The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Cold Civil War

Posted on | April 3, 2012 | 18 Comments

by Smitty

My current commute is ~45 minutes. I like to use that time to check in with Stacy, and continue the attempts to guide him along paths of TweeDeck righteousness. We’ll get him there.

I also like to chat up my dad, a retired Navy E-7 with a GED who may or may not be a representative sample of the ‘boomer‘ set (he actually predates Stacy’s cadre by just over a year) who, on the cusp of retirement, is shocked, Shocked! to discover there’s a Commie in the White House.

Dad, who quit smoking after about 40 years, just had his blood sugar clock in at 200+. He’s controlling it nicely with diet and exercise (two things he’d paid scant attention these decades), thank heaven. He’d already been irritated, since his mid-eighties retirement from the Navy, with that relative success story in government-run medicine, the Veteran’s Administration. As the pill-eating stage of life looms, the thought of ObamaCare not only offends him as a case study in stillborn policy, but also as the antithesis of what he spent 23 precious years of his life defending against: a threat to liberty.

What would the third POTUS do?
My task, in these conversations, is to offer dad the value of the education the taxpayers have poured into my head (thanks!), as well as the blogs I consume at just below the addiction level. Like TweetDeck, an RSS reader is a powerful tool. I recently blew away about 75% of my subscriptions, because the signal-to-noise ration was too far gone. One of the keepers was The Corner, where there was a choice Thomas Jefferson quote from 1807 that cuts to the heart of our Constitutional crisis:

Congress may make the law; whatever is proper to be executed by way of a treaty, the President & Senate may enter into the treaty; whatever is to be done by a judicial sentence, the judges may pass the sentence. Nothing is more likely than that their enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us go on then perfecting it, by adding, by way of amendment to the Constitution, those powers which time & trial show are still wanting. But it has been taken too much for granted, that by this rigorous construction the treaty power would be reduced to nothing.

and, later:

I confess, then, I think it important, in the present case, to set an example against broad construction, by appealing for new power to the people.

Read the whole, beautiful thing. It’s refreshing to read of a President who grasped that he was ultimately a servant of the people. That’s the sort of thing dad expects.

Doing your job is unprecedented? Only if your name is Barack Obama.
Via Sissy Willis on Twitter (Stacy, your attention is called to the TweetDeck agent) we have the contrast of #OccupyResoluteDesk quoted at Red State taking a far less American tack on the question of the source of power in our nation, with a response from Leon Wolf:

(BHO):“Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

Look, I’m not here to debate the finer points of Marbury v. Madison with anyone, but the fact remains that since that decision was handed down over 200 years ago, it has not exactly been “unprecedented and extraordinary” for the Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by Congress (no matter the size of the majority). In fact, it happens all the time. That is the entire point of the doctrine of judicial review, first announced in Marbury and affirmed without serious challenge ever since.

Read the whole thing. But understand that, past Obama’s bluster, ObamaCare is the antithesis of everything our system of limited government is intended to do:

  • Who:A small number of people of only one party drafted a bill in relative secrecy.
  • What: A bill so vast that no one could hope to achieve due diligence in reading it, estimating its costs, or even have an honest grasp of its Constitutionality.
  • Where: The location where ObamaCare was crafted is about the only straight piece of the puzzle.
  • When: The shenanigans of the timing for ObamaCare are one of the less murky aspects of it. Other than the fact that is was rammed through so quickly that no one read it.
  • How: All of the drama of the Town Halls, the Scott Brown election, the attempt to deem ObamaCare passed to avoid personal responsibility, the propaganda drama of the Word that Rhymes With ‘Bigger’ allegedly being used on Representatives. . .are we supposed to forget that, Barack?

I’m saving the question of Why for the conclusion, but I will claim Progressive and Postmodern reasons when I get there. But first, a couple of other points. Dad hates these sorts of digressions, but I don’t often break away from TweetDeck for a real McCain-ian stemwinder, so bear with me.

