Wednesday, April 11, 2012

A Silence Louder Than Words

Does This Strike AG Eric Holder As At Least Slightly Illegal?

Are you feeling economically disadvantaged? Want to make $10,000 really fast? We have just the deal for you. You too can take up a career in vigilante justice. All you have to do is burn your conscience in a bonfire and head over to newblackpanther.com for all the fascinating details.

You see, The New Black Panthers have expressed profound dissatisfaction with the fact that nobody has arrested George Zimmerman yet in connection with his having shot Trayvon Martin. This has caused them to demand that action be taken and demonstrated a willingness on their part to blatantly flaunt existing laws in the pursuit of what they call justice.

Standing next to sign that read “Stop The Killing,” New Black Panther leader, Mikhail Muhammad apparently failed to see the irony in his demands for an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He did this while calling for the mobilization of 10,000 black men to capture George Zimmerman dead or alive. “Stop The Killing” indeed.

Of course any private entity setting up a posse and putting out $10,000 bounties on people who have not been charged with a crime violates numerous laws in any part of the country. In Florida, according to J. Christian Adams, it violates the following statutes.

Florida Code 787.01: Kidnapping; kidnapping of child under age 13, aggravating circumstances The term “kidnapping” means forcibly, secretly, or by threat confining, abducting, or imprisoning another person against her or his will and without lawful authority, with intent to: 1.?Hold for ransom or reward or as a shield or hostage.

Other statutes the $10,000 wated poster violate include 777.04-Attempts, solicitation and Conspiracy, 876.34 Combination to usurp government, (There’s a nice 2nd degree felony charge) and several others. A diligent State or Federal Attorney General would get cracking on this one right away.

Our US Attorney General, Eric Holder, has a well-documented history of not investigating The New Black Panther Party. When a voter intimidation case came to fruition against the NBPP, he summarily dismissed the charges. This was after the defendants had refused to answer to the charges and the DOJ had won on default. Michelle Malkin offers details below.

Two weeks ago, in a highly unusual move, Holder dismissed default judgments his department had won against two of three defendants charged with violating the Voting Rights Act. On November 4, 2008, a billy club-wielding militant in military-style boots and beret stood outside a Philly polling location with a similarly-dressed partner. Citizen journalists from the Pennsylvania-based blog Election Journal captured the menacing duo on video. One of the watchdogs observed: “I think it might be a little intimidating that you have a stick in your hand.”

So Eric Holder sees no legal problem with an outfit that has been labeled a hate group by the entire American political spectrum putting up wanted posters and offering a $10,000 bounty. (Even the radically left-wing SPLC denounces these malefactors!) The SPLC describes the following quotes directly attributed to New Black Panther Leadership*.

“Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!”

—Malik Zulu Shabazz, the party’s national chairman, protesting at B’nai B’rith International headquarters in Washington, D.C., April 20, 2002

And just to show it wasn’t a Jewish thing in particular, another leader of the NBPP offered up the following rhetorical gem in 2009.

“I hate white people. All of them. Every last iota of a cracker, I hate it. We didn’t come out here to play today. There’s too much serious business going on in the black community to be out here sliding through South Street with white, dirty, cracker whore bitches on our arms, and we call ourselves black men. … What the hell is wrong with you black man? You at a doomsday with a white girl on your damn arm. We keep begging white people for freedom! No wonder we not free! Your enemy cannot make you free, fool! You want freedom? You going to have to kill some crackers! You going to have to kill some of their babies!”

— King Samir Shabazz, head of the party’s Philadelphia chapter, in a National Geographic documentary, January 2009

What Eric Holder, and by extension, his boss President Barack Obama, aren’t seeing here is an opportunity. Do they ever get tired of being called Communist Revolutionaries and radical bums? Do they ever grow weary of having to denounce accusations that they deliberately play to the street mob to intimidate their political opponents? If President Obama and Attorney General Holder ever wanted to silence such accusations once and for all, they have the opportunity for their best day in office since the SF Soldiers got Bin Ladin.

