Saturday, July 24, 2010

Connecticut???

clipped from www.youtube.com

Nullification

clipped from www.qando.net

And that’s where the probable “nullification” may take place –i.e. the nullification of the intent of the AZ law which had at its foundation the apprehension, removal and deportation of illegals found in the state.  As Jacobson says:

While the survival of this aspect of the Arizona immigration law would still outrage opponents, the practical effect would be to allow federal authorities to nullify the state law in practice by refusing to take custody of or prosecute those turned over by state authorities.

Indeed, this is what happens sometimes in Rhode Island, when the State Police notify federal authorities and there are no outstanding warrants on the person.


Willful disregard for the law. 

Isn’t one of the foundational principles of our nation “the rule of law” and not the “rule of men”?  Isn’t such willful disregard counter to that principle?  How does one count on being equal with all other men before the law when the government can arbitrarily decide what it will and won’t enforce?

As Government Expands...

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

There's no better way to start off Saturday night than with a shot of 100 proof countermoonbattery, compliments of Ronaldus Maximus:

COTD: Objectives

clipped from pajamasmedia.com

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: “False (or flimsy) accusations of racism abound—they are everywhere one looks—though they rarely provoke the level of outrage seen in the Sherrod affair.” Well, because they’re usually aimed at Republicans.

But Moynihan’s piece produced the comment of the week:


My take:

(1) Breitbart was aiming at the NAACP as a reaction to yet another baseless Tea Party racism charge. Boy, did he hit his target. Sherrod was purely incidental.

(2) Breitbart succeeded in making the NAACP look racist, succeeded in provoking them into making an unfounded charge of racism themselves, and succeeded in stampeding the whole lefty racism industry into suddenly pontificating about the need for context and the horribleness of unfounded charges of racism.

I would say Breitbart has, once again, achieved all his objectives.


Indeed.


The Sherrod

clipped from biggovernment.com
“I’ve watched the full tape. It gets worse; it doesn’t get better! It’s not that Andrew Breitbart took out something that what was going to somehow get her off the hook. She hangs herself later on with footage that Andrew Breitbart I believe did not have on his.”

kryptObama

Signs accumulate that the President is becoming political kryptonite for Democrat candidates.

August 9th huh? Let me check my calendar. Oh darn the luck Mr. President, I'm going to be making a campaign stop at the Johnson County Fair. My schedule is really packed right now, but maybe we can do lunch in...say...mid November.

There is something funny going on in Texas. Only last year Bill White paid for an ad featuring a picture of himself and Barack Obama trumpeting the slogan "The Dream, The Hope, The Change." This year the Democrat candidate for governor is looking to distance himself from an increasingly unpopular president.

The Dallas Morning News quotes White who said "I was in the oil and gas business when he was a community organizer." The gubernatorial hopeful added.

"There are some people, including me, who believe that the president is spending a lot more money than we're taking in, is spending too much money in Washington," White said in an interview.

Two-fer

clipped from pajamasmedia.com

SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO EMBARRASS YOURSELF WITH A YACHT TO BE A DEMOCRATIC SENATOR, but apparently it helps: Jeff Greene denies his anchor damaged Belize reef.


On a Tuesday morning five years ago, Summerwind, a three-story, 145-foot luxury yacht, maneuvered above the celebrated barrier reef that lines the coast of Belize.

There it dropped anchor — and plunged into controversy over severe damage to a coral reef system officially recognized by the United Nations as one of the world’s most magnificent and irreplaceable treasures.

And, oddly, Greene today says the incident never happened, despite extensive publicity about it at the time (including statements from his representatives), eyewitness accounts, scientific surveys of the damage and an extensive case file at the country’s Department of Environment.


At least he pays his taxes. As far as we know, anyway. Oh, wait: “Greene bought Summerwind in 2003, registering it in the Marshall Islands, a well-known tax haven.”

It’s a two-fer!

Broke -- And Soon To Be Broken

clipped from www.zerohedge.com

America's biggest creditor - China - has called our bluff.

As
the Financial Times notes,
the head of China's biggest credit rating agency has said America is insolvent and that U.S. credit
ratings are a joke:

The head of China’s largest
credit rating agency has slammed his western counterparts for causing
the global financial crisis and said that as the world’s largest
creditor nation China should have a bigger say in how governments and
their debt are rated.