Flogging the SCOTUS like a rented mule
Ace links to Mickey Kaus, wondering aloud if the details of Friday’s initial vote at the Supreme Court may have been leaked to #OccupyResoluteDesk.

Kaus wondered a few days ago if/when we’d get a leak from the result of the conference vote — the first, non-binding vote by the judges.
This is the hottest question in the nation– could any wife or husband not help but beg to be told? And what about all those clerks? Secrets are fun to keep, but even more fun to tell!

Let’s see here: Elena Kagan on the softball diamond with the iPhone, or Sonia Sotomayor sharing wisdom in the restaurant with the Blackberry? Why would they not tell their patron? The vote may have been secret, but it wasn’t secret secret. Perhaps the two ladies have some sense of obligation to the Constitution and their respective oaths. I will cheerfully retract my impingement of their honor if they join the opinion that ObamaCare is as anti-American as the Yamato, beside the fact that ObamaCare has a similar displacement.
Yid with Lid notes the pattern at work:

This is not the first time this President has tried to intimidate the court. During his 2010 State of the Union Address, he lied about the court’s decision in the Citizens United Case,

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.” Justice Alito shook his head and mouthed, “Not true.”

Alito was correct the POTUS was twisting the truth for his own political ends.

The Supreme Court, flawed though it may be, is almost the last remaining impediment to BHO’s power, at least within the Beltway.

Now, why?
In discussing current events with dad, merely hating on the Commies is not enough. That’s just present-tense, emotional outlet. One needs to understand why, in order to formulate a solid strategy. While I offered a think piece on the topic a few weeks ago, let me summarize that in closing.

  • Postmodernism rejects the notion of Truth outright. Reason without Truth is a boat with no rudder; no forcing function to keep it on a stable course. Lacking such, Postmodern politicians are all after power. Their own, really, but couched in terms of the state. State power also hates liberty, the power of the individual. Whenever a Postmodernist speaks something correlating with history, fact, and reality, it is either accidental, or camouflage.
  • Progressives don’t believe in liberty. Tracking the teachings of Gustav le Bon, the Progressives behave as though the American people are a vast, mindless mob, suitable for herding. The iron bureaucratic rod of ObamaCare is thus a fun way to fetish power, to rake in a boatload of cash on the stock market, and a civic duty to keep the hoi polloi properly penned.

This old lust for power of these Postmodern Progressives represents a return to medieval days. When power is held by few, having the correct patron is paramount. Ask Sotomayor and Kagan, who can be relied upon to disgrace themselves and try do defend ObamaCare with their opinions. How could 26 of 57 states be correct in their suit against The State? (Please prove me wrong, ladies). When the public debt finally destroys the economy, having the correct friends and speaking correct thought will become more important than liberty.
And so history will reflect some years hence, and decide we are currently in a Cold Civil War. The zombie of Communism has arrived, even though the Cold War officially ended a score of years ago. To finish the deed that the Soviet Union started, the destruction of the exceptional American Constitutional order, #OccupyResoluteDesk is striving to foment this second Civil War. To divide Americans racially, economically, and spiritually, and so ease the conquest.
Thus, resist we much. 2012 is not just ‘the most important election of our lifetimes’. It is shaping up to be the climax of this Cold Civil War, where zombie Communism is thrown back, and a third, post-Progressive era begins. Or the birth of AmSoc.

Update: Jimmie Bise offers a great chaser.

Category: Barack Obama, Democrats, Health Care, Progressivism, Supreme Court

Question the Timing: Planned Parenthood Bombing Before Wisconsin Primary?

Posted on | April 3, 2012 | 36 Comments

Watching MSNBC can be a weird experience. About 3 a.m., unable to sleep, I was flipping around the channels and happened onto Ed Schultz — who reminds me of every mean drunk I ever knew — going on and on about the alleged Republican “War on Women.”

I had the sound muted on the TV (because my wife was asleep) and what I was watching made no sense. What the heck was this about?

