So said the Philadelphia District Attorney in refusing to press hate crime charges in a well publicized case.
THREE JUVENILES accused of assaulting a cabdriver and his passenger in Center City Saturday night while shouting racial slurs will not be charged with a hate crime, the District Attorney’s Office said yesterday.
The teens, who are black, were not charged with hate crimes because there was no evidence that the assault had been motivated by the race of the victims, who are white, said Tasha Jamerson, D.A. spokeswoman. Just shouting racial epithets during the commission of a crime doesn’t rise to the level of ethnic intimidation, she said.
“They just didn’t have that in this case,” she said. “If they had somebody who, two blocks before, heard them say, ‘We’re going to beat somebody up because they’re white, brown or purple,’ it might be different.”
Hey at least she said “might.”
Not that hate crime laws needed to be made a mockery of, but if just shouting racial epithets during the commission of a crime doesn’t rise to the level of ethnic intimidation, then just shouting anti-Semitic epithets during the commission of a crime doesn’t rise to the level of anti-Semitic intimidation, and just shouting anti-gay epithets during the commission of a crime doesn’t rise to the level of anti-gay intimidation.
Personally, I don’t believe in hate crimes. Crime is crime and criminal culpability should not depend on such vagaries as the political influence of whatever group the victim belonged to. I see no difference in culpability between a criminal who says “I wanna beat and rob an old woman!” and then does so, or “I wanna beat and rob a faggot!” and then does so.
If some victims can be more privileged, then what’s to stop some criminals from being more privileged?
There has been a great deal of debate in Michigan Tea Party circles about the “electability” of certain Republican senate candidates. The issue keeps coming up again and again, as there is a large field of candidates running, but only two have the money and experience it takes to win. Nevertheless, many grass roots type conservative activists are drawn to the candicacy of a man with no — meaning zero — chance of winning in the general election against incumbent Debbie Stabenow. Were I working for Stabenow, I would hope and pray that the guy with the least chance of winning gets the nomination.
Yet there is also a very good chance that Stabenow will win no matter who runs against her. She can be depended upon to coattail it along with the Obama machine, and when he was here in Ann Arbor he reminded the audience of how great she is.
Now, in the State of the Union on Tuesday, I laid out a blueprint that gets us there. Blueprint — it’s blue. (Laughter and applause.) That’s no coincidence. I planned it that way, Michigan. (Laughter.) A blueprint for an economy that’s built to last.
It’s an economy built on new American manufacturing — because Michigan is all about making stuff. (Applause.) If there’s anybody in America who can teach us how to bring back manufacturing, it is the great state of Michigan. (Applause.)
On the day I took office, with the help of folks like Debbie Stabenow, your senator, and Carl Levin and — (applause) — John Conyers — the American auto industry was on the verge of collapse. And some politicians were willing to let it just die. We said no. We believe in the workers of this state. (Applause.) I believe in American ingenuity. We placed our bets on the American auto industry, and today, the American auto industry is back. Jobs are coming back — (applause) — 160,000 jobs. And to bring back even more jobs, I want this Congress to stop rewarding companies that are shipping jobs and profits overseas, start rewarding companies who are hiring here and investing here and creating good jobs here in Michigan and here in the United States of America. (Applause.)
So our first step is rebuilding American manufacturing. And by the way, not all the jobs that have gone overseas are going to come back. We have to be realistic. And technology means that a larger and larger portion of you will work in the service sector as engineers and computer scientists. (Applause.) There you go. We got the engineering school — there you go. (Applause.) And entrepreneurs. So there’s going to be a lot of activity in the service sector. But part of my argument, part of the argument of Michigan’s congressional delegation is that when manufacturing does well, then the entire economy does well.
While Michigan’s economy is improving, notice that zero credit is given to Governor Rick Snyder. That’s because if Michigan does well, it’s all thanks to the federal government and Obama. And of course if Michigan does poorly, why, then it’s the fault of the Republicans. Fighting such an equation is an uphill battle. (Rick Snyder has few defenders on the right, and many attackers on the left.)
Anyway, just as Obama will be tough to beat in Michigan (where he has an eight point lead over Romney), so will Debbie Stabenow. They are both despised in Tea Party circles, but holding them in low regard will not make them lose.
Stabenow not be defeated by candidates whose public support is in the single digits.
With the Republican primary still six months away, former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra holds an enormous lead to win the GOP nomination to face Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Free Press/WXYZ-TV poll shows.
But more than half of likely Republican voters — 52% — haven’t decided who they like best.
The poll, done by EPIC-MRA of Lansing this week, shows Hoekstra is the choice of 40% of voters, while Clark Durant, a charter school advocate from Grosse Pointe, has just 3%. Other Republican contenders got 2% or less support.
Their irrelevance does not stop the fringe candidates and their supporters from yelling and screaming.
The local Tea Party is in a war over this stuff, and the debates usually come down to one word.
Electability.
It strikes me that whether a candidate is electable has at least something to do with whether he or she can be, well, elected. Things like positive name recognition, money, and experience are factors. However, spouting the right-sounding words at the right time to the right Tea Party people can cause someone with no experience, no money, and zero or negative name recognition to soar. Among the Tea Party rank and file, at least. There are people involved in the Tea Party who have been around long enough to see what happens when an unelectable person wins a primary — classic examples being Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell. Those senate seats were occupied by unpopular Democrats and could easily have been won, but the rank and file primary voters were persuaded to get behind unelectable candidates, who lost.
As a libertarian, I am the first to recognize that libertarian candidates are still considered on the fringe by a majority of the general public. Neither Ron Paul nor my choice Gary Johnson has any chance of winning the nomination. To acknowledge this is to acknowledge reality. Like it or not, if they are not electable, it means that they cannot win elections.
While I see this as a simple recognition of reality, I read a very passionate and interesting argument that the word “electability” is a liberal con:
The electability question is a liberal media con. It is posed only when discussing Republicans. And it is posed often. The purpose of the question is to cast doubt on conservative candidates and, ultimately, keep them out of office.
And, tragically, it works.
The electability meme doesn’t merely haunt Republican office seekers. It has slithered into the minds of Republican voters, leading them to be unnaturally anxious when conservative candidates take strong stands. The result of this anxiety is manifest. We either lose (see: Bob Dole, John McCain, etc.) or elect callow, mealy-mouthed imps (see: the hordes of GOP congressmen who think compromise is a cardinal virtue). In short, the electability con has been a destructive, weakening force in the conservative movement for generations. And, as dupes, Republicans continually harm themselves.