Indeed, Guan is even dissing America's
military prowess:

“Actually, the huge military
expenditure of the US is not created by themselves but comes from
borrowed money, which is not sustainable.”
The fact that America spends
more than the rest of the world combined on our military means that we
can keep an artificially high credit rating. But ironically, all the
money we're spending on our military means that we become less and less
credit-worthy ... and that we'll no longer be able to fund our military.

Average Americans

clipped from hotair.com

WEEKLY ADDRESS: President Obama Vows to Continue Standing Up to the Special Interests on Behalf of the American People


And here’s his vow:

A hundred years ago, one of the great Republican Presidents, Teddy Roosevelt, fought to limit special interest spending and influence over American political campaigns and warned of the impact of unbridled, corporate spending.

General Electric once again spent more money on lobbying than any other company — $8.3 million last quarter

Of course, General Electric’s lobbying interests don’t include the advocacy work of the news and opinion departments of both NBC and MS-NBC, who remain steadfast allies of the administration.

The top three trade lobbies — lobbying groups that represent single industries — are all health-sector lobbies that vocally and repeatedly supported Obama’s health care overhaul.

It’s possible that the President considers these incredibly wealthy, very influential corporations just another bunch of “average Americans”

Wrong Way Obama

clipped from www.nytimes.com


Even as the new coalition government said it would make enormous cuts in the public sector, it initially promised to leave health care alone. But in one of its most surprising moves so far, it has done the opposite, proposing what would be the most radical reorganization of the National Health Service, as the system is called, since its inception in 1948.


In a document, or white paper, outlining the plan, the government admitted that the changes would “cause significant disruption and loss of jobs.” But it said: “The current architecture of the health system has developed piecemeal, involves duplication and is unwieldy. Liberating the N.H.S., and putting power in the hands of patients and clinicians, means we will be able to effect a radical simplification, and remove layers of management.”

Welcome To The Police State

Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid is quietly trying to nationalize rules governing every police, fire and first responder union in the nation.
Imagine the loss of control that local governments will face when first responder unions no longer have to deal with local rules and laws but can force a federal one-size-fits-all style rule on all local governments. Local governments will no longer be able to determine pay scales and benefits and will lose control of their own ability to budget. Reid’s plan will also completely remove the ability of voters to have any say in local matters as a top down control from Washington will rule the day where it concerns local police, fire and other first responders.
If H.R.413 passes no local government will be able to fire a cop or fireman without appealing to the federal government, a source far, far removed from the local area and a source completely unfamiliar with the needs and interests of that local area.

A Tale O Corruption

clipped from hotair.com

The expose on Journolist, a now defunct, listserv that included hundreds of liberal journalists, detailed:



  • the Journolisters’ attempt, during the 2008 presidential campaign to kill and bury stories about Obama’s relationship with “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright;

  • their push to deliberately smear innocent conservative journalists and politicos as “racists” and “bigots”

  • their twisted passion to see Rush Limbaugh killed off and dead;

  • their intolerant desire to have the government censor and shut down Fox News; and

  • their baldly partisan effort to coordinate liberal talking points that would discredit Sarah Palin and John McCain, while helping to elect Barack Obama president.



Considering that Journolist included journalists from Washington Post, the New York Times, National Public Radio, New Republic, and Time, one has to wonder if the biggest story covered up in 2008 was the illegal coordination between ACORN and the Obama campaign.

Friday, July 23, 2010

The Real Divide

The current state of American politics can be summed up in this poll data, published today by Rasmussen Reports:


75% of Likely Voters prefer free markets over a government managed economy. Just 14% think a government managed economy is better while 11% are not sure.


Well, one would hope so. But here is the kicker:


America's Political Class is far less enamored with the virtues of a free market. In fact, Political Class voters narrowly prefer a government managed economy over free markets by a 44% to 37% margin.


That strikes me as a rather stunning finding.

journOlist

clipped from townhall.com

Oh, and -- surprise! -- it turns out that the "O" in Journolist stands for "Obama."