Why was there a Planned Parenthood logo at the bottom corner of the screen with the word, “FBI”? And why were they showing a statement by Rick Santorum condemning violence? Curious, I got up and did a Google search and found this Associated Press story:

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. — Police say a homemade explosive device damaged a Planned Parenthood clinic in eastern Wisconsin.
Authorities say someone placed the small device on an outside window sill about 7:40 p.m. Sunday at the clinic in Grand Chute, near Appleton.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin CEO Teri Huyck said in a statement that there was minimal damage to an exam room and that the clinic will reopen Tuesday. No one was in the building at the time.

That’s all there is to it. A “small device” that did “minimal damage” at an empty office — in Wisconsin, two days before the Republican primary.

So while this is enough to make Ed Schultz devote his Monday show to haranguing us about a Republican “War on Women,” I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe this was actually some kind of hoax.

The FBI is investigating, and I’ll be eager to learn the result of their investigation because — call me a crazy conspiracy theorist — it seems rather illogical that if some kind of Cheesehead Misogynist Militia wanted to terrorize women, they’d do so with a “small device,” causing “minimal damage” at an empty office.

TWO DAYS BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY.

You catching my drift here?

Anyway, I hope the FBI cracks this case quickly, because MSNBC is achieving new heights of absurdity in playing connect-the-dots with this rather oddly timed incident, jumping to outlandish conclusions without any evidentiary basis. Here is Michelle Goldberg on “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Again, call me crazy for suspecting that this is some kind of hoax, but the logic just doesn’t work. If this was actually done by an anti-abortion extremist, wouldn’t this person realize that they were committing a federal crime? And if you were going to commit a federal crime, would you risk imprisonment for a “small device” that did “minimal damage”?

TWO DAYS BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY?

OK, maybe Wisconsin is home to America’s lamest anti-abortion extremists. It’s possible. Can’t rule that out.

At the same time, however, we know for a fact that Wisconsin is home to some particularly stupid Democrats. Remember the Democrats who slashed the tires of Republican get-out-the-vote vehicles in 2004?

After a three-month investigation, Sowande Omokunde, the son of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, Michael Pratt, the son of former Milwaukee Mayor Marvin Pratt, Lewis Caldwell, and Lavelle Mohammad, from Milwaukee, and Justin Howell, from Racine, were each charged with a felony count of criminal damage to property.

Notice that it took a three-month investigation before there were any charges filed in that case. It may be months before we have any idea who committed this crime at the Planned Parenthood office, and therefore all this “War on Women” hype on MSNBC is ridiculously premature. Via Steve Ertelt at Life News, here is Rick Santorum’s statement:

“Violence is never the answer, and I will always condemn any and all violent attacks against our fellow Americans.  In this country, we resolve our differences through political discussion and free and fair elections — never by violence. This upcoming election is about restoring freedom and liberty in America, and a key part of that is to restore a culture that values human life and the dignity of all Americans.  While we can and should work to defund Planned Parenthood and push back against government mandates that force Americans and religious institution to violate their faith, violence against our fellow citizens has no place in a freedom-loving America.”

Violence is never the answer, and neither is voting for moderates from Massachusetts. On, Wisconsin! Vote for Rick Santorum!

UPDATE: Why Is the U.S. Justice Department Monitoring the Wisconsin Primary?

UPDATE II: Police Arrest Suspect in Planned Parenthood Bombing — and at this point, police are refusing to name the suspect.