The 2010 tea party wave crushed the spirit of the Democrats. It was their biggest loss in 70 years. A more limited government was clearly the will of the people. For a few trembling months, the lame-duck Dems and a dispirited President Obama thought the world was ending because fiscal restraint was coming to town. All of the political winds were at Republican backs. Then, John Boehner insisted that he wasn’t in charge. And the capitulations of our just-elected electables soon followed.
That’s the worst part of the electable meme. It’s hard to root for weak candidates.
I see his point, but there are two kinds of weak candidates. Those who win and those who lose. A candidate perceived as philosophically weak may win, while a philosophically stronger candidate may lose. If being strong means losing, little wonder that some Republican voters become “unnaturally anxious when conservative candidates take strong stands.”
I mean, what are strong stands, and on what issues? Newt Gingrich has a strong stand on the Drug War and has called for executing people I consider guilty of victimless crimes grounded in consensual financial transactions. This does not merely make me “unnaturally anxious,” it makes me want to puke. And ashamed to be a Republican, which I guess is weakness. (The homo hating crowd has a similar effect on me.) I just plain don’t want to vote for someone like that. However, I do recognize that when Ron Paul calls for legalizing heroin, that, too, might make many voters “unnaturally anxious,” even though I agree with him. There are any number of issues where “strong” positions can translate into ballot box poison. People who are made unnaturally anxious vote, and when they vote they do so in the privacy of the voting booth — often for candidates who do not make them unnaturally anxious.
Sugar and other sweeteners are, in fact, so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide, according to a commentary in the current issue of the journal Nature by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
The researchers propose regulations such as taxing all foods and drinks that include added sugar, banning sales in or near schools and placing age limits on purchases.
Although the commentary might seem straight out of the Journal of Ideas That Will Never Fly, the researchers cite numerous studies and statistics to make their case that added sugar — or, more specifically, sucrose, an even mix of glucose and fructose found in high-fructose corn syrup and in table sugar made from sugar cane and sugar beets — has been as detrimental to society as alcohol and tobacco.
Sour words about sugar
The background is well-known: In the United States, more than two-thirds of the population is overweight, and half of them are obese. About 80 percent of those who are obese will have diabetes or metabolic disorders and will have shortened lives, according to the UCSF authors of the commentary, led by Robert Lustig.
Lustig, a pediatrician, is an outspoken anti-sugar activist. And like many activists, he is not content merely to spout his opinions. He wants his opinions to be the law of the land:
Lustig, a medical doctor in UCSF’s Department of Pediatrics, compares added sugar to tobacco and alcohol (coincidentally made from sugar) in that it is addictive, toxic and has a negative impact on society, thus meeting established public health criteria for regulation. Lustig advocates a consumer tax on any product with added sugar.
Among Lustig’s more radical proposals are to ban the sale of sugary drinks to children under age 17 and to tighten zoning laws for the sale of sugary beverages and snacks around schools and in low-income areas plagued by obesity, analogous to alcoholism and alcohol regulation.
Economists, however, debate as to whether a consumer tax — such as a soda tax proposed in many U.S. states — is the most effective means of curbing sugar consumption.
I would suggest that it is not the business of “economists” to be debating the most effective means of curbing sugar consumption. They should be debating how to help our ailing economy and not how to control people’s lives with busybody behavioralist tactics.
If you think sugar is unhealthy, then by all means don’t buy or use it! Just don’t try to tell me what I can use or buy. I know I’m sounding like a broken record, but you’d think these people would have learned from Prohibition.
Anyway, the thinking of evangelists like Lustig always intrigues me, so I decided to check out some of his views, and I found some of them a bit startling.
Sweetened coffees or teas are no better than soda, as they still generate an insulin response, and they are sweetened with sucrose (which is half fructose, which is bad for your liver). My question to you is, why do you need sweet drinks at all? What’s wrong with water? The human race had no sweet drinks until 1915, when Coca-Cola went national. Until then, we had water and milk, and we did just fine, thank you. Juice was invented in the 1950s.
The human race had no sweet drinks until 1915? Really? Remember, this guy is billed as a scientist, and one of the world’s leading experts on sugar.
Never mind that sugar is an ancient substance. Refined sugar has been around since the Dark Ages (when Arabs set up the first refineries). Crusaders brought it back to Europe:
Crusaders brought sugar home with them to Europe after their campaigns in the Holy Land, where they encountered caravans carrying “sweet salt”. Early in the 12th century, Venice acquired some villages near Tyre and set up estates to produce sugar for export to Europe, where it supplemented honey as the only other available sweetener.[13] Crusade chronicler William of Tyre, writing in the late 12th century, described sugar as “very necessary for the use and health of mankind”
What a shame that the Crusader chroniclers didn’t have Dr. Lustig around to tell them that before 1915, the human race had only water and milk! And since alcoholic beverages did not exist, temperance activists like Carrie Nation were battling imaginary phantoms or were way ahead of their time.
Obviously, Lustig doesn’t think that lemonade counts as a sweet drink:
In the 16th century Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law, mentions the use of sugar mixed with the juice of lemons and water by Jews in Cairo, Egypt to make lemonade on Sabbath. (Orech Chayim, Hilchot Shabbat)
[1653]
“How to make Lemonade
It is made several waies, according to the diversity of the ingredients. For to make it with Jasmin, you must take of it about two handfull, infuse it in two or three quarts of water the space of eight or ten houres; then to one quart of water you shall put six ounces of sugar. Those of orange flowers, of muscade roses, and of gelliflowers, are made after the same way. For to make that of lemon, take some lemons, cut them, and take out the juice, cut it into slices, put it among this juice, and some sugar proportionately. That of orange is made the same way.”
—The French Cook, Francoise Pierre, La Varenne, Englished by I.D.G. 1653, introduced by Philip and Mary Hyman [Southover Press:East Sussex] 2001 (p. 238-9)
[1769]
“Lemonade for the same use. To one quart of boiled water add the juice of six lemons, rub the rinds of the lemons with sugar to your own taste. When the water is near cold mix the juice and sugar with it, then bottle it for use.”