In 2008, participants shared talking points about how to shape coverage to help Obama. They tried to paint any negative coverage of Obama's racist and hateful pastor, Jeremiah Wright, as out of bounds. Journalists at such "objective" news organizations as Newsweek, Bloomberg, Time and The Economist joined conversations with open partisans about the best way to criticize Sarah Palin.


In other words, Journolist is a symptom, not the disease. And the disease is not a secret conspiracy but something more like the "Open Conspiracy" H.G. Wells fantasized about, where the smartest, best people at every institution make their progressive vision for the world their top priority.

"This isn't about ideology. ... We just call them like we see them. ... We don't have an agenda."


The open conspiracy that perpetuates that lie is far more pernicious than any chat room.

The Full Bucky

clipped from www.popsci.com

The space discoveries are piling up this week. Next up: Astronomers working with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered buckyballs in space for the very first time, putting an end to a decades-long search for the largest molecules now known to exist in space.

tOast

clipped from pajamasmedia.com

JONAH GOLDBERG: “Shirley Sherrod, who didn’t know who Andrew Breitbart was 72 hours ago, now knows him well enough to say that he wants to put all blacks back into slavery. If I were David Axelrod, I’d be calling this woman and beg her to stop talking. And, yes, she does owe Andrew an apology.”

UPDATE: Reader Bill Ernoehazy writes: “Glenn: At this point I think it’s worth asking: Did someone on Vilsack’s staff push for a panicky ejection because Sherrod had a _reputation_ for race-baiting? In less than three days she’s castigated the President, and now Breitbart, on nakedly racial grounds. What did Vilsack’s staff know, and when will WE know it?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from Dave Price. “And remember — the Obama admin now owns Shirley Sherrod. There’s no way for them to look good on this anymore.

the already oil-drenched competence myth is now taking a slash to the jugular.”


Cracked And Crackling

clipped from pajamasmedia.com

CNN HOST CALLS FOR crackdown on bloggers. Of course.

UPDATE: Reader Eugene Heim writes:


I think you got to this point much sooner than I, but my reaction to that story is:

Who do these people think they are that they seek to determine what I should be able to read or hear? I am better educated, have seen and done things that they can only pontificate about (military, private sector, federal employee), and -going out a limb here- am more intelligent than these people who wish to regulate what I can know and think.

I hope I speak for many when I say, I might be late to the game, but I am awake and taking the field.


I think a lot of people feel this way.


The Man For The Healing Job

clipped from hotair.com

No Cattle

clipped from www.moonbattery.com
symbolism-vs-substance.jpg

Thursday, July 22, 2010

The Know Nothing

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

"I know nothing! I don't even know my own opinions. In fact, I don't even know if the federal government can use the Commerce Clause to dictate what you eat for lunch. I… know… nothing!"

KagenSchultz.jpg

Torched

clipped from www.moonbattery.com
lady-liberty-betrayed.jpg

The Non-Firing Line

clipped from biggovernment.com

Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.

It’s unfortunate that the NAACP’s recent resolution and false accusations have forced us to show you video 1 when video 2 is the bigger problem. That’s not to say video 1 is not a problem, but this country can ill afford, in this time of economic peril, to waste our time poking and prodding at the racial hornet’s nest that was supposed to have been removed with this post-racial presidency. But now President Obama and the modern-day Democrat party reveal they are anything but post-racial.

once again, the American main stream media has asserted itself as the number one enemy of the truth, when the facts don’t fit the left-wing narrative.
RTWT.

Man O Man

Before the advent of the modern environmental movement, Bill Buckley used to assert with a glint in his eye that a liberal is someone who wants to reach into your shower and adjust the temperature of the water. Man, oh, man, was he right. The liberals' environmental agenda has brought Buckley's satirical thrust uncomfortably close to reality.

See, for example, the Wall Street Journal article "A water fight over luxury showers.

The Shock This Time

You will recall that we were instructed on a daily basis during the second term of President Bush's administration that the politicization of justice is a very bad thing. Indeed, it was a scandal of epic proportions. The occasion for the instruction was President Bush's replacement of eight United States Attorneys in 2006.

It should have been tough to make a scandal of the replacement of United States Attorneys. They serve at the pleasure of the president. If the president is dissatisfied with their performance, he can and should sack them.

