirement of the job, or won through raffles, 85 percent went through Federal Firearm Licensees and would have been subject to a background check. Only 15 percent would have been transferred without a background check.” And even that is probably an overstatement today.

Plus: “And as for background checks, even the most vigorously policed would have done nothing to stop the killers at Newtown or the theater in Aurora, Colo. Adam Lanza stole his guns from his mother’s storage locker after murdering her, and Joseph Holmes’ problems with mental illness were not reported to authorities by his psychologist.” When you use a tragedy to peddle “solutions” that wouldn’t have prevented the tragedy, then you’re not really peddling solutions at all. . . .

NRA 1, OBAMA 0: White House may consider funding for police in schools after Newtown. Wait, weren’t the lefty pundits telling us that only an idiot NRA shill would endorse this idea? And someone should ask Rahm Emanuel if he’s changed his position . . . .

SOME THOUGHTS ON GUNS FROM SAM HARRIS:

Coverage of the Newtown tragedy and its aftermath has been generally abysmal. In fact, I have never seen the “liberal media” conform to right-wing caricatures of itself with such alacrity. I have read articles in which literally everything said about firearms and ballistics has been wrong. I have heard major newscasters mispronounce the names of every weapon and weapons manufacturer more challenging than “Colt.” I can only imagine the mirth it has brought gun-rights zealots to see “automatic” and “semi-automatic” routinely confused, or to hear a major news anchor ominously declare that the shooter had been armed with a “Sig Sauzer” pistol. This has been more than embarrassing. It has offered a thousand points of proof that “liberal elites” don’t know anything about what matters when bullets start flying.

Consider the sneering response of the New York Times editorial page to Wayne LaPierre, the NRA vice president, after he suggested that we station a police officer at every school in the country:

His solution to the proliferation of guns, including semiautomatic rifles designed to kill people as quickly as possible, is to put more guns in more places. Mr. LaPierre would put a police officer in every school and compel teachers and principals to become armed guards…. Mr. LaPierre said the Newtown killing spree “might” have been averted if the killer had been confronted by an armed security guard. It’s far more likely that there would have been a dead armed security guard—just as there would have been even more carnage if civilians had started firing weapons in the Aurora movie theater.

The phrase “designed to kill people as quickly as possible” should tell us everything we need to know about the author’s grasp of the issue. The entire editorial is worth reading, in fact, because it makes the NRA’s response to Newtown seem enlightened by comparison.

Read the whole thing. Including this: “But my thoughts soon return to the armed guard, because our laws generally do not allow us to prevent crime—even when a person’s bad intentions are reasonably well understood. As someone who has received repeated death threats—several of them from the same person—I know that little can be done in advance of an attack. In fact, our laws do not even allow us to keep the most violent criminals permanently off our streets. Eighty percent of the people languishing in our maximum-security prisons will eventually be released back into society—many having become more violent for their time behind bars—and 70 percent of those will return to prison after committing further crimes. We live in a country where nonviolent drug offenders receive life sentences but a man who rapes a fifteen-year-old girl and cuts her arms off with a hatchet can be paroled for good behavior after eight years (only to kill again). I do not know what explains this impossible distortion of priorities, but given that it exists, I believe that good, trustworthy, and well-trained people should have guns. . . . Rather than new laws, I believe we need a general shift in our attitude toward public violence—wherein everyone begins to assume some responsibility for containing it. It is worth noting that this shift has already occurred in one area of our lives, without anyone’s having received special training or even agreeing that a change in attitude was necessary: Just imagine how a few men with box cutters would now be greeted by their fellow passengers at 30,000 feet.”

THE ATLANTIC: This Is What Teachers Learning to Shoot Guns Look Like.

THAT’S GOING TO LEAVE A MARK: Gallup: NRA Much More Popular Than The Media.

Related: Even after shootings and media attacks, most Americans like the NRA. “Politicians, gun control activists, and media personalities have attacked the National Rifle Association in the wake of the shooting in Newtown, Conn., but a majority of the American people have a favorable view of the pro-gun organization. . . . The NRA’s image thus seems fairly resilient, as the poll shows they retain their support despite negative media attention.”

Well, to be fair, the NRA has an advantage: It’s not trying to take away anyone’s’ rights.

BYRON YORK: Journalists rush to take sides in gun debate. Well, actually they don’t take “sides.” They just take one side.