Category: Crime, Election 2012, MSNBC, Planned Parenthood, Rick Santorum, Wisconsin

Newt Neutered: Gingrich’s Pathetic Shadow Campaign Stumbles Onward

Posted on | April 2, 2012 | 31 Comments

Being without means of transportation at the moment — thanks to the vigilant police officers of Livonia, Louisiana — I couldn’t have attended this, even if I’d wanted to, but I’m actually kind of glad I missed Newt Gingrich’s appearance today in nearby Frederick, Maryland. Byron York was there to witness Newt’s disgrace:

Strapped for cash and struggling to stay in the game after a series of losses in Southern states he thought he could win, Gingrich has in the last few days come up with a strategy to “redirect” his campaign. . . .
Almost daily, Gingrich is sending out signs that he ultimately expects Romney to win the delegates required to secure the nomination. . . .
Gingrich appears to concede that, barring some unforeseen happening, Romney will win the nomination. And Gingrich is also plainly recognizing that his own campaign is a shadow of what it was during his two hot streaks, in Iowa and South Carolina. The big blue NEWT bus is gone, the crowds are smaller, the staff is smaller. . . .

Dude. Not even a bus? Less than two weeks ago, Team Newt was rolling across rural Louisiana in a 10-car motorcade.

And I remember being in Fort Myers the day before the Florida primary when Newt flew in on his custom chartered jet.

That was barely two months ago, when Newt was burning through campaign cash at a rate of $190,000 a day! (Dividing his campaign’s January expenditures of $5.9 million by 31.) The obvious problem was — although the hired geniuses at Team Newt didn’t seem to see it this way — Florida was winner-take-all, so there was no consolation prize in delegates for second place, and being on the receiving end of a 14-point ass-kicking by Romney was an expensive embarrassment for Gingrich.

While he was jetting around the Sunshine State and blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars a day in that doomed effort, of course, Newt was failing to build even the rudiments of a campaign organization in Colorado and Minnesota. So once he imploded in Nevada — heeding the misguided advice of his personal staff instead of his Nevada coordinators, blowing off an appearance with Gov. Brian Sandoval and otherwise auto-destructing his campaign in what was aptly described to me by one of his Nevada supporters as a “clusterf**k” — there was never any real chance of a Gingrich comeback.

Fourth place in Minnesota? And never mind, of course, that Newt placed third in Colorado, which Santorum won with a shoestring campaign operation that was little more than two guys in the basement of somebody’s house in Colorado Springs.

Anyway, the last time I saw Newt — in Baton Rouge, two nights before the Louisiana primary — I sat in the back of the room and listened quietly while he talked about how he had “helped design campaigns that won huge elections.” And then of course, he got 16 percent of the vote that Saturday, after he’d already secretly met with Romney in New Orleans, yet Gingrich still has the gall to show up in Frederick and accept $50 checks from little old ladies?

Good thing I missed it. It probably wouldn’t be ethical for a professional journalist to laugh out loud at a candidate. Or spit on him, either.

Category: Election 2012, Maryland, Newt Gingrich

BRILLIANT IDEA! Have The RNC Hire George Obama And Put Him On Tour!

Posted on | April 2, 2012 | 27 Comments

by Smitty

Breitbart has an article about how #OccupyResoluteDesk claims to be “his brother’s keeper”, just not his brother brother, George.

The Telegraph, cira 2008, has the details:

He told the magazine: “I live like a recluse, no-one knows I exist.”
Embarrassed by his penury, he said that he does not does not mention his famous half-brother in conversation.
“If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed,” he said.
For ten years George Obama lived rough. However he now hopes to try to sort his life out by starting a course at a local technical college.
He has only met his famous older brother twice – once when he was just five and the last time in 2006 when Senator Obama was on a tour of East Africa and visited Nairobi.
The Illinois senator mentions his brother in his autobiography, describing him in just one passing paragraph as a “beautiful boy with a rounded head”.

OK, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. It would be hard to do in a way that isn’t totally exploitative. But someone with the resources should check, on the offchance George Obama has become an Austrian Economist in the last four years, and just needs a platform to tell the world what a colossal, useless knob his brother by another mother has turned out to be.

Category: Barack Obama, Uncategorized

Ain’t I Done Told Ya So?

Posted on | April 2, 2012 | 9 Comments

Perhaps you remember this Sept. 23 headline:

Does Pain Explain Perry’s
Poor Debate Performances?