—The Experienced English Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald, (1769), with an introduction by Roy Shipperbottom [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1997 (p. 172)
[late 1700s]
“To Make Sirrup of Leamons. First cut your leamons in 2 & pick out ye [the] stones & prick them well with a knife, & ye Juice will come out ye better. Then wring them as long as you can get out any Juice, & to every pinte of it take a pound of sugar. Set them on ye fire together & make them boyle as fast as you can, to a thin sirrup, for If you boyle it too much, it will candy presently. It will require a great many leamons to make a pound.”
—Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia University Press:New York] 1995 (p. 370-1)
Sugar, sugar, sugar! (I put the word in bold for evil emphasis, of course.)
What a pity that Dr. Lustig was not there to tell Martha how deluded she was about toxins, and what a terrible example she was setting as the nation’s first First Lady!
Do the parents of that small child with a corner lemonade stand realize that the substance being peddled is “addictive, toxic and has a negative impact on society”?
Anyway, as if the above wasn’t enough for me to conclude that this modern sugar warrior is dishonest with his facts, I found a History and Timeline of Soft Drinks:
1899 The first patent issued for a glass blowing machine, used to produce glass bottles.
Coca Cola dates back to 1886, and was first sold in bottles in 1894.
Sweet drinks in general, of course, are even more ancient than refined sugar. Honey was widely used in sweet drinks of all sorts, but I guess honey does not count as sugar. Oh, no:
Honey is a mixture of sugars and other compounds. With respect to carbohydrates, honey is mainly fructose (about 38.5%) and glucose (about 31.0%),[1] making it similar to the synthetically produced inverted sugar syrup, which is approximately 48% fructose, 47% glucose, and 5% sucrose. Honey’s remaining carbohydrates include maltose, sucrose, and other complex carbohydrates.[1] As with all nutritive sweeteners, honey is mostly sugars and contains only trace amounts of vitamins or minerals.[28][29]
Which means that according to Dr. Lustig, honey has to be very dangerous as it is loaded with a very deadly toxin:
White sugar is sucrose, which is half glucose and half fructose (fruit sugar). Although glucose generates an insulin response (and therefore promotes deposition of energy into fat and weight gain right after a meal), fructose is the really bad actor. Fructose is like “alcohol without the buzz.” It poisons your liver, and makes it insulin resistant; therefore, your pancreas makes even more insulin to make the liver work properly. This forces energy into fat all the time. Maple syrup and honey are just glucose.
Huh? But Wiki says honey is 38.5% fructose. As to who is right (Wiki or Lustig) that’s above my pay grade.
But we know the Bible had to be lying about the land of milk and honey because all humans had before 1915 was milk and water! And if there was any such place, it should have been declared a toxic environment.
I realize I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m more afraid of the junk that goes into science than the junk that goes into food.
Politics is not often funny, but leave it to WorldNetDaily to supply some much-needed amusement. Editor Joseph Farah, perhaps bored with the fact that after all these years the Obama Birther movement really hasn’t gained much traction among the hordes of reasonable people, has now turned his attention to up-and-coming GOP star Marco Rubio. Farah’s claim that Rubio, too, is ineligible for the presidency (and thus the vice presidency) managed to startle the seasoned Sean Hannity (a man who has heard plenty of crackpot theories in his years on the air):
Host Sean Hannity said Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is more likely to share the ticket if Romney wins the GOP nomination. But Farah declared that Rubio would not be eligible.
HANNITY: I think that’s taken. It’s got to be Rubio. That’s my guess.
BOB BECKEL: If it’s not, somebody’s lost their mind.
FARAH: Rubio is not eligible.
HANNITY: Whoa, what do you mean, ‘Rubio’s not –
FARAH: He’ll lose 10 percent of the Republican vote because he is not a natural-born citizen. We’ve been through this with Obama now for four years.
HANNITY: I don’t believe that. I don’t think that’s going to work.
So, if Farah is right that ten percent of Republicans actually believe that a man who was born in Miami, Florida to Cuban refugees who had legal immigrated to the United States is not eligible for the presidency, what are they going to do? Vote for Obama? Vote for a third party? Sit it out? I would venture that the GOP does not need people that nutty in the party. And instead of trying to kiss their asses to placate them, they could better spend their time doing outreach to young voters. Or even Hispanics.
As the Republicans are engaged in a seemingly relentless orgy of self destruction (or, as Roger Kimball put it, “The Suicide Club”), I think both Romney and Gingrich have an opportunity here. They can agree RIGHT NOW to put an end to it. It is obvious that Romney has the momentum overall, and is the most likely candidate to beat Obama, right?
Newt Gingrich is a sharp enough politician/historian to know this, right?
Similarly, Romney is a sharp enough businessman to realize the folly of throwing his money and energy against Gingrich in a protracted and mutually destructive campaign, right?
So why not cut a deal right now for a joint ticket? Just spare the bullshit and get on with the race.
Obama is already off to a running start.
Right now I am seeing no downside to this idea, but maybe I’m missing something.
Why is this a good time for the Republicans be mired in a protracted intra-party war with themselves?
Ideology, perhaps? Really?
Other than the fact that Gingrich’s drug war stance horrifies me, I’m not seeing more than a dime’s worth of difference (and a rhetorical difference at that) between the pair.
Seriously, it might be time to ask a serious question.
In whose interest is it for the two to battle it out?
…negative campaigning has a double effect. Even if the mud that is hurled happens to be truthful and sticks, the one who threw it looks bad for having thrown it. The process is unattractive to voters. And when both candidates are hurling mud, both are inevitably going to look doubly worse. (I hate it when these things come down to simple math.)
I’m not a mathematician, but I seem to remember some rule about two negatives being a positive.
While I make no bones about my opposition to Newt Gingrich, the unprecedented animosity (in the form of the nastiest possible mutual negative campaigning) between him and Mitt Romney is causing two things to happen among Republicans:
1. Gingrich’s supporters are hating Romney more than ever.
2. Romney’s supporters are hating Gingrich more than ever.
And among the general public (including non-voting Republicans, disgruntled Democrats, independents, apoliticals, libertarians and other swing voter types) two other things are happening.
1. Gingrich looks increasingly worse.
2. Romney looks increasingly worse.
This is because negative campaigning has a double effect. Even if the mud that is hurled happens to be truthful and sticks, the one who threw it looks bad for having thrown it. The process is unattractive to voters. And when both candidates are hurling mud, both are inevitably going to look doubly worse. (I hate it when these things come down to simple math.)
