OS scratches his grey old head after reading both the law and this analysis, and asks:
'Scuze me! What's unconstitutional about this law? How does this sanction harassment of
people of any shade of skin?'
So, if the issue really isn't about the violation of individual rights enumerated in the Constitution, what's driving the Left to engage in the prolonged hysteria? What are they seeking?
And, on a rather more humorous note, a pointed letter from an Arizona official to the Los Angeles city council, letting them know they may well be freed from all those tainted electrons generated in Arizona; the one that keep their lights on. Perhaps they may wish to re-think that AZ boycott....
From CNN: Paul said in the CNN interview Thursday that MSNBC, taking cues from his Democratic opponent Jack Conway, had mistakenly reported that he supports a "repeal" of the Civil Rights Act.
"I think what troubles me is that the news cycle has gotten out of control," he told Blitzer. "For several hours on a major news network yesterday, they reported repeatedly that I was for repealing the Civil Rights Act. That is not only not true, never been my position, but is an out and out lie. And they repeated it all day long."
Well, of course. As it became obvious Paul would win the GOP nomination, the Democrat research machine was ramping up, ready for the first 'gotcha' moment the next morning. Of course, the charge was that Dr. Paul is a (gasp!) raaaaacist. Always a good way to begin the smear campaign.
Remember, if a lie is repeated often enough, and loudly enough, it takes on a life of its own. It worked like a charm for this guy. Thus the day-long MSNBC rant that Dr. Paul cited.
So much for a new kind of politics. Dr. Paul, let us introduce you to the Chicago Way.
Obama and crew are just getting warmed up. Hang in there.
And remember, if the guy you're talking to is from CNN, he's working for the other side.
Pakistan, that noble place of freedom, has shut down Facebook and YouTube, lest the jihadists get their panties in even more of a knot.
(How come it's ok for jihadists to plant car bombs in marketplaces, and send homicide bombers into pizza parlors, but it's not ok to publish cartoons of a religious figure?
Maybe because they are totalitarian religious nutters, and we're not?)
Sure makes this ole' boy want to spend more minutes surfing around their swamp...
OldSouth surfed a bit for some images, many of which can't possibly be shared--check out the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day Facebook page to see for yourself.
But this video clip captures the spirit--humorous and to the point. OS especially giggled at Mohammed sugar cookie, and Jabba the Hut in the turban bit.
Enjoy, and thank Heaven we still have the right of free speech, at least this week.
It was quite a morning in Obama-land, with a Full-Monty welcoming ceremony on the White House Lawn, complete with the fife-and-drum corp in full Revolutionary War uniform livery, followed by a joint denunciation of all those bad bad bad racist racist racist people in Arizona who decided to stop waiting for the Federal Government to protect the southern border.
Let's compare and contrast this with the shabby treatment afforded the British Prime Minister when he visited Washington in March 2009.
British officials....admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.
But they concede that the mood music of the event was at times strained. Mr Brown handed over carefully selected gifts, including a pen holder made from the wood of a warship that helped stamp out the slave trade - a sister ship of the vessel from which timbers were taken to build Mr Obama's Oval Office desk. Mr Obama's gift in return, a collection of Hollywood film DVDs that could have been bought from any high street store, looked like the kind of thing the White House might hand out to the visiting head of a minor African state.
It isn't like the President has to rehearse the fife-and-drum corps himself. A career member of State Department Protocol Office makes the arrangements, and everyone shows up at the appointed places and times for the official welcome. The Marine Band is named 'The President's Own' for a reason, as they supply the staff musicians for the White House.
Himself certainly found His Obama-mojo to welcome the Mexican president, who oversees one of the most corrupt and violent countries of the Western Hemisphere. He mounted the Full Monty welcoming ceremony on the White House lawn for a man who doesn't recognize the legitimacy of our border with his country, who thinks his citizens have the inalienable right to enter our country with impunity and without penalty, and who views our country as a dumping-ground for his country's failures to create anything resembling a free society.
OldSouth has a problem with this, namely:
Our prisons are not overrun with British citizens who make their careers trafficking in drugs and people.
Our schools are not bearing the burden of educating millions of British citizens who show up at the door and demand schooling in their native languages, complete with a history curriculum that portrays them as victims of unjust American oppression.
The British government concedes that it has no claim on its former colonies.
Our citizens are not in danger of being killed or kidnapped by British criminals illegally residing in our country.
Britain is not the national discount drug warehouse for North America (or Northern Europe, for that matter).
Great Britain has a free press, free elections, more than one effective political party, and power passes from one hand to another without bloodshed.
The UK has its problems, but it is a civil and free country, which means those problems can be addressed. Mexico lacks the civility and freedom to even begin to address its crushing problems. Mexico lacks the collective will to develop the qualities necessary to function. Why worry? Just blame the Yanquis and ship them the unemployed, illiterate and criminal. Collect the drug money as it flows south.
The British Prime Minister deserves a lot more than a DVD collection from Wal-Mart. (The Revolutionary fife-and-drum bit might rub him the wrong way, but the Marine Band in dress blues playing Sousa would do nicely, thank-you).
The Mexican President deserves a polite-but-firm welcome, a tour of the wall being constructed along the Arizona border, and should be sent home with a very special gift: Two planeloads of his fellow citizens serving time in our prisons for violent felonies.