Once more, I give credit to Brian Ledbetter of Snapped Shots for the e-mail tip alerting me that Rick Perry had undergone back surgery in July, thus permitting me to become the first national journalist to suggest that there might be a connection between the Texas governor’s back pain and his problems in the TV debates.

The day after I posted that at The American Spectator, Perry’s campaign denied (to Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post) that the governor’s back pain was a problem. It was nearly three months later — in an interview with the Des Moines Register published Dec. 11 — that Perry admitted he was “pretty fatigued” because of his back problems.

Ah, but it was worse than mere “fatigue,” as I was told during my trip to Iowa and reported on Dec. 31:

Earlier this week, I talked to a well-informed conservative who claimed to know — from sources close to the Perry campaign — that the governor had been prescribed Oxycontin for pain, and was subsequently taken off that medication when it became apparent it was affecting him negatively.

The Iowa source who told me that was speaking off-the-record in such a way that, when he described (but would not name) his source, I suspected I knew the quite famous political operative. However, I don’t burn my sources, especially not in such a way that it would burn my source’s sources, so therefore:

  1. I only mentioned it once, burying it in a blog post on New Year’s Eve; and
  2. I made sure the sourcing was vague.

Also, given that this was a second-hand sort of item, I didn’t want to seem to be spreading malicious gossip without substantiation. However, in my defense — another fact that was necessarily omitted from that Dec. 31 item — I knew it wasn’t malicious because the Iowa source actually had a favorable disposition toward Perry, despite being disappointed by the mismanagement of Perry’s campaign in the Hawkeye State. (Note to self: Call source and see if we’ve reached “now it can be told” status.)

OK, so that’s what happened from September through December, from my first speculation until the subsequent confirmation that back pain was a major factor in Rick Perry’s undoing. Now, via Alex Pappas at The Daily Caller, the denouement:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry was under the influence of painkillers during televised presidential debates over the last year to help relieve severe back pain, according to a soon-to-be released eBook on the 2012 Republican race for president obtained by The Daily Caller.
“It became an open secret that he was using painkillers in sufficient dosages to keep him standing through the two-hour debates,” write the authors of “Inside the Circus.”
A source provided TheDC with an advance copy of the eBook, authored by Mike Allen and Evan Thomas. The book comes out Tuesday.

Read the whole thing. And keep this little episode in mind next time I tell you something that seems too strange to be true.

UPDATE: My smartass friend Doug Winship — one of the world’s greatest bartenders — knows just how to stick the knife in:

Too bad you quit blogging. You could brag about this….

Yeah, thanks, smartass. I would have actually quit, too, if tip-jar hitters hadn’t talked me out of it. So hit the freaking tip jar.





Category: Debates, Election 2012, Iowa, Rick Perry, Texas

Ron Paul Supporter Challenges Romney Over Mormon Doctrine in Wisconsin

Posted on | April 2, 2012 | 69 Comments

Did no one else see this coming?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was confronted at a town hall meeting here Monday by a young man who read from a book of scripture published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and asked Romney whether he agreed with his church’s one-time belief that interracial marriage was a sin. . . .
The questioner, Bret Hatch, 28, a local supporter of Rep. Ron Paul’s, read from typed notes as he asked Romney whether he agreed with a verse from Moses 7:8 from the “Pearl of Great Price.”

You can read the relevant chapter of the Mormon “Book of Moses” and see for yourself what it says. And you may remember that I previously predicted what is now beginning to happen: As long as the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) saw the GOP nomination being in doubt, Romney’s status as a bishop in the LDS church was treated as off-limits, except when it was used as a club to clobber evangelical Christian voters for their supposed anti-Mormon prejudice.

By contast, recall how often Rick Santorum’s support for Catholic doctrine — especially his church’s opposition to artificial contraception — was a frequent subject of mainstream media “controversy.”

Now that Democrats are near-certain that Romney is the nominee, however, the media is going to start covering Mitt’s Mormonism in a very serious way — “Oh, look, he’s a fringe kook!” — as if this were an entirely legitimate topic of political discussion.

