John McCain, Conservative

I'm not a fan of John McCain, never have been. The problem with McCain was always that he bailed out the Democrats whenever their worst ideas blew up on them and he provided them with rhetorical cover. But all of that changed in 2008. Since 2008, McCain has been a solidly-conservative, savvy politician. And lately, he’s one of the few conservatives acting like a conservative.
Consider these things McCain is pushing...

● Main Street Advocate: As we’ve pointed out before, Wall Street has become a predator that engages in stupidly risky trades and abusive practices while dumping its bad bets on taxpayers. Few in Congress want to do anything about it. McCain and Elizabeth Warren, however, are proposing to forbid banks from engaging in risky trading activities with FDIC-insured money. In essence, their bill would break banks back into two types: those that handle checking/savings accounts and those that engage in investment banking, insurance, swap deals, equity trades and hedge fund activities. This is something everyone should embrace because it would protect taxpayers, end a major form of cronyism, and protect Main Street banks and Main Street firms. It would also show that conservatives aren’t Wall Street dupes. This should be on every conservative agenda.

It’s not. The “conservative” response has ranged from calling McCain names to attacking Warren’s fake Indian heritage again.

● Advocate For Justice I: In light of the Trayvon Martin shooting, there have been many calls to re-evaluate the nation’s “stand your ground” laws to make sure they make sense. This is an issue that resonates with blacks at the moment. Personally, I think the laws are fine, but that’s not the point. This is exactly the kind of “after-action review” that rational people do whenever anything goes wrong. It’s also an obligation-free way to let blacks know that Republicans aren’t cavalier about the idea of people “hunting blacks,” and that they are interested in making sure the nation’s laws are just for everyone. McCain took up this banner this weekend, and he was smart to do so.

So what has been the conservative response? Ted Cruz shot down the idea because it could lead to gun control... somehow. Meanwhile, conservative pundits continued to demonize Martin and canonize Zimmerman. One group is trying to raise money to buy Zimmerman a new gun. Rush is bragging that he can use the “n-word” now.

So who’s the real conservative? The guy who wants to make sure the laws protect the rights of innocent citizens and who wants to assure the entire public that he hears their concerns... or the guys trying to smear a dead black teen.

● Advocate For Justice II: The Department of Justice has issued a “blueprint” on sexual harassment at colleges which does some pretty heinous things. For one thing, it wipes out the “reasonable person” standard and instead drifts toward the self-described victim’s idiosyncratic belief that they were harassed. For another, it lowers the burden of proof for the university to take action to more-likely-than-not rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. And it has no protections for freedom of speech. Thus, even playing a song with sexual lyrics can be seen as harassment. This is a significant violation of the rights of accused students and it is precisely the kind of thing conservatives claim they will oppose. Yet, only one person in the Congress has stood up to stop this: John McCain.

● Consumer Advocate: As I noted before, McCain has introduced a bill to let consumers pick only the channels they want from cable. Is this a big deal? Don’t know. But it does show a desire to help consumers. The rest of the conservative world has gone anti-consumer even though consumerism is the foundation of capitalism.

Here’s the point. It has been eight months since the election. The public wants an agenda that will help them. They have concerns. McCain is recognizing those concerns and addressing them in conservative ways. Yet, the rest of the conservative world simply doesn’t care. In fact, to the contrary, I keep seeing comments that basically assert that the conservative agenda is to make sure nothing passes until Obama leaves office. That is political suicide. Right now, John McCain is showing conservatives the way forward. It's time the derangement ended and the conservatism began again. Conservatives need an agenda that appeals to Americans rather than insults them, and as much as you may dislike him personally, McCain is building one.

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A Couple Points

Thanks for all the well-wishes, everyone! And thanks to Bev and Koshcat for filling in earlier in the week! I am getting back to normal and we should have a regular schedule again next week. We'll also have T-Rav's article tomorrow and a film review at the film site... the very unfunny Ted. In the meantime, here are a couple thoughts I've had watching the news this week.

● The Martin Case I: There is a belief, which is particularly prevalent in conservative circles, that we can always trust cops and prosecutors. In fact, I've seen this go so far that a great many conservatives actually believe that if someone is arrested, then they must be guilty. This is wrong, as the Martin case shows again. With lots of nasty things now being revealed about the prosecutor, it should be clear that not all prosecutors are good people. This woman is an unethical liar who slanders people, abuses her office to get anyone who crosses her, politicized her agency by firing anyone who wasn't a brown-noser, overcharges suspects, and withholds evidence. Sadly, she is not unique. There are many prosecutors who are just as rotten and just as political. That is why rule of law matters and why we cannot simply trust the people in the system to not trample on people's rights. You would think conservatives, who innately mistrust government, would realize this and demand greater protections for defendants, stronger rights for all persons, and narrower criminal laws. But not all of them do. Remember this the next time some politician tells you they are "tough on crime." Are they really or are they just tough on the accused?

● The Martin Case II: The response to the Martin case has been both encouraging and depressing. For encouraging, look at the public... in response to the verdict, there have been a handful of protest marches nationwide, typically involving a few hundred people in the biggest cities. Except for a couple of thugs (mainly in Oakland), they've been peaceful. Denied their story of outrage, the news networks have moved on, as have most of the pundits. Even liberal talking-head attorneys now are saying the jury got the law right. Jimmy "the ass" Carter and Obama both said the same thing as well. That's all very rational and very muted. That should make America pretty proud of itself. That is encouraging.

On the other hand, a lot of celebrities are exploiting this to gain publicity. That's disgraceful. It's twisted and cynical. Go back to rehab folks. A couple of dinosaur-age race baiters are out there too trying to regain their relevance. That's a fancy young girlfriend you got there Mr. Sharpton. Anyway, that's disgraceful too.

Unfortunately, there's another group too that needs to be mentioned. If you visited Drudge over the past couple days, you would think the country was in the grips of a civil war. He reported the most fringy comments as if they were widely-believed official administration positions. He had headlines about people in hiding, about roving gangs attacking whites. He's been reporting rumors and conspiracy theories as facts, linking to places like InfoWars, trying to connect unrelated murders and muggings to "the response to the verdict" to make you think there are riots everywhere, and doing so under headlines that basically scream: "BLACK PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO KILL YOU!!" It's Al-Sharpton-esque. Several radio talkers are doing the same thing, even as they ironically claim they are only warning you that liberals are obsessed with race. One host this afternoon actually cautioned people to watch for gangs "looking for whitey."

Right now, there are two groups of people pushing identity politics: the extreme left and the extreme right, and I think the right is pushing harder than the left. But as we showed in that poll last week, few people see blacks, whites or anyone else as inherently racist, i.e. few are obsessed with race -- only about two in ten. So don't let these people push you into thinking the world is like the nightmare vision they are selling. It's not... not even close.

● The Summer of Flops: Finally, the summer of flops continues with three new ones likely joining the list: Pacific Rim is officially a flop, Turbo is being seen as a likely flop, and R.I.P.D. looks like a megaflop. I was kind of looking forward to R.I.P.D.. In any event, it sounds like it's time to service the Plot-o-matic 3000.

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Malpractice In The Martin Case

I’m going to take apart an article and some comments about the Trayvon Martin issue. Before we start, let me point out that this isn’t about really about the verdict itself as I don’t care about that. What I find interesting is the “journalism” and some interesting comments from the prosecutor.

The article in question was written by Liz Goodwin of Yahoo, whose qualifications for the job are no doubt unquestioned. Actually, I meant that differently... being Yahoo, I’m sure no one questioned her qualifications before they hired her. Anyway, Lizzy wrote the article that Yahoo linked to initially. It is a classic display of advocacy hiding as impartiality.

● Hey, That’s Racist! I had to laugh that Lizzy right away described Martin as “a 17 year old black boy.” For those who’ve dealt with race issues, you will quickly discover that there are two things that will always be called “racist” – conservatives calling blacks “black” rather than “African American” and calling any black male larger than about 10 “boy.” If Rush starts his monologue by calling Martin “a black boy,” you can be sure the squealing will begin.

In fact, think about it and ask yourself the last time the media called any older teen “boy,” just as they don’t call near-adult women “girls.” Those are considered offensive terms. Hence, the preferred term is “teen” (something Lizzy returns to after her opening). So why start with “black boy”? Well, Lizzy wants to give the image of this large, black male near-adult as a small child.