Yeah, I know. Drudge is supposed to be pro-Romney. But that really isn’t the point here. I’m not pro-Romney, but I am anti-Newt, and this whole thing is starting to annoy the hell out of me. Which it shouldn’t, because as a political junkie with a blog I’m supposed to be fascinated, even entertained, by such things. I guess the reason I’m annoyed is because I see this as playing right into the hands of Obama and the Democrats. No matter who “wins” the GOP primary, today’s Republican mud will be tomorrow’s Democrat advertising. Guaranteed.
And it really won’t matter whether Romney comes “closer” to beating Obama, because close isn’t enough.
You seeing a solid winner there? I’m not. Obama has barely started his campaign, but he made sure to start itright here and target the youth vote. Most Republicans just write the youth vote off, as if they don’t really count (which is a hell of a way to plan a future strategy….)
I’m reminded of the woman who asked me rhetorically,
I had no answer, and I still have no answer. The other day I was thinking along similar lines:
Republicans (at least, the majority of those voting in the primaries) don’t want to win. Winning is secondary; they would rather be “right.” A pitiful irony, really, because Obama could be defeated by the “right” candidate.
I thought I was being negative, and then I saw that Roger Kimball had put it even more bluntly (in a post aptly titled “The Suicide Club”):
Time is running out. The spectacle of mutually assured destruction that we’ve been treated to under the name of the Republican primary has offered some entertaining, if unedifying, moments. Entertaining moments do not win elections. Principled conservatism does. Any takers?
In my continuing struggle against the Laws of Nature (and, I suppose, Nature’s God, for those who are inclined that way), my ability to watch television has been severely impacted by seemingly inexplicable DirecTV outages. Two technicians have had to be sent out. The first one replaced a coupling but that only fixed things temporarily.
The problem was infuriatingly intermittent, and seemed weather related, so initially I had assumed that when it rains or snows, the thick cloud cover was simply killing the signal. Except more and more often, it started to happen when the skies were clear. Going through the “reset” procedure would fix it for maybe a day or two, and as the situation deteriorated eventually the reset only worked for an hour or two. Eventually it was just dead, and so I called and set up a Level Two visit, with a more senior technician.
The second guy figured out what the problem was: the cable way up at the roof line had been gnawed by rodents. Not gnawed all the way through, but just enough to let in water, and water wreaks havoc with the signal. He replaced it last month and pronounced it as “good as new.”
Unfortunately, yesterday the signal conked again. I blamed the snow, and I did another reset. It then worked fine and still does. But a little over an hour ago, furious dog barking directed my attention to the very same section of roof line where the cable had been replaced, and I saw a telltale tail of gray fur hanging out right over the section between the DirecTV cable and the end of my roof gutter. I grabbed my camera and took a photo.
Here’s a closeup of the little bastard, peering down at me from what he obviously considers his turf:
Nature is so unfair! That gutter is too far for me to reach, as I don’t have an extension ladder which will go that high.
Coax cable seems to be a particular favorite of squirrels, and there are lots of posts offering gratuitous advice on what to do. Some advise shooting, others suggest fake owls, Tabasco sauce (which seems to work as a repellent), and one suggested running the cable inside electrical armor, like BX or conduit. All of these are problematic for various reasons, but my biggest problem is that I don’t have a ladder that will reach that high.
What really sucks is the location of the cable. Right over the damn gutter, which of course fills with snow. As a techie commenter explains,
If the jacket is removed to expose the shield then capillary action will suck up water like a sponge and compromise the cable. Replacing the cable is the recommended action.
Lead pellets for the squirrels is the second recommendation.
All well and good, except shooting at one’s roof is decidedly unwise, and in a city, dangerous and illegal. Perhaps the wire shouldn’t have been routed over the gutter in the first place, and perhaps it should have been placed inside metal conduit, but in any event, it looks as if I am going to have to sooner or later call and go through the repair rigmarole again.
As someone who enjoys conspiracy theories, I am almost tempted to ask “Who benefits?” Certainly the squirrels do, because as rodents, they are obligated by nature to gnaw on whatever they can find to keep their teeth from overgrowing (which can be fatal), and unlike power wires, coax cannot hurt them.
But there’s another special interest group that benefits.
And so as you new satellite school graduates go out into the world to hang cable and dishes I would give you this word of commencement advice. Watch out for squirrels! Be careful as you drive that you not squash our animal friends. Remember that after you are paid for an installation you can expect to get paid to do it again after the squirrels visit. Learn phone work because squirrels will shred phone lines also. Squirrels are your friends!
Indeed they are. And the repairmen are giving them aid and comfort.
I knew I’d find collusion somewhere!
UPDATE: Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all. I appreciate all thoughts about what to do.
This is interesting. Red State’s Erick Erickson (a Gingrich supporter) predicts that Obama will win the election.
The fix is in for Romney, which just means when he is crushed by Barack Obama a lot of Republicans will have a lot of explaining to do. Newt may not be able to win. But Romney sure as hell can’t beat Obama either if Newt can’t win. The problem remains — Gingrich supporters intrinsically know this to be so and are happy to die fighting. Romney’s supporters are still deluding themselves.
Well, not being a Romney supporter, nor much of an optimist about any of the four candidate’s chances of beating Obama, I don’t think I am engaged in self delusion. But I am an admitted Gingrichphobe. I think the man’s Rockefeller-on-steroids drug war statist expansionism, his advocacy of the death penalty for victimless crimes, make him the most anti-libertarian Republican yet. It would gall me to have to vote for him, as I have said countless times.
But still… I think Erickson has come up with the best argument in favor of Gingrich yet. If losing to Obama is a certainty, then why not let Gingrich be the one to do it? That way, supporters of his sort of statism will be seen as having had their turn and failing.
What worries me, though, is that all the polls continue to indicate that a majority of Americans would favor a Generic Republican over Barack Obama.
You’d think the GOP could come up with a single generic Republican. Perhaps an avuncular war hero of some sort could be drafted.
AFTERTHOUGHT: Nah, scratch my fantasizing. Republicans (at least, the majority of those voting in the primaries) don’t want to win. Winning is secondary; they would rather be “right.” A pitiful irony, really, because Obama could be defeated by the “right” candidate.