A Federal Indictment, involving the RICO statute, could be filed against the NBPP for this $10,000 Wanted Poster. They could go on TV with a press conference where they announced how the Obama Administration has “Saved America From Hate!” We could all go back to being post-racial again. Barack Obama would then be an odds-on favorite for reelection by at least 5%.

Maybe this is something the President should get on the telephone and point out to his renegade Attorney General. Unless, of course, AG Holder is too busy living vicariously through the people posting the Wanted Posters and putting a $10,000 price on George Zimmerman’s head.

*-All of which are far more disgusting than what I properly condemned John Derbyshire for yesterday.


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Morning Briefing for April 10, 2012

RedState Morning Briefing
April 10, 2012Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

Mike Wallace is dead.

Growing up, I’d spend the summer away from Dubai at my grandparents’ home in Louisiana. Sunday nights were back to back Murder She Wrote and 60 Minutes.

Many conservatives would accuse Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes of a liberal view point and shading stories to match their world view. Growing up, 60 Minutes was, to me, journalism done right. They asked questions and got answers and highlighted problems and, though sometimes falling short of the goal, tried not to put themselves in the story.

I’d like to think that if Mike Wallace were able in his latter days, he’d be kicking the asses of most of the journalists who have dared weigh in on the Trayvon Martin killing for destroying the integrity of a tragic story in the name of agenda journalism.

Just about every single network and journalist who has touched on the Trayvon Martin matter should be deeply and terribly ashamed of themselves. I am disgusted by just how badly the media has botched the handling of a very real tragedy.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

As today’s government-union bosses push higher taxes, establish dues schemes to fund their bloated salaries and union-bought politicians, the evidence has become pretty clear: Government unions have become political, parasitic entities injuring taxpayers and the communities they control (see Central Falls and Providence, RI; Detroit, MI; and the once-great State of California for examples).

In the private sector, however, where taxpayers’ pockets are not in endless supply, the parasitic model of today’s unions, far too often, allows unions drain companies and ends up killing their hosts.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

You have to wonder whether the Online Left finds equivocators like Rep. Jason Altmire (D, PA-04) as insulting as we do (not that progressives have the courage to call their own hypocrites out, of course). Let me set the background: in 2010 Altmire did his level best to look like a mighty pro-life champion, largely because he was running for re-election in a R+6 district (which he ended up winning with only 51% of the vote). Back then it was all about how Altmire absolutely hated taxpayer funding of abortion, and how he’d never support such a thing, and the rest of the spiel that then-Speaker Pelosi graciously allowed him to repeat in order to keep his seat.

But that was 2010. Since then the seats have been redrawn, and now Altmire is facing Murtha crony/replacement Mark Critz in a race for the redrawn PA-12 district that has been called ‘spirited‘ (read: ‘vicious’). So, now that the pandering has to be to Democratic primary voters, how is Altmire pandering?

Please click here for the rest of the post.


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Tech at Night: Illegal Amazon Taxes fail, DeMint modernizing cable, thorny copyright issues

Tech at Night

Monday night, as promised, we still have some catch up work to do. So let’s start with those Amazon Taxes, those Internet sales taxes of dubious Constitutionality. Colorado’s got tossed in federal court and Illinois’s didn’t raise any money. Obeying the Constitution counts, folks. Pass a true interstate compact through the Congress first.

Also as promised, there’s the matter of the Next Generation Television Marketplace Act. This is the one where ACU has come out against Jim DeMint, and that caught my attention. I have to side with the bill DeMint is sponsoring. I think ACU simply misunderstood what’s at stake here and had good intentions, but the excessive complexity of the regulations defeated them here.

The bill does not let cable providers become free riders, retransmitting others’ streams for free. It just stops the law from trying to dictate the parameters of the negotiations on retransmissions. I see no harm in that, and potentially much good.

Here we go again. Apparently we’re supposed to be unhappy with the CISPA information sharing bill by Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger because it potentially could be used against copyright infringement. And SOPA is invoked against that. SOPA wasn’t defeated because everyone hates copyright. It was a power grab. Take your anti-copyright anarchy battles home, Reddit kiddies. You and your Anontard buddies.