She also continues to call Zimmer “half-white and half-Hispanic,” in an attempt to paint this as white on black crime, even though Zimmerman would be considered Hispanic if he were the victim. Selective use of race is racism. Moreover, should race actually be relevant here? Race came up because NBC edited a video to create a racial controversy and because the usual black suspect wanted to paint this as a race crime: white man with Jim Crow evil in his heart hunting small black candy-carrying boy. But there’s no evidence of that. Basically, this case came down to a dipsh*t wannabe cop, who happened to be Hispanic and who got himself in over his head and ended up in the fight of his life. Where does “white” enter that picture unless you want to put it there?

● Facts Are What I Want Them To Be: Beyond that, Lizzy does a good job of advocating for the prosecution. She outlines the prosecution case in vivid detail, but gives the defense only a clinical nod. . . apparently the defense position was that Zimmerman “was within his rights” when he did whatever the prosecution alleged... forget that the defense denied everything. No mention is made of how the prosecution’s case imploded on witness after witness. There’s no mention of anything to support the claim of self-defense. Did you know Zimmerman was injured? You didn’t hear it from Lizzy. She makes it sound like Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance. Did you know that there were numerous witnesses (non-family members) who said that it was Zimmerman calling for help? You didn’t hear it from Lizzy, though you did hear about Martin’s noble parents saying the voice belonged to Martin. Did you know there were “witnesses” to the incident? What did they witness? Well, Lizzy never says, except she ties this in to Martin’s parents saying it was Martin calling for help. If you knew nothing, you would wonder why the jury ignored those witnesses.

She also tries to blow this into something more than it was. Did you know the case sparked a “national debate over self-defense laws and race, prompting marches and demonstrations around the country.” Yeah, only outside of the retards on Twitter the few attempts I recall to organize anything were all in Florida and they involved a couple hundred people. By that standard, there’s a national demonstration at my local Costco every time there’s a sale.

Oh, and there’s no mention to the prosecutor humiliatingly backing down to manslaughter. Instead, Lizzy just mentions that the jury also could have considered that, as if it was just always kind an option.

● The Persecutor: Anyway, then we come to the prosecutor. This turd takes the cake. He overcharged in the hopes of getting famous. He’s been stoking the racial angle from day one. And when he got to court, reality caught up with him and his witnesses refused to say what he promised and he ended up imploding on witness after witness. So either they all lied unexpectedly, or he lied to the jury about what they would tell him, which is both unethical and insanely stupid.

Ironically, at his post-loss press conference, he said, “We have from the beginning just prayed for the truth to come out.” Uh, f*ck you. First of all, truth requires you to find it, not obscure it, jerk. And what this guy tried to do repeatedly was to obscure the truth and to present a false truth. Secondly, the job of the prosecutor is to prosecute crimes, not make Hail Mary attempts to throw someone in jail to make a political statement... that’s called persecution. As an aside, he also appealed for calm even though there is no violence, which sounds a lot like incitement to me.

Anyway, what really caught my attention with this turd was this little statement from his closing argument: “Ask yourself, ‘Who lost the fight?’” That statement in a nutshell is the problem with liberals. The issue is NOT who lost. The issue was whether or not Zimmerman acted in accordance with the law or not. This idea of “let’s charge whoever lost the fight” is twisted. It is highly unjust as it makes the law arbitrary. In fact, even worse, it completely ignores morality and right and wrong for a fake-substitute version of “whoever I connect with emotionally was the victim.” This is the same BS thinking that underlies all liberal theories on criminal justice and history. . . if you lost, then you were the victim and the other guy was the bad guy.

This is why you can’t trust liberals. It makes them fools. This is why attorneys paint their little murdering sh*ts as angels and put them in suits, this is why liberals feel that mass murderers should be let out of jail once they look old and sad, and this is why liberals so often fall in love with murders and butchers, because everybody else treats them so poorly! Boo hoo.

Put simply, this is why you cannot rely on liberals to assess right and wrong, because their standard is not based on conduct, it’s based on who they see as the victim at that point in time they are asked to judge.

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When Is A Crime Really a Crime?

Okay, please feel free to discuss anything today because there is just so much going on, it's hard to focus on just one subject. So what do you want to talk about today? The new Pope? The recent meeting between President Obama and some random Republicans - the first in two years? Local news or just random thoughts? Let's talk, muse, discuss, or just randomly riff on whatever topic you want. Or this...

This week in New York Federal Court, a former New York City cop was convicted of the crime of conspiracy to kidnap, torture and commit cannibalism. Yes, cannibalism. Frightening and disturbing, but I am still trying to figure out what actually crime he committed. According to all reports that I have read, other than commiserating in great detail in writing with other like-minded cannibal wannabes on a cannibal chat site (yes, you can find just about anything you want on-line!), I am not exactly sure of what crime he actually committed. He was convicted of conspiring to kidnap, torture, and eat women without actually doing it or, from what I can tell, even getting close. But, please read this New York Times article and let's discuss.

Here's my question: When does or should a potential crime become a real convictable crime?

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Liberals: Abandon Shame, All Ye Who Enter Here.

We had to hear from a couple of a******s over the weekend. Only one of them did something criminal. The other just did something really hackish and amoral. Both made me mad, and if you were following them, they probably made you mad too.


For those of you who missed it, the pro football world was rocked on Saturday by news that Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend (and mother of their three-month-old daughter) that morning after an argument; he then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and blew his head off, in front of his coaches no less. There's nothing I can say about this act in itself that hasn't been said already, except for a couple of random thoughts.

1) A murder-suicide is not a "tragedy," it's a crime. A tragedy is when you lose the brakes on your car and go off the road and die. If it happens because someone has tampered with those brakes, it ceases to be a tragedy and becomes second-degree murder. So let's stop calling it that on TV, please.

2) Some of Belcher's teammates were posting on Twitter Saturday night comments to the effect of "So sorry for you, bro [meaning Belcher]. We'll miss you, good buddy," etc. I don't want to be too harsh on them for saying they'll miss their teammate, but what the heck? Because of his actions, their child will grow up never knowing her mother. It's sad that he took his own life as well (now she'll never know her father, either), but this is all on him. If you can't realize that, you've got a screwy value system indeed.

All of which gets to the main thrust of my commentary. During halftime on NBC's Sunday Night Football, sportscaster Bob Costas gave a short "opinion" piece, which he regularly does about current athletics issues, and of course this time it was about the murder-suicide. Costas gave a very moving speech about the need to pray for the family and friends of those involved and expressed the hope that they can all find peace and some kind of happiness soon. Oh, wait--no he didn't. He used the opportunity to make a 90-second pitch for gun control. Costas approvingly quoted at length a Kansas City sportswriter, Jason Whitlock, who blamed the shooting on "gun culture." I suppose this is slightly correct, as you do in fact need a gun to shoot someone, but the gist of his argument was that people get killed because having these weapons causes minor spats over loud music or whatever to get heated, someone pulls a gun, and bang--lots of dead people. "Handguns do not enhance our safety," Whitlock (and Costas) claimed, and ended with these appalling words: "If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins [his girlfriend] would both be alive today."

What. The. @#$%?!?!

In this one statement, you have multiple displays of liberalism in its worst forms. First, there's the belief that what people do is not their fault, it's society's fault. Apparently Belcher was just a nice guy until he got access to a gun (a legally purchased gun, for the record), and then turned into a killer. Except he wasn't. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but from what we know of this guy now, he seems to have been a malignant bully since adolescence and exhibiting violent behavior at least as far back as his college days. So yeah, I'm pretty sure if his girlfriend hadn't met her end from a bullet, it would have been from a knife or fist (and God only knows what kind of abuse was going on behind the scenes). Second, there's the liberal notion that they can make people better by controlling their lives, which is where gun control policy comes in: Take away people's means of being violent to each other, and they will no longer be violent at all. And finally, you have the willful ignorance that stems from overlooking all the evidence that contradicts these beliefs.

As most of you are no doubt aware (and as it only took me a few minutes to look up), gun control and firearms murder rates are in fact inverse to each other. During the same period in the late 20th century in which gun sales in America peaked, pushing the total number to about 200 million owned, murder rates fell by nearly 40 percent. Meanwhile, Britain practically banned the ownership of handguns at this time, and then saw a rise in gun-related crimes of 40 percent in two years. Cases of armed robbery in London rose from four in 1954 to over 1,700 by 1998. But none of this matters to liberals.