In his lecture to students in my hood yesterday, President Obama tried to present himself as a champion of the rights of the downtrodden by contrasting the tax rates of millionaires with those of their employees. The example he used was Warren Buffett and his secretary:
Obama: That’s not fair. A quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households.
Audience: Booo.
Obama: Not fair. Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. I know because she was at the State of the Union. She told me. (Laughter.) Is that fair?
Audience: No!
Obama: Does it make sense to you?
Audience: No!
Actually, the above doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t withstand basic tax analysis.
Buffet himself declares that he pays a 17.4 percent rate on taxable income. His staff, like Bosanek, pay an average of 34 percent. The IRS publishes detailed tax tables by income level. The 2009 results show that the average taxpayer paying Buffet’s 17.4 rate earns an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000. But an average taxpayer in Bosaneck’s rate (after downward adjustment for payroll taxes) earns an adjusted gross income of $200,000 to $500,000. Therefore Buffett must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary well above two hundred thousand.
We must wait for further details to learn how much more than $200,000 she earns. The tax tables tell us about average ranges. For all we know she earns closer to a half million each year, but that is pure speculation.
I have nothing against Debbie Bosanke earning a half million or even more. Buffett is a major player in the world economy. His secretary deserves good compensation. At her income, however, she is scarcely the symbol of injustice that Obama wishes her to project.
I imagine that there are any number of secretaries who would want her job and her place in the Congress gallery for the President’s State of the Union address.
Another explanation may be that the secretary, or Buffet, or Obama, simply lied.
I find his statement that “a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households” disingenuous, because if we assume that “millionaire” is defined as having a net worth of over one million dollars, and “middle class” is defined as making (in Obama’s words) “less than $250,000 a year — which 98 percent of Americans do” then two assumptions are being made.
One is that this “quarter of all millionaires” even have enough actual income to be subject to taxation at the same rates as those who have earned income of up to $250,000 per year. Many of those painted as the wealthy elite are retired and living off whatever they socked away after taxes. Some may be real estate poor and have little or no income.
Income tax is tax on income, right? Or does Obama think there should be a tax on money that has already been taxed and somehow saved anyway? If so, then why doesn’t he come right out and say that he is in favor of confiscation of already-taxed wealth?
The second problem I see is a substantial portion of the 98 percent of Americans who make up to $250,000 a year may already be millionaires on the balance sheet. They may have done well on income they managed to save or invest, as well as appreciated real estate. And if they are millionaires, are they included in both groups Obama’s dichotomy? Because if they are “among the less than $250,000 a year — which 98 percent of Americans do” as well as in the ”quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households,” then they become both the evil millionaires and the oppressed classes at the same time.
But such follies cannot be, can they? Not unless we want people to wage class warfare against themselves. I mean, even if you’re a Marxist, the slogan “eat the rich” is not supposed to mean having the rich eat themselves.
Via Glenn’slink I was reminded of an unfortunate tendency:
It is the human condition that the oldest generation despairs of the youngest.
I was thinking along such lines for much of the day after watching Barack Obama’s speech in its entirety.
I’ll spare the (misleading) details of how billionaires like Warren Buffet pay less in taxes than their secretaries. Instead, check out the climax, followed by the glad-handing:
Yet these kids are not all that bad. They are young and thoughtful, full of hope about the future, and not wanting to screw up. They should not be dismissed as “brainwashed.” When I was their age (groan) I was “worse” (if that is the right word) than most of the kids today. I was a Marxist Leninist pain in the ass, and while I wasn’t brainwashed I was full of emotion — so full that I was unable to be objective in the adult sense. It took me quite a while to figure out things for myself. (And even now I still have trouble figuring things out for myself.)
It took me years to realize that I was a libertarian at heart, so I am in no position to be dismissive, or despairing.
Especially because many of these kids I would dismiss are morelibertarian than I was at their age.
It is often tempting to think that young people are lacking in perspective.
As the Republican candidates beat each other to death in a bitter contest to see which bloodied and broken combatant emerges as the “winner” (in quotes because I think whoever it is will still be at war with a major segment of the GOP), I thought it might worth reminding everyone that the Democrats have no such worries, and Barack Obama has already started campaigning in earnest.
I refer not to the “State of the Campaign” speech the other night, but to Obama’s visit to my neighborhood tomorrow morning. He’ll be speaking at the Al Glick Field House a short block away, and the kids in this student town are already in a state of rapture. They started lining up last night at 7:30 p.m. for tickets that weren’t for sale until nearly 14 hours later, and there’s even a touching article about the first lucky guy who got a ticket.
Roughly 3,000 people Thursday morning received tickets to President Barack Obama‘s upcoming speech —many camping outside overnight to secure their place in line— and still hundreds of hopefuls were turned away.
It’s clear: Obama mania has seeped into the University of Michigan campus as the school prepares for his speech on college affordability Friday at 9:35 a.m. at the Al Glick Field House.
Many students standing in line and roaming around campus lived here in 2010 when Obama was the spring commencement speaker, and we asked them how this month’s impromptu visit compares with the last time the president and his entourage descended upon Ann Arbor.
“There’s been a lot of talk on campus. In all my classes students have been talking about if they’re going to go get tickets and professors are talking about it in class,” said senior political science and American culture major Amanda Caldwell, president of the U-M College Democrats. “But to have a sitting president come and give a commencement speech is very different than what he’s doing now.”
Obama, who will become the first sitting president to visit U-M’s Ann Arbor campus twice, will deliver his speech three days after the State of the Union address, where he’s expected to seek to define the role of the government in sparking economic growth.Although the speech won’t be billed as a campaign event, it’s clearly part of the president’s election year effort to highlight his accomplishments in a state has benefited directly from his policies.
Obama is sure to remind the crowd that he championed $50 billion in federal financing to help guide General Motors and Chrysler through their bankruptcy filings in 2009.
His support of the auto bailouts — which saved thousands of jobs — is looking increasingly crucial because winning Michigan is vital to the president’s reelection, said Craig Ruff, an analyst with nonpartisan Lansing-based Public Sector Consultants.
“It’s great that Michigan is on the swing state tour,” Ruff said. “It shows that the president is not taking Michigan for granted.”
He is obviously going out of his way to court the student vote. Talking about college affordability and promising lower tuition is music to their young and tender ears.
And those mean old white Republicans are so out of touch that they “haven’t done anything” to get young people’s support!