And just for good measure, a send-off rendition of the Marine Hymn, performed by The President's Own, sung by the choir for good measure. The first line tells the story:
From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli...
Arriving for work at the U.K. Treasury last week, the incoming chief secretary, David Laws, found a note from his predecessor, Liam Byrne, offering advice on the job.
“Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left,” Laws cited it as saying.
Had OS received the note, he would have had it framed.
The German ban is three-pronged: on short sales of eurozone government debt unless the investor has first borrowed the stock; on the use of credit derivatives to bet on a fall in the value of the debt of a eurozone government, unless the investor owns some of the relevant debt; and on short sales of the shares of German banks and insurers, unless the investor has first borrowed the shares.
Lots of talk and opinion out there about the wisdom/efficacy of this approach.
OS is dubious of guv'mints intervening in markets, but in this case, he may wish to rethink. After all, he prefers to drive in cities where the traffic signals work, go to hospitals and restaurants that adhere to sanitation standards, appreciates knowing how long that package of chicken breasts has been on the shelf, etc.
It seems the relevant question is, Does the person engaging in the transaction have any skin in the game? If so, he should be able to participate at a level appropriate with his resources. If not, he should leave the room. Otherwise, we're all mired in a deep pile of moral hazard, and the IBG/YBG (I Be Gone/You Be Gone) types can mop up and leave before anyone knows what happened. And poor schlub taxpayers and citizens end up, one way or another, bearing the cost of the moral hazard cleanup operation.
Here's an OS translation of the attempt at imposing some rules:
If ya'll don't own it, ya'll can't sell it. That's what we call fraud 'round heah'.
If'n you want to bet on a horse, use your own cash.
If'n you want to bet on a horse-race, you can't hobble the other horses. That's called cheating. It's also cheating to bribe jockeys.
If ya'll play by the rules and win, good on yah'. If'n you lose, well you lose, and we ain't gonna make yer house payments for yah'. Don't gamble with the mortgage money, bubbah.
You can't buy fire insurance on your neighbor's house, 'cuz it provides incentive to burn it down.
If you decide to cheat anyway, remember the classic Tennessee Defense, used successfully in murder trials to this day: He needed killin'.
As a matter of fact, he's come to the same conclusion as Denninger--the economy is not recovering, and having the guv'mint hose it down with cash isn't helping.
What does all this portend for November’s midterm election? Unless the economy moves into high gear, and unless America’s anxious class feels substantially better, incumbents are in trouble.
....
In fact, if you exclude temporary boosts like the government stimulus and the restocking of company inventories, the U.S. economy would not have grown in the first quarter. As these temporary boosts fade later this year, consumer spending is the only thing that will keep the economy going. But consumers won’t be able to spend what they don’t have.
Some economic cheerleaders predict employers will increase wages as their profits grow. That’s nonsense. With five jobless workers for every job opening, employers are under no pressure to raise wages.
This conclusion from a man on the Obama transition team. How will ObamaBob explain him away?
OS caught his concession speech. The old gent truly looked shell-shocked. He rambled, almost incoherently. Not even the rooms full of people cursing him last summer at town hall meetings had managed to break through his ego, his vision of himself as an American Institution. Finally, tonight, it dawned on him: 'Gosh, everyone's really really pissed at me!'.
Rand Paul, on the other hand, kicked ass. He beat Grayson, the GOP establishment candidate, 60-40. Not even close.
Here's the raw video from his acceptance speech:
Of course, by tomorrow evening, the White House and their shills in Yew Nork will have it all explained away, assuring themselves and us that nothing is amiss, Arlen was just an old fool who needed to go, and Rand is just a TeaPartyNutJobFromKentucky (you know, where all those unwashed Kentucky people hang out...). No problem, no worries.
Of course, if we start tallying it up--Brown takes Massachusetts, Christie takes New Jersey, Stupak runs away, Tanner runs away...hell's bells--a bunch of Democrats have run away! Charlie Crist gets out of the GOP while he can, 'cuz he's going down in flames, Bennett is shown the door by the GOP in Utah...
The list is growing. Folks out here really really really are ticked-off, and they're tired of writing their Congressman, 'cuz he stopped listening a long time ago. Or, like the good Rep. Souder of Indiana, he was too busy nailing the office staff to pay attention.
Oh, by the way, in the Kentucky race (from the Washington Post):
With 99 percent of the vote counted in the Kentucky GOP primary for U.S. Senate ...
-Rand Paul outpaced Trey Grayson in every major region of the state, scoring his biggest win in the North, an area that includes the fast growing areas around Cincinnati and Louisville that have become reliably GOP. In that region, Paul won 65 percent of the vote, to Grayson's 32 percent.
-Paul won 109 counties; Grayson 11.
It'll be entertaining to watch ObamaBob explain this away tomorrow...there's always an explanation, more people to label as racists, AstroTurf, sexual perverts, rednecks, nutters, etc.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano admitted Monday that she has not read the controversial Arizona immigration law even though she's gone on television to criticize it, and continued to assert that it was "bad law enforcement law."
The admission comes after Attorney General Eric Holder, who earlier warned the law could create a "slippery slope" toward racial profiling, told a House committee last week that he had not read the bill either. On Tuesday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said he too had not read the bill, even as he defended diplomatic official Michael Posner for comparing the law to Chinese human rights violations.
Remember, these public servants were appointed by the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the former editor of Harvard Law Review.