On top of all this, there's the liberal assumption that guns are racist because more black people die from firearms incidents more often than whites; therefore, they must be part of a conspiracy by "The Man" to oppress African-Americans. Costas himself was a bit more oblique on this point, but Whitlock made it explicit, saying in an interview, "I believe the NRA is the new KKK. And that the arming of so many black youths...and loading up our community with drugs, and then just having an open shooting gallery, is the work of people who obviously don't have our best interests [at heart}." This is the sort of crap Jeremiah Wright and other racist crackpots have been spewing for years, and it's just as racially divisive as the actual KKK.

Even so, I blame Costas more in this case than Whitlock. You have to blame the latter for the original words, but he's just a local hack. Costas has a reputation (he's also a left-winger and was a definite Bush-basher, but that gets less attention). A lot of people, myself included, deliberately tuned in to SNF's halftime coverage to see what he, as someone with authority on sports culture, would say about this, and instead got liberal proselytizing. And Costas had to know this would be a controversial thing to say, especially so soon after the act itself. Nonetheless, he chose to use his time on-air to exploit a horrific incident for political purposes. This is shameful.

But the Democrats, of course, have no sense of shame.

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Leftists Exploit Gun Tragedy. . . As Usual

With the Aurora shooting a couples days removed now and emotions cooling, let’s talk rationally about the issue of guns. As usual, the left has hopped on this tragedy in full exploitation mode. They’ve blamed everything from guns to the Tea Party. They are, as always, wrong. Let’s discuss.

As with Gabby Giffords, the left immediately jumped out and pointed their twisted fingers at the Tea Party. This charge was led by ABC News who decided the shooter had to belong to the Tea Party because they found a Tea Party member with a similar name. Naturally, they never bothered to investigate before smearing the Tea Party. Eventually, they were forced to retract this, but not before every other new outlet repeated the slander. Those outlets never withdrew their reports.

Meanwhile, the usual pack of leftist celebrities took to the airwaves to whine that this proves we need gun control. Roger Ebert even whined that this proved that concealed carry laws don’t work because no one in the crowd had a gun. Think about that. In Roger’s mind concealed carry means that someone in every crowd must be carrying a gun even when the theater and law forbid it. What a twisted turd he has become.

In any event, none of this is working. Almost no one on Capitol Hill has called for gun control laws. To the contrary they are running like scared rabbits. Why? Because polls show the public’s support for gun rights at an all-time high. Indeed, an October 2011 Gallup poll found that 73% of Americans would not support gun bans. This was the highest level in 50 years. Incidentally, the same poll showed 68% approval for the evil NRA.

So why doesn’t the public fall for the blathering of the moronic celebrities and professional tragedy exploiters? Easy, it’s common sense.

As I’ve pointed out many times before, gun tragedies are incredibly rare. The United States has 2.5 million deaths annually, but only 12,000 of those are related to guns (0.4% of all deaths) – many of these are shootings by police. This places gun deaths 43rd on the list of causes of death in the United States, well behind diseases, cancers, suicides, diarrhea related deaths, unintentional injuries, measles, falls, drownings, poisonings, fires, asthma and road accidents.

And mass shootings of the type in Aurora are even more rare. For example, in the last 10 years, there have been only seven shooting sprees at schools in the US that resulted in three or more deaths. Moreover, Europe has a comparable mass murder rate, despite its strict gun control laws. Europe saw six such mass murders in the same period, and the European ones had a higher body count. China too has seen a spree of stabbings at schools that have resulted in a vastly higher number of deaths than American shootings. So this problem the celebrity left is whining about simply about doesn’t exist, and people realize that.

Secondly, guns don’t kill people. There are 250 million guns in the United States. If guns “caused” crimes as the left claims, then there would 250 million murders a year. Even if only one in ten people fell under the evil spell of these guns, we would still be dealing with 25 million murders a year. Heck, even one percent means 2.5 million murders. Yet only 12,000 people are killed annually in the United States by guns. That works out to less than 0.004% of guns being used to kill someone. . . 40 out of every million guns in the country. Guns do not cause crime.

We know this from Switzerland too. Everyone in Switzerland is required to own a gun, yet gun crime is virtually nonexistent. It’s so low they don’t even bother keeping official statistics on gun crime. It is, in fact, lower than the gun crime rate in Japan, which absolutely bans guns. Switzerland ranks as the fourth safest country in the world and its violent crime rate is 1/100th that of Britain, where guns are banned.

Moreover, there is strong evidence that guns actually prevent crime. When Britain banned private gun ownership in 1996, crime rates skyrocketed. According to American Enterprise Institute economist John Lott, an examination of information released by the British Home Office showed that the violent crime rate rose 69% following the gun ban (with murders increasing 54%). Interestingly, in the five years prior to the ban, such crimes had been falling consistently.

A county by county examination by Lott of crime rates in the United States, found that right-to-carry states experienced (on average) lower rates of violent crime (27% lower), murder (32% lower), robbery (45% lower) and aggravated assault (20% lower) than states with more restrictive gun laws. Other studies conducted at Vanderbilt University, SUNY Binghamton, Claremont-McKenna College, George Mason University, and the College of William and Mary, have supported Lott’s findings.

So Ebert’s attempt to prove that concealed laws don’t worry through a bad analogy is proven ludicrous by comparison to these statistics.

The truth is the world is full of nuts. And if they want to find a way to kill people, they will find a way. It is better to let decent people arm themselves so they can defend themselves than it is to disarm the very people who would help, leaving everyone at the mercy of the crazies. It’s interesting that our left thinks this way. Why do you supposed they don’t want you being able to defend yourself?

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Not All Speech Should Be Protected

I love the internet. It’s provided me with hours of entertainment, it’s let me sell a book, and it’s let me meet all of you. That’s pretty darn cool. But the internet does have a downside. Specifically, it lets the most hateful turds do their best to intimidate those they don’t like. We need a law, dammit!! Actually, we don’t.

It really is undeniable that the internet can be a problem, particularly when it comes to “hate speech.” Indeed, some corners of the internet are a seething cauldron of hate and idiocy. But here’s the thing, we don’t need laws to stop hate or idiocy. For one thing, hate and idiocy don’t actually harm us. Sticks and stones, my friends. So why do we need more laws to stop things that don’t really harm us? Isn’t that just using the power of government to force your pet peeves on people?

Not to mention, letting people speak their minds and expose their twisted views is an incredibly useful tool for discovering who you shouldn’t trust. Would you rather know that the normal looking guy in the bowtie thinks Jews are evil creatures, or would you rather only know that he smiles a lot?

Equally problematic is the idea of how we define hate. One person’s hate is another person’s truth. So whose opinion is right, and where will the government draw the line? Moreover, how do you keep the hypersensitive from getting their views imposed through the government? They are the most likely to make such an attempt after all. Do we really trust that the government won’t start declaring things like Christianity “hate speech” merely because it argues that certain acts are immoral? Many liberals already make that argument.

Let’s face it, there are very strong reasons to allow hate speech and there really aren’t any valid ones which justify banning it except that some people don't like it.

But there is another angle to this. Sometimes people hide behind the First Amendment to do more than just spew hate and stupidity. Indeed, they cross over that line and advocate violence. Now that, is a real problem.

And that brings me to Jesse Morton, the founder of a militant Muslim website “Revolution Muslim.” Jesse just got sentenced to 11.5 years for making threats against the creators of South Park because of their episode featuring Mohammed in a bear suit. He also admitted to conspiring to solicit the murder of Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, who drew Mohammed as part of a protest against the intimidation of Danish cartoonists.

Jesse’s conviction is exactly how “hate” speech needs to be curtailed. Rather than trying to ban people from spewing idiotic opinions, we should only punish those cross the line into advocating illegality. Jesse made threats and conspired to make threats involving the injury or murder of other individuals. That is not some nebulous hateful opinion, it is in fact a crime, and has always has been recognized as such since the foundations of our justice system were laid. When he crossed the line from giving opinion to soliciting crimes, he needed to be punished.

In fact, the same thing needs to be done to the army of idiots who are taking to Twitter to issue their own death threats. If you tweet that you will kill someone or rape them or their children, that is a threat and you should be locked up, whether your target is a public figure or not. If you ask someone to kill someone else, then you have solicited murder. If you suggest that it would please you if someone died or was raped, or you simply hope they are killed or raped, that is solicitation. Those are crimes.