Caldwell, the U-M senior, says Obama hasn’t lost his relevance among young people.
“Republicans… haven’t done anything to get young people’s support. “I think Obama will have just as much support from young people as before.”
Obama is not wasting any time, and he certainly doesn’t appear to be taking the youth vote (which was the backbone of his 2008 campaign) for granted. As to whether he’s lost his relevance among young people, the only relevance that matters will be on Election Day, when they’ll probably line up again for an Election Day youth party!
I can’t see them lining up for either Newt Gingrich, or Mitt Romney. Ron Paul is the only Republican who seems to have anything approaching youth appeal.
But what do I know? I’m just an aging white man commenting on the latest antics in my hood.
UPDATE: In case anyone is interested in being subjected to the president’s speech, it can be streamed live here.
AND MORE: Obama says he wants a second term “badly.”
Isn’t that the way he’s run his first term?
Plus, he’s already campaigning against Gingrich:
Obama pushed back against what he called Republicans’ “rhetorical flourishes,” including Newt Gingrich’s oft-repeated contention that Obama is the “food stamp president.”
[...]
…he said the rhetoric from conservatives like that used by Gingrich illustrates an attempt by Republicans to engage in the same divisiveness that they profess to decry.
“The American people are going to make a judgment about who’s trying to bring the country together and who’s dividing it, who reflects the core values that helped create this country … and who is tapping into some of our worst instincts,” he said.
The above would seem to confirm my earlier speculation that Gingrich is the guy he wants to run against.
UPDATE (1/27/12, 12:15 p.m.): An hour ago I walked to the corner with my camera and happened to catch the presidential motorcade when it was leaving. (The president is in the second limousine.)
In a very odd coincidence, while looking for something else I stumbled onto a marvelous interview with Jerry Garcia about “The Movie that Changed My Life.” What’s odd about this is that the film — Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (a 1948 classic starring Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man) — is one of my favorites. When I saw it as a child I was terrified and just in the past month I re-watched twice. I had no idea that it was so influential on Jerry Garcia, though. He was only six years old, his father had died the year before, and the film not only so terrified him that he had to hide his eyes, but it also just captivated him, and became a lifelong influence.
In the fascinating interview, he explains why, in great detail.
I completely understand his view of mastering the macabre being an ally of persecuted children. (Being young and impressionable is a two edged sword.)
In what I’m sure is no coincidence, I’m a lifelong horror fan as well as a longtime Deadhead.
MORE: Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all.
Comments welcome.
Still, a lingering question… Wasn’t Frankenstein making a stab at transhumanism?
I didn’t watch the SOTU because I was washing my hair.
I didn’t watch it because I was drinking a beer at the time, and I can’t multitask as well as the rest of the watching-Obama-under-the-influence crowd.
I have to write about something and I don’t want to.
I don’t want to because I am dead tired, and need sleep, so blogging about anything is a supreme pain in the ass. (Yeah, I just updated an earlier post about Gingrich, as if I can stop him and his police state advocacy…)
But when I read the story that Glenn Reynolds linked about a guy who was arrested for DWI and sat in a cell — apparently “forgotten” — for 22 months, I found myself flabbergasted.
Sorry, but I’m an American citizen who believes in the Constitution, and who also happens to be an attorney, and stuff like this is just plain not supposed to happen.
A man who spent two years in solitary confinement after getting arrested for DWI was awarded $22 million for suffering inhumane treatment in New Mexico’s Dona Ana County Jail.
Stephen Slevin was arrested in August of 2005 for driving while intoxicated, according to NBC station KOB.com. He said he never got a trial and spent the entire time languishing in solitary, even pulling his own tooth when he was denied dental care.
“‘[Prison officials were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate,” he said. “Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help.”
Slevin said he made countless requests to see a doctor to get medication for his depression, but wasn’t allowed to see one until only a few weeks before his release. He also never got to see a judge.
The $22 million settlement, awarded by a federal jury on Tuesday, is one of the largest prisoner civil rights settlements in U.S. history, according to KOB.com.
He says he has no idea why they did what they did, and the alleged humans who run the county don’t return the reporters’ phone calls.
This just didn’t make any sense to me. I have sometimes succumbed to fits of paranoia in which I have wondered whether the United States (a country I have known and loved as early I can remember) might be degenerating into something like a Third World country, but a story like this hammers home the reality of that so starkly and bleakly that I just don’t want to believe it’s true.
So I Googled. Reading between the lines, it seems that the DWI suspect was mentally ill. Somehow, that served as an excuse to just let him rot:
Slevin, 58, was arrested in August 2005 and charged with driving while intoxicated and receiving a stolen vehicle near Las Cruces. His lawyers said the prison segregated him because he had a lifelong history of mental illness.
Albuquerque civil rights attorney Matthew Coyte said his client then began to deteriorate while in isolation.
“They threw him in solitary and then ignored him,” said Coyte. “He disappeared into delirium, and his mental illness was made worse by being isolated from human contact and a lack of medical care.”
Slevin’s lawsuit alleged he became malnourished, lost significant weight, developed bedsores, fungus and dental problems and was not aware of his situation or surroundings.
He was transferred to another state facility for two weeks, where he was given a psychiatric evaluation and then sent back to the Dona Ana County Detention Center, where he was again placed in solitary confinement. Coyte said Slevin did receive a brief competency hearing a year into his imprisonment, but the case against the man never proceeded.
After 22 months as a pre-trial detainee, Slevin was released and the charges dismissed. He then filed suit, claiming his rights of due process were violated since he was not given a hearing before being placed in solitary confinement.
Photos taken before and after his confinement show dramatic appearance changes. The plaintiff said things were so bad he was forced to pull his own tooth while in custody, and that his pleas for help were dismissed.
It’s so sickening I don’t know where to start. I’ve written countlessposts about the fate of the mentally ill in this country, but this incident really takes the cake. I’m glad he won, and if I were a taxpayer in that God-awful excuse for an American town which locked him up and threw away the key, I’d be asking why my tax dollars should have to be paying the $22 million, and not the sons of bitches who did this to him.
All I can do is agree with what Glenn said:
…these guys should have to spend 6 years in solitary each. But, of course, all that happens is that taxpayers get stuck.
(If there is a bright side in this mess, I guess it’s to be found in the $22 million jury verdict. That would not have happened in Zimbabwe, Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, North Korea, China, Mexico, or in most of the countries on this planet. But give us time!)