You may be relieved to know that the long investigation of the supposed scandal has now come to a conclusion. The AP has learned that the Justice Department will file no charges.

Gamers And Hackers

A
new
study
shows that spending more than two hours a day engaged gaming or using computers for other purposes is only associated with less exercise in gamers and TV-watchers who live in
countries in which kids already engage in relatively high levels of physical
activity.

The
results show that in North America and Nordic countries, which (perhaps
surprisingly) are home to relatively active youth, gaming or watching
television for more than two hours a day is associated with a half day reduction in the number of days per week spent engaged in the recommended amount of exercise. Less-strong correlations were found in the British
Isles, Central Europe and the Baltic countries.

Impressively,
using computers for something other than gaming correlated with more physical activity in kids

Hijacked

clipped from blog.american.com

For anyone who has been in a cave, JournoList was an invitation-only email discussion group among “progressive” journalists and academics on which they exchanged candid views on the state of the nation and discussed the themes that should be pushed or suppressed as dictated by the needs of the movement.

The conservative Daily Caller is now publishing emails exchanged on JournoList, with a focus on the more sensational of the collection.

The real problem with JournoList is that much of it consisted of exchanges among people who worked for institutions about how to best hijack their employers for the cause of Progressivism. Thus, the J-List discussion revealed yesterday in the Daily Caller was about how the group could get their media organizations to play down the Reverend Wright affair and help elect Barack Obama.

Were I an editor of one of these institutions, I would instantly fire any employee who participated in this gross violation of his/her duty.

Perfect

clipped from pajamasmedia.com

HEH: What I Learned From the Shirley Sherrod Case. One bit: “Why Can’t Media Matters Read? Well, its not just Media Matters but almost every liberal pundit and member of the mainstream media. Who knew that Big Government was like Playboy Magazine. Everyone was so quick to watch the original video posted on Big Government that no one took the time to read the article that Andrew Breitbart wrote. While the article was critical of Ms Sherrod, that was not the focus of the article.”

Plus this: “Damn, those lefty ‘reporters’ really hate Andrew Breitbart. They couldn’t wait to pounce on him for this story despite the fact that they couldn’t have read his post that well. Do they hate him for his politics or because he does their job much better than they do? I pick both.”


Wednesday, July 21, 2010

What Liberal Media?

clipped from pajamasmedia.com

MORE FROM JOURNOLIST: Obama wins! And Journolisters rejoice. They seem to be planning for “epistemic closure.”

Spencer Ackerman: “Let’s just throw Ledeen against a wall. Or, pace Dr. Alterman, throw him through a plate glass window. I’ll bet a little spot of violence would shut him right the fuck up, as with most bullies.”

And Eric Alterman adds his own incisive analysis: “Fucking Nascar retards…”

Didn’t the “best and the brightest” used to be, I dunno, better and brighter?

UPDATE: Reader Elliott Davis emails: “The best part about Eric Alterman’s participation in Journolist is his authorship of What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News.

Heh. Indeed. You gotta love this. Thanks again, Ezra!








The Osmonds

clipped from pajamasmedia.com

POLITICO So much for that ‘conversation’ on race.

Meanwhile, a reader notes this pic of the White House press corps, and calls it “as diverse as an Osmond Family reunion.” But that’s unfair, since the Osmonds represent a religious minority that probably isn’t welcome in the White House press corps.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Racists (Part 78,951)

clipped from pajamasmedia.com

OVERPAID PUBLIC SERVANTS: California Official’s $800,000 Salary in City of 38,000 Triggers Protests.


Hundreds of residents of one of the poorest municipalities in Los Angeles County shouted in protest last night as tensions rose over a report that the city’s manager earns an annual salary of almost $800,000.

An overflow crowd packed a City Council meeting in Bell, a mostly Hispanic city of 38,000 about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, to call for the resignation of Mayor Oscar Hernandez and other city officials. Residents left standing outside the chamber banged on the doors and shouted “fuera,” or “get out” in Spanish.


This is part of America’s growing class war between the private-sector have-nots and the public-sector fatcats. The have-not taxpayers seem unhappy, and we’re likely to see more of this sort of thing. Quick — call someone a racist to distract them!