The internet is indeed out of control, but it’s not the handful of lunatics whining about racial purity or how everyone else is evil that are the problem. The problem is this group of supposedly normal people who now think it’s acceptable to make threats or solicit crimes against political opponents they don’t like. It’s time these people got rounded up and sent to jail, just like Jesse Morton, so that people stop doing this. If something isn’t done soon, this will spin out of control, if it hasn’t already.

Thoughts?

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Sexy Currency

Let’s talk about sex. Whoo hoo! Yep, sex, sex, sex. It turns out Obama’s gay marriage stance isn’t going down too well. It’s now ok to look at kiddie porn in New York, so long as you don’t own it. And Canada is about to issue a pornographic $20 bill. Oh, yeah.

Issue One: Gay Rage. Yesterday, Obama came out of the closet on behalf of something he’s always believed in deeply but previously refused to support for no reason whatsoever except that he wasn’t evolved enough to act on his beliefs until Joe Biden evolved him: gay marriage. Yep. Now gay marriage will be the law of the land. Oh, wait. . . there’s some fine print here. Hmm. Has Obama lied again?

Indeed he has. Right after Obama decided to declare his support for gay marriage, people with brains (i.e. conservative) began to snicker that Obama was trying to mislead his supporters. By last night, his supporters had caught on. In a rather nasty article, Gawker noted that Obama’s promise was all smoke and mirrors. Observe:

“It seems fairly clear from the network's coverage that his announcement amounts to much less than meets the eye. He now believes that gay couples should be able to marry. He doesn't believe they have a right to do so. This is like saying that black children and white children ought to attend the same schools, but if the people of Alabama reject that notion—what are you gonna do?”

Oh, the irony of accusing Obama of supporting modern segregation. I love it when liberals get all self-righteous on each other. Perhaps they can now call him an Uncle Tom like they do to Clarence Thomas?

In any event, the tone of the article is downright rude, like when they called Obama’s state’s rights evasion: “a half-assed, cowardly cop-out.” And I suspect the tone will only get worse over the coming weeks because one thing the gay lobby is not is civil. The fun is just beginning and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time with his campaign struggling to find its footing.

Issue Two: I Own What? In 2009, Professor James D. Kent of Marist College in New York was convicted of promoting a sexual performance of a child and possession of child pornography, i.e. kiddie porn. But part of his conviction was just overturned. Why? Because the evidence was found in his web browser’s cache, which stores everything you’ve looked at, and he argued that he was not even aware his browser had a cache, so he can’t possibly have knowingly possessed the porn.

New York’s appellate level court agreed that images found in a cache are not proof of possession. Kent’s conviction still stands for the 13,000 images of 8-9 year old girls in lingerie which he had on his harddrive, but apparently those in the browser don’t count as him having “dominion and control over the images.” Now, on the one hand, I can understand that a browser may capture an inadvertent image. I’ve been re-directed to all kinds of places I never wanted to be and those images get into the cache, and it shouldn’t be a crime to have a couple such images stumble their way onto your computer. But give me a break, there is no doubt he was out there looking for this stuff and was just too stupid to clean out his cache. What this ruling does is essentially make is legal to look at kiddie porn in New York so long as you don’t save it to your harddrive. That’s like saying it should be illegal to possess heroin, but it’s not illegal to shoot up on it so long as you use somebody else’s stash.

Issue Three: Porno Dollars. Finally, Canada, i.e. Northern Maine, will be issuing a new $20 dollar bill in November, and it isn’t going over too well. That’s largely because they picked a stupid design. Apparently, a focus group which looked at the bill thought it was “too pornographic” because it contains three naked women clinging to the 9/11 Twin Towers (in America). Here’s the bill, eh:

Interestingly, the structure is not the 9/11 Twin Towers, it is a memorial called the Vimy Memorial, a wartime memorial honoring thousands of Canadian servicemen and which symbolizes the unity between France and Canada. And the topless chicks are known as the Chorus, and they represent Justice and Peace, Truth and Knowledge, Hope, Charity, Honor and Faith. Here is a photo of the memorial.

Personally, I think the bill is uglier than a sewer of Pelosi. Plus, I’m wondering why no one was offended by the swamp monster wearing the tee-shirt with the old lady on it? But I won’t laugh too hard at our neighbors from the Moose Realm because I’m sure our next dollar won’t be much better. In fact, here’s a sneak peek. . .

At least it’s not a damn coin.

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Occupy Animal Farm

Meanwhile, in fantasy land, the OWS (bowel) movement continues its inexorable march toward Animal Farm. We’ve got oppressive government, crime waves, deaths, and ironies galore! Come one come all, unless you’re homeless or a Jew. . . or you don't want to be raped.

Occupy Rape

Zuccotti Park, the Mecca of OWS, has turned into a gathering of predators. Apparently, the west end of the park has become so dangerous that people are warned not to go there anymore. This has included assault, drug dealing, drug use, and rape. Naturally, the idiot protesters are claiming this is all the doing of the police. Said one protester:

“We are convinced the rise in crime is being partly manufactured by the authorities. A lot of people who have ended up in the park have said that the police told them: ‘Take it to Zuccotti.’”

Snicker snicker. I wish that were true, but I’m not on drugs, so I know better.

Rape, by the way, is becoming an epidemic. In the past few weeks, there have been a series of rapes and attempted rapes at OWS camps all over the country. In Zuccotti park, it’s gotten so bad that OWS females have banded together and created female-only sleeping tents under the theory that there’s “safety in numbers.” Interestingly, the OWS gangs have discouraged the victims from calling the police and are actually threatening protesters who do contact the police. Check out this odd quote from an OWS woman: “We don’t tell anyone. We handle it internally. I said too much already.”

And how have they handled it? So far, they’ve formed a police force that shines flashlights in the faces of rapists and then yells at them to leave with the chant (and no, I’m not kidding): “Pervert! Pervert! Get the f–k out!”

Call me crazy, but I don’t think the drummers are getting value for their taxes.

So let’s think about this for a moment. First, they are allowing OWS females to become rape victims because they're doing nothing to stop the rapists or keep them from repeating. Secondly, they've done nothing to reform the rapists, which is something leftists always claim is society's responsibility. Apparently not. Third, since when has it been acceptable in liberal circles to accuse someone of being a “pervert?” And since when has it been acceptable to just chase criminals away to another jurisdiction? Try chasing ours to Mexico and see what liberals say. Finally, the rape industry, which tells us there are ten rapes for every reported rape, chastises society for discouraging the reporting of rape. Yet these same people are telling these women not to report their rapes because they fear the publicity will make OWS look bad.

But at least they’re sympathetic to these young women, right? Uh, no. Scoffed one male OWS protester: “Sexual harassment gets called rape, and it’s not.” Interesting. So women make false rape allegations and sexual harassment isn’t a big deal then?

Anyhoo, Zuccotti Park isn’t the only free-fire zone when it comes to sexual predators. Rapes have been reported at: OWS Cleveland, Baltimore, Boston, Glasgow, Lawrence Kansas, and Ottawa. In Dallas, an OWS protester sexually assaulted a child. In Seattle, an OWS protester exposed himself to children. In Portland, a sex offender has registered OWS as his home. In Denver, a protester groped a TV journalist. In Kansas, they sexually assaulted a reporter. In Manchester New Hampshire, a woman pimped out her teen.

Other incidents of note, excluding the thousands of arrests, property damage, and using children as human shields, include two overdose deaths in Vancouver, a murder at OWS Oklahoma City, a knife fight at OWS Austin, Neo-Nazis in OWS Phoenix, etc. And of course, there is massive anti-Semitism throughout the movement.

Some Are More Equal Than Others

Finally, there is yet another irony that just has to be pointed out. You may recall, this “leaderless” group of anti-fascists has formed a General Assembly, right? (Plus the police force, the taxes, the rules, etc.). Well, the brown-shirts have taken over.

First, a small group of them formed a new politburo, called the Spokes Council. This group, apparently numbering around six, is locate at Zuccotti Park and have seized control of all the money the OWS movement has gathered. . . and they don’t want to share with the others or the other OWS sites. When other OWS dissenters objected or tried to find out details about this Council or what they were doing with the $500k, they found themselves silenced. Not only has the council ordered that they be ignored, but they’ve been drown out by the zombie crowds.

