SOCIETY: There Goes The Neighborhood

Guess what? There's a genuine hate group right here in my own backyard!

A list of national hate groups produced by an internationally known civil rights organization now includes the name of MSU's chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, the first university-affiliated group to be placed on the list.

The Southern Poverty Law Center's annual Hate Group list, which names more than 800 groups in the country and 25 in Michigan, is predominantly symbolic and does not imply any consequences or penalties.

This is probably just a simple misunderstanding, and any minute now they--

YAF also has been in the news for attempting to sponsor "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day" on campus. After much controversy and debate, the event was canceled.

Oh.

What I'm trying to figure out is, why a group with "for Freedom" in its name would be harrassing immigrants or espousing white separatism. It seems to me that if someone really cares about freedom they would be fighting the Bush administration's repeal of Habeus Corpus or its belief that it can hold anyone it wants indefinitely without trial. Maybe the YAF's next press release will explain everything.

ELECTION 0-FOR-8: I'm A Loser Babyyyyy

I enjoyed this post about Bob Shrum for several reasons, not the least being that people like Bob Shrum deserve to be mocked and belittled. Even his friends think he's a loser--yet he still gets hired to manage Democratic campaigns.

No, Mr. Shrum didn't run over my cat. But considering the stakes that ride on presidential elections it would be nice if, once in a while, Democrats hired someone with a track record of success.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Who's That Now?

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: figure out who the heck Thomas Sowell is talking about.

what has aptly been called "the politics of personal destruction" -- by one of its practitioners, Bill Clinton -- has become a growing cancer on the body politic

Huh? Whom did Bill Clinton "destroy" politically? I mean, I usually understand right-wing hatred of President Clinton (calling him a liar because he denied having an extramarital affair, mocking him for feeling people's pain, etc.) but this I just don't get.

You can search his column here for clues.

If you can stomache that, read this column where he says he dosn't care to hear about wounded soldiers, thank you very much. Or this one where he says lying to a grand jury isn't a crime. Me, I need some Pepto.

MEDIA: The Best of FoxNews

Via Welcome to Pottersville

Funny stuff. . . in that sad but horrifying way we've come to know these past six years.

SOCIETY: The Poor State of the American Family

Harold Meyerson writes on the breakdown of the traditional family in the latest American Prospect:

The conservatives are right that one decade, at least in its metaphoric significance, can encapsulate the causes for the family's decline. But they've misidentified the decade. It's not the permissive '60s. It's the Reagan '80s.

Read it here

Speaking of which, it's funny how conservatives who bemoan the endangered state of American marriage never mention that it was Ronald Reagan who gave our country its first no-fault divorce law.