More cybersecurity still: We cannot and must not have DHS start regulating the Internet. Government can’t even secure itself yet and so has no standing to dictate to others. Information sharing in the private sector, without government gatekeepers, is far more useful for protecting our country’s Internet resources. Further, with the irrationality and secrecy of TSA and its regulations, how can we trust them at all?

Going back to SOPA, Comcast was apparently for it, which doesn’t surprise me. Comcast is an ISP particular vulnerable to Bittorrent users flooding the network with high volume copyright infringement dragging down service for everyone.

Is a problem with tech patents, including software patents, that the system isn’t scaling well? Size, not just speed?

Apparently all the fuss over FCC reform, using white spaces as an excuse to oppose all FCC reform out of the Congress, was resolved with white space use marching on. This could be interesting. We’ll have to watch and see how it works, or whether we just get a tragedy of the commons.

An interesting development in the Do Not Track saga: Radicals and businesses are interpreting them differently, but frankly, the interpretation of the radicals is stupid. There already is a way to not be tracked at all, and not just exclude third parties: Disable cookies, dummies. The radical agenda apparently to be promoted by the FTC is out of touch with the actual technologies involved.

Apparently the FTC folks don’t understand that if you don’t want tracked by, say, Amazon’s recommendations, then you simply shouldn’t log into Amazon all the time.

LightSquared may be on the verge of bankruptcy, but Chuck Grassley is still fighting tenaciously for FCC transparency with respect to LightSquared, and is going to maintain his holds on the new FCC appointees. Go Chuck Go!

Here’s a potentially huge deal in the tech/copyright nexus that I hadn’t heard about at all Google is under concerted attack by a number of copyright holders in a move that potentially risks undermining the whole DMCA safe harbor system. Google has taken many steps to curb copyright infringement on YouTube, but they’re being dogpiled upon anyway by firms going after those deep pockets. If being a rich and popular website that gets taken advantage of by copyright infringers is enough to knock down the Safe Harbor, then it seems to me that the entire Safe Harbor system of the DMCA is at risk. That’s not good, as that was a careful balancing of interests in that bill. We cannot let the scales get tilted one way.

If the Youtube case goes too far, new legislation may be needed, and that’s going to be a big old mess. Especially when the MPAA and RIAA interests will inevitably be comingled with legitimate international concerns of Chinese and other foreign firms ignoring US copyrights


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Augusta National

I am not a member of Augusta National and I’m pretty terrible at golf, though getting better. I have a net in the back and relaxation involves beer and hitting golf balls.


Nonetheless, the left is absurdly irate that I or anyone else would dare say I have no problem with Augusta National being an exclusively male golf club. They’re also laughing that I said “the Masters” on the radio, though I certainly meant the Club, not the tournament.


In any event, who cares?


There are all female colleges and there are all female gyms. The Junior League does not admit men either. Why should Augusta National be forced to admit women?


The left will surely drag Augusta National into its “War on Women” mythology. I hope, however, that yet again Augusta National keeps its head up.


There is nothing wrong with either men or women choosing to have their own clubs. But there is a sad, pathetic need by the left to turn every single thing in America — from a Happy Meal to the Masters and Augusta National — into a political issue.


Look! Caterpillars!


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A Self-Inflicted Hubris Shot to the Head

Mike Wallace is dead.

Growing up, I’d spend the summer away from Dubai at my grandparents’ home in Louisiana. Sunday nights were back to back Murder She Wrote and 60 Minutes.

Many conservatives would accuse Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes of a liberal view point and shading stories to match their world view. Growing up, 60 Minutes was, to me, journalism done right. They asked questions and got answers and highlighted problems and, though sometimes falling short of the goal, tried not to put themselves in the story.

I’d like to think that if Mike Wallace were able in his latter days, he’d be kicking the asses of most of the journalists who have dared weigh in on the Trayvon Martin killing for destroying the integrity of a tragic story in the name of agenda journalism.

Just about every single network and journalist who has touched on the Trayvon Martin matter should be deeply and terribly ashamed of themselves. I am disgusted by just how badly the media has botched the handling of a very real tragedy.