Should journalists be advocates for tougher gun control measures? It’s a question worth asking as more and more reporters, commentators, and TV anchors are openly promoting stringent gun policies in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.

It’s not just the ranters on the left, like MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who recently called National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre “the lobbyist for mass murderers.” O’Donnell is a controversialist who says things like that all the time. So is CNN’s Piers Morgan, who told the Gun Owners of America chief Larry Pratt, “You are an unbelievably stupid man” and “You shame your country.”

More notable are the ostensibly straight-news journalists who have come down on the side of stronger gun control. For example, when a Republican congressman, Georgia’s Jack Kingston, argued on MSNBC recently that tough gun control laws haven’t prevented mass shootings in some European countries, the network’s anchor, Thomas Roberts, responded, “So, we need to just be complacent in the fact that we can send our children to school to be assassinated?”

Earlier, while reporting from Connecticut, a CNN anchor, Don Lemon, burst into an impromptu appeal for action. “We need to get guns and bullets and automatic weapons off the streets,” Lemon said. “They should only be available to police officers and to hunt al-Qaeda and the Taliban and not hunt elementary school children.”

Also on CNN, anchor Soledad O’Brien sought a promise from Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott to take action on guns. When Scott declined, a clearly frustrated O’Brien said she hoped the gun conversation would become “meaningful” before she was forced to “cover another tragedy.” A few days before, when a conservative academic told O’Brien he believes having more guns among law-abiding citizens would reduce crime, she responded, “I just have to say, your position completely boggles me, honestly.”

It’s not just television. Twitter conversations among print journalists commonly include passionate denunciations of Second Amendment defenders, especially the NRA.

Don’t be surprised, journalists, if many Americans view you as the enemy as a result. Don’t blame them. You’ve taken sides. When you act as agents for the apparat, don’t be shocked when people think of you as apparatchiks.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Reflections on Newtown: A week after an American tragedy, what have we learned? Excerpt:

Is Hate A Liberal Value? A 20-year-old lunatic stole some guns and killed people. Who’s to blame? According to a lot of our supposedly rational and tolerant opinion leaders, it’s . . . the NRA, a civil-rights organization whose only crime was to oppose laws banning guns. (Ironically, it wasn’t even successful in Connecticut, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.)

The hatred was intense. One Rhode Island professor issued a call — later deleted — for NRA head Wayne LaPierre’s “head on a stick.” People like author Joyce Carol Oates and actress Marg Helgenberger wished for NRA members to be shot. So did Texas Democratic Party official John Cobarruvias, who also called the NRA a “terrorist organization,” and Texas Republican congressman Louis Gohmert a “terror baby.”

Nor were reporters, who are supposed to be neutral, much better. As The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg commented, “Reporters on my Twitter feed seem to hate the NRA more than anything else, ever. ”

Calling people murderers and wishing them to be shot sits oddly with claims to be against violence. The NRA — like the ACLU, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers or Planned Parenthood — exists to advocate policies its members want. It’s free speech. The group-hate directed at the NRA is ugly and says ugly things about those consumed by it.

Read the whole thing.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Reflections On Newtown.

AMY ALKON: Where Was Dad In All Of This? The Question Not Being Asked In Newtown Mass Murder.

KARL DENNINGER: Obama’s Hypocrisy Problem On Guns.

You may choose to delegate this responsibility to others, as Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama have, but your right to life is not inferior to theirs. It is equal. President Obama has no more right to live than you do. You are his equal from the standpoint of what your creator, and his creator, endowed both of you with.

So we have established that you have the right to live, as does the President. And if the President has the right to defend his life with deadly force, and indeed the responsibility to do so, then, should it be necessary, so do you.

This debate should end right there. Up until all of these people in political office disband their police forces, their Secret Service details, throw down their own arms, armored cars, body armor and other defensive means of interdicting assault they have nothing — not even a moral argument — behind them in their demand that you disarm and become an intentional victim — no matter who you are.

Still waiting to hear what kind of guns Rupert Murdoch’s and Mike Bloomberg’s security teams use. We pretty much know what Obama’s have to hand — and it’s a lot more than private citizens are permitted.

But there’s more:

But in truth it gets worse than that.

You see, our government has been running guns. Illegally running guns. Jaime Avila, in just one of many examples, purchased two rifles that were found at the scene of a federal agent shot near the Arizona-Mexico border. Our government knew Mr. Avila was illegally trafficking weapons to the Sinaloa drug cartel. Nonetheless, when his purchases were called into the BATFE for clearance the government intentionally approved the transactions despite knowing they were illegal.

