The Corner's Mark Krikorian has the next best thing to "substantial evidence": He has secondhand anecdotal evidence from a guy on a panel at his anti-immigration think tank:

This is an empirical question -- some fires are caused by illegal aliens and drug smugglers (either campfires that got away from them or deliberate diversionary fires) and others are not. But the authorities are unwilling to discuss in public the possibility that a politically favored group (illegal aliens and smugglers) might have caused the fires -- kind of like the unwillingness to identify the religious tradition that Europe’s rioting "youths" belong to.

Arizona reporter Leo Banks talked about this recently:

The thing that kills me about these fires is Border Patrol and Forest Service won’t discuss that they are started -- that they are sometimes started -- and we don’t have 100-percent probability on this but we can be 95-percent sure -- that illegal aliens and smugglers start fires.

It's an empirical question! And ... there is still no evidence for it, but that's because of a conspiracy of silence. Every single authority involved is merely protecting a "favored group" of ... drug smugglers.

It's not just wildfires, either. I have substantial evidence -- based on some stuff I heard some guys say -- that illegal immigrants are also behind most of the rest of our problems.

• Unemployment: Immigrants stole all the jobs.
• Rising sea levels: While no one will speak on the record about it, because of "political correctness," most scientists and experts agree that the sea levels are rising because so many thousands of immigrants are swimming to America to sell drugs (the effect is akin to adding ice cubes to a glass).
• Tornadoes: Immigrants are often "hopped up" on the illegal drugs they are sneaking in the country to sell. With enough of a "buzz," meteorologists say (off the record), a couple dozen illegals could excitedly run in circles with enough speed and force to cause the deadly twisters that tore through the nation last month. 

We must build the danged fence before thousands more die.

Ward Cleaver is the best. Mike Brady is ok, but with a caveat: "We’re already moving into the era of alternative family structures...." It seems likely that Shapiro has never watched half these shows, but did perhaps thumb through a TV Guide or flip past Nick at Nite in the early '90s:

Archie Bunker (All in the Family, 1971-1979)

Archie is a good dad but a horrible person. Here’s where television begins to change from the respectful view of fathers to the flower-power view of fathers as racist, bigoted, old men you can mooch off of for years on end.

Steven Keaton (Family Ties, 1982-1989)

Steven is in one way a reversal, in another way, a step forward for liberals. Where liberals were militantly anti-father with regard to conservative dads, they’re all of a sudden in favor of traditional father roles when dad uses his authority to promote hippy liberalism. Steven always gets the last word, even if we love Alex.

It's culture commentary as grand conspiracy! "In 1985 the anti-cyborg LIZARD PEOPLE who control television allowed a positive portrayal of robots with 'Small Wonder' but by 1986 it was back to their typical electronics-bashing...."

Shapiro, formerly the world's youngest hack columnist, is no longer the world's youngest anything, and so I guess I can't begruge him his new schtick, but I can't imagine even the dullest wingnut feeling compelled enough by the thesis (all of your favorite trash TV is a plot against you!) to pick up an entire book on the subject.

The great Roy Edroso has been on the case of Shapiro's miserable worldview for some time and is required reading on the subject. But can I just:

Al Bundy (Married … With Children, 1987-1997)

A horrible father, a vulgar personality, and a cynical jackass. The Left’s newfangled view of traditional fatherhood takes Archie Bunker a step further, now stating that middle-American conservative dads aren’t good dads or good people.

Al Bundy was a blue-collar tragic hero, you dolt!

The fun listicle ends with a shot at the dads from "Modern Family," who are guilty of portraying gay parents, without showing the disastrous consequences of gay parenthood (generally: happy, well-adjusted children, from families where they always felt loved and appreciated, in my experience). Still: After complaining about the Left undermining fatherhood for years by presenting fathers as absent or abusive, the Left hands Ben Shapiro two perfect dads and he's still unsatisfied.

I can't imagine what he'll think of the pilot I created, "Three Dudes and a Horse, All of Whom Are Married to One Another, Raise Children in West Hollywood." (ABC just picked it up! Being on the Left is great!)

What I do know for sure: You can't trust anything Andrew Breitbart says or anything his websites claim until it's been independently verified by someone not affiliated with the right-wing media. The (universally male) right-bloggers who've been harassing the poor woman involved in this story (see here and here, if you have the stomach for gross, mouth-breathing sexism from a gang of inappropriately titillated creeps) are disgusting. And the more "respectable" conservative pundits and bloggers jumping on this story are transparently praying so hard that this kills Weiner's political career that they're embarrassing themselves.