What we know is that Trayvon Martin was killed.

We know that the 911 operator told George Zimmernan not to follow Trayvon Martin, but he did anyway.

We know, from Trayvon Martin’s girlfriend, that Trayvon was being following and a scuffle happened.

We know from an eyewitness that Trayvon Martin was on top of George Zimmerman beating up George Zimmerman.

We know from that same eyewitness that George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin.

We know that for a month, until outrage built, the police did nothing and treated this case as a matter of self-defense under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” statute.

This whole sordid story is a tragedy in and of itself.

But then there is the other tragedy.

We know that journalists spent a good bit of time trying to decide if George Zimmerman said “punks” or a racial slur on a 911 tape.

We know that journalists tried to prove that George Zimmerman had no lacerations on the back of his neck and certainly did not look like he’d been beaten up contrary to the eye witness and others there that night.

We know that journalists edited the tape of George Zimmerman’s 911 call to make it sound like Zimmerman was concerned because Trayvon Martin was black.

We know journalists have repeated used old photographs of Trayvon Martin that give him a more youthful, innocent appearance while using George Zimmerman’s mugshot.

We know that journalists first ran out the door with “white on black crime” as a headline only to have to walk it back when the white guy appeared a bit too hispanic to keep up that pretense.

We know that an NBC personality went on CNN with a CNN personality and had the audacity to attack the CNN personality for daring to suggest there might be more than one side to the story.

Each of these acts is troubling.

Instead of the facts, journalists decided to do what they do in pretty much every story these days — make it a victim vs. victimizer story. They sensationalized parts of the story, dramatized parts of the story, and fictionalized parts of the story. Instead of letting the facts decide the winner and loser, the journalists decided who would win and who would lose the story.

In one clear attempt when a journalist, Piers Morgan of CNN, tried to actually suggest there might be a larger story, an NBC personality of the network that edited a 911 tape to make it look even more damning, was offended at the very thought of there being a bigger story.

Journalists believe that even though we have our nation’s first black President we still have all sorts of racial problems in this country. And with the Trayvon Martin story, instead of trying to be a force for good in honestly resolving those issues, the journalistic community has poured salt on the wounds.

Trayvon Martin died a tragic death. There are many questions that should be answered. But in trying to help answer those questions, the media has allowed itself to become part of the story. The journalists involved should all be ashamed of their conduct.


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Mike Lee Wants to End the ‘Monetary Morphine’ at the Fed

What’s worse than Congress picking winners and losers and distorting the free-market with bailouts, stimulus, and tendentious interventions on behalf of specific industries?  Unelected members of the Federal Reserve doing the same through monetary policy.


It is amazing to watch how many Republicans will speak with such conviction against Keynesian fiscal stimulus policies, yet they will fervently promote monetary stimulus policies by the unaccountable Federal Reserve.  Their support for near-zero interest rates, quantitative easing, bailouts, and intervention in the housing sector has muddled our message against Obama’s anti-free-market policies.  Moreover, in this time of record commodity prices, pro-(monetary) stimulus Republicans preclude us from showing how government intervention on behalf of special interests distorts the markets, depletes savings, and devalues the currency – a winning political argument if there ever was one.


Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed and frequent dissenter on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), recently said that he is “personally perplexed by the continued preoccupation, bordering upon fetish, that Wall Street exhibits regarding the potential for further monetary accommodation—the so-called QE3, or third round of quantitative easing.”  He explained that Wall Street has become hooked on “monetary morphine” based on the previous expectation that the Fed will always come through with stimulus measures.  We need to break this addiction.