Two of those hundreds of weapons came back over the border and were used to murder Brian Terry. Hundreds of Mexican citizens have been murdered with these guns in total — guns that our government illegally, intentionally and maliciously allowed to be delivered to this murderous cartel.

Mr. Avila’s sentence? 57 months in prison, or just under 6 years.

When?

Two days before the Newtown Connecticut shootings.

Media outrage? Zero.

They feign independence, but they’re basically courtiers.

IN HOLLYWOOD, a “creeping dread” of a crackdown on violent imagery.

Well, whatever. Until then, at least repeal the Hollywood tax cuts!

SHEILA JACKSON LEE: Turn In Your Guns. Also, if you have a gun, you’re not “part of America.”

Related: Disgraceful: Obama Invokes Newtown Massacre to Pressure Republicans to Go Along with His Tax Hikes. Grace is not his strong suit.

RESPONDING: Texas Gun Store Owner Offers Teachers Discount After Newtown Shooting.

ROGER KIMBALL ON THE NEWTOWN SHOOTINGS:

Details about the horrible school shooting in the Sandy Hook section of Newtown, Connecticut are still emerging. According to some reports, the shooter had “a dispute” with his mother, and so targeted her and her kindergarten class. As of this writing, it seems that 20 children and 7 adults, including the 20-year-old mad man who murdered them, are dead.

What can one say? The horror is particularly close to home for me and my family if only because until this year our son went to school in Newtown (but not at Sandy Hook). Mute horror seems appropriate as a first response to such obscene displays of malevolence. But already one is hearing the predictable homilies about “gun control,” as if depriving people of their liberties would somehow contravene evil.

It’s magical thinking. Or an effort to take advantage of people who engage in magical thinking.

IF REPUBLICANS ARE DROWNING IN A DEMOGRAPHIC TIDAL WAVE, WHAT EXPLAINS THIS CHART? State Government Control Since 1938.

Let me offer an alternative theory: The bigger role the national media play in a race, the worst Republicans do. So the GOP does well in state legislative races and governorships, and U.S. House races, because national media basically ignore those. Does worse in Senate races, where national media will sometimes take notice, worse still for Prez, where the national media pretty much control the game.

UPDATE: Reader Rick Licari writes:

Wasn’t there a study that showed Media bias causes the population to move significantly leftward from its natural leanings? I can’t remember the name of it nor who was involved, but it was a highly respected non-partisan professor and there was a mass of outrage after the study was published. This just goes as anecdotal evidence to that point: when people are focused on who will govern in their interests better (do things like not run deficits, provide the basics a government should provide, work for ALL their people, not just politically important groups, etc. and social issues (which are important, but not as important as, I don’t know, the well being of the country as a whole), massive distortions about the impact reducing spending will have on an average person’s life, and where both candidates will appear on a basically even plane for exposure to their own faults whatever they may be (outside of big cities, of course) those people will chose the serious candidate with a plan. At this point in time the ones with a plan are Republicans. Hell, the president himself couldn’t offer up anything except trying what’s already failed on a greater scale…and was allowed to get away with it, but when people looked at local races without hearing about binders full of women, perhaps they realized that those policies were failures (without recognizing they stemmed from the president himself).

I believe the study Rick’s referring to is the one in Tim Groseclose’s Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind. “Groseclose contends that the general leftward bias of the media has shifted the PQ of the average American by about 20 points, on a scale of 100, the difference between the current political views of the average American, and the political views of the average resident of Orange County, California or Salt Lake County, Utah.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Gordon writes:

In connection with your commentary on the influence of the national media on the outcome of elections, I would like to say that Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow directly supports your thesis. In fact, as I have been reading it in the days after the election, I am stunned by the number of relevant human thought biases that Kahneman discusses that were clearly exploited by the Democrats. It’s as though they used Kahneman’s points as a playbook, while the Republicans played the naive, straight man.

Your website has been an intellectual oasis, which our thirsty country desperately needs. I could not live without it. Thank you!

Only because of readers’ contributions like these.

MORE: Reader Juliana Vandermeer writes:

I happened to turn the tv and flip through the AM shows on Thanksgiving. It landed on the CBS morning show. Not that I need convincing, but it is clear how bias is woven into every aspect of even the most non-newsy type shows, including an AM show’s entry.