Again, by contrast, remember that the preachings of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in whose pews Barack Obama sat for 20 years, were quickly dismissed by the media as irrelevant, and anyone who called attention to Obama’s having briefly attended a Muslim school in Indonesia was condemned as a crackpot conspiracy theorist.

Those Republicans who have joined the “Roll Over for Romney” movement, asserting that Mitt is not only “inevitable” as the nominee but also the most “electable” of the GOP candidates, will likely get a brutal lesson in absolute ruthlessness, as the Left will not hesitate to exploit religious bigotry when it suits their purposes.

Perhaps the voters of Wisconsin can save us from this fate:

Even as you read this, Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign is going all-out to win the Wisconsin Republican primary. It’s important to make that point up front, because if you permit yourself to be hypnotized by media coverage of the campaign, you will helplessly succumb to the belief that the fight for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination is all over but the shouting. There are many people who want to convince Republican voters in Wisconsin and elsewhere that Mitt Romney is the “inevitable” nominee, and not all of them are in the paid employment of the Romney campaign or his super-PAC.
Between the official campaign and its allied “Restore Our Future” super-PAC, pro-Romney forces have unloaded more than $3 million in advertising in Wisconsin, but what they’ve spent attacking Santorum is dwarfed in value by the network airtime devoted to promoting the message of Romney’s inevitability. It is remarkable to observe how this appeal to bandwagon psychology has actually intensified since Santorum won the March 24 Louisiana primary by a whopping 22 points. . . .

Read the rest at The American Spectator.

UPDATE: CNN, ABC News, Politico — see what I mean? Now that they think Romney’s clinched, this “issue” magically become legitimate.

Let’s just pray Rick Santorum’s phone-from-home get-out-the-vote volunteers can work some magic in Wisconsin.

Category: Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Religion, Wisconsin

E.J. Dionne, Political Psychic

Posted on | April 2, 2012 | 14 Comments

Everybody knows that E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post is a liberal Democrat — both a partisan and an ideologue — a “social justice” Catholic from Massachusetts whose political beau ideal is Ted Kennedy. (Ah, “compassionate liberalism“! Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.)

Only a person of such impeccably ironclad progressive credentials — author of the 1996 book, They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era — could ever have been employed as political reporter (!) for the New York Times and the Washington Post before being promoted to the op-ed pages, the faculty of Georgetown University, et cetera.

So we know who Dionne is, what his qualifications are, and we recognize him as a special pleader for the Democratic Party and in particular its most left-wing elements. Yet it is apparently Dionne’s belief that his mental superiority is so vast as to endow him with omniscience, and it is this belief in his own clairvoyance — E.J., the All-Knowing! — which is on display in Dionne’s latest op-ed expedition:

Right before our eyes, American conservatism is becoming something very different from what it once was. Yet this transformation is happening by stealth because moderates are too afraid to acknowledge what all their senses tell them. …

Thus he begins, and thus he ends:

If our nation’s voters want to move government policy far to the right, they are entirely free to do so. But those who regard themselves as centrist have a moral obligation to make clear what the stakes are in the current debate. If supposed moderates refuse to call out the new conservatism for the radical creed it has become, their timidity will make them complicit in an intellectual coup they could have prevented.

You see how Dionne, unquestionably himself a man of the Left, here presumes to discern the intentions of the Right — a stealthy “transformation” of this “new conservatism” into a “radical creed” — even as his mind-reading powers enable him to see that it is the “timidity” of moderates which stops them from preventing “an intellectual coup.”

We presume that Dionne can only have known these things by mystical processes, because no one has ever accused E.J. of speaking two words to any genuine right-winger, and his idea of a “moderate” almost certainly includes half the Democrats in the Senate.