Undoubtedly, our complex economy would be restricted by a pure gold standard, but it’s not too much to ask that we reform the Federal Reserve to end its interventions in the economy and promote a strong dollar.  Advocating some reform to our 30-year old mandates on the Fed it not tantamount to advocating for ending the Fed.  Senator Mike Lee is introducing a bill, the Federal Reserve Modernization Act (S.2247), to do just that.  Here are the major provisions of the bill:

It will repeal the Fed’s current dual mandate (Humphrey-Hawkins) to achieve maximum sustainable employment and keep prices stable.  The Fed would be forced to focus solely on price stability.  This would take “the game” out of the Fed.  If they have no ability to create stimulus and provide monetary morphine, Wall Street can’t anticipate it.It would require the Fed to clearly articulate its function as the lender-of-last-resort.  When the government was picking winners and losers in 2008, the Fed bailed out Bear Sterns but not Lehman Brothers.  This bill would force them to communicate a clear policy so financial entities will not erroneously rely on the Fed’s support.It would make the 12 regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents permanent members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the branch of the Fed that sets interest rate policy.  At present, only the president of the New York Fed is on the committee, along with a rotating membership of just 4 of the remaining 11 branch presidents.  The regional presidents tend to be more conservative (like Fisher) than the 7 bureaucrats that are appointed to the governing board by Congress.  It would also weaken the power of the Fed chairman.It would ban the Fed from buying up other securities and bonds, such as mortgage-backed securities from Freddie and Fannie.  We must stop distorting the markets by encouraging investments on the basis of how much capital is available instead of real growth in a specific industry.It would require that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by the Dodd-Frank law, be subjected to congressional appropriations.  Under current law, the CFPB is housed in the Fed and shielded from congressional oversight.

The House version, HR 4180, is sponsored by Kevin Brady (R-TX) and already has 31 cosponsors.


Cross-posted from The Madison Project


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Jason Altmire (D, PA-04): pro-life? Pro-choice? Try ‘pro-keeping his seat.’

You have to wonder whether the Online Left finds equivocators like Rep. Jason Altmire (D, PA-04) as insulting as we do (not that progressives have the courage to call their own hypocrites out, of course). Let me set the background: in 2010 Altmire did his level best to look like a mighty pro-life champion, largely because he was running for re-election in a R+6 district (which he ended up winning with only 51% of the vote). Back then it was all about how Altmire absolutely hated taxpayer funding of abortion, and how he’d never support such a thing, and the rest of the spiel that then-Speaker Pelosi graciously allowed him to repeat in order to keep his seat.

But that was 2010. Since then the seats have been redrawn, and now Altmire is facing Murtha crony/replacement Mark Critz in a race for the redrawn PA-12 district that has been called ‘spirited‘ (read: ‘vicious’). So, now that the pandering has to be to Democratic primary voters, how is Altmire pandering?

Did you really need me to tell you? Altmire’s all about keeping Planned Parenthood nice and funded, now. Of course, as CatholicVote.org helpfully notes, Altmire has always supported PP; but now he’s ratcheted up the rhetoric. Apparently you’re an ‘extremist’ now (according to Altmire) if you support defunding it – and whether or not you believe that is immaterial; the real question is whether Republican voters (who, if these numbers* are right, went 54/45 McCain/Obama in 2008) agree with Altmire. Spoiler warning: they don’t.

The moral of this story is, of course, that there’s really no such thing as a conservative Democrat: Jason Altmire was supposedly a reliable pro-life vote, but the very second that his principles clashed with the primary he changed his tune with nary a lost note. Not that Mark Critz is any better, of course – but Critz has union support, so Altmire has to make up the lost ground somehow. In a lot of ways, of course, this is academic, given that PA-12 was redrawn extensively to look a lot less like a mutant amoeba and a whole more like a normal Congressional District; the eventual Republican candidate is in a good place to beat whichever crab crawls to the top of the Democratic barrel after the primary this month. But it never hurts to remind people that supposedly conservative Democratic politicians lie when it suits them…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*I know, I know. Give me a better source.


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Morning Briefing for April 9, 2012

RedState Morning Briefing
April 9, 2012Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

After Friday’s jobs numbers came out (the economy added 120,000 jobs) Labor Secretary Hilda Solis promptly proclaimed: “That’s a noteworthy achievement.”

In fact, for the man who campaigned on the message of “hope” in 2008, the 120,000 jobs added is much fewer (about half) than expected and the edging down of the unemployment to 8.2% is not from job creation but from hopelessness.

There are now 88 million American who are “Not In Labor Force.”