This Council also imposed rules on the General Assembly which allow 1.27% of the protesters to overrule the other 98%. They have made it impossible for anyone who isn’t in Zuccotti Park to have a voice in their “government” and they apparently meet in secret.

I guess Kumbaya has been replaced with Zuccotti Űber Alles.

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The Death Of Fox News??

Never let a crisis go to waste, especially somebody else’s crisis. That seems to be the motto of this administration. The latest example involves the implosion of News Corp.’s News of the World. Indeed, the Democrats are pulling out all the stops to use this to remove Rupert Murdoch from the helm of News Corp. and thereby, they hope, get FOX News under liberal control. Here’s what you need to know.

The scandal began when it was revealed that reporters at the 168 year old British tabloid News of the World had been hacking into phone accounts of famous celebrities and politicians to find dirt. This violates multiple British laws.

Things recently hit fever pitch when it was learned that the News of the World had bribed police for information AND had hacked into the phones of 9/11 victims and into the phone of a murdered British teenager (Milly Dowler). The outrage that followed forced the paper to close and led to the resignation of the latest editor, Rebekah Brooks, and of Les Hinton, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, who was an editor of the News of the World during part of the period in question -- there is no evidence of wrongdoing at the Journal. This weekend, Brooks was arrested and London's police chief resigned.

The scandal reaches Rupert Murdoch because Murdoch acquired the News of the World in 1969 and made it part of his News Corp. empire. That empire includes the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, among others. These are largely conservative organizations and, thus, the Democrats hate them with the passion of a 1,000 low-carbon suns. And with this scandal, the Democrats see a chance to attack their favorite bogeymen. Indeed, they are hoping to parlay the News of the World scandal into an attack on Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and Murdoch himself, who they hope to dislodge from the ownership of these organizations.

To that end, Eric Holder has announced that the Obama-controlled Department of Justice intends to investigate whether the Wall Street Journal or the New York Post were engaged in similar hacking. Can you say... fishing expedition? He also claims he will investigate whether 9/11 victims’ phones were hacked. Keep in mind, by the way, this is the same Justice Department that routinely turns a blind eye to any and all crimes committed by leftist groups or this administration.

Other Democrats are jumping in as well. The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has launched an online petition to demand that “Murdoch come clear.” A group of leftist “journalists” has launched a similar effort. John Podesta, the president of the Centre for American Progress, a leftist crackhouse, claims: “This is not one rogue editor. This is an empire that was built on a set of journalistic ethics that’s beginning to explode and unravel. They were routinely bribing public officials.” Of course, he has no evidence. But then, if anyone should know about bribery and a lack of ethics it would be Podesta, who helped Obama transition to the White House.

This is standard liberal crappola, and mainly it’s just liberals playing with themselves. But there is reason for concern.

The SEC (also under Obama’s control) could attack News Corp. for its subsidiary engaging in bribery of the British police, which would violate foreign bribery laws, specifically the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. A violation of the FCPA might require Murdoch to resign or even give up his ownership.

Also, under federal law, holders of television and radio licenses have to undergo character tests to show that they are fit to be media owners. If the SEC (or the Justice Department) finds a violation of the FCPA, the FCC (also under Obama’s control) could deny Murdoch his television and radio licenses, which would again result in him surrendering control.

At this point there is no evidence that Murdoch did anything wrong and he is doing all the right things. They closed the paper that had clearly spun out of control. The editors directly responsible, whether they had knowledge or not, have resigned. And his papers have issued a public apology. The committee that monitors The Wall Street Journal has already said they have no evidence of wrongdoing at the Journal or at Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent company (which is owned by News Corp.). And it’s unlikely Fox was involved because, frankly, they’ve never reported anything that didn’t come over the wire.

But doing the right thing does not insulate you from an aggressively partisan government. So expect Team Obama to pull out all the stops to use the power of government to shut down the one part of the MSM that isn’t in the tank for them.

This could get interesting.

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The Next Obama Scandal: “Gun Walking”

Operation Fast and Furious was an idiotic attempt by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to get proof that Mexican drug cartels are buying guns from American gun shops. This reckless operation had no chance of success and it got people killed, including American Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. What's more, it has all the hallmarks of being politically motivated and is likely to reach into the White House.



Starting in 2009, the ATF, part of Eric Holder’s Justice Department, got cooperative Phoenix-area gun shops to sell guns illegally to Mexicans. Rather than arrest these buyers, as they would have done in the past, the ATF instructed its agents to turn a blind eye to the sales. This has been called “gun walking” because they let these guns walk out the door. The ATF hoped the guns would be recovered from Mexican crime scenes, which they believed would let them build conspiracy cases against Mexican drug cartels. It didn’t. In fact, it couldn't because the entire concept is flawed. Consider this:

1. By telling the gun shops to knowingly sell the guns illegally, the agency itself made it possible for the guns to reach Mexico. Thus, this operation cannot stand as proof that American gun shops are selling to Mexicans because it was the ATF itself that made this possible and there is no evidence that any non-cooperating gun shops made similar sales.



2. Secondly, there’s no way to connect the drug cartels to the gun sales because the ATF didn’t keep track of the guns. In other words, even if cartel members used these guns in Mexico, there’s no way to trace the gun from the purchase to the cartel. And if the ATF's plan was just to assume the connection (something that is not permissible in a court of law) then why even bother releasing the guns?

Thus, even if the operation worked perfectly, it still could not have achieved the ATF's goals.



But more importantly, what was the cost of this stupidity? Republicans Rep. Daryl Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley just issued a 51 page report damning Operation Fast and Furious. From the start, this operation was criticized by experienced ATF agents as “reckless.” Said Grassley: “Both line agents and gun dealers who co-operated with the ATF repeatedly expressed concerns [about the operation]. . . but ATF supervisors did not heed those warnings. Instead, they told agents to follow orders because this was sanctioned from above.” And when ATF bosses were told this could result in people getting killed, they responded: “if you are going to make an omelet, you need to scramble some eggs.” In other words, they didn’t care. Apparently, they even threatened to fire or punish agents who complained.



It is unknown how many crimes these guns were used to commit because the ATF had no way to monitor what happened to the guns. But before the operation was stopped, 1,730 guns were allowed to disappear onto the black market, including hundreds of AK-47s and sniper rifles. One of those AK-47s was later used to kill Board Patrol Agent Brian Terry. And when he was killed, the ATF embarked on a cover up. William Newell, the special agent in charge of the operation, ordered the arrest of 20 of the minor gun buyers and then declared the operation a success even though nothing was ever linked to a single senior cartel member. When he was asked if the guns the ATF had let disappear were deliberately allowed to end up in the hands of criminals, he lied: “Hell no!”



So what you have here is a government agency that embarked on a policy that could not achieve the goals for which it was planned, which endangered thousands of American and Mexican lives, and which covered up the mess it created. If that’s not an argument for reining in the government, then nothing is.



Naturally, Obama has denied any knowledge of the operation and I’m sure Eric Holder will too. There is speculation that acting ATF director Kenneth Melson will be made the scapegoat here. But this is not the kind of operation that happens without higher up approval. In fact, one ATF agent has stated that this operation was cleared by the State Department, i.e. Hillary Clinton (who "coincidentally" came to the border to decry American guns right before this operation started).



To dodge this scandal, the Democrats are spinning this as the fault of the gun lobby for blocking the appointment of Obama’s choice to run the ATF -- that's the same Democrats who had a 60 seat majority but didn't confirm the guy. They also are trying to claim this started in 2006, which is true of the overall operation but not of the gun walking -- which only started in 2009 apparently after the approval of State. The ATF is trying to spin this as the result of the ATF not having enough personnel to monitor the guns, but that begs the question why they even started the operation.



In fact, why would they do this at all? The ATF says they wanted to get a better grasp on how cartels work, but that kind of knowledge is already available and this wouldn’t have helped them in any event. The real goal, in my opinion, was to create data to prove what Obama/Hillary/Holder were all arguing: that gun control is needed because American gun shops are arming Mexican drug cartels. That argument wasn’t working because everyone knows better. As I pointed out at the time, it’s silly to think Mexican cartels were buying guns from American gun shops when they have co-opted whole departments of the Mexican police and whole military units -- they could easily get better hardware out of Mexican armories. BUT. . . if American guns with serial numbers known to the ATF could suddenly be traced to a significant portion of murders in Mexico, then Obama/Clinton/Holder would have a new argument to aid them in their gun control attempts.