The opening of the show began with a replay of a joke on the Jimmy Fallon show. It was a joke that mocked Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich. I don’t remember the joke – something about fat turkeys – but two republicans were the punch line. This opened the show. Millions of people watch. Drip drip. Seep seep.

Yes, see my earlier suggestion that rich Republican donors would be better off targeting the lifestyle/women’s press than buying a bunch of overpriced TV ads. And note that Cathy Seipp was ahead of the curve on this. “Yes, Ann Coulter is extreme. But Eve Ensler is also extreme, and she’s in women’s magazines all the time.”

MORE STILL: A suggestion from reader Kevin Murphy: “The LA Times, the only newspaper in Los Angeles County, is for sale in bankruptcy. Considering the utter failure of Dems in California, it would be handy if there was a major newspaper willing to point that out.”

STILL MORE: John Hinderaker says I’m wrong.

WILL THE NEXT GOP CANDIDATE NOT ACCEPT THE MSM’S TERMS FOR DEBATE? I don’t just mean adopting Newt’s ability to use liberal debate moderators as chew toys. (Though that’s not a bad start.) I mean accepting which topics are and aren’t on the table to discuss during the campaign itself.

But in 2008, John McCain was afraid to mention Rev. Wright, for fear of being branded a crypto-racist. It didn’t matter; the media did so anyhow. (And then, like previous allegations against Joe Biden, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, once McCain lost, nobody cared or remembered; the r-word’s constant use by the left has denuded it into a tactical weapon, not a nuclear one.)

In 2012, Mitt Romney was afraid to bring up Benghazi for fear it would make him look like he was losing the election. Again, it didn’t matter – he lost.

I realize that being a presidential candidate is the equivalent of being the very visible CEO of an immense multimillion dollar enterprise that seeks to influence sixty million customers to buy its product. And life in that fishbowl existence makes anyone increasing reluctant to shoot from the hip, particularly as November approaches. And particularly, when you’re a GOP candidate who knows that your every statement will cause an enormous negative counter-reaction from the left.

But could the next GOP candidate grow more of a spine, and stop accepting what the MSM determines is and isn’t out of bounds for him to discuss?

‘DON’T MOVE THEM AFTER MIDNIGHT!’ Whoops! Newt Gingrich tweets, ‘Will Obama move terrorists from gizmo?’

ROGER KIMBALL: Newton’s first Law of Motion Applied to Political Strategy (with a brief excursus on Gaffes).

YOU KNOW, MAYBE IT IS RECKLESS DISREGARD JUST PUTTING BRIAN ROSS ON THE AIR: I had forgotten this libel case involving Brian Ross until reader Rich Andrews sent the link. Key bit:

Judge Crocker said Wednesday that he was convinced the NBC News reporters, Brian Ross and Ira Silverman, had ”serious subjective doubts as to the truth of the broadcasts” but went ahead anyway.

Frankly, at this point, just hiring the guy should send your libel insurance carriers into a frenzy. And would you want to be deposed about why you went ahead and hired him, after such a record of untrustworthiness? . . .

UPDATE: How bad is Brian Ross? Even Wonkette is calling for him to be fired:

Jesus fucking Christ on a hotplate. Brian Ross and his BLOTTER INVESTIGATIVE TEAM googled for a few minutes and didn’t bother trying to confirm anything and wow, huh, look at that, he was wrong. . . .

Tea Party people on the Internet are furious over this, and they have every right to be, because it’s an egregious, early error that will color the impressions of people no matter how frequently or aggressively it’s retracted. Can Brian Ross! Put him in the goddamn street. He is constantly wrong, at reporting on national television.

Would you write a libel policy for an outlet that employed him?

ANOTHER UPDATE: More anger.

MORE: Is ABC News’ Brian Ross Trustworthy? No. Next question?

STILL MORE: Reader Chad Hunter points out that the libel verdict was overturned. “In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that there was insufficient evidence to show that NBC News reporters had either deliberately lied or recklessly disregarded the truth, the legal standard that applies when libel suits are brought by public figures.” Hmm. Some people would nonetheless be chastened by such an experience. Ross not so much, apparently.

I AGREE WITH NEWT: Newt Gingrich: ‘Highly implausible’ I would be Romney’s running mate.

MY THEORY IS THAT THEY’RE HOLDING OUT FOR SOME SORT OF DEAL: Why Won’t Santorum and Gingrich Quit?