Newt Gingrich’s former couch buddy Nancy Pelosi can’t leave the Florida primary well enough alone. And I can’t leave Nancy alone. On top of ABC’s antics in perfectly timing the ex-wife smear so that it would inflame the red meat base, now is the time that Pelosi has chosen to let loose with a double secret “allegation” which amounts to a great big nothing:
Pelosi: “He’s not going to be President of the United States. That’s not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it, it isn’t going to happen.”
King: “Why are you so sure?”
Pelosi: “There is something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him that’s their prerogative. I don’t even think that’s going to happen.”
As if on cue, Gingrich immediately turned around and told his friend to put up or shut up:
“There’s almost a level of hysteria about the prospect of somebody who really wants to change Washington,” said Mr. Gingrich to host John McCaslin.
“I have a simple challenge for Speaker Pelosi…you know, put up or shut up. I mean, I have no idea what she’s talking about. I don’t think she has any idea what she’s talking about, but bring it on,” he said.
“My life has been looked at by lots of people and I’ve been around a long time. And I just think that when you are a left-wing Democrat, the prospect of a Gingrich presidency is really sort of like a nightmare,” Mr. Gingrich added.
I have to say this for Gingrich. He is quite adept at saying precisely what the red meat base wants to hear, when they most want to hear it.
It was nice of Nancy (one of the most reviled lefties in the history of red meat conservatism) to pick such a time to play stick-it-to-Gingrich. I’m sure Newt is very grateful, and both he and Nancy are clucking over the fact that many red-meat primary voters are unaware that there might be such a thing as reverse psychology. The ABC stunt worked in South Carolina, so why not do it again?
At the heart of the reverse psychology game is seemingly plausible meme: The left is “going all out” to destroy Gingrich now, because they fear his candidacy.
Look. There are four candidates. Why on earth would the left most fear the candidate who not only does the poorest against Obama, (Gingrich continues to trail the President in the double digits) but who has the worst negatives? Common sense would suggest that Newt is the best choice for Obama to run against.
…If you’re a Mitt fan, the answer is clear — she knows something from having served on the ethics committee when Newt was reprimanded and it’s only a matter of time before it comes out. If you’re a Newt fan, the answer is also clear — this is a classic case of the left telling you who it really fears by trying to sink him before he can gain any more electoral momentum. And if you’re a febrile political junkie who loves to obsess over political mind games, the answer is equally clear — Pelosi does know something, and she also knows that attacking Gingrich publicly this way will rally conservatives behind him, so she’s happy to do it precisely because it’ll help Newt win, which is just what Democrats want. Hmmmmm.
It would be one thing if this were the first time. But the fact is that Newt thrives on being bashed by the left, so if they want to help him, this is a great time to go after him with “everything they’ve got.” Especially if it’s old news like his failed marriage, or a big pile of nothing like Nancy Pelosi’s “I’ve got a secret” game.
It’s a lovely game.
MORE: FWIW, American Spectator Editor R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr. has been around for awhile, and known Newt from day one. In no uncertain terms, he warns conservatives that they are being had:
Newt is hustling my fellow conservatives in this election. The last time around he successfully hustled conservatives in the House of Representatives and then the conservatives on the House impeachment committee.
He blew the impeachment and in fact his role as Speaker. He backed out in disgrace. He now says Republicans in the House were exhausted with his great projects. Nonsense, I knew many of them, and they were exhausted with his atrocious leadership. He is not a leader. He is a huckster. Today Mitt Romney has 72 Congressional endorsements. Newt has 11. Possibly the 11 have yet to meet him.
Now he has found his key for hustling conservative electorate. He is playing the liberal media card and saying he embodies conservative values. Like Bill with his credulous fans, Newt is hoping conservatives suffer amnesia. Possibly some do. Perhaps they cannot recall mere months ago when this insufferable whiz kid was lambasting the great Congressman Paul Ryan for “right-wing social engineering” — more evidence of Newt’s not-so-hidden longing for the approval of the liberal media.
After his Ryan moment Newt’s campaign was a death wagon, and it will be so again — hopefully before he gets the nomination. Conservatives should not climb onto his death wagon. He is a huckster, and I for one will not be rendered a contortionist trying to defend him. I did so in his earliest days and learned my lesson.
Well put. My natural instinct is to defend my allies, but please not Gingrich!
In news that will probably suck for social conservatives, it’s looking as if abortion is safer than pregnancy. Much safer:
(Reuters Health) – Getting a legal abortion is much safer than giving birth, suggests a new U.S. study published Monday.
Researchers found that women were about 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications of an abortion.
Experts say the findings, though not unexpected, contradict some state laws that suggest abortions are high-risk procedures.
The study is of course certain to be attacked by the RTL people. But what both sides are missing is that a key element has changed. The narrative which rightly so disturbs people — cutting a living baby out of its mother’s womb — is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
…since the abortion drug mifepristone was approved for use in the United States in 2000, the number of medically-induced abortions has been on the rise.
In women, mifepristone at doses greater or equal to 1 mg/kg antagonizes the endometrial and myometrial effects of progesterone. In humans, an antiglucocorticoid effect of mifepristone is manifested at doses greater or equal to 4.5 mg/kg by a compensatory increase in ACTH and cortisol. In animals, a weak antiandrogenic effect is seen with prolonged administration of very high doses of 10 to 100 mg/kg.[15][39]
In medical abortion regimens, mifepristone blockade of progesterone receptors directly causes endometrial decidual degeneration, cervical softening and dilatation, release of endogenousprostaglandins and an increase in the sensitivity of the myometrium to the contractile effects of prostaglandins. Mifepristone induced decidual breakdown indirectly leads to trophoblast detachment, resulting in decreased syncytiotrophoblast production of hCG, which in turn causes decreased production of progesterone by the corpus luteum (pregnancy is dependent on progesterone production by the corpus luteum through the first 9 weeks of gestation–until placental progesterone production has increased enough to take the place of corpus luteum progesterone production). When followed sequentially by a prostaglandin, mifepristone 200 mg is (100 mg may be, but 50 mg is not) as effective as 600 mg in producing a medical abortion.[36][37]
So, if we talk in purely statistical terms, women who take this drug early on and lose their babies are at far less at risk than they would be if they kept them. It’s just one of those hard truths, and it boils down to common sense. By causing miscarriage, these hormonal drugs essentially remove the risks of pregnancy, leaving whatever risks the drugs carry, which are not as great as the risks of carrying a pregnancy to term.