But wait: What is it that has inspired E.J. the All Knowing to this extraordinary exertion of his psychic powers? It was last week’s oral arguments in the Supreme Court about the constitutionality of ObamaCare. You will recall the Left’s panicked reaction at the skeptical SCOTUS questioning and the obvious inability of Obama’s solicitor general to refute the doubts raised by the justices:

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. should be grateful to the Supreme Court for refusing to allow cameras in the courtroom, because his defense of Obamacare on Tuesday may go down as one of the most spectacular flameouts in the history of the court.

That’s from Adam Serwer in Mother Jones, for crying out loud! If even such a deep-dyed Bolshevik sees it like this — Serwer’s March 27 item was headlined, “Obamacare’s Supreme Court Disaster” — we can expect, at a minimum, that a 5-4 majority of the court will find ObamaCare at least partly unconstitutional.

That was what prompted Dionne’s March 28 denunciation of “judicial activism” by the court’s conservatives, merely for the tone of their questions, without waiting to learn what their actual ruling might be:

Three days of Supreme Court arguments over the health-care law demonstrated for all to see that conservative justices are prepared to act as an alternative legislature, diving deeply into policy details as if they were members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Right: And the Supreme Court never touched “policy details” in Brown v. Board, Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas or any other landmark ruling of which E.J. the All-Knowing approves. I remain convinced that the final verdict on the ObamaCare debacle was not written by a Georgetown professor, but by a blogger named Jimmie Bise Jr.:

“They could have been honest with us. They could have come to us as men and women and talked with us, sought our counsel. They could have tried to convince us that the good of their ideas was worth all we would have to give up to get it. They did not. They lied and lied and lied some more. They called us ignorant and vicious and heartless and stupid. They pushed a bill none of them had read in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. They fudged numbers so badly they ended up counting whole piles of money twice. They accused anyone who disagreed with them of wanting to kill old people and innocent children. They built a law their own lawyers can not ably defend.”

Any rational, well-informed and intelligent observer could see that Nancy Pelosi’s frantic ram-it-through-in-the-middle-of-the-night trainwreck of a bill would turn out badly, and when even the Solicitor General — for whom no task is more important than protecting his boss’s signature legislation — can’t defend its constitutionality, we can only conclude that it is constitutionally indefensible.

So we return to today’s column by E.J. the All-Knowing. Donald Douglas says Dionne is pining for the days of Eisenhower, and William Jacobson is impressed with the awesome success Dionne ascribes to the Right: “Are We Really Doing That Well?”

What’s E.J. really up to? And who the hell does he think he’s fooling? What Dionne is clearly trying to do is to drive a wedge between the four conservatives — Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia — and the court’s only true “swing” vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy.

If Dionne were honest, he would admit that he wet his pants when Kennedy declared during oral argument that ObamaCare’s individual mandate “changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way.”

Instead of doing that, however, Dionne pretends to discern a “stealth” radicalism among conservatives (i.e., Chief Justice Roberts & Co.) and accuses moderates (i.e., Justice Kennedy) of “timidity” in refusing to prevent an “intellectual coup.”

The wonder of it all is that E.J. the All-Knowing thinks that we — including Justice Kennedy — are too stupid to see what he’s doing.

 

 


Category: Health Care, Intellectuals, Supreme Court

The Trayvon Martin Song

Posted on | April 2, 2012 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

Here’s a shout out to the Raaaaacism Industrial Complex, busy exploiting a tragedy, to pile evil upon evil:

Hoodies on high! Minds tightly closed!
#Occupy slouches with quite unsteady step.
Comrades shot by the white racist reactionaries
March in spirit within our ranks.

Clear the streets for the brown battalions,
Clear the streets for the liberators!
Millions are looking upon the Barack ‘O’ full of hope,
The day of freedom and justice dawns!

For the last time, the call to arms is sounded!
For the fight, we all stand prepared!
Soon Obama’s banners will fly over all streets.
The time of bondage will last but a little while now!

Hoodies on high! Minds tightly closed!
#Occupy slouches with quite unsteady step.
Comrades shot by the white racist reactionaries
March in spirit within our ranks.

Reference

Further reading at Power Line and Breitbart.

Category: Racism
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