Please click here for the rest of the post.

And anybody who tells you that you can get money out of politics is either deluded, lying, or possibly both. Exhibit A: the upcoming Democratic convention in Charlotte, NC. The Democrats piously declared that of course no dirty, dirty corporate/lobbyist money would be allowed to be spent on putting the convention together. And everybody cheered… only, it’s now 2012 and there’s potentially a looming shortfall in fundraising. And lo! – here are some lobbyist and corporate donors.

Sure, they can’t contribute… under the old rules. But rules are flexible things, are they not? A corporation can’t contribute directly. But it’s all right for their executives to write large personal checks, or contribute the equivalent in goods and/or services, or launder it through a corporate charity. As for lobbyists… well. The DNC likes to see its friends happy – friends being defined as ‘people who bundle together a lot of personal contributions and/or corporate in-kind donations’ – and if VIP access and nice hotel rooms make friends happy, then that warm, happy feeling would be its own reward, yes?

Please click here for the rest of the post.

Blaming natural phenomena on fracking is this year’s fad, reminiscent of the mood ring, the pet rock or Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Item 1. Vice-President of the United States Joe Biden may not know what hydrofracking is, but he does know that it sounds plenty scary.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

Our sister company Regnery Publishing (we’re both owned by Eagle Publishing, Inc.) sent me a new book to read. I am really bad these days about not reading all the books I get in — sometimes up to a dozen a week from various publishers and authors. But this one caught my eye.

Katie Pavlich, Townhall’s News Editor, has a book out entitled Fast And Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up.

I think the media has spent more time doctoring 911 calls in the Trayvon Martin matter than focusing on what has happened along the border with Mexico. There has been some coverage and it probably would not have come to light except for CBS News’s initial reporting, but the scandal — and it is a scandal — has mostly flown under the radar.

In fact, the whole war on our Southern border, the kidnappings and killings spilling over into our country, etc. really have not made major, sustained national news.

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Maybe Paul Ryan Should Have Called It a Trojan Condom Budget

Barack Obama spoke to the American press yesterday to demagogue Republicans, Paul Ryan’s budget, cite Ronald Reagan as proof that raising taxes is okay, and damn with faint praise American exceptionalism.


The President called Paul Ryan’s budget a “trojan horse.” Given the President’s predilection for forcing all Americans, through regulatory fiat, to adhere to his view of contraception, I suspect that had Paul Ryan preemptively called his budget a ‘trojan condom,” the President of the United States would be campaigning trying to make us all adhere to it.


One thing that really stuck out at me in his speech yesterday was his statement that his very life and career were made possible because of American exceptionalism. He’s right. It’s also what makes his public policy choices so maddening.


The President’s policy choices reject the very American exceptionalism he himself claims to have benefited from. Our nation has had a unique spirit centered around the idea of the Puritan work ethic and the rugged individualism that sprang from that.


But Barack Obama wants to get rid of that exceptionalism and make us conform to the failed socialist policies of Europe. He says he wants to tax the rich because it will help the middle class. The only way taxing the rich helps the middle class is when the middle class is so dependent on government that it requires further wealth redistribution to maintain its government subsidy.


Government subsidy is not what American exceptionalism is all about. Government policy to redistribute wealth for middle class welfare subsidies is conforming to the rest of the world.


Conforming is not exceptional, it is a failure.


As an added bonus, it was more than a bit ironic to hear Barack Obama call Paul Ryan a social darwinist considering Barack Obama remains the only member of the Illinois State Senate to speak in favor of infanticide from the floor of the State Senate.


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Augusta National

I am not a member of Augusta National and I’m pretty terrible at golf, though getting better. I have a net in the back and relaxation involves beer and hitting golf balls.

Nonetheless, the left is absurdly irate that I or anyone else would dare say I have no problem with Augusta National being an exclusively male golf club. They’re also laughing that I said “the Masters” on the radio, though I certainly meant the Club, not the tournament.

In any event, who cares?

There are all female colleges and there are all female gyms. The Junior League does not admit men either. Why should Augusta National be forced to admit women?