It strikes me this is a prime example of politicians abusing law enforcement to generate a controversy to help them score political points. People died so Team Obama could score those points. This is shameful and needs to be investigated.



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Why Unions Are Bad

With all the union vitriol lately, I thought I would explain exactly what I despise about unions. Philosophically, I have no qualms with unions. America guarantees the freedom to associated (First Amendment) and we enforce contract rights. So if a group of employees bind together and demand a group contract and employers are willing to accept that, then so be it. The problem with unions is what they've become.

First, I have a serious problem with union protections being put into law. If employees want to bind together, I support that. But only if the employer also has the right to not contract with them. I cannot support federal law giving one side or the other the right to force their will upon the other. I do not believe in freedom for only one side.

Secondly, modern unions have long ago stopped being organizations that seek to protect “workers.” Instead, they’ve become corrupt bureaucracies whose sole purpose has become self-perpetuation. What’s more, these unions are intensely short-sighted. They really would rather see a company or industry fail and see jobs sent overseas than they would compromise in any meaningful way. That’s why clothing is no longer made in America and why American cars can’t compete.

Nor do they care about consumers or the products they make. That’s why union companies fail to innovate and their products are shoddy. As proof that unions don’t care about consumers, no matter who they are, let me present this quote from Albert Shanker, the former President of the United Federation of Teachers: “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I'll start representing the interests of school children.” That’s why our schools not only are falling behind, but cannot change.

Third, unions have become organizations of thugs. Witness the number of death threats their membership sent to Republican legislators in Wisconsin. This is unacceptable in America and the unions that encouraged these members need to be charged as racketeering organizations. Or consider that former SEIU executive Stephen Lerner was caught on tape discussing a plan to destroy banks and the stock market by trying to coordinate a “strike” on mortgage, student loans and local government debt repayment. His idea is to destabilize banks to “create the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.” Or consider the recent civil RICO lawsuit by Sodexo against the SEIU. The complaint alleges harassment of employees, threats of making false claims of wrongdoing, putting roaches into food served by Sodexo, and lying to hospital patients about Sodexo food containing bugs, rat droppings, mold and flies. These are not people who care about workers. They have become criminal enterprises that dabble in politics.

Finally, even when the unions aren’t misbehaving, their priorities are disgusting. Rather than protecting workers from abusive employers, they are protecting abusive perverts and criminals from justice. Consider what the New York Times just discovered. The Times conducted an investigation into state-run nursing homes in New York State. After examining 13,000 allegations of abuse by staff in 2009, including sexual abuse and violence against people with conditions like Down syndrome, autism and cerebral palsy, the Times found that only 5% were reported to law enforcement even though state law requires that each instance be reported.

Moreover, the Times reviewed 399 disciplinary actions take in 2008 against employees accused of serious neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse. It found that in each case, the allegations were proven true and in each case the worker had previously been disciplined at least once. And what happened to these people? In 25% of the cases involving physical, sexual or psychological abuse, the agency just transferred the worker to another home. The agency tried to terminate 129 of these employees, but only succeeded in firing 30 of them. The rest skated through to abuse again.

Why can’t these people be fired and their crimes reported? You guessed it: their union. The Civil Service Employees Association (their union) challenged EVERY attempt at discipline. Said union executive Ross D. Hanna:

“If they’re brought up on charges, we have an absolute duty to represent them. That’s our job. When we know the person is guilty, we try to convince the person to get out of it by resigning. But if the person decides to go forward, we have to do our best job.”

That's bull! Nowhere is there an obligation to protect someone the union knows to be guilty. And if there is, then the union is not legitimate.

This is why people have come to hate unions. They don’t care about workers and they don’t care about companies. They don’t care if companies die or jobs vanish. They don’t care about consumers or taxpayers. All they care about is redistribution of wealth in the country, bulking up their political power, and protecting the vilest creatures from getting what they deserve. How does that help anyone?

This is what’s wrong with unions. They served a purpose in the age of robber barons when workers were treated like expendable machines. But now they’ve become the robber barons themselves. It’s time for them to reform or die.

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Pirates $238 Million, Liberals 0

Remember when Obama sent in the Navy Seals to stop some pirates? Everyone cheered. Then Hillary went around getting everyone to send ships to the Indian Ocean to put an end to piracy. Everyone cheered again. These were major triumphs! Well, after two years of showing how liberals wage police actions, no one’s cheering. . . except the pirates.

In 2005, thirty-five ships were taken for ransom by pirates. Arrrgh. The pirates received on average $150,000 per ship. Arrrgh. In 2008, Obama and his Liberal Superfriends stepped in to put an end to this scourge. Hurray for rainbows! How did they do?

Last year, 219 ships were taken and they were ransomed for an average of $5.4 million per ship. That’s a 625% increase in the number of ships taken and a 3,600% increase in the amount paid per ship, combining for a total increase in profits of 22,527%. You should have invested.

So what went wrong? In a word: liberalism.

The Liberal Superfriends (twenty five countries) sent a total of 30 ships. This may not sound a lot, but it was more than enough to start capturing pirates in droves. So far, so good. But then it gets tricky. See, liberals don’t like punishing criminals, so their rules of engagement require that 90% of the pirates captured are released right after they are captured. The others are sent to places like the United States and Western Europe to stay for a few years in our luxury prison accommodations. Three hots, a cot and cable TV, baby! Arrrgh!

So think about the economics of this. If you take up piracy and you pull it off, you and your mates get to split $5.4 million. That’s pretty tempting, especially as your alternative is to sit at home and eat stolen UN rice. But we have to weigh that against the risks before we decide, right? Well, the ship crews aren’t armed because liberals whine that will endanger the crews. . . . 760 of whom have now been held prisoners for more than a year, and 30 of whom have been killed. So the real risk is from the foreign navies. If one of them catches you, which is a small likelihood, then you have a 90% chance of getting a warm meal and a pat on the back before you get sent home. If you’re one of the “unfortunate” 10%, you get an all expenses paid trip to somewhere like the US.

Shiver me timbers! Why would anyone want to be a pirate? It unfathomable!

Well, the liberals intend to fix this unexpected debacle. The new thinking is that maybe the real problem is the lack of foreign investment in Somalia. If we could only build up their court system and give them jobs that earn $4 a year, then they won’t be temped to risk life and limblunch and leaving Somalia for $5.4 million. Yeah, that’ll work.

You know what else would stop piracy? Midnight basketball. Yep. If only pirates had midnight basketball, that would stop them.

Liberals are stupid.


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Obama/Democrats Go Soft On Crime

The Democrats love criminals. Ever since the 1960s, they’ve cared more about criminals than any other group, and certainly more than they care about you. They proved that again this weekend when Obama quietly signed a law you never heard of, a law that seeks to undo the incredible progress we’ve made in cutting the nation’s crime rates to historically low levels. And wait till you hear the reasoning!

In the 1960s, an army of liberals descended upon the criminal justice system. Armed with degrees in weepy liberalism and lunacy, they saw criminals as victims of racist juries and judges, victims of poverty and cycles of violence, and victims of a society that wasn’t liberal. And what about the people these poor victims raped, murdered, maimed and robbed? Well, they were collateral damage, and liberals weren’t interested in them. Not surprisingly, crime soared. Everything from murder to rape to petty vandalism took off to levels not seen since the barbarians swept through Rome.

Then came the backlash and the age of Reagan. Non-retarded Americans got sick of being victimized by these monsters and decided to take the system out of the hands of the liberal enablers. Thus, they passed truth in sentencing laws that required criminals to actually serve their sentences. No longer would juries sentence someone to life only to discover that meant 10 years (although this is still the law in West Virginia). They passed mandatory minimum sentencing laws to prevent liberal judges from letting everyone with a weepy tale go with a slap on the wrist and a hug. And they passed three strikes and you’re out laws to lock up recidivists.

And guess what happened? Over the howls of liberals. . . howls about the two time rapist/murder who was “unfairly” locked away for life “for stealing a slice of pizza,” howls that the United States locked up more people than anyone else (though this was a statistical lie), howls that locking people up “wouldn’t solve anything”. . . crime plunged. Yep. Year after year, the crime rate kept falling until we reached a point that hadn’t been seen since the 1950s.