Jonah Goldberg, for example, cannot get enough of "Weinergate," and I imagine him giggling every time he types that non-word.

He was the first to mention the story on the Corner this weekend, complete with a presumption of guilt that he did not bother to back up with any sort of argument or evidence. Having already interrupted his somber remembrance of America's fighting men and women in order to make the most obvious joke possible, twice, about this scandal and the congressman's last name, Goldberg wrote a longer post this morning practically salivating at the thought that "this will not end well for Congressman Weiner."

Here's one of Jonah Goldberg's patented Very Good Points:

At first his office said his Twitter account was “hacked.” Now he says it was all a “prank.” This is an important change in language because to claim his account was hacked is to claim he was a victim of a crime. Meanwhile a prank is something he can wave away.

He changed his story! First it was a "hack," meaning someone else gained access to his Yfrog account in order to embarrass him, and now it's a "prank," meaning someone else gained access to his Yfrog account in order to embarrass him, and also for a laugh.

Another Very Good Point -- the one that shows what this is actually all about -- is that Democrats would be all over this if it had happened to a Republican, and his proof is that the MSM was all over this when a Republican was actually convincingly proven to have done something like this:

I don’t think this is a colossal scandal, but the selective standards of the MSM drive me crazy. Recall that the NY-26 race we’ve just finished analyzing was a result of the fact that a sitting congressman had to resign because he sent a picture of himself without shirt to a woman on Craigslist. In 2006, Nancy Pelosi used Mark Foley’s scandal to help win back the Congress.

This makes sense only if you believe that it's "fair" for Republicans to invent their own "Democrat sex scandal" as "payback" for Democrats capitalizing on what Chris Lee did to himself. Yes, Democrats jump all over it -- or "sensationalize" it -- when a Republican does something weird and scandalous. But... Chris Lee's picture had his face in it, and the recipient of the picture confirmed the story. If you can't understand why the MSM would treat these stories differently (hint: not "liberal bias"!) you are maybe guilty of substituting wishful thinking for analysis. (Also, Jonah, a Mr. Eric Massa would maybe like a word with you about how the MSM treats congressional Democrats accused of odd sexual behavior!)

Later, Jonah claims that Weiner issued a non-denial denial, linking to a CNN video of Weiner taking questions on this scandal from a gaggle of reporters, which suggests that maybe the MSM isn't ignoring this story after all. (I'm also not sure if one is allowed to issue a non-denial denial after repeatedly issuing traditional denials, especially if that so-called non-denial denial takes the form of referring people back to your initial denials, repeatedly.)

Even the right-wingers actually paying attention to the facts of this story are saying things that seem bizarre to me. It is now taken for granted, for example, that Weiner is acting like a man who is guilty of something, because... he said he was hiring a lawyer. As Nathan Goulding writes, in his list of possible explanations for all this:

He was actually hacked. If this is the case, it opens up more questions than it answers. (Why has no one taken credit for it? Why hasn’t Weiner pledged to hunt down this guy, seeing as this story isn’t going away?)

Maybe no one has taken credit for it because the point was to make people think Weiner took and sent the photo. And doesn't "hiring a lawyer" count as working to "hunt down this guy"?

Anthony Weiner could be trying to make this all go away because he did something wrong. But it also seems possible that he wants it all to go away because it's a stupid, false story.

If you hate Weiner and hope very much that he'll depart public life in a humiliating fashion, I can see why you would be very excited about this. But it's way, way too thin right now to be as worked up as Goldberg and friends.

Case in point: With Donald Trump finished, his former supporters are now flocking to everyone else in the field -- besides Pawlenty. Romney gets three additional points, Bachmann adds three points, Gingrich gets two, and poor T-Paw still sits at the bottom.

Here's the problem: At the top of every poll are Mike Huckabee -- who may not even run and who is reviled by much of the Republican Party establishment -- and Mitt Romney -- who is the world's most transparent, unlikable phony. So the Republicans who actually want to win this next election and not "send a message" by nominating some unelectable buffoon are probably going to start trying to convince skeptical members of the conservative movement that backing the guy currently losing in every poll to every other candidate including Ron Paul is a really, really good idea.

That brings us to poor Stanley Kurtz, writing at the Corner, practically begging his friends and colleagues to make Palwenty into a front-runner through sheer force of pundit will:

Are we really so dense — so utterly dependent on the latest news cycle — that we are going to let a major opportunity like Pawlenty slip away out of the misplaced worry that he’s got “no name recognition?”