The left will surely drag Augusta National into its “War on Women” mythology. I hope, however, that yet again Augusta National keeps its head up.

There is nothing wrong with either men or women choosing to have their own clubs. But there is a sad, pathetic need by the left to turn every single thing in America — from a Happy Meal to the Masters and Augusta National — into a political issue.

Look! Caterpillars!


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Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:


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Revealing Video: Same Tired Rhetoric

The above video from the RNC compares Obama’s 2011 speech on the House budget to Obama’s 2012 speech on the House budget. The orator in Chief is often accused of rehashing used talking points in speeches, both from lack of imagination, and due to the fact that, having failed to tackle any problems effectively, he constantly has to address the same problems. As you can see above, it’s a valid criticism.


But I’ll say this for Obama: The above video from the RNC compares Obama’s 2011 speech on the House budget to Obama’s 2012 speech on the House budget. The orator in Chief is often accused of rehashing used talking points in speeches, both from lack of imagination, and due to the fact that, having failed to tackle any problems effectively, he constantly has to address the same problems. As you can see above, it’s a valid criticism.


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Fracking is Blamed for … Well, Everything, Really.

Boom! goes the dynamite, not the frack fluid.

Blaming natural phenomena on fracking is this year’s fad, reminiscent of the mood ring, the pet rock or Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Item 1. Vice-President of the United States Joe Biden may not know what hydrofracking is, but he does know that it sounds plenty scary.

“… There’s a thing called fracking. They’ve got to go crack the rock in order to get [oil and gas] out. You can environmentally do that well or you can environmentally do that poorly,” the vice president said.

“If you do it poorly, you use up the water aquifer. [Huh?! - Ed.] You can create, in some cases the argument is, earthquakes,” he concluded.

Mr. Biden was referring to a string of minor tremors over the past year in the Youngstown, Ohio, area, including a 4.0 quake that shook the city on New Year’s Eve.

But state officials have confirmed that the temblors were the result of a wastewater-disposal well, not fracking itself.

As I commented at the time, the problem here is not that frack fluid is being injected. Mother Gaia is indifferent to whether the fluid is frack water, bong water or mother’s milk. Fracking is not the culprit; if you inject lots of fluid into an existing fault zone, that may create a problem, but its a problem best addressed by state authorities. They are in a much better position to appreciate local geomechanics than is a Federal agency like the EPA.

The evidence here reveals one thing that is definitely caused by hydraulic fracturing: Vice-Presidential confusion.

Item 2. Is hydrofracking causing the mysterious Clintonville (WI) booms?

Um, no.

I first asked the question on March 28: Who will be the first to blame Clintonville WI “booms” on #fracking?

Since then, my blog registers several hits a day from Google searches containing the words “Clintonville” and “fracking”. When I did my own search, this was one of the most popular hits:

This is a breathless video from a young man who knows that there must be some connection between oil and gas fracking and the Clintonville booms, but his concept of fracking is fuzzier than V.P. Biden’s hairline.

In it, there is reference made to a map of “fracking sites in Wisconsin” (reproduced at right). Very interesting indeed, because there is no oil and gas drilling in Wisconsin.

Closer inspection shows that the sites identified on the map are sources of frac sand. Fracking uses lots of plain, old quartz sand. Sand that’s pure, round-grained and of uniform grain size works best. But the sand comes from a plain old sand pit, just like the sand that would be used in construction, glassmaking or a kid’s play yard.

Mother Gaia must know that She’s going to be violated with this particular sand, because she puts up quite a fuss. Why Clintonville, WI became ground zero for Her wrath is anybody’s guess.

I’ll leave that to the smart guys, like Joe Biden.

For those who may have a lingering suspicion that old Vladimir is full of crapola and that the Clintonville booms just might have some connection to oil and gas drilling activity, consider the map below. It is a map of all the oil and gas drilling activity in the upper Midwest.

The blue triangles denote rigs drilling for oil, while the red circles indicate rigs drilling for gas.

Moral of the story: There may be a spot in the Lower 48 that is more remote from drilling activity than Clintonville, Wisconsin, but you’ll have to look a good while to find it.