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:

Witness: Trayvon Martin Was Beating George Zimmerman When He Was Shot.

Spike Lee shouldn’t have tweeted Zimmerman’s home address.

Twitter explodes with hate following Cheney heart transplant.

Hate: CNN’s Roland Martin Prescribes ‘Shock Therapy’ for PJ Media’s David Steinberg, on Twitter.

Walter Russell Mead: How Green Gullibility, Hyperpartisanship Are Wrecking The Climate Movement.

Europe will never forgive the jews for Auschwitz.

Waiting for the barbarians.

Did Dick Cheney save Obama’s Presidency?

A new book from Niven, Pournelle, and Barnes. On Kindle, for $2.99.

The NHTSA Nannies Attack In-Car Navigation. Tar. Feathers.

Environmental Politics: Silence and Demonize.

Silence and Demonize: Tulane Prof Blasts Music To Drown Out Gingrich Speech.

Ranking law schools by debt load per graduating student.

TV Ads Promoting Negative Images of Men.

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Tulane Prof. blasts music to drown out Newt speech.

UPDATE: Reader Barry Dauphin writes: “My cousin, a Tulane Law grad, plans to print that blog post from Legal Insurrection and send it to the school when they send out the next alumni request for funds.”

EMP PREPARATION: A Drill to Replace Crucial Transformers (Not the Hollywood Kind):

The electric grid, which keeps beer cold, houses warm, and city traffic from turning to chaos, depends on about 2,100 high-voltage transformers spread throughout the country. But engineers in the electric business and officials with the Department of Homeland Security have long been concerned that transformers are vulnerable to disruptions from extreme weather like hurricanes, as well as terrorist and computer attacks and even electrical disturbances from geomagnetic, or so-called solar, storms. One such storm, in 1989, blacked out the entire province of Quebec, and this week, a transformer fire of unknown origin blacked out parts of Boston.

And while replacing transformers is not technically difficult, it is a logistical and time-consuming nightmare that can take up to two years.

So this week the industry and the government have been carrying out an emergency drill unlike any that electrical engineers can remember, to explore how quickly the country could recover from a crippling blow to the power grid.

It’s nice to see that people are taking this seriously, even though Newt was mocked for raising it a while back. But the mockers hadn’t been paying attention. Happily, people more serious than the political press have been.

And note this discovery: “Ordinary transformers are often too big and heavy to travel by road, and they require special rail cars. But because the transformers typically last 50 years, only a few dozen are shipped each year, so even the appropriate rail cars are in short supply. Ratcheting up the degree of difficulty, many of the places where a replacement transformer might have to go are no longer served by rail.”

BE BREITBART: So I read this letter from a reader at the Breitbart memorial tonight — partly for the closing, but also because it belies the media idea that there’s no enthusiasm among Republicans these days.

I attended my first caucus today.

It was a great experience. We filled a middle school cafeteria to the brim, there must have been almost a thousand people in attendence (just a wild guess). The caucus was well organized but unprepared for such a large turnout, they rolled with it and did a great job pulling it off.

Of the seven people from my precinct, only one had attended a caucus before. We are all involved now chiefly because of the man in the white house and our belief that he has the wrong policies for the problems facing the nation.

Being a caucus, the actual candidate will be elected at the state convention but our mini-straw poll for my precinct read 5 votes for Romney, 1 vote for Ron Paul and 1 vote for undecided.

Just thought you would like to know what’s going on up here in the Evergreen state.

Be Brietbart,
Greg in Seattle

They want you to be depressed and dispirited, but don’t be. Be Breitbart, who was never either of those.

UPDATE: Another reader writes:

I was just about to e-mail you about the Washington caucuses. This was the case in my area too. I live in a suburb of Seattle, an area that has had sent a republican to congress for a long time but has voted for democrat in presidential elections since Clinton’s second term. This seem consistent with the recent piece by Michael Barone regarding the Detroit suburbs. I think there are a lot more people that are aware that Obama is destroying any chance the Nation has of re-establishing prosperity than the MSM would like to admit.

Dave in Bellevue

Remember — they’re spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt because they need to. Don’t be fooled.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More email:

Just saw the post about the Washington caucus first-timer and how he was inspired by Breitbart. I had a strange feeling reading it, almost an out of body experience, as I could have written the same email, only thing that was different in my experience was the location – hotel conference room vs school. I was a first timer too, inspired by the need to replace the current administration and the impact that Mr. Breitbart has had on me. Our caucus had to delay the start by an hour due to overwhelming crowds, it was just amazing. Next I will attend the county caucus in April, a smile on my face and a Happy Warrior in my thoughts.