The abortion issue aside, risk analysis is one of my pet peeves, as it reduces humans to statistics, and when communitarianism is factored in, often leads to busybody demands for behavioral changes. While no one in his or her right mind would argue that women should take mifepristone to prevent the health risks of pregnancy (because it is self apparent that the right to have a child is a fundamental individual right even though it wasn’t listed in the Bill of Rights), a growing number of people are clamoring that people should stop using gas clothing dryers, because the dryer vents emit toxins.
The same University of Washington researcher who used chemical sleuthing to deduce what’s in fragranced consumer products now has turned her attention to the scented air wafting from household laundry vents.
Findings, published online this week in the journal Air Quality, Atmosphere and Health, show that air vented from machines using the top-selling scented liquid laundry detergent and scented dryer sheet contains hazardous chemicals, including two that are classified as carcinogens.
“This is an interesting source of pollution because emissions from dryer vents are essentially unregulated and unmonitored,” said lead author Anne Steinemann, a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering and of public affairs. “If they’re coming out of a smokestack or tail pipe, they’re regulated, but if they’re coming out of a dryer vent, they’re not.”
The chemicals they found include acetaldehyde, which to my utter horror I learned occurs widely in nature:
Acetaldehyde (systematically ethanal) is an organic chemical compound with the formulaCH3CHO, sometimes abbreviated by chemists as MeCHO (Me = methyl). It is one of the most important aldehydes, occurring widely in nature and being produced on a large scale industrially. Acetaldehyde occurs naturally in coffee, bread, and ripe fruit, and is produced by plants as part of their normal metabolism. It is also produced by oxidation of ethanol and is popularly believed to be a cause of hangovers from alcohol consumption through drinking spirits.[3] Pathways of exposure include air, water, land or groundwater as well as drink and smoke.[4]
Damn! I knew that alcohol breaks down into acetaldehyde, which then breaks down further into acetic acid, but I had no idea that it was in my morning coffee! Not only that, there are innumerable carcinogens in the food I eat!
“Naturally occurring pesticides that are rodent carcinogens are ubiquitous in fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices. Cooking foods produces about 2000 milligrams per person per day of burnt material that contains many rodent carcinogens and many mutagens… In a single cup of coffee, the natural chemicals that are known rodent carcinogens are about equal in weight to a year’s worth of synthetic pesticide residues that are rodent carcinogens, even though only 3% of the natural chemicals in roasted coffee have been adequately tested for carcinogenicity.”
Sheesh. That sounds more dangerous than mifepristone, or even pregnancy. I knew that we were being systematically poisoned, but I didn’t know things were that bad.
What about the right to be safe?
Is there such a right? If so, is it an individual right, or a community right? How do we weigh the individual’s right to make whatever choices he or she wants against the so-called greater good of society? If the “pollution” my dryer emits can in theory be regulated, and if I can be compelled to cut out my dog’s ovaries on the theory that she might commit “overpopulation,” why would a woman has any more right to have a child than to abort a child? What is the difference between the government telling her she may not terminate her pregnancy and the same government telling her she may not initiate her pregnancy? Or telling her that because she is pregnant, she may not engage in any activities or consume any substances that might harm her child? I mean, if she may not consume mifepristone, then what right has she to consume tobacco?
Risk analysis is confusing. I’m trying to come up with a formula that squares safety and rights, and it keeps looking like tar and water, because rights have risks.
And if rights have risks, shouldn’t rights be banned?
(Wow, I can’t believe I wrote a post which didn’t mention the war on you-know-what!)
Getting an email like this only adds insult to injury.
Over the last few days, we’ve seen conservatives in South Carolina – and across the country – unify behind our bold campaign of ideas. With support from great conservatives like Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Michael Reagan, 100 Tea Party leaders, and millions of proud Americans it doesn’t matter how despicable the attacks from the media get, together we will continue to persevere. This election is about fundamentally changing the direction of our nation, and I am honored to represent the ideas of freedom and prosperity for the conservative movement. Will you help us keep this momentum going by participating in our two-day “knockout punch” money bomb?
Executing people for victimless crimes represents “freedom”? That’s what Newt wants to do. I think he is a cruel man, and he is deliberately appealing to the cruelest elements of the Republican Party. (This is getting tired, but once again, I am ashamed to be in the party of Gingrich. The problem is that I hate the left more.)
MORE: I have been watching tonight’s four man debate, and it is quite obvious that Newt Gingrich loves Ron Paul, while Mitt Romney loves Rick Santorum.
A Ron Paul guy I am not. But I certainly agree with what he said today after the TSA detained his son Rand who had refused a patdown search:
Republican presidential candidate and Texas Rep. Ron Paul issued a sharply-worded statement in reaction to the detention of his son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, by Transportation Security Administration agents in Nashville on Monday.
“The police state in this country is growing out of control,” Paul wrote in a statement provided to The Daily Caller. “One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our kids and our seniors and does nothing to keep us safe.”
So far, the other candidates are not talking about the burgeoning police state in this country, with the deadly SWAT team raids, warrantless searches, and the rest of it.
One of them, Newt Gingrich, wants to make the police state bigger. He wants to expand the Patriot Act and dramatically expand the war on drugs.
Gingrich was later asked if former Presidents Thomas Jefferson or George Washington should have been arrested for growing marijuana.
“I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana and their techniques with dealing with it would have been rather more violent than our current government,” he responded.
Both Washington and Jefferson grew marijuana on their Virginia farms. At the time, the plant was used to make a number a products, such as rope and textiles. It did not become a widely-used recreational drug in the United States until the 20th century, but some academics have claimed that at least seven early U.S. presidents used the drug in the form of hashish.
Gingrich has previously called for a more aggressive drug policy, including the death penalty for drug smugglers.
In view of undisputed history, I don’t think this should be dismissed as ignorance. Gingrich clearly knows better. I think is shameful that such a man is being seriously considered as a candidate for the presidency. But Gingrich is so shameless that I wonder whether he is a sociopath.
Not that a little thing like shamelessness stopped Obama.
MORE: Not that it matters, but these Drudge headlines are typical vintage Newt:
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!