That is a solvable problem. Just watch: "Hey, Tim Pawlenty was a great conservative two-term governor of Minnesota! He’s tough on defense, conservative on social issues, and well liked by people from both sides of the aisle. He’s faced down Democrats time and again and won. He’s got the biography of a lunch-bucket Democrat and the outlook of a fiscally conservative Republican. And he can win! Yes, Tim Pawlenty can beat Barack Obama in a head-to-head battle for the presidency of the United States. Wake up, Republicans! The answer to your prayers is already running. And if all the pundits would just stop fantasizing for a minute about everyone who’s not running, maybe they’d pay more attention to who actually is."

There, do you recognize Tim Pawlenty’s name now? Well done. Like I said, name recognition is a solvable problem.

When you put it that way, Tim Pawlenty is the perfect candidate! Because he is apparently "Generic Republican"!

The fact that Pawlenty's name recognition is so low, after working so hard, and for so long, to run for president is partly because this far out, the media enjoy focusing on the "funnier" candidates. But it's also a reflection of the fact that the man is incredibly unexciting. People aren't interested in learning about him!

And I'm not sure if all the money -- or exasperated entreaties from Romney- and Huck-hating pundits -- in the conservative movement will change that.

But right-wingers were not so easily distracted. They knew that Barack Obama had done them a grievous injustice by coming out against the Ryan budget plan.

Rush Limbaugh, for one, seemed unhappy that the president didn't acknowledge the benevolent genius of Paul Ryan: "Obama spent 45 minutes vilifying Paul Ryan and 5 minutes on how we all need to get along." I guess the new definition of "vilifying" is "explaining at length why you disagree with someone." He didn't even mention Ryan! Unless there was a bit at the end that I missed where the president said, "Paul Ryan wants to kill your grandmother." (Wait, sorry, that was someone else. Or rather a great number of someone elses.)

Rush wasn't alone! It seemed like everyone on the right -- including Paul Ryan -- seemed a bit peeved that the president didn't explicitly endorse the brutal Ryan budget document and then call Ryan the smartest man in America and our new Secretary of Serious Grown-up Solutions.

Stephen Hayes called it:

One of the phoniest, most demagogic speeches from a sitting US president in recent memory. This after punting on his own budget. A disgrace.

I agree that the Democrats should've passed a budget last year. After that, though, Mr. Hayes loses me.

Where I saw a robust but largely uncontroversial defense of American liberalism coupled with undeniably moderate policy proposals, Reuters Breaking Views columnist James Pethokoukis saw a "class-warfare attack on Paul Ryan’s 'Path to Prosperity.'" Cato Institute senior fellow Michael Tanner went further:

President Obama's speech today was reminiscent of Stalin’s Order Number 227 to the Russian generals at the Battle of Stalingrad: "Not One Step Backward."

Oh, was it? Was it reminiscent of Stalin's Order Number 227?

Tammy Bruce and Neil Cavuto were not impressed. Rush Limbaugh's less talented brother brought up socialism, of course.

The Washington Examiner pointed out that Barack Obama tricked Paul Ryan into releasing his plan first, so that Obama could criticize it -- unfair! -- and, even worse, he "resorted to Huey Long tactics by making a punching bag of 'the rich,' that mythical top 2 percent of all Americans whose wealth the president famously told Joe the Plumber in 2008 that he just wanted to 'spread around.'" Did you know that rich people are a myth?

(Jonah Goldberg made a reference to the television program "The Simpsons.")

Am I missing something? Of course the speech was partisan. It was a president giving a speech about the budget. Do these critics actually think it's unfair for Barack Obama to disagree with them?

Lucas wrote a tribute to Buckley, upon the National Review founder's death, that he sent to a local paper:

“[M]ovement intellects such as Buckley are indelible,” Lucas Bachmann wrote. "Like the majority of conservatives, I watched and marveled at his eloquent didacticism drawn from a prolix lexicon that can only be described as Buckleyesque."

Haha "prolix lexicon." That is indeed "Buckleyesque," a term that generally means "writing like an asshole."

Lucas Bachmann is what happens when a professional right-wing culture warrior home-schools her children. If you view public schooling as liberal indoctrination you educate your children through conservative indoctrination. The Bachmann children -- five biological and 23 foster, for which the Minnesota government generously gives her a huge cash handout -- are all schooled in-house, though they are apparently allowed to go to college. As kids they probably all read Murray Rothbard instead of Beverly Cleary.

This Lucas Bachmann revelation is supposed to be surprising, because his mother "hates" those "Washington elites" so much, and because Buckley himself would've immediately pegged her as a dimwit nutter, but the conservative elites need their useful idiots, and a clownish anti-intellectual can quite easily produce a clownish pseudo-intellectual.