Sea Star Wars

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk

The weapon, mounted on a warship’s missile, shot down four unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAV) in secret testing carried out off the California coast, The
Daily Telegraph
has learnt.




In a joint enterprise between US Navy and Raytheon Missile Systems the
technology has now got to the stage where lasers will be deployed on
warships as part of their short-range defence.


For the first time a ‘solid state’ 32 mega watt laser beam of directed energy
has been fired from a warship to a distance of more than two miles burning
into a drone travelling at about 300mph.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Forked

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

When describing B. Hussein Obama's preposterous Affirmative Action presidency, it isn't too soon to use the word FAIL:

Repossession of homes proceeds at a record pace. The Federal Reserve projects only weaker growth and higher unemployment. The sheepish Europeans cool their schoolgirl crush on Barack Obama. Ditto the Muslims, who had expected Mr. Obama to lead wholesale conversions to Islam, with conversion of St. Patrick's and National cathedrals to mosques soon to follow. The Pentagon warns that it can't pay its bills. The war in Afghanistan, no longer on George W.'s watch, looks headed toward Kaput City. Everybody is as angry as ever about the health care reform, the wasteful and ineffective stimulus (and Son of Stimulus) and Al Gore's scheme to require that naughty old sun to change its spots. Bill Clinton is called back to the White House and told to arrive with a big bottle of his magic "feeling your pain" pills.
obama fail

Decree

Shortly after he claimed the right to fire the head of a private company, Obama realized he could claim the power to set wages in companies receiving bailout funds.  When these actions were successful, Obama realized he could then claim the power to set wages all across the economy, even venturing as far as attempting government mandates for company perks like private jets or club memberships

Similarly, when it was clear Congress would not object to Obama claiming the power to declare martial law, in direct violation of historic statute, Obama then contended that, in the event Congress would not cooperate, he would merely rule by decree.
All of Obama's actions have highly fascist overtones.  The fusion of government and the private sector can be observed most clearly in the recent Chicago-style shakedown of BP, wherein Obama forced a private sector company to set up a $20 billion slush fund to be controlled by his team of czars, criminally exceeding his constitutional authority.

Wrong

clipped from esr.ibiblio.org

The practice of kafkatrapping corrupts causes in many ways, some obvious and some more subtle. The most obvious way is that abusive and manipulative ways of controlling people tend to hollow out the causes for which they are employed, smothering whatever worthy goals they may have begun with and reducing them to vehicles for the attainment of power and privilege over others.

A subtler form of corruption is that those who use kafkatraps in order to manipulate others are prone to fall into them themselves. Becoming unable to see out of the traps, their ability to communicate with and engage anyone who has not fallen in becomes progressively more damaged.

These are both good reasons for change activists to consider kafkatraps a dangerous pathology that they should root out of their own causes. But the best reason remains that kafkatrapping is wrong. Especially, damningly wrong for anyone who claims to be operating in the cause of freedom.

Zombies

Che Guavara Resurrected

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

With the hot summer weather, it's nice to have some music to chug Kool-Aid by:

Bill Whittle For President

clipped from pajamasmedia.com

BILL WHITTLE: Afterburner: One Small Misstep for a Man, One Giant Leap for Private Enterprise. As always with Whittle, it’s must-see PJTV.

UPDATE: Reader George Fillmore writes: “Bill Whittle for President.”

Stooges

clipped from biggovernment.com

You would have thought that the three separate entries I dedicated to exposing the lies yesterday in this article and video by the progressive propagandists at Think Progress, I would have said all there is to say.

But there is more… and it is shocking.

Remember “Activist 2,” the Saint Louis Team Party infiltrator, that claimed “I’m a proud racist, I’m white?”

It seems that Think Progress used a clip from this video, a video entitled “Proof that the Tea Party is not racist.”


The guys at SharpElbows.Net thwarted this infiltrator, heavily documenting his attempt to mingle with Tea Party protesters in Saint Louis.

Think Progress misrepresented everything this video and the Tea Party stands for, and against.

If staffers, including editor-in-chief Faiz Shakir should not be terminated for this behavior, I’d like to know why.