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.)

DEALS SO GOOD THEY’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! At Amazon, it’s the April Fool’s Day Shop.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON THE HORACE MANN SEX SCANDALS: “When sex scandals erupted in the Catholic Church and Penn State’s football programs, we heard a lot about how the sick culture and institutions of religion and football created a safe space for pedophiles. Why no similarly harsh words for private school?” Same reason there’s no systemic criticism for sex scandals in public schools. “What explains the difference? The obvious candidate is the demographics of columnists and academics who write about these things. Few of them are football players. Few of them are practicing Catholics (or social conservatives). But a fair number of them went to private school, or send their children there. Even if they are prone to question the institution as an institution, doing so would be awfully uncomfortable. And it might not do much for little Emily’s chances at Brearley.”

Related: Why your newspaper is dying.

IS THIS A BIG F***’ING DEAL? Uh, Oh. Now Obama’s OFA is Cursing At Us In Fund Raising Messages.

“SAY, THAT NATIONAL CONVERSATION ON GUNS IS REALLY COMING ALONG WELL, HUH?” Alabama Democrat Calls Concerned Gun Owner ‘Slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed.’

SUPREME COURT VICTORY FOR PRIVACY:  In all the hullabaloo over the Court’s oral arguments in same-sex marriage cases this week, one interesting opinion issued on Tuesday has been largely overlooked:  Florida v. Jardines.

In a close 5-4 decision, the Court concluded that using a trained dog to sniff for drugs on the porch of a home violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches.  Because the porch of a home is within its “curtilage”–lawyer-speak for the land and buildings immediately surrounding a home–officers needed to obtain a warrant or the owner’s consent prior to bringing the detection dog within this important private realm.

Related:  Steve Chapman at the Washington Examiner criticizes the narrowness of the Court’s opinion, asserting, “Plenty of urban residences are within a few feet of a sidewalk, making them vulnerable to an accusatory Labrador retriever.”  Such public sidewalks next to “urban residences” would not be within the curtilage and hence, presumably wouldn’t qualify for the special treatment afforded in Jardines.

THE CHARM OFFENSIVE CONTINUES:  President Obama plans to ramp up the charm again by hosting a dinner with Republican Senators on April 10.  He might also want to try ordering several bottles of good red wine, looking intently into their eyes when they speak, telling them how smart and special they are, and laughing at their jokes.  Works every time.

GOOD ADVICE:   Don’t draw a penis on your male friend’s face with a permanent marker while he’s sleeping.   But you have to admit the resulting mugshot is mighty funny!

WORLD WAR III BEGAN WHEN ALBERT SHANKER GOT HOLD OF A NUCLEAR WEAPON PEPPER-SPRAY CONTAINER: “A bumbling TSA agent ‘playing around’ with a pepper-spray container at Kennedy Airport fired the caustic liquid at five fellow screeners yesterday, sending all six to the hospital.”

REBUILDING VENEZUELA AFTER CHAVEZ, at Venezuela News And Views:

Under Chavez no major infrastructure work has been completed except for the occasional show off for electoral purpose, a small cardio hospital for children here, a cable car of limited capacity there. We live today on basically the same infrastructure that existed in 1999. But the economic needs have grown, and that structure has not been managed as it should have been done. As a consequence it is now overextended and  not only because it was insufficient in 1999, but the country has added a few million people while what has become an import economy forces  distribution of all what is consumed in Venezuela from not even a half dozen harbors.  A centralized logistical nightmare or corruption and inefficiency.

That passage resonates for some reason in America…

DISPATCHES FROM CLOWARD-PIVEN UNIVERSITY: Surging Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing the System.

(Via Newsalert.)

GEORGE WILL ON “BIPARTISAN ABDICATION“:  Interesting column today about congressional acquiescence in recent decades to assertions of presidential power in the realm of the two branches’ shared power over the military.  Congressional avoidance of all sticky political issues arguably goes even further than just the use of military power; witness incessant delegations of power to executive agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Dodd-Frank), the Independent Medical Advisory Board (IPAB), the EPA, and on and on.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: “If You Find Yourself in Bed with Jeffrey Toobin, Get Out.”