Good.

MORE: Reader L. Johnson writes:

I’m from the southern part of Washington State in Clark County. We caucused in a Middle School. When I caucused in 2010 (when the Tea Party was burning bright) only 3 or 4 people showed from my precinct. This year there were fifteen. We had representatives of each of the four candidates (mine was Newt), but I left with the impression that we will all support our eventual nominee in November. Actually, I think that a lot of us would crawl over broken glass to vote against President Obama in November. Some other precincts were so full that the people could not even get to their table and participated from two tables away. The material ran out before half the people received copies. Something is happening here in Washington State this year. I haven’t seen this level of intensity since 1994- and this seems much stronger.

Well, stay tuned. It’ll be stronger if people make it stronger.

Plus, a “Be Breitbart” icon.

BILL QUICK RELUCTANTLY CONCLUDES THAT it’s time for Newt to bow out. I have to say, though, I’m surprised at the number of Newt signs I’m seeing around here all of a sudden.

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:

Did White House Advisers Raise Red Flags On Solyndra As Early As March 2010?

Another sex scandal in the public schools. If priest-and-preacher scandals say something about organized religion, do these scandals say something about public education?

The importance of Vitamin D.

Is the U.S. government scaring Web businesses out of the country?

Republicans are stealing your ladyparts!!!

All Your Children Are Belong To Us.

Obama is trailing Ron Paul in Iowa. “The president defeats only Newt Gingrich, 51 percent to 37 percent.” So, you know, the strength of the Democratic field is probably overstated. . . .

From Mike Rappaport, thoughts on libertarians and conservatives.

Tom Maguire Fact-Checks Charles Blow, and finds Blow wanting.

Thoughts on Higher Education and the Replication of Hierarchy.

Despite earlier representations, Transportation Department still pushing ban on electronic devices in cars.

Gas Prices Highest Ever For This Time of Year.

Heartland Memo Looking Faker By The Minute.

NEW ORDERS FROM MEDIA CENTRAL: Boost Newt Now!

NEWT COURTS CPAC with Pizza and $2 Beers.

STACY MCCAIN: Newt’s Narcissism Problem (And Ours). “Let’s pause, my friends, to recognize that what I write on this blog, and what you reply in the comments, will never change anything about the Republican presidential primary campaign. And we would be guilty of exaggerating our own influence if we thought otherwise.”

In a nutshell, that’s why I haven’t seemed very interested — as various emailers have noted from time to time — in the Republican primary process. Nobody really excites me, but I’ll be quite happy to vote for the nominee, whether it’s Romney, Paul, Santorum, Gingrich, or Zeeba, over Barack Obama. Nor do I think the race is likely to turn on what gets written here.

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Systemic Reform: “Knowledgeable and respected authorities inside and outside the legal academy are correctly describing the American system of legal education as being in a state of ‘crisis’ and in need of dramatic reforms. Yet most members of the legal academy refuse to accept that major structural reforms are necessary.”

UPDATE: 12 more law schools facing class actions over employment data. The already-troubled Widener Law School is on the list, marking yet another non-feather in the cap of its star-crossed Dean, Linda Ammons. And if Widener was really fudging the numbers, then given its low ranking, how much worse would it be if the numbers were accurate?

IN FLORIDA, an epidemic of Mitt-Mania. “Attention young conservatives: Your grandma loves Mitt Romney. The phenomenal shift in the polls here in the Sunshine State — which has provoked much commentary and analysis about ‘strategy’ and ‘messaging’ — may in fact be little more complicated than that. And the massive crowd that turned out in downtown Naples today to hear and see Mitt was certainly evidence of how real Romney’s Florida surge is.”

Plus this: “If you set aside mere politics long enough to see the two Florida frontrunners as the average Republican voter sees them, it is hard to miss the contrast between Mitt — the tall, lean multimillionaire entrepreneur with dark hair and chiseled features — and Newt, the pudgy intellectual. Maybe you don’t judge presidential candidates by such standards, but it makes a lot of difference to Republican grandmas, and there are lots of Republican grandmas in Florida.”

HERMAN CAIN endorses Newt Gingrich.