Not surprisingly, liberals were furious. They couldn’t accept that the ignorant masses knew something their “enlightened” ilk did not, and that their “enlightened” ideas caused a 40 year crime wave. So they tried to find reasons why locking criminals up wasn’t what caused the drop in crime. Everything from decreases in poverty to an aging population was offered as possible reasons for the drop in crime. But the statistics never supported these assertions. Thus, liberals were left with a head-scratcher, crime rates fell and “no one seems to know why.” Only occasionally would one of them reluctantly acknowledge that locking up career criminals is “probably” what caused this.

Still, liberals don’t give up that easily. So for decades now they’ve been trying to undo mandatory sentences and three strikes laws. They’ve found every case they thought was “unfair” and they tried to make heroes and celebrities of them. They’ve attacked the death penalty, life in prison, prison conditions, and “disparate treatment.” In particular, they were upset that distribution of crack cocaine resulted in longer sentences than distribution of powder cocaine. Why? Because “it’s the same drug” and “blacks are more likely than whites to use crack,” thus this distinction is “racist”. . . like a ham sandwich.

What they ignored, of course, was that crack dealers are much more likely to engage in violence and that crack is significantly more powerful. Indeed, their argument is akin to asserting that two criminals should receive the same sentence for stealing $20, “because it was the same crime,” even though one criminal snuck the money out of his mother’s purse and the other took hostages in a bank. (And let's not forget that contrary to what liberals apparently believe, blacks don't need to do crack.)

In any event, Democrats were afraid to take up this cause because they didn’t want to be seen as “soft on crime,” which is a nice way of saying “on the side of rapists, murderers, drug dealers and child molesters.” But all that changed this weekend.

On Saturday, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduces minimum sentences for crack cocaine sentences, and he announced a top-to-bottom review of mandatory minimum sentences with the apparent intention of reducing sentence length for everything from drug dealing to being “convicted of child pornography offenses.” Ah, liberalism.

Listen to Holder:

“Too many people have been treated in a disparate manner and too many of our citizens have come to have doubts about our criminal justice system.”

No, not really, just liberals have doubts, and it’s the same doubts they’ve always had. They just don’t like the idea of punishing perverts and monsters.

“We must . . . have the courage to ask difficult questions of ourselves and our system. We must break out of the old and tired partisan stances that have stood in the way of needed progress and reform.”

Why is it that doing the liberal thing is always the courageous thing and standing in the way of liberals is always the partisan thing? And if Holder wants to ask a difficult question, he should ask why he and his kind are obsessed with doing what’s already been proven not to work, and why they like the idea of turning predators loose on the population?

So why now? Two reasons, both of them ridiculous.

First, the Democrats think the public won’t notice them going all “soft on crime” again because the Republicans have distracted the public by calling them “soft of terror.” Think about this argument for a moment: you’ll be so distracted thinking Democrats are child molesters that you won’t notice them molesting your dog. Sorry, that’s not happening you Democratic-pedophile-ophiles. . . we will notice.

Secondly, these idiots think now is a good time to tinker because crime rates are so low:

“Advocates point to several reasons for the shift toward a less-draconian approach to crime and for its retreat as a hot-button political issue. Crime rates are at some of the lowest levels in a generation.”

In other words, the prior policies worked. . . so now we can use the calm that created to go back to doing what didn’t work because people aren't as worried about the issue anymore. This is why liberalism should be classified as a form of retardation.

Expect crime rates to start "inexplicably" rising again soon.


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“I Did Not Offer A Job To That (Joe)Man.”

Ah Bill Clinton, is there no scandal you won’t join? Let’s dissect this Joe Sestak matter because it’s import. Indeed, it appears that a very serious crime has been committed. BUT, this is something the Republicans need to shut up about. Here’s why. . .

1. The Facts: What Happened

Here is what happened in JobGate.

1. Joe Sestak begins a primary challenge against turncoat Sen. Snarlin Arlen Specter.

2. Soon Sestak starts bragging that the White House offered him a job to drop his senate bid. On Larry King, he was asked: “Were you ever offered a federal job to get out of this race?” Answer: “Yes.” The following day, on FOX News, he was asked if he was offered “a federal job, a White House or administrative job.” Sestak said “yes.” On Joe Scarborough he was asked if it was “an offer to run the Navy.” Sestak said “yes.” At no point in this interview or any others did he ever suggest that he wasn’t actually offered a job or that it was only an advisor position. That’s called an admission.

3. People start pointing out that this is a felony (see below). And the Republicans ask Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor. Holder refuses. That’s called a cover-up.

4. Obama is questioned by the media and avoids responding: “You will get it from my administration, and it will be coming out shortly. . . I can assure the public that nothing improper took place, but as I said, there will be a response shortly on that issue.” That’s called a non-denial denial and indicates a cover-up in progress.

5. Sestak is asked to clarify exactly what the job was. He now refuses to answer: “I have nothing else to say on the matter.” That’s guilty talk.

6. Obama and Clinton meet for lunch. That’s called conspiracy.

7. The White House issues a very carefully-worded, very evasive white wash memo that claims that Bill Clinton met with Sestak, not anyone from the White House, and that Bill only offered to put Sestak on an “uncompensated advisory board.” It also claims that Republicans have done this in the past too. . . although it doesn’t cite any examples. Demonization is always an acknowledgement of guilt

8. Finally, Sestak issued a statement saying he had turned down an unpaid advisor job. That's called conspiracy after the fact.

2. Why This Is A Crime

If a job was offered to Sestak, then a felony was committed. Here’s why:

1. 18 U.S.C. section 211 makes it a crime to solicit or receive anything of value in exchange for appointing (or influencing the appointment of) someone to an office or job with the United States. This is subject to one year in prison and a fine.

2. 18 U.S.C. section 595 makes it a crime for anyone to use a federal job, federal funds, or a federal position to interfere with a Senate election. This is subject to one year in prison and a fine.

3. 18 U.S.C. section 600, makes it a crime to offer public employment in exchange for political activity. This is the Hatch Act, which was passed in 1939 to stop the practice of hiring political hacks for government jobs and to stop the use of government resources to promote political parties, i.e. to depoliticize the federal work force. However, the only penalty appears to be termination of employment.

Each of these applies “directly or indirectly,” meaning that going through a third party is the same thing as doing it yourself. . . hi Bill. Thus, everyone involved in this could be sentenced up to two years in prison, fined, and lose any federal job they hold. Removing a President would require impeachment.

3. Why This Should Be Investigated

Speaking as an attorney, this has all the hallmarks of a crime that is now being covered up. Can it be proven? Possibly. That’s why you need a special prosecutor. They can call in all the witnesses and quiz them, including secretaries and assistants. It is the secretaries and assistants who usually break a case open either because they decide not to lie for their bosses (though, in truth, they usually do lie) or they don’t know what lie to tell (this is more common). The prosecutor can also subpoena phone records and computer records -- including e-mails, which is also where these things usually fall apart. After that, one or more main players will usually roll over and start telling the truth.

The other reason a special prosecutor should be called is that this is not an isolated incident. In Colorado, Andrew Romanoff is running against Sen. Michael Bennet in the Democratic primary. According to The Denver Post, Jim Messina, Obama’s deputy chief of staff, “suggested a place for Romanoff might be found in the administration and offered specific suggestions, according to several sources. . . Romanoff turned down the overture, which included mention of a job at USAID.” The day after, Romanoff announced his Senate bid. The White House has denied this, but “several top Colorado Democrats” have confirmed it anonymously to The Post.

4. Why Republicans Need To Shut The Heck Up Fast

Despite the fact that this is a crime, the Republicans need to shut the heck up about this. They should push to get a special prosecutor, but should not talk about impeachment and should not try to score points on this once a special prosecutor is appointed. Here’s why.

People do not like attacks that seem purely political. And they don’t like politicians using the criminal justice system to attack their opponents. They particularly don’t like politicians trying to “get” their opponents with esoteric laws. And the public will see this as esoteric. Why? Because Obama could have done this legally.

Presidents have the power to appoint anyone they want. Thus, Obama could have appointed Sestak to whatever position he has in mind and it would have been entirely legal, even if Sestak needed to drop his Senate bid to take the job. It only became illegal because of the quid-pro-quo aspect, the “you only get this if. . .” aspect. But since Obama could have done this legally by just omitting those words, people will see this as a “technically illegal” illegality. In my experience, people do not like those, and they hate it when politicians use those against their opponents.