ENERGY STATES TO FEEL UNCLE SUGAR’S SEQUESTRATION BLUES: Watchdog.org’s Rob Nikolewski reports that 35 states, including New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming, have been told to expect a 5 percent cut in their federal mineral payments, thanks to sequestration. It’s real money, too, as seen in the $53 million hit for Wyoming and $26 million for New Mexico.

THE ACCIDENTAL PUBLIC FIGURE: Michael Mann discovers “You can’t promote yourself and your work in the media and then claim ‘my critics turned me into a public figure.'”

(Via Mann’s bete noire, Mark Steyn.)

MINISTRY OF TRUTH SLACKING OFF ON THE JOB: North Korea ‘Photoshopped’ marine landings photograph.

It’s one thing to share nuclear technology with them, but the hermit kingdom really needs to stop taking its Photoshop advice from Iran.

WHAT DEFINITION OF “SECRET” IS THIS GUY USING?:   Chris Frates at the National Journal has just penned an article about “The Secret Republican Plan to Repeal ‘Obamacare’: And Why the Fight is Far From Over.”  

Um, dude, it isn’t a “secret.”

Jennifer Rubin at WaPo explains why the opposition to O-care just isn’t subsiding.  It’s the 3Cs:  Cost, Complexity, and Coercion.

MICHAEL YON: Tragedy in Thailand.

IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING NICE FOR ME WHILE I’M ON VACATION, pre-order the Insta-Wife’s book (bumped).

THE CRUCIAL WORD NOT APPEARING IN THIS ARTICLE ON WALMART’S STAFFING WOES: “And what is that word?”, Moe Lane asks. “Why, it’s Obamacare:”

Walmart has earned this.  By supporting Obamacare in the first place the company decided to put politics above its mission statement, which is to sell reasonably sturdy consumer goods to middle and lower income workers at reasonably cheap prices.

You would have thought they’d have learned their lesson in 2011, when Wal-Mart backed away from supporting Al Gore’s environmentalism:

The failure, in large part, can be pinned to Leslie Dach: a well-known progressive and former senior aide to Vice President Al Gore. In July 2006, Dach was installed as the public relations chief for Wal-Mart. He drafted a number of other progressives into the company, seeking to change the company’s way of doing business: its culture, its politics, and most importantly its products.

Out went drab, inexpensive merchandise so dear to low-income Americans. In came upscale organic foods, “green” products, trendy jeans, and political correctness. In other words, Dach sought to expose poor working Americans to the “good life” of the wealthy, environmentally conscious Prius driver.

* * * *

Like other real-world experiments, the Wal-Mart story exposes the failure of progressivism in the marketplace, as the Dach strategy has been a fiasco: the merchandising turned off low-income (and largely Democratic-leaning) customers. Says former Wal-Mart executive Jimmy Wright:

The basic Wal-Mart customer didn’t leave Wal-Mart. What happened is that Wal-Mart left the customer.

Wal-Mart seems determined to live out at least two of Conquest’s Laws:

1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.

2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.

3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

Lather, rinse, and repeat, at least until you realize that appeasing your enemies does not make them your friends. (Or you run out of customers.)

HELLO, SUCKERS!

THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY . . . IN THE BATHROOM?:  A minor league baseball stadium in Pennsylvania has installed video game monitors above urinals.  While I have no conceptual problem with this (other than the inefficiency it may cause), I wonder if  the women’s stalls will get the same privilege?

CATCH $22: Elizabeth Warren’s $22 intellectual Waterloo.

EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN: How Iran Could Get The Bomb Overnight: Building a nuclear weapon takes time. Buying one does not. If I were the CIA, I’d flood the black market with fake bombs that look like they’ll work, but fizzle if detonated.

VIDEO: Illegal immigrant climbs border fence right in front of McCain and Schumer.

RELATED: Your Amusingly Juxtaposed Illegal Immigration Headlines o’ the Day.