Cross-posted at stevemaley.com.

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Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:


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Women at the Masters and Barack Obama’s Exceptional Conformity #EERS

Tonight, where are the cries and screams about women at the Masters? And what of Barack Obama’s conforming while using the word exceptionalism?


I’ll break it all down for you from 6pm to 9pm ET.


Listen live right here and call in at 1-800-WSB-TALK.


Consider this an open thread.


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A long, drawn-out death rattle for Komen for the Cure?

You no doubt remember that controversy: Komen decided to stop funding Planned Parenthood, the Left erupted in rage, Komen backed down. Victory for the liberal feminist movement! …And how does victory look now?

Well…

Reuters: “Komen said it had had problems meeting targets in about half of the five fundraising events it has staged since the blowup. One in Lafayette, Louisiana, raised less than $400,000, below its $500,000 goal, and another, to be held in Fort Worth, Texas, is also struggling.”

News4Jax: “The Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization is failing to meet its fundraising targets after the charity decided to cut and then later restore funding for Planned Parenthood, a leading provider of birth control and sexual health care.*”

NWCN: “Eastern Washington’s Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is less than three weeks away, but so far, registration and fundraising numbers are down. Organizers think the drop in support is likely related, at least in part, to the national debate between Komen and Planned Parenthood.”

You’ll notice that none of these articles really try to address in any kind of detail why Komen is still having problems with fundraising, despite the fact that according to the established narrative of events Komen should not be still suffering. After all, according to that narrative Komen is now even more on the side of the angels, given that they purged all those horrible, horrible pro-life women from positions of authority; so everything should be fine. And yet, it’s… not. Well, to be marginally sympathetic, the media has a problem here, because there are two explanations, and neither is good for the narrative.

The first explanation is that pro-choice feminists are incredibly nasty, spite-filled, and inherently vicious individuals who think that any infraction against them can only be wiped out by blood; they are thus unlikely to be satisfied until the leadership of Komen goes out and publicly beats to death ten pro-life members of their own family. That’s ten each, of course. The second explanation is that a goodly number of pro-life women also contributed to Komen, and while they may have been able to ignore the PP [connection] before they’ll be blessed if they’ll ignore it now. And – as usual – the Left is not picking up the slack.

Yes, now that you mention it, the two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. But Komen had better hope that it’s one or the other – because if both are true then there’s only way that alienating the Left with your presumption and the Right with your cowardice can end, and that’s with the entire edifice toppling to the ground. Even with only one scenario being true it’s going to be a while before the Right forgives and forgets; possibly too long a while for this particular institution.

Mind you, liberal feminists can prove me wrong by funding Komen to 120% of previous totals… actually, yes, I did type that out with a straight face. But only because – false modesty aside – I’m very good at this sort of thing.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*The executive director for Komen’s North Florida affiliate would like you to know, by the way, that his group never had an affiliation with PP in the first place. Good luck with that, sir.


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They Do Not Speak For Us

From the diaries.

Smart Girl Politics Action, aided by the very talented Ben Howe of Mister Smith Media, has released a new video, “They Don’t Speak For Us.” Conservative women know the real war against women has nothing to do with contraception and everything to do with the Obama Administration’s failed policies that have resulted in high gas and grocery prices and rampant unemployment. These are the issues facing women every day and the issues women truly care about.

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t speak for us. Sandra Fluke doesn’t speak for us. We speak for ourselves. And we vote, in great numbers.



Tomorrow, the White House will hold a hastily-organized forum on women and the economy, with a stated purpose of highlighting ”ways the Administration has helped create economic security for women.” Yes, we laughed, too. Paying upwards of $4.00 per gallon of gas AND milk results in nothing but economic insecurity for American families. Best of all, the White House has created a special Twitter hashtag for this conference, a hashtag ripe for the hijacking. Use #WomenEconForum to let President Obama know how his failed policies have affected you.

You’ll note that the White House, in fine Friday “news dump” tradition, has relegated this forum to Good Friday, a holy day for many. That tells you how much they care about women and the economy. They are hoping we will not pay attention. They are wrong.


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