Moreover, look at the history of using these kinds of attacks on opponents. Iran Contra made Oliver North into a hero and made the Democrats looks like incompetent, anti-American jerks. The impeachment of Bill Clinton made Bill Clinton much more popular than he had been and made Republicans look like nasty, intolerant, sex-obsessed tyrants. It also ended many a career on the Republican side, but only enhanced those on the left. Even consider Watergate. The Democrats didn’t bring down Nixon, Nixon brought down Nixon. And what did the Democrats gain? Nothing. They only beat Ford after he pardoned Nixon, and four years later came Ronald Reagan and a dramatic shift to the right.

This same history gets repeated in other countries as well. When politicians try to use criminal laws against their opponents, the crime better be ultra-serious. Anything that sounds technical or snippy will always blow up on the party that is perceived as exploiting the law.

The better approach is to let the investigation do its thing. Let a prosecutor go after these people and let the steady drip of allegations and the infighting do the damage. In the meantime, just keep saying, “serious allegations have been raised and there should be a prosecutor appointed to uncover the truth. The American people deserve the truth. Beyond that, I’ll wait to comment until after the investigation.”

That may not be the sexy strategy, but it's the smart strategy.


** Update: It now turns out that Sestak would not have been eligible for the job Clinton supposedly offered him. That makes their claims look even more like a coverup. That's what happens when you try to make up an "alibi" after the fact.

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School Killings In China

Anyone who follows the MSM will have heard that America is an evil place because our “gun culture” has led to the murder of vast numbers of school kids. By comparison, the rest of the world is a peaceful Garden of Eden where nothing bad ever happens. Of course, this is a lie, but it fits the narrative the MSM wants you to believe. Nothing shows this more than the non-coverage of what has been going on in China in the past couple of months.

For starters, let me remind you that despite the high profile that the media loves to give school shootings, they are incredibly rare. In the last five years in the United States, there have been five shooting sprees in schools that resulted in three or more deaths. A total of 50 people were killed in these five shootings (32 at Virginia Tech and 18 during the other four). This compares to 2.5 million deaths in the US annually. Thus, while each of these is indeed tragic, this is hardly a common occurrence as the media would have you believe.

Moreover, pinning this on our “gun culture” is pure politics. Indeed, all we hear from the MSM for weeks when such a shooting happens is how it could have been prevented if we banned guns. Of course, this is a lie, and they know it. But they are looking to exploit this tragedy and no lack of logic on their part will stop them.

If you want proof that this is not the result of our “gun culture,” look at Europe. In the same five year period just discussed, anti-gun Europe had four mass killings at schools. These resulted in 49 deaths. Almost the identical number as in the United States. Thus, while the media plays up the idea of US “gun culture” being the cause of school killings, the reality is quite different.

(I am not including things like Beslan, where terrorists killed more than 340 people in a school or Afghanistan where there were more than 80 school attacks this month alone to keep girls from being educated.)

Further, consider what has gone on in China, something that is not being reported in the MSM. On May 12th, seven children were hacked to death in a kindergarten in Shaanxi. Eleven others were injured. In April, more than 50 children were injured or killed in a half dozen similar attacks. On March 23, in Fujian province, eight children were killed. These incidents are becoming so common that the Chinese have started putting armed guards in their schools with orders to shoot suspects on sight.

The current thinking in China is that this is a response by people who feel powerless to oppose their system and that these killers choose to strike at the most vulnerable in response. This strikes me as false just as the gun culture argument is false. The reality is that some people are just sick. And the idea that we should remake society, e.g. eliminate guns in the US or more closely monitor dissidents in China, to stop these people is ludicrous.

What we should take away from these events are that (1) we should not politicize tragedies, (2) we should not attribute the acts of the deranged to political groups, political causes, or groups of people, and (3) we should be more watchful of people with mental conditions and we should look to intervene earlier and with greater care.

Finally, we should take away one last fact. Some things cannot be stopped. If a lunatic is intent on hurting people, they will find a way. Thus, we must expect these things to happen. Therefore, we should consider ways to improve our protections in the event something like this does happen. Indeed, it must be pointed out that each of these killings could have been stopped sooner if we had not tried to keep peaceful, innocent people from protecting themselves through the possession of firearms.

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The Supreme Court Goes Stupid

Yesterday, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that anyone under the age of 18 cannot be sentenced to life in prison without parole unless they’ve killed someone (they ruled out the death penalty for teens in 2005). To some, this might sound like a good distinction, but it’s not. By focusing on the outcome of the crime rather than the actions undertaken, the Court has created an illogical, arbitrary and nonsensical law. Consider this. . .

Actions and Intent Should Matter, Not Outcomes

The Supreme Court’s new ruling focuses on the outcome of the crime, as courts must now look to whether or not the teenager killed someone. This is ridiculous. Under the law, taking an action has always been enough to receive the maximum punishment for the crime without any consideration as to the outcome. Thus, the punishment doesn’t change depending on how successful the criminal was, e.g. if you break into a bank, you are charged with bank robbery whether you get away with anything or not. But the Supreme Court’s new ruling turns this on its head and the result is arbitrary.

Assume that you have two teenagers, both age 17. Teenager A pulls out a gun and shoots another person. Teenager B does the same. Both empty the clip with the intent of killing the person they are shooting at. The person shot by Teenager A dies. The person shot by Teenager B does not die. Under the Supreme Court’s new ruling, Teenager A can be locked up for life, whereas Teenager B can not. Does that make sense? Both had the same intent. Both took the same actions. Teenager B is merely lucky that the person did not die. Distinctions like this are arbitrary and discredit the law.

Moreover, intent has always mattered under the law. Indeed, there are defenses like self defense that are entirely based on intent. Similarly, the law often enhances the punishment level where the criminal’s intent was evil. Yet, the Supreme Court’s new ruling ignores intent and looks only to the outcome and age of the criminal, and consequently, the Court reaches a bizarre result.

Let’s change the scenario from above. Teenager A pulls out a gun and shoots someone. The case is arguably self defense, but the jury doesn’t buy it. Teenager A can be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Meanwhile, Teenager B kidnaps, rapes and tortures a child. Teenager B then shoots the child and leaves the child to die. But the child does not die. The child is, instead, left paralyzed, in permanent pain and mentally disabled. Teenager B cannot be sentenced to life in prison. Does that make sense? Under what standard can we consider Teenager A to be a greater danger to society or more depraved that Teenager B?

Age Is An Artificial Distinction

Finally, drawing a line between the ages of 17 and 18 is an arbitrary and senseless distinction. Eighteen was chosen as the age of majority eons ago for the sole purpose of creating clear lines in the law. Below that age, you had no legal rights. Beyond that age, you did. The reason 18 was chosen (it used to be 21) was that it was assumed that 18 (21) was the age where you finally matured into an adult and that you could understand your actions. But there is nothing magical about the age of 18, nor is 18 even the age of majority in all countries; in some countries it is as low as 14. Thus, there is no logical reason for picking 18.

Once again, assume two teenagers. Teenager A turned 18 years old today. Teenager B is 17 years and 364 days old. They commit the same crime, together. Teenager A can be sentenced to life in jail with no parole. Teenager B cannot. What possible difference can that one day make? Shouldn’t the Court be concerned with determining whether or not the teenagers were aware of the consequences of their actions? That’s the supposed reason they drew the cutoff at 18 in the first place. So why draw the distinction using some arbitrary date set a thousand years ago rather than having teenage defendants examined to determine their competence?

Conclusion

This is the problem with weak reasoning. When a court looks at a case and abandons intellectual rigor to reach a particular result, it thinks it’s being fair and decent. But what it really is doing is making the system less fair and more arbitrary. This ruling creates a system where the truly twisted can escape justice because of the date of their birth, while less depraved others face greater punishments.

It will only be a matter of time before you see your first 60 Minutes show about some poor murdering teen who is in jail for life when other teens who tortured and maimed their victims are roaming free. When that liberal 60 Minutes anchor turns to the screen and asks you “how can we let such an unfair system exist,” look them straight in the eye and tell them “because a group of liberal judges wanted to make the system more fair, and this is what their illogic wrought.”


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